by Bruce Wagner
He watched some old Britain’s Got Talents on YouTube. Everyone amazed. Everyone astonished. Everyone was unforgettable. Everyone was making their mark, everyone was being launched from the filth and petty madness of anonymity into eternal stardom, everyone had rounded letters and rutabagas. Everyone was a pauper and ventriloquist-assisted frog prince, plucked from the sewers of minimum-wage schlepdom and installed in castle keep of the Immortal Kingdom of (at least) 10,000,000+ Hits, a finger would hit the playback machine, their mouths would open and just a few soulfully sung notes later they’d each be born aloft on a magic carpet of judges’ tears and thunderous standing ovations, relocated from the Götterdämmerung of murderously American small towns and deadend English villages, whose very names elicited a doom of mental retardation, perma-poverty & quicksand obscurity, from those sickening black holes to the supernovae pastures of galactic e-Lysiums & beyond. Bud was old enough to remember that astonishing bit of television history when Jennifer Holliday sang “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going”—now every week there were chubby adenoidal 11 year-olds vomiting it up on Good Morning America, and vomiting it pretty well. God wasn’t dead, epiphany was. The Internet had bestowed the thumbnail-transcendent Epiphany Channel; giddy passion plays of two-minute portable pop-cult fairytales ruled, with their hyperlinks of fall and rise/rise and FAIL/rise & rise mythos, appiphanies the new opiate of the people.
Bud wondered if Franco, Franzen or Fran L could sing, really sing. Franzen probably had a voice like an angel. Franzen and DeLillo could probably do a kickass Sesame St. “Alphabet Soup.”
He slipped into bed under fresh, Marta-laundered sheets. He noticed a crease. Jesus, she ironed them. A fucking saint.
Rihanna was on an old rerun of Ellen. Before Bud shut it off, Ellen said, “I hope you know how amazing you look.”
He closed his eyes and pictured the cover of his book. He didn’t know yet what he was going to call it, so he focused on the part that would go just below the title: A Novel by Bud Wiggins. He pictured a cover quote by Jonathan Franzen and blurbs on the back from David Simon and Michael Tolkin. A half-hour later his thoughts were still racing (too much Coke Zero), so Bud decided to listen to the guided meditation CD a couples therapist gave him back in the day, when he was coupled.
He turned on the light to retrieve it. That’s when he saw a piece of mail Marta must have left for him some weeks back. It was from the Library Foundation, inviting him, for a small donation, to become a “Library Associate.” The clever solicitation came in the form of book cover:
They happen every day . . .
Indeed they do. The gods of his understanding were at work and at play. Only moments ago, he lay dreaming his book, and now the book was dreaming him.
He would take his miracles where he found them—small, medium or large.
EXPLICIT
[Tom-Tom&Reeyonna&Rikki]
The Social Network
So
far, Tom-Tom hadn’t had much luck drafting loosers for the cause. In the end, she had no choice but to cast a wider internet but was hampered in that she had to intrigue without giving her idea away. She spoke to idle Idol primadunces; crampy Top Model supermidols; erased Amazing Racers; uncaught Deadliest Catches; bored Hoarders and belligerent Bridezillas; undercooked Hell’s Kitchenettes and stinky Think You Can Dancers. She even had the brainstorm of conscripting one of the “tribute” actors gonged out of The Hunger Games—didn’t happen.
To date, she had but a single conscript for her troubles—Phil Dean, an affable 63-yr-old interventionist from Intervention’s 2nd season. Phil had suffered a heart attack after shooting just three episodes & took a “sabbatical” to have a quadruple bypass. A&E elected not to rehire. Back in the day, Tom-Tom’s very own Dr Phil specialized in expediting the recovery of washed-out child stars (Johnny Whitaker of Family Affair, Todd Bridges of Diff’rent Strokes) and mentoring their new careers as drug counselors.
