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West Side Story Winner Of Ten Academy Awards

by Spoelstra

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about

Gross misrepresentations of all songs of the musical West Side Story as performed in seven chapters

Chapter 1: Prologue/Jet Song/Something’s Coming
I assume we have all been there at some point in our lives, when we found ourselves having either our best friend or brother serving as the main guy in a local youth gang, always prone to get into trouble fighting a rival gang, when typically both gangs would start out the day proudly parading through the neighbourhood, looking all cool and demonstrating their perceived authority over their claimed respective territories using routines like synchronized snaps of fingers and what not, and then proceed to encounter their rivals on the street, and from that point, subtle reciprocal teasing methods are being acted out between both gangs, like whistling and making chicken sounds, boiling up tensions to the point where one gang member will seemingly but not really accidentally make a rival gang member trip, at which point both gangs will collectively go berserk and start chasing each other through the streets, throwing paint and debris at and/or on each other and subsequently ending up in a massive brawl at a local playground, when the police will suddenly intervene by way of loudly blowing a whistle and make both gangs cease their quarreling for the moment and, after a short but stern lecture by one of the police officers present at the scene, go their separate ways, after which one of the gangs will cook up the plan to collectively go and populate a dance party at a local gym, which is to take place in the evening of the same day and where the presence of their aforementioned rivals - a condition essential for the execution of the plan - will also be a highly probable scenario, with the purpose of challenging said rival gang to a rumble, the winner of which will permanently gain exclusive control over the neighbourhood, thereby effectively forcing the losing gang to retreat into a state of oblivion, and proposing a war council to decide on time, place and weaponry to be used, and for some reason perhaps getting us involved in the scheme to serve as a lieutenant of sorts, what with us being a founding gang member, who retreated from the whole gang scene when things took a less friendly turn, but who, still being the best friend of the leader of the gang, according to the latter can always be trusted to deliver on behalf of the gang when asked to do so, because basically we would always count as a member of the gang, regardless of our current non-partaking status, and then, as it seemed fit at the moment, collectively start singing a song celebrating their - supposedly - life-long adherence to the gang, after which said gang leader might have visited us at the bar were we worked trying to earn an honest living, to try and persuade us to come to the dance party, an effort which we initially met with some cheerful but firm reluctance because we did not want to get involved in the gang thing ever again, but soon enough rewarded with the acceptance of the invitation on offer after all, thinking that perhaps something positively exciting and potentially life-altering could come of our presence at the party and starting to sing a song inspired by that very thought

Chapter 2: Dance At The Gym: Blues - Promenade - Mambo - Pas de deux - Jump
or perhaps we were already getting ready to go to the dance party that night, fitting a dress in a bridal shop where we worked together with our sister-in-law while complaining about a chronic lack of excitement in our lives, at least partly due to the fact that we were sort of arranged to soon get married to someone belonging to our brother’s gang, despite the - at the time - unspoken realization that from our side there was no real love to speak of, at which point our brother and our fiance entered the shop to pick us up and as we, excitedly, started to whirl around in our dress a bit, suddenly everything would turn all blurry and then we would find ourselves right there at the dance party, where a crowd, mainly existing of members of both gangs and their corresponding partners kept themselves busy demonstrating their dancing skills over several pieces of idiosyncratic music in diverse genres, never ceasing to act all cool and keeping their distance from their rivals present, while suddenly we, while our gazes drifted, would spot each other among the crowd, and as the loud music and the ubiquitous noise from the crowd slowly fades away and everything around us turns into a pinkish haze, leaving only us in clear vision, we would feel like we had known each other all of our lives, and we would exchange some pleasantries, touch hands, move even closer and then kiss softly, on the lips, when all of a sudden reality would rush its way back in, ending all tranquillity seemingly surrounding us moments before by way of loud music playing and a gang leader intervening, accompanied by a warning to stay away from his sister, and several gang members from both sides starting to involve themselves in the ensuing argument, an escalation of which was prevented when the leader of one of the gangs distracted his main opponent from having a go at one of us by proposing - as was the plan to begin with - a war council to decide on the conditions of one final rumble, a meeting to take place at the bar were we worked, functioning as neutral territory, a mere half hour later, an offer which the latter excepted, and all parties went their way

