Swimming with Sharks: The Life of a Personal Assistant in Hollywood

The style of an assistant- bags under the eyes, frizzy hair, bewildered look on face

There is a time in my life that I rarely discuss on my blog, yet it constituted a significant part of my story. It was the five years I was a personal assistant in Hollywood. I don't talk about this chapter for a few reasons- 1.) I respect the privacy of my former employers 2.) I consider my former employers friends 3.) I signed confidentiality agreements that would threaten the soul of my first born. Truthfully, the first two are more important to me then the latter. Though there are a lot of fun and crazy stories I'm itching to tell, I would never share them on a public forum.

Last evening I watched the film I was first told to watch when I moved to LA in 2004. That movie is Swimming with Sharks. This indie gem chronicles the complicated relationship between straight-off-the-bus assistant Guy (Frank Whaley) and his heartless, demonic producer boss Buddy (Kevin Spacey). After a year of enduring abuse, insults, and lies, the assistant takes his boss hostage and forces him to recollect and experience all the injustices he ever caused him. In flashbacks we watch as the assistant grows into the animal he despises and the viewer learns a lesson in Hollywood's dichotomy between dreams and apathy.

Seeing this movie for the first time in years brought back many memories. Though my experiences in Hollywood were not as outrageous as Guys'- there is a scene where Guy is laughing on the phone and Buddy throws a script at him, yelling, "You're happy! I hate that!"- there are still similarities that I can relate to. That any personal assistant can relate to. In Hollywood, there is a brother and sisterhood of assistants and former assistants and only they understand what they have been through.

During the five years I was a personal assistant I was often very irritable and stressed. Due to confidentiality agreements that I took very seriously, I did not feel able to vent about this very important and all-consuming part of my life. Even the ones I felt closest to confiding in- my family- could not understand what I was going through. Unless you've been a personal assistant, you don't know what it's like. It's easy for your loved ones to say, "Tell your boss to get lost!" or "Just say "No"!" when, hypothetically, he/she a.) tells you that you're a terrible employee because you got the 2% latte instead of the skim latte b.) calls you repeatedly throughout the evening because he/she can't get their Internet to work in their hotel room that is on another continent and he/she wants you to call the front desk c.) scrutinizes every little thing you do to the point that you truly begin believing that you can never do anything right. But it's never that easy to say, "No". There is a co-dependency that often exists, a mental power struggle that develops between a person who is the superior and a person who is the inferior.

Due to stress, I dropped down to an irregular weight for my height and had to fend off family and friends asking if I had a eating disorder now that I moved to LA. I began losing my hair and had to get used to sleeping with my phone in case my boss called me at 3AM. I had three panic attacks where I found myself on the floor- twitching like Rain Man- and even went to a therapist for a year in order to prevent myself from losing my mind. I was 20 years old, straight off the bus (or the 1997 Ford Taurus) and trying to stay afloat in the tank of sharks. I probably should have know when my mother first visited me and left crying, saying, "I don't know who you are anymore!" that this was not the right career path for me.

Looking back what I experienced with my jobs weren't all that abnormal, but it was a young girl who had zero idea of how the industry worked dealing with them. Being an assistant you have no choice but to take the crap and if you can't handle it, so what? Get out. Only the strong make their way to the top. Due to my time in LA, it made my skin thicker and I wonder how I would have handled that time knowing what I do now. Nothing really prepares you for the realities of Hollywood. Certainly not film school. Maybe only those who grew up in the industry understand what it is all about. Like Guy, I wanted to work in Hollywood because I loved movies. They were my life. Even when I was a little girl I knew that one day I was going to work in the movies. One day that dream did come true and like Guy, I came to realization that Hollywood often has very little to do with words like "dreams" and "love". You either adapt or move on questioning if you didn't have the cajones to make it in show business.

The hardest part about being a personal assistant in Hollywood? It has nothing to do with the menial tasks or the callous words or the purposeful chess plays. It has everything to do with not losing sight of your goals and not letting your spirit get broken. At one point when Buddy begins turning the table on his captor, he says, "Before you run out to change the world, ask yourself, "What do you really want?" That is an simple question that assistants quickly forget when they get caught up in the game. What do you really want out of all of this? Dealing with all this soul-deflating mumbo jumbo? Dealing with the coffee runs and the dry cleaning pick-ups and the yelling and the screaming and the mind games and the power plays? Why? Why do you put up with it?

