#this astroturf ass dress

[sleepynegress]

Oliver Jackson-Cohen  & Gugu Mbatha-Raw at the premiere of Where The Crawdads Sing Sooooo, I’m not assuming shit. Because OJC *did* escort Zawe to another event, as a BFF while she was heavy with the god of mischief. ...But I’m saying, if this is a thing. I approve.

[annemarieyeretzian]

Wendy Red Star

Wendy Red Star, a Native American contemporary multimedia artist, works to juxtapose popular depictions of Native Americans with authentic cultural and gender identities. Her humorous approach and Native American images from traditional media draw the viewer into her work while also confronting romanticized representations. 

Born in Montana, Red Star is of Apsáalooke (Crow) descent. She was raised in Pryor, Montana, in a Crow community that is a sovereign nation and cultural powerhouse. Her father ranched and was a licensed pilot and her mother was a public health nurse who encouraged Crow cultural pursuits.

Her uncle, Kevin Red Star, and grandmother, Amy Bright Wings, were influential to her interest art. Growing up biracial, Red Star dealt with identity issues. The responses she received to her identity and identity based artwork often damaged her confidence, and she left home at age 18.

She earned her BFA from Montana State University and her MFA from UCLA in 2006. She has advocated for improved opportunities for Native women in the art world.

“In this four-part photographic work, Wendy Red Star pokes fun at romantic idealizations of American Indians as ‘one with nature.’ She depicts herself, dressed in traditional Crow regalia, in four majestic landscapes, one for each season. Inflatable animals, plastic flowers, Astroturf, and other artificial materials reference the dioramas of Native peoples often seen in natural history museums. Panoramic images of the Western landscape, commercially produced in the 1970s, are reflected in these prints.” (Pictured: Four Seasons, Fall.)

“This work by Wendy Red Star, entitled 1880 Crow Peace Delegation, consists of 10 historic photographs that have been scanned. …Red Star, who is herself Crow, observed that the portraits, as with many historic photographs of Native American people, had made their way into the public domain with no identifying information about the sitters, and were appropriated for use in commercial advertisements. This appropriation has taken place for over a century, with Native American faces and bodies used to sell everything from tobacco to cologne. In Red Star’s series, she has annotated the photographs. She researched each individual and provides commentary on their status, accomplishments, relationships, and the symbolic significance of their regalia. …Some of Red Star’s annotations are imagined, and reflect her own humor, such as ‘I can kick your ass with these eyes,’ or ‘I am not a fan of the white man.’” (Pictured: two photographs from 1880 Crow Peace Delegation.)

[loominggaia]

I’ve got a great idea for how to stop slavery in Evangline. Tell these rampaging homophobes that slavery is gay and owning slaves makes you gay!

"This elf is your slave? What does he do, wipe your ass and help you get dressed in the morning? Sounds pretty gay, bro. CRINGE."

In all seriousness, this sounds like something Princess Azura might do. Azura supports LGBT rights though, so I couldn't see her throwing gay people under the bus like that. I think instead, she'd start some astroturfing campaign in Evangeline Kingdom, basically spreading rumors that keeping slaves leads to hair loss and dick shrinkage or something.

Evangeline Kingdom controls its people with fear-based propaganda. Azura would fight fire with fire and use their own tactics against them.

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

[pr-ay-the-gay-away]

South Of The Border

Ok, first off: Camila’s vocals on this track are EPIC.

Now that that’s out of the way

So the pronouns on this track are male but honestly that means NOTHING because:

I love his lips 'cause he says the words "Te amo, mami, ah, te amo, mami"

We know that whack-ass chauvinistic Z-list fraudulent scam artist piece of forgettable trash wouldn’t and couldn’t speak Spanish for shit

There’s also the Never Be The Same throwback line:

Mmm, green eyes, takin' your time Now we know we'll never be the same

And as we’ve already proven, NBTS was first performed months in advance of Ewmila’s supposed first meeting(s). Plural, because they tried to push two different narratives for when Ewmila met. Remember that the original narrative that they were pushing for most of 2018 was that Ewmila met in January 2018, and then they went and changed the narrative in a completely rubbish Marie Claire write-up published in November 2018, where they then claimed that Ewmila met in September 2017 and tried to insinuate that NBTS could have been written about Ew. A fucking STUPID ASS basic AF fake as SHIT narrative. We have videos recorded of NBTS being performed live from June 2017 and the song would have been written and produced in advance of of those live performances as well. Stupid fucks.

Ewmila is an even worse, broken AF narrative compared to Shonmila

It’s just that Shonmila shippers a bit more annoying - but do you know WHY that is? It’s because Ewmila doesn’t HAVE any shippers. They have street team stan accounts and astroturfing accounts that pretended to ship Ewmila. These accounts either SHUT DOWN or altogether jump shipped to Shonmila literally THE DAY after Ewmila were publicly reported to be over and the Shonmila narrative officially began (coincidentally with the release of Señorita)

So watch these Shonmila shippersastroturfers and street team stans go on that complete dumpster fire of a platformTwitter to try and relate this song to Ew as Camila’s ex, because that’s what they’re going to be told by Roger to do. Well don’t fucking let them get away with it.

