One of the best things about living in Los Angeles is that here you can be pretty much anything you want to be and nobody blinks an eye.
You can walk around with your hair dyed blue. You can be a millionaire hotshot producer who never wears anything but pajamas inside or outside the house. You can wear a midriff top and a Powerpuff Girls belly-button ring despite being 280 pounds and male. Your “be what you wanna be” options are wide open.
There’s only one thing that’s utterly and absolutely unforgivable to be in L.A., as illustrated by the story below.
A friend of mine was once at a downtown museum with a date when she noticed leaning against a wall none other than Brad Pitt. (Please note that I cannot confirm the accuracy of this story as Brad Pitt can outrun me and has done so dozens of times over the last eight to ten years.) My friend turned to the man she was with and discreetly whispered, “See over there? That’s Brad Pitt.”
“Oh, honestly!” her date reportedly burst out, rolling his eyes (apparently, he wasn’t the butch type). “You must be the only person in L.A. who’s still starstruck.”
You see, everyone in L.A.—and I mean everyone—believes he or she has some pretty important ties to Hollywood heavy hitters. They all know someone who knows someone who knows Gary Coleman; or they once delivered a pizza to the home of a star from Even Stevens; or they wrote a screenplay that’s sure to be the next blockbuster (usually a powerful and life-altering story about an aspiring writer’s struggle to write something).
Therefore, the one thing that an Angeleno should not be is affected by celebrity.
Above-it-all Angelenos are a lot like grammar meanies, without the grammar, of course. Let’s call them celebrity-sighting snobs or Hollywood hot-air bags. They’re so “in the loop” that they’re way, way too cool to notice Britney Spears pumping her own gas or Brad Pitt carelessly lounging within stalking distance.
Give me a break. I bet Jennifer Aniston never got over gasping as she looked in her powder room every morning and said, “Oh my God! That’s Brad Pitt who left the seat up!” I wouldn’t be surprised if she later giggled to all her friends, “Oh my God! Can you believe I’m divorcing Brad Pitt!” It’s only human to be affected by celebrity; it’s only normal that celebrity should have an effect. This brings us to this chapter’s language lesson.
Please memorize the following two sentences.
Affleck appearances affect all Angelenos.
Even encounters with Emilio Estevez have an effect.
Yeah, yeah. I know that was embarrassingly bad. But I guarantee it’ll help you remember the difference between these two words or your money back (disclaimer: all payments to be made in Confederate bonds).
The most important thing to know about “affect” and “effect” is that “affect” is usually a verb and “effect” is usually a noun, as in “special effects,” which people in Hollywood care about a lot, and “side effects,” which Hollywood types usually don’t think about until it’s too late.
There are a couple of annoying little exceptions that grammar meanies will happily use against you if you give them the opportunity. Ever hear someone say, “To effect positive change”? Well, that’s a rare example of when “effect” is a verb. Specifically, it’s a transitive verb, requiring a direct object, and, according to my beat-up copy of the American Heritage Dictionary, second college edition, it means to produce a result, to bring into existence, or to bring about something. You can effect a revolution, an improvement, a transaction—lots of things. But usually there are better ways of saying so.
The other definition of “effect” many readers will recall from their stints in the big house. Flash back to that surly guard dropping your wallet, keys, and “novelty toy” pipe into a plastic bag and saying you’ll get back your “personal effects” only if Brad Pitt drops the charges. This “effect” is also a noun, one that means property or possessions.
Not to be outdone, “affect” has a noun form, too. It means disposition or mental state, as in, “Always project a flat affect when meeting an A-list celebrity.”
These alternate definitions exist only to confuse and annoy. Ninety-nine percent of the time, “affect” is a verb and “effect” is a noun.
So feel free to use the earlier-stated mnemonic device:
Affleck appearances affect (verb, starts with “a”) all Angelenos.
Even encounters with Emilio Estevez have an effect (noun, starts with “e”).
Just don’t tell Brad Pitt that you got that cornball expression from me.