This film is the third in a trilogy that begins with HITLER MEETS CHRIST. Already filmed, HITLER MEETS CHRIST waits on some strange shelf in Vancouver to be completed in post-production. While that four-year hurry-up-and-wait drama goes on, the author has already completed in his imagination not only the second film of this trilogy, BOOGIE AND BILDY, but the third as well, MARLON AND MAO.

The author intends to at least see MARLON AND MAO on the page, ergo this script. Accompanying this basic interview with Marlon Brando on a set in Heaven will, of course, be the documentary inserts of historical events referred to which the producers of HITLER MEETS CHRIST entirely left out. Oh, well, here we go.

Sitting in a director's chair is someone who looks like MARLON BRANDO in the oriental make-up of Mao Zedong. This image may be the first to appear

during the credits. However, the film really begins with the interviewer, RICHARD FREELEY of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

RICHARD FREELEY (obviously an Englishman)

Welcome. This is Richard Freeley of the BBC. We are about to interview Marlon Brando on a set in Heaven where he is filming a movie about the metaphysical impact on the world of the soul of Mao Zedong. Mr. Brando plays Mao Zedong.

Mr. Brando, so honored to have you agree to this interview. As we all know, you are not accustomed to granting interviews.

How are you enjoying this film so far?

Ah, yes… said with your usual brevity of wit.

That’s good. Yeah, I like that.

RICHARD FREELEY (after a slight pause of surprise)

Skipping over the polite chitchat, tell us who Mao Zedong really is…

MARLON BRANDO (after a classic Brando pause)

Uh… hmm... uh… yeah, I suppose he’s me.

RICHARD FREELEY (with no surprise)

You?

Yeah…. ya gotta problem with that?

Not at all. It’s rather exciting. Few have had the privilege to interview Mao Zedong. He was even more unavailable for such things than you, sir.

MARLON BRANDO

Hmm. uh… yeah, I guess yer right about that. Maybe that’s why I admire him so much.

You respect him, do you?

Deeply. I think there’s more to him than meets the eye… of historians, anyway.

You’re saying this as Brando, obviously.

What… you want me to speak like Mao in the first person?

It might be fun.

Uh…. hmm...

(He shakes his head.)

It’s a gimmick… I don’t like gimmicks, you know?

But what of the stuffing in your cheeks for THE GODFATHER?

MARLON BRANDO (giving Freeley a dirty look)

A visual necessity, sir.

How so?

I wasn’t as fat as I wanted to be at the time.

Oh, so you wanted to look more like the character in APOCALYPSE NOW.

Yeah, right.

I gather that Francis Coppola wasn’t too pleased with your weight gain when you arrived in the Philippines.

Fuck ‘im. Who the hell is he?

I gather he’s no longer one of your favorite directors.

I don’t have any favorite directors… well... Gadge wasn’t so bad.

Elia Kazan?

Yeah…

The director of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, ON THE WATERFRONT and VIVA ZAPATA, right? Didn’t he rat on the Commies?

He probably did the right thing.

RICHARD FREELEY (honestly surprised)

Kazan did the right thing and now you’re playing Mao?

Yeah. You gotta problem?

Yes, Mr. Brando… the two hardly go hand in hand.

What makes you think Mao was jus’ a Commie?

RICHARD FREELEY (chuckling)

Well, last headline I read, it was fairly rock-solid historical fact.

So you believe everything you read in the newspapers, huh?

Well, when the same news is repeated in about ten of them I do.

Yeah, well, that’s what makes you a journalist and me an actor.

You never really liked acting, did you?

What?

It… acting…was all too easy for you, wasn’t it?

Well… pretty much, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t come to love it.

Oh, over time, you’ve grown attached to it?

Yeah, kinda very attached… it’s the only fuckin’ thing I can do.

Well, that would narrow down your options, wouldn’t it?

Oh, well…. why don’t we start getting into the script you’re filming? And do tell us about your co-stars. It says here that the great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche plays a number of roles, including the present Prime Minister of France and co-leader of the European Union, Jacques Chirac.

Yea. Freddy... what a guy! Damn, if only I’d met ‘im when I started my career, he’d have cut through all the Soviet bullshit I was fed.

Soviet bullshit?

Yeah… the word "social" in those days was really meant "Soviet."

RICHARD FREELEY (genuinely surprised)

Really?

You bet!

What about now? What does "social" or "Socialism" mean now?

Oh, now? It means the Da Vinci Code.

What?

Yea, Da Vinci’s version of the Bible.

You’re kidding.

No, I kid you not. It’s the whole split in the so-called Communist movement.

It all seemed to come outta the French Revolution in 1793, right?

Yes… and just before that, the first "commune" was in Paris!

Right, but René Descartes’ first God ended up being Leonardo Da Vinci.

Oh?

Why the fuck do you think they hung inside the Louvre so much? In the Da Vinci Room, the Holy of Holies? To write The Communist Manifesto? Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did that. Almost a hundred years later.

And Nietzsche told you this.

Yeah, Freddy was all over this like a fly on shit.

Do go on.

Well, these eggheads know they’re not gonna destroy the whole Judeo-Christian civilization or, as Da Vinci wanted to do, rewrite the entire Bible without some

heavy hitters, some Osamas with guillotines, you know?

Yes… I’m catching on, I think.

So they start prayin’ for a Napoleon, see?

"Praying for a Napoleon…"

Yeah… so the first asshole who shows up is a guy named Maximilien Robespierre. Well, after they cut the heads off a Christian King, the aristocracy and the rich, they start working on the heads of the bourgeois middle class, some of Robespierre’s pals start getting "moderate" on him, you know, kind of Da Vinci-esque.

Oh, you mean Louis Antoine de St-Just, Camille Desmoulins and Georges Danton, right?

Yeah, right…. Jesus, yer up on this shit. You remind me of Wally Cox. He was my intimate friend…

RICHARD FREELEY (after awkward pause)

The History of France was my thesis at Cambridge.

You played Napoleon, didn’t you…in DESIRÉE.

Yeah… and I was terrible… I’m not a killer, you know… can’t really bring that off. I can play the Godfather to protect the family, but this Jack the Ripper shit is just not my cup of tea, so… yeah, I stunk. But the first Napoleon was Robespierre.

Yes, and France ended up decapitating him too.

Yeah, but that didn’t stop their prayers, did it?

