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| re: A Song is a Terrible Thing to Waste | |
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rockfenris2005 03:02 pm UTC 05/07/21 |
| In reply to: | re: A Song is a Terrible Thing to Waste - steven_stuart 09:13 am UTC 05/05/21 |
:-) HISTORIAN: Ladies and gentlemen, I am an historian. Ketchup or blood? Yes...No...Yes...Ketchup or blood? And which is which? Yes...No...Yes...Ketchup or blood? Does it matter? They both disgust me. Ketchup or blood? Does it matter? Ketchup or blood? I asked you a question. Ketchup or blood? Ketchup or blood? KETCHUP OR BLOOD? Does it matter?? We pour one on our meat to make our meals more colorful, we pour the other on our flesh to make our deaths more colorful, to make our banquets more colorful, to make our wars more colorful, to make our stockyards shine brighter, to make our streets run richer with red, so...[He has been pouring ketchup over raw hamburger meat during his speech, and now he shows the glop to the audience as he finishes.] Yes...No...Yes...We pour one on our meat to make our meals more colorful, one on our flesh to make our wars more colorful, to make our slaughter more colorful for the movies, and YES! we do have colorful movies, YES! Do you like movies? I find them immeasurably more entertaining than the theater, don't you? Ketchup or blood? We enjoy them both. Ketchup or blood? We love our movies. Ketchup or blood? We love our lives. Ketchup or blood? We love our dramas. Ketchup or blood? We love our bodies. Ketchup or blood? We love our meat. Well, don't we? Well don't we love our meat, now? Don't we? I asked you a question - don't we love our meat, now? Yes, no...YES! We love our meat! Altogether now, look at me! - altogether now: "Yes we love our meat!" [Pause.] HISTORIAN: So why do we smother it in ketchup? Why do we drown it in blood? Yes...No...Yes... Yes, yes... Ladies and gentlemen, I am an historian. I have to keep reminding myself, something that hideous you try to forget. I deal in life: so little to do, and so much time to do it in. I think I'm going to puke. Well, forget what I said - it's irrelevant. It has nothing to do with tonight's subject, nothing to do with at all. SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU! DON'T ANYBODY MOVE! I've been watching you. I've been watching every one of you and I know what you're trying to do to me. But it won't work. You can't hold me here, you can't keep me prisoner, you can't bind me in chains, you can't stuff me with nails! Take your shiny spikes away. I protect nobody's filthy secrets, nobody's! So it does no good to try and surround me, no good to try to torture me, no good to destroy me or my sick, swollen memory. I'll remember everything. I protect nobody's filthy secrets, nobody's - so SHUT UP! I know just what you're thinking. FORGET IT! Ladies and gentlemen, I am an historian. I am also your narrator for tonight. [Pause.] HISTORIAN: Don't anybody speak. Don't anybody so much as look around, or blink, or wince, or laugh, or convulse or cry - stare straight ahead, stony as a corpse! Now that shouldn't be too difficult. Most of you look like rigor mortise was a way of life. Fools! You bore me! Only the slightest breathing. Only the slightest. Ladies and gentlemen, how do I appear to you? Oh, I can guess your answer. You see one very slimy, very greasy, perhaps even repulsive man. Don't let it bother you. It's only my business manner. My own special brand of distilled insanity. It's not easy being caretaker to the largest, most inevitable, most relentless, most rancid, and most inescapable cemetery is the scope of the human imagination. It is not easy being an historian. For centuries we have continued, oblivious and diseased. For years we have been on the brink of eternal coma, and I am sick of playing nurse to a patient without hope! There's nothing you can do about it. And the vomit and blood and shit and piss get thicker and thicker...crawl up your legs...nest in your cunt...eat at your balls and your prick...tear at your stomach....strain at your brain...and blindfold your eyes. Oh! The scabs are extraordinary. For a while I tried to be optimistic. I wrote long tracts on the grandeur of man, the progress of civilization, the sublime hopes of humanity...Gradually it made me sick to my stomach. At least now I am honest with myself. THERE IS A MAJOR LESSON TO BE LEARNED HERE!...What is it? [He rummages through notes on his desk.] HISTORIAN:Oh yes! Vaseline is no cure for cancer! I offer no more comforting lubrication. Only the facts. Therefore my admittedly putrid business manner. I am what you see, no more, no less. You can ignore me for now. Do you think I care? Most of you mean nothing to me. [Pause.] HISTORIAN:My vein is twitching. A vein in the middle of my eye. It's twitching again and again and again. There. Now it's quiet. It's waiting to catch me off-guard. I can feel it out of the corner of my eye. It's waiting. I can see you all smirking. Hm! How amusing this all is. The little man is making a fool of himself. At least that's what the young ones think. The older ones, they're closer to me now. But the young ones! Sometimes they never really do understand, until the time comes...The ludicrous parade of young boys, the ludicrous display of young girls, stuffed to their cruel mouths with exhaustive breathing, ecstatic moaning and voluptuous coupling... [Pause.] HISTORIAN: I'm going to cough. Again, and again, and again. It's expected of me. I