Month: March 2012

Nips and Lips

So the Supreme Court is debating the constitutionality of universal healthcare, and all over the news you see throngs of people protesting the Affordable Healthcare Act.

WHY???

As an UNINSURABLE AMERICAN, let me tell you my side of the story. (Skip this rant if you must…nakey pix and whatnot below.)

I have a job I DESPISE, at which I make less and less money every year. Even though it is hardly cost-effective to keep the job, I hang onto it…because I get health insurance through my employer. It costs me around $170 a month, with hefty co-pays…but I keep it anyway, just in case I get in a car wreck or I get cancer or something. I’m TRYING to be RESPONSIBLE!

However, this particular line of work has been in steady decline for the last few years. I’ve been working at it for 12 years, but the money has declined so badly (it’s a dying industry) that about a year ago, I decided I’d be better off quitting and just freelancing, buying my own private health insurance thru Blue Cross Blue Shield or one of those companies. I’m young(ish), I work out religiously, I eat right, I don’t smoke, I have no genetic/hereditary diseases….I figured it would be cake.

WRONG!

To all you assholes raging about Obamacare, let me tell you how terrifying this is. I feel like I woke up in a Kafka story.

I AM UNINSURABLE! WTF?!!

When you apply for individual insurance, the insurer scours your medical records and deducts points for every little thing you’ve ever gone to the doctor for. You’re allowed a grand total of somewhere around 70 points before they deny you — but I’m here to tell you, that shit adds up! I felt like a TOTAL LOSER looking at my rejection letter. They dock you points for EVERYTHING, from hemorrhoids to sinus infections. Still, I would have been OK if it weren’t for two things.

1. I was docked 100 POINTS for having been diagnosed as bipolar. This is an outrageous fucking scam — I do NOT consider myself bipolar. I was diagnosed by a young jackass doctor because I had (and still have) terrible insomnia. At the time of my diagnosis, I had just broken up with a longtime boyfriend, and I was losing my house. YA THINK????!!! OF COURSE I couldn’t sleep, asshole!! But the doc said, after FIVE MINUTES of talking to me (yes, literally FIVE minutes), that he could tell it was all because I’m bipolar.

I beg to differ with this diagnosis — I admit to being manic and hyper, but I do not have serious mood swings, nor do I engage in risky behavior and all the other shit they say in the DSM-IV. (OK, I know I engage in risky stuff like photo shoots with strange men in the middle of the desert…but I don’t do so compulsively; only to pay my bills.)

“Bipolar” is a totally subjective diagnosis. Can you PROVE I’m bipolar, asswad? And what the fuck ever happened to people just being sad sometimes?! Why does everything have to be a fuckin’ disease now?

Anyhoo, being bipolar added 100 points to my score — enough to automatically disqualify me from this particular insurer. But wait, there’s more!

2.  I was also docked 150 POINTS for having had a DUI (a fantastic story that I will share with you soon)! That counts as substance abuse. I’ll bet you didn’t realize a DUI could have such far-reaching consequences!!

Between the bipolar diagnosis and the DUI, I was docked 250 points of a max allowed 69.9. HAH!!!!!! What a fucking joke.

So, for the past year I’ve stayed in a job I hate, making less and less money, because I’m too scared to leave for fear I’ll get cancer and die for lack of insurance. WTF is wrong with our shitty fucking society???

Now that my house mess has been settled, I finally had time to pick up where I left off and try to figure this insurance clusterfuck out. It CAN’T be true that a healthy, young(ish) person like me isn’t even able to PAY for insurance! I’m basically doomed to die because I got a DUI and I get sad sometimes. (I’d argue both of those diagnoses are related to my losing battle to save my house…they took my house, and they took my insurability on top of it!! FUCKERS!)

In my research, I found something called the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (pcip.gov), a part of “Obamacare” that has been instituted to help the uninsurable get insurance. Through this program, I can get insurance for around $250 a month — the only catch is, you have to have been uninsured for 6 months before you’re eligible to apply.

So I faced a quandary. Should I quit now, wait six months, and then apply for PCIP? Or should I wait until after my annual OB/GYN appointment? I have a history of abnormal Pap test results, and I was afraid that if I got another bad result, and it turned out to be cancer, then I would REALLY be uninsurable, and I’d be stuck working my shitty job until I died of the cancer!!!

In the end, I decided to go through with my OB/GYN appointment. If it comes back as cancer, I guess I’ll quit my job that same day…surely cervical cancer can’t grow THAT fast in 6 months! Once the 6 months elapses, if I’m still alive, I’ll apply for PCIP, and then get treatment.

Hope it works!!

All in all, it’s a sad fucking day when you have to calculate shit like that before quitting a job. This shitty society’s all fucked up!

***END OF RANT****

OK, now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

 To pick up from my last blog, it was St. Patrick’s Day, and despite feeling kinda sick and run-down, and despite a cold front having blown in from someplace shitty, I almost felt obligated to go out. This despite the fact that I’ve always despised St. Patrick’s Day — I hate beer, I hate drunk mooks, and for some reason I’ve always hated Irish music and Irish pubs. But the local Burning Man group was doing a crazy leprechaun-themed pub crawl, and I do love me some dress-up…so I put together and ensemble and went downtown to join in the revelry. My mood was soured right away, though, when I couldn’t find a place to fucking park — downtown Vegas has gotten waaaaay too big for its britches, with all these pretentious parking meters and parallel parking and shit. THIS IS VEGAS! We have nothing BUT wide, open spaces. Why the fuck should it be such a rigamarole to park?!?! I used to park in the Golden Nugget garage all the time when I went downtown, but now they only let hotel guests park there :/ They wouldn’t even let me valet park! I finally had to sort of lie, and imply that I was working at the nightclub there, before the valet ass finally took my car. By then, my mood was soured, and it was cold, and I felt shitty, and the party kinda sucked…but I couldn’t leave right away because I’d told that asswad in valet that I was working. I had to stay at least 2 hours (which is the length of a typical booze-promo-model shift, which was my backup story — “I’m doing a gig for Jameson’s!”). So I wandered around Fremont St in the cold, then finally went home. LAME!

After that, I was sick for a few days, and just kinda laid low. I actually watched some movies for the first time in MONTHS — normally I despise movies; they’ve given me nothing but false hopes and expectations for life. In real life, there are no corny happy endings — why would I want to subject myself to that crap?! I gritted my teeth through the lamesness of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (lame happy ending), then rolled my eyes through The Help. Finally I got to the new Charlize Theron movie Young Adult, which does NOT have a happy ending — FINALLY! A realistic fucking movie! And, sadly……I saw much of myself in that flick 😮

After a few days of resting, I got back out and about in the thick of things. A friend of mine hired me as props/wardrobe mistress on a corporate video shoot for a super-high-end watch company that wanted its sales force (they call them “ambassadors,” LOL) to make some fake James Bond commercials, as a sort of team-building thing. He knew I have a ton of costumes, so he subcontracted me to gather together all my James Bond-ish-type props and bring them down to this uber-pretentious hotel conference center, and help these watch ambassadors act out their commercials. FUN! The best part was working with the company’s super-anal, uptight European corporate brass — they were a RIOT!

Then it was out to the desert for some artistic nude modeling — this is the PERFECT time of year for outdoor shooting in the desert; not too hot, not too cold, not too many Germans wandering around. I did a few shoots, and for some reason, the guys lately were all about shooting straight up my crotch. I state clearly on my modeling site that I don’t do spread-eagles or clinical shots, but that didn’t stop these guys from trying!! It was exhausting, trying to keep my knees together in artsy poses, when the photogs kept nudging me to spread ’em. ARRRGH!! I SAID NO!

One shoot in particular was a DOOZY! A friend texted me late one night, saying a friend of his had someone who needed a model for a topless shoot, and they wanted to hire me. I said sure, but to let them know I don’t have much tits to speak of. That was not an issue — it was for a website called JustNips, which features photos of nothing but nipples — ALL types of nipples, from mosquito bites to dugs, puffies to crunchberries to pencil erasers to hubcaps. I went to the website (justnips.com) and just about DIED looking at all the random types of boobs out there — saggy, perky, flapjacks, apples, bazongas, etc.

