I’ve Never Even Been to L.A.!!!!
(a brief sidetrack into fiction)

At a sidewalk café, a gnome-like busboy sets a table. It’s quiet on the street, midmorning. Women in futuristic sunglasses walk by with bags, tasteful bundles, dogs in purses, and delivery boys ride by on their bicycles. The busboy lays down a fork and turns, picks up a white tablecloth, folded, and flings it out in front of him. It snaps out and luffs down, and he lays it gently on the last table. The lunch crowd will be arriving soon--

There is a distant rumbling, a quiet-getting-louder rumble, the engine of a car moving fearfully fast. The busboy squints down the street: he sighs and shakes his head. “Dios mio,” he mumbles. He scurries into the restaurant, behind a concrete support post, and braces himself--

Then there is a car (!), an angular red car (!), and the rumbling is now a ripping, too loud and then! The car vaults the curb and hits the street sign on the corner. The driver splashes gracefully through the windshield, onto the sidewalk, knocking over tables in a shower of splintered glass. The street sign is gilded gold (Hollywood and Vine), and it stands unmoved. The remains of a Ferrari ignite around it. Then there is quiet, except for the faint whisper of burning car.

The busboy tiptoes out of the restaurant toward the driver, who is slowly standing up. The driver is brushing himself off and he is shaking his head.
“That was awesome!” he says.
A concerned maitre’d has appeared from the dark of the restaurant:
“Are you OK, Mr. Lee?”
Tommy chuckles. “Hell yeah!” he says. He walks over to the burning frame of his car, split nearly in half, and circles around it, surveying. “I’m really running out of cars here!” The rearview mirror is dangling by a wire, and then it drops to the street with a metallic clatter. “These things aren’t cheap, and we all know my records aren’t selling like it’s ‘86!” He laughs loudest at this. “Hey, is there any way you could call me a tow truck?”
The maitre’d nods. “Absolutely, Mr. Lee. One will be here in a moment.”
“I’m sorry this keeps happening,” Tommy says, as he starts to hobble off. “I really am.”
“Mr. Lee, your head’s bleeding profusely…”
Tommy swipes a hand across his forehead, and looks down to check it out. “You know you’re right?” He throws his head back, laughing loud. “Hot damn!” he shouts. The maitre’d motions for the glass to be swept, the tables righted, but the busboy is already sweeping. The maitre’d disappears into the dark restaurant.

Minutes later, the wreckage is gone and the forks are replaced. The busboy stands in shadow behind his support post, watching all. An aging producer sits by himself, reading the trade papers and sipping a grapefruit mimosa. He is famished, and he waits impatiently for his mango-infused crab-encrusted crème brulee. He hasn’t eaten in a week; he hasn’t worked in a year. A comely blonde is sitting in the corner of the patio, and she is making a call on her microscopic cellphone. This is her first day in L.A.! An emaciated brunette (she’s been here for a year) is sitting on the other side of the patio, and her phone rings shrilly. She looks at the caller-ID and shakes her head.

“Jessica, where are you? I’ve been waiting for, like, five minutes!”
From the other side of the patio: “What are you talking about, Madeleine? I’ve been waiting for you for, like, five minutes!”
“Whatever, tramp!” says a smiling Madeleine. “So what are you doing?”
“I’m just sitting here reading Catherine Zeta-Jones’s autobiography. It’s really, really good.” She takes a sip of her passion-fruit daiquiri: she pokes her eye with the mini-umbrella.
“She wrote a book?” Madeleine asks.
“Yeah, US Weekly says she’s a genius with words. It’s all about her struggles with the paparazzi. Oh, and her eating disorders. It’s an inspiring story of a woman’s struggle to assert herself in a male-dominated industry. That’s what People says, anyway. I’m only on page 9.”
“That is inspiring,” says Madeleine, as she drops her fork. The busboy is at her side, laying a new one on the table. “I’m kind of using her career as a model for my own.”
“OH MY GOD, MADELEINE!” shrieks Jessica. “ME TOO!”
Madeleine pulls the phone away from her ear, frowning. “You don’t have to yell, Jessica, I’m right here. On the phone.”
“Sorry,” says Jessica. “It’s just that she was a pop star, and then she was a movie star, and then she married a movie star! And that’s exactly how I want my career to be! But music is my first love, of course. I can’t wait to get a record deal!”
“Tell me about it,” says Madeleine.

