LUCID OLD MAN: THE ETERNAL KILLING OF TIME

 

my dad takes me to the Casbah Theatre in Berkeley to watch Macross: Do You Remember Love?

dad: isn't this the type of stuff you did at college, creature?

me: it was so long ago that i remember...

dad: i want to experience what my son experienced. don't worry about the future, there'll be caregiver robots, right?

George Jetson: maybe.

Rosey the Robot: ...

Steve Buscemi: it's okay, call me John Waters now, that's what my whole career of doing weird stunted-growth roles was FOR!!!

Stevie Nicks: listen to my music with lit pumpkin candles all around you in the room. don't forget the door wreath.

Clint Howard: i have no complaints, being the brother of a famous director, Opie and the Cocoon guy and the guy from the Weezer video. that afforded me the luxury of time. since i didn't need to worry about getting food, i could pursue my sole passion in life: doing the weirdest shit possible.

the seats in the theatre are dark and stuffed and torn and filled with bubblegum wad. but at least they aren't lecture seats.

dad: this is a worrisome anime film. a troubling movie.

me: all '80s anime movies were apocalyptic.

dad: no it's not that, it's this one character with the bouffant gold hair who's a real man's man in the space army. he says that a woman secretly wants to be dominated by a man.........see the thing is, that might actually be true...

Jen R: women want love, that's it. 

dad: what do you think?

me: i wouldn't know.

dad: what about that woman you've kept on about for years?

me: i'm taking it REAL SLOW with Jen, i do NOT want to mess this up...

dad: i have no grand long-lived wisdom to impart to you, i have no idea how someone like me got married...

plaid pants: not necessarily a sisterboy from Portland, Maine. simply going golfing after the show.

Charles Nelson Reilly: i'm the only normal one on Match Game, not Richard Dawson. stop trying to imitate me, Richard Dawson!!!

Richard Dawson smoking a cigar on set: i can't be funny in my own voice.

Anthony Bourdain: i was The Bear in real life...

Gilligan's Island theme song: whether you like it or not, this was your first sea shanty...

Killer Klowns from Outer Space: it's the same Master Control Program from Tron!!!

Sarah Cortez from The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza: that girl you COULD have taken to the St. Cyril's Encino Spring Carnival in the '80s...

Jacob Soboroff: all i do is protests. i go to protest rallies. i interview people at marches. i never cover something like a melting glacier that causes monks to switch religions. it's a noble profession.

Archer: ironically, i use a gun, not a bow and arrow...

Palm Springs: because writers are desert wanderers...

Monica Seles: The Pick-up Artist (1987) was a great acting experience for me...

Victoria Jackson: have you ever called a woman a creep?

you know the world is sick when: a school goes out of business...

the walls of Hell are paved with Jack In The Box buttermilk ranch sauce.

Randolph Mantooth: i'm saving the angels in Heaven.........in my firetruck, ironically...

Haywood Nelson: what's happening!! i wasn't scared of the Satanism in Evilspeak, i'm a Scientologist...

dad crosses his legs in the sunken theater by placing one leg on the lap of the other leg forming a graham-cracker triangle.

dad: remember when a fan in the stands asked Steffi Graf to marry him in the middle of her tennis match? her response was, "how much money do you make?" she just RUINED that moment. that could have been a sweet fairytale, a rags-to-riches story. you know me, i'm always looking for the Romantic in things. it would have been a funnier line if she had said "yes."  

LUCID OLD MAN: DIRTY WATER

 

i was FLOORED when i opened my front door that crisp morning and he was standing there on the welcome mat right in front of me.

me: DAD?!!! is that really you?!!! where the hell have you been the past 24 years?!!!

dad: out. you know, going to libraries and stuff.

me: you look good. your mind is a steel trap that's been treated with wine.

dad: i'm smarter than when i was 14.

dad: look at you, son. only a dad can tell the truth to his son without consequence.

me: what? i just woke up.

dad: that's the problem, you always look like you've just woken up, both meanings. even at noon. do you really want a wife? it's not about a job, it's about looking like an artist. look at your shadow over there, you look like Big Bird. you look like a bird, not a human.

