Hollyweird…

Hollyweird

This fuckin’ town is weird… Hollyweird.

I get a call on Thursday to meet somebody on Saturday. From the sound of the call on my voice mail, it seems like I know this guy.

I rack my brain… Nope. Can’t place him.

He leaves his name but he also needs to brush up on his enunciation so of course, I can’t make it out.

Fuck it. He can call back.

Thursday night before I made my , I pick up the phone to make a call but there’s no dialtone…

Interesting.

I tap the switch-hook a few times… Still no tone. I press a couple of numbers…

VOICE (O.S.)

Hello?

UNK

Yo.

VOICE (O.S.)

Yo?

UNK

Yo-yo!

VOICE (O.S.)

Is this Unknown Screenwriter?

UNK

Yeah.

VOICE (O.S.)

Hey Unknown, this is Tony from over here

at Blanket Films.

UNK

Blanket Films? Tony? Tony who?

VOICE (O.S.)

Tony D… You remember, you spilled a drink

all over me… About a month ago?

UNK

Didn’t you bump into ME?

VOICE (O.S.)

Whatever. Hey listen. How about a

meet on Saturday?

UNK

About?

VOICE (O.S.)

We wanna make a movie with ya.

UNK

We?

VOICE (O.S.)

Blanket Films. Give me an hour on

Saturday… Lemme buy you lunch.

Ah… The magic words. Lunch. I gots to eat and geez… I was starving when he called — so in a swirl of momentary weakness…

I agree to the meet.

Fast forward to Saturday about 11:00 A.M. and I hop on my trusty Firebolt and my way to the address…

All I can say is thank God for … LOL.

So I find this building in a seedy part of Hollyweird… I don’t EVEN want to leave the on the street in this part of town so I start pushing…

*NOTE: I’ll park my bike in your living room if you let me.

I finally find some very steep stairs on the side of the building and up on the second floor… A window.

In the lower right hand corner of that window…

A piece of paper taped with the handwritten scrawl: Blanket Films LTD.

Hey… I’m hungry!

I park the bike underneath the stairs… Out of sight. Ah, I feel better now.

One step at a time I climb the stairs… Very steep. They seem TOO steep.

In my right hand, I have my full face helmet and yeah… You guessed it. I’m ready to swing if need be.

I reach the top of the stairs and am about to knock on the door when it opens right up.

TONY

You made it!

UNK

With a minute to spare.

Tony ushers me in… Remember ? Remember ’s office? This is worse. Much worse.

It stinks like… Like… Hmmm. Like rotten hamburger. I slide into a chair in front of Tony’s desk and Tony wedges himself into his chair.

*NOTE: He really does wedge himself into the chair.

I sit my helmet on the corner of the desk while Tony starts taking food out of a plain brown paper sack.

Burritos.

At least they look like burritos. LOL.

They seem kinda… Kinda… Hard. But hey… Who am I to turn down a burrito? Tony gets to his right away and by the time I’ve unwrapped the from my own piece of , he’s inhaled two-thirds of his.

TONY

You like coffee?

UNK

I live on coffee.

Tony proceeds to pull out a couple of “used and abused” …

TONY

Black?

UNK

Black.

He stands from the desk — cups in hand — shuffles over to a sink across the tiny office.

TONY

So Unk… I just read CURRENT REWRITE

and you know what? We like it.

While the hot water runs from the tap, Tony wrenches the lid off a small jar of instant coffee.

?

He dumps a pile of instant coffee into his left hand. He stares at the pile for a few seconds, then cuts the instant coffee pile in half with his right index finger.

UNK

Mind me asking how you got it?

He fills both styrofoam cups up with the hot water from the tap… Mmmm!

TONY

(laughing)

How would you like to direct?

UNK

It’s sold.

Tony spins around with both cups filled to the top. I can see grains of instant coffee dissolving on the sides of the cups as he shuffles and spills on his way back to the desk.

