decota

Jackass
Under L. Marie


When I first moved to Los Angeles I saw a few celebrities here and there. Jason Mewes buying coffee, Perry Ferrel in front of me in line at Le Brea Cigarettes, Stephen Baldwin eye-raping me in Starbucks on Melrose. They were all either in a hurry or a little too creepy in person to merit any move on my part to get any closer. Until I saw Chris Pontius from MTV's Jackass in Whole Foods. It was a few days before Thanksgiving, the store was unusually calm and he walked right in front of me.

I am by no means a fanatical type of person. I was not one of those kids that plastered my walls with Tiger Beat hunks like Jonathan Taylor Thomas or Luke Perry. I never collected autographs and I didnt write fan mail. As a matter of fact, the only letter I ever wrote anybody as a kid was to President Clinton telling him to Please do something about the killing of innocent sharks for soup. To which I got an autographed picture of Al Gore signed, Thank you for your concern, Ill get right on it. Which I ripped up because, Who the fuck was Al Gore?

I made my way down the cereal isle where Chris Pontius was buying breakfast with his mother. We made eye contact. He did one of those smile-and-nod things polite people do and off he went. I stood there holding my empty basket and for some stupid reason I thought, I should get a picture with him. Whats the harm? I felt ashamed that it even crossed my mind. But I hadn't gotten any pictures with famous people since I'd moved to Hollywood and I kind of wanted a picture to put on Facebook. And hence begins the story of how I photo-bomed Chris Pontius like a total fucking Jackass.

I walked, stalked really, into the next isle, waited patiently for him to decided which kind of canned soup he was going to get and like the biggest bumbling dumb-ass ever said, I know this is so lame and Im really sorry to bother you, but, um, can I get a picture? I immediately regretted the words.
Shhure.

As he turned to put all of his groceries on the floor, I asked his mom if she minded taking the picture. Gladly, she fumbled with the contraption. Chris and I took our places in front of a display of Organic Potato Flakes and smiled.
I didnt see a flash? Did I take it? She very kindly asked.
But, no she didnt take it. She pushed the wrong button and took the phone out of camera mode. He changed it back in camera mode for her and returned to his pose next to me.
Did I get it? his mom said.
Chris Pontius went to look, No. Uh. Mom. It uh. You gotta just touch the screen.
Oh! Ok. I think I got it now.
He took his place again as my smile became more and more like a pout as I felt more and more like an asshole.

After the third take we got a decent picture.
Thanks again. And Im really very sorry. I...uh.
Yup. No problem.
I bowed my head in shame.

He got his stuff off the floor then helped his mother to a safe distance away from me.
Happy Thanksgiving! I shouted on my way to the frozen food section.
To which he responded by putting his hand in the air, kind of, yeah, I guess you could call it a wave, and went to the check out.

I finished my shopping rather quickly since I never buy more then I can comfortably carry the few blocks home and we reunited in an awkward waiting game for the slowest checkout-stoner on the planet. I kept my head down so as not to make any more eye contact and kept softly repeating to my self, Never again! Stupidest thing ever! Lame. Lame. Lame.,hoping that I never see him again.

I have not been so lucky. The other piece of knowledge that I was not privy to at the time of this event, seeing as I was still so green to the streets of Hollywood, is that if you see somebody in a grocery store, chances are they live nearby and you will see them. Again.

The next time I saw Chris Pontius was in our neighborhood Trader Joe's. After we made unintentional eye contact he ducked and moved quickly to avoid me.

I think its safe to say we will never become Besties.