Anyway, let’s flip the pronouns on this song and fix it

[Verse 1: Lauren Jauregui] She got the mmm, brown eyes, caramel thighs Long hair, no wedding ring, hey I saw you lookin' from across the way And now I really wanna know your name She got the mmm, white dress, but when she’s wearin' less Man, you know that she drives me crazy The mmm, brown eyes, beautiful smile You know I love watching you do your thing

[Pre-Chorus: Lauren Jauregui] I love her hips, curves, lips say the words "Te amo, mami, ah, te amo, mami" I kiss her, this love is like a dream

[Chorus: Lauren Jauregui] So join me in this bed that I'm in Push up on me and sweat, darling So I’m gonna put my time in And won't stop until the angels sing Jump in that water, be free Come south of the border with me Jump in that water, be free Come south of the border with me

[Verse 2: Camila Cabello] She got that mmm, green eyes, givin' me signs That she really wants to know my name—hey I saw you lookin' from across the way And suddenly, I'm glad I came, ay! Ven para acá quiero bailar, toma mi mano Quiero sentir tu cuerpo en mi, estás temblando Mmm, green eyes, takin' your time Now we know we'll never be the same

[Pre-Chorus: Camila Cabello] I love her lips 'cause she says the words "Te amo, mami, ah, te amo, mami" Don’t wake up, this love is like a dream

[Chorus: Lauren Jauregui & Camila Cabello, Lauren Jauregui, Camila Cabello] So join me in this bed that I’m in Push up on me and sweat, darling So I'm gonna put my time in (Time in) And won’t stop until the angels sing Jump in that water, be free Come south of the border with me Jump in that water, be free Come south of the border with me (Rrrat)

[Bridge: Lauren Jauregui & Camila Cabello] Flawless diamonds In a green field near Buenos Aires Until the sun's rising We won't stop until the angels sing Jump in that water, be free Come south of the border with me Jump in that water, be free Come south of the border with me

[Verse 3: Cardi B & Camila Cabello] (Bardi, uh) You never live 'til you risk your life (Life) You wanna shine, you gotta get more ice (Ice, ice, oh) Am I your lover or I’m just your vice? (Woo, yeah yeah) A little crazy, but I'm just your type (Okurrr) You want the lips and the curves, need the whips and the furs And the diamonds I prefer, and my closet hers and hers, ayy You want the lil' mamacita, margarita (Margarita) I think that Lauren got a lil' jungle fever, ayy (Woo!) You want more then? (You want more then?) Sound borin' (Sound borin') Legs up and tongue out, Michael Jordan, uh (Uh) Go explorin' (Woo, woo), somethin' foreign (Skrrt, skrrt) Bust it up, a rain forest, it be pourin', yeah Kiss me like you need me, rub me like a genie Pull up to my spotted Lamborghini 'Cause you gotta see me, never leave me (Never leave me) You got a girl that could finally do it all Drop a album, drop a baby, but I never drop the ball, uh

[Pre-Chorus: Lauren Jauregui, Camila Cabello, Both] So join me in this bed (This bed) that I'm in (That I'm in) Push up on me and sweat, darling (Oh no, no, no) So I'm gonna put my time in And won't stop until the angels sing Jump in that water, be free Come south of the border with me Come south of the border, border (Hey) Come south of the border with me Come south of the border, border Come south of the border with me Jump in that water, be free Come south of the border with me Jump in that water, be free Come south of the border with me

Now that that’s fixed, are we ready to acknowledge that the production on this track is derivative of Ed’s “Shape of You”? Yes? Yes.

[therumpus]

