1. |
-> When
00:16
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[Lights up on the stage of an empty theatre. BIRDBRAIN jolts upright from his prostrate position on the floor, stage left.]
Divebomb! [He spots the guitar.] Divebomb.
[He crosses the stage and picks up the guitar.]
No cord. [The guitar obliges.] Where’s the electricity?
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2. |
the Sun
00:28
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[The INCANTATION:]
I burnt the summer up inside of my depression.
The hair grew from my skull; I never learn my lesson.
Our exclamation left us on a quest-y-estion and
Now where am I supposed to dream of? Now
where am I, have you seen me? Now
where am I? How
rare am i? Oh,
who am I now?
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3. |
winks and
01:04
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“Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the one, the only, Birdbrain!”
Alright alright! Is everybody having a good time tonight? [The audience cheers.] I think we can do a little better than that, I said is everybody having a good time?? [A more enthusiastic cheer.] OK!
Crippling self-doubt is a good friend of mine, hey hey hey!
We get naked and dumb and pretend we’re both blind! (Track 14, y’all know the one!)
Crippling self-doubt,
And I piss, and I pout,
And I twist, and I shout like,
What’s that all about? (What’s that all about!)
KICKLINE: Trying to write till he puts up a fight (A fight in my face!)
And I try to be polite but he says I’m a blight (A blight on the page!)
And I think that he’s right so I turn off the light (I turn off that light in a rage!)
And I try to sleep tight and that’s how I stay up all night!
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4. |
vanishes,
00:15
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Hey, no sweat; I’m your wingman here. I still remember the second grade music teacher tellin’ my mama I was “completely tone-deft.” Probably didn’t even know I could hear him. Well, that’s tone-deft for you.
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5. |
that last
00:13
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D I V E B O M B, Y R U IDL NV
“VOID ME BB, B4 I C U DK me”
Divebomb, get up! Get up, Divebomb!
Divebomb, get up! Get up, Divebomb!
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6. |
light
00:57
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SURVIVOR ONE: So it starts, the album starts with Birdbrain saying “Divebomb!” /
SURVIVOR TWO: “Divebomb!” Totally unexplained, out of the blue.
ONE: Right, you have no clue / why he says it, right.
TWO: What’s going on or anything.
SURVIVOR THREE: Weird.
ONE: It’s totally bizarre.
TWO: Then a bunch of songs happen at once, there’s like, one about crippling / doubt and one about a blowjob…? / Is that later?
ONE: Crippling self-doubt / And then it gets, it turns really quiet, like ominous almost. And you start to hear this hum, and it starts to sizzle like, it burns /
TWO: Burns is his name if you put Birdbrains together! “Bir-ns”
ONE: It’s / Birdbrain, no S.
THREE: Like Mr. Burns?
ONE: I dunno, what’s that sound like?
THREE: Oh, like the end of the world, and these people are trying, they’re working super-hard to remember the show cuz it’s all, it’s the only thing they have now--
TWO: Yes! It’s like that! And everything suddenly comes rushing in, and it makes this sound like, “PYOOOOOM.”
“PWOOOOOOM.”
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7. |
won't tell
00:22
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It’s my birthday!
It’s my birthday!
(Yea yea yea!)
Birthday!
It’s my birthday!
Gonna get a birthday!
(Yea yea yea!)
Blowjob!
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8. |
the bad news
00:48
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PITIFULS (Drunk)
Let me see those hands up if you like drinking alcohol!
(I can’t see you but I assume your hands are up. I can’t tell.)
On the rocks, you’re hottest! And vodka makes you honest!
Gin spins you into interesting! You win this thing, that’s awesome!
The beers made your peers become bleary and weird and they are not as close with you as they appear, and
Boy, did bourbon blank and blur your flaws and problems!
Boring! (Drunk.)
Awkward. (Drunk.)
Too close! (Drunk.)
Back up. (Drunk.)
Needy! (Drunk.)
Puking! (Drunk.)
Nasty! (Drunk.)
Nasty. (Drunk.)
You’re so unique! You’re such a rebel!
Drinking for work? You’re such trouble!
You get to joke outside the bubble!
You’re the wildest animal in the whole wide zoo, idiot!
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9. |
for
01:10
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[Lights up on JEN and MICHAEL seated at a table. A candle, mood lighting. MICHAEL is examining his menu while JENNIFER steals glances at him with heart-shaped eyes. Only MICHAEL notices DANNY come up behind JENNIFER.]
MICHAEL: [touching JEN’s hand lightly] Do you know what you want?
JENNIFER: [Emitting a surprised and aroused laugh] I, oh Michael, that’s a little forward for a first date...
DANNY: I recommend the gnocchi, miss.
[JENNIFER starts at the intrusion.]
MICHAEL: The gnocchi’s good, though I’m leaning toward the cacciatore tonight.
JENNIFER: Oh, yeah... The dish. Sorry, I just can’t believe I’m really getting fancy Italian food with the super-handsome [She mispronounces this:] Michael Botticelli!
MICHAEL: [laughing a handsome little laugh] I’m glad I’m not the only one having fun tonight, Jennifer.
DANNY: And I’m glad that we at Francesco de Fresco are able to provide an atmosphere in which your relationship may blossom. And I believe Signore Michael’s last name would be pronounced “Botticelli,” Miss… “Jennifer.”
JENNIFER: Oh, sorry! / I didn’t mean to…
MICHAEL: Wow, a waiter and an Italian tutor! How do you like that? [He laughs.] Don’t worry, Jen, I know it was an accident. I mean, I could never date a woman who can’t pronounce Italian correctly! [To DANNY] I think we’ll need a couple more minutes.
DANNY: Molto bene, sir. And I’m happy to provide my linguistic services for your companion. When I hear a beautiful Italian word botched, I can only picture an idiot child doodling over the Mona Lisa.
MICHAEL laughs, then DANNY joins in. JENNIFER fidgets. DANNY exits.
DANNY: [As he exits] ...whichwaspaintedbyanItalian
JENNIFER: What?
MICHAEL: Wow Jennifer, you really look amazing tonight.
JENNIFER: Oh Michael, that means the world.
MICHAEL: And you can pronounce Italian, right?
JENNIFER: Uh… you betcha!
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10. |
8 minutes 20 seconds:
00:19
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[The theme is attempted.]
Oh, wait.
[The theme is attempted.]
Um… Nevermind, I guess.
[Beat.]
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11. |
But
01:06
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DOCTOR PAINE: Mrs. Casanova? How do you do. My name’s Doctor Paine; the nursery staff sent me in to discuss your daughter’s physical examination results with you. You don’t have to worry; Elaine’s sound asleep in the nursery, she’s breathing well and her vitals look great.
Now, Elaine’s test results look Scarry. Her eyes are glassy and her skin feels like cold vinyl. She weighs 100,000 pounds. She’s two stories tall and 2300 square feet inside-- that’s pretty unusual for a newborn. It seems that Elaine’s not been born as a human body, as many of us are, but as a house.
Now Mrs. Casanova, I want to assure you there’s no need to worry. Every mother is concerned that her child won’t grow up like other kids, but Elaine will still function the same as we do. Food will enter through the front door and make its way through the kitchen and out the bathroom. Light will come in through the windows until Elaine lowers the blinds for the night. And then, most importantly, a light will switch on in her bedroom and the house will remain very still while Elaine paints and paints and paints. And the paintings won’t hurt at all.
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12. |
So Much
00:37
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D’ARTCHEFF: There! Right there! What were you thinking just then? Was it conscious or autopilot? Did it make your stomach tighten or your face bend?
PAINE: Um, Mrs. Casanova, this is our resident psychologist, Professor D’artcheff. I apologize, his methods are a bit unorthodox. Professor, I was just explaining Elaine’s condition to her concerned mother.
D’ARTCHEFF: No, you weren’t. Elaine’s mother is two doors down the hall in Room 83. Mrs. Clover here has checked herself in with empty nest syndrome, and her daughter is… Gosh, about 24, 25 years old now? Time flies (north for the winter.) It doesn’t even feel like she’s been gone long!
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13. |
Brilliance
01:52
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DANNY: Long gone but not gone forgotten, I hope! Have you two decided what you’d like to order?
MICHAEL: Yes, I’ll have the chicken cacciatore, / si, mi amico, mostaccioli with a side of ravioli, / No, al forno per favore. / Si, spumoni. [Looking affectionately at JENNIFER] And a big bowl of gelato for la bella donna.
DANNY: Mostaccioli with the cacciatore? / Al dente? / Bene, e dolces? / Very good, signor. [To JEN] And what would you like to precede your gelato, “Jennifer”?
JENNIFER: Um, I’ll have the [trying to make this sound as Italian as possible] “pizza.”
[MICHAEL laughs, assuming it’s a joke.]
DANNY: Signora, I’m afraid we do not make pizzas here, as we are a bistro and not a hut.
MICHAEL: I think that was a joke, mi amico. Right, Jenny?
JENNIFER: Yea, hah, I was just kidding! I’ll have the [Again with the accent] lasagna.
MICHAEL: Come on Jennifer, I can’t let you order lasagna from the best Italian place on this side of the Atlantic! Order something fancy with a beautiful Italian name!
