MAINE CABIN ON STILTS: STEPHEN KING DOWNTOWN

 

Stephen King: see your grandfolks' one-room house is the suburbs. the downtown of Maine is south of the pond. it's just like any other downtown: one general store, one greasy-spoon diner, one outhouse. 

Kurt Cobain: and there's always a place where you can buy fireworks.

Stephen: i've been having writer's block. i'm in a rut. i'm trying to come up with my next monster but it's too quiet around here. monsters are forged out of the cauldron of CITY NOISE. care to join me downtown?

Jen R: just call us Julie Brown.

we walk there. it takes a while to leave the lake.

Stephen: why is it that whenever i go downtown the sky is always a forlorn shade of cobalt-grey?

the diner is filled with regulars as the jukebox plays Journey "Who's Crying Now": grandma and a newly-coupled Debralee Scott and Jonathan Frakes. Debralee Scott is eating a BIG-ASS pouch of Jack Link's Steak Nuggets, Jonathan is just drinking water.

Debralee Scott: don't be a bitch.

Jonathan Frakes: fine, Sprite Tea. don't call me Nathan, i hate that. 

me: awww, Deb and Jon look like my mom and dad young during the first month of their courtship 

Jen: bring back courting!!!

grandma: i'm having chicken-chow-mein pizza. don't worry, i carry a bottle of Pepto Bismol in my backpocket, this stuff is pink gold. you like my big butt?

me: yes, grandma.

Carrie: the '70s were the last decade women had hairy bushes and people said "service" on the volleyball court instead of "hey you, it's your serve, go."

Kaye Stevens: eat your heart out, Lana from Three's Company!!! i am you in real life!!! i'm the one with the anxiously amorous voice.

Gene Rayburn: for the rest of us, Match Game is a job, for Kaye Stevens, it's her Primal Laugh therapy.

LaToya Jackson: as you can see, i never wanted to be a Jackson.

Randy Jackson: i was the randiest of the Jacksons, i made a pass at Carol Burnett, i told her, "lay it on me, mama!!!"

Carol Burnett: i still have no idea what that means.

Vlasic: that's one CRUNCHY pickle. 

Claussen: but that's just it, your pickles are NOT crunchy, they're SOGGY. your draw is that your pickles are spicy, ours are just cold. 

Melissa Maker: i'm taking notes.

Pope Bob: "Disarm" is my favorite song.

Billy Corgan: i'm honored. everyone hates me. i USED to be a good Catholic Chicago Irish boy...

Pope Bob: and now?

Billy: that bridge was burned when i formed a band.

Pope Bob: AI is scary. i wet my priest pants thinking about it. 

Billy: hey i ain't no robot. you can tell we use a real voice and real guitars, who would want to COPY my awful voice?

Trent Reznor: Billy, can i borrow you for a few samples?

Billy: it's okay, a drum machine is not cheating...

Daniel Stern: do i narrate your dreams?

Alan Watts: or do i narrate your dreams? the two of us can only have a voice-off in my dreamworld...

Shaq: $1 billion isn't enough. i need to marry an Arab princess.

Violetta Laze: i'm a working actor.

Shaq: that's okay, let's do it.

Maiara Walsh: i can play Middle-Eastern...

Shaq: YES YOU CAN!!! you do look good but i'm only attracted to your eyes. your eyes, girl, they're wolf eyes!!! they're like those Darren E. Burrows wolf eyes.

Darren E. Burrows: i turn into a werewolf at night, all Indians do. Edward James Olmos is my father. Edward James Olmos created the entire Native American population by continuously fucking on full moons.

Lauren Shehadi: me?

Shaq: not you, you're too close to work...

Jocelyn Hudon: i'm a Canadian actress. i did a Hallmark movie. now all i need to do is voice an anime and get a picture of my feet taken.

Colonel Sanders sits at the far table of the diner.

Stephen King: Colonel.

Colonel Sanders: Steve. i shoulda called it King Chicken.

Stephen: i pronounce it Colon-el as in eating your chicken gave me colon cancer.

Colonel Sanders: Steve do you want me to spill the beans as it were? you want me to reveal my secret?

Stephen: wait let me get my notebook.

Colonel Sanders: your order of KFC chicken will be RUINED unless you dip it in hot sauce. THAT is the real monster. 

MAINE CABIN ON STILTS: ON SILVER POND

 

me: i'm visiting my grandparents in Maine.

Jen R in a fishing bucket hat with flair: fuck fish pins. how long has it been?

me: exactly 100 years. since they became grandparents. 

Jen: recreate the spark.

me: i was on a '70s telephone with Brett Somers:

Brett Somers: i know all the out-of-the-way spots in Maine, are your sure i can't be your map?

me: don't you have kids to raise?

