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A Number of Serious and Non-Serious Items
by Brock LaBorde
September, 2005
With a heavy heart and an
even heavier colon, I offer you, loyal Studio 8 readers, a faint,
whispering hello from Los Angeles, California. "Things" are going
really well for the West Coast Studio 8 Playaz, which I will perhaps
get into in a minute, but first I want to offer a little serious
note about one of the greatest tragedies of my generation's
generation.
To describe the storms' aftermath and destruction in
New Orleans is beyond my reach at this point. I haven't returned to
the city yet. I had planned on doing it this weekend, but Hurricane
Rita seems to have other plans for me. So aside from the hundreds of
awe-inspiring, gut-wrenching pictures I've seen online, I haven't
witnessed post-Katrina or post-Rita New Orleans myself, so I don't
feel like I can properly comment on it. The people out here in LA,
while generous and supportive, have no real idea, only vague
concepts, of what it's like in our suddenly sunken Crescent City.
Since I'm here now, I feel like one of these people
sometimes.
But hopefully I can go back soon, to salvage some of my
life there and maybe even write about it. But I won't return to NOLA
in a permanent capacity for a long time. My home is in California
now. To all the friends and families I knew in that beautiful city,
those of you who are now struggling in unfamiliar jobs next to
unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar territories, I am with you and I miss
you all. To the rescue workers and brave citizens who continue to
rebuild the devastated Louisiana cities, I applaud your efforts and
thank you in my own meager way.
OK, this sentence officially ends the serious content
of this piece. From here on out, it's nothing but comedy. Because
comedy, like butterfly tattoos on the smooth upper buttocks area of
young females, is what America can never get enough of.
What did Studio8.net do when the 9/11 attacks happened?
We told bawdy jokes about incompetent airport security to lift
distraught people's spirits. When Bush got re-elected? We threw pies
in our own faces and farted out the tune of "Yankee Doodle Dandy".
Mad Cow Disease? We grilled hamboigies. And when the Hulk Hogan
family got their own reality TV show, we did our best to distract
the youth of the nation with free penis puppetry shows and $2
Tetanus shots.
So to help America get through
our present unfunny crisis, I present to you:
Brock's Semi-Official Guide to Los Angeles
Part #1: All You Will Ever Need to Know About the City, Except
for Lots of Other Important Stuff
Here are several true
observations and quasi-important factoids about the city of Los
Angeles that I've collected like moist lint balls in the first few
weeks since I've lived here. I hope they provide you with a marginal
amount of useful information and a large amount of useless
entertainment...
Tip #1. Look fancy at all times.
Since LA is crowded with millions of talentless nobodies, nobody
wants to see or talk to you unless you are already important and/or
successful. Thus, you must appear to be important and/or successful,
especially if you aren't.
BONUS FYI: Famous people are always bored, no matter where they are
or who they're with or what they're doing. You must emulate this at
all times. That means when you go out to a bar or club, you must
immediately squint your eyes and look away whenever somebody looks
at you. At all times, you must pretend that you don't want to be
wherever you are, even if you're riding the JAWS ride at Universal
Studios. Even if you are at Scarlett Johansen's pool party. Even if
you are at Steve Urkel's 500th TGIF episode celebration. It's tough,
I know, but if you wear sunglasses and master the aloof, unkempt,
and disinterested look of celebritydom, you might attract the
attention of one or two semi-important agents or managers. Or not.
This also entails not talking to the person(s) that you go out with,
spending hours upon painful hours merely posing and looking as
pretty as possible in hopes that someone will approach you with a
fancy contract.
Tip #2. Famous people are everywhere and
they're not that cool.
Not to brag or be a snobby bastard, but I dealt with plenty of
celebrities and post-celebrities in New Orleans. Sometimes it wasn't
by choice, it was just part of my job. However, dealing with famous
people was somehow more of a treat out there. Here, on their home
turf, they almost blend into everyone else (perhaps because of #1
above), so it's far less thrilling than you might expect.
In the past 2 weeks since I've lived here, I've gotten to see and/or
meet:
- Blossom - She is very fat, but she seemed nice (though she wasn't
so nice to her ham sandwich).
- Most of the cast of MTV's Jackass - Wee Man tried to hold my hand
a few times and hit Jared in the nuts.
- One of the Duffs - It could have been Hilary, could have been
Haylie, or she might be an undiscovered Duff, but she's definitely a
Duff. Duffinitely. Sorry, couldn't help myself. Either way, she was
sweet.
- Jack Black - Didn't meet him because he was TOO BUSY ROCKING OUT!
