(the names have been changed with ***'s to protect the innocent)

Letter to Will Lorimer - 31 Jan 1996

Electra

MGCK

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Dearest William

How many A*str*li*ns does it take to screw in a light bulb...?  Sorry, surf’s up, you’re gonna have to stay in the dark..... and these people travel the world?????

You and Deirdre suggested (hoped) I would find a “princeling” in Australia?  If he’s Chinese, maybe.  The only men I find attractive (mysterious) here are Chinese... I love their bone structure and skin tone... and hair... they are gorgeous people.   Their depth, their culture, and most of all their personal discipline.  Chinese/Japanese are disciplined and they have a little catch-phrase in their culture which the fat bloated whitebread white man has eschewed..... :Duty.

 To say that this town and its people doesn’t impress me is an understatement. It’s just another provincial city that fancies itself and barks a lot up its own tree with that ghastly opera house on EVERY single postcard to the world.

 And to what recent incident do I owe this deracination of 'stralian character?  Well you might ask.  Yesterday precisely.... I met the BIGGEST film producer this land has to boast about.  We’re talking BIGGEST in volume of film output, not personal girth or dick-length... I would gambit there’s not much worth writing home about in his Wrangler jeans and grey suede cowboy boots.  His little cowboy shirt with the pearl snaps and eaved details on the chest.  I’m sure he keeps his 10-gallon hat to shit in... no commode being large enough for this man’s excretious deposits.  I had to sit through 3 hours of his smiling plastic face.  I made notes to myself from the meeting, and shall paste them here so you may see.....just what I had to suffer through.

 “”“31 January 1996, Wednesday....

Yes, well...Mr. Av*l*n... Mr. Ph*l Av*l*n:  Let the name be a warning.  Looks like a Guthers to me... Peter Guthers by birth... Chatswood...September 1945 (more like ‘35)?? or thereabouts?

Sun-baked and hair transplanted...curly greying champagne... could be pubes... either asexual, bisexual or gay... I don’t think hetero comes into the mix.  I may be wrong... maybe he likes young girls... maybe he likes children.. maybe he’s pedosexual.  I don’t know.

An ex-actor... By his own admission he’s really a “surfer”.  Says a lot.  A well-preserved (by his own hand no doubt... I can see him daubing on the formaldehyde) waxy, peeling (can you be waxy and peeling all at the same time?) 60+ if he's a day; would like you to think he’s 35.  Is very concerned with people’s ages.  Claims Mel Gibson is only 40...perhaps that’s true.  I don’t believe it.  His other claim to fame... he put Mel in his first movie.  That much is true. I’ve cross-referenced that one.

From the moment I met this man..... I wanted to get away.  And I had to spend 3 hours with him and his plastic pleasantries.... his bonne-hommie and his anecdotes about LA with several names dropped in between each (Kevin Costner being a favourite).... The anecdote that stays with me longest being the one about the Hollywood agent (HIS agent while he was in Hollywood for a year “when he was young” - 28 - like 7 or 8 years ago.... he doesn’t really tell you when....more like 35 years ago) who was also the agent for Steve McQueen and Burt Reynolds and “fucked them!....he wanted to fuck me!”  He said this with the most convincing... “my anus is stilll pristine.  Only shit of varying diameters passing its portals...”  Anyway... this agent... quite a famous guy whose name has slipped my mind again, died of AIDS two years ago... and yeah... I noticed that Ph*l has a weird sore on his hand.... could be skin cancer... but maybe his asshole (like a veined dustbin lid, mate) would tell a different tale.  I scrubbed carefully when I got home.

Well,.... this ‘pleasant fellow’ talked a lot, as really I couldn’t bear to talk to him, so I kept encouraging him to talk to himself... easy done... these people love the soap-box your interest provides even more than they love your attention.  Finally he asked me to synopsize my story to three lines...  I told him it’s a road movie.... a Scottish guy leaves home to incur the affections of his estranging wife who’s divorcing him... he lands in Australia, land of exiles.... the critical absence doesn’t work and she says ...fuck you and good riddance... Suddenly he’s here with nothing... and like a declawed cat doesn’t know how to survive -  AT ALL.  He meets person after person and has bizarre encounters as happens when you’re desperate and your life is out of your control.  And then he meets LOBO, the Asian lead - his life’s most influential tutor and they go off in a car together, the rest’s in the script.

 His comment “good story”.  His question... “where’d they get the car...” my answer... it’s in the script... it’s an important point in the story,.... I’m not telling you.”

 Next comment... “Get rid of the Asian... They don’t like to see their own kind up on the screen...  Get two white guys...etc...etc...”  I thought to ask him if we should put two surfers in the car.... but decided... he WOULD do that anyway... that would be his next movie.

