STAYING IN THE DREAMWORLD: TANDOOR

it's 12 noon.

i'm inside St. Cyril's Church.

i'm sleeping in a pew in the centre row.

me: i really need to drink more Coke.

Jen R in a turban: classic. yeah, it's regulatory. it regulates you, balances your equilibrium, keeps you even-keeled so you don't have to take two Vanquish!!! there should be no regulation from the government on Coke. want a lime phosphate instead?

me: that sounds like attic insulation.

we're all in the middle of the church staring down into the black hole of the tandoor.

Father Navin in green silks: the tandoor is a portal. i'm cheating here on my religion embracing Hinduism like this. but i'm a Catholic sci-fi fan, it's tough. don't tell God. 

God: we used to call that a curry hole but that was in the Old Testament.

Jen: do you really think we can see the future if we stare down this tandoor?

Talia the cat: only if you soak the chicken in fish brine. nobody wants to see the past anymore...

Talia: so can i offer you my confession now?

Father Navin: no i'm never prepared for that.

Talia: animals are sinless, remember? we use the Confessional booth just to talk, shoot the breeze which has a fish smell.

Father Navin: oh right. any learned techniques?

Talia: you've been cleaning the litter box all wrong.

Christopher Kimball: ...

Talia: ditch that hostile scraper, simply use your fingers to pluck each pebble of poo/pee out of the litter sand.

Father Navin: and you tagged along why?

Trinity the cat: Father, i have a Confession. 

Father Navin: this is paradigm-shifting!!!

Trinity: Miley Cyrus's underboob tattoo says With a Little Help from My Fwends and i'm the cat in permanent ink, i confess the bad grammar.

Father Navin: no it's cute, it's cat-speak. the underboob, i get how you wanted to be there. just don't say something like you're a Rolling Stones fan and you've never listened to the Beatles or you're going to Hell. Miley Cyrus looks weird as a woman.

caregiver: it's not a job, it takes the patience of Job.

Mickey Rourke in The Pope of Greenwich Village: I'M the brother who knows better?!!! well this thing was cast against type.

Victor Wembanyama: Sours? don't call us the Sours we're the Spurs. i'm French, dammit. can you people handle a French Michael Jordan? the Chinese monks i meditated over, not under because i'm so tall, told me this would happen.

Chinese monks: stay calm, Alien, America is a dying empire that can't accept an international hero.

Skip Bayless: can i rejoin First Take NOW?!!! Texas is cooking again!!!

Match Game 1973: The Playboy Club as a game show.

Michael Jackson on First Take: look man, don't wear sunglasses in the studio when you're talking on TV, it's weird and i know weird.

Jaafar Jackson: word.

Madonna: i play Sheryl Crow in this, it's the only way i can get work now!!! 

Jen R: know how you know two people are comfortable with each other?

me: easy with each other?

Jen: they complain constantly to each other, they kvetch to each other.

me: that's sweet :)

Jozy Altidore: am i still a thing in soccer? how did you live a perfect life?

doctor: i was perfectly there for the 1994 World Cup in the States with my wife and 3 kids. now for this World Cup i'm aligned with my 17 grandchildren.

Jozy: don't rub it in, man!!! i'm Jozy from Jersey, i'm usually breezy. what sort of doctor are you anyway?

doctor: i got my PhD in grass science from Michigan State...

Ariel Winter: i broke up with my boyfriend but we decided to remain roommates.

Nolan Gould: well that was mature. we're living a script from Modern Family in real life.

Ariel: no it's just that THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH.

Nolan: weren't we brother and sister?

Peter Jackson: i fired Ryan Gosling from The Lovely Bones for gaining 60 pounds. i'm weighing in on this decision now, get it?

Ryan Gosling: you said i had to gain 60 pounds FOR THE ROLE, right?

Peter: i took one look at you and whispered "Fat Ken" to myself under my breath. 

Ryan: i used to take the mushrooms off my pizza but i didn't this time.

Buffalo Sabres: we stayed in a hotel here in Buffalo to mimic a road game for Game 7.

Buffalo Bills: maybe just sleep in your beds next time? 

Sabres: our beds are blocks of ice.

Bills: ours too. why is Buffalo the town of heartbreak?

Sabres: because we're named after the animal buffalo which went on that Trail of Tears...

