CAST:
Janice - woman in her late 30's. Desperately lonely
Brett - co-worker
Andrew - co-worker
(All employees are sitting at desks facing front. They are fielding phone calls quietly. This is some horrible office situation where presumably all anyone ever does is redirect phone calls and wish to be dead or fired.)
(Janice's phone rings)
Janice: Hello you've reached Monumentall, inc., this is Janice speaking, how can I serve you today? ... Oh hello mother! ... Oh it's been fine, been fine over here. ... No, should be home no later'n usual, be able to catch all of our shows tonight. ... Uh-huh. ... No that's fine, what do we need? ... Uh-huh ok, milk... yeahss... corn bread mix... alright... swiffer refills. ... dry or wet jet?.... dry or wet jet?... dry or wet jet?.... mmmk I'll just pick up some of both. Mmmk is that it? (sudden change of voice) Oh does wittle Mr. Sammykins need new kitty cat litter? Uh-oh. Doesn't Mr. Sammykins have anywhere to put his poopies? Oh no! Oh no! Yeah, put him on. ... Hello. ... Hello Mr Sammykins... Hello Mr. Sammykins... Hi... Hi... Hi... yeah... Oh yeah?... Oh yeah?... is this your mommy? Yeah... yeah it's your mommy. Is this your mommy, Mr. Sammykins? Yeah... Oh yeah?... Oh yeah? Then what?... Oh really? Did she say that? ... Who said that? ... Did gramma say that? ... Uh - huh ? ... She did! Oh no! Well what did you say? ... Really? ... Really? ... She did not... Well what did you do? (she listens for a really long time) You didn't! ... Mr. Sammykins! Mr. Sammykins, I only wish I were as brave as you are. Yeah. Yeah, Mr. Sammykins, you. I wanna be just like you! Just like you Mr. Sammykins! No, I won't tell her anything. No, I won't tell her you said anything. Ok. ... Ok, Mr. Sammykins. I love you too, Mr. Sammykins. Yeah, put her back on. No, I won't tell her you said anything. Ok, bye. (beat. No very knowingly) Hi, mom... yeah. Uh-huh, sure sounds like everything's going pretty well over there, huh? Oh really? Well did you and Mr. Sammykins have any difficulties today? Oh, I don't know... anything. Any... altercations? Ah-ha, no, nothing at all. Well, I'll be off then. ... Ok, see you soon mom. Yuh-huh. Ok, I love you too.
(She hangs up. Gathers her stuff, and while avoiding acknowledgment from anyone in the room, she slinks away)
(Beat)
Brett: Damn, that bitch is CRAzy.
Andrew: (taking out his earphones) What's that?
Brett: This Janice lady. She's completely nuts!
Andrew: Oh, that. Yeah, but she's totally harmless. Just ignore her. Or get some of these (his headphones)
Brett: She's always been like this?
Andrew: As long as I've been here. (he puts his headphones back on. Stops) Some people say she's gotten worse since her mom and cat died in that murder-suicide. (he shrugs, puts on his headphones)
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Where Do You Get Off?
(The scene is a crowded bus, regular bus activity. It’s pretty packed, and the driver stops to let some more people on)
Bus Voice: (read entirely with that flat bus voice) As a courtesy to boarding customers, please move to the rear of the bus. Please give up your seats to elderly patrons or persons with disabilities. (JESSE boards) Or even for this guy. This guy has had a really really bad day. Just look at him. (beat. He is pawing through his wallet) Uh-oh. (beat) Looks like he doesn’t have his CTA pass. He just spent $86 on that thing and now it’s gone. And on top of it all, all he has on him is a 5. Damn. He knows the bus driver doesn’t have change but he’s going to embarrass himself by asking anyway cause he doesn’t want to blow another five bucks - after losing 86 - on a bus ride. A bus ride where he has to stand. (beat) Come on people, show some decency. He’s soaking wet. It’s not even raining that hard out there, he must’ve been pushed into a gutter or something. His CTA card’s probably still floating in there. Anyone? You know his day’s not over yet either. I bet he doesn’t have his keys. Or he’s gonna get mugged or a car’s gonna hit him and he’ll break his shoulderblade. You can’t let him just sit down for 10 minutes? I can’t believe this. (beat) You’d ALL be getting up if he were blind. And blind people don’t ALWAYS need you to move for them. Sometimes they just like to stand. But if a blind person, or even a person with gray hair boarded this bus, let alone somebody in a wheelchair... Good God, when that ramp comes down, 2/3s of you are in the back quarter of the bus before the hydraulic lift is even engaged. But you won’t let this guy - this one guy who’s just been shit on since the moment he woke up today, get 10 minutes of rest before he steps back out into that shit-storm of a world that’s obviously out to get him. (beat) Fuck him, right? Yeah, well enjoy the seat now, it’ll be you tomorrow.
