My entertainment attorney was a guy named Mark, who I knew represented Disturbed, a band that would also be at that night’s 98Rock show.
I’m sure I sounded like I was a hostage. “Mark, I need to get into the Disturbed show.”
“Done,” he said. “I’ll take you.” He drove in from the opposite coast of Florida and got us tickets and wristbands. Once I got in, it was like Not Without My Drummer. I just started asking everybody if they knew Glen, not knowing that he didn’t go by Glen in the band. Anyone affiliated with Hollywood Undead, with their silly nicknames, all just knew him as Biscuitz. Finally, they came onstage to play.
They were even worse than I remembered.
It was early, so the place wasn’t packed. I was near the front, so he spotted me. He pointed a drumstick at me and smiled. The music wasn’t for me, but he is such a gifted drummer. It shone through to me. As soon as they were done, he came and grabbed me.
“Drummer Boy!” I yelled.
“Come backstage,” he said. “I need to finish breaking down my kit.”
“I can’t go back there,” I said. “I don’t have a laminate.”
He handed me his laminate, which was on his key chain. “Don’t lose this, it has my house keys,” he said.
“Did we just move in together?” I joked.
My attorney, having safely secured the drummer, was busy seeing to some of his clients. Glen and I hung out backstage, eating catering. It was like being back with Pantera. Running away with the circus. Vinnie and Rex from Pantera, Slayer’s Kerry King, and, of course, Wookie…
“Now can I have your number?” Glen asked me. “Because I could have gotten you your own laminate, you know.”
So we exchanged numbers. He didn’t have his phone, so I wrote it on a slip of paper and put it in his pocket. Hollywood Undead needed to get on the bus for the next show. “Why don’t you just wait on the bus with me until we leave,” he asked. “I promise I won’t kidnap you.”
I agreed, and he stepped aside to let me get on the bus first. As I climbed in, I heard it.
“Stormy?”
I looked up, and there he was. Wookie. Of all the tour managers in the world, it had to be one I’d fucked on a tour stop at the Ritz.
“Oh, God,” I said. “Hi, Wookie.”
“How long has it been?” he asked, giving me a hug.
“Eight years,” I said. Glen came in behind me, and Wookie gave him a nod of respect. Glen and I sat for a few minutes more in the lounge in the front, and then it was time to roll out. I handed him back his laminate.
“Here’s your house keys,” I said.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
He didn’t. And I certainly wasn’t going to call him. I’m a fucking lady, thank you. Two weeks went by, and I was in New York City for a dance booking. Moz and I were definitely separated now, and I was happy to be anywhere but Tampa, where I was letting him continue to live while he found work and got back on his feet. My roadie, Dwayne, couldn’t work on the last night of the New York gig, so I was all alone in my hotel after the gig. It was about three in the morning, and I was eating Chinese takeout of sweet and sour chicken in my shitty hotel room.
I was lonely, and I looked at my phone. “Who would be awake right now?” I asked the empty room.
“Musicians,” I answered myself.
All performers, whether they’re dancers or musicians, are wired after a gig. On tour, Bus Call, the time you absolutely have to be on the bus every night, is usually between midnight and 3 A.M. Tour managers post a big piece of paper backstage listing the times for loading, catering info, what time you go onstage. And the very last thing is always the Bus Call in bold. That time is sacred, because they will leave without you.
When you get on the bus, you’re spent but still wide awake. You’re too wired still from being onstage in front of all those people and taking in all their energy.
So I just fired off a text before I could overthink it. “How’s my Drummer Boy doing?” I literally dropped my phone, like it was on fire, not sure if I had just made a fool of myself. It buzzed with a text.
“Please tell me this is Stormy,” said the message.
“Yes,” I typed back, grinning.
Glen called immediately. He had written my number down and the last four digits had gotten blurred. He was on tour, and he told me he had been desperate to get in touch with me. We talked for the rest of the night and only stopped when I saw the sun begin to rise over Manhattan.
Any good old-time romance story has a moment where the hero gets drafted, right? Well, here goes.
In early February, one of my friends back home in Baton Rouge had sent me an email with the all-caps subject: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?! It was a link to DraftStormy.com, a political movement asking me to run to represent Louisiana in the United States Senate. To convey my political bona fides, the site bragged that “at the age of seventeen, she was made editor of her high school newspaper, in addition to serving as president of her school’s 4-H club, a service-oriented organization sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture.”
I was furious. I mean, the 4-H club thing was real and I’m damn proud of it, but someone was using my name and my image to further their political agenda without my permission. I am not political, and it’s funny that most people don’t even know that I’m a Republican. I tracked down the guy who started the campaign, Brian Welsh, and called him to tear into him. There was a lot of cussing, but it amounted to “I own the trademark to ‘Stormy Daniels’ and ‘Stormy’ in relation to things involving me and I am going to sue you to hell.”
Brian let me go on for a long time, then finally said, “You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry I handled this wrong. I didn’t mean to insult or offend you. Let me explain myself.”
“Five minutes,” I said.
“Have you been keeping up with Louisiana politics?”
I was embarrassed that I had to say no. I’d been living in Florida and mainly on the road when I wasn’t filming in L.A.
“Well, do you know who David Vitter is?” he asked. Republican senator David Vitter, a married dad of four, had successfully run on a staunchly antigay, antichoice, “family values” platform in 2005, only to have his name turn up on the list of Washington, D.C., madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey. There were unconfirmed rumors from Hustler’s Larry Flynt that Vitter’s kink involved a diaper fetish. He apologized for his “sin,” and I’m not judging that, but it made him a hypocrite. I hate hypocrites.
“Okay, I’m in,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”
Brian flew me to New Orleans to meet him and introduced me to his team of political science geeks. He was in his late thirties, with brown hair and a Southern drawl. We talked, and even as his team filled me in on issues, I was adamant that I didn’t want to run.
“Yeah, but this is great PR for you,” said Brian.
“I’m not doing it for the PR, either,” I said. “I don’t want to make a mockery of the election process and political life.” But I figured that if I could use my name to highlight topics like Planned Parenthood and sex education—which I am very passionate about—and expose this guy as a hypocrite who was not good for the average Louisiana resident, then I would. The Stormy Daniels Senate Exploratory Committee was up and running, and we even had a campaign slogan: “Stormy Daniels: Screwing People Honestly.” My endgame, and I said as much on national interviews with the likes of CNN, was to inspire someone more qualified to step up to the plate.