Nobody's Perfect

Yaddo 100 + more

(Some people were missing from this picture)

Yaddo hosted its first residency on June 7, 1926 with painter Ursula Whitlock from NYC and writer Joseph K. Hart from Madison, WI. I happen to be on residency at Yaddo on June 7, 2026, one hundred years later with a magical group of creatives. Happy 100 to Yaddo and all the mighty creators who came here to crush imposter syndrome, wrestle demons, experiment, excavate emotional truths, shape their souls, fail hard and make art.

June 7^th is also Prince’s birthday who was born in 1958 and gave the world so much great music and songs. RIP.

Me, Whitney and Onur at Pinky Swear.

Filmmaker, cartoonist/artist & songwriter Onur Tukel hosts a monthly salon at Pinky Swear, and he invited me, Whitney Matheson (who’s short story collection THE FEELING inspired the salon), and others to divine scenes to be performed by actors. My scene, “Nobody’s Perfect,” was performed by Jamie Block and Kristin Noriega, and I wanted to share the script with you here.

A few years ago I wrote a weird screenplay about siblings named Stella and Carl, and it didn’t really work like how I wanted it to. When Onur invited me to contribute to his salon, I decided to cobble together a few ideas and revisit the siblings to see if I can tackle their story a different way.

Enjoy this brief, light-hearted scene.

NOBODY’S PERFECT
Written by Dean Haspiel
Copyright 2026

INT. MOVIE THEATER - DAY

Siblings Stella and Carl wait for a movie to start while discussing film.

STELLA
--but a horror movie isn’t supposed
to be funny. That’s why it’s a
horror movie. You go to get scared.
If you want to laugh, watch a
comedy.

CARL
Why limit genres to their basic
tenets?

STELLA
Name one horror movie that makes
you laugh -- on purpose.

CARL
“Abbott & Costello meet
Frankenstein.” The perfect
intersection of humor and horror.

STELLA
“Abbott & Costello meet
Frankenstein?” Isn’t that a
stretch?

CARL
“Get Out.”

STELLA
You get out.

CARL
No. “Get Out” the movie by Jordan
Peele. It’s both funny AND scary.

STELLA
That movie spooked the hell outta
me. But, I’ll admit, it made me
laugh out loud, too.

CARL
Hitchcock did it. The Coen Brothers
do it. Tarantino does it but he’s
gone next level.

STELLA
Next level? How?

CARL
Have you seen INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
or ONCE UPON A TIME...IN HOLLYWOOD?

STELLA
Not yet.

CARL
Tarantino has this trick up his
sleeve where he takes real stories,
real people, and fictionalizes a
new reality.

STELLA
He’s doing science-fiction now?

CARL
Not exactly. I won’t spoil it for
you but ONCE UPON A TIME...IN
HOLLYWOOD is Tarantino’s love
letter to the end of a certain era
of motion pictures. He makes you
wonder what it would have been like
had Sharon Tate lived to make more
cinema.

STELLA
The power of imagination. Remember
what dad used to say about
midnight?

CARL
No.

STELLA
Dad would claim, “There are things
you would never ever consider doing-
-”

CARL
“--before midnight.” I do remember
that. What did he mean by that?

STELLA
He meant, there are things you ARE
willing to do AFTER midnight!

CARL
Well, that explains a lot.

STELLA
All that trouble he would get into
in the wee hours. I admired his
desire for adventure.

CARL
Hate to break it to you but Dad was
probably a criminal.

STELLA
Nobody’s perfect.

CARL
“Some Like It Hot.”

STELLA
Excuse me?

CARL
“Nobody’s perfect” is the last line
in Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It
Hot,” starring Marilyn Monroe, Jack
Lemmon and Tony Curtis.

STELLA
Isn’t that a crime noir that’s also
a comedy?

CARL
And a musical. It’s about two male
musicians on the run from mobsters
after witnessing a massacre. They
dress up like women to hide out in
an all girl band.

STELLA
I’ve gotta see that one!

CARL
Spoiler! A millionaire falls in
love with Jack Lemmon’s female
incarnation who has to finally
admit he can’t birth children. That
he, in fact, is a man. The
millionaire smiles and says
“Nobody’s perfect.”

STELLA
Adorable. Did you hear about that
dude who married a fictional
character?

CARL
Say what?

STELLA
People who date fictional
characters are called fictosexuals.

CARL
Ficto...sexuals? They fuck fiction?
How does that work?

STELLA
I’m not sure but the dude was
married to a real woman and then he
fell in love with a drawing of a
woman. Left his wife for a cartoon
character.

CARL
When I was thirteen, I had such a
major crush on Wonder Woman that I
married her...in my mind.

STELLA
The comic book or the movie?

CARL
The TV show.

STELLA
You didn’t fall in love with Wonder
Woman. You fell in love with Lynda
Carter. WE ALL DID.

CARL
Semantics!

STELLA
Could you imagine a world where
Lynda Carter and a still alive
Sharon Tate are in a TV show,
kicking ass and taking names?

CARL
You’ve just described my safe
space.

STELLA
But safe spaces can be dangerous.
Everyone hiding out like Jack
Lemmon and Tony Curtis.

CARL
There was this guy who used to roll
himself up in a large rug and plop
himself on street corners and get
stepped on by a thousand feet.

STELLA
That can’t be real.

CARL
I swear! It happened to me! A giant
rug was in my path. So, I stepped
on it and BOOM – a guy exploded out
of the rug and started screaming
like a wild banshee. Gave me a
heart attack.

STELLA
You gotta admire a person who knows
what they want. Takes the rules and
bends them towards their will. Just
like dad.

CARL
And Quentin Tarantino.

STELLA
Nobody’s perfect.

LIGHTS OUT

##

See you in the gutters—

—Dean

Instagram / Etsy / VITO x DINO