BEDE'S PATIENCE: PATIENT #2: CHARCOAL SOAP FOR HEADACHE

 

Bede: so your name is Julie Patzwald?

Julie Patzwald: like my Sigue Sigue Sputnik socks?

Bede: better than facepaint. you goth people scare me.

Julie: but we're the best fuckers. i get terrible headaches.

Bede: is this a sex thing? honey, i have a headache, not tonight? i wouldn't know.

Julie: come on, doc, it's not like that. these headaches are horrible, not grotesque. i really need your help. in the morning in the shower i use only ONE soap: charcoal soap. only charcoal soap gives me the feel of EFFERVESCENCE. plus as a goth i naturally gravitate towards this soap's darkness.

Bede: do the showers help with the headaches?

Julie: yes but i gotta take 3 showers a day, it's a waste of water.

Julie: you really need to get in the shower with me for a hands-on approach to the problem. i need to be completely naked. call it fieldwork.

Bede: where?

Julie: if we use the monastery showers you MUST call me Sister Iren.

Bede: nuthin' doin', sister. i want to but.........i can't, i just can't, if i did that i couldn't be a monk anymore...

Julie: you'd be something better, you'd be a person.

the two take a moonlit stroll down the monastery's hill trail.

Julie: don't you miss the outside?

Bede: no.

Julie: i love this time of year, the wintertimes, when the nights are LONG. the darkness.

Bede: the Winter Solstice is coming up.

Julie: the Winter Solstice is my favorite day, because it is a night, the sun rises at 6:00AM and sets at 6:30 AM...

Lars von Trier: the George Michael "Freedom '90" music video, everyone glosses over the bloodletting!!! 

George Michael: you like the tea kettle at the end? very British...

me: you need to back-rub my neck.

Jen R: oh jesus. i say oh jesus a lot and i'm Jewish.

me: we all say that no matter our religion, it's a universal swear word.

Encyclopedia Brown: imagine me wearing a blue beanie.

Tavo Smear my dorm roommate at Berkeley with the bad skin and love of Bay Area punk rock: it's possible to wear glasses with a beanie. the glasses go UNDER the beanie, if the glasses are over it's silly.

Sid and Nancy.

Johnny Rotten: you like how i sing? you like my singing style? how i roll my Rs. how i emphasize the WRONG SYLLABLE of the word...

Sex Pistols: are we hardcore punk rock?

Tavo Smear: not by a longshot. you could never hope to be Operation Ivy.

Johnny Rotten: British streets were harder than American streets in the '70s. because of the press. the only thing good about your Washington, D.C., is Minor Threat.

Tavo: i'm Avo but top-tier. college is top-tier.

Johnny Rotten: the only thing top about your college is that you were a bottom there. notice how i'm more interesting than Sid Vicious...

Rod Stewart: yep, that's me slamdancing in the crowd.

Johnny Rotten: we're the Sex Pistols because we don't have sex.

Sid Vicious: we may be punks, but at least we don't throw a glass bottle at a coach's head from the stands after a Honduras/Mexico soccer match...

Jen R: Spare Rib the zine!!! i edited the Berkeley version of the UK classic original.

Robert Crumb: i wanted to draw for Spare Rib but i was a man. John Cleese on the cover got me depressed.

in the white room.

Freddie Mercury: no drugs here, this mustache is natural.

Gwen Stefani: i'm only here to find a British husband...

Mr. Belvedere: don't punk up this fine hotel, chaps, it has curved doors.

best way to handle American cowboys: handgun. that is, use just your hand, not a gun.

Sid Vicious: there really needs to be automatic sliding doors on these things...

Sid Vicious: American airplanes, they never have a pack of cocaine peanuts.

Jon Hamm: Sid baby!!! it's me, Jon Hamm!!! i need braces for my girlfriend...

at the Amadeus fever-dream concert.

Sid Vicious growling the song: Frank Sinatra did it MY way!!!

