VILLAGE COUNCIL: GAVEL

 

Jules Smith is now in charge. she's the head of the village council. me being her eternal right-hand man i do the odds and ends for her riding my Kermit bicycle on the only grass road delivering her pronouncements and missives. 

Jules Smith: do you like being my helper? my assistant?

me: i like being around you at all times.

Jules: look at this big-ass wood gavel!!! that's why i do this, for the gavel.

me: as i was strolling i got the sense that the village was experiencing a collective anger. people are mad.

Jules: we Brits ARE mad. but why so serious?

me: your new initiative for the environment, not exactly popular among the rabble masses. 

Jules: oh they'll come around once they get a load of me, you'll see. i ain't scared of no people, i only fear chocolate on English muffins. if you don't have butter, at least spread with marmalade and cheese. i don't get it, what is there to be in a tiff about? a village has no concerns. everyone has slept with the village blacksmith, their china is set.

me: the term "sleeping with."

Jules: it had to have come from The Canterbury Tales, right? the image of two strangers sleeping in the same box-bed, piously taking a nap together on the straw, no sex, the Medieval Church is watching.

me: i'm stressed.

Jules: have a full-bar Crunch chocolate bar, it calms the frayest nerve.

Carolita Fraley on Match Game '75: imagine Shelley Duvall with blonde hair and she became a Baptist minister because her father Stanley Kubrick was a Satanist...

24 Hour Party People.

Ian Curtis: you're gonna see my humorous side...

Peter Hook: the FUN SIDE of Joy Division.

Icarus: hang-gliding is NOT better than sex. unless it brings the next Zelda game faster.

Jen R and dad: read more.

insurance: still doesn't cover the meaning of death.

Pee-wee Herman: who jumped up first and started the Pogo dance?...

television: the idiot box, and your only friend.

Mr. Tony: nah you don't want to be conceited like Tony Stark. 

if you disappear: you can be a legend longer...

avant-garde New Wave indie spoken-word: give it a chance, all music is bad poetry in the end...

Steve Coogan: we're British men, we have sex with our clothes on.

nothing useless can be truly beautiful: sounds like something Nietzsche would say...

Jen R: remember co-ops at Berkeley?

Buddha: you cannot record silence with a microphone on a hill, only with your heart. 

Joe Downing: put your dirty laundry inside the drumhead!!!

William Butler Yeats: my first bestseller came was when i was 100 years old like Robert Crumb.

3-Day Week: maybe not such a good idea...

epileptic seizure: not spastic. blood in the mouth is new...

Donald Duck: and suddenly this is Babe. i herd sheep, it's the only job i could find after the Navy caught me not wearing any pants.

Jules Smith: loving postcard!!!

Ian Curtis: the town crier was a bit fancy. i'd like to keep this quiet. just get some grey-shirted bloke in an office mailing a letter, that's more urban-decay. 

Pee-wee Herman: the pigeons turned into claymation Playhouse pigeons.

elephant chap: i'm OLD, mate. not a kid. small and old. Ewoks lead depressing lives.

the cost of beauty: if only it was as simple as a Dove bath bar...

Bernard Sumner: yeah so Joy Division was SO depressing we decided to switch to more bright poppy songs...

Tony Hawk: i'm taking my married name so from now on please call me Tony Cobain.

Three's Company: remember when people actually READ at the breakfast table?

Jen R: a medical magazine with your sunny-side-up eggs, that Terri had a good head on her shoulders.

Princess Di: i was the intern doctor in that "Love Butt Tattoo" episode of Three's Company...

van de Zandschulp vs. Mpetshi Perricard: the chair umpire is getting hazard pay with this announcing workout...

Jenny Baranick: peripatetic is not a pathetic word. it just means you haven't found your place in the world yet, you're a permanent nomad.

Mariah Carey: i have a song caked "Without You" and a song called "With You." it's not that i can't make up my mind, it's that Carson Daly was taken.

Erling Haaland: i would have made that header if i had cut off this silly topknot on my head. 

Jules Smith: i've never seen you with your hair let-down and long. relax, big man, let down your hair, you minger.

Erling: i'll need a Ferrari for that.

Vincent van Gogh: i just realized, putting JUST your art on an Instagram page is BORING AS DIRT...

The Wherehouse: your first exposure to music...

Xoe: and your first exposure to a green-haired girl named Xoe who exposed herself to you behind the counter.

Jen R: i'm your dad in female form...

Boomer Esiason: i mean i'm going into the Bengals Hall of Fame and they greet me at the door with a Fun Pack mini-box of Frosted Flakes cereal.

dad: Esiason back...

