Hollywood called me this morning. “I was rereading ‘While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog’ last night and I have to tell you I love your book now even more than I did when I first read it. You’re a great writer and it’s been my goal to capture the magic of your book on film…” while Hollywood rambles towards to his inevitable ‘but” I take the time to be grateful that when God created man He put quite a bit of buffering between the lungs and the rectum – because if He hadn’t I’d probably be dead from smoke inhalation from the amount of smoke being blown up my ass.

“…and I’m going to make you proud, your book is so good that we’re going to win an Oscar… ” Hollywood is laying it on so thick that I can feel the inevitable ‘but’ going into labor… (‘congratulations Mr and Mrs. Hollywood it’s a fourteen pound boy although I am sorry he appears to have been born without legs but no problem Jerry Lewis is going to host a telethon…”)

“…but,” Hollywood pulls me from my daydreams. “Ric, we’re going to need your help with the publicity aspect, since this is your autobiography we’re selling.”

“But it isn’t my autobiography anymore, you changed everything I wrote,” I protest. “you’ve changed my name…”

“No one likes the French. We’ve got to sell tickets you know.”

“Okay, but you changed the time, the setting…”

“Where would you rather be – Clayton, Missouri or Los Angeles? You come from a place that is so flat and boring that you sat on your front porch and watched your dog run away for three days.”

“Okay I admit that, but what about my relationship with my mother? I hated my mother and you have me…”

“Minor artistic license. Our marketing department said we needed a more heartwarming movie.”

“I fucking hate heartwarming – I like dark movies.”

“Then you’re going to love ‘While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog’ it’s going to be dark, it has to be because we’re so low budget that we needed to save money on lighting.”

“What about my band Armed Venus, you said we could write the music for the movie?”

“Selena Gomez is the star of this movie, and she isn’t going to sing a song titled, ‘I Might Not Go Down In History, But I’d Surely Go Down On You’. She’s a Disney girl, a wholesome family star.”

“She goes out with Justin Bieber. He pukes on stage. Didn’t you see it on YouTube?” I ask.

“Puking is a patriotic thing to do, remember when George Bush puked on Japan’s Prime Minister?”

We go back and forth for the next hour and Hollywood adeptly parries every complaint.

“So are you going to help me promote our movie or not?” he asks.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask wearily.

“I want you to help publicize the movie and speak positively about it and tell everyone how pleased you are with Roger Debris as a director and screenwriter in bringing your true story to life.”

“But that would be a lie. I’m not good at lying.” I protest.

“I can fix that.”

“How?”

“I made a fifty dollar donation to the Republican Party, and in return they are going to teach you how to lie. They have this “Fair and balanced” training program that teaches you to lie, and I pulled some strings to get you a scholarship . It’s at the Fox News headquarters in New York.

So seven hours and one plane ride later I’m at Fox News Headquarters at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Sean Hannity shows me a picture of a high school biology class. “Okay Mr. Stevens. What do you see in this picture?”

“I see a picture of a biology class, there’s a girl with her hand raised to probably ask a question?” I say before feeling this massive jolt of electricity jolting me from the chair.

“What are you some sort of pinko or something? Now sit down” Hannity sneers, “This picture is obviously a picture of the left wing inculcating susceptible children into becoming abortionists and communists. Let’s try something easier. What’s this?” He shows me a video of a bunch of dead oil-soaked seagulls lying on a black beach with a guy wearing shirt with a British Petroleum logo walking by.

He’s right – it is a lot easier. “It’s a photo of the damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill…” This time the jolt is even worse and I need to empty my boots.

“Fucking retard,” Hannity scoffs, “Anyone with half a brain can clearly see this is an video of British Petroleum being a good corporate citizen and using the money it receives in corporate tax breaks to create jobs for unskilled labor to clean beaches in Louisiana.”

“We’re going to try one more time and I want you to get this right,” Hannity turns on the television to a video of Mitt Romney.

