Friday, January 30, 2009

The Oldest Casting-Couch Trick in the Book

"Alright, little girl, we're going to do an improv. I'm a producer and you're going out for a sexy role. Now show me that you really, really want this part."

That is the oldest and lamest casting-couch trick in the book, and yes, I actually fell for it.

But since it was the last casting-couch scenario I fell prey to, I consider it a victory of sorts.

Final Hollywood Scumbag, like Stripper Pimp, was a talent manager. Unlike Stripper Pimp, Final Hollywood Scumbag actually represented people I had heard of. He specialized in stand-up comics, including a brilliant Mexican-American comedian (" 'Member? You 'member!") who went on to have his own ABC sitcom.

I received a phone call from Final Hollywood Scumbag less than a week after Stripper Pimp dropped me, because I'd been mailing my pictures to agents and managers religiously.

Final Hollywood Scumbag was none-too-thrilled that I had reached the ripe old age of 25, grousing that I looked younger in my pictures. He also dismissed my interest in comedy, cutting me off with, "Pretty girls don't make good comics."

If I'd had higher self-esteem, I would have politely hung up the phone and forgotten all about him. Instead, I came in for a meeting, so he could put me down in person: "There is absolutely nothing worth noting on your resume. Until you lose 15 pounds, you're a joke. Why are you wearing open-toed shoes if you have big feet? Why aren't you wearing nail polish?"

I showed up the next day in a sexy black pantsuit, nails dutifully painted.

He liked it so much he ordered me to come back in a dress, a sexy bra, panties and a garter. I scoured the bargain racks at Ross and Playmates, returning all glammed up and $100 poorer.

That's when he first led me through the pretend-you're-a-sexpot routine.

"Prove to me you really, really want this part."

I talked, I emoted, I overacted, I even stripped, while he yawned and said, "I don't believe you really want this part."

He was happy to look at my boobs, though. "Even though they're small, they are quite possibly the most perfect little breasts I've ever seen."

I didn't hear anything back for about a month, when he called and asked me to come back in. He offered to set up meetings with a few key casting directors in exchange for me cleaning his office, doing his mailings and working the phones.

And let's not forget role playing.

Same scene, same basic scenario. Over and over and over. I stripped butt naked three times. And finally, the third time, I understood how to show him I really, really wanted the part. I sat on his lap and talked sexy while he pleasured himself. Finally, the scene was Oscar-worthy.

Did I mention that he was a friend of my Dirty Old Nobody agent?

They talked about me and came to two conclusions: 1) that I was a good little "second banana" actress – not pretty enough to play the lead girl, but a perfect best friend, and 2) I was "willing to do what I needed to do" – Hollywood code for casting-couch slut.

My dirty dealings with Final Hollywood Scumbag ended pretty quickly. It was all a little too Aunt Jemima for my tastes – scrubbing his grungy office until it shone, then helping Massa undo his pants.

The final straw was when he asked me to messenger other actors' submissions all over town, when my pictures weren't even in the stack.

I finally got the message. I didn't want to be known as an actress who was willing to do what she had to do. I was no longer willing to do it, and I never did it again.

(Stripper/Casting Couch Diaries Part 16 of 17: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17)
(Stripper/Casting Couch Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Does my blog scare you?

I've had some interesting conversations lately with people who know me and read my blog. My sister confessed that my blog is grossing her out. She asked – with a trace of hope in her voice – if I was embellishing any of the details for dramatic effect.

A friend and former co-worker told me that she couldn't make it all the way through some of my posts, and that knowing the person I am now, she couldn't believe some of the harsh stuff from my past.

Another friend asked me how in the world I got through this dark time in my life.

The answer I gave this last friend was true, but not complete. I said that things were bad for another 8-10 months, but then I started rebuilding my life, and I slowly began to heal.

What I couldn't quite put into words is that I believe that God carried me through, even at the height of my own self-destruction.

At some very deep level, I've always believed that somehow, someway I would be ok ... that I was ordained to do great things ... that somewhere out there in the magical future, all of my dreams would one day come true. And that future fantasy was enough to sustain me, even when my life was at its bleakest.

