‘You are Old Atrocity, then. Finally, I am well glad to see you on solid ground!’
‘The kitten in me – reborn!’
‘Could it be true?’
‘I am! I tell you, I am!’
‘I hope I didn’t cause offense…’
‘Trash that! You straightened me out like no other! If you had not articulated my plight so well, there is a chance I would’ve knocked your block off in a dim alley round these parts.’ He paused to take a swig of near-beer from a bucket at hand. ‘Sufferin’, bleedin’ Chickamauga!’
‘I took a risk back there, by addressing you boldly, without any sort of introductory presentation or explanation, or even just a friendly –’
‘Turbo-rubbish! You explained yourself without flaw. OK, don’t put words in my filthy mouth. You want to know why I burst out in the first place? Well, I’m not gonna tell ya now. Gotta prep those Fresnels for the next shot, over on Ramp #3.’
And he trotted off in his planned-obsolescence Gricxxs loafers.
For Butterbugs, this was a studio experience he could relax into. The shooting went well. FFC directed without complexity, and he was dignified and minimalistic. He said very little to Butterbugs.
‘Shows you’re the favorite guppy,’ advised Old Atrocity.
At each successive session in the three-day shoot, Butterbugs and the tech wonder indulged in a new yak while taking five.
‘Back in the old pre-cable days, I watched anything that flickered.’
In his approach, Old Atrocity could be avuncular.
‘Then, I realized, as we gravitated toward an Age of Error, it was ‘change or die’. Still, everything I encountered disappointed me. Most change seemed to be for the worse. Except in spheres where I could be in control. Not over the whole thing, but over enough to know just what I was breathing. Such as here.’
‘You are in the right place.’ Butterbugs gestured with raised arms at the huge-volume room all about them. ‘Here, in the realm of picture making!’
His youthful enthusiasm was showing.
‘I was raised to be an innovator,’ continued the tech-meister. ‘We innovated, particularly with entertainment, and… with sex. (The two, by the way, can be sliced and diced any-way-which-way.) We innovated, with drugs, too. Too, too, too. But in the end, we were insipid, because we had nothing new to offer, though the perception of newness was ever paramount (pardon the pun), and newness ruled, despite its naïveté. By the way, it still does rule, but no one knows what ‘new’ is! I blame it on the Bloomsbury Group!’
‘Well, Old Atrocity, you’re new to me!’
‘Probably because you listen. I think you listen.’
‘I try to be civil…’
‘Yeah, well, civil’s not everything. Most people, they don’t give a shit.’
‘I am not one of them.’
‘Whoa there, pal-sy/wal-sy. I get a bellyful of advanced egotism every day in these great sheds. You can’t preach to me like that!’
‘Allow me to ‘whoa there’ as well, sir. You must understand, I do not preach. I would not, could not. I act, but I cannot exert any sort of trip on you who…’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awright, cut the reactions.’
‘No, really, I stand for clarity, not something… Something that’s artificial, or… Or made up to impress the likes of – anybody, hereabouts. Pardon, I’m thinking as I go…’
Butterbugs’ voice rose, so that the entire soundstage could hear him clearly, thanks to the fireproof insulation lining the wall, and the acoustically-engineered sound plates that were hanging from the grid and integrated into the Moderne set made for these scenes.
‘I would not, could not, be so presumptuous’ the young actor continued. ‘You can call me an intruder here. Well, I probably am. What rights do I have to be within these walls, anyway? Why should you or any of the crew, or the producers, or the actors associated with this important production, even devote any notice to the minor and trivial matters that you compel me to utter? Not so much as a janitor’s nod need be given to anything I might mention here. That is not in the script I have been given. No, Old Atrocity, let’s be friends. After all, it was your response to my fellow actor’s lines that got your ire to be noticed, and who am I but a poor excuse for a devil’s advocate to speak up, despite my lack of coherence, to your worthy point?’
‘I thought you were making a big deal out of your clarity, man. Now you say you can’t put two syllables together.’
‘You’re too sensible for me.’
Their voices became private once more.
