Knocking Around Hollywood

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2009

When I was at the tender age of 18, I moved from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Hollywood, California...To, I thought, become the next big star...I was born in LA, and raised in Southern California...So I longed to return to the sand, surf ,and sunscreen...(There is a reason they call California the "Land of the Fruits and Nuts")... While I was in Hollywood, I met some people...who knew people...who didn't know anyone as it turned out...But, I managed to get a manager, and an agent...and a bad rash...(My lips got infected from kissing so many asses). I met with tons of casting directors, writers, and producers, and finally decided I didn't have what it took to do student films...So, I decided to pick up work as a stunt man, but the auditions were killing me. I put together this awesome audition piece where I lit myself on fire...it was real impressive...until one day, I was in such a hurry, I forgot to wear my asbestos suit...THAT was a bad day... LA has a bad gang problem...and traffic is so bad in LA during rush hour they do sit-by-shootings...I joined this pot head gang called the "Crippies". While I was in Hollywood, I worked for a short time as a doormat for casting directors. They'd yell at me and wipe their feet on me...I took the job because I was hoping to get noticed...then, after a while I was hoping NOT to get noticed...After a couple of days I quit... During that time I had the opportunity to try out for "Cat People" with Natassia Kinski...First of all, I kept calling her Natassia Kinky..and unfortunately I misheard the guy and thought I was reading for a film called "Catty People"...Needless to say my audition didn't go very well... I worked briefly as a Production Assistant on a film with Patty Duke and Richard Hatch (from Battlestar Galactica)...it was a pilot for a TV show called "Patty the Space Cadet"...It never caught on...Plus, they fired me...The producer accused me of coming back from lunch smelling like pot...I told him I was just trying to hide the smell of the gin...He said, "You'll never work in this town again!" And I said "Hah! I haven't gotten a job yet!"... So, I decided to become a writer...I wrote for television...they were coming out with a retro show for gay men called "Leave It, It's Beaver"...I also wrote some screenplays using popular films as a guide (maybe you've heard of some of them). I wrote "Backside to the future", "Close Encounters with a Transvestite" (based on a real experience in the Home Depot bathroom), "Desperately Seeking Susan's Sister", "The Breakfast Sex Club" (About a 90 yr old nudist couple), and "Teen Wolf Naked!" (Which was an adaptation of the hit musical Hair!)...Nothing was working... I even tried all kinds of different genre's and styles...for instance, I wrote one just for potheads called "Indiana Jonesin'"... And all the while, I was still auditioning around town as an actor...I had worked up a new monologue by re-writing two parts of a scene into one (The love scene from "Brokeback Mountain")...but, I still couldn't get hired, and I was running out of money. Out of desperation I got a job working nights as a caddy for a miniature golf course...Then, this casting director at Universal Studios told me that I needed to get my teeth fixed...so, I popped him in the mouth, and now he does too. Then I ran into this short, fat, blonde guy who dressed up like Superman, and hung out at Venice Beach. He had been an extra in alot of movies...And, he said he could help me get my career started...I told him that he didn't look anything like Superman, and he said "That's the gag!"...I still don't get it....Anyway, he did get me an agent...Steven's Grey Agency, and he did get me some work as an extra in some movies. It looked like my acting career was finally off and running. Then, one day he's over my apartment telling me to change my name to Warren Gregory or something...and he says "Hey, let's go down to the corner porn shop and get ourselves real horny" (I look around and there was no one there but us two guys). I said "What for?" "Ah, come on...it'll be fun!" he says. We go to the corner porn shop (in Hollywood there's one on every corner), and he buys this liquid that's supposed to get you really horny. We go back up to my third floor apartment...I didn't want to take the stuff, so I went in the bathroom and dumped it down the toilet....When I come back out, he's laying on my bed buck naked except for a red cape and Superman boots...I said "What the fuck are you doing?" And he says "Just come lay down beside me, it'll be okay"... Now imagine your driving down Supelveda Blvd and you see this naked fat blonde guy with a red cape and superman boots go flying out of a third story window, and he bounces a few times across the roadway...What do you do? Nothing....Weird shit like that happens every day in Hollywood... That was the last straw for me though...I immediately packed my bags and headed home. A month later, I found myself on the bus from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Fort Benning Georgia to become a bullet catcher for the U.S. Army...