It wasn’t out of the ordinary for me to fly very long distances for very short periods of time. There was this one time I jetted off to London for, and I shit you not, a two-minute interview with Jeremy Irons and jetted right back. I spent more time in the makeup chair than I did interviewing him. But hey, that’s just the way it goes. It was a major live-and-learn era for me, and it took me a while to master the art of juggling work and play.
The first time we ever attended the Cannes Film Festival in France was in 2008, and it was one for the books. Our reputation for knowing how to get a party started caught the attention of Rebel Media, a media conglomerate in Europe, who really wanted to make an impression on the in-crowd at the festival. And what better way to get noticed than by throwing an “anything goes” VIP-only yacht party? At a length of 238 feet, thirty-three staterooms, a thirty-one-member crew, and room for up to 150 party guests, the world-class RM Elegant was transformed into the NO GOOD MEGA YACHT!
It was nothing short of a spectacular dreamlike wonderland filled to capacity with celebs and the like, where we partied like rock stars and never pardoned our French. A few hours later, I was walking the famous red carpet on the steps at the Palais des Festivals for the world premiere of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And when the sun came up, I found myself seated across from Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, and Steven Spielberg at the junket for the film.
There we were, this fledgling Internet TV network, creating a stir on the Riviera, and it was unforgettable. One night at a party in the hills, I got separated from my crew and got lost. There I was, wandering the streets in the middle of the night, in a gown, holding my heels, looking for my ride. Pretty much the last thing you want to have happen to you in Cannes during the festival, where the only difference between a call girl and a movie starlet is the call girl is getting paid to be there. I looked like the bat-signal for Eurotrash!
Having made it out of the south of France’s version of sexual Frogger alive, I thought the worst was behind me. I couldn’t have been more wrong and more right! I remember making the critical mistake of wearing bedroom-only underwear under my dress—a thong with rhinestones. And after partying nonstop for two days (in the same dress, walk-of-shame style), my ass-crack was carved up like a jack-o’-lantern, and I could barely walk. All I can say is thank God that, on the flight back, the champagne was flowing like a river and sent me into a euphoric state of bliss because they sure as hell weren’t handing out donut pillows. Being No Good is about living, not just a little, but a lot! You never know how long something’s going to last, and the last thing you want to do is live in the world of woulda, coulda, shoulda. Fuck that!
It’s good to be No Good.
10
BETWEEN SASQUATCH’S NUTSACK AND HOBSON’S CHOICE
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
—Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut
Nothing says you’ve made it in show business quite like the moment you receive an email from your manager telling you that a picture of your rear-end is being featured on the front page of guessdatass.com. Apparently, nowadays, once people can recognize you purely by your dumper, you become elevated to a new elite class of super-stardom known as the Cele-Butt-Ocracy. Where your bung hole becomes a beacon of hope for current and future generations of young women searching for their place in the world. And here you were thinking that the Kardashians’ only contribution to the world was the monetization of vapidity and an emoji for baby dick. Nope! It turns out that wearing your own ass as a hat spoke to an entire generation of assholes in search of gaping role models. This new keister-driven social media art known as a belfie (butt-selfie) has enticed legions of public figures to enter into a mindless race for anal distinction, having mistaken the photograph of a fart box to be a symbol of empowerment and purpose, thereby ushering in new era of pop culture existentialism by rewriting the assertion of the great, French philosopher, René Descartes with the defiant declaration “We shart; therefore we are.”
Guilty of getting caught up in this frenzy myself, I revealed a hint of crack on social media on one occasion, and I couldn’t help but ask myself, What the fuck am I doing? Then I remember seeing a photoshoot of a famous popstar, whom I adore and who’s been a good role model for young girls, sitting naked on the edge of a bathtub with her butt cheeks spread apart just enough to suggest a hint of hole without showing it, and I thought to myself, What the fuck is she doing? Or when I saw a well-known and respected comedienne suddenly start posting naked ass shots, all I thought was, What the fuckin’ fuck is she doing? In fact, when I think about the sheer number of people who are, at this very moment, contorting themselves to get their very best ass-shot with just the right reflection of hole to post on social media, I have to ask, What the fuck are you doing? Hell, what the fuck are any of us doing?
