The Hollywood Ranters

By Mike Takeuchi

VROMANS BOOKSTORE CAFÉ- I haven’t seen too many “grown-ups” throw temper tantrums throughout my life. In fact, I have only seen two in the last ten years and both of them involved people in “the business” or Hollywood. As a sportswriter/production supervisor aka glorified celebrity hand holder, I have had the privilege to be near some interesting people.

On the same token, the closer look revealed the warts. Of the people with the most distinctive blemishes, I would put Kobe Bryant at the top of the list of jerks that I have come across. Surprisingly, Barry Bonds wouldn’t even make my top (or bottom) ten list. Perhaps the few interactions I had with the recently convicted (of only obstruction of justice) ex-ballplayer, he seemed to be in a talkative mood.

But the one thing I have never encountered in a locker room or on the field was someone resembling Baby Huey when things didn’t go the large cartoon fowl’s way. I can’t say the same for my other job. Perhaps the machismo factor is involved when dealing with athletes. Showing anything other than anger followed by grim determination often gets one labeled a…well, a bitch. Internalize until you succeed and then say something like “I was disrespected” and sportswriters and fans will nod their heads knowingly.

It is the complete opposite in my other field of work Even those who do not get behind the camera, are often emotive to the point that they should honestly try out for a soap opera-if any of them are left.

The first occurrence happened during an awards tribute given to the great actor Geoffrey Rush. Oh, it wasn’t the gracious Australian who committed the faux pas’. To the contrary, he was a friendly gentleman who even took the time to thank this writer for “taking care” of him as he was being whisked away back to the airport. The night, which also included Academy Award winning best actor Colin Firth and the wonderfully wacky Helena Bonham Carter was a night for future Best Picture winner “The King’s Speech” and despite having to change some things, worked out pretty well.

However, the publicist for the actors didn’t think so. (Okay, I’m going to digress because I know now that although I have no desire to work in Hollywood, I don’t want to be sued for my debt and six-year-old 150 thousand mile Subaru. Therefore, I won’t reveal the culprit’s name-but I am sure if he read this, he knew it was him). In fact in his mind, he thought it was clear that the show had to end at a certain time. However, in everyone else’s world, aka reality, the actual stop time was to be later.

No matter.

The curmudgeonly clean pated publicist (who resembled a desert tortoise) voiced his displeasure to a co-worker of mine, bringing them to tears. While swearing, waving his arms, he stomped his feet like a little petulant child. My first instinct was because I liked this person I worked with was to slap him on the forehead with a “bitch slap”. My second instinct was to kick him in the d&^k as hard as I could to give him a real reason to throw a temper tantrum.

But my days when I was known as “Mad Mike” have been over for two decades. And although they threaten to come out from time-to-time, mellow Mike always helps his alter ego to come to his senses. Yet I was still in a rage after, I mean how a grown person can treat others this way. Yeah, he’s got a good job, and I’m sure he is competent at what he did. But it’s not as if a surgical resident dropped the one-sized scalpel that could remove the cancer from someone’s body or anything. This was the movies for Christ sake, just effing chill. Yet, regrettably I held my tongue and just kind of laughed at him from afar. Some of his peeps looked at me funny, but I didn’t give a crap.

And now three months later, I saw the scene again on an L.A. street. Going to some unknown film I was invited to and finding out that it was moved to yesterday. Sure I was pissed, because I had just met some friends at the Dodgers game (they’re terrible by the way), when I could have rode down with them and saved $35 in gas. Yet I drove separately to see this mystery film.

I had waited with another ear ringed guy who didn’t seem to want to receive a friendly greeting from me for about 30 minutes. When it became apparent nobody else was coming, he called the person that was both of our contacts. Yet because this middle-aged man was probably more important in the “business” than a seasonal worker at a film festival, the contact, who avoided my calls, immediately picked up.

As ear ringed middle aged guy listened to the contact from his IPhone 4 or whatever the hell version it was, I could see the hairs beginning to stand on the back of his neck as his skin started turning a crimson shade. I swear to Christ, I could see smoke, but it probably wasn’t true. After contact-on-the-other-end guy finished backpedaling, there was this long tense pause just like the final moments before Old Faithful blew at its regular interlude, or perhaps it even resembled Vesuvius before it wreaked havoc unexpectedly upon the resident s of Pompeii in 79 AD.

The release seemed almost as intense.

What followed was a torrent of expletives of epic proportions. The middle-aged earring guy blew his top that made the curmudgeonly tortoise look like Roger Williams addressing the Puritans. I hadn’t heard that many swear words in such a small amount of words since I watched the late George Carlin in his concert movie when he said “the seven words you can’t say on television”. It was perhaps even more expletive-filled than Tommy Lasorda’s rant to pitcher Doug Rau on the mound during the 1977 World Series that television microphones picked up. This is must-listening by the way, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-mqXodn5mQ).

He jumped up and down higher than the tortoise wished he could and gesture wildly with his one free arm saying to the effect that contact guy ruined his day and that his boss was going to hear about it. As for me, sure I was kind of annoyed, but that emotion quickly went by the wayside as I watched this impromptu performance on a Los Angeles street. My emotions went from irked, amused, to nearly rolling on the ground in hysterics or LMFAO to ROFLMAOIT in a span of about five seconds.

. I don’t know why, maybe I was thinking of the tortoise, but this guy looked so ridiculous that my reaction made me realize that I had better go around the corner. Once there, I immediately went into convulsions as tears squirted out of my ducts. I was so tempted to take a photo of the ranter, but I was afraid that even though his relatively small stature, rage would overcome my hysterics and then people would be watching a murder scene on KCAL 9. Besides, I doubted I could hold a camera straight because I was shaking so much.

Just when I started calming down, Mr. TT turned the corner and saw me. I was immediately embarrassed, but he just glanced at me and kept walking without a word. Perhaps he realized what an ass he made himself out to be. But probably not.