No, I suppose not. In a few years, a military genius shows up from Italy and, yes, France falls in love with him.

The French just had to. You think Leonardo, in Mona Lisa drag, is gonna play Joan of Arc? Lead the whole fuckin’ French army into Europe and Egypt?

No, I don’t suppose the Mona Lisa would inspire any army of men… even a French army.

Yeah… yer gonna need a real butch Italian, right?

Yes, interesting… both Da Vinci and Buonoparte being Italian… yes, fascinating.

Right… that’s how I felt after Freddy started fillin’ me in.

Perhaps I should interview Mr. Nietzsche as well.

It might not be a bad idea…. he’s a helluva funny guy.

From yer expression… I guess you find that hard to believe… well, you know that Zarathustra laughed.

Yes, it’s one of Nietzsche’s classics.

You don’t think Freddy laughed too?

Yes, but being able to laugh doesn’t always mean being able to make other people laugh.

Yeah, but it’s a good beginning.

RICHARD FREELEY (a bit lost now)

I suppose so.

This film… let’s get back to that. When does it start? I mean at what point in time?

The European Depression.

What?

Yeah, somewhere around 2010 or so…

Oh… 2010… Hmm, there’s a depression? Like the one in the 1930s?

Yeah, only worse… a lot like the one we see in THE LAST MAN ON EARTH.

Oh…

A lotta rage underneath people who can’t eat.

But, Mr. Brando, this Europe is a cradle-to-grave, Socialist state… why can’t they eat? It’s almost everything FDR wanted in the New Deal.

Yeah, but his New Deal wasn’t what ended the Depression. The Second World War did. Sent everybody back to work.

I’ve heard that theory… I’m not entirely convinced…

Course yer not… yer still a fuckin’ liberal.

It’s written all over ya. Tony Blair fan to a T!

Good. Yer angry. I win.

RICHARD FREELEY (after being flummoxed by this, turns to the camera)

We’re going to have to take a break here, ladies and gentlemen, for an advertisement of some sort or other. Be back shortly.

Well, we're back with Marlon Brando, here on the set of... what's the name of the film?

Doesn't have one yet.

Not even a working title?

The director... I forget his fuckin' name... some French guy from Montreal… he doesn't like even a working title. He just... swings from the quickest idea he's got...

Well, isn't that a bit frustrating at times?

That's exactly how I work and it works every time.

Really.

Like a charm.

So, I suppose it saves you from learning your lines...

No, not on this one. I agreed to learn the lines... it wasn't hard 'cause they're pretty good... best I've read in a long time.

RICHARD FREELEY (reading from his production breakdown)

The director's name is Pierre Auguste Broulet...

Yeah, I call 'im "Eight"... fer the eighth month, ya know... (He starts to count on his fingers.) January, February, March, April...

RICHARD FREELEY (interrupting)

Yes, Mr. Brando. I understand, but "august" also means regal, majestic...

Well, he sure as hell ain't that. He's a deconstructionist...

Say what?

Like Jacques Derrida, ya know?

RICHARD FREELEY (almost insulted)

Yes, I'm aware of Jacques Derrida and deconstructionism. Do you know if the term "postmodern" came from him or not?

Postmodern?

People say it's a code word for "post-Marxist."

Oh, like "social" really meant "Soviet," huh?

Something like that.

"Postmodern" is a contradiction in terms.

Most definitely... and that's why I see it as perfect deconstruction, the tearing apart of particularly English absolutes... it was the most interesting part of my history of France, deconstructionism was.

"Postmodern." Gee, I guess that makes me "pre-passé."

And renders me an increasingly equivocal liberal...

Gee... I like that... Yeah, cool...

Thank you, Mr. Brando.

No, you can call me Marlon now... after that description of yerself, there's hope fer us being friends.

RICHARD FREELEY (flattered)

Oh, so... would you describe yourself as an increasingly equivocal communist?

No, I'm a Buddhist now. It was the only possible place to hide. Couldn't be a Christian, you know. I may have lost my Red Card, but I didn't lose my mind.

Yes, James Joyce said something like that about the Catholic Church...

Oh, you read the same quote, huh?

Yes. We've dropped so many names in the air now – Mao, Jacques Derrida, James Joyce, Wally Cox, Friedrich Nietzsche...

Talk to Freddy. You'll love 'im. He'll eat you up and spit you out like chicken feathers, but… think of it as a Friar's Roast for geniuses ... they're fun, ya know...

Friar's Roast. Dean Martin comes to mind...

Yeah, the only really funny guy in that whole Rat Pack. We only had a quasi-scene together in THE YOUNG LIONS, when Dean shoots me and I roll down a hill. Too bad, I would have liked to work with Dean some more. What a relaxed son of a bitch… Made everything look too easy…

You and Frank Sinatra didn't get along, did you? I mean on the set of GUYS AND DOLLS.

Well, he thought he should be playing my role... Sky Masterson... but he was a little long in the tooth fer that, ya know?

Yes, well... I'm trying to get us back to Mao.

Well, there's a connection between Frank Sinatra and Mao Zedong. Yeah, they were both patriarchs, you know. The men wore the pants and called the shots.

Yes, but, well... that's hardly of any major impact upon the situation...

It's vitally important to this script I'm shooting.

How so?

Well, these Da Vinci Mama's Boys, the "Rainbow Coalition of Intellectual Supremacists"... they're all matriarchal.

Please elaborate.

Those socialist beehives they've been building… you know, with progressive taxation... that crust they're wrapping around the whole human race keeps thickening, like Jeff Goldblum’s mutated flesh when he fuses with The Fly, until finally all they've got left to do is expropriate all private property – the final Communist ace. That and martial law 24/7... well, it's insect politics. Queen bees 'n drones, ya know...

Why do you think all the women in the Free World fell for that shit? It's Da Vinci Goddess Worship. Read this Dan Brown character's THE DA VINCI CODE. It's all there in black 'n white. Women, according to Leonardo, know more than men, are stronger, wiser, more cunning... on and on... and men, except for providing sperm, are worthless, except as drones or workers. Really. So, with no God to speak of, these Goddesses have earned all the rights of Mother Earth... to just up and whack their gestating infants... treat 'em like egg yokes.

I mean, what is that whole trimester dividing up of gestation? Two thirds of a fetal life, according to the scientists, is egg yolk... no more important than a possible omelet. And when you think about it, ya know, that makes all women egg shells. Those flying dykes who meet in Beijing once a year to "celebrate the Revolution" kind of overlooked how this image leaves them... you think Mao really thinks of women as any better than eggs with yolks?

