I decided Cate Blanchett and the rest of her porcelain-skinned, perfectly toned pals would just have to deal with the booze-soaked, big-breasted broad sitting across from them. Once I made the decision to go back to a less extreme lifestyle, I started to feel like my strong self again. But it took me another three months to get back to a healthy headspace, where I didn’t feel guilty for not going to the gym every day or eating a taco instead of a piece of lettuce. Mmm, taco …
Slowly, everything started coming back, including my tits. At the end of that six-month period—three of torture, three of healing—the transformation was complete … I have a total appreciation for what Matthew McConaughey went through while preparing for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. For me, it was all about having the right priorities. I realized that my body, my clothes, and my hair and makeup were there to service my mind, not the other way around.
Armed with that bit of wisdom, my body and mind transformed permanently into a woman as close to Power Girl as I, personally, could get. I felt like if I could bring myself to that point and live, I could do anything (cue cape flapping in the wind). Denzel Washington gave me a sweet reminder of that during one of our more fun and “animated” encounters. He complimented me on my swanky boots, and when I thanked him, he gave me this knowing gaze and said, “It’s not the shoes; it’s who’s walkin’ in ’em!”
Now it was time to face the moment of truth. We had come one hell of a long way. After years of development, untold hardship and sacrifice, financial ruin, a failed hostile takeover bid, a commercial eviction, a midnight run to save the assets, a world tour with Gene Simmons to raise money, tens of millions of dollars of investment, boardroom showdowns, banker brawls, the birth of a very big idea, and more than a million woman- and man-hours, we found ourselves at the very beginning, again. A new beginning. One filled with infinite possibilities and untold adventures. Launch night was upon us and my heart was beating out of my chest!
The stage was set. The players were in their positions. The atmosphere was electric … lights, camera …
EPILOGUE
On the day the site was to launch, a potent mixture of exhaustion, anticipation, and adrenaline was the elephant in the room. Some last-minute glitches had pushed the launch from 7 P.M. to 11:30 P.M., so naturally, tensions were high. But by 8 P.M., Ken and I and our entire world of employees, friends, and family had converged on the launch party’s secret location. Around two hundred and fifty people had crowded into the home of one of our favorite boosters for a fun little shindig to celebrate this incredible milestone. Unbeknownst to anyone in attendance, the legend of the No Good party would be born that night. I should’ve seen it coming, given the absurd number of lube bottles hidden in every nook and cranny of that house. We all should have seen it coming and … as it turns out … some of us did … see it … coming!
The location was stunning!! A gorgeous mansion located high in the Hollywood Hills with a beautiful pool and mega hot tub with a breathtaking view of the city. Something you’d typically only see in a P. Diddy or Kevin Federline music video or in the finest high-end anal gangbang porn. And I’m talking about the good shit like Everyone I Did Last Summer and A Few Hard Men. That joint was built for banging, erected for erections, fabricated for fucking. You get the picture. We had a super-eclectic mix of people there that night: from multiple cultures to multiple fetishes and everything in between. Our host for the evening had invited maybe fifty friends who all seemed to be getting along great with our crew. The scene was a cross between Thursday night’s TigerHeat whatever-the-fuck-thing-happens and Saturday night at the Avalon in Hollywood, and you could feel the excitement in the air.
Gene Simmons arrived at 11 P.M. as scheduled, causing a bit of a stir. He was always good about those things. Proud of the company, he kept an office at NGTV and appeared at everything that mattered. And I don’t mean the typical celebrity champagne-room appearance. You know, where a celeb shows up and stays for the length of one lap dance, leaving everyone at half-chub on the way out. Not Gene—he was a gentleman and would consistently go the jizztance. He always made sure that all the slits, bits, and clits were attended to and the walls were a muddle of male and female cumshots that would make Jackson Pollock proud. And something told me that our party house had seen its fair share of that sort of thing, since it had hosted Gene many times before. Gene mingled as our people were drinking, eating, dancing, and getting a hard-earned release. This night was theirs for the taking.
