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"When my first picture became a hit, there were a whole lot of people lined up just waiting to kiss my ass. Then, when my movies started to tank, they lined up behind somebody else's ass. You gotta have people in your life who are there for you, whether you're somebody or not."
Can you believe those words of wisdom came from Jim Belushi? Actually, they came from the writer of Joe Somebody - they just came out of the mouth of Jim Belushi, who played a washed-up action hero turned self-defense instructor. He made a hell of a point.
So... If you think that kissing butt is the way to get ahead, I wanna tell ya a little story:
My first week in Hollywood involved three car accidents, an automotive breakdown completely unrelated to the accidents, and my first official crazy roommates. I rented a room in a four-plex (four rooms the size of truck bed with a common kitchen and bathroom), and met three lunatics. Lunatic #1 was 21, a skateboarder from Boston who came out here to be a famous skateboarder and maybe do a little porn. He didn't bring his skateboard, and I never got a straight answer as to why. He lasted two weeks in Hollywood and moved back east.
Lunatic #2 was living in the park across the street while these new four-way dog houses were being built. He was in his 50's, overweight and over-tanned, and liked to lounge about the kitchen in neon-colored thongs (what we commonly refer to as banana hammocks) and nothing else. Once he heard how revolted I was by this sight, he made sure that he was posed just right so that I couldn't help but notice him every time I came out of the bathroom. He also didn't like the noise my door made when I pulled it shut (as opposed to turning the handle when I closed it), so to get my attention he started slamming doors all night long and screaming like a maniac when he thought I was trying to sleep.
Opportunity knocked in the form of Lunatic #3. He was clean-cut, driven, career-minded, had a job at a studio waiting for him when he got here, and seemed to be a master butt smoocher. He was "making contacts" and manipulating people faster than they could march by. As a display of his powers, he asked out the Pizza Hut waitress I was flirting with, making sure to grease the wheels with MY tip.
I didn't see him for the source of evil he was at the time. All I saw was that he was the only one I knew with a stable job. So, when he decided we should find a real apartment and live in a thong-free environment, I somehow managed to get a boxspring into the trunk of my Cougar and we were gone before sunrise. Simple math told me that one lunatic is better than three. Besides, with all of #3's networking skills, I was bound to meet the person who would help MY career by just meeting all the people who were helping his.
Six months later, this guy was gone. Two weeks before our lease ran out he concocted a crazy scenario where I was bad-mouthing him to some of his work friends, and now he had no choice but to move on. What I eventually found out was that he was a closet homosexual and he was moving in with his gay lover, who, ironically enough, chewed this guy up and spit him out, toying with his emotions and tossing him aside like a contact that didn't pan out.
During my six months with this roommate, I watched him play games where he told me horrible things about our other two roommates (two new guys), and at the same time told them horrible things about me, pitting us all against each other. I learned a lot about people. Mostly what I learned was that I needed to live alone.
What I learned that was even more valuable was that it's a lot of fun to watch people kiss ass and come away with just a face full of poop. I have two favorite episodes of the Roomate Heinie Smooching Show.
One time we were in line for a TV talk show at the studio he worked at. There were three lines for the show: You're Getting In Because You're Important, You're More Important Than the Common Folk but Not By Much, and The Commoners. We were in line #2, and my roommate was puckering up big for the guy in front of us. He was about our age, had two pretty girls with him, and was talking about being the director on the new movie that starred tonight's guest. He also dropped his name, which was easily recognizable as Hollywood royalty. When I mentioned that I saw a family landmark at a park in whatever state his family came from, he had no idea what I was talking about. My roommate, however, went completely psycho on me, giving a commanding whisper that warned me against "blowing this" for him. I asked him why this guy was standing in our line if he was so important. I'm surprised my roommate's head didn't explode.
The other "big contact" was a film school student who was being recruited by a newly famous production company with a short string of big hit movies. He used to drop off VHS tapes of current films, and we were in awe of his majesty.
Guy #1 turned out to be a phony of the highest magnitude, fooling not only my roommate (who got him many staff tickets to studio tapings) but the two girls as well. Guy #2 was a theater projectionist who was illegally pirating films-to-video and also milked Network Boy for many studio insider perks.
AH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!
This guy burned me for several unpaid bills, and helped turn one of the nicest guys I used to know into a horrible, self-involved, intolerable clod that used the word "industry" so many times that we started calling him Industry like it was his name.
This story does have a happy ending. Nobody mentioned above ever amounted to anything major in this town.
Hopefully, none of them ever will.
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