Doing Time on Maple Drive: the emotional scenes in this are used by suburban acting lessons to teach the students how to display crazy anger...

another old man, not my dad, knocks at my door from Meals on Wheels. he looks like Santa.

old man: how's your mom doing?

me: she's taken to the infusions well. only thrown up once.

old man: and how are YOU doing?

me: thank you for that, Santa man. it's been HARD. nobody ever inquires about caregiver stress.

old man: see? Santa isn't a creep for knowing all about you. he just wants to know if you're okay.

Embrace of the Vampire: the woman photographer who seduces Alyssa Milano, she was an ancient siren. 

Alyssa Milano: too bad she didn't bite my glorious breasts, that would have been hot.

the wearing of pajamas: family-structure stability in the '80s...

Moby: my ENTIRE music career was so that by some miracle someone like me would end up with Natalie Portman. when that didn't really happen, boy was i lost...

Jennifer Capriati: why not an indoor tennis Grand Slam tournament? on carpet. i'm trying to get back in the game here, you know? if i become tennis commissioner i can salvage my life: get a man, have a kid, put black D.A.R.E. stickers on my minivan.

Catholic priest: as long as you don't become a Catholic pest...

Killer Klowns from Outer Space: it's the Engine Room from Star Trek: The Next Generation, that blue warp core that looks like a giant baby's circle-stack toy.

Sundays: are for soccer now,  not football...

the last line of New Radicals "You Get What You Give": you're all fakes, run to your mansions, come around, we're Lech Walesa!!!

Disturbia day dress: goth sundress.

Nikki McCann Ramirez: i'm your Janeane Garofalo '90s boho best friend in the sneakers navigating you through modern politics...

a dentist at Fedco: you can chew Clorets gum instead of brushing. they're green so they're good for the environment. they're pillow-shaped so you can relax.

Jackie Fitzgerald and Walker: we had a party last night to celebrate the weather getting cooler. sorry for the noise.

me: no worries, i like New Radicals "You Get What You Give" being played by a house band for 6 hours.

Jackie: i'm more into Bach and opera but because Walker has long straight blond hair he is required to play a black bass guitar in an electric band.

New Radicals: we are not Third Eye Blind...

Embrace of the Vampire: our vampire teeth are subtle...

Martin Kemp: boring ending for Alyssa Milano to go back to her milquetoast boyfriend. if she had taken a sumptuous chance and went off with me, we would have lived forever, so there would have been a sequel like those godawful Twilight movies. i look like if Chris Kattan was sexy.

Alyssa Milano: sorry but ballet is boring. spandau sounds like a stretchy yoga nylon.

Prince: it's weird how this movie was filmed in Minnesota...

Adam Levine: you were a dead frog in bed.

Maria Sharapova: that is scandalous, Adam. okay, you know what, i'm gonna pay tribute to Debbie Harry: i'm gonna go on The Muppet Show---the good one, the '70s one---and kiss Kermit the Frog in his sockhole.

Clint Howard: the next time you see a buffet pan with ONE tater tot in it, think of my face.

army cook: i'm if Anthony Bourdain and Adam Arkin made a man.

Love Death + Robots: cartoon Black Mirror...

Lucky: our Coinstar is quiet as it gives you your slip for all those jangly clanging coins, the buttons you push are QUIET. we're not rowdy. we're a dignified library. i mean where else can you get the PARTY SIZE of Funyuns?...

Billy Corgan: Neath the Darkest Eves, it should have been Neath the Darkest Eaves!!!

Allen Ginsberg: you will NEVER spell my name right...

