by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I daydream a lot. A whole lot. And one of the things I daydream a lot about besides all the stories about robots, zombie robots and space aliens is how successful I would be if I moved to LA.
One the surface, there is a credible case that I could do really well in LA. I’m a natural extrovert and I tend to become larger than life when liquored up. Being around a crowd of people like one might find at a cocktail party is like emotional meth for me — I’m an extreme social butterfly. At least, I was when I was in Seoul many moons a go. I’m older now, so who knows. (But I’m young at heart, wink.)
As such, if I could somehow overcome the basics — I don’t live in LA, I’m broke and I have no showbiz contacts in town — if I was somehow able to weasel my way into a LA cocktail party everyone would know who I was by the time I left. And, usually, in such situations when I’m drunk and surrounded by a lot of interesting people, I can grow so colorful and larger-than-life that I draw a lot of attention to myself.
So, in my deranged, hyper-deluded mind, I could see a situation where some Hollywood bigwig would notice me at a cocktail party and want to know, “Who is that guy?”
Those few times I’ve been to New York City, it definitely seemed like a city where the metric is NOT who you know, but what you know. In LA, meanwhile, you just never know if some broke-ass writer might be on the cusp of writing a breakout screenplay. (Though the old adage about, “Don’t fuck the writer” is very, very true.)
Of course, there is the huge issue of my age. If I was 20 years younger, then all my LA dreams would be a lot more likely to come true. But, now, oh boy. The only way I would have any chance of success is if I moved to LA full time and had three or four solid screenplays already written and ready to go.
Right now, I got squat.
Anyway. Dreaming is free.
