Rebirth 1991: Keep the Fame, I'll Take the Royalties

The Clumsy Takeover

The morning air inside the half-demolished Sovereign Media headquarters tasted strongly of pulverized drywall and expensive ambitions.

Elias van Kempen stood near a partially framed glass wall, holding a blueprint in one hand and a styrofoam cup of lukewarm, generic coffee in the other. He was dressed in his faded vintage leather jacket, looking entirely unbothered by the industrial chaos surrounding him.

Paul Rudd, however, was currently hyperventilating near a pile of discarded insulation, clutching a copy of Billboard magazine.

”I don’t understand, Elias,” Paul wheezed, adjusting his bandana. ”We beat Tommy Mottola at City Hall. We saved Charlize’s movie. Why are we still blacklisted on the radio? I thought the retail sync deal in the malls would force their hand. But KROQ-FM—the biggest alternative station on the West Coast—won’t even take my calls! It’s like ’Creep’ doesn’t exist to them!”

Elias took a slow, methodical sip of his terrible coffee. He turned to Paul, his dark eyes gleaming with the clinical, predatory intelligence of a corporate raider.

”You are analyzing the problem through the lens of a consumer, Paul,” Elias said, his baritone voice cutting cleanly through the hum of distant power tools. ”You assume Tommy Mottola directly owns KROQ. He does not. The Federal Communications Commission explicitly prohibits major record labels from owning terrestrial radio stations to prevent a total cultural monopoly. KROQ is owned by Infinity Broadcasting. Its valuation is roughly forty to fifty million dollars.”

Paul blinked, the massive number hitting him like a physical blow. ”Fifty million?! Elias, we have seven hundred grand. We can’t fight a fifty-million-dollar station!”

”We are not fighting the station, Paul. And we are certainly not buying it,” Elias corrected seamlessly, walking over to a fold-out table covered in architectural plans and financial ledgers. ”We do not need to buy the castle. We only need to buy the troll guarding the bridge.”

Elias pointed a long finger at the Billboard magazine in Paul’s hands.

”Tommy Mottola does not dictate KROQ’s playlist directly,” Elias explained, unpacking the dark, open secret of the 1990s music industry. ”He uses a loophole. He hires ’Independent Radio Promoters’. The Network. These independent firms charge the major labels exorbitant ’consultation fees’ to push their tracks to the program directors. In reality, it is legally sanitized payola. It is institutionalized bribery. Tommy pays the promoter, the promoter buys the radio director a new Porsche, and the radio director refuses to play our song.”

”So...” Paul stammered, his brain struggling to keep up with the sheer, cynical depth of the corruption. ”To get on the radio, we have to bribe the independent promoters?”

”I do not pay bribes, Paul. They are a catastrophic drain on operational liquidity,” Elias smiled, a dark, utterly shameless expression. ”I buy distressed debt. And I have spent the last forty-eight hours analyzing the ledgers of a mid-tier promotional firm called Apex Frequency. They currently control the Los Angeles alternative rock gateway.”

Elias reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a heavy, notarized document.

”They have been living too large on Sony’s dime,” Elias murmured, his eyes locking onto the paper. ”They took out massive, highly leveraged commercial loans to fund their lifestyle before the recession hit. They are currently drowning. Yesterday, through a shadow creditor, Sovereign Media purchased the entirety of Apex Frequency’s outstanding debt paper for exactly three hundred thousand dollars, cash.”

Paul’s jaw dropped. A massive, comedic sweatdrop rolled down his temple. ”You... you spent three hundred thousand dollars? Almost half our money?! On the debt of a corrupt radio mafia?!”

”I purchased absolute leverage at a fifty percent recession discount,” Elias corrected, slipping the document back into his pocket. ”Start the car, Paul. We are going to collect.”

Forty minutes later, the rusted, asthmatic 1984 Honda Civic shuddered into the pristine, valet-only parking lot of a sleek glass office building in Century City.

The offices of Apex Frequency occupied the entire twelfth floor.

Elias and Paul stepped off the elevator into a lobby that screamed 1990s excess. White leather sofas, mirrored walls, and framed platinum records lined the corridors. It was the physical manifestation of payola wealth.

Elias strode past the bewildered receptionist, moving with his signature, unbothered aristocratic grace. Paul trailed behind him, clutching his Anti-Awkwardness Sunglasses like a protective talisman.

They approached heavy, frosted glass double doors at the end of the hall. The nameplate read: Kevin Baxter - Senior Partner.