RICHARD FREELEY (quite disturbed by all this insect-and-egg talk)

Well, this is really rather upsetting...

Oh, yer pro-Choice, are ya? Well, gee, yer gonna have to go back ta calling me "Mr. Brando" now. I didn't know you'd take this shit so seriously.

It’s time for a commercial break here.

So, here we are, still in Heaven, of course, but at this point I’ve chosen to speak with Herr Friedrich Nietzsche, famed 19^th-century philosopher and now, apparently through the imprecations of Marlon Brando, an actor…

Part time! Only a hobby.

RICHARD FREELEY (having heard it clearly)

Ah, yes, only a "hobby" he says. Well, you never know with Hollywood…

Hollywood? This is a documentary, isn’t it?

RICHARD FREELEY (calling back)

This is, sir, but the film you’re in is not.

I know that! However, in the film I appear as an asshole named Jacques Chirac…

Yes, that’s true…

But here I’m appearing as myself, correct?

Correct.

And I’m not even appearing… look at the monitor… I’m not even on it!

Am I on it?

No, sir.

You never smile! Who taught you comedy? Boris Karloff? Bela Lugosi?

Richard Nixon?

RICHARD FREELEY (crimson-faced)

Herr Nietzsche!

Cut the "Herr" shit… it’s Freddy…

RICHARD FREELEY (nonplussed)

Well, yes, but please. Calling Nietzsche Freddy is…

That bubble-brain Brando calls me Freddy…

But I am not Marlon Brando…

Thy state is the more gracious. You're very fucking lucky….

Sir?

I know "fucking" is an obscenity… something this show is turning into, you understand?

Ah, my first review…

FREDDY (smiling)

At last, a funny line… You’re learning… slowly… very slowly.

Mr. Brando said you were funny, but I hadn’t quite expected…

Jackie Mason? He’s one of my favorites. He’s allowed on TV in Heaven. Ed Sullivan has no say about what goes on up here.

I’m not surprised. Now! I suppose it’s time to begin the interview.

I don’t feel like it anymore. I’m pouting. I love to pout. Began the minute I learned that I was dying of syphilis. It got me everything I wanted. Poor me… poor Friedrich…

I was going to get to that subject a bit later in our conversation….

Shy, eh?

Well, my audience is rather…

Bourgeois? I LOVE the bourgeois!! I scream that every time a Frenchman shows up here. "I LOVE THE BOURGEOIS! NYAH, NYAH NEE AH AH, FROGGIES!"

You obviously don’t like the French.

Who could? Not even the French like the French. Why do you think Paris is empty in August? Eleven months is enough! They all go to Monaco… where they can pretend to be Israeli.

And I thought interviewing Marlon Brando might be a problem….

You think, eh? I’ll be the judge of that.

I do have a question or two.

Shoot. Fire away!

What are you doing here?

I mean… you’re obviously not taking any of this seriously…

Who could? Marlon playing Mao? I’ve met both of them, you know…

Both of them?

Yah… and it’s a fuck-up. He’s totally miscast.

Brando miscast?

Of course… who would hire the biggest baby in Hollywood to play the coldest soul that ever walked the earth?

I have no idea really…. don’t know who cast this film…. don’t care really…

Then what are you doing here? You’re not bright enough to be in Heaven… you should be in some remedial, little Red House in Purgatory.

They let me in…

I’m going to have a talk with Him.

Who?

None of your fucking business.

So one must have a high IQ to be let in, is that right?

It’s not a dictatorship up here… if some newcomers are not to everyone’s liking, there’s a vote.

Heaven’s a democracy!

Kind of… if the Big Guy wants someone in… he or she gets in.

You don’t like women, do you?

Who started all the trouble in the first place? Women!

I dig. Why did you consent to this interview?

It was in my contract!

You signed a contract?

Of course! You think anybody trusts anybody else up here?

Isn’t that what Heaven is all about? Trust?

Who comes up here? Pillsbury Doughboys from another planet? Humans! And have you ever met anybody down there you could trust? I mean really trust?

Well, there’s… I had an aunt once. She…

Dead now, right?

Yes.

I’ll look her up. What’s her name? I could use somebody I can trust. Someone busted my trust. (laughs)

There’s no one up here you can trust?

Oh… yes…

I beg your pardon…

It says here that the working title for this film is MAO. Simply MAO.

Yah. And I should have played Mao… not fatty.

Oh, that’s right. You said Brando is miscast.

Totally… completely… utterly… there couldn’t be an actor less fit to play such a monster. And I mean fit in both senses of the word!

Why do you think he was cast? If you don’t mind my asking.

It’s the only role he would play.

Hmmm… don’t you think… (RICHARD FREELEY points upward at the

imaginary Authority) he would have something to say about that?

He considered giving the role to Henry Kissinger who, as you know, adored Mao… and shares, well, similar tastes in more than women… but, as you know, the not-so-good Doctor hasn’t arrived yet…

So, isn’t anyone else available?

No one up here but me is willing to play the part. You can’t know how awful Mao was… and is! Why do you think he’s not here?

Well, his neighbors didn’t like him.

They loathed him. There was a seven-alarm fire before he arrived! The word was out up here that Mao was on his last legs and…

So they’d seen everything that had gone on…

We all do.

And this is central clearance… I mean every soul goes through the "pearly gates" first, right?

Right.

Why is that?

It’s all a play… down there… and up here too.

I don’t understand.

I didn’t either – till I met Brando. That life you live on Earth? It’s a play… written by God and produced by William Shakespeare.

And the purpose of the play?

To entertain God, of course.

And so everyone is an actor.

Right! It’s just a matter of how well you play the role. And Mao? Oh, my God… the biggest, baddest, coldest, most ruthless, ugliest of souls.

It’s nothing. No one in the history of Creation... yah, Mao wins the bad guy prize.

So, with Mao’s demise…. then the big play is over, right?

No, Mao rules… still! Yah…

From where?

At the end of the universe, there is the coldest, most glacial void… empty of everything! Except black holes… all over… ugly, bottomless vacuums of nothingness! Yah… and the cold there… oh, my soul. May I never hear of that Freezer again… let alone feel it… the Freezer... yah, we call it the Freezer.

