This suspicion I have — that I ran into Zendaya pretending to be a stripper in Richmond (probably in preperation for a role) — is so bonkers that absolutely no one will believe me. And I’m fine with that.
Just the *idea* that something like that may have happened puts a bit of a pep into my otherwise mundane-living-in-oblivion-life.
But the more it rattles around in my mind, the more…uneasy I grow. I definitely got the sense that she was rather contemptuous of me in the context of being nice to me — as if she was so distracted keeping her story straight that she didn’t really have time to care all that much about me.
The things I remember about the encounter — she seemed very distracted, she was quite polite and she seemed to hold me in a great deal of contempt. I suppose the contempt part comes from both the obvious — we did meet at a strip club, after all — and the less obvious: she saw me as just an extra in her “method acting” preparation for some role down the road.
Now, let me be clear — I don’t think I ran into Zendaya a strip club on a very listless Monday afternoon. But, just for my sanity, I have had to kind of game out how it would be possible if that was the case.
And here’s what I have — if she was there, it was for a role, or potential future role she was thinking about. And she saw me as nothing more than an extra. That’s it. It just so happened that a person with a novel ran into her while she was pretending to be a stripper.
But I still refuse to believe it was her, even though the young woman I sat next to — and saw on stage — sure did, in hindsight, look a whole of a hell like her.
Now, as I keep saying, I don’t *know* that I ran into Zendaya cosplaying a stripper at a strip club recently, but the possibility has been rolling around in my mind for some time now.
At least I have come to a possible explanation in my mind — it was preperation for some future role.
Once I came to this conclusion I felt a lot better. At least there is some potential reason now. I still am going to feel pretty dumb if it turns out that really was her and I was inches away from her face and it didn’t register with me who I was talking to her.
This is literally what the stripper I met who looked like Zendaya looked like, at least when it came to her hair.
I guess I just wait now to see if she stars in a movie where she’s a stripper.
Something very weird happened to me at a strip club recently. I met a young woman who looked identical to Zendaya, to the point that I now, months later, find myself wondering — was that Zendaya?
Zendaya
Of course there’s no possible way it was her, right? And, yet, I keep rolling around in my head how much she looked and acted like Zendaya and it starts to unnerve me. She even had that lilt in her voice that Zendaya has.
Anyway, it’s not like anyone is going to listen to me unless I could prove it absolutely. And, really, what do I expect would happen if I had managed to get her to admit it was her when I was at the club — she was going to be my best friend or something.
I guess I fear I may have been a fool not to notice it was her in the moment. But, this, along with all the other screwy things I’ve done in my life over the years, I can only be so angry with myself over.
The only thing I can think of, if it was her, is she was doing it for some future roll. I still don’t think it was her, but if it was and I didn’t recognize her, boy am I going to feel really dumb.
I’m a pretty ambitious person, all things considered. While it definitely outwardly seems as though I’m a drunk loser who hasn’t done much with my life, on an abstract basis, I dream big. As such, at the moment, in my mind I have a seven novel project set in the same small town in Virginia that will culminate with the a new series about a young woman who is kind of an American Lisbeth Salander.
Zendaya
Now, obviously, at the moment, this seems rather delusional. Add to this how fucking old I am and there’s every reason to believe my delusions about a seven novel series will remain just that — a delusion.
But I do, on occasion, see a picture of Zendaya and think how her phenotype matches that of the heroine I imagine will be the focus of the new novel series after I finish this possibly seven novel one I’m working on at the moment. But, of course, she will be too old by the time everything is finished.
But the heroine is introduced in the last three novels of the series. I’m really pleased with what I’ve managed to come up with. I just hope I don’t croak before I get near my goal. And that doesn’t even address how any number of unexpected things might happen that will throw my efforts to write seven novels totally up in the air.
I am, after all, abut 25 years too old to be doing any of this.
The major scifi franchises have been so strip mined that they need to either be allowed to lay fallow for a few years (maybe a decade) or they need to be totally and completely rebooted.
I’ve written about this before, but I’m drunk, feeling inspired and need to let off some non-novel related creativity so you get this post.
