{"id":6120,"date":"2020-07-08T10:33:36","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T10:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/?p=6120"},"modified":"2023-07-08T10:19:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T10:19:41","slug":"its-the-sex-pistols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/its-the-sex-pistols\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s the Sex Pistols!!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>\npre::first-letter { float: none !important; font-size: 100% !important; padding: none !important; font-family: \"Palatino Linotype\", \"Book Antiqua\", Palatino, serif; }\n<\/style>\n<pre>\r\n\r\n<em>A bold, contentious exposition of the meaning of the\r\nSex Pistols rendered in high Shakespearean style.<\/em>\r\n\r\nGREGG GLORY\r\n\r\nGREGG G. BROWN\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIn the beautiful world, you have to respond.\r\n                             --J. Lydon\r\n\r\n <STRONG>JOHN LYDON<\/STRONG>       the Young Bastard\r\n <STRONG>SID VISCIOUS<\/STRONG>        the Lover Boy\r\n <STRONG>PAUL COOK<\/STRONG>        the Whiner\r\n <STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>        the Bullshitter\r\n <STRONG>and MALCOLM MCLAREN<\/STRONG>        the Old Fuck\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><P>[\"Anarchy in the U.K.\" plays as the narrator ascends the stage.]<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG> PROLOGUE<a name=\"Prologue\"><\/a><\/STRONG>\r\n<\/PRE><P>[To be spoken by Lester Bangs, Richard Hell,\r\nor Griel Marcus.]<\/P><PRE>\r\nWe gather here some summers past his death;\r\nThe air near us bears its sweet fragrance yet\r\nAs in the dim past it was accustomed\r\nTo have borne. We come to document a trial\r\nOf youth, and speed, and the chase of fire\r\nThat edges young veins anxious yet to burst\r\nThe bare confinement of the body.\r\nAmbitions churned in mills of desperate hope,\r\nAnd clear vision upreared from smoky tenements\r\nCrouch within our subject's city-bounds as well.\r\nEverything not incidental\r\nTo a prince's birth in loathed ashes\r\nShall be told in what we are about to speak:\r\nMire costuming here a spirit as rare\r\nAs any that went naked in greater ages\r\nWhose philosophers, incidents, and strange tales\r\nWhisper still in books passed down to us.\r\nHe was one-- I cannot speak it-- but let\r\nHim show; he was one to tumble Jove\r\nOr put into the gestures of his peers\r\nAntics to mimic truth out of hiding\r\nAnd mock empty vaunt with its own faces.\r\nHe was as Michaelangelo's god of boys, set down\r\nIn despite of time, vaunting, vague,\r\nA fishing rod as able in his white fist\r\nAs any furling sling to draw tyrants down.\r\nNow I before your gentle selves appear\r\nAnd ask you reconstruct from rended memory\r\nThis man, whose trim vitality works wonders\r\nIn us yet; who, as though king among those ghosts\r\nWe are yet to join, he captains our resolve\r\nAnd sails us, briefly parted, to those parts\r\nAnd kingdoms of ourselves we quail to glance at.\r\nLet one summer stand for millions,\r\nAnd let a universe of lives be exampled by\r\nOne life, one death. It is fair enough.\r\nLet not identity struggle besmirched in the mass\r\nOr roil in the crowding roll of oceans\r\nOf limbs-- so like a war is any hived\r\nMetropolis. Instead let concentration fall\r\nFrom our high heaven of observation\r\nInto the single life and particular fate\r\nOf our chosen hero. Let him be unveiled:\r\n     [Spotlight comes up on Sid, biting a hangnail.]\r\nYou see he fits the mold, but not how well;\r\nThat is the office of our tale to unfold\r\n--And, if you will but tailor your wide\r\nImaginations to our narrow telling,\r\nRefining in mind what our rush of detail\r\nMust leave gross, and fitting yourselves\r\nInto the garment of our object here\r\nAs if the skin of the protagonist\r\nHimself, flushing round what was left in need\r\nBy the author's drying pen, we shall succeed.\r\nLet us, and him, find what name will fit him best:\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE ONE<\/h2>\n<pre><a name=\"SceneOne\"><\/a>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nSid! Sidley...!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\nBoredom blows bright the dull grey sparks\r\nOf his eyes, until all the yellow charge\r\nOf coward youth in love with nothing else\r\nBut mirrors to sigh the sick hours past\r\nIs burned, burned quite away, and nothing left\r\nBut still that same desire fuming there\r\nSimple as a flame.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nOi! It's hot enough as it is.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nHe meditates too much\r\nOn the particular cause and instance\r\nOf his private hurt, which cannot be made\r\nTo answer the general injury.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\nFucking Sid!\r\nWhat can you do with a boy like that, hey?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nHe nurses an inward wound with wayward looks.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\nHe's been talking a lot of trash lately.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nHis winning spirit's spiralling in\r\nFor the incinerator again. Last time... Gaw!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\n\"Hangin' up me spurs,\" he says. \"Gonna shove\r\nIt in and liv' w' me mum.\" Suicide!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nEach man's civil temper's his own to keep.\r\nThat coolness lost, by the heat of events\r\nFired aside, or from the burning steeple\r\nOf a towering grief thrown down sparklike\r\nIn a roaring wash of rainbow flames\r\nDeep into the hellish mass of circumstance\r\nAnd all deportment, measure, surity,\r\nAnd freezing reason that should coldly show\r\nThe icy signature of a man\r\nIs lost and damned, hotly dispersed, in anger\r\nOr any other rage of fuming ruin\r\nPast individual recovery.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nBy that harsh measure\r\nEvery man, like a matchstick, at a single strike\r\nOf his fiery righteousness would be\r\nTrashed to ashes.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\nAye, then were we ashes all.\r\nStoked by a too stern lightning to nothingness.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nStoke up!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\n<\/PRE><P>[Pleading.]<\/P><PRE> Let's keep Sid civil.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\n<\/PRE><P>[Relenting.]<\/P><PRE> All right then; we'll show him how\r\nTo raise his sad laughs again amidst our howls.\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><P>[Attention shifts to Sid, who opens with soliliquy as others approach.]<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n And indeed, as you can see, my shirt reads me:\r\n'I hate.'\r\nPlastic holds itself as natural, warm\r\nAnd capable to my raw ass and hand\r\nAs any hippie love of heaven, sea\r\nOr indian soil would cause here an inch\r\nOf father's affection. Their stench is ripe.\r\nThey chant in a ring for heaven's dear love\r\nBut disdain the fight that gets it.\r\nAll's struggle. How out of turmoil to pry\r\nThe clear and lucent love, that's the question.\r\nTo deny the struggle is to confound\r\nThe chance; and they're liars. Rather close up\r\nThose affable gates that let in the stench\r\nOf rankest hypocrisy as though it were\r\nLight and air-- damn them up, I say, damn them--\r\nThan leave them lax to such vicissitudes\r\nWaiting for a thrilling whiff of the best\r\nTo enter out of pardonable hope.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nHey, Sid.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n Yeah, I'm against it. I waz jest\r\nTellin meself how bad it all waz.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nHorrible! Yer a degredation, Sid.\r\nCold, isn't it?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n Sure, sure. I'm cold.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\n C'mon, Sid. Cheer up.\r\n<\/PRE><P>[Steve sings, to the tune of 'London Bridge:']<\/P><PRE>\r\nMargaret Thather's a dry old hole, dry old hole;\r\nBecause of her we're broke and bored, that ho' ho' ho'.\r\nWe've got no jobs; we're on the dole, on the dole.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n My fair lady. Haw haw haw.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nLet's do something.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat is there to do?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n I'm cold. [Rotten throws lumber at Sid.]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nHow boring!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\nNothing to do.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nOh, I don't know.\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><P>[Sid has been gathering debris, pulls out lighter fluid and sets all ablaze. Smiles.]<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><\/PRE><P>How boring! It's hotter than Satan's arsehole out here, and you go starting fires.<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n[Enter McLaren.]\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><P>Hallo, boys. I've seen you lads moping about. My name's McLaren. Malcolm McLaren. What's your names?<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nJohn.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\nJohn.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nJohn.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nI'm hot.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nC'mon then. Follow me. My kool Sex shop's cold.\r\nEver seen the drafty rafters there? Mannikins,\r\nNaked like us to the world's dicked stare,\r\nHanging in aerial abandon; skinney limbs\r\nAt fleshtone dangled rest above my loitering\r\nPatrons' guessing heads. Keep them guessing,\r\nI says. \"No dead time,\" etc.\r\n     [They reach the SEX shop]\r\nMy puppets-- for what's man but\r\nA stick that sings?-- my thoughts have swelled on fire\r\nBefore this cold hour from spiteful breaths enough\r\nTo ash the cordwood. I'll ask your service now\r\nTo douse my substance before its drowned in flames:\r\nThe unadoring world must be made to pay.\r\nToo long unloved, a man begins to fray.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nAre you proposing something, McLaren?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nLet's hear; let's hear what there's for us to do.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nTime's persecution pursues us all\r\nAnd the grave levity of his law\r\nAllows no trick of escape to flaunt his cause\r\nBut like the paitient bailiff waits beside\r\nUntil old and infirm we cannot stray away\r\nFrom the impaitient leash curling at his waist\r\nBut all are from the judge to judgement brought.\r\nAnd since this guilt of birth we may not shake\r\nUntil we have shaken off our lives themselves\r\nBut must under the sentence chase our lives\r\nLike ill dogs to their predetermined ends\r\nSniffing for chances, in shivvered packs secure\r\nAnd yet insecure-- remember still the end--\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nA dog's life.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nThen let us be such dogs as roam in wild pride\r\nBarking with horrors, redeyed fiends each one\r\nBasking in bloods when the hunt is done.\r\nLet's own such shocks as lesser men run from\r\nFounding nations damned to breath a day\r\nPast us-- and no further-- for believe me\r\nCaesar was one such dog as we are\r\nAnd his terrors have hounded his renown\r\nRound the globe, as if it were a single ear\r\nAnd he the sweet lover whispering in it.\r\nWe have such voices too, believe me all--\r\nAnd this world is such a place of fjiords and flaws\r\nAs they shall find deep receipt within it.\r\nNow, to choose the script and paint our faces.\r\nCome, my hangdogs, have pleasure while you may;\r\nRidiculous age should find us sated.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat is it exactly you are proposing?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat has ten times the voice of modest men\r\nDeclaring their hearts in modest, fervent tones?\r\nWho crouches in the ear of active youth\r\nAnd shouts invective to an empty brain\r\nSo like a stone it may stoop to fondle--\r\nSo like, yet one cannot shout stones at faces--\r\nYet one may shout stoned men to action, eh?\r\nSo like the one the other is, stones, brains, all\r\nGrey and servicable rounds, rounds for fire:\r\nReady from the cannons of your neck to bolt\r\nAnd deliver destruction of this place,\r\nMy word the lynchpin.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat? What does have that voice?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nHave you not seen the boy bent to memorize,\r\nAll studious torment in his crinkled brow,\r\nStiff as any anxious lieutenant\r\nTo catch the letter of his instructions\r\nAbove the wolving howl of bursting war?\r\nThere, down by the speaker in his own room\r\nHe listens for the news. Whose news, though, whose?\r\nBeatles, Stones, Byrds, why should these objects talk\r\nAnd we have no voice at all?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n Let's start a band!