Oh, the Places You'll Almost Go!

I’ve had my share of show biz disappointments. Real gut punches. I’d get my little boy hopes up and boom, the old rug pull. As an actor it happened repeatedly. I would run the audition gauntlet, absorbing the blows and surviving ‘til the end, then get the glory call from my agent. “You did it kid, you’ve won, you’re going to be a movie star!” But then the financing would fall through or the director get fired, or in the case of a movie called Head Office, the president of HBO Silverscreens, a guy named Maurice Singer decided he wanted a classic white guy for the role. I told the director, tell them the Graduate story, how the studio wanted Redford and said “Benjamin Braddock is a gentile,” and Nichols told them, “Yeah, but inside he’s a Jew.” Unfortunately, my director kept his mouth shut and Judge Rheinhold got my part. I even had a real old school Hollywood screen test for that one. The great big 35 millimeter Panavision right up my nose!

But the worst of the acting wounds was on a movie called the Whoopee Boys. A dumb-ass two-hander produced by the Revenge of the Nerds crew. The director, Mark Story an A list commercial whizz liked me so much he was ready to cast me as the one who gets the girl or the funny sidekick, he just needed to find someone to pair up with me. The search went on for weeks. My most vivid memory of that audition process was Robert Downey Jr and I being asked to repeatedly do the Belushi dance from Animal House where he spazzes out on the floor at the toga party. There we were, me and young Iron Man having conniptions on the conference room carpet for fifteen minutes. They tried to match me with all kinds of actors: Tim Robbins, pre-Saturday Night Live Dana Carvey,  Keith and David Carradine’s little brother Bobby, who came and picked me up at my apartment in a yellow El Camino and took me out to breakfast so would could bond.

But Mark Story couldn’t decide on anything and soon the producers canned him, hiring Jon Byrum instead. Byrum wiped the slate clean, Michael O’Keefe and Paul Rodriguez getting the roles. But of all the disappointments I had acting none of them touch my two biggest show biz bummers, both of them having to do with one Theodor Geisel better known as Doctor Seuss.

Doctor Seuss is my first poet. I discovered Edgar Allen Poe early, reciting The Raven at nine and Dylan took over from there, but the initial word-joy rhyme-time sound-gush hallelujah is all Doctor S. The first time I heard Fox in Socks I thought I would jump out of my skin!

Ben’s band. Bim’s band.

Big bands. Pig bands.

Ben and Bim lead bands with brooms.

Ben’s band bangs.

And Bim’s band booms.

It got my little five-year-old Dadaist heart all a flutter. I took that Seuss rhythm deep into my soul and I never lost it. That’s why in 2017 when my friend and Cool Runnings collaborator Chris Meledandri was struggling with a new version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas he called me to help him with some of the rhyming narration. I ended up writing the whole movie, which included big chunks of rhyming couplets, getting a chance to both expand on and pay homage to the king.

Most exciting of all they allowed me to do my own narration! The release date kept getting closer and yet I remained in the cut. I remember one test audience screening where Chris turned to me and said, “you really sound great.”

I knew this would happen. I knew one day I would read my poetry to the masses. It was preordained, I just had to live long enough. And this was just the start. Voice over work, commercials, Swerdlow letting America know what they should buy. And what about audiobooks? A new version of Tropic of Cancer, me as Henry Miller. I could even do Moby Dick!

“What do you mean you’re replacing me with Pharrell Williams, you can’t do that!” I don’t think I actually said that to Chris but I wanted to. But it is only Seuss wound 1B. For Seuss wound 1A, we must go back a few decades.

Cool Runnings opened a lot of doors for us and one day we got a call to possibly re-write a Dr. Seuss screenplay adaptation of his classic “Oh, The Places You’ll Go.” The script was awful. Dull and dead the doctor had no idea how to get his genius happening as a movie. We had never done animation but got the gig. There had been a few other writers and everyone had tried to get away from the style of the book, but I decided to run right at it and do the entire script in verse, bringing in the Cat in the Hat as the boy’s guide. I never had so much fun writing anything in my life. I felt as if Doctor S had deputized me, pinning the rhyme badge to my chest. I heard him saying “Go kid go. Channel your inner Thing 1 and Thing 2 and soar!”

TriStar, the studio we wrote it for loved it and green-lit it immediately. They were talking to Danny Elfman about collaborating with me on the original songs I had written. My partner Golds and I were over the moon. But then the oobleck hit the fan.

