Langsta Opera or: The Works of Langsta

[Langsta]

All works by Langsta will now go in this thread, so I don't have to keep making new threads for different ideas that I'll "probably not develop on anytime soon anyway." So, hopefully, this will be the last annoying thread I put up in the fanfic section.


First, here's something I plan on turning in to my American History teacher. We were assigned to do something about Ellis Island, and my group decided to do a skit, so I just wrote up this skit. As you will see, a lot of the quotes are taken directly from Retardead, but only because my classmates haven't read Retardead, so they won't know what hits them. Um....let's see....it kinda sucks because, y'know, I'm not really putting that much effort forth, but feedback is always good....Also, I'm still working on Weber's punchline at the end.


"Fin de siècle: An American Art Film With a French Title, About a Jewish Guy Who Hails From Germany, Written and Directed By Some Asian Kid"
AKA "The Island of Tears or: How I Learned to Accept That This is The Single Greatest Play Ever Written or Performed in the History of Mankind, A Compelling Tale of Greatness"
AKA "The Bodacious Sojourn of Ricky Steinberg and the Key to the Golden Door of the Twentieth Century, As Told By Langsta"
AKA "Ellis Island: The Nexus of Independence"
AKA "Ellis Island: The Nexus of Sovereignty"
[UNCUT & UNRATED]
By LANGSTA
A Jigga What? Production
Screenplay by Langsta
Starring Langsta and other classmates whose names I will not mention for their safety!

Dramatis Personae
>Langsta .... The Narrator
>Classmate .... John B. Weber, Health Inspector
>Classmate .... Ricky Steinberg

Author's Note: Not for the culturally-sensitive, the easily-offended, and/or the stupid people.

___________________________________________


"A masterwork representing the apex of artistry, among the greatest pieces of popular fiction ever conceived and mass-produced by a young Asian-American from the slums of [city name omitted for my safety], Michigan."
- The New York Times

"A crapfull of awesomeness."
- The Onion

"Groundbreaking."
- The Rolling Stone

"Groundbreaking."
- The Rolling Stones

"A profound work of literature that pisses excellence and transcends the boundaries of blah blah blah blah blah blah ...."
- The Asian Informer

"Great story. Compelling, and rich."
- Ron Burgundy

"Probably the greatest story ever written in the history of mankind."
- Chuck Norris

"This story made me **** my pants out of nowhere. My wife Darlene bought me the audiobook version to listen to in my car on the way to work in the morning. Upon reading the first few words, I noticed the slight smell of **** in my vicinity. Upon further investigation, I discovered that **** had flooded my pants and I began to **** profusely and unceasingly. I **** my pants right there in the car. It was mud-butt. But I wasn't the least bit mad or annoyed. It was the greatest day of my life."
- Anonymous Brooklynite

___________________________________________

Capitulum Unus - The First and Only Chapter

[cue "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash, with a montage of black and white, stock footage of people bustling about New York at the turn of the century, à la the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake]

NARRATOR: At the turn of the century a little over one hundred years ago, a bunch of people immigrated to the United States from Europe. People from Germany, Ireland, Britain, and other European countries ventured to America with dreams of prosperity and opportunity. However, the journey was usually harsh for most immigrants. Through the following skit, we will attempt to convey, with the highest effort, the harshness and surrealism of the time period as an immigrant makes his way through the Ellis Island processing station. Many creative liberties have been taken for dramatic and comedic purposes.

Int. Registry Room, Ellis Island Immigrant Station, NY. July 1892. Daytime.

WEBER: Line up, people. Single file, please. My name is John B. Weber. I am a colonel in the United States Army, a U.S. Public Health Service doctor, and the commissioner here at the Ellis Island immigration station. In a few moments, you will be put through our rigorous medical inspection, which will determine whether or not you will become an American citizen.

[The dramatic-ness of the scene gets increased hundredfold as Weber goes Shatner on these mother******s]

WEBER: Ladies and gentlemen .... The next few moments .... Will .... Decide .... The .... Rest of your life ....

[The audience applauds, one lady in the front row even begins to cry; the dramatic-ness of the scene decreases considerably as we move to the point]

[Weber looks at the person in the front of the line: A short, scrawny, blonde, one-footed man named Ricky Steinberg, who is carrying some paperwork]

WEBER: Young man, please step forward.

