i knock on the gargoyle door to Alan Watts's private library in the mushroom room. Alan greets me with his big wide grin and the Wakanda Symbol he makes with his arms while not dropping his Buddha beads.
me with the notebook and pencil: gotta ask, your adoring public aches to know, what's the deal with the hair?
Alan Watts: i haven't always looked like this. when i was a Catholic priest i looked like Hugh Laurie. and then i donned the Jedi robe of the Zen Master. eventually after riding a few hogs with Dennis Hopper and Jane Fonda i at an easy pace adopted the Jeff Bridges look everyone knows me for in TikTok memes.
me: i heard a lot of screaming last night coming from your chamber.
Alan: i had a lucid nightmare. it shrunk my normally lantern-shaped head into the shape of a melon. but you know something? i've never used TWEEZERS. not once in my life have i tweezed my eyebrows.
me: why are you looking at me? it gives me a thrill to know you're looking a me with your third eye.
Alan: i want the Bert look. i want you to tweeze my eyebrows.
me: where does one find tweezers in the middle of the forest?
Alan: there's a CVS inside the retreat house...
Bob Feller: i was a teenage baseball pitcher in the Majors.
Michael J. Fox: better than being a teenage werewolf playing high-school basketball.
Bob Feller: i was never a feller. i did manage to throw Curly from The Three Stooges out.
Curly: that's cuz i ate the baseball, kid. it turned into sawdust spaghetti in my belly.
Bob Feller: my fastball had HEAT. but i wasn't fast enough to sweeep Marilyn Monroe off her feet.
Marilyn Monroe in her Jean Harlow voice: this kid tried to pull a fast one on us!!! on the country. this boy tried to ask me out!!! i mean it's not like he was as famous as Shirley Temple or nothing.
German boats under London Bridge: don't worry, we're not starting World War III. the space Stormtroopers aren't the same as the other stormtroopers. remember, Darth Vader turns out to be a good guy...
German boats under London Bridge: do you want to have people coming back to London? in the pubs, serve Butter Lay's. yeah? Lay's potato chips that are just butter. butter chips...
Humphrey Bogart swimming in the rag-and-bone shoppe from The Liver Birds: do you know what the Maltese Falcon really is? a lamp.
self-help books in Alan Watts's library: you never realized this when you were reading a self-help book, but self-help is New Age...
Kamala Harris: when i'm President all McDonald's will serve only healthy food...
Morgan Spurlock: in Heaven you can eat as many Big Macs as you want and never get sick. Shepard Fairey did my posters!!!
Greykid: i am honored to be Kamala's cat.
Oprah: i'm running for President after Kamala. it's the only way to keep democracy going...
Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love: my blood sugar is tanking.
Amanda Peterson: shall i call 911?
Patrick: no i'll be okay once i eat this whole pepperoni pizza here. speaking of pizza, i'm gonna be Loverboy.
Amanda: i know, which is why i find it strange that you're so DESPERATE to join the jocks. in high school. you're gonna fuck older lonely rich women.
Patrick: and the pizza will be better there.
Patrick Dempsey: why is high school so hard? fuck cliques.
Amanda: it's hard for everybody. remember, we live in Arizona, Arizona sucks.
me: Patrick Dempsey had big ears like me.
Patrick Dempsey: but unlike you, Patrick, THIS Patrick was only pretending to be a nerd...
me: in my McDonald's dreams i am YOUR Patrick...
Patrick Dempsey's dad: i have a mansion big enough for Seth Green to go wild in because of my tile business. so it stands to reason that family game night consists of us playing Battleship as a family, the game of tiles...
Patrick Dempsey's dad: i need an Alan Watts pipe. i need a dad pipe.
girl in covered convertible: have you ever seen pretty titties?
Patrick Dempsey: not like yours. not up close like this.
girl: tits are meant to be in men's faces.
Patrick: see this is the '80s so cable is still mystical. nobody has cable TV in the neighborhood. do you watch that Nickelodeon game show Double Dare and play along at home?
girl: where do you see tit?
Patrick: in magazines and stuff. it's the '80s so there's only your father's Playboys...
Alan Watts: despite my name, i am human...
Alan Watts: you hear that strange booming sound?
me: a squirrel is knocking on your glass screendoor.
Rigby: i'm a raccoon. come on, Alan, let me in.
Alan Watts, sliding: sorry, Rigby, Mordecai had the New Age chops, that's why he disappeared.
Rigby: i don't have the New Age aptitude so i'm still here?
Alan Watts: sucks for you. you have to get a real job now.
me: Jen, you're the best American i know.
Jen R: no, the correct answer is Oprah. the Queen of Chicago. the Queen of the DNC.
Kamala Harris: when i'm President, Berkeley will become the world city it was always meant to be. Berkeley will be like Paris.
Dan Schneider in the stands at the San Francisco Giants baseball game: the Head of the Class theme song sounds like Journey "Don't Stop Believin'."
