A mysterious face came into the bar where I was DJ'ing last night. It was my girlfriend from freshman year in college. The one who punched my V-card! She's been living in the city for the same time that I have. I haven't seen her since 2003, when I told her that I had been working on a novel and my plan was to move to a city and wait tables or something. She had just come back from 2 years in the peace corps.
"I've had enough of poverty. I'm moving to New York to become a capitalist. I'm just going to be one of those people who makes a ton of money and donates to good causes," she said and then added a ridiculously bitchy afterthought, "I'll be rich. And you'll be waiting tables."
Ha! Waiting tables!
Because I am a sick evil person I reminded her of this as soon as we met up. "You're a bartender. Same thing."
I then introduced her to the doorguy, "This is the girl who took my virginity."
"Did I really?"
"Yes."
"You remember it?"
"Of course. I didn't drink then. It was C4 New Apartments. Mattress on the floor."
"You know what's really pathetic. I've lived in the city for five years, I'm turning 29 and I'm still in the single digits."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes. You were #4 and I just broke up with #8. Why? How many have you?"
"I have no idea."
"Really? How many are we talking about here? Like 30?"
"No idea."
"My problem is I get too attached and I end up falling in love with all of them."
"Me too."
"You've fallen in love with 30+ girls?"
"I have no idea."
"Don't you have any cute single skinny nerdy friends you can set me up with?"
"I've been inviting you to parties for 4 years and this is the first time I've seen you. But sure. Stick with me."
I realized she misheard what I said because she replied, "That won't help!"
"What?"
"Did you say 'Sleep with me?'"
"I said stick with me."
I went back to playing records. But something bothered me and I told her. "You're terrible. You thought I said 'sleep with me' and your response was 'That's not going to improve my numbers I've already slept with you.' Not 'I don't like you like that' or 'You have a girlfriend' or 'I don't want to get attached.' You're such a fucking banker."
As the night went on we discussed our types. I told her that I pretty much always date girls like her, blondes with full lips. I wondered aloud if I had some kind of emotional scarring from her that made me chase these women everywhere. She said she always dates skinny writers.
A friend of hers looked over. This friend is a girl who is French and Asian, which gives her an adorably ridiculous accent. "Heem? He no skinny."
"Yes he is."
"No, look at this." she patted my belly.
"It was great seeing you. Thanks for bringing your friend. I guess I'll see you in 2012?"
The psychology of love states that people are often attracted to people with the same level of attractiveness. So if you want to go out for a drink and meet an attractive person the best thing you can do: be attractive.
Of course there are many different ways to be attractive. Without defaming any celebrities we are all aware of gorgeous, intelligent celebrity couples. We can all name a few gorgeous Hollywood types who somehow end up with much-older (wealthy) men. Of course this must be do to some kind of inner-beauty that these vixens find to these older, wealthier, heir-less men. People meet each other in all sorts of different ways through friends, online, and sometimes from actual personal interactions. Many of us in our twenties go out to bars and nightclubs and cafes kinda sorta half searching for a mate.
I have spent most of my adult-life DJ’ing in various parts of the country, which puts me in a booth over the room from which I watch the bizarre mating habits of the North American Human.
First of all something must be said first for the selection of venue. I’ve long believed that people are attracted to nightspots that are of their same level of attractiveness. When you go to a quiet out of the way bar you tend to meet quiet out of the way people. If you end up in a cheesy hokey bar with video games on the way you tend to find…cheesesticks. And if you end up in one of those big, fancy, vacuous clubs you tend to find beautiful, fancy, vacuous people.
The men in these clubs seem, to me, a bit over eager. If you’re a woman left alone for more than a few minutes you might find yourself swarmed upon by the kind of guy that a club like this attracts. (And, somehow, men still wonder aloud why women go to the bathroom in groups?) In the bird kingdom is it quite common for the male bird to bring a gift to ingratiate himself to the female bird. A berry or fruit of some kind. When the over-eager human males approach the female it is often customary to offer the gift of a drink. From my vantage point of the DJ booth this practice is inaudible and quite charming, just as it seems when I see adorable birds on the Discovery Channel exchanging fruits. But in this case the male human is not exchanging a simple berry, but rather a martini in a glass the size of a small birdbath.
At the end of this drink, the gift will have in fact changed the male’s perceived level of attractiveness. It should be added that when cavemen searched for cavewomen they also went clubbing.
There is also a gigantic downside to the theory of attractiveness: people aren’t always attracted to each other in the same ways. And worse: nothing is less attractive than discovering that someone you are attracted to is attracted to someone you would never talk to.
As a DJ you get precious few breaks to talk to the people who have come to see you. People hire a DJ so that they hear good music, if they hear good music they can dance, if they can dance they might dance with someone wonderful. Unfortunately, people of my generation don’t like to dance to “Stairway to Heaven” (08:02) or “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (17:05). Instead the only dancing most DJ’s get to do is the dance that four-year-olds do when they have to go potty (locally known as “the Pee-pee Dance.”). You can imagine how thrilled I was this year when the music website Pitchfork Media selected “Enfants (Chants)” by Ricardo Villalobos as one of their “Top 100 Songs of 2008(17:06!). With a tempo of 124 BPM it mixes perfectly with The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army.”
While I’m already out on a horribly sexist limb here I must divulge and important industry secret. DJ’s play songs for girls. Hip Hop Dj’s are all well versed in the importance of “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It). I don’t know a single gay club DJ who won’t throw in a little Madonna or the inimitable Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” even to an all-male audience. Last year I was DJ’ing in Los Angeles after shooting a music video. One of the extras in the video is a DJ out there and he asked me to DJ an hour with him the next night in Hollywood at a club called Boardners. I didn’t know what kind of music the Hollywood kids liked. But I took a chance and played “The Clapping Song” a schoolyard hit from 1965 by Shirley Ellis. The men in the club stood in wonder as the girls all stood up at once and began clapping along to a song that many of them had never heard. It has a simple clap-along beat reminiscent of “Paddy cake.” Most of the girls were up and dancing because, as it turns out, girls do just wanna have fun.
Of course I, as the DJ want everyone to have fun. I also want them to drink because in most places don’t pay you a flat rate but they will give you 15% of the bar ring, which can be an awful lot of money if you get the right mix of people dancing up a thirst. It also helps to have a wealthy, lonely guy who will start a tab and use it to buy drinks for the women who will thank him politely and move on to someone more suitable. Many bars and clubs have a cover charge of something between $10 and $20, which are rarely charged to women and is thought of as a fee charged for putting up with men. My New Years party this year has a cover charge of $35, but that will be split between me and the three bands.
In book four, Gulliver explains to the king of the Houyhnhnms the drinking habits of his people. He describes wine as "a liquid which made us merry by putting us out of our senses, diverted all melancholy thoughts, begat wild extravagant imaginations in the brain, raised our hopes, and banished our fears.”
But sometimes people have too much fun. After some people have had a few of those bird-bath margaritas they might get sick. Vomit does not make one more attractive, although sometimes when you drink to the point of vomiting it can make other people more attractive. Sometimes you see someone outside the club, teetering in illness against the wall. If they’ve gotten sick the worst may be over and it’s time for them to go home. “Where are your friends?” is the first question I ask. It’s also the second question I scream at them, “WHERE ARE YOUR FRIENDS?” In the old days I would check their wallet and make sure they had cab fare home and send them to whatever address was written on their license. I sometimes wonder how many young girls from the local colleges were accidentally delivered to a parent’s house in Yonkers at 4:30 AM.
Now you can just pull out their cellphone and call back the last person they called. "WHAT KIND OF FRIEND ARE YOU??"
But even that is better than waking up in a stranger’s bed in some out of the way neighborhood where you have to check the mail just to find out how to get home. God bless New York City and mass transit. I can’t imagine the terror of waking up on a workday in Providence with no idea how you go there or how to get home.
The dangers and things that can happen to people are truly awful and are the stuff of nightmares for the parents of young adults and the plots of many hit TV shows about young adults.
Everyone knows that one night stands are like Horror movies, they seem like fun in the beginning but you can never get attached to any of the characters because they tend to disappear.
Speaking of television: I have spent all of this time discussing a very certain kind of bar and if you had to split it up into genders it would go something like this: Bars with TVs/bars where people dance. Bars for men/bars where the DJs play “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Bars with television can be a fantastic place to be left alone, whether you want to watch some kind of sporting event or whether you just want to spend your unexpected layover with Anderson Cooper. If you're going to do something real classy like put a TV in a bar. At least get cable or satellite. The last thing I want when I'm drinking alone is to feel like a fourteen year old watching scrambled porn.
§MERCUTIO AND ARLECCHINO WALK DOWN A NEARBY STREET IN THE DARK, LED BY TORCHBEARERS. THEY KNOCK ON A DOOR. MERCUTIO: Benvolio? BENVOLIO: Mercutio? MERCUTIO: Ay, let us in. MERCUTIO: (SHAKES DOOR) I am trying to but this door seems to be inoperable. BENVOLIO: One second. MERCUTIO: Benvolio, my man and I are going out tonight and I need you to make him into a prince. BENVOLIO: Sorry, I don’t, uh-- MERCUTIO: No, not that way. I mean I need you to lend my man some of your gorgeous fabric so he doesn’t look like a shit-smearing peasant when we are at the party tonight. BENVOLIO: What’s wrong with your clothes? MERCUTIO: There’s a word we learn when we are very young and that word is “No.” I don’t really need to lead us in a discussion about the matter. Can you help the boy or not? BENVOLIO: What kind of clothes are we talking about here? MERCUTIO: I’m sorry. But were you planning on shrinking back to his age and size later this evening? BENVOLIO: No. MERCUTIO: Good! And fantastic use of that new word! BENVOLIO: I just-- MERCUTIO: You just what? Had a child? Wanted to make a patchwork arras out of your old sweaters? BENVOLIO: No it’s just that some of them have sentimental value and I don’t. MERCUTIO: Trust me. You can dress him up like the little boy you’ve always wanted and you can watch a former version of yourself stroll about the hall and no one has to know that you’re-- BENVOLIO: Nevermind. Forget it. Jesus. Fine. Come in. MERCUTIO: You still have to unlock the door. Benvolio unlocks the door with a series of bolts. In it is revealed a very small apartment of orderly belongings. All of his cloaks are arranged in rainbow order in the closet and his books and personal things are in height order. His jewelery is organized by metal and then by stone. BENVOLIO: (HOLDING UP CLOTH) Tell me, Arlecchino, do you want to look like Tybalt or a visiting prince. ARLECCHINO: Tybalt! BENVOLIO: Fine, but don’t come crying to me when the boys are after you. Mercutio leaves the room to help himself to a glass of wine. Arlecchino dresses and reemerges looking like a proper prince. Arlecchio turns from the looking glass standing upright as a musician. MERCUTIO: It’s amazing. BENVOLIO: I know, it came from Paris, originally I believe. MERCUTIO: No, I mean it is amazing the transformation here. Arlecchino, you--you look like a proper gentleman. I mean, look at you here. ARLECCHINO: (IN PRINCELY VOICE) How charming of you to say, sir. And may I add that you look quite dashing this evening. MERCUTIO: Thank you very much, sir, now could you--Arlecchino! ARLECCHINO: (REGULAR VOICE) What? What? Arlecchino turns like a dog chasing his own tail. ARLECCHINO: I already sit in some muck? MERCUTIO: No, sir. Benvolio I do not believe that we shall be attending this evening’s festivities with the help of our trusted valet. It seems he has gone missing. Instead we will have to bear our own torches and walk with our cousin who is visiting from Old Rome.
This year is ending somewhat well for me. I have the #1 on iTunes (suck it Beyonce!), Pitchfork just listed my New Years Party as something you should go to and for no apparent reason I was photographed DJ'ing in Spin Magazine. Thank you media outlets!
On my way home from Christmas I split my pants. To be fair to my ass: these pants were old as hell. I bought them at a thrift store in college. They already had a hole in the crotch, but that was manageable. Then I bent down to tie my shoe and my ass tore open.
So there I am, riding Metronorth from Connecticut with all the other yuppies wearing pants that looks like some bizarre mormon marital aid.
When it comes to clothing I am my grandmother. I repair. I get things tailored. When I found my leather jacket and discovered that the sleeves were too short I sewed new cuffs on them. One time in 2004 Annie spent $365 on a pair of Diesel jeans for me. Annually I take them to an Asian person for repairs.
Today Laia was over and the first thing she said to me in months was, "You're not skinny anymore!" The tone of her voice made it seem like I had achieved something. But, no. I just got fat.
Some people mention it in passing, asking if I've been working out. Some people watch the buttons on my nice shirts in terror as if they might pop off.
