…and the life that was not.<\/p>\n
I’m going through some Google Docs looking for something and stumble across this script for a cartoon was going to do for my 60th birthday. I managed to get a few pencil sketches done but never finished it. For some reason.<\/p>\n
This riffs off a running gag in Tim Barela’s wonderful gay comic strip Leonard and Larry<\/em>…which he described once as a kind of gay Our Miss Brooks. Every tenth year Larry had a birthday all his anxieties about getting old surfaced in a dream that he was having his birthday party while laying in a coffin with a birthday cake on it and his friends making catty jokes about his getting old. Picasso said a mediocre artist copies and a great artist steals. So I stole the idea (with proper acknowledgement). But the only thing I managed to finish was the script. Probably for the best…<\/p>\n Here it is. As Joe Friday and my own Sargeant Stoneface would say, The names have been changed to protect the innocent. And especially the not so innocent!<\/em><\/p>\n The Big Six-O!<\/span> SCENE:<\/span> My birthday party.\u00a0 a\u2019La Leonard & Larry, I\u2019m in a casket with the lid open and a birthday cake on the bottom half lid that reads Happy 60th.\u00a0 Surrounding me are my three loves. We shall call them CRUSH1, CRUSH2 and CRUSH3.<\/span><\/p>\n PANEL 1:<\/span> (Most of the following panels are as above.)<\/span><\/p>\n ME:<\/span> I really appreciate the party you guys, and this coffin\u2019s a swell gag, but I have to admit the margarita embalming fluid bottles was a brilliant touch.<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH2:<\/span> I liked the asperen bottles labeled \u201cFor Headaches Due To Lovestruck Bruce”.<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH3:<\/span> That was 1\u2019s idea.<\/span><\/p>\n ME: <\/span> (off panel) Ha, ha… Yes, very funny…<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH1:<\/span> (to the others) Drove me crazy back in high school watching him try to work up the nerve to tell me he had a crush on me.<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH2:<\/span> (rolling his eyes) I had to deal with Overly Attached Gayfriend.<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH3:<\/span> Tell me about it. He actually thought we were boyfriends just because I let him sleep with me a few times.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n PANEL 3:<\/span> Closeup on Crush2 and Crush3<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH2:<\/span> Sparks didn\u2019t fly eh?<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH3:<\/span> (Looking morosely down at his drink) Let\u2019s just say I went Ex-Gay for six years.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n PANEL 4:<\/span> Closeup on me and Crush1<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH1: <\/span> (Smiling, gesturing to me while looking at the others off panel) Quick, tell NARTH! We\u2019ve found the cure for homosexuality!<\/span><\/p>\n ME: <\/span> (Frowning) Ha, Ha.\u00a0 Very Funny.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n PANEL 5:<\/span><\/p>\n ME: <\/span> Can I get out now?<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH1:<\/span> Not on your life.\u00a0 We\u2019re selling you off as a collector\u2019s item.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH2:<\/span> (gesturing to the ages) The gay man that never had a boyfriend. Too young to be liberated in 1971, too old to marry anyone in 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH3: <\/span> You\u2019re a museum piece.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n PANEL 6:<\/span><\/p>\n ME:<\/span> You sold me to a museum?<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH2:<\/span> Museum?\u00a0 Are you kidding?\u00a0 We sold you to Disney World.<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH3:<\/span> You\u2019re going to be a prop in the Haunted Mansion queue.<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH1:<\/span> I\u2019ll stop by every now and then before my shift to dust you off.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n PANEL 7:<\/span><\/p>\n ME: <\/span> I\u2019m dreaming all this aren\u2019t I?\u00a0 This is all about my anxieties over getting old isn\u2019t it…and you guys are here representing the three chances for love Vonnegut spoke of…<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH1:<\/span> We prefer to think of ourselves as your three strikes.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n PANEL 8:<\/span><\/p>\n ME: <\/span> This is going to turn into a nightmare now isn\u2019t it?<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH1:<\/span> You\u2019re not asleep dear, you\u2019re hallucinating.<\/span><\/p>\n CRUSH2:<\/span> You drank half that bottle of tequila all by yourself and when you sober up again you\u2019re going to feel like you\u2019re 160.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n With Apologies to Tim Barela and Larry Evans…<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …and the life that was not. I’m going through some Google Docs looking for something and stumble across this script for a cartoon was going to do for my 60th birthday. I managed to get a few pencil sketches done but never finished it. For some reason. This riffs off a running gag in Tim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,7],"tags":[77,157],"class_list":["post-10760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-life","tag-the-dumpsville-chronicles","tag-the-old-man-chronicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10760\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n<\/span>(Slightly Anonymised)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>PANEL 2:<\/span><\/p>\n