Community Service

With all the elderly in this area you would think there would be one luxury long term care facility that I could go to play their piano, talk about Nat King Cole, eat the leftover crackers, and all those other activities that make my community service so interesting. Well, I've done nothing but strike out and the latest attempt has me shaken and unnerved. I saw a building "Res Care" or something like that. Residential housing. Perfect. I park the van and ring the bell to enter. Through the window I see all kinds of mobile bodies in the hallway which is a good sign. A nurse opens the door along with setting off an ear-piercing alarm.
"Hi, I'm Oggy, is there an entertainment director?"
The nurse shakes her head and mumbles something in Spanish.
"Director de entertainment?" I say in Spanglish.
"No."

I am puzzled because there is always some kind of entertainment in these joints.
"Piano? I play piano."
The nurse looks off into the distance like I'm babbling. Then I glance down the hallway and briefly thought to myself..."Man, there are a lot of young rehab patients living here."
But why are they walking around? Normally the rehab patients have broken their necks or backs or have terminal cancer and are obviously wasting away. But these patients were robust...erect...walking and talking.
I spotted a nearby woman who looked Anglo, perhaps a visiting relative, so I asked, "Is there a piano...see, I play Jazz and old time songs on the piano and..."
The woman literally looked at me like she was a character in a movie where the hero stumbles into an abandoned mental institution. She cocked her head far to one side...then even farther...grotesquely far...her sweater looked like it was from 1993...her eyes were pretty but hollow and haunting...like she did not communicate with the living. The shutter was clicking but there was no film in the camera. I thought, What the fuck kind of operation have I walked into?

I stood there awkwardly frowning. I'd never had such a bad feeling walking into a rehab hospital. Something felt wrong. I usually don't stare at the residents because they can't help being old and infirm, but this time I really looked at all the young people wandering through the halls and my heart sank. I was not in a rehab hospital because rehabilitation was not in the future for these patients. This was a group home for the mentally challenged and I was suddenly surrounded by a clawing hoard of Downs Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Rain Man Syndrome and God Have Mercy Syndrome. All traces of my desire to do good in the world, my noble ambitions and scarcely concealed narcissism vanished. I am selfish and only wanted to play Cole Porter songs for the silver hair set...and when it comes to really becoming a Patch Adams kind of savior to the spiritually malnourished I completely collapsed. I am no saint. I did not run out and get my guitar to play songs for this group of culturally starved inmates of their own mental prison. They had been farmed into this home, where they probably would never leave, because they had not committed a crime but could not take care of themselves. They were mostly adults in their 20s and while I projected my own sadness onto them (who in the world is more adrift than Oggy?) I did not feel comfortable singing songs for them.

The kids kind of clawed at me wondering if I was admitting myself or maybe I looked vaguely like someone who already lived there. It was like a scene from Night of The Living Dead except the only thing they wanted was to be stimulated. The nurse nodded as my expression gave away my sudden realization of where I was.
I backed away slowly and she opened the door for me. The patients all stood there gawking...I was escaping...but none dared follow me.

It was troubling moment.

Then I went to another home and walked the deserted halls. Found an old church piano in need of tuning in a dusty room with discarded Christmas decorations. A black janitor looked at me.
I said, "Does anyone play the piano to entertain people? I play Cole Porter."
He looked at me like I was crazy and went back to sweeping.

