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...

  

  

SOLO POP: STAGES

 

Jem is frustrated.

Jem: this bubblegum-pink hair is not enough. i really want to make it as a singer. not a fluffy singer, a singer of substance, my role model in all things life is Cher.

Jem: but this is WAY harder than i thought it'd be. it takes a lot of fucking MONEY!!! i'm not a trust-fund kid, why do you think i wear makeup at night? i'm fucking POOR!!! i was raised in Watts by a single mother who had a song in her heart, Pop Rocks for cash, and an electric bill for a necklace. i want to sell out stadiums in Seattle and visit Australia!!! i don't have a manager, roadie, backup singers, or anyone helping me, that costs, i'm doing this dream ALL ALONE ON INSTAGRAM!!!

the lead singer of Black Lab: i'm not TRYING to sound like David Bowie...

Ben Shelton: isn't there a clock in tennis now?

Sascha Zverev: i suddenly have 2 Grand Slams so the press has to call me Sascha from now on. the clock stops as soon as i start bouncing the ball because that indicates the point is about to begin. so theoretically i could bounce the tennis ball forever until Time ends...

Melissa Maker posts her latest on Instagram Stories.

Melissa Maker: at first people are commenting on how avant-garde it is, the shadows falling at different angles giving the illusion of shape. what everyone fails to realize is this is actually a silhouette of my full naked body!!! what you're seeing is my WHOLE bare back!!! subtle, sultry, with a faint of gold.

Love Death + Robots: you gotta give us credit, we're not shy about showing animated human penises...

African player scoring his first goal for English football: i get back on defense, but i'm not thinking about soccer, i'm thinking about the small Kenyan village where my mother gave up the ghost...

Safeway: you can still get the discount if you're fired...

dad: British old people are ALL lucid...

A Midsummer Night's Dream: not Midsommar...

Carrot Top: i did not try to commit suicide. but the divorce from Frankie Muniz has been hard.

Frankie Muniz: my wife is not that porn star...

Carrot Top: i'm gonna dye my hair blond with frosted tips. i need a change. i remember your nice little show.

Frankie Muniz: i should have never done the Malcolm in the Middle revival, i thought it'd be like church, but it's brought me nothing but bad luck.

Hayden Panettiere with a giant POOF of panettone frizzy hair: there's a lesson in there in preserving the past, leaving well enough alone, not tinkering with perfection. Malcolm in the Middle was of its time: those quirky late-'90s.

Rod Serling: military stories are boring, werewolf soldiers give you someone to root for...

hikikomoris: guys, we can at least throw away our trash. throw away our trash in a place NOT our room. who wants to live in their own filth? we can be depressed but CLEAN.

the Black Books intro song: Radiohead "Airbag..."

Simon Pegg: did i copy David Brent or did David Brent copy me?

Ricky Gervais: it doesn't matter, we're all gonna die and there is no God. i can say anything at the Golden Globes, these are my people...

Brush Strokes: shows about British middle-class life in the '80s give you the morbs...

Howard Lew Lewis: i've been reading about EVERY EPISODE of EastEnders on Wikipedia for 9 hours now...

Mr. Roper: know how i can unclog any toilet? i got this plunger off an Italian plumber named Mario when i went to Italy and Japan without Helen for our honeymoon.

Mario: plunger, plumber, get it?

Seine-feld: Elaine Benes is more of a French woman anyway. it's in the way she dances. Kramer is a mime. 

Jem: one thing i HAVE going for me is i'm a brilliant songwriter. but you SEE?!!! i poured my heart and soul into this Vaporwave electronica song i just composed, put it on Instagram, it got 1 like and 0 comments!!! it's enough to make any artist give up.

Eye Luggage: i know, but working at Taco Bell is only fun that first week. i was the like. i'm your biggest fan, can you sign my tit in bubblegum-pink magic marker?

Laertus: every time i think of Jem, i think of TaB soda and Pop-Tarts...

 

LUCID OLD MAN: WAIT TIL YOU'RE OLD TO LIVE

 

dad: creature, i listen to your prayers. don't wish for things to be reversed, it's not fair to your mom, it's not her fault things are the way they are.

me: i know. but i am so TIRED.

dad: it won't be forever. it may seem like it's taking 100 years, but after the 100 years, it ends. everything ends...

Indiana Jones  parkouring pyramids: how does my hat stay on? trade secret involving a baldcap and a stapler. if you call me a heretic one more time i'll disappear into this sand waterfall.

Selsun Blue: that '80s YMCA shower smell...

Mac: i like my men like i like my towels: frilly.

Oprah: you wouldn't lie to me, would ya Lance?

Lance Armstrong: i mean it is DIFFICULT to lie straight to Oprah's face like that. to look into her dewy eyes and not be sincere.........people think i died five years ago...

Love Death + Robots "Suits": have you ever seen a trucker hat with a merry-go-round on it?...

Love Death + Robots: we REALLY like cats...

relationship: two people talking.

Black Books: three characters not enough? just add a fourth random guy who was at the bookshop to play poker and the jazz sax, changes the whole group dynamic...

