The Weed & the Winter Solstice

The Weed & the Winter Solstice

In 2012, a $200-million  "winter solstice" disaster movie is
scheduled to  be released.  It is expected to break all
boxoffice records; and two other movies about the 2012
winter solstice are said to be in the works.  Talk-whow TV,
 radio, You Tube -- all are full of the subject of the ancient
Maya calendar that some scholars with wild imaginations
interpret to be a prophecy of doomsday for planet Earth.  
The Web is flooded with sites devoted to the subject.   On
3/30/11, Google reported 24,200,000 results  for
"December 12, 2012."
Designed to exploit the ignorant, the superstitious, and
the gullible, these websites tell us more about human
nature than they tell us about the cosmos.  As a matter of
fact, the "winter solstice" has been a basic element in the
religious imagination of people in the Norther
Hemisphere since prehistoric times.   Our collective
unconscious has long been obsessed with the winter
solstice, and our familiar custom of lighting Christmas
trees at that ominously dark time of year comes directly
out of the primitive religions of northern Europe. .  In the
USA we have a native Appalachian folk tale, the Frankie
Silver legend that is a superb example of popular winter
solstice lore.
The legend grew out a true case of a winter-solstice
murder. The Weed & the Winter Solstice "a luminously
dark tale of and for our time"  --  in the words of José
Argüelles, himself an outstanding Mayan scholar,  is
based on the famous Frankie Silver legend, the story of a
real winter solstice catastrophe that happened in 1831,
long before 2012.  

Arcane, but as folksy as The Grapes of Wrath, and as full
of action as A Clockwork Orange, The Weed & the Winter
Solstice -- in the words of another reviewer -- "has all the
elements of an absorbing thriller and prime time TV
show."   Those features make "Winter Solstice" an
obvious sure winner in 2012, when the winter solstice
theme will be the mysterious great attractor in the
pop-culture media.

Our pilot below demonstrates how this famous folktale
murder-case develops into a highly original allegory of
the forces of light engaged with the forces of darkness.  
The story unfolds in dramatic episodes especially
suitable for TV.  As professionals in the business know, it
is too late in the game to go through the slow process of
preparing and marketing a professional screenplay for
2012; but a talented Director-Producer with creative
daring and imagination can make a killing with this
book-to-screen bonanza.  


TITLE OF SHOW: Winter Solstice

FORMAT OF SHOW: Made-for-TV-Movie Drama - Miniseries - or major motion
picture.

BASED ON: The Weed & the
Winter Solstice, a novel

AUTHOR NAME:  Howard E. Cook


Pilot Script
LOG LINE:  
Highbrow C. P. Byrd ventured into a moral Labyrinth, and now he is
threatened with blackmail by lowbrow drug dealer Charlie Jim.  A story of irony
and redemption, "Winter Solstice" signifies not doomsday but the birth of new
light in a new day.     



MAIN CHARACTERS:

MR. BYRD:  Successful author, physically a Dick Cavett type, Southern
Appalachian on his mother's side, FFV on his father's, speaks with an Oxford
accent acquired as a Rhodes Scholar, and cherishes 3 souvenirs (Lugar,
dagger, binoculars) from his days as a WWII commando.  His basic values
derive from his hillbilly heritage

AGATHA:  Folk singer, easily provoked to fits of murderous rage, college
educated, once taught 8 grades in a one-room school at Sleepy Ditch, and
worked in Detroit during WWII, Agatha remains as loyal to her
 Appalachian
heritage as Dolly Parton does.  

JEB:  Agatha's childhood sweetheart, he was always the outsider in
Penitentiary Hollow, having been brought there at age 7. As a teenager he
works one summer in a circus, then attends high school in Avernus while living
with Coach George at the college.  Alpha male attractive to both sexes, after
he helped Agatha dispose of Ralph Sneed "Rattlesnake"  Pesterfield's dead
body ("Rattlesnake" tried to rape Agatha and kill Jeb) Jeb enlisted in the army,
deserted, returned to Penitentiary Hollow, married Agatha, then enrolled at
UTK where he was a student under Mr. Byrd, who was teaching a course in the
American folk ballad.  Jeb takes Mr. Byrd to Penitentiary Hollow to meet
Agatha and to see his newborn son, Charles.  He then takes Mr. Byrd up to
Little Lost Snowbird to look at a cabin for sale.    

