Dan Liebke's Astonishing Tales

1st of March, 2004 Diary Note: 8:35 pm Spent most of the day making web page for screenplay. Interrupted in mid-afternoon by Neil Diamond, calling to congratulate me on debating victory. Explained that he had partaken of a little too much sherry before show. Asked him for advice about Springsteen’s Downtown rip-off. ND volunteered to look into it and get back to me. Very grateful. Still, sherry??

2nd of March, 2004 Diary Note: 9:00 pm Called Bill Murray this morning to offer condolences on Best Actor loss. BM in heavy denial. Began reading me acceptance speech. Thanked Academy, agent, Brian Austin Green, da Vinci, BatFink, wife, Satan, gravity, the white rhino, Elvis, Bill Murray, Buddha, Grandma Buddha, Peter Jackson, etc. Hung up after four hours. No end in sight.

3rd of March, 2004 Diary Note: 1:05 pm Lunch-time. Strange Chinese meal. No sign of Jessica or JBJ. Found absence more troubling than seeing them together. Back to office. Called Bill Murray. Still thanking people: “…, Herbie The Love Bug, Socrates, Aamir Sohail, Flipper, The Ghost Of Christmas Past, Winona Ryder, George Lucas, Euler, Aphrodite, …” Wonder how long he can go for?

4th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 9:00 pm Popped over to see Bill Murray on way home. BM still locked in ‘thank you’ rant. Couldn’t be distracted. Listened for another half hour until “…, Frank the dog, Rick Ponting, HAL-9000, and the person who invented the phrase ‘thank you’.” Then stopped. Left with no alternative but to give Bill soup. Put him to bed. Strangest thing I’ve ever seen. By my reckoning Bill thanked almost 90,000 people in two and a half days. Damn the Academy!!

5th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 1:15 pm Phone call from Jason Bateman. Loves screenplay. Big fan of films about undead monsters with sense of 80s cool. Has been searching for one since Teen Wolf Too. Chuffed to read my script. Hung up from Jason. Called Justine to thank her. Informed that Jason stole script from her glory box. Jason apparently kleptomaniac, borderline criminally insane. Also, suffers from paranoid delusional fantasies. Still, perfect for role of Buble. Must weigh up carefully. Note to self, commence serious search for director.

6th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 11:45 pm Lost day. Will explain later.

7th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 11:45 pm Enormous weekend. Went to Wildlife Photography exhbition. Bumped into Thomas Dolby, back from tour of Finland. Decided to have quick drink, catch up, get out of rain. Inevitable two-day Dolby drinking session ensued. TD very bad influence. Got home, listened to machine. Message from Bruce Springsteen. Incoherently furious. Has lost diamonds?? Made no sense. Will deal with tomorrow.

8th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 9:25 pm Bill Murray over to watch cricket again. Swears he will never thank another person as long as he lives. BM disappointed with Australian batting effort, but concedes pitch is turner. Offers more screenplay advice: ‘Shun subtitles’. Asks what Springsteen’s problem was. Whoops! Forgot to ask. Must do tomorrow. Can’t have angry Boss.

9th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 6:55 pm Called Bruce Springsteen. Boss furious at me. Apparently Neil Diamond called him. Mocked his latest song. Boss considers my discussion of Petulia Clark-edness of song with ND a ‘gross betrayal’ and ‘stark evidence of auditory ineptitude’. Played it again. Still sounds like ‘Downtown’ to me. Apologised however, and promised to talk to ND.

10th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 4:10 pm Afternoon meeting with Peter Weir, re: screenplay. PW dressed entirely in canary yellow! Shirt, pants, coat, top hat, cane, stilettos. Taken aback at first but eventually found it oddly fetching. Looked like Big Bird. Never a bad thing.

