Muppet fic: Once in a Lifetime

[charlietheowl]

I'm glad to see Piggy's taking control of the show and making it better for the pageant children, and I'm glad Scooter gave Janken a warning about Fleet before he could tell him anything. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Twisted Tails]

Uh-oh! Fleet is definetely someone I don't want to be friends with.

I just caught up with my reading and this a great fanfic, Kim. The title sounds very interesting and the words you use from the chapter are from the song, "Once In A Lifetime.

Fleet will always be the same-old reporter writing nothing but trash. Piggy will always have her brash attitude.

Same as it ever was.

: Same as it ever was.
: Same as it ever was.
: Terrible DOHOHOHOHO!

Heh! Hecklers! Your fanfics are never terrible and they have always gotten better as your writing structure also improves.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[The Count]

Mmm, it's good to get some fic to make the day a little brighter.

I'm liking how Piggy's steering the li'l ones around her... Finding their likes, encouraging those potential dreams... And then there's the other side, her being the diva we've come to know her as. Hey Ms. Director ma'am, if you wanted to keep control over the show, then next time you'll learn not to give these star judges cart blanche when it comes to artistic freedom in fulfilling their contractual obligations to the show.

Maybe it's because I'm peripherally following the Muppet Stageshow App thread that I feel Lew's rehearsal was thrown in her as a slight nod to that game. Either way, I'm glad he got in a few tosses with the ol' trout.

*Applauds Scooter for explaining to Jan who Fleet is.

There is one thing that doesn't flow quite right though.
Posted by Bot of Slack:
"Some of the other girls rolled their eyes, and Miss Piggy didn't find Tessie's attitude any more winsome than Piggy did. But that was neither here nor there."
Er, yeah, neither Miss Piggy nor Piggy? *Shakes head.

Thanks for updating, hope for more soon. *Fills a mug for Kim and another for Jan with hot chocolate.

 

[Slackbot]

Charlietheowl: Scooter's not going to rest easy about Janken talking to Fleet. He trusts Janken, but, let's face it, Fleet is a sneaky adversary and Janken is still, well, innocent. He's already gotten one bit of info out of Janken, and you can bet he'll tug on that thread and see what unravels.

The Count: If you think the Director has troubles now, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Piggy has done her homework but good, and you'd be amazed what they neglected to specify in the contract.

I wasn't thinking about the app when I wrote Lew Zealand in; I just wanted a comedy beat at that point, and you can't go wrong slapping someone in the face with a fish. His presence in the app can't have hurt, though.

Ahh, the dueling Piggy goof. Like so many of my errors, that happened while editing. I changed one part of the sentence and somehow didn't get the other. For the record, I was changing it from Piggy not finding Tessie's attitude any more pleasant than the girls did to the girls not liking it any more than Piggy did. BTW, nobody's caught on to the girls names yet?

Janken: Thanks for the chocolate! And don't worry, I'm not going to blab to Fleet. I just want to see what kind of person would write stuff like that. I just can't believe that it can be all that bad.

 

[The Count]

You're right, it's not all that bad.
No, it's worse!
*Both laugh.

Also, I like Molly. Maybe because she's a cute little kitten. Or maybe because she admits she doesn't know what she wants to be. Or maybe her quietly on the sidelines.

*Brings in some more of :batty's number cookies and hot chocolate for everybody.

 

[Slackbot]

I wanted to have a good spread of personalities. Tessie and Pepper were the only ones I had planned out, the rest sort of happened. Looks like Molly's "cute little doll" act isn't a shtick; she's pretty much like that for real.

 

[charlietheowl]

BTW, nobody's caught on to the girls names yet?

I cheated and googled the names, and figured it out that way. I don't want to spoil it for anyone else, because they may figure it out tomorrow.