“Corporations are people, my friend,” Romney pronounces.

“What did you just see?” Hannity smiles, reaching for a button on his console.

*                             *                                 *

It’s a week later, and I’m conducting my first celebrity style interview talking to a reporter from Entertainment Tonight about “While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog.”

“What do you think of the young screenwriter/director Roger Debris?” the reporter asks.

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for “the Avengers” no matter what…” I feel myself slipping into a trance.

Up until an hour ago I thought the guy who came up with the idea of creating the job title of “Associate Producer” must have started his career hiring people for no show jobs at the Teamsters Union. I’ve been Associate Producer of “While I’m Dead… Feed the Dog” for two months and I haven’t exactly broken a sweat yet. My work day had consisted of lying on the couch, surfing the web for videos of clergy members with Tourette Syndrome, checking on IMDb.com to see if I’m officially a celebrity yet, and watching the six months worth of Cops reruns I’ve stored on my DVR in an effort to see if any of my friends and acquaintances have been on television and getting more time than I have.

But all that changed because Hollywood just called and wants me to meet him at his office to discuss important Producer stuff.

I arrive to see Hollywood dressed in a blue Walmart uniform.

“Glad you could make it, Ric. It’s time for you to start earning your credit. Put this on.” Hollywood tosses me a matching Walmart uniform.

“I’m not wearing this. I’m not 90 years old and I don’t work for minimum. ..” I suddenly remember how little Hollywood paid me to get my birthright, I mean the movie rights to my autobiography ‘While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog’. “I’m not working for Walmart – I’m not 90 years old, I don’t live in a trailer, and I have health insurance…”

“You’re not going to work for Walmart at their store or anything like that. What happened is you know this is a low budget movie right?”

“I’ve noticed how little you have paid me, yes.”

“Well we didn’t quite have the financing we needed to complete everything, so I had to make a deal. Walmart has agreed to give us $50,000 if we feature them prominently in everything involved with the movie, and that means all of us are wearing these uniforms.”

“How much of the $50,000 do I get?”

“We’re using the money to finish the movie – but you’re getting this swell new t-shirt, and I’ve got one for Nina too. It’s a way cool t-shirt and after everyone sees it in our movie it’s going to be the latest rage. You’ll be a trendsetter.”

“You are making the actors wear crappy Walmart uniforms in the movie?”

“It’s not crap it’s $50,000 – and yes everyone is wearing it and the movie is going to be shot in a Walmart store. It’s called ‘product placement’, and we needed the money.”

“How come every movie I see, they get cool product placement, like everyone has a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, or a Corvette not to mention a Mac Computer, an IPAD, or at least a pair of cool Nike Air Jordan shoes made by a Burmese child at gunpoint? All you could do is Walmart?”

“Don’t blame me, I’m not the one with the low “Q” rating. Mentioning your name doesn’t just turn on a flood of corporate donors. The only other offer we had was from Senator McCaskill the woman who is running against Todd Akins for Senator in Missouri, who wanted to use your picture in a commercial justifying abortion, but for that we had to have the movie out by November. So put on the fucking shirt.”

“There are other ways to raise money, you know.”

“Like what?”

“We could take pictures of Selena…”

“No we can’t. Her security is too good.”

“We could auction your kidney on EBay… that’s got to be worth at least $50,000.”

“That’s a great idea. I’ll sell your kidney on E-Bay. I think I own it already. Let me just call my lawyer and confirm…”

Okay, so blue isn’t exactly my color; and having a shirt saying ‘How may I help you’ on the back isn’t exactly cool, yet. Someday soon when “While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog” passes ‘The Titanic,’ or at least ‘Porky’s’ in box office revenues it will be. I’ll be way cool then, and the guy who just refused me admittance to the Sky Bar is going to be really sorry because not only do I have a long memory – I’m listed on IMDb.com. And the reason I’m walking home rather than driving is written right on front of my shirt. “Save Money. Live better.”

