City Reviews

South Bay Toyota - Gardena, CA

2007-03-24T08:57:00.001-07:00

People who sell vehicles work in a nasty profession. They deal in trickery and lies. Lots of folks say the same about strippers, but it is not necessarily true. Strippers take their clothes off for money. There is not much deception inherent in that activity. Normal men go to the clubs to see bare flesh and they don't get tricked into anything. I never try and swindle any customer out of his money. Either he tips me or he doesn't. Either he gets a dance or he doesn't. It's really that simple. Selling a vehicle is far, far different.

Recently I went to buy a used car from a dealership. I have an intense dislike of shopping in general and shopping for cars is worse than shopping for anything else. Usually I make my mind up very quickly about what I want so I can try and keep the excursion as mercifully brief as possible. Still, buying cars off a lot takes a long time because the staff uses the lengthening number of hours to wear you down. You spend lots of time arguing with the salesguy, waiting, arguing with the sales manager, waiting, arguing with the finance guy, waiting some more, and then you finally realize that you've spent half a day there and you darned well better drive off in something or else you are going to have to repeat the whole experience at another dealership.

Why didn't I just buy a vehicle from a private party? My past experience has taught me that it is actually more of a pain in the butt. Individuals selling their old cars usually are selling just one car. If you don't want to buy it then you have to keep visiting homes and offices of people until you find one that you like. It just seems easier to bite the bullet, go to a car lot and deal with the smarmy people who work there. So there I was at South Bay Toyota looking for a used Toyota. My experience would have been easier if I had been buying one of their new vehicles. They don't try and negotiate as hard because they make such a killing when they sell those. My fear of potential poverty, however, will not let me justify spending that much money on a depreciating asset. I hoofed through the used car section until I found a used Tundra with a seven-year/100,000-mile warranty, took it for a test drive, and told the salesman I wanted to purchase it. He barely spoke English and he really took his time getting me through the preliminary paperwork, disappearing frequently "to go speak to the manager." He did not discuss financing terms. Finally he ushered me into the office of the man who would help me arrange a loan through Toyota Financial Services. This man introduced himself as Scott Peterson. Scott Peterson? It took a moment for the name to register. He watched my face until I placed it and then we cracked a few jokes about how he had the same name as the man from Modesto sentenced to die for the murders of his pregnant wife and unborn son.

Scott produced a sheaf of paperwork and handed me a pen. He had already filled in all the numbers. I started asking questions and he became exasperated.

"Didn't, uh.." Scott tried to think of the salesman's name and could not come up with it. "Didn't your salesman explain all this to you already? This should have been dealt with before you walked into my office."

He spoke the words "my office" as if he were referring to hallowed grounds.

"No." I responded with annoyance, fully aware that this was just a tactic he was using to try and pressure me and make me question myself.

Scott glared at me.

"He barely speaks English anyways." I heard myself saying.

Did I see a smile playing at the corner of Scott's mouth?

We kept arguing. Maybe I got a bit loud, but not really loud. I was angry as we proceeded with the so-called negotiations. It seemed like many people were walking by his office and looking in through the open door. I watched Scott as he kept trying to elucidate his arguments as to why I should pay that price for the vehicle and why I deserved that particular interest rate. He started to imply that my credit was a bit shaky. I informed him that I had just refinanced some property I own for a more favorable interest rate and had almost verbatim knowledge about what appeared on my credit report. Scott didn't miss a beat.

"Look, this is the best deal I can give you." he said. "You real-ly like that vehicle, don't you?"

"I could really like a lot of vehicles." I said.

Scott threw back his head and gave a laugh, as if I had said something really original and funny that he had never heard before.

"You could like a lot of vehicles." he repeated. "I like that. I like that.."

I found myself smiling. I'm smiling as I write this. That guy was just a piece of fucking work. Talk about stereotypes. At that point Scott had leaned back in his leather office chair. He thought I was smiling with pleasure because I enjoyed that he had appreciated my words. I was smiling because he was sporting a gold chain on the outside of his dress shirt and another matching one around his wrist. He fiddled with them both a lot. And I was smiling because he had just tried to flatter me - he had thrown me the proverbial bone - and he thought it had worked. Scott relaxed his posture even more.

"You know, these days I see more and more girls coming in here to buy trucks. I don't understand it, but it's a sign of the times, I guess." Scott said with a smile as he threw up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender.

I smiled back at him and checked my impulse to inquire:

"What planet have you been living on, Scott?"

Nice Scott made a few more attempts at levity and conversation before Mean Scott came back and tried to move in for the kill. Mean Scott announced that he was going to have to call the the salesman into his office and tell him the deal was off if I did not agree to the financing terms which he had just offered me. I merely shook my head. Scott called the salesman on the phone, informed him of the sad turn of events, and asked him to come into his office. The salesman entered and the expression he wore on his face was a combination of seething, red-faced anger/petulant schoolchild. He stood rooted to the floor with his fists clenched and stared at me with utter hatred. This was not an act. Hooboy. I found myself wondering if he had already called his wife and kids to tell them about the sale. Or maybe he had already called all his drinking buddies. Or maybe he'd already called his extended family back in the Phillippines or wherever to tell them about his windfall. Maybe he'd told them he'd be wiring them some more money in the very near future. Now that he thought that the sale was in limbo he looked like his world was falling apart. He hated me. He just fucking hated me. Even though he was acting like a gigantic baby he still had the balls to stare me in the face without trying to conceal his barely-contained rage. He never unclenched his fists.

