Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (37 page)

to see how much interference I’d get out on the
Urban Exterior
Street
. The kid helped me out and we went and tested it. Only problem . . .
I forgot
to take it off the kid and the kid forgot he R o b b y

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was wearing it. Everything in the greenroom was piped out here.

I mean, once I started hearing how much shit they were giving

you; I thought the crew oughta know what you go through. Then,

when they launched into the pay-us-more-money thingamajiggy

and you called ’em on it with that line sayin’ that they make more in a week than your neighbors make all year, well, that was classic.

I recorded the whole thing,” Larry said. “It’ll be all over the Web tonight. Even if they get what they want, it’s good to know who you’re workin’ with, ya know?” And Larry extended his hand and

shook the hand of J.T.

“Well,” J.T. said, “I’ve got to go and tell the Powers That Be

what we’re dealing with.

Make sure none of you sign

The Hollywood Dictionary

out until I get the okay that

you’ve been here for a full

WIRELESS MIC:
(1) A wireless

microphone. (2) “Oops! I didn’t

day’s pay. Who knows what

say that.”

they’ll
try and pull.”

Doc Ray Piscatori, the

camera coordinator and

weekend cowboy (he team-penned cows—a rodeo sport—and

rode his horse as far from civilization and showbiz as possible every weekend), came up to J.T.

“J.T., I have a favor to ask of you, buddy.”

“Sure,” J.T. said, scarcely listening.

“I’ve got . . . Shit, man—I don’t want anyone to know.” Doc

Ray shuffled his feet, then looked J.T. straight in the eye. “I, um, have cancer.” Doc Ray lifted his shirt up to reveal a portable chemo pump hung in a sling that was hidden under Doc’s baggy shirt.

He had J.T.’s attention. “I’m—”

“J.T., look—do you think I could take this hour or so to run

to St. Joe’s Hospital and get my radiation. It takes barely a half an hour round-trip if I book it. Then I’ll be back to work. I’ll even bring the new script—”

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

“Go, man. And don’t worry when you get back. I’ll cover. And

get something to eat.”

“You kinda lose your appetite, but . . . thanks, man. I’ll be right back, ready to work.”

J.T. watched Doc Ray try to run-jog and make sure his por-

table chemo pump stayed in place under his shirt.
Holy shit,
he thought.

“I second that,” Ash said—meaning J.T. was thinking aloud yet

again.

J.T. and Ash walked over to the production office to explain to the Pooleys the latest of the absurdities that had become common-place in the television world. On the way, J.T. called Dick Beaglebum again.

“Dick Beaglebum’s office,” a new sexy young female voice an-

swered.

“This is J.T. Baker and let’s pretend you know that Dick Bea-

glebum is sitting five feet from you and he’s not shaking his head no. Please put him on the phone.”

“J.T., the man! How is the director of all directors?” Dick said, enthusiastically.

“Am I officially fired?”

“J.T., as much as the Pooleys hate you, they refuse to say you

are
officially
fired.”

“If that’s the case, please tell them to get me a pass for Mon-

day’s table read and production meeting,” J.T. said calmly.

“What? Now, wait. What do you mean?”

“I mean,” J.T. continued, “I want you to tell them that I’ll be at the gate early on Monday, as usual, and
ready for work
. I have a contract to work on three episodes and
I will honor my contract
.”

“I don’t know if that is so smart, J.T.”

“For whom? Of course it is. They want to beat me out of my

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money and I want to work. They either say I’m
officially fired
and they pay me, or they have to supply their director, which would be me, with a new script, blueprints of sets, and a pass to get on the lot first thing Monday. I’m in a working mood, Dick! Why don’t

you give them a call and see what they think? I’ll wait for your answer. By the way, I assume Marcus Pooley said no to the two weeks’

negotiation of my salary?”

Dick considered compassion for a nanosecond and decided

to stick with enthusiasm. “He said over his dead body; absolutely not!”

“Good.”

“What are you implying, J.T.?”

“Do I have to imply? I’m here on a three-week
pay-or-play
job and now I know I’m being fired.”

