ACT I:
Weird Shit That Pleases
(Maybe You Too)
Scene: A most depressed-looking Jack sitting on a couch is watching a TV screen, eyes placid and face oily, he’s very slouched while his hands rest in his lap, fingers interlocked and woven, as the remote-control lies on his left thigh. A friend comes over, doesn’t knock, just walks right into the living room and sits down next to him. They sit wordlessly for five, ten seconds, watching the screen—Friend’s hands stay jammed in his pockets in a still-transient manner, like he’s undecided to stay or leave—with a posture that presently resembles good back health—and then quickly surveys the living room; he turns his head to the kitchen and hears the coffee machine puffing, next to that he observes an overweight cat eating kibble on the counter with its tail twitching absent-mindedly. The refrigerator clicks on and drones. He turns back to the screen—a commercial break, a pharmaceutical success story: a man is antiquing with his presumed wife; in sepia mood-filters they smile and grin in feigned romance as they walk down Main Street, USA. A migrant-looking man fires up a lawnmower in the backyard, and Friend, mildly startled, he kind of half gets up out of his seat and twists his torso sideways —a lazy man’s thrust of energy out of bored curiosity—and then plops back down, letting his spine slink down, begins to puff his cheeks out, blowing air slowly in an exhale, and finally, very casually like turning a newspaper page, turns to Jack and says:
“So—this is all your doing?”
Jack keeps his eyes on the screen. “What are you talking about?”
“Well—you’re like, just watching TV.”
Jack looks over at Friend, emotion finally filling his face, obviously perplexed, then ticked, then annoyed, in this order.
“So?—what’s wrong with just watching TV?” He stares at Friend, semi-incredulous, but mostly offended. “I’m watching a documentary on penguins.”
“…”
“…” Jack still staring, waiting.
“Forget it.” And Friend shrugs with indifference, sets his eyes on the television, just bores right in there, and pulls out his cell phone, unconsciously tapping keys, texting, presumably.
Jack gets uncomfortable, like visibly self-conscious; he twiddles his thumbs for a bit, gnaws at a fingernail, wipes clammy sweat off his palms onto his jeans, and then reaches into his pocket to get his cell phone. He is and was aware, before retrieval, that no one has called in like three days, and that the battery hasn’t needed a recharge in over a week, and that its used primarily like some sort of a bulky pocket-watch, and that the last person to call was his boss, having him come in on his supposed day off, and that that call was made to him at ten thirty the night before the expected holiday. He flips thru old text messages, his contact list; he decides to play a heavily pixilated videogame of Line-Up The Squares.
By this point, Friend has taken over the remote-control, he’s changing channels with such a bored look on his face, mouth half-open, eyes beginning to glaze, his elbow dug into his stomach propping his outstretched forearm limp, his palm cradling the wand, his only industrious trait his fingers, flipping thru hundreds of informative commercials and daytime broadcasts on the pop-up menu. There’s a channel for any sport you can imagine.
And then something no one would imagine: Sport Stacking—it catches Friend’s eye. He reads a brief summary of the show and clicks on the title. Up pops a handful of kids who are like eight, ten years old, and they’re wearing bright red, sweat-wicking polyester shirts with racing stripes and corporate logos; a ‘Team USA’ plastered on the chest in patriotic colors. Pairs of soft-clothed bands are wrapped around their wrists to dam up any dripping moisture. A large digital clock with decimal points towers behind them, it looms, and someone shouts Go and the timer begins ticking—and to Friend’s utter disbelief, the screen zooms into an obedient looking Asian boy who stands at a table and begins grabbing about nine plastic red cups, all upside down in an interconnected pillar, and takes them down to table-level three at a time per hand, and then, like two hands on fire, creates a giant pyramid using all nine cups, one-cup-placed-on-the-bridge-of-two-style, only to dismantle the thing just as methodically into three separate piles of three cups each, stacked and interlocked and presented in a straight line, of course, in perfect symmetry—all in 6.69 seconds, which is presented to Friend by the now frozen green numbers on the oversized stopwatch behind the child.
Eyebrows raised, lips in an exaggerated kiss with jaw lurched forward, Friend cheers: “What the fuck!—Bravo, young one, with a bright future indeed!”
The young prodigy onscreen now turns to the clock behind him, his eyes pop open wide, and he starts jumping and dancing around, yelling in joyous disbelief. He realizes he has beaten the world record for competitive ages-under-eighteen Sport Stacking, on national television nonetheless—his parents undoubtedly almost satisfied in the green room around the corner. And Friend is now treated to a special high-definition, slow-motion replay of the truly amazing—if inconceivably pointless—feat, all captured by a video camera recording five thousand frames per second. Friend’s jaw drops in dumb awe. Deadpan, he ponders:
“I wonder how much tang that kid gets.”
And Jack looks up from his cell phone to the screen, confused as to what Friend is referring, only to see Obedient Asian Child being hugged by three obedient eight-year old Caucasian girls—teammates.
“You’re fucking sick.” Jack mutters.
“At least I’m not the one who thinks Sarah Palin is hot.”
A monthly calendar sits above a desk in a bedroom upstairs. On its cover is a sort of glamour-shot of the former governor—wearing an oversized and decidedly butch red and black flannel shirt, her arm cradles a double barrel shotgun draped over one shoulder. Her smile is anachronistically domestic.
Team USA, Go, indeed.