[Steinberg hops forward with his only leg]

STEINBERG: Hi.

WEBER: Name, occupation, and place of origin.

STEINBERG: Ricky Steinberg, carpet salesman from Berlin, Germany.

WEBER: Sir, may I please look at your medical history?

STEINBERG: Oi.

[Steinberg nods in agreement and hands Weber the paperwork accordingly]

WEBER: Hmm ....

[Weber examines the paperwork; 'FT' is printed in bold letters on the front]

WEBER: Alright, everything checks out fine. Except for your foot. You're going to have to get that looked at. But first, you're going to need to come with me to the mental examination room for further questioning.

[Steinberg follows Weber to the mental examination room]

Int. Mental Examination Room

WEBER: Alright, sir. I am now going to ask you to perform a series of tests.

STEINBERG: Okay.

WEBER: First, count backwards from 20 to 1.

STEINBERG: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

WEBER: Good. How much is two and one?

STEINBERG: Uh .... three?

WEBER: Good. Can you please draw a diamond for me?

[Steinberg nods, takes a pen and a piece of paper, and begins to draw a circle]

[Steinberg holds the drawing up for the audience]

WEBER: That's no diamond!

[Audience chuckles; the annoying laughter of some fat guy in the back row overshadows the laughter of the rest of the audience]

[Weber marks Steinberg with an encircled 'X' on the shoulder using a marker, indicating his mental illness; Steinberg is subsequently shipped back to Germany where he faces minor persecution for his race/religion, overcomes his handicap and later ironically becomes a shoe salesman, and is currently living with a colostomy bag and a pet monkey named Jives in a convalescent-retirement home in Munich where, on every second Sunday and Tuesday of the month, he plays euchre and exchanges mediocre jokes with Hitler's twice-removed, twelve-times-deceased great-nephew Hans]

NARRATOR: The Ellis Island Immigrant Station was opened on the first of January in 1892. It was one of 30 processing stations opened by the federal government and was the main entry facility for immigrants during this time. It is estimated that over 12 million immigrants were inspected there. It is no longer in use as an immigrant processing station, but from January 1892 to November 1954, Ellis Island served as a gateway to freedom for many lucky immigrants. For some, however, as you have witnessed today, the journey to freedom was cut short by the misfortunes of over 250,000, their hopes and dreams turned to tears ....

Fin [Audience applauds and cries; their tears form an island eponymously; the Narrator holds up a card that says 'Fin;' cue "Every Rose Has Its Thorn;" close the movie with a montage of stock footage from the 20th century and beyond (footage of Che Guevara, Hitler, Einstein, the A-Bomb, the moon landing, Elvis, JFK, Ronald Reagan, police riots, Vietnam, George W. Bush, the Twin Towers, Iraq, North Korea; the significance of which is to recap the last hundred years and show the impact that immigration in America and stuff has had on society and how it has affected the last century and has made America a culturally diverse place, even if Einstein, etc. don't necessarily have anything to do with America ....); the stock footage is accompanied by what is perhaps the most influential music act of the 20th century, and perhaps of all time, "I Ran" by A Flock of Seagulls (actually, I had a different song in mind for this, but I can't think of it right now....and don't suggest the new Matchbox 20 song....].

Bow in the presence of greatness.

 

[ProjectX2]

This is something I would probably do for an assignment. Good job.

 

[Langsta]

This is something I would probably do for an assignment. Good job.

YAY! Thanks!