Chapter 3: Maria-America
and perhaps, walking from the party in the general direction of the bar were we were expected to work, we just could not forget that brief moment that we kissed each other and, as it seemed all too fitting for a person in love, we would start to sing a song expressing our newly found and by all means irrational enthusiasm and admiration for a human being (in short: love) for the largest part by repeating the - under these circumstances - most appropriate first name, and, in the heat of the moment, not so much worrying about more earthly things like the socio-economic status of immigrants in another country, like whether or not the amount and sort of opportunities their current habitat provides, or the lack thereof, makes their lives change either for the better or the worse when it comes to enjoying freedom, job opportunities and such and wether or not the local population is to be held accountable for their circumstances, a subject which is collectively tackled by one of the gangs in a song, while they seemingly had nothing better to do while waiting to go to the war council agreed upon earlier

Chapter 4: Tonight-Officer Krupke-I Feel Pretty
and then we saw each other at the fire stairs at the place where one of us lived and had a conversation mostly about yearning for each other’s company in different ways, while at the same time bringing attention to the fact that by association with our best friend and our brother we belonged to very hostile opposing camps indeed, a fact that would make our reciprocal devotion to the idea of us likely to be very much frowned upon by both camps, should they ever find out about it, and, after singing a song mainly about the question how it could have happenedthat our love had grown so big in such a short time that very night - in fact still not even half an hour had passed - reluctantly decided that the situation should therefore decidedly call for some secrecy for the time being, upon which we agreed to secretly meet the next day at the bridal shop just after sundown, to spend some more time being in love, said goodbye for the moment and saw one of us leave to go to the bar where we worked and knowing not of the fact that around the same time one of the gangs was already waiting in front of said bar, because that was where aforementioned war council was previously agreed to take place and, after one of the local police officers that intervened at the battle that took place earlier that day had passed by to threaten to take them in if they turned out to be up to no good, assuming that their passively hanging around the place was just meant to camouflage more devious schemes they might be plotting to pull as soon as he would leave them unattended and indeed, as soon as he did just that, started to sing a song in which they imitated said police officer, addressing such issues as a difficult childhood, psychological problems, drug abuse and socio-economic circumstances as contributing factors to their criminal behavior, and then proceeded to enter the bar, where the owner - a pacifist at heart - upon hearing about the meeting that was to take place at his workplace, expressed his concern about the violent ways in which youth like these preferred to settle their conflicting interests nowadays, instead opting for more peaceful routines, but did not find him a very receptive crowd, after which four members of the rival gang including perhaps our brother would enter the bar and, after a somewhat rough start of the meeting, with some reciprocal accusations and name calling, finally managed to agree on planning a rumble which was to take place the next day, after dark, under the highway, and just when they were arguing what were to be their weapons of choice, we might have just entered the bar to, upon hearing what the gangs were discussing, call everyone involved a coward, a qualification which we said would accurately describe a person that was afraid to fight using only the bare fist, without the use of potentially lethal weaponry, and which classification caused the decisionmakers involved to agree upon a fight without the use of weapons besides the naked fist, and right after that someone on the lookout whistled by way of alarming everyone present at the bar about the fact that the fact that a police inspector was about to enter the bar to put a bit of stick about should call for an immediate ending of the council, should they not want to rouse any suspicion, a gesture which was immediately followed up by all gang members present, suddenly pretending to be mingling between each other, acting as if friendly social conduct between both gangs was nothing out of the ordinary, a sight which the police inspector, having indeed entered the bar, was in no way fooled by, as he soon enough, right after one of the gangs left the place following his command to do so, expressed his suspicion that the only explanation why both gangs were all of a sudden occupying the same bar without any of their usual fighting could lie in the fact that they had just agreed to fight at some other time and place, and with that, started to inquire about the chronological and topographical aspects of the rumble agreed upon, in order to be able to get those involved arrested in time, should it take place, but alas, did not receive any of the information as requested, and proceeded to leave the bar, but not after some words of warning, after which the remaining gang also left the place, leaving only our employer, ourselves and the opportunity to suggest that we were in love with a girl belonging to their nemesis and that our intervention, resulting in the scaling down of the parameters of the rumble at hand by means of abstaining from the use of weapons, was meant to eventually function as a peacemaking offer of sorts, albeit not so much by preventing the use of any violence, but seen from a more realistic perspective, certainly by promoting a situation where there would be no permanent damage done by the use of mere fists, but nothing but some scratches and bruises that would heal in time, in which scenario it would still be fathomable that at some point in time both gangs would somehow find it in their hearts to make peace with each other and – on top of that - to accept and perhaps even celebrate our love, a thought which our employer deemed to be cute but naive, and we might have jumped ahead to a point in time close to sundown on the very next day and to a point in space where we would be working in the bridal shop, trying to hide the fact that we were unusually cheerful and sort of anxious, nervously anticipating the arrival of the one we loved at any moment, but failing to do so, upon which our colleagues present started to inquire about the cause of our deviant behavior, but they actually had already guessed that we were in love, and we could not help ourselves to not sing a song about how pretty we felt and confirm the suggestion that we were indeed smitten about someone, but without revealing the identity of the person being the object of our seemingly sudden desire

