The Gunfighter in the Bathtub- Rough Notes for Script

Here are the rough notes and scenes that I've devised for the beginning of my video:

The Bathtub Cowboy

In a small bathroom, a cowboy, The Smithville Kid, sits (clothed) in the full bathtub smoking a cigar. He listens to NPR on a small clock radio.

Smithville: Gaza. Gaza, Gaza, Gaza. (speech)

I enter with Cragen necklace and sit down.

Smithville: Don't worry, this is art.

Me: If you say so. Do you mind?

Smithville: Not at all.

Smithville passes me the soap. I start rubbing it on my hands and neck.

Me: I think you should come with me to Connecticut.

Smithville: Why?

Me: There's somebody I need to talk to.

Smithville: Then...

Me: I know, but you should come. You know...

Smithville: Yeah?

Me: Yeah... well, I... can I ask you something?

Smithville nods.

Me: It's not like, I'm afraid exactly, well, I mean... I am, but... I guess it doesn't really count if you don't know why you're afraid. I'm going to McDonald's, do you want me to pick you up a Big Mac?

Smithville: You wanted to ask me about a burger?

Me: Sorry, I … got distracted... I guess I wanted to ask you for your advise.

Smithville: That's all?

Me: Forget it … Do you want that Big Mac or what?


The Gunfighter in the Bathtub
Dana M. Osburn

Characters:

Eddie Fowler – A young woman.
William Stranger – Formerly a notorious bounty hunter.
Job Hahner – A good man.
Sandy Frank – A friend.
Gar Woleridge – A black-hat lackey.
Assorted marshals, outlaws, prospectors and saloon folk.
God – A murder victim.

1 – Ext. - The West

Stranger enters with a gun in his bloody hands. He walks steadily forward with an unwavering gaze. In the center of town, a silent crowd has gathered and watches as he passes. A man in a black hat with a sheriff's badge leans on the post of the porch of the general store.

2 – Ext. - The Highway

Eddie drives.

Stranger (VO): I tell ya, ain't nothin's less romantic 'an a prairie moon. That cold'll drive a hole through you faster'n harder'n any rifle or revolver you ever seen.

3 – Eddie, Job, Sandy Frank

Stranger (VO): Maybe you got a horse or a dog or something, or maybe you got a fire or a mexican blanket, but you just can't quit your teeth from chatterin'. And every damned cactus praises God like a widow or a preacher's wife.

4 – Int. - Bathroom
Stranger sits in a bathtub fully dressed. Eddie sits on a seat next to him.

Stranger: You run your whole life, but that cold prairie moon's always gonna find you.

Eddie: Yeah … but there's got to be some kind of respect somewhere. You know? God, or the universe, or something … something created us, something has to love us.

Stranger: Love's got nothing to do with it.


5 – Int. - Living Room

On the couch, Eddie sits with her head on Job's shoulder and Job's arm wraps around her as they watch “So I Married an Axe Murderer” on the tv.

Eddie: Oh, man, that guy looks just like the cashier at ShopRight today.

Job: Weird.

Eddie: No, really. Do you think it's the same guy?

Job: Phil Hartman? I highly doubt it.

Eddie: How do you figure, genius?

Job: Because Phil Hartman was killed in 1998 by his crazy wife.

Eddie: Oh …

Sandy Frank enters looking like an Alaskan fresh from a snowstorm.

Eddie: Where were you?

Sandy Frank: I had to get bread and milk.

Eddie: Why?

Sandy Frank: Because it's snowing.

Eddie: What?

Sandy Frank: What do you mean, what? When it snows, you've gotta hurry up and buy bread and milk.

Eddie: What do bread and milk have to do with snow?

Sandy Frank: Oh, my God! You seriously don't know?

Job: Uh …

Sandy Frank: See, I told you. In Schuylkill County, our parents raise us to think ahead.

Eddie: Uh... I was there, too?

Sandy Frank: Yeah, but you didn't embrace the Skook. My parents and I, we understand how really great it is.

Job: But why do you buy bread and milk every time it snows? Is it Pavlovian or something?

Sandy Frank: Did you ever think that you might get snowed in?

Eddie: This is ridiculous.

Sandy Frank: Go ahead and laugh, because if we get stuck here, you can forget about sharing my milk.

6 – Exterior – The West

Stranger sits at a camp looking up at the stars. A man, called Gar Woleridge, wearing a black hat enters.

Stranger: They're dead, then.

Gar nods.

Stranger: Bastards. (He throws a handful of dollar bills and a crumpled wanted poster with the faces crossed out in red onto the ground.) “Wanted alive” … some good.

Gar: (laughing) Not enough money for you, Bill?

Stranger: Dammit!

Gar: Now, now, we know this ain't the first commission you'd ever took, and it won't be your last, right? Now, you go on'n forget about them women an' children just like all them other times, an' you gonna be just fine.

(black)

Stranger (VO): I had to kill that prairie moon.

7 – nowhere

Stranger: but first I had to find it.

8 – Living Room

Eddie: So, Phil Hartman's really dead? You're not pulling one over on me?

