A Hollywood Love story, set in Orange County, that may have a happy ending.

This is the true and inspiring story of a talented screenwriter who received a phone call one day from an elderly philanthropist, to invite him to Southern California to become his right hand man, after a con artist took the philanthropist for half a million dollars. Unlike the film, Sunset Boulevard, this erstwhile writer will probably not be found floating face down in the swimming pool of a forgotten movie star, with bullet holes in his back. 

The script is sure to attract the attention of Hollywood, but this eventuality is years away, if it is even on the horizon of possibilities, long after the philanthropist has died, and the screenwriter has retired and is about to open his last can of baked beans in a remote solar-powered cabin in the north woods, possibly in Canada, or Way Down Under in the Snowy Mountains of Australia. On that day a letter will arrive, delivered by the writer's sole friend, a prospector, and his mule. The old screenwriter will gasp at the knock on his door, and with trembling hands accept the letter and moments later find a check for five million dollars folded neatly in the envelope. The letter and its check were sent from a major studio in Hollywood that won a bidding war for the old screenwriter's feature script, titled, "McGillicutty Was Right." The script had sat on a slush pile for fifteen years. It had fallen out of the dump truck that took the pile away. The script fell in the path of a producer who was en route to his BMW. The producer didn't know why he picked it up. Maybe it was the pink covers, and the odd title. Maybe it was the bourbon the producer had sipped for most of the afternoon because of his failing marriage. Maybe it was his string of stinker films and him figuring he had nothing to lose.

The reason luck arbitrarily shone on the ruined screenwriter didn't matter anymore. He was a hero again; he was no longer invisible. He was player in Hollywood. After a shave, a long overdue shower, a haircut to trim the few remaining hairs on his scalp, and plucking the long disgusting nostril and ear hair, a splash of cologne, and a new wardrobe, our hero will make a triumphant return to  Hollywood, flying first class into John Wayne Airport so he can be driven up the coast one last time. His vocal chords will have atrophied, due to lack of use, though once he had an easygoing tone that made people trust him. It had not helped his voice to have stepped on his old worm-eaten guitar one melancholy night, and as he rides in the back of the late model Mercedes he realizes he will need several days of vocal coaching to relearn coherent speech. But the smell of the leather seats and the softness of the ride lulls him into a deep sleep and he misses everything: the surfers, the babes on the beach; the high end malls, the funky musicians, everything he misses about California. And he dreams of his acceptance speech on Oscar night, for Best Original Screenplay.

But hold on there. I am no reincarnation of William Holden or Faulkner. The hero in this true life script is me. It's all make believe, and as sticky and surreal as pink cotton candy in August, in Disneyland. Allow me to explain. I am living an alternate reality in Orange County. The real me is in that shack, but that is in the future. Listen: Most people my age have long abandoned their dreams. Apparently, I am following in the shoes of Faulkner, (and not F. Scott Fitzgerald), to fulfill my dream of actually selling a screenplay, and as a consequence, to sell my novels. So I guess what I've described is a backwards methodology to success. If it were a mathematical, logical train of thought it would go like this: Talent plus perseverance plus luck equals success. Or maybe it would go: Let your youth slip away, learn from the life of hard knocks, and come back when most people my age have long raised the white flag and moved into over fifty housing. Most people my age have gone through at least two marriages. Many have walked away from mortgages, experienced bankruptcy, and given up their dreams. I survived an eighteen year unhappy marriage and a lackluster advertising career.

Not that any of what came before matters. No matter what life throws at you, you have to move on. I know a few people who will be first in line to say they'd read about my prediction of success in an obscure blog. That's the way people are; it's human nature. You can never count on anyone but yourself. And sometimes you can't even trust yourself. Our lives could be charted on bar graphs, and the only reader of our timeline would be God. But we're not exactly bugs in dire need of squashing. No, not yet. Hold on a little longer; just hold on a bit longer and see what comes around the next corner.

