Operagasm: Oklahoma, Act II

Previous installment: Act I

Act II: Ike Skidmore's ranch. We finally get to see the box social that no one was able to shut the fuck up about through all of Act I.

Chorus: WOOO LOOK AT OUR PURTY DANCING

[Carnes enters and starts singing.]

Carnes: IT WOULD BE AWESOME IF FARMERS AND COWBOYS COULD ALL GET ALONG

Chorus: YEAH YOU'RE TOTALLY RIGHT

The Audience: This is great and all, but the show has yet to demonstrate in any way that there's ever been any sort of tension between farmers and cowboys.

Carnes: JUST TAKE MY FUCKING WORD FOR IT

The Audience: Whatever. It'll be okay, as long as that's the only time a plot point is introduced with absolutely no warning.

Hammerstein: HAHAHA OF COURSE NOT BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE BAD STORYTELLING

Rodgers: AND WE'RE TOO AWESOME TO DO THAT

The Audience: We'll believe it when we see it.

Carnes: SO EVEN THOUGH I WAS JUST SAYING THAT EVERYONE SHOULD GET ALONG I AM NOW GOING TO TALK SHIT ABOUT COWBOYS

Cowboys: FUCK YOU

Aunt Eller: COWBOYS ARE AWESOME AND FARMERS CAN EAT A BAG OF DICKS EVEN THOUGH I TOTALLY OWN A FARM TOO

Farmers: FUCK YOU

[And then everyone starts punching each other because that's how everyone solved their problems in the WILD WEST. Aunt Eller breaks up the fight by shooting a gun in the air.]

Aunt Eller: EVERYONE CALM THE FUCK DOWN

A Random Farmer: You know, you can't really pretend to be a peacemaker when you helped start the whole argument.

[Aunt Eller shoots him in the face.]

Aunt Eller: Anyone else feel like sassing me?

Everyone: nnnnnnope

Aunt Eller: That's right, motherfuckers. Respect.

Everyone: ohhhhh the farmer and the cowman should probably not be dicks to each other and please don't shoot us

Curly: AND WE SHOULD ESPECIALLY BE FRIENDS BECAUSE OKLAHOMA IS ABOUT TO BECOME A STATE

The Audience: WHAT DID WE TELL YOU ABOUT PULLING PLOT POINTS OUT OF YOUR ASS

Hammerstein: Sorry. It's the last time, I swear.

[Actually, it's not. And then everyone dances some more!]

Ike: NOW LET'S START THE AUCTION

Cord Elam: "I'm so hungry, I could eat a gatepost!"

Everyone: That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard.

Aunt Eller: Yeah, let's all pretend that never happened. NOW LET'S GO SELL SOME FUCKING LUNCHES

Everyone: WOOOOOOOO

[Everyone exits except for Will, who's carrying his presents for Ado Annie. Ali enters.]

Will: YOU

Ali: Uh-oh.

Will: I KILL YOU

Ali: Hey, man -- I'm reeeeally sorry about accidentally getting engaged to your girlfriend. I wish there was something I could do... you know, without getting my large intestine perforated by buckshot.

Will: Man, if only I had fifty dollars...

Ali: ... then you'd be the one stuck with Ado Annie instead of me!

Will: More or less.

Ali: HEY LET ME BUY SOME OF YOUR PRESENTS

Will: Why would you want to do that?

The Audience: Wow, you're even dumber than you look.

Ali: HERE TAKE THIS WAD OF CASH

Will: [counting the money] Hey, this is almost...

Will's Inner Monologue: Silence, you fool! You've got him right where you want him!

Will: Ahem. Want to buy anything else?

Ali: You bet your tight little ass I do. Hey, what's this?

Will: It's a porn kaleidoscope!

Ali: Ohhhh. The kind with the hidden knife?

Will: Hidden who on the whatnow?

Ali: Never mind.

[Laurey rushes in.]

Laurey: OH GOD JUD'S TRYING TO TALK TO ME

[She hides as Jud enters.]

Jud: But Laaaaureeeeeyyyy, I just want to talk about my feeeeeliiiiings

Ali: Hey, Jud -- you still in the market for murderin' implements?

Jud: ... maaaaaybe.

[Jud buys the porn kaleidoscope and Will starts counting his money.]

Will: WOOO I GOT FIFTY DOLLARS NOW

Ali: You fail math forever. That's forty-nine.

Will: Fuck. Want to buy the rest of my stuff?

Ali: Absolutely. Have a dollar!

Will: WOOO I GOT FIFTY DOLLARS NOW

Ali: oh noooo I guess this means you'll be marrying Annie now instead of meeeee

Will: THAT'S RIGHT MOTHERFUCKER YOUR DUMB ASS JUST GOT OUTSMARTED

Ali: Yeah, you're a genius.

[Aunt Eller enters with the chorus.]

Aunt Eller: Only two baskets left to auction!

Ado Annie: THEY'RE MINE AND LAUREY'S

Aunt Eller: BITCH IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ANONYMOUS

Ado Annie: I DO WHAT I WANT

Aunt Eller: Whatever. Who wants to bid?

Slim: TWO BITS

Cord Elam: FOUR BITS

Slim: You know what, Cord? Fuck you.

The Audience: What the hell is a bit, anyway?

[It's twelve and a half cents. Carnes puts a gun against Ali's back.]

Carnes: BUY MY DAUGHTER'S LUNCH

Ali: SIX BITS

Aunt Eller: Anyone else? How about you, Mike?

Mike: Hell no. Last time I had her cooking, I shat blood for a fucking week.

Carnes: [to Ali] BID MORE

Ali: Fiiiiiine. But I'm not going higher than ninety cents.

Will: I BID FIFTY DOLLARS

Everyone: HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT

Will: [to Carnes] AND NOW THAT I HAVE THESE FIFTY DOLLARS YOU HAVE TO LET ADO ANNIE MARRY ME LIKE YOU PROMISED

Carnes: You just bid your fifty dollars, you moron. So unless some idiot bids even more, you're shit outta luck.

Ali: FIFTY-ONE DOLLARS

Carnes: GODDAMMIT YOU FOREIGN ASSHOLE

Aunt Eller: GOING GOING GONE

[Will and Annie run offstage to have lots of sex. Ali contemplates the fact that he's just lost over a hundred dollars, and all he has to show for it is a lunch that will probably make him shit blood.]

Aunt Eller: Soooo yeah. Who wants to bid on Laurey's hamper?

Slim: TWO BITS

Fred: FOUR BITS

Slim: GODDAMMIT WHY DIDN'T I BRING MORE THAN TWO BITS

Carnes: ONE DOLLAR

[Jud enters.]

Jud: A DOLLAR AND A QUARTER

[The following dialogue formula repeats like twenty times and it gets really fucking obnoxious:]

Random Person: X DOLLARS

Jud: X DOLLARS AND TWO BITS

The Audience: OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE

[Finally, everyone else drops out. Even though Jud has clearly won the bidding, Aunt Eller is doing everything in her power to keep him from actually getting the lunch basket because FUCK that guy.]

Aunt Eller: Going......... to Jud Fry............ for six dollars............. and two bits...........

Jud: BITCH JUST TAKE MY FUCKING MONEY

[And then Curly enters. Remember how he turns everything into a dick-measuring contest? Yeah, nothing's changed.]

Curly: WHO WANTS TO BUY MY SADDLE SO I CAN OUTBID JUD

Some Guy: Me!

Curly: TEN DOLLARS

Jud: AND TWO BITS

Curly: WHO WANTS TO BUY MY HORSE

Some Other Guy: Me!

Curly: THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS

Jud: FUCK YOU CURLY I'M GOING TO BID MY LIFE SAVINGS OF FORTY-TWO DOLLARS AND THIRTY-ONE CENTS

Curly: WHO WANTS TO BUY MY GUN

Some Other Other Guy: Me!

Curly: FIFTY-THREE DOLLARS

Aunt Eller: GOING GOING GONE

Curly: WOOOO I'M AWESOME AND JUD CAN SUCK IT

Everyone Else: Yeah, you gave up everything you own so you could buy a lunch. Congratulations, you fucking moron.

The Audience: So, wait. Why the hell does it matter who wins the bidding? It's just food, for Christ's sake; it's not like Curly and Laurey's happy ending is entirely dependent on a fucking lunchbox.

Hammerstein: Um.......

Rodgers: It represents her virginity or something.

Hammerstein: Yeah. What he said.

The Audience: So we just saw a bunch of guys bidding on Laurey's virginity. Doesn't that kinda make her a prostitute? Along with every other girl who sold a basket?

Rodgers: You guys ask too many questions.

[Ike makes Curly and Jud shake hands, because clearly that will fix everything.]

Jud: Hey, Curly -- want to take a look at this porn kaleidoscope that totally doesn't have a hidden knife in it?

Curly: Don't mind if I do!

[Ali runs and tells Aunt Eller about Curly's impending murder.]

Aunt Eller: JESUS FUCK CURLY GET AWAY FROM THAT MAN AND HIS FILTHY PORNOGRAPHY

Curly: Um... okay?

[Jud puts away the porn kaleidoscope. It is never spoken of again.]

Chekhov: Seriously? After all that build-up? I know it's not actually a gun, but COME ON

Hammerstein: Piss off, you Russian douche.

Aunt Eller: COME DANCE WITH ME

Curly: Sure, whatever.

Aunt Eller: "Pick that banjo to pieces, Sam!"

