Rolando Gomez

I find myself on a jet headed back home from Los Angeles, for about 48-hours before I head out again, and decided it’s time to play catch-up on my blog—my apologies for the lack of content. Here lately my life is like a roller-coaster, ups, downs, peaks, valleys, shrills and thrills. In these past seven days my access to our email server went wild, our hotel caught on fire, I visited Playboy Studio West, experienced leaky pipes at 2:00 a.m., had a private shoot in Beverly Hills and capped it all off with a midnight arrival. Sometimes I feel like I’m in an amusement park without the cotton-candy, though I still get to throw the darts at a balloon and hope to win a prize.

Well let’s start with my recent trip to Los Angeles for Glamourcon where I taught two workshops and one seminar on photography and lighting. Glamourcon went well and you’d think having an event at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport (LAX) everything would be seamless, especially after experiencing destructive thunderstorms and damaging winds at the previous Chicago Glamourcon event this past August. Well the opposite happened.

First, my arrival on Thursday with Playboy Playmate Holley Dorrough, Playboy Special Editions model Kellie Maines and up and coming model Tess Bry started with everyone arriving on time—of course expect me, my flight was delayed in Salt Lake City for over an hour. Tess caught the brunt waiting the longest for everyone as she was the first arrival. Our plans were to get the rental car and drop off the luggage then pick up the other models, since our flights would arrive earlier than Kellie and Holley’s, instead we all wound up at the Hertz rental car facility and tried cramming equipment cases, luggage and three models and one photographer in a medium-sized car. Because the hotel was close by, Holley didn’t mind riding on Kellie’s lap for a mile.

We all decided to have a great dinner before things would get hectic, so we went down to the Geisha House in Hollywood were we met with Holley’s agent and one of his models. All seemed well, so after a few drinks, back to the hotel and everyone slept late, expect the models, who went and exercised—hey, my military days are over with, besides, I’m still in pretty good shape—I know, I’ll get back in the gym soon.

Back to the exercising models, the hotel gave them grief because the room was in my name and since the Hilton’s hotel gym was closed for repairs the free passes to the 24-gym down the street were very scrutinized. Somehow they got the passes and put their sweat time in at the gym. After their return, while they were getting cleaned up, I met with my client for Monday’s shoot in Beverly Hills. All went well, then we proceeded to Playboy’s studio where they photograph their Playmates, also known as Playboy Studio West down in the Santa Monica area.

After Holley picked up her headshots she needed for Glamourcon, we spent about an hour with Arny Freytag, Playboy’s number one photographer. Arny showed us all the remodeling being done at Studio West since our last visit almost a year ago. Boy, have things changed from the past—they are now all digital—finally! Arny is now spending six-days to photograph a Playmate feature, centerfold and cover down from the traditional three weeks it used to take them in the past. Film is basically dead at Playboy.

With all the free time, Arny has taken on other assignments to keep him and his staff working for the rest of the month, including photography for the Playboy catalog, normally done by the Chicago studios and photographers. Arny is shooting with the Hasselblad digital medium format and even the Canon 5D! Yes, the 5D, one of my favorite cameras from Canon. Arny indicated when the new Canon, full-frame, 21-megapixel camera is available, Playboy will switch to that camera—they saw no reason to buy the older 16-megapixel–made a lot of sense to me.

We finally wrapped at Studio West saying hello to old and new friends as we walked out the door and headed out to meet good friend and glamour photographer Andy Pearlman down at Marina del Rey were we all had lunch at Tony P’s dockside at the marina. It’s always great to see old friends when visiting California. After a great lunch and stopping by the new Samy’s Camera in Culver City, we headed back to the hotel—that’s when the fun started!

Everyone headed to their rooms and we all caught up on either power naps or business. About an hour before I was to speak for my two-hour lecture for Glamourcon, which would be followed by a three-hour workshop, I decided instead of calling the bellhop I’d start hauling all my Hensel and Chimera lighting gear and being that I had an idea of the seminar location, I took one case first as I didn’t want to drag a bunch of cases to the wrong location.

