“Reggie Warren”
t 1 P.M. the press was circled around my boys
flashing their digital cameras, pulsating their red TV camera into
our lives; but, I’m proud to report, my compatriots didn’t say one
word. Our lawyer, Felicia Allfred, told us to “keep your damned
traps shut, or you’ll end up back in court,” so we obeyed.
However, Mick, Radar and Dante couldn’t resist clowning it up for
the cameras. Dante asked one hot chick for her phone number—about
five times—Mick did his Beavus laugh, and Radar collected business
cards from the media in case they wanted to cover our next
filming.
The judge, Superior Court Judge Walter McBride, had sentenced
them to three years probation and ordered them to perform 300
hours of community service working for an organization that
assists the homeless. If they violated their misdemeanor
probation, they could be ordered to serve a four-month jail
sentence. Big deal. We’re going to do a sequel: Big Game Tramp
Hunt, Vol. II, in which we’ll show our daring
capture of wild tramps, similar to the old TV show, Wild
Kingdom. We won’t use real bums. We’ll use actors. Also,
we’ve changed our web site. Now we solicit videos from the public.
They send us their homemade fights, and we get them to sign a
release and edit them together with some funky metal head music.
Allfred says it’s all perfectly legal and within our parole
stipulation. Shakespeare was right. Life is a stage.
I, on the other hand, as the brains behind this outfit, was
sentenced two weeks earlier—with the same punishment—but I was
given an additional instruction “not to associate with the other
three men.” This smart-assed judge believed I had some kind of
power over my homies. Quite astute of him. But he wasn’t going to
stop our business relationship. Free Enterprise and Free Speech.
Isn’t that what America is about? My lawyer has told me as long as
I write the plans and screenplay, I don’t have to associate with
them. They’ll just carry out my instructions. Hell, that’s what
they’ve always done!
We have sold over 300,000 copies of our video, Tramp
Fights, from our Internet site, and our sales at independent
video stores have been out of sight. We have enough money to go to
court against anybody who wants to fight us. Even these two
bums—Travis and McGrady—who are suing us because we violated their
civil rights. Their money-grubbing Jew lawyers have even put words
into McGrady’s mouth. He’s the one who had the tattoo from the
film put on his forehead that said “Tramp Fights,” and he looked
ridiculous in front of the TV camera, in his suit and his little
pussy tie, saying, “I feel like an object of degradation and
loathing. I feel like an aberration.” Where the hell did
that come from? McGrady never got out of eighth grade in
Bridgeport, Connecticut. He slugged a nun, who had put him inside
the cloak closet, and he never returned to school again. What a
phony bastard! Our lawyer will tear him apart on the stand.
“Phil Weinstein”
Billy Travis and Tim McGrady are suing Dacrack Productions for
two million dollars in damages to their characters and persons and
for libel to their good names. The following press release was
placed on our web site:
TRAMPFIGHTS.COM FILM MAKERS SUED IN CIVIL COURT BY HOMELESS
PLAINTIFFS WILLIAM H. TRAVIS AND TIMOTHY MCGRADY WHO SEEK DAMAGES
FOR EGREGIOUS ACTS ALLEGEDLY DONE AT THEIR PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL
EXPENSE
San Diego, CA (November 8, 2002) – William Travis aka “Billy
the Weasel” and Timothy “Tug” McGrady filed a civil suit today in
San Diego Superior Court against Michael Rollins, Ronald Dillan,
Dante Fitzmorris, Reginald Warren and Dacrack Productions, the
parties behind www.trampfights.com and the production and
promotion of Tramp Fights, Volume One: The Bum’s Rush, as
well as Designers Tattoo & Body Piercing of San Diego.
Plaintiffs seek damages, including punitive damages, for egregious
acts allegedly done at their physical and emotional expense, for
example: tattooing the word “Trampfights” in bold letters across
their forehead and other body parts, burning their hair, and
running into stone walls, crates and other inanimate objects. Mr.
