Deliriously Happy (16 page)

We are not cogs in some machine
. While many of today's blockbusters are written by that machine, we are not cogs in it, despite having originally written all of the dialogue and characters and plot that this machine endlessly recombines and maximizes. When a bitter cop with a shattered family and a monkey on his back flees a narco-terrorist's fireball while cracking that he's getting too old for this,
some writer wrote some parts of that, some time back
.

Nor are we trained chimps
. The last decent show written by chimps was
Jojo's Poop Party
, which was largely improvised.

OUR DEMANDS

An end to the lying
. Just kidding. We recognize that, without lying, Management would be unable to exhale and thus perish. However, we are asking for a manifold increase in White Lies about how we are brilliant geniuses and the like, and a corresponding decrease in Brown Lies, about where our money is or what might happen in the future.

A fair share of newfangled revenue
. Management is currently offering us bupkes of the monies they are making off Internet sellthrough, streaming, ringtones, webisodes, cellisodes, iPadiSodes, celebrity-narrated colonoscosodes, or the psychotic episodes they've been beaming into your brain, brought to you by Clozaril™. All we are asking is 2.5 percent of revenue, based on 40 percent of gross receipts, divided by zero, in bullion. We believe this is a fair formula, yet complicated enough for Management to continue to find ways to exercise their screwing rights.

More respect
. We are demanding unbounded respect bordering on worship, but that's just our opening offer. We'll accept far, far less, or even a good-faith reduction in spittle.

Meaningful consultation
. While we acknowledge Management's right to rape our material, pervert its meaning, and cravenly dilute it for commercial use, we demand to participate in this process. We would like to be on set, or contacted by iPhone if the director doesn't want us there, and simply be asked, “Is this okay?” We stipulate that our opinion, coming, as it does, from the creator of the material being dramatized, is meaningless, and that Management can walk away or hang up before we even answer the question, but it would be nice, for once, to be asked.

A renunciation of droit du seigneur
. As it stands, studio executives, from chairman down to associate producer, have the right to deflower us on our wedding night, or any other night or time of day of their choosing. We believe this can be written into our contract without affecting a similar agreement they have with the Screen Actors Guild.

Adequate parking validation
. We know Management is deliberately understickering our tickets, and we want it to stop.

An inmate climbs onto the roof of a county jail and refuses to get down until prison officials can name all the members of
The Brady Bunch
. When the officials are unable to name all the Bradys, the inmate surrenders anyway.

—Mysterious news item I read or heard sometime in January 1991 and then mysteriously forgot where

The Bradys, it is becoming increasingly clear, are a genuine touchstone for a whole generation… I do know a few things about them… I know that one of the Brady children's name was Cindy…

—Mysteriously popular writer Bob Greene in his syndicated column, also from January 1991

“… basically we study and treat Tubal abuse and other video-related disorders.”

“A dryin'-out place for Tubefreeks? You mean… Hector…” And Zoyd remembered him humming that Flintstone theme to calm himself down, and all those “li'l'buddy”s, which as they both knew was what the Skipper always liked to call Gilligan, raising possibilities Zoyd didn't want to think about.

Dr. Deeply shrugged eloquently. “One of the most intractable cases any of us has seen. He's already in the literature. Known in our field as the Brady Buncher, after his deep although not exclusive attachment to that series.”

“Oh, yeah, that was ol' Marcia, right, and then the middle one's name was—” till Zoyd noticed the piercing look he was getting.

“Maybe,” said Dr. Deeply, “you should give us a call anyway.”

“I didt'n say I could remember
all
their names!” Zoyd yelled after him…

—Mysterious author Thomas Pynchon, in
Vineland
, published that February

chapter one

In which Zenith,
a metaphor,
gets out of
bed
.

t.V.

Z
ENITH
R
EMOTECONTROL
, to be soon all things going as planned this pulsatile young morning the newly Dr.'d Zenith Remotecontrol, Doctor of the Tube, though not Tube Doctor, a real vocation, awoke in a state of static frenzy, her lips emitting a Tune—

All of them had hair of gold
,

like their mother
,

the youngest one in curls
.

