Relocation

A species that disproves evolution: The Hollywood Douche Bag

Ok, I'll admit it. When I moved to Hollywood a year ago after graduating college. I had no fucking clue what I was doing. None. No job. No friends. No clue. 

I figured if I wanted to do entertainment a good starting point would be placing myself smack dab in center of the shit storm and ride it out from there. I've always been the type of person that tosses the directions right out the window and starts in on the project at hand. Once I've failed miserably several times I'll eventually go back and look for the directions I tossed out the window cursing wildly but the point is that I like just figuring stuff out myself. 

When asked what I planned to do once I arrived in Los Angeles my answer was simple, confident and unflinching. 

"Dominate" I would say stone-faced. 

What I planned or am still planning to dominate is your guess as good as mine but it sounds pretty good doesn't it?

My swift decision on the studio I've lived in a few blocks from Hollywood Blvd. and Vine for the past year was a risky move. I paid for April when I wouldn't move in until mid-May but I had found my residence, my starting point in the eye of the storm. 

To fully grasp the hub of insanity and safe-haven for Tom foolery I moved into would take more time than I'm willing to give right now because I'm moving up out of this bitch. 

That's right. The Hollywood Holla will no longer be broadcasting live from Hollywood but really what difference does it make. Hollywood is a world renown symbol of ridiculousness, it's not just a portion of Los Angeles. Moving east of Western Ave. doesn't change the content of my blog or my campaign for domination. 

I'm moving to Silverlake in hopes of finding a job, finding inspiration and less annoying local wildlife (i.e. see picture above). Moving is almost as big a pain in the ass as getting locked up in the federal pen with a roommate that is a 7 foot black dude named  Bubba. 

I've had the spirit of a Spartan warrior in packing up and relocating. It might be that my new place is in a prime location to enjoy the full benefits of Silverlake's nightlife or it could be that at night I get drunk and have OK Corral style shoot outs with a can of Raid against the roaches in my kitchen.  

Last night a big, hairy, beast of a roach actually said to me...

"I'm your huckleberry."

I like to move around anyway. I'm a rather restless person. One time in elementary school while waiting to see the nurse after cutting my knee on the playground I busted my chin open trying to do a headstand on the chair I was supposed to be sitting in to impress Ashely Farney. 

Silverlake is a wonderful community of artists I'm told so obviously some ornery, goofy, smart ass like me needs to go piss on their pretentious parade. It may not be pretentious though, in fact I'm pretty confident my new hood will not be lame in anyway. It won't be lame at least until I find another place that I think is interesting. 

That's how it goes for a Road Man for The Lords of Karma. No place is much different than the last on the road. I thought Indiana was the most atrocious cesspool of despair than anywhere else on the planet until I went somewhere else. It's so easy to find focus on the negative aspect of where you are. Like the fact that "possum beating" is a legitimate activity where I grew up or that selling your soul won't even get you a parking space in Hollywood. 

It's just another chapter. Stories have been banked. Wisdom has been gained. Girls have not come as easy as college. 

Vos ago , Vos perceptum

I look forward to new territory to explore like you all should look forward to future tales of epic nature, from me, right here...Cheers!

With Love & Respect, 

Mike James 

My Top Five Awkward Moments Caused by Bluetooth Headsets

I'm throwing that bluetooth off a cliff with it still in your ear. 

Today I had a really awkward moment with a guy outside of a Kinko's because he was on his bluetooth headset when I didn't realize it. Then I thought "holy shit, this is like the fifth most awkward moment I've experienced because of bluetooth head sets". Then I realized "holy shit, why haven't I shared any of my awkward bluetooth stories?" 

So here is my count down of top five most awkward experiences I have ever had because of bluetooth head sets. 

5.) "The very emotional man out side the door of the Kinko's on Vine."

So I went to the Kinko's on Vine today to make some moves aka print shit out. When I was done I was walking out the door and it was half cracked open. Me being lanky, skinny and lazy I just walked out through the cracked open door instead of exerting just a little bit more effort by opening it. As I was walking out a small, bald and middle aged man was walking in. 

