This past Saturday I finally got around to exploring a spot I’d always been curious about: Big Dune, about 100 miles northwest of Vegas, just off U.S. 95.

I pass this thing every year on my way to Burning Man, but I’m always so loaded down with costumes and drugs that I don’t want to stop — and on the way back, I’m always too tired.

So I was extra glad when my friend MG (read his blog here) came to town from Phoenix, and proposed an excursion/photo shoot to check it out. As a bonus, I had just finished making my Electric Vagina codpiece, so thought this might be a good opportunity to get some pics in it. It totally was!

It takes about 2 hours to get to Big Dune from Vegas — basically the same as going to the other dunes in the area, Kelso and Dumont. But the drive to Big Dune is super easy — just right up the 95, a few miles past the Alien Brothel Travel Center (the old Cherry Patch Ranch, re-branded to lure in tourists). At the Big Dune sign on the left, you turn off onto a dirt road for the last 5 miles, but it’s a decent road. MG’s SUV was able to take it at 45mph with no problem.

There’s a hard packed dirt area all around the dunes, where people camp out and park their cars (look for the message board as an idea of where to park), but unless you have a quad/sand rail/dune buggy/hardcore 4WD vehicle, you can’t get closer than maybe 1/4 mile to the base of the dunes, or your car will get stuck in the soft sand.

MG and I parked his car on the hard packed area and just hiked in with all our gear. Though it was only mid-February, it was already around 75 degrees, with no shade…and hiking through sand is tough! So be advised, if you want to do a photo shoot here…either bring a quad, or be prepared for a workout.

The other thing to look out for here is people — since Big Dune is fairly convenient to Vegas, lots of rednecks party here. Moreover, there’s no entrance fee (unlike Dumont), so it’s a cheaper class of redneck.

We were there on a Saturday, so there were quite a few people out there….including a whole encampment of Boy Scouts! D’OH!!! One of the scout leaders came over and asked/admonished us to stay away from the boys (since I was nude), so we agreed to hike way out into the dune field and mind our own business. God forbid those little fuckers should see a naked twat, ya know? Meanwhile they’re not allowed to be gay, either. Poor cloistered fuckers.

Wouldn’t you know it, though…despite the fact that we hiked waaaaay out away from their camp, a couple of scouts came snooping around anyway. Oh well — let ’em get their Merit Badge in Perving! It’s bound to happen sooner or later 🙂

Ironically, on our way out at the end of the day, we noticed that the scouts had built a wooden effigy to burn later that night, Burning Man-style. Their leader even told us they were calling it the Burning Scoutmaster!

I thought that was pretty cute.. but also somewhat ironic that a notoriously intolerant organization like the BSA would emulate an all-embracing hippie fuckfest. I hate to tell ya boys, if you wanna play Burning Man, you’re going to have to accept the fact that vaginas and female nipples are a part of life. They won’t do you any harm, they aren’t inherently evil, and the less mystique you impart them, the less complicated and more fun your life will be. That’s the most important Merit Badge of them all!

Anyhoo, if you’re interested in checking out sand dunes near Vegas, Big Dune is a pretty cool place. Although time and distance-wise, if you’re looking to do a photo shoot or just hike around, you might as well just drive to the Kelso Dunes…it’s the same distance, but Kelso doesn’t allow offroad vehicles, so there won’t be any nosy rednecks racing around. (The only downside to the Kelso Dunes is that the roads are slightly worse…but still totally passable in any car.) And I DEFINITELY recommend Big Dune over Dumont — Dumont is always full of rednecks, and has an entrance fee (although it IS where they filmed the original Star Wars…so you might go just for that fact).

 

 

This past Tuesday, a longstanding dream of mine came true when I was invited to mud wrestle at Gilley’s, a country-and-western bar inside the Treasure Island hotel. A couple times a month, this group called the Power Posh Girls hosts a mudwrestling night…and they let me join in the fun!

As mentioned in my last blog, I went down there the other week to watch them, and get an idea of what I was in for. The other girls have all developed crazy wrestling personae, ranging from Little Red (riding hood) to Harajuku Hyjak (crazy Japanese anime girl)…so I knew I’d better come up with something amazing to compete with them. But what?

I already knew I’d wrestle under the name Wonderhussy (since why not)…but I had to develop a character and shtick around it. I played off the slutty Wonder Woman angle, ordering a sexxxy Wonder Woman monokini and some thigh-high boots. I didn’t have a Golden Lasso of Truth, so I spray-painted my old bullwhip gold, creating the vastly superior Pussy Whip of Truth (men can’t resist it). And I already had the cuffs, headpiece and cape, so I just embellished those a bit and I was pretty much good to go.

 

Except for one thing!

 

A long time ago, at the tender age of 17 or so, I came up with the concept of an Electric Pussy — an electrical outlet in place of a vagina, with a giant power drill plugged into it. The ultimate expression of Pussy Power!! When I started modeling, I tried to recreate this idea in a photo shoot with one of my favorite photographers.. but the image (while badass) didn’t quite come out as I had hoped. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make a sort of Electric Pussy codpiece…but never really went ahead with it until now.

I knew I needed to make an Electric Pussy prosthetic panty for this rassling match. My idea was that my character, Wonderhussy, would come out to the strains of Lenny Kravitz’s “American Woman,” with a power drill plugged into my crotch. Back when I shot the above photo, I had purchased the biggest drill bit I could find at Lowe’s (sales guy: “Ya drilling concrete?” Me: “Something like that”) and I figured I’d attach it to the drill, maybe with an American flag taped to the end. Playing to the crowd of rednecks, I would then drill holes into a communist flag or a photo of Osama bin Laden or something. Boo Ya!!!

Obviously, I’m no electrician, so the pussy outlet wouldn’t really work — I borrowed my roommate’s cordless drill, then attached the cord from an old curling iron I bought at a thrift store so that it would look like it was really plugged in and working. I covered the drill with painter’s tape, then colored it in Stars and Stripes, adding a miniature American flag to the tip of the drill bit.

