32 - Cannes France recently

THE LEATHER JACKET SAGA CONTINUES

At the MIPTV trade show in Cannes, Jean-Marc breezed into the offices of the Hollywood studio that was now distributing his lookalikes cooking show worlwide, and indeed sucessfully selling it all over the world. Further to the success of Charles Kloch's multimedia operation, th studio had paid a lot of money (bizzarrly to a company in Russia) to acquire the worldwide franchise of this successful US TV show.

This was hardly surprising because Kloch has always seen the TV series as a product placement operation to boost sales of Captain Marcos Gourmet Foods Inc. products and, as such, he practically gave the show away to networks, cable stations and syndicated local TV as he pleased. As most of these channels were now run by excelspeak executives, they were happy to maximise their tiny, but neverheless legal, investment to rerun the show as much as possible. Indeed why pay high bucks for good programmes when you can fill up the schedules with cheap but popular shows - the bottom line of the spreadsheets looked positive and this is all that matters.

But most of all, the Gourmet Show had evolved with the introduction of Kloch's Russian girlfriend. Most episodes now included some humour, often kitchen accidents where water or other liquids were splashed over the already scantily clad girl revealing her bodily assets in all their splendour. Inevitably ratings soared.

Cannes had not changed much for Jean-Marc except maybe that his bullshit threshold had sunken to unfathomable limits and he certainly had no intention of staying longer than necessary.

Rob was sitting in his Presidential office with a queue of TV buyers from Hungary, Kurdistan and the rest of the world politely waiting outside. Jean-Marc just barged in.

"Hi Rob, do you remember me this time?" The poster of the Gourmet Show with Jean-Marc's lookalike was on the wall above Rob's head.

"No, who are you? And I'm Bob not Rob"

"You were Rob when I knew you, Chateau Marmont in the early eighties, and I am the real Captain Marco not the actor in that poster."

Rob obviously had some difficulties in understanding this but the Gourmet Show had been selling all over the world and he was intrigued. "Take a seat, tell me more."

So Jean-Marc explained the internet identity theft, Charles Vinneker Kloch, the pale imitations of his recipes and the huge debts that Kloch had piled up in Jean-Marc's name.

Rob agreed to get his lawyers to look into the issue and got up to say goodbye.

"Whatever happened to that leather jacket you borrowed from me at the Chateau Marmont?"

This threw Rob off balance, he had to search in his memory bank to understand the question. "It's funny you mention that. Many years ago I saw an acupuncturist, a strange Chinese guy who came to my house in LA. He put needles in me and I fell asleep, when I awoke I thought he was a thief and he had stolen stuff from my house, but the only thing that was missing was my leather jacket, I honestly don't remember it being yours but it certainly felt good every time I wore it"

Jean-Marc retorted, "Nice tie, shame it doesn't match your shirt"

"Do you want a nice cushy job with a Hollywood studio, be paid a lot of money to do the "real" Captain Marco's Gourmet Show?"

"Sure" Jean-Marc responded, a little surprised.

Rob's reply was indicative of his faith in the God Dollar and Microsoft Excel software:

"Fuck off"