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Big Brother Skateboarding
March 2003
ON THE COUCH WITH BOBBY TRENDY, CRAFTSMAN AND PURVEYOR OF LUXURIOUS FABRICS
By Andrew Vontz
Like a Spanish galleon with chartreuse sails powering forward and attacking a pirate ship, borne on the wings of a heaven-sent gust and guided by the warrior spirit of Ajax, its cannons ablaze and letting loose a crushing hellfire evocative of the house of Atreus, interior designer Bobby Trendy has exploded into celebrity-hood with a fury, power, and armory of luxury fabrics not seen since the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV. As the gaudy, leopard-print loving interior designer for uber-plump pinup Anna Nicole Smith on her reality TV show, the diminutive, frosted-tips Trendy stepped so hard, rocked so much ice, and flashed so many high-priced designer outfits that one can imagine Rob Dyrdek breaking a sweat and then summarily swooning at the masterful sight of Trendy’s ur-display of hyper-conspicuous consumption.
What does it take to design ten-foot-high leopard-print chairs for trailer park graduates who find themselves in the possession of more loot than a subterranean vault at Fort Knox (guarded, no doubt, by muscle-bound thugs dreaming of 10-layer Versace scarves and serpentine Bulgari necklaces)? I have no fucking idea. But as sure as the sun rising tomorrow and the prospect of an eventual nuclear holocaust that will have us all running for fallout shelters deep in the frost-encrusted earth beneath Hayes, Kansas, you can bet your bottom fucking dollar that Bobby Trendy, soon to be king of all media, does.
Step inside his head, now, and see what he thinks. And while you’re at it, imagine that said head is adorned with a crown, not of thorns, but of frosted tips.
Aloha.
I’m looking around your store and I’m seeing a lot of luxurious fabrics. I don’t see any chaps in here, though. What’s the deal?
Chaps? What are chaps?
You know, like rodeo cowboys where. . .
Because that’s not a look that we do.
Chaps don’t fit into the Bobby Trendy look?
No. We work mainly with luxurious and sumptuous silks and velvets and twenty-four karat.
Could you imagine a pair of Bobby Trendy chaps, though?
Oh my God. They would be of silk and velvet with twenty-four karat print on there and have real diamonds lining the pockets up and down the legs and real twenty-four karat threads going down the legs.
Do you imagine them having a cowboy riding a horse embroidered in diamonds?
A saddle which would have to have diamonds on there laced to threads of gold.
What was it about these luxurious fabrics that first drew Anna’s large attention?
Probably all the gold that’s in the store because I think she likes gold. There’s a lot of gold in here. As you can see there’s not one thing that’s silver.
Anna doesn’t seem to have friends so much as a chorus of sycophants. Did you know her before the show started shooting?
They know that I was the one. The chosen one. If you drive up and down La Cienega boulevard, this is the chosen store. It’s gaudy, pretentious, over the top. It doesn’t attract the not so rich. It attracts the nouveau riche. So with an unprecedented five day turnaround time, everyone comes here. Other decorators buy here and sell to their clients, too. She came with everyone, Kimmy, her maid Howard, all of them.
You took more shit on that show than a patch of clean grass at a dog park. In one of the final episodes, Anna and her designer buddy Frankie tear her bed apart. How did that feel to watch?
It just made me feel, which I am, the better person. They purposely unraveled that bed. All of my women in Bel Aire, Beverly Hills, Mullholland Estates, Beverly Park were calling me and saying they’re just being animals and you know what, they are. To act that way on TV is not a way I would act. Howard was calling me names and cursing. I don’t need to call people names, I don’t need to curse at them because I’m the better person. They kept ordering things back and misordering and making changes. I’m in a position where I can make new things for them. I don’t care about these small amounts of money. I just redid it just to be easy. I did. Because I can.
It was almost like the Bobby Trendy show after a while. Was that just a way to distract viewers from Anna’s drug-addled state?