The Audience: WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN

[Everyone dances offstage. Will and Ado Annie re-enter, still basking in their post-coital glow.]

Will: So now that we're engaged, you're gonna stop fuckin' other dudes, right?

Ado Annie: Maaaaaaybe?

Will: YOUR CHEEEEATIN' HEEEAAAART
WILL MAKE YOU WEEEEEEP

Ado Annie: ALL RIGHT I'LL BE FAITHFUL JUST STOP SINGING THAT GODAWFUL SONG

Will: Done and done.

[They run offstage for more sex. There's a scene change, and then Laurey and Jud dance on.]

Jud: Soooo you don't seem to be enjoying yourself too much tonight. What's wrong?

Laurey: NOTHING AT ALL

Jud: You seem uncomfortable.

Laurey: I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT I DEFINITELY DON'T FIND YOU REPUGNANT IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE

Jud: Welllllll that's good, 'cause I'm pretty much in love with you. Mostly because you brought me soup one time when I was sick, which makes you the only person in this musical who's showed me any shred of sympathy or human kindness.

[Since Laurey doesn't know how to deal with someone who openly expresses longing and affection instead of just being a cocky asshole all the time, she reacts with utter revulsion.]

Laurey: EWW GET AWAY FROM ME

Jud: YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME

Laurey: YUUUUUUP

Jud: FUCK YOU WHORE

Laurey: YOU'RE A WORTHLESS HUMAN BEING AND YOU DESERVE TO DIE

Aunt Eller: [from offstage] I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY THAT YOU DUMB BITCH

Laurey: ALSO YOU'RE FIRED

Jud: something something growled threat

[Jud leaves. Laurey starts crying. Enter Will.]

Will: Hey, have you seen Ado Annie? We're playing Hide and Go Bone, but I can't find her anywhere.

Laurey: GO FIND CURLY

[Curly enters.]

Curly: I'm right here, jackass.

Will: Okay, wellllll you two have fun. My fiancée is somewhere on this ranch with no clothes on, so I should probably find her before someone else does.

[Exit Will.]

Curly: Soooo what's the problem?

Laurey: JUD SAID NICE THINGS ABOUT ME AND IT WAS HORRIBLE AND THEN I FIRED HIM AND SAID HE DESERVED TO DIE

Curly: Sounds about right. Hey, while you're still in a state of severe emotional distress... wanna get married?

Laurey: What? No!

Curly: Pretty please?

Laurey: Okay fine.

[They make out.]

Curly: HEY EVERYONE LAUREY AND I ARE GONNA MAKE BABIES

Jud: [from offstage] ...motherFUCKER.

[Curly and Laurey exit. Enter Ado Annie and Ali Hakim.]

Ali: Soooo I should probably get the hell out of here before I end up married to someone I can't stand. No offense.

Ado Annie: None taken!

Ali: Goodbye makeouts?

Ado Annie: Oh HELL yes.

[Ali gives Annie a "Persian Goodbye," which basically consists of him motorboating her and then giving her big sloppy kisses.]

Ado Annie: woooooow

Ali: More?

Ado Annie: Yuuuuuuuuuup.

[They do it again, just in time for Will to enter.]

Will: We've been engaged for less than a half hour and you're already macking on someone else? What in the actual fuck, Annie.

Ali: It's okay; I'm just saying goodbye.

[He makes out with Ado Annie again.]

Will: GTFO YOU PERSIAN ASSHOLE

[Exit Ali Hakim.]

Will: STOP MAKING OUT WITH OTHER DUDES

Ado Annie: MAYBE I WOULD IF YOU KISSED ME LIKE THAT

Will: Challenge accepted.

[Will gives Annie an "Oklahoma Hello," in which he basically mounts her and shoves his tongue down her throat. Then they run offstage to have sex. Again.]

The Audience: Jesus, they're like rabbits or something.

[Scene change! There's a time-skip here, but it's not really clear whether it's a couple weeks or a couple months.]

Hammerstein: Because fuck you, that's why.

The Audience: We hate you so much.

[It's Laurey and Curly's wedding day! Everyone's drunk except for Old Man Carnes.]

Ike: The fuck is wrong with you?

Carnes: Blah blah Jud's back in town and looking to start some shit blah blah

[Laurey and Curly enter in their wedding attire.]

Everyone: YAAAAAAY

[And then all the main characters take turns making fun of Curly because he can't be a cowboy anymore because he sold all of his shit because he's a fucking moron.]

Curly: OKLAHOMA IS A PRETTY COOL PLACE TO LIVE

Everyone: IT SURE IS

[And then comes the big climactic chorus number which is also the title of the show.]

Most of the Audience: Soooo that's the end, right?

Rodgers: Actually, that was just a cock-tease. There's another fifteen minutes before the show is actually over.

The Audience: WHAT THE FUCK

[Laurey and Curly go inside and all of the men-folk huddle up in a circle and start whispering.]

Ado Annie: Daaaaaaad are you guys gonna embarrass Laurey and Curly with your stupid redneck bullshit?

Carnes: Pretty much.

[The men exit, leaving the women to gossip. Enter Gertie.]

Gertie: HEY GIRLS I GOT MYSELF MARRIED

The Women: OHMIGAAAAWWWWD WHO'D YOU MARRY

[Enter Ali Hakim, looking haggard and on the verge of suicide.]

Ado Annie: HOLY CRAP ALI DID YOU MARRY GERTIE

Ali: It was that or getting shot in the face by her father when he walked in on us.

The Audience: Aaaand that's what you get for not learning from your mistakes.

[Gertie laughs.]

Ali: I WANT TO DIE

[Enter Will.]

Ado Annie: HEY WILL GERTIE AND ALI HAKIM JUST GOT MARRIED

Will: Awesome! I think I'm gonna cuckold him the way he cuckolded me. C'mere, Gertie!

[Will gives her an Oklahoma Hello. Ado Annie gets pissed.]

Ado Annie: BITCH GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY MAN

[She chases Gertie offstage with murder in her eyes. All the women follow.]

Will: Should we stop them or something?

Ali: Nah. I'm kinda hoping Annie'll snap Gertie's neck like a brittle twig and save me the trouble of doing it myself.

Will: Cool!

[They exit. The chorus men re-enter, carrying pots and pans and other noisemaking implements, and start making shitfucktons of noise.]

The Men: AAAHHHHHH LOUD NOISES

The Audience: And what exactly is the point of this?

Hammerstein: SHUT UP IT'S A RESPECTED CULTURAL TRADITION

[And then they throw Laurey and Curly out of a second-story window. The rest of the chorus enters.]

The Men: WOOOOOO

[Jud enters, drunk and angry.]

Jud: Wedding party still goin' on? Glad I ain't too late. I got a present for the bride... but first, I'm gonna kiss the groom.

Curly: Wait, what?

Jud: I mean... the bride. I'm gonna kiss the bride.

Curly: Oh. Right.

[Curly and Jud fight. Jud pulls a knife, Curly throws him down, and Jud falls on said knife like a little bitch.]

Everyone: LOOK AT US PRETEND TO CARE

Curly: Serves the bastard right. I mean... OH NO WHAT A TRAGEDY

[Some people go to turn over the body.]

Random Cowboy: "DON'T YOU TETCH IT"

Cord Elam: Yeah, I think he's dead.

Slim: LET'S GET HIM TO THE DOCTOR

Cord Elam: He just took a knife to the chest and he's not breathing anymore. He's already dead, man.

Slim: FUCK OFF, CORD

[A bunch of men carry Jud's body offstage, followed by Curly and Cord Elam.]

Laurey: Soooo even though I just saw a man get killed, I'm only upset because it's affecting my wedding day!

The Audience: Yeah, you and Curly deserve each other. Have an awesome life.

Aunt Eller: Something something folksy wisdom!

Laurey: Thanks, Aunt Eller! You make everything better!

[The men re-enter.]

Curly: Yeah, Jud's totally dead. Also, even though this has never been brought up before now, Cord Elam is a federal marshal and he thinks I should turn myself in for murder or manslaughter or something.

Everyone: OH NO

Laurey: But we're supposed to catch a train to go on our honeymoon!

Everyone: OH NOOOOOOOO

Aunt Eller: Speaking of stuff that's never been brought up before, now seems like a good time to mention that Old Man Carnes is the local judge! Let's just have the trial right now!

The Audience: GODDAMMIT STOP PULLING STUFF OUT OF YOUR ASS

Hammerstein: MAKE ME

Carnes: Okay, Curly, I'm just going to enter your plea for you and tell you everything to say.

Cord Elam: Um... this is a mockery of the American judicial system. Am I the only one who has a problem with the way this trial is going?

Aunt Eller: SHUT YOUR MOUTH OR I'LL TELL YOUR WIFE YOU MOLEST LITTLE BOYS

Everyone: YEAH CORD STOP BEING A DICK

The Audience: Soooo these people just rigged a trial and blackmailed a federal official. Why exactly are we supposed to be rooting for them?

Carnes: In our defense, no one liked Jud anyway -- so you can't expect us to care that much.

Cord Elam: This is seriously wrong, you guys. A man is dead, and his killer needs to be given a legitimate trial.

Everyone: SHUT THE FUCK UP

Slim: "C'mon, fellers! Let's pull them to the train in Curly's surrey! And we'll be the horses!"

[Everyone cheers.]