In reality, the salesman was the only guy in the room who believed the sale was in jeopardy. I was still sitting there in my shorts, sandals, and tank top even though the afternoon had turned into evening and a chill had crept into the air. Scott knew I wanted the vehicle and he also knew that I had a decent down payment and good credit. Of course we reached an agreement in the end. It wasn't a great one but it wasn't a bad one either. Before I left his office Scott pulled out someone else's contract and showed me that the person had agreed to an interest rate of 19.95%. I stared at the document too closely and he hastily covered the person's name with his hand.

"Now this is a bad loan." he had said.

Good grief. Scott and I shook hands, our short acquaintance now finished forever. I headed out to the main showroom to find the salesman and get my keys.

"Nice doing business with you." Scott called out as I padded away in my rubber grocery store sandals and oversized shorts.

"Nice gold chain." I called back over my shoulder.

No, I didn't really say that. The now-jubilant salesman escorted me to my truck and I got in it and drove home. A few weeks later I received a document in the mail that provided all the information regarding the truck's history. It used to be a rental vehicle! Comedians crack jokes about people who buy used rental vehicles. I've cracked jokes about people who would consider buying an old rental vehicle. Everybody knows how rental vehicles get treated by people who rent them. I've been with friends who pulled on the emergency break in the middle of the street while driving 40MPH. They wanted to see how many times the rental car would spin around in circles. People do all kinds of messed up things to rental cars and I'd just bought one.

A week later I went to a bondage shoot. I told the photographer, Marcus, about the truck and its history.

"Where did you buy it from?" he asked me.

I told him. He kept laughing about it as we were shooting. It turned out that he knew some people who work at South Bay Toyota. At the end of the day he said:

"I can't wait to show these photos to the guys at the dealership! I'm going to tell them that you were one of the chumps who bought a vehicle that came from that rental fleet!"

"Just make sure to include one of me bending over." I replied with disgust.

As it turns out the truck has been great. I love it. The whole episode just occurred to me again when I saw those bondage photos Marcus shot shortly after I bought it. You can see the entire "Tanya Gagged and Bound" gallery at www.TanyaDanielle.com now!

- XXOO Tanya

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The Monty Bar - Los Angeles, CA

2007-01-08T15:16:00.000-08:00

There's a bar called Monty's on West Seventh Street in downtown L.A. It has no windows and you can't see the interior when you are standing on the sidewalk even though the door is always open. The signage outside advertises cocktails, sports TV, and pool. Monty's is in kind of a rough area and it was hard to guess exactly who might be in the place. It could be workers from the numerous construction sites in the vicinity or it could be Mexican gangbangers. Maybe it's an array of people strung out on heroin they purchased across the street or it's a bunch of cops who get together after work. It could also be Crips, Bloods, or grandmothers knitting. The only way to find out is by walking in there.

The place was calling me. Why does that always happen? Little dingy bars with wood-panelling have a way of doing that. There was no way I could know that it had a wood-panelled interior, but yet I was certain that it did. Finally I proved myself right by going in there last Friday afternoon. About eight people were inside the wood-panelled room which happened to be bigger than I would have expected. There was a jukebox against one wall and five pool tables lined up on the concrete floor. A few of the patrons were playing pool and the rest were seated at the bar. Most of the conversation in the room was in Spanish. The bartender sized me up from a distance and maneuvered towards me in a somewhat laborious manner. At first I thought she was pregnant, but then it appeared that her gait was the result of some type of injury. I asked for a Stoli on the rocks and she asked me for my ID.

My Stoli cost $4.50. I sipped it and stared at the TV while the other customers tried to figure out what I was doing there. Something about their manner indicated that they were not accustomed to seeing many strangers in the place. Or maybe they just weren't accustomed to seeing many unescorted white women in the place. A large Hispanic woman in tight clothes came near me to retrieve her bottle of beer. She looked me squarely in the face and gave me a disdainful smirk before returning to her pool game. Her apparent assessment of me reminded me of one made by a similar large Hispanic woman a number of years ago. I had been leaving a bachelor party at which I'd been dancing when a woman had arrived at the residence. She kept looking me up and down and saying, "Oh, there's the little ho you had for the party" in a loud, derisive manner. I had been wearing a skintight, hot pink dress with 5" spiked heels. Today at Monty's I was wearing a baggy T-shirt and workout pants..

How did this episode end up with me squaring off in a boxing ring with Francesca to keep my dignity?? Join www.TanyaDanielle.com now to read the story and see the full gallery!

- XXOO Tanya

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Century Theatre - Los Angeles, CA

2006-12-30T11:51:00.001-08:00

Shawna is one of the souls who haunts me.

Shawna began dancing nude at a club in Los Angeles when she was 17. Legally she should have been 18 to work there but she had a fake ID. She was a little bit chunky and had big boobs. Her hair was really thick and curly and surrounded a face that seemed to be always smiling. All the girls at the club and all the customers liked her because she was so cute and sweet. I first met her when I was about nineteen so we were pretty close in age. One day her father came into the club during her shift. She did not seem too bothered by it, but it certainly struck me as odd that a man would come visit the nude establishment where his underaged daughter performed. It was disturbing insight into what must have been her twisted upbringing. Shawna and I worked the dayshift together. After a few months she started snorting methamphetamine to work double shifts and to lose weight. I moved to Arizona at some point and did not see her again for a while.

