“You brought some crazy stuff, ” said Mac Hauser, referring to the wardrobe I brought for our photo shoot.

Crazy? Wow. I’d done it. Mac Hauser, the iconic portrait photographer who absolutely embraces the freaky, was calling my suitcase full of stuff, “crazy”!? This, coming from a man who four hours before our scheduled photo shoot, emailed to request that I bring a large, live snake.

I told him I was afraid that the snake might escape while I was driving and slither around my neck. Then I would freak out and get into a car accident. Or, I would arrive at the studio with the snake and it would wind up in the rafters of his studio and I would have to shoot it.

“Good crazy, or bad crazy? ” I asked.

“Good crazy. I like everything except that ugly suede vest thing with the sun on it, but I’ll shoot it. Clients, they’ll tell you they want crazy, so you give them crazy and they go nuts. They want boring … except once I was shooting for Diesel and they couldn’t get enough crazy. I had a model on set with a dog pissing on her, and the client loved it!”

I met Marc many years ago at a party. I was out with five of my guy friends and we stumbled into a very chi chi loft where all the ladies had manicured hands and cocktail dresses. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with an Eames chair on it,  a cardigan sweater that had giant dolman sleeves, and puma shoes. I wasn’t at all comfortable in this hoity-toity environment, so I immediately calmed my nerves with a perfectly prepared dirty martini. I could ice skate on that slushy drink.

After proper inebriation, I made my way to the fancy food table. There was an exotic spread of appetizers that looked like it had just been flown in from Paris. The buffet had all these natural wicker, Easter type baskets that contained the food. Giant candelabrum and votives were creating an alluring ambient light.

I reached over to pop some goodie in my mouth when suddenly, my sweater caught the flicker of a flame. I watched with wide eyes as the flame spread around the wide cuff of my sleeve and I thought to myself, “Wow, this looks like a hoop of fire that a little puppy could jump though“. I started to wave my hand, in an attempt to extinguish the now spreading fire. I’d lit a basket on fire, too. The pâté was smokin’ and Carr’s Water Crackers were burning.

The background noise of the party sounded very much like Charlie Browns teacher, “Wha, wha, wha, wha, whah!”

“Help,” I choked and watched all those trixie bitches at the party, who were ignoring me. THEY WANTED THE WHITE TRASH TO BURN. I was like the hired help and the only reason I hadn’t been kicked out was because I’d arrived with five very hot guys.

That’s when my friend Miko ran over to me, knocking me to the ground like Brian Urlacher. Together, we rolled around on the highly polished floor and suddenly the party stopped partying and looked at us. They thought we were rolling around like young crazy lovers.

The spectators where delighted and gave us a round of applause.

Marc Hauser sat in a chair, perched above me from my vantage point on the floor.

“Hey,” he said to me.

“Hay, is for horses,” I said.

We left shortly later, but not before I probably had ten more drinks and stuffed my face with food.  Then we were off like thieves in the night.

Miko: “Okay, so you met Marc Hauser and all you had to say is, ‘Hay is for horses?’ Really??”

Me: “Dude, I was on frickin’ FIRE.”

Whatever, the guys all still called me the following Friday to go out and get drunk. And years later, Marc is my friend. Here’s what we did yesterday:

Model: Victoria Larsen. Makeup: Aga Kaskiewicz. Hair: Frankie. Concept and styling: Erin Butler. Photographs by Marc Hauser.