MSTing of "Bloodlines/An Open Window"
--- Part 3 of 3 ---
[OPEN ON: <The MacLaughlin Group studio.> The Group continues riffing
"An Open Window Observing the Battleground".]
>
> How I Learned To Stop Worrying About And Love the Bomb
FRED: There's no point to even mentioning the correct title to "Dr.
Strangelove", is there.
MORT: Nope, ignorance is bliss. Let the Rev wallow in his own bliss.
>
> Recently the paper ran an article about how the United States, under
> the leadership of President Clinton, was going to seek a total global
> ban on nuclear testing.
PAT: At least as part of a college application.
FRED: Yeah, you can just see Chelsea approaching the button, muttering
"Won't let me into Vassar, ay?"
> This was interesting to me.
MORT: But I got distracted by this really cool lightning bug.
> Even though we have signed
> nuclear test ban treaties before there have always been allowances
> for small nuclear tests, or underground tests,
ELEANOR: -or the Old Spice Challenge-
> and never has all testing been
> banned. Now, the U.S. is going to champion that cause.
FRED: Once again, America is world leader in not knowing what they're
doing!
> It was, in a way,
> Clinton's response to the fifty year anniversary of the atomic bombs
> mentioned earlier.
PAT: In another way, it was him putting the moves on that Vermont
landmine woman.
> It was the government pulling back, another step from
> the nuclear precipice.
MORT: Yup, we were on the edge of a precipice, and took a bold step
forward.
> Isn't that worth acknowledging? The five major
> nuclear powers will now discuss this,
ELEANOR: The US, Russia, Walmart, McDonalds, and People Magazine.
> but France and Great Britain have
> already signified their agreement.
FRED: Sheesh, Britain can't control their own soccer fans, who the hell
let them have a bomb?
> Russia and China have some
> considerations but a process is underway to handle them.
[ALL snicker.]
JOHN: I think the process involves buying John Huang a houseboat.
> This must indicate
> that we, as a country, are not as terrified of our world neighbors as
> we once were. "For no one walks the world in armature but must have
> terror striking at his heart." (W 245/252)
MORT: Walks the world in armature? What, this a Robotech religion?
> The terror is leaving our hearts a
> little.
ELEANOR: Oh, "Scream 3", the romantic comedy!
> Isn't this miraculous? A few years ago America and Russia both
> agreed to take out of service a vast array of nuclear weapons that
> were pointed directly at each other. Planes that were always flying,
> ready to drop nuclear bombs if they didn't get a call back signal,
> stopped flying. (Remember the movie Dr. Stangelove?) These were our
> first steps away from the nuclear "cliff."
PAT (as Cliff Claven): It's a, uh, little known fact that the
government had plans to deliver hydrogen bomb payloads via an elite
squad of U.S. mail carriers.
JOHN: Good impression, Pat. One might say, almost disturbingly good.
> Now, we're taking a few more. Nuclear disarmament is
> an idea whose time has come.
JOHN: American military budget! Freddy!
FRED: Over $260 billion and climbing- and damn good thing too!
> Isn't it grand? Where is your perception, half
> empty or half full?
ELEANOR: What- now wait, which chapter heading are we on here?
JOHN: Let it go, Eleanor.
> We're healing.
MORT: We're staying. We're speaking. We're a good little doggie!
> We're not having to be right or wrong.
FRED (as Natalie in "Werewolf"): We is not in it for fame and
fortune? But over my dead body! I is going to find Paul!
JOHN: Uh- what the hell was that?
FRED: A movie called "Werewolf."
MORT: Yeah, I tried to catch that on the SciFi channel, but these
puppets kept talking over the film.
> We're saying, "Hey, this is a bad thing. I'm willing to let it go.
> Are you willing to let it go?"
ELEANOR: That's the west coast version, of course.
PAT: Yeah, in New York the bad thing's already been shot, shoved on the
subway track, had its wallet stolen...
>
> Don't forget though, this shift isn't happening anywhere but in our
> own minds.
FRED: Oh, he's a crafty one. He thinks that by telling us it's
happening in our minds, we'll assume it's not happening in our minds.
Well I'm onto you, pal!
> This is a reflection of the work we are all doing.
