Happy New Year and welcome to our latest failed attempt at stardom. Look, I don't want to say we're poor, but we haven't eaten in seven years. It's a good thing we're puppets and don't have to.
Yet, in order to place some dough in our coffers, we worked as Santa's Little Helpers this year, which was a delight.I almost got an eyeball plucked out of my head by a toddler, but no matter, if all goes well, I hope to go in for eye surgery this year. I have developed a desperate need to blink.
What makes it worse is that they tell me dreaming is free!
As it turns out, I spotted somewhere that the classic children's series Sesame Estree, as it is called by Latinos, was holding auditions. Probably Mario Mariposa sent me the link, because he's a social butterfly, who delights in spamming everyone with his e-mail.
Good news is we managed to get Conchita out of getting more surgery (she was thinking of going in for an overhaul), and pulled her into the studio for a quick interview/audition.
There are even titeres in the new audition video from a new Steampunk series we're developing called AssClown and Titmouse.
Whaaaaat-ever.... It's raw... Let's see your series...? I'm sorry, I'm edgy... I don't know if you know any birds, but that's how we roll... We're neurotic balls of feather.
Chirping about Birds, we got pissed off at Duck Dynasty for talking smack about grey people and had to have our say about it.
Look, we're all adults here. Take that as you will. Certain people on Twitter wrote to us saying, we're stupid, because what duck means in Spanish doesn't matter. I don't think it's that it matters, as much as it is ironic.
In a couple of years, no one will care about heterosexist comments and such, because we'll all be happier. I'll tell you why: Because there's great excitement en el aire about the fact that Netflix is like the new television. We want to put our show on there to stream to the Universe. Or maybe Hulu, YouTube, Booboo, YooHoo or any one if those baby noise named websites.
Oye, if we didn't dream BIG, we wouldn't be in this business of making YouTube videos.
But our collective Titere dream is to have our own comedy-variety show on TV, and now it seems more possible than ever.
Mostly, because you don't have to have a network approve a damn thing. Amazon will stream any freakin' thing.
First, it's all about budget to produce the initial 22 episodes. I know I've been talking about doing this Crowdfunding thing, and I'm gonna do it. Sure -- I mean, how much can we lose?
Everything. Some people have told us that if our Kickstarter campaign fails, it will stay on there forever as a sad reminder of how your project ate it, because you didn't make your goal.
I say, we're down so low on the totem pole, we can only win by losing. Having a website hold onto information about us is our great honor.
We need someone to document our failures online, simply because there will be plenty of people who will be glad to document our success.
Sesame Estree was a dream of ours too, we thought. I mean, I'm a parrot, all I know how to do is repeat...
So the more I thought about it, the more I realized how to take what appeared to be this loss.
Mira ~ I took everyone into our small conference room, with all our show-running three by five cards on the walls and our promo poster and all the good stuff. I had them all sit down and quiet down.
There was an air of sadness in the room.
"I can't help but wonder if they're not ready for leechy Latino characters on the show... Is it what I said about Oscar? I thought that was statement of fact! ..." yelled out Ronaldo, as Conchita clutched his arm.
"Ay, please, don't worry about this everyone! I've been rejected more than a million times, and that's just by my own organs," shrilled Conchita.
"Okay, quiet down. Silencio!" I said.
When everyone seemed to look at me angrily for yelling, I took the moment to say this:
"Now, yo se ~ que you all had a dream of living on Sesame Estree." There were rumblings.
"Yo se que Alfonso, you were looking forward to burrowing in the walls, and Naked Bob, you were thinking of shacking up with Oscar. Mary Juana however, would have to be ousted from the group if we moved there!"
The room sucked up air, and from the distance, Mary Juana uttered a Valley-accented": "Oh, naauuughhhh..."
"Did anyone ever think about that? We're edgy and unconventional! ... We're not monsters and fairies, we're drugs and dragons!"
The Cat chimed up: "Oh, Dear, I fear you mean we're Dungeons & Dragons."