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nWe'll need instruments.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nInstruments I have.\r\nPour your liquid essences forth, let voices\r\nCry your rain of judgement loose on this world!\r\nFlood hypocrisy from its dobber's holes,\r\nRape the senator's wife, confound floated bills,\r\nLet Pigs drown before they fly at us\r\nAll unable with billyclubs awry.\r\nPour forth, and in the turbulent judge\r\nOf heaven, who squints from the hurricane's eye\r\nLaugh for all the terror of his wet,\r\nDishevelled reign.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n Cry Anarchy at last!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nI'll undertake some study of this part.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nBoys, be rascals to my jiving knave\r\nAnd to all this long-haired world we'll give a shave.\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><P>[\"Seventeen\" plays cheerfully. We hear the chorus: \"I'm a lazy sod.\"]<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p><P>[Rotten and Sid&#8217;s bedsit. They are playing the prison game of Chicken where the forearms of each contestant touch side by side, cradling a lit cigarette between them. Whoever pulls their arm away from the 2,000 degree heat of the lit cigarette first, loses.]<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nSo what do you think of the band notion?<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n I think I wanna vomit what I&#8217;ve eaten; [Sid farts.] But it may be too late.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI already have a few lyrics in my head.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Yeah?<\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThis could be something.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Death or glory? It&#8217;s just another story.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nRehersal space is there for us, Malcolm was saying. Equipment. Couldn&#8217;t you learn to play something besides ingenue?<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Yeah, I could learn things. I got pretty big hands.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell, it seems like a chance. Twenty-five quid a week from McLaren, guarenteed.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n It&#8217;s gonna be a lot of work.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAlright! All we haveta do is stand up and say something. And we have to stand up.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n I don&#8217;t want to work.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYou know, make a noise. Be something.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n I&#8217;m not going to work.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nA man must do something.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNo work.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAlright! <\/P><\/p>\n<p><P>[ROTTEN jumps up abruptly, losing the contest.]<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s gonna be something, Sid. We will.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Ahh, yes. No doubt. I win.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nFirst rehersal is around seven o&#8217;clock.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><P><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n I won, Johnny. <\/P><\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWon. Won? Oh, yeah, the game.<br \/>\nAnd your wrong, Sid. I won. I definately won.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThe bass is a must.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nEverybody can pick out an instrument at the rehersal<br \/>\nAnd figure out what they want to play. [Exit Rotten]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s with our dark lives we lightly play.<br \/>\nAnd contrast, being the one instruction men know<br \/>\nWho cannot learn a difference twixt likes<br \/>\nUnless the one is all of violentest white<br \/>\nAnd the other black as blood; how then teach<br \/>\nTender love, which is but a difference as soft<br \/>\nAs silk enwounding down, where dreams may slip<br \/>\nAs silent as breath held to their fantastic births.<br \/>\nSo that the all-enduing white may seem<br \/>\nItself, and love as love stand and not yeild<br \/>\nTo any onslaught of ignorances<br \/>\nHere I&#8217;ll be a blot all black as death<br \/>\nWhich shall by my mocking homage be overthrown<br \/>\nIn the minds to which my meaning does appear.<br \/>\nSo that some may love truly, and without false looks<br \/>\nBetray a need in giving, I shall hate.<br \/>\nO such a hate as makes mad dogs appear tame<br \/>\nAnd the hot blood freeze up of those who on it glance<br \/>\nBe their fairenheit and celcius doubled<br \/>\nBy war-rage raised to the boiling point of stars<br \/>\nTo burn a blank in heaven, they shall stare<br \/>\nAnd turn cold inward stares upon their hearts<br \/>\nTo witness in his heat the casque of a man<br \/>\nGlowing radient with so fierce a hate!<br \/>\nSo wrought with a furor shall my mind bend<br \/>\nUpon bloody thoughts enough to swell the earth<br \/>\nAnd fish for a burning glory baptised there<br \/>\nThat should in Hell hold honor against the devil.<br \/>\nHow many then shall suffer to simply look<br \/>\nOn this distemperate visage panting here<br \/>\nThat has shaken off its particular face<br \/>\nTo stand consumed all with flames of hate<br \/>\nAnd pure as any visionary ghost<br \/>\nCommit its aetherial offices of fire<br \/>\nTo action.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p><P>[<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG> resolved to be a completely honest human being. TV is on in the room.]<\/P><\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI&#8217;ve told McLaren that Sid&#8217;s up for it,<br \/>\nThe experimental apparatus is jacked into place,<br \/>\nWires spouting from his forehead.<br \/>\nBeing an apparatchik for the Individual has its perks.<br \/>\nNo ghost of guilt puts its sweat-sheath<br \/>\nOf indecision on me. I out-face my sheeted semblables,<br \/>\nMirror-pale in witness of their parents&#8217; chimplike diminishment.<br \/>\nEach man&#8217;s diminished, or dismantled<br \/>\nFrom the sacred whimper of his intent, when he lets<br \/>\nThis blistering world scissor him apart:<br \/>\nOnce into &#8220;son,&#8221; twice as &#8220;man, husband,&#8221;<br \/>\nOr &#8220;citizen.&#8221; Never let them tell you what you are!<br \/>\nHow NOT TO trust the fissioning essence in us,<br \/>\nBurning each unencumberd nerve alive<br \/>\nAs a toothache&#8211; a cascade of blisses<br \/>\nAs likely as any other fretted thrust or touch<br \/>\nOf this chummy, glum globe&#8217;s impingement<br \/>\nOn the imminent individual by his<br \/>\nSang-froid &#8220;oi!&#8221; from his fetters freed!<br \/>\nBut to be yourself without the rolling<br \/>\nFear of eyes, individual, alive, and free&#8230; what else<br \/>\nIs there? I am resolved, renewed, now, here,<br \/>\nA completely honest human being I&#8217;ll be<br \/>\nAnd nothing fear.<\/p>\n<p><\/PRE><P>[<strong>SID<\/strong> from next room, booming] I think I got this riff kicked!<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nThis finniky generation is gonna get a kick!\r\nLoud as a wacked statistic I hear my nothingness proclaimed,\r\nMy name erased and flinching face razed\r\nFrom the knowing scroll of society's adornments.\r\nThis pithy bit of wickedness I will unwill,\r\nAnd make the glossy ad-assed tabloids shout my name.\r\nThe queen will roll my name with curses in her sleep\r\nAnd recite me in her ernest prayers to God\r\nThat we be stopped.\r\nOne week to the first gig, and then\r\nLet that dread which thumbs other men down\r\nRapsodise as my tom-tom. Be my troubled, thudding beat\r\nAs if all war in your electric hollows rolled!\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><P>[\"Holiday in the Sun\" plays, the bit about \"this is the Berlin Wall.\"]<\/P><PRE>\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<pre>\r\n[Outside first gig]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nHallo.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nHiaw.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nOi, my bass is broke, and that ain't good, ay?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><\/PRE>\r\n<P>You in a band? I came over to London from New York with my boyfriend's band. But he won't give me any of his stash, so I gotta do tricks for whatever I can get.<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nTha' wanker! He doesn't play the bass, does he?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat's it to you.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat's yer name?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><\/PRE>\r\n<P>Who cares? [Softening.] Nancy Spungeon. And my boyfriend jerks off with his guitar; musicians are so testosterone-sick..<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nI wuvs ya.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nFuck off.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nWhy? I got a few quid.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nOh?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nC'mon, yer good. Let's have a shag.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nOK. Gimmie what y' got.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n[Obviously stone broke.] Uh....\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\n What the fuck. You cheap asshole. I'm worth it.\r\n\r\n[SID sees a way to divert attention from his poverty.]\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nProve it, cunt.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nAll right. Down with your slacks.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nUh.... Y'know, I gotta play me bass in a minute....\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><\/PRE>\r\n<P>[All business.]<\/P><PRE> C'mon, c'mon.\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><P>[SID drops 'em; we see he has on his leopard-skin or red swastika underwear. SID busts open his bottle of Bass Ale and does a cheap sexual grind display with beer-bottle-as-penis.]<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nWow.\r\n[Off comes NANCY's shirt.]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n[Going to his knees.] Gaw, yer beautiful. So fackin' beautiful.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nReally?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nYeah.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nBe my dog.\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><P>[SID drops from kneeling to all fours. NANCY puts a chain necklace with a padlock on it around Sid's neck.]<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nNow your mine.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nI can't fink a nuffin' finer.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nAre you holding?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n[Rising to his full height, feet spraddled wide apart.]\r\nYeah. [SID grabs his crotch.] All four inches of weenie glory.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><\/PRE>\r\n<P>Ugggh. No, you fucker.-- You got any DRUGS? Any heroin, horse, H, smack, anything?<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nUh, yeah.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nWhere?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n[Obviously not holding anything besides his dick.] Uh....\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nWHERE!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat's this? Da third degree?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nShit. Nobody tells me the truth, whatever there is of it to be told.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nYer really beautiful, Nancy. I mean it. Really.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nI don't know what's really real anymore.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat's real is the way you feel! And fuck the rest of it.\r\n\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\n[Trying out the concept.]\r\nWhat's real is how I feel. If I ever figure that out...\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n[Aside.]                 Sere, sere\r\nThe tragic countentance you show obscured,\r\nDisplaying griefs, hiding harsher substances\r\nVeiled within. It's a face to break saints.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\n...I'll let you know.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n                         It is a cold allure,\r\nBurning without touching; faint fire, faint fire\r\nWithin me chalks the haloed outline of your face.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nI am untouched and soiled, corrupt and pure,\r\nThe virgin whore Greek slavemasters adored;\r\nCompounded of clay by dirty fingers,\r\nStill a shapely vessel for holy water!\r\nTongued and speechless, dumb and breathless,\r\nThis girl's variable soul put to the test\r\nBy no man's flame as yet.