The Creation of woLves et al : Dialogue Transcripts of Selelcted Episodes

 The Creation of woLves et al : Dialogue Transcripts of Selelcted Episodes

The way the episodes of “The Creation of woLves et al” are made mirrors the actions of the theater Little Wolf creates together with the other wolves.  

All scenes are unscripted, unrehearsed and filmed in one take.  During the editing process cuts are made (from 15-60% of footage is removed, averaging about 30%), but no dialogue is ever inserted. Occasionally (maybe in every sixth film) visual  coverage is added if one character has spoken for an extended period of time but not been in the frame. I am aware that, due to the nature of its creation, the situations and dialogue may sometimes be difficult to follow. In part for this reason, here you will find verbatim transcripts (minus the occasional repetition of a word because of stuttering) of the episodes I have had time to make them for.

 

Contents

1. Episode 27:  "(v.o.) You have to love each other."

2. Epsidoe 28:  "Would You Like to Spit on a Star?"

3. Episode 29:  "The Verwolf Show"

4. Episode 30:  "The Importance of Having Coasters"

5. Episode 31:  "Out of the Tavistock Institute Into the Hell of Luxury"

“(v.o.)

You have to love each other.”

 

Episode 27 from the series

 

The Creation of woLves et al

(Timeline 1)

 

by

 

Kevin and Theresa Smith

 

 

INT. PRODUCER’S OFFICE

 

LITTLE WOLF

OK, there's gonna be three of us today. Uh, I'm sorry they're running just a tiny bit late. Ah, I think that's them now.

MIGUEL

Can we come in?

GABRIEL

Can we come in?

LITTLE WOLF

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on in.

MIGUEL

Come on, Gabriel.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, the three of us have come to you today, alright to talk to you about a certain matter that I think you're gonna approve because you're gonna see that it's reasonable, and it's a good idea. Miguel, what's the idea?

 

MIGUEL

Since we're an improvisational troupe, as you probably know…

LITTLE WOLF

Of course he knows.

MIGUEL

We decided that we would play around a little bit and sort of exchange roles. We did a lot of talking, some role playing, we discussed roles themselves, and we decided Gabriel would be the director just so he could understand what it means to direct, so he'd be better at taking direction.

LITTLE WOLF

And Gabriel, it turns out he did a pretty good job, OK, we're pretty impressed.

Gabriel, what are you…? Sit up sit up.

Alright, what do you have to say for yourself, Gabriel. Say a few words.

GABRIEL

Uh, I guess what they said is probably right. I'll do my best. Uh, go team.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, OK. OK. Thanks for letting us come on sort of last minute notice. You're busy. I know you're busy. Look, you're always busy. And we'll bring you a really good product in just a couple of days, alright.

Alright, let's go.

 

[Intertitle: “Live Improvisational Directing

Take 1”]

 

LITTLE WOLF

Come on, come on, Gabriel. Come on, it’s time. Come on, don't make the audience wait anymore.

 

GABRIEL

OK, I’m kind of nervous.

LITTLE WOLF

It's okay, you'll be fine.

MIGUEL

You’ll do fine. Come on, Gabriel.

GABRIEL

Alright. I just want to sit here on the edge of the stage and talk to you a little bit before our performance. So those of you who've been here before, you will know that our theater is an experimental theater. So what that means is that we do improvisation, OK. But today we're gonna ramp it up. And I don't mean that we've raked the set. What I mean is that we've taken experimentation to a higher level, OK. It's experimentation to the power of experimentation. In addition to the performance being improvisational, OK, even the directing’s going to be improvisation. And you are going to see that process before your very eyes on the stage.

So… My name is Gabriel. I'm the director and then there's Little Wolf. He's an actor.

LITTLE WOLF

Hi, hi.

GABRIEL

And this is John.

JOHN

Uh, good evening.

GABRIEL

Alright, so what we're going to do is we're going to treat you to something you've never seen before. And how do I know that you've never seen it before? Because I myself have never seen it before. And how do I know that I myself have never seen it before? Because we've never rehearsed it before. And so, so when we come up with some kind of direction and acting, you're going to see that; you're going to see what that's like and so you'll understand the magic of theater.

LITTLE WOLF

Don't wait for applause.

GABRIEL

Oh, I'm sorry I forgot to tell you about the scene. OK, so the scene is we have a young lady. That’s Little Wolf. They’re at a restaurant. And then John. It’s John and Little Wolf.

OK, so you're having a conversation and you're trying to see if you like each other, OK. So there has to be a dynamic, you know, romantic kind of dynamic.

LITTLE WOLF

Yes, alright. Yes, OK.

GABRIEL

I guess I have to say, “Action.”

JOHN

I'm really grateful that you agreed to come with me to this restaurant. I hope you like the tables that they have.

LITTLE WOLF

Ah, yes, the tables are alright. Uh, of course in Manhattan we have better, but what can I expect from a Podunk kind of place like you bring me.

GABRIEL

Uh, OK, cut. Little Little Wolf, um, why did you say that?

LITTLE WOLF

Why did I say what?

GABRIEL

The first thing the audience hears is an extremely sarcastic, biting, caustic type of comment about the level of sophistication of your date. I mean, where are you going with this? How is romance going to develop when from the get-go you're really sort of negative like that? Do you see what I'm asking?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, Gabriel. I'm going to do this my own way, alright.

GABRIEL

But, but I'm the director. I mean the people here, they came to see me direct.

LITTLE WOLF

Yeah, I understand, but I've got my own idea.

GABRIEL

But I just don't see how it's going to work.

LITTLE WOLF

You will see.

GABRIEL

I'm just supposed to trust you?

LITTLE WOLF

Of course. What do you think? Every single film: “I need you to trust me, alright.” This is that line in that film. I need you to trust me, alright.

GABRIEL

But in front of everybody, I mean, we’re going to have an argument like this?

LITTLE WOLF

What argument? You never argue. You just accept. You just take the suggestions and you run with them. That's why we wanted you. That's why we went to the producer. We went to the producer to put you in as director so that I could be an actor, alright, and so that you could do what the most experienced actor here--being me--suggests that you do. Did you not understand that?

GABRIEL

Well, it wasn't really put to me in so many terms. How, uh, so I would say that I didn't really consent to that.

 

 

LITTLE WOLF

Ah, you didn't consent to that? You didn't leave the office, uh, and go with us and say “hip hip hooray,” and like kick your heels—literally jump up in the air and kick your heels together. You're telling me you didn't do that after we came out of that producer's office?

GABRIEL

I did that under false pretenses.

LITTLE WOLF

What do you mean?

GABRIEL

I assumed that by your asking me to be the director would mean that I would actually be able to direct.

LITTLE WOLF

I see, alright. And you're not directing now?

GABRIEL

Not if you're telling me that I just have to blindly trust you in front of the audience.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, well what options have you got, Gabriel? You want me to walk off? I'll walk off. If I can't do what I feel is right for the scene, I'll just walk right off the stage. You think I won't do that?

GABRIEL

Well, I would hope you wouldn't do that unless it was part of the improvisation.

LITTLE WOLF

OK, well, we'll make it part of the improvisation, alright.

MIGUEL

Uh, excuse me. I hope you'll accept the temerity of my claiming to speak--or thinking that I speak for the entire audience--but is this part of the play? You have to admit it's a little embarrassing to have an argument like this in front of the entire theatrical, you know, theater-going public, including perhaps some theater critics. Uh, but if I'm wrong, OK, and it's part of the play, well then I have to admit that it's original, OK. I haven't seen this before. But can you somehow kind of signal to us so that we know that this is kind of part of the play.

GABRIEL

Oh, wow, that's a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that. So Little Wolf, you want to make this part of the play, sort of our disagreement here?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, you can make of it whatever you want. If you want to transform my brilliant acting into something that you want to consider part of the scene as an improvisation, as a way of rescuing this from the garbage heap of total disaster, from that categorization, we can do that. I’m all for that, alright. What I need is a chance to perform the scene in the way that I know is going to be right, alright. And if you want to make that part of what we're doing here and pull the wool over the eyes of the theater-goers and the critics, that's on that's on you, alright. If you want to do that, then that’s on you. But I need to play the scene the way I need to play it. Are we agreed?

GABRIEL

Well, I guess. Uh, does that sound like something that that you and the audience would understand, Miguel?

MIGUEL

Well, I guess it's a little clear now. It's kind of interesting. It's kind of like two parallel sort of, like, timelines. Like there’s what you want to do, there’s what Little Wolf wants to do, then if you declare that your intent and his intent can be combined in the sense that he accepts that you have a different intent and you accept that he has a different intent, but you somehow found the compromise that we're actually watching that, then I guess that allows it to take place. But it kind of contradicts Little Wolf's assertion that what he's going to do is to be absolutely natural. So if there's a contrived sort of artificial element to the situation, or to the staging of the situation, then that's kind of a contradiction in terms, would you not agree, Little Wolf?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, you want to see it that way, OK. If you can accept, OK, that a director has one intent; I as the master actor, OK, has a different intent, and that can be allowed to coexist at the same time while we're doing improv, then I will allow to exist your point of view as a member of the audience who may perceive it in that way. You can classify what's taking place here in any way you prefer. You leave my timeline alone, alright. You want to call it timelines, that's fine. I don't care. Alright, I'm gonna play this scene.

Can we get started finally? Is the audience satisfied? The director? I'm satisfied. I've said my piece.

GABRIEL

OK, I guess I'm ready.

MIGUEL

Oh, yes. Well, yes, of course.

 

[Intertitle: “Live Improvisational Directing,

Take 2”]

 

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, yeah, so you brought me here, alright. I don't hold that against you. Alright, if this is the best place in town and you bring me to the best place in town, then there's something to be said for that and so I appreciate that.

JOHN

Uh, do you come here often?

LITTLE WOLF

Why are you asking me that question? Why are you asking me if I come here often?

JOHN

Well, I mean they always ask a question in movies, like when somebody, you know sees an attractive woman at the bar, he goes up to her and he says:”Do you come here often?”

