Episode 06 - Regrets/No Regrets

Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play.

If you like what you hear and want to support the New York Neo-Futurists, consider making a donation at nynf.org, or joining our Patreon. Patreon membership gives you access to bonus content like video plays! We’d really appreciate any support in these difficult times. Contributing to our Patreon helps us continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, call a friend, paint a painting, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by: Anooj Bhandari and Siyu Song, Léah Miller, and Greg Lakan. Plus, a play from the vault by Mike Puckett, recorded in 2016. 

Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay.

Our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean.

Joey Rizzolo designed and mixed the audio for Yes All Men. Thanks, Joey!

Léah Miller is our associate producer. 

Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean and Julia Melfi. 

Take Care!

Transcript 

Episode 06: Regrets/No Regrets

Show Intro (0:00-1:26)

Electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: 6. Regrets/No Regrets. I’m Julia Melfi—a New York Neo-Futurist. While our on-going, ever-changing, late-night show, The Infinite Wrench, is on hold for the foreseeable future, we wanted a place to keep making art for you. And thus, Hit Play was born!  

If you’re already a fan of The New York Neo-Futurists, or any of our sibling companies, hello there! We hope to be caressing your faces as soon as possible. If this is totally new to you—welcome to it!

We play by four rules: We are who we are, we’re doing what we’re doing, we are where we are, and the time is now. Simply put: we tell stories, and those stories are our own. Everything that you hear is actually happening. So if we tell you we’re taking a shower, we’re really getting clean. I’m not showering right now, by the way.

Julia: And now, Greg will Run the Numbers!

Greg: Hi I’m Greg. I’m a New York Neo-Futurist.

In this episode we’re bringing you 4 new plays by Anooj Bhandari and Siyu Song, Léah Miller, and me, ya boy, Greg Lakhan. Plus, a play from the vault by Mike Puckett, recorded in 2016. 

That brings us to 26 audio experiments on Hit Play. Enjoy!

Music winds down.

Play 1: Our Trip to Morocco, Six Months Later (1:27-4:32)

Siyu: Our Trip to Morocco, Six Months Later. GO!

Moroccan sounding music underneath the words, a slight warp effect crescendos on the vocals. 

Anooj: Nothing can capture the orange and brown worn by houses melting into the mountainside, skeletons folding into sand. The dust and the wind become the turning–

Music cuts out. 

Siyu: Hey Anooj.

Anooj:  Yeah, Siyu?

Siyu: These are memories of Morocco.

Anooj: Yep, it’s a beautiful place!

Siyu: we made plans to go to morocco together 6 months ago. 

Anooj: That was so fun! We talked about it a lot! 

Music fades from before fades back in slowly then turns into general ambient background noise. 

Anooj: The dust and the wind become the turning of a kaleidoscope, we will remember these scenes and bring our walls to dust at home as we storytell the times we had.

Siyu: This would’ve been a really beautiful memory for me had I experienced it with you. I kind of expected us not to have followed through on those Morocco plans. 

Anooj: And you were right! I was really excited to go back to a place I lived and loved. A place where I spent what I would consider a few formative years of my life.  A place that I haven’t been able to share with a lot of people that I care about.   

Siyu: Yeah I was excited to go, too.  

Anooj: I had all those plans to show off my language skills to you. I was going to teach you how to say things like assalam u alaikum. 

Siyu: Well i’m not going to learn that now. 

Anooj: Those plans to have you meet my friends. 

Siyu: they sounded nice.

Anooj: Those plans to take you to Chefchaoun, to the city in the mountains painted completely blue. 

Siyu: I remember we said we were going to do shrooms there. 

Anooj: Those plans to stay together in that hotel with rooms that look like small snippets from a children’s storybook. 

Siyu: That would’ve been cool, too. 

Anooj: Those plans to hike up to the mosque and watch the city from afar. 

Siyu: Yeah. I just wanted to see cool shit.

Anooj: Those plans to cliff jump.  

Siyu: And do stuff with friends

Anooj: Those plans to lock down some really good hash. 

Siyu: Yeah, I love joints.

Anooj: And those plans to do shrooms. 

Siyu: Still really wanna do shrooms.

Anooj: Those plans to support you if you wanted me to watch you ride a camel.  

