DefCon Douche

I had some free time and was playing video games (I'm an adult!), but decided I should write a long overdue blog post about an old series of tweets. I really wanna play that game though so I'm not going to spellcheck this, or grammercheck it, or anythingcheck it really, and apologies in advance if it's filled with terrible 5th-grade level mistakes.

So you know what DefCon means, right? I'm assuming you've seen WarGames with Matthew Broderick, or some other film that mentions it, or you ran across it during one of those nights where you start Wikipedia-ing random facts and somehow end up on the Cognitive Neuroscience of Thought.

BUT I JUST WANTED TO KNOW WHO WON THE LAST AMERICAN IDOL

If not, allow me to explain-- DefCon, short for "defense readiness condition," is an alert system used by the United States Military to denote its level of readiness to mobilize against a threat. "DefCon 5" is the lowest state of alert, and hopefully the one it's at now. "DefCon 1" is the highest, which basically means preparing for a nuclear apocalypse. (Ironically enough, most movies outside of WarGames get this wrong, and say "DefCon 5" is the highest. The people script-checking probably had video games to get to.)

Anyway, the story here is I'm at a shoot, and another dude model shows up, and really he just...he might as well have shown up with a tribal tattoo that says "DOUCHE" across his forehead. Within 25 seconds of sitting down, he's showing me pictures of himself. On his phone. Unprompted. Seriously, it was like introductions were made and then he had his phone in my face. Lightning has struck clock towers slower (more 80's movies references!).

He pauses his narcissistic scrolling to settle on a picture of himself wearing a cutoff shirt in a weight room. Apparently I'm supposed to be in awe of this, even though a cutoff shirt doesn't even require fucking arms to wear.

He then asks me, with a straight face: "Do you know who Tom Brady is?"

I give him a strange look as my brain struggles with the stupidity of this question as well as what the purpose of it is-- are you about to tell me you played football with Tom Brady? Because he entered the NFL over a dozen years ago, like when you were probably 11. Maybe you know Tom Brady personally? But who gives a shit, and what does that have to do with anything? You could be Tom Brady's immaculately-conceived son, you still don't bring it up like that, and oh by the way are you forgetting that everywhere outside of Boston and parts of Michigan TOM BRADY IS CONSIDERED LIKE THE BIGGEST ASSHOLE?

I went looking for a picture of people hating on Tom Brady and found this instead.

The stylists at this shoot are Danish and Australian however-- i.e. decidedly not American-- and do ask who Tom Brady is. The other model attempts to explain who Tom is as a quarterback, ignoring of course that this is a fashion shoot and all you have to say is "He's married to Gisele." Which is what I do a second later, ending the conversation and this strange start to the day.

And then I decide to apply a Douche Bag DefCon level on Twitter as a joke. With his opening lines, we're already at a DefCon 4. Little did I know that I'd actually be counting down throughout the day.

DEFCON 3:

Everyone is talking about lunch, and the makeup artist pulls out a container of tic-tacs. I say "Since I'm a model I'll probably just eat half of one of those." Ba-dum tsh.

DefCon Douche is the only one who hears it though, since he's sitting right next to me and everyone else is kind of chatting. Big deal, it was a throwaway rimshot joke to begin with.

...until, not even a minute later, the chatting hits a lull, and this motherfucker chimes in with:

"Well I'm a model so for lunch you'll have to give me one of those tic-tacs!"

What? DefCon 3.

DEFCON 2:

The dude is literally-- not figuratively-- taking as many if not more pictures of himself on his phone than the photographer is. At the beginning of our first shot, he wants one with me and the female model that has joined us. I make a goofy face, of course-- we're in fucking bazillion-dollar tuxedos about to climb over furniture in the lobby of a hotel. I changed out of jeans and Converse to do this. I'm going home to play Wii with my roommates after this. I'm going to make a goofy face.

And he gets pissed. As in actually, truly upset, and says "Dude you ruined the picture."