I made sure that I did one delivery per day so that I could show off another expensive outfit and another beautiful crew of beautiful workers and assistants. A smaller Hugh Hefner is in the works right now.
What was your favorite outfit you wore over there?
Probably the all-Versace outfit with the gold buttons with the diamonds around it with the ten-layer Versace necklace or my Dolce-Gabbana fur coat for the final episode. I love designer clothes and I noticed that I was the only one who wore any on that show and was what people want to be. They want to be classy, they want to have a business, they want to look good, they want to have luxurious things. Some people were so weird that e-mailed me saying my things are tacky or whatever. Nothing’s tacky about showing up in a $100,000 Jaguar, is it?
I don’t think so.
Having a big store, as you saw, the awning outside bears my name. I’m the youngest person probably in all the United States with a store this large that bears my name without a bank loan, a loan from anyone else. These things are extravagant. This table is $15,000 right here. These chairs are five-thousand each. I sold eight of them this week.
What kind of extra measures did you have to take to design a bed that could support Anna’s Incredible Hulk of a body?
We delivered her bed and she wanted it two feet taller and she wanted the rails on the side wider. Once again, I did it because I can, just mainly to shut them up because I don’t have time for that. I have clients that spend much more money and don’t complain and are much friendlier to me and as for Howard, Howard’s never had anything luxurious in his life before. I can tell. And he didn’t do nice things at all. He was asking for fabric to be one dollar a yard. I don’t know fabric that’s one dollar a yard, so I don’t think he’s ever had anything and since he just got fired from his law firm, I don’t think he’ll ever have nice things. You didn’t hear? If you call Cheby and Stern it’s now Cheby.
No more Howard. Right. Speaking of Howard, like a Franciscan monk, you always stood your ground when dealing with Anna and Howard. Were you getting paid a lot of money to put up with their shit?
I’m never paid enough to deal with that kind of behavior. I stand tall, I stand very confident in myself and every time I was there it was always all of them and me and my assistants, but my assistants are not allowed to speak for me or upon my behalf unlike Anna. Several times I wasn’t there and they had Frankie. He doesn’t own a store. Where’s your store Frankie? If you’re such a shitkicker, where’s your ’03 Jaguar, bitch? Where’s your 5,000-square foot store, where’s your eight assistants, bitch? Step up to the plate, suck in your gut, speak? Howard, where’s your office? Howard, where’s your car? Did you walk there every day? The only car I saw there was that 1977 Jaguar parked on the grass with expired plates. Was that Howard’s car? We never saw his car, we never saw his office, we never saw his assistants, where are they? We saw all my things. Why? Because I’m successful. I’m also young. I’m very young.
How old are you?
I’m 24 years old. Do I look old to you?
No.
Hello. Howard is old. And I don’t think he’s successful and I don’t think if Howard was really Anna’s attorney in real life the judges would care what he has to say because they’ve been in court seven years and by the time it’s resolved they won’t have any money left.
Howard made a sport of messing with you, but it seemed like there might be something more going on beneath the surface. Was there any sexual tension between you?
I didn’t. But a lot of people who worked on the show—who I can’t name—and people that see the show felt that there were. They felt like he was some closet case. I didn’t see that, but they did. I don’t see that. But I think Howard was very jealous. I was there on time, I did what I said what I would do. He tried to make things difficult for me but I make things easy for me. I am who I am and once again I am very confident in what I do.
Did his vibe ever perk up your gaydar?
I wasn’t but other people were and another thing I wouldn’t even look at him. He would have to be the VP of Microsoft for me to look at him.
So you never felt like Howard wanted to mount you like Sugar Pie mounting her teddy bear?
No but Howard would probably mount a hole in the wall because I don’t think he’s had it in ten years. I don’t know anybody who would want him. Like I said on the show, Howard when was the last time you got BEEP and I said nevermind, I don’t even want to know who the victim was.
What kind of scrotum did you imagine Howard having? Shaved?
