miss maggie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bossymarmalade) wrote2004-02-05 02:26 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote2004-02-05 02:26 pm
Entry tags:
the greatest band since music's birth
Still catching up with the infinite pain ficlets.
"You realize," Giardello began. Munch coughed delicately into his bell-sleeves and Giardello glared in his direction, met with a look that approximated a doe caught in the cross-hairs.
"You realize," he began again, lowering his brows and sweeping his glare across all four of them, "that we need to really push your market presence right now."
"Right," Pembleton said. "But without selling out."
Bayliss rolled his eyes. "Frank," he said, blinking rapidly. His long ironed hair continually caught in his eyelashes and he'd developed a habit of fluttering them at a rate that would make Fay Wray toss herself out of a window in despair. Bayliss, unfortunately, thought it was pretty cute, and the fans seemed to agree, so Giardello let it go. "Frank. You thought that doing the commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken was a sellout."
"It WAS a sellout!"
Giardello ran a weary hand over his face and sat down. This was going to take a while. He decided to go through the catalogue of their prospective Winterland merchandise while his little pop group hashed out their difficulties and turned with anticipation to the page with the bath towels.
Pembleton was now in full rant mode. "-- don't see what goddamn CHICKEN has to do with our MUSIC! We don't SING about coleslaw and -- and biscuits, why the hell would we be doing a commercial for them? And did you notice who they asked to hold the chicken bucket? Me! ME!! We want Middle America to buy our damn album, we have to feed them the stereotype of the BLACK MAN eating FRIED CHICKEN first!!"
"Take it easy there, Frank." Howard pushed herself up from the chair in Giardello's office, grimacing as her vinyl pants peeled off the naugahyde with a loud hot skreek. "At least you just had to *hold* the chicken. Me and Munch both ate at least a bucketfull'a wings each, huh?"
"A whole coop's worth." Munch smoothed his long collars in a sanguine manner and gave Pembleton a look over the tops of his shades. "I would've much rather held the bucket. I have my girlish figure to think about."
"Well, I'll tell you what, John, your ship has come in, because next time *you* can hold the bucket of chicken or the bag of hamburgers or the box of cereal. Because *I* am never doing that again."
Giardello happily flipped through pages and pages of light-up necklaces, each emblazoned with the group's likeness in varying degrees of accuracy.
"Kentucky Fried Chicken," Bayliss said in a pained voice, plucking at the sleeve of his shiny shirt. "That's all it was, Frank. Just...chicken."
"I had a pet chicken once," Howard mused sadly, to herself. Her pants squeaked in sympathy.
"Kitchen Fresh Chicken," Munch piped up. Bayliss looked at him, eyelashes blurring.
"What?"
"Kitchen Fresh Chicken. That's what they're calling themselves now."
"She was such a pretty chicken." Howard smoothed back her carefully conditioned ringlets. "Used to follow me around when I was doing chores in the mornings...."
Munch cleared his throat. "Yeah, see -- there was this big shebang about how Kentucky was using these super-mutated chickens, these agrarian behemoths, with multiple breasts and dozens of thighs --"
"Well, that doesn't sound too bad," Bayliss murmured coyly. Giardello gently stroked a glossy page of trading cards festooned with the group's badly doctored baby photos.
"-- doesn't sound too bad, yeah, right. Until all those chemicals give you cancer, they're not too bad."
"...she had this one little cluck, that she used to do -- two fast ones, and then a long kind of 'bawwwwwwwk'...."
"And so yeah, these chickens, well technically they're not chickens anymore, right? They've gone so far beyond God's original blueprint for the common fowl that the FDA, they tell good ol' Colonel Sanders, you can't call it chicken anymore. what you're frying up there in your saturated fats has evolved beyond chicken."
"...we ended up eating her one Columbus Day weekend." Kay sniffled, dabbing carefully at her glitter eyemakeup. "She sure made a delicious pot pie, I'll tell ya."
"I don't think I wanna hear this anymore," Bayliss pleaded, looking sick. Munch shook his head, direly.
"-- so instead they decide to hide it behind vagueness and call it 'KFC', and once they got around that little hurdle, that little mishap of terminology, they decided that people would get turned off by the word 'fried' in their company moniker. Like, as if people buying the stuff would suddenly look at the packaging and go, 'whoa! This mutated multi-limbed chicken's FRIED? I can't eat this!!' It's brilliant marketing, Tim."
"No," Giardello said, and lifted up his catalogue. "THIS is brilliant marketing."
The four pop stars gathered around and bent over to peer at the catalogue for a few minutes; then Pembleton popped his head up, looking startled.