‘You are right,’ continued the youngling. ‘Maybe I have grandstanded to make a point out of being polite. Or, civil. I am not a producer, so the time and the expense of your outburst mean little to me. I guess I reacted because I could not ignore your unhappiness over –’
‘I just gotta chuckle. You, uh, went out on a limb because I was… unhappy? What are you, St. Frawncis with his ‘little flowers’, or something? Hell, the only flowers I like are flowertops!’
Butterbugs was indeed nonplused, and for good reason. He knew Old Atrocity was right. He, Butterbugs, had no agenda of advisement in the face of conflict on the set, no matter how puny. Yet, he could not articulate the automatic tendency towards harmony that he intrinsically felt, and now, as an working actor, he could disseminate it with a sweep of his palm.
‘You should be a missionary. You have no place in Hollywood,’ said Old Atrocity, with a bare clarity that made young Butterbugs’ own attempts sound like crustbucket scrapings.
Silence between them. Even the old union floor guys on the other side of the set’s facades were motionless amidst the Bose-quality sound design.
Then:
‘No. No, no, no no. Mission? What could be my mission besides mouthing what, say, the Bard has already thought up? I will not project confusion. It is tempting, but I cannot be part of it. No missionary positions from me. I will always maintain, I can only speak from an experience which is limited, but –’
‘But what?’
‘Nothing. You’ve stumped me.’
‘And so…’
‘But one thing. I’m not a missionary.’
And then, he whispered, under his breath and unheard by all, despite the spectacular ‘live’ aspects of the stage, ‘And I do, I do belong in Hollywood. I tell you – I tell them, I do!’
Next day, Old Atrocity became teed off himself, when Butterbugs talked casually about various societal issues, such as apathy, mental illness, conformity, etc.
‘It’s the movies.’
Old Atrocity was railing, possibly because of Butterbugs’ undoubted sincerity on the previous day.
‘The movies did it. First they dramatized everything in life, and then they traumatized everything in life.’
The actor was very sure of himself. Was it acting?
‘This is way before your time, but I remember seeing a television news magazine commentary and some lady on it said, ‘Get the sex and violence out of real life and put it back up on the screen – where it belongs!’ Well, that’s exactly what they did.’
A greensman came up, looking for Old Atrocity.
‘Hey OA, does that wall get blown up and then falls on the pimp’s gang in the next shot?’
Old Atrocity gazed wryly at Butterbugs.
‘See? I wasn’t making this stuff up.’
Butterbugs, as a response, absorbed and understood. These concepts made a considerable impact on him.
Learning of Butterbugs’ solo status, Old Atrocity organized a rendezvous with a leggy blonde tinkerbelle named Lorrah, who was doing a photo shoot that provided publicity backup for a Buzz Berkeley pic at the Richard Day Soundstage, next door.
Without plan, finesse, or guile, he got the two young people together by way of a ‘chance meeting’ in the canyon betwixt soundstages.
Lorrah, she was a model.
‘You are a model,’ thought Butterbugs.
‘You are a model,’ he
then blurted out.
‘You are a bozo boy!’ she answered.
‘You two aren’t starting out very well!’ crowed Old Atrocity.
‘But we’re finishing just fine!’ she announced, and pirouetted to the right, and off, stage left.
‘Well, greenhorn, how d’ya like them apples?’
‘What’s not to like? Sure, I like her!’
‘Yeah, I agree. I like what’s stood there, but how about what’s spoke there?’
‘You mean – how she acted?’
‘You’re the actor, you tell me.’
‘Well, she’s kind of snotty, I guess.’
‘Oh, come on. That’s too easy.’
‘OK, I blew it.’
‘You did, Shagbag.’
‘Your outburst.’
‘What outburst?’
‘The first day. Over Neville Brand and his scripted lines.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘What why?’
‘You said you’d tell me why.’
‘Why the outburst, huh? Well, because.’
‘Well, because you’re either a Tourette syndrome fellow, or a pissed-off, over-sensitive type who suffers from, uh, toilet-level self-esteem.’
‘Neither. I just recognized my name, and had to call ‘Here!’’
