ALEJANDRO & ME: FAIR FEW

 

Alejandro: all the people around me are experiencing a RENAISSANCE in their lives at this time, for some reason 2025 is the year of REBIRTH, except for me. makes me sick.

me: yeah but you know what they say about life, it's all about timing. your time will come.

Alejandro: or maybe my time has already passed me by.

me: and just take an acid pill for your sickness. 

Alejandro: we've got to come up with a way to make money. there's a counting contest at Safeway this morning, get out of your pajamas.

me: it's Safeway, wouldn't it be cooler if i went to the grocery store IN my pajamas?

Alejandro: it would certainly be more Carmel.  

the two of us gait through the many water terraces of the gated community to our shortbus.

Alejandro: and bananas.

me: what?

Alejandro: that's a Safeway inside joke.

Larry at Safeway: sorry, man, you only get one guess. how many Tootsie Roll Pops in a bag?

Alejandro: um.........15?

Larry: you lose, get back to work. in the hell that is Safeway.

Alejandro: where the fuck were you? i coulda used your help here.

me: oh, sorry, i didn't know which pajamas to wear, the midnight-blue pajamas or the Vaporwave-purple pajamas.

Larry: always go with the white pajamas, that's the most mental-patient pajamas.

Alejandro: how many Tootsie Roll Pops in a bag?

me: 17. easy. candy is the only food i eat.

Capp: it's over from the start/ you go on to do some cool art/ but it's over from the start

Muriel's Wedding.

Muriel trying on wedding dresses: i want to look like HER!!!

shopwoman: this dress?

Muriel: no the mannequin, i want to look like a stern Joan Collins.

manageress: long for housewife...

Muriel: use my phone for the wedding selfie. i always carry a white tulip in my butt-pocket.

mom: omg remember photo albums in the '80s? 4 Polaroid picture squares to each page, then cover the page with a clear film over the squares...

Rhonda: why do you cook, clean, and dress me?

Muriel: because i now have a purpose, not a porpoise. not a Porpoise Spit. i don't need to listen to music anymore!!!

Takahashi: now that is HARDCORE, it's not just a VHS video store, it's a VHS video store on the streets, downtown, in the GHETTO.

Muriel: rent me, i dare ya.

autograph kid: can i have your autograph? you're Bill the Battler, the famous baseball player...

Muriel: i work in the streets. actually if you're on the streets you're not on the streets, you're on the sidewalk.

Leagues Club: remember when NATO was a harmless organization that quietly kept the world safe?...

Deidre Chambers: it was lucky that i happened to be single...

Muriel: are you He-Man's son?

Van Arkle: i don't like girls, i like DESTROYING the Americans in swimming laps. 

coach: the Black/White civil war in South Africa is funny in a way. 

Muriel: i stick my tongue out at you because i want Albert Einstein to be my real father.

James Dean: i'm in your bathroom.

Rhonda: i don't want to be seen in a wheelchair, i want to be seen...

a monk in a wheelchair: i'd like to join the monastery...

Rhonda: i had cancer, i'm not dead but i have no life now.

Jen R: i feel bad for Brice Nobes. Brice Nobes got the short end of the stick in this movie. what did this movie ever do to Brice Nobes?

Brice Nobes: why was i invited to this wedding? this is painful for me to watch. why didn't Muriel end up with me? it would have been a cleaner break from her family. oh well, at least this church scene will make a good VHS...

monsignor: our church aisle is the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Jen R: a priest with an Australian accent is weird...

Sydney 2000 in 1994: we Australians REALLY get excited for the Olympics...

Jen R: FIRST-EVER bride/groom kiss on the cheek at any wedding...

Jen R: that is COLD AS FUCK, to not notice your own mother at your wedding. and i thought the Harold and Maude wedding was rough...

we'll push her around: both meanings, clever writing there, script, well done.

Muriel: your parents didn't come to the wedding.

Van Arkle: my parents are in the movie District 9 right now...

store detective: i'm like Inspector Gadget. i've only ever caught one criminal: Winona Ryder.

Muriel's mum: it's not Muriel's fault, the shoplifting gene runs in the family.

Jen R: yeah, sex right after a crying jag is awkward at best.

