But my life can get pretty lonely sometimes. I'm oft en home alone, and some nights I just stay in writing songs, watching TV and thinking. I feel like there aren't that many people I can hang out with in LA, because everyone seems so fake here. I have a few real friends, but that's not enough.
I declared that 2008 would be my 'selfish' year. It wasn't totally a success, but I did put my foot down a lot more than I used to. I won't take shit from users any more. No more spending my hard-earned money on other people who are too damn lazy to get a real job. I stopped taking antidepressants, which I had been on for years and which screwed me up even more, made me numb or made me feel like I was going to lose my mind. But I've found that since I've been getting acupuncture and taking Chinese herbs every week, my life has really changed a lot. I may lose motivation or need a change every once in a while, but at least I'm not depressed and miserable any more. I'm pretty sure all the drugs had a big part in why I felt that way for so long.
I still have the asthma, by the way, but it's not nearly as severe as it was. Now, I try to use my inhaler only every other day, because I don't want to have to rely on that to breathe.
I've found it's important to nurture myself when I am at home, so that when I go out into the world I can be at my best. In February 2007 and 2008, for example, I went down to Mexico City for the Mexico Sex & Entertainment show, which is a huge event. In 2008, I was there signing for Kchondiuxx, Pipedream's distributor in Mexico, who paid me and put me up at the W Hotel on Campos Eliseos in Chapultepec Polanco, a very nice area that some people call the Beverly Hills of Mexico City. The city itself is very hectic, very crowded and very noisy, with a lot of traffic. This expo has a ton of fans attending, a ton of entertainment and people announcing stuff very loudly over the speakers nonstop. It's really enough to drive you insane!
I did my own hair and make-up before the show, then sat in a booth surrounded by large posters of myself – not the most fl attering picture, but I guess they liked it. The fans had to purchase something before they could get an autograph or take a photo, so it wasn't too hectic that year, and I had a lot of security. When I took a break, there were 50 guys waiting for me, taking my picture as I came out of the toilet. Crazy!
By 8 pm, I was exhausted from eating very little and drinking caffeinated drinks all day. I gave an interview to a guy who made me so mad, questioning why I don't do anal and saying he didn't understand the fact that I don't care that you make more money doing anal. He would not let it go! Then he told me I wasn't a 'real' porn star because of it. I tried to explain to him that it makes no difference, but he then asked what class of porn star I was. I tried to explain that there are no real classes of porn stars, and that 'hardcore' doesn't just mean 'anal'!
Another fan came in for an autograph and photo, and I was so frustrated and off ended by this dumbass reporter that I started shaking. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I ate a little, then shut the curtains and lay down. They finally let me leave after five hours of signing. As I was walking out, I thought I was going to fall over. Everything seemed so surreal. I felt like I was on acid. I'm sure the noise, the music and the camera fl ashes were a big factor as to why I felt this way. I was so scared and didn't want to make too much of a fuss in front of my people.
The organisers don't understand that signing autographs for so long, without a decent break away from the crowds and the noise, is not exactly good for you. I guess I was just wiped out. These ill-informed reporters were there just to toy with me (pardon the pun). Just because I had my own line of vibrators and sex dolls, they treated me with the thinly disguised contempt reserved for women who are little more than whores in their close-minded estimation.
When I got back from Mexico, I decided to kick myself into gear a little more. I signed up with a personal trainer and had my first session. My body-fat percentage was not bad – 24 per cent. I weighed 58 kg and measured 36–28–36. (Wow. I thought I was 34–24–34. I guess I'm a little more curvy now!) The girl training me was a hot Latina, with long black hair and crystal blue eyes. She could be a huge porn star. But I just told her I was a regular actress. I don't like people judging me so I don't tell everyone.
It's a challenge to stay in shape because at this point in my life I feel like I'm permanently on the road. Since I've been shooting fewer porn films, I've been doing more feature dancing, all across the good ol' US of A, oft en in the most obscure of towns, stuck in the middle of nowhere. A lot of my evenings involve me performing various kinds of uniquely sexy routines. Like my lotion show, called 'Stick It to Monica', where I rub lotion all over my body and then walk around the tip rail to let the guys (and/or girls) stick their dollar bills anywhere they want to! For obvious reasons, this show tends to be the most popular – I mean, who wouldn't want to touch the body of a hot porn star?
Another show I love doing is the paint show, where I take a big piece of canvas that I've pre-signed and kissed and then have the DJ put on the black lights while I daub my body with glow-in-the-dark paints. I'll rub my breasts and my pussy onto the canvas, and – voila! – a work of art, which is then auctioned off on stage!
There are a couple of other shows I also like doing. There's one called 'Cooter Ball', where I grip a shot glass between my legs and each guy in the audience has to roll up a dollar bill and try to throw it into the glass. The glass is really small so it's not easy to make the shot. The prize is a DVD, personally signed by me. (If someone gets it in too soon, I'll keep the game going and give another movie away to the next lucky winner.) The other fun show is 'Rides for Five', in which the customers have to lie on their backs onstage, holding up their $5 bills for me, and I go around and give them lap dances, just quick ones but usually sticking my crotch in their faces. In fully nude places, this means that they get my bare crotch right up close and personal!
