Into the Bush: The Action Girls in, #2

By J. Manfred Weichsel

After the overwhelmingly successful premiere of Jungle Jitters, Jennifer, the leader of the Action Girls, is eager to make another jungle adventure movie, and she asks her regular scribe, J. Manfred Weichsel, to write it.

 

His pitch? A three-hundred-mile-long giantess named Patty McGloop lies eternally on her back in the Mojave Desert, with a pubic hair region spanning seven miles from below her navel to between her thighs. Just as the Gargantua ray made Patty McGloop very big, it also enlarged the microscopic animals that live on her skin and hair. Wouldn't it be fun to go exploring inside her pubic hair jungle in order to document all the interesting flora and fauna?

 

The Action girls excitedly make all the preparations needed to shoot such a bizarre motion picture and take a helicopter to Patty McGloop's navel, the gateway to her colossal realm. But when the girls become captive to a tribe of zealous lice, it's up to Manfred to go on a daring mission into the bush to rescue them.

 

About the author:

 

Before he became America's premier writer of subversive fiction, J. Manfred Weichsel cut his teeth in Hollywood, crafting screenplays for the notorious Action Girls, a trio of indie starlets whose on and off-screen antics captivated audiences throughout the 2010s.

 

But while the glitz and glamor of Tinseltown may have seemed like a dream come true, insiders know that life with the Action Girls was anything but ordinary. Weichsel's days were a whirlwind of adrenaline and excess. Rumors of secret romances, bitter rivalries, and drunken nights on set only added fuel to the fiery saga of his Hollywood tenure.

 

In this tell-all memoir, J. Manfred Weichsel dishes out the most salacious details on the making of their most notorious film, Into the Bush. Don't miss out on these behind-the-scenes revelations that will leave you laughing, gasping, and begging for more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Manfred Weichsel
• Release date: Mar 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224428540

J. Manfred Weichsel

J. Manfred Weichsel writes extravaganzas that fuse adventure, horror, science fiction, and fantasy into some of the most original subversive literature being published today.  Weichsel’s shorter works appear regularly in Cirsova Magazine and anthologies from Cirsova Publishing.  His longer self-published works have gained him a broad and dedicated base of rabid fans comprising folks from every segment of society – readers of all stripes who share a dark sense of humor and a desire to see modern culture burlesqued, and age-old human stupidity mocked.  A fiercely independent author, J. Manfred Weichsel aims to give birth to the classics of the future by writing works ungoverned by the constraints of traditional publishing houses and the inhibitions of contemporary society.   Loved by some and hated by others, Weichsel’s funny, unconventional, often grotesque books inhabit a unique space in American literature and will be read, talked about, and debated for generations to come. 

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was the opening, and only, night of the Action on Girls Film Festival. The lobby of the small one-screen rental theater in Los Feliz was packed, so that you had to stand shoulder to shoulder. The room buzzed with a million conversations. It seemed like the entire indie film scene had come to see the Action Girls host their own film premiere. But, there was a problem. You see, although there were three Action Girls, only two were present.

Jennifer, a busty blonde and the leader of the group, wore a sparkling red dress. And Stephanie, a brunette, the brains of the group, wore a sky-blue cotton dress. But Jackie, a redhead, the group’s newest and youngest member, was nowhere to be seen.

Jennifer had me try Jackie’s number again. I hung up when it went to voice mail.

I’m worried, I said.

It’s not like her to miss a premiere, said Stephanie.

Actually, it’s just like her, said Jennifer, never one to miss an opportunity to badmouth a friend. Now let’s stop worrying about Jackie. If she wants to be irresponsible, that’s her business. This is our premiere, and we have work to do.

First, the Action Girls spoke to Rob. Oh man, Rob was a strange one. Whenever people asked him what he did, Rob answered proudly that he wrote for Action Girls Magazine.

Now, Rob did not write for Action Girls Magazine, because such a magazine didn’t exist. He wrote freelance for the Action Girls blog. The reason he called it a magazine was that in his mind, a magazine was better than a blog. You have to understand, the story you are reading takes place way back in January of 2015. Magazines were still a thing, and blogs were still a mystery to the less technologically adept. Oh, somebody younger than the legal retirement age would have embraced writing for a blog. But not Rob. This blogger was from an older generation, and not quite sure what a blog even was.

Also, Rob was not being paid for the work he did for the Action Girls blog, while if he had been writing for a magazine, or at least the kind of magazine he pictured in his head, he would have been. Claiming he wrote for a magazine was, in Rob’s mind, a way to imply to others that he was making a lot of money, although in the age of print-on-demand this would by no means have been the case. But Rob wasn’t quite sure what, where, or when he was.

After the girls answered Rob’s questions, they went to the red carpet where Scott, the Action Girls’ camera man and event photographer, photographed them in front of the sponsor wall.

