PAT'S PREP: BOUND AND UNBOUND

Biden steps up to the podium. and clears his throat:

Biden: Black Lives Matter. George Floyd. see? easy. picture this, America. make THIS your Kodak moment. look at me. look at me here up on this stage. you turn on a small tv at work and you see my face on your screen. me at the press conference. and i raise my hand. and in that hand is a vial of the vaccine...

Phil from Nike has gone by many nicknames: Phil Swift. Swifty. Schwifty. and simply The Runner. but he's settled on the one which he will keep a lifetime: Kid Icarus.

Kid Icarus: *on the phone* Kaep?

Kaepernick: what is it, i'm busy. i have no more career for simply protesting...

Kid Icarus: we're prepared to offer you free shoes for life. you don't even have to do another commercial for us, we love you that much...hey, take it from a barefoot angel, that's a good deal...

Kaep: um, can you get me my job back in the NFL again?

Kid Icarus: wait on the other line...…...good news, Kaep, we got a quarterback opening...Drew Brees has decided he WILL retire after all...

Lea Michele is on her soft red sofa rotunda awaiting a call from her crisis manager. her phone is like if a white Persian cat were a phone:

Lea: you do one nice thing for them...…...i've been through enough! my boyfriend didn't want to be here with me! i am a sauce heiress!...…...hello? is it you? Kelly Ripa! i need your help!!!

Krist Novoselic is captured on drone footage moving a pallet of bricks to the open street of a great American city, he runs away quickly after. he's dressed in all-black but he's so tall he's still made out. Kurt Cobain arrives on scene and promptly spraypaints each brick with a red FOR COPS...

Cotard has a new bistro on campus, Montrio. where he prays with the local ministers. and pays the greens fees and fines of and goes to jail for that one local Bump supporter of the medieval cafe who opened ONE week before everyone else did. Cotard is constantly with eyes closed but he sees it better than everyone. when President Bump stands in front of Montrio Bistro with a bible in his hand, Cotard knows what to do:

Cotard: how dare he interrupt my beauty prayer. my minister meditation. i don't want to make an uncle ruckus so i don't reveal my position to Codrus's dummy. *snaps fingers* i know what to do.

Cotard sends out Asta to confront President Bump:

Asta: you have my grimoire upside-down! that's mine! this book means you have no power! no magic! gimme that! *yanks it*

Bump: kid, your voice is so damn grating!!! that's the most annoying irritating voice ever conceived!

Asta: no you. that's YOUR voice! at least i help people...

Michael Weiss is welcoming Alison Bechdel into the fold:

Michael Weiss: you don't love me, you just love this novel technology of Instagram to reach me...

at the Igloo, the crones are in separate beds...:

Gladyce: i hope you're wearing protection, dear...

Doryce: no need, i'm fucking Solace In The Wind under my covers. he's my own personal Skinny Aquaman from the tv. hey do you blame me? i got no Dutch Grand Prix this year...

Gladyce: no i mean face covering. wearing is caring. you're tilting at windmills on marshes and river locks, dear. i've got a real warm body under MY covers……...Justin Trudeau. how you doin? i'm sure you don't mind the cold...

Justin Trudeau stares blankly for a full minute...with those dreamy eyes...

Gladyce: do you love me, Justin?...

Justin Trudeau is speechless for a whole minute...

Michael Weiss, welcoming Rebecca Solnit:

Mike: you gotta be a speedreader when you're on Instagram...

Takahashi and Dirg in the Isuzu Elf in the parking lot:

Takahashi: Smile Empty Soul. great band, terrible name. i mean you really got to think about your name when you commit to being in a band your whole life. it's gotta be more than a brand, it's gotta be a name that means something. that's complex and all-encompassing of your sound and soulful...…...Smile Empty Soul? the more you think about it...you know?...there's just gotta be a better name than that...

Dirg: lead singer was destined to be in a band. father was a sound tech. and lead singer sings about how much his dad sucks. i like lead singer. i can relate to relying on tech.

Takahashi: how was it?

Dirg: in a word...magical…...

there's a Walgreens that's plum in the center between the high school campus and the college campus. this is a very special Walgreens. it's on a big steep inclining hill where the three winding municipal roads come together at a point. it's impossible to park and keep a parked car in place so everyone treks over there on foot as if it were a mountain-climb.

Lance Armstrong: i traverse this Walgreens by bike but that's neither here nor there...

Pat: it's an intimate place, an intimate space. a square on a hill, a fort. and when you enter it, it's a haven of secret drugs and secret brands and quiet potions and milk in glass columns and maps on the ceiling and dainty devices only available there, the prize of the spelunker who sacrifices to make the treacherous trek up.

on this particular day two lost souls will meet at this Walgreens while the shrubby area around the hill is covered in fog and the store itself is awash in a blanket of mist:

Dirg nudges into Madame Pons at the shower-mat-and-Christmas-cardboard-house aisle:

Dirg: Madame Pons? please let that be your real name.

Madame Pons: have we met before? in another life? in another timeline?

Dirg: no i think i'd recognize that...…...face. i'm trying to be good.

Madame Pons: you will never be good.

Dirg: *surveys the land with his hand* i love this place. golly-gee man alive. woman alive. the air up here is so refreshing. and thin like you. i mean you're fat in all the right places. this is where i get my Vanquish. it's weird, you'd think it'd be sold everywhere, it's so popular with the legal college kids, but this is the only place in the tristate area to find it!

Madame Pons: the local college kids, too...

Dirg: i cherish my white boxes of Vanquish. it's my booze. i rub my cheek on them and kiss the rolltab label. finding Vanquish here i covet the box by covering it with my vampire cape before it can be redlight-scanned.

Madame Pons: and redlined...

Dirg: and my eyes turn red. it's like finding the Holy Grail after a long journey. the Ice Holy Grail. White Yoda. Hoth Yoda i'm not a racist. like finding the Abominable Snowman's a nice guy after you have a chat with him in his cave...

Madame Pons: yeah i admit i've popped a Vanquish or two like Winter tictacs. when i'm trying to suppress my natural urge to eat meat. but the store generic brand works just fine, too...

Dirg: you bite your tongue, woman! then take more Vanquish for the pain. the tongue pain. there's only one Vanquish, the stuff's legalized cocaine pills! i hear ya, girl, on natural urges. what the feminazis don't realize is it's the natural urge of men to fuck...

Madame Pons: tell me about your father...

Dirg: how'd you know?

Madame Pons: call it a hunch. not a hump. i'm a licensed sensualogist…

Dirg: okay i'll forgive you this one time because even i have to admit Tom Cruise is cute. well, i hate my father. he was a mean monster and always will be. but i miss him, too. well i miss the idea of him. like i miss having a real dad, i want my dad but, like, another dad. it's like that commercial...

Madame Pons: you analyze commercials? why?

Dirg: that commercial with the son and mom and dad in a happy family unit in an airconditioned unit loft somewhere in Bellevue or Seattle, somewhere near the headquarters. a wooded apartment lost in  the forest somewhere, cos places like that don't exist in my world. that father is so tender telling his son how as a kid in the '80s he used to stomp Goombas with no care in the world. and the kid reciprocates his father's tenderness---cos like father, like son, the tender DNA genes---takes time out of his busy boy schedule to design a game TAILOR-MADE for his dad that includes the Goombas of his youth. THAT's what's considered a birthday present in this household, not another skateboard! now THAT's a gift! THAT's a gift from the heart! a gift of love! sigh, i wish i had that with my dad...

Madame Pons: they say Goombas are shit, but they were made from shiitake mushrooms...

Dirg blushes.

Dirg: okay, date over, we did the whole thing in line. on line? we conducted the entire affair whilst the two of us were waiting in line. so whaddaya think? am i boyfriend material for you or what?

Eye Luggage: what were we talking about again?

Tyzik: make Bubblegum Crisis an '80s movie!

Dirg: also, this is the perfect time to break out the original line "Fuck The Police!" from Mister America...

Dirg: come on, black-signal hand-fist Instagram emojis on your feed? that's the best you got? the best you can do? and they're not even brown, they're yellow...

Laertus: hey i'd love to be out there amongst the protesters marching with them.

Dirg: and betwixt them.

Laertus: but my legs are unhealthily and unathletically skinny.

Eye: you know, outside. just back from goth ride, what up. you know it's amazing, i went down to the arts district at Cannery Row and a beautiful painting out there smack-dab in the middle of the road was taking incoming traffic. it was merely an easel holding a square of black paint, a painting of all-black. but it's a button, you know? every person who sees that painting sees a different thing from their life: the BLM books they need to read now, helping out black small-business, elevating a black voice on Instagram. it's this reminder that stops you in your tracks in the street, you drop your four large Macy's bags and think about the Cause again, the Movement. time to march again, time to think about all those poor souls we lost......it's a trigger. but a good triggering.

Dirg: it's like Americans are being invited to one big Garden Party. i mean i am getting flooded on my insta with all the little white girls who are in this thing just for the black cock. i guarantee you, the celebrities have the hardest job, they have to parse each and every one of their words so thin like parsley before it's woke enough for them to hit SEND. it's a full-time job for a celeb to keep politically-correct and not say the wrong thing despite their natural urges. especially if they're white. but even if they're oliveskinned...

Laertus: admit it, you'd take the calumny in a comment from one clown who called you soft or a faggot or friendzoned cos you were Sasha or Maiara or Melissa or Issa Rae's roommate instead of boyfriend if you got the chance to be...her roommate! and be next to her all the time!

Dirg: hell yeah in a heartbeat. i'd go find where that commenter lived and punch him. now that's canvasing for office. i mean i get to wake up each morning, go downstairs, and Sasha Grey is in my kitchen twirling in her gypsy skirt making me toast with purple jam...

Eye Luggage: Space Jam and go...

Dirg: Michael Jordan CAN act, folks!!! off the top. it's weird tho seeing Mike kiss another hot-black-woman actress playing the wife who isn't Juanita. like Juanita just should have played herself here.

Laertus: i admit i had no idea Newman from Seinfeld was in this. and for that matter, as random as you can get, Patricia Heaton and the guy who voices Homer on The Simpsons. just cos.

Dirg: why is Bill Murray in this? he adds no value. like he's literally the guy they pluck out of a hat for him to be a character in this cos...Chicago? i mean it literally looks like this was done as a favor to the boss from the top cos the executive is Bill's good friend. there's no point in Bill Murray being in  this.

Laertus: also in the stands should have been a skinny teenage Elon Musk in full braces-headgear and Lance Armstrong t-shirt and Johnny Depp/Leo DiCaprio X cap ranting and raving and spitting about how he wants to go into space to find the planet where only cartoon characters live...

