Full Disclosure

by Stormy Daniels

  Girls started arriving, and they were all over the band. I wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone—I was still looking to get rid of Moz—so that was the end of my conversation with Jorel. He got up and was talking to a blonde. So, I sat on the couch, the only one left sitting at the table because all the guys got up to hit on the women. I texted for reinforcements, and a girlfriend, Amanda, said she would come. In the meantime, I would just people-watch—take in the mating dance of rockers and hot girls.

  Two guys walked in and went straight to the bar for drinks. Neither was dressed up, and one guy especially looked like a bum. He had a white Iron Maiden T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, shorts, and Vans slip-ons. After he’d downed a tequila, I caught him turning to look at me quickly before turning back to the bartender. He had two more shots, then wandered over to where I was sitting alone on the couch. He looked even filthier up close, but handsome. He had long brown hair, tattoos all up and down his arms, and gauges in his ears, which I’d never seen before. A rocker guy with a soccer player body.

  “Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine,” I said, my tone in keeping with the international code for “Not interested.”

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  I reached for the champagne and held it up as answer.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said.

  He came around the table to sit right next to me and then asked, “Is anybody sitting here?”

  I turned to look at both ends of the long empty couch. “Nope.”

  “Hi, I’m Glen,” he said.

  “Stormy.”

  “I’m the drummer for Hollywood Undead,” he said.

  “That’s cool.”

  “So, what do you do?”

  “Oh, that’s cute,” I said. “We’re gonna play that game.” I was so pompous about it, but in my defense, I knew that the band knew they were coming to meet Stormy Daniels about directing the video. But in his defense, he was the drummer. And bands don’t tell the drummer anything. I realized he had no idea who I was, so I felt bad. I told him about my work with Wicked and he was completely unfazed. “Oh, that’s cool,” he said.

  My friend Amanda arrived, and as she walked over I could see her taking note of all the slick band members—and the homeless guy next to me. She cocked her head, as if to say, “Um, excuse me, what are you doing?”

  “This is Glen,” I said. “Drummer.”

  She nodded, not offering her name. Suddenly Kayvon came over. “Hey, they want to get out of here,” he said.

  “Um, no surprise,” I said. “There’s nobody here.”

  “Do you think you can get us into the Penthouse Club?”

  “You walk in the door and there’s an eight-foot poster of me, so it would be pretty embarrassing if I couldn’t,” I said. I was on the February 2007 Penthouse cover. Plus, I knew the owner. “Let’s go,” I said, already switching into hosting mode.

  In the parking lot, the guys all paired off with the girls and everyone was climbing in cars. Except Glen, who looked like a lost puppy. He had cabbed it over and didn’t fit in anybody’s car. I was getting into Amanda’s car, which was a really beautiful white Mercedes.

  “Do you need a ride?” I called to Glen.

  As he turned, Amanda hissed at me. “He is not getting in my car,” she said through a closed smile.

  “Come on,” I said.

  “Dude,” she whispered to me. “I just had it detailed.”

  “He’s harmless,” I said.

  “Dirty,” she said.

  “Here, Drummer Boy,” I yelled to Glen, overruling her. “Get in.”

  The Penthouse Club is a study in neon and black, bright pinks and blues highlighting the bodies of the best strippers in town. When I turn into host, I’m like a cross between a cruise director and a dominatrix. You will have fun on my watch. I was talking to all the guys because I was trying to get the directing gig, but something kept bringing me back to Glen. He was constantly needing to find a place where he could smoke, so I would lead him places. If he wanted me alone, he had more game than I gave him credit for.

  “You looked like an angel at that club,” he said, exhaling smoke up and away from my face. I laughed.

  “No, serious,” he continued. “I turned around and saw you all in white on this white couch. There was a spotlight on you and I thought, I gotta go talk to that girl.”