Boomer: not now, dude.

dad: that's dad.

Goku: we most stop fighting.

Vegeta: but Saiyans RELISH fighting.

Goku: no i mean we must stop arguing...

Brooke Trantor: improve your improv.

Suzy Lu: anybody can be a YouTuber. but you really do need to be hot or it won't go anywhere...

Pippi Longstocking: in Sweden in 2025 parents still let their 8-year-old children out to play. there are no abductions in Sweden, everyone lives on their own grassy hill. how do you think i had all those adventures when i was a kid?!!!

Gavin Newsom: i'm not just here to make some news...

Brett Somers: i was in the very first wig-pulling bitch fight on Jerry Springer with Betty White...

Midwall: REALLY needed this for the Titans...

Jules Smith: listen with me. the wind is starting to rustle at night. we've crossed the midnight threshold. we've had our first Black Moon, which is the second moon we need. the Earthmother is starting to listen to her children, to her lowly souls, the world is starting to cool. a large batch of cold air is coalescing at the poles and is about to be sent on a wave to our village via the moon. the cold is INSIDE the moon!!! LOOK UP!!!

me: that's nice, that'll quench the restless natives. i love how your council table is a roundtable.

Jules: a longtable is too corporate. a roundtable is equal and Arthurian. King Arthur was the first women's-libber.

me: the council members approacheth!!! gird your loins with a Monty Python chastity belt!!! 

Jules lays out one donut at each place by each of the 13 chairs of the council table.

me: i'll lay out if you want, i don't need a chair.

Jules: poppycock!!! i'll protect you from farm demons. it's impossible to be angry when you have a donut in front of you. now remember to place a drop of Tabasco sauce on Mr. Farthington's donut, he likes that sweet heat. 

CUTTING YOUR HUSBAND'S BEARD: MY BED IS MY JOB

 

me: why can't life just be me in my bed?

Melissa Maker: with crusted cum?

me: me and all the women i've ever known in my life in my bed.

Melissa: i don't stand corrected.

me: i'm lying down, too. 

Melissa: you wish.

Jen R: if you love someone, let them sleep.

craft service: food craft...

General God: it's about the size of a 1-cent stamp...

Bo Jackson: Bo Know. but did anyone ever bother to make the time to Know Bo?

Rose from The Golden Girls: did you know we were part of Jiggle TV?...

Reccoa: kiss me.

Char Aznable: ...

Reccoa: WITH your sunglasses on.

Reccoa later in her room by herself: i mean DAMN, finally i kiss the unicorn hunk, what was he waiting for? my older-woman wiles don't work on blonds? i don't have time for this shit, we're both older people...

Doan's: it'll still make you sneeze...

Melissa Maker: I REFUSE TO WEAR THE SAME SHIRT TWICE!!! i have a thing with shirts and washing machines...

me: does this machine wash silk pillowcases?

Melissa: but of course, mon frere. shit, i'm supposed to be making your bed LESS appealing.

me: i'll let it go this time because Blissy is so fun to say.

grasshopper stridulation: ASMR...

Jen R: using a toaster as a mirror, now that's old-skool...

Barrie Youngfellow: i married the grocery-gameshow guy.

Sam Snead the golfer: Supermarket Sweep!!! the little woman and i watch every night!!! we can't get into Jeopardy, Alex Trebek's mustache made me sneeze when i went for that 3-foot putt...

"Whom Shall I Send?" song.

I'm the Lord of sea and sky

I have made my people cry...

Lindy Lenz on youtube: i think that song is called "Here I Am, Lord..."

Sarah: stuff in the refrigerator LASTS ONE DAY...

Pati Jinich: BROWN AVOCADOS, not green avocados, those are the ripe avocados. want me to blow your mind at my backyard barbacoa barbecue? you don't need a sunhat in Connecticut. okay i'll give you another one: spaghetti with avocado ain't a Mediterranean dish, it's a Mexican dish!!! in fact it's an Ancient Aztec dish, vato.

Xoxo: the only woman who gets to call me vato is God. leave that rack of unspiced tri-tip in my backpocket and i'll one-up you with this: every pipe in Mexico is an ocarina...

Kurt Cobain: the Seattle Mariners uniforms should be powder-blue...

Olmec: we tamed the Mortal Kombat symbols for Legends of the Hidden Temple...

Mrs. Talbot: i played the wedding organ on the Three's Company series finale...

Jack Tripper: the '80s were the last decade men wore pajamas...

dad wearing pajamas: ...

Larry: and the FIRST decade men cried on camera and admitted they had "feelings" when their best friends left with Vicky.

