Getting Around Hollywood, In Style

RULE NUMBER ONE: Own a car.

Failing that, you can take the bus. Or do like I do, which is not leave my house. Assuming you are fool enough to actually go outside, HERE'S A BULLETIZED LIST, MFer!

IMPORTANT POINTS FOR GOING ANYWHERE IN LA:

• Check Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/maps) .
• Check the LA METRO SITE (http://www.mta.net/) to see if the Metro goes to the place you told Google Maps that you wanted to go.
• Make sure that the area you are going into doesn't have it's own, localized, service. This is important in case you get off the bus somewhere and think you will be able to do some light exploring and then try to get on the bus again, only to find that your Day Pass, PURCHASED SO INNOCENTLY, doesn't work. FOR EXAMPLE: Santa Monica's BIG BLUE BUS (http://www.bigbluebus.com/). More about the Big Blue Bus, and how it made me cry, later.
• Wear shoes.
• Don't walk anywhere. This earns you respect, and let's you keep all that hard-earned sweat you've been storing. Distances are deceptive here, they at once are smaller than they seem, and feel further than they are. Meaning, in a car, you think, GOSH this is taking FOREVER, when you've only gone a mile. If you walk that same mile, it takes about 10 minutes, BUT IT FEELS LIKE AN HOUR. Don't walk anywhere. You have the shoes just in case the Apocalypse comes and you have to drive a firetruck to save the First Lady from a crashed helicopter and drive her to a secret military installation where they had knowledge about the potential threat, in the form of a crash-landed alien, but it was "Totally Classified." Except for the First Lady part, I could be talking about either Independence Day OR Transformers. WHAT'S THAT ABOUT?!!?!?!

Honestly.

How to Succeed in Hollywood.

STEP 1:

Move to Hollywood.

STEP 2:

Get a driver's license.


What's that you say? Step 1 and Step 2 should be reversed!? Oh my goodness, nobody told me. I guess this is going to be an uphill battle.

I began renting a place in Hollywood about a month and a half ago. I've yet to find a single source of income, and I suspect my lack of a car may be responsible. I did, however, see a girl throw up in the bushes right outside my window.


And so begins a journey into the highs and lows and, all the more likely, middles of living the glamorous life in Hollywood.

INFO ABOUT HOLLYWOOD, POORLY FORMATTED IN GLORIOUS RANDOM-O-VISION

1. Hollywood is a crap hole. If you're sitting back at home in Iowa, dreaming all those dreams about dreaming on the big screen, YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT BEVERLY HILLS. Do not move to Hollywood proper. Hollywood is a small area about a mile and a half square that is full of homeless people and camera rental shops. There is also a Target, which brings people up from down South.

RULE NUMBER 1: Move to Beverly Hills or Westwood. Do not move to Hollywood, North Hollywood, or even West Hollywood.

2. If you do move to Hollywood, make sure you have a car and that you know someone beforehand. Also, be able to live with no income for at least three months. There are hundreds of assistant jobs, promising "contacts" and "experience" most of which are just there to exploit you as slave labor. But some of them are okay.

RULE NUMBER 2: Become an assistant at a talent agency. Do not tell them you want to act or sing or dance or direct or produce or write. They don't care. Tell them you want to be an agent. You always have wanted to be an agent. Agenting is the most exciting thing you can possibly conceive of, and you want to do it more than breathe or poop. Is this a lie? Oh yes, very much so, but the truth is that no agent wants to be an agent either. It just happened. By becoming an assistant to these people, you will make contacts, and you need contacts.
NOTE ABOUT SYNERGY BETWEEN RULES NUMBER 1 AND 2: The reason you wanted to move to Beverly Hills is that A) it's nicer and B) that's where all the talent agencies are. There is nothing in Hollywood. Remember that. Except for CNN, Reader's Digest, and the Cinerama Dome. There are also a lot of post-production houses. BUT WHERE IS THE GLAMOUR IN POST-PRODUCTION.



OVERALL GOLDEN RULE FOR HOLLYWOOD: Hollywood, by which we mean the movie business, does not need you. It has thousands of people begging to be let in. You have to find what it is about you that stands out, and even ask yourself whether or not you'd be more happy making a blog from which you can hock used t-shirts.

RULE FOR THE GOLDEN RULE FOR HOLLYWOOD: Get a law degree and then prepare to have it mean nothing for the first 10 years.


COMING UP NEXT: HOW TO SUCCEED AS A CINEMATOGRAPHER WITHOUT EVEN TRYING