THE POPE'S BLACK SHOES: SUPPORT

 

Pope Bob in a Knicks In 7 shirt: you like women with big socks?

altarboy: i mean...

Pope Bob: i wish i had some big socks on my back right now, my back is absolutely fucking KILLING me at the moment. is there anything i can do to make this interview process run smoother?

altarboy: stop believing in everything all the time, it's too much. sir i have constipation.

Pope Bob: call a plumber.

Pope Bob: what's the best way to get to know you guys?

altarboy: not that. ask us about our dreams.

Pope Bob: very well then. go.

altarboy: well i do have this recurring dream where i'm a contestant on Family Feud but both families are goth. even Richard Dawson, he kisses with black lipstick.

Pope Bob: now THAT's the stuff. that's Old Testament vision stuff. 

altarboy: it goes deeper tho. i'm there but that isn't my real family...

eclaircissement: when the First Lady of France grabs Macron's goatee so hard it looks like plane boxing.

Matthew Sweet: sick of myself, because i'm sickly sweet...

Netflix secret codes: what's the secret code so i DON'T have to watch any more Harry Potter content?...

Terry Bradshaw: chew on bark. chew on some bark, champ, and let me know what it takes like. i bet it tastes like my ass.

Aaron Rodgers: i actually don't know, my teeth are veneers.

Terry Bradshaw: what do the forest gods sound like? like little green men?

Aaron Rodgers: the forest gods sound like ten locomotives coming at you all at once in every direction.

Terry: how much mud was in your hut?

Aaron: none, we don't have a bath...

Terry: i'm Terry No Jaw after my playing days, one too many hits... 

Pope Bob: should i get a hard bed or a soft bed for my back? it's an existential question.........and i'm not allowed to read Existentialism.

Jen R: good question. hard bed for the pain, soft bed to relax it away. it's an IcyHot bed.

Pope Bob: i have an IcyHot blanket my grandmother gave me before she became a witch.

Jen: then again, Sartre's bed was a sugar bowl...

Sartre: i farted in the sugar bowl. that made the confectioner's sugar less fun. that's why you should always get cane from Hawaii.

The Elephant House: that first Degrassi episode...

dad: remember when we would talk about how they should only have one day off between NBA playoff games? 

me: yeah. those were special talks.

dad: never two days off, disrupts the flow...

Michael Weiss: people on Instagram are leeches for a reason...

Bjork "Frosti": the Super Mario music!!!

Benson Boone: i flip harder than Livvy Dunne.........i'm Skenes with a whiffleball...

Spencer Wilcox: so Jen R magically appeared on Instagram again after 8 months did she?

me: no that was MY work. yeah. my hard painstaking work piecing together the pieces to her location, calling her on the sidewalk payphone with a quarter and stuff. me. people don't just magically appear on Instagram again!!!

Spencer: wanna eat my Chesapeake hot nut?

me: buddy i'm so happy i'd eat a pair of winged pants from The Gap in Australia...

Instagram: everyone has Thursday off...

you know you're rich when: after you dip out of the pool, you come to a one-man white circular table with a gold Rolex watch and a clear glass of water on the table.

BombPoppie: if your art Instagram suddenly posts a black-&-white photo of you the artist, you're either suddenly famous or suddenly dead.

newspaper article.

interviewer: summer plans?

artist: yeah, dying.

Marilyn Manson: famous for being dead...

Green Day "Hitchin' a Ride": it's Faberge...

Robbie Williams "Angels": my waterfall means something, not like that TLC waterfall, that was a dirty waterfall, that was just about sex. and through it all, she offers me protection, a lot of love and affection, she's at my beck and call.

Jules Smith: how do you know life won't break you?

Robbie: i don't. no one does, luv.

'90s sexy thrillers: a movie category of its own, a movie category unto itself.

Sharon Stone in Sliver: it's not a thriller that perfectly combines sex and violence unless it has that 1990s sheen.

Alec Baldwin: malice, me?...

Susan Sarandon in White Palace: i'll never be this hot again!!!...

James Spader: i took this movie because i was hungry and wanted sliders.

SGA of the OKC Thunder: Flobert from Night Court is my father. i'm sorry but we were cooler when we were the Seattle Supersonics, what happened to us?...

Mike White: i'm the first person who went on Survivor and actually went on to do great things. all that Fiji scenery inspired me to write The White Lotus!!!...

SoundCloud: you get ONE CHANCE to hear this song...

Eminem: don't blow your one shot on blow. i don't know how this happened but my mom is more famous than me.