CHARLES:  Alpha male like Jeb, talks like Mr. Byrd, and displays the cool
self-possession of the highly educated elite.

CHARLIE JIM:  Son of "Rattlesnake," his real name is Chester Pesterfield.  On
that snowy winter day Agatha killed "Rattlesnake" he and his twin sister
Isabelle, pupils at Agatha's school in Sleepy Ditch, may or may not have seen
Jeb loading "Rattlesnake's" dead body into the back of Agatha's surrey, a
horse-drawn carriage.

FADE IN
INT. HOME LIBRAR - NIGHT  (June 1980)

MR. BYRD:
(at his desk in his library, typing)

VOICE OVER
(distant sound of a woman playing guitar and  singing "The Last Letter.")   
Mr. Byrd's facial expression indicates that the song is coming from his
memory; the music fades as he removes a finished page from his typewriter
and lifts a commando dagger serving as a paper weight on top of the finished
pages.  He places newly finished page upside down on the stack and replaces
the dagger.  As he is about to resume typing phone rings.  He looks at an
old-fashioned pendulum clock on the wall.


MR. BYRD (in his best Oxford accent)
The clock on my wall tells me that it is now two a.m.  So it must be you
again.

VOICE OVER
Cool!  Like wow!  You got it man!  It's me, Charlie Jim.  You know what I
mean?  Like what I said them other two times, you know.  Like that's some
hunk of bread I been offering  you for that spread of dirt.  Right?  Maybe you'll
change your mind.  Maybe I know sumpin you don't know I know.  You know
what I mean?"

My property -- as I told you at two a.m., yesterday, and at two a.m. the night
before that -- is not for sale.  But what, precisely, if I may ask, is the nature of
your persistent interest in my place?

Cool, man!  You know.  It's like I got me this little commune.  You know what I
mean?  Like wow, man; it's what Jesus wants us to do. Right?  Commune!  
Dig?  Live like one big happy family and all that jazz.  Getting it all together.  
You know what I mean?  That's what Jesus told us.  Right?  Right, man?  You
can't fuck around with the will of God.  Am I right?

I am not interested in your theology.

(Charlie Jim's tone grows threatening)  Look, man!  I'm gonna tell you
something.  Right now!  Real heavy.  I mean like wow, man!  This way-out
woman in Hollywood she give me this reading.  You know what I mean?  
Spiritual reading?  Like psycho?  And she told me -- this way-out woman told
me -- that me, Charlie Jim, was predestinated to come into his
kingdom here in the mountains of East Tennessee.  Near my birthplace.  You
know what I mean?  The spirits told her that.  You know what I mean?  And she
told me, Charlie Jim, something else, man.  Like she told me you got this great
big bad karma hanging over your head.

Your belief in fortune tellers is  your problem.  Not mine.

No way, man!  No way!  It's your problem.  It's you got this big bad karma.  It
aint me.  Cause hat wife you had, man!  I know for a fact that she killed Jeb
Mills and when her brothers got her out of jail you run off with her and got
away with it.  And her baby was Jeb Mills' baby.   Jeb's baby.  That's not your
boy.  That big shot at NASA!   Astronaut.  Whatever.   He ain't no Charles Byrd.
 His real name is Mills. And...

(Mr. Byrd hangs up and unplugs his phone.)

INT.  MR. BYRD'S LIVING ROOM  (2 p.m., same day)
(buzzer rings)

(Mr. Byrd goes out to his front porch and looks through binoculars to see
who's at his entrance gate at the end of a long driveway.  He sees a police car
and presses a button that opens the gate.  Police car approaches slowly up
the driveway.  Mr. Byrd goes out to meet it.  Sheriff and two men in black
business suits get out.)

MR. BYRD:
(extends his hand to the sheriff)

Good afternoon!  My name is C. P. Byrd.

SHERIFF:
I'm Sheriff Shoemaker, Mr. Byrd, and this here's Claude and Delbert.  Is this
here your land we're on?

Yes it is.

Then we got somethin we need to talk you about, Mr. Byrd.

Welcome, Gentlemen!  Please come in. (leads the men into his living room)


INT.  MR. BYRD'S LIVING ROOM

TWO NARCOTICS AGENTS:  (silent, shifty-eyed as two secret-service agents
-- Sheriff Shoemaker has mentioned their names but did not say which is
Claude and which is Delbert -- they remain silent while setting up a movie
projector and screen.  Sheriff Shoemaker keeps up a running commentary as
Mr. Byrd and his guests watch the movie.)