Dragging my own bags is a habit from my U.S. Army active-duty days, I find this my exercise and it’s easier than you think since it’s all packed in the highly mobile Lightware equipment cases. After dropping off the first load, I chatted briefly with the folks at Glamourcon, then Tess, one of the models with us, volunteered to help and we went on back to my room for another load. I figured she could bring my Lightware camera case on wheels with my briefcase on top while I pulled the larger, cargo, equipment case on wheels. So we headed up to my room on the third floor.

As I pulled the room key out of my pocket, I heard a funny, crackling noise in the room next door, our doors were side by side. I stopped to listen and as I stood their at the door for room 3074, I began smelling something electrical and burning. I turned to Tess and told her something’s not right and I think there is a fire next door. I quickly put my card key in my door and as I opened my door I noticed my room was filling with smoke so I grabbed the phone and immediately called the hotel operator and reported the fire, they responded, “Someone will be up to check it out.”

I hung up, yelled at Tess to help me get everything out of my room—I had four cases of books sitting on the floor, my Lightware cases of equipment and of course my clothes, cameras and my brief case. As I began taking my cases out of the room, I stopped, and started banging on the door next door, as I didn’t know if anyone was power-knapping in that room—no response.

I quickly reentered my room, smoke was now heavy black and thick, so I grabbed the phone again and yelled to the operator to call the fire department—the response, “Someone is heading up to check it out.”

“Fuck-it,” I said as I hung up the phone, then I yelled at Tess, “Grab whatever and get the hell out of the room.” As we exited the room with what we could grab, I told her to stay down the hall with what I had outside. I ran back to the door of the room that was on fire, the door was spewing lots of smoke now and it appeared to change colors—definitely a fire!

I began banging on the door again, “Fire, fire, is anyone there?” I yelled loud enough that people from other rooms stuck their heads out their doors and I yelled at them to evacuate and that there was fire–people seemed more stunned than proactive. I yelled at a housekeeper that was about 100-feet down the hall at the elavators, in Spanish, as I ran toward her, I asked her for the master key, as there was a fire extinguisher in the hall. She said with a panic (not sure if I scared her running at her yelling) that the key would not work on that room at that time, that’s when I noticed the red handle fire-alarm by the elavator and pulled it while yelling at Tess to back away from the gear, then I ran back and started moving my stuff further down the hall, away from the room on fire.

People now were coming out of their rooms, some watched, others went down the elevator—wrong! Some went down the stairs.

Back in my active-duty, U.S. Army days, we’d received some fire-fighting training and Nomex clothing while up in Idaho and Montana fighting forest fires, so I knew that it can be dangerous to open a room door, but I also wanted to react. While the forest fires we put out in the mountains were more dangerous with exploding trees and instant, changing tall flames, this was nothing I thought and I just wanted to find a way to put it out–not to mention I heard the sprinkler system go off in the room with the loud rat, tat, tat sound and saw black water finally spewing into the hall and my room, so I felt it was a controllable fire and every bit would help.

About that time a tall, dark-skinned security officer appeared by the elevators and I yelled to him, “There’s a fucking fire in 3074!” He didn’t even hesitate and immediately radioed in that it was a real fire and to get the fire department there immediately–he began telling everyone to leave and use the stairs. He should be commended for his immediate actions.

What I didn’t know, the fire department is right across the street. They showed up fast and did what they do the best, though by that time my room and the hallways were filling up with black water from the sprinkler system which seemed to do what it’s designed to do. I walked into my room, opened the sliding glass door to let the smoke out, as our floor had a common concrete patio area. I could see burnt carpet and at least three burnt chairs and other damage in the other room as the fireman opened the back door to let the smoke out.

It took management time to stop the sprinkler system, so then I went back to my room, as the smoke cleared and secured my remaining belongings including a wet case of books. There was an assistant manager on duty, I explained to him I had less than 30-minutes before I had to speak so I needed my belongings secured and moved to a new room, especially since the room was smoky, wet and the fire department was using the outlets from my room—he agreed and sent for a bellhop.

