That’s Dr. Franco to you, jerks. As you’re reading this, I’m jetting back to Yale to present my grad school project: 127 Hours. Yup, I get to make million-dollar movies as part of my PhD. Suck it up, losers. You have to pore over eight obsolete textbooks to come up with one sentence for your 987-page graduate thesis; I just submit my latest movie.
Franco. You know where that name comes from? It’s not a Frenchification of Frank, it’s actually a derivative of Frankenstein. Sounds familiar? Yes, my ancestor was the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s famous novel. Or rather, my grandpa told her the story of his dad’s greatest creation over a bottle of fine port, and Madame Shelley made her husband ghost-write the novel based on her notes (and didn’t even give grandpa a share of the royalties!). Don’t believe it? I didn’t either, when I was told this story at the age of 12. My great-grandfather was Dr. Frankenstein? No way. But then, on our annual holiday to our ancestral home, my dad took me to the basement, and showed the lab. Oh, dude, what a lab! Granted that it was nearly a hundred years old, and most of the equipment was as useful as a cellphone in ancient Rome, but it was a work of engineering, nevertheless. Man, he was a god! I’m thinking of changing my name back to the original one, to honor his great work, and let everyone know how valuable I really am.
I’ve revived my great grandpapy’s project, to build the next super-soldier. Obviously, we won’t be using the crappy technology that he did; the U.S. government is very interested in funding the project. Yeah, considering the body count they’ve racked up in Iraq, they might as well do something productive with those soldiers’ corpses. What we need are good engineers, doctors, researchers, people who are passionate about advancing the cause of technology without caring about the ways and means and consequences. I’ve already got my team leaders in place, but the rest of the team is not well-formed yet. I thought I’d take a leaf out of showbiz and hold open auditions. If you’ve got the skills and the passion, and the urge to make big money, walk into the Pentagon any time between 10 and 5 next week, hand in your résumé and say the codeword “Victor’s monster” at the desk; you’ll be shown in. And yeah, this is not a casting call for my next movie; so all you struggling actors can please search for other options. I want bona fide scientists only.
See some of you there. I gotta go make another movie for Monday’s project submission.
