Non-Hollywood: A Novel of Actors, Indie Film & Music

Non-Hollywood

A Novel

by Neal A. Yeager

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016

Cover illustration by Daniela Felce (pairou.deviantart.com)

...there is a lot of music mentioned in this book.

For a playlist of the tunes mentioned, go to nealayeager.com/non-hollywood.html -- NY

For Renee

1 ~ Stabbed ~

Terrance had just been stabbed for being a vampire. Well, he wasn’t really a vampire, he was an actor playing a vampire in a film that was so low-budget and God-awful that it would likely never see the light of day.

The fact that the movie would likely never be seen was unfortunate. More unfortunate, however, was that the whole being stabbed thing — well, that was real. Terrance was making a movie. And Terrance had, in fact, just been stabbed.

"Holy Christ!" shouted someone — the camera assistant maybe — as the blood, real blood not movie blood, real blood, started to seep out of Terrance’s chest.

Standing directly over Terrance was a moron. An overzealous moron. The actor who, while playing the Vampire Hunter, had just stabbed Terrance. Oblivious to his own idiocy, the actor said, Whoa...

The only thing Terrance had to say was, Ffffff.... ffffff...

*********

Later in the ambulance, Terrance, high on pain killers and blood loss, hoarsely sang Row, Row, Row Your Boat and tried, through the haze of his mind, to focus his thoughts on his life. Not because he thought that he was about to die — he didn’t — but because he wondered if this little episode might be telling him something about what his life had become because of this stupid dream of stardom.

Twenty years. Terrance was generally an optimist, but... twenty years? For the last 20 years he had been feeding himself to the Humiliation Machine that was Hollywood. And as far as he could see, the best that he’d gotten for his trouble:

1.) a near miss while acting alongside a guy who would eventually become a HUGE MOVIE STAR (and who, after becoming a HUGE MOVIE STAR had seemed to completely forget that Terrance had ever existed)

2.) being stabbed by a moron.

As he lay in the ambulance, Terrance couldn’t help thinking that maybe a normal life didn’t seem half bad.

2 ~ An Actress at the Beach ~

Sarah sighed.

She was looking down the beach and at the long line of film production vehicles. Row after row of them all along the ocean’s edge, shooting some film or TV show or something that she had absolutely nothing to do with. Though Sarah was desperately working to become a professional actress, she had actually just been trying to get away from it today — just for today. She wasn’t working at the restaurant until the dinner shift tonight and what with not getting the audition that she had wanted and with her boyfriend Mitchell being kind of uptight about his agent thing, she had thought that she would just drive over to Santa Monica and clear her head of the entertainment business for a bit.

But if you’re in L.A., you can’t get away from it, can you? Not in L.A. Those production trucks are always around somewhere. Those big white trucks, just... everywhere. And why, Sarah wondered, are they always big, white trucks? It’s a creative industry, right? So why are all of those movie company trucks so unbelievably boring-looking? She had seen moving vans that looked more interesting than the film production vehicles.

Sarah thought again of how, since moving to L.A. a little over a year and a half ago, she felt like she was in perpetual deja vu. Every place that you could ever go in the city had been in films or TV shows or commercials. So everywhere you go in the city feels like someplace you’ve already been. Have I been here before? No, this is where the guy breaks up with the girl in that one romantic comedy. And here those trucks were at the beach. The beach, for cryin’ out loud. The beach had been in so many movies that someone newly arrived from living in the middle of a swamp should still recognize it on sight.

As she pulled up to the parking gate, Sarah nodded toward the film trucks and asked the attendant, who’s this?

They’re shooting a movie, he replied.

Yeah, I know, but do you know which one or who’s in it?

Nope, the attendant replied, "Seen a couple of hot babes stepping out of one of those trailers though. Made my day. I’ll tell you that! Yeow!"

Sarah sighed again. She had to wonder if guys like this realized what they were doing when they acted the way he was acting now. The way that these guys would act one way with the hot babes and another with the ordinary girls such as herself — with neither way being how the world should actually work. And of course it was only since moving to L.A. that Sarah had really become conscious of her ordinariness, as L.A. was where all of the most beautiful people in the world seemed to flock. There were super-hot people of both genders everywhere you went.

Now, had Sarah been pursuing any profession other than acting she really wouldn’t have cared about her looks. She certainly hadn’t cared before moving to L.A. But she was coming to realize that when trying to become an actress, her not being a hot babe was a real career impediment.

