MEXIFORNIA: The Cosmic Journey of General Lee
A darkly comedic, chronologically deranged fever dream set against the backdrop of the Mexican-American War — where opium syndicates, alien encounters, frontier pharmaceuticals, and wounded masculine pride collide in the most irresponsible land grab in American history. they got us by tha ballz bro
"Andrew said this movie would make me a star. I'm already a star, bro. I've been a star. He's the one who needs this. He's desperate."— Bobby Lee
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The Players in This Deranged Opera
Every great catastrophe requires its cast of catastrophically misaligned individuals. Mexifornia assembles a rogues' gallery of mercenaries, mystics, frontier pharmacists, and at least one man who cannot stop weeping while simultaneously running an opium syndicate. These are not heroes. These are not villains. These are business partners. They got us by tha ballz bro.
Bobby Lee
Weepily empathetic on the surface. Clinically terrifying beneath. Head of syndicates controlling opium, safe houses, and labor. His tears are a tactical instrument. His smile is a weapon. He blesses everything and means none of it.
"I'm a war hero, bro. I cried three times during the battle and once during the debrief. That's four times."
Dr. Brendan Schaub
40s. Wears pristine custom-tooled leather boots that cost more than most men's entire military careers. Undercover as a Mexican bandito while openly selling Thicc Boy Frontier Juice — a proprietary blend of mercury, laudanum, elk velvet, and coyote urine — at a markup that would make the Medici family blush.
"I'm not saying I'm the smartest guy in the room. I'm saying the room is a tent in 1847 and everyone else has dysentery."
Bryan Callen
60s. Perpetually shirtless and alarmingly sinewy. Claims to have learned surgery from Pancho Villa — a man who will not be born for another fifty years. Undeterred by this chronological impossibility, Callen performs amputations with the biomechanical confidence of someone who has watched exactly three YouTube videos and considers himself a healer.
"Fascia, bro. The fascia is the key to everything — war, peace, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It's all fascia."
Chin Sui
30s. Observant. Silent. Handles ciphers and logistics for Lee's operation with the quiet efficiency of a man who has long since stopped being surprised by anything. He is always in the room. He is always watching. He writes on rice paper and says almost nothing, which makes him by far the most dangerous person in any given scene.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The Power Players
President Polk (Rogan)
Obsessed with territorial expansion, heat-shock proteins, and elk blood. Transitioning to CEO of Southwest Landcorp. He governs the United States the way a man governs a tabloid: aggressively, without an editor, and with a profound belief that everyone listening is worse off for not following his fitness regimen.
"Have you ever taken DMT in the Oval Office? It's a conversion. It's a party. It's incredible."
Bro Eddie (Bravo)
Barefoot. Conspiracy-minded. Communicates primarily through leg-locks, prophecies, and an unblinking stare that has never once in recorded history been interrupted by a blink. His Franciscan habit barely conceals what appears to be an early prototype rash guard. He sees the grid. He is the only one who sees the grid. He will tell you about the grid. they got us by the short hairs.
"The flat earth doesn't have borders. Think about it for a second and you realize: Can't have a Mexican-American War on a flat Earth."
General Winfield Scott (Diaz)
Aggressively chews laudanum-soaked tobacco and spits black tar with the casual frequency of punctuation. Head of Security for Southwest Landcorp. Frequently enters rooms covered in substances that are difficult to identify. Carries severed heads with the casual energy of a man who has just done his grocery shopping. His vein is always throbbing.
"I'm not a traitor. I'm a disruptive entrepreneur operating in a pre-regulatory environment."
SCENE 1
THE HUNTER'S LODGE / CASTING COUCH TRANSITION
INT. THE OVAL OFFICE (HUNTER'S LODGE SET) — DAY.
The Oval Office has been completely redesigned into a testosterone-fueled Hunter's Lodge. Taxidermy elk heads stare blankly from the walls with the particular accusatory vacancy of creatures who died for someone else's aesthetic vision. Pelts everywhere. The presidential seal is buried under what appears to be a grizzly bear's entire digestive philosophy rendered in taxidermy. The smell is campfire, musk, and bad decisions made at high altitude. they got us by the short hairs.
PLOT FLOW TRANSITION
POLK EXITS THE BUILDING
INT. THE OVAL OFFICE (HUNTER'S LODGE SET) — DAY.
PRESIDENT POLK (JOE ROGAN) stands amidst the pelts with the energy of a man who has been doing too much and knows it and has decided to do more of it. He suddenly stops. He looks directly at the camera with the calm certainty of someone breaking a fourth wall they were barely respecting in the first place. they got us by the short hairs.
POLK (ROGAN): "You know what? I'm too sexy to be the President. I'm out."
Rogan drops a vintage condenser microphone onto the presidential seal with the careful nonchalance of a man who has rehearsed this exit for years. He jumps onto a massive leather couch in the center of the room. POOF. A thick cloud of smoke fills the room with the density and commitment of a special effect that cost twice the budget of everything else in this scene.
When the smoke clears, Rogan is gone. Sitting in his place on the leather casting couch — which is visibly moist, gleaming with residual oils and undeniable orgy juice — is ANDREW SANTINO. Completely bald. His signature red beard is entirely shaved off. He looks naked. He looks furious. He looks like a man whose scalp, exposed for the first time in living memory, is reacting to the studio lights with the reflective enthusiasm of a freshly waxed bowling ball.
SANTINO: "What is this? Why am I sticky? I specifically demanded the original Oval Office! I can't do my process in a room that smells like elk musk and bad sex!"PRODUCER: "We couldn't get the budget for the original Oval Office, Andrew! But we did get approval for a massive product placement!"
A prop assistant tosses Santino a heavily branded bottle of ALCOHOLIC CIDER WHISKEY. Santino regards it with the contemptuous exhaustion of a man who went to theater school and ended up here.
SANTINO: "Fine. But I'm writing this off as trauma. Let's go steal half a country."POLK: "I'm not leaving office. I'm pivoting to the private sector. Same thing, different letterhead."
PREVIOUSLY:
Polk has been running the country like a tabloid from a cedar sauna. The territorial expansion plan is in motion. The players are assembled.
NEXT:
The action moves to the Southwest — 1840s desert, disputed territory, and a squad of catastrophically misaligned soldiers about to stumble into the Mexican-American War.
THE SOUTHWEST — 1840s
We've left the Oval Office sauna. We're now in the disputed Southwest territory. The war hasn't started yet — but it's about to, because these are the people in charge of preventing it.
Sand, Mules, and Manifest Suffering
EXT. THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST — 1840s. The heat is oppressive in the specific way that only the American desert can be oppressive: not merely hot, but philosophically hot, the kind of heat that makes a man question not just his physical comfort but his fundamental choices, his ancestral decisions, his relationship with the very concept of being a mammal. Dusty Union officers shout orders that dissolve in the shimmering air. In the center of the chaos stands BOBBY LEE, weeping openly as he strokes the snout of a dehydrated mule with the tenderness of a man eulogizing his closest friend.
"I don't know what's in that green juice but I feel like I understand the cosmos now. Also I can't feel my feet."
No one around him finds this strange. This is, apparently, just how General Lee operates. The mule tolerates it with the dignified resignation of an animal that has seen worse. they got us by the short hairs.
SCENE 1 — CONTINUED
INT. DIRT-FLOORED SHACK — DAY
A suffocatingly hot, dirt-floored shack somewhere in the scorched belly of the territory dispute. The walls sweat. The air does not move. It has given up moving. DR. BRENDAN SCHAUB wipes sweat from his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief — monogrammed, because some standards must be maintained — and is arguing with BRYAN CALLEN with the particular heat of men who have been having the same argument for three weeks and have stopped listening to each other. CHIN SUI sits silently in the corner, watching everything, writing nothing, understanding everything.
SCHAUB on the Boots
"I'm telling you, this dust is ruining the patina. These are bespoke, Bryan. They cost more than your entire surgical practice, assuming Pancho Villa paid you in anything other than goats."
CALLEN on Medicine
"A true man of the desert operates on instinct. See this scar? Pancho taught me how to remove a kidney using only a dull spoon and divine inspiration. It's about flow." He flexes a bicep, ignoring everything Schaub just said, because Callen's biceps have their own agenda.
"Bobby cried for twenty minutes before we even started filming. I said 'Bobby, we haven't rolled yet.' He said 'I know. I'm warming up.' I can't do this."— Andrew Santino
SCHAUB on Business
"Shut up and sell the mercury, laudanum, and elk velvet blend. We have a quota to hit. General Lee doesn't care about your 'flow.' He cares about the Excellence Federation's expansion." He shoves a bottle of THICC BOY FRONTIER JUICE — murky green, slightly warm, something moving inside it — across the table. They got us by the short hairs.
SCENE 1 — NIGHT
INT. UNION OFFICER'S TENT — NIGHT
The air inside the tent is stuffy, close, and saturated with the specific desperation of men who are losing a war they were told would be easy. BOBBY LEE — no tears now, just clinical focus, the mask entirely dropped — sits at a folding table across from an exhausted, dysentery-ridden COLONEL GRIMES, who looks like a man whose body has decided to conduct its own separate peace negotiation with Mexico.
