Work Songs for The 1%

The plane was pretty much empty. Well, at least first class was. Who knows what the was going on behind the curtain in coach.? It sounded a little like a human sacrifice and they were definitely slow roasting some fur bearing animal on a spit, perhaps Beaver Trout, as we had a layover in Milwaukee.

If you can’t get a direct flight, lay-over in Milwaukee, not Denver. There is always the potential for a blizzard from mid-June to May in Denver and who knows when one of their God-less human experiments may escape from their holding cell in the megaplex under the Denver airport. Too many variables to consider while traveling…

Filmmaker Michael Moore was sitting three rows in front of me. His crew was languishing behind the Class Curtain in Coach. Moore needed the extra room afforded travelers in First because he suffered from debilitating lower back pain. Be that as it may, why couldn’t he spring for an upgrade for the below the line people that actually humped the equipment for his preachy socialist cinematics. That was the question I tried to ask the porcine director, but he menaced me with a silver Shrimp Cocktail Fork as I got closer. As a former Eagle Scout, naturally he was always prepared for the odd interruption of his lunch by a well-intentioned white boy.

Anytime I come to Los Angeles I’m filled with a vague, uncatalogued apprehension, like a cheating husband bending his mistress over the island in the kitchen while listening for his wife’s keys in the front door. I don’t know why. I don’t owe this town anything, least of all fidelity.

The Los Angelino are a purely abstract figure, almost proud of being insensitive to ethics; they represent not only the absence of values but values negation… But enough poetry, we have stories to tell.

The inflight movie was Velvet Lips, the stag film former Detroit hooker Joan Crawford made back in the 20’s before she became a star at MGM. The studio tracked down all the negatives and prints of the film when they signed her to a contract and allegedly destroyed them in a massive bonfire as Marion Davies and Bebe Daniels danced naked in the flickering shadows.

Somehow her brother smuggled one of the copies out of the vault and later sold it to the highest bidder. Of course, this is the age of the internet, we can see anything now if we want to bad enough, but even as a fan of the foul and shameless, I didn’t want to see Joan Crawford servicing a ‘producer’ on the proverbial casting couch and tried to read my book through the flight, but the dope across the aisle wouldn’t have it.

I longed for one of Michael Moore’s Shrimp Cocktail Forks, but the stew hadn’t given me one. In fact there was no cutlery on my tray, as if I were a suicidal Mitch McConnel limping back to my shotgun shack in Kentucky after another in a long series of public embarrassment at the hands of people like Michael Moore, or his demented uncle Ray…

I had been reading The Kiss of The Teacher, which I was hoping would be a bodice ripper, but turned out to be the story of a rogue Samurai that gets lost in Hell. Now I was engrossed in the conflict between the human need to find meaning in life and the underlying reality that there is none, with a little kung fu tossed in for good measure. The poor sucker in my book actually believed he had free will. Sad…

“My weaknesses compete with my good intentions,” the interloper leaned forward across the aisle and whispered to me.

“What’s that?” I asked. Bad taste oozed out of him like cold draft.

“My weaknesses compete with my good intentions,” he said again. His voice bristled like the fur of a scared rabbit after he got a closer look at my blood shot eyes. “It’s rarely a fair fight,” he added, holding up his beer can, as if it explained everything.

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“No, really,” he chuckled. “It’s like Mike Tyson kicking the crap out of Allen Dershowitz unfair.”

“Well, I think we’d all enjoy seeing that. Don’t worry too much about it. Just don’t let the lickspittles in Coach find out the booze is free up here or we’ll have a riot on our hands.”

HOLLYWOOD

In the beginning there were pepper trees, orange groves. fig brakes, apricot orchards, avocado gardens and a saucy little 25-year-old minx named Ida Hartell Wilcox Beveridge who bought 200 acres just to the Northwest of Los Angeles for $30,000 in 1887. The land was a gift from her husband, real estate agent, Republican minor league political hack and amateur prohibitionist Harvey Henderson Wilcox, to help take Ida’s mind off the couple’s dead baby, Harry.

Harvey’s first wife, Ellen, a recreational user of powerful stimulants, died under suspicious circumstances just months before he married Ida. Ida was 30 years younger than the wheelchair bound Harvey and a trophy wife by every definition of the phrase.

