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The year, 1996. The time, universal.
Somewhere, far back-a-bush, “Mmm Bopp” squeaked out of an old short wave radio into the humid night. The radio sat in one corner of a thatch hut, on a knock-an’-stan’-up table, its antenna broken crudely and splinted back together with a thick coating of flimsy scotch tape and an emery board. In the other corner a small pile of coal smoldered, billowing thick white whips of pungent smoke. The coals consisted of bits of coconut husks mixed with chunks of white oleander bark, creating a lightly poisonous smoke that drove off the mosquitoes.
“It is now 24 hours universal time and you are listening to the billboard top-forty on The Voice of America. Coming up, ‘The World Hour’."
Using the tuning knob, he scanned the airways very intently….there must be something on the short wave worth listening to at 24 hours universal time.
“Next on BBC radio news: will Butros Butros Ghali serve a second term?”
“Will Botros Butros Gahli get a second name?” Jan grumbled at the radio as he got up to re-light his pipe in the coals. “Butros Butros Butros—.”
The short wave was an auditory window to the world he had escaped from years ago.
Jan thought his childhood had been confusing…until he grew up and got a look at the world. The summer he turned eighteen he spent most of his time in his friend Peter’s flat watching him build funky sculptures out of wax and barbed wire as they both split a joint. Then his parents threatened to take away his allowance so he applied to college. After college they threatened to take away his allowance…so he cut his hair...which was, in his own words, “the straw that broke the camels back.”
So he packed a bag full of necessities (those which he thought were necessities at the time) and backpacked through Central America…
Days got warmer, his hair got longer…his allowance got shorter, until one day, he found himself in a Guatemalan Prison, and it no longer came at all. Peter was the one who bailed him out.
“You've got to snap out of this you bloody wanker.” Peter scolded jokingly over the phone to a newly released Jan. “I did.” He did, all right. The words, “aspiring artist” might substitute his name in a local newspaper. What was more, Peter still got an allowance.
Years had passed since his traveling days. Now Jan spoke to his short wave on the quiet nights before the rains when frogs went silent, and sometimes it sang him songs. His favorite was BBC, it gave his the most entertainment, and his second favorite was CBC. The VOA seemed to sound a lot like the V.O. the Hanson brothers, and if nothing else, made him smile.
It got fuzzy sometimes when the splinted antenna got temperamental. Jan ignored the static. It seemed that every evening on Radio Sweden, reports of groundbreaking studies linked something new to cancer. Last evening it had been fluoride; tonight it was cell phones. He ignored those too. Funny, he thought, how he had spent half his life away from all of these cancerous things yet still managed to developed skin cancer. I guess wherever you go in the world you can’t escape the sun. Not that it was the sun that Jan had been running from.
When I first met Jan I was working at a corner store on the outskirts of St. Ann’s Bay Jamaica. Once a month he came into town, making a spectacle of himself: a forty year old white man in a bright red Hawaiian shirt and tight flared jeans from the seventies. Jan never hesitated to shake a hand or crack joke. Everyone knew him; no one disliked him.
He came into my store one day looking to buy some tape and two emery boards. I asked him why, so he told me. I suggested a long piece of wire, explaining how it might help. The next time he came into my corner store he wasn’t looking to buy anything.
Years later, Peter and I sat at Jan's bedside in the Hospital listening to Radio Sweden: “a new study linked radio waves to breast cause cancer.” He smiled and weakly turned the little knob all the way to the left: CLICK.
The radio shut off, and minutes later, so did he.
Peter’s cell phone rang as the sun shone through the window, and radio waves danced all around us.
The year, 2004. The time, universal.
11 is Company
The sun shone, bright and spring-like from it's apex in the sky. I walked under the blue dome that sealed the edges of the earth around me, whips of white ran across, some followed a course between the earth and the vibrant daystar, casting short lived shadows to the ground. The sound of melting snow dripping off the rooftops sent a rhythm to my ears. I saw icicles sparkle under the sun and slowly disappear...Sparkling droplets diving earthbound from the eves.