America, I’m going to make you a mixtape, so you’ll remember who you are: late nights when you’re out rambling across the jacquard landscape of your no longer youth in a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro with black racing stripe or the Dodge Charger your dad loaned you that you better bring back in better shape than you found it—washed with the garden hose, dried with a chamois, whitewalls sparkling where you rubbed each Brillo pad down to a nub—or the bright blue Pontiac Bubbletop you saved up three summers to buy, yet still it stalls out at every intersection: There’s the national anthem, of course, and your eyes always grow wide and wet at ball games, even though half the time you forget to take off your cap, forget to splay your paint-splattered palm across your drum-rolling heart, and to be perfectly honest, you’re not sure you ever learned all the words to that song: something perilous, something gleaming, and what was that about the ramparts? What parts exactly are those? More so, if you saw the original manuscript with lyrics penned by Francis Scott Key, you’d see how all the full stops are actually question marks, as if even he couldn’t be certain that this was really the land of the free and the home of the brave. America, I’ve seen your lottery tickets and love connections, your tinfoil swans and your Wheaties boxes. America, I know you like the back of my own hand that never learned to drive stick, always popping the clutch of another get-rich-quick scheme, pyramid or Ponzi. But you like the sound of a “star-spangled” something, don’t you? Sibilance, so sweet and pure. In this nation of riffs and new renditions, remember when CCR crooned, Some folks inherit star-spangled eyes? They were speaking for you and the millions like you: I ain’t no senator’s son, I ain’t no fortunate one. First question on the mini-marquee of your game show history, neon lights and three doors to choose from: Who does this remind you of? Some folks are born silver spoon in hand, Lord, don’t they help themselves, oh, But when the taxman comes to the door, Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale. You’re no millionaire’s son, America, but you just elected one, and there’s some reckoning to be done. Don’t be cowed now, don’t be fooled: you aren’t post-truth, and you aren’t post-trauma either. You got a fast car, my birthplace, my home; maybe together we can get somewhere. Tracy Chapman wrote you a ballad some years back, but I think you had the volume turned down. Then, she wrote you a fight song that you weren’t quite ready to hear. Be honest, America, who does this remind you of? Talkin’ bout a revolution, which sounds like a whisper until they get a white man miked; then, it sounds like a roar. Too cynical for your taste perhaps? Land of the souped-up, land of the spoiler, land of singing along with abandon as if you wrote every song all by yourself. Let’s try this: Your first inaugural poet wrote, the best way out is always through, then glanced sidelong for a trap door or a check-cashing store before he continued: And I agree to that, or in so far As that I can see no way out but through. America, this means you, and this means me, too. I’m going to stack track after track of old Spirituals on this tape because we are not done talking about slavery, and at the rate we’re going, I’m afraid no chariot will ever swing low to claim us. Hear me now. Stop revving your engine; stop pretending you didn’t see anyone stranded out there, flagging you down in the rearview. Lay Down, Body. Go Down, Moses. Deep Down in my Heart, America, I think you want to stop gripping that steering wheel so hard. I think you want to surrender the contents of your glove box, too. Looking for amnesty, my fractured nation? You should start by facing yourself in the rust-rimmed mirror in the all-night commode of your friendly neighborhood truck stop. Don’t assume that the faucet will run, that the toilet will flush. Don’t assume anything at all, America. Didn’t your mother teach you “to assume makes an ass out of u and me”? And while we’re on the subject, stop flashing your high beams for everyone else to move over. Stop calling “Shotgun!” when taking a ride because half the people who hear you are going to drop to their knees, hands in the air, mistaking slang for warning, confusing plea with threat. Steal Away and Pray. Study War No More. Will the Circle Be Unbroken. You’re scaring me, America, taking the turns too fast, pushing the needle too far. It’s plain to see you’re in love with your lore, with all your best stories set to music. What can I say? I’m in love with them, too. But it’s not enough to roar off into the sunset in your little red corvette, with your pink carnation and your pick-up truck, past every billboard for the Betsy Ross Dress for Less and the Chick-fil-A Closed on Sundays, Yasmine Bleeth in her sheer white swimsuit still asking if you’ve got milk and the red “H” burning bright as coal on topless mountain highways in the Heart of it All: HELL IS REAL, the sign says. Like you, America, it’s perilous and gleaming. But what about the ramparts? What parts exactly are those? I Want to Be Ready. I Shall Not Be Moved. I’ve Been a Listenin All Right Long. Tell me you’re made of more than pleather and AstroTurf, my country ‘tis of thee, more than apple pie and planned obsolescence, more even than Monday Night Football where we are still dreaming of heroes, another poet wrote, where, despite concussions and common sense, men still gallop terribly against each other’s bodies—perilous, and yet, also gleaming. A friend once told me, “No poem ever saved anybody,” but songs are poems, too, aren’t they? Surely a song has saved somebody, somewhere. Amazing Grace? Turn off the A/C and buzz down your windows, my birthplace, my broken home. There may not be a single answer blowin’ in the wind, but hear how the old questions boomerang back, sometimes smashing a window—How many years can a mountain exist Before it’s washed to the sea? Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free? America, smell the fresh air and the diesel fuel, the wild flowers sweet and the wild fires raging. This is our heritage. This, all: the perilous and the gleaming and the ramparts, too. From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream Waters. From Main Street to Wall Street, as our politicians like to say. Remember that we still have the B-side to write, America. Tie a string around your finger in case you think you might forget. Set a timer on the kitchen stove. In 1999, Time Magazine named “Strange Fruit” the twentieth century’s quintessential song. Tell me you know this story? It’s about a Jewish teacher named Abel Meeropol who “was disturbed at the continuation of racism in America.” In response to a photograph of a lynching, which he couldn’t cast out of his mind, Meeropol wrote a poem and later set it to music. So the poem became a song, and the song landed in the golden throat of a Black singer named Billie Holiday, who cast it wide as a net with her voice, wide as the oceans that hold us on either side: Pastoral scene of the gallant South, the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, And the sudden smell of burning flesh! America, this is your heritage, this, all: the lynching and the photograph that preserves the memory of it, our capacity for violence and our fear of forgetting what we have done; also, the man who was moved to write the poem that became this song; and also, and more so, the woman who found the power in her lungs and the vision in her voice to send it out to all of us, en masse: strange fruit that never had any business dangling from those trees but now, nearly a century later, because of her, because of him, cannot be unseen and will not go unheard. America, listen: We can’t let you take another little piece of our hearts. Now is not the time for lullabies, not the hour to put us to sleep. Yet we can’t retreat into silence either. America, America, resist the myth that your greatest days are already behind you. Strike the secret chord we’ve all been waiting for. Lean in close now and whisper, like a revolution, what this century’s fierce, sweet, unforgettable anthem will be.