Johnny Rotten: take that crown of thorns off your head, Nancy Sponge Spunk, you ain't no Jesus!!!

Mrs. Helen Roper: Stanley and i are the Mertzes if they were hippies.

Ethel Mertz: except for one thing: you love Mr. Roper...

Hero on Dragon Ball: i'm disguised not as Akira Toriyama but as Woody Allen...

Capp: i'm the same person i was yesterday.........but yesterday is gone...

Moana: but can we not call it a wet ride?

Walt Disney: i have nightmares about this wet ride, it reminds me of when the studios where i was drawing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs flooded...

Moana: you gotta go at night to get the full Vaporwave effect of the water dances...

Walt Disney: i did Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs all by myself...

6: the rarest of plastic...

Martin Yan: fold the bacon into itself when you cook the bacon in the wok, like a pretty bow.

Optimus Prime: i REFUSE to work for Elon Musk!!!...

Jerry Jones: at least Cowboys Stadium is still God's Eye...

Jeanie Buss: yeah the Jay Mohr thing, he stays on the bottom.........we don't have sex, he lives on the bottom floor of our island manson. i live on the top floor. 

Jay Mohr: i married you to get back on SNL.

Kyle Mooney: right? don't you love how i'm just back in the SNL cast?...

mustard: it's not a fart, it's mustard squeezing...

Bugs Bunny: if we had organic carrots in the 1930s we would have saved many more people during the Great Depression...

Olivia on last night's Night Court: nobody was upset that i had left!!! that i was gone forever!!! nobody said anything about me!!! everyone just emotionlessly went on with their lives...

Dan Fielding: i was broken-up over Olivia's departure from Night Court. broken up that we broke up. i shed tears in private in my study. i felt grief in New Orleans, Louisiana, when i thought about Olivia. why doesn't Wendie Malick have kids? to protect me from her...

Kurt Cobain at Nirvana Unplugged: did you notice? "About a Girl" is the first song, Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" is the last song, both songs are about a girl...

Talia: the cat-clippers for our nails are on the mail desk...

Kawhi Leonard: i'm here.

David Foster Wallace on a tennis court: break out the can-opener serve ONCE a match, that's how you win.

Michael Weiss: Instagram is my playground, i can choose ANY pic, ANY video...

Monsignor Navin: Sabrina Carpenter? the only carpenter i know is Jesus's dad...

Sabrina Curzi: remember me, Father?...

Kristina Eifert: people made MAD FUN of my last name at St. Cyril's. Kristina I FART. i had the last laugh, i'm a mother of three who went to Columbia and lives in Woodland Hills. life is not a competition, except on Facebook.

me: Father Navin is what all priests look like, what all priests are, when i think of the word priest i think of Father Navin. i ONLY think of Father Navin.

Father Navin: that, son, is a blessing.

Jen R: maybe it's.........caffeine?

Julie Patzwald: yeah.........that's plausible.........you hit the nail on the head, my headache head. 

Bede: see i would have never gotten that, monks are forbidden from drinking coffee. but we can still take showers. cold showers.

Julie: what do i do now?

Jen: you can't drink Coke ever again!!! unless you like headaches, is that like a goth pain thing?

Julie: goths drink Coke, that's all we drink!!! how will i cope without my daily 4PM McDonald's fountain Coke?

Jen: you goths are out in the afternoon? oh yeah, i see you!!! at McDonald's!!!

Jen R takes her new best friend Julie Patzwald to McDonald's at 4PM for a fountain Diet Coke.  

Julie Patzwald: it just tastes like Diet Coke...

dad: decaf coffee tastes like USC coffee...

dad: my beautifully brown-stained coffee mug.........from the coffee...

Gary Kildall: that said COMPUTER on the coffee mug. ah, my beloved university cup.

dad: we both had them, those were the days, our college computer days.

Gary: when we WORKED for a college, didn't attend it...