The first thing the loosers did after Tom-Tom called to pitch them was google her ass. (A lot of times they did it right during the call.) Not everyone had a sense of humor about her colorful past. So Tom-Tom started using an alias, introducing herself as the backer and producer of an as-yet-untitled reality show. A requisite for any decent candidate was a large, dysfunctional dose of narcissism so Tom-Tom made sure to climb up everyone’s ass first thing, the whole rigmarole about how amazing they were, what a following they still had, how aggrieved everyone had been when he/she didn’t make the cut, bla. Usually, the earlier in the season the loosers were sent packing, the easier they were to handle. (Tom-Tom did realize she might be forced to resort to the bottomless pool of contestants who never even made it to televised rounds.) When she managed to get hold of a late-rounder—someone who made it to the last month or so in the life of whatever show—the delusional looser invariably acted like they couldn’t be frickin bothered, & Tom-Tom better cough up what she wanted & fast, because they were like in the middle of a frickin world tour & already late to catch the private jet that was taking them to the Giants of Reality Programming Crystal Frickin Award Ball in frickin Monte Carlo—you know, the oldschool Lear with Snooki, Bethenny, Ryan Seacrest & half the Kardash Klan onboard. Some of the loosers actually wanted to know—demanded—how Tom-Tom got their emails! Because you netpuked it to the e-niverse, you shitty anus. But she had to chill, reminding herself that however pathetic, they had something she potentially wanted. She had to remind herself that she was using them.
TT didn’t want her idea plashed all over the web either, so she wouldn’t do email, other than the initial contact—she insisted on talking on the phone or in person. Which again was trippy because the social distortion vibe of the loose coozers was still always like I don’t DO phone like EVER so you have SIXTY SECONDS & it better be worth my time. She made sure to drop the BETTY WHITE bomb right away because that got their attention, Betty White has graciously given us the use of her Mt. Olympus home yes Betty is a producer but a silent partner in the venture. Everything after that required a little more tact. What the show’s really about (she read from the text on her computer) is the individual and collective journeys of an eclectic group of reality show veterans who find themselves under one roof on the Hollywood rollercoaster bonding over shared triumphs and broken dreams but never straying too far from embracing the house motto: ‘Tomorrow is another day.’ The louche douches would then get that thing in their voice, that seen it all done it all thing like they were the ex-exec producer of the original Survivor or the retired co-co-co-creator of The Bachelor/The Voice or Simon fucking Fuller or the CEO in charge of grooming Christina Aguilera’s twat—already brands, ubiquitous cultural touchstones, perfect hundred-year showbiz storms/entrepreneurial f5 tornadoes—you know, like they wanted you to think they had all this hot shit in the hopper, just around the corner, their shit was going to hit large, they didn’t need your shit, because while they were waiting for their own major shit to hit, like while they were waiting, the Hard Rock was paying them the same or maybe just a little bit less than what they paid The Situation to show up at some Joe Francis/Demi Lovato/Brenda Song hooker-wannabe bday gangbang in Vegas so like hurry up with your dumbass pitch because I’m gonna be all late for the premiere launch of my first fragrance for K-Mart . . . well is that it? they’d say, all tightass disgruntled. Just people living in a house? People who were once on reality shows? I don’t understand what they’re supposed to be doing like why would anyone want to watch. (Just what TT expected to hear but from the Jewsers not the loosers.) I mean is it supposed to be like Real World or Big Brother? Can you please say again what everyone’s supposed to be doing? Because it’s really not making sense to me. Sometimes Tom-Tom would give them a tentative title, maybe say it was Daydream Believers in hopes that would give it a simple soft cool dreamy spin but she really wanted to tell them the networks wanted to call it House of Losers.
. . .
The reality/unscripted Expo couldn’t have come along at a better time. The
loosers would be out in desperate droves & wouldn’t be able to hide the stenk of their wretchedness from her like they (thought they) could over the phone. It’d be easy to chase down the weak & wounded. But some of the reality dropouts/throwouts were actually very cool people, & the Double T was starting to look forward to the hookups. She knew she’d be energized by her peers, there were a bunch of Idols performing on the stages and when she (re)introduced herself & told them what she was up to, who knew? They might have some good ideas, even jump on the bandwagon. Another thing was she had that taste of notoriety & tho her shit went down 10 years ago she’d probably get recognized, people still came up to her on the street at least once a week . . . another thing was she might actually be cool again, it might be her time, the world had changed, shit was more cynical, all kinds of shit, everything had gotten crazier/more tolerant, people embraced various squalid shit they wouldn’t have 10 years ago, they fuckin cheered it on, sordid psychopathic bad girl shit, squalor/sleaze, a whole different world now, one that worshipped abject moments of infamy . . . if she got thrown off Idol TODAY for her old chicanery, the reward wouldn’t be t-shirts & Letterman, it’d be her own fuckin show. The Tom-Tom: Notorious! show. Cause you want notorious? Ima give it you. Tori Spelling ain’t noTORIous. Tori Spelling’s about as noTORIous as one of Petra Ecclestone’s cuntfarts.
