Going Viral

Apartment

And this is how my story begins.

My fat roommate is on his belly, scribbling something in his notebook. The wall behind me is pressing into my back, my legs sprawled out over two thin black blankets that did very little to protect me from the cold concrete floor. 

Still in the same studio I've called my home the last three years.

My empty home.

I have absolutely nothing.

I never really thought it was possible to have so much of it. Nothing is the absence of anything and here I am, three years later, nothing being the essence of my fucking everything.

This was so much bullshit...

:

I am not mad.

I am incredibly. Extremely. Fucking frustrated.

If you've been in Hollywood as long as I have. Seeing what I've seen. All the organic bullshit gallivanting around town on two legs calling themselves actors.

God, it was fucking exhausting...

Watching all of them pretend to be the thing they think they are inside their heads. Because they believe they all can make it. They're the one. Their destiny is here in Los Angeles to become famous. The one people stop whatever they're doing so they can run up to you and ask to take a selfie. (Not because they legitimately met their hero, or idol. They know a picture with a celebrity is a high end social trophy that will make anyone's Instagram look great.)

So they come from all over the stupid planet, Hollywood being like a magnet collecting people like little metal shavings, those little metal shavings who believe more in what they see in the mirror than what they feel inside.

Nobody comes to Hollywood anymore to act. They don't come here to write, or direct. They didn't come here because passion dragged them like a screaming child knowing somewhere in this city there was an opportunity to captured and a dream fulfilled. They don't care for the art. The true passion.

No.

They want to play, live the Hollywood lifestyle, living it without putting in a single drop of hard work. They don't care for the passion. All they care about is that selfish want to be famous.

Three years ago I came here with a big smile and a bigger hop in my step.

Hope. I had hope.

That has to be where I went wrong.

After some time, I learned all the hope I had was invested in my talent as an actor. But talent wasn't really something wanted these days. It's 2015. It's different now. Hollywood was quickly blossoming into this egocentric bullshit capital where casting agents who cared less if you had a gram of talent, but more invested in those who ranked higher in the hierarchy of the social networking stratosphere.

"Talent? You have talent? Ah shucks, we don't really give any fucks for those with talent, especially around these parts. How many followers do you have on Instagram? Twitter? Friends on Facebook? YouTube subscribers? None? Really? Ah shucks, well that sucks a gigantic throbbing donkey's dick. I'm sorry; we have no use for you because we value those who possess microscopic levels of talent who have tons of hot loads of followers, subscribers, and friends! Fuck face! As long as you're good looking we don't give the slightest shit if you have a single atom of creativity."

I didn't have the followers. Or the friends. Or the stupid subscribers. All I had was dreams being constantly being shoved face down being raped viciously by my failures. Failures giving my dreams something to remember enough, I didn't see a point to continue. More often now than I did before. But I do. Every morning when I woke, I would go over to our filthy bathroom mirror and give myself the same self-talk: Every day in every way I'm getting better and better. The same stupid mantra to convince me and my sorry dreams we had to go back outside and try again.