“a nice evening at home that i dread even more”

by the aspiring movie maker – may 9,  2007

“a guy is told by a girl friend he will be set up with the perfect girl. when the guy asks his friend how she knows that her friend is perfect the girl describes everything the guy ever wanted in a girl. guy’s girl friend also explains that the girl he is going to be set up with is an extremely close family friend and that under no circumstances is he to make out with her and never call her again, as said guy was prone to do. guy hesitantly calls the perfect girl to set up the date”you don’t know me but our mutual friend thought that would should go out…” it’s an awkward conversation, one that people who didn’t marry the first girl they ever dated certainly have experienced at some point or another. The perfect girl sounds nice, she thinks the guy sounds nice and a date is set up for the following monday.

the saturday before the monday evening of the date the guy goes out with his guy friends for a few drinks and gets offensively drunk. while standing at the bar, the guy sees an attractive girl and becomes enraged when he notices the girl trying to cut in front of him at the bar. looking over at her he tries to give her mean looks. problem is that the guy is so drunk he is actually borderline retarded which make his mean looks appear more funny than mean. the girl starts laughing at the guy, further irritating him. not being very bright (not because he is drunk but because he just not very bright) the guy starts throwing ice cubes at the girl. again the girl laughs – not because she is being pelted by ice cubes in a bar, but because she can’t help but notice that the guy throws like a girl. “figures,” she thinks to herself, “i’m standing in a trendy manhattan bar with my breasts hanging out of my shirt in a fashionable outfit and i have a limp-wristed guy or homosexual throwing ice at me because i am trying to cut him at the bar. if the guy was smart he would realize that the faster i can drink, the faster i will be drunk, and the more likely it will be that later in the evening I will go home with someone, even possibly him.” she wonders to herself how the guy made it through life not being able to throw like a man, no wonder he is so hostile. she squeezes herself closer to the bar allowing her breasts to relax on the bar, something more appealing to the male bartenders than the screaming masses of guys trying to get drinks for themselves and promptly gets served a drink which she sips as she walks by the guy who is now bright red with anger. the redness appears on his cheeks in an odd manner that in better light could be mistaken for acne or razor burn. still waiting for his drink, and in a foul mood the guy observes some loser fumbling around, possibly debating whether to give a pretty girl bartender a five or one dollar bill that he has in front of him. “pussy,” he says quietly, but not so quietly that people around him can’t hear.

as the evening comes to an end the now inebriated guy walks outside with his friends to go home. his friends have all met girls and he is standing alone. as the lone straggler he attempts to hail a cab, which is somewhat difficult because it has started to rain very hard, putting available cabs at a premium. a gypsy cab pulls up and the driver demands fifty dollars for a ride that normally costs ten, making it not a good deal, at least from where the passenger is standing. as the gypsy cab pulls away (hopefully to get in a deadly accident) the guy spots a cab coming, extending his arm to attract the driver’s attention, which he does. the cab pulls up and as he is getting in he notices that from the other end the girl who cut him at the bar is getting in from the other side. “get out of my cab,” she yells. “go fuck yourself,” the guy yells, “i had it first.” there is a brief moment of silence where the guy stares at the girl and shrugs his shoulders hoping that maybe the girl would invite him to share the cab and go home with her and make out with him. while the guy was pondering this, the girl was figuring out how to get the guy out of the cab, she punched him in the stomach (remembering he didn’t know how to throw like a man she was quite sure he couldn’t take a punch like one either) knocking the guy back and making the cab all her own leaving the guy standing in the pouring rain with no other cabs in sight. his friends are gone, as are most of the other people and so the guy decides to walk home all alone. his walk home allows him some time to listen to music and think about things. though it is wet outside, he doesn’t care because he knows he will simply go home get into bed and fall asleep, it’s not like he has to look decent for anything or sadly anyone. walking home the guy contemplates the following:

1A) What is the deal with fat people on NY subways always flocking towards the ends of subway cars near the ends – shouldn’t they be standing so they lose wieght (he then rethinks the idea in his best Jerry Seinfeld imitation which is really just ok, not that he cares because it’s not like anyone will ever hear it anyway.

2A) the 2 live crew and their cronies made a lot of money selling not very good songs to jewish kids along the north shore of chicago. yes – brother marquis, fresh kid ice, and luke skywalker, made a lot of money singing about things that couldn’t have made sense to any tween from a good neighborhood and shouldn’t make sense to any decent human. as the song “hey, we want some pussy,” plays through his headphones of his ipod shuffle he tries to rationalize what exactly their lyrics means- lines that particularly struck him as odd included, but as always is the case were not limited to the following:

Q -A) “we take our turns at waxing girls behinds”

Q- B) “just nibble on my dick like a rat does cheese”

Q- C) “let’s have group sex and do the rambo”

A) did they come from the Mr. Miyagi school making out

B) has the brother marquis ever seen what a new york city rat looks like while eating.

