What's Hollywood like behind the scenes? How does real life compare to reel life? Do the stars create more drama off-screen than on? Is the local social network really full of desperate housewives? How can an English writer find work?

Setting up home in Los Angeles involved some real shocks, several of which registered really high on the Richter scale. Only in California would an entire school be taken outside on Halloween to dance to "Ghostbusters." Only in LA would an 8 year-old know that the man at the carwash had three teardrops tattooed beneath his eye because he'd killed three...