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7/30/2019 Williamsburg Bums

1/10

Williamsburg Bums

By Ben Zucker

CAST:

Kurt Cobain, as he was at the time of his suicide

Jack Kerouac, as he was at the time of his deathAndy Warhol, Factory-era

Ensemble of filthy hipsters (2m, 3f)(The total number of outfits, though, should number four times as much, and upon different entrances,

different outfits should be assembled.)

SCENE:

A modern-day coffeeshop storefront, with a few tables and chairs under an awning. The coffee

shop should be generic, but in design strongly resemble a Starbucks.At the front of the stage are an ensemble of filthy hipsters, engaging in mimed conversation.

They should act like they don't care. They should wear various hipster apparel like scarves, freaky

colored tights, massive headphones, flannel, army surplus, tshirts with weird quotes, beards, rimmedglasses, satchels/manpurses, beanies, clothing distinctly not of this time, caps, gauges, tight pants, etc.

etc. etc. meh.

From the storefront, Kurt Cobain is watching them. He is sitting on a table with his feet on achair, hunched forward, staring at them with a combination of fascination and despondency, mostly the

latter. He takes long drags from a cigarette and lets the smoke just seep out of his mouth.

Jack Kerouac walks into the coffeeshop, and a few seconds later emerges with some kind of

alcohol that should not reasonably come from a coffeeshop. He sits at a different table and begins toslowly drink. Kurt gives Jack a sideways glance, looks back at the hipsters, and sighs.

KURT: I think I'm in hell.

JACK: Hm?

KURT: Forget it.

Jack shrugs, and continues drinking. The hipsters leave the stage. Once they're gone, Kurt hops down

and sits down in a chair this time.

KURT: God fucking dammit.

JACK: You're off to a good start, now take it somewhere.

KURT: Did you see them?

JACK: I see a lot of things.

KURT: Okay, fine, smartass, did you hear them?

JACK: Okay, no.


2/10

KURT: Just, just...God.

JACK: All right, what is it? Let it out.

KURT: They wouldn't shut up aboutIn Utero. They wouldn't stop it with all this fake appreciation for

how deep it was and misquoting every other fucking lyric and claiming it saved their life. They went

on about how I bucked some trend or something and then they start saying I sold out. They couldn'tmake up their fucking mind. And then they do the same thing to Iggy Pop. And then one kid starts

talking about using his trust fund money to buy a thirty foot spread poster of Che Guevera? Spoiled

fucking kids.

JACK: (Merely bemused) Sounds like you're taking it awfully personally.

KURT: Well, fuck, of course I am. It's my album. But whatever, I've given up. Last night I told Boddah

about people like that. But here I am now, and they just keep going on, and that's why I'm in hell.

JACK: Did you sweat for God? He once told me that my life was going to be pain and end in salvation,and I suppose I got there through my works. Did you sweat for God? If you feel good about what you

did, what does it matter? You're saved.

KURT: You never worked for a record label. And God never worked for me.

JACK: Whew. Here, have some of this. It's not exactly sweet release but it's enough. (He hands Kurtthe bottle. Kurt takes several extremely deep swigs from it, before Jack gently pulls it away and takes

his own deep swigs. Meanwhile, another smaller group of hipsters walks into the coffee shop; these

should be from the same ensemble, but with different clothes.)

KURT: Look at them. He's wearing Buddy Holly sunglasses and Joy Division leather. And tweed. What

the hell. Where's your allegience lie?

JACK: Allegiance to your clothes?

KURT: Where are you from, the fifties? That's what it's all about now. It's not the flag or God orcountry, it's punk or glam, which are both put out by the same record company. It's Chuck Taylor or

Doc Marten. It's MTV or...well, MTV.

JACK: Can't you just get away from it? Go to a mountain. Go on the road. You sound like you're

trapped in your choices, but don't you realize that you don't have to make them at all? Once you stop

making choices like choices is when you begin to be free.

KURT: What you don't realize is that not making a choice is just another choice. If I went to a

mountain, soon everyone would be going into nature for the latest head trip, like the hippies, but it's

only because I was doing it. And they'd bring all the trappings of home, so there's pretty trees but noscary forest. Not making choices, being free and without thought, it's so cool to them. They love giving

the impression that they don't give a shit, because it makes their attention all the more authentic, even

though they're so goddamn inauthenticly not giving a shit.

JACK: Thought without action isn't not giving a shit. It's a careful practice.


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KURT: Tell that to them.

(The hipsters leave the coffeeshop jittering and giggling and screaming over something the audience

shouldn't be able to make out. They run offstage as Andy Warhol casually leaves the coffeeshop with amassive frappecino. Kurt and Jack look over in confusion.)

