I'm Famous! But That's a Relative Statement...

Yesterday, I had my first of two (or more?) posts published on the Playboy Blog. Because I'm quite the looker, the editorial staff felt like throwing me a bone and linking the article on the front page with my picture along with it. I feel like a pseudo-celebrity but not quite at the level of the guy from Crazy Town on Celebrity Rehab. Too bad most people will think that my name is Mark Frazier if they don't read the article (it is Playboy.com). My phone has been ringing off the hook... but that's because I misplaced it and was trying to locate it by sound (too bad it was on vibrate). Other than that, it's business as usual with Official Chris Duncan.

His name is Seth Binzer

I'm sure everybody fucking hates that picture of me by now. I apologize.

While I'm riding high with the increased exposure of the Chris Duncan brand, I'm still not as "big" as Romeo Dev. I was linked to Romeo Dev yesterday by my co-worker Nikolai and then also saw his pictures on the screen of another co-worker. Nikolai linked me to FoxNews and Lisa was looking at the Daily Telegraph. I also saw that Romeo had a link to his Telegraph article on DrudgeReport. Drudge and FoxNews get around a million unique visitors a day. Romeo's article appeared on The Daily Telegraph, Xinhua News, The Daily Mail, and was syndicated on local Fox News websites. He was also on blogs like Boing Boing and Best Week Ever. That's a lot of eyeballs.

Bodybuilder Romeo Dev on Xinhua News (bottom right)

The man got a ridiculous amount of exposure for being a dwarf that also happens to be a bodybuilder. This guy is 50,000X more famous than I am and probably just as famous as Seth Binzer. I would have originally said that Romeo was twice as famous, but that was before I found out that he was in the only Martin Short movie I actually like... Clifford. I can't really count Jungle 2 Jungle and I haven't seen Three Amigos all the way through. You can look at the graph below that charts blog posts with Seth Binzer vs. Romeo Dev as topics. Obviously, Ice Rocket isn't the best measuring stick, but it at least gives us part of the story. There's no denying the spike that Romeo Dev has seen in the past few days. It's hilarious to me that Romeo chooses to rock a Slim Shady-like hairdo. Two people that saw this for the first time instantly said that he was fake. I've been called a lot of nasty things -- but nobody has ever claimed that I didn't exist. Maybe he's claymation.

Romeo Dev vs. Seth Binzer vs. Shifty Shellshock

Personally, I have a problem with the fact that many of the kids growing up (and those of us that are now avoiding adulthood) have top goals consisting of being rich or being famous. The problem with that is being rich and being famous are the results of accomplishment. You can't "do" either of them. And you can ask Britney whether or not fame is as wonderful as those people would imagine. I'm not at the point where I have to worry about paparazzi though. I'm not even the most famous Duncan at Playboy. There are actually three Duncans in the New York office. The other two are Richard Duncan (who pointed out a typo in my Mark Frazier post) and Aaron Duncan, a bigwig in our licensing department. Aaron Duncan still has me beat in the playboy+duncan Google search. It's going to be hard to climb above him since he's actually worth writing about. But then again, all I do is make posts about myself.

OCD INTERVIEW: Bodypaint Artist Mark Frazier

The first time I talked to Mark Frazier was near the end of 2007. During our initial phone call, it became pretty clear that he was our man. His experience spans 20+ years of bodypainting. As a pioneer in the art of bodypainting, there are few that can boast the same experience and quality of work. Mark has the prestigious title of "house" bodypainter for Playboy Mansion parties. We were able to lock him in for the Playboy Super Bowl Party 2008 (he had to fly back at 9AM to paint girls for the Mansion on Sunday). When OfficialChrisDuncan spoke to Mark, he was on his way to the Museum of Contemporary Art to discuss his next job where he'd be painting girls to replicate statues with an anime theme. Don't worry, they'll still be naked.

Official Chris Duncan and his girls

OCD: I'm sure that there are many men who are researching bodypainting books on Amazon after reading about you. How did you manage to turn painting women into a full time job?
BadassMF: The first time was in 1985 before Photoshop was an option. I was hired to paint photorealistic backgrounds for different shoots. At one job, I was asked by a photographer if I would paint the model's body with a design. I got the right answer to my question of "how much?" and decided to go for it. We experimented with tempera paint at first, but that ends up cracking and pulling hair out. Now, we use airbrushing equipment to get the right look.

OCD: How many girls would you say you've painted over the years?
BadassMF: Definitely over 1000. I try to paint about thirty girls each month. So in 2007, I probably painted almost 360 girls.

