You must have felt the ripple in the fashion world? No? There’s a new model in town and his name is Dave Goldstein. That’s right. I am now a Professional Male Model’hereafter to be abbreviated PMM. I don’t know if Professional Male Model (PMM) is supposed to be capitalized but I kind of like the way it feels. Have you seen the pictures? I know some of the girls get excited when their pictures run in Sports Illustrated or Vogue (hey it’s modeling, we’re all girls), but my big break came with the only gig that really counts in modeling’Post-it notes for Norvasc, Pfizer’s hyper-tension drug!
Vendela, Tyra, Elle, Christy. These are my holmies now. Linda Evangelista and I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000. And hopefully the same bed. Of course, I made less than the $10K for Norvasc but when you hear yourself being told, “great Dave, look right into the camera. Yeah, I like that. Just like that. Great.” Money becomes completely irrelevant.
I’m a helpful guy by nature and until recently I never knew how rare that was in the world of modeling. The day of the shoot, I love saying that, was really windy so, after being asked, I kept a light from blowing into a lake. I didn’t have to set up the light. I didn’t have to carry the light. I didn’t even have to move the light. I just had to put my foot on it. For that I was told by Lauren, the Art Director, that I was the most helpful male model she’d ever worked with. I guess the Marlboro man never saddled his own horse. “Keep calling me a male model,” I told Lauren, “and I’ll do anything you ask.” I hope she doesn’t have a big driveway because I think I’m shoveling it this Winter.
Modeling is so civilized. I think only a comedian, who’s used to having his work judged by the aggressively ignorant town idiot who shows up every Tuesday at Bayonne Pizza’s Comedy Night, would say that. At our first production meeting (Production Meeting!), the coordinator broke it to us that we could only spend 50 bucks a day on lunch and dinner. 50 bucks a day? I’ve gone a week on the comedy road spending less than 50 bucks total. Granted, that happened to be a week when I wasn’t drinking but still.
Believe it or not, I live a life of constant thought. Comedy requires that you’re always thinking and creating on the spot, well maybe not the guy who won Last Comic Standing, and trying to get the result you want from the audience. On top of that, I do telemarketing to try and make ends meet. My whole life is run on a three second delay as I try and think about how what I’m going to say will affect my target. That’s why I love modeling. You don’t have to think at all. It’s completely and utterly relaxing. In fact, you don’t need a personality at all, you just need to hold your gut in when the camera is pointed at you. And after awhile, when the Bulimia kicks in, that kind of takes care of itself. Lauren Hutton has been modeling for over thirty years. Can you grasp the depth of her relaxation? No wonder she crashed her motorcycle. She was asleep!
My bubble was burst a little at our first lunch when, after I noted that I’d better get something lite from the Spa menu seeing that I was now a PMM, our makeup artist Pam explained that I was a model like some actors are character actors. So to go right ahead and get the burger and fries. You have to have thick skin in the modeling biz. Pam has now made up Paul Newman for the cover of Esquire and Dave Goldstein in the fight against hypertension, so her career has pretty much peaked.
There’s so little to modeling and so much to love. You have to love a profession that’s so transparent and self-evident that the only question anyone ever wonders about it is, “do you get to keep the clothes”? But it’s not all nights of champagne and James Woods and days of waxing and reading telegrams from the Sultan of Brunei. I have other goals too now that I’ve conquered modeling. I have to think of the future. Let’s be honest, I’m not always going to have this body. Besides, I want to be taken seriously, I’m looking to get into acting.