LITTLE WOLF

I see. And you think that in a naturalistic kind of theater that we're trying to get at, you're gonna say some garbage that you heard in the film just because you heard it, you know, a dozen times, you think that's the right thing to say? What is the meaning of that phrase: “Do you come here often?” What is the meaning of that phrase to you?

JOHN

Well I'm inquiring as to whether you frequent this establishment on a frequent basis.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, I understand that. Alright, and if I say, “Yes,” what is that going to mean?

Alright, and what is often? How often is often?

JOHN

Well, to me often would be, like, more than once a month maybe if it's a restaurant.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, and if I said, “No,” what would that mean?

JOHN

Well, that would mean that maybe you've been here a couple of times, but you don't go very often.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, now let's go further. Let's dig deeper. Now, if I say, “Yes, I come here often,” what does that mean? What is the meaning of that phrase? Outside of the semantic denotation of the words themselves, what does that mean in terms of our relationship?

 

 

JOHN

Well, I'm not trying to suggest that you go on a lot of dates, like, too many or too few. And, I’m not suggesting that you're some sort of flophouse diner floozy who will go with anybody to a not very nice place, uh, just because you're desperate for a date. I just didn't know what to say, to be honest. I had to start the conversation with something. What would you have said in my place?

LITTLE WOLF

What would I have said in your place? Well, look, it's not my role. I’m play the… I'm the date. I'm the one you asked out. I didn't ask you out. I'm the woman, alright.

THERESA (v.o.)

You have to love each other. You have to…

MIGUEL

Little Wolf and John, I mean, to be completely honest, people came here for romance, and you're not giving them romance, you're not giving them bromance, you're not giving them even friendship. You're giving them some sort of philosophical psychological discussion of motivations or something, and that’s not theater. That's like a seminar or something.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, you want romance? Fine, I'll give you a romance.

You there, big lug. You're handsome, alright. I'm desperate. And I'm lonely. And you're probably lonely too, alright, and if you ask me out then that means that means we're right for each other, alright. The table is fine. I don't care about the place, alright. So we can go wherever you want. If you got a ring I'll put it on my finger right now.

JOHN

But don't we have to, you know, sort of get to know each other a little better? I mean, I don't really know very much about you.

 

LITTLE WOLF

What do you need to know? You can see what I look like. I mean, imagine I'm attractive.

JOHN

Well, OK, yes, I'm imagining that you're attractive. But I don't know anything about you.

GABRIEL

Let's try something a little different, OK. Uh, Little Wolf, let me let me show you what this looks like, you know, from the director's chair. I like what you came up with. I like that inspiration you had and if you would permit me, I'd like to try it on. I mean, I know that I'm supposed to be the director here. That's what the audience came for, but if you would allow me just to try it out so I could see what it feels like, it would help me to direct better. Just, I'll run with sort of the impetus that you gave it and I'll see where I go with that. Do you mind?

LITTLE WOLF

I guess not if you understand that what I'm doing is the right way to go, then fine. Yeah, OK, alright. Knock yourself out.

Alright, and action.

GABRIEL

I almost fell over.

JOHN

Are you okay?

GABRIEL

I'm OK, yeah.

John, I wanted to say thank you for bringing me here. And I wanted to say I'm very impressed that you were able to understand that my caustic remarks were not necessarily coming from the heart. In fact they weren't coming from the heart at all. Those remarks that were sarcastic, that’s not really the real me. The real me inside lives in love. That's where I really am all the time, and it's really hard because nobody ever lets you say that. Nobody ever lets you show that. Or they impose conditions on showing that, that if you love you have to do this and this and this and this, and you end up following a lot of rules. By imposing from outside all of those rules on the interaction and the relationship, it kind of kills the love that I feel inside that I could almost show to anybody. I could almost fall in love with anybody, really. I mean, imagine if you were on a deserted island, almost with anybody, probably there would be some kind of love. I mean, you would accept each other's differences because you'd have to, right? I’m not saying there would be romantic love. But, I mean, there would be there would be some sort of attraction and mutual affection.

And that could happen in real life too and we don't have to go away off onto some deserted island to do that. We can create that right now by, I don't know, by ignoring the rules, or forgetting about the rules or opening up the heart and not being afraid of making a mistake and doing the wrong thing. You feel something good and then you show that even if people make fun of you or…

It's hard if they punish you for expressing the wrong thoughts, like if you're not supposed to have this opinion, but you love somebody and they say if you express an opinion I can't love you. You have to choose between saying what you really think to try to make the world a better place; out of love for that person, you want to make the world a better place. You either have to not do that so that they'll be happy so that they'll feel comfortable that they won’t be embarrassed about you, you know, with their family or friends. OK, so do you make the world a better place for the person you love, or do you forget about the world and do what that person thinks that they want or is afraid to say they don't want? Do you see the situation that we're always in?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, Gabriel?

GABRIEL

Uh, yes.

 

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, and you, Miguel. Alright, you accused me of turning this performance, alright, into some sort of philosophical psychological discussion. You said something along those lines, is that right?

MIGUEL

Well, well, yes.  

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, and, uh, OK, what do you think about what Gabriel's been saying now? Is that not the same kind of thing?

MIGUEL

Well, I mean, I can see how somebody might interpret it that way, or see it that way, or perceive it that way, but to me that was a cri de Coeur--a sincere expression of the problem that people face in a world where, sort of, love has been forbidden. When you can't express the love you feel in the way you feel it, it becomes distorted and ugly, and it comes out in all sorts of ugly forms simply because you're not allowed to express it the way you really feel it. So I think those were really important things that he had to say. I hope I speak for the audience, but even if I don't, that's what I think. So thank you very much, Gabriel.

GABRIEL

And thank you, Little Wolf.

LITTLE WOLF

What do you mean?

GABRIEL

I wouldn't have been able to get at those feelings if I hadn't heard your point of view--sort of a slightly different point of view. I'm not saying opposite--but that really helped me to sort of solidify in my mind what kinds of ideas I thought it would be good to get across in this sort of scene, in this scene that we were trying to do.

Sorry I didn't let you talk very much, John.

 

JOHN

It's OK. It's OK.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, well, audience, are you alright with this? Was this of interest to you? You're gonna go back and tell your your friends and relatives that it's total garbage? What are you gonna think? Silence. You don't know what to think. And I don't know what to think.

Well, are we out of time yet? Well, OK, intermission, alright. Intermission. Pretend like a curtain comes down. We don't have the budget for a curtain. Imagine it comes down. See you in 20 minutes.

 

“Would You Like to Spit on a Star?”

 

episode 28 of the series

 

The Creation of woLves et al

(Timeline 1)

 

by

 

Kevin and Theresa Smith

 

SYNOPSIS:

In the industry there is something known as “The Talk”-- the theater director warns his pupils--before they have become famous--what changes fame brings. As part of “The Talk”, Little Wolf has Gabriel and Miguel role-play an encounter between someone just turned famous and an ordinary Joe.

 

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, I'm thinking that why don't we act this out? That’s in the spirit of our troupe, alright, of our theater, right? We're going to have you do some more spontaneous kind of stuff. Maybe we'll show it at the next performance, OK.

OK, so now. What we're gonna do, alright. So Gabriel, I need you, now, to imagine as vividly as possible that you are so famous that you cannot walk down the street more than a couple of blocks, you'll be recognized, somebody’ll want your autograph, somebody will want a selfie with you, alright, that you cannot do that anymore in any major city in the world.

And then you, Miguel. You're going to be an ordinary working Joe, like a janitor somewhere, alright. And as a janitor you're gonna explain to him that he doesn't need to think that he's better than other people just because he's a star.

Alright, you think you can play those roles?

GABRIEL

Well, I'll have to think about what it could be like. Um… yes.

MIGUEL

Uh, I'll have to think about how to be an ordinary person for a little while, um. Oh, I thought about it. Yes, I could do that. I could be ordinary person. I kind of am an ordinary person.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, yeah, of course you're a natural, of course. That's why I picked you, ha-ha.

Alright, so we’ll come back in five minutes then we'll get started.

 

[Intertitle: “after the break”]

 

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, OK, welcome back. I thought we'd get started right away. Uh, so remember, Gabriel, have you had some time to think about what it would be like to be a massive kind of superstar?

GABRIEL

So I'd imagine first that if I'm an ordinary guy--you know, like I am--how an ordinary guy would treat stardom. They become really famous for a little while and then they they're desperate to hang on to that fame, but at the very peak, you know, when they haven't started losing that fame.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, OK, good. I like that. That's good, OK.

And, uh, Miguel. What have you done there? What have you've done to your costume? We don't wear costumes here.

MIGUEL

Well, I know, I--just to get into character--I rolled up my sleeves, you know, like a workman. Like a worker, like a box carrier or a mechanic. Like maybe I'm like a mechanic, like Kowalski. You know, like, um, you know, uh, you know the Marlon Brando film, you know, The Street Car Named Desire, you know the Tennessee Williams? Have you heard of that play?

LITTLE WOLF

Have I heard of, uh, Street Car Named… what? What is it called?

MIGUEL

No, it’s called… It's called The Street Car Named Desire and it's a really famous play, and it was really…

LITTLE WOLF

Do you think I don't know the play Street Car Named Desire? What are you giving me a lecture on Marlon Brando for? What are you, Truman Capote? What do you know, everything about the man? I know everything about the man. I studied his work. Don't assume that I don't know Street Car Named Desire. What is wrong with you?

MIGUEL

Oh, well, I'm sorry. You said you didn't know it. Uh, I didn't know it until a little while ago. I was just explaining why I rolled up my sleeves.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, let's just try the scene. You can give yourself any actual profession you wish that makes you more comfortable with the role.

So, what happens if somebody who's really stupid becomes suddenly overnight a star and think they deserve it when maybe they don't? Probably they don't. But maybe they do for something, but not for what they think… not for what they got the stardom for. But they try to sort of, you know: “I'm a star for this, but actually I'm a really nice guy so maybe I can switch that stardom from that kind of negative thing to this good thing about myself.” Ah, but then they get themselves terrible agents, and they put them on TV and they become nothing. And it's better they'd never been a star even for five seconds, alright.

