[From CYGAWA Part II, Chapter 5]

If you haven’t got anything good to say about anyone, come sit
by me. – Alice Roosevelt Longworth

My thinking last summer (2003) when I stopped working on this book and while I was in the process of getting hit by a van was this: Having finished Part One, I’d take a getting-hit-by-a-van break and bang out my whoring draft of the In Search of Captain Zero screenplay, which I did, going into the tank while doing so. Meanwhile, I’d send out Part One of this, get a new literary (book) agent, since I had fired my old one for treachery during the editing phase of Zero.

The new agent would sell Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? as “a work in progress.” I’d come back to the writing all raring to go. I have two books in stores, both in their 4th paperback printing (Zero was still in hardback too), both making money. Both have “legs,” as the expression goes. I have movie deals. Hey, Sean Penn and John Cusack both want to play me. I’m being interviewed and profiled, doing my own promotion. I found the German house that bought the rights to Zero. Banditos has sold to nine foreign markets, the last being the Turks, of all people. I put that deal together too. Point being that agents should be clamoring to rep my sorry ass. In theory.

    So I send Part One to my Hollywood attorney, Steven, figuring he’ll send
it to agents. Steven knows everyone, or can get to them via the doing lunch
grapevine. Steven reads Part One, tells me it’s not publishable. Since I’m
not famous, he says, no one will care about my life and times and problems
with people. Won’t send Part One to any agents.

    Okay, only slightly depressing. Steven’s a fucking lawyer, what does he
know? That I didn’t see what was really going on is a perfect example of my
denial regarding stuff I should know better about. I merely figured Steven
had his head up his ass, not that there was anything duplicitous afoot. 

    But within days of this development I get a call from the producer who,
along with Sean Penn and the studio, optioned In Search of Captain Zero for
the movies. She’s threatening a lawsuit, talking about restraining orders.
Turns out that Steven told her about the book I was writing, this book,
what I wrote about her and about the other people involved in the deal. He
may have even sent her the manuscript.

   Think about that.

   No one who wants to make a movie out of my book is smart enough to get it
done.

   And, if you flip back and look, there’s plenty more where that came
from.

   Steven also spilled the beans to my ex-Hollywood movie-writing agent
(as opposed to my book agent), whom I fired for her behavior during the
Zero movie deal (as opposed to the book deal), and whose email response
to that is the title of this book. Among other details, he no doubt told her
where the title of this book came from.

   Word quickly reaches me through multiple sources that I am persona
non grata in Hollywood. One agent, a major one who works in a big talent
agency, a guy who surfs and who read and loved Zero and hinted that he’d
like to represent me, will now not return my calls – a major disappointment,
since anyone in Hollywood who reads is unusual (let alone one who surfs),
and is to be sought after and treasured.

   Meanwhile, the deal to write the screen adaptation of Cosmic Banditos
is mired, tied up in the contract stage, Steven says. Tied up in the contract
stage? Odds are that Cusack’s people, directly or indirectly through Steven
were informed of my writing about that deal as well, and are in the process
of backing out. In other words, they will not hire me after all, fearing that
I’ll expose their shortcomings.

    I must repeat: This is my attorney who did this, a contractual associate
(for over 20 years) who legally and ethically should not do anything to
harm the interests of his client, me.

   As if this isn’t enough, during the conversation wherein Steven informs
me that the book you are now reading is un-publishable, I ask him to get
“my” draft of the Zero screenplay to Sean Penn (the draft immediately
preceding the whoring draft wherein I went into the tank). As I say, Steven
knows everyone, or can get to them; he could no doubt get my draft to Sean
Penn.

    Before I press on, it gets weirder. I mean weirder if you’re not familiar
with how Hollywood works, how the people there think, if you can call it
that.

    Last spring (2003), three or so months before Steven got treacherous on
me and before I got hit by the multi-faceted van, I sent the producer my
second-to-last contractual draft of the screenplay. The one before I went
into the tank as a reaction to the notes from the studio. I like this draft a
lot – I like the way I reinvented my book.

   The producer read the draft and called to say it’s brilliant. It’s so brilliant,
in fact, that before she called to say it’s brilliant she gave it to another writer
she works with and trusts to see if it’s as brilliant as she thinks it is. The
other writer read it and agreed that Yes, it’s as brilliant as she thinks it is.
According to the other writer, I’m “the real thing.”* Another line of hers I
can put quotes around because I remember the exact words: “You gave the
studio exactly what you said you would.”

   Also: I’m her “little genius.”

   She sent the studio the draft and expected to hear from them soon.

   A note regarding geography, chronology, and state of mind. I had the
above conversation here in paradise at the end of the road at the bottom
of Central America, getting my sorry ass ready to go meet Lisa on the
Caribbean island where The Horror would soon take place. Down on the
beach with my cell phone in my ear, sitting on a piece of driftwood with
my dog Fang (short for Jack London’s White Fang, my favorite book from
childhood), who was just a puppy at the time, wandering around nearby.
Looking out at the pristine waters of El Golfo Dulce, The Sweet Gulf, perfect
waves rolling in. Although I was pleased as punch at hearing that my draft
is brilliant and that I’m the real thing and a genius who gave the studio
exactly what he said he would, I felt a subtle stirring in my gut listening to
the producer go on. In retrospect, I believe the stirring was a flutter of my
writer’s queasy gut. Or maybe I’m projecting this because I should have felt
a flutter. In any event, the queasy gut flutter, assuming I had it, was based
on the producer having to ask someone else for his opinion of the draft
before actually voicing her opinion to me. But still, my draft is brilliant and
I’m the real thing and her little genius who gave the studio exactly what he
said he would.

