Documentary Now (2015) s02e03 Episode Script

Good evening.
I'm Helen Mirren, and you're watching "Documentary Now!" season 51.
Acclaimed monologist Parker Gail made memoir into theater for over 30 years.
But when he teamed up with director Harrison Renzi in 1987, memoir, theater, and documentary merged to produce a classic.
We now proudly present Parker Gail's "Location is Everything.
" I learned we were being forced out of our loft on Broome Street when my girlfriend Ramona and I were lying in bed one Sunday morning in January.
It was 10 degrees outside and the radiator pipes were clanging Bing! Bing! Like there were little Dutchmen inside them with hammers, swinging as they pivot left to right like some sort of pre-war SoHo heat pipe cuckoo clock.
And I started to free-associate about the little Dutchmen living in my pipes.
What do they do during the summer when the heat was off? Whether they summered in the kitchen faucet to make it sputter Like the sprinkler we had growing up in Foster-Glocester, Rhode Island, the summer my father left.
And I would sit on the lawn with my brother, Chipper, and we would watch the sprinkler have this kind of schizophrenic argument with itself.
You know, it would spray one way And then its head would shake the other way And meanwhile, my parents were inside figuring out how to tell the kids.
And then I realized I'm not just free-associating.
I'm actually I'm actually talking out loud.
And Ramona says, "Cool it with the sprinkler sounds, Parker! "Look at this! They're building a Stereo City here.
" And I say, "What's so surprising about that? "The neighborhood's turning over.
"The flophouses now sell designer jeans and the discotheques are now selling froyo.
" And Ramona says, "No, Parker, "they're not building a Stereo City in our neighborhood, "they're building one here! 59 Broome Street!" And she shows me the "New York Daily News" and there it is in black and white! Approved plans for our building to be torn down and for a temple of speakers and CD towers and cassette tapes and earphones to be built on the very site where we were just making love.
And I should tell you, i-it had been my loft at first.
Okay? And when I met Ramona, she sort of she sort of colonized the place, you know, like a like a feminine Neil Armstrong.
She came in and said, "I think a flower pot would look nice by the window.
" Thunk! Then suddenly, her blouses and cold cream and Sucret Tins and mohair throws were all over the apartment, until one day she said, "Parker! "If you insist I sleep here every night, "and if I have to keep all my stuff here, "then I should stop paying rent on my apartment and just move in, right?" And that is how I asked Ramona to live with me.
No.
No.
No, no, no.
that is not what happened.
Okay, hi, I'm Ramona, and that is not what happened.
He begged me to move in with him.
He begged me.
For starters, I never liked sleeping there.
It's a seven-story walk-up.
It smelled like yogurt.
He would eat plain yogurt in the bed and then chuck the containers over the dresser and yell, "Bye-bye, yogurt!" So I say, "Parker, I don't think I can sleep here anymore.
" He starts crying.
He says he's terrified to sleep there alone because there are tiny Dutchmen that live in the heat pipes.
And I say, "Okay, Parker, that's very clever.
You're free-associating.
" And then he said, "I'm not free-associating "I truly believe that there are tiny Dutchmen "banging hammers in my heat pipes.
They summer in the kitchen and they're going to kill me.
" I was like I mean, you know, being single in New York, it's like I mean, he was kind of cute, you know, and he liked dancing, so I didn't want to break up.
The next day, we get a letter from our landlord.
"59 Broome Street's being turned into a Stereo City.
Our building is being demolished.
" The plans for the construction are these.
The building next door starts being torn down that day.
And that's when Ramona's environmental illness kicks in.
Ramona has environmental illness, which means she's allergic to the environment, which is all groovy if you live above the ozone layer, but if you're stuck down here, sorry, Sally.
Ramona says her head hurts.
Ramona says her stomach hurts.
Ramona says the room is spinning.
Ramona goes for the door and runs down to the urgent care clinic on Sixth Avenue.
She has that Jewish thing of when in doubt, hospital! I don't have environmental illness, okay? I keep getting food poisoning constantly because Parker refuses to eat at anywhere that doesn't have a $4 entree.
Also, I walked to the hospital because Parker refused to pay for a cab.
Also, not everything that I do is because I'm Jewish, and he may want to watch it with that.
Anyway, I'm being kicked out of my home.
Home.
Home going away.
Father's moving out, and suddenly, I'm back in that summer in Foster-Glocester, Rhode Island, when my father sat us on the wicker furniture on the front porch and told us he was going to live somewhere else with another woman, and that Mother and Father would not be together anymore.
He was 30 when his parents got divorced.
And I want my mother and father to be together, and and my brother, Chipper, he takes me by the hand and and and we leave the house and we head to the the Foster Fair, a big summer fair with a Tilt-A-Whirl and cotton candy and and tears are stinging my cheeks and I hear the hot dog vendor.
The hot dog vendor, he's yelling, "Hot dogs! Hot dogs!" And Chipper's telling me everything's gonna be okay.