THE RUMPUS INAUGURAL POEMS: “ Psalm in the Spirit of an Inaugural Poem” by Julie Marie Wade.

[newyorktheater]

Amber Jaunai as Jesus H. Christ and Nate DeCook and Vince Ryne as two dumb, obvlivious Southern teens in “Sincerity, Forever.”

  To appreciate these first two productions of the five-play Mac Wellman festival at The Flea, entitled “Perfect Catastrophes,” it helps to know that Wellman — the 74-year-old co-founder of The Flea, distinguished professor of playwriting at Brooklyn College; and author of more than 40 plays over the past 50 years – is a pioneer of what could be termed the WTF? school of theater-making. As Wellman told one of his former students interviewing him in American Theatre Magazine in 2016, he believes that “plays are not about plots. They are about moments”..and that the best plays give the audience “a slap in the face.”  He is part of a generation of like-minded, now-revered theater artists who are labeled experimental and avant-garde — and challenging — such as  Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson,  and Lee Breuer and Ruth Maleczech of Mabou Mines, in all of whose work Wellman has said he’s found inspiration.

At the same time, at his best — and in 2016, I saw a new play of his that I consider one of his best, “The Offending Gesture” — his theater pieces are smart, playful, and clever,  displaying a delightful ear for dialogue. If they are exercises in absurdity, they are rooted in the absurdities of the world in which we live.

“Perfect Catastrophes,” which runs through November 1st, will offer two world premieres. But these first two Wellman plays, “Bad Penny” and “Sincerity Forever” go back three decades. The plays are being presented separately, with separate admission, but I saw them one after the other on the same night.

Joseph Huffman (far left), Emma Orme (left), Bailie de Lacy (right), Lambert Tamin (far right) | Photo by Allison Stock

Bailie de Lacy (top far left), Dana Placentra (top center), Lambert Tamin (top far right), Katelyn Sabet (bottom far left), Alex J, Moreno (bottom center), Caroline Banks (bottom far right), Emma Orme (far right on table) Photo by Allison Stock

Bad Penny

“Bad Penny” was first presented in 1989 as a site-specific work in Central Park. Anne Hamburger’s En Garde Arts, the mother of all site-specific theater in New York, set it in and around Bow Bridge on the Lake in Central Park, with an 18-member cast of downtown stalwarts, including future luminary Reg. E Cathy.

In place of Central Park, The Flea has furnished their small outdoor theater (really just a narrow backyard) with a kind of Astroturf, and strings of Christmas lights overhead; the audience sits on blankets or around the periphery in a variety of mismatched lounge chairs. And instead of the members of En Garde Arts, The Flea’s production is populated by nine members of the Bats, its resident theater company, a group of mostly young newcomers that in “Bad Penny” generally show more promise than polish.

After several minutes in which the actors and the audience are one undifferentiated lounging mass,  a woman pops up and starts speaking about the sky. She is Kat, (Emma Orme), and, though her monologue might feel unmoored if not unhinged, like the ranting of a mentally ill homeless person, there is something stimulating in her observations and speculations. The “true sky” may be a wonderful place “where all the lost things in the world assemble” – hats, socks, thumbtacks.

The man to whom she seems to be speaking offers a succinct rejoinder: “Go away or I’ll call the police.”

The man, Ray (Joseph Huffman), is carrying a spare tire. His car broke down on the East Side, he explains, and he couldn’t find a gas station there, so he’s going across the park to find one on the West Side. He has come from Big Ugly, Montana. He identifies himself as a “freelance memory fabulist and metaphysician and card player”

A second man (Alex J. Moreno) speaks up, doubting the first man’s story; a third man (Lambert Tamin) agrees it’s dubious; a second woman (Bailie de Lacy) attacks the third man, and defends the first man.

The kibitzing, if surreal, is quintessential New York.

