6 Books That Saved Me From Hollywood (1 of 6): What Makes Sammy Run?

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Hi, I’m Kyle, and I’m a recovering Hollywood assistant.

Hi Kyle.

Hi.

It’s hard to know how I ended up in Hollywood since the seeds of its siren song took root at a young age. I was a boy who grew up in an environment that felt emotionally and morally bankrupt… for me. I’m trying to say that more because I want to believe the smile of all those who said that place made them happy. I just don’t, but hope I’m wrong for their sake.

I often likened my reality to a fish bowl with a view of the outside world through my psychological barrier, the gravity that held me where I was, and for me the world on the other side of the glass was through a TV.

The cage song bird only sings to the world it longs for, and so do people. You need the view of the thing you can’t reach. We humans are built that way as far back as our recycled atoms go they’ve been stuck to a rock observing the limitless sky above. That’s where the gods lived, a place too high to reach.

Hollywood is a hell of an escape to the unlived lives we all wished we had. Where you get the girl, she’s just next door, or you stop the bad guy trying to shake the reality that everyone is familiar with. To make the current world order secure again.

Stories are supplements for that which we lack. Love, horror, action, despair, etc. We as humans can view our discomfort as something to be eradicated, rather than a natural process of growth. Movies can stimulate us to feel that by which we long for, what the cage bird sung for, or the millions of tired souls singing to a world that takes from them, the game that was built for them to lose.

The only difference between cults and companies is that companies are profitable and cults are not.

Why do you think there is no financial literacy taught in school? Why are none of the questions that can actually improve your life actually posed? Because school is a factory for the worker and the people that have financial freedom and autonomy are resented because they have what the others want: success, power, access, and all the other things. They are the want other people want they are the thing that cultivates fear and greed in our world.

There are a lot of trappings on the well worn path, and if you’re in the herd you should look around at the elements guiding the herd because it most often ends in a cliff.

I believe Hollywood is one of these cliffs. I just couldn’t see it for it was because it was the only thing that made me believe that I could transform and defeat the dragons in my own life, rather than misconstruing what, where, and who the dragon actually was.

And I was in that existential battle, on that well worn path, following a siren song, until I met Sammy.

Running With Sammy

My life felt incompatible with the outer world around me, like I was assembled through lost origins and my maker forgot to leave the instruction manual in my basinet. I’d try to ask the people I grew up with if they felt the same only to be met with vacant stares, like looking into a dark lantern that lost its fire ages ago. The only way to avoid feeling completely insane, to have a reciprocity of thought, was to write. It was the only thing that made me feel like my ideas were received somewhere the same as I felt them.

Eventually, I was doing this so much that a roommate of mine said, “You should go to film school. It seems like you like writing and movies. Maybe you should do that.” So I googled what was the “best film school” and USANews was delighted to tell me with a salivating mouth I could only assume now was snake oil betwixt a healthy paid ad.

NYU.

I applied.

And got in.

“It’s harder to get into here than Harvard Law.” A professor said. A sentiment that is echoed in many other places similar to this one that make you believe you’ve achieved something of value and that the cost of tuition is a bargain for your dream life. “You are sitting in the seat that giants once sat.” The indoctrination gets deep as former “successful writers” stroke your ego and tell you what a genius you are as they hawk their wares of ruin on the next generation.

The well worn road to Hollywood is laid with intention and the beaten down bodies of its former victims. Have you ever crossed a street to see a bird that was ran over? And then eventually it is gone. Well, I hate to tell you that it wasn’t a carcass scraper the city paid for that came and got rid of it. Not in this economy. The bird didn’t go anywhere, more cars just ran over it on their commute to a cubicle until that bird became the street. Why do you think city roads don’t need to be repaved as much as the ones in the middle of nowhere? Food for thought… or the road.

The bird becomes the street and we are none the wiser because—

I am the hero.

That couldn’t happen to me.

The world revolves around me.

I’m not a cautionary tale that’s other people’s roles.

I’ve opened my eyes every day to see what only I can see and that I am at the center of every mirror.

I am the exception.

People love a joke until they’re it.

Every person that goes to war does not believe they are the one who is going to die otherwise there wouldn’t be an army. The stories of glory are told only by those who stayed on the hill and benefitted from the sacrifice of the poor souls that dared to believe in a story. After all, it’s good business.

If you put yourself in an environment of starved and tired people it is going to breed some deviant behavior and their messages will be to protect their ego and reinforce what they are gaining from you.