Up to this point I've yet to really respond to any of his myriad of douchey comments to people, the result of a blend in my brain of "I don't want to make the rest of this day awkward" and "Are you really this stupid or is this some elaborate Andy Kaufman thing?"

But at this I simply say "Are you fucking kidding me?" and upgrade this shit to DefCon 2.

DEFCON 1:

The team orders lunch, and Douche and I (apologies to Roller Douche [if you remember those tweets] that I'm referring to DefCon Douche with that shorthand) are in a hotel room by ourselves when it arrives. Rather than grab the assistant who put the order in-- she's just down the hall-- he decides to be a gentleman and accept the order and lay out everyone's food. By "gentleman" I of course mean "guy who wants to get into the food and eat his before waiting for everyone else." Except it doesn't go that smoothly.

Because 5 people ordered a meal of salmon for lunch. Including me. Including him. And in the bag of delivered food, there is only 1 container of salmon.

He pulls it out and asks if I want it. Not only do I not want to take the 1 fucking salmon that got sent, but I want to wait for the rest of the crew to arrive and figure it out first. But this asshole does start diving into the single plate of salmon. And proceeds to say "I'm just being real."

Followed by: "I'm glad someone in this room is being real right now."

So I guess if I can add to that list of wants at this point, I want to not talk to you, and not be in a room with you, and maybe even for your arms to spontaneously flop off so that you can only wear cutoff T's for the rest of your self-involved pretentious fucking life.

Soon the assistant arrives, and is told that there's 4 salmon meals missing. And she starts to panic, because of course her day has been epically shitty up to this point, including gathering all of those random lunch orders from everyone working different jobs in different areas, and now she has to phone up this restaurant and get 4 more fucking fish dinners brought back.

She's freaking out-- it's kind of sad, I'm trying to help her now by sorting through the containers that Douche laid out-- when she comes across a bag in the corner.

A bag that the motherfucker accepted from the delivery man but neglected to open or acknowledge as existing.

A bag with 4 salmons in it.

The assistant kind of stares in astonishment, apologizes to the restaurant on the phone, hangs up, and leaves the room.

DefCon 1.

THERMONUCLEAR WAR IMMIMENT:

The shoot is pretty high fashion-y, with so much expensive stuff laying around that there's actually a police officer tasked with guarding it in the hotel room while we bandy about and shoot. (Yes, I said "bandy about"-- I was running through the hallways in a bathrobe like a little kid on a beach vacation, so it's an accurate term.)

At the end of the day, Douche is so obsessed with his Instagram that he asks this police officer if he (the Douche) can take a picture with his (the police officer's) MOTHERFUCKING HANDGUN.

Right. Okay. What planet are you on? Do you know who Tom Brady is?

Shit maybe it was his son.

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Bathroom Stall

I recently tweet-admitted that I once broke a toilet seat by sitting on it (like snapped the top of it in half, seriously). This led to another tweetfession about an even worse public bathroom story, which some people asked to hear about.

My initial reaction was "wtf it's not even about modeling," until I realized this meant PEOPLE WERE ACTUALLY READING THIS THING WHAT ARE YOU DOING

And so...

In my earlier years (I say this as if I'm 45 years old and not still in my "earlier years"...though I feel like I'm not gonna make it past 30 so maybe I'm not that far off), I did sport. And this sport required spandex, like most sports do anymore. Doesn't Tiger even wear some spandex underneath his slacks to help with putting or something? (The fact that I'm using Tiger Woods in a reference about golf is testament to how much I know about golf.)

Anyway, I'm in the middle of playing, and I start to not feel great. My tummy hurts. I don't say it that way to anyone of course, to spare myself from hearing "Why did you just become a 5-year-old girl?" And then probably crying, which would just make them ask it again.

It turns out I needed to go to the bathroom (surprise!). So once I got the opportunity, I casually made my way into the closest one. There were two stalls, a standard-sized space and one of those giant handicapped spots. I chose the giant one, given the emptiness of the room and the length of my legs.

