Wannabe

Book excerpt: Everett Weinberger has an Ivy League education and an MBA, but what he really wants to do is produce. He's willing to start at the bottom-even if it means being Alec Baldwin's personal assistant-but after tapping all his L.A. connections, he still can't land a job. He even blows one interview by forgetting to compliment a studio exec on his car. When Everett gets work as a "power temp," life gets even weirder. He becomes second assistant to everyone from Frank Wells to Leonard Nimoy, trying to cope with the incessant phone calls and invisible protocols that keep getting him fired. Wannabe is a scathing and laugh-out-loud funny portrait of a world where even the assistants are political barracudas, by a guy with no bridges left to burn. A real-life Swimming With Sharks, it should be required reading on the Hollywood syllabus.