9.21.2005

Lemme show ya something! This is why you never put nitroglycerin in a chain saw. -Fire Marshall Bill

hola blogworld.

so yesterday me and fire marshall bill decided to head down to burbank and see the tonight show firsthand. pretty cool to say the least. anyone who comes to visit the l.a. are should take a day out to be part of a studio audience. it's not a mind blowing experience or anything like that, but it was really cool to see how the show is made. so here's my thoughts/observations on yesterday:

i have an increased respect for jay leno. he lives off of his earnings as a stand up comedian. all of his tonight show money either goes into savings, charity, or his massive car collection. he also wears a denim shirt and jeans everyday to work, and owns over 150 cars. most people change clothes every day and drive the same car to work. i got the impression that jay leno also treats every person equally, wether they are a tv star, some random schmuck, or the guy that does security for the stage. very impressive.

the studio spared no expense to redecorate the tonight show set with one exception, jay leno still has the $35 chair from office max that he has sat in for every show.

the stage for the tonight show is actually really small. the cameras have special lenses that kinda deceive the eye. very hollywood.

tom selleck is very short and he wears his pants up his chest like an old man. sorry to burst your bubble mom, but magnum p.i. prob wears black socks and sandals too.

there was a guy from pittsburgh in front of us in line that had me and fire marshall bill doing our best not to laugh. he starts going off on random stories, really random stories, and ten minutes into the conversation i realize that the window to tell this guy that there is a giant red thing in his teeth has passed. at a certain point, you just have to let that go and not say a thing, otherwise he's going to be really embarrassed, and my chance to enjoy an awkward moment would be over. needless to say i could barely look at the guy after a while and neither could fire marshall bill. had to be there i guess...

after the jay leno show, they asked some us to come watch the carson daly show, which we actually debated, but decided it was better than being in traffic. what a difference carson daly makes. anyways, that show was cool, but much less impressive than the tonight show. i think the biggest difference was the guy that came to warm up the crowd. the jay leno guy was funny, but never condescending, and he never tried to give us some false sense of importance to the show. all he said was, the audience at home will respond how you guys do, so please laugh when you think things are funny, and don't worry if a joke bombs. the carson daly guy was trying to tell us that we were 'an important part of hollywood'. right. and you don't say that to every audience. that, and he was a forty year old guy doing the trl yell every time we were supposed to be 'excited'. i typically don't consider myself cooler than most people, but i def have one guy beat. probably.

so other random people i've run into lately...

i was heading to a b-day party for valleygirl on monday night and i stopped off at the drug store to pick up a card. the couple in front of me were trying to buy a box of top ramen with some fake food stamps. the guy started yelling at the lady behind the register, and i thought he was going to get violent. so i interject my two cents, and comment that the gut shouldn't get mad at the girl just trying to do her job. if you're doing something illegal, don't complain when people don't go for it. 'nuff said. so the guy looks at me and yells, 'so what are you going to do about it?' so i put down a couple of bucks on the counter and tell the lady at the register to put it on my bill. the couple does not even say a word. no thank you. nothing, they just grab the box and head out. oh well, three bucks is a small price to pay to avoid a fight.

so later that night i'm down on sunset blvd for this birthday party. (not something i've ever been able to say before, and i only mention because it will help make the rest of the story make sense.) anyways, i got there an hour early because there was not a sign of traffic, so i decide to walk down sunset to kill some time, and give bulletproof chica a call, cuz it had been a while. so i'm walking down the street, and there's all these little hole-in-the-wall places with no signs that i never realized were there, and all of the sudden this car parks on the other side of the street and a guy in the car starts taking pictures of me. i don't have a clue who he thought i was, but it was unnerving to say the least. i can imagine how that could freak famous people out. not a cool feeling, but funny. needless to say i'll be checking the national enquirer for my pic.

then there's my favorite person of the day, the 'i'm a part of hollywood' guy that name drops like there's no tomorrow. i've ran into a few of these people before, they have a great sense of distorted perception. proximity does not equal celebrity. the very fact that you work in the same building as jay leno, does not make you a celebrity. yes, it's interesting, but if that's the greatest thing you've got going for you, it's time for a reality check. this guy took the cake though, because he wasn't even name dropping a person, but a car. 'Yeah, i was right next to a a brand new lambo, and this guy starts to rev his engine. i'm like, seriously, all i have is a camaro, i'm not gonna race your lamborghini. then, the guy stalls it when the light turns green and i beat him across the intersection. it was awesome'. please allow me to break down my response:
1. i find it ironic that the guy wasn't going to race until after he had won.
2. lamborghini's are impressive machines. no guy will argue that. however, i do think you must actually own one in order to call it a 'lambo'.
3. this guy was asking people that just came to see jay leno to also sit and watch carson daly. he did not fill his quota or the stands.
4. i can understand telling this story being told in the context of a conversation about cars, racing, or even nice cars that you might see around los angeles. i cannot even begin to grasp why this story was told without any prompting whatsoever.
5. everyone in southern california has seen a lamborghini. there are a lot of nice cars here. call it nice weather or whatever, its one of those peripheral benefits that comes with living here. that would be like me bragging to my roommate that i saw a house that cost a million dollars, or i saw disneyland from the freeway, or i know where the ocean is from here.

on to the more serious stuff...
me and the cuz watched 'Hotel Rwanda' last night. frustrating to say the least. obviously the hardest thing about the movie is wondering how a group of people could kill over a million of their fellow countrymen. i hope i never understand that. but something else struck me, why didn't we know about what happened? why didn't the u.s. take any action? the answer is pretty simple, the administration of the time chose to ignore the problem. i think it's ironic that the same people that criticize our involvement in other countries are the same people that allow millions of people to be victims of genocide. then i remember hearing about the 'ethnic cleansing' in romania, and somalia. so excuse me when i say i don't mind our involvement overseas if it means that we are preventing genocide. oh yeah, those are the same people that say it's okay to kill children. why am surprised?

and then today, i found out that most of my extended family, will have to evacuate their homes due to the hurricane heading towards houston. keep mi familia in your prayers.

well, i'm not one to end things on a downer, but it's been a real crazy week between the good and the bad. such is life, no more than we can handle.

one love and one heart.

oh yeah, in response to lindsy's comment on my last post, i did forget to mention the best thing about going to costco, the free samples! good call.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

A few things...
1. "anyone who comes to visit the l.a. are should take a day out to be part of a studio audience." is just confusing when there is an are in there that souldn't be.
2. it should be the guy not the gut
3. Yah right it had been a while, i guess 30 minutes is a long time now... ;)

d.j. iverson said...

thank you for pointing out that i am not an english major.

oh yeah, the proper correction would be 'l.a. area'. and i believe it's 'shouldn't' not 'souldn't'.

by the way, what's 30-12?

oh look, a duck!

Anonymous said...

I think you should have invited me to go see Jay Leno because I have been wanting to do that for forever and a year.. now I'm mad.

Carrie said...

D.J.

Hope your family got out well... the evacuation process wasn't the best. They're in my prayers.

Anonymous said...

1. my crystal ball wasn't hooked up so i didn't know that it was supposed to be "area" and not "are"
2. I didn't want to spell everything correctly cause i didn't want to make you fell bad....
3. Everyone knows that 30-12= 28!!

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