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01. Get Tagged
INT. BASEMENT APARTMENT - WEE HOURS OF A.M.
MARIO is lying stomach-down on bed, laptop flipped open. All room lights are off, leaving his face illuminated solely by screen glow. He has just gotten tagged in a meme, again.
MARIODamn it, I hate getting tagged in a meme! Hell naw, ah will not tell you 25 quirky things about me! Number 1: there are zero quirks about me. Any time a fool call me quirky, that's hella racist. Hay-ull! Our ways are just as normal as yours.
02. Long Distance Relationship
INT. PARENTS' HOUSE - DAY (EASTERN STANDARD TIME)
MARIO is pacing bedroom talking on his cell phone with his Philippines BFF, DIEGO MUHLACH, who tends to call two or three times a year to bullshit about various bullshit, mainly the state of rock'n'roll as we know it. We hear Diego in phone-distorted voiceover.
DIEGO MUHLACHBrother, I think I have heard the future of music, and they are called S______. Have you heard of 'em?
MARIOOh yeah, S______! Wait, maybe? Actually, maybe not. That's a pretty generic-sounding name.
DIEGO MUHLACHIt's -- yeah. They're Danish or whatever. It's not a good name. It's kind of a shitty name, actually.
MARIOIt's a shitty name.
DIEGO MUHLACHBut remember a couple years ago when I wanted to start a band that was a dance band that mixed sampling with live instruments?
MARIOYeah like LCD Soundsystem or something? I remember that.
DIEGO MUHLACHLike LCD Soundsystem but with crazy eyes. Well, that's what S______ are like.
MARIOS______ have the crazy eyes?
DIEGO MUHLACHWell, if you look at them they look kind of normal and calm, but their music sounds like they have crazy eyes.
MARIOWell, dang. I'm for that.
DIEGO MUHLACHI know! They beat me to it!
MARIOI guess I have to get on the Internet after this. Isn't it 3:00 in the a.m. over there?
DIEGO MUHLACHIt's 4:00. I just had to tell you this.
03. Reconsideration
INT. BASEMENT APARTMENT - WEE HOURS OF A.M.
MARIO, typing in the dark again, is propped up on a pile of pillows with his laptop in his lap and a phosphorescent interrobang hovering a couple inches above his head (CGI). He is multi-tasking: downloading the new Erykah Badu album while reading friends' blogue entries, surfing through friends-of-friends' photo albums on Facebook, and trying to write scenes for a monster movie.
MARIODamn it, I got tagged in a meme! I'm getting linked to news of a Christmas massacre of 400 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and also getting tagged in a meme requesting that I write 11 scenes from my life in screenplay format and then tag 11 people to do the same. Stupidest meme yet. Fuck this Internet, I'm not neurotic enough to participate. Do I secretly love getting tagged in memes because it means people were thinking of me, however briefly? No, ma'am! I don't go around all day wishing people would think about me as much as I think about them. Although, although! Wouldn't that just be fair? Damn it, I do wish that people would think about me. That's the anti-solipsism, isn't it? I don't exist if they aren't thinking me up. It's the anti-solipsism but it ends up being just as selfish as solipsism, doesn't it! That's not love. What would Jesus do. Never mind him -- what would endangered Africans do? They wouldn't care about updating their blogues, but I do. Fuck me and my friends. This monster movie ain't gonna write itself.
04. You've Changed
EXT. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC SMALL TOWN - AFTERNOON
Our hero ULTIMO is driving through the poor parts. He is deep in thought and slightly anxious -- but glorious. Not much happens in this scene, but it lasts a while. He drives down a hill towards a large, modern town in the distance.
ULTIMO
(voiceover)The great thing about nostalgia is that it is irresistible even when we know it is poisonous. Ten years divide me from the boy I was, in that town -- not long enough ago to misremember the important facts, but long enough to lend even the bad days an aura of dignity and grace. We went a little crazy after Mom died, but from a nostalgic distance it looks entirely dramatically appropriate, like a scene in a movie or a video game. Like: that crazy stuff wanted to happen and had to happen in order for the scene after it to happen, and the scene after that, and the scene after that. What I wanna know is: can that sort of grace be harvested before it is ripe? It seems vaguely inefficient to have to wait 10 years to turn crazy into good, and it's downright uncivilized to yearn for old pain after most of the painfulness of the pain has been bled away! Ah, wasteful, barbaric nostalgia!
Eventually he enters a resort town, looking above himself with curiosity while driving deftly and considerately into town.