So I went over for the shoot, and it was the same story — the guy WOULDN’T STOP trying to shoot up my crack!!! “Why the fuck is your site called ‘JUST NIPS’ if you’re also trying to shoot my vagina?!” I finally asked. He muttered something about site members being disappointed if he didn’t get some bottom shots in there, too. Whatever! The 2 hour shoot only paid $150!!!!!! GIVE ME A BREAK! I felt really skeevy after shooting with those people…they have some NASTY stuff on that site — pregnant girls with dildos, etc. Blecchh!

After that, I decided to steer clear of the adult world for awhile…so I busied myself with other activities: hiking around Bonnie Springs (this fake little old-timey Western town on the outskirts of Vegas) with my tranny friend; going to see the FABULOUS vintage-Vegas shtick of Art Vargas (varjazz.com) with my girlfriend from Arkansas, who’s in town for a trade show; and even cruising waaaaaay out to the edge of town, by Sunrise Mountain, to check out a horticulturist friend’s amazing desert garden. He gave me some tips and advice for my own yard, which sadly amounts to little more than a cinderblock square full of lava rock and dog shit…but I seriously doubt I’ll ever see the day my garden looks anything like his. I love plants and flowers, but I just don’t have enough TIME to cultivate ’em! I barely have time to do all the shit I already do, let alone plant stuff…but I plan to try anyway, since it seems like it would be very therapeutic.

I couldn’t avoid the adult world for very long, though — I was recently hired to write reviews for this new site that’s sort of like a XXX version of Yelp!, so they are having me go around to all the porno stores in town and review them. I did all this a couple years ago, when I was working for the local paper, but stuff changes pretty quikly in Vegas so I figured I’d better go around and check them all out again.

My first stop was this place over in the southwest part of town that has ambitions of being the World’s Biggest Adult Store — they are planning to expand to 10,000 feet spread out over two stories, with an indoor waterfall (!), but for now the economy has them stymied, so it’s just a regular old-fashioned adult novelty store with an attached arcade (what they call the little booths where men watch porn and jerk off) and an attached LIVE PEEPSHOW! Now THAT was interesting!!

In my experience, these kinds of places don’t like nosy reporters coming in asking all kinds of questions…so my cover story was that I was possibly interested in applying for a job as a peepshow dancer. The manager was totally excited, and gave me a job application and told me they’d hire me “on the spot…” but also gave me two free tokens to go in and check out the peepshow first, so I’d be able to get an idea of what I’d be doing.

I went into one of the booths, put the two tokens in the slots, and the shade on the window lifted up to reveal an unfortunate specimen with long, greasy hair and a wall-eyed stare, all trussed up in ripped fishnets and an old denim skirt. She danced fairly enthusiastically for me, but she could tell I wasn’t really getting off on it so she didn’t do anything over the top. I put $5 in the tip slot just to be polite, at which she whipped out her titties and sort of half-heartedly mooshed them together a few times. Meanwhile, I could see the room behind the Plexiglas panel separating us: a tiny shag-carpeted cubicle containing nothing but a bar stool, her purse and a dildo. No book, no TV, no magazines….how the hell does this poor bitch stay occupied between customers?!

The two tokens bought me five minutes of show, and JUST as the shade was finally, mercifully lowering…she reached for her dildo. Cliffhanger!! I assume she was trying to get me to put in two more tokens…but instead, I went around to the side and knocked on her door to ask her some questions. Again, pretending I was possibly interested in the job, I asked her a bunch of questions which I was actually sorry to get the answers to:

“So do you like working here?”

“Yeah!! Before this I was…well I was never a street walker or nothin’, but I was an escort on craigslist…” She went on to tell me about how she was raped and abused, and felt safer dancing in a little Plexiglas vestibule.

“But….is the money good???”

“Oh, yeah…one day I made $120…but it depends; it’s slow…one day alls I made was $20.”

“$20!! How long is a shift?”

“Eight hours.”

EIGHT HOURS!!! For $20 OR $120….either way, no thanks!!!

I thanked her and wished her luck, and got the fuck outta there. DEPRESSING! But the worst part is, there’s a second peepshow here in town…and that place is EVEN WORSE! I plan to go check that one out later this week. Fun!!!!!

Meanwhile, I finally went back to work as a souvenir photographer — the showroom where I work has been closed for awhile because the main headliner got bronchitis or something, but now they managed to lure back one of the other headliners, a spiky-haired British rocker known for his predilection for blondes one-third his age. Business has totally sucked for me personally, but at least I met a lot of interesting people — mostly Southern cougars, for some reason, with hair even bigger than mine. I’m not sure why Southern women love this guy so much…but they do, and it’s annoying.

Then one night my Arkansas girlfriend invited me over to LAVO, this lame, uber-douchey nightclub that was having an ’80s party hosted by none other than Debbie Gibson. I got there too late for the real party, though, because I was photographing fat Southern cougars…so I missed everything. In fact, the douchebag asswad at the door wouldn’t even let me in — he made me wait in line for about 20 minutes, til I got fed up and bailed, going over to the lounge to watch an ’80s headbanger cover band instead. And that was MUCH more fun, anyway! Fuck LAVO — if you are coming to Vegas and want to party, skip that place. It’s lame.

One other thing I did this week was check out a comedy hypnotist show with my trapeze artist friend. Now, these comedy hypnotists are a really big thing in Vegas — you know, they pull you up on stage and hypnotize you, making you do all kinds of embarrassing stuff like hump chairs, etc. There are several comedy hypnotists in town, and I’ve seen (and enjoyed) them all. I got the idea to befriend some hypnotists last year, hoping one of them might be able to cure my insomnia, so I hit the main guy up on Facebook, and he invited me to come see his show. It was great, and next he invited me over to his house for drinks. I was all excited — this man is known for giving people orgasms by simply shaking their hands, but I was slightly apprehensive about going to his house… would he hypnotize me into blowing him?! But he was way cool; he just mixed us drinks, and we went outside to play “Truth or Dare…” until he passed out naked on his patio. The last thing I saw was his wrinkly, slumbering ballsac as I quietly let myself out the gate, back to my truck and my insomnia. Fuck!!!!

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NASCAR and Toegate

Well gee, this past week or so has been nothing but a whirlwind of fun. But even a FUN whirlwind is a whirlwind…and it can be exhausting. Many’s the night I just wanted to STAY HOME and blog or read or just be mellow….but I kept getting invited out to all this awesome stuff, and I couldn’t say no. I blame my insomnia on this fortune I got back in 2010, inside a cookie from TAO: “Those who say YES have more fun.” Ever since then, I’ve said “YES” to just about all takers….and it’s wearing me the fuck out!!! If I wasn’t having dinner with a puppeteer friend, I was cruising around Lake Mead with another friend, ambling around Bonnie Springs Ranch with my tranny friend, or hanging out at a comedy club with a circus friend who moved here to start a trapeze school! FUCK!

I tried to put on the brakes last Monday, and went to a meditation class at a local Buddhist center. One of the lamas lives on my street — a cool-ass Tibetan dude with a long silver ponytail, who doesn’t speak any English but wanders around town in a robe and a ski parka, with this bespectacled bald hipster dude as his translator. I saw them at the 99cent store once, and it was awesome — a Tibetan buying up cheap Chinese junk. Anyhoo, the meditation class was OK, but it was really aimed at substance abusers, and focused on overcoming addiction…which was kind of a bummer when I went home afterward and wanted a glass of wine :-/

Since I wasn’t able to commit to Buddhism, I went to the NASCAR finals instead. Normally, I just WORK the races as one of the promo babes, but this year, a friend took me as a spectator….and it was AWESOME! Let me give you a little background on NASCAR weekend in Vegas.

