Andy Borowitz and the Hollywood Machine

I rarely make the effort these days to go out at night – especially into San Francisco via BART in the rain. But I did exactly that last Tuesday night to hear my favorite ex-Hollywood insider and favorite blogger Andy Borowitz who appeared at the Herbst Theatre as part of the City Arts and Lectures series.I love reading uncensored Andy. I’m sorry I never met him in Hollywood, where I toiled for years flacking television at just about the same time he created the successful series “Prince of Bel-Air.”We both ended up Hollywood insiders, who at the top of their game, bailed out and left Dodge.

I won’t mention the interviewer’s name, since he was just so lame. You would think that a guy who has his own daily radio program would be able to ad lib, especially when introducing the star of the evening. Not this guy. He very dryly recited the Borowitz “official” bio right off the page. Harvard, Editor of Harvard Lampoon… yada yada.

So on walks Borowitz in Jeans and a tee shirt. He sits down and quips, “Nice introduction, if you hadn’t just read it.”Ouch!So Andy has a rap he goes into at the beginning of one of these forums; twitter one-liners that are terribly funny. But eventually even Andy must rely on the curiosity of the interviewer to keep things moving along.

And I admit I was surprised that in front of a pseudo liberal intellectual San Francisco audience this interviewer seemed to only want to talk about Andy’s Hollywood years.

Hollywood. You can run but you cannot hide. If you’ve done time in Hollywood, people want to know about it.

And here is the question most often asked:

“Wasn’t it hard for you to just walk away from Hollywood success?”

I have been asked this question too many times to count. So when the moderator asked Borowitz that question, I was curious to hear his reply. Mid way through his answer I nudged my companion.

“Where have you heard this before?”  I asked her.

Borowitz echoed what I have always said.

Hollywood is a factory town; It functions like a well-oiled machine. Everyone assigned to a project works incredibly hard to achieve the collective goal: To make their project a success. Make money. Be successful. Be famous.

The thing is, the collective Hollywood goal is not in sync with most people’s life goals.

Go figure!

Borowitz went on to explain that he really didn’t like the “Hollywood machine.” So what if he created a television series that garnered 20-million viewers? What would come next? A series that 30-million viewers would tune in to see? Another cast of hundreds working towards a common goal?

Whose goal?

Not his.

And not mine, either.

As Andy Borowitz does his daily Twittering to his followers, he has a twenty-two month old baby playing on the floor beside him. He loves talking to people. He loves the interaction. He is a master of the Twitter. He is free to say what others are thinking. He loves to snipe back.  And, not unlike his Hollywood days he still invents characters.

But damn, these characters are really really smart. For instance the Professor from Minnesota. He is such a learned guy! What a source.

Read Andy Borowitz. You’ll thank me.