ULTIMO (CONT'D)Is this Disney World? I have to admit that I like Disney World. I feel nostalgic for Disney World. Ain't that a thing, feeling nostalgic for something that is made of nostalgia. Did you know that nobody is allowed to die in Disney World? If you die in Disney World, your body must be removed from the premises before a doctor can proclaim you dead -- house rules. Disney employees are forbidden from fucking other Disney employees. No facial hair allowed except for a neatly-trimmed moustache; only the animatronic Abe Lincoln is exempt. No flirting with guests, even if you are a mermaid. Actors must remain in character for as long as they are costumed. Actors must never be photographed with their giant heads removed. This town, this damn town! It has a beautiful giant head now. There used to be more stray dogs around. Don't tell me: now they are on leashes, singing that "It's a Small World" song. Every time I hear that fucking song, my world really does shrink to the size it was when I was 12, ain't that a thing. Mom would have something to say on this topic, for sure. "It is against the nature of mermaids not to flirt," she might say. "Mi hijo, if you stop a mermaid from getting what she wants, watch your step."
05. Los desaparecidos
INT. BASEMENT APARTMENT - WEE HOURS OF A.M.
CU of laptop screen, following cursor as it moves right as MARIO types a sentence.
MARIO
(voiceover, matching typing speed)I find myself diving deeper and deeper inside Ultimo's head. Is this a form of anti-solipsism, to imagine a character's interior monologue and feel feelings for parents who aren't mine?
06. O Mirror In The Sky, What Is Love?
EXT. FRENCHMEN STREET, NEW ORLEANS - NIGHT
KDOLLARSIGN, holding a translucent cup half full of a Belgian ale, walks, swerves drunkenly around a lamppost. A lightbulb appears above her head (CGI), and she pauses before a giant stuffed polar bear that somebody has won from a carnival and then abandoned on somebody else's front stoop.
KDOLLARSIGNLove is looking at someone and seeing them instead of yourself looking at them.
07. It's A Man's World, Boy
EXT. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC SMALL TOWN - DAWN
YOUNG ULTIMO, walking to school at dawn through a shitty neighborhood, looks at passing trucks and watches a mobile phone construction project unfolding in the hills above. Possible B-roll of poor wastewater management?
YOUNG ULTIMO
(singing, sort of)La Ciguapa, la Ciguapa, la Ciguapa, pa pa lah! She climbs the walls like Spider-Man, does whatever a She-Hulk can! They say you are ugly and black and green, but you are not the ugliest I've ever seen! They say you are ugly and black and blue; when I fell on my face, I was, too! María la O, María la O, tu madre es puta y la mía no! Now we are ugly and black and brown, what will you climb when the walls fall down?
08. The Death Of Kevin Shields Of My Bloody Valentine
INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY
MARIO sits attentively at the bedside of KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINE (the cat). Kevin is hooked up to several monitors and an oxygen tube. He is surrounded by stuffed animals, some of which have been clawed to shreds.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEThis is not how I expected to go. What do you think I am, a premature baby?
MARIOI thought you might find it poetic, dying like a baby.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEYou know how babies die? The same way they sleep, with poop in their drawers!
MARIOWell, in that case, you slept like a baby last night.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEUck. You let them put a diaper on me? This is humiliating. I know they have a litter pan around here somewhere. It's a hospital, everybody goes in a litter pan.
MARIOCome on, mane, you know you have been shitting in inappropriate places around the house for some time now.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEI prefer to call it "thinking outside the box".
MARIO"Colouring outside the lines", yes, have it your way. Pops wanted to have you killed the first time you did that, you know. You shoulda been dead a long time ago, if I hadna stepped in and defended you.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEHe's a racist!
MARIOHe's not a racist. Those are just the rules. When cats start ruining furniture, they become an endangered species.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEWhat did you expect me to do? We had the strange Iranians living in the basement, cock-blocking my litterbox. I can't hang with strangers. I can't hang with terrorists. Not on my turf.
MARIONow who's racist!? I don't understand why cats are so bad at adapting to new situations.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEWe are who we are. We're not like Filipinos -- always second-guessing themselves, always getting colonized, in the head if not on the land ...
Mario reaches out and grabs Kevin by the throat.
MARIOYou take that back. You fucking take that back right fucking now.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINE
(choking)Do I ... have to remind you ... whose deathbed this is?
MARIO
(letting go)I'm sorry, cat.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINE
(shaking it off)Yeah.
MARIOIt's just that I'm getting older, too, and I have no desire to be one thing.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEYou're jealous. I am one thing; and I always have been; and I can't help it; and you're jealous.