Nobody will do anything for me now! 

He shouted in my face before abruptly turning around and walking a few feet back. 

Wow, dude chill out. 

I should have just walked away because my initial reaction was "dickhead" but his shoulders drooped and he paced like he was not getting a toy he wanted. It made me feel bad. 

This anxiety has built up to a breaking point and I just can't take it anymore. 

The guy gets in his car and slams the door shut. 

I thought to myself. 

What the fuck did I just do to this guy? Was I just the straw that broke the camel's back on this psycho killer who just needed to make a color copy? 

I ran up to the car hood and yelled at him. 

Yo, I'm sorry dude. I didn't see you walking in. Don't freak. Life is beautiful. 

He slowly sticks his head out his window with the most confused look on his face I have ever seen on a human being. 

Hold on one second....

He slowly stuck his head out the window revealing a bluetooth head set in his ear. 

What the hell are you talking about?

I quickly turned around and walked to my car astonished at the fact that this was now becoming a regular experience. 

4.) "Guy at the bar that just won't give me the sports page"

A few months ago I was eating lunch at The Shack in Santa Monica. I was enjoying some blue ribbon awarded PBR beers and a burger while reading the paper. I finished the front section and saw the guy sitting down from me at the bar had the rest of the paper. I leaned over and asked for the sports page. 

You've got to be shitting me?

No, I really would like the sports page if you are finished with it. I'll even trade you the front section.

 I said, quite taken back. 

This is unbelievable!

The guy slams his fist down on the bar. I quickly reach for my beer fearful of the tremors knocking it over. His head down staring at the paper the entire time. 

Well I have been sitting here reading this for like 15 minutes you had to have seen me asking for the sports page coming. 

Ha! I'm not giving you anything! Don't come calling to me!

I really don't think I'm asking for much man! It's not like I'm asking for a fucking kidney I just want the sports page!

I had been much louder than I had before and this time and I did not go unnoticed. The bartender started bursting into laughter as he had witnessed it all play out in front of him. The guy with the sports page turned and looked at me extremely pissed. 

Can you hold on a sec?

The dude hits a button on his phone sitting in front of him. 

My cousin just found out his girlfriend is pregnant and I would like to talk to him please. 

Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh. Yeaaaaaaa sorry about that. Congratulations. 

I turn to bar keep with tears in his eyes. 

Check please. 

3.) "The Cutie at the Quick-Stop"

End of last summer I was at the Quick-Stop by my apartment purchasing some jalapeno pork rinds. There was a very cute blonde girl standing beside me in line at the check out counter. She might have been saying something before the first thing I heard but I was to transfixed on her figure. 

Oh I want to be bad but I shouldn't! I really want to. 

It was reflex that made me say what I said next before even allowing the full situation to process in my cerebral cortex. 

Baby you should there is nothing wrong with you being bad. 

She leans forward and picks up a Snickers and looks at me like she just had the contents of a port-a-pot sprayed in her face she was so revolted. I then noticed the bluetooth in her ear. 

I put the pork rinds down and walked out the door. 

2.) "The car accident"

Back in December I was driving home from work on Melrose. I had just been sent a bluetooth from my parents because it was one of the many retarded California state law and I refused to buy one. 

It had been a really long day and traffic was awful as usual. To distract me from the traffic I decided to call all my friends and talk to them on my new gadget like a complete douche bag does when he gets a new bluetooth headset I suppose. The law was passed to make driving safer but it didn't exactly work like that for me. I thought "cool now I can text message WHILE I'm talking to someone on the phone this thing is dope after all."

So while I was talking to one of my buddies back home I was also texting another buddy the exact thing I was telling the person in my ear when the ear piece fell out of my ear onto the floor. 

I got on my brakes and bent over to pick it up off the floor when I looked up I was headed right into the car in front of me. It was a crushing blow. It felt like a sledge hammer hit or maybe  because I was also at the time trying to find the song "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel on my iPod too. 