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n                         'As yet'? Put your hand\r\nAgainst this heart and it must withdraw gold\r\nPurified by fire.\r\n<\/PRE>\r\n<P>[She reaches out, leans against him a moment.  A voice off stage shouts: Sid! Sidly! Bass solo's  up! Sid exits]<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nSomething good in him.\r\nI think I might like him. The shy white chest.\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><P>[Sid stands with his bass, thinking aloud while he mimes playing, as usual.]<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nAnd if I were to die upon this instant\r\nIt were in a dream I'd die-- and there\r\nDeath has not taking but is a sweet addition\r\nOf time and dark to lead the dreamer on.\r\nWhere's the harm if this picture that I live\r\nReturned to curtained obscurity, from where\r\nNancy's hand now draws it like a lamp?\r\nIf it were to suffer no measled spot\r\nOf corruption but endure the same as now\r\nEven into that memory of perfection\r\nNone has joyed to have since the fall of man?\r\nIf from the disintegration of critics\r\nThis resolve itself still inviolable?\r\nWhat harm, if on this patched imperfect globe,\r\nPerfection seal perfection once from our own\r\nToo-invading touch? If petty habit,\r\nOr the all-ravaging, time-incensing blade\r\nOf injured wit, which longs to enter\r\nThe innocent ears of those it apprehends\r\nHave injured it, and rend there the brains\r\nOf guiltless mouths with ravings; for no sooner\r\nDoes the sunday preacher speak hellfire\r\nThan we, our apprehensions so aroused\r\nBy the word-- waiting alive within us\r\nAs it were-- begin to feel our own skins\r\nPeel and burn, were themselves-- justly and for once--\r\nTo die and cease in this?\r\n\r\n[The chords of \"Pretty Vacant\" strike up.]\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[Famous &#8220;fuck&#8221; TV interview plays on in a working class flat with man and wife watching. At the end of the interview, the man cries out :&#8221;Oi!&#8221; and tosses a brick or his chair through the TV set. Dialog below should be used if a videotape of the interview cannot be obtained.]<br \/>\n<STRONG>GRUNDY<\/STRONG><br \/>\n<P>Twenty million pairs of eyes are on you now. So tell us what all this atonal noise and dressing up is all about, if you can. I mean, it seems pretty downright silly to most of the rest of us.<\/P><\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n[To himself.] Shit.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>GRUNDY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nPardon me, what did you say?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNothing. A dirty word. Next question.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>GRUNDY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNo, no. I&#8217;m really very curious. I insist. What was that word?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG><br \/>\n[To himself.]Dirty sod.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nShit.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>GRUNDY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell, that&#8217;s not really very intelligent, is it?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAnd I say your a dirty old bastard.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>GRUNDY<\/STRONG><br \/>\n[Spluttering.] What? What?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYou keep looking at Susie like you wanna shag her right here on the couch.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SUSIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nDo ya?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>GRUNDY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell, I never.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nGo on, say it ain&#8217;t true. Fucking rotter.<\/p>\n<p>[Sid laughs. Rotten sees it all going down the tubes.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nBloody fuck. We&#8217;ve ruined everything. Again.<\/p>\n<p><P>[&#8220;EMI&#8221; plays up to &#8220;too many people have the suss\/ too many people support us.&#8221;]<\/P><br \/>\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[McLaren and Viv&#8217;s apartment.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI can&#8217;t believe it! Are you all packed yet?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAlmost.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAn American Tour. It all popped together pretty quick, didn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI suppose.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThe first two record signings completely blown. And you got to keep the cash advance. Quite a deal.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nDodgy at best.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAnd then a third signing for even more money up front! Well, that&#8217;s a lovely irony, isn&#8217;t it? And an international tour arrangement thrown in! Not bad for a kinky old buzzard like you.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI suppose not.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOh, that flotilla on the Thames. Having them play in the middle of the bloody river. Going straight up the the Queen&#8217;s Jubilee! Brilliant! Bobbies and everybody having to wait until you pulled ashore before they could even try to arrest you.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nA real swipe at Authority.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAnd getting them to sign their record contract on the steps of Buckingham Palace, no less. And Sid with his stiff quiff. I was pretty impressed, I can tell you.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nRebels without a pause.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Rebels with menopause?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nEventually. One day.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHand me that hair iron, will you? Thanks. I&#8217;ll be downstairs; the taxi&#8217;s due any second. What do you suppose this rush of publicity really means? I mean, the papers make it sound as if we&#8217;re about to organize some sort of international anti-everything movement.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nPeople do it all themselves. All that beautiful political crap.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat do you think you might make this into, anyway? How much harm or hurt can four beastly boys zipped up in rubber goods do, anyway? What will you make out of them? The way the papers write about it all! As if we were terrorists. Or a sharp-edged Danger Mouse flailing away with a fully-loaded automatic guitar. &#8220;Oh God no, they&#8217;re plugging in. There goes the country.&#8221; ZZZapp!!<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nA real amplified re-fleshing of the old anarchy bivouacs.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nCells of resistance, and all that.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nSounds very biological, don&#8217;t you think?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAs if we were an infection in the body of Mother England. [Laughs]  What do you want, anyway?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nJust another commercial venture, darling.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>VIV<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAmerica&#8230; I might have a chance to hunt up some fresh fashion ideas, mightn&#8217;t I?  [Exits.]<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nI'll have all a chaos. When effect meets not\r\nThe cause, and old age crawls to the baby's cradle\r\nAnd there bawls its second weak infancy to the sheets\r\nMy wry smile shall widen to an earth-engulfing gash\r\nIngesting in toothy winces a wrong world\r\nThe intensest squints could not correct.\r\nWith this intent, I shall in America with my protege club prevail!\r\nFor years, Teddy Boys squeezed into my ripe Sex shop\r\nPear-pale, peach-sweet, thin and slinky in their kinked clothes\r\nAnd now my charmed boys in their ragtag come marching out!\r\nA decade of manipulation's not enough.\r\nSensible extirpation is my willing wish against sin,\r\nTo FEEL free is the only free there is, a sweet\r\nRelease from the clapped weight of intent\r\nFrom which clapping hands raise and praise the supplicant.\r\nHow many jiggers of winning did I need to drink?\r\nI won against my lolling generation, and then beat myself.\r\nJohn may be a bit of a sticker, the prick.\r\nSid will give and give, docile as a housewife.\r\nWhy look you, once his mind's made over, his body\r\nFollows adoringly, even to the precipice.\r\nSo all-of-a-kind is his nature that intent\r\nAnd action have no more division between them\r\nThan wind and wave. What one directs, the other\r\nSlavishly obeys; its a virtue that may serve\r\nMy turning of it. After this, I'll burn as if\r\nThe indued lust was in me, firing all my thoughts.\r\nThey dress in the fagged-out rags of my harrassing dreams,\r\nHold a face I've pancaked against the furnace of light,\r\nWink at my blinkered insistence, chime to my timing\r\nAnd let their voices uncork the change something in ME demanded.\r\nAll chaos unleashed in a stabbing minute unrehearsed....\r\nThese youths I shall to my alarming purpose bend,\r\nGive voice to the vortex I feelingly live within.\r\n\r\n[McLaren closes suitcase and wheels out of the room.]\r\n\r\n[\"Anarchy in the UK,\" plays as we go to America.]\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>ACT II (America)<\/h2>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<pre>\r\n[At the Homesick Cafe, Ark.]\r\n\r\n<\/PRE><P>[Boys on tour bus reading their \"shocker\" headlines out loud to each other. Except Rotten, who glares.]<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\nVarious: The Foul-Mouthed Yobs!\r\nWHO ARE THESE PUNKS?\r\nThe Filth and the Fury!\r\nRock Group start a 4-Letter TV storm\r\nJust because Steve called him a fucking rotter?\r\nGrandmum Furious at Filthy TV Chat\r\nViewers in big protest over shock outburst\r\nMore Uproar as viewers jam phones\r\nGrundy Goaded Punk Boys Says Record Chief.\r\nNufin goaded me, you old load.\r\nWorthless, decidedly inferior, displeasing...\r\nAll: Yes!\r\nThe ragged face of Punk Rock\r\nThe Punks-- Rotten and proud of it!\r\nObnoxious, arrogant, outrageous... the new pop kings\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n Hey, Johnny, here's what they call you: The Ragged Rebel.\r\n Haw. The Ragged Rebel.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nOh, Sid, you're so bawring!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n<\/PRE><P>O, look you now what an unworthy thing you make of me! Should my concentration on this point of debate be anything less than tyrrannical, or dominate me less than the oppressive sky, then I, an erratic flicker of breath between unbreathing birth and breathless death as all men are, should lose my own weight of conscience, and disperse the only quality of mind that gives men effect or worth.<\/P><PRE>\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nYeah, well, y'know.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nFood, food, food.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\n<\/PRE><P>[Taking up the chant:]<\/P><PRE> Food, food, food!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nNo luxuries cramp my stomach like the queen's packed larder,\r\nFat-back pork lolling between the ice-green truffles...\r\nKnowing your 70 minutes' hunger each hour defines you is harder:\r\nSpirit is trash, and god the garbage man is still on strike,\r\nUneaten piles of human flesh foul the bright air\r\nStrangling the wayfarer who's forgotten how to die.\r\nDry heaves reassure me; my white neck's too knotted\r\nFor the hangman still. Watch my stumbling tongue,\r\nB-S-ing to the hissing end! It's all just so much sass\r\nI learned to spit at Grampa's deafened, wrinkled stump\r\nPearled with old, oil-red, oiled eyes.... Hssshahh, hssashah, snap!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nHossannah, hossannah. All eat now of Johnny's manna;\r\n\r\n<STRONG>STEVE<\/STRONG>\r\nThat'll choke us quicker than any hangman's yank.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat makes you so fucking blessed right anyway?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n We're all as hungry as you are, John.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nYeah. But you're all wrong, ain't yeh?\r\n\r\n[Bus pulls up to diner.]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG>\r\nOK, OK. Everybody off the bus!\r\n\r\n[Inside diner.]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG>\r\nEggs and butter for the British brats here.\r\nEggs to settle their stomachs from a hen's ass,\r\nButter for all the gold they'll get paid.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nSincere pain, sincere joy, what else is there?\r\nNothing's in us, and less is in our stars.\r\nDid we ever tell you about the time we met\r\nThat asshole ---\r\n\r\n<STRONG>PAUL<\/STRONG>\r\nAnecdotal violence! Anecdotal violence!\r\nI love anecdotes.