The well worn path is following the light of dead stars.

If you read somewhere that being a writer’s assistant is the way to become a writer that isn’t by accident. The first page of google isn’t secret information that you magically found in some hidden tomb it was put there for a reason because it is selling you something that the creator is benefiting from.

Always question your sources with the highest degree of scrutiny for their intentions sometimes aren’t often found until you’re at the bottom of your bank account and the cliff.

I listened to every podcast (Scriptnotes, Nerdist Writers Panel, Children of Tendu, etc. and etc.).

“It’s not a matter of if, but when.” They said.

“Apply to the fellowships.” They said.

“Be a writer’s assistant.” They said.

“Work for those you want to be.” They said.

And so on and so on, they said.

These mantras didn’t come out of nowhere they were created by those ages ago that kept walking and already fell off the cliff.

Stories are passed down, but not always for the right reasons.

Hollywood is full of zombies.

Walking, but dead inside.

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Dante wrote this with a mind few have from the trenches of the Hollywood mailroom.

It’s good advice in listening to what it’s actually saying.

Abandon here, ye who has hope.

I’ve always believed I could outwork any person.

In college, I was taking O-Chem, believe me I’m as surprised to write this as you are to read it. I took a practice exam for the upcoming real O-Chem test and realized I was going to fail. In despair, I went to my professors office hours who said with a tired, matter of fact, logic leads my life kind of face, “The class is graded on a bell-curve.” I had no idea what that was and he said, “Think of it like this. In life we are all being chased by a tiger and your job isn’t to be the fastest runner in the whole world, all you have to do is outrun the person next to you.”

That advice clicked into place. A mantra I needed that fed my ego that I just had to be better than the majority. I could do that and that was the only thing I remember to today from the teachings of O-Chem.

I just have to run faster than the person next to me. The only problem with this is when you’re focused on beating other people it is hard to know where you’re running.

Star Trek had a cute concept it presented called “The Kobiyashi Maru Test” and it is no coincidence that Hollywood was the place this story was bore from. Hollywood is The Kobiyashi Maru Test. The test is built to be un-winnable if you follow the rules, so the only way to win is by breaking the rules.

However, we are taught explicitly for eighteen years (sometimes longer) of our life that rule breaking is the worst thing you could ever do. It is the stick that comes when you lose focus on the carrot.

“Just get any job in Hollywood.” They said.

I met hundreds people in the course of five months. I followed up. Wrote hand written thank you notes, showed up early, the whole shebang.

I got a PA job.

Job ends.

“Get another job.” They said.

I got another PA job.

“You want to be an APOC?” They said.

No, I came to Hollywood to be a writer.

“Oh, we can’t help you with that. We don’t really interact with the writers.” They said.

I panic. I need a job and don’t want to work at an Agency. I’m watching 30 Rock and see Kenneth the Page.

I apply to be an NBC Page, and within the month I’m wearing an ill-fitted suit and a tie with peacocks on it.

“The fastest hire in NBC Page history.” The current regime told me.

I study all the assignments (glorified internships blended with temp work that pages have to compete in interviews for) and I go after the ones everyone one else wanted.

And I got them.

I network with every department I could find in the directory.

“I want to be a writer.” I’d tell them.

“Oh, you need to work for a writer then (writers PA, showrunners assistant, writers assistant, script coordiantor). If you go to an agency you’ll hear about when they’re hiring first.“ They said.

But I don’t want to go to an agency.

“(shoulder shrug)” They did.

“Have you applied to the fellowships?” They asked.

Yeah.

“Well, I’d just keep applying.” They said.

Rewind a year prior, I emailed Damon Lindelof (who is my hero and made me want to be a TV writer). The advice was “work for your heroes” so I took the step to meet him.

I get a job with him.

He made me a writers assistant.

I met my first middle aged script coordinator.

The show ended.

Damon said, “Get another writers assistant job.”

I got one with Sam Esmail.

I got representation in the mean time.

Sam wasn’t going to promote me.

So I left.

And now I’m 25.

I’ve worked for my heroes. I’ve seen how they worked, operated, and the whole time it felt like I was still on the wrong side of the Grand Canyon from where my writing dreams were.

Every bit of advice I was given.

“Work for your heroes.”

I did that.

“Apply to fellowships.”

I did.

I never got past the final round, but I knew a handful of people that went through them and they didn’t become writers.

“You need representation.”

I got to pick my managers and agents after having the resume I had.

"Go on a bunch of generals.”