By his last shot on ‘Chiggs’, all attitudes between them had modified into equality. There was one thing Butterbugs knew full and well about Old Atrocity. He was a friend. To trust.
29.
A Beautiful War Is An Ugly Thing To Waste
Hyman Goth was a conservative. He modeled himself on Richard Nixon, who had made the famous statement, to Dave ‘Frosty’ Frost: ‘I am a conservative. I AM a conservative. I think that’s why the American public hates me.’
Therefore, because ‘Seacom! Centcom! Ecomcon!’, now in production at the mammoth Goth studio, was a war picture – well, essentially what might be termed a war picture – and a big one, Hyman thought he should have some more balanced input regarding how the war was to be portrayed, up on the Advanced Techniscope screen.
Today, major mogul Hyman heard that one of his favorite personalities, Kritchurd Puerile, basically a creep, no longer ‘employed’ as a top level Pentagon advisor, was available for hire. Mr. Puerile, he thought, would lend the perfect equilibrium and soft-spoken gravitas he sought in order to keep those wild ‘filmies’ from getting out of control. Mr. Puerile accepted Hyman’s terms: US$75,000 per week, with screen credit that would read: ‘Creative Consultant in Charge of Southern Central Middle Eastern Logistics Observation and Other Duties as Required’.
Milton Berle was skedded for a cameo role in the picture as a top level Pentagon advisor who, though he comes to work (via private passage) in a dress, is tolerated in lieu of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. He quipped to the national press, ‘Berle as Puerile. Is it a girl?’, then distributed cheap ‘It’s a boy!’ cigars to the howling press corps.
In his hushed, cushioned office in front of his TV, Mr. Puerile wasn’t smiling.
So Butterbugs, fresh from his ‘Chip Chiggs’ gig, ushered along by Sonny and Del’s clouty wave, got called into Hyman Goth’s presence late Friday afternoon. Zanuck and Warner may have still been exercising obsessive/compulsive control over their studios, but Hy Goth, a few years younger but a few notches tighter, was Lofty Lord Arbitrator and Virtual Deity over one of the Top-Five largest and most profitable picture concerns in the world: Goth Pictures. His eastern Santa Monica studio lot (he’d bought up Clover Field, kicked out the planes, bulldozed dozens of civilian blocks and put up a picture factory) was larger than Universal City, Bronston, and the Columbia Ranch, combined. He didn’t futz with the Griffith Park spread any more. It was leased to television outfits, and available for weddings and stag parties.
Well, expansion was his thing; that was what he said, anyway. Regardless, his latest complex was gigundous.
Currently, there were some Industrial-strength corporate follies going on. Mega Picture Shows and Magna were dickering so as to do a hostile takeover of Goth, threatening to create the world’s biggest filmic combine: MMG. Raymond Loewy was already working on an appropriate logo. Hyman cried foul: audiences would confuse the new acronym for a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer misprint. Besides, he was against the takeover, and had his own strategy boiling on a not-so-open flame. To appear docile and even harmless to the ‘Meg’ und ‘Mag’ stormtroopers, he had taken to non-mogul activities, such as moving to a smaller, associate producer’s office, wearing dull button-up sweaters, adopting a folksy, snaggletoothed office hours persona (á la ‘Uncle’ Carl Laemmle, who was in fact, a distant relative), and above all, he endeavored to act like an associate producer, seeing to all matters minor, in the process of associate-ly producing second-string pictures at a front rank studio. Such duties included conferring with additional dialogue contributors, assistant production managers, bit players, maintenance staff, and new talent.
So that was why Butterbugs sat in this associate producer’s office today. He was unaware of Hy Goth’s position as studio mogul, and he was also unaware of his game-playing. All that he knew was that this was another chance to appear in a picture, and his presence was invitational, not solicitous.
‘Butterbugs, I’m not going to give you a ‘talking to’. Nay, that’s not my job. I’ll save that for the higher producers, the directors, the executive producers, the other associate producers, the executive associate producers, the assistant producers… Hell, I’ll even save it for the line producers. As Executive in Charge of This Entire Production (and I’m thinking about threatening to insist on screen credit, by the way, if people don’t shape up), I want to ensure you that I am mega-pleased with your performance in my Industry SO FAR. I’ve gotten good press from your ‘Doughboy’, and I hear that you steal your scenes in ‘Chip Chiggs’. At this studio, we’re not interested in virtuosity so much as good performances, ones that help the picture as a whole.’
