Showing posts with label Faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Faith. Show all posts

Saturday 12 March 2022

It's About Faith.

The Substance of Things Hoped-for, 
and The Evidence of Things Not Seen.

"It is a classic Russian technique 
to blame The Other Guy 
for what They are 
planning to do themselves."


The West Wing: Shots Fired On The White House


I can't believe I never noticed that Charlie 
is named after Martin Sheen's son.


Leo McGarry: 
We weren't spying on Russia. 
We were spying for Russia.

President Josiah Bartlet
We were spying for him?

Leo McGarry: 
Yes, sir.

President Josiah Bartlet: 
Okay. This phone call you're going to set up with Chigorin - 
it's, like, for a White House bloopers reel or something?


Claudia Jean 'C.J.' Cregg: 
The substance of things hoped for, 
and the evidence of things not seen.

Toby Ziegler: 
Yeah, but I think what he's asking
 - Bump ten - 
I think what he's asking is why, on most other nights, 
do you think the world's going to hell 
in a hula hoop, but tonight...?

Claudia Jean 'C.J.' Cregg: 
We dip twice and eat gefilte fish?

Toby Ziegler: 
Suzy Creamcheese, 
Do not attempt the Haggadah.

Claudia Jean 'C.J.' Cregg: 
I know how to bless the soup, too.




CUT TO: INT. THE OVAL OFFICE - CONTINUOUS
The room is filled with people as Bartlet makes the call to President Chigorin.

BARTLET
He's on?

TRANSLATOR
Yes sir.

BARTLET
Let's go. [picks up the phone] 
Mr. President, this is President Bartlet.

The agents run in.

AGENT 2
Mr. President.

BARTLET
What the hell?

AGENT 3
[running in from the portico] 
Step away from the window please.

More agents run in from the Portico carrying machine guns.

BARTLET
Okay, you know what, 
I'm going to have to call you back.

The agents shut the curtains 
and take up positions by the windows.

AGENT 2
Oval's secure.

AGENT 3
Bamboo shoot's ready.

BARTLET
[to Leo] 
Bamboo, they want me to 
get into The Motorcade.

Ron Butterfield enters.

RON
Mr. President.

BARTLET
What's going on?

RON
You all right, sir?

BARTLET
I'm all right.

LEO
These people are all code word and higher.

BARTLET
I was on the phone with Putin.

RON
The translator?

BARTLET
He's got code word clearance.

RON
Three shots were fired from the street, 
at least one of them hitting the press briefing room. 
We've got the suspect in custody, 
as well as a high-powered rifle.

BARTLET
Was anyone in the room?

RON
C.J., Toby, and Will Bailey.

Leo and Bartlet head towards the door.

LEO
Where are they?

RON
They're fine. Sir, you've got to stay here.

BARTLET
Nobody was hurt?

RON
They're fine.

Toby, C.J., and then Will come in to 
The Oval Office clearly out of breath.

TOBY
Sir.

BARTLET
[to Toby] 
You all right?

TOBY
Yeah

BARTLET
[to C.J.] 
What about you?

C.J.
We're fine.

BARTLET
[holding up two fingers] 
Will, how many fingers am I holding up?

WILL
Who's Will, sir?

BARTLET
I don't know if you've met 
Ron Butterfield, The Head of My Detail.

WILL
Sure.

LEO
Lieutenant Bailey, I'm glad to see you alive, 
but it's code word clearance in here,
and I need you out of earshot, okay?

WILL
Yes, sir.

BARTLET
Where's Charlie?

LEO
He's somewhere in the building.

RON
We're holding people where they are right now.

The phone on the President's desk starts to ring. 
Leo goes to pick it up.

BARTLET
But if he's heard What Happened, 
he's going to be trying to get here...

RON
We've got to hold everybody for 
a moment so that we can secure...

BARTLET
No, I'm telling you that if Charlie heard 
there were bullets, he's going to overpower
whoever's trying to...

Charlie bursts through the door. 
The President has a little smile on his face. 
Charlie looks around and sees that 
he's come in to a room filled with people.

CHARLIE
Sorry, Mr. President.

BARTLET
Come here.

Charlie moves to stand beside him.

BARTLET
It's bulletproof glass in the windows, okay. 
You want to kill me, you're going to have
to do it from inside The Building.

CHARLIE
[sighs] 
Thank You, Mr. President.

Charlie leaves, passing by C.J. and Toby.

