Tag: foreclosure

Betrayal :-(

So as you may recall, last time I was talking about how Seterus had JUST BARELY approved my short sale…literally hours before my house was to be auctioned off as a foreclosure. Whew…. right?

WRONG.

I feel like I keep getting punched in the gut, HARD, and sooner or later the next punch will be the last, and I will give up and die from a broken and bleeding spirit. What happened next took me SO COMPLETELY BY SURPRISE that it literally made me sick to my stomach.

As mentioned last time, the new buyer of my house, a Mexican ball-buster we’ll call Loopy, was riding my ass: “When are you guys gonna be out of the house?!” The sale closed on Monday, Feb. 13th at 4:47pm; she wanted me and my roommates out by 4:48pm that same day. If we didn’t get out, she was going to charge us $50 a day in rent.

SERIOUSLY?!

Have a heart, you fucking bitch. I lost everything in this deal — and you basically bought my everything for $112,000. How do you think that made me feel? Now you’re trying to charge me rent in my own (ex)house?! 

Still, I understood her point of view — she won, fair and square, and I needed to get out. As mentioned, I had a new place lined up, and I had been moving stuff here and there since January. I didn’t want to move anything vital, though, because I had no idea how long this short sale was gonna drag on, and I didn’t wanna have half my shit across town — you know? Also, I wasn’t even sure the sale would go through — there was a very real possibility that it would end up going to auction, in which case I’d have 30 days to get out. So, most of my stuff was still at the old house.

Meanwhile, the situation at my old house was getting awkward. I had two roommates, about whom I haven’t spoken much, so let me fill you in. The girl, a 40-ish woman I knew from the local Burning Man scene, had moved into my basement about a year ago. Prior to that, I had been renting the basement to a toothless hillbilly and his one-legged girlfriend (seriously; that’s a whole blog entry of its own, which I must get to ASAP because it’s fucking priceless).

When the hillbilly and his one-legged girlfriend moved out, I cleaned it out and repainted it and this chick, we’ll call her Susie, moved in. It worked out GREAT — she worked all day from 8am-5pm at an office job, and I usually work from 5-11pm, so we were never in each other’s way. She was a very neat and clean person, and decorated the basement really, really nicely — she has great taste in decor. She sort of turned it into this little bohemian hideaway, and was constantly telling me how much she loved living there.

We were never really chummy, because there was always this sort of weird disconnect between us. But we got along fine, and she was a GREAT roommate.

She had been living with this older Persian guy whom we’ll call Mo, but their relationship was kinda rocky so she moved out of his apartment to take my basement. But, wouldn’t ya know it, before long Mo started coming over…and in late summer, they asked if I minded if he moved in.

I didn’t mind at all — Mo was cool, and a very good cook who was constantly whipping up all this amazing Persian food, which he always shared. He also brought over a huge load of firewood for my fire pit, and he made some repairs to my trailer for me after Burning Man…so I considered him good people. They didn’t want to pay me extra rent, but offered to pay “all” the utilites (power, water and internet…I still took care of sewer, trash, yard maintenance and pest control) plus the rent Susie was already paying me.

I’m a puss, so I caved in and said yes. Mo moved in around July or August, and everything was great…until Susie quit her job. She hated it so much she just couldn’t stand it anymore, and Mo was supposedly going to hire her to do the books at his auto body shop…but all I ever saw her do was sleep til noon and drink all my vodka. I swear, I’ve never seen two people drink so much vodka — I’d get a bottle, and it would be gone in two days. They’d always promise to replenish it…but then they’d drink what they’d bought me within another two days! Nuts!

Still, all was well. Mo and Susie sat around drinking, smoking pot and watching TV in between cooking fabulous meals in my gourmet kitchen. I’m a private person, so I mostly stayed in my bedroom — when I was home at all (I’m usually out and about, hustling and working). So they basically had the entire house to themselves, for $500 a month.

All this time, I was working diligently on my loan modification. At the time, Chase was still stringing me along, leading me to believe they WOULD help me if I would just fax this, that and the other every two minutes. But at my mediation hearing in October, they came out and told me they would not be able to write down my principal or offer me any real help. This was when I realized I could not keep the house.

It was a painful and traumatic decision to make, and I wept EVERY DAY for about two weeks straight. It’s tough to admit that all the work you’ve done for the last four years was for nothing, and you are admitting defeat. But I finally decided to short sell…so I went into the kitchen one night and told Mo and Susie that they needn’t pay any more rent; I was short selling.

They were totally supportive: “Honey, we’ve heard you crying…we’re so sorry, we’re here for you. Do what you have to do.” Mo told me, “You’re not just a roommate, you’re our friend — our family.” I felt a lot better after that. They kicked me some money for bills now and then, but from November on I did not charge them rent. I felt that I couldn’t take money from them if I wasn’t paying the mortgage myself; and besides, I had all manner of prospective buyers tramping thru the house for two days, which I felt bad about on their account.

As any reader of this blog knows, it was a long period of limbo. I accepted an offer right away — Loopy (the aforementioned Mexican ball-breaker) came out on top, and I accepted her offer right around Thanksgiving. I told my roommates this, but also warned them that it could drag on for a looooong time. They had already mentioned to me that they were looking into buying their own house, so I figured we were all on the same page.

Meanwhile, I started looking for a new place. I found a cute little house in fabulous downtown Las Vegas that had an ideal roommate setup, and offered Mo and Susie the master bedroom if they wanted it. They declined, saying they were tired of moving, and preferred to stay in the old house “for free” as long as possible. They seemed to think it would be six months or more — Mo in particular is one of those guys who “knows” the law, and he had it in his head that this would drag on for six months. I told him REPEATEDLY that no, it probably wouldn’t drag on that long, because I was already so deep into the foreclosure process that I had to get this short sale thru in 90 days max. But every time I talked to him he was high and/or drunk, so I don’t think he believed me. He kept telling me not to worry so much, everything would be fiiiiiine, “there are laws in this country to protect us.” He also offered me all this super-shady advice on how to stay in the house indefinitely — to which I told him POINT-BLANK that I was NOT interested in dragging this out any longer — I wanted to get it OVER with!

Still, I have a sneaking suspicion he wanted the house to foreclose — either so he could stay there for free longer, or so that one of his Persian investor friends could buy it at auction for cheap, then rent it back to him. My suspicion was confirmed one day when I was sitting at my desk and looked out the window to see Mo and Susie and a well-dressed Realtor-type walking around my yard — supposedly she was a “friend” of theirs who wanted to see the house out of curiosity. I’m not fucking dumb; I know what they were up to. They probably wanted her to see how nice it was so she could bid on it at the auction!

Now it got really awkward. Mo and Susie had always had a rocky relationship, but now they really got into a fight, and one day Susie asked me if I minded her moving her bed up to my guest bedroom — she didn’t want to share the basement with Mo anymore, because he was being a dick, drinking too much and talking shit to her. Of course I said yes, and even helped her move her mattress upstairs. She asked if I still had that bedroom available at my new place, because her and Mo weren’t going to make it as a couple.

Well, I had already found a new roommate at the new place — a nutty beefcake with long blond hair whom I also knew from the local Burning Man community. He’s a very eccentric person, but I’ve known him for years and I like him OK, so I offered him the extra room. So I told Susie that sorry, it was too late for her. But I felt sorry for her, so even thought it was a severe inconvenience, I offered her the guest bedroom at the new house — a tiny room I had planned to use as my closet (I had a HUGE walk-in closet at my old place, and the new place only had shitty little regular-sized closets). I had already assembled all my guest bedroom furniture in there, but I offered to dis-assemble it and clear it out for her — and let her stay there FOR FREE until the end of February, by which time she could have found a better place. I offered her half the garage for her storage, too.

Susie waffled back and forth EVERY SINGLE DAY. The first day: “Oh girl, that would be awesome; thank you so much.” The second day: “Never mind; I’m gonna get my own apartment.” The next day: “Girl, is that room still available? I can’t find an apartment I can afford.” (She’s been unemployed since July or so.) The next day: “Never mind, Mo and I are getting a place.”

ARRRRRGH! All this nonsense while I was trying to move all my OWN stuff! I was patient with her though, because I felt sorry for her — it’s not her fault she’s an addle-brained sad sack co-dependent. There are plenty of chicks out there addicted to loser guys who treat them like shit — glad I’m not one of ’em! I did what I could to help her, even emptying my boxes at the new house and bringing them back for her to use. I even found her an apartment for super-cheap, but she didn’t like it because it didn’t have a washer/dryer in the unit. I’VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU: an unemployed alkie can’t be so choosy!!

So this went on through the first couple weeks of February, and then the sale finally closed on Monday, Feb. 13th. As mentioned, Loopy and her broker were on my ass immediately, trying to get us out. I spoke with my lawyer, and he reminded me that in my sale contract, he had stipulated that we were to have seven days after closing to vacate the premises. So, we had a full week to get out.

I told Mo and Susie about this, but they kept dragging ass. They thought they could work out a deal with Loopy for rent, but she wanted $50/day or $1600/month, which was way more than they wanted to spend (hello; they were spoiled after having the whole place to themselves for $500!!). So then Mo got drunk one night (big fuckin’ surprise; that’s basically all he does), and called Loopy, ranting and raving and rambling incoherently about his “rights.” They were under the impression that they legally had six months to vacate — but that’s with a FORECLOSURE! This was a SHORT SALE! I told him OVER and OVER that, despite his secret backstabbing wishes, the SHORT SALE HAD GONE THRU AND HE HAD TO GET OUT.

He refused.

Now, this man is 60 fucking years old (I think), but he acted like a fucking baby. He basically threatened to squat in the house and ruin the sale! I was freaked out. I worked SO HARD on this sale, and managed to squeak it in under the door…only to be ruined by an alcoholic Persian loser with a pot belly and an overinflated sense of entitlement?! NO WAY.

Keep in mind, they are LOSERS. As mentioned, they mostly lay in bed and watch TV while eating and boozing. They were on my ass about the government’s “Cash For Keys” program, in which the Feds sometimes pay homeowners a fee to get them to move out without damaging the house. I told them if I got any, I’d share it. So, I offered them $500 each.

It wasn’t enough!

I moved out that Monday, and the next night I got a long email from Susie demanding $2,500 from me, or they wouldn’t move. She said I’d been unfair, and hadn’t explained what was going on, and that their “heads were spinning” from the confusion of short sale vs. foreclosure vs. short sale.