Tom-Tom dug being in the adult swim of it all again.
Once the White House was up & running with looser live-ins it would be important to get someone up to Mt Olympus, a show runner with a track record, to check it out. See what they were doing up there on the Mount in Loser Lab, see it up close, the place would serve as she’d meant it to from the start, a kind of “living pitch,” if Tom-Tom could find someone at the Expo and get em up, someone who knew the reality business, even get em up without telling them exactly what the exact nature of the shit was, & they rang the doorbell and she took them on a little tour, nothing planned out, nothing elaborate, by then she’d try to have a full house, it’d be cool if most of the bedrooms were full, like a real home, that homey feeling, just like Million Dollar Listing with the house dressers, the home stylists, that’s all she was really doing, she knew she’d be good at that all she needed was the chance the opportunity now here it was, here she was making it all more presentable more livable more sellable, everyone rehearsing and doing their thing, maybe even by then have a camera crew up & running, if she could just find someone who knew their shit, get em up there and give em the tour then walk them out to the pool—Tom-Tom could see it, she could hear it—and they’d say to her, Okay, this is for sure kind of trip for real but what’s really happening? (During the tour she would provide whatever kind of dope, if they wanted it, or whatever sex was deemed appropriate to get them to commit) Tom-Tom would say, OK, here’s the deal, everyone you just met is someone who got THROWN OFF A REALITY SHOW! She could see it, see their smile slowly become a HA!—then the nod of the head, the many nods, of knowingness, nods that said OK. I get it. And SO WILL THE NETWORK. You, m’lady, are sitting on a fucking MAJOR FRANCHISE. So let the games and the brand-building begin!
. . .
They rode to the Convention Center in the same car—Tom-Tom, Dr Phil, ReeRee & Rikki—not just because Rikki’s scooter died—it wasn’t really a scooter but was so lightweight Tom-Tom called it that—but because until Reeyonna could pay her share of the rent Tom-Tom was using her as a gofer & personal asst.
Dr Phil was an avuncular, calming presence, & really understood Tom-Tom’s vision. Due to a mix-up/wrong address delivery of his social security checks, he’d been evicted from his Hollywood garden apt & was sleeping in his car. After their interview, Tom-Tom moved him right in. She already felt the vibe of the house benefiting from his presence. She needed someone trustworthy to be her eyes & ears when the prospective cast of schmoosers finally fell into place. Dr Phil was one of those people born with a happy disposition—Tom-Tom didn’t want unhappy people around her anymore. Unhappy people & the Year of the Moneybags do not frickin mix. Besides, she was thinking he might do something to help Jerzy, not an intervention exactly but something. When you were around Dr Phil his energy made you not want to use. She’d already talked to him about it, even suggesting maybe they could shoot Todd Bridges doing an “assessment” on Jerzy as part of the show, for a little drama, you know, like what would he or Johnny Whitaker recommend, would it be a hospital or a treatment center or maybe Jerzy could even do a home detox which would be really great for the show. Only trouble was, things would probably have to get much worse for Jerzy to agree to something like that. Because Jerzy was a loser for real but not a reality show schmooser so he definitely wouldn’t agree to being filmed for something like that, he’d probably have to OD for them to get his crazy drugshit on camera. The way he was going, that would probably happen too. Soon.
. . .
They came on the last day, Sunday, because that’s when they were having all the workshops Tom-Tom wanted to go to.
There was a Q&A called How to Create, Produce and Pitch Your Reality TV Show; she also didn’t want to miss How to Become A Host/Reality Star—Parlay Your 15 minutes of Reality Fame into a Career either. But Tom-Tom told Dr Phil the one she was looking forward to the most was Where Are They Now? Catching up with Reality TV Stars and Their Lives Today. That sounded the most promising—lots of rotten fruit on the ground for the takin, she hoped.
. . .
Rikki & ReeRee walked thru the empty Hall of Autographs. It was huge. There were dozens of roped off lanes, each ending at tables with the headshots & names of whoever was scheduled to be signing. R&R didn’t recognize any of them.