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n We tol' ol' Bill Harris to shove it up\r\nHis withered cunt---\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nBack at the Playpen\r\nWhere we'd lean into our drinks, and drink, and think.\r\nSid was ashamed of Bill's being so dull\r\nAnd tried to save him with a slash; \"a bash\r\nOn his ripe noggin'll straighten him out\"\r\nHe'd said: and wham went the theatrics, Wham!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n You gotta live and bleed to be, ya see?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nFuck dental floss: who's gonna live that long?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n Operational utility, see,\r\nIs the only ungimmicked gauge of success.\r\nAnd when I cut him, he was free, free,\r\nAnd let loose against me as if I lived,\r\nNot in the papers or on the TV,\r\nBut there in the room with him, within reach.\r\nHis knuckle was my suckle: haw haw haw.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nBill was a cop who knew the Bandits well.\r\nWell, what of that? I'd gotten clobbered plenty\r\nBy the cincured cops I'd grown up near.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n It's true enough. Authority buys its face with pain.\r\nFear in weak eyes can paint a popinjay\r\nAbove the status of an eagle's stare.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<pre>\r\n[Hotel room]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nTiberi, my boy, listen up. Item:\r\nInternational image. The permanence\r\nOf celluloid fantasy. Item:\r\nCash advance for everybody.\r\nWho can we call?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG>\r\nMGM.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nColumbia.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG>\r\nParamount.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nCalling the 20th century!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG>\r\nWarner Brothers.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nWarner brothers. Brothers in arms!\r\nIt sounds tasty and correct in a flat, unleavened way.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG>\r\nThey're already paying for this tour.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nSo they are. Why not?\r\n\r\n[Mclaren reaches for phone.]\r\n\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[The auditorium in San Francisco. Tiberi greeted at the door by a stage-hand.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>COHEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Who do you serve?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhy, one that&#8217;s better than myself.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>COHEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Why do you serve him?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nBecause he is better.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>COHEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Many men in their various disciplines have a superior touch. You cannot serve them all. Men must serve themselves, or else this divided loyalty would allow but very little sleep.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHe&#8217;s better than me. If I would not serve him willingly, then he, being better, could make me. If I werte to contrive for distance between my master and myself, his farsightedness would foreshorten the leagues of my leavetaking, and I would be as good as by his side even still.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>COHEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Perhaps you could serve him well, but hold aside your heart and keep it secret and alone.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nIf I were to so withhold, and in myself keep that affection owed outwardly, then he, knowing my measure, even to its height and pitch, and exceeding that measure as much as a whale does an inchworm, would discern the shortfall in my affections. Yeah, if I were to withhold even one particle of all my mind from service, he, whose mind encompasses and surpasses it, would percieve the debit and hold me owing. And such owing to such encompassment, I would not feel.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>COHEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAnd you serve in hope to better yourself by such example?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI serve because the worser obeys the better part of man, or else all is chaos. There&#8217;s many tragadies that have played on that.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>COHEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n But is there no improvement in your scheme? No profit that may be had by you from your master?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI serve one who never shall be as bad as myself. There&#8217;s a profit of trust and confidence for a man in that.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>COHEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Self-treachery! Never have I heard it so bluntly put. Who can know the doings of another&#8217;s heart? The change and expanses hidden there? Why each man&#8217;s a walking maze or undeciphered rebus, save to gods or madmen. A madman makes no udse of it because he is mad. The gods game with such insights to while away eternity, showing man a riddle to himself. Gads! Think on it.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nMy pledge is a matter of honor in myself, not to swerve from it. It is a constant in myself that I most do guess at, not in him I serve.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>COHEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n And yet, here you are, pledging service to&#8211; to a blank stone! Hell, one might do better thus: the stone will keep its qualities, a man may not. You say that he&#8217;s a better by viewing of his past acts, which are as much the charge of accident and chance as deportment, and by that view squint into tomorrow. For all service pledged today is but a guess at constancy tomorrow, that the pledge may be returned or paid in kind or still find honor in its subject. Yet you plegde a riddle, and hold it as it were a star above your head, changeless and remote. Do this and disserve yourself.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s honesty.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>COHEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Who&#8217;s the nearer gainer?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nJust help me lug this shit onstage, ay? I thought San Francisco was supposed to be a friendly city.<\/p>\n<p>[Stage Hand helps with equipment.]<br \/>\n[&#8220;Schools are Prisons&#8221; plays us to the radio station, where BONNIE turns it down to speak.]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[Radio Interview at K L A M, as in &#8216;My Lamb,&#8217; the lamb of christ, on the lam, as in (lowercase) 1[one] am, as in Clam, as in money, as in female sexual organs]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYou boys have GOT TO do this interview right. Understand?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOh? What if we don&#8217;t?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI don&#8217;t give a fig about you.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOn the air in five&#8230;. Welcome to San Francisco. This is Bonnie Bonfires, and we&#8217;re talking to the Sex Pistols, the outrageous punk band from England who&#8217;ll be playing the Geffin Concert Hall tonight. Well boys, have you been having fun?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nMore fun than ever. So much more room over here to be fun in. You can spit across Britain.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNO FUN. NO FUN. NO FUN. NO FUN.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nShould I play another cut from your album.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWho cares about the music?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThe music was never it.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell, OK. Here we go. [Plays another cut from their album]<\/p>\n<p>Sid and <STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nBlah blah blah.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYou treat this little lady nice.<\/p>\n<p>Sid and <STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nBlah blah blah.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nLemme make it easy for you. You do good, and you each get a leather jacket.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNobody tells us what ta do.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOh yes they do. I&#8217;d sell my soul for a leather jacket.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAny new material?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nGot a song about God.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAnd all the pretty angels&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a real attack. A death march.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nReally.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nGot one about South Africa. How the niggahs gonna rise up.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat kind of school did you go to, Johnny? Parochial?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nSchools are just another prong in your conformist machine.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI have to do a radio ID. This is K-L-A-M, San Francisco, transmitting on&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Sid and <STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nBlah blah blah blah.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI want to talk, to say something.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nGo ahead.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHallo? Is DeeDee Ramone out there? Just hallo. Hallo!<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nDo you like the Ramones?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI love the Ramones.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI hate the Ramones. I hate them I hate them. They&#8217;re boring and mundane.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\n[Sings.] Nothing to do, nowhere to go oh&#8230; I wanna be sedated!<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI don&#8217;t want to be sedated. Absolutely not. And neither should you.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell then who do you like?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nMe.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI would hope so. Anybody else?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNot really, no. Not at all. I don&#8217;t like rock music. I don&#8217;t even know why I&#8217;m in it. It&#8217;s just the only way I can destroy things. It&#8217;s the best way.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nTell me about your song &#8216;New York.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s about imposters from New York, all those cheap assholes who call themselves poets and take themselves seriously and all they&#8217;re doing is destroying music in a trivial way. It&#8217;s like they&#8217;re serious. At least we&#8217;re destroying it practically. I just want to ruin everything. Have I earned my leather jacket yet? This is so tedious.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nTwo sleeves.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThis is hard, isn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYes. For a young man like me.<br \/>\n[Pause.]<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nI am the defeat of your social engineering plan,\r\nAnd the timid victory of the individual.\r\nMy annihilating mind reduces every other one\r\nBack to zero cause it can and that way I\r\nCan really get started and exist. In a world of mirrors\r\nEvery one of you becomes just another face.\r\nI must spurn the temptations of the marketplace,\r\nAnd not sell the shards of what I've gathered here.\r\nThe nihilist in me shouts you up against the wall\r\nAnd then, I shoot until there's nothing left;\r\nMy lesson plan includes an ineradicable I, which then\r\nCan say I'm everything, or anything, or what\r\nI want to be. In a universe of ciphers I,\r\nI am the only one. And then, when that becomes clear\r\nand (the atmosphere in here is damp) all\r\nOf you get sick of being so erased, and scream\r\n\"I exist!\" in your sickened state, well then\r\nMaybe I'll have done something to unleash\r\nThe little man inside of you at last.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG>\r\nAre you going home after tonight's show?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nOur visa's expired.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG>\r\nDo you think its different here than in England?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nYou've really got no idea how stupid you are.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat do you want out of us 'Yanks'?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nMOREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!\r\nComplaisant slugs, gumming up the air with your foul breaths.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nNothing here but dirty cowboys and sore-thighed wives.