 

[Slackbot]

Once in a Lifetime​

Part 9: Living in a Shotgun Shack​

by Kim McFarland​

*****

It was a typical day. Typical, unremarkable, routine, nothing special, he thought as he looked out the window. There wasn't much of a view, unless you liked other buildings. In a city apartment, if you wanted a view you hung a picture.

Fleet Scribbler poured a cup of coffee. Sipping it, he trudged to his computer, which was by the window of his living room. His home was a neat version of a bachelor pad, as he didn't have enough stuff to create a lot of clutter. He simply wasn't in the habit of collecting things. When he got tired of a picture, a book, a piece of clothing, or whatever he simply donated it or otherwise got rid of it rather than keep it around. The area surrounding his computer, on the other hand, varied from neat to disaster area, depending on how intensely he had been following something. Notes and other items could pile up on the desk, under the edges of the monitor, on the arm of the adjacent sofa. Then, when he finished with the article he'd trash it all and move on. If anything was worth holding on to he'd file it away in a box, but very little he dealt with was of more than passing importance.

He typed in the password to unlock his computer. He had new E-mails, one from a message board he had visited last night. An answer to a question he'd posted. Great! He sat down, put down his coffee mug, and clicked on the subject line.

It was a note from an administrator, informing him that they did not allow discussion of people's personal lives in that forum, and his post had been deleted. He checked to see if there were any other replies before that one. None.

Oh well. It had been worth a try. He had sock puppet accounts on many fan message boards. Just about any subject he might have to research had a fan community somewhere. Under the guise of a fan he'd ask questions, making sure to phrase them to sound breathless and a bit silly. One thing about fans, they are pathetically eager to show off what they know. They weren't any more reliable a source than a wiki, but both were a good place to start. He'd asked on a Muppet fan board if the purple camera guy had a girlfriend. He had hoped that someone would reply before the administrators shut it down, because even though the thread was gone the reply would have been E-mailed to him.

Ah well, he wasn't going to waste brain sweat on this one. It's probably nobody in particular, and how many tabloid readers will give a flip if some nameless Muppet is gay?

*

It had been a full day at the Muppet Theater. Full of tech rehearsals, mainly. People were getting their acts together, beating scripts and blocking and costuming and whatever else into shape, and Janken had recorded the run-throughs of these acts for final review and so he would be able to light and film them during the show.

Now some of the Muppets were watching the acts he had filmed on the large overhead monitor. They weren't vetting them so much as reassuring themselves that they were going to be ready for this weekend's show after all. They weren't worried about coming up empty, not really. They were Muppets; they could always put on a show! But after the last-minute loss of their guest star they had gone into overdrive to put together a show from scratch in a few days, and they were going to make it great, or at least memorable.

The scene currently on the monitor was of a bunch of babies bouncing in their cribs, doing infant acrobatics, and rapping in baby talk. Dr. Teeth chuckled, "This has the semblance of a mosh pit after someone liberally spiked the beverages with liquid from the Fountain of Youth."

"It does, doesn't it," Rowlf said with a grin. They looked like they were having more fun than a litter of puppies with a slipper to play tug-of-war with.

Approvingly Kermit said, "That looks like it'll be a high point in the show."

The frog sounded more relaxed that he'd been in the past few days, Scooter noticed. "Yeah. I'll keep that in mind when I line up the acts. This one might be good right before intermission."

Billie, sitting on Gonzo's lap, pointed at the screen and said, "I want to do that, Dad."

Gonzo wasn't surprised. At three years old, Billie already had a taste for the stage. She'd made a few appearances when a baby bird had been called for. He said, "Maybe. It's their act."

"I'll ask them to share," she said.

Kermit said, "You know, the act could be bigger. Benson has six babies. What if their toys came to life too?"

Fozzie pictured this, and said "I like it! Would we be dressed as toys?"

Kermit explained, "Marvin Suggs has an act in this week's show too. We could use the Muppaphones. They already look like stuffed toys. They could bounce around in front of the cradles, like a mosh pit. Bean could be a stuffed bunny."