Finally after five years I came out of my cloud of denial that I was unhappy and asked myself that very question. I was so determined to make it in Hollywood that I completely pushed away any doubts that crept up daily. But make it as what, Lauren? To become a part of this machine? To continue the cycle? It wasn't me. Hell, looking back, I probably was a pretty shitty personal assistant because deep down I knew I didn't have what it took to be someone's attendant and then become just like them. Just like Guy.

...And that is a fact that I can now live comfortably with.

The Hollywood of Texas: Relocating from LA to Austin

"Hi, I'm an editor from LA and I'm moving to Austin. Is there work for me?"

"Hi, I'm a camera operator from LA and I'm thinking of moving to Austin. Is that a smart idea?"

"Hi, I'm a writer from LA and got totally burnt out. Do you think Austin will be a good place for me to write?"

Hi, my name is Lauren and I moved to Austin from Los Angeles.
Yes, it's true.
I'm one of them.
One of the people you make the above bumper sticker about and place them all over town.

Since moving to Austin, the aforementioned sentences are all questions I've heard repeatedly over the past two years. In fact, during the beginning of the 2010, I was fielding at least 2-3 phone calls a week at the production company I worked for, in addition to the frequent inquiries from friends and blogger buddies.

This year's South by Southwest Interactive even held a panel for creatives, titled, "Making the Move from California to Austin".

So why are Angelenos moving to Austin?

In generalizing fashion: The truth of the matter is, creative types move to LA to find work, only to realize there is nothing creative about it. Then they read about Austin in Forbes/Kiplingers/New York Times/US News/MSNBC/CNN about how Austin is the place to live for both higher quality of life and lower cost of living and, well, then you got yourself a whole bunch of weary Californians in Texas.

So, you really want to know if Austin is a good place to make your movie? Write your screenplay?

The answer is yes.

You want to know if Austin is a good place to work as a producer, an actress, a camera operator, an editor et al?

The answer is kind of maybe not?

Unless you want to work infrequently and for little dough for a long time.

If you're able to deal with that, then by all means, yes yes yes.

The problem is not so much that there is a lack of projects (though like any film city, Austin has its ups and downs) , it's trying to compete for a spot in the already very tight-knit film community.

Heavyweights like Robert Rodriguez, Richard Linklater, and Mike Judge typically bring/keep their work in Austin, but they also have crews they've been working with for years...and just like Los Angeles, it's about who you know and how you maintain those connections.

Local producer, Will Semons, busted his butt for a year in and outside of Austin before he was able to find steady work."But once you're in", he adds, "You have to fit in as well. People get ousted or black-balled because there are enough people here who can do the job and it's a small town."

He also points out that many Austin crew members are relocating to Dallas (larger city, more commercial work) and Louisiana (excellent tax incentives) in order to find steady work.

Now, of course, not everyone shares the same sentiment as Will and I do. Another producer friend points out that budgets are shrinking everyone, so why not move to a town that's more affordable? Though I completely agree with my friend's statement, the truth is, there is a ceiling that exists in Austin, and one that is most often shattered by people setting out forth/returning to Los Angeles and New York City to "make it to the big-time".

To elaborate on the idea that Austin is a good place to make your movie/write your screenplay:
Austin is an extremely creative town with a plethora of very talented people. Every single freakin' person wants to help one another. If you have the time and the money to work on your film, there is no shortage of inexpensive equipment, locations, and hands in Austin to help you. As for writing your screenplay? Austin is a great place! As long as you don't fall into the "drinking-every-night-oops-I-just-woke-up-and-I'm-40-and-still-working-part-time-at-a-record-shop-and-have-never-completed-a-piece-of-writing-in-my-life-but-I'll-keep-calling-myself-a-writer" syndrome.

What is the moral to my story? The grass is always greener in Austin if you live in LA, but the poop colored grass in LA still holds its weight on the black market.

