From Rusha With Love

THE NEWS that the Soviet Union is to hold elections came as a shock to some, but I recognized it as the opportunity of a lifetime: my chance to become top dog in a well-known and prestigious police state. I packed my bags at once for the ancestral home of the Tsars.

Of course, breaking into the political scene in a foreign country is tough--and tougher still if you're not a legal citizen of that country and don't have a visa. Obstacles abounded. Name recognition: zero. Political backing: zero. Funds: fifteen dollars, U. S.

But determination I had, and plenty. The same kind of determination that our pioneer forebears showed when they forged a proud and free new home out of nothing but virgin soil and faith in God. So if the odds were against me, I knew that I had the guts to stick it out. And of course, if all else failed I could always pull some sleazy gimmick.

I spent days roaming the streets of Moscow trying to formulate some kind of plan. For two days straight I sat at a corner table and ran up a tab at Boris' House of Borscht. Finally, delirious from lack of sleep and too much beet soup, I was struck by an odd yet wonderful idea: to manipulate the minds of the TV viewing public by means of devious politically-oriented programming.

This idea, of course, was not new to the Soviets--after all, they paid attention to what the Republican Party was doing. But I had thought of a twist. I would frame the propaganda in the form of a mini-series, cast some good-looking actors, and give it a glossy look. It would be of such high quality and so entertaining in its own right that the masses would never imagine that they were being deceived.

I IMMEDIATELY began working on a script. I figured everyone loves science fiction, so I set the plot in the future, 10 years after a peaceful takeover of the Soviet Union by an American--i.e., me. As I wrote, churning out page after page of dialogue, I was surprised by my own inventiveness. The plot was so unique and so clever that I was forced to surmise the world had never seen its like before.

The miniseries was to be titled Rusha, in reference to the fact that a Fury-run Russia would be hipper and more laid back about things like spelling. At first I was thinking of writing myself into the show, maybe as a rock star who finds love and the meaning of Christmas in the backrooms of the Kremlin.

In the end, though, I decided it would be subtler and more powerful if I just referred to myself indirectly every couple of lines through female characters who could say things like: "Rutger Fury--the sexiest, jivingest hunk of a Party Boss ever." That way I could leave it up to the viewer's imagination.

To keep things moving I wove in several subplots. One was about an aging bearded country singer who is so impressed by Rutger Fury's political expertise that he vows--to the delight of the populace--never to appear in movies again.

Another is about an actress who sleeps around and acts in ridiculously bad films until, in emulation of her idol, Rutger Fury, she moves to a foreign country, again to the delight of the populace. For wholesomeness, I wrote in a subplot about a Young Pioneer and his faithful tractor, and for the older folks I scripted some, steamy, explicit sex scenes.

Once the script was finished I had to figure out how to get it produced and aired. When I started making the rounds I learned that the Soviet government controls all broadcasts and that the only cable in Russia is the stuff they tie around their houses to keep the walls from falling down. No one was very interested in seeing my program on the air.

DESPONDENT, I returned to the United States. Ambitions crushed, with no money and no prospects for the future, I was forced to spend the night behind the dumpster at the Store 24 While I was asleep some hoodlums--no doubt scrounging for concepts for ABC--stole my script for Rusha.

The sordid tale does not end there. Several weeks later, while watching TV at the home of a female admirer, I was shocked to see my script performed virtually word for word. Only the vaguest attempt had been made to disguise its true source: the setting had been changed from the Soviet Union to the United States, the admiring allusions to myself had been taken out, and the title had been changed, unimaginatively, from Rusha to Amerika.

Needless to say, I was disgusted. Rutger fury, formerly the national political correspondent for The National Enquirer, is a close friend of Jeffrey J. Wise.