  He was dirty because he’d missed his first flight and had come straight from band practice. He said he’d done the tequila shots to get the nerve to say hi. He didn’t even like tequila and was more of a vodka guy. He’d been in bands right out of high school, living on the road with one band after another. We were both refugees of the road, and I began to feel that familiar feeling of wanting to look after someone. It creeps on me and I just think, Oh, shit.

  “What’s your favorite band?” he asked.

  “You wouldn’t know them.”

  “I’m a musician,” he said. “I like all kinds of music. What, is it country?”

  “No.”

  “Try me,” he said, taking a drag on his cigarette. “And you better not say Hollywood Undead.”

  “Trust me, Drummer Boy, no,” I said, moving closer to Glen to make way for a couple of guys taking their drunk friend home.

  “Why are you so sure I’ve never heard of them?”

  “Because they’re a local band from Baton Rouge, where I’m from,” I said. “They broke up while I was in high school.”

  “Why did they break up?” Glen asked.

  “The bass player got killed and they never got a new one.”

  He got a look on his face that I couldn’t quite read. “What if I do know what this band is?”

  “If you know this band,” I said, “we are totally going to get married and have a baby one day.”

  “Now you have to try me.”

  “Acid Bath.”

  He started singing, low, a smile creeping onto his face. “A creature made of sunshine, her eyes were like the sky…” he sang. It was one of my favorite Acid Bath songs, “Scream of the Butterfly.”

  “Great,” I said, “now I’m stuck with you.”

  We went back inside, just before the Penthouse Club stopped serving alcohol. The other guys in the band started to leave, but I didn’t want the night to end. I suggested that the next county over served alcohol later, and basically browbeat Amanda into driving us to the bar at the Hard Rock Casino.

  We sat at the bar until four or five in the morning, with Amanda our over-it chaperone. She was miserable, cradling her head in her hands and absently eating peanuts left on the bar. Every bit of her body language said, Can we go now?

  No.

  “Are you coming to the show tomorrow?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “That’s a bummer,” he said.

  “Yeah, real bummer,” said Amanda. “Listen, it’s five o’clock. I’m gonna go pee, and then I’m leaving with you or without you.”

  As she trudged off, Glen leaned in toward me. “We should exchange numbers and keep in touch,” he said.

  “It’s a waste of time,” I said. “It’s never gonna happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “You and I live the same life,” I said. “We’re each like that thousand-to-one person that people meet, but every person is a thousand to us because we meet so many people. We say, ‘Oh, keep in touch’ every single night and we never mean it. Everyone gives us a card, we give our number, but we never have any intention of answering the text or ever talking again.”

  “But what if I promised to call you?”

  “Okay, Drummer Boy,” I said. “No. Our lives are just too complicated.”

  We left, and Amanda dropped me off first. I slipped away, doing a Cinderella rush out of the car with a quick wave. Good-bye, Drummer Boy.

  And I was fine with that, until I was sitting in a nail salon the next day. As the nail tech did my nails, I was seized with this one thought: I have to see that guy again. I had
this impulse to jump up and run to find him, like some crazy heroine in a movie, but I didn’t even know this guy’s last name. My adrenaline was surging, and it felt like the universe had given me a chance at something after giving me all those hints about Hollywood Undead. I had fucked up. And when you screw up and need help, you call a lawyer.

  *

  My entertainment attorney was a guy named Mark, who I knew represented Disturbed, a band that would also be at that night’s 98Rock show.

  I’m sure I sounded like I was a hostage. “Mark, I need to get into the Disturbed show.”

  “Done,” he said. “I’ll take you.” He drove in from the opposite coast of Florida and got us tickets and wristbands. Once I got in, it was like Not Without My Drummer. I just started asking everybody if they knew Glen, not knowing that he didn’t go by Glen in the band. Anyone affiliated with Hollywood Undead, with their silly nicknames, all just knew him as Biscuitz. Finally, they came onstage to play.

  They were even worse than I remembered.

