Chapter 89: The Cursed Tape
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
The day after Michael became the number one artist in the United States, there was no champagne, no parties, no rest. There was work.
At two in the afternoon, the doorbell of the canyon house rang.
Michael opened the door. Cole Bennett was there, vibrating with energy. The young director was wearing a new cap and a smile that took up half his face.
"Number one!" shouted Cole as he entered, high-fiving Michael. "We did it, Mike! 'Lucid Dreams' is everywhere! My phone won't stop ringing! I have labels asking me to direct for their artists!"
"Congratulations, Cole," said Michael, calm, guiding him to the living room. "You deserve it. The video is a masterpiece."
"It's crazy," Cole kept saying, dropping his backpack on the sofa. "I thought you called me to celebrate. Are we popping a bottle?"
Michael shook his head. He sat on the coffee table (the wooden crate), looking at Cole.
"No," said Michael. "I called you because the work isn't finished. 'Lucid Dreams' was the beginning. But the next song... the next song is going to define who I am."
Cole became serious instantly. He took out his notebook. "What do you have?"
"Come to the studio."
They went up.
The studio was dark, as always. Michael sat at the console and opened the "VAULT" folder.
"Listen to this," said Michael. "And forget everything you know about 'Lucid Dreams'. This isn't pop. This isn't pretty."
He double-clicked on XO_TOUR_Llif3_Master.mp3.
The spiraling synth intro began to play, hypnotic and dizzying. Ti-ti-ri-ti...
Cole tilted his head, intrigued.
And then, Michael came in.
'Are you alright? I'm alright, I'm quite alright...'
And the beat dropped.
'PUSH ME TO THE EDGE! ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD!'
The bass shook the room. Michael's broken and digitized voice filled the space with a nihilistic anguish that made the hair on Cole's arms stand up.
Cole listened to the entire song in silence, his mouth slightly open. When it finished, he stared at the monitors, processing what he had just heard.
"Fuck," whispered Cole. "That is... that is much darker. It's... gothic. But it's incredible."
"Exactly," said Michael. "And I need a video that matches that energy."
Cole nodded, his director brain already working. "Okay. What are you thinking? More animations? Skeleton drawings? Neon colors?"
"No," said Michael sharply. "No cartoons this time. No bright colors."
He turned to Cole.
"I want it to look real. I want it to look dirty. I want it to look like a cursed VHS tape that someone found lying in a forest and shouldn't have watched."
Michael began to describe the vision, channeling the aesthetic he remembered from Virgil Abloh and the dark high-end fashion of the future.
"I want the image to have grain. Lots of grain. I want the colors to be dead greens and deep blacks. And I want text."
"Text?" asked Cole.
"Yes. Arabic subtitles," said Michael. "Below the English lyrics. It doesn't matter if the translation is perfect. I want the aesthetic. I want it to look foreign, alien, art-house."
Cole wrote furiously. "Arabic. VHS. Okay. What else?"
"I want white eyes," said Michael. "In post-production. I want my eyes to disappear at some point. And blood. Blood coming out of the mouth. But not looking like a cheap slasher movie. Looking like a possession."
Cole looked up. He was excited. It was a completely different challenge from 'Lucid Dreams'. It was horror cinema.
"I love it," said Cole. "But Mike... for this to look good and not like a school project, we need real lighting. We need extras that look scary. We need a night location."
"I know," said Michael.
"It's going to cost more than 'Lucid Dreams'," warned Cole.
"I have twenty thousand dollars ready to transfer right now," said Michael.
Cole dropped the pen. "$20k..."
"Get an old film camera if you can, or simulate it well. Get extras. Get a location in a forest or a park that's scary. I want to shoot tomorrow night."
Cole smiled. A wide, predatory smile.
"Twenty thousand dollars. Shit, Mike. With that I can make it look like The Blair Witch Project with a Hollywood budget."
"Do it," said Michael. "I want people to be afraid to watch this video."
Thursday, February 11, 2016 (Night)
The chosen location was an isolated section of Griffith Park, away from the tourist trails and the Observatory, where the trees blocked the city light and the darkness was almost absolute.
It was 11:00 PM. The air was freezing.