C) the rambo??? does it involve running through a jungle? because many a jewish grandfather would argue that brother marquis and his rapper cronies belong back in…nevermind.

3) while listening to Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” he recalls an incident that may or may not have actually happened in which Bob Dylan and Thomas Pynchon sat in a village tavern (before people sat in village taverns trying to imitate them) discussing Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” the conversation as it might have happened went something like this:

Dylan: what do you think of my new stuff?

Pynchon: you know i really like it, but i do have one suggestion.

Immediately put off by the idea that there could be anything wrong with his song Dylan regretted asking Pynchon what he thought, totally disregarding the not so difficult to grasp concept that a friend who told you their honest (but not altogether flattering) opinion was a much better friend than one with sycophantic traits.

Dylan: what’s the suggestion? start wearing my ray-bans on stage to create an aura of mystique?

Pynchon: that’s amusing, but my suggestion has to with the verse that goes

“you said you’d never compromise,

with the mystery tramp,

but now you realize

he’s not selling any alibis,

as you stare into the vacuum of his eyes,

and says do you want to make a deal?”

Dylan (patting himself on the back): yeah, those are some pretty great lyrics, huh?

Pynchon: they are ok, but what do you think about these instead:

“you said you’d never compromise,

with the mystery tramp,

but now you realize

she’s not selling any alibis

as you stare into the vacuum between her thighs,

and says do you want to make a deal?”

do you see what i mean Bob? eyes don’t really suck people in like the spot between a mystery tramps thighs…have you been there lately?

Dylan: i see your point man, but i don’t think i am going to change the lyrics. i’m the writer and how i’ve written the song it’ll stay. you stay at home and work on your Gravity’s Rainbow, we’ll see how far that gets you…a book where a guys penis predicts where v-2 rockets are going to land. you can’t be a simpleton your whole life Thomas, grow up.

Pynchon, who was infinitely smarter than not only Dylan, but possibly every human who ever lived (excluding DFW (r.i.p.))  took offense to Dylan’s ignoring of his suggestion and secretly vowed to get his revenge. though it has never been proven there is a small faction of Dylan freaks (forced jew-fros, ray bans, nasally voice when not congested – make no mistake they are freaks) who believe that it was Pynchon who showed up at the Royal Albert Hall in 1966 and yelled out “Judas” before Dylan played “Like a Rolling Stone.” they also believe that Pynchon was so embarrassed by his actions (or at least they were caught on he most bootlegged concert in the history of music) that he went into hiding never to be seen in public again, other than in animation on The Simpsons.

lonely and tired the guy approached his surprisingly nice apartment, got up to his apartment and went immediately to sleep wishing he wasn’t alone. his last thought was that he had a date on monday.

sunday morning the guy woke up with his head on fire, the red bull and vodka had won again. looking in the mirror he thought of the billy joel song, and while cracking open a bottle of shame tea (TM) began singing the lyrics in his head, applying them to himself.

“yes i had to be a big shot,didn’t i,

i had to open my mouth.

i had to be a big shot, didn’t i?

all my friends were so knocked out.

i had to have the last word last night

i know what everything’s about.

i had to have a white hot spot light

i had to be a big shot last night.”

yeah he sure did put on a show the prior night, he though painfully recalling some of the things that had come out of his mouth. to the french girl he met – i also love Zissou, when he walked off the field in the world cup final i was actually with him in the locker room. he was a little bummed out but after a little kir royale he felt ok. no, i swear, why wouldn’t i be friends with Zidane? to the english girl with surprisingly good teeth – yeah when Wayne Rooney used to go out looking for sixty year old prostitutes i was right there with him. he’s a close personal friend of mine. no, i swear, why wouldn’t i be friends with Wayne Rooney? then there was the girl at the bar who he had been throwing ice at, what was wrong with him. kind of the whole dr. jimmy/mr. jim syndrome and looking at his phone he could see it was time to turn back into his better half, his girl friend was on the phone. if she heard about his behavior the night before there would be no date with her friend who was to be the most perfect girl he had ever met, that any guy had ever met. the conversation was brief basically just a reminder to be nice to the girl and that if he made out with her and never called her again he wouldn’t be making out with anyone again because she would rip his tongue out of his mouth.

the guy went about the rest of his day, kind of excited for the meeting of his “perfect” girl, wondering exactly who the perfect girl was for him. he liked to think she was in NYC, it had long been his hunch (and a determining factor in his moving there) and playing the odds and all, but who knew?

the remainder of sunday came and went. he read The Times, the post and found the truth somewhere in between. he watched the sopranos and entourage and hung out with Masson and brother masson, both of whom had recently returned from los angeles. apparently they had grown tired of making meetings to have meetings deciding to settle for just meetings.

