Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me - Chelsea's Family, Friends [62]
“I’ll be free soon,” she told me. “See you on the other side.”
I took her advice and settled into my new apartment in a new city and started concentrating on my new job. It was unbelievable: my most likely dead-end job at a comedy club had turned into my dream job with a comedian who was on the verge of huge things. It took only a couple of weeks of working that closely with her for it to become clear to me that Chelsea Handler was, and still is, a huge con artist.
Before I moved to Los Angeles I knew nothing about fashion, television, or celebrity. Now I know a lot about celebrity, but I still wear stretch pants and ill-fitting shirts. However, stand-up comedy was and is still my main area of expertise. That’s where the whole “having no life” thing comes from. When you stay in on weekend nights watching old Steve Martin videos, it’s hard to convince others that you have a ton going on. Any opportunity I had to show off the skills I did have, I took. I was probably a little overzealous with my knowledge. A simple mention of the word comedy by someone, and I would butt in: “Stand-up? What do you want to know about stand-up? I pretty much know everything about every comic ever. Heard of the Denver Comedy Club? I ran it, kind of!”
My reputation as resident comedy expert was really flourishing around the offices of Chelsea Lately. I walked around with my head held high. That was also because Chelsea told me I had horrible posture and had more than once threatened to make me wear a back brace. I felt I had even garnered a lot of respect from the camera crew; from what I could tell, they didn’t respect much, so I felt pretty special—until someone stole the plaque that hung on my office door. I had proudly made it myself, very carefully embossing in gold the words “Eva: Comedy Expert,” and I buffed it daily with a gentle cloth. I was bummed when it was taken, but I refused to make a big deal out of it. Besides, I had a backup over my gas fireplace at home.
There was only one person who didn’t take me seriously. He was Chelsea’s personal appearance agent, and he was never interested in what I had to say. He, whom we shall call Rick because it rhymes with what I used to whisper under my breath every time I saw him, always blatantly disregarded my very valuable insights and understanding of how to market Chelsea’s stand-up career. He never responded to my text messages or e-mails, or confirmed that he had received any of my numerous smoke signals. He never even bothered to call me back to discuss my brilliant idea of selling scratch-’n’-sniff panties with Chelsea’s face on them or life jackets that read “Chelseahandler.com” for her summer appearances. I felt the latter was both useful and promotional, not to mention life-saving. It’s also never been done before. In fact, I’m glad I reminded myself about them, because they still need to be made. Eva: 1, Rick: 0.
No matter what people might think about me, and I’ve heard some pretty awful things, when it comes to Chelsea, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve done more than my fair share to keep myself informed on everything about her. I have spent many a night putting articles, photos, and ticket stubs into scrapbooks. I prefer to complete them monthly, so that at the end of the year she will have twelve lovely books of memories to flip through and help her reflect on what she has accomplished over the months. I like to think she sits down with them on New Year’s Day over a bowl of black-eyed peas, perhaps while listening to the Black Eyed Peas, and congratulates herself on a job well done while compiling a list of all the things she would like to accomplish in the coming year. Unfortunately, Chelsea walked into my office one day during an all-out scrapbooking session. Seeing me sitting on the floor and sweating while surrounded by photos of her, with scissors in one hand and glitter in the other, and wearing