While earning her Theater degree in college it had been all about the acting. Sarah had been in countless stage productions, a couple of student films (one of which had won a few awards), an internet series (which, unfortunately and through no fault of her own had turned out pretty awful) and a local PSA about texting while driving.

But in L.A., in the actual, real entertainment business it was different. If you weren’t one of the Beautiful People — and Sarah wasn’t one of the Beautiful People — then, well...

The parking attendant pointed at one of the trailers and said, "Whoa, there’s one. Look! Look! Look!"

Sarah looked. Not because she really wanted to check out a hot babe, but mainly because when somebody points to something and yells "Look! Look! Look!" your eyes usually just kind of go that way of their own accord. At any rate, she caught a glimpse of the aforementioned hot babe rounding the corner of the trailer then disappearing from sight. In that brief moment, Sarah thought the girl looked a bit like Tracey from her Wednesday night acting class. It probably wasn’t Tracey, but that brief glimpse sure looked like her.

Tracey. A nice girl but a hopeless case as far as acting went. What’s the old expression, Couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag? Well, Sarah wasn’t exactly sure where that expression came from but it certainly applied to Tracey. The girl’s acting was painful to watch. To Sarah, it sounded like every word of every line that Tracey uttered was capitalized. In last week’s scene Tracey had a very simple line: I would like two eggs and a side of white toast please. Which came out as: I Would Like TWO Eggs And A SIDE Of White TOAST PLEASE.

Painful. Absolutely painful.

And of course, Tracey was a model. She got paid for... what exactly? For a talent? A skill? An education? No. For being genetically blessed. For being this thing that guys like to stare at. Kind of odd, when you think about it.

But if you drive down Hollywood’s Sunset Strip you could see Tracey on one of those giant billboards — one of those clothing company billboards that seem to take up half a block — showing Tracey and half a dozen other ridiculously beautiful folks throwing leaves at each other as if they’re having the time of their lives. Actually, they probably were having the time of their lives knowing that they were getting paid a boatload of cash to play with leaves.

But the acting.... oh, Tracey’s acting. Sarah didn’t even want to think about it. She just wanted to pay the parking guy, go out on the sand and stare at the ocean in the opposite direction from where all of the production trucks were parked.

As Sarah was looking through her wallet for the parking money, the attendant shouted, Holy crap! so loudly as to make her jump. Ho-ly crap!, he repeated, Did you see that? Oh my God! That must’ve been who was in that limo. Damn. Did you see? Do you know who that was?

Sarah craned her neck to see. Yes, she knew who that was. Of course she knew who that was. That was a top A-list actor. A Big Movie Star. How could the parking guy think that she wouldn’t know who that was?

Yes, she said, I know who that is. And though Sarah wouldn’t want to admit it, a certain thrill did pass through her at the sight of him. You know you try to be jaded, you try to act cool, but when you see a movie star in person, there is an excitement there. That’s just the way it is.

Sarah drove past the parking attendant and parked her car just past the production trucks. This end of the beach wasn’t at all crowded. In fact, the only other person there was a tiny young woman who seemed to be photographing the beach with four different cameras.

As Sarah wandered out onto the Santa Monica sand, she thought of the thrill of seeing a Big Movie Star. But as she came to the water’s edge, that thrill turned to a bit of... what? Well, disappointment. Disappointment at the the thought that at the rate she was going with her career, this would be the only way she would see someone like that — a chance sighting from afar — when what she wanted was to be acting alongside someone like that. She knew she had the talent — she wasn’t Tracey, for God’s sake. Tracey might be a beautiful model, but Sarah could act. But Sarah’s career was just...

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone walking through the sand toward her. Sarah turned to see the aforementioned hot babe approaching her, a huge smile on her slightly vacant face (and why wouldn’t she have a smile on her face? She was acting alongside a Big Movie Star!). The hot babe called out, SARAH! I THOUGHT that was YOU!

Oh hell, thought Sarah. Tracey.

3 ~ Shadows ~

The petite girl went by the name Icon, even though this was not the moniker her mother had blessed her with eighteen years ago, and even though she was quiet, introverted, and basically not the type who you would think would choose such a bold pseudonym for herself. For years Icon had been fascinated by the idea of one day becoming a cinematographer and a film director. Today she sat on the beach at Santa Monica and stared out at the ocean. She had been doing it all day. It was a research project.

