COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM

COLUMBIA WORKSHOP

GERTRUDE STEIN'S "Brewsie and Willie"

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1946

6:15 - 6:45 PM EST

CUE:

(COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM)

(........30 seconds........)

1 ANNCR: Presenting Gertrude Stein's famous G.I. characters "Brewsie and Willie".

1a MUSIC: THEME

2 ANNCR: The Columbia Workshop, radio's foremost laboratory of writing and production techniques, today presents one of the last published works of the famous American writer, Gertrude Stein, who lived in France throughout the German occupation and then came to know and esteem the young soldiers of her native land...the slangey, restless, skeptical American G.I.

3 NARRATOR: (AS STEIN) G.I.'s and G.I.'s and they made me come all over patriotic. I was always patriotic. I was always, in my way, a Civil War veteran, but in between there were other things, but now there are no other things.

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4. AMICR: That was the way Gertrude Stein used words in a literary style all her own, with a rhythm of words sometimes used as much for their sound as their meaning, and with a good deal of calculated word-repetition for effect. In "Brewsie and Willie" you hear G.I.'s in France talking as the talk sounded to Gertrude Stein. Brewsie in particular is a very gabby young fellow with opinions on nearly all subjects. Willie is his best pal and his best listener. The Columbia Workshop adaptation of "Brewsie and Willie" is by Jean Cluff and is based upon the Random House edition. It is directed by Richard Sanville with a musical score by

4a MUSIC: BRIDGE

5 AMICR: The rambling G.I. dialogs of "Brewsie and Willie" by Gertrude Stein.

6 BREWSIE: You know Willie, I think we're all funny, pretty funny about this fraternisation. Now just listen. They didn't have to make any anti-fraternisation ruling for the German army in France because although the Germans did their best to fraternise darn few French women would look at them. I kind of wonder would our women be like French or be like German, if the horrible happened and our country was conquered and occupied.

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7 WILLIE: Well, I wouldn't want any American woman to be like a French woman.

8 BREWSIE: No, you'd want them to be like the Germans, pal around with conquerors.

9 WILLIE: Aw get out of here, Brewsie. No American would have anything to do with any -- foreigner.

10 BREWSIE: But you admire the Germans who do, Willie. Which do you want American women to be like?

11 WILLIE: I know what I don't want them to be like. I don't want them to be like any -- foreigner.

12 BREWSIE: But all the fathers and mothers of all Americans were -- foreigners.

13 WILLIE: Oh shut up, Brewsie. What's that to you. I'll date any German fraulein who'll date me and they all will.

14 BREWSIE: Sure they will. But all the same if our country was defeated and occupied, how about it?

15 WILLIE: Well our country isn't going to be defeated and occupied, that's all there is to that.

16 BREWSIE: Yes, but you never can tell in a war.

17 WILLIE: And that's the reason there ain't going to be any more war, not if I can help it.

18 BREWSIE: But if you can't help it, Willie.
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19 WILLIE: I'll see to it that I do help it. There ain't going to be any more war.

20 BREWSIE: But that's what they said last time and here we are.

21 WILLIE: Well, did I say we weren't here? We're here all right, you betcha we're here. And I'm going to fraternise with any German girl who'll fraternise with me and they all will.

22 BREWSIE: But Willie, listen...

23 WILLIE: Ain't I listening, ain't I always listening. You're always talking and I'm always listening.

24 BREWSIE: I want to know why you fellows feel the way you do.

25 JO: Oh go way, Brewsie, don't you know we're disillusioned.

26 WILLIE: Sure, sure Jo, that's it. Disillusioned.

27 JO: I got to go to the river and wait for a girl.

28 BREWSIE: Where is she, Jo?

29 JO: She's gone home to eat, but I said I'd sit on the river-bank and wait and I'm going to. Want to come along?

30 WILLIE: There ain't two.

31 JO: No there ain't but one. Want to come along?

32 BREWSIE: Let's all three go.

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33 JO: That's all right with me.

