Onstage is a rectangular table with a chair and a couple of bells at each end. Music plays from an iPod on the table. A bag is set to one side of the stage. MARCUS and JAMIE enter with chalk in hand and begin to draw on the floor, creating a rectangle that encloses the table and chairs. When the rectangle is finished, JAMIE stops the iPod.
JAMIE
Hi, my name is Jamie and this is Marcus.
MARCUS
That’s right, I am Marcus.
JAMIE
And this is Winners and Losers.
They ring the two bells simultaneously. The two sit. They begin to play an improvised game they call Winners and Losers. One, then the other, names a person, place, or thing, and they improvise a debate about whether it’s a winner or a loser. When one makes a point they think is a win, he rings his bell. They begin by improvising two fairly benign topics, drawn from recent events or inspired by the location where they are performing. Then they move into the following text, as edited from transcripts of previous improvisations.
MARCUS
Microwave ovens.
JAMIE
Microwave ovens.
MARCUS
Disgusting and dangerous. Losers.
JAMIE
Winners. And they are winners because . . . Jamie Oliver, the great British chef, has included microwave cooking in his most recent cookbook.
MARCUS
They’re not dangerous?
JAMIE
They’re not dangerous, they’re safe, and they’re quick ways for unhealthy British people to cook healthy food for themselves –
MARCUS
Do you have one?
JAMIE
I do.
MARCUS
You, the parent of small children, have a little piece of the Fukushima nuclear reactor in your kitchen?
JAMIE
Of course I do.
MARCUS
What do you use it for?
JAMIE
I heat my coffee –
MARCUS
That’s why it’s a loser, because we had one and the only thing we ever used it for was heating coffee.
JAMIE
What a useful tool for heating coffee. How would you heat your coffee otherwise?
MARCUS
Well, we have this little metal pot that has a handle off the side, and you pour your coffee into –
JAMIE
On your electric stove?
MARCUS
No, our gas stove. You turn it on, and two seconds later, it’s hot.
JAMIE
See, this is your elitist perspective on heating coffee. Where I come from we’re still working with the electric stove, and when I put it on my electric stove, it takes fifteen minutes. I put it in a microwave for one minute, it makes me warm coffee. Winner. Winner. Winner. Winner.
JAMIE rings his bell.
MARCUS
Whatever.
Beat.
JAMIE
Mexico.
MARCUS
Mmm. On food, winner.
JAMIE
And women?
MARCUS
Women too, probably.
JAMIE
Salma Hayek.
MARCUS
I love Salma Hayek. Jamie told me not too long ago, she’s actually half-Lebanese, which ups it quite a bit for me.
JAMIE
But regardless of Salma Hayek’s lineage, Mexico is a troubled place.
MARCUS
Well I know, yeah.
JAMIE
If you think of NAFTA, are they the big winner?
MARCUS
Oh, loser.
JAMIE
They have better beaches . . .
MARCUS
Much nicer beaches.
JAMIE
Better food . . . so they win on those two cultural counts.
MARCUS
Lifestyle.
JAMIE
Lifestyle, they don’t have to do anything.
MARCUS
That’s true. As we all know, the Mexicans just lie around on the beach all day. But, if we’re being serious. Like, you said it: if you think about NAFTA, or the Zapatistas. And those horrible Free Trade Zones –
JAMIE
Both borders . . .
MARCUS
On those real-life criteria, Mexico is clearly a loser.
MARCUS rings his bell.
Which makes me want to ask. Canada. Is Canada a winner or loser? In relationship to Mexico. Canada.
JAMIE
Canada?
MARCUS
On you know, the same criteria.
JAMIE
Winner.
MARCUS
But we just criticized Mexico for losing in NAFTA, or, or, the Zapatistas.
JAMIE
Who is our Zapatista? The PL– No, I’m sorry, Marcus, not the PLO but the FLQ?
MARCUS
That’s interesting. I think you just suggested that Canada’s equivalent to the Zapatista revolutionaries in Mexico is the Palestine Liberation Organization.
JAMIE
No, I mixed up my acronyms – due to present company.
MARCUS
Right. I keep telling you, Jamie. I’m not a member of the PLO. I am of course a member of ISIS, but that’s a very different organization. And I’m only an associate member. I don’t have to go to the beheadings. The Canada-Zapatista thing, that’s so fascinating. I’m going to make you think about that. I’m not being patronizing but who are the Zapatistas, and what are they fighting for?
JAMIE
I’m assuming some kind of status in southern Mexico.
MARCUS
What are they, in Mexico?
JAMIE
They’re freedom fighters in Mexico.
MARCUS
They’re indigenous people in Mexico.
JAMIE
They’re indigenous.
MARCUS
So it’s the same situation as Canada. So does that not make Canada a loser?
JAMIE
Canada?
MARCUS
Yeah. Like in Canada, who are our Zapatistas? Our First Nations.1 Like, in British Columbia one or two or three treaties in the past two, three hundred years . . . the unspeakable poverty, no drinking water in some places . . .
JAMIE
It’s true.
MARCUS
I’m trying to judge Canada by the same standard against which we just judged Mexico.
JAMIE
But I never judged Mexico as a loser because of the Zapatistas.
MARCUS
First Nations in Canada are our Zapatistas.
JAMIE
So you are comparing a localized uprising in southern Mexico to an entire nation – no sorry, multiple nations – across an entire country. Come on.
MARCUS
I think the basic colonial dynamic is exactly the same.
JAMIE
This is Marcus wrapping his Noam Chomsky (circa 1996) blanket around every indigenous population in the world.
MARCUS
Incarceration rates in Canada, First Nations people versus white people, these are shocking.
JAMIE
What are they in Mexico?
MARCUS
I don’t know. I’m sure they’re terrible.
JAMIE
Exactly. You have no idea. Okay, what are we talking about anyway, the Zapatista? Canada? The First Nations?
MARCUS
Okay fine. Forget the Zapatistas. Let’s do Canada’s First Nations.
JAMIE
Go ahead.
MARCUS
In Canada, First Nations are clearly losers.
MARCUS rings his bell.
JAMIE
Yes, but on the moral high ground: winners.
MARCUS
They win that. They get that one. It’s not the best podium to, ascend . . .
JAMIE
(overtop) There’s no trophy.
MARCUS
(continuing) Maybe they get a medal though. Issued by the Canadian government, to commemorate their suffering. And out of respect for their Aboriginal traditions, I’m pretty sure the government would make that medal out of grass and sticks.
JAMIE
No, it would be an actual dream catcher. They’d have fifty thousand of them made in China and hand them out in Winnipeg on Canada Day.
MARCUS pretends to hand out a medal.
MARCUS
“Well done on your suffering.”
JAMIE
And I hope our fine First Nations friends would nod in sad agreement. I think they would say, “You’re speaking the truth, you rich, entitled, colonizer pricks,” and kick us in the balls.
MARCUS
Because in that context, we’re the real losers.
JAMIE
Damn straight.
JAMIE rings his bell. MARCUS attempts to ring his at the same time. Next comes the first moment of assessment. How JAMIE plays the previous “Damn straight” line and how they both ring their bells changes from show to show, based on their assessment of who is winning and how the audience is responding to the debate. JAMIE might also say “Right” or “Mmm-hmm” instead of “Damn straight.” There are additional moments of variation like this throughout the play.
MARCUS and JAMIE move downstage in front of the table and address the audience.
JAMIE
I’m forty-one years old.
MARCUS
I’m forty-five.
JAMIE
Married.
MARCUS
Common law. Toyota.
JAMIE
Mazda.
MARCUS
Matrix.
JAMIE
Protégé 5. Six feet tall.
MARCUS
I’m five eleven. And a half.
JAMIE
One hundred and eighty-one pounds.
MARCUS
One hundred and eighty. Seven. Plus six.
JAMIE
I lost my virginity the summer I turned thirteen.
MARCUS
I was in my second year of university.
JAMIE
I’ve been told I’m the good-looking brother.
MARCUS
A theatre critic once described me as “verging on handsome.” I have a master’s degree.
JAMIE
Merely a bachelor’s for me. But I snapped my ankle, collarbone, broke my nose, and fractured three fingers by the age of twelve. I worked on a farm breaking horses.
