The Bazza Chronicles

By C.J. Cronin

Sometimes someone can be so interesting that you have to write about them...

A hilarious, delightful and often touching recollection of an eccentric friendship.

Bazza is proof positive that the Caesars still live among us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.J. Cronin
• Release date: Oct 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9780980724547

C.J. Cronin

The author of 42 feature films, 5 television series, 4 plays, 11 novels, 2 novellas, & 3 non-fiction books. Directed and narrated the documentary “Treasure the Gulf of Thailand Incident". Authored and designed the concept and function of the seven electronic games in the electronic book “Seven” in association with the Acme games company. Invented and designed the concept and function of the electronic component of “Slip Slap”, an indoor game and exercise invention.

Book preview

© C.J. Cronin

36,000 words

Copyright. ISBN 978-0-9807245-4-7 Smashwords edition. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, C.J. Cronin, his agent, or a properly authorized officer bearing a written authority from C.J. Cronin to that end, excepting brief quotes used in connection with reviews written specifically for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, internet article or on any form of multi-media book show.

For my mother,

Shirley Cronin.

Contents

Chapter 1 – First encounter

Chapter 2 – Boom and bust

Chapter 3 – How to make a BBQ, part 1

Chapter 4 – How to make a BBQ, part 2

Chapter 5 – How to make a BBQ, part 3

Chapter 6 – Bringing down the house

Chapter 7 – To catch a thief

Chapter 8 – In the twinkle of an eye

Chapter 9 – The yacht, part 1

Chapter 10 – The yacht, part 2

Chapter 11 – The yacht, part 3

Chapter 12 – The yacht, part 4

Chapter 13 – The thumb, part 1

Chapter 14 – The thumb, part 2

Chapter 15 – Captain Kirk’s last stand, part 1

Chapter 16 – Captain Kirk’s last stand, part 2

Chapter 17 – The pod

Chapter 18 – Going legit

Epitaph

Bonus book – The Bazza Chronicles

The following is a true story, give or take a few lies.

Chapter 1 - First Encounter

I first noticed Barry, nicknamed Bazza, in the men’s room at the movie studio and in that confined space was immediately impressed by his size, obvious strength and pugnacious potential. He moved like an athlete and had the face of a boxer, both aspects railing against his businessman’s attire. When adorned with wrap-around sunglasses he looked almost exactly like The Phantom of comic book fame.

I was hired by the studio for an acting role in one of their B grade movies and had impressed the Studio Head with my foolish bravado:

Hey, you the boss?

Certainly am, the Studio Head replied as he went by.

Hey, gotta tell you, this script really sucks.

You cheeky bastard!

Tell you what, why don’t you let me have a crack at a rewrite?

What?! No. Anyway, who the fuck are you?

I’m the cop in your next movie.

Can you write?

Yeah…bit, anyway, better than the dickhead who wrote this.

I wrote that.

….Oh…

…Only joking. Anyway, the shooting schedule’s set. You missed the boat.

He began to walk away.

I can fix the dialogue.

Wouldn’t pay you if you did.

He continued walking. I raised my voice.

Hey, it’s a freebie as long as I don’t have to say this shit.

He turned and squinted back my way, considering.

Alright, but no scene changes, same line count and scene timings. Don’t change the sense either. You’ve got three days.

So fix my car by tonight but do it through the tail pipe?

He chuckled as he entered a sound stage, Now you’re getting it!

He liked the adjustments I made so I got the next script they were doing as a rewrite and the one after that as well. Luckily I also landed acting roles in those features so it gave me a bit more kudos around the studio, made me seem upwardly mobile.

