Weird Neighbors in Hollywood

I lived here for 3 years, in the apartment on the lower left hand corner, next to the bikes.

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People in Los Angeles have an odd relationship with their neighbors.  They spend months or even years separated by only a few feet of drywall, yet since everyone is so self-absorbed, it’s rare to know much more about them than their names, and even those can be tough to remember.

By mere proximity, I was able to learn a lot about the neighbors in my first Hollywood apartment.  Each were strange, colorful characters in their own ways.

Next door was a former Penthouse Pet who once dated Crispin Glover. She tried to compensate for being past her prime with multiple plastic surgeries and heavy Gothic makeup.   After a year and a half of actively avoiding any interaction with me, she slid a note under my door offering to pay me $10 a month to siphon my internet.  The next time I passed her in the hall way, she still didn’t say hello.  She never got my wireless password.

Across the courtyard was an elderly, obese Hispanic woman who would lean out of her French doors and chain-smoke Marlboro reds all day.  She greeted me every morning with an “hola” in a throaty gargle, and when I returned from work in the evening she was there again waiving hello with a lit cigarette.  I don’t think she left the building once in the 3 years I lived there.

Every time I went to the dumpster to take out the trash, she would yell out “bottles!”  She wanted my recyclables so she could make a profit, and actually had a nice racket going since she requested bottles from everyone in the building.  At first, I would separate my bottles for her.  Then, she got greedy.

She’d ask for bottles when I clearly had only garbage in my bags.  The last straw came when she asked for the full water bottle I was still drinking out of after coming home from the gym.  I told her no.  Enough was enough.  From then on I lied and said I had no bottles, making it a point to not give her anything that could net her 5 cents (7 cents in Michigan).

Across the hall was a couple who both worked at a hair salon and looked like they could be the Nihilists from The Big Lebowski.  He was thin with jet black hair pulled back in a pony tail.  She was pair shaped with platinum blonde hair, sloppy tits, and owned a bitchy chihuahua who was equally neurotic.  He was affable enough to say hi, while she would give dirty looks to anyone she passed.

They drove a hearse,  had a Halloween decoration above their door which read “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here,” as well as a HAZMAT-like sticker on the door with something about zombies.

They often had loud sex, which prompted me to make this reaction video one morning upon waking up to their moaning.

One evening, they had a domestic dispute and the police were called.  I looked through my peep hole just in time to see the woman standing against the wall, handcuffed in nothing but her bra and panties.  She was screaming at the officers and was nearly arrested.

They broke up soon after.  He moved into another unit in the building and left her in the apartment next to me.  She played a Danzig song on a loop all night, every night for a couple solid weeks.  It took the police threatening arrest and the landlord threatening eviction for her to finally stop.  She filled the silence with screaming fits at random times throughout the day. I moved out soon after.

Sometimes, when I drive by my old apartment building, I see that hearse parked outside and wonder how they’re all doing.  Did the Penthouse Pet ever get the internet?  Did the hairstyling nihilist couple reconcile?  Did the old lady die of lung cancer?   Then I snap out of it and realize I don’t care because they’re all assholes.

First Night in Los Angeles

Enjoying authentic Mexican cuisine during my first night in LA

While driving cross-country, I imagined my first night in LA would consist of a hopping party at a glitzy venue with movie stars and high end cocktails.  In reality, it involved sharing a bottle of Bacardi and an air mattress with my friend Jeremy while watching movies in a room with a spray painted penis1 on the wall.

We traveled for 4 days only to arrive at the frat house I was rooming in for the summer.  A random person there took me to my room, which was completely trashed, had no lock, and was decorated with the aforementioned cock.  I wanted to turn around and walk back to Pittsburgh.

My friend and I cleared three garbage bags of crap and made the room acceptable.  We celebrated with a fifth of rum and our first Los Angeles meal.

With all the excellent Mexican food the town had to offer, we patronized the best tasting and most authentic one we knew:  Taco Bell.  I downed a couple Chalupas and a diet coke.  Satiated, I was ready to hit the town.

Only knowing three people in town, I called them to find out what celebrity we’d be partying with that night.  Nothing was happening, or, more likely, no one wanted to invite us, so we went with plan B.