My Ability to Go On Long Tangents About Bret Easton Ellis Will Either Impress You or Bore the Living Crap Out of You

I rarely write reviews because I suck ass at them.

I'm more into the aesthetics than analysis, which is great for walking through museums, foreign lands, and pedestrian malls, but not good for dating and probably not good for writing reviews.

However, since my favorite author, Bret Easton Ellis, rarely releases a book, I feel that the debut of his latest novel, Imperial Bedrooms, is worth talking about on my blog.

Plus, the hipsters, they fucking love this guy. I mean looooooove him.

They buy their freakin' Wayfarers and try to act all ambivalent about everything and use words like "apathetic" and "nihilistic" a lot. They tweet quotes from his novels and write short story homages to their modern-day J. D. Salinger.

It's actually kind of annoying.

Ok. So here is a little back story:

Bret Easton Ellis is the gentleman who wrote American Psycho, Less Than Zero, and The Rules of Attraction (all made into movies). He also wrote, The Informers (which I forget was made into a movie because it's so bad). He also wrote, Glamorama and Lunar Park (too fucked up to be turned into movies, though the same could be said for all his books).

If you already know these facts and are getting super irritated at my presumptuousness (I know I would be), then I'm sorry. I tend to lean on the idea that everyone in the world shares my love for the BEE, but I often finding myself going on boring tangents about the man wherein the person I'm speaking with finally interrupts halfway through and says, "Who the hell are you rambling on about?" Or they just walk away completely.

If you already know the back story on all this, just skip to the asterisk down below.

Imperial Bedrooms is the sequel to Ellis' first book, Less Than Zero, which debuted in 1985 when he was a fresh-faced 20 year-old college student. Thinking about this daily causes me to go into a deep depression.

Less Than Zero is the story of a bunch of over-privileged, apathetic kids swimming in the muck of 80's nihilistic Los Angeles. The narrator, Clay, who fled to college on the East Coast to purge himself of his nihilistic surroundings, finds himself back in LA on holiday break and partaking in the same apathetic behavior as he did before. He reunites with his on-again-off-again girlfriend Blair and tries to look for his childhood friend Julian, whom he's discovered has a roaring heroin problem and sells himself to men to pay for his habit. Other characters include Rip, Clay's crazy dealer, Trent, Clay's crazy friend, and a bunch of bimbo-y, anorexic, slutty girlfriends of Blair's. In typical Ellis fashion, the story plays out more like a slice of life, than a typical three-act structure. We learn that Clay really likes Elvis Costello, that everyone in Los Angeles sleeps with one another, and that young people get off on snuff films and have the potential of gang-raping a 12 year-old girl.

Moral of the story: Young people are the devil and should be feared.

There is the movie version of this book, starring Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr., Jami Gertz, and James Spader, that Ellis has admitted to only warming up to recently, but still concedes that the film and movie are two totally separate entities. Which they are. The only similarities are the title, the time period, and the characters' names. However, Less Than Zero the movie is endearing in it's own right, securing its place as an aesthetically romantic portrayal of Los Angeles and the disenchanted youth of the 1980's.

Have I gotten to Imperial Bedrooms yet? No, I haven't. FUCK!

Ok....

***Imperial Bedroom picks up with the characters twenty-five years later in Los Angeles. We don't know a lot about what has happened to them between 1985 and now, but we know that they haven't really changed. They still go to parties, they still do drugs, they still act apathetic and nihilistic, and they still fuck one another. The only difference is that they've had a little plastic surgery.

The book starts with Clay telling us about a book written about him and his friends, a book exactly like Less Than Zero, which was subsequently turned into a movie. Clay didn't really like either.

Clay is back in LA via NYC and he finds himself sinking into the same pattern of despair. He's a successful screenwriter, though we're not exactly sure how he got there. He runs into his old friends, Blair, Julian, Trent, and Rip, for they seem to all still live in LA and still run in the same circles. Blair is married to Trent, who is an agent and a closet homosexual, and she has had affairs with both Julian and Clay during her marriage which cause her to be super bitchy. Julian is a pimp and Rip is a club owner/looks like Mickey Rourke. Clay doesn't seem to be excited to see any of these people and his narration offers the same sort of confusion and discontent as his 18 year-old self did in Less Than Zero. His arrival in LA also coincides with a barrage of mysterious texts, cars following him, and people breaking into his house and moving items.

