Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (8 page)

J.T. took a deep breath. And coughed up a loogy. After a shoot

night, the caves always smelled of fear: body odor, stale beer, and distant aromatic hints of medicinal marijuana. But there was also the smell of freshly painted sets, and the moldy backdrops of what the audience would see out the characters’ windows.
Same ol’, same
ol’,
J.T. thought.

He found a corner of the set where he could get a feel for the

show and quickly speed-read the overwritten episode. This was a Christmas episode with many guest stars and children. Also, every scene began with the stage direction: “This is the best ever Christmas. The
best ever
Christmas
ever
to be on film.” J.T. laughed again.

How many Christmas shows have I shot,
he thought,
where everything was the
best ever
?

That one phrase took the writers off the hook and put all the

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

pressure on him, the director. Now he had to conjure up some-

one’s idea of the
best ever
without having a clue about what that looked like.
I guess fucking Beaglebum would want me to give them
fifty percent of my best ever!

Suddenly J.T. realized that he heard his own voice echoing

through the empty soundstage. He had been ranting aloud.
That is
not a good sign
, he thought,
is it? Certainly not on day one
. No one answered. Phew.

The Production Meeting

J.T. walked out of Stage Five and past two more gargantuan stag-es to a row of old cottages. There was no latent glamour here. He walked up the rotting wooden stairs of the first cottage, through a door that had been repainted every year for the past thirty years but never once sanded, and into the room where the production

meeting was to be held.

This was a room of confrontation: a room where descriptive

sentences and the actual details of filming them converged, and clashed. Thoughts. Practicalities. Left hemisphere, right hemisphere. If I were to tell you, the reader, that this room was painted a depressing gray and the walls had the pockmarks of a kid with bad skin, that although no one was allowed to smoke in it anymore the odor of stale tobacco still leached from its pores, you would have no trouble imagining it. But put that description in a script for a TV show, and at the production meeting someone from the art

department would say, “What the fuck shade of gray is depressing to you? Because I find all shades of gray depressing. So? Which is it? Do you want cinder gray? Battleship gray? French gray? Hoary-haired gray? Smoke gray? Steel gray? Silver gray? Quaker gray?

Gray-gray? I’ve gotta paint these fucking walls tomorrow unless you want to pay overtime for the depressing gray which of course would then
definitely
be a depressing gray.”

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

A room of passive aggression.

“No, really. I want you to have that oh-so-depressing shade

of gray. I’ll do everything in my power to make it as depressing as possible yet still cheery and happy for a sitcom. Well, I guess you want sitcom-depressing gray! But here’s the deal: how much are

you willing to spend on the depressing gray? Because we have entire new sets to build.”

A room of power struggles.

Then the scriptwriter would say, “You know, I’ve changed my

mind. Strike the depressing gray. I now see the room as a thought-ful patina-green. Actually, see if you can find a Quaker green.”

A room of Fuck You and You and You.

“Touché. Quaker green it is. (
Asshole
.)”

Trust me. The room is depressing and it’s gray.

Which of course sends mixed signals to a director: “Oh. So

now it’s the room that’s depressing, not necessarily the color? It also just happens to be gray? Props and Set Dressing—that should send you guys in a completely different direction. One thing’s for sure it is not—Makeup, Hair, and Wardrobe, listen up!—it may be Quaker green but it is
not
a room full of Quakers.”

“Oh. So what do I do with all of the oatmeal?”

It is a room where Abbott and Costello meet Vincent van

Gogh. And it can be a room where unfunny comics meet a thief

who forges paintings.

Now, keeping all of that in mind, add in sliding windows that

don’t slide and coffee stains on the one-one-hundredth-inch de-

pressing-gray carpet.

It’s a war room.

J.T. stopped just inside the door and sighed. By his count, he’d sat as director for thirty-plus other famous and forgettable shows in this very room. This would be thirty-plus, plus one.

J.T. believed that a good director had the detective skills of

an experienced old cop who absorbed everything around him.

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He tried to absorb the vibes of the room.
This room is empty,
he thought.
I flew almost three thousand miles to get here on time but
people who live blocks away aren’t here yet? What’s with that?

It was obvious that the department heads who came to the

meeting only wanted to be there exactly when they had to be there
.

Not a second before. Bad sign. Crap.

The assistant director, a man named William Kay, wasn’t even

there. An assistant director should always show up before the others, especially before the director. An A.D. is employed for the run of the episodes to ensure continuity between rotating directors and the production itself. An assistant director is a completely different animal from the assistant
to
the director, which was Ash Black’s title.

J.T. had worked with William Kay ten years earlier. He found

him to be a very competent A.D., but a man who was a survivor.

An A.D. should take a bullet for his (or
her
) director. But in order to survive (stay employed),

this particular man had at-

The Hollywood Dictionary

tended to his own interests

ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR:

first. The new directors, the

An assistant
to
the director has

old directors, the hacks, the

been known to
cover
the direc-

talented . . . they would all

tor’s back.

come and go, but somehow

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR:
An
assis-

William Kay stayed em-

tant director
has been known to

ployed. It didn’t mean that

stab
a director
in
the back.

he was a bad man or that

his ethical foundation was

corrupt by Hollywood stan-

dards. Not at all. It only meant that William Kay was looking out for William Kay.

Indeed, how could anyone in Hollywood blame a man who

spread rumors, divulged secrets, and snuck up to the showrun-

ners’ office to warn them they had better keep an eye on a particu-5 8

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

lar director? How could anyone in Hollywood blame a man who

did it all so
sincerely
? You couldn’t blame William Kay at all. These were simply the skills one needed to survive in show business. He’d have said he was just following orders.