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nGimme a fix of the pure, the real, the clean LUCRE\r\nThat spic-and-span life commands. A toast to the country\r\nWith the least. Drink up Sidney! We've earned our\r\nLeathers by now. Gimme the free bleed\r\nAnarchy asks. Out of each man ranges free free free\r\nThe dispelling shadow of his own unowned soul.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nHee hee hee. [They Exit.]\r\n<\/pre>\n<p><STRONG>BONNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThanks. And good luck on your show here in San Francisco tonight. [To mike:] Well, I think they heard me.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8220;Problem&#8221; plays briefly as we head toward utter disaster.]<br \/>\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[Last Engagement, San Francisco.]<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>MARCUS<\/STRONG>\r\nI'm Griel Marcus, bald-faced punk's\r\nRueful, truthful rock-critic supreme;\r\nWhatever I say becomes whatever I see.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>BYSTANDER<\/STRONG>\r\n[Bumping Marcus] Fuck off!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MARCUS<\/STRONG>\r\nDrunk in the cockpit of this moment's corse sussurations\r\nI hear hippie history's dismissing 'brava!' in the floor-boards' squeal.\r\nJohnny's spinning skull must fly off its spitting spike next,\r\nHis rare form magnetic, a showboat on fire.\r\nWatch the wicked, watched world grind itself down\r\nTo his loose, hissing tooth. Tonight, tonight! Now.\r\nI've watched. The hysterical, real saint-Just\r\nWishing hysterical happiness to everyone he couldn't kill.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nBang into the flopped heart of America I flapped,\r\nMy long, grimed tooth my instrument! Catch fire\r\nFrom this piss-stream of lip-jizz; I say fire\r\nTo make Carthage blush, and the pillaged babe\r\nDon her habitable virginity\r\nFresh as any haight-ashbury herb cure.\r\nWe'll make such faces! Breed on tiger-milk\r\nYou who wish to finger what we offer...\r\nWe'll make such faces, turn to ack-ack hue\r\nOur enlarged gourds til teeth burst: such smiles lick\r\nAs respected age will treble tremble---\r\nFathers curse inheritence, and stones yeowl\r\nTo be whittled into junior pebbles\r\nOut of so grave a bulk. Mothers curse sons\r\nWhelped by nursing pains to urgent manlings\r\nOf size to whine into this hissing mike\r\nThat scatters truth into dumb fertile ears\r\nAnd like seeds of lice or liscence perk there\r\nThe bandaged arms of Anarchy! Rise, lice!\r\nAnd overwhelm the blinded head of state...\r\nTake what wisdom would not give. It's time!\r\nCrawl into every margin of the law\r\nAnd breed upset. With perpetual strife\r\nUpbraid laced dignities, and cause small wars\r\nTo fruit the earth with disrespect, make change\r\nFrequent and large, dash reason, and with blood\r\nLet each man's Caesar's freedoms be regained!\r\nO royal hue! To convey the marrow\r\nAnd very essence of a life. By pulse\r\nRevealing to the stale outward intant\r\nTime's constant arrow moving forward still.\r\nBlood in my toothpaste dish makes me sick\r\nTo think on time's waste. Hear the moment's beat\r\nIn your stagnant ears? Listen now to blood;\r\nLift a gun or tongue; swim in such instants---\r\nFreedom is a minute you can't forget,\r\nNothing more. Texarkana's next this tour?\r\nWe are many in the dark. My sneer's a bombshell.\r\nLet's bludgeon our faces against the light...\r\nBlot all torches. We'll make such faces...!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MARCUS<\/STRONG>\r\nThere they go, fabulous at last.\r\nThe fabled anger fated for parade.\r\nSee how blind John stares and stares.\r\nThe black, quickened eye disabling\r\nA head trapped in history.\r\nWhen will we unleash ourselves and die free?\r\nWhat man believes the stories he tells himself?\r\nYou can overhear a dozen prophets at any bar\r\nBetting their dreamed guesses into oblivion...\r\nSauced, sleepy, slurred unhurried drears.\r\nHow many hunches have I discovered and doubted,\r\nTelling myself I'll live forever on the sly\r\nDrenched in wrenching death-prayers by the score...\r\nSomething tells me that the boot is braver\r\nThan the twitching man who kicks me with it.\r\nHow many other minutes will singe and sing like this?\r\nThe annihilating sound, the screaming face alive\r\nRetelling a dream interred. Interred and true.\r\nConvinced and cynical in my writer's chair\r\nPerched on some desert telephone pole\r\nLike an eagle's quartered nest, I reach\r\nFor my blue, explaining pen as my foot hits the wire!\r\nKnowing what I know, I think its the crash.\r\nUnfullfilled desire leaves it debt in dreck;\r\nDada's marched-on heart is beating still.\r\nThose fulfilled? Even more so. History keeps\r\nRepeating its minutes, a bum that mumbles\r\nHis mantra to a swigged glass.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nIs this exceeding blessing, this individual\r\nExcellence extempore, merely a receding grace,\r\nA backwash of wish, naked in bare sincerity,\r\nMade supremely visible by withdrawl alone?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MARCUS<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat gain inheres? Nothing forgotten's real.\r\n        Everything's forgotten.\r\nJohnny's ribald face is burning the spotlight back to black.\r\nHis voice an echo without a source;\r\nMy dull feet are sore, I've been standing here since birth.\r\nThe theiving minutes pinch my imagined halo to ash,\r\nSt. Catastrophe without a wish to incinerate my sins,\r\nI stammer on the moment's agile surf and glide\r\nFishing for a reprieve I haven't faxed myself.\r\nWhy can't I kill whatever I see? Asleep in his stitches,\r\nFrankenstein mumbled love for the blind flower-girl\r\n       Chaplin wooed.\r\nWhy can't I sleep and speak? The terrible dreams\r\nRise in the visionary nullity of Rotten's ripe rant,\r\nBlaming the logjam of time every infancy invents;\r\nWhat choice of fathers does a chilled begetting undermine?\r\nMy drugged druthers always centering on the whispered\r\n       \"Not I, Not I.\"\r\nThe nascent NA NA NA that ripped Elvis to the top!\r\nHow much more must I incinerate and disclaim? All's mine.\r\nMine mine mine! Disbelief's the easiest wish to insist on.\r\nIts the hard, current, Jabberwocky of the damned\r\nI can't understand, their bleating insinuations of reprieve\r\nManufactured and patented up-your-sleeve!\r\nMy dyslexic eye precedes the Lettrist revolt,\r\nMy dubbing ear Dada Ball's crunching balungo-beerhall putsch!\r\nDecapitated atop my careening pile of crooked books,\r\nI fix on the age's marginalia, squinting for a clue;\r\nHaphazard history's gimmick's fixed by tricks\r\nI engineer from here with a wink and a lisp. Follow close!\r\nCops are burning my wicker house to the holy ground.\r\nThe heat's in me still that put their finnicky indignation\r\nTo the torch! I hold a copy of commie Combat rolled,\r\nBatting all comers with its tickle-whip of scholarly love.\r\nIt is history's Rosanante that I must skewer and cure,\r\nFerrying imagination's master-men to their mooted doom;\r\nThe mute ashes lash and flabbergast me as I stand\r\nWinsome and sinewy at St. Joan's last barbeque.\r\nNo matter how poor in spirit you are, there is always\r\nDesire. Desire unfulfilled, as it appears. A cinema wish\r\nSnapping in the projector and evaporating, each\r\nWhite, slaved, delectable evocation revoked.\r\nHave you seen the serene mistress of this wish?\r\nShe rides all times as if swished backwash,\r\nThe sea retreating to the sea's indecipherable source.\r\nAlways there is the sweet reverse of the siren's chorus,\r\nLess promising less and less, a minmalist's urge\r\nSanding away the unallowed surges our bodies offer.\r\nWolman with a silent, blanking screen at his command\r\nKnew what the humdrumming camera's oceanic whirr allowed\r\nKnew each lived minute demanded its hour,\r\nEach hour, eternity. That girl Liberty\r\nKept her witching watch alert night by night,\r\nStik-on stars spangling her showbiz brow\r\nAs she danced down the photographed Paris streets,\r\nA weeping illuminati with nothing on! So it goes.\r\nToday she's done her promomade of Nos, the void\r\nLoosed from her solo vowels and the crashed, done, down,\r\nFlair of Petey-boy's Wall of Sound, ennunciating Void;\r\nFrom this announced denial a scintillating permission slips,\r\nMy hands reduced to crabbed claws can fasten still....\r\nDestruction on this rash scale proves creation's true!!!\r\nMy neon feelers tremble in the black box of night,\r\nMy undone heart moves its inchworm rounds renewed.\r\nNothing demands its consequence, I am the world I rue!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nEver get the feeling you've been cheated?\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[Hotel room, San Francisco. Annie Leibovitz is trying to gather the boys in the shower for a group portrait. Rotten is on the phone.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nBloody fucking spanking wanker! [Hangs up]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell, what do you know? San Francisco today, Brazil tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYou&#8217;re going to Brazil tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nDon&#8217;t you understand what I&#8217;m talking about?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYou&#8217;re going down there to cut a film with the Great Train Robber holed up in Rio de Janero.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThat&#8217;s pathetic.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\n[Tiberi shrugs] He wants to call it &#8216;The Swindle.&#8217;<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nHe wants to make a mooovie; 'The Swindle!'\r\nThat would tuck us away all tidy and dead. Oooouuu!\r\nWhat a sensation. They made my nerves tingle once,\r\nBut now I know it was all a game. How fun! Bloody...\r\nI'm calling McLaren. That arse. What a circus.\r\n\r\n[Sid stumbles out of the shower.]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat's going on?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ANNIE<\/STRONG>\r\nJust like that. Hold that sneer.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n[Throwing his towel over the camera] You whore.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nMalcolm's trying to kidnap us to South America, that's all.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n Don't they have those naked parties down there?\r\n<\/pre>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThat&#8217;s not the point, Sid. He&#8217;s trying to pervert the entire experiment.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOh. Well&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ANNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\nC&#8217;mon everybody, back in the shower. Really good light glares off of the fixtures.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nJam it.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n[Picks up the phone]> What&#8217;s Malcolms number? Anybody! What the frizz is the number where Malcolm&#8217;s at? Do I have to wait for that wanker to call here again? Anybody! What&#8217;s his bleeding number?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ANNIE<\/STRONG><br \/>\n Click, click, click.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOh, that&#8217;s it. That&#8217;s too much. I&#8217;m out. I&#8217;m smoke. I&#8217;m dead to you from now on, OK? This is simply far too degrading, being paraded around like this. Malcolm McPuppet can go hang!<br \/>\n[Exits]<\/p>\n<p>[&#8220;Belsen was a Gas&#8221; plays as we go to the next scene. Maybe show some clips of the boys in Brazil from &#8220;The Great Rock and Roll Swindle.&#8221;]<br \/>\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[Hotel room, San Francisco]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHe&#8217;s quit. John&#8217;s no longer with the band. With anything. He says he&#8217;s gone to Jamaica and fuck you.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAh, shiit! Slaying betrayer. Crimped infidel.<br \/>\nWhen he comes back I&#8217;ll have to say something nice to him.<br \/>\nI like his asshole. Or something. Shiit!<\/p>\n<p>[Phone rings, Tiberi picks it up]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHey, well, whatever. You better take this.<\/p>\n<p>[McLaren on the speakerphone, talking to the movie guy.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYes. Yes. I understand.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MOVIE GUY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThe project is untouchable without Johnny&#8217;s drawing buzz.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI understand. [aside] Ideas aren&#8217;t honey enough for the vixen flies. Attention in this blitzed world is a game of one-upsmanship. And I&#8217;m too persona-poor to play my own part. [aloud] I understand.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MOVIE GUY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nGet Johnny Rotten back on the set, or my interests will witdraw all funding for this film.