Early on in Bret Easton Ellis’ “Imperial Bedrooms” (his long-awaited sequel to his debut “Less Than Zero”) this old Hollywood joke is shared between characters. Not because it’s funny, but because it offers a hint to the novel’s central theme: the Screenwriter’s Sexual Revenge. A theme that could have been used in so many effective ways to further the narrative Ellis set in place 25 years ago… but ultimately falls flat.

When I was maybe 16 or 17 I randomly picked a copy of “Less Than Zero” off the Barnes & Noble shelf in my hometown. The bright yellow spine beckoned me like a moth to flame, and the title was so very cool. The red and blue colored sunglasses on the cover didn’t promise much, but a quick glance at the back reeled me in. It was about sex, drugs and rock n’ roll set in Los Angeles. That’s all I needed to know, because I was already entertaining notions of moving out to Hollywood after graduation.

Little did I know that the novel I was about to read was already a cult sensation, having spawned a popular movie by the same name starring Robert Downey Jr. It centered on an apathetic, bisexual college student named Clay returning home to decadent L.A. for the Christmas holiday, and followed his downward spiral around the dirty drain of hedonism before leaving it all behind once again. With its blunt style, and casual approach to shocking content, it cemented Bret Easton Ellis as a literary force to be reckoned with. Hedonist. Misogynist. Nihilist. Love him or hate him, it was the spring-board for a prolific career that has produced controversial works such as “American Psycho”, “The Rules of Attraction” and “The Informers” (all adapted into half-baked, but mildly entertaining cinematic versions).

With each subsequent novel, I became more and more immersed in his bleak, twisted universe – a dark dimension disguised as a sexy party where “hope” and “love” are considered vulgar apparitions. His protagonists are superficial, addicted, oversexed and indifferent to any emotions including their own. College students, Wall Street serial-killers, fashion-model terrorists, socialite vampires and mid-life crisis movie producers – all damned by their own infinite appetites for lust and greed. Scathing, gross and sometimes hilarious, his body of work comprised a colorful Rubik’s Cube of doom, which could never be properly aligned no matter how much you read between the lines.

And at just about the time I thought I had him figured out, when it seemed his bag of tricks would finally become deflated and dusty, he tossed 2005’s “Lunar Park” our way, and completely turned his own world up-side-down – and my head effectively inside-out. This brilliant novel was about a writer named Bret Easton Ellis who is haunted by a book he wrote called “American Psycho”, who becomes a family man in the suburbs in some half-assed attempt to reconcile his relentless demons. Self-deprecating to the point of satire, the novel then miraculously shifted gears from horror story to a bittersweet redemption plot. When I closed that book, I was flooded with conflicting emotions, but none of them were negative. The impossible had happened: I was genuinely moved by the coldest writer in modern American fiction. It seemed as if Ellis had finally turned a corner of some sort. In short, he had elevated his own game.

Lindsay’s arrest on July 24th 2007 for drunk driving was an unwanted punch-line to an already overlong joke. Before my current “glory days” at Forth, I was a cheap entertainment journalist, desperate enough to do a stint at the National Enquirer but contemptuous enough to piss people off and not keep the job for longer than a month. I never DID publish a single word with them, and in hindsight getting paid to sit at a desk in their corner and pretend to look busy was the easiest money I have made so far. Back in those days, I was hungry for dirt, worms and all, and my research into the ’07 Lohan case yielded some shocking revelations. Revelations that a sorry excuse for a rag like the Enquirer could not comprehend.

If the Santa Monica Police Department’s blood-tests of the troubled starlet were true, it would indicate that she was not only above the legal blood/alcohol limit and had traces of cocaine in her system, but that she also shares the same basic DNA of “Periplaneta Americana” …also known as the American cockroach. Such insight suggests genetic tampering for “youth retention” purposes, or perhaps some extraterrestrial origin that we are too afraid to contemplate. Either way, this information spells trouble, as Lindsay’s resilience could render her indestructible to the penal system, tabloid criticism, and worst of all, fire and pitchforks.

