Sunset Trip:

Glamorous Dreams and Sea Monkey Reality

My husband Ian and I went to have dinner at the Original Farmer's Market in Los Angeles, sat down with our plates to eat, and a weekly trivia game broke out. No clue about Sponge Bob's address, we left—made a right up Fairfax and left on Sunset.

The funny thing about driving around a city you've lived in a long time is that nearly every remaining establishment (and in Los Angeles, these places are disappearing quickly) holds an experience.

Way up on the east end of Sunset, we passed the musty little apartment above a Thai restaurant where an ancient female agent from Hollywood's bygone glamour era, who then represented little people and other colorful characters, talked about representing me, oh so many decades ago. I fled her dank, dusty, knick-knack-filled apartment with my dreams of glamour burst, feeling like I did when I discovered Sea Monkeys sold on the back of my Archie comic books were nothing but brine shrimp.

Headed west on Sunset—

We drove by the Saharan Motel. That motel was where I stayed my first adult night in Los Angeles. I'd come from the San Francisco Bay Area to follow my dreams. It's where cops came to take a report after I was mugged. A huge man jumped in my car and fought me for my purse as I tried to push him out with my legs. I put up a good fight, but he won. The way I fought for that purse, he must've thought it held a bounty of riches instead of my contact lenses, a few bucks, and some lip gloss.

Further west on Sunset, we passed by the Comedy Store where I'd run into Sam Kinison, and Andrew Dice Clay (whom I later ate breakfast with--or listened to him talk while I tried to eat--at Canter's).

We headed further West on Sunset— Piazza del Sol, the building where I auditioned for a small speaking role in a Steven Spielberg movie. I was so nervous facing a large suite full of serious-looking, suit and tie-wearing executives, that I couldn't keep a straight face long enough to say the goofy line I was supposed to say. It was some hypnotic trance gobbledygook. But looking at the serious suits, I began giggling.

I've never seen that many people disgusted with me at one time or been pushed out of a room that fast in my entire life.

Even further down Sunset—Ah, the Beverly Hills Hotel, where I got the brilliant idea to apply for a job, thinking it would be a great place to network with movie types, because, you know, movie types often like to "network" with the girl serving them drinks and cleaning up after them.

These are the distorted ideas I got from reading too many Hollywood bios growing up, and believing young women are plucked from diners and hotel pools like shiny, ripe, bursting cherries off trees.

But then those cherries don't giggle as they're being picked, do they?

michele_writes

A post shared by @michele_writes

In 1985, at twenty-one, I moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles and was looking for a place to stay, after a possible roommate bailed. I found my potential paradise. Or so I thought.

It was a mansion (at least to me, at that time) on a hill above Zuma Beach. I saw a rental ad pinned to a UCLA bulletin board and went to check it out. I arrived to find a massive home with an ocean view, inhabited by five twenty-something males and a huge dog who left crap all over the carpet.

Still, I wanted to live there.

A guy named Miles, one of the home's roomies, wanted me to live there, too. "But you need to meet with all the guys for their approval."

I sat on the floor in a room with five males eyeing me and asking questions, which I don't remember. Probably things like, "Do you mind stepping in dog poop?"

One of the males gave me the stink eye. I guess I wasn't groveling enough. His face looked familiar. It should. He had his famous comedian father's near exact face, without the humor, talent, or money. I'll call him Mr. StinkEye.

Miles asked me, in front of the others, about Mr. StinkEye, who sat there still giving me his glare. "Do you know who he is?" By the way Miles said it, I got the idea I was supposed to adore Mr. StinkEye for having a famous person's DNA.

I rolled my eyes and fell backward laughing. "Who cares?"

Mr. StinkEye did because I ended up living in Reseda.

****
I wrote more about some of these experiences and more in my first book, “Craving Normal.”

The naive ignorance I display in these tales is why I've got so many stories for my second book, "How to Stay Broke and Influence Nobody," because I'm still this person: Oblivious. Desperate. Optimistic.

Even when things don't go as planned, I have material for stories.

That’s why I jump into new experiences, good or bad. Even the bad experiences are material for stories.

Good thing I enjoy storytelling more than I do screwing up auditions.