CONTINUATION OF "GAME PLAY"
(A One Act Play by Bob Zolnerzak)
Wake at 9:15 Wednesday morning after getting down to Dennis's at 11 and having dinner, reading two interviews, and getting to bed at 2:30. Got to turning around ideas for "The Game Play" in my head (see NOTEBOOK 327) and started writing plots and songs, so about 10:30 I decided I HAD to get up, and wrote the following cards (starting with 1 and backing into 0, 00, and 000) until 11:35, when he finally woke up and said I should sleep over his place more often and write MORE plays. I'll keep them in card form for reworking, but let's transcribe what the FIRST ideas looked like HERE:
000) Older couple will SUICIDE if they win; younger couple will BE happy if THEY win.
OW song: LIFE AFTER DEATH. OM song: DANCE YOUR FOOL HEADS OFF. GOOD/EVIL
OW: CHILDREN (I've HAD) 'em!) YW: THE FRUIT OF MY WOMB. LIGHT/DARK
YM thinks of the women as my HAREM; the OM thinks of them as my BURDEN.
0) Same Time Next Year; Fourposter; Talley's Folly---drama's "cheapies."
"I Do, I Do" and "Fantasticks" are cheapie musicals, but not many MORE.
ELECTRONIC tape does AWAY with orchestra---then I think of SERGIO! He writes GREAT sounds---I can write words to his EXCITING best sounds and he can write music to my best words and rhythms. YM = Young Man, Tenor; YW = Young Woman, Soprano; OW = Old Woman, Alto; OM = Old Man, Bass.
Plot---Two couples, four people, for pan-sexuality: hetero, homo, orgy, solo.
Gather in VERY luxurious (luxury can be SPARSE) and write their own MUSICAL.
00) They even splice "pre-made" tapes for grand orchestrated chorus-like climaxes with SATURATED sound---and THEY have a projector that flashes "God-scene" at audience. Younger couple fresh and optimistic; older couple jaded and "had it all." All VERY attractive and rich and LOADED with time.
Songs: YM: Time; YM: Excitement; YW/YW: More, then joined by sarcastic OW/OM.
Lists. YM: I have been everyone; OM: I have been no one.
TENSION: Young people bet they can make old couple admit they're HAPPY---FAUST again? Great! Old couple bet they can make younger couple admit they're UNHAPPY and only putting on a front to impress their peers---but the YOUNG try to switch places and act as gurus for the OLDER people.
1) Asceticism---
It's much more fun to be ascetic
Without taking a moral anesthetic
When you start out with everything, and start paring down,
Rather than starting with nothing and building up to asceticism.
2) Whenever you START at the top, the only way you can go is down.
When you beGIN way up high, you've got a very very long long way to fall.
3) But if you start at the bottom, any kind of progress will just get you higher.
If you start with a tiny spark, you can build it into a glorious FIRE.
4) But if you start out with everything, the only way to go is toward nothing!
But if you start out with nothing, all you can do is ADD and ADD and ADD!
5) Numbers game
One---
singular expression (Chorus Line, with permission)
God
Night of bliss (Lehar?)
song, I have but one song (Snow White)
I ONE to be alone!
One, and one, is TWO
6) Two, for tea, and Tea for Two
Two hearts beat in THREE-quarter time---Two is company, THREE'S a crowd.
7) THREE blind mice
We three kings of Orient are
Holy Treenity
8) Four horsemen of the apocalypse
Four gospels
Four cardinal virtues
9) Five fingers on a hand
Six
Seven deadly sins; notes on a scale; days in a week
Eight
Nine
Ten Commandments, Little Indians, Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes.
10) Cycles/circles/roller coaster
YM: First you're up
OM: Then you're down
YW: First you're winning
OW: Then you LOSE.
YM/YW: Seems like you never quite can stay right on top
OM/OW: You quickly find out there's always another totem pole you can be on the bottom of.
OW: Once you climb the mountain, you have to keep climbing right up through the sky.
OM: Once you make a million, you've got to make another and another and another---
YM: You must stop, just stop, look around, and it's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful---
YW:
11) Edges (Adages)
Right over the edge of comedy---is tragedy
OM Right past the joy---comes tears
OW Just when you've got it---comes disaster
Flood, famine, fire, pain, disease, and DEATH
YM Live for the moment---today is the first day of the rest of your life.
YW The sun will shine tomorrow, the worm turns, the dog will have her day.
Look on the bright side, every cloud has a silver lining.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going---nothing succeeds like success.
12) Bliss: I'm so blissed out I can hardly STAND it.
13) Is Love All You Need?
Wise men have said, "All you need is love."
When I have it, why can't I get enough of it?
When I lose it, why do I want no more of it??
When I win it, why do I want to CHANGE the person who loves me?
When I've lost it, why do I feel I have to change or fail again?
14) Trivia is worrisome
When you don't have to worry about food or lodging or security or individuality, THEN you find out what's important! My teeth hurt, I've got athlete's foot, my necklace clasp comes loose, my fingernail polish is chipped, I drink and eat too much, I don't get enough exercise. I HATE jogging!
What a FRUSTRATION when I'm watching one TV program and recording a second to watch later and want to catch a THIRD. How awful that Bayreuth overlaps the Palio at Siena.
15) YW: You've got everything on the outside; now go inside.
OW: But when you get to the middle you can't go DEEPER, you just come out the OTHER side, right next to where you STARTED.
YW: You know yourself there's more space inside your head than the distance between your ears---you carry your past, your future, your SELF there. (More)
OW: I can't STAND this, let's have a DIFFERENT game!