Right after that Ben called, saying he was in the neighborhood. By some great twist of planned obsolescence Ben's regular camera had to be replaced by the same model from the same company because they don't make a waterproof shell for the one he had. This was the same camera that I had to buy Ben last year because I sat on his camera when we were filming Caveminers. At the Beauty Bar Christmas party last week I lost (track of) my same version of that camera. So there we were in that wonderful parity of our lives where we sometimes call each other after not speaking for months and it turns out we're both dating Annies or looking into moving to chicago. I needed to replace my Canon SD1000 and Ben needed to unload one. Wonderful!
I should add that this is my third of this camera. If you ever need any Canon camera accessories please call me. The first one I lost--along with a fantastic motorcycle jacket that probably wouldn't fit me anymore--after I stayed up all night to get Romeo & Juliet tickets and met up with the boys for iPhone day. It was hot and I took my jacket off and left it with them where they camped out at the Apple store on Prince. Caleb and I walked over to visit a friend of his at Jack Spade and that guy gave me the staff discount on a new backpack. I completely forgot about my jacket and when the Apple store opened its doors Ben picked it up, "Anybody's jacket? No? Hello any--oh shit they're letting people in!"
We went to B&H, which is a santa's workshopesque store on 34th owned by the Society for the Perpetuation of Jewbag Stereotypes. On the way into the store I bent over to tie my shoe and I split my other pair of pants.
I have been a skinny kid my whole life up until I went on tour last spring. The backup dancers used to comment on how they loved my skinny physique. "Are you a dancer too?"
"No." I ran out of money and got fired from all my good jobs two months before that and for a couple of months the best night of my week was Fridays when I got fed at that jazz club uptown. A friend of mine noted that my diet at that time appeared to be cigarettes, budweiser and coffee. "Not true!" I cried. "You forgot whiskey!"
I've always been the kind of person that could eat anything and never gain weight. Somehow last winter I scared my body into thinking we lived under famine conditions, when in fact some asshole at interscope just kept pushing our tour dates back.
Now I am going to have to adjust to being a very boring body type. Now that I am no longer drag-queen skinny I have to learn to enjoy being just vaguely Jerry-Seinfeld thin and hope my face doesn't develop whatever sadness fills Adrian Brody's heart. I will have to learn to grunt for no apparent reason when I pick things up off the floor.
Very soon I will probably be the kind of person who alternates between having cheese or sour cream on the burrito.
By next year I can imagine myself making pretend dieting choices like getting thin-crust pizza or, gasp, drinking lite beer. I can't fathom going back to the tailors and having them let out the shirts that I had darted over the past years. Tonight I did laundry and I checked the temperature. After 15 years of basically boiling my clothing into shrinking down to my size I now find myself hanging things to dry before the dryer replaces my tailor.
I'd hate to go to my closet one day and discover that nothing fits other than pajama pants and towels. But at the rate I'm going now I'm running out of pants.
Every year at Alicia's Christmas party we exchange "Secret Shitty Santa." Usually I end up with homemade porn and someone has to get on the train at the end of the night with an eight-hundred page copy of my first novel.
This year Alicia and I just went to someone else's party and played a raucous game of Apples to Apples. We did not exchange SSS's this year, however.
And so I give you all a Secret Shitty chapter from my first novel, Breakfast Any Time. Our hero, Liam Boycott, has finished his Christmas shopping and has heard that his girlfriend will find out if she got accepted to her fancy-pants Massachusetts college!
(For the twenty-five people who bought For Here or to Go: Life in the Service Industry [currently onsale at Amazon for $0.84!] you might want to know that Liam is the Pizza Delivery boy from the story of mine first published there.)
Like a department store, Sherry’s family started decorating for Christmas right after Halloween. Half the leaves are down and the jackolanterns haven’t even rotted through yet. Yet they’ve already sprayed the windows with fake snow. Through the white border on every pane you could see the Mr. and Ms. looking at something down the hall. Why do people do that to their windows? It looks like they tried to touch up their trim with spraypaint.
A plush reindeer head hangs from the doorknocker with a sign that says, Jingle my bell, in big cartoon letters.
Kasling-kasling-kaslink.
They had a table on the porch and it was already full of Christmas crap. It’s a little village covered in snow, only it’s not really snow it’s like long sheets of cotton balls. It looks like our town did before they got here. A train runs to the center and comes out at a depot. And it’s a real depot, not an old train station remade into a restaurant like we got now. The little ceramic townspeople walk around with their mouths frozen into a whistle or wrapped in glass scarves. The village windows all have fake snow painted on them. Even then they smile and none of them have cars to honk at each other. Beautiful glass racehorses plow the fields. We haven’t had horses working here in years, but I guess you can’t just find little Jamaican farmer figurines. On the edge their little town is a big white wooden building with a crucifix staplegunned to the front. It’s much bigger than the rest and it’s not made at all like them. It actually looks a lot like our house. No, make that exactly like our house. Like someone shrunk it or something. Through the snow-sprayed roof I could just see Dad’s address.
“Well hello!” the ole actress herself stepped into the spotlight, she copped a big, bright, sugar-free gum smile, flipped a big blonde swoop off her forehead and turned to the living room. “Guess who’s here?” Someday she’ll get a talk show on daytime TV and she’ll make sense to the rest of the world. “Well why don’t you come in out of the cold.” Seriously, it’s not even scarf season yet. She must be huffing the snow cans. “Thanks, well, I just thought I’d drop by and see if…uh, if you…” You ever feel like you can smell your own wake? Ms. L. stood at the doorway with her robot head cocked to the side, smiling. Mr.L. hasn’t moved the look on his face. He just stares at me. “…Is this a bad time? I could come back later. Or tomorrow. I mean, I could just see her in school tomorrow.” “No. Why don’t you come on in here,” her dad keeps his feet planted and his voice booms through his grey highway patrol mustache. “We’re having a discussion that concerns you.” “Oh yeah?” I’ve seen enough movies to know that this is how the guilty get yanked. I ran a check on myself. Am I doing everything right? Fly? Up. Shoes? Tied. Shoes! I leaned over to take off my shoes. “Where’s—” A scream ran though the hall. Sounded like a cat stuck in a mousetrap. Mr. L. stood with his arms folded across his reindeer sweater. Ms. L. just kept smiling. The room felt damp and cool like a tent in the morning, saturated with breath and sweat and voices. The stale funk of a cold chicken soup hung in the air. My socks wouldn’t move from the plastic rug. I looked around the living room and nothing changed when I heard the scream. Did I imagine it? “Is, uh…” There it went again, louder this time. Ms. L’s eyes glance down the hallway, then back at me. Wanna know a trick mom taught me? When you can’t tell if someone is really smiling or fake smiling in a photo, cover their mouth with your finger and see if their eyes smile too. I tried to imagine Ms. L wrapped up to her nose in a ceramic scarf like their Christmas action figure set. No one moved. Did I imagine both? “I could come back, you know? Later on. Tomorrow, like I said. I’ll just see her in school.” “No. Step in here.” His rough, puppet voice rolled through the carpet and up my pant legs to my chest. This summer I’m gonna find Mom, I thought. And when I get back I’mma get my own apartment in Northampton and she can come visit me and Sherry and we can have a normal life. My hands started to shake. I could feel my pulse pumping to the end of my jittery fingers. They trembled and then flinched with every beat, faster and faster until I could almost hear it. Gagunga…gagunga…gagunga… My arteries widened. Ms. L. glanced away when I looked at her the next time. Mr. L. kept staring straight at me. I was a deer separated from the herd and whatever he was, he doesn’t want to scare me away yet. “Sit down if you like.” Gagunga…gagunga…gagunga… “No, that’s a’right,” my heart rate pulled the puberty out of my voice. “It’s getting late, huh?” “Oh, no trouble at all,” Ms. L. smiles through the bottom half of her face. Mr. L. leaks out half a tire, “Wouldn’t be the first time you kept us up at night.” In ancient times, you tipped your executioner so that he would kill you with the first chop of the ax. “You fucken…” “You know what? I’ll just…” I stepped back in my socks. “I’ll just come by another time. I can see you’re—“ “I said sit down.” Gagunga…gagunga…gagu— “Ghah Daahd!” My heart stopped. Sherry’s voice came out of the cat in the mousetrap. “Dad, let him go!” Without thinking, I stepped through the living room and into the hallway. The sweat dripping down my back made my ass cheeks slide against each other. I found Sherry, bright red, in pieces on the floor. She looked up at me with her big swimming pool eyes, her cheap makeup rained down onto the braless front of her t-shirt. The whole hallway reeked of morning breath and the humidity of sobbing. She hugged her knees and rocked back and forth on the floor, hiding her face (slash) shame. “Baby?” I turned my back on Mr. L. and immediately regretted it. I can imagine him killing me, commando-style and pinning one of his medals through my face. “What is it? Are you okay? Did they…did something…” She cried again, the sobs came from further in her stomach this time. She choked each one out and couldn’t bring the air back into her lungs. I wanted to do something, anything. CPR, mostly. And for the first time I didn’t want to leave. I haven’t cried hard enough to change my shirt since I was eleven. Two twangs of hair popped out of her ponytail as she grabbed her head, squeezing her face between her elbows. The frays of hair cling to the sweat on her forehead. I couldn’t even think to do any of the things I probably wanted to do. Scream, run, hide, get in the car and drive until no one speaks English. Mr. L. gripped the gray ends of his mustache in between his lips. The Ms. put on a blank expression and now I’m completely lost. Her smile disappeared. And then we all looked at the wet mess on the floor. Ms. L. looked down upon her creation, “Sherry, honey? Do you want to tell Liam your good news?” Sherry squeezed her eyelids and wiped the navy blue tears onto her pajama pants. She stopped crying, and looked at all three of us. “Baby?” I couldn’t think of anything to say. Her mom gave a real firm, but supportive smile, like I’ve just been denied a loan. Sherry coughs and that morning breath stink floats up my nose. She collapsed onto her kneecaps again, imploding, shivering silent and curling into a ball. I went to check her elbows for scrapes and bruises. My body walked down the hall toward her and creaked the floorboards beneath. The sound echoed through the empty silence. “What is it, honey?” I whispered. My wobbly knees bend down in front of her. A wet piece of meat slapped me from behind. “You get the hell away from her.” He gripped me in the neck and my skin tightened around my throat in front, catching my Adams apple in mid swallow, making my choking noises sound like his leaky, high-pitched blare. In one handful he pulled me away and held on. My mouth hung open and I looked in the only direction I could. At the wall, wide eyed. “Dahhd, Daddy let him go,” the cat climbed back in the mousetrap. He pulled me onto my feet and I tried to steady them on the floor. Ms. L. lowered her chin and looked away to antique (slash) virgin china set. “Get away from him, ghaad,” Sherry pounded the floor with both fists. My knees buckled and he swung me in a half moon. The room flashed by until I faced the clean plastic path to the doorway. “How about this,” he gripped me hard and harder and I started to swallow my Adams apple. The education fell out of his voice and he sounded like a Boston firefighter. Or a puppet of one. “You get ya ass out of my house, and don’t you ever come back again.” He let go and I gasped the stale air into my lungs. My knees gave out entirely and I slammed into an antique table. My left hand slipped on a knitted cloth and my chest caught the edge. A brass picture frame of her and Elizabeth snapped down on my knuckles and I caught a wooden Santa statue on my shoulder before it hit the floor. Sherry wailed and wailed from the hallway. “What are you doing? What are you doing to him?” the gravel in her voice scattered up the landing on the staircase. I fell to my knees and grabbed my shoes off the mat. Her parents stood silent. My shoulder leaned on the doorframe for support. I went for the door and another knitted reindeer puppet slid over the doorknob in my hands (“Don’t forget the carrots!” it said). I squeezed harder but my fingers didn’t respond. It slipped around three times as I tried again. The floorboards behind me groaned and a footstep boomed for the door. I yanked the goddam puppet off, and focused all my energy on making the doorknob work. Sherry’s voice gasped for air somewhere behind me and my arm hairs stood up. The chain lock popped off the screen door and I landed on the porch. My knees shook on pedals in the car and the gears ground as the clutch slipped into reverse. Her house disappeared as I rewound all the way down the street, past the mailbox, past everyone’s garden and mulch. At the next bend I flipped the wheel around and the car tires screech on the sleepy street. I kept it in first all the way to the factory and burst most of the fresh muffler patch. The floor heated up under my left sock. In Montana they have no speed limit, I heard. You just gotta drive, Safe and Prudent. Whatever that means. And then I stopped. The car stalled as I jam on the brakes, jolting me into the steering wheel as the tires locked. With the car stopped in first gear everything but the stereo shut down. The dashboard lit up. Brake. Check Engine. Oil. Gas. My faces peeled off the steering wheel and my eyes opened at the shipping and receiving gate in front of the factory. What the fuck was that about?
Success! Leila was right! I completely made up a song in my head!