First, the couple tried to grow fruit on the land, but despite the best efforts of their Mexican and Chinese laborers, they failed. So, they began subdividing the tracts and developing residential properties. Stealing the name from a friend’s Chicago ranch, Hollywood was born.

Billed as a prestigious Christian Community, lots in Hollywood were starting to get snapped up at a thousand bucks a piece by wealthy families from the Northeast, lured by the promise of liquor and firearm free living with nary a movie theatre, pool hall or bowling alley in sight. My how times have changed.

Harvey died before the community really took off, and Ida used the $100,000 that was left her in his will to establish Hollywood’s civic infrastructure including a library, city hall, schools, police station, post office and the all-important tennis club. By the way, $100,000 in 1891 would be about 2.9 million today, so to really do things right, Ida had to marry new pockets to dip into, Philo Beveridge’s pockets as a matter of fact, a businessman and son of the former Governor of Illinois. His bankbook notwithstanding, Philo was a strapping 6’ 3”, blond haired cool drink of water and a trophy husband in every definition of the phrase.

Ida donated land for the building of three Christian churches of various denominations and she established not one, but two banks: Hollywood National and Citizens Savings. If you have been following Showtime’s Billions, and why would you, you know what a good deal owning the bank is.

Against Ida’s better wishes, Hollywood merged with the City of Los Angeles in 1910 primarily to take advantage of their water and sewer system.

The first movie company came to Hollywood in 1913, Ida died a year later. Coincidence? I think not. Her death also ushered in the lifting of the city’s ban on alcohol. The Roaring 20’s were just around the corner after all.

Of course, that story is all just Hollywood horse hockey that they like to sell the tourist. Ida did have a hand in developing Hollywood, but it was her neighbor, Teddy Roosevelt’s old drinking buddy, H.J. Whitley, that actually developed the city. Ida and Harvey were just coat-tailers. Whitley had developed some 150 cities in the United States and was a principle in the bank of Hollywood. He even reportedly came up with the name after seeing a Chinese man walking across his land with his arms full of firewood. Whitley asked the celestial ‘what are you doing?’. ‘I holly wood,’ the man reportedly replied, and the racist joke of a name was born.

Whitley was also responsible for the film industry moving to town. Realizing that he needed an industry to sustain Hollywood and his other near-by developments Van Nuys, Reseda and Canoga Park, Whitley convinced his buddy David Horsley to come to Hollywood to shoot movies out from under the watchful eyes of Thomas Edison’s goons in New York.

BACKGROUND

Last time I was in L.A. I couldn’t get a drink, and sober is no way to face Hollywood. Not that I blame the eminent bartenders and waitress of The City of Angels; I’m an old fat guy. L.A. only function is to serve the young and beautiful. Of course, now I’m a pretty big deal so they make exceptions.

Last time I was here the bartenders would freeze me out hoping I would get frustrated and move along to another bar because I was fouling the waters where the comely come to fish. What a difference six weeks and a couple million hits on your blog with do.

Now the eminent bartender and waitress at my hotel are falling all over themselves to make me welcome. I done internetted myself into the Pulchritudinous Club. Of course, the waitstaff only knows who I am because the manager of the hotel must have given them the high sign, tipped them off that I was ‘in the club’, because I’m still the old fat guy that couldn’t get a scotch to save my life a month and a half ago. If anything, older and fatter now.

All that happened was, I posted a little bit of typing on my blog. A simple fun-sized opinion blog that generally focused on ‘Entertainment’ and harvested a solid four to five hundred hits per post. Nothing earth shattering, but it made me smile. Then, a couple weeks ago I posted a brilliant think piece that, through a combination of wit, insight, proper hash tagging and blind shit house luck, got over two million hits in a day and half. Boom, an internet influencer is born and, yes, I will have another scotch, thank you.

My name is Ronan Price, unpopular poet. Last time I was in L.A. I was chasing a job writing for a sit com featuring two fat-titted, back-tatted, 20-somethings living a New York loft no one could afford and destined to become the next Lucy and Ethel. I didn’t get the job. Some Business Major freshly minted at Harvard did. Apparently if you can help uphold the noble tradition of keeping The Harvard Lampoon unfunny and the Hasty Pudding homo-erotic in a non-sexual way, you are the guy for TV sit com work.

