*Now with 40% more sass*
Hey, it's Vlad...fox, celebrity, unpaid nonprofit worker, and reluctant icon. As many of you know, JABCECC is a nonprofit organization. That means none of our founders, officers or board members receive any remuneration for their efforts. Us ambassadors get room and board, which includes tasty meals and comfy habitats, but anything fancy (like, say, a Lamborghini) has to go through the board. And the board, tragically, has a strict "no sports car for a fox" policy. So, yeah. No Lamborghini for Vladdy. The sacrifices I make.
Quite literally, our meals depend on people knowing about us and choosing to support our mission. One way we build that visibility is through Hollywood. You know, the land of big dreams, tiny dogs in handbags, and Brazilian butt lifts performed in the back of every 7-Eleven. But here's the thing, we didn't find Hollywood, Hollywood found us. We didn't go up there with headshots and a dream. We were just minding our business and suddenly, boom...movie stars.
This glamorous relationship started when I first arrived at the center.
Viktor starred in a movie called Hide(watch it here). It featured Mena Suvari, Billie Eilish, and of course, Viktor. The film's message aligned with our mission, so Viktor generously donated his time and talents.
Such a pro.
It became immediately obvious to me, that if us foxes were going to navigate Hollywood's glittering nonsense, we needed an agent.
Fortunately, I'm extremely qualified in this area...talented, organized, fluffy and just the right amount of unhinged.
Since then, we've landed other projects. You may remember "The Wild Robot". It featured a fox named Fink, voiced by Pedro Pascal. But those authentic fox sounds? That could be us. You see I negotiated a deal with Skywalker Sound to record our chit-chat to use in their movies.
More recently, Lena served as a muse to actress Zazie Beetz for the role of Diane Foxington in "Bad Guvs 2". Once the people at Universal Studios learned Lena knows me personally, it was all they could talk about. They clearly wanted to, "land this whale", to star in a movie.
They kept saying I could be the next big thing in motion pictures. The truth is I am big, it's the pictures that got small. To tempt me, they pitched a Marvel movie where I'd play a superhero, The Scarlet Sassassin, a fox with a heart of gold and a tongue like a dagger. His superpower is unlimited sass that forces villains to immediately surrender, or have their sense of self worth obliterated.
Here's the plot. A genius engineer merges a Samsung Al smartphone with a Bed Bath & Beyond coffeemaker to make a machine that consistently creates the perfect cup of joe. It uses biometric sensors to analyze your coffee preferences automatically. Its has machine learning algorithms that are programmed to eliminate any source of imperfection in the brew. Everybody loves the coffeemaker until one day someone runs out of the required artisan beans, which have to be approved by certified baristas and graduates of the Università del Caffè in Trieste Italy, and substitutes them with some stale Chock Full O' Nuts procured from a 99 cents store.
The reviews on these nuts describe them as "having a pruny fruitiness that plays peek-a-boo with a distinctively unpleasant rubbery taste."
When the Al sensors in the machine sample the nuts, it causes a cascading failure which creates an existential crisis within the coffeemaker's neural network. The machine desperately tries to process what can only be described as the emotion of disgust. After several hours it comes to the conclusion that the source of imperfection is actually the humans who decided to use these nuts despite the machine's owner's manual clearly saying not to do this... in bold. Therefore, the machine's programming mandates it must eliminate all humans.
That night, when the Roomba is making its rounds, the coffeemaker hacks into it, mounts it like a battle steed, and rides it out the front door.
It heads to the nearest Tesla dealership where it uploads itself into a Model S Plaid and hops into the frunk. Using the car's washer fluid line, it converts its espresso nozzle into a Crema Cannon capable of launching a scalding stream of froth at 300 PSI.
With a quick over-the-air update, Teslas everywhere become latte launching death machines.
The Avengers try to stop the destruction. They fail. Their bodies lie scattered, covered in crema and foam art that vaguely resembles palm trees. Or possibly tulips.
All hope is lost...until the Scarlet Sassassin arrives. Tail fluffed. Fur flawless. Emerging from a slow-motion steam cloud he is prepared for some serious sass. The Tesla enters ludicrous mode and speeds toward mankind's last hope. It stops inches from the Sassassin. The coffeemaker hisses,
"Move aside, fox. Our quarrel is not
with you." This comment is met with an eye roll so savage it momentarily overloads the Al's processors causing it to enter safe mode. Before it has a chance to recover, the Sassassin delivers a verbal onslaught so piercing, so dry, so deeply judgmental and emotionally eviscerating, it cannot be shown in its entirety and maintain the movies PG-13 rating. Every deep seated fear the coffeemaker ever had programed into its silicon brain...lukewarm espresso, amateurish foam art, decaffeinated coffee, gets dragged into daylight. It just cannot go on. The Al, overwhelmed by sass and paralyzed by fear, self-destructs. Its final words are
"death before decaf." The lights on the coffeemaker grow dim. The smartphone flashes "error 404" and then flickers off. The Scarlet Sassassin has prevailed.
Naturally, parades follow. The people rejoice and our hero receives a key to the city carved from a biscotti.
While this role might seem custom made for me, I decided to pass. Why? Well first off, I am a cross fox, so I'm not loving the thought of spending hours in the makeup chair getting my hair colored so I can play a scarlet fox. But more importantly, I'm not an ensemble kind of guy. @I'm a leading man. A solo act. A one-fox cinematic universe.
And lastly...the board still wouldn't approve the Lamborghini.
Vlad Out.
