I drank two cups of coffee before rehearsal for Aaron’s play. Rehearsal was in a two-story townhouse on South Van Ness in the Mission. The townhouse is shared between four twentysomething dot-com escapees. In the kitchen there is a glass-walled cupboard, circa 1950. The cabinet contains sippy cups, white dot-com mugs, clear glasses stolen from a nearby restaurant, and Ball jars. No two glasses in the cabinet are the same.
Aaron’s writing and directing. “Okay, this time on the Corporate Head speech, can we try it in your voice?”
I nod. “Alternative culture,” I say. “Holds no threat!” I’m channelling Adolf Hitler. “We sell it back to them! As if! It were! By them!” Zieg heil!
Aaron beams. “Great! Five minute break!”
I find the bathroom. Someone’s taking a shower in there. A roommate gabbles on a cordless phone next to the bathroom. “Mom!” she says. “What? What?”
“Excuse me,” I ask her.
“Wait a second,” she asides to me. “Mom? Did he say that? I can’t believe he said that!”
“Is there another bathroom around here?” I ask.
She raises a finger to me in a don’t-interrupt-me warning. “Mom? That is so completely out of line! I totally can’t believe he said that!”
The sound of someone splashing in the shower, humming tunelessly.
I waited. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah? No! That’s so totally not right! I just can’t believe it! Are you sure that he said that?”
At this point I went back to the kitchen, took a piss in one of the mugs, and placed the full mug neatly back into the cupboard. Actually, that didn’t happen, but it’s a funnier ending than “I waited twenty minutes and gave up.”
Thanks in no small part to Marin, I successfully bullshitted my way into the writing team for Stand Up, It’s Thursday Night. Shows are in production now for the next season, starting January. Here are some new bite-sized scripts for you: Interrogating Einstein 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.