Chapter 142: Hollywood's Flash (I)

Hollywood, Los Angeles, West Coast, USA

Louisa, a French girl with long flaxen hair, wrapped in an old brown coat that had faded and faded slightly, stumbled out of the studio exhausted and stumbled, her eyes so tired that she could barely open them, and her walking posture was almost like sleepwalking or stepping on stilts - she had been tossing and turning all night with a bunch of small characters and extras for the night scene, and she was really a little overwhelmed at the moment. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

But this is also a helpless thing, in the United States in the era of war mobilization, for ordinary people who have no special skills and no skills, it is really difficult to find an easy and satisfying job - Louisa clearly knows that many girls who are more delicate than her are now forced by life to go into factories like men to build machines, and even go down to the mines to dig coal, and it is a terrifying workload of fourteen hours a day and a year, which is even more sweatshops than sweatshops...... In comparison, this bit of hard work of an actor is really nothing.

This is urban life in the war era, the whole country revolves around the war, the men go to the front to bleed desperately, and the women work as cattle and horses in the rear. All factories are producing munitions, all ships are transporting military supplies, and everything is used to fight wars. From food, toilet paper, soap, daily necessities, electricity, there is nothing that is not lacking, everyone lacks a smile on their faces, and the social atmosphere is almost suffocating.

In fact, the reason why Hollywood's film industry has not stopped until now, and why third-rate actors like Louisa can still get that meager salary instead of working as coolies in factories, mines and farms, is also because Hollywood is still receiving orders from the Pentagon and the White House to continue to shoot various "main theme" films that promote the spirit of war and patriotism, and cheer up this increasingly declining war. For example, at this moment, Louisa has just left the filming site of a heroic propaganda film called "Captain America vs. Dr. Manchuria", advocating that white muscle heroes single-handedly defeat short yellow evil scientists - she only played a small role with only three or four lines in the play, so she has now finished filming all the scenes of her own, and she will have to go to the scene of a "Heroes of Air Combat" film tomorrow to play the female nurse of the field hospital......

Rao is so busy that Luisa's salary is barely enough to make ends meet and pay rent, and she can't even afford a bicycle to get around.

While Los Angeles has always been known for its warm climate and spring-like seasons, it's far from the traditional big cities on the East Coast that turn into a snow and ice inferno in winter. But in this tragic year of abnormal global weather, it is still snowing in Los Angeles one after another. In Luisa's field of vision, there was still dirty old snow that had not been swept away on street corners and under street trees, and the sky was shaking off the gloomy cumulus clouds like old tattered cotton wool. The cold wind with the snowflakes blew on her body, making Luisa shiver even worse, but she was also much more awake from the cold.

So, Luisa, a third-rate actress who was temporarily suppressed by the cold wind, rubbed her forehead with her cold blue fingers, as well as thick dark circles under her eyes, and then put on her bag and hurriedly walked to her residence, as if she wanted to use rapid exercise to add some heat to her body.

At this time, despite the fact that the number of people in Los Angeles had already increased, because of the tightening of fuel rations and the suspension of civilian vehicles for many years, there were few cars on the streets of Los Angeles, and there were not many bicycles, and even the people were deserted: young men were in the army, women and older men were still working in factories at this hour, and few people could wander the streets at this time...... Suddenly, in the distance, the sound of a military band was blowing, and hundreds of young recruits who had just been conscripted walked by the street. Many of them are still middle school children. Although some people sang military songs in their mouths, as long as they glanced at it, it was obvious that they were forcing a smile, and even passers-by were a little sad and sad about it, and they couldn't help but turn their faces away.

-- After so long and brutal war, the entire United States of America has cooled down from the frenzy of the early days of the war. As millions or even tens of millions of soldiers have been buried on the battlefield one after another, the patriotic enthusiasm that once boiled throughout the country has long been cold to the freezing point. People finally understood that war is not a game of honor, but a big gamble on everything. To make matters worse, the United States was clearly unlucky. Especially as the battlefield retreated from Europe and East Asia to South America, even a layman with no military knowledge could see that the future of the United States in this war was extremely bleak. But after things have developed to this point, they have no choice but to resign themselves to fate.