So, I think we're gonna run with a character like that. Is that right, Gabriel?

GABRIEL

I hadn't projected far enough forward in time as to what would happen after that peak of stardom. I was just trying to get a feel for the initial emotions in, like, the first few days or first few weeks--so that kind of stardom.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, well, yeah, that's fine. I'd like to see that, OK. Let me have you run with that, OK. So you're walking down the street. OK, so how are you gonna walk?

GABRIEL

I would take steps, like, you know, deliberate steps. And nothing is in my way because I've had my limousine driver check ahead to make sure there are no impediments down the street. Down Rodeo Drive.

Is that a good walk?

LITTLE WOLF

Yeah, I like the walk, OK. That's good. Imagine what's going through your mind, and you're going to come across an ordinary Joe, uh, in the guise of Miguel. Or Miguel in the guise of an ordinary Joe. OK, you ready for this? Miguel? Kowalski? Stanley?

MIGUEL

Stanley, that was his name, Stanley. Stanley Kowalski.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, good. You remembered, I remembered, everybody remembered. Can we go on?

 

MIGUEL

Yes, we can go on. I’m sorry I fell over there. Uh, yes, OK.

Yes, OK, so I'm sitting here and let's say that I'm sort of painting lines on the sidewalk. It's my job. I work for the city. And…

Oh, no, no. I know. Let's imagine that it's Rodeo Drive, or, you know, that place in front of the Chinese theater, you know, with the stars. You know, I think they have that. That's in Hollywood, right?

LITTLE WOLF

Yes, it's in Hollywood. Yes, of course. OK, go on.

MIGUEL

Alright, so let's say that I'm the guy cleaning those stars. They give me some cleaning liquid that's kind of toxic and so I try not to use it because the only thing I can do after work is just watch TV. I don't have enough concentration for anything else. And I link that to toxicities in the cleaning liquid that they were providing me with--the city was--to wash the stars. But finally I decided that I would use my own spit because that had, you know, the natural enzymes that would eat away at the bacteria that would seem to always cover those stars. They were always really hard to clean because… either because people spat on them, or because people were wiping their feet, or maybe, some, you know, some homeless people came and used it as a toilet and then just moved on, you know, something like that. So really really hard to clean.

Or maybe there's a patina of some sort of evil sort of nature. You know, like the ones that sold their souls to win that star. So probably, you know, in the etheric that would accumulate some sort of film, you know, to mark that place so that people who can see in the etheric would avoid that place. Alright, and it makes it really hard to clean because it leaves a residue in our three-dimensional reality, sort of. I guess, it's like congealed ectoplasm, you know, that sort of covers the star, and the only thing that will eat it away is this really toxic, carcinogenic cleaning liquid the city gives you for free that some people I think even drink, because it kind of gives you a high, or they sniff or something. I don't know. I haven't done that myself.

Only that will clean it. Or actual enzymes in the actual spit of an actual wolf like me. So I was lucky to get the job. It’s lucky for the city and lucky for the stars because I managed to scrape away that layer. I'm not sure whether that cleanses the etheric. I have to think about the character a little bit more deeply before I can tell you for sure about that.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, Miguel. That was an ingenious interpretation. Physically cleaning off the tarnish from the stars of Hollywood stars who've sold their souls for a portion of the sidewalk that gets spit on, trampled upon, defecated upon. That's brilliant. And you're cleaning it, spit and polish. You're using your own enzymes. You can't use the toxic waste. You got to use real sort of spit and polish, meaning real effort and real personal, you know… It’s got your own DNA. The saliva's got all the info about you. It's your connection to the Akashic records. It's your connection to the noosphere, your quantum connection, alright. This is in the saliva, partially, alright. So you spit too much, I guess you're giving parts of yourself away. But then again, maybe it's, uh, maybe you're sort of fertilizing the environment around you by doing that, so maybe it's the right thing. I don't know. Who am I to judge? I'm not a doctor, alright.

So what I'm saying is that it's brilliant. You're cleansing it with your soul, so to speak. The perceptive viewer will pick up on that, alright, pick up on the metaphor. I really like that. That's an inspiration. That's brilliant. Genius. Very nice.

 

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, places everyone.

And, action.

GABRIEL

Ahem. Ahem, ahem.

Ahem, ahem.

Excuse me. Why are you not letting me by? Don't you know who I am?

MIGUEL

Um, I'm sorry. I just don't have time right now. I have to clean this star. It's very important.

GABRIEL

What do you mean you have to clean this star? How could that be more important than I am? I'm a star.

MIGUEL

This star is in the middle of the sidewalk and so that's formal recognition that the person whose name is on the star is a star. Do you have a star?

GABRIEL

I’ve only been a star for a couple of weeks, alright. So I haven't had time to get a star yet. But I'm sure I'll get one one day.

MIGUEL

Oh, well, I understand. But I don't have time to talk to you right now because I've got to clean this star. Uh, you'll have to wait until I finish cleaning it. It's a particularly dirty one. It's Dustin Hoffman's star. The further you fall, the more the etheric scum build-up on the star, you know, in front of the Chinese theater.

GABRIEL

I don't see what that has to do with me. I'm a star now. Dustin Hoffman is not.

MIGUEL

But, you know, until the guys with the sledgehammers come by and start digging up, you know, removing stars from different stars--until they start doing that, I'm afraid that this star takes precedence over you.

GABRIEL

Uh, what is that? What are you cleaning that with? Why are you spitting on? Do you not respect Dustin Hoffman?

MIGUEL

Well, actually, I don't respect Dustin Hoffman, but I respect my profession, and my profession is to clean off these stars, come rain, come shine, come anybody who comes by. So when I spit it's not a sign of disrespect. It's just that the cleaner they give us is really kind of toxic. Most of my friends, especially the ones who sniff it to get high, um, they’ve come down with cancer and a lot of them have died. So I had to give that up, uh, the cleaning with it and the sniffing with it. I had to give all that up and I'm using only my saliva, but it cleans it off even better. It just takes a lot of saliva. I have to drink, you know, oxygenated water all the time to keep the saliva flowing enough to be able to clean these stars, especially the etherically crusted-over ones.

GABRIEL

I see. But what is it you're cleaning it with? What is this? Some kind of Masonic sign?

MIGUEL

Masonic sign?

GABRIEL

Yeah, what do these occult symbols mean?

MIGUEL

Oh, well they’re not occult symbols. It's just like a cloud, OK. And the cloud is like, you know, in comics it means thinking. OK, so there's a thought coming from down here, and then what he's thinking is “BFF.” That means “Best Friend Forever.”

GABRIEL

Well, OK, so what does that mean that a cloud says best friend forever?

MIGUEL

Well, it's the thought of friendship, uh, and then having a friend, and that will be your best friend forever, uh, because this is what the cloud is saying. The cloud is saying love. That's the symbol for love. It looks like a heart if you turn it on its side like that. It looks like a heart.

GABRIEL

That's a cloud. So but it's also a thought because it has that little thing that little tail going down that shows that it's coming from somebody but we don't know who. Maybe the person holding the rag there?

MIGUEL

Could be. That's a reasonable interpretation.

GABRIEL

OK, and they're saying “Best Friend Forever.” And they're saying love and that this is kind of like… Is this lightning striking them in the head?

MIGUEL

Wow, I never thought of it that way. I guess it could be like a bolt of lightning like: “Wow, this is my best friend. I just realized that and so now I feel love in my heart forever, so even if even if we separate someday and then go our various paths we’ll still be best friends because the original feeling, I'll be able to say it anytime I want, or, like, think it, remember it any time I want, and so it's forever, really.”

GABRIEL

But what is inside that cloud? It's a semicolon and then and then an open parenthesis or close parenthesis?

MIGUEL

Oh, no, no. You're looking at it from the side.

GABRIEL

Oh, I see. Oh, it looks like a smiley face. OK, but the semicolon on a smiley face, doesn't that mean that it's winking?

MIGUEL

Well, yeah, it’s winking.

GABRIEL

But couldn't that mean slyly winking?

MIGUEL

Slyly winking?

GABRIEL

Well, yeah, you know, like you you're pretending to have been struck by a sudden impulse that somebody will be your best friend forever, but maybe you're just using that person. You're telling them that's what you are, and you're exchanging sort of bracelets or whatever, but it's not really real because they're kind of slyly winking, you know, kind of inside. And so I was thinking that would be a metaphor for what you're doing.

MIGUEL

A metaphor for what I'm doing?

GABRIEL

Well, yeah, I mean you're treating with care these stars that are being trampled upon, spat upon, including by you. And this rag is a testament to the phoniness of human interaction. And metaphorically, wiping away the film of the etheric attachments to these stars and to the idols that they have become and allowed to be created in their name. So they've created graven images to themselves. That's what these stars have done. And you're trying to clean it off with phoniness. With phoniness. You're pretending that you love it. So you don't really care about it.

 

 

MIGUEL

Well, do you mean I don't care about the job? Or I don't care about the rag? Or I don't care about the star, meaning the physical star on the sidewalk? Or I don't care about the star, meaning the person who allowed a graven image to them to be engraven [sic] in the sidewalk?

GABRIEL

How can you help somebody by cleaning their graven image? How can you help a person like that to understand that just because a lot of people know them and they can't walk down the street without being recognized, that doesn't mean that they're more important? I mean, couldn't we couldn't we just as easily give every single person in the world a star like this? I mean, everybody's done something really amazing. Maybe better than these stars have done. So you can't go around cleaning everybody's shoes, can you?

MIGUEL

I'd have to save up a lot of saliva.

GABRIEL

OK, but even if you had an endless supply, you just wouldn't have enough time to do it. So what I'm saying is that maybe it's better, instead of cleaning the star, maybe you could sort of… you could etch something in it like, um, “Don't think you're the most important” or, “Memento mori.” “Remember your death.” OK, remember that you're going to die just like everybody else. Although nowadays they tempt people with immortality, so people will do anything for that, and so that doesn't work with them anymore, uh, because they really think they're gonna live forever, even though they're not. Or if they do, they have to give away their souls and then they regret it and it they have to be reborn a bunch of times to get back on track. I feel sorry for them, OK. Even though I'm becoming one of them. I understand. I had my 15 minutes of fame--trended and then I thought I was really important and then I'm thinking somebody's gonna spit upon my graven image someday in front of Graham's Theater? I mean I don't want that for myself. Do you want that for yourself?

