Friday, March 15, 2013

oh my god it's the love bar of death

(In the middle of this strange rite, something is happening to BARNEY, who is suddenly worried about his heart.  It's not about to break, but instead it is about to be filled, filled with love, with love, with love.  This same BARNEY, who was thinking about a literary life, writing the erotic stories of his time, the Henry Miller of his time, he would be called Barney Miller and that, my friends, is legen...wait for it.  Keep waiting.  No, stop waiting.  It will not come.  It cannot.  Because tonight the Love Bar is the Death Bar.)

(There are three new friends that come into the bar, but it turns out they are all old friends of BARNEYs.)

BARNEY: Oh my gosh, my friends.  I have not seen you in ages, and you all have keys to unlock my childhood.  Look, everyone, look at my friends.

THREE FRIENDS (variously, improvise like you actor-types do.): No, Barney, they cannot see us, only you can see us, we come to tell you sad news, we all died, suddenly, and out of the blue, and it should come as a shock. We are all dead now.

BARNEY: Oh, my gosh, this sucks.

(The 3 FRIENDS are at the table, drinking everyone's drinks, and eating all the peanuts out of the pretzel bowl.)

MARSHALL: Is this fun, or what?

BARNEY: Marshall, you are a fool.  You cannot see beyond this thin veil, none of us are really here, we are all phantoms.

MARSHALL: Oh, Barney, don't let my happy go lucky horny puppy dog backward ways deceive you.  I see them, too, the living and the dead, they are always mixing with each other, and in the end, there is no difference.

LILY: (Like Gary Coleman, fake black, offensive.): What choo talkin about Marshall?

MARSHALL: Barney sees the dead, Lily, and so do I.

ROBIN: I am already dead, because I am Canadian, and we know what it's like to be here but but also there, all at once, and it doesn't matter.

TED: I don't think that means anything.

ROBIN: Oh, I'm out of Canadian jokes.

LILY: Don't you mean oot?

(They all laugh, but this is no time for laughs, this is the beginning of the dance of the dead, and they all fall on the floor and shake and writhe with their own deaths, they are dancing their own deaths.  It is horrific.)

(And BARNEY dons a black robe and comes forward.)

BARNEY: Love song for this year so far.  You can suck a big dog dick.  I know you're trying, I know you have good intentions, but this isn't right.  You are death, you are as thin as a skeleton, and although I find you so very lovely, you are so thin this year, and you know how I like a little meat on the bone, I'm not keeping any kind of score, not this time, I don't want numbers, I want something with meat on the bone, and this is all death and disappointment.

MARSHALL: Wow, Barney sure gets gloomy when that girl doesn't text him back.

BARNEY: She was three, little man, she was triplets!

(And now they are on the porch smoking, talking about girls, because they are too old to be chatting online.)

MARSHALL: Triplets! You're out of control!

BARNEY: No, you're right, it was one, it was just one, one who broke my heart, and that's why I have a heart murmur that is going to give me a heart attack.  It was one.  That one, you know the one.  Her.  Ok, it's three.  But it didn't work out so that I could write this erotic memoir where there is nothing erotic happening, only talk, it's all talk.

MARSHALL: I don't think anything really ever happens anyway, not until we talk about it.

BARNEY: I see what you mean.  I do.  But I really think I'm ready to settle down, with that one, or three, woman, women.  I'm ready to settle for something really good.  I'm ready to settle for something that hasn't happened yet.  I'm ready for something that's never happened before, and I'm ready for it to happen to me.

MARSHALL: I think I'm going to ask Lily to marry me.

BARNEY: Oh shut the hell up, everybody I know just died.

(Gloomy end of scene.)

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