From: 71 North Boys
To: Brendan Subject:RE: can you explain the different version of cleveland shuffle? Body:
Whats good Brendan! The song you are looking for is not the Cleveland Shuffle. Your looking for the Casper Slide a.k.a The Cha Cha Slide by Mr. C or some say Casper C. ----------------- Original Message ----------------- From: Brendan Date: Dec 19, 2008 4:06 PM
I've been searching hard for the other version of TCS. There's one that doesnt have the word "Crunk" in it. Do you know what I'm talking about? The one with the part "Everybody clap your hands!"
What appears to have actually happened is that somebody made a remix of "The Cleveland Shuffle" with "The Cha Cha Slide" and it turns out that these songs are like planeteers.
The girl in this photo? All the way on the right? I fucking hate her. We met in a Lower East Side long, long ago in 2006. Annie and I had just broken up and at the same time I began an unnamed quest in Manhattan. She would just materialize wherever Conrad and I were drinking for the night. We all spent Thanksgiving together a million years ago, drinking wild turkey in the den of 151. Immediately she would text me about shows, call me about bands she heard and always want to know where I was DJ'ing.
This is fine. And wonderful. I've always believed that you're never famous until your supporters are outnumbered by your hangers-on. She was neither.
I used to listen to her and care for her and let her tell me about her problems. She was from Portland and you would never, apparently, understand how depressing it is to never see the sun because it rains so goddam much. She had just broken up with a boy and she was a kind of Dickon from The Secret Garden character. I wanted her to know that she didn't need the crutch of a boyfriend. And, for once, I wanted to prove this to a person not by having indiscriminate sex with them.
Suddenly at one point she disappeared. She stopped coming to parties. She stopped texting all of us. I emailed her and called her, I invited her to new things. Then I got worried.
She was a young girl in a new city with a history of depression. I remembered that she said that she had just broken up with a boy back home. I felt for her. I was worried about her. I called a mutual friend just to see if she was okay. Conscious. Eating meals. Breathing.
"Is Al-- okay? I haven't heard from her and I'm starting to get worried."
He responded, "Get over it, weirdo."
About a week ago she was in the Times some dipshit had photographed her on Bedford Ave. I was at Leigh's house reading the Sunday paper and I said, Look at that! There's Alex. She is alive after all.
On the way to the G train that very same day I looked up the stairs and this mysterious force materialized. I hadn't seen her in two years and my first words to her were, "You looked great in the paper today."
"Hey," she said instead of mentioning where she's been since 2006. "I was in the paper today? Oh, well."
And, first of all, fuck that. When I'm in the New York Times my aunties go to the special gas station that services that Zionist rag and they cut out the article and it's still on their fridge the following Easter. Of-fucking-course you know you are in the paper.
The very next day I ran into her on Ludlow. I have no idea what she was doing there but we said hi like you would say hi to a person whom you may have seen the last twelve thursdays (but whose last name always escapes you).
Then last Thursday I saw her at Lit. She gave me the same awkward smile (it says: "Hi. I'm new to the city, but you were a phase I went through when I was even newer to the city."). She then did the opposite-territoriality that girls so which is she went behind the bar with her purse, walked up to the guy bartender, talked to him and then walked away.
The question is: what the hell did I do to her (and forget) that makes this girl that I once cared for into a fucking bitch?
I got to leave Beauty Bar a little early tonight and I took the last train to Connecticut to come home for Christmas. The Beauty Bar Christmas Party last last night was wonderful. I lost my camera and all of the local faces showed up. But tonight the only party I want to be at is with my Dah. He picked me up from the train station in New Haven at 1:11AM and as soon as we got home he said, "I think it's time we go to church."
He poured two glasses of Jameson (in the Jameson glasses I bought him last Christmas) and I knew what to do. I said, "Father?"
He said "Son?"
We clinked glasses and both said, in unison, "Holy Ghost!"
My regular gogo dancerhas decided that since she has the #2 single in the country that she is too busy to dance in her underpants on New Years Eve. If you or anyone you know is looking to dance in your underpants please contact me. It was a good career move for her.
When I was 19 I worked for a human rights group in Chinatown. One day I got a copy of a book called Bomb the Suburbs. I then discovered that the author was, like, 20 when he wrote it and had it printed himself. I thought suddenly, "Wow, write your own book? I would like to do that."
Being so young, of course, meant that I did things in the complete ass backwards way. I had published a short story by then and figured that I would include it. Then I had a series of other stories that I planned on including. One of which I thought was a classic tale of my brother standing up for the rights of working class people. Now that I'm older I realize it's just a story of my brother being a dick in a car dealership.
I decided that I needed an illustrator and so I sent letters to a friend I had made the summer before. She was a graffiti writer named Karen from Pawcatuck, Connecticut. We had worked together in Philadelphia trying, unsuccessfully, to free Mumia Abu Jamal.
I was so sure that this plan would work that I mailed her a copy of the story "Management V. Labor" and a check for $50. Over winter break I drove down to her house. Her parents were fisherman and they lived in skinny house. Her dad had a long, white Gordon's fisherman beard. He spent most of the days sitting by the Franklin stove in the living room.
Karen had cashed my check but said she was having trouble designing the cover. Upon arrival I discovered that her biggest problem seemed to be that she had not read the story. After twenty minutes of her sketching out a really bad cover she said that we had to get out of the house.
Her friend's birthday was coming up and we had to go under the train bridge to paint her birthday card mural.
It's been maybe eight years since then. Mumia is still in prison. I don't have a book out. But that's what I think of when I hear this song:
Man, fuck interscope. Maybe a year and a half ago I was evangelical about the need for more schoolyard songs. People love to dance to anything in double-dutch or patty-cake. Malcom McLaren tried to do this in the eighties and it didn't work (as usual he missed the point and sampled the sound of the rope cutting through the air rather than the rhythm of the beads.
And the meeting never went anywhere. After stomping around my apartment doing the demos. Now this fucking Beyonce song is everywhere. Punk assholes are clapping too it, it was all over the place at the Beauty Bar christmas party. If they liked it so much, they shoulda put a ring on it.
Right now I'm waiting for a meeting to start for one of my jobs. I wouldn't be nervous, except I got a call today saying that my job was posted on craigslist today. A better person might regret blowing all that money on roomservice last night, but a better person has probably never had French press coffee delivered to their bedside.
The main thing on my mind is to make sure that I don't take the fall for someone else and that if I get fired I let loose all the shit I've been meaning to say.
On the subway yesterday I finished reading "The Spy Who Loved Me" for part of research I'm thinking of maybe someday doing about Ian Fleming and the time he spent in Kuwait writing for the Kuwait Oil Company (a book which was later squashed by the government). I had read it before, once in high school I picked up an old 60s pulpy copy of it at a coffeeshop in New London where Ben and I had given a speech about something.
For Christmas this year my girlfriend got us a room at the Royalton Hotel on 44th. This could not have been timed better since the heat has been out in my cold-ass apartment since Thursday. We met up early in the day and she had the room decorated with mistletoe, christmas lights, champaign and holiday cheer.
It was, coincidentally a rather James Bond experience this luxuriously having a futuristic hotel room with gadgets galore. The shower door closes automatically and I have expected the door to lock and a German accent to come over the speakers ("Goodbye, Mr. Bond.") as the nozzle exhaled noxious gas.
It was a wonderful time. Instead of getting lunch we had a cheeseplate sent up from room service and pretended to be big shots. I had never stayed in such a nice hotel before, although I coulda maybe done some research (20% gratuity and $5 room service fee included in the check? Kinda wished I had known that before I tipped). I probably embarrassed us both by calling down to the front desk when I couldn't find the ice machine ("Sir, we would be happy to have housekeeping send you a bucket of ice.").
She got the room through a deal at work, so it ended up costing less than an evening of drinking. But I wanted to enjoy our mid town vacation. I thought we would be frugal and industrious and get those last minute TKTS tickets they sell in Times Square. However, I did not anticipate that Champaign, cheese, bathrobes and a shower that was designed for elephant washing would keep us indoors all afternoon.
When I got to the booth at 7:10 most of the shows had started (Broadway shows start at 7? All of them?)
My original plan for Christmas was to fly us both to somewhere special with a different currency. I had been eating mac'n'cheese and drinking only at work for weeks just to save. But that plan fell through for the obvious adult reasons. So instead we went to a very fancy restaurant in a nearby museum of modern art (where I worked for two years). It was sunday and so the only people working were the new, young waitresses and the lifers (busboys, food runners, managers).
Since I was briefly famous this year it was nice to go back for a visit. If you recall, I got fired from this restaurant because on a very slow night (while I was waiting for a girl to come pick me up) I elected not to restock four bottles of wine (lest I leave the bar and she arrive while I was gone).
We had a modest dinner, shared two drinks, had coffee and desert. They didn't comp anything (not even the cocktail, which I designed, which is still on the menu) but they did send out an extra main dish and an extra desert. I put the meal on my credit card and decided to make the 40% tip 2009's problem*.
In general I own very little in terms of clothing. I wear the same pants everyday. I've never had a good amount of "work clothes" either, although I've been lucky enough to have jobs where I'm photographed, which always involves stealing large amounts of expensive clothing. As such I went to the second-fanciest restaurant in Manhattan wearing a three piece suit. Three pieces that did not match, including a pocket-square made of red sparkly cloth from a halloween costume long ago. If I had a cane and baggier trousers I could have been a burlesque MC.
On the way out the door I realized that the only cash I had left to tip the coatcheck girl was $10 (after tipping out the ice-man, the cheeseplate man, etc) and as such I was not such a hot shot. A hot shot gives you a twenty like it's nothing, or as if your coat had the value of something that needed valet parking. A cheap guy hands you a five and asks for change. I clearly just didn't want to interact with anyone else that night.
We walked up fifth avenue to the Paris Theater, which is a gorgeous one-screen movie theater next door to The Plaza. It was glamorous and silly in an Eloise sort of way. We saw "The Reader" with Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet, which can only be described as a "Sexy Halocaust Movie."
Afterwards the only bar open in Midtown was the Hard Rock Cafe. We endured last call in times square, drinking fruity magaritas next to a glass enclosed Gwen Stefani costume and a ruffle-shirt worn by one of the Doors.
I awoke this morning surrounded by Champaign bottles and candy canes. I could barely get out of bed, but I jostled the phone enough to call for room service. The brought us coffee, and I resisted the urge to order us $18 omletes.
*When you work in a restaurant and you hook someone up by giving them a smaller bill nothing is more annoying or insulting than tipping 20% on a check that is 50% of what it should be.
