LET THE FAILURE HAPPEN: REST

Liza: they fired me. Safeway fired me.

me: what happened?

Liza: i was taking too-long breaks. i wasn't doing anything nefarious, i was simply sleeping!!! i've been EXHAUSTED for a long time now.

me: yeah i've noticed, you're always too tired to scandal with me. who did it?

Liza: Daddy Warbucks the bald bastard. he scooted me into his office, sat me down, pointed his dirty finger in my face and told my eyes, "you can't cheat your way through life, you little fofo."

me: what are you gonna do now? work at Lucky?

Liza: see this is what offends me. everyone is telling me to walk a block to Lucky, it's a lateral move. 

me: no it's easier, WAY LESS people there, it's more chill, it's not corporate like Safeway which is a warehouse chain. Lucky is mom-and-pop if your uncle's in jail.

Liza: yeah but four people work there, they're not hiring. besides, who says the only thing i know how to do is fucking groceries!!! look i get it, i know Ericka over there at Lucky, she's nice, she's the fat me. but what if i want to skydive? 

me: what are your interests?
Liza: i'm a 50-year-old woman, how do i know what my interests are?!!! right now all i want to do is SLEEP.

Wilford Brimley: i look WEIRD without my diabeetus Quaker Oats mustache in The Thing...

me: no i'm not Audrey. no i don't want to set up a time when you guys can come over and cut down my trees. 

Jen R: Holly Golightly fucked a Lorax which turned Dr. Seuss into a dark Existentialist.

Prince walking out of the elevator: i'm fine, i just tripped...

Victor Wembanyama: i'm gonna have to start doing commercials for Waymo, aren't i...

Dick Miller: i'm the John Wayne of B movies...

Chopping Mall: that puce-colored zigzag staircase outside at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, that was the first Vaporwave.

Jm J. Bullock: that's not me in the movie...

fuck fuchsia, it's Friday: nice alliteration.

linner: not lunch and dinner combined, rather a light dinner of soup...

me: take off your pants.

Ericka from Lucky: the jeans? make me cum.

me: i wanna make love to you in the half-frozen aisle / half-pet food section lane at Lucky.

Ericka: do you like all the Christmas decorations put up around the store? they're all from my home.

me: but it's only Halloween.

Ericka: bent tin Santa Clauses with drunk faces and pink mini Christmas trees...

Johnny Rotten: sex is overrated. why is sex the sum of all human experience? when you're a punk you recognize that you're not gonna have sex. that's why you dye your hair green, put a chain in your nose, and wear a dirty jacket. because society sucks.

Chipotle: i mean if you have no family on Thanksgiving, the pollo asado kinda looks like turkey...

Central Perk: isn't it weird how that big-ass orange sofa was never taken? only the butts of the 6 Friends ever sat on that sofa. no other coffee patron in New York City sat on that sofa... 

Billy Crystal: i'm an atheist now. 

Robin Williams: only NOW? thanks a lot...

Fox Mulder: i would have seen that UFO if i had been driving a Mazda...

Fixodent: doesn't taste like Pepsodent...

Ganon: i made my first appearance in Return of the Jedi...

the AT-ATs: Ray Harryhausen...

the Space Adventure Cobra video game: it'll be like Dragon's Lair...

The Thing: WAY CREEPIER than The Exorcist...

me: go through arbitration with the union.

Liza: but see, why should i be fighting to keep this Safeway job with all my might? what if this is a GOOD thing. what if this got me FREE to pursue my real destiny. let the failure happen, don't fight your mistakes...

AMELIA EARHART FINDING HERSELF: WORTH THE WAIT/ THE HEALING ORGAN

 

50 years later...

Amelia Earhart: feel better about getting saved?

Fred Noonan: i guess.

Amelia: think about all the stuff we got to do lo these 50 years because we got saved instead of turning into isle skeletons like Gilligan.

Fred: i don't know, i can't think of anything. it's all a blur.

Amelia: okay FEEL about the stuff we got to do. for instance right now we're seeing a movie together in a theater.

Fred: i knew theaters would last. their old-timey charm will never go out of fashion. do we have grandkids?...

Amelia: ...

Fred: okay, we get to see Airplane. a movie that makes fun of our profession.

Amelia: and near-death experience. that was fucking funny!!! but there's a film we get to watch that REALLY makes our rescue worth it...

potato croquette: not as good as a McDonald's hash brown when it comes to anime food.

The Thing: same flat yellow snowplows with the headlights on Antarctica that were on the moon in 2001: A Space Odyssey... 

G.I. Joe: they look like Transformers...

at the 1990s Match Game.

host: what are you doing now?

Sally Struthers: this thing called TaleSpin.

host: what the fuck's that?