“We’ve tried everything,” said an anonymous source working at the undisclosed treatment center Lohan was located in ’07, “Electro-shock therapy, synthetic cerebral injections, even exorcism.”

Exorcism?

“Well, yes, a priest was called in and performed a seven hour purification.”

And the results?

“He packed up his things and shook his head.”

If such reports were true, if she was really locked up in some secret facility in the outskirts of the Utah desert region, and if she was really beyond the helping hands of science and Jesus… the question for 2010 is: what now? At 24 years-old, Lohan has already been to rehab three times, faced two DUI arrests and served approximately 84 minutes in jail. Her recent 90-day sentence is either the poisonous crescendo to a cursed life, or the set-up for a sordid porn to be shot on prison guard’s iPhones — maybe both. How long will this poor fair-skinned creature be left to wallow in such heartbreaking conditions? Would you let your dog suffer this long? Or would you take pity and finally have her put down, the humane way? Here’s a glass of warm milk, Lindsay, good girl Lindsay, drink every last drop Lindsay…

“Just look at her mug-shot,” James Butts, chief of the SMPD told me in a phone interview after her ’07 arrest, “Look at her expression. I’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of mug-shots in my day, but this one really stands out.”

How so?

“Just look at how her eyes are pleading to us. Her eyes are begging us, please, please world, please believe in me. Don’t give up on me yet. I am a mixed-up little girl and I have a lot of love to give…” Butts cleared his throat and resumed a professional tone, “At least, that’s what I see.”

The jury is out on whether Lohan is, in fact, mortal, or if when she dies she will simply implode and instantly re-appear in some other terrestrial form, like a jellyfish or a cloud. Reincarnation is NOT the prevailing theory at the local church, as His Eminence Roger Cardinal Mahony attested over the phone. As the archbishop of Los Angeles, Mahony speaks for nearly five million members when he says, “Nonsense. This girl is flesh and blood. If we burned her at the stake, she would very much catch fire and not come back.”

Could Lindsay have been sent among us to be punished for all our sins?

“If you are insinuating that this troubled young woman is the Second Coming, I am afraid this interview is over.”

Well, if God’s first and only son was a poor carpenter who partied at weddings and hung out with prostitutes, is it really such a leap in logic that perhaps his only daughter might come in the form of Lindsay Lohan?

“My son, there is no redemptive quality within that girl. If anyone has sent her among us, it was the devil.”

Brittany may have shaved her head and flashed her hot-pocket all over town, and Paris may have released a porn and done her stint at prison, but all of these things seem to pale in comparison to Lohan’s current state of affairs. She has remained in the unflattering limelight long after her peers have all but faded into irrelevance. Perhaps Brittany and Paris were mere test-patterns, perhaps Lindsay is the devil’s TRUE magnum-opus — as the Archbishop would attest — his David or Sistine Chapel of cocaine sluttery. It is true that Lohan is not the first and only celebrity train-wreck to hit rock-bottom. Robert Downey Jr. is no stranger to the Man Downstairs himself, but Downey is removed from Lohan by one slight distinction: he can act, and act well, whereas Double L has freckled cleavage and… that’s about it. Watching the verdict being laid down on her on CNN was like watching an anguished baby seal realize that the club looming over her head is not for providing shade, after all. Her pathetic balling showed signs of some base instinct still kicking around her addled head, a tiny echo of an ember of the little girl who once had a bright future in front of her and has no idea how it all went wrong.

Surely if the actress was a 24 year-old black male, none of this would have happened. She would have been maced, tasered, arrested and thrown behind bars back in ’07 faster than she can do a bump in the bathroom at Hyde. Her privileged stature has gotten her this far, and how much mileage is left in her withered karma is hard to say. It is the opinion of this humble journalist that the collective media perform a “Lohan Blackout” effective immediately. No more reports, articles, pictures or sound-bytes. No updates, interviews, rumors or hearsay. Maybe, just maybe, if we all ignored her she would cease to exist… poof …out of sight, out of mind. The real question remains: how can we expect Lohan to overcome her addictions when WE are incapable of overcoming our own? Can it be that we are all locked into some kind of sick, symbiotic relationship from which there is no escape?

