Gunning Down All That Is Good: October 2005

Because no one else gives a fuck whether you expand your mind or not.

Explaining why pillow-talk with Gatsby is impossible, Nick Carraway is a closet homosexual, and the sexual politics of the Roaring Twenties are akin to 13 year olds on monkey bars, only with more martinis and feather boas…And intrigue and death and shit.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby takes place in the summer of 1922, with most of the events taking place on Long Island communities and in the city.

Cast:
Nick Carraway: The Narrator. A young stockbroker. He is an outside observer who provides nothing but a clinical depiction of everyone and everything, because he happens to know all that goes on with everyone, and yet he is never directly involved. Nick spends the novel describing his relationship with his neighbour, the fantastical and wild Jay Gatsby, whom Nick comes to know and respect {love sexually?} greatly over the course of the summer months.
Jay Gatsby: The Title Character. A young, eccentric bon vivant millionaire with a shady past. Possibly the only fictional character I could ever be persuaded to fellate.
Daisy Buchanan: Principle Love Interest of Gatsby. Whore Gold Digger Wife of Tom. Cousin of Nick.
Tom Buchanan: Daisy’s Two-Timing Asshole of a Husband, Whom No-One Really Likes, and Yet No-One Ever Gives a Big Enough Fuck to Tell Him to STFU. A former schoolmate of Nick’s back in college days.
Jordan Baker: Pointless Exposition Carrier and Distraction from the Truth That Is Nick Carraway’s Love for Other Men.
Myrtle Wilson: Tom’s Married Mistress. Wife of the George, who runs a dumpy little gas station somewhere in the hell between Long Island and NYC.
George Wilson: Myrtle’s husband. Runs a shitty gas station.

Scene One: Mostly in the Buchanan’s hawt mansion.

Nick: [moves to Long Island, next door to some dude named Gatsby. This will be important later on. How a poor young stockbroker just starting out manages to get a house situated next to an extravagant mansion is beyond me.]
Daisy and Tom: [invite Nick over for dinner.]
Nick: [meets Jordan Baker.]
Jordan: Hi! I’m here to ferry information to you that would otherwise never reach your hearing. Hey, did you know that the first five minutes after you meet someone is the best time in which to tell them that your host is having an affair with a married woman?
Nick: No, I did not know that. Also, it makes more sense than telling said host’s wife, who is one’s hostess, my cousin, and allegedly your best friend.
Jordan: I’m cynical!
Nick: Well, go you…! I guess.
Tom: Well, folks, have we accomplished all the exposition we need to have to move forward?
Jordan: I think so.
Daisy: Can I come back from whatever menial task sent me out of the room and hearing distance yet?
Nick: . . .
Jordan: . . .
Tom: . . . No.

Scene Two: NYC, Tom’s secret love-nest.

Tom: [goes on a trip to NYC, taking along Myrtle and…Nick? They sure spend a lot of time bonding for people who tend to passively hate each other.] This is my secret lair where Myrtle and I sex each other up!
Nick: Your tales of sexual congress with women hold no fascination for me, but I must say I love what you’ve done with the place!
Tom: [smooches Myrtle]
Nick: Are these drapes silk?
Tom: [humps Myrtle]
Nick: What a darling little chesterfield!
Tom: [unbuttons Myrtle’s skirt]
Nick: Why don’t I make us some mini bruschettas?
Tom: Oh holy FUCK, you need to get laid. By a woman.
Myrtle: What’s up with your heartless bitch of a wife? And I love you.
Tom: [punches Myrtle in the face] Shut up about my wife bitch!
Myrtle: I love you so bad. [faints from broken-nose angst]
Nick: Y’know, having witnessed all of this, I surprisingly feel no familial loyalty nor even common human moral decency and will not breath a word of this to Daisy.
Tom: Now I remember why I like you.

