‘A’ for “Accidental Life Revelations”
Hooray! You must be here because you followed the book to get to this post. You get it. You’re awesome. And this cockamimy book/blog idea of mine just might work. So. Why did I throw my boobs in your face right when I should have been trying to win your favor? Read on.
I bought the Elvis costume online for $27.50, but the lessons it has taught me are priceless. It might be just a polyester jumpsuit, but it signifies a time in my life when I began to let go of superficial values and unfulfilling life goals—it’s the costume I was wearing when I stood face to face with Britney Spears.
It was Halloween a few years back, when Britney was at the peak of her very public breakdown. I was at the peak of my college partying career, and my best friend Beth and I got in our heads to have a Hollywood Halloween. Our friend Kelle, also a Gardnervillian, had been living the L.A. dream for a few years and would be cocktailing Halloween night at a very hip club (although is it ever really hip to call something ‘hip’?). At that point I was still convinced it was possible to “stand out” in Hollywood, so I decided only an Elvis costume would do. It zipped up the front, so I left it open like The King would have done, and my friend Erica lent me an amazing cape with a glittery eagle on it. Gold pointy shoes, a pompadour and a lip snarl completed the look. Beth was working as a go-go dancer at the time, and so she had an incredible collection of wigs and booty shorts. She went as a lion tamer, with a top hat, corset, long black wig and gold sequined shorts.
The plan was to get to the club really early, like 8pm, before anyone important arrived, and Kelle would sweetly ask the doormen if a few nobodies like ourselves could slip in. In typical Beth and Erin fashion, however, we took too long getting ready and didn’t get there until 10:30pm, right when a few randoms like, oh, Heidi Klum, Matthew McConaughey, and Quentin Tarantino were arriving. Oops. Shit! No getting in now. We went to the bar next door to plot a back-up plan.
As we sat drinking $15 Coronas, Kelle sent us a text. The place ur at connects 2 the club thru the kitchens, u have 2 get behind the bar somehow tho. This sounded like a mission suited for Elvis and a Lion Tamer! What did we have to lose? I always evaluate risky decisions based on what’s the worst that could happen. In this case, getting caught and getting thrown out. It would be embarrassing, but it would be the exact same situation we were already in, which was not at the party we’d come all this way for. I said to Beth: “Let’s blow this popcicle stand.”
Our plan was as unoriginal as wearing something skanky and calling yourself a “Sexy ____” (exactly as we had done): Beth would distract the bartender and I would somehow get behind the bar, then she would follow suit. Fortunately for The Plan, Beth is a professionally trained actress, so she turned on a British accent and began pestering the bartender about how expensive the drinks were. “Why the dickens do you chahge so many shillings for ah pint? It’s atrocious!” As Beth got louder and her accent got more muddled, I examined my options.
And there was only one: up and over.
The bar ran the length of the wall, the bartenders and cocktail servers came and went via a side door that would be impossible to slip through undetected. I could see the connecting kitchen Kelle was talking about. It was through a swinging door to the right of the bartender Beth was badgering. It was now or never.
I jumped.
I missed.
My costume was so tight the upward motion of hopping on the bar gave me severe camel toe and stopped me short. I sorta clobbered halfway onto the bar, then slid lamely off. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed a stunted Elvis, but somehow I was still under the radar. Beth had seen me, however, and laughed so hard she began choking on her beer, which made her all the more maniacal to the bartender. I had to try again!
I faced away from the bar this time so my groin wouldn’t lurch away from my legs, put my hands behind me, and jumped.
In one motion I was up on the bar and my legs were around and I was perfectly on the other side. I think the polyester helped me glide. I pulled down my sunglasses and ran towards the kitchen, burst in on the cocktail waitresses, was shocked to see they weren’t shocked to see a lady Elvis scampering through their place of work, remembered it was Halloween and this was Hollywood, after all, and, cape flying, ran through the other swinging door and was in the party!
