Suck It, Wonder Woman!: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek (11 page)

My grandfather died five years later. And I was very happy to see him pass. I don’t know what happens when we die, where we go, if we go. But I like to believe they are together again in some kind of heaven. After my grandma died, Grandpa went into a slow deterioration. His will to live diminished every day. So the day he died, I felt a sense of comfort and relief. I lived with such guilt that I couldn’t save his wife. I was given the chance to save her life, but instead I froze.

I like to think he isn’t lonely and sad anymore. That they are together somewhere. And I hope they forgive me. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save her. I’m so sorry I wasn’t strong enough to do the right thing. And I’m so, so sorry I didn’t say good night. If I could just have one more chance to do things differently. Unfortunately, a time machine hasn’t been invented yet. But when it is, I know exactly where I’m going.

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Gonna be near Tatooine this weekend if anyone knows a good Thai place.

a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away

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Can I just say: why do I always have to be the keeper of the important shit!!? For the record I DO NOT have the secret rebel plans.
#yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away

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Help me @ObiWanRulz.
#yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from Super Duper Power Twitter

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No, seriously, @ObiWanRulz u r like my only hope.
#yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from Super Duper Power Twitter

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Electronic lips sealed, eh
@R2Legit2Quit?

a long time ago from Super Duper Power Twitter

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Ugh. Told @GRANDESTMOFF I recognized his foul stench when I came on board. Actually recognized his foul stench from a million light yrs away!
#yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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@MouthBreathingMenace we are so going to rock u like a hurricane plus X-wing fighters.
#yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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RT @MouthBreathingMenace
I sense something, a presence I’ve not felt since…
Scared much!? Suck my left one!

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Remind me: the best way to get peanut sauce stains out of a blindingly white shirt/dress thingie?

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Good recommendation btw @ObiWanRulz! Really tasty gai town kha…thx.

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Sleeping in this cell is wreaking havoc on my ’do. No stupid jokes, please! Heard them all before.

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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@yodadude—yep even the one about looking like a bagel sandwhich with extra pastrami. U suck!:]]

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Ah, much better. Freedom! U rule @WompRatKilla!

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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OK OMFG, ROFL @yodadudem, LMFAO, GOOD 1, BTW WTF @ C3POMYGAWD!?

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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@C3POMYGAWD is giving me ’droid rage! Heehee.

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Crazy town! Totally want to “use the force” on @WompRatKilla. Weird!

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Yes @Flyingsolo I
would
call that a disturbance in the force!

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Nice blaster holder @Flyingsolo.

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Not being snarky @Flyingsolo, swear! Also, sweet ride (http://bit.ly/2m1jYg)!

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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But WTF?: RT @walkingcarpet
graawwwwahhwwaaaa

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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@WompRatKilla who? Bring on @ Flyingsolo! Wait, what??? I know!

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Ha! RT @Flyingsolo
boring conversation anyway
. Love it! #yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Smellllllllllllllly!

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Um, @Flyingsolo—lay off my caboose, huh?

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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RT @WompRatKilla
Noooooooooooooooo
. Sigh.

a long time ago from Teeny Tiny Twitter

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Hey @ ObiWanRulz you nailed the Thai food so thought I’d ask: could really use some of your mind tricks up in here, ya know? bc, yo, my mind is playing tricks on me, lol! #yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away

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Looking for a good dry cleaner. Thanks all of space!

a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away

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Double ha! RT @Flyingsolo
You’re all clear kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!
Um…any questions @MouthBreathingMenace?

a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away

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Oh, wait, @MouthBreathingMenace, I forgot—you can’t tweet when your TIE fighter is f’ed! Yeah, sorry about that…I guess! #yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away

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For once I have to say I agree with you @walkingcarpet RT
graawwwwahhwwaaaa
. Indeed. #yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away

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Okay, @WompRatKilla, @Flyingsolo, @ObiWanRulz, @yodadude, @walkingcarpet and yes, @C3POMYGAWD and @R2Legit2Quit—party at my pad!
#yuckydeathstar

a long time ago from Super Duper Power Twitter

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And nice work especially @WompRatKilla and @Flyingsolo. You guys are totally getting necklaces or something!

a long time ago from Super Duper Power Twitter

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Gross @Flyingsolo! I most certainly will not do
that
. You’ll be lucky to get a peck on the cheek. Ew!

a long time ago from Super Duper Power Twitter

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Once I was at the
Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and was invited to a celebrity snowboarding event. A ton of celebrities—some famous, some not—gathered at a restaurant and scored a bunch of free shit, which is basically why people go to Sundance now.

I was getting dressed in my free snowboard gear before going, um, snowboarding, and noticed someone looking at me. He was a black guy with dreads, sunglasses and a mouth filled with gold—what I believe the kids refer to as a “grill.” Awesome.

So this guy approached and said hello. I returned his hello and then asked with what can only be described as a very young, very white and very stupid-sounding voice: “Are you Lil Wayne?”

He stared for a second, looked not incredibly psyched. Then he responded: “No.”