BITCH! I WAS AS CONFUSED AS YOU! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

Basically, she said it was only fair that I pay them $2500 for the “inconvenience” of having to move in seven days. FIRST OF ALL, I told you two fucking losers BACK IN OCTOBER this was happening. And I told you in November that I had accepted an offer. It’s not my fault your loser fat ass sat around drinking vodka instead of GETTING THE FUCK UP AND LOOKING FOR A NEW PLACE! Look at what the fuck I was doing!! I’VE BEEN BUSTING MY FUCKING ASS NON-STOP since NOVEMBER looking for a new place and moving!!!

Secondly, who the fuck is truly being inconvenienced here?! I lost EVERYTHING after an exhausting four-year battle. You want to talk about inconvenience?!

It was an extremely hurtful email, and it felt like someone had punched me, HARD, right in the stomach. Or heart. These people were supposedly my friends! Remember, Mo had called me “family.” REALLY? The kicked me when I was at my absolute lowest, and gouged my broken body out of EVEN MORE MONEY.

I’ve never cried so hard in my entire life — it was weird! As mentioned, we were never really friends, but I lived with this girl for a year and had been helping her through as best I could. Now, apparently, she was back with Mo, and he had turned her against me.

My lawyer advised that I didn’t legally have to pay them anything, but I was afraid they would trash the house if I didn’t. I was terrified they would do something to fuck up my sale. I had everything riding on this sale — my fucking FREEDOM! If they punched holes in the walls or flooded the rooms, it would come back on me as breach of contract, since I had agreed to leave the house in move-in condition. Not that I really thought they would do that — but then, I never in my wildest dreams imagined they’d extort $2,500 from me, either.

So, I spoke with Loopy’s broker, who was also on my ass demanding that I get them out. She told me to draw up a Notice to Vacate, and have them sign it, agreeing to vacate the premises by Feb. 19th in exchange for $2,500, to be paid upon their leaving the house in move-in condition. I gritted my teeth, drew up a contract, and went over to have them sign it one evening.

I meant to go in completely calm, have them sign it, and leave. But when I saw them standing there in my kitchen (OK, it wasn’t my kitchen anymore, it was Loopy’s…but still), I just broke down. I was crying, asking them why they were doing this to me?! Mo told me to stop yelling at him, and that really set me off. “I LOST EVERYTHING!!!! HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I FEEL ABOUT ALL THIS! I DIDN’T DO THIS ON PURPOSE!!!” Mo refused to sign anything unless I paid them up front — but I insisted that I had to cover my ass somehow, and make sure they left the place in decent shape.

Finally Susie butted in — “Just sign it, Mo — I want her out of here. She’s out of control.”

SAY WHAT?! You want me out of MY OWN FUCKING KITCHEN?! OK, again, it was Loopy’s kitchen now…but still, it was as much mine as it was that fat fucking brainless bitch’s. She threw me out of my own kitchen. Talk about humiliating.

They finally signed, and we agreed to meet at the house at 2pm on the 19th so I could hand the keys to Loopy and pay them their blood money at that time. And I left, and sat in my (ex)driveway….and wept. I just bawled my fucking heart, soul and eyes out. Not only had I lost everything…now I was being stabbed in the back by a couple of pathetic, shady leeches. I finally got in my truck and drove away, to bawl some more at my new place. It was heartbreaking.

I sacked up and went about my life, unpacking at my new place and trying to settle in whilst working and dealing with brokers, lawyers and tax people. Then, on the 19th, I went over to my old place one last time. I had left my curtains up for Mo and Susie’s privacy, and had left them my trash can and welcome mat and stuff so they wouldn’t feel weird — not my fucking concern any more! I got my stuff, gave the keys to Loopy, showed her around the property, and then gave Mo the cash (Susie was too chickenshit to show up). To his credit, Mo tried to give me $500 back, but I insisted he take it, as per the contract we’d signed. I was over it. Any amount of money to get those two sad leeches out of my life forever.

Even Loopy felt bad for me. I went out in the front yard, dug up my statue of St. Joseph (the ritual calls for him to be given a place of honor in my new place, for having facilitated the sale), and drove away.

🙁

But, it’s over. I guess I learned a valuable lesson:

Never. Trust. Anyone.

Especially not a 40-year old alkie with furry boots and a hula hoop!

 

 

 

 

Out On My Ass :-(

Update! Seterus approved my short sale…sort of.

When I finally realized I COULD NOT ever hope to afford to keep my house, I decided to short sell it, as opposed to just letting the bank foreclose on it. Short selling is MUCH more work than just “walking away” (foreclosing), but I decided to do it for one reason:

If I let the bank foreclose, they could potentially sue me for the money I owe them…and they would have six months to do so. I didn’t feel like sitting around waiting for six months! But if I short sold the property, I could stipulate that the bank waive my deficiency (i.e. forgive the rest of the money I owe them…remember, I “bought” the house for $380,000) as part of the sale. They would basically be agreeing to take whatever I got for the short sale ($112,000) in exchange for letting me off the hook.

Since ALL I WANT is to be free, I thought this was the best course.

But, since I farted around so long (waiting to see if the bank would modify my loan to the point where I could stay in the house)…I ran out of time. By the time they told me they couldn’t modify my loan, it was almost too late for me to short sell. My lawyer advised me that he could TRY to get my short sale through in time, but he couldn’t guarantee it…because I was already so deep into the foreclosure process. So when I hired him, it was with the understanding that he MIGHT VERY WELL FAIL.

To his credit, he prevailed. Even though it’s TOTALLY DOWN TO THE WIRE, and my house is set to be auctioned on the 15th, somehow my lawyer and his assistant managed to sweet-talk the guy at Seterus (the people who bought my loan from Chase) and get the damn short sale approved in time!

BUT, it’s not a perfect happy ending. The short sale approval letter from Seterus makes no mention of them waiving my deficiency!! The SALE CONTRACT states this clearly as a contingency, but the actual approval letter makes no mention of it. So my lawyer advised me that I have two options:

1) cancel the short sale and request a re-written approval letter that makes mention of their waiving my deficiency. This is NOT really an option, since I only have 6 days (before the foreclosure auction on the 15th)…and there’s no way Seterus would come back in time with a new, improved approval letter.

2) sign the approval letter and PRAY they don’t come after me and sue me blind. My lawyer seems to think it’s pretty unlikely that they’ll come after me…he gave me 80-85% odds of getting away scot-free.

STILL….that means I have 15-20% odds of Seterus suing my ass down the line, say 5 years from now (legally, they have 7 years to do so): “Oh by the way…you owe us $270,000!!!!”

FUCKERS!

After an agonizing night, I went with #2. I feel like I’ve sincerely done the best I could to extract myself from this BAD DECISION ethically and responsibly…what the fuck more can I do?! I’m just *PRAYING* they let me go without incident.

Meanwhile, the people who bought my house (for $112,00…which makes me literally sick to my stomach) are on my ass. Their Realtor called me today: “When are you going to be out?!” (The lady who’s buying the place is a real hard-ass.)

WHAT?! I *COULDN’T* move, or do anything, until the deal closed…or else my homeowner’s insurance coverage would lapse. So even though I’ve had a new place lined up for MONTHS, I couldn’t really start moving until the deal closed. WTF! Now they want me out by FRIDAY, or they’re gonna start charging me RENT!

HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As mentioned, I already have a new place lined up. A very generous reader of this blog offered me a house to stay in, all to myself, so that’s not a real concern. But I do have a LOT of stuff (my wig collection alone is a real monster), so it’s not like I can just vacate the premises overnight. Sheesh!

To make matters worse, I’ve had the last 3 weeks off from my camera job…but of course, the shit had to hit the fan EXACTLY when I have to go back to work 🙁 So, for the next several days, I’ll be working overtime…trying to move, and pay my bills at the same time. FUCK!

Anyway, while all that was going on, I still had to go about my business and try to earn some milk money. Thankfully, a little something called the Super Bowl came along. Let me spend the rest of this blog telling you about SAUSAGEFEST WEEKEND!

Super Bowl (or the Big Game; the NFL trademarked the name “Super Bowl” so that sinful dens of iniquity like Vegas wouldn’t be able to use it) is a BIG weekend for Las Vegas. Hordes of beefy, beery mooks from all over U.S.A. descend in droves to eat up all our wings, drink all our beer, and fondle/ogle all our busty young chicks in an orgiastic display of overindulgence and fat-assery. IT’S LAME!

But, I need to make a buck….so I always work. Let me tell you about my personal history of working the Super Bowl in Vegas.

My first Vegas Super Bowl, I was a cigarette girl at the Flamingo. I worked the 2am-10am shift, and I never made ANY money — I mean, think about it! Who the fuck is awake and gambling at the freaking FLAMINGO between 2-10am?! — except for on Super Bowl Sunday, when I miraculously made about $220. I used the cash to finally buy a television, which I did not have up to that point (bad decision, I know).

After that, I took the next few Super Bowls off. I remember being super-sick in bed during the 2005 game, when Janet Jackson’s titty was scandalously exposed by Justin Timberlake…but I was so feverishly delirious that I couldn’t even tell if it was really happening!

By 2007, I had established myself as a “promotional model,” and started working Super Bowl parties for pay. For the next 5 years I was a Bud Light girl at various Super Bowl parties around town — at the Riviera, the Tropicana, Harrah’s (I was actually a Miller Lite girl that time) and the Mirage…as well as one year, when I just roamed around to various local bars. This job basically entailed putting on a Bud Light (or Miller) shirt, and tossing beads, Koozies and keychains to hordes of testosterone-fueled, drooling mooks. Easy work…but very lame.

This year, I was hired by a friend to work as a waitress at a huge Super Bowl party sponsored by a local Italian restaurant. It was easy work — just be fun, flirt, wear Daisy Dukes and bring drunk assholes their beers — but I was a little uneasy about the pay situation. Normally, as a Bud/ Miller girl, I make about $30/hour. We generally only work until halftime, so it’s usually a 3-hour, sub-$100 gig…which sucks. But this year, the situation was even odder!

At this particular party, they had about 30 girls working, plus bartenders and bar backs. The plan was that we would all work for tips, then pool everything and split it evenly at the end of the night. I had my doubts — I am an honest person, but I know how shady chicks can be…and I just KNEW there would be one or two or ten of ’em who secretly pocketed the money, instead of sharing it.

Sure enough, I heard from a friend that there were a few chicks who were caught red-handed stealing money. Ironically, the woman in charge of the party is a Burning Man habitue who hired mostly Burning-Man-friendly waitresses…all supposedly “peace, love & understanding” types, some of whom who turned out to be thieving whores. One of them even started working drug deals with some of the football mooks at the party — apparently one guy asked if she knew where he could get some Ecstasy. WOW!