That’s where he is? In the nether reaches of a cold, dark universe?

Yah.

And he rules from some distant void, like a monstrous Planet X?

Most completely now… the whole Earth… the human race… it’s his… right there in the palm of his hand.

So for all this time… all these millennia, we got it wrong. The Devil is in an inferno, a hell of fire!

No.

That’s what we’ve been told… it’s brimstone and furnaces.

No, sir, it’s the Freezer. The devil is ice! A glacier so excruciatingly cold, it’s beyond our imagination.

We’ll take a break here… I need a drink!

We’re back to the film set of MAO, staring Marlon Brando and Friedrich Nietzsche… or "Freddy," as Marlon is allowed to call him… How does it feel, Mr. Brando?

Marlon… you can call me Marlon… for now….

Oh… and why is that? I thought you’d...

I know but… if I get like that... you know… not letting you call me Marlon… I’d be a snob. Freddy taught me that.

So Friedrich Nietzsche is not a snob, eh? You’d think he would be. An acknowledged genius of Philosophy and...

Well, if you die of syphilis… you know? Kind of takes the glow off the fame… Near the end, Freddy was so far gone he hugged a beaten horse in a town square.

Syphilis… a subject I wanted to discuss with Mr. Nietzsche…

So he didn’t let you call him Freddy?

RICHARD FREELEY (lying)

Well, I just can't call the great Friedrich Nietzsche Freddy... it's just not in me.

Then you'll call me Mr. Brando... I'm not taking a back seat to Freddy!

RICHARD FREELEY (ticked)

Well, that sounds fair… I suppose. Does Mr. Nietzsche hold that much power over you? Sounds like you can’t do a thing without his approval.

Really! Well, I’ve never had a great film director, you know… I mean as great a director as I am an actor…

There’s Elia Kazan, Charles Chaplin, Edward Dmytryk, Francis Ford Coppola – a whole array of Hollywood’s best directing you…

No… Freddy’s the best.

Mr. Nietzsche directs you?

Yeah, he’s there for every scene I do.

Isn’t that a little nerve-wracking to Monsieur Pierre Auguste Broulet?

You mean "Eight?" Well, who the fuck cares…. he’s used to it. He’s a TV director.

Oh. So how does Mr. Nietzsche direct you? I mean – what does he have that others don’t?

Compassion. Yeah, it’s amazing…. he feels and knows everything… all at once… you don’t have to say a thing… he reads my mind… my whole being. And he’s the funniest guy I ever met.

RICHARD FREELEY (smiles in agreement, looks at his notes)

The scene with Mr. Nietzsche as Jacques Chirac... have you shot it yet?

Yeah, it was fourth scene second day… yeah… won’t forget that… He showed up on the set in a Can-Can outfit… Moulin Rouge shit. Kickstepping, showin’ his fanny… singing’ "If you knew Freddy like I know Freddy…" ooo-la-la! What a gal! I mean who could beat that? It was enough to induce cardiac arrest in a yak!

RICHARD FREELEY (embarrassed)

Oh, yes… Dame Edna material. Yes, very funny, I would imagine.

Then he takes his feather boa off, goes over and kisses "Eight" right on the lips… turns to me and says – I can imitate him – "Herr Broulet kisses better than Larry King!" I fell off my fucking chair. So I start singin’ "A Fine Romance… with no kisses… a fine romance."

So you became friends right then and there.

And it’s only gotten better ever since. He loves Mexican food… I love Mexican food…. He’s crazy about Polynesian girls… I married one. She drove me crazy… He knows how to fix the problem First Nations have had since we white assholes

showed up…

And how do you fix that problem?

Know they’re waiting till half the white race blows itself up… you gotta know that…. and then they come out of hiding and help.

He’s sure of that?

I’m sure of that.

Why?

We haven’t suffered half o’ what they have… after the Apocalypse, we will have. It won’t even the score, because they’ll be suffering too.

So we have to blow ourselves up… to solve the problem with First Nations.

We don’t have to. We will… it’s a sure thing… even the Bible says that. Till then the Indians party… Cabaret, you know…. "Life is a cabaret, ole chum"….

RICHARD FREELEY (catty)

You mean by getting drunk on the reservation? You like singing, don’t you?

Love it!

Do you think you were underappreciated in that respect?

Yes! Absolutely. If Rex Harrison can talk his way through a song, what’s wrong with me mumbling my way through a song?

Well, you did try to sing in GUYS AND DOLLS…

Try? I sing exquisitely in that! All of Sky Masterson’s boyishness and sensitivity comes through… I hit everything right on target. I sang as well as Edmund Purdom! (laughs)

The notes weren’t always in tune, though…

Neither was Sky Masterson’s life! And the critics weren’t awake enough to pick that up…

Neither was Frank Sinatra, I hear…

That shitbag… wannabe Gumba….

Hush. His friends might hear you, you know?

Let ‘em. What the fuck can I be afraid of now?

That’s true…. Now, I haven’t asked one-fifth of the questions I’ve written down here.

Get your head out of the notes. Talk… live a little… you’ll be up here or down there for a long time… You can ask me then…

But my viewers would like to know some of this now.

They’ll end up in the same place… so what’s your problem?

RICHARD FREELEY (flustered)

Well, I... uh...

Hey, grab that chair over there and sit down with me… right here… yeah… grab it, pick it up right.

Now, tell me about yourself.

Well, we don’t really need the cameras for this…

Course we need ‘em. Leave ‘em running… now you’ll know how it feels… get an idea of what it’s like….

RICHARD FREELEY (blushing)

Well, I’ve never really done this before.

Take a deep breath… right… let it all out… right there… feeling better?

A bit.

Now where were you born?

In East Teacup, England. (laughs)

Where’s that?

Well… not far from Salisbury Steak Cathedral… (laughs).

Never been there…. a pretty one… that Cathedral?

Well, it’s ancient… for us, at any rate…

You a Christer?

RICHARD FREELEY (talking as if he is excreting words and has hemorrhoids in his throat)

Was. Church of England and all that, eh what, but… lapsed now… yes, very lapsed…

I thought only Catholics were "lapsed"…

You would think so… but it happens to all Christians eventually.

Why is that?

Well now, my word… we’ve really strayed off the path, haven’t we?

We’re in Heaven! How much closer to the mark can you get!

I would like to take a break here.

Cheater! Heretic! Apostate!