NASCAR weekend is the most magical weekend of the year, when somewhere around 300,000 toothless, redneck speed freaks (ahem) descend upon the valley to watch their favorite drivers careen around the Speedway and hopefully crash and burn to death in a blaze of red-blooded, all-American glory. Every year the big race is on a Sunday, but the entire weekend leading up to it is one big tailgate party out in the vast, sun-baked moonscape of the Speedway parking lot way north of town. Vendors fry up corn dogs and spamburgers, and corporate sponsors set up booths and hire all manner of bimbos to pass out freebies to the hordes of unwashed race fans who save their Wal-Mart wages all year long so they can drive their RVs out, camp in the infield, and then get up at 6am to come amble around the “fan zone.” Much like the county faires of medieval Europe, the Fan Zone is a place where chubby, pasty young maidens with stretch-marked ass-antler tattoos come to mingle, flirt and mate with the pimply, buck-toothed future liberators of Eye-rack. Meanwhile, last year’s crop of fertile maids have become brood sows in their own right, with their own piglets either suckling at the teat or being dragged along by their sticky, grubby hands. MEANWHILE, the eagle-eyed crones and toothless matrons of the previous generation weave through the crowds, ever on the lookout for a proffered freebie of any sort, toward which they snake out a tobacco-stained claw while disingenuously asking the bimbo handing out the item, “How much dez it cawst?” When told, as they always are, “It’s free — compliments of Billy Bob’s Toe Jam Thinner!” they seize the item, no matter how insignificant or useless, and slip it into their bag of holding, much like a greedy child shoves his Halloween candy into his pillowcase, to be spread out on the living room floor and counted later on that night — only in this case, to be spread out on the trailer floor and pieced out in piles for Granny Johnson back in Arkansas, Uncle Clem over in Anbar Province and Cousin Buford down at the State Pen.

Anyhoo, I worked this fantastic event one year for a certain well-known deodorant/ shaving cream company that sponsors one of the major drivers, and it was a real hoot and a half!!! They had about 20 models in red short-shorts and track jackets, and our job was to hand out samples and apply rub-on logo tattoos. Normally, when working an event like a convention or trade show, no one really wants your shitty give-a-ways — tchotchkes like stress balls and pens with corporate logos. But at NASCAR, they’ll take ANYTHING! We handed out sorely-needed stuff like mini deodorant sticks and cologne samples, but even when we burned through all that (after about 30 seconds) and got down to the cheesy bikini pinup posters, even those went like hotcakes! The rub-on tattoos were even more fun — I applied tattoos to all manner of fat, freckled shoulders, arms, décolletages and sweaty, red necks. I remember one man asked me if the tattoo would stick to any arm, even one as hairy as his. “Sure!” I said, “They’ll stick to anything!” “Even THIS?” he bellowed jovially, pulling up his t-shirt to reveal a thickly matted, hairy chest. “Uh, I don’t see why not!” I then proceeded to apply the tattoo to his fur, pressing a damp towel over it and applying pressure for 10 looooong seconds. When I lifted the backing paper, the tattoo was floating perfectly atop his mat of hair — a full inch from his chest wall! Jesu!

Another year, I worked for a certain search engine that was trying to lure in the race demographic. They had hired about 20 models to wear racing suits and approach race fans as they meandered around the track and Fan Zone. We were supposed to hand out more godawful tchotchkes, only this time it was a super pain in the ass because the company had actually shelled out quite a bit of coin on the giveaways — USB zip drives in the form of mini race cars. They cost $4 a pop to manufacture, which is very expensive for a freebie, so the marketing firm we were working for was very insistent that we not just hand ’em out like candy to the grabbing paws of the hillbillies. We had to sit there and explain the whole concept of a search engine, and what made our search engine better than “other” search engines, and how the zip drive could be used to install a customized NASCAR toolbar on one’s browser, which conveniently contained a search box for our search engine so that next time you needed to find out Jimmy John Toejam’s best time in the Daytona 500, you could look it up using us!

All that is much easier said than done. Half the people out there didn’t even know what a computer was, let alone a “browser,” “search engine” or “zip drive.” But that didn’t stop them from standing there, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other, flinty eyes darting nervously from my earnestly jabbering lips to the mini race car that would hopefully soon be theirs if only they somehow made it through this interminable spiel of incomprehensible technical gobbledygook! You could smell the relief mingled with the body odor and stale beer when I finally did finish my spiel and hand them the precious tchotchke. It was excruciating, but kinda fun. I enjoy making greedy rednecks squirm! Sometimes I would drag my spiel out exxxxxxxtra long, throwing in all kinds of needless extraneous information about search engine algorhythms and internet advertisers, just see how long I could make ‘em wait… but they always waited, no matter how long I prattled on. Their eyes were on the prize!

Aaaaaaaaaanyhoo, that was all in the past. These days, I don’t do many shittily-paying promotional gigs anymore, so I went as a guest of my friend, who is a NASCAR bigwig, and who has this super-special credential called a Hard Card that allows him basically all-access to the pits and whatnot. He took me to a truck race once back in 2010, and I was unceremoniously KICKED OUT of the pits for violating the dress code. Violating the NASCAR dress code!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now that’s saying something!!! I had on jeans, boots and a little blousey-thing with cap sleeves….well, apparently the sleeves weren’t long enough, and I was kicked out of the pit!!! Meanwhile, there were pit lizards (what they call race groupies) standing around in little more than toenail polish and frosted lipstick…and no one messed with them…probably ’cause they were sucking Jimbo Jones Junior’s johnson or something. Arrgh!

Well, after Tweeting extensively about that debacle — and having a tweet show up on nascar.com — they loosened up the dress code considerably. Still, I was taking no chances: I suited up in my tightest jeggings (stretchy leggings printed to look like jeans) and teased my hair to EPIC proportions, just to make sure I’d be OK. For good measure, I also covered up my “Obama 2012” tattoo. And it worked!!!

The friend who took me to the race doesn’t fuck around — he knew that with 300,000 people out there, traffic was gonna be a nightmare. So he hired a helicopter to take us! LOL!!! It was awesome — what is normally (even in optimal traffic conditions) a 45-minute drive (which stretches to 2 hours, post-race) was now a sweet ten-minute jaunt. NICE! I’ve only ever flown in a chopper once, to the Grand Canyon…but this was even better. It was really cool to fly so low over Vegas, just barely missing the Stratosphere. Fun!!!

My friend had money on Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (or “Junior,” as they call him in fan parlance) and also on Kyle Busch, who was driving the #18 M&Ms car (my friend’s flight had landed at Gate 18, and he had seat #18, so he figured it was destiny). Alas, neither one o’them hillbillies amounted to a hill of beans at that race…so he lost all his money 🙁 But there was still an INORDINATE amount of fabulous pageantry to enjoy!

The rumor was that Todd and Sarah Palin were around somewhere, but they were probably hobnobbing with the bigwigs up in the suites somewhere. Meanwhile, my friend and I hung out down on Pit Road, where the cars come racing in for their pit stops — it was really something to watch them changing the tires and stuff in 30 seconds flat. One of the pit crew guys asked me if I was on TV, LOL — but it was probably just based on the assumption that any non-fatassed person at a NASCAR race is a celebrity of some sort! Interestingly, I noted that the vast majority of women at the track were lard-assed heifers — except down in the pits, where the drivers’ wives and girlfriends and the pit lizards hang out, cruising for race cock. So apparently, you have to have money to be thin nowadays. Crazy! It used to be just the opposite. Imagine that……….and me being a broke-ass hack!

I have never been a NASCAR fan, so I didn’t know much about what was going on. But I DID notice one thing — how teeny-tiny those drivers are! They’re like jockeys — TINY! I guess it makes them more aerodynamic. This one driver, Kasey Kahne (god I love their names), came strutting along like a li’l banty rooster…and all the chicks swooned! (He’s the ladies’ favorite these days, I guess….blechh.) Then the guy who won, Tony Stewart, came out….and he wasn’t much bigger. Crazy!!!

My friend and I had a few drinks, and then I passed out in the bleachers for awhile towards the end…but rallied for the final few laps, when Tony Stewart won and everyone went apeshit. Then we got the hell out of Dodge, heading straight for the heliport and our chopper back to the Strip. It was like the evacuation of the Americans from Saigon…we ran, screaming, as the chopper lifted us from the fray. Back to civilization at last!

