GK: You people know me, you know that I believe a person's got to
Look for the silver lining Whene'er a cloud appears in the blue, Remember somewhere the sun is shining, And so the best thing to do is let it shine on you....
But the sun hasn't been shining on me for awhile. I threw a party at my house (SAXOPHONE)---- and it had been a long winter so people were like animals (PARTY ANIMAL CRIES) and they scarfed up the food in ten minutes flat (SNARFLING AND GRUNTING) and drank everything that wasn't nailed down (GLUGGING AND BELCHING) ---- and they trashed the place (CRASH AND CRUNCH) ---- there were food fights (SPLATS AND SPURTS) ---- and debauchery like you wouldn't believe (SUGGESTIVE LAUGHTER) ---- and somebody threw a couple cherry bombs in the toilet (DEEP BOOMS) and I guess there was methane trapped in the pipes because it went off (BIGGER DEEPER BOOMS) and that set off the propane tanks (BIG EXPLOSIONS) and pretty soon (CRIES OF ALARM, MEN RUSHING TO AND FRO, DISTANT SIRENS) the whole place was in flames, all gone in just minutes, destroyed by careless friends --- I stood looking at the wreckage, stunned with grief, and who should show up but my mother----
SS: Hello honey.
GK: Mom--- I---- I've been meaning to call.
SS: That's okay. Don't worry about it.
GK: And it's Mother's Day on Sunday and--- I bought you a nice present ---- and it burned down with the house.
SS: That's okay. I don't need presents. All I want is to know that you're happy.
GK: I'm trying to be happy, Mom. I'm trying to---
Look for the silver lining Whene'er a cloud appears in the blue. Remember somewhere the sun is shining And so the best thing to do is let it shine on you----SS: You're a good boy, Buddy. I feel so blessed to have had a boy like you, even though motherhood meant giving up my own sense of self-worth for a life of mindless drudgery day in and day out, nevertheless I was glad to do it. For my children.
GK: Thanks. I'm glad you did. I've really been meaning to call up, Mom---- it's---- what---- it's almost your 78th birthday, isn't it?
SS: Ninety fourth. But it doesn't matter. It's only my birthday. Besides, I don't have a phone anymore anyway.
GK: No?
SS: No, I pretty much live out of a grocery cart with all my belongings in giant garbage bags.
GK: What happened to the house?
SS: It was repossessed. Six weeks ago. I left a message at your office but I guess you must've been busy. But I'm all right. Just so long as I know you're happy.
(MUSIC)
GK: The truth is, I had been extremely busy. My show was getting its butt kicked in the ratings by The Harry Spaniel Show----- and Vern, my executive producer was upset---TR: They're creaming us, pal. Look at the figures.
GK: How can that be? The Harry Spaniel show is nothing but a big cheesefest, it's mud-wrestling, it's a freak show.
TR: It's a huge success. You know what our problem is? Our guests don't hit. We need more hitting on the show. I say, let's get into religion. Huh?
GK: Religion!
TR: How about we have Lutherans and Catholics come on and really duke it out. What do you say?
GK: I don't know-----
TR: We've tried it with focus groups. We taped a few segments. You want to see it?
GK: I don't know----
TR: Look at this. (CLICK)
SS (ON TV): Praying to statues! Ha! Where'd you get a dingbat idea like that?
TK (ON TV): We don't pray to statues!
SS: I've seen you - you pray to statues--- What? -- You're saying I'm blind?
TK: No, just stupid.
SS: Stupid! Me! You people don't have the intelligence of a toaster! You kiss statues!
TK: Why you----- (HE WHACKS HER)
(THEIR STRUGGLE CONTINUES, WITH OCCASIONAL SLAPS AND BIG ROUNDHOUSE PUNCHES, KONKS, SHARP CRIES)
GK: I don't know. I'm an English major, Vern. I was trained to be sensitive and insightful, not to arouse religious discord. (SWITCH OFF TAPE) Why don't we just book some weirdos?
TR: Weirdos-Harry Spaniel's got those people all sewn up, sweetheart. Besides, this is Minnesota. We're low on weirdos. Our idea of perversion is changing lanes and not signalling.
GK: But to inflame sectarian divisions-----
TR: Listen. Sweetheart. We need conflict!
GK: But religious conflict?
TR: We'll get your old-line Catholics going up against your liberal feminist Benedictine Catholics with the sensible shoes. Get your Swedish Lutherans going against the Norwegian Lutherans. Mano a mano, sweetheart. Mormons slugging it out against Christian Science ladies.
GK: I don't know. Let me think about it.
TR: Fox is very excited about it, sweetheart. They think religious intolerance is the next big frontier.
GK: You've talked to Fox?
TR: Three million smackers. That's how excited they are.
GK: Wow. For me?
TR: For you, sweetheart. Think about it.
(MUSIC BRIDGE)
GK: And I was thinking about it that morning when Mom came over pushing her grocery cart with the garbage bags in it.
SS: Your house---- it's burned to the ground. Did something happen?
GK: I had some friends over for a party, Mom. Things got out of hand. What do you say we have dinner together on Mother's Day? I could take you to a drive-in.
SS: No, no. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. All I need is to know that you're happy.