MORT: And this is a reflection of my butt after I sat in pudding!
> We're learning to
> let things go with true forgiveness,
ELEANOR: The sequel to "True Lies"!
> not having to be right, and we see the
> world's leaders reflecting this "better way." The congratulations are
> due to us.
JOHN: At last we've learned we don't have to be right! Now celebrate
how right I was!
MORT: You just knew John would be the one with that comment.
ELEANOR (quietly singing): Little Mis, Little Mis, Little Mister
Can't-Be-Wrong...
>
> As always, there are the "nay-sayers."
FRED: Or horses, if you will.
> They say, "Don't sing Clinton's
> praises.
MORT: Do a tone poem instead!
> He could have done a lot more than he's doing.
PAT: Many of us are grateful he's done as little as he has.
> These are just
> political maneuvers. Don't forget those campaign promises that he
> didn't fill.
ELEANOR: He half-filled them!
> Where are the gays in the military?
MORT: They're in the navy, apparently. Odd that.
> Where is that national health
> coverage?"
ELEANOR: In Canada, where'd you think?
> (I find these issues amusing.
JOHN: You find bubble wrap amusing!
> I always liked that being openly
> gay was a great way to get out of the military
PAT: Sure did Corporal Klinger a world of good.
> and I believe that national
> health coverage would only entrench the A.M.A.'s perception of
> allopathic medicine even deeper.
ELEANOR: (pages flipping) Nope, that's not in my Websters. I don't
even have "allo-" listed as a prefix.
MORT: A psychopathic alligator, maybe?
FRED: I think he meant "idiopathic". I certainly do.
> At least without national health coverage,
> alternative medicine and healing has a chance!)
PAT: To kill even more gullible fools!
JOHN: I think we've crossed the line to intolerance there, Patrick.
PAT: Not to someone who's seen psychic surgery, I'm not.
>
> Of course Clinton's not perfect, but let's look closely at this
> COURSE section.
FRED: "Table of Contents. Chapter One - Page 2. Chapter Two..."
>"Dream of your brother's kindnesses instead of dwelling in your
> dreams on his mistakes.
ELEANOR: My dreams tend to dwell on Matt McConneghay doing platform
dives in a Speedo.
> Select his thoughtfulness to dream about instead of
> counting up the hurts he gave.
MORT: Now if I could select my dream-
JOHN: Don't even think of it, Mort.
> Forgive him his illusions, and give thanks
> to him for all the helpfulness he gave. And do not brush aside his
> many gifts because he is not perfect in your dreams.
ELEANOR: Uh, generally I don't hold it against folks when they do stuff
in my dreams, Rev.
PAT: I don't know. I knew a woman who slapped her husband because she
dreamed he was having an affair.
> He represents his Father,
> Whom you see as offering both life and death to you." (T 543/585)
FRED: Well... OK, I'll have a little death now, and then save the life
for dessert.
> The
> COURSE wants us to look at our leaders and really see the good they
> do.
MORT: What if you live in Mississippi?
> We,
> of course, see that they are not perfect. There are still negatives
> associated with them, but the COURSE asks us to focus on the good
> instead.
ELEANOR: Director of Cinematography- Tony!
> Is this what we do? The reason they don't appear perfect to us is
> these leaders, these authority figures, symbolize God and we think of
> God as giving us both life and death. That's our problem; it's not
> the truth. This is the duality we've projected onto God. We think God
> gives us life but then we think that God takes it away too! We
> project this ambivalence onto all our brothers and sisters and
> especially onto those we see in authority.
JOHN: Psychobabble rating! Mort-one!
MORT: 8. It's a leaning tower of psychobabble.
> We see them as doing good, but then doing some terrible things as
> well. Yet, the only reason we have this perception is our basic
> confusion we have about God.
>
> Where's the Death?
FRED: Clara Peller's newest ad campaign.
>
> When we talk about life and death and are truly honest about it, the
> only place there appears to be death is out in the external world we
> experience as in front of us.
PAT: You could say the same thing about soup!
JOHN: I think that's his point, Patrick.
MORT: What, that death is soup?
ELEANOR: Mm, mm, dead!
> In the external world we look out on. Yet, none of us
> truly experiences him or herself as part of this external world.
