Ben Greenman's
Fake Celebrity
Musicals.
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A Series of Brief Unstaged Musicals,
Each Responding to a Current Event,
Each Written and Scored by Ben Greenman,
With Satiric and Comic Intent.
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FRAGMENTS FROM
PALIN! THE MUSICAL.
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(Alaska governor SARAH PALIN is taking a rare afternoon off from work. She walks by a strip mall. Like all Alaskan strip malls, it contains a moose supply store, a pizza parlor, and a doctors' office. She stops to admire the moose-supply-store window and almost bumps into a DOCTOR.)
DOCTOR
Hello. I'm an obstetrician.
SARAH PALIN
Well, hello. I'm a politician.
DOCTOR
Good day, madam.
SARAH PALIN
Good day, sir.
I'm not pregnant.
DOCTOR
Who said you were?
(A few days later, SARAH PALIN returns to the doctors' office.)
SARAH PALIN
I've been so busy
With governance
That I've neglected
To be inspected.
I'd like to have an exam now, please.
DOCTOR
Get on the table and raise your knees.
(The DOCTOR determines that SARAH PALIN is pregnant.)
SARAH PALIN
Holy moly!
Sakes alive!
I have four kids.
This makes five.
(A few months later, SARAH PALIN is at a conference.)
SARAH PALIN
We need to make the country work
For ordinary folk.
Direct reform must be the norm,
And ... Oops, my water broke.
(SARAH PALIN flies home to Alaska to have the baby.)
SARAH PALIN
We'll call him Trig.
It means "strength" in Norse.
We'll care for him, raise him,
And love him, of course.
(SARAH PALIN continues to govern the state, tend to her family, help her husband with his business, and find time for herself.)
SARAH PALIN
Take that, Murkowski!
It's dinnertime, kids!
Goodbye, Bridge to Nowhere!
Hello, dogsled skids!
Need haircut, need yoga!
Need food for the house!
Need to remember
To pick up that blouse!
Drill here, drill now!
No, not you, Todd!
An hour till hockey,
Then the Iditarod.
(One afternoon, SARAH PALIN's teenage daughter BRISTOL PALIN approaches her.)
BRISTOL PALIN
Mom,
We have to talk.
SARAH PALIN
Come with me
While I walk.
The guys at work all call it
My morning constitutional.
That's what passes for a joke.
Politics is institutional.
BRISTOL PALIN
Mom,
I think I'm late.
(SARAH PALIN's phone rings.)
SARAH PALIN
One second.
In this state,
Where ethical breaches
And pork-filled bills are legion,
We need a real reformer
To rectify the region.
BRISTOL PALIN
Mom,
I need you now.
SARAH PALIN
My schedule
Won't allow
A heart-to-heart till Thursday.
BRISTOL PALIN
Mom, listen, I'm pregnant!
SARAH PALIN
Well, now I'm bouleversée.
I think of you as a child still, a
Tomboy on the loose in Wasilla,
Though I see that you are a woman now.
We have to fix this soon. But how?
(SARAH PALIN visits her daughter's boyfriend, LEVI JOHNSTON. As she approaches him, she hears him bragging to his friends.)
LEVI JOHNSTON
I shot, I scored.
The puck is in the goal.
I shot, I scored.
We didn't practice birth control,
Or gun control, for that matter.
Easy-Bake Oven, meet baby batter.
I may have mixed a metaphor,
But what do I care?
I shoot, I score!
(SARAH PALIN clears her throat. LEVI JOHNSTON turns to see the governor standing beside him.)
SARAH PALIN
I hunt with a shotgun,
Not a musket or pistol.
I'm holding one now.
Will you marry my Bristol?
LEVI JOHNSTON
I'm an effing redneck, ma'am.
It says so on my MySpace page.
I'm not sure I can marry her,
Because, well, we're both underage.
SARAH PALIN
You two can marry.
We'll have a wedding.
Otherwise, it'll be
You I'm beheading.
I'll come down on you like an atom bomb.
LEVI JOHNSTON
Well, uh, I mean, can I call you Mom?
(Across the country, JOHN McCAIN is meeting with CHARLIE BLACK and RICK DAVIS to decide whom to pick for vice president.)
JOHN McCAIN
I think I want
Joe Lieberman.
CHARLIE BLACK
With him, there's no way
You can win.
JOHN McCAIN
Well, what about Tom Ridge instead?
CHARLIE BLACK
Do that and your campaign is dead.
RICK DAVIS
We need a conservative who can serve.
JOHN McCAIN
You jerks are getting on my last nerve.
(The phone rings in the Palin home.)
TODD PALIN
Sarah, phone.
It's John McCain.
SARAH PALIN
The guy from Die Hard?
I love that movie.
TODD PALIN
No, the senator.
SARAH PALIN
Oh, OK. Groovy.
(JOHN McCAIN offers her a spot on the Republican ticket.)
JOHN McCAIN
Is there anything
I need to know
About your family?
SARAH PALIN
No. Although,
Now that you mention it,
Once, back in the '80s,
Todd was driving tipsy
And dinged up a Mercedes.
JOHN McCAIN
You sure
That's all?
SARAH PALIN
That's all
I recall.
JOHN McCAIN
That's really
Quite small.
Excellent. You've got the job.
Rick and Charlie can polish my knob.
(McCAIN picks her. Though the Obama campaign does not criticize SARAH PALIN directly, they dispatch an army of winged, fanged DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVES to do so.)
DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE 1
How can she
Care for her infant son
And also help
The country run?
DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE 2
The baby's not hers.
It belongs to her daughter.
The water that broke
Wasn't really her water.
DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE 3
She's like a spy
Working in our midst,
A hot one who is
A separatist.
DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE 4
The University
Of Idaho?
Where is that, even?
I don't know.
(SARAH PALIN issues a folksy response.)
SARAH PALIN
Come on, that's just not fair of you.
I'm going to hunt caribou.
Then I'll go for stag. Then I'll go for bear.
Corrupt politicians should also beware.
I'm locked. I'm loaded.
D.C.'s outmoded.
The old way's dying.
The underlying
Causes are too great to number.
For starters, power makes you dumber.
It tends to encumber the heart and the spirit.
Silence your inner voice until you can't hear it.
That's what's happening, you see,
To the Democratic nominee.
I won't do that. Don't forget
I auctioned off a private jet.
I'll listen to myself.
I'll listen to my Lord.
I'll listen to my family.
And we will be restored.
(JOHN McCAIN, moved by her straight talk and her reformer's instinct, steps down from the ticket. The Supreme Court, also moved, permits it. Her opponents in the election, BARACK OBAMA and JOE BIDEN, find themselves overcome with emotion as well; Biden cries so hard that his hair plugs pop out of his head. On Election Day, 100 percent of female voters cast ballots for SARAH PALIN, who is elected in a landslide. SARAH PALIN presides over two terms of peace and prosperity, during which time she and Todd have five more children: Haley, Window, Gossamer, Shemp, and John.)
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