Got Damn LA

By Harry Day

Academy Award nominated actor Victor Caratacos is on the drinking down slope of his career.  During a low budget movie shot in Mexico he receives a concussion and gets Montezuma's Revenge.  He returns to Hollywood unwell, disenchanted and dead actors haves started visiting him.  After a doctor's appoinment he escapes to his home state of Wyoming, reconnects with a high school flame and just as he settles into a new life his agents calls with the role of a lifetime.  What will he do?  Go back to Hollywood or stay in the Wyoming mountians?  Wildly funy, bizzare yet heart felt, this lampoon of Hollywood will tickle and tantalize you!  52,000 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Day By Day
• Release date: May 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224929870

Book preview

Table of Contents

Got Damn LA

Part 1 | 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Part 2 | 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

Bio

Got Damn L.A.

by

Harry Day

This novel is dedicated to my Godfather - Lewis L Culley Jr. from whom the habitual expletive Got Dammit was heard throughout my youth.

This novel is a work of fiction.  All author’s rights reserved.  2020

Part 1

1

Victor looked down at himself, his white patent leather boots with gold buckles, his bell bottom jeans held up with a white patent leather belt, a denim shirt buttoned up to his sternum and a gold chain nestled into his dark chest hair.  His tan was stellar.  He checked the revolver tucked into the back of his pants, took a deep breath and walked into the bar.  The smoke struck his eyes first and then hit his lungs.  It made him crave a cigarette but he knew he could not have one.  He scanned the room until he saw who he was trying to find. 

In the back corner, lit with red neon, sat the man he was looking for.  He noticed the back door right there beyond the restroom.  A good looking blond in a mini skirt walked out, tickled her nose with a finger, adjusted her mini skirt to make sure nobody could see the bottom of her muffin and then stepped across the open floor.  Victor watched her long tan legs, followed them up and swore he could see two little knuckles pressed together but then the man saw him, stood and thrust a hand into his coat pocket.  Victor put his hand behind his back just in case the man drew a pistol.  Their eyes locked and when some biker at the pool table hit a cue ball so hard it popped off of the table and crashed into a table of empty beer bottles, the man bolted for the back door.  Victor hurried after him, but just as he reached the back door, the bathroom door somehow eased open as though some ghost gave it a push and Victor ran slam dead head first into the end of the door with his forehead and then his chest.  He crumpled to the floor.

Cut! the director yelled.  What the hell is wrong with the door, Steve?! Steve?  Where the hell is my set director?!  Jesus, it’s like working with kindergarteners.  Stop sound, reset... and for God’s sake will someone find my set director!

Victor’s assistant hurried up to him lying there on his back, holding his forehead.  Are you okay, Vic?  Do you want the medic?

Victor stared at the ceiling of the set and thought back through his years of acting and could not remember ever having a worse time on a movie set.

No... I’m fine.  Can you get me a cigarette, Fanny?

But you can’t smoke in this film, Vic.  She looked down at her clipboard and reviewed the list of things Victor could and could not do as far as his contract stated for the film.

"The cameras aren’t rolling, Fanny!  I can’t smoke in character, but I can smoke a fucking cigarette when I’m laying here on the floor with a knot the size of the Tetons on my forehead.  It’s not like we’re in California where you can’t smoke anywhere unless you’re behind a dumpster or slumped down in your car in traffic."

I sure don’t miss the traffic, Fanny said, drifting off into thoughts of Hollywood and California and her glamorous ideas.

Victor looked at her and waited until she looked back at him.  When she did, he said, A cigarette?

Yes, certainly... right away.  Fanny sped off to fetch one.

Victor called after, And not a local one either.  Bring me an American cigarette!

Fanny stopped and turned around.  Is there anything else you can think of?  She was not new to the film industry and she did not want to make multiple trips.  She knew how actors could be.  You want a water?  A snack?  An ice pack?

No... just bring me the damn cigarette, and he thought for a second as his head pulsed.  He knew he did not want a water while in a third world country, a drink maybe, and bring me my cell phone!

