On Sunday night, the world shook. Businesses closed. Church bells rang. Children sang in the park. You know who was above them? Birds. Just like you and me. I understand certain members of our species—geese, loons, several ducks in Asia—have gained access to smartphones. Good. They’ve also gained access to the internet. This is very bad. Communication has always been important to our kind, and we’ve respected and served humanity’s struggle to connect the world. Consider the owl. Consider the carrier pigeon. Consider the hawk, whose fearless face represents our nation. He sends a message without saying a word. Doesn’t that count for something?
Not according to My Sensei (Quentin Tarantino), who, despite being my friend, doesn’t believe that birds, or any non-humans, should be allowed into the Screen Actors Guild. “It’s not that you’re not a great actor,” he told me, “You are, Benny. You are. But there are so many people who don’t understand. Don’t understand you. Yet. I think this movie is really going to change things for your career.
Okay, then why am I being cut out of the trailer?
Netflix finally released a full trailer for The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth on Sunday, and then pulled it almost immediately. Why? Because I’d gone into the editing bay and slipped in an insert shot of me in close-up, looking fierce and strong like the mighty hawk. I thought it’d sell subscriptions. I thought people would applaud me. I thought I’d come to be regarded as a hero, a modern civil rights figure, potentially a candidate for the President of the United States of America. But that was all so far, far away—2028—that I could only think of my immediate future, which involves Hollywood. I need to break out in movies or I’m going to lose my mind I swear to God (He’s real).
“Just relax and take a chill pill,” he told me. “It’s really not that big of a deal.” He reminds me of this asshole I met in Brooklyn once who told me, “It’s never do or die.” Really? What about if you’re not going to be featured in the first official full trailer for the new Cliff Booth movie you worked really, really hard on? Besides, wasn’t this guy calling me a fag like three weeks ago? Is my memory so bad that I’m forgetting people who’ve discriminated against me? Wow. Am I really that objectionable? It’s as if I’ve internalized all of your hatred. Wow… Fuck you honestly. My problems? You caused them. This is insane! EVERYONE IS AGAINST ME.
But I know that’s not the right thing to say, especially in meetings. Or in public. You’ll get called “paranoid” and told that you have a “persecution complex.” These are new concepts to me, and what they’re about is marginalizing a normal person—in other words, me. I’m normal. You’re all the crazy ones. I should be in the trailer for The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth. I keep trying to leak the trailer on Twitter but Netflix keeps giving me copyright strikes. Maybe I should try Mastodon—do they like birds?
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