Also, I realize that, if you thought the Retardead quotes were funny, that they probably aren't as funny here. But that's just if you thought they were funny before. My teacher will most likely get offended by the language, though....I was censored by a different teacher before, just this year, for my writing....It was in English class, and we have to write journals/bellwork every day in that class, and I mostly slack off in that class and don't do the work because I could TEACH that ****ing class. The teacher I have for English is an idiot. It's his first year teaching though, so I guess I have to cut him some slack, but I've had him as a substitute before. But anyways, we have to do journals, and every once and a while he makes us write a creative story for the journal, like: "Write a creative story with the following:" and the following will be like a list of random things, like a teacher, or a pink flamingo, or the state of fear or excitement....and everyone in the class has admittedly bad stories - I'm like the most intelligent kid in that class, and I'm not even bragging (I'm supposed to be in Advanced English this year, but basic English is so much easier....the teacher gave us a 100-question test at the beginning of this year, and the class average was like a C; I was the only one who didn't finish it and I still got a B+, the best grade in the class....just sayin'). And since they've got admittedly bad writing, when it's time to read our stories aloud, they always ask me to read my story. I've usually got the funniest stories, and they're usually really offensive, so the teacher asks me to tone it down all the time. He got angry when I used "penis" in one of my stories (the factual story where my penis was bitten by a praying mantis thing). So, my most recent story went something like this (we had to include a pink flamingo, a rope, a microphone, the principal - Mr. Bloxom, and excitement):

"One time I was at a karaoke bar. I was trying to get with this vixen named Kassi (she's in my class), but she shot me down. Later, I saw Mr. Bloxom dancing to "Thriller." I decided to ask a real pimp for advice, so I asked him. He told me, "Do you wanna die with this kinda legend behind the name "Langsta," or do you wanna die with them sayin "damn that kid was not the cutest I've seen but he pulls *** like no other"? So, I mustered up the courage to ask Kassi to dance with me again. I pulled off my best Soulja Boy, and the entire bar followed in orgiastic synchrony. It was so exciting. Then a pink flamingo walked in with a microphone and a rope."

Yeah, so that's basically what I do. Only a few kids got to read my paper until the teacher took it from me, read it, and kept it....

*sigh* Proj, Seldes, and Random are the only people who respond to my stuff....

 

[Seldes Katne]

Langsta, how much of a critique do you want on this piece? Do you want serious feedback on what I think works or doesn't work?

Also, do you want it posted here, or via PM?

 

[Langsta]

Langsta, how much of a critique do you want on this piece? Do you want serious feedback on what I think works or doesn't work?

Also, do you want it posted here, or via PM?

Enh, I don't really mind if you criticize it here....

The actual play itself isn't really anything special....it's the stuff in italics that make the story IMO.

 

[Seldes Katne]

Let me ask a few questions so I know what we have to work with:

1) How many people are in your group? What roles are they each playing?
2) How long do you have for this skit?
3) How much background information does your audience have on Ellis Island and related topics? If everyone knows a lot about Ellis Island, there's not much need to explain things like the questions Weber asks, or what the "FT" means on David's paper. Otherwise, your narrator might want to explain some of this stuff to the audience as part of the skit. (Or to show the teacher that you really did do your research.)

Okay, starting at the top of the script and working through in order....

"Fin de siècle: An American Art Film With a French Title, About a Jewish Guy Who Hails From Germany, Written and Directed By Some Asian Kid"
AKA "The Island of Tears or: How I Learned to Accept That This is The Single Greatest Play Ever Written or Performed in the History of Mankind, A Compelling Tale of Greatness"
AKA "The Bodacious Sojourn of Ricky Steinberg and the Key to the Golden Door of the Twentieth Century, As Told By Langsta"
AKA "Ellis Island: The Nexus of Independence"
AKA "Ellis Island: The Nexus of Sovereignty"
[UNCUT & UNRATED]
By LANGSTA
A Jigga What? Production
Screenplay by Langsta
Starring Langsta and other classmates whose names I will not mention for their safety!

How exactly will you convey this information to your audience? Series of cue cards, scrolling text on a projection screen, or something else? Does your audience need to see all of these subtitles?

The only two that really tie into your actual skit are the first one, and the third one. The rest seem to be unrelated.

Author's Note: Not for the culturally-sensitive, the easily-offended, and/or the stupid people.

So your audience has time before the performance to decide if they fit into any of the above categories and leave the room? If not, perhaps you need to tone down the humor a bit.

I'm not going to repost all of your "critics' quotes" here, but I do want to offer one comment on them: You are obviously very fond of this sort of thing, but while most of them are considerably less offensive than the ones in "Retardead", I don't see what point they serve here. How will you convey them to your audience? Again, how much time do you have? You're spending a great deal of time offering "opinions" and "critiques" (which are entirely author-generated) which really have nothing to do with setting up your scenes, your characters, or your themes.

