Editor’s Note: This is the original pitch by wunderkind producer Kofi Hsu for the controversial reality television series "Boomer Bust," which broke streaming records before its abrupt cancellation during its second season. A television bible pitch, containing a logline, one-sheet, and proposal for further seasons, is the standard first step to getting a show greenlight in Hollywood. The pitch was leaked amid several civil suits and a Department of Justice investigation of Hsu and his production company, NO’Kay Boomer.

TITLE: Boomer Bust
GENRE: Reality Competition
LOGLINE: Ten baby boomers think they’re competing for fame and fortune in the “Boom or Bust Challenge” by living in the House of the Future. But the future their generation ensured is fucked -- and the fuckers are getting an early taste of the world they’re leaving behind for the rest of us.

Cameras capture every entitled complaint, microaggression, and tantrum as a diverse cast of deplorables tries to be the last senior citizen standing -- surrogates in the future that no one in their generation will actually live long enough to see.

ONE-SHEET

PREMISE

Part guilty pleasure, part public service, Boomer Bust will be the closest thing to reparations television can provide. Our competitors won’t know they’re moving into a “Penance Palace.” They’ll just know they have to outlast their peers residing in a climate-controlled “House of the Future” on an island near Cuba.

That’s the truth.

On day one, we’ll dress our retirement-age residents in goofy-ass spacesuits and march them into the “Boom or Bust” compound, as if they’ve time-traveled to 2070. The climate will indeed be controlled so that the average temperature starts at 80 degrees and increases by two digits every day.

THE BOOMER BUST HOUSE

The beautiful glass-walled residence offers dazzling views of the ocean, but won’t provide much shade from the tropical sun. No tall trees or fruit-bearing vegetation -- those will be pruned to give our boomers an early look at the desertification their great-great-grandkids get to inherit. The boomers aren’t allowed outside to admire the surf and sand without wearing their spacesuits.

At the center of our heat-domed hostel is a kitchen where the oven is always on and an adjoining “Free Love” room is filled with condoms, empty Viagra bottles, and an air mattress. There’s one bathroom and a single bedroom outfitted with three beds. The ten roommates—BOOMATES—can argue amongst themselves to determine sleeping arrangements.

The only toilet in the house is gold. It’s deep, like a portapotty, and does not flush. The shower DOES have hot running water, but the bathroom has no windows or ventilation. We will only provide simple soap—antibacterial and sanitizing agents will be mostly useless against superbugs of the future anyway.

FOOD AND DRINK

Diminishing returns on land and sea point to mass extinctions, so there will be limited access to canned vegetables and no meat from mammals or fish in the Boomer Bust House. Pests are the protein of the future so the boomers will have unlimited access to cicadas they can roast with salt and hot sauce.

As a special treat, our boomates will be offered a sporadic meal prepared by a chef influencer we’ve plucked from social media. It’ll be a culinary dish native to one of the many countries that Europeans either colonized or occupied. The chef will NOT adjust the spice level of these cuisines of conflict.

In terms of water, we can’t make our guests swallow lead and forever chemicals like PFAS (beyond what the EPA already allows). HOWEVER, we can add large sparkling plastic chips to the tap, evoking the microplastics that are now so pervasive. We’ll fortify it with salt rocks, in line with the coming deluge from sea level rise.

Boomates can run tap water through a custom kitchen device that filters out the plastic and salt; when in use, it plays Phish songs at 80 decibels and takes about an hour to “clean” a liter of room temperature water. There is no ice.

OTHER AMENITIES AKA CHALLENGES

Each day the house will evolve to better simulate the future. On every odd day, confetti and other bits of plastic will randomly sprinkle from the ceilings. Acid rain would be too obvious—and obviously illegal.

On every even-numbered day, our production team will ignite controlled bonfires of organic material outside the house. Maybe the boomers will find the smoke blanketing the compound and the sound of wood crackling soothing at bedtime.

There are large trash bins, but no garbage disposal or collection. The boomates can work together to come up with a way to mitigate trash. Or not.

Flashing lights on the doomsday clocks that hang on every wall and accompanying air raid sirens will summon the boomates to gather in the bunker whenever we need to introduce more drama. We’ll communicate with the residents through a massive video screen on the wall of the fallout-styled room, but otherwise, the television monitor only shows C-SPAN or can connect to major social media websites.

If the boomates can actually figure out how to navigate the internet, they can use “Boom or Bust” branded accounts to interact with the outside world and earn “Net Positive'' relief points by recreating viral dance challenges. The relief points can be used to trigger a momentary cool breeze or refreshing freshwater rain in the compound.

There will be at least ten loaded paintball guns scattered throughout the house. An additional gun will be a loaded assault rifle.

