Staying Tuned

Not long ago, I found myself wide awake at 12:38 AM. This is not at all unusual as I've always been a bit of night owl.

During a futile search for some non-Trump related entertainment I came across the end of True Romance. A movie I have always enjoyed.

For one, the movie was written by Quinton Tarantino. And features none of his cinematic indulgences. There are no time deconstructions. No Q cameos. And no attempts to show off his filmic chops. It's a simple, straightforward story about two characters who find themselves falling in love after finding a suitcase full of cocaine that was owned by a Detroit Mafia underlord.

Our heroes try to sell the coke to some sleazy movie producers/drugs dealers. And the movie takes every opportunity to mock Hollywood for all its worth.

That alone is worth the price of admission.

I stuck around through the credits just to tally up the remarkable cast that includes Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken, Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, and Samuel Jackson.

That's enough star power for two movies.

Just before the credits ran out and the last signature notes from the Hans Zimmer soundtrack were played, I noticed something interesting. A thank you to Morgan Creek, Gary Robinson and the producers of another movie, Stay Tuned.

Holy Crap, I thought, that's the Peter Hyams comedy cult classic that I had a very, very minor role in.

I'm sure I knew this before, but it slipped my rapidly failing 44 year old mind. So I went to the DVR to record the next showing of True Romance. And sure enough, about a third of the way in, there was the scene where Brad Pitt, playing the stoned roommate of Michael Rappaport, is waking and baking and watching Stay Tuned. 

To recap, I'm watching a movie on television and inside this movie there's a character watching a television that is playing a movie and that movie is all about getting trapped inside a television.

I don't know if anything could get more meta. It was meta, wrapped in a meta tortilla, topped with melting meta cheese and served in a meta combo plate.

And today, the whole thing came full circle as a residual check from the Writer's Guild showed up in my mailbox.

Keep in mind the clip from Stay Tuned lasted no more than a second and a half on screen. So $10.69 is not bad. However, it should also be noted that the Senate just revised our tax code and $8.37 of that will be going to Scrotey McMoneybags and the proper maintenance of his Gulfstream 4.

#FuckTrump