monday at work went by pretty quickly as he was very excited for the evening where he would meet a good friends interpretation of the perfect girl for him. monday night came around and he excitedly left work, headed home and got dressed for his big date. it had been decided by the mutual friend that they would meet at an italian restaurant (but god help him if he made any reference to a  bottle of red, bottle of white, perhaps the mood the girl was in tonight) perfectly in between their two apartments. when the guy showed up he looked around for the girl wondering which one she was. it was an interesting thing to watch random strangers walk by and to wonder which one he would be spending the evening with, err dinner with. sitting outside looking around he felt a tap on his shoulder. he turned around and saw a very pretty…girl that he had thrown ice at and gotten punched in the stomach by. as luck would have it his “perfect” girl was the girl he had gotten in a fight with on saturday night…”

end script.

“oh, this is just terrible,” the movie decision maker said, rising from his chair. “i’ve heard it all before.”

“no, you haven’t,” responded the aspiring movie maker.

“i’ve heard it all before,” the movie decision maker mentioned again, with slightly more emphasis.

“no, you haven’t,” again replied the aspiring movie maker, also with slightly more emphasis.

“alright this could go on all day. i’m not going to dip my balls in your script, but what the fuck? i can’t believe you wasted my time with it. it showed promise at the beginning and even the middle, but the end was just flat. it almost seems like you wrote all of this just to tell the when Dylan met Pynchon joke and maybe a few others. it’s just very bad.”

“i thought it was a decent start,” the aspiring film maker said.

“well, i can’t help you with this…even if it was really, really good i couldn’t do anything i just got an e-mail and it looks like the studio is going to go in a different direction for the summer.”

“how much more different can you get than what i just gave you?”

“will ferrell just sent an e-mail with his next project – here you can read for yourself.”

from: Will Farrell

to: movie decision maker

subject: your next hit

Movie Decision Maker,

please read the following it is the next movie i am going to make. based on my track record i don’t think i really need to explain much. anyway, i wanted to go in a different direction (don’t worry by different i don’t mean adam sandler or even worse jim carrey, i know my role and serious it is not) so for this movie it’s going to be me playing a flower. yeah it will chronicle my life and eventual death and allow me to partake in a lot of physical comedy and basic humor. there will also be special appearances by vince vaughn, ben stiller, and owen and luke wilson. stiller actually has the best scene where he acts like a dog, gets on all fours, and pees all over me. the audiences will die. anyway the cost of making the movie is thirty seven dollars, plus my fee of seventy-five million dollars. it will take three days to shoot and initial projections show that opening weekend will cover all of the costs. i look forward to working with you again.

toodles,

Will

“i can’t believe you are going to make that over my story,” the now angry aspiring movie maker complained.

“much like a girl i used to know, feather beagan, it’s a sure thing. it’s the right move for the studio. why would i take a risk on you? i already have the good job. i can only go down.”

realizing that his time with the movie decision maker was quickly running out the aspiring movie maker became desperate and started screaming out other movie ideas.

the aspiring movie maker asked “i’ve savored these ideas for so long but now is the time to let them out. have you ever really savored something?”

“well, this one time i had a batch of snicker doodles, but i expect where you are going with this is very different.”

“how about this one about death on a subway. bruce willis plays a hung over guy waiting for the f-train to come. it is hot and steamy day in the subway and after twenty minutes he becomes very upset. finally, when the train comes into the station and he can see the conductor in the front train smiling he pulls out a rifle and shoots the conductor to death. the movie can be called “attention passengers we are being held due to a dead conductor at the stop ahead. it could be huge!”

not sure what to do the movie decision maker walked towards his desk reaching underneath to press the silent alarm button.

“ok fine how about this – a broadway re-enactment of ernie maresca’s “shout shout knock yourself out.” imagine if you will a world of super humans who have no choice but to start dancing every time they hear this song. the final scene will take place in a temple and as the song plays the crowd will sway back and forth in unison. one by one a guy and girl will get up and do crazy dances down the aisle. scream scream you know what i mean (a couple goes down the aisle) put another dime in the record machine (another couple goes down – all with very over emphasized dancing!), no? how about painfully awkward? my friend suzie knows they guy who wrote it and she said he would love to make it into a screenplay. she knows him. better yet why don’t we rip it off and make it – comfortably cool, no? fine, offensively arrogant the story of investment bankers!!! dangerously self-absorbed – the story of the musician whose ego was so big his head exploded and his guitar unstrung itself and hung him. work with me here!!!!”

sensing that security was now getting close to him and having a flare for dramatic exits the aspiring film maker backed up to the farthest point form the movie decision maker’s window, made the bull charge motion with his leg and ran out the window. probably around here it should be noted that the movie decision maker’s office was located on the first floor of the building so all the exit really caused was a little broken glass around the floor. the aspiring movie maker dusted himself off and went on his way, feeling no worse for wasting all of your time with his story.