The aging producer has just ordered another grapefruit mimosa, and on that dead-empty stomach, he’s feeling the buzz. A runner (the busboy’s cousin) brings him his mango-infused crab-encrusted crème brulee from the dark of the restaurant.
“Ahhhh, food!” he thinks. “And crab-encrusted too! My favorite encrustation!”
He gobbles the first bite, the second bite, the third, but then he stops. He frowns. He motions for the busboy. “You can hardly taste the mango infusion!” he says. “It may as well be infused with guava, for all I can tell. I can’t eat this!”
The busboy nods, and takes away the offending dish.
“Guess it’ll be another week before I eat,” thinks the producer. “Oh well!”—

Jessica shrieks!
Madeleine shrieks!
Her hand now shaking wildly, Jessica stage-whispers into her phone: “Oh my God, Madeleine! You’ll never guess who I’m looking at right now—Anna Nicole Smith is walking right towards me! And she’s got her whole camera crew following her around!”
Madeleine is shaking too, and she’s practically yelling into her phone: “That’s nothing, Jessica! Kelly Osbourne is walking towards me! And she’s got her whole camera crew too! This is the most amazing thing ever!”

Up Vine walks Anna! Up Hollywood: Kelly! Indeed, camera crews follow each, in a hurried swarm that circles around each eye: Anna! Kelly! Big, lumbering cameras sit on shoulders, and packs of lowlies are circling and focusing and shushing the people on the street. Key grips run around the fringes managing wires, and best boys hold bottles of imported water and their own headshots, which they hand out at random as they walk (“Kevin Halsey Miller—actor, singer, dancer. I’m a triple threat! Kevin Halsey Miller—actor, singer, dancer. I’m a triple threat!”). The swarm surrounding Anna is getting closer to the swarm surrounding Kelly!

“OH MY GOD!” whispers Jessica. “This is my big chance!”
“What are you talking about?” whispers Madeleine. “This is my big chance!”
They both leap up at once and, snapping their phones shut, run out to the street—
“Jessica!”
“Madeleine!”
“I didn’t even know you were here!”
“I didn’t even know you were here!”
Madeleine swipes wildly at Jessica’s face with her inch-long nails, and Jessica throws a pointy elbow into Madeleine’s newly-botoxed cheekbone. As Madeleine doubles over, Jessica sprints over to the two camera swarms, now face to face at the corner—

“Heeeeeey, Kelly,” says Anna. “I love your show! Don’t you just love mine?”
“Fuck you, cunt,” says Kelly, the pink tips of her black hair ablaze.
“That’s assault!” shouts someone from Anna’s camp. “That is verbal assault!”
“But Kelly,” Anna drawls. “Why’re you so mad with me?”
She curls her lip up into a big, medicated pout.
“Oh don’t act like you don’t know, you whore!” shouts Kelly—
The busboy brings the bill out to the aging producer. He has now finished the second mimosa, and he sways dangerously in his seat--
“Oh my goodness, I completely forgot Muffy,” says Anna. She reaches into her blouse and pulls a tiny dog from the depths of her bosom. The dog is holding a bottle of pills in his jaw, wrestling with it. “No you don’t, you naughty Muff. Those beauties are for Mommy!” She pulls the pills from his jaw, uncaps, and then empties the bottle down her gullet. “That should do,” she says dreamily—

Jessica has reached the cameras first, and she spreads her arms out, opening herself up to her adoring public. “Finally!” she says as an aside. “And here I was thinking I’d have to give handjobs to get walk-on parts at UPN!” She clears her throat, and (holding a finger in one ear) hums a note (d-sharp). Then she sings!
“And then a hero comes along, with the strength to carry on…”
“Who the fuck are you?” shouts Kelly, turning.
Keeping the same melody, Jessica sings: “I’m a singer and a star, only you don’t know me yet, but soon you will and so…”
“Will somebody shut her the fuck up?” Kelly shouts.
“Oh I don’t know, Kelly,” says Anna. “Her lyrics’re kind of puuuuuuurdy…”
Now Anna is rocking back and forth, in time with Jessica, with stringlets of drool swaying from the corners of her mouth.
“I said, ‘Shut her the fuck up!’” yells Kelly.