As for the pussy itself, it was pretty tricky. I spent hours reading all these cosplay blogs for tips on how to make body armor for cheap, and ended up molding the panty out of thick craft foam, attached to an elastic belt like a jock strap. To make it extra-durable, I covered the craft foam with a layer of glue-soaked fabric strips, then a layer of gaffer’s tape and then finally a layer of this stuff called Paperclay, which is basically a quick-drying lightweight clay that you then sand down so that it makes a smooth, lightweight top layer. I then spray painted it gold, popped in an electrical outlet, and added embellishments with electrical tape. When I was done, it looked pretty bad ass!

Now I was ready to wrassle! I was literally working on my costume until right up until the match, so when I finished, I threw everything in a bag and headed over to Gilley’s to get it on. I had been up since 7:30am working on repairing my backyard fence (more on which later), so I was pretty tired…but I was still amped as fuck to fulfill this longstanding dream of mine!

The way mudwrestling at Gilley’s works is, you arrive at 10:30pm and change into your costume, then the DJ introduces each wrestler onstage, one at a time. They play your entrance music, you get up onstage and shake your ass, tits, etc., and then the DJ asks you a few questions before auctioning you off to the crowd: “NOW, who wants to be Wonderhussy’s towel boy???” Basically, you get to swab off the mud and sweat and whatnot, and generally just look like a stud, and the bidding starts at $20.

Now normally, each wrestler gets around $100 from someone to be her towel boy (there was this one chick, Crocodile DDD, who got $400 once). But this past Tuesday was a slow night, so many of the wrestlers didn’t get huge bids. In my case, I (humiliatingly) only got $40!!!! WTF?? I felt pretty shitty about it, but one of the other girls only got $40 too, so at least I wasn’t alone. And at the end of the night we all split the take anyway, so it wasn’t too bad. But I still felt guilty, like I was letting the others down.

My opponent was Little Red (Riding Hood), a fierce, sexxxy redhead in a hooded cloak and a red thong bikini. Yowza!!! Other wrestlers that night included Lady GoGo-Get-‘Em, Harajuku Hyjak, Wild Thing, Diablo Diana and Daisy Dukes, among others….there were 8 total, and we wrestled in a playoff format, with the winners wrestling each other until only one was victorious.

Little Red and I wrassled third, and I am ashamed to say she totally kicked my ass!!! 🙁 Mostly because I couldn’t bring my power drill or Golden Pussy Whip into the ring, but still — I just had no idea how slippery it would be in that ring!! Prior to this, my only real wrestling experience was Blood Wrestling at the Sci-Fi Center, so I just didn’t know what to expect. But either way, my towel boy was very helpful and I had a blast rolling around in the muck, which is actually chocolate pudding. (I accidentally forgot, and licked some off my fingers later in the evening….and got severe diarrhea as a result, lol.)

Anyhoo, after your match is over you run to the back, where there is a tiny little shower room so you can clean off, wash your hair, and then change into fresh clothes and go back out to mingle with the crowd. They give you a couple free drink tickets as a thank-you, so it was all good. I had several friends show up to watch me, so after I cleaned up I went back out and had a great time socializing. (Incidentally, my waterproof makeup held up astonishingly well — thank you Blinc Brow Mousse! My brows stayed on perfectly.)

At the end of the last match, they divvy up the money and everyone gets her cut, and that’s that. As mentioned, I was reeeally embarrassed at having only gotten a $40 bid, and I was advised to act less confident next time. I had come out onstage waving my drill around, thrusting my Electric Vagina at the crowd like a real bad-ass…when come to find out, next time I should be more sexy and cutesy, and less threatening. They loved my costume and my Electric Pussy, but just told me to be more coy and less aggressive. Now that I think about it, that’s probably the main reason I have a hard time making money in life in general — I come off as too confident/assertive, and don’t simper and pule enough. Lesson learned!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyhoo, that was wrestling. I had a total fucking blast, and sincerely hope to rassle with the Power Posh Girls many more times! Check out this awesome GoPro footage taken by a friend, and then head over to the Power Posh Facebook page and “like” us!!

Anyway, aside from wrestling I had a pretty shitty week. My troubles all started on Valentine’s Day — I hate that fucking b.s. holiday as it is (I never seem to have a boyfriend when it rolls around, so I always feel left out and weird), but to make matters worse, this year I woke up to find that my new dog Freddy had WORMS! He was acting all weird, whining and fussing all night, and sure as sugar I found all these nasty little grains of rice-looking things on his blanket. GROSSSSSS!!!!

I scrapped my electric vagina-making plans and took him to the vet, where I shelled out $180 for meds, but when I brought him home is when the real trouble started. I don’t know if it was the worms, or the fact that it was a full moon or WHAT, but that little fucker just went BUCK WILD — racing around the house, getting worms everywhere, and generally acting a fool. I spent all day doing laundry and trying to calm him down, but eventually I had to go out and run errands….and that’s when the shit REALLY hit the fan. Every fucking time I left the house, I’d get a phone call from one of the neighbors: “We have your dog!” So I’d have to drop whatever I was doing and race home to get him.

This happened FOUR TIMES — once I was in the middle of lifting weights, and had to bail on my workout! Each time, I would go home, find out where he’d escaped, and block up the hole as best I could. My backyard fence was in a pretty shitty state of disrepair, with a lot of loose boards and stuff, but I kept nailing them tight (or so I thought). Still, the little fucker was SO CRAZED he kept finding new ways to bash his head on the boards and get out. He’d run a few houses down the street, then I’d drag him home. The funny thing was, he was perfectly content to follow me back in the house — but the next time I left, he’d run away again!! It was hell!!!