And then I did my business. There's no point in dwelling on this, it was quick and painless and it's not the story.

Just use your imagination. Also is it just me or does this toilet

look like it knows this story and is laughing at me?

The next step is obviously to, ya know, clean up and get back out there.

Except for one little problem-- there's no toilet paper.

None. Not even an empty cardboard roll. There's a plastic holder attached to the side of the stall meant to hold several rolls, and it is totally failing its job.

Now let's go through how actually not-little this problem is.

First, I'm in spandex. There's no just pulling up my drawers and going-- I have to go back out there and compete, and I don't exactly want everyone noticing doo-doo butter spread across my backside loaves. Nor can I sacrifice a pair of underwear for the cause-- I have no underwear, it's just the spandex (school-issued spandex at that, which if ruined wouldn't have been cheap either-- this was before I got paid to wear sunglasses and pout, remember).

After realizing this, there still seems to be a simple solution-- wait until someone enters the next stall, suck up my pride, and ask them to spare a square. Except no one's going into the other stall. A couple of people open the door, step in, and then immediately leave, but no one stays. I assume that means there's no toilet paper in there too, and these guys are intelligently checking beforehand and avoiding my predicament.

It turns out that while this is true-- both stalls lack toilet paper-- the reason everyone is quickly leaving is because the last person to use that stall must've leaned forward a little bit and...well...it's not looking too inviting in there. Which totally ruins my next plan, which was to sneak underneath to that stall and finish up. Instead, not only would I have remained paperless, I also wouldn't have been able to sit down.

My brain then jumps to the idea of grabbing some paper towels from the bathroom and using those. Two problems with this. One is layout of the bathroom in regards to the rest of the building. The entrance to it is -- by some ingenious design-- directly next to the competitive area. That is, opening the door to the bathroom means you can look out and see all of the athletes and spectators...and vice-versa. Were I to wait until the bathroom was empty, then make a mad dash (more of a mad hobble, since I'm unable to pull up my spandex) to grab some paper towels, there is the off-chance that someone could walk into the bathroom and not only see my sad, naked body grasping at a paper-towel dispenser, but also expose that scene to the entire rest of the sporting event.

The second problem: There aren't any paper towels, it's all hand dryers.

I'm pretty much screwed at this point. The time it's taken to run through all these options has brought it closer to when I need to be out there, and even a last ditch yell for help doesn't seem to be materializing. I need out, and fast.

And that is when I notice the floor drain.

Just a normal floor drain, the kind in most public bathrooms meant to stifle the flooding when someone inevitably clogs the toilet or decides it's funny to piss off the janitor on duty. And slapped to this floor drain is a completely soaking wet, not a dry spot on it, who-knows-where-it-came-from, piece of toilet paper.

Yeah.

...

Yeah.

I don't know why it was so wet, I don't think I wanna know why it was so wet, all I know is that once I carefully peeled it off the drain...it became my salvation.

The best part about that story? I've told it dozens of times, and each time I've gotten about the same reaction when I get to the solution I used (some variation of disbelief, disgust, and a squished-up face like they just sucked on a lemon).

...except for my friend Brenneman-- and that's not a changed name so I can also note that this is the same Brenneman who once ordered a Domino's Pizza and they wrote his name down on the box as "Banana Man." One of the greatest pizza stories of all time. He ordered it for "Brenneman," they heard it as Banana Man. (He tried to play it off too, until another friend was like "Is that...is that a Banana Man I see there?")

Anyway, when I get to the part about the soggy toilet paper, Brenneman-- simply, matter-of-factly, without missing a beat-- says:

"Dude, why didn't you just use your socks?"

And that, my friends, is the moral of this story.

Addendum to that Fun Thing I Would Totally Do Again

One more thing. Remember those huge guys out front of the hotel who didn't even react when I strolled past them? Turns out they only had one job, and it had nothing to do with nerdy guys carrying messenger bags.

Their job? Keep Lindsay Lohan out of the party.

