The Soloist
"Points West" by Steve Lopez.
A construction foreman in Griffith Park
heard the crash.
Hey!
He saw a cyclist cartwheel off his bike
and slam face-first into the unforgiving
asphalt of Riverside Drive.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
As we begin our descent
into Los Angeles,
we ask that you please be sure
that your seatbelts are fastened...
A 911 call brought out the troops
from Fire Station 76.
- What happened?
- You had an accident.
- Do you know what happened?
- No sh*t, I had an accident. What?
I don't remember any of this,
nor do I recall the cause of the spill.
- Our batteries are off.
- I've been in here six hours now, and...
Listen to me. Wait a minute.
We're ready to go...
Hypochondriac.
OR 2.
County-USC was
and I quickly realized
that if you find yourself there
with nothing more than
a bump on the head,
you are one lucky Angeleno.
Wow.
Ready.
I'm not entirely comfortable with this.
Thank you.
You have no new messages.
You have no new messages.
Okay.
Really?
Doctors told me to expect
up to four weeks of disorientation.
Christ. All right.
I'm not asking for sympathy.
I just want you to know, I just...
I'm not asking for sympathy.
I just want you to understand
what's going on
what a bang-up job
Governor Schwarzenegger's doing.
S-C-H-W-A-R-Z... Scratch that.
Pass. Lacks context.
Right. So the question is...
Hey, Tommy.
Theoretically could I,
seeing as how the Governor has retired
his position at the muscle magazine,
could I interview him?
Right. And will my non-Teutonic lineage
be an issue?
See, no, that's... That's...
It gets to be funny. It's just an article.
Do I need to have been on steroids
for a long time to even apply?
Good.
Gail, I like
the "attention must be paid" reference.
I might move it down a paragraph,
though.
Thanks. I'm getting you a new desk.
Good morning, gentlemen.
- Thanks.
- Hey, guys. Check it out.
I got a study here that says
the number of Americans under 35
who read a newspaper
is now down to 40%.
- Forty?
- Forty.
And the group we're losing mostly
are college-educated women.
- Pull my finger.
- Jesus Christ.
Hey, honey.
"Welcome back, Steve."
That would have been nice.
Thank you. You know, when Lopez
and I started out together...
You had to walk 20 miles to school
in the snow with no shoes?
...people cared about
what went on in the world.
- Am I right, Steve? I mean, Christ.
- Back when people cared.
We're at war, and the only thing
that sells papers
is a Lindsay Lohan cooch shot.
Jesus, did someone
actually run that in print?
- I thought that was just on the Web.
- All right, all right.
- All I am saying is...
- I didn't see that.
...that if you run an excellent,
if I do say so myself,
front-page piece about how corporate
America is profiting from this war,
and the only reader response you get
is on two hands...
- Meanwhile...
- That was a good piece, by the way.
- Fine. Thanks. You read it?
- I read that.
- Did you really?
- I didn't read it, but I loved it, Curt.
Meanwhile, Lopez here
scrapes his forehead,
and gets, what,
from readers worried about his safety?
- I chased this piece.
- Then I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
There is something
very wrong in this world.
Newsflash, something wrong
with the world.
Yeah.
Your face hurts my feelings, Steve.
That's harassment.
- Mary?
- An environmental group studying...
- Please.
...chemical contaminants
- in people's bodies.
- I literally... No.
- Give some blood and write about it.
- Let me check my e-mails.
I think it would be a good idea for you.
I'm glad you feel that way. I just did that.
What do you think?
The thought in my mind is,
"No, thank you."
It was funny.
People love it when you bleed.
- Readers.
- Busted.
What is that? What do you call that,
what you just did?
- Transference.
- Freud.
Freud. Thank you. No.
Sorry about the face.
- I hate needles.
- So use it.
Originally used as a camp by settlers
outside of what was then
the village of Los Angeles,
or the Lower Plaza.
Stevie Wonder fan?
My Cherie Amour is the song of my life.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered.
But you really shouldn't write
on a violin like that
because you have to treat a violin
like a child, you have to protect it.
You only got two strings.
All I want to do is play music,
and here's the problem
This one's gone, this one's gone,
this little one's out of commission.
But you get that in
Cleveland public schools.
A lot of military statues in Cleveland.
- A very military-oriented city.
- Is that where you're from?
You're not gonna get musicians
on parade there.
You got Severance Hall there.
You have The Music Settlement.
Ohio State University.
Whereas in Los Angeles, you have
Los Angeles PD, you have LA Times,
you have Los Angeles Lakers.
Those are armies, too.
Military regimentation, experimentation,
Roman gable, Roman Catholicism,
Colonel Sanders,
- but this guy right here is...
- Colonel Sanders.
...the quarterback with the orchestra.
Now the cello could back this guy
with the same moves,
but the cello can't be concert master.
No. He leads out, this was
Itzhak Perlman, Jascha Heifetz.
You can't play music
in the winter in Cleveland
because of the ice and the snow.
That's why I prefer Los Angeles
to Beethoven City,
because it never rains
in Southern California,
and if it does, all I have to do
is just go in the tunnel,
I could play to my heart's content.
I'm flabbergasted about the statue.
Aren't you flabbergasted about this?
- Anyway, nice to meet you.
- Do you have any idea how it got here?
- No.
- Maybe they dropped it off late at night.
'Cause it's just astonishing to sit here
for hours and just... Just gaze at it.
- It... It just blows me away.
- No idea.
that someone as great as Beethoven
was the leader of Los Angeles.
Yeah.
- Lopez, L-O-P-E-Z?
- Yeah.
Lopez, Los Angeles Times. Mr. Lopez.
- What's your name?
- Lopez.
Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Junior.
N-A-T-H-A-N-l-E-L A-N-T-H-O-N-Y
A-Y-E-R-S J-U-N-l-O-R.
Or J-R-period.
I apologize for my appearance.
I've had a few setbacks.
Me, too.
Who are Nancy, Paul, and Craig?
Those were my classmates at Juilliard.
Good afternoon, Juilliard School.
Registrar's office, please.
What's up?
It's highly classified. I can't tell you.
- How many?
- More than we can afford to lose.
Evidently, it goes like this.
Stock price sinks, we lose reporters.
we lose more reporters.
That won't produce more or less...
the LA Times. I'm calling to enquire
as to whether a Nathaniel Anthony Ayers
attended your school.
A-Y-E-R-S. I'm sorry.
Freaking child lock.
- How is our son, by the way?
- He's good.
He likes his classes.
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"The Soloist" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/the_soloist_18439>.
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