The crew was small to maintain intimacy. Cole Bennett, his assistant, T-Roc (in charge of portable audio), and Michael.
There were no production trucks or luxury trailers like in 'Gucci Gang'. Just two vans parked with the lights off.
Cole was setting up the equipment. He wasn't using a $50,000 RED cinema camera. In his hands, he held a bulky and worn 90s VHS camera he had bought on eBay, taped to a modern digital camera to capture two formats at the same time.
"The idea is texture," said Cole, adjusting the white balance under the moonlight. "I want the digital image to look too sharp, and the VHS to look rotten. We're going to switch between the two. As if reality were breaking."
Michael nodded. He was wearing a specific outfit: a long designer coat (maybe Raf Simons or Rick Owens, bought with his recent earnings), black pants, and silver chains. He looked expensive, but in the middle of the dark forest, he looked out of place. Like a modern vampire.
"Lights," ordered Cole.
The assistant turned on a single powerful spotlight, placed behind Michael. The backlight created a black silhouette, cutting his figure against the artificial fog they were starting to release.
"Action. Playback," shouted Cole.
T-Roc pressed the button on the portable speaker.
The synth intro of 'XO TOUR Llif3' broke the silence of the forest. Ti-ti-ri-ti...
Michael began to walk down the dirt path, toward the camera. He didn't walk with a rapper's "swag". He walked as if he were being chased, or as if he were the pursuer.
'Are you alright? I'm alright, I'm quite alright'
'And my money's right...'
He mumbled the intro, looking at the ground, rubbing his hands together as if he were cold or anxious.
And then, the scream.
'PUSH ME TO THE EDGE! ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD!'
Michael looked up at the lens. His eyes, illuminated from below by a bounce light, looked empty. He acted with manic intensity, flailing his arms, almost tripping.
Cole walked backward, keeping the framing unstable, shaky. He wanted the viewer to feel dizzy.
'Phantom that's all red, inside all white...'
'Like somethin' you ride a sled down, I just want that head...'
The juxtaposition was perfect. Michael was singing about luxury cars and oral sex, but the setting was a horror movie. Dry trees. Fog. Darkness. It made the materialism of the lyrics seem sinister, a curse.
Cole shouted an instruction: "Now slow motion! Look at me like you hate me!"
Michael locked his gaze on the VHS camera lens.
'I don't really care if you cry...'
He sang the line with absolute coldness, without blinking.
'On the real, you shoulda never lied...'
'Shoulda saw the way she looked me in my eyes...'
'She said: Baby, I am not afraid to die...'
At that moment, the wind moved the tree branches. The shadow crossed Michael's face. He looked like a specter.
"Cut!" shouted Cole, lowering the camera. He was grinning like a madman. "Fuck! That looked incredible! The tape grain is going to make it look like crime scene footage."
Michael relaxed, returning to being himself. Shivering a little from the cold.
"Do we have the path shot?" he asked.
"We got it," said Cole. "Now, the hard part. Let's go to the bathroom."
Michael nodded. The forest scene was the atmosphere. But the next scene... the blood scene... that was going to be the nightmare.
Thursday, February 11, 2016 (Early Morning)
They moved to the second location. They didn't have to go very far. They found a concrete public bathroom at the edge of the park, a brutalist and vandalized structure that smelled of dampness and neglect.
"Perfect," said Cole, illuminating the dirty tiles with his flashlight. "It looks disgusting. I love it."
Michael entered. The cold of the concrete seeped through his designer coat. He looked at himself in the stained mirror above the rusty sink. His reflection stared back: pale, dark circles under his eyes, hair messed up by the forest wind.
"Okay," said Michael. "Let's do it. The possession scene."
Cole's assistant took out a bottle of viscous black liquid. It wasn't red blood. It was a thick fluid, like oil or India ink.
Michael leaned over the sink. He took a sip of the liquid (edible, but horrible tasting) and held it in his mouth. Then, he let the makeup artist put drops in his tear ducts.
"It's going to burn," warned the assistant.
"Doesn't matter," muttered Michael.
Cole positioned himself behind him, reflected in the mirror, with the VHS camera on his shoulder. T-Roc prepared the audio for the song's climax.
