The Plays
Bedtime Stories [sample]
by Charles L. Mee
KAREN
You know Kurt?
PETER
No.
KAREN
He's putting the finishing touches on PIK ME UP, a club that's opening
in a few nights, and we talked about a possible collaboration on a
video, and we were sitting right next to David Steinberg who I used to
open for in my first rok n' roll incarnation. And he's eating with
Arlyne Rothenberg, who was his manager at the time, and who eventually
became my manager when I decided to ditch the road and become just a
song writer because it was all too much to handel. This was back in
1976, but at some point Arlyne...
PETER
God.
KAREN
decided I was too much to handle so she turned me over to Irving Azoff
who I lasted with about two months and who became president of MCA
Records, you know, I forget when. Do you know Irving Azoff?
PETER
No.
KAREN
My best Irving Azoff story is that when we decided not to work together
anymore he wouldn't give me my demo tape back. I was completely broke
and it was my only tape. So after a month of calling I dressed up as a
cowgirl and my boy friend went as a gangster and we pelted Irving with
water pistols as he walked into his office with Boz Scaggs, who he had
just signed. So the next day I start writing with Mark Leonard, who
co-wrote "Missing You," the John Waite song. He was in my first demo
band. He was also in the Alan Thicke Sick of the Night show band. Do you
know Jeff Stein?
PETER
No.
KAREN
Men screw you, you know. Women can't screw you. They can seduce
you, but they can't screw you. Physiology is a fact. You have
to have a cock to screw someone. Or, like Reagan, you know, when
he was brought into the emergency room after Hinckley shot him, this
friend of mine who works in the emergency room said, the standard
procedure for a gunshot victim is you strip him down completely so you
can trace where any bullets entered and any bullets exited, and so they
stripped Reagan down, and they couldn't find his dick. I mean, it was so
tiny, they had to call in a specialist to make sure he had one. So you
could say he was compensating by screwing everyone because he didn't
have a dick. But usually, if you don't have a dick you can't screw
anyone. And I've often thought—these politicians, they all go around
screwing people all the time—I'm not thinking politically now, although
that, too, but personally screwing women all the time: the Kennedys,
Gary Hart. I had this friend who worked in the White House who said
Lyndon Johnson used to screw everyone, not just in his office but
anywhere in the White House, in waiting rooms, in corners, standing up
in closets. I don't think women do that. Of course, we haven't had a
woman president. But, for instance, Margaret Thatcher, I don't think
Margaret Thatcher screws people in closets.
You don't know Jeff?
PETER
I don't follow politics, you know.