FRED: No one in New Orleans, anyway.
> I don't
> mean in a lofty, spiritual sense either.
MORT: I mean in a sweaty, erotic sense!
JOHN: Keep your Playboy Channel fantasies to yourself, Mort.
> I mean in a practical, obvious
> sense. Where we perceive ourselves to be is not outside in the
> external world, we are in an inside reality. Where are "you?"
PANEL (sings): Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo.
JOHN: Must I remind the panel of the correct Pete Townsend chorus?
"Who are you," not "Where"!
> Are "you" outside in
> the world or inside something we abstractly call our minds?
FRED: Neither! I'm in Suffolk!
> It's really as
> if "we" are behind an open window that looks out, through our eyes
> and other senses. We see that which is outside ourselves, don't we?
ELEANOR: Unless we're looking at a cat scan, I guess.
> We all know
> that our sense of identity rest somewhere deep within. "I" am not in
> the external world. "I" am in an internal reality that merely looks
> out at the world, gathers other sensory information and filters it
> all through concepts we believe about ourselves.
PAT: It seems Reverend Tony tried to read DesCartes on an empty stomach.
>
> When I go into myself, when I close my eyes and go within, there's no
> death inside where "I" am.
MORT: I think he just wrote a song by Night Ranger.
> Death is absolutely only an external image. Inside I
> find only life. Where's the death inside? There isn't any!
FRED: Not until I die, anyway.
> Nobody dies in
> my internal world.
ELEANOR (wary): Ooooooooooooookay.
> If I want to talk to somebody I just bring an image of
> them to mind and talk to them.
MORT: They all sound like Norman Vincent Peale, for some reason.
> There is no loss in my internal world. If
> something seems to go away it's just because I'm not thinking about
> it. If I think about it again, there it is!
FRED: I want to make some sort of autism joke, but I just can't.
> There are no lovers who have jilted me
> in my internal world.
ELEANOR: HA!
> I close my eyes and chose to have the fantasy and
> they're still there! (And still turned on to me, which must be a
> fantasy, but they're definitely there and willing if I chose to think
> of them that way.)
MORT: Cool! Next time my girlfriend dumps me, I'm founding a church
too!
PAT: My oh my. This is the single saddest thing I have ever read- and
I got through that book by Millie the White House Dog.
FRED: I for one would not have thought pimple-faced internet-addicted
Magic: The Gathering geeks could become ordained ministers.
ELEANOR: And yet...
> There is no loss, no death in the internal reality where "I" am. The
> loss and death only seem real in the outer world where, in true
> obvious honesty, I know that "I" am not!
PAT: "I" have no mouth, and "I" must scream.
FRED: "I" am Don Niego Montoya. "You" killed "my" father! Prepare to
"die"!
> Death is only in the outer world illusion.
MORT: Jim Morrison's estate is NOT going to be pleased with this.
> The trouble is that I falsely identify myself, conceptually, with the
> external illusion. Yet, the true experience is "I" am somewhere
> inside. "I" am not a part of that death illusion.
JOHN: Just look at the org chart!
> This is what the COURSE is talking
> about. Death is just an illusion. My inner truth does not have an
> experience of death or loss.
ELEANOR: Or dates, or baths on Saturday night.
>
> My relationship with God, my Creator, exists in my inner reality, not
> in the outer illusion. When I get more in touch with this truth I
> heal. Then I don't see God as giving me death and life together.
MORT: It's like that packaging they had for the McDLT. Keeps the life
side live, and the death side dead.
> Inside there is only
> life. Inside there is God.
FRED: Outside, a crispy candy coating!
> God is only life! If this becomes our basis for
> identity, the outer begins to reflect this changed perspective of
> self and worldly life begins symbolically to heal as well. This is
> what I believe is happening.
FRED: Was that what I believe, or what "I" believe?
PAT: e e cummings, tell me what "i" believe
MORT: Trial lawyers, tell me what libel leaves!
>
> The world is evolving as a reflection of our own evolution.
FRED: No, it's developing from our own development!
JOHN: Get off, it's clearly a product of our own production.
ELEANOR: Doubling our duplications? Oh! Darn, I did the repetitive
redundant joke. Oh well.