2

Victor Caratacos had been a successful actor for fifteen years.  Successful meant he was a working actor and he made a living doing so.  He was born and raised outside of Jackson, Wyoming.  He moved to Hollywood straight out of high school.  He first caught the acting bug doing school plays.  Victor had worked all the usual jobs aspiring actors worked in Hollywood while going to casting calls, screen tests and call backs.  It was his name but also how he looked just like the actor Victor Mature.  Casting always asked if he was Mature’s son.  He reminded them Mature only had a daughter.  He knew his actors.  He waited tables, parked cars, cleaned pools, walked dogs... he even donned the Smiling Weenie costume for The Smiling Weenie Gourmet Hot Dog Stand on Sunset Boulevard.  He strived to get his foot in the door and become a famous actor, get rich, buy a mansion, date a famous actress and live like a king.  That was his plan... then. 

Eventually he got his foot in the door as the tough member of a criminal bank robbery gang which led to more supporting rolls and finally a shared lead role typecast as a gangster.  He never became the major star he wanted to be.  In fact his career had started to wane.  He felt he was probable lucky to still be getting roles but the movies he was starring in now weren’t exactly film festival hits.  Besides his original name, though, he still looked good on the big screen and he knew how to act, how to remember his lines and when to say them... and he knew how to play the game.  That was what kept actors in work.

If his agent said he had to be at a party, function or screening, he was there.  If a director said he had to lose or gain weight, grow his hair out or have it cut, he would do it.  He knew how to smile and shake hands and kiss everybody’s ass and he did it well.  It was the only way to make it in Hollywood... and stay there.

There were two things that bothered Victor about being a famous actor.  The first problem was the same issue most actors faced once they became famous for their work.  He could not go anywhere without being recognized and inevitably someone or several people would step up to him and tell him who he was and who he played in a movie.  At first he enjoyed the notoriety, but as time rolled along, he kept getting the same approach from everyday people.

Hey, you’re that guy who played Vinny No Bones in Criminal! he would hear at the liquor store, or, Hey, it’s Vinny No Bones... ha ha, don’t whack me Vinny! at a restaurant.

Victor thought he would have escaped the approach of strangers by living in the Hollywood Hills but it was not so.  Other actors told Victor how they dealt with it.  Some embraced it and said it was the price of fame while others become extremely reclusive.  Most said they simply waded through it with whatever mood they happened to be in.  They tried to smile and be nice and knew that soon enough they would be on their way.  Victor was one of these.  He figured most of the people who came up to him were tourists from out of town and they would be gone as fast as they came... but there seemed to be an endless supply of tourists in Hollywood. 

Just before flying out of LAX to come shoot this picture, a couple stood in his way as he walked through the airport.  They were tittering.  They blushed and pointed right at him and he prepared for the usual confrontation, but then they said the one thing that made him livid.

"Hey Victor, carry any tacos lately! Hahaha!" and they thought it was cute until Victor told them to go fuck themselves in a geyser.  Thus, he held the second thing that really bothered him... his last name, Caratacos.  He looked it up.  It was from the Celtic word car meaning love.  It was the name of a 1st-century British chieftain who rebelled against Roman rule.

It was not until after the movie Criminals, when he became famous, that the carry tacos jokes derived.  Nobody ever said it when he was growing up in Wyoming.  Nobody ever said it when he moved to Hollywood and worked all those shitty jobs.  Nobody said it when he started landing character roles down at the end of the credits, but when he nailed an audition for the movie Criminals, and a best supporting actor nomination by the Academy, he suddenly rose to stardom and then the joke on his name reared up and smacked him in the face... Carry Tacos!

He thought, "Why didn’t I change my name.  John Wayne changed his name.  Cary Grant, Dean Martin, Gene Wilder, Mel Brooks... they all changed their names, but now people come up to me and either call me Vinny No Bones or Carry Tacos.  What a got damn drag."

It would not be a stretch to say Victor’s career, in his mind, seemed to be driving him mad.

3

The director, George Kay, had cleared the set, gone over the script and then walked over to Victor lying there on the floor.

Vic... what are you thinking?  Kay swept his long hair from his eyes as he looked down over Victor.

