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| Some call him Genghis Khan, some call him Temujin. Our script called him "Trevor". |
Of course, my writing partner turned that into a 25 page script and we made plans for writing a separate intro. While he worked on the first draft of the introduction, I turned the 25 page version into a 75 page script. Altogether, the script checked in at around 100 pages. It was almost entirely dialogue (with cryptic and obscure references), had more cutaways than an episode of Family Guy (a show that was still cancelled at the time, and I don't think either of us were influenced by it), and would prove to be all kinds of impossible to even plan to film. (To be fair, I did attempt to set up some filming in Colorado – under the guise of a visit to my father – some time later, but what we wrote was far from complete.)
So, instead of burdening any reading audience with the lengthy script (at least not just yet), I thought I would post the oldest surviving edition of the script that I have. The only note I have on the original script (other than mine) is from Debbie Trueblood who termed it as simply not being worth the time. This one was deemed a slight improvement, but it still lacked the introduction of a plot. Actually, the last version was also largely lacking a coherent plot, but if the revision ever gets finished, that may change.
I would say that one could compare the writing style to Without Distinction and see what a difference Steve's influence had. Of course, I could similarly say look at "Night Wolf" vs. "Dreamers" for how I attempt to write. But there are some jokes here and no messy personal baggage.
Enjoy.
“CALL ME TEMUJIN”
Written by
Steve Genge
“CALL ME TEMUJIN”
FADE IN:
INT.
Four people drink and snack around a table. The table has a sign that reads “WELCOME REINCARNATED TYRANTS AND VICTIMS”, sheets of “HELLO” stickers, a marker,snacks, punch, etc. They all wear “HELLO I WAS” NAME stickers. They are: TREVOR with his “TEMUJIN” sticker, EMILY-“ODA”, EDUARDO-“WATANABE” and FRANK-“HASHBAT”.
EMILY
At least people have heard of
Genghis Khan.
TREVOR
Use Temujin. That was my birth
name. Genghis Khan meant
“Universal Monarch” and that
reminds me how much more successful
I was in that life than this
one.
EMILY
Wait, if I use Temujin, I’d ruin my
whole point. Nobody’s heard of Oda,
but nobody’s heard of Temujin
either.
TREVOR
I’ve heard of Oda Nobunaga.
EMILY
From a video game probably.
TREVOR
At first, yeah, but I read about
him. Feudal Japanese warlord who
didn’t get along with Buddhist
monks.
2.
EMILY
Not all of them. I had some as
allies.
EDUARDO
Not me. I died fighting Oda.
EMILY
Small world.
EDUARDO
Not really. There’s a reason we’re
here.
FRANK
What were you fighting over?
EDUARDO
I think he was angry that many of
us were ringers.
TREVOR
What, for the annual Buddhist-Taoist
baseball game? Aw, they didn’t
have to do that. The Taoists
would’ve already been at a big
enough disadvantage since they’re
not supposed to do anything
unnatural and there’s nothing more
unnatural than the motion of
throwing a curveball. The monks
would be sitting dead red the
whole game.
EDUARDO
I meant ringers in that they
recruited a lot of unsavory
fighters. I had about as much
business being a Buddhist monk as
you do.
TREVOR
Hey, why do you assume I’m not
qualified?
3.
EDUARDO
How much do you know about
Buddhism?
TREVOR
Very little.
EDUARDO
There you go. About as much as I
did. But I knew a lot about
dropping people with one punch and
beheading with one slice.
Apparently that knowledge was more
important.
EMILY
I was harder on them about their
depictions of Buddha than I was
about their recruiting. They
weren’t happy when I pointed out
that their statues of him as
Chinese were inaccurate, that he
was really Indian.
TREVOR
That wasn’t in the books I read.
They said you resented their
warrior-monks interfering in
politics.
EMILY
History is written by the victors.
TREVOR
Oda was the victor.
EMILY
Yeah, but I had problems with the
writer I commissioned.
TREVOR
What, did he die in the middle of
writing it or something?
EMILY
No, he finished the book, but he
kept delaying it for years.
4.
TREVOR
Why?
EMILY
He never said. All I know is he
was eventually reincarnated as J.D.
Salinger.
FRANK
What was it to you how they
depicted Buddha?
EMILY
Nothing really, I was being a
trouble maker. Another way to
undermine enemies.
FRANK
Why did they care if he was Indian?
EMILY
I guess Japan wasn’t ready for a
Caucasian Buddha.
EDUARDO
So now he’s white?
EMILY
I didn’t say “white”. I said
“Caucasian”. That’s what East
Indians are. They’re darker than
what most people think of when you
say “Caucasian”, but so was Cary
Grant.
FRANK
It must be confusing when cops are
looking for an Indian suspect and
he’s described as Caucasian.