Lucky grocer's flyer in the mail: don't toss me in the recycle receptacle so hastily, your PG&E bill is lodged in between the thin top-down fold-in pages. 

PG&E: lodge your complaint by dodging your bill...

Lucky: you could have gotten a chicken dinner bucket for your grad...

Rose: are you a good boyfriend? would you hold the door for me?

Jack: would you hold the door for ME if we were in water?...

work, a job: the only way to escape your family.

Dwyane Wade driving a Tesla into a pond: this wade mode is NOT clutch...

me: you know that thing where you eat a chocolate bar and you're still hungry?

Jen: is chocolate your favorite?

me: and spaghetti.

i eat a chocolate bar and it tastes like spaghetti. i can't eat spaghetti unless it has chocolate sauce over top.

it's 12 midnight.

i'm inside St. Cyril's Church.

i'm sleeping in a pew in the center row.

in Hell.

STAYING IN THE DREAMWORLD: LIFE IS ESCAPE

 

me: i'm feeling vulnerable.

Talia the cat: why does your hair look like a cheese wedge? didn't you say?...

me: yes, i want to stay in the dreamworld.

Talia: oh my friend that is not a good idea. you'll see. that is for people who have the privilege to escape. the rest of us have jobs, families to feed. only artists can be layabouts who do nothing all day.

Jen R: lay is not the same as laze. wait till he does Lamaze.

Cindy: i'm back which means me and Jen are more like your Baltimore twinflame...

me: in my dream i'm a toddler with man legs. i don't know how to walk anymore...

Talia in a Medieval hat: picture the little spoon.........getting lodged on the side of the dishwasher because you didn't turn all spoons, forks, and knives INWARD.

Jen: like you should turn yourself.

Jen: i'm wearing a Medieval hat too but it's a chef's hat for women...

Regular Show: the name doesn't mean anything yet it fits the show perfectly. 

J.G. Quintel: The Lost Tapes is a continuation and a prequel...

Don: how can i be "back" in the prequel?

Red Shoe Diaries: the '90s were a time of abandon.

Karen Black: you can put rollers in my hair and give me glasses, Karen Black is still your mom. The Invisible Kid is if The Toxic Avenger was Rated G...

Jen R: remember those circular laundry baskets in the '80s?

me: that would be my line but my mom did my laundry.

Jen: that's Van Nuys!!! the street opposite the high school in The Invisible Kid is Gilmore Street!!!

watching a free movie: remember, THOUSANDS of people worked on that movie.

Red Dust.

Jean Harlow: a 1970s game show called Match Game where the women wear no bras you say? honey we did that in the '30s and no one batted an eye. at least during Pre-Code. Forever Young, i don't like the sound of that cemetery. why do tigers in 1930s films all speed up like they're on a fast-forward tape?...

Larry from The Three Stooges: thank you!!!

coffee: we make you poo better than prune juice.

Father Navin: if i had known, i would have never served donuts.

Michael Weiss: Instagram is not about memes, it's about checking in on your friends. 

your second-tier Instagram followers: you can't take a powder on a woman once she powders her nose...

Donna Brothers doing the on-horseback interview: your dead grandfather is.........probably listening to you right now from Heaven, what do you want to say to him? i'm retiring, i don't care anymore.

Pepper Ann and So Weird: teens in the '90s were more kind, friendly, hopeful, conciliatory, and nice.

Pepper Ann and Fi: and respectful and full of dreams.

Mackenzie Phillips: and wishful. i did this Disney show at the same time i did a sex scene for The Outer Limits...

college student Cree Summer in Pocahontas powwow robe: we were socially conscious. we were young people who knew the world had big problems and we were willing to try and fix them. at least heal them.

Veronika Słowikowska: i'm continuing in the tradition of the strangely-hot Jewel snaggletooth.

Baylen Dupree: my mom started calling me Tourette's Tits, that's when i knew i couldn't get a regular job, i had to join a TLC reality show.

SC Upstate: SportsCenter Upstate.

Chris Rock on an episode of Fresh Prince: can i just do my stand-up on the show?

Will Smith: i don't trust myself around you when you're up on a stage.

Chris Rock: PLEASE can we call the episode "Slap Happy." it won't be what people think, it'll be about hookers. Carlton's mom becomes a high-priced slapper in Bel Air and the two of us have to save her from the call-girl life.