In the
real
world he would have been left in a damp alley with a bullet in his head.

J.T. did blame William Kay.

J.T. walked up to the spread of food that was laid out, wait-

ing to be eaten by showbiz types. Showbiz types, especially actors, loved free food. J.T., on the other hand, would never eat the studio’s food. Eating
their
food meant that J.T. had bonded through protein and carbohydrates to the very people he despised. No, he was checking out the food because it was an indication of what kind of show J.T. was working on. If no one came early to eat breakfast yet the food was extravagant, there was a problem.

J.T. scoped out the food for quality. This particular two-table spread featured sections that catered to every new diet fad: a high-protein, high-fat section was carefully separated from a high-

protein, low-fat section, and both were a respectable distance

from a high-carb, lean-protein section. Another section was lad-en with fresh, out-of-season fruit, including a disproportionate number of an exotic, expensive, lumpy fruit from Thailand called noi-na. It could be used in a sentence, such as: “Are you ready?”

And the sitcom answer would be: “Noi, na!” (J.T. later found out that the Pooleys liked noi-na. Because it was expensive.) There was a vegetarian section with hummus and tabouli. There was

even a fast-food section for

the Teamsters.

Tons of free food,
J.T.

The Hollywood Dictionary

thought.
No one is here. Very

TEAMSTERS:
Butts of cruel, cheap

bad
.

jokes. Big butts . . .

The first person to arrive

and stand and stare at the

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food was Asher Black. Ash was nearly six feet five and towered over J.T., who noticed that Ash, at forty-one, was beginning to accumu-late a roll around his belly and hips.

The two men hugged as if they were brothers who got along

with each other. J.T. wasn’t a fool. He knew that in many respects, Ash had surpassed him: as a human being, certainly, and maybe

even as a filmmaker.

They loved each other.

When people saw the two of them together, saw all that honest

affection, the rumors spread like a California wildfire:

“They’re gay!”

“Did you see them hug?!”

“I saw J.T. kiss him on the cheek!”

“I always knew J.T. was gay!”

J.T. and Ash treasured the rumors. They loved fucking with

everyone, and it also helped the real job at hand because it kept people off guard.

William, the assistant director, came running into the room

and made straight for the food, giving J.T. a quick,
sincere,
Hollywood air kiss on the way to the lox and bagels.

“Damn you, J.T.!” William said over his shoulder. “Ten years

and I’ve never beaten you to set. Do you know how demoralizing

that is to an A.D.? During sex?”

William had the most aggravating sense of humor. He basical-

ly had one joke. He would add the words
during sex
or
after sex
to the end of almost every sentence to show how funny he could be.

William never graduated from eighth-grade Funny.

He was out of breath. He still had the body of an athlete but

was starting to show his bad eating habits in the form of love handles and the beginnings of a double chin.

“Hey—the more things change, the more things stay the same,

huh?” J.T. said prophetically.

“During sex!” William did a spit take—all over the food.

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

J.T. threw a quick glance to Ash:
Never trust this guy
.

William turned around. “Oh—Flash! Brown!” he said with his

mouth full. “I see you’re here!”

“Yeah . . . um . . . kind of hard to miss seeing me . . .” Ash said, trying to avoid looking at the blob of cream cheese in the corner of William’s mouth. “By the way,” Ash continued, “I know it’s been a while, but my name is A-S-H.
Ash
. Ash
Black
. If you actually
look
at me,
it’s hard to forget my last name. And my first name.”

“Oh my God! Did I call you Flash? I meant Ash. I was just with

my personal trainer. His name is Flash. Or is it Cash? Ah, anyway, I’m so damn sorry,” William said sincerely. “But we’re dope, right, my nigga?” William did his best rap pose.

J.T. spun, “Don’t you dare—”

“It’s okay, J.T.,” Ash said calmly. “Dope?” He smiled at William.

“I ain’t meanin’ ta act da fool, barkin’ on ya homey, dog,” Wil -

liam said in his best urban-interact, form-a-relationship, connect-with-the-brothah lingo. He also now took the body language to

a cartoon-like extreme, crossing his arms down by his groin and leaning to one side, almost losing his balance.

“I guess
you’re
dope, then,” Ash politely said, trying not to make the fool more of a fool.

William, happy with his urban result, went white again and

turned to J.T. “I’m training for an over-thirty triathlon! Hey! What do you say to that? During sex?!” William pretend-punched J.T. in the stomach.

J.T. grabbed William’s new love handles, not very playfully. “I’d say put less cream cheese on your bagel, triathlete-boy. And if you keep the
during-sex joke
going for the rest of the time I’m here, I will murder you in your sleep.”

“Or during sex!”

Even though the workweek hadn’t officially started, J.T. wanted to immediately remind his assistant director who the Alpha Dog

was in the work equation. William’s posture instantly and notice-R o b b y

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ably deflated when J.T. didn’t even pretend-smile.
Mission accomplished,
J.T. thought.

“I quit smoking three weeks ago, s-so I’ve been substituting

food for, for tobacco, but now I’m a triathloner!” William stammered, then smiled like a little kid waiting for approval from his dad.

“Wow,” J.T. said,“that’s great. You stopped smoking three weeks ago and now . . . you are a
triathlete
? Very impressive. When’s your first race?”

“This Thursday,” William answered, sincerely.

“Thursday? Thursday is camera-blocking day,” J.T. said, as if

talking to a mentally challenged person. “What A.D. would not be at his post on camera-blocking day?”

Camera-blocking day is the grueling day when all of the minu-

tiae are worked out down to the millimeter. Colored pieces of tape are laid out all over the cement studio floor for the camera positions, which can number in the hundreds, and they coordinate