CHARLIE
You guys all right?

C.J. and TOBY
Yeah.

BARTLET
I'm surprised your guys managed to keep Fiderer 
in her chair. I would have thought she'd
be the first one through the d... No, here we are.

Debbie comes in from Leo's office.

DEBBIE
Are you all right, Mr. President?

BARTLET
No-one was Hurt, someone shot at 
the press briefing room from the sidewalk.

DEBBIE
[concerned
C.J. went there with Toby and Will.

BARTLET
Will's sitting right outside, and Toby and C.J. 
are standing right there.

Toby and C.J. raise their hands.

DEBBIE
Ron, someone's going to report this I hope.

RON
Yes ma'am.

DEBBIE
Um, thank you, Mr. President. 
[in Bartlet's ear
We're going to need to take your blood
pressure in a few minutes.

BARTLET
Yeah.

DEBBIE
Thank you.

LEO
Ron, there were two incidents 
of terrorist activity earlier today. 
A bomb in Malaysia and another in Berlin.

BARTLET
This was just a crazy guy, Leo.

LEO
That was just a third on the phone in Guam. 
The head of the Office of Insular Affairs 
was picked off.

BARTLET
Come on.

LEO
By a sniper, Mr. President.

RON
[quickly] 
Shut it down! Crash it!

AGENT
[into his wrist mic] 
Crash the Oval Office. 
[to Debbie] 
Crash it.

DEBBIE
[into the phone] 
This is The Oval Office. 
Crash The West Wing. 
[grabbing a
red phone off
from under a table] Nevada, bravo, three, three, one. Crash the West Wing.

FADE OUT.
END ACT TWO
* * *

ACT THREE

FADE IN: INT. C.J.'S OFFICE - NIGHT
C.J. is talking on the phone, while Carol, 
and three other staffers watch MSNBC.

MSNBC REPORTER
The man fired several rounds before being overtaken by Secret Service agents and Park Police. 
Witnesses say The Shooter never entered the grounds, 
but at least one bullet appears to have 
Struck The Window of a White House office...

C.J.
All right, then here it is. 
"An indeterminate number of shots 
were fired at the White House at..." 
I said I thought it was three shots 
but I want for the agents to...Okay,
"At 9:23 pm, striking the Press Briefing Room"...

MSNBC REPORTER
The weapon was a modified M-16.

C.J.
We haven't confirmed any ballistics. 
Tell your friends to stop saying it was an M-16.

MSNBC REPORTER
There are no confirmed reports.

C.J.
All right. The President was in the Oval Office. 
We've initiated A Standard Lockdown Procedure 
and are back to conducting 
The Business of The Nation... 
I'll ask him. [hangs up the phone, to Carol] 
He wants to know if the President 
wants to say something funny.

CAROL
"That's twice in four years, 
some of you guys must 
really be mad at me"?

C.J.
Something funnier than that, but yeah.





JOSH
I got a letter today that said, uh... 
"You're a lying liar. You lie 
almost as well as Bartlet." 

You know, black-white, rich-poor, 
north-south, odd-even. 

There may not be anything anymore that outpaces 
the hatred the right feels for the left 
or the tonnage of disrespect the left feels for the right. 

Donna got a letter yesterday that said, 
"I'm collecting all the guns you've banned, 
and there's a bullet with your name 
on it in each one." 

Donna. The guy's decided to focus his wrath
on Donna. 

He's never met Donna or spoken to her, 
and he's never met anyone 
who's met Donna or spoken to her. 

How's it possible? 
How's it possible that he hates
her so much?
How can you not like Donna? 
She's from Wisconsin! 

Anyway, 20,000 specific threats made
against U.S. targets every year, 
and with all that, it's still the ones who don't give
you advance notice that you're worried about.

JOE
I asked about Terrorism before because of the lockdown. Procedurally it'd be the kind of thing they'd be likely to do 
if there had been other incidents in the last few hours.

JOSH
A bombing in Malaysia and another one 
in Berlin a few hours ago.

They both sit silently for a moment.

JOSH
Might as well use this time for the interview.

CUT TO: INT. LEO'S OFFICE - NIGHT
Toby, sucking on a lollipop, and Will, stand inside watching T.V. as C.J. walks
in.

REPORTER [on T.V.]
...saying in a statement from White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg that
an indeterminate
number of shots were fired at the White House at 9:23 pm.

