That whole art/life - which imitates which - dilemma

In the film 'Swingers' (which, incidentally, every one of Scott’s aspiring actor/writer/director friends seem to worship as the pinnacle of filmmaking prowess), Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau are shown, dressed in smart suits, drinking cocktails and picking up women at hip Hollywood nightspot, the Dresden. I like the Dresden. It’s a beautiful, unpretentious, bar with friendly doormen and delicious drinks. It’s small and almost neighbourhoody, a rare find in big, bad, anonymous Hollywood. Plus I can walk there from my house, which is always a bonus.

A few weeks ago, Scott and his good friend Richard walked down to the Dresden for a few quiet drinks. After taking only a few sips, the boys were disturbed by two men making a BIG SHOW of entering the unpretentious and non-showy bar. Dressed in smart black suits and sauntering Bar-ward were none other than Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. They proceeded to take their drinks back to the exact same table that they had sat at in ‘Swingers’, and to have a nice drunken evening.

The questions is, is this action totally cool, or the saddest thing in the world, a symbol of all that is wrong with the state of celebrity in the modern world?


On the side of cool is the fact that it’s nice that these two men, although now proper Hollywood stars, are still hanging out at the same bar they (presumably – this is based on the assumption that they wrote Swingers based on real-life experiences) patronized when they are nobodies. How cool that they’re not letting fame change them.


On the side of depressing, there’s the fact that the actions of the two men could be seen as shouting:‘Hi everyone. We’re moviestars. Look at us. Did you see the film Swingers? Just in case you don’t remember it, we’re going to spend our Saturday night reenacting one of our favourite scenes. Then everyone will look at us! We’ll get to spend a whole evening pretending that our real lives are as cool and funny as those of the guys we played in a movie”.

One final anecdote before you make your decision. A week after the above events, my friend Daphne bumped into none other than Vince Vaughn at a gig that her friend’s band were headlining. Vince has no connection to this band, he’d just turned up to see the show. Daphne is watching the show from backstage. Halfway through the set, Vince wanders backstage, and demands that the owner/manager of the venue get the band to play a cover of some specific song, so that he, Vince Vaughn (a moviestar, in case the owner/manager hadn’t realised) can get on stage and sing with them.

The band are in no way excited about this plan. Ok, so having a moviestar sing with them might get them some publicity, but this is there first gig at a large venue, and they want people to remember their songs, not the fact that some movie star sang with them. There’s also the fact that none of them know if VV can actually, you know, sing well. Plus, they’re more than a little miffed about the fact that someone they’ve never met is ordering them around just because he’s famous.

Fame wins out, and the moviestar sings. After the show, VV comes up to Miss Daphne, a big smile on his face. ‘Next time you’re in a movie’, she says, ‘I’m going to come on set and demand that I stand in front of the camera and read a page of your lines. Because that’s what you’ve just done to the band’.

I love Daphne. There may be a lack of smart, opinionated girls in this town, but the few there are, they’re among the best in the world.

First Act

Since moving to Hollywood, I have been full of an amused-yet-horrifed pride that I am part of just 10% of the Hollwood population who is not either an actor or a wannabe actor. This may seem like a horrific stereotype, but I have met, literally, two people who have not at some point acted. I guess it makes seense, what with entertainment being the main industry. After all, if one lived in a fishing village, a large proportion of the population might reasonably be expected to make their living fishing.

I have just spent the morning as a paid actress.

Yes, this seems improbable to me to. I gave up drama at age 14, suffering from stage fright. I am not blonde and 17 and pretty (the norm for actresses here). I have no desire to act. What the hell is happening to me? Am I becoming Californicated?

Here's how it happened. Yesterday morning, Scott phoned me from work, told me that they needed an English actor/actress to do a voiceover for some cell-phone network that someone in his office building had the advertising account for. He said I should send in an audition tape, just for a laugh, if I had any spare time.

They send me a script, and question me on the phone about my acting experience. Which is obviously non-existent. I go downstairs to Jessie's and we spend all of 5 minutes recording me reading the script.

I was therefore somewhat surprised to discover they loved my "disinterested manner" (sadly, i thought I'd been doing upbeat) and that I had the job. So today I spent 45 minutes in a recording studio and was rewarded with $500. (To add some context to this, my rent is $600 a month.) That sounds like a lot of money for very little work, but I see it as being fair compensation for the hours of fear-induced nausea I endured this morning.

In the end, I actually really enjoyed the experience. Putting on a sexy voice and trying out different tones and inflections as directed. Sadly, they haven't actually paid me yet, as they didn't know how to cope with the fact that I wasn't SAG (screen actors guild) and didn't have an agent. They actually thought I was a real London girl come to LA to be a movie star. I'm not sure whether this is what I want people to think of me? Have I lost my integrity? Did I ever have any?

I doubt I shall be repeating this experience. When it comes down to it, I've always really hated the sound of my own voice, and even spending a morning being referred to as "the talent" (and what girl doesn't love that?) can't make up for that.

The Cost of Living

Although I am deeply saddened by the passing of Butch the cat, the situation was almost so much worse. We almost had two of our four cats die this week. Sorry for writing two cat posts in one day, I guess I am a crazy cat lady at heart.

We returned home form a weekend away to find that Squeaker the cat had developed a golf-ball sized lump on her rump. Various theories were raised as to how this had happened, the most popular being a stealth attack by mean-cat Loki that had gotten infected. This theory was vehemently denied by Elizabeth, owner of Loki, who, sweet as she is, seems incapable of realizing what a bastard her cat is.