MARCUS
In high school I co-sponsored my friend Kirsten’s Power of the Female Orgasm club. As a kid I also got to live in a lot of amazing places: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, New York, and London, England.
JAMIE
Carlsbad Springs for me.
MARCUS
Which I’ve always thought sounds really nice.
JAMIE
It’s near somewhere that’s near Ottawa.
MARCUS
Right, not so nice. Two kids.
JAMIE
Us too.
MARCUS
Ours are both boys.
JAMIE
I have a girl and a boy. My daughter, Nora, is six and my son, Leo, is two and a half.
MARCUS
We had our kids quite a bit younger. Our boys are fifteen and nineteen.
JAMIE
My family lives on the east side of Vancouver.
MARCUS
We also live on the east side of Vancouver. It’s that neighbourhood, where people like us moved in the 1990s after graduating from art school or whatever. It was really cool and cheap and now it’s really expensive and gentrified.2 Our particular corner of East Vancouver is an intersection called Napier and Templeton.
JAMIE
Now a very tony intersection.
MARCUS
Upper Napier, we like to call it. As a joke.
JAMIE
We’re on Eton Street.
MARCUS
Which is also very nice. These guys are close to the PNE, Vancouver’s fairgrounds.
JAMIE
Actually we’re at the other end. Near the rendering plant. The place where they boil animal fat, body parts, skunks –
MARCUS
It is pretty stinky.
JAMIE
It is stinky. But it’s funny how that stink bypasses our neighbourhood and floats right up the hill towards . . .
MARCUS
Upper Napier.
They return to the table, switching chairs.
JAMIE
Okay, Burt Reynolds.
MARCUS
Burt Reynolds?
JAMIE
Any era Burt Reynolds. Deliverance Burt Reynolds, Boogie Nights Burt Reynolds . . .
MARCUS
Any Arab Burt Reynolds?
JAMIE
No, any era Burt Reynolds.
MARCUS
Oh, I thought you said any “Arab” Burt Reynolds. Which I guess would be Omar Sharif.
JAMIE
Burt Reynolds.
MARCUS
No. Let’s do worldly wise.
JAMIE
Worldy wise? No, let’s do street smarts.
MARCUS
Street smarts?
JAMIE
Street smarts. You go first. Why don’t you tell them how street smart you are?
MARCUS
Okay. I propose that – appearances perhaps to the contrary – I am in fact the, uh, more street-smart person between the two of us here at this table. My, uh, argument rests chiefly on, on what I believe to be a fundamental misinterpretation of the idea of street smarts; i.e., that it is something engaged in, uh, purely by people on rough streets. Street smarts in its purest form reflects an ability to negotiate the widest range possible of social transactions in public and in private, and on that definition I will easily prove that I am more street smart than my worthy opponent, Mr. James Long.
JAMIE
I propose that I am the more street smart because I have a far wider spectrum of legitimate street experience than my worthy opponent, Marcus Youssef. Experience tied to actual survival. Experience that comes as a result of occasionally suffering.
MARCUS
While I appreciate my opponent’s, uh, point of view I think that there’s a, there is a level of – I accept that, I disagree that one’s survival is only tested when you’re out late at night somewhere dangerous or something. I would argue that there can be a sense of threat in any number of situations.
For example, when attending the U.S. consul general’s Fourth of July party as I did two years in a row – upon personal invitation from the consul general himself. It was awesome – all this bunting, and the marching band, and for lunch, both years, they served fried chicken and watermelon. It was like in a movie. A kind of racist movie, but whatever. These high-class events can also be very scary, or threatening. If you do something stupid in that situation, if you blow it, those people, they make you suffer. Believe me, I’ve done it. And then you’re out, and you’re never allowed back, and I would argue that being able to negotiate that kind of high-stakes social setting successfully requires a kind of street smarts.
Or in my political work. For two years I was co-chair of Vancouver’s truly left-wing political party, the Coalition of Progressive Electors.
JAMIE dings his bell.
MARCUS
And yes, Jamie, I know that we lost all but one seat in the last election.3
JAMIE
A school board seat.
MARCUS
Which I would argue is very important.
JAMIE
They are changing the face of Vancouver one pencil at a time.
MARCUS
Yeah. It’s a radical left party so we have more factions than elected members. But it’s also serious. I believe COPE is the only party proposing policies that might really affect the situation on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Anyway, as co-chair of the party I was going to meetings, on one side, with the most radical Marxists in the city who make up the party’s base – quite smelly guys, some of them. And on the other side, meeting and working with the green philanthropist, property-developer millionaires who actually run the City of Vancouver, and I was having open and transparent relationships with all those folks. I think that takes a kind of street smarts.
JAMIE
Yeah, and I am very happy you maintain all those transparent relationships. But street smarts are determined by where you grew up. Where you came from. What you’ve actually dealt with. What you’re talking about right now are cocktail smarts. Marcus, you don’t have any street smarts, because you’ve never needed them. I left home when I was sixteen.
MARCUS
I left home when I was fifteen.
JAMIE
Yes, but you went to boarding school. When I left home at sixteen, I moved into a basement apartment that we had to heat with the top of our electric stove. And I had to sell myself into jobs I was completely unqualified for.
MARCUS
Like what?
JAMIE
Oh God, like Michel’s Baguette. Sacrifice! This terrible resto-café at the bottom of the Rideau Centre in Ottawa. Showing up at 5:00 a.m. to chop zucchini and be yelled at by this twenty-one-year-old who insisted on being called chef du cuisine. Because he’d gone to a community college for a weekend, and came back a chef du cuisine.
MARCUS
What else?
JAMIE
The industrial laundry where it was my job to stand at the conveyer belt and pick out the hard bits – the syringes, gas masks, lots of rosaries – from the blood and the piss- and shit-covered sheets before they went into the machine. Anyway, street smarts are not about the American consulate and cocktail bars. They’re about going to the West Hotel, one of the shitty hotel bars in the Downtown Eastside – it’s at Pender and Carrall – and hanging out with people there and having loose and easy conversations. Being able to work yourself into that crowd. That’s street smarts. Not private-schoolboy street smarts but real street smarts.
MARCUS
I accept that, it’s the bootstraps thing. That’s one I live with. There is no question I grew up with upper-middle-class privilege and I’ve been able to make a lot of choices in my life because I am connected to that world. For example, I don’t think I would be here working right now, as we are, without a pension, if I didn’t think that, down the road, I’m likely to come into some money.
JAMIE
No, you wouldn’t.
MARCUS
Speaking of street smarts. No offence.
JAMIE
I make my contributions. About a hundred dollars a month.
MARCUS
And I know you know that won’t add up to very much when you’re sixty-five.
JAMIE
Actually, it’s not a big concern for me at the moment because I know that within the next five, maybe seven years, I will win the lottery and everything’s going to be fantastic.
(to audience) Let me tell you a story about a time I was sitting in the West Hotel telling Indian jokes with these First Nations guys.
This is many years ago. We were at the West as we were many nights – we lived in the area – and we’re drinking our buck-twenty-five beers, cuz that’s what you do at the West. Drink buck-twenty-five beers and eat pickled eggs, and these two First Nations guys come in and sit down beside us and we start shooting the shit, getting drunk, finding out what’s up – they were cousins and one of the cousins, his name was Sonny, was having a birthday and it’s a really important birthday cuz Sonny has just gotten out of prison. He’d been in there for the past four or five years, he’d done something serious, can’t remember exactly what, but now he’s out and he’s having his birthday at the West . . . and we are chat chat chatting and then they tell us this white guy joke.
And we laugh, cuz it’s a funny joke. Something about John Wayne–brand toilet paper not taking no shit from no . . . It’s funny. So I go, well, do you want to hear a good First Nations joke? And they go sure. So I tell them my First Nations joke and we laugh some more. And they tell another white guy joke and I tell another First Nations joke then we’re trading white guy joke, First Nations joke, back and forth, laughing away, buying each beers, getting pissed and then I go, oh fuck, I got a great fuckin’ Indian joke. And I was saying “Indian” by that point. But we were laughing so I tell them . . .
These two Indian ladies are working out in the garden picking carrots, and the one Indian lady pulls out this great big carrot and she goes (doing First Nations accent) “Ohh, this one” – and I was doing my Indian accent – “Oh, this one. It reminds me of my husband.” And the other Indian woman goes, “Wow! It’s that big?” And she goes, “No, no, it’s that dirty.”