Still, the offenders were busted and the rest of us got a share of the money — which ended up being pretty good! I was really glad to have worked it, and the woman who hired me is FANTASTIC — a truly cool person, who also happens to live one block away from my new house 🙂 So it was alllllll good 🙂

Still, I’m totally glad football season is over, and the fat mooks have left town…for now. March Madness is right around the corner, and they’ll be back before I know it 🙁 Arrrgh!

Anyhoo, that’s all I have time to write about — I have to get to bed ASAP, so I can get up early and finish moving all my shit out to my new place. I spent FOUR YEARS fighting for my old house, so it’s very emotional. I’ll admit, I hugged the walls a time or two…I can’t help it; even though I’ve suffered mightily in this place, I still have a deep fondness for it.

🙁

I’ve Tried Logic, Reason and Elbow Grease, to No Avail

I am fucked. Fucked. FUCKED!

http://youtu.be/QpLMep6zmXk

If you’ve been reading this tripe for any length of time, you’ll know that the past 3 years of my life have been consumed with my effort to work out a mortgage deal with my lender. I simply cannot afford my $2300 monthly payments, and I’m tired of sucking dick just trying to make ends meet.

According to the media, there are tons of government aid programs out there to help idiots like me. Over the last 3 years, I HAVE TRIED THEM ALL.

THEY. DO. NOT. WORK.

The simple truth is, the banks DON’T WANT TO HELP PEOPLE! They make more money in government bailouts by foreclosing, than by actually working with home”owners,” so they have zero incentive.

Like a total fucking patsy, I followed the carrot they dangled in front of me for the last three years: “If you just fax us this, that and the other, we’ll give you a loan modification!” I faxed, scanned, emailed and called for YEARS, and spent countless hours (and thousands of dollars I could ill afford), bawling in frustration and banging my head against the wall. I never gave up, though, because I though it was a war of attrition that could ultimately be won by the strongest man (me, dammit).

In Nevada, the State mandates that lenders meet with troubled homeowners for a “mediation hearing.” I went to such a hearing with a representative from my lender — which, to my surprise, isn’t Chase after all. It’s something/somebody called Seterus, Inc.

I got my fucking mortgage from Washington Mutual. Chase bought them out, but then sold all their bum loans to LBPS (Lender Business Process Servers)…who in turn sold the loans to Seterus, Inc. So my loan has changed hands so many times, I bet they don’t even have the original documents.

I (stupidly) didn’t challenge them on that at my mediation hearing, because I’m tired of dragging this out. I’m finished with stalling tactics — I WANT RESOLUTION! IF ONE MORE PERSON SENDS ME AN EMAIL TELLING ME ABOUT HOW THEIR “FRIENDS LIVED FOR FREE WITHOUT PAYING A DIME FOR YEARS,” I’m gonna SCREAM!!!!!

I’VE ALREADY LIVED FOR “FREE” AS LONG AS THEY’LL LET ME!

I missed about 12 payments back in 2009/10 (just to get their attention; they wouldn’t answer my calls for the 12 preceding months, when I was still scrounging around sucking dick to make the payments. I got tired of sucking dick, the money dried up, and NOW those fuckers answered me. They gave me a trial loan modification, which if I made 4 payments on time, they would make it permanent.

Yes! Awesome!

SIKE! I made my four payments ON TIME, but they dragged ass for TWELVE MONTHS with no answer. In the meantime, I kept paying to show “good faith…” but apparently, it was a stupid fucking move to make, because all those “trial” payments weren’t enough for Chase/Seterus/WhoeverTheFuck…and EACH and EVERY SINGLE $1200 payment I made counted for NOTHING. Because they were modified to $1200 (instead of my original $2300), EACH PAYMENT COUNTED AS A DEFAULTED PAYMENT!

Because of this, by the time I got my mediation hearing, I was already pretty far along in the foreclosure process (much to my surprise — I’d been paying TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH TO THESE BLOODSUCKING ASSHOLES! Didn’t feel like I was defaulting, to me!). At my mediation, I offered to just give them the house back in exchange for being released from my debt (what’s called a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure). My lender’s representative said Sorry, we don’t take Deeds in Lieu.

OK, so will you at least write down my principal to the fair market value? I bought the house for $380,000 and have only paid down $111 in principal — out of $125,000 in payments!!!!!!!!! And now it’s only worth $100,000.

No. “I’m sorry, we don’t write down principals.”

FUCK! So what do you WANT me to do?!?!

My choices were to a) let ’em foreclose, or b) short sell the house (get whatever money  I can for it, and hope my lender accepts that instead of the full amount I owe them).

I was crying so hard I couldn’t decide what to do, so the fucking bitch representative from my lender marked it down as “client will foreclose.” BUT I NEVER SAID I WANTED TO FORECLOSE! I DIDN’T DECIDE YET!!!!!!

I ended up discussing with my attorney, and deciding to short sell. I had to hire ANOTHER attorney (more fucking money I don’t have), and this asshole warned me that because I was already so far along into the foreclosure process, he might not be able to push my short sale thru in time. He told me up front that it was a gamble — but I’d have to pay his retainer either way.

What the fuck would you do? I paid his fucking blood money, listed the property, and BUSTED MY ASS to sell it as fast as fucking possible. It was listed on a Wednesday, and by Monday I had EIGHT OFFERS. I submitted the best one — a CASH OFFER, WELL ABOVE the bank’s appraisal of $105,000 — during the last week of November.

I still haven’t heard back. I assumed my offer was sitting in a stack of papers on some asshole’s desk over at Seterus, waiting for him to get to it.

Meanwhile…….

Right after I posted my last blog, I went outside to run some errands, and found an auction notice posted on my door!

THESE FUCKING LEECHES ARE AUCTIONING MY HOUSE OUT FROM UNDER ME, EVEN WITH A SOLID ***CASH*** OFFER ON THEIR FUCKING DESK!

I’m not dumb — I know they get more bailout money from the fucking Feds if I foreclose, so it’s better off for them NOT to approve my short sale.

But it’s going to FUCK ME OVER.

If my house goes to auction, they can sell it out from under me (fine, whatever)…but then they can came after me and SUE ME BLIND for the $380,000 I owe them! My only recourse is to completely fuck my finances and credit by filing bankruptcy…which I don’t want to do, obviously.

I want them to APPROVE MY FUCKING SHORT SALE!

What’s frustrating is, I can’t do a GODDAMN THING ABOUT IT. I tried going to the Chase Homeownership Crisis Center, but this really smarmy young prick told me “We don’t own your loan anymore, nothing we can do.” He was a real asshole about it, too. FUCK YOU! I bawled my eyes out all the way down the hall to my car, not caring who the fuck saw me.

There has to be SOMEONE I can tell about this who can help me! My attorney says they are doing “everything they can” on their end, but to be honest I don’t want to rely on that. He already got his retainer; what the fuck does he care? The first fucking thing he said to me was “I told you this might happen!” just to cover his ass. Fuck you! Thanks for your support, asshole.

I figured there had to be SOMETHING I could do on my end, to make sure the auction is stopped before they have a chance to approve the short sale. I tried calling all those fake-ass “HOPE for Homeowner” hotlines the dumbass pussywhipped government set up…but they were WORSE than useless. One lady had no answers for me, the other said she couldn’t legally advise me because I already have counsel retained. NO ONE WANTS TO HELP.

Basically, my lawyer says I just have to sit around and wait until the auction date — which is right around the corner; Feb. 15th. *HOPEFULLY* they’ll halt the auction once they realize they have a better offer sitting on their desk, or even better just go ahead and approve the fucking short sale RIGHT NOW. But if they don’t….

I.

AM.

FUCKED.

If my house goes to the auction, I swear I am rounding up all my dirtiest, smelliest hippie friends from the #OccupyLasVegas encampment, and bringing them all to the auction with me: “HEY YOU FUCKERS! GO AHEAD AND BID ON THE MOUNTAIN VIEW PROPERTY — BUT IF YOU GET IT, YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO DEAL WITH 500 HIPPIES CAMPING IN THE YARD! YOU’LL HAVE TO EVICT 500 PEOPLE…GOOOOOOOD LUCK WITH THAT, ASSHOLES!”

Yeah, I’m fucking pissed!

I’ve done everything I was supposed to for the last three years. I played by the rules, filed countless papers and faxed, scanned, emailed and called every time they said they needed updated stuff. And they’re still giving me a giant middle finger.

HOW CAN OUR GOVERNMENT STAND BY AND LET THIS HAPPEN?! GROW SOME FUCKING BALLS, PRESIDENT OBAMA! ***FORCE*** THE FUCKERS TO WORK WITH PEOPLE! YOU HAVE THE POWER!

I have zero power, and it’s extremely demoralizing.

All I really did this past week was sob. I am TERRIFIED. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I’VE DONE ALL I CAN! And it wasn’t enough.

Since logic and reason have failed thus far, I turned to the occult. I went to Bell, Book & Candle (Ye Olde Magick Shoppe, on East Charleston in Vegas) and bought a Jinx-breaker candle to break my string of bad luck. Nevermind the fact that I don’t believe in magic; I’m desperate! The big fat barefoot bearded wizard in there shuffled over to his shelf of herbs, sprinkled a bunch of happy oils and glitter on a jar candle, and charged me $8. I hope it works! He threw in a couple of magic beans for good luck…which if I’m REALLY lucky, will grow into a beanstalk leading up to Seterus’s offices, so I can climb up and finally find the RIGHT dick to suck.

THEN, in case the Goddess wasn’t listening, I went over to the other side of town and bought a little statue of Saint Joseph from a Christian bookstore (I thought I’d burst into flames walking in the door, when I heard the “Praise Him” music and saw the moon-faced Christer heifer behind the counter smile beatifically at me). Someone had told me that if you want to sell a house, you’re supposed to bury a statue of St. Joseph in the front yard, upside down facing the house out near the street. Nevermind the fact that I don’t believe in religion; I’m desperate! I went inside, for good measure, and donned my lucky Big Girl Panties, my favorite psychedelic caftan (the one I wore to my dad’s funeral last year) and my lucky pink cowgirl hat. Basically, it was everything I had that was meaningful to me…so I wore it like armor, brought my jinx-breaking candle out to the front yard, and buried St. Joseph in amongst the lantana in my front garden.

I HOPE IT WORKS.

I spent last night weeping in my truck in an empty parking lot, screaming in rage, beating on my windows, biting my steering wheel in sheer frustration. WHAT MORE CAN I DO??????

