Shadow of a Lout

SHADOW OF A LOUT

[Scene: The front porch of a modest house on a quiet street in Los Angeles. Time: the present.]

MOM: Alice, Alice! Your favorite Uncle is here to visit! And he’s brought a friend with him.

ALICE: Uncle! Uncle! I can’t believe it!

UNCLE: Alice! How you’ve grown: you’re almost as tall as your Mom! I want you all to meet my friend, the world famous linguist Carolyn Birden.

DAD: Nice to meet you, Carolyn. Here, let me take that sporty blue portmanteau of yours.

CAROLYN: Thank you.

MOM: You’re just in time for dinner. You are going to stay with us a while, aren’t you?

UNCLE: Ha, ha, ha. You won’t be able to get rid of us.

[Scene: The dining room]

MOM: I just can’t keep up with those New York fashions of yours. That hat…

ALICE: It looks like an empty coconut shell, Uncle.

UNCLE: So it is. I call it my thinking cap. Say, did I tell you that I am the Number One Vote-getting Octopus of All Time, Ever?

DAD: Now, don’t be going senile on us, Mitch. You sent us the money and we paid for that dern sky-writing plane to spell it out over all of LA.

ALICE: It was so cool. All my friends thought it was chemtrails. Everyone in LA is freaking because that’s all they talk about on KPFK – chemtrails, conspiracies, and health food remedies.

MOM: Carolyn, Mitch sent us an email that said you were suing Bambi. Did you win the case?

ALICE: And Daniel Livingston Seagull. You were suing him, too, weren’t you Carolyn? Did you win? Did you? Did you?

CAROLYN:

DAD: Mitch! Give her the Heimlich! I think she’s choking!

[Birden recovers and the doorbell rings.]

UNCLE: I’ll get it! It’s another friend of mine. I told him I was coming to town. Come on in, Chris! Everyone, this is Chris Condon. He’s on the board of KPFK, or at least he will be, if he can drive out…, I mean, convince a few people to quit.

MOM: Alice, set another place for dinner. Here, let me take your small steamer trunk that consists of two sections that fit neatly together.

CHRIS: It’s not merely a small steamer trunk. It’s a PORTMANTEAU. That’s a French word, in case you don’t know.

DAD: Oh, I thought that Carolyn’s sporty blue…

CHRIS: Let’s get this straight. I’m only going to say it 911 times: YOU CANNOT WEAR A PORTMANTEAU. THIS IS A PORTMANTEAU. CAN YOU WEAR A TRUNK ON YOUR HEAD??? I’LL GIVE YOU A MILLION DOLLARS IF YOU CAN WEAR A PORTMANTEAU.

ALICE: Look! Uncle Mitch put Chris’s portmanteau on his head!!!

CAROLYN: Stop that, Mitch. You look ridiculous!

UNCLE: Uh-uh. I’m not taking it off my head ‘til he gives me a million dollars!

MOM: Mitch has always been steadfast when it comes to right and wrong. But, Carolyn, what happened with your case against Daniel Livingston Seagull and Bambi?

ALICE: Yeah. Did you cream them in court and then force them to pay your attorney fees AND raise millions of dollars for Pacifica? Did you? Did you?

CAROLYN:

DAD: I’ll be. She’s choking again. Give her the Heimlich, Mitch!

[Birden recovers and the doorbell rings.]

UNCLE: It’s another friend of mine. I hope you don’t mind. Everyone, this is Steve Brown.

MOM: Well, uh, welcome, Steve. Any friend of Mitch’s is a friend of mine.

STEVE: Mitch, why are you wearing that stupid trunk on your head???

CHRIS: That’s called a PORTMANTEAU. A PORTMANTEAU.

UNCLE: Wrong, dude. A portmanteau is a wine. Steve here drinks portmanteau by a real fireplace in his castle. Do you own a castle, Chris?

CHRIS: [Whispering to Alice] Brown always wears those tight little muscle shirts because he wants to look like a rich white guy who’s dressing down. But he’s just noveau riche, that’s French for a social climber who thinks importing a castle gives him class. Pretty cheesy, eh? Not like my ultra-chic LA-style pad. [Turning with a big smile to Brown] STEVE BABY, HOWYA BEEN, GREAT TO SEE YOU!