Maradona: documentary film is very important to me, it's vital for democracy.

gochujang cookies: yeah but that doesn't really replace the gochujang spaghetti sauce...

toffee: why the English have bad teeth.

altarboy: come on, tell us. why do you wear the black shoes? they clash with your white robe. the world is waiting. your adoring public wants fashion advice.

Pope Bob: truth be told, it's a lark. one day i got sick of my papal duties, i thought i was done with homework after 6th Grade, and i needed a break. i needed to relax and unwind. i got out of my stiff workboots which were causing me so much pain. i mean the pain was at fucking TEN. the pain was SO bad there were some nights i asked the Good Lord to take me. i prayed for death at the altar. these are like my cool urban street shoes, the shoes i wear to skateboard with the fellas. 

altarboy: on the Italian cobblestone streets?

Pope Bob: you know to knock around a couple lagers with the fellas. the shoes i use to do chores are these black ones. i want to be an ordinary human who takes out the trash. UNFORTUNATELY that required me to lift a HEAVY-AS-FUCK wooden plank that kept the raccoons from rooting through the trash bins and feeding on the tampon blood. yeah THAT was good for my back!!!

altarboy: and then the miracle.

Pope Bob: so i got arch supports from The Good Feet Store in Sand City. god i love Sand City, it reminds me of a Jesus desert, i wanted to bathe in and then drink the water in the Sea of Galilee. you insert it into your shoe, over the tongue, you slip those suckers under your feet in your shoe and Jesus does the rest.

Jesus: on TOP of your feet, too, the tips...

Pope Bob: and ABRACADABRA you're healed!!! see the arch supports weren't good for my feet, they were good for my BACK!!!

THE POPE'S BLACK SHOES: THE CRYING ROOM

Pope Bob is interviewing altarboys for the job.

Pope Bob wearing a Knicks In The Mix shirt: and what would you say are your qualifications?

altarboy: i stare at my phone a lot.

Pope Bob: and what do you and your sheep-shagger friends do around the neighborhood when you're not altarboying?

altarboy: i'm Welsh, sir, that hurt. i take my DJ-ing very seriously. 

at the altar.

Jen R: it's early but there's coffee.

Pope Bob: do you know why those French monks invented tennis? they were bored out of their gourds in that fucking monastery!!! they needed a distraction in the WORST, man. a game to give their lives fleeting meaning. 

Jen: you'd think they'd be drunk off their gourds on that good French wine as they devised tennis, tennis seems the sort of sport you create while drunk.

Pope Bob: French wine, why can't the Roman Mass use French wine? why must we use that Stanley Tucci pee?

Jen: is this my Confession?

Pope Bob: sure, out in the open.

Jen: i got Redken in my half-fro hair as i strolled Fifth Avenue before stopping to shop at Macy's. the conditioner never came out, it made my head permanently sticky.

Pope Bob: use leave-in conditioner and fuhgeddaboudit.

interrobang: when the question mark and exclamation point fuck.

After Dark, My Sweet.

Bruce Dern: i look like a homeless man but i'm really a superb actor...

Collie: i'm crazy, but i was a boxer, so i have a nice body...

Fay: WHAT THE HELL IS HE TALKING ABOUT?!!!.........sorry, that was a poor linereading, i'm not into this, i thought this was gonna be the good live-action of Cowboy Bebop...

neo-noir: can't happen today, there will never be the conditions to make it the 1930s again...

Uncle Bud: look at my shirt, Kid. in one hour i can have our getaway car turned into Optimus Prime.

boy: you're like WAY prettier than my mom.

Collie eating out a tin pail: that wasn't shrimp, that was soap!!!

Fay: down the lane is Sesame Street. not for couples.

me: i could take real good care of you.

Jen R: we are Collie and Fay on a good and bad day.

Montezuma: let loose, revenge is meant to be sloshy.

boy: holy shit i got Tim Burton Disease!!! look at my face, i'm too young to be goth!!!

Uncle Bud: insulin? but RFK Jr..

medicine cabinet: we got everything, we got insulin, we got covid, we got something that makes you enjoy Coachella.

Fay: that's not insulin, you're feeding the kid a spoonful of C&H sugar.

Mary Poppins: ...

Cecily Strong: if you put sugar on Triscuits, it becomes Shredded Wheat.

sweatshop seamstress: i don't have a lazy eye, i'm just tired...

dad: it's the Van Nuys Public Library!!!

parking-lot cop: wow, it's not often you see a murder being committed right in front of your eyes like that. 

Collie: it's weird tho because that cop looks like the Joker without makeup.

