Strange Days Page #5

DAN FROM SILVERLAKE

Uh, hi.

HOST:

So Dan, are you looking forward to

the New Year?

A building is burning out of control. In the foreground,

silhouetted, a drunk sleeps soundly on a bus-bench.

DAN:

Not really. I mean what's the

point? Nothing changes New Years

day. The economy sucks, gas is over

three bucks a gallon, fifth grade

kids are shooting each other at

recess... the whole thing sucks,

right? So what the hell are we

celebrating?

A shanty-camp of homeless people under a freeway overpass.

Homes made of cardboard and carpet remnants. Their lives

in shopping carts.

HOST:

You're a glass-is-half-empty kind of

guy, aren't you Dan? Well I for one

happen to think that us making it

2000 years is worth celebrating--

Lenny cuts him off, punching to another station, and MUSIC

blasts. Something fast... a rap-metal hybrid. Anger and

energy.

WE CUT IN fast blitzes of images like a burst of automatic

weapons fire:
helicopters on patrol, people running in the

streets, buildings smoldering, fists raised, shouting

people, paramedics rushing a body into an ambulance,

Korean store owners armed to the teeth, a body covered by

a yellow plastic sheet, blood running down the gutter.

Cops in riot gear, with M-16s, on patrol in a Hispanic

neighborhood.

BACK TO LENNY coming out of a bar with a nervous

businessman. We don't hear the conversation. MUSIC OVER.

Lenny palms a roll of bills from the guy as he slips a

squid tape into the pocket of the businessman's suit

jacket. Lenny claps him on the shoulder and walks away.

Lenny's beeper goes off and he pauses to look at the

number.

ON LENNY DRIVING.

Ahead, through the windshield we see a police checkpoint.

The cops have thrown a block across the street and are

shinning their lights in the cars as they creep through.

Lenny slaps his ID against the side window with one hand,

not missing a beat in his conversation. This is just part

of life in LA.

LENNY:

(on cellular)

Jimbo. I'm there, Jimmy. Right now,

can't you hear me knockin'?

CUT TO LENNY working his way through a crowded club, music

pounding. Strobe lights. We don't see much. He hears

his phone rings and pulls the tiny DIGITAL CELLULAR out of

his breast pocket. Sticks a finger in his other ear and

answers.

CUT TO LENNY, back in the BMW, on the streets. On the

move.

LENNY:

-- so you line up the talent, shoot

the clip, get it to me by Monday.

OK? Client wants a guy and two

girls, the guy wears... yeah, I

know, thinks he's being original.

Girls have to be young. So don't

use your mother like you usually do.

Yeah, you too, pendejo. And no big

tits... French tits. That's it...

like Champagne glasses... you got

it. What a pro. Page me.

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