Amazing Rants Overheard at Venice Beach: Worried About Christian Slater

Ranter: An American guy in snappy Western shirt and a young woman with an Indian accent, both apparently baked

Location: Venice Beach boardwalk

Time: 5:30 p.m. on a Thursday

Topics Covered: The complexities of American currency; the complexities of plural nouns ending in -s; the pleasures of violating grammatical rules; life with a chauffeur; life without a chauffeur; Oprah's distance from ordinary life; things Christian Slater should and should not do for himself and for strangers.

The Rant:

[After emerging from a dessert shop, the woman licks at an ice-cream cone and studies the loose change in her hand.]

Woman: How much is this one? Ten centses?

Man: That's a nickel.

Woman: Then five centeses? I know quarters is twenty-five centses.

Man: Cents. A nickel is five cents.

Woman: Five centses. I know that, you kebab. I just like to say five centses.

[They lick.]

Woman: Remember that limousine? People just rent those, right? It's not always somebody of importance? I was thinking about that today, and parking tickets, and how celebrities get used to riding in a limousine. But sometimes they don't stay super wealthy and of importance, and then there must be that day, that one sad day, when suddenly they have to start driving themselves again and worrying about parking tickets and little things.

Man: They have to start counting centses.

Woman: It must be very sad. What about Christian Slater? Does he have to drive himself? Does it make him sad?

Man: I saw this thing where Oprah and Gail were driving across the country, and they couldn't figure out how to pump gas. Oprah said she hadn't done it for twenty years!

Woman: Christian Slater must pump his own gas.

Man: Why are you obsessed with Christian Slater?

Woman: He held the door for me at the ArcLight! I was thinking, "You are Christian Slater! You are nice and normal! You don't have to do this! Doing this must make you sad!"