Kourosh was the last to arrive at the party after the launch was successful. I met him outside, and when we walked back into the house, the at-capacity crowd erupted into the loudest and most glorious “we just won the Super Bowl” cheer!! I remember us spinning around in its splendor, and upon making eye contact with Ken, we raised our fists in defiant celebration, as did he, spurring on an even more thunderous rebuttal. It was the closest I’ve ever been to knowing what it’s like to be Rocky!! What a night! Everyone was plenty drunk and then some … and they were just getting started. One thing I’ll say about my Nogoodniks, they knew how to have a good time, but sometimes, when you least expect it, the good time has you.
I followed Gene out the door about an hour later as I had a call time of 5 A.M. for my gig hosting the Oscars’ red carpet for the TV Guide Network. Come rain or shine, launch party or not, I was always working. I said my good-byes and headed out. Now, I can’t tell you who was involved, what was done, or to whom. Who instigated, who perpetuated, or who got naked and who didn’t. I can tell you nobody got hurt, and I can tell you that those people tell me they look back at that party as one of the greatest experiences of their lives. You see, sometime after I left, the evening took an unexpected and storied turn toward the debauched. And all I know for sure is what was left behind for us to discover the next day. The unforgettable aftermath of a balls-out bacchanal that no one could explain.
The cleanup crew was greeted with a wreckage of half-naked bodies passed out in cuddle piles spread out around the house, pool, and hot tub. There were used condoms floating in the pool, next to beer cans and trash. And in between the randomly scattered towels, blankets, and cushions lay an unsettling variety of used sex toys, floggers, paddles, inflatable butt-plugs, and restraints. And you couldn’t get away from the dozens of half-empty bottles of Uberlube and Boy Butter or squeezed-out tubes of Fresh Balls and Aveda body products adorning every table like a wedding centerpiece. Which was really too bad because at a certain point Astroglide just starts to smell like burned rubber, and that house smelled like the aftermath of a tire fire inside a brothel. Cleanup was a nightmare, and it took forever to pick up all the cigarettes, blunts, packets of Big League Chew, broken handcuffs, and half-used bananas.
What actually did and didn’t happen is anyone’s guess, but it was one hell of a party. I was just happy that our crew had embraced being No Good and really went for it. And boy, did they go for it! I didn’t expect the full Caligula on the first time out but it was a great omen of the good times to come. It was the first of many parties that would be attended by a lot of our friends in this town. Don’t even get me started on the seventies-porn-themed Christmas party!
In the interest of protecting the guilty, I’ll leave it to your imagination to fill in the blanks of what happened at our parties. I will say that those who left early didn’t know anything and those who stayed late wouldn’t remember.
8
MORE “FUCK YEAH” THAN “FUCK YOU”
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
—Oscar Wilde
Pop quiz, hotshot!!
An entire nation has just witnessed a dangerous, five-hour-long, collision-filled, high-speed car chase through the streets of Los Angeles. Having run out of gas, the carjacker is now trapped in a standoff with an army of SWAT with their weapons drawn. Heading into the third hour of this tense confrontation, the carjacker moves into the backseat of the stolen black Denali, lights up a fat joint, and is playing Xb
ox while yelling obscenities out the window. Every moment of the entire day is captured in detail by dozens of network TV cameras who have been sitting on a close-up shot of his windshield and dashboard. Then in a shocking move he pulls out his penis and starts masturbating for the cameras as the networks fight the urge to cut away. With the carjacker’s dick-hand out of commission, the cops seize the opportunity to finally make their move and use armored vehicles to pull the truck apart and arrest the ejaculating felon safely with everything but his dignity intact. Within minutes, numerous press outlets are calling you for a comment!
What do you do? What do you do?
