by Wendy Ung

 

Picture this: A group of photogs or what I like to call them, the stalkerazzis, hang out on the streets and public places and wait for the big celebrity to walk out of the doors of the Carlyle Hotel in New York or the Ivy in LA or Pure in Las Vegas.

I always wondered how these stalkerazzi manage to find celebrities. There must be some sort of humongous rat on the other line of these stalkerazzi’s phone, telling them where the celebrities are staying, dining, or partying. Can you imagine that? A big, ugly rat answers the phone and squeaks out the location of these celebrities, probably paid in cheese for its hard work. These paparazzi can be snipers that sit on top of roofs, shooting an unwanted person, but instead of sniper rifles, they shoot with their cameras.

 I’ve seen them chase after these celebrities like they are big money signs, running away from the paparazzi with their tiny legs. Chasing them seems to be the only way to get these pictures of them walking down the streets, picking their noses, making out with other celebrities, groping their pets, or putting their child on their laps. How dangerous would it be for the person driving in front of them or the bystanders on the streets if they ever veered into them?

I hardly consider myself to be a celebrity. Thinking of that word makes me cringe. I’m just a small actor, trying to perfect his craft, to encourage people to follow their bliss, and to send a message of the complicity of human nature.

~~~

I walk out of the Ritz Carlton in New York with my friend, Ben. I had finished a comedy routine at the hotel, speaking about the idea of celebrities and the paparazzi. Here I am, walking down the street with my friend and minding my own business when two paparazzi run up to us. They had their camera already placed in front of their faces. Normally they don’t pay attention to me and I don’t pay attention to them. I thought it was some sort of unspoken agreement. Imagine my surprise when they start to follow my friend and me down the street.

When the first flash occurs, the first thought that goes through my head is that they were not waiting for me. Too anxious to get a real celebrity so they decide to take pictures of some poor chum that happens to walk by and happens to be a working actor. Ben and I keep walking and ignore the flashes. I politely ask them to not take my pictures, but they keep following me. As I put my hand up to cover my face, they start inching towards me to get better headshots. I realize I had a video camera stashed in my bag for situations like this. I reach into my bag, turn on the camera, and absurdity ensues:

“What’s your name?” I call out to one of the two paparazzi, a gray haired man with a slight stubble, following me.

“Asshole,” he answers with his camera permanently stuck to his face.

 “And yours?” I ask the second paparazzi, a young black haired Italian, directing my video towards him.

“Asshole Jr.,” the first paparazzi said. Let’s just call him ‘Asshole Sr.’ in place of his name.

My camera shakes, as I am a little stunned by his answer. “I asked him sir,” I say.

“Might as well be Curly and Moe,” Ben jokes. I ignore Ben and glance at Asshole Sr.

“Well, I answered for him,” he retorts back.

I can hear the second paparazzi; let’s call him A.J., chuckles at his colleague. “What’s your name?” I ask again, not expecting a straight answer. My camera looks between the two paparazzi who refuse to answer that question. “What? You don’t talk to celebrities?” I ask, sarcastically.

There is no way they don’t talk to celebrities. I remember I had flipped through the TV channels and came across one of those gossip/tabloid shows. These paparazzi were following George Clooney and asking a bunch of personal questions. Do I get that? No. They’re relentless in keeping quiet. Isn’t that my role? I keep quiet and they ask me stupid questions like ’Dating anybody? ‘ or ‘How’s the new movie doing?’. See, I ask them the questions. And the answer? Asshole. Great.

“Why not?” I ask.

Ben says, “He just takes pictures of them apparently.”

My head turns to Ben, though you can’t see through my camera which is still trained on the two paparazzi. I turn my attention back to them and ask again, “What’s your name? C’mon man.” I am surprised that they don’t ask me why I wanted to know. Maybe they think I will charge them with assault, but I’m asking for their full name. Just the first name. Should I have been a little clearer?

“We said asshole,” Asshole Sr. says, a little annoyed.

