Eye Opener

I know Hollywood gets a REALLY bad rap. And I'm mostly to blame as I turn my jaundiced slanted eye towards you newbies who come into town thinking you'll be the next big thing. I dunno, maybe you will. But here's a secret...not everyone who was born here in Hollywood or L.A. works in the movie business. In fact most don't. Though there is an awful stigma that perhaps their parents did. For the most part, technicians and below the line crew seemed to live in the Valley such as Burbank or parts of North Hollywood (it's rebuilt itself...kinda), movie actors lived in Bel-Air or Beverly Hills or Malibu and t.v. people lived in Encino/Woodland Hills/Tarzana and Sherman Oaks. Stuntmen lived in  the Santa Clarita area in high desert. They all wanted to be cowboys. Birds of a feather.

People wonder why I shit on Hollywood people so much. I don't. I shit on people who come to Hollywood and spin their wheels with no plan and then attempt to jackass their way onto set. Nothing...and I mean NOTHING annoys worker bees like people who believe everything works out for them with no work. I had a roommate like this. Had his wish board all up. Also had an ankle bracelet on because he was on house arrest for drunk driving. Must be proud. He was an actor from Ohio. You think this isn't shameful. Sad, pathetic dude.
These are the people I shit on. Because they believe that believing makes it happen. Except they leave off the 4 A.M. calls, doing your taxes for gig work, handling 3 jobs to pay rent. These are the things that are left off everyone's list. And then blame the system, as they are the victim of circumstance.

Nothing more sad then when a brown dude like myself does better than a White person who was given so much privilege in America. Tides have changed, of course, but not for Asian folk. None of this matters to a lot of people of my ethnicity, so it changes the slowest.

Now, I get that a lot of White folk don't like thinking they got any privileges in life, and that they lived an abused life, or had shitty parents, or struggled. But not a LIFETIME of struggle. Now I'm talking about myself...since I am afforded the stereotype of being intelligent (which I've proven wrong...repeatedly) but the Black community. From what I've learned and spoken to a co-worker (who is Black) most of us have hope. Regardless what our pass has been. The Black community thinks the worst first. They won't get the job because White human resource guy. Or they can't buy a house in a White community, because they're Black. Most have to live this existence. I got a taste of it in Ohio.

As much as I love Cincinnati, boy is it bigoted. We had Marge Schott, for crissakes.
Any way, growing up brown and Asian was always a test of resilience. Going out, I'd always get the sense of being blind sided by a bigoted statement. Or questions of "where are you from?" or really deeply bigoted managers at retail work who questioned my work ethic though I had to do more (in my mind anyway) to impress the upper management. All these things will always be ingrained in me. Same with Hollywood. We judge a a matter of occupational concerns. So you can see how difficult it is to feel any empathy towards the White folk of Hollywood whining that they aren't in projects anymore. You are also getting a taste of it.
It isn't right. But it is happening. And that helpless feeling you are experiencing...I grew up with it and learned to adapt to it.

That said, I think when most people think Angelenos are shallow vapid idiots, I have to correct them. Transplants are. Think about the most broken down animals in life from all parts of the world and put them all in one cage. That's what built Hollywood. True Angelenos are still wondering how it got this fucked up.