And just so we’re clear, I’m not trying to shame or cajole anyone from doing anything. Far from it, and I’m certainly in no position to judge. But I can’t help but wonder how the hint of sphincter became the aspirational photo? Somebody needs to explain that to me, goddamn it!!! It feels like we missed a step in there somewhere. We women used to be so protective and concerned about being objectified by the media and the press and the hoo and haa! Hell, I remember fighting so hard throughout my career to keep my top on, no cooter shots, no leather cheerio suggestion and no bonch flashes. Now, we’re the ones dishing out naked photos of every conceivable angle of our clits and bits like we’re making it rain in the champagne room at a fuckin’ strip club. I’m not fuckin’ shy and I could give a fuck, but am I the only one wondering how, now that we girls are in control of the pics, we seem to be steadily heading toward Grundle city!? What the fuck are we doing? And why the fuck are we doing it? We all seem to be happily running with the herd and trying our best to keep up. But who exactly the fuck is leading the herd? And if it’s who I suspect it is, then really … girls … WHAT THE FUCK are we doing?
I bring all this up because there’s a great deal of pressure today to do all kinds of crazy shit on social media or wherever to be noticed, get people’s attention or keep people’s attention. But that shit is FOREVER!!! And this whole fucking business comes down to the choices you make. And it looks a lot like the multiple choice is rigged in favor of camel toe and gooch! Who you present yourself to the world as, and how you move forward in this business, is something you’ll have to live with for your entire career. And if you compromise early and often enough, you may very well play yourself out fast. So even when you don’t think anyone’s watching or gives a shit, don’t compromise; because at some point they will be watching and will give a shit.
The harshest part of it all is that the path to success is pretty much a shit-show of compromises and impossible choices. With opportunities so few and far between, often, saying no to something is really hard because it can mean not working for a long time. The only advice is: be true to yourself and make the choice that you can live with. It can be a controversial choice like taking on a role in an off-Broadway play where your character walks on stage naked and proceeds to take an actual 5 minute shit to establish the mood of the times. (It’s a seedy apartment on the lower east side of New York City, in the 1970s, where the toilet is in the center of the room and, therefore, metaphorically the center of his existence, and taking a shit is what he’s doing to his life. But you’ll have to sit through another two hours before putting that together.) Hey man, it’s art, and as long it’s the best choice for you and you can live with it, fuck it! Roll the dice. How do I know the past has a dangerous way of coming back to haunt you? I know this firsthand because it happened to me.
My choice to not go topless in my interviews could have ended my career before it started, but that was the chance I willing to take because it wasn’t true to me and I instinctively knew that it would be a recipe for disaster. But that wasn’t the last of such dilemmas I’d have to face. With success
came new opportunities, and with them came new challenges. My friend, the late, great novelist Jackie Collins, once told me “There’s a rite of passage for women, actresses; they have to either play a hooker or a stripper. It’s a rite of passage for women in Hollywood.” She had a knack for being right all the time, and little did I know that I would come face-to-face with this situation myself. Thankfully, I was prepared.