"Parker, don't you worry.
" And "Hot dogs! Hot dogs!" "Don't worry," Chipper says.
"It'll be like having two homes.
" "Hot dogs! Hot dogs! Hot dogs!" And even though we were never allowed food between meals, my brother bought me two frankfurters.
With mustard.
And I ate them up.
I ate them up.
I guzzled up a cream soda and, oh, I'm in bliss.
And then I realize that the table is wobbling! The table is wobbling! This is very distracting! This is not part of the monologue.
This is areal problem for me.
Guys? Someone come in here and fix the table or I won't be able to concentrate on my monologue or be able to free-associate or recall the time I made oral love to my Russian roommate.
And the table is fixed, order's restored, and I can now move on with the monologue.
Actually, too much water.
I have to go to the bathroom.
I need to go to the bathroom.
We have to move.
Ramona wanted to move to one of these elevator buildings with the green awnings.
You know, the kind that always have a neo-Greek name like "The Promethean"? But where to move? York Avenue? First Avenue? Second Avenue? Third Avenue? Park? Madison? Fifth Avenue? Avenue of the Americas? Broadway? And I'm overwhelmed by this.
I'm overwhelmed.
I have to I have to I have to get out.
I have to move.
I have to I have to ground myself.
So I go to the park and I begin to practice tai chi.
I'm focusing on my breath.
The fluid movement while I do the water sign.
And a little boy, he comes up to me.
And he says, "What are you doing, mister?" I'm practicing tai chi.
"Is that like fighting, mister?" It's sort of like fighting, but it's fighting yourself; fighting your own inner voice.
"Inner voice? You mean, like like like a Walkman with stereo headphones?" I say, "No, it's a moving meditation.
" "Wow, mister.
T-They don't teach that in the fifth grade.
" They sure don't.
And he walked away, rolling a tire.
Yeah, dude, I'm not in fifth grade.
I'm in high school.
I've had, like, full sex.
And I-I don't call people "mister" 'cause I'm an idiot from some black-and-white movie.
So me, Robbie, and AJ were skateboarding near the public stairs and then there's this old lady-looking dork-ass standing there doing slow karate.
And we're like, "Move.
" And he's like, "This is tai chi.
" And we're like, "No one gives a shit.
" So he he was eating his lunch in this Tupperware.
He said it was his special meal.
And so we took it and just, like, chucked it at this statue.
So So that's how that went down.
So Ramona and I checked the real estate listings and there are five apartments we want to see.
The No.
This is something else.
Five apartments we want to see.
One, two, three, four, five.
Now, I have to meet Ramona, but first, I want to see my analyst.
You know, I d I don't feel centered, you know.
I'm about to face these these new apartments and I I can't make any kind of rational decision with this monkey-mind thinking in my brain, and my analyst, you know, he's one of these great elderly Freudian types, you know.
He has a very authoritative manner and he says "Parker, "moving isn't your problem "because wherever you go, your brain will follow.
" I'm not a psychiatrist.
I work at a walk-in clinic.
Parker came in for a flu shot like nine years ago and now he shows up once a week.
We normally have him lie down and let him use the bathroom.
Now, I have meet Ramona, so I wandered down the subway and I'm descending the stairs like I'm going into a great womb and and I'm back in the womb and I discover I have no tokens.
I have no tokens! Because this is a womb you pay to get into, whereas in birth, you pay when you leave.
No refunds.
I say to the woman in the booth her name's Darlene I I see a kindness in her eyes and I say, "I don't have a token, "but I I need to get on the train.
"I need to I need to escape.
I need to escape my life.
" And she says, "I I can't let you do that or I'll lose my job, "but there's a bodega just up the stairs.
"Get change.
"I'll be here, Parker.
You'll get where you need to go.
" Hold up.
Attention: This old George Washington lookin' ass tried to jump the turnstile.
I had to get out of my booth and put down my puzzle.
I had to grab him and pull him back over the turnstile, and then he starts crying.
I say, "What is wrong with you as a person?" And he says, "I have to move from one loft to another loft.
" Well, I'm like, "God, give me strength to deal with these people, 'cause I cannot.
" I'm gonna just not show up one day to this job.
You think I'm lying, but one day, I'm not gonna be there and everyone can run their own goddamn subway.
Gettin' yelled at all the time.
And then I'm in a monologue? No.
So I rush out of the subway station and I duck into a bodega to get some change.
I need to break a $5 bill, so I buy some of those big orange circus peanuts.
And just as I'm about to free-associate about the circus, I see the bodega has a little cat living there.
And he stares into my eyes.
And I stare into his eyes.
And from his perch on top of a can of Goya beans, telepathically, he says to me, "Why are you here?" I'm here for change.
And the cat says to me, "Change comes from within.
" Finally, I get to the apartment.
Ramona's waiting for me outside.
She's upset because she thinks she's about to have her period and Mercury's in retrograde, or something.
No, I had a cyst burst.
I called Parker, but he was getting beat up by some skater kids.