MIGUEL

Well, I don't expect that so I kind of don't even think about it. But if you're asking me to think about it, about whether I would want that or not. Well, I don't know. I don't mind, you know, kind of going to the bowling alley with my friends and hanging out there, and nobody mugs us or asks for selfies or anything like that. That would kind of distract from the camaraderie, especially if the other guys would start, you know, kind of envying me, or trying to suck up to me to get money or so I’d give them a job or make them famous or something like that. So I guess I wouldn't want to have that go away unless I would know it would be replaced by something even better. So is there something even better?

GABRIEL

Well, I don't know. I mean, I've been famous here for… When did I start trending? About 25 minutes ago, OK. So I've been famous for 25 minutes. I got recognized right there. You know, I was walking out and somebody recognized me, I said, “Wow, I’m a big star. The first person I saw when I walked out of the building recognized me. That means everybody's going to recognize me now.”

MIGUEL

Oh, well, I'm not sure that that's actually true. I mean, for example, I didn't recognize you

GABRIEL

Don't you see what I'm saying? You can etch a message in that to them to try to tell them to come down to earth or to remind them how nice it was before they were… But probably they can't go back, right? Probably a lot of them would want to go back. They would want to become normal.

MIGUEL

Are you saying a lot of them would rather, you know, be ordinary again?

GABRIEL

I think so.

MIGUEL

And we don't let them do that.

GABRIEL

No, we don't let them do that. But if we gave everybody a star and made everybody a star, then everybody would be equal. And it would be good for both people: the people who are not famous now, when they became famous--equally famous--they would see what it's like to be known by a lot of people, because everybody has an interesting life story. And then the people who are famous now who want to go back to being normal because they can't have normal lives with real friends and people not sucking up to them. OK, they want to go back to that, but if everybody becomes famous, then they can go back to that they can have the best of both worlds, don't you see? It's the best of all worlds for everyone involved. Just let everybody be famous and you make stars for everybody. They got the 3d printers, you know, and the zero-point energy. They've got unlimited resources. So everybody can become a star.

 

“The Verwolf Show”

 

episode 29 of the series

 

The Creation of woLves et al

(Timeline 1)

 

by

 

Kevin and Theresa Smith

 

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, we've had the Talk, you know, what it, you know, what fame is. You know how it goes to people's heads.

If you recall, alright, I explained to the producer that I needed people like you, alright, because I needed ordinary, everyday, average Joes to do what they would do if they were in certain situations, OK, in their own life, OK, because there was no remove. There was no distance between you and life because you were part of life.

Alright, so when we had the talk about fame going to your head, alright, there's also an objective aspect to fame, OK. There’s something that you can’t control. Even if you remain inured to any of the temptations--you're spiritual, you've sat down and thought about it, you have a family you care about, you have a world you care about, alright. All of that, like Sam in Lord of the Rings, you know. He could be trusted with the ring because he didn't need it. He wasn't holding on to it. He's the only one you could trust, really. Even Gandolf didn't trust himself with something like that. Can you imagine that? A wise guy like Gandalf? Even he can't trust himself with power like that? But you could trust Sam with it. Why?

Because Sam didn't need anything, alright. Nothing had gone to his head. The fact that he was invisible, I mean. He was more worried about the life of his master--who treated him as an equal. He called him master. He didn't have to, alright, but he chose to place himself in a subservient position deliberately--voluntarily--because that helped them to fulfill the mission. If he hadn't done that they wouldn't have, uh, rid the world of evil, alright. So what I'm saying is that, even if you are Sam--Sam Gamgee, alright, in all the best senses of the word, alright, of the name--that is not going to protect you completely from the effects of fame.

Even if you don't let it go to your head, nevertheless, objectively, a lot of people’ll start trying to attach themselves to you for various reasons. Sometimes they're good people. They like you and they really wish you well and they want to help you. Other people, they want something from you. Other people, they don't know what they want, but they're sort of attracted to you like a moth is to a light. “Oh, there's somebody who's famous. I'm gonna be also in the limelight and that fame will kind of rub off on me, you know.” So the light, so, like, the sun shines, you know, on the moon and the moon reflects and people think, “The moon is shining.” It's not shining. It's reflecting the light of the sun, OK.

But what I'm saying is that kind of happens to people too you know. They say, “I met this famous guy and he told me I was a jerk.” And their friends said, “Wow, I wish I were you. I wish I'd been there. He could have told me I was a jerk too.”

So what I'm saying is that even if you do not succumb to any temptation to think that you're better than other people just because a lot of people know you and say that they like you whether they really do or not, alright. They might like you for your roles they've seen you in. That's not you.

Although in this case, with this theater, it is you, OK, because I have you be you. So if people like you, they like the actual you, you know, like the guy in The Truman Show. I mean, what, you know the guy that they put on an island and everybody on the island with him, uh, knew that he was, like, in a TV show. They all, they were all in on the hoax, you know, but they were hiding it from him because they needed him to be completely natural. So they raised him, alright, and they watched him all the time. He thought that people were his real friends, and his wife was his real wife, and the sun was the real sun. And it was not. Everything was fake.

Some people were outraged that they would do that to a human being without telling them, you know, like that, like following them around, sort of creating a complete disreality, imprisoning not just the body, but the mind, the soul to a certain extent. He did not understand that whatever he might have done, people would have been forced to accept it. He actually could have done anything he wanted. He never had the guts to do that, OK, because everybody was following certain rules, and so he sort of followed those rules himself, OK, because he couldn't imagine that his thoughts about, “What are these rules? They’re kind of stupid,” alright. But he couldn't imagine that those thoughts made sense because nobody else seemed to have those thoughts, and if he shared them, people would discourage him to continue, you know, with that train of thought.

And so, but he finally broke out. He broke out, he realized that it was a false reality created for him. He had been manipulated all his life.

What do you think happened to him when he came back to our world? What do you think?

Alright, Gabriel, you want to come up here tell me tell me what you think about that?

GABRIEL

The Truman Show. Is that like Truman the president? Or is it like “true man”, like he's the only sort of real man?

LITTLE WOLF

I think the latter is correct.

GABRIEL

Did he have friends in his world?

LITTLE WOLF

Yes, he did, but, uh, he didn't know that they were actors paid to live in the world with him and interact with him and they were forbidden to tell him what was really going on.

GABRIEL

So people wanted to have those jobs? Some actors wanted to have those jobs?

 

LITTLE WOLF

Well, yeah. They, I'm sure they tried out for the job. They tried out for the role, I'm sure.

GABRIEL

But didn’t they think that they're helping to hide the truth from this human being, who…

THERESA

Who didn't do anything wrong to them.

GABRIEL

Yeah, did he do anything wrong? Was he a bad person? Did they have to keep him under control because he was sort of violent or crazy?

LITTLE WOLF

No, no, he never did any of that. He was he was a pretty ordinary kind of decent kind of guy, you know. He was honest, reasonably hard working, he had, you know, minor dreams that never came true, you know, like anybody, um…

GABRIEL

What kinds of dreams did he have?

LITTLE WOLF

Well, he had met a girl, OK. There was a girl that really liked him. And I think he could see that she liked him as a person. She was part of a cell, an underground cell of people who wanted to bring the truth to the people in the world of The Truman Show. Alright, she smuggled herself in. She infiltrated the set.

Alright, so she gets in there and she's pretending to go along with it. She knows that she's being surveilled all the time, but sometimes you can kind of whisper, or you can, you know, pass notes in a way that the cameras won't pick up right away. But anyway, so she tried to inform him that he was living in a false, artificial reality.

GABRIEL

Wow, did they run away together and get married?

THERESA

I hope they could do that.

 

LITTLE WOLF

Ah, you hope they could, it could be a happy ending that she loved him, he loved her?

THERESA

Uh-huh.

LITTLE WOLF

Well, he probably sensed on a subconscious level that she was the only one who'd ever liked him for who he was. The only person that was real because she's the only one that wasn't constantly deceiving him.

Alright, but he didn't believe her.

THERESA

Why?

GABRIEL

What do you mean he didn't believe her?

LITTLE WOLF

Why should he…? You're walking down the street, somebody comes up and says, “Hello, uh, your name's Gabriel, right?” And you'll say, “Yeah, how did you know that?” The person will say, “I know everything about you because I'm one of the controllers of your reality.”

GABRIEL

One of the controllers of my reality? What do you mean?

LITTLE WOLF

Well, what I'm saying is imagine that the world as you know it is not real, alright. And there's certain technicians on the on the job, you know, around the clock, making sure that certain things in your life happen in a certain way, performing the tasks that have been assigned to them by I don't know who. Maybe you yourself.

GABRIEL

Performing the tasks assigned to them by me myself? But I've never told anybody what to do.

 

 

LITTLE WOLF

I don't mean you. I don't mean the you that you know as you. I mean the higher you. The real you. The bigger you.

GABRIEL

The bigger me? What do you mean the bigger me?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, imagine this. Imagine that right now the real you, OK, where you come from, your progenitor, alright. You're so the projection of this--this is a bigger you--is lying in a special tank and the liquid goes, you know, into the mouth and into the lungs. You feel like you're drowning. You're in this tank. Alright, but after a little while you get used to it, alright, and then you lose consciousness in that reality, in that world. There’s oxygen going through your lungs, I mean through the water. I mean it's special liquid, alright. It's really high-tech stuff.

So you're lying here in this tank, alright. In your mind, you know, it's like a dream. It's like you go into a reality that's created, the consciousness goes in and it's like having a dream but it's more real than a dream because it's got technicians in there and you've instructed them on how they're supposed to, you know, make the reality for you to--what challenges to set for you what pleasures to give you, all that kind of stuff, alright, then to record it and then you go over it when you come back out and you learn from it and, I don't know, whatever you do with it.

GABRIEL

I don't even know what to think. Are you like the girl in The Truman Show that you're just kind of telling me the truth that I should, you know, run away?