But future fantasies are no longer enough.

Over the last year or so, I've started to develop a more mature relationship with God, one that doesn't hang false hope on a someday that's better than my today.

For example, I no longer believe that if I say 10 zillion affirmations and surround myself with rosy visualizations, I'll find myself on a movie set or walking down the aisle in white. Law of Attraction be damned, I just don't believe in The Secret anymore.

Because that magical-thinking mindset is part of what made me so ripe for the pimping 12 years ago. I desperately needed some big event out there to validate me, and I thought that the only way to bring about that big event was to curry favor with an all-powerful man or on-high deity.

Today, I'm in the process of learning that who I am is enough. That God doesn't love me any more or any less when I'm happy vs. depressed, skinny vs. fat, succeeding vs. failing, celibate vs. promiscuous.

Because inside, I'm always the same person.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Dark Depression Meets Vaginal Discharge

The one-two punch of my agent's casting couch and Stripper Pimp's gamesmanship hurled me into a pit of despair so deep and so dark that nothing could penetrate it.

I still tried to go through the motions of building my acting career – sending out pictures, meeting with managers and agents, auditioning for any and every crap part I could get seen for.

But I felt like a loser. A stupid loser. A stupid loser who had been had. A stupid loser who had been had sexually, and now had nothing to show for it.

I was completely broke, except for what I could beg, borrow or steal from my 88-year-old alcoholic great aunt. And even though I was wholly dependent on her – or perhaps because I was wholly dependent on her – I hated her. I hated the pitter-patter of her tiny little feet; the high-pitched, mournful whine of her voice; her never-ending befuddlement; the way she barged into my room without knocking; her constant (and I do mean constant) interruptions.

I knew I needed to get a job, but I couldn't figure out how to work during the day and audition during the day at the same time. Or how to work at night, and be available for play rehearsals or casting workshops at night. Acting was an expensive, full-time, nonpaying, soul-destroying job, but it was the only job I ever wanted.

I was screamingly lonely. I missed my family, especially my three-year-old niece.

Loser, loser, loser was my mind's constant, taunting refrain.

I tried to combat the voice, but I felt defeated.

I restarted The Artist's Way.

I wrote affirmations. My dreams come from God, and God has the power to accomplish them.

I tried to pray. God, why doesn't anybody love me? Why don't I have a man? When will my life get better? Please, please, please help me.

I bought tarot cards and started teaching myself how to read them. This new hobby was the only bright spot in a pitch-black month.

I binge-ate Hostess fruit pies and ice-cream sandwiches and jelly doughnuts, all the while worried about my "weight problem," defined back then as being a size 8 in a size-2 world.

I had marathon four-hour phone conversations with my best friend in Detroit, resulting in a $286 phone bill.

And I tried to ignore the smelly, yellow discharge that was oozing from between my legs. At first, I called it a yeast infection. I squirted myself full of Monistat and hoped it would go away.

It didn't.

I went to my chiropractor, who gave me some naturopathic stuff that was supposed to help.

It didn't.

The psychic damage caused by sexual exploitation was no longer invisible. It was now a smelly, real thing that dripped down my thighs for weeks (and eventually, months) on end.

(Stripper/Casting Couch Diaries Part 15 of 17: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17)
(Stripper/Casting Couch Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

How Stripper Pimp (Politely) Gave me the Boot

I crossed an invisible line when I slept with my agent. Before I had been a slut. Now I was a whore, which was much, much worse.

It's true that Bear had already given me money for sex and invited me to be his freak. But I didn't see that as whoredom, because he was someone I would have slept with for free. And since I'd always wanted to be one of those girls who could snap her legs open and make some dumb boyfriend pay her rent, Bear seemed like a step up.

I didn't see sleeping with Stripper Pimp, my so-called manager, as whoredom, either. I was genuinely attracted to him. He was my type: old enough to be my dad, reasonably good looking, educated, smart and decidedly antisocial.

But my agent? He was an old white man I wouldn't have slept with in a million years. Yet, I had. In a bald attempt to further my acting career.

