Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (40 page)

“No!” William exclaimed, trying to be shocked and sincere.

William was only capable of one falsehood at a time, so sincere was basically the only false emotion you got from William that was
almost
believable.

“Fuck you, William. You know I love you. You know we go

back a million fucking years. But—shit, don’t play me. I was history by at least Wednesday,” J.T. said.

“Tuesday, after run-through,” William said, sincerely.

“Yeah . . . I had a feeling.”

“Where’s Bling-Bling?” William asked.

“William, you are actually the one person here I could kill and somehow get away with it. Never call Ash ‘Bling-Bling’ again. Understand?”

“Sorry. I’m just grouchy. I’m in pain. I got fuckin’ blisters everywhere. I mean, everywhere! I got blisters on my fuckin’ balls!

After sex.”

J.T. had no time to listen to William complain. “William—

quick long-story-shorter: we had no run-through, no blocking,

not even a rehearsal. The actors, the Buddies, held out for more money and
don’t want to be directed,
so I spent the night here putting up cue cards and synchronizing each cue with a specific camera move. So please—
no shit
—whatever you do—DO NOT LET

ANYONE TOUCH THE CUE CARDS! I can’t say it with enough

emphasis. We’ve got
no show
tonight without those cue cards. Got it?!”

J.T. had to make sure William was a part of this campaign to let the cue cards remain hung. He needed William to be a watchdog,

to bark at anyone who went near the cue cards—no matter what

department they were from.

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

“And,” J.T. continued, “if someone from the camera depart-

ment wants to move a card because of light—COME TO ME

FIRST!”

“You’re the man! No one touches the cue cards. I got blisters

under my armpits from the swim!” William tried to show J.T. “Oh, but anyway, how’s my bro? All good in da hood?” he asked, sincerely. Then, without even thinking twice about it, he took out a bottle of liquid Vicodin and took a gulp.

J.T. tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “What is it with you people? What are you doing? Do you hate your job so much that

you need to numb yourselves?”

William glowered sincerely at J.T. “Hey, don’t gimme shit. I

hate my job—don’t you?”

“No. I hate certain things
about
my job, but I love . . . other things,” J.T. managed to say.

“Well, if you had to be an assistant director and everyone was

chewing your ass out every second of every fuckin’ day and everything was basically your fault, you’d hate your job. Plus—I think I got blisters inside my nose from breathin’ so hard and I need to smoke and get numb till I die.” It was the most sincerely sincere thing William had said all week.

“Well, it’s good to know that my assistant is fucked up on drugs and half the cast is on liquid Vicodin, too,” J.T. said sanctimoniously.

William got defensive. “Liquid ‘V’ is the drug of the month.

Rocky Brook gets it by the fucking case. I think from a dentist. As soon as he gets bored with a drug or it doesn’t give him the buzz he wants anymore, we’ll be on to a different designer med. It’s fun stuff, J.T. Makes the day go faster. You oughta try it. Sincerely. Want some? You won’t mind bein’ fired.”

“I think I’ll pass, William.”

“Oxycontin?”

“If any P.A. is making a smoothie run, count me in. Narcotics?

Count me out. Clear?”

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“Cool. Clear,”William said, sincerely on his way to being stoned.

“Shit, I got blisters on my asshole. After sex.” William froze. He thought about that last comment. “Whoa, I certainly didn’t mean I had blisters on my asshole after sex. You know that, right, J.T.?”

“Whatever.” J.T. dismissed anything and everything that wasn’t

directly related to getting this show shot.

It was eleven o’clock and the camera personnel were coming in

to get their equipment ready. J.T. ran to meet them and try to call a quick meeting with Mick McCoy there, as a source of strength.

“Guys, gals, aliens, and other insane and insecure creatures like me who choose sitcoms as a way to make a living: I have tried something out of desperation. As most of you know, I had no time to work with our beloved Buddies. So I wrote out all of their lines on cue cards that they cannot see
unless
they physically go to specific places where I want them to go. Hopefully, they won’t think of it as direction. Maybe they’ll think I did ’em some kind of favor or that it’s part of my job description. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter because I’ve been unofficially fired by the Pooleys. Now, I have coordinated scripts for each camera that synchronize with the cue cards so you will know who to frame up on, and if it’s a single, an over, or a master.” J.T. began handing out the scripts to the department heads.

