I HEAR THEY'RE THROWING A PARADE DOWN OBEC WOODS: TWITTER, DESTROYER OF WORLDS

perhaps it's the still still-afterglow the boys are experiencing comfy and warm and sprite locked in their bubble to be having quite the extended audience with their literary hero, but no one's noticing that Alan Bored is fading quick. they know he's been tired lately but that's it.

Alan: i'm gonna have to go into sleep mode soon.

Dirg: you're funny, Alan! may i call you Alan, sir?

Alan: funny is one thing i've never been accused of. not even dry British wit humor. you boys have to be careful. universities aren't the bastions of learning about obtuse oligarchs and systemless systems and sex positions involving only your spleen that they used to be when i was a kid. they've become simply indoctrinations into the Left. i mean what's the point of college if not to be free to hear all points of view and choose according to your pumping soul? if you stifle the speech you hate because it's hate speech, it ceases to be a college and becomes a camp.

Laertus: i admit it, i'm racist-adjacent. that's a tired argument and one dunked in hogwash. plainspokenness does not equal the condoning of hate speech. careful, you're intimating some very depressing things about humanity. you don't want me to get naked, too, right? it's as if you're saying that if humans were truly allowed to be free, could truly talk without censor and express how they really felt inside their black hearts without fear of consequence or societal cuffs, with no correcting cats and political pander bread, not having to win anything or anyone over, get a job cutting hair, no more doors anywhere just cleared air, enough with the kowtowing to cows on stage, not having to think you were wrong, if there were no taboos, if people could REALLY have a sexual preference, then humans would just naturally be racist and xenophobist and misogynistic and serial and it's okay cos that's just how they naturally are when they're allowed to be free animals roaming the wild woods. eating bananas. you're concluding that there's a design flaw in the assembly line, humans are from birth made wrong.

Alan: am i? well i wouldn't know anything about that.

Dirg: it's a tough life but someone's got to take the hot molten mantle. or the species becomes symmetrical. my tongue is proudly caked in mud. better a bitter spitter than an easy lazy Dem. yeah you're right, all the dirty folk here wouldn't just be triggered treehuggers, they'd be given the license to become who they truly want to achieve: treefuckers. what do you think that knothole is for? sap plus cum equals maple syrup.

Alan: i dunno. i say let freedom ring. ring out everywhere. freedom is the solution to most things, with no ph mixed in, gets out the most caked-on stains. when in doubt, call for more freedom. let everything and everyone and every notion be as free as possible. clear the stage, wash it, the audience-member is free to throw a tomato at the free speaker just as the free-speaker is allowed to duck. just don't let those beautiful beefsteak tomatoes wilt and rot, that would be a tragedy salad.

Laertus: hey.

at the French Open, it's open-mic night at the press conference. Nadal tells a joke but no one understands it.

Nadal: it's not just the language barrier. it's the accent barrier. i made an effort, you people need to be more linguaphile. the only seed which concerns me are the raw seeds which fall on my land's soil dropped by birds. you'd get that joke if you experienced an enchilada in my country culture. you know you in the stupid press continually think me dumb cos i talk slow and with few words. and yet i'm smarter than any of you to realize there is no God. how do you explain this, smartguys in the crowd? it's a divine discrepancy of the deity. this is genius hour, i'm Alice no i'm the White Rabbit already buried in my hole of red clay you can't catch me i'm too quick-witted for ya.

press: God.

Genie: now THAT is the man i need! my mother had good taste. i'm jealous of my mother, she still had a chance to be a princess, i can only be named after British Royalty which just rubs the salt in. the salt which is actually good for my androidic joints. man this French Open is boring as the dirt it's played on! no wonder we tennis players are notorious rulebreakers and get in the most trouble out of all the 4 major sports. you really feel it now, the tennis players have a LOT of time on our hands, TOO much time to get into shit and break up new marriages. it's not match fixing, it's simply coaching so we fix it so our student can play better against this particular opponent with some secret knowledge by McEnroe distributed over a midnight phone. none of this would happen if coaching was allowed to be free. if you had coaches in the stands using their hands. we could all see the coaches' hands giving signals and thus also see if there's a dollar bill clasped inbetween those fingers.