   According to the producer, my agent whose email response to my later
firing her is the title of this book, and who also was the producer’s agent,**
agreed with the other writer regarding my draft’s brilliance and so forth. So
that’s two people’s opinions the producer had to hear before she voiced her
opinion to me. Hold on. The producer’s boyfriend also read my draft (and
agreed with the other two opinions). So that’s three opinions she needed
before voicing hers to me, not two. This was all a bad sign, even though the
three other people thought the draft was brilliant and so forth.

    You may be wondering where the director is at this point, and what he
thought of the draft, its possible brilliance and so forth. Maybe you’re not
wondering that, on second thought. But I was. So I asked the producer. He
hasn’t read it yet, she said. This is another bad sign, since the director had
told me that the Zero project was number one on his list of priorities. But
letting the mounting bad signs go for the moment, I asked the producer
if Sean Penn had read the draft. I mean everybody else she knows had,
apparently, except the director. No, the producer said. He didn’t have a
copy. She’s going to let the studio send it to him.  

    Still another bad sign. A doozey of a bad sign, as it would turn out.

    A matter of days later I was on the phone in a San José hotel room, finding
out that Lisa had been screwing her ex-boyfriend then lying about it. So,
all fucked up over this development, I went to the Caribbean island where
The Horror would soon take place (and where I started this narrative).
As mentioned in Part One, while there I got the email from the producer
saying that the studio executive read my draft – this email resulted in
my going into the tank. One reason I decided to go into the tank was the
producer saying in the email that my draft was “not the draft we were
expecting.” Important for our purposes is that she now included herself
in this assessment of my draft. My draft was no longer brilliant. I was no
longer the real thing and her little genius who gave the studio exactly what
he said he would.

    My response to this email was terse. I didn’t bother reminding the
producer that she completely flip-flopped on her opinion of the draft based
on someone else’s opinion, or that in pure force of numbers it was either
four-to-one or three-to-two or three-to-one in favor of my draft still being
brilliant and me still being the real thing and a genius who gave the studio
exactly what he said he would. (The numbers depending on how you now
view her original opinion, whether you count that opinion, or her flip-flop
opinion, or cancel her opinions altogether due to lack of consistency – this
last one seems most reasonable, no?) I just wanted to know when Sean Penn
was going to read the draft. I wanted his opinion. By now the flutter of my
writer’s queasy gut, assuming I’d originally had it, had bloomed into my
full-blown writer’s queasy gut.

   The producer emailed back saying that the decision had been made not
to give the draft to Sean Penn. The draft was “not ready” for him to read.
I emailed reminding her that in talking me into the original option deal
she’d assured me that Sean “gets involved early in the script stage.” Since
I already wrote two drafts of the screenplay and was now about to launch
myself into the third, we were way past any reasonable interpretation of
the concept “early in the script stage.”

   I have her reply here in front of me as I write. Rather than quoting it, I’ll
sum it up. The email is words to the effect of “That’s different.”   

    Back to the conversation with Steven that occurred three months after
the above nonsense. After he tells me that the book you are now reading is
un-publishable and therefore he will not send it to any agents, Steven tells
me he will not try to get my draft to Sean Penn because, “Sean Penn is just
a stoned-out actor who doesn’t read anything.” I can frame Steven’s words
in quotes because I wrote them down, figuring they would come in handy
someday.

    To sum up, in case you’re confused by all this convoluted Hollywood
shit: Aside from the Cusack/Cosmic Banditos deal likely going into the toilet
and the unlikelihood that Sean Penn will ever read my once-brilliant draft,
I’m persona non grata in Hollywood, plus in the publishing business, aside
from my similar status with a guy down here at the paradise known as Big
Turkeys, this nutcase Logan who figures to run me out of town.

   And then there’s Lisa, the love of my life.
 

 

*If this sounds familiar, Jon Voight also labeled me thus. For some reason, this “real thing”
accolade is a favorite in Hollywood. Possibly they got it from that old Coca-Cola commercial
and it just stuck.

**If it sounds a little iffy, conflict of interest-wise, that my agent was also the producer’s agent:
My attorney Steven was also the producer’s attorney and the director’s attorney as well. Not
only that: Steven and my agent used to be a guy-gal couple. So in a sense there was some incest,
on top of the conflict of interest. In other words, I really should have seen Steven’s treachery
regarding his big mouth and this book coming.

PART 6 COMING SOON… 

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PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTERVIEW

[From Chapter 14 of CYGAWA]

I went out there [to Hollywood] for a thousand a week, and I worked Monday,and I got fired Wednesday. The guy that hired me was out of town Tuesday.  – Nelson Algren

By way of Hollywood backstory: 

John Cusack Makes Quantum Leap in New Movie
January 10, 2001 1:55 am EST
By Claude Brodesser
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) – John Cusack, last in theaters with “High Fidelity,” has committed to star in and produce “Cosmic Banditos.”

Based on the soon to be republished novel by A.C. Weisbecker,
“Banditos” follows the adventures of some Colombian marijuana
smugglers on the lam in the jungle – one of them an American
expatriate who would be played by Cusack. The tome will be
republished in March by the New American Library trade imprint.

The book will be adapted for the screen by “Sid and Nancy”
scribe Abbe Wool and Jimmy Fishman, the producer of 1999’s
“Desperate But Not Serious.”

“It’s just really original,” said Cusack, adding, “It deals with
quantum mechanics in a gonzo, gung-ho sort of way.”

The picture concerns what Fishman, a former solid-state
physicist turned producer-screenwriter, calls a group of smugglers
“whose chaotic and random lives are suddenly given meaning by
the laws of subatomic physics.” The expatriate has what Fishman
calls “a quantum epiphany” about how their lives are governed by
particles.

Cusack said he first became interested in physics while shooting
the 1989 picture “Fat Man and Little Boy” in the New Mexico desert
when he was 21. The film allowed him to spend time discussing
the Manhattan Project and the Los Alamos labs with numerous
physicists consulting on the picture.

