Reality boulevard, p.30
Reality Boulevard, page 30
“That still happens now,” Zev answered, spearing a leaf of arugula on his fork. “Only you don’t have to convince anyone of anything anymore. People come to you - you’ve got them submitting headshots and bios and audition tapes from every field and subfield and walk of life. You’d be amazed at what you can pull from that pool, if you’re willing to spend the time and energy it takes to sort the wheat from the chaff. That’s really all that a reality-casting director does. Unlimited Talent is signing the reality stars of the future that way.”
“I’m not going to pay for a casting director when I don’t have a production to charge it to,” Marty declared. With a Parisian wedding and honeymoon coming up, with his fiancée on hiatus and living with him full-time, just the idea of being technically ‘out of work’ was enough to inspire him to tighten his belt, do his grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s and Costco, skip the premium gasoline for the Lexus, even opt for bargain matinees over evening movies.
“You’re the ‘alternative television’ guru, Zev,” he argued, shoveling another handful of the Palm’s homemade potato chips into his mouth – he couldn’t get enough of comfort food lately. “And you’re my agent. Isn’t it your job to pair me up with the next reality TV superstar?”
“Of course, Marty – we can go that way if you want. I can think of half a dozen new clients we’ve just signed who’d be great matches for you. Just say the word.”
Marty sighed. “I’m saying it.”
An inspired Zev returned to his office that afternoon and immediately unleashed a steady stream of outrageous personalities on Marty Maltzman Productions. The parade that marched through his offices over the span of the following month included:
- Chronic Triple-X, the ‘Superstar Machine’. Chronic, who was literally larger than life at 6’7” and close to 350 pounds, fancied himself a cross between Notorious B.I.G. and Puff Daddy before he went Diddy. The show was an updated, street version of My Fair Lady. Chronic’s specialty was taking people with absolutely no talent right off the street, training and packaging them, and through the miracle of makeover, marketing and autotune, transforming them into superstars. At least, that is what Chronic claimed he could do. So far, his only semi-success was Bloody Show, a one-hit wonder girl group from the Bronx, and Tyrone Williams, a boy from Washington Heights who had made it to the finals of last season’s American Superstar.
“Set me loose on America, yo,” Chronic beseeched Marty. “America needs the Chronic touch.”
- Jocelyn Summers, ‘The Furnishings Whisperer’. Ms. Summers, whose nails-on-chalkboard voice clashed incongruously with an almost exotic beauty, was an interior decorator with the preternatural gift of being able to talk to the objects inside a room, and ‘hear’ exactly where they felt they’d be most artfully utilized. Ms. Summers would enter a room, close her eyes and turn slowly in a circle, sensing an armchair calling out to her, “I’m miserable here, move me to the window.”
“Your credenza is very angry with you,” she told Marty in a scolding voice. “It needs to be where it can feel the morning sunlight. And it’s offended by the fax machine.”
- Danger Tamblyn and his ‘Gut Rencherz’, a motorcycle ‘gang’ that was more of a ‘Hells’ Angels Lite’; a real-life Sons of Anarchy for a family audience. Danger, a hulk of a man with tattoos of fifteenth-century gargoyles winding from his neck across his chest and down his left arm, actually held two Masters degrees - in the English Novel and in Medieval Studies - and routinely quoted Milton. Danger led his fellow middle-aged Gut Rencherz into towns across America, where they would start bar fights, trash hotel rooms, and generally provide local cops with a slew of mild but just short of criminal mischief to deal with.
“Anarchy, man. It’s America’s future,” Danger told Marty, his tough-guy swagger tinged with an English teacher’s diction. “The Gut Rencherz are on the cutting edge. Give us a television platform, we’ll stick it to the man.” Quoting his trademark Milton, he ended his pitch with: “Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined; Till at his second bidding darkness fled, Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.”
“Fascinating,” Marty responded politely. “Thank you for coming in.”