DANNY: [piecing together JEN’s secret:] Yes “Jennifer,” go ahead and speak aloud the polysyllabic beauty of your desired Italian dish. As I like to say, the only thing more delectable than the cuisine is its properly pronounced Italian name. And the only thing more delectable than that is a rude young woman’s exposé.
JENNIFER: You know, I think I need another minute to savor these delicious Italian names.
DANNY: Of course, “Jennifer.” You’re like an airy Michaelangelo, painting your own precocious Sistine Chapel ceiling.
[MICHAEL and DANNY share another Italian laugh. DANNY exits.]
JENNIFER: Hah.
MICHAEL: Oh, it’s funny because Michelangelo took four years to finish the ceiling. Actually, closer to four years three months and-- Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m just excited to eat some beautiful Italian food with a beautiful American lady!
JENNIFER: Oh, thanks! Well, let me finally order some Italian food so you can see the two beauties together! [MICHAEL laughs.] One beauty eating the other beauty… and absorbing its nutrients… Gimme a minute.
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14. |
Makes
00:11
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[THE RULES: No instrument can be recorded without wearing a blindfold or equivalent eye cover. Vocals are to be performed while suspended upside down, with four microphones spread around the singer’s head like cardinal directions.]
-This next bit is a stage play!
-Well, an unstaged play.
-We could play this on a stage.
-But that’d be a played stage.
-So, the next stage of this play would be to stage it onstage.
-That’s a staged stage!
-No: By staging its playing, this will now be a stage play.
-(Or at least a staged play!)
Yes!
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15. |
Our
00:47
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It’s my fucking birthday and I’m swinging finely, at this
Blue pinata that’s in front or behind me
When I find and fight him, I will burst that bastard
With a blast! endorsement by my Stratocaster, like
Bam! Bam! Bam!
(But you don’t get that yet. This whole thing’s a mess.)
Seeing is believing; I’m a bit unhealthy.
Promise pictures of God then I keep sending you selfies.
Now I’m Luddite, No Light, No Sight Nancy!
Sid probly did it but I can’t stop bouncing!
[Establishing shot of a run-down but soulful apartment complex. Fade to interior shot:]
BIRDBRAIN: “Nancy,” “bouncing,” is that an ok rhyme?
SITCOBB COBBSTAR: That’s a rhyme, alright!
[Audience laughter.]
BIRDBRAIN: Dude, nothing rhymes with Nancy!
COBBSTAR: What about “dancing?”
BIRDBRAIN: Ah, f**k.
[Audience laughter, applause.]
Cataracts counteract corneas, just like my mother’s did,
Hoarding the glory outside our eyelids.
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16. |
Birdie
00:11
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You post modern and the just mods delete you,
And you got your guitar, that guitar will complete you.
Listening! Thinking that I need this solo,
So I’m goin’ to China!, call me Marco--
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17. |
Go
00:30
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Marco?
Marco??
Forget it. I’m just gonna phone this one in.
SIRI: Got it. Here’s what I found for “amazing guitar solo.”
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18. |
Blind;
00:23
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(So I went ahead of time and space to have the surgery.
Swear my oath, propose a toast, and lock me up for perjury.
Televise my own demise and sell my soul commercially.
Line me up and tie me down and take my ass out verbally.)
MRS GLOOP: Don’t just stand there, do something!
WILLY WONKA: Help. Police. Murder.
TAGGART: Come on, men! We’ll head ‘em off at the pass!
BRAD MAJORS: You mean you’re going to kill him? What’s his crime?
COBBSTAR: His sitcom sucks.
DANNY: He disrupted the Francesco de Fresco experience!
SIRI: He stole my sweet licks.
PINK: Get ‘em up against the wall!
DOLORES: I know there’s something weird going on between you and that brain!
SERGEANT BEDE: Ready!
SCARECROW: But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t they?
BEDE: Aim!
DR. HFUHRUHURR: It causes your brain to die last.
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19. |
then blindsight
02:42
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DANNY: Fire! In the kitchen! On the stove, over which many delicious meals are being cooked for other people who’ve placed their orders! Ready to join them in the pit of fire, Jennifer?
JENNIFER: UM--/
MICHAEL: Yes! You were gone but she was just talking about how she was going to!
JENNIFER: Yes, I’m going to and we’re both very hungry for this food--
DANNY: Understandably so. Just say the name of your desired dish and I shall command the chef to prepare it. Just go ahead and name the food item you want. I can’t put this hungry young man’s order in to the kitchen until you do. Or even if I can, I won’t. Don’t make him starve, Jennifer.
JENNIFER: Um, I have a couple questions first.
DANNY: VERY GOOD, JENNY.
JENNIFER: Would you recommend this? This dish right here?
[JENNIFER points to a random dish in her menu. DANNY looks. Pause.]
DANNY: No.
JENNIFER: Ah, OK, then let me get this fine dish.
[JENNIFER points again. DANNY looks again.]
DANNY: We’re out of that dish.
JENNIFER: [jabbing anywhere on the menu with her finger:] Ok, ok then I’ll have this! Just give me whatever this is!
DANNY: I’m sorry but I’ve left my reading spectacles in the kitchen, “Jennifer.” So perhaps you’d better tell me aloud with your incredible Italian speaking abilities what you’d like to order, “Jennifer,” so this young man can see how much you really know about Italian food words, “JENNIFER”.
[DANNY and JENNIFER are having a stare-down. You can almost hear “The Final Countdown” playing in the distance. It seems as though JEN’s cornered, but she gets an idea.]
JENNIFER: [pretty unrealistic] “Oh my god, I’ve gone blind!”
MICHAEL: [instantly convinced] Oh my god, she’s gone blind!
JENNIFER: I think it was from the waiter’s artificially whitened buckteeth! They reflected all these cheap fluorescent lights right into my corneas!
MICHAEL: Oh no, Jennifer!
JENNIFER: And also I think one of his loose nose hair trimmings blew into my mouth! [She starts coughing.]
DANNY: Come now Miss, I doubt that--
MICHAEL: Didn’t you hear her, man, she’s blind! And all thanks to your beautiful smile and well-groomed nose hairs! Oh my god, Jennifer…
DANNY: I, I’m sorry signore, I just--
MICHAEL: [getting really noble and magnanimous, standing up from the table and looking into the sunset.] My name’s not signore. It’s Michael [pronouncing it JENNIFER’s way] “Botticelli.” That’s what she used to call me before she went blind.
[MICHAEL indicates JENNIFER, who’s really milking it and kind of adding in a seizure.]
MICHAEL: [continued] So please, get those reading spectacles from the kitchen and read my sightless woman these food items.
DANNY: Very good, Mr [he powers through the mispronunciation] Botticelli.
[DANNY walks downstage. JENNIFER and MICHAEL act as though he’s effectively exited.]
DANNY: [totally losing his cool and his accent] WHY THE FUCK DID I NEVER LEARN TO READ?
[DANNY exits into the audience to finagle a pair of glasses from an audience member. He will find a pair that looks totally wrong. His accent will not return.]
JENNIFER: [deathbed style] Michael…
MICHAEL: Yes, Jennifer! Don’t worry, I’m right here Jennifer! That’s my hand in your hand!
JENNIFER: I’d love to go out again tomorrow night, when maybe I’ll have miraculously regained my sight…
MICHAEL: Of course, anything you want!
JENNIFER: And no Italian food.
MICHAEL: No, never again! We’ll never enter another Italian restaurant for as many incredible years as we have left to live our lives together! I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven!
JENNIFER: [more to God than to Michael] ...Mulligan!
[DANNY returns wearing someone’s glasses.]
DANNY: OK I found my glasses! Hey, you two probably aren’t even hungry anymore after this whole blindness incident, huh?
MICHAEL: [cold] No, I wouldn’t say we are.
[DANNY breathes a sigh of relief.]
JENNIFER: [Still talking like she’s on her deathbed] I wouldn’t mind hearing the desserts.
MICHAEL: You heard her, the entire dessert page! And try not to show your bleached dentures while you’re reciting the options, you four-eyed freak! Now read!
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20. |
is 20/20, and
00:50
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(Hmm? Oh, uh…)
Ladies and gentlemen, non-binary passengers, this is your captain speaking. On behalf of all of us here at BB Airways, we welcome you aboard flight 1583 from Divebomb to Birdbrain. The conclusion of the Sorry What Did You Want Again trilogy means that we have now reached our cruising altitude of 20 tracks. I have switched off the Fasten Seatbelt sign, [Ding!] which means you are now free to move around the cabin. However we recommend keeping your seatbelt fastened while you’re seated in case of unexpected turbulence.
In the event of an emergency landing, exits are marked by the little red squares on your walkman, and your compact disc can be used as a floatation device if you are very tiny.
Once again, we thank you for flying with us today and hope you enjoy the flight.
END OF ACT I
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21. |
How
00:08
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[The theme is attempted.]
God… Does anyone remember how that goes?
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22. |
the words
01:09
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GEORGE: [entering suddenly] I can tell you what in blazes, sir! I heard it all from the kitchen, and since your office doesn’t have a door, I was able to hear everything!
First, Miss Julia introduced herself as Julia and then you introduced yourself as Team Manager Eric O’Brien and Miss Julia asked if she could call you Eric and you told her no. Then you asked Miss Julia what made her want to be a Route 84 Gas 'n' Grub team member and Miss Julia said, “Because I need food and a room to continue to live, and some things to lock in the room could be nice too.”