But like I said, my silly pocket entertainment blog blew up and suddenly I’m welcomed back to town, for the weekend at least, as a conquering hero. Have you ever heard of Rodrigo ‘The Hump’ Wedgeworth? Of course you have. The Hump is only the biggest box office draw since Tom Cruise developed a row of STD induced string warts across his forehead and nose.

The Hump so famous he doesn’t give interviews, at least he hasn’t for five years, but he’s got a new movie some Saudi Prince invested $200.5 million of his daddy’s money into opening next week, and the bloom is starting to come off The Hump’s box office peach, as it were, so his people called my people (which is just me), and we’re going to make things happen together. As Flavor of The Month, I was awarded the honor of interview The Hump.

This isn’t my first movie junket, you know. A few years back I was invited to play Paintball Wars in a radioactive swamp outside of Atlanta for a weekend, along with a bunch of radio, newspaper and internet ginks, for a sneak preview of a new buddy cop movie featuring Redwood McGovern and a lessor Baldwin Brother. We also got to have a box lunch and some one-on-one time with the stars.

I accepted their hospitality and then wrote an honest assessment of the film. I don’t remember this particular piece of celluloid glory’s name, but I’m pretty sure it was just an action verb and maybe an exclamation point. I do remember my review;’ I’ve seen better film on the teeth of wolverines’. It was the last junket I was invited on, until Dapper Tiger Filmworks (The Hump’s production company) called.

They flew me out. They put me up. They’re picking up my tab at the bar. They’re paying for my lunch, dinner and breakfasts. Do you think I’m going to write a nice puff piece on The Hump, former wrestler turned action star? Shit, did Rose Kennedy own a black dress?

Does that make me a sell-out? Yes, it does, but if it means I can finally get a drink in L.A. without taking hostages, I’ve got love for sale. Appetizing young love for sale… Well, old, fat love for sale, but you get what I’m saying.

BLOG

And what was this thrilling blog that turned my fortunes? What brilliant insight on the film and TV industry did I offer the world that made me This Year’s Model? It wasn’t even about entertainment. I was a riff on, well, here. It is a short read:

This latest pandemic has become nothing more than a campaign ad exploited by both political parties because Congress has long been a Nursing Home steeped in animadversion, and the presidency is now just resume building on the way to a fat book deal, oh, and a legal Rohypnol slipped to Constitution so he can go full Bill Cosby on the Treasury.

As we strip mine the oceans of any and everything that moves under its waves, rip the rain forest lungs out of the gaping chest of the earth, and frack every wet fissure we can find on this passed out party girl of a planet; remember the lessons learned from the Chiffon Margarine ads of our youth, ‘It’s not nice to fuck with Mother Nature’.

You remember the ad, if you were alive in the 70’s. Dena Dietrich (she was Dorothy’s sister, Gloria, on The Golden Girls) plays Mother Nature. Mason Adams (he was Charlie Hume on Lou Grant) is the unseen voice that tells her ‘That’s Chiffon margarine, not butter’. They argue and Dena gets pissed and brings the wrath of the environment down on Mason’s head because margarine is a GMO devoid of vitamins and minerals, treated with hexane, bleaches and deodorizers as well as tumor promoting BHT and huge amounts of Trans Fats.

And then they wrap the ad up with a catchy jingle. Good stuff…

Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution has run into the speed bump known as the Broken Singularity of Man. The course correction? Nature does what she always does in these situations; her immune system releases a pandemic to cleanse itself of the impudent germ that is man.

But I thought the virus came from some guy in China performing analingus on a bat? That’s just racist wishful thinking, Rube. Mother Earth is going full Charles Bronson on us once again, and she always gets her man.

As early humanoids were about to sport hunt the wooly mammoth onto the PUP List, Mother Nature released her first pandemic and Trog had to self-quarantine in his cave. Netflix was even shittier back then, pretty much only Bollywood musicals and Adam Sadler movies, so early man had to entertain himself writing Erotic Fan Fiction on the Cave Walls. This Cave Art became the foundation for religion, which became the foundation for slavery, pedophilia, socially acceptable mental illness and terrorism. Like Mother Nature didn’t know how to give Man the dry thumb when she wanted…

It may make you feel a slight bit better to know that when Mother Nature is done with us, we will be the fossil fuel fodder that some other life form will exploit, pissing her off and repeating the cycle.

