GINA IN THE GRAND SHADOWS: PHONE CALL OUT OF NOWHERE

 

Gina Little calls my sister out of nowhere. i'm watching Starchaser: The Legend of Orin and the walls are thin. my sister is crying because she's been unceremoniously let go of her Safeway job for the crime of caring too much. taking too long on her breaks because she had to feed our dementia-addled cancer-stricken 90-year-old mom dinner. 

Gina Little: i heard you're having a hard time.

sister: where'd you hear that? how can a rumor break free of the friend chain upstate?

Gina: word gets around, mysteriously.

sister: which is to say I MISSED YOU. when's the last time you called me? ten years ago? why did we drift apart? you were my one and only. i wish you hadn't moved to L.A forcing me to find friends on a farm. why aren't friends forever?

Gina: once a friend, always a friend, secretly. the glamorous life of a pharmacist. i go where the drugs are needed most. just wanted to chime in and say quickly: you're worth it. you'll get another job, it's just a job. this isn't the end, my friend, it's the beginning. how about Lucky?

sister: love you. i never said that to you when we were in school...

being intimate: can be intimidating...

Starchaser: The Legend of Orin: remember the bubbling EXCITEMENT you felt as a kid when you were about to put on the glasses and watch a 3D movie? all those starships and lasers and invisible swords and a female robot's butt in your face?...

Bender: literally her shiny metal ass.

John Moschitta Jr.: this is shit. i'm more than just a fast talker. they call me Motormouth but i hate cars. i hated my Transformers toys on Christmas. i haven't been able to keep a wife because women think i make love in under a minute. can i do that Slow commercial with Usain Bolt? why wasn't i Mario?...

Jen R: i start my job the day before my birthday.

me: your new coworkers will throw you an office birthday party!!! strangers do that you know.

Jen: calligraphy is RIDICULOUS for Christmas ball ornaments. i'm just gonna letter them in BLOCK LETTERS. 

Labor Day: when your white socks turn dingy from playing football in the rain on the field of the muni high school you flunked out of...

Al Bundy: you play football alone with me on a Saturday on this field, nobody in the stands, just the two of us on campus, quarterback and receiver, as we do crank together the two of us hanging bottomless from the goalposts. 

Richard Estes: my greatest street paintjob was making Indiana a football school. my son Fernando Mendoza had the biggest paintbrush.

Fernando Mendoza: and i'm bringing back NEW live-action adult-swim content. finally!!!

humans: bacon, the world's most perfect food.

pigs: this is why we uprose in 1984!!!

a dolphin at Lucky: i know you hate that the only six-pack you can get is the bottle six-pack, not the can six-pack, but recognize that that saves me...

rocket scientist from Alabama with a Southern accent: weird.

Burger King: our next project: our fries. we're gonna make our french fries taste better. we're gonna make our french fries taste GOOD, they've always been awful...

Blood and Donuts: you try wrapping your donut in newspaper to carry back from the donut shop. get back to your place, take the donut out of the newspaper, and eat it...

French cruller: this just doesn't look right.

Jim Carrey in Doing Time on Maple Drive: see what i did there? for the family-portrait photo i ALMOST turned around and did the Ace Ventura Talking Butt. i'd been thinking about that character for two years...

Cape Codder: the drink of those who spend their lives THINKING and SLEEPING.

Cricket taking one acoustic and one electric guitar down from the wall: tell your friends about our wireless deal.

Indian with long straight black hair, cleanshaven, black leather jacket at Guitar World: musicians don't have friends, that's the point.

Madison Keys: tennis is hard right now. the fear took over. the shakes in my serving motion. it ain't got that swing. i'm scared. but i'm not mentally ill, tennis is just a hard sport, it's hard for everyone. i need a couple days away from tennis in Upper Montclair.

Stephen King: i poured my HEART AND SOUL into my latest novel about real gremlins living under the Earth and my publisher said their computers determined it was AI slop!!!

the '80s: the last time people went to costume parties. grown men dressing up as Robin for fun.

the hosts of a tennis podcast: no matter how hard we try, we will NEVER be cool. we will ALWAYS be lame.

the wallpaper inside an '80s Toys R Us: if Shel Silverstein and Gallagher threw up together because they ate the mushrooms rather than took them on Sesame Street.

