Creature from the Black Lagoon: An Opera

NOTE: THIS OPERA IS A WORK-IN-PROGRESS.  IF ANYONE WITH ENHANCEMENT MONEY IS INTERESTED WE WOULD BE MORE THAN DELIGHTED TO CHANGE SONGS, CHARACTERS, TONE OR PLOT! SERIOUSLY.

ACT ONE: Melinda and Joe are out boating on a lovely afternoon.  They sing the duet On a Beautiful Day Like Today with Two People So In Love, What Harm Could Befall Us?  Their song is interrupted by a mysterious sound like a toilet overflowing with a thousand bubbles, as a huge chunk of liver thuds against the deck.  Not bothering to investigate further Joe rushes off to find a weapon. Melinda, not wanting to be left alone, stops him.  They sing counter point arias.  Melinda: Don’t Go Anywhere, Just Stay Here.  Joe : You’re Not the Boss of Me.

Moments later Melinda screams the haunting Screams, thus heralding the appearance of our title character, Creature.  The dripping monster advances toward her, grunting the inhuman I‘m from the Black Lagoon and You’re Doomed.

Melinda puts up the fight of her life (feeble kicks with an occasional attempt to scratch his hideous scaly face).  Monster and maiden intertwine songs with surprisingly poignant riffs.  Melinda: Back to Hell, You Green Demon and Creature: It’s Cold and Loney in the Hell I Call Home. Overpowered by the Creature, Melinda plunges with it into the black water.

Joe charges on with a tire iron (or whatever they might have on a small boat that could be used as weapon), as the Creature and his Beauty disappear into the inky depths.  Joe stares at the remaining bubbles and sings  I’ve Lost My Love to an Evil Amphibian.

ACT TWO: TBD, as soon as we get that enhancement money.  Hint, hint.

How Extra-terrestrials Walk Among Us Undetected

What is it with the picture they take of your baby shortly after he/she is born?

Your child is a few minutes or hours old and – snap!  But your kid doesn’t even look like himself in pictures until the second day or after.  Some people look more like their baby pictures than others but nobody looks like that photo they take in the hospital on the first day.

I have been staring at this officially-taken-by-the-hospital photo 0f Teddy for a long time and it doesn’t look a bit like him.  My guess is they take this picture to avoid the possibility of ending up with the wrong baby when you leave (and believe me when it’s time to leave – they want you gone).

But this photo makes me think that we ended up with the wrong kid.  I guess I can see his nose there but why is his face all swollen?  Like his sisters, he didn’t have to get all squozed through the birth canal.  Now, I can tell he’s my kid because of his devotion to the Lakers and his smart aleckyness extraordinaire.  But who is this little guy from the first day?

My theory is that aliens (the Outer Space dudes) use the birth process to introduce their kind on earth.  Then, on the second day, they replace them with a normal human baby they’d kept stored in suspended animation somewhere (probably one of those caves near Osama bin Ladin’s).  Yes, I realize this theory has more holes than heads at a Birther convention – but still it does give one pause.  The other possibility is that the hospital picture is the human baby, the switch happens on day two, and we all unknowingly take home a little E.T. to feed, burp and buy endless Power Rangers crap for.

Thus, they walk among us, even in our own house.  In a little over a month Teddy will graduate from Stanford.  After I hug him in his cap and gown, I might whisper the phrase “Mother Ship”  – just to see if he flinches.

Johannes Brahms: The Lullaby Guy

“La, la, la– la, la, la go to sleep little angel…”

“Halt!  Cease and desist or I shall set upon your sickly larynx and crush it with my walking stick.”

“What the hell? Who are you?  What are you doing in the baby’s room.  I’ve got a bat under the bed and 911 on speed dial.”

“What idle threats and epithets you make towards the great Johannes Brahms, I know not.  But I am the composer extraordinaire of those– la, la, las. Music that you are stealing and butchering simultaneously.  Stop this very moment.”

“Are you a ghost?  ‘Cause I ain’t afraid of no ghost.”

“No, I am merely the original composer of that composition.  I am sick and tired of my intellectual property being stolen by any cretin whose loins have created more idiot off-spring to burden the world further.”

“So, what do you want royalties or residuals or something? This lullaby is in public domain.  I don’t owe you squat.”

“Then I will be forced to smite you with a thunderbolt and curse the babe to eternal damnation!”

