NINTENDO THE MUTE: EATING QUARTERS

 

Nintendo hands me an empty Arrowhead 5-gallon sparkling distilled water barrel from the 1980s at the coin-cash.

me: i don't get it.

Nintendo: you will never get jugs. this barrel was FILLED TO THE SPOUT with quarters. arcade quarters. I ATE ALL THE QUARTERS.

me: but why?

Nintendo: that's where i derive my power. see i eat all these arcade coins and i DISAPPEAR because i'm traveling at the speed of light. i go halfway around the world in 0.5 seconds. i just went to Africa and back, you didn't notice. because now i'm a video-game character in real life. at the push of a button. at the slightest slant of a joystick. in exchange i give up speaking, vocalizing my thoughts to the outside world.

me: like every video-game player.

Bob Uecker: watch the Mr. Belvedere episode where my daughter prevents a man from becoming a monk by fucking him on prom night, it's a heartwarming classic. outside and to the right. it's just as well, i don't get the modern world, a woman makes a billion dollars by just BEING a family on YouTube? i don't get it...

cookie: eat the cookie BEFORE you do the dishes...

cap o' rushes: a really cool Rush hat you wear backwards.

Chad Reynolds: scarecrows aren't scary.

Billy Corgan: i hate pumpkin pie. i prefer jack-o'-lantern pie.

Fat Albert "Soft Core".

Bill Cosby: get good information on porn and love from your school nurse, NOT from me.

Fat Albert "Gang Wars".

Fernando: i died. i was a kid who didn't end up having a lemonade stand. they showed the gun. remember, this was a G-rated cartoon in the 1970s...

Hoda: happy.

Jack Nicholson playing tennis on his private court on the Witches of Eastwick set: when i play tennis, i wear a bucket hat like Andre Agassi.

TikTok: people SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS to save TikTok, that's what life is now.

Instagram: you chose the wrong app to post your life story...

McDonald's: we don't serve triple cheeseburgers. 

Wimpy, Popeye's on-again/off-again friend: your burgers are wimpy. the Big Mac is flat.

Popeye: i derive my strength not from spinach but from a magic bird.

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird: ...

Wimpy: you pat the pet bird on the head?

Popeye: no, i flip you the bird to feel better about myself and my shitty sailor life.

Julie Patzwald at the goth cemetery: the ground you walk on now will be your roof tomorrow. that hits like a STINGER.

Catherine of The Royal Family: i married well, don't hate.

Saraband.

Henrik: don't kiss me in the mouth the way Anna did, it's weird.

Karin: bubble in my mouth...

Richard Dreyfuss: what is this, Mr. Holland's Swedish not Dutch Opus? 

concertmaster: it really is just a title.

Liv Ullmann: you're a character in some old boring forgotten black-and-white movie.

Ingmar Bergman: yeah, like my first movie.

Johan: yes, i am Mumm-Ra. the reason is the reason.

Johan: it was a sticky love. which is the purest of the loves.

Billy Corgan: disdain is a very Smashing Pumpkins word.

meanwhile at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Karin on stage: my grandpa took my nose.

Johan: i'm too small for this anxiety. and too tall to play soccer.

Liv: Johan, remember our first bed? it was the size of a Tom & Jerry matchbox.

Liv: Johan and i went to Florence. it was like when Bergman and Bogart went to Paris...

at the sanitarium.

Liv: because i was Karin's mom for two hours, i could finally let go and for the first time be Martha's mom for life. i could touch my baby. my kid is crazy just like me. granddaughters are fun, daughters are hard.

Martha: mom, let's go back to a life of hope, let's go back to when life was good, the '80s, when it was just you and me, no messy men.

Liv: nothing beats Ingmar Bergman hugging you from behind one last time...

Ingmar: i admit, this is a watery ending...

Ingmar: this ending will make you cry like a baby...

Ingmar Bergman: at least i didn't at the 11th hour reverse MY LIFE'S THINKING just because i was on my deathbed like that wimp Sartre.

Ingmar Bergman: when i died, hope died.

Ingmar Bergman: we all dance through life, each day.

me: see? this is all i wanted out of our relationship. one MOMENT of atmosphere.

Jen R: okay we're here. i parked the car in the empty parking lot of a Round Table Pizza. in the pouring rain. i drove us out here in my dusty-green 1970s Volkswagen Rabbit without tire chains using only my stick shift. 

me: what's on the car radio? 

Jen: "Della Brown" by Queensryche. 

me: it's not about sex, it's about a memory of love.

