prompt: chop, title: use your illusion in "the next big thing" flash fiction

For four or five years of My Time Spent in Los Angeles I worked as the lowest level assistant in a director’s office. One of my teenage heroes, to be honest. I was absolutely in love with his earlier movies, that sort of thing was what I wanted to do with my life when I was a younger man. There were good times and bad times, as with all things, booked a few fan events, cleaned up some dog shit, organized and re-organized a DVD collection in the thousands. Picked up a lotta chop salads from The Griddle Café on Sunset, I’ll tell you that for free. After I got laid off at a writer’s strike, I admit I lost track of his work, not from bitterness, more from needing a clean break. If someone lets you go, to crib a line from Axl Rose, ‘you live and learn and then sometimes it’s best to walk away.’ But I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t part of how LA broke my heart and killed The Magic.

Running errands for them up and down Hollywood Boulevard was how I became fascinated with the costumed buskers selling pics on the Walk of Fame, such as my sasquatch friend Frank Yetty.

One time, a documentary crew came down to the auxiliary-office down in West Hollywood. The boss was huge in geek circles and they wanted some pull quotes for a ‘Star Wars’ thing. I helped the crew get comfortable. I told them they could set up the lights wherever they wanted but he’d stand wherever the moods struck him anyway. One of their grips asked where the bathroom was, I showed him, and when he returned, the dude then confided with me, “Wow. Your boss is really the real deal, isn’t he?” I was confused. “Uh, how do you mean?” “The whole persona is how he is the true geek in Hollywood, I thought it was a marketing gimmick? But there’s that rack in the office bathroom. It’s all dog-eared comic books.” I just smiled, then walked away to other duties.

Those were my fucking comics. I read them during my lunch. But I couldn’t bear to disillusion that guy, in that moment, I didn’t feel like it was my place to break it to him that was just me. I added to The Curse of the T.M.Z. that day myself, allowing people to see what they wanna see.

Time spent in Los Angeles will do that to you.

My first weekend of film-school at Syracuse, a spoilt kid from the suburbs of Manhattan spelled his name on the dorm-bathroom walls of Flint Hall in the smears of his own shit, blackout drunk.

The kind of guy rich enough to keep living in the big city long enough to ‘make it’. I work in my tiny hometown library now. He’s the showrunner for that “Rick and Morty” cartoon sitcom now.

Time spent in Los Angeles will do that to you, as well.