Nowhere Near Hollywood

Mark Safranko

Description

Nowhere Near Hollywood is the fifth major instalment of the Max Zajack series. Familiar to thousands of readers in France, Belgium, Switzerland and the United Kingdom from the earlier novels, this time around Max, after years of struggle to get his writing recognised, decides impulsively - and unwisely - to try his hand at acting in order to get his career off the ground. If anything can bring him attention, he tries to convince his skeptical and long-suffering girlfriend, Gayle, it's recognition as a performer. After all, the most powerful man in the world - the President of the United States - is himself a flopped B actor. Shot through with Max's characteristic black humour, Nowhere Near Hollywood traces his long, wacky journey through the fringes of the film and theater industries in New York City, from playing a Native American pitching hot dogs, to being asked to drop his trousers at a movie audition, to his heartbreaking near-misses as a playwright and screenwriter.

Informations

• Publié par: Honest Publishing
• Date de parution: 20 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781916004320
• Langue: English

Extrait

NOWHERE NEAR HOLLYWOOD
MARK SAFRANKO
Nowhere Near Hollywood by Mark SaFranko Honest Publishing
All Rights Reserved Copyright 2019 Mark SaFranko ISBN 978-1-9160043-0-6
Manufactured in the United Kingdom Cover: Slava Nesterov, additional design by Tim Clulow
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
For Emmanuel EJ Juhel
People know when you are trying to be something that you are not... This is a story about a man who tried to be something he was not; who wasted his time, and asked for and got a lot of trouble.
-- John O Hara, The Big Laugh
It was a sickness: this great interest in a medium that relentlessly and consistently failed, time after time after time, to produce anything at all.
-- Henry Chinaski, Hollywood
The losers and the lost always seemed to make a beeline for me.
-- Max Zajack
1
You re going to do what?
Gayle was propped up in bed reading a magazine on world affairs. She stared at me as if I d just told her I was going to turn myself into a woman.
I m going to be an actor. If that bastard can do it, why can t I?
Her jaw dropped open. She shook her dirty blonde hair.
What in the world are you talking about, Max?
I was just down at the bar, and I happened to look up and saw Seamus Sean-Hughes on the TV screen.
Who in the world is Seamus Hugh -- whatever his name is?
Sean-Hughes. He s one of the stars of this popular series, Stoneman And MacDougal .
I think I might have heard of it.
It s one of the top ten major network shows.
Did you smoke any cigarettes?
No, I lied.
I can smell it, Max.
Come on, honey. I told you I quit.
I knew she didn t believe me, but I sat on the edge of the bed anyway. So here s what happened...
Gayle had wanted me out of the apartment. She said she needed some space, always a bad sign. I jumped into my heap and drove five minutes to the Top Of The Hill Inn, grabbed a seat at the bar, and fired up a Marlboro, one of the stash I kept in the glove compartment. There were a few bodies scattered around, biker types, mostly, and construction workers. They were glued to the big TV set.
The bartender drifted over. He looked bored and fucked-off that he had to serve me.
What s on tap?
He reeled off a slew of brands.
Budweiser. I wasn t in the mood for anything fancy or expensive.
He drew a pint and slid it in front of me. It was flat as an old tire, but it was cold.
I sat there thinking. I was thirty-four years old and had nothing to show for myself. I d been writing for thirteen or fourteen years, and over that time I d tried everything --plays, novels, stories, music. I d even been a professional for a couple of years, a reporter for a pair of daily newspapers and a regional magazine, but I d been lousy at journalism because I didn t give a damn about what was happening in the world. The truth was I was a failure at everything I d ever tried. Just making it through everyday life gave me fits. I suffered anxiety, panic attacks, fears and phobias. I lived in a state of perpetual depression.
Whenever I opened a newspaper or magazine I couldn t help but notice that some new young hotshot writer had made it big. Everyone gushed over what a great talent, even genius, had been discovered, and the masses agreed. But when I sent my own stuff out, it returned like a homing pigeon with the same note -- No thanks. What was the key? I could never figure it out. Probably I just wasn t cut out to be a writer.
But for some insane reason I kept trying, kept planning. I made notes. I typed. Day after day, night after night, I sat there waiting for something great to happen. But I didn t know how to make something great happen, which all the young hotshots seemed able to do...
That Seamus Sean-Hughes sure is a good actor.
The two muscle boys at the end of the bar were riveted to the big TV screen.
The name -- Seamus Sean-Hughes -- faintly rang a bell. I looked up. The actor they were talking about was burning asphalt behind the wheel of a red sports car. He was blond and tan but not very good-looking. At first I didn t recognize him. Then, slowly, the years melted away...