C.J.
You can stand the egg on the equinox because that's when the sun's gravity
is lined up
directly with the earth's.

TOBY
[sighs and draws a circle with his fingers] Draw a line from the center of
the earth to
the sun, and at anytime, someplace on earth is on that line..

C.J.
Then maybe for us...

TOBY
C.J., try it. Take an egg, it doesn't work.

C.J.
That's 'cause it's not...

C.J. and TOBY
...the exact moment of the equinox.

C.J.
Yes.

WILL
What is the exact moment of the equinox?

Toby points his finger as if Will is on to something.

C.J.
I don't know... midnight?

WILL
Midnight where?

C.J.
All right, maybe it's not at the exact moment of the equinox. Maybe it's at
some point
during the equinox and you just have to keep trying, but I've seen it.

Donna enters.

DONNA
Are we playing again?

WILL
I'll get Ed and Larry.

LEO
[entering from the Oval Office] Donna, would you tell Josh we're back on?

DONNA
Yes sir.

Donna, Leo, and Will all leave the office. Toby stares at C.J.

C.J.
Did you know that a day on the moon and a year on the moon are the same thing?

TOBY
I did. [long pause]

C.J.
I thought my reflexes before, in the Press Room, were cat-like.

CUT TO: INT. THE OVAL OFFICE - NIGHT
The room is filled with people who all need to be a part of Bartlet's phone call.
The President prepares for the phone call 
as a translator and Leo listen in on
alternate lines. Josh enters.

TRANSLATOR
The Sit Room Watch Officer has the Kremlin.

BARTLET
You guys playing again?

JOSH
Yeah, The Game's started up.

BARTLET
President Chigorin, it's Jed Bartlet again. 
I'm sorry about being abrupt before, 
but I bet if you turn on CNN international 
right now you'll see...

Putin :
[through the translator]
My Goodness. There was 
a shooting at the White House.

BARTLET
Yeah, there you go. It's not a big deal, 
but they shut us down for a little bit.

Putin : 
[through the translator]
Well, I'm glad no one was hurt.

BARTLET
By the way when they crash the building 
they don't crash all of it. 
The Situation Room still works.

Leo gives him a "what-the-hell-are-you-doing" look.

Putin :
[through the translator]
Yes sir, I'm sure.

BARTLET
Mr. President, a little while ago 
an unmanned B-UAV drone crashed, 
we think somewhere inside Kaliningrad, as a matter of fact. Apparently they don't respond, you know, quite
the way you'd like when there's a sudden shift in the weather.

CHIGORIN 
[through the translator]
[long pause] 
Mr. President, I wasn't told of 
a military mission over
Kaliningrad.

BARTLET
Well, like I say, it was a UAV, 
it was taking satellite pictures 
of coastal erosion in the Baltic Sea. 
The Finns know about this. 
We'd like to send a special operations team
ten kilometres west of Borsakova to retrieve it.

Putin :
[through the translator]
[long pause] 
Well, Mr. President, like yourself
I campaigned on the environment.

BARTLET
I'm sorry, sir?

Putin : 
[through the translator]
I campaigned on the environment, sir.

BARTLET
Are you getting that translation right?

TRANSLATOR
Yes, sir.

BARTLET
You campaigned on The Environment, Mr. President : 
Coastal erosion in the Baltic Sea.

Putin :
[through the translator]
[long pause] 
I'll take a look at those pictures 
and send them to you with Your UAV.

BARTLET
Well, the problem is our UAV's 
have a self-detonating capability 
and our people know how to disarm it, 
and I wouldn't want to put your guys at risk.

Putin :
[through the translator]
Well, given the circumstances I'm sure your experts 
wouldn't mind talking through the
steps with our experts.

BARTLET
It's proprietary technology, Peter.

Putin : 
[through the translator]
To view costal erosion?

BARTLET
I know it seems...

Putin :
[through the translator]
Sir, I'm going to interrupt this call at this time 
to speak with My Counterintelligence attachE.

BARTLET
Yes, Mr. President.

Putin : 
[through the translator]
Thank you sir.

BARTLET
This isn't working anymore.

FADE OUT.
END ACT THREE
* * *

ACT FOUR

FADE IN: INT. LEO'S OFFICE - NIGHT
The card game continues as Charlie looks on from near the window.

ED
Anything wild?