> I see the
> rhetoric and the conversation about an "evil empire," or external
> enemy, has faded. We don't have the mass enemies to rally around
> anymore.
PAT: Remember after Pearl Harbor when we rallied around Japan? Confused
them so much they crashed their own planes!
JOHN: Kamikaze pilots are such a rich vein of humor, aren't they, Patrick.
> We don't
> have Japan or Germany or Russia or communist China to get us all
> worked up and "united." The disadvantage is that without an external
> enemy we tend to turn our projected guilt within and we start doing
> battle with ourselves. Nothing like a good external enemy to get us
> all "joined" in a common purpose is there?
MORT: You know, John, getting joined for a common purpose can get you
arrested in certain states.
JOHN: And you're telling me this because?
MORT: No reason.
> People speak of the good old days when the country was
> one, in World War II when we all united.
ELEANOR: Yeah, dying for our country was really hip- except for the
dying part.
> Well, of course, we had a
> perceived external threat! It was easy to rally, but the COURSE is on
> to this tendency. It says, " as blame is withdrawn from without,
> there is a strong tendency to harbor it within.
FRED: But the harbor was what we rallied around!
JOHN: Simmer down there, Freddie.
> It is difficult at first to realize
> that this is exactly the same thing,
PAT: -seeing as how it doesn't make sense and all.
> for there is no distinction between
> within and without." (T 187/201) Isn't this just what we see going on
> in our country now? We aren't worried about other countries invading
> us, now our enemies are right in our midst.
ELEANOR: "Midst" always looks like a typographical error to me.
JOHN: Yes, some Dark Ages typesetter forgot to finish a longer word,
and since everyone back then was so dung-covered illiterate, it stuck.
> Fanatics bomb our federal buildings and
> more than one hundred men, women and children die!
FRED: But Reverend Tony says, hey, that was over a year ago, and
McVeigh hasn't blown up a building since!
> Militia groups arm
> themselves to the hilt and await the coming military collapse and
> final anarchy. The Christian right sees the decadent anti-family gays
> as a perverted evil run amuck in the cities of sin.
MORT: Yeah, Vegas and Reno used to be nice quiet towns, where a man
could really raise his prostitutes!
> (San Francisco being a fine
> example of sin's festering place in their eyes.)
PAT: They're probably just upset the Niners didn't cover the spread.
> Gays see conservative
> politicians as Nazi-like evil beings intent on crucifying them as a
> convenient scapegoat.
ELEANOR: Chase's new 24-Hour Automated Fascists. It's like having a
scapegoat at your fingertips!
> The conservative politicians see the liberal news
> media as mercilessly blaspheming them in the eyes of the public and
> on an on the circle of blame goes. Where the guilt, stops nobody
> knows.
PAT: Where the comma, goes Rev doesn't know.
>
> Some people see this tendency and think this means things are getting
> worse. I think just the opposite. I think it's a sign that we're
> progressing.
FRED: Now, wait. I thought a circle of blame was a BAD thing.
MORT: Well maybe he means like, a circle of blame has only one side,
which is better than a triangle of blame, which has three sides, or a
pentagon of blame, which has five.
JOHN: Need I remind you, panel, that the more sides a shape has, the
closer to a circle it is? Mathematically, a circle is actually a shape
with INFINITE sides! Everyone's blaming everybody, forever!
ELEANOR: Well, great. Let's start with you.
> We've stopped seeing the enemies out there in the other
> countries designing to snatch away our resources and enslave our
> people. (Men digging in dangerous mine shafts and women forced into
> sexual slavery for pleasure and breeding purposes come to mind.)
JOHN: One could write a whole doctoral thesis on why those two
particular items came to the reverend's mind.
> Now the enemy is right
> within our own people! This is what the COURSE is warning us about.
PAT: Oh, it's "The Bible Code 2: Cassandra's Revenge".
> We've
> stopped blaming without; now we're blaming within.
MORT: You see, Civil War instead of World War! I told you it's
progress!
> Yet, I have faith this
> too will fade when we begin to see personally, within ourselves, the
> folly of self blame.
ELEANOR: Alaska was Seward's Folly of self-blame.
FRED: Wasn't that the steamboat?
