DARTMOUTH DIGS: COMMUTER CRUSH

 

it's Lis Smith's first day at Dartmouth and she's deciding on a major.

Lis Smith: it's either gonna be Communications or Science. i can't decide. what's the more lucrative career? 

Beakman with a wink from the wings of the lecture hall: science.

Lis with a smile: wow is that really Professor Beakman from Beakman's World? he looks hotter in person.

 

Beakman gets on stage with his long lime-green lab coat with the skateboard patches and insane fir-tree hair.

Lis in the audience: that hair is driving me wild!!!

Bob Marley and Keggy the Keg are in the auditorium audience as well.

Beakman: questions from the audience?

Lis: has anyone ever told you you were glamorous?

Beakman at the mic: this Y2K thing is crazy. right? on the news all the religious freaks are freaking out calling it the end of the world. Charles Nelson Reilly is eulogizing Gene Rayburn before we all go. Brett Somers isn't an old battleaxe, she's a loudmouth which scientifically makes her a good kisser. and she has a nice body. but you know who's really freaking out? the scientists like me. ladies and gentlemen, we're doomed. with the world going digital now, i mean.........how are the clocks gonna survive that 00 thing? planes will crash.........should i have said that?...

Lis: huh, this is more like a stand-up act than a lecture.

Blast Furnace: why wasn't i a Transformer?...

Portrait of Jennie: the first Manic Pixie Dream Girl...

Jennifer Jones: i was prettier than Elizabeth Taylor...

Portrait of Jennie: that Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman music tho...

Billy Corgan: Black Forest Cake coffee helps me forget the "To Forgive" empty party afternoons.

birthdays: cruelly, they're just for kids...

Billy Corgan: instead of cake WITH coffee, the cake's already in the coffee. huh. it's like those 2-in-1 shampoo-conditioners.........i lost all credibility when it came to hair after i played my last piano on Mellon Collie...

Kurt Cobain: what is zucchini?

Roger Federer: summer squash.

Kurt: summer never squashed me...

Roger: i'm thinking of taking up squash. hey at least it's not pickleball.

Rose Nylund: i'm from New York City, it's in my name. St. Olaf was the name Hans Christian Andersen gave to NYC when he first laid his soggy eyes on the city in his waterlogged tugboat.

Skip Stephenson: i didn't want to be a real person. i wanted to be Luke Skywalker playing with all the other space farts.

Melinda O. Fee: for a small fee i was O. Henry's lost granddaughter. O. Henry could never solve who i was, drove him to the nuthouse. but at least i was in all his short stories...

Banana Ball: if baseball was LITERALLY a video game...

Carol Doda: the topless dancing was okay, but i needed to wait until the Summer of Love to do the bottomless dancing...

Louise Sorel: remember how Vivian Alamain sorta became your fancy mom when your poor mom was at work? i was Mary Tyler Moore but older, wiser, and with more class. 

Nana Visitor: and you were also kinda my mommy.

Dan Aykroyd: Ghostbusters was supposed to be Psi Factor...

Brother Bede, psychiatrist: you are not crazy. but your stories are...

Lis catches Beakman in the wings alone after the show/lecture.

Beakman: people still sleep in on Saturday? i thought that was only an '80s thing.

Lis: it is. but i'm here because i'm a born insomniac. and i think i've fallen in love with you after one lecture.

Beakman: well i'm glad you came. word around campus is you're going into Communications to be a political operative. i urge you to reconsider, science won't destroy the world, but politics will...

Lis: it'll be a different destroy. wait, everyone on campus knows my business?

Beakman: you know i see you every morning riding the same bus i do to class.

Lis: the bus on The Green that goes round and round and round in circles?

Beakman: that's the one. i stand in the back so you won't notice me.

Lis: i'm sitting in the front of the bus but i still notice your hair. 

Beakman: i'm too shy to talk to you but i dream of having you.........

Lis, blushing: .........

Beakman: .........as my student. more? no no, just the student thing, just as my student. anyway you're cute but i fear we have nothing in common.