Scene Three: Gatsby’s Carnival-of-Fun Mansion

Random Servant: [yells across the lawn] Hey! We’re having a party here tonight!
Nick: Yeah, I noticed. Every fucking Saturday. How am I supposed to sleep around here?
Random Servant: Usually one starts with an attraction to the opposite sex. It just ups your chances of scoring, is all I'm saying. At least in West Egg. Soho might be more your style. Then you just find a string of loose, vulnerable women, and--
Nick: No, I mean, how am I supposed to sleep if you guys make so much fucking noise all the time?
Random Servant: Right. So...are you coming? [insert bad pun here] I mean, will you be there?
Nick: I haven’t received and invitation from my would-be host.
Random Servant: Personal invitations are for pussies.
Nick: . . .
Random Servant: Whatever. Here, a personal invitation from Jay Gatsby.
Nick: You just scribbled it onto the back of your to-do list.
Random Servant: Are you coming or not?
Em: [sits on her hands]
Nick: Sure. I’ll be there. [attends the wildly Bacchanalian party, wherein he comes across Jordan Baker.]
Jordan: Hi!
Nick: Oh no. You’re here for more exposition, aren’t you?
Jordan: Mmhmm!
Nick: Shit. Best get it over with, then. A-hem. I hope we get to meet our host amidst this throng of people.
Jordan: Fat chance. I’ve been to, like, a bajillion of these parties and I’ve never seen him once. He rarely comes up to people and talks to them. Although clearly this occasion is special, for it would otherwise not merit documentation in a novel where every scene is important.
Gatsby: Hello you two!
Jordan: Voila!
Gatsby: [is surprisingly young for being so wealthy. {Em asks: ‘male gigolo?’} He fakes a good British accent and has an amazing smile… {‘my money’s still on the gigolo-theory,’} …and tends to call everybody “old sport,” {ho-kay, not so much. I mean, for fuck’s sake:
Random Love Interest: “Ohhhhh JAY! Oh y-ES!”
Gatsby: “I love you!
Random Love Interest: “I love you too! That was amazing!”
Gatsby: “Jolly good, I say, old sport.” *lights a cigarette*
*sound of a vinyl record screeching to a halt*
Random Love Interest: “Wait, WHAT?”

In any case: NO. Do not ever refer to a piece of tail as “old sport.” Just not sexy.}

To continue…

Gatsby: Jordan, I must speak with you privately on a matter requiring some delicacy. [They leave, and shortly Jordan returns, chock-full of exposition.]
Jordan: [tattles to Nick-Almighty-Narrator, clinching the perception that she is only there to serve as a means of transporting more evidence to Nick’s ears] Nick! GUESS WHAT! Gatsby knew Daisy before she was married, in 1917, down in Louisville, and they were deeply in love, and Gatsby still loves Daisy and spends his nights staring across the water of the bay at the green light he knows sits at the end of Daisy’s dock. (Totally not a metaphor.) Gatsby’s mansion is directly across the water from the Buchanan estate. All of Gatsby’s wild parties and wealth have been to impress and attract Daisy. By implementing the “bring all your friends” policy, he had hoped that sooner or later someone would bring Daisy to his home so she could see what she was missing. Unfortunately, Daisy is a stuck up psycho with no friends and even Jordan doesn’t want to bring Daisy to a party because Tom would have to come too and Tom is a whiny little bitch.
Nick: Don’t we all know that by now.
Gatsby: [approaches Nick, somehow knowing that Jordan’s lips are looser than Myrtle Wilson, and that now Nick knows the whole sordid history.] I need you to invite Daisy to your house for tea, and arrange a reunion between us, but it can’t look like it was arranged, it must be natural and like I’m not even trying and oh my stars it’s grade seven all over again. Dude, you can, like, get her over here, and I can totally talk to her and see if she still likes me.
Nick: Why can’t you just invite her to your house?
Gatsby: It’s just easier this way.
Nick: Easier for YOU, maybe. What if I want to arrange my own social life for a change?
Gatsby: I am your social life, dude. You are officially awkward in a social context. Just do it. I’m nouveau-riche and used to getting my own way in everything.
Nick: GOD! FINE! Daisy, get your ass over here!
Gatsby: Great. I’m going to hide in the closet here. Now when she gets here, see if you can see if she likes me or not, and then, if she does, I’ll come out of the closet, and if she doesn’t, I won’t. {Seriously. There is so much UST here between Nick and Gatsby, and, well, with Gatsby we’ll never know, but with Nick, it explains a hell of a lot about his on-again-off-again relationship with Jordan. A sporty, flat-chested girl who plays golf and is named JORDAN.}
Doorbell: Ding-dong!
Nick: …For fuck’s sake…[lets in Daisy.]
Daisy: Hi Nick! Why did you want me to come over? You NEVER invite me to your place. One would think you had an ulterior motive in inviting me over for tea.
Nick: Uh…I…love you?
Gatsby: BITCH! [charges out of the closet and slaps Nick.]
Nick: Damnit Gatsby, I was creating a fucking RUSE for you to do your shit! I’m hopelessly gay, remember?
Gatsby: …right. Uh. Jolly good, old sport. [turns to Daisy woodenly] Oh, hello. Have…we…met? Ah! Daisy! So good to see you again…and how have you been? Because I totally haven’t been stalking your every step for the past few years and the intimacies of your life are wholly unknown to me…
Daisy: WTF?
[awkward pause]
Gatsby: I…love…you?
Nick: [sneaks out of the room to find an ice-pack]
Daisy and Gatsby: [get...it on...I mean...jiggy with it...I mean...reacquainted.]

