Have I ever met a Hollywood agent that’s not a prick?

Trying to wrack my brain.  Trying.  Thinking.  Still thinking.  Thinking harder.

NOPE.  Can’t think of one. No would be the answer.

I’m exaggerating.  There are two agents I sort of like– I think.

Here is the current story I like to tell about an agent.  A prick.  Or is that redundant?

Poor guy didn’t know he would be outed the day he met me.

 

I was headed into a building in the Wilshire Corridor.  A memorial.  A dear friend’s husband.   Construction was going on and you had to walk down the driveway to a set of elevators.  The ghetto service entrance.   A doorman pointed the way.   I, and an elegantly dressed gentleman, step in.  We push #16.

Doors close and the cramped coffin takes us up.  The elevator flies past 16 and picks up someone on a higher floor.  I start to freak out a little because I’m claustrophobic and this elevator is extra small and now carrying more people.   It heads down, once again ignoring 16, and picks up someone on a lower floor who works in the building. Now the elevator heads for the lobby.   I’m totally alarmed and start to panic.  I ask the building employee why the elevator didn’t stop.   “Two times it went past our floor and didn’t stop!”   He pays no attention to me.  The elegant man, still trying hard from the 80’s to appear hip with an earring he should have taken out by the mid-90’s, says in an unfriendly monotone that everything is fine.  The tone says “Don’t start up.”  The way only a man with zero tolerance for women talks and thinks.  Zero compassion.  And, okay, I admit I’m a neurotic, but being trapped in a flying-around elevator could be cause for alarm.  Also, I’m going crazy because I have driven a long way and need desperately to use a bathroom.

So, back at the lobby… the doors open, a few people get out and I can finally breathe—for a second—then even more people rush in, also heading for the funeral.    I’m panicking and telling anyone who will listen that this elevator ride is frightening and not stopping on the floor where the memorial is.  The man looks faintly annoyed.  It’s starting to seem like I’m making a small scene, when in fact, this dude’s aloofness and attitude is nearly as upsetting as this elevator ride.  He tells me, again, through gritted teeth, that we will get there.  Maybe he thinks he’s helping, but it’s clear he’s losing his patience.  A woman is trying to calm me, saying  she gets it, that when you need to go to the bathroom and you’re stuck in an elevator, or anywhere in fact, you just need to get to that bathroom–QUICKLY!!  This time, the elevator gets us to our floor.  I leap forward, the first one out, no manners, and run for a bathroom.

I regain my composure.  I enter a party in full swing, walk straight up to the prick and hold my hand out to introduce myself.   I get a handshake as he scans the room for more important people.   He never says his name, though I overhear it a few times from others making a big deal over him.  Over HIM?   That prick?  Then the chick from the elevator comes over and introduces herself.  She tells me she loves how outspoken and neurotic I was in that elevator, that she could really relate.  Then she makes some remark referring to my insensitive husband.    I said, “That prick?   No way!  He’s not my husband, I never saw him before our elevator ride from hell. That dude HATES me.”  She mistook the tension between us as typical of a battling married couple.   I say to her, “Let’s go fuck with him.”  We didn’t.  I was joking.   All I kept thinking was, good thing I’m not married to someone with so little empathy.

Cut to a few weeks later.  Another funeral.  I’m trying to win a contest for the most funerals attended in a month.  Kidding.  But, if I weren’t kidding, I would win.  Seriously, I went to three.  There, amongst a big old Hollywood crowd, was the same well-dressed, too-much-attention-to-detail, earring-sporting dude, dressed in his hippest black funeral garb.  His wardrobe screams Maxfield or private shopper at Barney’s.  His shades—just this side of Swifty.   I cringed at first, turned to my friend Kimberly, told her the story of my recent run-in with this guy.   Seeing him made me hyper.  This time, I really did want to fuck with him.  So, I walked very fast to catch up.  This is all taking place in a somber procession on the way to the gravesite, following the touching eulogies in the chapel.  I’m almost running now.  Out of breath, I yell, “Hey, it’s me again.  Don’t worry, you won’t have to be stuck in an elevator with me at this funeral!!”  Barely a smile comes across his face.  Another person, albeit, one with a sense of humor, would have laughed out loud.  Yep, it deserved an LOL.  There is a chance my delivery was kind of taunting.  In the retelling of this story, friends say to me that he probably thinks I’m crazy.  Fair enough.  I can be a little too in-your-face/no-filter honest.  Or, I could just be joking — like the time in the early 80’s when I ran into this Polish cinematographer that was simultaneously dating a few of my closest friends.   I ran into him when I ducked into a bar on the Upper East Side to use the bathroom.  (Most of my stories involve me needing to pee.)   I saw him as I was rushing past.   He was seated at a table and we locked eyes and I said the first thing that came into my mind, “Hi, stalking you for my girlfriends!!”  I didn’t wink or anything to indicate this was a joke, but looking back into his scared face I realized he thought this to be the truth.  How egocentric can you get?

Lets get back to the other prick.

I was thinking this was it.  After a lifetime of never seeing this Hollywood agent, then running into him twice in a few weeks, I thought now I can spend the rest of my life  never seeing him again.  But, NO!!!!!!

I’m minding my own business, comfortable in sweats, watching the Golden Globes in the safety of my own home, when guess who walks across the red carpet for all the world to see?  That’s right, my favorite prick.  This guy is at every A-list Hollywood event.  Remind not to watch the Oscars.

By the way, I would like a hiatus from funerals so could everyone just please stop dying.

 

Food: I never go to a funeral or a wedding for that matter or even a short drive without carrying a little bag of snacks.  Usually an assortment of nuts.  My current addiction are the nuts my best friend Kimberly makes for her family.  She has been restocking me weekly.

Kimberly’s Nuts :P.S.– I’m Kimberly’s favorite nut 🙂

You will have to experiment with this sweet/spicy almonds.  Take almonds and coat them with a sauce you will make with honey, Sriacha sauce and salt.  Put them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper in a 300 degree oven for 15 minutes.  When they are still warm she adds sea salt and sprinkles some coconut sugar on them.  Be careful with that very spicy Sriacha sauce.

 

 

Tags: claustrophobia, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, funerals, Golden Globes, Oscars, prick agents, scary elevator rides, sweet and spicy baked almond recipe

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