Timeline, Lynwood Detention Facility.
 
4:00 pm.  The Conditions:  A punishing 74 degrees, partly cloudy, slight breeze out of the northwest.  No sunblock.  The atmosphere:  Tense.  My mission:  Get Lindsay Lohan released early so she can fulfill her contractual obligation to Manka Bros. Films.
 
Corey Feldman and his wife (Chrissy?  Crysta?  I wanna say Clarice...) can't take any more, they hightail it.  Britney crying guy is hauled away by paramedics with severe dehydration.  TMZ cameramen are hairy, stinky and talk funny.  One of them glares at me for 3 solid minutes, then flicks his skinny cigarette at me.
 
6:00 pm.  Old timey Mets "sign guy" stands on a bench, holds up sign reading, "Way To Go!"  NBC's Fernell Chapman gets into shoving match with Fox 11's Tony Valdez.  Gloria Allred mills about, asking if anyone has seen Dina Lohan.  My co-worker, the radiant Tomoko (she smells so good, too) arrives out of breath with the latest from Lindsay's judge.  Turns out, Lohan will serve a truncated sentence due to jail overcrowding, but may have to go straight to rehab.  This is the worst news ever!  Paco, one of the guys dressed as The Mean Girls, overhears our conversation and runs away crying, angrily assaulting a garbage can.  Tomoko produces some piping hot Chalupas from her backpack, thrusting them in my face.  But I refuse.  My hunger strike starts now.  I vow to only consume water until she is released.  Only Bling H2O.  This I will do for my studio, as long as they pay for it.
 
6:15 pm.  I consume Chalupa.  Just to tied me over.  Let the hunger strike begin!
 
9:00 pm.  Word spreads that Irish recording sensation Seamus is mere blocks away.  The crowd gets even larger.  Helicopters appear overhead.  A VW Microbus comes to a sputtering halt in front of the facility, door opens and out spills a "little person", followed by long-haired roadies, musicians, and three scantily clad women. 

Seamus finally emerges, sporting Lindsay's "wardrobe malfunction" blouse, to show his solidarity.  The crowd wildly applauds, Seamus thrusts his fists into the air...
 
9:12 pm.  After pressing the flesh, Seamus notices me waving to him, he approaches and envelops me in an inappropriately tight embrace.  "Yer doin God's work, my son," he says.  Sniffing me, he remarks, "Chalupa?"  Yes, I say.  He lowers his glasses, looks me right in the eye: "We'll have no more of dat den..." 

He smiles, strokes my face and darts away, the throng in tow.
 
9:15 pm.  Despite increased police presence, Seamus stands on the front steps of the jailhouse, his band surrounding him, lamplight illuminating his side-boobage.  He sings the following song:
 
Don'tcha mess wit da Lohan, she's a firey soul,
Her time in solitary is sure to have taken its toll,
When at last she emerges from dat dark dank cold pit
Why as sure as I'm sexy she'll be pitchin a fit.
 
So unchain da lassie
Dis is our plea
Or all night we'll shout nasty and on your doorstep we'll pee,
She needs to see her family
And guest star on "Glee"
And fulfill her obligation to make our movie...
 
In defiance, Seamus then rips the blouse off his body, hurls it at a cop, flips off the crowd and races to his van.  As it rumbles away, the crowd is left on its hands and knees, stunned, enlightened, reborn.
 
These are my people.  I'm with them no matter what.  As long as the Bling holds out.

Kurt Barnet

Good morning from the Profits and Participations Department!  What a whirlwind few days it's been for me. 

As many of you know, I accompanied our Chairman Khan Manka Jr. and his team to Comic-Con this weekend, my task was to reign in the expenses, per Mr. Manka. 

Last year, several junior execs went a little nuts and purchased thousands of dollars worth of "Battlefield Earth" memorabilia using their Manka Bros. Corporate AMEX cards. 

We were unable to recoup those losses on ebay, as the Church of Scientology threatened to sue us if we resold the items. 

Gone also were the lavish MC Comics soirees, the Sniper Ken suite and the free Captain Stoppo Jager shots offered "every hour on the hour". 

With no fun to be had, the Manka Bros. gang fled San Diego on Saturday night, but I stuck around, fulfilling my dream of dressing up as Skeletor and walking around the convention floor.
 
On Sunday night I received a frantic call from Todd in the Contracts Dept.  It seems Manka Bros. signed Lindsay Lohan a few months back to star in our upcoming remake of Madonna's erotic thriller "Body of Evidence", co-starring the suddenly hot again Ralph Macchio. 