In addition to this lineup of future reality show superstars, Zev also solicited pitches from aspiring producers, most of whom had done some manner of work in the industry but had never sold or run a successful show. Marty entertained these hungry young hopefuls in his office, listening to them pitch the ideas that, they prayed, would transform them into the next Mike Fleiss or Ian Rand:
Gruesome Love – a dating show for people with unsightly facial deformities, scars, missing limbs, or extreme ugliness.
Green Card: Two attractive Americans, one male, one female, are set up on dates and dating challenges with a series of illegal immigrants, all of whom vie for his and her affections. In the season finale, each American chooses one immigrant to marry and make eligible for a green card.
Home-wreckers: Real Housewives meets Temptation Island, in a soft-scripted docu-soap contest hybrid. The show follows four gorgeous and unprincipled gold diggers who are surreptitiously planted in an upscale suburban town, as they set out to steal themselves an already-married, wealthy husband.
Apocalypse Island: Survivor meets Twilight, True blood and The Walking Dead. An intensive, simulated role-play game in which contestants are grouped into four camps – Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies and Mortals. Each group must work together to emerge triumphant, ‘killing’ its enemies in the mythical convention of each creature. The supernatural creatures try to turn the mortals into themselves by biting, chomping, and devouring, respectively, and the mortals try to kill off the supernaturals by stakes and sunlight, simulated silver bullets, and paintball shots to the head for the zombies.
“Because what America needs right now,” Marty mumbled to himself, “is more vampires and zombies.”
Dancing on Death Row: A competition talent and extreme makeover show between death row inmates, set at a Florida State prison. Broadway choreographers, makeover specialists, psychological counselors and celebrities all serve as muses to the convicted prisoners, transforming them, Pygmalion-style, into potential dance stars. At the season finale, television audiences will vote via phone and Internet, and as first prize, the Florida governor will grant the winning prisoner a transmutation of sentence to life without parole.
“These men will be literally dancing for their lives!” exclaimed the flamboyant Tony-winning Broadway choreographer/producer who was shopping the idea. “You simply can’t manufacture that kind of real life drama and tension!”
“What are you thinking, Zev?” Marty complained, once safely behind the walls of his Malibu home. “Dancing on Death Row?”
“With your Oscar for Death Row Days? It sounds like a perfect fit to me.”
“It’s totally offensive. You’re not seriously telling me someone would buy it?”
“We’ve already had genuine interest from TLC, 4Real and TruTV, but I don’t think they’ll pony up the kind of budget to put the concept over the top. With you attached, I’m sure we could interest FOX, NBC or even Prime. Think of the angle: Marty Maltzman returns to Death Row, 25 years later…”
Marty was speechless.
“You still don’t get it, do you? This is the exactly the kind of show for the current climate. Unlimited is just about to buy the format rights to another prison-themed show you might like: a Dutch dating show called Prisoner of Love. A bunch of gorgeous women go on dates with ex-cons, and at the end of the date, they win prizes if they can guess what crime the cons committed. It’s true romance meets blind date meets competition-game show. Clever, right?”
“I truly hope you are kidding.”
“Think about it, Marty. Dancing on Death Row. I’d tune in for the title alone. I’m telling you, it’s a slam-dunk.”
After hanging up with Zev, Marty wandered over to the mantle where his gold-plated Oscar and Emmys, Peabodys and crystalline Humanitas and People’s Choice awards perched, sparkling, straight and proud as troops. He had always considered himself a soldier of sorts; a non-commissioned officer in the entertainment army. He didn’t create the zeitgeist du jour, he just followed orders from the top and commanded his company forward.
A vague, nagging memory passed like a shadow through his mind. He walked across the room to the wall-mounted entertainment center where he kept a library of his various shows – one long, narrow shelf neatly lined with DVD jewel cases recounting the history of three decades in film and television. Locating the recently minted Anniversary DVD of Death Row Days - the copyrighted figure of George Stanley’s Oscar statuette the most prominent image on its cover - he opened the case and slipped the disc into the player. He leaned back on the comfortable sectional sofa that bracketed the corner of the light-dappled room, and clicked forward on the remote through the menu of scenes.
