EXPLOIT THE SCENE With Kyle “Kore” Parsons Episode 3: The Hollywood “Type” Pt. 1 I’m from Orange County, California, AKA – “The OC” (we really don’t call it that.) Orange County became popularly developed as the suburban region south of LA. It’s a nice little setup, really, as we get the best of both worlds – an upper-middle class lifestyle and a giant playground of clubs, venues, and illegal drugs. It also gives me a lovely setting for many of my written pieces. LA, specifically Hollywood, is one of the most notorious cities as it is the heart of the entertainment industry. Everybody knows about the media hype surrounding Britney showing her “Britney,” or Paris publicly ruining another friendship, but if your only idea of Hollywood is based off of The Hills then I apologize on behalf of the media – you have been sorely mislead. Hollywood is actually just full of a bunch of egotistical personalities that collectively work together to create, develop, and pass on this misleading ideology that Hollywood is full of the “rich and famous” while placed in a ghetto setting. Ninety percent of Hollywood is made up of people who wish they were rich and/or famous, and try very hard to portray this in a smug fuck-you-I’m-a-celebrity sort of fashion. Hollywood is small and everyone knows “somebody.” There is always a privileged mysterious “somebody” that has all the VIP hookups and “star treatment.” FACT: a guest list to a club is as simple as emailing a promoter, giving your name, and telling them how many guests you have. Nobody is special, all these “somebody’s” are really nobody’s who hustle, and avoid their inevitable career-path as car salesmen. Famous or not, we’re all spending the same money and that is what these clubs are banking on, literally. The need for feeling important is so “Hollywood.” One of my last trips to West Hollywood inspired this week’s column. If you have read previous posts in this column then you know I like to people-watch. I call it a “social experiment,” and since this particular trip was otherwise uneventful I had a lot of time to take-in the surrounding dumbasses, for lack of a better term. Because I am so rich, famous, and glamorous …cough… I had a guest list with my name “plus six” for Kress, a well known club and restaurant off Hollywood Blvd. Nice place, which is why it’s a cesspool for “The Hollywood Type.” There are, in fact, so many individuals who think they are special because of their connections, or because they are carrying their Gucci bag – and swear they are hot shit. Because of this, the VIP and guest-list area are almost as crowded as the general line. This creates a kind of circus, if you will, because now you have two-hundred or more people trying to “out-hot” each other and look like they are more important than everyone else [on the same list.] It quickly becomes chaos, but it is quite a scene to watch girls in stilettos shove people out of their way as they un-stick the corners of their eyes and try to add volume to their hair. Once at the VIP area, girls shove their boobs together a little more and bat their fake lashes, while guys scream HEY MAN, DAVE! RICHARD WHAT UP?…as if they are really on a first-name-basis with the man holding the guest list. At this point, absolute admittance is only based on the potential amount of money they think you will spend. Everyone else is just filler room. Drop two-grand, they’ll treat you nice. Kress isn’t a small place by any means. Apart from the two story restaurant, there is a club in the basement and a club on the roof which means even more chaos. When we arrived around 11:00 PM I walked up to the bouncer and asked him to direct me to the appropriate guest-list-mob so we could play the game and get in. His response was, “THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! YOU GOTTA STAND OVA THEYA!” He must have misunderstood. I asked him if it was for the roof, or basement, followed by a quick and equally helpful response, “THIS IS HOLLYWOOD MAN, THIS IS HOLLYWOOD!” I stared at him blankly, as he spoke again, “THIS IS HOLLYWOOD!” He reminded me of a pull-string stuffed animal that only has a couple programmed statements. THANK YOU sir, thank you for clearing up that confusion about where I am. Even the minimum-wage bouncers think they are better than everyone else because they work in “HOLLYWOOD!”…crack head. I find it to be pure entertainment to see people enter the Hollywood bubble and transform their personalities from the real world, to this programmed robot that is incapable of making eye-contact or getting their noses out of the air. I guess the goal is to be as unapproachable as possible. For the sake of time I gave up on Kress and had a few drinks at my favorite strip of bars off Cahuenga. Unfortunately the daunting factious bullshit known as “last call” comes all too early and so I had to work with what time I had. My friend and I thought we would check out an after hours club. No more booze, of course, but I was fueled for the night. We met up with a guy who, you guessed, knows “somebody,” and assured us free admission, etc. Again I find myself standing by a barrier with a handful of minimum-waged bouncers full of Hollywood attitude and cheap cologne. I will not be redundant; it was more of the same people with the same attitudes. The guy we were with was calling and texting his reliable “somebody” relentlessly for nearly half-an-hour before any real response came about. He was told that a different “somebody” was going to be coming out to escort us in. We waited another half-hour. The idiocy of all the people surrounding me was driving me insane. It’s one thing when you’re in a dark club and you don’t have to look at any of their rude mannerisms, but it’s a whole other thing when you’re being passed up by 300 of the same carbon-copied assholes and trannys while you wait for your “somebody” to hurry up. Eventually Mr. Somebody came outside. Immediately he made eye contact with our small group, as we were now the only ones left at the barricade and clearly waiting for him to come use his impressive “somebody” powers. These Hollywood people are exhausting. Mr. Somebody took the ego award for the night. He was about 50 years old, wearing aviator sunglasses, and sporting an extremely colorful Ed Hardy hoodie. (For those of you who don’t know, Ed Hardy is a line of tacky clothes priced abnormally high and considered trendy among young people.) To complete this package he had a horrible fake-and-bake tan. After he made eye contact with us, he quickly scouted the area to see how many familiar faces he could find so he could make his rounds and fully make a spectacle of himself for coming outside. This was surely to demonstrate the level of respect we should feel for him. I will not feed somebody’s ego, apart from my own. He walked from group to group patting people on the back, laughing louder than necessary, using extreme body language to show enthusiasm for being recognized by the common folk – but in-between every gesture he was clearly keeping an eye on us to make sure we were watching the show. I am around annoying egos all the time, rock stars are one thing but old men wearing Ed Hardy and sunglasses at night is too much to handle. Mr. Somebody pulled the last straw. I screamed out “WOW I’M NOT STANDING HERE TO WATCH THIS COLORFUL ASSHOLE WALK AROUND LIKE HE MATTERS! YOU DON’T MATTER!” I was impressed by my patience level as it was now 3:30 AM, and I was sober, but I would rather go home club-less than be associated with someone like that, especially after being surrounded by it all night. Thanks Hollywood, you’re awesome.