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School of Rock meets American Idol when a reluctant rock star butts heads with the fiery young producer of a hit TV show…
A producer for a hit TV show Wants It That Way and all her newest star wants to say is Bye, Bye, Bye in this delightful, air guitar romp through the good old ’90s in a hilarious new romcom that gives new meaning to the term U Can’t Touch This!
Scout Addison is a twenty-something associate producer for Hair Guitar, the premiere talent show for air guitar aficionados all over the world. An anonymous employee has sent in a video of a surprisingly agile, middle-aged restaurant manager putting up umbrellas on a restaurant patio. His “performance” is so unique—set to blaring ’90s rock, of which he seems to know every chord, riff and note—that Brick Masters, the show’s executive producer, insists he has to be on the show.
Dash Graves is a forty-something manager at Summer’s End, “where brunch happens all day.” Fit but fed up, smart but shy, kind but no-nonsense, he is the resident father figure at a restaurant full of late teens and twenty-somethings who love him, but love to kid him even more. Poor Dash has no idea that two of his favorite employees have sent in a secret video of him dancing while putting up the patio umbrellas during his morning routine. He sure finds out in a big way, though, when a sexy TV producer shows up at the restaurant one day, ready to whisk him away to LA and a week’s worth of filming a show he’s never heard of, let alone wants to be a part of.
When Dash says, “No way,” his corporate overlords insist it will be good for business, and Scout is more than happy to spend the week with the surprisingly hunky—if grumpy—restaurant manager. When competition heats up and Scout doubts that Dash can win the contest after all, she tries to talk him out of it. But Dash has a past that ensures he will win, even if the competition is younger, fitter and flashier than Dash could ever hope to be. Will Dash Creep to the top of the charts, or will his first-ever performance on live TV sputter out like a Candle in the Wind and finally be The End of the Road for a love affair that never was?
General Release Date: 7th April 2026
Scout
“What are you three laughing about over there?”
I glance up from my desk to see several giggling interns huddled over a computer monitor at one of their bland, nondescript cubicles. Giggling. “Probably the day’s latest meme.” I sigh quietly to myself when they don’t respond right away. I know I sound like some old man getting ready to wave his arms and tell them to get off my lawn already, but honestly?
It’s the giggling. Every day with the giggling. Morning, noon and night with the giggling. Breakfast giggles and lunch giggles and I don’t often spend dinner with them but dinnertime giggles? No doubt. And twice as loud, probably, given their affection for binge drinking and ramen snorting.
Did I giggle when I was younger? Yes, sure, but constantly? Over everything? Nonstop? No. Giggles are for laugh-appropriate moments only. Okay, and perhaps nervousness. And possibly a blind date where nothing’s going right until it finally becomes so incredibly, horrendously, can’t-wait-to-rush-home-and-tell-your-roommate-how-bad-it-is bad that insane, maniacal giggling is honestly the only rational response.
But these kids? Nonstop with the giggling.
“Morning.”
Giggle. “Morning, Miss Addison.”
“What’s so funny about ‘morning’, sheesh?”
Giggle-giggle. “Nothing, Miss Addison.”
“Then why are you giggling?”
Giggle-giggle-giggle. “Not sure, Miss Addison.”
I know I sound like a major grump and that at twenty-seven I’m not that much older than their average age of nineteen or twenty but honestly? The giggling? Makes them sound far younger and, thus, totally unprofessional. What are these kids gonna do in their first actual board meeting at a real, honest-to-goodness job?
Giggle their way right out of it again. I harumph silently to myself.
I try to go back to my spreadsheet, narrowing down the list of contestants for next week’s competition, but suddenly a massive burst of laughter makes their behavior impossible to ignore. I stand abruptly, marching over to the cubicle in question in my sensible heels, pausing to get a good view of the giant monitor, hands on my hips when I see what all the hubbub is about—a contestant video. Some poor shlub waving around a patio umbrella before hoisting it and strumming the shaft like a guitar.
A mid-morning reproach flies out of my mouth immediately. “What is that? We don’t do that here! Stop that! Now! No making fun of contestants. These poor people spend a lot of time making these videos, it’s their one big shot to make it big, and I won’t have you making fun of them and… Oh, holy God, what is he doing!?”
I nudge aside Ruby Archer, a postgrad from Cal State, and nearly crush the big, gangly toes of Toby Manning, freshly promoted from the mailroom, to get a better look at the video clip in question. There is some grumbling at the intrusion but hey, seniority anyone? This isn’t a democracy, after all. Boss gets first dibs at front-row views.
I’m about to hit the pause button to stop the giggling, snorting shenanigans when I note the spinning contestant in question, expertly sliding the umbrella pole through a hole in a cute little table for two before swooping under the bright yellow fabric to hoist it open, all in time to the faint tune playing in the background.
“What’s that song?” I murmur, having been inundated with mindless, bubble-gum, boy-band pop-shlock ever since my boss, Brick Masters, announced that we’d be doing a ’90s theme for this year’s season of his hit show Hair Guitar.
Ivy League snob but music aficionado extraordinaire Kendra Simpson sticks her tongue out, closes her eyes, holds up one ebony finger and, after twenty-seven seconds of deep thought, says, “Apocalypse Jones?”
Toby snorts, as sharp and savvy as he is knowledgeable and observant. “Yeah, right. More like Moldy Peaches, but the early stuff. Before they switched labels, maybe?”
