A CRACK IN THE ABSURD: BRAINY SMURF IS YOUR DORMMATE

Brainy Smurf and i walk under the hallowed green-pumice gates of Berkeley onto the cobblestone campus. we're both nervous.

me: do you know how hard it is to come back to school after 20 years away just to complete a couple classes to get that last half-semester to graduate?

Brainy Smurf: that's nothing, my whole reputation precedes me!!! if i'm not smart HERE i'm not smart anywhere!!! i can't go back to Smurf Village with my nubby tail between my buttcheeks.

me: it's just like high school. who do you have for Organic Chemistry?

Brainy: Vic Tayback.

me: oh yeah i remember him. the baldie with the havanas.

Brainy: when you're in Office Hours with him the entire hour that small room is FILLED with cigar smoke.

me: that's so you can only see his beady eyes, not his bald head. 

Brainy: hey that's MY cartoon thing!!!

Brainy: what's the organic chemistry of smoke?

me: smoke is magic. ask a dark wizard.

Brainy: i want to make Papa Smurf proud. Papa came to Berkeley when he had brown hair. his only desire on campus was to make the green gates blue pumice. but he got involved with a hippie chick who REALLY wanted to be a mother, an EARTH mother, they had 100 children, Papa birthed Smurf Village instead.

me: you'll ace Organic Chemistry once you fuck your soulmate.

Brainy: speaking of, i had a date with Smurfette at Robert Reich's coffee klatch. she said i was sweating profusely. i wasn't nervous over some dumb girl, i was nervous over hard education!!! Smurfette said she wouldn't see me again unless i changed my name to Sweaty Smurf.

Freddy Krueger: A Nightmare on Elm Street is the perfect Halloween movie, look at my face, i look like a scarecrow...

The All-American Rejects: when you think of our music, you think of Hayden Panettiere. let us pray.

peanut butter smoothie: don't drink this. peanut butter was never meant to be DRUNK.

Chad Reynolds, new Prime Minister of Canada: gotta give us back our hockey sticks. we invented ice hockey.

Trump: China invented hockey...

Chad: and our tongue depressors. we do NOT trust your doctor. is that a tan or a bullet wound?

Trump: the world is counting down the days when i become a lame duck...

Chad: we need the hockey sticks, we're doing a Flash Forward reboot...

Eckhart Tolle: they call me a teacher. that's it, just a teacher. isn't that cool?

Radiohead: fake plastic trees.

Rush: gotta get back to real trees. real trees are spooky in a forest at night.

Freddie Mercury: Shudder to Think, the first band since Queen with a gay-man lead singer who stopped giving a fuck.

Craig Wedren: not gay but thanks for caring, sir. we both had theatrical voices.

Freddie: circus voices. you guys were Nirvana but a bit OFF.

Craig: we were just trying to be the Queensryche of the East.

Egon from the Ghostbusters: i eerily have an Egon Schiele face...

MD: a doctor in Maryland.

Jen R: ...

Wings of Desire: even an angel calls him an idiot cop!!!

Entertainment Tonight: we are in the business of moving on...

Pac-Man in Variety (1983): really disheartening to enter a porn theater and hear the arcade Pac-Man sounds...

The Weather Channel: we can't hide it any longer, we are a Republican channel...

Shudder to Think: we're if the show Lexx was a band...

Vertical Horizon: we're Shudder to Think without the makeup.

Medieval times: you either wore a gown, a tunic, or a robe if you were a wizard or monk.

Medieval women: we withered while wearing a nightdress...

Erin Hershey Presley: yeah i did Real World: Seattle. i sprungboard off that and landed Port Charles...

'70s motels: converted cinder-block prisons...

it's been a long first day and i'm tired. i walk out the gates with Gargamel.

me: i saw you eating a blue sandwich. please tell me that was a moldy turkey sandwich.

Gargamel: that was lunch.........it was a blueberry sandwich...

me: you ate Brainy Smurf.

Gargamel puts his robed arm on my backpacked shoulder.

Gargamel: if it makes you feel any better, you now get an automatic 4.0... 

