Cover

WAKE UP
AND SMELL
THE COFFEE

BOOKS BY ERIC BOGOSIAN
AVAILABLE FROM TCG

The Essential Bogosian

(Talk Radio, Drinking in America, Funhouse and Men Inside)

Notes from Underground

(Also includes Scenes from the New World)

Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Rock

subUrbia

Title Page

WAKE UP
AND SMELL
THE COFFEE

THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP/NEW YORK

Dedication

For Amanda

A Note

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee premiered at the Jane Street Theatre in the spring of 2000. Eighteen months later, when this book was scheduled for publication, terrorists attacked New York City and Washington, D.C., killing thousands.

The imagery in these monologues reads very differently now. As I reviewed the material for a final edit, it was painful to scan the line: “A dark day dawns on this American city this morning, a city in mourning this morning …”

I feel things now I didn’t feel when I wrote those words. I know things now I didn’t know then. My thoughts on the bombing in Oklahoma City are different. Airports, flying in planes, is an altogether altered experience. Arabs and Muslims have greater dimension for me now. My personal fear is more tangible. And perhaps, most importantly, my faith in people has changed—ironically I have more faith now.

I considered removing lines or updating references. My strongest impulse was to dump the book altogether. My director Jo Bonney and my editor Terry Nemeth convinced me that the material must stand as written. Ironically, despite the tone of these monologues, they are a product of a more innocent time.

And so, here’s Wake Up and Smell the Coffee. I no longer perform the piece in its entirety.

Eric Bogosian

New York City

February 2002

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank folks for making Wake Up and Smell the Coffee possible.

First and foremost, Jo Bonney, my collaborator and director, this show belongs to both of us.

Thanks to Arabella Powell, our wonderful stage manager.

To the editors of this edition Terry Nemeth and Kathy Sova, thank you for your extraordinary support and effort.

Thanks to my producers Fred Zollo, Nick Paleologus, Robert Birmingham.

Thanks to George Lane and Ron Taft who keep the water hot.

Thanks to Peter Askin for his beautiful heart and mind.

To Ellen Rusconi, Scott Striegel, and all the folks at the Jane Street Theatre. To the irascible Philip Rinaldi and Barbara Carroll. To John Arnone, Kevin Adams and Don DiNicola who made it look and sound so terrific. To Carin Goldberg, John Howard and Joan Marcus for pretty images. To Kathy Russo and Mary Shimkin at Washington Square Arts who keep my ass moving. To Will Knapp for road support. To Michael Rausch for always being there, no matter what. To Matthew Van Winkle who sorted it all out. And thanks to Performance Space 122 and the Knitting Factory where most of the work was first presented.

Finally, this book is dedicated to Amanda Burroughs Moran my co-worker and bud for the past seven years. Couldn’t have done it without you.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee opened May 4, 2000 at the Jane Street Theatre in New York City. It was directed by Jo Bonney and produced by Frederick Zollo, Nicholas Paleologus, Robert Birmingham and Peter Askin.

WAKE UP
AND SMELL
THE COFFEE

THE PROMISE

Garrulous, shouting into a mike directly at the audience, menacing:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. LET’S GET ONE THING STRAIGHT. THERE ARE THOSE THAT RULE AND THERE ARE THOSE THAT ARE RULED. THE FUCKERS AND THE FUCKEES. THE MASTERS AND THE SLAVES. THAT’S THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS. THE WINNERS, THE LOSERS, THE KILLERS AND THE DEAD. AND I AM THE TOP DOG. AND DOG SPELT BACKWARDS IS GOD.

THOSE WHO WANT TO FUCK WITH ME, I GOT ONE WORD FOR YOU: PAIN. YOU DON’T LIKE PAIN, DON’T GET IN THE RING WITH ME. ’CAUSE I’LL BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR BODY. JUST TROT DOWN TO THE LOCKER ROOM AND HAVE A TEARFUL LITTLE SHOWER. IF YOU DO LIKE PAIN, YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ME … ’CAUSE I’M THE DOG ON TOP!

(Slams down the mike stand. Pause. Then gently into the mike:)

THANK YOU.

INTRO

Lights up. He slips on a black sports jacket and walks toward the audience.

Thank you, thank you. Thanks so much for coming by. I really appreciate it.

Tonight we’re going on a journey. This theatre is our ship and I’m your captain. Hopefully, you’re going to see things from a slightly different perspective, gain a little insight, renew your empathy.

And we’re going to have some fun too. I’m gonna give you that Lenny-Bruce-esque experience that transforms tragedy into comedy. That turns it all upside-down and cuts through the bullshit and the hypocrisy.