RICHARD FREELEY (firm)

Yes, we’ll be back in a moment.

You’re not leaving that chair…

_______

Now, Mr. Nietzsche …

Please… don’t forget…. you must call me Freddy… I’m American now. Despite my accent, I "swing"… you know!

Yes, well… (He peruses his script.)… As I understand… from the script… which you had a hand in writing…

Yes… Marlon threw in a few of my suggestions…

From what I read, Chairman Mao Zedong…. blames everything… his bad name… his reputation… his legend… and the horrifying image of him in a new biography… According to the script, Mao blames everything on the French, Karl Marx, Stalin… and a man by the name of Sir Francis Galton.

Of course… it all leads to Galton!

Was that your contribution to the work?

Yah. It "sings" now… you know… I mean, first of all, what’s a bad guy, in this day and age of psychological excuses – what’s a Billy the Kid without his mother to blame for everything?

Oh… yes… sort of the post-traumatic stresses of Jack the Ripper… it was all his victims’ fault… and he’s suffering undue pressure from the guilt a deluded world is attempting to place on him.

Precisely! You catch on fast! Well, not only was it NOT Mao’s fault… for any of it… for the mass starvation of over 30 million Chinese… the men and military he decimated to make sure he would be Chairman… the lies he told Stalin, in the hope that Japan would beat Chiang Kai-Shek’s troops and make… no FORCE… the Soviets to wage war against Japan… on Chinese soil… and… oh… what a mind he had, Mao… he made Machiavelli look like an amateur, you know. Mao hoped Japan would eventually lose… but only after they’d assassinated Stalin… and that would leave Mao as the sole Chairman of the entire Communist World…

It eventually worked out that way, didn’t it?

Yah… Mao outlives Stalin… the Soviet Empire breaks up… and that idiot, mothball Soviet, Vladimir Putin, ends up playing whore to the Tweedledees and Tweedledums of China! Oh, he knew… Mao, the Master Intriguer...

Was there ever a villain like Mao, do you think?

No. Not even Shakespeare could come up with a monster like Mao… he was Richard III and Iago rolled into one… evil son of a gun!

Then where does this Sir Francis Galton fit in?

Well, he gets the last laugh… even over Mao… and Mao… now that he’s faced Heaven… there’s really no hell in Christ’s Heaven… all the bad guys are in the psychiatric wing…

I beg your pardon?

Yah… God’s not a sadist… he’s a lover… and a very good one, too… all that dirty old man stuff in the Bible… the incest with Lot and his daughters. Well, I don’t want to upset too many Reborns in the audience but he’s a randy one, God is… He’s kept Mother Earth pregnant for millennia…

Yes… well… you might be right about the Reborns… but that can go in the editing room you know… Feel free to speak…

Freely? Like your last name, huh?

Umm… well… when did Sir Francis Galton live?

The 19th Century… London. He was a cousin of Charles Darwin. After reading EVOLUTION OF THE SPECIES like it was written for him personally, he comes up with this idea of Eugenics!

And could you please define Eugenics for our audience?

Why don’t you ask Francis himself?

He’s here? Well, of course he’s here… There is no Hell, is there?

Only psychiatric wards… That’s where Galton is… in the Heavenly Nuthouse! Yes, the Celestial Funny Farm!

Are they allowed visitors?

Let me check into that… if they let ME in… after having let me OUT… I arrived a syphilitic… they wanted two weeks of observation… and they realized that I wasn’t any crazier or a dirtier old man than… GOD HIMSELF! (laughs)

RICHARD FREELEY (annoyed)

Yes… how interesting.

Let me talk to Churchy.

Churchy?

Winny… Winston. You of all people should know.

Sir Winston Churchill?

Yes. St. Peter retired… full pension… to eternity!

You don’t say.

And now Churchy’s at the gate… knows them all… spoke with half the real bad guys of the last hundred years and… well… takes one to know one, you know. Just kidding… or am I?

Please do that… talk to Sir Winston… at the gate… and we can take a break.

We’ll be right back after this brief commercial.

COMMERCIAL BREAK FIVE

RICHARD FREELEY (into the camera)

We are now sitting with Sir Francis Galton.

Mr. Galton… Thank you for allowing us to speak with you.

SIR FRANCIS GALTON doesn’t answer. He only smiles, looking around an imaginary universe that only he can see. That’s why he has that smile.

Well… yes… now… Mr. Nietzsche has told us… and, after researching this a bit, we realize that you were the one who coined the word "eugenics"… is that correct?

Coined it. Created the concept. Delivered it only to my closest friends. (He lightly rolls his "r’s." He’s Laurence Olivier at his worst. He smiles a broader smile… but only briefly.) And after reviewing the progress… the flowering, so to speak… of the entire Twentieth Century… I find things… are right on schedule.

Oh… and… the "progress".

Progressive!

Hmm. Yes, that would make sense…

Everything I’ve ever thought… from my birth… to my death… has made INFINITE sense… neither a wrong syllable nor a missed punctuation mark.

All perfect, you mean…

Utterly perfect.

Then what are you doing here?

What do you mean?

In a psychiatric ward… the best I’ve ever seen but…

I am actually holding YOU prisoner… Don’t you know that?

No… I really hadn’t seen it quite that way…

That proves your utter benightedment.

"Benightedment"… Is that a legitimate word? Hmm…

It means the polar opposite of enlightenment.

Oh…. yes… I sort of knew that… but never quite as emphatically as now.

Now, where were we?

Caught in your delusion… Your once infuriating blindness over who is in charge of whom here. Now I no longer even get upset over the likes of you and your craven little liberal world.

Yes, well, how do you feel? Yes, let’s start there… a simple "how are you," perhaps?

You’re really quite frightened of me, aren’t you? That of course is how it should be… and will be… unto eternity.

You enjoy other people’s fear…

I adore it! Fear of God… as so lamely presented in the Bible… has always been… and always will be… the fear of my own certain, irrefutable, ineradicable, diaphanously granite…TRUTH!

It says here that Nobel Prize winner James D. Watson recently spoke of you in glowing terms.

SIR FRANCIS (becoming teary-eyed)

Brilliant man! Unparalleled insight and courage! With a few small references to me… he perfectly… and I mean without one flaw in the sentences… honored his most important predecessor – the giant upon whose shoulders he now stands… heralded in the halls of Enlightenment… Stockholm, Sweden… the most unrecognized achievement of the New World Order!