Jen R: gotta love the motel beds with the radio-dial knobs on the headboard.

dad: 14 votes and i coulda been somebody.

Muriel: everyone on our neighborhood street voted against you...

Muriel: look on the bright side, dad, you're now free to marry Chook at the raffle.

Jen R: so the Muriel's Wedding sequel should be a sitcom on TV called You're Terrible, Muriel: Muriel and Rhonda roommates in the big city navigating Sydney's ups and downs one wheelchair ramp at a time.

Carol Brady: that's the thing with Muriel's mom tho, ALL housewives feel like this...

salt on a Safeway shelf: use me ONLY on eggs...

Talia: get pet.

Jen R: "i'll take care of it" is the most comforting text your spouse can send you.

me: in OUR marriage, YOU would have to take care of everything...

Boc: it's the walking, or it's my anger...

Joe Gitter: run the pappardelle through the pasta press cranking the crank like a motherfucker. dust the pappardelle with flour like it was the slapper you were with last night.

Bridget Lancaster: Joe, this is PBS.

Joe: right, sorry. fold the pasta up so it looks like a business letter.

Bridget: oh Joe Gitter, you are so magical. it's like you're making pasta for The Beatles.

Joe: we Brits say the word pasta with a Brooklyn accent...

Boc: walk at 10 AM, the dog-owners are at work by then...

Alejandro is in his room at the gated garden community at 8 PM with the light on. scribbling feverishly with a sketch pencil on sheaves of paper.

me: burning the 8 PM oil?

Alejandro: how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?

me: 17.

Alejandro: i'm trying to anticipate what the next Safeway counting contest is gonna be.

me: how many holes in a donut.

Alejandro: can you help me out here?

me: can't. 8 PM is my bedtime.

Alejandro: what? why? why are you a 7-year-old kid again? why have you reverted? and they call ME an adult kid.

me: because i JUST KNOW that i'm gonna get WOKEN UP in the middle of the night!!!...

 

ALEJANDRO & ME: A ROOMMATE FOR A LONER

 

Alejandro gives me a BIG HUG when i enter the Safeway. by the grapes.

Alejandro: hi Pat.

me: i love you, man. i really mean it this time. you're my only non-family touch.

Alejandro: Contact ain't just a Ron Howard movie. hey.........look, i know you don't do this but don't judge me by my Sesame Street voice and developmental disabilities, i'm smarter than you.

me: no argument here, i'm more messed up than you'll ever get to. i banged my head on the icebox fetching corndogs, on top of everything else i got a new concussion...

Alejandro: THWACK.

Larry from Safeway: HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY midnight-blue corduroy jacket for me, only a tall man can pull off this Tower of Nice presence. i'm a taller groovier Lando Calrissian. you have to be 7-foot and not play basketball like me...

Larry to Alejandro: hey man, do your clearances. roly-poly around the aisles.

Alejandro: i know. yeah whatever. wanna help?

me: i've never had a job.

Alejandro: it's easy. just wait until the carbonated lemonade is flat which is now. see those glass cases with a padlock?

me: padlocks are so '80s.

Alejandro: we got acid pills, acid stamps, and WHOOPS i dropped the acid. can you pick it up for me?

BombPoppie: spotted dick...

mom: hey does this AZO really work for incontinence?.........it can't be that easy, can it?...

cipollini onion: the Uzumaki snail people were the real people...

Alejandro: it's almost summer so we put surfboards on top of the shelves now.

foamie: surfboard, not soap.

Madame Pons: ...

Melissa Maker: it melts in your hand.

Chad: it melted in her hand...

Jen R to Capp: not even your artist friends understand your pain.

the 6 PM hour: mail, dishes, vacuuming the treehouse.

Jen R: shaking hands at the end of a date is weird...

Lume Lady: the vagina is the eyebulb. it never stops, folks, it never stops.

Nail: i'm the Shikamaru of Namek...

Carlos Alcaraz: no i play soccer. Tijuana DOES have a soccer team!!! i read the bible on the subject as a kid.

me: WOW!!! you live in a PLANTED PARADISE!!! a gated garden community complete with waterfall!!!

