Cosmos Lag

(Typical restaurant scene SFX: plates, tableware, breaking glass, screeching cats)

Mr.Hayes-Canell: So, you haven't contributed to the script since last year. Has this thing died a quiet death?

Mr.O'Connor: Last year? Really. Gosh, time flies. Well, I left the planet for a while, just sort of roaming around the cosmos a bit. There's a lot of distraction in the cosmos, y'know.

MHC: Yeah, but still. We've been working on this for like two years and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

MOC: Two years? Are you kidding me? We went 10 years between episodes before "19", and now it's been like 25 years since then. Isn't two years sort of the blink of an eye?

MHC: Well, if you hadn't noticed, none of us are getting any younger.

MOC: Age is a perception, isn't it?

MHC: So, you're going all zen and Buddhist on me, er...?

MOC: There's always been a zen floating around us. Haven't you noticed?

MHC: Oh, I thought that was just a symptom of my eyesight. So what's this all mean? What do you mean you left the planet? Existentially, I presume. I mean, you didn't get in a rocket and blast off or anything did you?

MOC: Oh, no. It's just like that book you gave me, Illusions. It's all a construct. There is no reality except the reality we make. It's easy to course through the galaxy when you're making your own reality.

MHC: Are we talking acid or something, 'cause that's not my bag.

MOC: No, no. All organic I assure you.

MHC: Why didn't you tell me you were going cosmos surfing? Maybe I would have liked to join you. You could at least have left a note or something.

MOC: You did join me, you probably just didn't realize it. Everyone joined me. Folks I love, even folks I didn't love. People who have died before us. It was pretty cool. But crowded.

MHC: So, now you're back, or what?

MOC: Well, I'm here now! I'm here today! Can any of us really guarantee any more than that?

MHC: Wow. How does a zen cosmic surfer come back to this Earth and find he can be amused by something as simple and nonsensical as The Adventures of Pazlo & Butto? Shouldn't you be meditating on the future of forever, or sitting atop a Tibetan mountain imagining you're warm and fed?

MOC: Look, I'm not sure I can explain it. Maybe it can't be explained. maybe you should re-read the book. I've discovered a few important "secrets" on my journey, one of which is the fact that there are so many more "secrets" to discover.

MHC: What are you doing with the quotation marks there? Are they not really secrets? I hate when people over-use quotation marks. And italics. Sometimes you just can't figure out what someone is trying to say.

MOC: Doesn't matter.

MHC: What do you mean "Doesn't matter."? It matters to me, that's why I asked the question.

MOC: Oh, yeah sure. That's not what I mean. I mean it doesn't really matter what people are trying to say. Or, better expressed, it doesn't matter what I'm trying to say. Or if you understand.

MHC: And now italics. Did I mention I hate the over-use of italics?

MOC: You did. I apologize. Anyway, the point is that every time I open this Pazlo box I fall in with both feet. It's the strangest thing, and one of the coolest things I know of, personally. I don't know about you, but I can jump in on a moment's notice and all of a sudden it all comes rushing back "like the wet kiss at the end of a hot fist." Okay, you can't argue with those quotation marks, 'cause it's really a quote.

MHC: Yeah, I know whatcha mean. The characters are well-established, so it's easy to pick up.

MOC: That's true. What I mean is it's almost like a time machine. The characters and the stories, the themes, the running gags, the very tone with which we write, they're kinda timeless. The characters are timeless. When we started out, we were children, fifteen, eighteen years old. Pazlo & Butto are some vague grown-up age, like thirty-seven. Now we're old and they're still thirty seven. Still hanging with the same buds, still abusing Blinds, still unable to investigate their way out of a paper bag.

MHC: I know what you mean, there. It's kind of like picking up where we left off. Only it seems like we just left off like a few years ago. Strange.

MOC: It is strange. And wonderous. And kinda magical. It's also pretty funny. Maybe it's mostly funny to me, but I like to think I have a fairly keen sense of humor, and a high benchmark for complicated, third-order humor.

MHC: You? A high benchmark? With Pazlo?

MOC: Yes, it sounds bizarre, doesn't it? Anyway, I see the "new" concept of the same old show. It's actually not new at all, but the premise of the show to begin with. It goes beyond Firesign Theater's minor references to the fact that they're supposedly recording a radio mystery in a studio. We took that concept and used it as a base and we've built a unique premise.