Travis and Mr. McGrady are represented by Phillip Weinstein and
Saul Braun with the San Diego, CA. law firm of Weinstein, Braun
and Halliard LLP. The Hon. Daniel Weston will preside over the
matter, William Travis vs. Michael Rollins, et. al., Case
No. HID322516.
Plaintiffs are both homeless, residing in the County of San
Diego. William Travis, age 47, served in the US Army and Timothy
McGrady, age 53, served in the US Army and is a Vietnam War
veteran.
The complaint alleges that Defendants Rollins, Dillan,
Fitzmorris and Warren coerced Plaintiffs without their consent via
the lures of money, alcohol and other enticements to perform
inhumane, deplorable acts which were filmed, and then sold as a
videotape under the title of Tramp Fights, Volume One: The
Bum’s Rush, on the Internet at www.trampfights.com. Their
images were used without their consent to advertise and promote
both the website and videotape sales, in further violation of
their civil rights. Designers Tattoo & Body Piercing allegedly
breached their duty to Plantiffs when they performed tattoo
services knowing that the men were intoxicated and unable to
provide consent. Plaintiffs have suffered and continue to suffer
great physical harm, mental anguish, embarrassment and
humiliation.
“Deplorable. Exploitive. Criminal. Words cannot fully express
the inhumanity behind the making of the Tramp Fights
videotape,” said Phil Weinstein. “The Defendants coerced fragile,
vulnerable human beings into despicable performances without any
regard for their rights or safety. This lawsuit has been filed on
behalf of William Travis and Timothy McGrady to send a clear
message that such egregious behavior, which assaults not only the
mind, but the spirit, will not be tolerated.”
“Our clients were intimidated and forced into extreme
behaviors,” stated Saul Braun, “to their physical and mental
detriment by the Defendants. What was done to them was
unconscionable, and we see this lawsuit as sending a strong
message to discourage this type of conduct in the future. Our firm
is proud to stand behind these who served our country and to see
to it that they have their day in court.”
Press Contact: Sybil Delaney, Director of Marketing/Media
Relations; Dial: 619.555-8743; email: mailto:editor@outsiderink.com
aul seems to think we don’t stand much of a
chance on this case, but I think we can win it, if we can get a
few key witnesses to show up. Bonnie Valdez, the “super model,”
who appears in some soft porn scenes in the video, told me she
would testify for Travis and McGrady. However, she may be a drug
addict, as the filmmakers were exploiting the hell out of all the
participants in their film. This may come back to bite us in the
ass if their lawyer, Felecia “the piranha” Allfred, uses it to
cross-examine her. The real clincher witness is Reggie Warren’s
mother, Faith Warren, who lives in Las Vegas. She is ready to tell
the story of her son’s father, Dylan, a full-blown alkie, who beat
the kid often and eventually left the family, which, in her
opinion, “turned young Warren against alcoholics forever.”
What we really need are witnesses who can testify they saw
these guys giving people drugs and alcohol before they signed
anything. Nobody so far can testify. I think we’ll have to go with
the physical abuse in the film. They got McGrady to run into
concrete walls and metal signs, for Christsake! He should have
brain damage. I’m going to talk to him and get him to go to our
doctor. If we can’t get some medical testimony out of this, then
we don’t stand a chance. I know this judge, and he’s a big First
Amendment freak. Allfred is going to exploit that with the
“reality” phenomenon on TV. I just know it. I hope we can get a
sympathetic jury. Saul seems to think sympathy these days is about
as easy to get as S.A.R.S. People have it, but they don’t want to
admit it in public. Nobody wants to appear weak these days.
