Red Eye Home

When I arrived back to L.A. this morning, I found Taylor's severed head sitting on the marble floor of the middle level patio of my Bel Air home. His thick blonde hair was matted with gory blood and flecked chips of bone around the hole in the back part of his skull, where the shotgun blast had been the most damaging. His bulging, dead eyes were still bloodshot, and his bottom lip had been carved (chewed?) away to reveal his cigarette/weed smoke-yellowed teeth. Where his left ear should have been, a note had been tightly rolled and shoved deep into his shredded auditory canal. I freed the note and dropped Taylor's head over the patio railing, listening to it bounce down through the sage brush and jacaranda trees, the sound finally disappearing into the valley below. "Good riddance, motherfucker," I whispered.

WHAT THE NOTE SAID:

"You have been Boo'ed. Happy Halloween. Love, Taylor."

I tasted the blood left behind on my finger tips. Corn starch and sugar. 

Vroom's Party

Still in New York. Taylor's agent, Vroom, is in town and threw a charity benefit last night at the top of the Hearst Magazine Building. The charity had to do something with Taylor's sudden incurable bout of amnesia. This case of amnesia could not be confirmed by anyone in attendance. I think Vroom was just looking for an excuse to throw a party.

NOTABLE CELEBRITIES IN ATTENDANCE: Neve Campbell, Julie Taymor, Nathan Lane, Stockard Channing, Amanda Peet, Lucy Liu, Greta Scacchi, Sandra Bullock, Vin Diesel, Angelina Jolie, Maria Bello, Jared Leto, Albert Finny, Erykah Badu, Kirsten Dunst, Forest Whitaker, Ben Stiller, Charlize Theron, John Frankenheimer, Jason Biggs, Drew Barrymore, Paul Rubens, and Courtney Cox-Arquette.

RANDOM NOVELISTS I WAS MISTAKEN FOR: Tomas Elow Martinez, Douglas Copeland, Chaim Potok, J.D. Salinger, Don DeLillo, Anne Sexton.

I circulated from room to room, not saying much to anyone. Finny, Whitaker, Scacchi, Channing and Leto all told me how excited they were about about WSTS.

Hyacinth showed up with a blonde surfer-looking guy who was wearing nothing but Ocean Pacific bathing trunks and sandals. "Have you seen Taylor?" she asked. "Taylor is in Los Angeles," I said. "That's rude. Not even showing up to your own charity benefit?" she said. "It's gauche to show up to your own charity benefit," I said. "What does gauche mean?" she asked. "It means go fuck yourself." The surfer-looking guy asked me if we could trade shoes.

A model named Jen Rae (who I'm almost certain was still fucking Mark Brucer) was doing blow with Charlize Theron and her lesbian friend in one of the executive bathroom suites. Someone had lit the toilet paper roll on fire, but no one seemed to notice. Or maybe no seemed to mind. I wandered out on the terrace and drank several Vodka Gimlets with Albert Finney, who kept asking me how long it had been since I had spoken with Heath Ledger. 

NUMBER OF TIMES VROOM ASKED ME IF I'D LIKE TO SEE THE LEMUR HE HAD CHAINED UP DOWN IN HIS LIMO: 12

DUMBEST THING DREW BARRYMORE SAID: "What's a lemur?"

After the party, I went back to my hotel and found a note taped to my hotel room door. It read: "Show me the way home, you simple fuckwit."

ONE MESSAGE ON MY VOICE MAIL: "The world is a vampire."

*click*

Michael Douglas

We took a small, private meeting this morning in a suite at the Woolworth Building. The big question was whether or not Michael Douglas is attached to WSTS (Wall Street, The Sequel). By phone conference, Michael said he's doing nothing until it can be confirmed that Catherine Zeta-Jones has second-lead in the film. Dex said he could not confirm this until it was confirmed by Michael that she would appear topless in no less than two (2) scenes. Michael would not make a confirmation of this verbal stipulation until it was double-confirmed that, as long as he was still starring in the hideous sitcom Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen would not be allowed to reprise his role as "Bud Fox". A non-sequitur tossed into to discussion was the speculation as to whether or not Jon Cryer secretly has AIDS.