Well, if you’re me, you just spent the whole day surrounded by your entire company, drinks in hand, channel surfing all of the TV networks and watching in utter disbelief as these incredible events unfolded with a huge No Good TV logo sitting in full view of every conceivable camera shot. “Project of destiny!” yelled Kourosh, as I rolled my eyes. He was always prone to hyperbole. But somehow, today, he was right on the money!
So I turned to our newest employee, Scott Bachmann, who was sitting next to me, and I said, “Well, Scott. It’s your truck. What do you want to do?” Unbeknownst to any of us, earlier in the morning, his top-of-the-line, tricked-out spectacle of a beautiful black Denali had been stolen from our parking lot on a collision course with destiny that no one could have imagined. And sitting on its recently detailed dashboard, and in full view of the world, was none other than a giant No Good TV logo printed on his temporary parking pass. While it tore him to pieces to watch his prized possession get stolen, crashed multiple times, and have its tires blown out and its interior desecrated before being drawn and quartered on its way to being totaled all on live TV, the ridiculousness of the moment wasn’t lost on him. So he looked at me and said, “Well, nobody was hurt, so if I’m going to be at the center of a media circus, then let’s bring the circus to NGTV!”
Within forty-five minutes, our production crew had set up and lit a shooting space at our bar. Our wardrobe stylists pimped out Scott with some cool threads along with an NGTV cap, an NGTV gold medallion on a chain, and a pair of Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses. His “hip-hop on steroids” style was a perfect match for the farce that had played out on national television all day. Soon thereafter came the onslaught of press to shoot our beautiful studio and interview the man of the hour, who was workin’ it almost as hard as James Franco begging for relevance. Yeah … Scott was playin’ on that “next level visual shit!” (Thank you, Black Eyed Peas.)
When I first met this remarkable guy who, in time, would become a trusted friend, I didn’t know what to make of this man who appeared to have stepped right out of the thirteenth century and into our lobby at NGTV. But he turned out to be an amazing executive producer as well as a fuckin’ badass editor who really knew how to make an Avid sing. He was a warrior in search of a battle, who fought like a champion, and his experience and passion was a huge part of what made NGTV such a force to be reckoned with. Clearly, he was destined to be a part of our No Good family, and we were lucky to have found him.
This wouldn’t be the only time we’d find ourselves front and center in the inexplicable theater of the bizarre as we fought to bring this dream to life. But this sure did set the stage for our brand. We were eight months out from launching, and this was our introduction to national media attention. What a fuckin’ way to get our name out there and cement our reputation as our date with destiny quickly approached.
Neck-deep in cultural mockery and wearing a wink and a smile, No Good TV officially launched on YouTube on February 21, 2007, with a dozen original series, including Up Close with Carrie Keagan, Down and Dirty, Deep Inside, Fresh Meat, Hustla’s Ball, and Reel Junkie. There was a great deal of creative energy at work, and the shows were reflective of the amazing talent assembled at the company. We saw ourselves as an idea factory, and we dreamed big and went for it. We weren’t afraid to improvise and run with whatever momentary lapse of reason came before us. And, just like most inspired ideas, one of our most popular series was conceived from just such a moment.
I’d gone to a hotel to interview Alicia Keys, but the room they threw us into was so small that once we brought in all the equipment and set up, I had nowhere to sit. Before we had time to figure out an alternative, Alicia and her people arrived. So out of pure necessity, I suggested we do it in bed. Without really thinking it through and being the cool chick she was, she agreed. We hopped into bed together and made sweet, sweet love. Just kidding, it was only oral. And just like that, In Bed with Carrie was born.
We had come such a long way by then. When I look back to the very beginning, it’s hard to believe how scared shitless I was, at first, with the movie stars. I broke my cherry with Nicolas Cage—he was the first big movie star I interviewed—and I was as lily-livered as Brian Williams in a Black Hawk. My very first press junket was for Nic’s directorial debut, Sonny, which starred James Franco (post Freaks and Geeks, pre sexting teen girls he met in Times Square) as a gigolo who sleeps with all these MILFs. Perfect content for what we were trying to do, but you have no idea what people are really like until you get in the room with them. I found out pretty quickly that Nic’s incredibly soft-spoken and pretty shy. I asked a generic question or two and realized it was going to go nowhere. So I took the plunge. No risk, no reward!
