The Perils of Ambition

I'm living in Los Angeles. 2 years now. I'm lying on the beach in Santa Monica, it's 88 degrees, there isn't a cloud in sight and the beach looks like it’s been hit by a veritable poonami. I'm reading a magazine article, oddly enough, entitled "Southern California's Black Hole Sun". It's talking about the never changing, ever blissful weather, lulling artists into a morass of unproductiveness. I'm reading, and reading, and regardless of my current sun tanning status, I'm taking exception with the article. I don't like being stereotyped. So I decide, I'm gonna get up, and I'm gonna do something. I'm gonna make something of myself. So I get up, dust off the sand, go home and begin to apply myself.

Within a week, I've booked 3 auditions. In under a month I've done three TV spots. In less than a year I have my own series and the day after that I'm lead in a feature film with Matt Damon, and he's got second billing. It's dinners and parties and award ceremonies and interviews and proposals and propositions and perversions and parties in the hills and music, stimulants, drugs, sex, megalomania, Oprah, Scientology. I have a Ferrari and I'm constantly swarmed by women. I live in Malibu when I'm not living in Tuscany and I throw parties all the time, and I get fucked up all the time. Everything is wonderful.

Until…

I start showing up late to set, and the network has to have “words” with me. And then they suggest rehab, and then they order rehab, and then a judge orders rehab – and then I just say fuck all of you! and I run out of the courtroom, jump into my Ferrari, smoke a fatty, throw back a mickey and I fucking FLY up the PCH like a goddamn Sidewinder missle baby – and it feels SOOO good. I let my eyes close, just for a second, and I wonder, when did it all get so crazy? Then I open my eyes, just as I plow into the back of a 36.5 ft. Gulf Stream, Sun-Voyager, as I’m doing 142 miles per hour, causing the behemoth motor home to squeal and squelch out of control, punch through the guard rail and plummet 200ft onto the rocks below, finally exploding in a beautiful orange fireball before sliding into the ocean.

I panic, and take off, but someone saw it all go down, and they get my license number and they call the cops, Now the cops are chasing me but I make it back to my mansion, up to my bell tower, my panic room and now the S.W.A.T. team has taken up positions and I'm reeling and sweating and yelling about the Jews wrecking Hollywood and the smoke from my Ferrari is billowing into the sky - and some unseen voice in the background is saying something like "Let the girl go, and give yourself up." And just as I lift my rifle over the edge… everything goes black.

I wake up in the hospital and they try me from the hospital bed. They find me guilty of laws known and unknown and I’m sentenced to solitary confinement for the rest of my life. The judge looks at me.. looks deep into my eyes and asks, is there anything I’d like to say. And I say yes, "All I really, really every wanted, was to be lying on the beach, soaking up the sun and watching the girls walk by." The judge says, "Pity. Take him away!" and slams his gavel down.

The echoing reverberations wake me up, into consciousness, stunned, but safe. In fact, I’m lying on the beach, soaking up the sun, and watching the girls go by.

Phew. Now THAT was close.