A man, who we will call Rick Bayan, is photographing the beauty that is the St. Louis city skyline on the yellow, tawny floodplains of East St. Louis. An over-the-shoulder shot of his hobby that captures the wide open 3-D spaces of his location. This is real. This is here. Precise, delicate impressions as he adjusts the camera, the arcana of lighting and F-stops. A soft breeze blows, ruffling his hair.

As opening credits roll, the soft strains of a Cajun soul song begins to play which lilts with the sad gurgling of a river, then moving on to a piano bit evocative of the sad pathos of urban decay AS THE CAMERA CUTS TO SWEEPING HELICOPTER SHOTS OF DOWNTOWN. Song picks up, captures city spice as camera cuts to shots of people in business suits walking the streets, working men drinking in bars, policemen on horseback-- damn, this is a scuzzy excuse for a town! But like a worn shoe, it's home. . . . . a kind of introductory music video to the run-down region

The shots interplay between Rick Bayan fiddling with the camera and gazing off into the distance intently and the helicopter shots of St. Louis-- ever approaching the brown, majestic (-- and polluted!) Mississippi River

The helicopter finally buzzes past Rick Bayan, far below, hunched over his camera and tripod. As he looks up at the helicopter, he accidentally knocks over the camera which falls into the marsh with a "slushing" sound.

"Ahh, FUCK!", he exclaims.

Rick Bayan bends over to grab the camera, and falls down into the stinking marsh. (-- Sound of buzzing flies)

Voice-Over: "Hi. My name is Rick Bayan and I wanted to send you a postcard from where I live"

As voice-over above rolls, cut to shot of Rick Bayan in soaked and filthy clothing walking into Union Station and approaching touristy gift shop with St. Louis memorabilia everywhere, ruffling through rack of postcards with furrowed expression. All the postcards are picture-perfect and idyllic. (-- Sound of cash registers in the background, immediate and pressing)

"Don't touch those, sir!" a bull-like manager orders him irately. The shot hangs-- between the barking manager and our pathetic hero with a shocked and wounded expression

Rick Bayan goes home to his dark room and develops what is left of his film in a despondent, flippant, and depressed way. His pictures of the St. Louis skyline came out runny, twisted, and distorted

Cut to shot of our hero sitting around his breakfast nook in a bathrobe, addressing the camera head on. The pictures lay on the round table, which he pokes at with his hand from time to time.

"In brief, these pictures would be the artwork on that postcard I'd send you, a visual 'paraphrase' of the jaded way I see things"

He stops to drink from a mug of coffee. It is scalding. He cringes, and puts it down.

"Don't you hate it when that happens?"

Silence for 5 seconds

"Well, if anyone is listening-- and there must be at least one who is-- you may want to know what all this cynicism is about"

Sound of "rheeing" crickets, as if standing alone on a stage in an empty theater

Rick Bayan lowers his forehead while eyeing the camera with a sarcastic expression:

"Yes, my pretties. I know YOU want to listen to my soliloquy of sorrow"

The camera waves back and forth as if to say, "no".

"Well, in any case, I define a cynic as 'an idealist whose rose-colored glasses have been taken off, snapped in two, and stomped into the ground, immediately improving his bummed vision'"

Close up of Rick Bayan speaking, as if in an infomercial for the cause of cynicism

"It's how life always falls short, you know? Like when you're a kid, you're given a cold hot dog. Or you ask a girl out in high school and she laughs in your face, or. . . . . ."

Cut to surreal Claymation sequence of a roach sitting on the floor, raising a leg and in an Hispanic voice calling out "You are a piece of shit, man!"

Cut to shot of Rick Bayan entering the store, and having the impression of a vast echoing expanse where it's impossible to find anything. An extension cord, for Christ's sake! No help to be found, so he's wandering around the aisles.

Voice-Over: "Men hate to ask for directions. It's an act of submission or gay or something. But-- (pant)-- eventually-- (pant)-- I had but no choice"

Rick Bayan comes back to the front counter panting, holding the small of his back, and asks where he can find an extension cord. The marginal, squint-eyed, teenaged help behind the counter points him to the immediate aisle thirty feet away. Our hero can not help but make an absurdist, pained expression.