MERCUTIO, DANTE, PRINCE, PRINCESS, GIOTTO, ET AL SIT DOWN TO DINNER IN THE MAIN HALL, ATTENDED BY SERVANTS. MERCUTIO WEARS AN EYEPATCH AND IS SEATED NEXT TO DANTE. PRINCESS: Oh, Mercutio. Are you okay over there? I don’t know how that parrot got out. I am sorry. Doctor say your eye should heal up just fine. MERCUTIO: Is my depth perception off or are these gigantic chicken legs? ‘Scuse me, I’ve dropped something. Mercutio bangs his leg against the table then peers underneath where Arlecchino collects the discarded bones. MERCUTIO: (WHISPERS) What the hell was that about before? PRINCE: (ABOVE) If you’ve dropped something I have a servant to clean it up. ARLECCHINO: (WHISPERS) I’m sorry. He got away from me. MERCUTIO: And where the hell were you before? I had to deal with this wretch? I’m hopping around all afternoon like an idiot shouting, “Where’s Arlecchino? Where’s Arlecchino?” PARROT: (POPS OUT OF AR’S SHIRT) RAWK! WHERE’S ARLECCHINO?” Mercutio cracks his head on the table, rattling the silverware and spilling the wine. PRINCESS: Mercutio, sweetie, are you okay? MERCUTIO: Fine yes, thank you. PRINCE: Mercutio, are you familiar with Mr. Dante? MERCUTIO: Yes, in fact we met today. PRINCE: And are you familiar with his work? MERCUTIO: I’ve only read La Vita Nuova. PRINCESS: Aww! The love poems to Beatrice! MERCUTIO: Right, the book about the dead girl. I thought it the most wonderful piece of necrophilia I’ve ever read. PRINCE: Mercutio! Be kind. Beatrice’s death was very hard on Dante. MERCUTIO: Something tells me it was harder on her! Arlecchino pulls Mercutio’s heal beneath the table and emerges. Mercutio bangs his kneed again. PRINCESS: Everything okay over there? MERCUTIO: Just fine thank you. PRINCE: And how are you finding your room? MERCUTIO: (MUMBLING) Defiled? PRINCE: Pardon? MERCUTIO: (WIPES MOUTH) Just like the sign says. It’s Paradise. PRINCESS: I do home so. Life around here has been such absolute hell with all the construction going on. Drop cloths in the hallway, scaffolding in the kitchen. It’s a wonder any of us can sleep at night with a house of such disarray! Arlecchino reappears at the door to announce visitors. ARLECCHINO: I present Lord and Lady Montague and their son. Romeo shyly enters. Lord and Lady Montague enter triumphant. LADY MONTAGUE: Mercutio! My baby, I heard you were back and I couldn’t believe it until I held you in my arms. How are you sweetie? You look thin. Are you ill? Lady Capulet presses her hand to Mercutio’s forehead. MERCUTIO: Wonderful to see you as always, Lady Montague. LADY MONTAGUE: Don’t get up! Sit! Eat! And please: Lady Montague was my mother in law’s name. Call me Mama, like you used to. MERCUTIO: (STANDS) It’s so nice of your to drop by. LADY MONTAGUE: How tall you’ve gotten! My baby is grown into a man! It seems like only last spring I would find you lost in my garden in a failed game of hide-and-seek with little Romeo. What a man you’ve become. Don’t you remember? How many times did I wanted outside at just the moment you’d be crying for me? “Mama!” Little Mercutio would shout. “Where’s my Mama?” Remember? And I would have to pick you up and carry you off to bed. My, My you’re almost big enough to do that to me. She laughs once and its it with a hmmh-haha that disappears with a sharp sniff into the awkward pause. She looks around. MERCUTIO: Forgive me for not making the proper introductions. This is-- LADY MONTAGUE: Giotto, of course! We had him to our house last spring to paint the garden walls. GIOTTO: (SQUINTING) I did? LADY MONTAGUE: (DISMISSIVE) He says that every time! MERCUTIO: And--I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. DANTE: Dante. MERCUTIO: Right. This is Dante alla Blahbadeeblah, he’s a musician or something. LADY MONTAGUE: How wonderful to have you in Verona and sitting here with such a handsom man. Which instrument to you play? DANTE: Actually I don’t. LADY MONTAGUE: A singer, are you? Well then most welcome! I don’t see any young ladies in tow with you tonight, Mercutio? What have you been getting yourself into? Montague brushes Mercutio’s shoulder and fixes his collar. MERCUTIO: None for me on this occasion. LADY MONTAGUE: PLease tell me you can stay. Romeo could really use a man like you around. Which reminds me! (I heard Susan Grindstone was asking about you. She’s in town for the summer. Do you know her? MERCUTIO: Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure of knowing her. Lady Montague smacks Mercutio on the shoulder. LADY MONTAGUE: You behave yourself or at least send for us when you forget to. I swear Mercutio one of these days God will be merciful enough on you to strike you with lightning! Romeo Returns. LADY MONTAGUE: Here’s my prince! He could really use a friend like you around. It has been so long since you came to Verona. Mercutio studies the gleeful Romeo and looks him in the eye. MERCUTIO: (TO ROMEO) What’s her name? LADY MONTAGUE: Who’s name? What is he talking about, Romeo? ROMEO: Nothing, Mama. LADY MONTAGUE: What is whose name? MERCUTIO: Forgive me, Lady Mont-- Mama. I was just teasing the boy. Lady Montague smacks Mercutio on the back of the head. LADY MONTAGUE: Don’t tease my son. MERCUTIO: Understood. Understood. LADY MONTAGUE: (SMILES) It’s good to hav eyou hom, Mercutio. Will you stay at least for the week? We have so much going on in our little city. Venice can wait, no? Lady Montague excuses herself and makes her rounds. ROMEO: I’ll tell you about her later. You simply must meet this wonderful creature. MERCUTIO: Have I had the chance to discuss lemons with you, gentle Romeo? ROMEO: Lemons? MERCUTIO: We’ll talk tomorrow. Dante begins to stir and gets up to get out of his seat. DANTE: If you gentlemen will excuse me, I believe I’ve had my fill. As Dante stands up he pushes his chair back with a loud groan and a ridiculously large pile of bones spills out from under the table as Arlecchino escapes out the other end. 200 or so. PRINCE: My, my! It looks like Mr. Dante brought quite the appetite with him today! DANTE: (NOT AMUSED) Those are not mine. Arlecchino and Mercutio exchange conspiratorial smile. PRINCE: Not anymore. Looks like you barely left enough meat for the crows! Certainly Dante is a great devourer of meat! DANTE: Goodness no. Cangrande, you would not have seen so many bones had I been a dog.
Last night I met up with some old friends at Lit, which is a bar that everyone I know goes to all the time and I rarely go to. My biggest Mercutio champion is a door guy there who is an expert in stage fighting. An old flame of mine was Gogo dancing downstairs. And I may have mentioned before that the second gayest thing about me is that I have a DJ rival, whom I forgot was the DJ downstairs.
In addition to having had dinner with my girlfriend a million years ago (the bastard!) he also perpetrates some really dick moves. I have one of my favorite bands booked on New Years, he booked them to play his stupid party a week before for 1/7th of the price. He's also trying to do a Slutcracker rip off called "Nutcracker: Rated R." I can only assume that he sits up at night reading through my gmail (somehow) and, upon discovering that I've been trying to bring Adrianne's show to NY--decided to do it himself the week before.
Now, as a recovering bartender I know more than one thing about how annoying the dirty kids get when they travel en masse. But I waited maybe fifteen minutes at the bar to get a drink. There were 3 bartenders on, which, like Ghostbusters, can only work if you never cross your streams. If three bartenders just work hard at the ten feet of bar space directly in front of them everybody wins. But when they all scramble around trying to get every customer on all sides of the bar I get left behind near the fruit tray.
When I got my shot it had visible floating white things in it which took a moment to settle. I know I should not have drunk it. But I definitely did. There are three things I tell myself whenever I'm about to do something gross.
I never mind dirty glasses in a bar because chances are they were dirtied by the mouth or the lipstick of someone I would make out with anyway.
If I did ask for a cleaner glass they would merely rinse my glass with water and the glass I had in my hand was already rinsed in alcohol.
There's no reason to waste perfectly good Jameson.
I waited for the sediment to settle and didn't drink the end of it.
It was fun to see some old friends, though. One friend was an ambitious blonde actress who had moved to LA and was back in town for a visit. I could tell the LA thing wasn't going so well because she was back in town visiting and she was staying with one of the barbacks from a club we used to work in. Another friend was a girl I used to have a crush on until I discovered that she was a conservative. She, somewhat annoyingly, has since become a full time actress by staying in New York.*
The girls were having fun and my old friend Jeremy was DJ'ing upstairs. This was great because not only did I already know and like the DJ, but being the DJ's friend also means you don't have to watch your jacket or backpack all night because they'll keep it in the booth.
I turned around and one of the girls said, "Dirty's** ex is gogo dancing downstairs."
They all looked for me for some kind of verification. I told them all that we could go downstairs as long as everyone pretended to be my girlfriend.
We walked downstairs and some band was playing. The singer was moaning over and over again into his own reverb, wearing an outfit made of 20-30 stuffed animals. It was fantastic. Then they all started screaming and fighting with cheap toy lightsabers.***
The ole girl was in fact dancing there. It was nice to see her and I said so. "How are things?"
"I'm working on a play now," I said.
"I always think of you and your big wizard dictionary."****
We walked away from a very pleasant ex-exchange and I was happy. Most of my exes seem to join the witness protection program soon after we stop dating. I walked back to my friends and the girl from LA said, "Is that what she called your cock?"
"What?"
"Oh, Dirty, I loooove your big wizard dictionary."
"Shut the fuck up. We're going back upstairs."
The L stopped running at Bedford and so I walked the half mile to Leigh's house in the beginnings of a beautiful snowstorm singing Irish songs to myself in the reverb of empty streets where I may have looked somewhat crazy. But I was just happy.
*You may look for her in the forthcoming "Confessions of a Shopaholic."
**For reasons that you are free to invent for yourself my nickname at work is "Dirty" which is short for "Dirty Nerdy."
***As opposed to the real ones, which can cut your hand off.
****She once, while on the phone to a friend chatting the morning after said, "Did you know he's a writer? It's very sexy. He gets up every morning and writes and looks up words in this gigantic dictionary with a crystal ball magnifying glass."
To be as clear as possible about the problem we're having with the Cleveland Shuffle I would like to stress that the version we're looking for does not ever get "crunk."
Everyone on Youtube cannot wait to teach you how to dance to the album version. Asian people apparently love it.These are approximately the lyrics I remember:
Where all my line dancers at? Where all my line dancers at? Everybody face the DJ booth. I know y'all know us 71 North Boyz the ones who brought you that "Boodie Bounce" and this one here is called "The Shuffle."
Awwwwwww... Do the shuffle! To the back now, y'all One hop this time!
Left foot lifts up Right foot lifts up. Try it again. Turn it up.
Cha cha real smooth. Turn it up.
Chris cross! Chris cross! Everybody clap your hands.
Bounce to this, now bounce to this, bou-bou-bou-boub-bounce to this.
I believe this next Youtube video is a clip of the correct version. However it's of a high school girl's gym class and I can't help feeling gross about watching teenage girls dance in shorts. Thanks anyway, Lildancediva001.
This song is a very irritating mystery to me. It seems that even the band doesn't have the full version. There are probably two dozen videos of these fat Cleveland corner boys dancing (without instructions) and then giving up on the song halfway through and switching to "Boodie Bounce." It's driving me crazy.
I really hope that someday I remember to write about the importance of Dj World from Chicago. He's a mentor to me and even more important to Obama's career.
My favorite thing about not being invited to the party is that you get to drink all the polite people's beer and you can leave yours in your backpack. Classy.
Thanks for your help in trying to find "The Cleveland Shuffle." There was one track you found that was correct but the version that everyone knows (but doesn't seem to have) includes the dance instructions. "Slide to the left" "Slide to the right" "Everybody claps your hands!"
1) The most wonderful time of the year is almost here! The Beauty Bar Christmas party!
This is an extra special time for me because when I started in 2004 they wouldn't let me join in any reindeer games. In 2005 they said no-DJ's-allowed. In 2006 they invited me right after Jackie got locked into the bathroom for an hour and was rescued by Raul and that same year I picked Raul's name in the drawing. I gave him an autographed picture of Jackie from MisShapes and had her write "Raul es me hero!" In 2007 I got drunk at the party, then went to my other gig. I was later fired from that job.
2) I am really appreciating my novel for the first time really as I work on adapting it. I feel like Max in Rushmore. A second ago I was in Gorilla Coffee and when asked if I wanted a refill I responded "I wrote a hit play!"
3) Christmas is cancelled this year. This weekend I had houseguests who, for whatever reason, needed my iPhone cord desperately to transfer songs while I was at work. They then hid this cord from me. When I got home last night I had to plug my iPhone into the kitchen iPod dock to charge it. This put it in airplane mode.
This morning my phone was off when my booker called to get book me for five different parties this week. They all went to some other asshole. The good news is: I have the next couple of weeks off.
