Bleep (Intro-Chap. 4)

Intro


Some people love my work. Mostly old people and prudes. Others think I’m a jerk off, which is mainly everyone else. That’s why I don’t like telling people what I do for a living. I say I work as a film editor and leave it at that - which technically I am. But not in the cool way, like actually putting together a movie or TV show. Nope, I edit films that have already been made. I’m the guy that cuts out your favorite parts when movies make their way to your local cable station. I take out the nudity, the blood, the violence, the cursing… you know the good stuff. Mind you, I’m not the one that decides what needs to be replaced. That’s the beautiful work of those wonderful minds over at the FCC. However I still need to do my job.

Mine is not the how or why. Mine is just the do or die.

For the most part it breaks my heart to ruin the best parts of films. Bloodless Braveheart. Ehh. Curse free Carlen standup. Bor-ing. Nipples no more for Jesse Spano’s slutty strutting? No thank you. I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Now there is one part of my job I thoroughly enjoy. I know it’s going to sound strange at first – but hear me out. I love taking out the cursing. You might be asking, “Why, jerk off?” Well I’ll tell you why. Because I get to replace those words with any word I want – as long as they’re not foul of course. So “Jesus Christ!” becomes “Cheese and rice!” Fucktard becomes “fart head”, “cock sucker” into “crud bucket”, so on and so forth. Some I’m proud of. Others not so much.

The days of bleeping are over. People get pissed at that. Leave that sort of monkey work to the sitcoms and late night talk shows. Usually bleeps gets a laugh, but that’s the last thing you’re going for when our hero is telling the villain just how much he despises him before he blows the guys brains out (not that you’re going to see that either. I’ll just cut away and you’ll hear something that vaguely resembles a gunshot. Cut to commercial.)


Chapter 1


Back from the break, I have a confession to make. I’m getting burned out. Big time. I’m tired of finding creative, suitable replacements for pussy, shit, fucker, bitch, or asshole anymore.  So I slack. Come up with some non-sense word or ones that just happens to rhyme. You mother trucker. Eat ship. Or simply wussy. For these reasons, that’s why people hate me. Every now and then I’ll get a good one in, but lately it’s a no go. We’re talking lowest common dominator slacking here – George W. Bush style. So I did what any red blooded American does when they get bored at their job. I turned to drugs.

Coke. Pot. Acid. Cheese. Shrooms. Whippets. Pills. Booze. Pretty much anything that didn’t involve needles. Those things scare me. But that ended up being a bad idea, too. I’d be so out of my mind, I was editing films down to 30-minute, Heavy Metal, Pink Floyd induced rides through complete non-coherence. Luckily no one really wants to do my job (and my boss is where I got most of my drugs anyway, so he couldn’t complain that much about my poor editing decisions). Needless to say, I was allowed to stay if I cleaned up my act. Which I did – at work. The only plus from the whole things was that I sold a bunch of bootleg copies of my drug induced film fantasies to local stoners. If you wanted to see Die Hard: The Rock Opera or the laser light show version of Fight Club, I was your man. Marsellus Wallace in Alice in Wonderland – done. Basic Instinct, soundtrack by Phish – enjoy. I even made my own personal highlight reels of headshots, cuss words and best breasts. That lasts one was my bread and butter, man. Teenagers ate that one up!

But when the drugs went to the wayside, so did the “stoner cuts”. Hence I’m back to square one again. Creatively numb. So now, with a little extra scratch in my pocket, I need something new to get my creative juices flowing again. It was time to become un-bored again and I had no idea how to do that.

However my lack of inspiration didn’t last long. I was at Jonny’s for lunch. You know, home of the Gut Buster (that wonderful creation where a brat is filled with cheese, wrapped in bacon and deep fried). God bless. So I’m chowing down on this manna from heaven when it happens. This dueshe bag of a guy must have really pissed off his dirty ass girlfriend. I say dirty because she was eating the same thing as I was. But I digress. So she goes off on Captain D-Big without remorse. The words that poured out of this girl’s mouth. Unholy filth. Absolute vulgarity. Pure poetry.

While I couldn’t use the diarrhea that was spewing from her face hole, they inspired me. I started dreaming of new combinations of words that never crossed my mind – even when I was completely stones out of it. Lacking a pen and paper, I typed as many obscenities as I could remember into a text message on my phone. I was surprised with how many I could recall, but even more surprised when my phone auto-filled the word “gonorrhea.” Who knew? Taking these words, I started out on an ill-conceived mission to rediscover the lost art of cursing.

