John Domini: Movieola!

—A man like the vodka. Under a million stars.

—Exactly—you and me, we’d never need another meeting. One look at that video, that happy critter in its home, and haven’t I got just what I need right here on the air mattress?

—The answer’s right beside you. And far overhead, across the night sky, sketches form and disappear.

—Are you seeing what I’m saying? You and me, lover, we’ve got a new movie. Stoly came up with it. He’s got this thing he does with the day’s catch, he loses a finger in the mouth—funny out-there Outback thing. That’s how he came up with it, exactly the threat, so exactly. I’m not even going to tell you. I’m going to text you. I’m going to show you the exact words, the ones to pass along tomorrow, the miraculous new movie.

( Text) ZOMBIE FISH

( Text, same number ) Hello? Yo? See what Im saying?

( Text reply ) We going to teach a zombie to fish?

( Text ) LOL. But, so, see? You w/ me?

( Text reply ) I see. The project.

( Text ) New threat = total new arc.

( Text reply ) Shutting down now. Tomorrow Im all about the name above the title.

( Text ) Btfl.

( Text reply ) The movie I’ve wanted all my life.

Listen, I’m not saying you don’t have a movie. Two girls and a guy and the Mars Rover, that’s a movie. Come tomorrow morning, you pitch that right, you won’t be riding this shuttle home empty-handed. You’ll be riding a green light. I mean, if I’ve learned anything, I’ve learned to spot a viable pitch. The high concept, the balls and alacrity, the miracle no matter the demographic.

Still, the Flexxies—that’s one strange demographic.

Yeah, strange, tomorrow. Pitching the Flexxies. So, tonight, listen. Listen to what happened with my project. There’s time, a trip like this, and I think there’s something to think about.

Anyway, don’t they let you sleep in, out there? Come morning, anyway, you know you’ll be wired. Try one of these, Botox and rye, and listen.

Now, my project, I realize that some of this won’t be news. I realize you’re flying the same charter I am. And my project, wasn’t it blog-fodder, majorly? The gossip caromed from screen to satellite and back, again and again, ramifying. Of course that was before all the excitement about the Flexxies. But, we had a sports movie, right? Right. Sports movie, natural narrative—tawkin spawts . We had a natural-born winner about a team that never won.

That was key, the real world, that model. We had it set up so that an actual waking-life team would always be out there living the nightmare. Right from the storyboards this project was all about some genuine losing franchise, a bunch of bottom-dwellers, couldn’t catch a break. Living the nightmare, I mean, natural narrative. Myself, you know, as soon as I flashed on the verisimilitude? I closed my eyes and I saw the green light.

No, I can’t remember who they were, the team we started with. The Cubs, yeah, that’d be the natural. But for all I know it was a hockey team out of Mexico City. That’s not my end of things. That’s the research and, I mean, I’m the creative. If somebody wants to get into just which ball club it was, and just how bad their stats were, my eyes glaze over. What pops my eyes open is those first swoops and oblongs on the storyboard. I’m seeing it, the players and the people who stay with them, the heartbreak year after year. And this in real life! It’s classic, it’s stages of grief, totally.

See, the setup was, at first the players and the people who love them are all the nicest folks you could ever want to meet. It’s a pigsty to you, but to them—paradise. Then one day Satan walks into the locker room and offers to help.

Telling you too much? I’m telling you too much? Hey, isn’t that nice of you, getting worried about a brother’s intellectual property rights. Thanks. Serious.

But what that tells me is, you don’t know the whole story, the craziness of this project.

Listen. So some evil dude, “Satan” is a euphemism, he comes to our loser team and offers to help. Never mind what his wicked plan is, can’t tell you that, but it works. The guys escape the cellar. The team begins to contend, big time—but. It’s not the same. It’s all hate now. The players and fans both tumble downhill in one big pigsty-shitball of hate. Finally our Best Actress in a Leading Role—and I mean, that’s the kind of talent we got, I mean bankable, and she was a big help after the trouble started—anyway our Number-One Honey has to make a big speech in her low-rise jeans and tube top. An Oscar moment, majorly, and with that the whole community can straighten up and fly right. They can rid themselves of the Devil, drop back deep into the second division, and be the born losers that God intended. Both down on the field and up in the stands everyone works through the stages, the frank assessments et cetera, right up to acceptance, kiss, chorus, purple mountains majesty.

Classic. Stawwy I was bawwn to tell. Haw.

But, serious—we didn’t have to pitch the thing more than once. Plus I told you about the kind of talent we got. And halfway into production we’re beautiful, we’re bankable, when all of a sudden the team we’re working from, our model out in reality, the Mudville Life Sucks or whoever—that team takes the pennant. They won the pennant and the statuette. All of a sudden they’re Clutch Cargo, it’s craziness, right through the seventh game. Our long national nightmare is over.

Or theirs was over. Then there was ours, just beginning. The full colonoscopy.

No, no, don’t tell me we should’ve changed the story. Don’t tell me we should’ve retooled and come up with a happy ending. Are you forgetting I’m the creative? The miracle, I mean, that’s my job. Anyway, don’t you think we tried, my people and I? We went straight to the mattresses and put up the storyboards. Wasn’t long before someone sketched out your basic happy-ending rom-com, either, like that Red Sox movie a few years back. They had a similar situation, that project, a team that went from outhouse to penthouse. And the way they handled it was, put the big comeback on the screen and have your stars run out onto the field, screaming for joy. Go Sawx. But! Our thing was different, it was the natural thing, real life . The one about the Red Sox, they were just looking for good times, everybody goes home and gets laid. Our thing was all about going deeper, further, the narrative without limit. No matter the demographic, we had to make it work, another layer in the mashup.

Brotherman, come to think—something else. Check the mirror behind the bar. Check it, yeah, see that? See how the Botox is working already? Haw!

Tomorrow, you want every edge you can get, with those freaks.

Now, so, my project. Things were looking ugly but we still had one significant piece of leverage. We had our Top Babe, I mean, there’s a few things I can tell you about her without telling you too much. She was on the Madonna-to-J. Lo continuum. She hooked us into three or four demographics at once. I mean music plus fashion, plus our thing of course, and on top of all that she had sports. So when the trouble started she was solid. She’s right there about the narrative, thumbs down on winners, all about the true-to-life and the tragic. None of that Hallmark Afterschool for her. She signed on because she wanted some edge. And then comes one meeting, she’s there in the War Room with us and she’s giving her thumbs down, and you couldn’t help but notice the woman’s shoulders and pecs. Her fashion line featured a lot of chest that season. We couldn’t help but notice, everyone in on the creative—the fix was staring us in the face. We’d’ve been blind if we didn’t bring it up. And I don’t mind saying, it was me, I’m the one who mentioned chick sports.