Chapter 5: One Hand, One Heart - Quintet -The Rumble
and when it was finally sundown and time to close up shop, our sister-in-law took the opportunity to casually inform us about the big gang fight that was also to take place around that time, of which we had no previous knowledge, and as we started to worry about our brother, who, being the leader of one of the gangs involved, was likely to have a prominent part in the rumble and therefore also carry a equally substantial risk of getting severely wounded or even killed, perhaps we also arrived at the bridal shop, as agreed upon after sundown, although the prolonged presence of our sister-in-law at the shop might not have been anticipated, but although she initially made some critical remarks about our involvement with the enemy, she agreed to not stand in the way of our love, should we be so foolish to actually pursue it, and departed from the shop, leaving only us, and although we might also assume that a bare knuckle fight was to be preferred to a fight with deadly weapons, we finally agreed that our love could only be saved if we managed to stop the fight from taking place at all and we would meet again right after we had ended the rumble and we subsequently meandered a bit on the various ways how our lives would most likely get intertwined in the future, meeting the parents and getting married, and we sang a song about it and left the shop, ebulliently looking forward to a life full of love together and naively unaware of the anticipations of the others involved, such as both gangs who were on their way to the place where they were about to fight their final rumble and both expecting to win it and our sister-in-law anticipating a night of making love to our brother when he would come home after the fight and we all sang a song about it, sort of simultaneously but from different places, and we might have arrived at the place under the highway, where both gangs would have already arrived and had already started to provoke each other and where the leader of one of the gangs was already on the verge of having a fist fight with a member of the enemy camp, just in time, before the fight actually started, upon which we urged all those present to refrain from fighting and offered to make peace, an offer that was refused firmly, as we were repeatedly being called a coward by refusing to fight, accompanied by chicken sounds, and as we were being provoked more and more and kept trying to remain cool and friendly, suddenly our best friend intervened and hit his opponent, causing a sudden escalation of the conflict, as both gang leaders promptly pulled out knives from hiding places in their back pockets and started to attack each other with them, while we made several efforts to stop the fight, being pulled back by other gang members and soon enough and from a powerless position, being held back, witnessing the lethal stabbing of our best friend by his opponent, and then managing to break loose, only to break our best friend’s final fall and notice him handing us his knife before passing away in our arms, an observation so instantanuously traumatic for us, that, in a moment of blind rage, it caused us to attack the killer of our now late friend and, by use of the knife now in our hand, to produce a lethal stabwound in his chest, causing him to collapse and make his way to a horizontal position on the ground, produce his last breath, and all gang members present and still alive, including ourselves, to cease all fighting and start fleeing the scene of the crime in blind panic with the sound of police sirens audibly moving closer

Chapter 6: Somewhere - Cool
and perhaps it was just really soon after that when we were waiting on the roof of our flat, anticipating a triumphant return of the one we loved after we had managed to put a halt to the fight, when it was unexpectedly our fiance who arrived at the scene first, looking all wretched as if he had been involved in some sort of fight and, after when asked accordingly, confirming that a fight did indeed took place and then continuing with the spontaneous informing of us about the fact that the one he, through things we had said, now understood was the object of our true love instead of him, had in fact killed our brother, a message that was met by us with initial disbelief, followed by sadness, praying and anger, and it may have been at that very moment that we entered the room and we had a very emotional conversation, expressing how sorry we were about the killing of our brother, debating whether or not to forgive and/or turn ourselves in to the police, realizing that we were still in love and singing a song about wishfully thinking that somewhere there would be a place for us, where we would never have to deal with all the misery that had come our way and could just go there and live freely and in peace forever, while around the same time one of the gangs, after having split up and having managed to shake off the police, frantically searching for the ones responsible for the two dead bodies lying under the highway, got together somewhere in a garage, debating their options, among them more drastic measures such as avenging their deceased leader or just running away, but after some convincing by one member who had taken it upon him to serve as a new leader of sorts and who started an accompanying song using finger snaps to be synchronized by the whole group, collectively decided on just playing it cool for now and trying not to give in to any urge to get violent or to start panicking or whatever, but following a slower and more constant pace in life trying to avoid any foreseeable and unforeseeable trouble, and, when one gang member arrived later to inform the rest about the rumor that maybe it was the case that our fiance was looking for us to have his revenge, carrying a firearm, presumably induced by anger caused not only by the killing of his leader by our own hands carrying a knife, but also because of our stealing from him the woman he was expected to marry in the near future, scattering out around the city in an urgent attempt to find us and protect us from the wrath of aforementioned fiance before he could bring himself in a position where he would be capable of pulling the trigger of said gun when pointed in our direction

