Hollywood 90028

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

An invite? To a fashion show with onetime Project Runway winner Jeffrey Sebelia? The stupid douche with the grotesque neck tats to detract from the fact that he has no chin? In Hollywood? With Hollywooders? On a Saturday night, and with gift bags? Gift bags for little old me?

Jeffrey Sebelia

Yes, thank you, I am feeling the need for some free shit right now, and I will be there at the stroke of 9:30, I will leave my house and find parking and everything, I will put on tight jeans and a bright blue button-up shirt and enough makeup that my son will say, “Ew, why are you wearing so much makeup?” and I will stand in a mass of people who aren’t media in the spot around the rope that is reserved for media and I will softly say, “I’m media!” every time the rope-tenders ask if there is any media present until the 6’4” man who just rather dickishly walked up and stood directly in front of me moves and the rope-tenders can hear my little voice, and then my lover and I will get to go into the Kress and skulk around the edges and be terrified.

TERRIFIED, I say!

Really, it was terrifying.

Firstly, the Kress’s clear-tented rooftop bar is well-designed and -appointed, with fuchsia lights and views north past Hollywood Boulevard to the hills and east directly into the back of a looming billboard and south to nondescript shittier parts of Hollywood. The northeast view, comprising both the hills and the billboard, is the one to moon over; we laughed meanly over all the idiots who no doubt thought the back of the billboard—right there! you could touch it not really!—was an eyesore, blocking the view, because they have no taste or art to them, when clearly we, in our mom outfit and whatever the hell he wore that day while gardening or something, are connoisseurs of style and taste and thusly knew it was exactly the normally unseen back that held all the mystery and promise. Also, the Kress has tons of comfy and attractive seating, but it was all set up for bottle service at $425 a bottle, and so we were afraid to sit.

No one bought bottle service for a good long while, but once they did, the cocktailers delivered them with lighted sparklers, sashaying through the space while throwing off embers, so that everyone would know that someone present still had a job in drug dealing or finance, or had a parent or grandparent who once had a job in drug dealing or finance. Good job, $850-spenders! We are very happy for you! (And we were.)

There is a hooker gauntlet just to our left as we hide by the windows looking north and looking east. They look to be about 19, with asses that are tight and high and hooker shoes that are tight and high, and a lovely Paris lookalike girl is wearing tiny white shorts, and Jesus, she looks fantastic. My lover and I play the game of “If we had never met, who would you want to have sex with here?” and it is not a test, truly, he may answer for real, because I am perfectly confident that he is pretty damn grateful he is with me and doesn’t have to talk to any of the dimshells around us, and he chooses a pretty Korean girl and I choose a dude with a hat. When we get home, we are going to play Scrabble and read science fiction aloud to each other and do some Latin declensions and perhaps invent something very important and eat a pie and listen to NPR and anything else we can think of to scrub these people from our brains, because we are terrible snobs and better than they because they are attractive and hang out in Hollywood and ergo are stupid and lame, which is when we spot a guy from VH1’s Tool Academy, which pretty much just exactly proves my point and the fact that I am able to recognize him because I have possibly watched the show in no way reflects on me, obviously. Fun!

Shawn “Loud Mouth Tool” Southern

Eventually, the fashion show starts, we think; we can’t tell because there is no runway, and no announcement, just all of a sudden people are crowding up onto a three-foot-by-three-foot go-go-dancer box, and they are wearing clothes, so I assume that’s that. Then we see Jeffrey Sebelia and he now has an awful ol’ prospector mustache hanging down his lip, as if he were going to offer us five-cent rides, but at least it camouflages his awful neck tattoos and lack of chin. And then the guy from Tool Academy is standing next to me, and so I say my son who is in high school thinks he is awesome (I am usually nice, in person), and he offers to write a message to him in my notebook, and it is surprisingly sweet. “Keep watching buddy,” it says. “I’m sure all the girls love you. You’ll be the star of your high school.” It is signed “Loud Mouth Tool.”

There is one more Tool Academy sitting in my DVR queue, and I suggest to my son the next day that he watch it for me so I don’t have to. It is the reunion special, and there is a bit with Loud Mouth Tool, who went through two girlfriends on the show already and now that some few months have passed and it is reunion time seems to have hooked up with, moved in with, impregnated, and left a third girl, who appears on the special to tell us she wants nothing to do with him, and would he kindly sign over all his parental rights? And the audience boos her, because a father is so very important to a child.

I never got a gift bag, because apparently they were in the roped-off area, and we didn’t know we could go in there, since people were totally wearing full-length fur coats with no shirts and getting bottle service, and we were pretty sure they were better or richer than us and we didn’t want to talk to them anyway. But Loud Mouth Tool was really surprisingly sweet. Ladies? I’m pretty sure he’s single!

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