PAT: No, you're thinking of Fulton's Folly of self-blame.
MORT (singing): Have a folly, jolly Christmas!
> Isn't this just what we've done on a personal level? It used
> to be our parents' fault, the churches' fault, the government's fault
> and let's not forget the most important one, our lover's fault.
FRED: So, we try to blame ourselves, but we have a lousy sense of aim?
> "I would have
> been happy if he just had not been afraid of commitment. If she had
> only stopped drinking my life would have been different."
PAT: If only her ventriloquist dummy had said that he loved me!
> Then we embraced
> personal responsibility and realized, "Oh my God, no, it's my fault!
> I brought this on myself!" Yet we must learn that it's nobody's
> fault.
ELEANOR: Hey, yeah! It's all nobody's fault!
MORT: Let's go find nobody and twist his nipples off!
> There
> is no blame or guilt to be had. There are just mistakes to be
> corrected.
PAT: The Rev's peddling moral whiteout.
> As
> we undo our self blame, I firmly believe, we will see our country
> reflect this healing and stop factionalizing and looking for internal
> villains.
FRED: I'd love to see our criminal justice system run on this
principle.
JOHN: Stole your life savings? Oh, well, stuff happens.
> Bringing the guilt within is just an unfortunate step in the healing
> progression. We will move out of it collectively when we move out of
> it individually. The country is merely a macrocosm of the individual.
> We will embrace together all of our societal elements, from gays to
> Christian right wingers, from paramilitary groups to the liberal
> press,
ELEANOR: -from Alan Dershowitz to Charles Grodin!
> and when we do we
> will have enormous resources to tackle the problems of terrorism,
> drug addiction and crime.
FRED: So we should stop terrorism.
MORT: Absolutely.
FRED: How about starting in Bosnia?
MORT: Oo, sorry, Serbian aggression is not terrorism.
FRED: Because?
MORT: It's not happening to me!
>
> Who Left the Window Open?
PAT: Probably the same guy who wouldn't fill your stupid glass.
>
> The COURSE says some interesting things about war and battle. The
> COURSE tells us we can rise above the battleground.
ELEANOR: Oh, it's an Air Force Recruitment Temple.
MORT (sings): I- went- to- the- DANGER ZONE!
> Let's begin with
> this quotation, "Mistake not truce for peace." (T 461/496) This one
> helps us not to get stuck in something that appears as peace and in
> truth isn't.
FRED: Oh, yah, like when I bought a Peace Pop, and it turned out to be
a Dove bar?
> The
> world thinks the bargains we strike with one another while we
> temporarily "cease fire" are peace but this isn't so. Bargaining is
> not true forgiveness.
PAT: Not the way the NBA owners do it, anyway.
> We don't forgive if . We forgive. We do it for ourselves, not
> to get them to change.
ELEANOR: But what if they just exercised and their clothes are stinky
sweaty!
JOHN: They have to really want to change, Eleanor.
> As I stated earlier, I see the world starting to do
> this. We're not forgiving Viet Nam because they've admitted their
> guilt.
FRED: We're forgiving them because we just can't stay mad at them, the
big lugs!
> We're just letting go of that past. It's over. Bargaining is still in
> the battleground.
MORT: Not at your local Saturn dealer! Stop in today!
> If the bargain is kept the fighting may still, but it's all
> so conditional. "There is no safety in a battleground. You can look
> down on it in safety from above and not be touched. But from within
> it you can find no safety." (T 461/496)
JOHN: OK, let's recap. What is The Ponticello Doctrine, Pat Buchanan?
PAT: War? That's just bad. Battlegrounds? They're real bad, too.
Someone needs help stopping an invasion? That's just real too bad.
> We must continue the healing and not be deluded by
> bargains and truce. Only real forgiveness will bring us the peace we
> deserve.
MORT: The things one could say to that...
JOHN: You're in enough trouble for just saying THAT!
> We rise above the battleground. We realize that who "we" are is
> not actually contained in the external battle.
ELEANOR: Oh, no, the quotation marks are back!
FRED: Who is he talking about? I'm confused!
PAT: Maybe it's like when a sports figure's talking about himself in the
third person. Only "Mike Tyson" knows what's best for Mike Tyson.