Turns out Mr. Macchio only has a small window of time in his sked to shoot the pic, otherwise we lose him for a year.  So he wondered if I might represent Manka Bros. at the Lynwood lock-up where Lohan is confined and lobby the powers that be for her early release, citing the financial hardship it would cause our studio if she served her full sentence. 

Always ready to lend a helping hand, I happily shed my Skeletor costume and headed north.
 
It is now Wednesday morning and I am blogging from the grounds of the Lynwood jailhouse where there is more otherworldly activity than at Comic-Con.  All manner of papanazzi; young cross-dressers in "Mean Girls" costumes; Parent Von Trap kids; Lohan's father; Corey Feldman and his wife; the clergy. 

It's madness. 

The guy who cried on the internet for us all to leave Britney alone is here, tied to a tree.  He's weeping and screaming.  For some reason the Mets fan who used to hold up signs at Shea Stadium is here, holding up those same signs. 
 
I have let the warden know I'm here and I won't be leaving until I state Manka Bros.' case.  Yes, it's a vigil my friends.  I've spent three nights here already and I'm willing to spend as many as it takes.  My co-worker, the lovely Tomoko, is attempting to get Lohan's judge on the phone.  We're working every angle.
 
Gotta stop blogging for now, laptop battery dying, plus we hear Lindsay has yard time in 5 minutes and we're gonna line up along the fence. 

Great news!  Just got a call from the head of our Seven C's music division.  Irish balladeer Seamus is going to come down later and sing a few protest songs.  The Mean Girls swooned when I told them.  More soon...

Kurt Barnet

Most men don't go to Panorama City to strip.  Not in the choking, trenchant heat of summer.  They occasionally get dragged to the mall there by insistent wives.  They sometimes stop at the Burger King on their way to the cozy, Stepford-like confines of the Santa Clarita valley.  They most definitely don't go there to peddle their smooth-as-fine-sauvignon-blanc ass for suburban women who possess the wit and allure of Arnold Horshack.  A man who came here to rip off his tank top night after night for nickels, dimes and Jeffersons would have to be what the locals might call "desperado."  But last week, that's exactly what this man did.
 

Every third Wednesday, Beefcakes in tres chic P.C. holds an amateur night contest to lure nascent succulent males and their wallet-fat friends to the club.  I decided it was important for my growth as a blogger to experience the seedier side of the entertainment world.  Sign ups were at the ungodly hour of 10 pm.  On my drive there, I hit zero traffic, so I reached the area around 8.  To calm my nerves, I ducked into a Thai restaurant, where I covertly did shots of Jim Beam from a flask, gazing warily at the flashing "Beefcakes" sign across the street.  At 9:45, I mustered the courage to enter the club.  On stage dancing to the thumping bass of "Seasons in the Sun" was a hairless, dark-skinned man sporting a leather thong and a vacant stare, as if someone had made off with his joie de vive in the dressing room.  The clientele was a disjointed melange of dork-retro mamas, lazy-eyed motel maids and toothless social workers, all horking greasy appetizers and champagne cocktails.  The smell was a combination of elementary school paste and the perfume counter at Target. 
 
I signed in with a cashier who I could swear was the "Fabulous" girl from the Orbit commercials, then was unceremoniously ushered into what they call "the beef pit", basically an airless, soul-destroying holding room.  As I plunked my Simon LeBon carrying bag containing my costume onto the green 60s carpet, I could see the other contestants' eyes darting from my face down to the bag, arching their brows, curious as to its contents.  The air was thick with the unease of oiled-up men sharing a confined space.  It was as if we were trapped together on one of those D-day amphibious landing vehicles, headed for the unyielding rifles of the enemy on Omaha Beach.  We knew why we were all there.  It was FUBAR, but we would all go down together.
 

 

After a midget they call Boss Daddy rattled off the contest rules, he gave us the performing order.  I would go on second after Venom, a pliable African-American, who looked like the love child of Flip Wilson and Gumby.  At the end of his act, he lifted one of his legs behind his back and up over his shoulder, sticking his big toe seductively into his mouth, all timed perfectly to the final measures of Paul Davis' "'65 Love Affair".  I quickly slipped into my costume, which consisted of a Star Trek Enterprise uniform shirt, a traditional Scottish kilt, hush puppies and a cowboy hat. 

The gravely voiced DJ introduced me.  "Ladies, let's give a warm Beefcakes welcome to Backend Prophet!"  As the opening strains of Duran Duran's "The Reflex" pulsed, I glided onto the stage, bumping and grinding with unbridled passion.  The women at the tip rail stared slack-jawed.  I worked the pole like it was my third cousin.  After flinging my hat into the crowd, I kicked off my hush puppies, then swiveled my hips seductively, slowly removing the kilt, revealing my twelve year old tighty whiteys.  The tip rail girls recoiled and retreated to the bar.  I was filled with unprecedented exhuberance.  My newfound abandon, however, was somewhat tempered by one wardrobe malfunction:  my Star Trek shirt was so tight, I couldn't fully remove it.  It ended up coiled around one arm and my neck.  To cover, I improvised a dramatic pose at the end of the song, one arm twisted and jutting out like I was in the Special Olympics of Stripping. 