I was really stressing, because I had shit to do and couldn’t stay home with him. Fortunately, I have one of those dog kennel/crate things, so when I went out the last time, I locked him up in that. But apparently he went NUTS while I was gone, puked all over the inside of the crate, and somehow bashed his way out through the metal grate on the front!!! I’m telling you, that dog was BALLISTIC!!! I tried closing him up in there again that night, but he went BATSHIT, whining and drooling frantically, pawing at the gate so hard I was afraid he’d hurt himself. By this time, I was so exhausted that I got really mad, and resolved to take him to the pound in the morning. He’s really cute, so I have no doubt some family would adopt him in no time — I honestly didn’t feel too badly about it.

But in the morning, he had calmed down a lot, so I gave him a reprieve…..and instead shelled out $600 to replace my fucking fence. A friend referred me this awesome handyman who came over on Tuesday morning (which is why I had to get up at 7:30am….ugh), and I helped him repair/replace the fucking fence. What a LAME ASS way to spend $600, huh? Especially since I haven’t been working much this month.

I don’t know WHY, but as I mentioned last time, all my gigs have dried up lately. One day I was so desperate for cash, I even tested out a new app downtown in exchange for $25!!! Tough times, I tells ya. But I’m slowly clawing my way toward my nut this month…and I might just make it. I should probably go busking on the Strip in my Electric Vagina costume this Saturday night, just to make a few bucks: I could hold up a sign that says “CELL PHONE CHARGING,” and I’d probably do OK. That’ll be my last resort.

Anyway, since I haven’t been working much  lately, at least I had plenty of time to get out and about. One afternoon, I was a guest on the 702 Rox radio show, hosted by the sexxxy Miss Foxy Roxy, along with celebrity hypnotist Anthony Cools and this awesome chick who had just won Makeup Artist of the Year at the porno awards!! (She uses a special waterproof primer, so that it’s easy to clean up those facial wads. Gross!!!) Well, apparently I did such a good job on that show, they invited me back as a regular for the month of May — I’ll be reading the world news in a sexy outfit, kind of like those Naked News chicks. Maybe I’ll bring my Electric Pussy along!!

Then another night, I did an amazing photo shoot with my good friend Randy Fosth, Shutterbug-Studio. He shot my in my rassling outfit, but alas my Electric Pussy wasn’t finished yet, so he didn’t get any pics of that. But the good news is, he’s working on a book of our best photos…so look for that to be coming out soon! You won’t want to miss it!

Meanwhile, another good friend was in town — a classic liberal elitist journalist pal from New York City who comes out here fairly regularly to write about Vegas for various national magazines. Since they’re always schmoozing him with fabulous dinners and offers, he always invites me along as company, and as a result I’ve gotten to see some very intense shit which I would normally never be able to afford. This time, they hooked him up with tickets to the Britney Spears show at Planet Hollywood…so I went along out of curiosity. It turned out to be AWESOME! You can read my review here…but if you’re too lazy to click the link, basically it was awesome because it was so cheesy and unpretentious, and the room was full of gay guys and homely chicks bawling their eyes out while Britney waddled around the stage in wedge-heeled tennies and a sequined sausage-casing. Plus, because they were schmoozing my friend, we had front-row seats with bottle service — free vodka and candy served by a bangin’ hot Thai bottle waitress. FUN!

After the show, he had to go over to Beacher’s Madhouse to interview Jeff Beacher, so I tagged along there, too. If you haven’t heard of it, Beacher’s Madhouse is basically a nightclub with a stage show featuring wacky/bizarre acts like a woman who smashes watermelons with her giant tits, etc. They also have all these furry mascots hanging out, dancing with the crowd, as well as a bunch of celebrity look-a-likes and the world’s only flying Little People bartenders — basically, if you order a bottle of vodka, this dwarf comes flying out on a harness to deliver it to your table. It’s shtick, but it’s fun…even though it is, at heart, just a sort of frat-house nightclub melee. And to be honest, the wackiness feels pretty forced — I feel like a better m.o. would be if Jeff Beacher fired all his wacky staff, and just went out on the Strip every night at 10pm and hired 20 wackos, Home-Depot-style, to come in and do their shtick. God only knows you can find MUCH weirder weirdos hanging out on the sidewalk in front of Planet Hollywood any night of the week…including, I’ve even heard, some random bitch with an Electric Pussy!!! (Hmmm, maybe I should hit up Beacher for a job….)

Then another night, my same journalist friend got invited to the one-year anniversary party for this über-pretentious “hip Asian dining” joint at the Encore, named after Steve Wynn’s new trophy Frankenhag, Andrea. The party was chock-a-block with the “Who’s Who” of Vegas Society, meaning it was basically a roomful of Botoxed, collagen-lipped, fake-titted designer-label-wearing society whores and their wizened, pervy old husbands (many of whom probably jerk off to this very blog). UGH!!! If it hadn’t been for all the AMAZING free sushi, I couldn’t have handled it — plus, there were all these gorgeous babes standing around passing out free champagne.

That’s right, to balance out all the old Botox hags they had hired a bunch of sexy young models to come hang out at the party — only they weren’t really paying them; they just forced all the new hires for pool season to come to the party for no pay. I learned all this talking to one of them, this beautiful tall blonde from out of town. She had driven five hours to be at the party, and had to be back home again to work in the morning…but if she didn’t, she’d lose her coveted upcoming gig as a bottle waitress at the Encore’s pool club this summer.