Damn. This post is getting super long. See! I told you I'm bad at this!

Clay is holding auditions for a film he both wrote and is producing called The Listeners. He sees a beautiful actress at a party and is instantly smitten with her. He doesn't see her again until she shows up for an audition. Her name is Rain and is a terrible actress, but does not know it. Under the subtle pretense of what one can get out of the other, Clay and Rain begin a tumultuous relationship.

Clay falls for her fast and starts getting super weird. Like Patrick Bateman weird.

I'm not going to tell you anymore. What ensues is a "who can you trust?" mystery that spirals down into a nihilistic landscape of apathy, murder, rape, blackmail, and a whole lotta of Elvis Costello lovin'.

I will be the first to say that Bret Easton Ellis, probably my favorite author, is not a great writer. He's a good writer. He's an excellent romantic. His talent lies in sentimentalizing the mundaneness of reality and the iniquitousness of man. Imperial Bedrooms is also very good, but not great. It's a good seventh novel, for it's roughly all six before it rolled into on. Ellis touches on similar themes such as Los Angeles vampires (The Informers), uber-violent sexual behavior (American Psycho), and where the lead character is haunted by ghosts, dreams, and symbols of the past (Lunar Park).

I've been reading reviews of Imperial Bedrooms where the reviewer has stated that they do not feel Ellis has evolved much as a writer. I agree that nothing much has changed in Ellis style of writing (except for the attempt of a semblance of three act structure in Lunar Park and Imperial Bedrooms), but do we really want Ellis to change? Would we actually like it if he started writing more like his peers? Ellis is good at was he does- writing flat stories with flat characters that we somehow relate to even though we're not nearly as fucked up as they are.

Though I was left scratching my head after reading Imperial Bedrooms (What has Clay been doing for the past 25 years? How did he get so violent?), I'm always left scratching my head after reading Ellis. Then I stop scratching and begin daydreaming about lying next to a pool at someone's multi-million dollar mid-century house, next to someone who is beautiful, who I may or may not be sleeping with but never really gave a shit about in the first place.

How To Disappear Completely

"Sometimes I feel like I’ll end up living in a glass house overlooking the city. Watching everyone but never touching them, and they will never touch me.” I say to my psychiatrist without really looking at her. I am looking past her. Out past the palm trees lining the parking lot, past the faux-Renaissance multi-million dollar house barely holding itself in place on the hillside, past the burnt mountaintop, and out towards the thick layer of purple-orange hue blanketing what one can only guess is the ocean, since the board game seems to end there.


 "You bring up the glass house a lot. Why do you think that is?"

I’m thrown by her question. Aren’t I the one to be asking the questions? Answers are not something I’ve been known to have as of late.

“I don’t know. Because this town is isolating. I feel isolated?” I ask, forcing myself to look her in the eyes for once.

My psychiatrist is beautiful. I imagine she is the woman I’d like to be one day. Behind the Donna Karen suit and Mercedes remote key sitting on top of her Coach bag is a loyal daughter, mother, and wife; picking up lunch at Bristol Farms after my session to bring home to her children who just finished their piano and tennis lessons for the day. When she enterts her $900,000 house in Studio City, she’ll kiss her husband on the cheek and smile, thinking, “I did good.”

Or maybe she is just as confused as I am.

Or maybe I don’t want that at all.

“Where is he this weekend?” she asks.

He is on a week long vacation in Mexico that I booked for he and his wife. He’s most likely sitting on the beach right now, drinking some ridiculously over-priced bottle of tequila because he can afford it , and thinking about how to get another agent, an agent whom he feels is threatening everything my boss has worked hard for, fired and blacklisted.

“Oh, he’s off jet-setting to Dubai or Paris or something. Who the fuck knows?” I say, acting as disinterested as possible.

Why did I just lie to her? I know exactly where he is. I’ve been thinking about it all day. That’s my job. To think about him all day.