Weird Shit That Pleases
(Maybe You Too)
Scene: A most depressed-looking Jack sitting on a couch is watching a TV screen, eyes placid and face oily, he’s very slouched while his hands rest in his lap, fingers interlocked and woven, as the remote-control lies on his left thigh. A friend comes over, doesn’t knock, just walks right into the living room and sits down next to him. They sit wordlessly for five, ten seconds, watching the screen—Friend’s hands stay jammed in his pockets in a still-transient manner, like he’s undecided to stay or leave—with a posture that presently resembles good back health—and then quickly surveys the living room; he turns his head to the kitchen and hears the coffee machine puffing, next to that he observes an overweight cat eating kibble on the counter with its tail twitching absent-mindedly. The refrigerator clicks on and drones. He turns back to the screen—a commercial break, a pharmaceutical success story: a man is antiquing with his presumed wife; in sepia mood-filters they smile and grin in feigned romance as they walk down Main Street, USA. A migrant-looking man fires up a lawnmower in the backyard, and Friend, mildly startled, he kind of half gets up out of his seat and twists his torso sideways —a lazy man’s thrust of energy out of bored curiosity—and then plops back down, letting his spine slink down, begins to puff his cheeks out, blowing air slowly in an exhale, and finally, very casually like turning a newspaper page, turns to Jack and says:
“So—this is all your doing?”
Jack keeps his eyes on the screen. “What are you talking about?”
“Well—you’re like, just watching TV.”
Jack looks over at Friend, emotion finally filling his face, obviously perplexed, then ticked, then annoyed, in this order.
“So?—what’s wrong with just watching TV?” He stares at Friend, semi-incredulous, but mostly offended. “I’m watching a documentary on penguins.”
“…”
“…” Jack still staring, waiting.
“Forget it.” And Friend shrugs with indifference, sets his eyes on the television, just bores right in there, and pulls out his cell phone, unconsciously tapping keys, texting, presumably.
Jack gets uncomfortable, like visibly self-conscious; he twiddles his thumbs for a bit, gnaws at a fingernail, wipes clammy sweat off his palms onto his jeans, and then reaches into his pocket to get his cell phone. He is and was aware, before retrieval, that no one has called in like three days, and that the battery hasn’t needed a recharge in over a week, and that its used primarily like some sort of a bulky pocket-watch, and that the last person to call was his boss, having him come in on his supposed day off, and that that call was made to him at ten thirty the night before the expected holiday. He flips thru old text messages, his contact list; he decides to play a heavily pixilated videogame of Line-Up The Squares.
By this point, Friend has taken over the remote-control, he’s changing channels with such a bored look on his face, mouth half-open, eyes beginning to glaze, his elbow dug into his stomach propping his outstretched forearm limp, his palm cradling the wand, his only industrious trait his fingers, flipping thru hundreds of informative commercials and daytime broadcasts on the pop-up menu. There’s a channel for any sport you can imagine.
And then something no one would imagine: Sport Stacking—it catches Friend’s eye. He reads a brief summary of the show and clicks on the title. Up pops a handful of kids who are like eight, ten years old, and they’re wearing bright red, sweat-wicking polyester shirts with racing stripes and corporate logos; a ‘Team USA’ plastered on the chest in patriotic colors. Pairs of soft-clothed bands are wrapped around their wrists to dam up any dripping moisture. A large digital clock with decimal points towers behind them, it looms, and someone shouts Go and the timer begins ticking—and to Friend’s utter disbelief, the screen zooms into an obedient looking Asian boy who stands at a table and begins grabbing about nine plastic red cups, all upside down in an interconnected pillar, and takes them down to table-level three at a time per hand, and then, like two hands on fire, creates a giant pyramid using all nine cups, one-cup-placed-on-the-bridge-of-two-style, only to dismantle the thing just as methodically into three separate piles of three cups each, stacked and interlocked and presented in a straight line, of course, in perfect symmetry—all in 6.69 seconds, which is presented to Friend by the now frozen green numbers on the oversized stopwatch behind the child.
Eyebrows raised, lips in an exaggerated kiss with jaw lurched forward, Friend cheers: “What the fuck!—Bravo, young one, with a bright future indeed!”
The young prodigy onscreen now turns to the clock behind him, his eyes pop open wide, and he starts jumping and dancing around, yelling in joyous disbelief. He realizes he has beaten the world record for competitive ages-under-eighteen Sport Stacking, on national television nonetheless—his parents undoubtedly almost satisfied in the green room around the corner. And Friend is now treated to a special high-definition, slow-motion replay of the truly amazing—if inconceivably pointless—feat, all captured by a video camera recording five thousand frames per second. Friend’s jaw drops in dumb awe. Deadpan, he ponders:
“I wonder how much tang that kid gets.”
And Jack looks up from his cell phone to the screen, confused as to what Friend is referring, only to see Obedient Asian Child being hugged by three obedient eight-year old Caucasian girls—teammates.
“You’re fucking sick.” Jack mutters.
“At least I’m not the one who thinks Sarah Palin is hot.”
A monthly calendar sits above a desk in a bedroom upstairs. On its cover is a sort of glamour-shot of the former governor—wearing an oversized and decidedly butch red and black flannel shirt, her arm cradles a double barrel shotgun draped over one shoulder. Her smile is anachronistically domestic.
Team USA, Go, indeed.
