A Musical Piece

INT. A USED RECORD STORE ON MELROSE – DAY

He’s thumbing through some albums.

D. CAT
Lemme talk about music for a minute or three, huh?

He holds up a used copy of “The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars”.

D. CAT
This is my favorite album of all time. I got my first copy back in 1972. I was in high school at the time. I heard a couple of tunes on the radio and flipped out. Back then rock and roll was all but dead. All that was going on was the tail end of that hippie drippy crap. The Beatles had broken up a couple of years before and there was this country hippie thing going on. I hated it. Twangy guitars and blue jeans that made me feel like an old man sitting on a porch with a glass of lemonade and a big hairy dog curled up at my feet. I’m from the city, man. I wanted to hear the sound of neon lights. Car wrecks. Music to throw chairs through windows by. I was sixteen years old and I feared getting older bad enough on my own. Bowie saved me. And Alice Cooper too. And T. Rex. Glitter Rock was fucking beautiful.

CUT TO:

ANOTHER PART OF THE STORE – A FEW MOMENTS LATER

He stands at a record rack.

D. CAT
Not too long after that disco hit and it hit big too. GEEZUZ! I hated that crap even more! Mindless, heartless, moronic shit. Music to get laid by. It sucked then and it still sucks now. The only people who listen to that junk these days are people who weren’t around and rocking when it was new. “Ring My Bell”? “Fly Robin Fly”? Fucking “Night Fever”? Gimme a break, huh? “Saturday Night Fever”? What about the guy who jumped off the bridge? What happened to the guy who didn’t want to be a priest anymore? I hate that fucking movie and the music sucks even worse in retrospect.

He holds up a copy of The Ramones first album and sighs.

D. CAT
Then these mother fuckers came along. Just some assholes from the east coast who couldn’t take it anymore. They kicked ass and didn’t give a shit how you felt about it. I hated them. For years.

He holds up the soundtrack of “Rock And Roll High School”.

D. CAT
Until I saw this movie. About a half an hour into it my head exploded. These cats were fucking funny, man! They seemed to be saying “Fuck You!” and, well... isn’t that what rock and roll is all about? I mean, it is to me anyway.

STILL ANOTHER PART OF THE STORE – MOMENTS LATER

D. CAT
About the same time I was pissing and moaning about The Ramones I was flipping through the radio dial and I heard three songs that changed my life forever.

He holds up a copy of Devo’s “Are We Not Men?”

D. CAT
These guys did a ball busting cover version of “Satisfaction”. It fucking rocked! It pealed paint off of walls, made parents break down in tears, and blew up speakers all over the world. Most of my friends couldn’t stand it and thought I was insane for liking it. This made it even more important to me. I was never a huge Rolling Stones fan and, if a cover of one of their most famous tunes pissed the die hard fans off that much it MUST be great. It was. And it still is.

YET ANOTHER PART OF THE STORE – MOMENTS AFTER THAT

He holds up a copy of the first B-52’S album.

D. CAT
Another song was “Rock Lobster”. It was so...WEIRD! I went nuts! Funny as all fuck and rocked like a son of a bitch. I love these guys. Lots. Um...

He flips through some more records and holds up a copy of Blondie’s “Parallel Lines”.

D. CAT
...these guys...and Debbie...

He kisses the album cover. M’wah!

D. CAT
...they had a disco song called “Heart Of Glass”. BLAH! DISCO? Yeah, I know. One night I was very drunk and had the radio on. So drunk that when “Heart Of Glass” came on I was too lazy to change the station. I laid there and actually listened to the lyrics. I ran out the next day, bought the album, and shit a brick. The Blondies quickly became my favorite group, “Plastic Letters” being another one of my most favorite albums ever. Boy. When Chris got sick? Well...I’d rather not talk about it.

EXT. RECORD STORE

d.cat steps outside.

D. CAT
I need a drink. How about you?

He steps to the curb, sticks out his right hand, and screams as if hailing a cab.

D. CAT
YO, BUS!

A bus pulls up, screeches to a halt, and the doors open. He turns as he boards it and smiles.

D. CAT
I love when that happens!