Brett: honey, people don't tell you this but parents secretly hate their kids. 

we reach the Maine cabin on stilts in the middle of a SILVER pond.

me: this is bonkers and bananas, this is the first time i've had to wear sunglasses in well my life.

Jen: but it's better than a golden pond, because of your disdain for any sort of bright lights anywhere, remember?

me: i'm smelling an excitement coming off you, you're drawn to this lake.

Jen: i ate too many cookies at Christmas, i gotta tone my shit up. back to my prom weight.

me: and how exactly do you plan to exorcise uh exercise that?

Jen: i'm gonna waterski with you pulling me from a speedboat going 100mph on this lake. i got a Big Head Todd show to go to!!!

Peggy Cass: i look like i'm from 1930s Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. because of me you know what a swill pail is.

Dennis Rodman: i'm banned from all World Cup stadiums this summer. as practice for the next Women's World Cup when i try to watch my daughter play soccer. i'm just bringing over the orange slices, Trinity!!! i feel like Iran, Congo, and Mary Pierce's father all rolled into one.

Jodie Sweetin: you dropped some dead weight i see. AND some pounds.

Lori Loughlin: oh you mean Mossimo. he said he had skateboarder money? he didn't even help make the hot-sauce soup in prison.

Mexican singer: true love is kissing your chola in Rwanda as your ranch is home to giraffes, white lions, and elephants.

Liliana Abud from Destinos: that weird ranch i went to that didn't serve huevos rancheros...

chola: drinking horchata in the rice fields, think about it...

the Regular Show coffee shop.

Margaret: this is a LOOOOONG coffee shop.

Eileen: right? it takes up the entire sidewalk block. but only lengthwise, there is no width...

Gavin Newsom: my mannerisms are EXACTLY Bill Clinton. that should comfort you. we're slowly getting back to normal, folks. The Book of Isaiah teaches to do a Last Dance-style dance if we want to win in November.

Michael Jordan: i know i know, the Republican sneaker thing. but i own NASCAR now so doesn't that make me centrist enough to win the Presidency?

Violetta Laze at the Trevi Fountain: horoscope is dead science. zodiac isn't cute. i really need to get back into poignant shorts before the PBS Film Department goes under...

Violetta Laze: see i post me in a goldleaf ballgown that is hugging my GRAND BUTT thinking these comments surely will reveal my Prince Charming. at least in the comment crowd be a couple of mildly-interesting men? nothing. just women. what's the point of Instagram?!!!

Speaking Parts: the Canadian sex, lies, and videotape...

Trent Reznor: and my "Sin" music video.

Atom Egoyan: laundromats used to be the best places to meet people. 

Landry Shamet: see? Screech from Saved by the Bell didn't die.

Enzo Maresca: see? Pep Guardiola didn't retire...

Mr. Diamond at Crespi: if Pep Guardiola is Paul McCartney, you're Faul!!!

Keurig: that last SQUEEZE sound at the end, that's where squeezing coffee comes from.

Edward James Olmos: ...

Edward James Olmos: me as an inner-city teacher, me as a werewolf, which one had the handsomer hair?

Marcello Hernandez: i've now become the face of the entire Spanish language.

Magnum, P.I.: i don't solve murder-suicides...

Patrick Renna: look at my face, i'm if E.T. was a human.

grown man living with his parents: no way. don't believe it. if you're a grown man living with your parents, you will NOT meet someone and get married...

Danny Pintauro working an Amazon delivery truck: at least it's not Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's sucks.

Judith Light: no wonder i have white hair!!!

Danny: my first package was delivering Frank Sinatra microphones to Tony Danza.

James Cameron: no, Titanic II is a new Titanic ship i'm building all by myself. NOT the Titanic sequel...

grandpa on the shore of the pond starts hopping around putting his mouth to the dark-brown sand.

grandpa: see that tuft over there? that's actually the tail of a skunk. don't fuck with nature, nature will fuck with you. 

me: grandpa!!! hug?

grandpa: hug me, give an old man his dying wish: admit that you only like the silver pond because it reminds you of a TV screen with snow.

out on the water with Jen.

me: taking the cookie fat out your butt?

Jen: never tell a woman she has a fat butt. any other body part is better. fat ANKLES are better than a fat butt!!! because the butt is so prominent. The Invisible Kid, the mother is Deborah but she pronounces is da-BORE-ah.

me: like that Dragon Ball devil.

Jen: this is what women have to do to distinguish themselves in this world these days!!!

 

STAYING IN THE DREAMWORLD: LIFE IS A HELLSCAPE

 

me: why can't i be your family?

Jen R: our stars were not aligned for that by INCHES. instead we have Jupiter between us which is useless. 