Carnes: WAIT JUST A GODDAMN MINUTE THE TRIAL ISN'T OVER YET

Laurey: Just let us go on our honeymoooooooon

Carnes: I HEREBY ACQUIT CURLY MCLAIN OF ANY WRONGDOING IN THE DEATH OF JUD FRY AND I ALSO SENTENCE CORD ELAM TO TEN LASHES IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE FOR BEING AN ASSHOLE

Everyone: YAAAAAAY

[Curly and Laurey get ready to leave, and Will arrives with Ado Annie. Their clothes are messed up and they're covered in straw.]

Ado Annie: I JUST HAD SEEEEEX
AND IT FELT SO GOOD

Will: ADO ANNIE LET ME PUT MY PENIS INSIDE OF HER

The Audience: Yeah, we get it. Thanks.

Everyone: AND NOW WE WILL HAVE A REPRISE OF EVERY SONG IN THE GODDAMN SHOW

Rodgers: ISN'T IT SUCH A BEAUTIFUL LOVE STORY

The Audience: Actually, this really only convinced us that everyone in Oklahoma is a huge asshole and we should never, ever go there. But thanks anyway!

Rodgers: ... goddammit.

[End of the show.]

Operagasm: Oklahoma, Act I

Note: Any full lines in quotation marks are direct quotes from the script.

Act I: The front yard of a farmhouse, which is presumably somewhere in Oklahoma. Aunt Eller, the show's resident sassy old woman, is churning butter in the front yard. Curly McLain, a pompous jerk of a cowboy, is heard singing from offstage.

Curly: WOW IT'S SUCH A NICE DAY AND IT SURE IS GREAT TO LIVE IN SUCH A WHOLESOME RURAL SETTING

[He enters.]

Curly: Howdy, Aunt Eller!

Aunt Eller: JESUS FUCK DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT

Curly: Couldn't you hear me singing? It was pretty loud.

Aunt Eller: Bitch, I'm old and decrepit. I can't hear shit.

The Audience: Hey, she's sassy and awesome!

Curly: Well, since you didn't hear my super awesome song, I'll just have to sing it again!

The Audience: Hey, he's kind of a douche!

Curly: IT'S REALLY REALLY NICE OUTSIDE
By the way, where's your hot niece?

Aunt Eller: Find her yourself, you lazy fuck.

Curly: Why is she always such a bitch to me, though? I'm rugged and handsome and swing a lasso like a fucking boss and also my bowel movements smell like fresh clover honey!

The Audience: Waaaaait a minute. Tall, handsome, narcissistic, and constantly chasing after the hottest piece of ass in town... This seems familiar.

[It's at this point that the audience realizes that Curly is basically Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, and is therefore the villain of the story.]

The Audience: ... holy shit.

Rodgers: You've got it all wrong, guys. This story is about how being a self-absorbed asshole will get you everything you want in life!

Hammerstein: And also about how being an introvert marks you as a dangerous sociopath who should be shunned from society!

Rodgers: But we're getting ahead of ourselves. On with the show!

The Audience: ... why did we come see this, again?

Aunt Eller: Soooooo let me guess -- you're here to ask Laurey to the box social tonight.

Curly: Nuh-uh. She's stupid and has cooties and I don't want anything to do with her. Except she smells real nice, and she's got such amazingly round, perky --

[Laurey enters, singing Curly's song.]

Laurey: WOW IT'S SO NICE OUTSIDE HERP DERP DURRRR
That's what you sound like, you know.

Curly: WELL FINE I GUESS I WON'T ASK YOU THE THE BOX SOCIAL

Laurey: GOOD BECAUSE I WOULDN'T GO WITH YOU ANYWAY

Curly: WELL THEN YOU WON'T GET TO RIDE IN THE AWESOME SURREY I RENTED

Most of the Audience: What the fuck is a surrey?

Curly: AND BY THE WAY IT ALSO HAS A FRINGE ON TOP

Aunt Eller: "Would you say that fringe is made of silk?"

Curly: BITCH DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING ROCKEFELLER OF COURSE IT'S NOT SILK IT'S FUCKING COTTON

Aunt Eller: Oh.

Curly: But seriously, though, it's one pimped-out ride. The other fellers in town, they see me rollin'. They hatin'. Patrollin'! They tryna catch me drivin' a surrey.

Aunt Eller: I have no idea what any of that meant.

Curly: My carriage is baller as fuck.

Aunt Eller: Gotcha.

Laurey: Too bad I'm not going and I also don't care.

Curly: Well... I made the whole thing up, so screw you.

Laurey: WHAT THE HELL WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT

Curly: I thought you didn't care.

Laurey: I DON'T BECAUSE YOU'RE A STUPID ASSBUTT

Aunt Eller: [chanting] Make out! Make out! Make out!

Laurey: Shut up. I'm out, bitches.

[Laurey exits.]

Aunt Eller: Awwww yeah. She want dat.

[Curly and Aunt Eller fist bump. Enter Ike and Slim.]

Ike: Hey, Curly, did you do what we asked you to, or did you just spend the whole time staring at Laurey's tits?

Curly: No comment.

Ike: Yeah, I thought so. Jackass. [to Aunt Eller] Can we borrow your wagon to bring people to the box social tonight?

Aunt Eller: Sure, whatever. Curly, stop being a douche for two minutes and go hitch up the horses.

Curly: YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO

Aunt Eller: BOY YOU BETTER HITCH UP THAT WAGON OR I WILL WHUP YOUR ASS SO HARD YOU'LL PISS BLOOD FOR A WEEK

Curly: ... yes'm.

[Curly exits. Enter Will Parker, an energetic, fun-loving cowboy who happens to be dumber than a bag of retarded hammers. Will is accompanied by a chorus of even more cowboys, who are constantly hooting and hollering like idiots because they're paper-thin stereotypes.]

Will: AUNT ELLER GUESS WHAT I WON THE STEER-ROPING COMPETITION IN KANSAS CITY AND I GOT FIFTY DOLLARS WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEED BEFORE I CAN MARRY MY SLUTTY GIRLFRIEND

Aunt Eller: I swear to god -- if people don't stop showing up here uninvited, I'm gonna surround this whole goddamn place with barbed wire.

Will: AND I ALSO BOUGHT A PORN KALEIDOSCOPE AS A PRESENT FOR HER DAD BECAUSE THAT'S NOT WEIRD AT ALL

The Audience: Yeah, that's what every over-protective father wants from the guy who's trying to bone his daughter.

Aunt Eller: DID SOMEONE SAY PORN I LOVE PORN

Cowboys: Aaaaand it just got awkward.

Will: OH MAN YOU GUYS KANSAS CITY IS PRETTY AWESOME IT'S GOT CARS AND PHONES AND FAT STRIPPERS WHO'LL DO SOME AMAZING THINGS IN THE CHAMPAGNE ROOM IF YOU SLIP THEM AN EXTRA DOLLAR

Cowboys: whooooaaaaaaaaaaa

Will: AND ALSO I LEARNED HOW TO DANCE

[Will starts dancing a two-step, and then starts doing some ragtime.]

Cowboys: Where'd you learn how to do that?

Will: "I seen a couple fellers doin' it in the street!"

Cowboys: ... gross.

["And Will does his stuff, accompanied by four of the dancing boys."]

The Audience: Also gross.

[The dance number finishes just as Curly re-enters.]

Curly: Aww man, I can't believe I missed the big dance party!

Will: Yeeeeah, we thought about waiting until you got back, but then we remembered that we hate you because you're a dick.

The Audience: Fair enough.

[Will and the cowboys exit, leaving Curly and Aunt Eller alone onstage.]

Curly: So tell me, Aunt Eller -- if Laurey doesn't like me, who does she like? Because I'm not above murdering my romantic rivals.

Hammerstein: Foreshadowing!

Aunt Eller: No clue. But our farmhand, Jud, seems to like her a whole lot.

[Enter Jud Fry. He mumbles a greeting and exits.]

Curly: ... motherfucker.

Aunt Eller: He keeps to himself most of the time and is actually the best worker I've ever hired, but I think I'll treat him like shit for the rest of the show!

Curly: Sounds like a plan. I'll make sure everyone else does, too!

[Jud re-enters, accompanied by Laurey.]

Jud: Sooooo I'm actually gonna stop working early today; I have to wash up and look all nice because I'm taking Laurey to the box social tonight!

Curly: ... motherFUCKER.

[Jud exits again.]

Curly: Well, fine. If Laurey wants to go out with that skeevy bastard, I'll ask the least attractive person I know, just to make her jealous!

Aunt Eller: Yeah, that seems like the adult thing to do.

Curly: So, Aunt Eller -- want to go to the box social with me?

Aunt Eller: Fuck yourself.

Curly: Awesome! I'll pick you up at six in my kickass surrey, which I didn't actually make up after all!

Laurey: Goddammit.

[Curly exits.]

Laurey: Don't go to the box social with Curly tonight, Aunt Eller! I don't want to be all alone with Jud!

Aunt Eller: Then why the fuck did you say you'd go with him, you dumb bitch?

Laurey: Because he scares me!

Aunt Eller: So you thought that leading him on instead of being honest was the best course of action.

Laurey: Yeah, pretty much.

Aunt Eller: Christ. It's a good thing you're so purty, 'cause ain't nobody gonna marry you for your brains. So why does he scare you?

Laurey: Have you ever been down to that smokehouse where he lives? He has pictures of naked women on the walls!

Hammerstein: And looking at porn is the first sign that you're a danger to society!