> Who "we" are is the
> consciousness that looks through the window and perceives the battle
> outside.
FRED: Oh, now I see. It's the royal "we". It's a commentary on the
British royal court's aloofness during World War I. See, guys, it's
really quite insightful!
JOHN: Odds that Reverend Tony was King of England in 1914! Mort!
MORT: Zero.
> We are a vast mind, an infinite, eternal expanse of intelligence
> and life. We perceive this world through an open window, if we
> remember that, truce will not delude us.
ELEANOR: I see through your false illusion, to the real illusion behind
it!
>
> Then the COURSE gives us some very clear, concise ideas of what to do
> when we get tempted to forget all this.
PANEL: GIVE IN!
>"When the temptation to attack rises to
> make your mind darkened and murderous " when we get that temptation
> to forget we really are not the external battle
PAT: -when we start to think "The X-Files" is a well-written show...
> and therefore are not really
> in danger " remember you can see the battle from above." (T 462/497)
> So here's the first thing to do.
MORT (sings): Ca-a-a-ALL for Super Chicken!
> We need to remember that we can see this
> battle from a higher perspective, from above or beyond it all.
FRED: I would hazard that the rev is really good about stuff being
beyond him.
JOHN: As a former man of the cloth, I advise you to take that back,
Beetle.
FRED: OK, OK.
> We need to
> remember that we don't have to be hooked in this way of perceiving.
> This passage continues, "Even in forms you do not recognize, the
> signs you know."
ELEANOR: Sounds like a Cosmo article.
JOHN: The Twelve Signs It's Time to Move On!
> Sometimes we don't immediately recognize that we are getting hooked
> in, but there are little clues that indicate we are being caught and
> we can identify them.
MORT: Like when there's a barbed thing with a line attached poking
through your lip, and it's reeling you down to hell, and Satan's
there holding a fishing line and laughing and pointing and saying
ha-ha, I hooked you good? Little clues like that.
> "There is a stab of pain, a twinge of guilt, and above all,
FRED: A chewy nougat center!
> a loss of peace. This you know well." (T 462/497) This is what the
> COURSE wants us to be monitoring:
PAT: My goodness, it's a U.N. religion!
> that little stab of pain, that little twinge of
> guilt and that little loss of peace.
JOHN: Those little things husbands and wives do for each other that
make all the difference!
> When we feel these things we need
> quickly to identify we've lost our perspective of the battle from
> above and have gotten hooked into its seeming reality again.
> We've forgotten where "we" really are.
MORT: "We" are clearly between that pair of quotation marks.
> We've believed that we exist back in the world. Then it
> concludes, "When they occur leave not your place on high, but quickly
> choose a miracle instead of murder." (T 462/498)
FRED: Although killing an illusion isn't technically murder.
ELEANOR: Illusions fighting amongst themselves isn't technically a war,
either.
> What we need to learn to
> do is a process of self correction and we have to learn to click it
> in faster.
PAT: Everyone blames the clicker when they lose on Jeopardy.
> We have to do it before things get totally out of hand.
MORT: Before reverends of New Age religions start writing foreign
policy tracts and posting them on the- oh.
> We have to
> do it when we get that first little stab of pain, that first little
> twinge of guilt and that first little loss of peace.
PAT: This is his THIRD twinging stab already!
FRED: And I lost my peace a long time ago!
> We have to remember that
> there is a higher way to look at this situation.
ELEANOR (smashed): Oh, wow, man.
MORT (same): Far out.
FRED (same): The father, the son, and the Holy Smoke.
> We have to offer the way
> we are looking at it to the Holy Spirit.
ELEANOR: Oh, my mistake, it's a Lionel Barrymore kind of high.
> We have to ask for a miracle; ask
> for a shift.
MORT: LEFTY! Shift the infield! LEFTY!
>
> As we continue to do this correction process,
PAT: -we realize the editor is stark raving mad.
> as we do it quicker and
> quicker and not let things get so out of hand in ourselves I think we
> will continue to see the world evolving and growing towards peace.
> Fifty years ago we dropped atomic bombs on our brothers and sisters
> because we saw no other way.
JOHN: Freddie!