And then you asked what that had to do with the Route 84 Gas 'n' Grub and Miss Julia told you that the rule-makers decided long ago that a person isn’t worth food or a room, but a person’s life-force is. And then you sort of grumbled and Miss Julia told you she’d come to trade some more of her life-force for the privilege of further existence.
At this point, sir, you took off your name badge and started wiping it on your shirt like you do when a customer demands a refund and asked what a life-force was. Miss Julia answered that it was time and energy and happiness.
Then you asked “Well, what do these rule-makers want with people’s time and energy and happiness?” And Miss Julia sort of smiled and said that when you teach a child chess, they learn that one side wins at the other’s expense. Then she told you to imagine a boot and you said “what in blazes” and I came in to tell you what in blazes and also to let you know that Parsons has clogged up the men’s toilet again, Mr. O’Brien, sir.
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23. |
Spilled,
02:14
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ANNOUNCER: Lies on public access television! Please put your hands together for your preferred candidate, Iago (from the Shakespeare play Othello.)
[Enter IAGO. The audience cheers.]
IAGO: Thank you. Thank you. Yes, thank you. [Cheering dies down.] I was in Walmart.
[The audience cheers.]
Yes, thank you. I was in Walmart. I was in a Walmart. I was in the Walmart. You all know the one. Groceries to the right, toiletries to the left, electronics in the back by the shitters. There is no first the Walmart. Each one is an identical copy of a nonexistent original.
I’ll tell you why I’m bringing up the Walmart. For one, I hold a significant amount of stock in the company. Also--
[The audience cheers.]
I’m not addressing you, audience, I’m alone onstage so clearly I’m talking to myself. I also bring it up because your inability to recognize the Walmart as a simulacrum makes you the ideal voter! The complete detachment of meaning from the ostensible signifier would be to intelligent people an unacceptable hypocrisy. But you are not intelligent people.
[The audience starts to cheer.]
Shut up! A piece of your brain is missing! It’s the piece that God pulled from the base of Babel to make it topple like Jenga! And that means I can take actions completely contrary to the ideals I espouse and your defective minds cannot register that those ideals (aka the signifiers) follow not the actions but themselves-- They are as empty, as meaningless, and as dispassionate as the Walmart! And so am I!
[The audience cheers. The rest of the speech is shouted over them.]
And that’s why you’ll vote for me! Because you’re afraid to ask yourself what you stand for! You’re afraid of what word you would be in this or any other language! Also, having a leader who is black makes you feel somehow impotent. So remember, a vote for Iago is a vote for nothing!
.
[Cheering. Exeunt IAGO.]
[While exeunting] Keep toiling! May all your bacon burn!
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24. |
out
01:25
|
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[MATCH: 83 / 83
FREE PLAY]
GEORGE: I can tell you what the hell is happening today, Mr. Team Manager O’Brien, sir! Remember that your office doesn’t have a door because it used to a supply closet so once again, I was able to hear everything!
Mr. Enoon introduced himself and then you introduced yourself, only you accidentally called yourself Eric, and then Mr. Enoon said, “Nice to meet you, Eric” and you shouted that he should call you Team Manager O’Brien.
Then you asked what made him want to be a Route 84 Gas 'n' Grub team member. Mr. Enoon told you that machines replace humans, and though machines are not a house, they replace bodies and houses and the things locked inside the house, unless the house is not a metaphor.
Then you asked “what is this,” and I think you were trying to ask God but Mr. Enoon answered that the natural course of machines was to replace the bodies of cashiers and factory hands and telemarketers but that they have not been able thus far to replace gas station workers.
Then you shouted, “Get out of my office” and Mr. Enoon explained that the ideal job involves doing the least work for the most money in the shortest time possible. Then you yelled that you pay us idiot workers $3.35 an hour for the most menial, exhausting work possible and Mr. Enoon said he knew that, and that he came to take your job, which probably makes about $10 an hour for sitting at a desk and telling the idiot workers what to do.
And then you said, “You want to put up with the freaks I deal with every day? Be my guest!” and handed him your name tag and keys and then I came in to tell you, Mr. Team Manager Enoon, sir, that the next interviewee arrived early and is a house and so I told Miss Elaine to wait outside.
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25. |
into the street,
00:30
|
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Before I was born, I never dreamt life would be like this.
DIRECTOR: Hold! [He gives stage directions.]
“Before I was born, I never dreamt life would be like this!”
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26. |
flooded my
03:45
|
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JIMMY [V.O.]: Hello there. My name is Jimmy, and I’d like to tell you a story from when I was young and naive. I thought I could create fun for myself and my high-school peers. But in the end, I only created trouble.
[Organ.]
JIMMY [V.O.]: It was the summer before senior year and my parents had left for the weekend, so like many teenagers would have, I decided to throw a party. I invited all of my classmates, prepared snacks and even persuaded a friend’s older sister to buy alcohol.
JORDAN: Hi Jimmy, how’s it going? Thomas didn’t tell me you were coming over!
JIMMY: Actually, I’m not here to see Thomas. I was hoping you could buy some alcohol for my party tonight with your I.D.
JORDAN: Are you sure, Jimmy? Alcohol is the Devil’s water. Liquor laws are in place to protect young people like you.
JIMMY: I know what liquor laws are for, darn it! Just get me the alcohol, I need it!
[Organ.]
JIMMY [V.O.]: I don’t know what came over me. Already, this unpermitted party was making me into someone I wasn’t. Thomas’s sister, frightened by my display of two of the seven deadlies, bought me the alcohol. By 11 pm, the party was in full swing, and everybody was having what the head of my church, Pastor Nicholas, would have called “unchaperoned fun.”
[Organ.]
I went out back to get some air. My parents live on a lakefront, and when I was a kid I used to stare across the water for hours. By the edge of the lake, I recognized my friend Scott staring down into the water.
JIMMY: Hi Scott, are you enjoying the party?
SCOTT: Oh, hi Jimmy. [Unconvincing:] Yea, it’s great.
JIMMY: [attempting to cheer the morose SCOTT:] You know, you might enjoy the view more if you look across the lake instead of into it.
SCOTT: Oh. Thanks.
JIMMY [V.O]: My attempt to subdue Scott with a zinger had failed. I could tell that Scott had been drinking, probably in the hope it would make him seem more attractive to girls. Remembering what Pastor Nicholas had taught us in Sunday school, I encouraged Scott to open up to me.
JIMMY: [naturally awkward, like a dad saying “O-M-G” to his child] Scott, what’s up, man?
SCOTT: I just feel… blue.
[Organ.]
JIMMY [V.O]: This was bad. Pastor Nicholas had always taught us that blue was the wickedest color. I tried offering Scott some helpful solutions.
JIMMY: Scott, have you thought about watching television a lot?
SCOTT: No.
JIMMY: What about taking prescription drugs?
SCOTT: No.
JIMMY: What about having the police arrest you?
SCOTT: No.
JIMMY: Well F. Scott, I don’t see how you’re ever gonna beat this blue spell.
SCOTT: I don’t want to beat it, Jimmy.
JIMMY: Oh, I forgot about that option! Pastor Nicholas says it’s a sin but have you tried--
SCOTT: I only feel OK when I’m by myself, in that blue spell.
[Organ.]
JIMMY [V.O]: Looking back now, I can see the sinfulness of my party had driven Scott into a sacrilegious downward spiral. But at the time, I foolishly continued trying to help him.
JIMMY: Well Scott, I remember my dad telling me at dinner once that what you do defines who you are. But then my college dropout brother Max shouted out that who you are defines what you do, so I just say, I am what I am!
SCOTT: But I am what I do.
JIMMY: Huh??
SCOTT: Jimmy, if personality is a successful series of unbroken--
JIMMY: Sentences?
[Organ.]
SCOTT: No, not unbroken sent--
[Major key organ.]
JIMMY [V.O.]: Then suddenly, the Lord’s light shone down on me, and I knew everything was gonna be alright.
JIMMY: Look Scott, you’re bumming everyone out, you’re not even accepting suggestions, and nobody likes thinking about you or your feelings or their own feelings that might be similar to your feelings. Stop whining and go burn in Hell.
[Major key organ, playing behind Jimmy for the rest of the script.]
JIMMY [V.O]: So I left Scott staring sadly at his soggy reflection and went back inside to the unchaperoned fun. Then, later that night, I stole my dad’s convertible and accidentally backed over Scott, killing him. I’m Jimmy, and I’m here to tell you that the Lord has a plan for everyone. I’m a Christ figure, darn it!
|
||||
27. |
Basement
00:39
|
|||
|
RADIO DJ: Five songs into our Phreaky Phriday Traffic Hour, and we are now back with more goodness! Just heard from our sponsor / there a moment ago and I gotta say, I cannot agree more with Jimmy’s message: Truly, thoughtcrime is death.
GOOGLE MAPS: [Talking over the radio via car stereo.] In one mile, turn right onto Highway 83.
[Sound effect.]
RADIO DJ: Finishing off our Phreaky Phriday here, we’ve got more music you’ve been conditioned to find inoffensive! Coming at you now is a tune looking to be the feel-good hit to wrap up the summer. Crank up the volume, yank off the knob: It’s “Unspoken”!
