JEN THE CONFESSOR: McDONALD'S IS CLOSED

Zalman King: you know that final trapeze-artist angel episode we did? i did it on a broken foot.

me: how broken was it?

Patricia Louisianna Knop: just the top part. my foot was broken too, slightly. 

Jen R: now THAT's a marriage team!!! not the consultants and counselors, the real people.

Patricia: it was the type of thing where it was a nuisance to direct and make writing changes to the script with the foot pain in the back of your head. but it didn't REALLY require a cast, you know? and this dialogue i was coming up with was sizzling. it could heal on its own, we didn't have time to go to a country hospital in Romania where we were shooting, that shit's expensive. i was thinking of the CAST...

Zalman: what the fuck's private equity, you know? i'm a painter, not the business world, i need my mind and water-based paints clear. there were these four Romanian nurses there on set from the hospital with those curious red-outlined crosses on their lapels that look like Klingon symbols.

Patricia: Romulan, dear, get with the kids. i raised our kids, i got tired of the smut. just saying, everything gets worn out after a while. why are nurses' outfits the only ones you can go to the club with?

Zalman: one of our peerless nurse crew asked me if i wanted a foot rub, a foot massage. i swear i needed one in the MEDICAL way...

the clerk at the dentist's office: look i lost your file. don't worry about it, go potty. okay? i go potty, you go potty, the dentist goes potty before your root canal. we're ensuring a good outcome here.

Tim Conway: not insuring it. i LOVE golf. i hope you can forgive me. i poo'd in a golf lake ONCE.

Jen: those manila folders were so cool in the '70s in offices. you wouldn't have lost the page if it was snugly placed between the folds of a manila folder, that's why it's called a folder not a holder...

Walker: do you know how many DECADES OF IMPRESSING i have to do before...

Jackie: before what? before i finally say it's okay and i go ahead and suck your dick?

Walker: before two souls fall in love?

Jackie: better.

Walker: .........it's just.........you know it's the chainsawing Christmas trees, going to computer school, turning away the plumber and the electrician, walking Falkor-sized dogs, carrying on my shoulder a full California Redwood trunk as i cross the street alone in the fog...

week to week: weak.

Kristen Stewart: acting is inherently unmasculine. it requires vulnerability. have you ever seen a female Method actor?

Meryl Streep: well me but i got into Stanislavski so i could scrub off Ethan Hawke's beard.

LARGE Santa lawn balloons: you want us this Christmas? you're gonna have to CHASE us...

Kirstie Alley a CONTESTANT on Match Game: yeah it's Kirstie. unusual name, huh, Gene? MEMORABLE name though, maybe i should be an actress. i'm an "interior designer" now. but now that i see a young 18-year-old fresh-faced Jamie Lee Curtis on the panel, i'm thinking i can take her...

Jen R: there was that one time you were ADORABLE to me.

me: just once?

Jen: when you were going on about Dutch ovens. how you wanted your Dutch oven the color of Kurt Cobain's powder-blue guitar. like you were sincerely talking about cooking, not farts, you watched a ton of PBS cooking shows and you wanted to learn to cook spaghetti in a Dutch oven, it was adorable. tender, not like the chicken you cooked in there that sent me to the dentist. 

 

 

JEN THE CONFESSOR: DELIRIOUS WITH FEVER AND DRY COUGH

 

Walker squeezes the driving wheel of his kei truck.

Walker: i ain't that pretty boy Josh Holloway, okay? i ain't no pulchritudinous pansy like Sawyer from Lost. 

Jackie Fitzgerald in the passenger's: why did you take up with me?

Walker: look i'm gonna be honest, my dick is SLIGHTLY above average in size. i really just wanted it to get sucked ONE TIME by the mouth of that hot aunt at the Christmas party. 

Jackie: and you wonder why we don't discuss having kids.

Jen R in the back: you guys gotta calm down. live the life of Tommy Brennan suddenly walking down the street.

Walker: real good one time, balls and all.

stay good: stay gold at the barbershop.

Urkel: listen, me as a father? i wouldn't remember ANY birthdays. my wife's birthday, my mom birthday, my grandmama's birthday. i'm just over here by the snacks, you know what i'm sayin'?

Excedrin: the red pill...

Pablo Torre: political fellatio. yeah i said it.

Uqora: i mean UTI doesn't really affect the man, you know?

Hanako Montgomery: i was in my pajamas during the Tokyo tsunami.

Wolf Blitzer: not lingerie swimwear? awww...

Rambo: the rules of war matter. remember, i'm the most famous P.O.W. ever.

Led Zeppelin: after a LIFETIME building a resume that merits a Kennedy Center Honor, we have to get it handed to us by Donald Trump?!!! are you fucking kidding us?!!!

Mister Rogers wearing a conductor's cap: i'm sorry but there's gotta be something less strenuous than working on the railroad just to pass the time away. you'll pass away if you continue.

dad: all the live-long day, nobody says that anymore.

