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Francis Raven The Last Man’s Name or How Robert Johnson Was Finally Allowed to Fly
“If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?” —Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club Characters: ROBERT JOHNSON PHILOSOPHER (woman) POET GUARD (woman, outsourced) “SMART” BUSINESSMAN PRIEST (also the pilot) POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE LIBERAL PROFESSOR (woman) A VOICE OVER THE PA (offstage, authoritative) MESSENGER Summary: A man is asked to change his name in so many words. Notes: (a) The entire play, except for the last portion of the last scene, takes place in (and around) the line waiting to pass through airport security. (b) The last portion of the last scene, “Ceremony, Renaming,” takes place around a nearby renaming booth that looks like an old-fashioned photo developing booth. (c) The guard wanders offstage when she’s not in a scene, then she bounces back to her job. (d) The poet and the philosopher are the only ones who move on and off stage. (e) When a character is not in a scene they stare blankly, almost gawking. They are animated by talking. (f) The priest does not enter till midway through the play and should look priest-like but should not be animated till he speaks. (g) The action of the play should be continuous, without an intermission Sources: Many others’ words have been directly used in the writing of this play and placed in the characters’ mouths. Sources include Walter Benjamin, James Joyce (and Richard Pedot’s article “Reading Events in James Joyce’s ‘An Encounter’”), Walt Whitman, David Hume, Saul Kripke (and G.W. Fitch’s book on Kripke), Flavius Josephus, Joan Retallack, Aristotle, Bertrand Russell, Carl Sandburg, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Robert Johnson’s biography, the medieval play Everyman, the website UpsideClown, the song “Two Good Arms,” the Transportation Security Administration website, Catholic online, and the Bible. 1. Music, Introduction Crossroads Blues plays on a boombox. POET (The poet always stands in one location, on the opposite side of the stage from the philosopher, with a podium and microphone. The poet wears a beret.) Speak with me the names of grasses and of architectures. Let us transform their power in our lungs. Let the breath of our existence—our aura—be one of praise, For we have no power or right to negate.
GUARD (Waves a flashlight with clumsy authority.) Turn that music off.
ROBERT JOHNSON Outrage. No solidarity anymore. No listening to the same music. Each with our own tunes. Each with our own name. Each at our own crossroads.
GUARD Music is only allowed if it is played through headphones at a volume such that if another person is proximally seated he will not be able to discern that music is, in fact, playing.
OVER THE PA You should have checked the status of your flight before coming to the airport.
ROBERT JOHNSON My private
projects won’t get in the way of collective action for the good.
Our names may be different but we know what it feels like to have a
name. This is what connects us in politics. (The song is abruptly turned off.)
2. Expensive Bag
OVER THE PA Remember, travelers are allowed one carry-on bag and one personal item, such as a purse, laptop or briefcase. Check its size against the model if you’re not sure if it meets the present requirements.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Everything you are carrying is awkward and lame, but you have achieved a beautiful, simple solemnity in treating allegorically the theme of death and the fate of the human soul, but you definitely need something better to carry your stuff in.
ROBERT JOHNSON They need to make a rolly-bag for the urban traveler. My mom, when she goes to the airport, rolls her bag to a cab then from the cab to curbside check-in then from the airport to the cab then from the cab to the hotel. Not me, my luggage needs to be able to noisily roll down stairs, over curbs, through all the rough terrain of the city.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN I think they do make that. It’s what I have here (Pointing.), but it’s very expensive. It looks like it would be too expensive for you. But, that said, it’s an extremely nice bag. All the features a heavy traveler could want. The Stealth NG Pilot Suiter offers a combination of durability and functionality as well as first class looks. It comes with two front pockets, three side pockets and two back pockets. Internally, a shirt shelf and a movable divider are provided. Enhancements include a stainless steel retractable handle, redesigned top and bottom castings and modified zippers. The handle extends to a comfortable height and the inline skate-wheels are made of top quality sealed bearing, as always. It also features an innovative attachment system. If you have the money it’s completely worth it, but like I said, it doesn’t look like you do.
ROBERT JOHNSON I’m pretty wealthy, I could afford it. I invented that machine (Pointing at the security machine.), the RJ711.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN It’s very expensive. An inventor is not a capitalist.
ROBERT JOHNSON Well, I’ll look into it (He writes down the name of the suitcase on a pad in his pocket.).
(ROBERT JOHNSON lights a cigarette.)
GUARD There’s no smoking.
ROBERT JOHNSON But I smoke.
OVER THE PA Passengers with no carry-on luggage as well as passengers in wheelchairs may now use the express lanes at all security checkpoints.
3. Shoes Off
GUARD (Yells, but articulately.) All shoes off. All belts off. All hats off. I repeat. Boarding passes out. All shoes off.
POET (As travelers in the line take off their shoes and replacing them on the other side. The guard keeps chanting, but quieter.)
Songs for Taking my Shows off at the Airport
1.
You look away publicly intimate
Cup pass remove your shoes
bombs everywhere surpass and evade destiny.
2.
As soon as he asks unlace
fill the boot with water
from the bottle you must taste
to prove.
3.
In socks alone we fall alone.
ROBERT JOHNSON There is no way these shoes are coming off. These shoes are government property.
GUARD What are you talking about? Should I be scared of you? Are you a prisoner?
ROBERT JOHNSON More like a hero.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN How do you mean?
ROBERT JOHNSON The government gave each of us, the living, a shoe at the end of the war. The shoe symbolized movement, of course, but also permanence, as in “I’m standing my ground.”
Then why don’t your shoes match?
ROBERT JOHNSON
The government, apparently expecting about half as
many survivors, had only one shoe in hand for each of us. LIBERAL PROFESSOR The priorities of our government never cease to mystify me.
ROBERT JOHNSON Now you may think that the government should be in the business of giving people a hand up in their lives as opposed to a shoe, but back then, people, especially ordinary working stiffs, were sternly behind the president’s shoe entitlement program even if it was more namby-pamby symbolic than Protestant work ethic functional.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR The government should tax bads and subsidize goods instead of getting into the shoe business. That’s what the market’s for.
ROBERT JOHNSON Didn’t you ever hear that old timey tune “Give ‘em a shoe”?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN I don’t think so.
ROBERT JOHNSON You know…(Starts singing off key.) Ohh give em a shoe give him a shoe give that poor soldier a shoe give him something to stand on Ohh, he can stand on me, he can stand on me, cuz I’ll give em a shoe I’ll give him a shoe
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN That’s quite a tune; I can’t say that I ever heard it before. I can see how you’d be attached to that shoe (Points to the shoe.).
ROBERT JOHNSON And now the government wants me to take off the shoe they gave me. That’ll show you how far respect for veterans has come. No respect. No respect.
POET 4.
Strangely, your host wears a civil servant’s uniform but does not offer you tea.
However, several badges indicate rigorous federal training and the billy-club does not fail
to make you feel like a guest at home in the airport.
5.
The tip is pointed at an object in the distance
Keep on pointing past your sight Keep on pointing overhead
When you are asleep When you are dead.
6.
Invitation: Come inside.
Untie. Remove. Untie. Remove.
Implicit: You’re in my house. I could kill you.
Be a good guest. I’ll be a good host.
Have a drink. It’s not poisoned.
Insert foot. Retie. Insert foot. Retie.
Stumble home. Fall asleep.
ROBERT JOHNSON No respect. No respect. The government has no respect for what I’ve been through. I’d fling my shoe off and hit a plane if I could. Ohh if I only could, I’d spit at a plane.
GUARD There will be no spitting in my airport. Who do you think would have to wipe up your slobber if you were to emit such a loogy? No sir, there will be no spitting in my airport. 4. The List
PHILOSOPHER Of names, some are proper, and singular to one only thing; as Peter, John, this man, this tree: and some are common to many things; as man, horse, tree; every of which, though but one name, is nevertheless the name of diverse particular things; in respect of all which together, it is called a universal, there being nothing in the world universal but names; for the things named are every one of them individual and singular.
ROBERT JOHNSON Are you seriously trying to teach me something already?
GUARD Will the real Robert Johnson please step forward? (ROBERT JOHNSON steps forward.) You will be duly noted, your presence, your essence.
ROBERT JOHNSON It’s just me. I’m just this guy, trying to fly.
GUARD Oh boy! Here’s another Robert Johnson. I’m sorry, you’ll have to step this way. Your name is on a list.
ROBERT JOHNSON But I’m just, like, a white guy. I even have a college degree. And I am not, in any way, a fundamentalist. In fact, whenever I argue about politics my friends always claim I’m more of a nihilist. Of course, I don’t see myself as a nihilist and I actually wouldn’t be opposed to a monarchy in certain circumstances, but why are you harassing me?
GUARD We’re not racists here. Are you calling us racists?
ROBERT JOHNSON No, not at all. I just thought there must be some rationale for choosing me.
GUARD Well, we are no racists here. Of the millions of black and brown and yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when their last hour came like a thief in the night, we offer them refuge within our sweet homeland. No, you are on the list not because of what you are but because of who you are.
ROBERT JOHNSON There must be some mistake.
GUARD No mistake. It’s on the list.
ROBERT JOHNSON I believe you, that it’s on the list, but it shouldn’t be.
GUARD I’m just looking at the list.
ROBERT JOHNSON But somebody put my name on the list and that person was wrong, dead wrong.
GUARD The list is, and I quote, “not a procedure, but a final indication that a passenger must proceed through special screening events.”
ROBERT JOHNSON I know, I invented the machine. The RJ711 has been quite lucrative for me.
GUARD Well if you invented it, you must know that whatever it says goes in these parts.
ROBERT JOHNSON I suppose I do. There goes my day. There goes my flight. And I really need to get home. (ROBERT JOHNSON sits on the ledge of the security machine.)
GUARD (Immediately.) You can’t sit on that ledge. Please do not sit on that ledge.
(ROBERT JOHNSON falls off the ledge, but quickly catches his balance with the help of the security guard’s hand.)
(After she has helped him up.) Actually (Flips through papers on a clipboard.), with that name of yours it looks like you’re not going to be able to fly at all. Your name’s on another list: the no fly list.
POET Coffee drains on shattered airplanes. A ripped frame contains the entire Transportation Security Administration. Calls for comment went unanswered. Clipped wings bore the scent of a hidden net.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR At least you’re on a list, even if it is the no fly list. Some people aren’t even that lucky. Some people aren’t on any list at all. I read about a guy who couldn’t fly, not because he was on a list, but because he was on no list. They couldn’t ever find his name. And if they can’t find your name you can’t fly.
ALL (Sing duo-op style.) I is another. I is another. They say, I is another. They say, I is another. And they are right. I is another. I is another.
5. Reason for Flying
PHILOSOPHER The way you’re thinking is completely offbased, we may change the name of things; but their nature and their operation on the understanding never changes.
ROBERT JOHNSON But I need to fly, I must.
OVER THE PA This is the last call for Flight 766 to Boston. If you’re not on the plane you’re not coming with us.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Why is your need to fly so great?
