Chapter 1
Kenneth Blake bounced from the driver's seat of his Range Rover. From the street, he surveyed the storefront facing him. This was it, Hollywood.
Hollywood, Vermont...that is.
He swooped onto the sidewalk, the rattle of his snakeskin boots ruffling the handful of pigeons surveying the townscape. He thought that the boots were a concession to his vanity, perhaps, but he thought the flannel shirt -- $85 through the Out of Towne fall catalogue - made him look like an "ordinary person."
Or at least liken an ordinary person who drove an $80,000 vehicle. And sported a $1500 watch.
He removed his $800 sunglasses and nestled them into the pocket of his shirt. He surveyed the prices posted in the front window of Barry's Diner. Particularly notable was the hand-written message: "Special: $2.95 for Two Eggs, Toast, Home Fries, Bacon, and Coffee." He smiled a wide grin that had nothing to do with stomaching such a palette of greasy-spoon fare.
His cellphone rang. He puffed out his chest as he pulled the phone from his pocket.
"This is Ken Blake."
"Are you there yet?" asked a voice on the other end. "How does it look?"
"It's fucking perfect, Peter!" Ken beamed. "It's the Mayberry RFD of the Northeast. You did it again."
"That's great!" Peter said, unsuccessfully hiding an overeager tone. "That's excellent, sir!"
It looked like things were falling in place for The Big Idea.
J. Kenneth Blake was a man of ideas. Big ideas. Really big ideas. Not all of them worked, naturally. But enough ideas succeeded to make him wealthy and important.
Ken thought of Peter, his executive assistant, as the Dr. Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. A more apt analogy would be that Peter was the guy who pulled all the right levers from the Wizard of Oz to look like, well, a wizard. Ken threw ideas around like confetti, and someone had to sweep up. Ken loved the excitement-building/doing lunch/schmoozing tasks. The "little" tasks - like making the plans actually work - fell to Peter and his team.
Sure, the idea that put them all over the map a few years ago - "Three's Company: The Movie," the ultimate low-comedy big-picture remake - was Ken's. But it was Peter's tenacity, ability to soothe egos, and tireless energy that kept the picture on track to its status as the surprise blockbuster of that summer. J. Kenneth Blake was listed as Executive Producer, and the money he raked in meant he could really pick his projects everafter.
Peter received a tidy raise in his salary and a Coordinating Producer credit that followed a bunch of other Producer and Additional Producer credits belonging to people who seemed to do little else than stand around and talk on cellphones during most of the shoot.
Peter Simpson was brilliant, organized, and driven - and possessed a low self-esteem. Which made him perfect support for a big-concept egotist like John Kenneth Blake, Executive Producer of Big Lake Productions. Someone had to do the work.
Several months before Ken set foot in Hollywood, Vermont, there was a bit less optimism about the project. After a few too many gin & tonics following a movie premiere, Ken awoke in a haze in his LA townhouse with two Big Ideas popping up in his mind. He'd never had two Big Ideas simultaneously, let alone two Big Ideas within the same month. So he was very excited to kick them into motion.
A good amount of air came out after Fox tersely rejected his idea for "When Court Cases Go Bad." Surely, Ken figured, the anti-lawyer cultural zeitgeist would really gorge on footage of lawyers on the receiving end of hurled mahogany courtroom furniture in actual taped footage and stylized re-creations from court transcripts. While acknowledging its vicarious merits, the Fox execs suspected that a paucity of actual footage of murderers striking lawyers and other Springeresque tactics would be a drawback.
And if Fox wouldn't buy a show called "When Court Cases Go Bad," Ken doubted anyone else would sniff. Not even Court TV on a slow week.
Back at the spacious executive office of Big Lake Productions, Peter tried to give his boss another of his countless pep talks.
"As great as that idea was, I think the other one is even better," Peter said.
"Who wouldn't want to see lawyers getting beat up?" Ken asked, still in disbelief. "Maybe if I recast it somehow. Like an American Gladiators thing with lawyers as contestants."
"Maybe, sir, we should let that one go and focus on the other idea. I just know it is has 'winner' written all over it."
"You're probably right, as usual," Ken said, stirring his gin & tonic pensively. "Guess we'd better prepare for the MusicAmerica meeting."
Like other cable music channels, MusicAmerica had strayed from an all-music format to dabble with tepid, if not idiotic, game shows and navel-gazing gabfests. Soon thereafter, their ratings plummeted like the careers of the New Kids on the Block. Any normal, sane person would have seen that the ratings drop came from viewers preferring the old, all-music format and changed back to what worked. Network executives, in contrast, tended to think they were "moving in the right direction" and were just missing something. Like a halfway decent program.