TREVOR
Yeah, but the worst case would be
when a Chinese suspect is described
as Mongoloid and a SWAT teams ends
up using concussion grenades before
storming a special ed bus.
5.
Frank leafs through sheets of “HELLO” name tags on the table.
FRANK
Where is everyone?
EMILY
They’re probably home watching
“American Idol”.
FRANK
Yeah, can’t miss that.
EMILY
One of the judges was a victim of
Nero for calling his violin playing
the worst he ever, ever, ever, ever
heard.
EDUARDO
Nero didn’t mind him criticizing his
music. He was executed because he
said basically the same thing
every time. He only varied how
many “ever”s he used.
FRANK
That’s still a more dignified death
than mine. I died because of a
cart.
TREVOR
Oh.
EDUARDO
You were run over by the juggernaut?
FRANK
No, when Genghis Khan conquered my
people, he gave an order that
anyone taller than a cart handle
was to be massacred. So I built
this giant cart, and the handle was
twice as tall as me, but they still
didn’t spare me.
6.
EDUARDO
You have to admit, that was against
the spirit of the order.
FRANK
Thanks to the spirit of the order,
I wasted the final days of my life
building that damn thing. The
last memory my son had of me was me
yelling at him for not being good
with a saw.
EMILY
You could have saved yourself some
work by making a the cart the same
size, but with a giant handle.
FRANK
That would have been even more
suspicious.
TREVOR
No, you could have told them the
special design was needed to make
it handi-accessible.
FRANK
Being tall isn’t a handicap.
TREVOR
It can be. You can’t be a fighter
pilot if you’re too tall.
FRANK
I could say short people are
handicapped at dunking a
basketball.
TREVOR
Yeah, but look how pilots talk
about the joy of flight, though.
Some wax poetic about the beauty
and the sense of freedom it gives
them. There’s no poetry in Manute
Bol dunking without jumping.
7.
EMILY
You just wanted to somehow work
Manute Bol into the conversation.
TREVOR
No, actually I was about to set
myself up for a crack about Henry
Rollins’s poetry, but since I don’t
know any of his, I mean, who knows?
FRANK
Just because you can’t fit into an
F-14 doesn’t mean you can’t pilot
any aircraft.
TREVOR
Okay, but how about health. The
tallest man ever, who was like
almost nine feet tall, had trouble
walking and died when he was in his
twenties.
EDUARDO
That is true. Most people like
that have health problems and die
young.
FRANK
Fine. Being gigantically tall is a
handicap, but telling the Mongol
Horde that wouldn’t have saved my
life.
TREVOR
Not necessarily. Just before my
death, I was thinking of adding
a Mongolians With Disabilities Act
to the laws of The Great Yasa. I
even had captured artisans working
on a special stirrup for
paraplegics.
EDUARDO
Wasn’t your son massacred as well?
8.
FRANK
No, he was shorter than a cart
handle. A regular one.
EMILY
You were counting on someone who
was maybe seven or eight year old
for carpentry expertise?
FRANK
He wasn’t a child then. He was a
thirty year old midget. Somehow
that wasn’t against the spirit of
the order. And somehow sawing your
legs off, that also wasn’t against
the spirit of the order. Only what
I did was.
EDUARDO
You said yourself amputation was
an option.
FRANK
How come I’m expected to have my
legs severed with a rusty saw and
no anesthesia by someone who can’t
even cut straight, but people too
big for a cockpit, under conditions
a million times better, aren’t?
EDUARDO
I wouldn’t expect you to do that in
the present time, but people back
then could take more pain. Consider
how much tougher our grandparents
were, and that was only two
generations ago. Extrapolate
eight-hundred years and imagine
what they were like.
FRANK
I was there. I know.
EMILY
Maybe sparing midgets was hypocrisy,
but wasn’t that better than your
son also dying?
9.
FRANK
I know, but it kinda stung that
the guy who ordered my death was
a better son than my own.
TREVOR
Oh.
EMILY
Better at carpentry or massacres?
FRANK
Probably both, but that wasn’t what
I meant. Genghis Khan annihilated
my people out of revenge for them
killing his father, but my son sees
his dad killed, and what happens?
Nothing.
EMILY
And men are still baffled that they
always lose the custody battle.
For mother’s day you’re expected to
take her out to dinner, but
apparently the best father’s day
gift is revenge murder.
FRANK
I’m not saying the killings were
good, but they showed how much his
dad meant to him.
EMILY
Not everybody has that kind of
fiery personality. Everyone
grieves differently.
FRANK
Fine, maybe, but I assume Genghis
wasn’t still living at home when
he was thirty.
TREVOR
Hey, you know, it’s not that
uncommon around the world for
adults to live with their parents.
10.
FRANK
You still live at home, don’t you?
EDUARDO
In the basement, no less.