"Rice pudding," he said. Giardello nodded in absolute pleasure.
"I like rice pudding," Tim piped up.
"Me too," Munch seconded.
Kay crowed in delight. "Hey, mine has cinnamon in it!"
The three of them looked over at Pembleton, who seemed to be torn. "Does mine..." he said, "...does mine have...raisins in it?"
A quick scan of the merchandise catalogue, and then Howard grinned and tapped the mockup picture of a tub of rice puddling with Frank's radiant face on it in triumph. "Nope. Tim's has raisins; yours is original."
"Original." A smile spread across Frank's face. "Orrrrrrriginal. Some might say...*classic*."
Bayliss giggled in relief and Giardello beamed benevolently around at them all. A few more meetings like this one, where they neatly came to a self-administered group consensus, and they'd be well on their way to international pop stardom.
"Now," he said smoothly, "about those photoshoots. I was thinking of this fantastic layout where we spray-paint you all silver...."
====
okay. I had WAY too much fun writing that. I feel all wrong and twisted.
"You realize," Giardello began. Munch coughed delicately into his bell-sleeves and Giardello glared in his direction, met with a look that approximated a doe caught in the cross-hairs.
"You realize," he began again, lowering his brows and sweeping his glare across all four of them, "that we need to really push your market presence right now."
"Right," Pembleton said. "But without selling out."
Bayliss rolled his eyes. "Frank," he said, blinking rapidly. His long ironed hair continually caught in his eyelashes and he'd developed a habit of fluttering them at a rate that would make Fay Wray toss herself out of a window in despair. Bayliss, unfortunately, thought it was pretty cute, and the fans seemed to agree, so Giardello let it go. "Frank. You thought that doing the commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken was a sellout."
"It WAS a sellout!"
Giardello ran a weary hand over his face and sat down. This was going to take a while. He decided to go through the catalogue of their prospective Winterland merchandise while his little pop group hashed out their difficulties and turned with anticipation to the page with the bath towels.
Pembleton was now in full rant mode. "-- don't see what goddamn CHICKEN has to do with our MUSIC! We don't SING about coleslaw and -- and biscuits, why the hell would we be doing a commercial for them? And did you notice who they asked to hold the chicken bucket? Me! ME!! We want Middle America to buy our damn album, we have to feed them the stereotype of the BLACK MAN eating FRIED CHICKEN first!!"
"Take it easy there, Frank." Howard pushed herself up from the chair in Giardello's office, grimacing as her vinyl pants peeled off the naugahyde with a loud hot skreek. "At least you just had to *hold* the chicken. Me and Munch both ate at least a bucketfull'a wings each, huh?"
"A whole coop's worth." Munch smoothed his long collars in a sanguine manner and gave Pembleton a look over the tops of his shades. "I would've much rather held the bucket. I have my girlish figure to think about."
"Well, I'll tell you what, John, your ship has come in, because next time *you* can hold the bucket of chicken or the bag of hamburgers or the box of cereal. Because *I* am never doing that again."
Giardello happily flipped through pages and pages of light-up necklaces, each emblazoned with the group's likeness in varying degrees of accuracy.
"Kentucky Fried Chicken," Bayliss said in a pained voice, plucking at the sleeve of his shiny shirt. "That's all it was, Frank. Just...chicken."
"I had a pet chicken once," Howard mused sadly, to herself. Her pants squeaked in sympathy.
"Kitchen Fresh Chicken," Munch piped up. Bayliss looked at him, eyelashes blurring.
"What?"
"Kitchen Fresh Chicken. That's what they're calling themselves now."
"She was such a pretty chicken." Howard smoothed back her carefully conditioned ringlets. "Used to follow me around when I was doing chores in the mornings...."
Munch cleared his throat. "Yeah, see -- there was this big shebang about how Kentucky was using these super-mutated chickens, these agrarian behemoths, with multiple breasts and dozens of thighs --"
"Well, that doesn't sound too bad," Bayliss murmured coyly. Giardello gently stroked a glossy page of trading cards festooned with the group's badly doctored baby photos.
"-- doesn't sound too bad, yeah, right. Until all those chemicals give you cancer, they're not too bad."
"...she had this one little cluck, that she used to do -- two fast ones, and then a long kind of 'bawwwwwwwk'...."
"And so yeah, these chickens, well technically they're not chickens anymore, right? They've gone so far beyond God's original blueprint for the common fowl that the FDA, they tell good ol' Colonel Sanders, you can't call it chicken anymore. what you're frying up there in your saturated fats has evolved beyond chicken."