Hollywood has summoned me to a meeting at his office on the movie studio lot. I pull onto the lot and give the guard my name and he hands me an official movie studio visitor pass sticker with my name on it. I don’t put it on because someday, after I’m a star, I’ll probably be able to sell it on E-Bay.

I’m ushered into Hollywood’s office and find him on the phone and a smiling Roger Debris sitting on the sofa. Hollywood motions me to sit down by Debris and just as I’m about to sit down I notice there are stains on the sofa and I get the uneasy feeling this is no ordinary couch I’m being urged to sit on. It’s not one of those sofas you can buy at Levitz or slightly used from Craigslist. No, this is a special couch – one which can only be bought by members of the Producers Guild of America. It’s a genuine casting couch and Hollywood and Roger Debris want me on it.

“I think I’d rather, um,” I try to wash the ‘deer frozen in the headlights’ look off my face while racking my brain for a polite excuse as to why I don’t want to sit down. I’m pretty sure Amy Vanderbilt didn’t face this sort of manners dilemma because if she had I’d probably remember a phrase similar to, “Please kind sir, I would so love to be a movie star, but I really would prefer not reclining on your couch and being sodomized to achieve my goals.”

“Sit down and tell me what’s new in your life,” Roger Debris asks, patting the sofa by him.

I walk over to the window, “You know the piercing fad that’s been going around for the last couple of years? Well I was reading the other day about something way cooler, what you do is stick razor blades up your ass and then if someone tries to stick their…”

Hollywood hangs up the phone and interrupts, “Ric, I didn’t ask you to come here to talk about piercings. What I wanted to talk about was making our movie successful and we need your help.”

“I’m not lying down on the couch, at least not unless you’re talking about…”

“I’m not asking you to lie down on the couch!”

“You promise, both of you?”

“Yes we promise…”

“Okay,” I sit down.

“Look the movie is in the can, and we really like it – in fact it’s got the potential to be huge if everything goes our way. It’s all in the marketing from here on out, and that’s why we’ve called you here. We want to make sure that we maximize our success, by doing everything possible to insure that it’s a hit.” Hollywood explains.

“Such as?”

“Well we had our marketing people run these tests on Nina Pennington and your Q rating, and the tests didn’t come out too good,” Hollywood states.

“What’s a ‘Q rating’?” I ask.

“Q rating is a test of popularity,” Roger Debris explains. “The system determines how well known and well-liked a person is by the public.”

“And how’d Nina and I do?”

“Nina did okay, thirteen million twitter followers is pretty good. You on the other hand, how do I put it delicately, no one knows you. You don’t have a Q rating.”

“So you want me to lie on the couch and get known?”

“No. No one wants you on the couch at all,” Hollywood calms me. “Our backers and I have a better plan. We want Nina and you to become Scientologists.”

“What exactly are Scientologists?

“Scientologists believe that 75 million years ago an evil galactic ruler, named Xenu, solved overpopulation by bringing trillions of people to Earth in DC-8 space planes, stacking them around volcanoes and nuking them. Then the souls of these dead space aliens were captured and boxed up and taken to cinemas where they were shown films of what life should be like, false ideas containing God, the devil and Christ and told to get ill. After that they supposedly clustered together and now inhabit our bodies. Scientologists believe that if they rid themselves of these body Thetans then they will be healthier and will gain special powers like mind-over-matter.” Roger Debris explains.

“And why do you want us to believe this shit?”

“Because Scientologists control Hollywood. They can make you or break you. Being a Scientologist will make you big – look what it did for Kirstie Alley.”

“You mean make us fat?”

“Maybe that was a bad example. Look what it did for Tom Cruise?”

“You mean I get to go on Oprah and jump up and down on her couch and tell everyone I love Nina?”

“Oprah’s been cancelled. Tom Cruise hasn’t been. So yes,” Hollywood states.