33a SOUID: FOOTSTEPS IN AND FADE

33b MUSIC: IN AND BACK NARRATOR

34 NARRATOR: The three G.I.'s went to the river and it was dark but it did not rain.

34a SOUND: WATER - RIVER SCENE

35 BREWSIE: It's a long war but it will end and then we'll go home.

36 DONAID P: (OFF MIKE) Where's home?

37 BREWSIE: What's your name?

38 DONAID P: (COMING ON) Paul is my name, and if it ain't Paul it's Donald. What do you want with my name?

39 BREWSIE: I want to know how old you are and where you come from.

40 DONAID P: Nuts to that. Let's talk about beds.

41 WILLIE: What kind of beds?

42 DONAID P: Oh any kind - the kind you sleep in, the kind you make for yourself and the kind others make for you. When you wish you were dead you always wish for a bed...And when they put you in prison they make you make your own bed - I was just reading about it this evening.

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43 BREWSIE: Yes, if there is a bed.

44 DONALD P: Yeah, you're right, if there is a bed. There are...

45 BREWSIE: Yes, there are?

46 WILLIE: Are what?

47 JO: Eight million unemployed any next year.

47a MUSIC: IN AND BACK

48 NARRATOR: And as they spoke the American soldiers fell asleep by the river bank. But later Willie wasn't asleep and he said --

48a MUSIC: UP AND FADE

49 WILLIE: (COMING ON) Brewsie.

50 BREWSIE: I'm here.

51 WILLIE: What you doing?

-more-

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52 BREWSIE: I'm thinking about religion.

53 WILLIE: What religion?

54 BREWSIE: Well, Willie, somebody said to me why don't the GI's
have the Bible around like the Doughboys did, why
ain't there ever a Bible in a plane?

55 WILLIE: Why should there be? There ain't nothing the matter
with the plane.

56 BREWSIE: Of course there could be.

57 WILLIE: Yeah, but if there could it would be the ground
crew's fault, and if there is any flack you're
taught how to dive in so it don't hit you, and if
you don't do it right it does. What's the matter
with you Brewsie, don't you know all that?

58 BREWSIE: Yes, I know all that. They do say though that the
Doughboys in the last war always had Bibles around,
that's what they say.

58 a MUSIC: IN AND BACK.

59 NARR: The sun was shining and they were all worried. There
was nothing to worry about, the sun was shining and
they were all worried. Then along came two girls.

60 JANET & PAULINE: AD LIB - OFF

61 WILLIE: Look - Red Cross nurses.

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62 BREWSIE: Willie, do you remember what I was talking about? I was talking about a lot of things - about are we isolationists or are we isolated....

63 JANET: Listen, he sounds interesting.

64 PAULINE: (COMING ON) Tell me, don't you think it's awful that the French have no leaders?

65 DONALD P: Haven't they?

66 JANET: We weren't talking to you, we were talking to him. He sounds interesting.

67 DONALD P: You're right, fair sister. He not only sounds it, he is.

68 PAULINE: But how can the French expect to come back if they have no leaders?

69 DONALD P: Why why why, how how how.

70 JO: How? I don't know.

71 JANET: Yes, but he does. You tell us.

72 BREWSIE: Yes, I'll tell you. A leader either doesn't lead you or if he does he leads you where you don't want to go. Isn't it so sisters, isn't it? Where do you want to go, where do the French want to go? They don't want to go anywhere. They want enough to eat, a place to sleep, and fuel to keep them warm. That's what they want. Leaders never give you that. Leaders just better stay home for a while - and lead everybody that way.

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72A BUS: GENERAL AD LIB - Yeah, let's go home, we wanta go home.
VOICE SINGS FEW BARS OF HOME SWEET HOME.

73 DONALD P: D'you know, I watch all those men, all that army going
around excursioning in auto-buses - so fat, so well
dressed, so taken care of - and I say to myself they
want to go home, and I say to myself where is home?
Where you got a bellyful, that's home, where you got
no cares, that's home.

74 WILLIE: Oh get out, Donald Paul. Home is home. Home is
where you come from, that's fine, that's home.

75 JO: You ain't got any imagination, Willie.

76 WILLIE: Nuts to imagination. I want to go home.

77 PAULINE: You will.

78 DONALD P: All too soon.

79 WILLIE: Shut up. If anybody is going to talk it's Brewsie.
Brewsie you talk.

80 BREWSIE: Not today, Willie, not today. I kind of don't
understand anything today. I ain't no leader today.
I'm kind of scared of being a leader today.

81 WILLIE: Aw, you're no leader, Brewsie, you just talk.

82 DONALD P: What do leaders do?

83 JO: They talk too, but they talk different.

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84 JANET: Tell me, do you all talk like this every day?