Maybe six years later I was dancing at the Century Theatre in Los Angeles off and on since I was also on the feature-dance circuit at this point. Shawna turned up at the Century using a different name: Krystal. She must have still been in her early twenties, but she looked haggard and wild-eyed. No trace of the cute, bubbly teenager remained. I've seen a lot of people go down some rough roads but her condition still startled me. She would sit in the dressing room and talk to herself, muttering incoherently like a crazy person. She would become combative with other dancers and customers for no reason. She did not remember me and basically seemed completely out of touch with reality. I told a few of the girls that I had known her at another club and that she used to be cute and fun and normal. They were all shocked and would ask me about her repeatedly:

"So.... you said she used to be completely normal?? REALLY??"

I was the only person who was nice to her and one day she started telling me some weird story about how she needed to bail her mother out of jail, but she didn't really want to because then she and her mother would just start doing meth together again. I remembered seeing her lecherous father years earlier and I really felt sorry for Shawna because she must have been up against unbelievable odds from the day she was born. It disturbed me to remember the seemingly blithe, happy months she'd been experiencing when I first met her because I never could have guessed that that smiling girl would eventually destroy herself. I've known many other people who were in even worse condition than Shawna, but the memory of Shawna's torment always sticks with me for some reason. She underwent a descent into madness that may have been inevitable from the day she was conceived. I have no idea what happened to her and, sadly, I have no idea what her real name is.

meth

The Shack - Playa del Rey, CA

2006-12-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

My friend Tyson and I just returned from The Shack in Playa del Rey, CA. We both felt that the bartender tried to rip us off. I had money on Pittsburgh tonight so we walked in shortly after the game started. We each had about four drinks and then closed out our tab. Tyson later decided to have another drink and I wanted to buy it for him. I handed the bartender my credit card and she rang up the charges for two drinks. Two drinks? I politely questioned her about it and she became far too embarrassed. She pretended that she thought that both Tyson and I had ordered more drinks and then she offered to give us both our drinks for free. I had not ordered another drink and I felt that sinking feeling. The one that says: "Oh, fuck, here's another place where the bartender is trying to rip off a few local drunks." Still, I reserved a space in my mind for the possibility that I'd misread the situation or that the bartender had made an innocent mistake. I tipped her well for Tyson's free drink.

As soon as Tyson finished that drink I stood up to leave. Tyson and I walked out the door and I asked Tyson:

"Did you catch that?"

Tyson did not even need a moment to understand what I was talking about. He smiled a big smile and responded instantly:

"That was the biggest royal fuck-up I've ever seen a bartender do. That was bad. She could not even cover it up." His huge, broad, shit-eating grin remained on his face. "She tried to rip us off and you caught her. Then she fell all over herself trying to offer us free drinks."

Yep, there it was.

In the pic above I am crossing another bar off my list. In reality, I don't do that often. The Falcon Inn in Hawthorne and The Shack are the only two in recent memory.

- XXOO Tanya

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El Dorado Motel - Gardena, CA

2006-12-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

A number of years ago I was dancing at The Wild Goose in Inglewood, CA and was sitting with a retired cop named David at one of the tables. I'd known David since I was eighteen years old. He began talking about a strip club in Long Beach. I can't remember the name of it, but I know that it no longer exists. David told me the place was a real dive. He smiled a curious smile and then said:

"It's one of those places that is so bad that it is good. Do you know what I mean?"
I certainly knew what he meant. I knew exactly.

"It's regenerative." he said as he traced a circle in the air with his finger. "Things get worse and worse until they are good."

He must have known by my expression that he did not need to explain any further. I never had a chance to tell him, but he had just succeeded in describing a concept that I had never been able to articulate. It had always lurked in the back of my mind and now someone else had just validated its very existence. "Regenerative" - that word described every cycle in my life and reaffirmed every lesson I had ever learned from extreme behavior.

I have witnessed a lot of extreme behavior and engaged in a lot of it myself. Of course my recklessness has at moments gotten me into lots of trouble. But it also enabled me to break on through to the other side. The other side of what? Whatever. Whatever cycle I was in. I never really understood anything until I got nutty, took chances, and then reclaimed my sanity.

My upper middle-class family had quite a bit of money. I grew up in a beautiful home, attended exclusive schools, rode around in luxury cars, and was shopping with my own credit cards at the mall long before I was a teenager. One night I saw a TV show in which two characters, the Hardy Boys, were staying in a hotel. They were sitting in a room dominated by two small beds and not much else. I asked someone in my home about the puzzling sight and was informed that that was what most hotel rooms looked like. I had never seen a hotel room that was not a luxury suite with multiple rooms. My father always made sure that we travelled in style. At that point in my life I was at the :01 position on the circle. Years later I was driving home from partying with some friends. I had been using cocaine fairly heavily during that span of time and I was a mess. That night I could barely drive because I was so strung out and disoriented. Finally I pulled off the road and went into a Travelodge. The ghoulish male clerk eyed me and quickly assessed my predicament. He told me that he would only rent me a room if I gave him $80.00 in cash. A sign outside indicated that rooms only cost $45.00 a night. I did not feel well enough to argue or to keep driving and my only other option was to sleep in my car. I found four twenty dollar bills in my purse and handed them to him, feeling the sting of anger and shame as I did so. That incident happened during the wee hours of one Easter Sunday morning. By that point in my existence I was at the :30 position on the circle. Many years later I was standing with my friend Raul and a guy named Paul, (about whom I wrote in my blog of October 14, 2006), outside a cheesy dump of a motel on Vermont Boulevard in Gardena. We were trying to get a room for Paul that night and I was going to pay with my credit card since Paul was broke and homeless. The clerk looked at all three of us and refused to let me rent Paul a room for the night. As he was still shaking his head at us the clerk slammed a block of wood in front of the hole in the plexiglass shield of his booth and bolted from the booth itself into a back room. Evidently we just looked like too much trouble, looked too derelict, or something. Raul had started yelling at the clerk in indignation as the man fled from his plexiglass shell and I just stood there in mild shock. We were poised inside a motel lobby in one of the shittiest sections of Los Angeles County and the Indian clerk thought we were too unfit to occupy one of his rooms. That happened towards the end of 2004 and it was the first time that I really felt like I was starting to know myself. Or know anything. I had gone from being a rich, spoiled kid to becoming a drugged-out loser and ended up as a responsible woman who was being unfairly judged by a motel clerk on the outskirts of Compton. I pondered the circumstances as I lingered in the lobby of the El Dorado Motel. Traffic whizzed by outside and after a few moments I turned and followed Raul and Paul who had already headed out to the car.

