THE GOOD SHOW — EPISODE 3

By CL Bledsoe & Michael Gushue

Welcome to The Good Show: short scripts suitable for casual reading as well as radio, podcast, Youtube, Netflix, franchise-building, product placement, marketing tie-ins, or multiple sources of independent funding… about the citizens and denizens of ancient Athens sometime in the early third century B.C. — farmers, merchants, aristocrats, poets, slaves, and — especially — philosophers, all trying to find an answer to that Greekiest of questions, “What is The Good?”

But we already have the answer. This is it. The Good…Show.

Disclaimer: These stories are products of the authors’ imaginations. No identification with actual persons (living or dead), cities, buildings, places, wars, incidents, events, philosophies, myths, gods, booze, hootch, swill, happy juice, Mama’s go-to-sleep juice, or liquid manna, is intended or should be inferred.

μάγά (Make Athens Great Again)

NARRATOR

Athens, 364 BC. The vibrant center of commerce, art, culture and philosophy for all Greece. It was the best of city states. It was the worst of city states. It was the most fragrant of city states. It was the rankest of city states. A city where wealth mingled with poverty, wisdom with folly, and young men with old wankers. This is the story of these young men, and old…men. It’s a story about how to live the best life, how to become who you are, how to get away with not paying the bar tab.

Our Cast:

Phlato: a D-List philosopher in Athens 3rd century BC. Partner with Callicephalus.

Callicephalus (aka Callie): a D-List Philosopher in Athens 3rd century BC. Partner with Phlato.

Xhoiros (aka Pigsley): A young man who’s recently been sent by his father to Athens to study philosophy. A reluctant student of Phlato and Callie.

Athena: Pigsley’s crush. She’s serious about philosophy and is smarter than almost every other Athenian. She’s a student of Plato’s and is often seen with Aristotle, Plato’s star pupil. Being a woman, Phlato and Callie completely dismiss anything she says because they’re idiots.

Aristotle: An up-and-coming hotshot on the Athenian philosophy scene. He’s handsome and brilliant. Phlato and Callie hate him.

SCENE 1

EXT. PUBLIC SQUARE

NARRATOR

As our episode begins, young ARISTOTLE is reading from a philosophical treatise he has just finished. A small crowd of well-off students, thinkers, and citizens have gathered to listen. PHLATO and CALLIE stand at the edge of the gathering, making faces as ARISTOTLE speaks.

ARISTOTLE

…and so, as I have just proven, if the citizens of a State are to judge and distribute offices according to merit, then they must know each other’s characters; for where they do not possess this knowledge both elections to the offices of generalship and bankership, and the decisions of lawsuits, will go wrong.

CALLIE

(whispering to PHLATO) Ack! Have you ever heard such horseshit!

PHLATO

Pffft! If he was any more full of it we could haul him down to the Agora and fetch a good price in fertilizer.

CALLIE

If our citizens knew each other’s characters, not a one would get elected. They’d take turns selling each other to Sparta as comfort slaves.

NARRATOR

ARISTOTLE finishes and the crowd breaks up, many going up to him, asking questions or congratulating him. Among them are ATHENA and PIGSLEY.

PHLATO

Our so-called student Pigsley has obviously learned nothing from us.

CALLIE

He just wants to get next to her, Miss Smarty-tits.

PHLATO

Well, Pigsley’s true love Athena and Mr. Allbrains Aristotle seem to be ignoring him thoroughly. Eck, look at them going at it, argue, argue, argue! How unseemly! Hey, you two, get a pallet!

CALLIE

It looks like our student Pigsley has given up.

PHLATO

Yes, here comes our young lamb, returned to the fold, ready to be shorn once more.

PIGSLEY

Isn’t Aristotle amazing? Everything he said was so true that I couldn’t understand any of it! And Athena, she’s amazing, too. They’re both so…amazing.

CALLIE

Remind me to work on your philosophical vocabulary, young Pigsley.

PHLATO

Which reminds me, young Pigsley…

PIGSLEY

I wish you two would stop calling me that.