ROBERT JOHNSON I need to see my mother. She is very ill.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN (Annoyed.) I’m pretty sure that everyone here (makes a swath with her hands) needs to fly. Nobody flies who doesn’t need to. It’s more like riding the bus than anything else.
ROBERT JOHNSON But my mother is a very talented woman who is going to change the way we think about farming and education. She says that it’s all about getting kids to think in terms of a plot of land that is 10 square meters so that they can learn about landuse policy…
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD I’ll just say: you’re a ticket just as I was a ticket. It’s an unpredictable ride, but your mom is your mom. You need to go there if you need to go there.
ROBERT JOHNSON She says we need to teach children GIS to rewire their brains for the future, which could be disastrous depending on what happens with global warming.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR To fly unhindered by a totalitarian government is a human right that should not be abrogated under any conditions.
ROBERT JOHNSON She’ll ask you straight to your face, “how can there be development without local food and water security?”
POET But airplanes keep taking off although he attempts to bribe several minor FAA officials to prevent the motion of flight, with unsuccessful but savage chants.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD To travel is to know another land. To travel is then to be another. To be allowed to change.
ROBERT JOHNSON Don’t you see? It’s so obvious, to travel would be to change and that is preciously what you will not allow me to do. Don’t you understand? I need to travel so I can change so I can stay the same for my sick mother.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD It’s not possible to tell the difference between when things actually change, when eras shift, and when it’s merely us that changes. Like I used to think that there were no more activists, then I realized that it was just me getting older, more stable.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Is it possible to sell one’s soul to the government just for a name that will be left alone? Never to be flagged again, never to be stopped, but also never to have it stolen, and to be recognized as fully human, as a member of the human race. For this protection I would gladly sell my soul. For without a name what is a soul but an unchained dumb thing flirting with all and marrying none?
ROBERT JOHNSON Because human beings are primarily political animals the political life of reputation, honor, and recognition is more fully human than the life of mere pleasure. But I fear that with a name I will never reach the life of contemplation. I will always be with contemplation and never living it.
ALL Ohh, to be contemplation, pure, without a self. Nameless, nameless, Without a self to speak of, Nameless, nameless.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR The first instrument of a man looking for his identity should be his voice. What does it sound like, untrained and then trained? What does it mean, uneducated and then properly schooled? After that the man should be allowed to hum and then to play the harmonica. Finally, after a period of years he should be allowed to play the guitar.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE If you keep touring around the country, you’ll lose your roots, lose your name.
ROBERT JOHNSON (Sings “Leaving on a Jetplane.”)
All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go I’m standin’ here outside your door I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
So kiss me and smile for me Tell me that you’ll wait for me Hold me like you’ll never let me go
‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane I don’t know when I’ll be back again Oh, babe, I hate to go…
GUARD Well, not really, you’re not going anywhere.
6. The System
PHILOSOPHER We may give to this influence what name we please; but as it is usually conjoined with the action, it must be esteemed a cause, and be looked upon as an instance of that necessity, which we would here establish.
ROBERT JOHNSON I invented a system, the RJ711, a machine that gathers every piece of public data on every U.S. citizen and will analyze it for behavior only a terrorist would do. Any time we leave a data trail in public my invention adds it to the database and feeds it into a piece of software. The only problem with the technology is that it arrives at many false positives.
ALL (Spew rapidly.) To what degree is the threat information corroborated? To what degree is the threat specific and/or imminent? How grave are the potential consequences?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN The names are provided to air carriers through Security Directives or Emergency Amendments and are stored in their computer systems so that an individual with a name that matches the list can be flagged when getting a boarding pass. A “no fly” match requires the agent to call a law enforcement officer to detain and question the passenger and not permit him to fly.
GUARD The list is generated by a patented algorithm.
ROBERT JOHNSON I know how it works. I invented this machine. Don’t you understand, I would never have invented a machine that would single me out if I were a terrorist. Let’s just say if I actually were a terrorist…
GUARD (Interrupts.) Please don’t say ‘terrorist,’ not even in jest. That word is taken very seriously and its issuance can lead to fines of up to $100,000.
OVER THE PA The following items ARE allowed through security screening: Walking canes and umbrellas (once inspected) Syringes (with documented proof of medical need) Nail clippers Tweezers Eye lash curlers
ROBERT JOHNSON Okay, let’s say I wanted to commit a crime on an airplane. If I really wanted to don’t you think I could have reset the code in my invention such that it didn’t flag me as a ‘no fly’?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN I don’t know how good of a programmer you are.
ROBERT JOHNSON A lot better than that!
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN You must not be that good. Senator Kennedy was stopped five times because he was on the no fly list. It took three weeks of calls to Tom Ridge and the Department of Homeland Security for the ordeal to get straightened out. But what are regular folks supposed to do if the Secretary of Homeland Security won’t take their calls? Sorry, I’m ranting. I’m just really scared and anxious that my name’s going to turn up on one of these lists.
ALL (Spews rapidly.) Are Rebecca Gordon’s and Jan Adams’ names on the “no fly” list? How can a passenger whose name is incorrectly placed on the “no fly” list get his or her name off the list? How many names are on the “no fly” list? How does a name get on the “no fly” list? To what degree is the threat information credible?
ROBERT JOHNSON I’ll admit that the system has some bugs, but what system doesn’t? And wouldn’t you agree that false positives are a lot less serious problem than false negatives? Especially after 9-11.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I don’t think it was a mistake. ‘Kennedy’ sounds kind of Middle Eastern, don’t you think? Yeah right, the republicans have been out to get him since the beginning. That accent just pisses them off. If they can’t assassinate him they’ll just ground him permanently. The current White House occupants are shameless.
ROBERT JOHNSON And now I suppose I’m being accused by my own machine of living in bad faith.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR False positives are an affront to our most basic civil liberties, everything that America most fundamentally stands for.
GUARD (To ROBERT JOHNSON.) If you don’t mind, please step over here so that you can make this simple decision: change your name or don’t fly.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Every system offers you its freedom and no more.
ROBERT JOHNSON Right now we have the technological capacity “to identify humans as unique individuals ... at a distance, at any time of the day or night, during all weather conditions, with non-cooperative subjects, possibly disguised and alone or in groups.”
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Oh god, how offhand can you be with a stranger?
ROBERT JOHNSON Currently we’re trying to develop database architecture that eliminates the “need to know where information resides or how it is structured in multiple databases.” 7. Private Information
PHILOSOPHER What is the true picture of what’s going on? Maybe reference doesn’t take place at all! After all, we don’t really know that any of the properties we use to identify the man are right. We don’t know that they pick out a unique object. So what makes my use of ‘Cicero’ into a name of him?...Someone, let’s say, a baby is born, his parents call him by a certain name. They talk about him to their friends. Other people meet him. Through various sorts of talk the name is spread from link to link as if by a chain.
ROBERT JOHNSON It’s the RJ711 2000 series (Points to the machine.). It provides solutions that could grow with increased demand. For easy access to this information, networks were scanning and storing all documentation on their host system. We simplified the system so that essential rows of information could be collated to investigate and signal terrorist activity without violating people’s privacy rights.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD I think your private information should be considered your property. If they want to pay me for it that’s fine, but I don’t want them taking it for nothing. Because it’s mine, it’s my property.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Circular argument! It’s only yours if it is in fact considered to be your property, but if it’s not then it’s not.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD The word is out: people’s privacy is at risk because of government and business encroachment. As technology expands, so does the potential for invading people’s privacy.
OVER THE PA Proper identification is required.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN However, there are enormous gains to be made from the use of sensitive private information. While debates rage about the balance between privacy and security, about how much infringement counts as infringement, and about how much privacy we really have the right to, what security professionals need to do is obvious. They need to provide the organizational leadership and technological architecture to end this rivalry. It is NOT privacy vs. security if businesses do their job. These issues must be addressed both from a technological and a policy perspective. But policy should always define architecture, always.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I’m not sure if business people have regular people’s best interests in mind.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Business people are regular people. They just often have a lot more money. That’s the only difference.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR (Sarcastically.) Well, if that’s the only difference.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN That’s the only difference.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I was being sarcastic, that’s a huge difference.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN I know that businesses must prove themselves. It is up to businesses to pursue solutions so that they retain their customers and their ability to compile valuable information about them. Businesses need private information and they need customers, this is their bind.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD I’ve never really understood why you need an ID to fly. It’s just verifies that you are who you are, but you could be a terrorist and really be who you are, but with this new technology it makes more sense, because if you are who you are, but you’re also on the no fly list, then you won’t be flying in the near future unless you can get the Secretary of Homeland Security on the phone.
ROBERT JOHNSON It’s ALWAYS a good thing to know who someone really is from a security point of view.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD But if I can just change my name then you won’t really know who I am. You’ll know who I am now, but not who I used to be or who I will become.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR A watch list means anybody on the watch list is harassed, and KNOWS it, while anybody NOT on the list passes through. This means that the terrorists can do a dry run and find out which of them are not on the list and pass through unhampered. Then the ones that succeed get together and do the REAL hijacking - with no problems.
ROBERT JOHNSON (Loftily.) As we speak, thousands of databases, ready for analysis, are being compiled. These databases concern your health, your finances, your insurance, your home ownership, your voter registration, and your age. The analysis and action upon the analysis of these databases can lead to a windfall for the IT industry, better health management, faster security lines at the airport, and even possibly cures for some diseases.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR It’s all for the kids, right?
ROBERT JOHNSON No, really, this is important stuff. Vital stuff. Vital information.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I’m not suggesting that it’s not of vital importance, but I just don’t think that corporations should have free access to it. I don’t think they should be controlling it.
ROBERT JOHNSON On the one hand there exists a great opportunity for both businesses and the government to use databases to improve the quality of the various services they provide. On the other hand, there is a fear that the use of these databases will violate individual’s rights to privacy. But right now we are at this impasse: society is not getting the benefits of databases that already exist but these databases do, in fact, exist and are probably violating people’s rights.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN The only way for society to get the really big wins promised by the information’s age’s vast and powerful databases is for companies to do a better job of explaining three things: (1) the purpose for which the information is being collected; (2) how individuals’ private information is being protected; and (3) who is going to see this private information. That is, companies need to be transparent about how they’re using the data collected. If the purposes of the data collection are legitimate and the database is secure people will have no choice but to allow its use.
ROBERT JOHNSON Why the hell are you lecturing me about this stuff? I’m just trying to fly.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN But you’ve been lecturing us as well, explaining your system at great length. I think you just like to hear yourself talk.
ROBERT JOHNSON Nonsense, it’s just time to end this nonsense and get on the plane and fly to our respective destinations.
GUARD Then change your name. Change your name, I say.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD (Continues the conversation.) But it’s your information. And we need to figure out how to best utilize it as a society. One for all and all for data protection.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I think you need a drink.
ROBERT JOHNSON On the wagon.