“Those first atomic physicists were real cowboys,” he explained,
“like mystics, only they dealt with numbers instead of language.”
The project will be developed by New York-based independent
producer The Shooting Gallery.

    Know how I found out that this major star intended to produce and
star in a movie version of my book? (Keep in mind that the article is from
January, 2001, two years before the email from Cusack offering me the
adaptation.) A friend read the above Variety piece and emailed it to me,
several days after publication. Then the Hollywood writer I refer to as a
shitball motherfucker called to say he saw Cusack on TV, talking about
how great the book is and how he was going to make a movie from it. The
shitball motherfucker was trying to sound all rosy and happy for me but I
could imagine his green-with-envy complexion and forced grin – imagine
a seasick jackass chewing on a swarm of yellow jackets. See, he already
knew about the Captain Zero movie deal, Sean Penn wanting to play me.
Now with Cusack joining the ranks of movie stars wanting to play me,
we’re talking about an envious shitball motherfucker here.  

    But the point being: Does the above strike you as odd? Like maybe I should
have known about the deal before it appeared in the trade publications,
and Cusack himself blabbed about it on the tube? 

    Here’s how it went: Around June, 2000, the guy mentioned in the above
article, Jim Fishman, calls me and then my agent (my New York book agent,
not my Hollywood movie agent) about optioning the book. Fishman says
he’s a buddy of John Cusack, who loves the book, and maybe he could get
Cusack involved in the future, but he doesn’t have a lot to spend on an
option, blah blah. I say, Okay, why not, and Fishman coughs up $1,500 for
a year option. A clause in the contract states that if Fishman makes a deal
with a third party – any third party – he’d immediately owe me another
$15,000. 

     Months go by. It’s now January of 2001 and I’ve haven’t heard anything
from Fishman. Suddenly and without warning, according to the above
article and the interviews Cusack has done on the tube, deals have now
been struck (by Fishman) with three third parties: screenwriter Abbe
Wool, the production company called The Shooting Gallery, and Cusack
himself.

    To repeat: No one, not Fishman nor Cusack nor The Shooting Gallery
notified me about the deals. If you’re thinking that this is incredibly rude,
and completely unprofessional, you’re absolutely right. It’s out there, even
by Hollywood standards. But you know what? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

    So my agent (my book agent) makes a flurry of phone calls to the people
involved. Nobody will take her calls or return them. How could this be?
They owe me money, the fifteen grand, that’s how. I know: By the standards
of the movie biz, chump change – although it isn’t chump change to me.
Plus I’m pissed off at the insult, the lack of respect. Not surprised, just
pissed off.

    January goes by, then February, then we’re well into March and still no
money. I call Fishman myself, whom I already talked to once, about the
adaptation he and Woole are doing. Fishman tells me to call The Shooting
Gallery about the money. Okay, I say, figuring to play his game for the
moment. I do remind him about our contract, which has no assign-the-debt
clause. In other words, he owes me the money, not The Shooting Gallery.
From his response, I can’t tell if Fishman is simply a moron or if he’s
stonewalling me, trying to make me believe there’s something wrong with
me in expecting him to live up to our agreement. Anyway, although he
admits that there’s no assign-the-debt clause in our contract, he still insists
– without logic or explanation – that he no longer owes me the money and
that I should deal with The Shooting Gallery. Talk to Amy at The Shooting
Gallery, Fishman says.

    So I call this Amy, one Amy Nickin, a lawyer at The Shooting Gallery.
Nickin chit-chats a streak, saying how much everyone at The Shooting
Gallery loves my book and respects the material and how it’s going to
make a helluva movie and so forth.

    I go along with this until I can’t stand it anymore and ask, Where’s the
money?

    Oh, that, Nickin says. No problem. Says they’ll pay me in 30 days. Can’t
pay me right now because The Shooting Gallery is merging with some
big company and has a cash flow problem. Just be patient and I’ll get my
money. To this I ask Nickin if they’re telling, say, the electric company that
The Shooting Gallery has a cash flow problem and that the light bill can’t be
paid but they’ll get their money if they’re patient. Or if her own paycheck
is being held up.  

    Nickin, of course, says That’s different.

    I surprise her here, I think, given my query about the electric company
and her salary check, which queries had sarcastic subtext, although my
tone was pleasant. I say, Don’t worry about it. I tell her that Fishman owes
me the money anyway, not her company. 

    She tells me that Fishman doesn’t have the money either.

    I know a rip off coming when I see it, from my old smuggling days. There
is now no question in my mind that Fishman and The Shooting Gallery
have no intention of paying me the 15k. But why would they do this, rip me
off for a measly 15k when the movie will cost millions?

    I have a theory. Based upon the conversation about the adaptation
I already had with Fishman, I’m thinking that there is zero chance that
the screenplay being written by Fishman and Woole will be shootable. In
other words, there will be no movie, no millions spent. This is obvious to
everyone involved, I figure, especially to The Shooting Gallery, which is
stalling payment after being nearly three months late to begin with. (The
Shooting Gallery probably agreed with Fishman to shoulder the 15k debt,
but that had nothing to do with me; that was between them and Fishman.)
Cusack himself, I’m figuring, doesn’t give a shit about me getting paid or not
getting paid – there’s no way he’s made himself liable for any outlay. He’s
free-riding it on this, as movie stars do, based on Hollywood entitlement,
as with Sean Penn and my other book.

    Why do I figure the screenplay is unshootable? During our conversation
about the adaptation Fishman informed me that “one change” was being
made from the book to the screen story. What change is that? I wanted to
know, and yes, my writer’s queasy gut was already flaring.

    The change was that they made José, the Full Blown Bandito, the Cosmic
Bandito of the title, a woman…

    If you happened to have read the book, and if you happened to be dead
right now, you’d be spinning in your grave. And while spinning in your
grave you’d maybe be concocting variations of catch-22s about dumb
people and movies not getting made. But I have to assume you haven’t
read the book. So imagine this. Imagine that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid was originally a book. Imagine that a movie producer options the book
and then tells the author that he loves and respects the book, and the one
change they’re making is that Butch is going to be a babe.

