MY NEWEST HOUSE
I went to film school with a blind man named Dave; he was
a cop later caught stealing. His mother was avid in her
playing of cards : 'My son', she said, 'my son played them
all wrong.' Harumph to that, I thought. The first short film I
made I made for him - dedicated to both him and his mom.
'A regular pair of all-day suckers' - that's how I put it.
It was a twenty minute short about monkeys on a boat.
First there are four, then there are six. No one knows
how that happened, but two get thrown overboard. The
camera lingers on them, slowly drowning - like a human
would in about the same amount of time. They drown slowly,
in excruciating close up, gurgling, then puking as the brine
does them in. I didn't really know how monkeys died
when they drowned, but I went ahead anyway. Then there
were three. I left that a mystery. They all got along :
played cards and sang songs, the kind of songs a
monkey would sing if a monkey would sing.
That's what made this film so different. It won
a few awards. Palm D'Torre, Madaglio D'oro.
Things like that, in other lands. Where they
know the difference between - really -
good and bad. Here, stateside, no one
cared. Like Dave's mother said, they
played them all wrong. I took the
money from the awards and
bought a new house. Got
it for a song, knew
it all along.
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