About halfway through the 95-minute disc popped the image of Hector Cortez, one of the executioners featured in the film, driving down a swampy back road canopied by Spanish moss and mangroves. Shadows of palm fronds fell across his leathery face as he haltingly shared his feelings about his part time job: the legal taking of a man’s life. From the first frame of video, Marty’s senses were overwhelmed as he once again experienced the swampish heat, the sweltering Florida sun, his then-youthful body crushed next to his sound man’s sharp-edged mixer in the rusting bed of Hector’s pickup, while Dan Fury, his cameraman, rolled Super 16mm film from the passenger seat. Marty had to ask his questions by sticking his face through the tiny sliding window in the back of the cab, then ducking down low during Hector’s answers so Dan wouldn’t catch his reflection in the rearview mirror. Dear Dan, Marty thought with a pang, a surly old-school cinematographer, a master of his craft, stubbornly refusing to give in to the already accepted ascendancy of video. Fifty-five years old in ’88 when Death Row Days was made, Dan had died of a sudden heart attack just before their film took home its Oscar. Marty still felt the sorrow and regret. Dan, who remained petrified in his memory as a crotchety old man to Marty’s then-idealistic self, had passed away one year younger than Marty was today.
In Florida, where Hector worked for the state prison system, executioners were private citizens paid $150 per kill, their identities kept confidential. Marty had managed to convince a handful of executioners in Florida, Texas, and Louisiana to drop the masks of anonymity and share a slice of their lives and minds with his camera. Hector was the only one of his interviewees who had been having serious second thoughts about the morality of his job. He was a simple man, a first generation Cuban immigrant born of non-English speaking parents. As they bounced down the Florida back roads toward Hector’s day job as a fan boat repairman, the middle-aged father of six had said something that had haunted Marty’s dreams for these many years.
“Many people tell you long time something is a right thing,” Hector said, struggling both to find the English words and to be heard over the cicadas, swamp creatures, and the earsplitting grind of his ancient Ford engine. “But when your heart hurt you more every times you goes and does it, you start think maybe you have listen to the wrong peoples. Is to God you should ask, is it right or wrong. Not to men. No a los hombres. A Dios.”
He clicked Hector off mid-phrase, shaking his head at his own foolishness. Why had he thought of this now? He had never been a religious man, nor had his parents. Why was God making a cameo appearance in his thoughts? He was facing the challenge of his life – finding a way to be relevant again in a business that was doing its best to leave him far behind. He had a sudden yearning to hold Crimson in his arms, to reacquaint himself with the ethereal inspiration that kept him committed to his quest.
“Crimson?” Marty called out. “Crimson!”
Her name echoed through his cavernous house. He didn’t want to admit that cohabitation had thus far not lived up to his fantasies. Indeed, it seemed they saw each other less now than when they were dating and passing each other on the studio lot each day. Marty knew his condition of unemployment had something to do with his glum mood, not to mention his recent inability to get it up in bed. He’d read of such things, of disenfranchised breadwinners becoming depressed and impotent as they sat at home reading want ads, drinking beer, watching daytime TV while collecting unemployment checks. As he drifted through the vast, airy rooms of his ocean-view manse, he felt a manly sort of kinship with such fellow victims of the current unemployment crisis.
“Crimson?” he called again. “Are you home?”
Silence.
Where was she? She was never home lately. The Cul de Sac was on hiatus. It seems something had come between them since the disastrous encounter with the in-laws, and try as he might, Marty could not get to the heart of it. Crimson had been furious at him for days after they returned to Los Angeles. If she hadn’t wanted him to question her father’s accuracy about his Vietnam War history, he argued, then she should have warned him going in about the colonel’s incipient Alzheimer’s. Something else about that miserable dinner in New York had left him with a gnawing sense of discomfort, but weeks of sleepless nights had not revealed the cause.
He looked around the bedroom. Empty.