LITTLE WOLF

Well, I don't know. Why do I say I don't know? I suspect something like that is actually true. Now, the exact details of what it is, I don't know. I don't know that either, alright. This is one version of how it could be, but there could be other ways, or that could be a part of a bigger way. For that reason, alright, I'm not like the girl in the film because I can't say with absolute certainty that what I'm saying is right, OK. She could, alright. However, you have to ask yourself, if I were indeed telling the truth and describing the reality as it actually is, would that mean that you would have to run away, and where would you run away to OK?

GABRIEL

If you told me that everything was not real, I would say, well, where do we run to? Is there like an edge of the world? How did it happen to the show?

LITTLE WOLF

Ah, well, in the show he reached the edge of sort of the environment around the island and it was like a cloth like a, like a backdrop—it was just like a theatrical backdrop, right. And he realized that that was his world, that he was it was contained within something much much bigger. And he didn't know what it might be like.

GABRIEL

Oh, because he'd never been there, right?

LITTLE WOLF

Well, he'd never really been there, yeah. He'd been surrounded by people from there okay but they weren't telling him what that--what the world they were from was really like. That's how they keep you in prison. They convince you that everybody wants to be where you are, everybody wants to live the life that you're living, and that if you're ungrateful for that, you're an ingrate, alright, and a traitor to the cause, to the idea--to all the ideals of the society. And, you're probably taking away from somebody else. You're probably--you're exploiting, you know, poor people somewhere else, or, you know, or your ancestors had slaves and it's your personal fault that your grandfather, your grandmother did that, you know, and so you're guilty for that for your whole life, and don't try to get out of it, and so you better sit there and shut up and be happy, and don't complain.

Alright, so that's what it was like. They showed him on TV there were problems everywhere else, and that everybody wanted to live exactly the life he lived. And so he was hiding from himself the truth that he was not happy.

 

 

GABRIEL

Wasn't happy? But, I mean, you said he could do whatever he wanted really because he was sort of the star.

THERESA

Yeah, he's a star but, Gabriel, he doesn't know that he's a star himself.

GABRIEL

Well what did you mean that he could do whatever he wanted?

LITTLE WOLF

What I'm saying is, as the star of the show, they couldn't get rid of him. People all over the world had him on 24 hours a day watching him. Even when he was asleep, alright, people watched that, alright. So they had a lot of money invested.

So what I'm saying is he could jump out in front of a bus. He even did that once when he started doubting that his world was real. He started doing stuff like, you know, standing out in the middle of traffic and just holding up his hand to see if the people would stop. Well, not even… he knew they would stop but he assumed that they would, you know, lean out the window, say, “Hey, what are you doing? Let me go by.” And they, but they didn't do that. They just kind of waited for him to stand there go away, or whatever, and he says, “What is this? Am I God? Am I the king?”

Alright, so in a sense he actually did have complete power to do whatever he wanted. He just didn't know that he could.

GABRIEL

So if we're also in a world that's sort of artificial and false and fake in some way, does that mean that we could do the same thing? We could basically do whatever we want?

THERESA

Yeah?

LITTLE WOLF

Yes and no would be my answer. Yes--yes, the situation is similar, OK. I mean, whatever you do, ultimately it's going to be permitted to happen. However, I would say no in the sense that there will probably be repercussions.

GABRIEL

Repercussions?

LITTLE FOLF

There will be consequences of your actions.

You're the guy lying up there in the tank, you know. That's the real guy you are. You're just kind of a figment of his imagination. You're a created reality imbued with a portion of his consciousness but with veils in place such that you do not understand where you have come from so that he can have the experience of separation from himself and from the from the world as a whole. He sort of created a cage for the mind--a temporary cage. Eventually we will all get out of it, alright, but it could take a long period of time and it could be more or less pleasant along the way. So what I'm saying is that you can do whatever you want. However, please do not think that that does not have consequences, because when you return, OK, it can change you. You do something really bad it's gonna change… it may get you stuck.

GABRIEL

Like if I see some of the technicians, I look them in the eyes and go punch him in the face and then I reach into their pockets and I take out the remote controls, and I smash it, and I stomp on it and I crush it into millions of tiny little computer silicon pieces like so many grains of sand scattered to the wind. If I were to do that, then you're saying I wouldn’t be able to get out because I would sort of break the connection?

LITTLE WOLF

No, I do not think that would have…

I don't think it's within your power. However they do say that the reptilians, when they figured out that they were in a prison for their crimes, and the Earth was the prison and the controlling apparatus ran from Saturn via the Moon to Earth,--so they went to the Moon, alright, and they hacked it, alright, they hacked the reality. So they can't get out of the reality because they're prisoners, but they kind of took over the prison and changed the rules of the game, alright. I understand why they did it, alright. It makes sense, alright. You'd probably do that, wouldn't you?

GABRIEL

So you're saying that instead of smashing, you know, the remote control, I can sort of take it myself and sort of google for the instruction manual somehow, and then learn how to use it and then go around like zapping things and making the real like, “Oh, I want a big mountain here.” Yeah, I just got some big mountain. I say, “Volcano. Vulcanize,” and then--lava. Oh, I could do that. Is that what you're saying?

LITTLE WOLF

I don't know if that would be possible. I doubt that you would be able to understand the interface, alright. There’s probably controls, you know, like a retina scan, or a DNA scan.

GABRIEL

But you're saying that this man--the true man--he got out of his reality and he lived happily ever after, is that right? Did he find the girl? Did they get married?

LITTLE WOLF

Well, the movie doesn't show us.

GABRIEL

Oh, well, what do you think happened to him?

What do you think happened to him, Theresa?

THERESA

I think that he would go all over the world, and maybe the woman that he liked was kind of imprisoned because she told the truth, and the man saved her and they lived happily ever after.

LITTLE WOLF

Ah, so you think that they have true love?

GABRIEL

Yeah, well, why not? I mean, if she's the only one that ever really loved him then they would be ideal together wouldn't they?

 

LITTLE WOLF

Well, think about Truman himself. I mean, who is he as a person?

GABRIEL

What do you mean?

LITTLE WOLF

All of his thoughts, alright, were thought by him within the confines of the reality that he imagined to be the one and only. So what does he know about the world? What does he know about life, really? He doesn't understand people's motivations. He doesn't know why people do what they do because nobody's ever been real with him.

GABRIEL

Oh, because everybody was acting all the time and they had to act a certain way. He never heard a person speak from the heart.

LITTLE WOLF

That is right. From birth, he never saw anybody behave as a real human being. So when he gets out into that world, OK, even if the girl still loves him--and really loves him--who is it she's loving? She knows everything about him. What does he know about her? Nothing, alright. And she loves him for, I guess, for what he was. Either she pities him for having been in that situation and just wanted to help him, and maybe she felt good, “Oh I'm so great. I'm a do-gooder. I helped this guy.” Or maybe sincerely she really loved him, alright. But she loved the him that she knew as him, alright. And when he comes out he isn't anybody really yet. Not in this world. Alright, that world is gone. He can't go back to that. They might even try to pay him to go back and he might even think, “Maybe I should go back to that world? Because it was comfortable and I guess everybody liked me and I can do whatever I want.” But why would you live a lie if you know it's a lie? You can't live it in the same way once you know it's a lie. You live in a different way, and he couldn't go back to that.

So what I'm saying is that he has to become who he is supposed to become. He has to become a person. He has to experience enough to figure out, you know, what he really wants out of life, out of the new life--out of the new universe--that he's found himself in. The person that she loved initially, is she going to still love him after he goes through whatever changes he has to go through?

GABRIEL

Oh, I guess I hadn't thought about that.

LITTLE WOLF

Also keep in mind, OK, the whole world knows this guy. He can't go anywhere without being recognized. There is literally not a single corner on the planet where he can go, and not be recognized, alright. So what do you think: everywhere you go everybody wants a selfie with you. Everywhere you go all the beautiful women are throwing themselves on you, alright, and some of them actually probably love you. Some of them really actually genuinely realistically love you and could be great wives. How are you're supposed to choose out of thousands, how do you choose which one is real? How do you figure that out?

You give them a test? What test is that? A written test? How are you gonna do that?

The only person he knows is himself. The director tried to tell him, “I know more about you than you know about yourself,” because the director, you know, watched when he was a baby. He doesn't have memory of being a baby. But Truman answered, he said, “You never, you never had a camera in my head.”

They watched literally everything that he ever did and controlled all the input that he received to his consciousness. But he still had thoughts from time to time, OK, that probably differed from what he was seeing around, and he couldn't share them with anybody. That belonged to him exclusively, alright. So that's the person he's trying to let out, he's got to find. He's got to find out how to express that real “he”-- that real him who's inside there, alright, and he doesn't know how to do that. He's never seen what kind of person he is in the reflection of somebody else's eyes because nobody ever reacted to him the way they would react to a real person.

It's going to be very hard for me to explain to you, uh, the distortions in relationships that take place when fame enters into the equation, OK.

So if you remember a little while back I had you play the role of somebody for whom fame had gone to his head. Alright, you walk down the walk of fame in Hollywood there and you come across Miguel cleaning the stars on the walk thing. Do you remember that?

GABRIEL

Oh, yes, I do.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, so this time we're gonna do it a little different. OK, imagine that you are Truman and you've escaped from the prison of the reality show, alright, and you're in the real world. You've been here a little while, alright, and you're tired of fame. It's not like, you know, the first time you were walking down the walk of fame and you were so happy that you were trending for 20 minutes, OK. This time you are famous and everybody knows you, and the guy you come across, he wants to talk to you and you just want to get away. You're trying to understand what to do about the fame because it's driving you crazy. Alright, can you play that role?

GABRIEL

Oh, well, I guess I could try that. Well, yes, I suppose so.

So, Miguel, you think we could do that?

MIGUEL

Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's try that.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, OK. I'll be right here, OK. You know your role.

GABRIEL

So I'm walking down the street, trying to avoid eye contact, trying to kind of change my walk so maybe somebody might not recognize me as easily. They say that if you change your walk that it's hard, you know, to recognize who you are.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, but that's the AI, OK. That's the algorithms, OK. People who know your face. Well, you'll fool some people. In this situation the guy recognizes you, alright.