Alejandro: yeah the shortbus takes me here from there and back for work. it's a block away. don't touch anything here or you'll have to sign the lease. there are perks to being different.

me: working at a supermarket must be so cool.

Alejandro: are you fucking kidding me? it's a nightmare. all day i'm SURROUNDED BY FOOD, i can't eat food anymore. and they make you eat the food.

me: what do you mean?

Alejandro: they make you EAT ALL THE FOOD in a Safeway. 

me: so what do you do for your lunch hour?

Alejandro: you gotta eat somewhere ELSE. never eat where you shit which is where you work.

Muriel's Wedding.

Shirley Valentine: Muriel is me in my 20s...

Chook: all surfers either sound like Spicoli or they speak Australian. i've taken a liking to that barbie over there who looks like Princess Di...

Muriel: i've never had a boyfriend.

me: i am the male Muriel. except i was into Ace of Base. i've never had a girlfriend. all i want out of life is to get married. and i am nothing.

man with nose: i'm Lady Elaine Fairchilde as a man.

Jen R: living in Australia must be so exotic.

me: yeah.

Jen R: cricket is their Super Bowl. right next to Indonesia so you're always spicy. living out the Neighbours storylines in real life.

at Outback Steakhouse. 

postal vote: it used to be so easy...

father: no-hopers the lot of ya. why did i have a family?.........well fuck, it's too late now...

at Islands underwater restaurant.

Kelly from Saved by the Bell: there was lipstick on his cock when i blew him, but he couldn't get it up, which makes no sense...

me: this savior woman is making me cry, she swoops in from the heavens, sticks it to the bullies, and embraces no-hoper Muriel as her bezzer.

Jen R: and she looks like Jane from Daria.

Jen R: calling it now, Muriel marries Rhonda in the end...

me: GOOD FOR YOU, MURIEL!!! LEAVE YOUR FAMILY ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!

Jen R: that's your dream.

Stableyard Grove: the Princess Diana Wedding Dress is still there...

date dancing: i've just invented pogoing...

me: Muriel's butt is a work of cinematic art. 

Jen R: in those tight black vinyl butt-pants with the vinyl buttcheek zippers.

Muriel: i have an infectious squealing laugh.

Rhonda: great, the American sailors fucked me so hard i became a paraplegic. that is so America, that is just like America, America never knows when to quit, America always takes things too far...

me: promise you'll always be by my side forever the rest of our lives.

Jen R: no matter who's in the wheelchair...

Matteo Arnaldi: if Andy Roddick had continued on the ATP Tour and never married...

Premier League: wait is one of the soccer mascots Satan?...

Rebecca Lowe: it's Derby but i pronounce it Darby.

Robbie Earle: Becks, i agree.

Rebecca Lowe: stop calling me Becks, i know you want to fuck me.

Cecily Strong: i'm gonna be at SNL 50 9-months-pregnant.........with Charles Rocket's baby...

Suzy Lu: the way i say the word horrendous is magnificent...

The Big O: i love that CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK of old '80s car turn-signals.

JFKmart: the bankruptcy files are still secret...

me: want me to send you more fries?

BombPoppie: i'm good on the fries. no more fries. the Instagram pics of fries. now if you send me actual fries that are food...

John Mulaney: i was talking about Steven Seagal...

Steven Seagal: the only thing i murdered was the SNL script. and my dignity. and my career. and my haircut. and Russian/American relations for the next century. i'm teaching Putin martial arts so he can defend himself against Finland.

me: can i stay with you here?

Alejandro: .........really shouldn't.........really would be a bad idea but.........fine okay. i have no family so as my friend you're my family. what do you do for money?

me: what's money?

Alejandro: rent, do you sing?

me: if i sang i wouldn't be blogging right now.

at the Subway next to Safeway.

Alejandro: Subway, Safeway, get it?

me: can you be hungry and disgusted at the same time?

Alejandro to the cute countergirl: oh COME ON, sugarlips!!! let me taste your meat.

the girl hands him a sliver of her roast beef.

Alejandro: this tastes EXACTLY like the murphy sauce from Safeway!!!

girl: yeah, we get the sauce from Safeway, what did you expect? Safeway is a block away from here...

