This morning I’d planned to write about how it was laundry day for the first quarter of the current fiscal year. I’d wanted to go into how I found an old cocktail napkin in my pocket, on which there was outlined a script for an episode of the television show Lost. It was going to be great. To think I almost blew my nose in that cocktail napkin.
This was the picture I was supposed to snap of the Waitakere Ranges where much of my Lost episode takes place.
But because I never actually got around to writing that blog post, there was no cocktail napkin to begin with, which I quickly regretted, as I ended up having to blow my nose into my sleeve.
But it is true that my script was going to be cool. In it, I play a character named Marty “Huckleberry” Heidegger and Jacquie plays my wife, Susie “Siouxsie” Sontag, the sole survivors of an ill-fated flight from Los Angeles to someplace else. We were on the run from johnny law because we once called a U.S. Marshal by her first name, just like dangerous renegades do.
Here’s one of the scenes I ended up not writing:
Scene 4 — Waitakere Ranges. Exterior. Dusk.
Huckleberry: Where are we?
Siouxsie: New Zealand.
Huckleberry: How did we get here?
Siouxsie: By accident, like everybody else.
Huckleberry: And why do our names refer to famous philosophers, scientists and fictional characters?
Siouxsie: Total coincidence. The writer sure paid attention in his Western Civ class in college, though, didn’t he?
Huckleberry: I’ll say. He’s real smart. I feel like I’m actually learning something. Like what detergent and breakfast cereal to buy at the supermarket tomorrow.
Chester as Schrodinger's Cat
On second thought, I’m once again happy with my original decision not to write this blog entry because as you can tell from the above scene, my script stinks. It’s got so many holes in it, and it goes on for many seasons, when it could actually be told completely within about three hours. Which just goes to show I just don’t understand television.
Still, it would have been nice to see Chester, our house pet, strain his thespian sinews in the role of Schrodinger’s Cat, which I wrote just for him. In my script, Huckleberry Heidegger and Siouxsie Sontag rescue Shrodinger’s Cat from something called the Lackhov Initiative Cyclotron. But, you know. I couldn’t be bothered.
Our flat would have made a cozy "hatch."
Now, in the following scene that doesn’t exist, Siouxsie and Huckleberry run back to their “hatch” from the Waitakere Ranges with Schrodinger’s Cat in tow.
Scene 15–Hatch. Interior. Tea time.
Schrodinger’s Cat: Yeah, like thanks for rescuing me and all that. You got anything to eat?
Siouxsie: Just what was it that those people were doing to you back there?
Schrodinger’s Cat: It was like an experiment and shit. They were trying to create this Black Hole by, like, sending a proton at the speed of light down my alimentary canal. But as it turned out, they only had enough energy to create a Tabby Hole.
Huckleberry: That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.
Schrodinger’s Cat: Oh, terrible, I know. And a disgusting paradox too. It was out of the very same Tabby hole they created that I both pooped and was pooped. Which is what happened just before you guys scooped me up.
Siouxsie: It’s mind-boggling how stupid this is.
Huckleberry: Oh, no. We have to go back to the bush.
Siouxsie: Why?
Huckleberry: Because that, um, special plant that I got off that, uh, “smoke” monster is missing. I have a feeling that my inability to hold on to my, uh, shit might have something to do with Lackov Initiative. So we have to go back.
Siouxsie: I’m going with you.
Huckleberry: No, you’re not.
Siouxsie: Yes I am––
Schrodinger’s Cat: Uh, like, I hate to spoil this beautiful scene of domestic harmony but could you tell me where your bathroom sink is? I have to take a huge dump.
Siouxsie (Jacquie Matthews) grows visibly contemptuous of the outdoors, as she contemplates how long she is supposed to stand there. The sign refused to provide any further instructions, a typical Westie trick.
The way I’d have written it, had I bothered to go to the trouble, the bush of the Waitakere Ranges would be home to a “smoke monster” whose beeper number no longer works and a dangerous group of “others.”
Scene 27–Waitakere Ranges. Exterior. Happy Hour
Siouxsie: So who are these “others” that run the Lackov Initiative?
Schrodinger’s Cat: They call themselves…the Westies.
Siouxsie: What’s a Westie?
Schrodinger’s Cat: They are stereotyped as an unrefined folk with no taste and who wear Uggboots and leopard-print fabric.
Siouxsie: Wow, just like people from New Jersey.
Schrodinger’s Cat: Hmmm. Not as bad as that.
Huckleberry: Long Island?
Schrodinger’s Cat: Same thing.
Siouxsie: Staten Island?
Schrodinger’s Cat: Again.
Huckleberry: Oh, I got it. They’re just like people from Boston who say “wicked” a lot?
Schrodinger’s Cat: OK, why don’t we just pretend I didn’t say anything. Just make sure you wear your reflective vests otherwise they will continually run you over with their muscle cars.
Westies often pimp their rides.
The point of all this is to say that sloth is a very important quality to develop. After all, if not for sloth, I would have irritated my readers, alienated my Westie friends and criticized a popular television show with poorly crafted satire. Thank God I never got around to writing my blog.