Contestants are free to self-evict from the “House of the Future” at any time. If more than one person remains beyond thirty days, we will have them write and perform an interpretive dance about meritocracy to determine the winner. The last boomer inside the house wins a million dollars -- and everyone gets a participation trophy!

The fine print of our contract will reserve the right to divide the million-dollar prize by how much the inflation rate has ballooned since the winner’s birth year. If the winner was born in 1950, they’d get about $80k.

HOST

Occasionally we will dispatch an on-camera host to lead different challenges, adjudicate, and communicate with our boomers via the bunker’s video wall. The host will be Gen Z or younger, preferably female-presenting or nonbinary, and from an American Indian Nation.

CONTESTANT/CHARACTER BREAKDOWN

While the Penance Palace has been designed with precise technology to take our boomers (and viewers) into the future, it’s really the personalities of each individual that will make the “Boom or Bust Challenge” combustible.

We’ll select our initial roster of ten boomers from an open casting call for contestants born before 1964. Of course #NotAllBoomers… so we’ll specifically choose boomates that fall into any of the rough archetypes below.

-A man who married a woman more than 25 years his junior.
-A vegetarian who brags about attending Woodstock. The more smug, the better.
-A former pageant or stage mom.
-A retired police chief. Or maybe a high-ranking military veteran -- as long as they don’t seem too sympathetic. Definitely NO firefighters.
-An oil and/or pharma exec. Former is fine.
-A card-carrying member of the NRA.
-A frequent flier of private airplanes.
-Someone’s uncle with kids from at least three different women. He claims to be passionate about family values.
-An NFL, NBA, or MLB team owner.
-A hedge fund manager. Bonus points if they profited off the Great Recession.
-A current or former member of the US House of Representatives or Senate.
-Someone who spent more than a decade working in marketing for Big Tobacco.
-A religious figure who publicly backed a peer who has been accused of sex abuse or embezzlement.
-Anyone who traces their ancestry to the Mayflower.
-Immigrants to the US from Asia, Latin America, and/or the Middle East. They won’t have to enter the house until day six.
-A Black grandma. She’ll probably be the first to bail, but not before justifiably putting everyone (including the production team) in their place.

FUTURE SEASONS

The budget for additional seasons would obviously boom, necessitating more product placement to fund production that ups the ante. We would stream live feeds from inside the house and allow our audience to taunt the boomers in real-time.

Our target audience comes from the descendants of baby boomers, but if Boomer Bust draws an even wider audience, casting a second season could be challenging. We would need to increase the prize amount and solicit disaffected Zoomers to help us identify and convince their spooked grandparents to participate.

As insurance, we’ll put some fine print in the first season’s contracts, so the boomers consent to their image, likeness, and social media presence being AI-generated, in perpetuity, for our whims. So many boomers who are able to retire refuse to cede jobs, security, and power to younger generations, so why shouldn’t our boomates work for Boomer Bust forever?

Author’s Note: In 1979, a survey was conducted on the disputed island of Diaoyu Dao | Diaoyutai | Uotsuri-jima. This uninhabited island, part of the Diaoyu | Diaoyutai | Senkaku island chain, is claimed by China, Japan, and Taiwan. The report noted four goats living in an abandoned katsuobushi factory. Today, there are hundreds of goats. Their increased number has led people to advocate for the removal of goats to protect the unique and endemic species threatened by overgrazing. One of these species is a mole (Mogera uchidai) of which only one has ever been discovered.

This user is up late, up very early, can’t sleep, can’t stay asleep, must want to be sleeping, must want Nyquil, Zquil, non-habit forming melatonin, sleepytime tea, lavender sleep mask, bamboo fiber pajamas, must want Sleep Number, Serta, noise machine, user must be worried must want ADT, LifeLock, Allstate, State Farm, Farmers Life Insurance for their peace of mind. Must want projected flood mapping for the next century.

This user fears symptoms (general) may be flu, headache, cold, fibroids, fibromyalgia, phantom limb must want Web MD, Mayo Clinic, DayQuil, must want to want answers, telemedicine, Hers, Hims, easy diagnosis, Botox.

This user must be female, must want shoes, want shapewear, wine of the month club. Calculating. This user must have children, want children, be trying for children, be longing, be mourning, must hate children, must have a cat. This user has, had, has a cat must want Chewy, Pet Meds.

This user searches the same things over and over again, must want Prevagen. Must want more articles about the disaster, the warming planet, lost civilizations, lost languages, lost planets, found planets, the election, polls measuring attitudes about a new civil war, about civility. User must be curious about guns, about gun laws, about local regulation, about access about last shooting, newest shooting, about the bar in user’s hometown, about the Walmart in user’s hometown, about the shots last night near user’s home now, about correlations between assault rifle ownership and upside-down flag stickers. Must want fear, must want assurance, must want. Calculating.