Alejandro: and another thing!!! the Oreo Footlong?!!! that is HORRENDOUS. come on, sugarlips, not EVERYTHING is meant to be a sandwich!!!

 

WILD SWIMMING: AIR OF DESPAIR

 

Jules Smith: Melissa Maker lives here now.

me: GET OUT!!! that's me doing my best Elaine Benes.

Jules: after the divorce and everything.

Melissa lives on a sprawling estate bigger than the village.

Jules: so.........it's a delicate question. how are you doing? are you in doldrums distress or are you freer than you've ever been?

Melissa Maker: this is just another day where i can post memes. have you seen the new dishwasher detergent discs?

Jules: dear don't bury yourself in your work, that never works.

Melissa: do you think if i were a Triple D?...nevermind, the disc is light to the touch, GLIDES in the palm of your hand, SLINKS in and out like a fuzzy mustard-yellow caterpillar, slithers to the smell, not the hard rock of concentrate you're used to.

David Lynch: it's like my movie i never got to make: Slinkycat...

Melissa: so you know the tradition Chad and i had, Chad kept the first box of stale taco shells he ever bought us as a family in the deep corner of the cupboard. well it's time for new traditions, new life, new light.

Cyr: new lightwork.

Melissa: i'm trying taco rice for the first time.........i'm dating Pharrell...

Melissa Maker: i have a taco truck parked on the lawn inside my property...

at the log-cabin winter lodge.

Capp, crying: there is no cure for my depression. YOU are the cure for my depression.

Capp hugs Jen R.

Jen R: get that wind shit outta here, the two of us are having a moment.

Generator Rex: Invincible in 8th Grade...

Instagram: read 4 minutes ago...

Dirg: oh, so THAT's why you haven't been on Instagram in a long time.........you're in Ukraine...

Dirg: you seem to be better now on Instagram, FOR YEARS all you posted were videos of you crying...

Breezy Johnson: sorry but Breezy Johnson is a cooler name than Lindsey Vonn.

Lindsey Vonn: i'm still friends with Picabo Street so fuck you.

Jules Smith: Juelz Santana is my son.

Pat Sajak in a Tommy Bahama shirt, 10:30 AM: i mean being a gameshow host is dream enough, but when Wheel of Fortune goes on location to Hawaii...

Jules Smith and i are inside her house on her bed, clothed.

Jules Smith: cottage comforter, the blanket, which way should the tag face?

me: bottom left corner. when i'm lying in the bed. so top right corner.

Jules: it's like a shirts-and-skins game in ice hockey...

the 4 PM hour: trash, laundry, dinner...

Kent: can't.

acid pill: not dropping acid, a pill to control the acid in your stomach.

Alan Watts: ...

me: it's Valentine's Day, i left a surprise at your door.

Jen R floats along downstairs her one-storey colonial Maryland house in her Mrs. Roper toga to greet her stringy Baltimore welcome mat. there's a large pepperoni pizza box stuck in her mailslot.

Jen R: wow. this is a porn scene gone bad. no but it's sweet, and hopefully savory, no pineapple. i was thinking the surprise was the sort of surprise Bud Cort the Dog leaves for me at my doorstep in the cold mornings: hot poo. close but no cigar.

me: what do you mean?

Jen R: didn't i teach you anything while we dated? remember? no halfsies. no halfsies on anything you do, always go all out. if the pizza is heart-shaped, you might as well make the pepperoni heart-shaped...

Rosemary Gill: when i visited my mother after 30 years she had a chipped glass bottle of fossilized paprika dust stuck to her cabinet that was orange, not red.

Rosemary Gill's mom: why the fuck didn't you visit me for 30 years?!!!

Rosemary Gill: not now, ma.........i don't wanna talk about it, ma.........you never liked my girlfriend, ma...

Rosemary Gill's mom: why doesn't Campbell's Soup have a big red can of soup that's Goulash?

Rosemary Gill: .........you know, ma? that's not a bad suggestion.

hiss sound when the power goes out: worst sound on Earth. 

Luna Lovegood: i'm Cassie from Skins but with LESS magic...

carbonated lemonade: it's just lemonade, there's no fizz in it at all, no bubbles...

