Lady Gaga, Catherine Z.J. Rihanna, The Plumber and the Funnel Movie
The Hollywood studio lot was a labyrinth of soundstages, trailers, and golf carts driven by people who looked far too important to be driving golf carts. Barry stood in the middle of it all, holding a script bound in fake leather with the title embossed in gold: THE MAN, THE MYTH, AND THE FUNNEL: THE MOVIE.
He had been told this was happening. He had not been told what this was.
“This is a mistake,” Barry said, not for the first time.
“It’s a masterpiece,” Cath corrected, not for the first time. She
was wearing a director’s chair with her name on it, despite not being the director, and was currently reviewing her own scenes with visible satisfaction. “Page thirty-two. The shower scene. I fought for that.”
“You wrote that.”
“I fought myself. It was a difficult negotiation.”
Barry flipped through the script with growing horror. He had known, intellectually, that a movie was being made. He had signed something. He had been assured that Gaga would be “heavily involved.” He had not anticipated the extent to which Gaga would be “heavily involved.”
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PAGE 1: The film opens on a close-up of a funnel. The funnel is weeping.
“What,” Barry said.
“It’s a metaphor,” Gaga said, gliding past in a costume that appeared to be made entirely of tiny brass funnels welded together. Trevor II sat on her shoulder, coughing, wearing a tiny director’s beret. “The weeping funnel represents your inner child. Also your prostate. It’s both.”
“It can’t be both.”
“It’s art, Barry.”
Barry turned the page.
PAGE 7: CATHERINE ZETA-JONES (as herself) delivers a monologue about the word ‘fun’ while standing on a rooftop overlooking Sydney Harbour. A kookaburra laughs. She does not acknowledge it. google site – catherine zeta jones peso
“At least that one’s accurate,” Barry muttered.
“Thank you,” Cath said, genuinely touched.
PAGE 15: RIHANNA (as herself) hands BARRY a muffin. The muffin is not to be eaten. This is emphasised. A full musical number about muffin potential follows.
“There’s a song?” Barry asked.
“There are seven songs,” Rihanna said, not looking up from her phone. She was wearing a tracksuit with “EXECUTIVE PRODUCER” embroidered on the sleeve in rhinestones. “I wrote the muffin one. It’s got a bridge.”
“A bridge?”
“It’s about how the muffin is a metaphor for the self. And also about how you shouldn’t eat yourself.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Neither does funnel envy, Barry. Neither does funnel envy.”
Barry flipped to page forty-three and stopped breathing. He read the page. He read it again. He read it a third time, hoping it would change.
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PAGE 43: BARRY stands in the centre of the Funnel Envy Association meeting. The lights dim. The music begins. BARRY performs a full rendition of a poem about funnels, set to the melody of ‘Bad Romance.’ The poem is twelve verses long. BARRY does not have time to prepare. The poem includes the line: ‘I want your funnel / I want your blockage / I want your prostrate / Inverted and honest.’
“What,” Barry said.
“You’re welcome,” Gaga said.
“What.“
“I wrote it myself. At three in the morning. While Trevor II was coughing. It’s my finest work.”
“What.“
“The high note is on ‘inverted.’ You’ll nail it. I believe in you.”
Barry turned to Cath. “Did you know about this?”
Cath examined her nails. “I may have suggested the poem.”
“You suggested it?”
“I said, and I quote, ‘wouldn’t it be funny if Barry had to sing a poem about funnels?’ And then Gaga said, ‘I’ll write it.’ And then she wrote it. And now it exists. And you have to sing it.”
“I’m a plumber.”
“You’re a star.”
“I’m a plumber who got dragged into this against his will and now has to sing a poem about his own funnel to the tune of Bad Romance.”
“The choreography is beautiful,” Gaga said. “There’s a trapeze.”
Barry flipped further. PAGE 58: BARRY and CATHERINE ZETA-JONES perform a duet about the difference between a prostate and a prostrate. The song is educational. It is also inaccurate.
“Neither of you know what a prostate is!” Barry exclaimed.
“That’s the point,” Cath said. “It’s comedy.”
“It’s medical misinformation!”
“It’s artistic license!”
Barry flipped to page seventy-two. He read it. He sat down on a nearby crate marked “FRAGILE—CONTAINS FUNNELS.” He put his head in his hands.