GUARD What we’re trying to tell you is that your wagon’s not going anywhere unless you change your name. Thems the breaks. 8. Identity Theft
PHILOSOPHER Assuming that there is such a thing as direct acquaintance with oneself, Bismarck himself might have used his name directly to designate the particular with whom he was acquainted. In this case, if he made a judgment about himself, he himself might be a constituent of the judgment. Here the proper name has the direct use which it always wishes to have, as simply standing for a certain object, and not for a description of the object.
POPCULTURE THIRTY-YEAR-OLD If you don’t change your name it’s almost guaranteed that someone else will steal it. Change it or steal it is what I say. Change it or steal it is what I’ll tell my kids. And I won’t give them names. I’ll shift them around, first John then Eve then Patrick, with no respect to gender. I’ll just let them fly for this is the end of history and we can choose as we may.
ROBERT JOHNSON If we perfect the technologies used to generate and maintain the no fly list then we will be able to effectively and rather cheaply prevent identity theft. The essential process is referred to as “authentication,” and is based on the verifier possessing certain information pertaining to the individual, from which the verifier can confirm the identity of the individual.
POPCULTURE THIRTY-YEAR OLD Do adopted people obsess about what their names would have been if their birth parents had named them?
POPCULTURE THIRTY-YEAR OLD’S WIFE That is so prejudiced and has nothing to do with the real financial costs that individuals will have to pay out in order to get their names back. I can’t believe that you’re my husband and you said that.
I’m in complete agreement save for the fact that I’m not married to you. Once the credit card companies are forced to bear at least some of the cost of identity theft, as they do with fraud, then we will see a dramatic reduction in identity theft, most of which is just plain old fraud anyway.
POPCULTURE THIRTY-YEAR OLD Have you seen that hilarious Citibank commercial where you see the identity-theft victim talking in the thief’s voice about all the things the thief was able to buy and do with the stolen identity? Like you see a ballerina but the voice that emits from her mouth is that of a wrestler saying that he bought something that the ballerina couldn’t possibly have bought like (In a funny deep voice.) “I just had a great time at a strip club and treated all the boys to a round of drinks.” That’s not quite right either, but you know what I mean.
ROBERT JOHNSON Look, I’ve never had my identity stolen.
POPCULTURE THIRTY-YEAR OLD I’m not worried about you. I’m just interested in the fact that the commercial doesn’t work to some extent because any of us could buy anything. That’s what’s so wonderful and awful about capitalism, our roles do not define us.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Well, I wouldn’t wait too long. It’ll happen, you’ll see. It happened to over ten million people last year. Maybe it’s already happened to you. You never know. Either way, it’s not too late to change your name. That’ll show them. Then they’ll have stolen the name of a person who doesn’t exist. Stealing the shadow. Perfect exit strategy.
ROBERT JOHNSON But I really don’t want to be thought of as a thief. And I don’t really want to think of myself as a thief. And besides that I don’t even want to be a thief.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Don’t worry. You don’t have to be a thief to get a new name. The possibilities of language are infinite and can be specially tuned for your needs. Do you want to be thought of as creative, as stable, as Muslim, as white, as Christian? Any of these needs can be brought to bear on the design of your new name.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Your name is only as safe as your garbage, mark my words.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN You should immediately report any unusual activity to the appropriate authorities. Like if you start acting funny, go straight to the police and explain the situation to them.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR If the police present you with a warrant, you have the right to monitor their search activities. You have a right to observe what they do. You have the right to ask them their names and titles. Take written notes including their names, badge numbers, and what agency they are from. A warrant does not give the government the right to question, nor does it obligate you to answer their questions.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN But they always have the right to know my name, not just to ask, but to know, this is the essential qualitiative difference between their questions and mine.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Everyone needs a name, but they’re not like houses, there are more than enough to go around so you must hold on to yours a little tighter than you might expect.
ROBERT JOHNSON I will not steal my name. I am Robert Johnson, paralyzed, at the crossroads of naming.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR By not stealing you rob another of your name. There are only enough to go around once.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN In the future we will freely choose our names. We will freely steal them.
POET But if we participate in our identity (for if we were identical we would be merely identical) then, do we choose the airplanes exploding in our heart’s best tubing?
9. Pet Names
ROBERT JOHNSON Do your pet names have to change when your own name changes?
ALL FEMALE CHARACTERS From muffin to pumpkin.
ALL MALE CHARACTERS From babe to biscuit.
ALL FEMALE CHARACTERS From honey to pornstar.
ALL MALE CHARACTERS From monkey to toolkit.
ALL FEMALE CHARACTERS From sweet-thing to honey bucket.
OVER THE PA Is everything strapped down? All passengers and future passengers must strap everything down.
ROBERT JOHNSON Oh I am everyman, but I have a nice name.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Everyman has a name, but he doesn’t tell it to anyone save for his wife.
ROBERT JOHNSON What good is it then?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE It’s how he refers to himself to himself.
ROBERT JOHNSON Like in the bathtub?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Yeah, or on his way to work when he’s planning his day in his head.
ROBERT JOHNSON His wife shines separately, ethically.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR (Seductively.) You’re funny, Robert, you’re full of bits, bits and takes.
ROBERT JOHNSON I think I’m kind of biased against general takes on things. Maybe I’m suspicious of them.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR No, no, you’re into takes, think about it.
ROBERT JOHNSON Like what?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Like your take that there should always be room in a society for a little bit of corruption.
ROBERT JOHNSON I guess you’re right, I’ve only known you a few hours and you already know the boring obvious things I always say. But it’s true, in every society there should be room for corruption because to the extent that there is this crevice, there is also the possibility of spontaneity and thus of freedom.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Yes, yes, you don’t have to convince me, I don’t think it’s boring and further I think you’re probably right. I really do love that take.
ROBERT JOHNSON And it’s true, I really should be able to pay somebody off to get through the detector I invented.
(ROBERT JOHNSON wildly flashes a wad of bills, but everyone ignores his gesture.)
GUARD No one will be paid off here today. You will change your name or you will not fly. The name changing procedure has been radically streamlined. You can do it in a booth (Points across the room to a small booth that looks like an old-fashioned photo booth.). Just pick a name that is not on the list and you’ll be ready to see your sick mother.
(ROBERT JOHNSON lights a cigarette.)
GUARD There’s no smoking.
ROBERT JOHNSON But I wasn’t smoking. 10. Name Dropping
ROBERT JOHNSON I wired Bill Gates’s house with the latest technology. And if you were to look at it, to really investigate it you would see that the work that I did there is not like the work I have done before, it is very different.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Man, if I was Bill Gates I would have an episode of 24 made for me everyday. I don’t care how much money it would cost. I fucking love that show. It would be so awesome to hang out with Kiefer Suthland, just hang out with him; he wouldn’t even have to say anything.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE The things you wish as you are thinking what you’d wish if you had another name aren’t the same things that you’d wish if you suddenly had that name of your dreams.
ROBERT JOHNSON I saw Kevin Bacon in New York.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Have you ever played that game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Start with an actor, any actor, and see if you can, in six moves or less get to Kevin Bacon.
ROBERT JOHNSON What counts as a move?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD A move is a movie. If you start with Elvis Presley, he was in Change of Habit in 1969 with Ed Asner, Ed Asner in turn was in JFK, and lo and behold so was Kevin Bacon. Two degrees of separation between the King and Kevin Bacon, kind of brings the King down a bit, doesn’t it?
ROBERT JOHNSON Yeah, but I’m one of those people who never understood the attraction.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I heard there was a photo exhibit using that game as a model. The guy took a photograph of an actor and then asked that actor to put him in touch with another actor who would let his photo be taken and who would give the photographer another name who would let his photograph be taken and on and on until he was finally able to photograph Kevin Bacon.
ROBERT JOHNSON The only way that game would be fun is if you couldn’t change everyone’s name to Kevin Bacon.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I don’t get it. Why would you want to do that? That wouldn’t even count as the game.
ROBERT JOHNSON I don’t know, I was just thinking. Anyway, I saw him and I saw Will Smith, well, actually I didn’t see him, just the back of his head, but I heard somebody call out his name, so it had to be him. It just had to be.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Did you actually see Kevin Bacon or did you just see a middle aged white guy on the Lower East Side juxtaposed with a random person shouting ‘Kevin Bacon’?
ROBERT JOHNSON No, I actually saw him in the park. Swear to god. It was definitely him. You could just tell. He had the integrity of Kevin Bacon and no one else. He holds his name like nobody else holds a name. It’s so hard to think of changing my name when I know that Kevin Bacon would never change his name in a million years.
11. Identiy Politics
LIBERAL PROFESSOR The Civil Rights movement targeted ending discrimination against our immutable differences, what we can’t change. But what if what you can change, like your name, is deeply connected to something you can’t change, like your ethnicity?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Then you could say that we are still forced to hide our real identies?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Exactly.
GUARD But how?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR If you’re in Hollywood you almost have to change your name. Did you know that Martin Sheen’s real name is Ramon Estevez or that Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji or that Kirk Douglas was Issur Danielovitch Demsky? The list could go on as long as you like.
GUARD I’m okay. I get it.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR But changing your name doesn’t always change what people think of you. Like if people think you’re gay they’re going to continue thinking you’re gay no matter what your name is.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Let me just say that the fact that I’m not acting like I’m gay doesn’t mean that I’m covering. I’m just not gay. I’m saying it now. I’m just not gay.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN I’m picking up what you’re putting down. The fact that I’m not acting like I’m a woman doesn’t mean that I’m covering. I’m just actually not a woman.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR As long as we’ve got that straight.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD I told you I’m not gay.
ROBERT JOHNSON The technology can’t differentiate between gay and straight people.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR And you think that erases the potenential for abuse?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN It at least reduces it, wouldn’t you say?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD People always get in the way of good technology and show time and time again that they are homophobic and racist. So, no, I wouldn’t say that the technology’s inabilities, inadeqacies, are enough to prevent hate crimes. Remember the love that dare not speak its name?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR To those who would oppose hate crime legislation in the name of religion, we state categorically: everyone in this society should enjoy the strongest possible guarantee of freedom from attacks motivated by bigotry.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE There is also obviously the hatred that dare not speak its name.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR This is but one cause of the hate crimes of yore.
ROBERT JOHNSON Verbal harassment and name calling can create a climate of fear among an entire group of people when the only requirement is that targets are perceived as belonging to that particular group.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I’ll just call you by your regular name.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Please tell me your name so we can have tougher laws against all hate crimes. Your name is all I need, it will enter into a compact with my name and all those others who hate hate and we will abolish hate by exercising our compassion as though exercising our biceps.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD The hatred of which you speak is held tightly against the clenched heart. We cannot bear the sight of ourselves so we throw bricks at others.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR These bricks shatter our relationship with our own name.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE How do you mean?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR After you throw a brick you will be forever hiding from the law and will thus be forced to change your name.
ROBERT JOHNSON I will never change my name because I have never thrown a brick at a member of a minority group.
12. Acronyms
ROBERT JOHNSON Even our professions can change names: from Secretary to Administrative Assistant.
ALL FEMALE CHARACTERS From Boss to CEO.
ALL MALE CHARACTERS From Prostitute to Sexworker.
ALL FEMALE CHARACTERS From DJ to Entertainment Consultant.