    Now try to imagine how the movie would go… instead of one of the
classic buddy movies of all time… instead of that great scene at the end
when Butch and Sundance are all shot up and about to be slaughtered by a
thousand Bolivian soldiers and they’re arguing about where they’re going
next… instead of that climactic scene now imagine they have a lover’s spat
about… about that time Sundance was insensitive when Butch was PMS-
ing. (Butch would be the babe, I figure, since a babe who robs banks is
going to be… well… butch.) 

    Hearing the above about José now being a woman, I was too astounded
to respond. All I managed as a stalling tactic while I regrouped was a query
about what the babe full blown bandito was now named. 

    Still José, Fishman said.

    I don’t understand. José is now a woman but she’s still named José?

    Yes! Fishman said. As if this is some sort of subtle stroke of genius. A
touch. 

    Maybe Fishman was also comparing the scenario to Butch Cassidy and
figured that if Butch could still be called Butch if Butch was a babe, he
should call José José even if José was now a babe. 

    Or maybe he kept the name José out of respect for the material.

    Boy, I’d like to read the screenplay, I said. I was curious, in the morbid
sense. (Right: It would turn out to be The Worst Screenplay in the History
of the World.) 

    Sure, Fishman said, but first he wants to give it to The Shooting Gallery,
see what they think, and then give it to Cusack. My theory at the time
was that Fishman gave the screenplay to The Shooting Gallery and The
Shooting Gallery wanted to save 15k by ripping off the author of the
original material, me, since the screenplay was unshootable. 

    As it will turn out, I gave The Shooting Gallery too much credit by
assuming they even realized the screenplay was unshootable. As it will
turn out, the reason The Shooting Gallery intended to rip me off was less
subtle and imaginative, albeit sleazier.

    After talking with The Shooting Gallery’s lawyer, Amy Nickin, the lying
slug, I call Fishman back and get right to the point. I tell him if I don’t get
the money by the next day I’ll come out to L.A. and deal with the problem
in person. I add that since I don’t like dealing with lawyers – or even being
in close physical proximity to the shitball motherfuckers, even Steven, my
Hollywood one – I have no intention of suing him. I then muster a tone
best described as…. demented… and say that I’m really looking forward to
meeting him, if he gets my drift. Thinking about the Men’s Journal guy’s
reaction to this sort of thing, I’m figuring a FedEx-ed check will arrive the
next day. 

    Fishman tells me Great and that he’s looking forward to meeting me and
lunch will be on him. I swear to God that’s what he said. I have it right here
in my contemporaneous notes.

    I don’t want to fly out to L.A., I’m thinking, especially with Mom so sick
and all. Plus, beating up Fishman would probably not get the job done;
I’d just get in trouble, or maybe get myself beat up. The guy didn’t sound
tough, but who knew? The thing about dumb people is that sometimes
they’ll surprise you. All that unused brain power can surface in weird,
unexpected ways.

    So I ponder my options.

    Who should I turn my attention towards?

    Why not Cusack?   

    So I call his company, New Crime Productions, and speak to the executive
in charge of the deal. To my chagrin, she’s very nice, seems really genuine
and concerned when she tells me that she understands my frustration at
not getting paid, and at finding out about all the deals that had been struck
through articles in Variety and calls from envious shitball motherfucker
Hollywood writers, words to that effect.  

    Before she can get too nice and genuine and concerned – which would
cause me to lose heart in my mission – I muster a tirade to the effect that
I’m coming out to L.A. to look up her boss Cusack and confront him for the
money since it was he who blabbed all over the TV and to the Hollywood
trade papers that he had control of my book and was now a producer on
the project along with the dumb-ass Fishman and since producers are
responsible for seeing that writers get paid I don’t care who my contract is
with so I’m coming to L.A. and I’m really pissed off. I may have worked in
my outrage over my Full Blown Bandito José character now being a woman
who is somehow still named José. If I didn’t, I should have.

    An added plus here is that the main source of humor in Cosmic Banditos is
that the narrator is pretty much out of his mind (if not outright demented);
he is the drug–addled perpetrator of rampant criminality, blatant and
unapologetic nihilism and all around chaos and destruction. And keep in
mind that the narrator is based on me. This is all anyone involved in the
deal really knows about me. I haven’t yet met any of them.  

    In the wake of my mustered tirade the woman executive is still nice
and genuine and concerned so I do what I have to before I lose heart and
apologize for my ranting hostility. I hang up.  

    I wait to see What Happens Next.

    It’s spectacular.

    The phone will not stop ringing.

    First my then-literary agent calls wanting to know if I’m crazy or what
and then Amy Nickin, the lying slug of an attorney for The Shooting
Gallery, calls, all irate that I’m “behaving unprofessionally.” Fishman calls
saying… I don’t remember; I have no notes or recollections on the call.
Maybe something about our upcoming lunch, whether I have any dietary
preferences.

    The phone keeps ringing, various Hollywoodites wanting to know if I’m
crazy and accusing me of unprofessionalism and so forth. Sitting by the
kitchen phone at Mom’s house in North Carolina, I’m rather enjoying all
the fuss and dismay.  

    Mom is toward the end of her life during all this; she will die in a few
weeks, in late April. She’s weak but still lucid. She says she’s worried about
me threatening people but has faith that I know what I’m doing. I tell Mom
not to worry, that I do know what I’m doing, and that the situation and how
I’m handling it is the usual with Hollywood deals. This isn’t strictly true, of
course. I say it to un-worry Mom.

