Thursday, September 15, 2011

CHIVALROUS CONSTRUCTION WORKERS:

CHIVALROUS CONSTRUCTION WORKERS:

Scene: Two Construction workers in yellow hats.

NARRATOR AT GOD MIC: Medieval Europe is renowned for the prestige of it’s beautiful castles and some of the most talented architects of all time. It was also the age of the culture of chivalry.

SIR STEVE: Sir Brad, it’s been a fortnight, or some other outdated term, since we began the construction of this fourth wall.
SIR BRAD: Sir Steve, did you see Lady Gwenevere, yonder?
SIR STEVE: Ah, yes...

Steve starts whistling.

SIR BRAD: Heeeeey guuuuuuuurl, Hey, Hey, Heeeeeey guuuuuurl, Hey!
SIR STEVE: Dayuuuum, you got a nice ass...sertainably confident personality!
SIR BRAD: I respect you as a woman!
SIR STEVE: There she goes. Anyway, do you have any brick glue?
SIR BRAD: Don’t be silly, you can’t glue bricks together, that’s what staples are for.
SIR STEVE: Oh, look, it’s the maiden Katarina.

This time Sir Brad starts whistling.

SIR STEVE: Ooooow Ooooow whatup guuuuuuuuurl!
SIR BRAD: Hey hey where you goin’
SIR STEVE: I am digging that self esteem you’re dragging!
SIR BRAD: You know who you are as a person!
SIR STEVE: There she goes.
SIR BRAD: Let’s make that tower tall enough that people think we’re
compensating for something.
SIR STEVE: Yeah, right, like poor sexual self esteem or a lack of a mother
figure.
SIR BRAD: Ha! What if we were like that?
SIR STEVE: Here comes Lady Genivive!
SIR BRAD: Oh, hey, gurl! Hey, hey, hey gurl! Where you goin with that nice sense
of morals and the ability to believe in yourself?
SIR STEVE: Yeah, yeah, you are complete with or without a man!

A beautiful princess approaches them.

PRINCESS GENIVIVE: Why are you construction workers yelling chivalrous things at me?
SIR STEVE: We just wanted to let you know we like you for you.
SIR BRAD: We respect who you are as a person. You're special for who you are.
PRINCESS GENIVIVE: But why cat call? Regardless of whether you intended it as a compliment I still feel the pressure of being "othered" under the constrains of the male gaze.
SIR STEVE: No, we just wanted to let you know you’re super fiiiiiine. Like classy.
PRINCESS GENIVIVE: You think any woman wants to feel measured soley as an aspect of
their personality? You're reducing me to one aspect of myself.
SIR STEVE: She’s right... What have we been doing?
SIR BRAD: We need to reevaluate ourselves. I think the reason I am this way is I had too healthy of a relationship with my mother.
SIR STEVE: We’re sorry for making you feel uncomfortable and anxious due to society's patriarchial constructs. We won’t cat call women anymore.
PRINCESS GENIVIVE: Thank you.

She walks away.

SIR BRAD: Oh check that out!
SIR STEVE: Hey, Hey, Sir Kevin! How you doin’?
SIR BRAD: Man, you are WEARING that sense of confidence!

Socks

Scene: One person is on stage dancing (Barbara) she dances for a few minutes and then another person, Steve, approaches the stage.

STEVE: Hey Barbara, how’s it going?
BARBARA:
(still dancing)
Not great.
STEVE: Oh... that’s too bad. But, hey, somebody got some new socks, didn’t they? eh, eh?
BARBARA:
(still dancing)
Oh, these old things?
STEVE: May I borrow them?
BARBARA:
(Still dancing while attempting to take off her socks, hopping on one foot)
Sure... just don’t get all your gross germs on them. You gotta save that crap for my smoothie.

Barbara stops dancing, she hands him the socks and he puts them on while talking to her.

STEVE:
(as he puts the socks on he starts dancing)
So, what’s bothering you?
BARBARA: Oh, I was just thinking about the insignificance of the mundane vapid reservoir of human emotions and the meaninglessness of existence.
STEVE: (dancing)
What about it?
BARBARA: Well, it’s awesome. But while I was thinking about it my dad called and said he needed a new kidney.

