Manhattan Monologues

The life of a divorced television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.

Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. Um... Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. uh... Like what... okay... um... For me, uh... ooh... I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... uh... um... and Wilie Mays... and um... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony... and um... Louis Armstrong, recording of Potato Head Blues... um... Swedish movies, naturally... Sentimental Education by Flaubert... uh... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra... um... those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne... uh... the crabs at Sam Wo's... uh... Tracy's face...

I don't get angry. Okay? I mean, I have a tendency to internalize. I can't express anger. That's one of the problems I have. I grow a tumor instead.

I'm old fashioned. I don't believe in extra-marital relationships. I think people should mate for life - like pigeons or Catholics.

Chapter One. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion. Eh uh, no, make that he, he romanticized it all out of proportion. Better. To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin. Uh, no, let me start this over.

Chapter One: He was too romantic about Manhattan, as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street smart guys who seemed to know all the angles. Ah, corny, too corny for, you know, my taste. Let me, let me try and make it more profound.

Chapter One: He adored New York City. To him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town of his dreams in - no, it's gonna be too preachy, I mean, you know, let's face it, I wanna sell some books here.

Chapter One: He adored New York City. Although to him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage - too angry. I don't want to be angry.

Chapter One. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat. Oh, I love this. New York was his town, and it always would be.

I had a mad impulse to throw you down on the lunar surface and commit interstellar perversion.

Oh really, he was a genius, Helen's a genius and Dennis is a genius. You know a lot of geniuses, y'know. You should meet some stupid people once in a while, y'know, you could learn something.

You know what you are? You're God's answer to Job, y'know? You would have ended all argument between them. I mean, He would have pointed to you and said, y'know, "I do a lot of terrible things, but I can still make one of these." You know? And then Job would have said, "Eh. Yeah, well, you win."

That's right, and they don't mean a thing, right? Because nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind. Everything really valuable has to enter you through a different opening, if you'll forgive the disgusting imagery.

Hey, don't be so mature, okay? I mean, six months is a long time! Six months, you know you're gonna be, you'll be in, in, in, in the th - working in a theater there, you'll be with actors and directors, you kno w you're, you know, you go to rehearsal, and you, you hang out with those people, you have lunch a lot, and, and, before you even know it attachments form and, and, you know, I mean, you, you don't want to be get into that kind a, I mean, you, you'll change. You know, you'll be, you'll be, in six months you'll be a completely different person.

Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? Y'know, I read this in the newspaper. We should go down there, get some guys together, y'know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them.

My book is about decaying values. It's about, you see, years ago I wrote a short story about my mother called, 'The Castrating Zionist,' and I want to expand it into a novel.

Plus I'll probably have to give my parents less money. It'll kill my father. He's not gonna be able to get as good a seat in the synagogue. He'll be in the back, away from God, far from the action.

But, you're too easy on yourself! Don't you see that? That's your problem, that's your whole problem. You rationalize everything, you're not honest with yourself. You talk about, you want to write a book, but in the end you'd rather buy the Porsche, you know. Or, you cheat a little bit on Emily and you play around the truth a little with me, and next thing you know, you're in front of a Senate committee and you're naming names, you're informing on your friends!

This is so antiseptic. It's empty. Why do you think this is funny? You're going by audience reaction? This is an audience that's raised on television, their standards have been systematically lowered over the years. These guys sit in front of their sets and the gamma rays eat the white cells of their brains out!

I dunno, I was just thinking. There must be something wrong with me, because I've never had a relationship with a woman that's lasted longer than the one between Hitler and Eva Braun.

What are future generations gonna say about us? My god, you know someday we're gonna

we're gonna be like him! I mean, he was probably one of the BEAUTIFUL people. He was probably dancing and playing tennis and everything. And now look: this is what happens to us. You know, it's very important to have some kind of personal integrity, you know? I'll be hanging in a classroom one day, and I want to make sure when I thin out, that I'm... well-thought of.

You don't wanna get hung up with one person at your age. It's - charming, you know. Erotic. No question about that. As long as the cops don't burst in, we're - I think we're gonna break a couple of records.

We're having a great time and all that, but you're a kid and I never want you to forget that. You know, you're gonna meet a lot of terrific men in your life and, you know, I want you to enjoy me. My - my wry sense of humor and astonishing sexual technique, but never forget that, you know, you've got your whole life ahead of you.

That will never cease to mystify me. I mean, he's got a wonderful wife and he prefers to - to diddle this yo-yo. You know, but he was always a sucker for those kind of women. You know, the kind that would involve him in discussions of existential reality, you know. They probably sit around on the floor with wine and cheese, and mispronounce "allegorical" and "didacticism".

Nervous? She was overbearing. She was, you know, terrible! She was all cerebral. You know, where the hell does a little Radcliffe tootsie come off rating F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gustav Mahler and then Heinrich Böll?

I'm mad because I don't like that pseudo-intellectual garbage. "Van Goch!" Did you hear that? She said "Van Goch." Like an Arab she spoke. If she had made one more remark about Bergman, I would have knocked her other contact lens out.

Hey, what? You're so sensitive, Jesus! I never said that. I think you're - I think you're terrific. Really, you know. I - I - you're very insecure. I think you're wonderful, really.

You can't be in love with me. We've been over this. You're a kid. You don't know what love means. I don't know what it means. Nobody out there knows what the hell's going on.

You see, to me a great movie is with W.C. Fields. That's what I like. Or "Grand Illusion". That's - I see that every time it's on television, if I'm aware of it.

An idea for a short story about, um, people in Manhattan who are constantly creating these real, unnecessary, neurotic problems for themselves because it keeps them from dealing with more unsolvable, terrifying problems about - the universe.