I used to date a New York talent agent for roughly 4 years, or rather, for a rough 4 years. One of her major obsessions in life was ‘swag’ – the little goody bags given away to invitees of the classier industry events. Although she had amassed enough shampoo to smooth the split ends of an army of Fabio clones and enough moisturizer to placate the insecurities of every 30 plus actress in West Hollywood (not all of LA – let’s be realistic), Rachel couldn’t seem to get enough ‘swag’; although sometimes she called it “schwag” if she was feeling exceptionally Jewish.

After Rachel dumped me… for being me… I found myself ‘swagless’ for the most part. Every once in a while, I’d get an errant invite to an event that had schwag, but most of the soiree’s I was invited to were of the ghetto variety – I was lucky to get a sample packet of Fructis shampoo and a magazine. Despite my staunch blue collar ideals and hatred of all things posh and pretentious, I found myself desperately missing schwag and the connection it represented to the cooler, inner-er sanctums of the entertainment industry. I decided it was time to get my schwag on…

Recently, an awards ceremony was in town. Let’s call them the Wemmy’s. I had heard stories (some of them surely myths) about the cornucopia that existed within Wemmy-party gift bags. Tales of cell phones, watches, PDAs, and thousand dollar gift certificates abounded. It always struck me as one of the greater ironies in life that the world is designed to make sure that rich people get as much shit for free as possible. Traveling with Jamie Kennedy for 4 years, I was always struck by how adamant certain waitresses were that he not pay for his food. “No way, Jamie, your money is no good at Applebee’s!” Hey, I’m the one eating couch pizza; comp me a chicken club, woman!

Anyway, I decided that I was going to get into one of the ‘houses’ for the Wemmy’s and get some free shit, so I got a girl friend of mine with a very sexy British accent (for some reason, I find that Americans are instantly cowed by English accents) to call up and demand that they give VIP treatment to their up-and-coming client, Bill Dawes, who was the up-and-coming star of the next Judd Apatow movie and, also, on the coming season of ‘Last Comic Standing.’ My friend, with her Jedi mind tricking posh spice dialect worked all of the publicists into a frothy lather until they practically begged her to let them pamper me at one of their pre-Wemmy spas.

I parked my Miata a comfortable distance away (no offense, buddy, but I’m undercover) and walked a couple of blocks to the event/party/spa on Sunset Boulevard. I couldn’t find it at first, but then I saw ropes of red velvet, big black men in suits and little Jewish women with clipboards. Ahhh, surely that was it.

I walked up to the entrance as coolly as possible and stated my name. The little publicist looked me up and down with non recognition, possibly disdain, and shook her head flipping pages on her clipboard.

“Sorry,” she said, “You’re not on here.”

“Oh, okay, well I was told to ask for Pam specifically.”

PR lite sighed, turned 90 degrees from me, and whispered into her headset. I noticed that the huge bouncer was looking askance at me, maybe wishing for the opportunity to throw my head into the concrete at 3pm in the afternoon. I pursed my lips and smiled at him, the white man’s way of saying, “I’m a little bitch, please don’t hurt me.”

Suddenly, a tall, red-headed woman in a tailored suit came through the door with a big grin on her face, making a bee line for me.

“Bill Dawes?” she queried, her eyes and tone filling the vowels and consonants of my name with boundless optimism. The name was said with such joy and respect, I almost looked around to see who she was referring to.

“Yeah, hi, that’s me,” I said as I awkwardly extended my arm for a shake. For a brief second, I realized that the cool thing would have been to be texting and only register her presence with an annoyed nod. I was sure I seemed too eager.

“It’s okay,” she said to both the bouncer and the mini-Jew, “It’s Bill Dawes, star of the next Judd Apatow movie.”

I have the worst poker face on the planet and it took every ounce of self-control not to erupt in a fit of giggles. Everything about the moment was wrong. It was wrong that I was perpetrating such a crazy lie to get some toiletries and a foot rub, and it was wrong that my name only had significance in this world when appended with ’star of the next Judd Apatow movie.’ The little girl nodded and broke into an impossibly wide grin, like we were best friends in high school who lost touch and, now, just bumped into each other.

“Oh, of course,” she said, “I totally knew that. Sorry you had to wait, Bill.”

I was beet red from embarrassment but somewhere in the back of my mind I realized that this could be confused with a sweet “aw shucks” Michael Cera-style demeanor that might suit my predicament.

“It’s okay, you’re just during your job,” I smiled, letting the broadness of my smile absorb and utilize the giddy (and guilty) energy in my voice.

Pam led me in – by the hand, no less – into the extravagant pre-show spa and showed me all of the different stations for decadent pampering. I could get a pedicure, a manicure, a massage, a haircut, a glass of Dom, a snack, and more, time permitting. I would have felt awful about lying to get this undeniably luxurious service if it weren’t for the fact that the more ass-kissy people got, the more pissed off I grew towards the whole morally bankrupt, star-f*cking, sycophantic system. “To be… on TV, or not to be… on TV” that is the question of existence in Los Angeles.

I remember lying there thinking, “All of a sudden I’m worthy or praise and attention because of a role in a movie… ahhh, right there, a little lower please… I’d been incredibly close to huge roles my whole career but because of the vaguaries of chance and fate… that’s definitely a knot, use the oil to get deeper,,, I don’t ACTUALLY deserve this treatment? That’s why famous people are so goddamn crazy, they have some Divine Right of Kings belief that they are blessed by God because their pilot got picked up or a studio executive took a great shit and decided to greenlight a movie that could have been shelved for another 5 years…… oooooh, I love it when they dig knuckles into the balls of my feet and, man, I love the smell of eucalyptus.”

I had to invent about 15 more lies about the Apatow project and the upcoming season of Last Comic Standing as I got wheeled around the spa, ranging from “I’m not really allowed to talk about it” to “Judd is a great guy” to “Seth Rogan actually doesn’t smoke THAT much weed.”

Three hours later, with the sun dipping into the sea and spreading a glow of imperial violet across the horizon, I stumbled back to my car. I was half-drunk, muscles of jelly, smelling like a yoga studio, and slightly ashamed of myself…

But then I felt the hefty weight of my schwag bag.

Haha. Suckers.

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