  It was early, so the place wasn’t packed. I was near the front, so he spotted me. He pointed a drumstick at me and smiled. The music wasn’t for me, but he is such a gifted drummer. It shone through to me. As soon as they were done, he came and grabbed me.

  “Drummer Boy!” I yelled.

  “Come backstage,” he said. “I need to finish breaking down my kit.”

  “I can’t go back there,” I said. “I don’t have a laminate.”

  He handed me his laminate, which was on his key chain. “Don’t lose this, it has my house keys,” he said.

  “Did we just move in together?” I joked.

  My attorney, having safely secured the drummer, was busy seeing to some of his clients. Glen and I hung out backstage, eating catering. It was like being back with Pantera. Running away with the circus. Vinnie and Rex from Pantera, Slayer’s Kerry King, and, of course, Wookie …

  “Now can I have your number?” Glen asked me. “Because I could have gotten you your own laminate, you know.”

  So we exchanged numbers. He didn’t have his phone, so I wrote it on a slip of paper and put it in his pocket. Hollywood Undead needed to get on the bus for the next show. “Why don’t you just wait on the bus with me until we leave,” he asked. “I promise I won’t kidnap you.”

  I agreed, and he stepped aside to let me get on the bus first. As I climbed in, I heard it.

  “Stormy?”

  I looked up, and there he was. Wookie. Of all the tour managers in the world, it had to be one I’d fucked on a tour stop at the Ritz.

  “Oh, God,” I said. “Hi, Wookie.”

  “How long has it been?” he asked, giving me a hug.

  “Eight years,” I said. Glen came in behind me, and Wookie gave him a nod of respect. Glen and I sat for a few minutes more in the lounge in the front, and then it was time to roll out. I handed him back his laminate.

  “Here’s your house keys,” I said.

  “I’ll call you,” he said.

  He didn’t. And I certainly wasn’t going to call him. I’m a fucking lady, thank you. Two weeks went by, and I was in New York City for a dance booking. Moz and I were definitely separated now, and I was happy to be anywhere but Tampa, where I was letting him continue to live while he found work and got back on his feet. My roadie, Dwayne, couldn’t work on the last night of the New York gig, so I was all alone in my hotel after the gig. It was about three in the morning, and I was eating Chinese takeout of sweet and sour chicken in my shitty hotel room.

  I was lonely, and I looked at my phone. “Who would be awake right now?” I asked the empty room.

  “Musicians,” I answered myself.

  All performers, whether they’re dancers or musicians, are wired after a gig. On tour, Bus Call, the time you absolutely have to be on the bus every night, is usually between midnight and 3 A.M. Tour managers post a big piece of paper backstage listing the times for loading, catering info, what time you go onstage. And the very last thing is always the Bus Call in bold. That time is sacred, because they will leave without you.

  When you get on the bus, you’re spent but still wide awake. You’re too wired still from being onstage in front of all those people and taking in all their energy.

  So I just fired off a text before I could overthink it. “How’s my Drummer Boy doing?” I literally dropped my phone, like it was on fire, not sure if I had just made a fool of myself. It buzzed with a text.

  “Please tell me this is Stormy,” said the message.

  “Yes,” I typed back, grinning.

  Glen called immediately. He had written my number down and the last four digits had gotten blurred. He was on tour, and he told me he had been desperate to get in touch with me. We talked for the rest of the night and only stopped when I saw the sun begin to rise over Manhattan.

  *

  Any good old-time romance story has a moment where the hero gets drafted, right? Well, here goes.

  In early February, one of my friends back home in Baton Rouge had sent me an email with the all-caps subject: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?! It was a link to DraftStormy.com, a political movement asking me to run to represent Louisiana in the United States Senate. To convey my political bona fides, the site bragged that “at the age of seventeen, she was made editor of her high school newspaper, in addition to serving as president of her school’s 4-H club, a service-oriented organization sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture.”