Lis and Beakman board the bus back and Lis starts to cry as she tells her story:

Lis: this morning on the way over here i saw a lost dog, a poor poodle who had clearly lost his way around the mall courtyard, he was dragging his leash. i decided not to get involved even tho i saw the forlornness in the dog's eyes. five minutes later i see a frantic man in a backwards baseball cap by the Pet City scurrying around the mall in panic shouting out a dog's name. Peter is a dog's name, right? i still don't do anything and have regretted it ever since. i shoulda just said to the man in passing, "is that your dog back there?"

Beakman: that story made me sad. 

Lis: you're not crying.

Beakman: because there was nothing scientifically wrong with what you did. think about it, if you had gotten involved you would have gotten bitten. by the dog or the man. i don't trust punk men who wear their baseball caps backward. plus he probably found his dog without your help, the odds of trigonometry on that mall floorplan.

Lis: it gnaws at my left tit forever!!!

Beakman: that's why you're good for politics, you FEEL.

Lis: can i sleep at your place tonight?...

THE SHOT WITH REVERB: BELLHOP CART

 

Roger Federer: don't you see?

Kurt Cobain: what.

Roger: your death reverberated across the galaxy. ON THAT DAY new bands started to spring and pop up BECAUSE of your death. these bands were influenced by you, your music, your whole vibe. these bands wouldn't have existed had you not died that day, at least not in the form they are now. who's to say all of this wasn't SUPPOSED to happen?

Kurt: for whom? me or them? i sure got the short end of the stick!!!

Roger: it's an answer. not an easy answer but an answer. maybe the stick will be a healing stick.

Kurt: i mean talk about having a dark fate!!!

Kaye Stevens: my grandfather lost his teeth and became MORE popular with the ladies. i guess you can't say gumjob on TV in 1974?...

Karl Ravech: ME?!!! Ravvie? who's next, Steve Levy?!!! without this handsome crooked soap-hunk face millions of kids wouldn't have known what baseball was.

Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe: inner-city kids?

Karl: no, white kids!!! 

Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe: we've always said we thought you were the only man at ESPN who was cute...

Gordon Ramsay: did he say restauranteur or provocateur?...

Gary Kroeger: ...

Phrygian helmet: the Smurf helmet.

Josh Gates: i'll tell you where the Titanic is. but first he has to acknowledge that everyone on set thinks he's a bastard.

Ryan Gosling: my flat hand looks cool on the La La Land poster. i'm giving you the Python karate chop from The Karate Kid.

Emma Stone: it's not a salute of any kind.

Ryan: i'm giving you the Turtle. i'm giving you that Naruto thing in your butt.

Emma: like you i'm gonna walk like an Egyptian. with my other hand covering my butt.

Conan O'Brien and Melissa Maker are at the Obama Center.

Conan O'Brien: yeah i got this new updo hairstyle because of a sunscreen mishap. i'm too white for sunscreen.

Melissa Maker: me too.

Conan: i really do look like a freak. like if i wasn't in show business...

Melissa: i fell in love when i was in Greece.........with kalamata olives. those olives will clear your sinuses. they are BRINY as fuck. they hit your tongue with GREASE when you're trying to make a spicy summer salad.

Conan: talk again about your tongue...

Jimmy Chamberlin: what does my singing voice sound like? check out "Farewell + Goodnight" off Mellon Collie. i also fill in vocally on an iconic singer's next album when they mysteriously disappear: my voice can sound like Layne Staley or Chester Bennington...

Madonna kicks Justin Bieber's butt all over the dressing room backstage at the World Cup Halftime Show.

Madonna: stay down.

Justin Bieber: damn, woman, where'd you learn to throw hands like that?

Madonna: the '80s.

Justin: i just wanted to be the headliner.

Madonna: you're not qualified. who is the GOAT of soccer?

Justin: Yamal.

Madonna: wrong. it will always be Pele. kid when you were in AYSO i was already inventing the orange slice...

two-step: there is no hardcore in Texas...

Shelley Duvall: if i was your introduction to goth, consider yourself blessed...

Roger: how do you unwind?

Kurt: i ride the bellhop carts at the local hotel.