Across the sidewalk streams of melted snow made little waterways in the concrete, sliding under my shoes and splashing upon my ankles. Everything seemed to sparkle, and birds chirped, clear and musical, from high atop the nearby pines. I saw Beer Lake in the distance, getting larger as I moved closer to My dorm in Vandenberg. Sheets of translucent ice floated atop the water and the melted portions consisted of a murky brown.
I took the two flights of steps to my new dorm room on the south corner of East Vandenberg Hall. The door was open, and a cool wind blew from the balcony door. My roommate and her friend, upon seeing me they burst out laughing.
"So you recovered from last night?" T. Asked me with a smile.
"No....What?" I was confused. Was she there when I had entered high and drunk the night before? I could not remember, but I assumed she had been from the look on her face.
"Oh, yeah." I laughed. "That was pretty..... interesting."
"You was fucked up." T. Laughed, "You was sayin' you could move things with your thoughts an' some shit."
"Did I....?" I faintly remembered the feeling now, of having to touch them. "Well I guess I recovered. Now I have to get ready. I'm going to Canada."
"In the day?" T. asked. "You know no one be goin' up there for no day trip girl."
"No, it's for a friends birthday." I replied. "we're gonna prolly spend the night---"
"So you gonna get fucked up again?"
"No, I mean...maybe...I think..." I felt like an alchoholic. "I have to get ready."
I tore though my heaps of clothes, all clean, but wrinkled and knotted together. Nothing in my life would ever be straight, neat or organized. I had come to that conclusion some time before. Even my hair seemed to rebel against the idea of being tamed. I looked into the mirror and confirmed my obesity, my ugliness, my frizzy hair...and I reached for my cell phone to call my friend, C. to tell her I no longer felt like going.
The world only likes beautiful people, and I, at the moment was feeling far from accpetable for the public to view. But then I realized that laying in my dorm and feeling ugly was worse than sitting in public and being ugly. So I continued to dig to the center of my moutnain of cloths in an attempt to locate something that, once donned, would make me presentable.
Aftre some debate on whether or not to wear a skirt, I finall decided to throw on some old jeans a black sweater. I would change, I told myself, at the hotel. I never did.
Now I would like to pause for, I see, upon re-reading what I have just written, that I have been writing, for the most part, about myself. While I suppose one always has the most to say about oneself, those whose company I found myself in were quite an entertaining bunch. A company eleven, including a reverand, someone who will be refered to as The Big Tomato, a small canadian, Someone who actually had a date on valentines day, a chaperone who will be refered to as R. , A Grosse Pointer in denial, among a few others who I may or may not introduce later. All of the above mentioned were compacted into one small hotel room with plenty of alcohol..I think. I didn't start drinking until dinner, when I ordered my first legal drink.
But before dinner I found myself engaged in rather a conversation with The Big Tomato, who sat by the hotel window, leaned back in a chair, peering out from beneath his cowboy hat, beer in one hand, gesturing explainatively with the other amidst a conversation with the Reverand.
Aside from the chatter of people boucing off the walls, aside from the little blonde birthday girl, with green underpants over her jeans...(N. was quite a sight, adorable, hilarious...those words come to mind) music played from a small radio that that was perched upon the bed by the winodw.
But after some time, I slowly became aware of a song that played in the background:
"I don't want another pretty face,
I don't want just anyone to hold
I don't want our love to go to waste,
I want you and your beautifl soul."
The lyrics annoyed me, prtially because it was a love song ,and I have become to some dregree I believe, allergic to love songs, and partially because the person singing sounded like he/she was ten...give or take a year or two.
"I want you and your beautiful soul," I retpeated mostly to myself because I didn't think anyone was listiening. I warily eyed at the radio like it was a venemous creature.
"Am I to assume he wants an ugly chick?" The Big Tomato said sarcastically and I looked up, and indeed he was talking to me...or at least I though so, so I replied.
"Am I even to assume it's a boy?"
The Big Tomato chuckled, slightly amused. He lifted his hat about an inch so he could see me.