Gallagher: give me back my hat and suspenders!!!

Shel Silverstein: that's MY hat!!! keep the suspenders, they're stupid.

Robin Williams: come now, my children. i'm playing Jesus in Godspell...

Safeway: day after day after day. then one day it ends.

soccer: the ball really scores when it goes into a volleyball bounce in front of the goal...

Katy Perry: my missing puzzle piece was Canada. alls i was missing was Canada. my missing puzzle piece was in the shape of the whole country of Canada.

Justin Trudeau: does this mean i get to be in the Raine Maida/Chantal Kreviazuk documentary sequel?...

TOM: no matter how mean and cynical the world gets, Toonami will always be WHOLESOME.

Gina Little. wow. i had always wanted to be her husband. because Gina was quiet. she moved in a space apart from the daily loud dramas of the world. in the shadows, silent. never calling attention to herself, anything she did. accomplished, unaffected. nobody ever knew what she was up to, not even her mom. moving through life balanced on a pin, a pin that never pricks. it was a tragedy for me, too, when she moved away. hell this is the first time i'm hearing her voice!!! as you can imagine Gina Little's voice is soft.

THE QUESTION IS, DO YOU STILL BELIEVE IN LOVE?: FACE-PULLING FOR THE BIG DATE

 

Gordon Ramsay is at his face-pulling machine in his kitchen exercising away.

Shorey Wesen: what are you doing?

Gordon Ramsay: face-pulling my face wrinkles away for our big date.

Shorey: i feel this will only make your mental health worse.

Gordon: the face is the only body part of mine that's not buff. madam would you stir that tin pot of tomato soup over there with a wooden spoon? it has to nurse at low flame and i'm doing two things at once.

Shorey: *sigh* sure. pronounced to-MAH-to, right?

the large slab of wood over the trash/recycle/lawn bins: it's not to keep the polecat out of the trash, it's to keep the FLIES out of the trash!!!

flies: come on, man, we're just in the lawn bin, we just want some grass.

Jim Carrey: my name in Doing Time on Maple Drive should have been Buck.

Jim Carrey: have you ever in your life had your father call you a dirty drunk?...

Atom Egoyan: this is by far my best acting job in front of the camera...

Minolta: in the '90s everyone had rectangular photos...

Drew Barrymore in Poison Ivy: you're a vixen only if your blonde hair is TOUSLED.

Starchaser: The Legend of Orin: now you know where Ioz from The Pirates of Dark Water came from...

Michael Weiss on Instagram: just floating around.

Vanquish: your sneeze comes from too much pepper in your chicken noodle soup. in the olden days you didn't take a pill for a headache, you just rode it out.

movies: we need to make more movies, we need SOMETHING to fill all those TV channels 24/7...

Charles Nelson Reilly: my father made the boneheaded decision NOT to work with Walt Disney. he had to be institutionalized after that. just think, i coulda been Tinkerbell!!!

Trent Reznor is backstage clutching the woolly curtain at his first-ever live show. he's sweating bullets.

Trent Reznor: i can't go out there in front of all those people!!! look at the tight leather pants i'm wearing, you can see the outline of my COCK!!! "Down In It" is the opening number? i'm not a rapper!!!

ok ru: i'm okay, are you? from Russia with love.

Edith Noble: did you see that? i SUBTLY pat Gene Rayburn's back when we're doing the Super Match...

Todd Solondz: so long, Dragon Ball Z.

Andy Warhol: it all starts with moving to New York City...

Andy Warhol: you can't cosplay in jeans.

Just Between Friends.

Christine Lahti removing the sheets from Mary Tyler Moore's bed: alright, up and at em, let's play tennis. you can't be a mopey widow your whole life. get your ass out of this bed.

Mary Tyler Moore: i don't have an ass.

Sam Waterston: after the movie this could turn into a sitcom where i take care of these two broads' baby and Ted Danson comes back as a ghost to warn us of earthquakes...

watersnake: our Kwisatz Haderach is Kaka. robot evolution is evil-ution...

Shorey Wesen: don't you read profiles? i said i like when a man has a bulldog face.

Gordon Ramsay: sorry, mah dahlin, i was too busy looking at all the winter photos of your arse. i want to put my cock in your butt and leave it there like a Victorian spoon in sticky toffee pudding. 

