You don't listen to the Dickenbock Report, the show I do on Freeform Portland. Heck, you probably don't even listen to Self Help Radio! Oh god I bet you're not even reading this right now. Fuck.
No matter, I'll write as though someone is reading.
This relates to this past Thursday's episode of The Dickenbock Report. As I am sometimes wont to do, I revisited an old theme - with modifications - from an old episode of Self Help Radio for the Dickenbock Report. Usually it's because there's a certain day - like International Thumb Day or whatever - & I'd already done a show about it before. I don't do the shows verbatim - I always find new songs, I write new copy, I fit it into the schtick of the Report. But it's been handy to have nearly twenty years of radio shows under my belt to be able to return to when I need them.
This past Thursday was Cinco De Mayo & also Astronaut Day. I don't feel like I have enough knowledge of the music of Mexico to make a proper Cinco De Mayo show, & it turns out I have not only done a show about astronauts on Self Help Radio (in March of 2011) but I also did a show about astronauts for the Dickenbock Report (two years ago, when the show was on KBOO). It was also Password Day but I couldn't find enough songs to fit that theme. & as I was falling asleep I thought about a show that I made about fourteen years ago about taxis.
In the spring of 2008, my girlfriend (soon to be my wife) accepted a post-doc in North Carolina. I left my show on KOOP in May of that year, but she decided not to take the North Carolina gig, so we stayed in Austin. For a year - until we moved to West Virginia in 2009 & I started on WMUL - I did Self Help Radio as a podcast. Virtually no one listened to that show. But I still tried to have fun with it.
In July of that year, I wrote a dumb radio play & my friends Justin & Camille came over (Justin had done a show at KOOP; I met Camille through my show) read it with me. The podcast was released & it was different from my regular shows - it was just the play (called The Taxi Chronicles Saga Murder Mystery) performed by us, with taxi songs all around. No airbreaks, no back-announcing, just the play. It never aired, & I suspect no one listened to the podcast. I mostly forgot about it. Until I thought about it for this week's Dickenbock Report.
So listened to it & was amused by this dumb play I wrote that I have utterly no memory of writing. I have uploaded the show (I'll update the web site after the next SHR episode) & you can listen to it by clicking here. If you click that link, it'll ask you for a username, which is SHR, & a password, which is selfhelp. But you can listen to the show that way.
The radio play is introduced by me & occupies four airbreaks. It's not well recorded, & I didn't save the isolated vocal tracks, so the music beds are from 2008. But I think Justin & Camille did a stellar job & I actually laughed at some of it. So I thought I would share it.
It's a bit long but below is the text of all four scenes of The Taxi Chronicles Saga Murder Mystery. I want to reiterate that it's quite dumb & also there's no real mystery or resolution. It might be more fun to listen to it. But here's the text for you to enjoy & who knows, maybe some high school troupe can put it on in some dystopian future no one wants to live in.
But I'm a bit amazed I wrote the damn thing & have zero memory of it. It was a dumb but nice surprise
-----
THE TAXI CHRONICLES SAGA MURDER MYSTERY
by Dick Dickenbock
SCENE I
A large metropolitan taxicab company. Afternoon. There are a couple of cars
around, with a fellow asleep beneath one & other employees reading the paper,
playing cards, filling out paperwork, things like that. In the center of the
stage, two middle-aged cabbies lean on the filthy yellow cab under which the
mechanic sleeps & drink coffee the consistency of sludge out of chipped &
graying styrofoam cups. The first cabbie, ARCHIBALD, is tall, gaunt, slightly
jaundiced, losing his red hair up on top but still boyish. The other cabbie,
REGINALD, is shorter & younger but healthier looking, except when he smiles to
reveal teeth yellowed by years of smoking & coffee-drinking. His dark hair
matches his tan skin, &, unlike his friend, he looks like he has enough self-
respect to get out of bed every morning & shower & shave. The play begins
mid-conversation.
REGI: So I says to her, Lady, we don't take money from Canada.
ARCH: Jesus.
REGI: I know, right? & she looks like another rich American!
ARCH: That's the trouble with this country, Reg.
REGI: We look alike?
ARCH: Naw, we can't tell THEM from US.