TREVOR
What’s with people’s obsession
with the basement? The joke is
always the adult who lives in his
parents basement. Does it matter
what floor he’s on? “Oh, he’s on
the second floor. That’s more
independent than if he was in the
basement.”
FRANK
I think it’s expected to be a
crappy place to stay.
TREVOR
How come it’s cool for Hobbits to
live underground, but it’s a joke
when humans do it?
EDUARDO
Most likely because the only people
who are into Hobbits tend to be
subterranean dwellers as well.
TREVOR
You know, I do pay rent.
EDUARDO
Yes, to your parents.
TREVOR
Why is it better to give money to
strangers than someone related to
you? According to the Bible, we’re
all related anyways, so by your
logic everyone is a loser, or every
renter is.
EDUARDO
Doesn’t our belief in reincarnation
preclude us from citing the Bible?
11.
TREVOR
It doesn’t for me, pagan.
EDUARDO
I don’t believe in any gods. That
makes you closer to a pagan than
me.
TREVOR
But there’s no contradiction with
you believing in reincarnation?
EDUARDO
It’s a New Age thing, although I
suppose you’d take offense with
that as well.
TREVOR
Well really, I have a bigger
problem with New Age music, than
New Age spirituality.
EMILY
That’s such a useless term. People
would probably lump both our
beliefs together as New Age, even
though they’re completely opposite.
TREVOR
Why, what are they?
EMILY
I believe we all have the essence
of God in us. Everyone. The
animals too. Even the rocks and
trees.
TREVOR
If that’s the case, I really should
feel bad about living in my parents
basement.
EDUARDO
And you better think twice about
skipping stones.
12.
TREVOR
Yeah, but on the other side of the
ledger, I wouldn’t have to feel bad
any more about those Project-X
monkeys being able to pilot a plane
while I can’t even drive a car.
And whenever I do something that
people can’t understand, they’ll
have to respect it as an essential
part of some grand design.
EMILY
Who’s to say, on balance, which way
you’d be better off?
TREVOR
That’s true.
EMILY
See. You should look before you
mock.
Trevor approaches the punch bowl.
TREVOR
I’ve never really considered that
before.
Trevor refills his cup.
TREVOR
You know maybe it’s better so few
came.
EDUARDO
Why, because you’re more accustomed
to playing video games in the
basement than dealing with people?
TREVOR
That has nothing to do with it,
although every time I do I’m
reminded why I don’t like to. I’m
just thinking of safety.
EDUARDO
What’s the danger here?
13.
TREVOR
Tyrants aren’t very endearing.
That’s why Mussolini was dragged
through the street.
FRANK
You don’t have to worry about me.
TREVOR
I’m talking in general. I’d
expect someone to take revenge.
EMILY
Why? They have reunions of World
War Two soldiers from opposing
sides and they don’t end in
fisticuffs. And that’s much more
recent. That’s from this lifetime.
EDUARDO
Proving my previous point about the
toughness of our grandparents.
They can get shot, step on a
landmine, lose a friend who was
shot before being killed by a
landmine, and still act peacefully
around their former enemies. But
if a batter today has the ball
graze his uniform, he charges the
mound.
FRANK
They wouldn’t be charging the mound
if it was sure to end in a broken
hip.
TREVOR
Bo Jackson might.
EMILY
The closest we had to trouble was
when, remember that southerner who
came?
FRANK
The guy who was the reincarnation
of Lincoln?
14.
EMILY
Yeah, he insisted that he was a
tyrant, but we disagreed. He
got pissed and swore up a storm.
FRANK
Every other word was either a curse
word or “Yankee”.
EDUARDO
I think for him, they were the same.
EMILY
It has to be weird when southerners
travel overseas. They’d probably
go berserk if someone in England
called them “Yanks”.
TREVOR
I think it would be the opposite.
If they saw some protesters with
“Yankee Go Home” signs, I think
they’d go “Oh, they don’t like
northerners either. Can’t say I
blame em’. They killed my
great-great-grandfather.”
EMILY
But that was the worst we had. He
seemed angrier at himself than us.
TREVOR
I’m surprised.
EMILY
People who don’t believe us aren’t
a threat. People who do must
believe in karma.
TREVOR
I’d sooner trust my life to the
security guard protection of Bruce
Campbell than karma.
EMILY
That’s no knock on karma. Campbell
has quite a following.
15.
TREVOR
Now bad stuff happens all the time.
If I get beat up, yeah, I guess it
could be divine retribution. But
maybe it only reflects the fact
that I learned self-defense from
those kung-fu manuals you could
order from comic book ads.
EMILY
My gripe is that we’re supposed to
learn different lessons from our
different lives, but most aren’t
useful for modern times.
FRANK
Yeah, I know.
EMILY
When I was a young Oda, I didn’t
have much ambition to rule. So one
of my soldiers wanted to startle
me into action in order to make me
take my responsibilities seriously.