JAMIE waits for audience response. If one or more people make any noise whatsoever, he thanks them personally.
It’s a good joke, structurally. You can put it on anybody, like (inserts name of regional group) people.
MARCUS
Oh yeah, it’s good. (referring to audience) They’re killing themselves out there.
JAMIE
Right. But my point is, Sonny, the guy that just got out of prison, Sonny looks at me, and he goes, “Oh, that’s a funny one. That’s really fuckin’ funny,” he says. “But you wanna know what’s really funny? Watch this, this is funny. And he grabs my glass of beer and goes “Chhc!!” (makes a sound effect) Blood starts pouring out of his mouth. Bits of glass are falling out of his mouth and I’m like . . . he was eating my glass of beer.
MARCUS
He started eating your glass?
JAMIE
He was eating my glass of beer. And I told my mom about this years later and it turns out my dad did the exact same thing at a party one time when he was in his twenties.
MARCUS
Your dad ate a glass?
JAMIE
Yes, Marcus, my dad ate a glass. So his cousin starts going, “Sonny, Sonny, don’t do your shit” –
MARCUS
Did you get the fuck out?
JAMIE
Yes, we got the fuck out. And that’s street smarts. Knowing when you don’t belong. (pounds chest) I’ve got that one built into my soul.
JAMIE rings the bell. He goes to his iPod.
Okay, Marcus, who sings this song?
JAMIE plays a well-known pop song on the iPod. MARCUS tries to guess who the artist is. He’s not good at this game. JAMIE presses him and then invites the answer from the audience.
Next up is an improvised Winners and Losers game. MARCUS starts, usually by asking the audience for a topic suggestion. They improvise a debate about whether it’s a winner or loser. Then they return to the following transcribed text.
JAMIE
Masturbator. Who’s the better masturbator, Marcus? You or me? I’ll go first. I am the better masturbator because . . . because of a decision to masturbate less . . . so when I choose to masturbate I make sure that I have endless amounts of time, I have all the proper tabs set up, I have at least five or six clips available to me so I can move between them seamlessly.
MARCUS
Wow.
JAMIE
And I commit to things of some duration so it’s not just a useless flitting between this image and that because I think that’s dangerous. You want to commit to your coitus. And ultimately I’m a great masturbator because I only masturbate to women who look exactly like my beautiful wife. I’ll leave it at that for now.
MARCUS
Well, I think I speak on behalf of everybody here when I say that there’s a lot to admire there. However, I’m a better masturbator for the following reasons . . . well, sheer frequency. My second point, while I admire the multiple screens, I make a real commitment to not using technology when I masturbate. Which I think is very important in these times, when everything is going through screens. Also, variety. I find myself open to a pretty wide variety of stimuli and situations, which I can enumerate in further detail if you feel that’s necessary.
JAMIE
No, that’s cool. Let’s start with the frequency thing. Why don’t boxers box every week, Marcus? Because it’s not good for you. They box every three, six, nine months in some cases. You do it any more than that and you start to lose your chi.
MARCUS
I agree with you on the frequency thing. I was just trying to make a virtue out of a vice.
JAMIE
Well, I really appreciate the no-tech thing, I’ll give you that one. When I’ve been forced to masturbate without technology, I’m not very good at it. I just lie down on my belly and finish as quickly as possible. And it’s all here. (gestures to his own crotch) There’s nothing here or here (indicates his own face or shoulder) or any pillow talk, soft touches, or kindness. It’s just a frantic attack on my member.
MARCUS
That’s quite an image. What’s wrong with gentleness and taking time?
JAMIE
Doesn’t do anything for me.
MARCUS
Really? Maybe it’s a variety thing. Sometimes even anal stimulation is important to me.
JAMIE
Well, if you’re involving multiple orifices you might as well ring your bell right now.
MARCUS
And dress-up sometimes.
JAMIE
What do you wear? Like a plumber’s outfit?
MARCUS
You mean like Bob the Builder?
JAMIE
Yeah, but a crotchless Bob the Builder.
MARCUS
No.
JAMIE
A nun’s habit. But just the headpiece.
MARCUS
No. You’re the lapsed Catholic.
JAMIE
Oh, I know. The private-school boy. The headmaster’s cloak. “You’ve been naughty, Master Youssef! Naughty! Naughty! Naughty!”
MARCUS
Yeah, that’s closer. Anyway, I’m sure no one here wants to hear the details of my dress-up fantasies.
JAMIE
We promise to forget about this as soon as you say it.
MARCUS
Sometimes I like to dress up in my wife’s clothes. Just the ones that fit.
Even as a teenager I totally remember surreptitiously looking for ways to anally stimulate myself. But – I guess I’ve owned that now.
JAMIE
You’re past shame.
MARCUS
Mmm. I feel a little bit shamed.
Beat.
Stephen Hawking.
JAMIE
Stephen Hawking? Oh man.
MARCUS
What do you say?
JAMIE
That’s difficult.
MARCUS
It’s a big challenge.
JAMIE
I think the only way I would want to do this is to ask Stephen himself. I’d want to bring Stephen in here. It’s not a super accessible space, so we’d have to leave him in the corner.4 I would ask him, “Stephen. Stephen? Which would you prefer? Your legacy? Or your legs?”
MARCUS
It’s a question of “legacy” versus “legs.”
JAMIE
Of being able to go to the bathroom by yourself.
MARCUS
No, absolutely. What makes you a winner? You revolutionize the world’s understanding of the nature of our existence, shall we say –
JAMIE
I’m not sure he’s revolutionized it.
MARCUS
No? Hasn’t he?
JAMIE
I think he’s made it accessible, or popular.
MARCUS
Popular, okay . . . not that I’ve read the book, but –
JAMIE
(overtop) A Brief History of Time.
MARCUS
(continuing) Yeah, write A Brief History of Time. Or, go pee.
JAMIE
Or go pee . . .
MARCUS
When you want. And not have to ask somebody to unzip you.
JAMIE
Make a sandwich.
MARCUS
Go for a walk.
JAMIE
Pet a cat.
MARCUS
Do the dishes.
JAMIE
(overtop) Stephen Hawking is a winner.
MARCUS
He’s absolutely a winner.
JAMIE
A twisted little gnarly winner. But a winner.
Jamie rings his bell.
MARCUS
Goldman Sachs.
JAMIE
Goldman Sachs?
MARCUS
Ten billion dollars in bonuses last year.
JAMIE
Winner. They’ve won.
MARCUS
(overtop) Fuck.
JAMIE
(continuing) That’s a bad winner. It’s a shitty winner.
MARCUS grabs a pair of Ping-Pong paddles from the bag at the side of the stage. He hands one to JAMIE.
JAMIE
I’m no good at Ping-Pong.
MARCUS
I don’t care.
JAMIE
Ping-Pong, like tennis, is only good when you’re playing someone of equal calibre.
MARCUS
I like playing people who aren’t as good.
JAMIE
Because you get to kick the shit out of them.
MARCUS
No, it’s actually hard. It’s challenging to play just well enough so that it feels competitive, and everybody has a good time. That’s hard. I do it with my kids all the time.
JAMIE
So you like to slum it on the Ping-Pong table with us losers?
MARCUS
In this case, I don’t have any choice. I’m a better Ping-Pong player than you.
JAMIE
And what you’re going to do here, you’re just going to keep it remotely competitive so you win by just a little bit.
MARCUS
Unless we don’t play for points. We can play this game where we both just play as well as we can but at the same time we both have a shared goal of keeping the rally going as long as possible.
JAMIE
Fascinating theatre, I’m sure. Let’s play to five points.
MARCUS
Cool. Rally for serve? Ping.
JAMIE
Pong.
MARCUS
Rally.
JAMIE
On.
They play for real. Through the following, whenever JAMIE fucks up, MARCUS is encouraging. Usually MARCUS wins (about 90 percent of the time). The remaining 10 percent is troublesome for him and pleasing for JAMIE.
MARCUS
(to audience) The reason I’m so good at Ping-Pong is, when they made my dad senior vice-president at the Royal Bank of Canada, they transferred us to New York City. We had a house in the ’burbs, and my dad bought us a Ping-Pong table for the basement. He and I played Ping-Pong there every night for three years.