REGI: Which one of them is them?
ARCH: Them is them.
REGI: & we is us?
ARCH: Now you're speaking English like a king.
REGINALD lights a cigarette & shares it with ARCHIBALD. A weedy fellow named
DILTON comes by & they all grunt hello. DILTON walks slowly past then seems to
remember something, & turns around.
DILT: Hey guys I think Waldo's looking for you.
ARCH: Thanks Dilton.
REGI: (under his breath) Yeah, go leap off a short pier!
DILTON stands for a second then wanders off.
ARCH: Whaddaya gotta insult the little guy for?
REGI: Aw, that guy's not right.
ARCH: What, because he likes boys?
REGI: Hey, don't make me out to be no homophobe! I even experimented a little
bit when I was in the Junior League.
ARCH: I know, stupid, it was with me.
REGI: Oh yeah.
ARCH: Then what's your beef with the freak?
REGI: I just don't like the way he stops & looks at ya before he talks to ya.
ARCH: Like he don't know ya.
REGI: Or he don't remember ya.
ARCH: That is weird.
REGI: What did he say about Waldo? Oh sudoko! here he comes.
WALDO enters, a pear-shaped man of sixty-five with no hair on his pink pointy
head except at the very top, & that pasted down with some kind of hair cream.
He wears a shabby three-piece suit that's too tight for him, & that looks like it
hasn't been cleaned & pressed since it was bought - in the seventies. He holds
a clipboard in his puffy fat hands & looks over his glasses at ARCHIBALD & REGINALD.
WALD: Aha, there you boys are!
ARCH: What up boss.
REGI: Good morning, Waldo.
WALD: Boys, you know you're my two best drivers.
ARCH: You're giving us a big head.
REGI: Speak for yourself!
ARCH: I mean, he's flattering us.
REGI: Oh I thought you meant he gave us a chubby.
ARCH: I know what you thought you nitwit.
WALD: Boys, I enjoy your Abbott & Costello routine as much as the next man, but
right now I need your skills as taxi drivers.
ARCH: Whatever you say boss.
REGI: Though we did just finish our shifts.
ARCH: What the hell else you got to do?
REGI: I got spinning class at 12:30!
WALD: Two very special women are coming into town & I need you to escort them to
my hotel room at the Plaza.
ARCH: Who are these women?
WALD: Is that any of your business?
REGI: He don't want Geraldine to know!
ARCH: You sly dog.
REGI: You silver fox.
ARCH: You sneaky devil.
REGI: You profitable candle maker.
ARCH: What the hell?
WALD: Can I count on you boys?
ARCH: Just tell us where to drive.
WALD: I can't thank you more. Anything you want, let me know.
REGI: Sloppy seconds?
[Curtain]
SCENE II
A taxi stuck in traffic. ARCHIBALD is smoking & looking lazily ahead. In the
backseat is VERONICA, an anorexic brunette with a turned-up nose & slightly
blemished skin which she shows off anyway, in a tube top, held up by her large
breasts which are obviously fake. She seems impatient but ARCHIBALD knows she's
jonesing for a fix. She fidgets, looks through her leopard-skin purse, touches
up her make-up, then leans forward to talk to ARCHIBALD.
RONI: Can'tcha drive any faster?
ARCH: It's rush hour, sorry.
RONI: Rush hour? It's ten a.m.!
ARCH: That's what it's like in [insert name of your town, this always gets a big
laugh]
RONI: Well I don't like it here.
ARCH: Who does?
RONI: Say, you're a funny little carrot head. Did you say Waldo sent you?
ARCH: Yeah, he says you're his lunch.
RONI: What?
ARCH: Lunch date, you're his lunch date.
RONI: You must think it's funny, me dating a man so much older than me.
ARCH: It's not so funny if you're a prostitute.
RONI: Yeah, but prostitutes don't date.
ARCH: They don't call it a date?
RONI: Naw, it's a job.
ARCH: I could've sworn I've heard a prostitute call her time with a john a date.
RONI: What, on TV?
ARCH: Or from personal experience. I ain't proud.
RONI: I'm pretty sure it's referred to as a job. Like, prostitutes will say,
I'm on the job.