GABRIEL

Yeah, yeah, I understand.

MIGUEL

Wow, Truman, hello.

GABRIEL

Hello.

MIGUEL

Could I get a selfie with you?

GABRIEL

Why do you want a selfie with me? Can I ask you why?

MIGUEL

Why? Well, because I really like and respect you.

GABRIEL

But you don't even know me.

MIGUEL

Well, I kind of know you. I mean, I watched you kind of grow up. You know, we kind of grew up together.

GABRIEL

I know but I wasn't there. I don't know anything about you.

MIGUEL

Oh, well, I'm kind of an ordinary guy, kind of just like you.

GABRIEL

Why do you think I'm just an ordinary guy. Maybe they just packaged me that way. Maybe I'm extraordinary, or abnormal, or ultra-ordinary, or sort of deficient in some way?

MIGUEL

Well, I don't think so. I mean, every time when you were growing up you didn't consider yourself better than other people, and you never said anything really unkind to anybody.

GABRIEL

But don't you understand, it's because I was living in a world where I didn't even know that it was possible to be that way. So it wasn't out of moral choice that I did that. I didn't know that I had that choice. I didn't know I had the choice to be bad.

MIGUEL

Oh. Do you mean all that time if you had been able to, you would have, like, wanted to, like, bully people or push them around or spit in their eyes?

GABRIEL

No, I wouldn't have done that. I'm not saying that at all.

MIGUEL

I mean, it's really an honor for me to be able to talk to you, but I want to say to you that I'm not going to go and just boast, and…

If you want, I'll delete this selfie right now. Let me delete the selfie so that you don't think that I'm talking to you just ‘cause I want to sort of piggyback on your fame.

There we go--deleted. OK, it's not there. I just really actually like you and if you don't want me to tell anybody that we met, then I won’t do that.

GABRIEL

Really?

MIGUEL

Well, yeah. I really wanted a selfie not because I want to get money for it, or because I want people to like me for it. I mean, I don't need people to like me for a silly reason like that. I mean, if the only reason people like me is because I have a selfie of myself with you, I mean, then those people don't really like me, right? They just want to piggyback on my fame that's been piggybacked on your fame. Do you see what I mean? That's kind of silly, isn't it?

GABRIEL

Well, of course it's silly. I have to deal with that all the time--people wanting to… How can I how can I know that you're not one of them, that you're just sort of more cleverly disguised than they are?

 

MIGUEL

Oh, I see. Yeah, this is one of those situations where you can't possibly know whether you can trust someone, not only because somebody might be really good at, you know, deceiving you and lying and trying to pull a fast one on you. But not only that, is that people themselves--they themselves don't know. Or what they're going to do, you know, with that selfie they take of you. I mean, they might take it with the purest of intentions just because they want to remember you. They really actually like you. But then, when they find out that people like them--and they never liked them before--but like them just because they have a selfie of themselves with you. Then that could, like, totally change their character or maybe they themselves don't even know why they like you. Maybe they, “Well, I really like that Truman character. I don't know why. Maybe because he never did anything wrong or because I just remember his voice all the time and it was kind of soothing to me as I was going to sleep.” I mean, they might themselves not even know.

It must be really hard for you. Is there anything you could do about it?

GABRIEL

Do about being so famous that I can't walk down the street without having to hide behind trees? Like hiding behind the trunk of one tree and then sort of peeking around it to see if there's somebody there, and then if I don't see someone, like, running to the next tree and hoping that nobody saw me run. And it could be the police.

MIGUEL

Oh, I see. But the police probably let you go, right?

GABRIEL

Well, yeah, the police are always really nice but they want a lot of selfies too. And so, like, all day long with these selfies. It's just, wow, it was better in the past when you gave autographs, maybe. But then maybe your wrist would be sore at the end of the day. I don't know. It's always been terrible for people who are famous.

MIGUEL

Isn't there a positive side?

GABRIEL

Positive side? I mean, before I didn't have any real friends. I mean I had friends, but they weren't really friends but I thought they were friends, and then when I found out that they never had been friends then I realized that I grew up without friends, and then suddenly I've got a billion friends.

I don't know if they're real friends either, you know. It's like, oh so I don't have anybody to talk to that I can confide in. But then, come to think of it, it's not like that's a new situation for me. I mean, having grown up without anybody who was real to you, I never really had anybody to confide in anyway.

MIGUEL

Well, Gabri… Well, Truman, you want me to tell you the truth? I mean, maybe you don't know since you grew up in sort of a sheltered environment, but we don't really have anybody to confide in either.

GABRIEL

People aren't being paid to deceive you, like, on a daily basis, like every day.

MIGUEL

Uh, sure they are.

GABRIEL

What do you mean?

MIGUEL

Well, what do you think advertisers are? You know, people who try to sell you something you don't really need? They can't actually simply explain to you that you need this product. Some people would buy it just because they need it, but then some other really clever hotshot comes along. He thinks of a way of selling something that nobody really needs, and so if you don't also think of a way to sell something in a really clever way you'll be a failure, and then your family will hate you, and your wife will hate you. And then somebody maybe who wants you to give them a job is lying to you, is like sucking up to you, saying, “Oh, you're really nice,” even though maybe they hate you or maybe they don't even think about you at all. So it's deception all the time.

GABRIEL

It is?

MIGUEL

Well, you must see that.

GABRIEL

Wow, I thought it was only me. Why didn't anybody ever tell me that before?

MIGUEL

I guess they assumed you knew because they thought you'd know better than anybody does. Some people don't see it. Some people kind of hide the consciousness from themselves. I mean, they know it's like that, but they just kind of pretend like it's not, because it's kind of uncomfortable to talk about it, and so eventually they just kind of don't even think about it.

GABRIEL

So all the time my life wasn't so bad after all? Is that what you're saying?

MIGUEL

Well, no. You had no chance, sort of, because you couldn't just open your eyes and see the reality. Well, I guess I know the director said that, if you were completely determined to discover the nature of the world in which you resided then you would you would find a way to do that--well, as you eventually did.

GABRIEL

Well, yeah. I had doubts.

MIGUEL

Did you have a lot of doubts?

GABRIEL

No, I thought there was something wrong with me. So I just kind of went along with what everybody else did. And you're right, that kind of lets you sort of forget yourself that you're living kind of a dual reality sort of. What you really think, what you think and then what other people are trying to tell you what to think, and you pretend like you think that but actually you think something else but you're not sure whether what you think is right or whether what they think is right and, yeah, you mean it's like that for other people? It must be like that for everybody.

MIGUEL

Well, yeah, it kind of is.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, cut. OK, good. That was good. I like that. I like that. Good, good, I like the dialogue. That was that was really interesting, OK. I think I think both of you have a better idea of what fame can do to you whether you're tempted by it or not, alright. That's great.

OK, now now we're gonna imagine, OK. This is what I was… so I wanted to do from the very beginning with you today…

The Importance of Having Coasters

 

episode 30 of the series

 

The Creation of woLves et al

(Timeline 1)

 

by

 

Kevin and Theresa Smith

 

LITTLE WOLF

What I wanted to do is while you're still ordinary Joes--you don't yet live in enormous houses--I want to try imagining you've become famous and you're living in a big house and you got a lot of fancy new stuff that you never had before, alright. How it's gonna change your life, your everyday everyday life, alright. Can we take a look at that, alright?

Let's imagine that you, Gabriel, for the first time in your life you have coasters. Imagine you've never seen coasters before. You don't even know what they are.

GABRIEL

That's pretty easy to imagine because I don't know what they are. I've never seen them before.

LITTLE WOLF

Ah. You actually haven't seen coasters before?

GABRIEL

Well, no. Well, what are they?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, this is a coaster.

GABRIEL

It's like a decoration?

 

LITTLE WOLF

No, it's not like a decorate… What do you think, it's a doily? You think it's a ceramic doily? They don't make things like that. It's a coaster. You use it.

GABRIEL

You use it for what? Can I take a look at it? Can I see?

LITTLE WOLF

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

GABRIEL

It's pretty heavy. I guess it's kind of pretty. Do they all look the same way?

LITTLE WOLF

No, they're very different but they're basically about the same size and they're round or they're square.

GABRIEL

OK, well, I just don’t understand what they're for. You're calling it a coaster. Is it like, do they come from the coast? Or do they kind of coast around by themselves, like you push them and maybe some of them have little wheels or something?

LITTLE WOLF

No, OK , it's not that. OK, I don't know why we call them coasters, alright, but this is the idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're moving it around. Okay, very funny, okay. You want to be part of the scene, is that what's going on here?

THERESA

Yes.

LITTLE WOLF

You are so desperate to be part of any scene whatsoever, you will interfere right in the middle of a scene. Is that what I'm understanding?

THERESA

No.

 

LITTLE WOLF

If you want to have a role, okay, we'll consider it, okay. I'll talk to the casting director, meaning me--meaning myself--I'll talk to myself. I'll try to convince myself to give you a part, alright, but don't be putting your mitts into the middle of the frame. You're filming your own self? Come on, what is that? You want to film yourself, you go in front of a mirror, alright, when I'm not around. Alright, when nobody's around. You get yourself a big mirror, full-length, alright, you turn on the camera and you do a million selfies. You do a whole biopic on yourself if you want to. Alright, but don't interrupt my scene, OK.

We're talking about coasters. This is not a trivial matter. Gabriel does not know what a coaster is. Do you understand that?

THERESA

Yes.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, can we go on?

GABRIEL

Oh, yeah, it didn't bother me.

LITTLE WOLF

I don't care if it bothered you. You're not the director here.

GABRIEL

Well, I was the director before.

LITTLE WOLF

Okay, but you're not the director right now. OK, we're doing something else anyway.

GABRIEL

Oh, sorry.

LITTLE WOLF

Now, what I'm saying is that these coasters, alright, what they are is you put your drinks on them.

 

GABRIEL

You put your drinks on them? What do you mean?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, well, if you've got a glass--you're drinking out of glass--you set it down on the coaster.