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI understand THAT. [Hang up.] Look, Tiberi, we&#8217;ve got a revolution going on here. I&#8217;ve got a movie contract. This band is blistering the world&#8217;s thin skin, and they&#8217;ll pay anything to feel the pain. They want the illusion that they&#8217;re alive. But, there&#8217;s a problem, the face man has escaped. Johnny&#8217;s popped off to Jamaica. He&#8217;s sick-unto-death of us. Tired. He&#8217;s just a lad, after all. But he is needed. The mask of fantasy through which every heaven-drugged voice was pumped is getting a sunburn in the coral-mauve Carribean. Not good. The movie may be behind schedule already! And it&#8217;s the celluloid that&#8217;ll last, and not our wearisome noise. I must have that frittery inch of stained-glass church windowpane for my mile-high history.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nSo what are you going to do?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYes. What am I going to do?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYes, what are you going to do?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI&#8217;m going to talk to him. If I convince him, I convince him. If not&#8230;. I want you to go to Jamaica&#8211; an island of indecisive breezes&#8211; and try to convice him. If you convince him, you convince him. You won&#8217;t go unprepared. Hand me those blank pages over there.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThese?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYes. Those.<\/p>\n<p>[McLaren takes five of six blank pages and carefully puts his signature at the foot of each, then hands them back to Tiberi.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat&#8217;re these for?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nExigencies. If I cannot convince him, and your voice is dust in his ears, then note what complaints he makes, and note whatever his own desire may speak of. Note them. Note them on these pages as my own true intent. Whatever he wants [aside]let him think he&#8217;ll get.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAll right. You really want to put him in the driver&#8217;s seat though? This could mean that he&#8217;d be tellin everybody else what to do.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHe already put himself there with his big star-biz ego-fetish GOOD-BYE fuck-off.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nIs there anything else?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI&#8217;ll tell you more of my intents after the phone call. Now you may get out.<\/p>\n<p>[Exit Tiberi.]<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\n[punches a number on the speaker phone]\r\nHallo, Johnny?\r\nWhat have we to fear, enmansioned, founded\r\nHere where highest joys a trembling earth\r\nDisposes, waiter to our wants even as she\r\nMimics and points them to their setting on.\r\nThe crypt of night is draped with jewels\r\nAnd sick want, pale with wan fear,\r\nIs fattened by our expectation to join those dear\r\nWho have left us laughing departing hence.\r\nGod as king, worm or fool\r\nCan knock us about no more than chance\r\nWhose jaded tigers jab at us pinned to earth.\r\nThis being so, as indeed it is,\r\nLets talk among us as if we were dead\r\nAnd loss and gain a game played\r\nBy those abandoned above our roof of turf.\r\nThis done, our new talk will range\r\nIn absolutes as freely as a kitten\r\nMoves his mates among. Then shall we be,\r\nAs our abilities all have chance to turn flesh\r\nCorporal spirits diamonded by tongues\r\nAnd turn in flashing sequences of ourselves\r\nAs once the deciphered pages of a book.\r\nO then what gainers will we be!\r\nTo know all ourselves, entongued here\r\nAs ages heretofore dreamed only\r\nThe provenence of heaven! To hold\r\nCastled in the keep of teeth our very selves\r\nAnd have their essence printed in the air\r\nWhat fingers may fan! O secret bliss!\r\nUncased before time and times are done\r\nAnd all the world's expansive 'Ah'\r\nConstricted to a noose's tiny 'o'\r\nTo be drunk while still fresh in every sense\r\nAnd our each little gate of perception\r\nOverwhelmed with joy! Come, come,\r\nLet's talk while we've tongues to lavish us.\r\n\r\n[\"New York\" plays as we fly to that black basalt city.]\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>ACT III (New York)<\/h2>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<pre>\r\n[Sid 'N' Nancy's apartment.]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat there is left of me that love would put\r\nA hand to, hew down, and let drugs eat up\r\nThe surplus, even as they already have\r\nYour hollow eyes consumed.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\n                       Stop it Sid. Stop!\r\nI do not have to dredge my heart for drams\r\nBut have love enough to wet you to the core\r\nAnd send the efflux and semblance of your ghost\r\nDrenched to heaven.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nThere's no comfort in it.\r\nBut chilly do I move through these spare rooms\r\nTurning visions and nightmares over in my fist\r\nLike a restless paper, which tells more\r\nIn its rough square of life than I ever,\r\nEver shall do myself. Does it not\r\nAstound?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nDo not, do not love me, and then\r\nDraw a sour face over bitten fruit.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nHmm. Yes. If I cannot prove out one image\r\nWith my entire life, and take this page\r\nAnd append myself-- but momentarily!--\r\nTo its whirlwind, then what is't to've lived?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nWell, you're going to that gig I set up at\r\nMax's Kansas City next week ain't ya? Ain't that\r\nSomething more 'n  a footnote? I'm in bad way,\r\nSid. Don't I always tell you you're the only star?\r\nI set that gig up for you, honey. Ain't that\r\nWorth a little sumthin', sumthin'?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nIs the carryover of existence\r\nNo more than the monumental footnote\r\nOf an obituary? I think\r\nIt cannot be-- and yet, what is it to live?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG>\r\nAw, Sid, fuck off! I'm going to Richard's\r\nFor my fix. Give me the money, honey.\r\n\r\n[NANCY grabs money from SID and exits.]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nIs there, in that drugged beast's look of hers\r\nLove to expiate misery of self\r\nOr is self all-too tangled in beastly briars\r\nFor any look of hers to burn by fires\r\nBack to unencumbering phoenix' ash\r\nFrom which some tired I might at last arise?\r\n\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[Richard Hell&#8217;s apartment. He is alone, reading Baudelaire&#8217;s Last Poems. He looks up.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI feel blank.<br \/>\n[Knock at door.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOh yes.<br \/>\n[NANCY enters.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nGosh, who&#8217;d&#8217;ve thought you&#8217;d stayed so cute?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI didn&#8217;t think I needed anyone to tell me that.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHi y&#8217;er. [She leans up close against him]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI don&#8217;t mind givin&#8217;, but you have got to want.<\/p>\n<p>[Nancy throws Baudelaire book at Hell&#8217;s head]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat? Don&#8217;t! [He tackles her] That&#8217;s my Baudelaire.<br \/>\n[pause]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYou hurt me, I hurt you. What the fuck?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat, the fuck?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat we had was real.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI don&#8217;t know&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK.<br \/>\n[Pause]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYou don&#8217;t have any smack, do you?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNot that I can lend.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAny I could get?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell, I don&#8217;t know&#8230;.<br \/>\n[Nancy crawls into his lap]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI do know someone who&#8217;s holding. Do you remember Rockets?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nRockets Redglare? That skeevy little shrimp?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHe&#8217;s probably at his place.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOn Houston Street?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nProbably.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nSEE YA.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHey, Sweetheart.<\/p>\n<p>[Nancy exits. Hell sets up the Baudelaire book and addresses the picture on the front jacket]<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>HELL<\/STRONG>\r\nTell me if this is finished:\r\n[sings]\r\nDesperation takes us in its feral cue\r\nas luxury lights installed upon a losted view\r\nand terror tricked shadow in pitiless devotion--\r\nimploring furious mirrors of singular commotion\r\n     its true... its true...!\r\n\r\nAnimate angel fumes her retinue of dreams\r\nStabbing azure parodies and rending elixive schemes\r\nwith no respite for my insensate senses\r\nenslaved in velvet dawns and sonorous tenses\r\n     oh no... oh no...!!\r\n\r\nSpirit exhales divine perils in exquisite quivers\r\ndyed her in defiance and cool lipstick shivers,\r\nlike flatterers dissembling demented agitation\r\nor tears falling like the loveless jewels of contemplation!!\r\n     my-self...! myself...!!!\r\n<\/pre>\n<p><a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[Sid &#8216;N&#8217; Nancy&#8217;s apartment. Nancy returns, gives herself a fix on the bed, relaxes. Sid goes over to her and picks up the works with the following line:]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nGimmie.<\/p>\n<p>[Sid takes the &#8216;works&#8217; to the bathroom, hunches up against the toilet and injects himself.]<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nThis rearing horse has neighed my veins alive;\r\nIt turns their slothful flowing to more rapid pace,\r\nSpilling armies of antagonistic thoughts\r\nFrom their safe haven and compeerless view\r\nIn the appointed temple of the brain\r\nTo those waiting slopes and mountain-arms\r\nThat tumble to our bowels, then stretch out to feet\r\nAnd, like the volcano in his roaring, the body\r\nOnce aroused, rests not till all the landscape\r\nBurns laved with that fire the brain compels\r\nOut in a rain of fuming ashes over it.\r\nDrugs are argent against a low self-conceit,\r\nThe beggar's into a tyrant's riches thrown\r\nAnd chatters at the rats, his councillors.\r\nHigh into his eye each purviewed object is excerpted,\r\nFinding there its aptest use and valuation;\r\nBe it less than a poor scrap of scrambled print\r\nTugging his ankle like a wet hand, or some dull word\r\nImagined in the wind, his altered state,\r\nBeing so high-enhanced and tragic-excited,\r\nSeizes the wayward syllable, which trumpets in his ear\r\nOf vast ambitions trashed, kingdoms undone,\r\nThe long low note of doom resounding soundless\r\nIn his brain alone, the subtle drum\r\nThat had urged him on, til cavalries entire\r\nThat had so newly charged in victory-seeking pride\r\nStand again in-reigned in sudden defeat.\r\n\r\n[P.I.L.'s \"Albatross\" plays briefly, annoying us.]\r\n<\/pre>\n<p><a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<pre>\r\n[Jamaica, Rotten's cabana. Poolside]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>GIRL<\/STRONG>\r\nWhy did you leave?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nHow could I stay?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>GIRL<\/STRONG>\r\nThere's nothing here.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nThere's nothing anywhere.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>GIRL<\/STRONG>\r\nYeah, right..?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nIt's only ourselves... It was The End!\r\n\r\n<STRONG>GIRL<\/STRONG>\r\nOur faces and our fears. Our freedoms, right?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nOur inhibited pissings, more like.\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>[Sound of rustling shubbery. Rotten pulls Tiberi from behind a bush at poolside]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nShadow of vengeance! Tiberi, what&#8217;re you doing here?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOh nothing. Nothing. really.<\/p>\n<p>[Rotten pulls at camera strap on Tiberi&#8217;s neck:]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat&#8217;s this? Eh?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s just a camera, you know, to get a few snaps.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nSlippery as a condottieri, Tiberi. Probably been sliming up the bush you dragged through to get a geeky peek at me.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAll we wanted was your picture for the movie.