The Industry

Los Angeles. The centre of the film and television industry, full of wanabees trying to make it big. Our couch surfing host Austin Blank, aspiring comedian (watch this space), picked us up in his car full of clown shoes, wizard hat and Father Christmas beard (fresh from Burning Man) and whisked us off to his Hollywood pad. Austin lives under the Hollywood sign in Elizabeth Taylor’s old house, the very place where Richard Burton popped the question. A most fortuitous couch surf indeed.

The Blank household is abuzz with Hollywood energy. Five guys, all busying around film studios, helping out enigmatic ‘bosses’, watching movies, partying and sharing the latest Hollywood gossip (would you believe, there is a shortage of fresh pinups). All working in menial to medium jobs in “the Industry” to pay their way and make the contacts they need to thrust their scripts/film/music ideas into the hands of the right person when their big moment arises. And it will. I’m sure at least one of these chaps will make it, and see the dreams of his personal project realised.

For us, it was a perfect insight into Los Angeles, for outside the Industry there is little else there. Aside from the famous streets and locations (Beverly Hills cop station, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard) LA is remarkably unattractive - one massive sprawl of bungalow. But the Industry is here, so people flock. Neither Austin nor his housemates particularly wants to live in LA, but the work is here and so are they, prepared for the eight year (on average) graft before they get their break.

Between the bungalows there are some exciting places: Irv's burger shack with the best chilli fries in town; Village Pizza with its chrome and neon and giant pizzas; Wang’s sports bar where well-endowed women serve pitchers of beer and bbq chicken wings while the clientele jump, whoop and high-five; and Jumbo’s Clown Bar, where it is hard to decide who the clowns are - the women in their underwear spinning around a pole or the punters throwing dollar bills at them.

We had our own taste of stardom and made our break as the studio audience of the Jimmy Kimmel Show. We were on national television on 10th December. When the camera turns from Adele to Jimmy you will see your World In Slow Motion hosts grinning inanely in the front row. The audience was not disappointing. They whooped, clapped and laughed much more enthusiastically than any British mob, so that the sign to prompt applause was rarely needed.

It seems that everyone in LA is involved in the Industry. Chatting to someone in Wang’s I enquired “So, what do you do?”. “I’m a business consultant,” she replied. I drew breathe in surprise. “For actors,” she continued. There is just no escaping it in LA and even during our short visit we got a taste of the pie. But it didn’t taste good enough to stick around.