STEVE: Ditto. How’s your market share in tea tree oil, Chris? You follow my business plan, your sales are going to go BALLISTIC.

CHRIS: Did you get that big Pacifica contract for Gary Null, Steve? I’ve done my part, trying to get people to suspect that that pesky Amy Goodman takes CIA dough, and shutting my mouth about that platypus Ian Masters.

UNCLE: CIA? Yeah, the network is riddled with SPOOKS and AGENTS.

ALICE: That’s what Carolyn called Bambi, an agent of Danny Seagull!

CHRIS: Look, Alice, you’re a cute kid. But, let me set you straight. It’s SIEGEL, not Seagull. Dan Siegel is the head of the octopus that’s strangling –

ALICE: But, isn’t Uncle Mitch an octopus?

CHRIS: Just shut up and listen, Alice. Siegel is the head of the octopus; and Justice and Unity at WBAI - we call ‘em JAY YEW - they are the arms of the octopus; and Leslie Radford, she’s like, um, a leg, and she’s guilty of CONSPIRING with the arms and we’re going to LOP OFF all of them from Pacifica along with the Spanish-speaking legs of Informativo Pacifica, those –

UNCLE: Stalinoid spics.

CAROLYN: He means SPOOKS. Spanish-speaking Stalinoid spooks. And by ‘spic’ he is artistically alluding to the cleaning AGENT, “Spic and Span.” So you see Pacifica is being strangled by Dan Siegel and JAY YEW.

UNCLE: JAY YEW? J-EW? Did someone say Jew? Yeah, they’re a bunch of anti-semitic Stalinoid spic spooks who are soft on Palestine like that Cynthia McKinney – who should be investigated if you ask me. They were driving away our rich white pro-Zionist listeners like Hillary Clinton. She was Grace Aaron’s fav, ya know.

MOM: Sorry to interrupt your poem, Mitch, but let’s have some cabbage. What would you like, red or green?

MITCH: RED or GREEN? That reminds me. Did I ever tell you why people call me the ‘Red-Green’ Number One Vote-getting Octopus of all Time, Ever?

EVERYONE: YES!

[The doorbell rings.]

UNCLE: It’s Ronnie! Come on in! Everyone, this is Ron Paul.

ALICE: Wow, the Congressman. Mr. Paul, what is a rightwing Libertarian like you doing here?

RON: Well, I just wanted to stop by and thank you Pacifica folks for all the airtime and business you’ve been sending to two of my biggest fans, Gwen Scott and Cass Ingram aka Kaasem Khaleel aka Kassim Ajram, who claims that AIDS is God’s punishment for moral corruption. And I understand one of my fellow libertarians works with the KPFK board.

DAD: Who’s that, Ron?

RON: The brilliant Terry Goodman.

ALICE: Oh, one of my friends just texted me about him. He’s really smart. He wrote that hit song, “Everybody is Pimping, Pimping.” And it took him his entire lifetime but he’s memorized Robert’s Rules of Order! All of it!

CAROLYN: Goodman has also just made a major scientific discovery. Here it is, on the cover of Scientific American.

MOM: What’s the discovery?

CAROLYN: [reading] “An Asshole Is Not A Person.”

CHRIS: I’m proud to have Terry on our team. I call us Team B. With brains like him behind us, it’ll be 9/11 24/7 on Pacifica sooner than you can say PORTMANTEAU.

STEVE: Hold it. [He reads from his notes.] An asshole is not a person. OK. Got that. But I’m sure you are all asking yourselves: can an asshole be a corporation? I think yes, and I’ll tell you why: because the Supreme Court just ruled that I have the same rights as a corporation. Translation: I can funnel unlimited funds into the Pacifica elections to help elect slates that will get the Pacifica National Board to HIRE, um, to get in touch with its HIGHER self.