GABRIEL

You set it down on the coaster. Uh, why?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, well because it's convenient. It's a convenient place for your glass, or your cup.

GABRIEL

A convenient place for it? Well, what if I'm in the kitchen drinking? Every time I set down the cup I'd have to come into this room and put it on…

LITTLE WOLF

No, you can move the coasters around. They're not that heavy. They’re a lot lighter than the table. You're not going to move the table from here and there, alright, you move the coaster around with your drink.

GABRIEL

So like if I'm at a cocktail party and I've, sort of, got a drink I, sort of, have to carry around a coaster, like, in my pocket?

LITTLE WOLF

A cocktail party is different. They've got coasters all over the room.

GABRIEL

Oh, people have, like, a lot of coasters?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, if you have a family and all those people drink something, you think they're going to, you know, they’re going to take turns using the coaster?

GABRIEL

Well, I don't know. I never thought of it. How could I how could I have thought of that if I'd never seen a coaster before? I mean, come on, use your head, Little Wolf.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, I was being sarcastic, alright. If you want me to tell you directly, if it's a family then they have more than one coaster. They have at least one coaster for every member of the family if they're well off enough.

GABRIEL

I see, OK, and it's a special convenient place for your glass, you can carry it around. It's about the size of the cup, but a table’s better because you could just set it down even without looking, you know. Here you'd have to kind of aim; you'd have to go: “Okay, glass in hand, eagle eye, bearing two one zero. Coming in for a landing.”

LITTLE WOLF

Look, once you get used to it you set it down right away even without looking if you know where it is.

GABRIEL

Okay, I still don't understand. What is the raison d'etre of something like a coaster? What is it for?

LITTLE WOLF

It protects the surface of the table, or whatever surface the coaster is resting on.

GABRIEL

It protects the surface? Does it have something on the underside here? This, is this like special protective material?

LITTLE WOLF

If you set your glass down on the coaster, alright, then if there's condensation on the on the glass--alright, if there's water--then then a ring will form on the coaster and not on your table.

 

GABRIEL

A ring will form? Like a circle?

 

LITTLE WOLF

Well, yeah, a circle.

GABRIEL

Well, circles are beautiful and water is beautiful. Don't people love beautiful circles made out of water?

LITTLE WOLF

Some people probably do but it stains the furniture.

GABRIEL

Stains? But the water, doesn't it just evaporate?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, well, sometimes, you know, the dust gets mixed in with it or maybe some food particles or something and then it sort of builds up and then and the ring becomes permanent on your table or your furniture.

GABRIEL

Well, maybe some people like rings. I mean, I’ve seen tables with, like, designs on them that look like a bunch of rings. This would be, like, do-it-yourself sort of table design.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, some people might want that, I will allow that, OK. But what I'm saying is that most people don't want their furniture ruined by drinks. So they use coasters.

GABRIEL

You're telling me that when I become really rich, I'm gonna take that money, that hard-earned money that I earned by actually doing something and working and I'm gonna spend it on something that just makes more work than it's worth for me, carrying it around, and thinking about it, and then buying it, and then making sure that the color matches--it's color coded or it matches the furniture--and all that's just for something that I don't even need I've never even heard about in my life, and you're telling me that if I get a lot of money and become rich then that's going to make my life better? It seems like it's going to make my life worse.

 

 

LITTLE WOLF

You can of course choose not to buy coasters for your furniture if you don't mind the furniture having rings on it, OK, but you will come into contact with people who do have coasters and they will ask you, when you come to visit them, to set your drink down on the coaster that they provide you with.

GABRIEL

Oh, can’t I just go somewhere and have a nice conversation without having to worry about coasters? I mean, what kind of a world are we living in that the more successful you are the more trouble everything is?

LITTLE WOLF

Look, it's not that much trouble and some people have coasters with interesting designs. You can…

GABRIEL

So we have to discuss the coasters? I go to my friend's house for advice and I have to talk about, to go, “Oh, I see you have no new coasters. Where did you get those coasters?” And he'll say, “Oh, I found them at this market. You have to go to this market.” And then he’ll  describe all the coasters, you know, and I'll listen about the coasters and then maybe feel envious and jealous that he has better coasters than I do. Then I'll run out and buy some coasters. Going from being ordinary Joes to having to keep up with the Joneses all the time--that's not a step up. That's a step laterally into some sort of parallel reality where my life is worse.

I don't understand this. Maybe I should quit right now. Maybe I should just say I don't want to be famous. I'm not going to be an actor and don't give me any awards. I don't need to star in front of Grauman’s theater, or wherever they have these stupid stars that the Miguel was supposedly cleaning with his spit. I don't want any of that. I want out of this right now. I don't want to clutter up my life with coasters.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, Gabriel, look. Even if you choose, when you become famous, not to acquire coasters and not to visit anybody who has coasters, alright, if you're gonna, you know, play a role in the theater, the film of a wealthy person who has coasters, you're gonna have to be able to work with them, at least on the level of working with props.

GABRIEL

I can do that if it's a prop, like if it's in the script, somebody tells me, “You're going to work with this.” I'll learn how to work with that.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, very good.

May I propose that we move on from coasters to something a little bit more interesting: furniture.

GABRIEL

Furniture.

LITTLE WOLF

Yes, furniture, alright. So when you become famous you will have to buy a very big house and furnish it with furniture.

GABRIEL

Furnish it with furniture. Furniture, you mean like tables and chairs?

LITTLE WOLF

That is right.

GABRIEL

They have different kinds of tables?

LITTLE WOLF

Well, well, yeah, they can.

GABRIEL

How are they different?

LITTLE WOLF

Well, they can be different sizes, or made from different materials, or different shapes or you have a lot. Mainly you have a lot of them, alright.

GABRIEL

A lot of tables.

I don't know why I would need a lot of tables. I mean, why would I…?

I can only eat on one table at a time, or do they actually, like, take one big table and put it at the bottom and then stack another table on top of that table…

THERESA

And another table another table and you get a very high stack and then you have a very high stool and you sit on it and eat and then you have to put all the tables down? I mean, that's going to take a very long time.

GABRIEL

Well, yeah is it… do people do that?

LITTLE WOLF

No, people do not stack their tables one on top of the other. You can choose to eat in different parts of the house, different rooms in the house. Each of them would have a table.

GABRIEL

Different rooms?

LITTLE WOLF

Where do you think you're going to put the furniture? You're going to have a lot of rooms.

GABRIEL

I don't understand. I can only be in one room at a time. Why would I need a lot of rooms?

LITTLE WOLF

Look, there's different things you can do in different rooms. You want a change of pace, you know, you want to look at, you know, one set of wallpaper and then they go into another room look at different wallpaper.

GABRIEL

Different wallpaper? I don't really look at the wallpaper. Do people look at their wallpaper? It seems to me that if you have all sorts of different rooms with different wallpaper and you're constantly thinking about it and moving around because you want to look at the different things even though you've seen them a million times but you're still moving around and looking at them, is that going to be really so interesting, I mean to talk about all that kind of stuff?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, I'm just trying to let you know what it's like for people who, you know, who are rich and famous, who are famous.

THERESA

They have a very bad life.

GABRIEL

Is this some kind of trick, Little Wolf? Are you trying to trick me? Are you trying to describe the life of a famous person in such a way that I don't want to become famous? So that so if somebody says to me, “Oh, Gabriel, you did a really good job with that film,” I'll say, “You have to give all the credit to Little Wolf. He told me everything to do. He manipulated me and I didn't think of anything myself.” Is that what you want? Is that your trick?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, this is not a trick. I'm not trying to make it sound worse than it is. I'm trying to describe it the way it is.

Alright, so that, you know, so that I can see your…

OK, I guess this is your natural reaction. I guess you're not trying to show off, keeping up with the Joneses and proving to your social, you know, inferiors or superiors that you're worthy of them, or they're not worthy of you, or they are worthy of you by knowing everything about coasters and furniture and whatnot. I guess this is your natural reaction so I guess that's what I wanted. I guess you get what you pay for.

GABRIEL

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. You haven't paid me anything yet but I don't need that. I suppose I was in this just for the fame but now you've kind of convinced me that I shouldn't be in this for the fame, and so I guess I would just rather have a good time.

THERESA

Like, actually all that we need in the life we just need, like, nature. We don't even have to live in a house. We could just live somewhere outside, like, when it's not warm we could kind of go to different countries and stay in different countries and not have all of the these things. Enjoy the life and be with the birds and things like that.

GABRIEL

Well, yeah, well, yeah, think about it, Little Wolf. I mean, what are we, the second generation of urbanized wolves? I mean, think of our predecessors. They just lived out in the jungle or the forests. They didn't have furniture, let alone coasters. But I don't think their lives were worse, do you?

LITTLE WOLF

No, I do not think their lives were necessarily worse, OK. They were just different.

 

“Out of the Tavistock Institute Into the Hell of Luxury”

 

episode 31 of the series

 

The Creation of woLves et al

(Timeline 1)

 

by

 

Kevin and Theresa Smith

 

LITTLE WOLF

…finding the diamond in the rough of the lives of the rich and famous.

GABRIEL

Finding the diamond in the rough in the lives of the rich and famous. What do you mean?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, what I mean is that, even though these people are rich and famous and their lives are terrible, alright, there's still moments of happiness there that you want to hold on to, uh, that, you know, people will look back on with fondness even after they're completely free and happy.

GABRIEL

Oh, I see. Okay, and how will we find these diamonds in the rough?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, what we're gonna have to do is we’re gonna have to imagine, as vividly as we can, life among furniture, coasters and other people who have lots of furniture and coasters, alright. Life among the rich and famous, what it could be like--we're gonna improv that, alright. We're gonna imagine that.

 

[Intertitle: “Roughing it”]

 

 

MIGUEL

Hey, Gabriel, look.

GABRIEL

Oh, what's that? Wow, it looks like some new furniture.

Where should we sit?

MIGUEL

I don’t know.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, you're back, OK, so while you were gone--while you were on your break--I had some people come by and set up the props for us. We got a table and two chairs. We're gonna start imagining life as the rich and famous, alright. You ready to start?