An awkward beat went by and then I asked in the same young, stupid, white-girl voice:

“Are you Lil…Somethin’?”

Again, not psyched: “Lil
Jon
.”

Riiiight
. I knew he was “Lil” something…I just couldn’t figure out which Lil he was.

Lil Jon. Got it.

An honest mistake. Right?

Kthxbye!

There are certain
sentences one never expects to actually hear in real life. “What’s your sign?” comes to mind. So does “Wow, what a satisfying televised political dialogue and exchange of ideas I just saw.” Might you hear such things in a lame Hollywood movie or in the douchie fantasy world of some C-list starlet or Meghan McCain? Sure. But not in
real life
. Right?

Not so fast.

“Don’t you know who I am?” was exactly what I heard uttered by a slobby, fat, smug and ridiculously rich and famous blockbuster film director at the very first movie premiere I attended. Was he for real with this? Apparently so.

Sure, I had been warned about Hollywood, with its egos and excesses and…egos. But still, that hadn’t prepared me for the sheer, openly assholic behavior of many of its less classy denizens. How does one even answer a question like that? And is it meant to be rhetorical? A linguistic lasso deployed to rope you into their sadly screwed-up existence? Who knows? All I know is this is what popped out of my mouth upon hearing the question: “No, I’m sorry.”

Okay, yes, I lied. And you know what? It felt great. Of course I knew who the son of a bitch in front of me was—anyone who has sat through a billion-dollar popcorn movie in the past ten years would—but I sure as hell was not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I knew, much less fawning over his tubby little self. So I lied. If it hurt anyone it was this guy—and he clearly deserved it. Sure, he’d earned a bit of fuck-you money over the years—but did that give him a license to douchify? I think not.

“No, I’m sorry.” Ha! That flicker of panic in his squinty eyes made it all so worth it.

Cut to a few months later. By then I had settled into life in L.A.—and by settled I mean I was still renting a couch for $400 a month from a pair of selfish and fabulously gay cousins who hearted wearing my new, expensive heels until the seams burst. Luckily, I was busy with my career and going on regular auditions, which got me out of the house a lot. And that’s also where I met most of my new Hollywood friends. One such friend was this nice, blond, Midwestern guy named Jim. One night Jim invited me and a bunch of other actors out to a movie premiere. I jumped at the chance.

If you’ve ever watched a Discovery Channel documentary on cheetahs, say, or animals living wild in the jungle, you basically have seen what a Hollywood premiere is like. It’s a mad scrum where the Hollywood correspondents wield microphones like sharp claws and attempt to corner and then feast on the flesh of the more powerful lions and tigers and bears—oh, hells yeah! It’s actually pretty exciting, what with all the glamorous people craning toward the frenzied paparazzi, who flash away, the camera bulbs popping until it looks like a scene out of
Raging Bull.

It was while elbowing my way into the crowd that I saw Jim and flagged him down. He told me he was working on a new movie and invited me down to the set the next day. Perfect! Well, almost—Jim worked as an assistant to Mr. “Do You Know Who I Am?” himself!
Nooooooooooooooo!

I had thought a movie premiere was exciting but it’s got nothing on a movie set. Like, really amazing. I pulled up to the set the following day and took stock of the scene: we were inside an airplane hangar meant to look like a gorgeous beach house. Movie magic, yo! The lead actress—small, busty A-list walking paparazzi bait—hid behind enormous shades. So did the male lead, a guy who had parlayed an incredibly successful TV career as a bumbling charmer into a film career playing bumbling charmers. I made a mental note to call my mom as soon as possible, as she absolutely adored his work.

And holy crap—here he was totally talking to me. Or at least he said, “Hello,” and flashed a blindingly white smile. That was a hell of a lot more than the lead actress had done to acknowledge me—well, in fairness, she had sent a flurry of mental daggers my way when I’d overheard her asking an assistant if any of the pretty girls on set were prettier than her.

Actor dude, by comparison, seemed so human, so normal. He even wanted to speak with me more—how sweet! “Can you get me a water? It’s Fiji, room temperature. But you should know that by now.”

Ugh. He thought I was his
assistant
. Really?! He talks to his assistant that way? What an asshole. Not wanting to cause a stink or mess up the shoot I bit my tongue and ran off in search of his stupid bottle of water.

Jim helped me get over the whole horrible incident by bringing me down to “video village,” where all the most important people on the set hung out. Suddenly I was sitting with the director—yes,
that
director—the producers, and the script supervisor. Who the hell was I? This was so f’ing cool.

Then the love scene they were shooting started and…

“Cut!” yelled the director as he hopped off his chair. “This scene needs more goddamn romance.” At which point he waddled over to the lovemaking bed, undid his jeans—I could already sense that those must be the hardest-working buttons in show business—and proceeded to dry hump the actress in order to demonstrate what he believed was the missing level of romance.

The poor thing—her face sparkled with the sweat falling from his second or third chin. When he finally finished the assault he barked, “Let’s take twenty!” I’m pretty sure it would take a lot longer than that for his starlet to recover from the trauma.

