Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (41 page)

“Well, Sabrina,” Devon said, the sun glinting off his slicked hair,

“this is, like, a bittersweet day. I’d like all my fans to know we’re here, like, to pay our last respects to Minnesota B. Moose and, like, welcome Kalamazoo P. Kardinal as the next network icon.”

What is it with this “like” shit?
J.T. grumped to himself.

Devon hugged the big red bird awkwardly, trying to keep his

hair out of the way of its wing.

“Like, very, very good!” Deb nodded like a bobble-head net-

work doll. “Everyone, like, get
that
? If you didn’t, like, get it—like,
get it
!”

“And tell us about those magnificent cars that each one of you

received today.”

“The cars, like, represent the studio’s and the network’s ap-

preciation for our hard work and their confidence in the fact that
I Love My Urban Buddies
is a number one show and will continue to be a number one show!”

“Like, very good!” Deb said in approval.

“I have to ditto that!” Lance dittoed.

J.T. felt himself being seduced by the media circus as if it were the Cirque du Soleil. He forced himself to turn away, and pulled Lance aside. “When do you think I’ll get the six hottest young faces known to mankind this month for rehearsal? Will I get them in

fifteen minutes? A half hour? Lance—no matter what the politics, your show that is going to make everyone rich and famous, and in your case add more
P
to your Vice Presidency of Current Comedy, has not been rehearsed for more than . . . I’d say an hour and forty-five minutes
all week
.”

Lance’s eyes kept straying to the sight of his perfect demo-

graphics getting far-reaching publicity. “Lance,” J.T. protested, try-R o b b y

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ing to keep his voice nonconfrontational, “we shoot tonight and then this pop-culture-phenomenon-in-the-making will air to millions of people, and you know what? It’ll be pure shit. Pop goes the pop star. If I were you, I’d get them onto the stage as fast as you can, Lance. Just a suggestion. No matter how you plan to screw me out of my next two shows, on this episode, we’re
teammates
.”

Maybe he got a new car, too. Ah, who gives a fuck,
J.T. thought
.

The kids still aren’t working.

“‘The future is literally in our hands to mold as we like. But

we cannot wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow is now.’ You know who

said that, J.T.? Eleanor Roosevelt. A great woman. Would’ve made a great Executive. You know, for the Lifetime channel or some

other female cabler.”

“Are you comparing yourself to Eleanor Roosevelt, Lance?”

The whole situation was deviant enough without that.

“You know, I’d have to think about that one,” Lance said, and

then continued without thinking, “I guess I am. I guess I am.”

“You . . . are.”

“I would’ve made a helluva first lady, if I may say so myself.”

“Well, you just did.”

“J.T.—
this
is what it’s about. Not the show. It’s them. Their charm and ability to get Americans to invite them on a weekly basis into their living rooms, bedrooms, what-have-you is a recipe that cannot be altered. They represent our complete annihilation of the other networks on Thursday nights. The red bird. The show? Ah . . .

we’ll get viewers, and the advertisers will get new buyers, and all will be good. Some sparkling moments, some great shows, and then a

few turds like your show. So you just go back inside like a good little director and wait for our franchise to finish and then we’ll knock out a show tonight—if not, we’ll piece something together. It always gets done. You know that, J.T. Take a chill pill. I hear that the liquid Vicodin is flowing like tap water these days. Get yourself a bottle and just let it all happen. You can’t fight it: television is the window to 2 9 6

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

our souls,” Lance finished in a philosophical non sequitur.

“May I suggest window coverings and blackout curtains?” J.T.

countered.

“Hmm?” Lance may have been on Ecstasy.

There was nothing more that J.T. could do . . . and no more

bridges, canals, straits, tunnels, burrows, dens, lairs—you name it—for him to burn, vaporize, invade, or otherwise obliterate.

The stragglers among the media crews were being shooed off the

lot. Janice stroked her Porsche and called to the others, “Hey, let’s take these out and see how fast they go!”