Elias didn’t knock. He reached out to push the door open, intending to unleash his Playboy Alpha dominance the second he crossed the threshold.

But the universe, and the digital loan shark resting in his cerebral cortex, demanded its pound of flesh.

[CRITICAL ALERT: SHAMELESS POINTS (CP) AT ZERO.][INITIATING SITCOM PENALTY: THE CLUMSY BILLIONAIRE.]

Elias’s eyes widened for a fraction of a millisecond.

No.

It happened instantaneously. The flawless, perfectly calibrated motor control that gave Elias his terrifying grace completely short-circuited.

As his hand hit the glass door, his left foot inexplicably caught the edge of a thick, plush decorative rug. His center of gravity violently betrayed him.

Elias van Kempen, the ruthless Managing Partner of Sovereign Media, burst into the senior partner’s office not with an intimidating stride, but with the frantic, flailing momentum of a man falling out of a window.

”Whoa—!”

Elias pitched forward. His long arms windmilled wildly. He crashed directly into a waist-high, glass display rack filled with promotional cassette tapes and CDs.

CRASH! SMASH!

The display rack exploded. Hundreds of cassettes rained down like plastic shrapnel. Elias’s momentum carried him further. He collided heavily against the mahogany wall paneling, his shoulder slamming into a massive, framed Platinum Record display from Sony Music.

The heavy frame detached from the wall, plummeted downward, and shattered into a thousand glittering pieces directly on top of Elias, who was now sprawled unceremoniously face-down on the expensive Persian rug.

Silence descended upon the office. It was thick, absolute, and horrifying.

Paul Rudd stood in the doorway, his hands covering his mouth, his eyes bugging out of his skull. ”Oh my god. Oh my god, he’s broken. The boss is broken.”

Sitting behind a massive, cocaine-dusted mahogany desk was Kevin Baxter. He was a man in his forties, wearing a silk shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. He was staring at the teenager lying in the ruins of his office with an expression of pure, unadulterated shock.

”What the hell is going on here?!” Kevin finally screamed, leaping to his feet, his face turning a vibrant shade of purple. ”What did you just do, you little punk?! You just destroyed my entire promotional archive! That was a platinum plaque from Tommy Mottola! It’s irreplaceable!”

A normal teenager would have panicked. They would have scrambled to their feet, apologizing profusely, offering to pay for the damages while retreating in absolute humiliation.

Elias van Kempen did not possess the capacity for genuine humiliation. He only possessed the capacity for extortion.

Elias slowly pushed himself up from the floor. He didn’t rush. He brushed a shard of broken platinum-record glass off the sleeve of his vintage leather jacket with slow, deliberate, aristocratic elegance. He adjusted his collar, looking completely and utterly unbothered by the chaos he had just caused.

”Aku sedang melakukan audit gravitasi, Kevin,” Elias stated smoothly. (I am conducting a gravitational audit, Kevin.)

His baritone voice was perfectly calm, radiating an absurd, terrifying confidence that completely paralyzed the angry executive.

”Audit gravitasi?!” Kevin shrieked, genuinely wondering if the kid was mentally unstable. ”You tripped over a rug and destroyed my office!”

Elias casually stepped over the pile of shattered cassettes, walking directly toward the mahogany desk. He didn’t look down.

”Ternyata plakat Sony itu rapuh,” Elias observed, pointing a long finger at the broken frame on the floor, his voice dripping with lethal, street-smart sarcasm. (It turns out that Sony plaque is fragile,) ”Sama seperti model bisnis mereka.” (Just like their business model.)

Kevin stared at him, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. The sheer, incomprehensible arrogance of the teenager was short-circuiting his anger.

Elias didn’t give him time to recover. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the heavy, notarized debt document. He slapped it down onto the mahogany desk with a loud smack.

”Kudengar FCC dan IRS sedang menyelidiki praktik payola ilegal di kantormu,” Elias continued, leaning his knuckles on the desk, bringing his face dangerously close to the sweating executive. (I heard the FCC and IRS are investigating the illegal payola practices in your office.) ”The paper trail from Sony is painfully obvious, Kevin. You are trading cash for airplay. It is a federal offense.”

Kevin’s face drained of color. The bluster vanished instantly. ”Who... who are you?”

”I am Elias van Kempen. Sovereign Media,” Elias introduced himself softly. ”Dan aku baru saja membeli hak utang komersial perusahaanmu dari kreditur seharga tiga ratus ribu dolar tunai.” (And I just bought your company’s commercial debt rights from your creditors for three hundred thousand dollars cash.)

