4202011 About Last Night
By Matt Foran
Matt is seated on stage with his legs crossed tuning his guitar at the Fez in Downtown, Stamford. An hour before he went on stage he realized the girls in the booth on the right are going to be a problem. Their voices are shrieking and it’s one of their birthdays and they are drunk.
BIRTHDAY GIRL:
“It’s MY Birthday! What are you gonna do for ME?”
MATT:
“What do you want me to do?
BIRTHDAY GIRL:
“Dave Matthews!”
MATT laughs. “What song? Crash Into Me?”
BIRTHDAY GIRL:
Yes!
MATT laughs,
BIRTHDAY GIRL:
Don’t mock me! It’s my birthday!
Matt struggles to engage the mechanism. The Birthday girls are talking so loudly it is impossible to hear or think…let alone perform his music. Play “Celebrity Obsessed American Girls” He thinks to himself. “No that would be too mean.”
MATT gets an idea and grabs his Bob Dylan song book, and covers “Things have changed:”
MATT (singing):”A Worried Man with a worried mind, nothing in front of me and nothing behind, there’s a woman on my left and she’s drinking champaign”
CUT TO Enter stage left, a stumbling girl from the booth table with a Miller High Life beer can.
MATT (singing):”I’m out of sight I’m out of range, I used to care…things have changed”
He hears the sound of KRISTEN’S voice and applause in the distance. and accidentally says what he thinks: “It’s so nice to hear the sound of a friend instead of these annoying girls.”
BIRTHDAY GIRLS get up immediately and complain to the owner “that guy’s an asshole!” ERIC rips up their $33 check and says “He’s a saint here, get the fuck out.” MATT struggles to regain his composure and engage the mechanism. The rest is black.
Cross fade to MATT sits at the bar. Supposed record company people come up to him and say it was incredible theater, a reporter for a music magazine wants to interview him. But he’s more concerned with the state of the youth in America. He tells the owners Eric and Donna that “I have never experienced Real Love in my life until last Wednesday when I looked out at everyone paying attention to me singing and screamed “I’m so in love with all of you!” ” He tells them that being on stage gave him the ability to tell someone how I felt about them, and if he gets nothing more from all of this, he got that.
DONNA:
You don’t have to hide your love away Matt
MATT:
It wasn’t that scary and it doesn’t hurt that bad to not have your feelings reciprocated immediately. That’s Real Love too right?
If I can put a John Lennon frame around tonight I think “All you need is love” approach would be throwing up your hands and just saying “peace… be cool birthday girls” and playing #41. On the other hand Real Love is allowing your artists to remove people he doesn’t want from his audience even if it means it will hurt the bottom line.
ERIC:
Real love is having your artists back. We know you can handle yourself on stage but we’ll kill for you. You know that Matt
MATT puts The Beatles “Good Night” on both the bar stereo and Facebook.
OVERHEAD SHOT We see Matt walking home down a silent Main Street singing to himself “I used to care…things have changed”
Cut to next day Matt checking his cell phone. There’s a text from JOE:
Listened to the audio on the way home…laughed my ass off. Thanks for being exactly who you are.
MATT smiles as he pulls out his corporate ID Card at the entrance of 770 Broadway.
FADE TO BLACK END