I’m just having a big self analysis, that’s all, Victor answered.

Any conclusions?

"Not really.  I’m ready to get back to the States.  This third world dump... I’m so over it."  Victor held his head and looked at his hand for blood.  There was none.

"Dump?  The producers have given us the finest resort in the whole country.  We have the best food, the best view of the ocean, the best amenities anyone could desire... do I need to get you one of the best women from the pool and massage staff?  They do more than massage and swim you know."  Kay winked.

"I understand what you’re saying... but I know what it’s like outside the gates of the resort.  When we are driven to and from the set locations, I see the poverty... and then there’s that smell.  It smells like..."

Wood smoke and shit?

Exactly!  Victor sat up.  His head was swimming but he felt a little better.  Where was Fanny with the cigarette and the damn phone?

I look at it, the director said, looking away, "as a reminder of how good we have it, and when we get home we will appreciate what we have and not take so much for granted.  The director stood up and looked around.  Okay, people, let’s get back to work!  Where the hell is Steve?  I want that door... un-oiled... yes, so my actors won’t break their faces and slow this production down any more than it has already been... slowed down."  Kay searched for his words where he could not find them.  Victor thought Kay was an idiot and wondered how he ever became a director.

Crew members began to return to the set.  Fanny appeared with a bottle of water, a pack of cigarettes and Victor’s cell phone.

Thank God, he called out.

God has nothing to do with it, Vic.  She handed him the cell phone and bottle of water, pulled a cigarette from the pack and handed it to him filter first.

Victor took the cigarette and put it in his mouth.  He held his empty hand up waiting for a lighter.  Fanny looked at him emptily.

Lighter? Victor said.

Oh, right... sorry.  Fanny reached into her jeans pocket, fished out a lighter and leaned over and flicked it.

Victor was not looking at her, he was watching the crew get back into position and finally Steve appeared with a little jar of something to rub on the door hinge so it would not swing open on its own.  Vic felt his forehead throb and it made him angry.

The fucking lighter, Fanny! and he looked up and saw she was holding it there, lit.  Oh... sorry.  He leaned forward and pulled the flame into the end of his cigarette, inhaled and pulled in that devilish caress to his lungs that made all his anger dissipate.

Fanny set the cell phone and bottled water down and stepped away to run an errand.  Vic picked up the water bottle and studied it.

"This is real bottled water, right?" he called after Fanny.

She looked over her shoulder, still hustling away.  Sure is.

He still distrusted it even though the bottle was clear and the water looked fine.  He unscrewed the top and took a long drink and wished it was a vodka tonic but he would not get to that until after the days work.

Fanny walked up to one of the grips she had been sleeping with during the entire production.  Since neither one of them were considered important cogs to the gears of the movie, nobody kept tabs on them so they got together almost wherever they wanted, as long as it wasn’t in front of others workers actually working on the movie production at the time.  They didn’t mind being caught on the beach, in the palms or the sand dunes, in the back alleys of Isladora or on the roof of a local bar.

So how’s ole Tacos doin over there? the grip asked Fanny, squeezing her fanny with both hands.

Oh!  He’ll be okay.  He stopped his fall with his face on the end of the door.  They kissed.  Maybe it will bruise up and we’ll be down here a few more days.

He kissed her.  No way.  Make-up will pancake him and they will finish on time.  The show must go on, right?

Shame.  I like it down here.  It’s not all stuck up like LA.

Maybe we’ll save our money and move down here for good some time.  What do you think about that?  He hugged her.  Let me stick it in just once.

She had made him put in her hand down there to simulate sex, promising soon, but she thought about her boyfriend back in LA who had proposed to her five times already.  Just use my hand, she said.

He quickly did so, but asked, Where’d you get that water Tacos has?  I thought we were out and expecting a shipment this afternoon?  Is it already in?

No.  I refilled an empty with tap water.  They have good water here right?  It’s just in the rural areas where you don’t drink the water, I thought.  She looked over her shoulder and far across the set at Victor, now standing, drinking water and scrolling through his cell phone.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough, he said.  He kissed Fanny and worked