Before her was a small digital still camera on a cheap tripod which was facing out at the ocean; on her right was another camera, but it faced northward up the coast; on her left was a camera facing southward down the beach; and behind her was a camera facing back toward the cliffs upon which sat the city of Santa Monica.

She popped a few antacids in her mouth — her stomach was constantly burning — and glanced at her watch: a quarter after. Icon stood, then walked from one camera to the next, snapping a single photo with each camera. She had started this little ritual just before dawn and it was her intention to keep going until sundown, snapping a series of photos every 15 minutes. Her aim was simple: she wanted to see where the shadows fell at certain times of the day. She hoped that this would allow her to choose the perfect time of day for her shots.

For the past few months she had been working on a short film for one of her classes. While many of her classmates were writing and shooting what amounted to little one-act plays, she had chosen to make her film based on imagery. Though she recognized the importance of being able to work with actors, she also felt that a skill which many beginning filmmakers lacked was the ability to convey emotion just by how a shot was composed and filmed.

As she sat back down in the sand she picked up her headphones and slipped them back over her ears. She had been listening to instrumental pieces that she might use for her film. She had pretty much settled on Night Waters, a chill synth and strings tune by The Dolphin Mantra which seemed to have the right feel for this project.

Aside from the fact that she felt that this group’s music would go really well with the imagery she was shooting, it also felt quite appropriate that the music she listened to at the beach would be by a band called The Dolphin Mantra.

Icon had titled her project Thoughts & Feelings. The idea was that she would pick several emotional concepts and devise a quick scene for each. She had chosen ten concepts and had already shot seven of them. The concept which had brought her to the beach was ‘eternity.’ This scene would feature several shots of ocean waves, which would dissolve into a starry sky at night, footage which she planned to shoot out in the desert at Joshua Tree National Park.

For today she would simply sit here on the beach photographing shadows on the ocean.

This was her idea of eternity.

4 ~ Famous, dammit ~

Sean called it the I deserve to be famous, dammit mix — a playlist of the most recent tunes that he had written and recorded. Sean was a musician, and in his own humble opinion a damned good one. And though it was 6 a.m. he cranked the mix through his headphones as he jumped over the sleeping forms of his roommates.

He himself didn't need much sleep. He was 21 and was, in fact, so hyperactive and just naturally wired that many people assumed that he used cocaine even though he had never touched the stuff. At any rate, it was good that he didn’t need much sleep because with four guys living together in a studio apartment he would surely never be able to get any sleep anyway... And just how in the hell had he ended up with three roommates anyway?

The only thing that Sean didn’t like about the I deserve to be famous, dammit mix was that he hadn’t figured out how to alleviate the hiss sound. He agreed with the old-time musicians about being a fan of recording in analog — many of those guys felt that analog tape was much warmer and gave a much richer tone than digital recording — and Sean took that to heart and recorded his songs analog using a cassette 4-track tape recorder that had been handed down to him from an uncle. How the hell did they get rid of all of that hissing in the old days? He loved recording that old-fashioned way, but it was a fact that there was an awful lot of hiss.

"Hissssssssssssssssss," he hissed to the otherwise quiet room.

By the door sat his guitar: a black Squire Stratocaster that his mom had purchased for him at a garage sale when he was in high school. Neither his mom nor the guy selling the guitar to her had realized that it was a 1983 model with custom pickups and therefore worth a lot more than it had gone for at the garage sale. Sean grabbed the guitar as he stepped toward the apartment door. After his morning kickboxing class he would head directly to work and during the slow times at work nobody seemed to mind if he practiced his playing... as long as he didn’t use an amp.

He stepped out the door and quickly slipped down the stairs, jumping over the bottom railing while softly calling out, Weeeeeeeeee! If not for the fact that it was still dark and quiet in the courtyard of the apartment building, he would probably be singing along with the tunes on his headphones. He wouldn't be embarrassed by that sort of thing, after all he would be singing along with some of his favorite music: his own. So nothing to be ashamed of there. No siree.

As he quickly walked toward the apartment complex’s gate he noticed that the girl whose computer he always used — a tiny young woman, thin and frail-looking, who went by the name of Icon — was sitting in front of her apartment, there on the concrete, her head back against the closed door.

Lock yourself out? Sean asked as he jogged over to her.

No, she replied.

Then why are you outside your door at 6 in the morning?