   Late that same night Cusack himself calls, wakes me up. He’s affable,
chit-chats a bit, asks how Mom is; I’ve made no secret that I’m taking care
of her in her illness. (The image of a demented writer taking care of his
dying Mom may be a source of further worry about what I’m capable of — I
think Jeffrey Dahmer loved his Mom, too.) He seems genuine, mentioning
something about his own Mom. Then he gets to the point, says he didn’t
know about my treatment by Fishman and The Shooting Gallery. He’s off
promoting his latest movie and out of that loop. He doesn’t blame me a bit
for my behavior and promises that my money is forthcoming, and soon.
Says he’ll be personally responsible for the payment.

   Okay, I say. Great. Thank you. I definitely believe him on all this. I didn’t
threaten the guy because I figured he directly had anything to do with the
problem; I just figured it would work. I tell him this and we laugh. I even
apologize if I’ve upset anyone other than Nickin or Fishman, although
in my opinion I haven’t upset Fishman since Fishman apparently doesn’t
realize that I have threatened anyone. Fishman isn’t the brightest bulb on
the Hollywood marquee, I say, words to that effect. Cusack laughs, but
with a little edge to it; I’m talking about his producing partner here. But our
conversation winds down naturally and quite cordially.

    The guy’s all right, I’m thinking. Provisionally. I wait to see if the money
shows up.

    The check arrives by FedEx the next day. Issued by The Shooting
Gallery.

    But one last thing. I wait to see if the check clears.

    It does.

—

As I say, I was wrong in my theory that The Shooting Gallery was refusing
to pay me because they knew the movie was not going to get made (due to
the script being unshootable), and they were trying to save the 15k. They
were trying to save the 15k but for a different reason.

    I monitored the situation to see What Would Happen Next. 

    Less than a month later The Shooting Gallery went belly up. Chapter 11.
Poof. Gone. 

    Remember Amy Nickin’s promise that I’d get my money in 30 days? 

    Right: They had no intention whatever of paying me before running for
the bankruptcy hills.

    But why did they pay me? 

    Because everyone involved in the company figured they’d soon enough
be back working in Hollywood (maybe they’d immediately start another
company fresh and debt free) and therefore did not want to alienate John
Cusack, who no doubt made an irate call to them, demanding that I be
paid.  

    I was crazy and unprofessional but I got my money.

    Mom loved it that all this worked out.  She even saw the humor in it, my
threatening a movie star and so forth. But she worried, too. She worried
about all the problems I was having with people, like my demented Zero
editor, who by now had cut off communications with me, partially due to
treachery on the part of my then-book agent. 

    But the main thing Mom worried about was that I’d find someone to love
in this world. 

READ ON FOR PART 5: THE GOING GETS WEIRD

Subscribe to Allan’s Newsletter.  Check out Allan’s new book.

PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTERVIEW

I’m a Hollywood writer; so I put on a sports jacket and take off
my brain. – Ben Hecht

More Hollywood stuff, this regarding my first book, Cosmic Banditos, a goofball novel about The Meaning of Life wherein the protagonist is an unbalanced guy strongly based on me. 

There’s a movie deal for Cosmic Banditos too. The actor John Cusack has optioned that book. Here on this little Caribbean island I got an email from Cusack’s company, New Crime Productions, saying he wants me to adapt that book for the screen. I got that email within a few days of the one from the movie studio for which I’m writing the screenplay to In Search of Captain Zero.    

I’ve got movie deals up the wazoo.

If you’re one of those sad souls who is fascinated by movie stars and who has kept reading this book solely to find out which major movie star I physically threatened, why, and what happened when I did so, I have something to disclose: It was John Cusack I physically threatened. If you don’t remember that I physically threatened a movie star – it was mentioned a long time ago – good for you. In a sense I respect you for it.

    The Cosmic Banditos saga is a good one, with plenty of bizarre Hollywood
doings. The bizarre Hollywood doings are best summed up by the fact that
I physically threatened John Cusack and now he wants to hire me.  

    How did that work?

    I’ll soon get around to that, but first: My having fired my movie writing
agent means that Steven, my Hollywood attorney, will handle the Banditos
contract negotiations. At first I thought this would save me money since I
would not have to cough up the 10% commission agents get for making a
couple of phone calls. However, Steven informed me that since he will be
acting as my agent as well as my attorney, he will get the 10%. I came within
a hair’s breadth of firing him on the spot for this bullshit, but decided to
wait on that, since it would mean I’d have no one left to handle my affairs
in the States.  

    An important point is that I myself put the Cosmic Banditos deal together
in the first place, minus only the contract details. Putting the deal together
in the first place is 90% of an agent’s job. So, in theory, I should get to keep
90% of the 10% Steven wants. When I mentioned this to Steven, he said,
“That’s different,” then changed the subject.

   We’ll see how it goes with Steven, but I’ll tell you, my finger is quivering
on the firing-someone-else trigger.

   At the time of the original Cosmic Banditos option deal, which was back
in the spring of 2001, two other writers – a writing team, as the Hollywood
expression goes – were hired to write the screenplay. How did they do? I’ll
put it this way: If they were a football team instead of a writing team, the
goddamn New York Jets could have kicked their ass. They wrote The Worst
Screenplay in the History of the World. But more about that to come. I’ll
fucking loop back to it.

    Still more Hollywood stuff. In order to keep my fee down, Cusack’s
mpany is calling it “a rewrite.” A rewrite of The Worst Screenplay in the
History of the World. Since it’s The Worst Screenplay in the History of the
World I will not in any way be referring to it in my work. Cusack’s people
have agreed to this, i.e., that I should not refer to it in my work. (They have
more or less agreed that the first screenplay is The Worst Screenplay in the
History of the World.) So how could it then be a rewrite? When I queried
everyone involved on this matter they all said the same thing: “That’s
different.” Then they all changed the subject.  

    Anyway, all kinds of things will be up in the air when I leave this little
Caribbean Island and return to my home at the end of the road at the
bottom of Central America, aside from how it goes with Lisa.