“J.T., you need a lawyer, my friend. I told you that.”

“And I told you that I cannot afford to be in a war of attri-

tion with rich fucks while my salary goes to some law firm. I need my agent to get me paid or to let me know I’m fired. I don’t live
down the block
. I can’t just
go home
. If I were to go home, if I were to get on an airplane, that would nullify my pay-or-play contract and that would give the impression that I’m quitting. Well
, I’m
not quitting
, which means I must be officially fired. I’m ready and willing to go to war—er,
work
. And I will be at work, no matter how embarrassing it is, every single day, even if there is another director and the cast and crew get direction in stereo, unless someone plays fair and pays me what I’m owed and tells me I’m offi-

cially fired! Now—since my offer to negotiate my salary with the Pooleys has been turned down, then my offer is off the fucking table! I want—Dick, you bastard—I
need
these paychecks. I need the insurance that goes with these three paychecks. You let them know I’m here for the next two episodes after this one whether they like it or not—or, until they fire me.”

There was no response from Beaglebum. “Goddammit, Dick,

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

have the decency to at least tell them what I’m telling you. The money we’re talking about is peanuts to you; birdseed to them.

They could amortize their losses over the course of twelve episodes and it would barely cover the bagels and cream cheese at the table read!”

Still there was absolutely no response from Beaglebum. “For

God’s sake, if you can’t stick up for me, if you can’t or won’t go to bat for me, at least have the decency to see through the crap and acknowledge that this is a pissing match to Marcus Pooley and it is real life to my family!” J.T. heard silence. “Crap!” J.T. slammed the cell phone shut. “He wasn’t even on the phone for all of that. How pathetic is this getting?”

“Shit, man, I’m really sorry,” Ash said as he took the cell

phone.

“Don’t worry . . . As bad as I am at playing these little games, I know the basic rules. Rule number one: D
on’t quit
. Make them
fire
you
. Rule number two: D
on’t quit
. Make them
fire you
. Rule number three: Have no shame. When it comes to getting this insurance for my boy’s treatments, well, they may have ego on their side, but I used to be an actor. I literally have no shame. Now, let’s see how they’re going to take the fact that their entire cast of regular Buddies are threatening to strike if they don’t get a pay raise. Then we’ll worry about getting the show shot, somehow, by tomorrow

evening.”

The two men walked into the production office, past the two

newest Things (Twelve and Thirteen), and straight into Marcus

Pooley’s private office. He was on the phone.

“Over my dead . . .” Marcus looked up and saw J.T. “I’ll call you back,” he said, obviously to Dick Beaglebum.

“Steph? Stephanie Pooley, my darling wife? Will you join us in

my office, please?” Marcus called out.

Stephanie emerged grudgingly from her own office, preoccu-

pied with the new draft of the “Best Ever Christmas” script. “This R o b b y

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better be fucking important!” she yelled, then stopped for a beat when she came into Marcus’s office and saw J.T. standing there.

She looked pointedly past J.T. and accidentally looked at her husband.

“You know,” Stephanie said to Marcus as she read one of the

lines in the new script, “I love these new jokes.
I decided to play it
cool with my girlfriend so I let her make the first move. She packed
and went to Florida!
That is so clever! Who wrote these jokes?”

“Um,” J.T. interrupted, “Adam so-and-so and his partner Eve.”

“I assume you don’t have the ability to recognize a good joke

from a bad one,” Stephanie said to a fur-trimmed mirror on the

wall behind J.T.

“No, I don’t have that malady. Unfortunately, I’ve been infected with
Those Jokes Are Not Original Syndrome,
known more commonly as T.J.A.N.O.S. Congratulations, you are the ten thousandth person to have stolen those jokes! What do you win? Why, you win a slot on prime-time TV! News flash: Just because your words are being heard by fifteen million people, it doesn’t mean they’d even make a decent postcard.”

“Postcard?” Stephanie blurted. “Haven’t you ever heard of the

Internet
? Hello?
E-cards?
”

J.T. shook his head in disbelief. “I think you’re missing the

point.”