JAMIE
Great. Your daddy.
MARCUS
Huh?
JAMIE
Your father. Winner or loser? Go ahead.
MARCUS
Okay . . . my dad, my dad – well, obviously, a winner. A big winner, very successful guy.
They continue to play Ping-Pong. After a point or two, MARCUS continues.
MARCUS
Although it’s interesting. The mythology in my family is that my dad is a big winner. But it’s in my head too – my dad’s big success. I’m not saying it’s not true, but it’s mythology as well.
They play some more Ping-Pong. When MARCUS starts the next section about his dad, JAMIE grabs two bottles of beer from the bag at the side of the stage, opens them, and hands one to MARCUS. They drink the beer throughout the rest of the show.
MARCUS
The thing that impresses me most about my dad is that, well, imagine moving in 1960, from where you were born and raised – in my dad’s case, Egypt – and climbing on a plane and flying three or five thousand miles to a brand new culture where you speak basically none of the language and then entirely remake your life in that place.
JAMIE
Yes, the successful immigrant story. But your dad happened to speak mathematics very well, and he landed at the University of California, Berkeley, which isn’t too tough a place to land.
MARCUS
And thank God for the Suez War. Which meant the U.S. was buying influence in the Middle East with foreign exchange scholarships for Egyptian Ph.D. students.
JAMIE
Not a very good investment with your dad since he just took the money and stayed here.
MARCUS
He’s sent lots of money. And I’ve been back.
JAMIE
It’s making a big difference.
They play some more Ping-Pong.
MARCUS
To do his Ph.D. in economics in the States, my dad had a choice between two schools. University of California at Berkeley and Harvard. These were his two choices. But the application fee for foreign students was five U.S. dollars at Berkeley and it was ten U.S. dollars at Harvard. So my dad picked Berkeley, because it was five dollars cheaper. And that’s where he met my mom, and that’s where they had me, and yada yada. Because of five U.S. dollars, that’s why I exist.
JAMIE
(to audience) Marcus is worth five U.S. dollars.
MARCUS
Fortunately, it’s compounded a little since then.
JAMIE
Sure has.
The Ping-Pong game ends.
MARCUS
Yeah. So, yes, uh . . . anyway, I could talk about my dad forever, I don’t want to do that.
JAMIE
Sum it up.
MARCUS
My dad. Winner, absolutely. Fast-rising executive at the Royal Bank.
JAMIE
Winner.
MARCUS
Bought into a pension management company in the 1990s right when I bet a lot of people in this room started believing all the propaganda about mutual funds.
JAMIE
Rich winner!
MARCUS
Still if I go, my relationship with my father, winner or loser, I go winner and loser. As honest as I feel I can be. Because there is a degree to which, when you have money, like my dad does, and I’m not complaining, but the money is always going to be the definer of our relationship and there is nothing you can do.
JAMIE
You mean the promise of money?
MARCUS
Yeah, the promise of money or the help with the house or the gift of, you know, a couple of thousand dollars. I get a pretty fat cheque on my birthday.
JAMIE
(to audience) Yes, he just got one!
MARCUS
Yup.
JAMIE
Yaaay!
MARCUS
Forty-five years old and still getting a cheque from Daddy. You don’t have to feel sorry for me though. My therapist and I worked out how it’s okay for me to accept it. But it’s real for my dad. His whole life, his practice was money, he’s an artist with money, very good at making it, but I think it’s also fair to say that money has become the means by which he shows love. Money is also power. My dad is an immigrant. And in this culture, money is power.
JAMIE
(to audience) I’ve met his dad, he’s fantastic. It’s like hanging out with George Hamilton.
MARCUS
That’s actually pretty accurate. Okay, your dad.
JAMIE
No. Not near as interesting as your dad. Let’s do something else.
MARCUS
Isn’t that a rule? One of us does it, then the other?
JAMIE
I thought we were just making this up.
MARCUS
Yeah, we are.
JAMIE
So let’s make it up.
MARCUS has three options here: (1) ask for a new winner-loser topic from the audience; (2) suggest one of his own; or (3) move on to the topic of Stonehenge scripted below. In each case, MARCUS and JAMIE get up and switch chairs again so they’re sitting at different ends of the table.
MARCUS
Okay, uh . . . Stonehenge.
JAMIE
Stonehenge, that’s stupid, whatever. Loser. Because it’s all by itself in a field.
MARCUS
Yeah. But Druids hang out at Stonehenge. Druids are winners.
JAMIE
Okay, what are we on, Druids or Stonehenge?
MARCUS
Let’s do Druids. Come on, Jamie, those are your people – all pink and cloaked. Okay, medieval battle guys. You know the anachronistic society of whatever – they dress up and do fake battles. Super fun. They’re winners.
JAMIE
Show me someone with the time to go down into his basement and make a little knight suit and a sword, and I’ll show you a loser.
MARCUS
Occupy. The Occupy movement.
JAMIE
Great. Loser.
MARCUS
No. Huge winner.
JAMIE
The Occupy movement is a loser because I know you cannot name me five things that are still happening because of the Occupy movement – as a direct result of the Occupy movement.
MARCUS
I love when people criticize radical social movements because they don’t change the entire economic system.
JAMIE
That was their stated goal.
MARCUS
The 99 percent, 1 percent. That language. That way of describing how few people own how much. I think that’s entirely new and a direct result of Occupy.
JAMIE
The 99 percent. Marcus loves the 99 percent because it allows him to lump himself in with the Mexican migrant labourers and that is just not true. In fact, it’s a bit dangerous.
MARCUS
Except I’m pretty aware I’m not a Mexican migrant labourer. I may audition for one in film and TV every once in a while. Isn’t that the point? It creates a sense of solidarity across the 99 percent against the 1 percent that – as you know very well – has amassed more wealth in the past thirty years than at any other time in modern history.
JAMIE
But there is no solidarity. The Thai rice farmer isn’t thinking about you. And that’s why Occupy is a loser.
MARCUS
Worldly wise. Come on. You’ll do fine.
JAMIE
Great. Have at it.
MARCUS
Being worldly wise, for me, means knowledge of the shape and substance of our world. And a sense of history, context, an understanding that events we get all worked up about today have been going on for decades, or centuries. And an understanding that the people we are told are our enemies might have a point of view that’s worth trying to understand. Because I believe that’s what allows us to act, to do things that might have some kind of impact on how our world is unfolding.
So, um, you know, for example, one of the great political conflicts of the twentieth century was the Cold War. But what were the two forces battling for control inside the Russian Revolution? That would strike me as something that is important to know, in terms of having a sense of the arc, and the shape, of the twentieth century. And who won and who didn’t.
JAMIE
Inside the Russian Revolution.
MARCUS
Within the Soviet movement. That’d be one, yeah.
JAMIE
That’s a trivia question, this has turned into a trivia –
MARCUS
I’m just posing questions that I think are useful. Or, for example, the political situation in the Middle East, which I don’t think anyone could argue hasn’t been critically important for the globe, over the past hundred, hundred and fifty years.
JAMIE
Absolutely. But I’m not sure if I should respond with other questions on things that I’ve studied specifically and taken a great interest in and –
MARCUS
Great. That would be good.
JAMIE
No, let’s just do your questions. The Soviet one, like who was fighting against who? I’d say Lenin and Stalin.
MARCUS
Uh, no.
JAMIE
After this.
MARCUS
No, it was before that.
JAMIE
Before that . . . with the Bolsheviks!
MARCUS
Yeah.
JAMIE
So . . . this is pre-1918,5 like before the revolution itself?
MARCUS
After the Czar fell. What was the internal –
JAMIE
Oh, so the vacuum.
MARCUS
Who was fighting?
JAMIE
Like Trotsky and Lenin? And then Trotsky had to run off to Mexico and disappear?
MARCUS
That’s actually pretty impressive that you know about that.
JAMIE
I saw it in Frida.
MARCUS
But this predates that by about three decades.
JAMIE
I’m doing pretty well so far though. I got a half answer and a movie reference. What was your next question?
MARCUS
The Bolsheviks and . . .
MARCUS polls the audience. Someone usually answers (“the Mensheviks”). If not, MARCUS provides the answer.
