Woah - Chapter one: Keanu Reeves Walks Into A Hotel Bar
A really stupid four-art tale
Part one of four. Heads up, if you haven’t seen the first John Wick movie, what’s wrong with you. Why would you waste your time reading my stupid thing when you could be watching that movie? But yeah, spoilers for the first and second John Wicks. Anyway, read it, or don’t, I don’t care.
Keanu Reeves walks into a hotel bar
Keanu Reeves walks into bar of the hotel an orders a chai latte because alcohol is for pussies as far as he’s concerned. The bartender isn’t sure if she can make chai latte, but she will try because he’s Keanue friggin Reeves.
Keanu Reeves sits at the bar in his grey suit, looking up at the muted TVs. ESPN is airing highlights from some sport he doesn’t care about. Some guy he doesn’t know is on some news channel he doesn’t watch. One of the late night Jimmy’s is talking to someone he’s never worked with. Keanu Reeves avoids eye contact, even after he hears it.
“Zazim,” the older voice exclaims. “Keanu Reeves! You’re Keanu Reeves!”
Out of the corner of his eye Keanu Reeves sees an older man wearing a Yarmukle and a Kittel. He has thin-rimmed glasses and a large beard wi-Oh my God he’s a rabbi. A rabbi is sitting next to Keanu Reeves.
“You’re really him,” the rabbi says. “You’re really Keanu Reeves!”
“Ya know,” Keanu Reeves begins. “You keep saying that. Now I’m not so sure I am.”
Keanu Reeves has spent years perfecting the art of bullshitting to dumb people who want to talk to him.
The rabbi laughs. “You’re a shtikelach aren’t you Mr. Reeves?” the rabbi says, raising his tea. “l’chayim to you!”
Keanu Reeves glances in his direction out of politeness and gives the rabbi a nod. Hopefully this will satisfy the rabbi’s desi-
“You’re a great leading man,” the rabbi exclaims. “I loved you in the Bill and Ted.”
“Thanks,” Keanu Reeves says.
“Be excellent to each other,” the rabbi gives a horrendous impression of Keanu Reeves’ character. “And party on dudes!”
“That is what my character said in that movie,” Keanu Reeves says.
“Oh and Speed!” the rabbi continues.
“I was in that,” Keanu Reeves states.
“There’s a bomb on this bus!” the rabbi imitates terribly.
“That was the plot of the film,” Keanu Reeves says.
“Of course most people just know you for The Matrix,” the rabbis states obtusely.
“That is sadly true,” Keanu Reeves states while feeling no sadness at all.
“But you know what my favorite movie you did was?” the rabbi asks.
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens?” Keanu Reeves asks, knowing full well that he was not in that movie.
“John Wick!” the rabbi exclaims.
The bartender places Keanu Reeves’ chai latte in front of him and Keanu Reeves nods his head at her in polite appreciation.
“I think that was Adam Driver,” Keanu Reeves says, knowing full well Adam Driver was actually in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
“Aha,” the rabbi laughs. “You’re meshuggeneh Mr. Reeves. John Wick was your best movie!”
“A lot of people would agree with you,” Keanu Reeves says.
“You wanna know why?” the rabbi asks.
Keanu Reeves does not want to know why.
“Not really,” Keanu Reeves says.
“Because it’s the perfect revenge story,” the rabbi exclaims. “I mean, really! The nerve of that oysvorf! What was his name? The one from the Game of Thrones?
The rabbi is referring to Emmy Award nominated actor Alfie Allen, who has appeared in multiple Oscar winning movies.
“Alfie Allen?” Keanu Reeves asks rhetorically.
“Theon Greyjoy!” the rabbi exclaims. Despite being a highly decorated actor Alfie Allen has been reduced to only being known for his role on Game of Thrones.
“Yeah,” Keanu Reeves says. “That’s definitely his name.”
“I mean,” the rabbi continues. “This schmuck breaks into John Wick’s house days after his wife dies. He kills the dog John Wick’s wife left him. He steals John Wick’s car, the only material possession he cares about. And he beats the drek out of John Wick!”
“You have described the first ten minutes of the first movie,” Keanu Reeves says.
“You see,” the rabbi rambles. “That’s the cardinal sin. To come into another persons home, to defile them, their loved ones and steal from them their possessions. To do all of this unprovoked, to commit these vile and awful deeds? This a sin against HaShem! As far as I’m concerned, John Wick is a hero for taking down all of those oysvorf!”
Keanu Reeves takes a sip of his chai latte. He has nothing to add to the rabbi’s declaration. Unbeknownst to him, however, the guy on the other side of the bar does.
“I have what the youth of today refer to as the hot take,” another older man to the left of Keanu Reeves says.