Nothing was resolved in this morning's meeting so I came back down Broadway to my hotel. Hyacinth met me at my room with the following requested items:

(1) Five reams of 20lb. White.

(2) A new iPhone 3G.

(3) A Nathan's Famous Hot Dog from a street vendor.

(4) One whole grapefruit.

(5) A DVD documentary about Werewolves.

Upon arriving, Hyacinth said, "I had a dream last night that I took an Uzi to a Mommy & Me class and just fucking shot everyone." This, however gruesome it may sound, did not shock or surprise me. Hyacinth regularly has dreams where she either shoots someone, or gets shot. "What do you think my dream means?" she asked. "That you hate your womb?" I suggested. I gave Hyacinth her marching orders for the afternoon meeting at 20th Century Fox on Avenue of the Americas and then dismissed her.

There was one new message on the voice mail in my hotel room: It was the final 30 seconds of the song "Epic" by Faith No More.

Sunday Off

Had a panic attack in a cab on Broadway. My Alprazolam prescription is running low. The Xanax will run out soon. I came back to the hotel.

Tried to take a nap, but couldn't sleep. Went downtown to Freedom Tower. I thought I would feel something. But everything is numb now. Picked up the subway uptown. Exited at 72nd Street. Walked two blocks to 74th and Broadway and collapsed. A cab driver pulled me into his car, and this is all I remember...

Being sprawled across the greasy seat of a taxi, and then later I tell the cabbie to keep driving, and we go on aimless, bumpy rides down one-way streets, over the spitting stinking steam into the oily newness of the New York night, and there are strobes from a welding crew and blood from chewing apart my lower lip. 

The Incidental Malice of the Universe

I arrived to New York City this afternoon aboard the 20th Century Fox Executive Gulfstream G5.  I am here to further negotiate my Wall Street sequel. Allan Loeb is on board. Stephen Schiff is obviously out. Now we talk for real. 

I'm staying in the penthouse suite at Morgan's on Madison Avenue. These are ultra-chic and spacious duplex-style accommodations. I have a greenhouse. I have a kitchen. I have a living room. I have a media room. I have a spiral staircase. 

I will use none of these.  I am holed up in my luxury suite bedroom, and I have been smoking weed since 5pm (I think). 

There is a frozen ladybug on the exterior windowsill ledge window nearest my double-king bed. How long was she there before she committed to die that way? And did she know she was dying?

And what does this say about my luck?

Other Sins, Other Transgressions

"Is it the IV? Is that what's making you nervous? Or maybe it's the bed pan. I can empty it if it bothers you," she says, adjusting the pillows.

 

Her eyes have changed. A long time ago, before she got sick, there was a shining optimism; a luminous sense of hope in the radiant blue beneath her dark, curled lashes. And this thought makes me sad, because I have a feeling this is something she doesn't understand. When she looks at her reflection in the mirror, I don't think she sees what I see. She doesn't see how muted and dull her eyes are now. If she knew this, she wouldn't arch her brows and wrinkle her forehead, posturing all of that old sisterly condescension; someone who has seen it all, done it all, long before me.

 

"I'm not nervous," I say. And I mean it when I tell her this. The hospital equipment cluttering her bedroom doesn't scare me anymore. It doesn't seem out of place the way it did last week, when they first brought it up to Sayre's house. I've grown to accept this. This is something I've had to accept.

"You look nervous," she says again. "You can go if you'd like. I really don't mind being by myself. I just wanted to see you."

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be here," I lie.

I open the double french doors across from her bed, letting in the crisp Los Angeles fall. The air is filled with the smell of sage and jasmine, and I walk out onto the balcony and look down into the precipitous canyon. I can hear the distant traffic on Laurel Canyon, and a band-saw echoes up from a house at the bottom of the hill below us.

"The Edleman's are renovating the north wing of their home," she says. "I wake up early and watch Michael leave for Warner Brothers. Then Maurine leaves to go wherever it she goes during the day. And then the construction crew arrives a half hour later. Like clockwork."