I had always been curious as to how these pool babes get their gigs — I know there is FIERCE competition for those bottle service jobs, especially at the pool clubs. They’re always posting audition notices at my gym, and the girls have to show up in bikinis, with headshots — waitressing experience not important. Well, come to find out this poor blonde bitch drove up here from 5 hours away to audition at several pools this year, and it was intense! Hundreds of gorgeous girls shivering in bikinis in the bowels of ginormous hotel-casinos, waiting for hours until called up to walk down a runway in front of a table of judges. Creeeeeeeepy!!! Then the lucky ones get hired, and presumably make an ass-ton of money serving drinks to rich assholes and drunk douchebags in the hot summer sun. They also have quotas to make, a certain number of girls they have to bring into the pool each week, and table clients they have to book — it sounds like a lot of stress and I’d never want to do it!! But apparently, chicks across America flock here to try it…so what do I know? I think it goes back to my unwillingness to simper and pule.

Anyway, talking to that chick was the most interesting part of the party, and explained why there were so many babes in slutty bebe dresses and Christian Louboutins milling around. They were extra-thick at this one table, surrounding this miserable-looking old-ass pervert who kept stroking the legs of the miserable-looking blonde bitch beside him — apparently, he was some kind of mega-high roller ancient Mafia guy who had to be placated with bimbos to keep him from exploding in a geyser of dago rage. WOW! Who are these people, and what the fuck are their lives all about?!?!?!

For the people-watching alone, this party was amazing. Andrea Wynn herself mingled about the room with an industrial-strength binder clip at the back of her head holding her face taut, god only knows what kind of horribly pretentious babble spewing from her trout pout. Her blind old husband was nowhere to be seen, probably off banging an elbow through a Moldovan hooker’s eye socket. The best part of the entire party was when this alleged Grammy-winning blonde chippy sat at the grand piano and played an ÜBER-pretentious Norah-Jones-style version of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang.” The whole room of idiots stood by spellbound, as if it were the most amazing, groundbreaking artistic interpretation since Crispin Glover covered Charles Manson’s “Never Say Never to Always.” GAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! SOMEBODY PASS ME ANOTHER GLASS OF FREE CHAMPAGNE BEFORE I SHIT IN ANDREA WYNN’S MARTINI GLASS!!!!!!

And this, dear readers, is why I will never write for a mainstream Vegas publication: I simply can’t/refuse to play the game. I gotta call a spade a spade….or in this case, a Frankenhag a Frankenhag. And the saddest/funniest part of the whole thing was, all those slutty young chippies in the bebe dresses were just Frankenhags in waiting. AND THAT, my friends, is what Vegas is all about!!!!  (Also, let me tell you something — those bottle waitresses may look pretty, but a very close friend of mine was hired to create a spreadsheet for one of the pool clubs, to ensure that no two waitresses are ever at adjoining tables two days in a row — they have to do this to make sure the bitches don’t collude and figure out a way to sheist money from the club. As if they’re not already making enough!! Like I said…who ARE these fucking people?!?!)

Anyway, you can see why I desperately need to get the fuck out of town!! I’m waaaay overdue for an adventure, and thankfully, a new friend I met has offered me the perfect getaway: roadtrip down to Baja California for some crazy off-road race at the end of the month. Apparently, thousands of speed freaks and beach bums gather in San Felipe each year for this race, and my friend has invited me to come along and camp out on the beach, eat shrimp tacos and drink cheap Mexican beer. How could I say no to THAT?!?!

But meanwhile, I still haven’t made my monthly nut. And wouldn’t you know it, some Japanese TV crew contacted me yesterday, wanting to shoot footage of me busking on the Strip for a documentary they’re filming about Vegas — the same weekend as the Baja race!!!!! Fuck. Which should I do??

The Japanese crew is only paying $100, so it’s not really about the money — AND, they also tell me it’s a “family” show, so I can’t wear my Electric Vagina outfit or even my weed showgirl costume :/ I’d have to wear my regular showgirl outfit, and that is L.A.M.E. But still, I could be on Japanese TV!

On the other hand…I could also get the fuck out of town and go to Mexico, where I’ve never been, and get high as fuck with a bunch of hippie freaks and gearheads. Decisions, decisions. Which path do YOU think I should take????

 

Incoming search terms:

• electric vagina

I’m no stranger to censorship. My entire Facebook profile was deleted back in 2009 because I posted a few art nudes — despite the fact that no nipples/vagina were showing, the fact that I was naked was reason enough for them to delete my profile, and refuse to reinstate it (I appealed, and they actually emailed me back saying NO).  One of the main reasons I started this blog, in fact, was so that I could post whatever the fuck I wanted to, without fear of being flagged or deleted by some dumb Puritanical website.

I learned my lesson — nowadays, I’m cautious about what I post on Facebook. But I never thought I’d have to worry about Model Mayhem, the modeling networking site I use! They don’t allow you to use a topless or nude photo as your avatar (unless you’re male, in which case topless is fine…OF COURSE), but other than that, it’s pretty much open game over there. UNTIL NOW….

Yes friends, I am shocked to announce that I have now had a photo removed from Model Mayhem!! Fuck, all I need is a Twitter ban, and I’ll have a trifecta :-/

<– Here is the photo in question. Apparently, it violates this section of Model Mayhem’s terms of service:

“The following represent image types that are NEVER allowed to be posted on Model Mayhem:

– any and all penetration of vagina or anus”

Which, apparently, means: No hookah hoses allowed inside holy holes!!!!

When I uploaded this pic to Model Mayhem, I didn’t for a second think there’d be a problem. It’s obviously a kooky, tongue-in-cheek joke photo — there’s nothing erotic about it at all. But, one of the MM moderators contacted me yesterday, informing me that they had removed it.

OK, fine. It was no big deal, since I had shot a PG-version of the same exact photo anyway, so I just uploaded that, instead. But the whole situation IRKED me anyway.

Model Mayhem is mostly an amateur site — amateur models and amateur photographers…some more amateur than others!!! You see all kinds of awful shit on there, but…art is subjective, so who am I say what’s awful? As long as it’s between consenting adults, who cares?? My beef is mostly with the fact that Model Mayhem censored MY innocent little hoo-hah-hookah pic, while allowing the following photos to slide:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To those of who not familiar with Model Mayhem, these are just a few examples of the THOUSANDS of fucked-up photos people post on that site. There’s a HUGE market for “Damsel in Distress” photos of terrified-looking chicks tied up and gagged…lots of people are really into that.

