We cut from P. N. leaving the bar to the massive traffic
snarl that has occurred outside of the theater hosting the International Disco
Competition. This scene is... problematic for me. Our Master of Ceremonies tells
us that there are participants from all over the world here tonight to
demonstrate their dancing prowess. He then introduces "The Disco King and Queen
from Africa."
Now,
I'm certainly not an expert on disco dancing, and I hope to all odds that I
never am. But, even with my limited knowledge of what disco is, and what it
should look like, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that this is
not disco dancing. This is a man in pain, and a woman who doesn't know where
she is.
I'm also confused by their act. Neither one is wearing any sort of flashy
outfit like we've seen in many other disco scenes. Their moves are
perplexing. The man appears to lose the strength in his knees and starts
duck walking around the stage, while his partner seems content to limit her
moves to a violent twitching of her shoulders.
Truly, this International Disco Competition will be a difficult one to
judge. I for one consider myself fortunate to not have to make a choice
here.
Once
the African Delegation is finished (actually they just change couples in the
middle of the same song), we are told a filthy, deplorable lie. The MC tells us
that we will now enjoy the Disco King and
Queen of Paris. I hate to be the one to tell you, but I did not exactly
enjoy them. The man may be the skinniest person I've ever seen, and his
dance seems to consist largely of motions resembling the removal of one's keys
from a pocket, and what we commonly refer to as "playing the air guitar." His
partner merrily does The Twist, which I was not aware of as being a disco dance.
I have a problem with this whole arrangement: Africa is a continent, not a
country. I suppose they could have meant South Africa, but that isn't
what he said. Also, Paris is a city, not a country. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs
here, but it seems as though not much thought was put into the invitation list.
For that matter, they might have invited a few other people to participate,
because these are the only two other competitors going up against Jimmy. Yes,
the International Disco Competition has exactly three entries.
Finally the announcer tells us that it is Jimmy's turn. We see Jimmy backstage, looking like he's not quite out of physical therapy. He doesn't move, and
just stands there looking at his feet. I suppose if we were rating the
contestants on the amount of self inflicted embarrassment, Jimmy would be way
ahead. In the crowd, we see some of the familiar faces from Jimmy's other shows,
as well as Rita looking very sparkly in a suspiciously sequined outfit. Jimmy
seems frozen on the spot, so Rita goes up to see what he's doing. She does this
by walking down the aisle and up onto the stage. Nice security, guys!
Backstage, Rita tries to coax Jimmy to go out and perform.
She does get him to at least walk out to the other end of the stage, when Sam
shows up out of nowhere holding a pretty obviously fake guitar. Jimmy
immediately flashes back to his mother's death, and shrinks away from the thing
as if it were radioactive. Sam throws it at Jimmy's feet, and he is unable to
think of anything else. Rita pleads with him to perform, and casts a few nervous
looks at the audience which is sounding more and more hostile. Rita does the
only thing she can think of - her own song to get
him in gear. She kicks into "Jimmy Jimmy Aaja," our next song.
Rita is out there giving 100% to get a response of any kind
out of Jimmy. Jimmy decides to stare at her and sweat. This does little to
impress anyone. Rita becomes discouraged and loses a lot of her energy. The
music even dies out, leaving Rita to walk over to Jimmy for one last tearful
request to get him to do anything at all. She tells him that she didn't know
he was that weak, then says that she hates him. Rita runs off of the stage,
sobbing and shouting about how much she hates that big jerk, Jimmy. The
crowd is good and mad now, and begins throwing things at the stage where
Jimmy is still just hanging out.
Suddenly,
we hear a familiar voice and song. Jimmy looks up to see his old pal Raju!
Raju plays the same damn song they did four times earlier, and tells Jimmy
to sing! He goes through the whole song as Jimmy stands on the stage and
listens. Raju gets a little more insistent, and starts screaming at Jimmy to
sing. He gets so into it, that he even gets a cheesy reverb sound effect
added to his voice for emphasis.
Jimmy screams "no no no my goodness no thank you" (or
something close to that) with his own reverb in response to this absurd
idea. Raju tells Jimmy that if he doesn't sing again, then his mother really
will die. He throws his guitar over the heads of everyone in the audience,
and Jimmy catches it. His confidence thus restored, Jimmy leaps into the air
and karate chops the guitar that Sam had brought to the stage. We'll ignore
the fact that the guitar breaks cleanly about six inches away from where
Jimmy actually hit it. These things are just not that important, you see.
Jimmy flings the broken guitar away, and begins slamming out
power chords from Raju's guitar. We see a few flashbacks of Jimmy's mother
as he channels all of his angst into his next big song.
