Wednesday, November 3, 2010

In a Boston Tea-shop...

"A Hard Day's TEA"

[A secret meeting prior to an 'action' of The Sons of Liberty]

Location: A dark cellar tea-shop somewhere in Boston Harbor.

Date: Dec. 16, 1773

Tea (not a) Party members discuss how to stop what they think is too much having been done by doing too much too fast in return, not knowing how to do it safely other than by dumping wooden English tea-crates into the Harbor.

Mr Chainey practices disciplining the tea-ship boarding (not a) party by whipping its porters with dull brass chains.

Porters: “Ow, ow, Mister Chainey! Why must we be whip’t so?” (Repeat ad lib., pitifully.)

Master Ropey pounds the back-up boarding-crew with salty rope-knots:

Crew: “Bow, wow, Master Ropey! Be not so hard on us!” (Repeat ad lib., pitifully.)

{flash-ahead:} "The "Architect" of stolen election 2010 was Karl Rove (who) raised & spent hundreds of millions in secret money, sat at FOX spinning lies, & ran smear attack ads to defeat Democrats & elect a new generation of rightwing Republicans who are loyal to him." -Bob Fertik, www.Democrats.com

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The original Boston Tea (not a) Party ) [an 'action' of The Sons of Liberty] was probably much more pragmatical; they must have salvaged that tea, brewed it, drunk it, & burnt the boxes. I've never seen any of the originals in the Boston National Historical Park museum/store, only miniature white-pine souvenir boxes filled with contemporary English Breakfast tea. -Bill Costley 03 NOV 10
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"Today’s TEA!"

Time: The present. A tea-tourist enters the same tea-shop in 2010:

Tea-tourist: Do you have any of those wooden tea-boxes the Tea Party dumped in Boston Harbor?”

Tea-shop master: “Only miniatures.” [He shows the tea-tourist a stack of them.]

Tea-Tourist: “Are they still full of tea?”

Tea-shop Master: “Yes, even better, they’re all quite dry now.”

Tea-Tourist: “What brand of tea?”

Tea-shop Master: “English Breakfast.”

Tea-Tourist: “That sounds right. I’ll take a crate full.”

Tea-Master: “That’ll be USD$500.00”

Tea-Tourist: “That sounds pretty steep!”

Tea-shop Master: “One bag steeps a pot. We sell genuine English Tea-Pots, too.”

[Voices of a rowdy crowd are heard outside the tea-shop.]

Tea-Tourist: "Is there some special tea anti-tax?"

Tea-shop Master: (Silently nods: No.}

Tea-tourist: "Well, why can't you hurry it up?" (Spins around) "I'd better get out of here...fast!" (Anxiously, conspiratorially) "Is there a secret back way out?"

(03 NOV 10, Santa Clara CA)v8

Tea-shop Master: "It will cost you (mumbles: "Benjamins") to go out thru the secret back way."

Tea-Tourist: "Anything, anything, here are a stack of Benjamins." (Fans & hands them over as the Tea-shop Master points to the secret exit. )

Tea-shopMaster: "Come back again." (Stiltedly:) "We're pleased to have had your custom."

Tea-tourist: (fretting:) "I'm not accustomed to buying my tea under seige."

Tea-shop Master: "Well, then, welcome to today's Tea-Party Boston!"

Tea-tourist: "You can't be serious! The Tea-Party runs Boston now?"

Tea-shop Master: "Who do you think has the tea-franchise now?" (Breaks into a broad grin)

Tea-shop Tourist: "Tell me this is all just a renactment, a dramatization!"

Tea-shop Master: "Where money's concerned, business is business in Boston."

Tea-Tourist: "Why...that's a commercial tautology!"

Tea-Master:" And you are being taught to watch your step; you're evidently unfamiliar with Boston's historical cobblestones." (Smirks, knowingly.)

Tea-tourist: "What do cobblestones have to do with tea?"

Tea-Master" "Cobblestones replaced tea-boxes, one-for-one, on the return trips to England. They weighed the same."

