10:38 p.m. You never know how heavy and powerful a car is until it hits another car. You never know how fast you're going until you're forced to a sudden stop. You never know how vulnerable and fragile your automobile really is until you see bits of it lying in the middle of the street.

The truth is: you never know.

Luckily, this was not my accident. In fact, I was not even an eyewitness -- just an ear witness. I was in my office at the back of our house, deep in thought and deeper still in Photoshop layers, when I heard that unmistakable skid and squeal and thump and metallic tambourine. It can only mean one thing.

I knew from the sound that this was a minor fender-bender and so I ran upstairs to look out the window without bothering to phone it in. A few years ago I heard the most horrific crash and I picked up the phone in a total reflex of panic -- before going to the balcony to see what happened. That time I feared the very worst.

The emergency operator told me to gather up a bunch of clean towels and get out there -- pronto. Which I did. I am no nurse and my entire arms were shaking as I grimly carried the towels, clutched to my chest, out to the street.

By the time I got there, the drunken woman who had plowed into a whole row of parked cars was out of her car and yelling at everyone -- and the owners of the damaged cars were taking movies and the passersby were passing notes and taking interviews ... it was altogether a scene that didn't require towels, thank God.

The accident this afternoon was nothing more than one of those inconveniences that pass for activity for many people in this part of the world. The participants were thoroughly enjoying the moment -- you can see one woman taking photos and one man leaning on the roof of his car to write something down.

The guilty driver had just stumbled out of the red car and had headed down the street. He's not in the picture. Odds are that one of the people in this scene is an actor; another will have a script or a wad of fresh embossed cards promoting some kind of movie-related service. Or music, or sports. Maybe catering. At the very least, one of them is single and lonely.

Chances are that profitable business and what passes for friendship will result from this chance encounter. Many people drive so badly around here that I can only assume they are desperate to run into their future colleagues any way they can, and if they have to sacrifice some candy-apple fiberglass in the process, so be it.

The entertainment business is a hard one to crack. It's hard to get people's attention. To get noticed. To be taken seriously. It's hard to cut through the traffic jam in the front office and next to impossible to just run into someone important.

Except on the roads and the streets. Suddenly, the guy who won't take your call is stalled right behind you. The d-gal who passed on your script is trying to cut in front of you ...