He sits the ugliest cup down in front of me…

TONY

Sold?

UNK

About a year ago.

I lift up the cup — observing the elegance. Fuck it. I take a sip.

UNK

Wow. You gotta great hot water

heater.

TONY

We wanna make that movie.

UNK

Outta my hands. Good coffee.

TONY

Gonna eat that?

UNK

Go for it.

These are huge burritos… He takes a bite of mine and half of it vanishes. I can see beans, rice, some kinda meat… Some kinda sauce… I watch the crumbs of the tortilla fall down on the desk…

TONY

(chewing)

What else ya got?

UNK

Huh?

TONY

(still chewing)

Scripts. What else?

UNK

Sorry. Nothin’ for sale. I’m a producer

too.

TONY

No shit? When this happen?

UNK

About a year ago.

The last of the burrito disappears…

TONY

No Shit? How about a partnership?

UNK

I have partners. What do you bring

to the table?

Mesmerized by the crumbs on the desk, Tony dots his right thumb with his tongue and proceeds to press it down on on several crumbs at a time.

TONY

Money.

UNK

What kinda money?

Tony jams his fat stubby thumb into his pie-hole and sucks every crumb right off.

TONY

(swallowing)

Big money.

UNK

Gotta card?

He rips a small triangle out of the brown paper bag…

TONY

Gotta pen? Pencil?

I take my brand new black roller ball pen out of my jacket pocket — extend it to Tony.

He licks his fingers with his before grabbing the pen. He writes down a number — hands the triangle back to me.

TONY

My private number.

I stand up…

UNK

Cool. I’ll talk to my partners. If you don’t

hear from us, means we’re not interested.

Tony stands… Extends my pen back to me…

TONY

Big money.

UNK

Keep it. Thanks for the coffee.

Tony sits back down. I wonder if I should turn my back on him but through my peripheral vision I can see he’s having quite a time getting back into that chair.

TONY

Leave it open.

UNK

Huh?

TONY

The door. Stinks in here.

UNK

Oh, no problem.

I open the door and maneuver down those steep fuckin’ stairs…

I make it to my bike and notice a big puddle of piss underneath the front wheel. I look around and spot a guy twenty-five yards down the alley stumbling away from me. I turn back to the front wheel and watch piss streaming down the right front fork.

Wonderful. Seems THICKER than normal but what do I know?

I push the bike into the alley and start it up.

Sitting there letting it get warm, I glance back up at the Blanket Films sign as I slide my helmet on.

With my left toe, I click the into first gear and ease out the clutch… Rolling, I hit the street… Relieved. Hungry.

Hollyweird.

Unk

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September 18, 2006 | Filed Under Uncategorized

19 Comments 

It’s still Flukey Friday, but…

Outstanding post at the blog. Thoughtful insight as to what competitions like Project Greenlight have done for the people who REALLY want to become screenwriters. It’s a MUST READ for a Flukey Friday.

Unk

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September 15, 2006 | Filed Under Uncategorized

1 Comment 

Flukey Fridays…

Kitty SammichThat’s right… Today is the beginning of Flukey Fridays here at !

[floo-kee] adj.

1. Resulting from or depending on mere chance.
2. Constantly shifting; uncertain: a fluky wind.
3. subject to accident or chance or change; “a chancy appeal at best”; “getting that job was definitely fluky”; “a fluky wind”; “an iffy proposition”

Where I get to talk about ANYTHING I want… After all… It is my blog, right?

Right.

So I’m sitting here on my bed trying to work on my rewrite but I’m HUNGRY. Normally, I wouldn’t give in to the hunger pangs but I just realized that I forgot to eat today and today is now Friday.

I didn’t eat Thursday.

Well for cryin’ out loud… It’s too late to cook anything decent (yes, I cook) and I sure as hell don’t feel like eating fast food — that’s always a last resort and even then, I rarely resort to it.

