The Palm Springs Shoot That Wasn't

The craziest ordeal took place a few weeks ago on my way to Palm Springs to shoot my very first scene on-set! I was so excited to travel, to get back into main stream movie filming, to finally get a paycheck and to shoot with 2 very hot men, m aking doing the scene just about everything to me at that particular moment in time.  Bills, rent, loans, etc. were all riding on this paycheck... and this is how it goes...

I get picked up early by Super SHuttle so I would not be late to the airport (sometimes I run a little behind so we cut any potential problems off at the pass by scheduling pickup service), I arrive almost 2 hours early but much better to be early than running in last second.  Well, little good it did me as I discovered I had to pay $25 for my baggage!  I didn't know this, had only $13 to my name, and proceeded for the next two hours calling everyone I could think of, trying to abandon my bag, trying to store my bag at the airport, anything I could do to get me on that flight!  Failed!  The flight came and went, United was no help at the desk.  Finally, Rob from HotHouse got in touch with me and ran cash over so I could try and catch the second of 3 flights that day to PS but unfortunately I missed that one by less than 5 minutes!  Rob, who was so helpful and supportive throughout this process, brought me $100 for baggage and flight rebooking.  Well, my 5th time up to the desk I was told that the re-booking fee would now be $150, not $50 as I was previously told... so once again I was short and couldn't reserve a flight for the last flight out at 8pm.

Hours roll by, I finally get my mother to send me $200 after spending the rest of the day researching alternative paths to PS including other airlines, Greyhound, Amtrak, etc.  I get back to United, speak to the new face at the desk, who is apparently mgmt level as she just wizzed thru the rebooking process, only charged me $50 for re-booking, and looked miffed that very staff earlier in the day did nothing to help me resolve my problem.  Over 12 hours later of being at the airport, I was finally on my way down south.  Woohoo!

I arrive to chaos.  Everything that could go wrong, apparently has for HotHouse during this shoot.  I don't know all the details but I do know I was one of a handful of model problems they had to face, which was exactly the opposite effect I wanted to have.  I wanted to be low maintenance, film a great scene, make no waves and depart peacefully under the radar.  Instead I felt like a burden, ugly, essentially an unwanted entity.  That aside, I did have fun hanging with the cast and crew after the days of filming.  I really do love the Hot House family, I only felt it in return from a select few.  I did get to meet scene partners Bo Dean and Damien Crosse... both incredibly hot and seemingly nice.  Damien is a rockstar.... I could see being long good friends with him.  Bo was distant, but as with all gay for pay, you sort of feel  like an unwanted, undesired hole... and that's about it.  It's not their fault, I hold no grudge, it's simply a matter of circumstances... which becomes the theme of my fate the very next day.

I arrive on set, all was good the night before.  Feeling good about the shoot, not so super nervous like I usually am.  I wake up to find what appears to be a... COLD SORE!  Granted, everyone has it... but I can't expose my scene partners to it, especially when at a highly contagious stage.  I arrived on set in time for Steven Scarborough to litewrally watch the cold sore grow right there in front of his eyes!!!  The heat that morning fed perfectly into this hideous growth that ended up forcing me not to shoot the scene (oh, btw, shot my solo pictures the day before so already half way to paycheck), they lost their sole bottom for the scene, they tried to get Damien to take over but he was not at all prepared mentally for the task, brought Kyle King in past minute, I think eventually Damien also had to leave due to heat exhaustion.... it was a crazy mess... all due to a stupid cold sore and $25 in cash.

Who would have thought that such a little thing like a cold sore could put me in financial ruin?  Well, after my psoriasis breakout took me out of the game for over 8 months from filming.... I am not all that surprised.  But these unexpected medical conditions you just can't predict or prepare for.  I was blind-sided yet again and to this day still trying to recover from the loss of a paycheck. Granted, I need to find myself in a more stable financial situation so I can sustain unexpected things like this.... but I just can't seem to catch that break that allows me to get firm grounding so I can progress toward a better situation for myself.

I am not really thrilled to be telling these embarrassing moments about myself, but I did promise you that I would be open and honest on here to a fault so you really get an insider's look at what goes on behind the scenes.