S2:EP8 - The 2019 Chronicles: Truth...and Consequence

“Careful the wish you make…wishes are children. Careful the chance you take. Wishes come true, not free.”

--The Witch, Into the Woods

Hey, gang! Welcome to my life – where anything is possible and nothing is as it seems. I’m Freedom and I’ll be your host, coming at you from within the depths of Geistopia.

DOC: Velcum To My Life ees a prochect, un experiment in Life unt ART. A living storyboard, if you will. Its premise ees zat life ees experiential, unt zat you can, unt do, experience ze life you choose. It ees based on Ze Veel of Life unt Ze ARTs for Ze New Millennium as life building tools. Yeah, it’s true.

WALT: Welcome to my Life is an I T.V. Studios/Geist…House Players Production, in association with the Center for Creative Inspirationalism. JustUs Productions, the parent company, would like to give a ‘Shout-Out’ to the following for their ongoing, and oft-times unknowing, inspiration and support:

Princess Cuddlebug

Princess Sunshine

Craze & Co.

The Shaman

The Pillar

F’n Bob

The Entire Putt-Putt-Putter Clan

FaeriePrincess

Professor Siggy Chong

The VanMan and General Ralph Glossop (may they R.I.P.)

PDT

‘Blue 326’

The Original KLT

The Looch

The Baker

Bert-on

Andy Pandy

The Mudder

Hoagie

Superstar

The Wix-ians

Piz-Niffer

Jersey

Dancing Queen

The Anomaly

Downtown Encyclopedia Brown

Baby-Mama Rabbit

Aaaand, of course, a very generous sponsor who (not-so-much) wishes to remain anonymous.

It is…Sunday, March 31, 2019. Time...Mournful.

Theme of the Week – Wishes

Lesson of the Week – Themes [That's different and new.]

Observation of the Week – It Really Does All Come Together in the End…If You Let It

I’m not sure how I feel about this post, because I’m not sure where it’s going to go.

WALT: Do you ever know where they’re going to go?

Well…no, but…

WALT: This one’s different for some reason.

Don’t you shake your head at me.

WALT: Someone’s gotta. You are one no-sense makin’ fool.

Yeah…but, I’m a cute no-sense makin’ fool.

WALT: You keep tellin’ yourself that snaggleteeth.

HEY! Heeeey now. I’ll have you know I’m very cute on the inside.

WALT: Yup. That’s what all the ugly people say.

What the…ya know, with friends like you…

WALT: Who says I’m your friend? Just cause I’m in your head it doesn’t mean I like you.

Salty! Are you sure we can’t fire him?

JOHNNY: Oh, Reverend, I am certain it is a package deal. It is definitely all or nothing.

Well nothing’s sounding pretty damn good at the moment.

WALT: Well that’s spam-tastic, cause nothing is all you got.

Good lord, man…did someone piss in your whiskey this morning?

WALT: No…but my cheerios were rather soggy.

*shakes head* Ugh.

WALT: I just thought maybe we could use an antagonist. Bring something new to the show. Someone to really set fire to things and get ‘em goin’.

*stares blankly at him. Tries to speak but cannot find words. Crosses arms, still searching for a syllable. Head falls into his palm and he shakes it.*

I just…I just don’t…I don’t even know what to do about you.

WALT: Love me

Oh yeah?

WALT: Sure. Why not? I’m cute…

Oh…yeah.

WALT: …witty, and I have that rugged charm.

Rug…rugged charm? Is…is that what that was? Rugged charm?

WALT: The rugged-est.

You’re an…

JOHNNY: Reverend!

*palm to his mouth* donkeyhole.

JOHNNY: Reverend!!

What? I didn’t say it. Don’t look at me like that. He is. The rotten son of…

JOHNNY: Reverend!

…a mother. Son of a mother…we all got ‘em. We all need ‘em.

DOC: Put zem all togezer and zat spells M-O-T-H-E-R…

*surprised* Well…look at you finding a way into the show, Doc.

WALT: Check this guy out! Even I didn’t see that comin'.

DOC: Sank you. Sank you, wery much…unt now…Elvis vill leave ze building. *exits*

WALT: The King, ladies and gentlemen.

JOHNNY: Now, Reverend, you have something important to do tonight.