MIGUEL

Uh, I guess so.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright. And action.

GABRIEL

What do we do with this, Miguel? I'll be sitting at the table in the morning and you'll come down to breakfast and we'll talk about, you know, furniture or something.

MIGUEL

Alright, yeah.

Uh, good morning Gabriel.

GABRIEL

Good morning, Miguel. How did you sleep?

MIGUEL

I slept very well because the bed is really really big, and it has very ornate ornamental designs, uh, and it has bed posts and a canopy. I think it's really beautiful. My decorator said it was, so I believe it was. So how did you sleep?

GABRIEL

Well, I slept very well because I was surrounded by really beautiful furniture, uh, like antique furniture that's worth a lot of money. And I could describe the transaction for you, like how we bargained, how we negotiated on price. That was a significant event in my life that I managed to save money on the purchase of this antique table that helps me sleep well at night because I fall asleep knowing that I have a really expensive table I got kind of on the cheap.

MIGUEL

Wow, Gabriel. That sounds really interesting.

Um, uh, Little Wolf, this is not working for me.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, what do you mean it's not working for you?

MIGUEL

If I have a lot of money, why would I spend time sort of negotiating and bargaining and arguing with somebody just to save a little bit of the money if I've got, like, a lot of it?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, look we're trying to understand how rich and famous people live, alright. Um, just imagine that it's important.

MIGUEL

But why should I imagine that? I mean, I really believe that Gabriel was right when he suspected you of trying to convince us subconsciously never to become famous so that you can take all the fame.

LITTLE WOLF

Ah, that's what you think. You think that, uh…

Come here, come up here, uh, Miguel.

You think that's been my purpose--to garner fame and yank the laurels off the top of your heads and put them on the top of my head so I got like a stack like Bartholomew Cubbins? I'll have all the laurels on my head, is that what you're saying?

MIGUEL

Every time you make us play a scene where we're rich and famous, it's always something really terrible--that it's some kind of life that I would never want to have. Is that really the way all rich and famous people live?

LITTLE WOLF

We're trying to get at the essence of things here. This is this is existential, alright, this is experimental film. This is not the Tavistock Institute, alright. My purpose is not to brainwash you. I'm not trying to get you to think a certain way. I'm trying to examine the situation together with you.

MIGUEL

Well, okay.

LITTLE WOLF

Places, everyone. Take two, three, whatever.

MIGUEL

Oh, well, Gabriel, you say that you managed to bargain down the price of some antique furniture, uh, is that right?

GABRIEL

Well, yeah, I told you that already.

MIGUEL

I'm trying to make conversation.

GABRIEL

Oh, well, yeah. I did that, yeah, I did that the other day. We were driving in a car and it was a really nice car with nice leather seats that that, you know, but also that they have heaters in them like when it's cold and it heats up. And then then it's got lights, like, disco lights in the back, and so when we go somewhere, like, to bargain for furniture we can listen to disco music and dance to it or something. I don't know.

This is so hard for me, Little Wolf.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, what is hard for you?

GABRIEL

You're telling me I'm supposed to have all this stuff and be really happy that I have it and that sort of makes my life better, and so I think about that and I try to imagine what that could be, but even like a big limousine with a disco ball or something, that's not for me. How could I… I can't even pretend that that could possibly be interesting to me.

LITTLE WOLF

Once again, we're looking for diamonds in the rough, OK. We're trying to find out that even among the hell, OK, of luxury that you'd be able to find something there that would justify its existence.

LITTLE WOLF

Let's try something a little different, guys, alright. This is what we're gonna do, OK.

So we're gonna imagine that you're already really rich and famous and you have been for some time. But then you decide to go back to your old haunts, namely Wolves’ Corner in this apartment and revisit it and reminisce and just see what it's like to be back in the old neighborhood.

 

[Intertitle: “Reminiscing about the future”]

 

GABRIEL

Wow, look, Miguel. It’s our old room.

MIGUEL

Wow, remember, we had some really great times here. I remember a lot of things that happened here.

GABRIEL

I do too, wow. There's the couch we always used to film on.

MIGUEL

Wow, that’s the place where Little Wolf used to sit and yell at us from, remember?

GABRIEL

Oh, he used to yell at us all the time. I remember…

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, enough of that. Come on. I am not important here. What's important is reminiscing, alright.

GABRIEL

Wow, here's the table that we used that one time for those skits, you know, when I was on a date.

MIGUEL

Yeah, when we were imagining what it would be like to be rich and famous.

GABRIEL

Oh, yeah, I remember. Yeah, that was funny because we couldn't figure out what it would really be like.

MIGUEL

We tried to imagine what it would be like but we couldn't imagine exactly what it would be like.

 

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, Miguel and so how are you gonna cover now? I mean, if it's really true that you couldn't imagine back then what it would be like to be rich now, and if you're not really rich now and you're actually back then imagining what it will be like to be rich, how is your imagination faulty and how are you gonna know that, if your imagination is supposed to be faulty right now?

MIGUEL

Well, I didn't think through all of the, uh, the logic.

GABRIEL

I think, Miguel, maybe we could we could just kind of focus on maybe reminiscing.

MIGUEL

Yeah, well, let's just reminisce.

Wow, Gabriel, look at--there’s the corner where we used to sleep all the time.

GABRIEL

Yeah, wow, it's really small but I remember that it was like heaven.

MIGUEL

Yeah, it was really nice, wasn't it? You know, that's the most valuable thing that I have now.

GABRIEL

What's that?

MIGUEL

My memories of our life here.

GABRIEL

That's where we made our first really big movies, remember?

MIGUEL

Well, yeah. You mean like the movie we’re in right now?

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, OK, what do you mean the movie we're in right now? Look, that doesn’t make…

You can't say that. You can't say that. You're breaking the fifth wall. Well, I don't know what wall you're breaking. You're breaking the wall between times. You can't make reference to the film you're in now.

MIGUEL

Why not, Little Wolf? I mean, if you want us to pretend like we're in the future coming back to visit where we used to live, uh, why can't I imagine that in the future, uh, we will we will watch this movie that we’re making right now, and it will bring back a lot of beautiful memories of when we made this movie that we’re that we're watching right now? I mean we're making it right now but we're also watching it right now in the future and remembering what I'm saying right now. Can’t we do that?

GABRIEL

Yeah, that seems kind of interesting, Little Wolf. That seems, like, experimental. Why can't we do experimental film like that?

LITTLE WOLF

You're not talking just about film. You're talking about time travel. You're appealing to yourselves in the future. It's a direct appeal to yourself and…

MIGUEL

Why can’t I do that?

LITTLE WOLF

Well, what do you want to say to yourself in the future?

MIGUEL

Hello there, Miguel. Um, I’ll bet you that you haven’t aged. Maybe you look even better. But you'll be watching right now and I just want to say hello and don't ever forget, uh, how happy you were. I hope you're still happy like that, and if you're not then just remember and then you can be happy again. And if you're even more happy, then maybe you can invent a time machine and come back and travel to our time and teach us how to be happier, although we're pretty happy already.

GABRIEL

Yeah, we're pretty happy so we hope you're happy.

Um, say hello to me in the future. I guess I don't have to tell you that. You'll do that anyway. But say hello to, you know, John in the future, and Miguel, and Little Wolf, and Rammy, and Theresa and everybody in the future.

MIGUEL

Yeah, we hope that you have a good life in the future too.

GABRIEL

Maybe you'll be able to come back and visit us.

MIGUEL

Please come back.

GABRIEL

Do you think do you think they'll appear?

MIGUEL

What do you mean?

GABRIEL

Well, if we're asking them to invent a time machine and come back and visit us, well then they should appear right… NOW.

MIGUEL

I don’t see.

GABRIEL

Theresa, look around. Do you see us? Like, with long beards?

MIGUEL

Or maybe with beards or maybe different clothes. Maybe they have more fashionable clothes there.

GABRIEL

I would hope. You think so? I think your shirt is really nice.

MIGUEL

I like your shirt too. It could be more fashionable maybe, but, uh, I’m not judging you.

MIGUEL

So where are we?

GABRIEL

Why didn't they come? Why didn't we come back? Maybe we're really busy right now.

MIGUEL

What do you mean, “right now”?

GABRIEL

I mean, whatever it is in the future that we're watching maybe we're busy doing something else at the same time and so we can't, like, hop into a time machine come back right away.

MIGUEL

What are you talking about? If we have a time machine in the future, even if we're busy at some moment in the future, we'll find some other moment in the future when we can come back. And even if there's no moment in the future where we have any free time we can travel back to a time where we did have free time, like right now, and we could just from that time have some free time to come back in time to visit us right now.

GABRIEL

Oh, you're right. That's pretty logical. So where are we? Stupid we. Where are we?

MIGUEL

What is wrong with you, Miguel of the future?

GABRIEL

Why aren't you fulfilling our request? Why do you not like me anymore?

MIGUEL

Why don't you love me anymore? I love me now. Why wouldn’t you love me… then? I love you then. I hope I still love you or will love you, or I hope so.

GABRIEL

Well, yeah. Why would you not love yourself in the future?

MIGUEL

Well, I don't know. I mean, if I didn't even bother to come back in time to visit myself now, then something's wrong. Well, why am I so inconsiderate to myself?

GABRIEL

Well, maybe it's dangerous to come back, you know, in time and visit yourself in the past.

MIGUEL

Dangerous? Why?

GABRIEL

Well, I don't know. Maybe you'd be tempted to give yourself some information that would kind of change your life in an unpredictable way. It wouldn’t be good to have all that knowledge. You might act on it in the wrong way. Maybe there's things that are supposed to happen, and if you try to avoid making them happen, or if you take them for granted that they're gonna happen no matter what you do, maybe you could do something that would, like, create a mistake. I mean, it wouldn't change the future but it might make sort of the path to that future a little bit, you know, wobbly.

MIGUEL

Wobbly? Like we would fall down?

GABRIEL

We might fall into the abyss.

MIGUEL

The abyss.

GABRIEL AND MIGUEL

The abyss.

LITTLE WOLF

Alright, cut.