POSERS

Confessions of a Z-List Model

All that jiggles for the camera is not gold

I was having a third-of-life crisis. The year was 2010; we’d just moved to the L.A. area. Despite my husband’s claims to the contrary I’d decided I was no longer f*ckable, having three children and as Freddie Mercury once sang, “mortgages on homes” and “stiffness in my bones.”

I was a young mom and not uncute. But something about our family’s new neighborhood triggered a narcissistic need to feel like a beauty queen. For those who haven’t been to Santa Clarita, this bedroom community is a lot of good things. But it’s also a place where entertainment-industry wannabes go to breed and die.

Sorry, Santa Claritans. I love a lot of you! And many SCV people are very talented. My friend’s daughter is a budding screenwriter and theater actress — she rules. Hell, Napoleon Dynamite lives there. But it’s generally true.

This is the story of how I briefly “made it” on the modeling Z-list, 12+ years ago. Scratch that. “Z-list” is pushing it. Is there anything past “Z” in the alphabet? Who knows the Greek alphabet?

Gamma-list, really.

When In Rome

Our across-the-street neighbor had even been some kind of extra for Robert Downey, Jr. at some point. He was now on a strict diet of fake-disability-enabled government cheese. And this neighbor’s claim to fame was that he’d met Dolph Lundgren on a set enough times to know Ivan Drago’s real-life counterpart is (supposedly) a d*ck.

I say supposedly because this neighbor is also a man who once bragged about stealing a fridge from Lowe’s and thinks lying is an Olympic sport.

Our other neighbor was a Z-list porn actress who had made over 300 adult films. I know, because we Googled her. She drove a pink Hummer and was hard to miss. It was always interesting to spot her at the school book fair.

Back to how I got to jiggling buttcheek for the camera.

I had some time between online classes that summer — I was working on a Masters in biology, still thinking I’d wanted a career in medicine. Between biostats lectures I would read “Best of Craigslist” for entertainment. On a lark, I went over to the “gigs” section and answered an inquiry.

Bridal modeling.

Why the f*ck not?

I put on my old wedding dress, gave my best brideface for my husband, and emailed a headshot. Joe’s a pretty good photographer. But my pic is retrospectively hilarious because there isn’t too much wedding-worthy scenery in Santa Clarita. To find visible groundwater and greenery we had to drive across town to a neighborhood with fake canals, water that is dyed blue, and shipped-in, ornamental ducks.

And I don’t have that heartbursting, elated look that kisses the bride on her Big Day.

Who knew smiling with your eyes would be hard?

It was a great metaphor for beginner’s modeling and a lot of the SCV living experience. All I ended up getting was a bunch of long drives to Redondo, for absolutely no pay.

Then, there was an ad for fitness models — no experience necessary. Fitness stuff could be good! And like with the first gig, I was doing it for free. Building my portfolio, you know.

All I got was a creeping realization that I was getting too thin. And showing too much clavicle was nothing compared to what happened next.

Dollar-Store Bikinis and Caviar Dreams

Despite having had three kids, I still had decent abs. But even if I’d had Lisa Rinna levels of fillers, I’d never have the duckface lips or doe eyes I would have needed for a legit side-hustle in the game. And I cringe when I remember the fake blonde me.

I kept the digital files but not my dignity.

Oh! You’re My Cousin!

Then there was a gig for a bowhunting calendar. A PAID gig. Another girl who’d been picked was SUPER beautiful. She was a swimmer, like me, and at least 10 years younger.

But I’d be damned if I was gonna hike deep into the Angeles National Forest (semi-) alone with a rando I’d met on Craigslist who was carrying a crossbow — even if there WAS another woman present. I made Joe come with me.

$100 for six hours and the privilege of paying for my own gas. Yeah, baby.

My bow hunting picture is unintentionally f*cking hilarious, but I think all I got was a hard copy and not the rights to the files. The hard copy was a real calendar that I mailed to my Ted Nugent-loving, bowhunting cousin in Michigan.

Which is weird, because my cousin’s a guy, and I was provocatively posed.