Rick Bayan returns with an extension cord, but by then some rough blue collar guys have taken his place in line. Big ole' dirty white boys talking about their exploits-- working construction, drinking beer until they pass out, ordering 10 sausage egg McMuffins over at McDonald's for breakfast before the day gets going. As proof of their hardiness, they deposit up 75 pound sacks of concrete mix onto the counter without even really thinking about it

Our hero is watching them in awe-- he looks down at his puny extension cord-- then looks back up at them.

One of the guys turns around and asks in a meaty, husky voice with his fist raised, "What are you looking at, faggot?"

Rick Bayan snaps his head back in surprise, and big guys laugh. They pay with cash and lumber out of the store.

Voice-Over: "We cynics have never been Alpha males. Neither leaders nor followers, we tend to get booted aside"

"For instance, meet my friend Zuff"

Cut to shot of bearded, scuffy, Turkish math teacher in his late 20's freeze-framed in front of a white board with a red marker, behind him a mess of equations and mathmatical proofs

Rick Bayan emotes now with poetic irony--

"Let me tell you-- he's scruffy, he looks to be about three cuts above a cafe street urchin in a Turkish port city overlooking the Bosphorous, though in the case of my bearded buddy, he would sit around the table and perform mathematics like a street musician. In an ideal world, wise men and philosophers would marvel and throw gold coins in his cup"

As narration above happens, cut to picture of boat sailing the Bosphorous river in Turkey, and Zuff sitting around a cafe table performing mathmatics around a scene of stray kids playing "kick the can". Wise men coming up and putting gold coins in his cup for his noble, truth-seeking endeavors

Rick Bayan's voice now takes on a tone of weariness--

"But you know there were no gold coins nor attention paid to Zuff. Not unless he was being moved along by the authorities-- packing up his papers, maps, books, and rollable chess set in a rucksack and sent on his merry way. A boot to the bottom was his wages because he questioned authority. . . . . with something so simple as the Socratic method"

Cut to shot of Zuff silently debating with a policeman with great earnestness as he gathers up his things, a foregone conclusion

"You know-- asking a chain of simple-sounding questions that would make the one you asked look like a fool"

Cut to shot of policeman raising billyclub and Zuff leaving in a hurry

"A 'little death' unnoticed. . . . . . did I tell you that he's an underpaid, taken-for-granted math teacher?"

Next scene is of Rick Bayan and Zuff sitting at an outdoor cafe in "The Central West End", a blue dot of a gentrified liberal area in a conservative town, in a conservative state. In other words-- where the thoughtful, weak, and indecisive commune "like maggots". The gist of the conversation would go like this, though it could certainly be improvised around the edges: (Note, Rick Bayan is tired and sarcastic while Zuff is a bit more punctillious and exacting-- crossing his i's and crossing his t's as an open-minded logician trying hard not to get discouraged at the numerous boulders thrown across the alternative paths of life. It is nighttime, and candles are lit to be atmospheric as the two friends chat)

Rick Bayan: "So here we are Zuff, the monthly 'Cynic's Round-Table'. Everyone else has their head in the trough of obliviousness and are blowing bubbles through pea-soup"

Zuff: "That's an interesting way to put it" (Staring intently)

Rick Bayan: "God. . . . . I've been getting impaled at work"

Zuff: "Overworked and underappreciated, right?" (This, as Zuff fingers his wine glass and looks down at the table cloth. "Commiseration 101", but he's heard it all before)

Rick Bayan: "Well of course". (Raising his hand up in the air, like a king lifting a pile of rubies before him) "Who is really 'beating down my door' to get at those loose-leaf organizers, or at least giving the faceless drone who writes the advertising copy a sliver of recognition? They've moved me out of my office of five years and stuffed me into a cubicle. You know that aquarium I kept in there? That kept me from going insane? All the tropical fish went 'belly-up" in two weeks. No natural light. Oh, except for the catfish. THE SCUM-SUCKING CATFISH"

Rick Bayan: "How's that for one of those 'metaphors of life'?"