As an ordinary woman who loved balls, music, and beautiful clothes even more, Luisa was bored with the war from the beginning. Because the war did not bring her any benefit, but made life more difficult day by day...... At first glance, Hollywood and even downtown Los Angeles are still as prosperous and wealthy as they were in peacetime, and the windows of the shops along the street are filled with a variety of goods. But in fact, these things can only be seen and not bought, and many of the goods are simply empty cans or boxes - because they are placed there only for exhibition, according to the orders of the government, are part of the propaganda tactics of whitewashing the peace, as are the official articles in the newspapers and on the radio that advocate war.

And if you want to actually buy something with ration cards and banknotes...... When passing by a certain store, Luisa looked carefully for a long time with eager eyes, but the tightly closed storefront and the wooden sign "closed" outside the store still made her sincerely disappointed.

This is because this is the only ration food store in the neighborhood that has been licensed by the government......

-- I don't know why, but the ration food stores in Hollywood have basically been out of supply for more than a week: last month, they were only short of sugar, eggs, and meat, and this month they simply closed their stores, and even bread and flour were gone...... A few days ago, Luisa was still relying on the little inventory she had saved up in front of her, but now...... She counted the coins and bills in her purse, and finally gritted her teeth and went to the black market.

No way, since the legal ration shops on the street are closed and there is no food to buy anymore, the only place where you can buy food is naturally the black market. Although their prices on the black market are simply astronomical......

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-- In times of war, all kinds of black markets for reselling goods in demand will emerge as the times require, both ancient and modern, both in China and abroad.

Human beings may be able to tolerate a lack of anything, but they must not lack food. This is a must for any creature to live. However, many of the great cities of the United States are now being hoarded by profiteers and artificially creating a situation of food scarcity - in fact, the United States is not short of basic consumer goods, relying on the production of the Mississippi River Valley and the plundering of all kinds of goods from South America.

Recently, however, the profiteers of all stripes, who have been suffering from the loss of a large number of overseas investments and the defeat of the US military, have been unable to account for their financial statements to their shareholders but have refused to give up this opportunity to make huge profits. Instead, they relied on the collusion of officials and businessmen to hold on to all goods, including food, deliberately creating the illusion of a shortage of consumer goods in the market, and then putting the embezzled goods into the black market, thereby making huge profits.

This kind of thing is, of course, digging into the corners of the federal government. If it were in peacetime, it would have been liquidated by the White House long ago. However, now that the United States is in a special period of wartime, the federal government's control over various regions has been greatly reduced, and many interest groups that were once vigorously suppressed by President Roosevelt have taken the opportunity to resurrect and gather forces to confront the government again...... Due to the large-scale infiltration of the consortium, the White House is simply unable to eliminate the black market and rectify prices in this regard, and has to barely keep the situation under control.

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ps: Today, the wiki broke the news again, in this election, Sanders is actually a contracted actor hired by Hillary, his socialist ideas are all fake, his candidacy is to work for Hillary, mainly to stand up and snatch the votes of other establishments, and there is no hope of taking the throne. It's just that the acting was so realistic that Hillary almost thought that Sanders was trying to make it real (in the end, the old man obediently fulfilled the agreement). Trump was also invited by Hillary to go out of the mountain to drag the Bush family back, but Trump was rich and wealthy, and in the end, he was not afraid of threats and turned his face directly......

The plot is reversed like this, which is really shattering. Now if someone tells me that Lenin was the Tsar's henchman, Robespierre was a spy of Louis XVI, Sun Yat-sen was a spy of the Han Army Banner who worked for Cixi, and Hitler was a spy recruited by Churchill...... Maybe I'll believe it too.

I don't know why I suddenly remembered the pre-Qin drama - Pang Juan was a spy of Qi State, and Tian Ji was a spy of Wei State...... Is there such an example? (To be continued.) )