Hollywood is calling me from his car,
“The moment we’ve all be waiting for is here and I’m inviting you to the premiere of the movie we made from your book. It’s tomor…” but because he uses AT&T as his cellular provider I lose him for a few seconds and I have to go through the official AT&T catechism.
“Can you hear me?” I invoke.
“Can you….?” Hollywood responds, “…me now?”
“Can’t you find a good cell phone provider or call me from a land line?”
“We have a bad connection, Let me call you back.”
The catechism completed, he hangs up and calls me again.
“This any better?”
“Let’s try it again. I called to let you know that Behaving Badly. the movie we made from your book, is opening tomorrow and I want to invite you to the premiere, tomorrow…” AT&T decides to drop the call for a few seconds before conceding a few words , “real blockbuster…” before the line goes dead.
Wow! I hang up having distinctly heard “blockbuster’ and “Behaving Badly” used in the same sentence! All my complaining about how they had mangled my autobiography, While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog into a piece of shit white-bread movie must have been misguided. Even though they changed my name – I’m going to be famous – maybe even rich too if Hollywood can be trusted to honor our contract – after all he’s already performed one miracle transforming his garbage script into a blockbuster movie, why can’t he perform another miracle and have one thing that he promised actually come true? He had vowed, ‘I promise to make you happy and give you artistic satisfaction’ and ‘you’ll be involved in all the creative decisions of the movie’ before we signed our contract and he lied. Yes, Hollywood wrote in our contract that I was going to be music supervisor and be in charge of the film’s music,” and he lied – and of course he did send an e-mail swearing, I will not change the name of the movie from “While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog” and he lied – but maybe just once he will stick to his word and pay me. I mean, Jesus fed the multitude with a few loaves of bread and a fish – bigger miracles have happened!
It’s time to fucking celebrate. I’m going to the premiere of my movie! Celebrities, Inside Edition, E! News, TMZ , morally casual Hollywood starlets with bolt-on tits and ‘blow in your ear and she’ll thank you for the refill IQ’s” will all be there. I’m no longer one of the little people. I’m a somebody. I matter. Now when I take a selfie of me lighting my farts while yelling racial epithets people are going to pay attention big time – so Justin Bieber, move your scrawny white ass over and prepare for oblivion. Prepare to be dethroned!”
Of course if I’m going to be a celebrity I need to get myself the some official celebrity accoutrements. First and foremost I need an agent – since all celebrities must have one. I don’t know any agents, so I’m going to have to bump into one casually and then seal the deal with my charisma and charm. So I devise a plan.
I get into my beat up Kia with the “I will believe that corporations are people when Texas executes one of them” bumper sticker and drive at the speed limit down Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. As soon as the first black BMW with a driver talking on a cell phone tries to pass me on the right shoulder, I cut them off causing the car to sideswipe me and Voila! I’ve found myself an agent!
I introduce myself to Frankie Lebinowitz, a junior agent from CAA who, as soon as he disengages himself from the deployed airbags, picks up his shattered Chrome Hearts sunglasses and stops swearing, turns out to be a nice guy especially when I explain I have a blockbuster movie coming out and won’t sue his ass for driving on a suspended license and trying to pass me on the right and causing an accident if he will represent me.
I go home and tell Nina Pennington all the good news and she’s excited too, until I tell her that she can’t come to the premiere because as part of my duties as a celebrity I am required to ditch her for a higher profile starlet or stripper who has frequent wardrobe malfunctions and will get me in the tabloids. However, I reassure Nina she can take consolation in the fact she should get rich by selling the videos she has on her phone of us having sex to RadaronLine.com.
Nina Pennington then reminds me that Selena Gomez is playing her in the movie, and that I’m being played by some unknown who hasn’t ever been in rehab. “And,” she adds, “Hollywood invited me to the premiere three weeks ago, when he had me over to his office to discuss my part in his upcoming remake of Porky’s 2. I’m sure I’ll get a hell of a lot more money selling the videos I have on my phone of Hollywood and me having sex to TMZ. My agent from William Morris thinks I should gross at least…
* * *
It’s kind of embarrassing driving my Kia with the smashed in right side to my movie premiere – plus since I work for Hollywood , I don’t have enough money to pay for valet parking so I park the car a few blocks away from where the famous theaters on Hollywood Boulevard are located and walk the rest of the way. I stroll up to Hollywood Boulevard, to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. There’s no red carpet there, and I walk past the handprints of stars in concrete musing how much I would enjoy seeing Hollywood and Roger Debris in concrete. I continue down the boulevard past the Egyptian and the El Capitan and neither of them have Behaving Badly on the marquee.
As I pass the Pantages theater, I pull out the piece of paper I wrote the address on and realize that I parked my car too far away. I’m at 6233 Hollywood Boulevard and the address of the premier is 5445 Hollywood Boulevard. I have another eight long blocks to walk.
I’m not fazed. I use the time to practice my wave for my stroll up the red carpet. Even if I’m not coming in a limo, like the big stars do, someone’s going to want to take my picture and I better have a cool wave for them. I put on my sunglasses and try out the Tom Cruise raise your hand almost like a Nazi salute wave, but it seems a little forced. I try out the bent elbow, Rose Bowl Queen on lithium wave while blowing kisses, but it seems too gay. I try out the majestic Papal slight lift of your arm with a Parkinson disease quiver but it’s just a little too subdued. As I get to the 5500 block of Hollywood Boulevard I realize in the nick of time that it would be better to create my own style and forgo the wave altogether and just flash everyone the “thumbs up” sign. I’ll be a trendsetter and it’ll catch on like wildfire.
I approach the 5400 block Hollywood Boulevard but there is nothing there. No marquee. No red carpet. No paparazzi. No stars. Only two crack whores standing in front of a shuttered store, by a couple of boxes lying open on the sidewalk. Glumly I pull the address out again and check for the street numbers for 5445. I look up and there’s a worn blue sign with yellow writing saying “Blockbuster Video” over which there is a “For Rent” sign.
“Honeycheeks, you look like you need some cheering up,” says one of the crack whores as she waddles over to me on her four inch heels. She might have been pretty once, ten or twenty years ago. “Forty bucks and I’ll take you around the world and put a smile on your face – and,” she reaches into the box, “I’ll give you this free DVD to go home with.”
I look at the DVD she’s holding and my heart sinks. It’s Behaving Badly and the movie must suck so bad that it’s been released directly to DVD – and the only store that sells DVD’s has gone out of business.
I decline the whore’s business proposition and she totters off, dejected that she couldn’t close the sale. “This fucking DVD ain’t worth shit,” she mutters and tosses it in my direction.
I stoop down and pick it up. Beneath Selena Gomez’s picture in big letters is “From the Producer of 10 Things I Hate About You”. I guess it sounded better in the marketing meeting than “From the company that manufactures every other DVD box.”