Charity Party
A Yachts Joint
May 11, 2013, Wheelatine USA
[77 seconds]
A row of cars in the teachers parking lot of Wheelatine High School, the afternoon sun glaring white off the roofs and sideview mirrors. A finger appears, points at the cars, while a voice offscreen says, “That’s the one right there, chaps, what. Next to the Volvo. The gray Asian number with the spoiler, hey hey.”
CUT.
Two minutes later. Three Yachts, with their backs to the viewer, are gathered next to the driver-side door of a gray Toyota coupe. “What a beaut,” one says. “What a bang-up job.” The three go around to the opposite side of the car, crouch down out of sight, below the passenger-side window.
The camera zooms in to close-up on the gray Toyota’s driver-side door. An upside-down Curio, the tip of its tail pinched by the door handle, swings left to right, reaching up, attempting to free itself.
From one of the crouching Yachts comes a command: “Once you get the shot, Chaz, hide behind the Volvo.”
CUT.
Eleven minutes later. Medium shot of the gray Toyota’s driver-side door, seen through the windows of the car parked beside it. No longer swinging, the Curio is visibly painsinging, but the wind is high, and the song is inaudible.
A man approaches the Toyota, keys in hand, pauses before the door, says, “What is going…?” and removes the cure, looks left, looks right, looks behind himself, stares briefly at the face of the cure in his fist, then bashes its skull flat against his forehead.
The Yachts crouched on the opposite side of the Toyota jump up and shout in unison, “Compliments of the Yachts, Mr. Pearson!”
“Oh!” says the man, Pearson, dropping the cure, covering his forehead, clutching his chest. “You guys. You…”
“No, you, good sir!” says an offscreen voice. “You, sir! You! It’s in most highest homage to you, good sir, that we threw this bomb-ass charity party!”
“You deserve it!” says another offscreen voice.
“Chaz is right,” says Lyle, from the far side of the Toyota. “We never gave hoot one about World War II before we took your class. And World War I? You did that piece so nice. You made it feel important.”
“You’re a good fellow,” says Triple-J, who has come around to Pearson’s side of the Toyota to clap him on the shoulder.
“Alright,” says Pearson, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. “Alright. Thank you, boys.”
Public Service Announcement
PAVIOSI
1994, USA
[60 Seconds]
A junior-high-school-aged boy in a denim jacket rollerbades across a basketball court. The words “Who’s got the Cure?” are superimposed upon the court in his wake in neon purple script while an accompanying sound effect—a kind of shishing—creates the impression that the words are being sprayed onto the asphalt from a giant, invisible paint can in the sky. The boy skates out of frame on the right, a zigzag is added beneath the question, and then the boy is standing before a brick wall, in close-up, addressing the viewer:
“I’m Justin Sampson and I’ve got the cure,” he says. “Last semester, we were walking down the hall, and my friend got shoved right into a locker. Who knows if it was on purpose or not? I don’t think it matters, and I didn’t think so then, but my friend sure did. ‘I’m gonna get that guy who shoved me,’ my friend said, and I didn’t think he should because violence in schools is a disease, and you wouldn’t want to spread a disease, would you? So I told my friend to just wait a minute, and I unsleeved my cure and gave it a poke. That morning I’d PerFormulized the cure with Sappy, and it made this face that was totally awesome, and I could tell my friend wanted to overload on it, so I said, ‘Go ahead,’ and he did. After that he chilled out and forgot about the shove. He gave me his own cure later that day. It felt really good, you know? We helped prevent the spread of the disease of violence together. Now we’re better friends than ever. Friends cure friends, I think, and cures create friends. So if you have the cure, use it. In a way, you almost gotta.”
Justin tilts his head a little, purses his lips, and a low-voiced man in voiceover says, “A little thing can go a long way. Be the cure for school violence.”
A lower-voiced man in voiceover says, “This message brought to you by PAVIOSI, the Parents Against Violence In Our Schools Initiative, paid for in part by Graham&Swords Corporation.”
Justin winks.
And Now, For What You Thought Was the First Time Ever
Home Video, originally aired on 20/20
February 19, 1988, ABC Network, USA
[3 minutes, 15 seconds]
A boy in a Belinda Carlisle concert T, a censor box across his eyes, stands behind a table on a stage beneath a banner reading, “Carl Sandburg Middle School Talent Show.”
Atop the table is a Curio and a microphone. The boy whistles the first phrase of the theme from Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries.” The cure whistles the next phrase. The boy whistles the third, and the cure the fourth.
The cure spreads its arms and turns to the boy.
The boy scratches its head.
The audience applauds.
The cure turns back to the audience and bows.
“That’s one we uh practiced a lot for the show,” the boy says. “Now we’re gonna try some improvisational music. Are you ready?”
The audience cheers.
The boy whistles the first phrase of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
The cure whistles the first phrase of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
The cure spreads its arms and turns to the boy.
The boys scratches its head.
The audience applauds.
The cure turns back to the audience and bows.
The boy whistles the first and second phrase of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
The cure whistles the first and second phrase of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
The cure spreads its arms and turns to the boy.
The boys scratches its head.
The audience applauds.