"No! That's another franchise! We're LosTiteres! We're the Latino gang of puppets that talks about stuff in Late Nite TV, we're not for the kiddies. That's just not our format, you see? ... So there's no need to feel sad. We cleaned it up for these guys! ... We didn't even cast Mary Juana in the audition video!"
Mary Juana goes: "Oh, naauuughhhh..."
"And I mean no disrespect to our newly legalized Cannabis plant, but you get my meaning! ... Conchita, you couldn't talk about your affairs, or your plastic surgeries on a kid show."
"Oh, really?' she back-talked, "They would be in for a big surprise."
"And that's exactly what they don't want, but what I do want! Because this is the age of the Internet! Of offending people to get their attention! Of standing in a room full of people who would much rather ignore each other by watching Us on their cellphones than talking amongst each other... Mis amigos, these are the Best of Times for our endeavor!"
"I hope I don't get deported," said Mario out of nowhere. Everyone stared and rumbled.
"So, I want you to get out there and keep on making those Lame Latino Videos, and one day, people will watch, and we'll make our own Viral Video, so viral that people will have to get inoculated!"
Schmedley raised his hand: "What's inoculated? ... Does that have to do with the Spanish for ass, 'culo'?"
"No, Schmedley, never mind... The point is, we've got a meeting with our producer, Felix Pire in about five minutes about getting more money for the budget."
Conchita snapped: "I hope you're not going to spend it on making your eyes blink when the rest of us look like shit!"
"I'm getting everyone a meeting with the Puppet Doctor, Russ Walko!"
Everyone CHEERED! ...
"That's it ~ meeting over, no more sulking over Sesame Estree! We've got bigger fish to fry."
Said the fish: "Hey, wait a minute!"
"Just kidding, Harold," I said weakly, and closed the door to the conference room. A few feathers fell off me as I shivered at the thought of having to deal with everyone. I opened up a drawer where I hide a flask of whiskey, when the phone rang.
I'd like to tell you it was Justin Beiber offering up to guest star on our show, or Jason Gordon Levitt saying he wants to direct the movie version of our show, but it was our producer calling me to write this blog mierdero.
I have been typing on an iPad with my wings for a week, it's impossible.
So I told him he should get me voice dictation software, and he laughed in my face. Well, directly in my face! -- Over Skype.
My eyes are plastered open, so the smack of the full weight of his sarcasm really stung.
I wish I'd recorded it so you could see how smug he was. Producers are so full of themselves, you'd think they were curing disease. Which if you count laughter as medicine, I suppose that counts.
"Felix, I said, I'm working my tail feathers off trying to produce an audition for Sesame Estree, and now you want me to write a blog? A Blog?"
"Yes, Your Blog," He responded.
"My Blog?"
"That's right. And by the way, the show is not called 'Estree', it's Street! Like "calle" en Español! That's probably why the real show passed on you guys, and why I'm stuck in this eternal attempt to get you on Netflix. I got you on YouTube. Trust me."
I said: "Trust you? That's how producers say 'F-U' in Hollywood... You know what? One of these days, I'm going to get tired of this crap and I'm going to end this show and move outta here. And disband everybody."
And what a sarcastic a-hole... You know what he said to me?
"Maybe you should move to Sesame Estree?"
The door to the conference room opened and who walks in holding his cellphone in front of his face? So vain... Felix, the executive producer (and as far as I'm concerned) 'head of the network' himself.
I hang up the Skype call on the Commodore 64, connected to which is the old style rotary phone handle I'm holding, and just stare at him -- because I have no option.
If I had an option, a good eye roll would come in handy right about now.
These are the times that having no expression comes in handy, though, and moreover, is the preferable choice.
I just looked at him, frozen, like a member of that closet full of toys with E.T. ... People hate that...
In the end, he placated me.
I'm a Titere, so I fell for it, and everything's back to normal.
And yet living the life if an artist, I ask myself: Normal?... Que es?
One day internet auditionees, tomorrow stars of Internet TV!
May the Parrot of Happiness Foretell Good Fortune for You.
Tu Amigo,
Señor Loro
Cotorro Productor de LosTiteres.TV
