A.J. PHILLIPS

Eighty... two. I am eighty-two years old! I was born in 1918! Every morning when I wake up I flex and then grunt “Don’t age!!!!” It’s about will and determination. My wife has posed for Hustler. I promise you she is better than anything any of you have ever had. Our bedroom is wallpapered with pictures from the Kama Sutra and we make each other smile nightly. My wife and I adopted three twenty-year-old Korean sons. Why? Because we didn’t want to waste time raising them! They were raised by street gangs in the ghettos of Seoul. And someday they will fight each other to determine who will run this dealership when I am gone.

This is from a original screenplay cowritten by Will Ferrell that was written over two years ago. In a better world, this would be playing around the country now instead of the uber-bland Elf. Ferrell's a great comedian, provided he has the right material. Trapped in something like those God awful cheerleader sketches from SNL, he's beyond grating. Fortunately, beginning to use his comedic powers for the forces of good.

The screenplay is called August Blowout! and it centers around used car dealers living in southern Cali. While jokes about car lot jockeys are as old and tired as time itself, this script actually sounds funny. Take the lines above, for example. The main character is named Jeff Tanner and he's god among car salesmen. He's perpetually stuck in the 1977 and every album in his collection is by Boston. For fun, he runs around Anaheim visiting such iconic spots as...the downtown Denny's and Blockbuster Video.

I'm not doing the thing justice. Read the following and then go here.

JEFF TANNER
(delivered while standing on the hood of a car stuck in traffic)

Hi, I’m Jeff Tanner and I sell cars. The only thing I love more than a finely crafted American automobile is the hot rush of adrenaline I get from selling one. Meet my car: the Ford Explorer. It’s rugged, sexy and American... like me. And just like this bad boy, Jeff Tanner is fully tricked out with all the features. I come with a confident handshake, an outstanding ass, a saddle in my bedroom, and except for some screw up by JC Penny's, a near spotless credit report. And guess what? That’s all standard. For Jeff Tanner life is all about three things; speed, steel and gas. You think cheetahs are fast? Fuck cheetahs. My speed is American made. I’ll be honest. I’m hard right now.

With any luck and, given the box office take of Elf, August Blow Out! will be made next year for an early 2005 release.