“Okay,” I say, accepting their answer. “And what do you do for a living?” Obviously I know the answer to that, but I want to see what kind of answer they will give me.

“We take pictures of assholes,” Asshole Sr. say.

Whoa there. That is…to be expected minus ‘of assholes’. “Wait,” I say as he treats away from me. “Am I an asshole?” How did I become an asshole? Yes there was the insistent ‘What’s your name’ question. But they were the ones stuck behind their camera and took pictures of me when I asked them nicely to stop.

As Asshole Sr. walks away, I notice his camera is at his sides, not taking pictures. He yells to me, “Well, you’re bad actor.”

Wait, what was that?

I am a little ticked off at those two paparazzi. How am I a bad actor? Critics call me a ‘critically-acclaimed actor who is versatile in his roles’. A few months ago, I won the Best Smile on the Red Carpet Awards. Doesn’t that count for something?

Ben pokes at me, badgering me to annoy them like they did to me. “You gotta do it,” he urges me. So I march up to the two paparazzi with my video camera still in my hands. A.J., who kept quiet, sits outside the hotel while Asshole Sr. stands above him.

“You don’t mind if I film you guys?” I ask, not caring if they say no. They didn’t care when I asked them not to take pictures of me.

Asshole Sr., who called me a bad actor replied, “No. It’s fine.”

“If you put down that camera, we can talk serious,” A.J. says, still looking down at his camera. Oh. So I gues he decided to trade in his eyes for his mouth. I guess that’s fair.

“What do you mean?” I ask. I step forward to gain his attention, but he holds his hand out like I was going to attack him. “What?” I ask confused.

“Nothing,” A.J. mutters.

I am a little confused at this moment. I turn to Ben and silently ask him what their deal is. Ben shakes his head, but I can tell that he is enjoying what has unfolded with our paparazzi. He nodded his head, silently telling me that it won’t hurt to get some answers. “What? Does the camera make you nervous?” I ask. I had to restrain myself from chuckling.

“No,” A.J. says, his eyes still focused on his camera screen. “You know,” he says, fiddling with his camera buttons. “It’s just that I’m looking at my pictures of Nicole Kidman right now and she’s a really big star. A lot bigger than you.”

“Hey,” Ben says. “He is big…In his mind.” Ben chuckles at his comment so I hit him in his shoulder.

A.J. continues, “Look, she was cooperative tonight and you acted like an asshole.” Now, I’m a bad actor and an asshole. “So…it’s not really nice.” It takes a lot of self control to constrain myself from laughing. “Don’t you agree?” he say, finally looking up to his colleague.

Asshole Sr. nods his head as he zips up his puffy black jacket. “I agree,” he says.

“Oh really?” I say. “Was I not nice? Didn’t I say ‘please don’t take my picture’?” I look between the guys, emphasizing the ‘please’. There’s nothing like please and thank yous that can urge people to do anything, but in this line of work, it seems to be the opposite. 

“No. You weren’t very nice,” Asshole Sr. say, avoiding my gaze. Here comes the lied: You were hiding and running and acting…you know…” I define hiding as shielding oneself, but I did not none of that. And running, I was walking…really fast.

Asshole Sr. interrupts his counterpart and explains, “First all, you’re not worth chasing.” Okay. “And, we just happened to see you right there-So-”

“If you were someone like Dicaprio-” A.J. starts saying but is interrupted by his colleague again.

“Look. There are certain celebrities you know you can’t ask because you know the answer is always no,” Asshole Sr. says, cluing me into this unspoken rule. “And we now know you’re one of them.” So why didn’t they leave me alone in the first place? I bet Ben secretly paid them to take pictures of me to piss me off or he put a sign on my back that says, ‘Please call me an asshole and take my picture. I’m a celebrity!’.

Asshole Sr. continues, “So basically we did it to fuck around with you.”

“Why couldn’t you say, ‘Hey, How’re you doing? My name is this. Can I take shots of you?’” I say.

“Oh really? Oh. Okay,” Asshole Sr., says, sarcastically, and rolls his eyes.

“Instead of running up and –”

“Well, I don’t think that’s ever been done before in the history of –” A.J. interrupts. “Ever since La dolce vita.” He frowns and asks his colleague, “Who directed that?”

“Fellini,” I reply.

“Who?” A.J. asks, confused.