“I knew I shouldn’t have picked up the goddam bad penny I found on the path, over there, near the big fountain. I knew it would turn out this way: bad,” the first woman says, which I suppose explains the title.

The arguing continues – over who’s normal, among other things – as these groups of strangers talk to each other, telling their life stories, and at each other, and about each other, joined by a chorus of three women who chant things like “Let the world be covered with rat fur” and “The Dead Boatman of Bow Bridge is coming…”  And, amidst increasing cacophony, long overlapping rants and choral chants, the Dead Boat of Bow Bridge does eventually arrive, rather anticlimactically.

“Bad Penny” is a day in the park in New York, but it’s not a walk in the park, because, as any New Yorker will tell you, New York is not an easy experience. And that, I think, is what the play is about – a heightened dramatic distillation and affectionate parody of what it’s like to live in New York, and what it’s like to be a New Yorker.

Because it is so much about the city, “Bad Penny” would surely have worked better in a set, or setting, more recognizably New York.

Amber Jaunai (center left), Alex Hazen Floyd (center right), Vince Ryne (far right)

: Charly Dannis (left), Malena Pennycook (center left), Peter McNally (center right), Alex Hazen Floyd (right)

  Sincerity Forever

“Sincerity Forever” was first produced in 1991, and dedicated to Senator Jesse Helms: “…for the fine job you are doing of destroying civil liberties in These States.” It’s surely no coincidence that the play takes place in a fictional Southern town named Hillsbottom (perhaps in Helms’ home state of North Carolina?) full of ignorant bigots.  Thanks to recent events, the play feels newly relevant,  and Wellman’s mockery is balanced with an undergirding anger. The playwright’s leaps and lunges in language can also be entertaining. But “Sincerity Forever” seems simultaneously too obvious and too abstruse to be judged a classic satire. And the acting in this production only intermittently rises to the level that the material demands.

In a series of two-character scenes on a summer night in the outskirts of  Hillsbottom, teenagers talk to one another earnestly about how ignorant they are, but they do so in a contemplative, nearly poetic way:

“I don’t know the difference between good art and bad art. I haven’t a clue what a “hostile takeover” is, nor why junk bonds are junky,” Molly says to Judy. ” I mean why would anybody want them if they’re worthless?”

“I don’t know why the sky is blue, and I don’t know what “blue” is, and I don’t know why I don’t know,” Judy says to Molly.

But Judy and Molly (and the other teenagers in subsequent scenes) conclude that their ignorance must nonetheless somehow be God’s plan. All believe, as Molly  puts it,  “the most important thing is not what you know, but whether you’re sincere or not.” All of the teenagers are dressed in the white hoods and robes of the Ku Klux Klan.

In two subsequent scenes, first George and Judy confess they have crushes on one another, and then Tom and Lloyd, two male teenagers, have nearly the exact same conversation. Then two furballs rant about how stupid AND insincere the people of Hillsbottom are.  These are supposedly the “mystic furballs” that the characters earlier discussed, expressing fear of their destructive power.

These two-character scenes repeat , and mutate – turning cruder, crazier and more confrontational.

Early on, a black woman (Amber Jaunai) comes a-visiting, but the Hillsbottom teenagers ignore her. She turns out to be Jesus H. Christ, and, just in case you missed the point just below the surface of playwright’s sardonic tone,  at the end of “Sincerity Forever,” Jesus delivers with fire and brimstone a long corrosive sermon. I can’t help quoting a (relatively small) chunk of it:

“I came here to raise badass, obstreperous, antisocial, pestiferous, brutalitarian, loudmouthed and chaotic bloody hell. The roaring kind! You swinish, mealy-mouthed bunch of hypocrites wouldn’t know the Lord God of Hosts if he swope down and bit you on the ass. All you care about is what you look like, what you look like in a mirror, a mirror some monster furball dreamt up for you to look at to make you blind. America, you got your eyes open so wide you can’t see a fucking thing. America, you’re crazy if you think your limpdick, milksop, harebrained Christianity has anything whatsoever to do with Jesus H Christ, because that’s who’s standing here before you in the dusty ruination of the open road, because the whole point of what I am about is to shake up belief, to shake up belief and make people stop being so gosh-darned pleased with theyselves, and take a good look at what a sorry place this world is, what with all the jive-ass bullslinging and endless justifying….”

“Who was that African-American babe?” Tom asks. Jesus is still ignored.