Nadal: i do not believe in God. i believe in Goku. from now on, i will don the traditional Dragon Ball orange gi to all of my matches henceforth. it's cool cos it's opensleeved so you can still see my bulging muscles.

Genie: that's it, Rafa's my next twitter date. Adonis and anime?!! genius. real men of genius. time for the nudist colony. all beautiful girls are secret anime geeks inside.

in the woods on the edge of Obec, Roseanne is pulled over by the silver cops.

cops: don't move, ma'am!!!

Roseanne: that's just my body settling.

cops: put down your phone.

Roseanne: don't shoot, my hands are up!

cops: do you have any comment? any further comment on top of the initial comment? an apology for the apology? anything which just compounds things?

Roseanne makes the zipper-up-closed-shut-tight on her long saggy mouth. she adjusts herself. the cops have actual zippers attached to their silver jaws.

cops: what's this in your frontpocket? contraband? it's a BAGGIE of ambien. where did you find this? are you getting this off the black market?

Roseanne: of course, i'm near a university, of course i got this at Exodus College. that's the problem, all the brainwashed blacks are in the universities now getting more brainwashed.

Laertus: according to Harvard, the number of blacks in college is 43. sad. shameful. that number should rise to at least 5000.

Roseanne: okay i'll compromise to get some more followers. take down the statues of the generals and all statues generally, replace them with crosses. those crosses need to be big if you know what i mean.

cops: *blowing their whistles* that's it, we're taking you in, you're coming with us. squeeze in the car, it shouldn't be hard. no, OUR car not yours!

the painted cruiser drives off with Roseanne in cuffs, into a dustnado of summer green elms.

cops: don't say it................don't say it.....

Roseanne: why are we going into the jungle?

at Mueller's office Bob has just come back from the Pulitzer luncheon.

Mueller: i love when my girlfriend dances on top of tables like she's doing her skating routine but in heels and flipping off the press who came to cover it. i'm with Ashley Parker while Comey cat is away on tour, keeping her warm for my bro. i love when she puts the cantaloupe up her nose. i need Ashley to distract my doldrums. my office is so depressing, it looks like the hollowed-out inside of a YMCA but without all the fun stuff. in fact that's exactly what it is, stripped of the basketball court. but you can still smell the stripping glue. a cavernous classroom with one oldskool projector in the far front, projecting onto a big pulldown white screen. my huge head ominously-looking, looking straight at the camera, at YOU with my wide eyes, not saying anything from my frog mouth, as the image on that screen. it's like the inside of a DMV during test day but drearier. sigh.

Mueller slides off the clear sheet used for math with markers on the projector screen, the one on top of the projector machine itself, the clear hollow one that has that huge light bulb screwed on so big and so tight you can see fluttering in waves of light, too bright to look at up close directly. Mueller squeezes and squees back to man-size and climbs the gym ladder to the very top of the last ledge which hangs below the large slit windows filtering dusty particles of grey-blue light from the outside. Mueller stares out into the greeny DC streets saddled with large trucks of high-minded high finance, the swampy Potomac River full of pink whirlwinds, to the furthest point of distance, the tip of the Washington Monument. his arms are in his backpockets, messying his hands with a greasy mechanic's mini-towel and bulby wrench in the other buttcheek. daypocket and nightpocket.

President Bump is strolling along and notices Bob in the high window looking out and forlorn. he decides to pay him a visit and opens the revolving door to the Y.

Bump: i saw you on the ledge. you were a silhouette of the moon, caused by the moon.

Mueller: thank you, friend, that was very poetic. i love you.

Bump: can we do the summit here? it's just as good a place as any.

Mueller: sure. just move the projector.

Bump: can i borrow it? let's go, Kim. oh yeah wait first.

Bump kneels at the U.S. flag on the flagpole in the corner while the National Anthem is being played.

Bump: okay, go. let's summitize.

