Selling Nostalgia

by Mathew Klickstein

  Jayne nodded and got right onto her own phone, starting to text away like she was giving in to her own phone jonesing, and Milt took this as a cue he was excused to step away and answer the “important” call.

  “Hey, Sally,” he said into the phone, stepping toward the nearly-empty parking lot. “Good to hear from you!” He knew it had to be serious if she was actually bothering to call him for once rather than sending a lengthy, poorly spelled monologue of an email punctuated by far too many gleeful explana-tion points.

  “Hey, Milton. How did the screening go yesterday?”

  “Really, really well,” Milt answered, shuddering, pacing around in a circle next to a large, imperial, black Bentley.

  “Great, great,” Sally Miranda said. “Really good to hear.”

  There was a strange pause, and Milt didn’t know what to do next. His mind was now on his money, on the continuation of the tour, his possibly bad behavior at the screening the day before, and now also Jayne Manning looking all like Anna Wintour back at the table waiting for him to finish his call so she could unload even more dirt about her ex-boyfriend.

  “Well, I don’t want to upset you any more,” Sally faked a convivial laugh, “but I wanted to see if you saw the news.”

  Milt stopped pacing. “What news?”

  There came a wave of brief silence from the other end of the phone.

  “Uh…you don’t check on CineRanchero on social media or anything?”

  “No, I’m not really into that kind of thing,” Milt said. “Besides, I’ve been a little busy with the tour and finishing up some work on a ghostwriting project I have a deadline on.”

  “Right, right, right,” Sally said. “So, you don’t know about what’s going on with CineRanchero right now?”

  “No, not really,” Milt said, getting worried and turning around to look back on Jayne Manning at their table where she looked to be intensely playing some kind of game on her phone. “I kind of assholishly just look up stuff about how you guys are promoting our film. Or, I guess I should point out, how you’re not really promoting our event, that is coming up in, like, a few days?”

  Milt felt good about getting that last jab in. It needed to be said, and if this bitch was never going to talk to him on the phone unless it was something that she needed or that she wanted to bring up, he would get in every punch he could. These fuckers were fucking up bad, and he wasn’t going to let them totally get away with it without saying something for himself, the film, all the filmmakers, Gil, and the Chicago fans who were all waiting to see this goddamn movie.

  “Right, well…one of the reasons we really haven’t been putting anything out there about it—”

  “What you have put out there has been wrong more than once,” Milt pointed out.

  “Ha, right.…” Sally said. “Well, one of the reasons is that we’ve been under a little lockdown because of a sexual harassment allegation that has cropped up.”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Yeah…you can look it up on Google or whatever,” Sally said, not seeming to care one way or the other about it. Her M.O., Milt was starting to understand. A gig was just a gig to Sally Miranda. “Yeah, so we kind of knew this might happen, because there were a lot of people hitting up our media department wanting to set up some interviews and whatnot and, well, the end result is we’re—yeah—basically in social media and promotion lockdown right now and can’t really talk too much if at all about any of our upcoming events.”

  “WHY NOT?!”

  “Well, we’re worried that if we bring stuff up like your Gil Gladly screening and live after-event, people will be all over us on Twitter and whatever. ‘Hey, why don’t you talk about how your communications director is under investigation for sexual harassment?’”

  “YOUR COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR?!”

  “Yeah. Rolly drinks a lot and sometimes says and does stuff he regrets later, and sometimes says and does stuff he doesn’t remember, and I guess he did something or a few somethings a little while back that’s coming back up now that all this stuff is going on with Weinstein and everything and—”

  “Wait, so you guys knew this might happen, and you didn’t tell us and started working with us to put all this together, knowing we were basing our entire fucking tour around this largest event we were doing with you and plugging it all ourselves and promoting not only us but you guys too…and you didn’t think to say anything?”

  “Well.…” Silence. “We were…very busy. You know how busy I get over here. I don’t even really have time to talk with you on the phone!”