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nMy picture! all I own is my image. The intimidation of a shameless face.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYeah, well, your story&#8217;s a lot of what we&#8217;ve been trying to put together.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\n[grabbing papers out of Tiberi&#8217;s coat] What&#8217;s this? Well, what is it? [examining papers]  McLaren&#8217;s reduced to selling his autograph, is he?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNo. They were left blank so that I could fill them in. With promises. You know, like McLaren&#8217;s been talking about. You&#8217;re in charge. You can do what you want, make what you want. Any project. Anything&#8211; so long as I got you to come back to the group.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nChrist, I gave all that up. I don&#8217;t need any shit from the past. All that&#8217;s dead.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nEveryone I know just wants to see you guys back up there again.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nChrist, Tiberi! Humping the friggin bushes to get me friggin picture&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nMcLaren figured you&#8217;d be pretty much pissed. Guess he was right. But he still wants the project to go forward. So, you know, whatever I could get&#8230;. And now you guys are so big. Now you could actually cash in on it a little. You know, make some money and be free to do whatever you want.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nExcept quit. So now you&#8217;re going to steal my freedom from me too. McLaren&#8217;s holding up my money. Sid had my friendship. And now&#8211; for the best of reasons, to be a verbal martyr and fixed tidbit in kid&#8217;s dreams&#8212; I&#8217;m supposed to dive back into that mire? Can&#8217;t you see from the way they&#8217;ve got you crawling around behind bushes that self-determination is the LAST thing that they&#8217;re interested in?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell, how about a line for the movie then at least? Its a mythological documentary of sorts&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nThe Demise of the Never Beens? Dreamy. Fuck off.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nJust say: &#8220;Who killed Bambi?&#8221; They can edit it in ok. Ok?<\/p>\n<p>[As Tiberi holds up the camera to film, Rotten takes the lens in his hand and shoves him backwards into the pool]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nZed, Hector! Kick his highness&#8217; ass. [Enter two thugs who pull Tiberi out of the water and start beating him] That&#8217;s all the picture of me you&#8217;ll glom onto.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOw. Ah, fuck. Hands off! Damn. Damn you.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWatch how the image in your cracked skull, Johnny Rotten Magnificat, melts from the stiff indifference your wrong wish imposed; a posed, inverted, evangelical, shouting and strident gimmick for your gimcrack Hollywood picture,&#8212; back to the wavering and real, loving negation of a single man. Let my NO now hollow out my image where your false wish reigned.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>TIBERI<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNot even an instamatic fragment? Your anger&#8217;s really photogenic, you know.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nNOOOOOOOO! I&#8217;ll kick your ass myself.<\/p>\n<p>[They punch Tiberi offstage.]<br \/>\n[&#8220;Liar&#8221; plays ironically as TIBERI is beaten.]<br \/>\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<pre>\r\n[New York, Suicide Promise. Sid N' Nancy's apartment.]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nThe soul of man to its true object is miscreant.\r\nSmeared with fecal farce is our smooth wall of love\r\nThat upheld only projections of sweet heaven\r\nBetween us, once. Where has our strength of dreaming fled?\r\nHow gone, that which from the daily air drew in\r\nSweet opiate clouds? Our imagination's cancered over,\r\nMy heart a tumor lugging up my throat! I cannot swallow.\r\nMy dry eyes, empty of tender tears, ache to weep,\r\nAnd must hang aching still, deprived of that\r\nVisionary flood that lifts the animal in us to man,\r\nThe twitch of sympathy that had bound us as brothers\r\nKnotted no less than pearls on the trim wire\r\nOf our cause, has lapsed us now to this estate\r\nA degredation even to the uncombining sand.\r\nSo far have we fallen, who thought to rise forever\r\nAlert in the hilarity of spirits,\r\nA pairs of perfect angels, turning higher\r\nWith each god-send of wind, until clouds themselves\r\nShrank dazzlingly beneath us, the lost sea a rumor\r\nOf unendurable light. And are we now, even now,\r\nDescended to this? O human liberty!\r\nLet us scrape the dirty earth for our bones,\r\nAnd charge our jellied flesh with treason,\r\nFor bones have abandoned us if we cannot stand against this.\r\nLet us lose the hair that marks and mocks us even as a beast,\r\nRend sight from our sockets, sniff the absent crypt,\r\nStab hearing from our ears, cut the tongue\r\nHowling from our mouths that can make no speech\r\nInnocent of betrayal, and so convert ourselves\r\nTo ragged bleeding brawls of detested elements\r\nAll in a chaos so confused with themselves\r\nThat the least drear piece of life-- be it\r\nAs miserly as a toad!--- will take no stain\r\nOf comparison from us, to say we share\r\nAny quality convertible with itself.\r\n     [Nancy sits up in bed, clear from her high and depressed.]\r\nAll charmed intent of tenderness has abandoned us.\r\n<\/pre>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nLet&#8217;s do it.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAw God, not again.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nC&#8217;mon Sid; for real this time.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhy do you always wanna talk like this?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nC&#8217;mon, Sid. For real.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAhh, Nanc.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nSid, Sid. I&#8211; I don&#8217;t want ta die.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nToo late. We&#8217;ve been born, and now we&#8217;ve GOT TO die.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI know all that. I was just expressing myself.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nFunny way you&#8217;ve got about it, wailing with no one to hear but these blank walls.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI always thought you were listening.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell, I guess so; not that THAT counts for anything.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nSo much suffering on my part, and nothing to show for it.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI forget half the things you say as soon as you say &#8217;em.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWhat&#8217;s this been but unendurable misery? Swallowing your kisses like pills&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nLove&#8217;s gone bust for you. Your heart was never in it.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nStrange days, skittering on the knifeedge. Strange, strange. And so long&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell, then, what&#8217;s left?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nChrist! Always asking that question, ain&#8217;t you? What&#8217;s next, what&#8217;s next?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nWell?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nAlways pushing past the minute we&#8217;re fixed in. You think something great&#8217;s gonna happen out of all THIS mess? [He gives her a look] Well, well&#8230; I know. But can&#8217;t you just quit it for an instant? I can&#8217;t tell what&#8217;ll come no more than you until it comes hurling down and smashes us ta bits.<\/p>\n<p>[Silence]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>NANCY<\/STRONG><br \/>\nLet&#8217;s do it. C&#8217;mon, Sid. C&#8217;mon. For real this time. For real. [She presses the knife into his hand]  You have to kill me. You promised.<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat promise do you have to extract from me\r\nTo know the thrust and tenor of my resolve?\r\nDoes the thrush promise miraculous song\r\nTo the listening air, or does it merely sing?\r\nDoes the babe swear his mother's milk to drink\r\nOr does its small mouth simply incline to drink?\r\nDoes the putrid corpse disclose its white ribs\r\nTo fulfill some deeded oath to the earth?\r\nNo more shall I then our agreement break\r\nThan my face and body may my name avoid;\r\nCall me liar, and perjure your enterprise.\r\nI shall none of it, but instead be true\r\nAs these bones may not this frame abandon,\r\nWhich indeed they do stretch and define thus,\r\nStiffening frail flesh with determination.\r\nI'll be true. So saying, know me thus said.\r\nFor what I am, I cannot be other.\r\n\r\n[Lights go down with the knife in Sid's hand.]\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>[Lights fade up in Sid N Nancy&#8217;s apartment. Sid lies in bed next to dead Nancy.]<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n Leave off life awhile, it's overrated.\r\nNancy, your blue eyes toward death, as if toward\r\nAnother shore whose beating sands were war-drums\r\nMarching you out of life and sense-- and love;\r\nFor I had loved you. Together we'd poured\r\nEach hourglass with centuries-- to the crest!\r\n\r\n[Sid falls asleep.]\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>[Rockets Redglare begins pounding on the door, opens it on its chain, eventually sees Nancy.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>ROCKETS<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHey hey! Sid, Nancy, I was able to score a little more stuff on the cheap. Come on, open up. It&#8217;s me, Rockets Redglare. I got some good horse. Premium grade. Sid? Sid, you there? Hey Nancy how about a little yankee doodle dandy on the meat-flute while Sid&#8217;s off? Oh, oh there you are Sid. Well, you gonna let me in? You&#8230;. Oh man oh man oh gad oh god. Nancy&#8230;. bloody bitch. Um, you guys are gonna have to deal with this yourself. Sid, Sid, this is some serious shit, Sid. This is way deep. I gotta crawl on out, pal. Sid, man, you&#8217;re damned for this one. Serious, serious.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8220;No Future&#8221; plays briefly as we go to the recovery room.]<br \/>\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<pre>\r\n\r\n[NYC Hospital]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nBlue and ruined in my hospital bed, the dredged\r\nAnd unending canyon-cut of history chopping my heart\r\nTo chasm-splinters, I wait for the explicit lisp\r\nAnd white-noise hiss of dawn's razoring entrance\r\nTo wake me like the guillotine's scissor-whisper\r\nWakes the aching head it drops back to sleep.\r\nRaw dawn infects my eyelids. Spider-light\r\nCreeps against my strung-out skin. Creeps, creeps.\r\nThe fabulous crash and disaster of being alive\r\nOne more time! How many times, time times time,\r\nHave I hunched into my skin to face the skulled annihilation?\r\nHow many grins unhinged from that skull of grins?\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>[Phone rings]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nHallo, Sidney?<\/p>\n<p>[SID mumbles; a bludgeoned &#8220;Yeah?&#8221; emitted]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nIs anything left alive on that end, Sidney? Anything still in pain, any victim alert and hurting?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYeah, yeah. Whadda yew want?<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nOnly what&#8217;s best and most dangerous, as always, boy.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI&#8217;m so sorry Nancy&#8217;s dead.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYou must come back and play for me, changeling. The film&#8217;s in the can; you&#8217;re a gonna be a movie star, boy. But first you must come back to me. You must guard the carnival.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nI&#8217;m so sorry Nancy&#8217;s dead.<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nEverything's irreversible. You know that.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nI don't think I know anything. I'm just so sorry.\r\nI want to touch her. I want, I want everything.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nOh, I see. You want a cure. A salve, a taste\r\nOf the bliss salvation. A pope's denoumont.\r\nHow christian of you, Sidney. How lovely and protestant.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nWhy can I still see her as if she's here,\r\nStanding by my bed, her hair all haloed in the light?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nYou need to beg forgiveness, Sid. A dram of baptizing\r\nAnd all that. It'll do you a world of good. A whirl\r\nOf the condemning waters almost snatching you under now.