And he felt the best way to
accomplish this wake up call was by
committing suicide.
TREVOR
Why can’t Tony Robbins use that in
his motivational seminars?
EMILY
But it worked. I changed and I
became this really good ruler. Not
necessarily the nicest person who
ever walked the earth, but…
TREVOR
You had to break some eggs to make
your omelet.
16.
EMILY
Yeah, so in a later life I was the
mother of a couple shiftless young
men, and I figure, hey, that was
what I was like when I was young.
It worked for me so it should work
for them.
TREVOR
Were you still Japanese in that
life?
EMILY
No.
TREVOR
The broken eggs didn’t make the
omelet, did it?
EMILY
They just became really sad and
drank themselves to death.
EDUARDO
That was an omelet for the Soviet
Union.
TREVOR
Only the Japanese have a healthy
attitude about suicide.
EMILY
Because they have such an unhealthy
one about shame and dishonor.
FRANK
My midget son had a similar kind of
thing happen. He came back as Brad
Sellers, but the lesson from his
Mongol life taught him to play
small and he failed as a pro.
TREVOR
For me, it’s the opposite. I wish
I could’ve kept some of Temujin’s
mindset.
(MORE)
17.
TREVOR (CONT’D)
Back then, I was one of the greatest
military geniuses of all time, but
now I have trouble with “Command
and Conquer 2”.
EDUARDO
Just keep building tanks.
TREVOR
Well yeah, I read that on the
internet, but I didn’t need help
with tactics when I was Temujin.
EDUARDO
That would actually be more of a
problem of strategy.
EMILY
You’re still playing C and C two?
TREVOR
I can hardly afford my stupid
basement. I don’t have the money
for up-to-date computers.
EMILY
Okay.
TREVOR
No , but karma’s supposed to be
this cosmic justice, but it seems
perverse how I was far more gifted
and talented as Temujin. The only
thing I have over him is my moral
superiority and the fact that I’m
not afraid of dogs. Now I get the
credit for the morals, so really
the only bonus was bravery over a
dumber and weaker form of life,
ignoring whatever divine essence
they might have.
EMILY
You’re taking for granted
everything you have.
18.
TREVOR
No I’m not. He even had a better
beard. I don’t want to sound
racist, but I don’t like being
out-bearded by an Asian.
How would they feel if they were
out-mathed by Americans?
EDUARDO
Next time you want make sure you
don’t come off as racist, don’t
start your sentence with “I don’t
want to sound racist.” Oh, and
then don’t follow it with a racist
statement, either.
TREVOR
Don’t I get a little bit of a
break? It’s acceptable to make
jokes at the expense of your own
ethnic group, right, so doesn’t an
ethnicity from a past life excuse
me at least partly?
EDUARDO
You spent whatever Asian-joke
capital you had in the Mongoloid
comment.
EMILY
Genghis Khan was more gifted in his
person, but you were more blessed
in the world you have.
TREVOR
Yeah, but Temujin owned more of it,
so it’s debatable which is the
greater total value.
EMILY
There were no video games back then.
TREVOR
That’s true.
19.
EMILY
It was not too long ago that
entertaining meant having people
over and talking to them.
TREVOR
Dark times those were.
EMILY
You have comforts Genghis Khan
never dreamed of.
FRANK
And you live in a world where you
aren’t expected to have torturous
surgery.
EDUARDO
If our generation wasn’t so soft,
you’d appreciate everything you
have.
TREVOR
Ah, but that’s the reason you can’t
trust karma for protection. No
matter how bad you are, you’re
still guaranteed progressively
better standards of living in later
lives. Then what incentive is there
to be good?
TREVOR takes a drink.
TREVOR
Maybe when I get home I’ll E-mail
Bruce Campbell.
FADE OUT.
The Mysterious Writer Without a Face C.S.SCRIBLERIUS
ReplyDeleteAmong an I number every time larger of authors that walk in the shadows detached the mysterious C.S. Scriblerius, believed is a pseudonym as of Twelve Hawks. The mysterious man without face announces his production as a writer that nobody saw and whose identity is the subject starting from their writings pages. Everything that it is known about those authors the book MAGICAL MYSTERY TRAVEL and their works as ””Percyfaw Code””,de Scriblerius, made available by limited time as e-book in an apparent strategy of marketing of enormous success in the web and ””The Traveler””, Twelve Hawks published amid the style of Hollywood hype where disembarked in the list bestseller of the newspaper The New Times.The mysterious to Thomas Pynchon’s same style, Philip Roth, JD Salinger,B.Traven, Cormac McCarthy, authors C.S. Scriblerius and Twelve Hawks “live out of the grating”, meaning that you chose roads no so conventional in the market editorial, using like this other means for popularization of their works,and, hindering of they be tracked.