This is Where The Magic Happens

My condo is rad.  I didn’t know people were saying rad, but Eduardo at the Office Depot (did I get your name right?) tells me it has made a comeback.  He’s eighteen, so either he knows or he was messing with me.   I’ve had students use slang words, then repeated them (trying to be cool), only to find out they were made up. Anyway, I used to say rad when I was ten, along with “gag me with a spoon.”  So there you go.  I’m old.  Probably too old for my condo.  But I L-U-V it anyway.   It is an old-school Hollywood bungalow.  I can feel the history in it.

I have a weird feeling that in the ‘20s or ‘30’s there were studio system girls living here. Probably packed inside, four to a room, getting drunk, fighting over men and mascara, waiting for their moment to shine.  Hoping to be plunged into Leading Lady status.  Picturing that moment when their mothers in Ohio or Idaho or Oklahoma would see them smiling down from the local drive-in screen, their faces luminous and bigger than life.

When my students write papers, I never let them use WikiAnswers or Wickipedia as a source.* But I’m gonna do it anyway:

The Studio System (according to WikiAnswers):

The Hollywood studio system, which was especially influential during the 1920s and 1930s, is credited with producing some of the most legendary stars. In these early years, studios spent a considerable amount of money to help locate, establish, and groom potential stars. A typical studio in this era provided both training and coaching for its most promising recruits–almost always at its own expense… With their extraordinary expense, potential stars were initially seen as an investment …At the time, actors and actresses operated on a strict, seven-year contract basis, with options every six months (for contract players.) If, after a six-month interval, a star was not drawing his or her share at the box office, the newcomer was dropped from the contract. However, if they were doing well, they were elevated to the next salary level until re-evaluation during the next option period…. Their futures and their careers were at the mercy of the studio that signed them.

In the Studio System, the actresses started as extras.  They were trained in speaking, manners, acting, eating, makeup application…then, the ones who cut it got bigger parts, and maybe became stars…and the others, well… not much has changed.  Hollywood is still pretty fickle.  Everyone is waiting for a chance.  And no one wants to blow it.

Before I lived in this apartment, there was a movie editor and fashion stylist there.  Before them was the guy who plays Kyle XY.  I’ve never seen the show, but maybe you have. Wait, I’ll google him.  This is him:

this dude is SO PRETTY. And he used my toilet.

Basically, my building is where the aspiring live until they make enough money to get the hell out.  Then, like pretty Kyle XY, they go to the hills or Venice or Malibu.

* Okay, student, I have no doubt at least one of you (current or former) has stumbled across this website.  I can’t even imagine what you must be thinking.  If you are a former student (and there are hundreds of you), please say hi in the comments!  I miss you all!  If you are a current student, let’s not mention this until the semester is over, ‘kay?  Then we can laugh about it.