We asked Mark Baumer for twenty images of a “wacky new meme from the Ukraine.” He gave us this.
For the past three months I have been flying to Los Angeles every couple weeks to meet with people about a script I wrote called, “Haters Gonna Hate.” It’s based loosely off of an internet meme of a man dressed in all black prancing across an intersection with an umbrella in his right hand.
A month ago some people gave me a pile of money and said they sold my intellectual property to Warner Brothers. I felt excited and empty. I went to a grocery store to celebrate. For a few hours I sat in one of the aisles and did nothing but eat rice cakes. Eventually, one of the assistant managers asked me to stop eating rice cakes in front of all the other customers.
As I was leaving the grocery store I saw an actor named Bill Murray. For those who don’t know, Bill Murray is an obscure actor that not many people know about, but he happens to be in a lot of movies that I like. When he saw me he said something about rice cakes. I nodded and said the rice cakes tasted okay. He held up a package of Jules Destrooper Buttery Thin Crisps. I told him I enjoyed Jules Destrooper Buttery Thin Crisps. He said something very witty and hilarious. I laughed and then asked if he wanted to be in my movie about a guy who did whatever he wanted even though everyone he knew talked a lot of shit about him. Bill Murray said, “Maybe,” and said he had to discuss it with himself. I noticed that one of the mangoes in the pile of mangoes had turned into an ant or maybe an ant had crawled onto the pile of mangoes.
Bill Murray had a private conversation with himself for two minutes while I looked at a shelf of canned raviolis that were on sale for eight cents a can. When I looked up at Bill Murray he was smiling. He shook my hand. I felt a little piece of rice cake un-lodge from the back of my mouth. I swallowed the small kernel. When I got home that night I was so excited that I stood naked in front of a mirror for six hours and didn’t cry once.
In the morning Warner Brothers called and said, “Danny McBride pissed on your intellectual property this morning and said he likes the smell of it.” I asked them if Bill Murray could be in the movie. Warner Brothers said that Bill Murray wasn’t the type of brand name they were looking to cast for this movie. I told Warner Brothers that I thought they were wrong. Everyone in the entire Warner Brothers organization laughed at me in unison. When the laughing stopped Warner Brothers said, “Tell Bill Murray we have a biopic on the life of Kafka that we think would be perfect for him.” I hung up the phone. I felt guilty and dirty.
When I called Bill Murray’s house and told him the bad news I heard a small whimper on the other end of the line. I asked him if he was alright. He said, “I think my dog has to go pee,” and hung up.
I spent the rest of the morning writing a new script for an actor whose dog had to go pee. The new script was about a man named Dawn who wears a panda suit the entire movie and doesn’t ever show his face. Dawn is paid to stand inside Urban Outfitters for eight hours a day while wearing the panda suit. It is unlikely that Urban Outfitters will want to be involved with this movie so the store the panda suit stands inside of will resemble Urban Outfitters in design and tone, but will be called something like “Rural Dandruff.” Dawn, the man in the large panda suit played by the actor whose dog had to go pee, will mostly exist in the background of every scene in the movie while random people talk or do things in the foreground. The large panda suit will act very calm and sane and spend most of the movie handing out small pamphlets and ice cream cones.
A few days after everyone in the entire organization of Warner Brothers laughed at me, a friend who I don’t like named Lynne called and said, “I heard Jack Black is going to star in your movie.” I told Lynne that Danny McBride had signed on for the lead role. Lynne laughed and said, “You don’t even know who is in your own movie. Danny McBride got dropped when Jack Black yawned a little interest towards the project.” I hung up the phone and got undressed. I looked at myself in the mirror for only a few minutes before I began crying.
When I had no more eye liquids left in my body I began writing a new script for Danny McBride. It was about a group of men who work in an office building together, but decide to leave and walk through the desert because they think the world has ended. After a day of walking they find a giant dead crow. There is a lot of yelling. All the men do foul things to the giant dead crow. Most of them die of crow diseases. Only one man survives. He feeds all his dead coworkers to the dead crow and then begins dragging the dead crow back to the office building. On the third day of dragging the dead crow the main character wakes up and finds the dead crow has morphed into the body of an attractive, scantily-clad, young female. The last third of the movie is a disaster as a love story forces its way into the storyline.
When I called Warner Brothers to ask about the Jack Black rumors all I found was a recording that said, “Remember your intellectual property is our intellectual property.” I hung up and decided that carpet shopping would be a good activity to comfort my depression. When I got to the carpet store I told the sales clerk I didn’t need help because I wanted to be lonely and fragile with myself in their store. The sales clerk said their store didn’t support my vulnerability and told me I had to leave.
When I got home I found one of Jonah Hill’s butt hairs in my mailbox. It asked if I could write a script for it. I went inside and ate half of a honeydew melon and wore the rind as a hat as I began to work on a script for one of Jonah Hill’s butt hairs.
The opening scene of the movie would take place in the early nineties. A homeless, war-displaced man is sitting in a bathtub in the middle of a field using an old Coca-Cola can to smoke crack. A bunch of kids run by in war pant wielding wrinkled bows and arrows. Some of them fall off the edge of the earth. It is now understood that the field is not a field, but the rooftop of an office building in New York City. The homeless, war-displaced man climbs out of the bathtub. His lower body is covered in old milk residue. He walks home to Nebraska. When he gets there his mother tells him dinner is ready. The man goes up to his bedroom and undresses. He stands in front of the mirror and looks at himself.