Shorey: it won't stay, your dick as your life will fold one day. like a napkin in the wind.

Gordon: you intimidate me, i never graduated college. i should have stayed in soccer school.

 

Shorey: who's this cute guy on your Instagram?

Gordon: that's my lost brother Ronnie. 

Shorey: he looks like Eminem but good. heroin addict?

Gordon: yeah, Ronnie watched Trainspotting and took it WAY too seriously. i'm trying to slide into your family so i can get that Jacques Pepin money to break him out of gaol and get him clean with tomato soup.

Shorey: jail isn't so bad. prison food is my favorite food. i got a crush on Ronnie Ramsay!!!

Gordon: okay but when you see him walking alongside his bicycle in an alley don't approach him and call him Ronnie Weasley, he hates that. 

THE QUESTION IS, DO YOU STILL BELIEVE IN LOVE?: PEANUT BUTTER ON ONE SIDE

Jen R: let me do the talking.

we're at the Treehouse.

me: haven't seen these biddies in a New York minute.

Gladyce: i think you got that twisted.

Doryce: no old person has ever said the word twisted.

Jen: what can we help you with today, ladies?

Doryce: simple, i'm fucking fat. i need to lose weight before my date with the Cheese Man.

Gladyce: she means Frankie Muniz.

Doryce: look throughout this tree, i only eat one thing.

Jen, inspecting with a mouse's whiskers: so you have 100 jars of Native American peanut butter in the cupboards.

Gladyce: at least they're plastic jars, not those glass jars which ruined my bachelorette party.

Doryce: how can i lose weight? you wouldn't want me to starve now, would you?...

Gene Rayburn: come back, Edith Noble!!! i haven't felt this way about ANY OTHER CONTESTANT. i want to kiss your crooked teeth. your beauty haunts and makes me depressed. there's a mystery to you, i don't want to fuck you, i want to know you. i want to hug your secrets. i want to embrace your dark take on the world.

Edith Noble: tell you what, let me borrow your skinny mic and let's meet back at Benedict Canyon.

Richard Dawson: i've lived a blessed life. as an aside, Edith Noble just kissed me. i feel bad for the rest of you...

'80s TV movie: a home video on VHS starring Mary Tyler Moore...

headaches: your third eye trying to come out.

migraines: your fourth eye.

Jen R: can a cyclops have a third eye?

Rell from Krull: yes. that's how we won humanely...

Himalayan pink salt: it BURNS.

Rod Serling: back when i lived in upstate New York...

me: could you give me a quickle?

Leslie Sbrocco: your prayers worked, it wasn't just PBS you were saving through my tits, it was the world. put your pickle between my Emmy-winning tits...

Walker: Lucky has ONE of each obscure-flavor name-brand item...

Ms. Krause at the 8th Grade Flash Forward play: back in the olden days we stuffed our bras and pants with crumpled-up balls of wax paper...

Carmel: it ONLY rains in the morning...

LeVar Burton in Reading Rainbow: people will NEVER be as cool as they were in the '70s. people will never be cool again...

Taco Bell: wait, who the fuck wants to remember 2016?!!!

Michael Weiss on Instagram: no it's not creepy, i just want to get to know you better!!!

chai: Berkeley pumpkin spice latte.

Dyson's $500 toothbrush: the camera in your mouth will ONLY record the broccoli in your teeth...

Jen R: got it. get two slices of bread and make a peanut-butter sandwich with peanut butter on ONE side...

 

THE QUESTION IS, DO YOU STILL BELIEVE IN LOVE?: BEST (KIND OF) FRIENDS

Jewel Staite kisses Ben Foster in the mouth in the Flash Forward series finale.

Jewel Staite: what are the odds?

Ben Foster: that's my line!!! this scene would have massive significance for someone who had actually watched every episode of this show.

Jewel: how do we end up?

Ben: i become the ice cream man.

Jewel: i do NOT join a cult.........tho i do get a little spacey...

Ben: does this mean we're dating?

Jewel: HELL NO. we had the best kind of friendship on planet Earth: we were next-door neighbors who grew up together, a boy and a girl, not gay but i was a tomboy and you were a dork.

Ben: you're not THAT pretty so you're gonna struggle.

