The Parsnip Ship

KETEL ONE:   You don’t know what you’re talking about.

BARRACK OBAMA:   Of course I do.  I’m from Hawaii!

BON JOVI:   I don’t think that’s an affirmation of authority.  I hear tell that the education system isn’t so hot out there.  They don’t think very often.

BARRACK OBAMA:   Why do you think I left?

KETEL ONE:   Look, as far as I’m concerned, anyone who finds Chloë Sevigny even remotely attractive is a Popov drinking, resin smoking nincompoop.

BARRACK OBAMA:   I didn’t say ‘attractive’ I said ‘interesting’.  She looks like she’s a nice person.

KETEL ONE:   You’re so not getting a sip of me.

BON JOVI:   To quote the fat one’s assessment of Sarah Jessica Parker on Family Guy, I think Chloë “looks like a foot.”

KETEL ONE:   Would you like olive me?

BON JOVI:   I’d prefer a twist.

     [Ketel One pours shakes itself over ice and pours itself into a not-cheap martini glass.  A twist falls from the sky into the glass.]

BON JOVI:   Why thank you.

BARRACK OBAMA:   [Pouts]

HAWAII:   Shut it down, Indiana.  Just shut it down.

INDIANA:   What’d I do?

HAWAII:   You were thinking again.  Don’t do it.  Just don’t.  Uh-uh.  Not ever.  Nope.

INDIANA:   Why?

HAWAII:   I can’t answer such questions without contemplating them which is a form of thinking which is something I refuse to do on principle.

     [Enter VERMONT]

VERMONT:   Hey friends, what’s going on?

INDIANA:   I’m trying to pick a flavor of FroYo and Hawaii is on a tirade about not thinking.

VERMONT:   Ah, well, it is best to just go off gut instinct.

HAWAII:   Nope.  No.  Wrong.  Don’t do that!  No gut instincts, no thinking.  Just close your eyes and pick a FroYo.

INDIANA:   Ok.  

     [S/he closes hir/s eyes and picks ‘2-Day-Old-Popcorn’ flavor]

VERMONT:   Ew.

HAWAII:   That’s fate for you!  Take your lot and don’t complain.  Eat the FroYo.

     [Indiana eats the FroYo]

INDIANA:   There.  I did it.

HAWAII:   Good for you.

TIM COOK:   $1 in every $40 in income tax revenue comes from $AAPL.

TIM RICE:   1 in every 40 good lyric comes from me.

TIM COOK:   Is that so?

TIM RICE:   No. No, not really.

TIM COOK:   Oh.

TIM RICE:   Yea.

TIM COOK:   Hmm…

PIN   Well, I don’t care what you think, I think I’m charming as hell.

TACK   I find you wholly unlikable.

PIN   That’s because you think I’m being insincere.

TACK   No, I find you completely sincere at the time you say sincere things, you just aren’t the same person the next time they’re said.

PIN   You’re sharp as a tack.

TACK   I know that.

PIN   So what’s your point?

TACK   That I find myself often torn between wanting to make love to your charisma and wanting to serial kill your multiple personalities.

PIN   Those options both sound petite bourgeois, and frankly, boring.  

TACK   You’re such an asshole.

PIN   That’s why you love me.

TACK   I find you wholly unlikable.

PIN   Mmhmm.

RUPAUL   I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time that I think you’re mantastic.

MITT ROMNEY   Oh.  Uh, thank you.

RUPAUL   Honey, that wasn’t a compliment.  It’s the opposite of dragtastic, which is fabulous, honey.

MITT ROMNEY   It’s been so long since I’ve been complimented that I don’t recognize them any more.  My bad.

RUPAUL   Now it is time for you to lipsync… for your life!  And honey, don’t fuck it up.

MITT ROMNEY   I don’t know what that means.

RUPAUL   Lipsync goddam you!

MITT ROMENY   La la oh la la, ga ga oh ma ma.

RUPAUL   Please, anything but that.

MITT ROMENY   Tagg, can you help me out here?

TAGG ROMENY   Hey, Ru… wanna fuck?

RUPAUL   Gladly.  Later ladies!

ICED TEA  Hey.  Imma sex you.

HOT TEA   Ok, do me in my secret spot.

ICED TEA   Where’s that?

HOT TEA   In my sugar bowl.

ICED TEA   Ohhh girl, you dirty.

HOT TEA   Actually, at 200 degrees I’m quite free of bacteria, though the same may not be said for my sugar bowl.

DIET COKE   Word.

BEDRIDDEN   Hey, how’s it goin?

JOHN HAMM   The Olympics are coming.

BEDRIDDEN   I’m not going this year.  I’m boycotting.

JOHN HAMM   Oh.  I’ll boycott with you then.

     [He gets into Bedridden’s bed.]

DIET COKE   What are you boycotting?

BEDRIDDEN   Baby Spice.

JOHN HAMM   And I’m avoiding Princess Kate.

HOT LAVA   Well, that about does it.  Pretty much gobbled up everything I could find.  Now what?

ACID SMOKE CLOUD   Do you wanna play chess?

HOT LAVA   Ah, no, I’m cooling off.  I’m gonna be a rock again soon.

ACID SMOKE CLOUD   Yea, I’ve been dissipating.  This sucks man.

HOT LAVA   Sure does.

ACID SMOKE CLOUD   When’s the next astroid coming along?