Fay: i wish Heath Ledger were here instead of you...

me: is there anything i can do for you that you can't do for yourself?

Jen R: that's why we have boyfriends, right?

Fay: fake Australian accent, i'm really from Africa.

dad: we had a timeshare in Indio...

Fay: no sex scene. sorry. just my jeans butt. there was a sex scene on the VHS box of this movie tho...

Fay: oh and Uncle Bud was my husband who wasn't dead...

Jen: INSTANT FAMILY solves all problems!!!

Gemma Stafford: i may be a 4th-rung celebrity, but my Gummiberry-Juice Muffins will make you lose a day. some of us are too young to have soggy bottom.

Scripps National Spelling Bee: Afsluitdijk.

Afsluitdijk: that old B&W newsreel of all the mud being craned was Ingmar Bergman's first experimental film.

NBA: what if we decided to just not play the next game...

Max Kellerman: Anderson Cooper and i had the same dead brother...

John Waters: isn't it about time i do the Three's Company movie?

Mr. Roper: you just had your water shut off.

John Waters: Jon Hamm as Jack Tripper, Shelley Duvall as Janet, Michelle Pfeiffer as Chrissy who becomes a doctor.

Mrs. Roper: i run off with Mr. Furley.

Larry: i become a priest. the priest who officiates the Jack/Vicky wedding.

college: a strange hybrid of school and vacation.

headphones: earphones.

Memorial Day: when you play table tennis with your mom for the first time.

Tom Cruise at the French Open: you're the French Bulldog?

Rafael Nadal: yes.

Tom Cruise: don't fart on me, man. come on.

Hugh Grant: my ass had hemorrhoids. but the nice couple next to me was so understanding, they were from Europe...

merchandiser: at the arcade.

Suzy Lu: i'm gonna have a Chinese.

Kakashi: but i thought we were married.

Steejo: she has two husbands...

Holly Earl: damn, i missed being on Skins!!!

"Go New York Go New York Go": sung by Bebop and Rocksteady of TMNT...

Pope Bob: altar girl?

Jen R: i'm cooler than that. i'm cooler than all that. i'm cooler than religion. you can't change me. have you finally tried Chicago Deep Dish?

Pope Bob: but what is pizza? as a kid growing up in the neighborhood i ate 3 meatballs a day, that's it. my mother called it "ascetic" but i knew it was "fasting." my first diet.

Jen: not looking too good for our Knicks.

Pope Bob: we need all hands on deck for the next game at MSG!!! Spike Lee, Timothee Chalamet, John McEnroe, Jerry Seinfeld!!!

Larry David: i always get left out.

Jack Nicholson: hell even I'LL come cross-country. the last time i was at Madison Square Garden i was sitting next to a healthy-looking woman...

Pope Bob: pizza with sardines, that's a thing, right? spaghetti with breadcrumbs, breadcrumbs instead of Parmesan cheese, i invented that, i created that, don't say i do nothing for you, Italy. don't say i do nuttin!!! i still got my nuts under this robe.

 

THE POPE'S BLACK SHOES: THE TOASTER SETTING SHOULDN'T CHANGE LIKE THAT

 

Pope Bob From Chicago: it's musty in here.

they're at the Sistine Chapel.

altarboy: sir we aired-out your room as you ordered. 

Pope Bob: the Crying Room needs a LOT of airing-out.

altarboy: we did.

Pope Bob: huh, it's still musty in here.

Pope Bob addresses the frantic faithful outside from the balcony.

Pope Bob: rabid onlookers, it's such a nice day, why can't we do my First Mass at the Monaco Grand Prix? that is one SEXY race. the Monaco Grand Prix is the unofficial start to summer!!!

lacrosse: ...

lacrosse in a cavern: ...

altarboy: ready to bring the smoke, Holy Papa?

Pope Bob: yes, it's time for Communion. friends, countrymen, fellow spiritualists, look at this glass bowl, it has too many lemons. when life gives you THIS many lemons, give em away!!! everyone in the Pax Romana gets a lemon!!!

Melissa Maker in Rome: strawberry ice cream for breakfast.........trust me...

me: why did you choose ChatGPT over ME?!!!

we're at the plaza surrounded by cobblestone.

me: i'd just like to thank you for all your help locating Jen R for me.

Spencer Wilcox wearing a Tom Petty hat and John Lennon glasses: mate i ain't bothered. i just don't care either way, you know? i'm busy with my magic. i disappear when you most need me.

After Dark, My Sweet.

ex-boxer Kevin "Kid" Collins, a drifter and escapee from a mental hospital...

me: ALREADY i relate to this film.