JAMIE
Ah, the Mensheviks.
MARCUS
The Mensheviks were the liberals, the Bolsheviks were the radical faction. Which I think is relevant because when we think about the Soviet Union we think communism lost, the end of history. But if the Mensheviks win that factional conflict, the entire twentieth century unfolds completely differently. Think about all the things going on in the world right now. Like ISIS. Sure, bad dudes. But we don’t talk much about how ISIS is often supported by our NATO allies, Turkey, because they both hate the Kurds. Or how many members of ISIS are the same Sunnis that we supported when Iraq was fighting a proxy war against Iran6 –
JAMIE dings his bell.
JAMIE
You got it. You’re worldly wise. (to audience) He loves to hang his little fez on his worldly wisdom.
MARCUS
You’re such a bastard.
JAMIE
Well it’s true, you do! Look I am a curious man, I read the Globe and Mail. Granted, I go to the sports section first. I go sports, entertainment, then I float my way through the news. I’m a headlines guy. But when significant things happen, like with the Charlie Hebdo thing in France, I will pay attention. But if no one’s shot in the next week, I’ll lose track.7
Okay, Marcus, what if you’re dropped in the middle of the wilderness, could you find your way out?
MARCUS
That’s not worldly wise.
JAMIE
It’s a kind of worldly wisdom.
MARCUS
I think that’s more like Survivor.
JAMIE
That depends on how you define your world.
MARCUS
Yeah, I guess.
JAMIE
And whether we inhabit the same world.
MARCUS
I think we inhabit the same world.
JAMIE
Yes. This is our world right here. And you know everything. Although I’m very happy with my performance on that quiz. I got a half answer. What was your next question?
MARCUS
It was about the global impact of the post-colonial history of the Middle East.
JAMIE
Yes.
MARCUS
Good answer.
Pause for a second moment of assessment. How each actor deals with the following “check-in” depends on their individual perceptions of the other’s aggression/passive-aggression, as well as who they believe to be winning in the eyes of the audience.
MARCUS
You doing okay?
JAMIE
Sorry?
MARCUS
I’m just wondering. Are we good?
JAMIE
Of course.
MARCUS
Okay. Great.
JAMIE
You feeling anxious?
MARCUS
No.
JAMIE
You want to ask if “I’m okay” five different ways so you can feel better about yourself?
MARCUS
No, I’m good. I just, I thought I sensed a little anger in worldly wise. Fezzes and such. But whatever. So I asked you if you were doing okay. And you said yes, I’m fine. And so that’s great, I’m glad. We’re good.
JAMIE
Okay, that’s four. Do you want get a fifth one in there?
MARCUS
No, Jamie. I’m good.
JAMIE
Good, Marcus. I’m glad you feel okay.
MARCUS
Totally. And whatever, I get it. It’s not totally fair when we do politics, or the world. But I have complete respect for the things you know a lot about. The foodie stuff, music, culture – pop culture. You know tons about pop culture. (to audience) I actually think Jamie is about to get a Ph.D. in Tom Cruise’s wives.
JAMIE
(to audience) I read a Vanity Fair article while on the toilet about three years ago and it had one of those fun charts where they compared his three wives. It was funny and I made the mistake of telling Marcus about it and now he lords it over me like . . . but, more importantly, I really have to go pee. I’m going to take a pee.
JAMIE leaves. MARCUS is alone with the audience and either ad libs or follows the script.
MARCUS
That’s the Pee Move. It’s a good one. The game is a lot less dynamic with me up here by myself.
MARCUS gets up and gets a notebook from the bag at side of the stage; then returns to his seat.
The house next door to our house – on upper Napier Street – it’s that house in the neighbourhood. I think most gentrifying neighbourhoods have a house like this one. It’s the way the area used to be. The house is more or less falling over. “Total eyesore.” That’s what everyone else in the neighbourhood calls it. And it is. It’s got actual holes in the outer walls. At one point, 90 percent of the siding had fallen off, and the guys who lived there came out with giant stacks of tar roofing shingles, and they nailed them up around the entire house. It’s basically a de facto rooming house. I have this reoccurring fantasy about this house. It’ll play out in my head every once in a while, randomly, when I’m doing the dishes or whatever. In the fantasy . . .
(starts to read from the notebook) I imagine that one of the rotating series of rough guys who lives there breaks into our place. He’s fucked-up on something, and desperate, looking for money. In our not-at-all eyesore-ish house, our kids’ bedrooms are on the ground floor, and the kids scream out for me, which causes the guy to panic, and he grabs my eight-year-old son, Oscar. In my fantasy, I rush downstairs, in my T-shirt and boxers, and I see the guy, and he’s wigging out, clutching my kid, and going, “I’m gonna hurt him, I’m gonna hurt him if you don’t back the fuck off!”
At about this point in the monologue, JAMIE re-enters, moves the table out of the rectangle, places a bell at the upstage edge of the playing area, and gets down on his hands and knees. MARCUS takes the cue. It’s time to wrestle. MARCUS assumes his position on top of JAMIE in classic Greco-Roman form. They wrestle. JAMIE wins and dings the bell with his foot as a coup de grâce. MARCUS is out of breath. He recovers his notebook, pulls his chair downstage, and resumes reading his story, recapping as necessary.
MARCUS
So in my fantasy, the guy’s got my kid. But in the fantasy, I take a deep breath. I look this guy right in the eye. I make contact. “Hey,” I tell him. “Don’t be scared. It’s all good.” He’s like, “I’m gonna hurt your kid, I’m gonna hurt your kid.” But I maintain contact. My focus is unshakable. “I’m not going to do anything,” I tell him. “I just want you to let my son go. He’s just a kid. He’s eight years old. And I think he’s feeling really scared.”
And in my fantasy, through the haze of his panic and whatever he’s on, I imagine that this reaches him somehow, this image of a scared child. “I don’t wanna to hurt him,” he says. “Of course you don’t. He’s just a kid. So I think you should just let him go. If you do, you can just take off. It’s all good. I just want my son.” As the man’s hand loosens and my son inches away from him, in my fantasy, I tighten my grip on the full-size wooden baseball bat I’ve been hiding behind my back the entire time, and I aim a powerful swing that catches the fucker in the midriff and doubles him over, leaving him completely vulnerable to the precise blows I deliver to his back, shoulders, and hips, all specifically designed to inflict maximum pain, without causing irreversible injury. “Don’t you move a fucking muscle,” I whisper, standing over him, listening to the sound of multiple police sirens speeding towards us, ready to take him away.
MARCUS stops reading.
But the guys next door aren’t scary at all. They’re super poor, their bodies are bent and haggard. They collect cans and bottles for a living. When I see them outside, on the sidewalk, they immediately look down. They can’t bring themselves to speak to me. One look at somebody like me, and they submit.
JAMIE
Because they’re losers.
MARCUS
Yeah. And I’m the winner. I think it’s important that those of us who are winning take steps to mitigate the effects of that win on the losers, as opposed to indulging in weird fantasies about being the victim.
JAMIE
Mmm-hmm.
MARCUS
The guy at Joe’s Cafe on the Drive who goes there every day by himself.
JAMIE
The crossword guy.
MARCUS
Yeah.
JAMIE
And mumbles to himself.
MARCUS
Mumbles.
JAMIE
But he’s coherent if you ask him a question.
MARCUS
(to audience) A very political fellow. Old left, hard-core communist. Reads the New York Times. But, I’ve been seeing that guy at Joe’s every week for twenty years and I know he is on the edge of no longer being able to take care of himself. Now he underlines every single word in the New York Times. It’s behaviour I’ve seen before, in my mum. Early dementia stuff. I see him, and I think, oh my God. What does it matter how outraged you are about what’s in the New York Times? You have bigger problems than the New York Times. Your clothes are filthy, you’re semi-incoherent, and you’re still reading the New York Times. I see him, I think: loser.
JAMIE
C’mon, Marcus, he’s just a little old man doing the crossword and mumbling to himself. It makes him happy.
MARCUS
Maybe it’s because I know where he’s going. Soon. The nursing home. Like my mum. Twenty-four hours a day in bed, shitting in diapers, staring at a television, unable to move. In this culture, I think any kind of weakness – poverty, disease, even just plain old aging – it’s all treated like losing.
