Julie Goes to Hollywood: Who To Be After The Dream Dies

My friend Hannah, who is around my age, just started a job making three hundred grand a year as a cardiologist. The thing that really interests me here, other than the three hundred grand, is that ten years ago Hannah was working in the mail room at CAA. Already past her prime even then, at least for an aspiring Hollywood power agent, she too had a flawed life plan. We both bet it all on a city that isn't real, filled with people who don't get it and wouldn't know what to do with it if they did.

It is possible to slink off into the night after your dream finally dies -- but I've never been sure where those people go or what they do when they get there. I've always suspected small town diner waitressing was involved, or possibly the sale of flowers and those strange little leaflets at the airport.

What I love most about Hannah's story is not that she got out, but how she marched off the stage like a freaking rock star, pumping a fist in the air. Or pumping the life back into some fat cat on a gurney, as it were, suddenly begging her for a little attention.

Then there's Chloe, Hannah's younger sister. Her Hollywood journey began when she left a job as a death penalty-qualified Seattle attorrney to become a celebrity gossip columnist. She now takes private ballet lessons from a straight guy named Jacques and just got a swag bag from the people behind the Liberace movie that included a rhinestone-encrusted bottle of Dom Perignon. I wonder if she ever misses putting on a plucky smile to deliver appeals briefs and fresh toothbrushes to Richard Ramirez. Probably not.

Given the natural fit between crime and drama, sometimes I think about cashing in my chips and becoming a prosecutor. It be might nice to gas an actual serial killer once in awhile instead of trying to mete out justice on paper. Either that or I'll do the diner waitress or airport flower and pamphlet thing. Really, you never know where you might end up when you've had enough of this place, but I hope it's on the right side of the gurney.

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING

Waking Ambrose
"Julie tells us stories not just about her aspirations and the long road to their fulfillment but also the rented bungalow, her neighbors, her dogs, her past, her friends, her losses, snark and entertainments. She writes about the whole Los Angeles the way they did when they were writing for Bogart."

Confessions of a Hollywood Juicer
"Julie has been around the Hollywood block in various incarnations, and her voice resonates with experience, insight, and humor. She puts up new posts at a pace that leaves me dizzy. Maybe that's because, unlike many of us who write about the industry, she's a pro at the keyboard, and it shows."

Complications Ensue

"Julie seems like a fascinating person who's had a charming life, unless it's the other way around. After chucking what some might consider a glamorous career as a foreign correspondent, she's got another blog about being a peon in Hollywood. I bet she gets a book out of it."

Write Procrastinator

"Screenwriter Julie knows story structure, Hollywood lore and how to show her evil landlord that the siege of Stalingrad was
just a picnic."

Kung Fu Monkey (John Rogers)

"Adding a few links I promised, as I rip through my stacked e-mails. In the Spec-Monkeys, the filthily amusing "Things They Won't Tell You in Film School." I believe the children are our future. The cynical, misled, drunken ranting children.