No joke, that was apparently their singular purpose that night. And she still got in-- she was, I guess, fucking the hotel's owner at the time? And even then was promptly thrown out again by the party's security.

The point is, you haven't really snuck into a baller party until you've seen LiLo get thrown out of it.

Or something. Something like that, yeah.

(In fact, every party I've been to since where she's shown up, she's been thrown out. I'm not saying I have anything to DO with her being thrown out, just...Lindsay Lohan gets thrown out of a lot of parties.)

That time I snuck into Marc Jacobs (A Supposedly Fun Thing I Would Totally Do Again Part 3)

To recap Part 1 and Part 2: I got "invited" to a "sexy and exclusive" Marc Jacobs after-party. I say "sexy and exclusive" to make it sound cool so you'll keep reading. I say "invited" because it turns out my invitation was as a plus-1, and I was informed by the clipboard-toting door girl at the front that "There are no plus-1's to this party."

As I said, this is usually end of the road. I was invited as a plus-1 to a party that has no plus-1's, requires a wristband, has a guest list, and employs an army of Hulk-sized men in dinnerwear.

But instead, trying not to miss a beat, I say...

"Well I'm a model and I repped the show, I just didn't get a wristband after."

Now, take a second to soak this in. Of course I didn't rep the Marc Jacobs show. I'm a DUDE. The show was-- to my knowledge, you'll have to check Jezebel or David Urbanke's Twitter in case they're hiding something-- females-only. But this makes perfect sense to Clipboard Girl, and she replies with "Oh, well talk to Dave (name changed) over there, he has override ability."

"Dave" as I affectionately call him is on the sidewalk near the limos, laughing and having a good ol' time. Though I can't entirely recall, I think he may be wearing a pinky ring. Either way, it's clear he's in charge. And so I go up to him and repeat what I said to Clipboard Girl-- that I'm a model, I repped the show, and need a wristband.

And he responds with exactly this: "Well I gave Susan a certain amount, she should've given them to you guys."

Now if he had said any other person's name-- any other name, fucking Barry Smith or Samantha Kimodo Dragon or Jonas Salk, fucking ANYTHING-- I'm dead in the water. Here I am saying that I'm a model from the show, and here is the guy in charge of the after-party saying yeah, cool, he already gave someone the wristbands to give to the models. There is basically no recourse from here. It's pretty much hey, good try, head over to the other party, probably get poked fun at a bit by your agency people, have a great night and enjoy still living and breathing as a human being.

But he didn't say any other person's name. He said "Susan" (whose name I've also changed out of respect). And I fucking know this Susan. Or know of I guess, I guess we don't exactly paint each other's toenails or anything, and besides what kind of boring story would this be if I was just like "Oh then I called my friend and she pulled some strings and I had a nice evening!" What the hell.

I know Susan, though, because she was the first person I ever went on a go-see for. Literally the first thing my agency ever texted me to do was to visit her office, and so it was basically my introduction into the modeling world. Not only that, but Susan cast me that day for a magazine shoot, which ended up being a fucking blast. And since I was and am such a naive piece of shit, I actually got her and her assistant's email off the call sheet and emailed them both, telling them something like "Thank you so much for an awesome day!" which she probably read and was like "cool blah blah DELETE, I have actual important shit to do."

But back to the sidewalk with Dave. He says he gave SUSAN wristbands to give the models. I tell him I just wasn't given one. And he says, kind of looking around for something better to do with his time, "Well do you have her phone number?"

Well no, I don't have her phone number. But, from my prior naïveté, I have her email address.

"Okay just email her and tell her Dave is out front and wants to know about your wristband."

Now, I said I have Susan's email address. But I'm not going to ACTUALLY email her, a legit major casting director, to get me into a party I'm not supposed to be in, for a show I wasn't actually in.

So I do this.

I step to the side of the ropes on the sidewalk and type up an email to her on my phone. It says--

Jesus that's a lot of fake names.