Roger: me too!!! have i ever seen you there?

Kurt: yes.

Roger: you really do have good disguises.

the two ride the bellhop carts at the hotel the rest of the afternoon letting the last light of the sun reverb through the lobby. Kurt even closes his eyes as he rides the bellhop cart.

Kurt: i like the bellhop cart with the red carpet on the bottom, i can ride it barefoot. i never wanted to make music, i wanted to not be sick, i wanted to be an anonymous bellhop.

Roger: so you like Wes Anderson movies?

Kurt: no!!! Wes Anderson's too famous for me!!!

Roger: these bellhop-cart rides are so meditative which leads to mediative.

Kurt: you have to wait till everyone's gone. no one in the lobby, the concierge has gone upstairs to fix the latest Rose Nylund blunder, and all the elevator doors are closed. 

Roger: you getting famished? i'm getting famished. let's have spaghetti primavera at the hotel restaurant. don't worry, i'll pay, i know you're poor now.

Kurt: Apple pay?

Kurt twirls the spaghetti with his fork and spoon, takes a bite, and begins to cry.

Kurt: sometimes a man just needs to eat a zucchini with no judgement.

THE SHOT WITH REVERB: THERAPY IN ASH

 

Kurt Cobain: this therapy stuff is hard.

Roger Federer: what good is your therapy if you do it after the whole world turns to ash?

Kurt: thanks, that made me feel even more depressed.

Fannie Flagg: i paid $5000 for a shrink to tell me that my inner me was trapped inside my body and couldn't get out...

Roger: i mean, who'd want to leave YOUR body?...

Marty McFly: the original Back to the Future time machine was a refrigerator.

Punky Brewster: you'd get stuck in that refrigerator and i'd have to rescue you. get you out. plus you'd be stuck in time, there's a timeline where you pass on the Back to the Future script to honor your commitments to Family Ties banking your entire future on Bright Lights, Big City being your big movie debut...

Michael Weiss: i don't have time to read the frickin' comments!!!

citronella: orange juice as an essential oil.

Jen R: sit yo ass down!!! you wanna take my citronella candle? the one i use to start the evening by the firefly bog by Bethesda? smudge around and find out. 

South Africa: let's just take a moment and picture Tim Tebow fucking...

Julia Ioffe: i married Borat.

Michael Weiss: i mean who knew you liked men with Beakman hair!!!

Josh Gates: this is an archeology course, which is science, but don't think for a second you slick little college anklebiters can get away with bad grammar on your science papers, as i ALSO have a PhD in English. science is not sexy but i am. this is Berkeley yet somehow we're taking this class in a prefab house...

Townies: ABC's answer to Friends.

Julia Roberts: not really Mystic Pizza: The TV Show...

Robin Williams and Matt Damon: you call THAT Boston accents?!!!

Molly Ringwald by the docks: in fairness, the Boston accent has faded from society. that's why i used my normal voice on the show...

Shia LaBeouf comes through the curtain and sits down on the couch next to David Letterman.

Shia LaBeouf: DAD!!!

David Letterman: you want me to come across this desk and give you a hug?

dancing at the discoteca.

me: you don't have to wait for months.

Cindy: but i do have to wait four months...

Shia LaBeouf: i played my own wacky abusive father just so i could get slapped by Sigourney Weaver, that's a fetish of mine...

Zack de la Rocha: it's Bulls on Parade, not Hip Hop Hooray...

Kurt and Roger are walking to the indie moviehouse.

Kurt: this LONG HILLY suburban sidewalk reminds me of that "Walking Contradiction" music video.

Roger: that's a breakthrough because if you didn't have that meeting with Billie Joe Armstrong at that Berkeley house party, Green Day wouldn't have existed.

Kurt: was Nirvana REALLY that important?...

the two put on their paper Greek helmets and talk quietly amongst themselves in their row as the previews and weird ads for Welcome Back, Kotter Sea-Monkeys roll.

Roger: that's a great disguise, nobody will ever recognize you.