"Yes." Was his confident, almost serious reply.
"Well then are WE to assume that he has encountered numerous pretty faces and, now he has, quite literally, exausted his liking of a pretty face?" I was neither drunk nor high, but for some reason this mock analysis of a terrible song had me entirerly amused.
"Good question..." TBT rubbed his chin thoughtfully, or at least I imagined he did. The world may never know what exactly happned. I can only give you my count of events, right?
"It leads back to my original question: Is he equating a pretty faces with ugly souls?"
"And a waste of love?" I tacked onto his question.
The radio got fuzzy for a second and R. tuned into the last part of our conversation.
"What?" He said looking confused. "What's a waste of love?"
"That song." TBT nodded towards the radio and took a gulp of his beer. "We are obviously to assume he's wasted his share of (L) on pretty faces."
And at this point R. shrugged and reached for another beer.
At the same point I shurgged and looked out of the glass down to the street below. People scampered down the street, colorful lighted signed directed the bingeing turists to alcohol and if that was not enough, to MORE alcohol. Here was a town developed and upkept solely on the power of alcohol.
The streets seemed alive with people going to bars, and people trying to get you to go to bars...it seemed like it was about an equal amount. By the end of the night at had at least four tags on my wrist telling me to go to this bar, that bar or the other club...all in neon glow in the dark colors...
As we filed out of the hotel room, R. began grabbing our arms and writing on them: 415 Ramada.
"If we split up, and you get too drunk or lost, just show someone this on you wrist." He spoke loudly, to the whole group. "They'll know where it is." His hands shook as he wrote, not because he was nervous. He had always been that way, he said. And as soon as I was out of his direct sight, I licked my wrist and smudged off all markings of the pen feeling like I did some years before when my big sister put a tag on my wrist with my address on it and I tore it off behind her back. I knew exactly where I was and where needed to go back to. Nonetheless, I found R.'s genuine concern for the younger flock to be admirable, genuine.
Just down the street, one of the bar-pushers led us to a restaurant named, conveniently, The Big Tomato. A coincidence?...hmmmmm I'd say.
It is at this restaurant that I ordered my first legal drink in my 20 year old life.
The dinner was nothing special. C. and I shared some pasta, and I looked over to my right and saw the that The Big Tomato himself and his sidekick, who were sitting across from each other, both had ordered the same meal, the only difference was the choice in meat. Need I tell you who ordered fist? I looked down and saw that they were both wearig cowboy boots. Need I imply who got theirs first? hmmmmmm...I'd say.
So then we went to the Casino, Casino Winsor, the magnet for drunk people under 21...and, I suppose in R's case, for chaperones over 21. He took my coat upon entered the Casino, very politely. He reminded me of the big brother character in Hans Brinker who was decsribed by the author as gallant. I can think of no other word.
The sound of chips rattling, coins falling...a whole world came to life around me, tickling chatterish sounds scrabled about the place, under my shoes and between my fingers, and danced on my eardrums. Bets were placed, bets lost, few won. I ordered my second...maybe third... legal drink. At this point, I realized: I has spent $20 (Canadian) on alcohol and was not nearly drunk. I wondered, inwordly, how alcoholics could afford anythihng BUT liquor...things like...rent, clothes...hmmm. I didn't wonder for too long because a sickeningly cheesy cover band began to play. I felt like I was in a Ford commercial.
After the Casino, I was under the impression that we were to follow The Big Tomato to this club called Bentley's. So I just followed the Cowboy Hat. Like I said; I wasn't drunk...I don't think.
And the Bar-pushers slaped more neon paper bracelets on my wrists and some even tryied to drag me into various bars. I wanted to say, "this is a free country, I can go where I please...but I was not quite so sure....And for some reason everyone seemed to clear out of the way of the Big Tomato, perhaps it was because of his hat, his boots....his walk....or perhaps it had something to do with the trench-coated Reverand with staticky hair who lurked in his shadow.
I was speaking to TBT about some thing or the other when I notcied I was no longer being followed by the group of girls...or the chaperone.
