The Writer's Cut

by Eric Idle

  New Yorkers are basically dysfunctional outside of Manhattan. They have to take their city with them. They travel in packs. They all go to Wimpleton together, or to Paris with a group of other New Yorkers. They go on exotic vacations in enormous yachts so they don’t really have to go ashore. The Mediterranean is packed with them on private jets, or squished together in rented Palazzos. Even here in LA they wear too much clothing and go out in groups looking for pizza places just like the ones in NY.

  Richard Hume is wearing tweeds and a bowtie at lunch. He has elegantly manicured hands and big blues eyes. He looks like Robert Redford. Morty says he’s a Wasp in sheep’s clothing.

  “Go get him, kiddo,” is his advice.

  *

  Le Dome on Sunset is packed. It’s the place to lunch. Anyone who is anyone is looking hopefully at Eddie to see if he can squeeze them in. I can see Joanie Collins hiding conspicuously in a corner with sister Jackie. Warren Beatty is beaming his short-sighted smile waiting for his lunch date. Bruce Willis sits across from him with Demi. There are several head-turning high-class hookers, clusters of Armani-clad agents, the odd disheveled Director, drop-dead beautiful actresses, the occasional studio head, A-list screenwriters sprinkled with a frosting of rock royalty. The room is abuzz with bullshit.

  As I say Richard Hume is very bright. When I told him I was writing a Reality novel he almost choked on his asparagus.

  “A reality novel?”

  “There’ll be real people in it. I’m in it.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes. It’s a novel posing as a memoir disguised as a novel.”

  “What?”

  “Every book is now a celebrity book. Authors have become more important than their creations. Novelists have become stars in their own novels.”

  “Ye-es …” he concedes.

  “When Truman Capote wrote La Cote Basque, he betrayed his friends and was cast into social hell, some people say deservedly. I don’t agree. I think the very job of a writer is to betray what’s happening in the world. What other point is there? Who cares Truman couldn’t go to the Hamptons anymore? With In Cold Blood he actually became the star of his own book. You can see the novel right there saying ‘fuck fiction’ and taking a giant leap out of the 19th century and into the 20th century where celebrity reigns. Dickens was a celebrity, reading his own works to vast crowds on tour, so was Oscar Wilde, but they never thought of putting themselves into their own books!”

  “Philip Roth is in several of his books.”

  “Yes, but as Zuckerman. This will be me, Stanley Hay writing as Stanley Hay. Reports from the frontline, the wenches in the trenches.”

  He looks unsure. I need to go upmarket.

  “Maybe it was Norman Mailer who did it first, but he did it kinda archly, calling himself Aquarius or some such, or perhaps, come to think of it, it was Martin Amis who was the first to put himself into his own novel by name, but the point is the novel has taken on the documentary aspect of television, stolen the stardom factor from the movies, added the celebrity cult of People magazine and voila, it is not dead: it has simply mutated. Pure intellectual Darwinism.”

  “And this is The Writer’s Cut?”

  “This is The Writer’s Cut.”

  “When can I see some pages?”

  “The minute it’s finished. I’m white hot at the moment.”

  “How far have you got?”

  “I’m almost at the end.” Which is what we in Hollywood call a creative stretch. A lie to the rest of you. “Almost at the beginning” would have covered it.

  “I’m just doing a final rewrite.”

  “Can we read it soon?”

  “No problem.”

  “We may want to rush release this. I’ll call Morty.”

  And with that he picked up the check, stood up and left the restaurant, leaving me speechless.

  Dear sweet Jesus, can I bullshit or what?

  2

  “Start the fucking ticking clock fucking ticking.”

  That’s what Mickey Mikado says.

  Sam and I are in an early morning meeting at the Disney Executive block. Execution block more like. Over the main doorway, wide enough for a football band to march through, Seven Dwarves bend, holding the weight of the world on their shoulders. Sam and I are in imminent danger of joining them. It feels like being back in High School.

  Mickey Mikado sits in front of a large picture of his brother's hotel in the Desert. It’s called The Mikado in case you don’t get the picture, and is sort of Japanese Vegas, with Geisha strippers and Samurai waiters and, oh horror … cooked sushi.

  In order to make up for what we promised to deliver by last week, Sam and I have just agreed to write all weekend, and all night if need be, which is something of a problem for me, since I now have a novel to write.

  That’s right.

  Richard Hume bought it!

  He bought my fucking novel.

  Morty called to tell me the good news.

  “So, kiddo, now you’re a novelist.”

  It’s music to my ears. He bought my book. From my pitch.

  “He loves it,” said Morty. “It is finished right?”

  “Virtually” I said. Compounding the problem. Lying to agents may be common in the executive class but lying to your own agent can lead to trouble.

  Rest assured. It will.

  It’s fair to say that I misled Richard Hume by underestimating how much of the book was left to write.

  All of it.

  I regret this now.

  But it might be also said that Richard Hume misled himself. So desperate was he to buy the brilliant and beautiful bestselling book I outlined to him at lunch that he allowed himself to be taken in by his own dreams of glory. Pangloss is about to be swallowed by a giant German conglomerate. Richard Hume suddenly saw himself as a white knight fighting off a hostile takeover. Saving Pangloss from bankruptcy. For Pangloss was in trouble. Too many writers. Too few books. Way too few sales. My Kiss-and-Sell Hollywood memoir seemed to him an unexpected gift from the gods.