Because that’s what theatre is all about, isn’t it? Insight into human nature. And with that insight comes understanding; with understanding—action; and from action, change and a better world.

Sure, I’m just one guy up here. And let’s face it, you’re pretty much a room full of strangers. But tonight, tonight we become as one. Tonight we’re not just separate individuals, islands, lonely and adrift. Tonight we are like snow flakes in a storm, swirling together, each one of us unique, but also part of something much larger, each one of us a frozen droplet of potential.

As we swirl together tonight, who knows where we might end up? We are limited only by our imagination! Perhaps as a snowdrift high upon a mountain peak! Perhaps the highest mountain—Mount Everest! Why not?

We fall gently, one upon the other, one flake upon his fellow flake, immobile, caught in the frozen silence of the Himalayas.

Until one day, the sun warms us and we melt. We become a trickle, the trickle becomes a stream, the stream a river, as we reunite with all the other little drops and become a mighty torrent. Powerful, roaring, cascading—we are the Ganges—yes! Immense, pouring down into the valley. Full of life and energy and fish! People are swimming in us! Bathing in us! Laughing, joking!!!

Elephants squirt arcing sprays from their trunks! Shamans baptize their followers in our sacred waters! Dark-eyed women scrub their washing on the rocks, pounding their dhotis and saris with sticks, the water droplets splashing joyously up into the air! Even the dead are brought to us upon their fiery funeral pyres, as they say their final good-bye to this transient life. People chant! They sing! They celebrate! We are the river, we are life itself! We are HOLY!

(Pause.)

Wow. All that right here in this theatre, tonight.

And so, hopefully, if my humble little show touches you in any way, if I do manage to reach out and communicate to just a few of you, an incremental change may come over you and you might walk out of this theatre a slightly different person.

You’ll walk out of here and who knows what you might do? Maybe you’ll write that letter to your mother your therapist has been telling you to write. Break up with that boy friend who’s been vegetating for the last six months. Lose ten pounds. Throw away those cigarettes for good. Give someone a hug.

Or write a novel. A play. A screenplay!

Inspired, you just might invent something, some great new invention—penicillin! Well, they’ve already invented penicillin, but something like penicillin. Something that changes the lives of millions. That changes the course of history!

(Pause. Looks the audience straight into the eyes, brimming with optimism, then:)

Or not. Maybe none of that will happen. Maybe you’ll just walk out of this theatre, and enjoy nothing more than a pathetic wordless ride home, you realizing that, despite my every effort up here on your behalf, nothing has changed, there has been no progress in your life whatsoever. And indeed you will go home and set the alarm clock one more time, knowing full well that you’re going to get up tomorrow morning, same as every morning, and go back to that same God-forsaken job you hate with every molecule of your being. And everyone of those misfits you’ve endured for the past five, ten, fifteen years, will be there tomorrow, same as yesterday, same as today and there’s nothing you can do about it.

You are locked in an endless cycle of conformity, a grinding featureless routine, punctuated by only the most lame and insipid diversions, of which this is obviously one.

And I want to tell you, I relate. I identify. I do. I feel your pain. And it hurts. It hurts a lot. And I want to help. But I can’t help. There’s not much I can do about it from this vantage point.

I don’t have any answers. I don’t have any “message.” I can’t make you think unless you were already thinking before you came by the theatre. Which is a fifty-fifty proposition. All I can do up here is distract you for about seventy-five minutes. Make you numb, sedate you. Make painless this unending trail of shit we call a life. This tar pit of stupidity, this vat of spiritual oatmeal, this slimy snail track of frustration, this pointless, stupid, mosh pit of fuckwits and hypocrites and pinheads with whom we must cohabit like ants on an anthill, like crabs in a bottle, like bacterium in a dirty drop of water, endlessly fighting and competing, fighting and competing, fighting and competing, consuming and shitting. Like food tubes with absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

Let’s be honest. You’ll sit here tonight, watch the show, leave, shove an ice-cream cone down your throat, and come tomorrow morning this show, like that ice cream, will be nothing more than a vague memory, flushed away and forgotten.

I don’t know why I waste my breath. Because everybody knows, everybody knows what I’m saying, but everybody pretends not to know. It’s mass delusional self-hypnosis. It’s meaningless. Really. C’mon! Communication? Inspiration? Insight? Bullshit.

If I had any guts at all, I’d walk off this stage right now. (Walks offstage; from off) I’d walk off and I wouldn’t come back. (Returns) But I don’t have any guts. And I need the check.

OK. OK. OK. You want insight into human nature? OK, here’s some insight into human nature. Let’s play a little game, we’ll call it: “The Insight into Human Nature Game”!

