CHAPTER 1 A LEFT-COAST LIFE, PART I Beyond Sprouts, Pilates, and Orange Iced Tea LOS ANGELES, CA It is morning. It is 2004. I wake up on an air mattress in a near-empty room in mid-Wilshire. Palm fronds do a frenetic interpretive dance in the late morning half-light streaming through the vertical blinds. I gaze around my room. The rolltop desk left by the previous occupant is loaded with sides (short pieces from scripts that actors use to prepare for auditions) for roles that I am up for, callbacks, and the near-misses where I just couldn''t figure out what the hell went wrong. There are also reams of paperwork from two of my "survival" jobs, neither of which I am working today. No, today is the real work.

It is an audition day. Game on. Waking up had been hard these days. I was working four jobs and was barely able to get by. I''d moved three times since I''d been out here, been screwed by landlords and Craigslisters alike, and a week ago my roommate foolishly totaled my car while fucking parking it. I''d been sucker punched, stolen from, and three days before I left to drive out here, the girl who was the center of my universe broke my heart. One day into my solo cross-country drive, I called her as I was about to cross the Rockies. I told her I would hang a hard right and come to her in Minnesota to give it another try, as distance had been our enemy.

The last thing I heard before I lost the signal: "I don''t love you anymore." I came out on the other side of the mountains and saw I had reception again, but no voice mail from the girl. At just that moment I got a call. It was the job I was to have had waiting for me. They had downsized. There was no more job. No job, no girl, and half the country still to go. California, here I come.

Whoop-de-do. I had left for LA knowing I had a handful of friends here. Somehow, they''d all gone on vacation at once--not sure when they''d be back. And Grandpa died a month ago. Yup, gravity had me by the balls and seemed to be doing chin-ups on them. Waking up was hard. I stretched all my limbs at once, groaned like I was being exorcised, and rolled onto the floor to the left of the bed. Fifty push-ups.

One-minute bridge. Up to seven sun salutations. Down to cobra stretch. Roll over. Pilates "hundreds." Fifty leg raises. A hundred crunches. Twenty-five twisting crunches to either side.

Back bridge. Lie on floor and curse. The day''s audition was for a role as a New York lawyer from the streets with smarts but a still-streetwise edge. I got sent out for every New York role out here. I took my well-worn, much-repaired suit into the bathroom with me so the steam from the shower could get the old bitch camera ready. I warmed up my voice in the shower, which probably sounded like mating camels. I shaved. I dressed.

I made a protein shake with egg white and whey for breakfast--the whole time cursing the delicious bacon-and-egg smells emanating from the IHOP next door. I went to the garage and hopped into my insurance-provided rental, which I had to say was a pretty cool upgrade on my own car. In LA, you are what you drive, and though I may feel like it most of the time, I don''t want the world knowing I''m a beat-up Dodge Neon. I checked my Thomas Guide for directions to Culver City, where I was to audition for major TV casting director Eileen Stringer. I had recognized her name when my agents gave me my sides, and I wanted to impress her, if not enough for this project, then enough that she would keep me in mind for future roles. I reviewed my sides again. I went over my lines backward and forward-- trying to be as "small" and natural as possible, trying to use my damn master''s degree and pursue an objective, as they taught me--to treat today like a performance. For once to have one damn thing go right out here.

I hung my jacket on a hanger in the backseat, pulled on my shades, and pulled out into the cheesecloth of the smog-covered city, headed southwest. I cruised down Wilshire toward Fairfax, passing cars nicer than mine carrying people more beautiful than me. I hated being an actor out here, where everyone is an actor. I missed New York and talking with people about things other than being in "the biz." I needed to cowboy up and buckle down. Quit bitching and get the damn job. I got a bit twisted with the final few turns, but eventually found a spot down the street from the casting office. As I pulled into my spot with the parallel-parking virtuosity of a native Noo-Yawkah, I saw a sweet thing in a power suit rolling up with her audition pages.