Rosemary Gill's mom: dinner at noon.

Billy Corgan "Raindrops + Sunshowers" keep falling on my head...

Billy Corgan: my songs are that middle feeling between falling in love and yearning for your love to come back.

Billy Corgan: "This Time" should have been the last song on the Machina album...

Michael German the doctor: i'll give you a free nursing home for your mom for life IF you work at that nursing home as a nurse who is not allowed to raise his voice.

me: ...

Honey: honey, i'll be long gone once i don't have to make my tongue blue anymore...

Alan Watts: how do people get by without mushrooms? how do people do it? how do they live? how do they survive? each and every day. forever. it's impossible. after the day ends, there's another day...

Jules Smith and i are alongside each other along the left side of the village bog, naked.

Jules Smith: this is as close as we're ever gonna get being naked together.

me: being naked with each other is a necessity, it shows vulnerability, it displays courage, sex is ONLY in the mind.

Jules: feel it?

me: yeah it's coming.

i black out. when i come to the wedge of my body is submerged in the lake as Jules furiously holds onto me by my stinky foot against her shoulder. 

Jules: you got a lot of calluses on your feet. have you ever been to a podiatrist in your whole life?

me: does my mom count?

me: what happened?

Jules: same old same old. your anger fused into another large janky wave of bad-vibe energy, i caught you right as you were drowning in your own mindless confused rage.

me: i'm lost at sea. i need a permanent buoy who's a girl.

Jules: THIS is the base of a sturdy relationship. trust. and swim skills. if you have no trust, you got nothing. trust allows you to have another day. trust lasts 'til Tuesday. next Tuesday. trust gives you another tomorrow. 

 

WILD SWIMMING: EVENWARD

 

Jules Smith: look at that bog bodega in the shape of a boot over there.

me: who lives there?

Jules: Mrs. Claus, but fair warning, she's in a right state.

we approach the gingerbread location like it was a crime scene, which it kinda was.

there in the middle of the plaisically-sewed half-circle rug around the brick fireplace, Mrs. Claus is on the mantle. she's in a Mrs. Claus-sized Christmas stocking, she's sewing herself from inside the stocking, she's trapped inside the stocking.

Mrs. Claus: don't worry, i can breathe, i made the fabric breathable.

Jules: you see, man?

me: yeah. it's a symbol of the female condition.

Mrs. Claus: right? i mean why does Santa get to deliver the toys on a sleigh? why doesn't Mrs. Claus do the reindeer-riding? if you start the Grimm fairy tale out right, with a woman protagonist in the first place, it doesn't seem as strange, it'll just be normal. also, the writers of legends drink too much Coke...

Carly Severn at PBS: no hard drugs, no superheroes.

Timothee Chalamet: Bob Dylan is the Superman of song.

Carly: Leo DiCaprio looked at me from across the room and cured my head cancer.

Timothee: sugar is a soft drug.

Carly: sugar causes cancer. salt is a hard drug to get hooked on because salt tastes disgusting.

Leonardo DiCaprio: my cock is tied with the Red String of Fate.

Gladyce at the Treehouse: don't rub the floor with the towel, then rub that towel across your bathroom sink counter...

writers: everyday i'm hustling, everyday i'm hustling, everyday i'm hustling hustling hustling hustling...

at the log-cabin winter lodge.

Capp: moving on isn't all it's cracked up to be when the moving-on involves your soulmate...

Real Genius.

Mikey: what's on the whiteboard?

Mitch: Cartoon Network. why are your hands cuffed behind your back and you're walking around freely on campus?

Ed Begley Jr.: spying on our teammates builds trust. this is cold sabotage. i like the Russians better anyway.

Mitch: you rented out my room?

Mitch's mom: to Carlos Lacamara from The Brothers Garcia, i have needs. your mother has needs, Mitch.

Vaneza Pitynski: Russian girls look like Spanish girls.........from Spain, not Mexico...

Mr. McFeely: i remember being stuffed in a mailbox. that's why i became a mailman.

Val Kilmer: grading on a curve is stupid, it makes no sense.

Kent: thanks guys, my car's cool now, my car breathes oxygen.