That night I had NASCAR on the brain, and started thinking about these godawful NASCAR-themed Harlequin romances I used to read. You know those cheesy Harlequin paperbacks — where the guy is always a hot cowboy, Viking, rancher or cop, and the chick is a kindergarten teacher or some other innocuous, virginal shit. Well, now they have a whole series where the guy is a NASCAR driver! LOL! I tried to look them up online, but instead I found something even better….. NASCAR FANFIC!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those who don’t know, fanfic is short for “fan fiction” — i.e., amateur stories about famous characters, written by fans who just can’t get enough of their favorite literary heroes. It’s usually about shit like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Twilight and the like…anything with obsessive fans, basically. These stories almost invariably serve as shittily-written setups to LONG, PORNOGRAPHICALLY DETAILED SEX SCENES — the sex is basically the reason these stories are written in the first place! The worst I’ve seen was gay Star Trek fanfic (Captain Kirk fucking Spock up the ass is an image I will never erase from my mind)…but now I’ve got a new contender for MOST OBSCENELY AWFUL FANFIC: NASCAR!!!

I found this one website with a whole bunch of fanfic stories written by lonely grannies in Alabama — one lady in particular was writing a fine literary masterpiece in installments. Each time she uploads a new chapter, she adds a little bit of commentary like, “Sorry this chapter is so late, my grandkids were staying with me and I was real busy.” LOL! Meanwhile, the paper-thin plot involved Dale Earnhardt Jr’s sister, unlucky in love, who ended up fucking Dale’s best friend, another driver named Keselowski. While they were going at it, Dale Jr. ended up getting his dick sucked by KESELOWSKI’s girlfriend! The old switcheroo! Anyhoo, the writing was terrible and the details were so shockingly graphic that I actually had to take several hits of my medicine via water pipe to get through them. Seriously — I actually got embarrassed! More for the poor quality of the writing, but also from the sheer tawdriness. I wonder if these good Christian drivers know what the fuck is being written by their nice, Christian granny fans!!!!! If you’re curious, here’s the link to the site (WARNING! Very obscene material ahead!!): http://www.fanficnation.net/

<– P.S. I did take away one fantastic souvenir from the race: one of Dale Jr’s nuts!!!! It’s pink…shore is purty, huh?!

After the excitement of the NASCAR race, my friend and I decided to do an old-Vegas night, and went downtown to the newly opened Mob Museum. I’m here to tell you, that place is BAD-ASSSSSSS! It’s in the old Federal building downtown, which was the actual location of the Kefauver anti-racketeering hearings back in the day, so it was extra-authentic. The top floor is all about old Vegas history and the beginnings of gambling, Prohibition and prostitution. The 2nd floor is more about Rat Pack-era Vegas and the Goodfellas/Casino days, and then the bottom floor is all modern stuff like the Sopranos and John Gotti. FASCINATING! And HIGHLY recommended….check it out!

After the museum, we went down the street to the new-ish Oscar’s Beef, Booze and Broads, which is the steakhouse they just opened at the fabulous Plaza Hotel, in that fantastic glass dome looking down over Fremont Street. They filmed one of the scenes in “Casino” there, and my friend and I were lucky enough to have the very booth where Robert DeNiro and Sharon Stone sat in that scene — fantastic! The restaurant is all mob-shtick: the owner is ex-mayor and ex-mob attorney Oscar Goodman, the waiters all wear cheeseball gangster costumes, and there is supposedly a bevy of “Broads” that walk around and sit and talk to you about Vegas history and whatnot. I had heard that you could “hire” them to sit with you, so I was really curious to see what it was all about…in case I need a new job one of these days! Alas, however, there was only one lonely Broad on duty that night, a faded blonde in a crappy Marilyn Monroe costume who sort of swished by once or twice but wouldn’t stay to chat very long. Boo! Still, overall I give the place a good review — it’s fun! A little pricey considering it’s NOT a gourmet room…and the decor is kinda shitty, like a 1988 Howard Johnson restaurant…but still. Give it a chance, guys!

After dinner, my friend and I walked down to the Golden Nugget where we happened upon a lounge where an Elvis impersonator was rocking out — and then, inexplicably, a Rod Stewart impersonator got up and sang a Buck Owens song! I think the only reason the Elvis impersonator let the Rod Stewart impersonator take the stage is, he wanted to horn in on the two Spring Break co-eds Rod had been chatting up at the bar!! But the second Rod Stewart finished his song, he made a beeline back to the bar, elbowing Elvis aside so he could get back to what he apparently does best: schmoozing drunken ladies! And THAT’s why I love Vegas!!!!! Git ’em, Rod!!

Anyhoo, that was a great weekend, but it was over all too soon and it was back to work for me. The headliner in the showroom where I normally work (the legendary Quebecoise, Sally Dingdong) has bronchitis or a vocal chord infection or something, so I haven’t been taking souvenir photos lately — but I’ve been super busy modeling and doing other random gigs. A photographer friend from Atlanta came to town, and wanted me to come over and discuss a new business venture he’s thinking of launching: an escort agency for LEGIT escorts — i.e., nice, clean college-type girls who do not have sex with clients, only go to dinner with them.

My first reaction was, yeah, right — no one’s gonna pay for that!!! But he had met some young chippy at a strip club who supposedly does exactly that, and he wanted me to meet her as a potential business partner: “She’s really smart, she reminds me of you.” Needless to say, I was extremely skeptical! But I went over to meet with them, and lo and behold, this chick was actually super cool!

I won’t give toooo many details, because I don’t want to blow her cover, but she’s basically a beautiful young blonde Mormon farmer’s daughter who got pregnant and was basically cast out of her town. Hell-bent on making it without help from her parents, she at first lived in a basement apartment in a nameless Western cowtown, going to school and working at a Sizzler to make ends meet, until some pervert tried to break into her apartment, which freaked her out and sent her packing to the Big City, where a girlfriend turned her on to stripping. I’m here to tell you, this chick is BEAUTIFUL — no tattoos, no fake tits, no weird skankiness, just 100% USDA Prime Cut All-American Wholesomeness. Before long, she had a few regulars who would take her on trips to Mexico and Miami and shit — and pay her a wage for the honor! She said she makes it perfectly clear up front that there is to be NO hanky-panky, and the guys are OK with that. One shy young hedge-fund manager even bought her a $100,000 Porsche for Valentine’s Day! Holy crap — I saw the car, so I know it’s true!

Meanwhile, she also happens to be a SUPER-NICE, super-well-spoken, intelligent chick…so I liked her right away, although I don’t think I could do what she does. We had a fun day hanging out by the pool with the photographer, and the next day we all drove out to the desert for some amazingly cool photos by this old abandoned horse corral. It was so nice to feel the sun on my skin after that long, cold, shitty, miserable winter…..I felt like a flower, slowly blossoming in the warmth of spring. Then I saw the photos — and realized I was more like a fishbelly-white fat-ass, covered in bruises. Yikes — time to hit the gym!!!

The only thing I DIDN’T like about that chick, and the photographer as well, for that matter, is that they gave me some bogus advice. A week or so ago, a reader of this blog had emailed me, saying he was going to be in town for his bachelor party, and that he had a huge foot fetish and wanted to hire me for a one-hour foot-worship session. He assured me he was young, classy, attractive and respectful, and just wanted to lick, suck and sniff my feet while we exchanged some witty banter (he especially mentioned he liked my sarcastic style). Also, his fiancee was the one putting him up to this, and she wanted to watch via Skype — so how much would I charge??

I thought about it, and asked several of my friends what they thought. My personal opinion was, I would do it for around $200 — after all, it’s ONE HOUR of sitting in a chair having your toes sucked. Big fuckin’ deal! I’ve done similar things before, and that’s about the amount of money I made. But all my friends were in an uproar: “Charge him $5k!! Tell him you’ll only do it if you can bring a bodyguard!” etc. Some advised me not to do it at all — “Too creepy!”

One chick I know told me she actually used to do sessions like that fairly regularly, and she generally charged $200-$300…and she assured me not to worry, that LOTS of people have a foot fetish, and they are by and large harmless. That made me feel a lot better, so I was just getting ready to answer the guy and tell him $300…when I made the mistake of asking this Atlanta photographer and the blonde chick their advice.

They both told me I was being STUPID, and I should charge him AT LEAST $750. They went on and on as to why I deserved that amount of money, and Blondie went on about how she would never do it for less, blah blah blah. So I felt stupid, and compromised: I emailed the guy back asking for $500.