Eye: it's a good thing they didn't do this while Jordan was a baseball player cos......i mean he'd have to really be acting then as a basketball player cos he doesn't play basketball anymore......just kidding, i'm not just a girl, i know, i get it. it was this film, Space Jam, which some say spurred Michael Jordan on to restart his basketball career and win those last 3 rings. he wasn't mulling a return, he was still all into the trappings of his baseball and father, but reading this script got him in those comfortable basketball shorts again...

Stephen A Smith: best part about The Last Dance? Willow Bay. i said it! remember? everyone forgot about Willow Bay...

Laertus: next time you interview her ask her about what her husband knows about The Toy Story dude...and if it filters down to Nickelodeon intro cartoons to animated films...

Dirg: let's get this outta the way now: soundtrack. pretty hype, right?

Eye: all the dopest rhymes and freshest beats of the day. of the '90s. only rivaled by the The Last Dance soundtrack...cos that soundtrack is all '80s...

Dirg: what kid's only dream in life is to play for North Carolina?...

Dirg: hey son! you're pretty good at this basketball thing! all those balls are going in the hoop! and that's not a camera trick! you're a little kid but with the right shoe, you can do anything...

Eye: Jordan can act. i love how he wrinkles his eyebrow whenever he's bemused.

Dirg: Jordan's best line: beep beep

Laertus: don't call him bald! don't you DARE call Jordan BALD!!! that's the WORST thing you could ever call him...

Laertus: okay so the cartoon aspect of this. Looney Tunes are great and a great choice and all but what if they had gone darker? it was too light and airy. they allude to PED use but why not just come out and directly address the issue head-on. show Yosemite Sam with a spike in his arm. the Monstars were obviously juicing…

Dirg: yeah, show Bugs Bunny's urine test, show him peeing on camera…...peeing orange...i didn't say Lola's...

Laertus: Swackhammer, they should have had Wayne Knight do his voice, Newman does a GREAT evil voice, as a contrast to his real-life bumbling doofus counterpart in the movie.

Takahashi: Moron Mountain? they've GOTTA come up with a better name than that...

Eye: did you know Lola Bunny was introduced in this? everyone thinks she was created in the '30s.

Dirg: it's not Lola per se, it's Lola in those short shorts. i've cummed to her so many times but i defy you to show me a presidential candidate who hasn't. i mean let's be honest: Lola Bunny created the first furries...

Laertus: and of course this film predicts a virus will sweep the NBA and the world and shut everything down...

Eye: let's talk about Jordan's NBA friends in this...

Dirg: his homies...

Eye: i mean first of all, Larry Bird. remember, kids, Larry Bird was BIG TIME at the time.

Laertus: shoulda kept that line in the script where Jordan tells Bird on the golf course,

bitch fuck you. for giving me that scare. you gave me a heartattack almost beating me with that hole-in-one...now you have all summer to work on your golf swing...

Eye: Charles Barkley's hilarious linereadings! and Shawn Bradley. cos. just cos. the token white dude. but back then that was nbd.

Dirg: let's face it, Muggsy Bogues. this is the best time he ever had in the NBA. i mean how could he have had a good time being so small and knocked around the court all the time every second? and Patrick Ewing with that shimmy and shake as he was being possessed...

Laertus: in all seriousness, we hope Patrick Ewing makes a full and speedy recovery from covid. and for fuck sake, MAKE PATRICK EWING THE OWNER OF THE KNICKS ALREADY!!!

Dirg: give Bugs and Daffy a proceeds of all the merch sales. Patrick Ewing on the psychiatrist's couch. that's next week. talking about the "problem" he's having which is an allusion to him not getting enough sex affecting his play. except they use the line "getting it" "getting enough". sly. it's gotta still be PG, kids!

Dirg: wait was this supposed to be a 3D movie!? i forgot my glasses!

Eye: i love that catcher, literally cheating cos it's Jordan, telling him what the next pitch will be. that's how they do in the minor leagues, folks, this ain't no Bull Durham!

Dirg: sorry but that elongated Jordan arm at the end looks scary, creepy, unnatural. like bubblegum...

Eye: will the Tune Squad win again? find out NEXT time when LeBron takes over!!!

Dirg: yeah so this was Who Framed Roger Rabbit for kids. g'night, folks.

Eye: wait…...LeBron's on the line with us here in the studio...making a house call to our podcast...he says he won't be able to do Space Jam II cos he'll be busy the rest of hs life explaining racism to Drew Brees...

Eye: and so we have Lori Loughlin on the line as the replacement. Lori Loughlin! girlfriend! babe! what is going on with you! what the hell was this whole affair! what's with all the sturm und drang? you coulda just copped to the plea, done your TWO MONTHS, and be over with this thing a LONG time ago!

Dirg: yeah, your mother needs you!

Eye: Fuller House needs you!

Dirg: dammit.

Lori: fuck Catherine Bell. those were all MY jobs. i've been working out in prison, on the rowing machine, i'm coming for her cakes!!!

at the prom Pat is in his Sunday best, on Saturday…:

Julie: you look so spiffy! let me tongue that twirling bowtie for you. did you talk to your mom?

Pat: no. my dad wants me to talk to my mom more but i hate that cramped room.

the bullies hulk up on stage. the stage of the basketball court where the DJ table is. and knock the pile of records to the Maplewood hardcourt. like crossing animals. they form a line encircling the entire dance like an army invading its own country.

they single out Pat from amongt the crowd.

bullies: you! golfboy! show us what you got!

as Pat is about to take out his balls, Mike steps in...

Michael Weiss: my hands are up! hey hey, fellas, let's diffuse this situation. before things get out of hand and constitutions are shredded. i mean have you noticed why are there so many train emojis on Instagram, it's weird...

JUST THEN Julie takes out a gun from her chihuahua purse and points it at the bullies...

TMIT: EXOTIC TRIP FREE LUNCHES

1. the best part of your job is _____

the honey...…...it's not what you think, i'm a beekeeper.

OKAY IT IS WHAT YOU THINK, CLICK HERE

2. my favorite quote is _____

it is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us---Peter De Vries

3. the best part of my day is _____

when i have a day. again. when i don't wake up locked in my lucid dream for all eternity. remember Sportscenter? remember when there used to be sports on this planet? so the anchors would always yell

HAVE A DAY! HAVE A DAY, KID!

whenever somebody did something good on the pitch or the bowling alley or something

4. what is the hardest part of your job? how do you deal with it?

the hardest part of my job is getting hard. thankfully i have an old Army buddy i go on cruises with who

WHISPERED IN MY EAR THE SECRET TO THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, CLICK HERE

5. you must write a "how-to guide" about something for which you have expertise. what is this guide about or tell us the title:

How To MasterClass

it's not what you think. i have no independent expertise which would warrant me actually BEING the teacher in a MasterClass video. what i did was i uploaded a youtube video of me WATCHING a MasterClass video of Gordon Ramsay. i now know how to make macaroni cheese......did you know mac n cheese only exists cos Henry VIII was trying to impress a girl?...

BONUS: what would you name your boat?

the S.S. Minnow. Exotic Trip, Free Lunches. yeah that was what doomed them, the free lunches. they should have used the lunch money for armed guards...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

JOE PERA DID GUIDED MEDITATION BEFORE IT WAS VOGUE

notes:

* i need some meditation now. i need a quiet place to release. i need Joe Pera to guide me how to masturbate, that CDC guidance was too dry

* anyone else have "Present Tense" by Pearl Jam stuck in the back of their head as they watch this?...

* that's snow not a skateboard halfpipe

* you know through this whole thing i've realized i don't know any nurses on Instagram. the only nurse i know is my mom...who's not on Instagram...

* clay pot without the over-the-back sex just isn't the same. sex without pot just isn't sex. that coffee pot was thinned light-brown with water for the show but is now fully beaned and dark-brown for the lockdown...

* people like shows about people: don't tell that to Meerkat Manor. don't tell that to Fraggle Rock.

* don't give adult swim any ideas, Joe…...the next video after this is literally Joe's idea about a show that's just trees for five hours...

* an NBA game done in World Cup format...

* Old Tjikko WAS the world's oldest tree. but damn commercialized Christmas had to get in the way...

* Dave Matthews Band "Crash Into Me", anyone?

* actors are essential. actors are the MOST essential. without entertainment all we have is---gag---politics! crimes and Bigfoot would have never been solved without Unsolved Mysteries, it was the recreations which did it. i mean there are only so many Trader Joe's jobs out there

* did you know Ed Harris was the original Rosemary's baby? Elizabeth Hurley made Hugh Grant depressed. well more depressed than his usual rainy London baseline mood. Hugh took it out on his best friend Kenneth Branagh who in turn took it out on his best girl and the best thing that will ever happen to him Emma Thompson. any timeline which ends in Emma Thompson not getting the most wonderful ribald knightly charismatic honorbound Chaucerian Shakespearean character knave rapscallion full of love joy good cheer and a booming stage voice but not abuse for a suitor is not any timeline i've written!!!

* Natalie Imbruglia blocked me on Insta. if all the lights went green could we THEN have flying cars? surprisingly, most fembots are Republican. could you love someone who was trying to kill you? sure, it's called marriage.

* Waterfall Tv=Disney Plus

* Hum "Green To Me" music video, dog's-eye view

* Joe: did you know toast is bread cooked twice?...

* maple syrup toast=honeycomb toffee wothout the dalgona coffee. whenever i see a bunless hot dog from now on i'm gonna think of Wes Anderson...

* HEY JOE! nice to see your face on my screen again! last time we talked you were dealing with a foreign-exchange student from Greenland or something...?

* i've always wondered, does the horse eat the apple core, too?

* John McEnroe as the chalk line-drawer. lines provide boundary to the boundaryless. if you think hard enough on that you realize all sports are completely arbitrary. even in outdoor churches on a baseball diamond YOU CAN NEVER SING AGAIN

* a line continues forever: unless it's that black paper that was used for Batman in the '90s. Batman always chases down his man...

* and this becomes Electronic Gems...

* i have three uncles. all of them are in the Mafia. Bulbar movie=adult Babar

* i've only stayed up all night and never slept into the next day ONCE. in Sept. cos i had a stupid final in the morning at Berkeley. it's fucked me to this day, my brain chemistry got so out-of-whack i dropped out of college. the only things which separate days is a desk calendar. everything is cyclical except for humans. oh shit, i forgot for a splitsecond but i remember now: i'm gonna die...

* thermodynamics: things are irreversible and always flow. like Elaine Benes.

* the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice: Michelle/Oprah 2020...

* that friend was Sarah, Joe's country girl. ironically, Henry Kissinger never kissed anyone his whole life---there still isn't time. Google Glass was what Sherlock Holmes used...

* Monty Python's Meaning Of Life vibes. turns out Dory from Finding Nemo wasn't well-liked backstage...

* fish are existential...

* axolotl: spoiler: the fish walks in the end...

* axolotls look like hamsters who accidentally fell in the ocean

* Kafka: when a human turns into an animal it's not Kafkaesque, it's real, it's covid...

