Today Greg and his friend Mark hosted a networking mixer for all of the young kids they know out here trying to make it. About 15 people showed up to the USC frat house where Mark is staying. He assures us that there are closer to 100 on the list. It's going to be big, he says, with bi-monthly meetings and a website--"Junior Hollywood." Tomorrow's players today.

I got chided by Mark and Greg for not networking with the other interns (and two paid assistants everyone was falling over themselves to talk to). These people are going to be able to help me out one day, they said. Making friends for the sole reason of getting something in the end--at least so explicitly--seems unnatural and wrong.

Doug and I found some Mike and Ikes and Sun Chips and considered the event a success. I left without any new friends but with a huge desire to go find some indie kids and fire up the Smiths and have a discussion about nuclear proliferation or the eradication of world hunger or the ethics of biology. Or maybe I just wanted to sit on the beach and flip through magazines and talk about how pretty the ocean is, not my (non-existant) five-year-plan.