Again, I’m not saying the above photos should be deleted from MM — as long as it was between consenting adults, who cares? First Amendment, already.

I’m just saying that I really don’t find my hookah hoo-hah photo to be any more offensive. What do you think?

Today marks the 422nd day of my life as a totally independent badass — it’s been that long since I quit my lame-ass job, and went full-time freelance. As you can see, I’m eating well, paying all my bills and having more fabulous adventures than ever….so I guess you could call my experiment a success! If you too are stuck in a loathsome dead-end job, dear reader…I definitely recommend quitting. It was the greatest move I ever made!

 

Now, that’s not to say it’s been all smooth sailing. I have a strict budget, and a monthly income quota that I try to hit — I know it costs me precisely $70/day to cover all my expenses and put some savings aside, and sometimes it can be tricky finding enough gigs to crack my monthly nut. This month (February) is especially tricky — not only do I have fewer days to hustle, but my gig stream sort of dried up lately, inexplicably. I’m still on track to make my nut (in fact I’m a few days ahead)…but I have very little stuff lined up for the rest of the month. I know from experience that random shit always pops up last-minute…but it can still get a little nail-bitey at times like this! Fuck, I even answered an email I got from some random dude asking how much I’d charge to come over and dye all his body hair in the shower ($100; he never answered back). ARRRGH!! Thankfully, if all else fails I can always put on my marijuana showgirl costume and go busking for tips on the Strip…but I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that!

To make matters worse, what gigs I *HAVE* had lately got all screwed up due to a massive brainfart on my part. Since my life is kinda crazy, and my work is all over the place and at different times and on different days, I keep three different calendars to keep my schedule straight: one in my phone, an appointment book in my purse, and a big desk calendar at home (this is why you have to give me plenty of notice if you want to hang out).

Well, despite my triple diligence, I somehow fucked up and penciled in this convenience store convention on the wrong days! I was supposed to wear a mascot costume at the show for a popular antacid company, and I had it down as being Thursday and Friday. So on Wednesday morning, I was in my bathroom, leisurely drinking coffee and setting my hair in rollers for a pin-up photo shoot I had booked later that afternoon…when my phone rang: “Where are you?!?!?!” FUCK!!!!!!!!

Thankfully, I had already called the client a few days prior to confirm the gig…so she had my cell number, and called me directly (instead of calling the agency and ratting me out). I told her I’d be there in 15, and hauled ass to the MGM Grand Conference Center as fast as I could — since it was a costumed mascot gig, I didn’t have to fuck with makeup, thank dog, so I basically just finished rolling my hair as fast as I could, jumped into some leggings, and raced across town (I had to finish the rolling part, since I still figured to make the pinup shoot afterward, and wouldn’t have time later on).

By the time I got there, though, I was an hour late….and I was mortified. I *HATE* disappointing people, and I have never, EVER spaced out on a gig before — I just felt really ashamed. I apologized profusely to the client, but they didn’t seem too bent out of shape, so I just got suited up as quickly as possible and tried to make up for my tardiness by busting my ass. Normally with a mascot gig, you wear the costume for 20 minutes, then take a 20 minute break for fresh air and to rest your back — 20 on/20 off for the entire shift. Well, in penance for my sins, I wore that costume for an hour each time, and made sure to bounce around with extra enthusiasm while inside. It was one of those inflatable costumes, with a fan inside to keep it inflated…so it wasn’t really hot, but the battery pack that powered the fan was pretty heavy, and my back was killing me after the first set. But I did three or four of them the first day, just to kiss ass.

Once the show ended at 4pm, my stress still wasn’t finished — I then had to haul ass home and get ready for my pinup shoot, which was supposed to have already started!! Thankfully, the photographer was a friend with whom I’ve shot many times in the past, so I had already alerted him to the fact that I was running late…and he had also hired a few other models for the shoot, so he had them to work with while they waited for me. But I still felt terrible — again, I *HATE* letting people down!!

Anyhoo, I busted my ass, got home, spackled on makeup, did some quik Victory rolls in my hair and threw a bunch of pin-up clothes into a suitcase, then raced to the El Cortez, where the shoot was taking place — in the Cabana Suites, which I wholeheartedly recommend to any photographers seeking a unique place to shoot. These rooms are super-affordable (I think ours was around $40-45 for the night) and very funky and photogenic — colored walls, artsy furnishings and decor, and they even let you shoot in the lobby if you want!

Interestingly, the photographer had initially planned to shoot at the Artisan Hotel…but they quoted him something like a $500 shooting fee, PLUS the cost of the rooms. Fuck that noise! I mean, the Artisan lobby is kinda cool — full of unique, funky antiques and stuff — but the rooms themselves are dark and shitty…I know, because I’ve shot and stayed there in the past. That hotel used to be a Travelodge, and you can totally tell — they basically just slapped on some black paint and added a bunch of artsy oil paintings. Shitty, for sure…plus, they’re assholes: the

bartenders will overcharge you at every opportunity (again, I speak from experience; I was once charged $40 for a $24 order). To top all that off, they deleted my bad review from Yelp! So…fuck ’em!

But anyhoo, the El Cortez Cabana Suites are the shit…so keep that in mind if you’re looking for a cool room to shoot in here. Not much natural light, though…so bring your equipment!

Aaaaaaaanyway, once the shoot was finished I went home and passed out, making sure to get up in plenty of time to make Day 2 of the convenience store convention. I got there like 20 minutes early…which was good, because I ended up forgetting to bring socks with me, and had to run into the MGM Grand to buy a pair from the gift shop (Logo: “What Happens in These Socks…Stays in These Socks.” I’m not kidding.)

