Choose a gene with a funny name. Choose in situ hybridization,
protein purification, antibody production, immunocytology, and getting
color pictures so people pay attention.
Choose to push your model all the way. Choose sitting at that desk
reading mind-numbing, spirit-crushing Cell papers.
Choose molecular biology. Choose life.
Renton exits. Spud shoots up.
SPUD
But why would I want to do a thing like that? ...
I chose not to choose research: I chose something else. And the reasons?
There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?
SICKBOY
He crosses over as he speaks
People think grad school's about misery,
desperation, death and all that shite. But what they forget,
is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it.
After all, we're not fucking stupid, at least not that fucking stupid.
Sickboy joins Spud shooting up
SPUD
When your experiments work you have only one worry: publishing. When they don't,
you've suddenly got to worry about all sorts of other shite. Got no clone:
can't get expression.
Got a clone: expression is lethal. Can't raise antibodies: no chance of
coprecipitation. Got an antibody: too much cross-reaction.
SICKBOY
You have to worry about contamination, temperature, the phase of the fucking moon,
some strain of yeast that never fucking grows, your PI breathing down your neck
and all the other things that really don't matter when you've got
sincere and truthful results.
Spud has collapsed. Tij enters, angry about the scene in front of him.
TIJ
What in the name of Kornberg is going on here? If you don't shape up right
now we'll
become...mediocre! How did a couple of lame ducks like you ever get into my lab?
Tij and Sickboy freeze in place. Spud sits up.
SPUD
(In the style of a voice-over)
Actually, getting in wasn't that difficult.
Tij and Sickboy move quickly into the interviewers chairs. Sickboy is transformed
into Interviewer 2 by quickly removing his labcoat to reveal a suit and thin black
leather tie (not loose). He dons glasses and puts a pencil behind his ear.
Meanwhile, Spud scurries off stage.
SCENE 2: THE INTERVIEW
Interviewer 1 and Interviewer 2 are seated across from an empty chair.
Spud enters the stage and pauses (unnoticed by Int.1 and 2) to unfold a bit of
aluminum foil that contains a dab of cocaine, which he promptly snorts. This is
obviously powerful stuff. He then steps through an imaginary door and Int.1 and 2 look up.
INT.1
Please, sit down.
Spud sits down, but almost immediately bounces up. The two interviewers stare him back
into his seat. He fidgets in the silence, waiting for the first question.
Int.1 and 2 look at each other in disbelief.
INT.2
Perhaps, Mr. Vance, you could tell us why you think you're qualified to be a
graduate student here at Berkeley?
SPUD
Well, well, you see, it's all these great fucking ideas I've been having recently.
Spud shakes his head in a futile attempt to clarify his mind.
And those cells. I mean...they're interesting, right?
INT.1
Yes, yes.
Int.1 glances down at Spud's application.
Ahh, I see that you went to Harvard, Mr. Vance.
SPUD
Yup, yup, Harvard. Nice place. A little uptight about hard drugs, but lots of trees,
buildings, things, you know. And nice ivy. Very nice ivy.
Pauses.
Actually, I need to confess. I really went to Queen's University, in Canada, but
I was worried you wouldn't have heard of it, so I just put down Harvard. But they're
both schools, right? And we're all in this together, right? And I just wanted to put
across the general idea rather than getting all hung up on the details.
INT.2
Do you mean to say you lied on your application?
SPUD
Well, only to get my foot in the door. You know, to show initiative, like?
INT.1
But your father is a noted lipid biochemist. There's no need for you to
get your foot in the door, as you put it.
SPUD
Well, right, whatever you say. I mean, you're the man, the governor,
the dude in the chair, like.
INT.2
Ah yes, Mr. Vance. But thank you very much for your time; we'll be sure
to let you know.
Spud crosses the floor and thanks the two interviewers, shaking and
kissing their hands. He leaves hurridly. Once he's out the door, the Interviewers
get up and leave in the opposite direction. They confer.
INT.1
What did you think?
INT.2
Well, we'll make him an offer. But he'll probably end up going to UCSF.
SCENE 3: I HATE GRADUATE SCHOOL
INT . TIJLAB . DAY
Spud and Sickboy, entering from opposite sides of the stage, are
preparing to shoot up. Both are armed with absolutely enormous needles.
SICKBOY
(in the style of a voice-over)
Well, it turned out that Spud decided he would rather come to Berkeley,
and the three of us ended up cruising through our first year, relatively
drug free. It wasn't until our second year that we made a healthy, informed,
democratic decision to get back on junk as soon as possible. The reason?
TAing was practically more than we could bear.