Deep thoughts and heavy questions on a topic that has as much nutritional-value as a worm’s semen. But in 2010 America, worm-semen can be quite the lucrative commodity, and a strung-out 24 year-old girl the perfect target for our sins.

FROM: the Desk of Marco Mannone / Executive Editor @ Forth Magazine

TO: the Desk of Richard Verrier / Los Angeles Times

RE: “Screenwriters Find Work is Dwindling” (July 3rd article)

Richard,

Just read your sharp piece “Screenwriters Find Work is Dwindling”. Shedding light on this topic is like pushing a vampire into the sun… Executives and Greedheads around this town tend to burst into flames when they’re told they should Respect their writers. After nearly a decade of sheer desperation, 2010 has proven the most lucrative year for me yet as a paid, working screenwriter here in L.A. The catch is, my checking account is still running on fumes and I might have to siphon gas from some fat-cat’s Lexus in order to drive my car off Mulholland Dr.

photo by Marco Mannone

That I’m on the verge of turning 30 and that I’m still without representation shows some kind of resilience on my end, I think. Two projects back-to-back have found their way to me this year, both where I am receiving sole credit. The first was financed by a millionaire living in Arizona and stars a handful of well-known television actors, the second is being financed by a millionaire in Canada and I am currently neck-deep in revisions (awaiting feedback from the director is the only reason I even have the time to write this now). Without belonging to the Almighty Guild I have been compensated mostly with peanuts and loose-change, but both films stand a fighting chance to see some kind of distribution in the not-too-distant-future. My point is, while Guild writers working within the Studio System might be falling on hard times, there is an underbelly to this story about us non-Guild writers who are like rats clinging to the cables of billion-dollar cruise ships by our tiny, pink paws. Instead of going for the all-you-can-eat buffets, we are surviving on the crumbs left behind and making the best of it.

These despicable “one-step deals” that are holding writers hostage are not limited strictly within the Studio System — although within that system it is even more heinous because of all the Big Money being swapped around like bodily fluids on a constant basis (you would think they could afford to feed the Idea Men a bit more). Working in lawless international waters as I have been, I can attest that the one-step deals are also common in the field of Independent Filmmaking. Treatments and First Drafts are essentially lumped together as one, and Revisions and Subsequent Drafts have no distinction whatsoever. This is easier to stomach where I’m coming from, because even though the movies are being funded by millionaires in the ether, the fact remains these are private investments with a single risk shareholder for each, not to mention I am not entitled to any legal rights without belonging to a union. Sadly, a gun-for-hire is a gun-for-hire big or small, and when it comes to the quality of even Independent Cinema, you get what you pay for.

My advice to your readers (other than finding themselves a millionaire with money to burn) would be to abandon the Studio System altogether in favor of (true) Independent Cinema, and pool together their precious resources — however limited — to create their own mafias. To hell with the Big Bastards. If they think they can fleece the writers of this community for everything they’ve got, let’s see them regurgitate the same tired material on their own. What they are too greedy to realize, is that these one-step deals which save them money up-front are actually doing the Studios a disservice in the Back End, because “finding a movie in a second or third draft” is precisely why so many films coming out are half-baked turkeys ripe with Salmonella. After all, this total disregard for Originality and Risk Taking in the industry has proven to be so hugely successful (sarcasm) this dismal summer season, which is the worst since the 90′s.

Mind you, the Guild writers are also to blame so long as they choose to stay in these abusive relationships. Wallowing around for another black-eye is nothing less than masochistic, and if they have any sense whatsoever, they would secede and create on their own. This is precisely what I am doing now with a script intended to be shot on a shoe-string budget called “Mark & Tom” — the short film version of which will be screening this month at the L.A. Shorts Fest, a fine venue for us semi-young filmmakers still full of piss & vinegar to showcase our passion for originality… along with our general disdain for a failing system beyond repair.