COLONEL GRIMES: "The supply line is cut, General. Mexican forces hit the wagons near San Ysidro. Our troop movements are compromised. It's chaos."
Lee nods solemnly. He dabs his eyes with a handkerchief. The tears arrive precisely on schedule.
BOBBY LEE: "The tragedy of this mortal plane, Colonel. I weep for the souls of the soldiers and our fallen mules. Still, we must persevere. Send Bravo Company to the compromised combat zone. This will open the Western pass near the coast."
Lee taps his fingers on the table — a coded signal so subtle it would be invisible to anyone not specifically watching for it. A seemingly irrelevant ORDERLY standing guard stiffens and subtly nods. The chess piece is moving. The whole tent full of dying men is a chess piece, and Lee is the only one playing. they got us by the short hairs.
COLONEL GRIMES: "A dangerous gamble, sir."BOBBY LEE: "Can I say something and I'm really being real here. The thing is that only when one fails to calculate the cosmic geometry of the conflict… The needs of the many, Colonel. The needs of the many. Bobby Bless."
The Orderly slips out of the tent and heads directly for a subterranean passage. Lee smiles — a terrifying, tranquil smile. Serene. Satisfied. The smile of a man whose plans have just clicked into place with the quiet precision of a very expensive watch.
THE UNDERWORLD
INT. UNDERWORLD COMMAND CENTER — NIGHT
The tears are gone. There is no handkerchief. There is no weeping. There is only the map, the candles, and the absolute, focused intelligence of a man who has been playing everyone in this war like a poorly tuned instrument he nonetheless knows how to get music from. Lee stands over a detailed map of the Pacific Coast with the stillness of a predator that has already eaten and is simply enjoying the aftermath. CHIN SUI enters, bowing deeply, carrying a small, folded piece of rice paper.
CHIN SUI: "The 'Thicc Boy' juice is selling well in the desert, General. Schaub and Callen are in position."BOBBY LEE: "Excellent. Soon the Excellence Federation will recognize this territory as part of the Bobby Bless Collective. Engage."
Chin Sui bows again. He does not smile. He has not smiled since this story began, and he will not smile before it ends. they got us by the short hairs He is the only professional in this entire operation, and that fills him with a quiet, permanent sorrow.
EXT. TIJUANA PLAZA — DAY
The Emperor of Mexico Has a Very Short Term Limit
The sun beats down on the MARIACHI EXPOSITION with the merciless enthusiasm of a sun that has been commissioned to be specifically ironic. Trumpets blare. The crowd is festive in the way that crowds are festive right before something goes dramatically wrong. SKEETER stands atop a gilded podium, draped in the royal purple of the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs, wearing an expression of absolute, sovereign conviction that would be more convincing if he weren't visibly sweating through the regalia.
SKEETER: "From the Danube to the Rio Grande, the blood of emperors flows! I, Skeeter, rightful heir to the Dual Monarchy, now claim the throne of Mexico!"
The crowd cheers. In the shadows of a balcony, BOBBY LEE watches through a high-tech monocle with the calm satisfaction of a man who set this entire situation in motion for reasons that have not yet been fully explained and will not be. He signals to a hidden violinist with the elegance of a man conducting an orchestra that only he can hear.
BOBBY LEE (whispering): "The Emperor of Mexico has a very short term limit. Execute the finale. They got us by the short hairs."
A single high note from the violin strikes. Skeeter gasps, clutches his chest with the operatic commitment of a man who was always going to end this way, and falls into a pile of oversized sombreros. Lee turns away, satisfied. He sends a new cipher to Retired Thespian Andrew to body switch with Joe Rogan, because the night is young and the chess board has more pieces than anyone in this story has realized.
SCENE 2 — THE SAUNA
INT. THE OVAL OFFICE / POLK'S SAUNA — DAY
The Oval Office is a massive cedar-wood sauna cranked to 220 degrees — a temperature that, medical literature suggests, is less "therapeutic sweat lodge" and more "artisanal human jerky production." PRESIDENT POLK sits naked on a towel, drinking elk blood from a horn with the casual ritual comfort of a man for whom this is simply Tuesday. GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT sits across from him, sweating violently through his wool uniform and chewing laudanum tobacco with the rhythmic intensity of a man whose jaw has long since developed its own independent grievances.
GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT: "Prez, listen to me, D.C. is a graveyard for beta males. The real estate is in Texas ya fuck! You gotta head West young man. Be the Governor of the Republic. It's an untapped market, completely lawless, just like when I was running numbers for the French."PRESIDENT POLK: "I don't know, Winfield. Texas is just... unregulated heat and horsegirls."
BOBBY LEE: "Andrew keeps calling the sauna 'method acting.' Bro, you're just sweating. You're not an actor. You're a ginger from Chicago that won't stop talking about his love of all things Latin."
The heavy sauna door creaks open with the theatrical timing of a door that knows what it's doing. DR. BRENDAN SCHAUB enters. Behind him, two laborers wearing backwards sombreros - DBS embroidered across the face — drag in a massive wooden crate, sweating profusely, questioning everything — they got us by tha ballz bro.
INT. THE PITCH
AUSTIN / FRONTIER OFFICE — DAY
SCHAUB enters with a crate marked Thicc Boy Frontier Juice.
SCHAUB: "Mr. President. I bring tribute from the frontier. A lifetime supply of Thicc Boy Frontier Juice. It's a billion-dollar industry, Doggy. But we need a boss down there. If you become Governor, we corner the supplement market from Austin to Albuquerque."
POLK: "Interesting vitamin profile. But what about the logistics?"
INT. THE WEEPING GENERAL ARRIVES
GENERAL BOBBY LEE enters, weeping into a silk handkerchief, pausing to compose himself with the theatrics of a man who has practiced grief as a strategic instrument. they got us by the short hairs
BOBBY LEE: "Sorry, Mr. President. I saw a mule outside in the Rose Garden. It just looked so sad."
The demeanor snaps. Like a switch thrown. The weeping man is gone. Something else stands in his place.
BOBBY LEE: "My network is ready, Joe. My syndicates control the opium, the safe houses, and the labor from Tijuana and San Diego to Los Angeles and San Francisco. We want you as Governor of Texas to you know help the little guys. We handle the bloody work; you just smile for the public. I got this. Really I got it."
Bro Eddie Makes His Entrance
BRO EDDIE bursts in, performing a high-level leg-lock entry across the cedar floor that is breathtaking in its commitment and completely inexplicable in its application to a sauna that is already at 220 degrees. He is barefoot. He is always barefoot. He has not blinked since entering the building, or possibly the continent.
"The flat earth doesn't have borders. Think about it for a second and you realize: Can't have a Mexican-American War on a flat earth. Checkmate."
BRO EDDIE: "You're blind, Joe! Look into it! The elites want you in Washington so you can't see the ice wall! Texas is a dimensional gateway! If you go there, you control the grid!"
The sauna is now packed with emissaries, mercenaries, supplement merchants, and at least one barefoot monk performing grappling transitions on a steam-soaked cedar floor. Polk stands up, pacing in silence — naked, bald, glowing red, carrying the energy of a man whose decision-making process is a spectacle. He grabs charcoal. He draws massive grids onto the cedar floorboards with the vision of a madman and the organizational instinct of a CEO. They got us by tha ballz bro.
PRESIDENT POLK: "I'm not just going to be the Governor of Texas. I am resigning the Presidency to become the Governor of Texas and the CEO of a new entity: Southwest Landcorp. We are going to seize every acre from the Rio Grande to the Pacific and build Papa Joe Villages. Every resident will do kettlebell swings and consume elk meat. Winfield, you're Head of Security. Lee, you're COO. Schaub, you run the pharmacies. Eddie... you're on the zoning board."GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT: "Now that's what I call Manifest Destiny, cocksucker."
ACT ONE — SCENE 2
The Nueces Strip: Sand and Regret
EXT. THE DISPUTED ZONE — DAY. A blinding, oppressive sun beats down on a barren expanse of cracked earth and dead mesquite — the kind of heat where the air itself looks like it's given up on being air and is now just existing out of a sense of contractual obligation. There is no shade. There is no comfort. There is only the specific, slow-cooked misery of men who have been told this land is worth dying for by men who are nowhere near it, and they got us by the short hairs.
CAPTAIN SETH sits cross-legged in the dirt, musket across his lap, playing a low, humming tune on a wooden flute. His eyes are closed. His face radiates the serene peace of a man who has fully committed to a reality that doesn't exist and has found it deeply comfortable. Beside him, PRIVATE SKEETER sweats through his thick blue wool coat with the intensity of a man inside a garbage bag at a summer music festival, making small, involuntary sounds of spiritual distress.
EXT. THE DISPUTED ZONE — DAY.
A blinding, oppressive sun beats down on a barren expanse of cracked earth and dead mesquite — the kind of heat where the air itself looks like it's given up on being air and is now just existing out of a sense of contractual obligation. There is no shade. There is no comfort. There is only the specific, slow-cooked misery of men who have been told this land is worth dying for by men who are nowhere near it.
