Dodgey City bookkeeper Gemilly “Jem” Johnson (or Johnston) manifested at a 4th wall of town.
“Duck duck duck,” she said, walking like such. “Cluck cluck cluck,” she improvised, making director Kurt Strawb (he got a 4th!) cringe off-screen. “Now *where’s* that John? I’m ready for my close-up!” she called in the air while waddling. “I’m *ready*… for my CLOSE-UP!”
Close enough.
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“You look troubled, Harry.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you?”
“Yes. For using my real name. Amanda.”
“Yes, thank you too. I understand the frustration sometimes.” Juanita doesn’t look off-screen for direction, thought Jerry within Harry here. She goes with the punches. She’s a winner(!).
“The only thing worse than a child actor is an actor acting like a child,” Harry says, still improvising, still venting.
“So true,” Amanda replies.
—–
“Should we stop them? asked Thomas behind the scenes to Kurt, knowing when Jerry gets on a roll like this it could run a while. Look at “Mission Impossible”.
“No, we can edit later,” director Kurt Strawb, a 1/2 himself, says back to his assistant on the set. “Let him say what he wants to say. Heck, this is about the only time he’s actually acting, you know. During the ad-libs. He gets into them, lets his personality go.”
“I hear ya.”
—–
“5,000 dollars, Amanda? Try *50*, as in 50,000. That’s what my daily debts are up to.”
——
“So true to real life,” spoke Thomas, marveling at the acting that wasn’t much of an act atall.
—–
Across the room:
“Would you look at him over there, *acting* like nothing has happened. Do you know how much that weasel bastard owes me? Do you want to wager a guess?”
Tom and Jerrie (different!) stay quiet. Sam the Taker who is also Sam the Toker is on a roll too. 10 ones? Try one. As in: one. It was all a ruse, a scam.
(to be continued)
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“I’m telling you, Kurt, we’ve gone too far with this horse shit.” She looks back. “A *tail*?”
Softly, offstage: “We have to make it realistic.”
“What’s that, Hybrid?” Janet Zzyzx’s new nickman for Kurt Strawb was Hybrid, because of the whole fruit-vegetable thing he’s got going on.
Less softly, less offstage: “I said, it’s the White Horse Inn and Bar, or so it says in the new script. We’re setting a scene (to use one of her favorite phrases, he thinks).”
“I look like a *showgirl*. *No*. Make that a *show horse*.”
Kurt: “Debbie (wardrobe manager) put a lot of work into these costumes. And this way we leave the door open for a Black Horse Bar and Inn, an opposite. It has to be this way, Janet. We can talk offstage more if you wish.”
“No no. No no. I don’t want to hold up production again.” Janet Zzyzx felt she was acquiring a reputation for being difficult, a no no in the film industry. You have to be there, you have to say your lines, you have to *show* up. In this case she has to show up as a “show horse.” She bends her head and says nay to her inner doubts. Kurt probably knows best. After all, he has a way with animals as demonstrated by “Black Jack in Hell,” about its only redeeming quality. The hounds of such turned out to be very obedient beasts thanks to his training and influence, working well in every scene. Contrast this to contemporary Tim Spellwell’s “Tortures of Satan” which had the Hades dogs running amok and even attacking the cast and crew. He never even made it to freshman class, film directing career almost literally going up in flames with that one. *Show* a little respect to Hybrid, Janet thought here. At least he had “Studio 342” under his belt, perhaps representing a one hit wonder but maybe not. The critics will reassess after this one; they always do.
“Okay, send in the first loser,” Janet requests, and then starts to get into character. Lichen Roosevelt, Lichen Roosevelt, she says in her mind. Not the first bar, not the last. She’s a bar hopper but not the way you typically think of the term. She’s *experienced*, and she answers to Fern, despite being better at comedy, which is saying a lot, especially in her mind. Could Fern be a successful opening act for the Comedy Pouch in Possum Ridge, Arkansas? She thinks not.
“Alright, is everyone *ready*?” Now he speaks up, Janet thinks. Darn — out of character again.
“Aaaaaaaaand ACTION.”
—–
“Biff?” she repeats his name from the end of Take 42. “Like the detergent?”
“Annnnnnnd CUT.”
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Actress Janet Zzyzx heads to the haystack for fresh straw to suck on before her shoot. “Okay,” she said, satisfied after moving it around in her mouth, testing for texture, width, etc. “Ready.”
—–
“Today,” said director Kurt Strawb, a fruit-vegetable hybrid, “we’ll be returning to The Void for more North-South action. Hurrah, thinks Janet, believing she’d be going back to the bar that provided her free drinks after her last shoot there. But, alas, that place has been shut down, as Kurt alluded to next. “*Instead*,” he said, “we’ll be returning to the same place as the Cash-Carter cell shoot from yesterday.” Janet hadn’t been there, visiting Bermuda on a short break at the time. She was familiar with Claude Cash — who wasn’t? — but the Biff Carter character was unknown to her, having only appeared in the film for 1 scene before this. She said this to Kurt; she asked what happened. “Set the scene,” she requested from her sophomore director, involved in only 1 previous film before this outside of student work. “Blackjack in Hell” doesn’t count except as a big fat Zero, as wide as it is high.
“Welll,” started Kurt again, reviewing it in his mind at the same time. “Claude — you remember *Claude* don’t you?”
“Of course.” Don’t patronize me you sophomore, she thought.
“He shows up mysteriously in this police cell guarded by our Clubb — which is a double entendre since Clubb is also club, add in Carter’s reference to Kitty Kat Klub, which is, in turn, reference to the KKK and also Krazy Kooky Kentucky from Act I. Then we also have mention of Klancasterians from Act II.”
Way too much detail, thinks Janet.
“So when our Biff Carter, back on the force, at least for a handful of hours a week thanks to giving Phil that pill…”
Filburt, or Philburt, thinks Janet. Wondered when he was going to rear his ugly head.
“… shows up, it’s not previously seen Arthur Kill in the cell — or Kill van Kull or maybe even Lampton, all being part of one entity that was killed and then raised from the dead in the last photo-novel…”
*Please* don’t go back to that, thinks Janet. The current one was confusing enough.
“… he is able to, ahem, *fill* in for him, ha, and thus use his old squad car, which has fallen into disrepair in the meantime — as opposed to *being* repaired…”
Pu-lease, thinks Janet.
“… anyway, he uses this to track down the girl, he hoped.”
Another stalker, thinks Janet here, suddenly getting interested again. Just like — what was his name? — the guy in black, the *prevert* who stalked that other girl, the one who also always wore black, as in bikini, as if they were joined at the hip in some way. Or someplace else, hmm.
Kurt Strawb had stopped here, waiting for Janet to complete her reverie signaled by her glassy eyed nature. She looked at him and then looked around at the crew, all ready to start, all waiting for Kurt to finish his spiel. Too much talk! most were thinking around him. He’ll never get a third try at these things the way he’s going, thought some even. Sophomore he would remain.
(to be continued)
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Sunklands 