Will Smith: so she's not out late, so she's there to tuck Carlton into bed at 5PM.

me: there's this man who hates me, owns a restaurant, so i go there and steal 8 of his plates. there's a statewide manhunt, an APB is out for me, every cop in California is chasing me down to get to those plates. i hop from city bus to city bus in Downtown Los Angeles the whole time thinking to myself, well screaming silently to myself, "WHY THE FUCK DID I TAKE THOSE STUPID PLATES?!!!"

Jen: it would have been funner if you were in that episode of Three's Company where Larry's Greek family breaks Jack's plates at the bistro. 

me: i wake up in a pool of night-terror sweat on my bed absolutely PRAISING Jesus that it was a dream, oh what a sigh of relief!!! 

Talia: see? thanks for soaking my twin Freud/Jung dream dictionaries.

Jen: the plates are the emptiness in your life? you're filling your plates with buffet food to see which one sticks.

me: the dreamworld was TOO real for me that time. i wasn't gonna get out of it that time!!! 

Jen: i know what triggered you in the good way. you heard the Air Supply song "Even the Nights are Better" in the buses. that was my doing, that's how i broke the spell.

 

 

DOPAMINE IS AN OLD DRUG: THE SILENCE OF YOUR FRIENDS MOVING ON WITHOUT YOU

 

Jen R: enjoy that shower did you?

me: i mean it's more refreshing than taking 2 Vanquish.

Jen: look at your hair, man.

me: i don't shave it anymore.

Jen: i know, and you look like Larry from The Three Stooges but somehow MORE dorky. it's like there's a poodle on your head. 

me: just wait for it to dry, i'll have cool JoJo's Bizarre Adventure hair soon.

me: i want to live in the dreamworld, where time stands still.

Talia the cat: well you did sorta experience that when you were a cat...

Golden Girls: we made living with your parents COOL!!!

Trinity and Greykid the cats: cats get curiouser and curiouser like Larry King the older we get...

Melissa Maker: if you were a milk monitor up in Canada as a kid, you turned the 100 cute little half-pint cartons of milk in the crate into a Tetris board. while gossiping over the latest episode of Puppets Who Kill we weren't allowed to see because it was past our bedtime.

Chad: my school only served us strawberry milk, not regular milk. our schools poisoned us kids all throughout our childhoods...

me: this morning after sleep i stand up over my bed shakily, it's still the dawn of uneasiness. with one eye still closed i turn on the burnt faded-yellow light to my room, i slip on a tennis ball!!! the soles of my feet go flying and i swallow my tongue and throw up.

Sphinx: that was just you being a cat again...

dad as spider-sama: okay but you can't leave me here. you can't leave me in the bathroom sink alone, i don't want to get eaten by the cats...

Timothy B. Schmit: i'm Kurt Cobain's dad...

The Dude from The Big Lebowski: if there's ever a live-action Regular Show movie...

stand-up comics: we never want to wear out our welcome, we never want to stay long, when we're done, we're done...

David Foster Wallace: when it's time to go it's time to go...

Lucille Ball: look, i'll level with you, all the shows i did after I Love Lucy were BAD.

Mrs. Little: just think, you could have had me as your mother-in-law, the only mother-in-law left who has empathy, kindness, and care in her heart. the only one who talks about Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl and it brings a soft smile to your face. when i'm talking about middle-aged white women soaking up the Puerto Rican culture finally.

Gina: all you had to do was fuck me. you know what they say about the quiet ones.

Mrs. Little: even if it would have meant you would have had to live in Carmel the rest of your life. but at least you could have taken down that Hit the Road, Jack sign on your front lawn.  

Gina: i mean a billion-dollar enterprise? but Poppi soda tastes disgusting.

Liza: why does everyone in Carmel drive like a wild banshee? is it because it's a parking lot?...

me: do you know when i knew you were different?

Jen R: do i want to know? couples work better if there're secrets.

me: i was listing all the crazy being my mom's caregiver, and you sided with ME!!! that NEVER happens, everyone always says it's a privilege to care for your mom and you have no right to complain, she took care of you.

Jen: i said, "parents, what are you gonna do?"

me: that was such a breath of fresh air.

DOPAMINE IS AN OLD DRUG: PUT IT ON WAX

 

Jen R touches my shoulder and she turns both of us into cats: Me Cat and Jen Cat.

