Tactical Espionage Action

CONFIRMED! I will be appearing in the Weezer music video. I have to be at the Forum in Inglewood at 7am tomorrow morning. Wait, Inglewood? From what I’ve gathered, Inglewood is Compton Lite. Why would Weezer, a band consisting of scrawny white boys be shooting a video featuring their scrawny white fans in Inglewood? And at 7am no less. Is that still a time of day?

But this is no time to question the Weezer authorities. If I’m going to be in the hootenanny, I need to bone up on my guitar strumming. Rose was kind enough to let me borrow her six-string so I could practice my scales. But instead of doing that, I drove to Hollywood to drop off my screenplay at a production company. It’s Wednesday street cleaning anyway, so I might as well do it now, lest I want a parking ticket.

Upon arriving at the production company in Hollywood, rather than pay to use a parking garage or fill the meter, I pulled the Cougar into a CVS Pharmacy lot, hoping and praying the “Reserved for CVS customers. Violators will be towed at owners expense,” signs littering the place didn’t pertain to me. While briskly walking to my destination, I came across the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I passed the star of Roy Rogers, who is right on the corner of I believe Cahuenga and Hollywood Boulevard, but that might not be accurate—I should’ve taken better notes. I’ve always wanted to see this attraction, but there was no time to waste sightseeing now. In my hands was Hollywood’s next rejected screenplay. I was on a mission to deliver this to a production company who would take it from me, throw it in the recycling bin, and move on to the next one in the pile.

I’d made it to the security building. I stated my name and purpose. They asked if I had an appointment. I said that I did not, and that I was just going to drop off my screenplay because the production company was open to taking unsolicited submissions. After a little sweet-talking and a bit of luck, I was sent up to the office.

When I reached the top floor, the elevator opened up to what you would expect a production company’s waiting room to look like. Everything was sleek and streamlined. It looked fast paced and cutting edge, even though the receptionist was clearly bored. It didn’t look like she had too many projects to work on. She kindly asked me to have a seat and someone would be with me right away. I walked over to one of the couches—the back support was taller than I am standing up. When I sat down, I felt like I was about to get my picture taken in one of the oversize novelty couches they have at the State Fair (golly shucks). This was clearly a subliminal attempt at intimidation. Just because my feet couldn’t touch the ground right now didn’t mean I was going to let these Hollywood big wigs walk all over me. If they wanted to play by prison rules, we could play by prison rules. So the first thing I did was take out my hunting knife and carve up all of their throw pillows. That was phase one. In phase two, I knocked over their magazine rack. Finally, I threw myself through their glass coffee table. The receptionist looked at me like I was crazy. Feeling bad, I cleaned everything up and sat down again.

From there, the receptionist and I watched Divorce Court together. It concluded when the paternity results showed the defendant was the baby’s daddy, and decided to be a part in his son’s life from then on out. While watching the next show about a hard-boiled judge that had an erection for justice, I began running the numbers in my head for how much money it would take to get my car back from the towing company.

After a 45-minute moment, the head of the production company came out to greet me. After which, he said:

“Um, have we met before?”

“No sir, we have not.”

“So, how did you get up here?”

I explained the situation to him and how I thought it would be best if I delivered my screenplay manually rather than an electronic submission because I wanted to be sure he got it personally. He told me that was not how it’s usually done, and I tried my best to play it cool like Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, and act like this is how I always do these kinds of things. He took my story, we said our goodbyes, and I assured him we would be in touch in the future. I said goodbye to the receptionist whom I had bonded with over daytime courtroom television, and took the elevator back to the first floor. As soon as I left, the executive probably took my screenplay, peed on it, let it fester for a few minutes, and then went about his busy executive day. But that’s not the point. The point is, I infiltrated a production company’s office in the heart of Hollywood, hand-delivered my screenplay to the head of the company, and then hopped back in my not towed ’93 Cougar to drive back to the hostel I’d been living in for two weeks now. This left me feeling pretty badass, even if nothing comes of it.

To celebrate my victory, I went to Ralphs where they are having a sale on eight pieces of chicken for five bucks. That was too much chicken to eat, but it was cheaper to buy eight pieces than it was to buy three, so I went with it.

With four pieces down to nothing but the bone, I realized I couldn’t handle this all on my own. Fortunately, I heard a familiar voice coming from outside. Running to the window, I saw Gweat’s yelling at a dumpster. I shouted out to him, “Hey Gweat’s—,” he looked up. “I’ve got some chicken up here. You wanna help me eat it?”

Gweat’s paused, looked at the dumpster again, then back at me. “Yeah, hang on. I’ll be up in a minute.” Walking back over to the chicken table, I heard Gweat’s finish up his poignant argument. By the end of his roe, I saw his point.

Cut to:

Gweat’s and I sitting at a table eating chicken together.

After that, it was time to practice guitar so as to not let Weezer down. They also pushed back the start time to 8am, giving me another hour to become the guitar savant I always knew I was. As it turns out, I suck. Not consistently playing guitar for a couple of years has rendered me terrible. Not that I was good before, but I was failing at playing things I used to be get through with the greatest of ease. Giving up, I went outside where Marko, Sait, and a few others were sitting around smoking not whacky-tobaccee. Then Jeff, a first floor resident, asked if anyone wanted to play Guitar Hero. We all reluctantly went to the TV room, hooked up the Wii, and took turns passing the plastic toy guitar around like it were some peace pipe. After a couple of rounds, I can honestly say I also suck at Guitar Hero, too.

Whatever. It’s all about the image anyway, which I won’t have if I don’t get some sleep tonight. I crawled into bed, with images of Weezer and that dancing baby from Ally McBeal dancing in my head.