“It’s all been documented and diagrammed for each individual

camera. I know there will be confusion at first, but I think once each of you gets the hang of what I am trying to accomplish and we discuss any funky spots you may have, we might actually complete tonight’s show.”

“My God,” Mick said, “this is . . . unreal. This is so above and beyond the call of duty. J.T., does anyone know what you’re about to pull off?”

“Only you guys. To everyone else . . . who gives
an excuse-my-French,
” J.T. said.

The crew members had their assignments and the cast had to

be on their marks in order to read their lines, so, except for the per-2 9 0

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

formance, the show was shot and in the can.

Skip’s way of showing his gratitude was typical of the crew’s

reaction. He held out his

hand for J.T. to shake.

“You’re a real fuck, J.T.”

The Hollywood Dictionary

“Is that a compliment,

MASTER SHOT:
A shot that is

Skip?”

wide enough to include all the

“Hey, my own mother’s

action and that sets the visual

a real fuck.”

geography.

“Like I said, ‘Is that a

OVER:
A shot that is framed to

compliment?’”

include the back of one actor’s

The two veterans ex-

shoulder, focusing in the facial

changed a very brief, very

expressions of the other actor

genuine smile. Then it was

who is facing the camera; a.k.a.

back to cynicism as usual.

a “dirty single.”

SINGLE SHOT:
A tight shot of an

actor; a.k.a. a “floating head.”

Kirk was listening to an

mp3 of his lines on his iPod

through tiny earbuds. The crew thought he was listening to mu-

sic. It really didn’t matter what anyone thought he was doing; Kirk was a
Buddy
on this hit show, and to the camera crew, there was no rhyme or even rap to what the actors did on the set. The crew members just continued their schmuck-work.

So did Kirk. He diligently followed the path of the cue cards

for every scene, smiled every time he saw one of J.T.’s drawings of a Santa face, and when he was comfortable, came over to J.T. and spontaneously hugged him.

“Thank you.”

J.T. blinked, and nodded in return. It was their secret, and he wanted to keep it that way.

“Kirk!” Lance’s silhouette appeared in the doorway to the cave, R o b b y

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2 9 1

the bright Hollywood light behind him piercing the surrealism of the cave. “Kirk, come on out here with your fellow thespians. The studio’s got
a little something
for you.”

Kirk kept the earbuds in place, but started to jog in the direction of his real boss.

Ash, looking rested, came up to J.T. and grinned. “Here’s your

five bucks,” he said happily.

“How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to hear your speech. Listen, you might want to

take a quick stroll out to the parking spots next to the stage.” He wouldn’t say more, just turned and fell in beside a curious J.T.

As they stepped outside into the oppressive heat, their eyes had to adjust to more than the sunlight. Rocky Brook, Devon Driver, Kirk Kelly, Betty Balz, Janice Hairston, and Helena (just Helena, thank you) were each standing next to a brand-new Porsche sports car. Mingling with them was a seven-foot red bird. Kalamazoo P.

Kardinal, or rather the guy

being paid scale to wear the

The Hollywood Dictionary

suit, was hugging and mug-

ging while a man from
Peo-

“B” ROLL:
Footage of stars doing

ple
magazine took their pic-

something newsworthy, shot by

tures.

second-tier entertainment shows

“A whole bunch o’ shiny,

to be shown on TV while the

hosts of the shows read happy,

squeaky wheels getting

clever quips as voice-overs,

oiled,” J.T. muttered to Ash.

pretending they aren’t seething

Lance was there to en-

because they didn’t get an inter-

sure that the newly crowned

view.

celebrities were
not abused

by the media. Standing to

one side waiting their turn

were the cameraman and reporter from
Entertainment Tonight,
followed by
Extra, E! News,
and some other crews that would have 2 9 2

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

to grab “B” roll because they didn’t weigh in as heavyweights.

