Defending the Turf
One down side of living in Hollywood is that old friends and relatives from back East who have never taken the slightest interest in you before suddenly develop a longing to visit you. In other words, they want a free place to stay while taking the Universal Cities tour and scoping out celebrities at Chateau Marmont. Avoiding the sudden attentions of such types has required an adherence to a certain Spartan type of living arrangements.
For instance: never rent an apartment with an extra bedroom or every relative you have will come slinking forth with wistful hints at how miserable they are in the snow and cold of their dying factory town. If they evince a preference for sofas anyway, be warned: anyone who is willing to take over your sofa for a few weeks may indeed be willing to take it for a year or two.
My second line of defense has been the lack of a television set. I am proudly anti-TV. This saves me money in cable bills, yes, but the real advantage is watching the teenage children of my relatives and friends waver in their applications for visits. When even that grew less of a deterrent, I canceled my internet and became a denizen of Coffee Bean.
But a new danger lurks. Gameboys, iPods, and various electronic toys have enabled people to build a bubble of personal enjoyment around them that may allow them to camp on couches in insular apartments for months to come. Thus I am preparing to embark on my next move, which I hope will checkmate any further encroachments: I’m buying kerosene lamps and a cooler. If one more relative other than my mom even sends me a hopeful sounding Christmas card, I’m cutting off the electricity.