    ’m supposed to be writing the screenplay to my first memoir, In Search
of Captain Zero, a book wherein there is no movie, and for which I’m being
paid a ton of money, and in the writing of which I intend to go into the
tank, i.e., purposefully come up with a bunch of utter crapola.  

    I’m also about to be hired to write the screenplay to my other book, which
was optioned by another major Hollywood star, one whom I physically
threatened. (Did I mention that I have doubts about whether there’s a
movie in that book?)  

    And yet I’m not writing either screenplay. I’m writing this book, for
which there is no guarantee that I’ll be paid anything, or even that it will
be published at all. Not only that but – in case you haven’t figured it out –
as soon as word about this book gets out, my writing career will likely be
over.

    Who is going to want to come near me after this?

    Unless, of course, this book becomes a howling success. If this book
becomes a howling success, I’ll basically be able to do what I want, including
answering thorny questions with the words, “That’s different.”

    I gotta say it again: On top of all the sweating and forehead bleeding and
firing mega-talent-agency pimps, plus queasy guts, this is some wild-ass
job, this writing job, no? 

READ ON FOR PART 4: THREATENING JOHN CUSACK

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PART 1
PART 2
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTERVIEW

[From Chapter 12 of CYGAWA]

Context is all. And a relatively pure heart. Relatively pure –
for if you had a pure heart you wouldn’t be in the book-writing
business in the first place.  -Robert Penn Warren

Last week just before The Horror took place here on this little Caribbean island I got an email from the movie studio that wound up backing the In Search of Captain Zero movie deal. As things go in Hollywood, and as I more or less predicted back in 2001, the producer who optioned the book was able to find a studio to put up the money to make a movie out of my book, even though there is no movie in my book. One reason for this, I think, was that the studio head who decided to shell out the cash hadn’t read the book. If this sounds somehow both odd and familiar – and it would be odd (or flat nuts) in a similar situation in any other business – the familiar part is likely due to Sean Penn having co-optioned the book without reading it either.

    And the deal was up there in six figures. I’m rolling in loot. Mostly
because I insisted on writing the screenplay. Screenplays are where the
money is. You think I cared that there is no movie in my book when I
insisted on writing the screenplay to my book, given that screenplays are
where the money is?

    Ha!

    But to sum up: Two of the main people who wanted to make a movie out
of my book hadn’t read it, and, meanwhile, another important person, the
one writing the screenplay, me, knew there was no movie in my book.

    To knock off an old song title: Hooray for Hollywood!

    A digression to a related matter, a Meanwhile: Nonfiction writers, of
which I am one at this moment, routinely lie like slugs in their narratives.
Often they’ll lie like slugs about facts, which, as you already know, I
sometimes do. Sometimes lying about facts is okay, sometimes not. But
what’s never okay is to lie in subtext, purposely cause the reader to have a
rush of insight about the workings of the world which the writer knows to
be false. Lying in subtext is a sin. Writers who do this, of which there are a
bunch, will rot in Writer Hell. My theory is that this worse case lying-in-
writing scenario is invariably caused by the same condition that causes
bad behavior of any sort: a failure in self-reflection.*

    If you’re going to write a book (but not someday): The key to writing,
good writing, is self-reflection. In a sense, it’s a writer’s job, his only job.
Take that to the bank and put it in an interest-bearing account.** 

    I know a writer, mostly a Hollywood writer, who, when he looks in the
mirror, does not realize that there is little more than a lying, treacherous
shitball motherfucker staring back at him. So even when he’s looking in
the mirror there is no self-reflection. The guy is a pretty good writer, but
only in that he knows how to string words together. Other than that, he’s a
shitball writer. No self-reflection.

    But what does all this have to do with movie deals and making a movie
from a book wherein there is no movie?

    My going on about demented editors and people I’ve fired and am
pissed off at and shitball motherfuckers in general raises a question about
my character. I’ll phrase the question like this: What sort of potentially
cynical and greedy shitball motherfucker would let his book be optioned
and accept a ton of money, like 200 grand, to adapt it to the screen if he
knows there is no movie in the book? I use the qualifier potentially (which
is an adverb, possibly on the road to hell) here because the status of
this hypothetical person (based on me) as a cynical and greedy shitball
motherfucker is pending.

    So this is the question, and it’s a good one, no? I mean possibly humorous
catch-22s aside…

    No one who wants to make a movie out of my book is smart enough to get it
done.

   By way of answering the question, in essence defending myself against
a serious charge – and plus maybe against the most serious charge there is
regarding self-reflection, or lack thereof, which is hypocrisy – here’s how
the deal went down…

    But first for perspective I want you to imagine something. Imagine that
a bunch of lawyers and MBAs get together and buy a hospital. One day
they’re sitting around and an MBA or lawyer says, “You know, I’ve always
wanted to try my hand at brain surgery.” Another MBA or lawyer nods,
saying that when he was a freshman at college he was thinking of going to
medical school. “Hey…” he says, “we own the hospital. We can do what we
want. Let’s go down to the operating room and give it a shot!”

    This is Hollywood in a nutshell, when producers and studio executives,
MBAs and lawyers, insert themselves into the creative process, the
storytelling process. They just can’t help themselves. It makes them feel
like they’re actually doing something — aside from making phone calls and
getting coverage instead of reading anything. They also do it because they
can. Hey, they own the hospital.

    Enough perspective. Defending myself against these serious charges.
The deal. How it went down.

    By July of 2001, two months after Mom died, the producer, along with
Sean Penn as co-producer, had found a studio that was interested in the
Zero project — an executive at the studio plus his yes-man had actually read
the book. A meeting was set up to discuss a possible development deal.
Development deals are deals wherein the first money the studio coughs
up goes to the screenwriter, plus expenses and an up front fee for the
producers. Then, if the screenplay passes muster, the movie gets made –
assuming a few miracles transpire. If the miracles transpire and the movie
gets made, everyone gets a lot more money.

