Biography

[heredity]

There's a reception
Goin' on downstairs
Sit back and watch the fun begin
Come one, come all
To the mourner's ball
It costs you seven "I'm so sorry"s to get in

Above the party games
You hear them speak
Of how the future's at the door
They're hot to win
To give the bottle spin


[When his father dies underneath his mistress on the eve of becoming the leader of the free world, nineteen-year-old Cal Chandler lets himself think for a minute that the future's still his own to decide. That is until his mother, Violet (a high-strung cross between Nancy Reagan and Cruella Deville), announces that the campaign's nowhere near done.

It's mine, Grahame, it's mine.
One way, or another.
If I can't be the wife of the president, you can bet your ass
I'll be his mother.

With the help of the brains behind his father's rise to power - Reed Chandler's crippled brother, Cal's Uncle Grahame - the boy is groomed for political ascendance. First he's sent to war, returning with a purple heart and his ears ringing from a mine blast.

Then he's married to the perfect woman. Deborah the Debutante, a show pony in human form, and with about as much to say for herself.

Does she talk?
-Yes, but she never says anything. That's the beauty of it.

The next step? Getting a drop-out kid elected to city council.

And what does the city council do?
- Surprisingly little. Normally there wouldn't be that much attention paid to this race, but we have something leaning in our favor.
My last name.

Primed with political rhetoric and toured until he's exhausted, Cal wins the council race aged 23, with a series of flawlessly choreographed speeches. Oh, he can read the autocue like a pro.

But, energy already wearing thin, Cal seeks the aid of Peter, his bodyguard/babysitter for a way to stay awake. The white powder works beautifully, and the stripper he meets in the gangland club where he gets his fix is even better. Until some salacious pictures leak and Uncle Grahame's forced to pay off the local mob boss with promises of political favors to have them covered up. Along with the photographer, in a crime scene white cloth.

As the drugs and the distractions take hold, Cal's public performances begin to slip. Until he snaps under questioning:

--Just fuck it, okay!

Live on national TV, it could be the end of a brief but glittering career. But Cal breaks with the script to level with his public:

What's in your eyes?
There's something scandalous here.
What will you say?
'We heard the councilman curse'.
I'm sure you've heard it before,
and will a million times more.
And used it yourself,
Along with some that are worse.

I meant fuck.
So I said 'fuck'.
That's what I do,
I shoot straight from the hip.
I rock the boat and tip over the scales.
So don't act impressed,
give the manners a rest,
ask what you want and I'll tell you no tales.

Double talk, political rhetoric,
It's for the birds.
Me, I'm just a simple man,
With simple words.

Cal saves his reputation by aligning himself with the common man, and his reputation swings quickly from loose wire to political genius. But the display leaves Grahame furious, and Cal's instructed by Violet to do 'whatever it takes' to keep his uncle happy.

Cal makes good on this by toying with Grahame's reluctant lust for him, making advances he never quite follows through with, just enough to keep his uncle 'happy'.

Almost without trying for it, the Governor's race is run and it's Calvin Chandler who's moving into the mansion.

And Cal's habit deepens. He sets up a private apartment to house Tina - the nightclub stripper who has become his heroin supplier - and to escape his family. It's not long, though, before Tina sees that Cal needs the fix more than he needs her. She leaves him alone.

Grahame and Violet reminisce about old times when Grahame and his brother were just two guys at Harvard dating the same girl.

Two guys at Harvard,
Oh what a pair.
Grahame had the smarts,
Reed had fabulous hair.

It becomes apparent that Cal takes after his father, and that Violet wasn't the only one of the threesome in love with Reed. When Grahame sees Cal, he sees a forbidden love.

(But Violet had her own secrets - an affair with a notorious criminal who went to to chair. She was pregnant as they threw the switch on her insane lover.)

And Cal's breaking apart under the influence of his many addictions. Yes, it's evident that he takes after his father.

Questionable blood, Violet. Questionable paternity.

Cal stops showing for speeches. He's involved in a car accident that makes headlines, and his association with mob bosses makes him an enemy of the District Attorney. Those flawless speeches just won't come back to a broken mind.

Violet cleans house and has Cal put under house arrest until the drugs lose their hold on him, and Grahame confronts Tina when she comes to ask Cal to take her back - flying into a jealous, spiteful rage as he throws her out of the mansion.

Have her tossed out on her well-used backside.

Unable to cope with going cold-turkey, Cal finally seduces and sexually manipulates his uncle to get his own way. Finally, the balance of control shifts in Cal's favor.

You've got to see things my way, Uncle Grahame - it helps.
How can I convince you?
Can you ever be persuaded
Or be made
To understand?

Look, it keeps me focused
Helps me sense the competition
Gives me...dare I say?
The upper hand?

To use your words...

How can I describe it?
Could I ever do it justice?
Make you know
How I feel?

How the heart starts beating faster
Till the limbs grow warm and steady
Red as fire
Hard as steel

There...
Hard as steel

And there...
Hard as steel
And there...

Is there something wrong, Uncle Grahame?

Mercy...

What was that?
Did I hear that word from you?
You who used, who trained, restrained,
Controlled me?

Mercy...

So it was
Well, this changes things, you know
Weren't you, after all
The one who told me -

"Keep 'em jumping right on cue
Your clientele?"
"See that things progress as planned?"
"Make 'em lift their eyes to you?"
You taught me well
"Gotta keep the upper hand!"

And it's a journey all too quick
From the golden boy to the old and sick
From the luminary to the lunatic
And the diff'rence is
You surely understand -

Sweet Jesus, how you understand -

The upper hand

That's the game...

How absurd...

What a shame...

Yes, "shame"'s the word...
...Make 'em lift their eyes to you...

But Cal's broken by the lies, and the drugs. By his mother. He makes his own decision to clean up his act and denounces the mobsters he's been dealing with at his next public address. Oh, and he'll be quitting politics, too.

Or he would, if he wasn't gunned down that evening at his own birthday party. Tina, having betrayed Cal to the mob and lured him out of the party, dies in a hail of bullets at his side.

There's a grand funeral, where the press focus on the image of Cal's infant son crying a single, perfect tear. And Violet Chandler's campaign isn't over: it's just getting started.

Surely there's another Chandler waiting in the wings...]