Squeaker is clearly in a bad way. She’s hot to touch, lethargic, unhappy. So, we do what has to be done; Jessie and I trek over to Burbank to take her to the cat hospital.

They are very nice folks in Bastet cat hospital. They stroke Squeaks gently and shave the affected area. After a brief examination they pronounce that it is indeed an abscess caused by a fight. They leave Jess and I to fill in forms while they calculate how much the treatment will cost. Due to my not having a driving license to transcribe some number from, Jess fills her details in on one half of the form. We are now, officially, life-partners (and have since received welcome cards through the post from Bastet cat hospital addressing us as such).

The vet returns, and tells us that the required surgery will cost $800, and that there’s a large chance that Squeaker will die of the infection if we leave her untreated. After a brief discussion, Jess and I realize we have no choice but to refuse the surgery, and instead spend $50 on some antibiotics.

We sound callous, I know, but we literally do not have $800 to spare. I know this makes us irresponsible cat-owners but bear in mind these are cats we took in when their old owner died and his ‘friends’, after promising to look after them, abandoned them in our garden. And, yes, we should probably get pet-insurance to cover these eventualities, and one day if I actually earn some money, I will do just that. Bear in mind I only managed to finally afford health insurance for me a month ago.

So, Jess and I decide to take the DIY life in the ghetto option. We roll up the rug in my living room, pull out some clean towels and sterilize a scalpel with hydrogen peroxide. We attach a desk lamp to the table and point in down. Our operating room is ready.

We realize we could do with some more help with holding the patient, seeing as how we have no anesthetic at our disposal. A quick scout around the compound make it clear that, while sympathetic, everyone else is too grossed out to be any use to us (this includes Scott).


We wrap Squeaks up tightly in towels to constrict her movement. Her wailing is upsetting, but we have no choice. Jess makes the incision, and we begin to squeeze the puss out.

It is a stinky job, it has to be said, yellow pus with green and black touches. It’s pretty hard to make sure it’s all out whilst trying to also hold down a cat and keep everything sterile.

10 minutes and we’re done. Squeaker rushes away and we wash our hands more thoroughly than ever in our lives. 5 minutes later Squeaker returns and rubs up against me purring. She seems like herself again.

A month on and she’s fine. I maintain that our 10 minute surgery was actually a lot less invasive and distressing for her than being knocked out for hours and staying overnight in a strange vet’s would’ve been. Jess and I are quite annoyingly proud of our achievement, and get rather annoyed when we tell people about the death of Butch, and they presume that it must’ve been the cat we operated on that died. It’s nice that people have so much faith in us.

There are two things that I think are very LA about this story. Firstly, the fact that someone was going to charge us $800 for something we could do ourselves, with absolutely no training, within ten minutes. Secondly, that once we’d finished the surgery and sat back for a celebratory drink, Jess and I turned to each other to share identical thoughts – why on earth didn’t we film that?

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

I haven't posted for months. Likelihood is no-one reads this anymore. However, I'm having one of those periods where I feel that I should be noting down life's little adventures so that I can laugh at them when I'm old and feeble. Therefore I am making a pledge to make at least three entries a week in here. I've deliberalty made this statement public so that it will be humiliating if I renege on it.

Let's see how long this new-found enthusiasm lasts...

In Memoriam

I have sad news to report; Butch the cat is no longer with us.

Although an extensive search of the neighbourhood has revealed no body, the fact that Butch has never been known to miss a meal in his life means that we are assuming that he is no longer in the land of the living.


Oh Butch, most comedy of all the Serrano cats. You who were given exactly the same amount of food as the others, yet were somehow about three times their size. I will miss the way you waddled around hesitantly and, blind in one eye, bumped into almost everything.

I will remember how you shunned sofas and cushions and all other soft things. You, dear Butch, were a true man cat who sat solely on hard things. Yours was a world of pizza boxes and glass tables and edges of desks and, your favourite place of all, the toolbox. Was it cruel of me to laugh when you inevitably fell asleep and tumbled off the edge of whatever hard thing you had sat on. Why did you never sit in the centre of the desk? This I can never ask you.

Although he was cross at the time, Scott now looks lovingly at the huge scratches you made on the scooter seat. Being a mancat, you loved leather (and even fake leather). When we ride the scooter we will think of you.

It’s Fluffer who misses you most though. It was beyond sweet how the two of you used to sleep cuddled up together on the plastic chairs (rock hard of course) outside the house. We may have teased you for being gay lovers (we're clearly not as liberal as we claim to be), but deep down we respected how devoted you were to each other. It’s been two weeks since you left, and every night Fluffer is still howling desperately up at the stars for at least a couple of hours. He’s the only cat sleeping outside now. We would let him sleep upstairs with us but, you know, he has that spraying problem.

Oh Butch, we will miss you. If you were to come back, I’d even forgive you for the time you shat on the rug and then spent 10 minutes sitting on your own poo while I desperately searched the apartment for the source of the stink. It was a clever move on your part to try and hide the evidence of your wrong-doing although, you know what Butch, it was probably you that suffered most by having to sit on your own shit.

I know that Lloyd, your original (and also deceased) owner, would have liked you to have been buried in the bizarre pet cemetery he constructed at the bottom of our garden (a collection of terracotta plant pots full of cement and bones and each topped – wedding cake-like - with a metallic representation of the deceased, an even mix of cats and what look bizarrely like dragons). I’m sorry that we can’t give you this honour, dearest Butch, but know that you will stay in our hearts and minds forever.

Josh, who at five is Serrano’s youngest resident, thinks that dead cats become stars that he can gaze up at in the night sky. I like that image a lot Butch. I think you would’ve too.