OCD: Who are some of the notable women that you've painted?
BadassMF: That depends. Most recently, I painted Tiffany Fallon for the February 2008 cover. I've also painted Sara Jean Underwood when she was on the Girls of the Pac 10 cover. So that's two Playmates of the Year right there. They also had me paint Vida Guerra as a tiger a few years ago. But I've even painted Christy Hemme before anybody had heard of her. She was actually an extra girl we used to create the model pose chart for the "real" models who were being photographed. So she would show up before them and get all of the poses done so the other models had exact instructions and pictures of what they needed to do.

OCD: Have you ever bodypainted any men?
BadassMF: No men, just women. We have a couple rules for our operation. Rule #1: Only paint girls. Rule #2: Refer to Rule #1. I guess we've painted men a few times, but it's never the full body. I've painted items like a chest plate and armor on guys. We did that for Victoria Fuller's husband. That's pretty much it though.

OCD: What has been your favorite design over the years?
BadassMF: Well, this style of art is pure capitalism. Obviously, I have to please a client just as in any other line of business. The Bellhop (model Blair O'Neal, interview below) was really neat for me. The first time is always good, but it can get old. I've painted about a million French maids. As an example, I'm working with NBC on some designs for Knight Rider. I really like the design we have with tire tracks on the model. But I can pretty safely assume that they'll want something with a Knight Rider logo t-shirt and headlights on the girl's boobs. So it always depends on the client. And we're not just talking Hef parties, we've painted girls for the biggest lesbian party in California.

OCD: What's it like to work for Hef?
BadassMF: Hef has very specific goals that he wants accomplished. For one, it has to look like real clothes -- he loves lingerie designs. Usually, he looks at 12-20 mock ups that I create and will pick about three from the new set. Then we'll go over the old designs I've done and he'll pick the rest from there. With Hef, it is most important that the design actually looks authentic.

OCD: I heard your whole family is involved with your bodypainting. Can you describe how that works?
BadassMF: My wife takes care of rhinestone application, any extra clothes (like hats), and detail work. My son and daughter are both airbrush painters.

OCD: That sounds like a delightful bonding experience. Do you need any extra help on your team? I'm available.
BadassMF: Well, get yourself to the Mansion and we can find a job for you. Can you hold a blowdryer and help with rhinestones?
OCD: I think I can figure it out... deal.

Blair O'Neal was one of Mark's models for bodypainting. Blair had worked a number of events during Super Bowl week, but she had never worked for Playboy.

OCD: You went to Arizona State which is famous for beautiful women. Is it everything it's cracked up to be?
Blair: Yes, there are a lot of pretty girls. I can't really gauge that though since I'm a girl. But I've heard from a lot of my guy friends that the girls are the reason they decided to apply to ASU.

OCD: How long have you been a model? Have you ever worked with Playboy before?
Blair: I went to Arizona State for four years and played for the golf team there. After I graduated, I went pro. I haven't worked for Playboy, but I was picked by Bridget for a fashion show in San Jose. Unfortunately, I had committed to the Lingerie Bowl and had to skip it. We had a red carpet "kickoff" event for that on the same night.

So this would be my first time working with Playboy. I actually didn't go to the casting to try to become a bodypainted model. But Katie from OneSource models was basically told me, "You have to do it! You have a HOT body and blonde hair, they'll love you!" I didn't think my boobs were big enough, but my friend Mary Lou was going to be bodypainted and she convinced me. She was the girl with the blue bottom and red top. I figured if I was ever going to do it for anybody, I should do it for Playboy.

Blair (right) and her friend Mary Lou backstage at the party
OCD: Believe me, we all appreciate your enthusiasm. How long did it take to get painted?
Blair: I got there at 2PM and we were getting ready up until the event started. So it probably took about 8 hours to get it all done. They have to work on hair, makeup, and then the bodypaint. Mark and his team made me feel very comfortable though. We all did a shot before we had to go out and work the party.

OCD: Was this the longest time you've ever spent naked? Sleep and sex don't count.
Blair: Oh yeah. I was supposed to do the Lingerie Bowl, but I guess that doesn't really count either. The Lingerie Bowl actually got canceled because they couldn't get the permits though. I think I'm sick now because I was naked and cold for so long!

OCD: Did you like the bellhop outfit? I had to order the hat online.
Blair: It was great because it was Mark's first time to paint a bellhop. He said that my body was perfect for that design. It was something different and Mark liked how it turned out, so that's always good. People kept on asking me if I had a shirt on!

More Playboy Super Bowl Party Videos

The first video is Nick Cannon and DJ Reach in the DJ booth at the 2008 Playboy Super Bowl Party. It was around 1AM when the party was in full swing. Reach has been in the booth for many Playboy events. Nick Cannon made a special appearance at the Playboy Mansion last year and this was his first time we had the opportunity to work with him. My buddy Charlie Romano handled most of the DJ logistics for the party.



