On Tuesday, This is Happening

Motel Americana, a movie made by my Uncle Benjamin and some of his cronies, is playing in New York City. The promo poster looks like this:



But this is also happening: An old character actor is going to launch the film by interrupting an announcement about the star of the movie and then performing this monologue:

Gabe is introduced by the theater manager. We know in advance that he is not there. This gives the Clown Manager his opening . . .

He ain’t here. Primmadonna. (Stands) I tell him, here’s your shot, your chance to meet some new clients, here’s a little grapevine to famesville. Nope. Says he’s got a date or something. After all I’ve done for this guy. (Shows head shot or blown up picture.) Dope.

But I’ll admit. To a room fulla strangers I’ll admit. Only because he’s not here. He’s like a son this guy. (Regarding the photograph) I been mentoring him since he was fifteen. I’m proud of him, you know. Maybe not tonight, but I’m proud of him. You can’t go near the Catskills these days without bumping into a piece of his act. Maybe a balloon he tied up to look like a tuba. Or . . . just the look on some kid’s face who had a really nice party.

Shenaningans. (Sigh) Shenanigans the Clown. Prominent fixture in this here motel movie you’re about to—uh--enjoy.

Here . . . take some of his cards . . . you won’t be sorry. Once you see him you’ll wanna see him again.

(He passes out clown cards to whoever's sitting in his vicinity. Walks up front.)

Really he's an excellent performer but he's too much of an artist. Insists that clowning, la comedia he calls it, transcends language barriers. Repeat business, I tell him! No one's gonna rehire a clown only speaks grease ball. I'm sorry. No offense to you grease balls in the audience.

So I told Joe when he announced that the movie was gonna be showing here tonight . . . Joe you realize that movie's gonna get half the audience cheering and half the audience booing? Joe mulls it over a bit—he’s a muller, a brooder—then says to me, "It's a little film-we had no budget. Less than a thousand dollars. And half of that went to coffee and beer. So half an audience cheering... well, that's not half bad. I’ll take them odds."

So I says to him, I says, "Joe, you realize the half that's cheering will be cheering the half that's booing, don't you?"

Seriously folks, when I auditioned for this movie, I told Joe and the guys, “Forget the crucifixion, remember the Renaissance. There were no brooders then . . ." I got cast in an offscreen roll. They didn’t listen.

That was their first good move. What do I know about making movies? I know about managing clowns, entertainers, a little bankers and brokers Sunday afternoon . . . it’s a living. But these guys knew . . . they knew something. They knew the difference between a German lens and a Jap adaptor, if you catch my drift.

I was on set one day when my client, Shenanigans, was shooting his bit. He’s supposed to march into the hotel, led by his clown shoes, trailed by his clown suitcase. The light’s really disappearing fast, and the meter’s running on the room. They’ve got to get this shot or they might never make it back. At one point, Joe rushes out from behind his camera to straighten something on the set. Or, that’s normally what he would be doing. Not so this time. Instead, he grabs the clown’s suitcase, rips it open, pulls out a toy, and hands it off to a young girl who, at that precise moment, is walking through the set and into the impending evening. Lesson # 1 of the low budget film, the low budget life: Sometimes you make the myth, and sometimes the myth makes you.

And that’s the point! The film got made. Made! Which is more than I can say for most of the fantasies we carry around like delicate songbirds. (pauses and then fairly shouts) “Better a live bird in the jungle of the body than two stuffed birds on a library table!” That’s what my nanna used to say, god rest her soul.

I’m here to support these knuckleheads, to support all knuckleheads, because, in my heart, I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms . . . and for the invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, stealing in through the crannies of the world like so many soft roots . . . the bigger the unit you dial with, the hollower, the more brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed.

(He takes his teeth out. No big deal.)

So I am against all big successes and big results; and in favor of the eternal forces of truth which always work in the individual and immediately unsuccessful way, underdogs always, till history comes, after they are long dead, and puts them on top.

A motel film. With motel people. Made by a buncha bastards who knew enough to leave me out of the final cut.

Enjoy the show. And, as we say in showbusiness, watch that last step . . . it’s a doozy.