    The meeting was to be at breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel in L.A.
In attendance were the producer, the director (‘attached’ to the deal), the
studio head, the executive who had read the book, his yes-man, plus Sean
Penn, plus me. I say the meeting was to be at breakfast because it pretty
much ended up being at lunch due to Sean Penn being a couple hours late.
This notwithstanding that he was staying at the Four Seasons, meaning he
didn’t have far to go to get to the meeting. Traffic was not a problem.

   “You know Sean,” the producer said to me as we waited and waited in
the lobby, along with the director. Although I had talked with Sean on the
phone about making a movie out of my book – the conversation wherein
he said he was “missing a little information here” – I didn’t actually know
him. But okay. The producer reiterated that I was going to enjoy working
with him, meaning in the writing of the screenplay, in the process of which
I had been assured that Sean gets involved early. 

   I’m looking forward to it, I said, as we waited.

   Eventually Sean steps out of the elevator and says Hi to the producer
and the director, whom he knows, then he and I shake and say Hi, then,
by way of apology for his tardiness, Sean says he had “a pharmaceutical
night.” We all laugh.

   We join the studio people in the dining room.

   Everyone says Hi to everyone else. Sean and the studio head are old
pals. Sean repeats his de facto apology about his pharmaceutical night and
we all laugh. Sean sits down and lights up a cigarette. By this time I could
use one myself, but I can’t bring myself to do it, what with the No Smoking
signs and people eating nearby.

   Allan smokes too, the producer says to Sean. You two are going to get
along great. We all laugh, although I’m wishing she hadn’t said that. I’m
embarrassed about smoking.

   There’s chit-chat about some party Sean went to the previous night,
who was there and so forth, then the meeting gets underway. You must
remember that no deal has yet been struck with the studio. The only money
I’d got was a couple grand for a year-and-a-half option on my book. So big
bucks were hanging in the air for yours truly that morning (maybe it was
afternoon by now) at the Four Seasons Hotel in West L.A. – in Hollywood,
actually, the state of mind Hollywood.

   Cutting through the politics and the personal relationships and the
compliments about how great my book is and other bullshit, what this
meeting is, is an audition, my audition, as screenwriter.

   So I’ve got the floor. I’m hoping I’ll be “good in a room” as the Hollywood
expression goes, and which I used to be back in my old Hollywood days. So
I start in on how to make a movie out of my book but my rhythm is broken
by a waiter who comes over and asks Sean not to smoke. An ashtray is
secured and Sean eventually puts out his cigarette. I try to inhale the last
wisp of the fucking thing.

   All right. Here we go.

   In a sense my pitch of how to make a movie out of my book is of the I
have good news and I have bad news sort. The bad news, I say, is that there is
no movie in my book.

   Hold on. I don’t exactly phrase it this way, as I will much later when the
deal turns into a full-blown fiasco. Here’s how I do phrase it: My book does
not provide an actual story, I say, due to a lack of real conflict between the
two main characters. I then point out that conflict is what a story is built
upon. In essence, conflict (plus the turning points it creates) is what a story
is. But we all know this, I say. I’m being disingenuous since – possibly apart
from Sean Penn (pharmaceutical night or no) – I know that no one here
knows this, although they all nod.

   The book works, I go on (trying to avoid sounding too didactic), because
of the narrative voice, which defines the book’s principal conflicts as internal
– internal conflicts are not directly translatable to the screen. Further, I say,
the book ending hinges on an internal turning point and is likewise not
translatable to the screen. In other words, we have no ending.

   I then point out something else I claim we all know, which is that in
storytelling, especially screen storytelling, endings are very important.
In fact (and here I quote screenwriter William Goldman), endings are
everything. No ending, no story.

   What the book provides, I say, is a premise, a good one, and I’m not
being disingenuous here. I really feel that way. The premise: A middle-aged
surfer gives up his straight life to search for an old friend and ex-partner in crime
from their younger days, who is missing in Central America.

    That’s pretty much all the book provides, I reiterate. So: They’re
contemplating coughing up a couple hundred grand plus a producer’s fee
(plus overhead and interest) for one sentence. To distract them all from this
implication I quickly ramble on, saying that the narrative will have to be
reinvented. That’s the word I use. Reinvented. I also work in the fact that my
book is nonfiction, meaning some sort of portrayal of real life, and real life,
almost by definition, is not dramatic. Real life is a pain in the ass that way,
making a movie out of it.  

    Everyone agrees to all this, including Sean Penn, via a nod, although,
aside from his pharmaceutical night, he’s missing a little information here.
But okay. That everyone agrees is a relief. It’s a relief because not only do
I want the money, I want to write this screenplay. I want to reinvent my
book. 

    See if you concur: With everyone’s agreement that the book lacks an
actual story and that the narrative will have to be reinvented and that
they’re coughing up a couple hundred grand for one sentence, they are
in effect also agreeing with my catch-22, notwithstanding that they don’t
realize it.

    More defensiveness on my part: Was it my responsibility to outright
define my catch-22? I didn’t – and still don’t – think so. I’m trying to let
myself off the cynical and greedy shitball motherfucker hook here. I admit
that.  

    Back to the meeting. I then go on to outline the conflicts I concocted that
will provide the turning points necessary to build an actual story around
my premise. Now, I say, regarding the ending, which the book does not
provide, what I want to do is create a mythical kind of The Endless Summer
meets Apocalypse Now finish. I know better than to use Heart of Darkness,
the novel upon which Apocalypse Now is based, in my Hollywood short-
handing, figuring that no one else in the room has read, or even knows
about, Joseph Conrad’s book.  