ALL MALE CHARACTERS From Slacker to Barista.
ROBERT JOHNSON Sometimes even the government changes names for things. Remember when the Total Information Awareness project changed its name to the Terrorism Information Awareness program? That was a great name change because the program got to keep its acronym. If I change my name I want to be able to keep my initials at least.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD But, if you remember, when the TIA program changed its name civil liberties advocates were far from placated.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR It’s like you can’t call ‘spying’ ‘watching’ and expect to get away with it.
OVER THE PA Would David Duchovny please proceed to the nearest courtesy phone for an important call? One-way paging can be used to communicate directly with famous people.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Do you think the government has a special acronym maker?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD That would be such a cool job.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN But hard. I bet the guy who came up with the PATRIOT Act got a raise. I can just imagine him at the bar scratching out his previous tries and then having a flash of inspiration like Einstein or Newton and coming up with the USA PATRIOT Act, Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Don’t you think the government should be spending its resources on writing better laws instead of generating acronyms?
ROBERT JOHNSON Acronyms are really important. How else are you going to remember the name?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR But I’ve heard that the PATRIOT Act is unreadable and I haven’t tried to read it because I heard that.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE You should try. You have a degree. You’re a professor for godsakes. You’d probably get through it.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR At least I can read the acronym.
ROBERT JOHNSON Big brother by any other name. 13. Toleration
The most noble and profitable invention of all other was that of SPEECH, consisting of names or appellations, and their connection; whereby men register their thoughts, recall them when they are past, and also declare them one to another for mutual utility and conversation; without which there had been amongst men neither Commonwealth, nor society, nor contract, nor peace, no more than amongst lions, bears, and wolves. The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as He presented to his sight; for the Scripture goeth no further in this matter. But this was sufficient to direct him to add more names, as the experience and use of the creatures should give him occasion; and to join them in such manner by degrees as to make himself understood; and so by succession of time, so much language might be gotten as he had found use for, though not so copious as an orator or philosopher has need of.
ROBERT JOHNSON (Pensively.) The resolution is that they matter, names matter. That’s all. But the freedom to fly is also important. You really have to weigh these two matters, hand over hand, right for right, and see what you value when the wash comes out.
POET If you could measure the pattern of bird flight Or the drop of drinking water from a single airplane. But unfortunately those measurements got soaked yesterday When you caught the last wave around sunset.
We will be taken down the bay now By a current soon transformed into a wall. We will end up in front of a strange store And we will not know what to buy.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Decision process?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Vectored choice?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE What’s the plan?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR If you don’t say your name they give you a number.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE That is so obvious and boring. Of course nobody has a number anymore.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD What about your seat number? Name to number there. Match and we’re down. Little to no variation is tolerated.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Although I tolerate you.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD No reason to, we’ll never see each other again.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR That’s true, but you can’t do much but tolerate people when you’re standing in line with them.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD If toleration is the corner-stone of a liberal democracy then we should make people stand in more lines so they would be more understanding of one another.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I think toleration has a lot more to do with naming than with standing on line. Picture the not unusual scene. In the first term of college you make new friends and two of you happen to have the same first name. As I just said, it’s a pretty common occurrence - in fact, it’s happened at pretty much every institution I’ve joined. The normal way around this problem is the creation of an identifying tag, normally by a pertinent epithet or nickname. Hence I would become Fat Elda, or Green Elda, or Elf. If we start to name people we can start to be kind to them.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD And not otherwise?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Not unless we have an understanding. I’m so sick and tired of hearing how you can’t understand another person’s experience. If all you’re saying is that you can’t be another person, then fine, but usually people are making much grander claims; claims for authenticity. It’s like saying you can’t understand another person because you don’t have the same name as them.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD As much as we can talk.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE And often don’t.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Attempted.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE If you laugh at the right time.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Performance as a measure of your understanding.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I obviously understand if I’m laughing.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Not merely laughing but laughing in the right places, like where you’re supposed to laugh.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I’ve heard that all comedies are tragedies and vice versa.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. None.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR The hand of the poet is necessary to save the comedies from being tragedies.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD So? The hand of the poet is necessary for the play to exist at all. Unless you’re thinking about those monkeys typing Shakespeare plays.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I refuse to think about those monkeys again.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Besides, Shakespeare didn’t have a typewriter. No monkey of Elizabethan times could have typed a Shakespearean comedy.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR No tragedy there.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Nor before.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR With just a typewriter, with just the remains of the writing, we would never know that two books were by the same author. The only way we ever come to know this is because books by the same person have the same name typed on their covers. That’s all. That’s right, there’s really no mystery. Authors exist, thank God for us; and they have names, thank God for us.
ROBERT JOHNSON But I want more from my name. It’s more than merely a site for my stories. It contains everything I am and everything I might become.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR That’s nice, really nice, that you think that, but I think it’s a complete and utter load of crap.
OVER THE PA Airplane flights come and go at airports everyday. What kinds of public announcements would you expect to hear at an airport while waiting for your flight? Write down your ideas before beginning the listening.
ROBERT JOHNSON You don’t believe you have a body, do you?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR What the fuck are you talking about? Of course I believe I have a body. In fact, I know I have a body. (Points with left hand to right hand.) Here is one hand.
ROBERT JOHNSON That is not knowledge, that is certainty and certainty strikes down to your very core, to what you hold fast, and I submit that your name is one of the things to which you hold fast, quickly now, it is there like your life, the dirty bedrock of a scummy river, if you will, but there and real for whatever else you may do in life.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR You confabulator you.
POET The actor in the poetic surface argues a name, a false name, a lying name; this urge flowers in supreme water.
14. Saints
ROBERT JOHNSON A birthday is a perfect day for a name. But no, it’s not my birthday. Could it be my Saint’s Day then? If we were in class, I would see some puzzled faces. A hand would be raised: “Please Mr. Moore, what’s a Saint’s Day?”
PRIEST Ohh let me tell you the long and short of dear St. Robert.
ROBERT JOHNSON I don’t think I’ve ever heard about St. Robert.
PRIEST St. Robert was, well, a pretty regular saint. He was born in Montepulciano, Italy in 1542 and died in 1621. Your Saint day is September 17th. Robert was the third of ten children. His mother, Cinzia Cervini, a niece of Pope Marcellus II, was dedicated to almsgiving, prayer, meditation, fasting, and mortification of the body. Robert entered the newly formed Society of Jesus in 1560 and after his ordination went on to teach at Louvain where he became famous for his Latin sermons. In 1576, he was appointed to the chair of controversial theology at the Roman College, becoming Rector in 1592; he went on to become Provincial of Naples in 1594 and Cardinal in 1598. This outstanding scholar and devoted servant of God defended the Apostolic See against the anti-clericals in Venice and against the political tenets of James I of England. He composed an exhaustive apologetic work against the prevailing heretics of his day. In the field of church-state relations, he took a position based on principles now regarded as fundamentally democratic - authority originates with God, but is vested in the people, who entrust it to fit rulers. This saint was the spiritual father of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, helped St. Francis de Sales obtain formal approval of the Visitation Order, and in his prudence opposed severe action in the case of Galileo. He has left us a host of important writings, including works of devotion and instruction, as well as controversy. He died in 1621.
ROBERT JOHNSON Are you trying to teach me things? Everyone is continually trying to teach me things, to make me a better person, to lead me to a resolution, and I have to say that that whole speech about my saint was really pretty boring, but since it’s about me and my saint I guess I find it interesting. Where did you learn all of that?
PRIEST The Internet (Points to his palm pilot.).
ROBERT JOHNSON If I changed my name I’d have a different saint.
PRIEST Luckily, I’m tapped into the Internet and we could figure out what your saint means, no matter what.
ROBERT JOHNSON No matter what?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD If it’s not on the Internet it doesn’t exist.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR But I read somewhere that the saint assigned to you doesn’t have anything to do with your name. They’re not connected.
ROBERT JOHNSON That would mean that I could keep Robert as my saint.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD But more importantly it would mean that Robert might not be your saint.
ROBERT JOHNSON How would I find out? This is very distressing.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD You could ask your mom or your priest.
ROBERT JOHNSON But I’m an atheist and my mother is sick, so sick her educational objectives have probably escaped her and the whole wide world as well.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Does everyone have a saint? Even people who don’t believe in saints?
PRIEST Well, you believe that the people exist.
ROBERT JOHNSON That’s not the point and it doesn’t solve the problem or even isolate it. I want to know if I have a saint if I don’t believe in what saints mean.
PRIEST Everyone has a God.
ROBERT JOHNSON That’s what people who believe in God would say. But I’m not sure that they would say that everyone has a saint and without a saint what is a saint’s day but just another day to go to work and then to sleep?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD So you should change your name to one that’s neutral in relation to the saints?
ROBERT JOHNSON I could keep St. Robert.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Or not, depending on whether you ever had him.
15. Perfection
PHILOSOPHER Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
ROBERT JOHNSON I’ve heard that in Asia lines aren’t self-regulating; they just keep going, extending. The longer the line, the more people think the service is worth, and even more than that, Asians, on the whole, aren’t as impulsive as their peers in Europe.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD In more collective cultures people compare their situation with those around them more than in individualistic cultures like ours.
ROBERT JOHNSON I’m still comparing myself to you.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Ahead of the Jones’s.
ROBERT JOHNSON First to get on the plane.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD I’m pretty impulsive in lines.
ROBERT JOHNSON But you understand the institution.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Everything is not an institution.
ROBERT JOHNSON But you can use institutional analysis to understand our culture, where we live, and why.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Not why.
ROBERT JOHNSON How.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Yes, how.
ROBERT JOHNSON How is the least. How is the pettiest. How is the furthest from philosophy.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD But how is the ultimate site of America’s greatness. We have perfected the how.
ROBERT JOHNSON But we’ve left the why of how to the French.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Why is an invitation to excellence, but only if you care deeply about how.
ROBERT JOHNSON About how what?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD About how to make.
ROBERT JOHNSON About how to make what?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Everything, the perfect French fry, the perfect business model, the perfect camera, the perfect book, the perfect street, the perfect reservoir, the perfect computer, the perfect cup of coffee.
ROBERT JOHNSON But not the perfect leader, not the great man?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD If man can change, then he can change from what he was into something else, possibly something that no longer produces greatness.
ROBERT JOHNSON How many great books have there been?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD More than none.
ROBERT JOHNSON They’ve always been possible.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Not before they existed.
ROBERT JOHNSON Philosophers exist into the future.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Civilized man could fade away.
ROBERT JOHNSON If there’s nothing greater than the perfect fry that we’re after, if there’s no where else we’re going, then we might as well give into the nihilism that is constantly threatening our beliefs.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD I thought you said that others often took you me for a nihilist?
ROBERT JOHNSON To evade your criticism: I change with the day. I am vast, I contain multitudes, etcetera.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Well anyway, I wouldn’t say that striving for perfection is giving in. I mean, it’s the perfect fry, perfect shape, width, etc.
ROBERT JOHNSON Not to be pretentious, but that sounds really very petty.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Why is that petty?
