Believe it or not, this is a true story — the headline being my actual thoughts in an actual situation I found myself in a few months ago. I’d published a diary about living with Vladimir Putin in Paris back in the 80s and even though I’d written it to be purposefully absurd, some people were taking it seriously. I’d just finished explaining to a couple of podcasters and a Canadian radio station that the story wasn’t real when I got a Kosmail from ABC News in New York requesting an interview. Now I’ve led a fairly unconventional life, and I’ve found myself in some pretty weird situations, but staring at my phone wondering what to say to ABC was definitely one of the weirdest.
I’m currently touring the western US celebrating our First Amendment right to free political speech by hanging signs against Donald Trump and the Republican Party. This is one of a series of stories about the places I’m visiting along the way: Los Angeles. Scroll to the bottom to see the signs.
Although I’m fairly creative, and liked the idea of saving the world through fake news that humanizes the enemy rather than demonizes them, I knew I’d never be able to pull it off. So after five minutes or so of gaming it out I called them up and introduced myself with one of those sentences you never imagine having to say: “Hi. I’m the guy who wrote the Putin story, and at the risk of becoming vastly less interesting to you, I did not drop acid with Vladimir Putin back in the 80s.”
If you haven’t read the story, I wrote the young Putin to be about as thoroughly different from the person we know now as he could possibly be: an angel-voiced hippie street musician in Paris who adored sixties music, particularly the Doors, the Airplane and the Dead. You’d have to be crazy to think it was actually true. Or, apparently, one of the world’s major news organizations. Along with news organizations, I was starting to get e-mails from film-makers, entertainment lawyers and agents, all asking about getting the rights to the story. I wondered “What the fuck is going on?” loaded up Kos again and clicked on the story. 77,000 Facebook shares.
Fuh-king hell.
I knew why it was happening. There was just enough resemblance between my friend in the photo above and a younger Vladimir Putin to create a sort of “Is it or isn’t it?” tension most likely responsible for all the shares. It was a good story, but that wasn’t what made it go viral. When I got the ABC Kosmail my first thought was “Fuck: if ABC has it, that means the Kremlin does too…” and I got that pit of the stomach feeling you get when you first realize things are spinning out of control. I dragged the photo into google images and breathed a sigh of relief that neither my friend’s name or any other of his photos showed up.
Every writer should have at least one week in their lives like the one I had after that. It was like being in a Hollywood fantasy camp. I must’ve gotten close to two dozen inquiries from independent film-makers, agent/managers and - holy shit! - large studios: namely Turner Broadcasting, Time-Warner and Netflix. All of them wanted to know about getting the rights to the story. Probably the most classic conversation was with the guy from Time-Warner. After some introductions and small talk about the story, he said “Well, let me tell you where I’m coming from. I run a division of Time-Warner and we have access to hundreds of millions of dollars that goes in to making films, and we think your story would make a great film…” Again, one of those things every writer should get to hear at least once in their lives. I think once is really all that’s necessary because I doubt I’ll ever forget it. When he asked if I’d had any other offers I said “Yes, TBS is interested…” and he said “That’s okay: We own them.”
Hollywood, at least in my limited experience, is a lot like it’s portrayed in Hollywood. Everybody loves you and flatters the hell out of you. Your writing is the best they’ve ever read and you wouldn’t believe the kinds of big names they’re gonna get in on this thing if you give them the rights… on spec. (“On spec” means “for no money.”) But that shouldn’t matter because further on down the line, well… you’re going to be rolling in the stuff. The coin of the realm was flattery, big names and promises of a payoff down the line.
I had four meetings in LA with more or less the same theme: I’m great, my story’s fantastic, I/we can see this, that and all the other great ways it can go and the pantheon of celebrities who’d want to be a part of it. In the end I went with TBS. They wanted to make a miniseries out of it and, best of all, they were prepared to offer actual money.
Throughout the whole experience I couldn’t help thinking about the thousands of writers who dreamed about, even dedicated their lives to experience what I did during that week. This was in LA after all, and the energy of the hunger to hit it big was all around me. In a lot of ways my experience was even better by essentially just having lucked into it. I’d written the story in one sitting, about six hours, maybe seven. It was hardly my Magnum Opus, I hadn’t staked my life on it and if people saw a movie or miniseries, a comedy, a drama or a little of each, that was fine by me: it wasn’t going to interfere with any grand artistic vision on my part.
Because of this, there was a backwards dynamic to these meetings as well. I’m pretty sure it’s normally the writer’s job to explain all the various layers of nuance and potential of the story to the executives, but in this case it was more like they were selling my story to me: describing all the various layers of conflict in the characters and plot, the metaphors for east and west, communism, capitalism, sex, death, youth, friendship, drugs etc. It’s not like I was going to disagree with any of it, but I kept wanting to say “Really? Are you sure?” Because I’d written and published the story so quickly I’d only had about a day or two more to think about it than they did.
Another thing I had going for me was being the Freewayblogger. Just like they say, Hollywood is full of liberals and pretty much everyone I talked to had been seeing my signs for years. That, I felt, was the real story - a quixotic tale of one man’s quest to get people to speak out through the one chink in the armor of the information society: the freeways. And here’s the hook - the cruel irony of it all: The Guy Just Can’t Fucking Do It. He puts up thousands of signs seen by millions of people probably billions of times thinking just by example alone people would start to follow his lead. He builds a website, pushes it on the internet for fifteen years… builds whole armies of well-wishers and yet… nothing. (My role as “leader” of a “revolution” prohibits me from sharing a lot of the backstory on this, but trust me, it’s about as gripping, romantic and tragic a tale as any ever told.)
The problem with the Freewayblogger story is that it doesn’t have an ending. It’s got a great first act, followed by a rich tapestry of various personal, political, psychological and sociological threads woven together throughout the second act. The election of Donald Trump and the seeming victory of evil bullshit over goodness and truth is obviously the start of the final act, but until people pick up paintbrushes I don’t have an ending, and you can’t sell a story without an ending.
Here’s the thing, and those of you who are students of film already know this. The hero doesn’t win until he faces up to some hidden fear, flaw or desire buried deep inside him. This is true for the villain and supporting characters as well, but most of all for the lead. Pick any protagonist from just about any film you can think of and you’ll find it’s true. The hero eventually overcomes the external obstacles and wins the prize he thought he was after, but not until he realizes his outward quest is just a manifestation of some true desire or hidden motivation buried within. Right now there’s about five or ten people that I know of who are putting signs up and about five or ten thousand who’d like to. The reason you’re not isn’t because you’re scared about getting arrested, losing your job, getting hurt or appearing foolish - it’s not even because you’re not mad enough yet, because you are. No, the reason you’re not putting signs on freeways is because as much as I desire it, I simply haven’t convinced you to yet, and the reason for that is some weird thing like I’m too shy and conflict averse because I didn’t stand up to bullies in grade school, or ever truly learn how to commit to love or forgive my parents for splitting up for a few months back in the 70’s. Our country is being taken over by the ugliest sorts of racism, bigotry and fascism, and the reason you’re speaking out to tens and hundreds of people instead of tens and hundreds of thousands could very well be due to abandonment issues I suffered in 1968 when Mom and Dad went to Mexico City and left me with that horrible McKinney family and their asshole twins.
Whatever it is, let’s hope I find and conquer it soon - not just for our nation’s sake, but because y’all are missing out on a hell of a lot of fun.