Vicky: the new "going away for the weekend" in the '70s is "living together" in the '80s...

woman on Match Game '75: you're mesmerized by my long hippie hair and paisley silk shirt. husband, 2 kids, homemaker, yada yada yada. i'm studying theology at San Diego State...

Tremfya: a diner inside a gas station?...

tennis: bring back badminton!!! not pickleball. let there be badminton clubs dotting up all across the American landscape...

Love Story alternate title: Racquetball and Atheism.

i fly up from my bed and scurry around the sky interrupting the clear blue.

me: but you see how i'm flying? the tip of my long flowing beard is like the apex of a plane, this apex is swinging me up down all around from that highest point. it's a very uncomfortable way to fly.

Melissa Maker: your cheekbones must hurt like the motherfucking dickens. and there's no peanuts. well that's a neat trick and all but you still land in your bed in the end so what's the point?

me: exactly.

Melissa: well i'm off.

me: you've never once gotten off during our marriage. where're you going?

Melissa: to my job. i'm a wife, not a miracle worker... 

 

CUTTING YOUR HUSBAND'S BEARD: BLOCK OF ICE

 

me: I'M FREE!!! but i'm still stuck.

Melissa Maker: yeah your body is chair-shaped, your body is a giant L.........do i have to do everything here? because you're a loser.

me: yes. so i'm gonna need your help to get me normal.

Melissa: shit. that's gonna take forever. i don't have that time. okay look, here's something i picked up when i was shopping at Kohl's, it's a neck exercise that could screw you loose. SAY yes while shaking your head. SAY no while nodding your head. 

me: this is way harder than it looks. this is a true mindfuck, your head and your brain are not meant to work together this way, the mixed signals are frying my synapses.

Melissa: now you know how i felt on our dates.

me: thank you. just place my block-of-ice body on a slant against our marital bed so i can gaze up at the ceiling which is awesomely painted dark purple. you know, this is like the G-Rated version of Boxing Helena...

scrubbing buggles: a Monty Python thing...

Dreamscape.

Christopher Plummer: without nukes, America is Africa!!!

Kate Capshaw: the old lady's having a heart attack!!! 

Max von Sydow: see the thing is we never thought this would happen. there's no crash cart in the building. i could rob William Shatner's house for medical supplies.

David Patrick Kelly: let go of me or you'll pull out a stump.

Dennis Quaid, puzzled: what does that mean? your penis is a nub?

Chris: here Tommy, take this cocaine, it'll make you feel like a Bruce Lee ninja.

George Wendt: whaddya mean, i LOVE this clandestine spy stuff!!! okay i'm taking a chance here but i'm removing my St. Louis Cardinals cap and putting on this Montreal Expos cap...

Dennis: X-Files men!!! quick!!! let's pretend we're cheerleaders!!! damn you!!! you killed Norm!!! you canceled Cheers!!!

George: you cannot kill Norm, the spirit of Norm lives on in every entrance...

Dennis: it's a good thing these old Buick Continentals have a backseat footswitch that opens the backdoor...

Kate: president of the stamp club. 

Dennis in a phonebooth: i love you.

Kate: let's see if we have a 4th date first.

Dennis: i'm getting you a Yamaha bike for your birthday.

Dennis: hay will not get in my way. my horse pics are so good they were featured in an episode of It's a Living...

Jen R: don't you miss a college campus at night? the QUIET, the grasshopper stridulations, the WIDE grey paths illuminated by ball streetlamps.

Freddy Krueger: that's disgusting, dude. i take Qunol for heart health.

DPK: dream warriors, come out to PLAY-YAY!!! wait, how did you heal from my snakebite?

Dennis: Orihime.

DPK: wait, psychopaths don't say sorry...

Blair: i'm assuming this big-titted woman is not my wife...

conductor: and i do mean TRIP...

Jimmy Connors: a Tuesday tennis final? tennis is weird now.

Gene Rayburn: you should play Mario.

Avery Schreiber with Dorito bits in his mustache: who's Mario?...

Gene: when the contestant guesses the Super Match right by herself rejecting all 3 of the celebrities' answers, she kisses ME!!!

Patti Deutsch: i went to the same mime college as Debralee Scott...

Melissa stays with me in my frozen condition in the room as she flips through a Back-to-School Magazine.

Melissa Maker: tell me your dreams.

me: that is such a corny line. very well. if you must.

Melissa: before you forget.

me: Judge Judy accosts me in the parking lot where they film Match Game '74 and tells me she misses me.

