0146 Cleverness is great, but it doesn't make money

  James was still tutoring his kids when he got the call from Cook. He was one of the few "highly educated" truckers in the group, but of course that didn't mean he'd gone to college or anything, he'd just finished high school and a year of technical school.

  This kind of technical school is not the kind of education special subsidies in order to cheat in the factory set up technical training courses, but a serious technical school, learning is the truck driving, as well as simple truck maintenance technology.

  When Cook and his group first learned their truck repair skills from James, who might not be the most visible one in the collective, but for the small collective of people, he was the important core.

  People sometimes went to him for advice when they had some problems, because he had the highest education.

  James didn't have a phone at home, it didn't really take much money to install one, but the problem was that there was no real value in them having one.

  No one would contact him all day long, and he didn't need to contact anyone all day long, so most normal families didn't have a phone, but they did have "phones", pay phones.

  Every hundred meters or so there would be a pay phone booth, and when they filled in their home phone number they would fill in the phone number of this booth, and when it rang, the person on the street would pick it up and ...

  "James, your phone!" , came a scream from the window as if something terrible and horrible had happened, and an extra horizontal bar appeared in James's child's homework book that shouldn't have been there in the first place.

  James straightened up as he walked over to the window to look at his neighbor standing outside the phone booth, holding the phone in one hand while looking at him, his voice trailing off, "Your phone, James!"

  "I'm not deaf!" , he grumbled, but in reality the tone was not one of complaint, but carried a tone of something like gratitude.

  This was the life of ordinary people in ordinary neighborhoods and ordinary people, who rarely said thank you properly, and sometimes even replaced something like thank you with a marjoramvako and a middle finger, but who knew more about what gratitude was and how to be grateful than the superficially moralistic, but in reality male and female, upper class people.

  When he appeared on the street, he already had an extra slice of pancake wrapped in newspaper in his hand, and it was definitely a tasty treat, if you didn't count the ink that might have stained it.

  The neighbor took the pancake and bumped shoulders with him, casually handing him the phone before leaving to stroll and wander up while biting into the pancake.

  Everyone was unemployed and they didn't know what to do with themselves other than wander the streets all day, if they were at home the women of the house would be vocal about their laziness and tell them to get their asses out on the street and get a job, hell why these women forgot about equality and such at this point in time.

  James answered the phone and quickly nodded a few times before hanging up, the caller was Cook, who told him to go to a place right now, an address he silently committed to memory.

  Most drivers, whether they are car drivers or truck drivers, have an amazing ability to quickly locate a place in their mind based on a detailed address, and even "see" the scenery around the place.

  He stood downstairs, said a few words to his family and then hurriedly left.

  With Lynch on his payroll, his life was not as difficult as it had been a while ago, and the atmosphere between the couple had become much more harmonious.

  Around nine o'clock in the evening, James came outside the villa, facing a huge luxury villa, James was very nervous inside, he moved his palms, both palms palms were sweaty, wet and greasy not very comfortable.

  He wanted to wait for the sweat on his palms to air dry before he went in, but what he didn't expect was that Cook actually came out to meet him, so he had to wipe the sweat on his palms on his pants.

  "What's so important about finding me so late at night?" , James asked in a low voice on the way.

  Cook had a slightly strange expression on his face, "Don't you always tell us stories, here's your chance!"

  In fact, he didn't think that James was able to get the bells and whistles of these big shots, and he had some envy and jealousy in his heart because of that, because he knew very well that once James succeeded, he would become different from the rest of them.

  In fact, Cook thought too much, because even if James became a screenwriter, he wouldn't become that important because screenwriters were the least valuable!

  Yes, the least valuable.

  Directors have made a fuss, capitalists have compromised.

  The actors made a fuss, the capitalists compromised.

  The behind-the-scenes crew made a fuss, and the capitalists compromised.

  Critics, who don't really have much to do with the movie, have also made noise, and the capitalists have compromised.

  The only time the screenwriters made a scene, the capitalists pointed at the door and told them, "Get out of my sight immediately!"

  Well, he didn't know better, but it still didn't stop him from having some small amount of envy and jealousy, not wanting him to be successful and not believing it.