  

BEDE'S PATIENCE: PATIENT #1: THE MRS. ROPER ROMPER

 

Brother Bede: so as a monk i'm the DJ for a podcast that explores boring religious issues and the weeds growing around the monastery this month. i gotta spice it up so i started thinking about my previous life as a psychiatrist, my patients were CRAZY yo, they had stories for DAYS. let's inject some energy into these problems in the morning.

Jen R: drivetime under the Holland Tunnel. i love your headphones with a cross on each head.

Bede: thank you. our *cough* i mean my first patent is you.

me: can you call me Brother Talmadge?

Bede: no.

me: just me and the cats. 

Bede: we know your cats' names. 

me: i'm here with my cats in the booth. the talk booth. cat person here. Talia, why do you startle so whenever i laugh?

Talia: because it looks like you're about to sneeze.

Trinity: or spasm.

Greykid: i'm a Chartreux, but don't confuse my yellow eyes for a Maltese, i'm high-bred like buttered toast.

me: it's the strangest thing, Trinity HOPS onto my computer desk, goes INTO me, saunters on top of the keyboard where i'm typing, and jumps onto the bed. instead of just going PAST the computer desk and straight on a clear path on the carpet to jump onto my bed. 

Trinity: because, bro, i'm a cat, i make things harder on myself. cats don't follow the rules of nature, we follow our own internal compass. our memories are worse than elephants'. if i snip i snip, a quick bite to get your attention. life isn't easy, life isn't about jumping through a few Bela Karolyi hoops and landing the Olympic gold medal on a busted ankle that landed funny.

Suzy Lu at McDonald's.

McDonald's: i thought you liked Burger King, our fried burgers are disgusting, remember?

Suzy Lu: i like to burn stuff. like your apple pies. like your burgers to make them char-grilled. half cut.

McDonald's: our iced tea?

Suzy: no, drunk.

at the SNL Weekend Update Desk.

Michael Che: why did Bump have to win? these next four years are gonna be ROUGH.........for ME!!! how am i supposed to do my job of making fun of the President without getting harassed on Twitter on Sunday morning?.........by the President himself!!!

Colin Jost: debates truly do not matter...

Kamala Harris: Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, The Rock, Oprah...

Lorne Michaels: don't put me on your Enemies List, Mr. President, i know i look like i run the Department of Justice but i'm just on Mad Men...

Bowen Yang: can i still be me? can i still have fun? can i still let loose WITHOUT a gin with my gays?

Chappell Roan: your fellow gay icons. i voted for Kamala, right?...

Bowen: at the After Hours bar after the show as we gossip HARD about how we really feel, how it REALLY is.

Toto: "She's Like the Wind" sounds like our song "Hold the Line" but slowed-down.

Patrick Swayze: but can you dance?

me: Patrick-to-Patrick energy.

Wendy Fraser: Brendan is my bastard son, he did good. 

 

Wendy Fraser: faith, when the music is Adult Contemporary, it's about faith...

BM: Beautiful Music.

the large window pane on the bus stop in the morning frosted over like a Storybook International winter tale...

Michael Weiss: the minute you're gone, they're gone, that's Instagram.

Jeffrey Tambor, acting coach: don't act like me, don't be annoying...

Michael Weiss: when you're typing DMs on Instagram, JUST use commas...

Sid and Nancy.

Dirg: this is the unsexiest sex i've ever seen.

Johnny Rotten: sex is vile, ugly and, above all, boring.

Nancy Spungen: are you guys punks because you can't get any?

Johnny: you ain't getting any of that hippie Free Love shit here in this people pile on the dirty floor of a smelting factory in London, sweetheart. you Americans are OBSESSED with sex.

Nancy: it's not just Americans or you wouldn't be here...

Sid Vicious: who are the real punks? us or these schoolchildren hitting cars on the street with their wood field-hockey sticks...

Alicia Silverstone in the Aerosmith music video: ...

Johnny Rotten: kinda got a raw deal, Sid fucks Nancy while i play with my toy red firetruck...

Nancy: i mean aren't you asexual or something?...

