Celebrities

The funny thing about ANY fame, is that it is fairly easier in life these days to obtain it. You have the right body and allure and something of a talent (makeup tips, political talk,...) you will have an audience and people will find a way to meet you.

When I first got to Hollywood, fame was very elusive to most. No social media that had mass reach. We had a sniff of things like YouTube, but wasn't fast enough yet to make your own channel. They were mostly made up of clips like "America's Funniest Home Videos" Jackasses doing jackassery stuff.

My roommate at the time (who also made the treacherous drive out west with me from Ohio) scored an intern gig with Andy Dick. At the time, Andy was pretty famous. Mostly famous for being infamous. As the beginning of when bad behavior built celebrity. Paris Hilton was at the top of that list. A sex tape made her famous. She can protest all she wants, it is how ridiculous our business is.

Any way, I've hung out with Andy a few times, just to hang out. He was pleasant to me, but somehow was also removed. His nasally voice tapped into a great character he'd play in many shows and movies. Very recognizable as Paul Lynde-lite. I liked Andy. He didn't do stupid things in front of me. Never saw the drug use he's been accused of. Lived in West Hollywood.

My roommate also had some odd tasks. He would schedule his concert shows. Andy had a "band" that played shows. Essentially it was just Andy spewing out all the hate for having a last name like "Dick." My roommate would coordinate that. It grew into an odd family. There was this one time, my roommates asked me to come with him to serve a restraining order against a fan. Apparently Andy had a lot of fucked up stalker fans who thought he owed them something. I was really excited because I didn't know what it meant, but was told sometimes these things turned south fast.

So we got the address and hopped into his busted 90's Toyota Camry and sped off to Hollywood proper. On the way, we started going over what we were going to say "you've been served, bitch!" was very popular. But clearly that would create the tension we didn't want.

The place was a two tiered dilapidated apartment complex. Powdered blue with (what use to be white trim). An arbor on the side overgrew with ivy and what looked to be an entrance to a driveway at one point. The support beams around were rotting in place and when we pulled up, I thought it looked like the building was sagging on one side...
...it looked grand at one point, but time and poor maintenance destroyed it. This was a place that had squatter types.
I had brought a bat (for some reason, I thought this was gonna be like "Hunter"). With court order in hand, my roommate and I beelined towards the front door, bat in my hand (I have no idea what I was thinking)
We exchanged looks. And he knocked. Nothing.
He knocked again. And I shot him a smirk. Is this a bad address?
Suddenly, an odd stomping noise. Like we'd waken someone up. The door opened the length of the chain, and the man behind the door was who we never expected:

It was a large burly Black man. He wiped the sleep from his eyes. And my roommate asked him if he was the name of the man on the order. He acknowledge he was. My roommate shoved the order towards him. Instinctively he took it. He seemed reserved, as if he was served plenty of times. He eyed my bat, and checked a snort. What the Hell was I planning on doing, he probably thought. And we darted towards the Camry. My roommate and I just started going through all the scenarios that could happen. Or we heard happen when serving people with restraining orders. And we laughed our balls off. This was real life. Not some ridiculous movie scenario.

When we got back to Andy's house, he didn't even ask about it.