Category Archives: politics

irony, politics

GET OUT OF LINE

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[A thirty-year-old man with a hip hairstyle and clothes. He looks timid, but speaks with firmness despite his strong accent.]

“In my country you have to stand in line for everything…  for bread, for gas, to see a doctor.

It’s a way of life… people stand in line and gossip or play games, they flirt, or even get drunk.

But I never got used to it. I hated feeling like a number, one more letter in a long sentence and with no other function but to wait, and wait, and wait…

To be clear, I’m not against order or civility, but I had the feeling those lines were not really necessary, that they were there just to give us something to do, to keep us controlled and away from any subversive tendencies.

Of course, I didn’t say that out loud. They would have laughed at me… Or worse.

In the end, it was the lines that made me realize immigrating was the only way I could live with dignity. And so I ended up in this country… don’t ask me how.

I was so happy, I felt so free… for the first time. Free to walk down the street hand-in-hand with my boyfriend.

And yes, there were lines here too, but these were different. Optional. Like when you go to a place for brunch and the line is too long, so you just decide to go somewhere else.

But, the other day, my boyfriend insisted on going to see one of those summer blockbusters. You know, the kind of movies that are so hyped it’s almost a social imperative to watch them.

And we went on opening day.

We got to the multiplex roughly two hours early. We’d planned to buy the tickets and then have some dinner.

But the line to the ticket window wrapped around the block.

I asked my boyfriend if we could try again another day but he wasn’t budging.

And I didn’t complain.

As we took our place, a familiar sadness soon engulfed me; the sadness of standing in a line…  but this felt even worse, because I wasn’t waiting for bread or a doctor, I was waiting to see some movie.

I realized we were being duped by a system not much different from my country’s…

We were free to watch another movie (or have lunch in another restaurant), but we were in that file forced by the artificial necessity of being part of the hype, of experiencing, first-hand, what everyone else was talking about. Oh, and being seen while doing it. We craved to belong to something bigger than ourselves; a movie, a sports event, a concert… even voting. Something we could contribute to with very little effort.

We just had to get in line and become a number.

That’s what we did that Friday when we waited for an hour to contribute to the highest grossing opening of all time…until now.

Truth to be said… the movie sucked balls.”

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

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016

history, Hollywood, irony, memory, politics

REAL FICTION

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[A man in his late thirties. The liberal type, dressed casually and with messy hair. Something about him screams intellectual.]

“My grandfather was an old Hollywood screenwriter back in the forties. He only has two or three credits to his name on obscure films… To be honest, I used to think he had had a mediocre career and that he had retired early.

Later on, I learned he was also a member of the communist party, and that his political views had landed him on Hollywood’s blacklist…

Unable to get work as a screenwriter, he took any film-related job to make ends meet; production assistant, gaffer, grip… even as an extra.

According to my father, he once got a background gig in a big Hollywood production, a romantic drama, set in the Russian Revolution.  Anti-communist propaganda of that time…

My grandfather had no idea what the scene was about but, still, he put on his proletarian costume and showed up on a set that looked like a muscovite street, along another hundred extras.

There, this assistant to the director instructs them to parade down the fake street singing The International, you know, the United Worker’s hymn.

The song was banned in the US back then, so instead of teaching them the lyrics, the assistant just hummed the melody a couple of times for the extras to memorize it.

And so, when the director called “action”, all the extras began to hum the song, more or less successfully… All of them except my grandfather. He shouted it from the top of his lungs, enunciating every single word.

I like to picture him with a Cheshire grin, tickled by the irony of getting paid for something he had been banned from doing and being in real life.

It probably was the biggest victory of his life…

I’m sure he’d tell the story better himself.

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

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016

inmigration, politics

BORDER LAW

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[A man of thirty, military type, with muscles and a crewcut. He expresses himself with pride and confidence, but his eyes reveal doubt.]

I was always very much “by the book,” you know? Follow the rules. Respect the Law. That made sense to me. We’re given a set of instructions to live by so everything is clearly defined, good and bad, right and wrong…

My father thought the same way. He was a border patrol agent, and proud of it. Just as proud as I was of him, which is why I became one too.

I don’t want to come off as soft, but I hope people can understand we also feel bad for some of the illegals we detain at the border… mothers with babies, kids too young to be on their own…. we realize most of them are just trying to make a living, provide for their families.

But there’s a law. And someone needs to enforce it.

Still, I admit there are some…“special cases”.

Like this guy we caught about a year ago. Sergio was his name.

Homeland Security was holding him indefinitely. The guy had crossed the border one too many times before, and they suspected he might be in cahoots with something bigger… maybe terrorism or whatever.

He swore up and down he was just a cook though.

It was hard not to like the man; he joked around a lot and cracked everyone up… even the guards.

Anyway, about a week later, they said he was free to go. He was clean.

The night before the deportation, he offered to cook for us. He said he wanted to thank us for treating him so well…

We let him use our kitchen and even kept it secret from the higher-ups.

He made ribs. We all pitched in to buy them.

I swear you’ve never tasted ribs like those. Juicy, smoky, tangy… Dad would turn over in his grave if he heard me say it but, they were better than his… And my old man was as proud of his ribs as he was of his badge.

Everybody got a taste, including the other detainees. It turned into a party of sorts. It was fun…

The next morning Sergio was chaperoned back across the border, and all the time I kept thinking, how can doing the right thing feel so wrong?

Don’t get it twisted, I’m still an agent. I still believe in the Law.

But something in me changed that day.

I know because, last week, I stopped off at a random restaurant and ordered some ribs.

I immediately recognized the flavor.

So I ate, paid, and left… before I ran into the cook.

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

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016