PHLATO

What? Our fond term of endearment offends you? Callie, look at this, today’s young sophists are so sensitive, so easily bruised. Well, so be it. I shall strike the word “young” from my lexicon. Now, as I was saying, this reminds me…Pigsley…that your tuition is due.

PIGSLEY

I paid you last week.

CALLIE

And we are thirsty this week.

PIGSLEY

When he gave me my last purse, father said if I asked for more money before the election, he’d drag me home to eat out of the pig trough.

PHLATO and CALLIE (alarmed)

What?!

PIGSLEY shrugs.

He said he had a lot of bribes to make with the election coming up.

PHLATO

What a depressing slap in the face from the implacable Fates.

CALLIE

Already I can feel my tongue swell from lack of wine.

PHLATO

There must be something we can…wait. Pigsley, did you say bribes?

PIGSLEY

Yes.

CALLIE, who has been contemplating his wine-free stomach, looks up.

As in money…bribes?

PIGSLEY

That’s what father said.

PHLATO

Hmm.

CALLIE

Hmmmmmmm.

PHLATO

Callie, my dear colleague, was it not Socrates…

CALLIE

…That old bugger…

PHLATO

…Yes, well said. Was it not Socrates who said that philosophers make the best kings?

CALLIE

Yes, or, for that matter….elected officials.

PHLATO.

I’m sure that was implied.

SCENE 2

INT. ROOM ABOVE SOPHIA’S TAVERNA

NARRATOR

PHLATO is helping CALLIE squeeze into an ostentatious Greek general’s costume. CALLIE is wearing a bushy fake beard, bushy fake eyebrows, eyeliner, and has his hair curled into ringlets.

CALLIE

Oof. Ugh. Ow, that pinches! Is this really necessary?

PHLATO

Yes. As I said, Athens only elects…

CALLIE

…its — oof — bankers and generals. Every other post is chosen by bean.

PHLATO

Correct. And no one bribes the bankers because…

CALLIE

…it means that they can’t be trusted with money, which is their — ugh — job…which leaves…

PHLATO

…generals, whom citizens are happy to bribe because generals are only responsible for men’s lives and not…

CALLIE

The citizenry’s most beloved possession — agh! — MONEY! There.

PHLATO

There. You look every inch the wily strategos.

CALLIE

I’m having trouble breathing.

PHLATO

That purple flush in your face inspires confidence. Here’s a general who has his dander up! Now, a-hem, General Phericles, I’ll just slip on these greaves and corselet. There. How do I look? Your faithful hoplite and companion?

CALLIE

You look like a hungover scarecrow.

PHLATO

It’ll do. Just let me do the talking. You stand around looking wise and bloodthirsty. Now, let’s find some willing donors to fill our campaign war chest.

CALLIE

To overflowing!

SCENE 3

EXT. STREETS OF ATHENS

PHLATO and CALLIE stalk the streets, soliciting bribes.

PHLATO

You there, Athenian!

MERCHANT

No purse! No purse! I left it at home!

Later

CALLIE

You, Athenian woman! Your son looks a bit young for that military garb.

SOLDIER’S MOTHER, lamenting

So young, so young, and called to service.

CALLIE

You’re in luck. When I’m elected, I’ll outlaw all compulsory service.

SOLDIER’S MOTHER

May the gods bless you.

CALLIE

The gods, yes, but the gods bless those who bless…me.

Later

PHLATO

Fellow Athenian!

NOBLEMAN

Keep your distance!

PHLATO

Wait! I speak for the noble strategos here, Phericles the Resolute. Have you sons at home?

NOBLEMAN

Sons! Good sir, you’ve never seen such a devourer of a man’s wealth! He eats and drinks me into servitude. And what does he spend his time doing? Writing poetry! You wouldn’t believe such drool. The monthly scroll bills alone are bankrupting me. I’ll tell you, children are a curse from the gods. Call no man happy who has such a Cyclops for a son!

PHLATO

Sir, today the gods favor you, for Phericles the Bloodthirsty here, Waster of Wastrels, may have an answer to your riddle, one that requires only a small outlay of coin….

Later

CALLIE

It will be night before long. I won’t feel safe carrying this purse around, filled up as it is.

