No Thanks

I don't think I'll be moving out to LA. I think all of the things that they say about LA in movies is true. Everyone is full of it, everyone is trying to get noticed, egos are on the line every second of the day, every time you walk down the street. I'm thinking about this because I have a friend at work whose aunt used to date a recognizable musician, someone from a band you've heard of and they have that one song whose chorus you sort of know. Anyway, he was once normal looking--he has a movie star cleft chin and blue eyes, but recent photos of him show that he's been through the plastic surgery machine. He has that mask-like face and perfectly straight, gleaming white row of teeth. And I can just imagine all the b.s. he hears all the time around him--"no, you look great, you look great. That new album is going to go gold!"

And I imagine that tons of people go out to LA thinking because they had the lead in their high school play in Clearwater, Florida, and they know that they've just got to meet the right people, and they'll get discovered. So, the guy filling the gas in your car is a model, the waitress with the violet eyes and delicate faux rhinestone nose piercing is definitely an actress. The kid scanning your cereal boxes at the grocery store has an audition after his shift that's going to save his life and land him a role as the mean older brother on a Disney show. And of all those people, maybe one percent will ever be in any way successful, and another 2% might make it onto a reality TV show like the dumbest one on last night Real Love--I thought for a while that it was a joke. How do these shows get made? I promise that I watched only five minutes, but it's this weird combination of The Bachelor and a game show, where the contestants appear on stage in these glass pods and are judged and have to make the case that they are on the show for the right reasons. All women, of course. Have we progressed at all when we still have these same tropes where dozens of women are presented in evening gowns and high heels and pancake make-up to dudes who must decide which ones he thinks are the hottest? No.

Anyway, this all reminds me of one of my famous stand up bits by David Cross.