Too Much Fun In Hollywood

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I knew there was a movie inside me, something funny but romantic, pack full of action & tension & soul. A movie for everyone. A movie so deeply moving that moviegoers would be so busy clapping that they’d have to eat their extra-buttery buttered popcorn from a feedbag. I knew I could do it... and  I found it like gravity. Me & my happy laptop at all hours of day and night, at the coffee shop & the library, typing out truth & beauty to the music in my head. And when I printed it to paper & punched three holes in every page even the brads had to smile at what I had achieved. Let’s go to Hollywood.

I landed at LAX to critical acclaim, ten thousand maniacs screaming for my name. My agent skimmed the script & told me “hold please,” but when he got back on, “your blood & semen are dripping off every page… we start shooting Saturday afternoon.”

So he sent me to the starlet in the penthouse suite & she was super-psyched to see me. She served me glass champagne from a plastic slipper and asked if she could be in my movie. When I said ‘I don’t know’ she whipped out her case and let me see her shining guitar. And as I pounded out some power chords I thought to myself: This is not what I came here for.

So the press agent met me at the restaurant on the strip and as we sip seltzer he says he’ll have my name up in lights before the avocado rolls. I looked over to the freeway and sure enough that’s me on a billboard so bright it was blinding the drivers. And as I squinted and listened to the sweet sounds of Los Angeles car crash I thought to myself: This is not what I came here for.

My screenplay was about a girl who finds love and victory in the face of devastating danger but the studio head wanted Justin Bieber for the role. When he said we would be filming in 3D I stood up for my work and fought for the integrity of my film, and the man countered by tossing sacks of cash at my soundstage until I was red-faced for all of us. And when the Santa Ana winds took the thousand dollar bills I thought to myself: This is not what I came here for.

The producer thought I wanted power, so he gave me a desk and a golden guillotine for lopping off the heads of PA’s who brought the actors cold coffee. And as their heads rolled like marples on my luxury office carpet I thought to myself: This is not what I came here for.

The director re-wrote my script, added Dracula, two dozen superheroes, and a CGI pig who loves pie. And as I watched him try on girls for the role of Naked Cheerleader I thought to myself: This is not what I came here for.

So I hopped a flight homeward, and now I’m back, and I’m working in the kitchen, and I’m cooking for my family & my friends. I don’t miss the club for keeping secrets, the afternoons of latitude, or the cast of living lies. Even kids get sick of the carnival. Goodbye Hollywood, & good luck... you saved my life more times than you’ll know, and I’ll think of you if I find myself at the movies.
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