What really pisses me off is, it’s basically my own fault that I “waited too long” to decide to short sell. Remember, by the time I listed my house I was “so far along in the foreclosure process” that my lawyer couldn’t promise anything.

Well, THE ONLY REASON I WAS THAT FAR ALONG IS, YOU FUCKERS STRUNG ME ALONG WITH FALSE PROMISES OF A LOAN MODIFICATION!

Is that really MY fuckin’ fault?!?!?!?!?!? I WAS TRYING TO DO RIGHT! AND NOW I’M GETTING FUCKED!

I just can’t believe there is NO ONE IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD who can/will help me. NO ONE.

NO ONE.

NO ONE!

I’m utterly alone. WHERE ARE YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA? Oh yeah that’s right, you’re busy sucking bank cock. They probably need another $8billion bailout.

WHO THE FUCK DO YOU REPRESENT, PRESIDENT OBAMA? ME?? OR THE BANKS?

I ACTUALLY VOTED FOR YOUR DUMB ASS! I bet none of those fat cats did. So, don’t you owe me ANYTHING?!?!?!?!?

FORCE THE BANKS TO WORK WITH PEOPLE! It’s the only way our economy will recover. No one’s gonna feel like spending money until their mortgages are refinanced so that their homes are no longer 300% underwater.

FORCE THEM!

FORCE THEM!

I swear, I never felt so hopeless as I did last night, bawling my eyes out in that supermarket parking lot. I actually wanted to be dead…which I feel awful saying, because my dad committed suicide last April and my family’s still pretty tore up about it. But it was  how I felt — I honestly didn’t even want to be alive anymore. I’m too tired!

This process has drained out all my enjoyment of life. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, all I can do is cry and worry and drink myself into a stupor every night just so I can doze off for a few hours, then get up and do it all over again. MY LIFE IS NO FUN ANYMORE.

Thank Dog, my camera job boss was cool and let me take a couple weeks off. (There’s no show anyway, but sometimes they make me go to other hotels and work lesser shows just because they can.) So I had plenty of time to sit around and weep.

I swear, my friends are probably sick to death of me and my whining. All I do is cry and stay home…people probably think I’m making it up, but I REALLY JUST DON’T FEEL LIKE PARTYING! The other day I went out and met a reader of this blog for drinks, and started crying all over the restaurant in front of him. It was *very* awkward. I got the fuck out of there as quick as I could, so I could go home and cry in private. I didn’t wanna cry TOO much, though, because I had a foot fetish photo shoot with Footmode.com the next day, and I didn’t want puffy, wrinkly eyes. But that shoot ended up cancelling anyway!!!! I got up the next morning, tried to de-puff my eyes with ice packs and

Preparation H (which really works, by the way), and then somehow drew makeup on around them……ALL FOR NOTHING. AFTER I already did all this, they guy calls and tells me sorry, the shoot is cancelled.

FUCK!

I **NEEDED** that money!

Oh well, I did a few other gigs this week (somehow, in between all the sobbing) so I’ll be OK. I did a photo shoot out at the J.W. Marriott in Summerlin, where the photographer wanted me to dress in a sexy Tomb Raider outfit. I put together a Tomb Raider ensemble out of odds-n-ends from my wardrobe, and it looked awesome…but asked me to take the pants off, anyway, as he was more interested in shooting up my crack into my vagina! He actually laid on the bed and had me straddle him, while he shot up my crack. I thought it would be all shadowy and artsy, but when he showed me the back of the camera, it was gross. All stubbly labia, way too clinical for my taste. To his credit, when I expressed dismay he vowed to darken the shadows and not publish them anywhere. But it was still kinda humiliating. (Although I don’t know why — I’m fine with my labia, and I shouldn’t really care if he photographs them or my knees or my shoulders. They’re all body parts, after all!)

When I got out of there, I went straight home to bed, to engage in my nightly ritual: medical marijuana, wine, and Words With Friends. That’s right people, my life has come to that. It’s all I do for fun anymore. LITERALLY.

Because of my insane stress levels, I had to go get more “medicine” at the dispensary (a dispensary is what they call the legal place for marijuana patients to get their “medicine.”) At one time, there were upwards of 70 dispensaries in town…but the stupid fucking Feds shut them all down for technicalities — see, according to the law, dispensaries are “nonprofit organizations” that are supposed to help medical marijuana patients for free. HAH! All the ones I’ve been to are complete and total FARCES. The staff is a bunch of dumb cocky stoners, and all they try to do is sell you the most expensive “top shelf” medicine — only they’re not allowed to say “sell” or “buy,” because it’s a NONPROFIT. So they’re very careful to say “donate” instead of “buy,” as in, “How much of a donation were you looking to make?” STUPID!

The place I go to now is one of the last ones left in town, and they’re VERY low profile. They don’t advertise anywhere, and there’s not even a sign on their door. I only found out about them thanks to a fellow medical marijuana patient and friend who is a celebrity impersonator at a local Strip hotel, and he brought me over and sort of “vouched” for me as a new patient. Even then, I had to wait two weeks for them to vet my application and approve me as a patient…but now I’m in, and can go “donate” for meds any time I want.

At first, I was totally impressed with this place because of its low profile — as mentioned, “other” dispensaries I’d been to were staffed by cocky stoners, but this place seemed legit. WRONG! I went in the other day, and the two guys in the back were high as kites…acting like IDIOTS. Come on, guys…can’t we be PROFESSIONAL for once in our lives?! They tried to “donate” me all kinds of super-expensive top-shelf crap, which I refused (I like ditchweed just fine, thanks)…but thank Dog they have these specials, like at Payless Shoes — only instead of BOGO (Buy One, Get One Free), they have DOGO (Donate One, Get One Free) (REALLY??!!). TOTALLY STUPID, but the product was OK. If you’re wondering, the “recommended donation” was $65 per 1/8th of an ounce…but since it was DOGO, I got a quarter for $65. Still pricey! I need to learn to grow my own, already.

Now, I am a TEXTBOOK MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENT, and I only use my medicine in bed, when I’m trying to sleep (can you blame me for having insomnia, at this point?!). But the rest of the day, when I’m driving around taking care of business (or trying to, anyway), I can’t be high. So I turn to my #2 pal, AlkyHol, which comes thru in a pinch. Alas, I got a DUI in 2010, and some asshole robbed my Breathalyzer from my truck the other week, so I can’t even really numb myself with THAT anymore 🙁

Still, one afternoon I was SO upset that I just couldn’t take it, and drove to the nearest grocery store to get a drink and some food. Unfortunately, it was one of those lame grocery stores that only sells beer & wine — I hate beer, and I don’t like drinking wine in the afternoon, so I was reduced to buying wine coolers and packaged sushi from the deli. HEARTBREAKING! I sat in my truck, crying and drinking this awful Bartles & Jaymes “margarita” and eating shitty Albertson’s sushi. It was a low point in my life…but I’m sure not the nadir. That’s yet to come, I’m sure.

Speaking of my truck, I’ve actually been spending a lot of time hanging out in there lately because I own it and no one is going to foreclose on it or take it away. I feel sort of safe there, which I don’t at home, since people are always driving past, checking out my house to see if they should bid on it at the auction. It’s like vultures circling my poor pathetic carcass! But ever since that fucking asshole broke into my truck the other week and stole all my stuff, I don’t feel safe there, either 🙁

Well, that’s about all. Now it’s time for me to eat a cookie, drink some wine and go to bed and play Words With Friends. In the morning, I’ll get up and face it alllll again. But with any luck…

…MAY TOMORROW BE THE DAY MY LENDER APPROVES MY SHORT SALE!

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

P.S. One more thing to add: I was out in suburbia shooting fetish videos, when I stopped at Albertson’s (grocery store) for a snack. I don’t have one of those discount cards they try and give you, so they can track your purchases while giving you two cents off this and that, but I remembered this cool trick I read on LifeHack or some place: if you don’t have a club card for a particular store, just give them your phone number. But not your REAL number, because if you don’t have a card, it won’t do you any good anyway. Give them the FAKE number “867-5309,” from the ’80s song “Jenny,” by Tommy Tutone. GUARANTEED someone will already have used it, so it’s in the system and you can use it to get the discount. I’m here to tell you — IT WORKS! Just add on whatever the local area code is, and you’re golden. Try it — you’ll see 🙂

The Shitty Update (Fun Update to Come on Wednesday)

Ho, ho, ho… BAH! This is without question the shittiest Xmas I’ve ever suffered through. I couldn’t even afford a Christmas tree, and had to settle for painting my pubes green 🙁

This is a 2-part entry, because I waited soooo long to update that I did a million interesting things, and it would take too long to write it all at once. So first, I’m just going to tell you about how fucking miserable I’ve been! Seriously, I’ve been weeping, bawling, sobbing and screaming most every night…only taking the occasional breather to guzzle alcohol and inhale medicine to dull the pain. It sucked!

Anyhoo, I’ve never been a big Christmas fan, and I’m certainly no believer…but I generally enjoy the season anyway, what with all the hot boozy drinks, parties and time spent with my nutty family. Corny as it may sound, it’s a time of year for being cozy and loved and pleasantly buzzed in front of the fire.

But this year, it’s been shit. As you’ll recall, I can’t afford the mortgage on my insanely underwater house, and my bank won’t write down my principal…so I’ve decided to short sell it. My attorney listed it the day before Thanksgiving, so all weekend (including on the holiday itself) I was getting calls from all kinds of Realtors, wanting to come check the place out. I was at my mom’s house in California, so I told everyone to come by when I got back to Vegas on Monday.

So on Monday, starting at the UNDOGLY hour of 9:30am, a constant stream of Realtors and potential buyers passed through my house. The first guy showed up at 9:30 am (!!!), and from there one it was one after the other, sometimes two at a time, all…day….long. It was exhausting! Do you have any idea how demoralizing it is to have total strangers tramping through your home, poking into your closets and drawers and looking askance at your wigs and oddities?! I felt like I was running a fuckin’ museum! (I should have opened up a gift shop, to sell my panties!)

All types of people crossed my threshold — it  seemed that all of Vegas wanted a piece of the action! Rightly so, since it was listed at $109,000 — a steal! I mean, a ridiculous steal — all day long people were asking me suspiciously, “So why are you selling this place?” as if I was hiding some awful secret, like, “Oh, because there was a mass murder here and the place is haunted by a thousand ghosts,” or, “Oh, there’s a mad plumbing problem.” The sad truth is, I’m selling it because I HAVE to! I don’t WANT to — I just can’t afford it. I LOVE my house, but I refuse to spend the rest of my life paying off a bum loan on it.

