b y   m a r g a r e t   c h o

I wanted to be a Transpacific babe. I knew it was wrong, sexist, cheap, and gross, but they do get the hottest girls and let's face it: who doesn't want to be cheesecake? Even if they are just cheese, like me. I knew that alone, I didn't have the babe potential to grace the pages of this marvel in desktop publishing. But two years ago, when my TV show was about to hit the airwaves, and I had a big-time publicist to help me out, I knew that I had the cache to knock on Transpacific's door with pride.

First came the interview. This short Jewish man came to my house and interviewed me with a little tape recorder asking all the basic questions, and then he tagged along with me to a gig at UCLA and watched the show. He talked to people and was actually pretty cool, but I thought a little too thorough. He stuck around for about seven hours, and it's not like we were doing the cover of Vanity Fair.

They scheduled a photo session a couple of days later at their offices all the way out in Malibu. I got there at 7 a.m. They insisted on it being that early for some reason, and I didn't mind because I was finally going to be inducted into the elite sorority of "Transpacific" vamps. My publicist, Becca, my makeup artist, Cindy, and I all arrived in a convoy from Hollywood. The offices were empty. It was 7:10. The three of us waited for a few minutes, and then we went to Mc Donald's. At 7:30, we returned, but nobody was there. We sat on the steps and ate Egg McMuffins and bitched about having to go there so early. At 7:45, somebody came and let us in. He said the photographer would be there at 10:00. Ten O'Clock! Why the fuck were we here then? Why did they tell us we had to be here at 7:00? We could have gotten here at 9:00 and been ready to go at 10:00. The guy just looked at us like we were insane, so we just let it go. Cindy started on my makeup and Becca looked through some clothes that I had brought for the shoot. "Wow! This is all pretty slutty! How cool!" said Becca. "Yeah, I'm really going for their aesthetic." I had a nice collection of teddies and fishnets and platform heels to make my legs longer. Stuff I never wear, but have a strange habit of buying.

The photographer finally arrived and we picked out a black velvet and lace top stocking number with a nice conservative skirt over it. The photographer and Becca got in a fight because he wanted me to pose for him alone, and she thought he was creepy and insisted on being present. Thank God, she was there, because he was sleazy and kind of mean. I knew he thought I was fat and it pissed him off to have to photograph me, because it made his job that much harder. His ÒstudioÓ was actually just another room in the office, and he had lights set up and he was posing me on a makeshift bed that was actually a school cafeteria table covered with a black satin sheet and a black satin pillow. He barked out commands to meÑ"Suck in that gut!" "Pull your face forward...youÕve got a double chin!" "Get on all fours!" "Hike up that skirt!" "Push your breasts together. No, not like that!" My dream had become a nightmare. It was a photo shoot, but it felt like rape.

Becca couldn't take anymore and said, "That's enough." She didn't like the way that they were treating me. But he had shot quite a few humiliating rolls of film by then. I went to go change and we got out of there fast. Becca was grumbling about how unprofessional it was and how we needed to get approval of the pictures before they printed them. I just felt sick. The issue came out a couple of months later and I wasnÕt even on the cover.

The only evidence of the awful shoot was a tiny photo alongside the massive article about me. It's of my back, and I'm turned around and gritting my teeth, and you can't really tell about anything else because it's so incredibly blurry and out of focus. It looked like amateur porn! Be careful of what you wish for, because you just may get it.