  Bad Penny Directed by Kristan Seemal. It features The Bats including Caroline Banks, Bailie de Lacy, Joseph Huffman, Alex Moreno, Emma Orme, Dana Placentra, Katelyn Sabet, Ryant Stinnet, and Lambert Tamin. The creative team includes Jian Jung (Scenic Designer), Emily White (Costume Designer), Daisy Long (Lighting Designer), Keenan Hurley (Sound Designer), Olivia Mancini (Stage Manager) and Lauren DeLeon (Assistant Director). Running time: 45 minutes Tickets; $17 to $102

  Sincerity Forever

directed by Dina Vovsi. It features The Bats, including Charly Dannis, Nate DeCook, Alex Hazen Floyd, Amber Jaunai, Peter McNally, Neysa Lozano, Malena Pennycock, Zac Porter, Jonathon Ryan, and Vince Ryne. The creative team includes Frank Oliva (Scenic Designer), Barbara Erin Delo (Costume Designer), Becky Heisler (Lighting Designer), Emma Wilk (Sound Designer), Patricia Marjorie (Properties Master), Emma Sonricker (Stage Manager), and Will Steinberger (Assistant Director). Running time: 70 minutes Tickets: $17 to $102

  Both plays are on stage at The Flea through October 7, 2019

  .

Bad Penny and Sincerity Forever Reviews: Mac Wellman Revisited To appreciate these first two productions of the five-play Mac Wellman festival at The Flea, entitled “Perfect Catastrophes,” it helps to know that Wellman -- the 74-year-old co-founder of The Flea, distinguished professor of playwriting at Brooklyn College; and author of more than 40 plays over the past 50 years – is a pioneer of what could be termed the 

[spiderfan22]

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHT - 4/20/17

“IF YOU DRINK AND DRIVE, DON’T SMOKE (SCENE 5)” by DJS

Next scene in the old men play. Where things take a turn for the better... and the worst.

Scene 5 – The Driving Range.

Herschel and Bob are hitting golf balls off astroturf mats. They share a large bucket of balls.

Bob’s ball keeps falling off his tee.

HERSCHEL               Good thing you brought your clubs, Bob.

BOB                            Yep. I thought it was just a cover so May wouldn’t get suspicious, because you fellas told me what we’d really be doing. Always nice when a lie works out, isn’t it? I mean becomes the truth? Makes the telling easier.

HERSCHEL               Well it wasn’t on the original itinerary, but Clyde thinks he’s got a connection.

Just the sound of whacking balls for a moment

                                   I don’t know. Would you say you lie to your life a lot?

BOB                            Nooo. Not much occasion to these days.

HERSCHEL               How bout when you were younger?

BOB                            Oh sure then, all the time.

HERSCHEL               Big stuff, little stuff?

BOB                            Oh I ran the gamut. Lying was like my first instinct on all sorts of things. Had I taken out the trash yet. Had I washed the car. Did I remember to give the kids a bath. Where was on Saturday night, was I really at the card game. Did I drop off her dress at the drycleaners. Lying was second nature to me – as I’m positive it is for most men – even if the consequences would be relatively minor.

                                   What about you?

HERSCHEL               Well, I always tried to be honest…

BOB                            But?

HERSCHEL               But of course not. Of course I told whopper after whopper – tried to get away with everything I could wasn’t easily checkable for verifiable.

BOB                            Ever cheat on her though?

HERSCHEL               Did I ever cheat on Leslie?

                                   No. Not till today.

Naturally, I could never stop myself from looking – I mean I thought about it. Even had the chance pop up once or twice. Business trips, conferences, that sort of thing.

A pause

BOB                            I did.

HERSCHEL               You? You cheated on May? For real?

BOB                            Had to be, I don’t know, half a dozen times over the course of our marriage. Plus this couple year affair with one of my checkout girls at the Safeway.

HERSCHEL               And she never found out?

BOB                            Nope. Though she came close one time. Found a pair of panties in the backseat of the car. But I told her they were a Valentine’s Day gift for her – that we should spice things up. That I’d lost the bag.

HERSCHEL               You sly dog. Why didn’t you ever tell me? Did you tell Clyde?

BOB                            This was in the early years of our marriage – no – where you’d think everything would be all blissful and we’d be fucking like rabbits. And the funny thing was we were like that, but that just made me more horny, you know? I figured having kids would set me straight, but…

HERSCHEL               Grandkids were what finally did it for me.

BOB                            What? I thought you said you never –

HERSCHEL               Not talking about that, not talking about cheating.

                                   Booze.

BOB                            Oh yeah, right. I remember there was a time, a period of what, five years...?

HERSCHEL               More like ten but who’s counting.

BOB                            Yeah, where you were just – where it’d be weird if you didn’t have a drink in your hand. Best example I can think of is the time you pissed yourself out on the back nine during that trip to Palm Springs.

HERSCHEL               Do you have to bring that up?

BOB                            Hey you opened Pandora’s bag.

HERSCHEL               Box.

BOB                            What?

HERSCHEL               It’s box. Pandora’s Box.

BOB                            Oh.

HERSCHEL               You always were a shit for brains, you know that?

BOB                            Well we all can’t be valedictorian like you Herschel. Not that you ever did anything with it, all that learning, all those smarts. Went to U-Dub same as the rest of the graduating class of Roosevelt High School 1959 – how convenient just down the road too – when you got into fucking Yale?