Sally Struthers: listen, this 1990 Match Game show of yours will get canceled in a year. nobody knows your name STILL. meanwhile there are still starving children in Africa. sure Dolly Parton but i'm an Earth mother, too...

Stat Boy: when i see PTI getting a 25th Anniversary Special, i'm not bitter. silver anniversary? man, fudge that noise. i need a job. i need to work. can i be Pick Boy?...

Hungry Jack pancake syrup: stupid stupid STUPID bottle!!!

Victor Wembanyama: i'm gonna have to start doing commercials for Wendy's, aren't i...

The Thing: this is where the whole "kill it with fire" thing came from...

Halloween: turn off all the streetlights in the neighborhood, batten down all the window shutters, it's SNL Night...

Brooke Trantor: while i wait for my big break in Hollywood, to be the next Fran Drescher, i squat in my squalid L.A. apartment eating my Movie-Theater Butter microwave popcorn for dinner...

Oakland flag: clean design, man. taken from the streets. literate graffiti. cool.

Coca-Cola case: why 24 cans? why not 28 cans, one for each day of the month? because it's 24/7, drink Coke 24 hours a day 7 days a week... 

Oikos yogurt: smells like the YMCA.

Small Classic: this year's World Series. or a hamburger from Wendy's...

Bronson Pinchot: Balki was Robin Williams as Mork with a Greek accent...

Pepto-Bismol: a must at prom. chug a bottle of this, not beer.

Night of the Creeps: live-action Mr. Pickles...

Amelia Earhart: the film is Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie. am i right or am i right. that warm '80s anime hand-drawn magic.

Fred Noonan: yeah. flying in sumptuous outer space. navigating a grand space opera. may all planes become flying planes that fly in outer space.

Amelia: that is the endpoint of all pilots: the next galaxy over...

Amelia: oh great, are you seeing the end of this? Lady Armaroid and Cobra lament they have to end because the space adventure has to end because there's a limited number of episodes. combined with the eternity of the flatness of space this is all very morbid with existentialism.

Fred: will the two of us end?

Amelia: not if we keep flying...

 

AMELIA EARHART FINDING HERSELF: PAPERBACK WINGMAN

 

Amelia Earhart: life on this island has been hard.

Fred Noonan: right. but at least it hasn't been boring, we've had the Gilligan's Island castaways to amuse us. they've been illustrious company.

Amelia: nah, they got boring too real quick. how do you find the Skipper?

Fred: bloke.

Amelia: yeah but he doesn't talk to me, not even to tell me his name. the Professor says women scientists aren't a thing, i need this man to help me see if i have celiac disease or not!!! Mary Ann is trying to get me into porn and Ginger is trying to save my soul with her born-again island religion. Mr. and Mrs. Howell are investing in crypto.

the ghost of Gilligan: i would have talked to you, Ms. Earhart. can i call you Amelia Ace? i like flying. did you know while i was on the island i flew in the sky using just my body by drinking coconut milk? 

Amelia: your islandmates are all party duds, dude.

Fred: quite right, Gilligan my boy.

Amelia: everyone on the island THINKS they know what our relationship is. bunch of sewer gossip. i'm sorry i've dragged your good name through this mud. they've made me out to be a man-hungry trailblazer. they've made you out to be a paperback Harlequin romance flying stud with the wind in your hunk hair.

Fred: i can't be shirtless in nothing but a scarf, it wouldn't be proper. i didn't join the Air Force for my chest muscles, i joined for you.  

Amelia: just know that you will ALWAYS be my navigator in life.

Fred blushes through his cigar and missing-teeth smile.

Night of the Creeps: Weird Science as a B movie...

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: coulda sworn this was a 1930s Pre-Code movie...

Liv Ullmann: do you get a special bonus if you're a Norse nurse?

Hagar the Horrible with a hypodermic needle instead of a club: ...

Max von Sydow: Norse women nurse me to health faster.

Ingmar Bergman: not me, i prefer Californians. have you heard of Scandinavian syphilis? i claim Ingrid Bergman as my daughter, i don't care!!! i forged the birth certificate.

Zalman King: the upside of an episode. there would have been more Red Shoe Diaries in 2026 if i were still alive. i wrote an episode about a sexy naked light-blue AI woman named Rita...

Space Adventure Cobra: a Japanese man named Jason?...

Basket Case: the monster in the basket should have been a second head that looked exactly like Duane's head...

Duane: i'm a slim dude in jeans with a massive lion's-mane curly fro. i'm a tall skinny white boy. i was in The Who and Humble Pie. i did Godspell and Hair on Broadway at the same time, first-runs before they were popular. i was on TV, too, i did The Electric Company in the '70s. after my career was over i played basketball for the Golden State Warriors in the '80s...

real dads call their daughters "pal"...

