By Witman
May 6, 2004
Hi, I’m an asshole…
…an asshole that lives in LA.
Sunset Strip, if you must know.
And you know what that means…I’ve got an asshole car.
Allow me to rewind a bit:
When I first moved to LA, seven years ago, I had to save up for weeks to buy an old bicycle. I wasn’t actor-poor. I was stupid-poor.
That bike was so ugly it could make a nun puke, next to an old oak tree. And that happened more than once. Of course, I also had my penis sticking out of my zipper and coated with Smucker’s Raspberry jam while I rode by.
That poor nun died three years ago, of natural causes. She was 36 years old. I feel kind of bad about that.
Anyway…
My bike was a rusted blue color with a chewed-up banana seat that farted out small pieces of foam as it went. I even rang the little bell while coasting down the streets, until I realized that I lived in West Hollywood, and maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea unless I wanted a girlfriend named Ian.
I used my 2-wheeler, primarily to commute to my job as a clerk at the Red Hot Video near the Formosa. This particular Red Hot Video, on Santa Monica Blvd., was only five blocks from my place, and the main reason for getting hired there.
My Hollywood career had begun. I was selling porn tapes.
Let it be known that the Red Hot Video where I worked was the ONLY store in the ENTIRE CHAIN of Red Hot Videos to consistently lose money, every month, for the duration of my employment with the company.
Why, you may ask?
Because I had two important pieces of information that I imparted to each and every guest of the store:
1. I told them that Rocket Video, on LaBrea Ave., had way better selection and prices.
2. There was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you could sign up for a membership at my Red Hot Video without a California state-issued driver’s license.
Ninety-five percent of the time, one of these factors would cause the person to turn around and walk out the door, without consuming any more of my valuable time. Of course, it wasn’t true that you needed a CALIFORNIA state driver’s license (or any, for that matter), but it allowed me to get thru the Sexus, Nexus, Plexus trilogy by Henry Miller in about 5 days. I also watched quite a bit of porn, and, uninterrupted, I might add.
The video store couldn’t hold me for long though. Sooner or later, when one is raised (or is it ‘reared’?) by an upper middle class family, something starts to bother you about making $7.00 an hour at a video store. Thus, I moved onward and upward to E! Entertainment Television, as an assistant, making $8.00 an hour.
After a year at E! Entertainment, hiding in my cubicle, surfing the internet for porn and news stories (it’s almost as if my actual job never changed), and never going to any of the company’s ridiculously insipid events, I managed to save up enough money to buy a 1991 Toyota Camry. With ice-cold air conditioning.
It was one of the best days of my life, and I kid you not.
In short order, I put some MILES on that grey Camry. It was totally liberating to have a car again. And, soon after that, I picked up my first LA girlfriend, with fake tits, and dumb as a jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce. Perhaps dumber.
This is a girl who had 20/20 vision, but wore contact lenses to ‘make her look more sophisticated’.
I said, “Crystyle, you idiot! it’s GLASSES that make people look more sophisticated, not contact lenses. Yours aren’t even TINTED for chrissake.”
One fateful week, I quit my job at E! Entertainment, and set up an interview at the AppleOne employment agency in Beverly Hills. On my way to the interview, (and I’m not making this up), RIGHT IN FRONT of the glass window of the temp agency, I hit the rear end of the car in front of me so hard that the bumper fell off. Traffic backed up horrifically during this incident which, by the way, was my first ever accident, and scared the bejesus out of me.
I got out of my hissing, steaming car to see if the other person was OK, and glanced to the side to find that all the employees, managers, and other assorted occupants of the AppleOne temp agency were trained against the floor-to-ceiling glass window, like goddamned seals, watching my life fall to pieces on Wilshire.
I decided it was best to postpone the interview, and called from my cell, in the middle of the street, (while watching them answer the phone), to do so.
I won’t describe other sordid details of this incident, except to say, from that point forward, my car had so many problems, that it warped me into a west-coast Woody Allen. I made so many trips to various mechanics, that I learned Spanish with a passable accent. A little Portuguese, too.
One of the fun little idiosyncrasies: the Camry’s hood would start to billow thick clouds of white steam in the middle of the road if you drove it for more than 25 minutes straight, and I had to replace the power steering fluid every couple of days.
This continued on for some time, until I got a “real” job at a post production house, and saved up enough money for the car I have now.
I test drove EVERYTHING before making my decision: A Volvo S60.
But, I was DENIED, at Volvo, because of my credit. They told me that a 440 rating was very low, and that I should be concerned about it. They actually used the word concerned.
I politely reminded the Volvo people that everybody messes up their credit card situation in college, no matter how responsible they are.
“But these credit cards chargeoffs are all from last year,” the Volvo saleman said as he looked at my age on the application stating that I was 33.
“…So it took me a little while to graduate. Is the relative non-brevity of my education, ALSO a crime over here-at Silver Spoon Volvo!??,” I shot back angrily. “Why don’t you guys just set up a little wood-paneled Judge’s station with a gavel right near the S80 over there? Would that make you feel better about yourselves? WOULD IT? What does your diploma say, sales-boy,…Kentucky State University? Briar Patch Community College? I WANNA SEE IT, pencil-neck!”
After being escorted off the Volvo premises, I went and bought a BMW to show those Volvo pussies what was WHAT. Over at BMW, they have the right idea.
The idea that flash and style are everything, and things like credit and savings accounts don’t mean quite as much in today’s internet bubble-driven society.A few things about said purchase:
When you buy a BMW, and you can’t afford it, the first thing that happens, is that you discover you CAN afford it, because you have no goddamned choice once you sign that piece of paper. No way in HELL you’re going back to the bicycle. Or even the Camry.
But an unforeseen and unfortunate side effect of nice cars is that you worry about the car. Especially if you don’t have secured parking. And man, it’s fucking annoying. Because if anything ever happens to your baby, the person that does it—they better pray that you don’t see them.
Other things emerge: some people have this disgusting sense of entitlement when they drive a Beemer into the IVY’s valet section, or to a friend’s mansion in Beverly Hills. They feel like they are ONE OF those people all of the sudden.
I am ashamed to admit that I turned out to be one of those people. It was a bizarre discovery to see new qualities in myself that I didn’t like. I thought I’d already identified most of those thru being a twisted bastard.
The Beemer makes you a little smug. No question. It’s one of the smuggest cars around.
If you’re next to the Beemer, in traffic, it sort of smirks at you and says, “look at that DOUBLE SQUASHED OVAL SYMBOL on the grill, BITCH. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT SAYS, DO YA? HUH? DO YA??!. IT SAYS THAT I WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER THAN YOU.
The DOUBLE SQUASHED OVALS DON’T LIE, FORDFIESTABOY!! THOSE OVALS ARE $40,000 MOTHERFUCKER! AND DON’T BE TRYING TO BUY THEM AT THE LOCAL HARDWARE STORE, CUZ THEY DON’T SELL EM!
Yep. I need help. But now I can’t afford it. Ironic, isn’t it? Maybe I can borrow some money from the chump next to me in the Hybrid Civic.
But let’s grow up, shall we?
Life isn’t only about having a nice luxury car.
Come, come, now.
Bitch.
