Saturday, May 24, 2008

I've always thought I could write snappy dialog, but I'm not good at formulating a story. Here's a random chunk of dialog I wrote, for which I have no story. Hope you enjoy it.

Scene: The protagonist is out at the bar, horribly drunk. He walks into the bathroom and saddles up at the only available urinal. The man to his left, the only guy in the bar who may be drunker than him, swaying as he pees, pisses slightly outside the allotted space of his urinal. The two have a conversation while they pee, looking straight ahead at the wall behind their respective urinals

Protagonist: Wow, watch where you're pissing there, Foster Brooks.

Stranger In the Men's Room: Who the fuck are you calling Foster Brooks? And just who in the hell is Foster Brooks?

Protagonist: He's the stereotypically drunk guy from the Dean Martin Show, but I wouldn't expect a popped collar beat-off like yourself to know that.

SMR: The Dean Martin Show? Sorry I didn't pick up on your old-ass, old man reference, old man. Fucking old guy at the bar talking the shit and shit. You got the puniest dick I ever saw too.

Protagonist: (never breaking his stare from the tile wall ahead of him) One, why in the hell are you looking at my penis?

Two, I'm a grower not a shower.*

Three I guess sort of relates to one, but didn't anyone ever tell you that you never look anywhere but straight ahead when you're pissing next to someone in the bathroom, whether that person be your father, uncle, step father, long-lost brother, Michael Landon, or a complete stroke with his collar popped, like yourself?

Four, why in the hell are you looking at my penis?

SMR: (laughing and still swaying) Dude, that didn't make any sense. You're all over the place with those numbers and your old man lecturing.

P: You're all over the place with your piss. That's a rule you should have learned way before the Look Dead Ahead at All Times rule, but since you failed that one so horribly, it shouldn't come as a surprise that you never learned the most simple of all urinal rules: Get all your gosh damn pee into the cotton-pickin', fuckin' urinal!

SMR: (shaking his thing and putting it away) I'll piss wherever I please. You plan on doing something about it, old guy at the bar?

Protagonist: (also finishing up, now turning towards SMR) For starters, me and my little peen can give you the mushroom stamp** of a lifetime on that Cro-Magnon five head*** of yours. Not even one of the skanks in this joint could be wooed back to your apartment when you're wearing that little seal of approval.

SMR: You ain't stampin' nothin'. Now, why don't you get back to your seven and seven, or whatever it is you old guys drink.

(The protagonist laughs to his side, and then tries to get in a sucker punch. He misses, but SMR does not, since although piss drunk, he's bigger, stronger, younger, and been in more fights. He hits Protagonist dead in the face, knocking him back into the stall door, and his ass falls down to the piss soaked floor.)

SMR: (Primping himself on the way out the door) I'll take a rain check on that stamp.

Protagonist: (Wiping blood off his lip) Hey, consider that an open invitation, Foster Brooks.

_____________________________________________________________

* Here's a link to that definition.

** Here's a link to a definition of the mushroom stamp.

*** Here's yet another link to the definition of five head. Urban Dictionary should be paying me to link all these. I just got those sick fucks 12 more readers!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Foster Brooks:

22 comments:

Ms Smack said...

Hilarious story. I would kill to be the fly upon a wall at a man's urinal sometimes. I'm sure very important conversations have taken place there!

Joe White said...

Shit man, I'm sorry - I didn't realize that was you.

Brunhilda said...

Haha my ex was a grower (not a shower); I love that expression. And this scene would be hilarious in movie-or-tv-show form.

Helen Mansfield said...

Having grown up in bowling alleys, VFW Halls, and watching the Dean Martin Roasts, I truly appreciate this.

Foster Brooks should in no way be confused with Foster Grant, who was also very popular in the 70s.

;o)

M360 said...

lol... this dialog was on point! who needs a story line with this? submit this to SNL as a sketch... it's alot better than the crap they've had over the past couple yrs anyway. good job!

Sabina said...

I always feel like I can come up with a great story, but my dialogue falls flat. Maybe we should join forces. And I, like Sequined, love the expression "grower, not a shower."

