“As usual,” said Marcie.
“They’re already paying your mortgage.”
“That’s not the point,” said Bettina.
“No, it’s not,” said Marcie.
“And they gave you the down on your house.”
“You’ll never guess who my nanny used to work for,” said Bettina.
“Who?” said Marcie.
“It better be Angelina Jolie for this to be worthwhile,” I said.
“Only the highest paid star in the known world—Tom Fricken West,” said Bettina.
Marcie’s mouth fell open.
“So? Is she any good?” I asked.
They both turned and looked at me.
“Did you hear what I said?” said Bettina.
“Yeah,” said Marcie, “and why are you wearing blue? And so much makeup? We’re going jogging.”
“The color thing,” I said. “C’mon. Every other week it’s ‘you should only wear blue,’ ‘you should never wear blue.’ And you know about the makeup, so let’s not pretend that you’re bothered by it in year 20 of our friendship.”
“But we’re going jogging,” said Marcie.
“No, I’m going jogging,” I said. “You two are going to sit here and eat cinnamon rolls while you babble about how thrilled you are to get Tom Fricken West’s former nanny.”
I hate celebrities.
But I live in a town where I see them all the time.
I hate seeing them in my dentist’s office but I especially hate that my dentist has their pictures plastered all over his office. Little Polaroids of himself with the stars—rock stars, movie stars, television stars, even sons and daughters of famous movie stars. I wonder if he’s taken down any of those dead celeb pictures yet.
And it’s not that being the dentist to the stars makes him a better dentist. It just means that you (not a star) are a second-class patient in his office, and even if you have an abscess the size of Jupiter in your mouth you will never, ever get an appointment with him and you will get bumped if any celebrity—ex-Baywatch babes, the son of the movie star legend from the ’70s, or—Oh My Gosh—a remaining member of the Fab Four with his horrible English teeth, and especially Tom Fricking West or any of his wives or children—wants to come in. And then you can’t even buy your way in, because even if you are paying 20,000 times the amount that the celeb patient is (since they never pay for anything, it’s easy to do), your money counts for almost nothing.
I hate it that the Thai dental hygienist in my dentist’s office feels compelled to tell me which friend of hers is trying to sleep with which barely-successful rock star who now has a T.V show.
“He has a thing for Asian women,” she said.
“Is there any man alive who doesn’t have a thing for Asian women?” I reply.
“You need to floss more.”
“I floss like a demon.”
“My friend wants to get pregnant with him,” she said. “Maybe you want to show me how you floss?”
“Why does she want to get pregnant with him? Please, I stopped showing people how I floss around the time I lost my baby teeth.”
“He has a TV show,” she said. “If you don’t floss right you’ll get gingivitis. Look at this picture.”
“His show is on basic cable, so he doesn’t make squat. Tell your friend to go after a starter in the NBA. And I’ve seen that stupid picture on every visit to every dentist I have had since I was seven years old and I’ve still never gotten gingivitis. If I floss any more, my gums will disappear into my brain. Stop trying to scare me.”
I hate seeing them at my hairdresser’s, but I especially hate that my hairdresser claims to be done with “the star thing” yet seems to have a client base made up exclusively of the actresses who played moms in ’70s and ’80s sitcoms. And none of these actresses have worked since 1987.
Somehow, being an ex-TV mom meant that I could sit for 90 minutes past my appointment time and if one of those Family Ties, Family Affair, Facts of Life TV moms were to walk in, wanting my appointment, my hairdresser would give it to them. It’s sad. My hairdresser prattles on about the TV moms with words like “mystical,” “magical” and “spiritual” when what they truly are is entitled, and he regularly confuses playing a good person on a TV show with being a good person in real life.
“See,” I say to him, “on the TV show, they play a mom who shops, cooks, cleans, chauffeurs, visits their children’s teachers, and knows how each of their three children is doing in each subject in school. On the TV show. In real life, their nannies shop, cook, clean, chauffeur, visit their children’s teachers, and know how each of their three children is doing in each subject in school.”
What makes me nauseous is when my hairdresser imbues his TV moms with the heroic characteristics of Greek gods or saints for the same behavior which we civilians follow to stay out of jail.
Star Philanthropy
“My God, she’s generous,” said my hairdresser.
“Oh,” I said. “Did she give a $1,000,000 to charity?”
“She believes charity starts at home.”
She’s remodeling her house again.
“What did she do?” I said.
“She paid me,” he said. “Today.”
“Doesn’t she usually pay when you do her hair?”
“It’s not about the money.”
“This is what you do for a living,” I said.
He shrugs.
“Any tip?” I said.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” he said. “She told me where she buys her green tea.”
Star Wisdom
“I’ve learned so much from her,” he’d say with a sigh.
“Really,” I said.
“Today she told me how to make vegetarian chili,” he whispered back.
“That’s just chili where you don’t put the ground chicken or beef in,” I whispered.
“But it’s her recipe, and she told me how to do it.”
“Did she write it down?”
He looks at me for a moment.
“That’s not what she does,” he said.
Star Maturity
“I’m so proud of her,” he said. “She’s just celebrated her sixth month of sobriety.”