The Dinosaurs wept…

That was it. Two million hits later and suddenly my opinion matters. Because my blog, Work Songs for The 1%, is listed as an entertainment blog, Hollywood came a-calling by morning. The piece had nothing to do with movies and very little to do with TV, so I have to assume the personal assistances, PR weasels and agent types that started calling me weren’t among in the two million that clicked on my blog. Thanks to whatever coconut telegraph the rely on the form their opinions for them told them that I was an ‘Entertainment Commentator’ with one heck of a lot of eyes reading what I was selling, and they might want to get in bed with me.

Again, I don’t care. My drink doesn’t even get half empty in this joint before someone is at my elbow asking if I want another and the ladies are throwing me looks they normally reserve for the Leos, the Ryans and the Haagen-Dazses…

Not bad for a blogger that cobbles together the odd movie review and think piece every now and then. I would have to say I was most proud of my string of articles on the Weather Girls of Boston. As informative as it was entertaining. The Weather Girls were Flawless Johnson, Almond Joy Brown, Cutlass Davis, Katniss Martinez, Onyx Martin and Sparrow Jackson. Do you think the parents were knew their daughters would grown-up to be Weather Girls when they named them, or were they hoping for strippers?

Flawless Johnson was a three-time crowned Miss Olympus Bean and Legume and the proud winner of a local Emmy for her five-part series on hail. Almond Joy Brown was Miss Versa Seed and Lawn Mower For The Northeast Region and Spokesmodel for Resilient Pickles concurrently. Cutlass Davis was an alternate on the US Olympic Half Pipe Team and reigning Miss Allegro Dye and Tool. Katniss Martinez was Wisspearher Bay’s Oyster Queen and recipient of the perfect attendance award for all four years of high school. Onyz Martin turned down a scholarship from Miss Gentner’s Academy of Nail Sciences to teach English as a Second Language in Hawaii, and Sparrow Johnson was once the Vice President of the Zeta Sigma Theta Chapter at The Sparkling Margin Community College. Go Sparks!

To be sure, Meteorology is no laughing matter and requires knowledge in higher math, chemistry, advanced physics and a computer proficiency. Almond Joy Brown got her Bachelor of Applied Science on-line at Wildwood College. As she described it, the hardest nine-months of her life, outside of my pregnancy, but this was worth it. Not only does she get a yearly $100,000 cocktail dress and dry cleaning allowance, but she’s not held responsible for the accuracy of her weather forecast as long as she retains a 20 share or better in the Male 18 to 42 demo.

Needless to say, the regular ‘reporters’ on the local news weren’t much of an improvement. Ivory Sparks, Brisk White, Winter Marks… It would be a jump ball to guess if these were news anchors or new My Little Pont characters. The national news was no better, but they had gotten out of the news reporting business long ago, and now were only interested in telling us what to think about what was happening rather than just telling what was happening.

Obviously, as an influencer now myself, I feel their pain…

BUT BACK TO THE STORY

Nicknames were all the rage in Hollywood these days. I don’t know the last time I met a Tom, Dick or Harry here. It is all Skippers, Doodles and Worms now. To make matters worse, not a whole lot of these nicknames come about organically. It used to be a guy name Twice Shot Sarni would have had to have been shot at least once, if not twice, but now the sobriquet is simply hung on him because it sounds cool.

Currently I was waiting for Pepper Leg Nelson, Rodrigo ‘The Hump’ Wedgeworth’s PR flack, to meet me at the bar. He was supposed to take me to meet The Hump, who rarely went out in public and as we know, never gave interviews. At least The Hump came about his nickname honestly. He earned it in the wrestling ring in his pre-movie star days for his trademark move of dry humping an opponent’s leg before pretending to flip him like a pancake and applying an utterly convincing fake submission hold that would make a Minnesota cop jealous.

I can’t imagine what you would have to do to earn the nickname Pepper Legs…