Despite all the fun I was having, I did take my job very seriously. NGTV was getting me in the room to do all of these amazing interviews, and on top of that, all of these exciting new opportunities were pouring in for me personally, too. I got hired for a bunch of hosting gigs, a lot for VH1, like their Critics’ Choice Awards, Rock Honors, Mark Burnett’s Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy Camp, and One-Hit Wonders. The TV Guide Network also started hiring me to do their pre-shows and red carpet coverage for events like the Academy Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Emmys, and the Golden Globes. Ironically, my first offer to host their Golden Globes pre-show was also the year of the writers’ strike, so, literally, nobody showed up. But the show must go on, so there I was, trying desperately to fill five hours of programming with my own kind of song and dance. I call that “Nailing it for nobody!” I was all over the television dial, making new friends and fans while gaining a lot of experience. When I think about it now, half the opportunities I was being offered would never have materialized if I’d been doing my interviews topless, as Gene Simmons suggested. Though some of the other half of the opportunities I was offered were in some way related to my blouse bunnies. One of the coolest things to come my way was being offered a small role on Comedy Central’s Reno 911! It all started when I was invited to cover the junket for the film version Reno 911!: Miami. The cast had decided to do all their press interviews in character and on the set. I, unlike most of the reporters who had to do real interviews with fictional characters, decided to embrace the spirt of it and push the situation to its limits. The cast didn’t know what hit them, and I just figured the worst that could happen was I’d get escorted off the set, but I couldn’t have anticipated what would happen when it was over.
First off, this was a dream scenario for me. I love improv. Anytime there’s no real script and fucking off is the order of the day, count me in! These guys were the masters, and I was a kid in a candy store. I was familiar with their whole shtick from watching the television series, so I knew what kind of fun lay ahead. All I needed was for them to give me an opening, and apparently, they were in a very giving mood.
Me: I was wondering, ya know, if you guys could show me the proper technique for frisking, ya know, a suspect.
Kerri: I thought for sure you were gonna say blowjob, and I am so relieved because I don’t have a clue!
Ben: We fell for this before. We got two cameras here. I ain’t gonna fall for this again.
Mary: Well I don’t mind.
Tom: We always have a lady officer do it … ah present.
Carlos: I would just stay clear of this region right here. (Motioning towards my chest area.)
Tom: (Grabbing his hand away from my chest.) No, no, no we’re good.
Ben: See we have cameras around us all the time so we learn. You ask us that and pretty soon we got law suits pending …
Cedric: Someone’s pregnant …
Me: Has that happened?
Cedric: Ah …
Ben: No comment.
Cedric: No!
And just like that, at every turn, a fucked-up conversation would turn into something borderline illegal.
When the day was all said and done, I had quite the collection of unexpected confessions from the Reno PD. Like how you can tell a lot about a cop from the size of his gun and the flavor of his mustache. Apparently, mustache rides are legal if bartered for with a cop in exchange for tickets to Disneyland. Do with that what you will. Also, with their unforeseen admissions, we established these additions to the Miranda warning that I think the red states are probably going to adopt first: You have the right to wear a candy G-string. You have the right to choke a chicken. You have the right to flick your bean. You have the right to jerk off in private. You have the right to showcase your camel toe. And you have the right to make a three-foot nightstick disappear. It all ended with Tom Lennon blurting out, “Oh my good God almighty!!” In my mind, the single greatest compliment is when the talent’s mind is so blown that they involuntarily invoke the lord’s name because there’s just nothing left to say! Remember, boys and girls, I’m a trained professional, don’t try this at home.
After I was done with all the frisking and double entendres, creators Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant approached me with the most amazing offer. They asked me if I’d come play a character named Frosty on their TV show. I said, “Fuck, yeah!” followed by a quick “Oh fuck!” I’d never acted in my life, except for a starring turn in my junior high’s holiday production of Mrs. Claus to the Rescue, which opened to tepid reviews. The good news was that Reno 911! was mostly improvised, so if they liked how I ad-libbed today at the junket, I might be okay.
When I showed up on set, I was shown to my very own trailer with my name on the door. OH. MY. GOD. It was really happening! I started making myself at home when I heard a knock on the door. It was a girl from production, and I could immediately tell by the look on her face that she gave no fucks about me or my complete euphoria for being cast in the show. I was just one more person that needed to be attended to and she’d never see me again.
“Are you Carrie?” she said without looking up from her clipboard.
“Yeah!” I squeaked with anticipation.
“You’re the stripper,” she replied, dry as a bone. (Of course, I was. Jackie Collins strikes, again!)