And it's a large apartment on Allen Street in Chinatown a whole floor of this building, and the super lets us in, and he you know, he's one of these great African characters out of a Kipling story, you know.
And he says, "These apartments going fast.
"Nothing stays open in this city for long.
"But before I show you around, here, smoke this spliff.
" And he hands me one of these big kahuna, blast-you-to-the-Milky Way joints, you know.
And I know I shouldn't do it.
All my mental problems get highly exacerbated by grass, but I figure When in Rome.
Or in this case, when in Chinatown with a Nigerian super, right? So I take a puff and zoom! I am off! I'm at warp speed, baby! Jupiter, Uranus, Pluto see ya, fellas! I'm in the nether regions of space and it's like being back in the womb again.
All my Oedipal things come back to me.
I'm in the mother of space and I see these green dots.
These green dots are coming to me.
But they're not green dots.
They're little aliens.
And they say, "Who are you?" And I say, "I'm Parker Gail.
I do monologues.
" "Oh, like plays?" Not really.
"Oh, so like stand-up comedy?" You know, i it you "Well, that doesn't sound very good.
" And they put me in this giant space cannon, and they shoot me back to Earth and zoom! And voom! I'm back.
Nine hours have passed.
I've been curled up on the floor the entire time.
A whole open house has happened.
Different couples had to step over me on the floor.
And the superintendent, he he looked down at me and he said, "Parker, "this is not your home.
Go.
Find where you belong.
" Hi.
I'm not African.
But it's fine.
I'm happy to be included in your little show.
I did show him the apartment and there was no big kahuna joint.
He went into the bathroom and got high, then lied about it.
And I wandered back to our loft.
The building next to it's already been torn down.
Signs for Stereo City already up.
And I realize I'm not mourning the loss of the loft.
I'm I'm mourning the loss of the first home I ever had on Runyon Road in Foster-Glocester, Rhode Island, the home with the wicker furniture where my parents sat us down and said, "If there's one reason we're splitting up, it's your brother Parker.
" And I enter my apartment and I and I not only find Ramona, but my brother and my sister, and and they're sitting in a circle, and I say I I say, "What is this?" And Ramona said, "Sit down, mate.
What we got here is an intervention.
" Dude, I'm not from the Outback.
What are these accents? Why were you even surprised? I planned an intervention for you, like, once, maybe twice a year.
I should have my own intervention planning business.
So they're all there and they tell me, "Parker, "you need to stop spinning out "into these anxiety attacks.
"We want you to go 60 seconds without free-associating yourself into a panic!" 60 seconds.
Okay.
I can do that.
But I have no concept of 60 seconds, you see, so so I picture an enormous clock.
And I'm And I'm watching the hands of the clock move and the and the hour hand is moving slow and steady like the tortoise, and the minute hand is running and running and running like the hare.
But really, when I think about it, the minute hand isn't running it's winding.
It's winding up like Sandy Koufax at Ebbets Field and shit, I'm definitely free-associating, but I don't care, baby.
There's the roar of the crowd because someone hits a home run! And it's a home run! It's a home run and I'm running home! I'm running home! Down the road to Foster-Glocester, and the headlights are coming towards me.
They're coming toward me.
I can't find home! I can't find home because my home is a Stereo City! Now my former home, it's speakers thumping, and now it's a discotheque, and someone passes me something.
I know I shouldn't smoke it, but what's bad for the brain is good for the hips.
And now I'm dancing, baby! I'm dancing, baby! And I just remembered there's a camera on the ceiling! Hi, buddy boy! How's it going? And I'm movin' and I'm groovin' and I collapse of perspiration because I'm home.
I'm home.
I'm home.
I'm home.
And I come to.
And my brother is laughing.
He's laughing because only 15 seconds have passed and I free-associated so hard that I shit my pants.
And Ramona is crying.
No.
And I look up and I see I see my mother and father are there.
They've come together so long after their divorce to to be with their son.
Not true.
Not true.
We were never divorced, god damn it.
In my life, I never bought wicker furniture.
It creaks and Parker, get it through your head.
We've been married 55 years and this little jerk tells people we divorced so he can have attention.
He's creative.
The man's 45 years old and eats yogurt all day.
And we should get in the car now if we're gonna make it back out of the city at a reasonable hour.
My family, my home is here, I realize.
It's here.
And I hug Ramona, then try to go down on her.
Worst moment of my life.
And the next day, I take Ramona by the hand He had shit in his pants.
And we sign a lease on that apartment in Chinatown, 'cause as they say, location is everything.
And yeah.
So that's all I have to say.
Okay.
Mr.
Gail, it says here you have served seven years of a ten-year sentence for burning down Stereo City.
Parole is not granted at this time.
Though, could you name all the different avenues again, please? - What? - I'm kidding.
Mr.
Gail, you will be remanded until such a time as you are eligible again in 15 months.
Okay.
Can I Can I go to the bathroom again? No.
Okay.