11th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 3:25 pm Received letter from Michael Buble’s lawyers today, demanding ‘a complete removal of the Buble name from all vampires, breakdancers or other undead entities that form part of the screenplay ‘Vampiric Boogaloo’ or any associated screenplays, plays, poems, novels, novellas or other creative artforms’. Called Garofalo to ask for advice. She wanted to know why lawyers ‘always insisted on categorising breakdancers with the unholy damned’. Then thought for a second and retracted question.

12th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 1:35 pm Ducked into mall for lunch (seafood quiche and chocolate milk). Saw Jessica Alba! Sans Jon Bon Jovi!! Went over to say ‘hi’ (subtext: have you been sleeping with JBJ??). Noticed tears. JA refused to tell me reason for crying. Bet it was JBJ’s fault somehow. Or perhaps ingrown hair. Ouch! Also, JA oblivious to subtext. Perhaps understandable. Reasonably subtle. Came back to office. Message from Stephen Dorff. Wants to fast-track screenplay. Exciting, but what to do about Garofalo-Dorff feud??!?

13th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 5:55 pm Productive Saturday. Introduced entire new subplot about beautiful brunette girl who loathes music of Jon Bon Jovi. Works well. Sent improved script to Jessica Alba. Waiting patiently now.

14th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 11:55 pm JA didn’t return calls. Made backup copy of script with name ‘Buble’ search/replaced by ‘Twatface’ in case legal options diminish. Childish, but kinda funny.

15th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 5:15 pm Long, complicated meeting with Peter Weir, Stephen Dorff, Neil Diamond. Springsteen sent apologies. Sense ongoing tension between Boss and ND. Note to self: heal rift somehow. Meeting started out as creative, imaginative analysis of screenplay and what can be done with it. Ended in heated debate over merits of silicon-based lifeforms. Have no idea how we drifted so far off track, but Dorff extremely upset. Left in tears.

16th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 9:10 pm Told Janeane Garofalo about Stephen Dorff’s silicon-based tears at yesterday’s lunch meeting. Garofalo stunned – her falling out with Dorff was over exact same subject! Dorff refused to believe JG when she told him that Ben Stiller was robot. Madness! How else does one explain Stiller’s superhuman strength? In other news, Jessica Alba still not returning calls. Sigh.

17th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 1:10 pm Frantic email from Dame Lauren Holly. Apparently downloaded Alexa toolbar, then had dream where toolbar morphed and leapt out of monitor and tore her to pieces, a la Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Needed to uninstall immediately but unclear on how to do so. Calmed her down, talked her through uninstall process. Received profuse thanks. Then profane thanks. Then plea to uninstall her memories of 1995. Dame Lauren clearly off medication. Advised her to ring Sean Astin.

18th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 9:40 pm Invited Springsteen over for dinner – steaks a la Luke ‘Perfect Steak’ Perry. Three of us joined by Juliette Lewis, who was wearing a space helmet and insisted on being called ‘Shana’. No idea why. JL an enigma at best of times. Bill Murray popped in a little later. Was going to try and mend fences with Boss during rain delay in cricket. Instead ended up enthralled by the antics of Average Joe 2. Also, Bill’s latest screenplay advice: ‘Don’t use coloured fonts.’ So wise.

19th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 1:50 pm Man with bad combover on train this morning. Smirked superiorly at him. Adjusted toupee in triumph. If one must falsify one’s follicular status, one should do so in serious way. Hrmpph! Combover! Resolved to make Connick (second-in-command breakdancing vampire) less hirsute in screenplay. Bald theme deserves cinematic exploration. Got to office. Forced to hide under desk to avoid Tom Arnold pop-in. Three hours under there! Man has vast reserves of patience.

20th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 8:20 pm Out shopping today – saw Jon Bon Jovi Greatest Hits CD in bargain bin. Purchased it. Took it home. Played it. Laughed myself silly for 75 minutes. What a dropkick.

21st of March, 2004 Diary Note: 10:05 pm Big day today. Finally ceded to Bill Murray’s hectoring. Removed all references to breakdancing vampires from screenplay. Kept time travel plot element and title ‘Vampiric Boogaloo’. Sure, title no longer makes sense but don’t care – must maintain something.