SHERIFF:
VOICE OVER: (folksy, garrulous -- as movie starts)

This here is a state surveillance movie. Mr. Byrd, and hits alookin for
marajuana crops.  Hit starts out way down yonder in Avernus County, and
comes on up thisaway and into Cloud County where we're at now.  There's
Avernus now -- the county seat!  Up she comes!  Next, that's Sleepy Ditch;
then we fly over Penitentiary Holler and start comin this away.  There's Little
River with the river road runnin along it on this side; that's The Old Abandoned
Quarry,   Now the copter's acomin right up the bluf to where we're at now.   
Upity up!  Up to the top of  Little Lost Snowbird.   Towards your place -- where
we are right now. That's the top of your house, Mr. Byrd.  But what's that old
log cabin out close to the bluff?

MR. BYRD:

That's the Dodge Ruby cabin.  I lived in that cabin when I first moved here.  
Years ago.

Shore nuff!  You mean ole Dodge Ruby, the moonshiner?

The same.  He was my late wife's uncle.  Her name was Agatha Ruby before
she married Jeb Mills.

Well I'll declare!  Ole Dodge Ruby, he was a  rounder I hear tell.  But look at
this now!  Helicopter's flying over them woods back of your house.  And there
it is!  There it is!  That's a pot patch, aye doggies!   Sure as Snyder was a pup!
 Now, ain't that stuff agrowin on your land, Mr. Byrd?

It is indeed.  Agatha, my late wife, used to cultivate a kitchen garden in that
field.   I haven't been down that way in years.  Let's go have a look.


SCENE SHIFT - EXT.

(Mr. Byrd is leading Sheriff Shoemaker and the 2 narcs through tangled
woods. They reach an open field full of a flourishing crop of marijuana.  Mr.
Byrd starts to pick up a watering can and a garden hoe beside a shallow brook
and is stopt by the sheriff.)

SHERIFF:

Don't move it!  Don't  touch that hoe, Mr. Byrd.  We don't want him to
suspicion we been here.

Who?  Don't want who to know?

Charlie Jim!  Ay golly this here's bound to the work of Charlie Jim.  He's a
parolee.  He's out of San Quintin prison on parole, and he ain't spozed to be
out of the state of California.  

Then why don't you arrest him?

That's what we're tryin to do.  But he's slipperier than a greasy pig.  Him and a
bunch of hippies is camped out somers in these mountains.  

Have you any idea where?

Not exactly.  They keep movin their camp.  But it's down yonder down the
River Road.  We know that much.  Down yonder where Little River empties into
Big Steady.

I see.

By the way, Mr. Byrd: I noticed when we come out of your house while ago
that you didn't lock your door.   

I never lock my doors.  I never felt any need to locking my doors after we had
that chain-link fence put around the place.

But that chain-link fence -- I noticed from that movie we looked at -- don't go
around but three sides.

That's because we didn't think we needed a fence on the bluff side.  The only
way up to the top of Little Lost Snowbird from the River Road is by way of a
steep winding foot path around the Old Abandoned Quarry.

(The silent arcs frown and nod while Mr. Byrd frowns and  looks thoughtful.)

FADE OUT

BLACK

INT. MR. BYRD'S KITCHEN (next morning, phone rings)

This is C. P. Byrd.

CHARLES: (voice over)
Hello, Dad!

Charles!  How delightful to hear from you!  How are you?   And how is
Brenda, the bride-to-be?

Great!  We're both great, Dad.  And Brenda, the bride-to-be, is what I'm calling
about.  

Do tell!

You know, Dad, what a celebrity Brenda is: female astronaut, daughter of Dela
Medford, the famous movie-star and all that.

Yes, I know.

Point is, Brenda was brought up in the Dela Medford limelight, and she hates
it.  So she wants us to be married up there on Little Lost Snowbird, in the
nmountains,m away from the media and the paparazzi.

What a splendid idea!  I shall welcome you both with open arms.  But what
about that Medford woman?  Will she be invited to the wedding?

I'm afraid so, Dad.  (chuckling) This time Beverly Hills is coming to the hillbillies.

Heaven help us!  Then how are you going to manage keeping it secret?