Of course I didn’t say all that to my potential buyers — I was trying to sell the fuckin’ joint, not freak people out. I even took care to cover up the ginormous DDD-size tits on my porn-shop mannequin — normally, as you know, I refuse to kow-tow to the bourgeois moral code of the day…but for propriety’s sake, I did cover her up with a scarf. And good thing– not one but TWO Orthodox Jewish families came in to look! One mother was pregnant with a toddler in tow — can’t have little Ari traumatized by titties at the crazy godless shiksa’s house! (Even though that little bastard Ari toddled into MY kitchen, and opened MY cupboard door, and took out one of MY Capri-Suns and put his drooly crumby lips all over it. Fucker!)

Yes that’s right, not one but TWO Orthodox families came to look — one of them even submitted an offer, mentioning on the offer that I should sell to them because their Rabbi lives down the street and my little side patio would be the perfect spot for them to build a Sukkot hut on Passover. Hmm! Wicca World is also down the block…maybe if I’d have mentioned that in the listing, I could have sold to a wizard!

I showed to several other parties, including a young Mexican couple in a Jarritos van (which probably freaked my neighbors out), an old Filipino couple, a trapeze artist from Cirque du Soleil and a wacky pink-haired drummer wearing those Vibram 5-toe shoes. All in all, your typical Vegas house-buying crowd. This went on and on and on until the last party left around 6:30pm…and by day’s end, I had eight offers. Not bad!

My attorney advised me on which offer to accept (the Mexicans in the Jarritos van, hahahahaha — they had straight cash, yo), so then I had to go back and fill out about 50 pages of paperwork, attesting to my broke-ass financial state and basically pleading with Friendly Mr. Banker the Buttfucking, Bloodsucking Ass Pirate to let me off the hook. *HOPEFULLY* they accept the offer and waive the remainder of my debt… but who knows? Even if they do (which I REALLY hope they do), it could be months before it’s all said and done! And meanwhile…I can’t make any plans for my own future. It SUCKS!

It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even stomach the sound of Xmas music — I’ll be driving around town on my miserable rounds, glaring at other people’s cozy houses with lit trees and decorations in the windows, and some dumb fuckin’ Peace on Earth Silent Night shit comes on the radio, and I start bawling my eyes out in anger, fear and JEALOUSY. Why did I fuck up so badly?! Arrrrrrrgh! I go home to “my” house, which isn’t even MINE, and half the shit is already in boxes, and I didn’t even bother putting up any decorations. What’s the point?

All I want is a cute little bungalow in a shitty neighborhood — so long as it’s MINE! I just want a place, however humble, that is ALL MINE, that no fucking banker will ever be able to gouge excess money from me for. Is that too much to ask? Out of idle curiosity, I did a search of the real estate listings in Vegas for all single family homes under $50,000 — and nearly 4,000 listings came up! Seriously!

NOW HEAR THIS: there has to be somebody reading this who can help me. I’m guessing that bastard Jamie Dimon didn’t read my last post (although, frighteningly, after I emailed him…someone actually called me the very next day! It was just a secretary, and she didn’t offer much more than a half-assed vow to “look into” my fraudulent mortgage…but still. After three years of banging my head on the wall, to finally get an answer totally blew my mind!).

Anyhoo, as I was saying, there has to be SOMEBODY among my readership with $50,000 to spare. If you’re out there, please buy me this house:

http://www.ziprealty.com/property/1300-GRIFFITH-AVE-LAS-VEGAS-NV-89104/42735544/detail#

If you don’t care for this house in particular, there are many more on my list, which I’ll gladly share with you. And I promise to pay you back in a timely manner, at 2% interest…or, if you prefer, you could just gift it to me out of the generosity of your heart. Or we could work out a trade where I write for you, model for you or vacuum your balls for you….or whatever!

All I’m saying is, because of my predicament, I won’t be able to buy a house myself, in my own name, for quite some time. And I’m gonna be forced out of my current joint sooooon…in the dead of winter, no less. Have a heart! Otherwise, I’m gonna end up living at one of those shitty weekly motels with all the hookers and drug dealers (seriously! I already have it planned out).

I fell like one of those unbearable sappy Xmas story characters: [spoken in a thick baby voice] “Dear Jebus [or Santa, whatever], all I want for Christmas is a home of my own.” I just wanna lay in MY OWN BED, under MY OWN roof, and not have to fucking worry anymore! Why, once I get my own home at last, I’ll even take a page from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and give my porno mannequin a name. All these years I’ve had her, I never bothered naming her, because as Holly Golightly said:

“Poor slob without a name! The way I see it, I haven’t got the right to give [her] one. We don’t belong to each other. We just took up one day…I don’t want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I’m not sure where that is but I know what it is like. It’s like Tiffany’s.”

Well, that’s where me and the fake-ass, bullshitting, false-hope-giving movies part ways: I would NEVER want to live at a place like Tiffany’s.

Unless you’re talking about Tiffany’s Cafe at the White Cross Drugstore in downtown Vegas. I’d live there anytime!

Part Two soon to come….stay tuned!

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Let Them Eat Cock!

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a few pics from my shoot with footmode.com last week…so you can see why I had such a good time shooting with those crazy fuckers! It was verrrry therapeutic to KICK the SHIT (or at least pretend to kick the shit) out of various assholes… I just pretended they were the jagoffs from my bank, who this week refused to write down the principal on my house at my state-ordered mediation hearing (more on that later). Anyhoo, it was a blast and I can’t wait to shoot with them again later this month…meanwhile, if you have a foot fetish and want to see some smokin’ hot pics of chicks beating each other’s asses and then sucking each other’s toes, check it out! Footmode.com…one more time, that’s FOOTmode.com!

Now here’s a pic from the crazy Batman group shoot I did a couple weeks back, at the Lady Silvia bar in downtown Vegas. Good times! I used a can of red hairspray from Sally’s Beauty Supply, and it really worked…I even considered dyeing my hair red after that, because I got so many compliments. But then I remembered the time back in hi skool, when I dyed my hair red with a package of cherry Kool-Aid. That shit lasted forever — I mean FOREVER! It was soooo red that this crazy shiftless crackhead named Smurf who lived in our neighborhood back then used to yell at me “Hey, Red!” when I walked home from school. I was so sick of having red hair, that when it FINALLY washed out, I swore I’d never go red again. And I meant it!

So anyhoo, I had an extremely busy week. It all started after I updated last time, when I mentioned I was getting ready for a date with this kook who used to work in the MGM photo lab with me, back in the day. As mentioned, he’s one of those people who always has a crazy cockamamie story — that then turns out to be TRUE! Like he told me he was a concert violinist who earned a scholarship to Julliard…and that his mom was a famous ballerina…and that he has a genius level I.Q…and that nowadays he’s a professional video poker player and writer. Well, however improbable…it’s ALL TRUE! (At least the stuff I was able to verify.)

That’s not to say that this guy isn’t a real WEIRDO — he totally IS! He kinda looks like Steve Buscemi after a three-week coke-and-ham binge, if that makes any sense. But as you all know, I only like weirdos and freaks, so he was right up my alley. We had a great time catching up over dinner at NOVE (ah, how I hate these pretentious all-caps restaurant names) at the Palms, where supposedly he is a big wheel video poker player. I can’t vouch as to the size of his wheel (or anything else, for that matter), but he did get everything comped by his genial, obsequious casino host, who hovered attentively by our side throughout the evening…so who knows.

Anyhoo, after dinner and catch-up we went down to the lounge to see the Frankie Moreno band play. I wan’t expecting much…but thanks to copious amounts of Baileys, in addition to the impressive talents of the band…I was pleasantly surprised! Not your average Vegas lounge schlock. I’d recommend you go check them out, but I think they just moved to the Stratosphere. Anyhoo, my kooky Steve Buscemi friend had such a good time with me that he invited me back the following weekend to some Halloween party they were throwing for all their high rollers, held up in the Hardwood Suite (a themed suite that has a full basketball court inside). I’ve always wanted to check that shit out!

Before the party, I had to work a shift at the lamest-ass of all lame-ass shows — taking souvenir photos at America’s Got Talent Live! Srsly?!? It’s not even a real show, but they made us go in, anyway. Shockingly, it wasn’t as bad as expected — those people actually acted like they were going to a real show; they were dressed up in date-night clothes and weren’t afraid to spend a buck on photos. Apparently, some people have even worse taste than *I* do! Anyhoo, I still made shitty money because it wasn’t that good — just better than expected. I didn’t care either way — I just wanted to get the fuck out of there and put on my zombie showgirl costume and get to this basketball suite party!!!

Anyhoo, the party was OK but I got there after all the cool stuff went down, so most people had already left 🙁 We hung out awhile boozing and whatnot, and my kooky Steve Buscemi friend’s host became enamored with my infectious spirit and insisted that I come to all future Palms player parties…so now I’m in with the Palms crowd! I also met a few of kooky Steve Buscemi’s professional gambler pals, and boy what a crowd of characters. That’s usually the way it is with pro gamblers…they’re nutty. Anyhoo, after a couple hours we headed out to the nightclub for awhile, but it was so crowded with sloppy sluts in stupid half-assed sexy Halloween costumes that we got the hell out of there pretty quick. By then it was around 3am, so we went over to the coffee shop for a late-nite bite — and guess what?! I ordered steamed vegetables and tofu!!! At 3am!!! No pancakes and shit for me…I’m hardcore.

Speaking of Halloween, I didn’t want to overdo it this year. Last year, I had a job writing for the paper and I felt obligated to go out 6 nights in a row…and got sick as a result. This year, I had no bogus obligations. so I only went out 3 or 4 nights…much more sensible! The first party was at the studio of a well-known local photographer with whom I’ve been wanting to shoot — he’s really good, but he mostly shoots professional shit like hardcore pro whores for magazine covers and stuff. Out of my league! But I figured if I went to this party, I might get to know him, and who knows?!

The party was pretty cool. The local Vegas tradition is that every year, comedy magician The Amazing Johnathan throws a HUGE bash out at this warehouse he owns over by the airport. For years people have talked about his sick-ass parties, and I always wanted to go but never had an invite. Last year I finally went, and it was sick — booze everywhere, a really twisted homemade haunted house/maze, and the SwingShiftSideShow onstage stabbing spears through their labia and whatnot. CRAZY! I like to froze my tits off in my zombie Sarah Palin costume (at right), and as mentioned I got sick as a result…but soooo totally worth it! Unfortunately, that was the last year The Amazing Johnathan hosted a party…so starting this year, he passed the torch to local photographer Shane O’Neal, who has a badass studio right across from the Orleans Hotel.