FRED: The other way was an invasion of Japan, which would have caused
the death of hundreds of thousands of both Japanese and AMERICAN
illusions.
> The other way existed but our conceptual perspective wouldn't
> allow the notion of it.
PAT: The Japanese military refused to surrender! What other way is he
talking about? An American surrender?
ELEANOR: No, the recognition of the illusion of winning.
> We believed the battleground and it was very real
> for us. COURSE students do not have to stand in judgment of the
> people who made those decisions.
MORT: That's what Fundamentalist Christians are for!
> However, we can learn from what those decisions
> brought to pass. More important still, we can congratulate ourselves
> because for a half century we have let another perception take hold
> in the collective unconsciousness.
FRED: The perception that Grover Cleveland was President for two
non-consecutive terms.
> This is a perception that tells us that there
> must be a better way. We must be choosing it, because we see the
> results of true forgiveness all over the world. Don't be confused by
> the manifestations of problems that still appear.
JOHN: Don't let facts stop you!
> Remember where "you" are.
JOHN: Quotation frustration! Eleanor!
ELEANOR: "AAAAARGH"!
> "You" are behind an open window observing these situations. "You" are
> not in the world's battlegrounds, no matter how real the images seen
> through your window may appear.
MORT: "You" are hole in search of a donut!
[John reaches out with a ruler and swats Mort across the wrists.]
MORT: Ow!
JOHN: You and the Beetle are staying after the show, Mort-one.
> Don't leave your place on high. Leave the
> battleground instead. The world will continue to heal as we each
> individually do our part.
FRED: Won't that leave the world with a big festering scab?
PAT: Yes, but just tell folks it's Baltimore. They won't know.
> World peace is an idea whose time has come.
ELEANOR: -the walrus said.
MORT: You know, I think I'd actually prefer talking about ceiling wax
to reading another paragraph.
FRED: I'd prefer talking about EAR wax to reading another paragraph!
JOHN: Just one more, guys, hang tough.
>
> It is a miraculous blessing that we have this holy relationship which
> allows us to share these healing ideas.
PAT: Like, "Don't place your burned hand in the Mr. Coffee!"
> Thousands of years are being saved
> right this instant.
ELEANOR: Whoap! You missed it, too bad.
> Did you just feel them slip away?
MORT: Well, sure. The nearer your destination, and all.
> I did. God bless us
> all.
>
PAT: Except for you, Tommy Piccolo, who was sniggering all through this
sermon and will see me after Sunday School!
JOHN: All right panel, I think we owe Reverend Ponticello a special
thank-you for putting up with your guff this morning.
PANEL: Thank you, Reverend Ponticello!
PAT: Nothing personal, guy. The way John badgers us, we need to purge the
bitterness before we bring it home and it hurts others.
JOHN: All right, let's get out.
ELEANOR: What, with an exit question?
JOHN: No- let's just get out! Now!
>
> (c)1995, Rev. Tony Ponticello, San Francisco, CA
[DOOR SEQUENCE. Cambot zooms past a blue rectangular graphics box with
a gold "G" in it, then a purple box with an "R", a red box with a "O",
a green box with a "U", and an orange box with a "P", to get to a one-
shot of a scowling McLaughlin.]
JOHN: I'm looking for a difference between the Reverend Tony
Ponticello's stated policy for the way the U.S. should deal with
foreign conflicts, and covering your ears while saying "La-la-la, I'm
not listening! I'm not listening!" Pat!
PAT: I don't know, John, sounds like a reasonable way to deal with you
to me.
MORT: Yeah! Hey everybody, John's an illusion!
JOHN: I am not!
ALL: (cover their ears) La-la-la! We're not listening! La-la-la!
[CUT TO: <House of Pain> As we pan through the dungeon, we hear the
panel continuing to sing "La-la-la!" through a monitor off-screen.
Soon we pan onto a dungeon set-up very similar to the McLaughlin Group
set, but with five electric chairs in place of the five regular chairs.
The last thing that pans into the shot is a very perturbed Evil Mike,
holding a sinister-looking remote.]
EVIL MIKE: Let's have a frank exchange of ideas.