One way to work these in without going through the whole list of them might be to have the narrator start quoting them ("Before we begin, here are some of the critics' responses to the play you're about to see!") and then have one of your characters (possibly Rick himself) or someone in your audience yell that the narrator is wasting time and they need to get the play started, or whatever.

WEBER: Young man, please step forward.

[Steinberg hops forward with his only leg]

STEINBERG: Hi.

Did people from Germany use "Hi" as a greeting in 1892? (As opposed to "Yo!", I suppose. :wink: ) How does your audience know it's 1892? In this version of the script, your narrator didn't specify the year. See below for a couple of suggestions for adding this information.

[Weber marks Steinberg with an encircled 'X' on the shoulder using a marker, indicating his mental illness; Steinberg is subsequently shipped back to Germany where he faces minor persecution for his race/religion, overcomes his handicap and later ironically becomes a shoe salesman, and is currently living with a colostomy bag and a pet monkey named Jives in a convalescent-retirement home in Munich where, on every second Sunday and Tuesday of the month, he plays euchre and exchanges mediocre jokes with Hitler's twice-removed, twelve-times-deceased great-nephew Hans]

Again, how is this conveyed to the audience? The narrator doesn't tell them, and there's no indication that the skit presents the information to anyone who isn't actually reading a copy of the script.

A couple of suggestions:

Can you cast more "immigrants" and use them to show some of the basic things that happened at Ellis Island? For example, various people had their names changed when they entered the US, because their actual, ethnic names were considered too difficult to spell or pronounce.

So you could show Weber calling for So-and-So [insert a real first name here] "Wojo—, uh, Wa-ho-ho—, uh, ..."

Immigrant: Wojohowitz!

Weber: You're kidding me. How is anyone supposed to say that mouthful?

Immigrant: By moving his lips? It's my name!

Weber: Not anymore. From now on, you're So-and-So Jones.

Immigrant: What!?

Weber: You want in, or not?

Immigrant: Well, yeah....

Weber: Okay, then it's settled. Welcome to the United States, Mr. Jones.

(Or something like that.) At this point, the narrator could mention why names were changed and/or some of the other things immigrants had to endure in order to get through customs, and then you'd move on to the next person in line.

One way of making this skit seem more focused on Rick Steinberg would be to have the narrator in the beginning tell us a little about why Rick is going to America. Or have Rick tell the audience. (This could put him in some verbal conflict with the narrator, who's trying to monopolize the audience's attention.) This is a place to work in the year and some other information.

Rick could also keep hopping over and asking the narrator questions about what's going on with the other two or three immigrants whose names are called before his – why is Weber asking them all these weird questions, what do these letters on my paperwork mean, or other questions that would allow the narrator to explain some of the rules and practices that were common at Ellis Island during this time period. If Rick annoys the narrator enough, the narrator could set him up for the diamond-drawing thing at the end, thereby insuring that Rick gets sent back to Germany and giving the narrator the opportunity to tell the audience what happens to Rick after he's deported.

I think you have the potential to make this both funny and informative at the same time. Do you have any actual stories of immigrants who went through Ellis Island that you could work into your script?

 

[Langsta]

Thanks for the advice, Seldes. I made a lot of changes.

Here's some stuff I've been doing:

I'm trying to draw a picture for my friend on Paint, and I'm drawing him. He likes World of Warcraft. I'm not too familiar with WoW, but what are some popular phrases/themes from WoW that I could incorporate on a drawing of his t-shirt?

 

[Langsta]

So yeah, this is Eduardo, a fire-breathing unicorn. He is a nihilist and Cletus the Fetus' archnemesis. He can raise the dead and has an army of undead human soldiers. He also happens to be a necrophiliac. So he has sex with his underlings.

And here's an updated Cletus the Fetus.

 

[Langsta]

Okay. So I finally got a scanner. This is an entry I sent in for the yearbook design contest in 8th grade (our mascot is a dragon). It doesn't show up very good because I was used to drawing very light back then. Anyways, I ended up losing the contest because mine apparently had "too much detail."

