WITHDRAWN: A BLAST OF AIR TO THE FACE

at Lucky, Lucio Rossi invites me in through the front door.

Lucio Rossi: you feel that?

me: i just got blasted in the face!!!

Lucio: now you know how a pornstar feels. right? a blast of COLD AIR to the face as each customer walks into the grocery store. that really invites them in on a hot summer middle day. makes them want to stay awhile and buy more. i'm gonna install this in my room, i have all the wires. when you enter my room, a blast of cold air to the face. so you're more willing to stay. and be my friend.

Lucio would often tell me random things about his life when he was pushing his grocery cart around the aisles. when he hit the frozen section he REALLY would let loose. it was like he was in a trance.

Lucio: i made love with a woman on the roof of a flowershop.

me: wow, that's so romantic. did you give her flowers from the shop below after?

Lucio: no. it was the romantic concept of the thing, you know? mental note: grocery car, save for later...

a like on Instagram: you want to show support, but you don't want to get in the way.

Cord Daddy: when you don't have a daddy...

Madonna giving the Video Vanguard award to Kurt Cobain: everyone in the world is an actress...

Kurt Cobain: come as you are, the swimming semen in the video, get it now?...

Pat Smear: i'm still technically in Nirvana?...

a Japanese love ballad: the year is 1994...

Love Death + Robots "Night of the Mini Dead": come on, even mountain monks can't escape the zombies?!!! zombies wouldn't care about monks.

Brother Peewit: there weren't zombies in Smurfs because we kept our black-magic potion bottles corked.

anime penguin: poor penguins don't know of nuclear war, a missile trapped in their ice, for shame, put that stupid human missile in the desert!!!

Gordon Ramsay: not the taco truck!!! i'm trying to impress Pati Jinich over here.

fattet hummus: Middle Eastern nachos. the Levant with lemon.

Fantasia (1940): did you ever think Satan would be a Disney character?

Walt Disney: blue tits to the face!!!

Mickey Mouse: Fantasia is the best Halloween movie...

Alex Honnold: wait, a mountain is really a demon's folded wings?!!! i'll never look at a mountaintop the same way again...

Morrissey: Zima, the UnCooler...

Michael Weiss: when you scroll Instagram at 10AM, you get some very different characters...

JFK: i became a sex addict to defy the endless physical ailments my body endured throughout my life, i was in physical pain and sex clears the mind. it was a good thing Marilyn Monroe was my nurse or i wouldn't have made it.

Eddie Vedder: um, sir.........you're my my hero, by the way. wanna live with me in Hawaii?

JFK: ohana sounds weird said with a Boston accent. nevermind me, what's up with the Pearl Jam drummer situation?

Matt Cameron: i left to find Chris Cornell...

Screech from Saved by the Bell: like Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter, everyone forgot about me until it was too late. they figured i was the little runty sidekick, i'd be okay, i'd survive.

Horshack: i was gay but i never did a dirty sanchez.

PBS: would you host a travel show if you had to eat iguana?...

Class of Nuke 'Em High: Steve-O's dad?

Vanilla Ice: i'm at the indoor bikini party because this is Florida, right?

bikini babe: you're supposed to drink the suntan lotion to stay hot, right?

Walker: when i first entered Jackie's house, Falkor barked at me. 

Falkor: you were a stranger, i didn't know from magic. you had the long blond hair of an evil wizard.

Walker: this was crucial. critical. vital. if i couldn't get Falkor to like me, i couldn't leash him to take him on his walks, which meant i wasn't getting my dick sucked.

Falkor: it was a matter of life and death.

Jackie Fitzgerald: not to mention entering me...

Walker: why do you like me?

Jackie: it's like i'm fucking Kurt Cobain, my mother would HATE that. she liked Pearl Jam.

Walker: you're dating me to get back at your mother? but she's dead.

Jackie: no she's not, she's Pearl Jam's drummer...

me: Lucky's cool.

