Secret Celebrity

chapter one

I'm sorry. I hate lists. You probably do, too. But sometimes there's no other way to put it. So here it is—my "Are you having an interesting life?" checklist for people who live in L.A. and work in Hollywood. Or, with slight adjustments, for anyone else.

1. A secret passionate fling with a notorious lover. (No points for a public fling.)

2. A feast-famine-feast existence. (No points for all feast, no points for all famine.)

3. Time spent with one of your heroes (a director?) who proves to be boring.

4. A fascinating conversation with someone (FedEx guy?) you previously disregarded.

5. Access to a philosopher king who is not the leader of any cult...or agency.

6. At least one, but no more than three, formidable enemies.

7. At least one special project that's as compelling as a passionate fling with a notorious lover.

8. An ongoing friendly dialogue with your dark side...or Jim Morrison's ghost.

9. One friend who can unfailingly make you laugh even when that special project gets put into turnaround.

10. Enough temptation to keep things interesting...but not as much as can be found on location.

In the summer of '99, I did a lot of thinking about an interesting life because I wasn't having one. I don't know what I was having. A lull? A second reckoning? A slump? Disenchantment? It made sense. I was right on schedule. I was thirty-five years old. I'd put in ten years working in the business, always behind the camera. Writer. Set decorator. Producer—on a low-budget film and two music videos. And, most recently, aspiring director. Ten years was about what it took to go from feeling sporadically invincible and optimistic, to looking at people who felt sporadically invincible and optimistic as if they were in hyper-denial. This lull of mine wasn't helped by two issues that preoccupied me. I was obsessed with how obsessed people can get with celebrities. And on a more personal note, I was obsessed with this question: Can any girl in Hollywood trust her girlfriends not to fuck her boyfriend? Sadly, I was beginning to think the answer was probably not. Make that definitely not if the boyfriend's famous.

I did everything I could to bust out of the lull. I tried numerous solutions to shake things up including a homeopathic remedy that temporarily turned my skin yellow. I never expected to find the lull antidote at the Centerfold newsstand on Melrose and Fairfax. It was an unlikely place for a breakthrough. Jammed with newspapers and magazines, the place felt no bigger than a shack. It was also an exceptionally hot day. Hot and humid, which is not the way it's supposed to be in Los Angeles in August. Or ever. What are we, in Guam? What's with this humidity? As I stepped out of my apartment, I remembered that thunderstorms were in the forecast. Not that I would have minded one. Bring it on. Maybe a little electricity would shock me out of my coma. As it turned out, I didn't need a bolt of lightning. Instead, a name did it. That's all. A name. And the thing is if it wasn't for William, I wouldn't have stuck around long enough to even hear it.

William, also known as Magazine Guy, works the Centerfold's 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. shift, Tuesday through Saturday. He works the register, usually with his radio tuned to KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic," a show that debuts cutting-edge music. He usually wears black jeans and a T-shirt, his blond hair always adorably messy. He looks like he could have been a fine-arts major at Cal Arts, but in fact did only one year at UCLA. He dropped out to play drums in a band that had a decent run on the local club scene before going bust a few years ago. We'd gotten to be casual friends because I stopped in to buy magazines at least three times a week. I'm an addict when it comes to this stuff, which could make sense if I believed anything I read. I don't. The only thing that I take as truth are the sports scores. Everything else is just bullshit, spin, more hype, and propaganda. So why the addiction? I guess I want to keep track of the changes and nuances of the fake world I live in. As does William. We quickly worked out way up from "Have a good day" to chatting about the headlines. The guy knows how to get my attention.