How Hollywood Used and Abused Me: Meanie Mom's Story

Okay all. I give up.

I can't write it. It's been almost 2 weeks since my friends and I met up with the most absurd blue collar members of the E! staff at a taping of "Chelsea Lately" and I can't find a clever way to write it. I tried writing this as a "Dear Miss Handler" letter, a tongue in cheek narrative, a spiteful thank you note-nothing was working. What I really needed to convey to you guys was not coming through: the fact that these guys together were possibly the most ridiculous characters I've ever met, and that I actually liked how dumb they were.

To give you an idea: Think Lenny and Squiggy, if Lenny was a gay narcissist and Squiggy was a 5'4 black man with a 12 foot tall ego.

So, since I've been unsuccessful at writing anything worthy, I'm going to resort to what I've read is every bloggers answer to Writer's Block: a list. Maybe when you're done reading you'll feel as used and abused as I did:

Let's start with Squiggy:

1. While standing in line outside for 2 hours waiting to go in, Squiggy would walk up and down the line and tell us that we were "clustering up". Then he would make us all face forward and stand single file like we were in grade school.

2. You know how Bruce Willis can deliver these scary threatening lines in a super soft calm voice and it makes him seem really bad ass? Security Guard Squiggy thought he possessed that same ability. "If you get inside.....(he's looking straight into your eyes and talking so low that you have to lean into hear what he's saying)....and I make the decision.... (he likes to talk slow too because he believes that we're all dumber than him).... that your purse is too big to fit adequately under your chair..... then you WILL have to leave the studio."

3. After he continued to talk down to us about the proper way to go through a metal detector, he scanned me with the little bar, tsk-tsked, and said, "You have an awful lot of metal in that pocket." Without breaking eye contact, I pulled out my single little tiny lipstick tube and held it up for him. "Sorry." I deadpan. He waves me through.

Who's the badass, now? Huh? HUH? Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaah, that's what I thought, Officer Squiggy.

4. Just inside the doors and right outside the stage, he gathers us together and in that same, stupid, soft voice tells us the rules of the show. Basically the rules were sit down and shut up, but the Officer Squiggy version was much longer and entailed him describing to us all the power and authority he had over us. For example, "These mikes are hot, they WILL pick up on even whispering, so if you're talking to your friend and the hot mikes pick it up, I WILL come and escort you out."

I also noticed that he really liked to use the term "hot mike", which I understand. It's a fun couple of words to say. If I had his job, I'd want to say as often as I possibly could too, just so I could make myself feel smart and savvy like Squigs.

5. Our last encounter with Officer Squiggy was when Chelsea came around to sign our books. Squigs had already informed us that Chelsea signing our books was a privilege, not a right. After we had all performed our "Yes, master. Whatever you say, Master." routine for him, he gave us little yellow sticky pads upon which to write the name of the person to whom Chelsea was supposed to inscribe the book to. I wrote "Matt", cuz I'm an awesome wife, and Amy b wrote "sugartits", cuz she's hilarious. Officer Squiggy, however, didn't like that she took initiative to do something fun under his watch and told her that he wasn't sure if Miss Handler would sign it. "I'll take my chances." was my b's brave response and sho nuff, Mrs. Handler wrote her autograph out to Sugartits.

I did think that she looked a little confused about it though.

Now, for Lenny. Don't worry. I'm not going to go on and on about him. Most of our day was spent with Squigs, so it's him that I feel more intimate with and that's why I dedicated more than 500 words to him (are you still with me?). About Lenny, the audience-warmer-upper-guy, I'm have 3 things to tell you:

1. He came running out, waving his hands above his head, clapping, and talk-ing-to-us-to-the-beat-ofthe-muuuuuuuusic. He-never-stopped-talking-this-way! He-just-kept-clapping-and chaaaan-ting! Like-a-preschooler-making-up-songs-about-nonsense. (See what I'm doing here? I'm trying to write the way he was talking/chanting? Are you getting that?)

By the end of the taping he had HUGE sweat stains around his neck, pits, and back.

He was gross. And stupid.

2. He chanted at least 50 times that he was in The Hangover, the number one movie in america last year, and that he was on Chelsea, the number one cable show. Being number one was very big for him.

3. Lenny was serious about his clapping. More, specifically, he was serious about our clapping. He made us practice soft clapping and loud clapping. He told us to laugh, even if we didn't think the jokes were funny. He'd stand in front of us and wildly wave his hands, trying to squeeze more, more, more enthusiasm out of all of us, and if we didn't give it to him, he'd silently mouth "You people are killing me." I was a little bit scared.

To be honest, I think the entire audience was kind of scared. Officer Squigs had intimidated us all afternoon with his hot mike talk and threats of removal for making noise. Now we had this crazy, sweaty, yahoo yelling at us to be more excited! Make more noise! And for god's sake, laugh!

The whole thing reminded me of that Twilight Zone episode about the little boy who rules the town, and if the townspeople didn't do exactly what he wanted, he'd put them in the cornfield. Are you familiar with that one? If you roll tape of Chelsea's audience on Monday, June 14th, what you would see is every single one of us clapping and laughing manaically, like little puppet on a string trying to please Lenny. And we're all watching Officer Squigs out of the corner of one worried eye.

The whole thing was nuts. But fun. In a weird, sadistic way.

And that's how things roll in Dreamtown, baby. I just feel lucky that I made it outta there.

(Kidding. That's me just trying to put a cheesy Hollywood ending on this extra long post.)

Thanks for reading and have a good day!