Winning In Hollywood

Remember those hilarious titles that would start like "How To Break Into Hollywood!" Or "100 Secrets To Stardom!"
Guess not. They were old titles I recall seeing in libraries out here. Guess the person who bought the book had reached stardom and donated it.

Probably not.
Look, I REALLY don't want you to think I'm an angry curmudgeon who wants you or everyone to fail. Honestly, I bet you have more talent than the people working today (especially Leo DiCaprio...man that guy sucks, I truly don't get his appeal). The point is to keep doing it because you love it not because you're trying to A) get the world to love you (because they'll most likely hate you more) B) being famous.
Famous isn't the famous it was before. And that saddens me.
Famous before meant a touch of...class. Today...Khardashian.
To me, in order to move forward in this town, there is nose to grindstone and a lot of disappointment or delusion.

There's an episode of "Growing Pains" (an 80's-90's sitcom) where, after having high school theater acclaim, Mike Seaver decides to enroll in theater classes in college. His teacher is a stage affected douchebag who quotes Ibsen and starts off the semester with an incredibly corny acting technique. Mike clearly feels he is in over his head, not having read any classical theater and only having done a Thornton Wilder high school gimme play called "Our Town" (saw my friend do this in Warsaw, Indiana...shudder).

At the end of the week, the students in this class are suppose to bring in audition notices and read them aloud. The others bring Broadway notices or hoity-toity plays, Mike...brings in one for an audition for a television spot for a fish and chips restaurant. The class erupts in laughter. So low brow. The professor snobbily dismisses this as frivolous.

Later, Mike tries his best to immerse himself in these plays and has no clue of Shakespeare's language. Distraught, he goes to audition for the fish and chips commercial. There he runs into...two of his classmates! They shamefully backpedal and admit that they haven't done anything of any merit and start from scratch. And then...the kicker...
...the audition room...the door opens and the professor emerges thanking the people in the audition room for the role. He gotten the part, that he had earlier shamed Mike in presenting.

For those paying attention...this is a lesson in ego. Regardless of content or pride, one still has to survive.