THE MAN WHO SLOWLY STOPPED TALKING: COLDWAY

 

Luke Russert: hello ONCE again and welcome to my podcast The Russert Reach.........i dunno, folks, i just can't do this anymore, i don't feel jokey.

Tai: what's the matter, babe? you're live on air.

Luke: i just don't feel i can put on the act anymore. i can't be Mark Twain ALL the time.

Tai: then be Samuel Clemens. 

Luke: can the audience at home hear my audible sighs?...

Luke: i'm finding it hard to talk. about anything anymore. from now on i'm a character called Coldway who doesn't talk. our first guest is Chola Butt i mean Sue from Safeway.

Chola Butt: actually my real name is Lourdes.

Liza: i KNEW it!!! i had that at the craps table last night. it's LEEZA because i'm Eliza.

Chola Butt: but you could also be e-LIE-za... 

Austin O'Brien: watch Last Action Hero and Small Soldiers at the same time, i dare you.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: weren't you that brat from Facts of Life? Alex P. Keaton's little brother on Family Ties? Alex P. Keaton would be me as President...

Austin O'Brien: i look like an Olympian's son, the son of a decathlete who came in fourth in Los Angeles... 

Burt Wolf: i'm Burt Reynolds playing the part of Rick Steves. i'm everyone's Jewish uncle. i look like an '80s Knight Rider villain. i'm the guy that stays at the restaurant all day drinking just one bottle of wine...

Geoff Edwards: may all your troubles be zapped. wasn't that a heartfelt prayer? you can pray at an arcade. The Big Spin wheel was better than the Wheel of Fortune wheel because it was tinier and cuter, a pocketsize wheel. Saturday at 7PM right before Small Wonder, 1987. taped in the same studio as American Gladiators. as the wheel spun i'd distract the contestants with small talk to ease their nerves, Pat Sajak never did that!!! sometimes that wheel spun so hard it'd take 5 minutes to stop. the ball would jump out of the wheel and land in the live studio audience. red red green. the prank calls that weren't prank calls. remember when your AYSO soccer coach won the Grand Prize?...

Xoxo: when you kiss my ceramic Mexican-trinket lips you think of Mercedes Ruehl...

daiquiri ice cream: it just turns to ooze...

Patti Smith visits The Pope.

Robert Mapplethorpe: i was Catholic.........but i liked to have a good time...

Panera: you always think of Aeon Flux...

Quonset hut: Star Wars hut.

me: how do you deal with all the shedding?

Trinity the cat: you don't. that's what happens when you get old. and hairy.

me: my hair is a tribute to Della Reese's fro on Match Game.

Austin O'Brien: i wish i had come out of Soledad O'Brien but i'm just Conan O'Brien's kid.

Conan O'Brien: son, i need comfort, you're the only family i have left...

CNN Miles O'Brien: my name-twin Star Trek Miles O'Brien used this transporter here to make me a new arm.

Soledad O'Brien: but can it bring me back my David Bloom?...

Michael Weiss: yellow flags now? if you date on Instagram looking ONLY for flags, you're gonna end up alone waving all your flags...

Tidy Bowl Man: i used to be the Gorton Fisherman until i ate too many minnows and guppies instead of straight sticks. i used to catch brown sharks on my line, now i catch only logs of poo. i developed a philia for staying in your toilet tank, scared to venture out into the All Blue...

garbage disposal: don't eat cottage cheese!!!...

that's so cool: because that's cool just sounds sarcastic...

Luke Russert: now we have *puts on eyeglasses* Boomy Chipmunk? a cool new goth-grandma youtuber, that's what it says on the card.

Boomy Reactions: i'm a mum thank you very much. but i still have my body. i still have my long midnight-black hair.

Tai: you're beautiful. these days being all tatted-up is the norm.

Tai: she's a laugh, i dig her stuff. and Luke, honey, when did you start wearing eyeglasses?...

Boomy Reactions: why do you think i'm laughing all the time? shrieking like a banshee at all cartoons equally. to curb the depression from being a dental assistant!!! ironically i wear adult braces...