MARIOYeah. No! Yeah. Yeah, I'm jealous.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEWould it help if I told you I am jealous of you, also?
MARIONo.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEGood, because that's a lie.
MARIOYou're taking your sweet time, dying.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEYeah. Isn't there something you want to say to me?
MARIOLike what.
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINESomething you never said to me before.
MARIOYou mean "I love you"? I'm pretty sure I have said that before; I'm pretty sure you have it in writing as Clause 1 of the owner/pet contract; I'm pretty sure you're psychic, anyhow, so you know everything I say whether or not I say it; and I'm pretty sure you don't love me, so what's the point?
KEVIN SHIELDS OF MY BLOODY VALENTINEThe point is you love your dying cat, and you have to say it out loud for the movie.
MARIOListen, can you just not die? Don't die, cat. Just don't, all right? It's very stupid. What movie?
09. Th Birds And Th Bees
INT. MASSIVE SUBURBAN SHOPPING MALL - DAY
MARIO sits on an otherwise empty bench, scribbles furiously in a moleskine pocket notebook in deep purple ink. Various people walk by -- some carrying shopping bags, some looking very strange, indeed.
MARIO
(voiceover)This is not a novel, but it is a novel. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Well, it doesn't have an end yet, but it will. It already has an end, at some point. In fact I am looking back on it now and remarking (to myself), "What a fine ending that was that you came up with, MZA!" The only challenging part was that everything in the novel had to happen in life. It started when my girlfriend broke up with me, so that had to be in the novel. That was an auspicious start, since everybody loves other people's breakups: lucky. And the fun, unchallenging part was that it was all written down on the Internet, where anybody who wanted could see it. Anybody could write in with their own ideas, and their ideas would move the novel forward. Both "real-life" (or "RL") events and Internet "events" moved the novel "forward". What was strange and absolutely normal was when Internet events intersected RL events. I began to meet the Internet people and befriend them in a way that would have been unimaginable just a few years prior. In this way, the first chapter of the novel -- which I will call The Chapter On Science -- was intensely experimental and new to me. New ways of telling stories revealed themselves to me practically every day; and I tried to incorporate these methods and techniques into the novel, with predictably mixed results. The novel ended when Gordon committed suicide. I wrote his death into the novel and tried to thank him for giving me a good ending, but I really felt the opposite of thankful about the whole deal for a long time. I don't like to say this out loud too much, but suicide is one of the few normal things I have a hard time thinking of as normal. The novel kept on going, out of habit, but it was no longer a science project. I didn't care. I just wanted to make people laugh.
He stops writing and gets up and starts walking but is obviously still writing inside his head. The people in the mall certainly do look very strange.
MARIO (CONT'D)At some point it occurred to me that I could reverse the formula: I could write about things in order to make them "come true" in life. Thus began Chapter 2, which I will call The Chapter On Magick. I wrote about being fearless, and I became less fearful. I wrote about how exciting my first significant dogwalk was, and soon I was a dogwalker, professionally. I wrote about going on a road trip across America, and I went on a road trip across America -- though under completely different circumstances than I had anticipated. I wrote about being free of neuroticism, and -- we're still working on that.
Shots of people in mall are now intercut with footage of a road trip across America: Kansas, Arizona, New Orleans.
MARIO (CONT'D)Now everyone is thinking that America is in a very intense or volatile or fragile or magickal or just very strange place. Everyone says they are astounded we have a black president, but that is just a gloss for what really makes people pull at their collars uncomfortably: we have a hot president. The hot president is staring down the hot harbingers of World War 3. The hot president's hot gaze is locked on many things! The complete ownership of the world by China, preceded or followed by the total collapse of the global economy. The increasing hotness (in the bad way) of the earth. The final tossing of Africa -- into the dustbin of history! In honour of my rapidly-increasing insignificance in the face of international-scale events, I named the final installment of my novel Chapter 3: Life In Bamalot. The me of now does not know how it will end. Do I find a job having nothing to do with animals or children? Do I die from an as-yet undiagnosed illness or throw my body in front of a bullet meant for Obama? Do they call it suicide? Where in the world do I live? Do I "find" Jesus?
Do I love you do I?
Doesn't one and one make three?
Do I love you do I?
Does July need the birds and bees?
10. Knows The Time
EXT. COASTAL RESORT - DAY
ULTIMO walks along the sun-blasted, brick sidewalks of modern-day Punta Cana. He is looking around with his mouth open, taking in the calm spectacle. He pays to enter an old colonial watchtower.