* Kafka: btw i hate the word Kafkaesque, it's a copout...

* the Sobe lizard described his own décor...

* i was debating whether to use that famous pic of wise Japanese monkeys taking a natural sauna and photoshopping Joe's head to it...

* like that The Shivering Truth fence...

* the only species that doesn't like apples are cheating teachers...

* animals go for the fermented apples to get drunk. humans couldn't leave apples well enough alone, they were God's perfect creation, they had to make it cider. then they had to make it HARD cider...

* that's what caused Jesus to leave the shepherding business and climb down the mountain...

* if you could be anywhere in the whole world where would you be?: happy.

* beer is used in Milwaukee to lubricate guns...

* all's i sayin' is Joe Pera thinks Governor Whitmer is cute...

* Owen, the Fifth Pearl Jam

* you don't need glasses for coffee...a lot of Book Depository vibes here but don't worry...nobody eats muffins anymore...well that's why you're so tired. they still need to make Abuelita for Keurig. FINISH the Sunday New York Times crossword, you can DO IT, just try, TRY, anti-intellectualism ISN'T the answer!!!

* a dog can't understand English but he can understand Shakespeare. dogs like squirrels cos they're jealous of squirrels' tails.

* bark bark

* Jesus in a car...

CLICK HERE RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies

TOMORROW: CURBSIDE!!! gonna do curbside pickup for the first time this covid nightmare, Denny's. i'm debating whether to get their succulent seasoned red potatoes, best in the diner biz. see i've already had the wedged potatoes but not the mashed potatoes. but didn't i already eat the mash cos by eating the wedged potatoes i had the mashed potatoes, too?...

PAT'S PREP: BOOMER, OKAY?

President Bump: Colleen Coyle? huh? this doesn't make sense, she has a Southern accent but she believes in science...

Pence: sir please stop hugging me. no really.

Bump: when can you let me out of here so i can go play golf?

Pence: there are still two more people who have made fun of you today, sir. not including me. the smelly hippie from Twitter and that black woman.

Bump: *oooooh* i was doing my Stephen A Smith voice there, like my impression? i'm bad. like LL Cool J. i'm good with voices, i have a lot in my head. i'm working on. when i hosted SNL i asked Lorne if i could become a regular member of the cast. Lorne owes me greens fees. yeah i hate comedians. comediennes especially, they have a special power over me. black ones, too. blue comics are okay. cos i couldn't be a comedian in New York in the '80s when i was coming up. i wanted to be one so badly, but i was so big i couldn't fit through those cramped club doors. they all had bricks it was hard for me. Mike, imagine me, me, doing a standup routine, with the hair and the mic and everything...

Pence: glue my watery eyes shut.

Bump: i killed. literally. up on stage. i felt free up there. i could say anything, this was before Twitter. but nobody found me funny, which is ironic cos i've used this whole presidency thing as my grand standup act, my routine to end all routines, to leave em in stitches, literally. ribald and bald. if i ever go bald, Mike, kill me, right in the Oval, it'll be perfect for conspiracy theories. so this woman's best friend is Jerry Seinfeld big deal, you know i invented cereal. before people just ate toast and an orange and nothing else. orange rage it was called. she's from Jamaica? like Jamaica Queens or Jamaica the country? if it's New York i got her under my boot, i own this city. if it's the country, well, they owe us too much money before i'll stop a hurricane for them.

Pence: you still dabbing in the dark arts of hurricane-wranglin', sir?

Bump: ride em cowboy! YEEEEEE-HAAAAWWWW! did you see what i did to the SpaceX launch? that was glorious! Codrus told me i had to do it cos humans can't advance into outer space too soon, it'd be bad for the gods. the gods are getting nervous...

Pence holds out the coiled phone.

Pence: *ring ring* Twitter on line one...

Bump: you can twitter on the phone!? hello? new phone who dis?

Jack: Jack Dorsey.

Bump: Dorsal Fin!!! what up, homeslice? how's the balling of your lady? is she bald yet? last time i saw her i swear i thought she was the real Bride of Frankenstein. Coraline if she grew a pair. of eyes for buttons.

Ivanka: Jack's wife. Jack Skellington's wife. you know i was denied that part in my high-school final play before prom...

Bump: how the waves, my man?

Dorsey: longer than any of my five fingers.

Ivanka: oh damn, i didn't realize how cute you were without the beard! your fingers are damn long!

Dorsey: quarantine haircut. my ghoul i mean goil did it herself.

Bump: haha! i get it. show the A-Okay symbol with your fingers underwater so the press can't spot it.

Dorsey: yeah no i just want to inform you that i have personally banned you from twitter.

Bump: *hangdog look* but...but...how will i rant now? Twitter was the one free newspaper i owned i never had to pay libel suits on.

Dorsey: start a blog. like everyone else. it'll be slowgoing at first, but it'll pick up soon as you secure sponsors to your blog who will incentivize the clicks. there are only three sponsors who are willing to do business with you now and slide their brand to the sidebar of your page: sharkfin soup, wet markets, and underwater cameras...

the two astronauts gallantly, silently, without crowds, without fans, make the walk from the promenade to the catwalk to the clearing area to the detox room awaiting the chem spray:

Astronaut Al: this is the first shower i've taken in months. my wife would be mad at me if i had a wife. reminds me of when i was in the rubber room.

Astronaut Bundy: we're Wonder Men. you were insane, too? only crazy people go to space.

Astronaut Al: no i mean that room made of rubber at the Harry & David between the milk aisle and the sexless bathroom where you sample all the cheese.

Astronaut Bundy: i know that room, that's where i flushed my stash. NASA's no fun, they won't allow drug addicts to astronaut, but that's the best way to prepare to fly into space. i get too distracted by their payphone, it's the last payphone on earth, uses only silver dollars.

Astronaut Al: yes but did Harry call David or David call Harry on it that one last time?

Astronaut Bundy: do you pledge your sole and undying loyalty to our country?

Astronaut Al: yes. but if it gets invaded by Lord Vader i'm going to another planet. Al. Bundy. that's how they came up with his name: some writer just went alphabet, A then B. A.B....

Astronaut Bundy: i get all these millennials hitting me up on Instagram DM complaining that they've been inside for too long. we were quarantining for this mission since October before covid began!

Astronaut Al: up, we're scrubbing the launch. we must protect Elon's son. if it's inclement weather we cannot in good conscience launch Elon's son, Elon's son must be scrubbed...

at the Igloo, the crones are biting their spell fingers:

Doryce: you see it, dear?

Gladyce: yes, dear. i didn't want to bring it up it's horrible. covid will become endemic to our planet.

Doryce: we must do something.

Gladyce: i eradicated smallpox from our world. this was in the groovy times while you were still sleeping. i isolated it cos i could see it from all the other viruses out there. virusii? you know how you can spot a cute little teacup dog from amongst the crowd at the park cos it's so tiny and small and cute? so the pox was a cinch.

Doryce: so do the same for this one.

Gladyce: there's hope. there is hope. cos it's cute. the coronavirus looks like a cute little cat toy. so i will be able to isolate it with my fourth eye, my third eye needs glasses. my eyes are old but keen, they've been rinsed with the eyedrops of the waterfall that created the Nile River. and with one stroke, one twirl of my finger, covid turns into Fruity Pebbles!

there's a knock at the igloo brick. it's the cat familiars.

Doryce: come in the door's fine. got too bored at The Treehouse?

cats: we'd just like to extend our paw to you, Miss Gladdy, great job taking care of that whole rinderpest thing.

Gladyce: oh yes that thing was a pest. ugly as hell. now it's ugly as heaven. and it didn't taste like orange juice at all!!!

Doryce: whaddaya know, i'm fucking a doctor.

Doryce continues biting her fingers.

Gladyce: what is it now? don't worry, i leave one piece of trash in the recycling bin to remind me i need to empty out the recycling bin each day, if there was nothing in it i wouldn't notice the bin. the only bitch is that piece of trash freezes solid and sticks to the bin overnight...

Doryce: cold.

Cecily Strong and Pete Davidson are the only two New Yorkers left. on Staten Island. they lie down on a completely empty barren road---those famous streets New York City is known for, two-lane but with bicycle and trolley paths it ends up being packed like a sardine five-laner---and talk to each other not looking at each other, looking only up at the sun as they each occupy the other lane of opposite incoming traffic:

Cecily: are the towers still blinking red? i hope this road's not the bridge. it's so nice here. not too hot, breezy. are the statins working for your covid?

Pete: i'm not sick i just look sick. waiting for the chalk man to trace your outline for the residents?

Cecily: it's not for the tourists that's for sure. this was originally two yellow lines.

Pete: but it had to become two white lines...

Cecily: and now it's a yellow, a white, a red, a green, and a blue line. the street of the future. what will happen to streets when flying cars come? New York City should just be called The City...

Pete: January Jones really redeemed herself. giving out her phone number to the general public like that. posting her digits because she willfully wanted to talk to depressed people. that gets her off the hook for being the worst Saturday Night Live host of all time, gets ME off the hook...

Cecily: take it from me, talk therapy with a celebrity's voice works better than just talking to your uncle who's a fish psychologist at SeaWorld.

Pete: i know i'd never do that, i'd just get all the crazies...

Cecily: i'd just get all the men...

Pete: so...…...are you leaving? Vegas odds has determined which one of us leaves the show first. you or me. i'm so into gambling again after the Jordan doc, it invigorated me to start playing with my life again.

Cecily: i saw your new movie at my private theatre, it was cool. it's easy to write a film script when it's just your life, you don't have to think. i still wish you would have used the scene i wrote, the one with the infamous encounter i had at that Chicago bar with Stu...

Pete: yeah didn't want it cut but that was above my pay grade. they said that scene was too graphic and too humiliating, to the point of being too unbelievable that audiences wouldn't recognize that as human behavior. the producers' exact note was:

people want to be uplifted during this time...

Takahashi and Dirg are discussing bands in the empty school parking lot at night with the windows open. and the doors open, both doors of the Isuzu Elf are open with both men hanging their legs out and cocks out over their jeans as they talk with their tongues out. make that all three doors are open, the van door in the back, too...

Dirg: what a waste.

Takahashi: i liked Pinkerton tho. you should, too, it's about striking out in college.

Dirg: if Weezer had done what Rivers originally wanted to do for the followup to their debut masterpiece, the space opera, EVERYTHING would have changed! their trajectory would be a rocket blast! their runway the Ramones. the hiatus would have never happened, those painful five years to disintegrate bonds, to destroy momentum, for friendship and fulfillment to fracture. they would have held the Original Four beatles together in which they achieved their greatest success, it's been downhill ever since. have you seen the cover to Songs from the Black Hole?

Tyson, deGrasse Tyson: yes.