  I was furious. I mean, the 4-H club thing was real and I’m damn proud of it, but someone was using my name and my image to further their political agenda without my permission. I am not political, and it’s funny that most people don’t even know that I’m a Republican. I tracked down the guy who started the campaign, Brian Welsh, and called him to tear into him. There was a lot of cussing, but it amounted to “I own the trademark to ‘Stormy Daniels’ and ‘Stormy’ in relation to things involving me and I am going to sue you to hell.”

  Brian let me go on for a long time, then finally said, “You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry I handled this wrong. I didn’t mean to insult or offend you. Let me explain myself.”

  “Five minutes,” I said.

  “Have you been keeping up with Louisiana politics?”

  I was embarrassed that I had to say no. I’d been living in Florida and mainly on the road when I wasn’t filming in L.A.

  “Well, do you know who David Vitter is?” he asked. Republican senator David Vitter, a married dad of four, had successfully run on a staunchly antigay, antichoice, “family values” platform in 2005, only to have his name turn up on the list of Washington, D.C., madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey. There were unconfirmed rumors from Hustler’s Larry Flynt that Vitter’s kink involved a diaper fetish. He apologized for his “sin,” and I’m not judging that, but it made him a hypocrite. I hate hypocrites.

  “Okay, I’m in,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”

  Brian flew me to New Orleans to meet him and introduced me to his team of political science geeks. He was in his late thirties, with brown hair and a Southern drawl. We talked, and even as his team filled me in on issues, I was adamant that I didn’t want to run.

  “Yeah, but this is great PR for you,” said Brian.

  “I’m not doing it for the PR, either,” I said. “I don’t want to make a mockery of the election process and political life.” But I figured that if I could use my name to highlight topics like Planned Parenthood and sex education—which I am very passionate about—and expose this guy as a hypocrite who was not good for the average Louisiana resident, then I would. The Stormy Daniels Senate Exploratory Committee was up and running, and we even had a campaign slogan: “Stormy Daniels: Screwing People Honestly.” My endgame, and I said as much on national interviews with the likes of CNN, was to inspire someone more qualified to step up to the plate.

  I started a listening tour in May, traveling the state to get a sense of the concerns of Louisiana residents. At the first stop, I didn’t think anyon
e was going to show up, and the place was mobbed. “For those of you who don’t know who I am,” I said at one of the many lunch places I stopped in, “I’d suggest that you don’t google that until you get home from work.” It was a lot like going to clubs for feature dancing. I was honest, I showed up on time, and I was respectful of the people who came out to see me.

  It was fun at first. People thought I was going to be an idiot, and here I was able to string a sentence together. “If you get any closer you’re going to have to start tipping me,” I told the reporters who hung on every zinger. The press interest gave me the opportunity to spew some stats I knew about the dangers of defunding sex education and the corresponding rise in rates of STDs and teen pregnancy. “If you don’t want people to have the right to choose abortion,” I said, “then you have to give them sex education. You can’t have it both ways.” And when I didn’t know the answer, I didn’t hide it. “Honestly, I’m a porn star, I don’t know the answer to that question. Yet.”

  I thought it would just set the campaign up for someone else, but people started writing campaign checks, and I was going up in the polls. Vitter would not debate me or even acknowledge my existence, and I just loved that he was scared of me.

  Still, I walked a very fine line of not trying to make a mockery of the process or appearing that I was only doing it to further my name. Yes, I did have a spike in my website views, but I didn’t want to do a Senator Stormy video for Wicked.

  One of my lines on the tour was “Politics can’t be any dirtier of a job than the one I am already in.” But I was wrong. I realized two weeks in that, just like the entertainment business but with way more repercussions, it’s about who you know and it’s about money. Vitter’s war chest was estimated at two million dollars. Right there was the real civics lesson: The person most qualified to represent the average resident of his or her state could never afford to run. Which means they will never win. Which means the people will never have true representation. It’s why we are stuck with a Congress full of millionaires. I started to get disheartened and was actually depressed for a while about that. Here I was, just doing this until an adult showed up, but what if there were no more honest grown-ups in politics?