"...we ended up eating her one Columbus Day weekend." Kay sniffled, dabbing carefully at her glitter eyemakeup. "She sure made a delicious pot pie, I'll tell ya."
"I don't think I wanna hear this anymore," Bayliss pleaded, looking sick. Munch shook his head, direly.
"-- so instead they decide to hide it behind vagueness and call it 'KFC', and once they got around that little hurdle, that little mishap of terminology, they decided that people would get turned off by the word 'fried' in their company moniker. Like, as if people buying the stuff would suddenly look at the packaging and go, 'whoa! This mutated multi-limbed chicken's FRIED? I can't eat this!!' It's brilliant marketing, Tim."
"No," Giardello said, and lifted up his catalogue. "THIS is brilliant marketing."
The four pop stars gathered around and bent over to peer at the catalogue for a few minutes; then Pembleton popped his head up, looking startled.
"Rice pudding," he said. Giardello nodded in absolute pleasure.
"I like rice pudding," Tim piped up.
"Me too," Munch seconded.
Kay crowed in delight. "Hey, mine has cinnamon in it!"
The three of them looked over at Pembleton, who seemed to be torn. "Does mine..." he said, "...does mine have...raisins in it?"
A quick scan of the merchandise catalogue, and then Howard grinned and tapped the mockup picture of a tub of rice puddling with Frank's radiant face on it in triumph. "Nope. Tim's has raisins; yours is original."
"Original." A smile spread across Frank's face. "Orrrrrrriginal. Some might say...*classic*."
Bayliss giggled in relief and Giardello beamed benevolently around at them all. A few more meetings like this one, where they neatly came to a self-administered group consensus, and they'd be well on their way to international pop stardom.
"Now," he said smoothly, "about those photoshoots. I was thinking of this fantastic layout where we spray-paint you all silver...."
====
okay. I had WAY too much fun writing that. I feel all wrong and twisted.
no subject
Re:
Re:
Re:
Re:
Re:
I think I'll probably devote a good part of my weekend towards feedbacking. I'm feeling the yen for it again!
(also, I was wicked and recced your last OC story on my recs page without feedbacking you for it. bad me!)
Re:
I hope there's more Sandy/Kirsten being posted today. That rocks!
no subject
Oh, I unashamedly adore it! Bayliss and the eyelashes, and Frank won't sell out! Hee! And the cross-cut chicken conversation is hysterical. I'm going to watch some season 3 tonight, I think.
Re:
I'm glad you were entertained by it, duckie! *mwah*
no subject
We don't SING about coleslaw and -- and biscuits
Bwahahahahaha!!!
Re:
And I love you too, darlin'! Hopefully these crappy workdays we've been having will clear themselves out, eh?
Re:
Re:
rice pudding for everyone!
that says it all - and then some! your brain is a scary place, and I'm in total awe of it.
Re: rice pudding for everyone!
It's nice, really! Plenty of delicacies for everybody, and there's vending machines that you can buy underwear and pornography out of, and it's always chilly enough so you can wear toques and long sleeves. *g*
I'm glad you got a kick out've it, honey. *snug*
Re: rice pudding for everyone!
luckily my coworkers are used to my odd noises for no reason (just blame a funny e-mail from a friend if questioned), and the sideways glances were no worse than usual.
no subject
Re:
*plaintive*
no subject
Now I want some KFC.
Re:
I'm glad I made you coworkers think you're insane, sugarplum. *mwah*
no subject
Re:
no subject
ahahaha! This works way too well.
And can Kellerman be "the cute one" from a rival group? With lots of teenie mag covers pitting him and Bayliss against each other? Falsone will feel all left out, because he's the cute one is his band, but no one cares. And one of them's gotta be dating Sheppard.
Re:
I'm glad you liked it, honey, and your suggestions are too, too funny. *g*
no subject
Re:
no subject
Re:
Re:
no subject
Re:
I'm so tickled that you liked it! Thank you, sugarplum.
no subject
no subject
no subject
PS I noticed you trying to foist the blame on me. I just had to state the the full weight of the blame goes to
PPS Do you think they would be country or more rock-rap? They could be, like, "Shai" and be all R&B New Jack Swing. Hee. This is too much fun.
no subject
PS I noticed you trying to foist the blame on me
Precisely where it belongs, in my opinion. *sniff*
PPS Do you think they would be country or more rock-rap? They could be, like, "Shai" and be all R&B New Jack Swing. Hee. This is too much fun.
aahahahah! I'm leaning towards rock-rap with a good dose of psychadelic bluegrass chic. I really have no idea what that would sound like, though. *giggle*
no subject