All posts by Abel Gonzalez

economy, politics

CENSORSHIP 2.0

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[An old man, outwardly weathered but with an enthusiastic spirit]

My first book denounced the atrocities and abuses of my country’s oppressive government.

It was immediately censored. But I paid for a run of a hundred copies in an illegal printer shop. And then I gave all the copies away for free. I only asked people to pass the book onto someone else after reading it.

I couldn’t tell you how many people read it. Probably in the thousands as it was later distributed in photocopy. One thing I know for sure; people were talking about it and my ideas started to spread, to connect with people.

The proof is that the government sent me into exile soon after.

But that didn’t stop me. Shortly after migrating here, I started writing my second book. It was even more critical of my country’s government, but it also pointed out the traps and deficiencies I had experienced in this democracy I was living in.

I worked as fast as I could, always thankful for the freedom of speech that allowed me to write whatever I wanted.

And, of course, I anticipated it’d be hard to find a publisher for my new book; but not nearly impossible. In my country, they wouldn’t print it out of fear of going to jail. Here, out of fear of losing money.

I ended up self-publishing it. Just like my first book. And then I distributed it in some small bookstores.

No one bought it.

I cut the price in half. That only made it worse. People assume cheap things have no value.

I only gave up when I realized I was the victim of the most efficient censorship ever devised. The free market. A system that understands that suppressing ideas is just a way to advertise them; that people crave what’s forbidden. So they let these ideas free in a world filled with silly movies, escapist fiction, grandiose mass spectacles… where they’ll fade away, ignored by the public, disregarded because of their lack of profitability.

But that’s not the end of me. I now plan to sneak back into my country and write a third book.

I really hope they censor it like the first one.

Are you an actor or director interested in using this monologue? Contact us in ABOUT MONOLOGY!

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016

destiny, history, love, video

A GLORIOUS FAILURE

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[A man in his twenties, he has a preppy look. Very eloquent and passionate, he talks with his hands]

Julian Pedrales was a Spanish architect, back in the eighteenth century.

The son of a peasant, he was destined to follow his father’s destiny… if it weren’t because his drawing skills convinced some local officials to patron him.

After finishing his studies at the Academy, he became an apprentice, then an assistant to a famous architect… whose work Julian would finish without getting credited for it.

Judging by his meager accomplishments, you’d think he wasn’t very ambitious. But that’s not true. He was… to a fault.

He was obsessed with building a massive cathedral, one with the biggest nave and the tallest steeple in Europe.

For over thirty years, he used his own money to travel to every court, to hustle for the favor of nobles and churchmen…
Unfortunately, the enormity of his project –so expensive, so technically challenging– discouraged anyone but Julian to attempt it.

Toward the end of his life, he retired to a small patch of land near his hometown. He built himself a house there, nothing too fancy…
He also built a small chapel on a hill nearby. It barely took him three months to complete it.

I visited the chapel years ago. It was already getting dark when I reached it. The façade was unassuming but beautiful in its simplicity.

To my surprise, there were some lit candles inside, the light reflecting on the stone walls, making it look like a shiny womb, warm and inviting.

I walked inside… sat on a bench. The place was tiny; the walls, bared…

I felt closer to god. And I’m not religious…

There, I realized that, occasionally, people triumph despite their own ambitions.

Are you an actor or director interested in using this monologue? Contact us in ABOUT MONOLOGY!

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2017

storytelling

NATURAL BORN FIBBER

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[A middle-aged woman with an uninteresting appearance but very eloquent.]

“As a sales rep, I spend two-thirds of my time on business trips, which limits my world to the realm of airport gates, hotel lobbies, manager’s offices… it’s a very lonely existence as you can imagine, unless you are able to engage in casual conversation, small talk, insubstantial chatter.

And I’m terrible at it.

So much so, that every time I found myself in that kind of situation, I tended to embellish my stories a little, just to keep people’s attention. Because let’s face it, no one is really interested in what I have to say.

And so, when my cat died of old age, I told the lady sitting next to me on the plane that my house had burnt to the ground with my kitty in it… and that the fire had then spread to the whole block, killing six people.

When I broke up with my boyfriend of ten years, I confessed to a hotel receptionist that he had left because I was spending too much time with my terminally ill mother… who had a strange virus that forced her to live inside a plastic bubble.

Also, this time when I had horrible diarrhea, I told a sales manager I had recently been shot in the stomach… after getting caught in the crossfire between the police and some bank robbers who were trying to flee with millions in cash.

(sigh)

I swear I didn’t do it expecting pity, or admiration, or whatever… like I said, I just wanted to sound interesting.

And it seemed harmless to me. You know, imagining tragedies in order to engage with people I would never see again in my life.

But I’ll admit it had become an obsession. I was always looking forward to meeting the next stranger so I could spin a new, even more incredible yarn… I don’t know if I could have quit doing it on my own.

But, in fact, I did stop altogether one day.

As you’ve probably guessed, it took a real personal tragedy to make me realize how wrong it was to lie about things like that.

That tragedy was my father’s passing… in a terrible plane crash. It was one of the worst in the history of civil aviation… no survivors and hundreds of victims on the ground as it came down in the middle of a small Midwestern town.”

Are you an actor or director interested in using this monologue? Contact us in ABOUT MONOLOGY!

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016