The Sasquatch Journal

I accidentally sat in on a "business meeting" yesterday. Of course, when I say business meeting, I mean that a sharp-looking pair – a twentysomething man and woman I work with were eating together at an outdoor table and talking in expressive and excited tones about their own screenplays and their plan to start working together – though they never quite specified what exactly that meant.

The man, a hip-looking black guy wearing Aviator shades and expensive sandals, noted that he had "a unique project in the works." He went on to describe it as a movie about a famous Hollywood actor who, despite projecting an All-Together Self Made Man image when a camera is on him, in his personal life he is…wait for it..wait for it…an insecure, neurotic mess!
"That sounds great, almost like that show "Extras" on HBO with that guy from The Office,” said the fast-talking perky blonde drinking some sort of $5 coffee drink. Nevermind that “Extras” is actually about a aging, mediocre actor unsuccessfully trying to make it into movies.

Blondie girl also described the way director Wes Anderson was able to release his first feature "Bottle Rocket" and implied that this was also the way that they could make it big.
"So, let's get together and brainstorm on Friday!"

In Los Angeles, these are the types of people who may scoff at the people, often lower on the socioeconomic scale that play Powerball, a game of chance that some call a “stupid tax.” But while it may not be completely random, countless actors, screenwriters and musicians and models wannabes move to L.A. every year to their success at the Giant Roulette Wheel of a Career in the Entertainment Industry.

What is it about the entertainment industry that attracts so many people, even when thousands quit or leave the city every year with broken dreams and unfulfilled promises?

Maybe because in a lot of ways, we've become a culture made up of performers and spectators, and we put such a high value on those performers - just look at the mythos behind American Idol, and the "talent" reality shows. It’s viewed as the ultimate in success if you can be a performer who has the largest amount of eyeballs looking at them.

The clichés are true that L.A. has the most talented waiters and baristas in the world. There are so many that work full time at real jobs to pay the rent and are either postponing their dreams or are working insane hours to slave away for almost nothing as an extra or a P.A. or script reader.

And probably because we are inundated with the images and the narratives of those that do actually achieve success and fame and money from Hollywood. In the movies we pay to see, the underlying message behind so many of them are: Be true to yourself. If you do, you can accomplish anything you want. Any many try to answer that call.

Here's a small sampling of people I've met since I've lived in L.A. for six months:

-Ryan, an actor/screenwriter (sort of like the two-in-one Shampoo/Conditioner) from St. Louis, whose biggest roles so far have been as Marine #2 in the upcoming "Transformers: The Live Action Movie" and as a punk rock high school student in an episode of "Monk" on USA. Ryan is barely scraping by money wise, but he is fully confidant he has the skills and attitude to make it in the industry.

-Jason, a guy I work with who spends his days testing Gameboy Advance games, but who just graduated from USC with a degree in screenwriting with dreams of one his action-filled screenplays looked at by Kevin Smith or Quentin Tarintino.

-Kelli, an actress from Ohio who as all of her head shots and keeps trying to break into films, but after three years, is still a hostess at the Olive Garden.

-Dave, a screenwriter/director, who once said he'd rather make films than date the hottest girl in the world. Dave has made two short indie films on a budget of less than $5,000 and has had little luck getting anyone to watch them.


"If they actually could see how good my work is, I'm sure I'd get picked up," one actor/screenwriter recently told me. But if Hollywood was looking for quality, why did they just release "Garfield 2: A Tale of Two Kitties" this summer and why are Hilary Duff and Paris Hilton in movies?

I admit that when some people tell me their lofty Hollywood ambitions, I'm tempted to be like David Brent in The Office (pictured earlier in this post)talking to Dawn about her goal to be an illustrator for children’s books. "Ok good, it's good to have pipedreams. Because after you fail, one day you can look back and say, yeah, I gave it a go."

Obviously though not everyone fails, and I'm not saying that no one should have ambitions in the entertainment industry, including the ones I just listed. My uncle for example, is a producer who just made a movie called "Art School Confidential." But he made it, in large part, because he happened to have worked at the Steppenwolf theatre in Chicago in the late 70's/early 80's, at the same time as guys like John Malcovich and Gary Sinise. Luck and being in the right place in the right time are often the biggest factors. There are so many tens of thousands of talented people in L.A., it seems a bit naïve to think that it’s purely a meritocracy where the best and brightest rise to the top in almost a deterministic fashion.