Nancy Pelosi
TO: Me
SUBJECT: DON’T IGNORE THIS ERIN

Erin,

I need to know you’re still paying attention. Nobody is paying attention anymore. I am sounding the alarms, Erin. THE ALARMS! I have stitched little bells to all of my garments so that wherever I go the people will look, they will hear, and then they too will know the truth. I’m ringing my bells, Erin. Are you still listening?

It’s not over yet,

Nancy

nance,

idk what the clouds look like where you are but there’s a cloud here that looks just like one of ana mendieta’s siluetas. i wish you could see it.

e

Nancy Pelosi
TO: Me
SUBJECT: AS OF 12PM

Everything and I mean everything just changed, Erin. The now world is not the same world we’ve been living in. It’s time to wake up and open your eyes and your heart chakras and your wallets and give what you can to the cause while there is still a cause to give to. Not everything is a poem, Erin. Sometimes a ribcage is just a ribcage.

Nancy

RE: AS OF 12PM

today i sat on the kitchen floor & wept while eating a luna bar. i feel like i can tell you anything.

e

Nancy Pelosi
TO: Me
SUBJECT: AS OF 8PM

Erin,

I have just returned home from a most restorative happy hour with the comrades. We engaged in a spirited hour of karaoke, Erin. When I sang Sweet Caroline, it was like I was singing with another voice, a voice borrowed from the depths of historical rage. It welled up inside me and I had to let it out, Erin. The applause I received was well worth the expenditure of leisure time, Erin. It’s okay to give yourself a little break, Erin. It’s okay.

Yours in song,

Nancy

RE: AS OF 8PM

my karaoke song is sean paul’s get busy but you probably could’ve guessed that, nance. people aren’t really named nancy anymore. or nadine. or neil. we are naming our children anthropocene. they are naming themselves event horizon. we are all unnaming each other.

Nancy Pelosi
TO: Me
SUBJECT: THE CRYSTALS DON’T LIE

Erin,

I was swept away in a vortex and it was beautiful. For a brief moment, I forgot all about the bad guys, I forgot about it all. The crystals opened my chakras and revolution poured out and it poured back in and I think I have evolved to a higher consciousness. Erin, my aura is green tourmaline. Erin, you need to charge your crystals.

Namaste,

Nancy

RE: THE CRYSTALS DON’T LIE

nance,

in grad school my friend g and i had to do a presentation on deleuze’s cinema theory. we stayed up all night dancing and drinking. i woke up with my book bag full of condoms & glitter & found my eyeglasses in the trashcan. we charged into the classroom with bedsheets over our bodies shouting peaks & sheets peaks & sheets raising our arms up and down and zig-zagging through the room peaks & sheets peeks & sheets then we would periodically stop & whisper & crystals. this was the closest i have ever felt to deleuze who has always felt very far away. this is the closest i have ever felt to “theory.”

e

Nancy Pelosi
TO: Me
SUBJECT: THE STAKES ARE HIGH

Erin,

I’m going to level with you. I’m going to circle back one more time. I don’t need to tell you how serious this is. Erin, this is very serious. The bad guys have more money than we do. They are throwing it from the moon roofs of their private jets. We need to rise above them. I mean this literally, Erin. We need to learn how to fly and we need to do it now. We need to fly in formation and cast all of their little jets in our shadow. We cannot let them win this game of darkness.

Show me your wingspan and I’ll show you mine,

Nancy

RE: THE STAKES ARE HIGH

nance,

i don’t know how to fly. i don’t know how to give birth to a new year. i can only offer you this, a bouquet of morning light.

e

Break: The lip of the cliff on Rocky Face, where I stepped backward into air, the rope braided between my legs, my right hand behind me, left in front, kicking off its rock to bounce my way to ground, knowing myself for an instant, having escaped familial ties and suspended myself in the air.

Dude Mom: Honorific, a gift from my son.

Fluidity: 1. The nature of my gender. 2. The magic trick of my mother’s way with words, in conversation with possibility; subversion. 3. The mastery of Bach’s Three-Part Inventions that carry song across and between those three voices, performed by just two hands. 4. Everything contrapuntal in music and poem. And me.

GenderQueerness: A bright and shining wave that oscillates just beyond the plane of my vision, tethered to/by luminous humans who are rich in secrets of love; of rivers and mountains; of dogs, cows, and a pony.

Hay: As in to “make” or “put up”. 1. Meaning to harvest: cut in the field, machined into bales, then stacked six rows high on the trailer pulled by the tractor, slowly, kids on top to catch and anchor. 2. Labor, a flex: Silent competition with my brothers and dad, tossing bales higher, faster. The wire of my teenage boy ahum with an energy not theirs, a strength available only to me.

