Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (31 page)

morning . . .” J.T. repeated as he watched the remains of the child pornographer being loaded into the van. The doors closed and the vehicle drove away, off the magical studio lot where today, nothing was an illusion.

The Llllaker Girrrrrls!

Just before J.T. and Ash returned to the cave, Dick Beaglebum

came running toward them from the direction of the parking lot, waving his hands and out of breath. He was really sweating. “J.T.!

J.T., wait!”

J.T. tried to remember the last time he had really looked at Dick Beaglebum. He’d forgotten how small and roly-poly Dick was; on

the phone, he always sounded smooth, enthusiastically slick. J.T.

closed one eye and tracked the man as he approached.
I wouldn’t
cast the part of Dick Beaglebum with this schlub,
he thought. What he called out was, “Dick? Dick Beaglebum—is that . . . you?” like an actor in a straight-to-video movie.

“J.T.,” Dick gasped out as he arrived. Then he doubled over,

trying to catch his breath. “I came down as soon as I heard.”

“Heard what?” J.T. asked.

“Heard on the news about the suicide. The degenerape-

aroonie! The Perv-Griffin.” Dick’s verbal intercourse could turn lexical right-to-lifers into etymological abortionists.

“Yes . . . It was . . . awful,” J.T. said.

“It’s
fantastic
. It’s all over town! It’s
national
now. CNN, Fox, MSNBC! And they’ve been saying your name in some of the print

releases!” Dick said with glee. “I couldn’t’ve bought you this kinda PR!

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

J.T. threw a worried glance at Ash. “My name? Why?”

“Baby! J.T., don’t go all right and wrong on me, babe. This is

very good for you. It’s one thing for the industry to know you’re shooting the number one sitcom. It’s quite another for the general public to know. It’s free publicity and any publicity is good publicivious, babe,” Dick said, finally standing upright and almost breathing normally.

“It’s a
tragedy,
” J.T. protested.

“Not if you ask me—or maybe the rest of the country. One less

child predatoreador on the planet the better!”

“Well . . . I really don’t want to talk about it, okay?” J.T. said.

“Fine. But I guess the guy really
lost his head,
huh?” Beaglebum giggled.

“Not funny,” J.T. said. “Funnier than anything in this sitcom,

but not funny.”

“He kinda
went head over heels,
huh?” Dick laughed, looking around for a more sympathetic audience and finding only Ash,

who was standing with his arms crossed and a stony expression

on his face.

“Enough,” J.T. said.

“I guess his
perv-ormance
is over! Hear the one about the perv who gave
good head
?” By now Dick was doubled over again, this time in hysterics.

“Look—if you want to make dead man jokes, go and stand

with the producer-writers who are on the stage right now, just

snickering with pleasure that a man died today. Their jejune joke sessions have perked up since the suicide.”

“Hey—no need to get all fuckityuppitybum, J.T.,” Dick said.

“Look, I actually wanted to
kill two pervs with one stone
. I’ve got something for you, J.T. And you too, um . . .”

“Ash,” Ash said.

“Ash! Yes of course. Sorry.” Dick Beaglebum stopped and stared

at Ash. “You’re black?” he noticed.

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2 2 3

“I
am
Ash Black. Unless you are referring to the color of my skin. In that case, I am still Ash Black. Correct, J.T.?” Ash asked.

“Yup. Still Black-black,” J.T. said.

“Well, anyway,” Dick said, “I want
both
of you to have these.”

And he took out a huge stack of basketball tickets from his pocket.

J.T. stared at the purple and gold lettering. “Laker tickets?” he asked, confused.

“Oh, I get it,” Ash said. “Because I’m black, you think
I’ll
really enjoy the
basketball
game, don’t you?”

“No—don’t be silly. My son David is having his bar mitzvah

on Saturday. At the Staples Center! I want you two to be there.

Even though you’re black and all. Sammy Davis Jr. was a black Jew, ya know.”

“So am I,” Ash said, facetiously.

“No shit! Is this a weird world or what? Anyway, it just wouldn’t be the same if you two weren’t there. Here are your tickets.” And Dick handed the two perplexed men printed tickets from the

Staples Center that had the time of day and
David’s Bar Mitzvah
printed where the team’s logo usually appeared.