ULTIMOI am glad to see there are still a few dogs around who are unscripted. The funny thing about the yuppie dogs of America is how many of them do not know how to behave. These homeless dogs never bother you unless they are sick. But you give a dog a yard and an invisible fence, and it turns into the asshole of your dreams. Why is it barking? Because it is comfortable, of course! Comfortable, overfed, and out of shape. It will live a long time, longer than its homeless brethren, but it will not know the glory of the pack. It will not know the taste of food when you are hungry for real, after a day of running around fucking stray bitches. It will be immobile and alone for the eight hours of the work day, at least -- and alone again on vacations! During Thanksgiving, its owner will put up a picture of a hand-turkey by its food bowl with the caption, "Wish you were here, Duke." It's heartbreaking in the good way and heartbreaking in the bad way, all at once.
INT. WATCHTOWER STAIRCASE - DAY
Ultimo pants a little as he climbs the tight square escalation vigorously. As he passes the small windows in the masonry, he peers out of each one without breaking his stride.
ULTIMOA dog sees from below and doesn't give a damn about other vantages; but for human beings it really pays to see things from above as much as we possibly can.
EXT. ROOFTOP - DAY
When Ultimo reaches the platform he looks upwards searchingly, walking in a half-circle. Then he looks down at the jungled hills and further down to the huge, twilit resort town beneath him and surrounding him. Ultimo's father, LAZARO DE LOS SANTOS, suddenly materializes as a ghost, even though he is still alive. He's dressed very strangely.
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSTaking a page from my book, eh?
ULTIMO
(rubbing eyes)Papi? Dang, I really gotta start getting more sleep.
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSDon't worry, I'm not a ghost, I'm just from the future.
ULTIMOWell, can you tell your present self that I'm back in town, and I'm looking for him?
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSYou will find him when you find him.
ULTIMOIt's good to know you're an asspain in the future as well, Pops.
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSYes. I missed you, too. What important thing are you thinking about?
ULTIMOWhat are you talking about?
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSI told you, repeatedly, God does all his best thinking ...
ULTIMO"... from above." Yes, yes, I didn't forget. Do we believe in God in the future?
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSI asked you a question first.
ULTIMOYes, already. I came up here to think, because I want to see things from all sides, but ...
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSBut?
ULTIMO... but I am questioning the wisdom of seeing things from all sides.
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSWell, the point isn't to succeed, mi hijo. You know precisely how many sides there are? You planning on living forever?
ULTIMODamn it! I knew that! I know that. Maybe you haven't noticed, but I'm not 14. I've been to America, seen a lot of different sides. My point is: what's the point? The more I understand other people, the less I want to understand, the more I want to live like a dog: forgetful and stubborn. You're old, or dead, or whatever; you should know. Stubborn people get their way. Singleminded people get their way. You get your way.
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSSingleminded people kill other singleminded people.
ULTIMOThat, too. You see where I am, Papi?
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSYou're on top of the world.
ULTIMO
(turning his back)I'm on top of the world. That's a good one. You know what I do for a living? I'm a deep sea diver. I'm on the bottom of the world. I've seen the top and the bottom. I've seen the poor and the rich, up close. You were right. I was incomplete before. The thing you said about the moon was right. I thought you were crazy.
LAZARO DE LOS SANTOSEven the full moon is not the full moon.
ULTIMOYeah, that. The full moon isn't the full story. The full story is all possible phases of the moon -- the skinny moon, fat moon, no moon, and every moon in between -- considered at once! And once you have considered all of them, then what! I'll tell you what: then every time you look up at the sky, you know for damn sure that the sky is not telling you everything! And when you go on a boat, the ocean does not tell you everything; and when you go underwater the ocean still does not tell you everything. And no person tells you everything! And den you know what you know? I'll tell you: you know not to get too cocky! "Don't get cocky." That's it? The great paternal lesson! Don't get cocky? You couldna said that in a normal sentence like a normal father!? I went halfway around the world, and I'll probably go halfway around the world again, and where will your fat ass be?
Ultimo spins back around to face Lazaro, but nobody is there.
ULTIMOPops? Back to the future, eh? Well, future you is easier to talk to than past you, anyhow.
11. Blue, Blue, Blue
EXT. UNDERWATER - DAY
Archival/borrowed footage. Deep-sea diving in the arctic -- blown up images of bubbles, ice -- the spectacular, remote and deadly. Our digital noise is replaced by glorious, iridescent film grain. Cue Vangelis?
