Below, the beginning of a new Domini story, part of a developing sequence called MOVIEOLA. Also see the "Pertinent Links" page, where you'll find a blog
entry on another such story.
 TRAVELERS’ LOUNGE ON THE RED-EYE
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, yeah. 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? A story I was born to 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…
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