Doctor’s Seuss’s widow, Audrey Geisel, who controlled the project, had read it and was not happy. It wasn’t that she didn’t think it was good, it was that I had invented original characters and who the fuck did I think I was? I mean how dare I!? How dare I try to fly on the same trapeze as her beloved Ted. I thought I had honored her husband but she thought I had desecrated him. The movie was off. Seuss’s legacy kept safe from the likes of me.

It was Chris who finally figured out how to deal with Audrey Geisel, and that resulted in him making The Lorax and The Grinch, but neither of those has the pure Seuss energy that our “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” had. Maybe I’m crazy but it’s still my favorite script I ever wrote, and I’m going to include a scene here with one of the sacrilegious characters I dared to create. I think I did the doctor proud. See what you think?

(Our Oh, the Places You’ll Go script was about a kid who can’t say his name/own his identity and needed to go on the journey of the movie so he can. In this scene he encounters a mustached carnival hustler.)

MUSTACHED MAN: Let me introduce myself. I'm Chuckster Huckster Baxter Buckster. And you my boy are quite in luckster. 'Cause Baxter Buxster is the name of hocus pocus side show fame.

THE BOY: But I've never heard of Baxter Buxster. No, I don't know you Mr Chuckster.

BAXTER BUXTER: Well, that's alright, alright and how. The point is that you know me now. The point is I can take you far. If you can fit your head inside this jar.

Baxter Buxter produces a small glass jar. The Boy thinks.

THE BOY: Well, I guess I could consider it. Though, I'm not sure that my head would fit.

The Boy studies the jar.

THE BOY: Just stick my head inside this thing. Not stick it in, then dance and sing?

BAXTER BUXSTER: Just head in jar. Yup, that's the game.

THE BOY: This sure beats having to say your name.

EXT. CARNIVAL SIDE SHOW - DAY

Baxster Buxster barks to a crowd.

BAXSTER BUXSTER: Step right up, he's quite bizarre. The boy whose head fits in a jar.

Baxster Buxster pulls a curtain and there's the Boy with his head in a jar. The crowd oohs and ahhs.

BAXTER BUXTER: Come one come all and be amazed! The sad cruel jokes that nature plays. It's not a trick, it's not a ploy. The tiny-Headed nameless boy!

The line to see the boy goes on for miles.

EXT. CARNIVAL SIDE SHOW - NIGHT

The show is over, everyone's gone home. Baxter Buxter is counting a huge pile of money. (He begins to sing the "Money" song.)

BAXTER BUXTER: (singing) Touch it, smell it, hear it jingle. (showing the Boy the different bills) Hundreds, tens, a five, a single. Good stuff, green stuff, keep it comin'.

He holds a stack of bills up to the Boy's ears and fans it.

BAXTER BUXTER: Listen to it, hear it hummin'. Lend it, spend it, howl and holler. Everybody loves a dollar. It goes for you it goes for me. My favorite word is currency.

Baxter Buxter sticks a bill in the boy’s mouth

BAXTER BUXTER: Eat it, chew it, taste its charms. Stuff a bunch under your arms. Lots of zeroes, lots of commas, take a c-note home to momma. Wing it! Fling it! Beat me blue!

Baxter Buckster starts to smack himself with the bills.

BAXTER BUXTER: There's lots for me, there's some for you. You've sold your soul, you're scared you might. The green stuff makes it all alright. It goes for you, it goes for me. My favorite word is currency.

End song

Baxter Buxter and the Boy toast bottles of pop.

BAXTER BUXTER: My boy, you're great, the best I've had. Think of me as a second dad. It's even brighter 'round the bend. It's me and you kid, 'til the end.

FEMALE V.O.: Excuse me, I'm looking for a job.

Baxter Buxter and the Boy spin around. Standing there is a set of SIAMESE TWIN GIRLS.

SIAMESE TWIN #1: Her name's Wick.

SIAMESE TWIN #2: And she's the Wuckster. 

BOTH: We're looking for a Baxter Buxster.

Beat. Baxter Buxster stares at them.

BAXTER BUXSTER: Oh my lucky stars and such. Two heads, two jars, that's twice as much.

THE BOY: But you just said I'm like a son. That we wouldn't stop 'til we were done.

BAXTER BUXTER: I'm sorry, kid, that's one bad trait. At times, I can exaggerate.

THE BOY But--

BAXTER BUXTER: Save it, kid, the sides are weighed. And those two win, that's how it's played. We did our thing but now we're done. So beat it kid, and don't walk, run!