He is the most unrecognized…

SIR FRANCIS (interrupting)

No, Stockholm! All other capitals of the now ancient world… and that means any metropolis pre-dating my discovery of eugenics… and that is why a few sloppily-minded socialists think "postmodern" means "post-Karl Marx"… but who or what is Marx when compared to me?

I really wouldn’t know…

Marx? A mere John the Baptist to my Christ!

You were martyred?

In a manner of speaking… I was. Yes, of course... I was most certainly martyred…. but, how shall I say this? I was martyred in exactly the same way that monument to professional victims, Jesus of Nazareth was… It was all part of the drama! I had to keep my name silent… my greatness a secret… my achievement … a profound but long-awaited one… Do you know how long it’s been since my name could come up into the light?

No, I really wouldn’t know.

Over one hundred years! The dark, incredibly blinkered, cave-like mentality that was propagated by Judeo-Christianity and its … namby-pamby moral nonsense! Nauseating!

Only a woman! A saint, if you will… and you would, given the obvious demilitarized zone your intellect dwells in… a female giant…

Excuse me… Can I stop you here for a moment? My obvious DEMILITARIZED zone?

You’re an open book, Mr. Freeley! To which I must crawl in your lexicon… your reference to saints and all… Margaret Sanger… my spiritual WIFE, if you will… was in your own bogus hierarchy… A SAINT!

A saint of Eugenics, right?

A saint of the Universe!

Perhaps, sir, it is time for a short break. May I do that, sir?

Do whatever you bloody please! It won’t be long before that vaunted, individual freedom of yours is seen for the delusion it has always been!

COMMERCIAL BREAK SIX

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Polish! I was, am and always will be Polish!

Oh, well… yes… didn’t know that.

Few do… Isn’t it interesting that one of the most reputedly great minds of Germany was actually Polish? Might explain the stupidity of their starting not one but two world wars.

The Poles have hardly been stupid. There’s Chopin and Copernicus.

And Karol Woytila… But now they have a Kraut in the Vatican…

Karl Ratzinger, also known as Benedict XVI…

Benny Six, they call him… in the streets of Rome… you know from that…

Know what?

He’s the Christ…

I beg your pardon… thought you didn’t believe in that…

The myths are absolutely, unalterably true… and the sacrificial lamb is inevitable in this instance…

I don’t follow you…

Benny’s days are numbered by the Eugenicists… yah…they’re in a big, fat, fucking hurry… Progress, you know… So-called Progressives…

You think he might be…

Not might. Will! And then the Catholic Underground will rise and… ah, mein Got im Himmel! Hadn’t known what might prompt that… until I realized the whole messy business of Christ must be played out again… Even the Galtonites know that… the Eugenicists… I mean, they’re Thanatacists.

They’re what?

Tha-na-ta-cists… death worshippers… the superhuman race cannot be built unless there’s megadeath and one thing that will begin such a religious conflict is…

You admire the Pope?

Yah, it was he who returned me to Christ… guess who came back with me? Pier Paolo Pasolini.

The great Italian director of Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom! The homosexual visionary communist who was murdered…

Yah, the fucked-up servant of two masters, Christ and Karl Marx.

Oh, well… I really prefer to talk about Sir Francis…

Galton? It took a ton of gall to come up with Eugenics….

But he did apparently…

Yes, indeed, but he was a mathematician and that explains almost everything.

How so?

FREDDY (warming to the subject)

Do you remember the story of Abraham and Isaac?

In the Bible, where God orders Abraham to slay his son Isaac?

Yah… and then, at the last minute, holds back Abraham and orders the father to let his son live.

Yes, but what has that to do with Sir Francis?

Mathematics! The greatest mathematician was Sir Isaac Newton… Well, God knew that Isaac would be the namesake of the man who would fuck everything up!

RICHARD FREELEY (confused)

So you’re saying Isaac Newton screwed the pooch, so to speak?

Yah… few people know the rigidity of his Christianity… like his integers… and algebraic formulas… he took the Catholic Trinity… the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and discarded the Holy Ghost… it’s in his Twelve Spiritual Articles… read them!

I believe you, but how did that end up in Eugenics?

The soul of Man rests, like a table, on three legs… the Father, the Son AND the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Paraclete, the only real lawyer we have… Well, take one leg away… and what happens to the table?

It falls over, unless it has something to lean on.

And guess what Sir Isaac left the Protestants to lean on? Mathematics! We now have a human race that is like the Leaning Tower of Pisa… The tower Galileo played one-way handball from… and the one destined to fall…

... as the human race will?

Might! Yah… might… meaning more than a little possibility…

It’s quite a stretch, from the Bible’s Isaac to Isaac Newton.

NOT if you include that mysterious "Sin against the Holy Ghost,"… the one Christ said could never be forgiven….

I always thought that might be suicide, you know… rather like Judas…

Funny you should say that… so did I… and, of course, the only thing Catholic about me was my refusal to despair about anything… anything at all… but no… it was Isaac who murdered the Holy Ghost before the French Revolution had even THOUGHT of assassinating God, the Father.

And so, when Newton eliminated the Holy Ghost and then replaced it with mathematics…

It was inevitable that assholes like Rev. Billy Graham and his chosen Evangelist, William Clinton, should buy Eugenics… that creation of a mathematician… it’s all as much anti-Catholic as it is pro-mathematics, but you see how cold the Reformation Christians can get toward almost everything. If integers, numbers and equations determine their fate, yah? The cold equations…

So, Sir Francis is not entirely at fault for the misconception…

No, there’s roughly two hundred years between Galton and Newton… and many generations of mathematical Christians. Very obsessed with appearances and lifestyles and increasingly inured to death… almost hoping they’d be taken… the Reborns, you know… those Left Behind.

So, in a way, Sir Francis is guilty of the "Sin against the Holy Ghost."

Yah – and millions of other so-called "Reborns."

Wouldn’t he go to Hell for that… join Mao Zedong?

There’s hope he might see the light… wake up… but, it would take a Master to do it… like Christ… and for some reason… Christ is either not in the mood or he’s waiting for someone to volunteer.

Why don’t you volunteer?

Why me?

You seem the only person…at least the only one I know of… who understands his…

His enthrallment! A good word… Abraham Lincoln used it when referring to America’s hypnotic state under slavery. He said to Congress: "We must disenthrall ourselves."