Zuff: "I find that teaching math is difficult. As a teacher, I try to keep it interesting and open-ended, like an older brother-- but I can't help but feel like the host of a daytime talk show that very few students particularly want to watch. Math is the ultimate liberation, because you can go over the proofs yourself and discover 'truth' without an intercessor"

Rick Bayan: "Well, what is truth to you? I know truth to me is not getting what I want, watching others prosper-- immune to life's slings and arrows-- while I sink in the muck. We keep pushing ourselves beyond our biological limits, enduring LETHAL doses of stress and boredom, to chase after some kind of ideal of who we are what we're supposed to be. When I was younger and less cynical, I used to believe that a benign spirit of checks and balances governed the universe, but now I don't buy that anymore. I feel as if I'm on the losing end of evolution or something. That's truth to me"

Zuff: "Hmmmm. Maybe that's just what the establishment wants you to think in order to stay in power. So much of our behavior is conditioned by the authority structure that we're really a lot more brainwashed than we know"

Rick Bayan: "I'll toast to that" (Raising his glass)

Zuff: "Take the 1950's, and how life was so conformist back then. People were set in their ideas, and couldn't readily be shaken loose. It's universal. There was a mathmatician back in ancient Greece who was able to prove that the square root of two was not a rational number, that the digits went off in a non-repeating sequence off into infinity, and it so shook the worldview of two men in the temple that they chased him, throwing stones. The mathmatician jumped into the river to get away, trying to swim across, and they stoned him in the head and he drowned. You could say he was a 'martyr for truth'". And that to me is a noble thing"

Narration: "Well, I didn't have the heart to tell Zuff this, but we cynics feel like 'martyrs for truth' everyday. And there doesn't seem to be all that much nobility in suffering in this modern world"

Narration: "It was all to prove how little man needed to get through in this crying universe of pain. He used to hang out by the fountain all day, where people would seek his cranky opinion strictly for entertainment purposes and throw him some coins, and his sole possession was a drinking cup. When someone pointed out that he could cup the water with his hands, he smashed it and thusly had nothing"

Cut to shot of William Blake painting, "Nebuchadnezzar" with a caption added on at the bottom

"I think it was high time that I shared my life with someone else!"

"But the point is--" (As Rick Bayan pushes the chair away from the desk)

Voice-Over: "It's bad enough to be weak and twitching and pitiful, folks. A sad sack of flesh. But in front of an attractive trainer?  Oh, the mortification!"

"Sorry", he says through clenched teeth. Susie takes in stride, slightly embarrassed. This is "the temple of the body".

Lastly, Susie has him in the empty aerobics studio-- doing stretches on the floor.

Rick Bayan mock-moans like Homer Simpson: "Oooohhh, why does physical fitness have to be so hard?", an attempt at flirtation that isn't working as Susie gives him a straight-forward answer about getting into the rhythm and how it isn't as hard after a while. Then she gets up and leaves, because she has to see another client.

Cut to shot of Rick Bayan sitting alone in the aerobics studio, looking alone and dejected. After 40 seconds, a loud-mouthed aerobics instructor tells him to clear out because a class begins in five minutes

Our hero returns home, struggles out of the car, and staggers into the house. As he sits down at the breakfast nook, all sweated up and weary, the phone rings. It's the sleepy voice of a young black telemarketer reading from a pathetic script-- offering to sell subscriptions to popular magazines at 78% off the cover price. The camera cuts between Rick Bayan and a view over the kid's shoulder, as the brief exchange happens. The gist is, that Rick Byan feels so sorry for himself, and sorry for the pathetic voice on the other side of the phone which is raising money for "MADD"-- "Mothers Against Drunk Driving", that he puts down a single subscription for "Esquire" so not to hurt the black kid's feelings. The camera shows the kid fumbling with the touch keypad that indicates "the sale", thanks him word-by-word from the pathetic script, then hangs up.

Red LED Light reads "2 WEEKS LATER"

Rick Bayan comes home from the gym up to the mailbox to find it stuffed with five issues of "Ebony" Magazine. A letter in shrinkwrap says, "Thank you for contributing to our charity, MADD-- Mad Mothers Against Drunk Driving!"

"Ahhh, FUCK!"

Our frustrated hero sits down at the breakfast table and calls the 1-800 number, and tells the sleepy-voiced black woman on the other end of the line that there's been a mistake and he'd like it corrected. She tells him to take the unused magazines and to drop them off at the office down at "Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard" between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM.

"But that's when I'm at work!"

"I'm sorry sir, but then we can't give you a refund on those individual magazines"

"Fuck- forget 'em. Just correct the problem. THANK YOU".

Rick Bayan rubs his temples.

Our hero showers. Our hero naps. Our wakes up in a dark room The digital clock with red numbers reads 7:55 PM.

