Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood means that I’ve grown up in the shadow of fame. It casts it’s darkness over everyone and everything. It tears at you. It gnaws at you. You see it here and there. A celebrity walks into the party and the phrase “did you see who just walked in?” ripples throughout the room. Next comes the gossip. Talking about them as if they knew them. They share the juicy tidbits of their latest fuck ups, brushes with the law, drug habits, and sexual partners. There are even certain bars, clubs, and restaurants in LA where you have to be either famous or at the least, almost famous to walk past the velvet rope. If not, too bad. Enjoy the view from the outside. Because if you live in a city where everyone is famous, you’re expected to be famous as well... and if you’re not... tough shit. It’s unfortunate but it’s true. At least in LA. If you ain’t famous, you ain’t shit. LA is built around the studio system (duh). It’s built on glamour. It’s built on image. It’s built on celebrity. It’s the one place in the country where small towns’ most popular girls all go to see who can become the most popular. Who can make it as a star? Who can be loved by millions of people they’ve never even met? Who fucking cares? It really is sick if you think about it; this desire to be read about it tabloids, and interrupted during dinner by autograph seekers in tube socks and un-tucked Hawaiian shirts. It’s fucked up that people want to be adored by the faceless masses when we all know that the instant our looks fade, the instant the joke gets old, the instant the next big thing comes along, they’re just going to be tossed away, used, exploited and forgotten, never to be seen again... at least until the next season of the surreal life. If fame is really just a popularity contest then I say fuck it, cause nobody likes the popular kids anyway. We’re all just waiting to see them crash and burn. If you’re famous, nobody loves you. They’re just waiting to see how you’re going to fuck it all up. I say fuck fame. I say fuck celebrity. I say fuck every single person who watches E! I say fuck every tabloid on the rack as well as the people photographed inside. I say fuck this whole bullshit, celebrity driven, starfucking culture. I say let’s traipse through the underbrush in black ski masks. I say let’s cut a whole in the chain link fence. I say, let’s douse the Hollywood sign in gasoline. Then, I say, let’s burn that motherfucker down.