I see the white van parked in Michael Edleman's carport. "Do you complain about the noise?" I ask.

"Complain? I don't complain anymore, Dorren. Especially not to Michael. He's done a lot for me."

"Those three movies you did weren't exactly above-the-radar. Is that what you call 'a lot'?"

"I happen to like the films I made with Michael," Sayre says. But she hides the hurt with a smile. 

"I didn't mean it like that. You know what I meant."

I move back into Sayre's room as Libby enters from the hall. Libby gives me the usual repulsed glare, and then her eyes soften as she looks to my sister.

"Going to Smart & Final, Miss Daniels. Anything for you while I'm out?" asks Libby.

"No thanks. I'm fine." Sayre looks at me. "Do you want anything while Libby is out, Dorren?"

"I won't be here when Libby gets back."

"If Mister Daniels needs anything, he can get it on his own," says Libby. She leaves.

"You should consider hiring new help," I say.

"Maybe you should consider talking to her some time. She does a lot for me. She's a friend."

"It's not my policy to fraternize with housekeepers, Sayre. And she's not your friend. You're just the person who signs her checks. You have no friends left."

Sayre laughs. "How did you become such a goddamned pessimist?"

"I'm a realist," I say. "Big difference."

Sayre adjusts her pillows again, settles, closes her eyes. It occurs to me that this is how Sayre will look when she is dead, so I turn away from her, and gooseflesh rises on my tan arms. Outside, clouds cross over the sun, and for a moment, Sayre's room is too dim and too cold.

"So how goes the career of Dorren Daniels? I never hear from you anymore," says Sayre.

I just stare at the tops of my trembling hands.

"Is it true what they're saying about Taylor?" she asks.

"I don't know what they're saying about Taylor," I say.

"People are going to believe what they read, and what they see, and what happens to Taylor will eventually come back on you, little brother."

"I thought there was no such thing as bad publicity," I say.

"Horse shit," says Sayre.

"Whatever," says me.

"My advice will matter one day."

"I've managed some of the most powerful films of the last 15 years. Forgive me if I pass on your washed-up opinions."

Sayre tries to sit up. She's not smiling, and she looks hurt, and I stare down at the tops of my loafers, avoiding guilt. I adjust the cuff of my pants, not looking at her, not saying anything.

"What an awful thing to say, Dorren," she says. 

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

"Well, what exactly did you mean?"

"I don't need advice every ten seconds, right? Okay?"

"Not even from the person who bent over backwards to get you a break?" Sayre says.

"I graduated from Harvard. I came here on my own."

Sayre doesn't say anything for a long time, and then she says, "I'm tired, Dorren. Maybe you should leave and let me get some sleep," 

"I'm not going to leave if you're upset with me," I say.

"I'm not upset with you. I'm tired. Please go."

"I didn't mean it when I said you were washed up."

"You didn't say I was washed up, Dorren. You said my opinions were washed up."

"I didn't mean that either."

"Go."

"Fine," I say. "If you want me to go, then I'm fucking going."

At the door, I look back at Sayre once more before leaving. She won an Academy Award in 1990. And this is my sister, I think to myself. Too thin. Looking a decade older than she should. Tubes connected to her brittle body. This is my sister.

 

With her eyes closed, and her hands folded across her stomach, I am again overcome with the image of her death; the way she will look in her casket.

"Please leave," she says again, without opening her eyes. And I do.

 

This is my sister. I'm over it.

Taylor

Taylor has put prep for his new film on hold for a variety of reasons now being alleged in The Hollywood Reporter:

(1) Exhaustion

(2) Paranoia

(3) Bulimia Nervosa

(4) Acute Stress Disorder

(5) Sexual Addiction

(6) Narcolepsy

(7) Stuttering

(8) Insomnia

(9) Dissociative Fugue

(10) Chicken Pox

Taylor came by the Fox lot this morning, nervous, sweating, wearing a tuxedo jacket over a Teletubbies tee-shirt, and smoking a clove cigarette he found under the passenger seat of his Porsche. He still believes that he's being followed by either (a) vampires, (b) zombies, (c) clowns, or (d) Marilyn Manson, circa 1998.