{So that wasn’t an exact re-telling of the scene, as I made some allowances for Nick’s blatant homosexuality, which was not made evident in the original scene. But you get the idea.

Anyhow.}

Time: [passes.]

Scene Four: A Luncheon at the Buchanan House, to Which Gatsby Has Been Invited, for Some Reason.

Gatsby: [leers at Daisy]
Daisy: [simpers and blushes]
Tom: [gets jealous and enraged at the idea that his wife could ever possibly be unfaithful to him]
Double-Standard: [is glaringly evident]
Tom: We’re all going to New York City. Now.
Gatsby: Cool. Daisy and I will go in my one-of-a-kind-Rolls Royce. It’s bright yellow.
Daisy: Let’s roll!

Scene Five: The Plaza Hotel, NYC

Nick and Jordan: [come along for the ride because Nick is our principle narrator and needs to know these behind-closed-door things, and Jordan is there…I dunno…in case Nick misses something she can fill him in.]
Em: I’m not sure why they’re all randomly in this hotel suite…
Tom: Daisy, you’re faithful to me, so Mr. Purple-Silk-Shirt-Gatsby {I kid you not, there is all kinds of gayness in the wardrobe} better step off if he knows what’s good for him.
Em: And now I know.
Gatsby: Tom, Daisy and I were in love long before you two even met and she is totally going to leave you for me…eventually.
Daisy: Uh. No. I’m really not, Jay.
Gatsby: WTF? What was that interlude in the Rolls all about then?
Daisy: Um…I’m gagging for it?
Gatsby: Good enough.
Tom: Look, Gatsby, Daisy and I have something you couldn’t possibly understand…we have an understanding—
Gatsby: What, an open marriage? Oh, no, because in this, only YOU get to screw around behind your spouse’s back!
Nick: Oh snap!
Jordan: Shut up, Nick! Silent observers, remember.
Tom: [blurts and points a finger at Gatsby] Gatsby made his entire fortune bootlegging alcohol and drugs!
Assembled Company in Prohibition-Era America: [le gasp!]
Gatsby: [shamefaced] This is true. But I did it all for love of Daisy!
Daisy: I choose Tom!
Gatsby: Bugger.
Nick: Oh really?
Jordan: Nick! No! Down boy! Remember, I’m your cynical golf-playing love interest.
Nick: Whatev.
Tom: Heh.
Daisy: Well aren’t I the heartless bitch…
Tom: Tell ya what, “old sport,” just to prove how emasculated you are at this very moment, I will let you drive my wife back to our house in your Sex-Mobile all alone. Hell, take the scenic route. We’ll see you there.

On the way back to the Buchanan house:

Gatsby’s Sex-Mobile: [mows down Myrtle Wilson outside the gas station in one of the best fits of epileptic irony I have ever seen.]

Scene Six: Back at the Buchanan house

Gatsby: [stands outside and stares up at Daisy’s window in the gathering dark.]
Nick: Anything I need to be told so I can relate it all in an omniscient perspective to the reader.
Gatsby: Daisy was driving, but I intend to take the blame.
Nick: Well, that WILL be important. [makes a note] Thanks. Goodnight. Have fun…stalking or whatever the shit you’re doing right now.
Gatsby: Cheers, old sport.

Scene Seven: the Next Day, Shitty Gas Station

George Wilson: [mentally unstable] Oh doesn’t my life suck?
Tom: The dude driving the car who killed your wife was totally Jay Gatsby.*
George Wilson: VENGANCE! Where’s my shotgun?
Tom: Eheheheheheh. [backs away]

*There is some backstory and subplot about how Gatsby’s real name isn’t Jay Gatsby, and who he was before he was rich, and some Jewish guy who helped Gatsby in his illegal activities. However, Sparksnotes.com has seen fit to leave this subplot out, and I’m basing this on my memories of the book, which I read this past summer, referring to sparksnotes.com for the finer plot details.