Just thinking, she said.

Sean liked this girl, in fact she helped him with a lot of computer stuff that he had no clue how to do, such as transferring his 4-track cassettes to digital mp3s, but damn she was an odd one — always had a quiet, almost depressed kind of aura around her. She fancied herself a filmmaker but he had never seen anything that she'd done and he'd never been able to find anything by her on the web. He had once described the girl to one of his roommates thusly: She's one of these people who you can tell is super smart, but you never know what's going through their super brains 'cause they almost never open their damned mouths. Maybe's she's thinking about how to cure cancer. Maybe she's planning a mass murder. Who knows?

Oh hey, Sean said to her, "the followers came through. All 150,000 of them. Can you friggin’ believe it? One Hundred Fifty Thousand followers. I feel like a major label artist already. I conquer all!"

That's great Sean, she said softly. She had helped him get the followers thing set up. Some computer guy — obviously not a very ethical computer guy — had been contacting musicians like Sean and promising that for a hundred bucks he could hack in and deliver 150,000 new followers. And surprisingly, he actually had been able to deliver them.

Dude, it was so cool, said Sean, "I watched 'em all come in — bing, bing, bing, one after the other. Now I've got 150,127 followers. How friggin' cool is that?"

That's great Sean, she repeated.

Yes, it is. And, hey, thanks for your help with that.

You're welcome.

Oh, say, I've got a gig on Wednesday night and I've gotta get that whole e-mail list thing figured out... Can you help me with that later?

Sure.

Thanks. I'd invite you to the gig, but I know you're not 21 yet, he said. Then paused. Then continued, How old are you anyway?

Almost 19.

Oh, cool. ‘Cause you look like you’re about 12.

I know.

Well, I'll be playing arenas before you're 21, so that should work out. But for now... I guess I'll catch you later. Have fun thinking, he called to her as he jogged away and exited the gate of the apartment complex.

There were already a fair number of cars whipping down the busy street when he exited the complex. Where are you Ramona? he called aloud as he scanned the street for her (Ramona was his aging car, a vehicle held together more by rust than anything else). Quite a ways up the street he spotted her. He jogged over to where the car was parked, hopped in, and after struggling to get the engine going, Sean pulled out into traffic and headed for the kickboxing gym all the way over in Malibu. It was a hell of a long drive, but luckily he had to keep him company the best music in the world — his own.

5 ~ The Trek ~

Twenty years, six months and two days before being stabbed while acting on the set of a vampire movie, Terrance, 23, was feeling pretty good, feeling pretty cocky, feeling pretty happy to be with his wife Melanie, 22, driving a crappy old car across the country to L.A. — L.A., that magical land where it was only a matter of time (and very little time at that) before he would be crowned the Next Big Thing. Before he would be a celebrated actor. Before he would be rich and famous. Before life would be damned near perfect.

They figured that they had enough money to last them close to two years — or rather Melanie had enough money to last them close to two years, thanks to her late-grandfather who had named her as beneficiary on a small insurance policy. But neither of them thought that they would need that much time. Terrance would be huge before then.

Terrance pulled into the parking lot of a motel and as he killed the engine, Melanie stirred awake. Where are we? she asked through a yawn.

Somewhere in Colorado, he said.

Melanie rubbed her eyes, opened her door and swung her feet out onto the pavement. Pretty, she said.

Yeah it is, Terrance said, air smells pretty good too. He walked over to Melanie, put his arm around her and then lightly rubbed her stomach — something that he couldn’t seem to stop doing ever since she’d told him she was pregnant.

Melanie brushed Terrance’s bangs out and away from his eyes.

He looked at her and smiled, Maybe we’ll get a home here — after the one in Malibu and the one in the south of France.

Which, she said, comes after your academy award and your star on the Hollywood Blvd.

Maybe before the star thing, he said, then he kissed her.

Damn, he was happy.

Melanie looked up at the motel and said, looks like a giant log cabin.

I hope that’s intentional, Terrance replied, and they walked up and entered.

At the front desk was a large, middle-aged woman with a friendly face. The motel woman had watched them as they had crossed the lot and entered her lobby, and what she saw: a young man, tall, thin, with blonde windswept hair, sunglasses and exuding a casual confidence that movie people would label presence; and with him a girl, thin and pretty with jet-black (obviously dyed jet-black) hair and just the right amount of too much eye makeup; in short: two ridiculously