"Action," whispered Cole.
The music exploded in the small bathroom, the echo making it sound as if it were coming from the walls themselves.
'Push me to the edge! All my friends are dead!'
Michael looked at his own reflection. He opened his mouth.
The black liquid spilled over his lips, dripping down his chin, staining his expensive clothes. At the same time, black tears began to run down his cheeks.
He didn't look human. He looked like he was rotting from the inside. He looked like the darkness he carried inside was finally coming out.
'Push me to the edge...'
Michael punched the sink with his fists, staring at his own eyes in the mirror.
He didn't have to act the pain. He thought about the money. He thought about the Ethereum millions. He thought about how that secret wealth had isolated him, how it had killed the "normal kid" he used to be. All my friends are dead because I am no longer the person they knew. I am dead inside, consumed by the plan.
The visual metaphor was brutal. Success was the black poison coming out of him.
Cole moved closer, doing an aggressive zoom with the analog camera, capturing the texture of the black liquid against the pale skin.
'I don't really care if you cry...'
Michael wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing his cheek, creating a mask of horror.
"Cut!" shouted Cole, lowering the camera.
The music stopped. Only the dripping of a pipe and Michael's heavy breathing could be heard.
Michael remained leaning on the sink, trembling. He felt dirty. He felt violated by his own art.
"My God," said Cole, his voice full of reverent awe. "That... that is going to give kids nightmares. It's perfect."
Michael looked at himself one last time in the mirror. The black liquid covered his face. His eyes, irritated, were red.
He knew that in post-production, Cole would whiten his eyes to complete the demonic effect. But even now, without effects, the image was terrifying.
"Clean me up," said Michael, his voice hoarse. "I want to go home."
They had gotten the shot. They had captured the monster.
Friday, February 12, 2016
Michael woke up past noon. He had removed the black makeup from his face, but he still felt like his skin was stained. The 'XO TOUR Llif3' session had been an exorcism.
He went to the kitchen. Karl was already there, phone glued to his ear and three notebooks open on the table.
"No, I need the tiger for Wednesday. Yes, a real tiger. I don't care about the insurance," Karl was saying, hanging up the phone.
He looked at Michael. "We have a scheduling problem with 'Gucci Gang'. It's too big to set up in two days."
Michael poured himself coffee. He knew Karl was right.
The 'XO' video had been guerrilla: a forest, a bathroom, and a camera. But 'Gucci Gang' was a Hollywood production.
"The school needs permits," Karl listed. "We have to paint the lockers the colors you wanted. I have to close the rental for the Lamborghini and the Maybach. And T-Roc is getting the bags of real marijuana, which... well, takes time if we want the amount you asked for."
Michael nodded. He didn't want to do it halfway. If he was going to make the most ignorant and luxurious video in history, it had to be perfect.
"Alright," decided Michael. "We'll shoot next week. Take the time to get everything. Buy all the Gucci clothes this weekend. I want the wardrobe to be ridiculous."
"Done," said Karl, relieved.
With 'Gucci Gang' postponed, Michael focused his attention on the immediate.
He went to the studio, where Cole Bennett was already working on his laptop, eyes red from lack of sleep. He was editing the footage from the night before.
"Look at this," said Cole.
On the screen, Michael saw the bathroom scene. Cole had altered the colors. Michael's skin looked sickly green. The black liquid shone. And below, the Arabic subtitles appeared in a yellow, pixelated font.
It looked like a cursed VHS tape you had found in a basement. It was lo-fi horror.
"It's perfect," said Michael. "Add more grain to the forest scene. I want it to be hard to watch."
They spent the rest of Friday finalizing the edit. It was a race against time to have it ready for Monday's release.
By nightfall, the file was ready.
XO_TOUR_Llif3_Official_Video.mov.
Michael looked at the file. It was dark, depressing, and artistic.
And he knew that next week, he was going to shoot the absolute opposite: an explosion of primary colors, tigers, and drugs in a high school.
The duality of his career had never been so clear.
He closed the laptop. The 'XO' video was uploaded for Monday. The logistics for 'Gucci Gang' were in motion.
He was ready to terrorize the world on Monday, and to make them laugh the following week.