Los Angeles – One last time. I can’t help it; I’m besotted….

One of my job’s primary functions is to provide a tangible link between our small comedic traveling circus and everyone else. My job affords me a certain level of reflected glory. My job gets perks and privileges that I am fortunate to enjoy: complimentary upgrades, proactive service, fast-track treatment and common courtesies that only seem to come when you drop a lot of coin these days. (And how sad is it that good manners are a optional extra? Thin end of the wedge, I say.) People sometimes try to befriend my job, which, of course, is impossible; so they have to befriend me, and that makes me suspicious. I am aware of the Celebrity Currency I am perceived to have at my disposal (I don’t have any, not really).

Occasionally it’s understandable that we get a lot of attention (we spend a tremendous amount of money in/on hotels, for example – 22 rooms a night for three nights…go figure) and in such cases I’m not at all ashamed to say I appreciate service bordering on the obsequious. It makes my life that much easier. (And of course, sometimes we get stiffed like everyone else--see Las Vegas). However in all instances I am, at heart, a bloke trying to decide whether I get a kebab or chips on the way home every night. I feel fraudulent receiving favor because of my job. Sitting on an exclusive, well appointed terrace in Hollywood looking out at the city below feels faintly ludicrous to me. It’s a long way from my dad’s first job as a coal miner. My mother raised my brothers and I by working in a factory. Neither of them would ever have been invited to where I now work, nor allowed in should they have turned up. And now I get to decide what’s what. How weird is that?


(Side note: I could be a real fucker about things, couldn’t I? Were I to have, say, a big working-class chip on my shoulder…btw, sorry about that guest list place last time we were here, Paris.)


I’m as gladly shallow as the next person, but even just standing close to the reflected limelight it’s easy to see how addictive and how pointless fame is. People call you sir when you don’t feel like a sir; people help with/put up with your shit when they want the tip or the tickets; you like the yesness of everyone but rarely respect the yessers; and strangely, the more you hear yes, the less it satisfies. Some people--and their God bless them-- just want a momento, (I still wish I’d had a photo taken with Beyonce backstage that time at Jones Beach. No, not like that. There were other people there, I was just hanging out (see below for definition) with Beyonce at a Radio Show). Others want to obligate you in exchanges of kindness; they want to do you a favour, just to help you guys out, man. Complete strangers smile at you all the time. The world is a door opening ahead of you, a car waiting outside at the kerbside. Fame seems to me to be the world being nice to you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, whenever-it-damn-well-wants; and wanting a hug or a handout in return. Do things for the money, I say; it's cleaner.


The man renting me audio equipment tried hard, Ill give hime that much. When he asked whom the gear was for he asked neutrally, like anyone would. When I told him it was for the band on Leno later that day he brightened.
“Oh dude, The Strokes man, I love you guys, here….c’mon.” He holds out his hand for me to shake. I think he thinks I’m in the band because I’m wearing a suit at 9:45AM in an audio rental warehouse. “That’s rad. Are you guys playing here? You just played, right?”
“No, they played Anaheim and San Diego already. They're playing the Universal this weekend.”
He looks like he’s working out the pronouns. “Yeah, yeah. That’s right. I wanted to get tickets for that.”
I nodded. Bummer.
“So, cool. You guys are doing Leno?” Or I guess not, with the pronouns, I mean.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I think I met you guys before. I’m sure I met you last time you were here, we met, right?”
“It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, man. I remember you.”
I’m still waiting to get the gear I need. I’ve never seen this man before in my life.
“But you guys rock. That LP. That LP is awesome man.”
“Glad you like it. Room On Fire?”
“Yeah, man. I dig it. That’s the new one right?”
“No.” I’m being a prick. “That’s the last one. The new one is called First Impressions Of Earth.”
“I haven’t heard that. I’d love to hear it man. I’m such a big fan of you guys. I hear bits, y'know, and people talk, and I know that it’s awesome.”
We don’t hide them. They are available in every record store around the country. Big fans tend to have heard it. “Yep. It is.”
“Cool, so you must know Andy [Something-or-other]? I know he’s worked with you a bunch of times.”
“No. Afraid not.”
“Sure? He definitely knows you guys. Done a lot of stuff with you. Did some dates....”
“Well, I didn’t do the last tour.” I can’t be bothered to ask what job this invented connection is supposed to do.
“Yeah, must have been the last tour.”
“Must have.”
There’s a pause here. In New York he would have given me the gear and taken my credit card by now. But he ain't thinking about the rental gear.
“And you guys, you’ve just moved out to New York, right? From LA.”
“Nope. The band are from New York.”
“Really?” For the first time his game-face slips. Not one good pitch so far.
I pick up the box. “Really. Do you need me to sign anything else or can I take this?”
“No. You’re good man.”
“Thank you.”
I leave and the guy looks crestfallen. He’d rented me a piece of equipment but he hadn’t got himself any celebrity juice. Maybe I’m being harsh but the guy didn’t know me or the band at all, but he did want to hit on us for a lig. I mean, I can understand doing it for someone you're really into but for someone you're clueless about...? It made me wonder if there’s a certain strain of communication here where people indulge each other’s bullshit (I could have pretended to know Andy, for example) just to smooth things along? If everyone’s hustling, maybe you’d never get anywhere if you didn’t join in?

