Bruce Wagner - Dead Stars

. . . . the peacock Puppetmathers spit look at these rappers how I treat em but Jerzy knew the Puppetmathers had censored himself— such was his brilliance & the enormity of his vision! — Jerzy didn’t need to contact the martyr Suge Knight to know that the original filecard in PuppetMathers’ vast word-warehouse must have read look at these niggers— a lyric he would reinstate with high pomp and ceremony when the Wars had ended victorious, & all Blacks who had not Whitened were vanquished—— — more collabs were comin: Tyler the Creator feat. Taylor Swift/T.I./Whoop Goldberg/Busta Rhymes… Mobb Deep feat. Jeff Bridges/Rick Ross/Karl Lagerfeld & Kanye West… 5 °Cent feat. Katy Perry & Russell Brand/Chris Brown/Jerry Seinfeld. . Wiz Khalifa feat. Pharrell/Paul McCartney/Nicki Minaj/Selena Gomez/Drake/T.I./Matt Damon. . Nas/feat. The Mumford Brothers/Snoop/Jeff Bezos/Betty White. . MIA feat. AKON/Gwyneth/Jay-Z/Skylar Grey/Sasha Grey/Reese Witherspoon/Homer Simpson/5 °Cent/Drew Barrymore. . Gwyneth Paltrow feat. Dre/Eminem/Chippy D/Lupe Fiasco/Bruno Mars/Nancy Grace/Cher Lloyd it

filled

him

with

DISGUST

he wanted to set

fire to the

Plantation

he wondered when Suge Knight was gunna

call

Dead Starfishes

“I

know we’re gunna find our boy — gon find him today! ”

Larry Fishburne was in high spirits. He & Douglas had just come from lunch at Ago; they thought they’d drop into the Ooh Baby production offices unannounced & give Antwone a hard time. Fish (not Fishburne) was deep in the throes of casting, which made the s even more impishly rambunctious.

Of course, all of the interns, gofers, staffers (especially Brando Brainard) were thrilled to see them. Their good-time energy boded well. They broke into Fish’s casting session, intimidating whatever hopeful happened to be in the hotseat.

Which in this instance was Rikki.

“We’re just busting our friend Antwone’s balls,” said Fishburne to Rikki. “We know you can take it — we just want to see if he can.”

Antwone smiled, surrendering to the high-voltage hijinx. Douglas crept up behind Fishburne and stage-whispered to Rikki, as if inviting him into their special confidences. “We’re just taking the piss . Ever heard that phrase, Rikki?”

He couldn’t believe — didn’t, actually — any of this was happening.

“It’s veddy British,” said Fishburne, “for ball-busting .”

“My wife uses it all the time,” said Douglas.

“Is she a ball-buster?” said Fishburne.

“She’s Welsh , what can I say?”

The director got the boys to settle down, which they did, mindful of the auditioner’s nerves. There were two others in the room, casting people, both with big grins. One manned the camera while the other sat next to Fish, taking notes after each aspirant left the room.

“And by the way,” said Fishburne to Rikki. “I’m Fishburne , he’s Fish . Just so nobody’s confused.” Then he winked at him.

The scene they were in the middle of took place just after the boy almost takes the two grifters for 5K at a rigged bingo game. They outwit him but are intrigued. Who IS this young flimflammer? They take him to a steakhouse, where he has a long, moving monologue about his life as a foster child. The casting gal had been reading the lines of other characters, but Fishburne & Douglas insisted on jumping in.

Rikki read it through, & the director told him to do it again, but “a little lighter on your feet.”

Michael Douglas (!) said, “That one was for free, because my uncouth friend and I rattled your cage. For which we apologize.”

“Yes,” said Fishburne, in earnest. “We were taking the piss out of our friend here, not you.”

Rikki began the monologue, & had a good feeling in his stomach. When he reached the end, Douglas read his line:

FALCONER (DOUGLAS)

Well now, that’s a helluva moving story, kid. But how do we know it’s true?

SLOOP (FISHBURNE)

He’s right. How do we know?

JEROME (RIKKI)

You don’t.

(Beat)

And why is that a problem?

The men laughed too loudly at Rikki’s deadpan delivery, told him he was killer, then left as noisily as they’d arrived.

He read with the casting woman for another 20 minutes, with Fish giving him very specific notes, as if to make up for the disruption. It was only after Rikki left the office and was getting on his motorcycle that he realized he hadn’t said anything about their similar backgrounds or how much he loved the book Fish wrote and the movie they made about his life too — as he’d planned.

The Player

“Thanks

for coming in, Bud.”

It’d been a long time since some showbizzer thanked him for coming in. Even though it was bullshit, it still felt good.

The offices of Ooh Baby Baby were in that luxe business pocket of Beverly Hills, a triangle made up of Burton Way, Santa Monica Boulevard & Doheny. The building was of the hipped up, minimal school, all concrete & open plan.

“It’s a little crazy around here. We usually cast somewhere else but it’s too boring to even talk about.”

On the way in, Bud noted a clump of gangly, nervous-looking black teens with script pages in their hands.

“Are they here for Michael’s movie?”

“‘Michael’s movie’! I like that.”

“I meant — the movie he wrote for you.”

“We’ve got two Fishes and two Michaels around here— very confusing. Tolkin’ll love that, Michael’s movie! In a sense, I suppose it is. Have you read the script? To Treasure ? I’ll give it to you. It’s probably one of the most amazing screenplays I’ve ever read. Michael is writing on a beyond Aaron Sorkin level.”

“He’s pretty great.”

“Did you ever see The Rapture ? I’m a huge fan of The Player— that opening shot? But The Rapture… I think it’s better . He’s an amazing director. The Rapture ’s one of my all-time favorites & I only saw it for the 1st time when Michael came onboard. Fucking genius .”

Brando Brainard looked absolutely like a cheerleader — no: one of those tireless Jehovah’s Witnesses who go door to door — no: the boy that played the Music Man when Bud was in junior high. Whatever he was, he was American through and through. His skin glowed with capital promise, hard, hopeful, shiny as a Granny apple. He was 28 but looked 18. Brando’s fanboy élan, his peppy innocence, his unabashed verve were absolutely contagious — moreso when Bud refreshed the page to remind himself not just of the sweet kid’s billions but of Tolkin’s unswerving faith in the youngster’s proclivity to make a deal. Bud felt suddenly lifted on a cushion of air, as if to get a better view of the inexorable rightness of the world. It wasn’t so far a leap for him to see himself of the same class as Faulkner and Fitzgerald — a novelist preparing to moonlight as a screenwriter, for a little fast and easy cash.

“Here’s the deal, Bud. And I’m going to pretend you know nothing about Ooh Baby, OK? I’m going to pretend you don’t have a computer. That you don’t even know what a search is. Old school. That’s what I almost called the company, by the way. Old School. But my little brother liked Ooh Baby. So do I. It’s funny, people come in here looking for jobs — not screenwriters, people who just want to work in production. By the time they’re sitting in that chair, they’ve read so much shit on the Internet — and I don’t care if it’s favorable or unfavorable, I call it shit because it’s a shitstorm of information with no human context. But they’re somehow proud of themselves! Like they want me to know how much time they spent Googling . Really? So by the time they get in that chair, it’s like they’ve already had the whole experience . I’m like, really? It’s kind of like they’ve already worked here— because that’s how these people talk, like they know everything , which is true , but they only know everything the Internet told them — don’t get me wrong, Bud, I get the Internet, I’m a Millennial, I’m an Internet baby— but it’s like by the time they finish talking, I feel like , Wow, I either need to fire this person or give them a raise! OK. Sorry for the preamble.