Thread: 'Stand, Dead Walken!' (Language)

'Stand, Dead Walken!'
by George Potter






1.
Christopher Walken
is Fed Up.

Excuse me, kid, I…I…Ha. Yes, actually. I am. Mr. Walken. Ha. That’s funny. You’re a polite kid. I like that.

You want an autograph or something? Nah, don’t mind at all. How you want it made out? Yeah?

Oh. Damn.

Look, kid — no offense, but I really hate that fucking cowbell line. Yeah, I know it’s funny, but it’s not my thing! I never…I was…

Listen! Pay attention. I’m an actor. I’ve been in over a hundred films, some of them really fucking great. And all I hear about is that goddamn cowbell gag. Screw the cowbell gag. I won an Oscar, dammit. For The Deer Hunter, brilliant flick. Just brilliant.

How would you like it? If you’d worked your ass off to create a legacy, chose smaller and more important roles, went by the quality of the writing rather than the amount of screen time, and all you ever get credit for is a cowbell gag from a five minute sketch? You’d be enraged, kid! You’d want to crush skulls! Admit it!

Maybe I should be upset, kid — ‘cause I’m hittin’ a wall here. A solid wall, with reinforced bars of steel through it, and spikes. Big spikes. I’m fed up. It’s the system — this modern Hollywood blockbuster system. They sort you when you show up, all fresh faced and fiery. “This guys a character actor,” they say. “This guys a star.” And once they sort you kid, you’re sorted. There’s no goin’ back. You’re stuck. Trapped.

Doomed to the cowbell.

It’s OK if you’re a star. You’ve got latitude. You can drop down but climb back up again. But us character actors? Ghettoized, kid. Like black folks in 70’s sitcoms, we don’t get to the good neighborhoods unless we’re wacky.

Didn’t used to be this way. Sure didn’t. Stars didn’t get chosen, they were made. You did it with talent and skill, with your tenacity and spirit. Look at Cagney. Look at Bogie. Best character actors around, but they were stars too. It wasn’t about a certain look or all this superficial shit. I could have been a star. I know it, deep down in my character-filled bones.

And I’m gonna do it.

Come here, kid. Follow me. No, no — don’t be scared. I just wanna show you something. This is my apartment. Come on through the living room to the kitchen. Yeah. Let me get the lights. There.

What is it? What does it look like? It’s a time machine, kid. I built it myself. It’s taken me years. But it’s ready now. I sit here, see. And hold these handles. Yeah, those spikes are supposed to penetrate the scalp, kid — need a good connection to the brain. Don’t worry, the blood’ll stop soon.

When I twist these handles, BAM! I’m whooshing off back in time. Spring, 1942. I’m gonna wow ‘em kid. They’ve never seen a star like me. I already know the lines of the lead roles to a hundred hits, kid. Two hundred. And I know the guys to talk to and some juicy blackmail secrets.

It’s time to claim my rewritten destiny. I’m gonna be a star, baby.

Might want to back up and close your eyes. This might get bright, because I’m about to supernova.

It’s showtime!

2.
The Dead Don’t Die
(Least Not In Georgia)

They put Danny Ford in the ground on Tuesday, the day after he died. By Thursday he had crawled right out and was wandering the town, stinking the place up something fierce.

"This is a situation," the Mayor told the Sheriff. "A situation and a half." He pronounced it sitchy-a-shun. "We got complaints from all over. Grover's Grocery lost most of it's custom yesterday when Ol' Danny wandered through the parking lot. Bit n' pieces were falling off the man, for God's sake!"

"Nasty," the Sheriff agreed. He put on his hat, stood up, and sighed. "Lemme see what I can do."

Keller County was a quiet place. Being the law was a nice little job. This was the first really troubling thing that had happened since he'd been elected.

He caught up with Danny on the road to the new Wal-Mart. It took him a few minutes to convince the dead guy to get in the car.

"Well, Danny," he told him, trying hard to breathe through his mouth only, "You're lookin' pretty good. Y'know. Considerin'."

It was true. Other than a pallor so intense it was almost reflective, and that god-awful smell, Danny looked quite fit and chipper. That story about 'bits falling off' was obviously exaggeration.

It took the Sheriff a few minutes to realize Danny was saying something. His voice was low and whispery.

