Recently my phone rang.
-Hello?
-Do you want to be in our music video?
I threw the phone down in disgust. Why would I want to do that? I have pride--a certain sense of principles.
-No fucking way. As if I'd be in your music video. I am an artist, not a fancy dazzler. Fuck you.
-Oh, sorry; I forgot to mention we'll pay you one thousand dollars.
I threw the phone down in shock. I trembled. I crawled over to the shrine of Zeus, a supplicant at his stony knees. I emailed Delphi and asked how I might best handle this.
-Ummm, hello. Yeah: just looking at my calendar. Hmmm; actually, as it happens, I do have a fewwww days off.
-Oh, really? That's awesome!
-What kind of a video is it? Not that it matters. And who is the star? Not that it matters.
-You are the star. And it's a surf video, to be filmed in the West Coast town of Tofino.
I winked at the glowing, encouraging eyes of Zeus--time to push this into overdrive.
-I demand to be paid in cash, in American currency, and I demand to be flown in and out of location by float plane.
-That sounds reasonable.
-Goodbye.
And I laughed, and put it out of my mind, and thanked blessed Zeus, and for the next two months I did not think about it once, until the night before I was to board my float-plane.
I realized, rather late, that I had not received a ticket. Do float planes run on reservations? Am I on a list?
I made the appropriate queries.
-Oh, ummm. Yeah. The float plane. It will be two thousand dollars--
-And? Yes? I am sure you have access to that kind of money.
-Ummm? Are you serious? I can't tell if you are serious.
-Why would I not be serious? How would I benefit from un-seriousness?
-Hey: listen. We are sending by two old friends to pick you up. Haydn and Mike Rak.
Zeus' eyes were glowing red at this insult and blasphemy. I hung up.
We drove up to Tofino. The whole time I sat in the back and spread strife and discordance.
-Yes, hmmm, I wonder what I will spend my ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS on. Yes, it is nice to be a star. Hmmm, I wonder what the rest of the crew is being paid. Oh, it is none on my business, really. I should just be happy to be paid one thousand dollars, and be happy, I suppose.
I could see a few crumpled and dirty 5 dollar bills hanging out of their pockets. Their cheeks were hollow. I bit into my artisan hoagie. I tasted caramelized onions and fine salami. I instructed Mike Rak to drive more in the center of the road, so as to not get any gravel dust in my beautiful, luscious hair.
When we got to the film shoot, Mike Rak and Haydn marched over to the director. There was some kind of angry exchange. I yawned and fanned myself.
At the beach there was a commotion. The director had rented the same camera that had captured, in stunning slo-mo, the sharks in Planet Earth. It cost close to one million dollars, but only thousands of dollars to rent. It gleamed in the sunny haze.
The "locals" walked by. Their wet-suits hung from their sinewy bodies. Their stringy hair spoke to days in the rip-tube, in the swell-curl. They saw a million-dollar camera, on a ten-thousand dollar tripod, and many kinds of professional lights strung around the camera.
They began to assess the facts. Grizzled men in wet-suits, huddled around a million-dollar camera. Surely this was some kind of professional filming event, and these were professional surfers, for if not, then why the expensive camera?
Mike Rak pointed to me.
-Yeah, this guy is the star. He's a bit of a Malibu legend. You've probably heard of him: His name is--
--Zane. Zane McDermott.
I heard a telephone wire of Zanes rocket around the beach. Zane McDermott; a legend. A surf hero, so true to the wave that they had not even heard of Zane. Amazing, awesome, incommensurable, that Zane should be dipping his toes into the rip-swirl.
I looked into the sun. I looked into the quilt of clouds. I gazed as Zane might gaze.
After about an hour of dry-shots, the tension was unfathomable. People were crowded around the shoot, chanting Zane's name in time to the crashing of the waves.
No one stopped to think, 'Why does this chubby little beaver not look like a professional surfer? Doesn't his belly get in the way? What is his secret?'
I gazed some more. Pure 100 percent Zane McDermott.
It was finally time. I twirled my board up over my head with just my little finger. I trotted with assured confidence into the foam. I was Zane. I became Zane as my ankles disappeared beneath the foam. But I fell down. I tripped. I spat water. I blubbered. I sat in the foam for twenty minutes and tried to velcro my leash on. When I looked up, in faint hope, I saw that my career as a professional surfer had ended. Even the crew had disbanded, for a short time perhaps believing their own lies.
I looked to my right and saw the sea hurl Mike Rak onto the rocks. It was like an Egyptian myth-painting. I laughed. Hubris.
That night there was another commotion. They hadn't brought enough wood to make a brilliant fire. We needed a camp-fire, for a very important shot where my character, aka the star of the video, falls asleep by the campfire. And then sea creatures come out of the sea and rip my guts out.
So Todd had an idea. Since he is a pyrotechnics wizard, he suggested that I lie on one side of the fire, and he would go on the other side, just out of the vision of the kino-eye, and then dump gasoline on the fire, just as the sea-creatures came into vision.
I objected to the plan. I have a wife who loves me as I am. But I do not want to test the bounds of that love by coming home with gas burns all over my face.
There ensued a righteous chorus of tut-tut-tutting, and assurances. Todd even filled up a trash-can of water so I might quickly douse myself, should the unthinkable occur. I ignored my suspicion that gas burns hotter than the cooling properties of water, and consented. It was 4 in the morning.
It worked!
The last scene was to have me dragged into the actual sea; the moon was to illuminate the gentle, celestial-lit foam. But it was raining. The tide was out. The tide was so far out, that after being dragged for two hundred feet through the murk and mud and seaweed, we were no closer to the lip of the sea.
-Cursed ocean! Where are you! Show thyself!
The electrical cord had reached its limit. They had only brought two hundred feet of cable. I had been dragged through two hundred feet of muck.
Someone pointed to a creek, a tiny tributary.
-Drag the star through that. It might look okay.
So they did. They dragged me over a small ledge into a creek, and dragged my flailing body for another one hundred yards.
I ran away.
In the morning the director drove me to the bus. He had got some good shots. He paid me that which I demand and deserve. We hugged.
I burned one twenty-dollar bill and the thigh of a bull for sweet Zeus when I got home.