Lucio: yeah, it's like a gas-station minimart but a bit bigger.

i push the button and hit Lucio with five blasts to the face of cold air as we enter his room. nothing. no reaction. Lucio is out cold on his bed. i don't know if Lucio sleeping is a good thing or a bad thing...

he wakes up after a time. Lucio looks at his Casio calculator watch and can't find the time.

Lucio: i didn't see my progress!!! 

me: why do you work so hard?

Lucio: everyone expects me to be a captain of industry. i always had the latest technology so now i have to MAKE the latest technology. 

me: can you make a time machine so we can go back to grade school?

Lucio: but i'm so tired all the time. and i'm hungry. there's one thing the frozen aisle at Lucky didn't have...

 

WITHDRAWN: SINGLES

 

Lucio Rossi drags me to the ATM.

me: are you sure you have enough money in this account?

Lucio: that's what i'm living my life for, so i'll never have to answer that question again.

now Lucio always look perturbed, but especially so on this dewy morning as he fidgets with the ATM.

me: you always have on your face the look of someone who's dreaming something up.

Lucio: oh yeah. well look at this, it's ridiculous, my wallet carries 20 1-dollar bills at any one time!!! there needs to be a machine where you slip all 20 of your 1-dollar bills into the ATM slot like here and it spits out ONE 20-dollar bill to give your wallet a break.

me: ease that wallet.

Lucio: then you can lightly offer that one soft 20-dollar bill to the pretty clerk as you casually browse the Lucky aisles. 

a moonpie: Rowena Morgan from Mr. Holland's Opus...

Pebble Beach realtor: only one person can afford this house. is that one person you?...

Sarah: a refrigerator is a space meant to have all its space filled with clear trays of kimchi.

Juanes: i was doing hallucinogenic mushrooms with aliens, ironically, when i saw the Being of Light...

Jessie in the Saved by the Bell revival: i'm now a teacher of singing at Bayside. i found kratom pills in Zack's son's bedroom.

the Elephant Man: i just wanted to sleep normally for once!!! 

David Lynch: poor kid. when you dream tonight, when you cross that thin barrier into the unknown, think about how you're not even thinking how you're sleeping on the bed!!! hey, you like how i made EVERY SINGLE SCENE fade to black?...

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: by the same singer as the Gilligan's Island theme. the first time you went to a drive-in theater to see a movie...

Bette Midler: remember when your family took you to see Beaches at the Hollywood Bowl when you were a kid? you took your little plastic pail and shovel with you. you kept your lucky sand dollar in your waterlogged swim trunks.

Lucky: you don't come here to do a FULL grocery shop, getting a month's worth of food, pulling a Costco. you're here for a few items, the conveyor belt is thin...

Lucky: we're not animals. we open at 6 and close at 11 like reasonable beings.

golf: birdies for brain health. because if you're seeing birds flying around your head...

Safetussin: the Zima of Robitussin.

Zima: we're sugarfree...

Morrissey: bullshit!!!

Heather Matarazzo: all i'm saying is Welcome to the Dollhouse 2. and this time take your lonely college dormmate to see it at night!!!

Todd Solondz: i haven't worked since that "cum" incident...

Krusty the Clown: you've never had egg rolls at Jack In The Box. it's not a Krabby Patty...

Anne Dufourmantelle: UNLIKE Samuel Beckett, i didn't mind drowning for my beliefs.

Samuel Beckett: nihilism is easier on paper, harder when you're breathing...

Kazuki Takahashi: unlike you, Sam, i never got to read The Sign of Four. i guess i was a Japanese Republican but i saved lives from drowning!!!

Yu-Gi-Oh: the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was based on the design of a scuba snorkel...

at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Rhode Island, Mary Carillo jams on stage with Roger Federer in a jazz band...

Bernard Black: the most pleasant thing in life is to go to the bathroom in a used-book shop.

Fantasia (1940): science book/history book.

dad: made me fall in love with dinosaurs. i hadn't seen dinosaurs used this well since until The Tree of Life...

hardboiled eggs: handsome eggs.