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nIn atonement velvet as the dust I'll\r\nBear myself through the inscence-shrouded dark\r\nInto the very corner of ministry\r\nWhere peace of conscience like a nerve-wracked mouse\r\nShivers in self-captivity; I'll palm\r\nThe prize, and bear it like a beating heart\r\nBack against my bosom and into the light\r\nOf common day.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nYou see how easy's said;\r\nIts easier done. Forgiveness is a game.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\n[absolutely trapped]\r\nWhat do I have to do. What do you say.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nYou shall kneel and I shall bless your low head.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nYes, yes. Bless me. Yes.\r\nI wanted to escape, but I can't.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nCrowns of more vested rank than your's have done it;\r\nWhen the impious impetuous Henry wet\r\nHis knees in the snow at high Canossa\r\nThe Pope unbent that king, stood him up,\r\nAnd blessed him. So I bless you now my boy.\r\n   [Sid kneels, holding the telephone receiver above his head.]\r\nReturn to your kingdom of the TV.\r\n\r\n[\"Bodies\" plays, up to the repeat: \"I am not an animal.\"]\r\n<\/pre>\n<p><a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[SID in a taxi, going home from the Max&#8217;s gig after NANCY&#8217;s death.]<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>DRIVER<\/STRONG><br \/>\nBoiy, dat Max&#8217;s Kansas City sure is some wild joint, mistah. Was you plain&#8217; in dere wit&#8217; dat raggedy bass guitar on yer lap? You&#8217;re a braver man than I am, that&#8217;s fer sure.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nKeep yer bleedin&#8217; hole shut, old man.<\/p>\n<p><STRONG>DRIVER<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYouse younsters. I ain&#8217;t seen one a youse who&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>[SID whams the plastic divider ferociously. DRIVER shuts his hole.]<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>SID<\/STRONG>\r\nAnd now, insensible and languid\r\nAs any milky tear, I watch awash\r\nThese blank solemnities and joyless vigours\r\nStrut their little glittering while before me,\r\nPrating: I am life! I am alive! Alive,--\r\nHas not a salamander's tail, disjoined\r\nFrom the sleek head, and fidgeting in the hard palm\r\nLike threads of fire, as much claim upon\r\nThe grounds of self-animation as these\r\nWho clamor ecstacies? The quiet nun\r\nOr quaker staring walls down in her church\r\nCommands vibrant meditations in a breath\r\nUnbreathed; voiceless, and without even\r\nSo much as an eyelid's unconscious stir\r\nThat might annoy a flea, the devotee\r\nWhirls the cosmos round her like a cloak\r\nInvisible, and the kneeling stars in choir\r\nWarm her hush contemplation, those white maids\r\nStirred to comfort an unmoving central calm.\r\nAnd so, to cut short the dogs' whining yip\r\nAnd defoliate the grievy wreath of death\r\nBefore its planted, blackly ribboned,\r\nAbove my Nancy's unuttering grave\r\nAnd avoid the choked yodeling condolences\r\n(Almost worse than the shrived chastisement\r\nOf my sense!) and dolorous crowds of mourners\r\nStamping passports out of my private grief\r\nFor a photo-op of mourning stardom,\r\nI'll pack myself into a holy cloister,\r\nEschew the tasteless ornaments of this world,\r\nRevile in silence the thousand hands\r\nExcited to touch, or anxious to please,\r\nHolding nothing but their wanting of me,\r\nDiscard the thin sensuality of flesh\r\nPoor in variety, lost in having,\r\nAnd in saving spent, whereby we each\r\nMock ourselves in choosing one above another,\r\nExiled from all this aping mockery\r\nAnd saved in being lost, found in being saved,\r\nI'll quit this exchange of jibes, this commerce,\r\nThis weary commerce of weak weary souls,\r\nPrimping worn attitudes in new attire\r\nAnd withdraw as the widowed spider\r\nTo her pall, mourning-gorged, defeat inflicted,\r\nDamaged in spirit and in sense maligned,\r\nGrim in prayer to the godless absolutes,\r\nNature's cheating majesty that cannot cease with us\r\nAnd that way pay love. Drive on, drive on.\r\n\r\n[They stop a moment later. ROCKETS REDGLARE gets in the taxi.]\r\n<\/pre>\n<p><STRONG>SID<\/STRONG><br \/>\nYeh holdin&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p>[&#8220;Bodies,&#8221; continues, repeats on the chorus: &#8220;bodies&#8230; bodies&#8230;.&#8221;]<br \/>\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<pre>\r\n\r\n[Three Cops pulling OD'd Sid from his squalid squat]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>1ST COP<\/STRONG>\r\nHere's one who's dead; and he shall not come again.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>2ND COP<\/STRONG>\r\nWhat use has life for the dead interred?\r\nWhat function, purpose or fair proportion\r\nNot disfigured by the rashness of their laying-in?\r\n\r\n<STRONG>1ST COP<\/STRONG>\r\nThere's no flaw in nature great enough\r\nTo let imperfect man twice suspire within.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>2ND COP<\/STRONG>\r\nThe bloods that did afflict him while he lived,\r\nBeating like a sea within him, now curdle\r\nIn calm sourness by the broken body.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>1ST COP<\/STRONG>\r\nPassion's a curse.\r\nThe more passionate a man, the more cursed.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>2ND COP<\/STRONG>\r\nIf we could only take dear note of how\r\nThese fluid essences betray our ends\r\nWe should not let their reigning tides\r\nOverwhelm us whiles we live.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>1ST COP<\/STRONG>\r\nTemperate should be our conduct on this globe\r\nAssessing every substance to its portion\r\nDull and wisely as a baker; no rush\r\nOr pell-mell hurricanes of the brain\r\nTo shake and spice the doughty dough we knead.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>2ND COP<\/STRONG>\r\nMan may live by bread alone; I've seen it.\r\nThe whey-face never stricken, never overjoyed,\r\nAll novelty of expressive form forced\r\nTo obey the median.\r\n\r\n<STRONG>3RD COP<\/STRONG>\r\nNo no no,\r\nYou deal rough justice to so abuse the dead.\r\nOut of their icy Elysium they shed cold looks\r\nDown on past faults, faded deficits,\r\nAnd all that troubled their brief lives on earth.\r\n\r\n[SID's version of \"(I Did it) My Way\" plays us to oblivion.]\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<pre>\r\n\r\n[Johnny Rotten, 1996, deciding to go on Reunion tour.]\r\n\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nSid's dead. What's it to me,\r\nTwenty years on, far from those black barbs\r\nThat pulled his blackened heart apart.\r\nTwenty years on, now look at me: a beer-bellied,\r\nOne-man extravaganza in my mansion by the sea.\r\nThe prick, the needle, of my amphetamined\r\nAnd recorded voice has been homoginized for the mass;\r\nLiving Billie Joe, rinky-dink Rancid, and dead,\r\nDisbanded Nirvana, the name Cobain\r\nAs common on the tongue as Coca-Cola,\r\nReduce perforce my infinite freedoms\r\nTo a moron's capering elegy in damp Seattle---\r\nEverything I did undone to one scrunge of grunge....\r\nI still won't be sold. Or told what to say!\r\nWhat I've said, I've said. And what done, done.\r\nThey've murdered what was simple and living once,\r\n       the whores,\r\nSpray-painting their corporate logo door to door,\r\nHissing out their little As in purchased reds\r\nAnd circling it with an easy, sleepy, unthinking O.\r\nOh, Sid's skinney skull must be puking in the grave!\r\nOne more mess you've left, ay, Sid?\r\nAll these minor worms from the record company\r\nKeep wanting me and the oi boys to get back together,\r\nGrandads of punk and all that crap;\r\nI'm way too intelligent for that....\r\nOnce, slipped in the rubber vestments holyman\r\n       McLaren prepared,\r\nI was the Jah Rastifari, my slicked head in heaven\r\nWhile sweet Sid and I matched wrists against cigarettes\r\nIn our burnt-out London bedsit, the window a faint frame\r\nOf Athens trashed. The sun's an atombomb\r\nAgainst my teenage-angst zapped blue brain.\r\nI was that which danced above the dust,\r\nAll water and suavity, now crushed\r\nBy history's bronzed boot: here. Twenty years on,\r\nWhat a bitter P. I. L. I've had to eat,\r\nAnd swill it down with my cheap, American beer.\r\nNothing good can last. Every sweet memory frazzles,\r\nEach blurry detail fading from reality-hard\r\nTo some dream-softness; the dream soaking the sheets\r\n      like drool.\r\nGod knows, if he dared exist, I'm nobody's fool.\r\nBut maybe, maybe I could take it all apart again,\r\nDestroy the whole rock n' roll world to its glittery,\r\nHackneyed core again; eviscerate its essence\r\nOf copycat do-nothingness, slam the sham, again;\r\nZero it all back down filthy zilch, again.\r\nWe're still valid, those three piggyback hacks, and me.\r\nMaybe. Maybe.... Oh Hell.......  why NOT???\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>[Tag lyric from B-Side of &#8220;Revolution in Classroom&#8221; plays, ending abruptly with an echo on the words, &#8220;In the beautiful world, you have to respond&#8230;.&#8221;]<br \/>\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>SCENE<\/h2>\n<p>[Johnny Rotten in Jamaica. 1977. &#8220;Sid&#8217;s dead&#8221; speech. This is an alternate ending to the play, and may be used instead of the 1996 ending above, or in conjunction with it. If used with it, the 1977 speech should be used first, and redundant lines duplicated in the 1996 speech sould be eliminated from the 1996 speech.]<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n<STRONG>ROTTEN<\/STRONG>\r\nSid's dead. What's it to me, ensconced by malice\r\nSafe in Jamaica, far from those black barbs\r\nThat pulled his blackened heart apart. Apart\r\nI'll stay for this eccentric while and follow\r\nThe quirk of my inner query\r\nUntil I learn in cold painful detail\r\nThe lesson and resolution of his death.\r\nOnce, slipped in the rubber vestments holyman McLaren prepared,\r\nI was the Jah Rastifari, my slicked head in heaven\r\nWhile sweet Sid and I matched wrists against cigarettes\r\nIn our burnt-out London bedsit, the window a faint frame\r\nOf Athens trashed. The sun's an atombomb\r\nAgainst my teenage-angst zapped blue brain.\r\nI was that which danced above the dust,\r\nAll water and suavity, now crushed\r\nBy history's bronzed boot here: wingless, weird,\r\nStuck in the fat maggoty swamp at Bataan.\r\n     [watching a large chameleon sliding on its rock]\r\nI am like him whose mincing tongue\r\nScents the unsaying air, a jaded dragon\r\nUnfurling in the sun, hissing its dissatisfaction\r\nTo warm palms in slow sounds---\r\nSuch a green ruin of sleep as myself\r\nIs incapable to act.\r\n   [pause]\r\nIs this excellence extempore a receding grace\r\nMade supremely visible by withdrawl alone?\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nEXTRANEOUS BITS\r\n\r\n<STRONG>MCLAREN<\/STRONG>\r\nI'll have all a chaos. All chaos\r\nUnleashed in a stabbing minute unrehearsed....\r\nWith this intent, I shall in America with my prot\u00e9g\u00e9 club prevail!\r\nFor years, Teddy Boys squeezed into my ripe Sex shop\r\nPear-pale, peach-sweet, thin and slinky in their kinked clothes\r\nAnd now my charmed boys in their ragtag come marching out!\r\nThey dress in the fagged-out rags of my harassing dreams,\r\nHold a face I've pancaked against the furnace of light,\r\nWink at my blinkered insistence, chime to my timing\r\nAnd let their voices uncork the change something in ME demanded.\r\nA decade of manipulation's not enough.\r\nTo FEEL free is the only free there is, a sweet\r\nRelease from the clapped weight of intent\r\nFrom which clapping hands raise and praise the supplicant.\r\nJohn may be a bit of a sticker, the prick.\r\nSid will give and give, docile as a housewife.\r\nWhy look you, once his mind's made over, his body\r\nFollows adoringly, even to the precipice.\r\nSo all-of-a-kind is his nature that intent\r\nAnd action have no more division between them\r\nThan wind and wave. What one directs, the other\r\nSlavishly obeys; its a virtue that may serve\r\nMy turning of it.\r\nThese youths I shall to my alarming purpose bend,\r\nGive voice to the vortex I feelingly live within.\r\n\r\n[McLaren closes suitcase and wheels out of the room.]\r\n[\"Anarchy in the UK,\" plays as we go to America.]\r\n<a href=\"#Top\">Top^<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A bold, contentious exposition of the meaning of the Sex Pistols rendered in high Shakespearean style. GREGG GLORY GREGG G. BROWN In the beautiful world, you have to respond. &#8211;J. Lydon JOHN LYDON the Young Bastard SID VISCIOUS the Lover Boy PAUL COOK the Whiner STEVE the Bullshitter and MALCOLM MCLAREN the Old Fuck Top^ <a href='https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/its-the-sex-pistols\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1740,1752],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plays","category-sex-pistols","category-1740-id","category-1752-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7363,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120\/revisions\/7363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}