TALES FROM THE BARSTOOL
By: Clint Lien

"Find something you love to do and do it unsparingly. Everything else will take care of itself."

I don't know who first said that, but I've heard it here and there, in one form or another, throughout my life. I used to think the problem with the saying was finding something you love to do. Upon some reflection though, I've decided the problem, for myself at least, was recognizing what it is I love to do and then finding the faith to believe that anyone would ever give a damn about me doing it.

I did not come to Los Angeles to be a screenwriter. It never occurred to me that my writing was good enough for anyone to take notice and certainly it never occurred to me that anyone would pay me for my pages.

I came to Los Angeles to run away from Victoria, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but one that marked the spot on the map where most of my failures had taken place. I had walked away from a lucrative job in the computer industry and was working nights as a bouncer in a nightclub. My marriage to a wonderful woman ended after only one year and I could not think of a single thing I wanted to do with my life that gave me one glimmer of satisfaction. I lived in a beautiful house overlooking a lush golf course. I had a lot of friends and I wanted for nothing, but I was desperately unhappy. As time went on I found myself looking forward to very little. Tuesdays and Fridays I would play NTN trivia with an eclectic group of eccentric friends and during the days I would spend my time writing screenplays and watching movies. Those were the things I liked doing, but to think I could make a living doing it - well that just seemed out of the question.

I spent hours every week on the internet, chatting with other movie lovers and learning as much as I could about the craft of screenwriting. It was on one such bulletin board that I had the pleasure to make the acquaintance of Judith Rascoe. Judith is a wonderful writer with a list of screen credits anyone would be proud of. She was kind enough to answer the many questions I had about the craft. I had become obsessed with my writing but still it did not occur to me that I could make a living at it. I just wanted to be as good as I could get and she helped immensely. One thing she made clear to me from the start - I was never to ask her to read one of my scripts. It was too much like work, she said, too many times in her past it had lead to nothing but trouble.

I never did ask her, but one day after over a year of exchanging emails, she sent me a short note saying she would read my script "Asylum" and let me know what she thought. I was terrified. Till then I'd only let my wife read my stuff and the idea of Judith disliking it would be a real blow. I sent the script off to her and several weeks later I got an email back that changed my life. She liked the script. She really liked it. She liked it enough to recommend it and me to her agent at William Morris - one of the most powerful in Hollywood. Although that never worked out, my self image changed with the reading of that email.

It was around this time that I began to feel that getting away from Victoria for awhile might be a good idea. I wanted to put some time into thinking about what I was going to do with my life. I'd grown up and I still didn't know. I thought about the many places I could go and tried to estimate just how long I could get away, based solely on finances. The only prerequisite was the place must be hot and it must have beaches. I narrowed my selection down to Los Angeles or somewhere in Mexico.

Several weeks later the choice would become easy. Once again, while bouncing around the internet, I was in a chat room and one of the writers from Los Angeles was bemoaning the fact that his roommate had given notice and he needed to find someone to share his apartment with. I thought about it for less than five seconds. I sent him a note asking if he would consider a roommate who could only guarantee him five months. He said yes and I said I'd do it. Before the month ended I was driving down to a city I'd never been to. The only person I knew there was a struggling actor named Greg I'd met briefly in Vancouver. He gave me a card and told me to look him up if I ever passed through L.A.

The driver seat in my car busted in the fully reclined position about 200 miles outside of L.A. I had to drive those final miles with pillows and bedding stuffed behind my back, but I was filled with a real sense of excitement when I pulled off the 405 freeway at 9:07 in the morning on May ninth, 1996. I found my new home with relative ease and my new roommate was just walking out the door for work. He gave me the keys to the place and was gone.

I walked into the apartment and almost had a coronary on the spot. Anyone who has ever lived with me could tell you that I'm not the neatest guy in the world but I don't much care for filth. This apartment was the filthiest place I'd ever seen and I'd seen some pretty bad places. This fellow was a collector. He had several tons of newspapers stacked in piles all over the apartment. Apparently he was going to cut articles out of them and mail them to his dad. He also had two VCRs working full time. He taped all the popular shows and saved them. He had over 1,400 tapes cataloged and shelved around the apartment. You couldn't turn around in that apartment without knocking something over and the dust lay more than a quarter of an inch throughout the place. I was sure I had just made the biggest mistake of my life. But the truth turned out to be otherwise. Things could only go up from there.

My own room was clean and after a few days of hosing and scrubbing I managed to get the place livable. The kid I moved in with was sweet and exceedingly decent. He had a long list of good friends who took me in without question. I knew I only had five months and I wanted to see as much of LA as possible and really give thought to what I was going to do with my life. And while I was thinking about it I would write all I wanted without guilt or distractions.

One of the first things I did after cleaning the apartment was to call Greg and see if he remembered me. He did and we got together that very day. He mentioned that he was working for a production company and he might be able to find something for me to do there. I didn't have a work visa so I knew it wouldn't be much. In the end they offered to cover my auto bills if I would deliver scripts to various producers, agents and actors. I wasn't going to make any money but I looked at this way - these guys could pay for my gas while I became familiar with the city. It worked out well for both of us and my adventures in Hollywood really began.

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