Dirg: it's fucking cool with the girl with the blonde ponytail riding that rocket like a Kubrick movie, that would have been their Mellon Collie! The Kitchen Tape would have been their Incesticide! i cringe whenever i see the video to "El Scorcho" with the fab four dancing to that wretched tune, it's just so much waste of what could have been.

Takahashi: it's sad when bands break up, four men in a band should be brothers, a squad, not be fighting internally in a circular firing squad. their war is with the world not each other. Matt Sharp looks like that football player in '80s sitcoms who comes around and eventually befriends the skinny nerd he's bullied all those years. Patrick Wilson wouldn't be playing tennis and inventing the high-five now. Patrick Wilson is the only drummer who looks cool actually stopping playing and putting his sticks down in the middle of the song and giving a wry winking smile to the camera.

Dirg: did you do the surveillance? did you dust the package for fingerprints?

Takahashi: yeah no i don't get girls like that.

Dirg: her name is Madame Pons. i mean….that's a kinky name! is she an escort?

Takahashi: i heard she's a witch so i wouldn't get too close...

Dirg: i'm always on the lookout for traps. do you think it'll work out between us?

Takahashi: well you have to actually feel. you're a Christian so you believe in magic which is the first step...

Dirg: i gotta start small. as in small feet. i can only handle docile cute tiny Asian girls at the moment with my diminished skills. my diminished taming skills from the virus. for protesting the virus so many times. you know there's this thing called ballet in which they bind feet also?...

Takahashi: these are people, not tigers for a king. you know you could learn a LOT from Rivers Cuomo's story, he's really into Japanese culture. like REALLY into Japanese culture. and not just anime, Madame Butterfly, too...

Dirg: i don't trust that New York family. besides, no red-blooded Italian can be a celibate Buddhist...

Cotard: monks are monks in their own way.

Eye Luggage: what were we talking about again?

Tyzik: Rafe Spall......if they ever finally get around to doing the books when Harry Potter's an adult...do not wait for Daniel to grow up...wait, commercials?

Dirg: yeah that one "controversial" commercial with the giant Titan white hand shoving around moving around the tiny black man like a chess piece around the street. nothing to see here, folks.

Laertus: there wouldn't be cept that white hand is giving the A-Okay symbol...

Dirg: 'tis a flick, a flick!!!

Eye Luggage: Bubblegum Crisis and go. i thought this was gonna be an '80s movie...how about just the first episode...first two episodes...

Dirg: why is it called Bubblegum Crisis tho.

Laertus: i've thought long and hard about this. i guess it's cos when the Boomers explode their insides look like chewed stringy stretchy bubblegum. or that the women appear bubblegum-cutesy but are badasses when you get them in their exoskeletons.

Dirg: crisis of faith? it's what's on the insides that counts, ladies, so don't be hard to me. i want to see these chicks fight naked. i mean without the aid of their suits, bareknuckle. i dunno it's all just an amalgam meld melt of Terminator, Macross, Robotech, Voltron, Mario Bros, and Care Bears.

Eye: all cyberpunk stems from the brainstem of one mustached mind who was a supreme Dick. his friends called him Phil. K for ketamine.

Dirg: his only real friends were in his head...

Laertus: some say his brain was the first workable cyberbrain...

Dirg: do all '80s songs sound like Jem or does Jem sound like all '80s songs? always allow a woman to speak her truth, her story, on the county steps, it'll avoid a scene. the only black person in all of Japan is the police chief?

Rubikon: hey. hey. i concede, i really do. to my man Biden the joe. i bow to Biden, unite the country. he can have it, i'll be his follower, not just on Twitter. i'll go to war for this man, not just on a steelmill football field. i mean what he said, that's WAY more powerful coming form HIM than ME...

Laertus: this is true woman power! early power! think the Spice Girls as crimefighters. hey i want an office like that, an office with a bed in it.

Dirg: oh come on dude!, why is that dude simping over that singer chick? she might as well be the first Instagram model...

Eye: she's got the '80s big hair! well, hair in a big poof. in the future of the '80s, all dudes wear leather jackets, sneakers, rollerblade sunglasses, and talk on screen phones. i'd rather have the screen phones now than iphones...

Dirg: never call in the army. the army is for EMERGENCIES only. do NOT deploy the army for covid!, the army is too valuable for that! do not send out for secrets! when are you coming home, daddy?, this computer only has one game. ginger and loli discrimination. yeah see? the ginger is good for gay-man love, his hair is red after all. hey, no smoking while driving. be safe, don't look cool. this is like if the Childlike Empress had no clue...

Eye: Japan's obsession with being young, looking young. for a Japanese woman in anime, there's no greater insult than being called an old lady. an auntie. that's worse than getting covid.

Dirg: so sad that they actually get us invested in a girl character only to watch her die, and she really stays dead. that's a bummer. see? Lady Wolverine is not supposed to be nice, she's still Wolverine. don't sweat it, girl, save that for your aerobics, marrage is a bummer. i could have written her better. why am i talking about this? Eye?

Eye: aerobics classes, HUGE in the '80s. like the glass and the legwarmers. i thought it was lame cos my mom did it so i didn't. but she only did it cos grandma did it. looking back, i should have done it, would have added more tendon juice to my bed sessions now...

Laertus: another great fear in '80s anime: humans beings not being human beings. that the purpose of human life was to be weapons at the whim of governments...

Dirg: this is a call to all the women out there: wear leotards again!!!

Dirg: Laertus cover your girl's eyes for the hanging pigs in the shop...

Dirg: how do they maintain their secret business if they let all those millions in cash burn in secret factory fires? how do they make money? do they have a secret benefactor?

Laertus: it's like life, good buddy, you gotta trust that you're gonna get the money on the backend once your aborted series that was supposed to be 13 episodes but ended up just 8 somehow balloons into a billion-dollar franchise operating out many movies, spinoffs, and serieses. seriesii? with all the money they have now they should finish those five episodes...

Eye: g'night, folks. remember kids, don't put off for tomorrow ANYTHING you can do today. if you can do it today, DO IT TODAY. you never know when that next power outage is coming...

Dirg: can goths be patriotic?...

the three buddies are at the vending machine at the school front at night thinking up a special drink for the prom:

Julie: a shake? a twist on the shake?

Pat: malt? a malted i mean?

Michael Weiss: you have to determine if that one guy you follow on Instagram is a genius or just crazy...

Julie: for as long as i can remember, even before i was born, i saw the image of nostalgia. i saw that HUGE bottle of garlic salt on the pantry of our school kitchen. the lunchroom smelt wonderful of lavender and sage and wiccan incandescent scent. but soon the green stench became overpowering. kids got respiratory diseases. that block of garlic salt just stood there, batch after batch, year after year, four-year bunch after four-year bunch, never moving, never dissipating, never evaporating. just becoming more coagulated, a more hardened brick of itself, an immovable cylinder of garlic salt. no matter how many spaghetti dinners Lunchlady Lois coiled around her ladle, it was never enough, the salt never ran out. but YOU can finally break the chain, solve the salt scratcher, my sweet.

Julie takes Pat by the fingers and puts them to her heart.

Julie: i feel it right HERE.

Pat: no it's all you, all you.

Julie: what was that new contraption you were working with at your home kitchen when your mom is away?...

Pat: oh it's better than a stand mixer, it's this thing called a blender! blender. yeah i decided to clear my refrigerator one day and threw the kitchen sink in a blender. the rest of the bad lunchlady missing-kids milk that sits out on the pantry one day too long we never drink, a couple strawberries, a handful of cute little blueberries, a banana not cos it looks funny but cos i can't stand potassium, and voila! i call it a smoothie cos it goes down smooth.

Mike: damn, i thought i was smooth...…...i'm the only person in the entire school taking French...

Julie: brils, boi! smoothie! you win! the prom wins! but you must clear the salt.

Pat puts the rest of the garlic salt in the smoothie. all nine decades of it. he takes a sip...…...it's sweet...

Pat: *smiles* see? you did this. i stole a kiss from you as i drank it. your tongue can turn the foulest of breaths sweet...

Mike: breaths full of hate speech...

Pat: you make EVERYTHING sweet...

Pat: sorry, i might have incidentally touched my tongue to yours, just trying to collect and sample your drops and drips of the drink. how you tasted it.

Julie: oh that wasn't stealing a kiss, honey, i meant it!

COOL DREAMS

notes:

* The Boondocks meets Hey Arnold, adult swim make this a show...

* cornfield has cool Pharrell hats

* Batman vibes, the one with the black paper. Purple Drank will come back later, he's a red purple herring for now...

* math teaches that we are all fuckups. you can hate math, but math will still kill you...

* this was my exact math class. darkened room, rolled-out projector, one chalkboard on the ceiling, cept the projector screen was replaced with a huge ridged wood Zenith tv on which we watched Storybook International...

* the punishment kid was my best friend. i felt so bad for him all the time.

* shit if the whiteboard turned into a tv i would have never left 3rd grade...

* remember that adult swim show with the black atheist?...he didn't do black magic if that's what you're thinking...

* your ankles hurt cos Fat Albert...nevermind, can't use Fat Albert anymore...

* the last time i ate spaghetti out of a tiny green pot was 3rd grade…...it was that Spaghetti-Os spaghetti with the weird clumpy noodles and those meatballs that were square for some reason

* 1 Flying Spaghetti Monster + 1 Flying Spaghetti Monster = Mom

* eating spaghetti with chopsticks, they only do that in Japanese horror flicks

* when you blur out the dildo it just makes you desire the dildo more. if you just show the dildo adult swim's audience will think it's a bong...

* cookiehead monster. with that voice that depresses me, they didn't make that one show with the shut-in incels in the nursery and King Valiant pond. i ate my baby...like her ass, i don't eat babies, i'm not a monster

* metro screaming, very obscure, huge on Dutch farms. i killed that beat! like a Suge Knight ankles situation

* Issa Rae's blowin' up Netflix!

* lotion! not a metaphor for cum! men use lotion all the time! for their cracked hands! they're manly men on construction jobs!

* Michael Jackson move before the spewing of fire...

* just McDonalds ketchup packets

* that god's picture on the wall in the back btw is not associated with any race, that's just a demon

* mom: dishes in the sink...
Spooky: they're all forks which are lies.
mom: what do you use this sock for!
Spooky: my foot. Fat Albert thing.

* mom: HE'S PLAYING GAMES ON MY PHONE!!!
Spooky: don't worry, mom, i'll delete his high scores.
mom: thank you, baby. keep the pictures on there, just the scores.

* that's not brown tub water...

* Eminem: i surprised myself.
Spooky: i mean a Lyft driver using a police car?...
Eminem: the only way to ensure people in this hood would social-distance. at least 8 miles.
Spooky: PLEASE text me back. girl! wait, i get all these delivered notices. so whats up?……...oh it was my FOOD getting delivered, she never texted me back!!!!!!!!!!
Eminem: at least you're not that dinosaur hunter who deleted all his work emails...