Kim: summarize? like read the minutes? nothing has happened yet.

the two iron out and force themselves to do a fistbump after an arm-wrestling match of fists and cry and sweat and tear and tear their hairs out---each other's hairs, they wouldn't dare touch their own hairs---and negotiate and yell in the same language until finally FINALLY after roughly 8 rough hours both ways day and night, three days later, they hammer out the final details:

Bump: okay, that's it we decided on the design of the coin. done? i'm just biding my time here waiting for lunch so i can feel good and not gross again for an hour.

in Hawaii those damn volacnaoes continue to churn without end, putting on a hot-water show of dancing lines of shoot like you see in Vegas with the colored multi lights. except there's only hissing, not cheering and yeahing. and the only colors are orange-red. and drab for the rocks. Gladyce rushes to get the honeymooners reserved at the Lupin Lodge before it books out.

Gladyce: don't ignore me, dear! why are you reading a book while i'm speaking with you? that's an ugly face.

Doryce: huh did you talk something? i'm reading a book. of Lupin manga. i'm learning. these volcanoes are acting like they own the place. i thought it was a Jeep commercial. i was setting up to watch on a lounge chair with my fig coffee.

Doryce wears her Maui Jims to block the saving-grace light. she's lugging around a sack of Maui Brand potatoes by her vagina.

Doryce: okay, i'm ready. where are these famed Maui and Sons? i want to fuck Maui first to get a taste of the father then i'll be ready for the sons.

Gladyce: what's that on your lap?

Doryce: oh?!! oh it's just my salad from lunch.

Gladyce: why is it more brown than green? and molty and munchy instead of crisp and watery? the bad arugula again?

Doryce: THIS ISN'T SALAD. that's all i'm gonna say. women go to the bathroom on their breaks.

Gladyce: on a plate tho?

Doryce: that's how dirty the bathrooms are here.

Gladyce: i'm gonna check the Shit Chart online to see what shape yours are in and if i should be worried. of all the things i thought i'd ever see online, i really didn't want to see that chart.

Doryce checks the scores and other things on her watch, Gladyce the weather. Doryce pricks an ice cube on a skewer left by the dust road and begins roasting it over the volcano.

Doryce: melted instantly. gotta check again i'm not doing it right.

Laertus: hey you! yes you! Doryce and Gladyce! why did you post an image of poo on a plate with the caption underneath

Accidental Salad

that's not cool. you makin' fun of me? i will not be bullied any longer. i'm dropping you as followers.

Doryce: you followed us, kid.

Laertus: i know, i needed Quidditch tips. what's that smell?

Doryce: a lady never tells. twice.

Laertus: a gentleman never asks. for nudes. no i mean that smell of burny gooey glue that's been pasted into taffy?

Jay Furr: it's me.

Laertus: get off my feed, DUDE! no one wants your stinky marshmallows!!!

Gladyce: i was surpised at your virality.

Jay Furr: my number of mentions if you put them on a chart go up and reach a peak it's shaped like a volcano.

at the house full of haunts and surprises:

Dirg: *papering* who is this? i haven't seen this character before.

Alan: new this week. popped into my head like an electric bolt.

Laertus: looks like from the famed anime book Destroyer of Worlds.

Alan: that's a character. and not a god-damn anime character! fuck anime! fuck anime adaptation! not everything is anime you know! there was a comic industry that was American which in turn was British. long ago, forgotten and shamed. like where the characters animals and humans alike all looked like, well they had normal eyes and were Hanna-Barbera and stuff. men had muscles. writers weren't afraid to make their main-men protagonists musclebound and honorbound. and dutybound, men who took huge risks and huge shits in the toilet, big big doodies. not genderless geeks. you youth have to decide what kind of world you want to live in: the one designed by Marvel or DC.

Laertus: i applaud Marvel. just turn off the comments and they'll be fine.

Dirg: what a travesty going on over there at Marvel. i'm shaking my head that you can see cos it's not spraypainted.

Alan: see how they're force-feminizing Thor into a character who doesn't need a breastplate anymore? the solution is simple and clear: just create female characters. new ones, don't SJW-strip the living life of the old ones like you have a time machine or something. don't turn Mowgli into a girl despite his long hair, racism was charming back then. okay, world, i got a compromise for you: you leave Thor as is and i promise to create a brand spanking new female character who kicks ass and takes it in the ass but has small breasts, deal?