Jen: you can only have me if the pizza in there is pineapple. when we enter, me soaked and you dripping drenched, you remain in the background as i approach the knight in the suit of armor. as i slap the knight's metal butt HARD a few times. armor amor.

me: was choking a thing in Medieval sex?

Storybook International "Cap-o'-Rushes".

Lisa Vanderpump: i can't enforce my Rules yet, i'm but a lowly fresh-faced scullery maid. 

Jennifer Pizarro: that Cap-o'-Rushes Hat is the hat i wear for EVERY PART i play at the Forest Theatre...

me: remember how you were Sleeping Beauty after every time we fucked?

Jen P: that's Cinderella with child...

me: can't find my love. no way to contact her. wondering if i'll ever see her again. sound familiar? and i don't have a long dog.

Jen R: Cap-o'-Rushes and i are twinflames. just don't go flaming that hat of hers...

Jennifer Pizarro: a ring is a phone number...

cooks from that British show Chef!: make the young master a Caesar salad, use this BIG BOWL OF WOOD to make the anchovy crouton.

Cap: see, daddy? meat needs salt. 

king: no it doesn't, you stupid girl, not if it's Steak-Umms!!! what are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?

Goody Paul at The Weather Channel: clippers and thunder.........these are weather events, i hate basketball...

Honey: bananas.

me: doing your Safeway shopping?

Honey: no, the world in 2025 is bananas.

University of Maryland: earn you degree simply by working as a waiter in a Starbucks at night!!!

Jen R: right? i earned my degree there by being an underwater glassblower at night.

me: in what?

Jen R: Rinvoq Sciences.

The Hobbit: i'm tired of walking on foot. i'm going to Paris in a Winnebilbobago.

Julie Patzwald: still alive for 2025? you're doing better than me.

Parliament: it's a thin line between love and hate.........wanna go on a date?...

Michael Weiss: thank you for all the pics and videos on Instagram you sent me. sorry, that's all i got...

dotless: impossible.

Julie Patzwald: Dotless, good name for a goth band.

Animaniacs: ...

Danielle Collins in the Australian Open: a big fat $180,000 cheque for only me. CoCo Vandeweghe can suck my cunt.

CoCo Vandeweghe: that's why i became your coach.

Danielle Collins, bowing mockingly: and so i thank you, rude boisterous obnoxious drunk Australian tennis fans. for booing me. if you're Australian, you're a drunk. i slap my butt like Bulma in your honor. the thing is, i thought i retired...

horoscope: for the first time in your life, one of your friends will be your wife...

at the Safeway counter.

Nintendo: okay i'm ringing you up. that's 1 egg block, 1 pound raw meat massaged with salt rub, 1/2 honey banana, 6 count honeycrisp apples...

me: no, i only drink honeycrisp JUICE, not the apples. why is it that you can talk only TO ME? that only I can hear you? that only you can hear ME?

Nintendo: i was born to be your friend.

David Lynch: fucking fires. oh well, i see everything in Dune Blue now. Dune Blue is all around me now, enveloping my dot...

David Lynch: you see Mars up there? that's me waving. have a hot mustard soup with cold Pringles in my honor. dance, laugh, think with freedom. all film scenes should be an hour long. i was the American Ingmar Bergman. i understood the nuances of the creative process better than anyone. the dark corners of your mind, the recesses out to lunch. Lynch out to lunch, the surreal storyteller. that Eraserhead ending still sends chills down your neck hair. there is no afterlife, but then i died, and i created the afterlife...

 

NINTENDO THE MUTE: PURE UMAMI

 

me: i crave quiet. i seek silence.

Nintendo: being a mute is not the same thing. it's a hard life.

me: omg i discovered BRUSCHETTA!!! you know? sun-dried tomatoes, tapenade, better than spaghetti sauce, it's like pure unfiltered umami, i love how OILY it is, it's so damn unctuous.

Nintendo: yeah i know. trust me, you'll get tired of it after the fourth can serving. what cut of artichoke do you dream of?

me: only the crowns, i never got into the hearts.

Nintendo: who do you think you are, a prince who doesn't have to wear pants? it's because you HAVE no heart. do you feel for others?

me: that takes me back. summer ugly-theater-kid camp in the '80s. the only card game we played was Hearts. Bob Barker petting our parrots backstage. Hearts is so sumptuous, it's the only tavern game that can bring weirdos together.

Nintendo: Sticky Thirteens is that initiation i did at Woodland Hills Tech.

me: i discovered putting artichokes in spaghetti.