I screamed my favorite four letter word and got out to see that surprisingly there wasn't much damage to my car and very little to the other guys car. I asked if he was hurt and he said he was fine. We looked at each others cars and I was relieved that it wasn't that bad. 

Let's pull up over there and exchange info. 

I said holding in the embarrassment I felt inside. 

Yea of course. Oh and is that your bluetooth?

This eagle eye that I just nailed on spots my bluetooth on the street right next to the driver's side door. It was in my lap when I looked down and fell out after I hit the guy. 

Nope. Not mine. 

Really? You sure.

Yes I am sure!

I clear my throat. 

 

Can we do this info exchange thing? We are holding up traffic. 

I left it in the middle of the street and got back into my car. 

1.) "The Beginning"

The first week of my job last summer everyone was talking about the bluetooth law that had just been passed. I was just sitting there not really participating in the conversation that a couple girls were having when I suddenly turned around in my chair and said...

What does Gingivitis, the leading cause of tooth decay have to do with driving?

Silence. 

This was the first of what would become a series of extremely awkward moments I would create in the office. But I'll save those for a later date. 

With Love & Respect, 

Mike

 

Working in and out and all about.

Later disgraced monkey olympian Charles "Buzz Saw" Kinsington returned his gold medal after allegations of steroid use. 

I have always been what you could call a "big dude". I'm not entirely sure why I needed to put that in quotation marks but if I was talking to you I most likely would of put it in quotations marks, winked then chuckled to myself for a little while. 

What I mean is I'm 6'5 and have always played sports my whole life. I even had a brief but dignified NCAA basketball career. Growing up where I did in Indiana and being as tall as I am, it was inevitable that I would play basketball. If I would of choose ballet or scuba diving then it would of caused a tear in the time-space continuem.

Through all these years of sports there is one thing I have dested, that's lifting weights. I have done it though for years until the end of my basketball career where it was abruptly stopped. I never looked back. I walked away from those rubber floors and snot stained mirrors. 

I now live in Southern California though and they are all on this crazy health kick. Every things got to be organic. Animals have to be treated nice and shit. Don't look the Scientologists directly in their eyes and worst of all you have to work out on the regular!

I wouldn't say I'm scrawny but I'm definitely not the primest cut of man meat on the market. I'm pretty sure if I was on a plane that crashed in the Andes Mountains that I wouldn't have to worry about being eaten by the other survivors because I would make for better shelter than food.  

In my desperate attempt to attract the ladies with something other than wittiness or ridiculous curly hair, I returned to the gym to hit the weights. Not my usual 70 year old lady in physical therapy work out involving 20 minutes on the elliptical, some crunches, a whole bunch of stretching and a smoothie. 

My old lady work out was going just fine for me until I got it in my head that I needed to beef up my cake. From past experiences I knew that free weights were completely out of the question. I had enough trouble just getting on and off the elliptical sometimes. When your body reacts to physicality with the reaction you get when you buzz the side of an Operation game, you just try not to look awkward in public.  So all my weights would be tied to something I couldn't drop. 

I didn't really do any specific routine. I knew no matter what I was going to hurt the next day so I just tried to avoid anything overly strenuous. There was a guy who asked me if I was doing back or arms. I said neither and took it as a sign to go do some crunches and leave. It got me thinking though about how people love to throw it in your face that they work out. 

These people are always just getting back from the gym or getting ready to go to the gym. I guess working out is such a pain in the ass people feel broadcasting it to everyone and their cousin justifies it because it sure as hell doesn't make their ass any smaller. 

There are certain aspects of exercising at the gym that are negative and will always be negative. It will take great advances in technology to correct two problems that can be found in every men's locker room in gyms across the nation: nasty-ass/feet smell and old dudes walking around naked. 

Every locker room everywhere (I am speaking of club gyms of course. I hope to God there aren't any old naked dudes walking around high school locker rooms. All though we all know there are....we know there are.) has that nasty ass/foot smell and naked old dudes just strolling about. 