The Audience: Weren't Will and the other cowboys looking at pictures of naked women less than five minutes ago? Are they dangerous anti-social freaks, too?

Rodgers: SHUT UP DO NOT QUESTION OUR MORAL JUDGEMENT

Laurey: Only a sick, twisted pervert would look at pictures like that! And sometimes I hear him walking past my window at night! And he looks at me when we're eating breakfast!

Aunt Eller: Calm your tits. Everything will be fine as long as you don't tell him that he's a worthless human being who deserves to die.

Hammerstein: Also foreshadowing!

The Audience: Yeah, this isn't going to end well.

[Aunt Eller sees Ado Annie and Ali Hakim off in the distance.]

Aunt Eller: Hey, it's that rat bastard of a peddler who sold me a busted egg beater! COME HERE, YOU ASSHOLE

[Ado Annie enters.]

Ado Annie: Hi, Aunt Eller!

Aunt Eller: Fuck off.

[Aunt Eller goes off to bust a cap in Ali Hakim's ass.]

Ado Annie: Hi, Laurey!

Laurey: Hey -- remember Will, your boyfriend? He's back in town, so maybe you should stop shacking up with that sketchy traveling salesman.

Ado Annie: But I don't wannaaaaaaaa

Laurey: You're going to have to choose one of them, you know.

Ado Annie: SHUT UP YOU'RE NOT MY REAL MOM

Laurey: You can't just go around making out with everyone who wants to! A real lady is super passive-aggressive to the man she likes until she undermines his self-esteem enough that she can walk all over him. And then they get married!

The Audience: Whoa. Did it just get crazy in here?

Ado Annie: You're just jealous.

Laurey: Am not!

Ado Annie: Are too. When was the last time someone gave you an orgasm?

Laurey: Gave me a whatnow?

Ado Annie: Yeah, that's what I thought. Let's see, how can I put this delicately...
I'M JUST A GIRL WHO'LL FUCK ANYTHING THAT MOVES

[The remaining verses, bridge, choruses, and encore verse are all variations on this theme.]

Ado Annie: Yeah, that about covers it.

Laurey: Wow.

Ado Annie: And it's okay that Ali Hakim and I are playing Just the Tip, because he wants to marry me!

Laurey: Okay, two questions. First, what the fuck kind of a name is that? Second, has he actually said he wants to get married?

Ado Annie: It's Persian, you racist. And no, he hasn't exactly proposed yet, but he did say that he wanted to [CENSORED] me in the [CENSORED] until I [CENSORED] so loud they could hear me all the way back in Persepolis!

Laurey: [horrified silence]

Ado Annie: So, you know. Tomayto, tomahto.

Laurey: [vomits everywhere]

[Ali Hakim enters, pursued by Aunt Eller.]

Aunt Eller: GET THE FUCK BACK HERE

Ali: OH GOD AUNT ELLER'S GONNA KILL ME

Aunt Eller: I AIN'T YOUR FUCKING AUNT SO YOU CAN'T CALL ME THAT

The Audience: Wait. Does that mean she's actually related to everyone else who calls her that? Which is pretty much everyone else in the show?

[Banjos start playing. The Audience starts to get uncomfortable.]

Ali: Look, if you're unhappy with the product you purchased, I would be happy to exchange it for something else if it means you won't kill me.

Aunt Eller: [growls]

Ali: Sexy lingerie?

Aunt Eller: ... I'm listening.

Ali: How about you, Laurey? Do you want anything?

Laurey: I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO LOVE ME

Ali: Wow. Crazy seems to run in your family. How about some bath salts? They're Egyptian or something.

Laurey: I dunno...

Ali: They'll make you trip balls and see some really weird shit.

Laurey: Sold!

Ali: Wonderful. By the way, Ali Hakim Enterprises is in no way responsible for any face-eating that may or may not occur as a result of using this product.

Laurey: What?

Ali: I didn't say anything.

Aunt Eller: Sooooo about that sexy lingerie you mentioned...

Ali: Let's step inside and I can show you!

[Laurey and Aunt Eller go into the house, but Annie detains Ali before he can follow.]

Ado Annie: Hey, remember the time that you told me you wanted to stuff me like a Thanksgiving turkey?

Ali: You know it, baby.

Ado Annie: That means you want to marry me, right?

Ali's Internal Monologue: oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck

Ali: Wellllllllll you see... what I really meant was, uh...

[Will enters.]

Will: HEY ADO ANNIE I'M BACK

Ado Annie: Shit.

Will: HOW'S ABOUT YOU AND ME GO FUCK IN A HAYLOFT

Ado Annie: Uh... Will, this is Ali Hakim.

Will: WELL HOWDY I'M ANNIE'S FIANCÉ

Ali's Iternal Monologue: Oh, thank Christ.

Ali: Wow it's really nice to meet you and now I have to be somewhere that's not here. Ta!

[Ali gets the hell outta Dodge.]

Will: GUESS WHAT I GOT FIFTY DOLLARS LIKE YOUR DAD SAID I HAD TO SO NOW WE CAN GET MARRIED

Ado Annie: wooooooo I'm super excited and stuff because I was totally faithful while you were gone

Will: AND THEN I SPENT IT ALL ON PRESENTS FOR YOU

Ado Annie: I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but doesn't that mean that you don't actually have the fifty dollars anymore?

Will: STOP TALKING NONSENSE AND GIVE ME A KISS

Ado Annie: Make me.

Will: I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU THE WHOLE TIME I WAS WRESTLING FARM ANIMALS IN KANSAS CITY

Ado Annie: Huh. Is it wrong that I'm kinda turned on right now?

Will: JUST KISS ME ALREADY

Ado Annie: OKAY

[They have big, sloppy makeouts and then exit. Aunt Eller and Laurey come back outside just as Curly and the chorus enter. All the women are carrying lunch baskets which will be auctioned off at the box social -- and before you ask: yes, this is a major plot point, and yes, it's exactly as stupid as it sounds.]

Chorus: WOW IT'S SUCH A NICE DAAAAAY

Curly: STOP STEALING MY SONG YOU FUCKERS

Gertie Cummings: I HAVE AN UNFORTUNATE LAST NAME AND AN EVEN WORSE LAUGH HURR HURR HURR

All the Men Onstage: Oh. Oh god. Can you un-masturbate to something?

[Curly leaves and Gertie follows him because she wants to get herself a piece of that ass. The men leave with the baskets, while the women stay onstage and are super catty.]

Women: HEY LAUREY LOOKS LIKE CURLY'S GONNA FUCK GERTIE

Laurey: Pfft. Like I give a damn who he sleeps with. I am a strong, independent woman who doesn't waste her time whining about men! But also I hope he gets herpes.

Women: I KNOW RIGHT

[They all leave as Ali Hakim enters, followed shortly thereafter by Ado Annie.]

Ado Annie: ALI HAKIM I CAN'T MARRY YOU I'M SO SORRY

Ali: Oh. That's... very sad. My heart is totally broken and stuff.

[Enter Old Man Carnes, the show's resident shotgun-toting crotchety old man. Think Clint Eastwood from Gran Torino, only with fewer racial slurs.]

Carnes: Hey, Annie. I heard that dumb-fuck Will Parker got himself fifty dollars?

Ado Annie: Yuuuup.

Carnes: Goddammit. I was really hoping my grandbabies wouldn't be mentally handicapped nymphomaniacs, but I guess that's off the table now.

Ado Annie: Rude.

Carnes: Soooo you'll probably want to get that money from him before he does something stupid, like spending it all on presents for you.

Ado Annie: Yeah, about that... He kinda already did.

Carnes: Oh, thank god. There's hope for your future yet. Now I just need to find you someone else to marry...

Ali: I THINK SHE SHOULD MARRY WILL BECAUSE THEY'RE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER

Carnes: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU

Ado Annie: Oh, this is the guy I've been fooling around with while Will's been away!

Carnes: Aaaaaand we have a winner! Congratulations, son; you get to marry my daughter!

Ali: What happens if I say no?

Carnes: Then I stick my shotgun up your ass and pull the trigger.

Ali: OH MAN YOUR DAUGHTER AND I ARE GOING TO BE SO HAPPY TOGETHER

[Carnes exits. Ali curls up into a ball and starts weeping softly.]

Ado Annie: I know! I'm so excited I could cry, too!

[Annie exits. Enter the men's chorus.]

Men: What the fuck happened to you?

Ali: WHEN I SAY SHOTGUN YOU SAY WEDDING -- SHOTGUN

Men: WEDDING

Ali: SHOTGUN

Men: WEDDING

Everyone Who Reads My Blog: Panic at the Disco? That was the best you could come up with?

Me: Fuck you guys; this is harder than it looks.

[And then the women come onstage and drag the men away, presumably for torture of some sort. Laurey enters from the house just in time to see Curly and Gertie returning.]

Gertie: Oh hey, Laurey. Have you packed your lunch for the auction tonight?

Laurey: I TOTALLY HAVE AND IT'S GONNA BE BETTER THAN YOURS

Gertie: BITCH DO YOU WANNA FIGHT

Laurey: YUUUP

[Curly is visibly aroused by the prospect of a girl-fight. Aunt Eller enters.]

Aunt Eller: WOULD YOU BITCHES CALM THE FUCK DOWN

Laurey and Gertie: ... yes, ma'am.

[Aunt Eller takes Gertie inside, leaving Laurey and Curly alone.]

Laurey: What a bitch. But I bet she's great in the sack, right?

Curly: Wouldn't know. But you'll have to tell me how Jud is.

Laurey: You're just jealous 'cause everyone knows you want to get a piece of this fine ass.

Curly: Nuh-uh. Everyone knows you're the one who wants to save a horse and ride this cowboy.

The Audience: JUST FUCK ALREADY

Laurey: Nope. We're just gonna sing about how much we don't like each other.

Curly: Sounds like a plan!

Both: YOU'RE STUPID AND GROSS BUT EVERYONE ELSE SEEMS TO THINK WE SHOULD MAKE A BABY

Curly: And while I'm proving how much I don't like you, I'm going to go interrogate Jud about how he got you to go with him to the party. Because that makes so much sense.

[Curly leaves and Laurey has lots of feelings. And then the scene changes!]

The Audience: FINALLY

[And now we're inside Jud's smokehouse. It's dark and there are pictures of naked ladies on the walls.]

Hammerstein: SEE HOW MUCH OF A DEVIANT HE IS

Rodgers: HE CLEARLY DESERVES TO BE AN OUTCAST

[Curly enters. Jud is cleaning a gun on the table.]

Jud: What the fuck do you want?

Curly: Oh, nothing. I just came down here to make awkward small-talk. Soooo whatcha thinkin' about?

Jud: How much I hate it when pompous assholes come in here uninvited.

Curly: Yeah, I bet that sucks. So what do you use that gun for?

Jud: Shooting pompous assholes who come in here uninvited.

Curly: Good talk. Hey, have you ever thought about killing yourself?

Jud: Um... no?

Curly: Well, maybe you should.

The Audience: So, wait. Is the protagonist of this show, with whom we're expected to sympathize, actually trying to talk someone into committing suicide? All because he was too much of a pussy to ask the girl he likes to a dance?

Rodgers: Yup. He's a real American hero!

The Audience: Wow. Fuck him and fuck you too.

Curly: OHHHH SUICIDE IS PAINLESS

Jud: IT BRINGS ON MANY CHANGES

Both: AND I CAN TAKE OR LEAVE IT IF I PLEASE

Curly: Man, I can't wait to go to your funeral!

Jud: Yeah, funny thing about that. I have this friend who totally isn't me who used to work on a farm where people always treated him like shit, and then he burned the farm to the ground and killed everyone who had been a dick to him. So maybe you should stop being an asshole.

The Audience: So now we actually know that Jud's a murdering psychopath, and yet he still manages to be more sympathetic than Curly.

Jud: Also, you should stay away from Laurey because she's mine.

Curly: Yeah, that's not gonna work for me because fuck you.

[Jud gets pissed and fires his gun in the air, and Curly responds by shooting at a knothole because he always has to turn everything into a dick-measuring contest.]

The Audience: What a douche.

[Aunt Eller enters with Ali Hakim and some random people that no one gives a shit about.]

Aunt Eller: WOULD YOU TWO FUCKERS STOP SHOOTING UP MY SMOKEHOUSE

[Aunt Eller and the random people exit, but Ali stays behind.]

Ali: Hey, Jud -- I just got some brand new porn! Want to take a look?

Curly: Aaaaaand that's my cue to leave.

[Curly exits.]

Jud: Would you happen to have anything I could use to murder that smug son of a bitch?

Ali: Not at the moment. Just pictures of tits.

Jud: What I'd really like is one of those porn kaleidoscopes they sell in Kansas City, because they actually have HIDDEN KNIVES YOU CAN USE TO STAB PEOPLE IN THE CHEST

The Audience: Wait, what? That makes no goddamn sense.

Hammerstein: Just go with it.

Ali: Yeah, I'll keep an eye out for one of those. You sure you don't want the new issue of Penthouse?

Jud: I'M SICK OF PORN I WANT AN ACTUAL WOMAN

Ali: Cool. I'm going to get the hell out of your murder-shack now.

[Ali leaves. Jud broods and fantasizes about getting into Laurey's pants or petticoats or whatever the fuck women wore at the time.]

Jud: I WEAR RAGS AND HE WEARS A NICE BLOUSE
HE'S ROPIN' CATTLE WHILE I'M IN THE SMOKEHOUSE
DREAMING OF THE DAY WHEN YOU'LL WAKE UP AND FIND
THAT WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR
HAS BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME

Everyone Who Reads My Blog: Gaaaaaay.

Me: FUCK OFF

Jud: CAN'T YOU SEEEEEEEE
YOU BELONG WITH MEEEEEE

[The scene changes again. A bunch of women enter and are telling fortunes or some bullshit like that. They're followed shortly thereafter by Laurey, who's clutching her bottle of bath salts.]

Laurey: GET OUT OF HERE I WANT TO GET HIGH

Gertie: What, what, what are you doing. You bought some roofies from a peddler.

Laurey: I NEED DRUGS SO I CAN MAKE UP MY MIND

Kate: You're a stupid bitch.

Ellen: Just get your bone on with Curly already!

Women: LISTEN TO YOUR HEART OR SOMETHING

[Laurey starts huffing her bath salts, and -- as promised -- she starts tripping balls. She hallucinates that she and Curly start dancing ballet-style, after which they make out and get married and then Jud shows up and kills Curly dead and no one is sad except for her. When Laurey finally comes down from her insane trip, Jud is waiting for her.]

Jud: WOOOOO LET'S GO DANCE

[End of Act I.]

The Audience: IT'S ABOUT GODDAMN TIME THIS IS THE LONGEST FIRST ACT EVER

Next installment: Act II

Cinema Snark: Why Chronicle makes White Akira unnecessary

If you've been following my Facebook posts religiously for the past few months (because, let's face it: why wouldn't you), you may be aware that certain people in Hollywood have been doing everything in their power to make a live-action version of Katsuhiro Otomo's cyberpunk manga (and anime) masterpiece, Akira.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a quick synopsis:

Akira takes place in Neo-Tokyo several decades in the future, many years after a mysterious explosion obliterates the original Tokyo and basically starts World War III. The main story revolves around Kaneda and Tetsuo, two friends/juvenile delinquents/bike gang members who become mortal enemies after Tetsuo develops psychokinetic powers, is kidnapped by the government, escapes, and more or less crowns himself the god-king of Neo-Tokyo. The manga is spread out over six large volumes and has a shit-ton of subplots and supporting characters with distinct personalities, loyalties, and motivations. It's widely considered to be one of the most influential comic books ever created. The animated adaptation is also extremely highly regarded, although its two-hour run time means that a number of subplots and characters are removed entirely.

Needless to say, I kinda love Akira – and under different circumstances, I'd be unbelievably pumped for a live-action remake (though I'd be most excited about an actual Akira series that would faithfully adapt the entire manga). The problem, however, is that the Powers That Be want to take Akira the way of The Last Airbender and utterly ignore everything that makes the original creation unique.

“White Akira,” as its detractors have dubbed it, would be set in Neo-Manhattan, starring a cast of famous, attractive white people. And also Kaneda would be a bartender and Tetsuo would be his brother.

Um... what?

I understand that name-recognition is a good thing and that certain changes have to be made in the adaptation process, but there comes a point when you just straight-up forfeit the right to call your movie Akira. Also, why in the flying fuck would a bunch of crackers from New York City have Japanese names?

That sound you hear is me having a brain aneurysm.

Look: Akira is an inherently Japanese story. Its creator was Japanese, it's set in Japan, the characters are all Japanese (except for the American military characters, who are assholes), and then there's the whole Hiroshima/Nagasaki angle. Japan is the only country in the world that has ever felt the full force of an atomic bombing, and the threat of fiery annihilation hangs over Akira like the fucking thermonuclear warhead of Damocles. And who bombed Japan?

WE DID.

Imagine the following:

1. A Native American artist creates a comic book about the Trail of Tears.

2. An American movie studio decides to adapt the comic book into a movie.

3. The studio decides to cast Chris Hemsworth or someone equally Aryan as the tragically doomed hero.

4. The studio has no fucking idea why people are upset.

Dear Warner Brothers: YOU ARE MORONS. Thankfully, the Akira adaptation is currently on hold until the script can be rewritten and the $90 million budget can be deflated a bit. Here's hoping that it stays in development hell forever.

You know what the best part is, though?

I saw Chronicle this week, and it's better than any American film adaptation of Akira could ever hope to be – and its budget was a measly $15 million. Chronicle is the story of three high school students who find a mysterious alien artifact that grants them psychokinetic powers, and it bears a striking similarity to Akira in its latter half, when one of the protagonists goes mad with power and trashes most of downtown Seattle. Chronicle is all about the use and abuse of power, the trials of adolescence, and how friendships are formed and broken – all central themes in Akira – but despite that similarity, Chronicle manages to find fresh, original ways to present the material. While Josh Trank and Max Landis (the director and writer, respectively, who also collaborated on the story) readily admit that Akira was one of their major influences, their movie is its own entity and they have the freedom to do whatever they want with the characters because they're not pissing all over Katsuhiro Otomo's masterwork.

The “found footage” genre has never really been my favorite thing in the world. Movies like The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, and Paranormal Activity have demonstrated that the first-person camera viewpoint is an inexpensive – and sometimes very effective – way to tell a story, but the seemingly endless parade of sequels and imitators have made the limitations of the style painfully clear. Beyond that, I've never really been satisfied with the explanations for why these people keep filming everything, even as they're pursued by demons/cultists/kaiju and they'd clearly run faster if they just dropped the fucking camera and ran for their lives.