STEVE:
(dancing)
Oh, really? I’m not using mine. Do you want one?
BARBARA: Well, I just ate.
STEVE:
(dancing)
Don’t be silly, Barbara... girls don’t eat.
BARBARA: Oh, sorry, I use the word "eat" to mean have sex with strangers.
STEVE:
(dancing)
No worries. But no, I didn’t mean as a snack, I meant do you want to use my kidney to give to your dad?
BARBARA: Oh yes, please! How generous
STEVE:
(dancing)
Seven generous.

Steve lies down on the floor, writhing around doing sort of an upside down worm while Barbara ties a surgical mask on and begins to perform kidney surgery. But it's difficult for her to cut Steve because he won't stop dancing.

BARBARA: Steve, this is really difficult to do surgery like this.... I mean, I hate to be a bitch, but my parents raised me-
STEVE:
(dancing on the floor)
What?
BARBARA: Maybe you shouldn’t wear my socks while we're doing this... since they look much better on me.
STEVE:
(removing the socks)
That’s fair.

Steve hands the socks to Barbara who puts them on and starts dancing.

BARBARA:
(dancing)
Now hold still.

A man or woman in a white robe comes in.

GOD: Hey kids
BARBARA AND STEVE:
(barbara is still dancing)
Hey, god
GOD: Listen kids, you’re being very loud with all this surgery
BARBARA:
(dancing)
Yeah, I know, right?
GOD: Yeah, it’s awesome. I was thinking we should make a stomp band.
STEVE: What’s stomp?
GOD: Don’t be that guy, Steve! Nobody likes the guy who doesn’t like stomp!
STEVE: Oh, I mean, like, yeah I’ve heard of it.
GOD: Oh you have, then what is it?
BARBARA:
(dancing)
It’s-
GOD: NO! Let Steve answer! Let him answer on his own!
STEVE: It’s um... music that is like... indie, alternative, with um...Daft... Punk.
GOD: Barbara, give me your socks.
BARBARA:
(takes socks off)
Um... Okay

Barbara hands socks to god. God puts them on and starts dancing.

GOD:
(dancing)
Thank you.

The Living Room

Scene: two men are sitting on the couch. A girl walks in.

BARBARA: Hey guys. What’s up?
ANDERS: Nothing, we’re just watching a movie.
BARBARA: Coolio.
ANDERS: I made pasta if you want some. You can take it in your room and eat it.

Barbara helps herself to pasta and sits on the couch.

ANDERS: Or eat it here.
BARBARA: Oh, I’m sorry, you have a date here, how rude of me, Brian do you want some?
BRIAN:
(taking some)
Thanks!
ANDERS:
(snidely)
Anything else?
BARBARA: Can you heat it up for me?
ANDERS: I... um... I’m on a... but there’s candles... and wine.
BARBARA: Oh sure I’d like some wine too.
ANDERS: .... Okay.

Anders goes to the kitchen with Barbara’s plate.

BRIAN: I thought he’d never leave.
BARBARA: I know, right?
BRIAN: Some people can not respect privacy.

Brian gets up from the couch.

BARBARA: So where were we?
BRIAN: You were talking about your fears.

Brian sits down in the chair by the couch and Barbara lies down.

BARBARA: Oh right. Um, dying, dying alone, dying alone after being sexually assaulted, and people with slightly smaller hands than normal handling fruit.
BRIAN:
(deadpan)
Ugh, white people problems.
BARBARA: We’re really moving forward.
BRIAN: Oh, don’t worry... that’s just because you’re emotionally constipated.
BARBARA: No I meant the ship.

Anders returns.

ANDERS: What ship?
BARBARA: Oh, Anders, I hate to tell you this way, with pasta still in my mouth, but the apartment is a spaceship.
BRIAN: How does he not know?
BARBARA: He’s agoraphobic. Afraid of argyle. Can’t leave the house, so sad.
BRIAN: If we're all in the living room, then who’s driving the ship?
BARBARA: I tied it to an asteroid. Autopilot.
ANDERS: Look, I’m really upset about this all right now.
BARBARA: What’s this?
ANDERS: A proximal demonstrative of the English Language.
BRIAN: I mean why are you upset?
ANDERS: Barbara is ruining our date!
BARBARA: What do you want me to do?
ANDERS: Untie the spaceship from the asteroid and take us back to earth.
BARBARA: Fine.

