Recessionary Tales
I arrived back in Los Angeles to find my 37 year-old 'resting actress' roommate had moved her 19 year old boyfriend into the apartment. Normally, this would not bother me, particularly since I already knew the little twat from when he'd stayed there in the summer for a couple of weeks. However, it became apparent ageing pussy had induced a degenerative effect upon his personality, and sweet 19 year-old fresh-out-of-the-midwest Marlow had now turned into an American-Apparel adorned arrogant hipster cunt. Marlow and resting actress' favorite pastime had become slowly and methodically turning a decent apartment into a cesspit of filth, hairballs, dirty dishes and unemployment checks. They wafted around in dead people's clothes purporting to have weighty discussions about art and movies and really talking absolute bollocks, eating my food and discussing their feces over breakfast ("Homes, come check this floater out"). They looked at me pitifully as I emerged from yet another chain-smoking session on the verandah, and tched lightly if I ever reached for the bottle, which I did infrequently now as I couldn't even afford a fucking Corona. The apartment had become a groundhog day of hipster judgment, and despite the kindness of resting actress, I couldn't deal with their combined craziness. They had bad vibes dude.
Yet again it was time to move on. As I was now unemployed, still waiting on several delayed checks from newspapers and absolutely bankrupt from hospital bills, auto-repair bills, overdraft charges and insurance pay-outs (Flat in London - now 10k to fix, fuckers), moving out didn't seem too likely. Until the boys next door asked me to move in with them. Two weeks back I grabbed my two suitcases, a borrowed mattress and two stolen chairs, and shuffled across the hallway to Flat 4 instead, leaving hipster hell stewing gently in filth behind me.
The unemployment thing was still getting to me. I had forty bucks in my bank account and so I tried various normal jobs until I got my freelance checks in the post. I canvassed for a homeless charity, still riding high off the Obama campaign, but discovered I had a deep-seated aversion to motivational talks and bearded wannabes waffling on about how great they were for giving up their time to help homeless people (but you get PAID you wankers, I wanted to cry. It's not selfless if someone hands you a fucking check at the end of the month). I hated knocking on doors asking people who couldn't pay their own mortgages for money for a shelter, knowing that 40% of the money I collected was going to the bearded hippies to pay for their fucking ganja. I ditched it, after a week. They didn't pay enough to keep me alive, but they paid too much for my conscience to feel good about taking donations.
I worked at a bikini bar for a few weeks. Good decor, nice people, shit money, goodbye. I started volunteering for clinical trials, swallowing vast quantities of pills for 100 bucks a week. I offered my eggs up online, but doubted privately whether anyone would want these defunct infertile fuckers. I fineagled my way into a gig interviewing some actors for Hello magazine in the UK, and spent a day clutching a voice recorder watching photo-shoots and interrogating kids about having famous parents, and I forgot, for a time, that my life was back in Silverlake freelancing for shit money, and that it wasn't this round of mansions and restaurants with beautiful people in Malibu. The photographer I worked with, Sam, brought his friend Sean along for the shoot. It turned out Sean was a paparazzi, and he offered to take me out for a few days on the job.
Sam, Sean and I cruised along Santa Monica in a blacked-out SUV clutching DV cameras and telephoto lenses. We picked our way through Bel Air and Beverly Hills, staked out hotels and restaurants and addresses in Brentwood and Hollywood and Los Feliz. We papped Dustin Hoffman, Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Segel, Helena Bonham-Carter, Lisa Marie Presley, Matthew Broderick, Emma Watson, Noel Gallagher and I forget who else. I sat in the Chateau Marmont waiting for an up-and-coming actor to meet with a more famous actor one day, sat outside Shutters Hotel all morning for a rockstar to emerge the next. We followed people, hid in public bathrooms and bushes, behind walls and in the backs of cars, and then sometimes when some muppet Pap came along and made it too obvious, we jumped right on in and got down to hosing some inane celeb in a gang-bang of flashes and shots, wide angle lenses blinking and clicking ferociously, tempers short and vicious.
Sam and Sean were hilarious. They had morals, sure. "No sneaky-beaky's under the skirt," Sean used to say primly, but you knew, after a day or so, that when the hunt was on those morals would trickle away, and in that moment when the prey was found all that mattered was getting blood, regardless of how much it might hurt them or us. It was interesting, being so hated for a few days. A band-member of Oasis saw me with the paps and told me to fuck off in a voice dripping with hatred and venom like I was vermin, and I didn't have the heart to tell him I was just there for the ride, writing about this shit for a magazine article. I guess when you're in that frame of mind where you hate life and you don't give a fuck, doing a job which instantly turns you into scum, - well it's fine isn't it. It's exactly where you want to be, exactly where you should be, exactly where you deserve to be. Being a pap for a week was perfect, in this shit black-hole of a recession.