Everything was a blur after that.  I only got $6 in tips and I think vegetables were thrown at me.  A dude from Arleta named Boner Simpson, who padded the joint with his au courant spin class cronies, ended up taking first prize, much to the chagrin of Venom.  He was pissed, but I was elated.  I wandered out the front door, encountering six young ladies who I thought at first were fans but came to discover were 15 year olds with a pregnancy pact looking for some sperm.  I referred them to the homeless men in the alley, then ambled dreamily to my '96 Taurus.  I had been bitten by the ladybug known as stripping, and I knew at that moment I would always be her bitch.  Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. 
 
And Freedom, thy name is Beefcakes. 
 
I'm there Mondays and Wednesdays.  No cover, but if you want a lap dance, you'll have to buy me a $9 soda.

Kurt Barnet

Greetings from the Profits and Participations Department!  First off, let me take this opportunity to apologize for heating up my leftover tuna casserole in the microwave oven here on our floor.  I've been informed that's a workplace olfactory no no.  Also, mea culpa to Tomoko:  The booby brush in the elevator this morning was purely accidental.  And FYI - the phones have been repaired and are up and running again.  The technician informed me that the residual high-pitched noise you hear now is extremely unlikely to cause brain damage but may increase the amount of howling from neighborhood dogs.
 
The senior VPs asked me to use this week's blog to inform everyone about our aggressive plan to market Manka Bros. product to audiences via cutting edge technology.  To that end, Chairman & CEO Khan Manka Jr. has promoted Doug Lehan from Digital Animation Lead Illustrator to Chief Technology Officer, effective immediately. 

I spoke with Doug on the phone a short time ago, and here's what he had to say:  "I'm very excited about taking over this post.  The best part is I won't have to spend all day in a motion capture suit.  I have so many ideas about new media platforms and how best to provide the tech-savvy consumer with quality Manka Bros. movies and TV shows.  I plan to work hand-in-hand with the marketing department to achieve this."
 
Lloyd Grohl announced this morning that head of Marketing Craig Sorenson has been replaced with Kevin Griffin from the hot rock band Better Than Ezra, in an effort to reach out to the youth of today. 

In addition, fourteen marketing department employees have been let go, including the radiant and sexy Tania Chimello, who often sat at the table next to mine in the commissary.  I'll never forget the extra glow she had on Tostada Tuesdays.  She was always very excited about Tostada Tuesdays.  She'd make my heart skip a beat every time she'd say to me, "Could you please move a few tables over?" 

This business is brutal on human relationships.  Just when you give your heart to a fellow employee, they are taken away from you, all too soon.  It never gets any easier.
 
I was curious if Doug had a game plan in mind yet:  "Are you kidding?  My cranium spilleth over", he said.  "I'm like a kid in a candy store.  There is so much new laser technology the average person doesn't know about yet.  I mean, we're talking space age stuff.  I'm hoping to promote our new movie "Flaccid Trip" with free screenings at skateparks.  We're gonna project it onto concrete walls from overhead drone projectors that will fly in and hover over the parks.  Hundreds of eager teenagers will be looking to the skies, eagerly anticipating the arrival of our Manka Drones.  We also plan to have an iPhone app that will allow audience members in movie theatres to press a button and release the movie they're watching directly onto DVD - themselves!  So they can watch it again when they get home!  No other studio is doing this kind of thing."
 
How do you sort out artist compensation for all of these myriad platforms? 
 
"Screw the artists!  Just kidding," he remarked.  "Fortunately, the contract artists sign covers existing and not-yet-existing technology.  I'm inventing stuff as we speak.  Refrigerator holograms, rearview mirror projection, exhibition on a special line of 3D Manka sunglasses.  Everywhere the public turns, we'll be there.  We snapped up the domain name BigTitsAndAsses.com, on which we will broadcast exclusive web-only episodes of our TV shows.  Who wouldn't go to that website?  Come for the big tits and asses, stay for outtakes from 'Murder, Moses Lake.'"
 
Well, my mom won't be able to figure out all these new gadgets, but who gives a crap about my mom?  She's not our target demographic.  It's very clear that the world of entertainment will never be the same.  Nor will Tostada Tuesdays...

Reel Suite with Kurt Barnet