Here in L.A., I’ve gone through jobs quicker than most urbanites go through sexual partners. This is no exception.
One day, while signing a contract at my agency, my agent spotted my hands and started sending me out for hand-modeling auditions. This, I thought, was hilarious. I was excited to add it to my resume of ridiculousness.
This was my “Hand Shot.” Don’t laugh.
For a brief stint I became the Sizzler’s hand. Awe-inspiring isn’t it? Did you have any idea you were in the presence of such celebrity? Now I’ve had some demeaning jobs, oh have I had some demeaning jobs. Los Angeles really perfects degradation. But being the Sizzler’s hand was a whole new category of demeaning—they treated the shrimp I was handling light years better than they treated me, aka “The Hand.” And it was also the closest I’ve ever been to existing in an alternate universe.
On one commercial I had to dip a shrimp into cocktail sauce. That’s it. It was a 3 second shot. Simple enough right? REEEong. I dipped shrimp and got notes for NINE HOURS PEOPLE.
The advertising agency would tell me to accent the plumpness of the shrimp more. *#@&%@#* The producers would time each of my movements, which consisted of dip, quarter spin in sauce, and lift, and they would then nit-pick the length of time I spent on each. &%*&%$#* The cinematographer would bark at me to get more light on the shrimp while not causing the sauce to drip. @&$@#%& The director would tell me to make the motion of the dip more sexual…
Let me remind you that in the shot, you only saw my hand from the wrist down. And I was dipping a shrimp into cocktail sauce. I would give my best attempt at a sexy shrimp dip, but you know, there’s only so much a girl can do to sex-up some seafood.
The director would yell “Cut!” and say, “Hand [that was me], that was too sexy. I don’t want this thing being lewd. Think sensual, not pornographic.” Oh riiiiight, my bad. I guess I shouldn’t be giving the shrimp an HJ in the shot? What the?
And then doing my best sensual shrimp dip into cocktail sauce, he would once again scream “Cut!” shake his head and say, “Okay, pretend you’re in love with this shrimp for chrissakes. You love this fucking shrimp.”
No comment.
And then the producers would squabble about lighting and the ad agency would chirp that I was making the shrimp look too small. This lasted for nine hours. I got paid $100.
On my next Sizlicker commercial I squeezed a lemon over lobster for 17 HOURS. It’s almost incomprehensible. The peanut gallery wasn’t happy with how the lemon juice squirted out. Because, I’m not sure if you knew this or not, but I fired Mother Nature a while back and started creating all the world’s produce by hand. Yep, little ole me. So really, if a lemon isn’t juicy enough to drench a piece of lobster, it’s clearly my bad, as everyone on set pointed out.
The crew ended up rigging clear, plastic tubes into each of the lemons so that when I squeezed a lemon, a guy at the other end of the tube would be frantically squeezing water through the tube, so that it would squirt out the lemon in my hand. I’m surprised we didn’t get an Oscar for that shit people.
On hour 15 my hand cramping was getting unbearable and my patience was as foreign a piece of history as my embryonic sack. So I did what any good actress would do and started plotting on-set suicide. I thought I might be able to figure out how to electrocute myself with lemon juice and wires. Or perhaps jostling the camera rig out of position so it fell on my head. Anything would be less painful than listening to the peanut gallery “coach” me on my motivation to squeeze that motherfucking lemon all over that motherfucking lobster one more motherfucking time. As evidenced by me typing this, my oh-so-dramatic on-set suicide attempt was unsuccessful.
That was my last Sizdickler job. I told my agent that Siznutsacker can sensually, sexually and pornographically suck my balls.
I did still life hand modeling after that—photos of my hand opening a wine bottle, dispensing seasonings, displaying crystal, oh yes, I know, quite shee shee. That was tolerable because they didn’t give me acting notes like Sizbuttlicker and they treated me like a human being with hands, not a hand attached to a robot.
Yep, that’s me.
But what really got to me was the lifestyle. Yes, I said it. The lifestyle of a hand model is absurd. You basically can’t do anything with your hands, ever. Any sort of cleaning is out of the question, which is cool if you can afford a maid. I could not. You can’t play sports, or do anything remotely active. And do not even think about going outside without your hands covered—the sun will destroy your career. And you really should wear gloves when at all possible.
For anyone who doesn’t know me, well, I’m basically a dude with tits. So there’s a pretty brief window of how long I’m going to tolerate being forced to get frequent manicures, wearing gloves around and constantly being worried about chipping a nail or scratching my hand. I mean, I’d suffer through it if I was making a decent living or was stimulated by the work, but there are only so many new steak knives you can hold for a couple extra hundred bucks till you realize, it’s time to move on.
And move on is what I did. To become an assistant editor at Hustler Magazine.
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