Below, the beginning of a new Domini story, to appear in the anthology Paraspheres 2. This is part of a developing sequence called MOVIEOLA. See the "Pertinent Links" page to find a blog entry on another such story.

PLAYERS, TAWKERS, SPAWTS

Listen, I’m not saying you don’t have a movie. Two girls and a guy and the Mars Rover, that’s a movie. Come tomorrow morning, you put that across with balls and alacrity, you won’t be riding this shuttle home empty-handed. I mean, you’re a comrade in the struggle, I can see that. Another artist of the pitch, trying to work the new demographic. The Wobblies -- one strange demographic, yeah. But tonight, listen. What we can do for each other, it’s not about the pitch, it’s about the legs. Terminator legs, that’s it. Kind that get up and walk even when they’ve got nothing above the hips. That’s what you want, no matter who’s laying out the cash. I mean, let me tell you about my project.

We’re in for a long trip, you know, the red-eye. And they’ll let you sleep in. Anyway word is that, out there, the morning feels different. You wake up wired. So have another, and let me tell you. Try the Botox and rye.
My project, I know you’ve heard about it. In this business, by the time you finish signing a check, everybody knows the bank balance. Besides, my project used to show up on the blogs, good fodder for a rant, back before everybody got all excited about the Wobblies.

A sports movie, that’s right. Sports movie with a narrative, tawkin spawts. That’s right. A naturalborn winner about a team that never won.

That was key for us, working from a real-world model. We had it set up so that an actual, waking-life team would always be out there living the nightmare. Right from the initial storyboards this project was all about some genuine losing franchise, a bunch of bottom-dwellers, couldn’t catch a break. Neat, yeah. Myself, as soon as I flashed on the verisimilitude, working from life? That’s when I heard the Terminator cranking up onto its feet.

No, I can’t really remember who they were, the team we started with. The Chicago Cubs, they’d be the natural. But for all I know, it was a hockey team out of Mexico City. That’s not my end of things, the research. I’m the creative, and if somebody wants to get into just which ballclub it was, and just how bad their stats were, my eyes glaze over. What gets me going is the narrative, the players and the people who stayed with them. Year after year everybody’s left heartbroken. And this in real life! Classic narrative, the stages of grief, totally.
In the movie, we had it set up so first the players and the people who love them are all the nicest folks you could ever want to meet, one big happy family, even though their life is such a sack of shit. Then one day Satan walks into the locker room and offers to help.

No, I’m not telling you too much. Don’t worry about me, comrade. I’m not riding home empty-handed either.

But. Some evil dude, “Satan” is a euphemism, he comes to our loser team and offers to help. Never mind what his wicked plan is, can’t tell you that, but it works. The guys escape the cellar. The team begins to contend, big time, but. It’s not the same. It’s all hate now, for the players and the fans both. They all tumble downhill in one big piss-yellow snowball of hate. So then finally our bankable Actress in a Leading Role -- I mean, we got one of those, major bankable, and she was a big help after the trouble started -- anyway our Number-One Honey makes a big speech in her low-rise jeans and tube top. With that, the whole community starts to straighten up and fly right. They rid themselves of the Devil and drop back deep into the second division, the losers God intended them to be. Both down on the field and up in the stands everyone works their way through the stages, all the appropriate frank assessments et cetera, right up to Acceptance and a whole lot of nookie.

Classic, right? Stawwy I was bawwn ta tell. We didn’t have to pitch the thing more than once, and like I say we got some major bankable people. But. We’re maybe halfway into production when our team we’re working with, our model out in reality, the Mudville Life Sucks or whoever -- that team takes the pennant. They won, Clutch Cargo. They take the actual pennant, and the playoffs too. Our long national nightmare is over.

Bummer? Bum-mer? Listen, don’t give me that granola patois. This was a colonoscopy.

No, no, don’t tell me we should’ve changed the story either. Don’t tell me we should’ve retooled and cranked out a happy ending. Are you forgetting, I’m the creative? Do you really think my people and I didn’t go straight to the mattresses and put up the storyboards? We thought about it. I mean, right away somebody mentioned that Red Sox movie from a few years back. They had a similar situation, there, a team that went from outhouse to penthouse. And the way they handled it was, put the seventh game on the screen and have your stars run out onto the field, screaming for joy. Yeah, but. Our thing was different, we had real life. The Sox thing, they just wanted good times, everybody goes home and gets laid. We were deep, we had a narrative. We had those nominations in mind, in a Leading Role and then some.
Sure, have another. Check the mirror behind the bar, it’s working already, the Botox. I mean, tomorrow we might be pitching to a bunch of bizarros, but we still want every edge we can get.

Fiction

A TOMB ON THE PERIPHERY