Suzy Lu: the British dental industry has ALWAYS been bad. 

Luke: Family Guy is one of those shows that was more offensive than you remembered...

Boomy: well? on with it. i'm here to talk about how i discovered "Alone + Easy Target" sounded like "Orange Crush..."

 

DARTMOUTH DIGS: IT'S MASSIVE TO GET ON TV

 

Lis Smith sits quietly ensconced in the auditorium audience, satisfied with her love life and not needing to talk all the time, willing to listen. and she's listening now as her man is back up on that stage again:

Lis Smith: my man, my Beakman.

Beakman: they want me to do this show teaching science to kids. PIZAZZ science up, they tell me. i'm like only if i get to kick that mook Bill Nye the Science Guy's ass, i say that to all the studio executives in the pitch room with my Brooklyn accent to put a scare in em, make em think i'm in the mob.

the audience laughs. 

Beakman: they're like we're gonna pair you with a mouseman who went to Harvard...

the audience boos.

Beakman: ...and the standard babe lab assistant. at first it was Eliza Schneider and i'm like okay. then it was Alanna Ubach and i'm like okay i've seen her nudes. but then they wanted me to team up with that chubby chick from Saved by the Bell: The New Class?!!!

the audience laughs after Lis Smith because she already knows...

Quincy Jones: "Not My Lover" would have been a better song name.

Michael Jackson: no it has to be "Billie Jean" because Billie Jean King is my dream woman. i look like Billie Jean King. i'm gonna play Billie Jean King in the ABC miniseries...

Duckie Dale: i didn't get the girl. i didn't get Molly Ringwald. but that did free me up to be in the live-action DuckTales movie...

Raul De Molina: i can't do the drunk straightwalk not because of all the rum horchata i imbibe on a daily basis but because i'm fat so i fall down...

pickleball: it's just paddleball...

Scott Vander Dussen: i know that was cool and everything but there are many lifeguard rescues that happen without cameras, not everything can be a Baywatch viral moment. hidden lives matter. a life guarded is a life saved.

Norm Macdonald: i know people want more Dr. Steve Brule. but the actor HATED playing that part.

Mike Tyson: do i look good in clay?...

Andy Roddick: i always confuse my wife with your wife.

Pete Sampras: my wife was in Last Action Hero, you know the Queensryche movie. what did your wife do again?

Andy: me. 

Pete: you tried to be me but the weird thing is i ended up having a better serve than you...

Andy: i have a smarmy face because my last name has been made fun of by every single person in the world...

Genie Bouchard: i'm pretty but i can't act worth shit.

Sheldon Cooper: tell me about it, honey. 

Lis Smith: sorry babe but i can't follow you into science. i was meant to be a communications chick.

Beakman: yeah you're right that's your strong suit. you talk. i mean you talk throughout the entire process of when we make love, which is weird to me.

Lis: do i have your blessing? i'm not seeking approval but my dad was a complicated man.

Beakman: you gotta get on TV or no one will care about your nuanced views. which means a fragile country won't care about your nuanced views which is dangerous. stick with Pete Buttigieg, he's safe. don't get tangled up in the sticky web of Eliot Spitzer.

Lis: okay thanks for the fatherly advice.........wait, how'd you know what i was thinking?

Beakman: i built a time machine...

 

DARTMOUTH DIGS: AIDS THE PROFESSOR

 

at Professor Beakman's teacher housing.

Beakman: it's not a real shower unless i pee in the drain. unless the COLD water of the showerbath-tub's faucet shoots its icy darts at my sensitive toes such that my toes do a little half-dance into the pee. 

Lis Smith: that's scientifically interesting. and gross. i didn't know you were a dancer.

Beakman: i do NOT dance around the truth.

Lis: when you wet your hair it looks like a fir bush.

Beakman: i'm scared of it myself, i'm starting to shed.

Lis: what was the flight pattern of the bird you were telling me about last night?

Beakman: huh?

Lis with a smarmy smile: well you are the birdman.........something about giving a duck?

