Hail, Caesar, and Other Bad Weather

I recently moved from the hinterlands to the metrop. It has taken me some time to make the transition. Our bustling citadel, Ogguster, has enough people in it to fill the bleachers at Fenway, or maybe start a statewide insurrection if the constabulary is sleeping. But Johnny Law only sleeps in the daytime, because that’s when they’re on the clock, and sedition traditionally happens after the sun goes down, so there’s not much danger of that.

I’ve had to make new friends. My old friends were reliable, but somewhat uncultured. They were generous to a fault, though. They didn’t seem to mind it when I’d take an armload of firewood from their pile, as long as it was in the middle of the night while they were sleeping. I knew their habits well, and discerned that asking during the day would have been an additional imposition on their time, so I avoided that as well. I hate bothering people.

It took me a while to find a new tabernacle to worship at in Ogguster. I had to hunt around for my particular denomination, but I eventually found one by following the neon signs. This particular bethel has perhaps more beer taps than yours. I’ve been instructed by everyone from the pope to that Clinton woman to socialize, and worship the redeemer, in my own way, so I do. It takes a village to fill the stools at our local mission house, or at least an army base nearby, so maybe she had a point. I’m not sure I should trust her opinions other than that. She’s rich, but she splits her time between Arkansas and upstate New York. That smacks of bouncing your head off the Scylla and Charybdis over and over, without even trying to navigate the water in between. And as far as the pope goes, we do have something like communion wafers, although they’re much larger, and they have logos all over them, and you set your chalice on them. They taste about the same at the Catholic variety, so I assume they’re valid tickets to the Glory Land anyway.

So my new friend in the city, Norman Rockwall, asked me if I wanted to see a local feller play Two Gentlemen of Verona in Monmouth. I remarked that I didn’t really care for soccer, and two against one seemed a trifle unfair, even if the Verona squad was unranked. He explained that he was talking about going to see Shakespeare. I admitted I didn’t care who was holding the tickets, I still wasn’t interested. Eventually I got the drift, though, that it was a night at the theater he was touting. That sounded classy. I never miss a chance to put on my best bib and tucker, so I said sure.

We ended up outside a building big enough to be a reform school, but less charming. We got our ducats and went inside and climbed two or three hundred flights of stairs, or so it seemed to me, and sat with our backs to the wall up among the cobwebs. From our vantage  point, it was a flea circus, but my friend assured me that the actors were bound to have good elocution. I professed indifference on what kind of tradesmen they might be during the day, I just wanted to make sure they yelled loud enough so we’d know who was the villain, so I’d know who to root for.

Just then, way down front, I spotted some guys dressed for a funeral. They were generally molesting some form of fiddle. They had all kinds. They tucked some under their chins, with a hanky in between, so I knew they must have been rented, but not cleaned every time, like a rental car. Some had bigger ones that sat between their knees. Other fellas had some too big to ride like a gentleman, and they sorta stood next to it and tried to play is side saddle. They were making a terrible racket, each playing something else, and I wondered aloud why they they’d get dressed up and pay for primo seats like that and then cause such a commotion. Norman explained that they were just tuning up, and that they were the orchestra. This flummoxed me. I tune up my snowmobile in the garage, not on the trail. Don’t musicians have a garage?

The theatrical bill of fare had shifted, and Norman informed me that the Two Gentlemen of Verona had the night off, probably to go home and guard their woodpiles. Tonight’s menu was going to be something along the lines of Julius Caesar vs. All Comers, sorta like a wrestling match at a county fair. I wasn’t too “up” on Julius, but Norman filled me in some. Julio was some form of garlic eater back in the day, and he bivouacked in Gaul several times, at least until he got tired of being so far from his woodpile all the time. Then he went one last time and turned the Gaullians into regular Frenchmen, who couldn’t do no harm, and became sort of military speed bumps forevermore. I covered my ears and yelled, “Spoilers!”, but Norman assured me that the play was about a totally different kettle of fish. Caesar was a busy dude and had all sorts of adventures, I gathered. No idea when he had time left over to invent salads and Orange Julius.

Then the curtain went up and the show was purdy good. Julius came rolling into town like it was the circus. Some carpenters and cobblers and assorted other people who lost their jobs to the Chinese started in with dost thous and beseechings, and various other incomprehensible blather, and then started going on and on about the Ides of March, which if you ask me isn’t half as scary as April 15th, but no one in Hollywood ever listens to me.

So Caesar’s wife California wanted him to call in sick to work but she’s not as good looking as Cleopatra so he went anyway. His friends are throwing one of those Animal House parties where everyone’s wearing bedsheets and partying hearty and he doesn’t want to miss it. So he goes, and get this, his friends stab him at the foot of Pompeii, which wasn’t erupting just then, I guess. Brutus was involved somehow, but I didn’t see Popeye or Wimpy or anyone amusing. The proceedings were kind of depressing, truth be told.

Then Caesar’s friend Mark Anthony threw one of those Iranian funerals where the crowd kinda tosses the interested party around like a ragdoll and generally act like they’re at a rave instead of a requiem. This was all followed up by some battle scenes that wouldn’t fit on the stage. Then everyone except Ogguster Caesar commits suicide. I guess Ogguster was vice-Caesar or something, but I gather not many people voted for him, or even knew he was on the ballot, just like our elections.

Well, it was a pretty good show, all around, but they should probably spring for more fake blood if they want to keep people interested in the cheap seats. And George Lucas coulda told them that it was a mistake to massacre Julius in the first play, right out of the gate. It makes sequels pretty difficult, and being back before Christ, the opportunities for time travel or clones were few and far between. But still, two thumbs up from this reviewer. No Christians were harmed in the making of the play, and the horses were killed off-stage.