With Fervor,
–
Marco Mannone
Executive Editor / Forth Magazine
www.forthmagazine.com

courtesy of Showtime

So Showtime has a little series called “Californication” about a compulsively hedonistic writer who also happens to be a devout family man. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Tom Kapinos created the splendid walking contradiction that is Hank Moody, who is played with mellow charm by David Duchovny in a performance that makes us forget he once chased aliens for a living. Struggling to reignite his earlier success, Hank is constantly torn between settling down with his girlfriend and daughter, or letting his raging id steer him into one sexual collision after another. Currently en route to its fourth season, the series has become one of the hottest on cable and has recently spawned a literary spin-off in the form of Hank’s infamous novel, “God Hates Us All”. That’s right. You can now purchase and read the book that put Hank on the map, with his very name on the cover and a brief bio on the back. And it’s not only a bona fide work of fiction, but a damn good one at that.

Jonathan Grotenstein taken by Marco Mannone

Fans of the raunchy-yet-bittersweet comedic series will be able to decipher some semi-autobiographical back-story on Hank’s youth in New York, but the novel defiantly stands alone as its own narrative, independent of the show. This is thanks exclusively to the novel’s real writer, Jonathan Grotenstein, whom I had the pleasure of sitting down with at a coffee shop in Eagle Rock to discuss the nuts and bolts of his creative process. Jonathan’s story centers around a young, nameless narrator living in New York City in the late 80’s. He is a blue-collar kid with a psychotic ex-girlfriend, an adulterous father, a flirtatious best friend and no real direction in life. Recklessly quitting the food-service industry, he finds himself running pot all over the city for a powerful dealer called The Pontiff. This new vocation affords our narrator the ability to move into the famous Chelsea hotel, and to begin consorting with a colorful cast of characters that shade-in the term “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll”. But his newfound life in the fast-lane comes with its heavy share of heartache and stark, personal revelations.  From one writer to another, our conversation went something like this…

MARCO MANNONE: How did you get the job to write Hank Moody’s infamous novel?

JONATHAN GROTENSTEIN: I got the job because of the relationship I have with the editor on the book. The first book I ever wrote was “Poker: The Real Deal” with Phil Gordon, and the assistant editor was a woman by the name of Cara Bedick. Cara became an editor in her own right, and she was given “God Hates Us All” as sort of her first book that she was going to shepherd through the process. She needed to find someone who could work quickly and cheaply.

MM: How long did you have to write it?

JG: It’s for a division of Simon & Shuster called Simon Spotlight, that generally has really, really tight deadlines. Probably not more than four months (for a nearly 200-page work of fiction).

MM: Were you a fan of the series before you ever got this job?

JG: Yeah, I watched all of the first season, and when I started writing it, the second season was just about to get underway. I liked the show. I have to confess I didn’t love Season One, but as I was writing the book and watching Season Two, which I thought was much stronger, I very much fell in love with the show. Also getting to meet Tom Kapinos, who created the show, and sort of hearing his voice and realizing what he was trying to do with it, helped develop an appreciation for it. But yes, I had seen all of the episodes (at the time) before I was ever approached to write it.

MM: What aspects of the show did you connect with — as a male, as a writer, also living in Los Angeles… any specific aspects you could identify with?

JG: Yeah. I mean, I like to think that one of the reasons Cara thought of me was… Hank and I are similar in certain ways and very different in other ways. I’m not in any way the ladies man that Hank is, or as brilliant as Hank is supposed to be, but I definitely have my angry moments, my darker moments. I didn’t have an old, beat-up Porshe that I was driving around, but I did have an old, beat-up Mercedes convertible that I was driving around. I’m a guy from New York who’s been out in L.A. for a while, and sort of has the same kind of love-hate relationship with the city that he seems to have. I’m also a recovering entertainment industry person. I found that industry to be a lot more bullshit than I could tolerate. I think that helped me relate to where Hank was coming from, as well.