ROBERT JOHNSON Why is it not? I think the onus is pretty much on you.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD It’s perfect; it’s not the fry that matters, but the perfection.
ROBERT JOHNSON Then why shouldn’t we make the goal of America to produce the perfect pair of tits?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD We’ve surely made perfect killing gun, the perfect lawsuit, the perfect, bookshelf, the perfect supermarket, the perfect…
ROBERT JOHNSON So what about the great man? We don’t want everything to be great.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD We want them to run the country, to teach us.
ROBERT JOHNSON Then why should there be any constraints on their power? That’s the last thing we’re going to do is allow a monarchy and trample the constitution…
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD The great man wouldn’t allow for the perfect French fry. We’re trying to make an organization, no, a country, where no one wants to say fuck it. You know, where the buy in is a big as your house, bigger than a Cadillac, like they sing, though, “I try to show you but you drive me back.” Where are you driving me to, where we have no community, no center? I will not hold on to watch the splinters rip me and what I have tried to accomplish, what with imparting this complex recognizable patterning, to shreds.
OVER THE PA The brand new Homeland Security Advisory System will provide a comprehensive and effective means to disseminate information regarding the risk of terrorist attacks to Federal, State, and local authorities and to the American people.
ROBERT JOHNSON (Exasperated.) Ohh perfect, just perfect. 16. Refuses to Change Name; The Website
PHILOSOPHER The empirical and the necessary merge with the name. While the identity sentence is indeed empirical, it is also necessary. This is possible because to think that it is not possible is to mistake the epistemological for the metaphysical—the epistemology is empirical—we come to learn identity statements through empirical means, but metaphysically they are necessary.
ROBERT JOHNSON I’m not going to change it if they want me to change it. In every possible world. Necessary. No, possible. My name is my name in every possible world.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR You really should think about changing it. Whoever falters on the way to a name must never have known necessity.
OVER THE PA For those passengers arriving on Flight 542, your baggage will arrive on carousel # 6.
ROBERT JOHNSON The whole point of a name is that you can’t change it. It is given, the given, what you move from. Who would I be with another?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Look, you find yourself with a name, but then it’s necessary. You can’t just take it away from yourself. There are no subtractions of identity. Your name is not a petty domain name that anyone can squat on; it is yours, your possession to fling as far as the widest sea as far as the highest sky and far as the furthest computer screen.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE If you change your name your utility bills would be going to the wrong person and you wouldn’t have to pay them anymore.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR If you change your name to the right name you might have won a million dollars or at least have a subscription to the New Republic.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Of course, if you change your name to the wrong name maybe you’ll be a murder suspect or that CEO of Tyco who embezzled over a billion dollars so he could buy umbrella stands and throw his wife lavish birthday parties.
GUARD At least, change it to something worthy of a vanity plate.
ROBERT JOHNSON I was thinking of something that would make a really great website. You know I have robertjohnson.com?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Well, that’s a valuable piece of property.
ROBERT JOHNSON But the whole matter is kind of messy touch and go. The Robert Johnson estate sent me this terribly depressing cease and desist letter when they found out that I had the rights to robertjohnson.com. Cease and desist, my ass. Cease and desist or they’re suing me. What do they know about Robert Johnson’s wishes? What do they know about the blues? Just because he was famous doesn’t mean that he can tell me not to use my name, it’s my name. I was named as an American, the sine qua non of America. The beginning, invention because of circumstance, but invention nonetheless. You think Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb because of circumstance. They needed it later on. To drink wine late without burning. For housewives to escape late into sleepless fantasy penetration. Need penetrates into the utter ridiculousness of the invention. Not needed, but needed later. Mission. Vocation, the metaphysical premise of feminism. We all have the right to fulfill our purpose in this world. You think purpose is needed. It is given before need, invented, given like a name. Cease and desist, my ass.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN But the legal consequences even if you’re right will blow your mind. The options aren’t: be right and keep all your money. They’re (a) lose the case and owe the Robert Johnson estate all the money you could ever dream of making or (b) hire a lawyer, pay him all the money you could ever dream of making, and win the case. You’ll be a vindicated unemployed Internet casualty. Is that what you really want?
ROBERT JOHNSON I want to express myself. That’s what having a website is all about isn’t it?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN No, it’s not. Having a website is all about making money and fleecing stupid people.
ROBERT JOHNSON But it doesn’t have to be. I mean, the potential of the Internet is not unlocked by buying a book from Amazon.com, but by bringing people together, gathering people through a range of literacy indicators: Media, Cultural, Financial, Old-Style, Scientific, etc. We have to be literate in so many ways these days.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Whatever, the market’s gotta be there and the market is always falling, always falling.
ROBERT JOHNSON The market really could bounce back. They just have to keep their IPOs in their pants. Grow slow. Cash can be the gift of cancer. And then they want it back, two-fold, three-fold, ten-fold, a hundred-fold. Venture capitalists kept us folding cash in the dough. That’s how our first couple of companies went under. Infection in a loaf.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN The market’s not going to frickin bounce back. Yeah maybe Google stock will be 400 dollars a share and Amazon won’t be in danger, but the garage business model that created the dot com boom is over. Kids in their garages are doing something else now.
ROBERT JOHNSON Planning for the next 911?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Yeah.
ROBERT JOHNSON But the way they’re planning for it is by inventing new technologies, solutions really, to the deep problems of terrorism. Think of what I invented and I’m successful.
OVER THE PA Code Red may be picking up speed.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN You’re not that successful.
ROBERT JOHNSON Let’s just say I think I’m the model for the next technology boom. Small solutions to small problems.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN But you’re not that successful.
ROBERT JOHNSON Not that successful, but successful enough solve a problem in a sustainable way.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Why do you want the robertjohnson.com website anyway?
ROBERT JOHNSON It’s just my blog. I don’t even update it that much, which is really the key to a successful blog. But that’s not the point. The point is that I shouldn’t have to justify why I want it, because it’s mine, my name. You know, information wants to be free and I snatched it up.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN But the information you use in the analytical portion of the RJ711 isn’t free. It’s been compiled from databases comprised of American citizens’ information and don’t worry, pretty soon they’ll be using any database the government has lawful access to—including passports and visas, drivers’ licenses, airline ticket purchases, and arrests.
ROBERT JOHNSON Yes, and I’m all for people asserting property rights over their private information, but I’m not a politician and I can’t make this happen.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN You could start paying people for their information.
ROBERT JOHNSON (Sarcastically.) Yeah, that would be a really wise business decision.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Think about it, Real Solutions would be the king of the business world. You would surely be CEO of the year. Your solution would truly be a loss leader that we could commend in our heart of hearts.
ROBERT JOHNSON Loss in the can. Our margins are pretty thin anyway. We just can’t afford to do that.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD That’s a pretty esoteric aspect of business. Almost getting to the metaphysical aspect of economics.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Metaphysically necessary. Metaphysically necessary.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD When a band chooses a name they carry that name’s expectations forever. It becomes a necessary element of their existence. It folds into them.
ROBERT JOHNSON But people do change their names, often for political reasons. My grandfather changed his name when he emigrated from Russia. Rodrigo Elijah Jenstein could never have been a Hollywood star. Not that he became one, but I hear that his car dealership was quite successful before the depression. All of that making out in the backseat. No, that was later. I actually don’t know why he was successful. He changed his name to be more American because he loved America. He said he loved America because here you had to find the party, whereas in the old USSR, the “party” found him. And now America is turning its back on him. No, I am not changing my name. (Heroically.) It is I, Robert Johnson.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR The point is, names mean everything. They’re not just a means of identifying people - they identify a type. Why else would you label someone a Tracy or a Norman? You are what it says on the tin. Would John Wayne have got anywhere at all as Marion Morrison? 17. Shoe Reprise ROBERT JOHNSON (Points to his shoe.) I began walking in the shoe they originally gave me. As somebody famous should have said “Before you walk a mile in somebody else’s smelly shoe, why not walk a mile in your own.” On these treks the other foot, the right one in my case, was always bare, unhoused. At first, my right foot, the homeless foot, was almost broken, sprained several times, and torn to shreds while my left foot was covered in blisters, next in calluses, and finally with hard-working skin. In the early days of my mission, I merely ventured up and down the beach, but the longer I walked around this limited area the more lopsided I became and the more crazy I suppose my endless pacing appeared. To keep up appearances I walked across the fine livable community that was San Diego and ventured to L.A. and then finally, savagely, and strangely I walked all the way to Seattle, with one shoe on and one shoe off.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I totally heard about you on that PBS special. You’re that crazy walking guy.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD My shoe personality can be divided along the lines of the differences in style between two pairs of flipflops. The Rainbows, you know, the leather flipflops, were originally meant to function as my highclass-going-out-to-dinner-flipflops, if there was such a thing. Well, there was such a thing in Northern California. They were supposed to represent the fact that I had a real job (you always have to add sort-of after that) and that sometimes I went out to dinner at restaurants that wanted more than Converse (even though Converse had been good enough for my grandfather, whom I had never met, to play basketball in L.A.). They represented the fact that I had a white button-down, long-sleeved shirt which was not stained and could be ironed. On the other hand, I also got a pair of Reefs which showed everyone that I was still a beach person at heart and at hand. That is, I still felt romantic when I saw that bronze statue of a surfer on the Santa Cruz coast.
ROBERT JOHNSON When I was in the Army it’s not like I was a hero or anything, but I did feel like I had a mission, and I have to be honest, I did want other people to respect and note my mission, and from time to time, I wanted (needed even) others to tell me explicitly that my mission was profound, moving, meaningful, spiritual, etc. At that time the government gave me everything I needed in terms of identity. They could have called me dogshit and I would have known that my place in life was secure. But now, right now, there is so much to choose from, my name means more.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I know you’re that guy. When I saw that special I knew that I would like you, that we would have a connection. I don’t know why, but I just knew it.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD When I saw John Fluevogs on sale for $49 in Chicago I was finally pushed from being a basically barefoot person into being a shoe person, or, at least, a semi-shoe person. In truth, the “Flues” were a second choice shoe. What I really had my eye on was a pair of Campers that were sold in the University City Loop. The problem was that they cost $129. I was not quite enough of a shoe person to spend $129 on a pair of Campers, at least not yet. This was way too much for a pair of shoes that I would actually wear, but not at all too much for me to stare at each time I met my friend for coffee in that part of town.
ROBERT JOHNSON I walk there and invoke my name; that is why it is present. An invocation is always present. My name is always present, always debatable. I have not decided upon one name yet.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Shove it with that new-age mumbo jumbo; I just want to hear about your adventures, your destinations. 18. The Native ROBERT JOHNSON Without delay or any tarrying let my name be written in Moses’ table.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR (Pontificating.) What’s in a name? A future in politics, sometimes. A familiar-sounding moniker is thought to have most famously aided the election 10 years ago of Washington State Supreme Court Justice Charles Johnson. With a paltry $1,000 campaign chest, the little-known Gig Harbor lawyer with the Everyman name knocked off incumbent Chief Justice Keith Callow (and in 1996 won reelection against a man named Doug Smith).