Barbara goes to the door but it’s locked.

BARBARA: Anders... did you flip the light switch when you left the kitchen?
ANDERS: Yes. I'm an environmentalist. I saw a movie with Al Gore, ...Farenheint 9/11.
BARBARA: That light switch in the kitchen locks this door.
BRIAN:
(looking out the window with binnoculars)
You guys... the asteroid might have been a bad idea to tie the ship to.
BARBARA: Why?
ANDERS:
(realizing)
There’s a black president and a female secretary of state which is weird, that I know that.
BRIAN: The only time that ever happens in movies some asteroid is about to destroy the planet.
BARBARA: We’re headed toward Earth... If I can’t get to the cockpit, the only thing that can save us is if somehow we could be pulled in the opposite direction enough to slip the lasso off the asteroid.
BRIAN: nothing has enough mass to revert our gravitational pull.
BARBARA: Quick, yell demeaning things at the moon.
ANDERS: Why?
BARBARA: When you demean something, it gains weight. My mom taught me that.
ANDERS: Fine. Moon, hey Moon! What’s it like to live in the shadow half the time?
BRIAN: I hope you got some proactive for all those crater face holes!
ANDERS: Werewolves don’t like you.
BARBARA: It’s working! The moon is shame eating!

There is a rumbling sound and all three lose their footing for an instant.

ANDERS: Oh thank god.
BRIAN: Um, Okay... Thank you, diety.
BARBARA: My pasta’s cold.

Barbara goes to the door to the kitchen but it’s locked. She flips the lightswitch in the living room and then lets herself out.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

babysitting

Mrs. Petersburb ran around the kitchen and grabbed one diamond earing from a dish by the sink and another from the top of the refrigerator. Leaning against the fridge, she flipped her blonde hair back and fastened the sparkling jewelery onto the sagging lobe of cartilage that she heard things out of. Stephanie stared at the floor, trying not to look impressed that the grown up woman could accomplish that task without staring into a mirror and missing the ear hole four times.

"So, we're going to just be very close, just down the street, okay, sweetie?"
"Um, kay," Stephanie mumbled, eyes glued to her untied converse sneakers, barely peaking out of baggy unwashed black jeans.
"Here's the phone number of the house where we'll be, and here's the phone number of the doctor, and the fireman, and the policeman, and the therapist, and the physical therapist, and the physical therapist's boyfriend, just in case."
"Yeah."
Mrs. Petersburg placed one hand on the counter top and balanced so she could hook on her obnoxiously tall high heals, elevating her to a foot above the quiet sixteen year old.
"You can help yourself to anything," Mrs. Petersburg trilled as she hooked her purse over her arm. From beneath heavy black bangs Stephanie furrowed her eye brows. They always said that, that you could help yourself to all of their food. But she had a pretty good idea that if she drank all the beer and ate all the laxatives they wouldn't be okay with it. Stephanie had never drank beer nor ate laxatives but Amy in math class talked about doing those things every day, and she had been homecoming princess three years in a row, so they probably tasted like contentment and belonging. Amy must have a cool mom. All Stephanie's mom let her eat was broccoli and milk, which tasted like loneliness and despondency and Sylvia Plath poems.

"One more thing," Mrs. Petersburg said over her shoulder. "Around 9:00, Stevie turns into a monster."
"Got it," Stephanie said.

Mrs. Petersburg let herself out her front door, pears dangling from her elegant neck as she flashed a lipsticked smile and shut the little girl into the house behind her, stepping off her own front porch, away from the confines of suburban housewifery, away from her life, and out into a different but similarly plastic, contrived facade of existence.

Stephanie locked the door behind the mom and walked around the huge house. She peered into the blonde baby's play cage, where it stood and looked up at her quietly with huge blue eyes. Were one year olds supposed to be able to stand up and watch someone so quietly? Stephanie didn't give a shit.