Beat.
JAMIE
Mmm-hmm. Okay, let’s do my dad.
MARCUS
Okay.
JAMIE
My father. My dad had a wife for a little while, his third wife maybe . . . her name was Shithead. It was like whenever we would go over, and it wouldn’t be very often, like a couple of times a year, we’d be sitting around the table playing Trivial Pursuit and eating chips, and it’d be “Hey, Shithead, we need some more beer” or “Shithead, wrong kind of chips?” And sometimes nice things like “Oh hey, you look great in that dress, Shithead” or “Hey, Shithead, I picked up the milk at the store.” It didn’t matter what, it was just Shithead, Shithead, Shithead. I have no idea what that woman’s name was. I remember my brothers and I, we would be driving home and going “I don’t think you can call your wife Shithead, in front of your children . . . in public” –
MARCUS
Well, or in private for that matter.
JAMIE
Right. My dad comes from a line of people who are all absolutely nuts . . . he’s the first in his family line to not have some kind of intense therapy for anxiety or severe depression or anxiety or . . .
His mother, my grandmother, had electric-shock treatment. His brother, my uncle or half-uncle or something, still not sure what he is, had the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ice-bath thing.
My dad skipped all of that, so definitely a winner there.
Good athlete, good cop. RCMP. Only high school but smart, well read. Though I remember Mein Kampf being on his bookshelf, which was a little unsettling.
MARCUS
Anything else?
JAMIE
Uh, other things too. There was a real fascist spin to his reading habits. Fascism and Michener. I learned all of my Indian jokes from my father. I could tell you another one?
Beat.
You want to hear a story of a winner?
My dad played football with a bunch of friends on Saturday mornings. Bunch of lawyers, doctors, big government guys.
So one day he catches a pass – he was a great receiver – and he stops, he’s like, “Oh Jesus Christ, something is up” and he takes a knee, he’s like “Fellas, fellas . . . boys, there’s something up,” and he’s pounding his heart. Pounding, pounding, pounding. And the boys go, “Frankie, Frankie, you gotta walk that shit off.”
So Frankie walks around the track a few times and he’s pounding his heart cuz his legs are giving out on him, because his heart is failing or fibrillating or . . .
MARCUS
Palpitating.
JAMIE
Palpitating. So he takes another knee. (still pounding heart) Slams his heart a couple more times. “No, boys, boys! Something’s up.” He gets himself back to his car and sits in there for a while. Drives himself to the pub. Orders his “glass of milk,” which is actually a pint of beer, still pounding away at his chest.
Finally he drives himself to the hospital. I see him three days later and he’s got tubes coming out of every orifice in his body because he has had a massive heart attack. Or a series of heart attacks according to the doctor. But he never fell down. Never fell down. Sure, he took a couple of knees but he never fell down. So in terms of that, he’s a total winner.
Because he survived. Somehow he survived. Total survivor. And now he’s dead. He died about a year ago. Right when we were going back out on tour with this thing. Which has made doing this really interesting to say the least.
And . . . it’s not . . . it’s out of respect to another human being that it’s my mourning process . . . to a human being I knew a bit better than other human beings but still just another guy.
And I tried at the funeral. Man, I stared at the picture on the plinth or whatever and tried to generate some kind of emotion for myself. My younger brother did a eulogy and he started to weep, which was beautiful. But there was nothing there for me.
I actually tried to employ acting technique to get some tears going.
Okay. (to MARCUS) You talk about your father giving you money or not giving you money as an indicator of his love. Well, my dad never gave me any money. He never gave me anything. And I never gave him anything back. There was no exchange and it was fine that way. That’s how our family worked.
He spent the last five months of his life in hospital because he had throat cancer for a second time. They took a chunk out and it got infected and then there were painkillers and more infections and hallucinations and more drugs and more infections until death. But five months being taken care of by doctors and nurses. Of being spoon-fed. Sponge-bathed. Asked questions. It would have been a nightmare for him.
So ultimately though . . . I’m totally off-track here . . . I apologize. (searches for his lines) Okay. Some people in the world are not meant to be parents. They can make a baby but they’re not supposed to raise the baby.
And if you take some of the traits I have in me that he had in him. Like how I like to be alone. A mild agoraphobia – self-diagnosed, so I don’t know if it’s real or not. (to audience) And you guys are the perfect distance away.
Or even competition. Competition, one on one, I love it. In a sports environment, I love it. But when it’s a social thing or a party like who is the funniest, or who can talk the loudest, it’s just, like, get me the fuck out of here.
All of these things in my father almost drove him nuts. Almost became a madness. They didn’t, but they made him into a mean, mean man and he should have never been a father.
Not that we started wetting the bed when he left. My mom had a lot to deal with.
Three boys, eight, ten, and twelve. Three jobs. She did data entry for someone, some other thing, and then she did Weekender Wear parties, which are like Tupperware parties but with really shitty polyester clothes. The business model is pretty straightforward. You phone your friends and tell them to invite all their friends over because you have two bags of shit to sell them. Nobody buys anything so you bring the bags of shit home again.
We had so much seafoam- and puce-coloured polyester in our closets that if there had been a spark . . . Carlsbad Springs wouldn’t exist anymore.
But she turned that nightmare situation into something where she is as happy as she can be right now. Total winner. My mother is a winner. My dad though – was a loser. And in the end he totally lost. And now I get to try to negotiate this personality with my own kids. Which should be interesting. See what I learned from ol’ Papa.
MARCUS
That’s a helluva story. It’s interesting too . . . (to audience) As Jamie said, we’ve been doing this for a long time. (to JAMIE) But from the very beginning, even when your dad was still alive, the heart of that story, I say it hasn’t changed a bit.
JAMIE
It’s called acting, Marcus. Craft.
MARCUS
Yeah.
Beat.
JAMIE
Pamela Anderson.
MARCUS
Uh, okay, sure . . . uh . . . loser.
JAMIE
No, winner.
MARCUS
Why?
JAMIE
Oh, cuz she’s just such a skank. And she knows exactly what she’s doing with the skank thing. Plus she’s got PETA, which gives her all the street cred in the world.
MARCUS
The ethical-animals thing ups it a bit for me but still, loser.
JAMIE
Marilyn Monroe.
MARCUS
Loser.
JAMIE
No, winner. Because she breaks my heart . . . because she was such a Hollywood error. They really fucked her up down there. But what is the image we have of Marilyn? It’s like this one. (does the Seven Year Itch poster skirt shot) Or the one in the towel.
MARCUS
I don’t see how they’re winners. But it totally makes sense to me that you would. Pamela Anderson and Marilyn, those were both bootstraps gals. Women who pulled themselves up, made the best out of tough circumstances. Which is almost exactly what you describe about your mom.
Beat. MARCUS makes a crass boob gesture.
MARCUS
Pamela Anderson is definitely a bootstraps gal.
JAMIE
Boobstraps.
MARCUS
Boobstraps. That’s what I meant.
JAMIE
Sylvia Plath.
MARCUS
Sylvia Plath is a winner.
JAMIE
No, no. Sylvia Plath is a big loser.
MARCUS
What?
JAMIE
All the suffering.
MARCUS
Hang on.
JAMIE
Rather than finding some way to dig herself out of that terrible pit of depression, she had to kill herself.
MARCUS
What about The Bell Jar?
JAMIE
The Bell Jar is a beautiful, beautiful book.
MARCUS
An extraordinary book. That she was able to write because of her great suffering.
JAMIE
Okay. If we’re talking The Bell Jar, I would say it’s a winning piece of work.
MARCUS
Yes.
JAMIE
But if I were to ask Sylvia Plath, “Hey, Sylvia. What’s up?” She would say, “I feel like a loser.” She felt like so much of a loser, she killed herself.
(to audience) Marcus gets off on other people’s suffering. A little bit.
MARCUS
Be that as it may, the logic that says – Pam Anderson a winner and Sylvia Plath a loser – I find that a little elusive.
JAMIE
Let me lay it out for you again. The big difference is that Pam Anderson is currently living in a beach house in Malibu and Sylvia Plath stuck her head in an oven.
MARCUS
I get that she killed herself.
JAMIE
That’s the spectrum I’m working with.
They improvise the following list to varying degrees depending on the time and place.