ROBERT JOHNSON Are you trying to teach me things again?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR If you name you know.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD If you invent you know.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE If you are you know.
ROBERT JOHNSON Contingency plans don’t ease my plight.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR As long as your contingent personal projects don’t interfere with your ability to exhibit acts of solidarity.
ROBERT JOHNSON (Indignantly.) They can’t do that.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Conservatives have always overestimated their own power.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Liberals have always overestimated the power of the market.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Overestimations play musical chairs…
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE …and never talk to each other.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Because they can’t pick up the red phone?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD But the Bobos book is the key to it all. In a way, David Brooks is saying that we should all chill out and not worry so damn much. He’s saying to the right: don’t be so scared of nihilism; and he’s saying to the left: don’t be so scared of capitalism. It’s all going to be okay because we live in a meritocracy and we’re not throwing out our beliefs and somehow we’re not giving in because that’s the new social order.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Who needs a leader more?
POET What am I, after all, but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over; I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.
To you, your name also; Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR They would all say the same name.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD But wouldn’t all know how to pronounce it.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Correct pronunciation authenticates the speaker.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD No matter what, no matter history, the native says it right.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE What if he’s wrong?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR What would
the advantage of the native be then? POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD The problem of being a native keeps coming back and standing in front of me; it’s a native question.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR (Holds up a plant.) Is this plant native to California, native to the United States, native to the world, or is it native to right here where my feet are planted?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD I don’t think anything is native to the airport.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE The further we fly.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR The longer we stand.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE With such aching feet.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR These boots are made for soil. These boots are made to leave prints.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE If you never move you’ll never see the footprint.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR But really, how many times do you have to come back to be called a native? The sun is native to my existence. It keeps coming back, though it is surely wanderlust.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I don’t think your mom would ever say that you were native to the airport, but your wife might.
ROBERT JOHNSON My mother is very sick; please don’t take her name in vain. That’s why I’m here, trying to fly, to see her and her cattle, her sick cattle who are very thirsty, so very thirsty.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I’m incredibly sorry to hear that, but I still don’t know how many meetings you must attend before you are allowed to speak? How many meetings till your mouth stays put? How many meetings till your interests align with the interests of the people who stay put? But, alas, all of these questions are native themselves and thus keep coming back, spiraling back home.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR These are very strange questions, but I think the way to distinguish the native is to say that he never leaves and in this way is never seen speaking, and in this way, is thought of as mute, silent, and in this way, is seen as not being able to change.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE If you change can you still be indigenous, even though your heart has moved?
ROBERT JOHNSON Enough questions.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Enough answers that don’t make sense, that’s what I might say.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD But you don’t even live here, what right do you have to say that?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Exactly.
ROBERT JOHNSON So it doesn’t really matter what my name is because it can’t ever be the name of someone who really lives here, right?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Nobody lives here. We’re in the airport.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR A useful link between our passive and active names.
ROBERT JOHNSON It’s not so naïve to know. 19. Evasion of Name
PHILOSOPHER The substitute is that, although a name is not a disguised description it either abbreviates, or anyway its reference is determined by, some cluster of descriptions…The stronger version would say that the name is simply defined, synonymously, as the cluster of descriptions.
ROBERT JOHNSON I forgot many things, but kept nodding; it was part of my role. When I was inventing processes, forging solutions, I had to bow to the board of the company. That was my role and I accepted it, but now I am free, free in the airport.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Name is a proxy for role or, at least, it was.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Evade your role, but keep your name. That’s the modern way.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Still as lost. We never know which way to turn or even if. The world is jarring and confusing, but we can either enjoy the strange foreignness of our condition or cramp up anxiously.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Jarring the ear of the reader is important for any kind of social change.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD The crowd is the veil from behind which the familiar city as phantasmagoria beckons us.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Are you a modern hero?
ROBERT JOHNSON Not so much.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Not modern, but hero…?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE (Flirtatiously.) Or not hero, but modern?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR The modern hero is the one who, while embodying the tendencies of modern capitalism to the highest degree, is simultaneously engaged in an inevitably doomed struggle against them. The modern Sisyphus against the consumer.
ROBERT JOHNSON There is no teaching in waiting. But I still don’t understand why all of the people in line care about me.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Temporary tolerance.
ROBERT JOHNSON These anonymous spaces allow us to express our tolerance without having to transform our basic nature into something more transcendent.
OVER THE PA Due to new security at airport, you will need to follow these steps to get your limousine. Once you have visited the baggage claim (on the ground floor), and you have all your luggage, exit at the limo stand located across from door B. Thank you for your patience.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR What an annoying slob Hamlet was. Never been all of us, even if that’s what I’m supposed to say.
PRIEST Keep it in your shirt. Ohh, keep it in your shirt dear modern Hamlet.
(ROBERT JOHNSON lights a cigarette.)
GUARD There’s no smoking.
ROBERT JOHNSON But there’s no such thing as smoking.
(Talks about ROBERT JOHNSON behind his back.)
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Some people think that he has the “evil eye.” Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s just got cataracts.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD He often turns from the audience while playing, and leaves suddenly from a performance, but this is not yet the postmodern era, this is still plain weird.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE If you want to learn to play anything you want to play and learn how to make songs yourself you take your guitar and you go to where a crossroads is. A big black man will walk up there at the stroke of midnight and take your guitar, and he’ll tune it.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Specifically, at the crossroads of U.S. Highway 61 and U.S. Highway 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in exchange for prowess.
ROBERT JOHNSON (Sings to the tune of “Crossroads Blues.”) I went down to the crossroads and fell down on my knees, asked the Lord up above for mercy, save poor Bob if you please.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Who is the other guy playing with him? Whenever he is alone it always sounds like there is someone else.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN (Directed towards ROBERT JOHNSON.) Did you sell your soul or merely get baptized?
ROBERT JOHNSON Exaggerated claims are often made for my originality.
GUARD (Yells.) Why don’t y’all go in and get that name away from that boy! He’s running people crazy with it!
ROBERT JOHNSON My friends, harken what I will tell: I pray God reward you in his heavenly sphere. Now harken, all that be here, For I will make my testament Here before you all present. In alms half good I will give with my hands twain In the way of charity with good intent, And the other half still shall remain In quiet to be returned there it ought to be. This I do in despite of the fiend of hell To go quite out if his peril.
20. Fate, Unpredictability
ROBERT JOHNSON You’d think that once we were given a name that our fate would be sealed. Like when you say ‘this is a table’ then no matter what else, it’s a table. You put your coffee on it, you do your homework on it, and when you’re trying to misuse it you can have sex on it. But no matter what, it’s a table.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Why are we so unpredictable? I say to you, why? Because we no longer have stable roles. Back in ancient times when roles were given and happiness meant fulfilling your role, as a carpenter or as a baker or whatever else, people were not nearly so unpredictable.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE But they could still lie.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Yes, of course, the nature of man, and, in fact, the desired nature of man, is never to be totally predictable, but in the end of history, in the moment when the narrative of human existence ceases to move, we are far too unpredictable. Because of this I am starting the Predictability as Honor party to run in the next general election.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE They won’t win.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR That’s not the point.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE What’s the point of running then?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR To make a point.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE What point?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR That the people are sovereign of the law, that they can control the issues.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Then it doesn’t matter what party you start or what your platform is?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Of course it matters; people need to be more predictable. They need to stick with the names they are given, if I can be so bold as to make names stand in for roles, tradition, and right. “Stick with It” that’s our motto. Quite catchy, isn’t it?
OVER THE PA For those passengers scheduled to leave on Flight 832 to Los Angeles your flight is quite delayed, perhaps by three hours. Please remain in the boarding area in case we want to give you an update.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I’m afraid you won’t win.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I told you, that’s not the point.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE What’s the point then?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR To make a point. Look, we aren’t smart, we don’t know what we’re talking about, we misquote, we don’t know economics, but we know what side of the tracks we live on, we know how to spit.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I gotta tell you, I’ll throw my support behind spontaneity, but I’m not sure if it can really be promoted or if it is just a result of something else.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD What if the box we are thinking outside of is actually a sphere, expanding?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Why is the argument always tied up before you get there, without an end to gnaw on, without the possibility of separating the strands? Because the glue is always too strong we must rely on our guts to say, “you motherfucker,” because we are wild highschoolers in the bodies of working people we will always be able to say, “you motherfucker,” of course, our arguments get more and more complex, our reasoning becomes subtle to the point of not moving, anywhere. Our doubts extend, uncertainty ties us into our usual positions. We cannot move, but our ethic of living makes us know that we must. Our windows are broken.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE The question is, is there an essential difference between committing a political action that you really believe in and committing that same action if you merely think that it is cool to do so?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I think that we must answer that there is no essential difference. Actions and words have meaning as a result of their placement in the gaze between persons, in that context, in this woven society.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE How is the activist able to tell the difference between good and bad actions?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Yes, that does become a problem. If we follow this way of thinking it becomes obvious that one might be led into political actions which that same one will later judge to have been unethical. This is certainly true, but must be dealt with in a later discussion. This, of course, shifts the essential subject from consciousness to time. Consciousness always moves us outward; time brings us in, towards today. But, of course, if consciousness is the subject that one wishes to foreground then the difference between merely fashionable political action and felt (or intended) political action must be seen as essential. If consciousness is the key then intention becomes the benchmark of whether political action is meaningful or not.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE I think we have a plane to catch. Why is this line so slow?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Yes, I digress too far. As I said before consciousness always takes us too far out and falls off the tight rope on its way back. We all indeed have a plane to catch.
PRIEST But before you take off just remember that hope and confusion are internally connected through their absolute reliance upon possibility.
ROBERT JOHNSON I cannot take off, I have the wrong name.
21. Making the Decision
ROBERT JOHNSON (Sings in a blues voice.) I went to the crossroads, fell down on my name. I went to the crossroads, fell down on my name. I went to the crossroads, fell down on my name.
I asked the skies above, have mercy now, leave my name in peace, let poor Bob fly, if you please
I went to the crossroads, man, I looked up and down I went to the crossroads, sir, I looked up and down Lord, I didn’t have no sweet name, ooh well, babe, in my distress.
You can run, you can run, tell my friend I won’t change my name. Tell my friend he can find me. Tell him to look me up the next time he’s in town. You can run, you can run, tell my friend I won’t change my name.
(Speaks.) I’m at a crossroads, almost ready to make a deal with the government. I need to fly in order to see my sick mother and my bags are already checked. But it’s my name. How will anyone find me if I change my name? There’s just no way. There’s just no way out. Hell is not other people; it is having an indispensable name. 22. After the Decision is Made
PHILOSOPHER The only particular in which any one can differ, is, that either, perhaps, he will refuse to give the name of necessity to this property of human actions: But as long as the meaning is understood, I hope the word can do no harm: or that he will maintain the possibility of discovering something farther in the operations of matter.
ROBERT JOHNSON I have taken a dreary road, darkened by the gloomiest government that provides the most to the most. And within this dreariness, they say I must lose my name.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE What have we found in travel? What have we lost?