“Can’t I just be butt fucked?” I ask, dropping my trousers.

I’m having a power breakfast with Hollywood at Jerry’s Deli and Bowling Alley. We’ve got a table underneath an autographed publicity picture of Rodney Dangerfield which is ironic because I’m feeling like I can’t get no respect.

“Remember when I wanted to buy the rights to your autobiography you told me there were only two reasons to sign a deal, one being to make a life changing amount of money, and the other to get artistic satisfaction?”

“Are you finally giving me the life changing amount of money?” I ask, “I always wanted enough money to buy a mansion in Beverly Hills, a Mercedes Convertible or at least enough for the Rascal electric Scooter for when I get too lazy to walk.”

“I have to be honest with you,” Hollywood makes me worry about all the times he has told me things in the past which were not prefaced with his same pledge of sincerity, “this is a low budget movie so I’m not able to give you the money you might want…”

Quickly and surreptitiously I reach into my wallet to make sure I have enough money to cover his matzo ball soup and strawberry blintzes as well as my two fried eggs. Thankfully I do, so I won’t have to spend the rest of the day washing dishes if he does a runner on the check.

“Okay, so you’re giving me artistic satisfaction, and the movie is going to be the way I wrote it, Suckerpunch is going to do the soundtrack and Mary-Louise Parker is going to give me a…”

“Not exactly,” Hollywood interrupts. “Now you know we’re friends, and above all I’m a man of my word. I promised you one of those two things, so I just wanted to check on whether my making you famous would constitute giving you artistic satisfaction?”

“How famous?” I ask.

“Every press release is going to have your name, and I’m making you Associate Producer of the Movie.”

“What’s an Associate Producer do?”

“He associates with the Producer and watches his name on the credit roll.”

“I’m not sure that’s worth all that much…”

“Sure it is,” Hollywood counters, “It’s dead easy. This is America and girls are easily impressed. It’s all about being high profile. Get yourself an entourage, take some PCP, get caught shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue, go to jail for a few hours, get out, make a sex tape with some reality/porno star, have Gloria Allred sue you, and you’re guaranteed to be the lead story on TMZ for life. What could be more artistically satisfying than that?”

Hollywood’s cell phone rings. Evidently he’s late for an appointment with a finance guy and has to run, sticking me with the check – which he promises to grab the next time.

I think about what Hollywood said and realize he’s probably right. Being on the front page of the National Enquirer, or the lead story on TMZ is the epitome of art. I need to be more high profile but, although I could do the porno tape and maybe even the drugs, I really don’t feel too good about the shoplifting. I drive down to the Starline Tours office and stand in line. There are five people ahead of me, clutching their wallets.

“That’s $44 dollars for the two hour comprehensive narrated tour of breathtaking stars’ homes in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, and Holmby Hills” a woman with a lavender and turquoise mohawk says without looking up.

“I don’t want to buy a ticket. I just want you to add my house to your tour,” I explain.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Ric Thibault – Hollywood’s making a movie about me. It’s starring Selena Gomez. I’m in all the press releases.”

“Let’s see,” she picks up her laminated plastic guide to the stars home map. “We stop at Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, Tom Cruise, Nicholas Cage, David and Victoria Beckham, Dr. Phil. No, your name isn’t there. Sorry.”

“Could you maybe try Ric Stevens?”

“Any relation to Darren Stevens from Bewitched?”

“No.”

“Too bad. I like Bewitched. No, that name’s not there either. Were you involved in a scandal where somebody died? We go to O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Sharon Tate and the Menendez Brothers.”

“Nobody’s dead, at least not yet; but Selena Gomez is playing my girlfriend in the movie…”

She looks up at me, “You’re Justin Bieber? You sure don’t look as cute as him and besides his house is in Calabasas which is too far to go for our two hour tour. We’d have to charge at least $80 a head for the extra two hours and that’s if we don’t hit traffic. Do you have that type of money?”