JAMIE
Stephen Harper.
MARCUS
Loser. The European Union.
JAMIE
Winner. Mick Jagger.
MARCUS
Winner. Iceland.
JAMIE
Iceland’s a winner. Barack Obama.
MARCUS
Loser. Tar sands.
JAMIE
Winner. Lululemon.
MARCUS
Loser. Pine beetle.
JAMIE
Winner. Liquid Paper.
MARCUS
Loser.
JAMIE
Björk.
MARCUS
Uh . . .
JAMIE
Winner.
MARCUS
Charlie Sheen.
JAMIE
Winner. Mother Teresa.
MARCUS
Loser. Twinkies.
JAMIE
Losers. Lindsay Lohan.
MARCUS
Winner. New Jersey.
JAMIE
Loser. Bruce Springsteen.
MARCUS
Winner. Outhouses.
JAMIE
Losers. Africa.
MARCUS
Loser. Um . . .
JAMIE
Me. Me.
MARCUS
I heard you. All right.
Beat.
A third moment of assessment. The following two Why You Are a Loser monologues are comprised of a comparatively larger amount of material. The general shape and duration of the scripted monologues remains the same from performance to performance as JAMIE and MARCUS repeat much of the material that is captured here. However, they also improvise new material or draw on the larger body of text they have created over the course of doing the show more than a hundred times.
MARCUS
Well. You’re a winner in many ways, Jamie Long. No doubt. We’ve seen it all night. Smart, funny. A great storyteller. But this is . . .
So, your whole bootstraps thing. School of hard knocks, living on the edge, self-made man. There’s a bit of mythologizing in that. As far as I can tell, the joe-est job you ever had was at Lucille’s Baguette8 in Ottawa. Not exactly the salt mines. Where were you living when you hung out with Indian guys eating beer glasses? The Downtown Eastside, for sure, but that’s because you and Jay were starting a theatre company. You’d just gotten your bachelor’s degrees in theatre, and started a theatre company, and the Downtown Eastside was where you could find cheap studio space. Cool, yes. But also harbingers of gentrification. Me, on the other hand. Privileged, yes, for sure, no doubt. But how much do those jeans you’re wearing cost, again?
JAMIE
These jeans cost two hundred dollars.
MARCUS
I have never spent two hundred dollars on a pair of jeans in my life.
JAMIE
Well you should.
MARCUS
Probably true. But every piece of clothing I own was bought at Value Village or at a Boxing Day sale, when I’ve downloaded the coupon that gets me another 50 percent off the 70 percent off. And that’s . . . whatever. But I think it says something. I recognize I come from privilege and I actually try to take steps to mitigate the effects of that, as best I can.
Like COPE. Who’s the guy spending his free time going to meetings and fighting for social housing on the Downtown Eastside? Me, not you. Not because I have to, but because I think it’s right. It’s just. Because when it comes right down to it, it’s a lot simpler to go off and have opinions than it is to actually try to do things. Doing things is hard and frustrating. You lose elections sometimes. And you have to talk to people, messed-up people. Get close to them. Because that’s a way that – honestly – I feel you don’t recognize the effects of where you came from. And the way I feel right now, actually, even thinking about saying this, that’s connected to it.
You have an anger thing. You’re angry. And mean sometimes. What really makes you mad? When other people express vulnerability. Especially when it’s other guys. Grr!
It’s true. In the mornings, if I happen to say, “Oh, I’m having a lousy day” or “I’m feeling a little down,” I see it. You’re very good, you bury it – like you bury a lot of things – but I see it in your eyes. You want to punch me.
Which makes sense, based on the stuff you talk about, what you went through as a kid. But would you ever admit that? Holy fuck, no. Or at least not unless it was here, for work. I think that’s because it’s vulnerable and human, and it’s a lot easier just to get pissed off at other people and pretend that you never get hurt than admit that where you came from maybe even fucked you up a little. In my fancy therapy talk that you like so much it’s called transference. Jamie Long, hurt? Never! Sad? Pah! “Self-indulgent!” “I hate when people complain! Big fucking wimps!”
So I guess what I’m saying is . . . your Achilles heel, your tragic flaw, what ultimately makes you a loser compared to me . . . is that you always have to win. You have to win because to lose might make you feel human. Might make you feel something, anything. And as far as I can tell that’s not really your thing. Human feeling.
As it were.
I guess it’s your turn.
JAMIE
You’re done?
MARCUS
Yup.
JAMIE
Good. Okay. My turn. Wow. Very nice. You’ve really worked on it since last night. So much to consider. Let’s start with the anger.
It’s true, anger is my default. It embarrasses me when it comes out. Or when it’s called out publicly. So I thank you for this opportunity to work it out here with everyone in the audience. But it’s not altogether true. It’s like me just calling you sad. It’s true, many mornings, most mornings, actually, the first thing I hear out of Marcus is something about how “his pillow was too flat” or “there was a draft” or “a siren woke him up at 3:00 a.m.” or . . . It’s amazing. See, the great thing about anger is that it lasts fifteen minutes and it’s gone. (to audience) Marcus can stay sad about shit for fifteen years.
(back to MARCUS) And I don’t want to punch you, Marcus. What you see on my face is not anger. It’s utter dismissal. Complete apathy. I don’t give a shit. Because neither should you. It doesn’t matter.
You are such a good victim. The victim of social injustice, political injustice . . . meteorological injustice. But it’s such a bad act because, in my humble estimation, you’ve never actually been the victim of anything – real. Except of your own entitlement. Of having convinced yourself that you can make a judgment about a situation like mine, that you have absolutely no understanding of and thinking that’s cool? It’s not.
You know so little about my history. About three stories. And I don’t tell you about it because you won’t have any access to it and I do not want to watch you pretend that you do. You’ve already placed yourself above it and that is frustrating for people who have experienced poverty and its many, many by-products. People who have actually lost things. It’s true, I don’t like to lose. Because when I lose, Marcus, something goes away. When you lose, nothing changes. You just go to another meeting.
Marcus, you’re an imposter. (to audience) And maybe this is what makes him so sad, that he can’t share a huge part of his own reality.
It’s why hardly anyone in any room we are ever in together knows exactly how much money he’s going to get when his dad dies or that his father is even wealthy to begin with. Unless of course they’ve applied for money from his private foundation or know about the place in the Cayman Islands where he’s probably hiding most of it.
(to MARCUS) Man, you are the 1 percent. But do you tell anyone? No way. It wouldn’t match your costume.
If you had stuck with your private-school network or attended more Fourth of July parties, you could talk about your money all you want. But no, you’ve decided to wander down into the dirt to fight the good fight with the little guys.
But imagine all that good work, all the work you put into COPE or your arts and culture policy thing actually affected your life. Maybe you wouldn’t have fucked it up.
But you did. Because you’ve already won and you will always win and win and win.
And this is what makes you such a loser. Because whenever your dad dies – whether you guys are best friends or not when he does – and I hope you are because it’s no fun not being friends with your dad – you get to do whatever, whenever you want. And that has made you a perpetual loser from your Ping-Pong days onwards. Shitty for you maybe, but not that shitty.
But when I turn sixty-five –
(to audience) When many of us turn sixty-five, and we’re exhausted from working too much, we get to keep on working. We don’t ever get to stop.
And even if I do find a way to slow down, chances are I’m going to be living in the same shitty little apartment worrying about how I’m going to survive the next year.
MARCUS
Except you live in a very nice apartment.
JAMIE
But it’s nothing compared to your house. This thing of suffering at sixty-five or becoming irrelevant or unemployable is an actual reality for me, it’s a reality for most people, and it is one of the only things in the world that truly scares me. And maybe that fear makes me angry on occasion and I’m sorry that I scared you. So yes, I’m going to declare that my victories in life are bigger and bolder and braver than yours because I’m fucked for going after them and that is just not fair.
MARCUS
Mmm – I think a couple of people we know might take exception to the idea that you are fucked economically but whatever. As far as I can tell, you are dealt a set of circumstances as a human being and it’s not, you have very little control over what those circumstances are. What you can control is your – how you play the hand you are dealt.
JAMIE
Yes, but your hand comes with a million-dollar house.
MARCUS
It was worth a lot less when we bought it.
JAMIE
(to audience) Yes, the market is doing him very well. It’s not his fault.