At the car rental place I judiciously spend some Celebrity Currency. I've arranged rental cars for four of us; specific brands, rates, etc, etc…we’re in LA for a week and everyone wants to drive something different. So I get all but one taken care of and it’s the latest model Mustang, the one that looks like the model Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt. I’m trying to get it delivered to an address (private, not a hotel) within a certain window of time. The woman who’s been helping is getting tired of me now. I want too much and I’m being too specific. I can hear it in her voice; her tone has hardened and she doesn’t give a monkey’s about what I’m telling her. She’s just about to tell me that’s how it is when I say.
“I’m sorry about this ma’am. But the person who’s renting the car has to be at Jay Leno today today by a certain time, that’s why it’s so tricky.”
Suddenly, the thunder clouds disperse from her voice. “Oh...right.”
“Yes. I know it’s difficult but this is for one of the band and they can’t get the car another time…”
“Oh, I see. I didn’t….”
“That’s okay, just.”
“No. You hold on now. I’m going to just check on something.”
I wait. Only a moment.
“Sir, hello. My name is Jim. I'm the client manager here. I ‘m sorry about the confusion. The problem is that the previous renter is still in Las Vegas and hasn't returned with the car yet.”
I get what I asked for.
But it took some irrelevant name-dropping to have it change from me being told to fuck-off, to the car rental place admitting to me they had a problem and weren’t giving me the service I needed, and then apologizing. While I'm lucky to be able to do this it makes me realise how shoddily I'd be treated if I was just some regular Joe off the street. Which in my mind, I am.


In the after show party in LA there are four levels of access. The venue has this aspect of it very well organized.

1> Band Dressing Room
2> V VIP
3> VIP
4> Not inside at all.

Everyone wants to be in the dressing room. It signifies status. There’s a rider in there. There are famous people in there. The band flit between all four places in LA but mainly they stay in their (very nice and large) dressing room; for the same reasons as everyone else. Plus, it’s their house for the day and their friends are there.

The VIP area is for people who get to feel a bit special. In LA we don’t’ know the VIP people. They are guests of the venue and the promoter, mainly.

The VVIP area is for those who get to feel loved. People who end up in here are guests of the band and crew and people we know who we want to have a bar to hang out in. My friends are in here.

The band’s dressing room is reserved for a very few people at first – family, very close friends. It’s where the band get to chill so it has to be managed. If everyone who wants to hang in here gets in then there’d be nowhere for the band to go – we’d have to find another room and start the whole process over again. Even twenty people wanting to be nice to you can be a bit overwhelming at times. Anyway, the dressing room is the Holy Grail of all backstage hangs, and tonight, like many other nights, ends up as an oversold hang room. The plates of deli meat become gnarled and scarred with cigarettes, coolers are drained of alcohol in direct proportion to how much it cost; champagne, liquor, beer--in that order. People are either close enough to be there and feel comfortable; or they lurk in corners as though they’re going to be busted and asked to leave. It’s like a busy house party. I always feel if you’re not friends with the people there it’s pretty boring once you’ve got past the sight of a couple of famous people chatting and drinking warm beer from plastic cups.

Hanging in LA is a genius thing though, and so malleable too. It has it's own rules:

My version:
I was at the Jay Leno show. Giselle was a guest on the show too. She and her husband, Dave Navarro, were coming out of the green room as I was coming in to get some water for the band. We passed in the hallway. I wasn’t paying attention so I barely noticed them.
Jay Leno stuck his head in the door to wish the band luck during the afternoon. We were all draped sloth-like over the furniture waiting for our call-time. Later, after the taping, we saw Jay Leno drive away in one of his collectible cars. The Parking Security told us Jay Leno collects them and has a hanger full of them and he drives a different car onto the lot, every day.


