LA story part 1

[rrfrankie]

AN LA STORY (part 1)

I'm in the office of Mr. Acrpolopolis on Hollywood Blvd., who I had met at a cheesy party thrown by a director of brand X low budget and even less talent movies who still owed me money for script revisions I'd done, if you could call what he gave me a script in the first place - an unintelligible collection of dull cliches - which the director was incomprehensibly intent on that everyone knew he wrote hisself. For me the only ray of light in the entire debacle was that I never got my agreed upon screen credit, praise the lord.

Anyway I'm in the stuffy, cramped office of Mr. Acrpolopis, a producer who's supposedly a retired shipping magnate who wants to be the next Dino DeLaurentis. And I'm pitching the story idea for a script I actually wrote myself entitled "Vampires form Hell". You guessed it, a romantic comedy.

Tubby is at his desk, the inevitable cigar stuffed between his fat lips. And beside the grease-streaked window overlooking beautiful downtown Hollywood you can actually see a bum taking a leak on the sidewalk on Argyle as it winds up the hill to the Hollywood sign, a shining beacon to all the would-bes and wanna-bes the world over. Ahh Hollywood, on a clear day you can smell the rotting flesh. And maybe the bum taking a leak on the sidewalk is really someone auditioning for the part of someone taking a leak on the sidewalk. The only problem being the casting director who he's auditioning for only exists in his hallucination-ridden mind. All part of the mystery and allure that is Hollywood.

Beside the window, leaning against the window is blubber lips' male secretary, an effeminate-looking chap filing his nails nonchalantly, wearing an expression that is a mixture of boredom and haughtiness, as guys of the effete persuasion are wont to do. And already I don't like this shitbird, but I don't let this dissuade me from the purpose on hand. Determined I am, so I launch into my compelling tale of vampires and horror, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

There's these four vampires, I say (a band, a gaggle, a coalition, a gang, a family of strangers bonded together to better cope with a crazy mixed up world they never made.)

The big man says, "Four vampires."

At least I know he's not deaf.

"Yeah," I say, "four vampires. Three guys and a girl."

"All vampires," he says or maybe it's a question, I don't know but at least I know he's capable of logical thought patterns now. If there are four vampires, three guys and one girl, how many of them are vampires? All! That's right, very good.

So I'm beginning to think I'm on a roll. He's hooked, I got him in the palm of my hand. He's hanging on my every word.

"Yeah," I say a tad too impatiently, "They're all vampires, blood-suckers, human parasites, the undead. You got it now?"

He eyeballs the ashy end of his cigar solemnly. While behind him his loyal adjunct, Fruitboy, arches an eyebrow and puts on a disapproving face. And I'm beginning to imagine how aesthetically pleasing my foot would look embedded in his silly face. But I mush onward because you can't let shit like that get to you when you've got a story to tell that burns inside you with an intense desire of its own and wishes to spread the simple truth of its heart and spirit to an awaiting humankind.

So I continue, "The leader of this vampire delegation, the most dominant one, the central figure, the one with the most... the most, what am I trying to say here, the most..

"Balls," tubby interjects like he's Mark Twain and he's just found the perfect word to finish a well-crafted thought.

And then the royal princess adds, without looking up from filing her nails, "The big cheese."

I say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. The big cheese with the most balls."

So now I've got them involved. They feel like they're part of the process. It's their story too, as everyone knows creativity is a participatory sport in this town.

Cigar-face says, "Now you're getting somewhere, kid."

And I have no fucking idea what he means by that.

"Okay," I say "the big cheese of the vampire gang, his name is Dexter."

The cigar-chomping sack of lard says (apropos of nothing in particular), "I had a dog named Dexter once."

I say, "I had a cat named Pussy once. So what? So what's your point, tubby?!"

He puts down his cigar. His expression turns from sour grapes to ultra-sour grapes and he says, "Look, kid, you're not going to get anywhere in this business with that attitude of yours. I advise you to change it or you're gonna wake up one day covered in your own puke and wondering what happened."

Meanwhile sweetie-pie detaches himself from the wall, spins and whirls about several times, pirouetting in fast motion like a hyped-up ballerina, stops in front of me, and starts scissoring the air in front of my face with his legs. You know that Tai-kwon-doe thing, that kick-boxing kind of thang. I was into it for awhile but then I got laid off from work temporarily, for about five years, and I didn't do anything except sit around the house all day watching soap operas, game shows and talk shows, eating junk food and swilling beers. I turned into a bloated couch potato, but it was one of the happiest periods of my life. My favorite time of year was the holiday season because then all the soap opera stars were on the game shows during guest celebrity week, playing for charity of course. Oh they would never play for anything so crass as money, that's for the rest of us peons. Then they'd go on the talk shows and talk about how traumatic it was. But why do soap opera stars do those game shows if not for the money? To prove how wonderful they are? No, for the exposure right? Can you imagine doing a game show for the exposure? Or better yet how about the Lotto Big Spin? This is your chance to be a millionaire. And you go home with a few hundred. And can you imagine saying to your neighbor, "Yeah but look at the exposure I got." Oh yeah exposure as a laughing stock, as a loser, as the only one in the neighborhood who gets a shot at millions and you win enough for a new set of tires. Some exposure.