Johnny: i think i'm aromantic.

Jen R: shrimping. see? shrimping, the ripping of nylons, the sucking of toes. fishnet feet, catches punks in their feelings every time...

Sex Pistols: it's like those Olympics boats, bridging the England/France divide.

bobbies on boats: party boats? that's a frat thing, not a punk thing!!!

Johnny Rotten: i wanted to be a police like you but my hair...

Sid: Nancy, where's the key to this lock-locket necklace you gave me?

Nancy: i swallowed it like i swallowed your cock, that's why i have a silver tongue...

Nancy: Sid, why do you wear a Fraggle Rock shirt?...

in the red telephone box.

Nancy: mom, can you wire us $200 for our wedding?

Nancy's mom: now honey, you cannot marry that hooligan. 

Sid: i hate soccer, mum.

Nancy's mom: he doesn't love you. he's using you. now before you say anything, your father is a fan of the punk rock and the rubberbanding your arm to needle it for drugs and anarchy.

me: i wear my blue beanie on my head to bed. in the middle of the night i hear cat sounds. when i wake up in the morning my blue beanie is GONE, nowhere to be found, disappeared.

Jen R: don't crane your neck looking under your bed for your blue beanie, that's bad for your whiplash neck.

me: i have to, my head gets cold during the night.

Jen R: looking like Encyclopedia Brown without a flashlight.

Bede: monks can't have flashlights because we have cavities...

Encyclopedia Brown: reading War and Peace in the dark as a kid hurt my eyes. my eyes forever fucked, that's why i wear glasses...

Jen R: i'll gift you a new blue knit cap for Thanksgiving...

Melissa Maker: toque?...

mom: you could always wear one of MY Gloria Swanson head-covering bejeweled turbans from Sunset Boulevard...

video gamers: hey bro, we're not NFL football players, let's stop posing for photos with our biceps out like this...

Mashle: 105.9 million viewers watched our series finale...

Jen R and i attend the Mrs. Roper Romp in San Diego.

Jen R: like me in my Mrs. Roper caftan?

me: you're my fantasy woman, with that wig...

Jen: why do you always wear that blue beanie on your head?

me: it keeps all my thoughts in my head like David Foster Wallace.

Jen accidentally bumps Pam Hiltunen off the pier...

Pam Hiltunen: honest mistake, my center of gravity is loopy, i'm top-heavy... 

Jen: any tuna down there?...

Jen: you're looking very handsome in your Jack Tripper mustache.

me: from that ONE AND ONLY episode...

Jen: you almost ran off with your 6th Grade English teacher Ms. Krause?

me: yeah, everyone in the class was afraid of her but she intrigued me, we could have had a Children of a Lesser God relationship...

Ms. Krause: kid i coulda fast-tracked you through the Shakespeare stage circuit but 6th Grade happens just once...

in the Mrs. Roper crowd.

Helen Roper: and the Mrs. Roper Romper is.........a caftan. a psychedelic caftan.

Audra Lindley: i am ALIVE to witness this glorious event!!! Stanley choked on his cocoa and died.

David Byrne wearing the Big Suit: the Big Suit continues in the tradition of the zoot suit...

Jen R dressed as Mrs. Roper drenched in beads: can i do it? *cupping the palm of her hand to the lips of her soft-painted mouth* STAAAAAANLEY, DINNERRRRR!!!.....

 

THE GERMAN DOCTOR: HAMBURGER HAMLET

 

 

me: don't you want to get the hell out of Salinas and experience the real world?!!!

Michael German: i did my residency in Seaside.

me: why the HELL do you still live across the street from Palma?!!!

Michael: the lingering smell of prom.

me: we're going to L.A.!!! NOW!!!

me: omg remember Hamburger Hamlet?

Michael: no.

we enter and i'm immediately transported back to the sights and sounds of my nostalgic youth: the I Love Lucy booth, the Old Hollywood B&W photos above on the wall, the Wedge salad, the horseshoes.

me: but not necessarily the smells. have you ever had a burger here?

