I had silently moved through Hollywood as an actor and screenwriter for more than fifteen years before I left. Most of that time was spent amongst people I liked and some I even loved, and still do. However, none of them did I agree with when it came to the topic of politics and how the majority thinking in Hollywood affected the work I did, was asked to do, and the movies that so many in this country are forced to sit through.
I spent my days with the shades draw on sunny L.A. mornings reading The Weekly Standard , and nights watching Fox News with the sound turned down. But that’s not why I left. I left because I found that when I wasn’t able to be around and talk openly with like-minded people my creativity felt stifled, dishonest. I found myself just bobbing my head in silent agreement like a performing monkey when all I really wanted to do was have an open minded, calm, conversation about the world, especially after 9/11.
I’m not here to be cruel; I don’t hate people on the left, I don’t wish them to have heart attacks, die in office or drop dead on their actors’ mark. I just feel my ideas and my work are more interesting when challenged in an open minded, spiritually enlightened, compassionate way. I use those Hollywood buzz words because if you want Hollywood to hear you; you have to speak their language. You can’t invade a foreign land and then ask them to speak English, well, not right away anyway. With Big Hollywood I now have a “safe place” like I did as a kid, thumb in mouth, blanket over my head and a GI Joe doll in hand.
The thing I find most disturbing these days is the dangerous mixture of pop culture and politics aimed in only one direction. Because of that, the line between the Hollywood mouthpieces and Washington D.C. public servants continues to blur into one scary hybrid, making it hard to tell who’s “Dancing with the Stars” and who’s handing out the bailouts. So, armed with that knowledge, I bring to you my list of predictions for this Chimera in 2009. They’re sure to bring a thrill up your leg, or a chill down your spine:
1. Alec Baldwin will walk away from his mortgage on a condo in Canada and look to buy a townhouse in Georgetown with his eye on a government seat, one he hopes to just buy in on, or be appointed to because of his last name.
2. LeRoy Neiman will be appointed to the cabinet position of Secretary of Obama Murals and be sent out across America to tag any building seven stories or higher.
3. Nancy Pelosi will send 100,000.00 copies of Susan Faludis’ book Backlash to the woman of Afghanistan; she’ll then receive an award at Premiere Magazine’s Women in Hollywood Awards for being the one who liberated the woman of Afghanistan.
4. Now that they can stay in America, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins will ask for their money back from Rosetta Stone for those Italian lessons they took.
5. Fidel Castro will die and at his funeral attendees will include 12 Oscar winners, 7 Grammy winners, 3 living dictators, 4 Nobel Prize winners and one former US President stopping by on his way to build housing for Hamas.
6. Chris Matthews will guest star on Grey’s Anatomy as a mental patient with a permanent thrill up his leg.
7. Rahm Emanuel will work with Industrial Light and Magic on just how his Commander in Chief can “slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.”
8. Al Gore will make a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth titled, An Inconvenient Ice Age. In it he will outline how recent global cooling has come about because of global warming, Y2K and Sky Lab almost falling on us in 1979. It will be animated, direct by Seth MacFarlane, voiced by Leonardo Dicaprio, Rosie O’Donnell, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and Charlize Theron, with a soundtrack by Bruce Springsteen.
9. Young Hollywood celebrities will be seen wearing t-shirt that say “I’d Rather Be Waterboarding,” when waterboarding becomes all the rage. They’ll say it’s not torture if performed between consenting adults and done with vodka laced Red Bull.
10. President Obama will take walking on water lessons from magician Chris Angel at the MGM Grand.
Those I’m pretty sure of, as for the rest of this gestating beast, we’ll just have to wait and see what it does.
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