From time to time, Extra Criticum authors will post a quote from something that has stuck with us over the years and is, as they say, quotable. The following is from Jerry Stahl's memoir PERMANENT MIDNIGHT. Here he sums up Hollywood beautifully.
That's the trouble with this business. People are always offering you things. And as soon as they're mentioned--even if the idea never occurred to you before--you feel like you really want them. By the end of the conversation, whatever they're dangling before you--which you didn't know existed three minutes ago--has now become an absolute necessity. At which point whoever called you in the first place can feel comfortable taking it away. They've done their job. . .
This is Hollywood's dirty little secret. It's not about making movies. Are you kidding? Forget that shit about "the Dream Factory." It's about manufactuing frustration. Preening movie stars making people out there in Dirtville feel like shit. People in offices making people who don't have offices bark like dogs. All of them generating their daily quota of hopelessness. That's the quantity in question. And the factories are always going full blast.