"God. I have drunk deeply from the cup of sleep. . . . . and that felt good" (Shaking his head)

Rick Bayan sits in the easy chair in the living room and channel surfs. 50 channels, but nothing on. The television glare reflects off his disgusted face. He turns to the camera and asks, "Have you ever had a restless feeling? Like there's excitement, love, and adventure somewhere off in the night and not to be found in your ordinary living room? Excuse, me-- but I got to go out tom-cattin'"

Our hero goes driving down to "The Loop", a grungy shopping district that's like a hip slice of New York City. This is a montage of the sights and sounds of the area, set to an early 80's Rick James song-- the king of funk. Restaurants, street musicians, Vintage Vinyl, a record store with zany posters on the wall and a lit-up marquee outside like a movie theater. (Call it a shameless plug for the region)

As Rick Bayan walks past the tattoo parlor, a hyper-gregarious panhandler bursts out-- hopping around like a friendly dog. Our hero, ever the dupe, is in a good mood and completely charmed (-- Rick James song is playing in the background, suggesting "feel-good caginess)

"You know," Rick Bayan says, reaching into his pocket. "If you directed one-half of your energy into marketing you would be driving a fleet of Cadilacs".

The panhandler thanks him, and Rick Bayan walks on into the night.

Our hero walks into "Subterrenean Books", the small, alternative bookstore that deals in "New, Used, and Out-of-Print". A pretty girl works behind the counter, very quirky and bookish and kind (You can tell!) The camera lingers.

The camera rushes into Rick Bayan's face with a rushing sound and collides with the sound of a ringing bell as he's knocked back

"May I help you?, she asks.

"Uh, no. It's just that I've never seen you working here before", Rick Bayan stutters. "I'll find what I'm looking for".

The camera follows him as he walks off down the aisles into the adjacent room to collect himself. He turns to the camera and panics: "Jesus! Why am I so neurotic? I screwed up. . . . . I know it. I just know it! I got to buy something! I'll look so awkward if I don't! I got to buy something, anything! Let's see. . . . ."

He scans the shelf, and grabs the book of leftist agitation, "Who Killed Robert Kennedy?", a piteous book that talks about how the 1960's promise was destroyed by cynical manipulators. Rick Bayan fritters that the choice is vaguely ridiculous, but it's only $5. He walks up to the cash register and has a warm, friendly conversation about books with the salesgirl, who cares about literature. She rings up his book without comment, no matter how loopy the subject material. The charm of the conversation when it's filmed is that it's completely ad-libbed and natural.

The conversation ends, and Rick Bayan walks off into the night with his hands in his pockets. . . . . looking up at the stars.

Red LED light reads "1 Week Later"

Rick Bayan returns home from the gym and walks up to the mailbox to find it stuffed with seven issues of "JET" Magazine. A letter in shrinkwrap says, "Thank you for contributing to our charity, MADD-- Mad Mothers Against Drunk Driving!"

"GOD DAMN IT!"

Our frustrated hero sits down at the breakfast table and calls the 1-800 number, and tells the same sleepy-voiced black woman on the other end of the line that there's been a mistake and he'd like it corrected. In the same routine, she tells him to take the unused magazines and drop them off at the office down at "Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard" between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM.

"But that's when I'm at work!"

"I'm sorry sir, but then we can't give you a refund on those individual magazines"

"Wait a minute-- are you open on Saturday?"

"Yes'um"

"Then I'll come in tommorow. What's that address again?"

The camera cuts to the next morning, and Rick Bayan driving through the trashy ghetto. It is a St. Louis story, when the high-flowing rhetoric doesn't meet the results. . . . . and everyone is in denial of the obvious. Everything is lazy and inefficient, as our hero waits and waits and waits through the rigamarole. For returning the magazines and getting the error corrected, he might as well be trying to get his passport renewed in Botswanna. Finally, Rick Bayan explodes.

"God! 50 years of integration and you people are still racially hopeless! I wait, and wait, AND WAIT, and YOU PEOPLE FUCK IT UP OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I'm going to give you my address. I'm going to write it down-- (he writes it down) here it is! HERE IT IS! Don't you ever send anything to my house again!"

He slaps down the piece of paper and leaves. The black employees pick it up and look at it.

The next shot is of black protesters rallying outside of his house, waving signs. It is a minor media "Al Sharpton"-type event, with news cameras. Rick Bayan comes home from work, and sees them rallying. "What the hell is this?", he asks. "That's him!", the black office lady points. They tell him that he's the white racist who keeps all black people down, the protesters with pained and wounded and angry expressions. Rick Bayan does his best to apologize and grovel, but the mob won't be placated. . . . . they want reparations. Our hero goes into the house, as they holler "What do we want? JUSTICE! When do we want it? NOW!". Placards dance outside his window.

