by Brian Lynch
I'm about to say something that will shock and amaze you. Get ready. Seriously, buckle your safety belts, assume crash positions --
Hollywood is full of vapid phonies that base your personal worth on how successful you are.
I know, I know. Sometimes the truth can hurt. But I think this amazing revelation is necessary if we are to grow as columner and columnee. Want proof? Okay, sure, here's your proof. But it's a deeply tragic tale that pains me to type. So know, at the very least, even if you don't enjoy it, you can wallow in the fact that telling this story will put me in a deep personal slump for days and days.
My THE NEXT MUPPET MOVIE script put me on the map in Hollywood. Once that screenplay made the rounds in L.A., and was written up in the trades, every studio wanted to meet with me about adapting THEIR characters. The trip out to Hollywood, to meet with Henson AND take those meetings, was truly amazing. To this day, I can't believe it happened to me.
But BEFORE that, in the cross-eyed, bloodshot eyes of Hollywood, I was Kevin Smith's little friend from New Jersey who wrote a bunch of funny yet noncommercial scripts. No one knew what to do with me. There were a FEW companies that wanted me to punch up their screenplays, rewrite a few scenes to make it funnier. The pay wasn't great, mind you, but hell, I was getting paid a little something to actually sit home and write. This provided the ego boost I needed, as I was broke, coming off a bad test screening for BIG HELIUM DOG, and recently dumped by the lead actress from the same movie.
So while I was taking to one of the creative execs for one of the rewrites I was hired for, I noticed our chats frequently shifted from the rewrite to ... more personal stuff. Now, said screenplay was about relationships, so it didn't seem TOO weird, but slowly AND OH YES SURELY she would call just to shoot the shit. For long, long periods of time.
We had both recently been through bad breakups, and served as each other's cross-country (she in L.A., me in N.J.) shoulders to cry on. And it got more than a little flirty. This is JUST what I needed, the PERFECT pick-me-up. She was funny, smart, had one of them there "sexy" voices, and, from her personal description, very attractive. She had even done some television work in the past. Wow, fuck my ex-girlfriend, this L.A. HOTTIE TOTALLY WANTS ME.
She asked what I looked like. Now, see, this is where it gets a little more sad. I didn't lie at all. I said I'm OKAY looking, nothing special, but nothing hideously repulsive. My hair was getting REALLY shaggy (because I was TOTALLY an artistic bohemian type, hell, I was a paid writer), but beyond that, I was the height of mediocrity. And I said this. Over and over again. She seemed okay with it.
This went on for a couple of weeks, and then she called with GREAT news. The movie studio wanted to fly me out to L.A. to meet about the script. They loved the rewrite I had handed in, and wanted to progress further, meet with the head of the company, so on and so forth. This was AMAZING. I was getting an all-expenses-paid trip to L.A. in the nicest hotel in town, got to go to a REAL-LIFE MOVIE STUDIO, and finally meet this fantastically hot (over the phone, mind you) woman. I asked my friend Kevin Crimmins, who went to college with me and helped make BIG HELIUM DOG, to go with me. After all, it wouldn't be a perfect trip (tossing money around, staying at a great hotel, hanging out with this totally hot girl who totally likes me) if there wasn't someone else there to WITNESS IT. So I traded in my first-class plane ticket for two coach plane tickets, and was all set to go.
Before I left, the exec called me. I was supposed to fly back to New Jersey on a Friday, but what if Kevin and I stayed at her BEACH HOUSE for the weekend? COULD THIS TRIP GET ANY BETTER? COULD IT, I ASK OF YOU? This was going to be the greatest week of my life.
Kevin and I flew out to L.A. on a Tuesday, survived the most turbulence-filled flight EVER (a precursor of things to come, to be sure), got in our FREE CONVERTIBLE, drove through L.A. on one of the prettiest days of the year, got to our hotel, unpacked, walked up and down Sunset Boulevard, ran into David Arquette and wondered why he looked so paranoid, got dinner, and called the Exec Lady. We were here, we were READY TO MEET AND HANG OUT!
Sadly, a relative of said Exec had passed away that day. She was down. She was mopey. AND I WAS JUST THE LYNCH TO CHEER HER UP. She said she was just going to toss some stuff in an overnight bag and come right over to the hotel to hang out. GOOD GOD IT'S JUST THAT EASY IN L.A.
Kevin and I went outside to meet her. I was nervous. I mean, I told her I wasn't up to her "L.A.-boy" standards, I'm a WRITER for God's sake, but hey, she didn't care. We clicked. We had a connection. We...
...saw her drive up in her black Range Rover and get out. And goddamn it, I want to make fun of her looks, but I can't. She was pretty. No two ways about it. A looker. A buxom L.A. looker and I was the luckiest man on Earth...