“I . . . don’t know what to say . . .” J.T. mumbled.

“Whattaya mean? It’ll be the best fucking bar mitzvah this town has ever seen! First off I have a rabbi who has not only worked large crowds before, but he’s also a pro at theater-in-the-round.

Did a bar mitzvah in St. Louis at the Muni! And he’s known as
the
rabbi to the stars
. He’s also an agent at William Morris. Talk about range! Your multitasking! Also—also, get this—I’ve got THE LLLLAKER GIRLS!”

J.T. realized his mouth was agape when he went to speak and

found it was there ahead of him. “The Laker Girls? For your son’s bar mitzvah? Why?”

“Why?” Beaglebum laughed. “Why not?!”

“I thought it was a religious ceremony,” Ash said.

“It is! ‘Today I am a man’ and all that stuff. What better way to 2 2 4

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

be a man than to have the LLLLaker Girls?!” Beaglebum’s chest was puffing with pride.

“Well . . .” J.T. was lost for words. A lot of words
were
in fact going through his head, but he resisted the temptation to organize them into speech.

“And,” Beaglebum motored on, “you’ll never guess what hap-

pens after the reading of the Torah! Come on—guess!”

“I have no clue. You bought your son a ticket on the Space

Shuttle?” J.T. guessed.

“My son, David, will play Kobe Bryant, one on one, in a game

of Bar Mitzvah Ball! Kobe Bryant! Can you believe it?! Kobe fucking Bryant is going to play my son one on one after David reads from the Torah! I got the prop department on another show to

make me basketballs that look exactly like matzo balls!” Dick was so excited that there was a distinct possibility he would keel over.

His breathing was still labored.

“Well, it certainly beats my bar mitzvah. My bar mitzvah was

actually boring by comparison. I mean, all I got was
spirituality,
”

J.T. said.

“My God, Dick,” Ash said, “how much is this setting you

back?”

“Over a half a mil. But—I did some creative accounting and I

think I’m actually gonna make tons o’ dough off of this. Not only that, but I packaged
Can You Top This Bar Mitzvah?
as a reality show on Spike TV. This bar mitzvah is the prototype—the pilot.

I’m parlaying the exotics into major cash. Some putz father rented out the Kodak Theatre where they do the Oscars and held an Oscar-themed bar mitzvah. Pfff! Do you know how good my bar

mitzvah’s gonna be compared to his? Everything included, it cost them a little over four hundred thou. His kid read the Torah like a bad acceptance speech: ‘You love me! You really
ba-ruch ah-tah
a-do-nuy, eh-lo-hay-nu
love me! I’d like to thank my father—’ Oy!

But now I’m the big cheese. And I pulled a fast one. Not only is it R o b b y

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more expensive, but I’ll recoup, baby! Recoup, exec produce, and syndication here we come,
V’-HI-GI-AH-NOO LAZ-MAN HA-ZEH!
For you black-jews,
Ash:
‘and enabled us to reach the joyous occasion of our son’s bar mitzvah!’”

J.T.’s brain just didn’t work like Dick’s. “Exec produce your

son’s bar mitzvah? Recoup?” he asked. “How are you going to make money, at the Staples Center, with Kobe Bryant, matzo basketballs, and the Laker Girls?”

“Okay, get this,” Dick said mischievously. “I also hooked up

with Phat Azz’s manager and we went over the numbers. It seems

his biggest demographic is young white boys, and that demo is so important to his record label that Phat Azz is willing to share the bill and the gate with me as long as I fill the seats with young white record-buying Jewish boys! And Phat wants to be the host of
Can
You Top This Bar Mitzvah?
”

J.T. shook his head. “My father used to use an old Yiddish ex-

pression,
Mensch trachts, Gott lachts
. It means, ‘Man plans, God laughs,’” he said.

Dick ignored him. “I’m even sharin’ merchandising! Do you

know what that means?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, I think I know what that means. Your

thirteen-year-old son has a very good chance of being a very

fucked-up man. Forgive me, but my sensibilities have been tested today and I’m afraid I’m failing every test,” J.T. said, and just turned and walked back to work.

“Well . . . I’m sure it will be . . . very
pious
entertainment, Mr.

Beaglebum,” Ash said, trying for a decent transition to make up for J.T.’s abrupt departure.