Melissa: you know Judge Judy is my aunt, right? i mean Judge Judy does kind of look like Brett Somers, so i see you working, AI. AI controls our dreams now, right? and the other one?

me: well there was this whole love campaign in Hollywood, these two reality stars were on every magazine cover, Keith and Kerry, they had every single one of their dates at the mall, it was all filmed at the Sherman Oaks Galleria for the American public to consume like rabid dogs. even after having a baby the couple still had all their dates at the mall. 

Melissa: all they ate was Gerber's pizza.

me: apparently Kerry was more into it than Keith. now Keith looks like Luke from Luke & Laura but if Luke's perm was straightened. and bald.

Melissa: and Kerry looks like if Susan Sullivan had stayed on It's a Living instead of messing up her hair permanently for Falcon Crest. and a potbelly.

Piccolo: i'm getting too old for this shit.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: but i'm older than the universe.

Madame Pons: there's gotta be a way to gin-up sales of cold cream at LUSH.

Ear Horn: choose a nice witchy name, dearie, call it vanishing cream...

Jan: why do you fall in love with all the chefs?

Nancy Beebe: because they're there. OF COURSE you're gonna fall in love and marry your coworker, who else do you spend time with?!!!

Nietzsche: who else is there? i'm tired of the Paris cafe scene...

Anya Taylor-Joy: see it's fun being an actress and everything, but when you have to play Joni Mitchell, THEN suddenly it gets nerveracking, my heart's in my throat, and i start biting my nails...

energy vampires: we're not goth...

Jen R: me? Barrie Youngfellow? Jan, Jen, oh NOW i get it...

Laraine Newman: i play Barrie Youngfellow in The Ann Jillian Story...

Billy Corgan: i got the title for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness from the Tales from the Darkside episode "Everybody Needs a Little Love..."

divorced man's refrigerator: empty. one bottle of scotch where the milk should be...

divorced man: the meaning of life is woman.

divorced woman: i'm still picky but i don't want to be alone...

Melissa Maker: okay i gotta run.

me: don't leave me.

Melissa: not in the macro sense, i gotta go to the store to pick up some parsnips and Trader Joe's lemon-lime drink. want anything?

me: i'm getting used to being a statue. i want to hug you and hog you for all your kindness to me but i can only shake your hand with my long flowing beard.

Melissa: i'll take it!!! i've been waiting for our marriage to be this. this is so Robert Crumb.

Robert Crumb: and you thought anything in a Robert Crumb comic couldn't be done live-action...

 

CUTTING YOUR HUSBAND'S BEARD: CHAIR SLEEP

Melissa Maker and i have settled into the mansion in Canada. for a cavernous space, it's quite cozy.

Melissa Maker: like cozy crime. those cozy-mystery shows on PBS where you have to use your noodle to solve them, no swear words, no fighting, no kissing.

me: sounds like our marriage. why am i in a chair?

Melissa: i read in Harper's that the most comfortable place to sleep is a chair, not a bed.

me: i have mattress issues.

three hours go by unaccounted for in my brain, but not my dream brain.

me: i feel like i've slept in this chair. but i'm STUCK!!! i can't get out of this chair!!! it's like my body is MOLDED into the groove of this wood chair!!!

Melissa: that is so '70s. hey can i cut your beard?

me: only with scissors. is this a Jewish ritual?

Melissa: it could be a Tolkien thing. huh, i thought something magical would happen, but the beard just grew back in 5 seconds to its previous long-monk flow. 

Violetta Laze: that's because of Violetta Laze flow.

Melissa: and now i have a mess of little bitty HAIR BITS to get out of the carpet!!!

me with Velcro rollers in my beard: i love how i'm one of your girlfriends at the beauty salon.

Melissa: and i'm like, what's the 411, sister? you know? what's your dealio? women are easy: wine, chocolate, roses, that's it.

Micherre Fox drying a pebble under the hair dome: NOBODY has my name...

General Zod: i now kneel before God...

God: your soul is worth a penny, just because you have a penny that's one-storey high, that BIG-ASS penny is still just worth 1 cent.

General Zod wearing a Swinging London shirt: i never wanted to be Superman's father, i never wanted to be a bigshot, i just wanted to be on General Hospital.

Frankie Muniz: i have to drink milk for this Smiths album cover? look at me, i don't drink milk. and i'd rather drive a car than listen to music. 

hardly: very hard...

Jenny Baranick: you hit the nail with a hammer hardly, you hit the nail with a hammer with great force...

Dreamscape.

two words: George Wendt.

all together now: if you die in the dream, you die in real life.

Dennis Quaid: Kate Capshaw, let's make a deal: if i don't fuck you, can Steven Spielberg get me a film a year the rest of my life?...

Steven Spielberg: why is the Dreamscape poster the Goonies poster?...

