We talked several times about me flying to the New York area. I told him that I have had too many problems with booking flights for work that turns out to not be solid and then spending time in a location just sitting waiting for other work to materialize because an agent failed to look for other work, finally telling me the week before the trip that he needed a flight confirmation number before he could do his job. I understand that there is a high flake factor in this industry, but I have never no-showed or even been late to a shoot that was booked, and I can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars of plane tickets to sit around and not make money. This agent, let's call him "John", told me that it would not be a problem. He told me I could stay at one of his model houses (notice the plural) and he would drive me around to whatever shoots I needed to go to. I told him I planned on coming out there from 3/28 - 4/1 and to try to get work for those days. On 3/18, over a week before my trip, "John" and I spoke with an actual producer who told us that he would gladly book me for a couple gagging BJ/rough sex scenes that for which I would earn upwards of $2000 over two of the three day's I would be there, and that he would finalize with "John" later. "John" told me he would let me know the details when he had them. Serves me right for not listening to Fox Mulder and trusting someone. I continued to call John for a few days, asking him for information about the shoot. He kept telling me he didn't know anything yet, but he kept asking if I did escort work. It's a question I had been asked before so it really didn't strike me as odd at the time. When I told him no he said that that was making it really hard for him to find work for me, and he lays on the pressure, telling me that all the girls did it so I should do it and that it was the best way he could guarantee me work. After several days of badgering him for confirmation on the two shoots, he finally tells me he was waiting to confirm them because I hadn't sent him my flight confirmation number. Grrrr...
The Friday before I was to get on my plane, John called me and said that he couldn't get the booking we had discussed because the company was booked up until April 1st. With all the pressure "John" had been putting on trying to convince me to escort, I was suspicious, so I called the producer myself. I had previously spoken with him a few months ago about setting up work, so I kind of knew him, but he informed me that my "agent" had failed to confirm the dates in a timely manner so he had booked someone else. Apparently, "John" had not called to try and finalize our booking until that day. So, even though we had spoken to the producer over a week before, and all "John" had to do was confirm dates and times, he had not called to finalize the shoot until the last minute. Now I had a non-refundable plane ticket (I fly cheap, what can I say) to a place where I had no work lined up. Excellent. I called "John" back and told him that I would be coming out anyway and to let me know if he found anything. At first he told me not to do that, that I should simply reschedule my flight so that I could stay until the 6th or 7th. When I pointed out that he was asking me to stay there during Easter, he told me I should reschedule my flight until after Easter because then he could find me some work for sure, unless I would agree to escort of course. I was royally pissed at "John" by this point, but I had little other option than to go out and search my ass off because I could not change my flight and even a small chance at making headway on my bills is better than no chance at all. I contacted a girlfriend of mine who lives in New York, Kendra Star, and asked if she had any porn contacts in NY or NJ. Kendra is a sweetheart, and we've both had luck with the same, very REAL agent in LA, Valley Babes. She referred me to JDEVIL Productions, Jupa Productions, Backout Video, and a few others. It was a frantic rush to try to make as many contacts as I could so that I could at least make back the cost of my plane ticket, but everyone was busy and the outlook was rather grim. After all, we're talking about trying to book work on only two days notice.
My flight out of Milwaukee was scheduled to leave at 4:30 on Sunday and arrive in Newark at 7:30pm. I called "John" to confirm my ride to the "model house" and he tells me that the driver can't get there till 9:30, so it's already looking like a wonderful trip at this point. Then my plane was delayed an hour at the airport, and then another hour while we were waiting on the runway. Thankfully, the stewardess was amazingly nice and gave everyone drinks and cookies to our heart's content, which, as a fan of chocolate, really helped. I called "John" and told him about my delay and that I would be landing 2 hours late, so I would be getting there when his driver would. When I arrived at Newark at 9:30, I called "John" to let him and his drive know what terminal I was at, and he informs me that he didn't have a car to pick me up, and it would be another hour before the driver could come pick me up. Okay fine, I'll wait an hour. After an hour and a half I was still waiting. 2, 3, 4, 5 hours later I sat there waiting. I continued to text and call "John" and all he could say was that "the driver was on his way and he should be there soon". He refused to give me the address to the model house and during the 1:00AM call, he tells me that it just dawned on him that maybe he should have called me a cab. He says that that would be a waste now, however, because the driver would finally be back with the car any minute and "John" would come pick me up himself. At this point I was ready to sit in the airport until the ticketing desk opened again and see if there was away that I could just fly home. Finally, at 2 in the morning, "John" got there to pick me up. We stopped on the way at a McDonald's to get some food. Now I would think after making someone wait at the airport for 5 hours, the least you could do was buy them dinner. Nope. Not even a thought that crossed his mind. Apparently my mother raise me better.
When we finally got back to the "model house" (which turned out to be his apartment, surprise!) we sat down and started talking about business stuff. He had apparently managed to get me some work for Tuesday and Wednesday, shoots that paid $300 each, and he was working on getting me more. He then started talking about rates for his commission. I talked him down from the 20% he insisted he was entitled to, but he agreed only because he didn't have a lot of work planned. He also said he usually charges talent $250 for staying in the "model house", but he'd cut me a break because I wasn't staying for a whole week. Then he tells me wants to shoot a video for his own website: a BJ with a facial. When I asked what the pay would be, He told me that he would do it as "content trade" for staying in the house. For those not in the know, content trade is what happens when two porn stars agree to work together for an equal share of the content, to do with as they see fit. This guy just wanted a BJ in exchange for lodging, plain and simple. It was late, I was already pissed and I didn't want to fight with the guy who was letting me stay at his place instead of the airport. I found my room, cuddled up on the air mattress (only thing in the room) and passed out. I was so tired, I just didn't want to deal with it all. (Next: A pimp, some porn, and I meet the best people when I'm naked!)
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