85 JO: Not every day.

86 WILLIE: Mostly every day.

86 MUSIC: BRIDGE.

87 NARRATOR: The war is over and they have lots of time on their hands. So they talk, so they talk, so they talk.

88 JO: What do you think one of those French girls said. I showed her a picture of my wife and the baby in the baby-carriage and she said - what, do you have those old fashioned baby-carriages with high wheels and a baby can fall out ? Not we French people, we have up to date baby-carriages, streamlined, she said. It's funny but that's what she said, and I said show me and show me she did. The town was lousy with 'em sure and we never noticed. Nice deep baby-carriages with low rubber-tired wheels, just as comfortable and safe as anything. Why, said that French girl, we just use the kind of baby carriages you have to carry packages around, never babies, not babies. Can you beat it?

89 WILLIE: It's funny Jo, some ways you do and some ways you don't, it's funny.

90 JO: Let's go home and work. I want to buy one of those up to date baby-carriages. Can't have no French girl pull one like that over me.

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91 BREWSIE: Work, you know I think American men work funny. They write to me from home they've worked so hard they never want to work that hard again.

92 DONALD P: Perhaps they won't have the chance.

93 JO: What do you mean, Donald Paul?

94 DONALD P: Well how about it? Any work to go back to, Jo?

95 JO: Just as much as you.

96 DONALD P: Not so. I'm the only one of the whole bunch of you that don't have to look for work.

97 JO: Why, are you so rich?

98 DONALD P: Too rich to work.

99 BREWSIE: Well anyway, I often think we soldiers complain, and we complain about what the officers have but we don't complain how we have everything civilians don't have.

100 WILLIE: What do you mean Brewsie.

101 BREWSIE: Well, don't we have food and clothes and shoes all the time? They take us everywhere, and eats, and free everything, and no worries. I could almost cry when I think we all got to go back and be civilians and scratch and worry and then those bills. Pay everything on the installment plan, and coming in and coming in. I could just bust out crying.

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102 WILLIE: If we got to cry let's cry into our cups.

102A
SOUND: FOOTSTEPS ON COBBLESTONES - ESTABLISH AND FADE BACK.

102B MUSIC: IN AND BACK.

103 NARRATOR: It was late afternoon and the streets were narrow and three Negro soldiers came along, and there was a very little girl and her mother. One of the Negroes fell on his knee like a cavalier before the little girl and took her hand. The mother went on and then stood slightly flushed looking at her little girl. The little girl, a little flushed, shook the hand of the kneeling soldier, he said a word in French, she answered him. She was a very little girl, only five years old. The other two had gone on. He rose from his knee and he went on. The little girl went along with her mother.

104 WILLIE:- It's funny the way a colored guy always finds some little colored children to talk to.

104A SOUND: FOOTSTEPS UP AND FADE.

104 B MUSIC: JUKE BOX - IN AND BACK.

104 C SOUND: CLATTER OF BAR.

105 BREWSIE: Did you hear what Donald Paul said? He said he wanted the Government to take over everything.

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106 WILLIE: I hope you answered him back that the first thing they ought to take over is this blasted army. If they manage other things the way they manage this, then they better had keep their hands off, that's all I got to say, keep their hands off.

107 JO: You couldn't be righter.

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108 WILLIE: Ain't the Government back of this Army, ain't this a most wasteful bad-managed piece of machinery, ain't we all no good?

109 JO: Still right.

110 WILLIE: I tell you boys there ain't any answer. And anybody says there is - you Brewsie and that lousy Donald Paul - there ain't going to be any answer, there never has been an answer, that's the answer. There ain't one of us in our miserable little hearts who don't know that. Well, you're all going to be home and I tell you you'll know there, just like you know here....There ain't going to be any answer.

110a MUSIC: JUKE BOX TRAILS OFF TO SILENCE

110b BUS: GENERAL GI AD LIB

111 JIM: I don't see why everybody's so scared, Nothing to be scared about. My brother lived through the depression and he always had a job. And I always have been educated and I always can get well paid. What you scared about? I'll tell you just how I do it...

112 WILLIE: Brewsie, kill him.

113 JIM: Well you always listen to Brewsie.

114 WILLIE: Sure I listen to Brewsie. You know what he says is true and you just don't have to listen and that's just fine.