It was all a bit Joe Dirt for my taste. But people were paying me! I started to wonder if I could ever get somewhere with this exhibitionism.

The Casting Couch Weirdos

There was “Just Tie Me,” which was a thing where I was wearing underwear, a bra, and a tie around my neck for some fetish-y reason. My husband has those on an old computer somewhere but hadn’t saved them anywhere else, for fear that they’d randomly flash across the family computer’s screensaver for our teenagers to behold.

Then there was a “bikini designer” who wanted to meet me. And make me a custom bikini.

This “designer” (who even knows who this guy really was?) kept saying he didn’t believe I was married with kids, which was mildly to moderately gross. And it was ill-advised enough to meet him in some L.A. warehouse — alone — where he had his offices.

Dude made me nervous.

He looked me over in a bikini and decided that I’d lied — I was true to fit for a small-sized bikini top but really a size L bottoms instead of medium. Bahahahaha. I’d tried to measure myself accurately. He had samples in every size, and was supposed to be making me my own suit! My ass does its own thing, size-wise. Who cared?

He did, that’s who.

I also took issue with him walking me out to my car after he’d thoroughly critiqued my body.

He shut up about my so-called lying when I opened my minivan’s rolling door and showed him all of the Goldfish crackers and child-related paraphernalia on the floor.

“Hey, why haven’t we hung out??” Bathing-suit-designer-guy later texted.

He wants me to blow him, I panicked. I used the T9 on my flip phone to craft an excuse, then thought better of it and left him hanging.

Hollywood Boulevard Gets Glitzier

Things got gritty. My minivan got towed while I was doing a free gig to help some dude build his “photographer” portfolio. He was a neckbeard of a man with a DSLR and a hard-on for the idea of bikini shoot trips to Tahiti.

He wanted to do a Hollywood Boulevard strut. I’d parked at a Taco Bell that had clearly warned me with its “customer parking only” signs. I ignored them, as it was the night of some Twilight movie premiere and there was f*ck-all else for parking.

Needless to say, there was no “Marilyn Monroe on the steam grate” moment.

We walked all around Hollywood. My feet got sore from walking in heels. I took off my shoes and carried on for the rest of the shoot. Never in my life have I been so filthy —not from the knees down, anyway. Beauty is not pain, folks!

And the dumbest part was, I didn’t even get to see the shots. This guy kept pushing for more sessions, and it was starting to creep out my husband.

I told him I wouldn’t meet with him again until I saw some of his first pictures.

He refused. I got nothing. Thanks a lot, dildo.

The Icing On the Cream Pie

The grand finale happened when I thought I was going to get some kind of decent job. I’d sent pictures of myself doing a bunch of yoga poses in a bikini, at someone’s request. That “someone” claimed to be from Victoria’s Secret.

*Spoilers*

***Spoilers***

***SPOILERS***

When someone who trawls a free site like Craigslist or Model Mayhem is vaguely claiming to be “VS,” and asking you to turn on your webcam, they aren’t actually an apparel company looking for underwear models.

And yoga poses DO NOT equal yoga modeling.

I’ll give you one guess as to what I was unwittingly auditioning for.

I ended up getting the full-court press from people who were looking for “artistic” nudes. For art’s sake, y’all. The working title was probably Logjammin’ but I didn’t stick around to find out.

Screw that crap, I decided.

And like Napoleon Dynamite’s protests to the chicken farmer, I fretted to myself that the jobs I’d taken had earned me, like, a penny an hour.

I went back to mowing down Red Vines and eating Taco Bell on the regular.

When I’m in the mood to flatter myself, I think about how my torso might be plastered to the side of a bus stop in Busan. It sure as hell isn’t my saggy boobage that’s grabbing eyeballs.

And I’m fine with that.

I’m f*ckable enough for my husband (and myself!), so now I can die happy.

Postscript: My reluctance to dip a toe in the cosmetic surgery world is not necessarily of a moral “high ground.” It’s more that the whole thing seems like a slippery slope to Jocelyn Wildenstein and The Tiger King Take L.A..

Special thanks to Michele, The Sober Vegan Yogi, for reminding me of how filthy I felt when I walked around barefoot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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