* oh leave that kid alone, he's had enough punishment...

* Tiffany Haddish: my head's not a radish.
Spooky: do you know what this napkin is?
Tiffany: no.
Spooky: sorry, i only date girls who watch South Park. it was Towelie.
Tiffany: tortilla. pronounced with ls, not ys. clap for emphasis.

* that whole Impossible Burger phenomenon lasted about a month, right? you don't hear about the Impossible Burger anymore...

* fish waiter: excusez-moi, monsieur. i do not belong here. i belong in a Monty Python sketch, with my boys...

* Tiffany Haddish: you sayin' i have a tortilla ass!!!!!?

* Rocket Power meets O'Grady on adult swim. i've lost count, when girls call each other bitch, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

* female Chalamet

* don't fight a girl with heels, take it from me, you will get pierced

* Spooky: i don't go to Rutgers, dude...
Demon: yes you do! i mean you will! they WILL open in the fall...

* Spooky: when my preacher tells me i need to be woke, it's weird. i thank you for washing your hands.
Devil: can never be too careful...
Spooky: here, use this napkin...

* Safe Space Lofts, used to just be called Ikea before Trump...nice hand-sanitizer dispenser at the front gate tho, you have to be buzzed in

* that one roommate who plays video games in the corner and never pays rent...

* Spooky: what is real?
Purple Drank: this. isn't this a cool modern sleek design to our loft? very European prefab. want something to eat? nevermind, all you need to survive is drink. now you've gone and woken up the baby!

* every rap album cover is either a baby or a grandma knifing a Pokemon

* Ghost Baby: Pac-Man spared me. but the trauma stunted my growth. so i didn't become a 2001 baby.

* Spooky: how long have i been here?
Purple Drank: since Muppet Babies.
Zoe Kravitz: look, Issa is the now but i'm still the lineage of Lisa Bonet. i mean Lisa Bonet is Lisa Bonet. we're talking Lisa Fucking Bonet here. CORNROWS Lisa Bonet!!!

* Zoe: you're never too young to start drugs...
Spooky: i shot PixyStix up my nose in front of my doctor once cos he wanted to prove Behaviorism...

* ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS!!! you can NEVER throw a nerd a bone, the babe ALWAYS turns out to be a banshee from Hell!!!

* Purple Drank: Spooky? what's going on in there?
Spooky: I CAME. and i think i orgasmed for the first time, too. or she did or something.

CLICK HERE RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies

it's summer. so...…...yeah. TOMORROW: $10 box of Popcorn Nuggets from KFC. no sides, no taters, no mash, no slaw. cos i've been dry awhile...

PAT'S PREP: THE BEAST WITH TWO BACKS AND TWO WHIRLING PLATES

Dirg: see? that Feeding America Weather Channel thing was all jokes. you said Feeding America was serious.

Laertus: this early with your shit?

Dirg: and Maria wasn't on there!

Eye Luggage: we all miss her. Felicia has moved in to the alpha-woman slot. not the word you think, Dirg.

Birx takes a deep breath, clears her throat---which is hard given her scarf---and determinedly pushes gently the door to the Oval:

Birx: sir i need to speak with you RIGHT NOW. immediately. was i muttering just then?

President Bump: another beer, bitch……..oh sorry, i thought you were Melania. she doesn't respond to me now that's she's a robot. what is it i'm actually busy this time.

Birx: sir look at me. look at my eyes! look at my scarves especially!!! i put a LOT of work into these scarves. they're different EACH day! NEVER A REPEAT.

Bump: i know firsthand that's hard to do...

Birx: i wore these scarves in the hopes that maybe i'd set an example for the American people. model good behavior. these scarves were my masks! see? it doesn't have to be a dreary drag, you could wear a Guns N Roses mask if you have to...

Bump: ANOTHER BEER, BITCH!!! diet beer. sorry......this is all i know how to say...is why they won't let me do public addresses anymore.

Birx: STOP YELLING AT ME!!! you're spreading covid!!! the disease doesn't care if you're an independent cos you don't read books. don't you care about infecting others? you got your spit on the head of my peacock!

Bump: are we still talking about your scarf? or real life?

Birx: my daddy yelled at me and look where it got him...

Bump: didn't he get lost in space? that was my favorite show as a youth, i watched it alone. dreaming of being lost in space. i get enough guff from others. why don't they leave me alone? i just want to watch tv. i mean i got this fatass Pompeo with an even fatter face than me on my one side who looks like if Curly from Three Stooges had smarmy brains. i got James Woods who makes me jealous, he called Michael Moore tubby first. i got Nancy who is Skeletor's grandmother and is just morbid, she was the inspiration for Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. and my new secretary i mean spokesman i mean spokeswoman Kayleigh who wants to read the Bible to me every night as a bedtime story. *shakes his face and clears his throat like Jimmy Stewart* i said okay.....you know i mean ehh i'm game for anything. let me tell you something, prayer did not help me, there is no God, just ask my boss Codrus.

Birx: Pelosi has had enough of your shit on your shoes!

Pence: sir, that is NOT the Bible! that's The Midnight Gospel!...

at the Glass Igloo, Doryce and Gladyce have just finished a satisfying dish of curry and are doing the dishes:

Doryce: so tasty! what herbs did you use?

Gladyce: it wasn't the spices, it's the preparation, that tandoori pot was smokin'. the secret is not the clay composition but how you mount it...

Doryce: i'm listening...

Gladyce: put it on an ice floe. but the REAL key is how you steam it. i HATED that cheap plastic film we were using, when you cook with it it gets slow-simmered and sticky in the grease and dissolves into eighty million pieces of invisible plastic bits.

Doryce: for the eighty-headed god...

Gladyce: those are a bitch to get out pardon my depardieu. they really are! i eat them accidentally, they get stuck to my finger bases and fingertips, i have to scratch them out of the plate cos i can't see them. and it gets even more confusing cos they blend with the grease globules so you don't know if you're scraping off the grease or the film! and then when you wash the other hot side of the plate after burning your fingers there are stragglers of film hiding there you have to peel off if you still have the finger for it.

Doryce: like miniature stars in the sky. like little swimmers of sperm staining the carpet, i remember those days. solution? we are a solution-based economy...

Gladyce: i call it The Beast With Two Backs. when cooking use TWO plates instead of one. don't cover your food with a roll of film, simply cover it with another plate that you invert on top.

Doryce: genius, my love! oh yeah never thought of that before. like a little mini homemade croc pot named after the McDonalds founder. that's what the actress said...

Gladyce: just make sure to wear gloves when you're handling it afterwards cos that top plate will BURN your fingers off! quickly put that top plate back to the pile of plates stored in the cupboard.

Doryce: but what about storing leftover food without using plastic film?

Gladyce: use pieces-of-eight. silver. tinfoil to cover it.

back at The Treehouse:

the cat familiars left alone: a shale stone in the kitty litter is good luck...

Altuve enters the wet field of the Orlando Megaplex deltaplex and takes a look around. he's wearing Air Jordans to curry favor with the nonpaying public.

Altuve: don't look at my shirt, i'm not wearing one. do you think the people will be so happy to have baseball back they'll forget about me?

Laertus pushes PLAY and "Don't You Forget About Me" plays in the background dugout.

Anderson Cooper's baby: why didn't you come out sooner, daddy? your life would have been much easier on you.

Anderson: i know, but...…...i wanted to make sure Obama had secured that second four-years first...

Takahashi at the school parking lot which is closed for covid:

he rolls in in his new ride. Dirg's mouth is agape.

Dirg: what the fuck man.

Taka: like it? it's an Isuzu Elf!

Dirg: oh i know what it is. i just can't believe it! i thought those only existed in cyberpunk anime. that's next week...

Taka: it's the anime truck to be sure. i traded the van, sorry. got a good deal for it tho *raps side of truck*. but i don't get the Kelley Blue Book, kelly means green...

Julie raps on the vending machine, tipping it over with her softshoe ballet slipper with ribbon on one foot. on her other foot is a black galosh.

Julie: here. have a drink. this sobia shall hit the spot, you look frazzled.

Pat: i'm fazzled. do i still have hair? maybe i should just shave it off, it's more unwieldy than a socket puppet from the beerguzzling Australian backwood. i'm worried about prom. i'm getting visions, it's an underwater theme……...as in a big flood comes and washes away all revelers and the basketball court and land...

Mike: yep had the same vision, the basketball court becomes a baseball field...

Julie: don't worry about it, babe, worry about tit, prom is MONTHS away...

Pat: not if they shorten the semester to start in summer and end by Thanksgiving when all the sports will come at us in a glut of cum...

Dirg: those mini yellow Lays bags with the teeth on the front of the bag are creepy.

Bump: have i made a wrong turn? or is this anime club? i mean what was up with that Naruto Shippuden Power arc? i mean that girl was hot but she's that dude's sister!!! they got married and everything in a formal ceremony. with sakura and everything! sakura flowers.

Stephen A Smith: loved that last Bob's Burgers. Pesto had an inversion table...

crones: ...for sex...

Stephen: ...for Iverson...same thing...i know, i covered the man for thirty years, up until he lost the cornrows……...Game 6 The Movie? why?

Dirg: i never want my Instagram to devolve into being just a place for shoutouts...

Michael Weiss: for some, Instagram is a purely utilitarian thing, they're not in it for the fame. they're just there to trade recipes and for the perfect TikTok prerecording for their situation...

Michael Weiss: Julie, Pat, if you remember one thing from me for the future, let it be this: twitter to rant, Instagram to apologize...

Pat and Julie hold hands for comfort from the bewilderment.

Dirg: Betty Wright?!!! OMG i thought for a splitsecond you said BETTY WHITE!!!

Julie: well we're here waiting on Kate Tempest to show her pretty face and make her grand entrance and go with us to Shakespeare Class.

Pat: she's already gotten too big for us and our pauper rinkydink Shakespeare class. a high-school Shakespeare class is a luxury...

Julie: she's my first success story! no nurse here! oh look *waving* hiya!, there's lovely Madeline Horwath come to join the Orchid Girls! and she's brought a stand mixer to club!

Eye: what were we talking about again?

Tyzik: i don't get it. why hire Daniel Radcliffe? the good book clearly says Harry has GREEN eyes. Mike Bailey, whatever happened to him? like i never knew his name was Mike Bailey, that is such a plain name, Sid from Skins sounds so much cooler, he should legally change his name to just Sid......oh, and...uh, oh yeah, the crones were mad that Mister America was filmed in San Gabriel instead of Glendale...

Eye: Life Of Pi and go. not a movie about maths...

Laertus: ...well, sort of...probably, it's one of probabilities...

Dirg: i remember my dad coming one night bringing home a fat green book of Statistics that i devoured in one night...

Laertus: that was MY dad.

Eye: Pi is the REAL Tiger King!