  A silver Porsche pulled up right next to Milt, with a honk that made him jump. He turned and saw the uber-tanned sophisticate hipster in black shades and perfectly coifed blonde hair American Psycho style was looking at him with a taut mouth that said, “Outta the way, jerk,” despite the fact that Milt had been walking around in what was still almost an entirely empty parking lot where this fucking guy could have chosen any other spot that didn’t happen to have someone on a frantic phone call right next to it.

  Milt stepped away from the Porsche, and the driver opened and slammed his door hard before walking away from Milt toward the café.

  “So, what are you saying, Sally? That you guys are just not gonna do any real promotion about our event at all? It’s too late for us to cancel! You’re already nearly sold-out on tickets!”

  “Yeah, well that’s just it,” Sally said with her sustained annoying calm. “Since we’re already almost sold-out, and since you guys are so cool with plugging the screenings and everything yourselves, we thought—”

  “Great. You thought we’d keep doing all the work, huh?”

  “What…what does that mean, Milt?”

  Milt shook his head and kind of wished she could see him do it. He sighed a long breath. What was the point? It was too late. He was in this. He had gotten Gil and everyone else into this. First that fucking asshole Latham at what was supposed to be the original premiere venue, Latheatre, and now this. Was Milt cursed?

  This wasn’t about ticket sales or profit at all. Shit, Milt and Gil and their team wouldn’t be seeing a penny from the show. That was the deal they had made with CineRanchero in the beginning. No fee for renting the space or staff, and CineRanchero could keep the door.

  But what Milt knew Sally Miranda knew—because he had told her about four fucking times in the past—was that the whole reason they were doing the show, the whole reason they were doing the tour, was to get as much word out about Gil and the film as possible.

  They had wanted to use CineRanchero’s robust social and publicity network to promote what they were doing. The film, the tour…. That’s why it was going to be the big extravaganza they had been working so hard to put together. That’s why the whole rest of the tour was based around the CineRanchero show. It wasn’t about the money they’d never get anyway; it was about the free publicity. The event would be a loss leader for them. But now no one would know about it except for the few hundred people buying tickets for the one night.

  Now Sally was just giving up? CineRanchero was giving up? Tickets are almost sold-out, so who cares? They had a communications director who allegedly acted inappropriately, and they knew this, and didn’t bother to give Milt a chance to find another organization with which to partner up in advance so they could get the promotion they actually needed?

  “You know what, Sally?” Milt said. “I’m at a meeting right now and we’re just gonna keep doing what we’re doing to—”

  “Great. Just great!” Sally said, sounding upbeat enough that it was as though she hadn’t just said everything she’d said. “That’s what we were hoping for. And I’m really sorry about this,” she said with the tone of an anonymous customer service representative apologizing for “your inconvenience.”

  Milt shook his head uselessly.

  “You know, the folks here at CineRanchero are really overwhelmed with so much stuff all the time and not exactly the most organized staff,” Sally was whispe
ring now. “They expanded too fast, and all this stuff was always going on and…they really need to do better. It’s kind of a shit show here, if you want to know the honest truth.”

  “Right,” Milt said, rolling his eyes and again wishing Sally Miranda could be there with him to see it so she might have some sense of what a big deal this was for Milt, the reputation of his film and film crew, and of course the already super-anxiety-trammeled Gil Gladly.

  “Well, thanks for calling, and, uh, guess I’ll see you at the show in Chicago.”

  “Oh, no. Actually, change of plans. I’m not going to be there at all now. I have some family business I need to attend to. But Kaley and Kiley are two amazing interns CineRanchero found to work specifically for this event, and they’ve been briefed on everything and will be able to do anything you need for the show, okay?”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Sally,” Milt said, sincerely. “Is your family okay from the freak tornadoes out there? Is that what this is about?”

  “Huh?” Sally huffed. “Oh, yeah. Right. Nope, we’re fine. Actually, it’s pretty funny, because almost everyone else in our neighborhood got hit hard by the tornadoes, but we’re fine. One of our neighbors lost their entire house, and ours didn’t even get touched!”