She passed by my car and then got in her own, and I was struck by how much she resembled the lovely film actress Samantha Mathis. I felt even less attractive. I furrowed my brow, threw on my jacket, and headed into the waiting area with the suited, sculpted masses. I waited. I fumed. I waited. "Adam Richman?" I stood. I clenched my teeth.

Quietly, under my breath, I said the little prayer that I say before every audition and performance, and I entered the room. I tried to break the ice with a joke. "Wow, every actor in LA broke out their lawyer suits for this, huh? The ladies, too? I even saw that Samantha Mathis look-alike coming out of the room!" "That was Samantha Mathis." "Oh." Open mouth, insert foot. "Why don''t you start when you''re ready," Eileen said. Now, whether it was because I felt so compromised by my inadvertent diss of a certified star or because of the cumulative effect of getting my ass kicked in by LA, I got amped and angry and my game got razor sharp. I focused, I listened, and I rocked the audition.

Rocked it. I saw it in Eileen''s face. "You know, I saw you at your Yale showcase a year ago. You''re a very good actor." And just like that, it was like all the shit I''d endured here in LA never happened. I''m a good actor and, despite having worked pretty consistently, I now knew that someone besides Mom thinks so. I left the audition feeling powerful and as though my body-fat percentage had dropped. My phone vibrated.

I flipped it open. It was a cute British girl I''d met while doing extra work. She wanted to grab drinks at a bar in Hollywood later. I put on my shades and swore I heard Randy Newman intone "I love LA" over the traffic. I headed to Santa Monica for lunch. Aside from a few parts of Los Feliz and Silverlake, Santa Monica is the only place I''ve found in LA where people seem to walk, and my fired-up New York sensibilities made me need to walk around for a bit. And, LA be damned, I wanted carbs. I wanted to find a taste of home.

And holy shit I found it, at a slightly sad, older-looking, green-trimmed diner on Wilshire called Callahan''s. The place looked like a New York diner and was virtually empty. The booths were well worn, and I felt an instant kinship with all those who had eaten here before me, all the actors, writers, and dreamers who had slid across these ancient emerald benches and flipped through these laminated menus since the place opened in ''48. After talking to the waitress, who seemed as though she may have been born there, I decided the fresh roasted turkey was the way to go. The waitress beamed with pride over the fact that they roast turkeys daily, and a quick glance at the menu revealed that they put turkey in damn near everything. It read like the post-Christmas turkey list from A Christmas Story: turkey salad, roasted turkey, turkey omelets, turkey sandwiches and salads, turkey soup. I went for a diner classic, a turkey salad club, but I added a Cali twist with avocado (to me, having awesome fresh avocados is one of the best aspects of living in LA). I read the LA Weekly as I waited for my food, the words "You''re a very good actor" still echoing in my head.

The waitress brought my food and a coffee. The sandwich was a glorious triple-decker of bacon, lettuce and tomato, and turkey salad that smelled like Thanksgiving Day, with huge chunks of meat that were perfectly juicy and not overly mayonnaised. And there, right beside it, buttery green and chartreuse wedges of ripe California avocado. All on wheat toast with golden brown, perfectly crispy diner steak fries. It was exactly what I needed and exactly the food manifestation of being told you''re a good actor by a notable casting director. Nutty wheat toast gave way to the watery crunch of iceberg lettuce and sweet tomato, coupled with the juicy, almost gamey smokiness of fresh-roasted turkey salad, the salty crunch of the bacon, and the creamy smoothness of the avocado. Carbs, fat, salt, and nitrates--anti-Los Angeles cuisine for sure, but Lord, was I happy. Did you know that avocado comes from the Nabuatl (a language of the indigenous Nahua people of Mexico) word for testicle because of its shape? Well, it does take some balls to name something delicious and edible after trouser plums! I paid my check and strolled down Wilshire, past an incredible variety of ethnic specialty shops: English, Indian, Turkish, and Russian.

I looked great in my suit, my belly was overjoyed, and I''m a very good actor. I headed home and await.