Hot-Tubbing in Union Square, or, Carmen Electra Breaks a Promise

(June 2001)

What exactly is it that I love about over-complicated, media-serving promotional events for products or services that would probably go better unpromoted? This question wandered through my mind several times as I stood on the northeast corner of Union Square in New York City on June 12, 2001, and watched Carmen Electra select enthusiastic young people from an enormous, specially constructed hot tub to accompany her on a fabulous trip to Puerto Vallarta. The whole event was sponsored by Big Red Gum, which was promoting its new Big Red Club, whose existence will undoubtedly fix the idea in young people's minds that Big Red Gum is an ill dope funky gum, just the kind of thing you want freshening your breath before you get freaky with your shorty or before you go to Puerto Vallarta and spend time in Carmen Electra's general vicinity.

What the hell? you are undoubtedly asking, and you are right to ask it. Any event involving this many gimmicks is sure to have a massive pileup-type accident at some point, and it was to see this pileup that I cut my lunch slightly short and made my way to Manhattan. I arrived at 12:45 pm, a little while after the event had started, and was relieved to see that not much had happened. I joined a medium-sized crowd of lunch-hour wanderers that was mildly curious about the whole hot-tub thing, but which seemed wholly fascinated by the sight of Carmen Electra on a stage in a swimsuit.

We ringed a smaller, more attractive, less clothed crowd which was also fascinated by the sight of Carmen Electra on a stage in a swimsuit and which waited eagerly to be allowed into the hot tub. We were in turn ringed by an enormous swarm of media semi-professionals from companies with laughable names like iNEXTV.COM, Big Red promotional flacks who did not once offer me a complimentary stick of their stupid gum, regular cops and rent-a-cops trying to avoid simple slack-jawed ogling, press persons wearing credentials slouchily around their waists and desperately trying to act bored, and at least one person whose ID (imprinted on her bag) informed passersby that she was a "TRENDSPOTTER," and who left before the festivities truly began.

She probably had the right idea, from a sane person's perspective, as not many trends are spotted at media-driven, corporation-managed events. But perhaps she was just put off by Ms. Electra's banter, which set new (if not unanticipated) standards of vapidity, even for these events. Most of said banter aimed to remind us that thirty lucky persons would soon be selected to go with her to Puerto Vallarta, where they would have the opportunity to party and "hook up." She studiously avoided saying the words "with me" after "hook up," which probably would have gotten a lot more of the crowd into the hot tub. The various artistic possibilities inherent in the word "woo" were also explored with much energy.

At one point she attempted a plug, beginning, "I don't know much about hooking up. Can you all give me any tips?" Undaunted by something shouted by the small, enthusiastic crowd (I'm guessing it was "I got a tip right here for you" or some variant), she continued, "Do you think fresh breath is important?" She never completed the plug, possibly because of whatever it was that the small, enthusiastic crowd shouted next, or perhaps because she thought the plug was beneath her intelligence, which it looked like it was going to be, even for her. As the small, enthusiastic crowd was allowed into the hot tub, Ms. Electra kept repeating the phrases "Aww yeah!" and "Right here!", which made it sound as if the hot tub had suddenly become an erogenous zone for her, which it may have been, if we assume that her bank account is another of her erogenous zones.

Nevertheless, Ms. Electra's professional enthusiasm for this enterprise did not dim, at least until the actual selection process began, at around 1:15 pm. I was ready to see people die of joy at hearing their names read out by Carmen Electra as winners of what sounded like an attractive vacation, even when you considered that you might have to hang out with Carmen Electra at some point. So I was a little surprised when she began reading out four-digit numbers rather than names.

"0137!" she read, savoring every number as if it were another dollar in the pillowcase.

I was a lot surprised when it turned out that most of these people appeared to have left.

"9110!" No answer.

"9263!" Still nothing.

"0265!" This didn't appear to be working too well.