 

A CRACK IN THE ABSURD: SPAGHETTI SONG/VAPORWAVE HUMIDIFIER

 

me: i've been invited to a wedding. i don't think i'm going.

Jen R: who's getting hitched?

me: you know, THAT friend. that's mutual between us?

Jen: wow, i never thought anyone would take a chance on him. makes sense, we're both happy for both men. you have to go.

me: i haven't been to ANY event in like 30 years. you think i own a pink tux?

Jen: just go in a T-shirt and jeans. wear your prom corsage in case they run out of flowers.

me: i'm gonna call and cancel. i'll tell him i don't go to places. i don't go to things.

Jen: come on, it won't be that bad. i'll go with you. i'll hide in the water fountain.

at the reception, Dave Mirra wearing a skate shirt in the Sprite green-and-blue colors and yellow BMX shorts takes out his acoustic guitar and starts singing "On Top of Spaghetti."

when he gets to the sneezing the meatball off the plate part Jen and i can't hold it in any longer and we start bustin' laughing our heads off.

Sabrina Pasterski: i'm gonna finally figure out the meaning of life. my two best friends are Sabrina Curzi and Summer Sanders. i'm not the female Einstein, i'm one-upping Einstein here!!! yes i like pastrami sandwiches. i want only Anya Taylor-Joy to play me in the movie...

Glaceau Smartwater: those futuristic silver tall bottles are cool, they're finally making stuff that's Jetsons, that's the Radiohead "Fake Plastic Trees" music video...

David Amell: i was like married to Jennifer Aniston for a while after Brad or something?...

Puck from Real World: i don't need Car Week to be a man, i'm a modern mailman, it's in the name.

Eckhart Tolle: see? i was RIGHT about how reality REALLY is!!! it's all New Age. the toll it took on my family tho...

Gene Rayburn provides the entertainment for the halftime show of the church ceremony.

Gene Rayburn: why are you taking 15 minutes to write an answer, Charles?

Charles Nelson Reilly: i'm writing my Broadway debut.........don't worry, i have an answer for your BLANK.

Gene: DO IT THEN!!! THIS IS SCHOOL!!!

Gene: we provide TWO black marker pens so there's no excuse...

Brett Somers: that Phil the Pill, that guy is a ginger prevert kissing all the women on the panel like that. i don't trust his Beavis hair. he has a crush on me which makes me worried for me, not him. he's the first contestant to kiss the OTHER contestant after winning Match Game!!!

Jen R: i took some of that dentist novocaine and i was Bjork's husband on her island for 30 years. i was out for 30 minutes.

Bjork: i'm your dentist. does your mouth taste like bubblegum?...

Nickelodeon live-action shows in the '90s: earthy.

Disney live-action shows in the '90s: gritty.

both channels: let's finally explore 8th Grade...

Michael Weiss: i just wanna talk to MY PEOPLE. okay? not my family, not my coworkers, just MY PEOPLE.

at The Big Spin with Geoff Edwards.

me: i have cum in my ear.

Liza: no, that's just suntan lotion. weird compliment.

Studmuffin: but i'm a gay man...

Brooke Trantor: ...

rose wine: it's not pink lemonade...

Flash Forward: Disney Degrassi.

Ms. Krause: the school play in 8th Grade is ALWAYS Excalibur...

Monterey Peninsula College: you too can be a dinner-theatre wizard for a living...

Jen R: did you spring for a wedding gift?

me: hell no, i don't have that kind of money. in summer.

Jen: let's go to Best Buy, i have the perfect gift with your name on it.

we get to Best Buy and Jen hugs the blue cardboard box of a humidifier.

Jen: not ANY humidifier, a Vaporwave humidifier. its pipe shoots out actual vapors that go into your nostrils instead of filling up the ceiling in a thin layer. those vapors create sounds in your brain, beat patterns that can only be made electronically...

me: i need one for ME, not THEM!!!

Jen: okay fine. 

me: you're the best.

Jen: i'm like Best Buy.