C.J.
Just the dealer. Four, no help. Six, possible straight. Heart, possible
flush. Jack, no
help. And the Dave of Love for a pair of tens. Tens bet.

LARRY
You know, you're particularly upbeat for someone who's been shot at twice
in four years.

C.J.
Am I?

TOBY
Yes.

C.J.
That's 'cause I've got faith there, mi compadre.

TOBY
Faith?

C.J.
The substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

TOBY
Yeah, but I think what he's asking... Bump ten... I think what he's asking
is why most
other nights do you think the world's going to hell in a hula hoop, but
tonight...?

C.J.
We dipped twice and eat gefilte fish?

TOBY
Suzy Cream Cheese, do not attempt the hagaddah.

C.J.
I know how to bless the soup too. I'll raise your raise.

ED
Out.

C.J.
Just the two of us.

TOBY
Faith in what?

C.J.
In us.

TOBY
The people in this room?

C.J.
And many, many, many others.

LARRY
Will, are you missing your plane?

WILL
Not yet, it's a military flight. It doesn't leave until about 12:30.

TOBY
What's in Cheyenne?

WILL
A number of us are being sent out there to investigate something that happened a few days ago.

TOBY
What happened?

WILL
You know, it's one of those things 
that sounds worse when you say it out loud 
because it makes people kind of nervous.

TOBY
What happened?

WILL
Uh, two guys failed to follow through on an order to fire their rockets at what was thought to be an incoming ballistic missile from North Korea. 

Turns out it was a good thing they didn't, 
'cause the missile was a meteor, 
and rather than being from North Korea, 
it was from, you know...

TOBY
Outer space.

WILL
Yeah.

Toby laughs.

TOBY
What the hell happened?

WILL
Two launch crew officers in Minuteman Three silos 
picked up a signal of an incoming projectile. 
The speed, arc, and trajectory of which suggested 
it was headed to New London, Connecticut.

TOBY
From North Korea.

WILL
Yes.

TOBY
Why do we think at this point that North Korea 
is attacking the East Coast of the United States?

WILL
There are transcripts from the silo that show that 
surprise was expressed at that.

TOBY
I would think.

WILL
The base was already at DEFCON Delta, 
so the launch crew initiated Response Code Orion,
which calls for the first in a series of steps 
to arm their 50 Minutemen.

TOBY
What's in New London?

WILL
Trident.

TOBY
The gum?

WILL
The nuclear submarines.

TOBY
Fifty Minutemen they're arming, and is anyone saying 
"This Doesn't Make Sense."?

WILL
Two guys in the silo. 

The launch sequence went on for two minutes 
before they had confirmation it was a meteor. 

But The Two Guys were debating with 
Airborne Launch Control 
and the 
Cheyenne Mountain Operations Centre 
and that gets sticky. 

This is missile defence. 
This stuff has to work.

TOBY
And they're sending in 
a team of lawyers to look into it.

WILL
Yeah, but we're scrappy.

TOBY
[laughs] 
A meteor fell from the sky, the result being 
two guys are going to get court-marshalled. 

The only two guys who apparently 
thought it was strange that
North Korea would attack submarines 
in Connecticut instead of say, 
San Diego or Hawaii. 

And if it had been a real attack? 
Would they still have been doing 
point/counterpoint with NORAD?

Will shrugs.

TOBY
We failed both on a mechanical and human level. 
So tell me again what you have Faith in.

C.J.
Us.

TOBY
Why.

C.J.
Because with what little free time he has, 
Will is going to Wyoming to defend one of these guys 
and I don't think it is failing on a human level.

TOBY
[pauses and then snickers at his cards] 
I've got ace high flush. 
Give me your money.

C.J.
I've got tens full of queens. 
Give me yours.

Charlie, who has been sitting quietly by the window this whole time, gets up.

CHARLIE
Hey.

WILL
Who's out there?

CHARLIE
Zoey.

Charlie runs through his office and out onto the PORTICO where Zoey is
walking along.

CHARLIE
[casually] Oh. Hey.

ZOEY
Hi.

CHARLIE
This is a coincidence. I was just stepping outside for some air.

ZOEY
They just let me in a few minutes ago.

CHARLIE
Everything's fine.

ZOEY
I just wanted to check. 
I was just going to call you.

CHARLIE
Were you?

ZOEY
Yeah.

CHARLIE
To say you wanted to get back together again?

ZOEY
To make sure you were alive.