Tea-toursist: "No - they couldn't have!" (Angry now.)

Tea-Master: "Right then, I've just cobbled-together an answer to confuse you." (Smirks smartly.)

Tea-tourist: "Who the hell are you, really?" (Bewildered.)

Tea-Master: "I'm the lineal-descendant of Mr. Ropey, Tea Party Master, who originally owned this shop; now I own it. (Conspiratorially:) The Tea Party still meets here, so I suggest you leave quickly." (Fans the Benjamins:) "Thank you for your kind custom. Leave by the door below."

[A crusty half-door opens onto a small dock where a rickety ladder runs up to to today's street-level. The Tea-Tourist barely squeezes through the half-door and onto the dock as the half-door quickly closes automatically.]

[Alone on the small dock he's unsure where to go but up; so he climbs up the rickety ladder to a solid railing and scales it. Traffic whizzes by inches away.]

A Boston traffic cop notices him, strides over, and speaks: "Whatwasya doin' down theah? Donchya know that's private propatea?"

The Tea-Tourist answers without thinking: "It's owned by The Tea Party now."

Boston Cop: "And what Tea Pahty would that be?"

Tea-Tourist: "You know, THE Boston Tea Party!"

Boston Cop: "That was a few yeahs ago, y'kno. Ah you frum...wayback in Time?"

Tea-Tourist: "No." (looks bewildered. "Yes...maybe I am."

Boston Cop: "You bin drinkin?"

Tea-Tourist" "Yes, of course, Tea. This is Boston."

Boston Cop: " I don' think you bin drinkin' tea. How many Sams ya had?"

Tea-Tourist: "What's a Sam?"

Boston-Cop: "That's it. That proves it. Come along."

Tea-Tourist: (now under arrest) "Boston isn't what I expected."

Boston Cop: "You didn' expect Bahstin? So why ya heah then?" (viciously:) "We don' needya kind heah!" (throws him into the traffic whizzing by)

Tea-tourist: (spinning around dangerously) "Help! I could get killed here!"

Boston Cop: "Maybe you will. Serve ya right! This is Bahstin!"

Boston Cop: "Maybe you will. Serve ya right! This is Bahstin!"

Tea-Tourist: (falls into a passing Sam Adams beer truck that stops abruptly across the street at an alleyway, dumping him onto the cobblestone sidewalk.)

Tea-tourist: "That was close!" (bewildered) "I thought traffic cops were supposed to help pedestrians, but.. maybe not in Boston."

Tea-Tourist: "What's this? Another Tea-Shop? Above ground?" (Reaches for the door-knob as he looks at its sign: TEA CHINESE CHAI) "Chinese? but I thought...what kind of tea was in The Boston Tea Party shop? English? Indian? Assam?" (Steps inside.)

Tea-shop Owner: "Herro. Wercome to owl tea-shop." (It's Master Rovey's lineal heir again, pretending to be Chinese.)

Tea-Tourist: "Can this be real? What are you doing here?"

Tea-shop Owner: "I own this shop, too. (Historically) Some people prefer Chinese oolong chai to Indian assam tea. So we work both sides of the street, underground & above, crossing by a bridge hidden underneath. "Just as we did for the original Tea Party. Where do you thing that wet tea went?"

Tea-Tourist "I don't know. Nobody seems to know anymore."

Tea-shop Owner: "Nonsense, (conspiratorially) It's a secret. I keep the original records. We were not against private propertea, just tea-taxes."

Tea-Tourist: "without representation."

Tea-shop Owner: "Bosh! We were against taxes then and we still are now."

Tea-Tourist: (Bemused) "Then the word tax means something else in this tea-shop?

Tea-shop Owner: " Of course! (Explains) If the Tea (not a) Party still owns this shop, doing business at the same location, it's hereditary. If we call it chinese now, we can call anything anything. This is Boston, after all, Sam Adams' town, then and now. Taxing means tiring, exhausting. How tired are you?"