Ah. I have a guy who doesn’t know his own work. Who doesn’t know who Federico Fellini? He basically coined the word ‘paparazzi’ in his movie ‘La dolce vita’. The main character’s name was Paparazzo which means noisy, buzzing mosquito. And it is the correct word to describe them, noisy, buzzing, and annoying insects who peer through their round camera lenses.

A.J. peers up to his colleague, who looks down at A.J. with concern because A.J. didn’t know who Fellini was. Shaking his head, he clears his throat and changes the subject. “Look,” he says. “People are fascinated by the world of celebrities. You understand that, I’m sure you have fans. I’m sure you like to look at pictures of whomever you’re a fan of”. He looks at me expecting me to say ‘Yes. Yes I look at gossip magazines’ but I don’t. The idea of scrutinizing others in a magazine feels wrong, but in movies, there’s that real admiration for their work and question how versatile those actors are, not who they are fucking.

 “Do you really want to know the truth of why we went after you so aggressively?” A.J. asks me. I nod. What makes me interesting to be chased assertively by cameras? A.J. looks at his colleague, who is shaking his head. “What?” A.J. says. “You don’t want me to say?”

Asshole Sr. shakes his head, “No. Because…you don’t…you can’t-“ He sighs. “You shouldn’t say it.” He looks down at the floor. So answering this question is problematic for Asshole Sr. I wonder why. It feels like he’s protecting me, but from what?

“Why?” I ask, confused at the two paparazzi who seem to argue silently through their minds.

“I don’t know what he’s going to say,” Asshole Sr. says, holding his arm up like he’s saying ‘I’m not a part of this so don’t blame me.’

“I won’t say names,” A.J. reasons with Asshole Sr., trying to persuade Asshole Sr. to no avail.

“Well go say it,” Asshole Sr. tells his colleague, irritated. They remind of two little boys, arguing about whether they should tell an adult about the window they broke.

A.J. looks up at me and stutters out, “We saw…you know a uh…uh…young…a young star…” He sure is getting nervous. Sweat drips down his forehead like a faucet. His hand plays with one another. “…A young star…you know, with another guy and it’s you know…it’s implied that something’s going on,” he finally says, shocking me to the core.

Ben snickers behind me. When I turn to look at him, his snickering falls to a serious face, pretending he isn’t laughing at my predicament. “Dude, he thinks we’re going out,” Ben states the obvious and laughs.

“No shit,” I reply to him as he gives me a cheeky grin. So there’s something going on between me and Ben? That’s news to me. I give my friend a look down and think, eh. He’s not my type if I “played on the other team”. If I did maybe somebody slightly taller than my friend, not too lanky, not too buff. It gets me thinking about the opposite sex. Is it the same with actresses who walk with their girlfriends? Double standard. Fucking double standard.

A.J. laughs and says, “I don’t know.” He shrugs his shoulders. “The whole gay thing. I’ve always thought you were cute.” Whoa. I should just walk around, wearing a sign that says ‘I’m not gay. I’m just an actor.’ I played a couple of gay roles in the past, but I didn’t think it would define me as gay. And this guy, god. Is this his way of flirting with me?

“You can’t assume that,” Asshole Sr. says, disappointed with his colleague for saying that.

“I can assume that,” A.J. defends. “I can assume that personally, but I’m not going to put any cash on it.” I say he would rather make money out of it. “I’m not going to say that it’s his boyfriend,” he says to Asshole Sr., flustered. “I can think that. I can fulfill my fantasies a little,” he chuckles nervously, avoiding my gaze.

I can hear my friend still snickering in the background like it’s his personal live sitcom, starring the actor and the two paparazzi. I think it’s about time I ended this conversation. “Okay. Uh…”I say, not sure what else to say after that awkward confession which seems to have embarrassed his colleague. “It was lovely talking to you, uh…” I look at A.J.

“Dan,” he says.

I nod, “Dan. Good to see you. And –” I look at Asshole Sr. for his name.

“Henry,” Asshole Sr. answers, shaking my hand.

“Nice to meet you Henry. I’ll see you around,” I say, turning away from them and turning off my camera.

My friend and I are a few yards away from Dan and Henry when Dan yells out. “Well?” Are you?”

I turn my head and mouth out, “Call me.”