Beakman: ah yes.

Lis gives Beakman a duck-call blowjob.

Beakman: sorry for the rough sex, i'm usually a nice guy.

Lis: it's fine it's just my earlobe was pulled way further to the left than i'm used to...

John Walsh: it's made you a lot nicer to me.

Reve Walsh: it's not the OmegaXL, it's that my Reve name is MYSTICAL. you're kind of a dick but nobody can say that about you...

Sinead O'Connor: i shoulda been the Pope...

Boomy Reactions: now THIS is a milf. finally a goth girl with the perfect laugh.

Trent Reznor with a sore neck: i fancy her. i've never said i liked a woman IN MY LIFE. she tickles me. her smile is perfectly cheeky.

Boomy Reactions: as a goth i necessarily watch ALL cartoons...

Bud Cort the Dog: i want a Pupperoni pizza.

Martina Navratilova: without that band around my glasses they would have come off if i got hit in the face with a tennis ball.

Chris Evert: you wouldn't have won ANYTHING without those glasses!!! those glasses were your secret weapon. when i saw you on the other side of the net wearing those glasses i poo'd in my tennis shorts.

Sally Struthers: think how good my life was in the '90s. i was starting TaleSpin playing the mama bear because my voice naturally sounded like a bear. i was doing Match Game 90 in front of a live studio audience at the mall with that weird-ass futuristic triangle TRON wheel. finally that set was blue!!! i didn't have to go on TV with sad eyes and a cracked voice anymore teaching Christians to be bricklayers...

Marin Mazzie: if only that guy hadn't died i'd've done The Mazzy Star Story on Broadway!!!

Michael Weiss: after a lifetime of scrolling and living life i've come to the conclusion that the only sane people left on the planet are on Instagram...

Jen R at Baltimore Clayworks at the mall: pinch pot is not because i can't afford a dimebag. are there nickelbags?

Chad Reynolds the drummer of Nickelback: ...

Jen: thumb pot is what the ancient Mesopotamians crafted before thumbdrives.

Tai: you can also make candles out of cantaloupes. Luke Russert and my dad HATE melon.

Gilligan: a ballad is way better than a sea shanty...

Dr. Joyce Brothers: see Freud was boring because he didn't have my tits. Dee Davenport looking like Cinderella Liberty, there's so much to unpack...

Lis: did you like the trick i pulled on you in bed last night?

Beakman: where i shot my cum darts into your mouth?

Lis: .........

Beakman: .........OHHHHH now i get it: Dartmouth.

Lis: wanna go to the Dartmouth Mall and hang out there all day? what's your favorite storefront at the mall?

Beakman: the Medieval Times at the mall, they don't serve New Hampshire bean soup, they serve been soup...

Lis: people still think New Hampshire really isn't a place...

Beakman: i can't go to malls anymore, i have papers to grade. how do you students find the time to have fun?

Lis: i don't. i crave routine but i carve out a time in my schedule Wednesdays at 4:25PM to hang out at the mall with my girlfriends. for us women who had stunted high-school careers.

 

DARTMOUTH DIGS: COMMUTER CRUSH

 

it's Lis Smith's first day at Dartmouth and she's deciding on a major.

Lis Smith: it's either gonna be Communications or Science. i can't decide. what's the more lucrative career? 

Beakman with a wink from the wings of the lecture hall: science.

Lis with a smile: wow is that really Professor Beakman from Beakman's World? he looks hotter in person.

 

Beakman gets on stage with his long lime-green lab coat with the skateboard patches and insane fir-tree hair.

Lis in the audience: that hair is driving me wild!!!

Bob Marley and Keggy the Keg are in the auditorium audience as well.

Beakman: questions from the audience?

Lis: has anyone ever told you you were glamorous?

Beakman at the mic: this Y2K thing is crazy. right? on the news all the religious freaks are freaking out calling it the end of the world. Charles Nelson Reilly is eulogizing Gene Rayburn before we all go. Brett Somers isn't an old battleaxe, she's a loudmouth which scientifically makes her a good kisser. and she has a nice body. but you know who's really freaking out? the scientists like me. ladies and gentlemen, we're doomed. with the world going digital now, i mean.........how are the clocks gonna survive that 00 thing? planes will crash.........should i have said that?...