  Milt couldn’t believe he had to say it, but he just couldn’t help himself. “Wait, what’s funny about that?”

  “Look, Milt,” Sally said, sounding like she was ready to wrap things up and move on to ruining her next event. “I’m on a LOT of medication, okay?”

  “Ah.”

  What Milt had wanted to say was something along the lines of, Wait, so I had to set up everyone’s fucking travel schedules, get them their flights, compensating for the osbtinate weather sweeping through everyone’s towns right now, and make sure their hotels were all handled, including the one for Gil, who had me change his accommodations five fucking times until he felt totally comfortable with the choice…AND I got all of the schedule and production of the show in order over the past four months, including dealing with Dillon Rogers’ live musical set while needing to find a way to fly his broke-ass out after he didn’t get the early emails, all for this thing I don’t even get paid for or credit for as producer…and YOU, THE ONE WHO DOES GET PAID AND “PRODUCER” CREDIT, YOU’RE NOT EVEN GOING TO BE THERE?

  Needing to be professional, needing to represent the film, the rest of his crew and, most importantly, Gil Gladly as best as he could, what Milt actually said over the phone to Sally right then was a far more diplomatic, “Mmm.…”

  “Okay! Well, have a productive rest of your trip in LA, and don’t forget to have fun!”

  “You too. Bye.”

  She hung up, Milt clicked off the call, and dropped his phone back into his pocket.

  His sign-off may not have made any sense, but neither did anything else about the call, or Milt’s nearly six months of dealings with Sally Miranda and CineRanchero. He was too tired to care and was feeling slightly feverish. His throat was hurting, but he may have been dehydrated.

  He hoped that was all it was. This was no time to get sick.

  Milt went back to the table with Jayne, who didn’t bother to look up to Milt sitting back down until she was done with the level she was finishing.

  “Just a second, hon.…” Then she turned off the game, slipped her phone into her large brown-and-white Louis Vuitton purse that had been on the table next to her Arnold Palmer that she’d barely touched. “How did it go?”

  “Fine,” Milt said. “It is what it is. The usual.”

  “That’s good, then.”

  “Sure, I guess,” Milt said, resigned to his private fate. “It’s so strange, though. I’ve been having nothing but trouble with this chick, then she also talks all this shit on her own company and some of the other people she works with. It makes me wonder what she says about me or Gil or whatever.”

  “Yeah,” Jayne said soberly. “It’s a tough industry to be in, that’s for sure. Especially for women. Especially these days. A lot going on.”

  “Mmm.…”

  “No, really,” Jayne said, leaning forward. “I’ve always said the most important thing is personality. Let’s be honest, Milton. Anyone can do what we do. Producing? Come on. You just work. You just do it. You get it done. Right? So, the trick then is to make sure you’ve got the kind of personality that people want to be around, and that you hire and work with people whose personalities you can work with too. Right?”

  “I guess,” Milt said, wondering just how much money it would cost to Lyft back to Gabe’s and how he would get to the airport tomorrow without having to pay for a one-hundred-dollar cab, since Frankly needed to go back home that night so he could go back to work the next morning like a real person. Which led to Milt pondering the concept of doing a limited docuseries about the “real” life of Lyft drivers, then onto ruing the fact he didn’t have the family financial support and resources needed to make such a project like Tony Rigatoni and his new buddies making that damned Balloon documentary, which led to….

  “It’s not about guessing, Milt,” Jayne said, leaning back again in her chair. “This is how it is. You can’t work with people whose personalities you clash with and vice versa. I’ve seen people lose jobs over it. Good, qualified, experienced, hard-working people. If you’re a jerk or you can’t communicate with other people, you’re out.”

  “Yeah?” Milt said, not able to help himself. “Then how do you explain people like this Sally Miranda chick? Or most of those ‘terrible people’ you were talking about earlier who run Hollywood?”

  Jayne smiled. She nodded in understanding. “I suppose you have me there.”