22nd of March, 2004 Diary Note: 10:20 pm Continued to tidy up screenplay to remove last remnants of vampire heritage. For example, in new version of script it makes little sense for systems analyst to speak of ‘the damnation of eternal life’. Nor to suck blood of colleague (now a comely school teacher, rather than medieval born sub-demon). So, fixed that up.

23rd of March, 2004 Diary Note: 5:35 pm Finally managed to remove last of undead references from Breakdancing Vampires screenplay. Now just a simple tale about a Systems Analyst who breakdances and travels in time. Simple, homespun fable. Not five minutes after finishing draft Jessica Alba called. Said she loved notion of being Bubila, Queen of Vampires – thought role fit her perfectly. Very keen to explore depths of Bubila’s damned soul and eternal torture. Sigh. Went back. Inserted references about quality of Bubila’s teeth and lack of noticeable tooth decay. Hope this satisfies JA. Somehow doubt it.

24th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 9:35 pm Strange dreams last night. Otters. Millions and millions of otters. Conducting ink-blot tests on one another and spelling out phrase ‘Great Moons of Krypton’. Told Garofalo about it. She wanted to know if phrase was spelled in English or Kryptonese. Confessed to English. Dream then dismissed as ‘absurd nonsense’.

25th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 10:20 pm Bill Murray over to watch cricket again. Kudos to Darren Lehmann on majestic century. BM also offered latest screenplay advice: Print screenplay on paper, not cardboard. Also, ink preferable to blood.

26th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 11:30 pm Dinner with Peter Weir. Meal came with far too much corn. PW commenced to make jokes about how ‘a-maize-ing’ corn was. Refused to stop. Eventually left with no choice but to storm out of restaurant. Grabbed two cobs as leaving to feed to Almighty Mr Spinner.

27th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 10:20 am Keynote speaker at Satanic Undead Expo today. Can’t get out of despite fact that screenplay no longer refers to vampires in any way (Jessica Alba’s teeth notwithstanding). Must try and make best of bad situation. To that end, have justified purchase of stylish cape.

28th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 10:20 pm Over to Bruce Springsteen’s house to feed leftover corn to his dog, The Almighty Mr Spinner. Boss informed me that Almighty no longer rotates clockwise or anti-clockwise… but has now picked up unusual backflipping habit. Pleased with corn however. Boss played new song – no longer sounds like ‘Downtown’ but does have distinct Grayson Hugh influence. Chord structure identical to ‘Talk It Over’. Didn’t bother pointing this out to Boss. AFter all, who else will notice?

29th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 10:35 pm Very tired today. Think end of daylight saving throwing me off. Rang Janeane Garofalo about it. JG raised important point – if we’ve been saving daylight all summer, surely we should have earned some interest on it, no? Couldn’t we then use interest to ease into early darkness regime, say five minutes earlier each day for couple of weeks, rather than one big hour jump? Garofalo clearly losing it.

30th of March, 2004 Diary Note: 8:50 pm Justine Bateman over to work on script, watch Survivor All Stars recap episode. Both agree that Rob Cesternino very funny, Boston Rob somebody worth throttling. Ended evening with impromptu tap dance lesson. Note to self, look at putting in wooden floor.

31st of March, 2004 Diary Note: 1:05 pm Angry, tearful phone call from Jessica Alba this morning. Has received latest script and distraught about absence of vampires. Claims this ruins her preparation for role of Bubila (now called Becky). Did she feast on living rat for nothing?!? Apologised. JA still upset but determined to take consolation in breakdancing aspect of character. Has hired Brian Austin Green to train her. Can apparently now ‘six step’ like nobody’s business. Didn’t have heart to tell her that decision has been made to move more towards tap. In other news, quite sure that lunch (salad roll with extra mayo and forks) was served to me by Tempestt Bledsoe. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

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