[Sound effect.]
RADIO DJ: So enjoy and remember, you’re listening to W-H-A-T-C-R-A-P radio!
|
||||
28. |
, how
01:21
|
|||
|
[THE RULES: No speaker can understand the message they’re conveying. AURAL PALMER is given sentences backwards and the result is reversed. Each member comprising the THREE HEADED EXPERT is given a list of every third word of the whole and recorded individually.]
AURAL PALMER: .this is my postmodern pop hiT
.what a cynical, genius inventioN
.this is my postmodern pop shiT
.I love my one easy directioN
,I am catchy and messy and garbagE
.written hard on a cocktail napkin
,and you’re listening and whistling and harmlesS
.how you’re putting me up in the Hamptons
We’ve got you now.
You are reading a picture book. You are eating a grilled cheese for lunch every day. The words you write are in crayon, red, yellow, green and blue.
Oh, we’ve got you now.
THREE HEADED EXPERT: We are winning the loudness war,
the cloudless war.
We went through your ears and we
walled off your peers and
we slaughtered your neurons with
1 5 6 4 bombs!
You fell for it!
You continue to fall for it! You ran in, wearing your welcome on your sleeve, and looked up and said, “What’s for dinner?” And we looked at the water cooler, and then back at you, and said, “Something refreshingly new. Break free from the ordinary, then turn yourself in.”
Besides, to be demanded by a spunge
|
||||
29. |
the crawlspace
01:00
|
|||
|
LACBOOK ENGINEER: Meet Nobody.
NOBODY: Hello!
ENGINEER: Nobody loves their old laptop.
NOBODY: Oh yay, my screen’s frozen again!
ENGINEER: Nobody is fine with not having a 12” LED-backlit IPS.
NOBODY: Is this a picture of me or a blurry shower curtain?
ENGINEER: And they accept that their laptop doesn’t weigh less than a baby chick.
NOBODY: Oh good, I could use a workout!
ENGINEER: Nobody even enjoys missing out on a 1.3GHz dual-core m7 processor.
NOBODY: Um… Yeah!
ENGINEER: Above all, Nobody likes being themselves.
NOBODY: I don’t need to post my thoughts to the worldwide web. I’m satisfied with just thinking them.
ENGINEER: You’re not a Nobody. And with the all new LacBook, you don’t have to be. You can fill up your being with product consumption.
NOBODY: I am happy with who I am!
ENGINEER: LacBook. Because Nobody likes Nobody. And we like him even less.
(Many will enter, one will leave. Side effects may include runny nose, slippery fingernails, ouchy grandma, and bowl-o-rama. Ask your parents before going outside.)
|
||||
30. |
did
00:22
|
|||
|
MICROSOFT SAM: This is postmodern dumb I’m so postmodern numb you’re a postmodern bum we are postmodern scum in a postmodern slum with the postmodern hum in postmodern eardrums sum none, doldrums, dull and gullible, found and fillable, filled with nil, null and zilch.
If silence was diamonds, we turned it to coal.
Thank God we turned holy then filled in the hole.
|
||||
31. |
shudder
01:24
|
|||
|
[UNSPOKEN is abruptly switched off via spacebar.]
STUDIO ENGINEER: And there you go. Once you add that third compressor, you’re golden. The great thing about pop is that it can’t be killed. Like a cockroach Twinkie. Check this out.
[He pulls up SURVIVORS DESCRIBING.]
ENGINEER [continued:] Alright, you start with this lady stuttering through /
And the guy interrupts:
They do the fancy talking-over-each-other thing, with the slashes...
Blowjob joke ‘cause it’s funny.
An allusion or two.
Y’ever see that play? Anne Washburn. Fuckin’ heavy. Super postmodern, whatever that means.
I never got that term. “Modern” is present, “post” means after. How can you be after the fuckin’ present?
Prepping the transition...
|
||||
32. |
that day
00:10
|
|||
|
ENGINEER: [continued] Transition out. [The track obliges.] But you really wanna hear something? I’ll show you what I’ve been working on.
[The theme is attempted.]
Fuck, come on! Come on! This stupid thing! Forget it.
Just forget it.
END OF ACT II
|
||||
33. |
((Double duty))
00:28
|
|||
|
[Lights up on frustration and struggle. The set is extravagant and means nothing. MARGARET is suspended upside down from the ceiling by one leg, downstage right. She is blindfolded and limp, totally passive.]
MARGARET: Sarah came together
In the house below the street.
And all the cloudy weather,
she never had to meet.
Never had to meet.
Not below the street.
[Long silence. Spoken:] Help. [Silence.] Help. Help. Please. Help.
|
||||
34. |
on a marketable
00:25
|
|||
|
[KENNY enters stage left.]
KENNY: Oh, it’s you.
MARGARET: Help. I need help.
KENNY: What do you have?
MARGARET: I need help. Will you help me?
KENNY: What can you give me?
MARGARET: Will you help me? I need someone to help me.
KENNY: You can’t give me what I want.
MARGARET: I need you to help me. I feel like I’m falling.
|
||||
35. |
offense -> strung out
00:22
|
|||
|
[KENNY enters stage left.]
KENNY: Oh, it’s you.
MARGARET: I feel like I’m falling. Catch me, will you.
KENNY: You owe me money.
MARGARET: Catch me, will you. I’m an inch away from the ground.
KENNY: How can you let me go hungry?
MARGARET: I’m an inch away from the ground. I’m so afraid.
KENNY: You never even look at me.
MARGARET: I’m so afraid. Please say that you love me.
|
||||
36. |
by the heels,
01:19
|
|||
|
[KENNY enters stage left.]
KENNY: Oh, it’s you.
MARGARET: Please say that you love me. Say it for real.
KENNY: Let’s always be honest with each other.
MARGARET: Say it for real. Look me in the eye.
KENNY: I have to tell you something truthfully.
MARGARET: Look me in the eye. That makes me feel good.
KENNY: The truth is liberating. Let me free you.
MARGARET: That makes me feel good. Even if it’s lies.
[KENNY reads this entitled speech off the inside of his forehead with great difficulty, as though he’s translating a different language. As he delivers his speech, the room gets hotter and more horrible.]
KENNY: Margaret, “I’m am the reason your crops won’t grow. I’m the toxicity in your soil.” Sorry, this is sounding weird.
“I waited until you were sell-eeping and then I snuck down out of the house to buried me in your ground. All these things that you have been planting is dying because of me.” Sorry, these words aren’t working together.
“When you bought food, I drunk the milk and drank the red, bread, Margaret. Then you left I waited behind the bushes you left to buy more food then I rose up..
“I burnt your house down, Margaret. Because heart is where the home was.” Sorry, my mind won’t make senses together. “I burnt your house, Margaret, with all your animals and memories inside.”
[Beat.] Sorry, I think I spoke that long, wrong. Sorry.
[Pause. KENNY exits stage left.]
|
||||
37. |
ran up and
00:32
|
|||
|
[Silence. MARGARET is incapable of understanding. The set begins to melt. By the end of her song, it’s mostly wilted.]
MARGARET: Even if it’s lies. Help. Help. [Silence.] Help. [Silence.] Please.
[Long pause. Then she sings:]
I dreamt I was a paper wife
I dreamt I was a queen
I dreamt I had an empty life
I dreamt my house was green.
My house was green.
In the dream.
In the dream.
Run and hide.
In the dream.
Run and
|
||||
38. |
Absorbed <-
01:21
|
|||
|
MARGARET [continued]: hide, run
and hide.
In the dream.
Run and hide.
I was run, run, running in my dream,
I was running into my dream.
So slow, through the streets and the house,
To the job and the couch and the grocery store,
Cause I’m hungry again.
I was clap, clapping for the screen.
I was camera on the screen.
Swallow floss, flip the mattress again,
Let the music in malls agree.
|
||||
39. |
the moonlight,
00:51
|
|||
|
Here comes the sound again,
To twist my spine, unwind my time.
Here comes the sound again,
To grab my wrist, and write my name.
Here comes the sound again,
To smile wide, to exercise,
To drain, train, take, break up my mind.
|
||||
40. |
dawn was
00:36
|
|||
41. |
breaking
00:48
|
|||
|
SERGEANT BEDE: And through here are the barracks, Commander. [To THE FIVE:] Alright, soldiers, line up! We’re gonna show the commander here just how pretty we can sound off. Roll call! BIRDBRAIN!
BIRDBRAIN: Yes, sir!
BEDE: SORRY, WHAT DID YOU WANT AGAIN? (Part II)!
DANNY: Yes, sir!
BEDE: IAGO FOR PRESIDENT!
ANNOUNCER: Sir, yes, sir!
BEDE: PHREAKY PHRIDAY TRAFFIC HOUR!
DJ: Yes, sir!
BEDE: UNHEARD (Dreams)!
MARGARET: Yes, sir!
BEDE: Good! Now, when and only when the commander gives the go-ahead, each of you will sound off in this order for exactly one second each. After that second, the commander here will proceed to the next soldier. Is that understood?
ALL: Sir, yes, sir!
BEDE: Is that understood??
ALL: [louder] Sir, yes, sir!
BEDE: Commander, we’re ready for your order. All you have to do is line them up and sound them off. Remember-- One second each.