CHRIS: To what end, Steve? To increase Pacifica’s income the way you did at WBAI, where things are WORSE than ever? Or maybe to get Gary Null that five-station, must-carry national contract with more money and perks than Amy? Where’s the BEEF, Steve? Or are you too busy pimping Noam Chomsky DVD’s knowing full well that he doesn’t believe the 9/11 Truther’s conspiracy theory?

UNCLE: That reminds me of a song! [singing, to the tune of “Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting”] Everybody is Pimping, Pimping…

STEVE: [Raising his voice] You’ve got a bad case of sour grapes, Chris. Just because Grace Aaron didn’t get you that national 9/11 show on Pacifica while she was the Executive Director. Well, Gary Null can do health AND 9/11. And oregano oil has a corner on the Pacifica market that tea tree oil can’t touch!

CHRIS: Oh yeah? Well, just wait and see. If I keep calling that idiot Tony Bates a genius he’s gonna put me on the air on WBAI, sandwiched between reruns of last year’s KPFK fundraising pitches, so I can spread the Truth about 9/11. Tony’s a Truther, and so is Gwen Scott, and so is -

RON: Look, gentlemen, there’s room for all of us 9/11 Truthers in Pacifica’s Peace and Free Market. The way I see it—and I know you all agree with me—is that the world is divided into two classes: those who think 9/11 was a government conspiracy and those who don’t.

[Heads nod around the table.]

UNCLE: Did someone say beef? Pass the short ribs, Sis.

[The doorbell rings.]

ALICE: I’ll get it!!! [She runs to the door.]

DAD: I wonder who it is.

ALICE: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

EVERYONE: Who?

ALICE: Mom, Dad, this is my new boyfriend, Hubert. Detective Hubert Harrison. He’s a member of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement.

CAROLYN: I’m not a racist!

STEVE: I’m not a racist!

CHRIS: I’m not a racist!

RON PAUL: Well, hey, I’m no racist, either. In fact, I love it when Black people vote for me. And I especially love Black Libertarians. They’re almost as hard to find as Black Scientologists, or as Black candidates on the ACE/“Independent” slate at WBAI.

UNCLE: A detective? Did you say he’s a DETECTIVE? I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!

HUBERT: Alice, why does that octopus have a portmanteau balanced upon what appears to be an empty coconut shell that he is wearing on his head?

CHRIS: You heard him! He said it! He said the word –

UNCLE: Trunk. He said the word trunk, and you owe me a million dollars, Condon. Don’t think just because you’re the loudest and most aggressive and obnoxious member of a Pacifica board except for maybe Sean Casey O’Brien that you can get away with not paying me!

CAROLYN: Just a moment. As the heiress apparent to Noam Chomsky I must intervene. I must point out what others have overlooked. Alice, and whoever this Detective Hubert Harrison is, have created a diversion to cloak an act of subterfuge. You cannot, I repeat: you cannot mix two film references in one parody.

MOM: Well, I don’t see what the problem is.

ALICE: Yeah. It’s kinda like that trunk that Uncle Mitch is wearing on his empty coconut shell: it has two parts, and it fits together okay.

CHRIS: How many times do I have to tell you people? It’s called a PORTMANTEAU. A PORTMANTEAU. [He pounds the table causing all the dishes to jump.]

HUBERT: [Ignoring Chris] I overheard what you said, Congressman Ron Paul, and I disagree. It is RACE, tied forever to class, that is the TOUCHSTONE of the movement, and NOT 9/11. It is WHITE SUPREMACY that has strangled the movement and prevented the working class from -

UNCLE: [Pointing to Hubert] Racist! You’re a racist if you use the word “race”.

BROWN: “Look! Harrison is a violent Jay Yew thug threatening to bust our kneecaps with a baseball bat and pumping his fist and foaming at the mouth like Bernard White and that other humungous Black man, Errol Maitland.”

DAD: I don’t see any baseball bat.

MOM: And Detective Harrison isn’t threatening us. To tell the truth, Steve Brown sounds like a racist to me.

CAROLYN: [Chuckles] Steve is NOT a racist. If he were, and if our slate of Independents took his money to help get ourselves elected, why, that would make us a bunch of racist opportunists, wouldn’t it? What Steve is doing is quoting someone else so he can’t technically be held responsible. For example, if you yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater you are not responsible because there are, as you see with your own eyes, quotation marks before, and after, the word “FIRE!”.