ARCH: What if a prostitute dates someone & doesn't charge any money for it.
RONI: Why would she do that?
ARCH: You ain't never dated someone without charging them money?
RONI: I ain't a prostitute!
ARCH: Oh, my mistake.
RONI: Of all the gall & nerve & spleen & cheddar!
VERONICA pushes herself back into her seat, crossing her arms, fuming. ARCHIBALD
lights another cigarette & picks his nose. It takes only a short time for VERONICA
to start fidgeting again, & she eventually finds her way back to leaning into the
front of the cab.
RONI: Don't let's fight.
ARCH: I ain't fighting.
RONI: I think that's grand, having a civilized conversation with a working man.
ARCH: If you say so.
RONI: Say! What bug flew into your iced tea & laid eggs?
ARCH: Did Reggie tell you about that? It was Nepa cinerea, actually, it was a
cup of room-temperature tea I was drinking when I visited London three years ago.
RONI: No, no, that's weird, I meant, what did I say to make you hate me so?
ARCH: I don't hate you lady. You're just a fare to me, that's all. Y'see, a
cabbie is like a doctor or a orthodontist or a swimmer - we can't get emotionally
involved in the people we help. In my eighteen years of driving a cab, I've
never driven the same person twice.
RONI: Really?
ARCH: Or I pretended I didn't know them.
RONI: Gee, that sounds awful lonely.
ARCH: It's true, a cabbie is the lonesomest man on the face of God's Green Earth.
The lonesomest closet pagophobic at Esperanza Base ain't no more lonesomer than
the busiest cabbie on the busiest streets of the busiest city in the busiest world.
RONI: What's Pagophobia?
ARCH: Fear of ice.
RONI: Gee, you're smart.
ARCH: It ain't smarts that's getting you from the airport to the Plaza Hotel. It's
a lifetime of learning about a town & its streets & its people & how to get from
one place to another without getting lost.
RONI: Gee, ain't you the taxicab philosopher.
ARCH: Traffic's getting worse. It looks like there was an accident up there.
RONI: Oh! Let me out! I wanna go look for jewelry & body parts before the cops
come!
REGINALD comes running in - he's cut up, bleeding, blackened from an explosion, &
his clothes are all torn. He sees ARCHIBALD's cab.
REGI: Arch! Arch! Jesus, you gotta come quick!
ARCH: Christ, Reggie, you told me you was done with the meth.
REGI: No, it ain't that, Arch. I'm back on it. But that's not what caused this
mess! No, we was chased!
ARCH: Chased? In this traffic?
REGI: I got lost.
ARCH: Who chased ya?
REGI: My fare said it was her pimp!
RONI: Forsythe?
[ARCHIBALD & REGINALD turn to look at VERONICA.]
RONI: I ain't no prostitute!
ARCH: Aw, so he wrecked your cab, Reggie? You just got the smell out from when
those rats were nesting in there.
REGI: Not only that, Arch. He... He... He killed the other whore. The one in my cab!
RONI: Elizabeth!
[Curtain]
SCENE III
A taxi driving merrily along the road. REGINALD is constantly looking into the
rear view mirror hoping ELIZABETH will chat with him. She's a carbon-copy of
VERONICA, although a blonde. It would be fine to get the same actress to play
her. What do I care? I'm just writing this for my sophomore English class.
Soon enough ELIZABETH looks up & notices where they're driving.
BETT: Excuse me?
REGI: Yes miss?
BETT: This don't appear to be the way to the Plaza.
REGI: I know a short cut.
BETT: Correct me if I am wrong but ain't the airport to the east of town.
REGI: I ain't so good with directions.
BETT: As you can see we just crossed county lines.
REGI: I'll need to add on county taxes to your fare, then.
BETT: I don't care nothin' about that because Waldo will pay for everything.
What I mean is, we ain't goin' the right way.
REGI: May I ask you something miss?
BETT: Well you can ask.
REGI: Which of us here is the taxi driver?
BETT: Only one of us is behind the wheel but I ain't sure if there's a taxi
driver amongst us.
REGI: Ha ha, you're a funny one.
