You’ll have to blame Radio Shack for this entry. See, I occasionally have illusions of grandiosity—while my activities have been limited to appearing in cable access shows up to this point, my brain sometimes roams to various themes of jokes that I could use in a comedy club. When I read this particular Radio Shack ad, it had a bunch of cell phones on the last two pages.
At that point, I was thinking about how if I ever got one, it’d be the flip-open kind just because it’s easier to cover up your mouth when you’re talking smack about someone sitting next to you at the dinner table. Then I started looking at their little screens and saw some text messages, a little bowling alley… that’s when this all started building in my head. It took a little extra effort to convert a standup act into something for TV (that isn’t Last Comic Standing), but I think it paid off. Or maybe the script is crap and it has illusions of grandiosity of its own.
Setting: Stage in a comedy club with a full crowd
Characters:
JAMES
CHRIS
OWNER
CROWD
JAMES
How y’all doin’ tonight?
– [CROWD cheers]
Great, awesome. You know, I was just talking to the club owner–he told me
– [Switch to backstage]
OWNER
I’m giving you as much time as you want to make an ass of yourself. Just think, if you get all of your fifteen minutes of fame up there tonight, you can curl up in a corner and cry like a baby for the rest of your life.
– [Switch to JAMES crying in a corner]
Sound like fun?
– [Switch to club]
JAMES
Of course it sounds like fun. I admit, I forgot to start my stopwatch when I got onstage, but to keep going for fifteen minutes, that means I have to be up here for… how many seconds is that? Lessee… carry the four… seventeen thousand seconds. Does that sound about right?
– [Show stopwatch in the corner of the screen]
Well, however long it is, I’ve been up here maybe a hundred seconds so far, so I’ve got a ways to go.
– [JAMES looks at stopwatch, which slow downs and stops]
Shit. Lemme see if I can keep track of the time on my cell phone instead. Say, how many of you have cell phones out there?
– [Switch to cheering CROWD, who all hold up phones]
You know, this is probably the best and worst thing I ever bought. I mean, once I’m done up here, I can just grab a corner backstage and have my friends across the country comfort me until, what, 8:00 for free?
– [Split screen—JAMES backstage / CHRIS sleeping in a dark bedroom. CHRIS’s phone rings.]
CHRIS
[Groggily] Hello?
JAMES
[Crying] My fifteen minutes are over, I looked like an ass, no one loves me and my genital herpes are acting up again.
CHRIS
What time is it?
– [Switch back to club]
JAMES
But there are some downsides, too. Just look at these new phones they’re coming out with now. You can take pictures.
– [Switch to picture of CHRIS pulling up pants.]
Send text messages.
– [Switch to CHRIS looking at his/her phone in bedroom]
CHRIS
What the hell does “I wanna fookoo,” semicolon, dash, parenthesis mean?
– [Switch to club]
JAMES
They’ll do everything but give you head!
– [Switch to public bathroom stall]
JAMES (or CHRIS)
Yeah, ooh yeah, I wanna fookoo, I wanna fookoo so bad… [Phone snaps closed] AAAAAAAHH!
– [Switch to club]
I mean, you can even play shit like bowling or golf! You thought cell phones on the road were bad before…
– [Switch to car, CHRIS driving and staring at the phone.]
CHRIS
Fore! That’s it, right down the fairway… no! [Slowly turns the wheel left] Hook left! Left!
– [Loud horn, screen brightens, CHRIS looks up, screen goes white]
– [Switch to club]
JAMES
First round delayed on account of fiery death. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that when you’re in the middle of something really important, it always…
– [Phone rings playing James Bond theme song]
Hold on a sec.
– [JAMES pulls out his phone, opens it, listens]
Yeah… yeah… look, I’m kinda busy right now. Really? Shit. All right, all right, don’t get your panties in a bunch, I got it taken care of. [Looks up at CROWD] It’s my tee time. I gotta go.
– [JAMES hunches down over his phone, lights go down, CROWD cheers, sound fades out.]
