MEL:
I was thinking hard in Kinko’s.
I needed one more scene to end my script.
The screenplay contest ended in seven days.
First prize: Hollywood trip.

Oh, what’s up in your world, my leading girl?
It’s a shame you lost your love in Act Three.
Tom was shot in the barroom.
He gasped, “Mary, sing for me.”

Something about this was familiar.
It mashed “West Side Story” up with “Fame”.
At his wake, she sang, “Holly Holy”.
I thought, Brother, this screenplay is lame.

It took a while, but I finished the last scene,
Then I rode on the midnight subway train.
My Mary seemed to sit right beside me.
I held a conf’rence in my brain.

So I asked, “How is it, Mary?”
She said, “Revise it, Mel.
It takes plenty of style, also plenty of guile
To make a screenplay sell.”

Tom and Mary in a ghetto band
Would play some rock and roll in the bar.
They wrote a new song ‘bout a bum from the Bronx
And sang it at a church bazaar.

Let’s see: I could send it to some actress,
Or look up some director guy.
I went off to mail my screenplay
To some contest in Van Nuys.

Oh, I got stories inside me
To grip the viewers fast!
Got a gangsta chick flick
Projecting through me, regurgitating my past.
Oh, I got Oscar material—
An aging disco queen!
Am I so crazy nuts that most folks
Can’t identify…

MARY:
Can’t identify with me…?

MEL:
…with me…?

MARY:
Breaking my back waiting tables,
Can’t rent cable, poor as a slave.
Writing my songs, guitar strumming,
Hear him humming beyond the grave.

MEL:
There was not much more that I could edit down.
Whatever! The contest was done.
They returned my script from California,
Saying, “Thanks, but you haven’t won.”

Mary warned, “Mel, pull it together!
Well, you know your storylines are strange.”
Then I’m handed twenty dollars for an eight-fifty lunch,
And hear, “Honey, where’s my change?”

Well, a screenwriter’s driving a taxi,
And a screenwriter’s pushing some pills.
Well, this screenwriter’s waiting at a Brooklyn bar.
I hand the lady her bills.

I’ll increase the sex and violence
And schmaltz to the nth degree.
Then I’ll be getting what I wish for:
Fame for Mary, Tom, and me.

Oh, well: I could send it to some actress
Or mail it to that Spike Lee guy.
I could fax it to Fox Searchlight.
Could give Spielberg a try.

Today, I’m chapped and harried
While serving Cuervo Gold.
Tonight, I’ll start another screenplay
‘Bout a hack who’s getting old.

They’ll produce all my films when I’m old.