Stephanie went to the refrigerator, where there was a chicken sandwich wrapped up with a yellow sticky note with her name on it. She helped herself to ice cream, four cookies, and two pieces of cold pizza and shoved them all into the bowl. She then poured a giant glass of coke and curled up on the huge couch to watch nickelodian with the baby. Under her itchy black sweatshirt and the glaring lights of the television, Stephanie quickly drifted to sleep on the cold ornate sofa.

A few hours later she woke up to a sharp sound of something falling in the distance. Stephanie sat up slowly, wiping her eyes as the blurry living room morphed into focus. She pushed her messy hair out of the way and found her glasses. A dark maroon stain trailed across the carpet. Stephanie followed the trail through the living room and the kitchen, leading past the bathroom, into the play room.

A tall, dark creature hunched in the corner. It was covered in black and green scales with puss dripping from it's heaving skin flaps. It was shaking in rage or hunger, giant flipper like feet tapping excitingly. A pile of crap sat neatly on the carpet beneath the monster. It's back was to Stephanie as it knelt over a young man's body, scouring at it's flesh with claws and gobbling it up into it's bloody mouth. Sharp white teeth protruded over curled purple lips. It turned and glared menacingly at the small babysitter.

"Oh, brother," Stephanie muttered, rolling her eyes.
The monster snarled and hissed.
"Stevie, did you like murder this dude?"
The monster let out a belligerent roar, a string of human intestines dangling from it's salivating mouth.
"I can't believe you. Your mom totally said no dessert."
The monster lowered it's head and scratched it's snout with a claw.
"Whatever. I'm getting paid to watch you, not like clean up your mess."

Stephanie went back into the living room and watched some more television. After a while Stevie came back in and began to play with her hair with his bloody claws. He cried when she wouldn't let him sit on her lap because his tail was way too spiky. He peed and pooped and threw his excretion around the pristine room while screeching, totally disrupting Boy Meets World. Eventually Stevie resorted to attempting to devour his shadow until his mother came back from the party.

When Mrs. Petersburg returned she paid the bored teenager and Stephanie let herself out the door, leaving Mrs. Petersburg to grieve her dying sense of hope. Brian was waiting for Stephanie outside in his older brother's jeep. Loud metal music blared from the speakers and he was bobbing his head, pretending to enjoy it, because that was the kind of music 16 year old boys enjoyed, not the Carol King cassettes that had gone missing from his mom's collection and somehow ended up in a shoebox under his bed. Headbanging slightly off beat to the music, he didn't even say hi when Stephanie let herself into the passenger door and scaled the tall step up into the seat.

"Blah blah blah, football, blah blah, farts, blah blah," Brian said, or something similar.
"Hmmm," Stephanie murmured, slumping deep into the seat and chewing on her black fingernails.
"Blah blah, videogames blah blah the same thing over and over for ten minutes," Brian yammered.
Stephanie sucked on the tips of her hair.
"So, uh, my parents aren't home right now," Brian said.
"Oh."
They sat quietly for a few minutes.
"So, like, basically no one is home..."
"Mm-hmm."
"And there's like sodas and shit and no one to drink them..."
"You lonely or something?"
"Nah, bro. I was thinking you should come over. Maybe spend the night. Maybe we could, you know, DO IT."
"Um," Stephanie said.
"Don't be a nerd."
"Okay."
"Really?"
"Um, do you have anything... any condoms...?"
"For my wiener?"
"Yeah."
"No... but there's a plastic baggy."
Stephanie shrugged, picking a scale off her sweater. "No thanks."

Friday, September 2, 2011

another poem I wrote

Floating, a gray translucent orb,
gooey, and oozing, squishing through space
bubbling with tears and transcending through existence
a glowing puss bubble of feelings
levitated through time
and kissed the thoughts and worries
of children in cat shaped masks
running through foggy playgrounds
disappearing in the ghostly dew of the night
a smoky remembrance of juvenescence
dripping with clouds of nostalgia
in broken heart shaped dreams
the orb bounced through
squelching with each turn
throbbing with screams, imminent explosion
like a puppy in heat on a summer city block
chased by children and other dogs
unsure of what they're doing
and yelping in desire and rage
the bubble hovered of piles of dog shit
and swelled into the moonlight
leaving drips of loneliness across the dawn filled park
and floating into nonexistence.