Moving down another long hallway, he came to the guest bedroom suite that he had converted for Crimson into her private ‘office’. On the pretty white secretary’s desk under the room’s picture window was a stack of paperwork – wedding announcements and envelopes, French marriage license forms, applications for legal marriage in Paris, as well as her datebook and other loose papers. There was her laptop, neatly folded upon the desk.
He moved into the room. Perhaps there was something in her datebook...
But no. He had promised her this room as her private domain. He had no right to intrude into her personal business.
Except for the fact that it was his house, after all; a house he’d paid for with his hard-earned Lights and Sirens fortune. And really, what was ‘personal privacy’ anyway, to two people who were about to be joined together as one for eternity?
He took another step toward the desk.
“No!” he commanded himself. There was no need to pry. He would simply phone her. Marty turned and strode out of the room, down the hallway, down the spiral staircase, through the light-filled living room, and back to his ground-floor office, where he’d left his cell phone. He picked it up and auto-dialed his fiancée.
“This is Crimson Fennel’s voicemail,” sang her sultry voice. “Please leave a message and I’ll return your call promptly.” He felt a swell of pride. She was so well bred, so unfailingly polite – even in her voicemail message.
“Crimson, it’s me. I’m at the house and I was wondering – just wondering – when you were planning to be home? Oh, and where you were? Like I said, just wondering. Nothing important. It’s been such a day – I’d love to talk – well, okay, anyway, just give me a call when you can. Okay? Okay. I love you. Bye.”
He felt an anxiety rising in him and the bile of his ulcer churning. Why did the call click right over to voicemail? Perhaps she was in an audition or a meeting with a casting director and had her phone turned off. Or maybe she’d simply run out of battery power. That was more likely. She was on her way home to him and her phone had run out of power.
Still...
He flipped open his phone again and sent her a text message. Texting wasn’t something he’d warmed to when it had come into vogue a few years earlier, but his 20-something staff members at Lights and Sirens seemed to prefer it to phone calls, so he’d recently adopted the practice in order to better bridge the generation gap with Crimson, who was herself a 20-something, after all.
Hi baby! He texted. Here at home, wondering where you are. Nothing urgent. Just missing you. Get in touch when you can. xoxoMM
He re-read it before releasing it into the ether. It was perfect – not a hint of loneliness or desperation or need to please. Marty hit the Send button and watched the creeping line on his phone indicate transmission.
Then he paced. And paced. Went out on the deck and watched the sinking sun of magic hour turn the blue Pacific into a sepia-toned lithograph. Wandered back inside. For another twenty minutes, paced some more. And waited.
Clearly, his guess had been correct. Crimson had run out of battery power and wasn’t getting his messages. She was usually so good about responding.
He sat down in his leather reading chair and opened a treatment to distract himself:
Dancing on Death Row: A Transformational Reality Competition.
America is the land of second chances, of self-invention, of personal transformation. No television show will embody this transcendent tradition more thrillingly than Dancing on Death Row, a program that brings the grace and beauty of dance to the most discarded outcasts of our society, the men and women who’ve been sentenced to death row. And with dance, comes long-lost hope…
His mind started drifting again. What if Crimson had been in an accident? You took your life in your hands every time you ventured out onto those freeways. When she’d asked him to buy her a car, he’d insisted on the Lexus LS450, safety tested, with front and side airbags and automatic locking brakes. Still. It would help ease his mind if he could just figure out where she was…
By now, Marty was drifting through the house again. He passed through the kitchen and through the French doors that led to the pool area, half-expecting to see her posed languorously on a chaise under a large floppy hat, enormous Fendi sunglasses, a sheer, long-sleeved cover-up and matching palazzo pants shielding her porcelain skin. Perhaps he had missed her there entirely. The patio was empty, water slapping softly against the miniature tiles at the pool rim. He crossed the patio to the cabana and looked inside. One of her tiny bathing suits hung on a hook next to the shower area. He touched it. It was dry.