16) YM: You're all talk and no action
You've got to go out and DO something
All this crap in your head just clogs up your pores and makes you CONSTIPATED
Let it all hang out, get a moral enema, get LIBERATED.
Flow free, clean your pipes, use an emotional roto-rooter.
You'll soon feel like a kid tooling around the block on his new motor scooter.
REFRAIN: Singing songs accomplishes nothing at all!
17) OW: BUY IT!
What a lovely dress---buy it!
What a marvelous apartment---buy it!
Such a heavenly yacht---buy it!
My God, isn't that a handsome face---buy it!
Her voice makes me cry just to hear it---buy it!
A month in the country is marvelous---buy it!
I envy her youth and her figure---but how can I BUY it?
I envy her unfurrowed brow and sparkling eyesight---BUY IT?!
I WANT IMMORTALITY---BUY IT?
18) ULTIMATE COP-OUT
You didn't get what you wanted in this life?---TRY the next!
You had the wrong parents, schooling, color, or SEX?---Try the next!
If you had it to do over you wouldn't do a single thing the same---try the next!
Why are you so miserable now---Your last life was a bummer!
So how can I have a great NEXT life, when it always depends on THIS life, and THIS life is such a DISASTER???
19) IF YOUTH HAD THE WISDOM, AGE THE YOUTH
OM: I'd really be perfectly happy with YOUTH.
20) THE WRONG DIRECTION
very destructive///anti-productive
21) SEX IS THE UNIVERSAL SOLVENT
Science has been searching for ages for the universal solvent
Dissolves all iron, plastic, wood---though it'd be a problem to find something to keep it in.
But some people have already found the ultimate solvent for interpersonal barriers---
Give them enough to drink, or to smoke, or to sniff, and put them into a nice dark comfortable bedroom and they'll probably be happy with anything that responds to them as they're willing to respond to whomever they find!
22) OM: I've HAD it.
YM: And you STILL have it.
OM (Talking on the phone): I hear my phone ringing, I gotta go.
Jotted down notes on Kenneth Rinker's programs, before Sergio agreed to give me a copy of his program on a cassette, which means I CAN record with it:
1) The "pre-hate" music would be good for all, singing in a continuo style:
[DETAILED DIAGRAM]
After the "two-minute hate" the YW could sing about cheeriness and activity.
After "Oranges and Lemons" could come time/repeat/tick-tock/treadmill FASTER by YM/OM
Then I think of another song: person sitting in chair surrounded by someone kicking the back of his seat, rattling bracelets, chewing gum, talking, and falling asleep on his shoulder, deploring modern concert and movie going.
I make out the following chart:
M W
O should/could have been was COULDN'T BE WORSE, thus it
COULD be BETTER
Y will be is COULDN'T BE BETTER, thus it
COULD be WORSE!
23) Us tgus wgat tiy = (indeed??)
Is this what you want?
You just tell me what you want and I'll try my best to do it.
If you can't tell me what you want I'm not sure what'll turn you on.
I want to please you, tease you, ease you. JE-SU!
I only did what they wanted me to
And then I found out they liked me for what I did not for who I WAS.
All the lost rock of the world sandwiched into the asshole of Friday night.
24) Imagine
In the future all television programs will be hooked up to
Sphymomanometers
Taking your blood pressure so that the top tenth of what turns you on will be calculated for ten days
So that on the eleventh day the best of the prior ten days is played and the top tenth of THAT is saved---until in a year you have the ULTIMATE TURN ON, unless you've changed in the meantime, natch.
25) The City Multiplies
Adds adds adds adds
No time, no quiet, no peace
KEY IS SIMPLICITY: Song
THIS IS ALL THERE IS
AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN
Someone and Oakes: GAY ROCK---leading to COCK ROCK---great sight---then masturbatory rock---JERK-OFF rock, and then CUM ROC---CORMUC backwards.
26) I was NO ONE
Then you made me SOMEONE
And I don't know of ANYONE
I'd rather please than YOU
Oh, how I wish that EVERYONE
Would leave me alone so NARY A ONE
Would try to tell me how ONLY ONE
Could change the world, that's ME.
I always wondered how SUCH A ONE
Could reach right out and TOUCH ALL ONE
So that you'd see that MANY A ONE
Would give all they had if they only had IT!
27) Well you've found this think about you don't know what to do about it but you've thought of a name for it so you call it your PLASTICUM!
You're afraid to ask your friends about it, maybe everyone knows about it but you've just found it or even worse no one's ever heard anything about
PLASTICUM!
It only comes out when you haven't come for many a day and it's always what comes out first like little sausage links of white transparent
PLASTICUM!
28) I'm over and ALL through and DONE with
You've SUCKED me and USED me and DRAINED me all dry
There's nothing LEFT I can GIVE you
It's ALL in the PAST now
I'm just a SHELL
I'm giving OUT
I'm all THROUGH
There's no MORE
I'm DEAD
That's ALL
NO
NO. . . . . . . NO!
29) And at the END:
1) Photos of the two women meld into one ageless WOMAN [DETAILED DIAGRAM]
2) Photos of the two men meld into one timeless MAN
3) The ageless woman and timeless man merge into the eternal HUMAN
4) Which fades UP and UP to a final CURTAIN OF WHITE LIGHT!!
(Figure-ground mergence)
(Not even any need to bring the house lights UP afterwards; they ARE up!)
This all done at 3:40 am 9/20/80, after getting wine-stoned on Midnight Special with Cher and a GREAT sci-fi Fellini David Bowie and a VERY ersatz performance by bunches of goons on Rock World at 2 am Saturday morning, GREAT.