Michael: no.

me: can't say i have either. or that i remember. it's probably gonna try to taste like The Good Earth but nothing is The Good Earth.

me: do you mind if i flip this checkerboard over this nice white dinner-tablecloth in this nice restaurant?

Michael: this isn't Miami Vice "Like a Hurricane." you gotta control yourself. not everything requires the anger response, i've been studying psychiatry paperbacks on the side. think about the candles. that would dishonor your benediction.

me: my what?

Michael: don't you wear a dinner jacket or something?

me: oh my Mr. Kotter/Mr. Serling black pimp coat!!! you're right, it is a holy prayer. it calms me before i eat winter meals.

Michael: it calms your stomach before clams.   

i kiss the Mr. Kotter notch lapel, then the Mr. Serling notch lapel. i make sure to go back to each collar side with another kiss for Julie Kotter, then a kiss for Jen.

Jen R: you're not dreaming this. but this isn't the '80s.

Michael: how's your steakburger?

me: it tastes like bacon.

Michael: i prefer the pasta here myself.

me: oh garcon. Alfredo? yes, where is my Hamburglar toy?...

Suzy Lu: yeah mate, i got a team, i got an office, i got a Scottish castle to make YouTube videos of me watching anime. it gets REALLY QUIET at night over here...

Kakashi sipping tea: quite quiet, like a ninja.

me, exasperated: fettuccine is frustrating. it's SO much better than spaghetti but the fettuccine always STICKS TO THE FUCKING POT!!!

Michael: you could try fresh fettuccine.

me, with a defeated look in my eye: that's cheating.

JUST THEN, Bud Cort walks into the Hamburger Hamlet.

Michael: Bud Cort, mind coming over to our table to be a witness to this?

Bud Cort: i auditioned for that movie. i mean i came here for the Christmas-tree fries but i guess. always take the fettuccine with red sauce, the Alfredo sauce here looks like the cum on the set of Brewster McCloud. 

Jen R: i have a dog named Bud Cort.

Bud Cort the dog: call me Bud Cort, not Bud Cort The Dog.

Michael: don't know about you, but i love it when the pasta dough gets stuck under my fingernails. 

Michael takes out a quill pen from his dinner jacket as if he's gonna sign the check. but he signs something else.

Michael: tell you what i'm gonna do. so we can all relax and have a nice meal. i'll pay for your mom's nursing home. okay? every expense. you can stay in your house, you don't have to sell the house to pay for your mom's hospice care. it'll be like if insurance fully paid for a nursing home...

me, drunk with happiness: i could kiss you. i could kiss you on your big fat Tom Selleck mustache.

She's Having a Baby.

Ingmar Bergman: that was a cool little interlude there with Kevin Bacon holding the baby and the endless nameless parade of hot-babe women models gaggling into one dressing room. and the window-blinds shade of the black lines. and the European song with the woman talking, not singing...

Kevin Smith: it was like an '80s Vidal Sassoon commercial...

Tears for Fears: that's the woman from the "Woman in Chains" music video!!!

Angela Alvarado: i'm here ringside for the Tyson/Paul fight...

at the Field Museum of Natural History. under two creepy elephant taxidermies.

Kevin Bacon: wait, you're married?

Isabel Garcia Lorca: yes. Data was a good lover. look at me, not just anyone can pull off the baggy-yet-skinny acid-washed jeans look like this. with the jeans blouse... 

Kevin: the Fantasy Girl must be single or it's uncomfortable for me. it's unethical and i want to avoid getting knocked out...

Isabelle: but MY Fantasy Guy should always be married...

Isabel Garcia Lorca: are you still in love with your wife?

Kevin: yes. notice i didn't hesitate. 

Isabel: you were too quick, that means no.

at my favorite movie location for any movie, the grocery store.

Kevin: no one's touching my balls.

random woman shopper: hey buddy, don't even worry about it, i'm a waitress at Sizzler, they don't put a sneeze guard over the salad bar...