Out here in Hollywood you’ll hear all kinds of bizarre “hobbies” these rich people have. I won’t go into all the sordid details. We’ve all heard the rumors – gerbils, removed rib cages, Dr. Monroe’s island stuff, whatever. Who knows fact from fiction at this point. We can thank the Internet rumor mill for that. I don’t want to compare myself to these people for a number of reasons. Mainly I’m not some rich, bored fuckoff. I work hard. I do OK out here, which is probably better off than a lot of other people in the country. But I don’t feel like I’m “getting ahead” or any of that bull. But sadly now, I think I might be in the same category as some of the biggest drama queens out here.

So my favorite little pastime doesn’t require a lot of money or crazy contraptions, in fact I really don’t need anything – except a girl. I don’t care if she’s pretty, ugly, fat, short, black, white, brown, yellow or even sometimes paid for, just as long as I can get her to sleep with me. I know what you’re thinking, “This guy’s addicted to sex or some other perverted thing.” But that’s not true. I don’t even really care about the sex, although it is a nice bonus. No, I care about the pillow talk. I’m not talking about the lovey-dovey-smoochie-smoochie crap. My pillow talk has only one objective: to piss the girl off till she loses it. So I make none to flattering comments about her various body parts, her lack of morals (and self control, I mean I just banged her on the first date – which I tell her, too), how drunk I am and would no way be with her if I wasn’t. So on and so forth. At this point I’m usually receiving a verbal beat down of epic proportions. And I just sit there and take it. Let it all soak in. Then I write it down, hoping my next gem is tucked away between all the “assholes” and “shitbag” comments that were thrown my way. Inevitably, the girl storms out and I’m left with a goldmine of vocabular ore to hammer out.

At this point let me point out one thing. I’m not a jerk. I’m just a desperate guy trying to keep up with the demands of my job (and those of the viewers). This isn’t where I saw my career going. I’m don’t like this. I wish there was another way. But honestly, I don’t have any other ideas right now. I want to flip the channel so to say, but can’t find the remote. This is going to get ugly.

Chapter 2

I hurried back to the studio to work on turning my edited version of Deathproof from a PG pile of crap into a PG pile of awesome. As I arrived at my workstation, my boss was already waiting there for me, scanning through my progress on Ehh-proof. His scowl was deeper than a morbidly obese plumber’s crack.

“Roman,” he says, “just what exactly do we do here?”

I know the answer. He knows the answer. And he knows I know the answer, you know? It was at the top of my job description that I was handed to me on my first day nearly four years ago. So, I tell him in a flat, rote memorization way.

“Editors will edit a film in a tasteful, yet creative manner while still maintaining the integrity of said film until it meets FCC guidelines and approvals.”

Integrity my ass. These things are pieces of crap to start with.

“That’s right, while maintaining the integrity of said film. You say you’ve been doing that lately? On top of your game and all that?"

Prick. The sarcasm is palatable. Like a nice juicy cheeseburger places in front of you. He’s just waiting for me to take a bite to see what my face looks like when I find out the burger is chalk full of dog shit. I know that it’s a shit burger. He knows it’s a shit burger. And we both know that he knows that I know it’s a shit burger. To me own disgust, I bite.

“Actually I think that things have been going pretty well. I know not everything’s been a home run though. Sorry about that Aliens 3 Sarah Palin voiceover fiasco last week. The quote was just to perfect for the scene. Didn’t think the studio would recognize the voice. But other than that, yeah, things are good… Why?

Fuck, I took another bite.

“And what’s this I hear about you wasting your time re-editing Robocop?”

“The original edits just suck so much. They’re dated. I figured that if I could just re-edit –"

“Re-edit? We don’t re-edit here unless the FCC says so. That movie is like 20 something years old. Why the hell are you wasting time re-editing it?”

His voice rises as he finishes. I open my mouth to explain, but he cuts me off and I’m left taking yet another bite.

“Wait, I don’t even want to know. All I want you to do is stopping fucking around and find you’re a game. I’m tired of this crap you’ve been turning in. Frankly, it blows – big time. So as they said when I was in the army, shape up or ship out.”