I’m actually impressed. Apparently I’m not the only one who’s been obsessively ear-cramming bubble-gum ’90s pop nonstop for the last two months straight!
“Gotta be Belly Lint,” Ruby offers unconvincingly, as if a bit out of her depth but eager to get in on the band-naming action. “From their second album?”
I hear them out of the corner of one ear, mumbling excitedly amongst themselves about band names as I watch the athletic potential contestant snatch up another umbrella, wriggle his tush, walk backward and spin, once again strumming the umbrella pole like a six-string. Ruby notices, giggles then stops, mid-snort, when I turn an icy glare on her.
“I mean it,” I say, narrowly avoiding wagging an elderly finger but stopping myself by jamming my hands in my linen coat pockets at the last minute. “This poor guy is really putting on a show.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Toby sneers from behind the protective layer of his thick tortoiseshell frames, eyes wide as I turn my ire on him next.
Kendra’s not so sure, narrowing her caramel-colored eyes at the action on the giant computer monitor in front of us. “Actually, Scout? I’m not even sure he knows he’s being filmed.”
I squint at the screen alongside her. Another backstep, another guitar riff, another spin twirl, another umbrella insert and poof, right on time with the drumline, our mystery contestant pops up the umbrella and rattles invisible drumsticks on the table beneath it, note for note with the song playing in the background. “No way he’s doing this for…fun?”
Ruby smiles cautiously, as if keenly aware she’s one snort or giggle away from not being listed on the credits of this season of Hair Guitar. “It kind of looks fun, though?”
“Where even is he?” I ask, inching closer as the kids join me in scrutinizing the video for a better look, like forensic analysts on some cheesy primetime cop show.
“I think…” Toby finally hits the pause button, then taps a few keys and moves the mouse until the picture zooms in on a logo on the man’s shirt. “Summer’s End?”
“Looks like a restaurant,” Kendra mutters, pointing to a server’s station in the corner of the screen, straws and ketchup bottles piled high next to plastic to-go cups with the same name and logo as the contestant’s shirt.
“Yeah, a Southern restaurant,” Ruby sneers, as if she’d never.
“Why do you say that?” I ask. “Colorful umbrellas. Cute little tables. Salmon-colored work tee. Could be anywhere. Could be right around the corner, for that matter.”
Ruby shakes her head, dirty blonde space buns coiled tight on either side of her cherubic face. “Look at the plastic ‘Weekly Specials’ sign on the table he just left. Sweet tea? You’re not going to find that in LA.”
“Not even in Burbank,” Kendra agrees, nodding around the slapdash office suite high atop a nondescript office building that’s barely Hollywood-adjacent.
“Okay, fine,” I admit. “We all know Southern contestants are good for our regional audience, though, right?”
It’s a leading question and they know it. They’ve already been given their marching orders for sifting through the hundreds of digital files we receive from potential Hair Guitar contestants on the daily—look for talent, not tits, musical acuity, not ass, athleticism, not aesthetics and, above all, think of the audience watching the boob tubes back home!
I step away from the computer screen, glad for the momentary break in their incessant giggling, and inch slowly back toward my desk. “Anyway, send me the full file, and Kendra? Why do you think he didn’t film this himself?”
She bends to the keyboard, accordion bracelets sliding down her slender wrist as her long brown fingers flutter across Toby’s keyboard. Squinting at the screen, she calls up the sender’s metadata in the file script. “Says here this was sent from an iPhone the other day,” she murmurs quietly, as if to herself. “And the login username to our site was a Lily Vanderbilt, so…”
I nod. “So maybe our boy got nervous and couldn’t send the video in for himself? Had someone else do it for him?”
“Or,” Toby surmises, sliding his glasses up his long, narrow nose, “someone filmed him surreptitiously and sent it in as a joke?”
Ruby shakes her head. “I dunno,” she says, nodding toward the screen and zooming out so that we get a full shot of the scene in question, sunny umbrellas, outdoor deck, sweet tea placards on each cozy wooden table and a middle-aged man clearly enjoying himself while playing said umbrellas like trying out guitars at the local music shop. “This vid was kind of made with love?” Ruby pulls her mustard-colored sweater a little closer to her chest, as if unsure of her rather astute observation.
“You think?” I ask.
“Yeah, I mean, you don’t hear any giggling in the background,” she says, tugging her sweater sleeves down to cover her hands as if nervous about taking center stage. “It’s clearly focused on him, not jittery like some last-minute thing. Follows him smoothly like whoever’s taking it knows what she’s doing, so…”
“Maybe a fan?” I suggest, feeling like a primetime TV detective solving a crime with her eclectic team of young, smart, attractive, giggling, cohorts.
“I mean,” Kendra says, wearing an apologetic grin. “I know we were laughing but I’d watch more of this guy.”
“You would?”
She nods insistently. “Sure, I mean, dude’s goofy, but good.”
I beam. “Goofy is good,” I explain, nodding at them collectively as I sink back into my desk chair to pore back over my pages-long spreadsheet. “Goofy is relatable. Goofy is warm and fuzzy. Goofy gets butts in the seats. Send me the file, and, gang?”
They look at one another before turning to face me one at a time. “Yes?” Toby asks.
I wink to let them know my bark is worse than my bite. After all, we’re only on week three of a months-long quest to find the final ten contestants for the show’s grand finale. No reason to scare them off with so much work still left to do. “No more giggling!”
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