It sucks. This whole process sucks. I'm supposed to take an hour or more depending on traffic to get up when I could be sitting or laying down. Put work out clothes on when I could just be in my underwear. Walk to my car, drive to the gym, walk all the way up to the gym, swipe my card, go into a locker room that smells like nasty ass/feet, dodge naked old dude walking around, put my stuff in a locker, find a machine in between someone reading US Weekly while dictating notes to her assistant and some guy who has watched to many episodes of The Contender because he is wearing three sweat shirts and four towels wrapped around his head, listen to Pat Benatar's Greatest Hits, stretch, get a smoothie and go home. 

That work out works for me. This lifting weights stuff is for dudes that don't have anything better to talk about that their workout schedule. 

Editor's Note: The editors would like to remind our readers that The Holla is for entertainment purposes only. In no way shape or form does Mike intend to piss off any actual "big dudes". 

So with summer right at my door step and a slight pudge above my waist band, I'll boldly peel off my shirt in the midst of stud muffins. I will not do any bench presses this summer but I will sit on a bench and think about pressing things. I'll start playing more basketball but you can bet your sweet ass if I'm running for any other purpose then something is chasing me. 

I doubt the "I'm young and invincible, so screw you" diet plan will benefit me in the long run but the best part is that doesn't matter because I'm young and invincible, so screw you. 

 

The Sweet Embrace of Unemployment

How will I tell my wife I lost my 401k?

According to an April 17th news release from the employment development department of California, the state reached 11.2 percentage of the populace unemployed. 62,100 nonfarm jobs had also been eliminated and the nation's unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent. There are a mind-numbing 2,080,000 people unemployed in the state of California. Now before I go dropping more stats like it's hot I know you have a question. 

How is any of this funny in anyway?

Well, it isn't really. There are clearly a lot of people without jobs or without the financial ability to support themselves until the economy improves or the job market increases. There are signs of this everywhere. 

At the coffee and donut shop around the corner from my apartment there was a table and a few chairs where some old dudes would sit watching traffic all day. They recently replaced the table and chairs with a set of bleachers. 

I saw where a cocker spaniel living in the back yard of a house in Brentwood posted a listing on craigslist.com looking for a roommate and wasn't even asking to see their papers. 

The bum's signs are changing from; War Vet: need money for food to Day Trader: will settle for warm regards. 

Today is my first day on the skids. No work today. I'm a journalist though and like our opinions our hours are irregular. Where one door closes another one opens. So today I go out into the world to investigate into how those other 2 million people are doing. See what they are up to. I've been trapped in an office or the 405 for the last 10 months. Now I need to rediscover the joy of a bike ride and a slurpee at at 2 in the afternoon. Or maybe I will fly a kite and splash around in a shallow creak. 

Is that what everyone has been doing? Oh I've been missing out on so much! Wait, man how could I forget? There is this whole global pandemic thingy going on. Great. Nobody has a job so now we don't have any money and even if we did have any money we are too scared to go outside because of the pig flu. 

So let's all just stay inside, watch Glen Beck and work on our seven signs of the apocalypse 1/8th to scale models complete with exploding baking soda & vinegar volcanoes. 

I'm not sure what everybody that is unemployed is doing right now to be honest. I think I'll go to Malibu Beach. You think it would be safe in Malibu but you would be surprised how many pigs that are there. OH!!! Take that for your probable immunity to the swine flu Malibu, California. 

A new day lies ahead full of increased credit card debt, alcoholic drinks before noon and my 5th and final attempt to learn how to play Sudoku. The future is in my hands as soon as I put some pants on to go outside and brave this new world. 

Opportunity is around every corner in a city like Los Angeles. There are people looking for opportunity and those looking to give it, there also probably a couple more people looking for opportunity at that corner. I guess it's more like a four way stop. The person looking to give opportunity of course waves on that first person to go but that person just keeps sitting there then finally waves back. The other person at the stop is like "What the fuck? Won't somebody just go?" Then the person giving the opportunity finally just goes and causes a wreck between two people looking for opportunity that just wouldn't make up their minds. 

Yup opportunity is out there for me, just gotta go take it. After I take a nap. Talking about all this opportunity has exhausted me.