Matt4n.com

About an hour ago I recorded a Dress Rehearsal for my performance about an hour from now in Downtown, Stam4d.

323 (My Sister’s Birthday)An Hour Ago About 24 Hours Ago

Written By: Matt Foran, Joe Waring, Francis Scott Key, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young.

316 “I Used To Be Free”

Written By: Matt Foran

and Donald Kaufman

Fade in from white.  Matt, age 3 sits at the end of a noisy table at a child’s birthday party, playing with a toy dinosaur.

WOMAN’S VOICE (O.S.):

Matthew, how old are you?

MATT:

Free.

WOMAN’S VOICE (O-S):

Three?!

Cut to 26 years later.  Matt is standing on a small stage in the Fez, a restaurant in Downtown, Stamford.  He is pacing back and forth, tuning his guitar, covered in darkness, while the funeral monologue from “Synecdoche, NY” plays in the background.

MINISTER (VO):

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it’s what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn’t really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I’ve felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I’ve been pretending I’m OK, just to get along, just for, I don’t know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen.

MATT:

Today is my dear friend Joe’s birthday, one of the finest individuals you could ever meet (Audience claps). Happy Birthday Joe.

JOE (O.S.):

Thanks Matt.

KRISTIN(O.S.):

Happy Birthday Joe!

JOE (O.S.):

Thanks Kristin.

MATT (singing):

I’m just a little person
One person in a sea
Of many little people
Who are not aware of me

I do my little job
And live my little life
Eat my little meals
Miss my little kid and wife

And somewhere, maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
I’ll find a second little person
Who will look at me and say

“I know you
You’re the one I’ve waited for
Let’s have some fun.”

Life is precious every minute
And more precious with you in it
So let’s have some fun

Somewhere, maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
Somewhere, maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
Somewhere, maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
I’ll meet a second little person
And we’ll go out and play

MATT:

That’s a song from my favorite movie: Synecdoche, NY.  The song was written by Jon Brion.  This next song was the first song I ever wrote.  So I don’t know if it stands up but I wrote it also 2 years ago today.

CUT TO COFFEE SHOP

I time stamped the song.

MATT (singing):

I met you last night
round a quarter to three
it was in the dark
and you were in my dreams

it’s march 16th and I didn’t hear from you
I will not say please I will not say

So I fall asleep with the radio on
I fall asleep and you’re still gone

(Repeat from the top 1 octave up)

No pain, no pain
to those who wait
let’s give up our fame and give in to fate
when I see you again, we’ll be more than just friends.

CLAIRE (O.S.):

You’re gonna be fine sweety.

CADEN (O.S.):

I appreciate that Claire, but…

CLAIRE (O.S.):

No you are, you poor thing.

CADEN (O.S.):

Regardless of how this particular thing works itself out, I will be dying. And so will you and so will everyone here.

MATT:

I’m just trying to decide when to reveal this.  What time is it?

JOE (O.S.):

11:19

MATT:

11:19.  Uh (stammering) Um  Uh.

CADEN (O.S.):

That’s what I want to explore.  We’re all hurdling towards death.

MATT:

29 years ago today my mother gave birth to an 8 pound 6 ounce baby boy with black hair…and that’s me.

CADEN (O.S.):

And yet here we are alive.

AUDIENCE (shouting): Happy Birthday Matt!

MATT:

Did everyone already know that?  I was expecting more of a roar.

DONNA (O.S.):

ROOOARR!!

MATT(singing):

I used to be one
Now I’ve just got none.

I used to be too.
That’s no longer true to you.

I used to be, I used to be

CADEN (O.S.):

Each of us knowing that we’re gonna die.  Each of us believing that we’re not.

I used to be free.
Now it’s just barely me

oh my I’m 29!

(Repeats up 1 octave)

CHARLIE KAUFMAN (O.S.):

I want my imagination to continue to have as free a reign as I can allow, so if I’ve learned anything…

MATT:

I used to before,
Now it’s no more than 29.