(MUSIC)
GK: If I signed up with Fox, I could afford to buy Mom a nice home for her twilight years.
TK (LARRY): Hi. I heard that your house burned to the ground so I came over to see.
GK: Hi, Larry.
TK: Hi. ----Aren't you going to say hi to Kitty?
GK: Hi, Kitty. (SS MEOW)
TK: Looks like you're ruined, huh?
GK: I guess so.
TK: Well---- easy come, easy go.
GK: What do you mean by that?
TK: I mean, you waltz through life on your charm and your good looks, you can't expect it to last forever.
GK: I hadn't thought of it that way.
TK: You never had to struggle with personal weirdness the way I have.
GK: You're not weird, Larry.
TK: I'm weird all right. (MEOW)
GK: You're just differently dispositioned.
TK: I'm weird. Look at me. Fortysomething guy who still combs his hair up in a big pompadour and goes around in a polyester plaid sportcoat and a bolo tie and his pants covered with cat hair. Sitting in the basement all day, cutting out pictures of people from magazines and pasting them into my scrapbook with white library paste. Normal people use scanners, and me, I'm still using white library paste. And I eat some too.
GK: You eat white library paste?
TK: Some.
GK: How much paste are you eating?
TK: More than I'd like.
GK: A whole jar a day?
TK: Sometimes.
GK: You're eating it with those wooden spatulas?
TK: Yes.
GK: Larry, they have groups for people who eat white library paste.
TK: I know and I'm afraid to go.
GK: Why?
TK: I'm afraid about what else might come out in the open if I went to a library paste group.
GK: Like what?
TK: I make up stories.
GK: You do?
TK: I cut out pictures of people from magazines and I paste them in a scrapbook and I invent stories about them --- (MEOW)
GK: Larry----
TK: I make up stories about people. Me. I do that.
GK: Maybe it's the paste.
TK: I give them names and everything.
GK: Larry, listen.
A heart filled with joy and gladness Can always vanquish sadness and strife. So always look for the silver lining----And I was thinking to myself: maybe the Fox contract is my silver lining ---- if I signed with Fox and did the show in which people of different religious viewpoints tried to rip each other's faces off, I could afford to put Larry into a program where he could get the help he needed and lick his paste problem and I could help Mom.
SS: I don't mind losing my home ---- just so long as I know that my children are happy and enjoying the good things in life that I myself learned how to do without.
GK: Well, at the moment most of the good things I was enjoying are there in the blackened twisted wreckage of my home. How did you lose your home, Mom? What did you get that mortgage for, anyway?
SS: I had to raise some cash in a big hurry to pay off a personal injury suit by my next-door neighbor.
GK: Your neighbor? The lady who always comes over with the cookies? You've been friends for years.
SS: She's been getting on my nerves for years now. She's Unitarian, you know, and I've had it up to here with her liberal thinking on things and one day I hauled off and pasted her one right in the beezer and I kicked her so hard in the ankle she had to use a walker for a month.
GK: You hit a Unitarian?
SS: I hit her so hard she swallowed her cough drop. I creamed her.
GK: Mom----
SS: But that's all water under the bridge now. I'm happy as a homeless person, believe me. Just so long as I know that my babies are happy.
(MUSIC)
GK: So I called up Fox to tell them I'd sign the contract----
SS (SECRETARY ON PHONE): Mr. Murdoch's office.
GK: Hello, it's Carson Wyler here, and I'd like to sell out----
SS (SECRETARY, ON PHONE): One moment. I'll transfer you. (CLICK) (MUSIC)
GK: And while I was on hold, that's when they came in and got me.
TR: Hands behind your head, Wyler. Put em up. (CLICK OF HANDCUFFS)
GK: What is this about?
TR: You ever hear of arson, pal? (MUSIC)
GK: And there I was. Locked up in jail the day before Mother's Day.
SS (MOM): That's all right. There is nothing you could ever say or do that would ever make me ashamed of you, sweet pea ----- because I love you with a mother's love -----
GK: Oh Mom---- you're so good! How can I ever repay you for what you've done for me--- --
SS (MOM): You never can.
GK: No gift I could give could ever come close to compensating you for all that you gave up in order to have me.
SS (MOM): That's exactly right.
GK: It looks like I won't be with you for Mother's Day. I'll be here in the slammer.
SS (MOM): It's all right, snuggums. I'll attend your trial faithfully every day and when you're convicted and sent to Stillwater Prison for fifteen to twenty years, I'll get myself a little Airstream trailer and live in the prison parking lot so I can come and visit you every day and bring you little treats. How's that?
GK: That's great. Could you bring the cheese popcorn?
SS: Okay.
GK: But the white cheese popcorn, not the yellowish kind. You always get the yellow. I prefer the white. And could you get the taco chips with the jalopeno flavoring?
SS: Isn't that the kind I usually get, honey?
GK: No, you usually get the pimento-flavored----
SS: Oh, I'm sorry.
GK: The jalopeno is the kind I like.
SS: Jalopeno. Okay. Whatever makes you happy, that's what I want...
GK: I am happy, Mom.
A heart filled with joy and gladness Can always banish sadness and strife. So always look for the silver lining And try to find the sunny side of life.(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor