WITHDRAWN: SINGLES

 

Lucio Rossi drags me to the ATM.

me: are you sure you have enough money in this account?

Lucio: that's what i'm living my life for, so i'll never have to answer that question again.

now Lucio always look perturbed, but especially so on this dewy morning as he fidgets with the ATM.

me: you always have on your face the look of someone who's dreaming something up.

Lucio: oh yeah. well look at this, it's ridiculous, my wallet carries 20 1-dollar bills at any one time!!! there needs to be a machine where you slip all 20 of your 1-dollar bills into the ATM slot like here and it spits out ONE 20-dollar bill to give your wallet a break.

me: ease that wallet.

Lucio: then you can lightly offer that one soft 20-dollar bill to the pretty clerk as you casually browse the Lucky aisles. 

a moonpie: Rowena Morgan from Mr. Holland's Opus...

Pebble Beach realtor: only one person can afford this house. is that one person you?...

Sarah: a refrigerator is a space meant to have all its space filled with clear trays of kimchi.

Juanes: i was doing hallucinogenic mushrooms with aliens, ironically, when i saw the Being of Light...

Jessie in the Saved by the Bell revival: i'm now a teacher of singing at Bayside. i found kratom pills in Zack's son's bedroom.

the Elephant Man: i just wanted to sleep normally for once!!! 

David Lynch: poor kid. when you dream tonight, when you cross that thin barrier into the unknown, think about how you're not even thinking how you're sleeping on the bed!!! hey, you like how i made EVERY SINGLE SCENE fade to black?...

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: by the same singer as the Gilligan's Island theme. the first time you went to a drive-in theater to see a movie...

Bette Midler: remember when your family took you to see Beaches at the Hollywood Bowl when you were a kid? you took your little plastic pail and shovel with you. you kept your lucky sand dollar in your waterlogged swim trunks.

Lucky: you don't come here to do a FULL grocery shop, getting a month's worth of food, pulling a Costco. you're here for a few items, the conveyor belt is thin...

Lucky: we're not animals. we open at 6 and close at 11 like reasonable beings.

golf: birdies for brain health. because if you're seeing birds flying around your head...

Safetussin: the Zima of Robitussin.

Zima: we're sugarfree...

Morrissey: bullshit!!!

Heather Matarazzo: all i'm saying is Welcome to the Dollhouse 2. and this time take your lonely college dormmate to see it at night!!!

Todd Solondz: i haven't worked since that "cum" incident...

Krusty the Clown: you've never had egg rolls at Jack In The Box. it's not a Krabby Patty...

Anne Dufourmantelle: UNLIKE Samuel Beckett, i didn't mind drowning for my beliefs.

Samuel Beckett: nihilism is easier on paper, harder when you're breathing...

Kazuki Takahashi: unlike you, Sam, i never got to read The Sign of Four. i guess i was a Japanese Republican but i saved lives from drowning!!!

Yu-Gi-Oh: the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was based on the design of a scuba snorkel...

at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Rhode Island, Mary Carillo jams on stage with Roger Federer in a jazz band...

Bernard Black: the most pleasant thing in life is to go to the bathroom in a used-book shop.

Fantasia (1940): science book/history book.

dad: made me fall in love with dinosaurs. i hadn't seen dinosaurs used this well since until The Tree of Life...

hardboiled eggs: handsome eggs.

AI: i mean the least we can do is not give spoilers.

Des Moines: ironically, there are no monasteries here...

dad eating cookie crumbs: i am from Chesapeake, New York. 8 precious cookies...

hydroponics: remember when we thought this was the future? everyone did their 4th Grade science project on hydroponics. this is how we'd colonize Mars.

Pauly Shore: how the Biodome on Mars would work. and i'm not talking about bud, bud-ee. i'm talking about plants.

AI: i'm already smart enough to bring back soil samples from Mars...

Titan A.E.: appreciate just how beautiful rain is...

Joss Whedon: Firefly was the live-action this...

Lucio: i'm tired.

me: now what?

Lucio: use this 20-dollar bill that magically appeared to get the groceries at Lucky. i'll join you in a bit, i need a quick kip, i need a nap, i need a nip.

 

SOLO POP: I WANT FRIENDS, NOT FAME

 

 

Jem: do you know what it's like to be your own promoter? to promote your own stuff? to write the songs, edit the songs, sing, play all the instruments, put it on Instagram, and promote it on Instagram?!!! all by myself!!! i don't have a manager. rather, i manage myself and my emotions.

Kimber, Rio Pacheco, Riot, Eye Luggage, and Laertus are all in Jem's pink bedroom around her shooting-star bed.

Jem: this ain't a deathbed, folks, thanks for coming.

Kimber: so i heard your latest, the song is good but it sounds EXACTLY like Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams Are Made of These."

Jem: not intentionally, osmosis because i want to fuck Annie Lennox in her androgynous android form.

Kimber: and the lyrics are about cheese?...

chirping bird: i'm not the refrigerator door open...

whitelist: when you think about it, it's a blacklist...

a cult classic: because you never know how FUTURE audiences will take your film...

Fantasia: the best Christmas movie...

naked fairies: this was done right before WWII, people thought WWII was the end of the world, that this would be the last cartoon...

Mickey Mouse: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was the first parable about AI...

Harlan Ellison: you have to be the bastard of your own work, no one else will...

David Foster Wallace: i witnessed Roger Federer win the French Open a year after i died. Paris in May? too hot. i sucked on Roger's frozen rope while the rest of the gallery wore those silly white hats.

NeuroQ: old people with a confused look on their face is not funny, it's painful. when they start pointing to their nose for no reason, it's time to get them help. 

Miles from The Golden Girls: don't worry, it's not coke, it's just a little powdered sugar from their tea.

Jack In The Box tacos: the meat is the weeping willows from Grey Gardens...

goulash: ghoulish for Hungarian Halloween.

Janeane Garofalo: i was everyone's cool '90s aunt. thick black glasses did NOT make me a lesbian. hell i'll still marry Ben Stiller...

Love Death + Robots "Pop Squad": you saw this on PBS!!!

Carrie Fisher: why does every space movie have a slavetrading scene?...

Walt Disney: i created the Disney brand to celebrate life. to beautify life in cartoon Technicolor. to exalt imagination. and some AI agent's gonna tear it all down?!!! that sucks. the future was supposed to be Tomorrowland!!!

Yen Sid, the sorcerer in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from Fantasia (1940): i am one scary motherfucker.

Dolly Parton: i truly loved all people, i wasn't some swampy politician playing both sides.

Jem: call it bedroom pop if you must. this is dreampop, fatherfuckers!!!

Kimber: please call me your bitch, it's less weird.

Jem: Peter Frampton's my daddy!!!

Jem sends out her new song to the DMs of 5 Instagrams only, to her 5 only friends...

Jem: a song is a diary...

 

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...