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writer's block
it is not fiction. i wish it were, but to me, writer's block is definitely a reality. i haven't written a word in probably well over two weeks now. and it's funny, because i've been trying to write two books at the same time, specifically to solve my bouts of writer's block. i figured, when i got stumped on cooler than the millions, i'd just easily move onto live acoustic (open fire). however, that is not the case. writer's block seems to block... indiscriminately.at any rate, i've got a few ideas. at first cooler than the millions was going to be very much like desert sessions in that there wasn't going to be much of a plot; more like a bunch of ideas strung along together by a couple tiny character arcs. instead, i've opted to go for a high concept, plot-heavy sort of deal, kind of like this is hardcore, where the plot ends up only a little gimmicky.
at any rate, i figured today was the day that i would revisit old work. really old work, in some cases. i've been looking for inspiration, and all i found was crap. at any rate, for my own humiliation and your amusement, here is a play i wrote back in 1995, grade 12 creative writing class with two of my friends, brett semenzin and jason bedford. we had to write a play for class, and none of us had ever written a play, nor knew how one was structured, so we wrote this in a half an hour, pretty much as a joke. we decided to take winnie the pooh and ruin everyone's childhoods. i believe we rip off everything from drug movies to shakespeare. still, it was fun, and it's quite blasphemous. i think we had all just finished watching reservoir dogs and pulp fiction. it's called, in which christopher robin learns a lesson of life. (it has not been edited or touched in any way shape or form since i first finished it). i believe we got a c- on it. enjoy.
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In Which Christopher Robin Learns a Lesson of Life
By: Jason Bedford, Brett Semenzin and Loring Kim. Creative Writing 12
Characters
Christopher Robin Tigger
Winnie the Pooh Rabbit
Eeyore Kanga
Scene I
[In front of Winnie's home. A bleeding and torn Christopher runs in from rightstage. Winnie is leaning against a stone at center stage.]
Winnie - Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh. Where the heck are you? Smokin' dope with Elizabeth Shue cause I'm Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, the dopest bear around...
Christopher - [panting] Eeyore beat the crap out of me!
Winnie - [smiling] If it's any consolation a squirrel bit me.
Christopher - [desperate] Winnie you've got to help me!
Winnie - Here, I've got somethin' to make you feel real good! [handing
[Winnie shows Christopher how to use the needle. Christopher follows his advice. While Christopher is dazed, Winnie shoots up with the same needle]
Winnie - You're Goddam superman! Since you're such a good kid, I'll help you out. Let's go get that jackass!!!
Christopher - Gosh, you're the greatest pooh bear!
[exeunt to right stage]
Scene II
[Enter Eeyore from left stage and Winnie and Christopher from right stage. Meet at the peaceful centre of a forest clearing]
Winnie - Where are you going, ass!
Eeyore - I ain't lookin' for any trouble...
Christopher - Shut it! [strides forward and backhands Eeyore] How do you like it?! Take him Winnie!
Eeyore - Leave me be, pooh bear! I ain't dun nothin' to you!
Winnie - Its got nothin' to do wit me, ass! Its what you dun to my little buddy!
Eeyore - He had it coming, Little Bob! He had it coming! He stole my Granny's medicine.
Winnie - [Moving threateningly closer] I never liked your Granny anyway. She was always so skimpy with the honey.
Eeyore - You ain't all that, bear! You ain't all that!
Christopher - [screaming] I'm going to kill your ass, ass!
Eeyore - [pathetically] Dear God in Heaven, by all that's holy!
[Winnie and Christopher pounce on Eeyore, arms flailing]
Christopher - [slaps Eeyore] You think you're better than me?! You're just a mule! You're nothing! All you mules and donkeys stick together!
Winnie - Take 'im down, Chris! Take 'im down! Hold him down for me
Chris, I'm gonna curb him! [Christopher holds Eeyore down]
Christopher - I got him Winnie!
Winnie - [curbs his head] Whoa, did you see the way his head caved in?