ANDY: Ah! What a beautiful day! The sun is shining and the people are busy and this coffee is barelycoffee but it tastes great!

JACK: What was all that?

ANDY: Well, I was inside, minding my own business and a few other people's, when they started

swarming me and talking about how much they loved me. They were all abuzz, it was frenetic andterrifying in an awe-inspiring way. One girl held up her bag to my face, and on it was a silkscreen of

Marilyn Monroe. They called me a genius, though they couldn't find any other words really about me,

and I gave them the time of day and they left the same way they came in. It made my day, you know?

Praise without reason is the surest sign of success, I think. There's nothing to judge, they've left your artbehind and they're giving their evaluation ofyou like you were some fabulous six-foot multimedia

canvas. Now I don't have to make art anymore!

KURT: Why the hell would you want them to evaluate you? What's the point? They're gonna hate you

if you stop making art, but then again they'll hate you no matter what you do.

ANDY: Oh my, someone's wrong and upset. Have some of this, it'll perk you up. (Offers Kurt the

frappecino)

KURT: (Rejecting it without looking at it) I'm from Seattle, they piss better coffee than that.

ANDY: Really? I'll have to try some. Do they sell it around here?

KURT: No, and that's the point. If they sold it everywhere, it would be soulless big business swill. If I

ever drank the coffee back there, I'd know it was made by a real human being.

ANDY: They sell Coca-Cola everywhere, and that's got more soul than any other drink I can think of.

When you see Coke, you think of Santa Claus, I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, college

football, high school soda jerks, and all those good memories. When you taste your coffee, you'retasting your life as defined by a city. When everyone drinks Coke, they're tasting their lives. Period.

(Sips the frappecino) And now when I taste coffee, I'm going to think of how people praise me for

reasons they can't explain beyond having my art on their bags. It has this inviting aura to it, even

though it's just a cup of coffee. If it had been Coke? Same thing.

JACK: When I think of Coke, I think of the military-industrial complex.

ANDY: Take the good with the bad.

KURT: You don't really think people think of their drinks like that?

JACK: People are scared, they're confused, they're receving information at a million billboards a

second they turn to stuff like that like the old Orthodox icons, and same way their souls are in trouble.


4/10

Now I like to think that they have a way of saving themselves, that they have the potential, but (A

hipster walks by, and they all stop and look as he or she walks by, and then Jack returns without

skipping a beat) they seem to think the only way to save themselves is by looking funny and talking

big, like the hippies, I guess. Except they actually did things.

KURT: Like get chewed up by police dogs in Chicago.

ANDY: And get shot.

JACK: What I'm saying is, they want ideas, they can only see things, and so they think the ideas are inthe things. I don't drink to be like Hemingway; I drink for the release, like he did. It's much simpler that

way.

KURT: So are people afraid of themselves? Do they hate themselves so much that they need to be

someone else and take their words?

ANDY: Oh, hardly! Celebrities don't really exist. Normal people don't really exist for that matter either.

KURT: Fond wishing.

ANDY: They exist to validate us. So you look into people and see someone to hate to throw it off you

for one more day. I see a market. (Another hipster enters) Speaking of, excuse me.

(Jack and Kurt watch as Andy walks up to the hipster, and starts a silent, but visibly friendly

conversation. Andy pulls a soup can out of his pocket, at which the hipster becomes visibly excited and

grabs for it. Andy and the hipster perform a quick sale for the soup can, and he walks back to the

coffeeshop front.)

JACK: So what you're saying is, people will buy any random junk?

ANDY: It's not random junk. I signed it. I should think that makes it awfully important. They're not

buying the can, they're buying me. Think of the comfort they'll get from telling their friends that they

own Andy? Modern comfort is funny; food and shelter is given, so now we're hunting and gathering forthe feeling of identity.

KURT: You're not being bought. They don't care about you. They act like it, but they really don't care.You're right, fucking celebrities don't exist to them.You want them to imitate you badly and accuse you

of selling out because they bought everything you offered?

ANDY: I don't care if they care about me, or if they're getting me right. I care if they know my name,then you know it's all worked out.

KURT: You don't know a fucking thing about art.

ANDY: Sure I do. I just sold some, that takes some sort of understanding.

KURT: It was a goddamn soup can!

ANDY: And?


5/10

KURT: And you're telling me that it's beautiful and emotionally charged?

ANDY: I spent a year living off cans of soup. If I didn't have those cans of soup, I would've beenhungry, so seeing those cans is in fact beautiful because I'm going to get to live another day and get

even more beautiful soup. If we had to eat the Mona Lisa for lunch, we certainly wouldn't appreciate it.

KURT: Where's the spirit? Where's the craftsmanship? Where's your authentic touch?