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114 WILLIE: (CONTD) Hey Brewsie - You know that funny girl, she says her name's Betty but how any girl who don't talk no English can have a name Betty, well that gets me. But besides her name being Betty she just kind of giggles and laughs every time she sees me. What makes her giggle like that? Why does she think I'm so funny? I don't know, Brewsie, she makes me so mad I just don't know.

115 JO: Forget it. Tell me something, anybody tell me something...If it's true, and it is, that now we've got less iron ore left than Canada why we going home to jobs to use up what iron ore we do have making gadgets. Now tell me why we wanta rush home to work at a job so our children won't have no iron ore and be just like those European people?

116 DONALD P: That is what you call a high standard of living.

117 JO: How many more installment plans does that mean? Ain't there any other kind of work to do than make those gadgets? Ain't there?

118 WILLIE: Not that any he American wants to do. We want to work making gadgets and that's what we'll do. We'll stand in line till we get a job making gadgets, and somebody else will stand in line till he gets a job to sell them on the installment plan, .... and then we'll all be dead, and why worry?

119 BREWSIE: I do worry though, Willie. You see industrialism - well England began it. (MORE)

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119 BREWSIE: (CONTD) They made machines and they turned out, well not like we do but a whale of a lot of goods. But they had all their colonies to dump them on, and their possessions. You know about how the sun never sets on them -

120 JO: It never shines in them, that's all I know.

121 BREWSIE: Well, we horned in after our Civil War. We went industrial and we had more everything than they had, and we got richer and they got poorer. And their markets, that is the people in their Empire slowed down in buying, and they used up their raw material, and then they tried to get new places to sell to - like Egypt and Africa.

122 WILLIE: Foreigners!

123 BREWSIE: You just wait. And there we were getting richer and richer and why? Because we had our outside market right at home. We had immigration - thousands and millions coming in every year, into our country.

124 WILLIE: Foreigners!

125 BREWSIE: But as soon as they made some money -

126 WILLIE: Then they were Americans.

127 BREWSIE: And the more they came the more they made. Well then you know what happened - after the last war we cut off immigration. We hoped to sell enough to foreign countries but foreign countries didn't want to buy and we had the depression.

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128 JO: We sure did have the depression.

129 BREWSIE: And then we had to fight, and yes we won, but we used up an awful lot of raw material. And now we've got to go home and make stuff to use up some more and have gadgets that nobody but our little population wants to buy.

130 PAULINE: Oh dear, it does just sound too awful.

131 WILLIE: The Red Cross sisters again, ain't we popular.

132 JANET: My father used to say it would happen. He was an Englishman and he said it would happen.

133 WILLIE: Why bring him into it?

134 JANET: Well he did say it. He said when they cut off immigration - LITTLE girl, you'll see right here in this big rich prosperous country, you'll see a real depression. Not just busting booms but a big depression.

134A JO: But Brewsie, what do you mean. What can any of us do but go home and get a job if we can, make the gadgets you say nobody has money to buy and buy them ourselves on the installment plan and borrow money from the Finance Company to sort of worry along. What can we do - do you want us to starve?

135 JANET: That's just what the English are saying.

136 WILLIE: Sister, will you forget the English?

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137 JANET: How can I when we're doing just like them. Listen -
I heard some men talking -

138 WILLIE: Frenchmen this time?

139 JANET: No they weren't French. And they said - Why do Americans make such a fuss, and everyone should be grateful to them? Don't they know they didn't come over to Europe to fight till they were attacked at Pearl Harbor and then they came over to protect the rear of their country.

140 JO: It's a fact.

141 JANET: And then, well they crossed the channel all right but they were fighting a pretty broken German army had all its best troops killed in Russia; and they thought France was fine when they had the French Resistance to help them, but when they got to Germany with no Guerrillas to help it didn't go so well. And then the Germans almost broke through with a used up army.

142 PAULINE: Janet, did you sit there and listen to those men say things like that about your country?

143 JANET: It was their country too - they were Americans.

144 PAULINE: You mean to say you sat there and listened to Americans talk like that about America, about the American Army?

145 JANET: I didn't sit, Pauline, I stood.

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146 PAULINE: It isn't true, Janet. It isn't. Nothing is true that makes the American army sound like that. I'm going home - you'll find out how wrong you are.