Chronicle, however, puts an interesting twist on things: the camera is a way for the protagonist to distance himself from reality. The world has not been kind to Andrew, whether at school or at home, and viewing the world through a lens allows him to distance himself from his shitty life. In short, the camera provides a sort of emotional (and sometimes even physical) protection. As the movie progresses, the newly empowered teenagers do what any member of the Youtube generation would: they use their powers to fuck with people and document it on film because it's funny as hell. Andrew even takes to “holding” the camera psychically, which means more smooth tracking shots and less hand-held jostling. The movie also makes full use of security cameras, news footage, and cell phone videos to keep telling the story when none of the protagonists can be bothered to hold a camera. In short, Chronicle is by far the most inventive entry in the found footage canon – and also, one of the only ones outside of the horror genre (I'd characterize Cloverfield as half-horror, half-sci-fi).

From a story point of view, Chronicle also addresses one of my biggest pet peeves about superpower films: the main characters actually practice using their powers, and the film shows distinct progress in the use of their abilities. One of the biggest reasons I hated the movie Jumper (aside from Hayden Christensen) was that the protagonist never demonstrated that he was anything special – if anything, he seemed to be below average in his skill level – until the climax, when he suddenly became the bestest teleporter who ever lived. That's stupid and terrible and one of the many reasons it was such a shitty movie. Chronicle, on the other hand, shows how the protagonists' powers grow with frequent use, and even shows that different characters have different specialties, like raw power or control and finesse. Their telekinesis is a muscle: the more they use it, the stronger they get.

My favorite parts of Chronicle are around the middle, when the three kids are just using their powers to screw around and have fun – their excitement and mischievousness is practically contagious. The movie builds three pretty believable characters and develops them all in distinct ways, and all of it builds to a pretty awesome climax.

Chronicle was the most fun I've had at the movies in quite some time, and I hope the people at Warner Brothers will realize that it makes “White Akira” even more unnecessary than it already was.

Operagasm: On Elitism

For the most part, I really enjoy the company of opera singers – which is good, considering that I spend eighty percent (or more) of my time in their company. If I were to have one complaint about opera singers, though – as well as classical musicians in general – it would be that many of them seem to be laboring under the misconception that music composed in the classical tradition is in some way inherently and measurably superior to other, “lower” forms of music.

This is, to be blunt, complete bullshit.

Now, I can sympathize with this mindset to a certain extent. If I had to choose between listening to the newest Ke$ha single and selections from Le Nozze di Figaro, I'd choose Mozart in a heartbeat. And then I'd give the person who offered me that choice a much-deserved punch in the face. To be fair, though, if the choice was between listening to Ke$ha and eating powdered glass while sawing off my own genitals with a rusty steak knife, I'd still choose the latter, but not because I consider club music to be an inferior art form. It's because I hate the sound of that creature's voice more than the Westboro Baptist Church hates homosexuals.

But I digress.

My main argument against musical elitism is that music is art, and there is no objective way to measure the quality of any artistic work – such a judgement is, of course, qualitative rather than quantitative, and is therefore subject to the whims of individual taste. This is true for individual works, but even more so for entire genres. You can't really say something like “opera is better than musical theater” without sounding like a self-important asshole because there are some really good musicals and really shitty operas out there.

Do you know how many operas Donizetti composed in his lifetime?

Seventy-fucking-five.

Out of those, the most commonly performed operas are Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale, L'Elisir d'Amore, and La Fille du Regiment. After that, there are operas like Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, and Lucrezia Borgia, which aren't performed quite as often but still often enough to deserve notice. And let's add a few more to the total, just in case I've missed any more important ones. That makes about ten operas out of seventy-five, which is a little over thirteen percent – and I'm being generous here.

Were the other sixty-five operas masterpieces?

Fucked if I know; I've never listened to them. But who's to say they're better than a playlist of Queen's greatest hits?

The beauty of music – regardless of its genre – is that it makes you feel things. Music has inspired me, angered me, made me laugh, and even reduced me to tears – sometimes all in the same performance. So I'm sorry, but anyone who tells me that Sunday in the Park with George is somehow less of a heart-rending masterpiece because it premiered on Broadway instead of at the Met can fuck right off.

Ahem. Calming down now.

Another obnoxious mindset I've encountered is the whole “I can sing opera, so that means I can sing anything I want and be awesome at it” thing.

Short answer: No, you really can't.

Long answer: No, you really can't, and I hope you get hit by a bus.

There are a number of famous opera singers (who shall remain nameless unless you follow the links) who have performed concerts and/or released albums of pop and/or musical theater when they had absolutely no business doing so. Branching out is all well and good, but only if you're actually versatile and not just a one-trick pony. Just because one is physically capable of singing “Mad World,” that doesn't mean one should perform it while utterly ignoring all matters of stylistic appropriateness. In short, if you've been studying classical music for years and you don't have a remotely convincing pop voice, stick to opera – there's no shame in playing to your strengths, but there's plenty of shame to go around when you sound trashy as fuck.

Speaking of which, it would be unfair of me not to mention that the reverse is also true. It doesn't matter whether you're a successful pop artist or a little girl on a televised talent show; stay the hell out of opera until you've received the proper training. You're not just mangling “Nessun dorma;” you're also mangling your vocal apparatus. If I had my way, operas would come with disclaimers and warnings like you sometimes see on television:

“These are professionals. Do not attempt.”

That might sound a little rude or exclusionary, but there's method to my douchebaggery. For example: if you've never gone skiing before in your life, you don't start out on a double-black-diamond slope unless you want to fucking die. Furthermore, if you do start off that way, you might make it to the bottom unharmed (possibly even more than once) but it's gonna be due more to dumb luck than any degree of skill, and every subsequent time you go down that slope is going to exponentially increase your chances of sustaining grievous bodily harm.

It's the same with singing opera. There are varying degrees of difficulty (and a lot depends on your skill level and voice type) and you might be able to get through that ball-buster of a Verdi aria a few times without giving yourself nodes, but each time you try to sing it just loads another bullet into that metaphorical revolver you're playing Russian roulette with.

In short, KNOW YOUR LIMITS.

Class dismissed.

Operagasm: Don Giovanni

So, some of you may be wondering why I haven't posted anything here in over two weeks. Or maybe not. Maybe you're wondering why men have nipples, or why Adam Sandler hasn't yet been put to death for his crimes against humanity. I can't say I blame you--I've wondered about both of those things myself, and for quite some time. But whatever the case, I have been remiss in my duties as a purveyor of fine snark, and I feel that you loyal readers deserve some actual content after my unannounced hiatus.

In any case, the past week and a half has seen me move from Silver Spring to Binghamton, learn an entire opera role, and scamper off to Astoria to stay with my sister for six weeks while I do an opera program that will culminate in my New York City debut as Masetto in Don Giovanni. So yeah, it's been pretty damn busy--hence the cobwebs you might see appearing in the corners of the blog.

But no more! Now that I've more or less settled in, I thought it seemed like the perfect time to provide some commentary on my actual profession, as opposed to just blathering on about movies and comics and time travel like I usually do. I've still got two movies to review (X-Men: First Class is great and full of MANLY TEARS), but fuck it. I'd rather do this right now.

So! Let's talk about Don Giovanni.

If you don't know the story, you can familiarize yourself here. If you're too lazy to read the whole synopsis, however, it goes something like this: Don Giovanni is the mack-daddy to end all mack-daddies (that's the hip slang that all of today's youngsters are using, right?), and he spends pretty much every waking moment looking for places to stick his junk. The first scene has him raping a woman (Donna Anna) and killing her father (the Commendatore), and he pretty much spends the rest of the opera trying to get laid, getting cock-blocked by a vengeful ex (Donna Elvira), and avoiding the large numbers of people who want to kill his bitch ass dead (i.e. everyone except his servant Leporello) because he's a rapist and a murderer and whatnot. Eventually, he meets a living statue of the man he murdered and invites it to dinner at his house because why the fuck not. The statue shows up and literally drags him to hell, and then the other characters show up and sing a final sextet giving the moral of the story: "Thus ends the life of he who does evil."

Okay. That's a noble sentiment and all, but I'm afraid it's a tad misleading. Think of it this way:

Don Giovanni was extremely good at two things: getting laid and evading capture. His list of conquests adds up to over two thousand women from all over Europe (hell, he even boned ninety-one in Turkey), so it's pretty reasonable to assume that the lynch mobs he faces over the course of the opera aren't the first he's ever had to deal with. It's not clear if he had actually killed anyone before shanking the Commendatore, but he has two instances of attempted (possibly successful?) rape within the first act alone, so it's pretty clear that that's his standard course of action when regular seduction fails. Now, rape is the sort of thing that attracts attention--in fact, it's the sort of thing that makes people want to hunt you down and cut off your junk--so it's almost certain that people have tried to kill him on numerous occasions. And yet, he's still going strong after 2,065 catalogued conquests--with every indication that he'll keep boning his way around Europe until he keels over from a heart attack at age 70 while he's balls-deep in a buxom tavern wench. This is a man who is absurdly good at escaping justice.

So really, the moral of the opera isn't "don't be a murderous sociopath with a taste for rape," because that's not what gets him killed. The moral should be "DON'T BE A FUCKING MORON."