Rick Bayan sits down with his head in his hands rubbing his temples. . . . . but then firms up.

"God damn. . . . . I've been a meek cynic all of my life, pushed around and bullied and left to stew in my own self-pity. I 'tell it like it is' in the privacy of my own thoughts and then 'clam up' when trouble comes. My voice does not matter. My life is utterly inconsequential and worthless. I've got to take a stand and mark my territory, or else be 'pushed into the sea'!".

Rick Bayan sets his jaw, paces back and forth in his living room, steps out onto the doorstep, and tells the mob to "GET THE HELL OFF MY FRONT YARD!". They look at him surprised. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE?! DON'T ANY OF YOU HAVE JOBS?!" They look to each other uncomfortably and don't answer.

Rick Bayan goes to the gym the next day and everyone is avoiding him. The black guys are scowling at him with murderous looks. Our hero goes about his routine. Finally in the locker room, some black guys confront him. Rick Bayan explains that he didn't do anything wrong. A heated exchange takes place, when a light-skinned black says, "I ought to kick your white ass!"

"If you think that I'm going to snivel and crawl away without a fight, then you got another thing coming. I may be white, but I'm not yellow" (-- Pointed insult)

"Yeah? Then sign up for the city-wide boxing tournament, bitch. You won't last very long"

"Fine, I will!"

Rick Bayan drives down to the musty gym and signs up. The qualification tournament is in four weeks.

In a dynamic music video-like montage, our hero works out to a 1980's song from Rocky IV-- jogging and lifting weights and sit ups and going at a punching bag/ The song is incidentally called, "No Easy Way Out".

Rick Bayan walks into Subterreanean Books with muscular confidence, and finds the girl working behind the counter. He has a warm, authentic (-- and ad-libbed) conversation with her, and mentions that he's signed up for the boxing tournament, and that she ought to root for him. In his own round-about way, he mentions that he was meaning to ask her out one of these days. She says that would be nice. Our hero reaches over and holds her hand warmly.

"I'm in training for now. The fight's in two days"

Theext scene is of Rick Bayan and Zuff sitting at the same outdoor cafe in "The Central West End" like before. Rick Bayan is defending his choice to fight while Zuff is the "we are all children of the universe" pacifist

Zuff: "But violence never solves anything" (Staring intently, feeling sorry for himself in the world)

Rick Bayan: "But sometimes you have to take a stand for honor, or else the universe bulldozes you over"

Zuff: "Violence is the tool of the incompetent, and begets oppression and misery. If only everyone could eventually see the way then we can break the cycle. The more people that are keyed into "the way", the less big the waves of misery get and maybe the violence and oppression will subside"

Rick Bayan: "But Zuff, have you ever had the idea that civilization exists like a structure, and the integrity of that civilization is like a house? If you don't take care of that house, then it's going to be overtaken by weeds and squatters and it's going to fall to ruin. What good is that house, or a piece of property, if you can't act like you even own it?"

Zuff: "So much or what we call 'property' was based on the exploitation of women and minorties. . . . ."

(Rick Bayan holds up his hand and interrupts)

Rick Bayan: "Zuff, please. Now you're beginning to sound like them. Remember, you're the guy who wouldn't call the police when your girlfriend had some kind of 'crisis' and ran off to Chicago on short notice with your car. You're so nice, that you let everyone walk all over you! I'm sick to death of being stepped on. If you want to life your life that way, then that's up to you but I'm taking a stand. Life is now all about 'jam bands and dope'. You might as well have a dick of acquiescence up your ass!"

Rick Bayan is carried off in a stretcher, the girl from Subterranean Books following him as he blinks with a swollen face. She rides with him in the ambulance. "How'd I do?", he asks her.

"Pretty good-- for a middle-aged white man"

Cut to final scene of Rick Bayan jogging down by the Arch at dawn to "Gonna Fly Now", the main theme from "Rocky", jogging up the steps. Jumping up and down with his arms in the air, and the bookstore girl joining him in a warm embrace. A nice tribute to Rocky, and a great way to end the film on an upbeat note. The point is, he had the courage to live.

THE END

Thank you, Rick Bayan for your ideas.
Truly you have suffered for your art!

Visit him at: http://www.i-cynic.com