Interesting. Even post-Obama, you know, interesting. Balcony says she’s black and, okay, on the board.
Well, we don’t see so much empty space now, do we? And how about we double underline? How about we remember why you came to me in the first place? You signed up for this, not just the weekend but the wrap rap: Arc Mojo. After this, all you’ll have is books out in the lobby, the seminar discount. After this it’s Happy Hour. Happy, uh-huh, a whole hour. Jamba-lye, crawfish pie, fillay gumbo.
My children, this is your last, best chance. This right here, and take a look, the mess on the board is getting interesting. It’s getting all the way to To Kill a Mockingbird. Or should I say, I mean I can hear you thinking, To Fuck a Mockingbird? I think even Helen Keller could hear it. Everyone’s putting our Mayberry boyo together with his Sophisticated Lady. You, sure, down to my right. You spell it out. Evenin’ in Dixie, waitin’ on the levee, don’ the moon look pretty…
Look, even post-Obama, it’s still one of the best plays in the deck. Red Opie on black Hottie. Just look at the space it takes up on our wall. We’re not riding any cable cars now. We’re taking a chance in the hall of mirrors. In one reflection, you see something squatty as a munchkin, and then in the next, it’s all high, wide, and handsome. It’s a long way from just any old fantasy. It’s handsome and light on its feet, and that’s your bankable narrative, my children. If it’s danceable it’s bankable. It’s what I like to call the two-step…
Excuse me, what, balcony? Up in the balcony, what, the Koran? Koranic Studies?
The Fine Arts, you’re saying, that’s the fallback. That’s not enough. Our girl needs a degree with an edge.
Interesting. Koranic Studies, because I mean, she’s dark already. She’s dark and her book learning, I’m with you, it ought to have an edge. She ought to have a verse of the Koran tattooed above her heart. Cleavage that comes with a code. Plus, when she translates for our doofus hero, they’re down in the back acreage. Wetlands, piney woods, fire ants.
Balcony, I am so with you, and the rest of you, come on, you get it, don’t you? You see it, the space it takes up, on the board? It rocks us right out of the comfort zone. We take a woman of mystery and put her down in Plain’n’Simpleton. Come to think, she’s got no visible means of support either, other than the permanent erection she gives the hayseed next door.
That’s the way we roll. That’s the two-step on the edge. My children, think about it, we’re trying to catch an alien. The golden alien, the Oscar for Best Original, a creature with no eyes and no ears but a mighty big sword…
Okay, okay you, front and center. What? The woman’s kid, you’re saying, her love child?
A single mom, right, a girl next door who’s been someone’s Playmate. So her kid, it’s a boy you’re saying, we need to put that boy together with our cornpone. I get it. Our cornpone may not have a clue when it comes to the Dark Lady herself, but when it comes to her kid he’s a buddy, he’s a big brother. A natural. Our guy and her kid, there’s sympathy there, a relationship.
Okay. Teachable moment. Let’s see if we can use what we’ve learned since Friday.
My children, it’s what I like to call the two-step, when our Catwoman’s got a kid. I mean, it takes us from edge to heart, mystery to sympathy. Now, ah-one, ah-two…
In the good old summertime, we’re ambling along with our Mama Mystery, and it’s not like you don’t notice her cleavage code. Not when she’s in spaghetti straps. But to one side there’s her new Daddy, he may be one dumb sucker but he’s still a Daddy, because to the other there’s her Lil’ MacGuffin. I mean, that’s what the kid is, isn’t he? The kid’s the question left dangling, isn’t he, the cable car half off its hook? But we’re ambling along with these three, down in the back acreage, down where the loam starts to get gushy, and our Papa surrogate, he’s starting to play with her little clitoris…whoa! How’d I make that mistake? What was I thinking?
What, character and sympathy, is that nothing but sex? Ha ha, uh-huh, okay. Okay.
Settle down.
Cletus, that’s better, that’s the name we need here. Cletus, that’s her little boy, and that’s what our own boy’s up to. He’s playing with her Cletus. Settle down. We need a hick name, that’s what I’m saying, and can’t you hear it? Good one, Cletus!—can’t you hear it? Carrying across the swamp every time the kid whacks another frog?
Now, as for what he uses to whack ’em, that’s probably his father’s old nine iron. Now, his father, that’s the question. That’s the MacGuffin. I do this for a living, boys and girls, and I know what’s the question. But, as for teachable, that’s names. Names are about the sympathy, I’m saying, maybe the sex but positively the sympathy. Your names need to pull up to the dock with all their signifiers aflutter. Think about it. Think about down in the boonies, down where you’ll find these people, they’ve all got ribbons up. Pink ribbons, yellow ribbons, whatever. Always a ribbon tied to the biggest tree in the yard. Before you knock you’ve got to decode the color. Are these guys Pray for Peace or Kill Obama?
So, Cletus, that’ll do us. In this movie, insofar as anyone’s singing the lovesick blues, one way or another they’re singing about Cletus. It’s on the board.
But, Balcony, something else? What now?
Two names, you’re saying, both for Our Lady of the Cutoffs. Okay, two, I’ll set up a bracket.
One. Down among the frog-giggers, Mama’s got her ribbons tied right, and she calls herself Sally. American as Spring Break. But, then, two. She had another name back in the noir. Back where it’s all in code, MFA NYU, E train F train, there they knew her as Salem Shellac’em—I get it—the anti-liposuctionist. Leader of a terrorist cell.
My brother Balcony. Looks like someone’s left the State Fair far behind. Looks like it.
Okay, brotherman, let’s do this. Back before she left the wicked city, no, before she fled, I hear that, before she fled the urban experience, our girl had the cosmetic surgeons quaking. She wrought havoc across the waiting rooms. All that beige and gray, those calming tones, she hit ’em with tear gas and graffiti. Tagged ’em with SAVE THE CELLULITE. Good. Plus, what’s that, what? Someone else? Don’t everybody shout at once. Just, you’re saying, she gives the docs a taste of their own medicine? Our lovely witch puts the surgeons on the table, she puts them under, and then she leaves another tag. No need for a toolkit, either, the doctors have all she needs. Okay. I mean, she’s already got a tattoo, and isn’t there an old folk song? Something like that? The girl who’s been wronged leaves her mark on the man?
It’s on the board, it’s half the board, backstory.
Back…story, oh? Oh, that’s funny, really? Somebody thinks it’s funny, back like butt, like a butt that could use some surgery. Uh huh. I guess a few of us are starting Happy Hour early.
Settle down. Balcony, help me out here. We’ve got a terrorist body-conscious mid-Manhattan backstory…
Backstory backstory backstory. You can snicker all the way to the unemployment line. Who’s running this session? Who’s going to have time for your cryin’n’pleadin’, after the guys with the checkbooks go thumbs-down on your concept, because your lead girl isn’t nice enough? She’s got to be nice, if she’s the lead, and I mean genuinely. Inveterately. All part of what I like to call the two-step, and lately, you guys have been neglecting the one. The character half of the board, here, it’s overshadowed by the noir. Way overshadowed. Salem Shellac’em the Sabotage Surgeon, going nasty on the boys in nip’n’tuck, she’s nothing but nasty. Tear gas for the waiting room, chloroform for the doc, and how’s that play with her little Cletus? With him and our lovesick Huckleberry?