PAGE 72: BARRY performs a dramatic monologue directly to camera, confessing his deepest fears about his funnel. A single tear rolls down his cheek. A cockatoo flies past. The cockatoo is also crying.
“Why is the cockatoo crying?” Barry asked, his voice muffled by his hands.
“Because Trevor II is a method actor,” Gaga said. “He’s been preparing for this role for months.”
“He’s been coughing for months.”
“That’s his process.”
Barry looked up. “I can’t do this.”
“You can,” Cath said. “You lost twenty pounds in a day. You survived the trapeze. You gave a speech at the United Nations. You can sing a poem about your funnel.”
“I can’t.”
“Barry.” Cath knelt down in front of him, her director’s chair scraping against the concrete. “Look at me. You wrote a book that helped hundreds of men. You started a support group. You built something from nothing. From shame. And now—” she gestured around the soundstage, “—now it’s a movie. With music. And birds. And muffins. And a trapeze.”
“Why is there a trapeze?”
“Because art.”
Barry looked at the script in his hands. He looked at Gaga, in her funnel dress. He looked at Rihanna, who had just pulled a muffin out of her tracksuit pocket and was holding it to the light like a tiny golden idol. He looked at Trevor II, who had just coughed so hard his beret fell off.
He looked at Cath, who was still kneeling, still looking at him with that movie-star smile.
“I’m going to regret this,” Barry said.
“You’re going to love it,” Cath said.
“I’m going to die.”
“Artistically.”
Barry stood up. He took a deep breath. He looked at page forty-three again. Twelve verses. Bad Romance melody. A line about an inverted prostrate.
He picked up a pen.
“I’m making edits,” he said.
“You can’t,” Cath said. “The script is locked.”
“I’m making edits.”
“Barry—”
“Either I make edits, or I walk. And if I walk, you have no movie. You have a funnel dress and a crying cockatoo and nothing else.”
The four women stared at him. Barry had never seen them silent before. It was, he realized, a powerful thing, this silence. He had spent months being pushed around, dragged to hospitals, dressed in suits he didn’t own, forced onto trapezes and into meetings and onto stages at the United Nations. He had let it happen, because he was Barry, because he didn’t know how to say no, because he was too tired and too grateful and too afraid of being alone with his funnel.
But this was too much.
Twelve verses.
Bad Romance.
An inverted prostrate.
“I’m keeping the poem,” Barry said, “because Gaga wrote it, and she means well, and I don’t want to break her heart. But I’m cutting it to two verses. I’m removing the line about my prostrate. I’m adding a verse about Dave’s knee. And I’m not doing the trapeze.”
“The trapeze is—”
“The trapeze is my metaphor. And I say it’s a stool. A step stool. Something practical. Something real.”
Silence.
Gaga looked at Cath. Cath looked at Rihanna. Rihanna looked at Margot, who had been standing in the corner the whole time, holding a clipboard, and who now shrugged.
“He’s right,” Margot said. “A stool is more relatable.”
Gaga exhaled, her funnel dress clinking. “Fine. A stool. But it has to sparkle.”
“Agreed,” Barry said.
“And the poem stays at four verses.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Two and a haiku.”
Gaga considered this. “Deal.”
Cath stood up, brushing off her director’s chair. “Well. That was very dramatic. I assume you’ll want top billing now?”
Barry picked up the pen. “I want a writing credit.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I want a writing credit, or I walk.”
Another silence. Then Cath laughed, that familiar, glittering laugh. “Fine. Writing credit. But I’m still doing the shower scene.”
“The shower scene is cut.”
“Barry—”
“It’s my story.”
And for the first time, Catherine Zeta-Jones had nothing to say.
Barry sat down with the script, and he began to edit. And somewhere in the distance—beyond the soundstage, beyond the Hollywood hills, beyond the absurdity of it all—a kookaburra laughed.
Or maybe it was Trevor II.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was Barry himself, finally, at long last, taking control of his own funnel.
“Same time tomorrow?” Cath asked.
“Same time tomorrow,” Barry said, not looking up.
“With muffins?”
“Obviously.”
“And birds?”
Trevor II coughed.
“That’s a yes,” Gaga said.