Dirg: i too notice that we all converged back here after having a meal together. at a Taste Of India restaurant. with that Aerosmith song in the background. nice try, but i know your tricks by now.

Dirg: R.I.P. The Man With Two Rs for emphasis. respec the r's. the Ricky Ricardo rolled r's. only pimps get two r's. without Irrfan---i'm a fan---there is no Khan or Mowgli, the way The Jungle Book was SUPPOSED to be read at night as a bedtime story. you know, for the ride. without Irrfan nobody would know what a slumdog was. there would be no Bollywood!!!

Tyzik: Slumdog Millionaire is classified as a...crime-drama film?...

Laertus: this is one hard-hitting PG film! it gets its grit from its philosophical exercises.

Dirg: yeah now imagine this movie as a hard R. what would it be? what would it look like? bestiality? it would be called Life Of Pee...

Eye: remember, Dirg, your first golden shower was courtesy of me. i did it to you as punishment, you did not enjoy it at all i recall.

Laertus: and right off the bat we see why this is the first Disney Nature film. absolutely breathtaking! all manner of exotic species, beast and bird, animals roaming the land, breathing all the clean green air cos there are no humans...oh drat, humans!...it's Paradise, it's like the Playboy Grotto without the bunnies...

Laertus: okay, gang, let's all imagine this film if they used real animals...

Eye: i would have enjoyed that.

Dirg: the computer-generated animals are weird. for real. cos they're so real you can't tell the difference. but obviously when you see a bird do a triple-backflip it's AI. it messes with my equilibrium, i don't know what's real anymore, if this is VR or deepfake.

Laertus: Rafe Spall, his father owns a Dutch barge, that's your next ride, Takahashi. Rafe also had a weight problem as all our leaders and illuminati do...so cheer up, Dirg...

Dirg: i'd rather be fat than skinny, bones. cos if you skinny you dead.

Laertus: the Piscine Molitor. where you went to be seen. not the Expo. the pool where the writer warrior elites gathered, where they summered with George Clooney and Gatsby. all the dames had hourglass shapes to hide the fact they could still only wear one-pieces no matter how hot they were. and Hemingway was naked and fat in the pool...

Eye: where Clifford the Big Red Dog bathed. that's where we're going on our next roleplay i mean honeymoon, babe.

Dirg: he wants to be known as PIE, not PEE! he doesn't want to be a porn star when he grows up...though with the name Pie...

Laertus: okay that was funny, i genuinely laughed out loud at that. he's an Indian Catholic, getting guilty over all two thousand gods. they say he was indecisive, but he was a scholar to me. all scholars become a Hindu then Vishnu of Everything Is Everything then a Catholic then a Jew and finally a Muslim in the end.

Dirg: kabbalah doesn't count, the Red String of Fate was animated by anime first. i would have peed in the holy water but that's just me as scriptwriter.

Laertus: okay Dirg, i won't hate, i admit, that comic book was cool. seeing the entire galaxy in the mouth of that blue Hindu god, that was something to behold, gave me the neck shivers.

Laertus: oooh, that cuts deep. the father tells his sons not to believe in religion, it only leads to darkness. science man father deals a blow. remdesivir will cure you, not reishi.

Madame Pons in a tree scowls from a distance.

Dirg: oh god Gerard Depardieu. i mean come on! he always plays the blowhard French man. he's too big of himself, he thinks he represents The French State Itself, he is France.

Laertus: he's the bad Frenchie. the one who voted for that woman, yeah i said it. why do all racists regardless of country all have fat heads, long blond locks of rusted viking, red cheeks, and sweat profusely?

Eye: what is he known for? this Jerry. he did that thing with the Roxanne long nose and was a Musketeer once or something. make Amelie the symbol of France instead.

Laertus promptly covers Eye's eyes like a good boyfriend. like a companion, like a pet.

Laertus: you don't need to be seeing that, hon.

Eye: oh god. at least they didn't show the goat.

Dirg: so much for being a G.O.A.T. don't look too much into animals, all animals are dumb. you're just seeing your own dumb reflection reflected back at you, human.

Eye: cats and dogs can talk...…...they just choose not to...

Dirg: oh COME ON!!! the Bengal Tiger is named Richard Parker?!! it would have been WAY cooler if they called him Thirsty!

Dirg: i don't get it, that poor hyena, i thought you were supposed to laugh at the alpha's jokes at a party.

Laertus: you will never understand dominance.

Eye: oh shit, *touches her Rubenesque chest* okay i admit, i won't hate, when the tiger comes out of the boat's cover that was an effective jump-scare, that worked. it scared the shit outta me.

Dirg: i wasn't scared. damn tiger why you so angry? and the tiger answers I have covid. this is bad being standed like this. this is worse than Gilligan's Island, at least Little Buddy had friends.....never saying goodbye to a girl, i know thee well...

Laertus: do you shake your fist at God like that, Dirg? like Clooney on a wave? when you're having a particularly nasty day?

Dirg: hey it wasn't hunger, it's wasn't delusion, it wasn't oasis, Pi was experiencing the blue-neon lightshow of a European rave...

Dirg: and he drinks his own pee out in the open waters. full circle. this has become Waterworld again...

Eye: he had a better flotilla.

Dirg: hey it's bad luck to eat a flying fish, especially when it's in midflight. haven't these people played Mario? you eat those wings that are still fluttering inside your stomach and they fly you up to Hell. it's kill or be killed, kid, no room for sympathy. that ain't a housecat you can cuddle with!

Laertus: when the whale comes, that's when Pi has the devastating thought: the boat he's on, it's not wood, it's Pinocchio!

Eye: that is so courteous and courageous of him, i wouldn't have thought of that, his first instinct with the fish isn't for himself, he's thinking he has to keep feeding the tiger fish to keep the tiger alive. everyone else would think only of their own survival in this situation, keeping number-one alive. just getting fish for themself.

Laertus: it's Meerkat Manor......on acid!!!

Eye: this is the logical conclusion of a Venus flytrap. if you continue feeding it, Seymour, it turns into a carnivorous island...

Dirg: which is pretty cool when you think about it. it has lots of water around to drown out all that salty meat. and teeth flowers! that's what happens when you eat all those Lays...

Laertus: and we reach The Piano shore again, pristine and small-sandy.

Dirg: crack open a couple of Coronas and let's shoot the breeze. literally. with rifles and masks. damn, Richard Parker, why you gotta be so cold. you couldn't just give one man-nod to the crying boy? i can still make you spicy chicken nuggets!

Laertus: this is where the film loses me. why the second story? it puts a damper on the enterprise up till now. just stick with the original story, it's so pretty and philosophical. you literally have ten minutes of dead air as he sits and dictates the second story coldly in a room. why? plus it glosses over the fact he's trying to cover up that he may be a mass-murderer all this time, that is so not Disney.

Dirg: see, Laertus?, the story with God in it will always be the more interesting story. and Rafe is literally dumbfounded when he finds out Pi has a wife and kids. you're not a weird loner with funny hair who tells fantastic tales and has this nice place you afford somehow? you know, cos of all the trauma and everything, he can't be around people nor tigers again.

Laertus: don't steal stories. write your own.

Eye: let's not talk about the animal abuse behind the scenes of this film, it's too depressing and puts a damper on the proceedings, this grand existential exercise we've been on. email reads: last week we almost killed King. fuck me. g'night, folks.

Dirg: just go with the flow, man, pi never ends. yeah so that Indian boy from Skins is the MC of this, right? don't steal jokes, don't steal beats, don't steal lyrics, don't steal stories, ideas are free. Biden. told ya. his accuser is the REAL Tiger King. Tiger Queen. g'night, folks.

Madame Pons dials 911 for information, uh, 411:

Madame Pons: hello? how can i become a sensuality chef?

the operator hangs up.

Madame Pons: babies?

Doryce: you said you bought an apron? first off, take the apron off. lose the apron.

Madame Pons: huh. apron, a porn...

Gladyce: bake something special for someone you wouldn't expect.

Bump in an apron: am i in the right place? the kitchen, right? see i know. let's do something! i just learned how to make homemade hydroxychloroquine from Inside Edition. it's so cool, it looks like leek soup from China! it's like those youtube videos that teach you how to make McDonalds fries...

a package is slipped under the roof of the Elf.

Taka: oh D...it's for you. it's a leaving.

Dirg: if it's not in a Maury Povich manila envelope it doesn't count and i won't look at it.

Taka: it's not food. it's something to read. it's the Gabagool comic, your favorite! dirty comic.

back at school in the front hallway, the glow of the vending machine lights the night sky:

Julie: here. rub these two quarters together and see if you make a fire.

Pat tries but gets Mike as a witness.

Pat: see?

Mike: yeah, it's warm, i felt it.

Julie takes the quarters but doesn't put them in the coin slot. instead she moves them into the inside of the machine without breaking the glass into a million pieces. one quarter covers the other quarter and floats in the middle of the inside rings and rungs.

Julie: see that? there's a fire inside that crockpot. it burns hot.

she takes out the quarter contraption as if the vending-machine glass were a roll of invisible plastic film. the glass isn't disturbed but Pat's force is. Pat touches it and it's stone cold.

Pat: i don't get it, what happened. therein lies the rub, why isn't it hot? where's your Indian burn?

Julie: it's still there, the flame migrated to your heart. you can feel your heart you can't feel your soul.

Pat: my heart is starting to jump.

Julie: you are definitely a thirsty mister. chips? drink?

Pat: that one.

Julie: nice. Chills + Thrills, a fountain drink. the drink that's so thick you eat. kinda like my rump. all they have is lime, is that okay?

PIGGY

notes:

* not sponsored by Amazon. but delivered by them

* that's apple juice in those bottles

* don't worry, not the Doctor Who vacuums

* FleshPhone was the original name of the iPhone, Steve was on a spiritual bender with both Benders that dawn. looking back, the name fits now...

* Piggy: before you talk, listen. they stole Neelix from me. i wear my old-man ear-hair in the front as a sign of male virility in my culture. i'm the diversity hire, i can be as obnoxious as i want. i'm very affectionate. and i have a thing for Asians. this is what Jesus looked like, he was not a Middle Eastern man...

* what am i like on a college campus?...…...sorry folks, this joke is so old it was told when there were still college campuses...

* you're losing your job cos you look like Ethan Suplee...

* Ethan: don't touch me, asshole!
Piggy: what's up that guy's ass?
Ethan: my asshole.

* Piggy: we need to take you to Key West and get you laid, brother...don't mind my extend-o-arm...
boss: Hurricane Season starts June 1...
Piggy: remember when Margaritaville wasn't just for Republicans...

* Piggy: New Jersey, city of stars...
black man: it's pronounced Joisey. who's a star form New Jersey?
Piggy: um......Frank Sinatra i think...and that guy who ate too many clams...
Piggy: is this really for pooping? i don't poo so i don't know. it smells like poop?
black man: no it's a glassless mirror. you know before toilet seats you just had a bucket out back. but Amazon destroyed all the buckets...