Tea-Tourist: "Very tired." (Sits on the nearest chinese chair.)

Tea-shop Owner: "Then you don't want to be overtaxed anymore, do you?"

Tea-tourist: (Convinced) "Of course not! I can't take much more of this. It's cost me a wad of Benjamins and I'm scared half-to-death. I've had it!"

Tea-shop Owner: "Hardly! (with enthusiasm) "You've only begun exploring Boston! What have you learnt?

Tea-Tourist: "Things aren't what they appear to be in Boston!"

Tea-shop Owner" "Exactly! Nor should they be! If they were, Time would have stopped."

Tea-Tourist: "But it has...in Boston!" (Stands; Sits. Stands; Sits.)

Tea-shop Owner: "Are you a mimicking a chinese water-clock?"

Tea-Tourist: "No! I've never heard of one!"

Tea-shop Owner: "Now you have and you're also acting like one. See what coming to Boston has done for you? Imagine what might have happened if you came to Salem instead?"

Tea Tourist: (wide-eyed) "I'd have turned into a witch?"

Tea-shop Owner: "Well, there really were no witches in 1692, but there is an official Salem City Witch now...Laurie Cabot. Anyone can become a witch without risk or shame in Salem now, but you have to want to be one."

Tea-Tourist: "I don't want to be a witch..."

Tea-shop Owner: "So you aren't! That's Salem now. But here in Boston, it's not the same. As you see, I appear to be chinese, (smiles) for commercial purposes. In Salem, the original home of the China-clipper trade, nobody was chinese, nor did they wish to be. The city museum held all manner of chinoiserie for careful examination, inspection, but never for sale. Chinese tea, however, was shipped to Boston for warehousing and distribution."

Tea-touriust: "Do you mean that the Boston Tea (not a) Party dumped Salem's chinese tea into Boston's harbor?"

Tea-shop Owner: "Exactly. That was the perfectly accepted system. Nathaniel Hawthorne worked it: as the Essex county customs agent in Salem, his city of birth, and later in Boston, at the federal Custom House."

Tea-tourist: "Was Hawthorne for or against taxes?"

Tea-shop Owner: (amused) "For them, obviously, they paid his salary! He is not one of our heroes. Have you read his books?"

Tea-Tourist: "Well....No."

"Tea-shop Owner: "DON'T!"

(They stop. Thirsty now, they seek the appropriate means to slake it: tea.)

Tea-shop Owner: (cordially) "Would you like warm tea to rest your mouth?"

Tea-Tourist: "(surprised) "Why, yes, I would! What..."

Tea-shop Owner: (interrupting him) "We have a simple plan. For the price of one Benjamin-note annually, you will be registered with our major tea-shops in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, (pauses), as well as our minor shops in Salem (Massachusetts), Newburyport (Massachusetts) , Bridgeport (Connecticut) , Portland [Maine], and Westerly, (Rhode Island) where your first cup of tea shall be free after you are welcomed as a Boston Tea Party regular. Your most relevant remarks will be recorded and reported to our corresponding secretary (webmaster) and society (website) for other regulars to read and appreciate.

Tea-shop Tourist: "(uncertainly) "Is that safe? I, mean, really, is that...?"

Tea-shop Owner: "(laughing) "Safe? Haven't you read the Constitution? It's protected by the First Amendment to the Original Constitution!"

Tea-shop tourist: "(determined) "No, I mean, is that safe for me to say and for you to transcribe and transmit?"

Tea-shop Owner: (confidently) "Oh, yes, it's also pre-paid. What could be more secure? Commercial membership has its perquisites...as the Supreme Court has now determined."

Tea-Tourist: (amazed) "Well I'll be damned! You are really up-to-the-minute!"

Tea-shop Owner: "Up to the commercial minute, I can assure you."

Tea-Tourist: "Commercial, yes, of course, commercial."

Tea-shop Owner: "And you will NOT be damned. We abolished that! This is not Salem, 1692!"

Tea-Tourist: (relieved) "What a relief!"

[TBC]


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