Anyway.... the real “Horror”... as Marlon and “Kurtz” would say.. is that this man finally got to the point.. his own beady pencil-lead thin point... narrowed his eyes and sharpened his smile to a knowing... “eh?  Get me?” smile, when he told me I should STOP advertising that I have written this script.   As he put it, and I quote:

“I like you .... so I’m going to give you some very important advice.... don’t tell anyone here that you wrote this script.  You should get an agreement with an Aussie writer and consider taking your name off the script altogether.”

TAKE MY NAME  OFF!!!  my fucking SCRIPT!!!! and let an Australian writer put his name on it and rewrite it so Keanu Reeves, someone from Neighbours, and Kylie Minogue are in the car driving around Australia stealing petrol.???  Hey.... that sounds like a “good” movie... but I didn’t display my affrontery.. I borrowed a bit of his shark bite smile and asked  “Do I get my money?”  He didn’t answer the question. “””””

Well William, of course... by him not answering the most important question, the issue of money.... I have to ask myself the important questions...  I have spent a small fortune writing this script...  A year and a half of sweat equity, plus the money spent on the materials to write it with:  Computer... printer ... ink... paper... trip to L.A. to get copies of it to individuals and try to get in with others...rented cars... hotels... postage....paper, ink, bindings.. plane ticket to Australia... hotels... food... schmoozing costs... lunches (always paid for by the other guy.... but you got to get there) drinks... taxis... ferries...  You name it, I’ve spent it... so if this nasty thieving bastard... wanted to take a script that I’ve put so much into, and take my name OFF it, and change it... Sure.... he can do that... once he covers ALL of my costs and the cost of a script and the third I’m going to have to pay you.  Yeah sure... he can buy it and paper his walls with it.  He can speak to me as an agent for the book, and forget my script altogether.... and you and I can agree on some fabulous price if they want to buy the rights, of course only if you wanted to sell the rights... and that way I’d get my money too... but you know something... these guys don’t work like that.  They’re always looking at the bottom dollar, and it’s your ass left hanging in the breeze.  He doesn’t want to buy a book... he wants to read a screenplay.... get me to agree to take my name off it... get one of his writers to change whatever needs changing to reduce it to his understanding of filmdom : the lowest common denominator...   You may ask why he would suggest such a path.... Very simple.  The film industry here is subsidized... $200 million dollars a year to guys like this to make “AUSTRALIAN MADE MOVIES!!!” that means everybody down the line is Australian. From the key grip and best boy to, of course, the screenwriter.  Nepotism is their stock in trade.

The danger with someone like this is - by his own description -  “really a writer”... translates to  “Story Thief”....  Thankfully I only handed him the first fourteen pages, and he’s not getting the rest. He’s not ripping off anything from this tale...of course there’s a lot of cute stuff in the first fourteen pages... live and learn what the fuck can I do.  Yeah.. I dread the fact that I gave him the 14.

Of course that was what I came away with entirely at the end of the whole experience...  that terrible feeling... It’s in the script and I handed this man, who reduces everything to the lowest fucking denominator, even a part of MY SCRIPT.

 I think what we have to do is get out of Australia... "These people do not help you for nothing... You are like the mountain with the cloud on your head..." LOBO’s words are becoming my bible... "You think they invite you here for selling?  They take your very soul."

I’d rather have my soul plucked by a Hollywood eagle personally.  I’d rather set the tale in Montana or MEXICO!

His last anecdotal claim to fame was that Francis Ford Coppola came to him when he wanted to film “Apocalypse Now” first in Australia, and that though he bowed out of those precedings he DID introduce Francis to the writer (Nicky) who Francis had an affair with in the Ph*llipines during the filming of Apocalypse, that Francis’ wife refers to in her own film of that undertaking.  I was going to tell him that my cousin Judy went to highschool with Francis for four years in Great Neck Long Island...was his classmate, which is absolutely true,  and that my sister Vala knelt at his feet when she auditioned for a role in one of his films and Francis placed his hand on her hair and told her she was too beautiful, but thought I’d leave my kinship to Francis out of it.

 To the kiss-off. (He likes to say “cut to the chase” even more often than I do) I had the LONG LUNCH with this bastard who likes his orange juice fresh-squeezed and  his vegetarian pasta and is so carefully preserving the mausoleum for his vapid essence to retire to and uses phrases like “Way On!” when he really should be saying “yes”.  He decided to take me shopping with him for the new green jeep he’s purchasing..(has to be green, that much I understand... I fixate on colours too) so I couldn’t get out of the car when I wanted, but was dragged all over Sydney suburbs which are as faceless as any suburbs on Earth.. even moreso, because Sydney is flat, and again mostly peopled with dull white people... though hopefully the Chinese are coming.  Knowing Sydney’s luck, they’ll only end up with Ph*llipinos.  Oh, I’m getting distracted... back to the kiss-off... took my hand in a final professional shake... pulled me close, kissed me full on the lips (GET OUT THE LYSOL!@!!!) and said, “Let’s do this again... call me in a couple of days...” YEUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!         

