Richard Dreyfuss Monologues

Definitely not. I am paying the rent, I will make-a-da rules. I like to take showers every morning and I don't like the panties drying on the rod. I like to cook so I will use the kitchen whenever I damn well please and I am very particular about my condiments so, keep your salt and pepper to yourself. I also play the guitar in the middle of the night whenever I cannot sleep and I meditate every morning complete with chanting and burning incense so if you've got to walk around I'd appreciate a little tip-toeing. Also, I sleep in the nude. Au buffo. Winter and summer, rain or snow with the windows open and because I may have to go to the potty or to the fridge in the middle of the night and because I don't want to put on jammies which I do not own in the first place… unless you're looking for a quick thrill or your daughter an advanced education I would keep my door closed. Thems my rules and regulations, how does that grab you?

Well, that's probably why we were thrown together. One of God's little jests. Now if you will move your shapely little fanny out of my room I will unpack and dry my beard. Miss McFadden, you forgt to say goodnight.

You know I liked you from the first time I met you when you answered the door. I said to myself, "This is the best half-a-face I ever saw!"

I don't blame you for being hostile. I think I get the picture. Tony rented me the apartment and split with the money, right? Then you and your daughter got dumped on.

Out of where? Out of my rented apartment that you are staying in out of the goodness of my heart? I will bring home anyone or anthing that I choose, including a one-eyed Episcopalian kangaroo if that happens to be my kinky inclination. As for what is going on in there we're rehearsing Act 1, Scene 4 from Richard the Third. I happen to have a cretin from Mars directing this play and I need all the help I can get. However, if I choose to attempt to have carnal knowledge of that gorgeous bod that'll be her option, my problem and none of your business! And just for the record what do you think little Lucy's impression of what was going on in Mama's bedroom with Tony "Love 'em & leave 'em" DeForrest, huh? Hey Mac! Why don't you turn out some of these lights? We're running up a heck of a bill.

Will you listen very, very carefully to me just for one… uh, this may be the last time I ever speak to you. Not everyone in this world is after your magnificent body, lady. In the first place it's not so magnificent. It, it's fair, alright? But it's not keeping me up nights thinking about it, you know? I don't even think you're very pretty. Maybe if you smiled once in a while okay but I don't want you to do anything against your religion. And you are not the only person in this city ever to get dumped on! I, myself, am a recent dumpee. I am a dedicated actor, Paula, you know? I am dedicated to my art and my craft, I value what I do. And because of a mentally arthritic director I am about to play the second greatest role in the history of the English speaking theater like a double order of fresh California fruit salad. When I say nice I mean nice, you know? Decent and fair. I deserve it. Because I'm a nice decent and fair person, I don't want to jump on your bones. I don't even want to see you in the morning. But I will tell you one thing I do like about you Paula. Lucy. Lucy's your best part. Lucy is worth putting up with you for. So here is 14 dollars for the care and feeding of that terrific kid. You get zippidy-do-da. You want any money? Borrow it from your 10 year old daughter. I am now going inside my room to meditate away my hostility toward you. Personally, I don't think it can be done!

Mrs. McFadden, I am a person of health. I do not put unnatural things in my body. Music is one of nature's sedatives. If you would just listen to it instead of fighting it, we would all be asleep in five minutes. However, if you insist, take two sleeping pills and stick one in each ear.

I was "an Elizabethan fruit fly." I was "the Betty Boop of Stratford-on-Avon." I was "putrid." Capital P, capital U, capital TRID.

I just called the 37th precinct. There is no Charles D'Agastino in Homicide. Then I called Rita Scott, an old actress friend of mine who was in "The Merchant of Venice" this year with the ever-popular Tony DeForest. Rita told me all about this girl Tony's living with. A certain Paula McFadden, a former dancer and her ten-year-old daughter Lucy. She also told me that the apartment is leased in the name of Tony DeForest. She knows this for a fact because she used to live with Tony, the smoothie, prior to Paula and Lucy. Now can we continue this conversation in a drier room, Ms. McFadden?