...oh fuck, no I wasn't. No, as soon as I greeted her, I could tell by the look on her face that I was the blind date from hell. I was the 600-pound 35-year-old on the Internet who tells his 16-year-old cheerleader online girlfriend that he looks like Lance Bass. I was an INSANE DISAPPOINTMENT.
But she couldn't just SAY THAT, no sir. I was going to work with her for a couple of days, so she couldn't run screaming. She went to our hotel room, hung out, said she wanted to go home so she could be BY THE PHONE in case anyone in her family needed her (because in L.A. nobody carries cell phones) hugged me good-bye VERY QUICKLY, and went home, I'm guessing to shower for six days in the fetal position, after having been anticipation-raped.
I can't say I blame her. She was coming off a bad break-up, and she wanted her rebound guy to be someone she was REALLY attracted to, plain and simple. We went out a few times that week, she would ALWAYS be sure to bring a friend, and actually, said friend was really nice and beautiful and genuine. I'm not sure where she is now, I wish I did. Seeing as she's such a real, sweet person, she's probably long since been banished from the L.A. city limits.
And that weekend, when we were supposed to hang out with her at her beach house? Yeah, Kevin and I slept on separate couches in her living room, she left before we woke up and came back looooooooooooooooong after we went to sleep.
Defeated, and sadly, still full of semen (unless I masturbated while I was there, I can't remember ... oh wait, I'm me, of course I did), Kevin and I went back to New Jersey. And I swear to God, five minutes hadn't gone by when I got in the door that she called and said "I hope you and I are still really really close friends, you mean so much to me."
I can honestly say, at that point, she meant A LOT to me too.
Because, you see, when you're coming off a break-up, you need to be liked by someone. Anyone. And this girl liked me. She REALLY LIKED ME. She was ready to SLEEP OVER the first night we were to meet. And then, to have her RUN SCREAMING upon seeing me for the first time, well, she did more damage than any stupid ex-girlfriend could have. I was great to talk to when I'm across the country, but plop me in the same town and she wants nothing to do with me. Oh yes, this girl meant a lot to me. She made me feel worse than anyone ever had in my young life.
And then, six months later, a funny thing happened.
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccess.
Cue David Bowie's "Fame" song right about...
...here.
My managers and agent sent out the Muppet script to ALL THE STUDIOS. Everyone loved it. Studios that DIDN'T OWN the Muppets wanted to buy it in case the Muppets ever went up for sale. And the whole "Brian Lynch wrote this script in four days" legend made me quite popular in Hollywood. Henson bought the screenplay, my managers and agent set up meetings with EVERY studio.
The Lady Exec called me. She congratulated me. I congratulated her. On breaking my heart and then eating the pieces and then shitting the pieces of said heart on my face while I was chained to a bed of torment. Okay, so I didn't thank her for this, I was very polite. She was polite too...
...a bit TOO polite. She was BACK to being flirty.
Huh?
I thought maybe being from L.A. she did a lot of drugs and didn't remember that we had met, but nope, she remembered. And she asked WHEN I was coming to town. I told her, she asked if we could get dinner the night I arrived. I said yes (she may have crushed my spirit and made me doubt my worth as a human being, but she was purty with big breasts ... do the math, boys and some girls, you get it). I said it would be weird being in L.A. by myself. She said "don't worry about it, I'll sleep over, keep you company."
Are your minds blown yet? Mine was. It still is. Hell, it just got MORE BLOWN writing about it.
Speaking of blowing, the Exec told me that she gave the Muppet script to one of her friends, and her friend was SO into it, she ALSO wanted to hang out with me. And that we'd have a REALLY GOOD TIME. Now, I had never said word one to her friend, but it was implied that this girl was ready for some, well, pooter hooking.
Are you beginning to see why L.A. sucks? A woman wants to have sex with me BECAUSE I WROTE A GOOD SCRIPT. What the fuck? Honestly, should a place like this EXIST? And if it does, why haven't I moved there yet?
So I got into L.A., checked into my hotel room, found I already had a message waiting for me. It was FROM THE EXEC'S FRIEND. Being all warm and flirty and ready to hang out whenever I wanted. I didn't call her back that night, though, no sir or ma'am, because THAT NIGHT was my date with THE EXEC WHO REJECTED ME LO THOSE SIX MONTHS AGO.
And truth be told, it was a fun time out, we ate, we drank, she complimented me on my newly shorn hair, but I had a big meeting with Henson the next morning, so I had to go back early. The Exec drove me back ...
...and asked the Valet to park her car overnight. SHE WAS STAYING THE NIGHT. No date and switch here, she was actually going to stay. I changed into my sleepy-time outfit, she wore a T-shirt and thong, and I proceeded to...