 

[Langsta]

This is Bota (Beast of the Apocalypse, right) and his little messenger companion Othello (left).

This is War. One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

This is just some detective guy, reminiscent of those old '40s pulp magazines and stuff. He's like the Green Hornet or the Question. I guess his mask is some magical thing from a museum or something. I dunno. I haven't really developed him very much.

 

[Langsta]

I figured that since it's Thanksgiving I'd post something that has to do with turkeys. Only, this is actually supposed to be a chicken. The top one is a drawing I did a few days ago. The bottom one is something I did on Paint many months ago. Basically, it's a chicken whose mother was subject to numerous government tests while pregnant. Its mother eventually died as a result of the tests, but not before she could give birth to her son. The chicken was born with deformities and whatnot, but displayed incredible levels of strength. So I was starting this story where this rabid chicken went crazy and attacked people. But something like that is already out, a movie called "Black Sheep."

 

[ourchair]

I'm trying to draw a picture for my friend on Paint, and I'm drawing him. He likes World of Warcraft. I'm not too familiar with WoW, but what are some popular phrases/themes from WoW that I could incorporate on a drawing of his t-shirt?

I suppose the most obvious would be Leeroy Jenkins. I find the phenomenon actually funnier than the event that inspired it, but still...

 

[Langsta]

I suppose the most obvious would be Leeroy Jenkins. I find the phenomenon actually funnier than the event that inspired it, but still...

I ended up not doing a WoW shirt, but this is how the pic turned out:

The pic below is one of my gems. I guess it's basically album art for a faux band of mine known as "Bushwacker." I was genuinely trying to create a band but I could never think of a name. I had some good names down, but I eventually just called it Bushwacker. I know it's a horrible name, which is why it's a faux band. Zach Cafeef is a name that I saw imprinted on a desk in my school. Baal Zebub is a character in Soul Calibur III, however in SC3 he's an Indian prince or something when actually the person I'm referring to is Beelzebub, a demon who is commonly represented as a fly. I never understood flies, and I thought, "What does a fly's face look like up close?" I ended up just giving it mandibles and fangs and stuff, and a xenomorph-queen-esque crown, because, let's face it, he's a fly-****ing-demon, not an ordinary fly. Then I wondered what I was going to do for the body. So I just started doing it lizard-style, and drew in a tail, because what demon doesn't have a tail? So he ended up looking a bit like something from Godzilla. Then I got to the wings. The yellow "muscles" holding the feathers are based on some manga I came across in a jumbo comic magazine. The manga was "Monster Collection: The Girl Who Can Deal With Magical Monsters Vol. 3" by Itoh Sei. I base most of my wings off of those on the cover of that manga.

 

[E]

That looks like balut.

 

[Planet-man]

I've been working on a drawing for a while that is both similar to and the exact opposite of the egg one.

What does this mean? Oh, you'll see.... ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa.

 

[Langsta]

This is a rendition of Bart Simpson that I just drew. The Element logo was a ***** to draw on Paint. I think I made his head too wide. However, since it's my own rendition, it doesn't matter.

NOTE: Langsta does not own Bart Simpson or any other Simpsons characters, or the Element logo. He does however, pwn them.

 

[Langsta]

Here are some Han Solo drawings. The first two were originally drawn in the likeness of James Purefoy, though you can hardly tell because my scanner sucks and caused me to color the picture so dark that you can barely tell who it is.

I drew this one because I was tired of trying to upload the original picture with my scanner. I thought this would get my point across.

 

[Langsta]

Just tried to draw another Han Solo, again with Purefoy in mind. It ended up looking like Mal from Serenity. Except with a black face.

 

[Ultimate Houde]

Your drawings are getting better

 

[Langsta]

Your drawings are getting better

Thanks. I pretty much had to learn how to shade on my own, because I decided not to take any art classes my first two years of high school (I'm saving them for my last two years).

And finally, I've finished a Purefoy-Han that I'm at least a little bit happy with. His posture sucks (and I always draw people that look like they're grabbing their crotch) and his hands are a bit small. The reason it took me so long to draw is because I used pen first (I don't like starting with pencil and going over with pen, it makes it look sloppier). So I usually draw the outlines and stuff in pen, and then shade it all with pencil.