But once the sock crisis was resolved, the rest of the day went fine. I wandered around the expo hall bobbing and dancing and high-fiving various convenience store franchisees, and it was great. Again, I wore the costume for an hour at a time, still making amends for the previous day’s tardiness — I really like doing mascot gigs, and didn’t want the client to give me a bad review in case the agency refused to ever book me again.

Being in a costume at that show was actually a blessing, since it prevented me from shoveling into my face all the horrible crap convenience-store food on display — but even then, on my break I managed to snarf down all manner of junk, ranging from salted caramel Cracker Jack to Jack Links to breakfast sandwiches, stuffed hashbrowns and plenty of coffee drinks. Blecccchhhhhhh!! WHY do I have such a hard time turning down free food, even when it’s basically poison?!?!?

The other interesting thing about this show was, unlike previous convenience store shows I’ve worked, the exhibitors were not allowed to hand out bags to the attendees. You may recall that the last convenience store show I worked basically devolved into a free-for-all worthy of a Sudanese refugee camp, as attendees literally clawed and crawled over each other to grab free handouts at the end of the show, many walking out with overflowing shopping bags full of food-swag. Apparently, some of the more unscrupulous franchisees collect all this free shit, then turn around and sell it in their stores to make extra money! So they put the kibosh to that at this show — no bags allowed! But that didn’t stop people — you saw them walking around with boxes salvaged from the trash, overflowing with collected crap. Oy, vey!

Anyway, at the end of the day the client let me go a bit early, since the show was basically dead anyway. But the costume needed to be shipped to the next city, and the MGM in-house shipping department wasn’t able to come get it for another two hours. Rather than make them wait around, I offered to drive the client to the nearest Fed-Ex, on my own dime, and help her ship it out so she didn’t have to wait. I was still trying to butter her up so she wouldn’t tell the agency I was late the first day…but alas, when I dropped her back at the hotel, she still signed my timecard to reflect my late start. Boooooo! 🙁 Oh well, lesson learned….from now on I am keeping FOUR calendars, and am double-checking my dates on  EVERYTHING!!!

Either way, after those exhausting two days, I was definitely ready for a night off…and thankfully, a very good friend was in town, and we had a special outing planned for that Friday!

Now, as you know, pretty much ALL Vegas shows are cheesy, unimaginative tripe. ALL of them — especially the “artsy” ones! The only way to make them bearable is to take some sort of psychedelics beforehand, and that’s just what my friend and I are wont to do. We’d already been to Absinthe, Penn & Teller and Rod Stewart under the influence of magic mushrooms…but now we wanted to see the granddaddy of them all: the Beatles LOVE, a trippy, psychedelic Cirque du Soleil interpretation of the Beatles’ music that is actually a pretty good show even sober…but undoubtedly even better under the influence!

Well, I’m here to tell you that I was right — it was amazing!!! We had front-row seats, which normally is too close to see all the action (I’d already seen the show 3 times, from various distances, and the middle is best). But being on shrooms, the front row was awesome, since it felt like you were right up in the middle of all the craziness — all those kooky, colorful characters dancing around right in front of you! Amazing, and HIGHLY recommended. We had the time of our lives, then walked over to Caesars Palace for some drinks in the Seahorse Lounge until our buzz wore off. All in all, a fantastic night…and just what I needed to recharge my batteries!

After that, it was back on the hamster wheel. First up was the Super Bowl — thank dog I hate football, because I’ve ended up working that Sunday every single year since I started doing gigs back in ’08. At first it was dumb shit like Miller Lite or Bud Light Girl — walking around various casino parties handing out koozies and crap. But the past few years I’ve worked this one ginormous independent party as a showgirl — walking around posing for pics with guests, that kind of thing. It’s super fun, and this year I got to bring along a buddy, who happened to have two matching showgirl costumes for us!

After the Super Bowl, the pendulum swung back to “BORING:” the Homebuilders’ Show. But that was only two days, and then it was back to fun gigs: I did a photo shoot as a vampire, where the photographer let me keep the custom-fitted fangs he’d bought (!!!), then I danced in a music video for this awesomely nutty act called Kingdom of Wonderland, and then some out-of-state friends came to town and hired me to accompany them to dinner at the ever-fabulous Rose.Rabbit.Lie. If you haven’t heard of this place, read my review here…basically it’s just a WEIRD-ASS supper club/lounge/interactive theater experiment where performers are all around you, all the time. What was especially cool was that I got a totally different experience this time,

compared to my last visit: this time, we had drinks before dinner in the Music Room…and as we were sitting there, this chick came along and asked to “borrow” us, then took us into this weird little closet room where a naked hot dude was taking a bath in an old-fashioned claw-footed bathtub, reading sheet music and pontificating to a bunch of other kooky characters hanging around. His butler brought out a punchbowl, and played a drinking game with us until we were all totally wasted, at which time the hot dude got out of the tub, got dressed, and we all went back out to the bar. FUN!!! Then after that we had a sick-ass dinner, and some after-dinner drinks in the Study…overall, another fantastic night, and you should definitely check out Rose.Rabbit.Lie next time you’re in town!

Now, that was all the gigs I’ve done lately — well, I’m here to tell you that the most fabulous gig of ALL is yet to come!!! The other girl that I did the Super Bowl party with runs a mudwrestling night at Gilley’s, the country-western bar at the Treasure Island…and she said she’d book me as a wrestler at their next event!!! DREAMS DO COME TRUE — I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO MUDWRESTLE!!!!!!!!

The best thing about this mudwrestling gig is that it’s totally campy shtick, a la the old Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling (G.L.O.W.) back in the day — the girls all have crazy costumes and personalities, and it’s all very theatrical and over-the-top. They’re called the

Power Posh Girls, and I went down to watch them the other night, to get an idea. OH….MY….GAWD! I can’t wait!!!! I already have a BAD ASS character planned: WONDERHUSSY, a sort of slutty all-American superheroine with a very special twist that I’m trying to make in time for the next event, on February 18th. If I can rig up this special prosthetic in time I’ll have a special entrance song to match, but if not, I’ll have them play “American Woman” when I enter the ring. Boo-Ya!!!