Dirg: *clasping a pencil inbetween his fingers* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Alan: let's just step back a moment here and breathe, shall we? i mean this is crazy. a woman taps a few keys from the privacy of her keyboard and suddenly she is responsible for millions of jobs lost. the President has her beat on that one! twitter is deadlier than cancer. i'd get shut down for saying that on twitter. twitter is cancer. Coach Colangelo has to resort to using a burner twitter to insult his players cos he can't insult them i mean discipline them to their face. there's got to be a better way for us to communicate. nobody goes outside anymore, even coworkers and friends in bars would rather type to each other than meet at work or play. we've got to start talking to each other, we've got to start knowing what color eyes our circle of people have. we must go outside, for fuck sake GO OUTSIDE!!! the reason i stay indoors behind this spiritual screen is i don't want to meet my younger fans and end up like John K.

Laertus: what's that rumbling?

Alan: it's not rumbling. it's rustling.

JOE PERA OBVIOUSLY LIFTS IRON/ TOUGH EGG TO CRACK

notes:

* Joe Pera's work is genuine, gentle, grandfatherly, and.........well, there's this air of New England sadness to the whole affair, a reservoir of deep longing and wasted wistfulness, a veneer of dry-blanketed unmitigated white rage just below the surface out of frame. let's see how this develops, i'm expecting Joe to tear off his sweater by season's end.

* i like Joe. i get Joe. Joe is a Yuper from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. his demeanor suggests he doesn't do well teaching unruly kids choir but whatever. but you see it's all pretend, that's his character, Joe's really from New York which is where everyone is from.

* Joe holds his rocks funny this episode

* this makes sense, he's a teacher, he's knowledgable. there's no iron in my blood that's why i'm always so lethargic.

* Joe: what i'm saying is i didn't vote. also, that tv you see there is just a prop, teachers don't have time to watch tv.

* sorry, not the next endless Marvel trailer

* Joe: i'm not good with people. i dated one of my students' mom during the Christmas Special but that was a long time ago. i've since become a scientist who doesn't believe in love.

* Joe: who's this dog? i mean the dog, not you. i'm a young man but i walk like your grandfather.

* hey it's the Melskys! that family from the other special! they're gonna be regulars. i won't mention the word nullification, let's have some hope in these dark times.

* Joe: yeah i put up the FOR SALE sign. that was the day one of my students mysteriously disappeared. we searched all day and feared the worst by recess-bell end. turns out he was hiding in the tuba.

* Joe: my dog Gus has a better couch than me. okay i confess Gus put up the sign.

* Papa Melsky: i don't cook. i've never used an oven in my life. foreshadowing.

* Joe: miss, i'm not staring at your mom ass. i'm covering up the porn from the young one. not cos it's a groovy male from the '70s that's beside the point. when i worked for MTV, i was not doing well...

* Joe: we had Morgan Freeman doing this part but...

* Joe: i don't have nipples. but i still would. milk Robert De Niro's nipples.

* Joe: i'd be the bandleader to David Letterman if i had been raised in Thunder Bay. FUCK I was Letterman before Letterman!!!

* Joe: what i'm saying is the Hawaii lava deaths are tragic but nature was here first. walking across these cooled igneous rocks is my trip to Hawaii cos i earn a teacher's salary. the largest wood dome in existence is where i saw my favorite band Paul Shaffer. until the fire.

* bingo supplies: those small red circles of felt that are impossible to find

* Joe: bitch y u here?
Ma Melsky: it's a small town. there's one ice-cream parlor.
Joe: i'm sorry. i'm a punk. as you can see by the miniature mushroom button i wear. they call me The Thing i'm so rocky. i sit and think on my piano bench cos the piano in my house is a prop. is casual dining the same as casual sex? that topic will be covered next episode...

* Joe: i'm not Einstein but this show is Sopranos-quality. i'm single but i don't belong to any internet groups. birds live in airports to fuck with humans by shooting us dirty looks right before we board. i'm a vegetarian who doesn't eat Apple Jacks on Thanksgiving cos i'm feeding them to the turkeys on my yard.