"Where did they go?" I asked TBT.
"I dunno. But I'm going to Bently's." He never even slightly hesitated.
"Go find them." The Reverand waved his hand as if he was waving off a pestering fly.
"They went that way." He pointed a sharpened finger in the opposite direction that TBT was leading. "You don't wanna come with us. Go find them."
"But where?"
"I think they went into a club." The Reverand picked up his pace to rejoin his sidekick. "The reactor or soemthing."
"Okkkkk..."I turned to go, and walked towards the flashing yellow sign that read: REACTOR.
Inside, the smeel of spilled beer, mixed with various perfumes and colognes stabbed bluntly ay my nose. Loud music pounded painfully at my ears, sharp lights seared into my eyes. It reminded me of the clubs in Pontiac that I had attened religiously a year before. I was not nearly drunk enough. I stood next to where R. was sitting, engulfed in a pile of girls coats, calmly drinking a beer.
He reached out to take my coat like it was second naute, and after doing so he looked at me funny.
"Why dont you go dance?" he askedgesturing towards the filthy dance floor.
I looked and saw that all the other girls were.
"I don't feel like it." I said, taking a seat. Scareface was playing on a big sceen above the bar. I looked at that for a while. Lights flashed music played, and I drifted off into a daydream.
I imagined that ..........
Across the sidewalk streams of melted snow made little waterways in the concrete, sliding under my shoes and splashing upon my ankles. Everything seemed to sparkle, and birds chirped, clear and musical, from high atop the nearby pines. I saw Beer Lake in the distance, getting larger as I moved closer to My dorm in Vandenberg. Sheets of translucent ice floated atop the water and the melted portions consisted of a murky brown.
I took the two flights of steps to my new dorm room on the south corner of East Vandenberg Hall. The door was open, and a cool wind blew from the balcony door. My roommate and her friend, upon seeing me they burst out laughing.
"So you recovered from last night?" T. Asked me with a smile.
"No....What?" I was confused. Was she there when I had entered high and drunk the night before? I could not remember, but I assumed she had been from the look on her face.
"Oh, yeah." I laughed. "That was pretty..... interesting."
"You was fucked up." T. Laughed, "You was sayin' you could move things with your thoughts an' some shit."
"Did I....?" I faintly remembered the feeling now, of having to touch them. "Well I guess I recovered. Now I have to get ready. I'm going to Canada."
"In the day?" T. asked. "You know no one be goin' up there for no day trip girl."
"No, it's for a friends birthday." I replied. "we're gonna prolly spend the night---"
"So you gonna get fucked up again?"
"No, I mean...maybe...I think..." I felt like an alchoholic. "I have to get ready."
I tore though my heaps of clothes, all clean, but wrinkled and knotted together. Nothing in my life would ever be straight, neat or organized. I had come to that conclusion some time before. Even my hair seemed to rebel against the idea of being tamed. I looked into the mirror and confirmed my obesity, my ugliness, my frizzy hair...and I reached for my cell phone to call my friend, C. to tell her I no longer felt like going.
The world only likes beautiful people, and I, at the moment was feeling far from accpetable for the public to view. But then I realized that laying in my dorm and feeling ugly was worse than sitting in public and being ugly. So I continued to dig to the center of my moutnain of cloths in an attempt to locate something that, once donned, would make me presentable.
Aftre some debate on whether or not to wear a skirt, I finall decided to throw on some old jeans a black sweater. I would change, I told myself, at the hotel. I never did.
Now I would like to pause for, I see, upon re-reading what I have just written, that I have been writing, for the most part, about myself. While I suppose one always has the most to say about oneself, those whose company I found myself in were quite an entertaining bunch. A company eleven, including a reverand, someone who will be refered to as The Big Tomato, a small canadian, Someone who actually had a date on valentines day, a chaperone who will be refered to as R. , A Grosse Pointer in denial, among a few others who I may or may not introduce later. All of the above mentioned were compacted into one small hotel room with plenty of alcohol..I think. I didn't start drinking until dinner, when I ordered my first legal drink.
