The Hollywood Holla #3
By: Mike James
8/7/08

Slim: Cricket. I came to say good-bye.

Cricket: What?

Slim: We're leaving now. Thanks for everything.

Cricket: Hey Slim, are you still happy?

Slim: What do you think?

- Final Scene of “To Have and Have Not” (1944)

I have to begin by apologizing for my delayed correspondence. I initially intended to send out regular issues of “The Hollywood Holla” when I began but things were much different when I began. Much different indeed…

America’s Funniest Videos aren’t actually all from America. This disturbed me at first. Then it made perfect sense. When I realized why the video archive, which I spend so much of my day in, contained one side which was alphabetized in a perfectly logical manner. The other side of the archive starts out at AUS, then BEL, then CHE, then DEN and so on. WHAT?!?! We’ve been peddling European vacation outtakes and French weddings gone wrong the whole time!!!

Clearly this was a startling discovery. Then again, just about everything is a startling discovery nowadays.

I got hired on as a production assistant for the 19th Season of America’s Funniest Home Videos. It’s a pretty good gig. I’m chipping away at the parking tickets a little bit at a time. The writers favorite part of the day is when “that crazy surfer dude from Indiana” brings them coffee. I also get to watch videos of squirrel antics, baby vomit, drunk people falling off tables and my favorite the crouch shot.

It’s a standard office PA gig with two days on set a month. It is a huge improvement (and relief) from the freelance PA thing. For starters the dude I had been working with on set that was a PA from PA (ha ha) ended up being a butt pirate. No literally he was trading sexual favors for rent. The whole gig in Palm Springs for a week was a lie. He didn’t know any project managers he was just showing up on set when “daddy” told him too.

Up and down Beachgrove Rd. leading all the way up to the Hollywood sign, unimaginable atrocities are taken place upon those who had all the hopes of a new start and wild dreams of a promising future.
“Hollywood wasn’t what I expected it to be.”

I laughed and said “it sure as hell isn’t!”

For me I thought it was going to suck much more than what it actually did. In fact this whole Hollywood thing is pretty fucking awesome.

Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t Hollywood that sucked.

I didn’t need that gig anyway by that time I had enough going on my own that I wasn’t worried about work. So fuck him or don’t, the guy who wrote the 7th episode of Six Feet Under Season 3 has since April.

AFV is a totally chill office. I really do like it. It’s brainless work. People are cool with me being, me in the office. In fact one of the producers told me I was hired on because they felt I would keep the atmosphere “light” while still getting work done.
I promised I wouldn’t let him down.

The season runs through next May. I plan to begin shooting my debut independent film tentatively titled “Taste” in June. I’ll get to that in a minute though.

In terms of what I have going on business wise, things couldn’t be better. My momentum has been building and building in the last few weeks. I’ll start with the video. Rocstar’s debut music video that I shot back in June and have been editing the last two months is finished and now on youtube. Stop reading now and click on this link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HhiGd_Wbls

I started shooting on my parent’s VHS-C camera when I was fourteen years old. I’ve shot a lot of videos and worked on a lot of projects since. All of which at one point in time I grew to thoroughly hate and convulse at upon one play past completion. This one was different. This is my best work to date. I’m very proud of this video but I know it’s only an example. This video is shows what I can do if given the opportunity and in this town opportunity is everything.

I am also pitching a show to ToonDisney/Jetix, the yet-to-be-titled new Disney owned kids network. My manager (lady that I worked with last summer that has been hooking me up) has the connections there and I am doing the developmental work. Outlines, sample scripts, character anaylsis, and development of our host’s character “Coach Kent”. Kent Buckner, our possible host is also Tay Diggs personal trainer as well as the personal trainer for a number of professional athletes.

My idea (and don’t bother stealing it because I already have it registered with WGA) is basically a kid’s workout show. Specifically, in the format that is called interstitials. Interstitials are sixty second programs that run between programming and commercials. Disney is the sixty-pound gorilla when it comes to marketing especially viral marketing using new media.
The catch is I’ve never written a script. I’ve written countless outlines and notes and short stories but never a legit script. So when the opportunity came up I had to figure it out as I went, as usual. It’s coming along slowly. Mainly because I almost forgot from last summer how incredibly difficult it is to write to kids. Let alone in a format I have never written in before.
But what the hell? Right? Of course! Buy the ticket take the ride.

So that is one of many balls in the air.

I have met so many incredible people since moving out. It have been shocked and amazed me at the familiarities I have found here to every other place that I have called home in the past. The community in Hollywood is weird. Everything about this town is strange and yet I’ve never felt the sense of belonging that I do here.

