Ghost Bird
It's about 8:15 and I'm starving. I'm heading downtown to my favorite ghost bar. Its just a little spot tucked into the streetscape and hardly anybody every notices it. It's always full though, so try to figure that out. The bar doesn’t serve food on account of its clientele and all the beer is bottled. Still, the tables are level, the chairs are comfortable and the people are some of the most interesting you'll ever meet.
I want a hot dog. A hot dog is a very simple thing. It is a piece of meat on a bun with no sales pitch: "It is what it is". The best part is no one really knows what "it" is. The hotdog is sold to you on the basis that you don't know what it is and you don't care. I top my hotdogs only with bacon bits and the neon yellow mustard. Since my awakening I avoid the organic aisle at the grocery store like the plague.
It happened about four months ago. I was just out of university and trying to figure what to do with my liberal arts education. My major in English with a minor in Computer Programming was getting me nowhere. I could talk about the impact of advertising, but I couldn’t pitch them. I loved TV, but no one would pay me to review it seriously. I could write code, but couldn't bear to do it for the rest of my life. What I did do was spend most of my time in bars chatting with my friends. I didn’t realize at the time I had what it took to be a ghost.
One night I went out with a bunch of friends. They were the kind of people that liked to have arguments for their own sake. We were having a semi-serious debate surrounding what constituted cheating. This inevitably led to a discussion regarding whether strip clubs, pornography or a long heartfelt kiss that never went anywhere made the grade. One of my friends was of the opinion that so long as nudity was involved cheating had occurred. I argued that by that logic almost no romantic comedies could involve cheating because they were all rated PG. It seemed to me that Meg Ryan could never cheat because she was to my knowledge incapable of ever showing her breasts. Someone shouted "In the Cut". It was a beautiful conversation.
It also involved most of the bar. First it was only our table. Then our waitresses chimed in. Then the kitchen staff provided their views with each beer order. Soon nearby tables were involved and eventually our conversation spread throughout the bar so that each table was discussing the same thing. It was like the spread of a virus. Instead of a cough infecting the bar, it was the mere mention of pornography.
By the end of the night I don’t think we had solved the issue, but we now had deeply imbedded views on love, relationships and romantic comedies. The bar was clearing out and a man who I had seen watching the proceedings with an amused smile on his face came to our table. By this time I had drunk about five pints and was a little tipsy.
He smiled and shook my hand, "My name's John Jones. I watched your little discussion today. You do that often?"
"I'm here all week." It was funnier in my mind than in reality. "What's it to you?"
"I spend a lot of time in bars. Listen to a lot of conversation. I haven’t heard one like yours for quite a while. I'm a talent scout. I saw a lot of promise tonight."
"A talent scout? For Jay Leno or something?"
"For him and a lot of other people. Why don't you take my card? Let's say we meet Friday at 11:00 am."
He handed me a card and walked out of the bar. I yelled after him, "…be careful not to cross the streams."
Without looking back, as if he had heard it before, John yelled "that's Ghostbusters…."
The card he had given me had his name, address and his title: Ghost Hunter.
***
I met him that week at his office. It was one of those downtown jobs. Had a real nice lobby with real nice art and young receptionists with pert breasts and short skirts. It definitely looked the part.
He shook my hand as I entered the board room and he seemed genuinely happy to see me. "Good to see you. Many people don’t take the offer seriously. I'm glad you did."
"Well I figured I should at least check you out. You got me interested."
"Good. You’re a very interesting person Jeff. I've spent the past week looking into you a little. Read some of your essays submitted in class. They are very good stuff -interesting, witty and a little subversive. All good qualities."
I was a little shocked he had read my essays, but more flattered that he had liked them, "You thought they were good? Tell that to Professor Radisson. I could never get an A in that class."
"Geoff's a good guy. He is the one that turned me on to you in the first place"
"Look, you said you worked for Jay Leno?"
"Not just for Jay Leno… I work for Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, Demi Moore. A lot of powerful people."
"Ok what's the catch?"
"Nothing, we need people like you"
"For what?"
"Ghosting"
"Ghosting?"
John seemed impatient, "Look, I'm prepared to offer you a Ghost Bird job. But it's strictly entry level."
"Ghost bird?"
"It's not as covert as it sounds. I just need you to write celebrity twitter accounts. It’s all the rage right now and I need people to manage them."
"You want me to write twitter accounts? I thought the whole point was that people got to connect one on one with their fans. Why the hell would anyone pay for a writer?"
"Well that's the point isn’t it? Look, how are celebrities any different from you or me? They lead normal lives and tweeting about what you ate for lunch is only interesting for a while. People expect a certain level of entertainment from celebrities. Some have to be charming, others controversial. It is impossible to keep up with it."
"I still don’t see…"
John twirled his pencil around his hand in a hypnotic rhythmic motion, "Let's put it this way. You ever see a movie and the lead actress in it is fun, intelligent and incredibly sexy. You can't stop thinking about her as you leave the theater. Well that's not the actress my friend, that's her body and a whole roomful of writers. The next night you see the same actress on some talk show this time flying solo. She stumbles a little bit with the host, doesn’t quite connect. Suddenly she seems downright normal and altogether uninteresting. "
"I call it the Kirsten Dunst effect."
"That's what we try to avoid. We basically hire you to provide the script for the twitter account. We pay you to tweet."
And that's when I understood, "Ghost bird."
***
The job was strictly entry level. I was paid $100 dollars a week for each celebrity account I managed. I didn’t know at the time, but I got ripped off something huge.
