“…punting.
“Or some other way of getting out of the nitty gritty. It can always be a slog through the driveway. Depending instead on some kind of a affiliation with the fewer pieces, something built only on its own self-reference. Its own trenchant sense of rigidity imposed like a lockerful of smelt. Is that the right word? Smelt?”
There were a few coughs and a slight grunt of approval from the audience. No longer rapt, now starting to trail off at the demented ramblings from the old man at the open mic night.
First it had been the exploration of accent theory. Something that was trite, but not of too much use to people other than hack actors who had to be told how to do everything, because they couldn’t read (like most actors). They could look in a mirror, and knew what they looked like, they did know how to copy what they saw other people doing, how to lie that they were that person. That kept the waiters in the audience spellbound.
Then there were the marketers, they were similar, but instead of reading the movements of people and copying, they tried to find paths for exploitation. When they looked in the mirror, they saw sharks, and the only things they could read were trade magazines with a lot of made up words that sounded like money. The marketers, being tradesman, were also very susceptiable to marketing, and the early hours of this show kept them feeling exploited, but on the cusp of learning a big secret they could recoup their investment from. Thats how marketers think.
There were some other miscellaneous people in the audience as well, not as easy to categorize as actors or marketers, just all the other people who weren’t wearing suits or waiting tables. Some of them had just come down to watch the local crazies, others wanted their turn to an audience, but most of them didn’t have the gall, without a time-limit, and no one wanting to volunteer, the stage became the home of an old man trying to tell his old stories, with a twinge of rambling conspiracy theorist thrown in.
“Vacations. Vay-cay-shuns! You people out there are losing focus, putting these fancy retreats on credit cards, doing things beyond your means, and just saying ‘i deserve, i need a break, i need a VAY CAY SHUUUUUUUN”,
bits of snortling, and a few gasps. One marketer coughed “monetize!” into his napkin.
“You mark my word, people, you mark my words that the state of Jordan is the epicenter for this, you get your coca-cola, and canned shaving gels, you get your fancy vacation, but what is it that makes you want all that. Why do you need it, and who is making it for you?
“I aint saying I’m a great man, but I didn’t ever need a vacation, I see them billboards and i just keep walking. I keep walking out of the city, out of the town…” his moves were getting impressively frantic, cheeks turned red, and he flailed like a preacher in a sermon.
This, naturally, failed to rouse the crowd, if anything the onlookers peered down towards the drinks, feeling embarassed for the man, and relieved that they had not taken the plnge.
“AND OFF OF THAT GAT-DANG ROAD ALL THE WAY BACK TO MY SHACK IN THE WOODS!”
And a pause for a breather hands outstretched, palms skyward, nodding and grinning like he had just hit the point home.
Silence, now. The spew of words had ended, the lounge was dark, with the single spotlight on the panting, deranged old man from the woods. A few people shuffled uncomfortably in their seats.
The silence grew increasingly uncomfortable, the man sputtered looking for words to regain his compusure. In that instant, he was gone: a large mountain lion, dressed like hitler, dropped from the ceiling being tailed by the angels of pilot fish, and landed on the mans, shoulder, released a condescending growl towards the audience that shattered the tumblers of the marketers drinks. Then tilted towards the sky.
A bald man with a pony tail walked up the side of the stage and in to the spotlight.
“Well, looks like he was right. Any more volunteers?”