Probably not. There probably wouldn’t be a need to shave it because no one would ever be there to look at it. He also has an unusual hairdo. I wonder if those are hair plugs. He should really do some attorney services for a plastic surgeon, get a nose job, his chin sanded down and maybe some cheek bones. His eyes bulge out so far he could probably see the future. He was always making fun of me because of my acne or whatever. But you know what? Why do I have acne, Howard? Because I’m young darlin’. I’m young.
Anna’s behavior reminds me of my friend Marty “Gemini” Jimenez after he pulls a few bong hits. At least he has a good excuse. What’s Anna’s excuse?
I’m not sure what Anna’s excuse is. She seems like a Texan girl who is enjoying a very long summer with a long Texan drawl.
What was the strangest request that Anna made?
They wanted the feathers on their pillows to snap on and off. My very wealthy lady clients would never want their pillow feathers to snap on and off so that they can wash them. My lady clients have maids and servants who send their things out to have them cleaned. My clients are not dirty either. So that was a very unusual and odd request and of course we honored that and no we didn’t charge her the extra five hundred dollars in labor that that took. We took her shit back, put it on my sales floor—you saw that pink bed in the window? That was purchased by Harrison Ford for his movie. The next pink bed we brought in was bought by a very wealthy heiress from Malipan, Florida. That’s where Donald Trump and all them live. She flew in two weeks ago to see the bed. She flew in this weekend, paid for the bed and ordered one for her sister as well. People buy my shit.
Speaking of shit and Anna being dirty, did anything come back with poop stains?
They were eating in bed and stuff. Their curtains that came back weren’t dirty but her bedding and stuff were. People buy my things. Anna should have gone the other route and endorsed my products, made appearances in my luxurious store because we’ve sold 215 of those beds at $12,000 a piece. People are buying my shit. Cha-ching.
I noticed solid studs in Anna’s bedroom ceiling. Did you ever discuss adding a sex sling, maybe next to the urn of her dead husband’s ashes?
I would do not that fun fur shit on the walls so they had that other person do it and that leopard stuff on the ceiling so maybe they did it.
But she never wanted a sex sling?\
She didn’t say that to me probably because they knew I didn’t do that type of installation.
If you did add a sling, I imagine it would have to be sturdier than a dumptruck bed to accommodate Anna’s ass. . .
And all those others that seem to like to kiss her ass. They can kiss her ass. They can do whatever they want. They’ve been in court for nine years waiting for Anna to cash in or whatever. $88 million? I would have made more money by then.
Right. But if she had asked you to make a sex sling, what kind of luxurious fabrics would you have covered it with?
I would have to do it in pink patent leather for a special price.
They spent so much time toying with you that they might as well have called it the Bobby Trendy Show. Has anyone approached you about having your own show?
We’ve been approached by seven different offers by very influential show runners. These people are in their fifties and sixties, so they’ve been in the business forever. These are major networks. I’m very happy to entertain these ideas because there should be a Bobby Trendy show. I have so many more interesting things to say and I have a lot of extravagant and palatial mansions to palaces that I can take a camera to show that I’ve decorated. I have a very wealthy client in Beverly Park where if you’re sitting in her dining room, with the push of one button under the table the walls go up to the second floor and you’re outside now. That’s very, very luxurious. I have customers that have Lasy Susans outside that are the size of a small home that you can sit on and read and have a view of every part of the estate as it turns slowly.
More importantly, why did you say luxurious fabrics every ten seconds? Were you afraid they were going to edit it out?
No. Because everything I do is luxurious and sumptuous. My drapes are overflowing. Look at that pet bed. That’s an $8,000 pet bed with a canopy on it. Who’s that hot.
Good question, man.
Everything in the store is twenty-four karat gold. Who’s that hot? Those eggs right there are $2,500 each. Why? Because it’s twenty-four karat paper gold. Know what I’m saying?
Right. Anna was always complaining about not getting laid. Isn’t that why she kept Kim around?