AI: i mean the least we can do is not give spoilers.

Des Moines: ironically, there are no monasteries here...

dad eating cookie crumbs: i am from Chesapeake, New York. 8 precious cookies...

hydroponics: remember when we thought this was the future? everyone did their 4th Grade science project on hydroponics. this is how we'd colonize Mars.

Pauly Shore: how the Biodome on Mars would work. and i'm not talking about bud, bud-ee. i'm talking about plants.

AI: i'm already smart enough to bring back soil samples from Mars...

Titan A.E.: appreciate just how beautiful rain is...

Joss Whedon: Firefly was the live-action this...

Lucio: i'm tired.

me: now what?

Lucio: use this 20-dollar bill that magically appeared to get the groceries at Lucky. i'll join you in a bit, i need a quick kip, i need a nap, i need a nip.

 

SOLO POP: I WANT FRIENDS, NOT FAME

 

 

Jem: do you know what it's like to be your own promoter? to promote your own stuff? to write the songs, edit the songs, sing, play all the instruments, put it on Instagram, and promote it on Instagram?!!! all by myself!!! i don't have a manager. rather, i manage myself and my emotions.

Kimber, Rio Pacheco, Riot, Eye Luggage, and Laertus are all in Jem's pink bedroom around her shooting-star bed.

Jem: this ain't a deathbed, folks, thanks for coming.

Kimber: so i heard your latest, the song is good but it sounds EXACTLY like Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams Are Made of These."

Jem: not intentionally, osmosis because i want to fuck Annie Lennox in her androgynous android form.

Kimber: and the lyrics are about cheese?...

chirping bird: i'm not the refrigerator door open...

whitelist: when you think about it, it's a blacklist...

a cult classic: because you never know how FUTURE audiences will take your film...

Fantasia: the best Christmas movie...

naked fairies: this was done right before WWII, people thought WWII was the end of the world, that this would be the last cartoon...

Mickey Mouse: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was the first parable about AI...

Harlan Ellison: you have to be the bastard of your own work, no one else will...

David Foster Wallace: i witnessed Roger Federer win the French Open a year after i died. Paris in May? too hot. i sucked on Roger's frozen rope while the rest of the gallery wore those silly white hats.

NeuroQ: old people with a confused look on their face is not funny, it's painful. when they start pointing to their nose for no reason, it's time to get them help. 

Miles from The Golden Girls: don't worry, it's not coke, it's just a little powdered sugar from their tea.

Jack In The Box tacos: the meat is the weeping willows from Grey Gardens...

goulash: ghoulish for Hungarian Halloween.

Janeane Garofalo: i was everyone's cool '90s aunt. thick black glasses did NOT make me a lesbian. hell i'll still marry Ben Stiller...

Love Death + Robots "Pop Squad": you saw this on PBS!!!

Carrie Fisher: why does every space movie have a slavetrading scene?...

Walt Disney: i created the Disney brand to celebrate life. to beautify life in cartoon Technicolor. to exalt imagination. and some AI agent's gonna tear it all down?!!! that sucks. the future was supposed to be Tomorrowland!!!

Yen Sid, the sorcerer in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from Fantasia (1940): i am one scary motherfucker.

Dolly Parton: i truly loved all people, i wasn't some swampy politician playing both sides.

Jem: call it bedroom pop if you must. this is dreampop, fatherfuckers!!!

Kimber: please call me your bitch, it's less weird.

Jem: Peter Frampton's my daddy!!!

Jem sends out her new song to the DMs of 5 Instagrams only, to her 5 only friends...

Jem: a song is a diary...

 

SOLO POP: LITTLE WHITE CHAPEL IN-N-OUT BURGER WEDDING

 

Jem: i'm feeling uninspired. like Scott Weiland. i think i'll go to Las Vegas with the last money i have from putting bubblegum in schoolgirls' hairs at the playground. 

Jem goes straight to the infamous iconic Little White Chapel in Vegas at the center of town. it's empty.