I went on all of them.

No jobs and I wasn’t achieving my goal of being a Hollywood writer.

I played the game. I followed the rules. I did everything right, better, and faster than anybody around me.

And I’m losing.

Being a straight cis-gender white man gave a very specific view in Hollywood of the bevy other straight cis-gender white man gatekeepers. To get to the end of the well worn path you finally unlock the truth achievement from the gatekeepers to finally say, “I’m sorry I just can’t hire a white guy. You get it, right?” And all the other awful things they’d say about the people they “had to hire” that doesn’t deserve repeating.

And for a while I just accepted the dead end and moved to another path and another job and another writer.

And by 26 I had gotten to the end of every advice that was given to me.

Bought all the proverbial Hollywood lottery tickets in hope that it’d return value.

“Just take another trip around the block again.”

This was never explicitly said, but boiled down to its shitty reduction sauce that it was didn’t taste right no matter the mantra it was glazed with.

The illusion or should I say delusion was starting to wear off.

I made it through every contradiction Hollywood had “you can’t be a PA until you’ve been a PA.” I did it. “You can’t be a writer’s assistant until you’ve been a writers assistant.” I did it. “You can’t get a job without agents, but you can’t have agents until you get a job.” I did it. “You can’t be a tv writer until you’ve been a tv writer.” I did not do it.

Entry Level Job (previous experience required).

And just like that slow realization I had, you’re probably having now, wondering, “Wait a minute, when are we going to get to the promise of what the title of this blog I clicked on?

“The 6 Books that Saved Me From Hollywood.”

Just like the promise of being “A Writer in Hollywood” from all the advice people gave at a cost.

This is where the path will diverge from any ladder or well worn path metaphor for we’re going off-road, into the weeds, to find the fruit that Mr. Hollywood doesn’t want you to find because he likes you hungry.

After participating in the insanity of trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

I finally met a person, at the right time, who was on their way out of Hollywood to go work in tech and “you’re my last Hollywood meeting.” He said.

My defense systems went up to try and battle this threat to my psychic echo chamber. I battled him with all the mantras I was hard-trained with—

“Don’t give up. It’s just a matter of time.”

“You haven’t worked for the right person yet.”

“You have to be in LA.”

And he didn’t respond to any of it. He let me talk, until I reached the end of my sanctimonious psycho babble and he reached in his bag and pulled out this old book bleached beige in all the dead skin cells that had been paved into its pages.

“Read this book and let me know what you think.”

He got up and left to his packed car filled with all his wordly processions and drove off.

I looked down and read the worn cover of the book I was left.

“What Makes Sammy Run?”

I’d never heard of it. It was written by some guy named Budd Schulberg.

As the guy’s car finally disappeared from view I thought to myself, “Well, I guess the tiger just got fed again.”

When I got home, I opened the book and it said that it was printed in 1941.

What could I possibly gain about working in Hollywood from something that was written almost eighty years ago?

But in my eyes it was the dying wish of a former comrade, so I humored him.

I read it.

And everything changed after that.

And I have now seen first hand the origin story of what makes middle aged assistants.

And the only reason I am not one myself is because I read this book at the right time.

And I hope you do, too.

It is never too late to figure out a new path where you can get your work made, see the world, make money, and be happy.

For me… I haven’t seen a single success case.

And if I look at the ledger of my decade experience in Hollywood.

Networking Meetings: 1021

General Meetings (set up through reps): 178

Number of Spec Scripts Written: 10

Number of Scripts that Ended Up On Big Lists: 1

Number of TV Scripts I Wrote For Other People Without Credit: 13

Number of Features I Wrote For Other People Without Credit: 2

Number of OWA (open writing assignments): 8

Number of Contemporaries that Were Staffed on A TV Show With No Sample Script: 9

Number of Contemporaries that Were Staffed From Being A Writers Assistant: 3

Number of Contemporaries that Were Staffed that Weren’t Nepotism (or sleeping with the boss): 0

The numbers weren’t looking good and the second book of our series breaks down how numbers never lie to you. They tell a story and one you can believe. But you’ll have to wait to take this first step before the second.

End of first step confession — Hollywood didn’t work… for me.

If you feel lost and hopeless in Hollywood and you’re spinning your wheels for your incalculable time around the block then I suggest you click here and read, “What Makes Sammy Run?” and if by the end you feel something shift like I did then I’ll see you on the next blog.

If not, then I wish you luck on your journey and I hope your smile is a happy one.

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