Well, when he finally answered me, he said he was sorry but $500 was WAAAAAY more than he could pay — he had been thinking more like $150!!! D’oh — if I had gone with my first instinct, and asked for $200-300, I probably would have closed the deal. But because I listened to all these greedy fucking Vegas gougers, I lost the whole deal. D’OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This got me thinking about my ethos in general: I live in Vegas, where we supposedly make our living off tourism, but at the same time GOUGE THEM MERCILESSLY the entire time they’re here. $10 for a beer, $6 for a cup of coffee, $45 for a photo, $60 for a steak. Cab drivers take you the long way to get extra fare, strippers scam you, prostitutes rob you…it makes me sick, and ashamed to live here.

At my photo job, I’ve had countless opportunities to scam people over the years, and have worked with girls who had zero compunction about doing just that: add in a tip after the fact, overcharge people, tip hustle (“Did you need your change??”), etc. I am proud to say that I have NEVER engaged in that sort of shittiness, and I never will. To me, it feels like begging — and my mama raised me better than that (stop laughing)!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I may be broker than some, and carry a cheap purse, and drive a beat-up old truck……but guess what? I earn my money the honest way. Nevermind that I get it from toe-suckers and perverts and assorted other fringe-dwellers — I work hard, and I only ask for what I honestly think I’m worth. HONESTLY, what is so god-damn holy about my fucking toes that they’re too good to let some poor sap suck on ’em for $150 an hour???? Meanwhile, there are people in China making less than that a MONTH, making iPods and shit in Dickensian conditions! Am I really that fucking special? NO!

Uh-oh…..now my inbox is gonna be flooded with requests from bargain-hunting toe-suckers! YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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Burning Vegas

Yesterday I blogged about all the shittiness in my life of late. Today I’ll tell ya about the GOOD stuff!

A few weeks ago, I got a wild hair up my ass (more likely I was drinking wine and surfing Facebook, which always gets me into trouble) and volunteered to help out with this big project the local Burning Man community was working on: a festival to celebrate the Burnal Equinox, which is the halfway point between Burning Man 2011 and BM 2012. They decided to hold it in conjunction with this cool street festival/art walk kinda thing called First Friday (so called because it’s always held the 1st Friday of the month). They close off all the streets in this one section of downtown Vegas (the so-called Arts District), and all these artists and vendors and food trucks and stuff set up…and it’s generally a pretty good time. They’ve been doing it since 2003 or so, but I didn’t start going til 2010, because I’m a total hater and I thought it was gonna be lame — you know, one of those things where people are TRYING too hard to be cool.

But it actually IS really cool! It has become slightly corporate — I don’t know exactly what happened, but the lady who originally started it had to bail out, and supposedly it was “in danger” of dying out until Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos/Savior of Downtown Vegas™ stepped in and Saved The Day. (If you haven’t heard, Tony Hsieh has decided to singlehandedly save downtown Vegas from itself. Bye bye crackheads and derelict motels, hello hipster bars and family-friendly First Fridays. Grumble.)

Anyhoo, the local Burners got permission from the First Friday brass (it just seems wrong that a “counterculture” festival should even have brass) to host a mini-Burning Man celebration in an empty lot downtown, near where the street fair takes place. Local artists spent weeks building a 20-foot tall wooden showgirl named Lucky Lady Lucy, which was to be burned after a sort of carnivalesque stage extravaganza featuring fire dancers, fire hoopers, fire spinners, fire belchers and fire farters (can you tell I find the fire arts overrated?! Nevertheless, I plan to learn fire spinning myself…a friend has graciously offered to teach me!).

Aside from the flame-brains, the revue was also to include performances by the Burning Opera, a sort of “Jesus Christ, Superstar”-type rock opera all about Burning Man. After the opera, right before they lit Lucky Lady Lucy on fire, there was to be a sort of Burning Man fashion show featuring Lady Lucy’s bra, panties and feather boa…and they put out a call for volunteers to help out. I offered to model in the fashion show, but…before ya know it, I had been suckered in to RUNNING the fashion show! I guess I was OK with that — I’ve been wanting to get more involved with the community — but next thing you know, I was not only in charge of finding five models to create outfits for…but now I was in charge of MAKING THE BRA AND PANTIES! How the fuck does one fashion a metal bra for a 20-foot-tall wooden showgirl that hasn’t even been constructed yet?! It was insanity!!

To make matters even WORSE, I went to what I thought was a rehearsal meeting for the fashion show…but it turned out to be a rehearsal for the Burning Opera cast! Somehow, I got suckered in to performing as a member of the Tribe — a sort of dancing Greek chorus that prances around the stage while the principal performers sing. This wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that we had to learn CHOREOGRAPHY — when I tell you I am one of the world’s worst dancers, I ain’t lying. It was REALLY TOUGH!

Still, I’m totally glad I did it…now that it’s over!! At the time, it was totally stressful. I was dealing with my extorting roommates, I still hadn’t fully moved into my new place, I had to work, and somehow I was supposed to devote 40 hours a week to these Opera rehearsals and Lucy bra-making activities. INSANITY! But I met some reeeeeeally cool people, so I’m TOTALLY glad to have done it.

Most of the cast came down from San Francisco to perform, and they were a colorful crew of bad-asses. The director was this hardcore bad-ass Opera Artiste with a Vision, but sadly all he had to work with were Vegas losers who either never showed up for rehearsal, or else had no imagination beyond tutus and furry boots. It was so “Waiting for Guffman…” I really felt for the poor guy. Still, a ragtag gang of locals slowly came together, and thanks to many hours of rehearsing, Herr Direktor sloooowly got us into shape.

Meanwhile, as the “team lead” for the “fashion show” part of the revue, I had to attend all these crazy meetings with the local Burning Man muckety-mucks, who actually turned out to be a REALLY cool group of people. Finally, some Burners who actually DO SOMETHING other than eat ecstasy and hula-hoop!!! It’s about fuckin’ time — I was starting to lose faith!!! Back when I first attended Burning Man, I expected it to be a life-altering experience full of amazing art, hardcore artists and counterculture superheroes. Sadly, I found it to be little more than a bunch of drunk frat boys and high 40-somethings in furry boots, hula hooping to dubstep. I suspected there was more to it, and that I just wasn’t looking in the right places….and this past week confirmed it!

Aaaaanyhoo, the First Friday brass was totally skittish, wanting to make sure the event was “family friendly” (are there two more offensive words in the English language?!), since they’ve spent “a lot of money” trying to get families to come down and enjoy First Fridays. Poor Herr Direktor had to censor the shit out of his libretto, removing all references to drugs, alcohol, nudity, cusswords and paganism (seriously, they had to change a line about “pagans and Wiccans…” WTF!!!!)…and by the time he was done, it was looking pretty fucking sad. It’s a testament to the awesomeness of the cast that the whole thing didn’t end up being Disney on Ice (with tutus and furry boots).

Meanwhile, the First Friday brass and the local BM bigwigs stroked each other into a cautious détente, determined to make this work. Some of the First Friday people (Tony “Savior” Hsieh among them) had gone to Burning Man last year for the first time, and were “amazed” and “impressed.” They wanted everyone to know that Burning Man wasn’t just about drugs and nudity — it’s about so much more. Uhhh…..did you guys stay in your air-conditioned RVs watching Disney videos the whole week?!?! HELLO!!!

Aaaaanyway, the First Friday people had a vision, and the local Burners had no choice but to conform to that vision… so we did. The Opera cast had to cover up their tits and whatnot, and there was to be no talk of drugs or alcohol. My character was supposed to be a drunken alien party girl named Saturnalia…but even that was called into question, because the mayor was gonna be there, and families were gonna be there…and is that the kinda image we want to portray???

Uh…

YES! Yes, it is the image I want to portray! Look, the mayor’s HUSBAND (our ex-mayor, Oscar Goodman) is a notorious boozer whose shtick is martinis and showgirls. Is a drunken alien party girl really going to offend his wife?! (The answer is NO — when the Mayor and the ex-Mayor showed up, Oscar grabbed my glowing green bottle of alien booze (Palmolive with glow sticks inside) and pretended to chug it. That settles that stupid argument). Ha!!!

I almost wanted to quit the whole thing after First Friday came down with all these bogus rules…but I soldiered on. I briefly considered an intentional “wardrobe malfunction,” just to make my point (look, my nipples are fucking harmless, people! GET OVER IT!)…but I gritted my teeth and chafed under the yoke of the Man for the greater good of the local Burner community. And I’m glad I did, because as lame as it sounded, it actually ended up being super cool.