We’ll take a break here and be right back…

COMMERCIAL BREAK SEVEN

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Do you know Friedrich Nietzsche, Sir Francis?

I’ve tried this once before without telling anyone. I think exorcisms are for experts and the Ultimate Expert is up here with us, but he just doesn’t want to help…

What happened when you tried before?

Brought him near the edge and he withdrew… went completely catatonic….

Why not just try again? Do you think he hears us?

No, not a thing… his dreams… at least in his own mind… are coming true irreversibly… the march toward the perfect human race… all designed along his own prescriptions in hereditary genius. He doesn’t know there’s something beyond human genius.

And that would be?

Apprehension… and I don’t mean it in the contemporary sense… no… Shakespeare again… there’s nothing he didn’t know… Harold Bloom was right…

The Shakespearean critic?

Well, hardly a critic of Shakespeare since he worships the Bard… he said, "Shakespeare invented us!"

RICHARD FREELEY (scoffing)

Oh… well… not sure I’d go quite THAT far for a fellow countryman but…

"What a piece of work is a man"… This is from Hamlet. "How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties… in form and moving, how express and admirable… in action… how like an angel… in apprehension, how like a God!" With the death of the Holy Ghost came the death of "apprehension," the ability to see not into… but out of Eternity. With the rise of mathematics came the death of Eternity as well… Stephen Hawking says it in his preface to GOD OF THE INTEGERS: "Space is finite… and therefore NOT eternal."

Good afternoon, Sir Francis. You’ve met Mr. Freeley, I presume… He’s here to ask you a few questions about Hereditary Genius and Eugenics.

My great inspiration came when I met Sir Isaac Newton in my dreams! While visualizing the future… seeing what Man will be… when we’ve raised him up out of this genetic dice game he’s been wallowing in… copulating with the most absurd matings… spawning mongoloids and other inferior biological specimens… all going in the wrong direction. Odious. If I were a believer, I’d say it runs counter to God’s plan! As it is now, the human race is abominable actually… but things are improving, thanks to Mao Zedong and the spread of his Population Control Policy. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this… you’re obviously a half-informed, well-intentioned liberal… and the real work’s being done by the Red Chinese and Islam… great boon to Eugenics, old Allah is… and, of course, if the authorities allow the ethnic cleansings to go on unabated, that will certainly rid the Earth of the worst of the mouth-breathers. Dim-witted dullards and pigs! Not a mouthful of brains to be found in any of them!

Excuse me, Sir Francis…

What about Marlon?

What about him?

Galton so admires Mao… right? Well, how about… I mean, what if Marlon arrived as Mao to talk with Galton?

Yes, by Jesus… it might work – if I rehearse Marlon a bit.

Like to do that now?

Of course…

RICHARD FREELEY (to the camera)

We’ll be right back….

Marlon, you must… you cannot omit this… remind him of Waterloo…

Waterloo? What the fuck has Galton to do with Nelson kicking Bonaparte, boot-stomping his army to pieces?

Galton’s entire inheritance… intellectually, of course… is French. He’s not really English – not a bit of the crown in him, you know…

He took a knighthood… what the fuck is that?

Careerism. He had to… his ambitions were as great as Mao’s, but you must prove to him that YOU, Mao Zedong, have the upper hand and always will… Do you understand?

MARLON BRANDO (finished with his makeup)

Looks pretty good, huh?

I thought I was GREAT as a Jap in… what the fuck was the name of that film? Who cares? But with all the Buddhism I know now…

Marlon, that’s why you’re terrible as Mao… too Buddhist… it worked for the Jap in TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON… all that poetry, but Mao was beyond poetry…

MARLON BRANDO (upset)

That’s impossible! Nothing can be beyond poetry.

Beyond Good and Evil, Marlon, IS beyond poetry… it’s nothing… nihilism, zero, void, black holes, nadir… indifference, Marlon…You do not understand indifference!

Fuck you! Yer just jealous… I got the part and you didn’t….

Perhaps, but you MUST convince Galton of your utter indifference to his fate… and that will be hard… you’re too compassionate… or as Robert De Niro described you, romantic – and romance has no place in Mao’s world.

Well, then let’s wait till Bobby dies… and HE can play Mao…

We haven’t time… Eugenics is cleaning up in the wake of Mao… and moving forward at such a speed… millions of gestating infants die each month… they’re piling up in a special Heaven Christ had to invent…

Oh, fuck…YOU do it….YOU get into makeup, ya goddamn know-it-all!

There’s no time. You MUST do it.

I feel like I’m in a fucking forties film… ya know… Mickey Rooney and saving the show…" Ya gotta go on!" Shit like that.

Life is more like a forties film than you can possibly imagine. And, oh, yes… you must be prepared for the Galton contempt… there’s no more vitriolic, vituperous revulsion for anything living than that of Sir Francis Galton… except, of course, for that of Mao Zedong.

We’ll be right back with Marlon, Mao and Sir Francis Galton…

And then I told him: "The real work is being done by Mao and Eugenics…"

MARLON BRANDO (nodding sagaciously in agreement)

Who might have known?

…. from the Orient... the Truth arises… a short, fat little fuck…

Yes, that’s how they refer to me up here… in secret, of course… and those that do… there’s no God to help them but me, Francis!

And, my dear man… no one knows torture… slow, unrelenting, cold, icy sadism… like I do.

Oh, I’m sure of that, Mao… oh, no doubt … how splendid… and you enjoy it, eh?

MARLON BRANDO (smiling one of his most satisfied expressions of sheer bliss)

See this face? Am I weeping?

I’ve imagined such things, Mao… but never shared that fact with anyone… except you! Oh, my dear friend… my dearest companion.

But now, Francis... Are you listening?

Yes, Mao…

It’s very important that you hear me now, do you understand? What I’m about to say will remain law… implacable, irrevocable, irreversible law… to eternity… are you with me here, Francis?

Yes, of course… I’m all ears.

You’re going to start wearing pajamas, Francis. That’s the first order.

I beg your pardon?

Yes, just like these… only a little drabber, you know… nothing that carries the inner brilliance of my own pair of pajamas…

Aren’t you happy about that, Francis?

Well, Mao, I’m not sure where you’re going with this.

Where do you think I’m going, Francis?

What little I’ve read about you, Mao, indicates a severe… egomania in your nature… and that of course is always the downfall of genius… it courses through all of literature… and I’m sensing a move on your part to… well… how shall I say… become "top dog," as it were.