Roger Ebert: ATMOSPHERE.

boxer: but those were church bells in my head.

dates: both meanings.

only house in the desert: ...

Rachel Ward: keep your hair on.

Jason Patric: my pubic hair is bald.

Rachel: get in.

Jason: oh no, this is the exact car scene as that Tommy Wiseau car scene.

it's not much but it's private: this is my dream.

find people who take an interest in you: and not just at WKRP.

sir: makes me uncomfortable.

Palm Springs: it's so quiet here you can hear the cicadas quietly reading manga.

Mel's Diner: drifters go to the back with the dishes and detergent.

doctor: Collie, you're the female Blanche DuBois.

Collie calling on a corded phone: mom, the doctor looks like old Luke Skywalker. and i have a skeleton of an extinct cat in my bedroom.

drink your clothes: like Fred Flintstone.

machete: that sugar you sprinkle atop your morning cereal requires me. you don't think about that, do you? datecane is toxic.

Jen: the best part of those old phones was not the cord but the cradle.

valet Collie: sorry, ma'am, i thought you were Rosemary from Rosemary's Baby, not a tennis player. got the visors mixed up.

Robert Stack: this is so Unsolved Mysteries.

boy from the Veruca Salt "All Hail Me" music video: there are no bad seeds, only bad trees.

Claudine Pepin: Father Time Being?

Jacques Pepin in a toga: no, for the time being.

Gloria Pepin: we treat our guests to a tree.

aspic: meat Jello.

Sebastiao Salgado: Picasso as a photographer. has the Amazon Rainforest been restored? Brazil would work better as an anarchy...

Treavor Scales: whose line is it anyway?...

Fanapt: because the anime community aren't a bunch of schizos, we just want to find unlikely love at a key shoppe...

Jaleel White on his knees: remember, you can top off a lot weed in a Split Second...

Trent Reznor singing Nine Inch Nails "Where Is Everybody?": y'all didn't think i could be FUNKY.

Kid Cudi: are you still a snitch if the feds force your hand?

bra shield: for Witness Protection...

Vince Spadea: i'm chillin in Van Nuys, ya know? wearing the bucket hat before Bieber. 21 losses in a row, but i smiled through every match. because i played tennis for money. i played Charlie Brown that one summer at UCLA theatre camp in the '80s...

Jen R: your heart was THUMPING on that call to me on the old-fashioned phone.

me: my heart was BEATING OUT OF ITS CHEST.

PG Tips: shoepolish-brown.

Sky News: you can't find us because we're fucking Channel 4006!!!

Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator: where are you?...

Jen R: you were lucky you caught me on my day off, Thursday, i was home instead of the machine.

me: AI screwed up my love life, but you were always my home.

Rihanna: on your main.

Bela Lugosi: on my vein? why is Rihanna dressed as a vampiress?

274: the meaning of life, the number of Tootsie Roll Pop licks.

kid at the Monaco Grand Prix wearing plush red DJ-headphones: i'm cute.

Jiminy Cricket: i've been wishing for a century and NOTHING. this is my 117th different wish on this fucking star...

Hello Meteor Impact Bloom: those '90s drums.

altarboy: the people aren't religious anymore.

Pope Bob: religion is old money. you need something TECH NEW AGE to get Gen Z. to grab Gen Z. to flip Gen Z's eyeballs. 

altarboy: Manhattanhenge is spiritual.

Pope Bob: yes it is. Manhattanhenge is the ultimate DUSK. Manhattanhenge always makes me cry. it's the one chance city folk get to experience what it's like to live in the country.

altarboy: i'm groggy today.

Pope Bob: you're groggy every day, man.

altarboy: it was the strangest thing at the papal kitchenette this morning, the toaster setting had changed. that had never happened before. i had never seen that before.

Pope Bob: yeah what's the deal? for a century the toaster setting was at 3 and the bread toasted perfectly. now it BURNS at 3!!! you have to move it to 2.5 to get the nice browning it had at 3. i mean this is some crazy shit. i can talk to God about this but this is the type of crazy shit that just shouldn't happen in this day and age, you know?

 

THE ART OF NOT GETTING SICK: YOU ARE THE ANSWERS TO THE TEST

 

Jen R: what did you do?

me: i panicked.

Jen: no, for the first time in your life you didn't. i answered the phone, you hung up. 

me: then i realized i had to WILL myself to talk to you. i had to SAY something, spill forth the spitty utterance on my mouth, the moment was NOW, i had to.........ACT...