Recently I have put those and a lot of other situations in perspective and figured out what they mean to me. I have come full circle and another regenerative cycle has completed itself. I am ready to shake off a lot of the anger and bitterness that have ruled me in the not-so-distant past. The next cycle is only beginning even though I'm not sure where it will lead me. A strange confluence of circumstances has occurred in my life during the past few weeks: my beloved cat Larry became gravely ill and then rebounded, my roommate and I began feuding and I had to go find a new place to live, several friends (who don't even know each other) began behaving with a sickening lack of dignity, I had to find a new webmaster for one of my sites, I needed to find a new video editor, and I have been facing a money crisis due to the vet bills and the fees associated with moving into a new apartment. Fittingly, I became sick with a bacterial infection during all this and am now taking antibiotics each day. I can't even have an alcoholic drink until I'm done with the cycle of medication. Maybe that is good.

Now Larry, who is brimming with good health, and I are sitting in our new home. Several of my old friendships have ended. My remaining friends have given their support as I have begun reconfiguring my trivial existence. I know that many people have it a lot worse than I do. We have soldiers dying in Iraq, for Heaven's sake. I still have my perspective, but I am grateful to the friends who have cheered me up during the moments that I was imploding. Somehow it feels that I am approaching a new era in my life.

Finally I think I have enough wisdom to make the most of it.

I've had the Levi's 501 jeans I'm wearing in the pic above since I was at about :10 on the circle. You can see the full "Casual" gallery at www.TanyaDanielle.com now.

- XXOO Tanya

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Professional Submission League - Los Angeles, CA

2006-11-22T09:09:00.000-08:00

Over the past week I had been posting stuff about my friend Tyson's submission wrestling event that took place last Friday. I had bought a number of tickets to go watch it with some friends, but then my cat Larry experienced kidney failure on Thursday. He is back home now and is recuperating, but I went through a rough, anxious stretch of days last week as I agonized over his illness and prayed that he would get better. I had purchased seven tickets to Tyson's event, but I ended up going there with just my friend Tim at the last minute because I never invited anyone else to come along. Larry had been too sick for me to bother about making any plans ahead of time. The event was well underway when Tim and I arrived. I gave my name to the woman at the "will call" booth and she told me she could not find my tickets. She shrugged her shoulders and stared insolently at me through the plexiglass screen. My emotions were already fried because of Larry's illness and I just turned and stomped away after a few minutes of trying to reason with her. I returned a short while later to vent my spleen over the situation. She just stared at me dumbly throughout my tirade. Tim alternately watched me, looked at her, and looked away. I knew he was wishing that he was someplace else.

Tim and I never went into the venue. The next day I told Tyson about how fucked up I thought the situation was. At first he just laughed. Later, after he heard similar comments from other people, he asked me to write him an e-mail describing my experience. This is what I wrote to him:

Tyson,

I became extremely upset by the cavalier attitude of the personnel in the ticket booth at your event. As you know I had paid for over $500 worth of tickets and arrived to discover that the woman in the ticket booth could not find them. She did a cursory search for them, smiled, uttered an insincere apology, smiled again, and waited for me to leave. It was readily apparent that she could care less that I had paid for tickets that were unavailable to me. Common sense dictates that I'm probably not the only person to whom she behaved so rudely. Initially I stormed off in disgust. How many other people did that? The only reason you are hearing about this is because I know you personally. The only reason I approached the ticket booth a second time is because I know you.

On my return visit to the ticket booth either my friend Tim or I revealed that I was your friend. Perhaps one of us had said it during our first visit. I don't remember and it does not really matter. My anger was due to the fact that the woman in the booth had initially treated us with such disregard and had not even bothered to try and figure out why the tickets were missing. In the end I found myself imploring her to understand that it was completely absurd for a paying customer to arrive at an event and be greeted with such utter indifference. She stared at me blankly for an extended period of time. One of the event coordinators had appeared in the booth at some point and the insipid woman had informed her that I was "Tyson's friend." This event coordinator offered to take me into the venue.