MHC: (sounding doubtful and questioning) Really?

MOC: Yeah. We not only do the Firesign stuff, like refer to a studio door or say we lost our script. In our show, the show is about... well... the show.

MHC: (scolding) AHT! AHT! Italics!

MOC: How can you hear the italics when I talk?

MHC: Part of the phenomena, references to the written page while we're vocalizing lines.

MOC: Yes! Yes of course! Another example of our phenomena. There have been shows about the radio station, like WKRP In Cincinnatti, and shows about radio shows, like Remember WENN, but what we have is unique. It's about the writers trying to write the script, and the writers are the characters, and the whole studio and the show are an important part. Who owns the studio and the production company. Butto using all of Paz's credit cards without his knowledge, Butto's brother-in-law owning the studio, the development of the buyout by Blinds and Butto and the hostile takeover by GWP.

MHC: Yeah, but that's a "show about a show". Oh, Christ, now you've got me doing the italics. How is our show about a show different than others?

MOC: Yeah, it;s a show about a show, but also about the actors who play the characters. There's the characters and the actors and the writers and the guys that own the company or the studio, then on top of that is the actual case itself! And on top of that is the private lives of the characters and the actors that play the characters.

MHC: You're getting over-excited and repeating yourself, but I think I get the idea.

MOC: I'm not sure I can put it in words. It's like the saying about the journey being about not getting to the destination.

MHC: You mean "it's not the destination, but the journey".

MOC: I do. And I knew I could get you to use more italics.

MHC: Of course you did, you're writing my lines.

MOC: See! It's just that level of complex humor that I love about this thing. In a way, it's vicariously living as Pazlo, in the short bursts, the moments in time when he's in my head and I am in his. It's better than meditation. It's a security and an escape and a fun-filled lark and a link to my past and my greatest best friend ever and a certain endlessness...a perpetuity.

MHC: Whoa! Perpetuity? What the hell are you talking about?

MOC: Sure. These guys, all of them, Marsh, Butto, Buxley, Pazlo, Blinds, Moritorium, Yahtzee, they never change. They go on forever at the same age and slow wit as ever. In fact, when you & I shuffle off the mortal coil and return to the dust from which we are made, Pazlo & Butto will still be here. They'll outlast us, and they'll be as young and beautiful and nonsensical and funny as they ever were.

MHC: Kinda makes you want to treat me with more respect doesn't it? Co-maker of perpetuity.

MOC: Co-makers of perpetuity. We're making our own legacy!

MHC: Legacy seems a bit too...oh...legitimate. We're just goofing around with a script.

MOC: Of course we are. That's why we have 1186 pages to winnow down to two dozen before we can even block the scenes!

BLI: Block the scenes? This is radio? What's to block? You stand there and I'll stand here?

MOC: With all due respect, shut up Blinds.

BLI: Stuff it with your ridiculous existential surrealist bullshit you're dishing out.

MOC: I love that guy!

MHC: Okay. Let me think about this. It'll take a lot of coffee and multiple replays of This Island Earth.

PAZ: If you guys are done yakking, we could get on with these script revisions.

MOC: That's "yacking".

PAZ: Have you looked at what Mr.Butto is riding?

MOC: Oh. I see.

DIRECTOR: Uh, we're going home now. It's five o'clock.

MOC: But the clock is just a construct. Time is not holding us, time is not after us.

MHC: What happened to your little quote thingies there on the Talking Heads lyrics?

MOC: You caught that, eh?

DIRECTOR: Don't forget to set the alarm when you leave.

MHC: So, back to the show. How will we finish this episode?

MOC: Details, details. Remember we have all the time in the world.

MHC: Nothing lasts forever.

MOC: No, but I'll give you the first 40,000 years.

MHC: I'll put the coffee on.

(Throwing of a switch can be heard)

PAZ: Hey, who turned out the lights?

Chapter 138: Writer's block

(Scene opens to sounds of a shoulder being repeatedly thrown against a door)

PAZ: Damn! The writers blocked the door! We can't get to the cafeteria.

BLI: Who can blame them after Wednesday's little episode?

BUT: It's probably just stuck, like the plot for our show.