* Joe: i hereby give these rocks to you my new family. watch out for that fat kid he seems the type that would chuck the rock at his neighbor.
Ma Melsky: that's my son. we got him a skateboard for Christmas.

* Joe's mom: can i stop working now, Joe? i'm still paying your bills.
Joe: not until my lawsuit settles. it's gonna take awhile, the New York courts are suddenly backed up.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

notes:

* WARNING: DO NOT watch this episode while hungry. i did just that early Monday morning. next thing i know i'm driving around like a crazy person on the hot streets at midnight looking for a diner even though i do not have a car. thank you Denny's for your effortless 24 hours. i ate six breakfasts there before breakfast officially starts there at 4AM.

* is it a diner or a family restaurant? you have to know love for it to be a family restaurant.

* this is every lonely kidult's worst nightmare: what do you do when your stomach starts growling and your mom just kicked you out?

* fried toast? i can't believe in my 50 years i've never tried fried toast!

* we Yupers say nanners.

* i feel you, Joe. i get excited for breakfast whenever out, too. it's the Saturday-morning breakfast that is so stinging, the getting-up early Saturday cos you didn't have a good Friday night.

* the giant gumball machine is obviously paying last respects to Regular Show.

* Lex Luthor: i am a Midwesterner but i have a thick accent cos i'm an American. okay, guy. why can you afford to act like an idiot but i'd lose my job?

* Joe: everyone here is old but i'm still older than them in spirit. most settle for the 222: that's 222 eggs, any style. if you do them sunnyside-up you will die from runny-yolk ingestion. i need to build a breakfast grill in my house to avoid all this.

* Gene: gravy?
Joe: no i'm not into that particular sex game. i have to go to the bank this afternoon. to rob it.

* Gene: the Breakfast Crew can be dead individuals but those are those goth punks who hover around Denny's at midnight.

* Gene: we have our own name. it's like a video-game guild but i don't understand video games. i only use youtube for porn.
Gene's wife: don't come over here, Joe.
Joe: well you said please so i have to honor it.

* political junkie: Chris Cuomo is like the good Scaramucci.
sports nut: the Golden Knights are the greatest expansion team since the Browns. i fixed all those tennis matches to impress Steffi Graf. Andre Agassi was bald at birth.
ballbuster: you want your rocks back, Joe?
other guy: i can't be the token black but i own all the arcades in the U.P.
Joe: i no longer belong to that Amish community ever since it mysteriously disappeared one day.

* waitress: please seat yourself, i wouldn't be caught dead in this place. this is where my funeral's gonna be held.

* Joe: the spinning cake case distracts you from not noticing those aren't pie tins, they're UFOs. hey there's my student Drew! his idol is Alex P. Keaton.

* Joe: please i can't do the mother thing again, it's too easy and heartbreaking. Delgado, the teacher who disrupted the Royal Honeymoon and was banned from Botswana, is a distant relative of Meghan Markle. i don't know much about math, just enough to count my money.

* Joe: please, class, don't make fun of my manner, i have a fear of public speaking. i can't give away this green apple cos this is my dinner. i had to give it to my neighbor's daughter or the fat kid would throw rocks at my windows.

* Joe: eggs Benedict is too opulent for any day but Easter. but since i'm becoming a Benedictine monk...

* Pa Melsky: the perfect egg bite. not the already-established egg bite food. or the sex egg bite.

* oh, RYE toast. haven't had rye toast, either.

* Pa: not all purple jelly is grape. this jelly is Amethyst from Steven Universe.

* personally, i've never poured ketchup onto any breakfast food i've ever et. ketchup is for lunch.

* Ma Melsky: honey if you mess up this egg bite i want a divorce.

* Pa: I NEED A WIN!!!................sorry for the screaming outburst..............foreshadowing

* Joe: others have pussy power. i have pancake power................patties, links are for gays........
waitress: to drink?
Joe: a warm can of Sprite.
waitress: yeah that's basically coffee.

* i'd be remiss if i didn't mention Professor Jenny Baranick. it was here this time last year during the Christmas Special that the Miracle happened and she came back to us. we love you and miss you, wherever you are, Mon Capitaine *cue Q*


CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. it's gonna be a lonely summer now that anime is gone. at least there's more Joe Pera on Sunday. or technically Monday.

