Oh this is a little bit sad.
In the summer of 2006 I had this great idea to go to LA for no reason at all. It may sound like no big deal, but at the time I was still living in Prague and had only experienced New York and Florida in the US. I had spent the last year living (=wasting time) studying abroad in the UK in order to be closer to my boyfriend so when we broke up in the spring I put together this trip as a kind of big, stupid ‘fuck you’ statement to him. I was originally planning to go by myself for two weeks to just ‘experience’ it and thankfully my best friend, Danielle, had the decency to accompany me, possibly for the sole reason of keeping me alive. This was very kind of her for many reasons, the greatest probably being that she knew how to drive and I did not. Anyway, apart from spending two thirds of our trip searching for frozen yogurt (no idea what Pinkberry was at the time, or if it even existed), passing Ron Jeremy at The Rainbow (when I told my dad this he said, “Oh great, I love Jeremy Irons”), and walking to Vons twelve times, we saw this guy:
For whatever reason a big incentive for my trip was also visiting the Hollywood Hustler store for some reason that I cannot recall right now. Oh wait, I just did… Anyway, as we were leaving we saw this large man, in a nursing bra, panties, and a weave sitting outside. We were lucky enough to get the above photo since we doubted anyone would believe that we had seen something like this that so perfectly encapsulated our entire LA experience. We referred to him simply as, “LA Local.”
Several years and several more visits to LA passed without any sight of the LA Local. Then in December 2008 when I was visiting my boyfriend out there we decided to check out some of my old haunts in West Hollywood (you think that my unfruitful search for fro yo years before would deter me from ever visiting again, but I actually moved out there for a while. Stupid, I know, but I did eat Pinkberry every day). Anyway, we into Millions of Milkshakes and there was the LA Local, totally decked out for the holiday season!
I freaked out! I started pulling Conall’s sleeve and saying, “I know him! I know this man!” and incoherently mumbled something about a nursing bra and the Hustler store. Ever my personal photographer, he volunteered to try to sneak a photo (this was before it was an established fact that LA Local thrives in the limelight. We didn’t know if he was just some carnie that would spit at us if we made eye contact). I texted Danielle immediately; I thought seeing the Local again was one of those fantastic once in a lifetime too weird to be true experiences. This week, I was proven wrong- as was Perez Hilton who, as LA resident, is unbelievable. The other day on his site Perez posted this photo and expressed genuine shock about this, as he dubbed him, (Wo)Man’s existence.
I guess many other readers recognized him and promptly began sending their own photos of the LA Local/(Wo)Man/whatever other personal nicknames he’s accumulated. Since then Perez has posted at least fifteen more pictures (and keeps asking for more) as well as several videos and even an interview. It’s kind of sad, though, because now this West Hollywood folk legend is almost certainly going to become some sort of Internet sensation and people will come from all over California to try to get a shot with this guy and his ever-visible private parts. I’m not saying that he’s my and Danielle’s LA Local and that only we should know about him and relive our excitement of seeing him over and over again as some inside joke. No, I am ecstatic that other people have had similar experiences. I am, however, sad that he get turned into another Naked Cowboy and run for office or something, abandon his natural stomping ground, get attention-greedy, simply put: change. This is clearly an example of how easy, thanks to technology today, celebrities can be made.
At least I still appear to be the only one who has a photo of him in his Santa suit *sigh*