“Tim McGrady”
What can I say? I’m a drunk, a freakin’ alcoholic, and a
goddamn homeless Vietnam vet. You can see us downtown, past Market
Street, and, like, we cruise around Balboa Park; past the big
statue of El Cid; past the Catholic church downtown, where I say a
prayer for my dear departed wife, Marie; past the Landing Zone,
the safe house for us vets; past the Naval Hospital, where we wait
for the one week in the year when they hold the Veterans’ Stand
Down. That’s when they set-up these here tents and give us all
medical care and a place to sleep inside. The City of San Diego
won’t never give us no place permanent, so we just cruise the
streets with shopping carts, with backpacks, living under bushes,
crouching behind doorways, any place we can bivouac to stay dry
and toke on a little bit of grape, hooch or weed. Bottle of
wine, fruit of the vine, when you gonna let me get sober? Let me
alone. Let me go home. Let me go back and start over. Ramblin'
around this dirty old town, singing for nickels and dimes. Times
gettin' rough, I ain't got enough, to buy me a bottle of
wine. Remember that song? Tom Paxton. He was one of us.
The day I meet these kid producers, Weasel and me is picking up
aluminum to raise enough for a pony of Tawny Port. We is buzzing
pretty good, anyways, so when these guys gets out of their van—one
of these damn deathtrap SUVs—we don’t think much of it. College
kids is all the time coming up and quizzing us for their damn
writing assignments, or their sociology courses. You know, they
always wants to ask us questions about how we got so low down in
life.
But, this Warren character comes right up to me and says, “Good
afternoon, gentlemen. We’re film school graduates. These are my
associates, Dante Fitzmorris, Michael Rollins and Ronald Dillan.
My name is Reggie Warren. We want to make a film about your lives.
Have you guys ever heard of reality TV?” he says, with this
college-boy gleam in his eye that I should have seen through right
off.
“Reality? Yeah, I guess we know all about reality. But it ain’t
what people want to see on TV,” I says, and I turn to Weasel and
give him a big grin and wink.
“That’s just it! We want the world to see what you guys have to
go through every day, just to get by. Why, you live in a jungle
out here! Look at it! It’s survival of the fittest.”
His voice is sounding weird at this point, especially since we
can hear the animals over at the zoo. Tall, thin, blond-headed, he
looks like some preppy kid from Malibu Beach, but he sounds like
Alfred Hitchcock.
“We want to make a reality movie starring you and your sidekick
here. I’ll bet you guys are vets, am I right?”
We nod.
“I thought so. Guess what, soldiers? We want to let you fight
again! We want to call it the Tramp Fights. Our movie will show
those assholes out there how you people must fight for your
survival! You’ll be the hit of the season. Your faces will be seen
by millions of Americans, and we can finally show them how tough
you have it out here in the jungles of the homeless. The Homeland
Homeless fighting for their dinner. You want a steak dinner,
boys?”
We looks at each other. “Sounds good to me,” I say, as we had
not eaten in a day-and-a-half.
“Let us tape you two going a few rounds out here. Get the
camera, Dante.”
“What the hell? You mean, you want us to fight each other?”
asks Weasel, coming alive for the first time all morning.
“You got it! This will be our first tramp fight. We’re going to
have a lot more to come. We’ll have competitions. You’ll do
stunts. You can do stunts, can’t you, boys? You look like real
Hollywood stunt men. We’ll have women dancing naked. And booze!
Radar, bring out the Bud!”
The short and fat guy then pulls out a case of Budweiser from
the back of the SUV and plops it on the grass in front of us. “Pop
a brewski, men!” he says, and he hands a tall boy to each of
us.
Need I say that our fate is sealed with the first whoosh of
foam from that beer? With that case of brew within reach, we
became fighters. I am, at first, going to pull most of my punches
with Weasel, until this Warren begins taunting us. He starts to
scream, “No! You’re not fighting! You pussies! Show America how
you have to really fight out here in the jungle! Hit him
hard, asshole!”