“Holy crap, you can do that?”

“Try me.”

“All right, all right here’s ten bucks.”

“And here is your change.  I’m an artist not a highwayman.  Proceed with your musical travesty.  Gut nacht.”

Who You Gonna Meet When You Get to Heaven … or Wherever?

“Gee, it’s terrific to see you, again, Ronnie.  I mean, Mr. President. I am so fired up being in your presence that I could eat your face.”

“Well, Howard that’s very kind of you to say.  And as my mother used to say — if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all.”

“My Ma used to say – don’t give the bastards an inch.”

“Well, all women are a gift to mankind.  We owe them a debt of gratitude for getting us out of those caves to face the dinosaurs so we could start western civilization.”

“I hear ya, Ro– I mean Mr. President.  Say, we had some fun times with that Proposition 13 back in the day, huh?  The hell with all those phony baloney schools and education bushwa.  Let ’em haunt the local library like I did.  And if it’s closed the School of Hard Knocks is always open.  Am I right?  Them home owners got to keep their hard earned dollars so they could buy valuable stuff like garage door openers and lawn care products.  Say, why don’t you ever come to the Golden State to give speeches no more?

“Well, how do I put this?  I’m dead, deceased, passed on, beyond the veil of tears.”

“Sonofagun, I forgot.  How about a picture, then?”

“Those days are over for me.”

“I mean a photograph.”

“Oh, yes, of course.  Facing forward or looking at each other ecstatic to see one another, again?

“That second thing.  You know heaven is a lot hotter than you’d think.”

“Yes, it is, Howard.  It really is.”

You Can See the Mouth of Hell from the Front Porch

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The Mojave Hotel is where you end up when you run out of places to hide.

The rooms are absurdly simple.  Single beds with mattresses as thin as a saltine.  Smoke-stained curtains cover the sandblasted windows.  TV is free.  Black and white – with bad reception.  Bad reception is their middle name here on the outskirts of hell.

The night clerk looks like his last job was tour guide on the River Styx. He has a face like refried dog-food.  He gives me the evil eye but I just keep my head down and staree at my fake name  in the register like it was the Mona Lisa.

It was ninety-six crisp degrees when I pulled in at two in the morning.  As I stepped out of my car, a breeze hit me like a dryer full of oil rags.  Now, it’s hotter.  Today, you’ll be able to fry an egg on the air conditioner.  But I can’t complain.  Not with the spray of dried blood on my jacket and a warm gun in my shaving kit.

Why I Don’t Like Islands

Not enough movie theaters.

No major league sports teams (except Vancouver at one time – but since they lost it to a city in the southern region of the good ol’ USA, I say to hell with ’em).

In order to get to one of them you have to take a boat or plane or be washed up there after your cruise ship is torpedoed by pirates, none of which I like to do very much.

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.  (This is not a major bother but how often do you get to use that sentence anymore?)

With even a hypothetical island people are always bugging you about what’s the one thing you would take there.

Pirates dig up your backyard. And then other pirates drop by to find where the original pirates buried their treasure.  But without fail they don’t find the first “X marks the spot” location, so they just leave behind big holes and the bodies of innocent folks that you have to dispose of.

I sort of like Manhattan – but in August, include me out.

I do like Gilligan’s Island.  Not so much the show – but the fake tv island.  It was on a backlot not far from the Studio City McDonalds.  The same lot where they shot Seinfeld.  So sometimes you could spot a faux island and George Costanza on the same day.  Now, that’s an island.

A Lonely Outpost on the Sexual Frontier

Institute of Oral Love, Carly speaking.  What can I do you for?… Sorry, it’s just a cute way of sayin’ “what up”.  So, what up?  …You’ve got your what stuck where? …

Golly, you should hang up and call 911 pronto or sooner… Well, I could send someone but it’s going to cost you a hundred bucks an hour, starting when they put the key in ignition… No, that’s not a euphemism, it’s their car.  Though, I guess I could use it next time my little nieces are over…  No, that’s not a euphemism either.

By the way, shouldn’t you sound like you’re in more pain? … What?  You’re acting and this is all part of your fantasy. Gee, I’m sorry… No, it’s not a terrible fantasy,  it’ s cool – I’m just a little slow today.  Hell, I’ve had a whole burly fireman  with a Russian accent fantasy going since high school. Sorry I messed it up for you. …

Tell you what – pretend this call never happened and I’ll send Crystal over for you.  She just dropped out of nursing school.  No extra charge. Cheery bye…

Institute of  … Hey watch your language, Creepo! This is a place of business.  You wanna talk like, that you have to call the 4433 number. Buck ninety-eight a minute. … 

Oh, no offense taken.  Cheery bye.  Have a love filled day!