Christopher - You're one crazy ass bear, pooh!
[exeunt to right stage]
Scene III
[Enter Christopher and Winnie from right stage, back at Winnie's home]
Christopher - That ass won't be bothering me no more. What a high, especially when you're high. [giggling]
Winnie - That donkey won't be braying for a while little buddy!
Christopher - Gee wilikers; you're so clever pooh bear! [pause] I've been meaning to ask you something. Why don't you ever where pants? I mean you wear a shirt...
Christopher - [giggling] You're so clever pooh bear!
Winnie - We deserve a good celebration. Hey, Chris, have you ever gotten some?
Winnie - Man, are you a...
Christopher - O-of course not! Are you trippin'?
Winnie - Oh yah man, I'm flyin'!
Winnie - Shutup monkey-boy! Looky looky we've got nooky.
[enter Kanga from left stage]
Kanga - Hey Christopher, I haven't seen you in a while.
Christopher - [blushing] I've been around.
Kanga - [turns to Winnie] I haven't seen you in school lately. Where have you been?
Winnie - With my buddy here. Say, you're lookin' pretty good, Kanga. Why don't you show us some pouch? We'll give you some free stuff.
Kanga - [backing away protectively] What do you mean?
Winnie - Oh come on, you'll like it. You aren't trippin' are you?
Kanga - [angered] Christopher, I'm gonna tell your mother!
Christopher - [mockingly] Ma? Ma's dead!
Kanga - Christopher, how can you disrespect your mother like that! Take that back or I'll have to box in your ears!
Winnie - [persistent] She's slammin' you man! She's slammin' you! You gonna take that?!
Christopher - No way, pooh bear!
Winnie - Beat her down, boy wonder!
Kanga - [Horrified] Now wait a minute!
Christopher - [unsure] B...but... but she's a girl!
Winnie - You tellin' me there's a difference between that and what your dad does to your mother?
Christopher - [desperate] But dad says she deserves it! She never listens, dad says!
Winnie - It's equal rights, man! Women are always moaning for equal rights. Do you think it is equal to men if we thrash a guy, and not a woman, just because she's different?
Christopher - Well... I still... [Kanga is edging away and is now on the verge of escaping]
Christopher - [on the verge of tears] No... [Kanga tries to dart away]
Winnie - She's gettin' away! [Winnie reaches her and grabs hold of her arm. His right hand is in a fist. He raises it threateningly] Where do you think you're going? Back to Austrailia?
Kanga - [crying] Please! [she cowers away] Dear lord! Sweet Jesus! [There is a sudden pause as an orange and black striped tiger bounces from left stage in singing a merry tune]
Tigger - Hoo Hoo hoo hoo, The wonderful thing about tiggers, is tiggers a wonderful thing... And so is crack.
[everyone turns to regard the creature, and while this is going on, Kanga kicks Winnie in his stomach and darts away in a rapid pace off to left stage. As Winnie is recovering, Tigger exits left stage]
Christopher - Holy moly! Did you see that thing?
Winnie - [hurt] What was it?
Christopher - I don't know. [Helps Winnie up] Are you alright? She hammered you pretty hard.
Winnie - Savages, I tell you. Bunch of savages in this forest. [Rubbing his belly] I'm gonna get that bitch...
Christopher - [reeling back in horror, mouth agape] Say it ain't so, pooh bear! Say it ain't so!
[exuent to left stage]
Scene IV
[enter Winnie and Christopher from left stage. The setting is near Rabbit's home just at center stage. It is about after noon.]
Winnie - Oh man... am I ever hungry!
Christopher - So am I, pooh bear. So am I.
Winnie - What do you propose we do, little sidekick?
Christopher - Hey! How come I'm the sidekick?
Winnie - You just are!
Christopher - Oh. [From right stage rabbit enters, walking (upstage) out into the forest]
Winnie - There's Rabbit! Hey lets go ransack his house. He's always loaded with honey and crack!