What happened to the people who did not happen to be one of your personal friends? The ones who paid for tickets and had to deal with that type of careless attitude? I had not arrived there expecting special treatment from anyone. I had paid for tickets to support your show and so I could sit and watch people wrestle. It should not have been necessary for me to become angry or mention that I had a connection to you. My attitude that night would have been completely different if the woman in the ticket booth had initially behaved in a respectful manner when she could not locate the tickets. She did not. I mention all this because I really think you should be aware of it.

People often pay for a membership to one of my websites and cannot get in for various reasons (lost password, technical snafu, etc.) I'd want to know about it if my webmaster did not deal with their situation in an effective, diplomatic manner.

Tanya

So there it is. Lately I've felt the need to express my emotions. I've had a gag in my mouth on plenty of other occasions.

- XXOO Tanya

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Live Wrestling Events!

2006-11-15T20:37:00.001-08:00

Here I am practicing my cream application for a live wrestling event this Friday night, November 17 in Los Angeles. My friend Tyson is co-promoter of the event and he hired me and another model to wrestle in creamy lotion for the halftime show. Hopefully I can submit my busty opponent in record time. I've been training really hard.

Haha- just kidding! I'll be at the event, but I'm not doing any wrestling. All of the competitors are world champions in their given sport. UFC champion Randy Couture, jiu-jitsu blackbelts Marcelo Garcia and Jacare, plus many other world-class martial artists are all on the card.

Visit Tyson's site
www.ProSubLeague.com
to buy tickets or see purchase information for the the live webcast of the event!

- XXOO Tanya

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Randy Couture vs. Jacare in Los Angeles!

2006-11-12T12:39:00.000-08:00

Who are these guys? Is it possible that they are event promoters? Yeah, they do actually look the part, don't they? The one with the jolly, fat face is my friend Tyson and he would like to invite you to an incredible event he is promoting in Los Angeles on Friday, November 17.

Tyson is the Vice President of the Professional Submission League which features world-class martial artists in submission wrestling bouts. This competition speaks for itself. The title match features none other than UFC fighting legend Randy Couture vs. Brazilian jiu-jitsu World Champion Jacare!

Please visit Tyson's site
www.ProSubLeague.com
for all ticket information.

- XXOO Tanya

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Hotel Cecil - Los Angeles, CA

2006-10-30T20:25:00.000-08:00

The 600-room Hotel Cecil was built in 1927 and sits on the edge of skid row in downtown Los Angeles. For years I had wanted to go inside it, but somehow had never gotten around to doing so. I had made the same mistake with the Park Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles and ultimately missed my opportunity altogether. Architect Claude Beelman designed the Park Plaza Hotel in 1925. A branch of the Elk's Club had commissioned its construction and used it as a meeting hall and lodge for a number of years, but the fate of the grand building changed during the Great Depression of the 1930s. For decades it survived as a cheap refuge for winos after much of the population of Los Angeles fled the downtown area and headed to the suburbs. I wish I had checked into the Park Plaza for an afternoon or maybe a night while I still could, but I waited too long and now it is no longer open to the public or used as a hotel. In all likelihood the Hotel Cecil will be closed to the public in the future as well. Recently I noticed that commercial real estate site Loopnet.com has a listing offering the Hotel Cecil for sale. Presumably investors will purchase the property at some point and convert it into yet another pricy Los Angeles pseudo-loft development.

Right now the Hotel Cecil still operates as a hotel and is attempting to shake off its reputation as a crime-ridden flophouse. There are three different types of rooms on the premises: rooms with a shared bathroom, rooms with a shared bathroom that has a door that will lock, and rooms with a private bathroom. When I saw the Cecil listed for sale I knew I had better get a room there before it ceased being a hotel altogether. I called information and got the correct phone number. A recording featuring a woman with a cheery British accent played over and over as I waited for a live person. Finally a polite man answered the phone and assured me that rooms were available for the following night. He started to take down my name, but then asked if I wanted a room with a private bathroom. When I responded that I did he told me I would not need a reservation. That surprised me, but I had an inkling that rooms with shared bathrooms were probably still in high demand in that area because they were much cheaper. In all likelihood many or most guests of the Cecil just rolled in off the street when they had a few extra bucks. Before I hung up I asked the man what time I could check in the following day. "Seven o'clock." he answered. I did not know whether he meant 7AM or 7PM, but either way his reply indicated that the Cecil was not your normal kind of place. That much had been clear to me years earlier when I had first driven past it.

A week or so later I went to the Cecil on a Wednesday afternoon. I had been tempted to show up early that morning and insist that an employee had told me that check-in time was 7AM, but I squelched that impulse. Upon arrival I parked in a lot across the street from the hotel. A sign requested that you inform the attendant of how long you intended to stay. Hmm, I was not yet sure if I'd stay the night or not. I approached the gentleman in charge and said I planned to be there about 4 to 5 hours. "You want to stay for 45 hours?" he asked me in thickly accented English. I laughed and repeated my words, enunciating them more carefully. He and the other lot attendant laughed along with me when they understood what I meant. That was the last time I laughed that day.