Don Giovanni is an idiot who invites his own death. Literally. He's walking through a graveyard and hears a disembodied voice predicting his doom, and then runs smack into a statue of the Commendatore--a statue which A) has a foreboding inscription swearing vengeance upon the man's murderer, and B) may or may not be alive. So he invites the statue to dinner. AND THEN IT NODS. AND SAYS "YES." Now, the normal reaction to that would be something like "Holy SHIT it's time to get the fuck out of here," but Don Giovanni's reaction is more along the lines of "Whoa, it said yes! This is going to be the coolest dinner EVER. " And then he goes home, even though everyone in Seville is looking for him and wants him dead.

Seriously, it's like he's lost all will to live by the second half of Act Two. Elvira finds him at home and basically tells him that he needs to repent for his crimes, and he just laughs at her until she leaves. He doesn't seem to care that she could tell everyone else where he's hiding. Aaaaaand then the statue of the Commendatore shows up, and Don Giovanni is all like "Hey, Leporello, bring some food for our guest!" instead of shitting himself like anyone with half a brain would. Then the statue invites Don Giovanni to come have dinner at its place, and the jackass says yes. And then, even as the statue has him by the hand and is about to drag him down to hell for an eternity of suffering, it gives him one last chance to repent and possibly save his soul.

Guess what Don Giovanni's response is.

The guy's like a troll on an internet message board who just won't stop being a dick even as the moderator is about to ban him. In fact, I'm pretty sure that some newer English translations of the opera have him shouting "I DID IT FOR THE LUUUUUUULZ" as he's being dragged down to hell.

In fact, that internet stuff makes me wonder: if someone were to take Don Giovanni and adapt it for modern audiences, what sort of wacky hijinks would ensue?

Durden Giovanni: Leporello is an unhappy, unsuccessful young man with a boring life and a terrible job--but one day, everything changes. He gets fired, he loses his house, and he meets an enigmatic young nobleman named Don Giovanni, who hires him as a servant. Giovanni is everything Leporello wishes he could be: charming, handsome, rich, and knee-deep in bitches. For the first time ever, things are looking up for Leporello--until the Don's sexcapades finally piss off the wrong people, and Leporello wakes up in his master's clothes. Suddenly, everyone wants Don Giovanni dead--and everyone seems to agree that Leporello looks exactly like the man they're looking for. Leporello has to figure out what's going on, and discover Don Giovanni's dark secret before it's too late.
Notable Quotes: "You broke our agreement, Leporello. You talked to Elvira about the List."
Rated R for language, drug use, and graphic sexual content.

D. N. Jovanimasu: Sousuke is a normal high school student with a big problem: whenever he gets aroused, he transforms into Donu Jovanimasu, the Phantom Pervert! He tries to keep a low profile, but Eruvira-senpai (the school's resident nymphomaniac) knows his secret, and wants to turn him into her own personal sex slave! To make matters worse, Sousuke is being pursued by the mysterious Komenu-Datore, a killer robot who has a score to settle with Donu Jovanimasu! Oh, and there's some tentacle rape, too. Will Sousuke ever be able to confess his true feelings for the beautiful Anna-kun, or will his alter-ego's numerous enemies and admirers get to him first??
Notable Quotes: "WATASHI WA DONU JOVANIMASUUUUUUUUU"
For mature viewers only.
This series will never air in the United States. Ever.

"Don Juan," from Old Spice: "Hello, ladies. Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back to your man. Now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me--but he could smell like me, if he stopped being cuckolded long enough to buy Old Spice's Don Juan deodorant. Look down. Look up. You're now pregnant with my child. I'm on a horse! And it's riding out of your life forever. Peace out."
Available now!

This blog post IS NOW DIAMONDS.

Adventures in Music Sales: The Finale

Yesterday was my last day at the music store, and I have to say that it's a rather wonderful feeling to be done. It certainly wasn't a bad job--it paid well enough and the schedule was flexible enough to accommodate my musical whoring around town--but I had grown tired of it for the simple reason that even the best possible retail job is still a retail job, and there's some inherent shittiness that comes along with that.

Namely, you have to deal with people, and everyone knows people are jackasses.

Case in point:

After clocking out yesterday and saying my goodbyes, I left through the back door and was immediately stopped by a woman in the small street behind the store. She appeared to be in her mid-to-late twenties, and (as far as I could tell) didn't seem to be drunk or high.

"What's in that building?" she asked.

"You mean this one?" I replied.

"Yeah," she said. "I walk by here all the time and I've always wondered what it is."

"It's a music store." I had thought the large blue "DALE MUSIC" sign over the back door was pretty self-explanatory, but apparently not.

"Oh." She seemed to be genuinely confused. "You mean it's not a bar or anything?"

"No, it's a music store. We sell music."

"Oh."

And with that, she kept walking.

While I'm sure I'll miss the place, my fellow employees, and even a few of our better customers, I suppose this was a fitting way to end my employment: dealing with morons, as usual.

Journalism Fail

Soooooo I haven't seen Thor yet, but I've been gearing up for it by watching the entire first season of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (not to be confused with the late '90s Avengers series, which isn't nearly as good). It's way more fun than a Marvel cartoon has any right to be, with plenty of snarky humor, great action, and surprisingly intricate plots--and it doesn't take itself as seriously as the old X-Men and Spider-man cartoons did. Much as I hate to express this much enthusiasm about any show that airs on a Disney channel, I can't wait for the second season. It's so good.

On the other hand, I can't hear the battle-cry "Avengers, assemble!" without picturing Thor and Iron Man struggling to put together some needlessly complex IKEA furniture while Hawkeye stands off to the side and mocks them. So there's that.

In any case: I've been rather excited about Thor, so I've been keeping up with the latest bits of information on ComicsAlliance and other such websites. My nerd rage was awakened, however, when I opened up Friday's issue of Express (a free paper for DC metro riders) and found this little gem, which really should have been subtitled "Why You Shouldn't Write About Comic Books if You've Never Actually Read Any."

The problem starts with the title. What the hell do you mean, "Thor [is] Actually a Heavyweight Compared to Some Heroes"? This isn't some jackass in a cape who picked up a hammer one day and decided to call himself Thor--this is the actual Asgardian god of thunder. He's an immortal flying brick with a magic indestructible hammer that controls lightning (REAL LIGHTNING!). He's gone toe-to-toe with some of the strongest beings in the Marvel Universe, including the freaking Hulk--who, as everyone should know, is the STRONGEST ONE THERE IS. You're damn right he's a heavyweight.

But it appears that the writer isn't taking issue with Thor's abilities as much as his apparent obscurity. She asserts that "Thor isn't a superhero many mainstream fans can identify — he's no Spider-Man," which makes me wonder if her definition of a "mainstream fan" is someone who's functionally retarded or who only reads Archie Comics. (That was redundant, wasn't it.) She goes on to say that Thor "isn't alone in the minor leagues of capery."

Okay, wow.

Thor (who first appeared in 1962) was a founding member of the Avengers and has had three self-titled series from 1966 to 2011 (the between-series breaks being from 1996-1998 and 2004-2007). Beyond that, he's appeared in numerous one-shots and limited-run series--not to mention all his appearances in other titles and Marvel Universe publicity stunts crossover events. In other words, Thor has consistently been a major player at Marvel for nearly fifty years. Even if someone hasn't read any Thor comics, chances are they'd at least recognize him. He's pretty fucking distinctive.

She then goes on to list three other obscure superheroes for no apparent reason and describes them with varying degrees of success. She cites the X-Man "Dust", real name Sooraya Qadir, as being "possibly the only Muslim superhero working today," evidently blissfully unaware of the Nightrunner controversy from this past December. But the most blatant inaccuracy is this:

"Another hero is The Atom, who can ... get really small. But that's not all! He can also get really big! His alter ego is Henry Pym, a genius with a Ph.D in biochemistry. He also has a helmet that lets him talk to bugs."

The Atom is a DC Comics superhero by the name of Ray Palmer. He can shrink. Henry "Hank" Pym is a Marvel Comics superhero (and another founding member of the Avengers) known as Ant Man/Giant Man/Goliath/Yellowjacket/Wasp. He can shrink, grow to giant size, and talk to insects. They have similar powers, but they're two completely different characters in completely different universes, and even the most cursory Wikipedia search shows how incredibly factually inaccurate the above statement is. It's like saying that Dumbledore is a wizard from Middle Earth who helped destroy the One Ring. I mean, you can see how I'd mix those two up, right? Dumbledore and Gandalf are both wizards with long white beards, so they must be interchangeable!

What's even worse is that she goes on to explain some pretty specific uses of the Atom's powers, like traveling through phone lines or entering Superman's bloodstream, even providing an issue title and number for the latter event. How the hell would you find that out but still manage to fuck up something as basic as an alter ego?

Gahhhh.

Now, I'm not a complete moron. While I do take comic books (and fiction in general) much more seriously than the average person, I know that this isn't exactly a catastrophe. There's war and poverty and global warming and the impending hordes of zombified Mayan warriors that will wipe out all life on earth next year (that's what this whole 2012 thing is about, right?)--so some factual inaccuracy in a minor article in a free newspaper doesn't mean a damn thing in the grand scheme of things.

Nevertheless, it pisses me off. It's just plain lazy journalism (and I use "journalism" extremely loosely here). If you run a newspaper and want to have someone write about comics, maybe you should assign the article to someone who actually reads comics. If you don't have someone who does, give the story to someone who actually knows how to do any research at all ever. If you don't have that, maybe you should just come up with a different idea. Or hire a competent staff.

