"I'm going to California, Ma!"

**And you take her to the top of a glass mountain in Little Tokyo and show her how disgustingly beautiful the city world really is:

 

            There’s about a million people, coming in and out of this city everyday"hustling foreign drugs, smuggling illegal people. . .they carry paper sacks and plastic bags and strange diseases. They’re a bunch of colors, but mostly dark. . .and they smell of stale cornbread dipped in bloody sweat. they look hopefully lost as they hungrily search for less than minimum wage, with the 3 English phrases they brought with them. they look happily estranged as people stare at them and their immigrant poverty that’s just spilling out the holes in their 4^th generation clothes. Why do we pity their success? their happiness? they made it. we didn’t.

            This city. . .this beast that eats people in as quick as it s***s them out.

            Coming from nowhere"going to nowhere, briefly stopping here

            for an ugly reminder.

But they’re not all black and red and brown people. . .there’s the ones that shoot for Hollywood, looking for a dead name in a star on a dirty sidewalk, looking for the hope that some day they too will have the words of their name stepped on by millions. . .

            Millions--that’s a big, stupid f*****g number.

MILLIONS.

            You’re millions of miles away from your pig farm in Minnesota and your pale-white complexion has a lot to learn about the Cali sun and all the different kinds of sunscreen a pink Caucasian can wear. You brought shorts and flip-flops ‘cuz you told Ma, “I’m going to California!,” and she probably gave you a halfhearted smile confusing you with encouragement and dark foresight, but hey, Love is tough and that’s tough Love, baby. She and the other farm animals waved goodbye and you probably left with an old guitar strapped to your back. . .or a torn notebook full of acting dreams or maybe your favorite dancing shoes. . .and with high hopes, you ended up here, excited and alive.

            Dishwashing for 2 years was alright because You’re almost there, and so you smiled at your dark-skinned coworkers. Cleaning tables and bathrooms was okay because You got your script read by that director!, and so you smiled at your greasy-dirty coworkers. Being valet and busboy was getting rough, but The agency said they might call you back, so you smiled at your cheap-drunk coworkers.

            You wake up to a mirror and see your dark-skinned, greasy-dirty, cheap-drunk coworkers. They’re all in that smile of yours and you think you’re getting old ‘cuz it’s been 6 years since Minnesota or Idaho and your scripts are still getting read and your CD’s are still getting heard and “your” agency is still getting back to you and ya haven’t got a dollar or a name to your talent (or talent to your name?) and even your shared housing in downtown is getting expensive so you move East or South of LA, but still close enough to Hollywood, and get a job at Ralphs or Subway. . .and you can’t see the sign or the big letters or the flashing lights, but Hollywood still calls to you from your suburban dwelling and you don’t almost cry so you drink your Heineken and watch the rest of the Grammy’s and fall asleep to no one and dream of the pigs and cows back home.