* Piggy: what's that mess?
Asian woman: it's either clothes for children or adult babyplay.
Piggy: oh cool. let me ask you something, how does it feel to be in bed wth Michael Cera?
Asian woman: what?

* disgruntled employee: i ain't too bright, i no doctor, but i know family. this here's a family company. if you gay you can't have a kid unless you steal one off the space black market...which is all black...

* worker: you're shitting right here on the shiny marble floor!!!?
Piggy: it's Amazon, an essential worker will be right over to clean it up...
worker: you're not one of us!
Piggy: i was laying eggs, the network says it's missing their Steven Universe numbers so i pulled some crystals out of my ass. you don't hate me, you hate yourself.
worker: i'm gonna make you clean!
Piggy: good. Melissa Maker could help you, too.
worker: i'm gonna suck you off.
Piggy: i have a boyfriend. he builds hearing aids for BIG ears.
Piggy: you know how you love me?
worker: yeah tell me, genius.
Piggy: thank you, friend, i hadn't gotten an erection in years. your tension made me normal again.

* Piggy: can i please be the company butcher now?!
boss: no you can't. cos you look like meat.
boss: sit still for your covid test.
Piggy: dude i could EAT all the covid in the world if you'd let me!
boss: it's early innings yet...…...again, sorry, there was baseball when we did this...
boss: Los Angeles Community College.
Piggy: is that like...what is that exactly? not USC, not UCLA,...
boss: what the hell is that!!!
Piggy: what? it's my butcher-cutter motion. i'm native. Indian and to space like Neelix.

* boss: no Piggy, you may not smell the Dolly Parton rainbow scarves...oh hey, Chester Bennington.
worker: next album is taking real long...
boss: i'd like to, too, but...
worker: just convert to Judaism and you can get away with anything. i'll even throw in that refrigerator with all the skateboard stickers over there in the back of me. he ate my Red Lobster leftovers, man!
boss: that is unforgivable. especially right after that poor handsome Red Lobster worker died shortly after filming that commercial spot.

* Piggy: what the...YOU SHOT ME! who the hell are you supposed to be? like Michael Madsen? Arnold but halfway done with the muscles? spouting a meme i have no idea of...
boss: CALL THE POLICE!!!
Piggy: *softly* it's okay, boss, shh, shh, quiet now, cry no more, i am the police...i was the police the whole time...
boss: *through tears* don't worry Piggy, we'll continue to pee in bottles in honorance of you.

* Phoenix: *wiping the marble floor looking like a stretchy marshmallow cartoon character* this maple syrup's a bitch to get out.
cybermancer: spoilers, i was Chris Farley...

CLICK HERE RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies

TOMORROW: In-N-Out Burger reopens!!! it was cool the last time, the drivethru line was so long it snaked into the park and curled into the highway into oncoming traffic. it took so long the beautiful servers in their neat paper hats actually came outside and took our orders with ther ipads by knocking on car roofs. then they directed us to the covid drivethru. that's how good their burgers are! oh, no animal fries on the menu till they get wiped off...

PAT'S PREP: STUDENT COUNCIL SNITCH

President Bump is pacing his room happy the coronavirus is letting his friends out early.

Bump: what's the latest, Mike?

Pence: the vaccine was already ready before the virus was conceived. now that it's in play and spread some, i can inform you we've built exactly two doses. one for me and one for you...

Bump: uh uh, one for me only. it requires two doses. it's good to be king. and president. of the student council. have we contacted Bill Gates yet? for the life of me i can't contact him through that computer he sent over to me. Microsoft, what is that, fabric softener?

Pence: doesn't bode well for our contact-tracing program. nor religion in general. you don't do laundry, man, don't make me laugh.

Bump: i'm one of those one-finger button-pushers on the computer keyboard.

Pence: Bill Gates on the line...

Bump: hey Bill. hey listen, i want to talk to you about Melinda......Melinda? after all your money and cash and stocks and sweaters and bonds and burgers bought on 60 Minutes you couldn't do better?

Bill Gates hangs up.

Bump: hello? i was gonna offer a trade with my Mel...

Pence: anonymous on the line...

Bump: who dis?

familiar wicked voice: it's your buddy.

Bump: DAMMIT KIM!!! i thought you were dead!!!

Putin: no, you dolt, it's Vlad. have you been watching the news?

Bump: news? what's that?

Putin: the break-in at the secret Chinese lab...that houses the vaccine ingredients...intrepid doxxers tried to scoop up the information before anyone else and publish the recipe online. but we took care of them and scooped it up ourselves. and wiped the screens with Lemon Pledge.

Bump: do tell.

Putin: i just did.

Bump: but why would you undermine your own operation, aren't the Chinese your slaves? all Asian people wear pink BAGA Bump hats. i suck off all their acer japanese maple.

Putin: to make it look like there's another actor in the game. we illuminati are like the Devil. we have to work 24/7 to make it seem like we don't exist.

Bump: the Devil was kicked out of our club cos he didn't pay his club fees and green fees and greens fees and dues and died. yeah it's too much work for me, that's why i threw my snake out the window when i got it in an envelope in the mail which is tanking. the snake wouldn't be defenestrated tho, it formed into a T and stayed on clutching the window frame.

Putin: that secret symbol is known as the Cross of Christ.

Bump: anyway it's a moot point, you mooch. covid will eventually become endemic to our world and be with us forever.

Putin: awww, i hate it when the game ends...

at the Glass Igloo, Doryce and Gladyce are trekking without their brooms in a harsh winterstorm.

Doryce: it's blowin'!!! my kind of weather. do you think the covid is wrapped in the tiny particles of all this snow?

Gladyce: dear, focus on the road, in front of you, you're carrying me. don't get distracted by all the viking butts trudging along our way. i've been trading heraldic charges like Pokemon cards with the local hanging townsfolk. which shield do you want?

Doryce: the one with Finn. to support The Midnight Gospel going to adult swim.

Gladyce: that's the best show to watch together just the two of us when we lovingly get to our room. in our three warm socks, sipping one elk mug of toasty cocoa, under our blanket made of invisible snake. each ice block is carefully measured by Escher to fit exactly, like a row of giant bricks, and the glass windows are our portals to look out at the night sky.

Doryce: there better be more green streaks than stars in that black sky!

the crones make it up to the tip of the white hill and unpack. their baggage. and hug joyfully.

Doryce: WE MADE IT!!!

Gladyce: we make ourselves...

the counterboy at the Wes Anderson hotel with snowy snow spires is Anderson Cooper's baby, who already talks with a heavy Brooklyn accent:

Anderson Cooper's baby: tickets. hey, MASKS, LADIES!!! where are the masks!!! no entry without yous masks!!! i mean scarves up here up in here!!!

Doryce: what?

baby: solving the riddle is your ticket outta here.

Gladyce: oh dear. i see the problem here, look, Dory, over there. our room, see? the blocks are not quite symmetrical. it's a geological geometrical conundrum.

baby: try calculus, toots.

Doryce: no neoprene gloves, squirt!!? blue to indicate cold?, hello!

baby: there were but everything turns to ice here eventually. those clear gloves are all yous got, get to sufficin'!

Doryce goes first and puts on the gloves, honoring her spell fingers by doing it carefully. the black conceals that it's a hot night. the out-of-place ice block is unprotected not getting the benefit of the collective cool and rapidly starts to water drip and melt. by the time Doryce tries to manipulate it the block has melted.

Doryce: i tried to turn it over but i only got one side. i spent five minutes struggling to take the glove off, my fingers got stuck and squirreled.

baby: buzzer. you lose. you have to touch the ice block with your bare hand or it doesn't count, but once you touch it it immediately starts melting. i am a symbol of hope. care for a shot, sweetheart?

Gladyce: with you oh yes, you are cute. i'm not sure which of your pair of cheeks are redder.

Gladyce has figured it out in the timespan of this one conversation duration. she puts on the glove and turns the ice block over. takes the glove off BY flipping the glove over itself instead of taking it off finger by finger, touches and turns the ice block over again to fit it in with its sisters, puts the reversed mirror-image glove back on just in time to move the block under the cool again before it melts and  before she gets frostbite on her precious-cargo spell fingers.

Doryce: love you babe! that overhang roof of cold is exactly what we need at The Treehouse!

the clique are at Mary Grace Boutique in the mall after that wild night:

Julie: you're not still sore about last night, right?

Pat: i was never sore. which was the problem.

Julie: i had to hep Mike. he's kinda cute when he lets his chest hairs grow so mangly no lawnmower could ever cut it but that's beside the point. it's my duty to help. i'm a nurse. in-training. i tell my girls all the time that it's your duty to become a nurse if the writing thing falls through, always gotta have a backup plan.

Michael Weiss: imagine being a Norse nurse. WOW! look how cool these lucky pennies are! pressed into all the statehoods. my face is pressed up against the glass. and here's one for Puerto Rico that is small enough to fit into any earthquake crack...

Pat: cool. but not as cool as finding a lucky penny on the street.

Mike: NEVER pick those up, dude! lucky pennies ain't lucky anymore. don't you know they're covered in covid i mean germs!...

Anderson Cooper's baby gets another customer as he wears a fedora and swings baby plastic Fisher Price keys on his finger:

baby: name?

Ash: just call me Ash. i'm Elon Musk's kid.

baby: oh yeah i caught you playa how you livin? so you liking life so far?

Ash: my dad says there are better planets than this one. but California won't let me have my flying permit. i don't want to surf! i want to go into space as soon as possible. like my father before me. like that movie with the other space baby, am i gonna get that big? they say i can't get a permit cos they don't know how to pronounce my name for the records.

baby: bummer. at least you got a permanent in when to comes to that Pokémon VR game.

Ash: that's another thing. my dad won't let me play that game. he was bullied as a youth for being into video games and being a nerd. i tell him i can't read his mind and daddy says yes! i can! he's forcing me to read his mind when my brain hasn't fully formed yet! still got pockets of gas and canyons in there in my head gum. he says it's a moot point, mooch. btw, what's your name?

Anderson Cooper's baby: 360...

Takahashi is stuffing food down Dirg's throat.

Taka: here, try this.

Dirg: KELP JERKY!!! no way! i won't eat anything that comes from the conservationist sea! i don't care if this is the real-life version of SpongeBob food!

Taka: if you know the names of producers, THEN you're really a tv fan and junkie. do you kiss your burger before you eat it? i've seen you do it, Dirg, in the van when you thought i wasn't watching. i got an exra rearview window, bud.

Dirg: yeah, in your rear. mad about losing the California special election?

Taka: in the back trying to make the scary ridged emptiness less scary. it was surprising and a disheartening omen to come no doubt. i've seen you, you kiss each individual bean of the chili of your burger like the beans are essential workers and you're lording it over them.