So now I was a whore, and an amateur whore at that. Real whores got paid. They negotiated their price up front.

I had no idea what I was going to get from my agent. Did spilling his seed in my face signal an intention to start "sending me out" (getting me auditions for film and TV roles that I couldn't get on my own)? Would I have to keep sleeping with him in order for him to keep sending me out?

Three days into this abyss of self-recrimination, I got a 10:30 pm booty call from Bear. Against my better judgement, I drove to the Snooty Fox motel, where he greeted me butt naked at the door.

"How are you?" I asked.

"I got my d*ck in my hand, how do you think I am?"

That charming answer set me off. Bear didn't get the hot, willing, numb "freak" he thought he could pass out to his friends as a door prize. He got Evil Black Woman. Who gave him a sullen earful while he sat on the bed, stunned, still holding on to the symbol of his manhood.

"Girl, I was gonna help you out, but since you ain't acting right..."

That was the last time I saw him. And no, I did not "become his freak."

But a big question mark still hung over my head regarding Stripper Pimp. We hadn't talked in nearly a week. Would he continue to manage me, or would he dump me, as my best friend had predicted?

That question was finally, abruptly and smoothly answered the next night, over the phone.

"I've decided that I can no longer be your manager," he said calmly. "With all the things going on with the girl group, I can't give you the attention you deserve, and you deserve attention. So, that's what I called to say."

He never once mentioned "dancing" or my failure/refusal to do it. No nostalgia about the fact that we'd slept together twice. We were back to being polite business associates, and he was the Hollywood player who was making the calculated business decision.

Except that now, we both knew he wasn't a Hollywood player. He was a pimp. He was kicking me out because I was a badly behaved ho who wouldn't dance on table tops and willingly share my tips with him.

I'd been riding Stripper Pimp's roller coaster of false hope for nearly two months. And now the ride had unceremoniously stopped.

(Stripper/Casting Couch Diaries Part 14 of 17: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17)
(Stripper/Casting Couch Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Warm Milk With My Dirty, Old Nobody Agent

As an actress, you know you're in a world of trouble when you discover first-hand that your agent keeps a box of condoms and a sheet in his office. When Dirty, Old Nobody, or D.O.N. for short, invited me to dinner, it did occur to me that maybe he might want to get into my pants.

Especially when I casually mentioned it to Stripper Pimp, who gave me a hard, fixed look and some curt advice: "Make sure you have somewhere to be at 9 o'clock."

That conversation took place just hours before a clown sabotaged my final stripper audition, and I blew up at Stripper Pimp. Now that I was crystal clear that stripping was not an option, I was afraid that Stripper Pimp was going to drop me. I was a nervous wreck.

As for D.O.N., I believed the big, yellow agency book that proclaimed him to be a caring agent who got great comments from casting. I thought he was a big deal.

I'd won his representation fair and square by delivering a powerhouse emotional scene, not just once, but twice. He said he'd give me a shot because I was a "very special actress," even though he openly worried that I wasn't sexy or pretty enough, and that I was a little too timid and shy.

D.O.N. was probably old enough to be my grandfather, and he was pleasant enough on the occasions when I dropped off my proof sheets. So even though I was aware that dinner might mean much more, I didn't give it much thought.

Especially after an innocuous dinner filled with safe pleasantries and chit-chat.

When he drove me back to his office, he asked me if I wanted to come inside for a little bit. Filled with lasagna and good will, I cluelessly complied. He disappeared into the bathroom, came back freshly mouthwashed and reclined on his couch, asking me to join him.

That's when I realized, with a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, that I was going to be his after-dinner mocha cappuccino after all.

But with the same zombie-like numbness with which I had made an amateur sex tape the week before, I nervously joined him on the couch.

"That's better," he said as he began to rub my back. He asked me to take my dress off. Then my bra. Then he requested a blow job. All very polite, safe, nonthreatening.

But altogether unsettling.

I'd mostly dated older men, but he was just plain old. And I'd never been with a white man before, so let's just say the long, thick shock of corn-silk-textured pubic hair was new to me. I'd never seen so much hair down there.