“It already is!” Dick took the tickets back from Ash, looked at the seats, then returned them. “Look, you seem like a nice big black guy,” he said with his quintessential agent-élan.

“Um, thank you.”

“If you want to sit closer, just let me know. I can’t get you on 2 2 6

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

the floor but I can seat you with the B-list celebs and players.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’m going inside to give out some more tickets. The more fa-

mous people I give comps to, the more the kids will wanna pay to get in. I may even have a deal with the E! Channel. A&E turned me down, but take away the A and whattaya got? E! And E! is talkin’

some mighty big numbers. Then: fuck Spike TV! Just gotta clear it with Phat Azz’s Posse. See you in there!” Dick had his breath back completely by now. With a little skip in his walk, he went into the cave, shouting “The LLLLaker Girls!”

“Everyone who wants to go to Las Vegas with me on our private

jet, be out front in ten minutes,” Stephanie Pooley announced. “I hope the cast is on that plane. I know how hard you boys and girls have been working and it would be good for you and very good

for the show if you let off some steam in Vegas. Remember,” she added, “what happens in Vegas . . . may be in next week’s episode.”

The boys and girls giggled conspiratorially.

“Vegas!” Devon said, imitating the Vegas voice-over voice.

“I wanna go!” Betty made sure everyone heard her. She hated

being left out of anything fun.

“Excuse me? Whoa—I mean—really? I don’t mean to pop any-

one’s balloon,” J.T. said as he moved forward, blocking Stephanie’s way. “The cast has only worked . . . actually a total of
less
than two hours. Tomorrow is camera-blocking and they don’t really have

their blocking
or
their lines down. I’d like to use the rest of today as a cleanup rehearsal so Thursday and Friday will go smoothly.”

“I told ya he sucked. He doesn’t want us to unwind.” Devon had

already started gathering the cast. As the Alpha Actor, he wanted to make sure no one stayed behind.

Stephanie stared with a mixture of anger and amusement at

J.T.’s shirt collar.

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“Listen,” he said quickly. “I want to give you a good show. I

need the actors. Two hours of rehearsal—please, look me in the

eye and let’s get on the same page about this. Please.”

“I like it when you grovel,” Stephanie laughed. “My actors are

under a great deal of daily stress. You can’t imagine that because you were never in a number one show.”

“She’s right,” Rocky managed to say, swigging his Vicodin. “I’m under a lot of stress. I just auditioned for that big Oliver Stone movie.”

Devon’s ears pricked. “So did I.”

“My audition went, well, as my agent put it, I knocked his—”

“—socks off,” they both said in sync.

“Who’s your agent?” Devon demanded.

“I’m at Quad.”

“I know that, Rocky. So am I. Who represents you at Quad?”

Devon demanded again.

“Veronica. Veronica Goliath,” Rocky said. His eyes were actu-

ally looking in different directions thanks to the narcotics.

“She’s my agent, too,” Devon said, pissed at this news. “When

did you hop agents?”

“Last week.”

“She . . .” When Devon got really pissed off, his way of trying not to show it was to take long pauses. “She . . . told me . . . she would never . . . handle another . . .
Buddy
.”

“I know,” Rocky revealed. “She lies.”

“She . . . lies?”

“Yeah. The other day when I caught her in a lie, she said, ‘Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never been lied to before, Rocky.’ She’s a great liar. Really, really good at it.”

“Yeah. I suppose ya want a good liar for an agent,” Devon con-

ceded, calmer now.

“No shit. And Veronica Goliath is the best.”

The actors had wandered away from Stephanie and J.T. dur-

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

ing this exchange. Meanwhile, Stephanie pressed her advantage.

“So let me explain,” she overenunciated. “One can’t quantify the stress an actor goes through with the number of hours worked!

These actors work in their private lives. They’re famous. They always have to be ‘on.’ They need a release. I can sense it. In other words, end of conver-say-see-on!”

That was all the cast needed to hear. Like a bunch of little kids who hear the recess bell, they practically ran out the stage door, where vans were waiting to whisk them to the Burbank Airport, on their way to a fun and stress-free evening in Las Vegas.

“See ya,” Janice flaunted her bulging breasts, twisting her torso as she brushed past J.T. and left the cave.