Val: have you seen your daughter naked?

daughter's dad: yes. in the Valley. but so did every moviegoer.

Jen R: see? you should do the same thing.

me: with all my stories on this blog?

Jen R: they all add up to an English PhD...

Deborah Foreman: i'm here because Michelle Meyrink turned out not to be as hot as the producers thought she'd be.

Michelle Meyrink: there's no sizzle to me.

Deborah Foreman: so they added me to make money. i was hot at the time, both meanings, i was America's Mallrat.

Jon Gries: i quietly knocked out Mike Tyson...

Val Kilmer: you gotta admit, i have a weird name. 

Lazlo: i got enough Pepsi stamps to win a jet...

Sherry Nugil: can i just take a step back here and.........what the FUCK am i doing?...

Jen R: see? in the '80s you COULDN'T take your college final exam home with you...

Data from The Goonies: this movie is Head of the Class: The College Years. i was on that show Head of the Class, people forget about that...

a proposal: in college it's not a science demo, it's a marriage proposal, these are college nerds, this is their LAST chance to have sex...

Mostly Mozart: with a little bit of classical music composed by Lars von Trier...

inside a computer: large pieces of spearmint Bubble Tape gum...

Jesus: i'll be honest with you, i do not understand how the human heartbeat works...

George R.R. Martin in robe and bunny slippers: they said i could either be the head of Freshman Tea or write the Christmas episode of the live-action '80s Beauty and the Beast...

congressman: come on, Kent, get out of the Psycho House on the Universal Studios lot.

William Atherton: that popcorn in the ending is the same popcorn you're eating now in a cute little red-and-white-striped popcorn bag in the '80s theater you're watching this movie from...

Paul: poor adult son, he's not dumb, or like he was on drugs at one time for a long time or something, he just can't grasp plumber stuff.

Carrie Quake: cancer is not a death sentence anymore, it's not the 1970s, it's not a soap-opera line, it's not Love Story...

Zion Williamson: eye on Zion, i'm healthy, play my entrance music, where my entrance music at, where my Alan Parsons Project...

Aaron Rodgers: my name is Nick Sirianni...

Pati Jinich: an avocado's skin is Nerds candy...

case of Coke: have you ever opened the box on that right widget so it becomes a cardboard Coke-can dispenser?...

Mark Grayson: you didn't ask for this, mom. neither did i. but we'll figure this out together. as a family.

me: Mark Grayson is the exact opposite of me in a family...

Peter Cetera: when Ken became a lead singer...

Sisyphus: *rolling that boulder up that hill for eternity*

Kate Bush: i wrote a song about that...

La Conner: Los Angeles in Seattle. where they filmed Roseanne, the good seasons.

protect your heart: no it isn't Heart Health Month, it isn't February, it isn't pink and red everywhere, it's protect your fragile heart from being broken by a bad breakup again.

church: donate donuts.

Jen P: ...

me: the P stands for Pizarro. Jen Pizarro.

Jen P: no the P stands for Prime. i am the Jen Prime...

Jules Smith: LeBron James lives in our village.

me: does he now.

Jules: yeah but don't tell anyone, it's a big secret for such a small village.

me: so why did you settle on settling in Jules Smith's village?

LeBron James with a wide grin: this is a great place. yeah? full of quiet. full of freaks like me. i can rock in my rocking chair on my porch, eat all of Kevin Hart's stale butterscotch candy, and think about what i've done. i'm taking it easy. the Lakers are Luka's team now, i hope that fatass gets in shape for the playoffs, i'm trying to catch Jordan here. i don't want to end up like Tiger Woods where he's THIS CLOSE to Jack but will never reach him so he settles for golfing with Trump as some sort of status symbol.

LeBron James swims the village bog. he sprints from side to side in world Olympic time but he's not even trying, it's a casual gliding bath for him.

LeBron: i'm wading in a way Dwyane Wade never could, that dude really needs to learn to relax.

the collective wave that forms from LeBron's spirit coalesces into a row of Black-excellence movie theatres named after Kobe Bryant along the bog's shore.

this makes Jules smile.

Jules: the village is getting worldly, it's getting earthy.