I do? I mean…yeah. I do.

JOHNNY: So perhaps we could get a little focused, a little disciplined. Perhaps you could stop being a distraction and a disruption, Walter…

WALT: Mmmmph

Don’t…just…it’s not…Just let it go. He’s not ever gonna get it. *sings* No, he’s never gonna

WALT: *sings* He’s never gonna get it

DOC: *popping his head through the window and singing* Gonna get it…

Alright now. That’ll be enough outta you. This ain’t Laugh-In.

WALT: No, but the Doc’s getting’ pretty slick, ya gotta admit.

Yeah. Maybe we should give him his own segment.

WALT: I think he found it.

JOHNNY: Reverend, disciplined and focused.

Yes, Sensei.

I cannot even believe all of that just happened. I come home from a Gala event. Relax a little bit. Celebrate a remarkable accomplishment for my students and all of a sudden…BAM!! There’s all sorts of chaos and havoc being wreaked about inside my head.

WALT: So, The Gala thing was good?

Yeah. It didn’t suck.

WALT: Well, that’s rude.

Not the performance…the night overall. It didn’t suck. Ya know. It’s not really my thing…all that hob-nobbing. Let other people razzle dazzle ‘em offstage. My job is to whisk them away on the stage.

WALT: But, you survived it I see…

Yes.

WALT: …unfortunately.

What?

WALT: Huh?

*stares.*

WALT: Oh…was that out loud?

Does it really matter? It’s still in my HEAD!

WALT: Oh…right….damn!

JOHNNY: Walter…

WALT: Mmmmph

Don’…zip…eh…Just let it go, man. Ya gotta let it go. If for no other reason, because we can’t do the trio anymore. Dude like just got up and left. Did his little chameos and…phhht out the door he went.

WALT: Livin’ like a true star.

At least one of us is.

So, anyway, yes. Yes…The Gala. It didn’t suck. Again, the performance was lit. Every group, every performer, brought it to the stage last night. They did their district proud [and, I really don’t like using that word.] It’s the other stuff that I don’t care for – that whole pre-show thing…not my thing. For, oh so many reasons. Especially these days. I fit in like Jed Clampett at his first Beverly Hills soiree. Beautiful people of Denver. That’s what that was.

WALT: You realize that only true theatre veterans will get that reference.

Yeah, I know. Let these young fuckers….

JOHNNY: REVEREND!

Nuckers…fudnuckers…let ‘em earn those thespian stripes.

But, seriously, I was so out of place. Like Minnie Pearl walked onto the set of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Grampa Jones strummin’ on his ole banjo at…

WALT: I think they got it.

Yeah? I drove it home? Ya think?

WALT: I think.

But anyway, that’s my issue…and one we will get to in just a moment.

My kids, in particular, brought it to the stage last night. They brought it hard. Let me tell you how I feel about that:

After the show, one of the teachers from their school, and an associate of mine [as well as the director for the whole Gala,] said to me, “They killed it. Congratulations.”

I chuckled and said, “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Maybe a little from column A and a little from column B,” She responded.

No. Not at all. I am only The Director. I have nothing to do with the performance. My job ends the minute the opening curtain rises. Truly, my job ends at the 30 minute call. From there, it is in the hands of the actors. My job is merely to point them in a direction. They must take it there. My Fab Four took it there. They did that - on their own. I may have pointed directions and whispered insight, but they are the ones who listened, processed, worked and mastered. They did that and they should own it.

All I can say is that I am honoured and privileged to have been along on that Journey.

WALT: Look at you bein’ all British.

Shut up…*pauses as he hears the change in music.*…uh…it must be time to get serious. Dude just turned on some Floyd. All aboard The Barrett Express, headed to insanity…and all points North.

I had sickness this week. I had great and powerful sickness. I contracted what has been lovingly dubbed ‘The Gala Plague.’ Something ripped through the cast and crew of this show Thursday and Friday. We were droppin’ like flies. 3 directors and half a cast, all from the same school, out in one day.

I got mine Thursday night. I tell you this – I purged. My body is definitely cleansed and started anew on Friday morning. And, not even Friday morning. Friday was a hell all its own. I had the chills and my body ached. Quite honestly, the day is more of a blur than anything. I ventured out early in the day – only because I had to – and it hurt a lot.