I blew him. He reciprocated.

Then he went to his desk drawer and got a condom. He tried valiantly to finish what he started, but in those pre-Viagra days, old age won out.

"I've got an idea. Let's get on the floor."

He reached behind me on the couch and came up with a sheet and a pillow. What kind of agent keeps condoms, a sheet and a pillow in his office? The thought floated from some corner of my mostly shut-down mind.

But then again, what did it matter? Who was I saving it for?

He gave me a below-the-navel massage, and I came.

"Stay right there," he commanded. Standing over me, he removed the condom.

Oh my God! Is he about to ... ????

"My milk is about to come down ... arghhhhh!"

Just like that, wetness splashed my face. Some fell into my mouth. The rest I wiped off with a paper towel.

"Are you ok?"

I nodded unconvincingly, got dressed and went home.

I didn't cry. But I wanted to.

(Stripper/Casting Couch Diaries Part 13 of 17: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17)
(Stripper/Casting Couch Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

My Manager's Soothing, Post-Stripping Phone Call

I was pissed. Wiped out. Devastated. Mad. Sore. Furious. Enraged. Heartbroken. Lost.

I'd just been heckled by a clown at a strip club. I'd spent $100 on stripper outfits, and I'd brought home $19 – a net loss of $81. I was done with stripping. Done.

And now I was reeling from the death of my latest make-enough-money-to-keep-acting dream. I wouldn't be making $400 a night. I wouldn't be moving out of my aunt's dreary home any time soon. I was back to square one, $5,081 dollars poorer – because the week before, in anticipation of my new fast-money job, I'd given $5,000 to an abusive psychic.

So I wasn't exactly in the right frame of mind when my manager-turned-Stripper-Pimp called at 2 a.m. to find out if I had successfully applied for the stripper job.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Horrible!" I spat. "Out of seven girls, I couldn't even get fourth place. I made a whole $20."

"Well, the idea wasn't for you to win or place. The girls who enter these things are professionals, so I didn't expect you to. The idea was to get the manager to put you on the schedule." He was always calm, logical, unflappable.

I told him how much I hated the club and that the girls who worked there weren't making any money.

"Well, just because they aren't, doesn't mean you won't. In three weeks, you could be the top girl at the club."

And so the conversation went, until he said, soothingly, "I know how you feel."

I exploded.

"NO, YOU DON'T! You're not the one who has to get up on the stage and do that sh*t!"

And then I began sobbing. Big, boo-hooing, loud, gasping, four-year-old, couldn't-catch-my-breath sobbing.

To which he said, after a moment of stunned silence, "Forget it. If you're going to be miserable about it, don't do it. Life is too short. Misery not included. So, forget dancing. In two days, you won't even remember this."

I instantly felt better about Stripper Pimp. Maybe he really was my friend. Maybe dancing really was just a suggestion.

He cared about me. He didn't want me to be miserable. I could start thinking of him as my manager again, not my pimp.

The next day, I called my best friend in Detroit and gave her the blow-by-blow replay. I ended with, "So, I don't know what's going to happen now."

"I do!" she exclaimed. "You're going to start hearing from that mo-fo less and less – because YOU'RE NOT FOLLOWING THE PROGRAM!"

Until she said it, it hadn't even occurred to me that Stripper Pimp might drop me.

(Stripper/Casting Couch Diaries Part 12 of 17: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17)
(Stripper/Casting Couch Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

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Friday, January 9, 2009

Dirty Dancing With Horny the Clown

I didn't know what to expect from my first amateur night at a strip club, but I certainly didn't anticipate a real-life, honest-to-god clown armed with a microphone: "These girls are vestal virgins! They ain't never, ever, ever stripped befo'!"

It was Tuesday night in a club called Starz, and my Stripper Pimp and so-called Hollywood talent manager had laid out a simple plan: I would do Starz's amateur night, then ask the manager for a job application.