Downtown Carmel: tiny NARROW sidewalks...

me: i can't believe you're 90 years old like mom, dad.

dad: i have all my faculties. i can run a faculty at any cozy college.

me: you can FINALLY write that book. the book you REALLY wanted to write...

dad: i play marbles with the neighborhood kids and whip their asses before it's time to go inside for dinner and Pac-Man.

me: that's the first time you've ever said the word "asses." it's rad how you have a long flowing white beard now like Gandalf the first wizard you taught me about.

dad: especially since i have curly hair... 

dad: i am a creature of the world, creature.

me: i miss your nickname for me.

dad: i am an animal of Earth, son. i sense all around. clearer than i ever have before. i smell. i SMELL things. i don't wanna talk about Trump, he'll give me a heart attack. i can smell the dirty water coming from your sink, your dishwasher, and your washer.

me: the kitchen sink smells funky, the bathroom sink smells like mint. i washed my clothes for the first time in ten years after your visit.

dad: i am at one not with the life on this planet but with its death...

GINA IN THE GRAND SHADOWS: WHEN YOU SAY BABY

 

over the phone Gina Little keeps saying, "i hate to have to cut this short, but i have to get back to my baby."

Blood and Donuts.

Helene Clarkson: my face is a beautiful guppy fish.

David Cronenberg: didn't think i could act, huh? Maury Povich is such a nice guy he'd make for a scary crime boss.

Andrea Kremer: i'm covering the golf in this movie for ESPN...

Maude from Harold and Maude: that grey wolf in Mendocino is me!!!...

Kelly Osbourne: Kurt Cobain didn't offer me my first line of coke at the bungalows, he offered me my first line of strawberry NesQuik powder...

in an airplane in the air bound for Hawaii.

Jaclyn Smith: Tanya Roberts asked me to join her and her husband in a threesome. i declined, i only do stuff with my two other Angels.

Bosley: want some salt?

Jaclyn: to put in your wound?

Bosley: nobody ever understands me when i talk...

Poison Ivy: you're not really in a hospital unless it's raining outside...

Poison Ivy: everyone in life needs a goth clown driving a crazy bus to come along and pick you up when you're drenched in the rain. everybody's just bussing each other home.

Sara Gilbert: in fairness, having a teenaged Drew Barrymore as my new mom would have been pretty cool.

Bush "Glycerine": no drums...

Nic Cage: i caused the gaping sinkhole under my Malibu home. because i am Nic Cage and that is a Nic Cage thing to do.

Blood and Donuts ending.

woman: the bullet grazed me.

donut man: so you want a glaze?

man: what are you looking at, young lady?.........see i was a vampire, too, all this time...

Doing Time on Maple Drive.

dad: is that your third bowl of cereal?

Jayne Brook: um, yeah, what's it to you?

dad: you're gonna gain weight in your vagina.

closet-gay son reading the last letter from his secret lover Kyle: can we be friends in a year? i guess that's not gonna happen. oh and thanks for bringing back my dirty underwear. love, Kyle.

'80s/'90s B movies: cozy movies.

Michael Weiss: it doesn't matter which post you like on Instagram, only that you like a post. you let the person know you're still here, still around, you still care to help them.

Omaha Steaks: because despite these apocalyptic times everyone should eat well? everyone should have steak on a Wednesday?

Michael Weiss: when a woman drunk-DMs you on Instagram, it means she's thinking about you...

Barry Melrose: i was Don Cherry but cool, not hated.

Time Magazine article writer: i have to write about dating apps? sigh. oh who am i kidding, i would drop my solo ski trip in a SECOND for a partner!!!

Paris Hilton: money brings stability but i hate costume parties...

Killer Klowns from Outer Space: 3 large brown bags filled with full cans of beer...

Big 5: we build community by everyone on the soccer pitch---the players, the coaches, the parents, the hot orange-slices mom---coming together to boo the refs.

Lucio Rossi: ICEE isn't ice-ee, it's short for Italian ice, the recipe for which my mafia godfathers taught me in Sicilian secret. the silence of the grey rabbit's-foot. loose lips sink slush. i had the first homemade ICEE machine in the '80s, the Sherman Oaks Galleria had an extra and i FREQUENTED their Lazer Tag every night after school. the ICEE machine was INSIDE my front-projection TV...

Italian directors: we don't mind examining Satanism on film...

