Starring, double starring, and triple starring Nicolas Cage
We are in Nicolas Cage’s film production company, Cronus Saturday Pictures, on the first floor above the ground in a gleaming glass building in downtown L.A.
Tonight, the big blue lady is busy, brutal and, as always, very beautiful, laughing at people’s desires, to simply be with her, to touch the hem of her garment, to see her, if only once, to dream her, oh, merciless gods, she breaks them, breaks them all, sooner or later, and rejects them, discards them like scraps of paper thrown to the winds, as though nothing has changed – at all.
The lady is fabulous; she is dazzling in the moonlight and glamorous, pulsing in her deep-deep hue above a shimmering marble pool. She is remorseless… and very, very cruel. You can never hurt the lady, but she will always hurt you.
And then, there are the Lossers.
They are in the streets, crossing them, going in and out of the buildings, driving around, causing traffic, holding it up, making demands of businesses, the movie industry, and the people in it, threatening them, putting them under tremendous stress, and making it so they cannot leave… or live…
Where do they come from? Where?!
Nowhere. They come out of nowhere.
And what of The Big Blue Lady?
She is cruel, cruel and indifferent. Lossers or no Lossers, she doesn’t care.
Down the hall, I hear another movie-making company trying to film a period picture, like from the ‘30s or ‘40s.
I’m tellin’ ya, Harry, I’m gonna be the City Desk Editor of this stinkin’ rag someday – I’m tellin’ ya, it’s gonna happen, ‘cause I want it that bad.
You don’t say?
Aw, Harry, look at that guy over there, wit’ his sleeves rolled up, thinkin’ he’s so great, tellin’ the joinalists what to write and howta write it, probly tells ‘em what ta think, too!
Hmm…
That’s right, Harry, an’ when it happens, I’m gonna throw me the biggest party an’ git me the best gal woikin’ here, and –
Well, well, well… And whoever would have thought that Little Bobby Johnson, the scrawny red-haired freckled-face kid with the slightly gimp leg, the youngest of the nine Johnson boys who once lived across the street from me in good ol’ Pottsville, would finish college and be in here in the middle of the big town at my newspaper just 20 years later, fresh off a operation on that poor crippled leg a his to make it good as normal all piping-hot and ready to conquer the world telling me he’s gonna have that City Desk Editor’s job and be the best one at it ever!
You’re darned tootin’ I am Mr. Hurlyhealy – just gimme a chance, I tell ya, I’ll start anywheres, and then, you’ll see… you’ll see all right – I ain’t gonna stop for nuthin’, not no way or anyhow!
Weeeeelll… all right, then, Johnson. Tell you what. There’s a little story brewing just around the corner here, next door to the barbershop, you know, the one across from the drugstore, if I ain’t mistaken, up on the third floor behind where they got the pool hall disguised as a gentlemen’s club, word has it there’s some mug from outta town, see, and he’s gyppin’ a bunch a poor people outta their life’s savings by selling them some kind of reverse mortgage obligations or something a the sort, and the whole thing smells like something rotten, a doity, filthy scam a some sort, see, but for some reason the cops ain’t touchin’ him, and the long arm a the law ain’t laying a finger on him, never mind throwin’ the book. So what I want you to do, Johnson, is go down there and, well, if you can dig to the bottom of this and write me up a story fresh by, say, tomorrow morning, then, well…
Really, Mr. Hurlyhealy?! Gee, that’s swell, that’s… that’s… What am I wasting time for?! I’m on it, I’m on it!!!
Yeah, Johnson, you GET on it, and just tell Marge Diddlehopper to give you all the pens and paper and whatever else you need…
Cut, cut!!!
What’s wrong? That was going great – what did you stop it for?
Look at the script. Look at the words. I mean, don’t you think there’s something wrong if this Johnson kid starts off by sounding like some smart-ass borderline hoodlum, calling the newspaper he wants to work for a ‘stinkin’ rag’ and its owner by his first name, Harry, but only a few lines later he’s suddenly this all-American boy-next-door go-getter up-by-his-bootstraps nose-to-the-grindstone eager-beaver who, relying on just his guts and pluck, and maybe a few smarts, against the background of a broadly applied Protestant Work Ethic, is well on his way to making good, you know, achieving the American Dream, and is suddenly respectfully calling this older generation Harry, Mr. Hurlyhealy, like he should have been doing all along.
Well, aaahh, uh…
Yeah, and another thing that bugs me – this Johnson kid’s supposed to be some sort of college graduate, but he’s still talking in that ignorant inner city working-class street patois, or is somewhere in between the patois and basic civilized American English, you know, like Level 1, like he’s stuck in some kind of time or class warp or is conflicted about his identity and can’t get out of it.
Yeah, sure, but…
Toads of Turtle
Toads of Turtle
All we want is the Toads of Turtle
Chance them, prance them
But don’t romance them
Buy them, try them
As long as you
Cash advance them
Toads of Turtle
Toads of Turtle
We’ll give anything for the Toads of Turtle
Eating corned mutton
And one jelly bean
Pressing the button
Now the plug iron’s clean
To sheen and wean them
(Slower on refrain here)
Oh, Toads of Turtle, Toads of Turtle
Why is anyone who is anyone not even here
Is it the ministry
Or just someone’s sinistry
That the Toads of Turtle have gone out the door
And left us all – now and possibly for evermore – Oh, dear! Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear…
Oh, no, NOT THAT, oh, no, NOT SO, oh, no… NOT POSSIBLE… oh-no… oh-no… ooooohhh NOOOOOOO…
Hey – Now one more time!!!
(Speed up again, like before)
Toads of Turtle
Toads of Turtle
Hurtle skirtle on a Beach called Myrtle
Bebop, flip-flop
But don’t go re-hop
Just relax the syntax
But don’t combine them
In a parasol girdle
Oh!
Toads of Turtle
Toads of Tur –
Ladies and Gentlemen:
We feel that something has gone terribly wrong with this story. So, let’s try again – shall we? With V-13 Part 6, that is. Please move on to the next piece of Commix on this website (the reference here once again being to V-13 Part 6) as soon as you have been informed about it. Thank you for your understanding. We are much obliged and genuinely regret having to apologize for this embarrassing inconvenience (embarrassing for everyone, we’re sure). [Kyiv Unedited Secret Editorial Board] January 3, 2017