 

From Cradle to Grave (No Instructions Necessary)

Laughing.

Crying.

Breathing.

Sassing.

Cranky faces. (Before and right after taking a nap.)

Dreaming.

Whining.

Hide ‘n’ Go Seek.

Burping (and that thing from the other end that always has the audience howling when it happens in a movie.)

Tickling. (But never if you tickle yourself so really what good is it?)

That wubba-wubba thing you do with your finger and your lips to signal meshuggeneh.)

Playing with an empty box.

Being happy when your Mom finally comes home.  (But acting blase’ about it.)

Falling in love.

Getting your heart broken.

Feeling lonely in a crowd.

Dunking donuts.

Doodling.

Cuddling.

Hope.

If Only You Could Get Blood Out of a Turnip

NOTE: THESE ARE JUST THE HUMOROUS MUSINGS OF A” WEAK KNEED AT THE SIGHT OF BLOOD” COMEDY WRITER AND SHOULD CAST NO ASPERSIONS ON THE FINE HARD WORKING FOLKS OF U.B.S. — NOW BACK TO THE JOKES…

Dear Hero/Heroine–

Happy birthday from your friends at United Blood Services.  You are one of our most cherished clients. We celebrate you not just for your courage in being born and taking on the world, such as it is, but also for taking your time and life-enhancing bodily essence and giving them to us.  If that is not a hero than we don’t know what is.

Thank you for bringing family members with you.  We couldn’t swear that those are heroic looks on their face when they arrive but with you as a parent we know that they have the DNA of a hero.

Lately, we have had many meetings about how we can unleash you from that pesky ruling about having to wait six weeks every time you give whole blood.  Then somehow the phrase “blood money” started getting tossed around.  (Unlike those bags of blood you provided us with.  Those we treat with the gentleness usually only given to newborn babes.  If there were any blood bag tossing around like the kind one might see in a teen gross-out comedy we assure you the perpetrators position would be terminated immediately.)  We thought in the six week interim you could donate money instead of blood.  You would receive the same free stickers and pizza coupons.  Or you could donate a car so that we could transform it into a bloodmobile– or more likely sell so we could stockpile more “blood money”.  The possiblities are endless.  Ever used a leaf blower?  Act now and you, our hero could be wielding one of those on our front lawn for the five weeks while you are waiting to donate, again.  (But not the day of donating.  That activity would be too strenuous.)  Thank you!

Your friends at UBS

PS–Stay away from all risky activities including visits to “Mad Cow” countries.

Sometimes Hope Has No Feathers but Does Have a Monocle.

“The Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines my position as Impresario thusly– ‘one who organizes or manages public entertainment’. 

Generally, the people I have the most contact with are the tax people, the legal people and the money people.  Not a gaggle  of chuckles there, I assure you.  The people I seldom see are the performers with their pretty public faces and tortured souls, alas.

I adore lunching with performers. So, happy, funny, and eager to please.  The best people to be around when the sun is shining brightly.  You feel handsome and charming when you are around them.  A kind of osmosis of charisma.  I wonder if sitting across from me they feel more level-headed and realistic?  Oh, bah!  No one ever fantasizes about being more in touch with reality, do they?

When performers are unhappy the whole world is sad.  They seek out the comfort of the Director.  The Daddy – or occasionally, the Mommy.  But who comforts the Director when he has his dark night of the soul and feels as if he is staring into the abyss?   — Moi! 

I give the Daddy or Mommy a clumsy hug.  Then I look them in the eye and spin a fantasy of numbers and possibilities.  I transform the impossible into the probable.  I spout an aria of theatrical miracles from the past.  I replace the disaster we are facing with a bright shining star above Bethlehem.  By the end, I have convinced us both.

False hope?  It is always false hope if the odds beat you in the end.  At that moment it is simply hope.  Hope is all that matters.  The wheel spins.  You win, you lose.  Who can say what will happen until the ball drops into the slot?  Is it triumph or failure?   It matters not.  Tomorrow, you still must spin again, eh?”