Pinup Pole Show Pinup of the Week: Tonya Kay with a Triumph Bonneville

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This week’s Pinup Pole Show Pinup of the Week is me, the writer of this column and creator of Pinup Pole Show, Tonya Kay! You see me here posing with Ginger Montrose’s Triumph Bonneville, wearing a Red Dolly Swimwear bikini top, shot by Shane Karns at Tonya Kay’s Pinup Pole Show.

So I love asking models, car owners and photographers interview questions for this column, but when the model is me, I can do a little something special. I can ask myself what we didn’t know about these photos. We know what we see - gorgeous photography at a one-of-a-kind event in Los Angeles, CA. But what don’t we know about this photo?

Well, this was a heck of a night for me because just four weeks prior, I ruptured my right gastrocnemius. Blew the entire calf muscle apart running up my rooftop. You could say I was doing some wicked parkour, but it was actually much more romantic: I was just trying to see the sun set for a little while longer.

What an injury this was! The pain! The incapacitation! The inability to work! Dark times, my friends, dark times. But I still had a Pinup Pole Show to produce, if you can imagine. So here I am trying to look super cute on Ginger’s motorcycle - but the truth is, I walked on crutches all the way up to that bike, took off my boot/cast, put on a flat shoe and never - not once, no way, no how - never even kind of touched my right foot to the ground. My calf was still shattered in this photo. I hadn’t even walked on two feet for a month. I wasn’t able to walk for another three months after these shots. I was in so much pain, but as they say… The show must go on!

And looking back at these outstanding photos with Shane Karns - isn’t it wild, wondrous and sometimes ridiculous, the things we'll do for our art?