There’s that scene at the end of The Last Samurai where Tom Cruise responds to the snowflake Emperor when he asks Tom Cruise to tell him how Ken Watanabe died and Tom Cruise, prostrated to the point of hurting himself, replies “let me tell you how he lived” so my Hollywood in a nutshell through the person of Paula Wagner story goes something like this: An old character actor whose face you know and name you don’t introduces me and my novelist turned new screenwriting partner I’ve fallen under a creative spell for and am trying to impress to the Tom Cruise enabler and uber producer claiming to have screwed her once in college and remained friendly since. He’s passed her a spec script of ours we’re pitching as Blade Runner meets Training Day in 2089 Los Angeles. Paula greets us in a chic conference room looking amazing for her age in an all white get up with matching boots. An assistant has obviously briefed her on our backgrounds so she starts with some small talk involving personal details about us that messes with me and my new screenwriting partner’s collective head. Then she showers praise onto the script it is more likely than not she hasn’t read, mindfucking me and my new screenwriting partner even more. I work in talk of Paula’s storied career and say how much I loved The Last Samurai she produced with then partner Tom Cruise. The long by industry standards meeting ends with an action plan for moving forward with me and my new screenwriting partner trying to restrain from making too much eye contact with one another so as not to look desperate and then weeks go by with unreturned calls, months of emails ignored before it becomes painfully clear that we will never hear from Paula again. Now, all these years later, my new screenwriting partner is rescuing animals and writing more books in Appalachia where she belongs. And I am where I am, watching America entertain itself to death from the safety of an afterlife in the same foreign land where Tom Cruise rediscovered himself through shedding the sins of home so long ago. They say when a lady Samurai commits seppuku she does so by sticking the blade into her neck instead of stomach prior to an honorable second finishing her off. Allow me, Lady Wagner, when your work is done, that second chance from here.