CHARLIE
Well that's a step in my direction. 
Do you want to come inside for a minute?

ZOEY
Ah, I have to get back and study. 
One of my finals is tomorrow.

CHARLIE
Can you believe you're graduating in two weeks?

ZOEY
I can't.

CHARLIE
That went fast.

ZOEY
It really did.

CHARLIE
Is Chef Boyardee around?

ZOEY
Now, why do you have to do that?

CHARLIE
I was asking after him.

ZOEY
We were having a perfectly nice...

CHARLIE
Sorry.

ZOEY
And on tonight of all nights, 
when we should be thinking about...

CHARLIE
Why is tonight different from other nights?

ZOEY
You were shot at!

CHARLIE
Well, not me personally
but I say all the more reason to...

ZOEY
I'm going to France for three months.

CHARLIE
[long pause] 
When?

ZOEY
After graduation.

CHARLIE
For three months?

ZOEY
Yeah.

CHARLIE
For three months?

ZOEY
That's twelve weeks.

CHARLIE
When did you come up with this plan?

ZOEY
He asked me a couple of days ago. 
His family has a farmhouse 
in the middle of a vineyard
near Avignon. 
No press, no politics. 
It's what I want to do.

CHARLIE
I think it's a great thing to do. 
I just don't know why 
you're doing it with him.

ZOEY
Well, I don't know why you have to... 
you've been out with plenty of women since we
broke up and each time...

CHARLIE
I have not.

ZOEY
You don't think I know when you go out? 
Every college student in this city
wants to tell me something I don't know. 
And every time you've gone out, 
I've been supportive.

CHARLIE
Supportive how? 
I didn't even know you knew?

ZOEY
[getting frustrated] 
That's how.

CHARLIE
Hey, you just told me. 
I'm not the one using the student bodies 
of GW, Georgetown, AU and Catholic University 
as intelligence gathering sources.

ZOEY
And UVA and Johns Hopkins pal, 
you're easy to spot.

CHARLIE
Look...

ZOEY
People like giving me information. 
What do you want me to do?

CHARLIE
I want you to not go to France 
with Jean-Paul.

ZOEY
[exasperated] 
Why don't you like him?

CHARLIE
Because...

ZOEY
It's been four years in the White House, 
another being the daughter of a candidate.
Eight years as Governor. 

My grades get printed in the paper. 
My boyfriends are in the paper. 
I live and die by my parents' 
successes and failures. 

And so do you. Sometimes even more than me. 
And Jean-Paul doesn't. 

He's happy. 
He's... just... happy.

CHARLIE
That's cause he's got 
five hundred million dollars 
and no conscience.

ZOEY
No it isn't. He cares about things. 
And one of them is me. 

And none of them are this,
and that's appealing to me right now.

CHARLIE
Yeah, I can understand that.

ZOEY
I've got to go study. 
Sorry you got shot at again.

CHARLIE
Thanks.

Zoey walks off. Charlie watches her go before heading inside.

CUT TO: INT. THE OVAL OFFICE - NIGHT

CHIGORIN [through the translator]
Mr. President...

BARTLET
Peter...

Putin : 
[through the translator]
Unless there was a typhoon.

BARTLET
I understand. I meant... [covering the mouthpiece] He's yelling at me pretty
loud now.
[into the phone] I wasn't referring to the change in weather, sir.

Putin : 
[through the translator]
The national radar service does not find any UAV's in the area you discussed.

LEO
[on the phone] It's Leo again. 
The UAV's are designed to fly below military radar
simply because the closer we get, the better the pictures.

Putin :
[through the translator]
I understand
Now, what were you taking pictures of?

LEO
Coastal erosion in the Baltic...

CHIGORIN [through the translator]
There is simply no way an American UAV 
could have been in the Finnish part...

BARTLET [to the room in general]
He's yelling pretty loud at Leo now.

Putin :
[through the translator]
...of the Baltic Sea and end up crashing in Kaliningrad unless there was a typhoon.
Now are you telling me...?

LEO
Sir.

Putin :
[through the translator]
We have experts too. And an S&R team 
is looking for the UAV.

BARTLET
Don't do that Peter.

LEO
You shouldn't do that, sir. 
We weren't flying in your airspace.

Putin :
[through the translator]
Kaliningrad is in my airspace Leo 
and an S&R team has been sent ten kilometres west,
to see if we can help you find it.