(Some chump gets off)
Thank you for riding the CTA.
Bus Voice: (read entirely with that flat bus voice) As a courtesy to boarding customers, please move to the rear of the bus. Please give up your seats to elderly patrons or persons with disabilities. (JESSE boards) Or even for this guy. This guy has had a really really bad day. Just look at him. (beat. He is pawing through his wallet) Uh-oh. (beat) Looks like he doesn’t have his CTA pass. He just spent $86 on that thing and now it’s gone. And on top of it all, all he has on him is a 5. Damn. He knows the bus driver doesn’t have change but he’s going to embarrass himself by asking anyway cause he doesn’t want to blow another five bucks - after losing 86 - on a bus ride. A bus ride where he has to stand. (beat) Come on people, show some decency. He’s soaking wet. It’s not even raining that hard out there, he must’ve been pushed into a gutter or something. His CTA card’s probably still floating in there. Anyone? You know his day’s not over yet either. I bet he doesn’t have his keys. Or he’s gonna get mugged or a car’s gonna hit him and he’ll break his shoulderblade. You can’t let him just sit down for 10 minutes? I can’t believe this. (beat) You’d ALL be getting up if he were blind. And blind people don’t ALWAYS need you to move for them. Sometimes they just like to stand. But if a blind person, or even a person with gray hair boarded this bus, let alone somebody in a wheelchair... Good God, when that ramp comes down, 2/3s of you are in the back quarter of the bus before the hydraulic lift is even engaged. But you won’t let this guy - this one guy who’s just been shit on since the moment he woke up today, get 10 minutes of rest before he steps back out into that shit-storm of a world that’s obviously out to get him. (beat) Fuck him, right? Yeah, well enjoy the seat now, it’ll be you tomorrow.
(Some chump gets off)
Thank you for riding the CTA.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Marmaduke
We all need to get on the same page about this Marmaduke business.
Confirming what you must have already heard, yes there is a Marmaduke movie coming out this summer. To those of you asking if it will star George Lopez and Owen Wilson - yes it will.
Let's compare this to the other comic strip that was recently made into a live-action movie - Garfield. While the quality and popularity of Garfield is disputable, at least people understand the basic premise: loser owns stupid dog and sarcastic cat that can talk - or at least think in English. Bland though it may be, there's at least something to latch onto there. In the case of Marmaduke, I don't think most people could sum it up in a sentence (family owns ordinary, illiterate dog?) and there's really nothing else to it. Exactly what potential did the screenwriters see in this premise? If the sequel to Babies were Dogs, it might be the same movie as Marmaduke.
Some dumb movies have been made (Beverly Hills Chihuahua, My Boss's Daughter) and while many of them have starred Owen Wilson, this one is unprecedented. And so, I think we all need to rally around it and either make it a huge, stupid summer nut-buster like Snakes on a Plane was or all collectively decide to not see it, not one of us, like with Speedracer.
I don't want to push my own agenda here (though I am admittedly leaning towards giving this one the Speedracer treatment) but I do think we need to unite around this film - the likes of which we may never see again - and give it the consideration it deserves.
Your thoughts?
Confirming what you must have already heard, yes there is a Marmaduke movie coming out this summer. To those of you asking if it will star George Lopez and Owen Wilson - yes it will.
Let's compare this to the other comic strip that was recently made into a live-action movie - Garfield. While the quality and popularity of Garfield is disputable, at least people understand the basic premise: loser owns stupid dog and sarcastic cat that can talk - or at least think in English. Bland though it may be, there's at least something to latch onto there. In the case of Marmaduke, I don't think most people could sum it up in a sentence (family owns ordinary, illiterate dog?) and there's really nothing else to it. Exactly what potential did the screenwriters see in this premise? If the sequel to Babies were Dogs, it might be the same movie as Marmaduke.