MARCUS
Yes, and you know what? On the house point I concede. I’m not, I’m not going to argue with you about the house. My dad helping us buy a house was the most extraordinary act of privilege any person could receive.
JAMIE
And a twenty-thousand dollar car.
MARCUS
Just hang on a second – just hang on a second.
JAMIE
If you wanna go at this for real, let’s go at this for real – divulge.
MARCUS
I do want to go at it for real, but I’d also like a chance to make my points.
JAMIE
Then make a point.
MARCUS
I’m thinking.
JAMIE
No, you’re spinning.
MARCUS
No, I’m trying to put a little thought into it. Because I’m your friend. And I care about this. The debate is not whether I have more privilege than you. That’s a given. But that does not negate the existence of actual events and relationships and people in the world and how we treat people. Car, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely.
(to audience) I mentioned my mom earlier. She had undiagnosed early-onset Alzheimer’s disease – the doctors missed it. She spent seven or eight years living in a motel in California, when my kids were little (to JAMIE) like yours are now. You’re right, after eight years of looking after her all by myself, when I finally got her back to Vancouver, my dad bought us a car.
JAMIE
And we should all be rewarded for such hard work with our families.
MARCUS
That’s correct, I agree. But you can’t tell me that receiving that gift negates what I did, you just can’t fucking tell me that. Because it doesn’t negate the fact that I went and did all that work. Was willing –
JAMIE
To help your mother?
MARCUS
Yes. To help my parent.
JAMIE
The woman who raised you. It’s good.
MARCUS
I think we’ve gotta get real precise about this.
JAMIE
Please.
MARCUS
I accept your anger and your resentment for the hand I was dealt. I accept that. I accept it.
JAMIE
Agh. The accepting thing. It drives me fucking nuts. It shapes the whole conversation. You accept, you’ve done all the work, and you’re done.
I’m not resentful, Marcus. Somebody gets the privilege, occasionally it’s people who’ve earned it, often it’s not, and that’s cool too. But my basic point does not change. And that is, because of this wonderful hand that you’ve accepted, things have been much, much easier for you.
MARCUS
Yes, but I’ve never spent two hundred dollars on a pair of jeans in my life!
JAMIE
And the frugal thing. Jesus. Such a frugal man. You and your family went to Egypt last Christmas. Three weeks in Egypt! A family of four. And so you could do what?
MARCUS
So we could meet my family for the very first time. My uncles and aunts, the aunt who raised my dad because their mom died when he was eight years old. That’s why we went to Egypt.
JAMIE
And then you jumped into their SUV, drove past Tahrir Square once, Mr. Worldly Wise, then headed off to take snapshots of the pyramids. Ride donkeys. The Middle East. The first time in your life. This place you write plays about, that you define yourself by. Trade upon. The first time in your life.
MARCUS
Are you actually questioning the legitimacy of my experience as the child of an immigrant of Egypt, a guy who came here and never went back?
JAMIE
(nodding) No, I wouldn’t dare.
MARCUS
Good, because that would be extremely stupid.
JAMIE
I just want to know why you haven’t gone before.
MARCUS
Because it was really expensive.
JAMIE
But it was Hawaii for you and the fam the Christmas before that.
MARCUS
That’s not –
JAMIE
And family trips to Ontario every summer. Do you buy those tickets at a second-hand store or a Boxing Day sale? No, you wait for them to be given to you and you accept them.
But . . . if my two hundred dollar pants really bug you so much, wait till you get your dad’s money. Then you can go and buy yourself a new suit.
MARCUS
I don’t want a fucking suit. Yes, you are correct. In all likelihood I will inherit money, which I will then attempt to figure out how to deal with ethically, to put to some kind of use.
JAMIE
Can I have some? Gimme some of your money. Redistribute.
MARCUS
Right now I don’t have any money to redistribute.
JAMIE
But when you get that money, I want a little bit of it.
MARCUS
Okay fine, and in exchange for the money I’m supposedly going to give you, what I want from you is help, figuring out how to deal with that money ethically.
JAMIE
I can chair your redistribution committee.
MARCUS
No, I don’t think I want you to chair the committee. But yes, I am asking for your help. Unless you just want the money and no responsibility.
JAMIE
Please! Burden with me the responsibility of handing out your father’s money. I might try to squeeze a few family trips out of it first, maybe a bungalow. But then I also promise to give it away as ethically as possible.
MARCUS
Great. You don’t get a family trip or bungalow out of it though. Because it’s my family’s money. Our dads had somewhat different trajectories, remember? But I hope you’d get a decent honorarium. Do you want it or not?
JAMIE
Please.
MARCUS
Great. And you know what? I appreciate your generosity.
JAMIE
I appreciate the honorarium. But what happens today is you walk away rich, and I walk away poor.
MARCUS
You’re not poor.
JAMIE
Compared to who?
MARCUS
Probably a bunch of people in this room. (to audience) He and his wife make – what? About a hundred thousand dollars a year.
JAMIE
Give or take. Which is about thirty thousand dollars less than you and yours if you include your daddy’s gifts.
MARCUS
Jamie?
JAMIE
Mmm-hmm?
Beat.
MARCUS
Fuck you.
JAMIE
You’re a tourist, Marcus. You’re a tourist.
Beat.
MARCUS
Who do you look after, Jamie? Who do you take care of?
JAMIE
I take care of my children.
MARCUS
Nora and Leo.
JAMIE
Nora and Leo.
MARCUS
Really? Because as far as I can tell, it’s everybody else who takes care of Nora and Leo. If you’re going to hammer me on the money – which is real, and I accept that – then I’m going to challenge you on real things too. You’re always working.
We’ll be away for three weeks touring and then the very next night I will see you at some bad show or some dumb work party that there’s no reason to be at. Your kids are little, Jamie. This is when they need you. But I know why you’re not with them. It’s because spending time with your children, looking after your family – that scares the shit out of you. Of course it does. Because it means you have to be patient, you have to show compassion, you have to just be there, over and over again. It’s called intimacy.
Beat.
As far as I can tell, your father died alone. Why is that? Why weren’t you there?
JAMIE
Once again talking about something that he has absolutely no idea about. It’s amazing.
MARCUS
Okay fine – I’ll stop.
JAMIE
No, please. Keep going.
MARCUS
So what happens in my fancy therapy model is, if you keep ignoring your own kids, they’re likely to return the favour.
JAMIE
Wow.
MARCUS
You want financial security? Go back to school, get a teaching degree, become a teacher, get a fucking real job! Get your summers off and two weeks at Christmas and two weeks at spring break. Stop thinking about your vaunted art career and be kind to your own family. Or are some people not meant to be parents?
JAMIE
Is this the punching round? Are we allowed to punch?
MARCUS
You want to punch me?
JAMIE presses his beer bottle into Marcus’s knee.
MARCUS
It’ll have real consequences . . .
Beat.
JAMIE
No, I’m not going to punch you. Because you don’t punch a tourist. Because tourists talk and talk and talk. They have absolutely no idea what they’re saying, but they keep on talking. You don’t punch them for it. No. You say, “Stay. Spend your money. Buy T-shirts.” And then you wait for them to leave and you forget about them.
MARCUS
Right. Like when people who had unhappy childhoods are abusive, and basically racist, you don’t blame them for it. You cut them some slack. Because you know that, that their behaviour is a consequence of where they came from and how they were treated as children. And it’s not entirely their fault. I’m right here, Jamie. I don’t have a million dollars in my bank account, and yeah, at some point I might. Just like someone in this audience might, or does, but they would never fucking admit it, because people like you would attack them!
JAMIE
Who’s attacking?
MARCUS
What?
JAMIE
Who’s attacking?
Marcus and JAMIE stare at each other. Final moment of assessment. The following lines are interchangeable depending on who says the first “That’s it.” It changes every night, depending on who is feeling like they won or lost and how each actor is feeling about what has taken place between them over the course of the show. When JAMIE says it first, he tends to treat it like a question.
MARCUS or JAMIE
That’s it.
MARCUS or JAMIE
That’s it?
MARCUS or JAMIE
We’re done.
MARCUS or JAMIE
(to audience) We’re done.
They sit quietly for a moment. Then the house lights come on slowly. They stand up and bow.
The End