Almost every single person who said they’d help with the fashion show FLAKED on me, so I concentrated more on my Opera rehearsing, and let the fashion show part fall by the wayside. I did spend about 8 hours making a light-up bra and panties for Lady Lucy out of wire and LED blinkies, but the rest of the time was spent rehearsing dance steps and trying to come up with an alien costume. I already had an alien costume, from this space disco I went to back in 2010, but Herr Direktor wanted something badass, so I felt all this pressure to come up with a Hollywood-quality costume with appendages and all whatnot. Alas, I was short on time, so at the last minute, I showed up in my old space disco costume….and they all loved it!!! So I freaked out for nothing, as usual.

A couple days before the show, the principal cast members came down from San Fran to rehearse, and it was the coolest band of gypsies. The actors were a colorful crew of hardcore counterculturists, including some super-hot hipppie dudes and this one amazingly badass Sparkly Hippie Starshine Superheroine named Dr. Deb who was unbelieveably amazing and made me want to be her. There was a live band playing all the music, and they were AMAZING, too — I guess back in S.F. they are members of a band called Battlehooch, so if you live in that area, check ’em out! The bass player was an exceptionally cool guy who looked like an Amish David Koresh…he had an unforgettable look — but the rest of the band was amazing, too. And they were all super friendly and cool.

After a couple days rehearsing with them, we were good to go — or at least as good as we were gonna get. I don’t know how Herr Direktor didn’t pull out all his hair over us and our pathetically inept dancing — we missed all our cues, and mostly stumbled around like a rag-tag band of spastic drunken vaudevillians. Good times! Despite our unrefined ways, I gotta give my fellow Vegas performers mad props for at least trying — no one else even bothered to show up!!! There are hundreds of Burners in Vegas, but as previously mentioned, many are the high, hula-hooping kind. Thank goodness there were at least a few hardcore types out there who sacked up and dove in. I became pretty good friends with a few of them…now I know who the cool people are!

Besides me there was this super cool mother-daughter duo (who also helped with the fashion show, dog bless ’em), this amazing kooky Piratess who used to be a US Forestry firefighter (!!), a good-spirited young fellow in a furry cat costume, and these two blonde Polish chicks who showed up in blinky rave wear at the last minute and barely learned the dance steps in time. A motley crew to say the least, but we made it happen with the help of Herr Direktor and the other cast members, whose moves we pretty much followed onstage.

The day of the show, my sister came to town with her crazy Israeli husband — he was in town for a bachelor party with some of his crazy Israeli Burner friends, so we all planned to meet up after the show and party. My sis came to the show with me, and helped out backstage with costumes and whatnot, and generally had a blast. Once the final show was over (we did three performances, at 6, 7 and 8pm), they lit the showgirl on fire and it was PARTY TIME! All that hard work was behind me, so I reeeeeally let loose. I mean, REALLY let loose! I ate a friendly fungus, drank some wine, and wandered around the festival area for awhile as Lucy burned (I’m not much on watching fires; I get bored). This crew of party animals from Santa Cruz called the Dancetronauts were there in their giant spaceship (seriously; they built a huge spaceship out of an RV, and it jacks up on a scissorlift) with a bunch of scantily-clad Dancetrohotties go-go-ing wildly atop their 100,000-watt sound system, as the Dancetronauts themselves (a bunch of hot mooks in NASA flight suits) ran around blowing giant smoke rings into the huge mass of writhing, dancing people before them. It was INSANE!

The Dancetronauts played until around 10:30pm, by which time Lucy had burned down to the ground in a neat pile of ashes (much to the dismay of the waiting phalanx of firemen, who were eagerly expecting a disaster…sorry boys) — and then the real party began! A bunch of local Burners had trucked their art cars and mutant vehicles downtown, and the police very graciously allowed us to have an Art Car parade down the city streets to the Plaza hotel, where the Dancetronauts were having a huge street party. My sis and I wanted to ride the Soul Train (a friend of mine’s amazing neon choo-choo train), but he was already full, so we hopped on board the Pedal Pub instead, which is probably my #1 all-time favorite art car of them all — it’s an 8-seater bike, with four seats on each side, all facing inward to a bar. The bartender stands in the middle on the checkered floor, and steers as the people sitting at the bar all pedal. It’s NUTS!!!!!! I don’t know how the fuck it works, but it does — and it’s AWESOME!

We pedaled all the way down to the Plaza, then got off and proceeded to dance like mad people in the valet area out front, in the shadow of the Dancetronauts’ spaceship. Fantastic!! I’ve rarely had that much fun in Vegas — I danced like a madwoman. I ran into a lot of people I knew, and it was just a fabulous time all around. About 2am they brought the party indoors, to the showroom, which had been converted into a sort of fake Burning Man with lasers and smoke and signposts like you see out at the actual Burn. Really fun! I’m here to tell you, I danced more or less non-stop from 2pm til 5am (!!!!!!!) — FIFTEEN STRAIGHT HOURS! When I wasn’t dancing, I was pedaling that Pedal Pub…which wasn’t exactly slacking off. I figure I burned about 900,000 calories — nice! Around 5am my sis fell asleep at the table, and some fucknut spilled a beer all over my fur coat (ASSSS! I *HATE* beer, more than anything!), so we left, and went across the street for breakfast at DuPar’s coffee shop. Then we took a cab back to my car, and from there drove the short 5 minutes or less to my new house, which is conveniently located downtown in the heart of all the action. Once home, we passed out cold and slept all day, til it was time to take my sis back to the airport. Fun!

After I took her to the airport, I pretty much felt like I’d been run over by a giant, blinking, furry bus. I intended to stay home all night, but the Dancetronauts were having a second street party down by the El Cortez…and being as I live so freaking close by, I figured I might as well stop by for a few hours. The problem was, I didn’t feel like putting on all my makeup and stuff (it was already 10pm by that time)…so I came up with an ingenious idea: wear my fantastic, beloved Second Skin bodysuit, which covers my ENTIRE body and face, so no makeup is required. PROBLEM SOLVED! I put together a fabulous outfit and went down to dance a little more, but the party totally sucked — everyone was either exhausted from the night before, or at the other shows in town that night. (The hippies were all at Mickey Hart at the Hard Rock Cafe, and the bean-eaters were all at Bassnectar over at the Palms… the tribe was fractured.) I left after a couple hours — the vibe was lame. Just a bunch of aggro teenagers and middle-aged people standing around staring at the Dancetrohotties…I totally wasted a badass costume on that jive-ass crap. Boo!

So now the party’s over, but it totally whetted my appetite for all things Burning Man. I’m really in a bind this year — as you may have heard, the event sold out for the first time ever last year, and this year they had such overwhelming demand that they instituted this whack-ass lottery system for tickets. Me and everyone I know entered the lottery, but no one I know won tickets! Whaaaaa?????! Even the freaking Dancetronauts only “won” two tickets — out of forty Dancetronauts!!! The majority of the ticket winners (well, 40% anyway) are said to be first-time attendees….which has caused a lot of tension in the Burning Man community.

On the one hand, I feel like first timers (especially square first-timers…people who are not wacky at all in everyday life) are the ones who really get the most out of Burning Man. People like me, who wear crazy costumes every day and live their entire lives like it’s Burning Man, don’t have as much to learn, or have as much expanding to do, as some random frat idiot who needs an eye-opener. So is it really fair to let us wacky types monopolize the event, when there are clearly people who need it more than we do???

On the OTHER, MORE IMPORTANT HAND, Burning Man is gonna be lame as hell if all the hardworking regulars aren’t able to attend!! Who’s gonna bring all the fabulous art? All the amazing mutant vehicles and art cars?!?! All the large-scale interactive camps and experiences?!?!?!?!?!?!????? If 40% of the attendees are newbies, it’s not going to be the same at all.

But, what can really be done? The BLM (gov’ment) caps the attendance at 50,000…and since every asshole (myself included) comes back from Burning Man telling all their friends “OMG you gotta go to this sometime!” it was bound to get too big for its furry britches. It just sucks being on the outside — my sis and her husband were able to buy two tickets in this stupid resale program they instituted, but what about meeeee?? I was able to at least get on the resale LIST, but that doesn’t even come close to guaranteeing that I’ll actually get a ticket. There will likely not be enough people reselling their extra tickets, and I’ll be shit outta luck.