They sat down and Sharpie-circled events in the Expo Guide, deciding which ones they wanted to attend. Rikki said he probably should check out How to Make it in Hollywood. Reeyonna started getting excited about meeting Audrina, who seemed to be the biggest star there. Rikki circled Manouschka Guerrier from The Private Chefs of Beverly Hills. (Lately he’d been thinking that if movies didn’t work out he could become a personal chef to the stars.) Ree circled Eric Roberts from Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew because one of her BFFs said he was Julia Roberts’s brother, which she still didn’t believe. Julia Roberts didn’t mean that much to her but she was so good in the Eat, Pray, Love movie she went to with her mom. She circled Gretchen Bonaduce too, not just because she was Danny Bonaduce’s ex-wife (Ree & her friends liked getting up in the trees and watching The Partridge Family) but because the Guide said she was on Gimme My Reality Show! which Reeyonna never heard of but thought was a really funny title. Both wanted to meet Mischa Barton, who actually maybe was a bigger or maybe the same size as Audrina. It didn’t say what reality show Mischa was on but ReeRee watched The O.C. on SoapNet. Rikki circled Tila Tequila from Dance-off Pants-off. “Don’t even go there,” said Ree.
. . .
Tom-Tom & Dr Phil were upstairs trying to find Room 506. A crazy-looking couple started pointing at them. “O my God, I can’t believe it!” The gal had magenta hair, a pierced nose & some kind of Wild West brassiere. The guy looked girlish and both wore skull bandannas. Tom-Tom girded herself for the pleasant rush of being Idol outed.
“It’s Phil! From the second season of Intervention!”
“We loved you!”
“Your interventions were the only ones that didn’t end in relapse!”
“Why did you disappear?”
They introduced themselves as Kent & Vyxsin from The Amazing Race, Season 12. They said they were going to be at Hooters on Sunday in Burbank offering live TV commentary when the show came on. They gave them little hot pink vouchers that said WATCH THE RACE WITH THE RACERS!!! ***ADMISSION IS FREE***
. . .
R&R walked down one of the long, roped lanes. At this moment, they were literally the only visitors to the tent that held the vast Hall of Autographs.
When they reached the table, a jowly man with a big smile & big white teeth shook hands without getting up & gave them a glossy cardboard 5 × 7
of himself. They looked at the card—he was someone on ABC’s Eyewitness News. He’d written, in festive silver marker, “ABC 7 CHEERS! George Pennacchio.”
As they left the Hall of Autographs, Rikki grabbed a few postcards from another empty table.
* * *
If we could make Snooki a star, just imagine what we could do with you . . . DON’T MISS YOUR CHANCE. Follow us on twitter—be the that you are
* * *
On the way to Audrina, they passed some people standing on a red carpet getting their picture taken by pretend paparazzi. Big posters on the wall behind them said OnTheRedCarpet.com.
A trio of skeevy slores walked by. (Kim K’s word for slutty whores.) They had stickers slapped on their grimy bosoms, “Follow us @PlayboyTV.”
. . .
They found 506, an enormous, empty room filled with hundreds of set up chairs. A staffer told them the event moved to 501. 501 was ten times smaller. It was SRO.
Omarosa was on a panel with reality stars from True Beauty and Chef Academy. She was frickin fierce. She said she beat out half a million people to get on Celebrity Apprentice & that her goal from the beginning was to get the most camera time, she was going to do whatever it took, & as it turned out becoming the 1st African-American reality show villainess was the deal that worked. Omarosa said she’d been on thirty-frickin-seven reality shows & Tom-Tom didn’t even know if she was kidding. (She was even on a show about floral arrangements, on the Logo Channel, whatever the frick that was.) Omarosa was a mutherfuckin trip. She said that apart from whatever she was up to in RealityWorld, she was a full-time professor at her alma mater Howard U & taught an MBA program. Say what? She was also pursuing a freakin frickin doctorate in the frickin freakin ministry (Tom-Tom knew she wouldn’t be kidding about any of that), confessing that her true purpose on Earth was to spread the word of Jesus. She started going on about how fortunate she was to have partnered “with my friend, Mr. Trump,” & how she was always on the look-out for reality shows to develop. Hey I should probably try & talk to her after, maybe ol Sasha Fierce would be interested in Bad News Bears, and Trump too. Tom-Tom’d had way stranger bedfellows in her time. She looks like she’d be a nasty fuck too be my villainess black BIATCH. Pound that nappy ponderosa for days––––––––––––