CHRIS: Carolyn is a genius, like Tony Bates. She really knows her semi-idiotics. That’s a French word, in case you don’t know.

UNCLE: Don’t get carried away. She’s not as smart as me. Did I ever tell you that Carolyn and me started the Young Humpty-Dumptians? I myself branched off into the Narco-Cynicalists ‘til one day I helped ruin the Green Party by starting the Marijuana Party and of course recently I sued Pacifica which is when I butted heads with that numbskull Dan Seagull. No, don’t thank me, I’m just that kind of Number One Vote-getting Octopus of all Time, Ever. Pass the cabbage. The red. No, the green.

RON: Look here, Detective Harrison. Race, by which I assume you mean institutional and not just personal racism, is a ridiculous touchstone and I’ll tell you why. If it were the touchstone, these good Pacifica folks, instead of harassing the producers of Informativo Pacifica, and letting a Lone White Guy like Roy of Hollywood keep his TWENTY-FIVE HOURS A WEEK of airtime, well, they would have to increase programming for the working class Spanish-speaking community in Los Angeles. And then, Detective Harrison, before you know it, the masses would be listening to that commie Hugo Chavez and wanting to overthrow ME along with the other capitalists. Why, if race was the touchstone, these fine Pacifica folks might even have to allow poor and incarcerated people, most of whom are Black and Latino, to vote in the board elections.

CHRIS: Yeah. Are you some kind of Black socialist or something, Harrison? Why can’t you get it through your thick head that once the American people realize that their government betrayed them on 9/11 that there will be a revolution?

ALICE: Really?

CHRIS: Duh! Just look at the effect it has had on the members of 9/11 Truth. Why, Richard Gage, the head of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, started out as a Republican Reaganite - and now? – ask him yourself! He’s a Reagan-Republican! Former rightwing military officers are now retired rightwing military officers! Former lying CIA agents are now honest CIA agents! The list goes on!

ALICE: But I thought you were against the CIA. Uncle Mitch accused Justice and Unity of being “agents,” didn’t he?

UNCLE: These short ribs are dee-licious! I can’t stop eating ‘em! [He holds short rib bones in four or five of his arms and waves them about.]

CHRIS: WHOA!!! Are you waving those bones at ME? That’s an ancient curse!!! STOP IT! STOP IT!

UNCLE: Not ‘til you give me the million dollars you owe me, Condon!

CHRIS: Are you under the spell of that witch, Leslie Radford??? She should be burned at the stake!!! Her and Seagull and all the spooks in JAY YEW.

UNCLE: Jay-yew? J-ew? Jew! That fits together, kind of like this trunk on my head…pass the Carny Corn, Sis. And the cabbage.

HUBERT: [Taking Alice aside] Alice, I have to warn you…I think your Uncle may be the perp who is trying to strangle the voices of the oppressed in Pacifica.

ALICE: NO! Not Uncle Mitch! He’s the Red-Green Number One Vote-getting Octopus of All Time, Ever!

HUBERT: But don’t you see, he and his friends are going after white middle class money. Why, they don’t even play Tim Wise on the air any more! And none of them signed the online petition to Free Lynne Stewart. That’s why he’s bragging that he got 4 more votes than her in the WBAI board elections.

ALICE: But, but, Uncle Mitch said he supported Lynne Stewart.

HUBERT: Oh yeah? Well ask him if he supports her voting on the WBAI Local Station Board. She’s a member of it, you know.

ALICE: But, didn’t Uncle Mitch and Carolyn and Steve oppose bringing that platypus Ian Masters onto WBAI airwaves? After all, Masters supports free market capitalism, and –

HUBERT: No, they all sucked up to Grace Aaron. Don’t you see? Importing all these shows from KPFK means less hours for local community organizers on the air.

ALICE: NO! NO! I still don’t believe you, Hubert, I won’t believe you. [Alice starts to cry.]

HUBERT: I’ll be back, Alice. But take care of yourself.

[FADE TO BLACK….]