The Scrotum Monologues

[Warm lights. I enter]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome.

Here's a playful question I've asked all over the world during this wildly successful tour of my show: What would I call my scrotum if I could give it a name? I asked dozens of men---and women---this festive question, and the responses were as varied as the individual lines etched on the scrotal sac itself: Bristle-Boy, Governor Marbles, Taut Little Wonder, Tub o' Greatness, Tapioca Suitcase, Click-Clack, the Pouch for my Captain Queegies, Santa's Real Booty, Fetching Wrinkle Face, Clabber-Clabber, Grab 'Ems, Fuzzy Ole Guy, Balthazar, Charlie and Mismo. Isn't the liberation of saying these words empowering?

For centuries, scrotal nicknaming has been a subject discussed only in whispered undertones behind the occasionally velvet-lined doors of the unafraid. But now, as the millennium continues, every American should have the right to be free from the fear of naming and nicknaming private parts. In fact, please stand now and join me in liberating unison: [Audience stands and chants] scro-tum! scro-tum! scro-tum scrotum scrotum! scro scro scro scro! tum-tum tum-tum! [Audience sits] Thank you. See? Feel the insulin flow, the blood pound? You can sense the terror evaporate from the theater like an ether. Am I right?

•

[Lights to somber pink. I sit on a stool]

Throughout the yellow-leaved annals of recorded time, my Scrotum and I have been through hell, thick and thin. Minimized by Praxiteles, pretty much ignored by Luther, vilified by Tipper at countless state dinners, the scrotum has few champions. Homer was an early exception. Blind though he was, he considered it "that pouting purse of pellets so easily vulnerabled." And in the Fifties the Robert Shaw Chorale indicated some appreciation of the scrotum's essential decency in its recording We Love Our Shrinking, Tightening Cue-Ball Alembic. But those instances are few and far between.

[Lighting more stark. I stare out]

The human toll from scrotal assault has been incalculable. My brother Andy, aside from just liking to say the word scrotum over and over, knew firsthand the humiliation scrota feel. In the early Nineties, through no fault of his own, he was chased through Denmark by a surprisingly persistent red fox. Each time Andy felt he had escaped, the fox would appear in the last-place-but-one that he (Andy) had looked, as in a dream, constricting his underappreciated Calamansi Cauldron with a force that, over time, dehydrated and exhausted him. Eventually, Andy collapsed in a field near Boåt, and the fox ripped him to bits, beginning with his wrist. Needless to say, Andy's is not an isolated instance.

[Slow fade to black. Audience crosses its legs]

•

[Lighting indicates seriousness of science. My concern grows]

Although the tightenings and retractions, the ghastly castrations and big drops in temperature should fill our so-called history books, others have seen to it that they don't. Instead, the scrotum is branded as little more than a really ugly container for Man's Click-Clacks of Savagery. The psychological effects on at least one gender have been lacerating---and permanent. A group of leading professors at Johns Hopkins University has posited the Scrotal Effect, which, they theorize, has had more influence on world events and early male death than any other cause. Women don't realize that every time they say something even slightly caustic, or threatening, or demeaning, the scrotum reacts, either contracting or swelling. The resultant temperature change causes blockage of male fluid, which diverts to or expels from either the violent lobe or the silly, defeated lobe of one of the more important parts of the brain. House cats do not have the same (concluded on page 234)Scrotum Monologues(continued from page 115) reaction; because they are not subject to criticism, they experience little vesicle-shudder, and their lives are more tranquil than men's.

[Lights up to nine. I glow]

But lest we scrotumers be thought merely smug victims, know that Our Proud Scrota are also earthshaking in majesty, glorious in poignancy, lilting in their lyricism and, finally, must be seen as God's manifestation of ultimate beauty. Despite its onslaughts, still My Scrotum stands, or hangs, eternal---through wars and famines, ice ages and thawings and most general whuppins. And this, by the way, is not a man-woman thing.

[Blackout]

•

[Lights up bright. I get down from the stool, then get back up on it]

Feeling impish like me? Here's a cute little thing I do to show fun. What would I have my scrotum wear if I could put clothes on it? Here are a few fashion fancies: an apron with barbecue pockets in it, a necktie (using the überorgan as the neck), a goatee, slacks, a big bull's-eye! I am so bold and naughty! What would you have your scrotum wear at home?

[Impish blackout. Audience winks as one]

•

[Ironic lighting. I turn my turtleneck up]

You're going to doubt my statistics. I had to check this out two times myself before doing my show---and they're accurate! More than 60 billion men suffer scrotal tightenings every single day, only 8 percent of which are caused by bodily fright. All the rest---52 billion, 200 million---are caused by women. Every day. That's almost 10 times the number of people on this planet. This when we are living in an era of so-called peace!

Naturally skeptical, I decided to trade in my Jil Sander for a set of camo and spent two rain-drenched days in a real war. I took my scrotum to the mud-ravaged trenches of Kosovo during the past spring's action and interviewed the men there. Their stories were gaspingly horrific. None had ever been asked a question about scrota. Some were afraid to talk, others uncertain. And yet, all realized the importance of my quest. In the middle of the bloodiest war of the decade, sometimes under direct bombing, the men struggled to control their emotions. Listen to Andrelik: "There was a time. Woming point, call Andrelik small. Scrotum collapse. Then woming sister make demand. Scrotum hard like rock, Andrelik fail. Big bomb from your country come, same thing. Scrotum hide. Woming and bomb cause this. You don't know." Many stories were as devastating as this, as I interviewed these men bravely dodging shrapnel. In case you were wondering, I was weeping.

[Slow fade to black. A tear will be on my cheek, don't worry]

•

[Lights sensitive. I turn soft]

And finally, to show uplift just before curtain, I took my scrotum into the OR to witness the one event we can all agree is worthy of reverence: the birth of an innocent babe. My scrotum was amazed, delighted, even relaxed at the glorious expression of the newborn as it came out of that gross V-thing.

[I dismount the stool, bow]

Kindly join me in a standing ovation.

[Audience stands and whoops, bewildered]

[Curtain]