"Are you under arrest? Naw." He was driving randomly, trying to figure out what to do with this former citizen. "Ain't illegal to be returned from the dead. Leastways not in Georgia." He sighed heavily. "But we gotta figure out a way for you to be around without scarin' the daylights out of everybody and ruinin' the economy."

He cranked the AC up to maximum. Danny almost sighed with pleasure.

The light bulb went on over the Sheriff's head.

***

The Sheriff hugged himself and shivered. When he spoke, he did so loudly, to be heard over the fans blowing frigid air into his face.

"Come on, Doc -- you were bitchin' just yesterday about the mess this place is in, and look at him go! He loves it!""

The Doc, muffled against the freezing air, nodded.

Danny was groovin'. He'd found an ipod of 80's classics and was in a total montage situation. He cleaned the county morgue freezer room like a young stud pimping at the beach. The Sheriff thought he might already have eyes for a couple of the lady corpses.

"Sides, I got nowhere else to put him. Least this place minimizes the public stink. Sorry, Doc."

The Doc shrugged. Damn thing wasn't going anywhere with his ipod, at any rate.

"Looks like you got your new morgue assistant!" The Sheriff said, satisfied.

"I fucking hate you sometimes," the Doc admitted.

But the Sheriff's smile was immune, impervious.

3.
Will The Real
Holden Caulfield
Please Stand Up?

My Dearest Jerome —

It was with sinking heart and trembling hand that I received your last missive, so succinctly put and painful to behold. How could a mere six words so encapsulate and define so much? The end of a world; nay! An era! The fall of a long conspiracy of words and concepts, a great labor of Herculean intensity and heroic effort (Perseusian? Jasonic?) dashed to bloody shards at the foot of the cliff of 21st century plastication.

Six simple words, breath-taking in their pointed grandeur:

“M -

The jig is up. The phonies win.

- J”

I remember being raised in your quiet, tasteful mansion, a lucky orphan boy saved from the streets and offered a great education. How I savored those long days romping about the estate grounds, shielded from the prying eyes of the phony outside world, thrilling to your lectures on first-person narrative and the uses of angry self-justification as a weapon against the increasingly false and ugly world. What a poor student I was at first, so unable to preserve and draw strength from my inner childish ignorance! But I learned, beloved mentor, I learned. How to point out the failings and falseness of others whilst indulging in those same flaws myself. How to rail against unfairness, but only when it was pointed at me. How to use phoniness against the phonies themselves, twisting that metaphorical blade like a sharpened off toothbrush handle in the great Prison Dining Hall of life! How to wield that simple weapon to avoid anal rape in the Great Lights Out of modern literary endeavor!

All that is but dream and memory now, alas.

The great resurgence of the least-common-denominator popular narrative will prove our undoing. You near the Final Curtain, and my fifteen-minutes have nearly passed. Oh, I’ll re-enter the studio, taking on my carefully designed wigger persona once more, to rail against ‘bitches’ and ‘momz’ and all the rest. But in vain, I fear. Already I have agreed to ’star’ in a series of TWILIGHT audio-books and collaborate with Katie Perry on an end-credits tune for the final HARRY POTTER film. Shameful, yes, but — as you well know — tasteful retreats in New England don’t buy themselves! The phonies may be destroying all that is good in the world, but they seem to have deep, money filled pockets.

Enjoy your final days, my beloved reclusive mentor. May you earn the phony-free rest to come. I shall struggle on, remembering the good fight if not fighting it, your faithful Frankenstein’s Monster of hypocritical angst and ennui.

All love and respect,

— Marshall

I enjoyed the first two sections immensely!

1.I found the Walken piece funny, if a little lost towards the end (Walken-voice-wise I mean - and I did my best to channel Chris Mohr while I read it). Lost; mainly because it's clear Walken himself actively embraces his own niche (ridiculousness?) in Hollywood so I struggled to completely understand the anger you created. Although your characterisation was fantastic.

2. The character of the Sheriff is one I found instantly engaging. You have a great feel for voice/ characterisation.

"Danny was groovin'. He'd found an ipod of 80's classics and was in a total montage situation. He cleaned the county morgue freezer room like a young stud pimping at the beach. The Sheriff thought he might already have eyes for a couple of the lady corpses."

This para sits badly with me. I don't think that being in "a total montage situation" actually means anything, at least I'm not sure what you're trying to convey. I also think the simile is a little awkward in the context of the entire piece. But these are style issues/ personal opinions so please ignore freely.

