CASUAL
LAST, JONATHAN V.
Casual L.A. STORY The other day I pulled up to a stop light in Los Angeles and heard a man in the next car screaming bloody murder into his cell phone. When I looked over, it turned out to be the...
...It was worse than his death scene in Saving Private Ryan...
...Soon the feast moved back to one couple’s apartment, where we settled in for cookies and afterdinner drinks...
...It turns out that in L.A...
...When I looked over, it turned out to be the actor Adam Goldberg...
...Daisy hissed...
...You might want to be a little careful with her,” my friend said helpfully...
...In the City of Angels, people don’t drink Coke or Gatorade, they guzzle “wheat grass” by the liter...
...there’s a lot to gawk at...
...And Jonathan even gets an L.A...
...But everyone else seemed to adore Daisy, a seven-foot boa constrictor...
...My discomfort with Daisy was just starting to give way to fascination when something else caught my eye...
...Yeah...
...The Hollywood director Paul Thomas Anderson has a theory that at some point in his life everyone in L.A...
...Translation: The president of ABC has resigned because a first-year morning situation comedy failed...
...Is that a Desert Eagle...
...The most important periodical in town, the entertainment daily Variety, carries headlines like: Alphabet Prexy Ankles Post After Ayem Frosh Laffer Flops...
...Relax,” he said grinning, “it’s not loaded, and I keep the ammo locked up...
...Not a party that looks like America, maybe, but a tolerably staid and harmless set, you’d think...
...Goldberg was in full throat...
...We ate at one of those trendy Thai restaurants that Zagat’s Guide loves because they’re close enough to the bad section of town for middle-class people to feel adventurous without being in any real danger...
...You’re crazy,” the law student said...
...especially not snakes big enough to snap me like a pretzel and swallow me whole...
...2,000...
...A .357 magnum will go through brick...
...JONATHAN V. LAST...
...At one point, she encircled a dancer’s leg, then went for the banker, eventually winding herself around his neck, the whole time hissing in a vaguely menacing way...
...It’s that something as mundane as exercise consists of bizarre activities like kick-boxing and pilates...
...It’s not just the celebrities, it’s the way every 55-year-old woman’s face has cheeks so taut you could bounce quarters off them...
...she slithered and coiled and was generally sociable...
...Even the non-famous people in Los Angeles live strange lives...
...Generally, I try not to stare at famous people—it’s not polite—but this time, I couldn’t help it...
...I was beginning to think that Anderson was onto something, when the banker reached for his back pocket...
...You find yourself in a house in the Valley with stuff going on that no good can come of...
...He counted out twenty of them and said to my friend, “I’ll give you $2,000 to shoot that into the wall...
...The day after my encounter with Adam Goldberg, I had dinner with a friend and some of her friends—two ballet dancers, a cardiologist, a law student, and an investment banker...
...The banker, spotting a new toy, jumped up and ran over...
...You get a conversation piece out of your wall, we get a kick,” the banker countered...
...The local language is alien...
...I’ve never been a fan of snakes...
...Dinner was fine, but as the meal wound down I noticed that empty wine bottles were accumulating at a fair clip...
...I gave in and gawked...
...Everything seemed copacetic until the snake appeared...
...A lot to wonder over, too...
...What starts as chit-chat over pad thai morphs into a brush with the surreal...
...She’s supposed to shed soon, so she might be cranky...
...At least, I thought darkly, the world has plenty of bankers...
...He pulled out a out a wad of crisp $100 bills...
...The Israelis make it,” the law student answered...
...I turned and saw my law-student friend standing in the hallway with a gun—a cartoonishly large object that looked more like a hand-held howitzer than a pistol...
...Cranky or not, for a cold-blooded killing machine Daisy had a lot of personality...
...asked the cardiologist admiringly...
...winds up in a bad situation...
...story...
Vol. 4 • January 1999 • No. 18
