(THEME)
DR: Time now for Storytime with Uncle Buddy.
GK: When you were a kid, there was a neighbor kid with an odd name like Kendrick who your mother wanted you to be like because that kid practiced piano every day for an hour (SCALES) and he had very neat hair and good manners and he was the star of piano recitals (BACH INVENTION, PERFECTLY AND MECHANICALLY) and you had no discipline, you hoped to make up for lack of hard work with sheer brilliance ---- maybe be an avant-garde jazz player (JAZZ PIANO W BASS) ---- but it didn't work out that way. You became a not very good poet (TR:
You catapulted out of my life
Like a frog out of a frying pan
And now I remember the moon that night
As I trim my fingernails.)
In real life, you are a parking-ramp attendant (TR: Level three. CAR TIRES SCREECH, REV) and Kendrick became a biochemist and married a French ballet dancer (SS DANCING, WHILE HUMMING "LA VIE EN ROSE") and he invented some breakthrough pharmaceuticals that cured things and they bought a farm in Connecticut and raised handsome happy overachieving children, whereas your kids are in their late thirties, sullen, illiterate, with snack addictions. (FN GRUNTING),your wife is bitter and morose (SS: What's the matter with you??)...
GK: ... the house is dark except for the TV (TV AUDIO, CHEERY VOICE AND APPLAUSE), the furniture is ratty, the dog is sick with a migraine (GROWL) ---- and your great pleasure in life is reading about the troubles of the rich and famous.
TR: Look at this. Marilyn Montaigne the former screen star was found in the gutter, penniless, covered with mosquito bites. Serves her right.
right.
GK: And then you come across a story about Kendrick. He just won the Nobel Prize. (TR RAGE) And in your rage you stalk out of the room (SFX) and you slam the door so hard (SFX) that the paneling falls off the wall and there----- (GLISS) is a bag full of sapphires and rubies.
TR: Oh my gosh.
SS: Whatcha slamming the door for, ya big dope???
TR: Look.
SS: What?
TR: Right there. (GLISS)
SS: Oh my lord.
GK: Suddenly you remember the furtive little man with the bad cough who sold you the house, and you think, "God bless you, Lefty." You and your wife and your no-good son leave that night for a health spa in the California desert (TRAIN WHISTLE) and after a month, you've lost about fifty pounds apiece and your wife is---
SS: (BEAUTIFULLY) Do you like my hair pulled back this way?
TR: Wow. The frog just jumped back in the frying pan.
GK: She is beautiful, and your son is---
FN: I've got my snack addiction under control and I've been accepted into Harvard, Dad. See you soon.
GK: A great kid. You fly down to Florida to your mansion in Palm Beach and there, on TV, you see Kendrick ----- in handcuffs.
TR (NEWSCASTER): World-famous biochemist Kendrick Hendrickson was arraigned on felony charges today after it was discovered that the research that won him a Nobel Prize was stolen from a 13-year-old boy at a science fair. He was forced to return the prize money and now is in county jail, unable to make his $100,000 bail.
GK: You listen to this with a smile --- Your old nemesis, locked in the poky. And then --- (THUNDER) --- the TV goes black (SHORTING WIRES) and (GOD MUSIC) a voice speaks to you:
DR: Wipe that smirk off your face. That bag of jewels was a gift from me. I can take it back, just like that.
TR: (GLOATFULLY) Gloat? Me? You think I'm gloating?
DR: Stop. Or else it's back to the parking ramp.
TR: I'm stopping.
Okay, I'm all stopped now.
DR: If I catch you gloating one time, I'll take away everything. You hear me?
TR: Gotcha. Check. Right.
DR: You remember what happened to Job? Job was a good man. You're not. So don't screw up, bubba.
GK: So you cancel the newspaper and turn the TV to the wall and forget about Kendrick. You go and play golf (SFX), and you keep your mind pure by meditating (KOTO, OMMMMM) and you go for a swim in the ocean and you're out sort of deep and then you see it, up ahead. (SFX) A whale. It's huge mouth opens. (SFX)
DR: He's waiting for you, bub. No gloating, or else.
TR: You got it.
GK: And that night you go to the jail and pay Kendrick's bail. (FN: Hey. Thanks.) And you take him home and get him a good lawyer and he gets off with a year's probation.
FN: Gosh. I can't thank you enough, Earl. I always thought you resented me and now you come and save my life. What gives?
TR: Just trying to do the right thing, pal.
FN: I see you have a piano.
TR: Yeah. Go ahead. Play something.
GK: And Kendrick sits down and he plays (BACH INVENTION) beautifully as before, his long slender fingers touching the keys, and then suddenly (BACH, A MISTAKE. THEN HE GOES BACK AND REPEATS, AND MAKES A WORSE MISTAKE) And you can't help it. (TR LAUGHTER) (THUNDER, LIGHTNING) And the piano is gone. And your wife is gone. Just you. In your old house. The dog has a headache (SFX). The TV is on (AUDIO). You're reading a story in the paper about a rich man who lost everything in a bolt of lightning and is working in a parking ramp.
TR: Level Three. (CAR REV, SQUEAL OF TIRES) Don't gloat, people. Don't enjoy the misery of others, even if they are rich and famous. Why couldn't I have learned that?
GK: You have learned it now. You learn good judgment from experience, especially experience that results from poor judgment.
TR: The squeal of tires reminds me
How happy you were
That time I gave you the balloon,
But why did you let go of it?
(THEME)
DR: And that's all the time we have for Storytime with Uncle Buddy. See you next time, kids.