But before dinner I found myself engaged in rather a conversation with The Big Tomato, who sat by the hotel window, leaned back in a chair, peering out from beneath his cowboy hat, beer in one hand, gesturing explainatively with the other amidst a conversation with the Reverand.
Aside from the chatter of people boucing off the walls, aside from the little blonde birthday girl, with green underpants over her jeans...(N. was quite a sight, adorable, hilarious...those words come to mind) music played from a small radio that that was perched upon the bed by the winodw.
But after some time, I slowly became aware of a song that played in the background:
"I don't want another pretty face,
I don't want just anyone to hold
I don't want our love to go to waste,
I want you and your beautifl soul."
The lyrics annoyed me, prtially because it was a love song ,and I have become to some dregree I believe, allergic to love songs, and partially because the person singing sounded like he/she was ten...give or take a year or two.
"I want you and your beautiful soul," I retpeated mostly to myself because I didn't think anyone was listiening. I warily eyed at the radio like it was a venemous creature.
"Am I to assume he wants an ugly chick?" The Big Tomato said sarcastically and I looked up, and indeed he was talking to me...or at least I though so, so I replied.
"Am I even to assume it's a boy?"
The Big Tomato chuckled, slightly amused. He lifted his hat about an inch so he could see me.
"Yes." Was his confident, almost serious reply.
"Well then are WE to assume that he has encountered numerous pretty faces and, now he has, quite literally, exausted his liking of a pretty face?" I was neither drunk nor high, but for some reason this mock analysis of a terrible song had me entirerly amused.
"Good question..." TBT rubbed his chin thoughtfully, or at least I imagined he did. The world may never know what exactly happned. I can only give you my count of events, right?
"It leads back to my original question: Is he equating a pretty faces with ugly souls?"
"And a waste of love?" I tacked onto his question.
The radio got fuzzy for a second and R. tuned into the last part of our conversation.
"What?" He said looking confused. "What's a waste of love?"
"That song." TBT nodded towards the radio and took a gulp of his beer. "We are obviously to assume he's wasted his share of (L) on pretty faces."
And at this point R. shrugged and reached for another beer.
At the same point I shurgged and looked out of the glass down to the street below. People scampered down the street, colorful lighted signed directed the bingeing turists to alcohol and if that was not enough, to MORE alcohol. Here was a town developed and upkept solely on the power of alcohol.
The streets seemed alive with people going to bars, and people trying to get you to go to bars...it seemed like it was about an equal amount. By the end of the night at had at least four tags on my wrist telling me to go to this bar, that bar or the other club...all in neon glow in the dark colors...
As we filed out of the hotel room, R. began grabbing our arms and writing on them: 415 Ramada.
"If we split up, and you get too drunk or lost, just show someone this on you wrist." He spoke loudly, to the whole group. "They'll know where it is." His hands shook as he wrote, not because he was nervous. He had always been that way, he said. And as soon as I was out of his direct sight, I licked my wrist and smudged off all markings of the pen feeling like I did some years before when my big sister put a tag on my wrist with my address on it and I tore it off behind her back. I knew exactly where I was and where needed to go back to. Nonetheless, I found R.'s genuine concern for the younger flock to be admirable, genuine.
Just down the street, one of the bar-pushers led us to a restaurant named, conveniently, The Big Tomato. A coincidence?...hmmmmm I'd say.
It is at this restaurant that I ordered my first legal drink in my 20 year old life.
The dinner was nothing special. C. and I shared some pasta, and I looked over to my right and saw the that The Big Tomato himself and his sidekick, who were sitting across from each other, both had ordered the same meal, the only difference was the choice in meat. Need I tell you who ordered fist? I looked down and saw that they were both wearig cowboy boots. Need I imply who got theirs first? hmmmmmm...I'd say.
So then we went to the Casino, Casino Winsor, the magnet for drunk people under 21...and, I suppose in R's case, for chaperones over 21. He took my coat upon entered the Casino, very politely. He reminded me of the big brother character in Hans Brinker who was decsribed by the author as gallant. I can think of no other word.
The sound of chips rattling, coins falling...a whole world came to life around me, tickling chatterish sounds scrabled about the place, under my shoes and between my fingers, and danced on my eardrums. Bets were placed, bets lost, few won. I ordered my second...maybe third... legal drink. At this point, I realized: I has spent $20 (Canadian) on alcohol and was not nearly drunk. I wondered, inwordly, how alcoholics could afford anythihng BUT liquor...things like...rent, clothes...hmmm. I didn't wonder for too long because a sickeningly cheesy cover band began to play. I felt like I was in a Ford commercial.
After the Casino, I was under the impression that we were to follow The Big Tomato to this club called Bentley's. So I just followed the Cowboy Hat. Like I said; I wasn't drunk...I don't think.
And the Bar-pushers slaped more neon paper bracelets on my wrists and some even tryied to drag me into various bars. I wanted to say, "this is a free country, I can go where I please...but I was not quite so sure....And for some reason everyone seemed to clear out of the way of the Big Tomato, perhaps it was because of his hat, his boots....his walk....or perhaps it had something to do with the trench-coated Reverand with staticky hair who lurked in his shadow.
I was speaking to TBT about some thing or the other when I notcied I was no longer being followed by the group of girls...or the chaperone.
"Where did they go?" I asked TBT.
"I dunno. But I'm going to Bently's." He never even slightly hesitated.
"Go find them." The Reverand waved his hand as if he was waving off a pestering fly.
"They went that way." He pointed a sharpened finger in the opposite direction that TBT was leading. "You don't wanna come with us. Go find them."
"But where?"
"I think they went into a club." The Reverand picked up his pace to rejoin his sidekick. "The reactor or soemthing."
"Okkkkk..."I turned to go, and walked towards the flashing yellow sign that read: REACTOR.
Inside, the smeel of spilled beer, mixed with various perfumes and colognes stabbed bluntly ay my nose. Loud music pounded painfully at my ears, sharp lights seared into my eyes. It reminded me of the clubs in Pontiac that I had attened religiously a year before. I was not nearly drunk enough. I stood next to where R. was sitting, engulfed in a pile of girls coats, calmly drinking a beer.
He reached out to take my coat like it was second naute, and after doing so he looked at me funny.
"Why dont you go dance?" he askedgesturing towards the filthy dance floor.
I looked and saw that all the other girls were.
"I don't feel like it." I said, taking a seat. Scareface was playing on a big sceen above the bar. I looked at that for a while. Lights flashed music played, and I drifted off into a daydream.
I imagined that ..........
BAMBI and NATURAL SELECTION
Now showing: BAMBI and NATURAL SELECTION
Starring:
JUDE NIXON
as
the voice of BAMBI
JUDE NIXON
as
the voice of THE LION
(all other voices also played by the multi-talented JUDE NIXON)
Director: Jude Nixon
Producer: Jude Nixon
Screenplay inspired by an impromptu performance by:
Jude Nixon
ACT I
Scene I: Daytime. Long shot of sunny green meadow. Grass waving peacefully in wind. Sound of the trickle of a stream nearby. From the edge of a thick green forest, a group of Deers stroll across the meadow: a doe, a buck and one fawn. Zoom to close shot of fawn, BAMBI (aka JUDE NIXON). Bambi has large eyes and eyelashes, alert little ears (awww isn't JUDE cute?).
CUT to THE LION a.k.a. JUDE NIXON (budgeting issues prevented us from using real animals, JUDE did a better job anyway), crouched on his hands and knees in the shady edge of the forest by the stream. His teeth are bared. He is eyeing BAMBI because he knows it is the weakest. Close shot of JUDE, looking ravenous.
CUT to the Fawn, innocently wandering a little too far from her group, smells a flower or something pretty.
FLASH a screen of LION (Mean Jude). Flash Screen of BAMBI (cute Jude). LONG SHOT of the meadow seems peaceful at first. Then LION leaps out of hiding and launches himself towards BAMBI. FOCUS on LION in blurred moving frame. CUT to BAMBI: the Fawn Panics, sprinting for its parents, not fast enough. LION snaps it's neck. The strong adults retreat unharmed. Natural selection plays out once again.