LEO
Well, they're going to see it because in five minutes 
I'm going to tell the President to blow it up.

Putin : 
[through the translator]
Feel free.

BARTLET
We were taking pictures of Kaliningrad.

Everyone gives him shocked looks.

Putin : 
[through the translator]
Say that again, please.

BARTLET
We were taking pictures of Kaliningrad. 
We take pictures of black market nuclear materials
being moved out the back doors 
of suppositories and into trucks. 

The materials are being
sold to non-governmental elements and, 
well, that's what we were doing. 

Rogue engineers, military scientists, and ex-KGB. 

It's just as big of a problem for you as
it is for us, but you're not dealing with it
so we were taking pictures of Kaliningrad. 

We're going to have to Trust each other a little Peter. 
So we're going to share the pictures we got. 
Not the technology we used to get them. 
Otherwise I'm detonating it 
and neither of us see the pictures. 

We're going to have to Trust each other. 

Our two countries have stopped The World
from annihilating itself for 60 years 
because of conversations like this one. 

Why don't you talk it over?

Putin : 
[through the translator]
I will.

Bartlet hangs up the phone.

LEO
Good. I'd have said, 
"We weren't spying on you, 
we were spying for you," but...

BARTLET
If he calls back we'll have a deal. 
In the mean time, one hand. 
Bring your wallet.

Thursday 28 November 2019

Profiles in Mentorship : Hold Me




“When Yogananda describes the first sighting of his guru, to a westerner the sincerity of his adulation is almost obscene

We only love so wholeheartedly and uncynically in adolescence, or when we revisit that hormonal tundra in juvenile adulthood. 


I was in my own storm of idiocy, my own adolescence beaten thinly almost into middle age, on a trip with a woman who I blindly adored, who I had ill-advisedly appointed as a Custodian of My Heart – one last throw of the dice

We Who Look for God in Romance are Doomed
Your idol will fall and you will be too bereft to pick up the pieces.

After a disastrous holiday where the delusion we had impulsively projected shattered and left just the bare bones and broken hearts of us, I ran into Jimmy in an Indian airport. 

I knew Jimmy Mulville already, he works in TV and he doesn’t drink, like me. 
I’d once overheard him say, 
‘I wanted to live an autobiography, not a life,’ 
and instinctively plagiarised it in my own autobiography. 

He was with his wife and three of his four children navigating an airport. 

I was at the carousel with my paramour conducting an introduction with the stink of argument still on us. 

Later on in the flight, Jimmy ambled over and gave me a book he was reading, Robert Johnson’s Inner Gold – a Jungian account of mentorship, how we ‘give another our gold to carry or hold’. 

Gold in this metaphor being, I suppose, a symbol of Our Highest Self, Our Truest Intention, The Aspect of Us that is so beautiful it is too much for us to hold alone.”


“Asking someone to mentor you, as I have said, is a simultaneous acknowledgement of vulnerability and admiration, and even in the most secular and occidental context bears a trace of Yogananda’s euphoric sincerity. 

No one wants to be rejected by someone they admire and who knows they’re vulnerable

But after my holiday my old method of redemption through love was still giving me a good battering. 

If you’d asked me at the time what the problem was, I would have instantly blamed the woman I was going out with. 
Now I know the problem was my unreasonable, unconscious requirements.

I asked Jimmy for Help, 
He agreed to Help He. 

I told him about the melee that was my relationship and he was always able to ‘hold it’. 

Meaning that my problems never fazed him – 
The last thing you need when opening up your heart is for the person you’ve appointed to blanch or gag. 

He pointedly never offers unsolicited advice, instead meeting my enquiries with his own experience. 

There is a Great Power in this. 

Some of the things he has said landed as perfectly in my mind as the first maxim of his I plagiarized:
 
‘Being Human, is a ‘Me Too business, we’re all in the mud together’ 
or 
‘Next time you see the signpost that points in the direction of a destructive relationship, don’t go in that direction.”


“Perhaps Young Men like me go awry because 
nobody can hold them. 


I don’t mean embrace, I mean in a parental sense, like parentheses, to ‘bracket’ them, to stand as a dam either side of the wayward lash and unmovingly emit care. 


The only authority I ever knew was negative. 
Either inefficient or corrupt. 

This is the consequence of living with false ideals in a materialistic society. 

The authority that I give to Jimmy is sacred, I know he is flawed but I am not consulting with the flawed part of him I am consulting with the part of him that is willing in spite of his own numerous obligations, work, and family to provide loving counsel for free. 