There have been hints of my destiny in Hollywood, and I mostly took them for granted, a million years ago. The moral is that when opportunity knocks, it usually knocks on the doors of young people. I first came here in the late 70s to go to school. I moved from here to Santa Barbara, where, if I'd been lucky, I'd have met a cougar and had an easier go of it. Financially, I mean. Finances have been on peoples' minds in Southern California since the real estate boom. Nay, since the conquistadors. In 1978 you could still buy a house in Santa Barbara for under $100,000. Now those same houses go for a cool million. Which is my way of saying, "I blew it." After schooling and California sunshine, and a heck of a lot of tennis, and guacamole, I found myself unemployed, sitting in a dark bar in Hollywood, across the table in a booth, from the executive producer, director, some other guy halfway liquored up, and my friend, Barry, who had helped me land an animated title sequence for a feature film titled "Jimmy the Kid," which starred Ruth Gordon, Don Adams, Gary Coleman, and a few others. The executive producer looked at me and said, "How much are you gonna charge me to do the animated title sequence?" I opened my mouth to speak but the disco attired producer said, "No, don't tell me. Write it on a napkin and slide it over to me." That was how things were still done in Hollywood. It was all wink and a nod. It's not that way now. Now, nothing gets done in Hollywood until you know somebody. 

I am meeting people again. I met Al Kasha last Saturday at the eighteenth musical fundraising performance put on by the Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) event, (CHOCAGO) http://choc.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=2015_follies_home You might recognize Kasha as an Academy award-winning songwriter and producer. Kasha's songs have been sung by stars, and been on the charts, for the past fifty years. The philanthropist I work for is a good friend of his and helped Kasha begin to put together a new musical about the courtship between Ron and Nancy Reagan. Al asked if I'd send him samples of my songs, and one of my comic plays. This is how people get to know one another. You have to be a schmoozer in the film industry. Learn about Al Kasha at this link: http://www.alkasha.com

I am living not far from a very fine beach in Orange County. A Southern California transplant in Portland, Oregon told me people in L.A. refer to Orange County as the "Orange Curtain." Ronald Reagan said Orange County is where Republicans go to die. There's the perception that Orange County is one gigantic country club, lined with tanning booths. There is no doubt this is a mostly White area. Go down to Laguna Beach and count the number of ethnic minorities. There aren't many, let me tell you. Lots of people drive nice cars. Many people don't seem to have to work anymore. But Beverly Hills, it's not.

I've got it pretty good. I have the key to a never used tennis court; the swimming pool and Jacuzzi in this Pleasantville-like retirement community are rarely used. I am helping a philanthropist help people. I'm employed. Just being here gives single women the impression that I'm rich. Every store you can imagine is within a two-mile radius of my house. I have even had my first date. I found the woman on POF (Plenty of Fish). She alleged to have been Miss Anaheim at one time. She was still pretty, but with the texture of a piece of dried fruit. We met at Peet's Coffee and talked for nearly two hours. I almost got lockjaw. I thought we were doing just fine until she began talking about her bizarre desire to be in the spotlight, healing people, and casting out demons, and materializing gemstones and gold in peoples' bibles. Christianity is also a part of this part of Southern California, but they do have one synagogue. Just down the road from me is the mega-huge Saddleback Church. The people behind the Orange Curtain are very well churched.

Here's the truth: I'm a sucker for happy endings. I'm looking for success, and TRUE LOVE. The first thing has to happen for the second thing to have a shot. Ideally, my true love is five feet seven, blonde, and has a terrific sense of humor, and dogs like her. She eats organic, and stays in shape. I can fudge on the height requirement. It would be great if she played tennis, and knew how to dance, and thought sharing a kitchen was sexy. Writers are among the loneliest people on Earth. I'm only human. I'm not Faulkner or Fitzgerald, but I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time. I drive a Nissan Pathfinder, just to be sure I'm on the right path. Even though it seems on the surface as if I've arrived thirty years too late, and am doomed to disappointment, a man has to try, doesn't he? This is Custer's Last Stand. But listen, if I end up face down in a swimming pool, or end up living life in a twisted David Lynch plot, at least I gave it my best shot. That's all you can do.