A Future David Letterman Interview...

DAVID LETTERMAN
Top 10 Reasons Its A Bad Idea For Your Parents To Suddenly Discover The Fountain Of Youth.
10. They’d have more graphic public displays of affection.
9. Case closed; they’d use up social security before baby boomers get a crack at it.
8. They’d make knickers fashionable again.
7. Dick Clark’s reign would last forever.
6. Greater over population with the greatest Generation.
5. We have enough stupid YOUNG people already.
4. Nursing homes would suddenly be affordable because the waiting list to get in would rapidly drop.
3. There would be even more seniors getting sexually transmitted diseases from unprotected sex.
2. The radio stations would flip flop and the oldies would top the charts.
1. And the number one reason it’s a bad idea for your parents to suddenly discover the fountain of youth is
you might accidentally think a kid cut you off and flash a senior the bird for forgetting to use her turn signal!

SCENE ONE

DAVID LETTERMAN
(Performs the joke Ruth wrote for him.)
I misplaced my driver’s license when were on vacation in the Islands and my wife could tell I really missed being behind the wheel.

PAUL
How so?

DAVID LETTERMAN
By the second day of anxiously sitting in the passenger seat making “eeeerrrr” screeching tire noises and “tick-tick tick” left hand blinking gestures as we drove through the back winding streets of the wee village, I was really starting to get on her last nerve. I knew I had to do something to ease the tension fast!

PAUL
So what did you do?

DAVID LETTERMAN
I reached in the back seat and grabbed this.

(DAVID pulls out a plastic toy steering wheel and honks the squeaky red horn.)

(Beat.)

PAUL
Nice, does that prevent road rage?

DAVID LETTERMAN
(DAVID, smiles.)
Inspired by my initiative, the wife borrowed something else from our kid to shut me up.

(Show a picture of Maggie Simpson split screen with David teething on a pacifier with a nice drum beat for the punch line.)

SCENE TWO

DAVID LETTERMAN
My next guest is a very cleaver lady who writes comedy inspired by comedians who appear in such shows as Late Night, SNL, The Cobert Report, The Daily Show and Comedy Central.

She also combines her comedy writing with goal achievement training by teaching clients how to write humorous fairy tales, headlines and scripts to get the entertaining life results you want. These comical stories help CEOs boost company moral and productivity. Her friends affectionately call her RAW. Please welcome with me the lovely, Ms. Ruth Anne Wood!

...
Let me get this straight. The bit you wrote for me right before you came on was written a couple of years ago, before you even started working in the entertainment biz?

RUTH
That’s correct. I have a file on my computer where I’d write funny things my husband and I hear, do or say. Later I go back and tweak them so they read in the voice of a comedian I think best portrays the mood of the joke or story at the time.

DAVID LETTERMAN
So you say I’m having a crappy day with my spouse. I’m going to jot this down and some how make it into a comedy?

RUTH
Hey, instead of arguing you just saved months of therapy!

DAVID LETTERMAN
What if my wife reads the jokes I write about her and it may extend our time in marriage counseling?

RUTH
I’m thinking your wife had an idea what was fair game when she signed on with you…
Atleast, one would hope.

DAVID LETTERMAN
But seriously, we’ll have to get Chris Rock, Ellen, Dennis Miller and Rosie, just to name a few to read some of your jokes in your journal.

RUTH
That would be peachy keen!

DAVID LETTERMAN
Peachy keen! So it acts as a kind of therapy, to remove yourself from the stressful situations of your day and write from another person’s perspective.

RUTH
Absolutely, if you can’t laugh at the comedy of your own life, who can?

DAVID LETTERMAN
Actually lots of people, my dear. That’s what pays my salary.

RUTH
“True that!” as my brother, Paul would say.

DAVID LETTERMAN
Now that’s your brother Paul Dilly over there playing stand up bass.

(Camera pans over to the band and Paul plucking on the bass.)

RUTH
Absolutely, My brother is the musical composer for Five Rites movie. It’s been a dream come true since he started getting good in high school.

DAVID LETTERMAN
Not bad having your brother Paul write the score to your first Academy Award winning movie.

RUTH
Absolutely.