"It's a fucking conspiracy, bro." Taylor ran a hand through his sun-bleached blonde mane. With his Malibu tan, he was beginning to resemble a stoned-looking Matthew McConaughey, or basically just Matthew McConaughey.

"Having delusional disorder is not a conspiracy," I said, shuffling through a stack of talent head shots.

"It's not a delusion, goddamnit!" he shouted. I walked over and shut my office door. My personal assistant Hyacinth is addicted to talking to the press about ANYTHING.

"So you think you're being stalked by Ziggy Stardust?" I asked, feigning concern.

"Marilyn Fucking Manson!"

"Alright, calm down. You're sure about this?"

"I'm not sure," said Taylor, chewing on his thumbnail. "It may be the Olson twins. Which scares me even more."

"Well, apparently you're costing Paramount Pictures a shit load of money because of this. Two days ago you said it was vampires."

"It still may be, bro. It still may be." After he said this he pulled a string of garlic cloves out of his jacket pocket, as if to prove a point he so far hadn't been able to make.

"Well, what can I do for you, Taylor? I'm very busy. I don't understand what I have to do with your...'predicament'."

"Maybe cocaine would help?" he said, a bit of tentative pleading in his raspy voice.

"Sure. That'll do it," I said sarcastically. I went to the floor safe next to my designer credenza, dialed up the combination, and scooped a baggie from the small vault. "This is the last time I give you charity coke, Taylor. Got it?"

"Charity coke is better than no coke."

"Good. Off you go. I've got a manicure in the Bochco Building in 10 minutes."

Taylor left and I went for my manicure.

PHONE MESSAGE FROM AN UNKNOWN CALLER ON MY ANSWERING SERVICE AFTER RETURNING FROM MY MANICURE:

"Flies on the shit."

In The City

When I drive in Los Angeles, I listen to one band. That band is Eagles. And I generally only listen to one song. That song is "In The City" from the album The Long Run (Asylum, 1979). No matter where I drive in L.A. County, "In The City" makes the most amount of sense to me, which is why that song is on repeat-mode on my iPod, all the time. I once listened to "In The City" 16 times in a row in Silver Lake while waiting to buy weed from Bill Maher's cousin, Jimmy-Jim.

So, when I left the Fox lot early this afternoon, my compulsion to listen to "Disco Strangler" instead of "In The City" surprised me. But I rejected that impulse. Which made me crank up the volume when "King Of Hollywood" played for the third time. And that's what led me away from Beverly Hills and into Hollywood, speeding like I was on fucking "ill". I drove miles and miles over oil-stained macadam: From Franklin I drove Normandie south to Beverly Boulevard. Took N. Ardmore up to Maplewood. Cut west to Western. Drove north to Sunset. Sunset to Wilton Place. South to Melrose, past Paramount Pictures. Cut up Vine to Hollywood Blvd., and then west to Cahuenga. South to Santa Monica Blvd., and drove six blocks west to cut back up N. Highland, and then all the way up to Franklin (where I stopped to buy a half-dozen pornographic magazines), and then stopped again, two blocks later, for a 12 pack of Amstel Light. I continued on Franklin east and shot up Los Feliz all the way to Glendale. I took Glendale Avenue to the 134 and wound up driving all the way to fucking Burbank where I ran out of gas just as I was coasting into an Arco station. 

From Burbank, I took the Ventura Freeway to Jaxx' place in Tarzana, where I bought an ounce of chronic and an 8-ball of meth. Jaxx was stoned, sitting on his sofa, wearing a trench coat over a pair of plaid pajamas. Jaxx said that (he was almost certain) someone was filming a snuff porn in Reseda, but earlier, when he asked a neighborhood kid about it (the possibility of a snuff porn being filmed in the neighborhood), she said he was confusing it (the unrealistic idea of something as absurd as a snuff porno being filmed locally) with an animated short film based (loosely) around the Industrial Revolution. Jaxx eventually told me to "forget I mentioned it, hombre."