I still don’t know how Beth got in. She’s much shorter than me and couldn’t have made the same insane leap. She says it involved her British accent and a tap dance routine and the eighties show ALF, but I’ll never know the whole story.
In any event, we were in!
We boogied on the dance floor and gawked at the celebrities and got lots of free drinks from Kelle. It was exactly how you’d think a Hollywood Halloween party would be, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d arrived.
I was on my way to the bathroom when it happened. I had just stood up from where Beth and I were sitting staring at everyone, pulled my jumpsuit out of my crotch, taken a few steps, looked over my shoulder to ask Beth if she wanted me to bring her anything from the amazing selection of goods in the bathroom (perfume? deodorant? car insurance?), turned back around, and ran directly into Britney Spears.
She was wearing a pink tiger-striped leotard and white heart-shaped sunglasses like the ones I have. She was tiny. She was wobbling. She was smiling in a disconnected, sad sort of way. She was really fucked up.
“Uh, so sorry!” I called, standing not two inches from the Princess of Pop. Visions of her in a plaid school-girl skirt flashed before my eyes, the red Oops! I Did It Again body suit, scenes from Crossroads (I know, how embarrassing am I, I’ve seen it. Twice). My mouth hung open and I could do nothing but gape. She was a real person! A famous person was a real person!
She said nothing, then moved past me. Not rudely, not hurriedly, just sorta floated on, a sadness all around her.
I went to the bathroom. I was stunned. The party had been sucked right out of me. I was deflated, defeated, and somehow haunted by my moment in the orb of Miss Spears. How many times had I made comments about her body, her kids, her music, her life? But it was okay for some reason, she was never actually real. She was an image, to elevate or bring down, dependent on my mood and self-esteem. But now she was real, and she looked worn-out and weary. And very human.
By the time I got back to Beth the club was closing. We said many thank yous to Kelle and headed for the car. A swarm of paparazzi moved in front of us, into the same parking garage. They were like a giant amoeba, moving as a mass, cameras flashing. In the center of the chaos was a girl in pink. Britney. Fifty against one.
“Beth, I think I’m changing my mind about a few things.”
“What do you mean?”
“For one, I’m not going to buy or read tabloids anymore.” I pointed towards the feeding frenzy that was Killing Britney’s Soul For The Disillusionment Of Many And Profit Of Few. “That shit up there is bananas, and I don’t want to be involved. Not in any part of it. I feel like I learned a lot tonight.”
“Like what?”
“Like don’t wear a white thong under white. Wear a nude one. You can completely see my whale tail.”
“Yes, I noticed that. What else?”
“I think being a celebrity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I think it probably stinks. I’m going to get serious about what I want in life and strive for more satisfying goals–no more glorifying fame. Because let me admit it: I’ve never completely let go of my childhood fantasy of being a movie star.”
“You learned all this in the last few hours?”
“Yes. I ran into someone I’ve known for a long time, but tonight I finally saw them for the first time.”
(And just in case you want more, here’s an account of the following year’s Halloween, again spent in Hollywood, again with a celebrity run in. But this time the celebrity was decidedly less pop…)
A Hollywood Halloween—Part II (featuring Marilyn Manson and My Own Stupidity)
For our second attempt at Hollywood Halloween Hootenanny, Beth and I scored tickets to Marilyn Manson’s Halloween party at the Roosevelt Hotel. I absolutely idolize that man and his white skin, reptile eyes, platform boots, and penchant for freakish, vampire-esque activities, so I was super pumped. First priority: a sick costume. I had to think of something GREAT, this was the Prince of Darkness, after all. A girl has to make an impression!
Then, like a rocket shooting into the sky or a shot of Rumpleminz hitting your gut, I had it! We would be (in no particular order): Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll! How amazing is that?!?!? Okay, truth is I blatantly stole this costume idea from my friend Casey over beers in a bar, but it’s Halloween—ethics don’t apply. We convinced the lovely Ashley (our H-ween co-conspirator and generous hostess) to join the trifecta, and we were off! Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll to take over Manson’s party!