And here is the video from me and Andrea Lowell having a drinking contest after Madden Bowl 08. Clearly, I win.

Fucked Up On Google Juice II

Now that the Official Chris Duncan Blog has been up a little over a month, I can cover my progress in promoting the site. The first month brought 564 unique visitors (we can chalk up 3 of those to me on my laptop, me at work, and me on my iPhone). Average time on the site is 1:37 which means people are actually reading what I post. A little over 70% of the 564 visitors only came once and never came back. However, that also means that the rest visited more than once -- about 70 people have visited 10+ times. How did that happen?

Most of My Traffic Came from Google
Google sent 251 visits (different than unique visitors) for 31% of the total visits. I can safely say that most people weren't looking for my blog. I catch a lot of random Playboy keywords from my posts about events, Mark Frazier, etc. I haven't gotten any traffic from Yahoo at this point. I think that once I get listed on other search engines, I should have a decent bump in traffic. I can only hope that some of these people decide to actually read my blog if they don't find what they're looking for. Here are a few examples of searches that landed on my site and probably didn't give the visitor what they were looking for: "masturbate with a vibrator", hugh laurie phoenix, kept as a latex maid, pete wentz interview, roy williams looks like cartoon, and watch bikini airways online. I call these Chris Duncan's Greatest Hits. Hopefully they liked the site anyway.

Direct Traffic Sent the Second Most Visits
Direct traffic is when somebody types in officialchrisduncan.com into their browser. So that as a second source is huge. Hopefully, that means that people remember the site and come back to it on their own later. It could also mean that somebody visits the OfficialChrisDuncan YouTube Channel and sees the URL in the actual video. So it's hard to understand where direct traffic comes from, but it's definitely the sign of an engaged visitor. I think one of the biggest parts of personal branding is wrapping all of your online identities together. My Flickr, YouTube Channel, Twitter, MySpace Profile, Facebook Page, and Digg/StumbleUpon accounts all point to each other. I'd rather have somebody see some content from me like a picture somewhere else (e.g. Flickr or Facebook) than force them to visit my site. In the last week, I have a YouTube video with almost 500 views and a Flickr image with 300+ views. People will find their way to your site if you have compelling content.

Digg and Reddit Round Out the Major Traffic Sources
I submit my own blog posts to Digg and Reddit. Yes, it's a little bit embarrassing that I'm the only one who usually likes them -- but it gets some decent traffic. I have to do more work on these networks to make a name for myself. Along with StumbleUpon, they are a great case to showcase your own interests and hopefully connect with people in a way that will get them to my site. This type of grassroots networking isn't just for social bookmarking sites. I also have to do a better job visits sites that I think have similar visitors to mine and begin commenting/posting on forums.

Uncounted Traffic
My goal is to put my site in as many places as possible. So it's fed into my MySpace profile, Facebook profile, and Facebook page. I'm pretty sure that my measuring for these sites (FeedBurner Live Hits) is less than accurate. The hard part is convincing people to actually visit my site instead of reading it on my Facebook profile. I plan on changing the Facebook feed to short previews instead of the entire post, so hopefully that sends more traffic to the site.

Momentum is Building
The site is definitely on the upswing. I can't always hope for an increase in traffic every day, but I do hope it becomes more stable. If I just take stats from the last week (and that includes 12 hours of downtime last night), I still have 420 unique visitors. Of those people, 20% have visited the site more than once. So there are a lot of people who want more Official Chris Duncan. And I haven't even started posting my homemade porn yet.

The Knicks Lose! Fire Isiah!!

I headed to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday to watch the Knicks and Pacers with my cameraman by my side. My #1 goal was to start a "Fire Isiah" chant. Unfortunately, the Knicks were winning most of the game... until they choked. We actually had somebody from MSG tell us to put our signs away as we were leaving. Dolan is a fucking tyrant.

Spreading the FIRE ISIAH gospel in the subway

Most of the "action" while we were at the game is in the YouTube video below. We couldn't muster a real "Fire Isiah" chant, but we enjoyed the game -- not quite as much as Jerome James. Leave it up to General Manager Isiah to screw Coach Isiah by signing such a lazy bastard.