PAZ: Whoa! Hey! Plots now? Aren't we getting a little fancy for a low-budget show?

BUT: Usually there's some kind of theme, some running subject that threads through an episode to shape a beginning, middle and end.

PAZ: Buncha baloney.

BLI: I thought the show just ended?

BUT: Whadya mean baloney? They do this all the time on TV.

PAZ: AHAH! See! That's where they get you!

BUT: Uh...what..what do you mean there?

PAZ: Like a show needs to have a beginning and end and stuff. They'll fill your head full of that and next thing you know the show's over.

BUT: Well, yeah, that's sorta the idea.

PAZ: E tu, Bhutto?

BUT: How long have you been waiting to use that gem?

BLI: Could you guys shut up and help me get this door open, I'm starving.

PAZ: You and your eating. It really needs to stop.

BLI: But if...

BUT: Here, Blinds (shuffling noise digging through lunch bag), here's a TommyKnocker Bar, a can of Red's Okra juice and half a penguin salad sandwich. That should hold you over to the next break.

BLI: (mouth filled, eating voraciously) Thank you! Thank you!

PAZ: Come on! You're spitting crumbs all over the table.

BUT: So, just curious, where's the rest of the cast?

PAZ: The cast? Hell, I got that thing off months ago. Just have to wear this brace at night.

BLI: He means the cast of the show you blithering old goat. Why don't you pay attention?

PAZ: So why is HE here then?

BUT: Well, aside from being one of the producers, he's also part of the cast.

PAZ: Last I knew, we were walking into a huge warehouse looking for Detective Marsh, with an Irish guy that kept wanting people to rip his liver out and pop out his eyeballs and stuff. Weird.

BUT: That was before our funding was cut. We need to re-work the script a little to pare it down.

BLI: (mouth full) Did you say pears?

PAZ: Re-work it? Pare it down to what extent?

BLI: Pears! I want the pears!

BUT: Please shut up, Blinds. We need to cut the script from the eleven-hundred eighty-six pages we now have down to about 30.

PAZ: That shouldn't be too difficult, just cut all the scenes where Blinds is eating.

BLI: (mouth full) I'll starve!

PAZ: Good.

BUT: You won't starve. This is only your day job, remember?

BLI: They never have food over at Sunbright...er...

PAZ: Sunbright Studios? When were you over there?

BUT: Traitor!

PAZ: Are they still looking for people, or...

BUT: PAZLO! How could you?

PAZ: Well, as long as these writers aren't coming up with anything here...

BUT: We need to hunker down and edit this script! We won't be done with this for weeks!

BLI: (mouth full) Leeks! I love leeks!

PAZ: The only leaks we have are in the studio roof. Stop spitting on me!

BLI: Why don't you stuff it, old timer.

PAZ: Pigeon-brain! I'll kill you for that.

(SFX: phone rings)

BLI: (mouth full) Hello? Mr.Thamalancham! How are you?

PAZ: Is this scene over yet? I need a drink.

BLI: (mouth full) Yes, I can be over by six. Great. See you then. (to BUT:): Six o'clock.

BUT: Yeah, okay.

PAZ: Six o'clock what?

BUT & BLI: NOTHING!

BUT: Er..nothing to concern yourself over..

PAZ: Wait, isn't Thamalancham over at Sunbright?

BLI: You remember Tom..he..

BUT: WELL! Look at the time! Geez, I gotta go feed my air ferns before I leave for home..

BLI: But what about our gig?

BUT: Giggles! Yes! We had some great giggles today, but it's time to wrap it up.

BLI: Wraps? I love wraps! What kind do you have?

PAZ: Wait a minute, something's smelling fishy here...

BUT: Probably Blinds.

BLI: Fish? I love fish? Where is it?

PAZ: Over there, through that door.

(steps, door opening, traffic/noise outside, door closes).

BUT: You know that's the fire exit, right, and we were just replacing the fire escape outside that door?

PAZ: Gee. Ya don't say. Got any more of those wraps?

BUT: I'll put the coffee on, it's going to be a long week.

(muffled voice from outside, chewing food: BLI: Coffee! I love coffee!


Roll credits.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, Mr.O'Connor, this is a radio show, you know. We don't roll credits.

Mr.O'Connor: Did you say rolls? I love rolls.