  But gifts from the gods sometimes come at a high price.

  The weekend rewrite for Mickey Mikado started badly. That is to say it didn’t start. My mistake was to celebrate the successful sale of my novel. Dominick's was packed Friday night with all the usual suspects: David Giler, Tiny Naylor, Bobby Woods, Kiefer Sutherland. They always need very little excuse to celebrate and my book deal was greeted with genuine joy. The celebrations were loud and long and ended up in a drunken Jacuzzi schmooze somewhere in the Hollywood hills. The alcohol flowed like wine, the women flowed like water, the coke flowed like finely sifted salt and I couldn’t speak until Monday.

  Which is when we get the bad news. Mickey Mikado has fired us from the rewrite. He won’t even pay for the work we did. The rumor is Carrie Fisher has been brought in at three times the amount we were making. Fuck. Sam won’t even speak to me. Blames me I guess.

  I feel shame and guilt. For about thirty seconds. And then relief. Now I’ll have plenty of time to write my book. Well, not plenty of time, but a couple of months, and I’ve nothing else to do which is a pity as I don’t really feel like starting the book today. What I feel like doing is lying in bed being overpaid for not doing a rewrite for Mickey Mikado that gets me access to the Disney lot and keeps up my Health Insurance payments.

  Novels are a lot of work.

  Just reading them can take weeks.

  I call Sam again and he pretends he isn’t there. But I know better and reach him on his cell phone. He’s still pissed at me.

  “I knew this would happen.”

  “So why didn’t you finish it yourself if you knew this would happen?”

  “Because you kept insisting I wait for you.”

  “No need to yell, Sam.”

  “Oh really. How about this?” He hangs up.

  What’s with Sam? It’s just a gig. The movie’s crap anyway. Most movies are crap. I’m sorry but they are. Total crap. Which is w
hy I always preferred books.

  I’m so glad I’ve made the switch into novel writing.

  It’s official. It’s in the trades. A huge puff piece in Variety, and an announcement in The Hollywood Reporter from Pangloss about how excited they are to buy The Writer’s Cut, the hot new novel from Stanley Hay. There’s even a quote from Morty Mortenson at William Morris. “This has everything. It’s going to be very big. It’s a monster.”

  It’s almost a shame to start.

  “They’re going with 30,000.”

  “Dollars?”

  “Copies.”

  Shit. That’s huge.

  “That’s huge,” I say.

  “And I got you a quarter of a mill on delivery.”

  Fuck me.

  Richard Hume calls.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Brilliant,” I lie.

  “I’m happy we’re in business. We’re very excited. Can’t wait to read it.”

  Me either.

  “If we’re publishing in June,” says Richard Hume “we’ll need finished copies for the stores by May. Allow for proof reading, that means the latest we must have the finished text is by early March.”

  “What?”

  “In a month.”

  “A month?”

  I’m gulping in shock, which somehow he takes for assent.

  “Is that okay then … enough time for you … won’t leave long for proofs and … sure you are … confident you can deliver …?”

  I’m passing out in panic. I hear every other phrase.

  “No problem,” I hear myself saying.

  Why must I lie? Why now?

  “That’s great,” he says. “We’re all very excited.”

  I can hardly stand from the excitement. In fact I take the last of the call lying on the floor.

  “Oh,” he adds, “how do you feel about pre-publicity?”

  “What?”

  “Marketing would like you to start right away. I take it you really want to get behind this book?”

  “Oh yes, Richard, I’m really going to get behind this book.”

  I couldn’t get much further fucking behind if I tried.

  “That’s great” he says. “I’ll have Stephanie call and set up some interviews.”

  “Interviews?”

  “If you have time?”

  Sure. I’m not doing anything. I’m sure as hell not writing.

  “Kiss and Sell,” says Richard. “We love it. A Reality Novel. It’s very timely.”

  Timely. Hold still my beating heart.

  Is this Post Ironic or what?

  Marketing are already in love with the slogan. Pangloss have begun printing samples of the cover which they are going to circulate to their sales reps immediately. They have printed up my piece from Stroke magazine, which I let Richard Hume take from the lunch. Marketing want to run a competition to find out who the actress is! They want to do it on a website, sort of unofficial, but starting a ground-swell buzz going. Am I comfortable with that?

  Frankly, I’m a little worried. I am a bit unfamiliar with the protocol in the sexual name-dropping stakes. Have I disguised the actress sufficiently? Can I be sued? Might I be subject to physical attack? What about that fucking husband?

  “I know we can make this a bestseller,” says Richard.

  There he said it. A bestseller. I’m not just a Hollywood writer any more. I’m going to be a celebrity author.

  Visions of Leno dance before my eyes.

  Did I manage to explain my dilemma?