Some dumb movies have been made (Beverly Hills Chihuahua, My Boss's Daughter) and while many of them have starred Owen Wilson, this one is unprecedented. And so, I think we all need to rally around it and either make it a huge, stupid summer nut-buster like Snakes on a Plane was or all collectively decide to not see it, not one of us, like with Speedracer.
I don't want to push my own agenda here (though I am admittedly leaning towards giving this one the Speedracer treatment) but I do think we need to unite around this film - the likes of which we may never see again - and give it the consideration it deserves.
Your thoughts?
Monday, March 15, 2010
Jay Hawks/Moutain Hawks and other March 18, Midwest Conf. Games
In the March 18th match-up of the Kansas Jayhawks against the Lehigh Mountain Hawks, the Mountain Hawks have a distinct advantage of being a real animal. However, I must resist the temptation of underestimating something simply because it does not exist. Take, for example, The War of the Worlds radio broadcast, Steve Pribby Moots, and dinosaurs. And also, because that deranged little bastard mascot of theirs looks like some cross between Heckel & Jeckel and the Chuckie doll from the Child's Play films, I am rather intimidated by it. Perhaps it would lure the unassuming mountain hawk to it and then stab it in the neck with a straight razor. And so, I'm picking Kansas over Lehigh.
A slightly more interesting match-up, I'd say, will be played earlier that evening, when the 8-seeded UNLV Rebels go up against 9-seeded Northern Iowa Panthers. As you see, I'm sure, I like to illustrate my predictions, but to do that, I first need to settle on avatars for these two teams. You may know the UNLV logo represents themselves with a Yosemite Sam-lookin rebel, but I prefer a more James Dean style rebel, so I'm crossing the two and representing UNLV with the cracked-out, bearded incarnation of Joaquin Phoenix. As per the panthers, I have chosen to use the same image on the wikipedia page for Cougars a.k.a. Mountain Lions a.k.a Catamounts a.k.a. Panthers for every team in this tournament represented by a cougar, mountain lion, catamount, or panther. And in the pairing of Joaquin Phoenix vs. a Cougar, I pick the cougar.
In the game of Aztecs vs. Volunteers, despite their gumption, strength in numbers, and access to various tools, I have to wager the Volunteers will be massacred by the angry Aztec gods, whose precise mathematical calculations have astonished mathematicians for years.
In the pairing of Georgetown and Ohio, my money is on the bobcats to nom up the hoya.
Keep checking in for daily posts and predictions!
A slightly more interesting match-up, I'd say, will be played earlier that evening, when the 8-seeded UNLV Rebels go up against 9-seeded Northern Iowa Panthers. As you see, I'm sure, I like to illustrate my predictions, but to do that, I first need to settle on avatars for these two teams. You may know the UNLV logo represents themselves with a Yosemite Sam-lookin rebel, but I prefer a more James Dean style rebel, so I'm crossing the two and representing UNLV with the cracked-out, bearded incarnation of Joaquin Phoenix. As per the panthers, I have chosen to use the same image on the wikipedia page for Cougars a.k.a. Mountain Lions a.k.a Catamounts a.k.a. Panthers for every team in this tournament represented by a cougar, mountain lion, catamount, or panther. And in the pairing of Joaquin Phoenix vs. a Cougar, I pick the cougar.
In the game of Aztecs vs. Volunteers, despite their gumption, strength in numbers, and access to various tools, I have to wager the Volunteers will be massacred by the angry Aztec gods, whose precise mathematical calculations have astonished mathematicians for years.
In the pairing of Georgetown and Ohio, my money is on the bobcats to nom up the hoya.
Keep checking in for daily posts and predictions!
NCAA Championships Kick-Off
It's that time of year again, when everyone forgets about foreign disasters and stops poring over cached photos discovered in the storage garage of a recently apprehended serial killer and turn on Basketball. That's right, this week kicks off the 2010 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, and tomorrow marks the most exciting and talked-about game of the whole tournament: the Southern Division 16th-seed play-in game, in which, this year, the Eagles of Winthrop will take on the highly-favored Golden Lions of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Will the winning team defeat Duke and perhaps win the Championship (held this year in Indianapolis, in honor of the Colts losing the Super Bowl) on April 5? Only time will tell.
Concerning this all-important first game of the series, most people have favorited the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions (pictured below with Darren Aronofsky) to advance onto the Salient Sixty-Four over the Winthrop Eagles (also pictured below) and I am not one to go against this prediction.