Pam Hiltunen: i'm playing the blonde in the Basket Case remake...

Jen Carfagno: i'm wearing a raincoat dress...

the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes cartoon: that one character who's a Ghostbusters reject...

at the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Roger Federer: what are your thoughts on thots?

Mary Carillo: that's why i went into broadcasting, Rog. are you gonna be a tennis commentator now? are you headed up to the booth?

Roger Federer: no, no one can understand my accent. i'm coaching Nadal's comeback...

Amelia Earhart: i never wanted us to end up this way. i figured with the two of us stuck on this island like this forever with no hope for rescue, the only thing left for me to do was to fuck you, you know?

Fred Noonan: quite right. do you mind if i call you my little brown sugarplum?

Amelia: i prefer freckle fairy.

the two FINALLY get rescued and get off that damn island after 5 seasons and a TV movie... 

AMELIA EARHART FINDING HERSELF: CRABS

 

Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan have been stranded on that obscure island for an eternity now.

Fred Noonan: how long has it been?

Amelia Earhart: i stopped counting after six months...or was it six years?...

Fred: the world stopped caring about us long ago...

Amelia: yeah. in the future when radar improves Purdue university is gonna send a team out here thinking a smudge they saw on their radar was our plane. but it's just gonna be THIS coconut tree here.

Fred: are you a witch? what happened to our plane?

Amelia: it was turned to cake by the natives.

natives: we are well-rested. we don't have bones in our noses, we use bones for healing bone broth like everyone else.

Amelia: around the world...

Fred: Around the World?!!! that nasty recess playground game involving the tagging of butts?

Amelia: no, that was what we were gunning for, woman-style. *sigh* oh well. no, dear, you're thinking of hopscotch...

David Bowie: i was even God in God Told Me To, but it was STILL better being David Bowie...

Walker: treat my third leg.

Jackie Fitzgerald: you want me to suck your cock on our windowsill? our poor flowers will get trampled!!!

Walker: just the shaft, not the balls.

Jackie: we're not doing roleplay here, babe. i'm not really a nurse. i'm trying to treat your sprained leg the best i can.

Walker: great Queensryche song. i got this falling off YOUR roof doing roofwork for you.

Jackie getting misty in the eyes: i thought it'd be our roof by now...

Walker: you see how i left my power saw on top of your roof? that was so cool. that was so manly.

Frankie Muniz: the Malcolm in the Middle revival, it was supposed to be a celebration of the show and my good fortune, you know? the good life i had accumulated. "life is unfair," i really need to pay attention to my show's intro song!!!

Space Adventure Cobra: Japanese G.I. Joe...

Kohler: because a smart toilet demands a black evening gown in Downtown sunset...

Manchester City: the #1 thing ordered at a pub is banana pie...

macadamia: no, you're thinking of hazelnut...

Ben Affleck on the subway: if i had done Fargo instead of Argo, i'd still be married to J.Lo...

Kara Swisher: i'm not a WNBA player...

Battle Beyond the Stars: that was not our planned ending, but we ran out of money...

Space Adventure Cobra live-action: Rutger Hauer as Cobra, Selma Blair as Armaroid Lady, Telly Savalas as Crystal Bowie, and as the triplets: Diane Keaton, Jean Harlow, and Cher...

Batman, singing: happy birthday to you, you smell like a zoo...

English football: we were founded by the Freemasons? that explains so much...

Pumpkinhead: that country twang of a Red Shoe Diaries episode...

Stan Winston: why does every horror movie have a boy in pajamas?

Lance Henriksen: you see my face? yeah. the only way i was gonna be a sex symbol was by my body...

Allan Kayser: yeah i always had more the face of a frat boy than the face of a ginger bubba mama's country boy...

Amelia Earhart: you gave me crabs.

Fred Noonan: but we fucked for the first time only last night!!!

Amelia: you were the one who navigated us to this lonely desert isle, i wanted to crash-land in Hawaii!!!

Fred: is that Gilligan's skeleton over there?...

Fred: what do we do about these giant crabs surrounding us on this sandbar? the tide will soon come in and evaporate our sandcastle stronghold.

Amelia: think like Super Mario, man!!! jump on their heads with our combat boots and snort the fire flowers that come out of their bellies.

Fred: i never thought of that...

Amelia: these crabs are just mad because they think we're stealing their coconuts. give them ALL the coconuts on this island. that means cutting down even the coconut tree that was supposed to be our plane!!!

Fred; no, not that coconut tree!!! but that's our only hope!!! will a metal beard-shaver blade suffice as the tree ax?