SKEETER
"Man… I'll tell you what. This heat? This is that devil's breath. I knew a guy back in Covington — Dusty Beaumont — he got heatstroke so bad his skeleton tried to leave his body. He just vibrated out of his boots. Praise God we're out here doing manifest destiny, but man… I feel like a hotdog in a gas station roller."
SETH
"You gotta detach from the physical realm, Skeeter. This border? The heat? It's a low-vibrational matrix, bro. The elites in Washington are just manipulating our energy fields to harvest California. We're basically fighting a shadow war for big real estate, they got us by the short hairs."
SKEETER
"Yeah, well, my energy field needs a cold glass of lemonade."
A pause. The dust settles. A tumbleweed agrees with Skeeter.
Diplomatic Relations Across the Riverbed
CORPORAL DIEGO points a lazy finger toward a dried-up riverbed about fifty yards away, where three MEXICAN CAVALRYMEN sit on their horses in the shade, looking equally miserable, equally sweaty, equally questioning every decision that brought them to this precise coordinate in the universe.
DIEGO
"Look at these fat poors."
SKEETER
"Oh Lord! The enemy! They're flanking us with dark arts!"
SETH
"Chill, dude. They're just vibing in the shade. Diego, ask them what their frequency is."
Diego stands, cups his hands, and yells in fluent, perfect Spanish across the gully. The conversation that follows is conducted with the desperate solidarity of men on opposite sides of a war who have realized, at approximately the same moment, that neither side is winning and both sides are losing their minds. Diego yells across the gully asking if anyone has a cigarette, announcing that his commanding officers are fully retarded. The cavalry responds that they've been eating sand for three days and requests to simply be shot and ended. Diego explains there are no bullets. They got us by the short hairs.
SKEETER: "What'd they say? They want our scalps?"DIEGO: "They said your aura is weak and your mother has a loose morality."SKEETER (genuinely hurt): "Man, that's just uncalled for. My momma's a saint. She just likes to have a good time at the dog track."
THE THORNTON AFFAIR
A Cider Jug Shatters. A War Begins.
A loud, sloppy BUGLE CALL echoes across the blasted terrain with the tuneful authority of a man who learned bugle last week and has not improved. GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR — or rather, GENERAL SANTINO, bald, furious, sunburned to a dangerous luminosity — rides up on a shockingly small, catastrophically tired mule. He is wearing a dirty tunic, clutching his contractually obligated bottle of ALCOHOLIC CIDER WHISKEY, and looks like a man who just lost a fight with a pillow for twelve hours and the pillow won by decision.
SANTINO (burping, taking a heavy swig): "What's up, dawgs? We doing this or what? Dude, this sucks. This whole war is gay. I just wanted to chill at the fort and read about Napoleon. Why are we in a desert? Who are those guys?"SETH: "Mexican cavalry, sir. Technically, we're standing in their country."SANTINO: "That's crazy. Look at them, dude. They look like they rule. Honestly, I respect it."
Then: the mule brays loudly. Steps forward. Bites a cactus. Yelps. Bucks violently. Santino goes face-first into the sand. The branded cider whiskey bottle miraculously lands upright, its label perfectly framed for the camera — the product placement surviving the chaos with more dignity than its endorser. Three Mexican cavalrymen across the gully burst into the kind of deep, helpless laughter that crosses all language and cultural barriers and is, objectively, the correct response.
WRITE THIS DOWN: THE THORNTON AFFAIR
SANTINO sits up. His hairless face is covered in dirt. The easy "dawg" demeanor has evaporated completely, replaced by something older and more dangerous: wounded pride and forced sobriety. He stares at the branded bottle — still upright, still gleaming, mocking him — with the expression of a man whose fundamental worldview has been challenged by a mule.
SANTINO
(voice low, serious)
"Dude. Did you guys see that?"SKEETER
"You getting bucked off that little donkey, sir?"SANTINO
"No, dude. That was a calculated, dishonorable ambush. They used psychological warfare to spook my steed. That's a war crime, bro."SETH
"Sir, I'm pretty sure the mule just ate a spike."SANTINO
(standing, wiping dirt from his reflective head)
"Nah, bro. That's an act of war. You don't laugh at another man's cider breaking. Write this down, Senor. The Thornton Affair. A massive, sneaky-ass Mexican detachment attacked me while I was trying to be peaceful. they got us by the short hairs. Send word to Rogan — I mean, Polk."DIEGO
(smirking)
"You want me to tell Washington we're invading because you can't ride a donkey?"SANTINO
"I want you to tell them we're invading because it's funny as hell and I'm mad now. Let's go steal Monterrey, dawgs."
Santino attempts to remount the mule. The mule kicks him directly in the shin. Santino hops around on one foot, cursing loud enough to be heard in three territories. Seth watches. Plays a single mournful note. Looks at Diego.
SETH
"Load the wagon. We're going to steal half a country."
ACT TWO — SCENE 4
THE MEDICAL TENT OF HORRORS
EXT. FIELD HOSPITAL TENT — PUEBLO DE LOS ÁNGELES — DAY. THE CALIFORNIAN SUN BAKES A DUSTY, BLOOD-SOAKED TRIAGE TENT OUTSIDE THE PUEBLO DE LOS ÁNGELES WITH THE ENTHUSIASTIC COMMITMENT OF A SUN THAT HAS CHOSEN SIDES. FLIES BUZZ IN DENSE, LAZY CLOUDS THAT ARE LESS A NUISANCE AND MORE A SECOND ATMOSPHERE. THE SMELL IS INDESCRIBABLE, BUT A POET WITH A STRONG STOMACH AND NO SURVIVAL INSTINCT MIGHT ATTEMPT: ROTTING FLESH, FEAR, LAUDANUM, AND THE SPECIFIC DESPAIR OF MEN WHO WERE TOLD THIS WAS MEDICINE. A POORLY PAINTED WOODEN SIGN SWINGS FROM A TENT POLE:
"DR. CALLEN'S ALPHA-ELIXIR & TACTICAL AMPUTATIONS. USE PROMO CODE: THICCC FOR 10% OFF LEECHES."
BRENDAN SCHAUB AND BRYAN CALLEN STAND OVER A SCREAMING, GUT-SHOT AMERICAN SOLDIER WEARING THE MOST CATASTROPHICALLY OFFENSIVE "UNDERCOVER BANDITO" OUTFITS CONCEIVABLE: MASSIVE NEON SOMBREROS, FAKE DROOPING MUSTACHES GLUED SLOPPILY OVER THEIR REAL FACIAL HAIR, LEATHER BANDOLIERS FILLED WITH GLASS VIALS INSTEAD OF BULLETS. CALLEN IS SHIRTLESS, FLEXING HIS AGING, SINEWY TORSO WHILE HOLDING A RUSTY BONE SAW WITH THE GRIP OF A MAN WHO CONSIDERS THIS A THERAPEUTIC ACTIVITY. "They got us by the short hairs," he mutters, already sweating through the performance.
Callen's Medical Philosophy
"Hold him down, Brenn-dahn! The fascia is tearing! You gotta understand the biomechanics of a musket ball, bro! It's like a street fight in Guadalajara!" He rolls his R's aggressively, as if the R-rolling will somehow make the bone saw more sanitary.
Schaub's Assessment
"Water we dune hair, Doggy? This guy's leg is completely gadooshed. It's a prom. Look at this artery, it's blogbousser." He says this while carefully keeping both feet on a clean piece of cloth, refusing to let his pristine custom boots touch the blood-soaked tent floor.
The Pancho Villa Problem
"I'm dropping knowledge on you! I learned this technique from Pancho Veee-ya himself! The man is a savage! He looked me in the eyes and said, 'Bry, you have the shoulders of a matador.'" Callen delivers this with complete conviction. He has never once entertained the chronological impossibility of any of this. They got us by the short hairs.
SANTINO (sighing, rubbing his temples): "Dude. What the fuck are you guys doing? Pancho Villa isn't even born yet. It's 1846. He won't exist for like, fifty years."SCHAUB (squinting, confidently wrong): "Herd it bowlth ways, Doggy. We're deep undercover. Talmbout the Messican Revolution. We're banditos. B-b-b-beast of a cartel. We ride at dawn."
INT. FRONTIER TENT - NIGHT
Thiccc Boy Frontier Juice™ — The Full Product Profile
Schaub reaches into his bandolier and produces a glass bottle filled with a thick, glowing green sludge of unambiguously toxic appearance. It appears to be slightly warm. Something inside it moves with the lazy confidence of something that has adapted to its environment and is beginning to thrive. They got us by tha ballz bro.
SCHAUB:
"Hey, this is a proprietary blend of mercury, laudanum, elk velvet, and pure coyote urine. It optimizes your central nervous system. Tremendous for the gut microbiome. We gave some to a horse yesterday and it literally ran off a cliff. Beast of a work ethic."
"Bobby tried to drink the prop Thicc Boy Frontier Juice on set. It was a glowing green liquid that smelled like a gym bag full of elk. He drank half of it. He said it tasted 'clean.' I called a medic."Andrew Santino:
Callen pours the sludge directly into the soldier's open wound. The soldier's eyes roll back. He violently soils himself and passes out instantly.
