Rumour Has It

     (LINDSEY arrives at the studio. STEVIE is already there.)

LINDSEY:  Sorry I'm late.

STEVIE:  It's fine.

LINDSEY:  I got tied up.

STEVIE:  By who?  One of my best friends?  A relative?  Hitchhiking teenager?

LINDSEY:  Could we not?

STEVIE:  It's cool.  I hooked up with your father last night.

LINDSEY:  Was that necessary?

STEVIE:  Here's a song I wrote about it.

LINDSEY:  (Reading.)  'I Hooked Up with Lindsey's Father.'

STEVIE:  It's going to be a hit.

LINDSEY:  You know what?  I don't doubt that.  So could you please give it a vague title so it won't be immediately evident to people what it's about?

STEVIE:  Okay.  I'll call it 'Grasshopper Legs.'

LINDSEY:  Perfect.  Thank you.

STEVIE:  I wrote a few more.  Do you want to read them?

LINDSEY:  Yes, but no matter how many good ones there are, I'm only going to admit that one is decent.

STEVIE:  Admit that one is decent, and two are passable.

LINDSEY:  One decent, one passable, and I'll begrudgingly agree to play guitar on one but then trash it for the next thirty years even when it goes to number one in seventeen countries.

STEVIE:  Deal.  Here's the first one.

LINDSEY:  'I Hooked Up with Lindsey's Favorite Waiter at That Italian Place We Used to Go To Back When We Loved Each Other Because Love Means Nothing to Him Anymore.'

STEVIE:  It's disco-influenced.

LINDSEY:  First off--just, right off the top of my head--the title's too long.

STEVIE:  I'm willing to shave a few words off.

LINDSEY:  Or you could just use a metaphor?  Imagery?  Infer that you're a witch?

STEVIE:  I'll call it 'Storm Cloud.'

LINDSEY:  Love that.

STEVIE:  Why do you smell like kerosene?

LINDSEY:  Christine tried to set me on fire again.

STEVIE:  She's got to stop doing that.  She already ruined three of my best caftans.

LINDSEY:  She's mad because I told her she can't keep writing songs with the word 'love' in the title.

STEVIE:  You said that to her?

LINDSEY:  It was that or we release a song called 'Love is Where the Love Goes.'

STEVIE:  I bet it was catchy.

LINDSEY:  Oh, it was VERY catchy, but we're not Bread.  I'm not Eric Clapton.  You're not Mama Cass.

STEVIE:  Shut up.  I could be Mama Cass.

LINDSEY:  You're Michelle Phillips.

STEVIE:  I'm Denny!

LINDSEY:  You are absolutely not Denny.

STEVIE:  You think you're Denny?

LINDSEY:  No, I'm John.

STEVIE:  Mick is John.

LINDSEY:  Then who am I?

STEVIE:  YOU'RE Michelle.

LINDSEY:  And you're Mama Cass?

STEVIE:  Yes.

LINDSEY:  Then who's Christine supposed to be?

STEVIE:  Christine could never be in The Mamas and the Papas.  Christine belongs in the Beatles.  She'd be, like, George.

LINDSEY:  She is a George.

STEVIE:  She keeps saying she's going to go solo and I'm like 'Okay, Christine, go solo.  See how that goes.'

LINDSEY:  Sometimes I forget her last name.

STEVIE:  Me too!

LINDSEY:  Isn't that awful?

STEVIE:  I can be staring right at her sometimes and I'm just like 'Who are you again?'  Like, I forget about her AS I'm looking at her.

LINDSEY:  She just has that kind of personality.

STEVIE:  What do you think of that ballad I gave you?

LINDSEY:  'Lindsey, I'm Standing Outside Your Bedroom Window Right Now with a Grenade in My Hand?'

STEVIE:  No, the other one.

LINDSEY:  'Lindsey, One Day When You Weren't Looking I Slipped Arsenic Into Your Chamomile Tea?'

STEVIE:  Then you gave it to John because his throat was sore and he drank it and nothing happened and now I'm wondering if he's actually human.

LINDSEY:  Right, but was that the song?

STEVIE:  No, the one at the bottom.

LINDSEY:  (Finds it and reads.)  'I Put a Curse on Your Dick.'

STEVIE:  It's got the witchcraft element.

LINDSEY:  Right, but they're not going to play something with the word 'dick' in it on the radio.

STEVIE:  We could just call it 'Curse?'

LINDSEY:  Put some drums underneath it?

STEVIE:  I like that.  But you have to sing the verse about how your dick will never work again.

LINDSEY:  You want me to sing about my own dick not working?

STEVIE:  Yes.

LINDSEY:  All right, but only because it'll make for a good story one day when we have to do an acoustic set somewhere.

STEVIE:  By the way, promise me you'll never sleep with Michelle Phillips.

LINDSEY:  Why would I promise that?

STEVIE:  Because if we're going to keep working together and sleeping with other people, we need to have some boundaries.

LINDSEY:  The minute we have boundaries, you're not going to write anymore good songs.  If anything, I should go sleep with Michelle Phillips right now.

STEVIE:  If you sleep with Michelle Phillips, I'm going to go sleep with Mick Jagger.

LINDSEY:  Ew, have fun.

STEVIE:  Mick Jagger is VERY sexy.

LINDSEY:  You women are so strange.  A guy moves like a chicken with epilepsy and you can't get his pants off fast enough.

STEVIE:  What about Kris Kristofferson?

LINDSEY:  What about him?

STEVIE:  Would you be mad if I slept with him?

LINDSEY:  He's an actor.

STEVIE:  And a musician.

LINDSEY:  Mmmmmmm is he though?

STEVIE:  He plays instruments.

LINDSEY:  Does he though?

STEVIE:  He sings!

LINDSEY:  Mmmmmmmm.

STEVIE:  I hate you!

LINDSEY:  I hate you more!

STEVIE:  DO YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY HARMONICA?

LINDSEY:  I CAN LEARN!

STEVIE:  Great.  I need it for this song I wrote about flirting with your mom.

LINDSEY:  What's it called?

STEVIE:  'Purple Blossom.'

LINDSEY:  That has nothing to do with my mother.

STEVIE:  I know.

LINDSEY:  See?  Now we're getting somewhere.

End of Play