More LA Stories

Going away for a few days - and yes it is work, nothing to do with gorgeous blonde. Unfortunately.

In an earler LA post I mentioned Steve, a customer at the car wash. He owned a ''no credit card required'' car rental business and a lot of his customers were porn stars, many of whom didn't have bank accounts for various reasons. He vastly overcharged them on the basis that he had to steam clean the seats when the cars were returned. I didn't ask why.

LA is a place where you can bump into anyone. I saw Mel Gibson buying bagels on 3rd street. So there you go, that puts paid to all that anti semetic stuff. Just before I left for the states I had seen a documentary with he and Clive James and he seemed like an okay guy. He told a story about how crazy the business was. He had been on a chat show promoting some movie, and as he walked off someone from the studio audience rushed at him with a script in hand shouting it was perfect for him. Audience member was quickly bundled out by security.

Anyway, back to Steve. To put it mildly, it is odd to see a white guy working in a car wash in LA, and as it was the one Steve used for his fleet we struck up an acquaintance. Who was I? What was I doing here, etc. When he found out I was a writer and had read for some big companies he asked me to take a look at his friend's script. I still remember the title . The Rocking Horse Soldier, which I think is not a bad title.

I looked at it and it was ...........meh to be truthful, not that great. No real voice, dull story. In reader speak ''dramatic situations not exploited to their full potential''

I gave him my notes, couched as diplomatically as possible and he said he'd pass them on. But then what he said really tickled me. ''We wanted Mel Gibson for the lead. Almost got the script to him at a chat show he was on but those security fucktards got in our way''

And that's LA.