PAIGE MARTIN
(to her daughter)
Of COURSE, I believe in love,
honey. Of COURSE, you have a right
to make your own mistakes. Of
COURSE, I’ve never met him, so why
don’t I like him? Why don’t I like
him?...It’s not the usual ‘NO young
man is good enough for my daughter’
thing’ He’s not young....and he’s
not good enough...for a crack
addicted, toothless, infected,
infested, ingrown toenail of a
woman with unusual odors and eating
habits....in my opinion, just my
opinion, you know, I get a feeling
about the guy from what you’ve told
me about him.-- No! You asked. You
asked and I’ve been biting my
tongue for too long, so let me
TALK. I need to get this off my
chest. He’s no good. He’s just no
good. You say he’s a great
composer and pianist, so why
haven’t I ever heard of him? Why
hasn’t ANYone I checked with --of
course, I checked-- You’re my
daughter. I had to-- and, and NO
ONE knows anything about this guy.
If he’s such a famous composer, how
come it took YOU to get him
interviewed on t.v. and in the
Post? And what was that craziness,
“my music tries to go beyond
trivial melody and repetitious
dance rhythms, shaking up your
expectations, falling off the beat,
like a stumble off a cliff” What
kind of music has no melody and no
rhythm? What does that leave?
Variations in loudness and timbre?
You think I spent twenty years
playing parlor piano, you think I
minored in music in college to be
told that noise can be music? When
he makes a fart you call it art? --
No, No!
(MORE)
I can tell by the way you’re
looking at me that you’re going to
say it’s really great masterpiece
music, that it’s the new frontier,
that it’s MORE obnoxious than ANY
NOISE EVER WAS justified as music
ever BEFORE and that his ANGER has
been expressed as art sooooo purely
that you can’t separate the anger
from the art. But, baby..... You
think you know everything. I tried
to make you into a forceful,
assertive, powerful, woman who says
what she knows. But you’re
young... and you started to be
assertive about things you didn’t
know. And I let you -- No, Listen!--
I let you become a bitch and a boor
and a bully and a braggart about
what you knew and what you’d seen
and done and you.... got trapped
into this...-- please hear me out --
you REALLY got trapped into
thinking Henry was famous and rich
and worthwhile. And, forgive me,
but I’m your mom and I had to find
out what was going on, so I ask
your friends and they told me.
They’re laughing at you, honey.
They think you deserve to fall in
love with this loser because you
lied to them. Don’t look at me
like that-- It’s absolutely true
that they fooled you. He was fired
as the Maitre’d at the restaurant
where you were bragging about
having sex with famous people. And
that bet you made -- I’d be ashamed
of you if it hadn’t gone so
terribly wrong....He’s not worth
your time. Get away from him
before the whole town is laughing
at you, before you lose more than
your pride. Please, honey, I’m
begging you. Come home with Mama
and leave this man to his noise and
delusion. Please.