The good news is that the cord has been found. I am not upset about this. After all, I wrote a hit play:
MERCUTIO WALKS DOWN THE HALLWAY AND RUNS INTO DANTE. MERCUTIO: Well if it isn’t the man who invented love! DANTE: I beg your pardon, sir? MERCUTIO: Mr. Dante. What a pleasure it is to host you in my bedroom. DANTE: I’m sorry sir, I haven’t had the pleasure of-- MERCUTIO: Oh trust me: I’ve had the pleasure. Many times, hmmm. How is the trilogy coming along? Mercutio pumps his hand overenthusiasticaly DANTE: Oh, that, well… I’ll be lucky to finish it before I die. MERCUTIO: As will we sir! It took me the better part of last summer just to read Purgatorio. DANTE: I have a feeling that will be the least popular volume. It-- MERCUTIO: I have a feeling you’re right! DANTE: --is rare in humanity that we like to think of the work ahead of us, that’s for sure. Purgatory is the second most promising thing about Christianity. And yet, no one wants to hear about it. Dante sighs, glottal and girlish. DANTE: In general we enjoy the tragedy of others, their misfortunes and never wish them to be our own. That, and we all like stories of untold joy and smiles of Fortune. MERCUTIO: Yes but and then what? DANTE: And then what what? MERCUTIO: And then what do we do? What do we do when we reach heaven? What do we do when we’ve finally attained that thing we’ve been searching for? DANTE: I think we’re talking about two different things. MERCUTIO: I can see that. DANTE: Heaven is the ultimate goal in humanity and Christian humanity is only one example of this. In Heaven we cease to exist as we once did. Time is not what we thought it was, our bodies are not what we thought they were. Language disappears and so does all of our earthly needs of survival, food, lust, companionship, conversation, literature, entertainment. MERCUTIO: This is fantastic, Mr. Dante. So what you’re saying is that Christianity is magnificent because instead of ending life in the disappearing act of death--instead of burning out like a candle--we--God’s own candles--can have the joy of being tortured like a candle in the fires of the Inferno. In Purgatory we can have hot wax poured on us and try and keep our wick aflame. And if we’re really, really good we can go to the heavenly light where no one has any need for a candle in the first place and we immediately disintegrate. DANTE: I never said Christianity is magnificent, but you’re quite right on with the rest. MERCUTIO: So instead of a world where we cease to exist upon death you’ve promised us an ending where instead we go to heaven. DANTE: Right. MERCUTIO: And in heaven: we cease to exist. DANTE: I don’t think I caught your name. MERCUTIO: Mercutio. DANTE: It’s not that easy, Mercutio. MERCUTIO: What’s not that easy? DANTE: Creating. It doesn’t just fall out of your ass because you squat. MERCUTIO: I beg your pardon. DANTE: Let me beg yours before I got to my dinner. I beg your pardon because you’ve never once had to work in your life and let me guess, you never finished Purgatorio. MERCUTIO: I did too! (aside) I did not. DANTE: Sure you did. Let me save you the trouble: rest assured there is a place for you somewhere in my work and I wrote it down before I met you. MERCUTIO: I hope you do die before this thing gets finished and then we’ll never know what circle of heaven you’ve made for your cocky self. DANTE: They’re not circles in heaven. They’re spheres. Of course you didn’t finish Purgatorio. You’ve another ignorant git who doesn’t listen to a word people have to say unless it’s about food or sex. MERCUTIO: Sorry? I didn’t catch that first part. DANTE: Don’t patronize me. If you had any idea what it is to work you might understand great work. If you had any idea what it is to have a brilliant idea crammed into your head and stuck there like a keg that cannot be tapped. The whole book is right here. Dante drums his skull like a village idiot. DANTE: Right here and I can’t get it out because I know it will only fall in the ignorant hands of gawkers like you. You’ll even buy it. But you won’t read it. MERCUTIO: I’ve always imagined that it would be a Christmas present from the Prince so that the whole kingdom can see how much you kissed his ass in this one. DANTE: I wasn’t finished. If you had any idea what it is like to spend every day trying to get an idea to flow out of your head, you would understand. If you had any idea what it’s like to sit in your apartment hopping on one foot--raving, mad, driven to insanity by frustration--like a swimmer with a clogged ear. MERCUTIO: (CORRECTING HIM) My apartment. DANTE: Your apartment? My god! Has there ever been such absentee ownership in the entire Roman Empire? MERCUTIO: I do have some helpful advice for you, Mr. Dante. The cure for Swimmer’s Ear is the same as Writer’s Block. DANTE: Please. Astonish me with your expert swimmers ear/writer’s cure. MERCUTIO: Forgive me for only having the cure for one. But if you need to get something out of your head there one thing you’ll need to pour in. DANTE: Please infultrate me with this lesson! MERCUTIO: Al-co-hol. Just then Arlecchio comes running down the hall screaming ARLECCHINO: Help! Help! Mercutio catch him before he gets out again! Mercutio turns around to see the escaped parrot swoop into the room. Mercutio leaps backward a moment too late. The parrot hits him in the face. DANTE: Mercutio! Mercutio can you hear me? I think he’s waking up! MERCUTIO: Jesus Christ. DANTE: Is he okay? MERCUTIO: Where is Arlecchino? Arlecchino comes running back with a pillow for Mercutio PARROT: (CRAWS) RAWK! WHERE’S ARLECCHINO?
MERCUTIO AND ARLECCHINO ENTER THE CONFINES OF A TINY ROOM WHICH IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION. ARLECCHINO: ‘Snot so bad in here. Paradise, eh? MERCUTIO: I don’t want Paradise. I just want to sleep in my own bed. ARLECCHINO: Do you think it’s true about Muslims and their paradise? Full of 73 virgin men? MERCUTIO: Dante would be the one to ask about the afterlife. ARLECCHINO: What about women? When Muslim women go to hell do they have to be stuck there with 73 virgin men? MERCUTIO: (SHUDDERS) Your hell sounds alot like my boarding school. ARLECCHINO: Or my orphanage. MERCUTIO: The problem with paradise is that as soon as you reach it you will want nothing more than to be back at home on the earth you left. Mr. Dante seems to know this and forget it. Although I have a feeling that when Paradiso finally finally comes out he’ll meet up once again with that girl he met so long ago and never talked to and his heaven is just to be with her. But what is her paradise? And where? Something tells me it is not holding the smelly, ink-stained fingers of old-ass Dante. ARLECCHINO: Sounds like my Thursday afternoons. MERCUTIO: Arlecchino I’ve never asked you this before-- ARLECCHINO: Three. But one was a nun at the orphanage and one might be a eunuch, didn’t get the third’s name, quite frankly. MERCUTIO: Thank you for that extra bit of information. ARLECCHINO: My pleasure. MERCUTIO: Hm, literally. ARLECCHINO: What else would you like to know? MERCUTIO: Your family, did you know them before you…uh…the reason I ask is that I am wondering if we’d all be better off without the impetus of family, bearing down on all of us at all times. You seem quite happy most days. ARLECCHINO: And I am, sir. I have happy memories. MERCUTIO: But of what, Arlecchino? ARLECCHINO: I don’t know, but they make me happy. MERCUTIO: I don’t understand. ARLECCHINO: Neither do I and yet I’m quite happy with them. Arlecchio removes Mercutio’s cloak and hangs it up. MERCUTIO: You mean you have happy memories of your mother? ARLECCHINO: I am very proud of my family. My full name is Arlecchino Davido Sprufadelli. Don’t make fun of me. Mercutio turns to see how he may have offended Arlecchio. ARLECCHINO: My elders were people of consequence. In fact, the first Sprufadelli to walk the earth was a pork butcher so talented that Nero refused to put any other man’s sausage in his mouth. MERCUTIO: I see ARLECCHINO: (CHEST SWELLS) And he sired Fragocola, the great captain. Fragocola married a woman of such lively temperment that she bore me just two days after the wedding. Arlecchio peels of Mercutio’s shirts, strips him to waist. ARLECCHINO: I have no memories of my mother. But I love her very much. MERCUTIO: Then it is your father whom you have the great memories from? ARLECCHINO: My father is a different story. But I loved him very much as well and he makes me very happy. MERCUTIO: Because he took care of you when your mother passed? ARLECCHINO: Oh, I have no idea about that. My only memory of my father is him hiding me in a jar and escaping our hometown. MERCUTIO: Pardon? ARLECCHINO: As far as I understand it, my father was the sweetest most gentle man alive and he loved everybody equally--and me with the other two thirds. Mercutio turns to question. Arlecchino continues. ARLECCHINO: My father was a very jolly sort of fellow and if he passed any honest man on the road by day he would lift his hat to that man, with no concern for that man’s position in life. However, if he passed any man on the road by night he would lift no only his hat, but his cloak. MERCUTIO: I see. ARLECCHINO: With no concern for that man’s position in life. Arlecchio folds Mercutio’s clothes. ARLECCHINO: He doffed such a courtesy once to the wrong member of the clergy on a cold winter’s night where the man’s vestments could not be seen. The law took exception to his excess of civility. Being too polite to cause the clergyman any grief or paperwork, my father put me in a jar, padded it with straw and tore down the street in a borrowed chariot. Everywhere we went he whipped our horses shouting “Ar! Ar!” Kinda Piratish, right? But this was an Asiatic donkey we were riding and he spoke only Asiatic and French. The donkey, not my father. I mean you don’t just grab a Greek donkey and start speaking Italian to it, do you? Christ it’s not even the same alphabet. MERCUTIO: I see. ARLECCHINO: Again, I did not. But I did hear. This donkey took us all the way to his birthplace in France and my father’s French wasn’t so good. However, in France you can find many people who are as egalitarian with their manners as my father. But just at the border he say a man lying in a bush waiting to catch us and he shouted: “Ar! Ar!--le-chin-o!” MERCUTIO: Which is Asiatic French donkeyspeak for “Go! Go! He’s lying in wait!” ARLECCHINO: Exactly. But that is not the important thing. What’s more important is that he-- The doors burst open and the Prince emerges followed by the rest of the family. Princess and Paris. PRINCE: Mercutio! The prodigal cousin returns! You don’t call on me, you don’t write. I had to send one of my own men just to get you from a place in my own Kingdom. Where have you been? PRINCESS: We were worried you had gone off an joined the church again or something silly. Ah! You’ve lost ten pounds since I’ve seen you last! Don’t tell me you haven’t found a woman to keep you fed and healthy. It is a woman you see, Mercutio? PARIS: Look at him! Don’t even tell me what you paid for those pants. Whatever it is you paid too much. When you need clothes, come see your cousin Paris. I got a guy. He’ll give you a good price. PRINCE: I thought you were dead. I never heard back from Arlecchino and I thought you were all dead. Is he here? Or are you both dead? Send him to the coffin-maker to cancel my order! PRINCESS: Honey, you got gunk on your face. Princess goes to wipe his face, Mercutio struggles away. MERCUTIO: Can I please dress in peace? And when I get to dinner can we at least pretend to be like the families in folk tales who cannot wait for their families to return? Please just this once. As a favor to my cousin Leon before the earth swallows him back up? All exit except Mercutio.
If you've read it this far: the original ending to this scene was:
PRINCESS: Honey you got schmutz on your face. MERCUTIO: I have what? Excuse me, did someone want to tell me that on the way home from Church everyone converted to Judaism? Mozol tov! Now can I please dress in peace?
In college one of the best gigs I had going was DJ'ing for the black sororities. They paid something like $150, which is alot of money in college dollars. It was great to have all these big black girls shouting your name.
The other amazing thing was learning how little I knew about black dancing culture. Plenty of people know "The Electric Slide" but there are probably a half dozen other song/dance duos out there. The one all the Ohio girls loved was called:
I sampled it a million years ago for the line "everybody face the DJ booth."
Today I bartended an office party at noon for a real estate company. It was full of middle aged black and dominican apartment brokers. We ran out of Henessey twice and I'm never making an apple martini every again. BUT I think I started screaming and cheering when the bullshit wedding DJ threw on "The Cleveland Shuffle."
I love the fucking Cleveland Shuffle. I love anything that involves people clapping all at the same time.
I can't find it anywhere. It's too black for iTunes. Amazon has it listed as on sale used for $39.95. I really want to play it on New Years.
The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences is in a dead-lock this year on the Grammy for "Best Dance Song" and have decided instead to change to category to "World's Greatest Sunglasses Mannequin." So exciting!
A long time ago I was working with this singer and she flew out to LA to work with another producer. I thought this was great and I cheered her on. When she came back she had accomplished alot and we talked extensively about huge things we would one day do together. I didn't think much of the trip at the time because all she came back with was:
This is a much better version than the original, although now that it includes a verse by the Brit about taking off his clothes I find it...I don't know...nevermind...
