Sketch Comedy

Sketch Comedy

    There are three men sitting in a room.  All of them facing one another at their yellow, triangular work desk.   Usually this desk steamed many ideas but today, the pot was off the kettle.  Each of those men, Ken, Stark and Frank were completely speech-less when they got the call from their manager Smith McNally. 
    "We need to scratch that first sketch."
    "Scratch....like remove it."  Frank seemed crushed. 
    "Yeah, the early testing didn't get high marks." 
    "Yeah but everyone loves talking monkeys, they must of hired some rich snobs or house-wife's....that's not even our core audience." Stark almost yelled like each one of their sketches linked to some these fucking monkeys.
    "Well just get rid of them, they are not working...you have all day to come up with something new so we can shoot it tomorrow."

    "Okay, we can do that." Stark seemed confident but that instantly vanished when the phone was hung up.
    So, all three of them looked at each other worried.  Each of them silent in this bleak office.  It only took them 2 days to write the whole 43 minute show, full of 11 sketches, but for some reason this one held the most weight.  The Talking Monkeys opened them up to their audience, completely insane and utterly pointless but that was their humor and hopefully their audiences too.  But now, they must crank out the opening sketch, the one that will make or break their show, either draw or retract their audience.  The pressure was in their managers voice and it lingered but it only led them into nothingness. 
    It wasn't Franks duty because he was the actual writer who translated the brainstorming session between Ken and Stark into a feasible, brilliant sketch.  He felt the most weight from the bad news, maybe he could of made it funnier, maybe he left out something that they said during their discussions.  He looked at the other two, directly into their eyes, trying to see if they resented him but Stark just look dazed and agitated and Ken looked as usual, hung over.  After he looked up that one time, his head never moved from his memo pad and his hand furiously scribbled.  The more he wrote, the closer he became to hilarity.  That was his ideal behind pure manual labor, working with your hands, but everything he wrote was shit.  Nothing was funny anymore, his mouth was to dry to even smack his lips to laugh.  He continued to search for that sketch that would launch their show into seasons.  All it takes is a pilot. 
    Ken cleared his throat, breaking the silence that stayed dormant in the room since McNally's phone call an hour ago.   
    "Man, did I have a rough night." He spoke with his rough, smokey voice. 
    "Yeah sounds like it, you shouldn't be eaten out any smoked hams man, to many calories" Stark said which made Frank chuckle.
    "It wasn't anything like that, I only got my sausage and eggs scrambled." 
    "Fucking putrid, I do not wanna hear one of these stories again." Ken felt like he was repeating himself.  They all knew Ken was a party goer.  Their was only so much you could do in Los Angeles.  The others didn't mind but the stories got redundant and the insanity that Ken always referenced too seemed to wear thin.  When people talk about California, especially L. A., they always talk about what you can get away with like it was some neutral zone of entertainment but once you live out here, in this egotistical mess, the insanity becomes regular and if you weren't from the background, you wished it was actually normal most days.  You suddenly get sick of the stories, the people, the fake atmosphere surrounding the lights, the entertainment and the insomniac culture.  It was a hell of a time but it was hell in the same breath.
    "It's totally different." An obvious lie but Ken needed to get this story out, or his hangover would ultimately get worse like this story would clear his blood content and return him into a state of sobriety.
    "So I got a call from Ben, you guys remember him right? 
    Stark and Frank looked at each other annoyingly, they remember Ben alright.  His scruffy beard that he was overly proud of, the suit coat which he wore over all his T-shirts, and his smell of cologne.  They both agreed after meeting him that he must bathe in it.
    When they both got the jobs, Ken invited them to his own celebration of working on the television show.  Ben was Ken's best friend, and he owned a mansion.  Many dudes, less girls, and the struggle for attention was jaw dropping.  Needless to say, this was the only party they ever accompanied with Ken.  Not because they didn't have fun, they had a hell of a time.  Drinking, smoking, and doing other explicit drugs and activities but it was to much fun.  It made the normalcy even more boring.  It made their lives feel to strenuous and less entertaining.  They both were depressed after partying with Ken and both of them, secretively behind Ken's back, vowed to never go to one of his "shitty" parties.