I hung around Jaxx' place for a while, smoking weed, watching the Obama/McCain debate. Later, when Jaxx put on Season One of The Greatest American Hero DVD, my desire to leave was so overwhelming that I began to cry.

Later, as the sun was setting, I stood at the railing on the south side of Griffith Park Observatory, stoned, confused about the Santa Ana winds, looking down upon the L.A. basin floor as it sparkled like clean, new diamonds. The orange haze over West Los Angeles, and further out over the Pacific, afforded me with a lucid hope and indescribable clarity that I had not felt in so long. It was almost like the city's emasculatory hold on me had somehow been loosened enough so I could take a deep, sharp breath; something that I had been needing for forever, it seemed. Even from the precipice of Griffith Park it was only dirty, gritty Los Angeles laying below me like a whore with her legs spread, but there seemed to be a new hope out there on that horizon. Out beyond the neon lights. I know there must be something better. But there's no where else in site. It's survival in the city. When you live from day to day. City streets don't have much pity. When you're down, that's where you'll stay. 

In the city.

Lunch

I met Mark Brucer at Hollywood Billiards for lunch today. Hollywood Billiards is in the old Hayes Code building on Hollywood and Western. They shut down after the Northridge earthquake, but renovated and re-opened in the fall of 1998. The completely remodeled interior holds 40 tables--20 upstairs, 20 downstairs--along with two bars, an arcade, two private rooms, two patios (one on the roof) and chef Stefano Lucio Mazzi's Italian restaurant, Issima.

I watched a couple of fags play pool while I sat at the bar nursing a glass of Balvenie. Mark strolled in with a leather cue case in hand, eyes searching the room, and after locating me, he joined me at the bar. He immediately began bitching about his wife Allison, saying that she had been sleeping 16 hours a day, mostly by the pool (a la Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion {which Allison has been reading since last Hannukah.}) Mark told me that he asked Allison for a divorce this morning, but she thought he said "Porsche" and told him "maybe" for his birthday. Mark was desperate for some blow, so I sold him the gram I had on me, making a quick exchange in the men's room. 

Tonight I have plans at the following bars: Ultra Suede, Sugar, Tantra Bar, Club 7969, Gitana, The Stock Exchange, 360 Restaurant, Tempest, Fais Do Do, The Play Room, The Sunset Room, Tsunami, Sky Sushi, Splash, The Voo Doo, Goodbar, The Zodiac, Zesuvius, The Garage, Lush, Coven 13, Lipstick, The Hollywood Athletic Club, Sky Bar, The Viper Room, and Showbiz Pizza.

When I returned to my office after lunch, someone had left a note (impaled by a brass letter opener) on my door that read: "YOU'RE NEXT!"

I also had a phone message from Hyacinth asking if I had Christian Slater's phone number. She saw the network television premier "My Own Worst Enemy" last night. She said she knew that I was helping Christian re-work the script for "Gleaming The Cube II" (which is complete and utter horse shit) and that she was hoping I still kept in touch with him. She said she thought he would be (her words) "a really good fuck". 

I have never met Christian Slater.

Party At Chateau Marmont

Stan Loweman was drunk last night. He was standing next to me in the party suite at Chateau Marmont, swaying in his Cole Hahn loafers, holding what was left of a warm Heineken in his hand.

"Sally Field is STILL whining about Chasen's closing down. I say she should show more concern for her stranded career," Loweman said, slurring most of his words.

"That is...interesting," I said, not interested.

"And speaking of 'has-beens'; I saw Peter Scolari at the Westside Pavilion last weekend, and when I offered the perfunctory 'what up', the motherfucker ignored me! Can you believe that? He ignores me! My father handed him Bosom Buddies and Newhart on a goddamn silver platter! The bastard treats me like I'm to blame for his miserable run of luck. Well...you know what I always say--"

"Your career is what you make of it," I finished for him. "Yes. I know."

"Your career is whatever the fuck you make of it," Loweman said, swaying drunkenly.

