I’m firing off an early attack in an attempt to draw First Blood. Or maybe to draw Rambo: First Blood Part 2. Should any new grapplers feel up to entering the Sumo ring of sketch war, please email a link to your submission (or its full text if you are homepageless) to sketchwar_at_dreamloom_dot_com.

Fight the Patriarchy
(Two hippies, Breeze and Anton, sit at a card table outside Whole Foods. Scent lines of patchouli and pot wafting from their hemp clothing and unkempt dreads are almost visible. A middle-aged man walks away from the card table with a pamphlet Breeze has handed him.)

BREEZE
You shouldn’t let your parents control your life.

ANTON
It’s not like that. I want to be an engineer.

BREEZE
That’s because you’ve been indoctrinated. Why else would you want to rape Mother Earth?

ANTON
Dude, I don’t want to rape anything. I just wanna build dams and bridges.

BREEZE
Dams block the natural flow of Gaia’s tears. Bridges support the war machine. Engineering was invented by white men so they could fight wars and enslave women and minorities.

ANTON
C’mon. It’s just cool to build stuff. When I was a kid, I’d play with my Legos for hours, building space stations and cities, and imagining all the people who lived and worked there. Didn’t you do that?

BREEZE
Plastic tools of the patriarchy! With all those round…pegs forced into innocent holes by grubby male hands!

ANTON
Whoa. You’ve got some serious issues.

BREEZE
Sorry. It’s the rape culture. It gets to me.

There’s a tribe in the rainforest where the women are in charge. They don’t even have a word for war. They don’t have a word for yellow either, but that’s okay. They call it “color of the pus from a scorpion sting”.

(A well-kept woman in her 40’s walks up to the table and glances at the material.)

ANTON
Do you want to sign our petition?

WOMAN
What’s it for?

ANTON
Um…

BREEZE
It’s a petition requiring all the schools in the district to use paper made from locally grown hemp. It’s biodegradable, renewable, and supports small farmers instead of evil international paper corporations.

WOMAN
Uh, maybe I’ll sign on my way out…

(Woman rushes away and into the store)

BREEZE
Did you forget why we’re here?

ANTON
I just…Tuesday it was to stop Japan’s whale hunt, Thursday it was to rename MLK Boulevard to Rosa Parkway —

BREEZE
— MLK was a tool of the hegemony! —

ANTON
— and yesterday it was to require Herstory be taught in grade school. I just lost track of the day.

BREEZE
You know, there’s a tribe in Laos that doesn’t have calendars or clocks. We could learn a lot from them. They have a wise-woman who tells them when it’s time to reap and time to sow. She uses her menstrual cycle to determine everything. I’m thinking of spending the summer there. Or maybe on a walking tour of Nepal.

(As Breeze has been jabbering, a 20-something dude in a pink shirt with popped collar has approached.)

CHAD
Bethany? What happened to your hair?

BREEZE
Uh, um, Chad. It’s, great to…see…um. Anton? This is Chad. He…I…we went to high school together.

CHAD
‘Sup.

So I was talking to your mom at the club yesterday. She said you weren’t going to Rome this year ’cause you just wanted to veg on the beach. You going to Cannes, or just hanging in the Hamptons?

BREEZE
(Embarrassed in front of Anton) The Hamptons.

CHAD
Coolio. Me too. Dakota and Bryce’ll be there, too.

BREEZE
(Failing to hide her excitement) Bryce? Oh…uh, whatever.

CHAD
Ai-ight. Peace out. See ya later.

(Chad struts off.)

BREEZE
Don’t say a word.

ANTON
Bethany?

BREEZE
Not a word!