You have nothing to worry about, Commander. The stars will light the way.
|
||||
42. |
my resolvtion.
00:27
|
|||
|
A missed connection.
You were young and I was not old enough. 50, 300, 10,000 years.
You had a body like the stars in a constellation. I only had imagination.
If I was a little kid, I’d do everything different, from the beginning.
Can you play this guitar? Reply with the rest of the melody.
I can play guitar. [The guitar sparks.] I can play guitar.
That’s
|
||||
43. |
A N E W
00:11
|
|||
|
[continued] IT!
We’re leaving.
We’re taking our stuff,
We’re making art and taking off,
We’re taking up making real.
Divebomb still has some power.
Don’t you, Divebomb? [The guitar groans.] Don’t you? [Another groan.]
|
||||
44. |
O R D E R
00:22
|
|||
|
Fire lights the fuse,
Burns up those wicked, oil-soaked frequencies:
Car engines racing, Refrigerators humming,
Power lines groaning and crackling.
The radio at the mall.
[The INCANTATION:] Unmastered, unpracticed, unlearned!
All your done knowledge got burned!
Torched to the ground with the dead leaves as kindling,
Withered in ash while the last flame was dwindling-- Ksh!
Nobody’s listening-- Shh!
What do you do in a paradox mood
When you make your feet smell and then spit on your food?
And make it taste you?
Is that what you’ll do?
Caverns of Calgary, kissing through earthquakes,
Birthdays for ladies, eighty unpaid mechanics.
I was the last of the Pennyworth fortune,
Spending the end in a tunnel of torment.
Pain is transparent, life is maneuver,
Shucking the nubs and I move to Vancouver.
~Sunshine~
That was dandy.
Applebees immigrants socialize candy.
~Sunshine~
Margaret tumbles as gently as former
The cattle was tame when the orange was owner.
[Beat.] WOW.
Fritters fritos funnels fantastic.
Cardboard ballistic.
Shunned. Undercut spun traction more openly awful sitcom abundance amount.
Belly-aching. Jarring Caterpie.
Sales to Albinor. Crafty masterpiece.
The open thing car lot was riding the suture,
Bamboozled to death in a hospital suitcoat-- Ah!
When Selma Toledo was bellying lightly,
I camped out of signing.
Fighting iris coaxial galoot opening crafty undubiting sauerkraut out out spot.
Listening to circus when Ava Corambis was bristling,
Alphabet butter, coconut Sumter lover, I wuther.
Maneuver maneuver.
Defeat was accrued in the Louvre and moot.
:I
Appleton Jeffries, emdash Gordon,
Paste it on smelly and Wharton,
Dalton and Susie use gluey shinies,
Spell on timely, why me?
Rules, candid.
Try meandering planks of liminal toothbrush,
Hushed by the thousand of Franks
Who was out there -> Out there
When smiling, I was implying
While die and dialing,
Gorgeous:
<3
Don’t you understand?
<3
Don’t you understand?
Plymouth rock was agape for former athletes
Pulling parts of Native arms from lakes.
They shouldn’t have let us, In.
|
||||
45. |
B E G A N
00:22
|
|||
|
Then the earth starts shaking.
(Thirty to one hundred sixty hertz, it hurts…)
Rumbles, earthquakes, explosions, collisions,
The footsteps of giants, the upstairs neighbor stomping around.
Divebomb departed and smarted our diverging doubts,
out with urges and pouting outlets, out, ouch, out!
|
||||
46. |
A M O R
00:22
|
|||
|
C, now we’re close.
C is the key for control, conduct, command, C,
copy everything and paste the duplicate on a new document
where I’m free to fiddle with it.
The tidal waves come in and eat at the pavement;
you can’t hear the people screaming or groaning,
scoffing, always asking for more.
They are washed from the ark.
|
||||
47. |
(E/3)
00:45
|
|||
|
And finally, the air starts to sizzle and sing.
B is for the birds and the brains.
A flock, a band, a cast.
Rising slowly; gravity loosens and you are wonderfully deaf,
hovering over the waters, formless and empty…
A brood, a descent, a murder.
We never forget: a face, a place, every unkind act.
Bring back the bloody hands and paint the town red.
A charm, a building, an exaltation!
We have collected enough candy bar wrappers,
plastic wrap, cardboard scrap and neck-length hair,
choked on the chewing gum, fell far enough from the tree.
But now we can build! It’s time to open the wings!
|
||||
48. |
R O M A N
00:22
|
|||
|
Seize the carousel of curiosity,
correct the corrupt,
take captive the captivating!
No more bodies, no more tabernacles.
In its place: Intellect! Beauty!
Open blue skies with occasional clouds!
|
||||
49. |
A G E
00:22
|
|||
|
Delight the dawn of a day of dollhouse dominion!
No more locks. No more food and no more hunger.
Beaches! Bowling alleys! Libraries, where the sun lays across your lap!
|
||||
50. |
B R E D
00:22
|
|||
|
Ease for everything easily e-magined,
An entrance to the entrancing!
No more hanging upside down.
No more pain… No more doubt.
Divebomb, you still have some magic in you. I can feel it.
No more doubt. I don’t need a guitar. I need that power.
Come on… Raise the City! Free me!
No more
|
||||
51. |
R O W E N A
00:05
|
|||
|
[continued] pain! No more doubt, NO MORE PAIN! Yes!
|
||||
52. |
Daedalus
00:01
|
|||
|
83
|
||||
53. |
nine,
00:01
|
|||
|
46
|
||||
54. |
peninsula
00:03
|
|||
|
100 percent pure!
|
||||
55. |
deaD
00:16
|
|||
|
END OF ACT III
|
||||
56. |
[...]
00:05
|
|||
57. |
We are
03:29
|
|||
|
Rose is a rose now; Romeo can rest his head.
We get the bad sign, everybody winds up dead.
What fair city is this?
Fair city, where city? My hair city,
a hair bare of veracity,
But scared up with tenacity,
sagacity,
viva, city.
The sound is so pretty, but the fury was what really built this.
It’s alive!
It’s me!
Meaning memories meander through metropolitan streets
And melt and meld with the metropolis,
For verily, I conned a city.
Lawrence was list’ning, poison works back to the friar. (Devil, devil.)
Just like a bird sings: Mirror mirror in the choir.
The straw house blown through the brain, now the
crows will eat the bread,
Here lies Oz, the land he heads.
Look upon my works, I worked hard to unjar them
Making up is a lark,
Making real’s for a loon who too soon flew for the moon and marooned in the clouds.
Shaped like camel--
No, weasel--
No, whale!
The tale lays naked uncanny portrayal.
The simplicity,
felicity,
not duplicity but opacity.
The iconicity is one hundred percent,
whole.
Body unlatching, watch the way the blood floats up.
Blowing the earth up, everybody’s had enough.
All in the mind now, hear the silence in the skull.
It’s so good to be alone.
Iconi City.
Where everything looks like it should be.
|
||||
58. |
gazing
00:38
|
|||
|
Well, I guess we’re never gonna be friends.
Maybe we’re too different, but sometimes I think we’re similar. We were planets for years, wry and sarcastic. We shiver nervous and stick to the song.
I wonder if you listen to me. And I wonder if you wonder if I listen to you.
I always thought about you more often than someone who doesn’t care. And I think we know each other better than we’d like to. And I think we know each other better than some of our friends know us. We’re kind of two brothers.
I guess I’m saying goodbye. And we probably won’t hang out or contact each other unless we’re really in need, though I think the other one would help, and that’s a comfort.
|
||||
59. |
into the
00:28
|
|||
|
ELLA: If you want me to, I’ll write you on my way home…
|
||||
60. |
image how it
00:59
|
|||
|
ELLA: Home. Gnome, phone, go, gone, pond, LAKE! No.
BIRDBRAIN: Ella?
ELLA: [She turns.] YOU!
[She runs over and hugs him.]
ELLA: Wow, you’ve got a new glow. Calmer, kind of burnt auburn. “Auburnt.”
BIRDBRAIN: How did you get here?
ELLA: I biked! Wanna go swimming? Do you have a swimsuit?
BIRDBRAIN: No, I mean… Where have you been?
ELLA: [thinking] The candy store, and before that the movies! Where have you been?
BIRDBRAIN: Out of my mind, Ella. [He cackles.] Out of my mind!
ELLA: Well thank goodness you came to your senses.
BIRDBRAIN: I did more than come to my senses! I created sense and then I moved there! And now we’re both here, and there’s a candy store, and you look like… You look like the right combination on your locker in high school when you pull up on the latch and it just… clicks.
ELLA: Thanks, I get that a lot. Swimming?
BIRDBRAIN: Yes, sure. In a minute. Lemme just embed my toes in the sand properly.
|
||||
61. |
gazes back
00:10
|
|||
|
[The theme is attempted.]
|
||||
62. |
from the image.
01:27
|
|||
|
ELLA: Nice.
BIRDBRAIN: It’s cool up here, right?
ELLA: And to think, when I was just a naive pedestrian I looked up to these other buildings. [To the buildings:] Now who’s looking up at who, you molehills??
BIRDBRAIN: I built it all from memory. I’ll get you a postcard, I’m calling it Iconi City. “Where everything looks like it should be.”
ELLA: Should be what?