Kevin: you called Dr. Stinky?

Kevin: this rattan swing caused my infertility. i wear Bermuda shorts now.

Elizabeth McGovern: my temperature's right, have you ever heard a woman say that? this isn't sex, honey, this is yoga.

Alec Baldwin: kiss me goodnight to prove that you ever cared about me.

Elizabeth: love is not a kiss, love is a feeling.

Alec Baldwin: haven't you ever stolen a piece of candy?

me: OH YES, at the Pic-N-Save around the block from my house on Gilmore St. in Van Nuys...

Stanley Kubrick: hey let's get another poster of one of my movies on the wall of Kevin Bacon's typewriting room other than Lolita...

Joanna Kerns: i'm named after that Kern's nectar juice, right?...

Wesley Crusher: my cameo here at the end in my rainbow-stripes grey Starfleet tunic means that Star Trek: The Next Generation is starting soon. i know, can you believe it?, they're rebooting Star Trek finally!!! i'm gonna be the star of this show for all nine seasons...

Love and Rockets: nobody ever remembers us...

Fred Flintstone: Lamaze class by sunset, so beautiful.

Stephen King: a writer driving a BMW? that IS Hollywood...

Kevin: you got your focal point? no, not the cocaine rabbits.

Elizabeth: the monad...

Jen R: d'aww, that's sweet, Kevin Bacon makes her hospital bed while his wife is away birthing their baby.

Lars von Trier: a tear of blood, very me.

Elizabeth: babe, i got good news and bad news. good news is it's a boy. bad news is his name is Lars von Trier.

Kevin: oooh, i get it now, this is supposed to be YOUR real life as a struggling Hollywood writer with a young family.

John Hughes: bingo.

John Hughes: this movie isn't bad, it's just that adults are boring.

Lead Belly: Kurt did me a favor, he made my song "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" haunting, it wasn't like that for me, it's a swinging jazzy ditty, upbeat. but it was played on the golden needle of a Victrola phonograph so it came out broken-up...

Michael Weiss: hey, don't broadcast all over Instagram that you two are a couple, it's RUDE!!!

Lindsey Vonn: skiing and sex tapes. there's more to life than skiing and sex. i wrote a snow novel.  i built Tiger Woods, who's a robot. call me the Hedy Lamarr of the slopes, the brain from Breckenridge Breakers...

Ms. Krause: isn't it depressing to see all the school buses driving down all the city streets but they're all empty?...

Whoopi Goldberg: i like to be eaten. listen, this is the only space we have left to be ourselves. BRING OUT THE WHEEL OF CHEESE!!! i still don't want a roommate.

Eddie Vedder: Jeremy from "Jeremy" is from Boston...

LeVar Burton: Trivial Pursuit is my fucking consolation prize for not getting Jeopardy?!!! i don't care, i STILL win, i lived my dream, i played myself on Futurama...

President Biden: no more seesaw, you know?...

Terrence Malick: some call me earnest...

Super Mario: don't peek out your bedroom window when i'm collecting the trash in the early morning at 4AM, it's creepy to have someone watching you do your job. 

me wearing an '80s The People's Court white neck brace: it's just as well, turning my neck like that is murder on my whiplash neck.

Neale Donald Walsch: i still haven't recovered...

Super Luigi: don't crane your neck under your Keurig machine to smell the Christmas coffee, it doesn't smell like peppermint...

Olivia from Night Court: I TOLD YOU!!! i KNEW i was doomed when the writers wouldn't write me a boyfriend...

Olivia: i still say me and Abby would have worked. me and Abby and Gurgs in a threesome. let me guess, in the first episode of Season 3 we find out Olivia left Manhattan Criminal Court to get rich...

me: i'm nostalgic, but i watch Night Court for India de Beaufort, not Dan Fielding...

Mk.gee: "Rockman".

Stewart Copeland: The Police?