“Here’s
the point:
What is it you want, and why aren’t you on the floor working?” Marcus Pooley asked with contempt.

“Well,” J.T. began, “your lesbian next-door neighbor has gone

home because she is emotionally distraught, and your Urban Bud-

dies have gotten together and are behaving like a pack of wild animals on National Geographic, and they’re demanding a pay raise.

Oh—and your bubbly blonde bombshell is now a brunette.”

“We know everything and we are working on it,” Stephanie

barked.

“You know . . . everything?” J.T. asked, surprised.

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

“I spoke with Helena and told her to go home. We need to take

care of our delicate flowers,” Stephanie Pooley said.

“Your delicate flowers?” J.T. asked, outraged. “You know . . . A man who works for you named Doc Ray Piscatori went to the hospital and is having his delicate-flowered ass radiated at lunch and wears a chemotherapy machine under his shirt. He’s dedicated

and refused to let
his
problems be
your
problems. Were you aware of that?”

“Who?” Stephanie asked with disgust. She did not want to hear

about any illness that was too icky to visualize. “I don’t want some schmuck not up to full speed on my crew. What did you say his

name was? We need a healthy crew. This show is hard enough as

it is.”

Marcus settled into an even tone. “We are aware that our cast

of Urban Buddies wants more money. We are aware that they are

sticking together as a group. We are aware of that because whatever is piped through audio onto the set is also piped through audio and video into our monitors here in the production office,” Marcus Pooley said.

“And,” Stephanie added, still looking sour at the thought of

that ickiness on her set, “I am aware that Janice colored her hair because we were both together in Las Vegas when that happened.

We were . . . slightly drunk.” She looked awkwardly toward, but definitely not at, her husband. “She’ll have blonde hair by the time we shoot tomorrow night,” she said quickly, which was as close to apologetic as it appeared she would get.

“She—
you what?
” Marcus Pooley aimed his hate at his wife.

“It’s taken care of. I have a hairdresser coming in from off the lot to work with Janice this afternoon.” Stephanie didn’t like being confronted—nor did she like being confronted in front of J.T. and Ash by her annoying husband.

“Excuse me,” J.T. said, “but how am I to deal with the cast of

Urban Buddies
, who want a pay raise because they saw their pic-R o b b y

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ture for the third time on the front of a
TV Guide
and are refusing to work?”

“I said:
We are aware of the problem with the cast of Urban Buddies and are dealing with it as we speak
. They will be ready to work first thing tomorrow morning.” Marcus Pooley had the tone of a

chess player who knows he’s in control of the board.

“Well, first thing tomorrow morning is
noon,
” J.T. reminded them. “Tomorrow is shoot night so we only get the cast for ten

hours plus dinner. We shoot at seven in front of a live audience. We have a page-one rewrite that none of them have looked at. Oh—

and they refuse to be directed. They said, verbatim, ‘We will sit on the couch and move when

we feel like it.’”

The Hollywood Dictionary

“Well, isn’t that too bad

“FIRST THING TOMORROW
for you?” Stephanie Pooley

MORNING”:
A phrase uttered

said with delight.

in Hollywood more than “I love

“You have your work cut

you” or “You’re fired.”

out for you, unless you are

too incompetent to fix this

situation, and therefore incompetent to do your job. Therefore, too incompetent to fulfill your duties; and to be paid.” Marcus Pooley felt like he was one move away from checkmate.

“How on this earth do you make any connection between their

poor professional behavior and my competence to do my job?” J.T.

fired back. “Ash, please make a note of this.”

Ash quickly took out his university notebook and wrote down

everything that was happening—as if it mattered.
At least it makes
J.T. feel better,
Ash thought.

“Well, you are the one who empowered them with the concept

of sticking together and taking care of each other,” Marcus went on, throwing a deliberate curveball. “I think your words were, ‘There will be lots of directors, lots of executives who come and go, but you as actors are vulnerable, and to be strong you must always take 2 7 2