Johnny Crossbow an aged has-been on the pop music scene in San Francisco for the last forty years, tells his colleagues after a jazz session one Sunday night of three events in the life of his cousin back in Australia in the 60s. Shorty the drummer is set on getting Johnny to write a book about it and he undertakes to get it published. Flattered, Johnny sets out to put down on paper what he can dredge up from an addled mind. The San Francisco publishers however are slow to work on the book and want to change everything along the way, so Shorty sends the manuscript to a friend of his girlfriend in LA to turn it into a screenplay for a film. At the same time, and unknown to Shorty, Johnny's agent sends a second copy to his colleague in LA who writes a competing screenplay. When the finished products are sent to Johnny for approval, he doesn't recognise his scribbles in either of them and so happily sells to both the film rights to his book.