[Evil Mike aims his remote at the electric chairs, and presses it. The
chairs dissolve as they are beamed down to the studio. We hear the
group's "La-la-la! La-La- AAAAAAAAAAAUGH!" and a discharge of
electrical energy.]
EVIL MIKE: So much for the McCoffin Group.
[Pan over to Pearl, still hung like a mobile from the ceiling.]
PEARL: Oh, yeah, we're a big man when it comes to the Sunday morning
news programs, aren't we?
EVIL MIKE (clenching his teeth and fists): Yes, but where MacLaughlin
makes an ass out of himself, I- (Evil Mike grabs a flamethrower from
off-screen) make an ASH out of YOURself!
PEARL: Oh, jam a pencil in your jaw, Nero. We both know you're not
going to kill me.
EVIL MIKE: Oh, really?
PEARL: Yeah. Because you're my antibody. And even an antibody with a
body temperature IQ like yours knows you exist in this reality only
to kill me. No me, no you. I die, you die. So where's the dessert
menu? There was this really nice Oreo cheesecake-
EVIL MIKE (grabbing Pearl's chin): Oh, very clever, Auntie Mame! Yes!
Alive you must stay- until, as is inevitable, I recapture that wedge
of Wisconsin cheese that's floating around interspace.
PEARL (horrified): You? Would drain Mike Nelson's existence and replace
it with your own?
EVIL MIKE (sarcastic): Oh gosh golly no, Pearl. That would be wrong.
Once I assume Smelson's existence, I will be free to pursue my
destiny to conquer both universes, and rule as Supreme Commander of
the Galaxy! Mwah-hah-hah! (coming down a bit) Acting as executive,
you understand. A bicameral legislature would pass the laws, each
planet having a senator, representatives based on population-
PEARL: Why- you're mad! With an eloquent knowledge of social politics,
but still mad! I'll have no part of your wicked scheme!
EVIL MIKE (quiet, confused): But I didn't ask you to.
PEARL (annoyed, harsh whisper): It's your cue!
EVIL MIKE: Oh! Sorry! Ahem! (goes eyeball-to-eyeball with Pearl)
Maybe! But in the meantime I have to keep you safe- on the sidelines-
out of the action. Somewhere where you can't cause me any trouble.
PEARL: There's no place in the universe where I wouldn't cause trouble
for you!
EVIL MIKE (raising a finger): There is one!
[Evil Mike grins evilly. Pearl's face drops. They both turn and look
into the camera.]
[CUT TO: <EXTERIOR OF SATELLITE OF LOVE>]
PEARL (echoed, from inside the satellite): NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
[CUT TO: CREDITS (which we hear Pearl crying through)]
----------------------------------------------------------------
EPISODE EM102 - "Bloodlines: The Calling"
and "An Open Window Observing the Battleground"
written by
BRENDAN HERLIHY
Mystery Science Theater 3000, its characters and situations are
copyright 1998 Best Brains, Inc. The MacLaughlin Group copyright
1998 John MacLaughlin. Beavis and Butthead, its characters,
situations, and lack of intellect are copyright 1998 Mike Judge.
"Bloodlines: The Calling" copyright 1998 FireRose.
"An Open Window Observing the Battleground" copyright 1995,
Reverend Tony Ponticello. Edited for time. This publication is
for entertainment use only. This publication is not meant as a
personal attack on FireRose or Rev. Ponticello, nor an attack on A
COURSE IN MIRACLES, its followers, or any church affiliated with its
teachings. This publication is not meant to infringe on any copyrights
held by Best Brains, Sci Fi Channel, Mike Judge, MTV, John MacLaughlin,
Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, He's A Clown, That Charlie Brown, FireRose,
the Foundation for Inner Peace, the Community Miracles Center, or any
employees thereof. If you liked my acknowledgements for "Windmills of the
Gods", you'll love them for "An Open Window on the Battleground"!
Thank you Stacy, for your pearl of love! Thank you Steve, for your jade of
friendship! Thanks dad, for your hardwood charcoal briquette of humor!
Don't hate me because I e-mail.
pinkboybuffet@hotmail.com
executive producer
BRENDAN HERLIHY
|-----------------------------------|
There are no lovers
who have jilted me
in my internal world.
|-----------------------------------|
Copyright 1998 Brendan Herlihy
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