Siyu: I was looking forward to the pictures that I was going to make you take.

Anooj: Those plans to show you how we could have done all of this for under a hundred bucks!

Siyu: And you were going to show me the stairwell where you first got–

Anooj: –Yup, yup, I would have had plans to show you that, too. 

Siyu: Yeah.

Anooj: You know… The fear of missing out isn’t really a thing when the thing didn’t happen anyways. Like what’s there to miss out on when we both just didn’t do the thing we set out to do. 

Siyu: I suppose, but it’s also valid to grieve for things that don’t happen. Anyways, I did other things with my time, like filling the hole in my life where this trip would’ve been. Greg sounded like he had a great time in India with you. 

Greg: Anooj was an amazing host. It was deadass the best trip of my entire life.

Anooj: Siyu. Sorry for being a bad friend and that I didn’t take you to Morocco.

Siyu: You know you still can. Anooj? 

Anooj: Yes, Siyu?

Siyu: We can still go to morocco together. 

Background noise gets louder. 

Siyu: Anooj! 

Background noise with Arabic singing continues for a beat. 

Play 2: Je t'aime (4:32-7:06)

Léah: Je t'aime. GO! 

Plucky instrumental cover of Edith Piaf’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” plays underneath the words. 

Léah: In middle school, Mme. Tokar used to lecture and scold about how us "American Youth" said “I love you” too much, too often. She bemoaned the teenage girls clinging to each other and yelling their enthusiastic “I love you”s everyday at 3:15. She was proud of her French, preserving “je t’aime” for the depth of bedside whispers. 

My mom moved to the States at 25 to create a loving life in English, away from those cold and exclusive “je t’aime”s. Was she leaving behind a specifically French kind of “love” or was it that her specific Frenchness lacked love? I’m not sure. 

Here are some of the messages that I've sent in the past week:  

• March 31st, 1:30pm. "Just thinking of you + sending love" to Bauer in our group text

• March 30th, roughly 9:30 to 10:30pm. Heart reacts in the group chat about Robin's pizza adventure. 

• March 30th, 9:08pm. Single red heart to Zev after a mini pep talk 

• March 30th, 2:11pm. “Less than 3” style heart in response to 11:11 love from Hayley in LA. 

• March 30th, 11:11am. A series of emoji hearts to a bunch of my 11:11 pals: Qwill, Arthur, my mom, Kirsten, etc. 

• March 29th, 4:17pm. Emoji heart and "I wanna play Farkle!" Text to my dad in LA. 

• March 28th, 7:12pm. "Big big love" 

• March 27th, 10:16pm. Exchange of purple hearts with Lindsay after I saw some sad news on her Twitter feed. 

• March 27th, 6:52pm. "SHABBAT SHALOM I LOVE YOU" text to Zev as I prepared for my Shabbat moment at my house. 

• March 26th, 11:51am. "Love to you and the kiddos" text to Rabbi Nikki.

I wrote the first version of this play in 2017, but sending random notes of love now feels more vital than ever these days. I don’t know if my queerness and polyamory made me start using “love” indiscriminately or if Mme. Tokar and my middle school metaphorical linguistic failure brought me here. 

Either way, I'm glad I failed. 

Music crescendos. 

Play 3: Sir Gregolas Radio: Black Sheep (7:07-9:10)

Greg: Sir Gregolas Radio: Black Sheep. GO!

Mellow hip hop music begins. 

Greg: (warped vocal effect) It’s people I don’t understand

Some people are meant to be with people, and others, like me, are just different. 

It’s time for me to leave here, and just hope there’s another honor where I go next. 

Beat comes in, Greg raps. 