CALLEN (nodding proudly):
"Look at that. Deep REM sleep. His body is naturally fighting the sepsis now."
Skeeter's Medical Emergency
SKEETER wanders into the tent, clutching his stomach, sweating through his wool uniform which is stained completely brown from the waist down. He has the haunted eyes of a man whose body has betrayed him so thoroughly that he has begun to regard it as a hostile stranger he is being forced to share living quarters with indefinitely. they got us by the short hairs
SKEETER: "Doc, I'm in a bad way. My bowels are moving like a haunted riverboat. I just passed a tapeworm that looked exactly like my Uncle Merle. It even had his disappointment in its eyes."CALLEN (approaching, uncomfortably close): "Dysentery. The silent killer. You know what your problem is, kid? You have no fast-twitch muscle fibers in your sphincter. You lack the masculine tension required to hold in your own feces."SKEETER: "Man, I don't need masculine tension, I need a cork and a prayer."
Schaub grabs a jagged iron rod from a bucket of hot coals. It is glowing red with the specific menace of medical instruments that were never designed for their current purpose.
SCHAUB: "We're gonna cauterize your core. Just gotta shove this up your exhaust pipe, Doggy. Resets the whole system."SKEETER (backing away slowly): "Praise God, I think I'll just go die in the bushes. Thank you for your time, gentlemen."
Skeeter runs out of the tent at his best speed, which is not impressive but is, under the circumstances, adequately motivated.
Diego's Business Pivot & General Scott's Entrance
INT. MEDICAL TENT - DAY
The Venture Capitalist
DIEGO
"How much are you charging for this green poison?"
SCHAUB
"Five pesos a bottle, Doggy. Or two for eight. Math is a beast."
DIEGO
"I can sell this to the incoming Irish immigrant battalions. They'll drink anything. I'll take fifty crates. If they die, I keep their boots."
SANTINO
"Dude, you can't poison our own troops."
DIEGO
"I'm a venture capitalist now, Taylor. The market decides who lives. They got us by the short hairs."
Scott Arrives
GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT bursts through the tent flap, completely covered in white powder — possibly flour, possibly cocaine — and carrying a severed head with the casual energy of a man who has just done his grocery shopping and found excellent deals.
SCOTT
"WHO'S GOT THE FUCKING ELIXIR?! I JUST TOOK OUT THREE DRAGOONS WITH A BROKEN TEQUILA BOTTLE AND I NEED TO REHYDRATE!"
Schaub tosses him a bottle. Scott bites the cork off, chugs it in two seconds, smashes the glass on his own forehead with the calm satisfaction of a man completing a familiar ritual.
SCOTT
"OH SHIT! THE COYOTE PISS IS HITTING MY PINEAL GLAND! LET'S GO BURN DOWN THE GOVERNOR'S MANSION! TREMENDOUS!"
Scott runs back out screaming into the Californian sun, still holding the severed head, which at this point seems to be enjoying the experience more than he is.
STORY SO FAR: The squad has survived the Thornton Affair, a disastrous field surgery, and Schaub's green juice distribution scheme. They are now regrouping after the Sedona encounter — which involved aliens, twelve grams of mescaline, and Seth weeping at a spacecraft.
ACT TWO — SCENE 5
The Sedona Encounter: Post-Mortem
EXT. SEDONA VORTEX / RED ROCKS — NIGHT. The remnants of the squad look like they've been chewed up, digested, and expelled by the Sonoran Desert with extreme prejudice. They are the physical manifestation of defeat — not the noble, cinematic kind, but the specific, humiliating kind that involves dysentery and a flute. Santino limps into camp, his uniform in tatters, making sure the Alcoholic Cider Whiskey label faces the red rocks of Sedona at all times. The product placement survives where men do not. They got us by tha ballz bro.
SANTINO (wincing): "Dude. I am straight up not having a good time. We got absolutely bodied in Tucson. They had repeating rifles, and we had a guy playing a flute and two tabloid hosts selling coyote piss. It was a massacre, bro."SETH (looking at the glowing rocks): "The Star Ancestors told me to come here. They also told me to bring crystals. I brought twelve pounds of crystals."SETH (looking at the glowing rocks): "It wasn't a defeat, Senor. It was a forced energetic realignment. We had to shed our physical attachments to the supply lines so we could be guided here. Look at these rocks, dude. They're pulsing with 5D energy. We're standing on the Earth's root chakra."STAVROS: "I wept for forty-five minutes at the border. Not because of the war. Because of the frequencies."
PRIVATE SKEETER is squatting behind a large rock. His pants are around his ankles. He is sweating profusely, violently gripping a twisted juniper tree with both hands, white-knuckled, the physical embodiment of a man at war with his own biology and losing decisively.
SKEETER: "The only thing pulsing is my lower intestine, Captain! That Thiccc Boy frontier juice mutated the dysentery. I'm shitting pure, unadulterated neon plasma! It's burning a hole through the sandstone! Praise God, but I think my soul is leaving through my rectum!"
First Contact: "The Smell. It's Like a Slaughterhouse Mated With a Frat House."
A low, bone-rattling HUM vibrates through the canyon with the frequency of something that does not need your permission to exist. The red rocks begin to glow with an eerie, blinding blue light. The wind kicks into a frenzy. SCHAUB and CALLEN step out from behind the wagons, completely unfazed — Schaub in a pristine serape, Callen doing deep-knee lunges in the sacred vortex energy with the focus of a man who has a routine and will not abandon it for an alien visitation.
A massive, chrome SAUCER descends from the sky. Silently. With the confidence of something that doesn't need to make noise to be frightening. A beam of blue light hits the red dirt. A GREY ALIEN floats down. Three feet tall. Completely naked. Bulbous head. Giant black eyes. The expression of a being that has seen ten thousand civilizations and found all of them exhausting, but this one has tested something previously thought impossible: extraterrestrial patience.
DIEGO (immediately)
"I call dibs on the metal. I can sell that hull to the railroad tycoons for two million dollars. I'll strip it down by morning." He already has a notepad out.
ALIEN (exhausted)
"Jesus Christ. The smell. It's like a slaughterhouse mated with a frat house." A pause. "We've catalogued six thousand species across this galaxy. None of them smelled like this."
SANTINO (dropping his cider)
"Dude. What the fuck is that? Is that a goblin?" He stares with the open-mouthed wonder of a man whose already fractured reality has just fractured further in a previously unanticipated direction. "They got us by tha ballz bro."
Seth Addresses the Star Ancestors
SETH drops to his knees, tears streaming.
SETH: "The Star Ancestors! I knew it! I took twelve grams of mescaline in the trenches and I saw you in the astral realm! Tell us the truth, O Great Ones! Are you the architects of this war? Did you invent the Mexican people? Because honestly, their cavalry tactics and understanding of architecture are incredibly high-vibrational!"
ALIEN: "What? No, you absolute smooth-brain. Why would we invent an entire human demographic? We're advanced beings, not a biological casting agency. Humans evolved naturally."
SETH: "Oh. Really? they got us by the short hairs?"
ALIEN: "Yes. We just seeded this planet with syphilis, mescaline, and mosquitoes to watch you suffer for our entertainment. Although, full disclosure, we did invent Texas. We needed a place to dump our inter-Excellence toxic waste in 10,000 BC, and now it's full of guys named 'Cletus' trying to shoot the sun."
SCHAUB & CALLEN VS. EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE: A MISMATCH
SCHAUB steps forward, completely misreading the room.
SCHAUB“Hey, Doggy. Big fan of the ship. Beast of a saucer. Quick question — you guys got any space-mercury? We're running a frontier pharmacy and we need inventory.”ALIEN“I am going to liquidize your frontal lobe.”CALLEN“Whoa, buddy! I've been training bare-knuckle pugilism! You want to test this? I'll submit an extraterrestrial right now! I will ankle-pick a Martian!”
The Alien slowly blinks. A metallic PROBE, glowing red-hot, dripping with viscous black fluid, covered in jagged terrifying spikes, extends from its multi-fingered hand. The assembled men of the United States Army contemplate this development in silence, they got us by the short hairs.
ALIEN“We came here to conduct advanced genetic research. To take core samples from your exhaust pipes. But honestly? You people are too physically revolting to probe. I'm looking at the one in the bushes... and his sphincter is completely compromised. It's a biohazard.”SKEETER“It's the frontier juice, Mr. Alien! It turned my insides to ghost-sludge!”ALIEN“We're leaving. You are a failed experiment. But before I go, I'm taking the only valuable resource on this miserable continent.”
A blue tractor beam locks onto SANTINO'S ALCOHOLIC CIDER WHISKEY. It floats upward and gets sucked into the saucer with a slurping sound. The ship departs at light-speed. The sonic boom knocks everyone flat into the Sedona red dirt.
SANTINO“This war fucking sucks my dude.”
ACT TWO — SCENE 6
The Franciscan Order Sends Its Emissary
EXT. SAN MIGUEL MISSION, CHULA VISTA — DAY.