Kurt: people stopped spotting me years ago, i didn't have the staying power of an Elvis sighting. now i'm just that lumberjack who never talks. i thought i'd be the only Odyssey superfan here, thank you for coming with me.

Roger: phrasing. 

Kurt: i tried to live my life by Zeus's law. unfortunately nobody in the world had any idea what that was so i got misunderstood again. hey, Hell is simply a place you can't escape, right?

Roger: yes.

THE SHOT WITH REVERB: RETIRED

Kurt Cobain is lying supine on Roger Federer's red soft ottoman psychiatrist's sofa his blond floorlength hair touching the red carpet.

Roger Federer: i've always been jealous of your long hair.

Kurt Cobain: well, you're the shrink, you come highly recommended by John McEnroe. so go.

Roger: you like my office?

Kurt: loving all the yellow ferns you have hanging in here. 

Roger: do you know why Hootie & the Blowfish sold 100 million albums of Cracked Rear View?

Kurt: shifting radio-friendly units? ah the VH1 days, 1994.

Roger: after your suicide the world was in a tailspin. an air of hopelessness gripped the planet. people were looking for good ol' fashioned southern Carolinian down-home-country-boy stability. heartland heals.

Kurt: my brain is chicken-fried.

Roger: i'm trying to help you out, old-timer. let's have a patient powwow.

Kurt: i remember those Mississippi fishers on MTV, they were saying they put that tape in their truck, it was the perfect score for joyriding on a hot summer night.

Roger: it was the same for Jack Noseworthy in the goth/metal/alternative lane on the road.

Kurt: Jack Noseworthy REALLY got beefy and sexy the three short years between Teech and Dead At 21!!! it was the hair.

Jack Noseworthy: no it was the lips.

MTV: in the '90s we premiered our dangerous shows on Wednesday nights...

Roger: so, what are you gonna do now?

Kurt: get naked for an Outer Limits episode...

Jimothy: Ranger Rick after hearing "Floyd the Barber..."

Andy Griffith: the best song on Bleach from a very uneven record.

Robert Pattinson puts his ear to the door of Matt Damon's trailer as Matt Damon YELLS for hours on end.

Robert Pattinson: having a blowout phone call with Kristen Stewart?

Matt Damon: she is everyone's ex but i was making my voice sound older to play Odysseus.

Robert: just do the Batman voice.

Tom Hiddleston: me as Tommy Fleetwood.........perfect casting, same face, same name...

Michael Weiss: as you scroll Instagram, cheap inspo memes won't improve your life, finding a woman on Instagram will improve your life!!!

Cassie Lee in Teech: Asian captain of the rugby team?...

Saka: the 3rd Place Match is going to penalty kicks!!!...

Grandma Winslow and Gates McFadden are at their loveshack on Mars.

Grandma Winslow: those infernal spiral notebooks, IMPOSSIBLE to clean up those pieces of teeth paper.

Cindy Lorenz: ...

Cindy Lorenz: the price you pay for having to get a Green Notebook...

Gates McFadden: does Islands deliver?.........i mean up here...

false positive: the most destructive thing in the world...

Javier: i'm looking for socks.

Chola Butt: for your cock? that's a sketchy opening line.

Javier: socks here at Safeway where we both work...

Chola Butt: i saw you stalking not stocking the cereal aisle for two hours waiting for the Banana Cream of Wheat to arrive. you get brownie points for that...

Kurt: but the world thinks i'm dead.

Roger: you are to them.

Kurt: only the two of us know the truth.

Roger: so, what are you gonna do now, my old friend old Kurt?

Kurt: i'm retired. like that old GUNKY torn-plastic cobalt-blue cup with the dingy bottom you keep around the dishwasher to hold your dirty silverware.

Roger: say it ain't so!!! YOU can't retire. i can retire, nobody wants to see me with white hair, i'd scare the kids. the papers are calling me the male Serena Williams.

Kurt: there was only one Jimmy Connors.

Roger: but music is an old man's game. the songs get better with age, experience, and life wisdom. do you think Bob Dylan liked his first album?...

Kurt: well there is something about growing old i want to get off my grey-haired chest.........in a song...