The LA Version:
Yeah, man. I was at Leno all afternoon. We were doing the show. We hung out with Jay backstage. He always drops by to shoot the shit, every time I’m there. He’s a cool guy. He was showing us his car collection; he was driving this funny little hot-rod his friend made. He told us he keeps, like, 300 of them in a hanger. Giselle was there with Dave. We were hanging out in the green room before she was interviewed. She’s so hot, man. But they’re cool. They might be going to the show tonight.

In LA, to Hang Out means to have been in the same proximity with someone, however briefly. I heard it used time and time and time again about situations that bore little resemblance to anything I’d witnessed. I got the feeling that if you wanted to you could go to watch Breakfast At Tiffanys and the next day tell everyone how you were hanging out with Audrey Hepburn.

I’m not complaining about this. It’s the culture in LA. And I wouldn’t laugh at Bayaka pygmies and their forest-God rituals now, would I?

Not much, anyway….



I love the simmering failure and disappointment that threatens to tarnish the veneer of every exchange in LA. So much need, so much want – so few successes (proportionately). But here’s the best thing: no one will admit it or talk about it. Except those reclining on their parents money and then they fail as a kind of stylistic affectation.

I like LA. I like the machinery- its so shameless. You get to watch it grind and clank front of you. No east coast sophistry here. I applaud those who can live here – it must take enormous energy to just take part in it every day. A tremendous amount of will to stave off the ever encroaching despair. The sun always shines, tomorrow. When your tits have sagged and your face is lined around the mouth and your youthful charm has hardened like yesterday’s bread. You still look good but each conversation reveals you’ve been on the shelf too long.

If not today, then what if it’s never?

And all of this to get into the hills. To be seen to be seen. First you have to be noticed, and you have to be noticed being noticed.

From Mullholland Drive the city spreads as far as you can see in every direction –hundreds of square miles, a glittering grid. A fake town, watered from hundreds of miles away by stolen water, created by a force of will in the desert. Peopled by people who only exist when they’re being seen to exist; a city stocked with overipening dreams. There’s the lucky few who get to do as they want but to most they're as mythical as Bigfoot or Griffins. Hanging out in this heady world is as pleasant or as anxious as life is anywhere else, although the luxury of things is the most tangible difference. But nothing dramatic really changes; you've still got spots or are predisposed to eating too many cakes; you still worry if you said the wrong thing if you're that way inclined; you're still a boring, pompus muncher if you're that way inclined too. You'll still probably feel deep down you don't deserve it. But you’ll never believe that, will you? It kind of makes a mockery of all that ambition, doesn’t it? Imagine, all that success fixing nothing? You just get to worry about being unsuccessful again, but in a nice, fleecy robe.

LA sustains itself by collective deceipt. Everyone wants to believe in the magic so the magic exists. I stand in a dressing room packed with people wanting to believe they are special and having a special time and who am I to argue? They are and they are. That’s what’s great about LA. You only have to believe it and, with the right props – a restricted area, a few rock stars hanging around, you too can live the dream. You can get to script and produce your own myths. Reality is malleable, here. Ask the forty-year old starlet pouring your coffee. And I’m not looking down my nose on it either. I wish I could be so pleased. With my job it would be easy, n’est pas? But I’m not good at joining in. I don’t play so nice with the other kids.

But I do like to watch. There’s a name for people like that, isn’t there?

I go to lunch with a favorite friend. This is a treat not only because she picks me up and pays (and that never gets old, does it?) and she's good company, but also because she works in film production here. I dribble on and on about my impressions of LA and I hear her stories of working in the city. It's then I realise that I only ever see a thin sliver of the full spectrum of this city, because of my job. I've settled into a genralisation of LA based on the neediest and flakiest merchants I've encountered. The city is full of people trying to do their thing with as much dignity and artistic integrity as a New York Novelist or a Parisian Philospher (probably not good examples, but you'll get the point) - the celebrity bullshit is the dressing, and not necessairly the fabric of everything here. There's just so much of it; LA is so much more dressing than substance, some might say. Thousands of people make their livings working hard producing films and music without getting clammy-handed over a backstage pass or a shoulder brushed by a supermodel. But as ever, it's the dumbest who shout loudest. And it's usually the dumbest who've pushed to the front of the line.

And subtlety is not Los Angeles' strong point.

I can't wait to go back. I should be concerned.