“She just had a liver transplant. Isn’t that part of the deal?”
“Yeah, but she really took the bull by the horns and turned her life around.”
“Did she have a choice? She was almost dead.”
And despite choosing a hairdresser with such a low profile that he works in a shop which is dominated by two gray parrots from Pluto who rap “Baby Got Back…” when approached by customers, I, despite being my hairdresser’s “favorite person,” will regularly be passed to his 19-year-old assistant at every conceivable opportunity, especially if he senses “TV Mom approaching” on his radar.
I hate going to parties that I think are going to be fun—non-celebrity—civilian events that evolve into faux celebrity events with people who have the attitude but not the status of a star. Events like a baby shower, where you think it’s going to be relaxed and fun, and then you see the director of those absolutely horrible movies who married the rock star, the producer who just made the movie which nearly sank both a major actor’s career and a studio, or the development exec of the low-budget studio unit which never produced a movie. Then the party becomes a delicate dance of “Forgive me for breathing the air that you breathe.” I don’t want to be there and don’t want to talk to them, but they can’t believe that. Maybe I just wanted some chips and a place to sit down. But that meant that you had to enter the room that they were in, and then they worried that you might want something from them—a job, to give them a script, a referral to an agent—when all you wanted was an extra chair and some blue corn tortilla chips.
I hate seeing them when I go jogging, but I especially hate that I invariably run into a former supermodel whose face was plastered on every magazine, monthly, for ten years, and that my brain involuntarily forms
the syllables of her name—like it does right now because there she is, not 50 yards in front of me. And because I’m staring straight ahead and running forward, I see her, her personal trainer, someone I presume to be her muscle, her bodyguard, and a guy I recognize to be her new husband—because I have read much too much about her, her fabulous modeling career, her fabulous new marriage, her fabulous Los Angeles home and the way that she miraculously managed to get back into a size 0 within four weeks of having her second baby.
I know that they assume that I will be excited, thrilled, or at a minimum interested by seeing them. But in reality, what I am is nauseated and bored, but mostly bothered, like the way you feel when you discover that you have acne on your butt and can’t do anything about it except wait for it to go away.
They see me.
Go. Go away. Go back to your own planet.
It’s like that moment in The Matrix where those alien-scanner things which have enslaved and deluded the human race have found the dump mother ship from which Keanu Reeves (“Neo” and more likely Very Luckio to have gotten that part), Carrie-Anne Moss, (Underpaidio, the chick who looks good and can move in tight black leather), and Lawrence Fishburn (Maxium Luckio or Oblio or whatever his name is) are attempting to save the free but boring realistic world.
Very Luckio, Underpaidio and Maxium Luckio can’t move, breathe or have a heartbeat because if the alien-scanner things detect them, they will sense that dump mother ship’s occupants are a threat to alien-scanner things’ existence, meaning Very Luckio, Underpaidio, and Maxium Luckio will become enslaved and all hope for the free but boring realistic world will be lost.
About the alien-scanner things—the alien-scanner thing does not recognize the needs of other life forms. The alien-scanner thing does not want a connection with any other life force other than other alien-scanner things. The alien-scanner thing does not have a shred of humanity in it. The alien-scanner thing exists to use and destroy other life forms so that it may perpetuate the existence of itself and other alien-scanner things.
Alien-scanner thing fabulous ex-model has her alien-scanner thing Muscle move to the edge of the entourage to face me. He scans me to see if I am a threat to their existence. He puts his arms on his hips and slightly leans in. Oooo… big, bad boy. How menacing.
I stand very still and hope to blend into the neon blue-purple flowers which have erupted in this grossly over-built neighborhood—an area where the former one-story, 1600-square-foot, 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom homes with both a front and back yard have been leveled and replaced by three-story, 7000-square-foot behemoths—homes that look like a cross between a former Soviet bloc embassy and a Southern antebellum mansion.
It’s not easy to blend into the neon blue-purple flowers because today I have chosen to jog dressed in a bright orange color which makes me look like a pumpkin, a pumpkin which would be visible at dusk to every motorist within 100 yards. If I were cool enough to be able to stop my heart, like Very Luckio, Underpaidio, and Maxium Luckio, I would. But I can’t even hold my breath for very long.
And I’m bored.
Please Go. Go Away. Shoo.
I hate it when the Royalty of L.A.—celebrities—go to public places that are frequented by civilians, and bring their muscle. But I especially hate it when they—bless their little alien-scanner thing hearts—show up with their Muscle in Places Where They Are Not Supposed to Be.
They are not supposed to be at Best Buy, buying some electronic gizmo, using their 375-pound goon Muscle to create distance between themselves and the civilians who actually watch them portray a “teenager with unearthly powers” one night a week (5 nights on cable), when it is two days before Christmas.
And they’re not supposed to be at a beauty supply store buying hair and skin care products when they have spent the last 12 years playing a tough-but-sexy cop/stud on a network primetime cop show.