We inflated my air mattress, turned on the TV/DVD/VCR combo that was sitting on top of my entertainment center/mini-fridge, and watched Sideways while laying side by side.  Luckily we were both comfortable with our sexuality, since the bed wasn’t big and it was a tight squeeze.

It might not have been what was envisioned, but just by making it into town alive after 50 plus hours of driving, my first night in LA was a success.

  1. One of my biggest regrets in life is not taking a picture of the large cock n’ balls that was spray painted on the wall in my room.  It fit the decor perfectly and really tied the room together. ↩

The Big Move: Five Years Later

Tired and with a heavy heart while at the pump, the first picture taken of me on my cross-country trip to California.

This Memorial Day marks the five year anniversary of my relocation from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles.  To mark the occasion, I’ll be posting daily anecdotes of memories from my first few months as a wide eyed 22-year-old in Tinseltown.

For those who don’t know the story, I was plucked from a career in retail by my mentor and friend Mikey Glazer in 2006. Mikey and I initially began a correspondence after he discovered my college television show, “Gettin’ Later.”  Two years later, I became the first person he hired before a face to face meeting.

Mikey was staffing up his casting department for the Telemundo version of “Deal or No Deal,” titled “Vas o No Vas.”  I was working as a cashier at Best Buy and pondering my place in society.  He told me the job was mine, and after contemplating whether or not I actually wanted to leave Pittsburgh, I took the job and drove cross-country with my friend Jeremy.

Some people thought it was great that I was perusing my aspirations.  Others thought I was silly for leaving my home town.  One coworker, in a moment I will never forget, told me that within a year I would be broke and back living at home with my mother.  I had many doubts myself, but ultimately decided if I were ever to make the move I’d been talking about for years, the time was then.

And here I am five years later, still living in Los Angeles.  Though still far from financial security, I can pay my bills while doing what I enjoy, I have a great life and great friends, and I can go to the beach anytime I damn well please.

So thanks to everyone I’ve met along the way during these five years.  To the people I’ve bonded with over a beer, the women I’ve dated, my work colleagues, and everyone I’ve ever had a moment with.  You’ve made my time here wonderful.

Also, thank you to my friends and family back home who have supported my decision to live across the country.  Even though they’re always asking me when I’m moving back home, I know they’re happy for me.

Here’s to five more years!

Earthquake Wake-Up

It was nothing more than this guy jumping from the top rope in heaven.

I was just woken up by the early morning earthquake here in LA.  Shakespeare said to beware the ides of March, but I guess we could count this even though it technically happened in the early hours of March 16th.

I’m pretty sure I only felt the tail end of it, since the amount of shaking seemed pretty short.  Long or short, these earthquakes can be scary even after living here for a few years.

The longest one I ever felt happened while I was at E! a couple years ago.  I was in a meeting when the entire building shook for 30 seconds.  The building was on rollers and it was a helpless feeling as we swayed.  Afterward, my coworker quickly canceled the meeting because, in her words, “I have to go home and check on my birds!”  Though I would think birds have it the easiest during an earthquake since they can just flap their wings and stay off the ground.

It might be scary to feel the earth shake on the ground, but I try to calm myself down by thinking it was the doing of the late, great wrestler Earthquake jumping off the top turnbuckle in heaven.  Kind of like when we were kids and your mom or grandma would tell you that the thunderstorms were from Angels bowling.  It’s better than thinking about the San Andreas fault shifting beneath me.

FOXy News

One of the main reasons this country is rolling down hill like a snowball that’s headed for hell:  Local news.  It’s become worse over the years, devolving into frivilous infotainment at the expense of legitimate information.  They try to catch the viewers’ eye by scaring them with misleading promos (A household product can castrate your children.  Find out what that means for your weekend, tonight at 10).

The other option is to sex things up.  In the Los Angeles area, local newscasts aren’t even pretending to be about information.  Here’s the latest campaign for FOX 11 in LA:

I’m all for this ad if it’s specifically talking about Good Day LA, which is a fluffy morning show  involving two annoying twats talking with a once legitimate newsman who is slowly going insane (Steve Edwards).  But throwing in saggy breasted middle-aged anchors does NOT mix well.  I don’t want to hear about some woman being my addiction when she’s old enough to be my mother.

There’s no blame to be placed on anyone featured in the ad, as they’re just doing what their bosses asked of them.  A cog in the machine of dumbing down america and getting them to pay attention to nipples instead of news.