Chapter 7: A Boy Like That - I Have A Love - Finale
and one possible place to go and look might have been our dwelling, where we both might have been lying in bed, plotting to vacate the premise as soon as reasonably possible, to make ourselves scarce and run away in search of merrier circumstances somewhere else on this silly planet, when perhaps our sister-in-law entered the room to see us running away and being halted on the street for a short moment by one gang member informing us about the currently existing risk of us becoming a victim of revenge by one rival in particular, and to realize that we were still in love despite the killing of the brother who was also her very lover, a notion that made her angrily start singing a song, in which she first accused us of pursuing a forbidden love, not just with someone from a rival gang, but also a killer, and then advised us to limit ourselves to socializing with people of our own ethnic group, for alternative life choices would only get us into serious jeopardy, a reasoning which we thought to be unsound, as it excluded the possibility of submitting oneself to feelings of true love, an act which we, perhaps naively but none the less sincerely believed would generally make everything better for everyone, and which counterargument, being communicated in a song, was strong enough to win our sister-in-law over, as deep in her heart she knew that we were all too right in wanting to follow our feelings blindly, as she had somewhat comparable feelings for the one she loved, who was our now deceased brother, and this loving occured despite all the things he did that she knew to be morally corrupt and which she was well aware could and would only hurt her in the end, at least according to her own theory which she had just brought forward, and to make her warn us about the fact that our fiance was plotting his revenge carrying a firearm, and it may have been around that very moment that the aforementioned police inspector, by now probably already on our trail specifically, entered the room to inquire if perhaps we might be able to inform him on the whereabouts of the suspected killer, which, as we surely did not want to admit to anything that could jeopardize our secret plan to run away together, brought us to the point where we managed to adroitly send our sister-in-law out of the house, pretending an excuse for her to go and fetch medicine for us against a feigned headache, while in fact with the true and sole purpose of the trip was for her to find the one we loved and perhaps inform him about our tardiness caused by abruptly being held by the police for inquiries, a task which she initially agreed to perform as requested, but which in fact and in the end may have resulted in her, after having gone to the aforementioned bar where we were assumed to be hiding downstairs and where she, upon entering, encountered the enemy camp, members of which tried to attack her and rape her, out of spite untruthfully shouting out that we had been killed by our own fiance for loving someone else than him, a lie that may subsequently have been passed on to us, which we mistakenly believed to be the truth and which caused us to enter a state of despair and start running through the streets while screaming urgent requests to the supposed killer of our loved one to lethally shoot us as well, as we, misguided by alternative facts, assumed we had no reason to carry on living any longer without the prospect of us staying together, which he finally does with a bullet fired from his gun, possibly at the exact moment that we saw each other alive and well and started running towards each other and ended up lying on the street, one dying and one crying and both trying to sing a last romantic song in a desperate attempt to celebrate life no matter what adversity it may bring and to hold on to it just a little longer, and, after us exhaling one very last time, us then taking the gun, accusing all living members of both gangs, arriving at the locus delicti after having heard the sound of the lethal shot, of a shared responsibility for the three deaths that the unfortunate chain of events as described before has included so far, an accusation which leads to all gang members present, upon collectively realizing that things indeed went a bit to far, to finally settle their differences and cooperate in carrying the deceased away from the premise, in sight of the police arriving to arrest the last living killer among those involved, and if my assumption is right, then you probably have no need for a more thorough introduction.

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released April 28, 2019

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narrominded Amsterdam, Netherlands

Narrominded is a Dutch record label. Since 2000 we release music on vinyl, cd, Bandcamp and all
other digital platforms via our digital distributor The State 51 Conspiracy by bands like Katadreuffe,
Life Savings, Boutros Bubba and Fine China Superbone,
electro-acoustic artists like Spoelstra, Glice, and Coen Oscar Polack, and electronic artists like Garçon Taupe, Hunter Complex and Hydrus.
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