Job: Yeah, he's dead. Why do you think The Simpsons dropped their Troy McClure character?

Eddie: Wow … I wonder if God watched The Simpsons?

Job: Again, doubtful.

Eddie: Oh, right … so you really don't think anything happens to us after we die? There's no heaven?

Job: (improvised, honest answers)

Eddie: I think you're wrong. Maybe.

Bathtub Cowboy

I've had a thought that maybe there is a cowboy sitting in a bathtub giving me advice that I already knew. He wears his hat and boots and chaps and holster and slurs his words like a real rugged wrangler. He drinks too much whisky, but never shoots off his revolver unless he really means to. 

He gives me this idea that I want something else - badly, and that makes me restless. Like maybe the world really is made up of cowardly sheriffs, ruthless bandits, and lonely bounty hunters resting above the surface doling out revenge. Someday, maybe, the bounty hunter killed God to see if it made anything better for him. To see if the cycle would stop, or... 

When it didn't, he felt like a murderer, but realized that he didn't need to because it was God who decided murder and that kind of thing. Clean and unclean. But that idea, the guilt, it was still there even without God, so the cowboy had to clean himself up, to purify, to, well, to sit in a bathtub and clear his karma by helping me out every once in a while.

The Condition of Contemporary Man:

So, it's 2009, right?

Throughout the holiday break, my computer has made it entirely too difficult to keep up with blogging (I need a new one. Or a used one. Just one that turns on consistently...)

Anyhow, unless the apocalypse happened everywhere except America, you probably all noticed that it's not 2008 anymore. Let's recap some cool stuff that happened to ME in 2008, shall we?

* 2007 was over! Yay!
*learned a lot of cool video stuff
*met my super-cool boyfriend extraordinaire
*lived with the Giuliano's for a while
*went to Mongolia for a month
*signed the lease on my own house
*started a pseurority
*saw The Dark Knight (on Imax)
*ate a lot of food
*acquired some new friends and fiends
*started working with my mentor and learning coolstuff while playing with plastic and making art
*worked through a really tough semester and came out (sort of) unscathed
*spent some quality time with the family
*learned a little more about how important the above is

So, what's cool about 2009 already?
* 2008 is over, Yay!
*Dad and Jan are officially engaged
*I get another crack at painting (this time, I'M going to win.)
*I have some time to sleep and gather my wits before the semester starts again
*I'm working on a really interesting project with the 3D juniors and the Wilma Theatre (details later)

Gladys Yurchak's Famous Philly Barn Dance

As part of a new way to waste time, I've decided to produce a YouTube video series. In this series, I will casually explore characters as a way to prepare for more formal videos and performances. These characters primarily derive from art world figures and are mixed through the filters of my ... one could say... twisted imagination.

The series is called Gladys Yurchak's Famous Philly Barn Dance and features such characters as Bartlett Pearson (host of "Contemporary Notions of Glory, Passion & Meaning: Inside the Artist's Studio with Bartlett Pearson"), Gloria Perez (well-known curator for the prestigious Galleries at Tawaskawigwam County Community College) and various other made-up artists, collectors and critics. In a sketch-style format, these characters will interact in various situations including interviews, foibles and misadventures, all hosted by Gladys Yurchak (me.)

You see, I got this new camera -- a tiny digital camcorder that allows me to cheaply (and quickly) produce decent video for the web. Since I want to make videos all the time (and not just when one of the HDV cameras is available from the cage at Moore) but I don't have $5,000 laying around for a decent camera, I thought this cheapie deal would be perfect. This way, I can make video whenever, wherever, and use almost any computer (even the Toxic Avenger, my tempermental HP monster) to edit and upload. Plus, it runs on regular AA batteries and fits in my pocket like a cell phone. Sure, it's not a SteadyCam, but when you're producing for the web, who needs that insane level of quality?

CRITS!

Life right now: Hectic
Why: Finals

Lately, I've been spending all of my time running around finishing up last minute tasks for final exams and crits. Last week, I finished up three of my crits/finals, and after today, I'll be done my last two exams, which leaves my departmental crit on Thursday. I'm panicking, frankly, but I'm assured that it's all going to be ok like it always is. We'll see.

Last First Friday of Aught-Eight

After a long afternoon of gallery-hopping and right before a long evening of the same, sometimes it's nice just to sit in Sarah Mooney's apartment and talk to her cat, Simone, while she's in the shower. Or, at least, it is this time.

First Friday, so far, for me has been some very quiet visits to the Bridgette Meyer and Locks Galleries, then a pretty hysterical pop-in to the Society Hill Synogogue for the opening of "Cypher," an exhibition of drawings by the Moore Fine Art Seniors. Angel and I got a good laugh and ate a few too many blackberries, then I headed out to Vox, but I guess they weren't ready yet. Being in the neighborhood, I hopped in to see Sarah, and now we're waiting to go to Olde City.

Later tonight, I'll be off to Drexel for the Drexel Football Team's Bathtub Party Day Comedy Improv Show. It's the last one of the term, so it should be a good time. And, it's free, so ... yeah.

Simone was just washing herself.