In conclusion: As a free-thinking human, you're entitled to your opinions. If you think comics are stupid and pointless, that's well within your rights--but if you don't consider them to be worth the time it takes to do the required research, then don't fucking write about them. It's pretty simple.

Further Adventures in Music Sales

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! (Note that I didn't say St. Patty's Day, because if you say that then you're probably retarded. No, really. Go get yourself checked.) A word of advice to my army of devoted readers (shut up; don't burst my bubble): green beer is shit, and no self-respecting human drinks it. Yes, that includes you.

"But Charlie," you might say, "your average bro drinks green beer on St. Patty's Paddy's Day like it's his job!" To which I would reply, "That's because bros have no self-respect, nor can they technically be qualified as human. Now run along; the adults are talking."

Thankfully, most of the people who read my blog drink actual beer for actual people and not that Natty Ice shit--unless you're under 21, in which case I'm sure that you have never consumed any alcohol ever in your short, miserable life. Because underage drinking is wrong and nobody does it. Right?

Yeah, probably. Moving on.

It's been a little while since my last post, because apparently having a full-time job and a fuckton of Rossini to learn means that you don't have free time ever. Color me shocked. So, to honor the larger of the two black holes which are sucking away my will to live free time, I present you with another episode of Adventures in Music Sales! I'd make it an ongoing series, but I'm leaving in May, so there's really not much of a point anymore.

Snark ahoy.

Anecdote the First: So this guy walks into the Choral and Organ Department a couple weeks back, wearing some sort of chef's hat/beret hybrid and looking generally like he could be the (slightly) younger brother of Mr. Jimmy "The Rent is Too Damn High" McMillan. This fine fellow has decided that he wants a book of English organ music by anonymous composers, and asks us if we can help him find it. This isn't the craziest request that we've ever gotten, so we go through the usual questions.

Does he know the title of this theoretical collection? No.
Does he know who compiled these pieces? No.
Does he know the publisher? Hell no.
Is he even sure that this is an actual book that exists anywhere outside of his imagination? Take a wild guess.

In fact, the only information he can give us about this dubious collection is that he can hum one of the tunes. OH WELL THEN THAT SOLVES EVERYTHING. We just so happen to have a special super-secret music search engine in our back room that will find any piece of music in the world as long as you can hum it! And by that, I mean "Get the fuck out of our store and don't come back until you've at least verified that this fabled collection exists."

Anecdote the Second: This lady comes in with two pieces of solo music (read: not from my department), and asks if we have them in stock. I check our files and tell her that we don't have any choral arrangements of those two in stock, but we can order them if she'd like us to. She asks if I'm sure that we don't have them, and I repeat that we don't have any choral arrangements of either piece in the store at this particular time. She proceeds to go out front to the sheet music department, where she finds a solo arrangement of one of the pieces, and returns with the music in hand, telling me that she found it after all and giving me an accusatory look that seemed to suggest I had misled her in some way.

BITCH THIS IS THE CHORAL MUSIC DEPARTMENT. When I tell you we don't have a piece in stock, I am pretty explicitly referring to CHORAL MUSIC. I don't see how this is hard to understand. I wasn't lying or disrespecting you, but you will feel my wrath if you keep acting like a jackass.

Anecdote the Third: This one isn't so much a specific anecdote as much as it is a gripe about my least favorite type of customer. A depressingly large number of the calls we get in the Choral and Organ Department go something like this:

Customer: Hi, I heard [piece of music X] on the radio/on this CD I just bought, and I'm wondering if you have it in an SATB arrangement.

Charlie's inner monologue: Son of a bitch.

Charlie: Okay. Do you know who the composer or arranger is?

Customer: Oh, I don't even know that it has been arranged for SATB. I just wanted to find out if it was available.

[Charlie seethes with silent fury.]

Customer: ...hello?

Charlie: I will destroy everything you have ever loved. With fire.

Customer: What?

Charlie: I said, "Please hold."

Okay, so, certain aspects of that sample conversation may have been exaggerated for comedic effect. But not by much.

The point is, a good choral customer does a bit of research first and actually verifies that [piece of music X] is actually in print--or at least was at one point in history (c.f. Anecdote the First)-- before trying to order it. These people, however, are not good customers. They're idiots, and for some reason they all want to order gospel music.

Gospel music is problematic for sheet music retailers, because everyone and their brother has released an album or six of gospel songs, most of which haven't been put into print form at all. The stuff that has been printed as sheet music tends to be overwhelmingly for solo voice and piano with guitar chords, which means fuck-all for me specifically. It is only the rare, extremely popular gospel song that gets arranged for choir.

So! If you're cruising down the highway with your radio tuned to the Gospel Hour on 97.9 STFU and you hear someone singing "Jesus! Jesus! Look What I Can Do! You're Not Lookiiiiiing" or "I Kissed the Christ (and I Liked It)", chances are those pieces aren't available for SATB and you shouldn't even bother asking.

Because if you do, I might just shank you in the face. Consider yourselves warned.

A Brief History of Time Travel, Part I

In conclusion, while the actions of time travelers may influence the course of history, it's impossible for them to actually change anything. Anything they do in the past will have always been that way.

Since the reactions to my last post generally fell somewhere between "What the fuck is wrong with you" and "MY EYES! ZE GOGGLES DO NOTHING," I figured that this would be a good time to scale back on squick-inducing slash fiction and do a good old-fashioned nerd rant.

I have been known, on occasion, to get rather heated about things that don't actually matter to anyone else (some of you may remember a post from way back in October in which I said some very mean things about the Midwest). One of those things is the theory of time travel.

Now, it's not the physical impossibility of time travel that bothers me (I can deal with Lovecraftian horrors and superheroes that can breathe in space, so clearly I'm not married to realism here); it's the fact that so many people don't fucking understand how time travel would work, if it were possible. Movies and books and video games are full of bad time travel theory, and it never ceases to piss me off.

Here are several offenders, in no particular order:

The Terminator movies. Going back in time to kill someone doesn't fucking work. If John Connor never grows up, the Terminators have no reason to be sent after him. The very fact that the machines want to kill him basically makes him immortal until he becomes the leader of the resistance. There's no real paradox at work, though--the machines are apparently just morons, right? Well, it depends on whether or not you view Terminator 3 as canon (The Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn't seem to, which earns the show major points in my book). In T3, the Terminatrix tracks down a couple other leaders of the future resistance and shoots them in the face, thereby ensuring that they never become important enough to merit being marked for death in the future. Because they're already dead. This steps out of the realm of "bad planning" and becomes a full-on temporal paradox--and, sadly, it's not even close to being the worst part of the movie.

Back to the Future. You cannot undo your own existence. It just doesn't work. If you did manage to keep your parents from ever getting married, however, you and your siblings wouldn't slowly fade out of existence one by one: you never would have existed in the first place, making it impossible for you to prevent your parents from getting together at all. Boom. Paradox. Whether or not Marty McFly macks on his own mom, the very fact that he exists at all means that his parents still bone and they still produce him (despite his best efforts to fuck everything up like a massive jackass). He's gonna have to do something about that Oedipus complex, though.

Kate and Leopold. Soooo the man who invented the elevator is in danger of not having invented the elevator anymore because he's been whisked to the 21st century and has fallen in love with Meg Ryan for some reason. In another case of the bullshit "slow-onset time paradox" thing that movies seem to be fond of, this problem in the time stream manifests itself by making an elevator disappear. And then Liev Schreiber falls down the empty elevator shaft.

Now, I'm willing to ignore the massive improbability of his survival, mostly because there's a much larger problem at hand. For a moment, let's assume that this whole "changing the past means changing the future" thing actually works: if the past were changed so that the elevator was never invented, the skyline of New York City would be drastically different because everyone would have to use the stairs. The buildings would all be a hell of a lot shorter--and you know what they wouldn't have at all? Elevator shafts. Because elevators never existed at all, so no one would be stupid enough to build places to put them. Gahhhhhhhh.

Kate and Leopold, I know you're just a romantic comedy that's using time travel as an excuse to put Hugh Jackman in period costume so he can be charming and completely heterosexual and talk about La Bohème, but that doesn't excuse you from making any goddamn sense whatsoever.

Superman and Superman II. You know, I guess the creators of the Superman movies deserve some credit: most of the movies on this list at least came up with some sort of flimsy pseudo-scientific explanation for time travel, but the people behind Superman were clearly too busy drinking Everclear and snorting cocaine off naked strippers and generally not giving a fuck to come up with any sort of coherent explanation. I'm pretty sure the movie's pre-production meetings went something like this:

Important Guy: "Superman needs to travel back in time? Okay, here's what we'll have him do. He flies around the Earth really fast and makes it spin the other way."
Intern: "But what does that have to do with time travel? Wouldn't reversing the Earth's rotation just kill everything on the planet?"
Important Guy: "Jimmy, you need to loosen up. Put your face in that mound of cocaine."
Intern: "With gusto, sir!"

Also, when Superman reverses time, he only goes back to save Lois Lane. The thousands of other people he saved from the falling rocks and tidal waves and shit? Apparently not worth saving a second time. But the best part is this: as if the plot device weren't retarded enough the first time around, he does the exact same thing in the sequel, but on a much larger scale. Superman travels back to the events of the first movie to prevent the stray missile from ever freeing the rogue Kryptonians, thereby making it so that none of the events of Superman II ever actually happened. That's right: Kal-El actually retconned his own movie out of existence.

Congratulations, Superman creative team, you have achieved the fail singularity.