“No I’m not Justin Bieber, I’m Ric Thibault – they’re making a movie about me…”

“Never heard of you. You’ve taken enough of my time poser. Next”

I drive dejectedly over to Saks Fifth Avenue. Unfortunately I can’t find anything I like enough for it to be worth stealing, but I do find a homeless guy outside in the parking lot who is willing to be in my entourage if I can stake him to a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20.

I shell out the money and ask my new friend if he wants to be my “Homeboy”.

“I will if you buy me another MD20,” my new friend smiles.

At $2.49 a bottle, I’ve got me the beginnings of an entourage. Artistic satisfaction is right around the corner! Michelangelo eat your heart out!

Hollywood has invited me to the Beverly Hills Hotel to have a drink at the Polo Lounge and discuss my autobiography being made into a movie.

I find him sitting at the table on his cell phone, and he motions me to sit down. Hollywood’s talking to some agent about something he calls a “package deal”. Evidently this agency called “CAA” has some sort of warehouse in Burbank where they store movie stars, and Hollywood has ordered a pallet full of them. I can only imagine how cool it must be to be a forklift driver in this warehouse, and having to unstack a ton of pallets containing reject stars like Lindsey Lohan and Meryl Streep before you get to the good ones like Selena Gomez and Mary-Louise Parker. I’m sure his job never gets old.

Finally Hollywood finishes his call and orders a Perrier with a lime twist. He asks me what I want and I order a Coke. He tells me he also invited the guy who is going to be the movie director to the meeting and that he should be here any minute, but in the meantime he says this is going to be a good time to talk about my book.

“So Ric, you know I’m you’re biggest fan…” Hollywood pauses to take a sip of his Perrier, and my psychic intuition tells me that the next word out of his mouth is going to be “But” with a capital “B” followed by me feeling like I’ve had something shoved up my ass. “But, you know this is a low budget movie and we’ve got to cut corners, count nickels and dimes to make this happen. You understand don’t you?”

“Is that why you changed my name from ‘Thibault’ to ‘Stevens’ because having one less letter would save you money on ink in your printer?”

“Yes, I mean that’ll save a penny or two, but I was talking bigger things, like for one I’m going to be filming the movie in Pasadena instead of St. Louis. But I want you to know that I’m making sure that we spend money on all the important things, the things people will see on the screen. For that I’m not going to spare a dime.”

I sigh in relief. My ass still feels okay, and maybe I’m not as psychic as I thought.

“So I’ve come up with a couple of money saving ideas. One because I want to make sure that everything people see on screen is good, we’re going to shoot things a little differently and we’re going to use smaller movie screens, so I don’t have to spend money on the things on the edges that no one cares about.”

I squirm a little in my seat.

“Secondly since my first choice of movie director Ed Wood apparently died a few years ago, I hired the next best person,” and there he is now – Ric Thibault, or should I say, Ric Stevens, I want you to meet Roger Debris.”

Roger Debris sits down, orders a Shirley Temple and performs fellatio on my ego, before telling me that he has completely changed everything in the book because it would be too expensive to film otherwise.

Hollywood tells me he has to go to the bathroom, and he is followed by Roger Debris who also has to go.

I wait at the table formulating my response to Hollywood and Roger while watching Paris Hilton bat her eyelashes at some guy with an oversized Rolex and a tattoo of a snake on his arm which shows that he is an individual and different from every other person with a tattoo on their arm.

My cell phone rings.

It’s Hollywood calling me from his car. Evidently my movie is so low budget that Hollywood and Roger Debris just split and stuck me with the check.

Hollywood called again today.

“You know I’ve love your autobiography, it’s cutting edge, dark and black. Just like I like it. Sweetie baby don’t ever change,” he launches into his standard warm-up, “but…”

Evidently, my life has gone into the movie version of the Federal Witness Relocation program. My last name no longer is ‘Thibault’ because it’s too French sounding and difficult to pronounce. My new name is ‘Stevens’ and I really love my mother big time.