Scene Eight: Gatsby’s Mansion, first chilly day of autumn.

Gatsby: [eccentric in the midst of heartbreak] I shall go lie on my floaty air-mattress in my pool.
Random Servant: It’s too cold, sir.
Gatsby: Screw you. For some obscure reason which is never made clear, this reminds me of Daisy and the love we once shared. I will go float on my floaty air-mattress and NO ONE WILL STOP ME! [floats peacefully, with his eyes closesd]
Em: Oh I love the smell of irony in the morning.
George Wilson: [stumbles in, mad with grief, and a .22] YOU SLEEP KILL MY WIFE!
Gatsby: [opening one eye] Ah, well, you see, that’s only half-true, old sport. Well, not true at all, really, the people you’re looking for are just across the—
George Wilson’s Gun: [goes bang]
Gatsby: [gets gunned down]
Em: Hey, it wasn’t me. I didn’t give him that gun. [hugs Gatsby’s lifeless body] Noooooo!
George Wilson: [turns it on himself]
George Wilson’s Gun: [gives a repeat performance to enthusiastic bravos and encores.]

Scene Nine: A bunch of places

Nick: [is the only one who shows up to the funeral he planned for Gatsby.] Hmpf. Their loss. Although I must say that the robin’s egg blue ruched satin in the casket just sets off Gatsby’s eyes SO well…goodnight, sweet prince. Or something.

Jordan: Hi!
Nick: Oh, hey Jordan! By the way, GET LOST!
Jordan: You-you’re breaking up with me? Oh boo-hoo…now I’m even more jaded than before! I’m so young, so cynical, what a modern tragedy! You don’t even need me for exposition or boring the readersby taking the attention away from Gatsby with our fruitless farce of a romance?
Nick: No. No more exposition is needed. The main character is dead. The Fucking Title Character. Seriously, who kills the Title Character? Who? The killing is no. Shut up Romeo and Juliet. Shut up.
Jordan: But I—
Nick: Shut. Up. Now I need to tell people what happened to me.
Readers: Like we care.
Nick: Shut it. You have to read this book to be fulfilled as an intellectual. I WILL ENRICH YOUR LIFE AND YOU WILL THANK ME FOR IT!
A-hem.
So I moved back to the Midwest.
Readers: Ohhhhh.
Nick: Because the wealthy friends and acquaintances of Gatsby have gotten corrupt and have no souls.
Readers: And you *just* realized this?
Nick: I am disgusted with the moral decay of this society.
Readers: How are you any different from everyone else?
Nick: Gatsby’s dream of Daisy was corrupted by money, greed, and lies. Much like the American pursuit of individual happiness. Blah blah American Dream Metaphor blah blah fishcakes. Gatsby had the ability to make his dreams real, which made him “great,” however, the era of dreaming—both Gatsby’s and the American—is over.
Readers: No shit?
Nick: [bows] Thank you and goodnight.
Readers: I just wasted five hours just so this in-the-closet-fag could tell me that reality bites?
Em: Can I get a W-T-F???

This ends our educational segment for the time being. I know a promised a recap of Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll, but good Lord I just couldn't. It was all I could do to finish reading it. Much less take detailed notes.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Well This Is Unexpected...

Shit guys! Look!

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

I should cash this sucker in and make for Mexico. Or, pay off part of my tuition...yeah..."tuition"...

ETA: $USD!!!!!!!!!! *dies*

Monday, October 24, 2005

Truth is Proven to Be Stranger Than Fiction.

Haha.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Gunners Go Gatsby: A Literary Analysis

Guest Gunner

Today we're going to hand over our guns to Dame Edna, as we Gunners are joining the walkout in support of the BCTF's prolonged strike action.

In conclusion: Tom Cruise and Madonna's Teeth (or The Space Therein)>>>>GUNNED DOWN!

Gunning Down All That Is Good

About Me

Leftovers

Digging in the Bottom of the Freezer

Talk With Your Mouth Full!

Side Dishes

Monday, October 31, 2005

Hallowe'en Just Got Scarier!