HERSCHEL               Drop it.

BOB                            No I think that deserves an explanation. I mean with all you had going for you Herschel, the scholarships, to end up a fucking accountant? Not that you haven’t found success, what with all the shrewd investments you’ve made over the years. Remember you even advised me to go in on this new company Microsoft when they were first starting out? Said they were going places and it could be a big payday down the line, but did I listen? No, I said “What the fuck is a computer and how come anyone would want one?” I’m telling you Herschel, it’s like you could predict the future. And boy was I jealous of you sometimes. When you’d go on vacation twice a year – fly to Florida or take the whole family to Europe somewhere, Italy – not just the Washington coast for a week in August like us regular Joes. But things like money, comfort, luxuries – those don’t quite make it at the end of the day do they? Don’t quite make up for squandering your God given potential.

Suddenly Herschel, who’s been like a lit fuse listening to all this, explodes. He brandishes his nine-iron at Bob, who backs up a step.

HERSCHEL               FUCK YOU, BOB! FUCK YOU RIGHT IN THE ASS FOR SAYING THAT YOU PIECE OF SHIT, YOU DUMB FUCK. THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH TALKING TO ME LIKE THAT, YOU PISSANT! NOTHING BUT A SHIT FOR BRAINS NO-TALENT GROCERY STORE MANAGER! LEAST I HAD SOME POTENTIAL TO SQUANDER! WHAT DID YOU EVER HAVE HUH?! JUST THE DAY’S FUCKING RECEIPTS TO TALLY!!

BOB                            I LOVED MY JOB YOU SON OF A BITCH!! NOW TAKE THAT BACK ‘FORE I KNOCK YOUR FUCKING TEETH OUT!

HERSCHEL               NOT TILL YOU TAKE BACK WHAT YOU SAID, PUSSY-BOY!!

BOB                            CALLING ME A PUSSY?? WHEN YOU CAN’T EVEN GET IT UP?!

HERSCHEL               WHAT DID YOU SAY???

BOB                            YOU HEARD ME YOU LIMP DICK HAVING BASTARD. . I TOLD YOU YOU SHOULDA TOOKEN ONE OF MY –

HERSCHEL               TOOKEN?? IGNORANT FUCKING BASTARD –

BOB                            (overlapping) YES TOOKEN – ONE OF MY PRESCRIPTION E.D. PILLS – BUT WOULD YOU LISTEN? NOOOOOOOO, NOT HERSCHEL. HIS DICK WORKS JUST FINE.

HERSCHEL               THAT’S IT BOB, I’MA WRING YOUR FUCKING NECK!! TAKE YOUR DAMN HEAD OFF!!

BOB                            COME AT ME BRO!!!!!!!!!

By now they’re both holding their golf clubs like samurai swords. Herschel even takes a swing at Bob.

Clyde enters with a rolled up paper bag.

CLYDE                      Whoa! The hell’s going on here?? Hey – the both of you, quit it. Knock it off. Come on now. Hey.

He gets them separated, but they’re still fired up.

HERSCHEL               Don’t talk to me. It’s this piece of shit’s fault for starting in on me.

BOB                            I was just asking a question, Herschel.

HERSCHEL               The hell you were, Bob.

(To Clyde) He was criticizing my whole way of life – every decision I ever made and saying it was the wrong one!

CLYDE                      Is this true, Bob?

BOB                            Only sorta.

And it wasn’t a critique Herschel –

HERSCHEL               Bullshit –

BOB                            It wasn’t. ‘Cause the point of it all: you can’t tell me you don’t feel, or have felt somewhere along the line, that you didn’t waste even just a little of that brainpower of yours and all you could have accomplished. Roads you didn’t take? Doors left unopened? And all I’m saying is it makes me personally sad. Now I dare you to look me in the eye and say I’m a liar.

                                   Am I lying?

Beat.

HERSCHEL               (quiet) No. You’re right.

But you must know it’s a sore subject for me.

BOB                            Of course it is, of course it is…

HERSCHEL               Nobody wants to look back on their life full of regrets, thinking about, oh, about what could have been.

With tears in his eyes

                                   And you hit the nail on the head Bob, connecting that disappointment to my drinking. The two went hand in hand. I was compensating for something – coping, or trying to at least. It’s just you get so old so fast. And there’s no turning back the clock, is there?

They stand in silent reflection on this point for a long moment.

Then there’s an abrupt change in tone.

BOB                            So did you get the stuff, Clyde?

CLYDE                      Oh I scored big time I think.

He opens the rolled up paper bag and lets them peek inside. Bob and Herschel’s eyes light up like kids on Christmas.

BOB                            Hot diggity-dog! You did! I don’t know anything about cocaine but that sure does look like a lot of it!