Rents enters from the side, holding a student's exam that is covered in red ink
(a D- is clearly visible). He's cursing.
RENTON
For fuck's sake, I've had it with these miserable pre-medical students. Can you believe
that I actually had to tell one of them this morning that, no, he wasn't going to get
partial credit for writing out the entire Krebs cycle when what I asked for was
a diagram of the cell cycle. And I was forced to add the fact his parents were counting
on him to become a neurosurgeon did not in any way alter my opinion of his ability to
answer basic examination questions.
SICK BOY
In the process of wrapping plastic tubing around his arm, looking for a vein.
I just hope that ten years from now, as I lay etherized on the surgical table, waiting
for my blackened cancerous lung to be removed, that I don't look up and see, just as I
lose consciousness, that one of my former shite-for-brains premeds has actually achieved
his goal of becoming a medical doctor and is now bearing down on me with a carving knife.
SPUD
Brightly
But, you know, it's not all bad.
Rents and Sickboy can't believe their ears. Spud holds up an autorad that
he has pulled out of his back pocket.
I mean, for instance, look at this beautiful fucking autorad. Examine its clarity,
its high degree of resolution, its apparent lack of background hybridization.
Don't things like this just make you proud to be a graduate student?
SICK BOY
Pauses. Thinks about it. But answers plainly and emphatically.
No. No, I hate being a graduate student. We're the lowest of the fucking low,
the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash
that was ever shat into civilization. Look, some of us hate premeds. But I don't.
They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are forced to teach wankers.
We can't even pick a decent subset of humanity to waste our time arguing with.
It's a shite state of affairs, and all the beautiful southern blots in the world
will not make any fucking difference.
Sickboy freezes in position. Rents and Spud narrate a voiceover as Born Slippy
comes on over the speakers.
SCENE 4: CONCLUSION
RENTON
But what could be done about those premeds? Our entire way of life depended on there being
a steady supply of stressed out, nervous young victims eager to memorize, regurgitate, and
promptly forget enough facts to enter the medical profession, for a chance at treating the
preventable diseases that the western world has the luxury of catching after
a long, productive life.
SPUD
Our only response was to keep cloning, and fuck the in vivo evidence, piling factor upon factor,
TAF upon TAF, dissolving it all in a little n-propanol. Keep on going: Getting up.
Working hard, scooping competitors, propelling ourselves with longing until the day we hand it in.
RENTON
And with that we made it through 5 and a half years of graduate school. Sickboy finally got it
together and produced something that looked like it would pass for a thesis.
Renton and Spud are suddenly the thesis committee. Sickboy produces a thesis.
The committee looks it over, scratching their chins.
THESIS COMMITTEE 1
Slowly and disbelievingly
The translation chain reaction. TCR. Using.. reverse translatase, a novel enzyme you say
you've found inTetrahymena , to amplify large quantities of protein from a small amount of
template. Quite amazing!
THESIS 2
I assume you've accounted for all the experiments you conducted while you were strung out on smack, right?
SICK BOY
Yes, well, if you'll just turn to page 87, uhh, well, it's there.
Thesis 2 turns to the proper page, revealing in huge letters visible to the audience,
"Yes Jeremy, I've already done that."
THESIS 2
Is this supposed to be funny?
Thesis 1 starts laughing.
THESIS 1
Well, time to make the decision.
They confer for a few seconds, then quickly, their faces light up.
THESIS 2
Well, we're going to let you graduate! But first, if you would, as a formality, please sign this release form
giving the Univerisity all the rights to TCR, and any of the proceeds, monetary and otherwise, which
may result from its sale and marketing..just a formality, you understand.
SICK BOY
Hmm..
The action becomes slow-motion. The music increases in volume; Sick Boy reaches out to take the pen
that Thesis 1 is holding out to him.
The commitee's faces are contorted with greed, while Sick Boy is in a quandary. Just as he is about to sign,
he shakes his head and mouths the word "No!". Motion resumes to its normal speed; the committee reels back;
Sick Boy throws down the pen, grabs the thesis, and vents his anger.
No! I'll not sign your release form! Fuck the University! I'm selling it
to Genentech, where the real junk is!
He walks off.
The music resumes its former volume.
RENTON
(in the style of a voice-over)
So why did we do it? I could offer a million answers, all false. The truth is that we're bad people,
and the only reason we never sold out before was because no one ever offered. But from here on that's
going to change. In the end we're going to be justlike you: the job, the family, the house in the
Berkeley Hills, the car, the CD collection and state-of-the art stereo, giving talks, naming genes,
last authorship on a twenty-page paper, the Birkenstocks, the pound of Peet's, pushing models, data not shown,
genomes sequenced, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die.