Keanu Reeves glances out of the side of his other eye. A dark skinned man with a long, thick beard wearing a turban wi-Sweet Jesus it’s an imam. There’s an imam drinking tea on the other side of the bar.
The rabbi spots him. His eyes narrow and he asks, “Oh yeah? What is that meyn freynd?”
Keanu Reeves goes back to watching the muted TVs, not wanting any part of whatever bull shit was about to go down.
“I believe John Wick was the real villain of the movie,” the imam says confidently.
The rabbi scoffs. “John Wick?!” he asks in astonishment. “The villain!? It’s his movie! What are you talking about!?”
The imam sips his tea. The rabbi looks at him incredulously. Keanu Reeves asks himself why the fuck he doesn’t just leave before remembering his room isn’t ready yet or something like that.
“Naeam,” the imam says. “What the Theon Greyjoy did may have been wrong in some ways, but why did he do it in the first place? John Wick was disrespectful to him prior to that. He felt the need to defend the honor of his family and his people.”
“Kah!” the rabbi scoffs again. “Disrespect!? The Theon Greyjoy insulted John Wick! John Wick insulted him back, an eye for an eye until the Theon Greyjoy decided to take a dog and a car, too.”
“Tamaam,” the imam allows. “Maybe so. But really think about what John Wick’s revenge was? Yes, the Grey boy take his car and is killing the dog. Wrong, perhaps, but what is John Wick’s response to this? To go on a murderous killing spree. Do you know how many people John Wick kills over this sakhif dog and car? Seventy-seven! Seventy-seven people die! The movie is only 141 minutes long!”
“And that’s including credits,” Keanu Reeves says for some reason.
“That’s a kill every two minutes!” the imam shouts. “There isn’t even any killing the first 10 minutes so really it’s even more! Does the lives of seventy-seven men in exchange for one car and one dog really seem justified to you?”
The rabbi waves his hand at the imam as Keanu Reeves changes his mind and orders a a glass of whisky. Pussy or no, he’ll need it to get through this, he can already tell.
“The first batch of people all came after him first,” the rabbi explains.
“But the next batch are at the club,” the imam counters.
“John Wick only wanted the Theon Gay Boy,” the rabbi says. “If those people had just released the Gay Boy, they wouldn’t have been harmed.”
The imam scoffs. “Ah naem,” he says. “Collateral damage. An acceptable loss for John Wick’s one mission, yes?”
“That’s right,” the rabbi says. “The Play Toy’s father should’ve just given him up if he didn’t want to suffer the consequences of John Wick’s wrath.”
“The Gay Joy was his son!” the imam shouts as Keanu Reeves sips his tea. “And most of the men were just doing their job, protecting the family! Most of them were just going into work, thinking it would be another day at the office. ‘Oh, hello Sergei, how are the wife and the kids? Couples counseling working out?’ And then, BOOM! Killed by John Wick, no more couples counseling just because they went into work that day.”
The rabbi leans back in disgust. “John Wick did not want to kill anyone,” the rabbi says. “He took many dangerous steps to get out of the life and achieve peace. Only once his wife and all that reminded him of her were gone, only then did he go to such lengths."
“You also can’t be sure he would’ve done anything if they hadn’t sent that batch of assassins to finish the job,” Keanu Reeves says before asking himself why the fuck he was pointing that out.
“Those men were just doing what they thought was right,” the imam says. “It was nothing so personal.”
“Tell that to the farsholtn dog!” the rabbi shouts.
A snobby white girl who never had to take out student loans raises her glass in approval at the rabbi’s statement on his end of the bar. “Free the dogs!” she shouts drunkenly, to which no one listens.
“You really think John Wick cared about the dog?” the imam asks sarcastically.
“Of course,” the rabbi says. “John Wick even said the dog symbolized a glimpse of hope in the darkness after his wife died. When Pee On Gay Joy killed the dog, he snuffed out that last remaining light.
“Then why did he treat the second dog so poor?” the imam asks.
“Huh?” the rabbi asks, confused.
“He gets a new dog at the end of the movie,” Keanu Reeves explains while simultaneously deciding to stay at a Hilton next time.
“Naem,” the imam says raising his teacup. “And in the second movie, he doesn’t even give it a name, despite being asked multiple times by the man from The Wire if he has a name.”
“Apparently Lance Reddick doesn’t have a name either,” Keanu Reeves says, sipping his whisky before pouring some out for the deceased actor.
“He leaves the dog with The Wire the whole movie,” the imam says. He doesn’t care about the car either.”
“How can you say such a thing?” the rabbi asks.
“At the end of the first movie he doesn’t even get the car back,” the imam says. “In the beginning of the second movie, the uncle of Gay Boy and brother of the bad guy from John Wick is in the beginning. What was his name, the one in the Armageddon?”
“Acclaimed actor Peter Stormare,” Keanu Reeves says.