Some have suggested that the Eagles have an extreme advantage over the Gloden Lions with their ability to fly. However, I do not think this defrays the great size advantage lions have over eagles. Also, to cite precedent, I think we all know cases of a cat eating a bird, but the other way around? Surely never. Also, examine the detailed image below of a Golden Lion presented to David Lynch at the Venice Film Festival in 2006.
As you can see, just like the eagle, the lion is winged too! This levels the playing field, just as it would to cut off the eagle's wings, or to make them fight underwater, and both of these two scenarios would result in wins for the lion, or perhaps a tie at the very worst in the second instance.
And so I say with relative certainty that the Golden Lions are a lock, but only time will tell if they should go on to win the Championship.
Keep checking in to This Blog Will Change Calder's Life for more NCAA predictions!
Concerning this all-important first game of the series, most people have favorited the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions (pictured below with Darren Aronofsky) to advance onto the Salient Sixty-Four over the Winthrop Eagles (also pictured below) and I am not one to go against this prediction.
Some have suggested that the Eagles have an extreme advantage over the Gloden Lions with their ability to fly. However, I do not think this defrays the great size advantage lions have over eagles. Also, to cite precedent, I think we all know cases of a cat eating a bird, but the other way around? Surely never. Also, examine the detailed image below of a Golden Lion presented to David Lynch at the Venice Film Festival in 2006.
As you can see, just like the eagle, the lion is winged too! This levels the playing field, just as it would to cut off the eagle's wings, or to make them fight underwater, and both of these two scenarios would result in wins for the lion, or perhaps a tie at the very worst in the second instance.
And so I say with relative certainty that the Golden Lions are a lock, but only time will tell if they should go on to win the Championship.
Keep checking in to This Blog Will Change Calder's Life for more NCAA predictions!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Great Mistakes
I finished reading Deadstream, and it has easily secured itself as the worst thing I've ever read. I don't even know what would be number 2, because I've never read anything before that was written so poorly that it made me angry. And I think I know why. I did a little research on Xlibris, the publisher who had ostensibly paid this guy to print his book, and discovered that they don't sign contracts with authors , but they charge for any crazy zealot on the street to have his manifesto printed. Needless to say, they do not copy edit. So we can all rest assured that a book like this would never be published by any respected publishing house. That said, if you find, it read it. But don't buy.
Also, anyone who opts to take the "knowledge is power" road over the "ignorance is bliss" option must read A People's History. I've only read the first two chapters and feel a great weight of guilt. Guilt for our treatment of the original inhabitants of this land upon arrival and for the long period (1619 -1863) during which we depended on slavery (that's 244 years of legal slavery, 147 years and counting of emancipation. Not a great track record for a country whose first major political document states that "all men are created equal"). Also, in the earliest years of our colonization, the first settlers were struggling even to survive. They occasionally resorted to cannibalism. It was those first slaves brought over in the early 17th century that saved them. It is stirring to discover just how heavy and deeply-rooted the foundation of slavery is, upon which the American empire is built. Zinn cites that, in Virginia, at the end of the 17th century, one-twelfth of the population were slaves. By 1763, it was fifty percent. He asserts on the first page of chapter two that "there is not a country in world history in which racism has been more important, for so long a time, as in the United States." (23)
Also, anyone who opts to take the "knowledge is power" road over the "ignorance is bliss" option must read A People's History. I've only read the first two chapters and feel a great weight of guilt. Guilt for our treatment of the original inhabitants of this land upon arrival and for the long period (1619 -1863) during which we depended on slavery (that's 244 years of legal slavery, 147 years and counting of emancipation. Not a great track record for a country whose first major political document states that "all men are created equal"). Also, in the earliest years of our colonization, the first settlers were struggling even to survive. They occasionally resorted to cannibalism. It was those first slaves brought over in the early 17th century that saved them. It is stirring to discover just how heavy and deeply-rooted the foundation of slavery is, upon which the American empire is built. Zinn cites that, in Virginia, at the end of the 17th century, one-twelfth of the population were slaves. By 1763, it was fifty percent. He asserts on the first page of chapter two that "there is not a country in world history in which racism has been more important, for so long a time, as in the United States." (23)
Friday, January 29, 2010
Books by the Foot!
I just saw an ad here on my very own blog for "Books by the Foot." It's for designers trying to fill a bookshelf for aesthetic purposes or to make some jackass's spare room look like an office. I bet they've got some pretty interesting titles...
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