Don't hang up. Please, don't hang up. I don't have any more change, I'm soaked to the bone, Miss McFadden and I have a very low threshold for disease. Look, I don't know what Tony told you, but he's got my money, I got a lease, and you got the apartment. Now, one of us got screwed. Uh, let me rephrase that. We need to talk this out, and I am in no condition, financial or health-wise, to look for a hotel in the pouring rain. I mean, if there's any such thing as the 78th-street flu, I think I've got it.

Five minutes. That's all I'm asking. What is it? Now look, in about 30 seconds, we're going to get cut off, Miss McFadden. My number is 873-5261, it's a flooded booth on Amsterdam Avenue. If you have any compassion in your heart whatsoever... I'm trying to work it out, operator. Any compassion in your heart whatsoever, you'll call me back. 873-5261. That number again is 873-52... oh, shit.

If you were a Broadway musical, people would be humming your face.

My careereth is over. I am making a horseth asseth of myselfeth. Mark, I'm begging you. I'm begging you. You want this kind of performance? Let me play Lady Anne.

Unhappy? No. I am freaking petrified. The critics are going to crucify me, Mark. And Gay Liberation is going to hang me from Shakespear's statue. By my genitalia. You gotta help me, Mark.

I want my hump back! I want my club foot. I want a little paralysis in my right hand! I don't mean a lot, just a little, two stiff fingers, I need a little motivation.

Listen, what do I know? I'm lucky to get the part I know that. I come from Chicago. We do things a little bit differently out there. We do the play as written. That doesn't go over in New York? Terrific. I respect you, Mark, I do. You've done off Broadway I haven't. I'm not a quitter. You want me to do Richard the Third like Tatum O'Neal I'll do it but just don't make me look foolish out there.

Just let me say this out loud alright? I mean, I don't really believe this myself. Number one, I'm starting work in the morning and I have no place to sleep tonight. Number two, you don't have any money and you've got my apartment. Also you have your daughter to think about.

Miss McFadden, this morning I start rehearsals for my very first New York play. Probably the most important day of my life. Am I nervous? No, I am not nervous. Because I have meditated I am relaxed, I am calm, I am confident. You, on the other hand, have not meditated. Therefore you are a pain in the ass.

Granola, wheat germ, soya, lecithin, natural honey. My body is a temple, Miss McFadden, and I am worshiping it. It's what gives me my energy, my vitality and my natural disposition. I'm sixty-three years old Miss McFadden and look at me. May I fix you a bowl?

You are forgetting that this is my apartment. You are living here on an Elliot Garfield grant. You really ought to try some of this, you know? It's got whole bran in it. My feeling is that your whole problem stems from irregularity.

Hey! I think I have a clue now as to why all those other guys left. Crackers! Animal Crackers lady! You've got a severe case of emotional retardation. I'm not leaving Paula, I'm escaping.

But just in passing I'd like to say that last night was teriffic, okay? It was the Super Bowl of romance. I give it a fat nine on a scale of ten. You lose one point for burping your wine but all in all it's still a very respectable score.

You want to lower your neurosis for just one second I'm not finished. You want to know what your problem is?

You love to love someone but the minute they start taking the initiative like I did last night that scares the pants off you. Nothing off color intended. You didn't wait at any stage door me, you know? I approached first. I touched first and you can't handle that, can you.

Despite the fact that you're one large pain in the arse, last night was the best thing that ever happened to me, girl-wise, and if you weren't behaving like such a horse's rectum you would know that we could be inside touching and fondling all day long until about 5 o'clock when I gotta go to rehearsal. Personally, Madam, I think you blew it.

"It never occurred to us that William Shakespeare wrote the 'Wizard of Oz'. However, Elliot Garfield makes a splendid Wicked Witch of the North." Tacky. Tacky. Well, if they're gonna kill me, let 'em kill me with panache.

The 'Times' writes: Elliot Garfield researched Richard the Third, and discovered him... to be England's first badly dressed interior decorator!

Channel 5 was honest. Direct and honest: 'Richard the III stunk. And Elliot Garfield was the stinkee.'

You know what's a nice feeling? To hear real people applauding. I took the names and addresses of everyone in the audience. I think we should have them over for dinner real soon.

Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page. I can teach you notes on a page, I can't teach you that other stuff.

Mrs. Jacobs, you tell them that I am teaching music, and that I will use anything from Beethoven to Billie Holiday to rock and roll, if I think it'll help me teach a student to love music.