Adjusting to the working life has been a slight challenge. Mainly the getting up in the morning, having people look at me like I know nothing, people on power trips and the over all daily grind. I can’t complain though. I have a job in the industry that is well paid and runs through May. Tom Beourgeron is much shorter than you would think, but that’s what they say I guess.
The release of the video has been exciting because I’ve gotten some great feedback. Several opportunities have surfaced to do other videos since I posted it last week.

I guy called selling me the LA Times and seeing as I am a news junkie I said sign me up. While he was processing my information we got to talking about things and about what each other did. He said that he did videos and that he wanted to see some of my work. I emailed him the link to the video and he called saying he wanted a partnership. This was a warning sign that this guy didn’t know what he was talking about.

I would go into detail about how this guy had no idea what he was talking about when we met but I will spare you the goriness. He also was a one-eye-squinter. By that I mean he only had one fully operational eye, the other he just kind of squinted out of it.

“So you know I like that video you did, you know. So you know I’m think we outta go in together. Cut the take in half and get sumpin goin’, you know?”
I knew he was speaking to me but I just wasn’t listening that closely. I was thinking,

How the hell am I supposed to work with a dude with an eye like that? I mean really? Is this guy for real? What were you in some kind of brawl in a back alley or something? Did you fix some card get and get stabbed with a butterfly knife in a biker bar in East LA? I think if he had a glass eye I would be cool with this. In fact I might even ask him if I could hold it. But no! He’s got this fucking squinty shit goin’ on and it’s really pissing me off.

I heard his piece, gave him my reel, convinced him to buy a round of Patron and I peaced out. This guy did some Public Access but never made any money. It was pretty clear to me. How do you expect to be successful with a one-eye-squinter?

Living in this town is simply incredible. There is always so much to do. I feel like I don’t ever even have to plan anything. As long as I’m in the right place at the right time (which I have a long celebrated history of just that) there is a guaranteed good time. I’ve got tickets to Queens of the Stoneage at The Fonda on the 16th and Radiohead tickets for The Hollywood Bowl on the 24th. Jack Black, Kyle Gass, Billy Gibbons, Brody Dalle and other friends of QOTSA will be there in honor of Natasha Scheinder, former actress and keyboardist for QOTSA who recently lost her battle with cancer. It is sure to be a memorable show.

The dust settles for now. Things grow quieter with routine. Discipline. Responsibility. Not as attractive as spontaneous and drunk but we all have to grow up sometime right? Nay. Nay, I say! I might have bills to pay but I will continue to clown around and play. Apologies I play Nintendo Wii with a dude that lives in the basement of my building. He freestyles and while demolishing me on my own system he will freestyle hate rhymes about my Wii game.

It’s humiliating. So I’ve begun to practice my freestylin’ abilities. I began with googling “freestylin’ funky fresh rhymes”. It returned some organic produce site, a blog about cheese and a Christian sing-a-long tape. I hung my head in shame with the realization of how incredibly white I really am.

I’ve quit playing Wii for now. Child’s play. I’m a working man in the entertainment industry. Vin Di Bona gave me some advice when I met him.

You know when I started out in this industry I was a PA on a show, Oh you wouldn’t know the name of it, but I was a PA with another guy my age. He would complain “oh why do we have to get pizza and coffee for these guys all the time?” I would get the pizza and coffee, you see. Because I knew that I was getting to watch the greatest people in television and if I wanted to get to where I wanted to be I needed to get that pizza and coffee. Now it was real nice to meet you all welcome to the company.

When I finally looked at him while he was talking I was first surprised that he wasn’t reading it off of a teleprompter. I had been paying more attention to his scotch rack. My lips watered at the thought of the rare and exquisite scotch that was housed in those crystal containers. So many nights I’ve spent slumped over at the computer with a glass of Ole’ Grand Dad on the rocks with no doubt that the work I was doing would lead me to a future of the finest scotch in the finest crystal containers.

The pursuit of glory is fascinating. The 2008 summer Olympics have begun and it will be on in my apartment 24 hours a day in full 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound and High Definition picture. Dedication towards one goal for country, family, fame and legend excites me greatly. Years practice for one moment. I identify with these Olympians in some way. Maybe not the gymnists, imagine me on a pommel horse.

I miss my friends a lot. Hearing from Bill and Sabo this week was pretty great. I really, really hope you guys come out. (To Sabo: DO NOT BRING BILL IF HE DOESN’T HAVE ANY MONEY)

There are times driving home from work when I’m in stand still traffic on Highland I will have déjà vu. It’s an experience almost like the feeling of reaching a check point in a race. It might happen at the office or when I debuted the video but it happens often. A feeling where I go back to a Media Law class day dreaming about blondes with fake tits and velvet ropes opening up anywhere I walked that I thought about being at the moment I’m currently in, minus the blondes with fake tits and opening velvet ropes of course.

I will keep you updated with any further developments. Thank you for your support and your belief.
With Love and Respect,

Your Friend,

Mike James