Meanwhile, the whole reason behind this bullshit lottery is that they didn’t want “scalpers” to buy the tickets, then mark ’em up and sell ’em on eBay. Well, guess what?!?!?! There are ALREADY a shit ton of tickets on eBay and StubHub and the like, going for upwards of $5,000 each!! FUCK! What’s a girl to do????

If you’re reading this blog and you have an extra ticket, please let me know. I will pay face value, cash, and you’ll be helping out a poor battered soul who has just lived through a really shitty year. C’mon, guys!!!

I’ll leave you on a slightly more upbeat note: one night, after Opera rehearsal, I had to run to WalMart…even though I was wearing my kooky silver fur coat and wacky black pleather pants and Frankenstein boots. I knew I was running the risk of winding up on PeopleOfWalMart.com, but I had  to go — I have this weird rash thing on my eyelids, where they get all red and dry and scaly and make me look like I’m about 60 years old. I’ve had this problem on and off for years, but it got a lot worse recently, and I somehow got the idea it might be caused by a fungus. I went online and Googled “eyelid fungus” and all these message boards turned up where people were saying they had cured it with yeast infection cream! So, when I went to WalMart in my crazy outfit, I was buying all kinds of yeast infection meds — creams, pills, etc. I must’ve looked like a REAL piece of work, ha ha ha!!!!! But whatever — IT WORKED! I’m pleased to report that by applying vaginal cream to my eyelids each morning and night, I have more or less cured my problem. Hooray for Google!!!

 

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The Colonel Crusty Caper, and Censorship For the Sake of Insurance

All right, time to put alllllll this negativity and nonsense behind me. So I lost my house and then was gouged out of $2,500 by my unemployed leech roommate…big deal! I get knocked down, but I get up again…you’re never gonna keep me down!!! Still, I’m posting this one last photo that was taken of me back in October, when a visiting photographer who was doing a story on foreclosures in Vegas interviewed me for this AWESOMELY depressing slideshow: http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/foreclosures-las-vegas-reno. Check it out! There is a voiceover by me, swearing like a sailor, that really adds to the depressing, Diane Arbus-y vibe. I’m glad to have gotten some photographic mementos of that whole fiasco…I had planned on asking one of my photographer friends to come over and document my actual move for posterity’s sake, but I was just too busy weeping and being gouged by my bitch-ass loser roommates…but these awsome Magnum pics will do!

Aaaaanyhoo, I finally got all moved into my new place, when the shit hit the fan AGAIN! I called the DMV to have my address changed on my license…and come to find out, my license was REVOKED! Dog knows HOW long I’ve been driving around like this — I had a DUI back in August 2010, for which my license was suspended for 90 days and the whole rigamarole. I paid the fines, attended the classes, learned my lesson and bought a Breathalyzer (which was stolen from my truck in January)…but apparently, my attorney neglected to mention the little fact that I was supposed to RE-APPLY for a driver’s license after all was said and done!

So now I had to go to the DMV and re-take the whole fuckin’ test — the written AND the driving parts! I passed the written part easily — I studied the handbook for a few hours and was good to go. So they gave me an appointment for a drive test on Monday morning at 11:30. I gathered up all my papers related to my DUI, including my new insurance statement, my birth certificate and my Social Security card, and had them in a folder on the the kitchen counter, ready to go.

My friend Guy agreed to give me a ride over there, and he came over to my house around 10:45 before I was ready. I tried to hurry, but my face was all puffy and weird from this eyelid rash I had, so it took me FOREVER to get my makeup right, and I couldn’t concentrate because I felt bad making him wait. We ended up running out the door around 11:15, which was fine because the DMV is just around the corner from my new place. But I was supposed to BE there at 11:15 (you have to arrive 15 minutes early), so by the time we got there it was like 11:25, and I had to RUN inside.

Just as I was getting out of the truck…I realized I had left my folder at home on my kitchen counter. FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!! I really needed to get my license THAT DAY — I had a MILLION things to do, and needed to be able to drive. My friend graciously agreed to race back to my house and get the stuff while I tried to stall the DMV people…while I RAN inside to check in for my appointment. The lady at the counter glared at the clock, which read 11:24, but begrudgingly let me check in anyway: “I need to see your registration and proof of insurance.”

DOUBLE FUCK! I had left them in the truck! “Let me go get them!” I shouted over my shoulder, racing out the door, hoping to catch my friend before he had left the parking lot. Miraculously, he hadn’t left yet (he wasn’t used to driving my truck, and didn’t know the neighborhood at all) so I ran up to him, banging on the window, til he opened the passenger door. I grabbed the stuff from the glove box and admonished him to “PLEASE HURRY!!!!! The stuff is in a yellow folder on my kitchen counter!!” Nevermind the fact that he had only been to my new place ONCE, and had no idea how to get there….I was banking on the fact that I’d be able to stall the DMV long enough for him to find it and hurry back.

So I dragged ass, getting back to the counter by 11:29, and handed the lady my stuff. She gave me a baleful glare and checked me in, then gave me a vision test…which I took S…L…O…W…L…Y: “Uhhhhhh……siiiiiiiix………eiiiiiiiiight…….fiiiiiiiiiive……threeeee……….” They must have thought I was half blind, but I got a perfect score anyway, and she told me to have a seat and they would call me.

Perfect! Anytime you have to wait at the DMV, it takes FOREVER…so I figured I was gold. Not this time!! The drive test instructor was already standing there, waiting. Before he could say anything, I asked if I could use the restroom first, thinking to stall some more. The instructor very begrudgingly agreed, if I “hurried,” but I went in and pretended to have diahhrea/cramps/nerves and dragged my ass as long as possible in that bathroom. It was really gross because this is the most ghetto DMV in Vegas and it was literally OVERFLOWING with the unwashed masses spilling out in the streets, screaming at their babies, smacking their snot-stained toddlers and all being yelled at in turn by security guards. In other words…hell on Earth!

Still, I loitered around in the bathroom as long as possible with my “nervous diahhrea/vomiting” and then trudged slowly back over to the drive test instructor. In the bathroom, I had called my friend and he said he wasn’t even at my house yet….so I figured I had to somehow stall waaaaay longer. This I accomplished by talking up a blue streak: as I approached the crusty old ex-military hawk assigned to me, I launched into a chattering monologue about how nervous I was, and how I couldn’t believe how nervous I was! I mean, I’ve been driving for twelve years — you wouldn’t expect me to be so nervous! I milked a few more precious minutes thusly as the crusty old General stared at me in grouchy bemusement, but I thought I saw him “smising” (that’s when you “smile” with your eyes only…great word, huh?) and finally he interrupted me: “OK, let’s go out to your vehicle.”

“Uhhhhh………….sure!” I led him outside, spewing forth a nonstop stream of chatter and funny stories, pausing every few feet to stop and touch his arm to make a point, just to buy more time. I led him to the back parking lot, where I pretended to “look around” for my truck (which I knew damn well wasn’t there). “Hmmmm! Maybe it’s in the front, after all…I’m sorry!” So now I led him BACK out to the front, still chattering and trying to distract him from the fact that my car was nowhere in sight. This went on for several minutes: “Gosh, I don’t see it anywhere….I wonder where he is! Let me call him and find out!”

General McCrusty was really glaring at me now as I called my friend: “Hey, where ya at?” He told me he had the stuff and was headed back, about 5 minutes away. If I could just stall them a few more minutes, I was golden! But the General’s patience was wearing thin. “Where is he?!?!?” he demanded. “Uhhhhh….sorry, I felt bad for imposing on him to give me a ride here, and he needed cigarettes so I told him to go ahead and run to 7-Eleven real quick while I was waiting for you. He should be back any minute! He had a nicotine fit…ya know????”

“7-Eleven?!?!” the General said suspiciously. “That’s pretty far from here.” “Oh, uhhh, well maybe not 7-eleven…Idk, whatever the little quickie mart over there is,” I bluffed. That was not enough for the General: “Well, you had an 11:30 appointment and it’s now 11:45, and we have no vehicle. This is a BIG PROBLEM!”

“Ummmmmmm….” Fortunately, at that very moment, my friend screeched into the parking lot: “Wahoooooo!!! THERE HE IS!”

