miscstuff

July 31, 2000

Greg Proops
Laughing Stock Diary:

Hollywood

Los Angeles is not a city. A city has places to go. That are near each other. LA has places to go but they are really far apart and there is lots of traffic. After hours in your car, when you arrive, you're still in LA. Bummer, dude.

The denizens pilor enourmous, gas-swilling, armoured, amphibious assault vehicles in a land that's fully paved. All the while complaining about the price of gas, on their cell phones as they try to kill you. LA was once a huge desert: the snake and the lizard thrived. Now only their semi-human counterparts rule the wasteland like Mad Max, till they use up the last gallon of gas on earth. Stocked on three dollar and seventy-five cent Iced Mochacinos and completely oblivious to others. The car is the device to separate and elevate yourself from everyone else with the special, added bonus of not having to take shit from anyone who isn't operating a machine as big as yours. When people are already completely self-absorbed, babe, you have trouble a'brewing. In London before someone runs you over in their flash motor, they often blink their lights, very considerately, to let you know that you are blocking their way and therefore stand or fall. In LA signalling is showing your hand. Just go, dude. Everyone is really important to their car and tye have but one thought while driving: Must Kill.

The truly annoying thing is with all the furious rushing around and stress no one is anywhere interesting or important. It's LA not Paris or Istanbul. The locals are going to the Beverly Connection or the Cinerama Dome. They are not rushing to the Centre for Disease Control lab witha test serum that cures leukemia. They are not speeding to help someone. They're going to meet other vacuous ding chow and blather about stuff they don't know. Or talk about "Survivor." Or take another showbiz meeting regarding how they can sp the entertainment out of everything and then run you over. The weather is perfect; the people suck. In Hollywood being selfish isn't a fault, it's the only personality trait most people possess. LA is not a city, it's an idea held simultaneously by a million assholes.

My theory is only the worst English people succeed in Hollywood. Only the shallowest, most self-aggrandizing liars, mesmerized by the sound of their own bullshit and conviced of their exhibitionist sexiness can survive. A hard, cold core where feelings go, a crazed love of possessions and the need to crush others for your own personal gain are the traits that serve best in Hollywood. That's why Liz Hurley lives here. In England she was just Hugh Grant's girlfriend. In Hollywood she's actually taken seriously as an actress/producer/glamourpuss. Notwithstanding the fact that she can't act and no one has seen anything she's produced. She has a posh accent and will dress skimpily with little to no prompting this makes her an intellectual in Hollywood. You must always look for intelligence in Low Cal cus it's never just gonna come at ya'.

Soon the Democratic Convention will take place in old LA. The Party of showbiz, extra-curricular oral fixation and Barbara Streisand will gather "downtown" where, by the way, nobody lives to nominate the man who would be human, Al Gore. The cops will bust some heads, as they do. That will boost the local news numbers. A former member of the Eagles will throw out a pithy soundbite about protecting the environment and Liz Hurley will attend a cocktail party for women's issues wearing nought a rubberband. And traffic will be murder. The shallow meet the useless where cars can't move.