Nintendo: i mean none of this is new. i put artichokes in my fiesta chicken.

JUST THEN Matt and Skylar come into the Safeway hands locked.

me: what's going on with those two?

Nintendo: it's better than the internet. 

Nintendo shouts over.

Nintendo: HEY YOU GUYS!!! wanna go to the Super Bowl in New Orleans?

before Matt can get out his broomstick he uses as a bat, the couple has disappeared. then reappear again.

Skylar: holy fuck that was a CLOSE game!!! and i hate football.

Matt is wearing beads on his penis.

me: how'd you do that?

Nintendo: Friday.

me: you get paid Friday?

Nintendo: both meanings.

me: i've noticed all the Super Bowl New Orleans merch already on the shelves!!! that is HILARIOUS. Super Bowl New Orleans paper plates, Super Bowl New Orleans napkins, Super Bowl New Orleans plastic sporks, a Super Bowl New Orleans fishing rod...

Steve Kerr: i was the clutch field-goal kicker of the Bulls. i was the Adam Vinatieri of the Bulls.

Concrete Charlie: when Charlie Brown gets REALLY angry.

Lucy van Pelt: i am Lars von Trier's daughter, that makes some sort of sense, right? the metaphor of the football. moving the goalposts of life. the darkness within. save UCLA from the fires.

Michael Weiss: the Instagram heart emoji denotes platonic love...

Saraband.

Ingmar Bergman: my monologues watch over you. my monologues cover you in glory. my monologues are severe.

Ingmar: my first book was Kierkegaard, hence my career. imagine if my first book had been Robert Crumb... 

Henrik: dad i know you love books, but this is not your university attic-office, you're just a hoarder.

Johan: Marianne is gathering strawberries.

Ingmar: WILD strawberries...

Henrik: dad i need $100,000. look, when you made the decision to have a son, you guaranteed you'd end up penniless.

Henrik crying man tears: that's a little HARSH, dad. my book is big in America, not Japan. when i was 17 years old i got mad at you for eating my Big League Chew. 

Johan: why are cellos so fucking expensive? i'll carve a cello out of that tree out back!!! 

Henrik: not everything is with your bare hands, dad.

Ingmar: my favorite place, a church.

Henrik: the organist is expecting, her name is Mrs. Talbot.

me: i became a handicap when dad died.

Jen R: no, you were a handicap before.

me: Jen, i see you coming through the gate, on a foggy windless autumn morn, you're wearing denim.

Jen R: no that's Brooke Shields.

Kobe: the church candles look like a basketball.

Liv Ullmann: Jesus had a son?...

Freud: i smoked Swisher Sweets. 

Ingmar: aging is an illness. but it's better than the alternative, immortality is unseemly.

Uppsala: down the lakehouse.

letter: I was impressed with the young musician. she had a nice butt in those beige jeans and deceptively big tits.

Liv: life is not a chore, Ingmar was always smiling.

Ingmar: i enjoyed the dusting. the best part of our marriage was the dusting.

Abbot Butt: you can't be older than 22.........to be a monk...

Anna: i never wanted to live in Sweden. i wanted to live in Iraq.

Young Artist Concert: hosted by the girl from LazyTown.

Karin at the MTV Video Music Awards: thank you for this Young Artist Spaceman. i'd like to thank Milli Vanilli, Quincy Jones, Stradivarius for being jealous of me, and my dead mama Anna for giving me God.

Katy Tur, Pacific Palisades-born and raised: my first job was at Pali Pizza...

Sailor Moon: Japanese Barbie and Friends...

Talia the cat: i cry like a human baby, i really want milk.

me: don't leave your best friend hanging.

Jen R: my daughter smashed my phone.

me: it's just, the fire thing. you know? the fire thing was your thing...

Blossom on Night Court: remember, ever since the Christmas episode which saved us, whenever there's a new episode of Night Court, we all take two Vanquish...

Patrick McEnroe: i had to go to speech therapy to help me with my Ss. i had a hard time uttering my Ss.

John McEnroe: you were Solid Snake?

Patrick using his thumbs: while you were off starhumping with Bjorn Borg, the nuns disappeared me for five years.

Daniil Medvedev in the Australian Open: so i just got done playing a match that started at 2AM and finished at 7AM.........i am not happy...

me: my dream is to be at a Nottingham Forest home game in the stands for a soccer match next to Jules Smith. kissing Jules Smith. a soccer snog.

Jules Smith: we're wearing matching Notts soccer scarfs.

me: is it scarfs or scarves?

