Comrades of the night

Yesterday was a different Hollywood experience. It felt more like a battleground, and me and my fellow valets were militant soldiers defending our precious Hotel Property from the wiles of menacing party-goers.

I got to the hotel to work at 8pm after a nice long drive down the river of Highway 110, from Pasadena. Not much stood out on the drive, the lights were the same as usual, the city hung high on my nearby horizon like a lit castle, the freeways were scattered with cars, and down the darkness of the Yucca St, alleyway I arrived and found a little parking spot to sink my Kia into.

Getting to work was bland as well..in fact I hardly recall it. I changed in the stairwell, as usual and pulled open the door to the office, pursued by welcome greetings from all.. I get a lot of "Mikie!" when I show up.

Then lightning struck the place, and we got REALLY busy.

And so the story goes. Between the hours of 8pm and 4am I ran and turned keys, drove expensive machines beneath pipes and cement, reversed Porsches into tight spots, turned Merecedes up garage corners, cranked Audi engines, bumbled in old Toyotas, sailed in new Escalades, handed off keys to millionaires and virtually kept to myself for the most of the night.

I guess the only good stories happened with my Comrades at work. One time our line of Ferraris and Mercedes and Priuses was all backed up into the garage because some superdrunk rich ditz-woman was having it out with her drunk-faced douchy boyfriend up top. While waiting, we valets looked like a line of stuck traffic on a city highway. So we all jumped out of our drivers' doors and started yelling at each other in thick eastern accents, throwing our hands up and pointing and shouting in exasperated broken English. It was pretty funny, and Andy pointed out we should make a movie of that exact setting.

Another golden moment was when at the top of our drive an uber-drunk Jersey-shore-esque couple of guys started pounding on each others' faces over some nasty girl in a tight white butt-cheek-bearing dress. There was blood, and soon enough the two we on the ground in handcuffs while us valets watched on with huge satisfied grins.. eventually an ambulance came and the circus was removed.

I guess the wrap-up of the night was really where I started to feel like things were pretty cool. We all got cut (sent home) at around 4 o'clock, so after changing upstairs a group of us headed outside the hotel to chill while Amanda and Izalia (our two pretty lady cashiers) waited for their ride. A guy walked up and not-so-shadily asked if we wanted to buy Zanex for $2 a pill - then reared his head in as if he knew something nobody knew and whispered "they're not really Zanex" as if that would sway our decision - and we turned him down. Last thing you know, me, Fish, Jeremy and Andy were walking up Argyle street perpendicular to Hollywood Blvd, back to our cars, talking from our chests. Andy has a skateboard and peaced out to head to his nearby apartment. Fish and Jeremy walked with me to my car so that I wouldn't be alone in the night on Yucca St. to see if my car would start. It did, and soon I was rolling back through the drawn night up Highway 110 to Pasadena, alone on a river paddling upstream to my home.

So ended a long and satisfying night of work. I found out that I'm getting paid $11.55 an hour now, which is two dollars more than when I started.

And Daniel leaves today. That's been an adventure in and of itself.
Farewell gentle people

Mikie