"Are you staying in the glass house while he is gone?” she asks me.

“Yes.”

--------------------------------

An IM pops up on my computer screen: I’m so stressed right now.

I look up at my computer, then over at the opaque wall sitting between our offices. I can see his silhouette looking at the screen, waiting for a response.

Why? I type.

This fucking agent who is trying to fuck with me. I'll fucking bash his fucking head in.

Yeah. He seems like a jerk.

He’s a fucking piece of shit! I’ll make sure NO ONE ever wants to work with him again.

Yeah. I never know how to respond to these statements.

What are you working on?

Just finishing your itinerary for your trip.

Nice.

I’ve put all your details in your calendar and will email you and print you a copy of the itinerary.

Thanks.

Do you still want me to house sit and watch the pets?

Sure.

I let the conversation hang in the thick cloud of tension hovering between our offices. It will be any minute before the words I know he’s about to write will come across my screen. The words that both excite me and instill a deep sense of dejection.

I can’t move from my seat. I should shut off my screen, get up, rearrange the file cabinet, pick up the mail, run office errands, grab cigarettes that I will only smoke one of from the bodega next door, anything other than what I about to do in the next five minutes.

The thinking bubble pops backs up. Fingers type and backspace and type.

Do you want to help me relieve some stress? ;)

It takes me twenty years of unlearning to type the next sentence: How can I do that?

Why don’t you come over here and figure it out?

I close my eyes and sit up straight in my seat. I replay the scenario that is about to happen in my head: I will walk into his office. He will be massaging his hardened dick through his jeans. I will sit down in the chair across from him and my vision will become blurry. I will half smile at nothing in particular as I get down on the ground, crawl underneath his desk, unzip his pants, and run my hand up and down until my onset carpal tunnel begins to flair up. He will push his dick towards my mouth and never look at me. When it is finished, he’ll smile at nothing in particular, and I will go back to my seat and try very hard to let only one or two tears fall onto my computer keyboard.

---------------------------------

I’m standing in their bedroom. I can see all of Los Angeles from this spot.

During the day, leaning out on the left corner of their balcony, one can see the ocean. At night, the wind knocks on the sliding glass doors as the coyotes come down looking to play.

Their house was built a little over a year ago, after his wife saw a feature about Joseph Eichler in Architectural Digest. My boss commissioned a local modernist architect to build a house exactly like the one his wife saw in the magazine. During the nine months it took for the house to be completed (five of those months were trying to secure the permits), my boss and his wife lived at the L'Ermitage where I would often make 4-5 trips daily; dropping off food, picking up dry cleaning, driving them to a movie premiere, or taking the dogs to a groomer that costs more than my monthly rent.

My robe is open and falling off of my shoulders, but I don’t care. If anyone can see me, I can’t see them. The Jameson I snuck from their cabinet earlier is kicking in and right now, I am unflappable.

This very moment I control this city, but more importantly, I’m in control of myself. Every movement I make, every action rendered is purposeful and deliberate.

This very second, I understand everything.

The fact that I packed up and moved to this city and left everything behind, the fact that though I’ve met a thousand people, I don’t know a soul, the fact that I make my work my life, the fact that this town is already hardened pieces of me and I’m too young to know, the fact that the last time my best friend visited me, she left crying, shouting, “I don’t know who you are anymore!”, the fact that I no longer feel like I can talk to anyone, the fact that my boss, my mentor, broke my trust in adults, the fact that I misunderstand his need for control of everything around him as sentiment, the fact that I will do anything to make him happy, the fact that it this moment I want nothing more than someone, anyone who will look me in the eye and hold me, the fact that I hate myself for all of these things; it all makes sense.

In the kitchen, the Ipod I left on begins playing “How To Disappear Completely” and I realize it's dark, black almost, and I can't see anything in front of me except for a lone palm tree off in the distance, illuminated by the iridescence of Hollywood Boulevard. I make my way down against the wall into a pile on the floor and rest my head on the foot of the bed, never taking my eyes off of the tree.

Everything has slipped away and I will relive this episode day in and day out until I gather the strength to put an end to it.