DIE ACTOR DIE

One of my jobs as a writer on 1812’s THIS IS THE WEEK THAT IS, is to write a “rant” for actor Scott Greer. It was our opportunity to take a political topic and spin it into absurdity. Last year we did a piece called “Rewordening.” It went over pretty well.

This year we decided to try a scandal that hasn’t gotten much press – namely, soldiers who are injured during combat are being forced to pay back their enlistment bonus. Pretty shameless.

Anywho, we put this up during previews and it BOMBED!! It bombed so bad that audience members were offended. We do a talkback after previews and people really liked the show — except the rant. One guy said it was too preachy. A woman said “my son is in Iraq and it was just too serious to joke about.”

“Too serious to joke about.”

The soldiers are one area where you can’t joke with an audience, even if you are joking in favor of the soldiers. I do a bit n my stand up where I read a letter from my brother who is in Iraq that basically says “The only thing that keeps us going is knowing you all have those magnetic yellow ribbons on the back of your SUVs. PS Please send more armor.” (A bit dated I know. It’s from about two years ago.) The bit always killed. One night a young woman came up to me and said “I liked your act but that letter wasn’t funny. My brother is a marine and we’ve gotten letters like that.” I wanted to ask “You’ve gotten letters where your brother calls Donald Rumsfeld a ‘fuckface’?” But then I thought, yeah she probably has.

But that wasn’t the point.

The soldiers are off limit, mainly because they are dying or are in danger of dying. Daily. They are in the ultimate serious situation and any type of spin for humorous effect belittles them. Even when you are trying to show the ridiculousness and fuckedupedness of their situation. People won’t go there.

Too be fair to me as the writer and Scott as the performer, the piece wasn’t done and neither was his performance. He had been handed the rewrite the afternoon before it was pummeled in the talkback. We explored ways to improve it over a beer following the show, but it was eventually cut which I understand and supported; but I’d love to have tried to crack it. I know Scott was very passionate about the topic, I think he would have too.

The show’s audience also tends to skew older, say 40-60. Humor lands differently on 40 year-old ears than on 20 year-old ears.

Maybe a pro can find a way into it, but not me. David Cross does a great bit on “Shut Up You Fucking Baby” about the troops having to prove that they are praying for Bush while in the middle of combat. It’s shocking and funny because it’s a true story and because it’s David Cross. Maybe David gets a pass because he’s David Cross. Maybe he gets a pass because he earns it through his skill. Maybe what I wrote wasn’t that funny.

Read for yourself:

Scott: The US Army has an incentive program where new recruits are given up to $30,000 as a signing bonus for a tour of duty. How do I know this? Because I ordered a pizza.

Holds up pizza box that is covered with enlistment propaganda including “Up to $20,000 enlistment bonus.”

So when lowering the educational and aptitude standards of recruitment wasn’t enough, the Army decided to become Howie Mandel. You can join the army and have $20,000 or you can go back to working at ChiChi’s. Deal…or no deal?

However, there is a catch: what the pizza box doesn’t tell you is that if you are injured and sent home before your tour is up, you are expected to pay that money back.

Let me say that again: soldiers who are wounded in combat are expected to return the money they were given to enlist in combat!

That’s like criticizing a gay US Senator when he gets caught soliciting sex in an airport bathroom. That’s why he is there!

Sorry, a closeted US Senator.

When Jordan Fox of Mt. Lebanon Pennsylvania signed up to join the army, he received a $10,000 signing bonus. After he was partially blinded by a roadside bomb he was sent home with half his vision and a bill for $3,000 he couldn’t pay.

Once the press got wind of this, the Pentagon said the billing was an error and Fox would not have to pay back that money. People bought it because let’s be honest, the Pentagon has been making errors for the past 5 years.

But Mr. Fox is not a unique case. In fact he is just the tip of the shit-berg. There are thousands of incidents of US soldiers being deprived their enlistment bonus and even worse, their disability payments.

Now to be fair, this is not new information and Congress has come out as saying this is outrageous and unacceptable and they will deal with this…right after the holidays.

But let’s get down to brass tacks ladies and gentlemen; this is all about one thing: money. By denying soldiers medical benefits and VA care the army can save 8 billion dollars in disability pay and another 4.5 billion dollars in medical care over their lifetimes. That’s a lot of saved greenbacks for a cash-strapped army.

Which begs the question, why is the US army, the greatest army in the world, so strapped for cash? They had to get a good bulk rate on these pizza boxes.

Especially when private contractors like Blackwater received half a billion dollars this year alone in government contracts; Halliburton and its subsidiaries have received 21 billion dollars over the course of the war so far. And that’s just Dick Cheney’s cut.

Blackwater pays their private army, I mean, “employees” $650 a day to do the same job a US soldier does for about $100 a day. Halliburton’s list of fraud and wasteful spending is long enough to be the next Tom Wolfe novel, and just as hard to read.

Halliburton will burn fleets of trucks because they have flat tires. Let me say that again…

THEY BURN FLEETS OF TRUCKS!!!

FLEETS TONY! Do you know how many trucks are in a fleet?

Tony: No.

Scott: A LOT!

Then Halliburton orders a whole new fleet and bills the government.

And the government pays them without any questions asked.

But a soldier who follows orders, and loses a limb or their sight or their mind and doesn’t pay back a few thousand dollars, is sent a collection notice.

“Supporting the troops” is not a photo-op on Veterans Day or mouthing platitudes or placing a magnetic ribbon on the back of a minivan. It is making sure the troops are supported; that they are taken care of both at home and in combat. And Jamie Kennedy’s Hip-Hop Comedy Tour as part of the USO does not count as “being taken care of.”

Soldiers are asked to make the ultimate sacrifice. And we repay this by sacrificing them to the bottom line.

Which brings me back to the pizza box; sure the army promises you experience and excitement and adventure; but when all is said and done, what really matters is being respected. Truly and fairly respected. And on that point the army just doesn’t deliver.

Welcome to the new army – where you really are an army of one.

Wow, that is preachy! But I think there is something there. One thing we didn’t do is “spin it” into absurdity. We were too outraged by the facts we wanted to get as many of them out as we could, share our disgust and hopefully get the audience as outraged as us. All it did was depress and distance them.

Maybe I’ll try to crack it on my own.

*FART*

Sorry I had to lighten the mood…and fart.