But rather than send this to the actual Susan, and have her go "wtf is this kid nuts?" I simply take out a few of the letters in her email address. This of course means that the email is being sent to no one, and I immediately get one of those creepy MAILER DAEMON messages. But it doesn't change the fact that, on my phone, it looks like I sent the message.

Then I text a friend of mine, and soon-to-be accomplice in this plot. I tell her that I'll send another text in a second, and ask that she just send the second text right back to me. The same exact thing, just copy and text it right back. And then I send her this:

"Hey [Awkward Model], I put your name on the list, did you not get one after the show? You should be good"

She texts it back. Then I delete the entire message history on my phone for that friend EXCEPT for that last text-- so it looks like it's the only one she's sent me. Then I change my friend's contact information to...you got it, "Susan."

I return to Dave. I say hey, I sent Susan this-- show him the email, conveniently not scrolling down to show the DELIVERY FAILED message-- and that Susan sent me this-- and I show him what I actually just typed up to my friend and had re-sent to me.

Dave reads all this thoroughly, then turns, addresses the Clipboard Girl behind him, and says...

"Get him a wristband."

Clipboard Girl says it's the last one she has, that they need to get more...and then she gives it to me.

I hold onto it for dear life and try to stay calm as I return to the thumping door and show the suit-guard there. In fact I actually have him put it on for me-- I'm not only terrible at doing that in general, but I didn't want to take the chance of dropping it or something ridiculous while trying to do it on the way. Awkward, remember.

And then I finally walk through the doors. It's dark, the music is blaring, there's a giant arch beyond which masses of people are partying. A few girls stand off to the side with clipboards before the arch though, and they stop me before I go through.

At this point my mind is racing. My name's not on the clipboard, I'm not supposed to be at this party, and the only reason I'm in is because of what happened out front with Dave. If they stop me now, I'll have to find a way to pull Dave away from his fun and over here to convince them, and he already seemed not all that interested in my problem from the start.

Before I can come up with a solution though, one of the girls speaks.

"Would you like your bag checked?"

I still have my fucking messenger bag. I kind of nod in awe and hand it over, but still stand there, like a little puppy who just got caught chewing up a shoe but instead of getting yelled at is now being given the other one to tear apart. I'm not sure how much time passes, but after handing off my bag one of the girls leans forward and says, in what has to be the sexiest, most excellent voice in all of human existence...

"Have fun."

And that was it.

I was in.

And fun was had. There was a lot of dancing, and at one point I found myself in the middle of a giant circle as I provided Blues-Cluesian entertainment. More girls made clear they might have no aversion to fucking me. A few guys assured them that, unfortunately for them, I was batting for the other team. At one point I was told one of them referred to me as a "faggotress," as in "Oh honey that boy you been dancin' with is a FAGGOTRESS!" I'm not entirely sure what a faggotress is (it's not even on Urban Dictionary!), but on this night, it was a badge of motherfuckin' honor.

Celebrities were apparently in abundance, some I knew, some I didn't ("If a person that you've never heard of is a famous person, does that mean they're still famous?" in the wise words of Kid President). The former notably included Mick Jagger, though he stayed underneath the main floor eating and I never got to see him. Dakota Fanning was notably there too, and I say "notably" because the attention surrounding her made it seem more like a birthday party for her than the after-party for Marc Jacobs.

Marc was there, of course, in all his Spongebob glory. And the president of Marc Jacobs, Robert Duffy. He made his rounds saying hi to his employees in attendance, who he apparently knows in ridiculous detail. When Spilled Drink Girl (heretofore known as Couldn't Get Me Into The Party Girl) shook his hand and said her name, he said "Yes I know, you work in women's." And when I shook his hand right after, saying it was nice to meet him, he just stared at me. Just stared. Didn't say anything back. Didn't move his mouth. Just stared and moved on.

Because this guy with the photographic memory probably approved the guest list and knew I wasn't supposed to be there. That I had, in fact, Ferris-Buellered my way into his after-party.

But if fashion is high school, that's who I wanna be.