A MEMO
TO: Stars, Celebs, and Anybody Else Who Goes to BEST BUY with a Bodyguard
I hate it that you’ve spent every day of the last 20 years trying to become a star and now that you’re 23 and famous you seem to resent that fact that I, or anyone else in the civilized world, can recognize you in public. We wish that we couldn’t.
But you do acne commercials. And you do hair color commercials. And you do lipstick commercials. And you star on a quirky television show that somehow got very popular—which we don’t watch—usually.
The point being that unless I only watch C-Span (which I am considering), I’m going to encounter your image, which by the way, has become very annoying.
But because you’re famous and people recognize you, you earn more money for one 20-week project than 1000 normal people will earn throughout their entire working lives.
So if you go to Best Buy to get a cell phone, don’t have that 375-pound brute, your muscle, give me threatening looks if, when I turn around while getting my price check on my new not-so-smart phone, I see you.
I want the price check. I don’t want to see you. In fact the words which form in my mind when I see you are, “Oh. No.”
I don’t want to talk to you.
I don’t want to ask you why you’re so short.
And I especially don’t want to watch your show.
Anymore.
I wait two minutes for alien-scanner thing fabulous ex-model and the alien-scanner thing jogging entourage to go away so I can begin my run.
It takes me about 90 minutes to run two and a half times around the park, eight miles. It’s about 8:30 a.m. when I finish. I’m walking by the Starbucks on my way back and I look in. And then because of what I see, I go in again.
“You’re still here,” I said.
“You didn’t run eight miles,” said Bettina.
“You didn’t collectively eat five cinnamon rolls and drink four cups of hot chocolate,” I said. “You’ll never guess who I saw running.”
“Who?” said Marcie.
I tell them.
“Why didn’t you come get us?” said Bettina.
“You wanted to discuss Tom Fricking West’s nanny,” I said.
“But this is bigger,” said Bettina.
“Much bigger,” said Marcie.
“Is she thin?” said Bettina.
“Her career is to be thin,” I said. “Of course she is.”
“After her second child?” said Bettina.
“Second child, fifth child, tenth child…” I said, throwing up my hands.
“Thin, huh,” said Marcie.
“Did you ask her how she lost the weight?” said Bettina.
“You know better than that,” I said.
She did.
You don’t talk to L.A. Star/Celeb Royalty, especially if the Star/Celeb is an alien-scanner model thing with alien-scanner model thing’s Muscle, because there are those unspoken but very well-known Rules for Unexpected Encounters with L.A. Star/Celeb Royalty in public places:
1. You never initiate conversation—Ever. If for some reason you’re forced to speak with the star, because you are trapped in an elevator with them which is stuck between floors for more than three hours, there is only one thing you can say, which is of course, “I love your work.” Then retreat as quickly as possible while breaking off eye contact.
2. If for some unknown reason the star/celeb should initiate conversation with you, look away, don’t acknowledge who they are, and answer the question quickly. Don’t pick up the conversation—they don’t want to speak to you.
3. If a star should venture into public in the basic-star disguise—dark glasses, baseball cap, baggy clothes—and you don’t recognize them and think that they are any other schlub—then it’s OK. They didn’t want to be recognized—and you didn’t.
But there are gray areas. If a star/celeb, even an alien-scanner thing, should suddenly be outside your door because some unimaginable situation should transpire, e.g. he bought a condo in your building for his militant Goth daughter, and he knocks on your door and you
open it:
“Can I help you?” You say to the top box office star of the ’90s who—and you know this is not believable but it does happen—is standing there. Suddenly, you realize that your roots are showing and maybe these pants make your butt look like a lop-sided watermelon. But he doesn’t look so good either.
“Boy he’s short,” you think, which shocks you because ever since his first movie, you’ve been stunned by his beauty. Was he always this short? (Which is six or so inches shorter than you.) What a nose.
And he wants to know where the circuit breaker is. Since you do know where the circuit breaker is and you do know where the key is, you can take him and go down the elevator with him and show him where the key is. “In the flower pot,” you say, “clever, huh?” “Thanks,” he says, “ah…” and you can tell him any name you want because he will never remember yours, nor ever knock on your door again, so one day, a few months from now, you’ll wonder if you dreamed this or if it actually happened.
And, if a star/celeb is the little sister of your best friend from high school and you can’t believe that she’s this famous because you were convinced no one from your high school would ever amount to a damn and as an actor? How likely is that? And you didn’t exactly support her ambition because, well, you didn’t think she had the looks to be an actor, which is stupid because who looks like an actor, but partially you think you might be right because it’s absolutely amazing that she has been successful, but she has, and she actually gets to play a great smart lawyer—who is smarter on television than you actually are in your own legal practice and has much more interesting clients—which makes you kinda mad and somehow reminds you that if you are bothered by this you are watching too much television, and perhaps she is the one actress in America with a degree from Harvard who will not be forced to play an unimaginably stupid prostitute in the one role which will win her acclaim because, well, she’s fat and has made a platform of it. And she looks fabulous.
Hey wait a minute, you were supposed to be successful, you were the big deal in high school and she was, well, kind of a mess. No one in your school thought anyone would be this successful. But there she is. What happened to me?
Almost Royalty: A Romantic Comedy...of Sorts Page 18