By now he’s bellowing at me and everyone is rubbernecking past my cubicle as this transpires. Everyone sees me eating the shit burger. I can see it from afar, like an out of body experience. He continues to rant at me. I don’t even hear him anymore. I’m more concerned with everyone watching. Everyone is paying attention, but no one wants to get near the shit eating frenzy. I don’t blame them. I wish I wasn’t sitting at this table either. I mean I ‘m not even hungry. I just ate for Christ’s sake. Then to add insult to injury, he force-feeds me the final bites in front of the whole office. I’m slapped back into the present when I hear these words,

“If you’re next three edits don’t make me shit confetti all over my office, you’re out of here!”

He stomps off and I’m left sitting there with shit on my face in front of the whole company. Anyone want dessert?

Chapter 3


Five o’clock. Miller time. Still feeling like the shit burger I devoured earlier, there’s only one thing left to do – get completely and totally blatto. One bourbon, one scotch and one beer quickly turned into one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor. The night ends early in my mind, but my body was apparently in it for the long haul. How long? No idea, but I must of done something right along the way because when I came to the next morning, I was facing the shapely back of a brunette.

Now I’ve been on a bit of a dry spell. And I guess my liquid diet from the night before got me into a bit of a wet spell. All I could think of was hell yeah! Then she rolled over.

Now, “Oh fuck no!” was all that ran through him mind. This was the most buck fugly girl I’ve ever seen in real life. We’re talking about if the hunchback of Notre Dame raped the Toxic Avenger and the resulting offspring was genetically enhanced with genes from Janet Reno. What the fuck did I drink last night? How could I of banged something like that – actually twice banged according to her.

Shit! She’s getting closer. She’s cuddling. She’s talking about spending the day together and what we’re going to do next weekend. No way this things is staying around on my watch. Think damnint! Think!

Eureka! Take her out to breakfast and ditch the abomination afterwards. Works every time.

“Hey baby, I’m starving after what you did to me last night. Let me buy you breakfast, whatcha say?”

She thought it sounded perfect. We get dressed, she gathers her things and phase one is complete. Phase two is to make up an excuse at breakfast not to spend the day with her, feel devastated about it and get her number. Easy as that. Let’s do this!

Opening the door to the outside world, I let her out first. I am a gentleman for godssake. But then as I crossed the precipice into the land of head splitting brightness, I could only think of one thing: I’m more hung over than I’ve ever been in my life. If I take too deep a breath I might vomit, yet alone make it through a meal. I have to end this here and now. The only problem, I don’t have the foggiest idea how to do that. Then through my hemorrhaging hangover shown a glimmer of genius.

After exactly four steps, I simply turned around without a word, went back into my place, shut the door, locked it, pulled down the shades and got back into bed. Problem solved. Until she absolutely lost it on me and my front door. She was beyond pissed and I was being told why in the most obscene, vocal manner imaginable. This is great!

Chapter 4

At first it was all just white noise. Commotion off in the distance but with my head buried so far under my pillow, there was no way I could make sense of the eruption of curses she was sending my way. Not that I cared anyways. Any damage she did out there was the landlord’s problem. God bless renting.

But then through the sloshing sound in my head I hear a few familiar phrases. Where had I heard this filth before? If I only had a brain. Un-ostriching my head from the pillow, I start to take heed of this scorned woman’s howling. So familiar. So filthy. So the same nasty ass girlfriend from Johnny’s. No. Way. I must have been more drunk than I thought. And she must of dumped the Fresh Dueshe of Bel Aire, or really wanted to piss him off by sleeping with a alcohol logged idiot like myself.

Her litany of vulgarity towards me went on for a good 15 minutes before one of my neighbors threatened to call the cops. Then it switched to him. Which Carlos returned in spades. Not to sound like a racist, but that uneducated, Mexican construction worker read her his own personal bi-lingual version of the Riot Act. God bless America. I took copious notes from this Wimbledon of obscenities.

Fuckface. Serve. Return. Crazy bitch. Lob. Wetback. Forehand. Pendejo. Beaner. Backhand. Crush. Filthy whore. Smack. Worthless immigrant. Punta. Point. Fifteen – Love.

This back and forth lasted until the cops arrived and she verbally assaulted them. From the sounds of her yelling “pig”, “brutality”, and “I am calmed down”, they took her downtown. Or at least for a ride. Somehow I was left out of the altercation by the police – which was fine by me.

After scribbling the play-by-play verbatim, I proceeded to pass back out as the most vile, diabolical plan hatched in my head – or maybe it was just Mr. Cuervo taking a caca grande on my frontal lobe. To this day I’m not sure which it was. I’m hoping for the former.