“But I hated my mother, didn’t you read my book?” I whine.

“Don’t you want to be successful? Don’t you want to be get an Academy Award so you can get laid, or at least get into the Sky Bar?”

“But it’s not true, people will think I’ve sold out…”

“It won’t be a lie. I’ll put my best scriptwriter on it. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Your morals will be intact.”

I’m so relieved to know Hollywood shares my moral values and would never lie about anything and that everything in my movie is going to be true. They used to have a technical term for it, Cinéma vérité, but Hollywood told me it was too French sounding and difficult to pronounce, so they just changed it to “scripted reality show”.

Now that I love my mother so much I feel kind of guilty. I guess I finally should retrieve that box containing her ashes. Someone called me about it ten years ago and asked me to come get them. I think it was the vacuum cleaner repair guy, but I’ve gone through a whole bunch of vacuum cleaners since then, and I can’t remember which vacuum cleaner I left Mrs. Stevens in.

According to the latest edition of “The Observers Guide to Rockstars”, having a hot girlfriend is a requirement for being a rockstar.   Tommy Lee had Pam Anderson,  David Bowie has Iman, and Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart each married a whole slew of supermodels.   Gene Simmons landed a seriously reconditioned Playboy centerfold even after she discovered he wears a really seedy wig.   Yes, to be a rockstar you must have a hot chick, even if you have to go under the hood and replace all the worn out parts with aftermarket material.

I’ve got a guitar, I’ve got a pair of really awesome sunglasses and I have a hot girlfriend in Nina Pennington, so my life should be all groovy.  It isn’t.

The problem is Nina Pennington.  Don’t get me wrong, she’s gorgeous.  The problem is that even though they are making a movie about me, she is still way more famous than I am.   It’s nerve-racking.  She’s got thirteen million Twitter followers, thirty-three million Facebook fans – not to mention her own line of perfume.

What happens if I get a zit on my nose, or if I fart?   I can see her reaching for her diamond studded iPhone and Tweeting what a loser I am.

I just wrote a song about it.  It’s called ‘My Life Sucks and My Girlfriend Doesn’t’ and I recorded it with some Italian friends of mine called Armed Venus.  You can download it on ITunes for ninety-nine cents, or almost as much as I got for selling my life story to a big shot Hollywood producer.   Steve Jobs gets a big chunk of that ninety-nine cents if you decide to buy it.  It won’t do him any good though because he’s dead.  With the gazillion dollars he made, he should have fallen off his wallet and bought a copy of “While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog”. the only book which guarantees you immortality or double your money back.   The poor cheap bastard.

It’s a cautionary tale.

Hollywood called this morning.

“Congratulations.  We’re making your book into a movie.  You’re going to be famous.”

Me?  Famous?  There is so much responsibility to being famous.  I mean I can handle some of the job okay, I’m sure I can handle the  “I’d like to thank all the little people” speeches, and I think I can scrape enough money together to go cruise for some skank crack whore so I can get busted by the police and get one of those really cool celebrity mug shots that they can use on TMZ.  But what about the hard celebrity stuff?

To be famous you have to be on a reality show, and I don’t think I have enough money in my bank account yet to get enough drugs to make me addicted enough to get on ‘Celebrity Rehab’.   I could try for ‘Celebrity Apprentice’, but the thought of being in the vicinity of Donald Trump is so nauseating that I would be constantly puking, and you know someone with an iPhone 5 is going to be there and have it up on YouTube within minutes.  Not good for the image.   I wish there was a Celebrity version of ‘Las Vegas Jailhouse’.  Maybe I can call the show’s producer and convince him to film an episode.  I’d watch it – even if I wasn’t on it.

Lots of questions to think about.  I think I better go to Ikea and see if I can get a casting couch.