About the middle of the song the stage lights dim and a projector goes on showing crowds of people at Todd Rundgren rallies and also the newspaper headlines on the day after election showing Todd's victory. When the film and music is over, the stage is dark and the curtain closes.
| Angela | Have you ever thought of getting Golden Fingers back together again? Reunion was very fashionable a few decades ago. |
| I | I've often thought about it, but always seemed to put it out of my mind. I really don't think it would work out. We had our differences and they were very real. |
| Angela | What differences? I think it sounds like a good idea. |
| I | I don't think I could get along with the other guys. You know how we argued all of the time. Besides, I think they're still sore at me for leaving the group to go out on my own. |
| Angela | But you've changed, and they've changed. Remember what they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. As a matter of fact, I spoke to my brother this morning on the videophone about it. |
| I | Spike? Is he in town? Where's he staying? |
| Angela | He's staying at the Century Motel, about a mile away from here. He'd said that he'd like to try a reunion. He came up with the idea in the first place. |
| I | But there's still Isaac and Osgood. They'll never go for it. I don't think there were into music all that much anyway. You remember how Isaac used to blow those leads all the time. |
| Angela | Spike's already talked to them. They agree it should be given a try. Isaac's really cleaned himself up and I guess he's really worked on his guitar lately. And Osgood settled down with a nice girl about twenty years ago and has got a couple of grown kids. They want to see him on the stage like he used to do so many years back. |
| I | I still don't know. We were hot stuff in the seventies, but this is the twenty-first century. That was over forty years ago. People just won't accept us. |
| Angela | Don't you remember what happened in the seventies, though? That was the nostalgia decade. People were listening to the music of the forties, fifties and sixties and liking it. We could start a new nostalgia craze. |
| I | You know ... It sounds tempting ... But I'm too old. Besides, who wants to pay good money to see a bunch of senile old jerks trying to re-create the seventies. Leave it to today's youth. I just couldn't take it. |
| Angela | Come on, now. They don't want to see imitators, they want to see the real thing. You could attract all the old fans and even new ones. You can't leave the scene completely without a big comeback. You owe it to the world to appear again. |
| I | Alright, you talked me into it. Get a hold of Spike and we'll start to arrange the details. |
Angela goes over to a small box laying on the table, inserts a small plastic disc and returns to I.
There is heard a small chime and the front door slides open, revealing Spike, Osgood and Isaac, obviously much older than when we last saw them. As they walk through the frame, a buzzer sounds.
| I | Hold it. The security alarm says there's something fishy going on. Have all of you been registered for clearance? |
| Isaac | It's probably because of my pet hamster. I take him wherever I go. |
| I | (to Angela) I thought you said these guys had straightened out? |
| Angela | I didn't say anything about senility. |
| I | Okay, come on in. Hmm ... You guys look as slick as a guitar lick. |
| Spike | We've all been doing pretty well out there. |
| I | Let's see how well we can do together again. "Reunion is total communion of souls," isn't that how the old saying goes? |
| Isaac | Never heard of it before. |
| Osgood | He ought to know. He was the head of the English Literature department at the Multiversity. |
| I | Well, it looks like we've got a lot of catching up to do, but we'll get on with that later. First we've got to plan this reunion. |
| Spike | One thing we've got to do is tip off the music magazines. They're always hot for a rumor of reunion among old groups. |
| I | We also need a promoter for the tour, someone who knows his way around. |
| Isaac | How about William Graham III? That type of thing seems to run in his family. |
| I | O.K., I'll leave it up to you to get a hold of him. |
| Osgood | We need a few new songs. The public might not settle for all the old ones. |
| I | Maybe we can pen one or two, but the purpose of this reunion is to bring back the era of the rockin' seventies. |
| Angela | What will you charge for the concerts? |
| I | That would be up to the promoter, but I would imagine that tickets would run about thirty to fifty dollars each. That seems pretty reasonable. |
| Osgood | Maybe we could make it a benefit tour. |
| Isaac | That's right. We really have no need for the money ourselves. |
| I | But who will benefit from it? |
| Spike | William Graham III, for one. |
| Isaac | How about the Los Angeles Home for Aging Rock Musicians? I've heard the royalties from the old rock records are really slowing down and they're in need for some financial assistance. |
| I | That seems like a good cause. Besides, we may end up there ourselves, someday. |
| Spike | It's true that it's the most popular home in the United States. It gets pretty loud there sometimes. The musicians all get together and jam on Tuesdays. At their advanced age they're near deaf and they have to turn up their amps to full volume to even hear themselves. |
| I | What do you mean "advanced age?" Most of them are no more than five or ten years older than us. At sixty-two, I resent being called an old man. |
| Isaac | Maybe we can even have a re-issue of some of our old hits to remind people of the music of the good old days. |
| Osgood | We can figure on a good total for the home. |
He steps over to I's computer terminal, a standard in all homes. After a few seconds at the terminal, he returns to the group at the table.
| Voice | Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, this is the six o'clock edition of the I.B.C. News, with Hardy Rochester II, brought to you each evening by Fender guitars. Your local music store will show you their fine selection of Fender guitars, starting at only two thousand dollars. |
| Hardy | Last night, the Golden Fingers rock band, famous for their hits of the nineteen seventies, reunited for the first of ten concerts in Los Angeles this week. Playing to a capacity crowd of three hundred thousand in the newly remodeled Forum, they were warmly welcomed as they played set after set of old and new songs. Though the concert lasted four hours, it seemed only a few fleeting moments as the enthusiasm of ther crowd grew with each note played. Shortly after the show, I had the good fortune to speak with bass player and leader of the group, I Mall. Here is a film report: |