I'd already had a busy day:
  • I'd found the perfect Park La Brea apartment that my forthcoming stripper income would pay for.
  • I'd spent $100 on two stripper outfits, pretty expensive for almost no fabric.
  • I'd worn one of the outfits, a black short-shorts & bra ensemble, to a callback for a tacky Japanese film. (I didn't get the part.)
  • And since the audition was down the street from my agent, my skanky outfit and I dropped in to say hi. He promptly asked me out to dinner Friday night, and I said yes.
  • I'd even shaved off all my pubic hair.
But nothing prepared me for the night ahead.

The club itself smacked of defeat. Two pretty-but-hard-in-the-face black girls were on the schedule. Backstage, they complained bitterly that they were only pulling in $75 a night.

The stage itself was bizarre. The club served alcohol downstairs, so downstairs was topless only. But the rule was, when it came time to take your top off, you had to do so between these two big, metal bars that resembled a shopping cart corral.

And I myself had no clue. The song I wanted to dance to was Fiona Apple's "Shadow Boxer," a dark, depressing dirge. After the D.J. gently suggested something more upbeat, we settled on Prince. Then there was my stage name. I chose "Clarity" because I thought I finally understood my place in Hollywood: I was a piece of meat.

Stripper Pimp had warned me that amateur nights didn't really attract amateurs: They attracted professional dancers hungry for the prize money. He was right. One of the girls, a skinny, flat-chested brunette was a former go-go dancer. Another was a big-busted Anna Nicole Smith type. She was sadly contemplating a return to stripping at the urging of her manager, who was right there to encourage her and wipe away her sad, little tears. Where the hell was my manager? Chilling in his Westwood apartment while a clown MC referred to me as a "good little kittykat"?

The MC had originally shown up in a light-green, three-piece suit and given us our instructions. Then he transformed himself into an obscene clown, complete with a clown suit, red nose and colored Afro wig, and picked up the microphone.

"Yeah, guys, we got fresh coochie for you tonight!"

When it was my turn to go on, he heckled me.

"Next up is Clarity. I can see clearly now!"

There were only a few men in the club. I wiggled my way across the stage, past a white man with a mustache. I arrived at a pole and attempted to grind against it in a manner I hoped was sexy. I made it to the top of the stage, where a black guy about my age shouted encouragingly: "Damn, girl! Slow down! You're moving too fast!" Then I was between the shopping-cart bars, taking off my bra. And then I was backstage with the other girls.

The finale was a dance-off where each girl did an encore, and the men pulled out their wallets. I wiggled my way to a dollar here and a dollar there. At the top of the stage, a middle aged black woman doled out consolation money for the rejects. She shoved some bills into my nearly empty hand.

Go-Go Girl, now all hot and sweaty, won the contest and a fistful of money. Weepy Blond placed second. I didn't come in third. Or even fourth. In a field of seven girls.

I'd made a whopping $19. Most of it from the reject woman.

My stripping career was over. I drew the line at clowns.

(Stripper/Casting Couch Diaries Part 11 of 17: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17)
(Stripper/Casting Couch Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

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Wednesday, January 7, 2009

In Honor of Oprah's Fat-Again Show

I am fat. I haven't been on the scale this year, but I'm somewhere in the size 18 / 220-pound range.

Like Oprah, I've succeeded in losing weight and getting down to my ideal size. Also like Oprah, I haven't succeeded in keeping it off.

In 2001, I joined Weight Watchers and over the course of 18 months, I lost 85 pounds. I managed to keep at least 50 of it off for five years.

And then, I fell completely off the wagon. Under the wagon, in fact. In between the wheel ruts, with a bag of cookies, a vat of chocolate and a liter of Diet Coke.

So I feel a lot of empathy when Oprah talks about how mad she is that even though she's accomplished so much in her life, this one area continues to kick her big, bootylicious posterior.

But the difference between me and Oprah is, I'm not really mad at myself anymore. I have empathy for myself, because I realize that my weight is not a personal failure, it's a symptom of larger issues that are going on in my life.

I'm not actively trying to lose weight. I'm actively trying to love myself and my life right now, just as it is, even though it sucks in many, many ways.