Also unfortunately, this year my Sarah Palin costume was no longer topical (actually, maybe that isn’t so unfortunate)…so I had to figure out something else. I went into the depths of my closet and emerged with this quasi-Marie Antoinette getup, which I gave a topical spin to by adding a little “I am the 1%” sign — a nod to the #OccupyWallStreet protesters. If anyone was ever a greedy fucking fat cat, it was Marie Antoinette! She’d be right up there with those Wall Street bankers, stomping her little silver toes on my fingers as I cling to the ledge of my house, dangling above a yawning chasm of financial apocalypse. Fuckers!!! LET THEM EAT COCK, I say!

Aaaaaaanyhoo, my costume turned out pretty cool for being constructed out of odds-n-ends already in my closet, and Shane O’Neal expressed interest in shooting me in it sometime! So if he doesn’t flake, I might have some extremely badass new photos to share with you soon. I have a great idea for this shoot, so I hope he doesn’t welsh on this.

Now the parties I’ve already mentioned were all well and good, but it was really all about the big Second Annual Las Vegas Halloween Parade, which is held downtown. I wasn’t able to attend last year (because of stupid work, what else), but this year I was DETERMINED to participate. And it was even badder-ass than I expected!

First of all, let me just say how far Vegas has come since I moved here back in 2000. Back then, I laughed snarkily at the pathetic early attempts at creating an “arts” district…but I gotta say, I STAND CORRECTED. Over the last decade, tons of really cool, artsy, creative people have taken over Vegas — so much so that one needn’t even bother with the douchebaggery of the Strip and the suburbs, ever. You can find alllllll the fun you need downtown. It’s amazing, and I’m actually kinda proud of Vegas for it. I was a pretty big Vegas hater for many years, but I’m glad I stuck it out. I really like living here!

The Halloween Parade is a good example. This young go-getter chick who moved here from New York started it all up from scratch last year, and it really took off — people I talked to came from as far away as Vancouver and Michigan just to take part! It was sort of half Gay Pride, half Burning Man — in fact, many Burners live in Vegas nowadays, and many of them brought their art cars as Parade floats! This one group of Burners even came all the way down from Santa Cruz in their spaceship, built on a flatbed truck chassis with a cherry picker scissor lift on the back that raises a giant neon spaceship into the night sky, while electronic music blares and booms from the giant sound system inside. They’re called the Dancetronauts, and it’s a bunch of hot-ass young guys in white NASA flight suits and a few scantily-clad Sparkle Bunny go-go dancers for good measure. Their impressive glowing spaceship brought up the rear of the parade as it wound its way downtown, and then they set up in the parking lot of the Gold Spike for a big ol’ good old-fashioned rave, right in the heart of downtown Vegas. Gooooooooooooooood times!

The rest of the parade was pretty badass, too: it started with ex-Mayor Oscar Goodman and his wife (the current Mayor) and a bunch of showgirls, followed by this amazing group of musical Towncars called the Car-i-llon — like a carillon, but each car cruises along and plays one note, and they all play together to create music. REALLY neat! Then there were some lame commercial floats sponsored by Dos Equis and Zappos.com (I despise Zappos, despite their being heralded as the saviors of downtown Vegas since they are moving their company headquarters there from Henderson…I worked a charity Halloween golf tournament for them last year, as a sexy caddy, and none of the teams bid on me. Not one! Could it have been my zombie Sarah Palin costume? I’ll never know…but I can hold a grudge like nobody’s business…and to this day I refuse to buy anything from zappos.com. Shoes.com all the way, baby!!!).

Anyhoo, next in the parade was a marching procession of fire spinners and drummers, and I marched with them for awhile until I was able to hitch a ride on the most fabulous float of them all — this 8-person bar/bicycle belonging to the geniuses at camp Kosmik Dust. Some mad scientist/boozer devised this awesome contraption that is basically a long rectangular bar, with four seats on each side, facing inward toward the “bar.” Each barstool is a bicycle seat, with pedals, and the 8 passengers pedal the bike! REALLY cool. At Burning Man, they had a bartender in the middle serving drinks and steering…but even Vegas has some liquor laws, so it was dry for the parade. But it was still SO MUCH FUN!

The parade wound around downtown to Fremont Street, where my friend, local poet/gadabout/attorney Dayvid Figler, emceed the judging for Best Costume and all that shit. Then the parade continued on down to the Gold Spike, where the Dancetronauts’ rave was on in full force. I partied hard with some Burner friends, then hitched a ride back to my car on this AWESOME flying carpet art car built by one of my drum-circle friends — he basically built a wavy platform on top of a little electric car, and covered it in an Oriental carpet, and it looks totally Aladdin! It only goes 7mph though, so the ride back was long and cold and lonely without all the shenanigans of the parade to distract us. But it was still surreal and BADASS to traverse the dark, quiet backstreets of Vegas on a magic carpet, dressed like Marie Antoinette. Who says I don’t have any fun?!

What’s great about this Parade is that it’ll likely get better every year — eventually, this could be like our Mardi Gras! Imagine if all the big casinos built floats, and the parade went all the way from Mandalay Bay, down the Strip, all he way downtown to good old Fremont Street??! How sick would that be??? People would come from all over to see that shit –those big resorts could build some sick-ass floats. I can only imagine the majesty of the Caesars Palace float…not to mention O’Shea’s!!!! GET ON IT, VEGAS! This could be our big break!!!

The only bummer about the Halloween parade was that our float picked up a few kids that were hanging out downtown, and one of the little fuckers tried to steal my purse when we got off! I saw him take it and hide it under his jacket, and you better believe I grabbed that little dick with a quickness! I bitched him out, but his sister intervened and plead with me to let him go, so I just sputtered “Well–DON’T do it again, then!” He was only about 10, but still. Jeez!

The shittiness of that assy kid was redeemed the next morning, however, when I dragged my hungover ass out of bed to attend this protest against the Westboro Baptist Church. I reeeeeally didn’t feel like getting up and going, but I made myself — these are the assholes who hold up those “GOD HATES FAGS” signs at soldiers’ funerals and shit, so it was important. I planned to wear a super-slutty, scandalous outfit to really piss ’em off, but I was too hungover to make the first part of the protest, which was at UNLV (our local university). I was only able to get there in time for Part 2, which was a high school down the street from my house — and since I didn’t want to get arrested for indecent exposure in front of a high school, I toned it down a little for propriety’s sake 🙂

Anyhoo, it was pretty cool because there were quite a few people protesting the two or three Westboro bozos who showed up. I didn’t have time to make a really good sign, so I just half-assed it by flipping over my #OccupyVegas protest sign and scribbling an atheist platitude on it with a half-dead Sharpie. Good enough! I hooted and hollered for awhile, and these kids came by and asked to take my photo because they were budding atheists, too (or maybe they just wanted to jerk off to the photo, I don’t know. They said they were atheists). Anyhoo, the nascent atheist ideology and enthusiasm of those kids effectively negated the anger I felt toward kids in general after that little punk downtown tried to steal my purse.

Anyhoo, I couldn’t stay at the Westboro protest very long because this photographer from New York was on my ass — he was in town photographing and interviewing people facing foreclosure for some media company, and somehow through my aunt, he was referred to me. He and his sound guy came over one night to interview me about my housing mess, and then they wanted to come back Tuesday afternoon to do some photos of me modeling nude (I told them I started doing nudies to pay the bills…which is true, only now I actually LIKE doing them, and will continue to model even if I win 50 million dollars next week). My roommate sneaked this pic of them interviewing me, and it’s PRICELESS — look at the sound guy’s mike!!! Looks like a porn set to me!

So anyway, I left the protest and went home to pose for some weird photos for this guy. I didn’t get it — I thought he was more into an edgy, gritty photojournalist style…but he ended up posing me in my fishnet Westboro protest outfit, laying on my chaise lounge in the backyard. I have a sneaking suspicion I was just Diane Arbused! We’ll see………..

Now in the middle of all this, my friend J.R. came to town for The Big Smoke — a cigar-smokers’ convention sponsored by Cigar Aficionado magazine every year. I’m no fan of cigars, but I AM a fan of dressing up like Chita Rivera after 10 too many mojitos!! I whipped together a 1940s-Havana-inspired ensemble and went over to party it up, in between coughing fits. Bleccccch! It was a lot of fun, though, and J.R. and I made quite an impression….as we always do! Everyone wanted to take our photo, and in fact it will be in next month’s Cigar Aficionado…so look for that!

 

After the party, J.R. went back to his hotel room for a Big Smoke of our own…and it was like a junior high school slumber party! We bitched and moaned and gossiped late into the night, and it was therapeutic…because boy oh boy did I have stuff to bitch about. As mentioned, my mediation hearing for my mortgage was last week, and it didn’t go so well… to make a REALLY LONG, LAME story short, I told them I wasn’t interested in/couldn’t afford keeping my house unless the bank wrote down my principal. I owe $375,000 on a house worth (by the bank’s own appraisal) $105,000. I’ve already paid in $125,000….why would I want to pay in more?! It’s insanity!

The way these mediation hearings work is, the lender sends a representative, and you attend with your attorney, and there’s an impartial third-party mediator who sits in to sort of referee. In my case, no ref was needed — I made the abovementioned statement, and the lender’s rep sadly shook her head: no dice. You could tell she totally understood my point, but she was not authorized to offer any principal writedown, whatsoever. I pretty much expected it, so it didn’t faze me much — the only time a few tears leaked out was when she showed me the appraisal. All these photos of my pretty little house, which some creepy appraiser drove by and snapped…somehow it made everything more real, and I cried a few tears.

But I wasn’t surprised, so after my few tears dried I was fine. The rest of the meeting was devoted to my options, which are short selling or foreclosing. The official results of the mediation hearing were “unresolved,” so I guess I’m in a sort of limbo. My initial impulse was to short sell — I want to at least try and extricate myself from this mess as responsibly as possible, and leave less of a mess for my neighbors. But unless the bank signs a special waiver, they have SIX YEARS to come after you for the deficiency you owe (whatever the difference is between your loan amount and the short sale amount — in my case, I’d be selling for $105,000, which is $270,000 less than the $375,000 I owe them). So unless they signed this waiver, they’d have six years to come after me for more money. A lot of people think it’s 6 months…but my attorney said if you read the law exactly as written, it is six YEARS. That’s a long time!

Meanwhile, they only have six MONTHS to come after you if you just walk away. How stupid is that?! You’re basically encouraging people to abandon their homes. Plus, the foreclosure process can take years to complete…so all the while, you’re basically living rent-free in your house — until they stick a sale notice on the door, at which time you have 30 days to get out.