Speaking of this special prosthetic, trying to build it has led me to some very strange cosplay websites — cosplay being this weird subculture of dorks who spend hours and hours, and hundreds of dollars, making superhero costumes out of duct tape and foam and all these weird plastics with names like Worbla and Wonderflex and Friendly Plastic. WTF!!! It’s bizarre! But I’m enjoying building this costume so much that who knows….I may end up becoming a big cosplayer myself!! NOT!!!

Either way, it’s good that I’ve been home lately working on this costume, because I also recently got a new dog, and I have to keep the poor little fucker company!! That’s right; this chick I worked CES with read my blog about my old dog Stubby dying, and asked me if I wanted to adopt this stray that showed up near her trailer in the desert, down in Arizona. Apparently she lives down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and assholes abandon their pets there with some frequency — well, this bad-ass chick takes them in and tries to find homes for them when she can! What a cool lady!!

This particular dog had been running around the desert for about a year, roaming free and knocking up all the bitches in the area and generally living the life of Riley. Well, she roped him in and started feeding him, and sent me a photo, and he looked pretty cool: about the same size and stature as my old dog, with the same short lil legs. I think he’s a Basset Hound mixed with an Irish Setter or something. Anyway, I drove down halfway and met her near the Hoover Dam to pick him up, and he’s a real sweetie. I kinda feel sorry for him, though, because I took him from his free-ranging desert life and dragged him into the city, with all the noise and pollution and sirens and shit…and the first thing I did was cut his hair off, and his balls off, and now there’s no more banging bitches and running around freely. But he doesn’t seem to mind it very much — I’ve had him a few weeks now, and he’s been pretty chill, only peeing in the house twice and not chewing anything except a leash (he HATES to be tied up). The girl who gave him to me was calling him Thorin Oakenshield, after the Dwarf King in Lord of the Rings (because he does look like a little dwarf) but I couldn’t get used to saying that, and ended up naming him Freddy. Awww!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love asking my fellow Las Vegans what brought them here initially — more often than not, the answer is a variation of “I got stuck here because [X],” or “I ended up here because [X],” and ends with “but I’m moving as soon as I can get the fuck out of here.” It seems like few people actually choose to move to Vegas — and even the ones who do, only plan to stay long enough to make a crapload of money, then get the fuck out. In my experience, not many people move here planning to stay and make a life, or build a real community. (This has begun to change over the past few years, thankfully.)

Well, I actually chose to move here…because I thought it seemed like an interesting place. People tried to talk me out of it, telling me I’d regret it because Vegas is a “second-chance town” full of losers who couldn’t hack it anywhere else: single moms with multiple baby-daddies, divorcees, convicted felons, addicts…basically a city full of people with sordid pasts. In addition, uneducated assholes flock here because even a dimwit lacking the most basic education can make a decent living in the service industry: strippers, valet attendants, doormen…you know what I mean!

But I moved here anyway, and have been here for 13 years. And I love it!!! In retrospect, I think I was drawn to Vegas because it was dumb — less intimidating than New York or L.A., with fewer intellectual or creative expectations. But rather than sit here and psychoanalyze my lame-ass motivations, let me tell you about the magnificent journey that brought me here.

I had recently graduated college and found myself mired in a miserable desk job in the bowels of a gray concrete building on the IBM campus in San Jose, CA. I had to get up at 6am and spend my days drinking coffee from a Cathy mug and kissing executive ass — not really what I had in mind for life. I wanted adventure!!! And I especially wanted to never have to get up at 6am EVER. AGAIN.

As mentioned, Vegas had always seemed like a super interesting place to me. But keep in mind, this was back in 2000, during one of those in-between periods when Vegas wasn’t really a hot spot — the “family-friendly destination” phase was just ending, and the “upscale nightlife douchery” phase hadn’t yet begun. Vegas was kinda down-and-out…just the sort of aesthetic I dig! I had seen the movie Swingers, where the guys pick up that cocktail waitress and go back to her trailer-park home, and I just thought that seemed so funky and weird and awesome that I had to move here and try it for myself. So I did.

As with everything, I did it in pimp-ass cinematic style: the first thing I did was ditch my practical, boring wheels in favor of something much more Vegas-worthy…which in my mind meant an obscenely huge, vintage All-American gas-guzzler. I didn’t want to be too stereotypical, so I bypassed the usual 60s and 70s suspects and went straight for the biggest, squarest American-made beast I could find, which turned out to be a 1986 Lincoln Town Car. I specifically chose this make and model because it had zero curves on it anywhere — I hated those aerodynamic, fuel-efficient pudding blobs that were popular back then, and I wanted angles.

With the help of a friendly used car dealer in San Jose, I found an ’86 Town Car at a police auction, but it was a totally pedestrian, un-Vegas shade of blue…which simply would not do for my fabulous new life in the desert! So with the same dealer’s help, I had it painted bright, pukey Pepto-Bismol pink (ever the contrarian, I refused to go the standard pale-pink Cadillac route. I’m different, by gum). Then I had the interior redone in virginal white
(I actually was still a virgin when I moved here, shockingly).

While I was waiting for the car to be pimped out, my sister and I drove down to Vegas one weekend to look at apartments. In those days they had these bizarre free apartment-finding services — I think they’re still around, but not sure if it’s still free. Anyway, you went in, told them how much you wanted to spend and what part of town you

wanted to live in, then they would give you a map with a few complexes marked on it and have you go pick one. I told them I wanted to live right on the Strip and pay less than $500 a month — which was possible back then, but you would have been in a really shitty part of the north Strip, and the lady steered me away from that. So I ended up picking the first place she sent me, right off Sahara Ave. across from the Palace Station (the north side, behind In-N-Out Burger…not the shitty-ass south side). It wasn’t right on the Strip, but it was pretty close, and it was a nice, quiet complex with lots of trees and shit.