147 WILLIE: Don't worry, sister I met two soldiers just yesterday who never have and never can worry. And why can't they? Why don't they? Well because they're too young, they're so young they just smile. Don't you worry sister. There are lot of them too young to worry. They just smile.

147a
MUSIC: BRIDGE

(MORE)

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149 NARRATOR: They're the Army of Occupation. Willie and Brewsie and Jo and Donald Paul and the others. When there was fighting they weren't lonely because there was always danger with them. Now they're lonesome and bored and they keep talking, always talking. American talk. Wondering, hard-boiled, tired talk.

150 WILLIE: Well Brewsie, now I've talked - you talk and tell us how to save ourselves from death and measles.

151 JO: Death ain't so bad, but measles, any of you ever had measles.

152 WILLIE: You shut up tight, Jo, everybody's had measles. Let Brewsie begin.

153 BREWSIE: Well I'm going to begin because I have a lot to say. Lets begin with the Civil War - well it was a mistake.

154 JIM: I come from Georgia, mistake is the word.

155 BREWSIE: The South should never have fought. She should have let her slaves be bought off, slavery's wrong whatever you say.

156 JIM: Sure, nobody in the South talks about that anymore.

157 DONALD P: But how about States rights, that's what they fought for.

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158 BREWSIE: That's just it, Donald Paul - they didn't. If they wanted state's rights the way to have done was to let their slaves be compensated for. Then they would have been so strong politically they would have beaten out on states rights. I tell you the Civil War was a mistake and we're all suffering for it.

159 JIM: How come - how're you suffering?

160 BREWSIE: Because the South, it would have acted like a brake on the North.

161 WILLIE: A kind of a dead weight you mean.

162 BREWSIE: No, not necessarily dead. A counterweight to keep us from going ahead so fast.

163 WILLIE: All right - we were fighting so people wouldn't have to say yes m'am and no m'am. Now that's something I do get kind of tired of, and I've heard an awful lot of people say it an awful lot of times. Well we fought the civil war so that wouldn't happen no more.

164 BREWSIE: Now listen -

165 DONALD P: You listen to me, I got something real to say.

166 BREWSIE: Okay Donald Paul.

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167 DONALD P: The trouble with us all, all Americans, we think we're up to date but we're old-fashioned...what we think about war, what we think about Germans. We think about 'em just like the last lot did twenty five years ago. Yes we do. We like 'em, the Heinies, because they have electric lights and fixings. If there's anything old-fashioned it's just that. We think war is wine women and song, and heroes. - We're just old-fashioned - as old-fashioned as a pin-up girl.

168 WILLIE: What's a matter with a pin-up girl.

169 DONALD P: Nothings the matter with a pin-up girl if you just know it's old fashioned.

169a MUSIC: BRIDGE

170 NARRATOR: It was coming on winter, it always is coming on winter when summer is over and it was coming on winter. And it comes on dark when it comes on winter,

171 WILLIE: Okay Brewsie, you can talk, you can afford to talk. Fellows like you don't need a job, you live just live, everybody's got to see to it you live. But fellows like us, well we got to have jobs. Talk all you like but when we get home and don't wear this brown we got to have a job, job, job.

172 BREWSIE: Some have to have jobs, some have got to be employed and be employed, but not so many, Willie. That's what I want to say. Industrialism makes employees stop thinking, stop feeling, makes 'em all feel alike.

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173 WILLIE: You make industrialism sound like chewing gum.
You chew and you chew but it don't feed you.
It's got a kind of taste but that's all there is
to it. Have I got it right kind of?

174 BREWSIE: The thing to do is to use our common sense.

175 WILLIE: Here come the sisters. You might just as well
wait till they get here.

176 JO: Fer cryin' out loud!

177 WILLIE: Before you talk any more I want to know if there's
going to be an answer. Because if there isn't I
think I'll go back.

178 WILLIE: Is there going to be any answer, Brewsie. The
sister wants to know. She's very polite but
she certainly wants to know.

179 JO: If you're right, and it does kind of seem so
Brewsie, the more we work the poorer our country
gets and the more depressions we have. What's
the answer, Brewsie. If you got an answer give
it to us.

180 BREWSIE: Do you mind if I begin again from the beginning?

181 PAULINE: We can't help ourselves if we do mind--and we do.

182 WILLIE: Be quiet sister, you make him kind of nervous.
Let him talk. Let him tell us how to be useful,
but poor.

183 BREWSIE: No, how to be hopeful though poor.

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184 JO: Well, that's something.