             Have the stomach pumps at the ready. 

 Mr. Av*l*n out of sight and mind, I did give a script to a Chinese producer connected to Taiwan and New York... but that’s another story, and for all I know he may be offended by LOBO’s darkness and laissez-faire attitude towards universal responsibility....he may have his own black spots and hate it. They all may hate it, and I may go back to  Kalifornya and rewrite it as I said.... in Mexico... and try to push it there.

 I am panicked now that I told this fucking surfing whitebread fucking producer guy with the stitched up anal aperture, anything about it.... and you know... well.... I’ve given a few other scripts to a few other people here...  What can you do... ?  Cross your fingers and hope you don’t get fried?  Maybe he’ll get offed by a hungry Charcharodon.  Does he surf enough to up the odds is my question!

You know... sometimes I wake up and think... “am I a writer now?” and then think... Oh Christ... I hope not... it’s a more leaden and pained path than the music business ever was...

 Love to you and Deeeeeeeeeee.....

 Feb 5 1996 Postscript -

MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY!!!!! The AUSSIES FUCKIN’ HATE IT.. The Aussie men do anyway.. Boy WILLIAM.... HAVE I RUFFLED SOME FUCKING FEATHERS HERE MAN..... FURY HATH NO HELL LIKE A MODERN AUSTRALIAN MAN WHO HATES THE CLICHE’D IMAGE OF AUSTRALIANS.... THAT, these couple of dudes who have read this, have decided is the problem.  I’ve just spent half an hour fighting for  the representation of BL, Renaldo... ALL the Australian characters...  well mate...I get the feeling that thinking that this had to be MADE IN AUSTRALIA was a dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb idea.  They are not going to hurry up to buy this idea.  Not in a month a year a lifetime of Sundays.  The funny bit.. The two women who have read it... loved it.  Yes there are two kinds of people on this Earth.  Men and Women.

You want to know the other funny bit?  Ph*l Av*l*n LIKED the first 15 pages... didn’t like the characters... but thought it was a good script and wants to read the rest...Of course... I can’t let him do that... but there you have it.  The shallow man can accept cliche’d characters better.

_________________________________________  FAX

FAO: Ph*ll*p Av*l*n, AV*L*N FILM CORP.

Fax # – 61–2–****–1175                                                                    5 February 1996 – 2PM

Dear Mr. Av*l*n – Ph*l!

In flight (over some body of water – Pacific maybe?) and I  want to thank you for your time, for lunch, for all your advices... and for NOT taking outstanding offense at the characterization of the various Australian personages that appeared in the first 15 pages of the script I gave you. Of course you didn't get pages 15–45 and thus never met BL or Renaldo or Rex or PAT!!! or the ubiquitous LOBO.  But it's the Australians in my script that seem to be reeking the most havoc for me.  I'm surprised I got out of town without being lynched.  The fur was flying from the "males" specifically who read this piece of work.  Hating my "dated" cliche'd Australian representations.  I only write about the characters as they are.  I'm not going to have some outback drug baron quoting Socratic oaths to please a Channel 9 producer (I'm not talking about John Sexton) who fancies himself as a sophisticate.  I should have thrown in a few "Baywatch" surfers, that really would have had them up in arms. On the lighter side, the women who read it liked it, and that's OK by me. OH hold on, I didn't ask Victoria Treole.  Does she count?  Is she a woman?  (They're showing "Babe" as the inflight entertainment. I'm looking forward to it.)

One thing I think I learned from all this,  I'll have to look for money elsewhere. I'm hoping to go to the Singapore Film Festival in April... they're rolling in dough.  You said you go to LA once a year for a festival there... which one?  My hearing's bad, probably because I'm working out what I'm going to say next to sell my idea, and miss alot of what the other guy's telling me.

 Anyway.... I'm thinking you were one of the more enlightened people I met in Sydney, probably because you're practical.  I think since you're so practical and smart you should hire me as a ghost writer for your film or television projects.  I wouldn't need a credit, just a little money.  I  want to learn how to swim, and why not learn from an expert.

So that's it, mate... and all the best to you. Hope to see you again.  Contact me any time you feel like a chat or want to offer me a job.  Signing off somewhere over the Pacific – I think that's what that is out there.

 Best,

Electra