Jen: on the second call you let me hear your voice for the first time. i must admit, i was expecting a lower voice, one less frantic and all-over-the-place. you DID it. you actually had to DO something for something to happen. it was never going to happen by HOPING. you had to MAKE it happen. manifest it from the clouds into reality, into real substance in the ether. do, not think.

Yoda and Mark Hapka: ...

Bette Midler: once more unto the Beaches, dear friends, before Mayim Bialik pulls out...

me: it's a straight-up miracle that i'm talking to you again.

Jen: it was all you. not your dad.

Jules Smith: the greatest love is when someone takes the time to comment on your blog post.

Frank Zappa: don't hide your smartness just to make friends. and if you're dumb, hey, go with it, be you, you can only be you in this life, be how God made you, unburdened by the long thoughts of the intelligent. if you're stupid, enjoy hockey, it's fine.

Mashly: hey. hockey is a refined sport. because there are only so many places on Earth where ice can exist.

Zappa: is that a Smurf tattoo on your left big tit?

Mashly: i'm more elastic than you'll ever be...

me: i can't believe this is happening right now. that i'm in this space. that i have a counter to Jackie Fitzgerald's Blond Rambo when i talk to her now, that i approach all my old neighbors with this new dynamic. studying for a nonexistent math test as an excuse for everything and to shut up the coughing. i'm not alone. someone to be a shield against my crazy mom.

Zappa: you're delirious, kid.

Avo Babian: i'm an Armenian dentist but i wish i was thick like that. my office is not next to a Panda Express, it's next to a RadioShack, i'm bringing your life back!!!

Chuck E. Cheese's: we're now just another strip-mall store...

at the German market not on Christmas.

Aldi: all these...

Reggie Miller: remember when i faced Spike Lee in the squared circle? that was when WWF was WWF...

Jen R: what do you want to show me? 

me: Sunrise Tai-Chi for my back.

Jen: when those Asian grannies move their arms in a large circle in the sky like that, that is so BEAUTIFUL.

at the final day of Around The Horn.

me: Harry Lyles Jr. is exactly me, from the love of niche sports like tennis to the face to the bald head to the suicidal depression.

Max Kellerman: we gotta bite our tongues and swallow our whistles and invite Jay Mariotti back for the last show...

TJ Simers: am i alive or am i at a Broadway show?

Tony Reali: that one bunch of two-bananas i held turned into a banana cream pie that Shemp stepped in...

Tony Reali holding out his hand: tell me YOUR story. more episodes than Sesame Street? that can't be right, aren't they daily?...

Jennifer Ackerman: is it just me or does everyone on Wikipedia HATE all female fiction authors?...

Monk on USA Network: blue-skies shows, people felt good. no depression, just whimsy. 

Spike Lee: yeah the 2000s, orange and blue skies? nope. the Knicks weren't winning all decade... 

George Rodrigue: wait my Blue Dog becomes Mr. Pickles?!!!...

Louise Robey in a robe: MY '80 hair tho, bigger than Shakespeare's hair...

James Franco: alright i forgive you, you big lug.

Seth Rogen: okay, thanks, but i don't forgive YOU for all the stuff you did in the world...

Tom Cruise: i won't eat popcorn without my knife and fork.

Jeremy Renner driving his mom's snowplow: it's a wonderful relief to be removed from your body. now if only i could align things to where i live in the dreamworld, dream in the "real world," and snow plows itself.

Sarah Becker: snow plows itself over here by melting...

Dame Sarr: the new JoJo hero!!!

summer: it ain't summer till that first vomit.

Mamoru from Sailor Moon in satori sartorial splendor: i got this lime-green EARTH windbreaker from the same hairy professor who gave that guy that aquamarine YALE sweatshirt...

hairy professor: French is the universal language after all...

Satomi: butlers are parasites.

Alfred: only villains and Tommy Wiseau and those who were never loved would say such a  thing...

Jacques Pepin: i'm not Morley Safer, i'm Riviera-Coast sexually exciting, i'm greasy and flavorful, i'm not boring, i'm not SAFE...

Dostoevsky with a bar of soap caught in his beard: love enters softly, suddenly turning your attention to something you thought boring your whole life. suddenly you feel an emptiness when they're not around, an emptiness in the left corner of your soul which forms right NOW for the first time in your life. this person was a part of you all along...

Luigi: the person who is your cheat code. i haven't found my soulmate yet. seriously tho, is there a wife in my future? does anyone know? how much do those desert-level black mages charge? where's MY Princess Peach? it better not just be Toad in a dress.

Jen R: two empaths found each other finally...

me: I GOT MY JEN BACK!!!

Jen: i'm here with one look.