On the flip side, that did inevitably lead to me renting movies. And, that led to me watching this most excellent movie titled Stan & Ollie, all about the comedic legends Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. It…was…phenomenal.

JOHNNY: Reverend, we are not here to promote any particular thing. We are a completely unbiased medium…

Oh my god, are you serious? Dude…chillax. We’re not like goin’ all Siskel and Ebert here…

WALT: Thumbs up…your ass!

JOHNNY: Walter!!!

WALT: Mmmm-mmmph

Just…let it go. You’re gonna have to learn to live with it *nasally ‘Johnny’ voice* W-A-L-T-E-R.

WALT: You’ve been waiting to do that, haven’t you?

Twice. It just…it slipped right by…

WALT: That’s a yes?

That’s a yes.

Wa…

WALT: Don’t.

Wa…

WALT: Don’t.

Wa…

WALT: I’m tellin’ ya man.

*musically while doing jazz hands* Wa..wa..wa…

WALT: Good Boy.

*Still same as above* “…ter”

WALT: I hate you.

But, you’re stuck with me.

WALT: I’m tellin’ ya man, one of these days I’m gonna break outta here.

Dude, if I knew where the door was I would so gladly open it for you.

WALT: You’ll miss me when I’m gone.

Not nearly as much as you’ll miss me.

WALT: Damn.

JOHNNY: Gentlemen!

Sorry…yeah…so, anyway…Friday SUCKED!

All I could do was lay and suffer. And, in my suffering I found much time to contemplate my life and how I really feel about it all.

And…that’s where we are going to start.

I can’t say that it is the first time that I have taken a deep, cold, and honest look at myself. I’ve known things. I’ve known things for a very long time. I’ve just never shared any of it.

I think it’s important that we start on the same page. No matter where you jumped into this Journey, there is a great secret behind it all that is still unknown. It is a catalyst. It is…

- TRUTH #1:

I don’t like myself, and I never have. I’ve never felt strong, nor confident. I have always felt less than, second-best, inadequate. No matter where I am, no matter how familiar or comfortable I may be with those around me, I always feel out of place and insignificant.

Anything you know about me to the contrary is a sham…a farce…an act. My greatest performance to date.

It’ show business kid. It’s all show business…

I have always felt like a loser and I have always lost. Sooner or later. Inevitably.

(Reflections.)

Along the way I tried to embrace this. “If it can get f’d up…I’m your guy,” I’d always say.

Be the Fool, play the Fool, own the Fool.

But, the Fool just laughs it off. That’s what makes him the Fool. The Fool can trip into a puddle of mud, and while the villagers laugh at his idiotic folly, he stands, smiling and walks away whistling. He brushes it off. He rolls with the punches. He laughs because he knows he can simply go home and clean up and…”damn, that was funny, right?”

[Sub-Truth: I had to stop and try to sleep. I can only assume I slept because time has passed. Granted, not much of it. Still, if I slept, my mind did not rest. It raced constantly. Thoughts of real life things. A strange, but I assume telling, dream. I even awoke to one of the songs from The Gala playing in my head.]

Anyway…I feel like I can’t do that anymore. I am too bruised to continue rolling. I feel buried so deep that I cannot move to brush it off And, my laughter is generally replaced by tears. [In private anyway.] But, that’s just it. I don’t know how much longer I can play the façade in public. Every day gets harder.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all bad. But, no matter how good it gets, there is always a part of me that can’t seem to experience it wholly. Like it’s not real, or I don’t deserve it. Or, like it is but a brief passing moment.

No matter what, at the end of the day I just end up feeling empty and lost and hurt. And…I don’t know why.

-TRUTH #2:

There is a secret locked away inside of me. I have been trying to open it for decades. I have thoughts, shadowy visions, but cannot solidify anything. I believe it is the key to my emptiness as well as to what truly troubles Geistopia.

-TRUTH #3:

I don’t know that I can say I have ever really been happy. I cannot tell you the number of times over the course of my life when I have laid in bed and prayed to not wake up, wished for death.

Ironic isn’t it. I wished for death with all my might, then she came like blackest night. In fear and ego I did fight. Leaving me, forever, not quite right.

Perhaps my life, as it has been, as it has become, is my wish come true.

