Tim's Adventure 7

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In Hollywood, California we encounter Tony. Tony, part of Tim's life long past. Where he expected the world of film and entertainment to become his oyster, it had been anything but. He had started to discover the awful truth. He began to discover a side of that world that was something to be ashamed of. Tony began to see how certain names proliferated the business. It had nothing to do with talent, skill or ability. Tony was struggling living with two other queens in a nearby suburb called Silverlake. He was living in a barrio, paying one quarter of the outrageous rent which was taking most of his earnings from the three jobs he had waiting tables. The school he was attending was full of famous names. These, the relatives of others already well established in the business. The school did have an excellent record of people entering the business. The part that they failed to highlight is that all the ones placed in immediate good jobs were the relatives of all of the famous names. The kid from the midwest willing and wanting to work and learn the business did not stand a chance against what he and a few others called the "T.F.B.'s". The term "T.F.B" was learned when he arrived in Hollywood. It stood for "Trust-Fund-Baby". They lived in Malibu, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Encino, never struggled, never worked, lived at home with parents, drove expensive cars, treated every one who was not filthy rich like crap, and did minimal work for maximal grades.

This was sad, but it had happened because the original big named people, who had earned their positions and their power trying to help future generations had without intention made it that way. These people, and their families, were the main support of the various film and acting schools. It was their time and their money and donations that paid the bills far more than any tuition did. So, as time went on, class after class, it became an unofficial policy virtually everywhere that you did not offend or bite the hand that fed you. Big named relative always received preferential treatment over talented newcomer.

Were there success stories from the talented, but obscure? Yes, there were successes. Being successful was very complicated however and was heavily laced with opportunity more than talent and contacts developed more than ability. When all of that failed there was nepotism.

Tony was becoming very bitter. After repeated negative experiences he became very depressed and simply was near giving up. One of Tony's better skills was at photography. He had good equipment and in a fluke of good fortune (or at least it looked that way initially) he was hired by a local tabloid newspaper as a photographer. Tony ended up a member of the paparazzi.

There were compromising photos of a male soap-star walking out of a West Hollywood gay bar, there were photos of a beautiful cooking show hostess taken at a Los Angeles E.R. with a telephoto lens after she was physically battered by a drunken husband. There were pictures of a weight-loss guru after he himself had ballooned to over 350 pounds in seclusion. Tony's personal bitterness towards the world became concentrated on all of the successful individuals he considered unworthy because he had worked so hard and had been so badly hurt. Any time he could take down the "rich and famous" he truly enjoyed it and relished the hurt and suffering he would cause. Yes, Tony had become one nasty and vengeful person.

The mindset that Tony had taken was making him more and more difficult to live with and even his two roommates were finding him quite a chore. If there was an upside, it was that his bad attitude towards those of money, power and in his mind undeserved success, made him pursue those individuals as if he were on a personal crusade to wreak as much havoc on their lives as was humanly possible. This success at this particular job began to pay financial dividends to Tony and there were some benefits to that. He did not move and still shared the apartment with the two roommates. The big benefit for them was that he was so very occupied pursuing his photos that he was never home.

In time he quit school and went into his form of photography as a full time occupation.

He had become a very nasty and unhappy individual bent on the destruction of any and all.

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