  I had four weeks to deliver a novel to my publisher. Now I have dicked away a whole week and done nothing. And that’s not the dilemma. The dilemma is I just accepted a job in Europe. It’s a quick rewrite on a mini-series being shot in London, and Russia. The work is easy, the money is good. They only need me for a month. A month, dear Reader. What must you think of me? A month is when my book is due. For printing. What am I thinking?

  I’m not thinking. I’m grieving.

  Tish left me.

  My fault entirely. She left me because I told her to fuck off. I never meant for her to fuck off completely, it was just a thing you say instead of “don’t be ridiculous”, but when I came back from the Office from a sad and angry meeting with Sam, filled with totally unnecessary recriminations on his part, she had removed all her clothes. And not in a good way. She had removed all her clothes in a suitcase.

  OK she had left some of her underwear, but I think she did that just to remind me exactly what I was going to miss. It was her little way of saying “face up to it, sucker, no more of this for you.” And I really was going to miss her, though not just because of the sex, which by the way was great, but because we shared a lot of reading together. Anyway, as I said, six months is a kind of crucial date in a Hollywood relationship and I think I was becoming anxious about the commitment thing and of course I ploughed that terribly by asking Tish to fuck off.

  The worst thing was, she did.

  She was already mad at me for not coming home Friday night. And since I couldn’t speak till Monday I hadn’t had a chance to explain that it was a celebration of my book deal and no, of course I hadn’t been in a Jacuzzi with strange women, and that the various bruises on my body were due to innocently falling over when shit-faced with alcohol and not from falling off actresses.

  Tish was a very passionate woman. I guess she still is, but sadly no longer in my direction. She was always very generous and giving sexually and on the night in question we’d had traditional Jewish Sunday dinner, take out Chinese, and then gone to bed at my place to fool around. As I’ve said, I live in a tiny house wedged on a hill at the back of Sunset, and this particular night we roll around on the bed for a while and then she says she is just going to eat me because she has a script to finish. (She’s got coverage or a synopsis of something to write.) Anyway she’s going down on me and it’s very pleasant, when suddenly I think of a really great gag. Now, I hate losing good jokes and I really don’t want to forget this one as it’s particularly funny, and I think if I can just reach back across my bed for a notepad I can jot it down without interrupting. Tish interprets this movement as wild delirium on my part, so I try and encourage her in this, moaning and saying “Oh yes, Tish. Oh God, nobody does it like you.” Luckily she has her eyes closed and I’m scrabbling around with my fingers looking for a fucking pencil on the night table. I finally find it and I begin writing upside down while Tish continues very pleasantly working on me. I’m scrabbling down the joke as fast as I can when suddenly she stops.

  “What are you doing?” she says, withdrawing her mouth.

  “Oh I’m er … just …”

  “Are you writing?”

  “Well, there was something I didn’t want to forget …” I say, lamely.

  She’s off the bed.

  “Wait. Tish.”

  I hear the screen door slam.

  I’m lying with a collapsing boner and an unfinished BJ, but I do have a very good gag, which I email to Leno. I can’t remember whether he used it or not.

  Later, Tish returns and she’s still mad and we have this ridiculous quarrel, and when I say “fuck off” I don’t mean “fuck off out of my life” I mean simply “don’t be ridiculous.” She has accused me of being disrespectful and I’m trying to say I was attempting not to be disrespectful by stopping the blowjob, while at the same time honoring my commitment to my own writing in not wanting to lose something that came into my head at the time. This only made it worse since I had to admit that it was a joke that came into my head and she’s really pissed at that. Apparently there are some things a girl can’t take, and this is clearly one of them because Tish fucks off completely, returning to take her clothes the next day and leave some of her underwear so I’ll feel bad.

  Bummer.

  I did feel really bad.

  It made me unaccountably depressed.

  I think I had some kind of crisis because I took to my bed for five days playing Randy Newman CDs and feeling v
ery sorry for myself. Normally I’ll snap out of a bad mood. I bounce back fairly quickly. If things are bleak I’ll pick up a book and lose myself in somebody else’s problems. So about five days after Tish left I thought I’ll go grab a book at Book Soup. I’m feeling a little weak and I have about six days’ stubble and I haven’t been doing too much bathing because I’m depressed so I must look a sight. Anyway, I park round the back, go through the door, and suddenly all these books are staring at me in the face. Thousands of them. And it’s like they are all speaking to me, saying “Come on in then, Mister Hot Shot Writer. Read any good books lately? Think yours will be here soon?” And I freeze. I totally freeze. Normally I get right in there and start hauling books off the shelves, but today I can not move. I’m rooted to the floor. I’m beginning to sweat. I can hear myself reading the sections out loud: New Fiction, New Hardcover, Recent Paperback, Bestsellers, Literature, History, Biography, Lesbian Fiction and so on. People are starting to look at me. I want to run away but I can’t move my feet. I’m beginning to shake, my palms are sweaty, my heart is pounding and I’m having a full on panic attack. Just then, this sixteen year old high school kid, several pounds overweight, with nasty glasses and total disdain for anyone older than twenty, comes up to me and says, real chirpy, “Can I help you make a decision today?”

  “Fuck you,” I say, and leave.

  That’s how it starts.

  I think I have Thinkers Block.

  I can’t seem to think of anything. I keep counting the number of pages I haven’t written.