Greg: Every grey cloudy day has a blue sky above it

Everything I ever wanted so close I can touch it

But it’s just out of reach 

Put my heart and my soul into lyrics

But these fuckers only listen to the beats

Fighting for inner peace 

Most days I’m feeling weak 

Wanna end it all 

And put myself 6 feet deep

Tried to manifest the opposite 

Grow and build confidence 

Talked about all the positives 

But talk is cheap

Friends give me what I need 

Respected by most colleagues 

I plummet through the air

They always catch me when I’m falling

Push the boulder up the hill 

And now it’s snowballing 

Stagnation feels like my true calling 

I just take what I need 

Repeat the same patterns 

Drink, consume, and smoke weed

Never tell the whole story

Keep people at arms’ length

Hide the cracks in my armor in order to feign strength 

Dealt with instability from infancy 

I’m feeling like a black sheep

Reflecting on my history

The pain cuts deep

Laws of attraction 

You sow what you reap

I’ve been making redactions

To company I keep

Tryna take action 

Be less passive

Less of a bystander 

So I break bread every single fucking week for therapy

Once a week I feel stable

Happiness feels sustainable 

Confidence feels attainable 

Feel like I’m more than capable 

The other 6 days 

Always seem to range 

From mundane to gray

But why is life this way?

It’s a fight to the death 

Taking necessary steps 

But you can’t avoid stress 

City rent 

College debt

Fuckboys tryna flex

I ain’t done fighting yet 

Ain’t got no time for rest

Unfortunately 

Jazzy riff, beat drops out. 

Greg: Stay clean!

Play 4: Vault: Yes, All Men (9:10-12:01)

Mike: Hi this is Mike Puckett. I’m an ensemble member of the New York Neo-Futurists. The play you’re about to hear, I wrote it back in 2016 in response to the Bill Cosby trials that were going on at the time, and I recorded it that same year. Yes, All Men. GO!

Background noise of a piano bar, crowd talking, drink pouring. Continues under words.

Mike: I’m at the bar, making a vodka soda and I'm watching a couple of customers. He's kissed her three times but she hasn’t kissed back once. She's clearly uncomfortable with the situation  but he's buying the drinks and she likes to think of herself as polite. This is going to happen two more times with two more couples over the next four hours, but I don't know that yet. I just keep making drinks.

Sound of a drink being shaken then poured, twice, underneath words. 

Mike: And I think about Bill Cosby and how we like to call him a monster to deprive him of his humanity and how I don't even like to think of him as a bad man, because it's only once we starting splitting ourselves into "bad" and "good" that we start to think that we're incapable of doing terrible things.

Sound of a drink being poured and then overflowing continues under words. 

Case in point, they did a study where they asked male college students if they would force a woman to have sex with them if they could get away with it. 3 in 10 said yes but only 1 in 10 called it rape which means that at least 2 out of 10 male college students don't know what rape is and that 2 out 3 rapists still think that they're good guys. Like the rest of us.

Sound of pouring speeds up and gets louder. 

I think about how maybe rapists aren't bad men, maybe they're just men, men who are equally capable of doing terrible things as those that we call good and that maybe if we drop the labels, we can address the fact that we're all responsible. Responsible for teaching these men that there is no excuse. There is no "getting away with it." Because maybe if more men realized the power they have to hurt other people then they would also realize that they have the power not to, that there's a difference between letting a woman say "no" and waiting for her to say "yes."

But back at the bar I'm reaching for a lime and trying to figure out a way to get rid of this guy. But they came together. If he goes, she goes too. So I ask him if he'd like to pay. I even put on a smile. And he does. They leave. They're not my problem. 

I mean, maybe she just doesn't like kissing in public, I tell myself. After all, they did leave together. But I don't know. I won't know. 

Sound of pouring is gone, crowd talking gets louder. 

Another couple sits down in the exact same seats. He kisses her. She doesn't kiss back. I ask them what they'd like to drink.

Piano flourish and sound of water sloshing. 

Show Outro (12:02-13:27)

Electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. If you liked what you heard and want to support the New York Neo-Futurists, consider making a donation at nynf.org, or joining our Patreon–Patreon.com/NYNF. Patreon membership gives you access to bonus content like video plays. And if this episode gets over 1,000 downloads, we'll order one of our Patreon supporters a pizza on us. We’d really appreciate any support in these difficult times. Contributing to our Patreon helps us continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, call a friend, order some clay and make a pinch pot, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by: Anooj Bhandari, Siyu Song, Léah Miller, Greg Lakhan, and Mike Puckett. Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay. And our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean. Joey Rizzolo designed and mixed the audio for Yes, All Men. Thanks, Joey! Léah Miller is our associate producer. Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean and me, Julia Melfi. Take Care!

Music fades out.