“How many tourists you plan on mowing down, Janice?”

Rocky snorted. He couldn’t sneak any drugs while the media were watching, and now he was getting surly.

“Um, we do have a show to do, people?” Devon reminded

them, suddenly the superior artist again. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m, you know, an artist? There’s
work
to be done.”

Slowly it dawned on the Buddies what that meant.

While everyone else associated with
Buddies
was getting ready for the dinner break, the six actual Buddies came back inside the stage, still a little high from their triumph. Representing all of the Buddies, Devon Driver walked over and sat stiffly next to J.T., who was relaxing and playing mental Ping-Pong (right–wrong–right–

wrong . . .) on the famous TV couch. Devon addressed J.T. as if he were still in negotiations, very businesslike and distant, with a touch of bad acting-class stress patterns thrown in for credibility.

“So, like, we as a group want
to know,
like, how we are supposed
to shoot
tonight’s episode,” Devon announced.

J.T. couldn’t resist a little sarcasm. “Well, if it is all right with you and the rest of the Buddies, I’d like, like,
to shoot
the show with R o b b y

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four cameras and throw in a live audience just for fun,” he said. “By the way, Devon—have you been, like,
seeing,
like, a lot of Debbie from the network?”

“Like . . . whattaya mean?”

“Like . . . nothing. What’s on your—”

“What I’m getting at is,” Devon said as if speaking to a very slow second grader, “are we
going
to, like,
go
. . . like, one line of dialogue at a time or something? Are we
going
to, like, have that script person
give
us the words
to say
and then, like, we
say
them and then, like, in postproduction you, like,
cut
out all the bad stuff?”

“Like, no. No, Devon, you can report back to the Buddies that

we are,
like,
going to do a show tonight and it will be,
like,
one of the easiest hundred grand you guys,
like,
have ever made,” J.T. said with the flattest of deliveries. “And what is it with the
like
shit? If you ever speak to me again, Devon, do not use
like
in a sentence.

God only knows, when I think of you and the rest of the Buddies, the word
like
never comes to mind.”

“Um,” Devon said with a touch of panic, “we don’t
know
our lines. We haven’t
rehearsed
with cameras. How are we supposed
to act
?”

“Like professionals?” J.T. jabbed. Then he thought,
What’s the
use of being high and mighty now?

“High and mighty?” Devon chortled.

“Devon,” J.T. quickly covered, “after dinner, why don’t you and the rest of the Buddies go through each scene and each set. What you will find is a color-coordinated series of cue cards, and if you follow them—like playing, um, Candy Land—you’ll eventually

come to the finish line, which in this case is page sixty-something and a whole bunch o’ applause. Since I couldn’t
learn your lines
for you, I took a giant leap of faith and hoped that all of you had decent eyesight and could recognize colors.”

Devon looked up and finally noticed the cue cards that were

printed in big friendly letters and color-coordinated for each char-2 9 8

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

acter. “This is, like . . . demeaning,” he pronounced.

J.T. half smiled and slapped his thighs. “I agree. It’s, like, demeaning, like, shameful, like, disgraceful, like, fucking appalling, and, like, remarkably un-fucking-professional. You’ve hit the,

like,
ignominy lottery
. But—you can always tell anyone who finds out that you were reading your lines from cue cards that
acting
is an illusion
. What does it matter if you have a little help along the way? As long as you and the rest of the Buddies can find your cue cards, I think you’re going to have a wonderful show.” J.T.

thought that was a perfect exit line, and started to get up off the couch. Before he could, though, Devon’s big hand grabbed him

on the shoulder.

“Like . . . what color am I?”

“You’re green, Devon.”

“Green. Like, what’s up with the Santa faces? You tryin’ to
fuck
with us?”

“Are the Santa faces in green, Devon?”

“No.”

“Then Santa knows you’re naughty.”

Devon narrowed his eyes. “You know what I
think
?” he asked.