That’s when I hits Weasel hard, with my fist, and he goes down
hard, breaking an ankle, as he slips in the wet grass. He’s a
fucking college boy, too. I have about eight beers in me by then,
and I am feeling no pain. I am into my “Vietnam Vet mode,” PTSS,
and crazy as a muthahumpa. “Look at this shit!” I say, and I
points to my pal’s swelling ankle. “That’s just a broken ankle.
Hell, boy, can’t you take any pain?” With that, I takes a flying
run at the broadside of their freakin’ SUV and hits it, full on,
with my head. I bounces back off of the fender like a bull that
just hit him his first iron matador. Then, I spots me the axe they
have inside the van. I stumble over, pick it up, and march over to
Weasel, who’s moaning on his ass in the grass. “Let me show you
how we take care of little anklie wanklies in the jungle!” I
scream, and the camera keeps rolling.
“That’s great, dude! You’re over the top! Did you get it,
Dante? We’ve got ourselves a winner here, boys! Tramp Fights will
get us into Hollywood in no time!” Warren yells, and I just sits
down in the grass and grins, thinking of that big, T-bone steak to
come.
“Felecia Allfred”
A Defense lawyer’s job is to defend the client. Sometimes,
people ask me if I am influenced by the morality of the clients I
represent. No, an advocate must never think in terms of absolutes.
The law is not absolute. It is flexible and never immutable.
Therefore, when those young producers’ parents came into my office
after their sons had been arrested for felonies committed in San
Diego, I did not hesitate. I went to work. Those young men are now
off on a misdemeanor charge, and I have given them advice to
continue their business. I will also represent them in their civil
case, and I have a wonderful line of reasoning to defend their
interests. They paid for the services of these homeless men and
women, didn’t they? They also got them to sign releases for the
use of their images on film. So, the issues are the fighting and
bodily injury. And, what about the issue of the incapacity of the
plaintiffs to determine right from wrong when they signed the
releases? Simple. These two homeless men were constantly
inebriated. Therefore, their normal state of consciousness was one
of incapacity. It’s similar to the recent Supreme Court ruling
that said “the person to be executed can be forced to take
anti-psychotic medication so that he or she can be in his or
her right mind when he or she is being put on trial.” The
court says, also, that the killer’s “normal state” was his or her
insanity, when he/she killed the victim. Well, these two
plaintiffs—Travis and McGrady—were also normally drunk on a daily
basis. Therefore, how could they be incapacitated?
And what about the fighting? Boxing is a professional sport,
isn’t it? Well, TV recently sponsored Celebrity Boxing, and the
first show had aging celebrities fighting it out: CARD
1: Danny Bonaduce ("Danny Partridge") versus Barry
Williams ("Greg Brady"), CARD 2: Robert Van
Winkle (Vanilla Ice) versus Todd Bridges (Willis on "Diff'rent
Strokes"), and CARD 3: Tonya Harding versus Paula
Jones. All of these people signed releases, and all of these
people put their lives in danger. How is this any different from
what my clients had these plaintiffs do? These were two aging
veterans, one 47, the other 57. They were trying to do something
to gain fame. My clients put them in the public eye, didn’t they?
They, in effect, ipso facto, became celebrities.
My clients are merely young, plucky entrepreneurs, and they
will use their money to invest in an independent feature film they
wish to make about the “apolitically correct” world of America,
where bums do battle it out in the streets, and
courageous women lawyers do represent the persecuted, and
these young filmmakers are simply attempting to expose the
inconsistencies of our system. Besides, they tell me their giant
feature film will be bigger than Jackass: The Movie, and
I can have a part in it!
“Sidney Appelbaum”
I read about the case in the papers. Actors in their production
were harassing these young filmmakers, recent graduates of the
U.C.L.A. and U.S.C. film schools. I must admit, as a Hollywood
producer, there have been many times I have wanted to bring my
talent to court! Some of these multi-million dollar liberal folks
can put a production into hot water just by what they say in front
of the media. They have no concept of what it means to make money
these days and to keep out of the government’s business. We must
answer to a higher power than the peace politics of the liberal
left! We must answer to the vox populae!