MERCUTIO AWAKENS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS IN HIS COUSIN’S PALACE. ARLECCHINO STANDS OVER HIM WITH A FRIAR. MERCUTIO: Mother! ARLECCHINO: I’ve been with him all day and he hasn’t had anything to drink. Not even at communion. FRIAR: Try not to move for now, if you can. Be not afraid. I am with you, my son. MERCUTIO: You-- FRIAR: Shhh… in stillness, Mercutio. I am Laurence and you need to make no introduction of yourself. I know you and it occurs to me that I have known you for some time. MERCUTIO: How? FRIAR: Please, Mercutio. Rest. Rest and breathe. I am with you. You are lucky to have such a goodly friend as young Arlecchino. He knew just where to find me and we got to you right in time. ARLECCHINO: You had me scared. I thoguht you might never wake up or, if you did I thought you’d be messed up for life like Friar Giuseppe. Arlecchino catches himself. ARLECCHINO: Forgive me father. FRIAR: God pardons sin. ARLECCHINO: Then put in a good word for me. FRIAR: That must have been quite a fall, my son. But fear not for Luke 4:11 says that-- Mercutio sits up. MERCUTIO: Save your bible coordinates for lost sailors. Let them be the wiser. Help me up. I… I was doing… something? FRIAR: Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast. MERCUTIO: And those who stay in bed still get killed by meteorites. FRIAR: Then let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Mercutio leans over. FRIAR: I thought I recognized you. MERCUTIO: Lord have Mercy. FRIAR: Mercutio, correct? I believe we may have wandered by each other toward the end of my student days. Mercutio looks up and sees the flowers Friar carries. MERCUTIO: Is that foxglove? Digitalis? FRIAR: Indeed, sir. MERCUTIO: Isn’t it poisonous? FRIAR: Everything is poisonous in the right quantities. Our Lord Jesus gave the high priests and elders too much truth and yet it was he who died from it. MERCUTIO: You’re of the Order of Wandering Students? FRIAR: Indeed, I was familiar with such when I was in school. My studies of medicine made me quite popular with many of your friends. MERCUTIO: I told those boys no thank you a long time ago. FRIAR: Even so, it was not uncommon for a student to visit home and, say, leave a chambermaid with a little souvenir and maybe she might give that souvenir to another servant and before you know it the queen’s lips bear the mark of this souvenirship. Then they may come to me. Do we understand each other, Mr. Mercutio? MERCUTIO: Arlecchino! ARLECCHINO: It wasn’t me, Mercutio. I swear I never touched her. I only started working for your family last week and, and I would never touch Columbina. I did never touch Columbina. I talked to her once, just to ask about which fruits you like and she didn’t know and that was the end of it. I don’t even find her than attractive. MERCUTIO: Arlecchino. ARLECCHINO: I’m not saying she’s not attractive. She’s beautiful. But we work together. And, and it just wouldn’t be right and so before this becomes a big problem-- MERCUTIO: Arlecchino, could you-- ARLECCHINO: Twice, okay, twice. I’m sorry. I forgot. One other time I asked her if she had put clean sheets on your bed. It was for you. I swear. I don’t even find her that attractive. MERCUTIO: Arlecchino! Could you please show the friar his way out? ARLECCHINO: Yes--right! Of course, Mercutio. I am on it right now. This way, Friar. Thank you for coming. I will see you in confession. FRIAR: Very well, if you need me you know where to find me. Friar hands Arlecchino the foxglove flowers. FRIAR: And these are for our prince. See to it that he gets them before dinner. MERCUTIO: What a sweet thought, Friar. Arlecchino, why dont you put them with all the other flowers that line the palace gate? On the ground. I’ll make sure my cousin knows they are from you. Really appreciate the visit, father. FRIAR: And be sure to come see me if… MERCUTIO: Right. If the plague of Gomorrah cankers my lips you’ll be the first I confess to. Arlecchino walks the friar out and carefully brings the flowers with him. Mercutio walks out into the hall where he sees Giotto and his painters at work. MERCUTIO: Wow. Very impressive, Mr. Giotto. Giotto peers over his gold framed spectacles. GIOTTO: Who said that? MERCUTIO: It’s me, sir. Mercutio. GIOTTO: Mercutio? Mercutio who? MERCUTIO: Mercutio Escalus, sir. I spoke with you just a short while ago. Giotto motions for the mirror boy to find some light. GIOTTO: You did? MERCUTIO: I could not have been an hour ago. GIOTTO: Really? MERCUTIO: Yes. Giotto turns back to his work. GIOTTO: Careful with the teats, Pedrolino. She’s the symbolic embodiment of avarice and appetite, not the goddess of wet-nurses. PEDROLINO: I’m sorry sir. Very sorry. I must have had Remus of possibly Romulus in my head. Forgive me. I wasn’t thinking. GIOTTO: Good. I’m not paying you to think. I’m paying you to paint. In fact, today I’m not paying you at all. PEDROLINO: I’m very sorry. Please forgive me. GIOTTO: We’ll see how this wolf turns out. Giotto turns back to Mercutio and peers over his spectacles. GIOTTO: May I help you, sir? Mercutio wanders out of the hall and searches the renovated halls. Doorways mortared shut make new room for the prince’s stolen paintings. Mercutio gets lost. Mercutio wanders into an upstairs room. A woman stands in the mirror admiring herself in a beautiful dress. WOMAN: (STARTLED) What man are you? The woman covers herself in a nearby cloak. MERCUTIO: That depends, Madonna, on which one you were expecting. WOMAN: Why I-- MERCUTIO: Forgive me, I was searching for a servant to change the linens in the Mercury room, it seems no one has let Mr. Dante know that he is to be moved. A voice calls out from down the hallway. VOICE: Columbina! Columbina! Columbina grabs Mercutio, throws him into the closet and tears off the dress to his audible delight. COLUMBINA: Shh! Not a word. VOICE: Columbina! Columbina! The guests are almost here. Are you finished with my dress? Columbina! Where are you? The princess enters the room in funeral dress. PRINCESS: Columbina! The guests are almo-- COLUMBINA: Dona eus requiem. Madam forgive me. I was saying a prayer for the soul of your nephew. I wish him nothing but eternal rest. PRINCESS: And I as well, Columbina. Continue with your prayers and give me my dress for the reception. The guests are almost arrived and it is far too hot out there today to keep them waiting. COLUMBINA: I’ll get it for you, Madam. I hung it to dry in the closet. Columbina reaches in, Mercutio hands her the dress. PRINCESS: Now help me out of this one first. She takes off the dress to Mercutio’s audible horror. The princess stands naked behind the screen. Mercutio gags. PRINCESS: Did you say something? COLUMBINA: No, I-- PRINCESS: Ugh! I feel like a summer pig in this! Why doesn’t the Prince just fatten me up a little mroe and he can serve me at the funeral feast! COLUMBINA: Oh, my lady! You look simply radiant in it! PRINCESS: Radient now in here, perhaps. But then tonight with Lady Capulet, you know how she is with her, her remarks. COLUMBINA: Maybe you could add a wrap? The funeral is over and you were only second cousins to the boy. PRINCESS: My cousin Paris will be there. He’s simply destroyed by Leo’s death. COLUMBINA: Poor boy. Never had many other friends to start with. PRINCESS: Leo or Paris? The one who’s really destroyed by all of this is young Mercutio. He ran off screaming halfway through the service. Poor little Mercutio. Never had much of a chance. How’s this now? If I am to look like a pig may I at least look like a suckling pig? COLUMBINA: You look radiant. The princess exits. Mercutio steps out of the closet. MERCUTIO: How did you get that scar above your left knee? COLUMBINA: I was gored by a wild boar, why? MERCUTIO: I could have sword that was Odysseus. COLUMBINA: I don’t know what you think you are doing here but you’ve overstayed your welcome. Now will you please leave before you get me in trouble with both Church and State? MERCUTIO: The Guelfs and the Ghibellines would never keep me from this Palace, my lady. COLUMBINA: I don’t know what you think is going on here but I am the seamstress to the mistress of the house and the way I keep my job is by keeping certain things tucked away and sewn shut. MERCUTIO: I knew a guy like that in Istanbul once. COLUMBINA: Please leave before you cost me my job. Arlecchino’s voice calls out from the hall. ARLECCHINO: Mercutio! Mercutio! COLUMBINA: Sir, you must leave at once! They’re looking for that troubled one and if-- MERCUTIO: Troubled? Marry! He’s only a bit misunderstood. Arlecchio walks past the door. Mercutio peeks out. ARLECCHINO: Mercutio! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. MERCUTIO: Then it stands to reason that I must have been hiding nowhere? ARLECCHINO: Wait if… MERCUTIO: Nevermind, Arlecchino.
WITH MERCUTIO PASSED OUT DOWNSTAIRS THE SCENE CHANGES TO UPSTAIRS. DARK LIGHTS AND A CHOIR OF ANGELS RING OUT. YOUNG MERCUTIO LIGHTS A CANDLE AND PRAYS FOR THE SOUL OF HIS MOTHER. MERCUTIO: Hail Mary full of grace, I would like to pray for the soul of my mother. May she rest in piece. God bless Mary, the patron saint of mothers. St. Mary walks out in a blue shawl and kneels down with him. MERCUTIO: I pray for the lost animals. Blessed be all the orphaned ones. St. Francis, watch over them. St. Francis walks out in a brown robe and kneels down. ALL: (SINGING) “Pie Jesus domine, dona eis requiem. Dona eis requiem sempiternam.” Angel Gabriel enters the room, kneels. MERCUTIO: Please send our message back to heaven that we pray for you, mother. A line of saints enter. All donate a piece of silver as they take a candle. Each lights one off the other other. Each wears the colorful vestments that they would in a Giotto fresco. ALL: (SINGING) “Pie Jesus domine, dona eis requiem. Dona eis requiem sempiternam.” Jesus enters and kneels down next to Mary. JESUS AND MERCUTIO: We pray for our mothers and the mothers of the world. Mary begins to cry and Jesus comforts her. Jesus walks to the altar and prepares communion for all, mysteriously producing goblets of wine. ALL: (SINGING) “Pie Jesus domine, dona eis requiem. Dona eis requiem sempiternam.” All line up for communion. Jesus hands out the goblets of wine to all. Each comes to the altar still carrying candles. MARY: In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, Amen. With their saintly voices they all blow out their candles. The room goes dark. All candles drop. The lights go out and all saints exit. Mercutio clutches his eyes shut in the middle of the room, awaiting his answer. Mercutio opens his eyes and finds himself alone. He walks over to the altar candles in disbelief. He tests the candle wax and pulls his burning finger away his finger in pain. He picks up an empty wine goblet. MERCUTIO: Where is God in all of this? Hello? Can you hear me? The door burst open and Cousin Leo rushes into the room. LEO: Mercutio? Leo sniffs Mercutio. LEO: Have you been drinking? MERCUTIO: What? No. Mother, mother, I--
Can someone explain drama to me? I'm trying to adapt one of my favorite scenes. It has almost no dialogue but it will last four minutes. I tried looking it up in Aristophanes. Shakespeare was terrible with stage directions.
Tina Fey recommended reading the script for Tootsie, but it's not helping so far.
When my mother died I was just eleven. A great light in my world snuffed out by the monster, or rather by the parasite he shot inside of her. But like many adults who see their parents through fatal illness, her death came to me as a slow but screeching halt. When sunlight filters through the rose window of San Zeno its corners sometimes spread the light out into its spectrum like the rainbow that follows a storm. Instead of the pure white light you see its seven teammates, broken down into their individual occupations. Red for the love she gave me, orange for the changing leaves of her season, yellow for the happy times, green for my envious love, blue for the rivers of tears she dried, and violet for her goodness. And rather than watch her rainbow disappear I suffered each loss individually until I could bear it no more. Death was a relief. What is my mother if she does not have her red love for me? What is her love if we have none of our yellow happy times? The Lord snuffed her out with the jolly indifference of an altarboy, cleaning up the prayer candles after mass and pretending it’s his birthday cake. And so I gave God His Birthday Wish. With nothing left for me at home I ran still freshly shamed by the geyser Matelda discovered. And I joined a monastery. Our Friar, who art in his cell, cruelty be thy game. I hailed Mary at all hours as I scrubbed the floors and helped prepare meals for my fellow Franciscan monks. I did not follow the other boys into the tomato patches where they—like sloppy seconds Onan—spilled their seed on the ground. Mercutio’s knees prayed holes through his robes. Mercutio studied. Mercutio blew out other’s candles until they smelled only of rosaries. I prayed for the souls that rode a plume of smoke to the heavens and only asked that they send my love to someone special for me. Was she my mother once again? Did she change back into the benevolent partner of my life who chased monsters out from under my truckle bed whispered the Queen Mab to take their place each night? Or is she something else entirely now with her white, Greco-roman angel uniform in heaven and her parasite Valentine living as a gentlemen in Verona? And then one day I realized I could not recall my own mother’s face. I wanted her to be there, to hear me. When Dante’s first two volumes came out, I scoured Purgatory for her and then, in fear, I turned to the Inferno. If she is not in heaven, then Virgil himself must not recognize her. That means her hidden sin was avarice, according to Dante, and she dines with other faceless aristocrats. But if she is in purgatory, only prayers and time can save her. SCENE REALLY BEGINS HERE----->When I prayed early in the still-dark morning of my graduation day, I could feel St. Christopher leaning over the rail and putting one arm on my shoulder, kneeling humbly to pray along with me. I pray for lost dogs and departed cats and St. Francis comes to me. I pray for mothers everywhere and my mother in particular and St. Mary herself comes to join me and her vacant womb glows with affection for all. But I could not feel my mother. Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Dona eis requiem sempiternam. The three of us prayed aloud for my father and I heard the echoes of his voice behind me as he walked into the church. I recall his voice only from the bass tones I could catch while in Utero. He knelt in a dark pew behind us. We started the prayer over again together and the passionate and wonderful Archangel Gabriel entered the room, speaking along with us and letting his trumpet rest. His broad shoulders burst out of his cape as he lowered himself on the kneeler next to me, bending its groaning boards. My prayerful voice shivered like a tiny lantern who nearly suffocates from the wind that feeds a nearby forest fire. He chanted along with me and yet his presence towering over me said, Be not afraid, and he produced a tiny candle of his own from beneath his wings and lit it off of mine. I fell under a spell of chanting along with St. Chris, St. Francis, Mary and her Son, St. Luke, St. Matthew, and St. Stephen. All of them donned their best and most colorful vestments and abandoned the fresco paintings up high and knelt down with humble Mercutio to say a word of prayer for my mother. More blessed saints took time from their lives and filed into the pews behind me with my father, joining in a prayer that they had begun before Mercutio pulled himself into this world. They entered with the calm dignity of a Pope’s choir, each one with a candle to light their way through the dark recesses of a church that should be closed. Each candle from beneath the coin box where the poverty-bound saints donated a piece of silver for a piece of wax to honor mother’s name. Each one lit from St. Prometheus, who follows in the rear and carries the first torch. The Holy Spirit rode in the window on the watery beam of a full moon—weeks ahead of its scheduled cycle. Jesus wept. Jesus himself got up from his knees, stricken with a grief that took the air from his lungs as it had in Gesthemone. He stood up and agony spewed from bursting stitches of the wound at his side. For appreciation of fortune or being moved by grief, Jesus walked over to Mary and kissed her on the cheek as he cried into her hair in thankfulness for the mother he had lost and found once again. But he did not stop praying. Jesus took to the altar and pulled goblets of wine from behind it or, perhaps it occurs to me now he simply took the blood he shed from his wound and un-transubstantiated it back into wine, cutting it with the holiest holy water from his grief stricken tears. He invited all, even the Limbo-bound Prometheus, to take a drink. And we did not stop praying. Our voices did not fall or stand waiting for the others. With one loud, booming song in Latin we spoke in a meter whose rhythmic momentum shook the hymnals in their racks. The altar candles shivered in the wind of our saintly voices. And in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit we all said “Amen.” In that final word each saint turned to their right and blew out their flames. This holy gale of ceasing voices quenched even the cowering fires of our altar candles. It flew around the crescent sacristy and shot into the back, snuffing out the red prayer candles just as the moth’s body does when he finally gets his fatal wish. The holy water rippled into a peaceful tempest. I clutched my eyes shut for an extra second, waiting to hear my answer. A voice, a peace. I waited even just to see the image of her face in my mind once again. But I could not produce even that or remember her scent or even the voice that I loved to hear so much. When I opened my eyes I found myself alone. The smoke of four hundred smoldering fallacies hung in the air and drifted back to heaven by the diagonal river of moonlight. In the darkness I could see only the empty pews surrounding me, forfeiting any hope of salvation. Each seat: stained with the still warm wax from the heavenly rapture. I pressed my fingers into the congealing puddle left on the rail by the disappearance of Archangel Gabriel. It burned my hand. I should have expected this from a wax that protects his feathers as he flies close to the sun, turning Dedalus drab with jealousy. I shuttered in agony and stuck my hand into the cup that Jesus left behind. It felt cool and icy from the holy shivers of Christ’s suffering. When I stepped into the remaining moonlight I saw that I was alone. Brother Mercutio stood in disbelief, with his hand in the Carpenter’s goblet. There were no Saints. Even the ones on the walls and the statues above hid themselves in Darkness. I checked behind a pole for St. Francis, but he left with the Holy Ghost. I looked into the altar desk and I did not find Jesus there playing tavern-man. “And where was God in all of this?” I shouted. “Answer me!” But I could hear only my hollow echoes and they shouted their lonely anger back at me into nothing.