Me Cat: wow. i didn't want to live anymore but now i want to live forever!!!

Jen Cat: see? it just takes a new view.

Trinity the cat: my warble sounds like peanut-butter oatmeal.

Talia the cat: let me show you something. see this litter box? why is it inviting?

Me Cat: i can't smell a thing.

Talia: exactly. you bought the Tidy Cat with the "24-Hour Protection" with that odious red on the cover of the container, right? that powerful "odor-blocker" stench is TOXIC to us cats, and it never leaves the area!!! we can't go in a box that smells like THAT!!! we need it to be unscented and neutral, we need to smell JUST OUR POO AND PEE for us to feel comfortable rolling around in that sand dune inside the box. i will say however, the Tidy Cat is SILKY, we GLIDE in that grey sand like we were going downhill in a 4x4 buggy in the Sahara Desert.

Linda Lavin: those funky phat beats in the Alice end-credits music, that was from Sesame Street. Sesame Street used to be cool in the '70s when they had groovy drug deals and Big Bird writing a letter to his landlord...

Jackie Fitzgerald carrying a bouquet of Mother's Day Chrysal flowers: not stoned, crying.

Jen R: not pollen.

Jackie: Clarence: The Lost Tapes, bring the show back. Clarence's mom reminds me of my mom.

Michael Jackson: i own my own gas station. now i can Moonwalk on the roof of this Detroit gas station all day for entertainment, but if you REALLY want gas prices to go down you're gonna have to elect me President.

Nicodemus: you're picturing me in a dark corner of the lobby of the Sherman Oaks Galleria in the '80s sucking on Flintstones vitamins.

Monsignor Navin: i'm the one supplying Nicodemus with the Flintstones vitamins, they're a soft stoning.

Nicodemus: at the St. Cyril's Stations of the Cross on a Thursday at 2PM, empty church.

Sphinx the cat: let's move to the dishwasher. so before you load this sucker up make sure all the mugs in the top shelf have their handles turned INWARD, otherwise the slide will get stuck. we cats have heard all the old horror stories about a bath, but this dishwasher is what we imagine a shower to be, the ultimate nightmare!!!

Mark Hapka: when you make the Victory Sign with your fingers on BOTH hands, that's actually the 11:11.

zucchini fritters: IMPOSSIBLE to make.

Lan Lam: tell me about it, honey.

Deepak Chopra: i speak with a Indian accent, okay? i'm not gay, i don't have a lisp.

Brett Somers: i hated Jonathan Livingston Seagull!!!

Jonathan Livingston Seagull: give me a break, lady!!! that makes me sad, i thought you were my mommy. livingston is British for toilet, that's why i can't fly to Heathrow.

Tim Allen in Home Improvement: i lost two sons. they disappeared. caveman tool guy, how did i become a Disney dad?...

Walt Disney: the Hunchback of Notre Dame...

Blue from Wild Orchid II: in a world of cynical porn where everyone sucks, i chose the innocence of love.

Zalman King: Blue was my greatest creation.

Zalman King's two daughters only WE can carry on the legacy of our father and mother, only WE can write the Red Shoe Diaries reboot. Euphoria sucks.

Cassia Streb: i play the violin in caves, J.G. Quintel helps me out, we have a husband/wife music thing going on like Washed Out.

J.G. Quintel: i was attracted to you because you're Casio Strobe, like an '80s synthesizer concert in lights.

KFC Double Down: we just copied the Kentucky Hot Brown...

Mordecai and Rigby: we live in the workhouse. it's a commune hostel thing. you ever wonder, "wait, where is Mordecai's apartment?" we like video games but we're so poor we can only afford Intellivision...

Yogi Bear: it's cool to live in a park.

Margaret and Eileen: we're the city girlfriends who live in the coffee shop...

Michael J. Fox with a werewolf face: if it's a high school basketball game, there will only ever be 12 people in the bleachers...

Michael Weiss: there must be a measure of forgiveness on Instagram...

Greykid the cat: you're about ready to take out the trash, you put 15 gallons of week-old milk in the trash can rather than the garbage disposal, that's good, don't forever gum up your garbage disposal. but listen: DOUBLE-BAG the trash can carrying all that milk!!! i'm an outdoor cat, i smell the rotten milk coming from your trash bin outside, it's not a pleasant way to sleep at night, you don't get nice cat dreams when you're smelling rotten milk.