"your knew morgue assistant" - 3 lines from the bottom.
Wrong "knew".

3. Hmm, my problem with the third is that it comes across (to me at least - and try not to take this the wrong way) as the kind of vitriol at society that we (or at least me), as writers (writer), yearn to express but rarely find the right "container" (terrible word; I'm talking about "texts" as in any piece of art; writing/ painting etc) to channel those thoughts through. The problem with trying to put this stuff in such a short piece is that it's extremely difficult to wrap those thoughts with characterisation, narrative blah blah blah. So instead you've gone for what is the logical path; and veered towards a kind of verbose, entanglement of prose in letter form. Which is fine but it just does nothing for me besides contain the rant. Whereas the first section I loved your Walken characterisation/ voice which helped guide the rant, the second was dripping with sub-text, I just felt that the third just left me a bit too "meh".

On the plus side, it kinda read like a Hunter S rant, which is no bad thing at all.

Just so we're clear, I think your work is great, that's why I commented on it. And the third section is a cause of consternation for me just because I struggle with the exact same thing!

Ack! I forgot posting this. LOL. Apologies, BC -- thank you for the comments and considered opinions. This was basically just posted in a spirit of fun. Trying to cheer myself up a bit after some rather bad days. All three pieces were written for different reasons: the middle was a partial LM entry that I recently discovered and finished on a lark, the first and last are my attempts at what the online mag McSweeny's Internet Tendency calls a 'Short Imagined Monolouge'. In re: the Walken piece -- part of the humor was imagining that the unflappable Chris W. was, in reality, seething with the unfairness of his 'place' in Hollywood. But I also wanted to make a broader point about the rather ridiculous way that modern studios try and create 'stars' because of looks and apperance rather than any actual acting talent. The last is actually supposed to be a letter from Marshall Mathers (aka Eminem) to J.D. Salinger, in some alternate world where Salinger had adopted him and crafted him as a way to re-introduce his rather acerbic, angry brand of teenaged existentialism. It too attempts a broader point: how the new is ever the old and beneath the sun? We've seen it all. Ironically, and sadly, it was written just a short time before Mr. Salinger passed away.

Thank you again, sincerely, for taking the time to read and comment so intelligently. And I again apologize for the lateness of my reply.

Hahaha! Sorry, Leyline, if you find this offensive but, the first one was really funny. From the moment the line said Mr. Walken, I can't help but imagine his voice. I mean, the lines totally fit him. It was so befitting, I can't help thinking that this was written by Walken himself. You've done a very great job capturing the reader, or at least, this reader in me. It was very, very good. The monologue was so spot-on. Excellent work!

Just spotted this thread and I'm about to log off. Will come back another time. Sprirt of fun or not, you're getting feedback from me, Mr G.

Well, here are my thoughts, hope you don't mind me posting them.

Thought the Christopher Walken piece was really cool. I'm a serious fan of his and I read with his speech and mannerisms in mind. Good stuff because it mostly worked in my head. That said, I didn't get the cowbell joke. Oops! Showing my ignorance there.

Thought the second piece was funny and tragic, and I liked it a lot. The anecdotal weird tale vibe came across well, though it did seem a bit rushed. Like you wrote it in a hurry. I got that from seeing the number of times you used "he" instead of "sherrif".

The last one is my favourite. Loved the way you wrote from Eminem's viewpoint and it's bitingly observant about life and behaviour on so many levels. Really struck a chord in me. Nice. Also, I didn't know J D Salinger died. Or, maybe I did but it slipped my mind... Trying to keep track of everything that happens isnt easy when your head is full to bursting with personal stuff, like my life is so important. Haha.

Anyway, I love your chameleon way of approaching writing. You have an ability to take on completely different styles and make them work, and that gets my admiration because I cant do that too well, if at all. Great stuff and thanks for sharing.

When I began reading these pieces, the thought formed in my head that you couldn't seriously have written these as anything other than a joke or silly exercise. I am glad that that turned out to be the case, but now I am intrigued by what a more serious endeavor would produce in you.

I hardly need to tell you that the level of thought and effort put into this writing is appropriate to the level of quality shown. It is better than I am able to write, at least. But I would like to see what you would produce if you were putting in more effort. Which I am sure you will the next time I come across something of yours. Yes?