AMUSING VIGNETTES

For your reading pleasure, an amusing vignette in which I ask Daft Punk to score my movie.


A HOTEL ROOM, CALAIS. LATE EVENING.

ME: Hello, thank you for coming. This is such an honor.

Daft Punk/Thomas & Guy: Hi. Cheers.

ME: So, umm, I hope your agent told you what is going down here. Um, basically, I am making a movie and I'd like you two to do the score. I think you'll really be able to capture the mood of the piece.

DP/Thomas: What's the movie about?

ME: Well...in a few words, which of course won't do it justice...it's about a Viking girl who is shipwrecked in Medieval Japan.

There's lots of beautiful kimonos and martial arts training.

And battles! Also magic.

Are you two at all familiar with shinto?

DP/Guy: Of course we are.

ME: Haha, of course!

Daft Punk's "Face to Face" begins to play out of nowhere. My face gets red. Really red. I fumble at my jacket pocket.

ME: Hello? No! What? No, I said DON'T call. Yes, I'm there now. No, I forgot to change the ringtone. I'll call you back. I love you, too. No, I love you more. Just shut up, will you?
Me laughing nervously
Sorry about that. Damn tigers. Anyway...

DP/Thomas: No worries. Look, tell us more about your movie.

ME: Well, so the Viking girl is learning all these new things about poetry and earth magic and the daily ritual of bathing. So it's really kind of a Bildungsroman. But with mounted archers... and tea.

DP/Guy: Do you play any instruments?

ME: ummm, What was that? Sorry, you have kind of a thick accent.

DP/Guy: Do you play any instruments? Any at all?

ME: Oh yeah, piano and violin. ...

Well, actually I used to play piano for a long time and I was pretty good, but now I kind of can't play at all. I still remember all my scales, though. And violin I was always kind of rubbish at because I hated the chairs we had to sit in - so all I remember is the Masterpiece Theatre Theme.

DP/Guy & Thomas: Hmm.

They have a little side conference in what is presumably French. I only know how to say "Do you speak German?" in French, so there's no chance I'm going to piece their rapid whispers together. The tension is palpable.

DP/Thomas: Right - we'll score your movie.

ME: You Will??!

DP/Thomas: Yeah, what the hell.

DP/Guy: On one condition: you agree to make some of the tracks with us.

At first I am crestfallen. But then...I break out in a wide smile. And a happy rash.

CUT TO

Me sitting at a keyboard flanked by Daft Punk - one with a keytar, one at the drums and we are rocking out. I am just playing the G Major scale over & over. Jam Session! I imagine the end result would be something a little like a-this.


property of Daft Punk and Virgin records, not me.