“Here.” She handed me two hangers with black bits of fabric dangling from them.
”What’s this?” I inquired innocently.
“Your costume,” she insisted, and walked away.
Clinging to the hangers now in my hand was the most minuscule black fur bikini I had ever seen—it was basically Sasquatch’s nutsack on a string!
I held it up in a state of disbelief. One cup of my bra had three times as much fabric as this entire “outfit.” You’d be amazed at how often Sasquatch’s nutsack is the measuring tool with which wardrobe is selected for women. It’s ubiquitous in the entertainment industry. Make a mental note before you go into any fitting and you’ll be prepared.
Listen, I’m no prude. And I think, by now, I’ve established that. But I still have my own hang-ups. Up until this point, I’d never been asked to expose anything other than my vulgar sense of humor. And now, what choice did I have? So I tried it on, nervously. My thoughts went straight back to that fitting room with my mom and the hideous blue flowered bra. I started to sweat as the voices of the girls in school tormenting me echoed in my head … followed by the line from the movie Carrie, “They’re all gonna laugh at you!” Is this what I’ve become? A blonde with big boobs who gets typecast as the stripper? Did I just make a huge mistake? Fortunately, by some miracle of gravity and the art of nautical knotting, the two pieces of dental floss that represented my wardrobe that day held my hottentots together just sufficiently enough to not get me arrested (pun intended).
But I was still, basically, naked. I started to panic on my way to freaking out. What did I just agree to? I thought to myself. I felt so exposed, like Elizabeth Berkley must have felt at the wardrobe fitting for Showgirls when she discovered that the only body part her outfit would be covering was her butthole. Except that I didn’t even have that luxury. Suddenly the idea of begging for a Twinkle Tush, a jewel designed to class up your cat’s chocolate starfish, didn’t seem like such a bad idea. So I put my clothes back on, walked over to the wardrobe trailer, and knocked on the door. The same girl opened it.
“Hi.” I said sheepishly. “Is there any way I could maybe, ya know, I don’t know, possibly wear anything with this? Like a leopard print micro mini? Or a vinyl trench coat or anything?” I was attemptin
g to be reasonable given the character.
She let out a lengthy sigh, just brimming with impatience. Then checked her list.
“Carrie, right?” she asked, again not looking up from her clipboard.
(I’d just met her like ten minutes ago.)
“Yes, I’m Carrie,” I replied, trying to not sound frustrated.
“You’re playing a stripper.” This time she looked at me dead in the face. “You are aware of that?”
(Suddenly and quite subconsciously, I began to frantically defend myself.)
“I know. I know, buuuuuut I was thinking, ya know, maybe my character is on her way to night school; right after her shift … right? And it’s a chilly night. Or, she’s on her period and needs the full brief fur panties this week instead?! That could work! Right??” Hoping I could break through her cold demeanor.
She just stood there, stone faced, for what felt like an eternity before disappearing into the trailer.
(OH GOD. I thought. What did I just do? Is she calling security? Did I just get myself fired for being difficult?)
Then, maybe two minutes later, she reappeared, and I could see she was holding something in her hand.
“Here!”
(She handed me a pair of black fishnet stockings.)
“Are we good now?”
That wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, but I wasn’t about to argue. I went straight back to my trailer to suit up. I stood there staring at myself in the mirror for quite some time, feeling very uneasy. Then I remembered Demi Moore in Striptease. She was sexy and tough and clever. Demi didn’t get caught up in being typecast as a stripper. In fact, GI Jane, where she shaves her head and becomes a war hero, was released the very next year. I immediately launched into a full-on angry “Dr. Bailey from Grey’s Anatomy–level” hype speech to the tune of “We don’t have to take our clothes off” by Jermaine Stewart to myself about how I can be whatever I want to be regardless of my body! I am in control of how people see me! My image is mine alone to control. No dumb-blonde rep for me thank you!
Everybody Curses, I Swear! Page 18