So…it sorta went like that. Like many Hollywood events, there were so many people you could hardly move, and so many tools and birdbrains you didn’t really want to walk around anyway. So we partied in the room where Mix Master Mike was the DJ and generally had a rocking good time. Highlights are as follows:
Reality Rescue—We were sitting down to rest our tired feet and drunken brains when a Slutty Dorothy came over. Slutty Dorothy asks us very sweetly if she should get us some water. We look up and it’s none other than Kristin Cavallari, that ditzy broad from that ditzy show “The Most Vapid Representation of American High School of the Real Laguna Beach,” or whatever. You know you’re pretty fucked up when a reality TV star is asking if you need help.
Manson’s Speech—After the Cavallari episode but before I got too into my Rock and Roll character and threw my drink on Beth and right around the same time that we took a picture with a guy dressed as Jesus, Marilyn Manson gave us a Happy Halloween speech. It went like this.
“Happy Halloween, motherfuckers. All I have to say is tonight, if you have sex without a condom, take the morning after pill. Snort it. It works.”
So eloquent. So to the point.
(Please also imagine Manson giving the speech dressed as he was in his very own Halloween costume—himself (all black, the make-up), with just a cardboard sign around his neck that said “AIDS”)
After the moving speech by our Halloween host, Ashley saw a few friends of hers, girls that work as Mr. Death and Darkness’s assistants. They start talking then we all start walking towards Teddy’s, a cool cavernous club in the Roosevelt. I’m not sure why we’re going there until one of the assistants, dressed as a death bride with tears of blood down her face, turns to me and says:
“Want to go meet Manson?”
And perhaps it was the loud music or the multitude of vodkas or perhaps it’s just what I wish she would have said, but for some reason I heard:
“Want to go meet Hanson?”
To which I enthusiastically replied:
“Oh yeah! Cool! “Mmmbop”—right on!”
To which the death bride gave me a death look and Beth started snorting with laughter. Beth told me what she said in actuality and I dropped my head in shame. Why can’t I ever be cool?
Finally, to wrap up the evening up semi-humiliation and quasi-celebration, we decide to follow a group of fun looking people around the hotel. Maybe they’re going to an after party in a room! We can go too and be just like Paris and Lindsay! Hooray! So we follow this group of people who are for some reason taking the stairs rather than the elevator, up to the top floor. Sweet! They must be VIPs!
We burst out of the stairwell, a big laughing group, and into the hallway, where I almost run right into Marilyn Manson himself. This group of “fun people” was definitely his entourage, and they were definitely going to drink each other’s blood or sacrifice small animals or whatever is was, and we were now determined to go too.
We cruise down the hall of the Roosevelt, trying to act cool and suave, round a corner, watch Manson’s looming black frame turn into a room, wait while the gaggle of girls he has collected throughout the night and his random Goth friends file in, then Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll step up.
“Wait a minute,” the guy at the door says, as Manson and friends settle into the room. He ushers the three of us aside, lets in the final few groupies, and then proceeds to slam the door in our face. Wa-bam! Shot down by the King of Weird and his family of freaks.
Bummed out but inwardly quite relieved (I mean, what would I have done in that room anyways? A girl from Gardnerville who still gets a bit giddy over Isaac, Taylor, and Zac?), we walk back downstairs and out in the street to hail a cab. Which quickly proves impossible because while we were dancing around inside, outside in the street there was a gang fight and the riot police have blocked off the street.
Using her ingenuity and the benefit of her costume simply being “Sex,” Ashley convinces a group of Marines fresh out of Fallujah to give us a ride home in the limo they rented. We had to listen to them extol the virtues of Republicans and my Rock and Roll mohawk got flattened trying to stick my head out of the sunroof, but at least we got home in one piece.
And though I might preside on the D-list and probably will never advance to the C-list (‘C’ as in cool), at least I can give hope to small-town girls everywhere: With the right costume and the right friends by your side, you too can squeal over boy bands and have the door of a rock star slammed in your face.