Ok, the only way this works is if you give Zendaya a three picture deal from the beginning. Then find the best mainstream horror director you can find and do the same thing to ensure consistency of tone across the three movies. One key thing to remember is Zendaya is tall like the original Ripley, Sigourney Weaver. So it would be easy to give the shot of Ripley in her underwear that is so famous from the first film.
Anyway, you totally reboot the franchise from the ground up, with the third movie being set on an Earth overrun by Xenomorphs. I think the thing a lot of people don’t realize is there is an entire generation of people who are oblivious to the cultural significance of the Alien movies and won’t blink an eye if they’re hard rebooted.
A lot of Olds will try to gatekeep the movies, obviously, but lulz.
Part of getting older is realizing that the Youngs don’t have the same reference as you do as an Old. As such, there is all established IP that Hollywood could do a hard reboot of that is currently fallow that your average GenZ person wouldn’t eve an blink at.
In other words, as I’ve written before, you could very easily do a hard reboot of the Alien franchise and make a huge amount of money. Yes, a lot of Olds would be enraged that you’ve desecrated not one, but wo great movies — Alien and Aliens — but we’re old coots and so fuck us.
Here’s what I would do — lock in Zendaya to play Ripley for three movies and get the best horror director you can find as well as part of the deal. I mean, I’ve seen the origin story for Batman, like, what six times now? Why not hard reboot the Alien franchise and finally, finally fix some huge fucking structural problems with it.
Let me explain — at the end of the second movie, I was promised Xenomorphs on earth. I never got it. I want it. I was reminded of this promise when I saw the next Jurassic World movie features dinosaurs running around Rome and such. So, what you do is, you somehow rework the third installment of this new Alien franchise such at you kind of get a World War Z vibe to it with Xenomorphs taking over the world and Zendaya having to save the world.
There you go, you can make $1 billion right there.
But, let me be clear, all three movies have to be R rated with lots of horror and gore. If you choke and make them PG-13, then you’re missing the point of the franchise.
I’m just about to enter the third act of the first draft of the first novel in what is projected to be a five novel project. And occasionally, I will stop myself with the realization that I’ve come up with a damn good concept.
And at the core of this concept is an American interpretation of the Lisbeth Salander trope. In my imagination, as I write these five novels, the person who would play my take on the Lisbeth Salander trope would be Zendaya.
But it’s not a one-to-one comparison for various structural reasons. Yet my dream is each one of the books will build your interest in a character that looks a lot like Zendaya and invokes the same type of affinity as Lisbeth Salander. At least, that’s my goal.
I want these five novel project to be an old brown shoe for the existing audience of Stieg Larsson. But I have to note that I’m, by nature, not nearly as dark as he is in his writing. Yet I am really working hard to flesh out the characters and to make them people who are, if nothing else, interesting enough that you want to spend enough time with them to finish five ~100,000 word novels.
Because these novels deal with decades of events, you get to see on the page as it happens why my heroine in the later novels — the one I imagine looks like Zendaya — is so fucked up. That’s what makes these project so different than Larsson’s stuff — the backstory isn’t back story.
But, I have to admit, that this is a massive, massive project.
A lot could go wrong. And as I keep saying, I have no idea what I’m doing. So, it could be that I’m writing such crap that no matter amount of re-writing will get me close to being good enough to sell any of this.
But, in the end, all I got is my dream. Just getting a positive reception from anyone that might read the second draft of the first book. The idea that I would not only sell these novels, but they would be popular enough that Zendaya would play the central character would be beyond a life long dream come true.
And, what’s more, there is another character in the series that I imagine being played by Olivia Munn as an AmeriAsian version of the Mare of Easttown trope. In fact, that’s the core of the project — the relationship between an Olivia Munn type person and a Zendaya type person.
Anyway. I have a huge amount of work to do. The key thing is for me is to simply get the first book in the project done.
I have no inside information, but the so-called “relationship” between Zendaya and Tom Holland seems like a bullshit PR stunt. I’m sure they like each other as friends and co-starts, but I just don’t see Zendaya dating someone like Holland. It doesn’t fit her vibe.
He’s just too nice.
Seems like Zendaya would want an older bad boy with a little bit more edge. And, as I understand it all the Spidermen in the franchise have “dated” their co-stars, so, lulz.
But I could be wrong. I usually am. It just seems like this relationship is a little too pat and convenient for everyone involved.
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