Rubbing the nightstuff from her eyes, lying aback, Zenith cocked a smile and went for the second verse:

Here's a story

of a man named Brady
,

Bringing up three young men of his own—

—and lost it. Zenith blinked, and in a swallow, sent a franchise-sized Big Gulp of twelve-molar hydrochloric acid gurgitating down, bypassing her stomach and pylorusing straight into her duoden da dum dum. Her panicreatic juices joined the fray, and Zenith, ascending, heaved herself into the bathroom. Pepto Beach!

At the kitchen nook, with the K-Tube all the way up in volume, brightness, contrast, and color, Zenith stirred heaping tablespoons of creamy pink Protective Coating Action into her coffee and tried to compose for herself. Start from the beginning, she thought. And it will come.

It came—

Here's a story

of a lovely lady

bringing up three very lovely girls
.

All of them had hair of gold
,

like their mother
,

the youngest one in curls
.

Here's a story

of a man named Brady

who was busy with three boys of his own
.

They were four men
,

living all together
,

but they were all alone
.

“Yes—” Zenith slamming her
Flintstones
chugamug down onto Alf, alien taking the form, just now, of a placemat. The rest spilled out like twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepickles onionsonasesameseedbun: tilltheonedaywhenthisladymetthisfellaandtheyknewitwasmuchmorethanahunchthatthistroupe wouldsomehowformafamilythat'sthewaytheyallbecamethebrady bunch.

Yes! Cut to the chase! Beep! Beep!

chapter two

In which Zenith
getting into her
car, com-
mutes
.

t.V.

Z
ENITH PILED
into her Tweety Yellow '72 Special Edition Volkswagen Love Bug, which she had on good authority had stuntdoubled
Herbie Rides Again
, but now bearing license plates reading my mother, modified with hood ornament in the form of the rabbit ears from a '55 Philco, nonfunctional in the physical sense but which Zenith felt spiritually filled the machine with Ghosts of the Golden Age, her dissertation and a few TubeTapes to watch on the way.

Submerging onto the 101, Zenith grabbed a Tape at random and plugged it into the dashboard. A click and a whirr and the right half of her windshield, illegally custom silver-screened using a process currently a matter of trade litigation, glowed dead green then phosphoresced into projected phantasms, and then finally, after a few seconds, into good-old purple black-and-white. Zenith rapped her fingers at ten and two and sang along

Dah—

Da—

Da dada da dada

Da dada

Da dada

Da da dada dada dada da

Vwooop!
Boom!

Dr. Zenith Remotecontrol.
Oh, Rob!
Zenith Remotecontrol, Tv.D.
Shut up, Mel!
The culmination of 42,600 hours of programming, with limited commercial breaks.
Where can I buy a baldheaded voodoo doll?
More than 352,000 violent acts depicted.
Buddy! Yecch!
Nearly 600,000 laffs, guffaws, chuckles, and snickers, all meticulously videologued.
Walnuts!
Not to mention the hours Little Zenith logged in front of the Tube, knowing even then that this was to be her life's work.

Moe, Larry, the Cheese!

“What the—?” stabbing at the eject button. The Tape spat out of the console and Zenith zoomed in on it, careful to at all times keep one hand on the wheel. This was not her tape. Could not be. Not with Rob and Laura and Larry and Curly. And she doubted it could have come from the Institute. No self-respecting vacudemic would have mixed these vidoeuvres. Unless it was some kind of a sick Couchpotato joke.

The Tape bore none of the usual TubeTape markings—time, date, channel, the signs, and symbols of the profession. Only, scratched into the black plastic above the save tab, saved, two lowercase letters: tv.

There wasn't much time to ponder what all this little might mean, because at that moment Zenith zigzagged across three lanes of traffic, wigwagging more responsible and less responsive motorists off the road and onto their Final Destination, and it was only through serendipity rather than perspicacity that Zenith looked up just then, into the jagtoothed face of the angry motorist cruising at seventy-five mph, about fifteen feet ahead and to her right, in an '82 Black K car, the specific details being oh so clear because of the twelve-gauge he had aimed at her head. He chose for her some choice words preambly, giving Zenith the chance to duck before her windshield enfenestrated into many thousands of rounded nuggets of glass, but what difference did that make? She was already going over the side anyway through the guardrail and tumbling end over end over end again with a half twist her and Herbie twirling off into the Twilight Zone.

chapter three