As a result, MA execs were looking to create yet more inane programming to cut further into the showing of music videos. The well-connected Ken knew of this for weeks before the Big Idea found its way into his imagination. And it was reasonably perfect.
"Kenny, it's a pleasure, babe!" MA Director of Programming Norm Starr said as he shook Ken's hand, virtually ignoring Peter.
"Normie, how's the wife...and the girlfriend," Ken said with a wink.
"Batting .500 on that one," Norm said, "but I can always find another college-aged girlfriend, eh?" He laughed heartily, if not a tad evilly.
Quite a few suits gathered in the MusicAmerica boardroom, which was graced with signed gold and platinum record recreations of major stars. Those who knew Ken were excited that he came to the floundering cable network with his latest Big Idea. The ones who didn't know Ken pretended they knew whatever it was everyone else did.
"So, Kenny, down to brass tacks," Norm said, affecting his most businesslike manner. "What is The Big Concept?"
Ken paused dramatically, then spread his arms to paint a picture in their imaginations: "Imagine a cross between 'The Real World' and 'Green Acres.'" He paused briefly to let that sink in. Norm hinged on his next word, as did some of the sycophantic MA execs. Others looked confused. One stifled a snicker.
"Sounds tantalizing," Norm said, sounding excited although not really sure of where this was going.
"OK, here's the heart of it," Ken said, figuring he'd drawn out the drama accurately. "Take a handful of good-looking kids from the city and put them together in a house in the country and film everything that happens. Culture shock, comedy, romance, this baby can have it all."
"Kind of like, 'The Rural World!'" Norm said, starstruck and already trying to work on the marketing campaign in his head.
"Kind of like that," Ken said with a grin, "but much more. Cross-promotion, product placement, appeal to young city hipsters and teenagers in the sticks who yearn to be cool and beautiful."
"Excuse me," came a younger exec, a tad apprehensive to break up the lovefest. He took in a breath, then continued, "Couldn't life in the country get a bit, well, boring?"
Norm rolled his eyes, although he agreed internally with the youngster's question. Ken smiled.
"Under normal conditions, you're damn right," Ken said with a laugh that the others shared to break the tension. Regaining command, he continued: "But these are controlled conditions. We can manufacture things if need be. Plus give 'em quirky jobs in a small town. Waitress in a diner. Bartender in the local watering hole. Hell, just having these folks try to milk a cow should be worth ten to fifteen minutes in screen time."
"Or failing that, if we're looking to promote an act, we could send the musicians to the small town and have them perform," Norm said, seeing the possibilities spin. "Heck, you saw them do that on the Dukes of Hazzard when they needed ratings."
"And just think about the farmer's daughters we could somehow work into the plot," another MA exec said, near salivating. "Cross-cultural, forbidden lust, all that stuff."
"Boy, Al, that divorce has hit you hard," Norm said to his colleague, enjoying a chuckle at Al's expense. "But the man has a point. The possibilities are endless, aren't they."
"They sure are," Ken said, leaning back in his chair, looking every bit like the cat who ate the canary.
From his table near the windows of Barry's Diner, Ken marveled at how good a 69-cent cup of coffee could taste. Imagine the capucchino-addicted city kids savoring the simple life, he mused to himself.
He looked out the front window to see the checked bustle of small-town life. The waitress, Francine, had told him that this was a slow time of day. "But that does have a certain poetry, doesn't it?" was Ken's reply. Francine and another waitress gathered toward the back, thinking this outsider a tad strange - but they were nonetheless delighted to have a visit from a tall, handsome, extremely tan stranger.
Ken's mind kicked back to the houses on the outskirts of town he had seen the "For Sale" signs on. There seemed to be plenty of them for sale, probably for good prices. That part, finding a place for the photogenic stars to live, shouldn't prove difficult. Maybe a full farm? Could they run a farm? Would that get boring?
"Care for a refill, darling?" Francine asked, temporarily breaking his reverie.
"I sure would," Ken said, smiling with his unnaturally white and perfect teeth. Francine willingly obliged. Taking another sip, Ken thought of all the John Mellancamp music beds - "Small Town," "Pink Houses," "Scarecrow," et al. - that would fit excellently into production. Maybe he should call John's record company and see if they could buy in somehow.
It all seemed the perfect backdrop for The Big Idea.
-----Interested in receiving future chapters? Thoughts about the book so far? Drop me a line at nekritz@dreamscape.com.