Oh gosh. I never really got to know Kimmy but I think she’s developing a little mouth on her. If she talks back to me, watch out honey, I’m small but mighty.
What kind of trash did she talk to you?
She’s saying online on the E! interview that Bobby’s not the smartest tool around. Well, bitch, listen to this. You’re Anna’s gopher. Not me. You can kiss her ass. You can kiss Howard’s, but baby, cha-ching, sweetheart, cha-ching. You can kiss my ass, too.
What’s up with these weirdos Anna had working for her? What did Anna do to bait Kimmy into getting that tattoo of her face and autograph on her arm?
They can all kiss her ass. My clients pay me with money. I put that in my bank account. That’s what I’m interested in. Not being seen at sex shops with somebody. Carmen Electra is a very good client of mine right there (points at picture on wall). She spent upwards of over $100,000 per room and that’s what I like and she is sweet as can be. I don’t need to act a certain way with her. She doesn’t act a certain way with me. She pays me for my things and that’s what I like.
Sugar Pie liked to mount a teddy bear and furiously hump it. . .
That dog is disgusting. It was never washed. My car was washed more than that dog was. And detailed. All my ladies that come in here have custom gowns from Vera Wang for their dogs and their animals and their things are polished. The hair is combed and it looks silken.
They don’t have teddy bears for their dogs to hop on and pound?
No they do not. They probably pay to have other dogs escorted.
But was Sugar Pie the only thing that was getting humped in the house?
I don’t think anyone would want to have sex with anyone there. I would never touch Howard if he was the last thing on earth. He was disgusting. I’ve had a lot of people call my store who have known Howard from the past and went on dates with him and they left during the date.
A lot of people would like to see you behind the wheel of a NASCAR race vehicle. What kind of race suit would you design for yourself?
I would get Chanel to sponsor me. I think an all white leather with the Chanel logo on my elbows and across my chest and cha-ching with a matching mink headband with a helmet that goes over it in ermin with Anna Suis feathers where the ears are to let them know I’m. . .coming.
When you’re driving would you keep the suit unzipped to your belly button?
Well first of all, I don’t do much but answer my cell phone, so my driver would be driving me and I’d have it completely unzipped to show off my Vanguard diamond necklace or my Bulgari serpentine necklace.
Many of your fans are under the impression that you’re a failed track and field star who settled on being a designer. What do you have to say to them?
A what?
A decathlete. . .
What’s that?
The track and field event where you compete in ten sports.
Your fans are misled. I don’t even walk to the mail box. . .
Do you have a golf cart for that?
So there won’t be a failure in anything I do.
What other celebs do you design for?
Anna Nicole Smith is my least famous celebrity. My celebrities start at $100,000 per room, Carmen Electra, $100,000 per room Fernando Vargas, the boxer. Usher Raymond, Janet Jackson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Marla Maples, Cypress Hill. . .Cypress Hill has been here. Every member of the band bought furniture.
Have you taken any bong hits with them?
No I haven’t but that smell is quite familiar with all my clients. Limp Bizkit was just here yesterday. Pamela Anderson Lee will be coming in on Saturday. Daisy Fuentes just purchased from me. Fernando actually had me decorate his place twice and each time I had a consolation prize in the driveway.
Nice. Tell us what Bobby Trendy does to stay looking so youthful, luxurious and fabulous?
Cha-ching.
What does Bobby Trendy do to unwind. Roll around naked in money?
Bobby Trendy is done. Bobby doesn’t do.
What inspirational message would you like to share with young skateboarders around the world?
Keep skating. Something will happen that’s good. When I was young I had a Dogtown skateboard and all that shit. Everything in the magazine that I wanted I had. I only had the looks. I didn’t really know how to skate. It was the in thing at one time. I remember in seventh grade this boy had a Dogtown skateboard that I couldn’t have. So I took care of that after school. And I ended up with the skateboard.
To read more about Joe Friel’s training methods, visit www.ultrafit.com. |