Jen: what's with the 2AM packages?

Walker: say what?

Jackie: oh sorry about that, you hear the FedEx truck at 2AM, right?

Jen: it's all good, i put on my fuzzy Snoopy earmuffs to drown out the moaning.

Jackie: yeah i really get into it. i lose myself in the ecstasy. i still have the butt of a 30-year-old. 

Jen: what's in all those large purple cardboard boxes that get dropped at your gate? night deliveries are freaky.

Jackie: just your standard BDSM stuff for older couples: whips, boots, plates.

Jen: i'm the next house over, don't worry about it.

Jackie: but we haven't been receiving our packages this week. did you do something?

Jen: yeah it's all good, we just REALLY needed our sleep this week. me has BAD headaches and i'm trying to figure out what he's got: general fever, covid, jaw misalignment, caregiver stress, or that concussion he got at acting camp in '96.

Walker: we haven't done it all week. are you punishing me?

Jackie: yes. remember when you left your chainsaw on our roof?...

 

DAD WRITING FOR ZALMAN KING: I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S YOU

 

Jen and i are invited to the house of Zalman King and Patricia Louisianna Knop.

Jen R: it's not a house, it's an art house.

me: let's take this opportunity to explore.

Jen: i'm sure they won't mind.

we see the entire square area lined with TINY red-clay pots. 

Jen: and sword ferns. you know it's a hip pad when the front door SLIDES.

me: see i've always wanted this for you and me. a husband and wife not just of love but of art.

Jen: GIANT marble statues in every color in the living room. with faces like Mayan gods and goddesses yet also strangely the faces of our family, friends, and neighbors...

Kevin Costner: the Color of the Year is Cloud Dancer White. remember when i was Dances With Wolves? i was more genial towards and accepting of people who didn't look like me. integrative of different cultures. one with the Indians, not the cowboys. i gotta stop doing those Fox specials...

Apple phones: we took a VapoShower...

VICKS: should have been called VapoHaler.

Clint Eastwood: the musical song should have been "Paint My Wagon" to have it be the gay anthem we all wanted it to be.

Cindy Bear: i should have stayed in my cave to avoid covid...

tidings: only on Christmas.

Blue McDonald: how many times do i have to say it? even if you're a whore the meaning of life is FRIENDS. sometimes you only find friends at school...

Blue McDonald: my favorite song? "Rock Around the Clock," i guess. i hate farms. poodle skirts are so chintzy, i'd rather have a poodle.

Bart Braverman: i have the standard Native American name. so what am i doing on the set of Vega$? i should be doing Dances With Wolves and Northern Exposure. oh, the casinos, that's dirty rotten lowdown.

what's the meaning of this?: nobody says this anymore.

Sophie Throckmorton: you thought i was gonna be the villainess, huh?...

Zalman King: so what? so what if i offer you a writing contract? what episode will you contribute to add to the Red Shoe Diaries lore? 

Zalman: wait, let me turn my back to you. not out of rudeness, so you can sign the contract.

Jen: this is such a '90s thing, remember when people used their backs as tables?

dad: well i was thinking of the Amber Smith episode.

Udo Kier: why must i always play the weirdo? look at my face. do i look like i'm hiding something?

dad: the Bulgarian revolutionary, remember?

Patricia: oh yeah.

dad: picture it: a Bulgarian revolutionary. barechested in a silk shirt on a hill. and the single mother in peasant garb who's forced to flee her cow farm after her soldier husband dies in the war. what happens when these two literally bump into each other, bump heads, when they're both running away fleeing their country...

Zalman: milk farm, i get it, i like it. lots of milk everywhere. 

Patricia: the open fields. we'll have a lovemaking scene next to a cow.

Jen: another stupid war. war is stupid, it has never solved anything. not even a cold snap. the only thing war is good for is war romance...

dad: i'll write THAT episode...

DAD WRITING FOR ZALMAN KING: DINNER?

Jake Winters invites Jen and me into the famous diner for his next batch of letters.

Jen R: those golden cluster mailboxes are ICONIC. i know your number is 114.

Jake: good eye, i didn't know that. i cared more about X-Files. who gets their mail at a diner? why would there be mailboxes at a diner? you have a dog's eye. right, Stella?

Stella the dog: i'm Lassie if she had been an atheist. right, pal?

me: why are you called Red Shoes?

Jake: don't want to talk about it. suicide. 

we slowly migrate to the park.

Jen: yeah see, i liked Season 2, i liked the location change, because the Red Shoes address is Canoga Park and now you really were AT Canoga Park!!!

Jake: i told the producers my longcoat needed space to stretch its legs. 

Jen: what were all those trains in Season 1 carrying?

Jake: pesticide.

me: did you like how your story was wrapped up?

