The Fine Line Between Fame and Infamy
by Nobody Special
You have to be pretty good friends with someone to tease them about being born on Pearl Harbor Day. And the rest of the people in the room have to be pretty good friends with her as well, if they all laugh a bit uncomfortably at the joke. Regardless of her “public” reputation, though, Chasey Lain has always been very comfortable with her place in life.
That may sound odd, but as often turns out to be the case, “drugs” have not been the problem nearly so much as the mental state that leads to the drug use. It’s a fine line, but life divides on those quite often, so we should understand the distinction. Last week I ran into a friend that I hadn’t seen in a couple of years, and she asked about Chasey. When I told her that Chasey seemed happy for the first time in a great many years, and that she had been working at a legal brothel in Nevada for the last few months, I got a look in return that reminded me how narrowly some people — even those that we may like a great deal — can view life.
Being a porn star falls into the perfectly acceptable side of the equation, but, gosh, being a prostitute, that must mean things have gone horribly wrong for someone. … Really?
Obviously this fit well into D.Minion’s planned Happy Birthday post for Chasey, and thus I felt obliged to enter into this, shall we say elaborate introduction. You see, whatever path her life has taken, and granted there have been some dark days, from the time she came to Los Angeles to work in adult as a career, she hasn’t really changed all that much. To this day Chasey remains one of the kindest, most open-minded, and generally big-hearted people I have ever met. … And I have met a lot of different folks in a lot of different walks of life.
I stole the first five photos from D.Minion’s display today because … well … because I still have the right to do that sometimes, basically. The first three Polaroid scans actually happen to be the very first ones I shot of Chasey. We were in the feature dressing room at a club in West Palm Beach, and Chasey (then Casey) had decided she wanted to look into making movies. Oddly enough when I brought the shots back to LA with me and showed them to Steve Orenstein, the brand new company Wicked’s owner, his only comment was that her arms looked too hairy. … Ain’t life funny sometimes?