HUBBLE TELESCOPE   Not for a good 900 million years.

HOT LAVA   Damn.

ACID SMOKE CLOUD   Maybe a new race’ll come along and develop nuclear weapons again!

HOT LAVA   Hopefully.  Until then, my old friend!  See you next doomsday!

     [He turns into rock.]

ACID SMOKE CLOUD   Good bye!  Good night and good bye!

     [She dissipates.]

HUBBLE TELESCOPE   Maybe I should have told them that the Daleks will be here in about 400 million years… that might have excited them.  Oh well.

If you’re in the NYC area come see my workshop presentation of The Future Perfect!  Here’s an excerpt:

SMITH   I suppose you think I’m rather brazen.

JOHN   I don’t.  I think your blunt.

SMITH   I’m not.  I’m brazen.

JOHN   I think you drink too much.

SMITH   I drink just the right amount.

JOHN   For what?

SMITH   For not being “with the world.”

JOHN   As in, “The world is too much with us, great and small?”

SMITH   “Late and soon.”

JOHN   See, I almost know Wordsworth.

SMITH   I suppose you’d like to see my “…deep romantic chasm.”

JOHN   Now that was brazen.  And Coleridge.

SMITH   Same difference.

JOHN   What if I told you that I do?

SMITH   I’d say I need another drink.

JOHN   And would you call me after I saw it?

     [He thinks.]

SMITH   No.  I don’t love you.

JOHN   How do you know?  We just met.

SMITH   I know.  But I’ll still sleep with you, if you want.

JOHN   Should we even bother with dessert?

SMITH   Yes, I want to get your money’s worth.

POLICE OFFICER   Papers please.

BRIDGET   Which ones?

POLICE OFFICER   Do you have a license for your vagina?

BRIDGET   Oh, yes.  Here you go.

POLICE OFFICER   This is your menastration license, I need your vagina license, form 309-C.

BRIDGET   I only have 309-B on me, my license to menstruate.

POLICE OFFICER   How long have you had a vagina, ma’am?

BRIDGET   Er, as long as I can remember.

POLICE OFFICER   You have to carry form 309-C when you bring your vagina in public, you know this.

BRIDGET   I know, I know.  I forgot, I was just running out to buy some microchips.

POLICE OFFICER   I’ll need to confiscate it.

BRIDGET   My vagina?

POLICE OFFICER   Yes.  You can get it back from the Department of Happiness and Mental Hygiene on Monday.

BRIDGET   Do you want my hands too?

POLICE OFFICER   Do you have a license for wearing that bracelet?

BRIDGET   No, I don’t.  Here, take them.  Take it all.  Take my hands, my vagina, my left toe, and my bicuspids!

POLICE OFFICER   I will.  Thank you.  You can pick them up from the DHMH when you file form 309-C.

BRIDGET   I’ll fill it out using my right toe.  Good day to you sir.

POLICE OFFICER   Good day, ma’am.

BRANDY   Drink me.

LILY   Ok.

ITUNES   Turn me on.

LILY   Ok.  What should I play?

ITUNES   Phillip Glass, I think.  Symphony for Eight.

LILY   Ok.

BOOKSHELF   Read something.

LILY   Ok.  What should I read?

BOOKSHELF   Sarah Kane seems appropriate.  Phaedra’s Love.

LILY   Ok.

STOMACH   Order some food.

WALLET   She can’t.  I’m empty.

STOMACH   I’m empty too!  Make some food.

LILY   Ok.  Pasta with butter?

STOMACH   Sure.  With salt too.

     [LILY makes pasta with butter and salt.  LILY listens to Phillip Glass while reading Sarah Kane.  LILY drinks brandy.  LILY turns into a sparrow and flies away.]

FRIDAY   Here I am.

READER   Why do you always day the weeks into being?

ERIC   Because I can.

HOLE   I can be a negative space in the earth.

FRIDAY   Can you now?

HOLE   I can.

FRIDAY   Well, I am the part of the week that takes up a part of the week, thereby invading it, like a hole in the timeline of these seven days.  Can you do that?

ERIC   Have you read, my dear Friday, Mark Strand’s ”Keeping Things Whole”?

FRIDAY   No, I have not.  But I’ll read it now.

ERIC   You should.

HOLE   I agree.

ERIC   Shut up, you!

     [There is time]

ERIC   Have you thought about how a hole is an ant colony, and an ant colony a hill? That a hole is a negative space that when the world is flipped over becomes a positive space?

READER   What are you trying to say?

ERIC   That you, my dear reader, are a negative space—a hill—in the world that is filling up a something that was somewhat there before you?

READER   No.

FRIDAY   I am an institution.

ERIC   That would otherwise be a day, because you fill it up with your name.  That a Shakespeare is an inverted whole that by any other name world smell as sweet.  Is a hole in the ground any different from a whole mountain if you simply flip the world on its head?

MOTHER   Son, now that you’ve graduated from college there are some things you must know.

SON   What kind of things?  Supernatural or super-secret things?

MOTHER   Things that have been passed down from generation to generation.  Rules of conduct that I shall now pass to you.

SON   Rules?  I hate rules!

MOTHER   These aren’t difficult rules to follow, but they are a little something to help guide you through polite social interaction.

SON   Oh alright, what are they?

     [She hands him a slip of paper]