“No,” J.T. sighed, slumping back into the couch. “No, that is

beyond my talent. Pray tell: What do you think, Devon? I’d love to know. I’d pay to have cable installed so I could see your
E
! interview and hear,
like,
what you have to say.”

“I
think
you’re, like, jealous.” Devon stared at J.T. with an air of arrogance that would get him killed on a New York playground.

J.T. sat up sharply. “Eat me. I
am
jealous, you little fuck. I am amazed that you and the rest of the Buddies are allowed to get

away with the shit I witnessed this week. I am thankful that everyone hates my guts so that I can hopefully be officially fired, paid off, and get back to my family and to people who actually work for a living. Oh, and people who have pride in their work.”

Devon pondered that for a nanosecond, just for effect. “You

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know something, J.T.,” he remarked, “you are, like, very uptight.

You are a tense man. I don’t know if you
know
this, but, like, you are, like,
working
on a COMEDY!”

J.T. waited long enough to reply for Devon to get uncomfort-

able. Then he said very slowly, jaw clenched, “Then make . . . me . . .

laugh
.”

Devon started to say something but J.T. cut him off with an up-

raised palm. “You told me what you think, now you’re gonna listen to what I think. You, you all, are the ones who have to generate the funny. Right now,
there is none
. It’s nonexistent. I’m sure, with or without direction, that all of you are capable of finding bits that are right for your characters. I think now might be a good time to start doing that. This may be, in the scheme of things in your life, your legacy:
Buddies.
Your work. Not your publicity. Your work will be on reruns ten to fifteen years from now, God willing, and you will want to be proud when you sit down and watch with your kids. And another thing I think: I think you ought to treat your fellow collabora-tors on the set—the camera crew, the grips, the electricians, the prop department, all of them—with a little dignity. Don’t forget what it was like to be an out-of-work actor. You’re in television. Sometimes the flavor of the month doesn’t even last a month. Just beware. And that is all I have to say—except, if I were you and the rest of the Buddies, I’d get my ass onto the sets and figure out where my cue cards are and what color you’ve been assigned. Or else showtime could even,
like, ruin
your
wonderful
day.”

And with that, J.T. got up from the
Buddies’
couch and vowed to himself that he would never put his ass on it again as long as he lived. He walked away from an openmouthed star and left the

stage to find Ash and get his suit out of the trunk of Ash’s car.

He changed in the men’s room. Even though no one else

seemed to respect the process of shooting a show, J.T. did. One of the ways he could show it was by wearing a suit and tie.

The Show

“
I Love My Urban Buddies
: ‘The Best Ever Christmas.’ Written by Marcus and Stephanie Pooley. Director, J.T. Baker. Take one.”

“Action!”

The first thing you would have noticed if you were standing

in the cave that night was that the show seemed secondary. It was treated as if it were a social event to drop in on, time permitting, by the bigwigs. Then—there was laughter. Honest-to-God laughter from the audience.

The first scene began and the actors walked and talked looking

upward, making it appear as if they were characters dreaming or remembering a dream rather than actors who were simply reading

their lines from cue cards hung above their heads. J.T. had anticipated this to such an extent that he took a page out of William’s A.D. routine and, instead of adding “after sex” to every scripted line, added “ . . . like in a dream” to nearly every line. Amazingly, it worked. J.T. had revised the show using the oldest TV trick in the book: the dream sequence. The script stayed the same but now the pure repetition of “like in a dream” became silly-funny. J.T. had learned that from watching
South Park
with Jeremy. If you say
shit
way too many times, it becomes funny. And when repetition becomes tiring, after a while it becomes funny again.

“And I was shopping—in a dream—” Janice read her cue cards

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as her ditzy character (now blonde again, thanks to a wig), “and there were bombs and shattering glass and explosions—”

“Whoa. Where were you shopping? Somewhere in World War

II?” Helena’s character jabbed.

“In a dream!” Janice went on. “And I dunno where I was, but

bombs and explosions were keeping me from the department