Jules Smith: scarfs sounds better. the fresh misty smell of the pitch green-grass.

me: it never has to be watered, it's raining in the UK right now...

Lorne Michaels: why couldn't SNL be off until after the Super Bowl in New Orleans? first show back the 50th Anniversary. my performers need a REST. my clowns are spent. my hacks need a recoup.

Ms. Krause: my favorite word is amid.

dad: i don't believe in coincidences, i believe in signs. there are no palatial estates except a Storybook International palatial estate.

Learner Tien in the Australian Open wearing a Dragon Ball Z Starter jacket: i have two eyes. i'm in training to get three eyes...

Nintendo: but you're right, i do enjoy the silence, like when i'm working the bakery. 

me: i love that place, went with Jen all the time, used to. does Squeaky still work there?

Nintendo: the guy who looks like if Ian Curtis was fat? yes.

Nintendo: it was a morning as any other and Squeaky was sweating.

Squeaky: i hate my shift, i have to take ALL the donuts from out behind the glass box and lay them on this rolling tray, for no reason. and then put them back. just leave them in there. and then they told me i had to separate the wet donuts from the dry donuts before lunch. i'll never get that done before lunch.

me: yeah why are Safeway donuts SQUARE DONUTS?

Nintendo: it's very simple. they do it for me. in the soundless of the busy store i close my eyes to see. i can see inside the donuts like an X-ray. only i can see this. the donuts with the gold coin in them are the wet donuts because they're happy. wet dough like wet humans is happy dough.

me: Mario blocks, classic.

Nintendo: the quiet helps me concentrate. it's not about time, i don't give a fuck about no dated timecard you punch. i punch my timecard in the nuts. 

  

NINTENDO THE MUTE: I HEAR LOVE

 

i'm sliding my lucky pennies from dad into the Safeway coin-casher when a hand comes at me from behind, towering over me with its sinister shadowy breath. clutching my shoulder. i think it ominous because i haven't been touched in decades. i'm about to whisper "I did nothing wrong........." but the feeling is so WARM, a warmth i've never experienced. it's Nintendo the bagboy. with his thin mustache and beautiful assuring friendly Filipino face.

Nintendo: you're doing it all wrong, my friend.

it's the "my friend" i glom onto.

me: how do you mean?

Nintendo: do this to catch eternity.

he hands me a GIANT gallon clear-blue-plastic Arrowhead Water bottle from the 1980s. 

Nintendo: this empty water bottle carries 30 pounds of COINS. i finished it for you. next time.

me: oh. thanks. yeah, that makes sense, more cost-effective this way. this water bottle looks familiar.

Nintendo: sure, it's from the AYSO game in Brazil between Ronaldo's kid and Messi's kid.

i have this entire conversation with Nintendo without turning my head to see his face. he's shorter than me.

Steve Irwin: wait mate, you mean you can EAT a stingray?!!!...

Chuck Bednarik: a cigar AND a cigarette, better than pot.

Birkin: how can a bag cost $30,000? it's just not possible.

Saraband.

me: i know i'm gonna be crying black lakes at the end of this...

Liv Ullmann: i married the man. he was a photographer. these are a LOT of Polaroids!!!

Ingmar Bergman: yeah sorry, it's just i've always been OBSESSED with photographers.

Liv: i'm not gonna talk to him. i'm gonna let him sleep on the porch as i go play miniature golf with Annika Sorenstam.

Liv: i'm so old i gave my age in English.

Johan: i know there's a God. because Michigan Wolverine football. Jim Harbaugh is in fact God.

Liv: i always knew God was a doofus jokester with a glint in his eye. philosophizing just headily enough to make college students wet in their trousers.

Johan: i just went in my trousers. 

Johan, shaking his head: my son. chamber music is the new heavy metal. how's our daughter Martha?

Liv: insane asylum.

Johan: yeah that's about right. there's really no point in visiting her, right?

Liv: nah.

Johan: my page of answers says...

Ingmar: it's blank.

Johan: an old priest told me something. the point is we didn't fuck enough in our marriage, Liv.

Liv: lovers are legion, friends are few.

Liv: the dentist.

Karin: i know. the overhead dentist light looks like a water buffalo. why does your kitchen tile backsplash have a TARDIS?

Paul Hindemith: my classical music was soft like Bjork music.

Ingmar: cello playing instructions are meaningless.

Karin: and i ran through the M83 "Midnight City" woods...

Liv and Karin are drinking together, laughing and giggling and reminiscing.