PHLATO

With good reason. I once saw a boy steal an old man’s wooden leg right from under him and sell it for kindling. Good old Athens. Maybe just one or two more investors. Look, how about him?

CALLIE

The one covered in mud?

PHLATO

He’s a potter — they do very well. You, sir, artisan! Stop a moment.

POTTER

What you want?

PHLATO

My noble master here, the highly successful General Phericles needs your support in the upcoming election.

POTTER

Hunh?

PHLATO

Yes, exactly, you’re wondering what’s in it for you? Sir, in exchange for your support and a small…good faith retainer…the trustworthy General here is willing to promise you your choice of spoils from his next inevitably successful campaign. What is it your clay-smeared heart desires?

POTTER

Welllllll…I’ve always had a fancy for one of them muscular Spartan women. They’re as strong as men! That’s the kind slave that’s good for more than just one task. Lift, carry, dance, scratch yer itch (if you know what I mean), and if I was ever to be naughty-like, heh, she could give a good spanking with a…

PHLATO

No need for details, talented craftsmen! Except for the minor one of the amount needed to secure such a treasure.

SCENE 4

INT. ROOM ABOVE SOPHIA’S TAVERNA

CALLIE, falling into a chair.

Phew! What a day’s work! This wheedling for bribes is not for the faint of heart, Phlato. And this uniform, and beard, ugh. I must have sweated off 20 pounds!

PHLATO.

Highly doubtful. But look at our reward! (PHLATO throws a full purse onto the table).

CALLIE

If only all our, ah, patrons had been noble enough to pay us in coin.

PHLATO

Nothing wrong with grain, or marble for that matter. That temple architect was as good as his word. Speaking of marble, where is…PIGSLEY! Stop dawdling! You’re holding up our accounting!

PIGSLEY stumbles in, hardly able to stand, weighed down by two enormous sacks tied to his back, which he struggles to maneuver through the door.

PIGSLEY

I…I…. (collapses onto the floor, unconscious.)

CALLIE

Proof again that his generation is a sad falling off from the heights of the Golden Age.

PHLATO

He’s not dead, is he?

CALLIE (looking closely)

He seems to be breathing.

PHLATO

Good then. Let’s start counting. Where’s the list of patrons and their requests?

CALLIE

List? What list?

PHLATO

The list. How much each patron gave us. What their requests were. You know, requests for booty: enslaved wives and daughters for household servants, temple trinkets, weapons, armor, jewels. Exemptions from military service for their poxy sons, or their poxy selves. Our…campaign promises. The list you wrote while you were pretending to write up battle plans.

CALLIE

Er…

PHLATO

What?

CALLIE

Well, you confused me. You said write battle plans but don’t write battle plans. Write the amount of bribes and what they’re for but make them look like battle plans but make them look like they’re not, but are instead bribes and what we plan to give in return and…

PHLATO

Let me see the scroll.

CALLIE

I don’t think that’s a good idea.

PHLATO

Hand it over.

CALLIE reluctantly pulls a scroll from his toga and gives it to PHLATO

PHLATO

Hm. I’d say what you lack in artistic ability you make up for in enthusiasm and imagination. However your grasp of anatomy is less than…is that Leda?

CALLIE

Yes.

PHLATO

And so that’s Zeus the swan who’s giving her…but he has a human…and why is there a donkey at her other end doing…

CALLIE

Artistic license.

PHLATO

And this circle of monkeys alternating with vestal virgins, who seem to have horns and are engaged in…?

CALLIE

I won’t apologize for art. The Muse inspired me.

PIGSLEY stirs on the floor, groaning.

PHLATO

Ah, Pigsley, just in time. We have some urgent, ah, philosophy-related errands for you.

PIGSLEY

Uh…uh…

PHLATO

Take these two obols downstairs and purchase two amphora of Sophia’s most potent wine. Make sure you tell her we want the good stuff.

CALLIE

And a plate of figs. I’m feeling peckish. So, what happens now?

PHLATO

The election. Which, if we lose…

CALLIE

We have to return the bribes?

PHLATO

We keep the bribes. And if we win…

CALLIE

We keep the bribes?

PHLATO

We solicit more bribes, and ask for a stipend, and an honorarium.

CALLIE

How much?