YEAH! WOOWHOO! OW! Can you tell I don't dig Mr. Black's schtick? If
so, cool. If not, well, uh, I don't.
- Vince Vaugh - Whoopty fuckin' doo.
- Quentin Tarantino - I almost sort of introduced his chef to Johnny
Knoxville so she almost sort of introduced me to Quentin (I got to
whisper hello and lightly brush the shoulder of his extravagantly
colored Chinese dragon shirt.),
- One of those hot chicks on Dawson's Creek - She was the one who
played a high school student, I think.
Tip #3. Every time you leave your house, you
must purchase something.
Whether it's to check the mail, jog around the
mountains, or pick up a truckload of illegal Mexican immigrants at
the American border, you must spend at least $12 on something. It
might be a service, it might be a cheap, poorly
manufactured product. Or it could be one of the few highly-regarded,
over-hyped designer purses that only the coolest, most elite people
purchase. Regardless, be prepared to throw lots of money around,
especially if you don't have any.
Tip #4. There is some kind of intricate,
detailed map for every square inch of LA.
Similar to the Indian-owned, pre-colonized
America, few people know how to navigate the confusing territory of
Los Angeles. Luckily, thanks to modern technology and several
dedicated nerdy geographers, there are plenty of maps and guides to
help you find your way around. Currently, I have a backpack full of
map books, a fanny pack half-filled with smaller, bite-sized maps,
and a tattoo of the upper west side of Sunset Boulevard on my arm
that I attempt to use at least 83 times a day. Unfortunately, the
traffic lights in this city are precisely timed to change from red
to green as soon as you've unfolded the map in your car, so you've
got to learn how to be a navigator, engineer, captain, and brigadier
all at the same time. I don't know what a brigadier does, but you
might want to figure that out before you move here.
Tip #5. Scientology is the One True Way.
I used to make fun of Scientologists, calling them a bunch of
misguided kooks, but then I read L. Ron Hubbard's Diametrics
Information Pamphlet at one of the Scientology kiosks that stand on
almost every corner here. Suddenly, the shining light of truth hit
me like a ton of moldy Bibles. Or maybe it was the Scientological
Mind Control Warping Ray. Either way, I realized that those of us
"enlightened humans" are really members of a lizard-like race of
people called the Reptoidians and we are in the midst of an ancient
intergalactic battle against the Turdians, who look and smell and
act just like earthling turds. Now, finally, I know what my true
calling is. For the love of Kolthon, people, flush your turds away
to the sewers where they belong and send your generous monetary
donations to the poor, struggling Church of Scientology.
Tip #6. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on
here.
Confusing transportation and road systems, higgledy-piggledy urban
and ecological development, and 37 different languages spoken on
every street corner - I am in the biblical city of Babel (after God
got pissed, for those bibliophiles out there). The other day I drove
by a store. Its name was the "One Dollar Bargain Center". Its logo
was a big bubbly red and yellow sign that said, "98 Cents". On the
windows of the store, huge stickers read, "Everything in store 99
cents!" This perfectly sums up the attitude and mentality of the
city of Los Angeles.
Tip #7. It's impossible to have fun.
On any given night, especially on the weekends, half of your night
is spent looking for an overpriced parking spot. The other half is
spent standing in line outside of a club, and once you get to the
front of the line, there's a good chance that the bitter,
self-important bouncer won't let you in. Thus, I suggest starting
your evening at 4 PM. This way, you beat rush hour traffic, you find
a parking spot, and you start the line outside of the club. You
can't go wrong...unless you happen to be wearing the wrong Hollister
collared T-shirt. Sorry, there are some things that responsibility
and intellect can't can't compete with and one of these things is
fashion.
This concludes the first episode of Brock's Road to
Instant Celebrity and Shallow Stardom 101: Tinkering with Tinsel
Town. If you didn't laugh or smile at least twice in the above
paragraphs, you may be entitled to one (1) (ONE) free (FREE) Dairy
Queen Chocolate Fudge Dipped Ice Cream Cone Frozen Confectionary
Treat.*
Thanks for reading and I'll see most of you folks next
time. Some of you will die or forget how to read between now and
then, so goodbye forever to you poor people, I suppose. May God
bless me and you once we finally figure out how to create Him
properly.
* - This offer not valid to any Studio 8 employee, especially the
cheap, ice cream-gobbling junky bastard who authored this piece.
Also, this offer not valid in Canada because Canada doesn't exist.
PS - Java, Mikey, Jared, and Crash are all fine and
doing well, settling into a new house, finding various movie jobs,
and building a new Studio 8 Studio. Fancy times are ahead...
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