ANDY: It was me. My spirit came up with the idea, I crafted it onto reality, and if it wasn't authentic,why hadn't it been done and sold already?

KURT: Okay, fine, you're selling yourself. You're a whore.

ANDY: Oh, you're selling me short.

KURT: What do care about the truth! You're as bad as (A group of hipsters walk by) THEY ARE! God Iwish I could help you people.

ANDY: (Surveying them as they walk offstage) Yes, yes I am. I'm searching for the pulse of thecommoner's truth, and it's a rather unreal and savage thing. Look at them, mercilessly consuming

symbolism. We've succeeded! As artists, that is. What is it one famous person or another said, all art

aspires to real life? Art imitates life? It's quite the reverse now. We choose our life to make it artistic.We aspire to make our life like television, and everyone from the president to the bum on the corner is

channel surfing his tastes. It's all they can do now.

KURT: No. No fucking way. You can't. I can't. They can't. This is too much. I feel for you. No. Somuch faking. Shit, is everybody else also going to do that?! They can't! I don't want them to. No.

(Jumps out of his seat, and runs offstage)

(Beat)

ANDY: (To Jack) What kind of car do you think the Buddha would drive?

JACK: What? Hm. I don't know.

ANDY: It's an important question, I can tell you know. The average American driver would really like

to place themselves above the sufferings of the automotive industry, and make himself free of the desire

of luxury while making sure he was really right in its lap.

JACK: It's hard to get a car when you've given up on wordly possessions.

ANDY: He can write it off his spirutual taxes, he didn't have thousands of square miles to enlighten.

JACK: Fine. Something older. It would come from himself, from his own work and sweat. And it

would never stick out. An old Ford Sedan.

ANDY: I always liked picturing the Buddha in a Jaguar E-Type.


6/10

JACK: But that invalidates your whole point.

ANDY: True. How about a motorcycle? Really gets the do-it-thyself vibe going.

JACK: Maybe. But it's noisy, it'd be impossible to meditate next to that. Some of the best mediation

takes place on those long stretches of highway where the road becomes infinity.

ANDY: Then again, would he need to meditate if the Buddha was enlightened in modern times? What

if he meditated just by turning on the television.

JACK: No, television most definitely causes suffering.

ANDY: I was watching John Charles Daly the other night, and I never saw anybody as at peace withhimself.

JACK: It will never compare to watching the sunrise over the Cascades.

(A shot goes off from offstage. Jack looks over in concern, Andy visibly flinches before turning towardsthe source of the sound as composed as possible. Another several shots go off. Kurt stumbles back

onstage, waving around a shotgun, even more distraught than he already was.)

KURT: Oh god. Fuck. Oh god. What is going on. Oh god.

JACK: Are you okay?

KURT: Something's going on. Something's messed up here. Really messed up.

ANDY: Well you can't just leave it at that.

KURT: I can't die.

ANDY: Most people could only be so lucky.

KURT: I tried to shoot, it went off, there was smoke, there was kick, there was the sound, it was loaded,but nothing ever hit me. Every time. I checked. This isn't right. What the hell is going on?

JACK: Take it as a sign?

KURT: That something is incredibly fucked up? We're not gods, we're fucked up little people.

ANDY: (Cautiously backing away from the gun) That's the best part, now, come on, put it down...

JACK: He's right. Be calm about this. Why bother going through with this?

KURT: I'm desolate. I couldn't deal with it when people liked me. I can stand it a little more when

people hated me. But when people just don't give a shit? If there's no more passion anywhere? Just

posturing? I hate it. If they've been faking it, everything, as much as I have but screw me over for itanyway, it's not fair. For them, for me, they should just be without me, for everyone's sake, before

someone starts being fake again.


7/10

JACK: (Increasingly desperate) I've been desolate. I've been an imposter. What is it, you can't stand the

fame and attention? People don't understand you? I get it. Can't live the life you want to live? I get it.

It's an impossible task, but one that you can not give up on. You have already reached the eternity,

believe me, the good things have reached you, and will reach you with work. You've sweated so much,and sure there's pain, but it's going to end in a glorious golden experience. Don't let them get to you.

Don't let yourself get to you! Don't be conflicted, there is nothing to be conflicted about, except to just

do as you do.

ANDY: Who cares if you're real or not? People

(Kurt wheels around and fires the gun on Andy. It looks like an actual shot, for all intents and purposes

except nothing happens. Everyone flinches for a while, before coming to and realizing nothing has

happened. A group of hipsters stands off the side of the stage, the events in the center not in their radar

at all.)

JACK: Oh god.

ANDY: Thank god!

KURT: Jesus Christ!

ANDY: Now that we know no one's going to die, can we stop trying?

JACK: What is going on?