For those of you wondering how I supported myself during my glory years as a contented couch potato, do you remember the old lady from the Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" campaign? I was her live-in lover, her boy-toy. I got the beef right here grandma. I wore that bitch down. I don't know what happens to the ladies when they turn 70 but watch out, it's nothing but sex, sex and more sex. They turn into wanton insatiable bitches in heat.

But I took care of business. I kept her satisfied. That's why she stopped doing those commercials, running around town screaming "Where's the beef?!" She knew where the beef was, yeah. She had it back at home. I kept her stuffed with the beef tubesteak.

(continued...)

[rrfrankie]

AN LA STORY (part 2)

Anyway back in the office of my favorite greaseball movie mogul, where his loverboy has rushed valiantly to protect him from my maladjusted attitude and shown off his ballerina kick-boxing prowess, I am duly intimidated. I am scared shitless now. Oh, I am quaking in my boots.

So I say, "Everybody stay cool. Everybody stay real cool. I just get a little excited at times. Can we proceed?"

And Mr. Stogie says to Fruit Cocktail (who is staring at me like an affronted mother hen protecting her brood) "Binky, it's alright."

Binky takes his position at the wall, but not before giving me a withering look that makes my pecker shrivel. I go on with the story of Goldilocks and the three vampires, recapping: "So far we've got four vampires, three guys and one girl. The leader's name is Dexter. And you once had a dog named Dexter. Are we all on the same sheet of music now?"

There is a silent accord.

"Dexter goes into an all-night Chinese dry cleaners in a small town that borders the desert" I say, "You know the kind of joint, the dry-cleaners is abutted by a Chinese restaurant run by the family. They use the vat in the back to boil and clean the clothes and later make the egg-drop soup in it."

The mogul says, "I don't buy it. He's a vampire. What's he need clothes for?

I say, "He's a vampire, not a nudist."

Boy George shares a thought, "Vampires don't need clothes. They're supernatural."

Binky is Bram Stroker all of a sudden, the world's foremost authority on vampires and their habits.

"Besides," he says, "they only come out at night."

Which is pretty conclusive evidence, for whatever lame point he's trying to make.

"It's evening wear okay," I say. "Granted, they may be preternatural" (I like to use that word when I can, it makes me sound erudite) "but that doesn't mean they can wave a magic wand like the tidy bowl man and their clothes are instantly cleaned and pressed. They're vampires not cats. They don't lick themselves clean. They need to avail themselves of a cleaning service. And this is after dark. I've already established that. Pay attention, junior."

Tubby concedes, "Okay, maybe you convinced me. Go on."

I do so, "Dexter gives the pick-up ticket to a young Oriental girl behind the counter who is there alone and..."

Binky has an outburst, "Oh this is preposterous, a vampire getting clothes out of the dry cleaners!"

I'm getting progressively fed up and I ask the blob of rancid fat behind his cheap desk chomping on his stinking cigar like a third leg, "What makes babycakes such an expert on vampires?"

He says, "He's very learned."

And sweet stuff says, "Some of my best friends are vampires."

Which is cute, real cute. Oh yeah, it's so cute I think I'm falling in love. And I ponder how much cuter honeybuns would look pinned to the wall with a stake through his heart.

I say, "Aren't you a couple of Oscar Wildes. I'm amused, truly amused. Shall I continue or do we wag weenies for the rest of the afternoon?"

The mongoloid mogul says to Binky dinky-do, "Hush now."

Hush now?!

Then he fires at me, "Let's not beat around the bush. What's the premise?"

Okay great, I think, let's get to the meat of this turkey. I say, "The premise is four vampires in a small desert town who go around sucking the blood out of people."

"Interesting," says the mongrel "but we need a new angle. Vampire films are a dime a dozen in this town."

So are bottom of the barrel nickel and dime producers, I think.

Binky bounces into action, screeching, "Desert town! Did you say desert town? Don't you know vampires are afraid of the sun? They wouldn't be caught dead in the desert."

I'm thinking now if I fake an epileptic fit and push Binky out the window, I can make it look like an accident. But I realize the cops would check my medical records and find me out. So I scratch the idea.

I say, "I guess you got me, wonder boy. I surrender. You're too sharp. What do you want, to be technical consultant on this project? Except" I continue before he can add another insightful comment, "since they only come out at night, what difference does it make if they live in a crater on the dark side of your anus or in the shadows of the Grand Canyon?"

Tubby intercedes, like a pompous judge passing down a monumental decision, "Hold on. Binky has a point. I been in this business a long time, and I haven't gotten this far for nothing. The audience is not gonna believe vampires in the desert."

So I figure maybe he's right. After all he hasn't reached this pinnacle in the industry, with an armpit of an office and a crack staff like Binky, for nothing. I mean Robin Mooch gave him a featured spot on Lifestyles of the Poor and Ugly.

I was beginning to debate the wisdom of being there at all. And I concluded my time was being misspent. I'd had enough. It was painfully obvious this manage a trois was on the fast rack to nowhere. So before making like a tree and leafing, I say, "Why don't you two shit-for-brains tie your dicks together and play jump-rope with each other's assholes."

And that was the end of that.

Sean O'Hara
Producer "Rock n' Roll Frankenstein"
www.rrfrankenstein.com