Handlers and hangers-on run gingerly over to Jessica, but Jessica swats them away with superhuman strength. “Not today, you faggots!” she growls. “Today is about Jessica Alba-Henderson!” Anna’s stylist is thrown high through the air, but he tucks into a perfect barrel-roll as he hits the ground—he works nights as a stunt double for Lorenzo Lamas. Five-hundred dollar jeans are ripped down one thigh, but it’s actually OK because it gives the jeans street-cred. A Sidekick is trampled tragically underfoot—

Still with the singing, near-operatic now: “And you cast your fears aside--”
“Seriously, Keeeeelly,” says Anna. “What’s the matter? Why’re you always so mad, kitten?” Her eyes are heavy-lidded, and she’s humming along with Jessica’s singing now.
“He’s got bloody Parkinson’s!” she shrieks. “And he’s married! To my bloody Mum!” She advances on Anna--

Out of nowhere there’s an abrupt end to the singing! Another tussle begins! Madeleine has recovered, and in a sprint she’s collared Jessica with a flying leap. They roll around on the pavement, pulling out tufts of each other’s over-treated hair—
The busboy, seeing the commotion, runs out to stop the catfight. He pulls Jessica’s arms back and yanks her away, but as he does she takes a wayward stiletto to the forehead. Jessica slumps over in the busboy’s arms, and Madeleine slips her shoe back on. She stands and glowers over the unconscious girl.
“Mom always said I was the star of the family,” she says. “Guess she was right.”
She turns from her lifeless sister to the cameras, now ready for her face time—

The aging producer, shifty-eyed, sneaks a bite of Madeleine’s untouched salmon and caramelized-pineapple baguette. He checks again to see if anyone is watching him, but the busboy was the only one around. Then he bails on the check and darts from the scene, clutching handfuls of napkin rings and silverware, his mouth still full--

Getting hit in the face must have re-triggered the toxins in Madeleine’s cheeks, because as she speaks, her face twists and contorts horribly. Every few seconds there’s another spasm, and it screws her face into a pucker and slurs her speech—
“Oh Romeo, oh Romeo,” she cries. “Wheyrefowre art thou Rhwomeo?”

Muffy is licking Jessica’s face, and the busboy is trying to shoo her away—

“I still don’t know what you’re taaaaalking about, Kelly,” says Anna.
“You slept with my father, you pill-popping blob!” Kelly shouts.
“No bubble-brains, that wasn’t me,” chuckles Anna. “That was Delta Burke!”
“But that’s impossible, I saw the camera crews in his bedroom…”
“Of course, silly-head!” Anna laughs. “She’s filming a reality show about her divorce from Gerald McRainey! The whole thing was on Fox last night! Didn’t you see?”
Kelly shakes her head, and begins to mutter oaths of vengeance on Delta Burke’s full-figure. Madeleine drops to a knee and then pops up to her tiptoes, back and forth manically, as she is playing both slurred parts of the balcony scene (“Twuht’s in a nerm? That itch we call a rhwose…”) Anna smiles beatifically and holds out her arms for a hug. Kelly sinks her face into the ample bosom—

Across the street, the maitre‘d has appeared from the restaurant to find an empty patio, three unpaid checks, and a busboy missing. He storms into the street and grabs the busboy by the collar—
“Did you let our customers walk out on their checks?” he asks. “Could you possibly have abandoned your post?” This he asks with mortal horror.
The busboy, still cradling the unconscious Jessica, can only nod slowly.
“YOU’RE FIRED!” the maitre’d roars--

Hand in hand, Anna and Kelly are now walking off down the boulevard. The camera crews follow closely, as does Madeleine, who’s still delivering her dialogue through fits of facial paralysis. Producers from each show are swapping phone numbers, so that they can combine footage later. They’re going to make this into a season finale, a very-special episode.
“Did you know that Delta Burke is Anna’s closest friend?” Anna’s producer asks.
“Really?” Kelly’s guy asks.
Anna’s guy nods, smiling strangely. “She knew that Kelly would be here today too. We had it all timed perfectly.”
“Really?”
Anna’s guy nods again, laughing heartily now. “Boo-yeah!” he shouts.
“Now that’s what I call good TV!” the other yells.
The producers high-five, then give each other bro-hugs--

The busboy takes off his black t-shirt, and places it under Jessica’s head. He lies her on the sidewalk, and from a payphone calls her an ambulance. He leaves his dirty washcloth on an empty table. Then he climbs onto a bicycle, parked in an alley beside the restaurant, and begins to ride off.
As he leaves he passes another crowd, this time of still photographers, jogging backwards in the other direction. The crowd slows, then stops. In the middle of the photographers (all dressed in bright nylon jogging suits), is Catherine Zeta-Jones. She is wearing big round sunglasses and gray sweatpants.
“Do you guys want anything?” she asks the paparazzi. “I’m gonna grab a water.”
The photographers shake their heads, murmuring their thanks.
“Oh, and fellas?” She turns back to the photographers. “When I come out, get one shot of me smiling and laughing, and then one shot of me really mad, like I totally hate you.
“OK?”