I believe this relationship becomes a conduit for truth, divine truth. 

That needn’t mean it’s all chocolates and roses. 

There’s a fair amount of ‘suck it up’ and ‘face your fear’, but it is Truth. 

Perhaps we can take Truth to mean the timeless, the universal. 

Things that will not erode and fade, qualities I need to live the life I have moved into.”

Excerpt From
Mentors
Russell Brand


Sunday 27 May 2018

But You Gotta Have Faith

31     INT.     BUFFY'S ROOM AT BUFFY'S HOUSE - NIGHT
Faith is lying in bed holding the scythe in front of her. Buffy's standing beside the bed.

BUFFY (O.S.)
You feel it too, don't you?

FAITH
Damn. And damn, that's something.

BUFFY
I know.

FAITH
It's old. It's strong, and it feels like... like it's mine. (places it on the bed beside her) I guess that means it's yours.

BUFFY
It belongs to The Slayer. (picks up the scythe)


FAITH
Slayer in charge, which, I'm guessing, is you.

BUFFY
(sits on the edge of the bed) I honestly don't know. Does it matter?


FAITH
It never mattered to me. Somebody has to lead. 

Let's vote for Chao-Ahn. 

It's harder to lead people into a deathtrap if you don't speak English.

BUFFY
It wasn't your fault. 

FAITH
(looks away) I'm really not looking for forgiveness.

BUFFY
You're not?


FAITH
What do you want me to say? 

I blew it.


BUFFY
You didn't blow it.

FAITH
Tell that to—


BUFFY
People die. You lead them into battle, they're gonna die. 

It doesn't matter how ready you are or how smart you are. 

War is about death. 

Needless, stupid death.

FAITH
So, here's the laugh riot. 

My whole life I've been a loner. 

BUFFY
That's the funny part? 

Did I miss something?

FAITH
I'm trying to—

BUFFY
Sorry. Sorry. Go.

FAITH
No ties, no buddies, no relationships that lasted longer than... 

well, Robin lasted pretty long. (grins) 

Boy's got stamina.

BUFFY
Principal Wood? And you? 

And in my— (stands, paces) 

FAITH
Don't tell me you two got wriggly.

BUFFY
No. No. No, no.

We're just good friends. Or mortal enemies, depending on which day of the—
was that the funny part?

FAITH
OK. The Point. 

Me, by myself all the time. I'm looking at you, everything you have, and, I don't know, jealous. 

Then there I am. 

Everybody's looking to me, trusting me to lead them, and I've never felt so alone in my entire life.

BUFFY
Yeah. (swallows, looks down)

FAITH
And that's you every day, isn't it?

BUFFY
I love my friends. I'm very grateful for them. But that's the price. Being a slayer.

FAITH
There's only supposed to be one. 

Maybe that's why you and I can never get along. 

We're not supposed to exist together.

BUFFY
Also, you went evil and were killing people.

FAITH
Good point. Also a factor. (nods)

BUFFY
But you're right. I mean, I... 

I guess everyone's alone. 

But being a slayer? 

There's a burden we can't share.

FAITH
And no one else can feel it. (beat) Thank God we're hot chicks with superpowers.

BUFFY
Takes the edge off.

FAITH
Comforting.

BUFFY
Mm-hmm.


Tuesday 30 January 2018

Purgation

The Penitent Man Kneels Before God

There are 3 parts to Penitence :

• Confession ("I am at Fault")
• Contrition ("I am Sorry")
• Satisfaction ("You have done What is Required to Make Amends")


Or, alternatively, you could just decide you prefer to sh*t all over everything :


WINTER, 1691

SALEM VILLAGE, 
MASSACHUSETTS COLONY

It is Seventy-One years after The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and England has not yet signed a formal charter.

The New World, still a wilderness frontier, has no clear governing body.

The Winters are bitterly cold, there is little food or dry wood to burn, and hostile Indians threaten this small outpost of settlers.

The only existing law is provided by the Puritan Church, which demands that individual sins be cleansed through PUBLIC HUMILIATION.

Into This World a handful of girls are about to unleash a terror so great that it will forever curse the town of Salem.















Ann Putnam: 
Who will forgive us... who will forgive us?


NOT OPRAH





Justice
Prudence
Temperance
Fortitude 

+


Faith

Hope

Charity