Elias smiled. It was the smile of a great white shark that had just cornered a seal in a shallow pool.

”Jadi, secara teknis,” Elias whispered, tapping the document. (So, technically,) ”Aku baru saja menghancurkan plakatku sendiri.” (I just destroyed my own plaque.)

A massive, highly visible sweatdrop materialized on Kevin Baxter’s forehead. It rolled slowly down his cheek, dropping onto the silk of his shirt.

He stared at the teenager. He stared at the debt paper. The kid wasn’t a clumsy idiot. The kid was a corporate assassin who had just walked into his office, destroyed his trophies to assert dominance, and slammed a financial guillotine onto his desk.

”You bought my debt,” Kevin choked out, his hands trembling. ”You’re... you’re calling the loan?”

”I am calling the loan, Kevin, unless you immediately restructure your operational priorities,” Elias dictated, standing up to his full height. ”You are going to drop your exclusivity contract with Sony Music. You are going to pick up the phone right now, call the program director at KROQ, and you are going to inform him that ’Creep’ by Elias van Kempen is going into heavy rotation. Every hour, on the hour. Today.”

”Tommy Mottola will kill me!” Kevin panicked, backing away from the desk. ”If I drop Sony, they’ll ruin me in this town!”

”Tommy Mottola is in New York. I am standing in your office, holding your mortgage,” Elias corrected flawlessly, devoid of any empathy. ”If you refuse, I execute the debt recall by 5:00 PM today. Your firm is liquidated. And I accidentally drop the ledger detailing your Sony payola transactions to the FCC enforcement bureau. You choose, Kevin. Sony’s anger, or federal prison.”

The logic was absolute. It was a flawless, sociopathic pincer movement.

Kevin looked at the broken glass on the floor. He looked at the unblinking, deadpan eyes of the teenager. The man’s spirit broke completely.

With a profound, tragic sigh of a man surrendering his soul to a superior capitalist predator, Kevin reached out with a shaking hand and picked up his phone. He dialed the direct line to KROQ.

”Yeah, Mike? It’s Kevin,” the promoter muttered, sounding thoroughly defeated. ”Listen, I need a favor. Heavy rotation. Today. A new track... ’Creep’. Yeah, Elias van Kempen. Just... just do it, Mike. Please.”

Kevin hung up the phone. He looked up at Elias, looking ten years older. ”It’s done. You’re on the air. Just... don’t call the loan.”

”A pleasure doing business with you, Kevin,” Elias smiled, turning on his heel. ”And please, fix that rug. It is a severe liability.”

Elias walked out of the office, stepping over the shattered platinum record with perfect, restored aristocratic grace. The penalty had been broken by his sheer refusal to experience human shame.

He walked past a completely paralyzed Paul Rudd in the doorway.

”Come along, Paul,” Elias murmured. ”The airwaves belong to Sovereign Media.”

As they stepped into the elevator, the digital loan shark inside Elias’s brain erupted in a symphony of mechanical applause.

[CHA-CHING!][SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: THE CLUMSY TAKEOVER EXECUTED FLAWLESSLY!][EVALUATION: YOU WERE STRIPPED OF YOUR PHYSICAL GRACE, AND YOU WEAPONIZED YOUR LACK OF COORDINATION INTO A PSYCHOLOGICAL TERROR TACTIC. THE SYSTEM IS IN AWE OF YOUR ABSOLUTE SHAMELESSNESS. PENALTY LIFTED.][REWARD: +20 SHAMELESS POINTS (CP) DEPOSITED.]

Elias felt the warm, satisfying return of his CP. His balance sat at 20. But the financial bleeding was unrelenting.

[SYSTEM WARNING: DAILY MAINTENANCE FEE DEDUCTION INITIATED.][DEDUCTING -$50.00 USD FROM LIQUID CASH RESERVE.]

Elias gripped the elevator rail, suppressing the phantom pain in his chest. His $300,000 acquisition, plus the daily toll, had dropped his liquid cash to $415,722.00.

It was a staggering sum of money to spend on a single radio market. But Elias knew the math. KROQ was the kingmaker. By tomorrow, ”Creep” wouldn’t just be a mall phenomenon; it would be the anthem of the West Coast.

Tommy Mottola had tried to build a wall, and Elias had just bought the bulldozer.

The Pop Dictators were officially bleeding.