[Winnie smashes a window and they both enter through the window into the burrow. Inside, there are jars of honey lining the walls, bags of crack littering the coffee table, shelves of cassette tapes. And a table in the middle of the room with three smoking bowls of porridge.]
Winnie - Look at all this stuff! Huhhuhuhuhuhuh honey...
Christopher - [picking up a video cassette] Hey what's this Winnie?
Winnie - Huhuhuhuhuhuhuh rabbit porn...
Christopher - Look at this! [He moves to the table of porridge while Winnie is rummaging through the jars of Honey. During this, Winnie gets his head stuck in a jar of honey. Christopher tastes the first bowl] Sweet Jesus! This porridge is toooo hot! [He tasted the next bowl] Geez louise! This porridge is toooo cold! [Winnie is moaning with his head stuck in the jar]
Winnie - Uhhhh... Christ; Help! Christopher, help! Uhhhhhhh...
Christopher - Oh benedrill! I'm comin, pooh bear! [He grips Winnie's head and smashes the jar against the wall. Winnie's head comes free.]
Winnie - Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Christopher - I hear someone coming! We gotta move, now! [Christopher runs out of the burrow, stage left. Winnie tries to follow but gets stuck in the hole.] C'mon Winnie, what's stopping you!
Winnie - I'm stuck! I can't fit out the door! [Christopher tugs on Winnie but to no avail] Stop it, it hurts, dammit!
Christopher - You dumb bastard! You could have gone out the window! [Offstage Rabbit is entering] Pooh bear, Rabbit's coming back!
Winnie - [crying] I'm done for! Leave without me!
Christopher - I'm not leaving your side, pooh bear! I won't do it! [Rabbit enters, from offstage] Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! [Runs off to left stage]
Winnie - [wails] I'll see you in Hell!
[lights dim out]
Scene V
[Back in front of Winnie's home by the rock at center stage. Christopher is weeping by the rock as Winnie, severely beaten and bloody enters from leftstage.]
Winnie - [collapses, Christopher kneels at his side] Oh horrible! Horrible! That rascally rabbit got me! I can still see him now! His eyes were afire as he bent over and whispered in my ear, "I wanna be Jackie Onassis; I wanna wear a pair of dark sunglasses..."
Christopher - You're not gonna die, pooh bear! You're gonna live! Live!
Winnie - I die, Christopher. Christopher, I die... [he dies]
Christopher - [with tears in his eyes] Goodnight, sweet pooh. And may flights of angels swing thee to thy rest. [He sets Winnie's body onto the ground, and as he weeps over the body, he sees the needle clutched in Winnie's paw. He takes it, and with a single violent thrust, he plundges it into his wrist] I'm flyin' man. I'm flying. Winnie... watch me fly...
[Tigger bounces from left stage in singing a merry tune]
[The curtain falls]
- - -
She’s not the girl from the skytrain but she’ll do. Her name is Jen and she’s a small Asian girl in a black cocktail dress who under normal circumstances would be considered a visual marvel. At this point in time, I’m a lawyer or a politician to her or something: I can’t remember what I told her. She’s talking to me about how she recently dated a guy who’s biggest fantasy was for her to dress up as Marvel Girl and shove ice cubes up his ass. The woman sitting on the stool next to her leans over and says, “Oh, I’ve done that,” which makes Jen laugh hysterically. I just smile faintly and take another drink from my glass.
I’m feeling really loose now, probably too loose, with most of the day’s angst having been drowned away thanks to all the rum I’d been drinking. Anime images have replaced real models on the projection screen. Large eyed, big breasted, purple haired animated girls bounce around the screen displaying Matrix-like fighting skills, blurring the line between kiddie cartoons and soft core porn. And all the while, Jen is talking, content to display to me a vast knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson literature. At one point, she puts her hand on my arm and laments that the poor Gonzo journalist is now dust and ash and gun powder and soon to be forgotten by all except those self-nihilist fetishists still clinging to what’s left of their faded mescaline memories. When she takes her hand away, she deliberately rakes her blue nails lightly along my suit jacket.