And I can honestly say that most days, I feel happier and prettier than I ever did when I was skinny. Certainly saner.

Monday, January 5, 2009

A New Stripper Plan of Attack

The first person I called after my strip-club audition was my Hollywood talent manager, Stripper Pimp. Things hadn't exactly gone as planned. Yeah, I'd taken it all off and exited the stage without tripping, but I'd also left the club without a job offer.

Stripper Pimp was reassuring. Although I thought I detected a note of disappointment in his voice, he placidly assured me that it was normal for there to be a 7-10 day delay.

It sounded comforting, but I knew a so-so audition when I had one. I didn't blame my nonexistent dance skills. I blamed my poor little boobs. Maybe Stripper Pimp was right. Maybe I should consider plastic surgery.

My best friend from Detroit was reading my mind in between praying fervently that I wouldn't go directly to hell: "I just talked to Future Husband. He told me to tell you that if you get a boob job, there's a strong possibility that you might keloid."

I have to admit, the prospect of scarred boobs was almost enough to make me think. Almost.

Because the number-one topic on my mind was money. Just one week before, I'd done something unthinkable. I'd received a $6,400 settlement check from a recent car accident – enough to move out of my aunt's house and start a new life – and I'd secretly given $5,000 of it to a psychic.

My "psychic friend" had been abusing me, terrorizing me, controlling me and coercing me out of money for six long years. It's part of the reason I was so easily led by a guy like Stripper Pimp. I already had a long, strange history of being easily led. (And all these years later, I still can't fully explain why I was so willing to give all my power away. All I know for sure is that despite being intellectually gifted, I was a walking puddle of perpetual victimhood until about age 30.)

It was ok, I told myself. In a week or two, I'd be making $400 a night stripping. It hadn't occurred to me that I might not be good at it.

A couple days after my audition, after much anxious prodding from me, Stripper Pimp came clean: the club's response probably meant that they already had enough black girls. "They'll let a white girl come in there and learn, but they're not going to do that for you."

He had a new plan: "What do you think about dancing at a black club?"

Stripper Pimp never gave orders. He just calmly asked leading questions in a smooth, even-toned voice.

I thought the idea sounded about as appealing as crawling into a dark, dirty crack in a kitchen baseboard to comingle with cockroaches. The Barbary Coast had burned an image in my mind that I just couldn't shake: loud, rowdy n*ggas crumpling up dollar bills and aiming them at my crotch. I'd visited during the day. I couldn't begin to imagine that place at night.

"It's bad enough I'm gonna do it, but I'm not gonna do it in a place where I'll be disrespected," I protested.

But minutes later, I needed his reassurance: "Do you think I'll make more money in a black club than a white club?"

"Absolutely, or I wouldn't have suggested it." He explained that I would need to work a smaller club for a month or two to learn the ropes, then I could try one of the big white clubs again.

The club he suggested, the First King, was right across the street from the Barbary Coast. A former client of his used to dance there, he said. It was a "nice atmosphere" and she made $300-$400 a night.

I decided to drive by the First King after my Monday-night singing gig and just get a feel for the place. I found three police cars outside and a line of police tape stretching all the way around the building.

Uh ... not exactly a nice atmosphere, unless I wanted to get shot.

I immediately called Stripper Pimp, and he had a new suggestion. I should do an amateur night at a mixed club called Starz.

(Stripper/Casting Couch Diaries Part 10 of 17: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17)
(Stripper/Casting Couch Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

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Sunday, January 4, 2009

My First Strip-Club Audition

When I walked into the Century Lounge strip club, one of the guys who worked there told me I was beautiful and that I was going to make a lot of money. That was exactly what I wanted to hear.

This was the club Stripper Pimp, my Hollywood talent manager, wanted me to try first. The lead singer of his girl group was, in his words, "the queen" of this club. She came up to say hi as I waited for my audition. At work, she looked friendly, open, smiling. Outside work, she was cold, unapproachable, unsmiling. But I was genuinely appreciative of her show of support.

This was only the third strip club I'd ever been to.

The first, the Jet Strip, had been oddly comforting. The girls basically looked like different-ethnicity versions of me: they were pretty, their boobs were real and their dance moves didn't look too daunting. Stripper Pimp didn't like the Jet Strip. He grumbled when he found out I'd been there on my own.

I'd just visited the second club, Ron's Barbary Coast, the day before. It was a ghetto nightmare. The same black girls who threatened to kick my ass in elementary school were all grown up. And not only did they look like they could still kick my ass, but they looked like they could do it while sliding upside-down from the unsanitary pole.

The Silicone Lounge – oops, I mean the Century Lounge – was equally intimidating. Most of the girls were white. Most were blond. They had huge, fake boobs. And they could dance. I mean really dance. As in, their moms and dads had obviously paid for ballet, jazz and tap. They floated around the poles, looking gorgeous and takeable.

I wasn't white. I wasn't blond. My barely-B-cups were real. And one more thing: I couldn't dance.

I'd never mastered the cabbage patch, the running man, the tootsie roll or any of the popular black dances from my two-and-a-half decades on planet earth. As far as formal training, I'd had one year of Dance I, only because the Detroit Public Schools required a year of physical education to graduate from high school.

So when it was my time to take the small stage, I simply did the best I could.

I came on in a sheer, short-short, sparkly black dress that Stripper Pimp had bought me, along with six-inch, shiny, patent-leather stilettos. At some point in the song, I lifted the dress over my head and onto the floor. No bra. Maybe no panties. I don't remember for sure.

One of the 10 guys perched by the small stage was a little Mexican man. As he looked at my naked breasts, his eyes glazed over and he murmured something appreciative in Spanish. At least I had one fan.

I left the stage riding a huge adrenaline rush, the same high I got whenever I performed. I was almost cocky: All that angst and crying over this?! That wasn't sh*t.

I made my way to the back, where the club managers were watching my audition. Stripper Pimp had told me that if they liked me, they would hire me on the spot and put me on the schedule. Instead, they told me the schedule was full and that I should call back in two weeks.

Well damn. Was it really possible to fail a strip-club audition?

(Stripper/Casting Couch Diaries Part 9 of 17: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17)
(Stripper/Casting Couch Lessons Learned 1-2: 1 2)

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Thursday, January 1, 2009

New Year's Reflections on the New Me

I did not feel like celebrating the arrival of 2009.

2008 was the year of ultimate boredom. It was the year where I put one foot in front of the other and trudged an endless path of monotonous sameness: work, overeating, TV, church, work, overeating, TV, church, work, overeating, TV, church. The same sameness over and over, with a few special events to break up the monotony: my brother's ghetto (un)fabulous wedding; a trip with my church choir to sing at the Democratic National Convention; a few Oscar-worthy dramatic outbursts at my job. Then back to work, overeating, TV, church.

I didn't engage in any of my usual rituals on this New Year's Day:
  • I didn't weigh myself and vow that I would reach and maintain my ideal weight once and for all.
  • I didn't look at my balance statement and pledge that this is the year I will get rich quick, get a job I hate less or at least carve a big chink in my mountain of debt.
  • I didn't say a billion affirmations that I am now a talented and acclaimed actor.
  • I didn't pray to conquer mood swings, depression and so-called negative feelings once and for all, or fall on my knees and vow that this is the year I'd get closer to God.
  • And last but certainly not least, I did not claim that this is the year I'd finally find The One, get married and produce 1-3 adorable children (before my ovaries proclaim that it's too late).
2009 is the year where I Finally Don't Care.

Not in a defeatist, giving-up-on-life kind of way.

But in a way that says, I don't have everything I want, and I'm not going to kick myself anymore.

In a way that says, nobody can love me if I don't love me.

In a way that says, I choose to be happy, even if my life circumstances don't seem to merit it.

In a way that says, I honor me even if nobody else does.

In a way that says, I don't need an acting gig, a six-figure income, a wedding ring or a baby to prove to myself or to anyone else that I deserve to take up space on the planet.

That's the new unglamorous me, and that's what I'm celebrating in 2009.