PHLATO

Whatever the market will bear.

SCENE 5

EXT. ATHENIAN ASSEMBLY: PNYX

SOUND OF CROWD MILLING ABOUT

PHLATO

Straighten your shoulders! People are watching.

CALLIE

I’m dizzy.

PHLATO

Don’t you faint on me! Pigsley, fetch Callie, er, General Phericles the Bloodthirsty some water. General, bear your teeth, growl.

CALLIE

Grrrr…oog.

PHLATO

Ssssh. Looks like they’re done counting.

ANNOUNCER

Here are the ten generals chosen through impartial ballot by the good, noble and extremely incorruptible people of Athens, the most just and niftiest city-state in the world…

PHLATO

Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t they?

CALLIE

The thicker the makeup, the uglier the courtesan.

ANNOUNCER

First and foremost, Polyphemicles, known as Polyphemicles the dwarfish…

CALLIE

Can we go now?

PHLATO

There are nine more generals to be chosen. Don’t you have any idea how this works?

CALLIE

I have been too busy contemplating the eternal truths of the heavens and the ideal forms of the Good, the Noble…

PHLATO

…and the Beautiful-Assed.

ANNOUNCER

…And in tenth place, last and least, General Phericles, known as the Bloodthirsty.

CALLIE and PHLATO

Yes!

ANNOUNCER

And for his first campaign, the incorruptible and moderate people of Athens have chosen General Phericles to assume command of an army of 13 crippled wine servers to attack and do battle against…the King of Persia and his kazillion professional warriors.

CALLIE and PHLATO

No!

ANNOUNCER

General Phericles, are you here? You leave first thing in the…anyone see Bloodthirsty here?

CALLIE

Oh my gods oh my gods oh my gods!

PHLATO

Get a grip! Don’t go all “Pan’s got me by the balls” on me.

CALLIE

Easy for you to say!

PIGSLEY, carrying a full goatskin

All they had was wine. They said only someone who wants to open the sluice gates at both ends drinks Athenian water.

CALLIE, grabs goatskin

My last meal!

PHLATO

Wait! Give me that!

They struggle for the wineskin. PHLATO finally yanks it away.

CALLIE

You…you…Spartan sandal licker! You Trojan stable cleaner!

PHLATO

Shut up and stand still!

Uncorks wineskin and sprays wine all over CALLIE.

CALLIE, sputtering

Whah?…I…I..can’t believe…you…did…that…you…uh, uh…

CALLIE faints.

PHLATO, shouting

ASSASSINS! MURDERERS! HELP, GUARDS! BIG ASSASSINATION! OVER HERE! Come on, we haven’t got all day!

GUARD

What’s all the fuss now?

PHLATO

General Phericles the Bloodthirsty, assassinated! Struck down by a Persian spy no doubt. Oh, murdered in his prime, just as he was about to earn immortal glory and fame! Look at him, guard, covered in ichor!

GUARD

Looks like wine.

PHLATO

Well, he had been celebrating his appointment with many libations. His stomach was full unto bursting with his, ah, happiness at the thought of the noble battle ahead. Oh woe, Athens, woe! Your favored son, disemboweled, fallen, alas!

GUARD

Right. I’m off then. Good luck with General Winethirsty there.

PHLATO

It’s Bloodthirsty.

GUARD

Sure.

PHLATO

You, youth!

PIGSLEY

You didn’t call me Pigsley.

PHLATO

You wouldn’t be a Persian spy, would you?

PIGSLEY

What?

PHLATO

Then prove it! Help me carry our noble General from this tragic field of battle. A holy hecatomb will be heaped with a hundred head of hattle, er, cattle. Two hundred! At his funeral pyre, a hundred flutes will play mournful tunes. Take up his weight, boy. Now quickly. Off we go. Don’t let his head bounce on the pavement so much. Make way! Make way! Make way for a dead hero. Very dead!

SCENE 6

INT. ROOM ABOVE SOPHIE’S TAVERNA

CALLIE

All of it? We had to return every hard-wheedled obol?

PHLATO

It was that or convince them that General Phericles had spent it all preparing for an expedition he didn’t know he was going on. That wasn’t going to play. We were lucky I convinced them that what we spent we spent on “funeral expenses.”

