During my lunch hour, I frequently leave work and spend a good deal of the time walking around an area of Boston known as Downtown Crossing. The area is a mix of professional buildings, used book stores, Macys, Starbucks, and the like - which should make it a very nice area to spend time strolling about. However, there's also a lot of non-threatening homeless or near homeless people, truant self-parodying hoodlums, and shady electronic stores mixed in. If there were a few more flower stands and a few less strobe-light fronted stores filled with chintz, then the area might be pleasant. If it was a little bit skuzzier, it might qualify as edgy. However, as it stands, Downtown Crossing has a depressing feel - greater in its sum than in its parts. It's grimy, but by no means dangerous. It's crappy, but not overly tacky. In the end, it's just one of those urban hodge-podges that turns out to be an unlikable mix. As a result, I don't really take the scenery in if I'm on my lunch hour. Instead, I barrel forward looking firm in my resolve to get where I need to go, which nine times out of ten is no where in particular.

Recently, on one of my more animated perambulations I was stopped by a woman, who trotted up to me and asked, "I'm sorry, but have you ever thought of modeling?"

She went on about an open call, thinking I would be good, right around the corner, was I free the next day, etc. etc. The next day was Saturday, and of course I was free. I knew that I had no chance to ever model, but I decided that maybe I would go anyway, because I really had nothing better to do. I also thought about going because she asked me too. This scout, this professional, this authority on the mater, had picked me out of a crowd as being 'model-worthy.' She even gave me a business card. It was almost my duty, as a beautiful specimen, to show up. And despite my mild distaste of the unnatural level of consumption advertising fuels, the internal debate was swiftly won by the loathsome part of me that does feel I should be adored. It's the same part of me that feels that if I appeared in an advertisement as a "Model", I would thereby prove, once and for all, that I am intrinsically more beautiful and more valuable than the average man. So I said, "Ok, sure." Took the information down and went back to work.

The next day I walked over to the office, and took the elevator up to the forth floor. The elevators opened to a cramped, muggy hallway filled with people waiting for their chance to become minor-celebrities and make some easy money. The surprising thing about the group was just how average looking they were. These were people that looked, and for good reason I imagine, like they had been randomly yanked off the streets of Downtown Crossing. Part of the reason I showed up was I felt that the scout thought I was beautiful, and even if I wasn't picked, I would at least be surrounded by my fellow beautiful kind - akin to the same sort of thing that brings intelligent people with low-self-esteem to MENSA meetings. But at least MENSA folk score high on an IQ test. In my case, as soon as I got off the elevator, I immediately laughed out loud, not only at how stupid, but also at how groundless my vanity was.

The only real difference between the people in the hallway, and a line of people one would see waiting in line for something like Bruce Almighty was the degree of unnaturalness about them. As a whole, they were just a little too tanned. They used a little too much gel. Their clothing was too frequently made of inorganic fabrics, and unlike cotton, the stuff they were wearing didn't look better with wear. It was a bit too shinny or linty. It was usually clingy, but not quite form fitting anymore.

"OK everybody, we'll be taking you one at a time. Please have your ID's ready. And if you've been scouted, please have out the card our scout would have given you."

The cattle line moved forward, with loved ones or buddies left in the hall to wait. Individually we showed our ID's and were handed a clipboard which we filed out with name, address, etc. Next, we were measured. "5/11, 42 Regular . . ." Then we handed our clip boards to an appraiser. She had me stand in front of her, and had me smile, fold my arms - I really don't remember everything, but it lasted all of 10 seconds. She circled 4 "G's" at the bottom of the page. (and I assume the F and P stood for "fair," and "poor." So I scored 4 "goods." Maybe I was special.) She then moved me along to the next phase. Next - a few digital photos: one serious, one smiling. Then it was on to a room where we sat and waited for everyone else to be processed. After watching Happy Gilmore for 20 minutes, the herd was completely processed and in their seats.

The video was turned off and our host walked in. She was an Indian woman - 30ish and attractive. But under the circumstances her looks were neither stimulating nor comforting. At that moment, after being measured, and sized up, and photographed, and dissected into parts like "blue/brown," and "5'11," I saw her beauty as a commodity. As a result, I looked at this woman with symmetrical features, high cheek bones, lovely caramel skin, and tight sizeable breasts and I wasn't turned on. I wasn't ascetically pleased. I felt confronted by it all.

She gave a big pearly smile and said, "How is everybody?" "fiiiiine." "I know it's a Saturday, but you can do better than that! I said, 'How is everybody?!'" And so it went. What followed was one of the most dreadful speechy-speeches I have ever had the pleasure to cringe through.

The presentation started with some interactive questioning: "What do you think the three ways are that you can become part of an agency?" A few questions later we were asked, "Let's say a CEO needs to get a model for an upcoming campaign. How do you think he or she would go about that?" Then there was some role playing. Ok, who wants to come up here and be our CEO? And with the audience suitably engaged she launched into an intoxicating balancing act of contrasts. This was a give and take, yank/slack/yank type affair. Modeling is a real tough gig to get. There's a lot of competition, but . . . there's real money to be made. You are sitting in the offices of one of the top agencies, if not the top agency in the world. We have some of the biggest clients, who pay big money, and you're in good hands if we decide to represent you . . . but you'll have to pay for your promotional materials including photos, and lemmietellya, those aren't cheap . . . BUT . . .with the internet, the price of promotional materials has gone down drastically, and we'll show you how. Build up the expectations. Break 'em down. Then build them back up again. The trick, of course, being that no matter what the downsides were, and no matter how honest she spelled them out, all she had to do was suggest the positives might possibly outweigh the negatives, and she could hook more than a few. There was a good deal of dreamers in that room. People, who like me the day before, felt like they just might be special, and they wanted to believe.

The presentation ended with a video that felt like a hybrid between a Vega Boys video, an infomercial, and a promotional video 3M might show stock holders. It explained that instead of having to incur the cost of a photo shoot and the cost of replacing the cards the agency would send out on one's behalf, the prospective model would only have to pay for the photos (995 dollars) and a monthly fee of 15 to 30 dollars to have his or her portfolio kept within a searchable database with the agency. It was then I got up, walked over to our host, and quietly asked, "So it's 1000 bucks to start?" She answered, "If you want to continue with us - yes." in a tone that suggested that it was a bit rude of me to get up in the middle of the video.

I walked out. It was fun to go for a while. It was interesting to see how the scam worked, but I wasn't amused anymore. On my way home I saw a decent looking car parked near my apartment: "For Sale - $1,300." From the looks of the car, it seemed like that'd be a steal. It probably had some serious problems under the hood.