And here--at my dramatic ending to this sad scene of an orphan crying alone in the dark--is where in a novel you can have a scene break and come back to that scene. But what do I do in drama? Turn the lights up?
My cousin Leo, now five years older than when I saw him last, burst through the door and found me screaming in the sacristy with my robes splattered in church wine. The pews suffered burn marks and evenly spaced wax stains. Several dripping wine glasses emptied their remaining contents onto the red stained floor. “Mercutio, what are you doing?” I could not breath. My lungs would not fill with the air they needed. It all stuck in my throat and came back out in my agonized moans. Cerberus—the three headed dog whom Hercules put to sleep—took the day off from guarding Hell and stationed himself in my throat. He scared all my breaths away. Instead my rage came out of a three-faced bark in my throat. The face looking back at me made me think that some mask had been placed over my own. The veins of concern popped out of his forehead and his troubled brow looked down on me as though I were turning into a monster. Cousin Leo bent his freckled visage down to me and jammed his roman nose in my face. He sniffed twice. “Have you been drinking?” cousin Leo bent to pick up the emptied decanters, one of which shattered on the altar when Jesus went back to his office. “What is wrong with you? Isn’t your graduation tomorrow? What are you trying to do?” I still felt light headed from grief and my tongue had tried to the twin forces of Chianti and Jesus’ salty tears. I looked around the room at my own candle. The only one still lit. It dripped wax onto the torn pages of a sacred prayer book which found its way onto the floor with me. “Mercutio, listen to me. You are going to be in an awful lot of trouble: tell me what happened! Was there a big student party here? Were you involved? Where did everyone else go? Did you break in here just to light all these candles and drink all the wine?” The sexton burst through the door, screaming. “Who’s there? Who dares defile the Lord’s house? I oughta send you straight to Him and let him deal with you.” He grabbed a sword with the familiar slide of metal from metal. Leo—being the brighter of us—blew out my only candle. And we escaped through the crypt in the dark.
ARLECCHINO LEADS MERCUTIO THROUGH THE HOUSE. ARLECCHINO: Lots of construction since you’ve been here last. But what a glorious palace it will be when it’s all complete. Your cousin wants this place to be a monument to achievement. The Victory Room for the soldiers, Muses for the Poets, Hope for the exiles, Mercury for the painters and soon there will be Paradise as well. MERCUTIO: Mercury is fine for me. It’s where I slept as a boy. It’s where I will sleep tonight. MERCUTIO AND ARLECCHINO ENTER THE FRONT ROOM WHERE A GROUP OF YOUNG PAINTERS ARE WORKING ON A FRESCO ENTITLED “THE VICISSITUDES OF FORTUNE.” MERCUTIO: Mr. Giotto! What brings you to the Palace? GIOTTO: Who’s there? I have trouble seeing what’s directly in front of me. MERCUTIO: It is I, Mercutio. I mer you many years ago when you had just finished the frescoes in Assisi in the church of St. Francis… You did paint the frescoes of St. Franciss, didn’t you? GIOTTO: Uhm, to tell you the truth, I don’t know. MERCUTIO: You don’t know? GIOTTO: I’ve painted lots of things. Some of them I don’t recognize when they’re finished. Some of them burn down for one war or another. How many times can you draw Jesus sucking away at the virgin teat and still distinguish them? Assissi…Is that the one with the Angel Gabriel? MERCUTIO: No. I have seen your work on Angel Gabriel. GIOTTO: Oh, wait, maybe that was Fra Angelico. MERCUTIO: Remember St. Francis? The guy with the animals? GIOTTO: Lions and tigers? MERCUTIO: No, deer and birds mostly. GIOTTO: (TAKES OFF HIS GLASSES) We should put some Lions and Tigers in this. MERCUTIO: Technically, Lions and Tigers are from separate continents. GIOTTO: That did not stop Mr. Dante. MERCUTIO: Good luck withal. I envy you. For I am no master painter. ARLECCHINO: Liar! Not two hours ago you said you were! MERCUTIO: If you’ll excuse me, my servant here needs to carry what little of Fortune’s toys I possess to my room. And then he needs to clean out his ears. May I ask you which apartment of the Palace our Prince has caged you into? GIOTTO: As I understand it, everything is a bit out of order due to all the other exiles from Florence. Thus my soldiers and I are berthed in Victory. ARLECCHINO: What a victorious pair of titties those are. MERCUTIO: Wonderful. I had feared I might have to duel you for Mercury, which often goes to painters when I am away. GIOTTO: Certainly not, Mr. Francis. MERCUTIO: It’s Mercutio, actually. GIOTTO: No, no, Fortuna has put that room in the temporary ward of Mr. Dante. MERCUTIO: But--but the poets get Muses. GIOTTO: Tell that to Dante, he quite likes the Mercury room. Mercutio dashes off and runs upstairs. Arlecchio follows closely behind. MERCUTIO: Cease to persuade, Arlecchino! Coward-keeping youth have ever cowardly wits! Pull out your sword if you wish to have a master to serve in the morning! ARLECCHINO: Am I supposed to talk you out of this? MERCUTIO: The sun has set on words for this day, my faithful servant. I shall send this glutton to where he belongs in the third cirlc. It is not enough that Dante has dined in all nine spheres in heaven, but he must also sleep in my bed? ARLECCHINO: Your cousin has gotten rather rought on crime since you’ve been here last, my lord. I would proceed with caution. Mercutio sees that the door is locked. He forces his sword into the lock. MERCUTIO: They don’t teach foreshadowing at the orphanage, do they? ARLECCHINO: Why don’t you stay at your brother Valentine’s while he’s off chasing the duke’s daughter? MERCUTIO: Let Dante fear my swords if I find him in bed with my sheath. Mercutio bursts open the door and screams in horror. The statue of Mercury leaping off on one foot is held down with Dante’s ridiculous red cap. His desk it pusehd over to the window where several pairs of reading glasses are strewn about. The oak top is marred byt the dark spurts of misplaced ejaculations from the poet’s quill. MERCUTIO: Avert your eyes, Arlecchino! Do not let this vision of the room cloud your senses. Mercutio picks up pages and tosses them in the air. ARLECCHINO: Montague says you’re always welcome over there, you know. MERCUTIO: Montague never suffered such an invasion! Great Moses! How can you banish Mercutio from Mercury? Only an hour as a Jew and already I’ve lost my homeland! Come, Arlecchino! We must stand and fight or wander the desert for forty years and forty nights! Mercutio runs with his sword held wildly. He rushes past Arlecchio as he packs Mercutio’s spilled belongings back into his trunk. MERCUTIO There’s no time! Mercutio runs to the top of the stairs, screaming. He trips on the top step and tumbles to the bottom in a clatter of knives, swords and change from his purse.