Two security guards greeted me with icy stares when I walked into the Cecil's lobby. Wow! The place was just beautiful. Someone had been taking a great deal of care to renovate the interior while maintaining its Art Deco styling from the twenties. Signs surrounding the security guards warned all visitors that they must present IDs and room receipts upon demand. I told one of the guards that I wanted to get a room and he waved me forward through the gorgeous lobby. The front desk loomed ahead of me at the far end of the room. The hotel personnel sat behind a bulletproof glass enclosure, the kind that you see in liquor stores in the ghetto and inside the banks of major cities. The woman behind the glass told me that rooms were $49. I nodded and slid my ID and Visa card under the glass. She slid a printed 2-page waiver back at me which I signed without reading. A space designated for the copy of one's fingerprint occupied the lower righthand corner of the page. An ink pad to facilitate the fingerprinting of hotel guests sat on the counter next to me and I waited to see if I'd be asked to compromise my civil liberties just to gain access to my $49 room. The front desk clerk must have thought it unnecessary because she ran my credit card and passed the key for room #1506 back under the bulletproof glass. The key really was a key -the type of key you might have for your front door at home- and it was attached to a crimson red tag bearing the name and address of the Hotel Cecil and text guaranteeing postage for its return if mailed from anywhere within the continental US. I could not remember what year it was that I had last seen a hotel key not made from one of those credit card-type pieces of plastic. A memory washed over me as I noticed the resemblance of this key tag to that of one I'd taken from the Half Moon Motel in Culver City in the 1980s. Hopefully my visit to the Hotel Cecil would lead to better things than my fateful stay at the Half Moon Motel so many years earlier.

The elevator to the fifteenth floor seemed fairly modern. When the doors openned I turned to the right and was confronted with four closet-size rooms containing toilets. All the doors hung open and each of these little bathrooms seemed surprisingly clean. I had specifically confirmed with the front desk lady that my $49 guaranteed me a private bathroom attached to my room. Oh, well. Maybe she had misunderstood. I passed even more toilets on the way to #1506 as I strode over the polished marble floors. Beautiful, handlaid mosaics decorated the floor every few hundred feet. The craftsmanship displayed in the Cecil's interior hallways was captivating. When I reached my room I slid my key into the lock and discovered that the small space did indeed contain a bathroom. More marble graced the bathroom on the floor and on the outside of the tub. I was so glad that I had come to the Cecil. It was more than I ever could have hoped. A musty smell lingered in the air, but it felt like a gateway into the past. I stared out the window for a long time at a gargoyle decorating/guarding one of the top floors of a large white building across the street. Decades of accumulated grime did not detract from the winged lion's regal bearing. It had loomed across the street from #1506 for many, many years and I wondered how many other occupants of this small room had stared at it with awe.

Time passed quickly at the Cecil as I read in my room and stared out the window at the glorious gargoyle. I went to the sink to get a glass of water and a stream of yellowish-brown liquid came out of the spout when I turned it on. I decided to take the stairs down all fifteen floors so I could check out more of the building and find a drink machine. One of the security guards was passing by my room as I walked out. He smiled and nodded at me and I heard his footsteps echoing in the hallway as he walked away. I had a strange feeling that he and I were the only people on the fifteenth floor at that moment. As I locked my door I reflected on the fact that there must be dozens of people who had keys to #1506. Countless guests must have absconded with keys or made copies of them over the years. The same key opened both the locks on the door and there was no additional deadbolt or even a chain that you could fasten from the inside. I could tell that there used to be 2 extra locks on the interior of the unit but one had been ripped off completely and the other badly damaged. Obviously someone had forced open the door and destroyed them in the past. Vaguely I wondered how long ago it had happened.

I meandered around the building for a long time and marvelled at each ornate touch that I discovered. The current managers undoubtedly had to deal with some very difficult clientele here on skid row, but someone made sure that the interior was meticulously and lovingly maintained. It sounds corny to say that I felt the love, but I really did. Darkness was beginning to fall and a line was forming in the lobby in front of the bulletproof glass. Many of the prospective guests, (ok, all of them), had a street-tough quality that you could see in their faces and posture. A security guard stepped into the elevator when I did. It was the same guy that I'd seen earlier on the fifteenth floor. I felt his eyes on me and he made me a bit nervous. Often I chatter when I'm nervous so I asked him a random question. He answered politely but his gaze on me was piercingly intent even though it was not overtly rude. Somehow I knew he was savoring my discomfort. Everybody else on the elevator gradually exited on lower floors as the elevator kept rising, but I just knew he was going to stay with me until I got off on the fifteenth floor. He seemed to be evaluating me. I was dressed like the homeless beacuse I always am so maybe he thought I was just another hooker or drug addict who had come to the Cecil to party. He was probably trying to decide what he could get away with, to guess if there would be any repercussions if he behaved inappropriately. It appeared that he was about thirty or so. He had curly black hair and a trim, lean body. Although he was not much taller than me I could tell that he was much more agile and powerful. He had spoken with respectful politeness to the other folks in the elevator and both his English and his Spanish were flawless. People often seem to believe that I'm either a cop or a hooker and I suspected that both of those possibilities had already occurred to him. He wanted to know what I was doing there.

When I got off on the fifteenth floor so did he. As I walked down the hallway I heard only my own footsteps. I felt his eyes on my back but I did not turn around.

Was I really going to stay there all night in this room when I knew that keys to its door abounded in the neighborhood? That's what I was asking myself as I flopped down on my bed. Fuck. I don't like being a coward and I really did want to stay and absorb the vibe of the past contained within its walls. Honestly, I wasn't worried about the assorted drug users, drug sellers, and hookers in the place. I was only worried about that security guard. For a few minutes I stared at the gargoyle through the window. The smooth white stone of his body seemed to gleam in the moonlight. I built up my resolve to stay overnight at the Cecil as I stared at the well-sculpted physique.There was an extra chair in the room and I decided that I would shove it underneath the doorknob. That way I would have plenty of warning if someone was trying to force his way in.

So that's what I did. It would have been impossible for someone to move that chair in the middle of the night without waking me. The chair never moved. At 3AM I awoke to find the curly-haired security guard sitting in the chair. At first I thought I was imagining it but then I could positively make out his form in the shadows because the moonlight was coming through the window. His face was shrouded in darkness until he saw me start to sit up. He approached and stood over me. A smile spread across his face. He was relishing the moment. I was so terrified that I was incapable of even making a noise. He knew it. For decades I had had countless nightmares in which I was trying desperately to scream but could not force a sound out of my throat. Now it was really happening.

As the security guard gazed down at me a strange mix of desire, power, and evil seemed to emanate from his very soul. He pulled back the covers and looked at the halter shorts and top I was wearing. Usually I sleep naked but I had fallen asleep in my clothes. After gazing at me for a few moments he jerked me by my hair and threw me from the bed onto the floor. Amazingly, he turned all the lights on and then he straddled me as I tried to scramble towards the marble floors of the bathroom. The room must have been lit up like a stage for any of the surrounding buildings in the neighborhood, but he did not care. He shoved a painful wooden gag into my mouth and ripped off my shorts. Then he began binding me with coarse brown rope. My struggles were useless. After I was completely immobilized he produced a pair of spike-heeled black pumps from the closet.

"Here," he said quietly as he placed them on my feet, "the last guest of 1506 left these for you."

He pulled me upright and suspended me from the ceiling, tying one of my legs behind me in a contorted position. For a short while he caressed my body softly and then pulled my halter top down to expose my breasts. He smiled again as he looked at my chest and then went back to the closet and pulled a large, vulgar-looking dildo out from a black bag on the floor.

"I want you to think of me while you put on a show for the neighbors." he said. "This is how Lila and I used to play when she stayed here. That was a long, long time ago."

He left the room and I struggled for hours suspended from the ceiling with the dildo inside me. I watched through the window as the sun came up on the regal gargoyle and bathed the grey city with light. Finally, there in the soft morninglight, I noticed the door that connected room 1506 with an adjoining unit in the Cecil. Lila and the security guard had entered through room 1505.

See the full "Standing Dildo" gallery inside The Bondage Room at www.TanyaDanielle.com now.

- XXOO Tanya

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Hooter's - West Covina, CA

2006-10-30T20:15:00.001-08:00

In June, 2006 I dragged my friend Tyson with me out to Pomona, CA to look at some old houses. He could care less about historic homes in general, but even he was impressed by the grace of some of the amazing places we saw. We were starving by the time we hit Interstate 10 to drive home. As we were discussing what to eat I saw a Hooter's restaurant directly ahead of us on the righthand side of the freeway.

"Have you ever been to a Hooter's?" I asked.

"No, I've never been to a Hooter's." he replied.

"Let's go to Hooter's." I said as I cut across 5 lanes of traffic to get to the next exit.

Upon entering Hooter's there was no immediate indication that we had made an ill-fated decision. The hostess happened to seat us by the waitress' pantry area where Tyson could ogle the servers wearing their giant orange pantaloon shorts and shiny, flesh-colored tights. Our own waitress was a very pretty brunette with waist-length hair and a nice figure. Everything seemed fine as Tyson and I relaxed with our drinks and ordered our meal. Shortly afterwards the waitress came back and unexpectedly sat down at our table. Tyson and I abruptly stopped talking and smiled at her. She did not seem to have much to say so he and I began making tortured attempts at conversation. Somehow I ended up divulging that we had never been inside a Hooter's before.

"Oh, this is your first time?" the waitress asked. "We'll do something special for you."

I found myself vaguely hoping that the special treatment did not involve singing. Just then an old Village People song started playing at a loud volume inside the restaurant.

"Oh, no. It's time for the YMCA." the waitress said as she wrinkled her nose with genuine dismay.

Tyson and I exchanged blank looks and she hopped up from our table. Soon every server in the establishment was standing on top of a barstool performing a synchronized dance routine to the YMCA song. All their orange-clad butts gyrated above our table. Yep, our waitress was definitely the thinnest and the prettiest. Most of the patrons in the place, 95% of whom were male, stared at the waitresses with unwavering, zombie-like attention. These men were not smiling. It seemed that they were attempting to burn the images of the dancing women into their brains.

Peace reigned for a brief time after the YMCA dance ended, but then three waitresses and a manager materialized at our table. They congratulated us on our first-time visit, placed a tinfoil crown on Tyson's head, and began tying balloons into my hair. The balloons lifted 3 sections of my hair into the air and I looked like a complete idiot. I glanced across the table at Tyson who must have felt equally ridiculous in his foil crown. For some unknown reason he and I felt compelled to "be good sports" and keep our adornments attached to our heads. I have no idea why.

Our food arrived. We began eating. Someone in the room grabbed a microphone and announced that a bachelor party was present. A cheer went up as the voice promised a special treat for the bachelor who was being escorted to a makeshift stage right at that moment. All of a sudden our pretty waitress was at our table grabbing my arm and telling me that there was another surprise and I was going up on the stage. Startled, I laughed and politely resisted her as she tried to drag me from my chair. She was pulling hard and was utterly convinced that I was going to follow her. My mind had no time to make sense of it all, but I was not going up on any stage. I tried to shrug her off and jokingly pointed at Tyson who was wearing a bemused but puzzled expression underneath his foil crown.

