People are paying rent around here.

Well, that’s what I heard anyway. The other evening, my friends and I were leaving Largo in Hollywood – they’d driven up from San Diego to see Margaret Cho with me on my friend’s birthday.

As we walked down the street around the block from Largo, we arrived at their car. All of us were saying goodnight and then this tattooed guy in a wife beater comes purposefully marching up to us. Right away he demands that we “keep it down – ok” as “people are paying rent around here”.

Now, it’s not as if we’d been really loud – if we had then I could totally see his point. Anyway, his mission done with us, he immediately quick steps it over to other people coming on to the street also moving towards their cars. It’s always strange to me when folks feel they can impose their will on others with impunity.

Anyway, I spoke with my friends the next morning and it turns out the guy actually may have said that he has a 10-month old baby upstairs. Maybe I need to get my ears checked.

Well, whatever the case, it just makes it worse. 10-month old babies aren’t supposed to be asleep at night, and, shouldn’t he really have been at home looking after the infant, rubbing rum on the gums or something rather than accosting people in the street to keep it down?

I mean, people are paying rent around here.