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Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
Every once in awhile Something happens that gives me that ultimate cocky feeling. Usually after a few drinks and the right setting and just the right amount of ego stroking that makes me feel like Jack Nicholson. Sometimes all it takes is watching a Jack movie - ‘Chinatown’ or Cuckoo’s Nest, and I spend the rest of the day strutting around town with my eyebrows cocked and making everything I say sound oh-so-important.
Tonight was one of those nights. Oh it didn’t start out that way, no sir. I started the evening ready to jab a broken bottle into the guy across the table, who’s incessant, brainless babble was worse than drunken Britney Spears. But somehow as the evening passed, my mood changed. I went from irritated by everyone to feeling oh so better than everyone. This is good. This is when I start to think “I’ve wasted my entire life not acting. I could be the next Jack, hell, maybe I already am.”
Cocksuckers.
Ben Stein said something once, to the effect of “I could have spent my life entertaining my small circle of friends, instead I decided to go to Hollywood and do the exact same thing, get paid a lot more and entertain a lot more people.” Yeah, I paraphrased that, but I never forgot the idea. What am I doing? Entertaining my group of friends.
Bullshit.
I can recall vividly standing in a bathroom in an abandoned casino in Tunica, Mississippi, about to film a soon-to-be deleted scene for “Walk the Line.” Joaquin Phoenix was mere feet from me, and I thought, “this motherfucker is getting hundreds of thousands of dollars to something I KNOW I could be doing. And here we are, right next to each other. Why am I only getting $10/hour for this shit?” This thought was further emphasized as the scene called for us to be standing next to each other in front of the mirror at the sink. Joaquin to my left. Here we were, side by side, looking in the mirror. It was a surreal moment, but I managed to fix my tie, wash my hands and walk out of the bathroom, while managing to not make eye contact with the camera lens. Where’s my Academy Award nomination? Where’s my millions?
Bitches.
Yeah, that was nice having a scene no one will ever see with Mr. Phoenix. But was it inspirational? Maybe. Its times like this I think about how each of us has an affect on someone else. And how absolutely clueless we are oof that fact.
Someone I think about a lot is a guy I met my first time in Los Angeles. A friend of a friend, named Christopher. He was a struggling actor, and lived downstairs from my friend Donna. I didn’t know the guy very well, but we hung out the few times I visited “Run Down Melrose” - the apartment complex they lived in. It was built like Melrose Place, with the pool in the courtyard, all the apartments facing inwards, but this place was about twenty years away from being the shining setting we all grew to loathe on FOX tv in the early 90s.
Christopher had already been doing little gigs here there in LA. His manager was Kirk Cameron’s mom. I recall thinking “wow, this guy is doing the LA thing, I wonder what it takes.” He had a ‘real’ job teaching gymnastics or yoga or some such bullshit.
One night when we all were drinking in Donna’s apartment, I told Christopher how I’d always thought of acting, and loved the Hollywood scene. He suggested an improve scene, which we did, it lasted about two minutes, and I’ll never forget what he said when we finished: “You should be out here” he said.
That, perhaps, was one of the most inspiring things anyone has ever said to me.
We weren’t really close. I only talked to him when I’d visit Donna, but I always thought of him as ‘that guy who’s actually making it out there.’
A few years later he landed a small role on ‘CSI: Miami”, shortly after Donna found him with a belt around his neck hanging from the ceiling in his own apartment. Apparently the ultimate victim of love gone bad.
That son of a bitch. I wish I’d had one moment to tell him how he’d affected me.
Life is stupid, but to think we are not all connected somehow, and that you’re all alone, is more stupid.
Christopher Perez as Pedro in CSI: Miami “Wet Foot/Dry Foot”