Dirg: if i were British i'd be hailed as a genius in a university taco-bar lab for being a cultured culinary continental connoisseur. one of the Mexican masters. teach MasterClass. the chili burger is the greatest invention food has ever seen.

Eye Lugage: Libby Schaaf is fucking hot!

Laertus: right?

Eye: Oaktown mayor! WEST SIDE!!! and i hold up my white-girl-trash gang sign. her and Oprah for the Dem Ticket 2020!!!

Dirg: how can she understand Oakland's black issues? i mean her name is literally Libby...

Laertus: i feel SO BAD for Roy Horn! i mean come on! after all he's been through, after SURVIVING the tiger attack, he goes out LIKE THIS!!!?

Dirg: the tiger is not your friend…...that's next week...

Eye: without Roy Horn, that gold-standard Debbie Downer SNL skit at Disney World would have never held up all these years...

Tyzik: have they done Debbie Downer at Downton Abbey yet?...

Laertus: what's that noise?

Dirg: story of my life. it's my new ringtone: Maiara Walsh saying fuck on her Instagram stories...

Laertus: are you getting bolder in quarantine?

Dirg: no, just more bored...boreder...

Eye: what were we talking about again?

Tyzik: can a psychiatrist make a good father?

Dirg: depends how crazy he is.

Eye: you have to be crazy to be parent. Mister America and go.

Dirg: i didn't laugh once.

Laertus: not to be confused with Mrs. America, which everyone should go out and see.

Dirg: sucks when the best performance is from a conservative woman pro-life-with-pink-rollers-in-her hair scold Schlafly gadfly, huh. that pie tastes good.

Eye: i love Tim, but he really could have made an effort to include Eric in this, right? secure the friendship and business relationship.

Laertus: first off, this is either really good or really good acting on the part of local actors. i'm assuming they performed their skits in front of real people who didn't know this was a movie to get honest unfiltered reactions, which works. this is naked improv. i don't know how Tim & Eric and Eric Andre do it, they have balls of steel, they are the bravest men i know to go into a black donut shop or something in a KKK sheet just for the lulz is...…...crazy...

Dirg: more like baked improv. even i gotta admit, confronting Alex Jones like that one-on-one one-of-one mano-a-mano is scary as fuck. he's an intimidating guy. he sweats and spits and eats it, that's why his cheeks are so flustered. Eric nonchalantly brushes it off, saying Coachella this year sucks. as Alex Jones calls him a deep-stater comedian.

Laertus: okay, bud, Bud Lite and McDonalds. blue cans of Bud Lite and large red disks of McDonalds fries, THAT's your perfect meal, right, Dirg?

Dirg: almost. gotta add the WhiteClaw to be Murican.

Dirg: speaking of Coachella., that musical festival death of all those kids wasn't Tim's fault. you see the problem right there, doncha? Tim was playing good old-fashioned hardnosed shoeleather American music, rock, but then he transitioned into weak-wristed European electronica, that was his problem. vape doesn't kill, vape guns do. droplets do. metal. in your lungs does.

Laertus: the judge and the district attorney in this are VERY realistic. this is better than most documentaries.

Dirg: it's not that print media is dead, Tim, it's that media is fake. Martin Luther King Jr. is not just for the black man, stop hogging him, he's an inspirational figure, like Black Panther. MLK, the greatest San Bernardinoino of the Greater Los Angeles area who walked on a water fountain. we have a rat problem, and of course only the Mexican restaurant won't allow Tim to put up his campaign sign on the window. we all know Gordon Ramsay faked that rat in that restaurant...

Laertus: it's cool to see cigarette shops and the like okay the taping of campaign signs on their windows. i never knew you could just walk up to places and do that there in them.

Eye: i LOVE Terri Parks here as Toni Newman. she does a great job. seamless acting. it's all like it's really her talking naturally in real life, not a mockumentary. she's cute as a button. and her body is cute as a button.

Dirg: she's one of the few women who still looks hot with glasses. ANOTHER BEER, BITCH. i swear in the motel scene might have been the motel lighting but when she says she needs to speak to Tim urgently i saw her belly distended and thought she was pregnant. they get married later but the infatuation flirtation started here. what's with the product placement, show? you get Bud Lite to sponsor but have poor Tim drinking out of empty Rams Bud Lite cans? are you serious? you couldn't get him the Steelers Bud Lite cans?

Eye: i didn't add it up at first, when Tim talks about the one juror that hung him and let him avoid the electric chair for the electric festival, i didn't immediately realize it was Toni. the film should have played around with the audience's head and kept that secret and not reveal that it was Toni till the end for dramatic tension. let that remain a mystery longer to fester a more explosive finale.

Laertus: people would think that juror was a Russian illuminati or something. doing it for the lulz.

Dirg: fucking Gregg Turkington.

Laertus: it's weird, this movie ends up being more about Gregg than Tim. i think Gregg takes up most of the screentime here. he makes cogent points tho. this is The Shaggy D.A. in real life. Tim is a murderer who should be put down like a dog sorry honey, he just got OJ'd.

Eye scowls at Laertus.

Dirg: brave going into that Mexican barbershop and talking about the good ol' days. but it WOULD be good old days if Tim's campaign promise bore fruit for those fruits and there was 100% no crime. everyone benefits cos they wouldn't be there...

Eye: not even Little Caesars pizza can quiet Tim's outburst. the six people in the room were just there for the pizza anyway. his opponents don't turn up for the live televised CNN debate in a tiny hotel room. you know Tim was just jealous of this hotel room from his motel campaign headquarters.

Dirg: and Gregg takes that long sad walk alone at night by the neon light of a GIRLS revue sign by the highway...

Laertus: Gregg should have been eating a burger at the debate. or kissing one to really get Tim mad. get under his white-rage skin. alas, the man they call Tim wanted to be Caesar…...you can't be the D.A. if you don't live there, this isn't Rome...

Laertus: i love with all these movie outburst rants, the first thing that always goes in all these hotels is the gold luggage cart. shoved into the wallpapered walls and flipped over. shove it up your ass, i'm sorry, i didn't mean it, not your ass, Toni, tho i'd like to. get out of here, Toni, i need to breathe. in motel ice. i love Tim's character in this cos it comes from a place of love.

Eye: did you see Terri's face during those scenes? she was not Toni there she was Terri and she was SICK of Tim's real-life bullshit at that point! there's only so much improv you can take when it becomes Bumpian toxic masculinity and mistreatment on set and insults and vulgarity, ha! i love her so much. Tim should have chilled with a Grim cartoon during the concession with Mandy to remind him of what Toni could have been if the chaos and chairs were turned.

Laertus: would have been interesting if they had Tim actually heartfelt apologize and concede gracefully...

Dirg: Terri should play Ruth Bader Ginsburg when the time is right…...in a Lifetime movie or whatever......i'm not saying hoping or rooting for anything just stating facts...

Eye: in the final scene, Tim's meditation at the burnt-out scene of the crime, it should have ended precariously and wobbly so the audience doesn't know if Tim is addressing the REAL camera crew who made this film or the camera crew in the film's world. and why does Eric the interviewer go by Josh in this film? did he really need to change his name for this? did he really need to play a character? it would have been more realistic if he hadn't and just been himself in real life.

Dirg: Tim, you don't need to read a laborious tome of California code law to prep for the debate, you just need to take the Bible in there with you. g'night, folks.

Madame Pons is on a house call. with Doctor Birx. two-way zoom meeting:

Birx: oh i was so disappointed in The High Note. i thought the daughter was gonna portray her mother Diana Ross in that one...

Pons: *smiling like Cosby* right.

Birx: did you see the scarf i was wearing today? it was pretty and different, right?

Pons: right. peacocks, we get it, we get it. how may i help you tonight, sister?

Birx: i'm scared of the President. i never thought my career would be my detriment, that as a woman i would be chided for being smart and not lying. if i disagree wth Bump he yells at me like he's my daddy. i don't know how much longer i can conceal the charade with the media that there was a vaccine all along.

Pons: you need to be more assertive. you know what, i'll patch you through to a very special guest who was on this zoom the whole time, he'll tell it like it is. hi B!

Obama: Birx, listen, look at me. look at my eyes. just do what i do, when you're standing right next to President Bump, take this chance to not social distance to tell him to his face what you really think of him. next time you're in that moral quandary between public health and not getting killed look him square in his square face and say:

you are a disgrace to this country, you little faggot. you're not one of us. you're foreign. like a virus that makes once-good things bad. i hope you lose. i hope you lose yuge. you're doing a terrible job, even Jim says so. the factory workers were making fun of you with their choice of music. don't believe me? ask your Cabinet about Axl Rose...

at the first student council meeting of the year, the girls and Pat are all gathered round the round table, with Mister Flowers presiding:

Flowers: i am the teacher for this shit i mean gig. any questions for me? i'm a young Harrison Ford when i lie down and prone out on the hood of my yellow Corvette.

Julie: you have white hair and your heart is 100 years old. older than your engine. where did Kate Tempest go?

Flowers: like most women she couldn't decide. is she a brilliant spoken-word artist or a singer? is she in a one-woman band? like, she tries to sing her lyrics but it's half-singing. so i flunked her.

Julie: i WANT HER for the Orchid Club Girls!!! call me, The Tempest!

Flowers: i found a green watergun in Pat's pocket and took away that contraband! Pat is expelled!

Pat: it wasn't me. somebody planted it. this room told on me.

Flowers: shaking my head. you young people and your rush to be gangbangers. why not listen to Rush instead? shame. yes i did it i mean no i didn't.

Julie: take off your glasses. when i look into your ancient sagging tired eyes, i know that you never wanted to be a public highschool teacher. you wanted to relieve the stress in your life. YOU planted the gun, didn't you. this is YOUR watergun.

Flowers: yes. plants aren't allowed in class. even in biology. i would keep my flowers in locked cupboards and when the principal wasn't looking i'd squirt a few shots from my watergun to keep them watered and moist and deluged then close the cupboards again. it's the only beauty i see all day! not you stupid students' butts all day! i wanted to be a gardener at this school! i like to think of myself as a fertilizer of people.

Julie: plus, we got you. that anonymous porn video that's virused and sweeping the world of an unknown teacher in a sweater who has a secret rendezvous with a student in a skirt, Kate, pushes her down by the head to his dong, unzips it before entering the room of bath as he leans back and holds on with both hands to the tub-sink, that's you innit! they were making it think it was from Belgium...

Flowers: yes. bathrooms are my weakness. you won't tell the principal?

Julie reaches for Flowers's pistol.

Flowers: NOT MY DONG!!!

Julie: relax.

Julie Indian-burns the tip of the watergun and it fills with good fresh sparkling bubbly clean water and is big enough in room for all of the teacher's flowers to bloom inside that one long narrow skinny flute.

Julie: now go. go away and never darken my doorstep again. i'm the president now.

Pat: if only you could Indian-burn my reputation off.