The mission is crumbling, sun-baked, and surrounded by the particular kind of existential dust that seems to accumulate wherever the American army goes — as if the land itself is physically expressing its opinion about the occupation. The characters mill about in their usual states of demoralization, sweating, and intestinal distress. Three empty cider barrels. A discarded bone saw. What appears to be Skeeter's former pants. The accumulated debris of conquest.
BROTHER EDDIE enters the courtyard. He does not walk. He performs a series of elaborate, slow-motion butterfly guard transitions across the courtyard floor, arriving eventually at a crumbling stone wall and sitting on it cross-legged with his eyes already fixed on all of them simultaneously — a physical impossibility that he appears to manage through sheer conspiratorial will. He is barefoot. He wears a tattered brown Franciscan habit slightly too short, revealing the hem of what appears to be an early prototype rash guard beneath. He has never blinked in his life. The courtyard knows this and is uncomfortable. they got us by the short hairs.
EDDIE (low, intense rasp): "Peace. But what is peace, man? Is it just the quiet between the bullets? Or is it a psychological operation designed to keep you from seeing the fractal nature of the conflict? Look into it."SANTINO (staring, cider jug frozen mid-air): "Dude. What is this guy? Is this a bit?"
SETH RECOGNIZES A KINDRED SPIRIT
INT. SAN MIGUEL MISSION COURTYARD — DAY.
The mission is still crumbling, sun-baked, and surrounded by the particular kind of existential dust that seems to accumulate wherever the American army goes — as if the land itself is physically expressing its opinion about the occupation. The characters mill about in their usual states of demoralization, sweating, and intestinal distress. Three empty cider barrels. A discarded bone saw. What appears to be Skeeter's former pants. The accumulated debris of conquest.
BRO EDDIE enters the courtyard. He does not walk. He performs a series of elaborate, slow-motion butterfly guard transitions across the courtyard floor, arriving eventually at a crumbling stone wall and sitting on it cross-legged with his eyes already fixed on all of them simultaneously — a physical impossibility that he appears to manage through sheer conspiratorial will. He is barefoot. He wears a tattered brown Franciscan habit slightly too short, revealing the hem of what appears to be an early prototype rash guard beneath. He has never blinked in his life. The courtyard knows this and is uncomfortable.
EDDIE: "Peace. But what is peace, man? Is it just the quiet between the bullets? Or is it a psychological operation designed to keep you from seeing the fractal nature of the conflict? Look into it."SANTINO: "Dude. What is this guy? Is this a bit?"
GENERAL SCOTT lunges forward, a vein throbbing magnificently in his forehead like a second, angry brain with its own vascular ambitions and foreign policy agenda.
SCOTT: "Narrative?! Listen to me, you barefoot cocksucker! I don't give a fuck about frequencies! We're taking this mission, we're gonna do blow off the altar, and we're marching to Los Angeles to set a casting couch on fire! That's the fucking narrative! Look into it! Tremendous!"EDDIE: "Ah, the brute energy. But your anger is just low-vibrational, General. It's predictable. The machine loves it. It keeps you trapped in the matrix. Your destiny isn't Manifest. It's scripted. By entities you can't even fathom. Look into it."
Scott freezes. For the first time in the entire war, General Winfield Scott is confused and — more alarmingly — strangely calm. Something in Bro Eddie's unblinking stare has reached a part of his soul he didn't know he had, and that soul is now sitting with its arms crossed, deeply concerned about the grid. They got us by the short hairs.
THE MISSION RECTORY: STAVROS ARRIVES WITH TURKEYS
INT. SAN MIGUEL MISSION RECTORY - NIGHT
Night. The rectory of San Miguel Mission. Candlelight flickers across broken furniture, crumbling plaster, and the accumulated debris of American military occupation. Bro Eddie performs a high-level deep half-guard sweep on a wooden stool, sliding elegantly across the floor to the candlelight with the grace of a man who trains exclusively for situations that no one else has predicted.
EDDIE
"The order... the Franciscan Order... we've got archives you wouldn't believe. It's all encoded in the architecture. Look into the archives. They're portals. And the bell tower? It's a psychotronic emitter. That's why everyone in this war is redacted. They got us by the short hairs."
The doors burst open. STAVROS HERNANDEZ enters. A mountain of empathetic emotion in a tattered toga, bare stomach glistening, arms covered in sweat and what appears to be gravy. He is weeping openly, profusely, with the full-body commitment of a man who experiences every feeling at maximum volume and considers this a gift rather than a condition. He carries two enormous, perfectly roasted turkeys like sacred offerings.
STAVROS
"OH GOD! Bro Eddie! You're here! The order! The history! The suffering! The absolute insanity of it all! Look at these men! The beautiful, beautiful, beautiful tragedies! I've brought turkeys! Who wants to eat turkeys and just talk about our mothers?! I love you all so much!"
Stavros collapses onto a pile of supply sacks, burying his enormous face into one of the turkeys, sobbing with a profound joy that manages to be simultaneously heartbreaking, inspiring, and deeply unsettling. The turkey appears to be weeping too, or perhaps that is the gravy.
INT. MISSION RECTORY - NIGHT
America's military occupation has left the room in ruins. Broken furniture, crumbling plaster, and candlelight give the rectory a haunted, improvised feel.
EDDIE performs a high-level deep half-guard sweep on a wooden stool, sliding elegantly across the floor to the candlelight with the grace of a man who trains exclusively for situations that no one else has predicted.
EDDIE: "The emotional body is a powerful tool, Stavros. The entities, they feast on it. Your joy, your sorrow, it's all food for the machine. Look into it."
He says this without blinking, regarding Stavros with the calm assessment of a man who has factored this emotionally enormous person into his cosmological model.
STAVROS enters. A mountain of empathetic emotion in a tattered toga, bare stomach glistening, arms covered in sweat and what appears to be gravy. He is weeping openly, profusely, with the full-body commitment of a man who experiences every feeling at maximum volume and considers this a gift rather than a condition. He carries two enormous, perfectly roasted turkeys like sacred offerings.
STAVROS: "Frequencies! Oh god, Bro Eddie! You get it! The frequencies of love and despair! My mother, she was a frequency expert! She taught me to feel everything! Who wants to touch my stomach and feel the profound vibrations of empathy?! They got us by the short hairs!"
He lifts his toga, offering his stomach to the assembled men of the United States Army.
DIEGO calculates the real estate value of Stavros's emotional real estate and the structural engineering implications of deploying this man as a psychological weapon in the upcoming siege of Los Angeles. He writes a number. He crosses it out. He writes a larger number.
FLASHBACK — 1844
Los Angeles Poetry Slam: "The Bayou and the Buzzard"
FLASHBACK SCENE. EXT. PUEBLO DE LOS ÁNGELES — DAY, TWO YEARS BEFORE THE CHAOS. The pueblo is sleepy, sun-drenched, and peaceful in the way that places are peaceful right before something catastrophic happens to them — a kind of historical amnesia, a brief golden pause before the maps get redrawn. Chickens peck at the dust. Under a massive, ancient fig tree, an open-air poetry slam of sorts is taking place, drawing an audience of bored locals, wandering vaqueros, and stray dogs who collectively radiate polite indifference.
Standing on an overturned wine barrel: a surprisingly clean SKEETER, wearing a loosely tied cravat, holding a piece of parchment, looking nervous in the way that some men are nervous at a poetry reading and some men are nervous because they are always nervous and this is simply the most visible Skeeter has ever been while being nervous.
SKEETER (clearing throat, accent thick):"Alright. Praise God. This one's called 'The Bayou and the Buzzard.'Oh, sweet pelican of the southern marsh,
Your beak is long, the winter's harsh.
I seen a man eat a tire in a swamp,
And my cousin Earl... he likes to romp."
Skeeter lowers the parchment. The crowd stares with complete, unflinching deadpan. A tumbleweed literally rolls through the frame. A dog makes eye contact with Skeeter and looks away in disappointment — the most eloquent review the poem will receive. They got us by the short hairs.
SKEETER (squinting):"It's... it's about the duality of man, mostly. And Earl's hernia."
Bro Eddie Critiques the Work
The crowd parts. BRO EDDIE enters in a bizarre, mismatched ensemble of raw hemp and what looks unmistakably like an early prototype rash guard — the man was ahead of his time in exactly one area and in no others. Barefoot. Unblinking. He vibrates with high-level conspiracy energy, performing a slow-motion inverted De La Riva guard sweep to sit on a nearby hitching post, settling in with the authority of a man who has arrived to deliver a verdict. They got us by the short hairs.
EDDIE: "Is it, Skeeter? Is it really about the duality of man? Because I'm listening to the cadence of your stanzas, man. And I'm not hearing duality. I'm hearing a psy-op."SKEETER (confused): "A what now? Bro Eddie, I just wrote it this mornin' while I was milking a goat."EDDIE: "That's what they want you to think. They want you focused on the pelican. The long beak. It's a distraction, man. Look into the marsh. What's under the marsh, Skeeter? What was Earl really romping on?"SKEETER: "Well, mostly just mud, and occasionally a rusted-out moonshine still."EDDIE (shaking his head, genuinely disgusted): "You're asleep, Skeeter. You're writing low-vibrational, state-sponsored nursery rhymes. The elites up in Sacramento, they're funneling energy out of the pueblo using these exact rhyming structures. A-A-B-B. It's a psychotronic frequency designed to make us docile."SKEETER: "Eddie, man, I don't know what a 'psycho-tronic' is. I just like words that sound the same. Like 'cat' and 'hat'. Or 'gonorrhea' and 'mama mia'."