OVER THE PA Be aware that there is no parking or waiting allowed on the airport drives. Move it quickly or your car will be ticketed and towed.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR (Aside.) How quickly?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’WIFE (Aside.) I’m always scared that I’m not moving enough.
ROBERT JOHNSON You can always move your personality.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Yes, the mall is not the absolute site of modernity. The anonymity of the crowd can go deeper than that. Yes, the crowd is our element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. But, for the perfect flaneur, for the perfect hero of modern life, he must be in an airport without a name, losing his name.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR His passion and profession are to become one flesh with the crowd.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD The traveler knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and thick boughs overhead, it could be himself for all he knows, so lost to himself is he.
ROBERT JOHNSON What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow? What if I am the devil and I don’t know it because I have changed my name? For this, just for this, I will not change it. I cannot allow myself to slip away from myself unless it is as an elaborate ploy to be one with God, but this is not it, is it?
POET (Almost sings.) Why shall I keep the old name? What is a name anywhere anyway? A name is a cheap thing all fathers and mothers leave each child: A job is a job and I want to live, so Why does God Almighty or anybody else care whether I take a new name to go by?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Your inventions are enough to establish your identity wherever you go and will afford you fame and fortune for the short time before the bust of all that is technological.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE It’s not as if anyone knows anything about you anyway. You are hidden to the world. Gathered together as a unity or a wall for your family and friends to glance but never to climb. You have never offered a ladder.
SMART” BUSINESSMAN Whatever that means, it’s bullshit.
ROBERT JOHNSON Most of those who will survive you will never realize your seminal importance.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Think of it as joining the witness protection program. You have witnessed too much life and moreover, too many have witnessed you. You can start over and get a regular job. If you change your name someone might even fall in love with you and have your baby.
ROBERT JOHNSON Really?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD You never know.
ROBERT JOHNSON If I do end up changing my name I will still be able to remember the old Robert Johnson, R.J., and I will look on him as such an inspiration that I will either be the most amazing person ever, ever, or I will end up paralyzed in the shadow of that brilliant memory.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD What would you need to feel comfortable changing your name?
ROBERT JOHNSON If I do change my name, will you tell me the story of myself, just once? Please, just once?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Yes, of course.
ROBERT JOHNSON I’ve said I’ll do it. I’ll change my friggin’ name. I’ll do it in that damn tiny booth. I’ll do it, but quit bothering me about it. I’ll do it then. But do tell me my sweet story, it is all I ask.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Robert Leroy Johnson can arguably be considered as the most famous Delta blues singer and guitarist in history, even though he didn’t live to see his thirtieth birthday and didn’t start recording until three years before his death. Despite having such little time in the music industry, Robert Johnson has become widely acclaimed and popular, and has profoundly influenced a wide spectrum of musicians, some of whom view him as a near demi-god. Among his more well-known fans are Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and most famously Eric Clapton and Cream. Exaggerated claims are sometimes made for Johnson’s originality. He certainly did not invent the blues, which had existed on record for over fifteen years before he recorded. His primary influence was the inimitable Son House, who more than anyone else (except his friend Charley Patton) can claim to have invented what is now considered the mainstream of the Delta blues, with his rough voice and searing slide guitar riffs played on a steel-bodied National guitar. What Johnson did with these and other diverse influences was create a new sound that was at once immediate and artful. His use of the bass strings to create a steady, rolling rhythm can be heard on songs like “Sweet Home Chicago.” (Trails off.)
ROBERT JOHNSON But that’s not my story, that’s the other Robert Johnson’s story. Yet another reason for changing my name…
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE What will your name be now?
ROBERT JOHNSON I will be nameless, unless I need to do something like deposit a check or get a job or fly on a plane. I’ll have them put my name on the driver’s license but I’ll make sure they never tell me what it is. I will be nameless to myself and named to all who ask.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Quite paradoxical.
ROBERT JOHNSON But the opposite of the usual paradox we face. Normally we are nameless to others and named to ourselves. We solve this paradox by identifying ourselves, by saying, “Hi, I’m Robert Johnson.”
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE But how will you solve this new paradox you have created?
ROBERT JOHNSON I will not solve it. I have provided too many solutions in the IT world. I will twhart solutions. Nameless, I will not be solved.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN (Next three lines are a separate conversation.) If I meet anyone on the plane I lie about everything.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Like what?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Everything, my job, my name, my destination, my race.
ROBERT JOHNSON I will bear the mark of a complex man. Sensitive and brooding. If you ask I will show you my card but I will not know what you have seen. Therefore, you will never know me.
23. What Should Your Name Be
ROBERT JOHNSON I know I’ve agreed to change my name, but how will I ever choose another one? Is there any scheme I could use?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD You could pig latin your original name’s ass: Obertray Ohnsonjay. O.O. nice intials.
ROBERT JOHNSON Ohh Ohh, fucking me would be so nice. Ohh Ohh O. O.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN But it does lack a certain air of professionalism.
ROBERT JOHNSON It does, doesn’t it? It’s almost like if my name were Rain or Deshonda, isn’t it? I could take pride in it, but it wouldn’t get me the corner office.
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN The corner office really isn’t what it used to be.
ROBERT JOHNSON First class really isn’t what it used to be.
OVER THE PA K-9 teams are working. All dogs must be in carriers while in the terminals.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE It’s been over five years since 9/11. That is, five years since airport security was tightened. Since then people’s luggage and persons have been scrutinized for contraband which has then been confiscated. It’s true that much of what is contraband now was not before 9/11 and thus this conversation began: Whenever anyone flew anywhere they would describe what items security took from them, what items security overlooked, and how long the process took. And this conversation was fine, even good, for people were discussing a new cultural phenomenon. The problem is that people are still having this conversation. Whenever anyone flies they still recount how their knives and fingernail clippers were taken from them and if they weren’t impounded the passenger will talk about how inconsistent and shoddy airport security really is. But it’s old news, it’s a boring conversation, people need to stop engaging in it.
OVER THE PA All passengers are expected to exhibit appropriate behavior. Fighting, throwing things, pushing, shouting, spitting, rough behavior, and vulgar language are all severally and jointly forbidden. For the comfort and health of all travelers, personal hygiene should be maintained within acceptable standards.
ROBERT JOHNSON I really should be a registered traveler.
GUARD (Reads from a prepared statement.) After many fits and starts the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, has recently begun a pilot registered traveler program. This program would enable travelers to move more speedily through security lines in exchange for being prescreened. The TSA will collect personal information from participants, including names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail, dates and places of birth, eye color, height, citizenship and previous residences in the past five years along with fingerprint and iris scans. After all that a background check will be performed. Approved registered travelers will be directed to a designated checkpoint lane where they will provide their Registered Traveler Smart Card containing biometric information, a fingerprint and iris scan, for identity confirmation. The pilot program consists of 2000 travelers at each of 5 airports including Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR (Reads from another prepared statement.) Although it makes sense for many individuals to take part in the program there are many obvious constitutional problems that need to be addressed before it should be allowed to move forward. First, the fourth amendment of the constitution prohibits the government from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures. The question here is whether it is at all possible to construe the registered traveler program as a series of unreasonable searches? In some sense it is not at all an unreasonable search since the traveler agrees to the search. But if all airports begin to use the prescreening procedures and it takes minutes to go through the prescreened traveler line and hours to go through the regular security line the prescreening searches begin to look a lot more unreasonable, and thus, searches which the government is constitutionally prohibited from conducting. Second, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment prohibits states from denying any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Depending upon who does not pass the prescreening test the Equal Protection Clause would be violated. That is, if any person with a criminal record fails the prescreening test it could be argued that he was not being equally protected by the law to the extent that the TSA is the law. More importantly, if any person with an Arab-sounding last name failed the prescreening test it would seem that they had not been equally protected by the law.
ROBERT JOHNSON Are you trying to teach me things again?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN You can’t possibly register with a name like yours.
ROBERT JOHNSON But my name will be another, besides my name is external.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Your entire point has been that it’s an internal fact about yourself, that you could predict where you will live, who you will marry, and when you will die simply by knowing your name, your true name from the inside.
ROBERT JOHNSON But that name isn’t really connected to the name they call me, nor is it connected to the name that is preventing me from boarding the plane.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Where is that name then?
ROBERT JOHNSON It’s on the inside, only I know it, and maybe my wife and sometimes my mom, god bless her soul. I hope she doesn’t die before my plane lands.
24. Ceremony Beginning, Midwife
PHILOSOPHER A rough statement of a theory might be the following: an initial ‘baptism’ takes place. Here the object may be named by ostension, or reference of the name may be fixed by a description. When the name is ‘passed from link to link,’ the receiver of the name must, I think, intend when he learns it to use it with the same reference as the man from who he heard it.
PRIEST A rebirth, of course, a ceremony. To mark the occasion. We’ll smudge ourselves.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD They’ve removed our lighters.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Friction will overcome.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD We will overcome.
PRIEST Your new name will come.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR A midwife will present herself when poetry’s opening needs her.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE If the midwife is the most revered position in society then the mentor’s friendship is foregrounded as the ideal relationship.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Some women refuse drugs at birth because they want a natural childbirth, that is, they want to come to their own conclusions, their own truth, in their own time. Either that or they want to give birth in tune with something stronger than drugs.
OVER THE PA Only ticketed passengers are allowed past the security checkpoint.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Of course, if learning is recollection and the soul is eternal, then, in the metaphor, the baby will be eternal. Thus, the baby loses its freshness, its newness, its babyness and consequently the metaphor of birthing begins to deconstruct itself.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD But doctors have taken on the role of the midwife; science has replaced humanity as a method.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE In thanking the midwife the impersonal question of Truth is transformed into the literary (and personal) questions of the identity of said midwife.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Who is the midwife? A friend, but maybe not as much today. For after a market for midwifery arises it doesn’t make economic sense for one to practice midwifery for free. Of course, markets impoverish roles, strip them of their multiple meanings.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE The midwife, yes, but what about the wet nurse of Truth, neglecting her own truth while baring her freshly lactating nipples to the Truth for a meager wage which merely enables her to survive until she is able to bear another neglected truth?
POET Full unready I am such reckoning to give I know thee not: what messenger art thou?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE The midwife becomes so cynical about the joys of childbirth that she becomes barren. 25. Ceremony, Renaming
ALL (Sing duo-op style.) Robert, what name will you choose? Robert, what name will you choose? Robert, what name will you choose?
GUARD Oddly enough, Mohammed Al Sharif is not on the no fly list.
ROBERT JOHNSON But I can’t make such an obvious political turn. Poetry would never permit it.
OVER THE PA Do not accept rides from people you have met on the airplane. Only cautiously share a taxi.
ROBERT JOHNSON I will be Sacco the 2nd, the poor shoe-maker born in Torremaggiore, Foggia, Puglia. I will cobble this government issued shoe together. (Points to his shoe.)
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Ohh, yeah, sure, murder a security guard and become the darling of the left.