“I’ll just call him Fargo,” the imam says. “He was in Fargo too.”
Keanu reeves slides his glass to the end of the bar and instead takes the entire bottle of whisky from behind the bar to drink.
“Fargo says in the beginning of the second film ‘He killed my nephew and brother over a car and a fuckin’ puppy,’” the imam says. “Even Fargo knew it was not equal justice.”
A stupid lesbian that somehow made it into college at the imam’s end of the bar raises her glass to this statement. “John Wick is a colonizer!” she shouts, to which no one listens.
“Moreover,” the imam begins. “He totals the car in the first ten minutes of the second movie. He was too busy killing people with the car the first ten minutes to even notice what he was doing to the car!”
“He wanted the card with his wife’s picture in the glove compartment,” Keanu Reeves points out. He doesn’t care about this argument, but he cares about the facts.
“Even Luigi from the Super Mario movie said he didn’t care about the car,” the imam says. The imam doesn’t care about facts, like the fact that John Leguizamo has a name. “He says, ‘John I thought you loved this car.’ He totaled it, gave it to Luigi and then forgot about it the rest of the movie.”
The rabbi stares at the imam for a moment.
“I didn’t see the second one,” the rabbi says. “The only Jews in the movie worked in a bank and I found that very offensive.”
The imam nods. “Didn’t see any arabs in that one either,” he observes.
“You should really do something about that in the third one,” the rabbi says to Keanu Reeves.
“We already made a third one,” Keanu Reeves says. “And a fourth one.”
The rabbi doesn’t care about facts either.
“He just wanted to kill for the sake of killing,” the imam says. “He wanted to erase the Russians from existence.”
The rabbi scoffed again.
“Oh please,” the rabbi begins. “He was going to leave Play Toy’s father and his organization alone. John Wick would’ve spared the girl from the Friday Night Lights and the All-State man if the villain hadn’t killed the Green Goblin.”
“Adrianne Palicki, Dean Winters and four-time fucking Academy Award nominee Willem Dafoe,” Keanu Reeves sighs.
“John Wick would’ve left it alone,” the rabbi bulldozes along. “He would’ve gone back home and left it all alone if the Russians hadn’t killed another one of his. Like the Martha Stewart said, you put one of his in the hospital, he puts six of yours in the morgue.”
“Everything about that sentence was wrong,” Keanu Reeves says before chugging whisky.
“Gone back to his home?” the imam asks rhetorically. “The home that really belonged to the Russians if you think about it. They provided him the money for all those years of service. They cultivated it, brought it into existence really, only for him to say it’s his home when they need something.”
“Oh don’t you start with that kaka” the rabbi says.
“Oh my God,” Keanu Reeves starts. “Shut the fuck up!!”
For once, the rabbi and the imam listen. John Wick just told them to shut up, so to avoid ending up like Ruby Rose and Common in the second movie, they do so. After a prolonged silence, Keanu Reeves feels the argument is finally ov-
“Perhaps in someways John Wick is a hero,” the imam says. “I mean, that was an enormous empire he went up against. He did just want to be free from their control. He wanted out of their way of life permanently. He wanted to live his own life in freedom, and so he was willing to sacrifice what little he had, going up as a one-man army against an oppressive legion that was better armed and fortified than him. He didn’t let that stop him from fighting for his own sort of freedom, no matter who stood in his way. In that sense, John Wick was a true hero.”
Another long silence passes. The rabbi stares intently at the imam. He leans in slowly after a near minute of contemplation and reflection. He then declares to the imam.
“John Wick was a kakesaker,” the rabbis says bitterly.
“Oh come on now!” the imam shouts, rising from his seat. The stupid lesbian runs away from the bar now that there’s actual stakes.
“You want to bring our ancestors into this!?” the rabbi shouts as the spoiled white girl runs back to her penthouse suite.
Keanu Reeves throws his chair back and sticks his hands between the two.
“Woah,” he mumbles. “Let’s cool it. Surely there’s something you can both agree on here. Maybe not about the movie, but maybe, I don’t know, your favorite color?”
“White,” the rabbis says.
“Black!” the imam shouts.
“Alright,” Keanu Reeves sighs. “Favorite food?”
“Pork,” the imam says with a smirk.
“Beef,” the rabbi says with a smirk of his own.
“Okay,” Keanu Reeves shouts. “Fine! Favorite state!?”
“New York is the best,” the rabbi says quickly.
“California is the best!” the imam shouts.
“Can’t you just compromise!?” Keanu Reeves shouts. “Why don’t you say they’re both equally great!? You can have two favorite states! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with two states!”
The imam and the rabbi stare at Keanu Reeves for a long time. They then exchange a glance. They both nod at each other, knowingly. Keanu Reeves was right, there’s one thing that both the imam and rabbi could agree on now.
Keanu Reeves must die tonight.