Audience shouting for cat song

MATT (speaking):

Thank you.  My cats had no idea it was my birthday today. See ya, Pedro.

PEDRO (O.S.):

Adios.

MATT (singing):

If a cat can cross America,

Than it can’t be so unbearable

And you can do something comparable

a cat can cross America…

If I can perform a miracle

Certainly it’s conceivable

that you could do something comparable

Cuz I just performed a miracle

And if I can play harmonica,

Sing and play guitar up here,

Than certainly it’s conceivable,

That you can do something comparable.

So let the cats crawl where they may

I’m back from the grave.

(Applause)

MATT:

Thank you.

Joe, where would you rather spend your birthday?

JOE (O.S.):

Fez!

I’m calling an audible against my set list, against my better judgment.

MATT (singing):

Cats love computers,

Well what’s not to love?

Cats love computers

Well well well what’s not to love?

What? What?

Cats love computers

well, what’s more to love?

cats love computers

Well what’s left of  love?

Please remember me on my computer

Please remember me on my computer

Glass Falls on stage.

“Can I recover from this?”

If a cat can cross America

(Audience laughter)

ERIC (O.S.):

The Epilogue!

MATT:

All the cats and all the dogs

All the blacks and all the white

All the blues and all the reds

This year let things be different.

In a perfect world, different is king,

but those corporations want everything the same.

We’ve got to fight for our rights,

to get those facist assholes out of your life,

it’ll make the difference.

This year let things be different,

It’ll make the difference.

MATT:

Gracias.  Uno Mas.  Feliz Cumpleanos a mi.

MATT (singing)/MATT (V.O.):

When the first third starts to end,

What was once before you – an exciting, mysterious future – is now behind you.
Now you are here, at 7:43. Now you are here, at 7:44. Now you are…

take a look around at all your friends, and ask yourself, “are they having fun? Are we having fun? Am I having fun?”

Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special.

Watch good things happen to bad people, and watch bad things to good people and try not to laugh at all of it.  Try not to laugh at everyone.

You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone’s experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone’s everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It’s yours. It is time for you to understand this.

But when you see her face again, do not sit in place again.

Walk.

Don’t laugh at anyone.

As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one;

Does he like me? Does she like me? I think we might be more than just friends.

as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving – not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time.

The second act is yours to write, if you can learn to love your stage fright, and learn to love the sound of your own voice and try not to laugh at all of it.

Haha. I’m done.

BO (O.S.):

People are waiting for The Beatles!

MATT:

If people are waiting for The Beatles…

QUINN (O.S.):

(laughs) We know at least two of them are not showing up!

BO (O.S.):

I’m serious. I told these guys you play the Beatles really good.

MATT:

Well that was your first mistake.

BO (O.S.):

Come on! Play “A Little Help from my friends.”

MATT:

I’m done.

BO (O.S.):

Boo!

BOB DYLAN (O.S.):

Don’t Boo Me God!  Let’s get that light off.

Cross-fade back to Matt at age 3, sitting at a birthday table.

MATT:

Can you take it off?

FEMALE VOICE (O.S.):

Take it off? (Matt nods) OK.

Fade to black. END.

“If, from all the studies scholars have done on creativity, we could draw a composite portrait of a creative person, it would be a caricature, not a profile.

We found them early developing a keen sensitivity to experience.  Like all of us their first encounters with the world are made up of original discoveries and invention, but long into life, they retain the capacity for childlike wonder.

With every experience they reinvent themselves.  Travel becomes especially a way for the child in them to roam disguised as adults.

What’s important to them is what they think of themselves, so they’re unconventional, often discontented, not always virtuous, and they have a hard time explaining themselves.  They work hard, and day and night are the same to them: no more time-bound are they than their imagination is earth-bound.  They take risks and are either lucky or bold enough to seize chance when it appears.  But almost always, at some crucial moment in their lives, someone else reaches out and says: ‘Here…take my hand.’” Bill Moyers

“Analyzing for Stabilization Time Remaining : About 4 minutes”