Mk.gee: nope, the WKRP in Cincinnati end credits...

Billy Corgan: i trained to be a priest.

D'arcy: every musician does.

Billy Corgan: look at me, look at my goth-priest robe...

David Lynch: why did i have to start smoking at age 8? why couldn't i have been one of the cool kids who started smoking at age 13?...

Michael German leads me into the smaller room of his doctor's-office room.

Michael German: you want me to check out polyps in your mouth?

me: i think i got them from all the screaming internally i've been doing lately.

Michael: close your eyes and open your mouth.

me: wait what are you gonna do?!!!

Michael: relax, it's just a tongue depressor......... 

 

THE GERMAN DOCTOR: CANNA

 

Michael German: what's the main problem?

me: incontinence.

Michael German checks underneath mom's bed in her bedroom.

Michael: simple solution.

me: yeah i've tried everything: bedpan, green liner sheet under her, a sturdy cotton thick pad sheet under.

Michael: you know in Medieval times the bedpan was wood. all you have to do is get her a waterbed.

me: what?

Michael: think about it...

me: OMFG!!!, i exclaim in the room.

i'm not sure if i should share this with Michael German, it's such a private moment, you know? i found a lucky penny nestled in the beige shag carpet of mom's bedroom!!!

dad: now THAT is a find. THAT really means something. do you know how hard that is to achieve?

Kurt Cobain at Unplugged.

Kurt Cobain: the final stirring song i played in that ballroom was Lead Belly "Where Did You Sleep Last Night." i performed it in a startlingly macabre morose manner.

Lead Belly: turns out you had a worse leadbelly than me...

Julie Patzwald is REALLY organizing this time, getting the name of the new goth band in order.

Julie Patzwald: Optimum Opium.

the rest of the band goth-smile.

Mk.gee: Alesis.........not my song, those cool sleek black pentagon-shaped electronic drums.

Mordecai from Regular Show: The Jets "Crush on You" drums!!!

Doryce: performance pad, not my Depend pampers panties. 

Eye Luggage: Surmise Sunrise, that's my contribution to the name. am i the drummer now? i have a lot of free time, i don't watch movies anymore. isn't this more electropop than goth?...

Julie Patzwald: take five, guys. hey, why isn't there Peppermint Coke for the holidays?...

Santa Claus: Spiced Coke, what the fuck were they THINKING?!!!

Chewbacca: life debt.

Han Solo: no, i mean i have a life's worth of debt, i owe the space government a trillion dollars, the space bank is gonna take my Millennium Falcon and house.

Mk.gee: what Beck wishes he still was...

Beck: every person has a phone, every artist is a bedroom artist. every artist is now lo-fi...

Suzy Lu: i'm crazier than Mariah Carey about Christmas. i put a Christmas tree in my bathroom. there's a tree in the loo!!!

Steejo: that's why i can never shower and am perennially stinky as a Scottish scouse.

Bryan Brown in Cocktail mixing drinks: the jigger is symbolic. do you see it? two sides of the coin, Days of our Lives hourglass, light and dark.

Tom Cruise: i see a way to get double-drunk...

Jillian Clare: Days of our Lies.........if i go to Wellesley it's like the election never happened...

She's Having a Baby.

at the oil-drum fire.

baby: daddy, don't burn your book because it didn't sell, Shakespeare can only be understood if your brain is frozen.

Robin Williams: if a book you write doesn't sell, you can't call it a novel. the T.S. in T.S. Garp stands for Tough Shit.

Elizabeth McGovern: i'm the asshole who married you.

Kevin Bacon: THAT should have been our wedding vows.

all suburban neighbors wear a Green Day Dookie shirt...

impetigo: sorry for going to school. sorry for visiting the school nurse, i have a crush on her. don't worry, it's just Spaghetti-Os...

David Foster Wallace: you wanna be a writer? go to New York.........it'll be okay.

Alec Baldwin: the only time the word torpid has been used in ANY film. 

