A few days ago, in a post about the White House party crashers, fellow offender Justin claims that he could never pull off their little con, that even he gets harassed while trying to enter the Hollywood studio where he has worked for years.  Are we to believe this nonsense?   Is he confusing ridiculous Hollywood storylines with real life?  Is this not the 21^st century?  Have we not gotten past such things? 

Judge for yourself: 

I was with Justin when he got pulled over on the studio lot by Paul Blart, studio cop.  We weren’t so much pulled over – since we were walking – as we were cut off by Blart’s souped up golf cart.  And I don’t mean Paul Blart as a shorthand for all rent-a-cops.  No, this man looked like Kevin James, down to the moustache and paunch.

I was terrified.  Justin, his assistant and I were walking through the parking lot on the way back to his office when Blart popped us.  My God, we were a hundred yards from the parking space with Justin’s freaking name on it!  

But no matter.  Blart had us in his sights.   

So what was our crime?  This: sneaking in to an amusement park adjacent to this particular studio.  It wasn’t technically the sneaking in that got us busted, it was the sneaking back out.  That’s when Blart picked us up on security camera.  So yeah, we were guilty as sin, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d have read Michael Bay the riot act had he been caught sneaking out?

Blart was pissed.  And he had reason to be.  At first we didn’t take him seriously.  We didn’t laugh, exactly, but we expected a stern wag of the finger, tops.  Especially after we politely and modestly identified ourselves as employees of the studio – the same studio which employed him.  Were we not fellow laborers who should be linking arms against management?  Apparently not, in Blart’s view.  I can’t quote him verbatim, but it was something along the lines of, “I don’t care who you are, you don’t have a pass.  You’re in deep.”  My lower lip trembled and I started imagining how I would survive hard time.  I’m pretty sure I could throw together some decent pruno if I had to, and I saw a documentary once about how to melt the end of a toothbrush into a shiv.  But would I have the attitude, the body language, to pull it off?  Judging by the growing stain in the front of my pants, the answer is no.  

We apologized profusely, but Blart wouldn’t let it go.  “Is this a joke to you?  You do know this could be charged as a felony.”  Really?  We were speechless.  Except for my soft sobbing, you couldn’t hear a thing.  The silence dragged on, until, finally, Justin said to Blart, “Okay.  Well, what happens now?  Do we go to jail?”  He asked it without rancor or fear, just matter of fact.  “We’ll go to jail if you want.” 

That was it.  Blart let us go.  He mumbled something, cracked a sort of half smile, and let us go.  I don’t think he’s used to suspects offering to take the perp walk.  It flustered him.  I don’t know if he was just shocked to see a young Asian man call him on his bluff, or just shocked to see anyone do it.  

 Guess we’ll have to send Mr. Bay through on a test run to find out.