I don’t have to BECOME anything, Francis… I am… I just am… you, sir… became more French than the French…

I beg your pardon, Mao… I’m British… as mad as King George and as profound as Shakespeare himself.

No, you’re a froggy little idiot… do you think I don’t know where Karl Marx was coming from? And Stalin? I know Joe talked a good game about gratitude being only for dogs… and until me, Mao, the Deadly Buddha… the only thing more ungrateful than Stalin was the Dr. Frankenstein nation that invented him: France. But I, Mao Zedong, took all their formulas and raised the ante so high. Only Jesus got THAT high… and once I arrived I cut ‘im to ribbons… shreds… they’re feeding Jesus to the pigeons now… because of me, Francis.

And your point is?

Who the fuck do you think you are?

SIR FRANCIS (composing himself)

I am Sir Francis Galton, the creator of Eugenics, the only possible vision that can simultaneously contain the butchery of you, Stalin and Hitler and all the other wannabes in your club of assassins… and explain why you’ve been made the way you are. I, having explained you, or those like you throughout history, having revealed their meaning to myself and to the world of science, the mathematicians particularly, have set in motion the only possible direction of mankind: that Man himself must take charge of his own evolution! It can’t be left to chance!

MARLON BRANDO (after a long admiring pause, one concentrated upon SIR FRANCIS GALTON with a mildly humorous respect)

Francis… my word… that was something… I’d like to play you…

Well played, sir. Yes, well played indeed. Bravo! I’m not too pleased with your delivery on the words butcher… and assassin… not a great deal of respect there, Francis…

Why should there be? You can’t assassinate me… I AM FOREVER!

I heard that Stephen Hawking… you know who he is, the famous astrophysicist…

Of course… you idiot… God, how minor these hooligans of man... how ignorant… how loathsome… silly creatures, but I suppose we need these useful idiots to do the job that has to be done…

Hawking said space is finite… and therefore there’s no eternity… so there’s an end somewhere, isn’t there? And I’m going to send you there… kicking and screaming…watch – I bet that in less than ten minutes, you’ll be in a straitjacket… that’ll be your FIRST pair of pajamas… and then, after that… you’ll be worshipping in my temples… yeah, they’ll be very Buddhist. You’ll be intoning, "Mao, Mao, Mao…"

Like a cat? Meow, meow…. you horrid, abominable man! Meow, eh! YOU WANT TO HEAR MEOW? I’LL GIVE YOU MEOW!

Well done, Marlon… well done… couldn’t have done it better myself.

We’ll be right back after this.

Sir Francis?

You’ve had a rough go, eh?

What would YOU know about it?

Oh, me? I only died of syphilis… what would I know about suffering?

You don’t understand… this has nothing to do with the pathetic end of one man. This is the future of the entire human race!

Easy, Francis… they’ve got more than straitjackets here, friend…

Friend… No one’s a friend of mine!

Should there be?

My dream… is the only dream possible… otherwise there’ll be utter anarchy… do you know that?

Well… the human race has done pretty well so far, you know…

It’s a madhouse, the human race… chaos! Utter insanity… we glimpse genius here and there… and then poof – it’s gone! Au revoir, Monsieur le Génie!

So you are French inside… Mao was right about you after all.

Where did all this contempt for the French come from, sir? I mean without the French Revolution we would all be doltish, bourgeois good-for-nothings on a golf course… doing nothing…

But enjoying ourselves… is there something wrong with that? Could anyone repay our Creator in full for the miracle of life… would that be even possible… how could we poor mortals be expected to repay God for his bounty? In what coin? With what gold?

There is no God but Man, sir!

And here one man sits… in a straitjacket, only because he thought God and creation and evolution were not good enough.

This is not good enough…This awful, agonizing condition we live in… battering about in our mortal coils, filled with dreams that go utterly unfulfilled, wishing for this… hoping for that… planning a victory here and a conquest there… and all dashed and blasted... flies to wanton boys and words bereft of any meaning.

Well, you can thank the French for that deconstruction…

What have I done to deserve this? It’s hell, you know… I’m drowning in my own mind. Words fly about in my brain… and lose all weight and substance... they’re mere growlings of an animal. How can that be when I saw the whole thing before my mind’s eye… with Charley’s discoveries?

Charley?

My cousin, Charles Darwin! He laid it all out before us… the entire mosaic of Man – from whence we came – and the obvious evidence before us of where we are going… after summoning up all the greatest and strongest elements of the entire chain of life… from amoebas to Leonardo Da Vinci! Do you see it?

No, tell me.

Once the clearing has been made…

All the FAT of an obese humanity has been cut off… the inadequate, the puerile, the craven, the weak and fragile, the intimidated, the superficially cunning, skin-deep sophomores, liars and, well… lying helps… and Clinton’s done a splendid job with that, covering everything up as he has… what a wonderful way with euphemisms he has… Progressive for Eugenics… the Third Way for the same governing architecture of the Third Reich… oh, a master at preaching my undeniable Truth, while making it palatable to the sentimental fools of that delusion called the Judeo-Christian civilization. Can you imagine if the likes of Moses and Christ had prevailed? What a swamp we’d be in.

Well… we’re still kind of in it, Sir Francis.

No, we’re not….

Well, if we’re not, then you shouldn’t be in that straitjacket.

This is to show that I no longer NEED my body, you see. Mind… and mind alone… is all that is required… and there is no greater mind than my own… and I shall see my masterpiece – the new human race – all my friends down there are working on it… And in one thing I must disagree with Mao Zedong. He is wrong… there IS an eternity… and the dreams of man are the greatest part of it… and we will grow into the fiercest, strongest, smartest, most unpredictable, fastest, most ruthless fighting force in the Universe! You know that, don’t you?

Well, I did write The Will To Power… but that had to do with individuals like myself… and I found my own power… even in the midst of a severely diagnosed disease called syphilis, and that’s all that really mattered to me… and I believe to the rest of the human race… I would only hope that each individual of the human race could see but half of what I’ve experienced in this awesome perfection called life.

Perfection? You must be mad! It’s chaos, ugly, malformed, twisted… so far from perfect… oh, my good man… you’ve been deluded… and you, of all people… my word… how surprising that you and that pathetic life you led in increasing madness… oh, you poor man… you poor benighted man……