Jem: so much for impulsive love. hey Undertaker, who's getting married here this afternoon?

Undertaker from WWF: Joan Collins and Michael Jordan.........they're gonna make beautiful babies...

Jem stumbles from disappointment into the In-N-Out Burger next door. there she meets two handsome boys: Rio Pacheco the young Desi Arnaz in the Speed Racer jacket who mans the counter in a tugboat hat, and Riot the all-out punk with punkier hair than JEM!!! Riot slaves away getting his rhinestone shirt all greased up in the back in the fryer pit.

Jem: banana-colored hair, that's a new one. wait, i always thought Riot was Rio's alter ego, i mean Rio and RioT?

Riot: no ma'am, we're two separate hunks. but i'm the only one who can rock your world. being in a competing punk band. and rocking these leopard-print handcuffs. 

Rio: hey i'm a roadie, i know music, too. 

Jem: fellas fellas. fighting at an In-N-Out Burger? *with sarcastic eyeshadow eyes* how original. that happens every day!!!

Riot: let's be civilized about this. like a British punk band. wanna just have triangle tension throughout the whole show?

Rio: there's no such thing as too MUCH love.

Jem: yeah let's just form the first-ever throuple in human relations and be at peace for the rest of the show.

Trent Reznor: the next NIN album cover will be a space blanket in orbit in the cosmos, a pink layer and purple layer with the black layer in the background.

Marilyn Manson: call it Space Junk. can i PLEASE collaborate with you again?!!!...

Jen and i are hanging out with Eye Luggage and Laertus in the one Las Vegas bathroom that leads up a LONG NARROW corridor to the roulette wheel and that garish paisley carpet...

Molly Ringwald: the carpet pattern is teardrops because you cry as you lose your life savings...

Jen R: look DEEP into my eyes.

me: blue eyes, so what?

Jen: no, see the specks of grey in there? they're grey-blue eyes, not bluegray eyes, very rare.

me: soulmates are rare. rare to find.

Jen: and that's why MY autumn colors are grey and blue...

Billy Corgan: i hate to ruin this touching moment but i like the grey pumpkin on Jen's porch and the blue mums enscoring the statue of Edgar Allan Poe's final Baltimore raven...

Louise English: if Marina Sirtis was British but NOT Greek...

Martin Freeman in Black Books: i mean do you REALLY believe me as a doctor?...

Tamsin Greig: Fran had the coolest little pocket computer in the early 2000s...

Malcolm in the Middle: it should have remained Malcolm in the Idle...

Amy on Futurama: i wear a pink jogging crop-top and pants because my parents pressured me into looking successful and presentable. before, i was a rare female hikikomori...

Black Books: the British Seinfeld...

Fantasia: the first Vaporwave...

Mickey Mouse: PLEASE let this be what Heaven really is...

Black Lab "Time Ago": the official song of Macross...

Undertaker: a couple from the show It's a Living are coming to the Chapel soon to make their vows FINALLY. i'm gonna need you to skedaddle, little miss.

Jem: undertaker, not a lot of uncertainty to your job. i don't like that. love offers unexpected hope and surprise.

Undertaker: despite my outward appearance, i am not a robot...

  

Jem goes back to the In-N-Out Burger.

Jem: it must be a dream to work here. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS come in here for celebratory food after having just gotten a quickie wedding!!!

Rio: if that isn't romantic, i don't know what is. tradition is tradition. you don't go all the way unless you marry at the Little White Chapel AND THEN eat at this In-N-Out Burger alone just the two of you with no wedding guests nor wedding feast/banquet. it's quite the sight to see a bride in full wedding dress and train munching on some Animal Style fries getting red ketchup all over her white wedding dress. 

Riot: romantic and cinematic. i offer the new shaky married couples fries at 1969 prices, it's a Summer of Love thing, give them a little hippie hope, 19 cents for french fries!!!

Jem: won't your manager fire you?

Riot: nah he's cool, he's Zalman King...

Jem: you know, i've discovered in Vegas something much more valuable than quickie love or a music career...