Characters:
Blind Darth (low threatening voice)
Harold Hypertensia (higher normal voice)
Ballyhoo (high pretentious voice)
(pumpkin on table with face carved on one side, blank side toward audience,
Blind Darth, wearing dark glasses, black lines on cheeks)
BLIND DARTH: Harold.
HAROLD: Yes, Blind Darth.
BLIND DARTH: Should we kill the pumpkins?
HAROLD. They have a way of killing themselves on the vine.
Why Bother.
BLIND DARTH. But if nobody had pumpkins
they’d appreciate life more.
HAROLD. But think of all the things we don’t have
and that hasn’t made us appreciate life any more.
There’s the Comorant Bandyhootch
that’s extinct.
BLIND DARTH. And the Rock Marble Opera Snitch.
HAROLD. Yes that went out like puked fish.
BLIND DARTH. And the determined metaphor that gets into writing.
HAROLD. And the Bandyhootch!
Here Bandy, here Bandy, here Bandy
Hootch! Hootch! Hootch!
BLIND DARTH. He wont come any more
after they neutered him.
HAROLD. You see Blind Darth
all these forms of life and many more have left us.
Life is cheap.
We don’t appreciate it any more.
We just keep on losing it.
But to not have a pumpkin
for Thanksgiving,
Halloween!
No pumpkin pie.
BLIND DARTH. I like squash pie better anyway.
And there are always masks.
HAROLD. But Halloween without a pumpkin face is unthinkable.
A warm pumpkin face glowing in the night.
Witches and goblins.
And E.E. Cummings –
he’s dead, they don’t make em like him any more.
BLIND DARTH. Good old E.E.
He broke the barriers of a lot of modern poetry.
But his species isnt extinct.
I want to eliminate pumpkins
as Blind Darth,
go around the world stamping out the vines –
I can smell them
and with my oracular vision
I can keep from bumping into things.
HAROLD. Blind Darth, you’re being very destructive
just sitting there thinking about it with your Anarchist Cookbook
throwing all cares to the wind –
how can we be avant-garde if we’re going to be destructive –
you don’t destroy,
you create in its place.
BLIND DARTH. In what’s place.
HAROLD. Create something in its place
in the place of the thing you want to destroy.
Create something that will make people
appreciate life more.
BLIND DARTH. That’s an idea, but it’s got to be a shock.
The shock of appreciate-the-wave-of-discovery-and-connection.
HAROLD. Yes, why not this time
create something you can put beside a pumpkin
that people will like,
something more beautiful than a pumpkin
– some thing.
BLIND DARTH. (jumps up)
Some fruit! Wait! a new vegetable.
An entirely new vegetable – as lovable as the schmoos
those adorable little edible pets,
but this new pet vegetable will be real –
right on your table.
HAROLD. Yes! How nice of you to take my suggestion on
just this one time,
You see,
it could be great!
BLIND DARTH. It’s not that it’s less destructive, but that it’s better!
It won’t upset the pumpkin sect.
We’ll even win them over to our new pet vegetable –
HAROLD. And then, you’ll destroy
the pumpkin –
I knew it.
It’s hard living with you,
visionary and destructive as you are –
BLIND DARTH. Harold, it’s in my nature but I destroy only
in the hopes of narrowing people’s visions
on greater love of life –
seeing what I see
under the death, the sickness, the warping
of life’s dreams.
HAROLD. Seeing what you see
has made you what you are
those black lines down your cheeks
your blindness –
everything black.
BLIND DARTH. Harold Hypertensia, it’s not all black
I was just telling you the warm current under –
if you could only see it as I do.
People must be taught
and I and the lackluster ladies
will do it.
Are doing it, have been trying to do it.
We used to do it years ago
during human kind’s most
primitive – they call it – phase
human kind’s most highly developed primitive
phase –
and I was in many phases
the dark side of the underbelly of the moon.
The laughing lackluster,
my lackluster ladies have slowly stayed alive –
and grown
but wait – Harold!
My best friend will be here soon –
anytime.
HAROLD. Anytime?
BLIND DARTH. Ballyhoo – I havent seen here in so long.
he will help me create
the world’s most lovable vegetable (laughs connivingly)
– that pet vegetable that will restore the focus of worth,
values, place, neighborly relationships – (sarcastic)
to Earth, to America, my country –
or is it smoke – smoke from flares
the ancient heart is beating.
Oh Aztec Mayan Inca heart.
Heart of your garden
this courtyard delight.
This golden new death to crime in the street’s cancer,
profusion of stupidity and
lack of conversational logic.
Mistrust rife,
nothing but strained humor.
This lovely pet will kill all that out,
rot it back.
Ballyhoo! Ballyhoo! I need you Ballyhoo!
(Loud knock at door & door opens – Ballyhoo rushes in)
BALLYHOO. Now we get the Icelandic ice behind us!
Hi Harold.
Hi Blind Darth.
BLIND DARTH. Ballyhoo!
BALLYHOO. The Icelandic ice is behind us!
It’s warming all our coddles & cuddles & cockles!
BLIND DARTH. And I want to create a new
vegetable!
BALLYHOO. Oh my what a pablum
dillydoo
Oh my what Oh my what
Oh my what a pablum
dilly doo.
You
black
marked
jowled
friend
you.
BLIND DARTH. You bearer of the original Icelandic Ice behind us.
The company that produces our poles!
Now you present us with warm atmosphere.
HAROLD. Pumpkins, pumpkins,
there’s nothing wrong with pumpkins.
BALLYHOO. I’ll jump up & down to promote
a new veggie star
to replace the lowly pumpkin?
HAROLD. No, no, no, no manipulation is needed at all:
you’ve gone too far!
BLIND DARTH. Veggie Star, genetic super wonder.
HAROLD. No, keep us sane with pumpkins on the plain.
BALLYHOO. Oh I’ll sing & rip the drum heads
blast the trumpets off their roots
tootle toot for the . . . pumpkin
if that’s what you want.
BLIND DARTH. No! You’ll tootle toot for the genetic star
veggie wonder, roots that kill
any pests or rot & rust.
That’s what you’ll toot
in the garden of tomorrow.
HAROLD. The pumpkin needs no ballyhoo
no artificial praise.
Get outta here, genetic footprint on your ass.
BLIND DARTH. I want my new veggie wonder
plastic plump veggie,
lives forever on the shelves and never dies of mold.
BALLYHOO. But will sell like hell!
Ring the bell, blast the pods
I’ll sing anything you say
if you pay, if you pay.
HAROLD. Get the hell outta here
my natural foot at your rear
my knees at your spine, out, out
leave the pumpkin Earth alone &
let us garden in it
without your witch’s pit of false doctrine
and your conniving evil pseudo science shit
of destruction, your caustic black spit!
No Ballyhoo, out!
No pumpkin killer, out!
(kicks & knees them out, turns pumpkin around so
smiling face shows)
The face back on the pumpkin
is smiling at the human race.
END
larry goodell / placitas, new mexico / write me for permission to perform
/this little audible play was written in 1981, the last part written 13-14 Dec 2007
You can see this "as a pamphlet" here.
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