Whoever said that L.A. was the ‘city of Angels’ did an excellent job at false advertising… this city is purely for the dastardly, the dreamers or the dopes. What started off as cheap plots to build picture sets for after the Great Depression, which turned into a ‘land of dreams’. Translation: a city owned by the handful who hand out dreams of success like flyers to the unsuspecting and gullible. This is the bubble that everyone needs burst: Nepotism is indeed a thing that exists within this town and you won’t be the exception to need it. You could be unbelievably talented but if you’re not driven to get your work out there and you have no ability to create connections for yourself, your goals will be nothing more than pipe dreams you allow to consume you. Hollywood has a tendency to do that… make you believe that the ultimate goal of success is attainable, just over the summit; but only when you cross it and stand at the pinnacle do you realize just how many mountains there are to go. Again, something that you won’t register if your going through the motions with your eyes closed.
Whereas New York has a notorious reputation of being, to quote Alicia Keys, ‘concrete jungles where dreams are made of,’ Los Angeles is where the struggle and hustle is really at. And no, I don’t mean in a ‘gang gang, pull up with my Uzi and let it rip’ sort of hustle (although that too) but more in the sense of knowing there’s a potential of having everything within reach of your fingertips, you just need to work unbelievably hard to attain it. That… that’s what separates the highly successful from the waitresses or librarians who came out here with the goal of being the next ‘Marilyn Monroe.’ Hard work, perseverance and determination. If you don’t have those qualities within then best believe that you will be just another in a crowd of bright eyed dullards that don’t realize they’re spiralling further into the coexistence of crazy, just as the ‘big wigs’ planned. It’s sort of up to you to break out of the cycle, or swirl in it cluelessly for the rest of your days; a mortal in the ‘city of angels’.