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Scene I:
Dean: The fountain's dead.
Howard Dork: So?
Dean: You are here on a work-study scholarship for low-income students. Your job is to maintain the fountain, but you unplugged it, ripped out the wires, drained it, and paved it over with cement. Why did you do that?
Howard: Because I hate esthetics. I want to create buildings that are structurally sound, and that are also God-awful eyesores. I have a cousin, Moe, who also hates esthetics. He was in school to be a chef. He hated spices: salt, pepper, paprika... all of them. He used to take raw ingredients, run them through a blender, and serve them as shakes. He drank a bacon-and-eggs shake every day for breakfast.
Dean: Did he graduate from chef school?
Howard: No, he was expelled. Now he and his two unlicensed, tax-evading friends operate a plumbing business: Drip Boys: Larry, Curly, and Moe.
Dean: I see. So, do you also want to be expelled?
Howard: Sort of. I am full of unconscious self-hatred. You see, my idol is another unlicensed, tax evading plumber. He has a right-wing radio show, and his stage name is "Flush Limpo". Anyway, he has me convinced that every person who earns less than a six-figure income is a willfully-lazy Socialist parasite who deserves a swift kick in the crotch. I would kick myself in the nuts every day, but I'm not that limber. So, I think I'll just get expelled from school, then start my own business, without any experience or network of referrals. After that, I will alienate every potential customer by insisting that my buildings should only look good to me, and not to my customers, or their customers, or anyone else on Earth. Then maybe I'll work in a rock quarry for awhile.
Dean: Congratulations. You're expelled. Let me know how that works out for you.
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| Scene II:
Anne Colder-Brand: Hello, Gail. Are you here to seduce me?
Gail Murdock: Well, I am a man. And you are a fictional, irresistible sex-kitten bombshell. And sex sells. So, of course the answer is, "Yes".
Anne Colder-Brand: That's a good, if predictable, answer. But before I let you peel off my clothes and expose my large, lustfully-heaving breasts, I am going to recite a monologue.
Murdock (looks at his watch): If you must. Will this take long?
Colder-Brand: Not really. And besides, I am the alter-ego of the author, so as a plot point you are going to be a good boy and listen without interruption. Do you want to know what I was doing before you arrived? Of course you do. I was throwing a priceless statue down my air shaft. Want to know why? Of course you do. I did it to illustrate my hatred for mankind. Please note, it was not indifference to mankind, it was hatred. If I was just a ruthlessly selfish person, I would hoard that sculpture in some vault, and view it often for my own amusement, as you do with your priceless art collection. Then, indifferent to mankind's happiness or lack thereof, I would leave it in my will to a museum, thinking "What the hell? Now that I am dead, why not let the masses enjoy what I hoarded during life?" But you see, I don't just feel a callous indifference towards others, I actually want them to suffer. So I could have left orders in my will that the statue would be destroyed after my death. But no, that would not be petty and spiteful enough. I am so determined that no other human should enjoy that statue, that I even destroyed it today, depriving myself of decades of future enjoyment, just to make Damn sure that no one else would ever enjoy that statue. See? I am not just selfish, I am also sadistic.
Murdock: Wow! Not only are you physically hot, you are also a fellow sociopath! Let's make lots of right-wing babies together! Oh, but first I have to tell you about myself in a flashback.
Colder-Brand: If you must.
Murdock: You see, before I became a powerful, filthy-rich right-wing media baron, I was born poor. That was before I pulled myself up by my bootstraps... through lying, cheating and stealing, of course.
Colder-Brand: Well, duh. If your up-by-the-bootstraps story did not involve ruthlessness and dishonesty, you would probably end up as a Democrat: like Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Barak Obama, or one of those other commies.
Murdock: Exactly. Well, anyway. One day when I was a juvenile delinquent, some guy beat the crap out of me. I was mortally wounded, bleeding, and dragging myself along down the street. I passed some dive bar, and when the barkeep saw me, I begged him for help. He ignored my pleas for help, and slammed the door in my face. A decade later, when I was rich and powerful, I did not take any revenge upon the guy who beat me, but I went out of my way to drive that barkeep into bankruptcy.
Colder-Brand: I am confused. Did you think it wrong for the barkeep to refuse to help you? Don't you know that every time you help a stranger in need, it is a slippery slope to Communism?
Murdock: You misunderstand. I did not bankrupt him to punish bad behavior. I did it out of ego and spite. It was humiliating for me to ever ask anyone for help; he witnessed me being weak. So, naturally, I had to destroy him. But even though I bankrupted him, I did let him live. If he had humiliated me further by actually granting the help that I begged for, he would be sleeping with the fishes right now.
Colder-Brand: Ah, a sociopath after my own heart! Take me now, you sexy despot!
Scene III:
Colmes Hooey: Here I am, talking to myself again. Am I more of a straw man, or more of a scapegoat? Maybe a bit of both. Maybe I am a straw goat... like a goat-shaped topiary, but made of straw. Anyway, I think I shall now engage in a melodramatic soliloquy, in which I gloat to myself about my evil plan to enslave the world... by using tax dollars to feed the starving and shelter the homeless. Once I complete that goal of achieving evil ends through altruistic actions, I will move on to others... like melting the polar ice caps by driving a plug-in hybrid... or promoting Satanism, by selling Girl Scout cookies...
(The End) |
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