Bean said, "Aww, thanks. I'd make an adorable plush toy. I wonder why I haven't been merchandised yet?"

Scooter asked, "Want me to run this by Benson?"

"Yeah, go ahead," Kermit answered.

He left the group of Muppets still brainstorming on the mosh pit and crossed to the dressing rooms. Benson's door was open. The room was crowded with the same cribs they had used on the stage, but they were now filled with tuckered-out babies. Bobo was rocking one of them in his arms; the babies had declared him an honorary teddy bear, and he was happy to carry out the associated duties.

*

Miss Piggy entered through the backstage door. There was a bit of noise going on, but it was all coming from the other side of the stage. They must be watching the rushes. She crossed over and laid a hand on Kermit's shoulder.

He looked over, then up. "Piggy!" She looked startlingly cheerful for someone who had just been filming a show she hated. "How did it go?"

"Much better," she said with a smile. "I want to have a word with you."

They were pretty much done with the rushes, and their brainstorming didn't need his supervision. "Sure. Let's go to my office."

"I was thinking of my dressing room," she countered.

"Er, ah…okay."

Scooter met them partway across the stage. He said, "Hi, Miss Piggy! Kermit, he loved the idea."

"Oh, good. I thought he would."

Piggy gave Scooter a look that said that whatever else he had to say could wait. Scooter decided that she was right. He went back to the left. The rushes done, the group was already starting to break up. They'd be on their way home soon. It had been a long day.

Janken handed Scooter a piece of paper. It had a few notes in Janken's peculiar, vertically-stretched writing. "There were some more ideas for the baby band number."

"Thanks." Scooter put the paper on his clipboard. "Still no ideas about the backstage story?"

"Yeah. I guess we don't really need a backstage story for the stage show, but I was looking forward to using the side screen," Janken said wsitfully.

"Yeah, well, maybe next week."

"Need anything else from me?"

"Nah, I'll take over here."

"I'll stay if you're staying."

"I'm gonna be making another evening of it, Jan. You don't have to. Go have some fun."

Janken sighed. "I understand."

"When all this is over, we're going to go do something, just us. That's a promise."

"I'll hold you to that."

They kissed. Then Janken got up out of the console seat, and Scooter took his place. Janken was just turning to leave when Scooter turned in the chair and said, "Um, Jan. When you come back, why not come to the house instead of going back to your place?"

Janken replied, "Will you be there? Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to sound--"

Scooter waved the impending apology away. "It's okay. It'll give me incentive to finish things up here."

"It's a date, then." Janken kissed him again, then walked over to where his bicycle was leaning against the wall, and wheeled it out the back door.

Sitting at the console, Scooter heard the chatter on the other side of the stage. Everyone else was getting ready to get on their bus to go home. Bobby Benson had a van; in his mind's eye Scooter could see Bobby and some of the larger Muppets bringing the Baby Band out in their carriers. Sweetums would have one in each hand.

Scooter sighed. He'd rather be going home too. He'd rather be with a warm, fun-loving Fraggle right now. But he had some things to do before they started up tomorrow. If he didn't have everything straightened out, then the others would get tangled up in the details and minutia and they wouldn't get to work on the actual acts. His job was to deal with the administrivia so they could focus on creativity.

Trouble was, right now his heart wasn't in it. He needed a break. He opened up a web browser and checked the bookmarks. In the lags between acts Janken liked to crawl the Web—"Feeding the Elephant's Child," he called it—and bookmark sites of interest. He had a folder named "Scooter" for links he meant to ask him about or wanted to show him. Might as well check that out, Scooter thought.

There were a few ones at the top that he hadn't seen before. One was a TED talk. For a while Janken been going through those and asking Scooter to clarify the issues under discussion. Scooter had nearly sprained his brain trying to explain copyright law to a Fraggle who viewed songs as common culture, to be shared by all. What concept would he have to deconstruct this time? Well, might as well watch it. He needed a short break anyway.