    Not only does everyone like my concocted turning points that will
provide the necessary conflicts, plus the idea of The Endless Summer meeting
Apocalypse Now, but the studio head, (who, again, hasn’t read the book) says
this, and I remember his words exactly because I will repeat them minutes
later when the producer and I are alone, and then again on the phone to
my then-agent, whose response to my later firing her is the title to this
book. He says, “I want to stop you right here, Allan.” He pauses. He has
everyone’s undivided attention. “I just want to say that you have this deal
right now, if you want it.”  

    Not only has the studio head not noticed my implied catch-22, but he
apparently is sufficiently impressed by not noticing it, if you get my drift,
to offer me the deal then and there, no further ado or blabbing or being
good in a room on my part necessary. So it’s agreed: Everyone’s people will
be in touch with everyone else’s people to work out the legal details.

    Sean adjourns to the patio and lights up. The producer, the director and
I join him. I light up. We chit-chat for a bit and the producer reiterates how
Sean and I are going to enjoy working together.

   I’m looking forward to it, I say.

—

   So this was in July of 2001 and now it’s March of 2003. I’m on a little
Caribbean island with Lisa, the woman with whom I’ve fallen in love at
age 55. The Horror will soon take place and, meanwhile, I’ve received an
email from the studio from the above meeting, the outfit that’s paying me
to adapt my book for the screen. The email includes the studio’s “notes” on
how I should rewrite my last submitted draft of the screenplay.

   As a result of this email I’ve decided to go into the tank.

   Go into the tank is a boxing expression. It means a boxer is going to throw
a fight. Lose on purpose. In this case, go into the tank means I’m planning
on writing a piece of shit screenplay. Write a bunch of utter crapola and do
it on purpose.

   Why would I do this?

   Hang in and I’ll get around to that, but first some other stuff, including
stuff with Lisa that makes The Horror look like a day at the beach.***

— 

*My view is that lying about facts is sometimes “okay” when the writer’s sole motive is to keep
the story moving, or to foster unity (symmetry), or to ease the narrative onto another subject (a
segue), with no deceitful implications about how the world works.

**Aside from self-reflecting in his work, a writer has to keep the reader wanting to know What
Happens Next. So, regarding only jobs, writers actually have two.

***Since I’m hinting at future narrative events, this chapter ending is an example of looping,
which I’m doing all over the place. I love looping! Hey, I’m becoming an “I loop, therefore I am”
sort of writer. To put it another way: To my demented editor, assuming she is reading this right
now: Take your looping and shove it up your ass.

— 

READ ON FOR PART 3: JOHN CUSACK, COSMIC BANDITO

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This is part 4 of FilmDrunk’s interview with Allan Weisbecker. Check out part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here.

"If you’ll remember, in the book I’m no kinder to the publishing business than I am to Hollywood. Do you think either Random House or Penguin (my last publishers) are going to rush to publish then promote a book that outs them as duplicitous, incompetent, arrogant scumbags?" 

FD: Okay, so what’s the story on the documentary you’re going to shoot on your upcoming road trip to Mexico? 

AW: October 19th was the 10th anniversary of my leaving on the In Search of Captain Zero Central America odyssey. Then came the continuation of that story, Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer’s Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer’s Paradise, which somehow was more intense, albeit more ridiculous and relentless as well. So the question is: What’s Next? (That’s always the question.) Why not make a movie? 

But a repetition of the past, creatively or otherwise, is not what I’m interested in. I will try to define and (mostly through visual imagery) convey the changes I’ve gone through in the last ten years, since the writing of the two books, and due to the writing of the two books. Yes, another memoir of sorts, but using a different medium.  

Although a loose point of view/narrative structure is beginning to form, the film will define itself as it goes – as with CYGAWA and to an extent Zero, the story will unfold in real time. (After all, film is the ultimate present tense medium.)

Some thoughts:

I’ll be interviewing random people I meet on the road. (Did you know that there’s a culture of RV travelers who stay at… Wal-Mart parking lots? Whoa! I’m thinking Fellini meets The Public Access Channel!)

I’ll be using a lot of my archived still photographs to deal with the backstories of Zero and CYGAWA. I may even work in some old super 8 footage from the 1970s.

I’ll probably spend some time at truck stops out west, researching a novel I have in mind. Its tentative title is Truck Stop Whore.

In my many cross country road trips over the years, I became interested in truck stops – especially those big ones that are self contained mini-communities in the middle of nowhere; how truckers will get to know the people who work there, always ‘passing through.’ There’s some sort of grand metaphor here, although I’m not sure what it is and don’t want to think about it consciously, so enough said.

If I don’t go with some version of the whore’s story – if I go in a different direction – I may call it Always Open. Sounds like a good title for a big-mouth like me.

FD: Tell me about publishing CYGAWA yourself – first the why, then the how.

AW: If you’ll remember, in the book I’m no kinder to the publishing business than I am to Hollywood. Do you think either Random House or Penguin (my last publishers) are going to rush to publish then promote a book that outs them as duplicitous, incompetent, arrogant scumbags?

There’s another catch-22 around here somewhere, I think.

Plus, in being my own publisher, I’m secure in the knowledge that the next set of fiascos and catastrophic shit I’m hammered with will be my own doing. A comforting thought.

But on the other hand, my theory of how to secure a readership for whatever my company, Bandito Books, publishes is unique and so far is working: My partner and I have created an online magazine that is unique and edgy and enlightening and funny, plus it’s free.

Our theory is that readers will come to trust us, so when we publish a book and say it’s good, they’ll buy it. Key is that we will only publish books we would read, then we’re honest about them, what they are and so forth.

Banditobooks.com. Give it a look. See if I’m suffering from the HUYA Syndrome, like everyone else.

FD: HUYA Syndrome?

AW: Head Up Your Ass.

FD: Was I naïve to have thought your first two books would give you the clout to write anything you want?

AW: HUYA!

 

READ ON FOR THE NEXT SECTION: A FINAL NOTE FROM ALLAN WEISBECKER

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