At any rate, in my mind I wished the pair of screenwriting "business partners" the best. Who knows, maybe someday they'll be writing the script for "Garfield IV: The Cat's Meow" starring Hilary Duff.

(Note: I actually wrote this about a month ago, but forgot to add it to my blog)

-There's not much to recommend about being a pedestrian in Albany. This realization came to me too late as I strode nonchalantly along the shoulder of busy Washington Avenue Saturday afternoon towards Big Box Retailer Paradise. The various cars that honked at me as they zoomed was a constant reminder that I was not welcome on this road. But I was on a mission. A mission for a laptop.

See, just an hour earlier I'd thought I'd been totally locked out from the SUNY (State University of New York) library computer lab. (I later found out there are a group of 8 computers elsewhere in the library that are public.) Friendless, internetless, and carless, my occassional impulsiveness kicked in and I decided to walk to Best Buy at Crossgates, New York's largest mall, and buy a laptop, despite the fact that it was a few miles away and there was no straightforward pedestrian route.

I arrived at Best Buy about an hour later, and was approached almost immediately by a Best Buy employee - luckily a cute, endearingly dorky college aged girl who was a tad short of clueless about computers. When I asked about the processor speed of a sleek HP in the display, she muttered something under her breath and pointed out how there was a DVD button that would "instantly play DVD's". When asked what the video card was like she responded "Good. Very Good." Now, if this would of been anyone else, I would of shrugged and went my own way, but this girl (I think her name was Christina) was cute, and was laughing at all my jokes, so I decided to play along.

But alas, the laptop I finally decided on was out of stock, and so Christina wisked me away to another HP she thought was "even better" than the unavailable one. After promising me that I could burn an image of Justin Timberlake on my writable CD's, I decided to go with her suggestion....but that one was also out of stock, also. (Here's why: it's Back to School time, and in 2006 laptops are apparently as essential to all college students as pens and notebooks.)

Christina apologized, and we chatted about her major, about Albany, about her accent, and other topics for 15 minutes or so. I have to admit, at this point I was prepared to ask to hang out after work...and I think she would have accepted...but... she felt compelled to take a picture of me with her Best Buy camera so that she could show me their snazzy new digital photo printer.

After she handed me the terrible print of myself holding my hands up, eyes half-closed, looking like an idiot, I suddenly lost my nerve. "Man, I look like an idiot," I thought as I quickly shoved the photo in my pocket. I tried to summon again my charm and clever wit, but all I could do was stare at my shoes and think about that stupid photo.

"Ummm, I have to help other customers," she said to break the awkward silence. In my mind, I was going to breathlessly interject something about hanging out, but instead I just muttered "Well....OK." She turned away and said "Have fun in Albany" and I strolled on towards the rest of the mall, trying to pick up the pieces of my dignity along the way.

-The Crossgates Mall is a ferocious beast of a building where the blood of commerce pumps hard and fast. Many experts may site the indoor shopping mall as growing passe among many, there was no evidence of this in Albany, where there were streams of people flowing in and out of the place. Two things I thought interesting about the place:

1. There was a Bally's Fitness somewhat near the food court, making it convienant for people to gorge themselves on fast food and frozen custard and then make the short walk down the hall to Bally's to use repetitive motions through machines to attempt to work the calories off. Maybe ideally for malls, someday people will pay to eat there, then pay to work the food off, then purchase smaller sized clothes to go with the working out, all under one roof.

2. There were hundreds of clothing shops, boutiques, speciality stores, restaurants, kiosks selling everything imaginable, but there were NO book stores. None. Unbelievable. What's a man going to do while walking on a highway?

-Checking out the New York Giants training camp (right across the street at the SUNY practice fields) was OK, but I don't really see why thousands of people drive hours with their families to see NFL teams practice. I watched the sea of grown men and women in Tiki Barber and Jeremy Shockey jerseys as much as the players themselves, trying to figure out what made them tick.
I stayed about 30 minutes, mostly because I thought maybe watching Eli Manning practice would give me an indication about whether I should keep him in my Fantasy Football league... The biggest impression I got was that coach Tom Coughlin may be the loudest man in America.