Jewel: tell me about it, honey.

Jen: you'd have to marry me.

me: no i mean like brother and sister.

Jen: WOW you really don't want to be alone, huh. but that would be no fun.

me: i'm searching for permanence...

Jen: ever wonder why birthday hats are pointy with that horrid string under the chin?

me: the terror of triangular!!!

Jen: it goes back to the Pharaoh.

Pharaoh: i'd give my charmed life for a McDonald's birthday party.

Jen: right? you missed out. the Grimace cake, the one flattened hamburger every person in your 3rd Grade class gets, the chafing of your butt on the iron Playland slide.  

Pharaoh: we chafed our butts on the Pyramids...

me: Jen, you are the thin thread keeping me going, keeping me together, it's just the one string but that string is the Red String of Fate.

Josh Hart wearing a suit of red threads of fate: i tried to do the spirit walk but at every pass hung the lanterns of drunkards. it was the Revolutionary War all over again.

Benjamin Franklin in a Knicks jersey of blue threads of fate: sport walk?

Josh Hartnett wearing a tricorn: ...

Stephen A. Smith: bro where did you go? i mean look at your face!!! someone send out an APB for Josh Hartnett's BEAUTIFUL face!!!  

Josh Hartnett: no APB necessary, Stevie, i was on the court last night at the Garden shooting Js. 

Carlos Alcaraz: i coulda been the greatest tennis player of all time, but then my wrist.

Emma Raducanu: Siamese twins, at the wrist.

Carlos: is that us?

Emma: no a Smashing Pumpkins lyric. are you listening to that cassette i sent you? it heals. don't blame me, i'm busy with my American Thighs cassette...

Carlos: next time i have to work on my overhead i'll pop in "Starla" and get in a LONG session...

Leshy: Falkor as a Tolkien character. not a drunkard, you can't be a lush and live in the woods...

reading You Are a Shark: THIS is when you decided to become a monk...

Ron Wing: i'm the one who drew that monk to look like an old tired Ichabod Crane.

old monk: sleepy, no haircut in 100 years, lost my tricorn hat...

Dragon Ball Super: the design of all our characters are '80s He-Man action figures...

tandoor portal: a tan door.

Luis Miguel: i tried to swing my hips like Shakira and ended up in the hospital. i don't want a real guitar, do you see how hard i ROCK my air guitar?!!!

college: see we schedule our classes at 3PM, we forget that high school students get OUT at 3PM, so there's a lot of sleeping in college. we will learn from this...

Liza at Safeway: i mean have you ever actually seen someone get KICKED OUT of a grocery checkout line?... 

Questlove: SNL was my cool older brother growing up. it was my only option at 11:30.........it was the only TV show at 11:30...

naked Jean Harlow taking a bath in a barrel in Red Dust: i just inadvertently created the whole drinking-her-bathwater thing!!!

the quickest way to get rid of a hot blonde physical therapist: have her clean up a patient's poo.

PT: i ain't no nurse!!!

the Perfect Strangers theme song: Alan Parsons Project "Eye in the Sky..."

Chester Bennington with a glass bottle of original BROWN Listerine in that lovely beige-and-yellow wrapping paper: that SWALLOW the bathroom sink makes when the oasis of water goes down the drain.

Roger Federer: in my spare time i enjoy horseback riding and tennis.

Arabic writing: it's a row of smiley faces.

Walt Disney: i admit, my mouse didn't save the company, a mermaid did. before The Little Mermaid we were doing shit like The Sandlot 7 with that freaky freckled bug-eyed kid. we were floundering, little joke there.

Jen R in a pointy hat with cat smiley faces: if you want to reach me, you have to go deep deep deeper than you've ever gone before...

me: who am i without you? i'm scared of burrowing into a bottomless pit, i crave the stay of quicksand.

Jen: are you sleeping? not until you're dreaming. now that you're in the dreamworld you can get up and move around. fall asleep in the dreamworld, have a dream in the dreamworld, fall DOWN into the next level of consciousness... 

Jen: you ever notice?

me looking down: notice what?

Jen: nobody looks UP in a dream, nobody looks at the sky or the horizon or the sun or the moon or a planet or a comet or a shooting star in a dream...

STAYING IN THE DREAMWORLD: TANDOOR

it's 12 noon.

i'm inside St. Cyril's Church.

i'm sleeping in a pew in the centre row.

me: i really need to drink more Coke.

Jen R in a turban: classic. yeah, it's regulatory. it regulates you, balances your equilibrium, keeps you even-keeled so you don't have to take two Vanquish!!! there should be no regulation from the government on Coke. want a lime phosphate instead?

me: that sounds like attic insulation.

we're all in the middle of the church staring down into the black hole of the tandoor.