Liv: i killed the glider pilot. the funny thing was no one cared. 

Liv, tearing: he's a moving person.

Ingmar: not an emotional person.

Liv: um, Ingmar dear, you do understand that when i'm describing Johan's faults i'm really talking about all YOUR shortcomings...

Jen R: there is nothing more loving in this life than the making of coffee for two. the sound of Sanka. the clink of the cups.

Ingmar: a distant night. of painful longlasting uncertainty...

me: i do not fear death. i do not fear Hell. i do not fear evil. for i am simply a devotee of the films of Ingmar Bergman. i am simply a lover of words. Ingmar Bergman's words protect me like a porch blanket.

Gary Hall Jr.: if only Zeus had a swimming pool...

Jakob Dylan: Timothee Chalamet? why didn't I play Bob Dylan?!!!

The Grief of Pi-Kari: the Halloween episode of Storybook International...

Whale Rider: Maori maudlinness.

me: i can't live without you, Jen R.

Jen R: this story made me cry. this is what would have happened if Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore had had a kid in Ghost...

Michael Weiss: i don't need your Instagram likes, i need your money.

Kendrick Lamar: in honor of Los Angeles, we all squabble up.

Michael Weiss: why didn't anybody tell me Instagram would be so lame? and a living Hell.

Jennifer Pizarro: even if you had gotten my phone number, you wouldn't have called it...

Julie Patzwald: good name for a goth band: Sleeping Shark.

Peewit: a bed opened up at the monastery!!!

Abbot Butt: no, we were calling to have you placed in the mental institution...

Michael Weiss: life is a joke. Instagram, the Joker.

Michael Weiss: girl we aren't in a group chat. it's just you and me.

Julia Ioffe: ...

to my SHOCK and amazement it's Nintendo wearing a Mexican bombero jacket the cashier when it's time for me to ring my Safeway groceries. 

but i notice something. everyone in line can't understand what he's saying to them. then i realize that he's not moving his mouth!!! Oreo the dog has been BARKING barks of joy at having been found in the fires and Nintendo hasn't noticed Oreo ONCE!!!

Nintendo: that's right. i ring up people's groceries, show them the screen with my finger, they pay, and i gave the people their change. not one word uttered.

me: you're a mute?

Nintendo: i listen to people. i listen to what people have to say. and i help where i can.

i check inside my bag.

Nintendo: okay that's 2 pound stingray filets in crushed-ice cellophane, one rectangular box spaghetti...  

Jen R: the spaghetti cooks in 9-11 minutes, i kid you not...

Nintendo: one bag Doritos Sweet & Tangy BBQ, yeah these Doritos taste like St. Cyril's recess Barbecue CornNuts...

Ingmar Bergman: wanna menu of darkness?

 

LIFE: IT JUST DIDN'T TURN OUT THE WAY I'D HOPED: DANIEL TIGER'S SWATCH

 

Mister Rogers: so you're just never going to live in the modern world?

me: i mean today IS Quitters Day.

me: hi, Daniel Tiger. ugga mugga.

Daniel Tiger: thanks.

me: why does your clock not have hands?

Daniel Tiger: because time is an illusion. also, Mister Rogers said something about taking acid when he was designing the clock.

Mister Rogers: when you take Orange Sunshine, you can't tell time because your watch melts.

Lady Aberlin: ugga mugga, Daniel Tiger.

Daniel Tiger: thanks. meow meow. me-OW!!!

Lady Aberlin: for some reason i like you best. it's probably because you don't try to steal my milk. 

Daniel Tiger: right now we're best friends, Betty, don't ruin it by becoming my kindergarten teacher.

me: why do you push that red-and-yellow dumptruck all the livelong day?

Daniel Tiger: because nobody cares about those poor CalTrans workers.

i crack open a new yellow slender carton of Mocha Mix and lick the spout.

me: My Tantric Lover. Stinged. for Sting. these are my benedictions.

Daniel Tiger: all the animals are at tide. i beg of you, help me live a good life. i tried to get that blue owl to help me but he speaks in riddles and Tootsie Roll Pops.

blue owl: something about P.E....

Lady Aberlin, turning around: well, how do i look? do you like my outfit? i'm auditioning for Night of the Living Dead later today.

Mister Rogers: not slutty enough. don't worry about Romero, he's a teddy bear.

Aberlin: i'm actually auditioning for the part of the bus driver...

Steejo: i'm here ready to eat your Scottish meat pie.

Suzy Lu: ...

Steejo: wait, why are we at a restaurant? you mean there actually is a thing called Scottish steak?!!!