Jake: no. the movie was a serious existential meditation on suicide for love. but then in my follow-up episode they have me just butt-fucking Sheryl Lee...

loft: the only place with a sliding front-door...

Wild Orchid 2: Two Shades of Blue.

brothels: for virgins...

me: it's an honor to review this, i am obsessed with this film. the autograph i want is Nina Siemaszko, as in a physical B&W photo with her signature, not a stupid selfie.

Jen R: me too. just wish i could have been there in that Dick Tracy-lit red room of an indie theatre on Hollywood Blvd. to pay for a ticket to boost its sales.

Mona: i'm going to a live taping of Match Game 1979 in Vegas...

asshole frat guy: not only am i an asshole frat guy, i'm the first man to wear frosted tips.

Lance Bass: it's called a little lemon in the hair.

Blue: see? i can scream.

me: that whole scene made me uncomfortable. that's how you know it's good Zalman writing.

Blue: Don's Plum waitress is respectable. ANYTHING is better than frat life...

Robert Davi: i have permission from the President to shoot up this whole room...

Zalman King: aha, now the diner isn't so much Dick Tracy as it is Zalman King, as in all the rain.

me: SEE?!!! i wish more movies would do this, have two strangers become a family, Blue and Sully, the whore and the bodyguard, just another daughter and dad.

Jen: who go to the daughter/dad dance. who have eggs in pajamas. ironically, they'll only wear pajamas from now on...

William Shakespeare: King Lear is about prostitution.

teacher: tell us a little bit about yourself, new student.

Blue: let's just say i was doing customer service in Chatsworth.

Brent: you like Perfect Blue the anime? sorry i'm nervous.

Jen R: buddy, you got your heart broken by a girl at a Sacramento Greyhound station and that girl shows up at your school?!!! do you know the infinitesimal chances of that happening?

Zalman: and now this transitions into a high-school movie called Lucas For Girls.

Blue: i do the wheelbarrow a little different, but.........anyway our PE teacher is Mrs. Felt? i knew a Mrs. Felt at the brothel.

Brent: this old vineyard was rooted by two brothers who hated each other, the Picard brothers.

marriage: not talking to each other for 40 years.

Blue: exactly!!! i look like one of those K-pop bands.

Blue's high-school chum: this was the best day of school i've had. you don't get good days in high school. you get days where you don't cry. you survive days. they made me jog 10 miles around the school for no reason.

madam: you know as i'm inspecting these 3 new naked women, maybe i made some bad life choices. all i wanted to be was Blue's mother...

Joshua: okay but why is the championship game being played at 1AM in the morning?

Paul Tagliabue: from now on all NFL games will start with the firing of a starting gun.

Blue: i mean, this movie really isn't about losing a high-school football game, you know?

Brent: it's okay, dad, i don't care that she was a whore. you love who you love. why do i get the feeling there's only one of this reel?...

Tom Skerritt: Blue at the white picket fence, symbolic, she can't achieve the white-picket-fence dream of domesticity. remember when i was on Picket Fences on CBS?

madam: Blue, i destroyed your dream because i was jealous. my British high-school-quarterback boyfriend dumped me for a quarter-pounder with cheese...

Sully: i drive a car like i pilot a plane...

Sully: i wasn't a good guy. i was a GREAT character!!!

Blue: it's just this book report on Harriet Tubman i did is REALLY good, i want to show it to someone.

Blue: the GED is for suckers. i'm gonna graduate college, become a vet, then prepare for the Summer of Love...

Merry Clayton: an ending of hope, compassion, hidden joy, and haunting tenderness.

Blue: i want to live. i want to start my life over with you.

Yogi Bear: look, i don't like Yellowstone, okay?

Taylor Swift: but why didn't i become just like Sophie B. Hawkins?...

gee whiz: please bring back gee whiz.

me: Match Game 1979 in Vegas!!!

Jen R: yeah but that was expected. they should have had Match Game 1979 live in Palm Springs for one week, that would have been cool!!!

Del: female?

the Arthur cartoon: the best way to start the rest of your day after school...

Double Indemnity.

Walter: i'm crazy about you, kid.

Phyllis: i know. i wanted you to be fresh.

Walter: crazy as in i'm willing to do crazy things...

Olivia Newton-John in her "Physical" leotard and John Travolta in his Perfect testicle-showing short-shorts dance. 

Jack Tripper: .........sometimes you feel like a nut. i like cashews.

John Travolta: we were destined to become Olivia Newton-John-Travolta.

Millie Bobby Brown: call me Mille Bon Bon. this sets me up to do the live-action movie of Adventure Time...

Caplyta: when the depressed person is a mom, that makes it more depressing...

me wearing red high heels: how would you describe the music on the show?

George Clinton: spicy jazzy to start. then the wailing sax at the end when the woman makes the realization.

Jen R: are you related to Bill Clinton?

George Clinton: of course, Bill Clinton was the first black President.