185 PAULINE: But if we hadn't been industrial the way we were,
how would we have won this war?

186 WILLIE: Did we win?

187 PAULINE: Yes we did win this war.

188 DONALD P: Well then, with that behind us we can settle down
to be poor but honest.

189 JANET: Not so much on the honest, ever hear of stealing?

190 JO: Stealing what?

191 JANET: Go anywhere in the occupied country and what does
everybody do? They steal.

192 WILLIE: Sure they do. And then they gamble it away and
they go home poor but honest.

193 WILLIE: Poor it is, I know.

194 BREWSIE: Listen Willie. You kind of think I go over it all
too much. You're like anybody with a story, you
want the middle to go faster, but that's it Willie,
that's it. It's going too fast, got to slow it
down. Sure you want the end, but there isn't any
end, you got to go slower. This is what has to
happen - when you get back you have to pioneer and
pioneering is slow work.

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195 WILLIE: Pioneer what?

196 BREWSIE: Just pioneer.

197 HENRY: I want to try and get a job over here...

198 WILLIE: You want to stay in this lousy, Europe?

199 HENRY: Well yes, in a way. You see my mind's confused,
so I want to stay and try...

200 WILLIE: I suppose you've been listening to Brewsie.

201 HENRY: No, I haven't...who's Brewsie?

202 WILLIE: That's Brewsie...well, how did you get your mind
so confused if you didn't listen to Brewsie?
Who are you anyway?

203 HENRY: I'm Henry!

204 WILLIE: Hey, Brewsie, new recruit for you to confuse more.
Names Henry.

205 HENRY: Don't you see. We're just a lot of employees obeying
a boss with no mind of our own. And if it goes on
where's America?

206 BREWSIE: He's right.

207 HENRY: Listen - I don't want to see us get more employee
minded, employed by the big factory owners, employed
by the strikers, employed by the government, employed
by the labor unions.

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208 WILLIE: Well, who do you want should employ you? Who
do you want should give you a job?

209 HENRY: I don't want a job. I want to pioneer...

210 WILLIE: Oh, you make me tired. You sound like Brewsie.
And anyway, you want a job over here. How's that
pioneering?

211 HENRY: That's different.

212 WILLIE: How different?

213 HENRY: I used to be a teacher, that's why---

214 WILLIE: Brewsie, explain to this guy what pioneering is.

215 BREWSIE: I don't know yet, I'm thinking.

216 HENRY: Well, I think -

217 WILLIE: You let Brewsie do the thinking, that's the way
we are in this outfit.

218 HENRY: That just shows how employee you are, Willie. (?)

219 WILLIE: Oh, get out of here.

220 JIM: Some of the real pioneering in America these days
is done by Negroes. They find new places, new
homes, new lives--and they more and more own
something.

221 PAULINE: What ever was it we were talking about?

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222 WILLIE: What do you think - women and chickens and yellow butterflies and potatoes. No, we just ain't talking about them - we were talking about that. Of course I'm not talking. I only listen and it never listens good.

223 PAULINE: But I want to know.

224 WILLIE: You'll know, any moment of the day or night they talk and they always talk about it...

225 PAULINE: About what?

226 WILLIE: About what it's about, about what to do about it. Just listen, sister.

227 JIM: You know what they're all talking about at home? They're talking about free trade.

228 JANET: I know, my father--

229 WILLIE: The British again-

230 PAULINE: Wouldn't it be beautiful if everybody'd just stop working -

230A MUSIC: BRIDGE

230B SOUND: FOOTSTEPS, ESTABLISH AND BACK.

5 ras

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231 NARRATOR: Now they are taking a walk, taking a walk and talking - talking.

232 WILLIE: You know, a funny thing is fluffy food.

233 JO: Not chow you don't mean, Willie. I see no fluff in chow.

234 WILLIE: We love sweets, we don't love no lumps of cheese and tough bread; no we just like to eat soft stuff, soft bread, soft ice cream, soft chocolate, soft mush, soft potatoes, and peanut butter. We don't really chew.