BETT: Can you just humor me & turn the hell around. I know where the Plaza is.
I grew up around here.
REGI: You're the boss.
BETT: Thank you.
REGL: & his whore.
BETT: Excuse me?
[sounds of a vehicle making a u-turn a high speed; REGINALD & ELIZABETH lean
into the turn]
REGI: So what do you like to do?
BETT: I'd prefer to get to the hotel in one piece mostly.
REGI: Ha ha! Do you like to read?
BETT: Read? Read what?
REGI: I like me them Left Behind books.
BETT: What happens in those books?
REGI: Well, uh. Things get, things get left behind.
BETT: Like no child?
REGI: What?
BETT: Like no child left behind.
REGI: I knew you was a reader.
BETT: [under her breath] I knew you was an idiot.
REGI: [he didn't hear] That's strange.
BETT: What's strange?
REGI: There's a white van been following us & it made a huey when we did.
BETT: White van? Did you see any writing on it?
REGI: Sure, it said "Registed Sex Offender" on the side. It says the same
backwards on the front like an ambulance so's we can read it in the mirror.
BETT: Forsythe!
REGI: It's Reginald!
BETT: No, it's our pimp, Forsythe. We told him we was going down to the store
to play video games & show the teenagers our naughty bits for quarters but he
musta followed us to the airport!
REGI: He flew here than rented a registered sex offender van?
BETT: He's got to. It was part of his deal with the United Nations. Can't you
step on it?
REGI: Baby, this little cab was built for speed.
[Noise of revving, & REGINALD & ELIZABETH fall back in the seats to simulate
sudden speed.]
REGI: [yelling over the noise] It was also built for comfort, & it's got a roomy
trunk which can hold the luggage of a large family & also a pet container if you're
that kind of person.
BETT: [yelling too] Is he still following us?
REGI: I'll get onto the highway. He'll never think of following us there.
BETT: This is the only exit until the airport!
[Seconds after this the two of them mime the car coming to screeching halt.]
REGI: Crap, I forgot it was rush hour.
BETT: Did he follow us?
REGI: Naw, honey. Listen, we've blended in with the crowd. There's all kinds
of cars on this road. There's SUVs, pick-up trucks, them new hybrids which is
part car & part something else, there's motorcycles & motorhomes & muscle cars
& tractor trailers & sedans & beat-up cars leaking oil - there's hundreds up
here. How could he find us among all of this?
BETT: Because we're a yellow cab?
At this moment, a slim, needle-nosed figure wearing what looks like a crown but
otherwise clad all in black slips around the back of the cab, sticks a gun with
a silencer in the window, & shoots ELIZABETH dead. REGINALD doesn't seem to
notice.
REGI: That's the beauty of being a cabbie. You're both invisible & highly
visible. & that's because people only see us if they wanna see us. Or if
we cut them off. That always gets them cranky. But if you don't need a cab,
you can't find a cab. Course, some people would say that you can't find a cab
when you need one, but I've found just the opposite. Course, I'm always in a cab
so except for the time my cab got stolen by the Symbionese Liberation Army when
I forgot to return a movie on time, I always know where my cab is, it's with me,
I'm in it. That's the beauty of being in a cab & wanting to hail a cab, because
it hardly ever happens that you have the same feeling at the same time.
As REGINALD starts talking, FORSYTHE starts to slip away, but as he listens to
REGINALD, he gets increasingly disgusted & starts firing into the car's gas tank.
As the curtain goes down, there is the sound of an explosion.
[Curtain]
SCENE IV
A police station. ARCHIBALD & REGINALD look the same as in the previous two
scenes, sitting at a table, shaken, dazed, with two cups of coffee in chipped &
graying styrofoam cups in front of them. Across the table is DETECTIVE MOOSE
MASON, a giant, blonde man who looks like a high school football player who's grown
up without getting paunchy or flabby. He's looking at what appears to be
evidence bags. DETECTIVE MIDGE KLUMP, a petite, short-haired woman who's slightly
mannish but still pretty, brings DETECTIVE MASON something & whispers into his
ear. As she leaves, he gives her a pat on the rear. He turns to the boys.
MOOS: All right, fellas. Let me hear your story again.
