W.C.Fields

Except For You Charlotte

By P.l.Carrico

Setting: A Sanitarium on Christmas Morning


W.C. Fields Legendary comedian. Belly swollen due to internal hemorrhaging. Hooked to an IV

Charlotte: Nurse and Lover.

John Berrymore: Dashing interpreter of Shakespeare and life long friend of Fields.

WC: (on the phone) Yes Elmer. I agree Elmer. True, true. Yes Elmer. Yes. Elmer, I agree. Yes Elmer. Yes. Merry Christmas to you too Elmer. Good by Elmer.
(Hangs up) That was Elmer.

(Charlotte awaits more, Fields fidgets)

WC: Dear, could you fetch for me my pumice. I am in dire need of my pumice. It’s in my shaving purse... over there. Yes.

(Charlotte turns to fetch item, WC produces a long cigar from a bed pan and struggles to light it. It is still wrapped. With his back turned he tries to continue to distract Charlotte)

WC: Perhaps my pumice is beneath my mirror. The item which reflects and lies... (Notices Charlottes stern glare). Oh. Oh. Oh yes. No smoking. No smoking at my age. Or any age. For when there’s smoke, there’s fire. And where there’s fire there’s a man struggling to keep warm. Did you hear that? Why yes, it’s a struggle in the hall. Yes indeed. Charlotte my love, it could be an intruder. Or an escapee. An invalid may have become confused and wandered into the hall to die, where upon he discovered an intruder. There in hatching a vile plan to break in and compromise my virginity.

(Charlotte is un distracted as WC takes a bottle from his bed pan. Rambling on he attempts to pour it in the IV, but to no avail due to the shakes. Charlotte finally aids him. The alcohol begins to calm him. He sits, rambling)

WC: That had better not be salt peter you slipping in that there life line. You see too, I told you I could quit drinking, didn’t I? It was easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.

(Charlotte places a bible on his lap. He opens it absent mindedly and is suddenly shocked by the contents)

WC: That was a dirty trick.

ENTER John Barrymore
(WC again looks shocked)

JB: W.C! Merry Christmas! You look great?

WC: Get out with that cheer. Haven’t you heard I’m ill? In my condition and merry word could be the death of me.

JB: Merry Christmas you old fool.

WC: Is it Christmas? I knew something was wrong.

JB: I brought a bottle.

(WC leaps to take it before Charlotte can)

WC: There could be prohibitionists about.

JB: I could dream of leaving you in this dreadful place alone on Christmas.

WC: Stop swearing. What’s wrong with this place. I decorated it myself. It’s the product of fifty years success. Why if my father could see me now. He would sit right beside and say, in a loving tone, William my boy. My plum, my sweet chickadee? Why did you beat my brains in with a shovel? He’d say. Because dear dad, although I was a much younger man than you at the time, I thought it prudent and compassionate for a man to have his son hold the shovel instead of some angry stranger. I forgive you son, he’d say, and we’d collapse into a loving embrace.

JB: What are you talking about?

WC: Pay attention. Quit getting lost and making me back track. A man of your intelligence should only be told something once. So at the tender age of nine I did my father the great favor of beating with a shovel. It was all down hill from there. Rock bottom came much latter. Rock bottom California. Suburb of Burbank. Any town with ‘bank’ in it’s name can’t be any good. Reeks of boredom. Not in here though. Just reeks. Pour a little of that distilled rain water in my bag, will you.

JB: What?

WC: We can have the nurse do it. Charlotte my love. Will you join us in a drink?

(Charlotte drinks mightily from the bottle, puts a splash in his IV, then retreats to a corner to cry)

JB: You gatta take it easy...

WC: Take it easy? Why of course, I never take it another way. I’ll be around to bounce your granddaughter on my knee...

JB: You hate children

WC: Not true! I love them. Especially little girls... aged 18. Now watch this. A new stage show. A come back for the Great Mahatma Fields. I will start with an impression.

(WC puff his cigar and blows the smoke upward as to make a gently rising cloud).

WC: Hiroshima. Wait wait. I got another impression. Watch.

(He again puffs smoke up)

WC: Nagasaki

JB: Morbid (Stands in disgust)

WC: (Puffs again) Philadelphia... with any luck.

JB: There could be good to come of nuclear war, I agree...

WC: (Puffs again... causing him to cough violently) W.C. Fields.

(Silence)

JB: Prince Theater. Philadelphia. Another show. More Shakespeare. Throngs of people, pouring out into the street. Cold night.. .bitter wind. I was in the lobby. Very lonely place, as you know, the after party. There’s no way to communicate, when your an actor, that doesn’t sound like a line someone else wrote for you. God I was drunk. I was drinking brandy quite heavily and I needed a lavatory bad. But I couldn’t get through the crowd. I turned back towards the stage door, found a stair well, but a couple were engaged in petting, so I went up the stairs. I found what I thought was a closet and began to relieve myself. Looking up, I noticed it was the projection booth. Very weird. The most relief I’ve ever gotten from a stage performance, right there. Hollow profession.

WC: Yes it is.

JB: A bible? Your reading a bible?

WC: Looking for loop holes.

JB: Did you find any? Why would you be worried about hell anyhow? You brought laughter to so many.

WC: Ah ha! There in resides the conflict and my paved road to Philadelphia... or worse.
Loop hole numero uno. Laughter is abominable to God. It’s revolting. You think god has a sense of humor? Laughter is sinful weakness, on that fact I agree with women. When we laugh, we always laugh at. At. It is a form of scorn. They laughed at Jesus on his Donkey entering Jerusalem. And they’d laugh at him today on Hollywood Bvd. If a nun were to be flattened by a piano while walking down Fifth avenue, we’d stifle our giggles as we mopped up the gore, teeth, blood... then in a moment of silent horror at the funeral, some one would start to giggle, causing us all to break out into hysterics. Damn laughter.

