ENDINGS     revised 5/27/04
by Lee Moyer

DEVIL (nasty)
ANGEL (serious)
SUBJECT

________________________________________________
What's the story?
The your story?
What your fucking story?

What's wrong with you kid?
What's wrong?
The ending?

Did somebody give away the ending?
Did somebody tell you it wasn't about Marion Crane?
Did somebody tell you the cute black girl was a boy?
Did someone tell you it was a god-damned sled?

Don't you hate it when people give away the ending?

You expected the stuff that dreams are made of?
You thought he saw living people?
You were looking for Mister Goodbar?

You knew the ending all along. You always do.
And if you don't, well chances are it's just a trick.
A cheap dime store novelty- a gimmick. You know- The Usual Suspects.

You know more about narrative- more about storytelling- than your
ancestors (the Irish, the Norse, the Pentacostal) could even imagine.
Like them- we have an oral tradition. But ours is less primitive, more
mature, and rendered quaint and harmless by its brethren-

The written tradition.
The Jerry Springer tradition.
The 24 hour cable tradition
The porn tradition.
The 3-Simpsons-a-day tradition.

And every so often, somebody writes a story like Murders in the Rue
Morgue or The Gold Bug, and an entire genre follows on, growing in
power and popularity.
Then someone follows with the likes of  Curtain or The Murder of Roger
Ackroyd, or Murder on the Orient Express and then that permutation is
done- Each one-trick-pony has ponied up and there's one less variation
left to play.

And why do we love it? Why love the categories- The fiction over the
fact? Why do the smartest people love the theatre? Why do they bury
themselves in Novels? In Music? In Comics? In Movies? In Television?
Why spend our lives on something that's not real? Something so
cunningly filled with lies, commercials and 3-act treachery?

Fantasy Island
I Love Lucy
Friends
Seinfeld
Columbo
Gilligan's Island
Scooby  Doo?

Shows whose synopses challenge no synapses?
Shows where you know the endings going in?
To what end?

The good ended happily.
The bad unhappily.
That is what fiction means.

Fiction is so much better than real life.

Because we all know the how life ends.
We always have.
It ends in dust and disarray.
Every time.

This is how the real narrative ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper.
Consider this mine.

[SILENCE]

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
It is a variant. I couldn't find a good version of that script, so I rewrote it.

• May 27, 2004 - No Shame Radio (Portland)
  

  Performed by Anthony Redelsperger and Jordan Weiss

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