J.T. walked over to Lance, who looked strangely cheerful. “So,

looks like you guys had to concede,” J.T. said in an undertone, watching Deb manipulate each and every shot to include the big

red bird.

“Quite the opposite! Just beat Deb and the network to the

punch,” Lance chirped in delight, forgetting who he was talk-

ing to.

“Make sure that, like, Kalamazoo P. Kardinal is in the fore-

ground of every shot!” Debbie warned all the camera people, actually making eye contact to make sure that she was most certainly understood. “Do you, like, understand me? Tell me you, like, understand me!” The camera people all nodded. “Man, I’d
like,
like, to fuck her,” the cameraman from A&E whispered, his sweaty eye stuck to the sweaty eyepiece of his Arriflex camera.

“I thought you were gonna say, ‘like, fuck her
up,’”
the cameraman from Bravo whispered back, his sweaty eye stuck to his sweaty video eyepiece.

“Nah,” the A&E cameraman said, “just fuck her.”

Kalamazoo P. Kardinal began to negotiate his large bird cos-

tume toward the stacks of water bottles. “I’m dyin’ in here. I gotta get a drink. Water. Please.”

“Like, fuck the water, big bird.” Debbie pushed Kalamazoo P.

Kardinal deeper into the shots, making the poor, sweaty mascot-

guy get into an automobile with the celebrities. “Like, get in the shot, you fuckin’ bird. Whattaya think we pay you for? To drink?

Can you, like, hear me under those fucking feathers?”

“Lady,” a muffled, overheated sound came from inside the Kar-

dinal costume, “I’m gonna hava fuckin’ heatstroke in here.”

“Do that and, like, forget about the other Kardinal gigs we’ve

got lined up for you. I’ll, like, find another guy to hop into the bird suit so fast you’ll be able to drink water till you, like, drown.

I’m talkin’ replacing you faster than Disney character voices find R o b b y

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2 9 3

sound-alikes! Now, like, get

The Hollywood Dictionary

in the fucking shot!”

Lance leaned back

SOUND-ALIKES:
When a studio

against the warmth of the

refuses to pay an animated char-

cave’s exterior. It felt good

acter voice actor his or her sal-

on his back. Everything felt

ary, it hires sound-alikes at scale,

thereby saving the studio a few

good to Lance now.

hundred bucks.

“We gave the kids a
slight

pay raise,” he said to J.T.,

“and if the show remains

the hit that it is, then they’ll get a
significant
pay raise next year.

We’re even starting to negotiate the syndication fees. Piddly, but makes them feel appreciated. Second season and everyone smells

the money on this one. Just a sec.” He circled his hand in the air to signal to the Thing in charge of controlling the flow of the media crews to get
People
out and move
ET
in. “But we didn’t get hit at all, actually,” he continued in a more conspiratorial tone. “It’s creative
product placement
. The studio got a sweet deal with the car manufacturer. I mean, it’s great publicity for them. The six hottest, hippest young people in the country, the world maybe, are getting their pictures taken and their interviews done in front of
the only
car they would ever want to drive
—at least, that’s what the PR release says. And the network couldn’t be more pleased. As you can see, Kalamazoo P. Kardinal is in every shot. The corporate icono-graph that soon will compete with the Golden Arches for brand

recognition.”

J.T. wondered how this was any different from putting Saks

Fifth Avenue on a shopping bag, but for once he kept his mouth

shut. His eyes followed the
Entertainment Tonight
crew’s camera, which was pointed at Devon Driver and Kalamazoo P. Kardinal.

The
ET
interviewer was a trendy redhead who was noticeably taken with Devon.

“Devon, can you explain what is going on here, at the studio

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

lot in front of soundstage number five where
I Love My Urban
Buddies
is shot?” the redhead asked seductively. Her cameraman snorted. The edgiest of the
ET
reporters was suddenly dripping with television-host affectation.