Walden

Walden



by
Oggy Bleacher


WGA Registered: #1129922



Title: “Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed - Henry David Thoreau”
FADE IN:
EXT. WALDEN POND. SPRING EVENING
Walden Pond and the surrounding marshes and fields are silent. A single maple seed floats on the water near an area free of ice. A chipmunk scampers to the base of a pine tree and uncovers a buried acorn. A pine cone rests in a pile of snow.
Title: “Walden Pond. Concord, Massachusetts 1845”
Tracking away from the pond we soon focus on THOREAU’S BOOTS as they blaze a trail through the snow...20 yards, 40 yards, 100 yards...over a treeless meadow in the direction of the pond. Using a rope sling around his shoulders Thoreau drags behind him a long paper birch tree, stripped of its branches.
On the rope sling: the cotton rope rubs on the rough bark until it finally BREAKS, causing Thoreau to stumble to the ground. He lays there for a moment and then rolls over and looks at the sky, his breath steaming. We see his face for the first time, his long beard, his hair flowing from under a knit wool hat, the eyes of a man on a mission.
Thoreau is not yet 28 years old. He wears wool clothes, suspender straps, a torn (and mended) plaid shirt. He holds up his left hand to find he has IMPALED IT ON A STICK. He carefully cuts his glove off then holds his breath as he pulls the stick out of his palm. He stops the bleeding with a rag. Thoreau then stands and carefully ties the rope sling back on the tree.
Thoreau arrives at a small clearing near the pond. He drops the tree near some rough-cut lumber and surveying stakes that outline the foundation of his cabin. He moves to the smoldering campfire and throws some kindling on before blowing the embers back to life. He examines his hand in the firelight. The bleeding has stopped.
A breeze stirs in the pine trees. A deer looks up from a barren corn field. Thoreau walks to the shore, kneels, and splashes his face with water. Then he gently washes the puncture wound on his palm. A series of silent images slowly materialize on the water’s surface, gradually drawing Thoreau’s attention. These water-born images are accompanied by distant echoes of these past and future moments. The device will hereafter be known as the...
RIVER OF TIME:
1. RALPH WALDO EMERSON lectures at the Harvard Lyceum.
2. ELLERY CHANNING throws a piece of paper at Thoreau’s back during a Harvard class.
3. MARGARET FULLER sits in a canoe on the Concord River. She reads to several children who are also in the canoe.
4. Henry’s older brother, JOHN THOREAU, stands on an exposed mountain slope, holding his hat on his head.
5. An image of a pine tree on a nearby dirt road.
Thoreau locks on this last image. As the vision comes into focus we are drawn in...
MATCH CUT TO:
EXT. RURAL ROAD. MASSACHUSETTS - FALL DAY.
TITLE: 1834
A pair of old men, quintessential Yankees, shuffle along the dirt road near the pine tree. They are dressed in plain wool coats and take their time walking.
CONCORD CURMUDGEON
I tell you, it’s a sign of ill weathah.
CONCORD OPTIMIST
(reading from a paper)
“Brits abolish slavery in West Indies!” Nothing ill ‘bout it.
CONCORD CURMUDGEON
Read between the lines. These freed slaves, where do you suppose they’ll go?
CONCORD OPTIMIST
Back to Africa?
CONCORD CURMUDGEON
Not likely. Quick as I spit they’ll be in Boston working the docks, in Maine working the orchahds.
CONCORD OPTIMIST
And?
CONCORD CURMUDGEON
It’s too much change. This country’s had too much change.
CONCORD OPTIMIST
Or not enough.
The old men shuffle past HENRY DAVID THOREAU, now age 17. Thoreau’s hair falls over his eyes, his face is smooth. He touches the bark of a pine tree on the edge of a thin forest. The mixed foliage of the few remaining trees explodes in colors of burnt orange, red, tan and evergreen.
THOREAU
(developing a poem)
How could the tree...How could the pine tree feel...How could the patient pine have known...The morning breeze would come...Or humble flowers anticipate...the insect’s noonday hum?
SFX: The rhythmic sound of a saw cutting a tree rises in the background. Thoreau is oblivious as he studies the pine needles and asks the question again:
THOREAU (CONT’D)
How could the patient pine have known?

The Sons of Job

The Sons of Job


by
Oggy Bleacher

The Sons Of Job
EXTERIOR OFFICE

A door hangs freely over mid-center stage. This door is the entrance to WORK-A-DAY LABOR HALL in Culver City, Los Angeles. A sign reads “OPEN” though the hall is closed. Another sign hangs in the window. This sign reads “Work Today Get Paid Today”

A pair of men, DON and BECKER, stand at the entrance shivering in the early morning cold. Don is a younger white man wearing dirty work clothes. An army surplus backpack lays at his feet. Becker is a middle aged black man. Both are in work clothes. To the left is the window of an ALL NIGHT DONUT BAKERY. The early rising waitresses and prep chefs and go-getters of Los Angeles are on their way to work in cars on the street.
Becker paces past a trash can and picks yesterdays newspaper out of it. Then he spies a cigarette butt on the ground. He picks it up and brushes it off then lights it. Don kicks his feet.
Headlights shine nearby followed by sound of hydraulic brakes.
DON
Is that the Number Six?
BECKER
It got a big yellow “Six” on the front of it?
DON
Yep.
BECKER
Well...
DON
Does the Six go to San Diego?
BECKER
No. You wanna go to San Diego you gotta go Downtown.
DON
That’s the opposite direction.
BECKER
Some things are fucked up like that.
(loudly)
Ain’t that right Coach?
Coach enters from stage right, having just gotten off the Number 6 bus. He walks erectly and proudly, confident in his destiny. Coach is older than Becker and is dressed for work. He carries a newspaper paper.
COACH
(loudly)
If you say it’s right then that’s what it is.
(To Don)
Sonny, Becker’s been and done more than the prophet Moses, so listen...
(Coach touches his ear)
...and learn.
DON
I heard the Number Six goes clear to San Diego. But Mr. Becker said it don’t. Then he said...
COACH
(automatically)
A word from the good book, boys. Bow your heads.
(solemnly, as he recites the quote)
Matthew 17:20: I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there" and it will move.’ Amen.

Doo Wop

This is obviously lip-synched since there are no microphones and the audio is flawless but I give them credit. Dion and The Belmonts were on the Winter Dance Party tour with Buddy Holly in early 1959. They were the only headliner to survive the Iowa gig. I kind of dig the doo wop sound. Dion later sang the hipster tune "Abraham, Martin, and John" which went great lengths to foster good will and peace in the world and that worked great!

I want to point out that this particular song was covered with real period correctness in the Coppola directed "Peggy Sue Got Married"...Nick Cage's character has designs to become the next Dion but a certain charisma escaped him...so he became "Crazy Charlie" slashing prices on washing machines. Such is life. I once practiced catching a baseball in the snow by bashing it off a concrete racquetball court wall in big boots.

Western Swing Medley

I lost my voice due to travel stress and whatever viruses are between Texas and Boston. But the result is a more Western style of hoarseness that appeals to me. Ernest Tubb probably smoked cigarettes to get his voice in good form.