Jeff Warren:
CLASS OF 1961
Suitland High SchoolClass of 1961
Forestville, MD
Jeff's Story
Jeff's schools include Suitland High School. Jeff works(ed) at Jeff Warren: Theatrical Consultant.
Movies Jeff likes include Atlas Shrugged The Movie, Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged.
One of Jeff's favorite quotes is:""I hope to add some measure of grace to the world" Don Quixote (Cervantes)
"You asked for it, brother!" Francisco D'Anconia (Ayn Rand)
"I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at." Iago (Edward De Vere)
"Not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep which thou owd'st yesterday." Iago (Edward De Vere)
"This one goes to eleven" This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner)
"Give me liberty or give me death!" (Patrick Henry)".
More about Jeff:""STREET BEAST"
Written by
Jeff Warren
September 8, 1982
(c) Jeff Warren
Los Angeles, CA
"Street Beast"
A Treatment for an Original Screenplay
Written by Jeff Warren
The city is antiseptic and modern -- its mirrored structures angle into the pewter sky in exaggerated perspective. Columns of beings proceed briskly along the concrete paths into cantilevered towers to take their places behind anonymous windows.
Shrouded in army surplus, the STREET BUM lugs his bundles along the boulevard toward a bus bench. His tattered woolen overcoat, the color of damp earth, hangs below the open knees of his baggy trousers. A crowd of nostrils flares as the man's presence permeates the street corner. The traffic signal changes and the cologned colony escapes into air-controlled, sterile structures. The man huddles into the bus bench with his bundles close at his side, their bulk obliterating a brightly lettered advertisement. He reaches through several layers of clothing for his bottle. He studies its contents without enthusiasm, then takes a measured gulp and returns the bottle to an interior pocket. His bearded, leathery face shows nothing. His dark, dead eyes stare down into the gutter.
The sun sets on the great city, bringing incandescent night. The man, unmoved, arms himself against the coming chill with a long swig of cheap wine. He pulls his coat's collar tight over his wrinkled throat.
When the sky turns its blackest, the street bum pushes his bundles under the bench, shaping a rough mattress. He crawls into the lair; then, wrapped warmlyin discarded financial journals, he sleeps.
The city gleams. Quartz-light blankets the pavements with artificial sun.
The TINNY RATTLE of a gimpy grocery cart punctures the quiet night. The stroboscopic flash of headlamps counterpoints the rickety rhythm of the cart's three working wheels as it limps along the avenue. Shuffling behind the cart are two rag-wrapped feet. The wheels retard as they near the bus bench.
The dormant mass under the seat shifts slightly, the newsprint crackling. The cart wheels halt still and the bound feet freeze in mid-motion. The tense silence is broken by a low, rumbling snore. The cart inches bravely closer. A filthy, gnarled hand, sheathed in a fingerless glove, places a -florist's rose upon - the bench. The bony fingers stroke the soft petals with reverence. Then the METALLIC SOUND of the cart JANGLES away into the night.
As the first chromium tower is ignited by the sun's rays, the street bum stirs in his lair. He unscrews the cap from his bottle and takes a ritual slug. He bundles the paper bedding and rises slowly. He looks down to something on the bench. The flower trembles slightly in the morning breeze. The bum emits a grunt and witha sweep of his giant paw brushes the rose into the gutter. He sits, staring vacantly at the accelerating stream of traffic.
The CRAZY LADY roots through the public waste, separating breakfast from yesterday's debris. That she' is thirty-five or eighty-five is equally believable.
The true color of her hair is undiscernable. Her powdered face and rouged cheeks frame a pair of hopeful, twinkling eyes. Her awkwardly painted lips curl into a surreal smile. She wears two dresses. A drab shirtwaist serves as an uneven petticoat to the gaudier dress she wears on the outside. Over both she wears a man's open front sweater with one button in the wrong buttonhole. On one arm she wears a dried-up wrist corsage. She stuffs some trash into the grocery cart, adjusts a brassiere strap and continues her morning rounds.
One corner of the city is taken up by a florist. In front of the entrance baskets teeming with flowers adorn the pavement in hopes of tempting passersby. The bag lady brings the cart to a stop amongst the colorful bouquets. She fills her lungs with the thick, sweet aroma. With unquestioning audacity, she filches a perfect long-stemmed rose. From the edge of the basket she snaps up a piece of the green tissue that is always included at no extra charge. She wrings it around the stem of the rose, then turns to place it in the cart. An unwelcome pigeon is perched on the push-bar, grooming itself. The mad woman takes a swat at the intruder, sending it aloft in a flailing frenzy. She spits out some vicious...Expand for more
curses, then pushes the cart down the street, muttering self-righteously.
