We have billboards for TV shows hoping to win Emmys. And billboards for actresses with giant breasts hoping to get noticed. We offer tours to celebrity graves. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills do not stand out. Neither do Maseratis in the drive-through lane at McDonalds. Doctors offer vaginal tightening procedures -- and in some parts of LA that's not considered elective surgery.
One need only to watch the local news in Los Angeles. And the genius of it is that it's presented without even a shred of irony. How does a local news anchor say the following recent headline with a straight face?
Fight Over Chuck E. Cheese Parking Spot Leads To Murder
I mean, really?!
Last Sunday night I was watching THE GOOD WIFE and the CBS affiliate broke in with this news teaser:
If California Is In A Drought Why Are Some Celebrity Lawns So Green?
The report featured aerial shots of Kardashian homes and other major “celebrities.” And then, because they’re fair and balanced, they did report that Jennifer Aniston ripped out her vineyard.
This is a news story?
Another news tease promised a look at new wardrobe celebrities are using to hide from the paparazzi. Basically it’s rain gear with hoods.
Nothing’s going on in the Middle East? I don’t think ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT bothers with these stories.
And weather is another major topic. Whenever we get rain in Southern California, all local channels break into “Storm Watch 2015” complete with team coverage from the same street corner that gets flooded during morning mist, and huge animated Doppler maps.
The extensive coverage that Baltimore stations gave to the riots we give to afterparties.
I may not be informed, but I am amused.
But perhaps the greatest example of how this town takes itself waaaay too seriously is this. A blazing headline in one of the local trade papers on March 31,1981.
Academy Awards Postponed.
Underneath it, in much smaller print:
The President Shot.
Sing it with me now. Everybody. “I Love L.A.”
28 comments :
Is that Angelynn board from 1972? Last time I saw a pic of her getting out of the pink Corvette - wearing gogo boots and an animal skin jumpsuit - it looked like two grandmothers wrestling a leopard.
I agree with what you say here, yet the ultimate responsibility for all this bullshit lay with us. The day we stop being obsessed with every time Kim Kardashian farts is the day you'll stop seeing an Academy Awards headline trump the President being shot. And that day ain't coming any time soon. We, the salacious behavior craving public, are the fuel that powers the Hollywood crap machine, and there's no chance of that fuel reserve being depleted.
They are threatening thousands of dollars in fines to anyone who is wasting water, and now the elites are using water that is approx 1000 times the level of a family home, during a time of drought.
Is this what happened during the rolling blackouts 15 years ago? Were the rich neighborhoods exempted?
In these 10 months or so since I've made Los Angeles my home, I've come to appreciate the absurdity of this "company town," as the Times labels it. Or, as Oscar Levant so memorably said, "Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel." And the Hollywood of 2015 makes the Hollywood of 1935, 1955 or 1975 seem almost wholesome and normal.
This was the side of the news I always loved: the absurd. Forget death & destruction and all that politic slop. The Absurd is real news!
(Had to correct some spelling)
The thing that gets me about the drought is the timing and attention. We here in Vegas (I used to work for the water authority here) have been battling drought since the mid 1990s. However we had an agency that thought ahead and secured additional water sources while encouraging conservation.
Southern Nevada has been in drought for two decades -- very little national press. California has been in drought for four years and the news agencies make it sound more devastating than the Nepal quakes.
One of the first "Hollywoodie" things I saw when I first arrived in LA was that Angelyne bill board. That was back in the '60s.I actually spotted her on Hollywood Boulevard in the '70s tooling along in her pink roadster. Or maybe it was an Angelyne "look-a-like." It happens. The Pope look-a-like was a neighbor of mine.
Back in the late 80's/early 90's, one of the LA tv stations did a plug that went something like this:
"In Hawaii, a stewardess was sucked to death today. Details at eleven."
I didn't stop laughing for a week-and-a-half.
Keith
Ken - totally off subject - why do you think Jon Hamm has not won an Emmy? He certainly is powerful in his portrayal of Don Draper.
I just found your blog today - so glad I did!
"So the free time we have not shoveling snow"
But in Hollywood, they shovel snow of a different kind.
Ba-dum tish! I'm here all week.
It bothered me when I read James Franco's column about working at McDonald's. The idea that all the waiters are just actors waiting for work.
"Gigantic meteor to destroy LA at 10.
Details at 11."
"Mr Eisner, have you had a chance to look at my script? It's a cant-miss coming of age teen comedy..."
News directors figured out years ago that weather drives viewers/ratings. It got out of hand here in the East when after successive snowfalls they teased another "winter storm." Problem was it was 45 degrees outside, the storm was rain. No need to break out the snow plows or salt trucks. But you put those two words together "winter" and "storm" and people rush out to buy even more shovels, milk and bread that they don't need. Like lemmings off a cliff.
Just curious if you saw this and what your take on it is. Agree or not, I found it pretty funny (but then this is exactly the type of discussions I find myself in way too frequently).
http://www.cracked.com/video_19352_movies-secretly-told-from-perspective-one-character.html
I predict that there's a 15% likelihood that I'll watch the Letterman finale next week. I used to watch his show religiously (not having any real religion), but a few years ago I realized that not only was I bored sick by his show, I think he was, too.
And now I'm bored sick of the whole "Letterman's Leaving" thing. Although, in his finale, if he finds out he's been in purgatory the whole time, or wakes up from a dream next to Jay Leno in bed, or even kills a chicken that's not really a chicken, it might be worth it to watch.
Also, it'd probably be the last celebrity-guest talk show that I ever watch.
I met Angelyne at party in the big room underneath the Greek Theatre after a concert there. She looked old and ugly. And you're right about the local news, it SUCKS! National network news too and cable isn't that good either. No budget for international news coverage anymore......
@Anonymous wrote: "No budget for international news coverage anymore....."
BBC.com
Last night I watched the "network news." The first twenty minutes was the Tom Brady suspension and the tornadoes in Texas. That used to be called sports and weather.
I do watch BBC news on Public Television and used to watch Al Jazeera international, not America, for overseas coverage. That's about all there is...
I have one request of David Letterman: Can he please fund a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Teri Garr in 2016?
There is the "Only in LAisms"....
ONLY in LA can you get a penis enlargement in more places than you can buy a pack of JuicyFruit; ONLY in LA can you get 20 bucks AND a blow job for a pretty good parking place, ONLY in LA does a BMW dealership hold the same spiritual importance as a Church, Synagogue or Temple, but not a Mosque... yada yada yada
I think referring to Angelyne as an "Actress" is really misusing the word "Actress." What has she ever acted in?
(Hmm. Verification took my word for it that I'm not a robot.)
Big breasts and blonde hair: Kudos, Angelyne - you figured out a way to be original in L.A.
I thought they watered their lawns with Perrier in L.A.
Perhaps if they fined the Kardashians and their ilk a million dollars a day they might notice. As though I needed another reason to loath this bunch of leeches.
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