No, that’s a lousy name for a game. Here’s a much better name. We’ll call it: “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” But we won’t play the TV version, that’s bull. Let’s play it the way it’s really played in the real world. “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

(He jumps over to the mike, and speaks in an announcer voice:)

OK, contestants! You know the rules! There’s a little button in front of each one of you. Push the button and one million dollars tax-free is instantly deposited in a Swiss bank account in your name. But don’t forget when you push that button, millions of people will also be instantly thrown out of work and spend the rest of their lives in abject poverty and misery.

(He drops the voice and steps back toward the audience.)

Question: How long do you wait before you push the button? Or let’s bring it right here, right now. There’s a button in front of each one of you. You push the button and I go up in a big ball of flame. And I die, writhing in agony, right before your eyes.

Question: Do you push the button, or do you just wait for the person sitting next to you to push the button?

(Youthful voice:)

Yeah we went to this show, man, and it was kind of interesting. There was this guy on stage talking about something, I’m not sure what, and then he just went whoosh and went up in a ball of fire! Turned all black and wrinkled-up and crusty like a piece of chicken you leave on the barbecue for too long. It was awesome! (Catches himself) I mean it was disturbing too, you know. It really made me think.

(Switches back to normal voice:)

C’mon, admit it. Wouldn’t you love it if I just dropped dead up here right now? Wouldn’t that be a unique experience? Right? You don’t really know me, why should you care? You could dine out on that one for the next six months: “I was there, man.” You could email your best friend: “Went to this show, guy died on stage. It was … it was disturbing. Really made me think.”

If you think there’s any level of compassion or empathy or civilization whatsoever being shared out there by anybody, I got news for you, there is none. Wake up and smell the coffee, it’s anarchy. It’s chaos barely being held together by pious hypocrisy and gross sentimentality.

The blind leading the blind. No, that’s not right, it’s the retarded leading the blind. (Forrest Gump voice) “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” Great moments in Western civilization! I have to write that one down. Never thought of things that way before: “You never know what you’re going to get”! Deep! A hero for our times. (Sling Blade voice) “SOME CALL IT A SLING BLADE.” Great retard, Billy Bob. Will somebody please give that man an Oscar? “Some call it a sling blade.” (Dustin Hoffman Rain Man voice and posture) “Eighty-two, eighty-two, eighty-two. Two hundred and forty-six, two hundred and forty-six toothpicks in the box, Raymond.”

(Drops to his knees, pleading to the audience:)

WE’RE DOWN HERE LOOKING UP AT THE MENTALLY HANDICAPPED. WHERE DOES THAT PUT US???? RIGHT IN THE ESPRESSO BAR WITH A TATTOO AND A CELL PHONE, THAT’S WHERE!

(Jumps back into Forrest Gump:)

“Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to …” I KNOW WHAT I’M GOING TO GET, I KNOW WHAT I’M GOING TO GET: I’M GONNA GET FUCKED. THAT’S WHAT I’M GOING TO GET!

VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

Rushes to a chair and faces upstage as if watching the performance. Whiny, older theatre-goer voice:

What’s this show about anyway? What is this? What are you talking about up there? What happened to the journey down the river? I was looking forward to that part. You came out, you were saying life was beautiful and how theatre was about insight and communication and I thought, It won’t be Vagina Monologues, but I’ll be moved. I want to be moved! I want catharsis when I go to the theatre!

Instead you come out and you’re swearing and negative. Very negative. I spent the whole afternoon at the yoga center getting rid of all my stress. I come by here to see a nice piece of theatre and now my neck hurts … just by listening to you for five minutes. What are you saying, we should all kill ourselves? Is that what you’re saying? And let me ask you something, what’s the deal with your hair? Is that your real hair? Or do you have that done?

You know what your problem is? You’re too negative. You know why you’re so negative? You’re full of fear. My therapist told me that, cost me a hundred and fifty bucks. I’ll give it to you gratis. You’re full of fear. Because you have no spirituality. You don’t believe in anything. You need to have more faith!

FAITH

Leaps out of chair; addresses the “theatregoer” in the chair:

“FAITH”? You mean “faith” like faith in my government?

(Swivels and mimes firing two handguns at an invisible assailant.)

WATCH OUT! HE’S GOT A GUN! (Mimes shooting) BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!! (Trots forward) I THINK HE’S GOT A GUN! (Mimes shooting) BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!! (Stands over the “fallen target”) I’M PRETTY SURE HE’S GOT A GUN! (Mimes shooting at prone figure) BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!! (Stands over the “body,” kicks something out of the way. Looks up, distracted) Never mind!