A few quick facts on Jerome James:

• Didn't play organized basketball until college
  
• Nickname is "Big Snacks"
  
• Signed a 6 year $30 million contract OR about $75,000 per game
  
• Averages 9.8 fouls per 48 minutes of play
  
• Averaged 3.1 points and 2.0 rebounds per game in his first year with the Knicks

The most hilarious aspect of Jerome James is that he yucks it up with EVERY player during stops in play before returning to the end of the bench (he sits beyond the players in STREET CLOTHES). The worst part is that we saw him giving "tips" to Eddy Curry. That's the beginning of the end for another lazy, fat big man in the NBA. Don't listen to him Eddy!

If you're so inclined, check out my Pacers vs. Knicks game photo set. Video compilation from the game is below. I love the huge "AWWWW!" as the Knicks crap out at the buzzer. Did anybody expect anything less? FIRE ISIAH!!

Playboy Super Bowl Party 2008 Recap

The dust has settled and the party is now in the books. For the third straight year, I've witnessed the Playboy Super Bowl Party officially known as Super Saturday Night. In Detroit, we were in a hangar at the Detroit Airport for the "8 Mile High Club". Last year we converted the American Airlines Arena into "PM: Playboy Miami After Dark".

Every year, there are uncontrollable elements that force you to adapt. It was freezing cold with snow in Detroit. In Miami, we were given l2 hours for move-in at the arena because the NFL had an event there the previous night. That's $100K worth of carpeting, constructing bars/cabanas, creating a silent auction room with almost 100 items worth over $200K, building a massive DJ booth, and then making it LOOK like a party. By the time DJ Reach arrived at American Airlines, people were starting to filter in and there were guys with drills trying to put VIP booths together.

The War Room at The Playboy Villa aka the hotel meeting room


You can't help but be delirious at the end of the night -- Detroit was a 20+ hour day, Miami was exactly 24, and this year it was 21. Super Saturday Night is a 12-month project (they'll be looking for a Tampa hotel in a couple weeks) with a budget exceeding a million dollars. And it's always fucking incredible.

The Playboy Villa
Our home away from The Crown Building in New York is always a luxurious boutique hotel in the hottest part of the Super Bowl host city. Not really. We usually occupy about 90% of the rooms at the hotels we choose. That means all the Playmates can be impressed by me moving boxes and driving a rental car (Toyota Highlander).

Playboy Staff (note the blackberry party) and Playmates Hiromi, Deanna, Tiffany, and Pilar dine on the breakfast buffet


This year, Mr. Charlie Romano was my bunk-buddy (we had a two bedroom, actually) and he managed to run amok in Phoenix as well (my exploits are documented here). He went to the Pepsi Smash in the VIP section. That's just how we roll when we're not blogging. We do it all for you.

On an early morning KMart run, I hit photographer James Trevenen's rental with mine while backing out of the hotel parking lot. It was hilarious. But the final KMart run yielded one of the greatest "you're not in New York" moments. The girl at the register asked us if we were French. It must've been Charlie's mohawk. Charlie and I don't look anything close to French. She must not get out of Phoenix very much. The "Playboy Villa" was in Phoenix, most of the other events were in Scottsdale, and the Playboy venue was in Chandler.

The Venue: Rawhide! Yee-haw?
I bet the Giants were pissed that we chose this spot because the nearest hotel (literally a 60 second drive) was their team hotel. They could probably hear the party on Saturday night. We had to convert a gigantic tented area into a party. It was no easy task. When I pulled up on Thursday, I couldn't even tell where it was going to be. Charlie and I drove all the way to the Western town -- the kind where they stage shootouts. We got back on the road and found another road that brought us past the petting zoo complete with a bison.

Relevent, our production company, had the place looking like the retro-themed Desert Oasis and Resort by the middle of the day Friday. I did everything from lift boxes, haul a thousand pounds of water, direct traffic, find salt, set up umbrellas, help get the wireless internet set up, move really angry-looking and sharp cacti, and get our college rep bus to the event (more on that below).

The Hero: The Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
Bodypainter Mark Frazier and his team arrived at 10:30AM as we had specified in their contract. Mark is an amazing professional and I don't just say that because he may be my ticket to the Playboy Mansion (his interview is in a follow-up post). When he arrived at the venue, there was no power in our production area and his crew couldn't get started. Not a problem -- Mark and his crew relaxed and knew they could get it all done. One of the guys asked me to give him our PR girl's number so he could call her about inviting NFL player to the event. That's always iffy, but he ended up getting Leon Hall. So it worked out.

Arizona nudity laws require that the models have pasties and latex thongs. Mark Frazier says he hates working with pasties and latex thongs. I feel like that's almost a Chuck Norris level of bad ass in that statement. Possibly more. I saw the first girl done with my favorite design a little after before lunch. That was a nice diversion from the shit-hitting-the-fan pace we endure. One of my (female) co-workers was irked by the fact that "when the girls bent over, you could see their skin because their buttcracks weren't painted". I have an interesting job.