Whew — talk about a close call. The General grumpily followed me to the truck, and checked my turn signals and all that crap before getting in and sitting beside me in stoic, crusty silence. Awkward!! He made me parallel park, which I suck at (who the fuck parallel parks in Vegas?! It’s the land of free parking and free valet!!!), so I failed that part miserably. Then he had me drive around the neighborhood, which I did VERRRRRY CAUTIOUSLY, keeping my hands on 10 and 2 on the wheel, stopping at every stop sign and keeping below the speed limit. In other words…nothing like how I usually drive. And STILL, the fucker failed me!!!!

The reason he gave was that I did not stop fully at a stop sign — which is an automatic fail!!! Bullshit — I STOPPED at every fuckin’ stop sign there was; I’m not that stupid! I think he was just pissed at me for stalling him so long, and therefore was extra critical of me: he said I stopped too close to the intersection, whereas I SHOULD have stopped 5 feet before the actual sign. WHAT-THE-FUCK-EVER, ASSHOLE!

So I slumped back into the DMV and made another appointment for Wednesday morning. Fuck!!! I had such an insanely busy week, I really didn’t have time for all this. But to thank my friend for his crazy efforts, I took him to lunch at a trendy new restaurant in downtown Vegas called Le Thai. All the hipsters drool over it, and it does have a cool atmo…but it’s no better or worse, food-wise, than any other Thai restaurant, IMO. I ordered the “Red, Yellow and Green” curry in honor of my failed drive test, and soldiered on with my life.

My new roommate took me back to the DMV on Wednesday, and I made sure to get there 15 minutes early, with all the needed documents. Whew! They assigned me a different instructor this time — a younger male. Score!! I passed with no further ado, and got a new license at last. FINALLY!!!

Now, while all this was going on, MORE shit hit the fan!! Right after I found out my license had been revoked, I get a call from my boss at the souvenir photo company: “We need you to come in right away.” Oh shit…NOW what?! I’m always getting into trouble there for my “negative attitude” and “inappropriate behavior,” so I figured I was about to be fired. The manager of our photo lab was sent to jail for a week or two for failing to pay HIS DUI fine, so in the meantime they got this other little prick to be the interim manager, and he HATES me. I figured he must have complained about me, and now I was about to lose my job. WHATEVER! I was actually OK with that, except for the fact that I have an upcoming gynecology appointment and my Pap smears always come back abnormal, and I have to have follow-up stuff donw…and if I lose my insurance, I might not be able to afford it. I don’t want to die of cervical cancer — but I can’t get private insurance on account of this jackass psychiatrist who diagnosed me bipolar (because I was upset over losing my house!), and now i have a pre-existing condition >:-(

Anyhoo, I didn’t want to drive over there on a revoked license, so I tried to get my boss to just tell me on the phone or via email…but he refused. I asked if it could wait til Monday (thinking by then I’d have a license again), but he said it was a MAJOR crisis and they needed to see me ASAP! FUCK!!!!! Well, now I was really curious, so I sarcastically told him I’d “get a ride over there,” and drove over myself, verrrrrrrrrrrrry cautiously, to see what they had to say.

What it turned out to be was HILARIOUS, in a sad way. Apparently, there’s this new steakhouse in town at one of the hotels, and I had taken my friend there for dinner a few weeks ago. They treated us VERY poorly, despite it being a $350 dinner, and the staff was so rude/inept that I wrote a very scathing review on yelp.com to assuage my humiliation (I really was super humiliated by the way they treated me).

Well, my boss, and his boss, and the wife of the guy who owns the photo company were all there…and they asked if I would please take down this review. It seems they are trying to get into the good graces of that restaurant, so they can send photographers in there to shoot photos of the diners, and they don’t want anything negative out there that could be traced back to their company. Because I had mentioned in the review that I worked in the showroom near that restaurant, my bosses figured the steakhouse people might put two and two together and figure out it was a photo lab employee — and then out of spite, they wouldn’t allow photographers in the restaurant.

SRSLY! They even said that if I didn’t remove the review, they might lose their operations at the ENTIRE HOTEL, and “You wouldn’t want to hurt the company like that, would you???”

I found it ludicrous that a single, honest review of my dining experience at a pretentious, overpriced steakhouse (that already had several similar bad reviews posted) would sink the “entire company…” and I said as much. But they just kept “asking” me if I would just please take it down.

“What if I just remove the line about working in the showroom?”

“We’d prefer if you just took the whole thing down.”

“So, you;re saying if I don’t remove the review, I’m fired?”

“No no no! We can’t do that legally — we’re just asking you to take it down.
“And if I don’t?”

“We’ll keep asking you to.”

HAH! I could see I was fucked, so I VERY BEGRUDGINGLY agreed to go home and censor myself for the sake of their bottom line. Furthermore, they told me that I was not to write any negative reviews of ANY property/venue/show/restaurant that they have operations at!!! Seriously?!?!?!? I like warning people about shitty shows and shitty service! But I don’t like dying of cervical cancer, either — so what’s an outspoken girl to do??? ADVICE, PLEASE!!!

I saved the bad steakhouse review in a Word doc, so I can re-post it in the event that they finally fire me or I quit — I’m putting that shit RIGHT BACK UP! I don’t care what anyone says — that steakhouse SUCKS ASS and no one but an uncultured rube would subject himself to dining there. Fuck ’em!!! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhh!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, I had all this other crazy shit going on — the local Burning Man community had this HUGE party planned for the Burnal Equinox (the half-way point between Burning Man 2011 and 2012), and I had volunteered to be a cast member in this revue they had planned, plus also to help design a costume for this 20-foot tall wooden effigy of a showgirl they had built to burn at the end of the performance. Fun — but a LOT of work, and kinda stressful. We had all these rehearsals, and it was really time consuming.

Meanwhile, some German friends were in  town and wanted to meet up, so I had to hang with them one night. We went to the Cosmopolitan for drinks, but I had to leave around 11 to pick up another friend from the airport. On the way out, I noticed that the front window of the Cosmopolitan had been changed — it used to be a really expensive modern art design furniture store, but now it was this thing called the Pop-Up Wedding Chapel — where for $80, you get a really cool fake Vegas wedding ceremony, complete with a minister, ceremony, two toy rings, two cans of champagne and a photo booth strip. FUN! For an extra $150, they’ll even make it legally binding!! Meanwhile, since it’s in the front window of the Cosmopolitan, right on the Strip, anyone walking past can stop in and sit down to watch — they have pews, just like a real wedding chapel!!! The night I was there, this super cute black couple was getting married — legally — and all these random passers-by had stopped to watch and take photos. It was so surreal — but so cool!

I immediately put out the call on Facebook: “WHO WANTS TO GET MARRIED?!?!?!” I thought it would be a RIOT to have a big fake wedding ceremony — since I doubt I’ll ever marry for reals, I thought it would be a fun party. But I got too many responses, and didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings…so I didn’t go through with it. And now, the chapel is closed — it was just a temporary thing. But so cool — I hope they bring it back!! I’ll totally go over there all the time for a free show!!!

Anyhoo, I picked up my other friend at the airport — this chick I know who’s a full-time traveling nude model. She’s super cool, so I had her stay over at my new place, and she told me all about this creeeeeeeeeeeepy website she had just shot for out in Oregon, where they guy pays you to play dead. I checked the site, and it’s photos and videos of models pretending to be dead, while men give them fake autopsies and otherwise manhandle them. I found it far too creepy for even me — although I’d love a free trip to Oregon, and the money for shooting, I gotta draw the line somewhere. I won’t post the link here, to preserve the guy’s privacy..but it was CREEPY SHIT. I’m trying to cultivate some standards here — another photographer just contacted me about a bondage shoot, and I turned that down, too. I don’t want to shoot anything demeaning or objectifying women like that! A lot of my pics are already borderline…I don’t want to go any farther!!!

Anyhoo, the rest of my week was TOTALLY DEVOTED to preparing for the Vegas Burning Man extravaganza…which turned out to be SUPER AWESOME and TOTALLY WORTH ALL THE EFFORT! I am going to stop here, and write about that in a seperate blog…because it was SOOOO AWESOME, it deserves its own thing. Watch for that coming sooooooooon!!!