always do what's expected of me. That's why I've lived so long. I think... AAGGHH! Watch the vein! WATCH THE VEIN! [He clutches at his face, stumbles into the lap of someone sitting in the first row.] We can't go on meeting like this. It just won't work. Now where was I? Oh, yes. The young. The fine young boys and fine young girls. First the girls: the girls who submerge themselves night after night in long strenuous swims against the hard stiff undertow of young boys' waves - and don't give a damn if they drown or not. How long do you think it will last? How long before you find yourself sweating from one supermarket to the other, looking with horror at your own flabby, irrigated flesh? I can see you now, waddling down the street...your fat tits erupting in front of you - your fat, hideous tits smothered in silicone, bouncing hysterically like two middle-aged cheerleaders trying desperately but hopelessly to arouse enthusiasm for the tired antique body that follows far behind...I use the word 'body' loosely. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, to say the least. AAGGHH! Where is my vein!? You fools, you let it get away! I warned you! Don't just sit there like assholes...WHERE IS IT?! [Pause.] HISTORIAN: I got it. Forgive me. My body has a tendency to drift and flake. I have to be careful at all times. It won't happen again. Where was I? Oh, yes. The fine young boys. The blue-eyed boys. How proud they are, hurtling themselves through space, in the middle of a clear green field, legs tightly wrapped around a pliant apple tree. They rip open their pants, they pull out that panting naked capsule which they softly call their own, that sadistically exulted prick burning in their hands. I can see them, I can see them watching with monstrous desire. The goddamn bullet goes shooting its way up towards the sky, a bullet of flesh pointing its way up towards the heavens like some divine gargoyle accusing God himself and challenging HIM to a confrontation! One spurt of rushing youth to cleanse the polluted sky! [Pause.] HISTORIAN: How I hate them all. And how long do you think it will last? How long before your shattered remains are found in some enemy swamp, somewhere far off in some enemy swampland, and sent home to Mother in a tin-can coffin with your name inscribed on your ass and the lid opened wide? How long before your lovely head explodes in a blaze of blonde chaos, after just one golden overdose more than you can stand? You can't escape. The battlefield of eternal, undeclared wars is unbounded and endless. There are no limits there, there never will be. And terrified young men, very much like yourselves, will continue to lob one another's skulls across the wings of strange birds that are burning themselves alive - just like you are. There's no way out. [Pause.] HISTORIAN:And after that, how soon before you find yourself trapped in a business suit...a prisoner in your own nightly bath, with pink soap balls for eyes, and nothing to see, and no reason to try. The perfect American marriage, perhaps: the vegetable husband and his vegetarian wife! [He laughs. Then yells.] HISTORIAN: SHUT UP! An empty shell, nothing more, a shell, in which you can't even hear the ocean, no matter how hard you try, no matter how close to your ear. An empty shell... Fools, young boys! Fools, young girls! I warn you but you never listen. FOOLS! All of you! Well, I could go on, but I won't. Tonight's a festive occasion and I let myself get carried away. Forgive me! It won't happen again! I am an Historian. I don't ask for pity. I don't ask for compassion. I don't ask for condolences. I don't ask for hope. I don't ask for promises. I don't ask for feelings. I ask only that you keep your distance as I have tried to keep mine, though we have both failed too many times to count! I am an Historian. I ask only to be left alone. After all these years, I think I deserve that. I think I deserve that, don't you? [Suddenly passionate.] HISTORIAN: IF YOU'D ALL JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!! Give my vein some peace! Leave me alone! Die faster, die more cleanly, die in black and white and fuck the colors! But please - give history the rest it has earned! Give us all some mercy! Take your confessions somewhere else! Give history the rest it deserves. TAKE YOUR CONFESSIONS SOMEWHERE ELSE!! [Long pause.] HISTORIAN:I'm sorry. There is nowhere else. I'm really very sorry. [Muffled sobs. Pause.] HISTORIAN:I suppose I seem to be crying... [Suddenly harsh.] HISTORIAN: Well, don't let it fool you, shitholes! I'll admit it. There is nowhere else. I'll do my best. I'll do what's expected of me. [Long pause. Then he speaks very calmly.] HISTORIAN: Can't you see how much I hate you? Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, tonight's history! Let us begin with our location. We are on the coast of northern California. On the shining rim of the searing edge of the west, the farthest dream of essential America, in the near future. On the cliffs, overlooking the purple water, we find our main character. His name is BAAL. B-A-A-L. BAAL! Get it right! He has left his home to live on the rocks in the open air. Young men and women will follow him there. And now, a song for your pleasure. BAAL and his followers express their disgust with our society and offer an alternative. PHASE ONE: THE FORMATION OF THE TRIBE! > I agree with JD. Yaay! A JD post! Ryan really is The > Historian. | |
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