############################################################
"So you see." Jude composed himself in front of the class after a fevered performance of Hunter and Hunted. He straightened his tie and smoothed out the legs of his pants ever-so elegantly. Nothing about Jude was abrupt, accepted for when he channeled LIONS. "Darwin said, 'if there is this higher being, then why so much suffering? Don't you see?" He laughs as he gestured with his hands, "It is natural selection. Randomness, you undastand?"
A student, we'll call him JESUS FREAK spoke up. "There is no proof of Evolution." He said. "But Creation is real. It's in the bible."
"But you first have to undastand the dynamics of science. You cannot go about that in manner with scientific studies. " He paused. "Anyone want to comment?"
The class erupted in a chatter of debates/arguments.
"This is what I like to see." Jude smiled leaning back in his chair. "This is a topic that we cannot overlook if we read book like Vestiges. Now, imagine publishing this book..."
Jude was interrupted by Jesus Freak#2. "But If the lion ate BAMBI than that LION was the DEVIL. God uses his power and so does the devil. Darwin was like the Devil because...."
"Let me explain this better. Perhaps the first example was not the best." Jude leaned forward in his chair. The class feel silent. Time for anther thrilling performance. Jude always kept the class at the edge of their seats...Literally. "I want you on the edge of your seats." He said with an amused JUDE laugh.
"Now imagine what would happen if the LION didn't kill BAMBI. Let us say...Let us say he got a cellular phone call, you know?" Jude raised his hand to his mouth hesitantly as if waiting for a reaction, then broke out into laughter, the class, less amused, chuckled. JUDE crouched back up into the position of the LION.
ACT II
Scene I:
LION: My my. That deer looks good. And I am hungry. I think it will be easiest to get the little one, so...Here goes...
CELL PHONE RINGS
LION: SHIT! I've got to get that. It is God.
LION: Hello?
God: Do not eat that deer. It is little. What are you thinking? Are not allowed to eat the little deer.
LION: Oh, dammit. All right then.
BAMBI: (Jude does high pitched voice) Thank you, God for saving me."
############################################################
Jude composed himself elegantly as the director of an HONORS COLLEGE might, after pretending to be both God, A LION, and BAMBI. "So now the Lion has to go Hungry possibly."
The class arouse back to it's former perturbed point.
"Let us get some order in here first. Chambers loved order." Jude smiled, maybe even smirked. "Now we can see that natural selection has a purpose. It is not evil, it is just nature. It is "Red in tooth and Claw" you know? We all have this maternal view of "mother nature" when really she is a beast. Some of the most beautiful things in----."
"But RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRFAAAAAGGRRREE" The Jesus Freaks spoke, the evolutionists spoke. The class was getting hot, as the sun glared though the glass walls of the Honors College and cooked the already perturbed students alive...Metaphorically.
"Chambers loved metaphors." Jude Says once he had gotten the class back. "So let me give you one more. The class was, once again on the edge of their seats.
INTERMISSION
PREVIEW: In the next ACT, an ELK, who happenes to be handicapped is introduced...and so are Handicapp laws. Jude Nixon is great, if you're not in the honors college @ OU, google him ot stop by his office and experience the greatness of Jude. :)
Starring:
JUDE NIXON
as
the voice of BAMBI
JUDE NIXON
as
the voice of THE LION
(all other voices also played by the multi-talented JUDE NIXON)
Director: Jude Nixon
Producer: Jude Nixon
Screenplay inspired by an impromptu performance by:
Jude Nixon
ACT I
Scene I: Daytime. Long shot of sunny green meadow. Grass waving peacefully in wind. Sound of the trickle of a stream nearby. From the edge of a thick green forest, a group of Deers stroll across the meadow: a doe, a buck and one fawn. Zoom to close shot of fawn, BAMBI (aka JUDE NIXON). Bambi has large eyes and eyelashes, alert little ears (awww isn't JUDE cute?).