Mark Frazier and the Bodypainted Models... jealous?


Mark and the team finished the job with plenty of time to spare. The girls looked amazing. I felt pretty pleased with my first of two major contributions to the party.

The Bus: Reppin' Playboy On Campus
I fucking love college marketing. There's no two ways about it. I love college sports. I love college girls. I love being irresponsible. I love having free time to waste. Other than the sports, those are becoming a much smaller part of my reality and it makes me sad. So my job "keeps me in the game" because I'm a sad old man. But this sad old man had to make sure that 50 beautiful girls from the University of Arizona made it to our party safely. I do a very good job.

Aside from the few hundred girl-only tickets that I sent out, the rep bus was my big contribution to "the ratio". I assigned two reps, Michael Knudten and Laurie Laird, the task of recruiting a bus full of girls. It doesn't matter how big the celebrity, the girls' entrance has been a show-stopper the past two years and this was no exception.

Girls from the University of Arizona @ Playboy Super Bowl Party


They arrived at about 9:30PM and I was able to meet them at about 10:00PM with the bus parked right in front of our entrance. Charlie and I tried to work our magic with the PR team running the red carpet but we just missed our opportunity to have them walk the red carpet. We were told that Common, our host, was arriving at that moment. He walked in wearing a grey suit with some bad ass grey shoes that looked like they were worth more than my life. As we were about to the unleash the hotness of the University of Arizona onto the red carpet, Nick Cannon arrived and bumped us again. I was about to step in and stop the line when I saw a police car pulling up. We were definitely getting bumped from the red carpet again because Hef was arriving with a police escort and his girlfriends. Seeing The Man himself walk into our event was probably the first time I've ever actually been starstruck. They were walking the red carpet for about 30 minutes since EVERY press member wanted to interview one of the girls individually (plus Hef was there).

Hugh Hefner and Kendra Arrive @ Playboy Super Bowl Party


After about an hour and a half of waiting, Mr. Romano and I made our way down the red carpet with a gaggle of hot coeds right on Mr. Hefner's heels. They literally entered the party after him as he had just finished his interview with Playboy Radio. You can check out the video of the girls below. We had a lot of NFL players at our event, so I suspect the bus did not go back full...



The Show: Party All the Time, Party All the Time, Party All the Time
By the time my duties with the bus were done, it was pretty close to midnight. I had my stint at the door coming up at 1AM. The party is really just something that happens while I'm running around. It's only 6 hours out of a long weekend of work. Still, we managed to pack in 2000+ attendees including a long list of athletes. Audrina and LC stopped by. Sadly, that's sort of exciting for me. I saw them in Cabo last year at a taco stand at 4AM though. I did get to climb into the DJ booth with Nick Cannon and DJ Reach for a few seconds. It was a pretty amazing moment because it was just as Nick Cannon had started on Stronger.

I ended up back at the door soon after to have some guy try to get in with a girl ticket (his girlfriend said that somebody ahead of him had "mixed up tickets"... right). Another two kids tried to convince me to let them in without tickets because they came with a lot of girls ... the old "we're with them". Sorry, guys. The fire marshal shut down the door at about 1:30 because we'd reached capacity. This happened in Miami at about 12:30. We could only let people in at a trickle after that.

Willis McGahee showed up at about 2AM and the party was pretty much done. I was happy that we had landed the Madden Bowl champ. He shook my hand and told me that he had brought a couple of family members. Nice guy.

We drove back to our hotel after 5AM and I ended up getting into my bed after 6AM having to pack when I "woke up". I got up at 7AM to make sure I was ready to go to the airport. Oh yeah, I heard there was a football game scheduled for Sunday. I did make it back just in time to see kickoff at my apartment.

Click here to see the Official Chris Duncan Playboy Super Bowl Party pictures!

Now, it's time to get ready for Spring Break...

The Infamous Roy Williams Video

I was at the Madden Bowl just minding my own business and I ran into one of my personal heroes, Roy Williams. I had followed his career since he had become a standout wide receiver with the Texas Longhorns. I even know that his favorite food is fried Oreos. My dad's from Detroit, so I'm a Lions fan and that's where he plays in the NFL.

All I wanted was for him to (1) acknowledge me (that pretty much happened, although not as planned) and (2) come to the Playboy Super Bowl Party (definitely got denied on that one). This was about ten minutes before Michael Irvin started sleazing on Andrea. Make sure you have your volume up... I think my best comment comes at the very end. I think it's the 2:15 mark. Roy Williams is definitely not invited to my Cabo birthday party in March!