Kevin Bacon: there's more to life than getting laid.

Jerry Seinfeld: there's futons.

Kevin: who knew there'd be an '80s dance club with hip underground techno music and a neon bathroom with a heart mirror here in Kansas?...

Isabel Garcia Lorca: i'm not a scary stalker, i have a Spanish accent, i'm no Glenn Close. it's destiny, i'm related to that dreamy writer Fed Lorca...

Federico Garcia Lorca: in this case 27 was a GOOD number, not an X'd-out Generation...

Kurt Cobain: the generation gap, am i right? i never wore GAP.

Kevin's ad-art boss: jumping off the Michigan Avenue Bridge is a sign that you will NEVER be satisfied.

Kevin: so i'm just supposed to never STRIVE to escape and be Robert Crumb?

Kevin's boss: suicides are never satisfied.

Anthony Bourdain: hmmm, now that i think about it...

Anthony Bourdain: is that the final meaning?

Anthony Bourdain: no it's more about reaching conclusions after you realize that you will never find what you're looking for no matter how long you search. 

Jen R: this is the exact ad agency i worked at in NYC. i wrote ads by this advertisement atelier's skinny window over here while listening to Olivia Newton-John do Vaporwave in Xanadu. wait, the Portlandia Bridge?!!!...

Jen R: the whole Binaca'ing your penis that the guy does before sex, Binaca'ing his dick with breath spray by opening up his shorts, this was ONLY done in '80s movies.

Boc: Kevin Bacon has a nice package, who knew?

Jen R: do people still wear pajamas?

Robin Hood: i missed the target but hit the tree.

Maid Marian: ...

Kevin: Italian bicycle rider? you're in the wrong movie, Breaking Away is that way...

Jen R: 50-year-old stressed dads wore pacemakers in their hearts only in the '80s...

Bear Scouts: we're Cub Scouts but we'll be Boy Scouts soon. we're not NFL scouts. we have dreams, we'll be Lion Scouts some day. we have hope, unlike the Chicago Bears, whom we share a logo with...

Caleb Williams: can i talk to Ditka? i gotta get outta here, drop me off at that Wendy's over there...

Webelos: you're gonna make it through this...

Alejandro at Safeway: know how i just carry on day after day? i live like a forest rabbit. i live in the present. ALL THERE IS IS TODAY.

Carmen de Lavallade: Lavallade literally means stage, it's the perfect name for me.

Alvin Ailey: i was in Fame (1980), right? had to have been. dance is what heals what ails us. i cried choreographing Cry.

Judith Jamison: for all the mothers. i was in Fame (1980), right? had to have been. watch my episode of The Cosby Show, it's okay. can i talk to Lisa Bonet?...

Stephen King: Cooper Flagg is the strangest, weirdest, most macabre thing i have ever seen. i could never write a creature as bizarre as Cooper Flagg. a basketball player from Maine?...

laundry bag: nobody ever washes the laundry bag...

Abbot Butt: the age-gap cutoff seems to be 24...

me: i'm worried about my mom. she's had a hacking cough for three months now. she coughs all into the night, hasn't had one moment of sleep peace. 

Michael German: dry or wet?

me: both.

Michael: probably allergies. cat dander all around her bedroom i'm assuming. i saw some cat dander in there when i visited. she doesn't like cats?

me: no it's not that. allergy medicine has no effect. she's allergic to allergy medicine.

Michael: I GOT IT!!! Vanquish. Vanquish cures all. even cough.

me: acetaminophen for cough? really? 

Michael: you can't just go around checkerboarding every time life doesn't go your way. although flipping a checkers board over in a park does feel good. Vanquish gives me super-strength.

me: me too. when did you discover it?

Michael: the '90s for proms in Salinas.

me: those were terrible times. i saw my first Vanquish bottle when i was rummaging through my mom's purse for gum in a booth at an '80s McDonald's. i win. 

me: so you wanna go to Chili's or something?

Michael: i don't like it when the chips are crispy.