There was a long line of people waiting to be photographed by Scott, something that happens whenever you put a red carpet anywhere in Hollywood. Most of them were just there to get their pictures taken, and had no intention of staying for the movie. But, when they got home and saw the photographs of themselves online, they were sure to be disappointed.

You see, Scott was a terrible photographer. Every picture he took of me made me look like I had a double chin. I even showed him how to take a picture of me so I look like I normally do, but he said something pretentious about how he practiced cinema verité, and shot what he saw. I screamed at him that this was Hollywood and that it was about glamour, not realism, and that anyway, his pictures of me were not realistic because in real life I don’t have a double chin, but it did no good. When the next batch of pictures went online, I had a double chin in every one in which I appeared. I untagged myself from the lot only to have Scott tag me again.

So there were the Action Girls being photographed by an old fart with bad eyesight who thought that owning a camera made him a cameraman.

After the red carpet, Scott traded his still camera for a video one and filmed the Action Girls talking to Jim on a couch in a corner of the lobby. Jim, by the way, was an odd duck, too. Whenever people asked Jim what he did, he said he was the writer and host of The Action Girls Television Show. Now, this was not true, because no such television show existed. Jim interviewed the Action Girls for the Action Girls YouTube channel, as he was now doing, and wrote their skits as well. Jim wasn’t fucking old like Rob and Scott. In fact, he was younger than I was. But because he was from Minnesota, where, apparently, they hadn’t gotten the internet yet, Jim thought that television show sounded impressive, while he wasn’t quite sure what a YouTube channel was, and that is why he referred to it as The Action Girls Television Show.

Jim, like Scott and Rob, was not being paid.

Let me introduce myself: my name is J. Manfred Weichsel, and I wrote all of the Action Girls’ movies. I, however, was not delusional like Rob, Scott, and Jim. You see, they only thought they were what they called themselves. I, on the other hand, really was what I claimed to be: a screenwriter.

I wasn’t wasting my life living in a state of delusion like the others. I didn’t merely think I wrote the Action Girls’ movies. I really did. The movies were real. They existed. In fact, we were all gathered that evening to watch the premiere of one of these movies, Jungle Jitters. It may have been poorly shot, because Scott was a poor cameraman, but it really existed, and I wrote it beautifully. Can you see the difference between me and them? Do you see it? I really was a screenwriter. They were just pretenders.

There was another difference between myself and the others that I suppose I should mention. Those old potbellied losers with double chins and that midwestern slacker Jim were in love with Jennifer, but they buried their feelings so deeply that they themselves were unaware of them. My feelings for Jennifer, on the other hand, were pure.  

Just as the Action Girls concluded their interview with Jim, the owner of the rental theater stepped into the lobby and hollered, You’re only booked till 10:00, so if you’re going to screen your movie, you’d better do it now.

So Jennifer handed me her purse, which gave off a strong smell of flowery perfume that barely masked the faint odor of cigarette smoke, and told me to go into the theater to save us seats, while she would go gather the audience to be let into the show. It was a given that the two of us were to sit together. We always did. Jennifer and I did everything together. I know authors should avoid using clichés, but we were like two peas in a pod.

The purse was silver and sparkly, and the thing was huge. It was more like a small gym bag than a large purse. Still, when I took it, I wasn’t expecting its weight; it pulled my arm down. Smiling, I said, What, do you keep bricks in this thing?

Smiling, she punched my shoulder and said, Shh. You’ll see later. Now go. Shoo.

She made a motion with her hands as if shooing me away. So I went into the theater to save us seats before the crowd rushed in, and claimed a spot right in the middle, three rows back from the screen, just as Jennifer liked it. I sat down in one seat, and placed Jennifer’s purse in the other.

The crowd entered and began to fight over seats. Once everyone was seated, Jennifer went to the front of the theater and with Stephanie standing at her side said, smiling, in a bubbly voice, "Hi boys and girls, and welcome to the world premiere of Jungle Jitters at the Action on Girls Film Festival!"

Jennifer gave her speech and then said, And of course, this movie wouldn’t exist without our amazing, awesome screenwriter, J. Manfred Weichsel! Stand up, Manny, and say a few words.

I spoke briefly and the audience rewarded me with applaus. I bowed and sat back down. Jennifer finished speaking, came down the aisle, and sat in the seat I had saved for her. She was close enough that I could feel the warmth her body gave off, and her shoulder and upper arm brushed against mine occasionally, especially when she reached over to grab some of the candy I had bought for her at the concession stand.

At first I had tried to get the man to give me candy for free because we were renting the theater, but I was informed that the rental price did not include concessions, and I had to spend my own cash. I was furious. Did the man behind the counter not know who I was??? After arguing for some time, I begrudgingly paid. But listening to Jennifer’s contented sighs as she chewed and swallowed, made the whole humiliating ordeal worth it. I knew all of Jennifer’s favorite candies.