So after I signed the lease, I drove back to San Jose, packed up my meager belongings, and loaded them all into my freshly repainted Lincoln, which I christened “The Chairwoman of the Board,” in honor of Frank Sinatra. And then I hauled ass for Vegas, never to look back! (Well….rarely, anyway.)

Now when I first moved here, I didn’t really know anyone in town — except I had sort of been chatting with a guy on some seedy sugar daddy Yahoo! group (this was back in the day, remember), so that was my only connection here. In those days, I was under the misguided impression that it would be super-glamorous and fun to have an older sugar daddy, so that’s what I was angling for. It didn’t really work out, but he was nice enough and did help me out here and there, though not so much financially…he mostly just showed me around town and took me to dinner, stuff like that, until I got a job.

Now speaking of that, my goal upon moving to Vegas was to become a cocktail waitress at Caesars Palace, the most fabulous of all the Vegas hotels. I was obsessed with those little mini-toga dresses they wear, and I could think of no more glamorous job in the entire world. I figured I’d waltz in, get hired, and be rich in no time. How wrong I was!

Back then, Vegas was a big union town (even moreso than now), and you couldn’t just get a job because you were hot — you had to work your way up the ranks. So I went down and signed up at the Culinary Union…but when I discovered I’d have to schlep drinks at some shitty pisshole for years before they’d even let me set foot in Caesars, I bailed. Fuck that noise! I didn’t move here to serve drinks at the El Cortez, motherfuckers!!!

Meanwhile, my “sugar daddy” had a friend whose crackhead daughter worked as a camera girl, taking souvenir photos at the Wayne Newton show. He told me I should look into that, since back then the camera girls made pretty good money (this was before digital cameras really became popular, let alone iPhones). It sounded cool to me, since I had an art degree, so I went down to the Cashman Photo office and applied. They hired me on the spot, and put me at the MGM, taking photos at this godawful family-friendly spectacular called EFX.

At this point I had lived in Vegas for about three weeks, and I was pretty much set. My job paid enough to cover my bills (my rent at the time was only $560/month, and I had bought my car outright, with ca$h money saved from my IBM job). I was able to ditch my poor “sugar daddy,” who went on to marry a Filipino woman who I’m sure made him very happy….and so I went about living the fabulous Vegas life I’d always dreamed about.

The “fabulous Vegas life I’d always dreamed about” basically consisted of sleeping til noon, then going out boozing after work and eating chicken-fried steak at a different coffee shop every night, with forays here and there to places like Area 51, the Liberace Museum, Siegfried & Roy’s show, the Caesars Palace pool and the Bellagio, where I eventually finally lost my virginity. Occasionally I would go out to the clubs of the day, which were pretty much just Studio 54 at the MGM and raver-paradise Utopia…but for the most part I preferred to booze at casino bars, where the music wasn’t so fucking loud and I could actually carry on a conversation with all the interesting weirdos and down-n-out freaks of Vegas.

Anyway, I had many interesting adventures and met many wacky weirdos, which I wrote about in a blog I had back then…but after a year or so it got old, and I started thinking about leaving Vegas. And then the whole September 11, 2001 thing happened, which killed tourism dead for the better part of a year…so I did bail on Vegas, and moved back to California.

But I had a similar experience to many who try leaving Vegas: I missed it! You get used to the 24-hour weird energy and all the freaks and kooks and hustlers and whores…so after only about 5 months, I came back.  This time, I took a weekly rental at the Holiday Royale next door to the Hard Rock Hotel, then went back to the apartment finding service to look for a permanent place, ending up pretty much in the same part of town as before.

It took a while, but Vegas eventually recovered from the September 11 slump…and came back with a vengeance. This is when all these douchey megaclubs started opening — and when the concept of bottle service came up. Nightlife became a big thing, and I remember it was such a scandal when Tabu at the MGM opened, and they were only hiring “models” to work there. WTF!! Models?!

It took me another 4 or 5 years before I worked up the balls to try being a model myself — I just assumed you had to be 5’10” with blonde hair and big tits, so I had never been so presumptuous as to think I could do it myself. But eventually I started doing conventions and promotions and that kind of shit, and before you know it  I was running around naked and eating donuts and shit for money. Progress!

But between the time I moved back here in 2002, and the time I started modeling, in 2006…it was a long, lonely stretch of meaninglessness. I hated living here, and in fact I was one of those people who couldn’t wait to leave Vegas. I just didn’t know where else to go/what else to do, so I stayed….and I’m glad I did, because now I really dig it here.

Because what’s great about Vegas is the fact that it IS a “second-chance town” — and I got my second chance! I eventually found a niche that worked for me — after dicking around with conventions and shit for a couple years, I started doing the nude and fetish stuff around ’08, and now I’m having a blast. I have a ton of weird-ass freaky friends, I go to a ton of bizarre-o events, and I basically take advantage of everything this city has to offer. The weather is great, the cost of living is still pretty low, the tax climate is favorable (thanks to “gaming,” we have no state income tax)….and I NEVER HAVE TO GET UP AT 6AM!!! (Unless it’s for a bad-ass reason like I want to go watch the sun rise over Hoover Dam or something like that. Or, occasionally, for a gig.)

The only real regrets I have are: 1.) I wish I hadn’t pissed away time and money at college, 2.) I wish I would have started fetish modeling earlier, and 3.) I wish I still had my pink Lincoln!!

Unfortunately, an ex-boyfriend talked me into selling the Lincoln back in ’07, because as he put it, it was time for me to get a “real” car. BOOOO!!!

But mark my words: one day, as dog is my witness….I will get another pink car!