CUT to THE LION a.k.a. JUDE NIXON (budgeting issues prevented us from using real animals, JUDE did a better job anyway), crouched on his hands and knees in the shady edge of the forest by the stream. His teeth are bared. He is eyeing BAMBI because he knows it is the weakest. Close shot of JUDE, looking ravenous.
CUT to the Fawn, innocently wandering a little too far from her group, smells a flower or something pretty.
FLASH a screen of LION (Mean Jude). Flash Screen of BAMBI (cute Jude). LONG SHOT of the meadow seems peaceful at first. Then LION leaps out of hiding and launches himself towards BAMBI. FOCUS on LION in blurred moving frame. CUT to BAMBI: the Fawn Panics, sprinting for its parents, not fast enough. LION snaps it's neck. The strong adults retreat unharmed. Natural selection plays out once again.
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"So you see." Jude composed himself in front of the class after a fevered performance of Hunter and Hunted. He straightened his tie and smoothed out the legs of his pants ever-so elegantly. Nothing about Jude was abrupt, accepted for when he channeled LIONS. "Darwin said, 'if there is this higher being, then why so much suffering? Don't you see?" He laughs as he gestured with his hands, "It is natural selection. Randomness, you undastand?"
A student, we'll call him JESUS FREAK spoke up. "There is no proof of Evolution." He said. "But Creation is real. It's in the bible."
"But you first have to undastand the dynamics of science. You cannot go about that in manner with scientific studies. " He paused. "Anyone want to comment?"
The class erupted in a chatter of debates/arguments.
"This is what I like to see." Jude smiled leaning back in his chair. "This is a topic that we cannot overlook if we read book like Vestiges. Now, imagine publishing this book..."
Jude was interrupted by Jesus Freak#2. "But If the lion ate BAMBI than that LION was the DEVIL. God uses his power and so does the devil. Darwin was like the Devil because...."
"Let me explain this better. Perhaps the first example was not the best." Jude leaned forward in his chair. The class feel silent. Time for anther thrilling performance. Jude always kept the class at the edge of their seats...Literally. "I want you on the edge of your seats." He said with an amused JUDE laugh.
"Now imagine what would happen if the LION didn't kill BAMBI. Let us say...Let us say he got a cellular phone call, you know?" Jude raised his hand to his mouth hesitantly as if waiting for a reaction, then broke out into laughter, the class, less amused, chuckled. JUDE crouched back up into the position of the LION.
ACT II
Scene I:
LION: My my. That deer looks good. And I am hungry. I think it will be easiest to get the little one, so...Here goes...
CELL PHONE RINGS
LION: SHIT! I've got to get that. It is God.
LION: Hello?
God: Do not eat that deer. It is little. What are you thinking? Are not allowed to eat the little deer.
LION: Oh, dammit. All right then.
BAMBI: (Jude does high pitched voice) Thank you, God for saving me."
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Jude composed himself elegantly as the director of an HONORS COLLEGE might, after pretending to be both God, A LION, and BAMBI. "So now the Lion has to go Hungry possibly."
The class arouse back to it's former perturbed point.
"Let us get some order in here first. Chambers loved order." Jude smiled, maybe even smirked. "Now we can see that natural selection has a purpose. It is not evil, it is just nature. It is "Red in tooth and Claw" you know? We all have this maternal view of "mother nature" when really she is a beast. Some of the most beautiful things in----."
"But RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRFAAAAAGGRRREE" The Jesus Freaks spoke, the evolutionists spoke. The class was getting hot, as the sun glared though the glass walls of the Honors College and cooked the already perturbed students alive...Metaphorically.
"Chambers loved metaphors." Jude Says once he had gotten the class back. "So let me give you one more. The class was, once again on the edge of their seats.
INTERMISSION
PREVIEW: In the next ACT, an ELK, who happenes to be handicapped is introduced...and so are Handicapp laws. Jude Nixon is great, if you're not in the honors college @ OU, google him ot stop by his office and experience the greatness of Jude. :)
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