My attorney did bring up a third option, which involved filing for bankruptcy and is very clever — yet too convoluted for me. I’m too confused by all this, and in way over my head. I am a textbook example of why some people are NOT cut out to be homeowners! I just want OUT. J.R. and I did go visit another attorney the next day, who explained the bankruptcy plan in more detail. He ended up yelling at me for asking too many questions…but what the fuck! It’s my life and future I’m talking about — I need to be absolutely certain shit’s on the up-and-up here!

Poor J.R. had to listen to me bitch and moan all week long as I agonized back and forth about what to do. I must have changed my mind fifty times, trying to figure out what’s the best thing to do. I lost a LOT of sleep, bawled my eyes out every single day, and felt VERY haggard (and I had TWO photo shoots this week). It caused a lot of stress for him, I’m sure, but then he’s going through some tough times of his own anyway, so he was already in a bad way. I didn’t realize just how much of a bad way until the day he was supposed to leave — when he changed his mind and stayed an extra few days. He did not want to go back home and face his problems, so he stayed over a few days to look into some investment opportunities here. Then, when his second departure date arrived, I took him to the airport…….and he purposely missed his flight! He checked in all his bags and stuff, but then wandered around the airport pissing away time until it was too late, and the last flight of the day had left.

Meanwhile, I was going through hell trying to figure out my house thing. I was bawling my eyes out 24/7, while still trying to keep a sexy face for these fucking photo shoots I was doing, and I just didn’t have it in me to console him over whatever he didn’t want to go back home to. To make matters worse, he was being kinda mean to me at dinner one night —  I don’t remember what he said exactly, but he hurt my feelings so badly that I got up and hit him with my purse in the middle of P.F. Chang’s and stormed out. Seriously!

J.R. and I made up the next day, but I guess the whole scene made his depression worse — after missing his flight, he left the airport and disappeared into some shitty little dive motel near the airport — he won’t even tell me which one! Normally, he always stays someplace nice…so this is really out of character. He’s always wanted to “diasppear,” like in the movies…so this is like his dry run, I guess. As we speak, he’s holed up in some shitty hovel somewhere with nothing but the clothes on his back and his laptop. He doesn’t even have WiFi — which was a big deal to him (I hate to tell him about some of the places I’ve stayed in!). And he’s been there two days! I’m kind of worried…but I think it might actually be good for him — even though he says he was rolled by a hooker the other night to the tune of $2,000. Either way, I’m so fucking stressed about my house I can’t handle any more worries!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyhoo, speaking of destruction, here’s the hot new stocking stuffer this Christmas season! Here’s what it says on the back of the box:

“Wannabe showgirl Wonderhussy was rejected from the Jubilee! auditions for being too short…so in a furious rage, she takes on Vegas. Level one: destroy legions of balloon-breasted, fish-lipped, white-haired, orange-skinned whores at a Vegas pool party! Shoot ’em right in the tits, then watch their implants explode for a Goo Bonus. Level Two: hunt down hydrocephalic muscleheads at a nightclub: each dead body in a TapOut t-shirt is 50 points, Affliction shirts are 100 pts, and the elusive Ed Hardy shirt gets you 500 pts!! Level 3: Dodge and weave among porn-slappers, prostitutes, crackheads in Barney costumes and daiquiri-toting frat boys as you race the clock, Frogger-style, attempting to cross Vegas Blvd. Don’t get hit by the “Hot Girls Direct to Your Room” truck!!! Final Round: face off against the Boss, a/k/a the meathead douchebag nightclub doorman. Tip: steal his BlackBerry, and he’s powerless! Once you’ve defeated him, watch in glee as the city crumbles to dust…then get the fuck out.”

 

 

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Jerry Springer, Part II

Time for the latest installment of All My Children…which is what my life has felt like lately! This week’s episode is brought to you by Charles Shaw Vineyards: when your life is a mess, Two Buck Chuck makes it allllllllllllll seem manageable 🙂

After posting my last week’s blog, I got a very long, sincere, heartfelt apology/explanation from Sgt. Peanut. The gist of it was that he was truly sorry to have gotten me involved in all this, and that he had in fact broken up with the “girlfriend” (the slightly off-kilter Asian woman who approached me at the bar, wept, and then lavished me with excessive praise and flattery) back around New Year’s…but she was having trouble letting go.

This was all totally plausible, and the more I think about it, I believe him. She’s nuts. However…literally about 15 minutes after posting that last blog, I got a Facebook message from ANOTHER woman: “I hope you don’t find my contacting you odd, but I’ve been reading your blog for a few months now…and I am also dating Sgt. Peanut!”

WTF! A few email exchanges revealed that this third woman, we’ll call her Nancy, had been dating Peanut on and off since last year. According to her, they didn’t really do much at first, since she could tell he was still entangled with the nutty ex, and Nancy herself was still sort of mixed up in another dying relationship. But supposedly, around New Year’s, Peanut informed her that he had officially broken up…so they began dating for real.

Nancy said she knew the nature of their relationship was casual, and not exclusive — she suspected he was dating other people, and then too she knew he was a swinger, since he took her to some swinger parties in town. She said he had a regular swinger couple, in fact, with whom he “played” on a regular basis. (At the risk of offending all the swingers out there…I find the whole “lifestyle” of “playing” smarmy and creeeeeepy…I’ve spent a fair amount of time at swing parties and clubs, and it’s just not for me.)

Anyhoo, around the beginning of summer, Nancy felt that Peanut was growing distant and less available, so she spied on his Facebook page and saw “Sgt. Peanut ‘likes’ Wonderhussy” (you should all “like” it too, incidentally). Curious, she clicked on the link and began reading this blog. The more she read, the more she realized he was dating me and her at the same time (as well as others, she suspected…plus the “play” couple).

She said she never contacted me because she already knew the nature of hers and Peanut’s relationship was casual, so she didn’t feel like it was her place to get involved. Supposedly she loved reading my blog, though, and as time went by she realized I was liking him more and more…so she broke up with him. Not just because of me, though — apparently he got back into it with the nutty ex sometime in the spring, and the whole scene was just too complicated for Nancy to stomach.

So they broke up, but had lately been talking about getting together for dinner sometime to hash things out. They had ended up arranging to go out last Thursday — but with all these new developments (the events of last weekend), Nancy wasn’t sure if she should still go meet him.

I said ABSOLUTELY you should go meet him — and let me know where you’ll be, so I can show up either in disguise (to spy on him) or in my Wonder Woman costume (to kick his ass). But apparently, Peanut ended up cancelling the date — he suspected a setup, only he thought it was the nutty ex behind it and not me. They ended up rescheduling for Friday night, and that was the last I heard…Nancy mysteriously stopped emailing me, after a virtual barrage of long, heartfelt, “just between us girls”-type emails. WEIRD!

The last missive I got from her was after Peanut had called her to cancel their Thursday date. Supposedly they talked on the phone, and while she didn’t mention having talked to me, she told him she’d been reading my blog, and what the hell was up? According to her, he admitted to her that we HAD been seeing each other…just in a very casual way. He told her I was dating other people, too, so he hadn’t thought  it was a big deal.

She said he spoke fairly highly of me, and she thought he really was truly fond of me…and she said she’d fill me in on the results of their dinner date. But she never emailed me again, so I have no idea what happened.

After thinking things over, I’ve come to realize that this whole fiasco was caused by one thing: lack of communication. Peanut assumed I was dating other people — rightly so, since most of my friends are men. But I don’t sleep with any of them — and that’s the crux of my problem. Remember when I said I was “a whore in public, and a lady in the bedroom?” Well, that’s my curse — people think I’m the swingin’est whore of Babylon that ever lived, but in reality, I’m just a niiiiiiiiice girl 🙁 I know it’s my own fault, because I enjoy shocking people, running around naked and otherwise pissing on the moral code of the bourgeoisie…but I can’t help myself. I don’t want to change.

Meanwhile, all along in the back of my head I suspected/knew that Peanut was seeing other people — ever since the amateur porn party, I had him pegged as a true freak. But I guess I was too lazy to really think about it, and how it made me feel…so I just kept chugging along, figuring things would work themselves out one way or the other. I suppose what I SHOULD have done was have one of those awful, awkward “Sooo, what are your intentions for my daughter?” kind of talks…but being the passive puss that I am, I hate that kind of stuff and avoid those confrontations whenever possible!

Either way, the nutty ex showing up like that REALLY fucked things up. Because she took me by such complete surprise, I completely believed her entire story. I wouldn’t have been so upset to find out that Peanut was dating other women at the same time as me (as mentioned, I already suspected as much). It was “finding out” that he was in a committed 2.5-year relationship with someone, and talking kids and marriage, that freaked me out!!!

So now, with a week’s perspective, I see it all as a massive failure to communicate, and not really anyone’s fault. HOWEVER, it was DEFINITELY his fault to bail on me in the middle of a date like that, and not bother to explain anything that was going on! He basically threw me to the wolves. Nice! And I still think there’s more to the story than any of this weird cast of characters has been telling me. If he really “broke up” with the nutty ex around New Year’s, why did he get back into it with her in the springtime? Or did Nancy just make that up?

Arrrgh, it’s all very confusing, so I am washing my hands of the matter and moving on. Dating in Vegas is a real bitch….especially for someone like me. The old biddy at work who’s always giving me advice (“Listen to Mother Jane!”) just gave me a stern talking-to about the way I present myself — she said I give up too much information up front, and that I need to keep an air of mystery about myself or no “nice” man will ever want me (she’s a firm devotee of that dumbass book “The Rules”). Apparently I’m supposed to string a guy along for a few dates, being coy and demure, and then when he starts to really like me, THEN I can spring the whole naked-godless-bohemian-iconoclast shtick on him. In theory, by then he’ll be so smitten and hooked, he won’t mind.

Meanwhile, my friend Muscles Manischewitz also had some advice for me: no guy is ever going to accept me as a naked, godless, bohemian iconoclast. They will at first — just to get in my pants. But according to him, no man wants to seriously date a naked, godless bohemian iconoclast…after awhile, they’ll either move on or expect me to change.

Well, gee. I guess this means that I’ll be staying single — because there’s no way in hell I’m changing myself that drastically. I’d rather be alone and be myself — I learned that the hard way, when I was with my one ex-boyfriend (the one I bought my house with). He was much more conservative than me, and made me keep all my “kooky” stuff (art supplies, mannequin, costumes) in a room in the basement. Boosauce!