JB: Please...

WC: Laughter. Damn it. Laughter is a god damn abomination! It is! A joke I tell.... (Weakening, ragging) about beating my fathers brains in a with a shovel. It happened. It’s not funny. It’s dreadful. It haunts me. It happens in my head everyday. All the horror and fear of a homeless Philadelphia winter. It’s always there. Always. Laughter is like drink, a means to distract. Here’s a punch line. Here’s a joke. Loneliness. (Charlotte guides him to his bed).

JB: You need rest.

WC: Damn right I do. It’s Christmas. A day to celebrate the calm resurrection, or death or what ever the fuck happened to Jesus on this day seven hundred... thousand... (Delirious) And I wont have any more lights on...

JB: W.C. I’ll come back soon.

WC: Get the hell out. All of you. Every one. All of you. You all are after your own spotlight. Trying to sabotage each other. It’s disgusting. You all would stab each other in the back if you could. All of you. I hate everyone of you. (Charlotte struggles to contain WC)

JB: Give WC my best when he wakes up.

WC: Everyone of you thinks if you can just trip the next guy a little bit, then help him get up... you’ll look so damn good. All of you out of this stage. This theater. Get out. You all are bloodthirsty basterds. Everyone of you. Go back to your comfortable blood stained lives.

JB: There is no one here.

WC: (Breaks free of Charlotte and grabs the bottle JB has been carrying) God damn the whole world and every person on it.

(WC takes a mighty drink from the bottle which has been replaced with stage blood. His rage is displaced by weakness. He staggers then slowly and gruesomely vomits blood down his white sanatorium gown. Charlotte guides him to his bed. He breaths heavily and appears to die)

WC: Except for you, Charlotte.

FADE

“I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” By Warren Zevon plays.

Kick me in the gut

Repeat until dead

The emptiness
the emptiness
of loud packed bars
leaves,
leaves
me thinking of
the emptiness...



Hamlet

I named my pitbull Hamlet
daring the world to kill me.
But he fears
shell fish on the beach.
My life is no longer in peril
so he’s a monument
to suicide
that will die of old age
in my backyard
when I’m older
with depressed kids of my own.


Feet

Thumping through the house
on flat feet
sounding like drum intros
to songs I will write
echoing in the quiet
mind you made for me.
I may sleep.


















Seaside

It was decided;
a westward crawl
(amidst alcohol withdrawl).
On the promenade,
(a history of comerce)
the clowns parade in a converted hearse
as we wander towards Sam’s
for dollar beers.
Ambition
and my reflection through cocaine covered mirrors
wanted me dead floating in the Delaware river,
where as
the Necanicum
makes me think of conception
with my wife.
Fluid flows down to the sea;
blood, piss, seamen and sweat
so the ocean never forgets,
but it forgives.
Though Seaside
is no thrill ride
I am proud to be here.

I'm not dead

At the Seaside Public Library

We Pilgrims at the Internet’s alter
combine for
quite an odor.

Homelessness is an afluence of time.
Though the stacks are many
we’ve got time
though many have no time for us.

I see relief and friendship
in the eyes of a teen
huddled over a book of Bukowski.

Without suspicion I am shown to the bathroom
wherein I quickly drink a bottle concealed on my person.
Then it’s back to my scribbling at the table.

Meth, meth, you scare me to death...
but so did Philadelphia
and 9/11.

As I leave
I wave farewell
to those who wish me well,
and mumble ‘go to hell,’
to those offended by my smell.

Seaside Oregon Film Fest

Clatsop County Cultural Coalition
Grant Application For
Seaside International Digital Film Festival

By Patrick Louis Carrico









































Project Description:

I propose a film festival comprised of local and International digital films. Digital film making has given rise to high caliber films from new and exciting perspectives. Technology has made the screening of these films assessable to non traditional venues. Pristine image quality can be obtained by projecting a film on a café wall. In my own experience as a film maker, my films have been screened everywhere from Man’s Chinese theater in Los Angeles, to a bar wall in Philadelphia.
Film making is a media embraced by youth. It is a form of art becoming more and more accessible to the amateur as well. Activities, art forms and cultural projects are few in number that address the demographic of the twenty something. It’s this lack of attention that leaves a void in the psychology of young adults that leads to drug abuse. Film making redirected my own energies from self destruction into the large scale ambition it took to make a feature film. Included in this film festival would be an award and scholarship process for local filmmakers to pursue their own dreams. And as film makers love to explain their process, film maker feed back sessions would be scheduled with attending artists.

Funding Justification:

In seeking the full two thousand dollars I am hopping to purchase a digital projector and portable sound system for the exhibition of films and seed money for the establishment of a non-profit to over see future film festivals.
Consumer level projectors are available for a thousand dollars that could turn a café’ like Sam’s or Goose Hollow into a viable screening room. The same projector could also revitalize a larger space such as the old Times Theater.
A nonprofit created to over see the expansion and administer the promotion and advertising of the festival would made efficient the expansion and growth of the festival into a cutting edge caliber festival drawing attendees from around the world. Administrative costs would exceed a thousand dollars when advertising, film requirement were taken into consideration.

Project Promotion:

We would send press releases and hopefully vouchers for discounted or free hotel stays to regional media such as The Portland Mercury and The Willamette Week. Local fliering would take place and business partnerships would be sought out so filmmakers and tourists to this event could fully be welcomed to Seaside. Contact would be made to local high schools for the requirement of volunteers. Filmmakers would be invited to speak to aspiring filmmakers as well.