Joda, The Jocker and Johnny Deep

The Three Horsemen of the Typocalypse

after a day at the Disney Studios in Los Angeles (pictured)

someone offered to take me to Hollywood Boulevard to see the walk of fame.

first, I got a picture with Snow White’s star. my first commission as a professional playwright was for a Snow White adaptation so she’s quite special to me.

then I went to seek out my Big Three.

i’m a Julie Andrews sun; Meryl Streep moon; Dolly Parton rising.

next, we were going to walk down the street looking at all the stars on the pavement. we turned out of the forecourt of the Chinese Theatre and were greeted by a man holding a big horrible snake.

a not-at-all-fun fact about me is that I have a ridiculous phobia of snakes. like, ridiculous. can’t be near them, can’t look at them, can’t even think about them. my hands are sweaty and I feel funny just typing this. when I see a snake, I have a completely involuntary reaction and will take off running at full speed. I just have this innate reflex to get myself tae fuck.

unfortunately there is something about major tourist attractions that draws the snake people. and they're always at inescapable locations. bridges for one. i’ve had snake encounters on bridges in London, Paris, Prague and New York (maybe more places? you can scarcely cross a bridge in a major city without meeting a snake).

a few years ago, I spent a week in New York with a girl I barely knew. one day we were walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and it was so hot. hot as fuck. and we traipsed from our air bnb to the Brooklyn Bridge then all the way along it in the scorching midday sun. right before reaching Manhattan, with the prospect of a bottle of water almost in sight, I spotted the inevitable: a man standing with a snake draped over his shoulders. it was one of those big yellow bastards. now, if I must see a snake, a big yellow bastard is the type I find least repulsive. but still. I let out a quick yelp and did a mini automatic run in the opposite direction before reacquiring some semblance of a grip on myself and having to make my way back to this girl who I barely knew and explain that I just cannae dae snakes. I considered asking her to walk all the way back to Brooklyn so we didn’t have to pass the snake man. however, as I say I barely knew her and we still had the majority of the week to spend together, and that would have been much less pleasant if I made her hate me. so I managed to make it to Manhattan by turning my back to the snake, and lightly jogging past. except I was side-on to avoid looking at the snake. so what I was actually doing was galloping along the Brooklyn Bridge as if I was dancing to the Grand Old Duke of York. we then spent half an hour sitting in the air conditioning of a Foot Locker, her recovering from the heat; me recovering from the heat and the snake-induced trauma and the snake-induced-trauma-induced shame.

one time I was walking down the Las Vegas strip (middle of the day; completely sober; again, hot as fuck) when a man walked up to me and, with a smile, said he had something I might like to hold. naturally I assumed he was referring to his penis. but it was so much worse. he pulled his hand out from behind his back and, wrapped around his hand, was a big horrible snake. and not even a big yellow bastard so it was even more horrifying. I reacted as any rational person would. I screamed in his face, jumped two feet into the air, and took off running.

very, very literally this

anyway, on Hollywood Boulevard, I saw the snake and I did my run. but the street outside the Chinese Theatre was absolutely mobbed so the person I was with, having caught up with me and looking rather bemused, steered me into a gift shop where the snake would be out of sight.

fantastic. I needed to look for a fridge magnet for my parents anyway (we get one from everywhere we go).

it was a standard tourist tat (non-derogatory) gift shop. there was a whole stand with just dollar bills, but, in the place of whoever’s picture is normally on a dollar bill, there was a famous person or character. Mickey Mouse, Tom Hanks, Marilyn Monroe. that kind of thing.

this is where I met Joda.

I will say first of all that I love a funny typo. I love an amusing spelling mistake. I will say second of all that I totally get how someone, whose first language is presumably not English, could mistakenly write Joda instead of Yoda. no bother.

then I met The Jocker.

again, I can completely understand how someone, whose first language is presumably not English, could mistakenly write The Jocker instead of The Joker. absolutely fine.

then I met Johnny Deep.

and something within me just snapped. I found the idea of Johnny Depp being called Johnny Deep so absolutely delightful that I could not stop laughing. but I was standing at the display of dollar bills on my own. and I didn’t want to be the girl standing in a gift shop by herself laughing. I tried to suppress the laughter with moderate success. so, instead of the girl standing in a gift shop by herself laughing, I was the girl standing in a gift shop by herself clearly trying not to laugh, silently shaking, with tears rolling down her face. so much better!

(I don’t want this to seem like i’m laughing at non-native English speakers, or bad spellers. I am from a place where no one gets any names of anything right. I know two people who call Johnny Depp, not Johnny Deep, but Jonny Depth. i’m not kidding. but I am laughing.)

the person I was with came and found me in what I can only describe as a right state. I exited the gift shop looking like this:

I know my angles

there is someone in my life who thinks I am ridiculous. he always remarks negatively on how I am quick to laughter and how I enjoy things (god forbid!). he’ll often say things like grow up and make other disparaging comments of that nature, while rolling his eyes, whenever I laugh at something silly, or something not that funny, or when I am just visibly experiencing emotion more positive than a deadpan neutral state, as is his default. and by that I mean smile. sometimes I smile. often, actually. I have a bit of a resting friendly face situation.

this constant kind of specific negative presence (he’s not an overall negative presence, just in this one way) was starting to get to me a bit recently. that and the fact that I know that new people I meet at work perceive me in a completely different way than I perceive myself. people always think i’m younger than I am (to the point that airport security have asked me where my parents are. I don’t even look that young, I’m just 5’2 and have a chubby baby face). they assume i’m less intelligent and less educated than I am (because I have a particular accent, but that’s a topic for another day). and I have recently been wondering if they think i’m, idk, more silly or maybe ditzy than I am because of the things that this guy says.

I know for a fact that the first two perceptions have been materially detrimental to my career. so I spent some time worrying that the fact that I am fond of a giggle and quick to make a wee joke add further credence to the impression that I am unintelligent and if that is holding me back in some way.

and then I was like fuck that.

if that is the case, then so be it, I suppose. i’m not about to try to change my actual personality (I did at one time make an attempt to change my accent; there’s only so much you can do before you’re just putting on an English accent while being very obviously not English). besides, on the other side of the coin, I know I come across more friendly, or more nice, than I actually am. like, I know I generally make people feel at ease (more than ever mean to, tbh. i’ve never made a conscious effort to create a welcoming environment, I just happen to be the world’s least intimidating presence). and while it doesn’t benefit me in the way that being perceived as intelligent or capable or educated would, I like that I come across as approachable.

also, I know I enjoy things more than that guy does. and, radical statement, it’s good to enjoy things. I like to like things.

thinking about this in tandem with thinking about my visit to the walk of fame, I can conclude that it enhances my life no end to find things amusing. to enjoy things more than this guy does. he will, I imagine, ultimately be more successful professionally than I will. but I will have laughed more. and I can’t think of a time ever in my life that I have felt better than walking along Hollywood Boulevard, mascara streaks running down my face, thinking about Johnny Deep.