"Thirty people are going to Puerto Vallarta with me! We're going to select thirty people!" Ms. Electra said, not adding the "Right?" we could all hear in her voice. As it happens, New Yorkers are apparently willing to assign themselves numbers to be eligible to be selected to go to Puerto Vallarta with Carmen Electra, and, under the benevolent aegis of Big Red Gum, "hook up," but they are not willing to spend any time beyond their lunch hour to ensure that this actually happens.

"You know what the funniest thing is?" said a young man near me to his two friends. "Some of these people actually think they'll hook up with Carmen Electra. They're thinking, 'She'll like me. I'll be real chill.'"

"No," I wanted to say. "The funniest thing is that Carmen Electra is mostly reading the numbers of people who don't have much interest in going to Puerto Vallarta and hooking up with her at all. She's looking pretty frantic up there, don't you think? Maybe she's feeling the sting of impersonal rejection. That's pretty damn amusing." But it was my New Year's resolution not to jump into other people's conversations.

Eventually, Ms. Electra got thirty people selected, by the expedient ot taking every female in the hot tub and personally selecting four males to complete the testosterone contingent. (Huh! Men have more interest than women in "hook[ing] up" in the vicinity of Carmen Electra! What a thought!)

But the afternoon was not supposed to be over. She had promised earlier, "I will get into the hot tub." This seemed to be as good a time as any for her to actually get in the hot tub. A number of people stayed around to watch her get into the hot tub. Hey, we were only males.

Carmen Electra retired to her trailer.

A number of people who lacked true dedication to seeing Carmen Electra get into the hot tub left. I am a patient (some would say "unemployed") man, and I stayed. And stayed. And stayed. But through it all, I was sustained by the presence of a phalanx of photographers to my left, who surely were staying because they had been told by the Big Red flacks that something interesting was going to happen. I would relax and wait. I was confident that, of all the attendees of this event, the media were not going to be the ones who left disappointed.

Sure enough, Carmen Electra was soon standing about four feet from me. She was not dressed to get into the hot tub, but rather in tight jeans and a precariously buttoned shirt. She was preening for the photographic phalanx, so she wasn't looking at me. I was looking at her, however, and experienced a crushing disappointment when I realized: Carmen Electra is not especially attractive. She has no visible ass, for one thing, and her face appears to be composed primarily of the makeup equivalent of spackle. Her mammaries are impressive, but those can be purchased. The preening continued as she slowly strolled along Photographer Row, signed an autograph, and finally went to her trailer for the last time. Everyone dispersed.

Despite all this, I left the event feeling oddly elated. Why? Well, despite all the fibs and screwups, the event had actually worked. Footage of this event would probably be shown on the College News Network or MTV or some such young-person-oriented crap factory, thereby fulfilling the event's demographic requirements. The people who were in the hot tub appeared to be having genuine fun. Ms. Electra's star appeared undimmed. And a bunch of people who were previously unaware of the existence of the Big Red Club now were, and had information to distinguish it from its competitors in the monopolistic competition of the club market: Carmen Electra at one time was vaguely associated with it. It was ridiculous, it was gimmicky, it was exploitative, but it was damn fine capitalism. God help me, I love it so.

This was posted on the Maryland Cow Nipple's web site. It received the following comment, from CandygirlHelena@cs.com:

hahahaa you don't have an ass either white boy I don't know why you're talking about Carmen like if you had an ass or soemthing

I am always so glad to have people reading these things. Mike Castle made a much more intelligent comment when I sent this article to the list:

I refuse to believe she has no booty. It cannot be. She looks overly made up on TV, but she cannot just be an artificial T&A queen. BTW, her breasts are purchased. If you ever saw her early-90's video, she was much, em, less robust.

I enjoyed the season she was on Baywatch so much. It was as if they said, this puppy is going down, so we don't even need to get actresses who can read cue cards without pausing. She was so halting in her speech when she delivered her lines it was distracting. And since Baywatch always plays it straight up, it made it even better. This was not TV for the squeamish.

Hey, all I can say is what I seen, and what I seen was abbreviated and unimpressive. I am willing to acknowledge that the jeans she was wearing may have had something to do with this, but then she shouldn't have been wearing those jeans.

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