Father Navin in green silks: the tandoor is a portal. i'm cheating here on my religion embracing Hinduism like this. but i'm a Catholic sci-fi fan, it's tough. don't tell God. 

God: we used to call that a curry hole but that was in the Old Testament.

Jen: do you really think we can see the future if we stare down this tandoor?

Talia the cat: only if you soak the chicken in fish brine. nobody wants to see the past anymore...

Talia: so can i offer you my confession now?

Father Navin: no i'm never prepared for that.

Talia: animals are sinless, remember? we use the Confessional booth just to talk, shoot the breeze which has a fish smell.

Father Navin: oh right. any learned techniques?

Talia: you've been cleaning the litter box all wrong.

Christopher Kimball: ...

Talia: ditch that hostile scraper, simply use your fingers to pluck each pebble of poo/pee out of the litter sand.

Father Navin: and you tagged along why?

Trinity the cat: Father, i have a Confession. 

Father Navin: this is paradigm-shifting!!!

Trinity: Miley Cyrus's underboob tattoo says With a Little Help from My Fwends and i'm the cat in permanent ink, i confess the bad grammar.

Father Navin: no it's cute, it's cat-speak. the underboob, i get how you wanted to be there. just don't say something like you're a Rolling Stones fan and you've never listened to the Beatles or you're going to Hell. Miley Cyrus looks weird as a woman.

caregiver: it's not a job, it takes the patience of Job.

Mickey Rourke in The Pope of Greenwich Village: I'M the brother who knows better?!!! well this thing was cast against type.

Victor Wembanyama: Sours? don't call us the Sours we're the Spurs. i'm French, dammit. can you people handle a French Michael Jordan? the Chinese monks i meditated over, not under because i'm so tall, told me this would happen.

Chinese monks: stay calm, Alien, America is a dying empire that can't accept an international hero.

Skip Bayless: can i rejoin First Take NOW?!!! Texas is cooking again!!!

Match Game 1973: The Playboy Club as a game show.

Michael Jackson on First Take: look man, don't wear sunglasses in the studio when you're talking on TV, it's weird and i know weird.

Jaafar Jackson: word.

Madonna: i play Sheryl Crow in this, it's the only way i can get work now!!! 

Jen R: know how you know two people are comfortable with each other?

me: easy with each other?

Jen: they complain constantly to each other, they kvetch to each other.

me: that's sweet :)

Jozy Altidore: am i still a thing in soccer? how did you live a perfect life?

doctor: i was perfectly there for the 1994 World Cup in the States with my wife and 3 kids. now for this World Cup i'm aligned with my 17 grandchildren.

Jozy: don't rub it in, man!!! i'm Jozy from Jersey, i'm usually breezy. what sort of doctor are you anyway?

doctor: i got my PhD in grass science from Michigan State...

Ariel Winter: i broke up with my boyfriend but we decided to remain roommates.

Nolan Gould: well that was mature. we're living a script from Modern Family in real life.

Ariel: no it's just that THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH.

Nolan: weren't we brother and sister?

Peter Jackson: i fired Ryan Gosling from The Lovely Bones for gaining 60 pounds. i'm weighing in on this decision now, get it?

Ryan Gosling: you said i had to gain 60 pounds FOR THE ROLE, right?

Peter: i took one look at you and whispered "Fat Ken" to myself under my breath. 

Ryan: i used to take the mushrooms off my pizza but i didn't this time.

Buffalo Sabres: we stayed in a hotel here in Buffalo to mimic a road game for Game 7.

Buffalo Bills: maybe just sleep in your beds next time? 

Sabres: our beds are blocks of ice.

Bills: ours too. why is Buffalo the town of heartbreak?

Sabres: because we're named after the animal buffalo which went on that Trail of Tears...

Lucky grocer's flyer in the mail: don't toss me in the recycle receptacle so hastily, your PG&E bill is lodged in between the thin top-down fold-in pages. 

PG&E: lodge your complaint by dodging your bill...

Lucky: you could have gotten a chicken dinner bucket for your grad...

Rose: are you a good boyfriend? would you hold the door for me?

Jack: would you hold the door for ME if we were in water?...

work, a job: the only way to escape your family.

Dwyane Wade driving a Tesla into a pond: this wade mode is NOT clutch...

me: you know that thing where you eat a chocolate bar and you're still hungry?

Jen: is chocolate your favorite?

me: and spaghetti.

i eat a chocolate bar and it tastes like spaghetti. i can't eat spaghetti unless it has chocolate sauce over top.

it's 12 midnight.

i'm inside St. Cyril's Church.

i'm sleeping in a pew in the center row.

in Hell.