Drunken Chud said...

i think i've had that conversation before. though, in many different parts. never all as part of the same conversation with the same person. are you recording me? that'd be a hell of a show if you did.

paperback reader said...

I only go in men's rooms to check out other dudes, as I evolved beyond urinating years ago.

So@24 said...

I did not give you permission to use me in this blog.

You'll be hearing from my lawyer soon.

The Charming Hedonist said...

I'm 24's legal counsel. You're hearing from me now. We're asking that you cease and desist use of his likeness in your blog.


Kidding, kidding! Of course! Nothing but love for you Doc!

But I have to wonder -- do guys really talk in the bathroom while peeing? Um, gross.

Drunken Chud said...

charming... yes. we do. sometimes a lot of shit talk like you see here, and sometimes friendly banter. but i've seen fights break out in pissrooms too. so, it can go any way.

Zen Wizard said...

I was going to relay a great Foster Brooks anecdote that this other old guy who actually knew him told me...

...then I realized it was a Sheb Wooley anecdote...I keep getting them mixed up. I remember they both got drunk and sung songs; and I remember that this occurred in a time period when it was still mildly funny.

It was a simpler time when the line, "I'm not drinking anymore...and I'm not drinking any less" was still funny.

So I am both old enough to get the reference and old enough to start getting senile about the reference and cross-referencing it.

The [Cherry] Ride said...

Very good. Please tell me you are writing a novel of which this will be included. PS - where is casey? I miss casey.

Zen Wizard said...

I seem to recall that George Gobel went to the, "I'm so 'faced I can't make it through the rest of this stupid song"-well, a couple times also.

That was comic gold back in 1962...

Mr. Shife said...

Is this a re-enactment where the names have been changed to protect the innocent? I thought it was ingrained in our DNA about the urinal protocol. You just do your business and get moving. Stare at your dick and that is it. I think you should submit this little script to The Human Giant on MTV.

Jake Titus said...

Foster Brooks is my friggen' hero. No wait,.... or is it Box Car Willy?

Kritkrat said...

And I will now be fitting 'grower not a shower' into conversations at least three times today.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater said...

Smackdown: If you take that out of context and just read, "I'd kill to be the fly upon a wall at a man's urinal," one would think that a little strange and gross.

Knockers: We're fighting again when I'm sober. That was some bullshit. I couldn't get my footing on that slippery floor.

Sequined Cowgirl: Whatever happened to your shower? That is spelled the same way as like taking a shower. Hell, tell me about this morning's shower too.

Helen: That dude cracks me up. "Are you sure you're not an airline pilot?"

360: On point? Thanks, bud.

Sabina the Teenage Witch: Join forces we will. zi think between the two of us we have enough "encounters" to draw from for ages.

Chudzilla: That would be some show. Propane tank shooting and Dirty Dancing catches . . .

Red Dawn: Where does all your pee pee go?

24: That was you? A 5'3" guy beat my ass? Jeez . . .

Charm: Of course we do. At Cubs games, my buddy and I pride ourselves at making an entire men's room full of men laugh with a money comment.

Chud: Shit! I should have had the guy in the story intentionally pee on the other guy's shoe. That would have built more tension and made a fight seem more plausible. Shit!

Zen: Hahahah. Foster Brooks is everything I want to be tonight.

Cherry: I have too much ADHD to write a novel. I need to do a bunch of little projects. Haven't seen Casey in a while . . .

Zen: That's still comic gold. I go with the "look how faced I am" approach many a night, like last night when I threw some patio furniture off my deck for no good reason.

Shife: You ever try to piss in the urinal and hit your penis? Me neither.

Titus: He's EVERYONE'S hero.

Donk: Never heard that one? Hope you MEET three of them.

Ms Smack said...

hahaha, yeah, I hear ya.

Moderator said...

That's why I always get stage fright and use the stalls.

V said...

Foster Brooks -- funny before I started drinkin', even funnier now.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater said...

Smack: Yes, not a usual request.

Grant: As long as you don't pee all over the seat cause you don't want to lift the seat with your hand. Just lift it with your foot!

Ari: Foster kills in this sketch if you ask me.