Who’s the Scriptwriter

Your life can’t be Ghostwritten

Everybody knows about William Shakespeare, western civilization’s premier playwright. Although there are many historians who question whether he was a living person or just a pen name for some British nobleman or noblewoman.

It’s easy to understand why some historians doubt the veracity of Will’s prodigious production. Take his name, for instance, Willie Shakespeare. Now, if you ask me, it sounds like a moniker a guy would invent for himself if he was trying to make the most out of a small situation…or worked nights as a part-time male stripper. 

“Ladies, get your dollar bills out for Willie Shakespeare!” 

Regardless of whether he was a real person or a pen name, he or she created some brilliant lines. The first thing that comes to mind is, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances. And one man in his time plays many parts,”

Willie also wrote about some grave characters in his plays; There was King Lear and his dysfunctional daughters; Hamlet where everybody is killing everybody except for “poor Yorkic” who was grateful that he was already dead. 

And he wrote, “Titus Andronicus” which is best described as Willie’s culinary masterpiece of how to prepare a meat pie. 

Willie wrote some great scripts, but let me ask, “How’s your script coming along?” And I don’t mean the script you are working on for your musical version of the children’s book “Everyone Poops.”

I mean the script you compose every day, the script of your life.  

“How’s that going, bucko?” 

Has your script veered off course? If it’s anything like mine, then it is going to require a Greek god dropping out of the sky to save it.  

I mean, I keep looking for my red corvette, but I can never get my key to open any of the red corvettes I come across. 

And where is my palatial countryside estate?

Why am I not sitting astride a mighty steed, sharing my Grey Poupon with my snooty neighbors? 

I could blame the actor, but I’d still be blaming myself.

OK, this is where I confess that I’m a shitty script writer. 

I wrote the script for my life to be one of those “Happily Ever After” stories.

I look around and ask, “What the hell happened?” 

That’s when I discovered that the “director” keeps making revisions to my script.

Yes, making wholesale changes to my life’s script, my precious script, what nerve!

So nooww I gotta hunt down the director and convince her to keep her hands off my script.

Try as I might, all I could get a hold of was the director’s assistant. 

The assistant blew me off, saying, “The director is busy! She’s always busy.”

I got down on my hands and knees to plead, “I just need a minute of her time so that we could rewrite my script.”  

The assistant slides her glasses down to the tip of her nose and, looking down at me, says, “Don’t get testy with me, young man! The director is very busy with many more important things than your little script.”  

A devilish grin possesses her face as she flamboyantly flips some pages on her clipboard. Looking down at me, she dryly states, “I think I can fit you in about… three lifetimes, as long as that doesn’t land on a Sunday. She rests on Sunday. But you sure as Hell aint’ gotta talk to her today.”  

Now I can accept that there are “creative differences” between my script and the director’s dramatic vision, but it still pissed me off.  

If I didn’t get to the director soon, who knows where my life would end up? The script of my perfect life was becoming an over-budget bloated mess with more plot twists than a soap opera and more backstories than a J.R.R.Tolkin trilogy.

Where does one look to find the director? I had to be smart; I had to be very clever.

So, I put myself in her shoes. 

“As painful as her shoes are on my feet, they did make my legs look simply marvelous!”

Where would she go, say, for lunch? It had to be a place with a peaceful garden setting. I had heard that she likes apples, so maybe a place with an apple tree or something similar. I searched until I found this quaint place just off Hollywood Boulevard called the “Garden.” 

This place is a hidden gem. From the street, it is just a flowery hedge. No sign, no lights, just a serpentine wooden stairway that leads down to a secret garden. There you’ll discover a manicured meadow spotted with tables scattered amongst fruit trees and kissed by the filtered sunlight. Patrons are free to pick all the forbidden fruit they want.

The angelic waiter/starving actor sat me down. My table was a wrought iron masterpiece that mimics the branches and leaves of a mighty tree. After perusing the menu, I ordered an appetizer. 

Then I waited. 

Would the director show up? How would I broach her with my problematic script? I became lost in my internal machinations of how to convince the director to stop changing my script. The more I thought about what I would say, the lower my head sank in the impossibility of my pitiful plight.

When I looked up, there she was. Sitting across from me, at my table for two. In her hands was my script. 

“Gotta hand it to you. You are resourceful.” She then motioned to my appetizer plate. “May I?”

“Please do.” I shuddered.     

 “Not a bad little script.” She muttered as she flipped through the pages. “But something is missing.  Can you guess what that is?”

Beads of sweat dotted my forehead. I believed my script was perfect. It was the culmination of all the expectations of my parents, family, and friends. My mind raced. What could be missing?

Then it struck me like a bolt from the blue. I blurted out, “It’s not me. My script is not the real me!” 

The director probed, “Would you elaborate?”

“My script is written from the expectations, or should I say, from the script that my parents wrote for me.” I stammered out, “Now my parents only wanted the best for me, but it has always been their script that I have been attempting to fulfill. It was never me. That is why it never completely worked out because I was merely an actor attempting to read someone else’s lines.” 

This brought a smile to the director’s face as she said, “So, what are you going to do now?” 

I felt the weight of those expectations fall like broken chains. A lightness filled my entire being. I looked her right in the eyes and said, “I’ve got some rewriting to do.” 

She put down my script and ate another appetizer, smiled, and continued, “Sounds like you are on your way to a personal masterpiece. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.”

I sighed with the twin emotions of relief and excitement. “Thanks for taking the time.”

She beamed at me with a smile as she rose from her chair. “You’ll do great.”

As she walked away, she turned back and said, “Try their fruit salad. It’s simply wicked.”

I pulled out my pen and feverously scratched out revision after revision to the script of my life. Before I knew it, the server came by and apologetically said, “Sir, it’s just about closing time. Is there anything I can get you before we close the kitchen?” 

I leaned back in my chair to stretch my back.

“Just the check.” Then I paused. “And I’ll have the fruit salad to go.”

With my to-go bag in hand, I was off to open the curtain on the three-act play of little old me and thought to myself,

“Willie, you got nothing on me!”

---