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The reality/unscripted Expo couldn’t have come along at a better time. The loosers would be out in desperate droves & wouldn’t be able to hide the stenk of their wretchedness from her like they (thought they) could over the phone. It’d be easy to chase down the weak & wounded. But some of the reality dropouts/throwouts were actually very cool people, & the Double T was starting to look forward to the hookups. She knew she’d be energized by her peers, there were a bunch of Idols performing on the stages and when she (re)introduced herself & told them what she was up to, who knew? They might have some good ideas, even jump on the bandwagon. Another thing was she had that taste of notoriety & tho her shit went down 10 years ago she’d probably get recognized, people still came up to her on the street at least once a week… another thing was she might actually be cool again, it might be her time, the world had changed, shit was more cynical, all kinds of shit, everything had gotten crazier/more tolerant, people embraced various squalid shit they wouldn’t have 10 years ago, they fuckin cheered it on, sordid psychopathic bad girl shit, squalor/sleaze, a whole different world now, one that worshipped abject moments of infamy… if she got thrown off Idol TODAY for her old chicanery, the reward wouldn’t be t-shirts & Letterman, it’d be her own fuckin show. The Tom-Tom: Notorious! show. Cause you want notorious? Ima give it you. Tori Spelling ain’t noTORIous. Tori Spelling’s about as noTORIous as one of Petra Ecclestone’s cuntfarts.
Tom-Tom dug being in the adult swim of it all again.
Once the White House was up & running with looser live-ins it would be important to get someone up to Mt Olympus, a show runner with a track record, to check it out. See what they were doing up there on the Mount in Loser Lab, see it up close, the place would serve as she’d meant it to from the start, a kind of “living pitch,” if Tom-Tom could find someone at the Expo and get em up, someone who knew the reality business, even get em up without telling them exactly what the exact nature of the shit was, & they rang the doorbell and she took them on a little tour, nothing planned out, nothing elaborate, by then she’d try to have a full house, it’d be cool if most of the bedrooms were full, like a real home, that homey feeling, just like Million Dollar Listing with the house dressers, the home stylists, that’s all she was really doing, she knew she’d be good at that all she needed was the chance the opportunity now here it was, here she was making it all more presentable more livable more sellable, everyone rehearsing and doing their thing, maybe even by then have a camera crew up & running, if she could just find someone who knew their shit, get em up there and give em the tour then walk them out to the pool — Tom-Tom could see it, she could hear it — and they’d say to her, Okay, this is for sure kind of trip for real but what’s really happening? (During the tour she would provide whatever kind of dope, if they wanted it, or whatever sex was deemed appropriate to get them to commit) Tom-Tom would say, OK, here’s the deal, everyone you just met is someone who got THROWN OFF A REALITY SHOW! She could see it, see their smile slowly become a HA! — then the nod of the head, the many nods, of knowingness, nods that said OK. I get it. And SO WILL THE NETWORK. You, m’lady, are sitting on a fucking MAJOR FRANCHISE. So let the games and the brand-building begin!
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They rode to the Convention Center in the same car — Tom-Tom, Dr Phil, ReeRee & Rikki — not just because Rikki’s scooter died — it wasn’t really a scooter but was so lightweight Tom-Tom called it that — but because until Reeyonna could pay her share of the rent Tom-Tom was using her as a gofer & personal asst.
Dr Phil was an avuncular, calming presence, & really understood Tom-Tom’s vision. Due to a mix-up/wrong address delivery of his social security checks, he’d been evicted from his Hollywood garden apt & was sleeping in his car. After their interview, Tom-Tom moved him right in. She already felt the vibe of the house benefiting from his presence. She needed someone trustworthy to be her eyes & ears when the prospective cast of schmoosers finally fell into place. Dr Phil was one of those people born with a happy disposition — Tom-Tom didn’t want unhappy people around her anymore. Unhappy people & the Year of the Moneybags do not frickin mix. Besides, she was thinking he might do something to help Jerzy, not an intervention exactly but something. When you were around Dr Phil his energy made you not want to use. She’d already talked to him about it, even suggesting maybe they could shoot Todd Bridges doing an “assessment” on Jerzy as part of the show, for a little drama, you know, like what would he or Johnny Whitaker recommend, would it be a hospital or a treatment center or maybe Jerzy could even do a home detox which would be really great for the show. Only trouble was, things would probably have to get much worse for Jerzy to agree to something like that. Because Jerzy was a loser for real but not a reality show schmooser so he definitely wouldn’t agree to being filmed for something like that, he’d probably have to OD for them to get his crazy drugshit on camera. The way he was going, that would probably happen too. Soon.