I turned away from  Loweman and looked out the window, and I barely saw the top of a billboard advertisement of a film I produced this past summer, which provided me with insane relief for some reason. It made me feel...viable. Was that the word that best matched my emotion?

"Whatever," Loweman continued. "I'm over it."

"When Corey Feldman and the cast of Head of the Class stop returning your phone calls, then you've got real problems," I said, dryly. Loweman laughed too loud and a couple of young agents from CAA look over at us.

Loweman's party was still going strong, even after 3am. A TV glowed in a corner of the room. It was a story about the little girl in West Covina who had been missing since last Thursday. Some mexican roadside fruit merchant found her body yesterday in a drainage system near Walmerado Park. The fruit  merchant called the police after he saw what was left of her small body emerging from the open end of a culvert. She and her younger brother had been playing together the week before when she fell into a ditch and broke her neck. Her brother ran, but did not get help. It is believed that coyotes (or vampires) may be responsible for the severe mutilation.

I began looking around the room at everyone, bored, comparing salaries and gross percentages. Kevin Bacon was talking to Taylor (Taylor is directing Kevin in his next film, otherwise Kevin wouldn't have been invited last night). Jack White and Vince Vaughn arrived shortly after Scarlett Johansson began talking to some prick agent at the bar. One of the animators from Pixar was snorting cocaine off the coffee table with Dakota Fanning. Nearby, Seth Rogan and Heather Graham began talking about "filial piety" in film and I wished I had a gun to blow my fucking brains out with. Lil Wayne waved at me when he came out of the bathroom, and I suddenly remembered some of the things he said about me in Variety, so I ignored him.

Loweman left me to go chat with Vince Vaughn, who was hanging all over some pretty actress whose name I didn't know. I moved over to the bar to freshen my Balvenie.

"Loved your last film," the prick agent said to me as I stood next to him.

"Ditto," I said. The prick agent didn't know how to respond to this, so he went back to his vapid conversation with Scarlett, who couldn't keep her eyes off of me. I wandered back into one of the bedrooms and found Mark Brucer fucking a beautiful girl who came to the party with Jack White. Mark looked over his shoulder and smiled at me, but he didn't stop fucking Jack's girlfriend, so I moved back out into the living room, searching for an escape. When Taylor asked me if I wanted to go to Zole's Hole, I couldn't say 'yes' fast enough.

WHAT I REMEMBER FROM ZOLE'S HOLE:

Televisions. Too many televisions; mounted on the walls of Zole's Hole like hundreds of security monitors. Televisions. Flashing their surreal and violent images, synched to whatever the club DJ happened to be playing. Too many televisions; shrouded in plumes of dry-ice smoke that fell and settled in patches below the staircases and catwalks where there were still more televisions. The confetti-maker spewed tiny shreds of mylar from a vibrating hose over the dancing crowd on the main floor, and everyone not dancing moved through shadows with cocktail glasses and beers and shots, and everyone had to talk loud against the music and the roar of conversation, and the laughter made it seem like everyone was SCREAMING AT ONCE. But everyone looked good and smelled good and talked good and there was nothing real about the setting at all, but it seemed like the most natural and only thing in the world while it was happening.

This was where Taylor and I went last night. Zole's Hole in Hollywood. 16,000 square feet filled with a sea of depthless clubland-seeking vampires. Taylor ran into an old Harvard friend of ours called M.W.; Some young, slick, well-manicured, capped teeth blowhard. CEO. Mover. Shaker. StarMaker. Exactly like the rest of us, and by "rest of us" I mean "everyone". We had to endure every trendy word of conversation with this punk. Apparently--from what I could gather from his coked-up-mile-a-minute barrage of meaningless words--he had just bought a Wii.