235 JO: Well, what if we don't?

236 WILLIE: Soft eats make soft men.

237 JO: How soft?

238 WILLIE: Too soft. Cut it, now we're gettin to talk funny.

238a SOUND: FOOTSTEPS STOP

239 JO: You know, they used to say be your age and I kind of wonder sometimes are we that age. Everybody says we're sad. How old do you have to be to be sad, and how young can you be to be lonesome.

240 DONALD P: (COMING ON) You sure are talking funny - everybody is. Maybe it's because we're going to be redeployed. Isn't that a nice word - redeployed.

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241 WILLIE: They make it a word like that 'cause they won't be responsible if we have a job or not.

242 DONALD P: Funny, very funny, and sometimes nobody knows how funny it is.

243 JIM: If you don't like that word redeployment, if it makes you kind of nervous, how about reconversion.

244 DONALD P: That is only a word. Reconversion turns out to be only a word.

245 WILLIE: It's lousy...

246 JO: But what can we do about it?

247 BREWSIE: Well, what have we got nobody else has got?

248 WILLIE: The atomic bomb.

249 DONALD P: Not so got, everybody says not so got.

250 WILLIE: All right then, not the atomic bomb. What is it we got then?

251 BREWSIE: We like to pioneer -

252 JO: There ain't no wilderness no more.

253 WILLIE: Shut up, everybody - here comes that cute Pauline and her gal friend ...

254 JO: Go on Brewsie, how do you pioneer without a wilderness?

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255 PAULINE: (COMING ON) There's lots of wilderness out where I live. Around where I live it's all wilderness.

256 JO: But can you pioneer in that wilderness of yours?

257 PAULINE: Why not. Yes they can if they have any guts, if they don't expect it to be easy -

258 WILLIE: All right, sister, all right.

259 JANET: I say if you all are ready to break down what has been built up, that's pioneering. Here in Europe they broke down what they had built and now they are all just as busy as anything pioneering, and they're kind of happy doing it.

260 DONALD P: Not so happy, by their looks.

261 WILLIE: Sister, you're funny. What do you want? Do you want us to drop our atomic bombs on ourselves? Is that what you want, so we can go out and pioneer?

262 JANET: Well yes, kind of.

263 WILLIE: I get you.

264 JO: Let's begin again. We're all getting funny.

265 WILLIE: Not so funny at that.

266 MUSIC: BRIDGE

267 NARRATOR: Now the boys are talking about the girls. This is very G.I. but Brewsie is a thinker.

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268 WILLIE: She was cute, that Pauline, about wilderness and pioneering - Didn't you think she was cute, Brewsie?

269 BREWSIE: Be serious, Willie.

270 WILLIE: All right. But you never say what to do. Thinking is all you do Brewsie, but living is what we all got to do. How's everybody going to live? I say she was cute.

271 BREWSIE: Well if I'm right they mostly aren't going to live.

272 WILLIE: Sure you're right, Brewsie - But look at everybody over here - by rights they ought all to be dead, all of them over and over again dead. And they ain't Brewsie - far from it. They seem from the looks of them to be more living than ever before. No, that's the trouble with all the thinking. Some get rich and some get poor but all the same they go on living. No matter what does happen everybody somehow goes on living.

273 DONAID P: William James called it the will to live.

274 WILLIE: Don't know the guy but it's true. Don't make no mistake about the atom bombs or potato bugs or concentration camps or religion or poverty or no jobs. They just go on living, they don't disappear...

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275 WILLIE: Brewsie, you got to hold out a little hope.

276 BREWSIE: The hope is that our generation is more solid, more scared, more articulate than the last one.

277 WILLIE: You sure are crazy, you sure are crazy.

277a MUSIC: BRIDGE

278 WILLIE: You sure are crazy. They all think they're the only thing there is. You wait a minute. (CALLING) Hey you guys, stop talking about how much you pay for cognac anywhere you are, and how much you got to pay more than anybody else, and how much cognac you had yesterday. Just come over and tell this guy Brewsie what you think: foreigners are and what you think: Americans are - Come on over.

278a BIZ: AD LIB UP AND BACK

279 JACK: (COMING ON) Americans? We Americans we ride wide and handsome and everybody admires us.

280 DONALD P: Oh do they?

281 JACK: Yes they do. Why wouldn't they. Ain't we got everything they want?

282 DONALD P: Do they want it?

283 JACK: Sure they do. They see us riding so wide and handsome -

284 JO: Wide all right, but not so handsome.

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