    "Yeah, you went to his mansion like every other night... just move on with the story" Frank said, trying to urge him through the story so they could get back to work.
    "Well man, this time... something must of been in the water because everyone had a hell of a time.  Remember when you guys came 3 weeks ago and their were like 15 girls, well this time...psh their was like 100.  The ratio was 2 to 1 man.  And all of them, in their bikinis.  It was so fucking hot outside, we all just stripped down.  Total underwear party.  The kind you hear about at the Playboy mansion."
    Frank looked passively at Stark who was lost in his own thought.  Stark never was  a partier, so listening to these stories got antique.  Strippers, G-strings, top-less, bongs, patron, hot tubs, trampolines...they all just sounded the same to him.   But, this story from Ken flipped something in Stark's head, the good old days when he was going to UPenn.  The week, his group of friends would stay at his best friends camper and just relax all day and drink all night.  It was 15 years ago and most of those friends he hasn't heard of in the former decade but one night stuck out most to him.  One of the 28 nights they spent there.
    "But thats just the surface, they women were freaks.  Total perverts and all of them M.I.L.F.'s.  None of them under 30.  So you know what that meant?  No insecurities and jealousy, we got down to the gnitty gritty and just fucking partied."
    Frank still wrote, trying to block out the story that Ken was trying to tell but all he kept thinking about was parties.  Once one person talks about parties, everyone drifts off, trying to remember their greatest party story.  It doesn't matter who you are, everyone has been to some sort of party that they thoroughly enjoyed more than others.  That is most of our young adult, American culture.  The ability to party and most people do it, not only to do unrecognizable things, un-excusable things that our only justifiable because you can say "hey man, i was fucking partying" but people also party to meet the opposite sex and hopefully (though rarely) fuck. 
    He felt as if he was on to something.
    Stark was still daydreaming about his camping sessions.  He remembered arriving at the campground in the evening, right when the sun was beginning to drop casting radiation on the beach that resided a mere 10 minute walk from their home away from home.  The sap from the maple trees were beginning to clump together and fall from their giant heights sticking to their cars and to the bottom of their feet.  They brought a case of beer just for tonight between the four of them.  They each cracked one open and sipped on it while they decided to take a trip to the beach and go for a swim.  Half of them did not want to swim and actually decided to go fishing which was another accommodation.  It was another hobby that they all did in this small time frame.  They liked to call it "Booze Boatin'."  We would take out a fleet of floatable's ranging from a row boat, a paddle boat, a plastic sphere that would hold our drinks and cigarettes, and many inner tubes.  Then they would tie them all together and push themselves out, letting the current take them to the middle of the lake, casting themselves out of society and embarrassment.
    "So, I totally arrived at Ben's mansion already totally blitzed.  I was already pre-gaming before the thing."
    "I thought you didn't know about it before Ben called you."  Frank chimed in, interrupting the story.
    "Well umm, hmmm."  Ken didn't know how to respond.  He was stumped.
    The other two knew Ken had emotional problems.  Its the reason people over party.  It blocks reality.  People aren't addicted to the substance but they are addicted to the feeling.  The feeling of being away on vacation.
    "Just move on."  Frank said.  Today was not the day to bring up an intervention.  He hardly even knew Ken outside of work.
    "Well I opened his front door, all I saw in front of me was 10 gorgeous girls on a spinning bed pillow fighting in their pajamas.  There was this weird rush that went over my head.  So I decided to pour some more drinks, not only for myself but for some senoritas.  I gulped mine down and tried to scout one out but no such luck.  It seemed like all the ladies were taken or already in some luscious activity so I went out back and just sat down because my legs were starting to shake and my feet were already dancing.  I was already smashed 15 minutes into being their man.  I was pretty pissed so I decided to try and sober up which is a total ball buster move at Ben's parties but I totally had to."