What Are We Gonna Do With All This Trash?: How About We Try This

July 24, 2007

How About We Try This

Perhaps I was tweeny bit harsh by suggesting completely getting rid of the website, and I agree that more creating is better than no creating. But I think if we were actually writing funny/astute cultural commentary, then we wouldn't have gotten bored so quickly. 'Cause all I was doing, until I ran out of anything to write, was making fun of celebrities, which is no fun, no sir, not at all. Plus how many "Why Y'all So Vagina" things can one write before one is simply a parody of one's self. The answer, if anyone cares, is four. Four times.

Anyway, onto the hard part: what do we make of this web log? I just had the brilliant idea to make the blog nothing but one-act plays. Any topic, any genre, any style. What do you think? Here I'll start things off...

Lights come up on a dark and dirty dive bar. The place is empty save for two sad souls sitting next to each other. Each are slouched over their drinks as if their beer mugs were the only thing keeping them off the ground. This is Ed and this is Larry.

Ed and Larry sit silently as a black and white TV bolted up on the wall in the corner shows a baseball game, Yanks versus Sox, the broken and warbled voices of the commentators softly fill the space in the background.

Ed
See that guy?

Larry
Which guy?

Ed (pointing)
That one -- A-Rod.

Larry (not looking)
What about him?

Ed
He's not so great. He ain't better'n me, tell
you that much.

Larry
He's better at playing baseball than you.

Ed
That don't make him better'n me.

Larry
Most folks would disagree with that.

Ed (angry)
Whassat supposed to mean?

Larry
Well, how I figure, if A-Rod were
to get hit by a full semi rig running
full bear and flattened him like a pancake,
lots of people would care. If you got hit
by that same truck, nobody would care.
That makes him better than you.

Ed
Yeah, well... I guess you're right.
But jus' look at him. Sitting there
with that stupid look on his face,
thinking that he's better than me.

Larry (looks up at TV)
No, Ed. He's not thinking he's better
than you. He's thinking about pussy.

Curtain. Lights.

So, whaddya think?

4 comments:

Scrap Heap Pete said...: You're right about constant celebrity bashing not being too fun. Sorta makes me feel like taking lots of showers. I guess sites like Defamer, The Smoking Gun, and What Would Tyler Durden Do have pretty much cornered the market for celebrity bashing.

Amateur playwright it is!; 9:50 PM
Marie Debris said...: You're joking right?; 5:03 PM
Mike said...: Pete, I don't know to whom Marie is directing her question -- me for suggesting a blog of play writing, or you for agreeing to it. Actually, I'm kind of surprised that you'd go for that idea. It was literally the first thing that I thought of as I was writing. Do you really think we can keep that up? I'm game if you are... we can come up with some experimental, off-off-off Broadway shit.; 1:55 AM
Scrap Heap Pete said...: It was my understanding that we could pretty much take a free-form approach to this thing, although I can accept a moratorium on all celebrity bashing.
Since there aren't any rules on the Internet, we might as well take advantage of it.
Weblinks to funny places, one-act plays, the top 5 songs you heard on your iPod this week, lines from songs, tv, movies and why they're important to you, etc. Anything and everything goes (minus that whole celebrity thing).; 2:43 PM

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A History Of Trash

Trash, at first, was a pretty cool guy. You know, he’d come over with some beers, and you’d hang out and have a couple of laughs. Maybe Trash brought some weed with him, and you guys tried to sync up Dark Side Of The Moon with The Wizard Of Oz until you remembered you lost your VHS copy of that movie sometime in college and that you fucking hate Pink Floyd. Good times were had, nonetheless.

But then, you don’t know what changed, but Trash started to overstay his welcome. He’d just linger for hours, never taking the hint you wanted him to leave, no matter how many times you yawned obnoxiously or mentioned how early you had to get up tomorrow. Trash just didn’t get it. You were getting older. You didn’t have the time anymore to stay up until 3 a.m. to talk about the Port season of “The Wire” or how much you miss Jawbox. Eventually, you just stopped taking Trash’s phone calls and no longer replied to his group e-mails about sneaking into abandoned mental hospitals.

Last time you saw Trash, he was smoking alone outside a local dive bar, looking down at his decaying and mismatched shoes. You hoped he had been doing well. You hoped he had not been hurt by the disintegration of your friendship. And if he had, you wanted to comfort him. You wanted to tell him that even though people move on with their lives, it doesn’t mean they stop caring. You wanted him to see in your eyes a sincere appreciation for the time you shared, because all the relationships in our lives help make us who we are, and even if you weren’t the best of friends anymore, you wanted him to know that there would always be a piece of Trash in your heart.

But instead, you looked away and crossed the street. You were with your new girlfriend, and you really didn’t want to have to explain Trash to her. She’d never understand.