CALLIE

Even the sack of grain? The sack of marble?

PHLATO

Grain, yes. That so-called sack of marble turned out to be rocks from a dry river bed. Our “architect” was in truth a manure collector hoping to get in with some hotshot military man.

CALLIE

Outscammed by a shit shoveler. I’ve never been this low.

PHLATO

Nonsense! This isn’t even midrange for you. There was that time…

CALLIE

Okay, okay. Any wine left?

PHLATO waggles a jug, wine sloshing inside.

Here you go, I suppose you’ve earned it.

CALLIE

My head feels like it was bounced off the cobblestones from the Parthenon to Piraeus.

PHLATO

I, ah, wouldn’t know anything about that. My dear Callicephalus, on the one hand, we are back where we started. On the other hand, the election is over, so Pigsley’s dad is once again available for tuition payments. And on the other other hand, we have this bag of river stones. There must be some way to put them to good use.

CALLIE

It does seem a waste since we had them hauled all the way up to our room.

PHLATO

If we could sell them as something valuable, like gold.

CALLIE

They’re the color of mud.

PHLATO

Right. Mud-gold? Rare, ah, Corinthian mud-gold.

CALLIE

Too much of a stretch. We need something that’s already a stone, and already worth something, like the Delphic Omphalos.

PHLATO

The what?

CALLIE

The Omphalos at the Temple at Delphi. It’s a sacred stone of some sort. Zeus pooped it out, or something, I’m not exactly sure. Religion wasn’t my best subject. Maybe Kronos barfed it up. I think that’s it.

PHLATO

But you don’t know for sure.

CALLIE

Nobody knows for sure, if that’s what you’re asking.

PHLATO

Right, right. This gives me an idea. Follow my lead here. Pigsley! Pigsley, front and center.

PIGSLEY

I’m right behind you. I was asleep.

PHLATO

Knowledge does not comes in dreams, but from listening to the wise. Now see this sack?

PIGSLEY

The one full of marble that weighs a ton and is the reason I haven’t been able to stand up straight this week?

PHLATO

Yes, and notice how from one cause there can arise many effects. But enough thinking for now. You are in error. This sack contains not marble but something far more valuable. For it contains…ah…

CALLIE

…what is known as the…ah….divine sons of Omphalos. These sacred stones are the children of the mother stone that resides at Delphi, the stone…ah…impregnated by Zeus, Ruler of all the gods. We’ll fill you in on the…details later. For now…

PHLATO

For now, take this sack of priceless stones, sacred to the gods, down to the Agora and sell them for one obol a piece. If someone haggles with you, not less than a half-obol. They’re sacred after all, so it’s a bargain at an obol and practically an offense to the gods to let them go for a half-obol.

PIGSLEY

I really don’t know…

CALLIE

That’s alright, Pigsley. One who knows not, and knows he know not, is a child, and must be taught. Therefore this will be an important lesson in applied philosophy for you. Can a stone that looks like an ordinary stone be other than what it is? In other words, are appearances to be trusted? Can you, as a budding philosopher, junior grade, convince others that appearances are deceiving and not to be trusted? That truth is difficult to find and must be sought for? For do not even the gods disguise themselves as mortal men? Why, then, could not a god disguise himself as a stone? Or are you saying, Pigsley, there are things a god cannot do? Are saying that the gods are not all powerful? Are you saying that gods have limits to their power, just as we mortal men do? Could it be that you are saying that gods are no more powerful than mere men? Is what you are saying that there is no difference between gods and men? Pigsley, surely you are not saying that…there are no gods!

PIGSLEY

I just wanted to know…

PHLATO

Enough dialectic for one day. Heave ho. Up on your shoulders with this modest bag of wares. Don’t stagger around so, people will think you’re drunk, and try to take advantage. Alright, out the door, down the stairs. One step at a time, one step at time! Ah, yikes! Ah well, I suppose all at once is faster. Come back when the sack is empty!

CALLIE

What do you think?

PHLATO

I have confidence the piety of our fellow Athenians. The great strength of our belief in the gods, my dear Callie, is that no one can prove us wrong.