The street bum senses an alien presence as the crazy lady nears him. He ejects a territorial growl, but she is lost in her own fancies. The crazy lady begins whispering to some illusive phantom, then suddenly without connection she turns back to the man on the bench. He catches the last moment of her glance before she is led away by some ethereal mystery.
Deep in the darkness of an unlit street, the bum paws through a wire rubbish basket. Finding nothing of use, he shuffles on, stopping only to quench his thirst. He walks the city aimlessly for hours until he is met with the spectre of his own image in a rectangle of plate glass. He does not recognize the primitive man before him. He steps cautiously toward the image. Suddenly a flash of dazzling light momentarily blinds him.
Before him is a fine jewelry store. The display window is trimmed with simple elegance. Behind the two-inch plate glass grows a single silk rose. Nested within its petals is the spark of light, a brilliant diamond. He reaches toward it. His greasy hand is stopped by the cold glass. He leans in toward the pane where he comes face to face with a hollow, lifeless stare...
The street bum sits as usual on the bus bench. The TINKLING MUSIC of the cart seems almost playful on this day as it nears the bench. Its lunatic pilot, sporting a tulle turban in madder violet, mumbles something about the color of the sky, then stops behind the bench. In a little girl's voice she chants a mad litany. The man on the bench takes a long draw on his bottle. Caught up in her own insane reverie, the woman begins to dance to music only she can hear. Her movement has the qualities of both classical ballet and primitive voodoo.
The street bum belches. A pair of mating flies lights on his matted beard.
The crazy lady digs from her rubble a fractured hand mirror. The haunting dance continues as the woman gazes at the cracked reflection of Aphrodite. The little girl's voice becomes breathy and faint and finally is consumed by the SOUND OF A FLATULENT BUS.
The crazy lady sighs. Her contented face is flushed and alive. She laps the sweat from the back of-her hands.
Crouching to reach the bottom shelf of her old cart,
she picks out the long-stemmed rose. Rising to her feet, she draws in a long breath of its intoxicating smell. She drops the rose on the bench next to the street bum, then with a tittering giggle she hurries away.
The bum expels a low rumbling grunt. He looks at the flower, then with a swift move sweeps it off the bench and onto the sidewalk.
An onslaught of cordovan wing-tips and chic feminine pumps crushes the flower deep into the pavement until it resembles a pressed keepsake.
After a time the man unaccountably rises from the bench and stares at the squashed flower. The commuters file by on either side of him as he kneels down next to it. He carefully picks up the rose which leaves a stained silhouette in the concrete. The bum returns to his position on the bench, cradling the broken rose in his crusted hands.
It is late night. In the tiled plaza at the base of twin towers gushes a great fountain, from the center of which rises an abstract twisted scuplture. Neon light shimmers on the planes of rusting steel as the chlorinated water trickles from its angular mass.
The bum, weighted with his bundles, walks heavily toward the fountain. For a long time he sits motionless on the edge of the pool. Then he moults the many layers of his clothing and with almost fastidious attention washes each of the articles. He spreads them out flat on the granite rim to dry and climbs naked into the water. As he soaks, the grime of ages melts from his hide. He splashes his face and scruffs his beard and hair. Above the looming iron skeleton a full moon shines down on the sleeping city.
The new day finds the man on the bus bench, his rebound bundles placed neatly beneath it.
The man is noticeably cleansed, his threadbare clothes less offensive. He sits peacefully listening to the street. He raises his eyes to the sky to see a lone bird soaring above the city's reach.
There is FAR-OFF MUSIC -- light-hearted, nonsensical chanting accented by the METALLIC JINGLE of a grocery cart. The innocent melody becomes clearer -- a crosswalk away. The clinking cart beats a staccato rhythm as it enters the street. Suddenly the rhapsody is broken. A BLARING DISSONANT HORN rips at the man's ears -- an endless SCREECH OF TIRES ... A CYMBAL CRASH ... and the music stops.
The demolished metal cart tumbles end over end, spilling its insides into the street. The cart skids-to rest in the gutter near the bus bench, one of its wheels still spinning. Then it THUMPS like a slowing heartbeat...and dies.
The man sits, not moving. Then, very simply the street bum curls up on the bench for a long sleep.
The ad on the bench becomes visible:
Paradise Mortuary - Complete Caring Services - Low Cost Disposition
Removal Included.
The End".
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