CLYDE                      Well it was funny, you know? The kid asked me how much I wanted –

HERSCHEL               This is one of the maintenance crew guys –

CLYDE                      One of groundskeepers, yeah. The young Mexican kid. I forget his name, Juan or Miguel, but I remembered that time we caught him out behind the maintenance shed smoking something or other, and we knew he wasn’t making trouble just trying to blow off some steam so we didn’t report him. Well let me tell you, gentlemen, that small act of kindness paid off big time today because Juan-Miguel said he remembered me too and would be only too happy to “hook us up” as he called it with as much of the stuff as we wanted – or that he could get his hands on. So having no idea of the going rate, I asked him what a couple thousand would buy me, and I shit you not, if he didn’t almost fall over right here. Well I guess that’s a lot, I said, would he not be able to do it? No, he said he thought he knew a guy but it might take an hour for him to get there and back, could I wait – which is why it took me so long. But I’ll be damned if the little spic didn’t come through with flying colors. I mean I don’t have any basis of comparison or nothing but this is ton of cocaine, right?? Like we hit the drug fucking jackpot!

In his excitement, he opens the bag to show them again.

HERSCHEL               That’s great Clyde, but let’s take it down a notch, huh? For the sake of appearances?

CLYDE                      (lowers voice) Oh right, right, sorry. I’m just excited.

BOB                            Me too.

HERSCHEL               Make that three.

They laugh quietly. Then a small pause.

CLYDE                      So where we gonna have this little shindig? I presume you both are up for doing it now.

HERSCHEL               Oh hell yes. Only I think we can rule out my place. Knowing Leslie she wouldn’t let us have a moment’s peace – always sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong. Not that the woman doesn’t have her good points, but if she feel she’s being kept out of the loop, she’s like a pitbull after a pussy cat. Not to be deterred.

BOB                            Well we could do it at my house. We just got done refinishing the basement and now I got my TV room all set up. Leather couch, flatscreen. And May would leave us alone if I told her. I mean she might get curious but she knows her place well enough.

CLYDE                      No, it’s nice of you to offer Bob but I don’t see any point in risking it. We’ll do it at my place. No danger of wifely interruptions there. Perks of being a widower, hey?

They chuckle. Slight pause.

                                   So I guess we should be going. No time like the present, right?

Bob gathers his golf clubs in his bag. They start out.

                                   Hey uhh – you fellas think you might want to do just a dip real fast before we go?

HERSCHEL               A dip? You mean of the –

CLYDE                      Yeah you know, just to get the party started like?

BOB                            Well I’m game.

HERSCHEL               Sure, sure. As long as we’re discreet here shouldn’t be a problem.

CLYDE                      Gum thing’s probably best if that’s your concern…

He opens the bag. They do a quick check of the surrounding area to ensure no one is watching. Then they each dip a finger in. The men quickly bring their finger to their mouth and rub coke on their gums.

The effect is more or less instantaneous. Clyde reels.

CLYDE          Jesus Christ where has this been all our lives??

HERSCHEL               Y’know I think I like it even more than alcohol, the feeling it gives me?

CLYDE                      At least we weren’t too late. We didn’t miss it.

BOB                            Yeah. Good thing.

They start out again happily.

Then Clyde’s phone rings, stopping them. The men look surprised, not to mention a tad paranoid.

BOB                            Who’s that? Is that your phone Herschel?

HERSCHEL               I turned my phone off when we went to the motel.

CLYDE                      (digging phone out of his pocket) It’s mine. But I don’t recognize the number…

                                   (answers it) Hello?

                                   Oh. Hey Sandy.

HERSCHEL               Sandy? My Sandy? Izzat my daughter?

CLYDE                      Yeah he’s right here. I think he had his phone off was the –

                                   Hang on, is everything alright? You sound a little spooked is all, a little frantic there.

                                   Where?

Herschel is watching all this close and keeps putting his hand out for the phone.

                                   Oh.

                                   Oh yes of course you can talk to him. I’ll pass him the phone right –

                                   You just hang in there, Sandy. It’ll be alright. Just –

                                   No, here he is. You take care now.

Clyde hands the phone to Herschel, who moves a little away. Bob looks to Clyde, who shakes his head, troubled.

HERSCHEL   Hey it’s me honey, what’s going on? Just slow down and –

Long pause, Herschel listening. We read the story on this face

           And this was when?

           Well who called the paramedics?

No I had my phone off I’m sorry, I don’t know why, the battery was – but is that the most important thing right now?

No I didn’t mean to yell, I’m sorry. I’m sorry honey.

No I’ll be on my way right now. Which hospital? I think you mentioned but –

Virginia Mason. Alright. I’m coming. I’ll be there. Just tell her to hold on. Wait for me.

Tell her to wait.

I love you too, honey. Yes.

The call ends. Herschel frozen. Clyde and Bob wait.

Long moment.

Then he turns to them gravely.

           Well fuck.

To be continued...