Those damn Jinn – always giving you what you wish for, but never what you want.

For over two decades I have been living but not quite alive…or, maybe it is alive, but not quite living. I have tried to do both, but don’t seem to have quite mastered either. Over the years I have watched everything I have had a passion or love for slip away – jobs, friends, lovers. Eventually, even my hopes and dreams would become nothing more than fond [yet, torturous] memories. My soul dying off one little piece at a time until I am walking around in a literal state of decay.

WALT: Maybe you’re the start of the Zombie Apocalypse.

Really? You thought now was the time for a joke?

WALT: It sure seemed like it. Shit was getting way too heavy.

Well, it’s true. For twenty years I have been watching my life happen but have not ever really been a part of it. I’ve been coasting by on its coat tails, frozen and crossing my fingers that there isn’t something devastating waiting at the end of the line. There usually is. The faster and the harder I go, the more I seem to crash and burn.

Even now, as I sit upon the cusp of what may be my greatest time in history to date, I cannot fully enjoy it or experience it.

I am living in a Treehut.

-TRUTH #4:

Though The Treehut still tickles the child within, and he adventurer he once was, it breaks my spirit just a little bit each day. [Sadly, from what I can gather, we are only about half way through that experience.]

How can I revel in my adventures, or pause and feel the blessing, when this is what I come home to.

And, then, the loneliness sets in. Followed soon by the reality of my non-existence.

-TRUTH #5:

I delve into darkness.

I chase dark, dangerous and debaucherous things. [I know it’s not a word…but, it is now.] I do this for only either of two reasons.

One – because I want to make the pain hurt so much that it inevitably numbs itself from the shock.

Or, Two – because I want to make it cut so deep that I remember there’s a chance I might still be alive.

One is meant to break my spirit. The other to lift it up, though falsely – stroking the ego and letting it think that it matters, that it can prove itself, for just a moment. These are usually the times that lead to my drunken Occurrences [and blackouts.]

Someone, a very long time ago, told me that I do theatre as an escape from life.

It’s taken me a quarter of a century to accept this statement. It’s true. On the stage I am not me. For but just a brief window of time my life ceases to be [and my pain with it,] and I am living another. I can express things that I dare not feel otherwise. I get to capture minds and open hearts. I get to help people through the Journey of Self.

All by being someone else.

I am but a medium through which the character can express his spirit, and he, in turn, becomes one through which I can touch my feelings.

Still, even this would eventually [and much too soon] become a proving ground. So goes the story of My Little Red-Headed Whore.

The Scarlet Mistress of Crowlian Lore.

Whom, I learned last night, has great magic within. I saw it come to life on that stage. They touched her spirit. And, it touched them. Then, it rolled through that theatre like a wave.

It was almost transcendental.

Who woulda thunk it?

-TRUTH #6:

I know what I need to do in order to do better. I know the steps I must take. I just feel too weak, and already so hopeless, to even try.

-TRUTH #7:

I do not know how to combat this.

I have tried so many times and to no avail. Short, brief moments of success and triumph. But, the flame doth eventually flicker out. Yet, as I learned from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse this week – it is not about getting knocked down. It is about getting back up.

Perhaps, I can begin to make the choices that can set it all right.

And, now, I think that is enough ‘Truth’ for one week. Stew in it. And, I shall see y’all again next week.

DOC: *popping his head through another window* Zat’s all, folks!

WALT: Hey, what’s up, Doc?

Yo! Rowan and Martin…

WALT: It’s Bugs and Porky.

I know who it is!

JOHNNY: Reverend, could you wrap it up please?

It would be my pleasure.

So, without hesitation…

For now and for always, from here in Geistopia this is your beloved Rev…

Walt: And Walt...

JOHNNY: And Johnny...

Doc: Unt me...

And, all of those guys, wishing you Peace, Love, Light…

Walt:…and Freakishness, baby!

Please feel free to leave comments, questions, and concerns. I don’t know you are there if you don’t say, “Hi.” Also, you’re experience of WTML is just as important as mine. So, let me know what you think. Secondly, if you would like to connect, or find out more about me, you can find WTML on Facebook @TheNewWTML or myself at @rev.mgeist.

*Totem – Ant (Patience and Industriousness. [The work of the colony, for the colony.])*