Steve Perry: don't stand up, Dan, thinking you're gonna receive a standing ovation...
me: you are hot. i wanna fuck you. you got a man?
Melissa Maker: um, Patrick? it's me, remember?.........i'm married to Chad Reynolds...
Jen: don't you know anything?!!! limit your distractions by staying alert, by paying attention in your life.
me: can i be your live-in boyfriend?
Jules Smith: before we go on our first date?
Jen: this is not working out.
Alfred Vogel: all herbalists are monks. don't make fun of me, i know Roger Federer. i know Batman. Herbamare is a great replacement for Shake-N-Bake pork powder. i wanted Sonic the hedgehog to be an echidna.
Jacques Pepin: my secret ingredient? add Tabasco Sauce to EVERY DISH...
Claudine Pepin: summer's over, pops.
Capp: why is it that nobody talks anymore? everyone stays silent. nobody says a word. traction is nonexistent. conversation is unsustainable. it never gets beyond one sentence. any response whatsoever?
Jen R: you're not in the right clubs.
Capp: i want a club that TALKS.
Jen: no chess club then. and not a dance club.
me: this is not working out.
Jen R: no it is not.........this is gonna be in your book...
me: what is it like to receive a voicemail that is one hour long?
Melissa Maker: i don't listen to hour voicemails anymore. not even from my husband...
Skylar: what have i been doing since i retired from Safeway? steampunk sewing machine...
Bert and Ernie are at home in their bathtub together bathing each other.
Bert: i'm spinning.
Ernie: we're all spinning on this spinning rock, Bert. snap out of your depression. at least you're not Snuffy, that guy is REALLY depressed. i gave Snuffy my rubber duckie to soothe himself with and he snorted it up into his trunk.
Stephen Nedoroscik: i'm not a dancer. i'm a gymnast. but everyone HAS to do Dancing with the Stars whether or not we hate dance. show business is a totem pole. i'm representing for all the Olympics out there. i'm representing for all the breakdancers out there...
Stephen Nedoroscik's girlfriend: you're a ghost because you're a meme.
Eric Clapton: my "Layla" riff is played every time they're advertising a new rock radio station...
Hurricane Gilma: Gilmore girls is back, this time the daughter has to care for the mother who's an old lady...
Richard Belzer: i'm of Fame fame.
Leslie Sbrocco: my favorite dish is cum but i love a good clam chowder.
Morgan Bolling: those two are not the same.
Leslie: only Chicago Clam Chowder, i will not eat clam chowder from that racist city.
Rinvoq: meat skewers at the beach?...
Dirg: those people who post weird shaved-head pics of themselves when they were 18 wearing non-military fatigues, i mean what IS that on Instagram?!!!
Michael Weiss: they're documenting a wasted life.
Richard Hatch: all reality-show contestants go to prison, right?...
Jeff Probst: yes, the whole thing is one big racket.
Engelbert Humperdinck: i got a Little Indian in me, you know what i'm saying?
Humphrey Bogart: you're related to me. you're my cousin. your name means "mystery man" in the language of Land of the Lost from the 1970s.
Alan Watts: see what i mean? see with your third eye. think about it, you have no choice on how to live. everybody is born into a family. and with it a job of some kind, a legacy that spans generations. your father was a vintner so that is simply what you are gonna be doing in YOUR life: wine merchant. whether you want to or not. liking it is not in the equation. you have a legacy to protect, YOU are in charge of your grandfather's bottles of wine. you are born innately with responsibilities, within a system. you realize that when you get to be a teenager you're gonna have to take care of your ailing old parents. that is your job: caregiver. you have no time to be an artist. you have no time to create your own destiny. you were born to be your parents' caregiver. you were born to look after your old mom and your old dad.
Alan can see that i'm sullen.
Alan: don't hide back in your Vision of Escaflowne VHSs. for you it's different, huh.
i nod my head faintly.
Alan: it's the exact opposite for you, you WANT to be part of a family desperately.
me: i loved that my dad was a writer, i wanted to be a writer, too. but a real writer, a famous writer, a writer that somehow gets money for art. okay how about just a known writer? but dad had no contacts, no writer-circle buddies, thus i am left without a legacy, i am a friendless writer looking to get in the game of art.
Alan: you aren't an author unless you're published. so you desire destiny, you wish you had been given the structure of the plan for your future, that the plan had been laid out early, that you knew all the rungs you needed to ascend to follow in the family business. of being an artist, a writer. tricky that. but YOU must choose: family or going your own way.
me: it'd be easier if my girl was Stevie Nicks.
Alan Watts: precious few get that Almost Famous "you ARE home" moment in the bus with your second family because your second family came to you easily. the yearning, the desperate search for your second family, the finding of it, and ultimately the permanent transition into your second family, this is the most beautiful thing a human can experience in life. always remember, kid: FAMILY IS ALL.
ALL OF THIS i write in the notebook.
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