Knocking around the lots I crossed Bazza’s path occasionally. I was always impressed and not just by his physicality. He was erudite, worldly, ruthless, gregarious, articulate, controlling, seamlessly glamorous in a Julius Caesar kind of way. In fact if born into that era he definitely would have been a candidate for Caesar-hood. He could go 48 hours without sleep and still be highly functional, he smoked a pack a day, ate only one meal, drank around 20 cups of coffee, each with 3 sugars, drank a bottle of Johnny Walker a day, had his own Tupperware in a bar fridge labeled Bazza’s – Touch this and you are seriously fucking dead, full of fudge or other ultra-sweet heart-disease his wife made for him, yet he was always sharp, intelligent and insightful while exuding perfect health. I was told and later confirmed he got up every night at 3 a.m. to read the classics ’til 6, then strapped his Labrador on its leash to a lead weightbelt around his waist while adding 10 lbs of sandbags to each tree-trunk leg. He then walked 5 miles pumping 15 lb dumbbells the whole way. By 7 he knocked his four kids out of bed, got them dressed, fed, and drove them to private school - all before he hit his studio desk at 9 a.m. sharp. His lazy-ass wife didn’t help due to her sexual exhaustion from his rampant attacks each night, despite her attempts to dull his ardor with the nightly bottle of scotch. He reminded me of Mohammed Ali when he was Cassius Clay, both he and Clay the focus of my envy for the apparently boundless energy they exuded. At the studio his personality dominated everyone, and I noticed to a certain extent even the Studio Head - an Exec-Producer with a very impressive track record and no slouch himself at getting his way.

I was dabbling at home with a script of mine one day, vaguely hoping I could get the Studio Head to read it, when the phone rang. A secretary was purring down the line, requesting I hotfoot it over for a meeting with the Head – a divine summons.

At the studio gate the normally brusque guard cracked his face with a rare smile and had the boom gate up, waving me through even before I changed down. What was that, an aberration? - He recognized my beat-up Sigma at three hundred yards? My encounter with the foyer receptionist was equally as pleasant and I was waved into the office hallway like a returning hero. She actually gave me admiring eye contact, something I had hoped for for months – now all I had to figure out was what to do with it (she had ‘I want money’ written all over her beautiful face and I had ‘I don’t have any’ written all over my bank statement) and I strolled down the long open plan office at the end of which was the Studio Head’s door.

As I went I was astonished to see people rising from their chairs and giving applause while smiling at me. Bazza’s booming laugh came from a side office and he soon appeared in his doorway, slapping my back painfully as I went by, his uncharacteristic subservience making me suspect him as master of the subterfuge. Right on cue the Studio Head came from his office, arms outstretched and faced full of sentimental appreciation.

After the big hug he announced loudly to everyone, Here he is, the man who will save this studio!

The applause and laughter died away and as the Studio Head guided me into his office I was definitely intrigued and had to admit that even as a joke it was flattering. I liked the Studio Head, he was a high-class salesman who used obvious technique, and there is nothing like being conned by someone whose professional performance you enjoy and admire.

Turned out he only wanted another rewrite, it was a B Grade action flick starring Karl Weathers. I sat around the outer office reading the script, the Studio Head occasionally going by and asking me what I thought of it so far. I was still a bit puzzled by the theatrics of my entrance and also why I was reading such a woefully bad script – This black guy is on a mission to the antipodes to find his lost sister, meets lots of bad guys, beats them up and kills a few, wins the pretty girl and flies back to the States. Trouble was the writer forgot about the sister. Around page 49 she is tied up, scared, being mistreated, but then you never see or hear from her again, and apparently her brother forgot about her too with all the bad-guy-shooting and pretty-girl-banging.

I was puzzling over this when Bazza went by and tapped me on the shoulder, Conference Room.

He continued on and I saw through the open doorway that the Studio Head was already in there and taking a seat. Entering the room I noticed the only vacant chair was at the head of the table and opposite the Director of the State Film Corporation. The state had built the studio with the aim in mind of attracting big film money, so the Studio Head, Bazza, and certain select executive staff were obliged to hear any offer the Corporation might make.

For a long time I listened to Bazza and the Director converse in what sounded like a type of Zulu-pidgin dialect but which turned out to be accountancy-speak – there were snippets of English in there, but they were few and far between. What seemed to be transpiring was that the Director was making an offer to finance the Karl Weathers film at favorable terms to the State Film Corporation, while Bazza was telling him ‘No’, but was using long, complicated sentences instead of that one word. I could see the Director was becoming increasingly alarmed and much to my unease he finally looked my way and cleared his throat…

CJ, you’ve been sitting there very quiet, have you got something to add?

I