Seamus Sean-Hughes and I had once read for the same part: Stanley Kowalski, in A Streetcar Named Desire . At the time we d both been attending a college in the middle of a cow pasture in western Pennsylvania. I d become enamored with the theater. I landed parts in plays by Saroyan and Pirandello and Stoppard, but never thought seriously of trying to become an actor. Where I came from, there were no actors. Besides, actors, I d already figured out, weren t exactly fountains of creativity. The writer was everything . He was the one history remembered. That s what I aspired to be: a genius, the divinely inspired maniac who produced great literature, real art, the master who gave puppets something to say. I wanted to be Tennessee Williams and Eugene O Neill. I wanted to be Sartre. Above all, I wanted to be Dostoyevsky. I hadn t yet written a word, but I knew that a mere thespian, a mouthpiece, wasn t the equal of a genuine Prometheus.
I was the one who got the part of Stanley. Even though I didn t know what I was doing, I won raves for my performance.
Now there I was, sitting in a roadhouse full of nobodies who were gushing over a hack I d once vanquished. How the hell had he made it from the cow shit to Hollywood?
That dude must snag lots of pussy, huh?
Hey, if you looked like him and were in that show, you d score all kinds of poon too.
Those two idiots were starting to annoy me.
I once took a part away from Seamus Sean-Hughes, I said to the air.
The muscle boys turned in my direction. What? I repeated myself.
The one sitting closest to me glanced at his buddy.
Is that right?
I wouldn t kid you.
That s really something. I once beat out Tom Hanks for a part in a movie, but I had to turn it down because it was my turn to drive the garbage truck.
The first guy started to laugh. Then his pal joined in. They both laughed really hard and couldn t stop.
The show ended and the credits rolled. The muscle boys tossed their drinks back and headed for the door.
Have a good night, said one of them.
Got a ride back to the asylum? said the other.
Before they revved up their cycles I could hear them howling like a pair of drunken chimpanzees.
I looked around. I was the only person left in the joint. The bartender lurched towards me. He looked even more bored and pissed off than he did when I came in.
What s it gonna be, chief ? Another Bud?
No... Yeah, why not.
That was how it started.
Actors, they get all the attention, I said to Gayle.
Maybe that s the way to draw attention to my writing. After all, Sam Shepard and Woody Allen do both, right? Once people start learning my name they ll have to pay attention to my writing. Hey, it s America -- all things are possible. And it can t get any worse than it already is.
I don t know, Max. Actors are props -- mannequins. You re a writer. The real deal.
Says who? I can t even get a short story into some tiny piece-of-shit journal in Arkansas that no one s ever heard of. You read my mail lately?
Jesus, Max! I left Hollywood because I wanted to get away from that world.
It was a story I knew inside out. Gayle s ex had been a location manager for Zoetrope and had worked his way up. Now he was the executive producer of mega-hits starring the likes of Bruce Willis. It was a bit of a sore spot, that he was a somebody, and I wasn t.
We re nowhere near Hollywood, baby. New York s different. There s supposed to be a thriving indie movie scene here. They need actors, right? It won t take all that much time and I ll go on writing. Hell, I ll write for the stage and I ll write for movies on top of writing stories and novels.
What about your job? What about paying the bills? I don t know, Max. It s all the same -- Hollywood, New York, wherever. Those people are vile. I think you re just jealous of this Scott-Hughes guy.
Sean-Hughes, I corrected her again.
My God, what a pretentious name! See what I mean?
When I knew him he was Gerry Hughes.
I don t know, Max...
I m telling you, honey, actors are where it s at. They hold all the power. In case you haven t noticed, our goddamned president happens to be a second-rate B-film actor. What does that tell you?
Gayle shook her head again.
I just hate to see you... debase yourself, that s all.
I ve done more than my share of that already. I ve written a couple of plays -- nothing. Three novels -- zilch again. My short stories go out, and if they re not returned before I even get back from the post office, they disappear into a black hole. And it s not like I started writing yesterday. This has been going on for years.
She had nothing more to say. The truth was the truth and she couldn t deny it. She rolled over, switched off the lamp, and went to sleep.
2
The first thing you do when you want to be an actor is get yourself a headshot. I checked the yellow pages. A photographer up in Morristown claimed to do show-business photos at a discounted rate. I needed to go discount. I called and made an appointment.
Henry Godaris Photography was located on the third floor of an ancient office building. There was no elevator, so I climbed all the way up there, thankful that I d finally quit smoking cigarettes -- at least for the week.
Godaris was a twitchy little man with black hair and oversized tortoise-shell glasses who darted all around the loft like a cornered mouse. All the photos on the walls were of bland suburban scenes: family portraits, weddings, trees and flowers, even smiling dogs. Where were the performers? And why wasn t his gear already set up?
How s business? I said, trying to make conversation. He was fumbling with his camera a