(Addresses “theatregoer” in chair again:)

Or maybe you mean faith in the goodness of mankind? I’ll have to take a trip over to Chechnya or Bosnia or Rwanda and refresh my memory of how wonderful people can be to their fellow man. I’ll pick up a femur, keep it on my mantel-piece to remind myself of human nature.

No, you don’t mean any of that do you? You must mean faith in God! Right? Is that what you mean? Faith in a “higher power” as we say these days.

(Turns away from chair and addresses the audience:)

Well, let me tell you something: my God—I believe in God—my God is a capricious little fucker. Or should I say “big fucker”? I mean, here’s a guy—we’re all clear here on who God is, right? The most powerful being in the universe! Has to be, if He weren’t, if there were some other being more powerful than Him, well then … he’d be God wouldn’t he?

My God is all powerful. He can do anything. My God could feed every hungry person on the planet Earth—like that (Snaps fingers)—tomorrow! He could rid the world of disease—like that. All those little bald children on the Cancer Channel? Gone, healthy, in great shape! (Snaps fingers) God could do that.

He could give us an extra hour of sunshine every day. Create a few more parking spaces. But noooooo! That would be too easy. He doesn’t want to do that! No, my God doesn’t like to do the easy stuff, it’s boring to Him. He doesn’t want to do what everybody wants Him to do. Kind of like Lou Reed, He does what He wants to do. He’s got integrity. He’s not going to sell out.

So, anyway, my God is hanging around heaven one day, two thousand years ago, getting a little antsy, and decides to take a trip down to Palestine, starts hanging out with this Jewish chick named Mary. Right? Kind of a weird name for a Jewish girl. But anyway, they get busy and the next thing you know, she’s knocked-up, pregnant. No body’s even sure how He did it. Kind of a theological question: does God have a dick? If He does, how big is it? How many angels can dance on the head of it? We don’t have to answer that question tonight.

And they have this kid, baby Jesus. Not just any kid, God’s only son. God isn’t like some kind of NBA player that has a kid in every town. This is God’s only son, the only son of God. (Aside to the audience, if such a thing is possible in a direct address) By the way, I’m not making any of this up, it’s all in the Bible, you can read it when you get home.

So what does God do with His only son? Does He take him to a ball game? Teach him how to fish? Read him the Sun day comics? No, He has him tortured to death. Takes this poor guy. This meek, little, skinny Jewish carpenter. Nice guy, sweet guy, looks just like Willem Dafoe. With the little Home Improvement carpenter belt, little hammer and every thing. Has these Roman soldiers march this poor little guy all over town in his underwear, whipping him, sticking things in his side, the sponge with vinegar (which I never got), giving him a hard time, crown of thorns on his head, the whole nine yards. Terrible. Dragging this huge piece of lumber on his back. How ironic, he’s a carpenter.

They drag him up on top of this hill, nail his hands to the wood. Can you imagine what that felt like! You ever get a paper cut? How much that hurts? NAILS! I mean, who thinks this stuff up? Daddy, that’s who! (God voice) “Just use one nail on the feet, I’m building a shed behind heaven, I don’t want to waste the hardware.”

(Strikes a crucifixion pose, arms out, head tilted, looking upward.)

And Jesus’s hanging there in the sun, cooking, blood dripping. His abandonment issues are kicking up. His inner child feels like shit. He’s got some issues with his dad. So he looks up to heaven and says, (In a California surfer voice) “Like, Dad? Yo, can I ask you a question?” (Contemplates one nailed hand, then the other) “Are you pissed off at me about something? Because I’ve been really good, you know? I’ve done everything you asked me to. Did all the weddings and the bar mitzvahs. Hung out with those twelve deadbeats. And they never pick up a check, Dad, never. Walked on water. And then you wanted me to go out in the desert and I did it. Said don’t eat anything and I didn’t. Don’t drink and, Dad, you can get real thirsty in the desert. And then Satan came and tried to tempt me with like chicks and money and he even said he could get my film into Sundance and I said, ‘NO! Get thee behind me, Satan-dude. Uh-uh, not interested, because I’m with the Big Guy.’” (Points upward, pulling at his nail) “Owww! ‘I’m with the guy upstairs, I’m with DADDY!’”

(Jumps off “cross”; preaches in a Holy Roller voice, very animated:)

BECAUSE HE BELIEVED! HE BELIEVED THAT THE GOOD LORD WOULD PROTECT HIM. HE BELIEVED THE ALMIGHTY LORD WOULD TAKE HIM INTO HIS ALL-POWERFUL ARMS AND SHELTER HIM. HE BELIEVED THAT THE GOOD LORD WOULD TAKE CARE OF HIS LITTLE SHEEP! HE HAD FAITH, FAITH, FAITH!!!

(Switches back to normal voice:)

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