MM: In the series the book’s story is never revealed. How much freedom were you allowed to create it from scratch?

courtesy of Showtime

JG: A lot. An insane amount of freedom. I’m not even sure how much a huge fan of the book Tom Kapinos is. First of all, it’s very hard for him because Hank is his baby, and has a very specific voice, and he thought of the book in a very specific way.  And having someone else write that, I think… He wasn’t going to write it, not in three months or four months. But he had a very definite idea of how he wanted it to be, and the sort of tone it should have. We met once and talked about it on the phone a couple of times and exchanged a bunch of e-mails. Ultimately, I latched onto the idea that Hank was a writer in the 1980’s, the late 80’s in New York City. The book that Tom and I sort of hit on was (Jay McInerney’s) “Bright Lights, Big City”, and he thought that was a book that Hank might have written. There’s another book called “The Fuck-Up” (by Arthur Nersesian) so I went back and read “Bright Lights, Big City” and “The Fuck-Up” and I thought, alright, if Tom thought that Hank would have written those kinds of books, then I’m gonna sort of go in that vein. But you know, I’m not the writer that Tom is, especially when it comes to Hank’s voice, so I was forced to go with things that I knew. And a lot of the book are things that are semi-autobiographical to my life, or people that I’ve met or encountered and I had as much leeway as I wanted. Especially with the first draft. With the second draft after Tom had a chance to read it, we sort of figured out some ways to help what I had written converge with the idea he had for the book all along.

The Doors are like a religion unto themselves. This may sound utterly pretentious, but 40 years after the fact, they remain the unique kind of band one either chooses to believe in or not. For seculars, The Doors were just a weird rock n’ roll band, good for nothing more than an acid trip in the desert… but for believers such as myself, they are a potent and generous source of dark magic – simultaneously contagious and healing. Tom Dicillo’s epic-yet-intimate documentary “When You’re Strange” manages to contradict itself in a wonderful way: it both deconstructs the lore while also adding new depth to it. Exclusively utilizing vintage footage of the band, including never-before-seen film of a bearded Morrison navigating an existential journey through the desert, “WYS” is a truly transcendental experience. A documentary such as this is proof-positive that The Doors might have opened in 1965 on a sunny day in Venice Beach, CA… but they remain open in 2010 for anyone willing to walk through them.

And on a sunny day at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons in April, I was more than willing to Break on Through. As a recovering entertainment journalist, I was accustomed to doing interviews at this hotel, but it seemed far too posh and clichéd a venue to house The Surviving Doors, even if just for a few hours. But there they were, and there is no decisive way to convey the surreal experience of sitting next to your idols, even if they are barely recognizable and utterly mortal as they sit inches away from you.

Because of a still-unresolved dispute that John Densmore (percussionist) has with Ray Manzerek (organist) and Robby Krieger (guitarist), the trio has yet to coexist in the same room for several years. Such was the case when for their 40th anniversary back in 2006, Ray and Robby played without John at the Whisky A Go Go. This was pretty disappointing, but the fact that I was even standing feet away from half The Doors playing on the same stage they got their start on, was a mini-miracle. My then-literary agent was able to get us close to the front of the epic line wrapping around the block by giving away a bag of weed she got from her apartment across the street. My agent using weed to get us into a Doors concert at the Whisky was one of those classic L.A. moments I will not soon forget.

courtesy Rhino Media

Back at the Four Seasons, Ray and Robby interviewed separately from John and the film’s director Tom DiCillo. For the sake of efficiency, I’ve decided to interweave the questions and answers into one continuous dialogue. Ray and Robby strolled into the Burton Suite and joined us journalists like they were arriving late to a party. Robby was shy and barely made eye contact, while Ray was working on a bottle of red wine that he had been apparently lugging from interview to interview, and by this point, it had thoroughly lubricated his already-philosophical nature.