DAVID LETTERMAN
That dream is well on its way. You have a movie coming out in 2010 that has particular appeal to my generation, the BABY BOOMERS. It’s called, “Five Rites”. What do you call it, a kind of sci fi, Matrix meets the “Bucket List” with a little, “Cocoon”, “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “Field of Dreams” thrown in?

RUTH
Whew, Dave that’s a mouth full! Sure there’s all those influences. “Five Rites” asks the question, “What would you do in the body of healthy, sexy thirty year old with the life experience of someone in your eighties and nineties?

DAVID LETTERMAN
You asked your grand mother that question and what did she say?

RUTH
First she said she’d have a better relationship with my grand dad. I told her sorry grad dad is dead. Would she leave the retirement community?

DAVID LETTERMAN
She surprised you with a “hell no!”

RUTH
There’s something to be said for liking where you live.

DAVID LETTERMAN
Why do you suppose she was thinking about having a better relationship with her late husband gone since 1995?

RUTH
She had just read You Can’t Get It ‘Cause You’ve Already Got It!

DAVID LETTERMAN
That’s the book you and your friend Stash Serafin wrote. Stash’s is blind you know.

(Dave points to the clip of Stash skating on the ice.)

RUTH
Yes, people don’t realize that when he’s out on the ice doing his watze jumps and his younger days back in the 70’s his splits.

DAVID LETTERMAN
The lovely Dorthy Hamill On page 123 of _A Skating Life: My Story_ Dorthy says, “I was moved to tears by Stash's courageous performance.”

RUTH
I believe Stash’s performance in the 70’s inspired Dorthy to work with the physically challenged. You never know who you are going to influence.

DAVID LETTERMAN
In my case, negative or positive ways.

RUTH
Indeed. Yes, we hope our story inspires others to go for what you really want in life by allowing your impossible dreams to be possible so that you can turn your own adversities into adventures!

DAVID LETTERMAN
Back to the question you asked your grand mother, “What would you do now if you woke up with a healthy mind and body of a thirty year old with your eight decades of life experience? We have a clip of people on the street answering that very same question.

PLAY CLIP OF PEOPLE ANSWERING THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH QUESTION.

DAVID LETTERMAN
Your movie “Five Rites” addresses the disturbing proposition of what would happen if our parents outlived us and what society deems more healthy and sexy than the younger generation. This leaves me to wonder the state of health care in nursing homes, would we have to send these young looking seniors back into the work force to replenish social security?

RUTH
We might have to do that even if the aging isn’t reversed.

DAVID LETTERMAN
I love one of the scenes where the fountain of youth seniors are now caring for my generation and instead of playing the fifty state songs, they are playing “Stairway to Heaven” “I got a ticket to Ryde” and “Eric Clapton” while seniors are banging on the drums and playing various rock and roll with the basket of instruments. It suddenly dawns on me we’ve flashed forward to my generation. Five Rites is really an entertaining, thought provoking story about people that go to great lengths to stop from growing old. These five rites yoga fanatics get a second chance in life to live their hearts’ desires.

(DAVID pats his head)

DAVID LETTERMAN
Would the Five Rites give me back my hair?

RUTH
I don’t know. When did you start loosing it?

DAVID LETTERMAN
Ok, on to the next topic. So how many rites or yoga postures and practices are there?

RUTH
There are five yoga postures that work to maximum effectiveness when you do them 21 times each upon waking and the same amount just before bed.

DAVID LETTERMAN
O.K. it’s not enough to just do these five there’s also the six rite which includes a special diet of eating foods separately. Fruits are eaten by themselves, meats are eaten separately from starches, the theory being the body is greatly stressed from digesting a combination of foods.

If I knew this exercise really made a difference I would probably do them but the sixth rite of celibacy is a bit more than this yogi can handle!

I’m here with my guest Ruth Anne Wood, award winning playwright of FIVE RITES about
an eighty year old woman who is taught how to reverse the aging process doing a particular kind of yoga everyday. Everyone should see the movie at least twice, the first time for laughs and the second time to take lots of notes.

Mock Interview (c) November 2008
Ruth Anne Wood, Scripting for Success.