February 25, 2001

You Always Ruin Things

Two people on stage are sitting at a card table on an otherwise empty stage. Person Two has a deck of playing cards and plays solitare on the table. Person One tries to get the attention of Person Two, who remains seemingly oblivious to Person One and continues to play solitaire.

Person One:

"He would kill us if he got the chance," NOT "He would kill us if he got the chance."

(3 second pause)

Number Eight changes everyone's mind and they find the defendant innocent.

(pause)

It was Earth the whole time.

(pause)

Soylent Green is people.

(long pause)

Bruce Willis is a ghost.

(long pause)

"Rosebud" is Charles Foster Kane's sled.

(long pause)

The Matrix is a giant virtual-reality program created by artificial intelligences who drain humans for energy.

(long pause)

That woman in "The Crying Game" is actually a man.

(long pause)

Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.

(shorter pause)

(with mocking, increased enthusiasm) Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks.

(shorter pause)

(with the same enthusiasm) E. T. goes home.

(long pause)

By using cynically-named Food for Peace aid, the United States government killed wheat exports from Colombia in the 1950s. This, along with violent compulsion by rich landowners and anti-poor policies in the 1991 Colombian constitution, forced poor Colombian peasants to grow the only economically feasible crop available--coca. The United States responded by training and funding paramilitaries to attack the peasants whose plight we caused under the pretext of a drug war, escalated in the year 2000 by a two-year Clinton Administration military aid package of $1.6 billion. This continues a pattern set by the United States in places like--

(at this point, Person Two, visibly disgusted, throws the cards across the table at Person Two, interrupting Person One and responding loudly)

Person Two:

God, will you shut up already? You always ruin things.

CURTAIN **

Bibliography

**

  1. Chomsky, Noam. The Colombia Plan: April 2000. Z Magazine, June 2000. "
Tags: