GOD'S SPELL: THE RILL

 

at a stone courtyard much like the business section of Downtown Los Angeles with all the office space, there is no fountain, there's a flat lake in the middle called a rill.

Debralee Scott in bead bracelets: much like a college quad.

Bart Braverman his hair parted with an eggbeater: but much funner, it's theatre!!! a braver man than i introduced me to musical theatre, my father, who was the first Eeyore on Broadway........oh, speaking of my father, who's this husky gentleman next to you? i didn't know you had a boyfriend.

Jonathan Frakes: yeah i guess i'm hers now. 

Debralee: we met on the tilt-a-whirl.

Jonathan: Riker needed to fly.

Bart, crying: well, good for you, you ginger freak. you.........red animal.

Debralee: hey don't be sore, there's still a week left. 

Bart: Godspell. we do Godspell inside this white building on a stage in minutes. can you hear that godawful sound? it's the actors clearing their throats.

Jonathan: Gospel? 

Bart: every actor and actress does Godspell before their big break, or before joining a game show, it's a requirement.

Jonathan: i don't trust musical theatre. musical theatre is suspicious to me.

Debralee: aw come on, hoss, give it a go. try it, you'll like it. have some fun, you're so stiff!!!

Jonathan: i can't walk right...

Victor Garber: my heart was especially shattered and downtrodden when 9/11 happened. we did a whole song-and-dance number on the roof of the North Tower of the Twin Towers for the move of Godspell in 1973.

Bart: yes i remember, i was TERRIFIED of dancing on that roof, the railing was paper thin, i was scared of tiptoeing right over the edge!!!

Victor: you have to be willing to die for your art, otherwise what's the point?

Ireland: for genuine Guinness.

New York Yankees cap: only wear this away from the ballpark if you're famous...

Knudsen: milk in the '80s in Los Angeles...

me: i want to wear my spring pants, it's spring.

Jen R: but your spring pants are grey jogging pants, you cum in your pants at night and leave a giant noticeable wet spot in the day for all to see!!!

me: what's the solution?

Jen: wear your NAVY BLUE jogging pants at night, god knows the armed forces would boot you out if you joined. the wet spot won't show.

me: together with these grey jogging pants, my grey socks, my off-white sneakers, and my dark-white shirt, i'm Greyman!!!

Jackie Fitzgerald holding a Palm Sunday palm: i heard you had a birthday?

me: March 22, just passed.

Jackie: *thinking to herself* great, am i gonna have to make this idiot a birthday dinner again?

me: can i see your tits?

Jackie: oh that's it? okay a quick flash, Walker's next door sleeping, he'll rev up his motorcycle in minutes...

landlord: play cards with your landlord at his apartment on a Friday night, it'll really help you down the road...

rubber cement: mystical glue to us kids in the '80s.

Gladyce: i don't mind soup for lunch AND dinner. not for breakfast tho.

Bassmasters: who the FUCK watches stout country boys in a rowboat sitting on a river for three hours?

Takeru Kobayashi: gotta bring back that Japanese fisher.

Jim Cantore: need a job?

Takeru Kobayashi: i can predict tsunamis...

Jim Cantore: i can eat my weight in cocktail weenies.

Jacques Pepin: wait, another Jacques?

Jacques Torres: ...

Jacques Pepin: i am SHOCKED by your Jacques!!!

Jacques Torres: you just made me wet myself and cry. that's a pee spot on my pants.

Jacques Pepin: dude, don't wear jeans when you're cooking with Julia Child, have some class.

Julia Child: let me kiss the soup first...

capers: peas that taste good.

Claudine Pepin: i most definitely take after my father, not my mother. i got French tits, not American tits, my tits are sneaky big...

Elaine Giftos: i'm a gift to us all...

Willem Dafoe: i did The Last Temptation of Christ and Antichrist...

Bullock's: not Buttocks.

Sandra Bullock: picture me as a Monty Python Roman soldier...

Bullock's: you only shopped in me for socks.

Montgomery Ward: where you took your first family photo. you, a toddler, autumn leaves in the background, holding either a blue mini football or that Sailor Moon wand with the blinking lights.

Dan Redican: if Mitch English went into acting...

inside the auditorium.

Jonathan: the fuck is this shit, man? Pasqually form Chuck E. Cheese is in the company?

Debralee: no that's Gallagher. Bart is kinda cute up there doing his thing. 

Bart: *interrupting his big number* you only like me because i'm up here...

Debralee: a song-and-dance man who's straight? that's the stuff. 

 

 

A GUN IN CARMEL: BLACK LACQUER MIRROR DOOR

 

Liza is at pickleball, ready.

Liza: if Clint Eastwood shows up here again waving his gun at my short shorts, we'll be ready for him. see that entrance there to the park facility?

me: there's no door, it's just a hole.

Liza: certainly. i'm having it fitted with one of those black lacquer mirror doors.

me: oh yeah, those things are cool. as the front door of a brownstone stoop, you look right at the door and all you see are the trees from the neighborhood street opposite.

Neil Gaiman: or, put simplest, a portal.

Liza: he HATES that kind of door!!! he's gonna MELT when he sees it. BUT i need you to do something for me.

Liza empties out her short-shorts pockets, which is hard to do.

Liza: see? no dinero. do you have a couple of bucks?

me: how much do doors go for these days?

Liza: this is the most expensive door. you're gonna have to go to the ATM...

me: but the ATM in Carmel is so fucking scary. it'a a GHOST CORRIDOR that stretches long into the night even in day, there's never anybody there.

Liza: and when there are people there nobody ever knows how to form a line.

Geoff Tate: "Hear in the Now Frontier," it's hear in the now front ear. that's why the weird ears in jars on the cover.

Billy Corgan in the Zwan van:  rock is not about lobster.

The B-52s: ...

Franchaela: NOW you watch Bridgerton.

Jodie Whittaker: not necessarily...

at the ATM, there's a dark ghost on the other side of the long corridor.........it's Jen with her live black emails...

Jen R: i'm the only one looking out for you!!! what are you doing?

me: getting cash to buy a door.

Jen: that was my second guess. this place is unnerving. there is nothing more haunting than an ATM when no one's there. 

me: an abandoned ATM. even an ATM with the neon light glow framing it on an overcast Saturday morning, cool like TRON but i'm scared of lazer guns coming out of the bank's roof and shooting me. 

Jen: it's like you're begging to get mugged at this spot. you're such an open target here, the ATM is on a long concrete corridor that overlooks the highway!!!   

me: are you burping?

Jen: when women burp it's cute, when men burp it's belching.

a trip overseas to a foreign country: there won't necessarily be dates...

Melissa Maker: i really am learning the right sport, the pro golfers make obscene amounts of money hitting a small ball into a bedsheet.

Banksy: great, i gotta move to Antarctica now. all the important art will now be stenciled on Antarctic glaciers.

cop movie in the '80s: the meeting with the boss is on the 30th story at night...

me: what's your favorite dip?

Melissa Maker: tobacco.

Liza: we were thinking chip-party dip...

halfway house: a hospital where there are no doctors or nurses around, just beds...

AC/DC: no matter how hard you try, you will never like this band.

Boney: you could have gone down the Gods Must Be Crazy route and made the aborigine a global star, but you fucked it up.

Solaray: because there are so many things you've never heard of that were established in 1948...

Bart Braverman in Godspell: i didn't know you had to be this HAMMY to follow Jesus.

Debralee Scott: i never thought of the Good Samaritan being a woman before...

Geoff Tate: you better not do a "Disconnected" song!!!

Billy Corgan: "Disconnected by your Smile"?

Geoff: "Joker Smile."

Billy: but we already have a Batman song. *heavy huff* fine. but am i cool like you?

Geoff: yes but the Smashing Pumpkins aren't metal.

Billy: they should have called them aeroplanes from the start, it's cooler. imagine an astronaut in the air...

Ethos: the commercials are about life insurance but they're really about how death is so brutal and unexpected that it'll rob you of that scholarship, no college for you...

Clint Eastwood steps out of his office at the pickleball club in a huff.

Clint Eastwood: this is my.........*puff* gun.........my.........*huff*

Clint wiping his squinty brow: wait is that a black lacquer mirror door? 

Liza: yes.

Clint in a tantrum: i HATE those doors!!! it looks like 10 Downing Street, i hate anything that's Britain or France!!!

after taking one last stare at the black lacquer mirror door Clint slumps back like a sack of potatoes as if he's been shot, falls, and drops dead.

Clint: i finally realized i was 100 years old.

Liza: okay who's on first i mean on court first for doubles this morning?

Hugh Grant raises his hand. after the bush clears it's revealed that Emma Thompson was raising Hugh's hand.

Emma Thompson in a green visor: Hugh's legally changing his name to Lorraine today.

Hugh in a pink visor: why do you put up with a woman?

me: it just isn't the same unless Liza breaks my $100s.

Liza smiles her chipmunk tooth and starts to sing like Alvin.

Liza: that leaves you and me as their opponents.

Liza hits me in the small of my back with the pickleball.

Liza: we broke the touch barrier just then...

A GUN IN CARMEL: THIRSTER

 

as i'm crossing the street Liza hits the small of my back with her Mazda.

Liza: we broke the touch barrier just then.

me: i can't win.

Liza: no you cannot. i saw you come out of that house, it's over, i know where you live, literally, you can't hide from me.

me: wanna fuck?

Liza: a woman makes love.

me: i've been stranger in a strange land here for so long, YOU will finally make my bed a home.

we're naked on my bed by the window overlooking the highway.

me: i've never been naked in this bed before. what position?

Liza with a pleasant small smile showing her chipmunk tooth: cowgirl of course. see? cowgirl's making a comeback!!! it's nice, huh. i'm of the theory that no matter how small a woman's tits are a man should try to titty-fuck them out of courtesy.

me: i wasn't expecting this.

Liza: i know, i moan like an old woman.

afterwards on the bed we philosophize over Thirsters.

me: this bed is yours now.

Liza: i only drink Thirster cups now. 

me: but how does yours stay so icy? i have to keep a spoon in my pocket because i can't drink the ice. 

Liza: and you can't wait for it to turn to liquid or it's ruined. my mouth keeps everything frosty.

me: i noticed when you kissed me.

Liza: that's how i keep the produce cold without a mister.

me: i finally have a lover who's my guide.

Liza: you must differentiate between the short shot of sex and the longer demand of love.

Jen R: and in turn, family. there can be no family without love...

Ricky Gervais: get lost, mate, there's a city in Oregon named after me? at least it's not Portland.

Suzy Lu: now that Zeno can just zap you into nothingness, what is the nature of my existence? i never thought of what comes after but i'm getting older. i never thought of such things but then my tooth, back, and eye started to hurt. i better become a priestess before it's too late...

The Most Interesting Man in the World: the most interesting thing about me is i'm 150 years old...

at The Forge in the Forest.

Clint Eastwood: look at my gun!!! i'll shoot!!!

Liza: i came here to dine, man, not to die.

Clint: turn off that Jennifer Beals music!!!

Liza: on my walkman? why?

Clint: the '80s were a slow decade for me.

Liza: look man, i only came here for the ambiance. the woody ambiance. we're celebrating Leslie Sbrocco battling cancer and winning.

Leslie Sbrocco: i put the can in cancer. my cancer battle was like, picture me with black hair...

Clint: no cancan dancers!!! anything associated with France makes me chuck.

Leslie: one day there will be no restaurants...

Sarah Connor: never go to a motel were the rooms are separate island units the size of broom closets...

Godspell: you can't seduce Jesus...

Mary Magdalene: tell me about it, honey.

Bart Braverman: wait, why can't you serve two masters? just love two people...

Holly from The Price Is Right: you are BLOWN AWAY by my diction. i speak so well i made your eyes blind.

Iran: we will not stop until we make Gavin Newsom your President!!!

Anthony Kiedis: let's collab, i wanna hear you rap.

Eddie Vedder: Pearl Jam/Red Hot Chili Peppers collab song? Temple of the Cat? but i'm attending Harvard in the fall.

Anthony: Eddie Vedder hair in a ponytail wearing glasses and a plaid sweater vest...

Al Davis: remember when the NFL had 12 games?...

the Burger King mascot: might have helped if i talked. did i sound like Kevin Spacey?

Jordan Peele: people have completely forgotten about me...

Cecily Strong: people have completely forgotten about me...

Danny Bonaduce: people have completely forgotten about me...

Brooke Trantor: i have a particular sex appeal, i wear cheetah-print panties, but they're cheetah-print granny panties...

hot and windy: the worst weather.

bike polo: try it on grass...

Pegasus from Sailor Moon: are all unicorns albinos? no, i have orange eyes...

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: live-action Sealab 2021...

but it's been three weeks without Liza at Safeway and i'm getting worried. on a typical Monday morn i make my way up the sagebrush hill, make the trek to her station and the conveyor belt is COVERED with a long line of 1000 bags of potato chips going past.

i hear a sweet voice in the wilderness: "am i invited to your chip party?"

the man is silent. Liza's face appears soft in the middle of the chip mountain, her chipmunk tooth and steady soul-snatching amber eyes nerving me.

Liza: fret not, you know i disappear for three weeks and nobody knows where i am. especially my employer Safeway, that's the way i like it. 

me: Clint? i heard he shot you dead in a restaurant.

Jen: like one of his bad '70s movies.

Liza, her face framed in a swirl of lioness mane: i got a plan if he shows up at pickleball again. which he will because he's the property owner.

A GUN IN CARMEL: YOU GOTTA DO PICKLEBALL NOW

 

"how are you?" i hear from Liza while in line at Safeway.

me: i swallow my mustache every time i eat but other than that i'm okay. can you kiss me?

Liza: rather unusual for a checker to kiss a customer out of the blue but i'll do it not because it's your birthday but because i want to see how hairy your mouth is.

me: how do i subtly ask if you're single?

Liza: brushing up on wikiHow now? well you don't see a ring on my finger but that doesn't mean anything. you know i never catch the action around here, yesterday on my day off an old man died under the produce mister. 

me: what's on sale this morning?

Liza: you know you really should join me for pickleball.

me: but i hate pickleball.........until recently.

Liza: it's crazy, Clint Eastwood comes out wagging his gun at our girl group threatening to shoot us if we don't simmer down!!!

me: elaborate, my life is never this exciting.

Liza pokes me in the small of my back with her gunfinger.

Liza: see? i like you, kid, you can take a hit. we broke the touch barrier just then. i could go for you. you're young enough to be my son but you'd like that. you like mommies, right?

me: you're going too fast for me, i must be an old man now.

Liza: you should see me in my silver wetsuit on that pickleball court, i look CUTE.

me: i imagined that and my brain locked.

Liza: Clint gets ornery at us gal pals having a good time, he said we're too LOUD in our hollering celebrations. old man forgot to have fun in his life and now is jealous he can't get us anymore.

me: hoot more i say, Clint's time is over.  

at the next session at the local Carmel chapter of pickleball.

Clint Eastwood: *grizzly* pipe down or i'll shoot!!!

Liza: do you see a lawn here? the green is the court. i'd say check your eyes, old man, but you have no eyes. your eyes are dust!!! that was your secret, that's how you made your famous Clint Eastwood severe-eyes look. 

Clint: have you no respect for others?

Liza: pickleball players have a code: there's no respect, we're all trying to win!!!

Oahu: it's Hawaii, there's ALWAYS a flash-flood emergency...

dry dining: eating at a restaurant without ordering cocktails.

Leslie Sbrocco: eating a dry tasteless meal at a restaurant...

Chuck Norris: i'm in a dragon rotunda with Bruce Lee and Death ready to throw down. what? i gotta make it to 100, right?...

Jesse Palmer: it's better that The Bachelorette was canceled. now people will have time to listen to Bjork. Bjork's Mormon, right? and i can get back to doing.........what is it i do again? play football? was i in Kids in the Hall?

nerd asking out a cheerleader: you can't go out with me because your mother says you're too young to date? THAT's the reason?...

Neil Hope: i would have rather played Claude and lived in real life than played Wheels the cool guy with a crappy real life...

i've taken to my bed: not for sex, i have dysentery.

at mall karate the next sunrise, sensei Mordecai is leading his dojo in tribute. 

Mordecai: moment of silence for Chuck. Chuck Norris would always tell me he was the American Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee: but i was more American than Chuck Norris...

the karate kids do a HI-YAH!!! and break three boards with their chop-hand. 

then Chuck Norris comes out and wrestles a bear.

Lani O'Grady: i played Brett Somers in the Lifetime movie...

at the JD Vance rally: no they're saying you need to use Pepsodent...

Debralee Scott: why are we inside the ballroom photograph in The Shining?

Jonathan Frakes: beam me up, Scott.

Chuck Norris: is this the audition to become a Klingon?

Godspell: now the world don't move to the beat of just one drum...

college: remember, it's a "college career."

Chuck Norris: i punched a cloud in frustration over being dead and all the water came out, sorry, Hawaii.

Go Ask Alice: it was still the '70s, still wholesome, so FINK was in black graffiti on the locker, not FUCK. the '70s, the last time there was a rap session under elm trees at a muni park on a Saturday morning with teens wearing blue and beige coats...

Brighton & Albion: we haven't been the same since Jonathan Livingston Seagull died...

Banksy: you can't put a price on art...

Basquiat: you were my audience that wasn't born yet, Banksy!!!

Chuck Norris: Chuck Norris painted Death, Death died.

Trent Reznor: the end of "Ringfinger" is a fly buzzing...

Dash: really only goes on salmon...

a bank in the 1930s: for some reason we needed our own building of 100 floors. we were like a Macy's but not fun. 

King Kong: the most famous Pre-Code movie of all time...

Bad Bunny: at least i got rid of that annoying reggaeton. you're welcome, world.

me: maniac.

Liza: Clint can't stomach little spunky women like me.

Mary Ann: short is cute if you have a mane of lioness hair.

me: i hear a delivery truck. peculiar, DoorDash dropping off food at a Safeway?

Liza: yeah that brown bag is my Burger King.

me: i see, you roped me into our first-date food.

Jen R: i found the new Whopper milder, less mealy. less disgusting than before.

Liza: this new Whopper tastes like In N Out Burger, that's the sign i was waiting for, it means we should be together.