People often do things and put the blame on something else.
When I worked at Playgirl magazine, I heard a lot of excuses and most of them came from the models. There was one Man of the Year, however, who topped all antics of past Centerfolds who were crowned with the prestigious honor. (Yes, we capitalized “Centerfold” but we didn’t go as far as to capitalize the word “he” mid-sentence. That’s only for God or Jesus because we so often referred to Him or Them in our copy.) Sure, there was the one who sold his sperm on the Internet and the one who joined Chippendale’s and then decided he couldn’t fulfill his MOTY duties due to his new, illustrious career. But this one, I’ll call him Buff, went above and beyond any fantastical happenings of MOTY past.
After a photo shoot in Los Angeles, Buff asked me if he could change his flight home to New York so he could stay and work another job. I told him that was fine, but he would have to take care of the changes himself. The other job was Buff being a houseboy for a very wealthy, older man who needed some “work” done around his mansion. A week later Buff called me from the airport in a panic saying that he wasn‘t booked on the flight. I had to remind him that it was his responsibility to change his ticket. He responded calmly, saying that he had no money for the change. I told him it wasn’t my problem.
Another time, Buff showed up at my office unannounced and told me he wanted to talk about the upcoming event we wanted him to promote. Since it was so difficult to get in touch with him over the phone, I thought this would be a good opportunity to wrap up the logistics, so I went to the reception area to greet him. He had beads of sweat on his forehead and asked to use the bathroom before we start. I showed him where it was and called “Tori”, the woman in charge of coordinating the event, to see if she had time to talk to Buff as well. We waited, and waited, and waited. Buff was still in the bathroom and over fifteen minutes had passed. We waited some more. After another fifteen minutes passed, I went over to “Chuck’s” office and asked if he could peek in the men’s room to make sure Buff was okay.
Chuck once had to remove a guy from the office after he took a bus from Atlanta saying that Playgirl paid his bus fare to come to the office to try out to become a Centerfold. This guy was nowhere close to “Playgirl material” (yeah, it’s funny) and we never host castings in the office. I tried to explain to this guy that we didn’t have an appointment and that this wasn’t our protocol for casting models. In his heavy Spanish accent, he said something like, “But you paid for my bus to come here.” I told him that we would never had made him travel by bus, we would have flown him in, but regardless, we’ve never seen his photographs and are not casting. He wouldn’t leave. Instead, with his voice cracking and slight tears welling in his eyes, he told me that he didn’t have a ticket home and he had no where to go. But then he seemed to get angry and threw his bag down on the floor. I told him I would be right back, closed the door to the reception area, and got Chuck to take care of it. I guess he dude-talked him and told him that his friends must have played a trick on him. Chuck gave him some money and the kid left.
When Chuck returned from the bathroom, he smirked and told us that Buff was still in there and might be a bit longer. Due to the stench, he figured Buff wasn’t feeling very well.
I had an appointment and had to leave, so I left Tori to handle Buff on her own. The next day she told me that when he finally emerged from the men’s room, his eyes weren’t focusing on anything and he asked her for five dollars so he could get home.
This should have been a sign that Buff was not fit to represent Playgirl, but he was MOTY so he went across the country (by plane) for a three-day event.
On day one, Buff showed up for his scheduled appearance and he didn’t look right, but the first day wasn’t the day that he was supposed to take the main stage for a dance performance, so it was chalked up to jet lag and he was told to get a good night’s sleep for day two.
Apparently, a good night’s sleep for Buff meant to score some drugs and party with a second rate hooker because the next morning at call time Buff was not in his room and not answering his phone. My coworker, “Andrea”, got in touch with him mid-day and he asked to meet her outside the conference center. She said he looked like hell and was worried about losing his pay for the event since he really needed it. She sent him to the hotel to sleep it off and told him to get himself ready for tomorrow.
He never made it because he slept right through the phone calls and the pounding on the door. Andrea even called the hotel front desk to ask them to check the room to make sure he was alive. He was in there, passed out cold.
Where did Buff place the blame? On Ambien.