When the lights dimmed, Jennifer gave me a strange, knowing look. Smiling, she brought her index finger to her lips and said, Shhh, as if she had a secret to show me.

She leaned forward and unzipped her large silver purse, which she had placed on the ground in front of her feet. She pulled open the two flaps, and motioned for me to look inside, where, lying on top of her other things, was a 750 ml bottle of vodka and two big red plastic cups. My eyes widened. I had been really wanting a drink, and I think Jennifer knew it.

Giggling mischievously, she leaned forward so no one could see and poured each of us a large cup. I took mine. We said cheers and sat back to watch the premiere of our movie, Jungle Jitters. 

Chapter 2

If you ever want to watch the movie Jungle Jitters, you’re out of luck. As with all the material the Action Girls produced, it is unavailable online or in any format. So, unless you caught Jungle Jitters at one of its Action on Girls Film Festival screenings, you will never get to watch it, for reasons you will surmise later.

If you haven’t seen Jungle Jitters and want to know what it’s about, instead of watching the movie, which you can’t do, I recommend picking up my novelization instead. You won’t be missing much by getting the story in prose. Scott’s cinematography was awful, and the performances of some of the actors ruined my brilliant script. That is why, after leaving Hollywood, I adapted the movie into a book that has none of these problems. In fact, the novelization of Jungle Jitters is a rare example of a perfect work of literature!

Obviously, I can’t present the entire novel here. It would be almost as long as the book you are reading! Also, it would be unfair to anyone who had already bought the book Jungle Jitters, because you would be paying for the same material twice.

But, I do want to put something here so you can experience some of what Jennifer and I did watching Jungle Jitters in the theater that evening. There was one scene in Jungle Jitters which, although it played at the premiere, wasn’t included in any of the subsequent Action on Girls Film Festival screenings, and didn’t make it into the novelization. You see, I had written a scene in the screenplay satirizing Dr. Jane Goodall, the celebrity scientist known for her work living with and documenting chimpanzees. I knew I couldn’t call my character Jane Goodall, because that is the name of a real person. So instead, I called my character Dr. Jane. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that Jane Goodall used Dr. Jane professionally, in her fundraising. In fact, the Jane Goodall Foundation had Dr. Jane trademarked.

There must have been a mole at the premiere, because somebody contacted the Jane Goodall Foundation and told them about the scene, and they sent Jungle Jitters Productions LLC, a cease-and-desist letter, and that is why the scene was cut.

Now, I own an external hard drive. It is my most cherished possession, because on it is every single piece of film and video the Action Girls ever produced. And, the version of Jungle Jitters on my hard drive includes the Jane Goodall scene that was later cut.

Watching Jungle Jitters just now on my laptop, I got the idea to change Dr. Jane to Dr. Jill, so that I can present the lost Jungle Jitters scene to you here for the first time since the film’s premiere. This way those who have not read Jungle Jitters can get an idea of what it’s like, while those who have read it will not feel this book is bogged down with duplicated material. Plus, it is of historical importance to present the lost material. So here is the scene in its entirety with the character in question renamed, and there is nothing the hideously ugly and evil Jane Goodall can do about it. I dare the Jane Goodall Foundation to sue me now!!!

––––––––

Jennifer, in her sparkling red dress, Stephanie, in her sky-blue cotton dress, and Jackie, in her lime green dress, came to a clearing in the jungle. All were covered in dirt and grime, and their dresses were ripped and torn in many places. In the clearing, a white woman in a white lab coat, who looked to be in her sixties, sat on a tree stump, as if deep in thought.

Jennifer waved and said, Hi. Who are you?

The woman said, You can call me Dr. Jill.

Well, Dr. Jill, what are you doing in the middle of the jungle?

I have lived alone in this jungle for the past forty years studying the chimpanzees.

Jennifer’s brow wrinkled in confusion. I’ve studied for tests before, but they always have me study books. I’ve never been asked to study an animal. And forty years! That must be some test.

Stephanie smiled brightly and said, Is it multiple-choice? If you are unsure, eliminate the obviously wrong answers and guess between the ones left.

Jackie said helpfully, I always pick C.

I study chimpanzees, said Dr. Jill, not for any test, but because they are the most majestic creatures on earth. They are noble animals, and I have dedicated my life to them.

The girls gave each other confused looks. Dr. Jill, noticing, said, Do you want to see how chimpanzees eat? Then you will understand.

Will it be an adventure? Jennifer asked eagerly. We have been desperately looking for one.

Oh yes. Every day with the chimpanzees is an adventure.

The girls said yes, so Dr. Jill told them to follow and went off.

They walked until they reached a thick clump of trees where played hundreds of red colobus monkeys. They were beautiful, with long, straight red hair on their backs and the top