I Hate Myself Because I'm Beautiful

By Joel Stein

Aside from last Tuesday, when my office VCR broke right before Timmy the Living Doll was knocked overboard from the prom boat on Passions, the worst part of my job is having my co-workers mock my wardrobe. My new sunglasses are somehow "too Ray Charles," my black T shirt is "too Bruce Vilanch" and my raincoat "too Statler Brothers."

So I was pretty surprised when I got my first modeling offer. It came from Chris Bagley, deputy editor of W magazine, who wanted me to pose in a fashion spread featuring members of the media. I was chosen because Chris and I had worked together, and he remembered I wore a size-40 jacket.

If I saw one of my friends in W, I would mock him until he cried littlegirly-fashion tears, though I would first have to find a good excuse for having read W, and my normal "It's at my barber's" wasn't going to cut it. I knew a photo shoot would involve random people touching me, which I have finally learned always sounds a lot better than it turns out. Besides, I'm not photogenic (see last week's issue, page 8). That's why TIME uses a drawing in the middle of this column instead of a picture. You cannot imagine how hideous Calvin Trillin is.

For those of you who don't know what W is because you are normal, it is an oversize, snotty fashion magazine. The June issue ran this tidbit: "Those adorable newlyweds Vanessa and Bill Getty hosted a gala wine tasting and auction at the St. Francis Hotel with the swell crowd invited"--just a page away from a picture of someone named Muffy Potter Ashton. I mock the magazine partly because I figure if I make the editors mad enough, they will cut me from the spread and no one will have to see the pictures of me. But mostly because it sucks.

At the shoot, a stylist brought me into the wardrobe room, which, I noticed nervously, was full of shoes that didn't have laces. He was joined by two female interns. As I stripped down to my boxers, I couldn't help feeling like a piece of meat. A piece of meat that neither of the women was looking at despite my repeated exclamations of "Those sit-ups really do pay off!" and "For the love of God, look at me!"

The stylist gave me a red turtleneck, a custom-made black corduroy suit and boots whose toes actually came to a point. I wondered what purpose these pictures would serve. Would a reader really think, If Joel Stein is wearing an $800 turtleneck and a $5,000 corduroy suit, then I'd better get me some?

The photographer, Walter Chin, who parked his Ferrari inside the building, told me to take my glasses off. This gave me a blank, squinty, confused look. "Perfect! Beautiful! Stay there!" he yelled, snapping away. I started to take my shirt off until he motioned me to stop. I watched a lot of Cinemax growing up.

In 10 minutes it was over, and I had nothing to show for it except the satisfaction of having sweated excessively on some very expensive clothes. Journalists, after all, are supposed to be ink-stained wretches, not to appear on MTV and marry Sharon Stone. At least that's what I want my colleagues to think. That way I can get all the attention.