I started off with minor celebrities. My first client was the starting point guard for the Lakers. He had a following of about 1,000 fans. I mostly tweeted about the games, which was fine because it meant I was paid to watch basketball. It really took off when I began to tweet rants about the officiating. That got picked up by the media. Cost my client a $10,000 fine, but got him about 50,000 more followers, some airtime on ESPN and a minor contract with Red Bull. I got a raise.
I put my programming skills to good use. I started to track the print space each of my clients got in the daily newspapers of about 20 major cities. Then I monitored it as I tweeted. I found the types of angles that worked for different avenues. Newspapers started to pick up certain tweets in their entertainment sections. I started to track what kind of tweets got my clients there. Rather than just tweeting without feedback I got immediate updates as to how I was doing through the print space my clients received. I refined my tweets, adapting everything from stock tracking programs to celebrities. I tracked the public interest and gave my celebrities a little push at just the right time. My computer program told me when to buy and sell to certain demographics. I insider traded in gossip.
Once my stable got big enough I got the power to actually choreograph whole plots between my clients. I scripted fights and relationships. I applied the great classics of literature to the front page of the entertainment section. I gave an up and coming rock musician a heroin addiction. He met his "wife" in rehab and someone else wrote an album about the experience for him. He won three Grammys. I got another raise.
I had a b-list couple break-up only to have her eventually date his best friend. Both their next movies made over a million dollars at the box office.
That Laker point guard got a 5 year, $25 million deal despite the fact that he shoots only 30 percent from the field and can't guard the pick and roll.
By the end of the year I had over 50 clients at $1000 a week. You do the math and that’s $2.5 million a year. I was finding out what haristylists and personal assistants had known for years. People will pay you a lot to make them look good. It turns out people will pay your more to make them look smart.
***
I arrive at the ghost bar. The place is full of ghosts and lots of them are on laptops. One thing for sure about ghost bars is that they have good technology. Not everyone is a ghost bird, but enough are that good WiFi is essential.
So are big screen televisions. Ghosts are highly connected to media. Plus, they are always scouting. Their favorite programs are all reality television shows. Ghosts love to watch other people try and do their jobs and fail miserably. It is the same way that medical students invariably all watch ER or Grey's Anatomy.
The highest rated shows in any ghost bar are celebrity reality shows. It is absolutely hilarious to watch clients undo years of hard work in one fell swoop. It is like watching a high-wire act, especially when it is one of your clients. Watching your client on a celebrity reality show is like watching your favorite sports team in the playoffs in sudden death overtime. It is edge of your seat excitement. Celebrity Apprentice is the highest rated show amongst ghosts aged 19-25. WWE Wrestling is a close second.
Over in the corner of the bar are three little Asian ladies sipping tea. They are not ghost birds, they are full fledged ghosts. At that table are three of the world's greatest designers: Georgio Armani, Diane Von Furstenberg and Hugo Boss. Evidently, it is much easier to be a designer then to have to be a designer and a celebrity. "Hugo", "Georgio" and "Diane" hire out their lines to the right face and they get to kick back rather than do media requests.
A couple tables over are other ghosts. The small Latino man is Jamie Oliver. He's chatting with the large black woman who is Wolfgang Puck. Most restaurants with celebrity chefs are haunted. The name chef is just a face. There is a reason you never get to taste the food that is cooked on Food TV. Gordon Ramsey can't tell salt from sugar.
***
I see my friends and I slide into the booth. It seems something major has happened. "Did you hear? Stephen King's been exorcised."
"Seriously? Well that opens up a little space for someone."
"Turns out the face wanted to up his cut to 10%. Ghost said no dice. Said he would go write for Dean Koontz."
"Well I guess we should avoid the next Stephen King effort."
"Maybe he'll pull a J.K. and try to write one himself."
"It will probably be a bestseller anyways."
"Probably? It definitely will be!"
Often when you see a bad movie from a director you used to like or read a bad book from a usually reliable author it is all about backroom contract negotiations. When a ghost leaves, he basically cuts off the face from his talent. Stephen King can't write worth a damn so he needs the ghost to give him the material. The ghost needs someone who fits the bill as an author. It’s a symbiotic relationship. You may think the face of Stephen King doesn’t add much, but he really does. He is the most perfect pick as an author. He looks a little creepy and comes from the right working class background. You wouldn’t buy Stephen King's books if you knew he was a rich, uppity writer who wears Prada and only drinks Evian. You just wouldn’t.
Exorcism is the biggest deal in the industry as it allows a new person to take-over an established audience. Basically lets you re-invent a persona. You can turn Stephen King into a literary darling. Or you can wreck him.
The Village by M. Night Shyamalan is the perfect example of an exorcism gone wrong. The replacement ghost writer/director was basically incompetent. The Wachowski brothers shot the second and third Matrix movies on their own.
Other times it works. I have it on good authority that J.K. Rowling broke up with her face after the first Harry Potter book went huge. The face did pretty damn good for herself after that. Turns out Harry Potter basically writes itself.
***
We have a couple of drinks and talk about our clients. I arrange a couple of altercations between our stables and plan out a longer arc involving a love triangle between Sam's young soap star, my baseball player and Joel's rock group front man. By the time we are finished negotiating which one of us will go to rehab it is pretty late. I agree my guy will go for sex therapy if the soap star will go postal right before the World Series.
I finish my beer and settle up my tab. I try to grab a cab, but it is crowded outside. I hail a cab that some three-piece suit is trying to get and he flips me off.
"Who the hell do you think you are" the banker/lawyer/accountant yells as he pushes his way into the cab.
Exactly. Who the hell do I think I am anyways?