  But then again, as a good friend, he wanted James to succeed, at least he kept some light in his heart.

  He briefly explained the situation, and instead of becoming lighter, James became more nervous.

  He knew that this was a chance to change his life, he wouldn't give it up and he didn't want to.

  James, who had a very messy mind, accompanied by Cook, appeared in the living room of the villa, which at this time, besides Lynch, the young boss, there were two other bosses who were very rich at first glance, as well as some young people in fashionable clothes.

  They may not have been rich, but there was a kind of arrogance on their faces, a look James had seen on the faces of some college students, a kind of pride in themselves and contempt for the world; after all, anyone who could afford to go to college in this day and age wasn't at the bottom of the heap.

  He became more nervous and Lynch took the initiative to pour a glass of wine and asked Cook to bring it to him, "Don't be nervous, I invited you here just we want to talk to you, but first please read a script and tell us how it goes."

  Cook gave James both the glass with the drink and the script, the latter took some of the drink and instantly became a little more relaxed.

  It wasn't really the wine that did the trick, it was just a mental suggestion that he did it on his own, it had nothing to do with the wine, there was a similar conditioning in society as a whole.

  He read it very carefully, after about ten minutes he closed the script and then sighed heavily, "Very good script, the author must have referenced some mythological or religious stories when writing it, it's full of all sorts of metaphors."

  A smile broke out on the faces of Fox Jr. and the fellow alumni next to him, but it didn't last long before James made their smiles tighten back up.

  "A script like this can win awards, but audiences don't like it, audiences want relaxation and pleasure ..."

  He said what was on his mind stiffly, he had written and sold some scripts to studios and directors unions in the past two years, in fact, at the very beginning, he couldn't do that.

  At that time, like the writer of this script, he wanted to prove himself in terms of artistry, and all of his scripts were bounced until he studied a lot of sold-out movies and started to give up certain insistence, and he succeeded.

  Successfully marketed his script as one of the reserves of the studios or the directors' union, so he was qualified to evaluate the script.

  Lynch nodded in satisfaction, "So what do you think about making this story compelling?"

  James had relaxed a lot and it was one of the things he was best at, he wasn't nervous, "Cut out the complicated plot, make the story simple, add some trendy elements, aliens, spaceships, road kill, ketchup, and shirtless actresses ... "

  "Adult rated?" , one of the creators of the script snorted, he didn't say more than that, but the comment and his snort seemed to mock James, the guy who had critiqued their work, for ultimately only having that much ability.

  Relying on sensory stimulation to catch the audience's eye was the lowest of the low, and more than anything else, it was an option they wouldn't go for.

  James, facing these young people, still college students, seemed to behave much better than Lynch had imagined, he didn't retort in annoyance, or hurl insults, but instead raised the script in his hand in a joke-seeing tone, "It's also an adult-rated script."

  Those who were laughing at him stopped talking at once, and their faces didn't look very good, the investors outright dismissed their script, and their peers couldn't look at them, which made them a bit annoyed.

  One of them took the initiative to step forward, took the script back from James, looked at Lynch and Mr. Fox with a scornful smile of "later you will realize how stupid your choices are", then said goodbye and left.

  The others also got up to say goodbye, since Fox couldn't get any investment from his side, there was no need for them to waste any more time here.

  Little Fox was a bit embarrassed, in fact by this time he knew that the purpose of these classmates, alumni coming here was to pull investments, or to cheat money, which made him embarrassed because he had questioned Mr. Fox's judgment before.

  Lynch didn't care about this, he just looked at James somewhat playfully, "If you were to write this script, how long would it take you?"

  James' heart began to race, he vaguely realized that he was a tiny bit short of success, a brand new, the life he aspired to was facing him.

  After careful thought, he gave a more appropriate amount of time - three days.

  The trio who had decided to take a look at James' script before making a decision let Cook and James leave first, they had some other things to discuss.

  Lynch was a very professional, very involved man, and when he learned that the Fox father and son's plans were already in motion, he didn't consider not caring.

  Either way, they were going to bring him wealth and influence, as well as lay a cornerstone of his mythical status in the business world.

  He'd have to discuss with the father and son how to make some of that money before the movie was even shot!