One of the firefighters explained to me that the room next door was being used by a make-up company to give lessons on make-up and apparently they had plugged too many electrical plugs into a power strip which overheated while sitting on the carpeted floor—the carpet got hot and caught on fire which started everything.

Tess helped me gather everything and the bellhop showed up and we took everything to a new room on the 16th floor. Smoke still in my nose and throat, all I was worried about was my start time for my seminar but when I saw the assistant manager walk by, I complained on the slow response from the front desk—I told him, “I called from my phone, a traceable room phone, I said it was a fire twice, the desk should have immediately called the fire department.” He said thanks, and he’d look into it.

I didn’t have much time, I went with the bellhop to the 16th floor via the service elevators, then he loaded my necessary gear and books on the cart and back down the same elevators we went to the seminar and workshop room downstairs. I saw many people gathered in the main lobby, some outside, as the Hotel had initiated a mandatory evacuation then started to allow people back in. I found out that this evacuation was based on the security officer’s radioed call, the hotel had “determined it was not a drill.” I guess my two phone calls and alarm pull was a drill? Oh well, they did have cookies, sodas and water for everyone’s inconvenience in the lobby, so I took one cookie and one soda for my efforts and added it to my purchased drinks.

I did my seminar and workshop, smelling like burnt electrical tape and must have drank two diet cokes, a water and two teas as I still could taste the fire in my throat. At one point I went to the men’s room and blew the black crap out of my nose from the smoke. I finally finished by 11:30 p.m., then it was time to order room service as I had not eaten dinner, the hotel restaurant was closed and I didn’t feel like driving. My food arrived after midnight, so after gulping it down, I decided to wait a few minutes to let it settle before I’d go to sleep.

Then I decided, time to wash the smoke off my body and when I went to the shower, I noticed a light above the shower, dead-center. I also noticed water on the floor like someone had just taken a shower, but more important, water dripping from the ceiling and around the light fixture—great, electrocution I thought to myself. So I called the operator, they informed me maintenance would be there shortly—thirty minutes later. By the time maintenance was done with a “temporary” patch till they could fix it the next day, it was 2:30 a.m. and I had to get up in five hours to get ready for my morning workshop.

I decided I wasn’t going to take a chance on the shower, so I fell to bed like a stack of silting chimney bricks. Upon my awaking, the shower ceiling was dry, so I took my gamble, too bad I’m not that lucky in Las Vegas as I won and went on to conduct my three-hour workshop.

The week in Los Angeles itself went great. It was great to see old friends and meet new ones too! The girls made money and went shopping down at the Beverly Center, the Robertson area and sight-seeing on Rodeo Drive. I held my shoot at a cool house belonging to one of the best voice-over voices in Hollywood (think Patron Tequila, Bud Light commercials and movie trailers like the Wedding Crashers) and at the end photographed the owner’s Maserati when we were done with the house. Holley and Tess modeled there and I did what I do best, photography.

The hotel owner, who lives on the 17th floor, I never met. Two of his assistant managers said thank you–yeah, that’s about it–can you believe that? They did take one night off for the leaky pipe scenario and even though they moved me from the third floor to the 16th floor suites, the suite was basically the room I had before with a small living room–who cares?

No minibar, no microwave, no refrigerator. Sure, they had an executive munchies area, but who had time? I’m sure I saved them another thousand or more in damages and I’m surprised that only two assistant managers said thank you–oh, the free night came from me yelling at them at 1:30 a.m. over the phone on why it was taking them so long to come fix the water leak above the electrical light fixture. I spent over $1,000 there in two rooms, meals, parking, tips, drinks, etc., at least a free margarita or mojito would have been appropriate, don’t you think? (grin)

Now the plane is preparing to land—it’s close to midnight, think I’ll go home, soak my aching back in the SaniJet with hot water while watching TV and sipping on a Crown and Diet Coke with a slice of lime—I’m exhausted and I’ve got 48-hours before the next plane to Atlanta…thanks, rg sends!