...sleep. Yep, that's all I was doing. No hooking up, honest. Didn't even think about it. Here's why --
1. I wasn't going to hook up with someone that rejected me once but now might be into me because I WROTE A SCRIPT.
2. It's possible that this Exec just felt bad for the way she treated me last time and was sleeping over to apologize and make sure I was okay in the big bad evil city by myself.
3. I was weirded the FUCK OUT.
So there we slept. She with her thong and me with my erection. She left to go to work early in the morning, I went to my first meeting with Henson, excited that I was ACTUALLY TAKING A MEETING ABOUT THE MUPPETS. After the meeting, I went back to my hotel room to call my parents and friends back home and give them all the gory details ...
... and found ANOTHER message from that Exec's Friend. More flirty. She actually said the words "I'm a REAL good time." Hollywood is creepy.
Over the next week or two, I divided my time between working with The Muppets and going to all the studios in L.A. to meet the bigwigs and discuss some possible projects to tackle after I finished with Kermit and company. My managers drove me around, because they can see right through the studio bullshit and because L.A. is big and scary and I suck at driving, when one of them told me something kinda weird:
"That movie exec is telling everyone she slept over at your hotel room."
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. What? A girl who had previously found me repulsive is now bragging that she slept with me. Interesting. And while she probably made it very very clear that we didn't have sex, I promise you anyone in Hollywood that heard this story would think we definitely DID. Why? Because people fuck in Hollywood all the time. For no reason. It's more common than a handshake. What, were they gonna think we just had a big sleepover and told ghost stories? No sir, everyone thought we wuz doin' it.
Do you like this story? I hope so. Because it's depressing the hell out of me. Someone better be into it.
Anyway, I avoided the Exec's Friend for the entire trip, met some great people, sold a pitch to Warner Brothers involving the Looney Tunes characters ...
...and had a meeting with the Exec's ex-boyfriend. Yep, the one she was getting over when we first started talking. Turns out he's a big powerful Hollywood Exec. And, oh boy, he still talks to her, in fact, hey, he had a chat with her a few hours before I met with him. And did she bring up the fact that we shared a bed earlier in the week?
Oh fuck yes indeed she did.
And here's the rub:
He was fine with it. I love me the Los Angeles.
The last day of that trip to L.A., I talked to one of my managers, JC Spink, the Spink of Bender-Spink Management company. I told him the whole story, the rejection, the sudden success, the equally sudden acceptance, the friend who kept calling me trying to get a date, and he said --
"Oh yeah, that friend called me today, asked me to help set you up. But I told her you and I were hanging out. She said just bring him by afterwards, whatever time is fine, however late is a-okay, and she offered to drive you to the airport in the morning."
This was the last straw. I had LEGITIMATELY liked the Exec. Getting rejected was bad enough. Having her be warmer to me because of success was weird but, again, she's hot, having her tell everyone in town that we slept over like I was the hottest cheerleader in high school was awkward, but THIS FRIEND, THIS FRIEND WHO I HAD NEVER MET JUST WANTED TO PARTY WITH ME SIGHT UNSEEN BECAUSE I WROTE A FUNNY SCRIPT ABOUT THE FUCKING MUPPETS. What is WRONG WITH THIS TOWN?
Screw it. I told JC to just drive me to this Friend's house. L.A. wants me to be superficial and stupid, I'll play their stupid little (sex-filled, see, the keyword being sex-filled) game. And then JC said something quite profound --
"No, I'm not going to. I'm gonna take you to an advanced screening of a movie on the Warner Brothers lot, and then you're gonna go home, alone, and then wake up and fly back to New Jersey. Don't let this pathetic town change you. You're better than it."
He was right. My manager was absolutely right. I started to thank him, but he interrupted with --
"Besides, I know this girl, she's got a huge ass. You can TOTALLY do better."
The Big-Ass Girl and I never met. I lost contact with the Exec, which is a shame, because when all is said and done, I think she's a great person who got caught up in the superficial Hollywood high-school hierarchy. And JC and I, we saw THE MATRIX a month early, in a GIGANTIC movie theater on the Warner Brothers lot, with a big stone WB above the screen, and a sound system that made your chair shake every time a punch was thrown.
The next morning, I drove to the airport at sun-up. As I was speeding through the empty streets of L.A. and Beverly Hills with the sun rising in between the beautiful skyscrapers, the car radio was playing "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones. I wish I was making that up, it's so corny and overly symbolic, but it's true. It was a nice, quiet moment, where I reflected on weeks, nay, months past, and these queries popped into my head --
"If I move to L.A., would I eventually accept this kind of behavior as normal?"
"Worse yet, would I engage in that kind of behavior and not give it a second thought?"
"Just how big an ass ARE we talking, really? I mean, would I have even noticed with the lights out?"
When that last question popped into my head, I stepped on the gas and drove faster towards the airport.
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