Butterbugs relaxed a bit. Well, that was a surprise. This guy was bigger than he thought. He wondered if he was the younger brother or cousin to the real Goth mogul after whom the studio was named. He adjusted his thin, thin 16mm tie and Young Executive glasses (both were necessary because of all the intense reading of the script, plus several large volumes of classic works pertaining to the character and ambience of the ‘small but key’ role he was enacting: a Col. Davy Drummond). He employed this mannerism not because he was nervous, but because he wanted Hyman to think that he wasn’t quite as confident as he really was, so that he wouldn’t be over-estimated, or he just might encounter new pressures and rivalries, and maybe even jealousy from others in the cast and crew, because he would be coming off as a real upstart because they would probably think that he had captured this incredibly ‘key’ role on account of some subterfuge or seditious act, due to his incredible ambition as a result of a runaway ego, and because he felt sorry for Hyman, and he wanted him to think that he was totally in control because it made him feel good and worth something, and it would make his self-esteem stay on a rather high level.
He’d been conferring with Old Atrocity, who thought that all execs were into games, and games should be met with… games. Winning was a matter of degrees.
Not that Butterbugs knew how to play any such games, but the adjustment of the 16mm tie and the Young Executive glasses ploy worked: Hyman thought none of the things the young actor suspected. Only dollar signs appeared on Butterbugs’ person when he gazed at him, and also a few fleeting thoughts of educational films and Bell & Howell projectors; obscure thoughts perhaps, but it was surely because of the thin, thin, 16mm tie this ‘key’ actor wore.
‘I wish to thank you deeply, from the depths of my very soul, for that compliment, and for the opportunity to act for you in this, thy picture,’ said a grateful Butterbugs.
‘Well, by golly! Super! Now, there are several other items I wish to discuss.’
‘Gawrsch, Mr. Goth…’
‘Call me Hyman! Really! Or, you could even call me Pops, such as my less-subservient friends do.’
‘Well, since I call my Old Dad by something other than ‘Pops’, I might take you up on that, sir. Er, uh, Pops.’
‘Super! Now, would you care for a caramel beverage?’
‘That would be super, Pops.’
Cody de la Funk happened to come into the office just then. As the Goth’s right hand enabler, understander and enactor, she was the only one in the entire concern of Goth Studios to have the right to enter or depart Hyman’s office at will – whatever quarters he occupied, even the WC – if it was important enough.
‘Cody, would you git Master Butterbugs a caramel-flavored punch to enjoy?’
‘I would be happy to,’ she said, and repaired to a corner cupboard, fetched a liter tin of warm Hy-Munn Brand caramel syrup, poured it into a pan, added some soda-like bubble-water and served it in a crystal beaker. Butterbugs refreshed himself, though the deeply-sweet mix of the juice was a bit much. Cody, smile bordering on smug, exited.
Hyman paused for a second until the door fully closed upon Cody’s tight jeans.
‘Great ass,’ he sassed, winking.
Butterbugs’ reaction was curtained by the beaker he was polishing off.
Hy resumed: ‘Butterbugs, I just want you to know that, indeed, whilst I admire your art and your person, I am worried lest you start to become too outspoken in your opinions about people, places, and times. This is a very great picture. We want your minor but key part to be portrayed in a certain way. You won’t let us down, I’m sure.’
Whatever that meant.
‘You can count on me, Pops.’
Old Atrocity hadn’t warned him about stuff like this. Would he have to take a loyalty oath?
Butterbugs was free for the weekend as the Forbidden Plateau of Leng set, upon which he would tread in a hair shirt, wouldn’t be ready until 2:00AM, Sunday morn.
The air outside the Selig and Luetta Goth Building was delightful (it was named for Hyman’s late parents, who started their immigrant lives in Irvington, NJ, as fish fluid packers, way back in 1899).
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