Posted November 19, 2009 at 5:52pm
Posted November 18, 2009 at 7:48am
latenightfeelings a few days ago i was going over a box of old pics with one of my best friends. out of the hundreds of pics splayed across my bed, she picked up a picture of Cyndi and told me she passed away two years ago. I had no idea. the next day i discovered that not only did she go down, but her husband Mike passed away months later.
In early 2007 I was flown out to Las Vegas (my first time in Vegas) as part of a crew for a medical center job. I got into the city, setup my room at NewYork NewYork, played video poker for a few hours, walked the strip, and was over Vegas in less than 6 hours. I had just started taking pics of models, and thought it would be a good idea to do a casting. I went to my only known outlet at the time (craigslist) and posted a ‘model wanted’ ad in the adult section. i got a few responses, one of them was from Cyndi. She invited me to shoot at her house in North Vegas, and I asked if I could bring another member from my crew, Rick (he was over the Vegas Strip scene as well)
Rick and I took a taxi, I remember this part well as it felt like we drove an hour into the desert and my fair was around $70, ouch. When we arrived at the house, a super tall, super skinny long haired man dressed in all black answered the door.. “what’s up guys, Cindy they’re here!!” Mike (super skinny super tall long haired man in all black) led us into the house. There were wrapped christmas presents everywhere, a dead christmas tree (I think it was february) animal skulls, people in black hoodies walking room to room and turtles everywhere. We walked out to the backyard for a smoke and hung out with Mike. This was one of my first ever shoots, and I felt like a stranger in a strange place, intimidated and concerned that I had taken Rick to a Satanic church in the middle of the desert.. Mike must have quickly tuned into this and tried to accomodate us by offering some water. He came back with two glasses of water and quickly left to check up on Cyndi. After taking a few big gulps, Rick pointed at my glass and the huge chunk of pizza dough death floating on the bottom of my drink. I looked at it, looked at him, shrugged and finished off my drink. I already felt like I was done for, what did a small piece of water logged pizza have to with my consequences.
And then it happened, Mike came down the stairs first with Cyndi right behind him. Even though she was wrapped in a dirty bath robe and mismatched slippers, her beautiful pearl like skin illuminated, and her smile was gentle and kind. Only Mikes smile was bigger, you could tell how excited he was to present her, to show her off. We did our shoot, it was nothing short of amazing. In all the chaos around us, she was the center of attention, the sun. Rick and Mike were hanging out joking the whole time, breaking out snacks and making different vodka drinks. In a period of minutes, I went from almost shitting my pants to laughing my ass off. Cyndi and Mike shared stories, Rick and I shared stories, they gave us a tour of their home ‘dungeon’ in the garage and played music. Every time Cyndi needed a prop, a drink, a piece of clothing, Mike eagerly jumped at the chance to get it. Everytime my drink was low, or my smoke was gone, Mike topped me up. Not only was there a love I could see in their eyes for each other, there was a deep respect they had for the people in their lives as well, even if they were there for but a moment.
After the shoot, we talked about our plans for the nite and Cyndi suggested we go check out a dive bar called the Emergency Room and then a strip club where she would hook us up with free shots and party fun time. She texted a few times that nite wanting to take us to the Emergency Room, but I had made plans with the other guys from the medical center crew to go to a cheesy club at NY NY. I regret not hanging out with Mike and Cindy that nite.