A CRACK IN THE ABSURD: THE BIG SPIN WITH GEOFF EDWARDS

 

we're in the small studio audience.

me: i really want to fuck you.

Liza from Safeway: thank you. i think. but i'm with Mary Ann.

me: she doesn't have to know. one-time frogging?

Liza: that's just not how people are, you know?

me: i really like when you wear that Freddy Krueger sweater at Safeway, it makes you soft and approachable.

Liz: thank you. weird compliment.

Geoff Edwards: a tennis teacher from Encino Hills, let's all welcome Mary Ann Caliento!!!

Mary Ann walks out onto the small stage with the small wheel in her Jem hair.

Liza: woot!!!

Liza tosses the bell necklace around her neck over to her beloved and it lands in the bird's-nest of Mary Ann's Jem hair.

Mary Ann: just like we practiced, babe, high volley. that's my lesbian lover in the audience. she didn't make any banners.

Geoff: this is California in the '80s, we're all cool with that. we know. we know how life is out here.

me: who gave you that silver necklace?

Liza: from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel was handing these out like candy in front of the indie movie theater when we had nothing to do over the Christmas holiday so we went to see it. he's not really an asshole, he's just always hard up.

sticky rice: don't go ruining perfectly-good steamed rice.

soy sauce: pass me down the DARK stuff, not the regular soy sauce... 

Michael Weiss: you won't have much of a life if you start doing Instagram...

the 1985 Pan Pacific Championships: this happened, but there's NOT ONE photo of this event anywhere on the internet simply for recordkeeping.

gyro: it's just a folded pizza.

Andiroo: i know i called Foo Fighters "Best of You" SIMPLE, but who else do you know who two-steps to Fleetwood Mac "Gypsy"?

Santa Claus: why would you want to know the sex of your baby six months before it's born? i'm dead, that is the only true surprise that remains in life!!!

Erling Haaland: look at my face. i know i look like a North London cocaine kingpin but i've never touched the stuff.

Greta Garbo: i was a lifelong bachelor. Bogart was taken so i had to wait for Clooney.

Humphrey Bogart: stop taking my cigarette, Garbo!!!

Greta: but i wasn't a confirmed bachelor.

Charles Nelson Reilly: yes you were, you liked Marilyn Monroe.

Greta: i thought she was Swedish!!!

dishwasher: that first minute, that water smells so bad.

Tovala babe: i'm not Melissa Maker nor Caitlin Clark. my melon tits only come out when i'm reading or stirring dinner with a wooden spoon. EXTREMELY expensive take-out that's been sitting hours in some dude's car. it doesn't help that the dude is my ex. 

nuns: not Huns.

The Adventures of Pete & Pete: The Wonder Years for the Nickelodeon crowd...

Wheels from Degrassi representing The N: remember when life was innocent? everyone had a mom, everyone had a dad, everyone had an annoying little sister. everyone had a crush on the girl next door who played adult Jesus in the school play. everyone lived in the suburbs. everyone put a scoop of ice cream in their bowl of cereal each morning for breakfast. nobody thought life was any other way...

Claude from Degrassi: brothers who are kind to each other? unheard of.

Michael Stipe: what did i do on my summer vacation? made an album, it was too hot to tour. 

Car Week: the only week young short Asian men have a chance. twentysomething men in shorts and sandals milling around in awkward circles aimlessly on a highway street corner hoping to catch a phone glimpse of a sports car they'll never own. wondering if this is what life is for them: eternal tribalism. wondering if this is the only way they can learn to be a man now in this Trump society. wondering if they can still take on the mantle of the bicycle messenger who delivers cartoon-show blueprints in cardboard cylinders while wearing a cool fatigue-brown bomber jacket. fuck you, Car Week. 

Hilo: it's pronounced EE-Low.

Gilligan: ...

Tsitsipas: my ranking dropped because i'm Ollie Wride so i had to start working on my first true Vaporwave album...