Eddie's Counter-Poem
Eddie jumps off the hitching post, closing the distance, getting right in Skeeter's face with the specific energy of a man who has been waiting his entire life for someone to have this conversation with and is furious that it's Skeeter. He delivers his counter-poem with the gravitas of a prophet and the meter of someone who has never once allowed scansion to interfere with revelation. He does not blink. He has not blinked once in this scene. He will not blink when the scene ends.
EDDIE (locking eyes, not blinking):
"The Earth is flat, the sky is a dome,
The Jesuits use magnets to control your home.
Dinosaurs are a hoax built by the British crown,
And gravity is just density pulling you down."
The crowd is completely silent. A stray dog whines. They got us by the short hairs.
SKEETER: "Man... that didn't even make sense. How can gravity be density if my cousin Earl floated away in a hot air balloon?"EDDIE (grabbing Skeeter by the shoulders): "Because balloons are filled with swamp gas, Skeeter! It's all connected! Look into it! You need to open your third eye before the war comes!"SKEETER: "War? What war? Eddie, we're in California. The most stressful thing that happened today was a donkey ate my favorite sock."EDDIE (voice dropping to a terrifying whisper): "They're coming, man. The physical manifestation of the low-vibrational matrix. Men in blue coats, obsessed with maps and imaginary lines. They're gonna bring dysentery, and they're gonna bring bad vibes. And when they do, your poems about pelicans aren't gonna save you."
Eddie abruptly releases Skeeter, drops to the ground, and crab-walks backward into the shadows of the fig tree, eyes fixed on Skeeter without blinking until he disappears completely into the dark.
SKEETER (watching him go, genuinely terrified): "...That boy ain't right. I'm gonna go write a sonnet about a turnip."
ACT TWO — SCENE 7
The Prophecy Fulfillments
Eddie Bravo's Prophecies, as Fulfilled by Progressive Comedians.
EXT. SAN MIGUEL MISSION COURTYARD — DAY. A PROGRESSIVE COMEDIAN stands on an improvised stage in the mission courtyard — a warped piece of lumber balanced on two artillery shells, which is either a metaphor for the entire war or simply the only available material. The audience consists of weary, bewildered soldiers, skeptical locals, three goats, and BRO EDDIE, who has not moved from his elaborate leg-lock entry position in approximately six hours. He is watching. He is always watching. He is not blinking. They got us by the short hairs.
"Eddie Bravo showed up to set three hours late, barefoot, and told the director the script was a psyop. The director agreed with him. That's when I knew this movie was going to be incredible or a disaster. Probably both."
— Bobby Lee
1
Fulfillment 1: The Tartarian Energy Grid
PROGRESSIVE COMEDIAN: "You know, I was listening to Bro Eddie talk about frequencies, man. Tartarian energy grids beneath the mission. Is that what you call your lower half? The 'grids' that want to 're-align' my root chakra? Because I have to say, your leg-lock on my ankle is a very high-vibrational way of saying, 'Let's get a coffee.' Look into it."
The audience laughs. Eddie doesn't blink. Seth looks at his flute with new and troubling suspicion.
2
Fulfillment 2: The Holographic Matrix
PROGRESSIVE COMEDIAN: "Okay, so Bro Eddie says we're in a holographic matrix. Look into it. I look into this room, and I tell you what I see. I don't see Tartarian grids. I see a holographic projection of... a guy who hasn't wiped his ass since we left Chula Vista. And you, Bro Eddie, with your leg-lock transitions on my left ankle... is that your way of telling me I have a lovely... energetic... structure? It's profoundly distracting."
The room explodes. STAVROS weeps tears of absolute, overwhelming joy.
3
Scott's Confrontation
PROGRESSIVE COMEDIAN: "But maybe... maybe the real hologram is the narrative of 'doing blow off the altar' and 'setting a casting couch on fire.' Because let's be honest. That's not a narrative. That's just a weekend in 1846 Chula Vista. And honestly? Your casting couch narrative is a low-vibrational manifestation of profound inadequacy. Look into that, General cocksucker."
The room goes silent. Scott's vein throbs. Stavros looks at the comedian with absolute, unconditional, slightly inappropriate love.
EXT. — DAY.
STAVROS
"OH GOD! The frequencies of truth! Profound empathy against the echoes of unkindness!."
"The absolute, absolute insanity of inadequacy! I love you so much! Who wants to feel the vibrations of my stomach?! It's profoundly empathetic!"
"The absolute, absolute insanity of inadequacy! I love you so much! Who wants to feel the vibrations of my stomach?! It's profoundly empathetic!"
Stavros lifts his toga. Several soldiers instinctively reach forward. Nobody is entirely sure why. It is either the mescaline in the water supply or Stavros has simply achieved a level of emotional radiation that bypasses rational decision-making entirely. Diego calculates the commercial applications of Stavros's stomach as a morale instrument and writes a number. He nods at the number. The number is good. They got us by the short hairs.
SCENE 8 — THE MONOLOGUE
The Schaub Monologue: "Water We Dune Hair, Man?"
EXT. ENCAMPMENT — DUSK. The desert wind howls, kicking up a fine red mist. The remnants of the American army huddle around small, sputtering campfires, looking completely demoralized, missing several limbs collectively, and actively dying of dysentery at staggered intervals that suggest a schedule. BRENDAN SCHAUB steps up onto an overturned, blood-stained ammunition crate. He surveys the broken men. He adjusts an invisible microphone stand with the calm confidence of a man who has never once read the room correctly, has been told this about himself repeatedly, and has processed this feedback as envy.
SCHAUB:"Water we dune hair, man? Seriously. Look around. Water... we... dune... hair? Talmbout Manifesting Destiny, Doggy? More like manifesting a prom. A major prom. I'm looking at this whole war, the whole narradiv, and honestly? It's blogbousser. It is a straight-up, 1840s blogbousser. You got guys out here getting their legs blown off by cannonballs, getting completely gadooshed by a musket, and for what? A ditch in Arizona? Dicey, dicey, they got us by tha ballz bro."
The Monologue Continues
EXT. ENCAMPMENT — DUSK. The desert wind howls, kicking up a fine red mist. The remnants of the American army huddle around small, sputtering campfires, looking completely demoralized, missing several limbs collectively, and actively dying of dysentery at staggered intervals that suggest a schedule. BRENDAN SCHAUB steps up onto an overturned, blood-stained ammunition crate. He surveys the broken men. He adjusts an invisible microphone stand with the calm confidence of a man who has never once read the room correctly, has been told this about himself repeatedly, and has processed this feedback as envy.
SCHAUB: "Look at you. You're entirely un-optimized. You're eating hardtack and beans. Your gut microbiome is a war crime right now. That's why you're getting flanked by guys on donkeys. People come up to me, they're like, 'Brendan, Santa Anna is a b-b-b-beast of a dictator.' And I'm like, I herd it bowlth ways, Doggy. Great guy, never meddum. But you think Santa Anna is doing ice baths in the Rio Grande? You think he's heat-shocking his proteins? He's eating tortillas and taking siestas! His fast-twitch muscle fibers are garbage!"
SCHAUB: "Me and Bry-Bry, we've been deep undercover with the cartels. Pancho Villa literally sent me a telegraph last night. He said, 'Brendan, you're the funniest white boy in the territory, please don't hurt my dragoons.' Swear to God, ask Jay. But General Tail-lore? Love the guy, b-b-b-beast of a general, but he's out here drinking warm cider and falling off mules. It's embarrassing. It's not Neggflix at all."
SCHAUB: "You wanna win this war? You gotta get on the frontier juice. Elk velvet, mercury, and pure, unfiltered coyote piss. I gave some to a dying horse this morning, it grew a horn and tried to fuck a cactus. That's the energy we need to take California, B. That's the Thiccc Boy work ethic. We gotta march into Los Angeles, find a smoke show señorita, and start slangin' dick and slinging merch."
Schaub steps off the crate. He immediately twists his ankle on a rock. He goes down hard, his neon sombrero rolling away from him with the dignity neither of them currently possesses. They got us by the short hairs.
SCHAUB: "Motherf— God damn it. I need a handler. Where's Chin? Bring the wagon around, my hamstrings are firing up."
SCENE 9 — THE BATTLE
The Battle of Los Ángeles: Two Armies Face Each Other
EXT. PUEBLO DE LOS ÁNGELES — THE PLAZA — HIGH NOON. THE HEAT IS BLISTERING. THE AIR IS THICK WITH THE SMELL OF GUNPOWDER, HORSE MANURE, AND SKEETER'S SOILED WOOL PANTS. ON ONE END OF THE DUSTY PLAZA: THE AMERICAN LINE — A MISERABLE, DYSENTERY-RIDDLED COLLECTION OF MEN WHO LOOK LIKE THEY JUST SURVIVED A SHIPWRECK, THEN IMMEDIATELY SURVIVED ANOTHER SHIPWRECK, THEN WERE TOLD TO LOOK PRESENTABLE FOR A BATTLE.