However, these four young men seemed like they were likely
candidates for The First Apple Productions, so I had my people
ring them up in San Diego, and we arranged a power lunch meeting
at The Grill on the Alley in the Hills. I opened up the meeting
with the facts: Jackass: the Movie has made over 70 mil
on a very low budget. The Osbournes have created a cult
following worth more than just the TV show in residuals and
merchandising. So, what I proposed to the lads was to produce a
feature that combined the best of both worlds. Why not At Home
with the Homeless? It was their chance to show how America’s
homeless really live. It wouldn’t be any of that liberal crap
about the dispossessed who are downtrodden, forgotten heroes,
exploited by Capitalist greed. We show them for what they are:
degenerates, addicts and criminals, ready to do anything for a few
bucks, and ready to rob their own grandmother if they could get
another drink!
They loved it! They said they had been thinking about the same
kind of film, but they didn’t have the money and power to get it
done. I explained that we had to take some legal measures to
protect the big money interests, and we had to show the commitment
to the big money, so we could get the full backing for the big
merchandising push after the film is finally under production. To
do this, I told them, they would have to play the roles of the
bums, themselves. This would keep the lawyers off our backs, and,
we could also do wonders with make-up these days, especially with
a big budget!
That’s when I began to brainstorm ideas with them. The kids
were spectacular, as I knew they would be! I kept the drinks
coming, and I knew they were impressed with the waiters in their
white coats and with the whole Hollywood schmooz of big
money.
“We need to counteract the liberal establishment, my boys,” I
told them, and that’s when this leader of the group, Reginald
Warren, chimed in, “We can have a kind of homeless Fight
Club going down. We can be the heroes who fight all comers:
college frat boys, local gang bangers, international gangs, you
name it! We should get Jackie Chan to direct! That’s it,
dudes! Homeless Fighters from Hell!”
I told him he was really onto something, and he was. The money
merchandising possibilities were there too. “However, we need some
up-front capital to show these big guys we mean business,” I
said.
“Money? From us?” he asked, a bit of truculence in his
voice.
“It takes money to make money in this production, boys,” I told
them. “I’m putting up fifty mil, and we need at least six from you
to show them we mean business,” I pointed out. “They will then
give us the big bundle, so we can make your feature and our
fortune.”
“I understand, Mister Applebaum,” said Warren, with his eyes
actually misting up with real tears. “This is what we’ve been
waiting for. We knew we had to have some up-front money to make a
feature, and that’s why we shot Tramp Fights. Now we have
it, and I am proud to give it to you for our production!”
With that, we arranged to have his bank transfer the money to
my account in the morning, and we could begin shooting the script
next week.
“Tim McGrady”
We lost our civil case to those young filmmakers. Our lawyers
turned out to be crooks, if you want to know the truth. One of
them, Mister Weinstein, tells me I had to say on the stand that I
got brain damage from doing the stunts in the movie. To hell with
him! I refuse to lie on the stand, with Old Glory flying right
there and all. Long story short, we lost the case.
As my Daddy used to say, “Sometimes you need to lose the battle
to win the war,” and he was at the Battle of the Bulge, in the big
one. I guess what we did next would have made Daddy proud, not to
mention my Marie. She would sure be bustin’ her drawers with pride
right now. See, losing that case sobered us up. Turns out, when
you sober up, you can uncover the real identity of folks you never
knew was there.
Take my pal, Weasel, for instance. Turns out, he sobers up, and
he tells me he used to be an actor! “No shit, Red Rider,” I says,
“you?”
“That’s correct,” says Travis, a sparkle in his eye that looked
like some hero in a western flick. “I played in a lot of horror
films as vampires, ghouls and all kinds of monsters. I was one of
the most featured actors in the horror genre they had. I played in
all the Halloween features. Guess who I was?” Damn, if
the boy doesn’t pull out a white mask and put it in front of his
face. “Michael Myers!” I shouts.