Don't worry, Dad!  Brenda knows how to keep the publicity hounds at bay.  
And another thing, Dad: Brenda is curious to know more about my own
unconventional background.  I told her about how I was raised in the
mountains, educated at home and in private boarding schools.  And I told her,
Dad, that my unconventional upbringing had something to do with my mother.  
Something in her past.  That Jeb Mills, her first husband, committed suicide or
disappeared or something one winter solstice.

Well you have done the right thing, Charles.  Brenda should know.  You need
to know more yourself.  More about your biological father, about your mother's
past, and all that.  And as I told you some time ago, it has always been my
intention to write the whole story in enough detail so that you can understand
why we had to live to way we did.  I have been putting  the whole story on
paper; and I will give it to you and to Brenda as a very special wedding
present.  But not until after your honeymoon.  I have the manuscript finished.  
It's in my library right now, with my old commando dagger serving as a
paperweight.

I remember that old commando dagger.  You used to use it for a letter opener.

I still use it for a letter opener.

You had two other souvenirs  from your commando days, didn't you?  Your
binoculars and a Lugar pistol?  Whatever happened to that Lugar pistol?

Oh, the Lugar.  That Lugar pistol is in my fireproof safe in the basement.

FADE OUT

BLACK

INT. MR. BYRD'S LIBRARY  

MR. BYRD:  (enters, switches on overhead lights, sees that his manuscript and
the dagger are gone, slaps his forehead with palm of hand in shock and goes
through his house locking the outside doors)


FADE OUT

SYNOPSIS

When Mr. Byrd rejects his third extravagant offer to buy his mountain land,
Charlie Jim threatens blackmail by making public what he knows about Mr.
Byrd's past: that years ago he absconded with Agatha Mills when she was
under indictment for the Yuletide slaying of her husband Jeb, that Mr. Byrd
adopted Jeb's son, Charles, and reared him as his own, and that Charles is
now a prominent figure with NASA.   But a way out of the pressure of Charlie
Jim's blackmail threat comes when narcs show Mr. Byrd a pot patch being
cultivated on his land by Charlie Jim, known to them to be a parolee.  Mr. Byrd
conspires with the narcs to catch Charlie Jim red handed.  
Charles telephones from NASA and tells Mr. Byrd that he and his bride-to-be,
Brenda, a celebrity astraunt, want to have their wedding at  Mr. Byrd's place in
the mountains so they can evade the paparazzi.  He welcomes the idea and
tells Charles that he has finished writing the story of his mother's tragic past
and will give it to him as a wedding present -- but not until after the
honeymoon.  
But Charlie Jim has stolen his manuscript, and when a police helicopter
swoops down on him  cultivating his pot patch, Charlie Jim gets away.
Charles and Brenda arrive.   Charlie Jim sends them a 1945 newspaper clipping
reporting Jeb's disappearance and Agatha's arrest.  Mr. Byrd assures them
that he can give them a true account of what hapened -- but not until after
their honeymoon.  Right now they must go to the airport to welcome Brenda's
movie-star mother to the wedding.
They return to find  Mr. Byrd's house in flames and his old cabin next door on
fire.   Charles beats out the flames and saves the cabin.  He and Brenda elope.  
Charlie Jim catches a plane for  California, is arrested when it lands and
returned to prison to serve out his sentence.  Mr. Byrd moves into the old
cabin where he and Agatha and Charles had lived before he had his house built.
Images of the cabin morph into the way it looked in 1945, and the drama
segues into the Jeb and Agatha story, which plays out in a thread of dramatic
episodes that winde back around to the present.  The old cabin needs
updating.  
While it is being modernized, Mr. Byrd goes to live with Charles and Brenda
and becomes a doting "grandfather" to their son Space, before returning to
live in the cabin.  
In June, 1986,  Mr. Byrd is keeping Space, now 5 years old, while Charles and
Brenda go on vacation.  Charlie Jim, his sentence served, is back on the
scene.  He breaks into the cabin at night, intending to kidnap Space.  Mr. Byrd
shoots Charlie Jim, drags the dead body out to the edge of the bluff, pushes it
over, hears it splash into the water of the Old Abandoned Quarry, goes back to
the cabin, and finds Space playing with a Nazi military cap Charlie Jim had
been wearing.  He carries Space out on the porch of the cabin and points to
the night sky.  "Look at the stars, Space!"

"Orion!" says Space, pointing.

"No.  Orion, the great hunter,  comes in winter."

">Email:  "Howard Cook" <howard.cook84@yahoo.com>

Email: "Howard Edward Cook" <6212hcook@comcast.net>

423 435-8897











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