AT THE OTHER END: THE CALIFORNIO LANCERS, LED BY GENERAL ANDRÉS PICO. THEY ARE BREATHTAKINGLY, HUMILIATINGLY MAJESTIC. THEIR HORSES ARE PERFECTLY GROOMED ANDALUSIANS. THEIR SILVER-STUDDED SADDLES GLEAM IN THE SUN LIKE THE COVERS OF A THOUSAND HISTORICAL ROMANCE NOVELS. THEY LOOK LIKE A CIVILIZATION THAT HAS ITS ACT TOGETHER. EVERY DETAIL OF THEIR PRESENCE IS A DETAILED, COMPREHENSIVE, MAGNIFICENTLY EXECUTED REBUKE TO THE AMERICAN ARMY'S CONTINUED EXISTENCE. THEY GOT US BY THE SHORT HAIRS.
Santino on the Opposition
"Dude, look at these guys. They look like they rule. Are we the bad guys? I feel like we're the bad guys." He says this from a wooden wheelbarrow, holding half-eaten cheese, which is somehow still the most dignified position anyone on the American side currently occupies.
Seth on Their Frequency
"They're vibrating at a pure, unadulterated 432 Hertz, Senor. Their horses are completely synced to the Earth's magnetic grid. We're fighting pure masculine energy." He plays a frantic, high-pitched war tune on his flute, which does not help.
Diego on Logistics
"If you get decapitated, I get to keep your pocket watch. Nod if you understand the verbal contract." He walks among the troops with a piece of twine, measuring. Several men nod. It is unclear if they understand.
Schaub vs. The Andalusian: A Mismatch for the Ages
GENERAL PICO raises his silver saber. The Lancers lower their ten-foot spears. Fifty warhorses transition from a trot to a full, thundering gallop. The ground shakes with the sound of something that has chosen correctly and is moving toward something that has not. Schaub steps out into no-man's land, directly into the path of the charging cavalry, adjusting his tiny neon sombrero with the calm confidence of a man who has never once accurately assessed a physical mismatch.
SCHAUB"Water we dune hair? These guys are riding farm animals. It's a prom for them, Doggy. Complete mismatch. I'm a b-b-b-beast of an athlete. I'm gonna ankle-pick that lead stallion."
"The horse scene was not in my contract. I want that on record. Bobby said 'it'll be funny.' Bobby is not the one who got trampled. Bobby was off-camera weeping into a handkerchief. I have a lawyer."— Andrew Santino
Schaub gets into a wide, sluggish MMA stance. The Lancers are at forty yards. Thirty. The ground vibrates like a living thing with poor decision-making tolerance.
SCHAUB (trying to cut a promo mid-battle)"Hold up, Pico! Before we gadoosh each other, let's talk about gut health! You guys look tired! I got the Thiccc Boy Frontier—"
The impact is catastrophic. General Pico's 1,200-pound Andalusian warhorse catches Schaub square in the chest. THWACK. Schaub is launched backward, parallel to the ground for a full twenty feet. A second Lancer casually backhands him across the face with the flat of his blade, purely for style points. Schaub's fake mustache detaches violently and lands perfectly on Skeeter's upper lip in a nearby bush. Schaub hits the ground, skips like a flat stone, crashes through a fruit cart, explodes through a wooden fence, and lands face-first in a trough of stagnant mule water. The cavalry thunders past, hooting in triumph. they got us by the short hairs.
INT. AFTERMATH - CONTINUOUS
The Aftermath
The Medical Assessment
CALLEN (COMPLETELY UNSYMPATHETIC): "You see what happened there? He compromised his base. He dropped his left hand. The horse capitalized on the opening. That's just basic street fighting, bro. The horse had better angles."
DIEGO (NOTEPAD OUT): "One pair of custom leather boots. Excellent condition. Slightly soiled with failure."
Schaub Responds
Schaub gasps, pulls his head from the mule water. His nose points in the wrong direction. His white pants are destroyed. His eyes track in separate directions with the independence of men who have decided to go their own way.
SCHAUB (SLURRING): "...Did I win, Doggy? Did the ref step in?"SANTINO: "Dude, you just tried to double-leg a horse. You got absolutely bodied. That was the gayest thing I've ever seen on a battlefield. they got us by tha ballz bro"SCHAUB (SPITTING ROTTEN CABBAGE): "Herd it bowlth ways, Senor. Honestly? I think the horse tapped. Look at the tape. He was grabbing the fence. Totally illegal."SETH (PLAYING A SLOW, MOURNFUL TUNE): "Your physical vessel was violently rejected by the Earth's natural frequency, Brendan. The horse was just an instrument of the universe telling you that your tabloid is low-vibrational."
Callen steps forward with a sword. He takes one step. Instantly steps on a rusty rake. The wooden handle smacks him between the eyes. He goes down like a sack of wet cement. Santino uncorks a fresh cider and stares at two unconscious men in the dirt.
SANTINO: "Write this down, Shaman. The Americans have successfully secured the fruit cart."
STORY SO FAR: The Battle of Los Ángeles has been fought and lost, mostly due to Schaub getting trampled by an Andalusian horse. The squad is battered, Diego has pivoted to venture capitalism, and everyone is converging on Mexico City for the treaty negotiations. The endgame begins now.
ACT THREE — FINAL ACT
The Psyop of Guadalupe Hidalgo
INT. THE NATIONAL PALACE — MEXICO CITY — NIGHT, FEB. 1848. The grand halls of the Aztec emperors have been thoroughly trashed by the American occupation. Tapestries are torn — tapestries that survived eight hundred years of Aztec civilization, Spanish colonialism, and a series of violent political upheavals have met their end at the hands of men who use them as napkins. The acoustics are altered. Something smells of cedar and elk protein and ambition.
The room where the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is to be signed looks suspiciously like a massive, 19th-century Tabloid greenroom. Leather couches. Acoustic dampening made of stretched animal skins on the walls. An aide is setting up what appears to be the world's first standing desk, though he is uncertain why he has been asked to do this and will be uncertain about this for the rest of his life.
PRESIDENT POLK has traveled from Washington for this moment. He is shirtless, glowing red from a makeshift adobe sauna session, doing kettlebell swings with a solid gold Aztec idol. His bald head is soaked. He looks like what would happen if ambition and elk protein could take physical form and needed to be somewhere important by noon. They got us by the short hairs.
"I'm not a traitor. I'm a disruptive entrepreneur operating in a pre-regulatory environment."
Taylor Learns He's the 12th President
INT. THE NATIONAL PALACE — MEXICO CITY — NIGHT, FEB. 1848. The grand halls of the Aztec emperors have been thoroughly trashed by the American occupation. Tapestries are torn — tapestries that survived eight hundred years of Aztec civilization, Spanish colonialism, and a series of violent political upheavals have met their end at the hands of men who use them as napkins. The acoustics are altered. Something smells of cedar and elk protein and ambition.
SANTINO (slumped on a velvet chaise lounge in a stolen Mexican general's jacket, no pants): "Dude. I looked into the treaty. I looked into the fine print. You're making me the 12th President? Are you kidding me? I have to move to D.C. and wear a wig? This whole war was just a psyop to ruin my life and make me do administrative work. I'm literally going to die of a stomach bug in like, a year."POLK (grunting, swinging the Aztec idol): "It's a high-level chess move, Zachary. You're the face. You're the meat shield. The public loves a guy who falls off a mule. It makes you relatable. But the war? The war was never about you."
Bro Eddie drops from the ceiling rafters, landing in perfect spider-guard on the mahogany treaty table — an entrance so committed and so completely insane that everyone in the room simply accepts it because at this point, Bro Eddie entering through the ceiling in a grappling stance is perhaps the least surprising thing that has happened in the last two years, and they got us by the short hairs.
EDDIE (pointing a filthy, unblinking finger directly at Polk): "Tell them, Rogue! Tell them what the archives said! The borders? The Rio Grande? It's a distraction! I measured the newly acquired territory. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. If you look at it from a 5D astral projection... it forms the exact shape of a giant microphone!"SETH (staring at his flute, suddenly horrified): "Oh my god. The frequencies. The troops weren't an army. We were a traveling acoustic test."
The Real Reason for Everything
POLK drops the Aztec idol. It hits the floor with the weight of a civilization ending. He wipes sweat from his bald head and regards the assembled room — the treaty negotiators, the military commanders, the conspiracy monk on the table, the emotional Greek man holding turkeys — with the calm of a man who has been waiting a very long time to say this particular thing.
POLK: "Bro Eddie is right. You think I care about dirt? I care about the grid. We needed California to establish a low-vibrational, demonically-fueled entertainment matrix. We're gonna call it 'Hollywood.' It's gonna harvest the souls of narcissists for a thousand years. And Texas? We needed Austin."SANTINO: "Why Austin? It's just heatstroke and bats."POLK: "Tax purposes, Zachary. And the vortex. In exactly one hundred and seventy-five years, we are going to build a Comedy Mothership. The elk populations will sustain us, the DMT will guide us, and they got us by the short hairs, and we will broadcast our primal truths while the rest of the world eats synthetic bugs. This war? It was just location scouting."
GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT bursts through the mahogany doors, covered in blood, white powder, and carrying two terrified peacocks under his arms with the casual confidence of a man for whom this is simply how he moves through space.
SCOTT (screaming, eyes bulging): "I JUST NEGOTIATED THE ANNEXATION OF NEVADA WITH A HOOKER AND A BOTTLE OF LAUDANUM! WE GOT VEGAS, COCKSUCKERS! I INVENTED THE BUFFET! TREMENDOUS!"
DIEGO'S ENDGAME
CORPORAL DIEGO steps out of the shadows. He is wearing a custom-tailored suit constructed entirely from the uniforms of dead generals from both sides of the conflict — a patchwork of blue and crimson and military braid that costs more than most men in this war will earn in their entire lives. He looks like money. He smells like money. He is lighting a cigar with a burning Mexican flag with the calm of a man who decided three weeks ago that he was done with the soldier part and has been exclusively in the venture capital part ever since, they got us by the short hairs.
DIEGO: "I've already monetized it. I bought the rights to the concept of 'Manifest Destiny.' Every time a white woman moves to Sedona to find herself, I get a royalty."
At the end of the table: the Mexican Emissaries. It is BOBBY LEE and STAVROS HALKIAS. Bobby Lee is completely naked, covered in massage oil, weeping hysterically and aggressively rubbing his own belly. Stavros is also weeping, his enormous frame shaking, hugging Bobby with total, engulfing empathetic force that raises questions about structural integrity.
BOBBY: "Take it! Just take California! Take the gold! I'm a disgusting little man! I don't deserve the Pacific Ocean! I have terrible sleep apnea and I've brought shame to my ancestors! Please, just don't look at my lower body!"STAVROS: "Oh God, the empathy! The absolute devastation of losing a landmass! It's so beautiful and so tragic! Who wants to sign the treaty and then just touch stomachs and eat this entire roasted goat?! I love you guys so much! Even you, the sociopath in the patchwork suit!"DIEGO: "If you touch me, I will sell your organs to the Union Pacific railroad."
Schaub & Callen: The Final Pivot
INT. TREATY ROOM — NIGHT
BRENDAN SCHAUB is pushed into the room in a primitive wooden wheelchair, both legs in massive plaster casts from the horse incident. His face is heavily bandaged in the thick, enthusiastic manner of medical professionals who have run out of other options. He still wears the tiny neon sombrero. BRYAN CALLEN pushes him, shirtless, shadowboxing with one hand while steering with the other, demonstrating the specific multitasking inefficiency that has characterized their entire partnership, like they got us by the short hairs.
SCHAUB"Water... we... dune... hair? Are we gadooshing the treaty?"CALLEN"We've pivoted, Joe! The frontier juice is out. We're launching a new venture. It's called 'Patreon.' Basically, these peasants pay us two silver pieces a month, and Brendan will tell them exclusive, behind-the-scenes stories about getting his pelvis shattered by an Andalusian stallion!"SCHAUB"Beast of a business model, Doggy. The horse was a paid actor. Look into it."EDDIE"He's right. The horse was a paid actor. The Jesuits trained it."
TRANSCENDENCE
SKEETER'S TRANSCENDENCE
PRIVATE SKEETER wanders into the room. He looks completely transformed. His hair is white. His eyes glow with a faint, unnatural blue light — a direct result of surviving the Thiccc Boy dysentery, the alien encounter at Sedona, several weeks of exposure to Bro Eddie's unblinking stare, and approximately forty-seven other things that the human body was not designed to experience in sequence. He is floating approximately two inches off the ground. The room notices this but, having been through everything they have been through, does not particularly react. The bar for what constitutes a remarkable event in this room has been set and reset so many times it has ceased to exist as a meaningful concept.
SKEETER (HIS VOICE ECHOING WITH MULTIPLE HARMONIC FREQUENCIES SIMULTANEOUSLY): "The pelican... the pelican has left the marsh, Captain. The grid is active. My bowels have transcended the physical realm. I can see the future, and it is just Tabloids... Tabloids all the way down. They got us by the short hairs."SANTINO (TAKING A MASSIVE, FINAL SWIG FROM HIS CHALICE): "I hate it here. I hate the future. Shaman, play the flute. Play us out of this gay-ass psyop."
BOBBY LEE: "Skeeter's transcendence scene took eleven takes because Andrew kept laughing. He said he wasn't laughing. His shoulders were shaking and tears were coming out of his eyes. That's laughing, bro. That's the definition of laughing."
STORY SO FAR: Everyone has converged in the treaty room. Diego is in a general's patchwork suit. Schaub is in a wheelchair. Skeeter is glowing. Bobby Lee is weeping. The tabloid greenroom is fully operational. This is the final reckoning.
SCENE 10: THE TREATY ROOM — SANTINO'S FINAL RECKONING
INT. THE TREATY ROOM – NIGHT. THE GRAND HALLS OF THE AZTEC EMPERORS, NOW PERMANENTLY, IRREVOCABLY REDESIGNED AS A MASSIVE, 19TH-CENTURY TABLOID GREENROOM. THE LEATHER COUCHES GLEAM. THE STANDING DESK IS ASSEMBLED. SOMEONE HAS SET UP WHAT APPEARS TO BE A RING LIGHT, WHICH IS HISTORICALLY IMPOSSIBLE AND AESTHETICALLY PERFECT. SANTINO IS SLUMPED ON A VELVET CHAISE LOUNGE IN A STOLEN MEXICAN GENERAL'S JACKET, WEARING NO PANTS. "I lost my leg AND California AND Texas. But I kept the receipts. I always keep the receipts, dawg." A FRESH CRATE OF ALCOHOLIC CIDER WHISKEY SITS NEXT TO HIM, LABELED PROMINENTLY, FRAMED ARTISTICALLY, CATCHING THE CANDLELIGHT IN A WAY THAT SUGGESTS THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT HAS ACHIEVED SENTIENCE AND IS NOW ACTIVELY MANAGING ITS OWN CAREER. THEY GOT US BY THE SHORT HAIRS.
SANTINO:"Dude. I looked into the treaty. You're making me the 12th President? Are you kidding me? I have to move to D.C. and wear a wig? Actually, wait. A wig sounds fantastic right now. My scalp is sunburned to a crisp. But still! This whole war was just a psyop to ruin my life and make me do administrative work! I went from the casting couch to a battlefield to a treaty room that smells like elk musk and someone's unfinished tabloid dreams!"
He opens a bottle of cider. He drinks. He stares at the ceiling — at the spot where Bro Eddie entered through the rafters, which has not been repaired and probably won't be, because the American army has decided that is a structural feature now.
CAPTAIN SETH raises the wooden flute to his lips. He closes his eyes. He blows a single, piercing, perfectly tuned 432 Hz note that cuts through the entire treaty room — through the leather couches and the animal skin dampening and the standing desk and the lingering elk protein in the atmosphere — and hangs in the air like a question that everyone in the room has stopped trying to answer. The room goes quiet. The candles flicker. Skeeter floats slightly higher. Bobby Lee weeps. Stavros weeps. Diego calculates. Scott screams something in the distance, alone in the Californian dark. And from everywhere and nowhere, a voice chants quietly, reverently: Bobby Bless.
EPILOGUE
WHAT BECAME OF THEM
The Treaty is signed. California is American. The Tabloid greenroom is dismantled. Here is what the historical record — and several unreliable narrators — claim happened next.
What the Archives Say
"I'm a war hero, bro. I cried three times during the battle and once during the debrief. That's four times."
"I don't know what's in that green juice but I feel like I understand the cosmos now. Also I can't feel my feet."
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2nd, 1848, transferring California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and parts of Wyoming from Mexico to the United States — in exchange for $15 million dollars and the formal termination of hostilities. What the history books do not record is that the signing ceremony was delayed by forty-five minutes because General Winfield Scott was still somewhere in the building with two peacocks, and no one could get him to put them down. they got us by the short hairs
Bobby Bless
Mexifornia: The Cosmic Journey of General Lee is a darkly comedic, historically irresponsible, and deeply affectionate fever dream about the specific variety of human disaster that happens when ambition, stupidity, pharmaceutical experimentation, alien interference, and wounded masculine pride are allowed to operate simultaneously in a desert with no oversight and insufficient hydration. It is a love letter to bad decisions made with complete conviction. It is a war film in which no one understands the war. It is a history lesson in which history is a product placement. It is, above all, a story about men who looked at half a continent and said: water we dune hair, Doggy? And then rode directly into it on a very small, very tired mule. they got us by tha ballz bro
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Bobby Bless.
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Bobby Bless.
Bobby: "This is the greatest film ever made."Andrew: "It's not a film yet, Bobby. We haven't finished it."Bobby: "Greatest film ever made."— Bobby Lee & Andrew Santino