Excerpt from Terrestrial Squares [1982]

[Opening of “Terrestrial Squares,” (from Cellophane Visions) written early June 1982]

Voice Over: These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise—its five year mission to exploit strange new worlds, to seek out and destroy new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!

[theme music]

Captain Kirk (over): Stardate seven three point four nine—Captain Kirk recording. On a mission to bring civilization to the benighted inhabitants of starsystem seven two two four we have encountered engine trouble in mid-space, near the Adenoid starcluster. We are working on the problem…

Mr. Spock: Captain. It seems that we are in the grip of some immense force of unknown dimensionality.

Captain Kirk: Well, Mr. Spock? Can we break loose?

Mr. Spock: It seems not. It appears that we are being inescapably sucked into some kind of space-time vortex.

Captain Kirk: Just what does that mean, Mr. Spock?

Mr. Spock: A vortex, according to Webster’s Fourteenth Edition—

Scott (on intercom, interrupting): Captain, captain! Something is freezing the engines! I cannae make them go forward nor backward. It is like they are in the grip of some kind of immense force of unknown dimensions! If we donnae act now, than I cannae

CLICK

Moderator: like to go to Tierra del Fuego with her!

[studio laughter]

All right, Jack—who do you want to pick?

Jack: Uh, I’ll take Mr. Marx, I guess.

Moderator: Okay. Are you ready, Karl?

Karl Marx: Certainly.

Moderator: The question is: In pre-socialistic societies, is the class-struggle inevitable?

Karl Marx: Yes, yes … Is the class struggle inevitable?

Moderator: That’s the question, right.

Karl Marx: Should I answer according to capitalist or socialist ideology?

[studio laughter]

Of course, the answer is no.

Moderator: Karl says no—Jack, do you agree or disagree?

Jack: Uh, I’ll agree.

Moderator: The answer is—yes! I’m afraid you lose, Jack, and the turn passes to Jill. Jill, you need only one square to win. Are you going to Go for It?

Jill: I sure am. I want to go with Jesus.

Moderator: Jill is going to go with Jesus. What do you have to say to that?

Jesus: I wouldn’t mind giving her what eye has not seen and ear has not heard and what has not arisen in the heart of man.

[studio laughter]

Moderator: Okay, Jesus—maybe you’ll have your innings after the show. But   now the question is: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?

Jesus: Anybody have a coin?

[studio laughter]

Moderator: Not this time, Jesus. A yes or no will do.

Jesus: I still have the coin from the last time I did this trick—maybe

CLICK

Valentine (played by Mick Jagger): only an egg.

Jubal (played by Jim Backis): Eh? What’s that?

Gillian (played by Goldie Hawn): He wants to ask you for a favor.

Jubal: Well, for heaven’s sake, go ahead and ask.

Valentine: Jubal, it is time for me to leave.

Jubal: Well, what of it? Do you have to have my permission?

Valentine: It is that there are so many things I have yet to grok. I want to go out and grok the whole world, and everything in it. Yes. And Gillian must come with me.

Jubal: Must she?

Valentine: Yes.

Jubal: Well, if she must, she must. Do I have anything to say about it?

Valentine: Of course. If you don’t want us to go, we’ll stay, But, you see

[music begins in background]

         I want to grok
The whole grokkin’ world
I wanna turn on
Every grokkin’ girl
I have to see

CLICK

Jim: But Huck, cain’t you see dere aint no sense in it!

Huck: Hang the sense. Heads, or tails?

Jim: Lemme see de coin. Hmm … looks all right to me. Tell you what, Huck—you call, ’n’ lemme toss.

Huck: Sure. Heads.

Jim: Dern it—heads she is. Call it.

Huck: Heads.

Jim: ’N’ heads she is again. Huck, it jes doan stand to reason.

Huck: What don’t, Jim?

Jim: You know blame well what. How come it allez come up heads, dats whut I want to know. Tell me dat, Huck—how come?

Huck: Well, blame it Jim, it’s just mathematics—that’s all. It’s an even chance, you know, each time you toss it.

Jim: Sho’ it is, Huck sho’ it is. De coin has two sides, right—so it ought to come up tails jes’ as often as it come up—

Huck: Heads.

Jim: Well, dad fetch it, Huck, if—

Voice (off screen): Hey there—you two on that raft.

2 Voice (off screen): Kin you save a pore sufferin’ soul what never did no one no harm from a—

Voice 1: Shut up, you old

CLICK

Friday: under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, you have the right to have an attorney present at any—

Gannon: Hey, can I blow him away? Can I? We got the goods on him. Why bother with all the expense of a trial?

Friday: Yeah.

Criminal: Hey, come on—what about my rights? I got rights, don’t I? What about the first amendment? What about the fourth—

Friday: Now you listen, punk, and you listen good. You forfeited all your rights when you broke the laws of the state. We caught you with controlled literature on your person—books by Kesey, Burroughs and Leary, perverted filth that undermines every value that built this nation. You have a lot of nerve talking about your rights when you’re trying to destroy the very government that gave you your rights.

Criminal: But—

Friday: Waste him.

[Gannon shoots the Criminal]

[theme music]

Announcer: We paid these typical teenagers not to wash for two weeks and now look at the results

CLICK