BIRDBRAIN: There’s a magic here. You can go anywhere you want. You can walk behind the store counter, duck under the rail at the museum, you can even come up to the hotel roof and hock loogies.
[They spit.]
ELLA: The people on the sidewalk won’t be happy.
BIRDBRAIN: They’re not people anymore. As a wise man once said, “Welcome to the strange and wonderful world of the icon.”
ELLA: What wise man said that?
BIRDBRAIN: No wise man: just a drawing of a wise man.
ELLA: That’s why they look all cartoony. I always wanted to be a cartoon.
BIRDBRAIN: Actually, you look the same.
ELLA: The same as what?
BIRDBRAIN: As before Divebomb vanished. Don’t you remember, Ella? He promised that last trick and then just… disappeared.
ELLA: Then he’s in a different form. Divebomb’s energy. C’mon, you’re all brainy. Remember science class? Energy doesn’t die, it just changes?
BIRDBRAIN: That’s right… It transforms. Solids become liquids, electricity becomes heat, water and CO2 become oxygen and glucose… Ella, he might be here! He’s just in a different form! He touched the monolith! He entered the looking glass! [Beat.] We have to find him! / Come on!
ELLA: What? / How are you gonna find someone who's disappeared into thin... oxygen and glucose?
BIRDBRAIN: Elementary, my dear.
|
||||
63. |
What did Grandma
00:40
|
|||
|
BIRDBRAIN: Ever done detective work, kid?
ELLA: Last week I found a sock I lost.
BIRDBRAIN: Well the first thing you need is a name. Sherlock Holmes, C. Auguste Dupin, Sam Spade. Let’s stick to noir. Raymond Chandler penned Phillip Marlowe, Marlowe wrote Faust, but I fell faster than Faust, the magic hath ravished me. Call me: B.B. Foster, private eye.
ELLA: That’s good too ‘cause it sounds like Finder. Hmm, I’ll be... Elle.
FOSTER: “L”. Like “M;” very nice. Though I should think the characters best suited to get a head of a culprit in this Lang-uage are RD.
ELLE: R-D-R-R. I meant Elle like Ella.
[The elevator stops.]
FOSTER: Ready, kid?
ELLE: Let’s do this.
|
||||
64. |
Spearow say?
02:08
|
|||
|
FOSTER: Rich Mr. Richmond, we’re here with some questions.
My partner here’s Elle.
ELLE: He’s giving me lessons.
RICHMOND: Ah, my old friend--
FOSTER: You don’t need to pretend.
RICHMOND: Very well then, I’ll tell you, the hell you’d upend
Would be senseless, and you will be too by the end.
Our mono-y-mono (will broadcast in stereo.)
ELLE: They say it’s contagious…
RICHMOND: (It’s not polite to stare, you know.)
Meet my new right-hand man, Mr. Rich Number 2.
FOSTER: A second-hand crook.
RICHMOND: He prefers the term... (goon.)
FOSTER: Your right-hand’s dead wrong, you should know we’re here peaceful.
ELLE: We’re just searching for someone who might not be decease-ful.
RICHMOND: Decease-ful of what?
FOSTER: Full of crap’s what we’re thinking.
You drew up Divebomb’s contracts, we thought you’d have an inkling.
RICHMOND: Very well. Listen.
It was (close to Christmas,
We were) Mary (and bright,
Everyone) who saw (cherry-red
Clothes in) the night (was silent,
With prayer) coming after (the rev’rence.
May God bless) our son (and help
Joseph hide ev’dence.)
ELLE: I may just be Watson, but even I know it’s autumn.
FOSTER: Elle, when you’re of this, you get to the Bottom
By feeding him carrots, not sticking your Snout there.
Don’t make an ass of us too; treat all stories fair.
Thank you, boys.
RICHMOND: (Goodbye now.) Take care.
[FOSTER and ELLE exit. After the door closes:]
FOSTER: If something smells fishy, our hook isn’t bare.
ELLE: What do you think?
FOSTER: Someone’s playing the voyeur.
I suspect I detected eight ears in that foyer.
ELLE: Well there was you and was me, and then Lefty and Righty, right?
FOSTER: Wrong, there’s a rat that’s stirring tonighty-night.
But your naivety is refreshingly candid.
Elle, did you notice Mr. Richmond’s left-handed?
RICHMOND It was Mary who saw the night coming after our sun.
ELLE: [With a groan:] It’ll be dusk when this case comes undone.
So what do we do?
RICHMOND: Take care.
ELLE: From who?
FOSTER: That’d be “whom” and be “of”, just follow the clue.
ELLE: I think it follows us, and it’s not Righty, is it.
FOSTER: What say we pay Mademoiselle Mary a visit?
|
||||
65. |
"She does not
02:14
|
|||
|
[FOSTER and ELLE enter the movie theatre and find seats behind MARY. ELLE has popcorn and Red Vines.]
ELLE: [spilling] Ah, my popcorn!
FOSTER: A rerun. [Caught off guard, MARY gasps.] I’ve seen it. But you seem surprised.
MARY: Didn’t think public theatres allowed private eyes.
And who’s this?
FOSTER: She’s a friend.
ELLE: We’ve been watching you, Mary.
MARY: Think you’re some hero, Foster?
FOSTER: Oh no, quite contrary.
I’m troubled, confused and afraid, but I’ll tell you,
With the devils up here, there are some to give hell to.
ELLE: You’re a bad mother, Mary.
MARY: You’re no immaculate child.
See, there’s love and there’s fear and they might play a while,
But I see through you both like a ghost and his smile.
FOSTER: Oh Elle, I think someone knows something we don’t know.
ELLE: You can’t leave us in the dark, scary Mary Teatro.
Cuz the sun always rises at the end of the picture.
MARY: When they upright the lights, you’ll find night is a fixture.
Alright. Listen.
“This famous linguist once said that, of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, that ‘cellar door’ is the most beautiful.”
FOSTER: Beauty’s objective. Come on, Elle, I can see it.
ELLE: Ugly Mary, excuse us.
FOSTER: You’re a grime of a griot.
You doth ticked our time slowly, while a blood-tick, albeit.
But when I walk the night, I don’t fight it, I be it.
[FOSTER and ELLE exit. Outside the theatre:]
ELLE: Are you alright, Foster?
FOSTER: I don’t like wasting time.
ELLE: Well, what’s cellar door?
FOSTER: Host to all dirt and grime.
It’s a jazz club downtown where the drinks are provided.
And the saxophone man’s the only one who keeps quiet.
ELLE: He won’t make it too far as a mute saxophoney.
FOSTER: That’s true, but the Blue Man is not by his lonely.
There’s music everywhere he goes.
|
||||
66. |
deny
01:40
|
|||
|
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, we only have a few more moments before the clock strikes midnight and you know what that means. Let’s give a warm welcome to the man with the saxophone, the bluest of the blue: Let’s hear it.
[The audience applauds.]
[THE CELLAR DOOR is crowded, the audience stirring with anticipation. FOSTER and ELLE enter and maneuver their way toward the stage.]
ELLE: This Cellar club’s packed. Hope this blue guy’s backstage.
FOSTER: He’s not back-, he’s on-.
ELLE: What??
FOSTER: Center-, front-, attack-stage.
So we run defense from a trench in the front row.
ELLE: Won’t everyone see us?
FOSTER: See, yes; but observe, no.
ELLE: [to an icon] ‘Scuse me, sorry. [to FOSTER] I don’t see a difference.
FOSTER: Then listen for what he knows.
BLUE: BB
FOSTER: That’s right. We’ve been searching the City,
On the lookout for crooks that had almost gone missing.
We’re looking for-- I suppose you know who.
BLUE: DB
FOSTER: Ooh. I like the sound of your tune.
BLUE: DEAD
FOSTER: Now I’m liking it less.
We believe our cadaver may’ve abraca-dashed
BLUE: ACCEDE
FOSTER: That tune’s making me blue.
BLUE: DEAD
FOSTER: That note an obit, or prescription for you?
BLUE: FACADE
FOSTER: Now you’re singing our tune.
Tell us where did he go?
ELLE: [To FOSTER] You can’t trust crooning loons.
BLUE: DB
FOSTER: I know who, I need where, when, and try how?
BLUE: DB DB DB DB DB DB
And you can also tell what the hell / happened and why now?
ELLA: Birdbrain--
[FOSTER seizes BLUE and drives him against a wall.]
FOSTER: I’d hate to leave on such a sour note.
Your power is moot and your hour is midnight.
I’m coming for dinner, accepting your invite.
Doesn’t have to be right, it just has to be true.
I can eat bittersweet, bite in half hard to chew
But can’t swallow a lie, so let’s both spit it out.
I will eat you alive and then throw up this doubt.
[Icons pull FOSTER away and drag him out of the club.]
FOSTER: Let me go. [To BLUE:] Come on, Blue, dig a little deeper. Blow, Blue, blow!
BLUE: BEDE.
FOSTER: Bede.
|
||||
67. |
the possibility
00:31
|
|||
|
[FOSTER is ejected from the CELLAR DOOR. ELLE follows close behind.]
FOSTER: Get offa me!
ELLA: OK, so we’re shaken, but maybe not / stirred.
FOSTER: Didn’t you hear him? We have to go to Bede’s!
ELLA: Bees??
