Some of it's pretty good, though. U2 are determined to stick a wishbone in the throat of Thanksgiving Day America with their clip of

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Burroughs reading his "Thanksgiving Prayer" against a superimposed American flag. It is a thank-you to "Our father who aren't in heaven" for providing Indians to kill, land to despoil, small nations to plunder, and Africans to enslave.

To tape this soliloquy Burroughs visited U2 at their hotel when the Zoo tour passed through Kansas. Hall Willner, that record producer connected to all things underground and alternative, set up the get-together. It is not entirely clear that Burroughs knew who U2 were, but he did provide entertainment—he produced a paper bag full of hand­guns. Now Burroughs is a great and important figure in American letters, but he is almost as notorious for the legend of his killing his wife while trying to shoot an apple off her head as he is for writing Naked Lunch. So when U2 saw that the frail old author was packing heat, even Edge's hat flew in the air.

Buffalo Bill left U2 with an epigram as good as any in "The Fly": "When I was in prison in Mexico," he said, "one of the guards told me, 'I hate to see a man in jail because of a woman.' "

Back at Burroughs's house the author and Willner armed themselves and took to blasting away at targets in the nip of the Kansas afternoon. Willner, another man whose grievances one would not wish to see augmented by firearms, managed to score three bull's-eyes, after each of which Burroughs cried, "Lethal hits!" All, unfortunately, were in the target next to the one at which he was aiming. Afterward Burroughs collected the pistols, reloaded them, dropped them back into the bag, and shuffled up the hill home.

Looking at the Burroughs footage now, Bono asks what—as an American—I think the reaction will be. The Irish band and English director turn and stare at me. I tell them that the prayer, the litany of historic abuses, is great, and Burroughs's nicotine-whinging reading is hilarious. But you've got to be real careful about mocking the U.S. flag. People from other countries don't attach the totemlike voodoo to their flags that Americans do; making fun of Old Glory is like making fun of crosses or Stars of David—it may be a symbol and not the thing itself, but plenty of people are devoted to the symbol. U2 listen, look at each other, and say, "Leave in the flag."

The nights this week are devoted to assembling the TV special; during the days Bono is hustling like a Hollywood honky to close the deal to begin production on his screenplay, The Million Dollar Hotel. Bono

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wrote the story with a Hollywood scriptwriter named Nicholas Klein and Bono holds the copyright. The story was inspired by a cheap L.A. hotel full of bizarre characters that U2 discovered during the long incubation of Rattle and Hum. The script was finished, offered for sale, and optioned by Mel Gibson's production company. Quite a success for a young scriptwriter with another job! Now Bono is meeting with Mel and his people in the afternoons while also shuffling the actor he hopes will play the male lead—Gary Oldman—out of his hotel suite before the proposed female lead—Winona Ryder—shuffles in. See, Oldman and Ryder just made another movie together, Francis Coppola's mis­named Bram Stoker's Dracula. It is the number one film in America this week! Oldman is poised to suck Ryder's neck on the covers of maga­zines at the newsstand in the hotel lobby! Yet Dracula generated bad blood between the two young movie stars, so Bono has Winona cooling her heels down in the lobby of the Sunset Marquis while he shows Oldman how much quicker it is to leave by the back.

"Winona's my guide to all this movie stuff," Bono explains. "She's given me hours of good advice." After Rattle and Hum Bono and Winona kicked around the idea of trying to make a western about Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock, a film about the struggle between love and independence. Eventually Bono got distracted with recording Achtung Baby and making tour plans, Winona got involved in putting together Dracula, and the cowboy idea got put aside. For her twenty-first birthday Bono gave the actress a .38 Magnum with the inscription, "Happy Birthday, Winona—You've made my day."

Bono very much appreciates Mel Gibson's patronage and is grateful for the doors Gibson's box office name opens in the film industry. But he must wonder if it would be a mistake for the macho sex symbol to play the starring role in this film. The hero of Bono's screenplay is Tom-Tom, a scrawny, semiretarded hotel janitor who no one—least of all the pretty girl to be played by Winona—looks at twice. Quite a stretch for Mel! Gibson's done Hamlet to demonstrate that he's not just a Mad Max—Lethal Weapon action bimbo. Now he's considering playing the ugly imbecile to further stretch his range.

Gary Oldman, on the other hand, is the name at the very top of the scrawny, imbecile actor A-list. From Sid & Nancy to Track 29 to State of Grace to Rosencrantz &- Guildenstern Are Dead, Oldman has cornered the

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market on dopes, goons, and mouth-breathers. In movie industry par­lance, when you're talkin' dimwits and sickos, you're talkin' Oldman.

Winona is perfect for the ghostly girl in tragic black who hides from life in the fleabag hotel. It's a natural continuation of the gifted actress's pale-faced Beetlejuice/Mermaids/Edward Scissorhands oeuvre. What a cast! Gibson for the women, Ryder for the men, Oldman for the critics! All Bono has to do is get them to see the greater glory.

Bono floats the notion of Mel giving the lead to Oldman and sliding over into the role of the pinhead (literally) police detective who shakes down the denizens of the Million Dollar Hotel and bullys the moron custodian hero. Gibson might not be wild about the lack of actorly challenge in playing another tough cop, but Bono hopes to impress on him that while he may have played tough cops before, he has never played a tough cop with a pointed head.

There's one other role to fill. Who's going to direct? Bono's first choice would be Roman Polanski, but, as he's exiled from America, it would mean recreating L.A. in Europe. He thinks Coppola's a great painter, a brilliant visualist, but wonders if he would stick to the story. Of course he dreams of Scorsese, and of course he'd never get him. I suggest Barry Levinson: Diner proved he's great with multiple character comedy/drama—and Rain Man showed he's a poet of nitwits. I keep throwing out names as if I (like Bono) really knew these people, and as we walk through the hotel lobby Bono sees waiting for him Phil Joanou, who directed U2 Rattle and Hum and then State of Grace with Oldman and Sean Penn and Final Analysis with Richard Gere. State of Grace was consid­ered derivative but promising; Final Analysis was a disaster. Together with the box office failure of Rattle and Hum, that puts Joanou in a tough spot. In the time U2 spent making Achtung Baby the young director's gone from Boy Wonder to Next Big Thing to Has-Been. He needs a break, and a chance to work with Mel Gibson would be just the ticket.

Bono likes Joanou and believes he will eventually prove himself to be a great filmmaker—but he is afraid that if Million Dollar Hotel is directed by the man who made U2's tour film as well as the "One" video it will look like a U2 vanity project, like Bono wrote a script and hired U2's personal director to film it. The jittery director corners Bono and asks if there's been any word yet on setting up a meeting with Mel.

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