Our place at Zole's Hole was the corner booth with a direct view of the long bar and the busy dance floor. The primo spot in the club. Funny, but I couldn't stop glancing up at the televisions above our table. And there was one instance, one brief moment last night, when the image on all screens was that of the bridge exploding from the film The Bridge on the River Kwai, and then the bridge was gone, and new, separate images occurred; flashing words and numbers; different sequences on each screen and then suddenly all of the screens read: THIS IS THE DAY THAT THE LORD HATH MADE; the words flashing momentarily, and cartoon blood began to seep down from the top of the screen, covering all but five letters: D-E-A-T-H. And those letters came together, forming the word, flashing over and over and over on every television. And then all of the screens went dark and the dancing crowd cheered, and I just couldn't fucking take it anymore, and I realized that I was having a panic attack. I got out of the booth without saying a word to Taylor or M.W., and walking on weak legs, I stumbled around people as I made my way to the bar to pay my tab, and there was a moment, as I made my way to towards the big mirrored double doors on my way out into the night, where I honestly believed that if I had looked up at the televisions at that exact moment, I would have seen my life flashing before my eyes; separate, graphic images on each and every one of the the 36 inch screens.

PHONE MESSAGES IN MY VOICE MAIL LAST NIGHT:

--Mark Brucer called to let me know that he and his wife would like to have dinner with me tonight.

--Hyacinth called to tell me about the nightmare she had last night: She dreamt she couldn't find anything on sale at the Century City shopping mall.

--Someone keeps leaving me 90 second clips on my voicemail. Last night it was "Every Day Is Like Sunday" by Morrissey.

Production Meeting

20th Century Fox is headquartered at 10201 West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. My office is in Shirley Temple's original dressing room. 

I like my office. 

20th Century Fox gives executives a contractual $15,000 office allowance to be spent in any way (deemed acceptable by Vice Chairman, Hutch Parker) on decor. Mark Brucer used his allowance to turn his office into a meth lab, which is why he was fired earlier this year; a real shame, considering his Exec Producer title was iced from the upcoming Jim Carrey comedy, "Yes Man". 

I've used my office allowance to shroud my office in vintage 70s photographic pornography. 

Which means, I am one of very few people (if not the only person) who can truthfully say, "I have masturbated in Shirley Temple's dressing room." Which is what I did after arriving back to the Fox lot after lunch today.

Afterwards I was invited to a pointless (excessively needless) production meeting to discuss Seth Rogan's small shoe size in relation to a plot twist in an upcoming Seth Rogan film, wherein it is revealed that Seth Rogan's character has a rather large penis. 

Five Bullet Points From The "Seth Rogan Shoe Size Meeting":

(1) How Small Are Seth Rogan's Feet (exactly)?

(2) Why Are The Diet Cokes Luke Warm?

(3) Can Someone Please Provide The Palm Boardroom With Cold Diet Cokes?

(4) "And Perrier, Please." --Raymond Chow

(5) How Small Are Seth Rogan's Feet (exactly)?

I fell asleep after this. I often do this in meetings. This is how you get ahead. Because when your eyes are closed in Hollywood, everyone assumes you're thinking. But I dreamt of my beginnings in this town 16 years ago, fresh from Harvard Biz, and suddenly it is...

...1992 all over again and I am standing in the breeze way of the Saharan Motel, listening to the screams of a woman pleading for her life. It's 3am, but I can still feel heat roiling around me; waves being pushed into the Saharan's oily motor court by passing cars on Sunset. Taylor and a guy called "Rooney" are up in the motel room, passed out on the only double bed. A coin toss decided that I was the one who would sleep on the floor tonight, and this is primarily why sleep won't come. This, and the screaming woman. I heard her even over the noisy window air conditioning unit. I crept out of the room for a cigarette and an idle investigation.

It is hard to discern how far away she is from the back parking lot of the Saharan. The echo is doubled, maybe tripled, bouncing from the concrete sides of other motels and strip clubs around me, and the hot wind whispers through the fronds of high-standing palm trees; ominous soldiers against the muted purple Hollywood sky. What she's screaming is confused and muddled. I'm almost certain I hear the words "someone" and "help" and maybe "me". I guzzle a warm bottle of Beck's and then light my last crooked cigarette, crushing the empty Marlboro box in my fist. And then the screaming abruptly stops. And at this point I should be double-timing it to the motel office, telling the clerk to dial 911, that someone is hurt, or even possibly dead. But I don't. I stand here and I do nothing. Tonight is my last night in L.A., before we drive nine hours north to visit Taylor's sister in Marysville, where she is stationed at an Air Force base. It's my last chance to absorb the pulse of the city before the long trip from Sacramento back to Boston, where I will have to decide whether or not I want to attend grad school.

