Monday, December 13, 2010

LA Revisited: The Final Chapter (I think)

Sorry I've been MIA, but I was back in LA in November and since that trip I've been doing some serious thinking about where I go from here in light of a meeting I had with an agent out there...and I've been wildly distracted by a street racer-turned-model that I met on that trip.

So, first things first, I had a very eye-opening meeting with this agent about how famous he could make me (and he actually had the track record to back it up) and what it would take to go that far, from letting ghost writers pretending to be me pump content out all over the internet to drive people back to my blog, to letting some random guys in LA completely take over my identity/look/public persona, from endorsing/promoting high end products/brands I could not care less about and pretending to care about celebrities that I also could not care less about so they'll start promoting me on twitter. And I guess it's true that the grass is alway greener on the other side because by the time we were half an hour into the meeting, all I could think about was how nice my life was when I was a corporate lawyer living my quiet little workaholic existence. All I had to do to was show up, be crazy smart and hard working for hours on end and at the end of the day (no matter how long it was) I could always go home with my integrity intact and my privacy.

Also, of course this guy wanted to know how willing I would be to give more details on the girls I've been with, out the tragic hollywood closet cases I know about now, tell some of the stories I've heard about lilo and other famous people, etc., and I would never do any of the above because I would never betray somebody's trust, which he "totally respected" because everyone in LA tells you what you want to hear. As delighted as I was that he "totally respected" how principled I am, I'm wise enough to know that that conversation would never really be done and the more time and money was invested in me, the more pressure I would be under to compromise my principles. By the time the meeting was over, it was pretty clear to me that I had way too much character and integrity to play the fame game. But still, ever since I started my blog, the idea of it blowing up and me becoming a famous blogger/author has been something that, at least at times, I thought I really wanted...

Suffice it to say, that after this meeting the only thing I was completely sure of was that it was time for some serious drinking and thinking, which was precisely what I was doing when I noticed this absolutely stunning woman standing alone at the bar because she was so gorgeous that nobody dared to approach her. And I wouldn't have either, had it not been for the fourth (or fifth?) patron seeping into my bloodstream combined with the growing awareness that this woman, who wouldn't make direct eye contact with anyone, was sneaking little peaks at me whenever she thought I wasn't looking. For all the times I have acted as a gateway drug in my life, I have never had such an acute desire to be one woman's gateway drug, ever (though I would later learn that somebody beat me to it and this woman was out in high school, but ended up back in the closet after a traumatic episode that involved her being expelled from school because she kissed her girlfriend), so I finally took a deep breath, walked over and asked if I could get her another drink.

The next thing I knew, my offer had been accepted and this woman's ice facade had been replaced with a big giddy smile and warm, twinkling eyes that were just locked on mine as she laughed out loud in response to every stupid joke I made...even crazier? I said something about a car I had seen that day and instead of giving me that blank, I don't care about cars look, she had more to say about cars than I did. That's right, on top of everything, she is a total car freak who spent years street racing mustangs outside San Diego. As if I wasn't taken enough with this woman, she then completely won me over by adamantly refusing to believe that I was a corporate lawyer because I was "way too funny and interesting," prompting me to give her the backstory about being laid off and my roadtrip and basically that I had spent more time stealing a woman who would "f*ing die for me" from her place of employment in LA, hiding behind garbage cans in Seattle and giving lesbian lessons in Paris than actually practicing law over the last six months. "Okay," she said with a huge smile on her face, "that makes much more sense...I just knew you weren't some boring corporate lawyer."

Half an hour later I was buying this woman, who hadn't been with anyone in years, a second drink from the minibar in my room and I had to ask (this is where you can tell that I'm a lesbian and not a straight guy) why me? "Well," she said, "I'm obviously not interested in guys and the only lesbians I meet are models I work with and the only thing they have going for them is that they are hot." Now I held up my finger to stop her for a second, "if you're about to tell me that you don't want me for my body, I would advise you to do so very, very gently." When she was done laughing, she explained, "no, hot is a must, but it's just not remotely enough. I guess I'm here with you because for all the hot lesbians that I could have been with over the years, not one of them was half as smart and funny and sweet and sincere as you." "Okay," I said nodding, "I think I can live with that" (thinking I might have just won the biggest victory ever for east coast girls-turns out all the perfect tans and anorexic tendencies in the world are no match for a little raw intelligence and a firm grip on reality).

A couple days later I got a message from her about how she couldn't stop thinking about me and the things I had said to her that night (I basically read her the riot act about how important it was to be out on this new reality show that she beat out multiple Victoria's Secret models to possibly be on, though she probably won't do it now that she is dealing with coming out) and she asked me if I would support her through the coming out/divorce process (because she is technically married to a closet case we call Tom Cruise Jr.) because she was scared she didn't have the courage to see it through alone. Completely incapable of saying no to this woman, I said yes. And though it has definitely been like a part time job for the last month, I have been richly rewarded with skype shows and surprise visits for 24hr intensive lesbian refresher courses.

So, I think this is going to be my last post (at least for the time being) because (a) between putting my car away for the winter this weekend and being so highly distracted by my street racer-turned-model I will definitely be short on fun stories (...that I'm willing to share) and (b) having been chewing on it for a solid month now, I don't really have any doubt in my mind anymore that whatever fame and fortune I could have maybe leveraged this blog into, wouldn't be worth half of the sacrifices I would have had to make to do that, particularly with regard to my integrity, sanity and privacy.

That said, I really want to thank you all so much for reading and keeping me constantly entertained with your emails and comments, and if you want to be notified when my book is published (probably a couple years down the road when nobody is looking and it won't be too disruptive to my career) click here: 

Be well,
Ketch