May 23, 2008
Finishing Crocodemon
Written by Girth McDürchstein on May 23, 2008 10:09 PM
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Colby & Perdida
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Today, I had to go back to Perdida Cheyenne’s apartment. Last time, she mistook me for Vance Sloane’s enforcer and promised she’d finish her latest script (Dinocroc 3: Crocodemon) by today. According to Colby, who has monitored her like crazy since I implanted that bug, Perdida hasn’t worked on the script at all since I left her apartment.
I didn’t want to do it, but Colby’s my biggest fan. I’d give that up, but my second-biggest fan, at the moment, is a Seattle-based actuary who reads this blog and mails lengthy letters each month, describing what my actions have cost various insurance companies over the years. His writings have tempted me to insurance myself for a high amount, then fake my death, but I couldn’t even get away with the prison scam.
So anyway, I went up to NoHo, to her apartment, and beat down the door.
“Who’s there?” Perdida demanded from the other side.
“You finished Crocodemon yet?!” I shouted.
“Oh fuck,” Perdida gasped, barely audible.
“Look, it ain’t a big deal to me,” I said, “but Vance won’t be happy.”
“Fuck that guy,” Perdida called. “I’ll finish it when I finish it!”
“Dammit!” I tried to kick the door down, but on my first attempt it didn’t budge. Instead, I just slammed into it with the full weight of my body, and it collapsed to the dusty floor. I leaped to my feet, coughed for a moment, then aimed one of Margo’s handguns at Perdida.
She stared at me, wide-eyed.
“You gonna finish it now?” I said, then spat in an attempt to look cool.
“You don’t understand,” Perdida said. “I haven’t even started yet.”
She sat down at her Selectric and sighed. “I don’t know why Sloane would hire me to do something like this after Aries. I love these movies, but I can’t write one.”
“That’s for sure,” I agreed.
Perdida glared at me. “So, what, are you gonna shoot me?”
“Only if you don’t finish.”
“Well, you might as well go ahead, then.”
“Wait a sec,” I said, taking a seat on her ultra-hip, ultra-uncomfortable couch. “If Vance hired you, he must’ve made you pitch a story.”
“Yeah…” Perdida said.
“So what is it? Maybe I can help you get started,” I said.
She scoffed, “You aren’t a screenwriter.”
“I’ve written as many as you have,” I said, “so put up or shut up.”
“Okay,” Perdida sighed. “So basically, I had to work with three restrictions—one, this has absolutely zero to do with the other Dinocroc movies; two, it has to be a star vehicle for William Atherton; and three, they have to shoot in Bulgaria.”
“Gotcha,” I said contemplatively.
She explained the story to me: in 1942, a Nazi experiment gone awry gave birth to an enormous, immortal crocodile with the brain of Adolf Hitler. When Nazi scientists couldn’t control or kill it, they decided to bury it under 50 feet of concrete. In the present, a greedy land developer (Atherton) digs up the concrete to allow for an enormous, underground parking structure for his latest triumph. When the “crocodemon,” as they call it, is unleashed, Atherton has to team up with a frustrated architect, a police commandant, and his reluctant scientist daughter.
“Well, now,” I said, “that’s a story. So what’s the problem.”
“I’m having trouble getting into these characters’ heads,” Perdida whined.
“What characters? They’re all so obvious and cliché. Just give them your trademark shitty dialogue and people will think it’s satire or something.”
“You have a real way of inspiring the creative process,” Perdida said.
“You want inspiration?” I said. “Let me play you something.”
I hooked my Discman up to her stereo and rolled Star Sex. I explained to her that, in the olden days, I used to play this for chicks to get laid. It hasn’t happened with any subsequent albums, but something about that one caused women to first feel repulsed, then melt into a puddle of lust and admiration.
Even with the forewarning, Perdida was no different. She came at me, nipples like pencils, but I continued to aim the gun—not that gun—at her. I gestured at the typewriter with it and said, “Concentrate your energy on the screenplay.”
Perdida did as I asked, and within the time it would take anyone to watch a movie—she had written one. “It just poured out of me,” she fawned as she typed FADE TO BLACK, “like so many vaginal secretions.”
“So that’s it?” I asked. “You obviously don’t rewrite, so just send it to Sloane.”
“Aren’t you going to take it?”
“What do I look like, a courier?”
Perdida shrugged. “Well… Thanks for your help, anyway.”
“Keep the CD,” I said. “For future inspiration.”
“I’d like that,” she said sappily.
I furrowed my brow, then left the apartment.
I hopped in my car, called up Colby, and said, “It’s done.”
“I know,” Colby said hoarsely. “I was listening. Hey man, it was really cool of you to not fuck her. Lord knows what you would have gotten.”
“You mean, other than bored?”
“Are you crazy? She’s so hot, and she sounds like a tiger in the sack.”
“Eh,” I said. “She’s hot, but she’s just so… She’s a walking cliché.”
“That phrase is a walking cliché,” Colby groaned.
“Fuck off,” I said, hanging up.
Even though I still sorta hated Perdida, I have to admit it felt good to help her finish that script.
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