Bermuda onion: Epcot Center...

Lane Kiffin: with my personality i really should just go back to USC and stay there...

Drew Barrymore: so we're going back to the '90s? Poison Ivy should be the fashion plate we all follow, HER clothes, not Cher Horowitz's clothes.

the Buffalo Bills: you would think we'd've been one of the original two NFL teams...

the Gilmore Girls theme song: sounds like the Gimme a Break! theme song...

Brother Peewit: i was the only monk in attendance at King Charles's AI summit because being in the Medieval cartoon Smurfs, i am naturally British...

King Charles: i am here today to warn of the dangers of AI.

Brother Peewit: and i am here in my capacity as representative of the people, i'm advocating on behalf of humanity, to keep humanity. to save the world.

Bill Nye: same as me but we're on opposite ends of the spectrum...

Brother Peewit: the only way we can escape AI might be we'd have to all hide in monasteries...

they're gaining on us!!!: the word gaining is only used in this car-chase scenario.

Nell Carter: i'm gaining on you. i'll soon be the same weight as all you skinny daughters in this family i tend i am NOT jealous of...

trash can: is a trash can a trash can if it is never emptied?...

Tamsin Greig: if there's ever a biopic of Everything but the Girl...

Velvet on PBS: i told you a drama about Macy's would work...

me: why don't you ever come to me in my dreams?

dad: phrasing.

me: why don't you visit me in the dreamworld?

dad: but i'm that spider on the toilet every morning you go to the bathroom your bare toes in the hot-pink shag-carpet bathmat at 5AM AFTER your dreaming.

me: wait, that's you? YOU'RE SPIDER-SAMA?!!!

LUCID OLD MAN: THE ETERNAL KILLING OF TIME

 

my dad takes me to the Casbah Theatre in Berkeley to watch Macross: Do You Remember Love?

dad: isn't this the type of stuff you did at college, creature?

me: it was so long ago that i remember...

dad: i want to experience what my son experienced. don't worry about the future, there'll be caregiver robots, right?

George Jetson: maybe.

Rosey the Robot: ...

Steve Buscemi: it's okay, call me John Waters now, that's what my whole career of doing weird stunted-growth roles was FOR!!!

Stevie Nicks: listen to my music with lit pumpkin candles all around you in the room. don't forget the door wreath.

Clint Howard: i have no complaints, being the brother of a famous director, Opie and the Cocoon guy and the guy from the Weezer video. that afforded me the luxury of time. since i didn't need to worry about getting food, i could pursue my sole passion in life: doing the weirdest shit possible.

the seats in the theatre are dark and stuffed and torn and filled with bubblegum wad. but at least they aren't lecture seats.

dad: this is a worrisome anime film. a troubling movie.

me: all '80s anime movies were apocalyptic.

dad: no it's not that, it's this one character with the bouffant gold hair who's a real man's man in the space army. he says that a woman secretly wants to be dominated by a man.........see the thing is, that might actually be true...

Jen R: women want love, that's it. 

dad: what do you think?

me: i wouldn't know.

dad: what about that woman you've kept on about for years?

me: i'm taking it REAL SLOW with Jen, i do NOT want to mess this up...

dad: i have no grand long-lived wisdom to impart to you, i have no idea how someone like me got married...

plaid pants: not necessarily a sisterboy from Portland, Maine. simply going golfing after the show.

Charles Nelson Reilly: i'm the only normal one on Match Game, not Richard Dawson. stop trying to imitate me, Richard Dawson!!!

Richard Dawson smoking a cigar on set: i can't be funny in my own voice.

Anthony Bourdain: i was The Bear in real life...

Gilligan's Island theme song: whether you like it or not, this was your first sea shanty...

Killer Klowns from Outer Space: it's the same Master Control Program from Tron!!!

Sarah Cortez from The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza: that girl you COULD have taken to the St. Cyril's Encino Spring Carnival in the '80s...

Jacob Soboroff: all i do is protests. i go to protest rallies. i interview people at marches. i never cover something like a melting glacier that causes monks to switch religions. it's a noble profession.

Archer: ironically, i use a gun, not a bow and arrow...

Palm Springs: because writers are desert wanderers...

Monica Seles: The Pick-up Artist (1987) was a great acting experience for me...

Victoria Jackson: have you ever called a woman a creep?

you know the world is sick when: a school goes out of business...

the walls of Hell are paved with Jack In The Box buttermilk ranch sauce.

Randolph Mantooth: i'm saving the angels in Heaven.........in my firetruck, ironically...

Haywood Nelson: what's happening!! i wasn't scared of the Satanism in Evilspeak, i'm a Scientologist...

dad crosses his legs in the sunken theater by placing one leg on the lap of the other leg forming a graham-cracker triangle.

dad: remember when a fan in the stands asked Steffi Graf to marry him in the middle of her tennis match? her response was, "how much money do you make?" she just RUINED that moment. that could have been a sweet fairytale, a rags-to-riches story. you know me, i'm always looking for the Romantic in things. it would have been a funnier line if she had said "yes."