ARCH: We went to pick up these dames.
REGI: Women of the night.
ARCH: Only it was day.
REGI: Women of the day.
ARCH: I think you got the euphemism right, I was just pointing out...
MOOS: We know when the murders happened, fellas. We ain't thick. I just wanna
hear the story.
ARCH: So I'm at the airport & I pick up this woman who wants to go to the Plaza
Hotel.
REGI: & I'm the line behind him so I pick up the next lady who, wouldn't you
know it, wants to go to the Plaza Hotel.
MOOS: These ladies was traveling together, you know that?
ARCH: No, one was in my cab, the other was in Reggie's.
REGI: They was traveling with us.
ARCH: Don't say that.
REGI: Why?
ARCH: It's like we're implicated in the co-conspiracy or something.
REGI: How can I be implicated if I don't know what that word means?
MOOS: Fellas. I meant the girls came together to the airport & flew together.
ARCH: Oh.
MOOS: So why take two taxis? Especially if they're going to the same place?
ARCH: It might be because my cab smells.
REGI: It does, like Double Stuff Oreos.
ARCH: & not in the good way.
MOOS: So your passenger had no problem with that?
ARCH: No, she told me she had her nostrils removed after the war.
MOOS: What war?
ARCH: I can't keep count.
MOOS: [sighs] So they're going to the Plaza. Did they tell you who they were
seeing at the Plaza?
ARCH: Someone we don't know.
REGI: Certainly not someone we work for.
ARCH: That'd be impossible.
MOOS: Both of them had reserved the same room as a Waldo Weatherby, did you
know that?
ARCH: How would we know that?
REGI: Waldo's last name is Weatherby?
ARCH: Cheese it, you spelunker!
MOOS: So you know they were visiting with your boss.
ARCH: To be fair, he ain't really our boss.
REGI: Yeah, he's in accounts receivable, & we work with the social side of the
service.
ARCH: We're the people people.
REGI: He don't ever see people. We never see him.
MOOS: So listen to this: two women who flew together into town but took different
taxis to the same place, to the same room where the person waiting for them was
a co-worker of yours, these two women were chased by someone who killed them
both within minutes. You're telling me that ain't hinky to you?
REGI: It might make a good play.
ARCH: Or a comic book.
MOOS: You boys are in a world of excrement, you know that?
The door opens. DETECTIVE KLUMP is trying to stop them, but WALDO comes in with
DILTON, who's carrying a briefcase.
MIDG: Sorry, Mason, I couldn't keep them out.
DILT: You can't hold them, Detective Mason & you know it.
MOOS: Counseler, do you get paid by the murder these days? Cause it looks like
business is good.
DILT: Are you charging them with something? Because I am their lawyer.
REGI: Dilton is a lawyer?
ARCH: Now I know what I didn't like about him.
REGI: Yeah.
MOOS: I think they were just patsies - for this man. [pointing at WALDO] Weatherby,
one of these days you're going to make the teensiest of mistakes. & then I'll
get you.
WALD: Really, Detective. I'm just a junior executive in accounts receivable at
a metropolitan taxicab concern. Why would someone like me be involved in murder?
MOOS: One day your wife's going to find out about your indiscretions & then it's
behind bars for a life of spank the bandicoot for you!
REGI: What does that mean?
ARCH: I think it's Australian.
WALD: Come on boys, you've been through quite an ordeal. Let me buy you a soda.
DILTON makes a face at the Detective as they go out. DETECTIVE KLUMP puts her
arm around DETECTIVE MASON & he slumps ever so slightly. He then pushes her
away.
MOOS: He's right, Midge. Why would someone like him be involved in a murder? I
mean, he smells bad & he dresses himself like a mentally challenged blind man &
he has the personality of a dirty dishrag in a swamp breeding mosquitos & his
deadened eyes make my skin crawl in a way that I usually reserve for presidential
press conferences, & yeah, he cheats on his rich wife, but why would he want
those hookers dead?
MIDG: You didn't see the report yet, did you, babe? They were both pregnant!
MOOS: Pregnant? [He gets a look of absolute rage in his face.] Weatherby!
As he screams the name, the curtain falls.
THE END
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