Jen then looks right at me with her brown almond-shaped eyes and just says, “Imagine.” She takes a sip of her Cuba Libre and says, “Imagine a free
“Whatever. It’s so nineteen ninety-six,” I say between sips of my drink. My eyes roam down her slender figure to her legs and she takes care to shift them so her dress rides up higher, letting the slit up the right side of her dress part wider. I take a sip of courage from the glass and reach down to put my hand on her bare brown thigh. She doesn’t look at me but she smiles into her glass. When I move my hand up her inner thigh, she glances at me and I tell her that I’ve pretty much made all the mistakes that one life can make and she just opens her legs wider for me. She takes another sip of her drink and I am not surprised to find that she’s not wearing any underwear. There’s a guy a few feet away who’s watching the two of us but I don’t care. And suddenly I wonder what she would feel like, what she would smell like, and this causes me to pull my hand away as if I’d just touched my own sister. Jen puts her drink down on the bar and just looks at me. She asks me what’s wrong and I shrug and she says, “Talk to me,” and I lash out at her by telling her that she’s just a woman. I immediately apologize and she forgives me in such a tone that I can’t believe that I’m not ashamed. The animated women on the screen are now gripped in a passionate lesbian embrace;
Amazing.
Jen finishes her drink and says something to me, but I’m sufficiently drunk enough now that the volume to everything sounds like it has been turned down a couple of notches. She takes me by the hand and says, “Don’t look down, baby.” She pulls me off the bar stool and I stumble a bit but she catches me. We leave the dark, hole-like confines of the bar and the post-punk music to make our way up the staircase and outside to the street. It’s a warm evening, about twenty degrees and counting. She takes me around the corner where I offer her a cigarette. I cup my hands over the end of the cigarette and light it for her. The cigarette sparks and she thanks me. I find it horrible that I don’t smoke, but I carry a pack around with me just in case of moments like this. She takes a deep puff of her cigarette and leans back against the wall. She looks me up and down and takes another drag. She flicks the ashes away and says, “Lend me your hand and I’ll sing you a song.”
Streaking red and blue lights shoot past us and a wailing siren follows. I take care to give her shelter. She smiles into my neck and kisses me and soon I’ve got my tongue in her mouth and my hand up the slit of her dress. I’m a little anxious and I’m pushing way too hard but she’s not complaining. She breathes heavily into my ear as I feel the warmth of her pussy and I rub my fingers up and down the opening. She puts her arms around my neck and hugs me close. The fingers of her left hand roam up and down the nape of my neck, tracing the letter “S” while her other hand holds her cigarette delicately off to the side, careful not to get any ashes on her dress. She smells of fruit, tastes like rum and cigarettes and feels like bare, honest sin. “I’m going to hell,” I say and she grips the back of my neck as I slide a finger into her wet pussy. I work a second finger in and this inexplicably makes her giggle. I kiss her hard and push my fingers deeper into her, making her take a sharp breath into my mouth. I press myself up against her, feeling her breasts against my chest. I start to think of the girl from the skytrain again and I wonder what sorts of noises she would make. Is she the type to bite her lower lip as if almost ashamed to admit how much she’s enjoying it? Or is she the type to just let it all out, with every moan and every pant and every breath bouncing off the walls? I think of her brown hair so dark it’s almost black, with her white skin and I imagine a dark, triangular patch shaved neatly above her small pussy. The image of her suddenly splinters as I feel a sharp pain on the back of my neck. “Shit!” I say and my hand darts up to touch the nape of my neck. Jen has managed to burn me with her cigarette in the heat of the moment. She’s apologizes profusely and I just shrug it off and kiss her again, wanting desperately to get back to where we left off, but I’m not feeling it. She’s purring beneath me, but I’m not feeling it. I’ve got my hands all over her but I’m not feeling it. All I can think at this point is that she’s just another victim and so am I. Victims of circumstance. Can I deal?
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