I also love to mess with girls onstage. I'll go up to any women who are sitting at the tip rail (customers or performers – you're fair game if you're at the tip rail) and start slapping their boobs or grabbing them, and they never seem to mind. Oft en, the strippers will come up onstage just to play with me. I always go around sticking my own tits in everyone's faces (everyone who has at least $1 for me, that is). And, of course, at the end of the show I'll throw out free posters for the fans, who can come up to me and get them signed later. (After every show, I'll be at a signing area, where the fans can come up for a meet-and-greet with me.) I sell them posters, Polaroids, DVDs and magazines. And lap dances, too – for US$100 a song, usually. Most of the time, I meet some pretty cool fans and I'll also get the occasional diehard fan who knows everything that I've ever done and will bring a huge array of box-covers, magazines and other stuff for me to sign. (Then, of course, he'll buy anything else that I have to offer!)
My shows are very high-energy, which takes a lot out of me. Dancing, however, is not what it used to be. Times are tough for everyone these days. I used to get paid twice as much per show, and they would buy two return airfares for me so I could bring a roadie (or an assistant), plus I would always get my demands met for a nice hotel (like a Hilton or a Crowne Plaza). Some clubs would send a limo to pick me up from the airport, as well as to and from the club every night, and the ones with the five-star restaurants would provide me with lobster and filet mignon and all the Cristal (as in the Louis Roederer champagne, not meth!) that I could drink.
Nowadays, I sometimes only get one return airfare, and it's not always first class (although, as a lot of people will agree, first class on a lot of domestic American airlines isn't very good anyway), and I don't always get the nicest hotel. Take, for example, my latest trip to Wisconsin. I started off in Milwaukee, in a Hiltonfamily hotel that was decent enough but with no room service. Then I got driven 45 minutes away to a ghost town called Juneau (population 2200), where they left me for dead in this old, smelly, dirty apartment right next to the club. The club itself was beautiful and brand new, but this apartment was the worst place I've ever been put in. I
had three days off before my next set of shows started, and there was absolutely nothing around and nowhere to eat. (To add insult to injury, there were no utensils in the apartment to cook with, either!) I had to have a friend, who lived 50 minutes away, come and drive me everywhere – including the grocery store, so I could at least have some fresh fruit and veggies.
There's always some kind of drama in every club I go to. Usually, it's a bunch of jealous strippers sitting in the dressing room, talking shit about me, thinking that I'm taking all their money (when, really, I'm helping to bring in money by bringing in more customers, because the whole point of a feature dancer is to draw more people in because of her name). I always have my own dressing room, but sometimes it's right next to where these girls are, and it's always the same annoying drama in every club – girls fighting with each other and bitching, 'You hit on my boyfriend!' or 'I only made twenty dollars tonight!' (which makes me think, well, if they weren't in the back complaining so much, maybe they'd make some more money). All of this drives me insane, so I have to block it out by playing music really loud in my dressing room. I love dancing to hard rock and metal. Not everyone loves it but I feel sexy dancing to it, and that's all that matters. I'll never submit to hip hop and rap – I just can't do it. I have no idea how I would dance to that. (That's all they play in some clubs and I go back to my room with the throbbing bass pumping in my head every night.)
My most recent drama on the road, however, was not with the strippers but rather with one of the owners of a certain club. This guy owned the apartment building I was staying in too, and he brought the club manager and two of the waitresses into my living room for a little after-party – while I was trying to sleep in the bedroom. I was absolutely shocked! I couldn't believe they could have such disrespect. (First of all, they were not supposed to have access to the feature dancer's accommodation. And, secondly, how the fuck did they think it would be okay to throw a party in my room, at 3.30 am?) I bit my tongue and didn't say anything, because I still had three more shows to finish the next night and I had to get paid. So, on the next night, it was the manager's birthday and out of revenge I dragged him onstage. I sang a nice happy birthday to him, then had two of his favourite girls come up and embarrass the hell out of him – throwing water on him, whipping him and walking him around like a dog in front of the audience. And this guy was big and buff and a bit of a hardass, so it was absolutely hilarious.
And that's how I ended my most recent show at the time of writing this, after doing 20 shows in two weeks. It was straight to the chiropractor for me when I got back home to LA! I always return from feature dancing black and blue, with bruises from the pole, and my neck and back are always out of place. That might also be due to flying all over the country, trying to sleep on planes – near-impossible, given my permanent state of insomnia. (Sleeping is hard enough even when I'm home, and I refuse to take sleeping pills.)
When I'm not on the road dancing, I spend most of my time preparing for the dance gigs (when I'm not working on my website, that is). This includes getting my hair and nails done, going tanning, going to the chiropractor, getting acupuncture and facials and massages, buying my movies to sell to my fans (which I first obtain from the producers at a discount) and buying props for dancing, as well as cleaning my costumes and reorganising my suitcases. But I'm also in and out of meetings and auditions, and I'll do interviews on the road on different radio stations.
I have been doing everything I can to take more care of my body in between my gigs and other commitments, and this has been good for my mind too. I am starting to feel more at peace. I am taking more time to do the things that relax me, such as sitting on the beach in Malibu, with the wind in my face and the sun gleaming over the ocean. It feels so good. Looking out at the Pacific Ocean always makes me feel connected to my homeland, Australia. And I know that as long as I keep working and looking after myself as I have been, and take a day off at least once a week, then I will be fine.
I think I'm beginning to figure out ways of dealing with every situation that comes my way, and how to maintain some sort of balance, instead of relying on the usual 'running in every direction' approach to things – the typical Pisces trait. I know I'll never be perfect, but at least I see my own flaws and I make positive steps to try to change. And I have changed, so much. And I'm still changing.
I'm not miserable or negative all the time, though when I read through old diaries or look at my song lyrics it certainly looks that way. I'm actually a very optimistic person, but when I'm happy I don't usually write down my thoughts. I write more for therapy, to let it out without boring other people with my problems – like most people tend to do to me, because I'm a good listener. Maybe I should start writing my positive thoughts, so I can look back and not feel so bad.
Back in September 2004, I wrote some lyrics in my journal after a horrible dance gig in Pittsburgh. The club owners were extremely rude and treated me so badly that I retaliated by trashing my dressing room like a deranged rock star. I shocked the hell out of my roadie, but I was drunk and pissed off and pleased. Served those idiots right!
So I wrote to calm myself down. I never finished the song, but I still like some of the lyrics. The verses speak volumes for where I was in my life back then:
Looking at the world though the corner of my eye,
Time just standing still and I can't explain why.
I know it's all my fault, I could push harder each day.
I'm getting closer now, I know I'll find a way . . .
How can I love myself when everybody loves to hate me?
They don't see all the pain that I can't seem to set free.
My foolish eyes, they never lie,
Except for the scared little girl inside.
And it ends like this, a final refrain:
Turn around, wake up to yourself,
Stop wishing that you were somebody else.
I think about that last bit a lot. True to my chosen name, I've caused a little mayhem for the past eight or nine years. And I know that now, all the characters I've played have come back to only one: me. The only person I'll ever want to be.
Well, in theory, anyway. In reality, I face the mirror every day and wonder.
I guess that's one reason why, of the 400-something movies I've made, the ones I like the most always have to do with how I really see myself, and how I see porn as part of my life.
Looking back over my porn career, it hasn't been all bad. I have had a hell of a lot of good times in this business, and met a lot of very cool people. The single best thing that porn has done for me is boost my self-confidence. I had been hiding behind a wall, protected by the corporate uniform – in the era that began with me working at Westpac and ending at Salomon Smith Barney – and the best way to deal with that was to literally take off that uniform.
I decided to go all the way and take all my clothes off , so that I had nothing left to hide. I had only my own naked body to work with and I learned to express myself that way. And I found I could do much more than I'd anticipated or expected.
When you've spent most of your life being put down by other people, that's not an easy transition at all. But I did all I could, with a little help along the way.
Anyway, before I sign off and fade to black (insert Kirk Hammett guitar riff here, please), here's something that happened to me that puts everything in perspective.
One evening in September 2008, I was at the Kevin Josephson hair salon in Beverly Hills, getting all dolled up – along with the supermodel/TV host Janice Dickinson and a bunch of models from her agency. I did this after I'd been asked if I wanted a free spray-tan and hair-do session in exchange for modelling for that salon and I thought it would be a lark. Anyway, they did the most amazing treatment on my hair – afterwards, it felt so soft and silky, and they touched-up my roots, too. The whole salon was like a zoo, with an open bar and DJ and models and people just coming in to hang out all night.
The spray-tan bit took
forever and the stuff took hours to dry. I had to model with no make-up on in front of everyone and with some of Janice's models as well, wearing only a skimpy gold thong bikini.
It was a very long night and I finally left the salon at 12.30 am, after having arrived at 5.30 pm. I'd had no dinner and I was starving, so I pulled over into a McDonald's on the way home. The McDonald's security guard told me he was hungry too, because they wouldn't let him walk through the drive-in area, so I ended up buying the guy some fries.
'There you go, mate. Mind your cholesterol,' I thought, proud of my own display of compassion. This is America, not Africa, but you can find people starving anywhere. Just when you think you're feeling sorry for yourself, you'll discover someone more miserable than you.
And here's the kicker: the thing that nobody knew – not the people at the hair salon and not the security guard – was that I was a porn star who was a nervous wreck inside. Because the very next day I would be getting my latest test results back. And, as usual, I had absolutely no idea if I'd caught anything from anyone or not.
That's my reality, hidden from public view. I freak out silently, once every month.
All of us porn stars do. And no camera can ever capture that.
So, as a Wiccan, all I can ever do is thank the gods and goddesses for every day I'm still alive.
Absolute Mayhem Page 17