The Price of Fame

Some really freaky stuff happened Wednesday night on the way from Durban to the izakaya. I waited in Ali's shop for her to finish her shift, and noticed a guy chatting up the security guard for an especially long time, occasionally glancing over at me. The guy left just before Ali and I walked out of the store. He had parked his silver Mercedes right behind Baby and was standing out having a cigarette. He watched us approach and as I helped Ali into the Jeep, he rummaged in the boot of his car and got in the front seat. I could see through my rearview mirror that he was fixing a lens to a camera. He was a paparazzo, but how did he know that I would be at the shop? He was waiting there before I arrived. Did the security guard have something to do with that? Probably. I've seen the way that guy operates and its not good. But if the dude wanted photos of me, why didn't he take any of me when I was sitting at the table and he was standing right there? I quickly figured it out. He was waiting for Ali, he'd been there all day and wanted to get photos of the two of us together. He waited at his Mercedes outside, and started snapping as we drove away. The fucker was following us, the chase was on. I asked Ali if there was anything she wanted to tell me before I started breaking laws, and it turns out that back home Ali's family is kind of famous. Well bugger me! This guy was trying to get snaps for a scandal mag or something back in Tokyo, so I just took a deep breath and used my mad wheelman skills to lose this lens jockey. I ran a yellow light, and the fucker followed us through. Time to get serious. We tore down the road for about a half mile and turned down a one way street. Jeeps aren't racing machines, and we did our best to lose this guy, afterall Baby knows that a Mercedes is just a glitzy Jeep, and she wanted to show her flashy cousin that she also has some Daimler blood in her. The Mercedes stayed right on us, even following us down the one way. Buses coming straight at us across two lanes and Ali screaming her lungs out, Baby kept her cool and dove for the far third lane, cutting off a white Cadillac and dipped down an alleyway I didn't even know was there. The Mercedes was left boxed in by the Cad and blocking the two buses, honking and honking more.

That kind of makes me feel good about the fact that the movie is officially off. The creative vision started to get a muddled as K-Bear brought more and more people in, each wanting to change it here and there. That, I could live with but it all fell apart after it got really complicated. K-Bear wanted to put Trapeze Girl in the movie as the female lead, but up until he dropped that bombshell, I had the understanding that the female lead was a lock - no discussion. I had been in talks for almost a year with a certain BBC personality, having to concede to almost every demand which I was more than happy to do. She was looking to springboard to this side of the pond and we both thought this was the perfect opportunity. All that was left was an actual signed contract. Then K-Bear told me that Trapeze Girl had been "taking some acting lessons" and I just rolled my eyes because I knew what was coming next. Well, when I told my star at the BBC that she was going to have to audition against another actress, she said "I don't do auditions" and slammed down the phone or whatever it is you do with cell phones. So now nameless, the project is dead, and I'm left with about 3 hours of storyboards and about $50,000 in debt, most of which went up K-Bear's nose I might add.

No worries! I'm moving on to another project which will probably fall flat as well, but it's not a film so hopefully I won't have put up with more crap from K-Bear and friends.