George Romero: it's a 2-hour Tales from the Darkside episode.

George Wendt: i'm an author from Maine, hint hint.

Max von Sydow: i'm not Christopher Plummer...

Com Truise: the VHS special effects tho.

Stanley Kubrick: those 1973 Fantastic Planet color tunnels...

Secretariat at the racetrack: the only time Robert De Niro played an extra...

Suzy Lu: people still wore those tam o' shanters in the '80s?

Dennis Quaid: i'm entering the jockey's room, i'm covering my eyes, i'm covering my eyes...

Dennis wearing a Dream Corp LLC speedo: dating? sorry, Debbie, i'm practicing my sax to be the Tonight Show bandleader. San Francisco in the '80s, drop me off here and leave me forever.

biofeedback machine: only plays the Spinal Tap II soundtrack. don't piss away your talents!!! learn about them.

the President: give me a piece of your mind. feel better? now i have peace of mind. i'm gonna get world peace at the UN by making sure the USSR stays intact...

at the Kiss Me Kate therapy session: Kate Capshaw here. you're a grown man who wears pajamas? why are you having crazy dreams?

patient: besides the '80s cocaine?

Father Navin: that's a new one, a priest in hearts boxer shorts...

Dennis Quaid: should i open this misshapen triangular door?...

father at longtable: little bastard, i wanted a daughter, an heir!!!

Dennis: don't be scared, buddy, it's just Ray Harryhausen animation.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: so that's where the Conan the Barbarian snakehead went. drinks at the Don's Plum lounge!!!

Zalman King: why is there so much white powder in the air in this sex scene?...

Dennis: i didn't enter your sex dream!!! you hear that sax? i'm practicing for The Tonight Show.

Richard Dawson: you know i learned kissing everyone from you.

Gene Rayburn: yeah but i kissed the female celebrities, you kissed the female contestants!!! 

Richard: calm down, Gene. the contestants were always more interesting than the celebrities. think of the one that got away.

Gene, haunted: that one woman from San Diego State, pretty but not beautiful, she was different, she wasn't a housewife, she was 20 not 43, and her voice was from the 1990s.

Richard: why was i dubbed the surly sex symbol of daytime television?

Gene: because you're British. when i kissed Joyce Bulifant, i wanted to leave my wife. that kiss, that Joyce Bulifant kiss on the mouth was PURE.

Joyce Bulifant: it's known as mouth magic, Gene. the television audience at home FELT it when i sighed "that's nice" after you kissed me on the mouth...

me: you're my nearest and dearest friend.

Pam Hiltunen: and you do mean NEAREST friend...

Blond Rambo: we couldn't take the godawful relentless NOISE POLLUTION of Carmel Car Week. so Jackie Fitzgerald and i put on our matching pink helmets and motorcycled outta town...

Jackie Fitzgerald: see? he's Catholic.

Dirg: you can FEEL when a girl on the other side of the planet likes your Instagram post.

Laertus: without the Like button...

Talia: cats think their human is their child. i'm your mom. that's why when you start talking to me in a singsong voice, i take it as a juvenile child's blather, i turn my head away from it, i close my eyes to it...

bud vase: a Tennessee Williams/Sylvia Plath vase.

Roger Federer: you're a doctor? i thought i was the only doctor here...

Rollie Wesen: i'm a doctor of food.

Japanese beats: at Darling River...

Pluto TV: WORST INTERFACE EVER.

Suzy Lu: look at the state of me!!!

Steejo: i can't, i'm trapped in the Time Chamber.

Olmec: i just realized, we need ATHLETIC kids to be on Legends of the Hidden Temple, we can't have kids who like donuts, we need kids who like to ride horses!!!

dinosaurs: we come from chicken eggs.

Colonel Sanders: but what came first?

Terrence Malick: i did.

Blue Exorcist: unlike other anime, this show really is a love letter to Japan...

Melissa Maker: wait, i might be able to help. read some Newton's Apple Magazines while you wait. 

me: can i throw the Costco Magazines away?

Melissa: the answer to all of life's problems is the dryer ball.

me: not this again.

Melissa: stay with me. please. on this one. not the dryer ball that's a soft grey baseball, the dryer ball that looks like a PUFFERFISH.

me: those spiky blue plastic balls freak me out, and this is coming from a man who likes Japan, Mario, and New Order.

Melissa: remember the spa that we went to? that we wet to?

me: that we enjoyed together.  

Melissa wrenches back the spikes of the dryer ball to reveal not a pufferfish but one of those mystic EELS that still does rather good work when not underwater. the eel has just enough magic, which is more than strength, to PRY ME out of my chair.