Lis: huh, this is more like a stand-up act than a lecture.

Blast Furnace: why wasn't i a Transformer?...

Portrait of Jennie: the first Manic Pixie Dream Girl...

Jennifer Jones: i was prettier than Elizabeth Taylor...

Portrait of Jennie: that Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman music tho...

Billy Corgan: Black Forest Cake coffee helps me forget the "To Forgive" empty party afternoons.

birthdays: cruelly, they're just for kids...

Billy Corgan: instead of cake WITH coffee, the cake's already in the coffee. huh. it's like those 2-in-1 shampoo-conditioners.........i lost all credibility when it came to hair after i played my last piano on Mellon Collie...

Kurt Cobain: what is zucchini?

Roger Federer: summer squash.

Kurt: summer never squashed me...

Roger: i'm thinking of taking up squash. hey at least it's not pickleball.

Rose Nylund: i'm from New York City, it's in my name. St. Olaf was the name Hans Christian Andersen gave to NYC when he first laid his soggy eyes on the city in his waterlogged tugboat.

Skip Stephenson: i didn't want to be a real person. i wanted to be Luke Skywalker playing with all the other space farts.

Melinda O. Fee: for a small fee i was O. Henry's lost granddaughter. O. Henry could never solve who i was, drove him to the nuthouse. but at least i was in all his short stories...

Banana Ball: if baseball was LITERALLY a video game...

Carol Doda: the topless dancing was okay, but i needed to wait until the Summer of Love to do the bottomless dancing...

Louise Sorel: remember how Vivian Alamain sorta became your fancy mom when your poor mom was at work? i was Mary Tyler Moore but older, wiser, and with more class. 

Nana Visitor: and you were also kinda my mommy.

Dan Aykroyd: Ghostbusters was supposed to be Psi Factor...

Brother Bede, psychiatrist: you are not crazy. but your stories are...

Lis catches Beakman in the wings alone after the show/lecture.

Beakman: people still sleep in on Saturday? i thought that was only an '80s thing.

Lis: it is. but i'm here because i'm a born insomniac. and i think i've fallen in love with you after one lecture.

Beakman: well i'm glad you came. word around campus is you're going into Communications to be a political operative. i urge you to reconsider, science won't destroy the world, but politics will...

Lis: it'll be a different destroy. wait, everyone on campus knows my business?

Beakman: you know i see you every morning riding the same bus i do to class.

Lis: the bus on The Green that goes round and round and round in circles?

Beakman: that's the one. i stand in the back so you won't notice me.

Lis: i'm sitting in the front of the bus but i still notice your hair. 

Beakman: i'm too shy to talk to you but i dream of having you.........

Lis, blushing: .........

Beakman: .........as my student. more? no no, just the student thing, just as my student. anyway you're cute but i fear we have nothing in common.

Lis and Beakman board the bus back and Lis starts to cry as she tells her story:

Lis: this morning on the way over here i saw a lost dog, a poor poodle who had clearly lost his way around the mall courtyard, he was dragging his leash. i decided not to get involved even tho i saw the forlornness in the dog's eyes. five minutes later i see a frantic man in a backwards baseball cap by the Pet City scurrying around the mall in panic shouting out a dog's name. Peter is a dog's name, right? i still don't do anything and have regretted it ever since. i shoulda just said to the man in passing, "is that your dog back there?"

Beakman: that story made me sad. 

Lis: you're not crying.

Beakman: because there was nothing scientifically wrong with what you did. think about it, if you had gotten involved you would have gotten bitten. by the dog or the man. i don't trust punk men who wear their baseball caps backward. plus he probably found his dog without your help, the odds of trigonometry on that mall floorplan.

Lis: it gnaws at my left tit forever!!!

Beakman: that's why you're good for politics, you FEEL.

Lis: can i sleep at your place tonight?...