IN A CARRIAGE, RIDING TO VERONA ARLECCHINO: Fruit? MERCUTIO: Again, Arlecchino, no thank you. ARLECCHINO: It’s nice and ripe. MERCUTIO: Surely so. But it is the ripest fruits that turn soonest to rot. ARLECCHINO: I thought the forbidden fruit was the sweetest. MERCUTIO: What a coincidence, wouldn’t you say, Arlecchino. ARLECCHINO: So you want I should eat it all before it turns? MERCUTIO: Please, Arlecchino. Do us all a favor and stuff your mouth full of this fruit. Arlecchino eats the fruit. Mercutio stares at the countryside. ARLECCHINO: (MOUTH FULL) When I left your cousin was not in good shape. Stabbed in the throat with a blade in the street. Arlecchino makes throat-slashing motion and exaggerates it with fruit spilling out of his mouth. ARLECCHINO: Think it has something to do with the fued? MERCUTIO: What feud, my humble servant? ARLECCHINO: The Montagues and those vile Capulets! The Prince is getting awful tizzied up about it. This is the second person hurt in as many weeks from it, some say. You think maybe it’ll come to war? You think you’ll have to fight? Is that why you brought your sword? MERCUTIO: No, my dear Arlecchino. The sword is in case I have to protect you. ARLECCHINO: You must be mistaken, My Lord Mercutio. This prince sent me to protect you! Mercutio looks behind him towards Arlecchino’s sword, which is strapped to Mercutio’s trunk outside. MERCUTIO: My mistake. Arlecchino finishes fruit and wipes his mouth on sleeve. MERCUTIO: May I ask, Arlecchino, do you consider us rivals? ARLECCHINO: Oh no, Mercutio! Never say such a word! I am your proud and faithful servant and I would never take up arms against you! MERCUTIO: Are you ashamed to work for me? ARLECCHINO: No, no, Mercutio don’t even say such a thing! MERCUTIO: So you like working for me and it makes you proud because I am wealthy and learned and stylish and-- ARLECCHINO: And you always have the sweetest, ripest ladies lying about! MERCUTIO: And so you hate me? ARLECCHINO: No, no sir! MERCUTIO: Do you not wish for money and clothes and ripe ladies to hang about? ARLECCHINO: Of course I do, sir. MERCUTIO: And does it occur to you that by working for me you and prevented from these things? Do I not keep all the ladies and clothes to myself? ARLECCHINO: You did share the fruit. MERCUTIO: Ay. But does it occur to you that I have more than enough clothes and ladies and money for the both of us? Why then would we not be rivals? Don’t you see that you could be like me so easily? ARLECCHINO: But… MERCUTIO: Let’s turn it around. Say I am your servant, Arlecchino. ARLECCHINO: “I am your servant, Arlecchino.” MERCUTIO: No, I--I, Mercutio, am now Arlecchino’s servant. ARLECCHINO: Wow. That easy? MERCUTIO: Just pretend for a minute. Now I am your servant and you are rich and handsome and intelligent and wise and brilliant and stylish and your voice sounds like a beautiful symphony of freshly oiled instruments all played by the nimble fingers of well-dressed men. You travel the world at your fancy and you never have to apologize for any gaseous creation emitted from your body. Now you see? Are we not rivals? ARLECCHINO: No sir. MERCUTIO: And why not? ARLECCHINO: Now we are both rich and we dress well and have all the ladies. MERCUTIO: No, no. I am your servant. You are Mercutio. You are rich and have excellent taste. I am a poor slob who will wipe his filthy mouth on his only shirt. I say again, are we not rivals? ARLECCHINO: Goodness, no! MERCUTIO: Exactly. ARLECCHINO: Why would I, so rich and full of the latest ladies be rivaled to you--you fetid swine? I am rich and can eat the freshest fruits in any season! You can have the scraps from my table--when I’m finished picking through them! And no, I would never trade places with you! MERCUTIO: Exactly pupil! ARLECCHINO: Did I say you could speak, you filthy-sleeved rodent?? MERCUTIO: Okay, we’re going to have to swithc back now. I, I am Mercutio and you, Arlecchino, are my man. ARLECCHINO: Sorry. MERCUTIO: Don’t be. Very good excercise. ARLECCHINO: Thank you. MERCUTIO: In every relationship that we speak of it would not be a relationship at all if perfect equality were a factor. You can imagine an ass, standing equidistant from two equal piles of hay on a windless day. How ever could the poor ass decide between the piles? ARLECCHINO: Draw straws? MERCUTIO: No. ARLECCHINO: Einee, meanie, miney-- MERCUTIO: No. If only he could be as resourceful as you. He would in fact die there among two truly equal options, deciding nothing but his own fate, incidentally. Rarely, and I can think of no examples, does one spot two things so identical. Even among well formed baker’s loaves one may always appear fresher or softer than the ones before and after it. ARLECCHINO: I see. MERCUTIO: Think, if you will, of all the other things we call dichotomies. Men/women, servant/master, Montague/Capulet, Royalty/subjects, Rome/Carthage, Man/nature. Were these two equal piles of hay, we would have no reason to give them separate names at all. For men and women to be truly equal they would cease to be men and women. ARLECCHINO: They’d be both? MERCUTIO: No, Arlecchino. ARLECCHINO: ‘Cause I have this cousin and he--or, she, I guess-- MERCUTIO: Stick with me, pupil. What our ass herder failed to realize, of course, is that if he could makes these two equal piles of into one larger stack we would have none of these problems. Greater piles of hay, healthier asses. ARLECCHINO: So it’s the assherder’s fault? MERCUTIO: What is remarkable in our language is that we have already delineated such distinctions in our acculturated tongue. This of it, if you recall your mathematics lesson, as a number sentence. Where it is not men (slash) women--but men over women. Consider it a fraction. Master rules over servant and therefore--stay with me, Arlecchino--in what we call a rivalry, we are really speaking of a power dynamic wherein the problems arise from one failing to reach the level of the other. ARLECCHINO: But… MERCUTIO: Excellent question. But no, man does not rule over woman because man is busy fighting with nature, but it does bring up a fair comparison. ARLECCHINO: I didn’t, uhm… MERCUTIO: Poor capulet, with his agin health and only one surviving daughter, has little left in his tiny empire and looks to Montague in jealousy. But our dear Montague, we mustn’t has other rivals of his own above him. None in Verona, of course. But in other cities there are merchants of his size and larger. ARLECCHINO: But… MERCUTIO: Rare is it a rivalry is capable of combining and becoming greater than the sum of its parts. Is a hermaphrodite somehow greater than man or woman. ARLECCHINO: Back to my cousin, she-- MERCUTIO: In a brothel, yes. But in modern commerce? No, sir, Arlecchino. You could say that Man combined with Nature would be God, but God already is Man combined with God. Christ was man combined with God, and yet the Lord still decided when it was time for his son to come home and left him weeping, crying blood in the Garden of Gasthemane. ARLECCHINO: But when men do combine with women it is something more amazing than, say, a man could do on his own. MERCUTIO: Quite. Now, to sum up my meaning let us flip this idea on its head for a moment. Think of an near impossible fraction: Capulet’s Power =Capulet’s Wealth/Montague’s Wealth. Give Capulet’s a point for every landholding, for every servant, for every coin in his purse and for every ten her currently has lent out. Now imagine that Montague has twice the land, the servants, the money in the bank and the money lent out right now. So you cancel our anything in the above that could be below. That first leaves out the word ‘wealth’ entirely. Follow along. If Capulet has twenty servants and Montague forty and so on for everything else. Common denominator of twenty. Therefore two Capulets equal one Montague or, to return that to a fractional: Capulet’s power=half Montague’s. However, you recall before where we mentioned that there is no true equality. Capulet is likely to believe that his smaller businesses are perhaps more powerful than Montague’s. Or, to put it in a phrase you might understand better, imagine you are Capulet’s wenty servants, might you not htink your need to prove yourselves equal or better to Montague’s forty servants? Forgetting, of course that there’s safety in numbers. Even Hercules is outnumbered by two. But you would yearn to prove that, no? This is where we find true rivalry, where the rival factor is not zero (for that would make it null set) but instead the trouble builds off the initial inequality. Say Capulet’s men wish to prove their worth to their master by fighting Montague’s, wouldn’t Montague’s men, out of sheer pride alone, wish to do the same? And when retaliating doesn’t it appear to poor Capulet that this great beast in colonizing him? From there the rancor builds. These rivalries come to define us. Like that Latin joke: Discite gramatici cur masula nomina cunnus/Et cur femineum mentula nomen habet. Right? But of course the answer is, Disce quod a domino nomina servus habet. Huh? Mercutio laughs at his own joke. MERCUTIO: Some competition, of course, leads to better performance and competitive prices for all of us. But of course war costs all of us, as I have proven today with the loss of my poor cousin Leo who is neither Montague nor Capulet. But think back to the bale of hay from before. If we could free the ass from the time wasted deciding between the hay--either by creating one nicer pile or combining them--then he could spend more time eating the hay and the ass-herder would profit from it. Therefore I say we could merge Montague and Capulet somehow they could grow more powerful than, say, even my cousin the Prince of Verona. But you may notice, conspicuously, that it does not hurt the Prince to turn his eye from such a fight. No, no. It’s not his cousin dead in the streets, you see? Hello? Arlecchino? Arlecchino snores in the seat beside him. MERCUTIO: Did I lose you at the Latin? It translates as, “Tell me, Grammarians, why the word for penis is in the feminine case and vagina is in the masculine.” And the answer is: “Because the slave always takes the name of its master.”
Look at me. I'm a screenwriter just like Sylvester Stalone!
FADE IN: A ROOM AT DAWN. MERCUTIO SITS ALONE AT DESK WRITING. A YOUNG SERVANT’S VOICE CALLS FROM OFF STAGE AND ENTERS. ARLECCHINO: Mercutio! Mercutio looks up as the servant enters carrying a large trunk of clothing. Arlecchino is younger than Mercutio and is dressed in a particolored patchwork jacket. ARLECCHINO: Mercutio! You ready to go? MERCUTIO: Need we hurry so soon? Have you already planned my cousin’s resurrection or is it just the funeral? Arlecchino checks the front of his trousers. ARLECCHINO: Is it that obvious? MERCUTIO: I said rezzz-erection ARLECCHINO Sorry. You got a girl with you up here or something? Arlecchino glasses about the room. MERCUTIO: What did I say when you asked both of these questions half an hour ago? ARLECCHINO: You hungry? You want I fetch you something to eat? MERCUTIO: Okay. Let me make two addendi to my earlier statement. What did I say when you asked all three of those questions thirty-one minutes ago? Arlecchino stares patiently and blankly at his master while he speaks and then appears to have forgotten what he said. ARLECCHINO: What was that again? MERCUTIO: Nevermind. ARLECCHINO: You look tired, Mercutio. Were you up late? Fighting? Dueling? Were you fighting over a lady or were you up late fighting a lady, huh? Arlecchio rations himself four little chuckles and once again glases around for evidence of lady guests. Is it someone I know? MERCUTIO: Hopefully not biblically. ARLECCHINO: How many women do you think you’ve cankered? Mercutio appears angry and then calms down. MERCUTIO: You mean conquered, my dear Arlecchino. ARLECCHINO: Yeah! How many women have you cankored? MERCUTIO: Say it with me one time. Long “o” regular sized “q.” Conquered. ARLECCHINO: Concord. MERCUTIO: No. That’s almost the opposite. One more time. Conquered. ARLECCHINO: Conquered. MERCUTIO: Excellent. End of our lesson for today. ARLECCHINO: Is it time for lunch then? Mercutio flicks Arlecchino a coin, which Arlecchino then chases down the stage. MERCUTIO Fine. Get us something for the journey. Get us a gondolier as well to take us to the road. A GONDOLIER PULLS UP AND MERCUTIO HOPS ABOARD. ARLECCHINO FOLLOWS IMMEDIATELY. MERCUTIO: Arlecchino. ARLECCHINO: Yes, my lord. MERCUTIO: Do you think it would improve your standing in the court of Verona if you remembered to load my trunk on board? Arlechinno jumps out, almost tipping the boat over. As Mercutio and the Gondolier steady the boat Arlecchino jumps back in with the heavy trunk. Arlecchinno eventually settles down in front of the ship and Mercutio stays in back at the rudder. The Gondolier rows from the middle and asks the unintentionally biblical question. GONDOLIER: Do you know the fellow they call Mercutio? MERCUTIO: If you tell me who’s asking I might even find you the fellow who calls himself Mercutio. GONDOLIER: Harold the Gondolier. MERCUTIO: Harold. Strange name for an Italian. Does this Mercutio fellow you’re sking for know you very well, sir? HAROLD: ‘Snot me. It’s me daughter that knows him. Mercutio grows uncomfortable. MERCUTIO: I can assure you sir, that if youre daughter thinks she knows Mercutio then I cannot be he. For I do not know Mercutio. Harold looks confused. HAROLD: Perhaps you misget my meaning, sir. I understand that in this house lives a young scholar from Verona. I gave me daughter and her lady a voyage down this same path not long ago to the road that leads south of here. Heading back to Verona with a pair of chaperones who fell asleep halfway to the coach. The ladie got to gossiping, as ladiesdo, and me daughter kept trying to cheer up the poor girl by mentioning the name of your neighbor Mercutio. Saying he would also be in Verona today. Susan is her name. Susan Grindstone. You know her? MERCUTIO: Can’t say that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Susan. HAROLD: Well, she knows Mercutio. MERCUTIO: Does she now? And does your daughter know Mercutio as well as her lady? HAROLD: Maybe better, sir. My girl seems to have known him for a long time. Mercutio stifles his giggles. MERCUTIO: This Mercutio fellow seems to know an awful lot of women in the city. And quite well. Rare is it to find a man who knows so many daughters to be in such esteem with their fathers. I take it you have never known him? HAROLD: I don’t know him at all, sir. But the Lady Susan knows Rosaline of Verona, who also knows Mercutio. In fact, her father has known Mercutio since he was quite young. MERCUTIO. Is that a fact? When I get to Verona I shall have to remember to look up this Susan and her Lady… HAROLD: Jane. MERCUTIO: …and her Lady Jane before I am the last man in all of Verona to know both of them. HAROLD: My daughter’s lady is one of the finest in all of Italy. And the richest too. Absolutely everyone had had to chance to know here in Verona. The friars. The street vendors. The noblemen and women. MERCUTIO: You must be proud. Again she must be that rare breed that knows both men and women equally. Perhaps she knows my cousin Paris. He is, uh, of that same bree. HAROLD: You know Paris! MERCUTIO: Can’t say I do know Paris. For who could say that--truthfully and in public no less-that he knows his own cousin? Harold appears perplexed. His mouth hangs agape as he totals up something in his mind. HAROLD: Uh…do you mean to say… sorry, sir. I didn’t catch your name. MERCUTIO: Watch it! Port side! Pulling into the dock right now. That’s us. Here’s fine. Commend me to your daughter and she to her lady. The quickfooted Arlecchino springs out of the watercraft. Again, the boat loses ballast and Mercutio and Harold struggle to keep it afloat. Arlecchino begins to walk ashore. He turns around and his eyes inflate to such a degree that you would think he had just scene Mercutio for the first time today. Mercutio hops out of the boat leaving Harold the fare. MERCUTIO: Thank you! Keep the change. Arlecchino! ARLECCHINO: What? MERCUTIO: My trunk, Arlecchino. Arlecchino hops back in the boat, unsettling Harold once again. He drags it ashore and pushes Harold back down the canal. ARLECCHINO: Wait! I left all the fruit in the boat! MERCUTIO: We, uh, we can find more on the way. Arlecchino hops back into the boat and returns with the forgotten fruit. He then sees that Mercutio is visibly angry. ARLECCHINO: I’m sorry, my Lord Mercutio! Mercutio walks away as Harold stares daggers into his back.
The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences is in a dead-lock this year on the Grammy for "Best Dance Song" and have decided instead to change to category to "World's Greatest Sunglasses Mannequin." So exciting!