KURT: Like I said, we're in hell. That must be it. We're surrounded by people who don't care, and

there's no escape.

JACK: It's like a test.

ANDY: It's like a New Wave movie.

(Upon hearing the phrase, the cluster of hipsters perk up and look around, exclaiming various thingslike I love New Wave! It's so not Hollywood I watched Breathless in 32mm in the original

French Really, though, 1980s Bulgarian films is where it's at)

ANDY: I always wanted to be in one of those.

JACK: It isn't real. Everything's formless anyway, before the Mind.

KURT: So it's just a nightmare?

JACK: Well, we're always trying to wake up from life, in a manner of speaking.

ANDY: It's like watching television and you feel like you should get off your ass.

KURT: You're both so...figured out? Content.

JACK: I wouldn't use those words to describe myself.


8/10

ANDY: I'm quite content to only keep watching the television that is reality.

JACK: We're all floundering in reality. I went into cities and into forests and thought I'd find it, but tono avail. I had to write my reality.

ANDY: And that's why I run a Factory.

KURT: Fuck, wait, soup cans, factory...are you Andy Warhol?

ANDY: I like to think so.

KURT: But...you're dead.

ANDY: Evidentially not. No one can die, so I think that's not really an excuse anymore. Like you

(points to Jack) you drank yourself to death! Mr. Kerouac. We all mourned your passing exquisitely.

KURT: What the fuck.

JACK: (To Kurt) And that makes you...

KURT: No one you guys would know. Let's just say that I'm also poetic, and also ravaged by

commercialism.

ANDY: It's not being ravaged if you're turning a profit and becoming famous.

JACK: So dead people meet up but they're not dying. What is the purpose, then?

ANDY: Sick entertainment. I mean, it's like the beginning of a bad bar joke!

KURT: We've been left to moan and be introspective.

JACK: We're like shadows on the wall of a cave. Questionably there, but meaning something.

KURT: Poetic.

JACK: Exactly.

KURT: But wait, then how did you (Points to Andy) sell the can to that guy?

ANDY: I don't know; he's an extra?

JACK: And your adoring fans?

KURT: In general, what is it with these people? They dress so carefully, but act like they don't care,

they love and hate on a whim, but they do through everyone else's stuff.

ANDY: Aha! The artist's sacred mission is handed down to him. We are called upon to find meaning in

this absolutely ridiculous life, unlife, whatever it is, we are surrounded by. We have been called upon to


9/10

interpret, because either the public doesn't trust us, or they're going to idolize us no matter what.

KURT: That's a big job. I never asked for that. People made me their idol, I never asked to be made

one.

JACK: Well from the way you put, you sound like less an idol than a thrift store aisle.

ANDY: But isn't that we all are these days.

JACK: Even in my day, they wanted to make a Hollywood movie about us and got it horribly wrong.

KURT: I went to the thrift stores because they were cheap! It was there, it wasn't cool.

ANDY: Well, now it is. It's as cool as anyone wants it to be.

JACK: Cool. What a fucked-up word.

KURT: Seriously. Even now, nobody agrees on what it is.

ANDY: Well, everyone wants to agree. It validates all the cool people.

KURT: But it's cool to stick out?

JACK: And be the outsider?

ANDY: What a glorious paradox!

KURT: So what is this, the end of culture as we know it?

JACK: It confirms that conformity is an absolute sham and trap.

ANDY: Conformity is comfort. That's never going to die.

JACK: So can everyone just be comfortable being an outsider?

KURT: Shit, that's why they don't care. They're all the outsider together. What a lonely existence.

ANDY: It's a lonely existence because they've stopped looking for novelty. Shouldn't they be so bored

and not care enough that they want to find something new?

JACK: Well, all the new comes from the old. If there's anything I've learned from my work, it's that you

can't manufacture something new.

ANDY: Oh, definitely not. When I manfacture something and silkscreen it and put on bags and

bedroom walls, I'm drawing attention to it, but I need something to draw from.

KURT: Are you saying commercialization is inevitable? Well fuck.

JACK: It gives you something to work against. You'll find it.


10/10

ANDY: The conflict never ends. It's what makes art interesting!

(The crowd of hipsters turns around and, noticing the three artists seated in front of the coffeeshop,

awkwardly turn and start to gawk at them, who silently muse. There is another rush of hushedcomments, like Nevermind was the album of my middle school years. One day I want to go on the

road like the Beats, but I want to find a nice hotel. God, Edie Sedgwick was a hottie. Gradually,

though, they all shrug, and wander off, looking for the next new thing. Kurt, Jack, and Andy watchedthem leave bemusedly.)

ANDY: Wait, did they recognize us?

JACK: If this is a fiction, it's a poorly crafted one.

(Lights)

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