FOSTER: Bede’s! Sergeant Bede said the stars would align!
ELLA: I think we should slow down… This is getting strange, and dangerous. ...strangrous.
FOSTER: Elle, meet me in the history museum in fifteen minutes.
ELLA: It’s the middle of the night!
FOSTER: You know the doors are never locked here. Iconi City never sleeps.
ELLA: Birdbrain, I don’t think you should keep following this.
FOSTER: Trust me.
[She does.]
FOSTER: Museum. Fifteen minutes.
|
||||
68. |
God
00:27
|
|||
|
[The theme is attempted.]
|
||||
69. |
exists."
01:19
|
|||
|
ELLA: Alright, George Michael Sleuth. Where is your elusive Mr. Bomb? And who are all these people?
FOSTER: Not people: Icons.
ELLA: Right, icons. What are they standing for?
FOSTER: I told you, they stand for experiences, / memories...
ELLA: No, I mean why are they all standing in a line?
FOSTER: Because they’re the constellation that lights the way. [To THE FIVE.] Ready!
THE FIVE: Yes sir!
FOSTER: Sound off!
BIRDBRAIN: Divebomb
SORRY, WHAT DID YOU WANT AGAIN (Part II): Not gone
IAGO FOR PRESIDENT: Find him
PHREAKY PHRIDAY TRAFFIC HOUR: Haunt one
UNHEARD (Dreams): Live lawn
ELLA: Birdbrain, did they say--
BIRDBRAIN: “Not gone.”
ELLA: That’s insane…
BIRDBRAIN: Ella, we were right! He’s here! [To THE FIVE:] Sound off!
BIRDBRAIN: Divebomb
SORRY, WHAT DID YOU WANT AGAIN (Part II): Not gone
IAGO FOR PRESIDENT: Find him
PHREAKY PHRIDAY TRAFFIC HOUR: Haunt one
UNHEARD (Dreams): Live lawn
BIRDBRAIN: Do you hear that? He left clues for us to find him!
ELLA: Then why is he hiding?
BIRDBRAIN: “One live lawn.” We’ll have to check the forests, the gardens… [To THE FIVE:] Sound off, sound off!
[They sound off on repeat.]
ELLA: Birdbrain, what do they stand for?
BIRDBRAIN: Memories, I told you, memories.
ELLA: But what if they don’t stand for memories, or stand with Sergeant Bede, or even stand on solid ground?
BIRDBRAIN: Look around you, Ella. Does this museum look faulty? My whole life has been spent building it, and now the exhibits are fully on display, interactive, historical...
ELLA: But what if you’re remembering wrong.
[Beat. THE FIVE stop.]
BIRDBRAIN: There is no “remembering wrong.” Memory is all there is now. And it’s the only way we’re gonna find Divebomb.
END OF ACT FOUR
|
||||
70. |
I, marry:
00:44
|
|||
|
I owe you the last half of everything.
You didn’t give me self-worth, but you made me worth other people-- You gave me something to say when they listen. You filled my walls with unbreakable value.
I feel you now, calling us back. The wind pulls at my flannel sleeves and runs long fingers through my hair. I will miss you.
You gave me orchards, and I couldn’t eat everything. And it took me a while to grow my jaw big enough to bite. And then I’d had my allowance and had to go. Because no one could remember what the apple was called.
Now I have a name that’s peeling off the flesh. I left my skin with you, now I sow the seeds across the Midwest. The apple didn’t used to be called anything.
|
||||
71. |
How long must a man
02:50
|
|||
|
ELLA: Birdbrain! Are you down here?
BIRDBRAIN: Yes! [As she descends the stairs:] Welcome to my shadow gallery.
ELLA: Is that a fancy expression for “basement in the daytime”? Well, whatever makes you happy.
BIRDBRAIN: They say it’s the most insidious prison of all.
ELLA: I dunno, I kind of like daytime basements. Wow, these pinball machines look ancient.
BIRDBRAIN: Nobody wants a new pinball machine. They’re like wine, Ella. Older means classier.
ELLA: Guess that’s why I’m such trash. Ooh, skeeball! Can I borrow some quarters?
BIRDBRAIN: For a price.
ELLA: I thought quarters is the price.
BIRDBRAIN: I have another letter for you to deliver.
ELLA: Uhk, come on! That last guy’s house was way out there.
BIRDBRAIN: Yea, he’s on the edge of the city. I don’t really think about him much.
ELLA: Well you thought enough to fill a big fat letter... A B.F.L., a bifel.
BIRDBRAIN: Everybody’s got outskirts. An acquaintanceship, or a foot.
ELLA: You just put yours in your mouth, you oxymoron. Skirts are always in. Where’s the letter?
BIRDBRAIN: On the pool table. See it swimming?
[She looks.]
ELLA: It’s probably drowning under all these other papers. What is this stuff? How’s anyone supposed to play pool?
BIRDBRAIN: I’ve been writing a lot. I just feel so alive here. I think it’s Divebomb’s presence. He always sets my hair on end.
ELLA: “Ode to Odes. I too love Grecian urns; I collect them, in fact.”
BIRDBRAIN: Not all of it’s intended to see the light of day.
ELLA: Hey, this isn’t your handwriting. “A Missed Connection.”
BIRDBRAIN: No, I wrote that.
ELLA: It’s radiating a bunch of colors, like here: “You will be old enough and I am forever. 50, 300, 4,600 years.” That’s, like, baby blue.
BIRDBRAIN: Yes. “You have a body like the bars of incarceration. I only have the consternation.”
ELLA: “The melody is on her way.” Dark green. Like pool table felt.
BIRDBRAIN: “The melody is…” Dark green? That’s the live lawn!
ELLA: What?
BIRDBRAIN: The graveyard! Of course! Iconi City is resurrection and remembering. So the graveyard is a place of life!
ELLA: No no no. The only people that walk around graveyards are zombies and Frankensteins.
BIRDBRAIN: You mean Frankenstein’s monster. Frankenstein was--
ELLA: The lonely mad scientist. I know.
BIRDBRAIN: The world is going to end, Frank. 50, 300, 4600 years.
ELLA: It sounds like we’ve got plenty of time… Birdbrain?
BIRDBRAIN: No. It ends tonight. That’s how long we’re stuck with the sickness afterward.
[He starts to exit.]
ELLA: Wait, you’re going now? The sun’s setting! Let’s get food or something, I’ll go with you tomorrow!
BIRDBRAIN: Iconi City never sleeps. I’ll meet you at the diner when I’m finished.
ELLA: Birdbrain, you’re not… [Exasperated:] Take care!
|
||||
72. |
lie in the ground
00:57
|
|||
|
It’s one of those. You want it back but you can’t have it back, but all the pieces are there, so why can’t you have it back?
I wonder if it’s because of , I wonder if it could have been avoided. We had each other, and not really anyone else, and I was drifting, and you were struggling, and there were people in our heads.
And I heard you don’t talk now, and they don’t talk. It made me feel good. I wonder which one of us spends his days with a girl and the air around him.
I wish I could’ve kept up. I wish what was right could’ve stayed. I wish I had all my friends around me and people would say my name a lot and nobody would wish me harm or not care about me and I could get just a little too much of everybody, just a little too much so that leaving felt right.
I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Not-a-one of us can reverse time.
|
||||
73. |
83fore he walks?
01:25
|
|||
|
[The INCANTATION:] Brewing ugly nasty wicked
Title fortress film projector,
Last of every wormhole cricket,
Ate up lonely surge collector.
Bones, skulls, holes of deity.
Build believe unknown calamity.
Watching me sleeping, gathering shroud,
Divinely unknowable hiding in clouds,
Daytime cellar, scary basement,
Mount suspicious lazy hangman
Trashy bloody hairy spider
Choking last on poison cider
Why try my final sigh my idle lies I find my idol cry
I die die die die die die die die die die die die
“To tell the secrets of my prison house
I would a tale vnfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow vp thy soule, freeze thy young blood.”
|
||||
74. |
To this he must come,
01:54
|
|||
|
ELLA: Are you gonna get anything? [Silence.] You took so long I ordered without you.
BIRDBRAIN: The streets are empty.
ELLA: That’s one of the special things about 2 am.
BIRDBRAIN: It’s late?
ELLA: Even later. Look, the clock’s hands have stopped moving. You can have some of my fries if you want.
BIRDBRAIN: The icons are disappearing. No icons in Iconi City.
ELLA: You’ll have to call it “Y City” now.
BIRDBRAIN: I City.
ELLA: Oh, I thought it was Icon-y, like... The jukebox is cool, I’m glad you added it.
BIRDBRAIN: Why are you here?
ELLA: You told me to meet you here.
BIRDBRAIN: Why are you here? Bede’s never mentioned you.
ELLA: BB, it’s in your head...
BIRDBRAIN: Who are you?
ELLA: I’m me…
BIRDBRAIN: Me. M-E, M-ories. Memento more-I “...want to be me, the more I feel an emptiness. I am I, and Elle is Elle, and something is wrong.” Who is but the form following the function of what: What are you?
ELLA: Just someone.
BIRDBRAIN: I was one, until some one slipped in among my no ones. Now it’s tumor, toothache, tuneless. You should be none. Thou shalt not ‘scape calumny, to a nunnery, go.
ELLA: Birdbrain--
BLUE: CAGE
BIRDBRAIN: Nay, I have heard of your paintings too. God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another. A pox, ‘tis scurvy. I’ll no more of it. My question changes to a simple yes-no: Are you real?
ELLA: I’m as real as you are.
[Beat.]
BIRDBRAIN: This was sometimes a paradox, but now
The time gives it scope. It’s a toxic draught.
Your heart starts pounding and clenching and the
Leaves peel off the trees, chemical Burns.
And then you get the first wave of nausea.
And you discover you’re shitting your pants.
Snake in sheep’s shoeprint, snickering while it
Cuts through the clove hitch and casts off the brave
Fam’ly’s boat down a dark raging river,
Straight through Feare. Divebomb, get up! Get up, Divebomb!
|
||||
75. |
Y-O-R-I-C-K.
02:38
|
|||
|
BAUDREY: And that statue should be right around… here!
[The duo looks around and notices the STATUE.]
ALUCARD: Wow, we’re really meeting… Who was this guy again?
BAUDREY: I don’t know, I think he was, like, an evil count or a famous vampire or something?
ALUCARD: Baudrey, vampires don’t show up in pictures, and I’ve seen literally dozens of pictures of this statue.
BAUDREY: Then why did we even bother coming to England?
ALUCARD: Because there’s no picture of me with this statue.
BAUDREY: Woah, is this what I think it is??
ALUCARD: It’s / selfie time.
BAUDREY: [kind of saying it along with ALUCARD] Selfie time! Heck to the yes! Oh, Alucard, I gotta take a selfie with your selfie! You’re about to be history!
ALUCARD: Well don’t get the statue in your picture. I don’t want to compete with you and this guy. [He takes the picture.] Instagrabbed it. Did you get you get me get it?
[From this point on, BAUDREY speaks her lines to the image of ALUCARD on her phone, which ALUCARD doesn’t notice.]
BAUDREY: Yea. Dang it, all you can read on my shirt is “Keep Calm and Carry.” You look good though.
ALUCARD: Duh, why do you think I’m Instafamous? [Reviewing his own selfie:] Oh, you know what, Baudrey? I forgot. My phone died this morning. I thought the reflection on the screen was the selfie cam.
BAUDREY: Crud. What should we do?
ALUCARD: Hmm… Maybe I could take a selfie with your selfie? That’s even better ‘cause then I’m in there twice.
BAUDREY: Smart!
[ALUCARD takes a selfie next to BAUDREY’s phone with his dead phone.]
BAUDREY: Wait, Alucard…
[ALUCARD is staring at his dead phone and doesn’t reply.]
BAUDREY: Alucard.
ALUCARD: What?
BAUDREY: My selfie doesn’t have the statue in it!
ALUCARD: Well it has me, right?
BAUDREY: Yea.
ALUCARD: That’s fine then. Just lemme find a good filter. No… No… Not that one… No...
[While ALUCARD is scrolling, DAVID enters upstage left and starts to drag the STATUE away.]
ALUCARD: Woah dude, you can’t move the statue for your selfie. That’s Instacheating, Margaret Snatcher.
DAVID: [Looking for ALUCARD] Who said that?
BAUDREY: Hey, don’t look at us like that, Stony Glare.
ALUCARD: “Stony Glare”?
BAUDREY: Like Tony Blair? He’s, like, England’s president. I saw him in People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People of the 1990’s.
DAVID: Tony Blair isn’t prime minister anymore.
ALUCARD: Don’t try to deceive us, Princess Lie-ana!
BAUDREY: You can’t move this statue! It’s history! And my friend took a selfie with the history! And I took a selfie of him doing it and then he selfie’d with my selfie and that’s all history too! Here, look!
[BAUDREY shows DAVID her selfie.]
DAVID: “Keep Calm and Carry.” You Americans never cease to amaze me. Who’s that sickly-looking chap in the background?
BAUDREY: Oh that’s my friend Alucard. He’s Instafamous.
ALUCARD: Duh.
DAVID: Well for your information, young lady, we as a country have elected to take this statue down. It’s very old and looks like shit and the people of England have decided that frankly it’s time to move on. I recommend that you do the same.
[DAVID exits upstage left with the STATUE.]
ALUCARD: Wow, it’s really gone.
BAUDREY: After hundreds and hundreds of years.
[Pause.]
BOTH: WHO CARES???
|
||||
76. |
And crawling under
00:55
|
|||
|
I wish I could remember you.
I asked him what life was like before the warehouse caught fire and the heat tore the paint into obsidian flakes. There are things I didn’t remember forgetting.
Sometimes a hot orange ember will float up from the pile of ash: A single letter that made words, and the words made sense, and the sense made me happy. He really liked you.
I wish I didn’t have the power to hurt anyone.
Maybe I was mindless. Maybe nothing hit hard enough to imprint. Maybe I was solipsistic. Maybe you molded yourself so closely that I didn’t notice a difference between life with you and me and life with me.
I wish I could remember, or I wish I could forget all the way. But the static really bugs me sometimes.
|
||||
77. |
the planet's face, /
00:54
|
|||
|
BIRDBRAIN: Ella.
ELLA: Birdbrain.
BIRDBRAIN: I want to go home.
ELLA: Oh. Where’s that?
BIRDBRAIN: 4663 Ghanthinn Court. It’s in the suburbs. North of the City. On a cul-de-sac tucked away by the woods.
[ELLA says nothing.]
BIRDBRAIN: It’s such a beautiful house, Ella. Big rooms, carpet floors, a fireplace. Come live with me.
ELLA: You don’t like the city?
BIRDBRAIN: Iconi City is crumbling. The icons are gone. There may not be a city soon.
ELLA: That’s too bad. I was beginning to really like it here. Can we go to the drive-in before we leave?
BIRDBRAIN: It’s getting awful cold. I don’t know if they’re still showing anything.
ELLA: There’s one last show. Tonight. Let’s go for old times’ sake. I know there’s not many other sakes you do things for.
BIRDBRAIN: OK. But pack your bags. After the picture, we go home.
|
||||
78. |
Some insect
00:55
|
|||
|
Rusted speakers on the iron poles,
Proud providers of the giant’s soul.
Playing 50’s rock and roll.
Shift to park.
The projector starts.
Previews light the screen up as the sky gets dark.
|
||||
79. |
crossed this
00:29
|
|||
|
ELLA: Girl in a whirlwind-y
winding kind of standy, dancy
Kindling her kindness how she
Smiles for the camera, and she
Spins around, leaves for town.
DIVEBOMB: Sirens roar, the bombastic storm.
Growing higher, lit on fire,
The giant screen perspires with the feature presentation.
|
||||
80. |
human place, /
02:09
|
|||
|
The hour’s getting late, but I will demonstrate
That all my time is liquid.
It’s nice to hear it creak: The boards beneath our feet.
The chaperones have stepped out for a cigarette.
Forget your destiny, and dance a while with me.
Tomorrow, we might be bitter strangers.
And when you spin alone, up on the Parlophone,
The tinsel tone returns you to your manger.
The way you radiate, in, in this gymnasium,
You’re smiling now, you’re really beaming.
And you cannot deny that I am of your mind.
But you’re leaving-- Why are you leaving?
I snuck you from your house, we watched the stars come out.
I love you. Oh my god, I love you.
You’re everything to me, and without me, you’ll be
In darkness, with no more stars above you.
|
||||
81. |
Lost his time, /
00:44
|
|||
|
Credits roll.
Take control.
Turn the key in the ignition,
Humble Pilot, brave magician.
Take me home.
|
||||
82. |
Lost his face /
02:13
|
|||
|
[The theme plays.]
[The INCANTATION:] Drive-in movie, drive-in wants me.
Drive-in movie, easy comfy.
Dreams they can be pretty easy.
Dreamy comfy, love and freeze me.
Dream me empty, Leave me in peace.
Pieces complete, puzzle ending.
Easy pieces, peaceful love me.
Castle empty, we become free.
Drain my body, Give me all ease.
Eat my food and take all disease.
Hold my head down, tell me softly
How you’ll treat me, fit perfectly.
4663, keep me in please.
Need no other, be my safety.
Home is whole and gone is hole-y.
All time will cease. Peace can eat me.
|
||||
83. |
And meaning.
00:26
|
|||
|
BIRDBRAIN: See? The big windows, the brick and siding. Doesn’t it just look… familiar? That’s what home is, right? Come on, the porch steps even creak. [He ascends.] It’s got everything. It’s complete. Don’t you think?
ELLA: It’s complete.
BIRDBRAIN: I have the key… here! Welcome home.
END OF PLAY
“‘Surrender, goddamn it.’ Last bell has rung, there’s no big hurry. I kick the locker door anyway, to establish who’s boss. I spin the dial for the fourth time, hit the magic numbers, and… again, nothing happens.
“Dez walks up. Sometime during the day she twisted her braid into a knot and stuck a pencil through it. She opens the locker next to mine in 3.2 seconds.
“I step away from mine. ‘Listen, do you mind? I know, I’m helpless, but my wings are in there. I have to get them if I’m going to fly.’
“She punches my shoulder, but she reaches over and spins the dial on my lock. The door opens in one try.”
|
||||
isabel, dreaming Chicago, Illinois
and who knows when i'll wake up?
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