Me: So, Nic, are you into the older women or was it just for the movie?
(I say it with a wink.)
(He bursts out laughing. Phew! That worked.)
Nic: Oh, wow, no … (Blushing.)
Me: I’m surprised you got the older women to show their breasts because it’s not something you see every day.
He laughed again and it was on. After I broke the ice, he could see where I was coming from, and the interview went off without a hitch. That was me dipping my pinky toe into the world of edgy interviews with the A-list. Who knew then that the calm, almost serene, gentle drizzle of suggestiveness would eventually turn into a torrential downpour of filth?
“So you can use F, C, anything like that? I’m allowed to put them back in? But stay away from the C? You can’t use that in this country? Oh yeah … pushin’ the boundaries now, aren’t I? You’re used to seeing me fuckin’ uncensored fuck you! Let’s cunt it up!”
—Sam Worthington
In the early days, we worked like fiends, going to every single junket, press event, red carpet, or paper bag opening we could get into. But the press junkets, where you could get one-on-one interviews with talent, were, without a doubt, the money shot. Short of having your own talk show, this is the nirvana of entertainment journalism. Press junkets are very serious business, with studios often spending enormous amounts of money to create elaborate events in multiple destinations to help launch their movies. Often held in fancy hotels, like the Four Seasons in LA or the Regency in New York, the studio reps usher the movie’s stars through dozens of structured and heavily monitored interviews with journalists from a variety of different outlets.
You’re expected to behave a certain way, ask the usual questions, not ask personal questions, and basically adhere to a certain degree of decorum. They’ve been doing it the same way for as long as anyone cares to remember. Probably longer. If you’ve ever seen the film America’s Sweethearts starring Billy Crystal and Catherine Zeta-Jones, it’ll give you an idea of what I’m talking about. It is an immovable object that stands at the very center of the promotions process. It’s limited in its accessibility and almost machinelike in its precision. There’s a lot of money at stake, and the people behind it are used to doing things in a certain very safe and very predictable fashion. Like any old-school tradition, change is met with great consternation. Usually being delivered in the form of your ass being handed to you in dramatic fashion. So you can imagine what a shock to the system it must have been when this purveyor of the potty mouth persuasion entered the picture. It should have been a recipe for disaster. It shoulda!
In an amusing way, a press junket is a
lot like a sex-toy factory. Imagine the queue of press people as a long assembly line and every journalist as a Pocket Rocket slowly moving down the conveyor belt into a variety of interview rooms. Think of the interview rooms as the place where product testing and quality control occurs. In each room the pocket-rockets are turned on and tested on the talent, all under the watchful eye of the studio and personal publicists, who act as the quality assurance team. If the interview was satisfactory and nobody stepped out of line, meaning the Pocket Rocket created just the right tingling sensation for the talent, then it’s approved, packaged, and sent out into the world for public consumption. However, if the Pocket Rocket doesn’t get the talent in the mood, the interview tapes are confiscated and the Pocket Rocket dispensed with.
Junket after junket, week after week, year after year, it had been a Pocket Rockets–only club. Now, don’t get me wrong, Pocket Rockets are awesome. They are proficient, super fun, and get the job done. But unless you were a Pocket Rocket, there was no place for you at a press junket. So when I showed up on the conveyor belt, no one knew exactly what I was, but they knew I was no Pocket Rocket. And when I got into the room and revealed myself as a ribbed rabbit vibrator with an anal tickler … somebody should have called security. But they didn’t. Perhaps they were just a little … let’s say … overstimulated. Whatever it was, by the time it was over, reaching for a deep drag of a cigarette was more important than questioning what had just happened.
Everybody Curses, I Swear! Page 14
