Some Bojack-inspired experimenting with prose -- "Day in a life of an expiring star"
Waking up was particularly exhausting for the star that morning; his girlfriend Wanda had to tap his head and practically hoot his name multiple times. He told her groggily that she had an unparalleled amount of zest in the mornings for someone who was actually a night owl. Because his agent had arranged an early flight to allow for some “sightseeing” before the shoot, they couldn’t stop for breakfast. He had time enough only to make a cup of shitty hotel coffee, mixing two packs of the instant crap into one styrofoam cup.
Happiness is actually an art of living, which is in us. quipped one of the ripped coffee packets in an effeminate script typeface. As he sat, waiting for the water to boil and rubbing the bloodshot deeper into his eyes, he squinted again at the squiggly text printed on the coffee-crusted aluminum packet. What a lousy fucking quote. He wondered what miserable dipshit whose job it was to come up with these came up with that winner. The longer he sat there waiting for the kettle with nothing else to occupy his aching brain, the more offended he got by the quote’s flagrant mediocrity. “..which is in us”?Really? What kind of underwhelming, slap-dash adjunct was that? He rolled his eyes at the hackneyed, grammatically awkward fragment that didn’t add anything to the already banal quote. He wondered, (for the sake of cynically entertaining himself at this point), exactly which one of the preceding corny abstract nouns the ‘which’ was referring to —was it “happiness”, the “art of living” (a typo for act of living, maybe, which in any case still wouldn’t make sense), or just the ability to live in general? Each option was more stupid than the last. It irritated him that he was even dwelling on such a brain-cell depleting matter, and what started as a snarky observation put him in an actual foul mood. Thanks, “happiness” quote. Christ, was it too much for a guy to ask nowadays to just be able to enjoy his shitty coffee in peace without being bombarded by the badly written pseudo-proverbial detritus of Capitalism? Happiness is… not having to deal with the fucking didactic, holier-than-thou, vapid brainwashing bullshit that is unfortunately, literally, everywhere (he was on a roll now)…in our disgusting, mass-consumerist, toxic, celebrity culture that churns people out ruthlessly like carcinogenic sausage and adds no actual value to anyone’s life anywhere ever— the kettle’s whistle pierced through his internal crafting of whatwould have, in his opinion, been a better coffee quote.
The coffee came out just watery enough to make a disappointing accompaniment to what was left of the Kentucky Straight bourbon from the night before. He had hoped the mixture would quell his simmering headache. It didn’t, but he didn’t suppose it made it any worse. Wanda made a point of telling him to “cheer up!”, that he looked like he was “headed to a funeral!” (Let it be mine, he refrained from joking. God forbid he kill the mood.) Wanda was wearing the purple skirt she always did on these trips (her lucky petunia one) that she wasn’t jaded enough to see was tacky. He remembered thinking once that he would hate it on any other woman, but that on her, there was a kind of ignorance-is-blissinnocence to it that he didn’t altogether mind. The fact that he even contemplated Wanda’s clothing choices was out of character for him, but not more out of character than being with her in the first place. He had decided that it was a good thing, as far as things could be good or had any meaning at all. As the pair stepped out, he told her she looked extravagant, and she laughed cheerily and piped Thanks honey, that’s the Bo I know!
On the limo ride to the airport, they stopped to pick up the old dog and his fiancé. The star relished in the relative silence of the minutes before they arrived, feeling a sense of calm as they cruised past the palm trees and saw the sky. He tipped his sunglasses up and dipped in and out of the perfectly blue space above the glass sunroof and below the clouds, before being sent crashing down back into his seat as they pulled up to their friends’ mansion and saw them enthusiastically waving. They looked like living parodies of the tourist tropes you only see in outdated children’s picture books— in their Hawaiian lei’s and straw hats, ready to unknowingly offend and pillage with their good old American Kodak smiles. Trademarked. The old dog had the annoying habit of speaking in redundant aphorisms, which served only to highlight his even more redundant enthusiasm for “what the world had to offer”. It drove Bo up the wall.
“Say, Bo, I don’t know about you, but I’m excited for this trip. Not only are we presented with a gleaming business opportunity; we get to spend some quality time together! Just two dudes and their missus havin a jolly ole time, horsin around, barking up some fun, whatever you wanna call it! This is gonna be a grrrreat trip! You know what they say— why twiddle your thumbs when you can have some fun!”
“I don’t think anyone says that” The star interjected as the women smiled and the old dog bulldozed on, “I’ll be darndoodled if I don’t have an apple and a poodle, I’m stoked!”
“Literally no one says that.”
“I’ll be frank with you—I wasn’t sure that this was gonna work out at first, you know, when you and I had that little blip, our little quibble, our friendly spat, you know what I’m talking about— But goshdarnit I can’t tell you how much I’ve looked forward to this, Bo, the truth is, you’re the real deal! Twist my arm why doncha, it just goes to show, when life throws you lemons, you gotta go and fetch ‘em! With the right attitude, every single one of the your dreams will always come true, and if your dreams don’t come true, it’s probably because, you just don’t have the right attitude!”
The star groaned and put his headphones in to tune the blonde blabberer out. This would be a long ride.