ROBERT JOHNSON I would not wish to a dog or a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth—I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am guilty of.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR (In a singsong voice.) Sacco was guilty but Vanzetti was innocent! Sacco was guilty but Vanzetti was innocent! Innocent! Innocent! Innocent, I tell you, innocent!
ROBERT JOHNSON But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical, and indeed I am a radical; If you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Stick your alibi in the sky.
ROBERT JOHNSON I’ll take that guilt to the grave.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR You own it, baby.
ROBERT JOHNSON And all who know these two good arms Know I have no need to rob or kill I can live by my own two hands and live well And all my life I have struggled To rid the earth of all such crimes.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR We will campaign for your retrial, but will ultimately be unsuccessful. This will demonstrate our impotence for years to come.
ALL (Chants.) Years to come. Years to come.
PRIEST So be it. (Points at ROBERT JOHNSON; ALL walk over to the renaming booth. The rest of the play centers around the renaming booth.) You will be Sacco the 2nd, darling of the left. And I will be John the Baptist, pilot in the postmodern world.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD A pilot?
PRIEST A pilot can be a priest, can’t he? (The priest removes a pilot’s hat and wings from his bag.) Yes, I’m actually the pilot, but they make us wait in line too.
ROBERT JOHNSON Fly us there.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR For that the washing with water would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not for the remission of some sins only, but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.
PRIEST Ahh yes, in this booth I will make you bastards acceptable for the long voyage. There are bound to be travel delays.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR You will be summarily executed along with the newly appointed Sacco, then?
PRIEST Yes, but they will execute me in order to prevent “mischief,” rather than to please a silly emperor’s wife’s daughter.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Executed all the same, perhaps you would like an animal to accompany you into the deep unknown.
PRIEST A burning and a shining light such as myself is only unknown if you turn your back to it or pass out after a long night of stupid drinking.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR But doesn’t the light need an animal for companionship?
PRIEST Yes I suppose, and actually I’ve given a lot of thought to the importance of good names for animals, but I’m starting to see how much of a difference your own label can make.
ROBERT JOHNSON Ohh Captain My Captain.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD And other obvious things we could say.
PRIEST I will fly you to your new name. When you arrive you can be sure that no one will ever mistake you for a terrorist again.
ROBERT JOHNSON The new terrorists won’t need anything but our names. They won’t care about airplanes. They’ll feed on our hospital records and a few receipts.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Hopefully they’ll pay me for my personally identifiable information.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Where are my property rights?
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN Where are my royalties? The recording industry keeps bitching about losing money, but regular people are being robbed everyday, every single day.
ROBERT JOHNSON You shouldn’t be able to utter my name without paying me for that privilege. And if you want to mail me something you better believe it’s going to cost you.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR What about their free speech?
ROBERT JOHNSON It wasn’t free when I was protesting. And besides, they’re free to talk themselves blue in a tiny closet filled with their own vile pollution.
PRIEST (Moans.) Goodbye to your old name. Hello new name. Hello aesthetic life. Hello boredom. Hello America. Hello Hollywood. Hello. It’s like waking, isn’t it? It really is like being born again.
ROBERT JOHNSON I just want to get onto the plane, my mother is very sick and needs to explain to me her new system of education based upon the mapping of a 10 by meter squared piece of land. She says it will help the youth learn to make choices. She says it will help them change.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD We have to feel how it feels to change, to want to change.
ROBERT JOHNSON I’ll feel strange enough about my destination when I get there. I’ll feel strange about the crops there.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD You need to feel strange about your new name, about that destination. All other destinations are merely parasitic on that absolute destination of your personality and your soul.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR I still don’t know whether becoming is or whether it’s just passing away to another world beyond it.
ROBERT JOHNSON But I’m an atheist.
PRIEST Rebirth is open to all. Of course, the religious man will use completely different language than the atheist, but that doesn’t mean that their worlds don’t touch. No, we can communicate.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Nevertheless, the world of the happy man is different from that of the unhappy man.
ROBERT JOHNSON But not radically so.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR The radicality of the gesture depends on your belief in our ability to empathize with one another.
PRIEST We are a religion divided. Some believe that one should be baptized “because of” the remission of sins—because he has already received forgiveness while others believe one must be baptized in order to receive remission of sins. This deep division in the community is basically a division concerning the nature of causation and should not be overlooked for it affects our daily lives: Is the Good merely that which the gods love or do the gods love the Good because it is, in fact, good?
LIBERAL PROFESSOR (Pedantically.) Name your protagonist allegorically and make sure your play has a moral. Do not merely personify some vices and virtues, having them converse inanely—create a lesson for a modern Everyperson.
PRIEST And I will soon say unto you, “The Lord has just blessed him, I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it. It doesn’t make any difference what he does, good or bad, God picks him up because he’s a man of prayer and God’s blessing him.”
LIBERAL PROFESSOR And is the great man, or God for that matter, obliged to follow the law?
PRIEST Long ago we were surrounded by people who thought that the law wasn’t enough, but now we are taught to believe that the law, all law, cramps our style.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Doesn’t Jesus still think that the law isn’t enough? Somebody on the West Wing surely thinks that the law isn’t enough.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD That’s the really weird thing, most people are in contradiction with themselves: they want the law for everyone else and not for themselves. But this is all completely psychologically uninteresting and has nothing to do with the ceremony at hand.
PRIEST Baptism is our acceptance of God’s final offer.
ROBERT JOHNSON Are you trying to teach me things again?
PRIEST With this secure water I baptize you. (Pours water over ROBERT JOHNSON’s head.)
ROBERT JOHNSON Are you trying to flat out teach me something again?
PRIEST As for me, I baptize you in water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. But we will not have fire here, they have absconded with our lighters and public fire is seen nowadays as a security risk. But you should have seen my ceremonies back in the day. I feel rather pathetic with this one, but let me continue.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Please do. Please do. The metacommentary is not entirely necessary.
PRIEST But it’s history and those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it, or so I’ve heard.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR The water will do. Water will do the trick. It’s been through a metal detector and spectral analysis.
PRIEST The water will redeem (He keeps sprinkling water over ROBERT JOHNSON’s head.)
ROBERT JOHNSON (Indignantly.) Robert Johnson estate, you can have that dumb website, but I bet you won’t even be able to add new content. It’ll be stuck like that, frozen with my essence embossed over wires across the globe. But you have it, see if you can make a go of it with your dead ancestor’s soul churning notes strung across the globe or maybe you just want to hock some teeshirts. But beware, selling stuff over the Internet is a lot harder than it looks. Don’t ever say I didn’t warn you. Online sales are almost impossible, but after they become possible they do make you a sweet boatload of cash. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, never say that.
GUARD Ohh I do like a nice teeshirt now and again. I have to wear this stiff uniform all week. But if you see me on the weekends I’m always wearing a teeshirt of one sort or another. You’ll let me know if they do start selling teeshirts on that site, won’t you?
ROBERT JOHNSON I will, but I have to tell you that I’m not sure producing a teeshirt will be very easy for them, a fact of which I’m sure they’re aware.
GUARD Why ever not?
ROBERT JOHNSON Only two confirmed photographs of Robert Johnson exist. If I were in possession of those photographs I would burn them so that no one would no what that man looked like, but I’m sure the family will make a mint off of their ancestor’s delicate spirit.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD You could completely sell something like that. One dollar equals one ride. Pluck a fruit, see if I care. You know what an orange tastes like, don’t you want to try something new? Like that commercial, “I can show you something that’ll make you really fly.”
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Honey, this is not a marketing course.
PRIEST With this water I name thee (PRIEST continues pouring water over ROBERT JOHNSON’s head and body.). Yes, yes, you are now quite wet and new.
OVER THE PA Only ticketed passengers are allowed past the security checkpoint.
PRIEST For all flesh is as an unidentifiable agricultural product, and all the glory of man is just that unidentifiable agricultural product. The unidentifiable agricultural product is taken at customs or if not there then at the security gate, but the word of the Lord endures forever. (He takes and unidentifiable agricultural product from his bag, crushes it in his hands, makes a circle and sprinkles it on the floor, then throws it rather violently in ROBERT JOHNSON’s face. ROBERT JOHNSON spits out some of this agricultural product.)
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Ohh unidentifiable agricultural product grow for us.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD’S WIFE Ohh unidentifiable agricultural product be our food deep into the future.
PRIEST Normally an element of earth is necessary for a baptism. Soil smeared on your face. But here, here (Points to the ground emphatically.), there is no dirt, there is no earth.
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Do you think we could dig?
GUARD Into the floor?
POPCULTURE THIRTY YEAR-OLD Yes, I’m sure it’s shoddily constructed. We’ll be to the soil in no time. To live off that land.
(They start digging with shovels and throwing shovelfuls of floorboards over their shoulders. They finally reach dirt—the hole is in the shape of a body.)
PRIEST Ahh, now we have soil. I will smear it over you in a replication of death that allows you to be reborn unto your new name. (The priest smears the dirt.)
“SMART” BUSINESSMAN (Gets into it.) What about the air?
PRIEST For the air, I will blow in your face. It will not be fresh for we are sealed in this grand space between land and flight and because I have just eaten an everything bagel (Blows in ROBERT JOHNSON’s face.).
GUARD Go thou to Everyman, And show him in my name A pilgrimage he must on him take, Which he in no way may escape; And that he bring with him a sure reckoning.
PRIEST Earth, air, fire, and water. Raise your plastic spoons to the death of Robert Johnson and his rebirth as Sacco. (All raise their spoons, then throw them to the floor.)
POET Robert is not in the light anymore. There is no time to fade. There are no shadows. Only rain, the envelopment, not the shape. The complete annihilation into the force of the earth. Robert’s name was washed in an iron red flash flood, down, underneath the road, through the rip rap. It got all mixed up and confused the metaphor within. Obrert. Trebor. Ertbor. Afterwards, the rushing water recreated him, awkward at first. Borret. Retbor. And then the rain left Robert with Robert, but with something gained and something lost and something gained again. Everyday we go through that sort of transaction. The rain is a necessary agent of destruction and creation.
POPCULTURE THRITY YEAR-OLD (To ROBERT JOHNSON.) At least you will not die after drinking whiskey poisoned with strychnine, given to you by the jealous husband of a lover.
ROBERT JOHNSON (In a “whatever” tone.) Ohh yes, at least not that.
LIBERAL PROFESSOR Everything will have been watched in silence and then, apart from the suggestion to change names that closely follows the man’s baptism but with the opposed intention of avoiding definition, nothing further will be exchanged on that subject, either between the boys or with the reader. What happens remains in the background, in inarticulate silence outside representation, to make room for the it happens.
GUARD Now that you have changed your name you may board the plane. (She opens the gate for him.)
MESSENGER (Reads a piece of paper.) Your mother has disowned you.
ROBERT JOHNSON There is no reason to fly.
(He falls into the hole dug from the floor.)
(After the curtain closes.) POET We need a tool such as love to succeed on the ebb tide. I am still, though I move through watch’s ticks - Invisible hand pushing like a stern father, Towards death’s incomprehensible names.
(It ends here.)
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