Hoops: 1. The rhythm, the backboard over the garage door: mostly guys, and me. No foul unless you do harm. 2. Summer camp: Only for girls, and me. Drills. How to throw the outlet pass. Defense, protecting the baseline. Jump shot follow-through. Coach, leading us all in prayer: huddled, our hands stacked together. A center, holding.

Marriage: 1. A miracle in drag. 2. A rite.

Pronouns: Payload for the golden landing of that oscillating genderqueered wave, into my ears, in the quiet that settled when I was invited to speak, and heard myself. They/them/mine.

Tomboy: An attempt at grace. A cheat, that may have saved a life. Mine.

Artistic Statement

In August 2022, Tash Kahn and Cathy Rose met on a residency and started a collaborative project with Tash taking Polaroids and Cathy writing stories to go with them. They have continued with the collaboration from their respective cities of London and San Francisco.

He’s long and lean, except for a little paunch. His old joints go clickety-clack, but by golly if he isn’t at the pool every afternoon at four to swim his laps. In the summer heat, the bone-chill winter, even when hailstones pound the chlorine blue.

Jill the Pill arrives, suit tight against her torso like a second skin, hair tucked up in a bright yellow cap. A sturdy gal, ex-military, she chats with the young orthopedic resident in the tinted Ray-Ban goggles about an old injury from her days in the trenches, and about her PTSD. Not his expertise, Dr. Ray-Ban will remind her. Well, of course, it isn’t, young man, nothing is.

Flags strung end to end flap in the wind, steam rises off the water, as they all plop in. Ah, the joy of being wing-ed, he does the Butterfly with abandon, while Dr. Ray-Ban and Jill the Pill cut shark-like through the water as if vying for an Olympic Gold. Guys, relax. This is not a race. Take it from me, you don’t want to see that finish line. At his wife’s directive, he clamps his mouth shut. Keep it cordial, buddy. After he’s dried off and knocked the water from his ears, he thinks, if only she could see the pleasant nods exchanged. He does, too, have friends.

But he doesn’t know that after he leaves the pool, they complain bitterly—about how he hogs an entire lane and splashes like a giant baby in a bathtub. They mimic his flailing limbs. Can’t he read the cones? He belongs in SLOW. He’s almost too slow for SLOW, Jill the Pill complains to the lifeguard, who, shivering under his Red Cross blanket, is counting the moments until he can scroll through his phone.

Later, they feel petty. There are more important things in life, and damned if the old man doesn’t serve to remind them of that, when, the next week, in the middle of a swim, he vanishes beneath the water. It happens so fast, the man, legs akimbo, plunging straight towards the bottom of the pool. Hey! the lifeguard yells, throwing off his blanket and stumbling from his high chair. Should he toss the life preserver? Oh my God! Dr. Ray-Ban cries from over in the FAST lane. Jill the Pill springs into action, torpedoing downward. But no need. Like a rocket, the old man shoots up. He waves one arm above his head, his wedding band. By, golly, I found it! Just lost a ring. Yay! they call out. Bravo! they clap.

Poolside, they let him go over what happened and try their very best to listen and be kind. They had more-or-less forgotten—his pool membership was through his wife, a chancellor at the University. They had all read in the school rag about her untimely death. He was a widower, poor fellow. They watch him clickety-clack back to the locker room to change. So sad. They were such shits.

What they don’t know, is that he has Bruce at home, whose rear will wiggle at the mere sight of him. And with the measuring out dog foods per the instruction sheet from the SPCA, and cleaning up puppy accidents, his evening will be full. Good boy, Bruce, you did most of your business on the paper this time. You’re a good little fellow, yes you are.

As he’s refreshing Bruce’s water bowl, he will remember what happened at the pool. Not because the incident had been particularly upsetting or traumatic. Losing the ring—well, he was a nincompoop, he misplaced things all the time, and pretty much expected to find whatever he lost. No, it was the lengths his fellow swimmers had taken, and especially how, in cold wet suits, past shift’s end in the case of the lifeguard, they had stuck around while he talked. The ring had not made bubbles as it bounced along the base of the pool, the drain was not about to swallow it when he had finally grabbed hold. He had embellished his underwater story to keep it interesting, and they probably knew this, the same way he knew they weren’t really his friends, but still they had listened. You’re an old man, he says to Bruce, whose little beard is dripping all over.

And so, the evening goes on. Feet up on the coffee table, his bowl of ice cream rests perfectly on his paunch. His wife called it his little loaf of sourdough. She had loved all of him.

Ah, Bruce, stop your whining, you had your dinner, you had yours. But what the heck. One last spoonful and he sets the bowl down for the puppy to lick clean. A rush, almost a glee in being able to do whatever you want, it doesn’t last, he knew it wouldn’t, but what a funny mess when Bruce upends the bowl and noses it round in circles.