"He'll do it." I said.

"You both can do it!" she exclaimed and grabbed Tyson's arm too.

She really wasn't kidding and she kept trying to jerk us towards the stage area. Finally I indicated my refusal in a tone of voice that left no room for doubt. She dropped our arms and glared at me with malice in her eyes. Then she turned on her heel and stormed off. Tyson and I stared at each other in disbelief. Right at that moment a man with a pen in his hand approached our table and asked me to sign his napkin. I turned my gaze on him. Did he think I was one of the waitresses? Was this some other weird Hooter's tradition where male customers asked all female patrons to sign their napkins? Who was this guy? Who did he think I was? Couldn't I just take the balloons out of my hair and eat my six microscopic clams? I looked at the man with puzzlement and lamely reiterated his question back to him.

"You want me to sign your napkin?" I asked.

"Yes, please." he said politely.

"Um..why?" I wondered aloud, not knowing what to say.

"You're the adult actress Tanya Danielle, aren't you?" he responded a bit uncertainly.

Several long moments of silence elapsed.

"No. No, I'm not." I said.

The man apologized and left. Tyson told me I had been kind of rude.

"Nobody knows who I am. I didn't know what to do" I said. I was really flustered.

"Yeah, you're right." he said after a short pause. "That was definitely weird."

Tyson shook his head and removed his foil crown. He helped me untie the balloons from my hair and they floated up to the ceiling. We finally finished eating and waited for the waitress to return with our bill. She never came back. I left to search for her and found her slumped dejectedly over one of the tables at the bar with her chin on her hand. She agreed to bring the bill. When she dropped it off at our table she informed us with a trace of hostility that she had merely wanted us to do the hokey-pokey onstage earlier. Neither Tyson nor I had a response to that. I picked up the bill and happened to notice some text on it directing me to a website where I could fill out a customer satisfaction survey. We paid and left.

Cameraman Mike Raffone shot the pic above in 2004 during the filming of a custom video. A gentleman had sent me a Hooter's uniform to wear as wardrobe to accompany his script. I would have had much more perspective on my role if I had ever gone to a Hooter's restaurant before shooting the video..

See the full gallery at my archive site www.JackOffLand.com now!

- XXOO Tanya

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The Falcon Inn - Hawthorne, CA

2006-10-30T20:10:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I went to the Falcon Inn in Hawthorne, CA with my friends Raul and Tyson. We were having a good time drinking too much and laughing a lot. A couple of nice guys named Chet and Victor, (I think those were their names), were sitting next to us and we were chatting with them. At some point I went to the ladies' room and happened to see the waitress drop some money onto the floor. I said, "I think you dropped this." as I picked it up and then handed it to her. She looked amazed. A moment passed and then she said:

"I can't believe you gave that to me. If I were you I would have kept it."

I just smiled at her because her response surprised me a bit. Honestly, I was thinking: "Wow, what a trashy chick."

When I reclaimed my barstool Raul, Tyson, Chet, and Victor were still deep in conversation. All of us kept drinking and I noticed that the bartender seemed to make incorrect change for us during one round. I was kind of drunk and attributed my perception to my inebriated state. Still, I decided to keep an eye on her. She did it again. This time I knew for sure and I called her back over. At least she had the decency to be embarrassed- I could see it in her face. Her behavior really galled me because we had been tipping her well and it was crass and scummy of her to steal from us like that. Stealing is always crass and scummy. The bartender made some excuse for shortchanging us and I glared at her. Her face grew red underneath her spiky blonde hairdo and Raul, Tyson, Chet, and Victor stared at me in surprise. Actually, I don't think Chet and Victor were all that surprised. They seemed to be regulars at the Falcon Inn and had probably seen the bartenders there pull this kind of shit before. Things like that don't happen just once. People who steal do it all the time. I told Raul and Tyson that I'd seen the blonde-haired bartender taking money from us twice and there was no doubt in my mind that I was correct. They knew I would not say it unless I was 100% positive.

Raul and Tyson stood up to leave. They felt uncomfortable, so did I, and I think that Chet and Victor may have too. Either Chet or Victor said:

"It's not the money, is it? It's the fact that they fucked you."

Raul smiled and nodded his head.

The bartender probably made out with an extra $20-30 from us to which she was not entitled. None of us had any interest in making a huge scene over that amount of money. None of us will ever go back there. What do you do? I guess you just leave and badmouth the place when it's convenient.

The week after the Falcon Inn episode I was working with Harley Raine. She and I were playing jail inmates in a custom video that Mike Raffone was shooting. During a break I happened to mention the episode at the Falcon Inn.

"You mean that place on Rosecrans Avenue in Hawthorne?" she asked. "Didn't they used to have a 'C' rating from the Health Department hanging in their window?"

"Um, yeah." I answered lamely. "We weren't eating there though. We were just drinking."

"Why would you go into a place where the management doesn't even have the wherewithal to pay off the Health Department and obtain at least an 'A' or 'B' rating?" she asked with disgust.

I tried to make light of it and joked that the vodka in my glass would have killed any unhealthy microbes anyways. Harley responded that I may as well go lick the rim of Mike's toilet if I was that careless about my hygiene. That bugged me and I told her that she was the one who would be drinking out of Mike's toilet if she didn't drop the subject. She kept running her mouth. A dirty, dirty battle ensued..

Join www.TanyaDanielle.com now to see who won this busty brawl!

- XXOO Tanya

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