Father Navin: some fled to the army to avoid becoming Catholic priests. they wore fatigues under their black cassock and white clerical collar. don't call it a dog collar, that's really disrespectful.

Danica Patrick: the reason i was so depressed was i was having sex with Aaron Rodgers, not my car-repair soulmate Ludacris.

me: Gina Little is a mother?!!! she has a child? the thought of shy retiring Gina Little actually getting naked and having sex once is unfathomable to me. did all that time really get away from me? the passage of time is cruel. maybe she meant her fur baby. her dog?... 

GINA IN THE GRAND SHADOWS: I DON'T WANNA HEAR ABOUT YOUR LUIS!!!

 

as i continue spying on my sister's phone call to Gina Little, Gina starts mentioning the word Luis in every sentence she uses...

Lipton unsweetened iced-tea powder: dad iced tea...

Jillian Clare and her boyfriend Jasper are naked in nothing but flip-flops atop a rockface at Yosemite overlooking a rapidly calm river.

Jasper: do you see how desperately i suck onto your face when i kiss your cheek? i ain't losing you.

Jillian Clare: the goal is to breathe heavy at the same time.

Jasper: think of me not just as a black man, but as a slack man. as a man with hair like Frank-N-Furter's fro from Rocky Horror.

Jillian: don't worry about all that, you have me. 

Jasper: my concern is lifted. and my cock is in your butt. i'm sweating bullets over here, boss woman!!! i never thought my body would be in this position!!!

Jillian: let's keep it down, we don't want to alert all these rock-climbing tourists around us.

Jasper: let's not give all the stupid climbing TikTok influencers no work!!!

Jillian sweating lady bullets: rockfluencers? sadly, it's not music.

Blood and Donuts: kiwis became a thing in the '90s...

Morrissey at Jen's deck party: Zima was 7 Up but weird. the first cooler? I was the first cooler!!!

cactus: you don't need to take care of me and i give you soda, i'm like your hippie aunt in Fresno.

Michael Weiss: okay here's the Instagram trick: send that meme to her at 6:30AM, it's the first thing she sees in the morning. she's in bed, in bra and panties, negligee blowing in the wind, her hair sexily disheveled...

Nirvana: you don't hate us. you can't hate us. everyone subconsciously likes this band.

Richard Gere: meditation.

Cindy Crawford: mediation.

Embrace of the Vampire: it's the Price Is Right yodelayheehoo Alps mountain climber!!!...

Grace Jones: when i have sex with you, we're done by 10PM...

Madonna: where did all that grinding get you? huh?!!! nowhere, that's where.

Lucio Rossi: i lived in the actual Knots Landing, Granada Hills. there are donkeys in Devon?

Carlos Alcaraz: look at my tank top, when i play tennis i'm really going swimming...

Lucky: our donuts are sandpaper but there are two of them. this donut tastes so bad but you stare at those TALL Lucky aisles munching on that hard-as-rock donut on the side of the good guys...

Michael Weiss: there is such a CHASM between talking to a woman on Instagram and actually being in her life...

Michael Weiss: this is how i start off my conversations with women on Instagram: "how's your marriage going?..."

He-Man singing the He-Man intro song: "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10..."

Poison Ivy: unlike Twilight, we had the guts to have a forest sex scene!!!

Emma Navarro: i am Jes Pegula.

Jessica Pegula: and i am Em Navarro.

Celebrity Cruises: you burn your poached duck in the oven, so you decide to have your date night on a cruise ship: this is a problem that affects all couples.

Round Table Pizza: every high school student learns to drive in our parking lot doing donuts in their Pinto.

Aryna Sabalenka: listen, i am not a pothead. but i do carry in my tennis bag two dimebags of Wimbledon grass for the number of Wimbledons i want to win.

Monroe Ficus wearing a striped shirt: where's Waldo? right here, in your heart.

me: it's just so strange to picture Gina with a man, Gina with her own fella. she never had a boyfriend as long as i've known her, she was always the odd duck out.........oh, i suppose she was saying San Luis Obispo? where she lives now? yeah i wish she hadn't moved down there so far away.