I love . It’s brand new and let me tell ya… IT KEEPS THINGS REALLY COLD. It’s even got those “crisper” drawers for fruit and vegetables and what do you know… They actually work!

I love the sound it makes when I slowly pull it open… It makes this perfect “phlop” sound that means I can drink milk an entire week after it expires.

A quick perusal…

Tortillas. Naaah. I love plain flour tortillas but I need something substantial.

Eggs. . Good stuff. I normally over-easy them onto a nice fresh with everything on it. Mmmm.

Too much work.

Leftovers? There isn’t any.

One of those little plastic containers of Del Monte sugar free chocolate pudding but the peel-off top is peeled back already. Oh yeah, I opened that a few days ago and only had a spoonful. The spoon is still in it so BOOYAH! I can slurp some pudding while I find the main course…

Hmmm. Hey, there’s lettuce and tomatoes… Cool. Slurp. Purple onion. Slurp. Cucumbers. Slurp, slurp. The alfalfa sprouts are just about ready to turn but hey… I like to live dangerously.

I SCRAPE the insides of the pudding container until I can see my hand through it…

Slurp and burp.

Excuse me.

I don’t even have to look because I know the next move so well… I toss both container and spoon into the air behind me and sure enough, they clang and bounce around inside the stainless steel sink.

Two points.

Fuck it. I’ll take three points today… It’s Flukey Friday!

Ahhh. There it is… The salami. Not just any salami mind you… This is the “good stuff.” .

Hey, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it. LOL. No, I don’t have a slicer but that’s okay because I know how to slice it nice and thin with my favorite knife… Ahhh.

Bread. Holy shit! Where’s the bread? Whew! There it is… Sourdough. My favorite. Mmmm. Smells good… Delightful actually.

A quick scraping of the cutting board and it’s time to go to work. Gotta get the mustard. I’m old school… .

I don’t spread it — I just squeeze the hell out of that gigantic plastic container and glob it all over both slices of bread after I slice it of course.

This sourdough is the hard, crusty kind… Seriously, you could drop-check this stuff off a ten story building and it wouldn’t hurt it a bit.

Glob glob. Glob glob.

Lettuce. Romaine. I like to clean it off really good first. Nothing nastier than dirty-tasting lettuce.

Ahhh.

The purple onion is nice and sweet. I can eat these things like apples but I’ll slice a few pieces off for now… Stack it on the lettuce.

Tomato. I like Roma tomatoes. One will do it. Thin slices… They cover the onion nicely.

Cucumbers. It’s still really cold so I’ll wash it with warm water and some to get the wax off… I don’t peel them — I just slice and flop them on top of the tomato.

Sprouts. Pull the nasty ones out… Flush them with some nice cool filtered water… Cool, still nice and bouncy.

Time for the buffalo salami. I gotta eat a piece all by itself first… Mmmm. Gotta buy some more of this stuff! Eat your heart out you vegetarians (no, I have nothing against you but you simply do not know what you’re missing).

Four, five, six… What the heck… Seven, eight. Eight slices. Nice.

Hey, don’t judge me… I’m gonna be up all night! I need sustenance!

Flipping the other slice of sourdough on top of the heap… Smash it down. Cool.

Hmmm. or ? Hmmm. Hey! There’s a bottle of Summer Fest in there! How’d that happen?

Snatched!

My three cats love me all the way back to my bedroom… They like buffalo salami too!

At home, I never use the wireless mouse… That’s for the coffee shop. My middle finger slides across the touchpad steadied by my thumb… Final Draft? There it is.

Click.

Two hands around this monster… I ease it toward me… I already know how it’s going to taste…

I bite. I have to tear the last bit of bread from its source.

I chew.

I taste.

Outstanding!

I wash it down with a swig of from Sierra Nevada.

Ahhh.

There’s nothing like a rewrite…

What’s YOUR favorite screenwriting snack?

Unk

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September 14, 2006 | Filed Under Uncategorized

10 Comments 

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