PRESSURE PRESS ARCHIVE

THE RESIDUAL DHARMA BUMS A PLAY CHARACTERS: Waylon, 35 years old, in jeans & flannel Sammy, same age, older-looking, leaner Hank, old, in a too-small 3-piece suit SCENE ONE: Waylon & Sammy sit across a low camp-fire from Hank. They are on the side of a mountain , on a smal l rocky plateau. Owls & frogs echo in the distance. Waylon (sarcastically): Buddha is a HOLLYWOOD MOVIE, huh? Hank: When the Producer blistered "CUT!" you shlda seen Big Buddha-man poo the command. The financial strain bulged in the blood of the eyes of the Director, who, by the way, is Han Shan wrongly reincarnated due to facial similarities in Satori Enlightenment & the whole flip-flop Christianity evoked, the Death of Dichotomy, fer instance... Waylon (troubled by his sarcasm's ineffectiveness): Sammy, man, you believe this shit he's feeding us? Sammy (closing his fire-lit eyes): Great Prune Zen Master was asked by a regular, kind shop-keeper, to at least sweep the floor of the shop if He so insisted on stealing oranges? & Great Prune grumbled, spit, & announced "ORANGES ARE HOLLYWOOD!" Hank (nodding): See? Comparisons are not so odious as ass-brained Accountants so readily argue. Had Buddha been a Maintenance Supervisor in a Foundry, who wld chant praises & prayers upon Him? The rats? The White-collar Masters? Sammy (opening his eyes, jumping up, hopping): WHIP THEM MOTHERFUCKERS INTO TRANSCENDENTAL NIRVANA, MOTHERFUCKERS! (whips at spaces all around with an imaginary whip). Waylon (saddened, near tears): Vanity is Disease, Disease is Vanity. Hank: Let's eat, partners, let's drink this wine. (pulls potato chips & other junk-food from a knapsack, & much wine). Waylon: Poisons...Passions...All the Same...Disease is Passion...Passion is this Tortured Wine... (he tears into the food & the wine). Sammy (food & wine spilling from his chomping mouth): I wrote a poem for this occasion, Way, Hank, mind if I recite it here high up in the mountains under the Milky Way Galaxy of Everything Possible? Waylon (unison with Hank, bellowing): NO FUCKING WAY! Sammy (ignoring them): Enmeshed in this Quadrant where Coyote is a bag of Keebler cookies, the soft kind, & what the Cosmos farts is language in the mouth of Hank chewed into Sound & Meaning, Morsels, slices of peppery pizza like painting salmon-steaks with acrylic glow-in-the-goddamn-dark red paint! & Buddha, He pisses water for our flower-petal Tea, already boiled! Hank (graciously): That's a very good poem, Sam. Waylon (rolling his eyes, smiling): It's Shit! END