"Incestuous. It's incestuous. If all you ever do is watch Hollywood movies and you grew up in Hollywood with Hollywood people doing Hollywood drugs and having Hollywood discussions driving Hollywood cars drinking at Hollywood bars and learning that the world everywhere is like the world you live in: rich parents, house in the hills, every other car is a Porsche—but a cheap-ass Porsche, the cheapest Porsche you can buy, just so you can have a Porsche—a Porsche in Hollywood is like a Subaru in the rest of the country, you know what I'm saying? A Porsche is nothing in this town—you might as well drive a Honda. In this town, a Porsche is a car for fags."
"We don't say fags anymore."
"Thank you Kristen. A Porsche..in this town..is a car for every wannabe faggot producer fuckstick shit-eating Peter Jackson motherfuckin' green screen faggoty-ass fatherfucking ass-eating David Yates effects fest hack fest fuck. Did I say faggot?"
"Yes."
"Did it offend you?"
"Honestly, deep in my heart, it didn't offend me at all."
"Sweet. Where was I? I'm lost in some sort of bipolar drone flyby but it might be just flies or possibly fireflies I'm not sure."
"You hallucinating?"
"Yeah but where was I?"
"Incestual Hollywood."
"Haha. Very funny. Incestuous Hollywood makes incestuous Hollywood movies. These are kids who grow up watching the same old shit and so when they derive what they think matters and what they think is true about—not movies, but—life, they make movies with the emotional content of a Bret Easton Ellis novel."
"You don't like Ellis?"
"I love Ellis. Some Ellis. But people out here have no fucking emotion. Kids from Ohio move here to get famous. The boys want to direct and the girls want to act and what happens is the boys end up waiting tables and the girls end up tending bar and the really pretty girls go to clubs and flag down guys driving Ferraris and Lamborghinis and Maseratis—"
"What's a Maserati?" Kristi says.
"It's a sports car."
"Oh."
"For fags."
"Oh."
"So the really pretty girls, they go home with guys who drive the real cars and they get opportunities—they'll never be a movie star—but they'll get to sing in a girl band or be in a couple episodes of CSI. They'll sit by the pool and become a glorified sex slave for the guy with the Maserati—sucking his dick cheese is the price she pays to sit by that pool, do endless amounts of coke, and live in the Hollywood hills."
"So what are you saying?"
"All I'm saying is that motherfuckers who grow up in Los Angeles metaphorically sucking each other's cultural dicks, learn filmmaking by watching films by P.T. Anderson—"
"You don't like P.T. Anderson?"
"I love P.T. Anderson. All I'm saying is these kids are trying to be P.T. Anderson. They wanna be the next Spike Jonze or—I don't even want to say this name but Danny Boyle. They don't have their own style because you don't learn your own style by watching someone else's style. So these inbred, incest, faggot motherfuckers make hack films and throw hack parties and have hack sex with their girlfriends. They don't even know how to eat cunt."
I look Kristen in the eye and use my beer to emphasize this point.
"They don't even know how to properly eat cunt. A real filmmaker—this is a true story—Terrence Malick's producer calls him and he's like: Terrence, we're in the production office where are you? Terrence is like: I'm walking across the US, following the migration of the such-and-such finch—or some kind of bird, I don't know what it was, but this motherfucker was walking across the southern states of the US following some kind of bird he was interested in. That's what a real filmmaker does. Have you seen The New World? That's a fine film. He started writing it in the seventies, it came out in two-thousand and five. Shot it in 65 millimeter—except for the visual effect shots, of course. Same thing happened with Coppola and Apocalypse Now—he tried to get that film made for 20 years before he could get a yes. Francis Ford Coppola couldn't get a yes. But he waited for that yes. And he got it. And now we're blessed with what I suspect will always be the greatest war movie of all time."
"Where did Coppola grow up?"
"No clue. Might have been LA. But real films aren't about other films—they're about life. Real life. Like Hotel Rwanda."
"Or Schindler's List?" Kristi says.
I look at her deadly serious.
"Don't ever mention Steven Spielberg again or I'll shoot you in the head."
"You mean you'll fire me?"
"Did you hear what I said? I said I'll shoot you in the head!"
Kristi laughs.
"You don't even own a gun."
"Yes I fucking do. It's in my purse."
She shakes her head.
"You don't own a purse."
"If you take one thing from this conversation, you little inbred Hollywood bitch, take this: no great movie was made without a great script. Story is everything. Special effects are nothing. You can't write without a soul. You can't grow a soul if you grow up snorting coke poolside talking to yourself in the third person sucking dick cheese being a subpar singer in a mid-level girl band—that girl is never gonna grow a soul. She's never gonna write a screenplay—not one that makes you feel anything. I'm not even sure it's possible to grow a soul in California. Maybe northern California. Don't look at me like that. Maybe it's possible in your case. Give me another cigarette and let's go over the shot list for tomorrow."
When I felt better and had an afternoon off, I went to Dr. Lee ensconced within the sterile confines of Kaiser Permanente hospital on the border of Hollywood and LA.
"You were supposed to meet with us as soon as you left Karen Fitzpatrick in Portland. Dr. Fitzpatrick sent me your chart and we did a formal transfer—the only thing I've been waiting for is you."
"Been doing an art project."
"Well I have your latest fMRI here."
"Can you just not tell me?"
"I think it's good for you to know."
"Then tell me."
"Fitzpatrick is right. You seem to have inherited factors that are similar to those that led to your father's tumors. You have highly advanced tumors—as you know—and as you know, those tumors are inoperable, like his. Right now they're taking up one quarter to one third of your brain mass. I don't see how you're walking around functioning, myself. And soon you won't be. And, Lauren, I wasn't privy to your conversations with Dr. Fitzpatrick so I don't know how clear she was with you about this, but I feel I owe it to you to use exceptionally clear language here: these tumors will kill you very, very soon. I recommend you quit your art project and come stay with us for everyone's safety. Are you driving?"
"How long until it kills me?"
"Six months, maybe nine. You will not live another year."
I smile at Dr. Lee.
"That should be enough," I say, and I jump down off the examination table.