The crew dispersed—production assistants fondled their walkie-talkies, key grips wandered off in search of a quick beer and craft services prepped for the ravenous hordes to lunch. Jim was out of his head busy so he asked me to deliver a “diet plate” to the director’s trailer. I was eager to help a new friend in any way I could. “No problem,” I chirped. No way I could’ve known then how wrong I was.

I knocked on the screen door to the trailer and when no response came I tiptoed in. No one was around so I gently put down the high-fiber, protein-rich, calorically correct plate of food and turned to go. That’s when I noticed an already mauled additional plate of grub that looked like a meal made to feed most of the hungriest parts of Africa. A half-eaten tub of lasagna. A mangled basket of garlic bread. Other chewed-up carb bits. And then also: the loneliest untouched plate of vegetables ever prepared for a gluttonous bastard. The whole thing was just—ew.

I shuddered and began tiptoeing back out of the disaster zone that was his trailer. And then I heard, “Why so fast?”

I turned and confronted a waking nightmare: fresh from the toilet, The Director emerged with jeans buttons bursting, swooped up the “diet plate” and disappeared into the back of the trailer. Did I really just see that? I’m afraid I had. Now out of view, I could still hear him gobbling and slobbering up the “diet plate,” which was obviously one serious misnomer. I turn to walk out and then the beast called out, “Come in here.”

“Thanks,” I offered meekly, “but I really should go.”

And that’s when it happened again: “Don’t you know who I am?” He ticked off a few of his bigger box-office blockbusters, hoping to jog my memory. I couldn’t help myself:

“Uh, no, sorry, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Nope. Never saw it.”

“Oh, yeah, saw the trailer for that one. But, no. Didn’t see it.”

I turned again to leave.

“Wait,” he begged.

Slowly, like in a bad horror movie, I turned around once more. And I remember first noticing him wearing an Oxford shirt and holding a fistful of cocktail sauce–smothered shrimp. He popped one down his throat and then another and another, the red sauce collecting like so much baby’s blood at the corner of his smirking mouth before dribbling down his front and settling as glistening stains on his shirt.

As if in competition with himself to drop all the worst lines on me at once, in order to win the Douche Olympics or something, this A-list schmuck then has the nerve to say: “You have such an interesting look—what ethnicity are you?”

Again: Was he for real? All too real, I’m afraid. Because—and this is where things crossed over from merely disturbing to downright horrific—that was the exact moment I noticed what was either a tiny gnarled doggie toy or this adult man’s penis being stroked by his own stubby hand. The winner and still champion! Douche Gold would be his! I mean—
what the fucking fuck?!!

He was masturbating. Right there. With shrinp in one hand. And me standing in front of him.

He was masturbating. Right there. With shrimp in one hand. And me standing in front of him. Masturbating. Masturbating. I’m not even kidding.

And dude was going for it, too, furiously pulling at the tragic stub. Before I could even begin to make sense of the whole deal, he was moaning, moaning and then—fire hose. On steroids. The Mt. Saint Helens of man-juice. An eruption the size of which Los Angeles County had never before had the misfortune of bearing witness to. I am not being hyperbolic when I report to you with no small measure of dismay that this slob’s cum hung from the ceiling. I could see it made its way to the stereo and draped over the buttons. Collateral damage had even claimed the doorknob, which was so integral to my escape and, thus, my sanity.

In terms of thinking on my feet this may have been among my proudest moments: there was nothing to say so I didn’t bother trying; instead, I quickly located a Taco Bell wrapper, threw it around my hand, and reached for the doorknob.

For all I know the director was calling out for me to stay longer but I didn’t hear a thing. Athletes sometimes talk about being in the Zone, when time slows down and they are able to focus on the task at hand with inhuman levels of concentration. Nailing a three-point shot at the buzzer. Tossing a sixty-five-yard strike in the fourth quarter of a tie ball game. Crushing a hanging curve with the bases loaded. When it comes to fleeing cocktail-sauce-stained, half-naked, masturbating Hollywood big shots, I was in the Zone. Before I knew what had happened I was through the screen door to the other side, leaning safely against the wide side of the trailer—freedom.

We’ve all heard tales of the debauchery and Rome-like orgies that take place in eternally flesh-loving Los Angeles. For the hedonistic, there is no shortage of three-way, fourway, or even five-way action that can be had. There is no want of coke-and hooker-fueled parties to attend. We know this. And yet…and yet, nothing really can prepare you for confronting what I had just seen. A grown man in an oversized shirt holding his undersized manhood in hands glistening with shrimp fat. Not to put too fine a point on it. I had looked into the face of my own blockbuster-making Kurtz—and you know what? I’d survived. Not only that, I felt very much intact. After the dust settled and I had a moment to analyze the day’s myriad disturbances, it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually been shocked by anything I had seen. Appalled? Sure. Disgusted? You bet. But not shocked. And this idea gave me comfort. In an odd way it was comforting to know that people you imagine are oversexed, misogynistic pigs are, in fact, oversexed, misogynistic pigs. It made me realize that sometimes people are
exactly
who you expect them to be.