Jewel: and you will make nervous-pee jokes well into adulthood.

break-up text: that "take care" at the end is the dagger.

Less Than Zero: we buried Julian in the desert. his family wasn't too happy about that but it turned out great, really cinematic.

Robert Downey Jr.: in the sequel, Less Than Perfect, Jami Gertz and Andrew McCarthy hide in Utah. but it turns out James Spader was a Mormon this whole time...

that chicken noodle soup that has just a bit too much pepper in it...

Toad Boy: i need pie-pie for my tum.

Mariska Hargitay: what is that? pizza? i'm pigging out on these alfalfa sprouts, i'm a flighty party girl, nothing like sober Olivia Benson. hot honey okay?

Toad Boy: NO!!! sweet pizza is disgusting!!!

George Costanza: remember when TV GUIDE would come in the mail in DOUBLE DIGEST-size when it was the Fall Preview?...

Billy Corgan: from the mouths of babes comes nothing. except my kids, they're geniuses.

Lux Interior in the Confession booth: you probably wouldn't believe me if i told you i was a fan of Carlos Reygadas.

Father Navin: hey you wanna come upstairs to my place and see my Swift Wind?

Lux: the She-Ra horse. not a special Catholic power you have.

Father Navin: how's Poison Ivy in the sack?

Lux: she gives me a rash every time i touch her.

Poison Ivy: that is so punk rock. 

Father Navin: when you two went to that mental hospital and did a show for the patients, THAT was punk rock.

Lux: churches are just another form of mental institution.

Poison Ivy: it's like that Queensryche song "Out of Mind." like Jesus said, "crazy people are people, too."

Jesus: some have accused ME of being crazy. it's cramped in this bed with me, Lux, Poison, and the priest. why is there a bed in a Confession booth?

Father Navin: i get bored with people's sins.

Catherine Breed: i am Kerri Walsh's daughter. but i don't water-polo...

Rocky Horror: only on Saturdays...

Weegee: if only i had gotten my flashbulb SMOKE to land on a B&W of Mario getting that fireball to the face...

Lucky: crusted fish, crustless pot pie. sugared footlongs RARELY.

Starchaser: The Legend of Orin: G-rated Heavy Metal. Dragon's Lair if you only have ONE quarter. Gandalf without the Ralph Bakshi.

Ralph Bakshi: the voices in my movies that sound like they were recorded in a bathroom were me. it was my bathroom.

Tori Amos on stage: this next one goes out to my ex.........Trent, wherever you are...

Trent Reznor walks past the Carmel mission.

Trent: singing the song softly.

Tori playing two pianos at the same time with her legs open: i'm an earth mother...

Sunday brunch: for those settled into their families...

Monroe Ficus wearing Tammy Faye Bakker makeup: you gotta get here early, that mimosa goes fast!!!

Jen R: i'm back with a couple rocks in my gut.........biscuits w/ gravy.

  

Jen R: "more soon" is a Baltimore thing.

Lindy Lenz: i say it, too. i'm not hooch-sick...

Adrienne Airhart: i ALMOST married Mitch Hedberg...

Steve Blum: join us, all we do is go to space at night...

Jackie Fitzgerald: i never thought at my age i'd be having RAUNCHY sex for the first time. i thought i'd be a lonely widow the rest of my life, getting licked only by my dog Falkor. my daughter never comes to visit. my daughter is lost in the Seattle woods, but i'm not worried, Kurt Cobain is with her.

Walker: i'm gonna bulldoze through Lucky buying every hard-to-find flavor of name-brand item in this mom & pop for my Jackie Fitz.

Hey Good Lookin': only in the '50s could you just sleep overnight on the beach at Coney Island.

President Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower: you didn't even know i was there...

Ben Foster: *in a desperate tone tugging on Jewel Staite's blue 8th-Grade-play Medieval princess dress* we're not even going to the same high school?!!!

Jewel Staite: of course not. do you know how hard high school is?!!! i can't have you dragging me down in front of the popular girls!!!

Ben: .........

Jewel: .........but don't worry, we'll reconnect in our 30s when we work at the same postcard kiosk at the mall.

Ben: i know that shoppe, i've peed in that shoppe.

Jewel: we'll be lifelong friends well into our 70s.

Ben: girl, you just made me cry twice.