I was poking around on NPR’s web site just now, and found a list of all the usual suspects that you hear regularly, along with their bios and pictures. It’s really interesting. In fact, it’s interesting enough to share.
Click on the logo and it’ll take you to the list.
[Scene 1: TODD, walking home from the store, with a bag of groceries, containing a chicken Caesar salad, chips, and a small tub of salsa. TODD passes VERY STONED YOUNG HOMELESS GUY and his equally stoned-looking GIRLFRIEND.]
VSYHG:Â Can you spare some change?
Todd:Â Sorry, man, I can’t this time.
VSYHG:Â Can I have a cigarette?
Todd: I don’t smoke. [walks on] Good luck to you, man.
VSYHG: [follows Todd] Oh, dude, I’m soooo hungry. Can you just, like, break me off a piece of that chicken?
Todd:Â That’s dinner.
VSYHG:Â Oh, man, what about just a little piece of that chicken?
Todd: [exasperated, but still friendly] I’m unemployed too, dude. Good luck to you.
VSYHG:Â Â Can I have a cigarette?
Todd: I still don’t smoke. [turns and walks away] Good luck, man.
VSYHG:Â [turns and says to Girlfriend]Â Let’s go to Safeway.
I had a dream last night in which someone told me, “If you loved your body, you wouldn’t poison it.”
Interesting.
“Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years, and you’ll never ever trace it to its source, and you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce.
“And they say there is no fate, but there is; it’s what you create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone (or something) to make it all right, and it never comes. Or it seems to, but doesn’t, really.
“And so you spend your time in vague regret, or vaguer hope, for something good to come along. Something to make you feel connected; to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved. And the truth is, I’m so angry. And the truth is, I’m so fucking sad. And the truth is, I’ve been so fucking hurt for so fucking long, and for just as long have been pretending I’m OK. Just to get along; just for – I don’t know why – maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own, and their own is too overwhelming to allow them to listen to, or care about, mine.
“Well, fuck everybody. Amen.”
Here’s the video of this scene. It’s from the movie Synecdoche, New York.
