A few days ago, I met with a reasonably successful TV Producer. Someone who could get me that coveted first gig. I tried out my, I write for the love of the craft and not for fame or fortune speech. I didn’t manage a straight face, but I pulled it off with a righteous half smile. The meeting went well. I’m not quitting my money gig just yet, but it’s a step to that end. A big step.
Later that same day, the editor of this magazine called me to the Chinese Grauman’s Theatre with a task: strike up a conversation with a stranger and write about it. I don’t even like talking to people I know (unless they’re TV Producers who can advance my career) but I took the bait. Hey, I write for the love of the craft and even in this tourist, street performer infested corner of La La land there are stories demanding to be told.
I found a little Guatemalan guy selling “Hollywood Star Maps.” I thought in him I would find some twisted Hollywood Dream, that juiced up version of the American Dream where malignant angst hides in hyphens: waiter-actor, office assistant-writer, security guard-director, map sales guy-(?). If nothing else, I could try out my speech on this barnacle of Show Biz and enlighten him. It’s not about fame and fortune, man, it’s about the work! Way up on my moral high ground, it would be a long fall.
His name is D. That’s not a pseudonym, that’s his name. A heavy but comprehendible accent, he sports buzzed hair and a hearty belly. He looks like a Latino Buddha – or he would to me by the end of the interview.
“The sign says they’re Hollywood Star Maps, but they’re not,” he confessed; “They’re maps to Hollywood’s celebrity homes. You have to look at what you’re buying.”
In tense silence, D gauged my ability to comprehend. I thought there might be a greater meaning to this statement, but I didn’t know what it was and I certainly didn’t think he intended one. Letting me off the hook, D assisted a tourist, “This is how you get to Sunset Boulevard… that’s where the star tour begins.”
Ready to resume, D offered me his chair, which I promptly denied. With order restored - me standing, D sitting - I proceeded as planned.
“Why do you sell star maps?” I asked, meaning what is it you really want to do?
“It’s a no pressure job” D answered, “I go home (West Adams), and I can live. I live. ”
Yeah, the little fucker repeated that part, but come on … work to live? Not in this city, buddy.
Sensing my disbelief, he added that he enjoyed selling maps to tourists with kids.
“Maybe ten years from now, they’ll look at the map they bought and remember this vacation when their kids were young. I like being a part of that.”
This guy wasn’t getting it so I shot from the hip:
“Is there something you would rather be doing? Any ambitions for the future?”
Always polite, D considered the question.
“My friend used to sell maps … but he makes more money dressing up like Tweety Bird at the Chinese theater and at kid’s parties. I wouldn’t mind doing that.”
But he fought off the evading fantasy of joining the flock of costume characters up the street, too much hustle required to earn tips from photo snatching tourist. D sells his map for $2, $3 less than his competitors. Tourists come to him, freeing D up to witness life’s more interesting creations, like the homeless man who throws away cash bills when they’re offered to him, not comprehending, or comprehending too fully, the meaning of money; or the Trek Character, a former UFC fighter, who once pummeled a trouble making hooligan.
Frustrated with D’s veil of complicity, I grew silent as I thought of an excuse to leave. D let me stew and turned his attention to his customers, making three back to back sales at will, and repeating this mantra to his clientele:
“This is how you get to Sunset Blvd … that’s where the star tour begins.”
It was as if Norma Desmond rose from her fictional grave to show me the path to happiness in the trenches of Hollywood, but could only speak in Zen riddles.
After a few awkward minutes, D chimed in to help old NormaD, insisting that I look at the unfolded map displayed in plastic next to his chair.
“What can you infer?” he demanded.
Off my blank expression, he pushed “look at the colors! Don’t you see?”
I didn’t.
“Red, white and blue. It’s the American Flag. This map to the stars I’m selling, it is America. This is America.”
I saw the physical resemblance between the $2 map and old stars and stripes, but D’s greater meaning wasn’t getting through. I’m not ready.
But at least I was looking up at him now. That high ground I had – gone. My righteous half smile – gone. My own hyphen, still there, but maybe the angst isn’t so malignant. Even if D’s lesson was premature, at least I’m clear now on who’s the teacher and who’s the student.
I asked for D’s permission to write this, I wouldn’t have predicted feeling the need to do so an hour before. His answer:
“Of course.” And then, absolving my sins, “I want to be famous. Who doesn’t?”
BB