Josh Grisetti in the dentist chair: like you, i experienced hallucinations when the dentist gave me that strangely soothing novocaine. i must have been out for hours or minutes. when i emerged from my coma i had a brace around my neck, a full homeless beard, and i was all like, "oh shit, i'm in the met-God genre now..." 

Mary Ann spins the wheel forcefully. as the wheel turns...

Geoff Edwards: anybody out there in TV land you want to say hi to? any celebrity clients?

Mary Ann: i'd just like to tell John McEnroe that if he says that thing about me on TV i'm coming for him.

the little white ping-pong ball falls OUT of the wheel well but Mary Ann quickly gets it back in there by taking out her tennis racquet from out her buttpocket and slicing the ball back in. 

Geoff: and the ball finally lands on.........$2000.

Mary Ann: ALL THAT INCONVENIENT TRAVEL ON A HOT HIGHWAY for $2000? i make more in a single tennis lesson. the parents of my kids are TERRIFIED they'll end up a society rebel like Andre Agassi.

Liza: i did a 23andMe on me, quick prick in the back of my ear. no more spaghetti-slurping for me, i'm not really Italian!!! my grandpa must have had an affair with a French floozie.

me: i'd really like to stay and hear more of your stories but i can't live in Sacramento, no one can.

  

THE THERAPIST UNDER THE WATERFALL: THE DIFFICULT PATIENT

 

Luke Russert: i am beyond help?

Tai: not necessarily. after all i have a good track record with difficult patients like you. take my most recent patient: he was a fat guy who hated being fat. i told him if he hadn't been fat he wouldn't have survived when he took a head-on collision from a big rig. doctors STILL marvel that he escaped that with a few scrapes. got a $1,000,000 settlement from his advocate Jack McCoy.

me: i don't have time anymore to like go to an eye doctor, you know?

Jen R: not even an eye doctor at the mall?

tortoise: we fuck more during solar eclipses. the sex lasts for 2 minutes and 18 seconds...

lasagna: best lukewarm.

Pee-wee Herman: one minute in the microwave.

Chairry: when it still tastes cold, like my seat. that first COLD BITE...

the Baby Shark kid: i'm in BTS now.

 Alannah Myles: i was the first Alanis Morissette...

X-Men '97: you're slowly starting to realize you never liked X-Men at all, you just thought it had a cool theme song in the '90s...

Seth Green: the reason i made friends with Mike Myers wasn't for the Austin Powers stuff, it was i knew i'd be asked to do a Verizon commercial 30 years later. it's the stuff that comes AFTER that's eternal.

Chipotle: forget the jalapenos, Mexican stonecutters are falling ill and dropping like flies over stone countertops!!!

Chola Butt: i know, mang. this ain't the Middle Ages no more, gente!!! don't call me Chipotle Butt, that's not sporting.

Pan Pacific Championships: a star-studded swimming event.

Summer Sanders: only swimmers are here, folks, Tom Cruise isn't in the small stands. sorry, no cool kid's game show hosts. you had a crush on me but it was clean and pure. there was nothing in the water...

Mark Consuelos: i would stay in a 30-year loveless marriage with you just to be near our little teacup dog Chewie.

Kelly Ripa: .........are you seeing that ginger bitch from Connect with English again?...

California Pizza Kitchen: our bags are like Macy's bags but TWICE THE SIZE AND BIGGER FOR CHRISTMAS.

Luke Russert: i'm still hesitant, wary, and weary.

Tai: my first patient was a Minnesota cowboy who wore a purple cowboy hat and purple spats living in Texas who didn't fit in because he was the only one on the range who liked Prince. he decided not to shoot himself in the head.........but 30 years later he had to contend with the same people who didn't like him, they never came to an understanding, they would have fought forever regardless of the number of years. not to mention the family and friends this put-upon out-of-place cowboy neglected through the decades because he was always busy doing something else. this man had a collection of people in his life whom he treated shabbily, not just his ex-wife, and he couldn't ignore them any longer!!! they were all still alive, the chickens were coming home to roost, he couldn't escape his kin. he would have to confront that he just wasn't really that good of a person. that is another form of hell.

Luke: i'm convinced.