I write for a living, but I don’t often write for fun anymore. A few months ago, I took a prose class here in Dublin and we were asked to complete various assignments for peer review. One of them was a personal essay. So, I wrote about my last few months of college life in Los Angeles. Oh twenty-two, you were fun, but I’m glad to have left you behind. Here goes:
Every journalism major is told at some point in their college career that the key to nailing the dreaded post-graduation job search is an internship—or two, if you can swing it. As it happened, I could. Having studied and interned for a summer in Washington, D.C. covering hard-hitting political news, I finished my required units a semester early. Instead of launching myself into the world of graduated independence, however, I decided to stay with my college roommates in our La Habra apartment until summertime. I told my parents it was vital to my future career that they continue to support me so I could find a job in television. Unofficially, I was horrified at the prospect of missing out on my last semester of college simply because I’d squeezed in more credits than the rest of my classmates. Plus, I had a season snowboarding pass and there were a few parties coming up I really couldn’t miss.
Consequently, one hazy morning in early 2007, I found myself accepting a laminated name badge from Hector, the gate guard at KCET studios in Hollywood. It had taken me just over two hours to drive the thirty miles from northern Orange County to the production lot on Sunset Boulevard and I was late on my first day. “There was traffic” isn’t a valid excuse for tardiness in Southern California (everyone knows that rush hour turns all major freeways into car parks—leave early or pay the price), so I was pretty nervous about facing my new boss. As it turned out, I wasn’t even close to being the last assistant to roll in that morning. The tall, gangly guy from Utah had taken the wrong exit and ended up in Echo Park. The aspiring makeup artist had gotten stuck in gridlock on the 405. The UCLA sophomore didn’t show up at all that day. Fifteen minutes late and I was somehow looking like a star employee.
There wasn’t much of an orientation. My supervisor was an over-worked, kindly-looking woman named Karen. She must have been in her late fifties and, upon early acquaintance, seemed as if she’d missed her true calling as a librarian—until the red studio light switched on. Once production began, Karen was nothing but business and she knew her shit. A clipboard was thrust into my hands along with a headset.
“Wear this and never take it off. It’s your lifeline,” she said. “If I call you on that and you don’t answer, I’ll assume you’ve left the lot during hours or you’re dead, neither of which is good for job security.”
The map on our clipboards was the only tour we got and the first studio guest was arriving any minute. You see, I quickly discovered that “production assistant” was fancy talk for “celebrity escort.” Celebrities aren’t normal people. They need help with everything: walking, seeing, being on time, drinking, eating, finding the bathroom, remembering to dress, talking, and even avoiding boredom. Whatever their hearts desired, I was there for them—with some exceptions. I kindly refused a few requests made by entitled male guests of the studio. Any proposal from a dressing room that involves winking or lip-licking should be immediately shot down. The headset was useful on those occasions.
“What was that? Yes Karen. Absolutely. I’ll be there right away.” Exit stage left.
My friends thought I had scored a sweet gig and I have to admit, some days it was fun. The other interns and I would check the list of guests each morning and vie for the most coveted celebs.
“Chris Rock or Penelope Cruz?”
“Cruz, obviously. She’s hot.”
“But I’ve already met Chris Rock. I want Penelope, too.”
“Alright, fine. But you owe me.”
Actors, musicians, politicians, and comedians poured into the studio and we were waiting for them, clipboards in hand, headsets switched on. It was one part glamour (opening limousine doors, shaking hands with childhood heroes or present-day crushes) and three parts grime (flourescent-lit offices overrun with stacks of paperwork, frantically searching for “sparkling Evian, not still, please,” and sneaking into craft services to steal handfuls of Jelly Bellies when we didn’t have time for lunch). And yet, despite the dreary reality of life behind the scenes at the studio, those months still hold a dreamy, gold-lit place in my memory.
I had lived in the LA area for almost four years and I still felt excitement build every time I merged onto the Hollywood Freeway. To my left was the downtown skyline, early morning sun glinting off a few earthquake-resistant skyscrapers. To my right and stretching out before me were Silver Lake and East Hollywood, their terraced neighborhoods ascending sharply above the blacktop. I was awed by the hills, the stacks of multi-colored adobe houses with their ramshackle fences and overgrown bougainvillea. The silhouettes of palms against a jeweled sky reached out to the midwestern child inside me and whispered, “you’ve made it!” I knew the street names from songs and gleefully discovered cafés and record shops—famous round-the-world—nestled obscurely on this corner and that. And, at the center of things, serenely hovering above it all as if she had been there since the earth’s crust crashed together and rose up in that place, was the Hollywood sign.
I was secretly giddy that I could see the sign from my fourth-floor parking spot at the studio. I used to wander outside on my breaks and just sit, soaking in the sun and a view which I knew to be marvelous and rare. I wanted to impress it upon my mind forever—I could never look hard enough or long enough at that city. I think I knew, even then, that it couldn’t last.
After graduation, I moved home to Michigan to get a job and save money so I could make the permanent move out West. Before I left, I made plans and promises to be back within the year. That was eight years ago. Although I have been back to Los Angeles at least once—sometimes three or four times—each year since then, I have never returned to stay. I can’t really say why. Life happens, people change. But the city rarely does. Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially cold or lonely or nostalgic, I conjure up that view from the top of the KCET parking structure and remember the warm breeze and the smell of orange blossoms and the excitement of being twenty-two in Los Angeles and that, for now, is enough.