And now I'm back to 40 dollars in my bank account, all these fucking 'projects' in the works, and meetings, and smile, smile, smile, pretend everything's OK, when of course it's not because you have bills to pay and you can't afford to even eat, and everyone around you is losing their jobs and their homes and you're just staving it off for as long as you can in the City of Angels, and all you can think is fuck, let me cash in some of my good karma now, please?
Yet again it was time to move on. As I was now unemployed, still waiting on several delayed checks from newspapers and absolutely bankrupt from hospital bills, auto-repair bills, overdraft charges and insurance pay-outs (Flat in London - now 10k to fix, fuckers), moving out didn't seem too likely. Until the boys next door asked me to move in with them. Two weeks back I grabbed my two suitcases, a borrowed mattress and two stolen chairs, and shuffled across the hallway to Flat 4 instead, leaving hipster hell stewing gently in filth behind me.
The unemployment thing was still getting to me. I had forty bucks in my bank account and so I tried various normal jobs until I got my freelance checks in the post. I canvassed for a homeless charity, still riding high off the Obama campaign, but discovered I had a deep-seated aversion to motivational talks and bearded wannabes waffling on about how great they were for giving up their time to help homeless people (but you get PAID you wankers, I wanted to cry. It's not selfless if someone hands you a fucking check at the end of the month). I hated knocking on doors asking people who couldn't pay their own mortgages for money for a shelter, knowing that 40% of the money I collected was going to the bearded hippies to pay for their fucking ganja. I ditched it, after a week. They didn't pay enough to keep me alive, but they paid too much for my conscience to feel good about taking donations.
I worked at a bikini bar for a few weeks. Good decor, nice people, shit money, goodbye. I started volunteering for clinical trials, swallowing vast quantities of pills for 100 bucks a week. I offered my eggs up online, but doubted privately whether anyone would want these defunct infertile fuckers. I fineagled my way into a gig interviewing some actors for Hello magazine in the UK, and spent a day clutching a voice recorder watching photo-shoots and interrogating kids about having famous parents, and I forgot, for a time, that my life was back in Silverlake freelancing for shit money, and that it wasn't this round of mansions and restaurants with beautiful people in Malibu. The photographer I worked with, Sam, brought his friend Sean along for the shoot. It turned out Sean was a paparazzi, and he offered to take me out for a few days on the job.
Sam, Sean and I cruised along Santa Monica in a blacked-out SUV clutching DV cameras and telephoto lenses. We picked our way through Bel Air and Beverly Hills, staked out hotels and restaurants and addresses in Brentwood and Hollywood and Los Feliz. We papped Dustin Hoffman, Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Segel, Helena Bonham-Carter, Lisa Marie Presley, Matthew Broderick, Emma Watson, Noel Gallagher and I forget who else. I sat in the Chateau Marmont waiting for an up-and-coming actor to meet with a more famous actor one day, sat outside Shutters Hotel all morning for a rockstar to emerge the next. We followed people, hid in public bathrooms and bushes, behind walls and in the backs of cars, and then sometimes when some muppet Pap came along and made it too obvious, we jumped right on in and got down to hosing some inane celeb in a gang-bang of flashes and shots, wide angle lenses blinking and clicking ferociously, tempers short and vicious.
Sam and Sean were hilarious. They had morals, sure. "No sneaky-beaky's under the skirt," Sean used to say primly, but you knew, after a day or so, that when the hunt was on those morals would trickle away, and in that moment when the prey was found all that mattered was getting blood, regardless of how much it might hurt them or us. It was interesting, being so hated for a few days. A band-member of Oasis saw me with the paps and told me to fuck off in a voice dripping with hatred and venom like I was vermin, and I didn't have the heart to tell him I was just there for the ride, writing about this shit for a magazine article. I guess when you're in that frame of mind where you hate life and you don't give a fuck, doing a job which instantly turns you into scum, - well it's fine isn't it. It's exactly where you want to be, exactly where you should be, exactly where you deserve to be. Being a pap for a week was perfect, in this shit black-hole of a recession.
And now I'm back to 40 dollars in my bank account, all these fucking 'projects' in the works, and meetings, and smile, smile, smile, pretend everything's OK, when of course it's not because you have bills to pay and you can't afford to even eat, and everyone around you is losing their jobs and their homes and you're just staving it off for as long as you can in the City of Angels, and all you can think is fuck, let me cash in some of my good karma now, please?
MIMI IN NY | 5:12 PM |