  “It’s the William Goldman thing. ‘Nobody knows anything.’”

  They both laughed, and Jayne placed her bony, surprisingly frigid, taut, and leathery tanned hand on his. Milt was glad she suggested they move on before she revealed more about what she knew about what had happened so many years ago to Gil’s son or anything else. At this point in the game, Milt simply didn’t need to know anything more about the darker aspects of Gil Gladly’s life.

  Before they stood up to leave, Milt saw something on the thick white paper menu scrawled in what appeared to be gold ink that sparked a quick bon mot in his head and farted it out of his mouth. “Vegan tacos? Aren’t they worried about cultural appropriation?”

  Jayne guffawed—a word Milt used too often in descriptions in his writing but in this case was the only one that was suitable—and squeezed his hand even tighter in a very uncomfortable way that if he had used Twitter, he might have referred to as “inappropriate,” reminding him further of one of the many reasons he’d left LA for good so many years before, of an older woman “producer” who had tried to—

  “You wanna know the truth about your hero Gil Gladly there, sweetie?” Jayne Manning asked.

  Milt said nothing. He didn’t need to. She didn’t strike Milt as the type to need permission.

  “The truth is that Gil Gladly always wanted to be Steve Allen, and he never made it happen.”

  Milt almost continued his silence, but there was one part of this boring cliché that didn’t make sense to him, and after everything over the past few days and this long, drawn-out conversation with this lady, he had to ask, “But didn’t everyone from his generation want to be Steve Allen? What’s weird about that?”

  Jayne smiled that smile that made Milt understand that she was much, much older than he. That she had had much, much more experience than he. It was like what he always joked with younger people about when they tried to put him in his place and he’d say, “There’s still one thing I can do that you never will be able to do. Be ten years older.”

  And here it came.

  “Gil was different, sweetie,” Jayne said. “He really wanted to be Steve Allen. It just seemed particularly tough on him when people he knew on his way up—Jay, Letterman, Conan—got a whole lot closer, and all Gil ever got was KidTalk.”

  “That show was pretty impor
tant to my generation,” Milt said meekly, not sure why he was bothering. “And his other shows weren’t so bad.”

  “Kid, come on,” Jayne said, baring her teeth like she was the wolf about to eat Little Red Riding Hood. An expression, Milt quickly ascertained, she probably had honed over the years and used in such conversations when she was deliberating over millions of dollars for projects here and there. “You’ve written about this. How many times? Balloon, even in its heyday, was never NBC, ABC, or CBS. It was never HBO or Showtime. It wasn’t even Fox. Never. Nickelodeon at least had SpongeBob for a few years. What did Balloon ever really have?”

  Milt flashed on all the times people he told about his documentary on Gil Gladly had said simply, “Oh, I didn’t have cable growing up. Wasn’t he the dad on that show with Mayim Bialik?”

  “Even later on, when Gil found his way into a few other cable shows, it was never network TV,” Jayne continued. “And as we all know, he never will. It’s over. No third act. The best you can say about him for TV now is he’s not bald. He’s a pudgy, old, gray-haired, straight white male. It’s over for people like that, and it’s over for Gil Gladly. He did KidTalk and his two or three other shows over the years that came and went, and that’s the end of his story. Except every now and then when kids like you pop up and do some article about him for BuzzFeed or Huffington Post, or make some video about him for Mashel or whatever it’s called. I can’t even keep up with all these fucking things.”

  “He still has meetings all the time.”

  “Gil’s great at meetings,” Jayne Manning said, shaking her head. “People love to meet him. All these people who are your age. Younger maybe. They got their comfy little positions and offices because of who their parents are or because they fucked the right guy or gal at Fire Island a few years back when Fire Island was still what it was. You ever heard of the Velvet Mafia? Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter. What matters is no one watching TV wants to hear from Gil Gladly again.”

  Milt wasn’t even sure he meant it, but somehow it crawled out of his mouth. “We do.”