Steve Jobs: i'm not Steejo...

Bruce Faulconer: cum is dumb.

Mayim Bialik: mail back.

Blue Sunshine.

red-robe mom: we live in if The Shining sprawling hotel was an apartment complex...

Melissa Maker: hey that's a cool dishwasher there with a spinning-carousel top shelf.

Anacin: aspirin for Family Guy.

mom: the kids want Pine-Sol?

Melissa Maker: the kids are cleaners. the kids want Strawberries N Cream Dr. Pepper...

Zalman King: see? being a superhero in real life is NOT glamorous. it involves killing a lot of knife-wielding housewives.

Rhoda manning the phones: Mary Tyler Moore, our First Female President, think about it...

the '70s: the last decade when you could just make out on the grass of a public park.

Gallagher: hey baby, it's me, Gallagher!!! without the mustache!!! what are you lookin' at, egghead?...

doctor: A LONG INSTRUMENT!!!.........not my dick...

director: there are no bald hippies, that was the message i was trying to get across with this movie...

Elvira: my tits made this movie Cronenbergian...

Zalman King: i hate guns. this is a dart gun.

Alice Ghostley: i had the perfect name to be on Bewitched!!!

Zalman King: just because my name has a Z doesn't mean i like ziplining in Hawaii or that i have a cool lighter. i'm Z-Rated...

bodyguard on a rampage: it's not a proper mall until it has an Atari Hard Drivin' module with a wheel for a joystick!!!

Zalman: that wheel is more haptic than my dart gun...

Barbra Streisand: this is my guest spot on French in Action...

discotheque: the best feature of a discotheque was the glass pane.

public payphone inside the public bathroom...

Helen Roper: not the caftans, don't shoot the caftans.

Stanley Roper: shoot the ferns in the botany department of the Mervyn's, i hate ferns.

Robin: Batman's bald!!! and he's gone batshit!!!

Tetris pillow: place the cookie on me in the early morning.

Jennifer: YOU'RE the one who's a snob!!!

Solid Snake: Jennifer please...

Jennifer: i mean you're a solid snake, you hiss, you sss, sss stands for Solid Snake Snob.

unfair deaths: Robin Williams, Steve Jobs, Kobe.

Robin Williams: so many more things to invent between the three of us. i was gonna invent the first GOOD Legend of Zelda handheld game. and a grey NES railroad-tracks cartridge from the '80s, the Mrs. Doubtfire video game.

Kobe: i was gonna be Black Steven Spielberg.

Steve Jobs: no bozos. Bezos? maybe...

Jimmy Carter with that beautiful smile of his: no mail today...

Daniel Tiger: why do i live in a clock? why is my house a grandfather clock? are you my grandfather, Mister Rogers? why must i chew Zebra gum?

Mister Rogers: it's not a grandfather clock, it's a time machine. i've always been jealous of Doctor Who. Doctor Who swooped into PBS in 1974 and took over my land. Doctor Who was cooler than me, cooler than my neighborhood, and they could say fuck and shit!!! so i'm gonna use this time machine, your place, to travel back in time to get my hands on their TARDIS. their thing will blow up. into uncontrollable popularity. there will be an explosion. of new sci-fi nerds. i'm using a time machine to get a TARDIS, isn't that impossible?

Daniel Tiger: what about the meantime? you're not gonna feed me?

Mister Rogers: don't worry, Trump will pardon Joe Exotic. Joe Exotic will come around here to the clock and see that you're fed from time to time. he'll open your clock cage every once in a while.

Bob Dylan: time out of mind.

Mister Rogers: you're gonna have to learn the hard lesson. and i'm the one to teach it. remember The Cosby Show?

me: of course. that show shaped my entire outlook on life. i never knew doctors and lawyers could be funny. Theo and the boys.

Mister Rogers: no, not the seminal show, the Cosby show of the '90s. Cosby from 1996.

me: oh yeah, that CBS show. it was like The Cosby Show of the '90s, very surreal.

Mister Rogers: right. it was The Cosby Show but they were in the '90s. do you know HOW they were in the '90s?

me: sure, Bill Cosby was riffing on futons and stuff.

Mister Rogers: no, if you notice Bill Cosby started talking directly to the camera to deliver his jokes. he had to change with the times, he realized he was one scandal away from being canceled and he'd be forced to go back on the road again with his tired '70s stand-up.

Mister Rogers: one day in the '80s Bill Cosby stormed onto this set demanding i give him a loan of $100.