You work for 30 years because you think that what you do makes a difference, you think it matters to people, but then you wake up one morning and find out, well no, you've made a little error there, you're expendable. I should be laughing.

He couldn't hear. Of all people. Not a thing. And because Beethoven couldn't hear, the thought of him conducting, let alone composing, was pathetic to most people. And so to answer them, he composed and conducted the seventh symphony. Just try to imagine; Beethoven standing on that podium, holding his baton, his hands waving gracefully through the air. The orchestra in his mind is playing perfectly, and the orchestra in front of him, trying desperately just to keep up. There is a story, that in order to write his music, Beethoven literally sawed the legs off of his piano, so that the body would lay flat on the floor. And he would lie down next the piano with his ear pressed to the floor, and he would hit the keys with his fingers in order to hear his music through the vibrations of the floor.

Well... Beethoven wasn't *born* deaf.

The day they cut the football budget in this state, that will be the end of Western Civilization as we know it!

It's almost funny. I got dragged into this gig kicking and screaming, and now it's the only thing I want to do.

These tests are pathetic. "Name an American composer." Miss Swedlin, your answer was?

Johann Sebastian Bach. Oh, this… this is my favorite one. "How do you know what key a concerto is in?" Mr. Mims, your answer was "Look on the front page", question mark. Now, this question mark. Was that because you weren't sure or because your English skills are on the same level as your musical theory?

Well, congratulations, Gene. You've been looking for a way to get rid of me for 30 years, and they finally gave you an excuse.

That's because you're the enemy, Gene. You just don't know it.

I'm 60 years old, Gene. What are you going to do: write me a recommendation for the morgue?

The only ingenue we seem to have so far is Todd Markam. I really don't think that Todd Markam, or his parents, are-

Enough of us already think "time" is a magazine.

I'm Glenn Holland. I'm the new music teacher.

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?

It happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of your life, like busboys in a restaurant.

Although I hadn't seen him in more than ten years, I know I'll miss him forever.

I wondered how Teddy could care so much for his dad, who practically killed him. And I couldn't give a shit about my own dad, who hadn't laid a hand on me since I was three! And that was for eating the bleach under the sink.

At the beginning of the school year, Vern had buried a quart jar of pennies underneath his house. He drew a treasure map so he could find them again. A week later, his mom cleaned out his room and threw away the map. Vern had been trying to find those pennies for nine months. Nine months, man. You didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The kid wasn't sick. The kid wasn't sleeping. The kid was dead.

Vern didn't just mean being off limits inside the junkyard, or fudging on our folks, or going on a hike up the railroad to Harlow. He meant those things, but it seems to me now it was more and that we all knew it. Everything was there and around us. We knew exactly who we were and exactly where we were going. It was grand.

I was 12 going on 13 the first time I saw a dead human being. It happened in the summer of 1959-a long time ago, but only if you measure in terms of years. I was living in a small town in Oregon called Castle Rock. There were only twelve hundred and eighty-one people. But to me, it was the whole world.

The train had knocked Ray Brower out of his Keds the same way it had knocked the life out of his body.

As time went on, we saw less and less of Teddy and Vern until, eventually, they became just two more faces in the halls. Happens sometimes, friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant. I heard that Vern got married out of high school, had four kids, and is now the forklift operator at the Arseno Lumberyard. Teddy tried several times to get into the Army, but his eyes and his ear kept him out. Last I heard, he had spent some time in jail and was now doing odd jobs around Castle Rock.

Chris did get out. He enrolled in the college courses with me and, although, it was hard, he gutted it out like he always did. He went on to college and, eventually, became a lawyer. Last week, he entered a fast food restaurant. Just ahead of him, two men got into an argument. One of them pulled a knife. Chris, who had always made the best peace, tried to break it up. He was stabbed in the throat. He died almost instantly.

The freight woke up the other guys and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell them about the deer. But I didn't. That was the one thing I kept to myself. I've never spoken or written about it until just now.

Around this time, Charlie and Billy were playing "Mailbox Baseball" with Ace and Eyeball.

In April, my older brother Dennis had been killed in a jeep accident. Four months had passed but my parents still hadn't been able to put the pieces back together again.