I'm closing my eyes and listening to the sway of the palms, and the city traffic, and sirens, and muted bass speakers beating from the coarse macadam beyond, echoing over blacktop, and I open my eyes to see a black man bounding over the back motel wall, jumping into the rear parking lot of Saharan. He's wearing high-top sneakers and faded Levis, and he's bare from the waste up. Under the pink-maroon light from the tall arc-sodium lamps above, I notice that his heaving chest is bathed in sweat. He's holding a knife that is, strangely enough, dripping with something that looks like motor oil. He looks panicked, whipping his head from left to right, uncertain of what he should do next. I am watching a caged urban animal.

And then he looks at me.

And he smiles.

And his teeth are huge, and perfectly straight, and the color of lightening; so white in contrast to his dark skin that I catch my breath, and for a moment I actually wonder whether or not this man is Denzel Washington out for an early morning jog before having to be to the set of another Spike Lee film. And it occurs to me how insanely different our lives are, so I smile back and he points a long, bony finger at me and says two words: "White boy!"

And he runs away.

And I eventually wind up back in Boston.

And then I woke up. And the Palms Boardroom was empty. I had slept through the entire Seth Rogan meeting. When I got back to my office, there were three messages from Catherine Keener and two messages from Vince Vaughn. They were both inviting me to the same party at Chateau Marmont tonight. Which is something I guess I'm looking forward to? 

Sold Out Of Soul

This afternoon, Taylor and I met at a Mexican car wash on Pico Boulevard. He believes people have been following him through the Valley, specifically vampires (and/or Goths), and he thought the car wash would be a good place to exchange his money for my coke. After his Porsche was engaged on the car wash belt lock, he popped open his glove compartment.

The Contents of Taylor's Porsche Glove Compartment on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008, 12:42 PST:

A stack of 15 $100 bills

1 Walther PPK semi-automatic pistol (double action)

1 Black Dildo (I did not ask)

1 Whoopi Goldberg bobble-head doll (the resemblance was staggering enough for me to stop breathing for a full 45 seconds)

A pair of Italian merino wool-finished gloves (these may have been mine, but I didn't push it)

Taylor handed me the money, and as I was fishing the coke baggie out of the liner pocket of my blazer, he said something very strange: "People will unintentionally associate what I say about the qualities of other people with my own qualities." I asked him what he meant, and he continued, "What I say about other people sticks to me--even when I talk to someone who already knows me, you for instance. So, when I say that Vickki is a cunt for spelling her name with two 'k's', people--you specifically--will subconsciously think I'm as much of a cunt for pointing out her cuntiness. Do you dig?"

I stared at Taylor for a full three minutes. Then I said, "Who is Vickki?"

"She's the shoe manager at Encino Lanes. You know, Vickki," he said. "She has a tramp stamp of Enrique Iglesias above her ass."

"Oh. Right. Vickki."

After the exchange, Taylor dropped me at my car across the street. "Someone has been breaking into my home and rearranging my furniture, like, on a weekly basis, bro. I'm afraid to go home at night," he said, lighting a Benson & Hedges 100. "Something is seriously fucked up, and when they find me in the L.A. reservoir, eviscerated with my cock in my mouth, you will know this to be the truth."

"Do you seriously think you're being followed by vampires, Taylor? Seriously?"

"Or goths," he said, pitching the half-smoked butt into the street.

"They can fine you $10,000 for that."

Before he drove away, he said, "There is a loneliness in this world so great, that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock. People so tired and mutilated. Either by love or no love."

I drove back to the 20th Century lot with an uneasiness that required me to take three Xanax and drink a Fosters in the commissary men's room.