A video page titled "Coming Out of Your Closet: Ash Beckham at TEDx Boulder" came up. Oh, okay, Scooter thought. This is familiar territory. He started the video. As the audience clapped and cheered a short-haired woman wearing a vest, jeans, and sneakers walked out on a stage carrying a microphone and began to speak.

"I'm gonna talk to you tonight about coming out of the closet. And not in the traditional sense. Not just the gay closet. I think we all have closets. Your closet may be telling someone you love her for the first time. Or telling someone that you're pregnant. Or telling someone you have cancer. Or any of the other hard conversations that we have throughout our lives. All a closet is is a hard conversation. And although our topics may vary tremendously, the experience of being in and coming out of the closet is universal. It is scary, and we hate it, and it needs to be done."

She spoke as if addressing a friend rather than an audience, Scooter noticed. He chuckled as she told an anecdote about a girl in a café who innocently asked her a difficult question. She spoke of how hard issues were hard, and there was no point in comparing which are harder than others. She spoke of how everyone is in in a closet at some point, but they are no place for a person to live in. She compared keeping a truth about yourself secret to holding a hand grenade, one which would kill you if you did not throw it.

She finished, "Hard conversations are not my strong suit. Ask anyone I have ever dated. But I'm getting better. And I follow what I like to call the three pancake girl principles. Now, please, view these through gay-colored lenses, but know what it takes to come out of any closet is essentially the same. Number one: be authentic. Take your armor off. Be yourself. The kid in the café had no armor but I was ready for battle. Stupid hypothalamus. If you want someone to be real with you, they need to know that you bleed too. Number two: Be direct, just say it, rip the band-aid off. If you know you are gay, just say it. If you tell your parents you might be gay they will hold out hope that this will change. Do not give them that sense of false hope. And number three, and most important: be unapologetic. You are speaking your truth. Never apologize for that. And some folks might have gotten hurt along the way, so, sure, apologize for what you've done, but never apologize for what you are. And, yeah, some folks may be disappointed, but that is on them, not on you. Those are their expectations of who you are, not yours. That is their story, not yours. The only story that matters is the one you wanna write.

"So the next time you find yourself in a pitch black closet clutching your grenade, know we have all been there before. And you may feel so very alone, but you are not. And we know it's hard, but we need you out here no matter what your walls are made of. Because I guarantee you there are others peering through the keyhole of their closets looking for the next brave soul to bust the door open, so be that person. And show the world that we are bigger than our closets, and that a closet is no place for a person to truly live."

On the screen, the audience applauded and cheered, and she waved again and bade them good night. Quietly Scooter took off his glasses and wiped his eyes.


*****

All characters except Janken are copyright © The Muppets Studio, LLC. Coming Out of Your Closet: Ash Beckham at TEDx Boulder, excerpted here, is copyright Ash Beckham (I assume, as I don't see copyright info on the site) and is well worth watching in full right here: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Coming-Out-of-Your-Closet-Ash-B. All copyrighted materials are used without permission but with much respect and affection. Janken Fraggle is copyright © Kim McFarland (negaduck9@aol.com), as is the overall story. Permission is given by the author to copy it for personal use only.

 

[charlietheowl]

Fleet certainly is devoted to the gossip beat, trolling message boards for hot scoop. I suppose he's used to looking under rocks for information, being a "muckraking" journalist and all. Thanks for posting.

 

[Twisted Tails]

This is a very interesting chapter.
References to Muppet Central Forum and TED
I had a feeling there were not only spammers but a bunch of people and Fleets trolling on messages, threads, boards... anywhere.
Muckrakers! What else could I call them instead of trollers.

It was a note from an administrator, informing him that they did not allow discussion of people's personal lives in that forum, and his post had been deleted. He checked to see if there were any other replies before that one. None.

Well, I'll be doggone! Sounds like Scribbler's about to be on the blacklist from Philip.

Thanks for sharing!