Living Like A Celebrity

Well, Kind of. I got to my destination after having dropped off my Lithuanian travelling companion at about 8 in the evening. It was an apartment I had been to just a few months before belonging to my friend Travis. It was located on Orange Dr. in Hollywood which is a stone's throw away from the Graumans Chinese Theater. Literally. If I really wanted to I could throw a stone and hit the theater.


Look at it... Doesn't it look so majestic?

This was really cool to me at first. I would think 'wow! I'm living right around the corner from where movie history is made!' but that quickly faded. After about the second movie premiere at that place I had had enough with it. I would literally have to walk 2 blocks to get around the damn premiere and the hundreds of screaming fans filling the sidewalks trying to get a picture of the back of Jessica Alba's head during the Valentines Day premiere. It was obnoxious to say the least but even that was better than what that area turns into on every other day of the year. Failed actors dressing up in costumes and accosting tourists to take pictures with them fill the streets. Spiderman is hanging from a light post while two Supermans argue over turf. Hip hop artists trying to "hustle" their CD will shove it in your face and then accuse of you "hating art" when you decline. It's a mad house. I would walk as quick as possible through that part of the strip and every time would feel like I was about to have a panic attack. I don't understand why people subject themselves to that.

"Hey kids, let's get a picture with the nice devil!"


So, I want to get one thing straight right away. I did not just go down to Hollywood to party like a rock star and go wild. I spent a good six hours a day trying to find a job. It's just that at the end of those six hours there was nothing else to do but party like a rock star. The group that Travis runs with are all very well-to-do people. Models, musicians, producers, professional online poker players... Basically they all had money and they all looked very good. Now don't think for a second that this makes them horrible people, because they are not horrible people. The majority of them were very nice. This one night Travis and I got invited out by his friend Chris to an exclusive fashion line launch party at a very upscale night club. We put on our best threads and headed out. Sure enough the velvet ropes parted and we were on our way inside of MI-6, a James Bond spy themed night club in West Hollywood. The music was loud, the lights were flashy and the cieling was mirrors. Mirrors everywhere.

MI-6 Hollywood


The bathroom had an attendant which ALWAYS confuses me. This is the third time this has happened to me and each time it ends awkwardly. I did my business and as I was finishing peeing I could feel this guy get up out of his seat. He was facing me. I could tell he was watching me and waiting patiently to perform his duty. It's weird when you think about it though. Do rich people like to have people watch them pee? Let alone pay someone to do it. I'm sure you could go on Craigslist personals and find somebody who'll do it for free! He most likely would not own a tux however. So I finish, I zip up and I start to head over to the sink which is covered in all sorts of little items for any occasion that might arise in a bathroom. Bowl of condoms? Check. Selection of fine colognes? Check. Assorted jewelry? Check. King size Reeses peanut butter cups? Ummm... check? I just can't imagine being in a situation where I was out at a bar with my friends and all of a sudden needing a diamond studded cross necklace and a Reeses, but oh well, if that's what they're into.

We had bottle service at this place all night. They brought a tray of mixers with a bucket of ice to go with our massive bottle of Grey Goose. I felt awkward at first but was feeling like I fit in well enough in my fancy clothes to partake in what they had to offer. The moment the bottle was gone a new one would magically show up out of nowhere. There were boxes in the middle of the dance floor that would light up all different colors. Every five minutes there seemed to be a new girl or group of girls up on those things shaking their butts and hootin and hollerin like they had just invented dancing. At one point in the night another guy from our group, Max, and myself decided it was the boys turn to hold the coveted light box spot. Max got up first followed by myself, and even though we had been warned by our friends not to, and that we would most likely get kicked out for trying to be the center of attention without the required amount of cleavage - even with all that, we danced like we were getting paid to and to our surprise, stayed up there for a while. We even got some of the girls involved in the fashion line to get up there with us. After that it lost it's edge and I jumped down.

This was one of my more recent celeb-style experiences but it wasn't the first. There had been a few nights where I had to stop for a moment and look at my surroundings. "I'm in a VIP room of the Roosevelt Hotel drinking martini's with famous musicians. How the hell did I end up here?" I don't consider myself a shallow person by any means and I'm confident that if you were to ask any of my really good friends they would back me up on that, but I must admit that nights like those were fun. Really fun. I couldn't do that constantly though. Next time I go back I'll be on my own schedule, my own time. As the great Governor of California once said "I'll be back."

YES. I FAILED.

I ran out money. I spent a month scouring that city for work and came up empty handed. Well, not completely. Some of the people I met down there were amazing and really tried to help me out. I made a ton of contacts and have a lot of good connections that I'm going to hopefully try and build upon over the next couple years for my triumphant return.

So Here is my plan as of now. I'm back in Olympia at my parents house. I'm applying to go to school in Seattle at Seattle Central and get my AS in video production. I'm hoping that with this Government stimulus money floating around I can make all you taxpayers pay for my education. The only thing with this is that it's a two year full time program so if I get accepted I won't be making my way back to Hollywood until around the time the Aztec's predicted the end of the world. I'm going to keep writing in this thing though so if you are one of the few that actually read this, keep checking up. I'll have some more good stories to post in the future. Like the time I accidently ventured into crack head central in downtown LA trying to find my car. Or the one about my Irish travelling companion I met in San Fran. I'm going to start using this thing to vent more I think.

But anyway, I guess now the question of "will he succeed?" can now be put towards my schooling. Will I be admitted even though I graduated high school with a 1.8 GPA? Will the government give me enough money to live and go to school? Who knows. We'll see. Stay tuned.