Sooooooo, Wonderhussy 2.0 is back on the streets, looking for action. It didn’t take long for me to set my sights on a new target: these two hot Croatian cellists who play in the band at the show I’m working at. As you know, I am a souvenir photographer at a certain ginormous showroom in town, and a new headliner just began a 3-year engagement — a 1970s gay piano-playing icon we’ll call Captain Fantastic. He played Vegas a few years back, at the height of the economic boom, and back then times were faaaaaaabulous — we made assloads of money, hand over fist, photographing showgoers posed at this little red grand piano out in the lobby. We’d dress ’em up with feather boas and kooky sunglasses, and it was genuinely good times — the only time, in fact, when I truly loved my job.

Well, now the bitch is back…but alas, this is 2011. The crowds are nowhere as lavish with their spending, and the show itself has been toned down considerably. The old show was totally over the top — inflatable boobs and bananas all over the stage, with exceptionally lurid, fantastic videos by my hero David Lachapelle playing on a giant screen behind everything. Meanwhile, the crowd was totally over the top as well — people were busted doing drugs, masturbating, having sex and pissing in the aisles during the show. GOOD TIMES! (I’m being serious…I loved that crowd, and would take it any day of the week over the roomsful of dour, humorless Quebecois attracted by Sally Dingdong.)

So anyhoo, the new show is basically the same as the old show, sans inflatables and lurid videos. Instead of Lachapelle vidoes, a series of fairly cheesy CGI animations play on the screen — stuff like morphing curlicues and cartoons that would be of interest mainly to stoners and heroin addicts. However, there are a couple of FANTASTIC additions to the show — one being an AMAZING percussionist who rocks the SHIT out of an array of crazy instruments. And the second being these two smoking hot Croatian cellists.

I first saw these two guys on the Ellen DeGeneres show about 6 months ago. I was running on the treadmill at the gym (the only place I’d get caught dead watching TV) and almost fell off the treadmill when I saw them, so I went home and looked them up. Little did I expect that 6 months later, I’d be up close and personal with ’em. Alas, however, a VIP insider friend at the showroom told me they’re gay…but I’m not sure, because they ARE European, after all… and sometimes it can be hard to discern: Gay or European?

Anyhoo, the new show just started last Tuesday, and thanks to my VIP insider friend I scored a free 5th-row ticket for opening night. Without the inflatables and the bananas, though, I must admit to being pretty bored with the show — I almost wanted to bail after the first few songs. But then the cellists came out, and gave me something to watch! It ended up being a pretty good show, especially during the latter part, when they invite people up onstage to come dance with Captain Fantastic. I was one of those lucky people, and danced my ass off with nothing more than a velvet rope separating me from Captain Fantastic and his piano. Unfortunately, I was so swept up in the moment that I focused all my attention on the Captain, and forgot that a mere  5 feet behind me were two smoking hot Croatian cellists 🙁 Damn! Valuable flirtation time, wasted. Still, I saw them again the next night out in the casino, and was at least able to kick them a little game…although my gay suspicions were confirmed by the company they were keeping.

Speaking of gay, Captain Fantastic is well known as one of the world’s most outspoken advocates for gay rights, so he attracts a hug gay following. Opening night was wall-to-wall well-heeled homos and fag-hags, with a few celebrities and other notables thrown in for good measure. In fact, none other than Doogie Howser, M.D. aka Neil Patrick Harris was in the crowd. Fabulous!! I gotta say, even though the crowd this time around isn’t quite what it was last time…I still really enjoy shooting this show. Yay for not being miserable at work!!

Aside from work, I also went topless kayaking with my little 18-year-old girlfriend, this super cool chick I work with we’ll call “Samantha.” Her dad has been chainsmoking Marlboros for years, and they saved up so many “Marlboro Miles” that they got a free kayak out of it, which we took out to Lake Mead for an afternoon of fun in the sun. Neither of us wanted tan lines, but I wasn’t sure if she’d be comfortable going topless in front of me, so I brought her a pair of pasties I’d gotten from one of the topless pools, and for myself just used a couple squares of duct tape. Of course, the first thing that happened to us was some pervy old nudist in a stretched-out Speedo who was picking up trash on the beach came over and chatted us up. I’m used to this kinda thing — I thrive on conversations with pervy old nudists and other nuts — but Samantha was like, WTF! Especially when he pulled down his Speedo to show his “tan line,” thus exposing his nasty-ass shaved dick-n-balls. I mean, seriously?! Did I NEED to that plucked-chicken-neck-looking thing, good sir???

After kayaking around the lake all afternoon, we went back into town to go check out this awesome haunted house one of my actor friends is working at, playing a vampire. I met this guy at the mascot convention thing that I worked awhile back, and he’s basically a full-time actor — he was even in Pirates of the Caribbean as some sort of bit-part scurvy knave! He’s super nice, and he got Samantha and I into the haunted house for free, and it was really cool — especially when he busted out a surprise “Birthday-Party-in-a-Bag” he’d made for me after reading about my shitty-ass birthday. It was too cute — he stuffed a gift bag full of b-day stuff like a card, gift, cupcake, hat and noisemaker. Too cool! After we went through the haunted house, I went downtown with him and his wife and friends to celebrate his birthday, which happened to be that day. His friends were very cool people who all work at the Natural History Museum together, and get together for these crazy godless holiday parties: they burn a Yule Goat at Christmas, and eat turducken and qua-duc-ant at Thanksgiving, among other crazy traditions. They invited me to their parties this year, and it’s enough to make me wanna stay in Vegas for the holidays! Normally I go home to California every year — I find the idea of staying in Vegas for Xmas extremely depressing. But my newspaper reporter friend Phil Connors says his best Xmases EVER were in Vegas — dinner at the Peppermill followed by holiday lap dances at the OG strip club. Then again, he’s Jewish, and thus used to weird holidays…so I dunno.

Anyhoo, while I was downtown with my new posse of museum friends, I realized once again how much I LOVE downtown Las Vegas. Really, anyone who’s ANYONE prefers downtown to the Strip these days. I’ve long preferred the seediness of Fremont Street to the sanitized corporate behemoths on the Strip, but lately there’s been somewhat of a hipster renaissance down there and now EVERYONE goes downtown. It’s kind of annoying — all my old parking spots are now taken, but the trade-off is there are more cool bars, restaurants, art and events down there.

I’m not even just talking about Fremont Street (the tourist zone that’s covered with the light show ceiling). I’m talking about ALL of downtown! I stopped for a snack at this new little kiosk on the street corner across from the OG strip club called “I Love Arepas,” and it is FANTASTIC! Arepas are these weird little Venezuelan corn pockets stuffed with various fillings — I had some down at a bus depot in the Venezuelan hinterlands back in ’09, but these were 100 times better! (They don’t like Americans down there, so someone probably pissed in my Arepa at that bus depot…which would explain it.) Anyhoo, “I Love Arepas” sells a buncha different type arepas for $3.50 each, and they are AWESOME! Plus, you get to sit right out on the street while you eat, and watch the weirdos go by. As mentioned, it’s right across from a strip club, and also near a dive bar and an all-night drugstore populated by pimps, prostitutes and crackheads. It’s GREAT!

As I drove down to Fremont St. on my way to meet my museum friends, I passed all the aforementioned nuttiness, plus a number of crazy boutiques, pawn shops (including the one from Pawn Stars), peepshows and wedding chapels full of tourists in prom wear. Then I saw a homeless man with a long white Santa Claus beard, shuffling drunkenly down Fremont St. in a t-shirt printed to look like a Santa suit. What a nutty fucking city, I thought — the perfect place for me! It’s rare that I feel any sort of fondness for Vegas, but downtown does it for me. And now I wanna move closer to the action!

My current humble estate, Villa Sinvergüenza, is technically considered to be “downtown,” but it’s probably a mile or two from the actual epicenter. And while I love my house (enough to bash my head repeatedly against a wall for the last 3 years, struggling with my lender to modify my awful unaffordable loan)…I am finally coming to the realization that I wouldn’t die if I had to move out. I bought the place for $380,000 and zillow.com currently values it at $91k. WTF! Meanwhile, I found a genteel hovel in the middle of downtown for $60,000. It’s nowhere near as nice as my current estate — faaaar from it, in fact — but it’s sixty thousand dollars! I could pay for it, CASH, and never have to make another mortgage payment for the rest of my life. Which means I could stop posing for stupid lesbian photos and kissing tourist ass!

I have a mediation hearing on my current loan coming up on Oct. 26th. At this meeting, my attorney and I are supposed to sit down with my lender’s representative, plus an impartial 3rd-party mediator, and hash out a deal that’s amenable to all parties. But I have my doubts. All I can really afford to pay on a mortgage is $1000 per month, and thanks to my friend J.R.’s amortization calculator I found out that means that for my $340,000 loan, they’d have to give me an interest rate of 1.8%. HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other option, of course, is for the bank to write down my principal to what the house is actually worth. I don’t think $91,000 is an accurate amount — zillow.com valued the boarded-up abandoned marijuana grow house next door, which has sat empty for over a year, at $150,000 — so obviously these numbers need tweaking. I’d say my house is worth more like $150k too. But it’ll be a cold day in hell before the bank cuts my principal IN HALF 🙁

Soooooooooo…I am completely and utterly lost. HELP! When this whole fucking mess started — when my ex-boyfriend left me with this insanely ill-advised, no-doc, robo-signed, fraud-ridden mortgage, I should have just walked away then and there. Why didn’t I? A sense of moral obligation, reinforced by my second ex-boyfriend (“You signed that loan, you should honor it”), Mother Jane (“Whatever you do, don’t ruin your credit”) and even one of those free consumer credit counseling services (“Your moral obligation is to honor the agreement you made with your lender”). FUCK!

If I had walked away then, I’d be richer, happier, and probably able to sleep. As it stands, I’m a hot fucking mess. I weep just about every day, because I’m so utterly confused and alone in all this. What I need right now is to blow a Senator or some other corrupt fucking good-old-boy in a position of influence, and get them to work out a special deal for me. OR, I just need someone to buy me this other $60,000 house. I’ll pay you back within 6 months, I promise!

Or, I need Jebus to come down and smite my enemies, and make everything better. But that doesn’t seem very likely, either. Arrrrrgh!

P.S. My depression this week was so deep that I wasn’t even able to enjoy a trip to the annual Las Vegas Bikefest with my friend Muscles…although while there, I did pick up this pair of metal testicles for my keychain. Next time someone’s trying to push me around, I’ll use them as my magic talisman…a reminder that despite my anatomy, I DO have ballz and I will not stand to be fucked with! Not by bankers, bosses OR boyfriends!

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