Seems Billy hit the skids from playing too much horror. The
genre spent itself out in the nineties, and he got too close to
his booze. The money runs out, eventually, when you spend it all
on women, fast cars and all the other material crap America says
we live for, and that’s when Billy Travis becomes a real monster.
That’s when he becomes the Weasel of Balboa Park.
Staying sober got us thinking. It’s really dangerous for two
alkies to start thinking hard, you know, like it must mess with
the world’s axis or something. Our plan came out to stare us right
in the face.
“Billy ‘The Weasel’ Travis”
I suppose being able to act never really leaves you. It’s a
very ingrained talent, once you learn how. When Tug McGrady and I
first hooked up, I used to do a lot of routines on him, and he
just thought I was another whacked-out vet. Like the time I came
through the bushes at him in my vampire outfit that I picked up at
a costume store. I didn’t scare that bastard one bit! He says, “I
suppose now you’re gonna want to suck my blood instead of this
here hooch.” I could never scare him. We did a lot of crazy stuff
together. Like the time we decided we wanted to become astronauts,
and we got all screwed-up on wine and went over to the Laundromat
on Sixth Avenue. We decided to see if we could withstand the
centrifugal force test, so we hopped inside one of the big dryers
and started spinning around in it—drunk as hell—seeing if we could
become astronauts. Of course, they called the fuzz on us, and we
left before they came.
That day, after we lost the case with those kid producers, we
stayed sober. And, four days later, we were still sober. About
that time, Tug says to me, “I think I have us a plan. Let’s go
talk to our new lawyers.”
We walked on over to their law offices on Main, and we sat down
in Bernstein’s office. McGrady says, “I gotta plan to get revenge
on these punks.”
Bernstein looks interested, and I am sure as hell paying
attention now.
“We are gonna con those assholes out of their money,” he said,
and that’s how our plan began.
I was to play the biggest role of my life, up to that point,
and it was not a horror part. I was going to become a Hollywood
producer! Bernstein almost broke his leather swivel chair, he was
laughing so hard. He’d never heard of my acting career, and he
loved McGrady’s plan to get back the money. He gave us the legal
advice we needed to make certain the bank transaction was carried
off, and he also gave us the front money to fool these idiots into
believing they were being bankrolled by a big production
company.
Our plan was to get these guys to act in our production and to
have them do things on film that could be later used in court to
prove how they broke their probation orders. And, boy, did we get
proof! We took pictures of them soliciting prostitutes, buying
crack for addicts, and even paying a 450 pound homeless woman to
fight a skinny homeless guy named Leonard. They filmed it, but
they never got this Leonard’s permission to use him in the film.
We got our own film of them asking Leonard to sign the release,
but he refuses. But, they still put the scene in their film!
That’s just what these punks did in our little movie, but nobody
got them on film doing it. Now we had all the evidence we needed
to show the court and to prove these guys were a bunch of
crooks.
When we took the tape to court, Judge McBride was very happy to
see us. Felecia Allfred tried to claim entrapment, but we weren’t
law officers, so the judge shut her down fast. “Besides,” the
judge asked her, “weren’t you playing a part in this film?”
We were allowed to keep an easy million out of this case, and
Tug and I are straight and sober these days. It’s like what we say
at the A. A. meetings, “We’re still sober and crazy!” We’ve even
been into acting again. Ozzy Osbourne invited us to do a bit part
on his show. His kids are all down with the horror bit, and
McGrady is still a kind of a cult hero from the Tramp
Fights, which was allowed to stay in circulation, on
stipulation that the four producers never make another film with
the homeless. I played Michael Myers on Ozzy’s show, and my
partner even ran headfirst into the Osbourne’s living room bar,
and so did Ozzy! But they were both stone sober. Tug turns around
to the TV camera and says, “Marie, this one’s for you!” You gotta
love him!
[END]
© 2004 Jim Musgrave - Contributor's
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