raised in Congress. The point being: Franjoopta’s final song on the show (before Sir Harold ordered his elimination “by any means necessary”) was a spectacularly misguided light reggae affair, supposedly based upon The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” And Len, in a desperate effort to add credibility to the proceedings, had invited a “rock ’n’ roll icon” to play George Harrison’s riff as a special guest. Unfortunately for Blade, that icon was him. He’d never heard of Franjoopta. This changed soon enough. The ridicule from Honeyload’s fan base was so overwhelming, he couldn’t go out in public again for a year.
For the next three hours, I sat on a giraffe-skin couch in Joey’s trailer, listening to Mitch being subjected to a meandering, tearful lecture outlining the many, many ways in which he was a failure as a representative, and how,
if Joey Lovecraft were a manager
—“li’l old me, who doesn’t know shit and belongs in the crazy house”—he would never, ever have allowed his client to be humiliated with such a pathetic, insulting sum as five million dollars. For a moment I wondered if all this were for my benefit: a negotiating tactic. But no. I doubted Joey could remember my name, never mind who I worked for.
“Did you even do any research on these Rabbit clowns?” he asked Mitch, loading up a DVD of an old episode of
Cannon Jump.
It was a TV show from the eighties about a nine-year-old kid who takes a job as a human cannonball, only to find that every time he gets shot up in the air, he goes back in time. “I mean,
hello?
” he yelled, waving at the image paused on his giant flatscreen. “The kid.
Ring any bells?
”
“Not really,” shrugged Mitch.
“Look again.”
Mitch studied the child. There was, in fact, something oddly familiar about the shape of his—
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah,” nodded Joey. “Ed fuckin’ Rossitto! Guess how old he was when he got this part?”
“Eleven?” guessed Mitch.
“Thirty fuckin’ three!”
“Wow.”
“You shoulda WARNED me about this guy, man. He’s freakier than a cow who goes ‘quack’! And have you seen the… the
shit
he put on TV before
Icon?
” He passed Mitch an entry from Wikipedia that Mu or Sue must have printed out for him earlier.
“
When Sharks Eat Babies,
” Mitch read.
“Yeah. Dude belongs at a fuckin’
circus.
”
Awkwardly, Mitch then had to reveal that JD Coolz and Maria Herman-Bloch were on their way to that night’s show (Ed couldn’t make it, thank God) to help convince him to sign the contract that Ed had just e-mailed over. “Ain’t nothin’ to discuss,” Joey huffed. After another hour of complaining, he agreed to at least give them both backstage passes, so they could watch from the wings.
It wasn’t until Blade dropped to his knees for the guitar solo in “Hell on Wheels”—while staying within the contractually mandated No Lead Singer Zone drawn around him in chalk—that Joey even acknowledged their presence. He did this by running over to Maria, grabbing her hand, dragging her out on to the stage, and forcing her to dance. When the music stopped, he bent her over backward until she was about to fall. “
More, s’il-vous plaît,
” he whispered.
It was the last thing he said to anyone all night.
Eventually, revised offers were made to both Bibi and Joey: Twenty million dollars combined. To keep Joey happy, the basic salaries were exactly the same, but Rabbit came up with all kinds of other tricks to guarantee millions of dollars’ worth of publicity for Bibi’s various enterprises. Everything was ready to go.
And then came the weeks and weeks and weeks of arguing overevery subclause and footnote, right down to the number of Balance Bars in the minibar of Bibi’s trailer, versus the number of Ghirardelli chocolate squares in Joey’s. Finally, when all this had been agreed in writing—it took July, August, and some of September—Mitch and Teddy were loaned private jets from
For the next three hours, I sat on a giraffe-skin couch in Joey’s trailer, listening to Mitch being subjected to a meandering, tearful lecture outlining the many, many ways in which he was a failure as a representative, and how,
if Joey Lovecraft were a manager
—“li’l old me, who doesn’t know shit and belongs in the crazy house”—he would never, ever have allowed his client to be humiliated with such a pathetic, insulting sum as five million dollars. For a moment I wondered if all this were for my benefit: a negotiating tactic. But no. I doubted Joey could remember my name, never mind who I worked for.
“Did you even do any research on these Rabbit clowns?” he asked Mitch, loading up a DVD of an old episode of
Cannon Jump.
It was a TV show from the eighties about a nine-year-old kid who takes a job as a human cannonball, only to find that every time he gets shot up in the air, he goes back in time. “I mean,
hello?
” he yelled, waving at the image paused on his giant flatscreen. “The kid.
Ring any bells?
”
“Not really,” shrugged Mitch.
“Look again.”
Mitch studied the child. There was, in fact, something oddly familiar about the shape of his—
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah,” nodded Joey. “Ed fuckin’ Rossitto! Guess how old he was when he got this part?”
“Eleven?” guessed Mitch.
“Thirty fuckin’ three!”
“Wow.”
“You shoulda WARNED me about this guy, man. He’s freakier than a cow who goes ‘quack’! And have you seen the… the
shit
he put on TV before
Icon?
” He passed Mitch an entry from Wikipedia that Mu or Sue must have printed out for him earlier.
“
When Sharks Eat Babies,
” Mitch read.
“Yeah. Dude belongs at a fuckin’
circus.
”
Awkwardly, Mitch then had to reveal that JD Coolz and Maria Herman-Bloch were on their way to that night’s show (Ed couldn’t make it, thank God) to help convince him to sign the contract that Ed had just e-mailed over. “Ain’t nothin’ to discuss,” Joey huffed. After another hour of complaining, he agreed to at least give them both backstage passes, so they could watch from the wings.
It wasn’t until Blade dropped to his knees for the guitar solo in “Hell on Wheels”—while staying within the contractually mandated No Lead Singer Zone drawn around him in chalk—that Joey even acknowledged their presence. He did this by running over to Maria, grabbing her hand, dragging her out on to the stage, and forcing her to dance. When the music stopped, he bent her over backward until she was about to fall. “
More, s’il-vous plaît,
” he whispered.
It was the last thing he said to anyone all night.
Eventually, revised offers were made to both Bibi and Joey: Twenty million dollars combined. To keep Joey happy, the basic salaries were exactly the same, but Rabbit came up with all kinds of other tricks to guarantee millions of dollars’ worth of publicity for Bibi’s various enterprises. Everything was ready to go.
And then came the weeks and weeks and weeks of arguing overevery subclause and footnote, right down to the number of Balance Bars in the minibar of Bibi’s trailer, versus the number of Ghirardelli chocolate squares in Joey’s. Finally, when all this had been agreed in writing—it took July, August, and some of September—Mitch and Teddy were loaned private jets from
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