I HEAR THEY'RE THROWING A PARADE DOWN OBEC WOODS: WOUNDED WATCHMAKER

Alan Bored emerges from behind the screen. he looks the same but slightly lighter.

Laertus: well that was rude. you should listen to your fans when we're talking to you. you could learn something.

Alan, pointing to and shaving the top of the screen with his hand as if it were rounded but it's not, it's square: this, my boy, is rude. this is a rood screen. but all you half-baked Generation Betaers wouldn't know a good church if it bit you in the ass. so easy to lose faith in everything you burn out by age 18!

Laertus: i burnt out at 17, actually, i was advanced. taking college courses by then. just squaring the record. i'm a stickler for that sort of thing.

Alan: i've noticed.

Laertus: why did i hear Robert Mueller just now?

Alan: please, no more questions, you get me nervous. i take the temperature of the world, and then i start drawing. did you feel those tremors just now?

Dirg: prolly just your nerves.

Alan: heehee. that was the first time in my entire life i've laughed. nervous laughter but laughter just the same. you know i really did like Donald Glover's performance. that light show, it went against physics yet somehow still existed, i like that, i draw things like that.

Dirg puts his shoulder around Laertus's neck.

Dirg: now see? he's not all bad. i knew you had some cool in your detached manner.

Alan: i don't want to be this way. i just am. i suppose it's the curse of all writers. you have to greet your public to sell books but the reason you hide is the reason you became a writer in the first place. and don't try to coax me into revealing details. there's a wide gap between being a fan and being a friend. now that i see you up close, why are you yellow? you sick? you have yellow skin.

Laertus: that's just my Simpsons cosplay. on insta i purposely give my skin color as the default neutral skin of yellow instead of white. anything else would be a sin color.

Alan: well if that ain't a textbook case of racial nullification and self-loathing.

Dirg high-fives Alan but whiffs and misses.

Dirg: i know, right? he's just mad at heaven he wasn't born a Japanese.

Alan: you have an adult coloring book of nudes stashed in your cobby basement, huh?

Dirg: i at least keep a copy of David Lynch's Nudes.

Laertus: it can't be porn if it's hardcover, right? keep it classy, San Whatever.

Alan: i own a rare vhs of The Nudist Story. which you boys is your favorite porn site?

Laertus blurts out "what?" while Dirg blurts out "Shameless" at the exact same pinpoint moment.

Alan: hah. i believe the less strange-looking kid. who's naked.

Dirg: i really wanted to look up the show Shameless. but that's what you get when you punch in shameless.com.

Alan: that show is a ripoff of the much-better original British version. or Irish version i suppose. which is always the case. i can't believe Joe Piscopo starred in that SVU knowing that show's strong anti-Bump stance. it was an actual surprise they didn't make him the degenerate killer just to show off.

Dirg: Piscopo's with me. it was a shake-up. there wasn't an erosion of norms. instead of people hating each other more, it was that people could be unguarded around each other again. tell a dirty joke about grandma with grandma whilst eating natural peanut butter from the non-allergic farms. Bump is running chaos theory. chaos theory isn't chaotic, it's necessary. it's needed or we all become Maoists.

Alan: that's all i'm trying to do here. create a safe space for lads to be lads again. why can't we just return to being the rude garrulous rowdy bunch of boys who like to comment on the size of women's vaginas women have always loved? we're not hurting anybody, it's just online. and occasionally okay maybe we spit on the ladies with some insults over the fence. cos it's still kinda funny to do that.

Laertus: not even in an ironic way. alright okay, we've had our fun. well you have. time to get down to business.

Alan: you paying me?

Laertus: if you don't listen to the fans you WILL pay. i hereby demand...

at the golf course, Mueller slinks out of the hole on the 18th green. he emerges from his snake shape into the man he is today, dashing and dashed.

Mueller: wow! what a rush! remind me to eat off the top of Ashley Parker's head again! i don't know why Rod decided to cave on this day. Rod needs to get back to his inner Rodness, he needs to turn into a rod and see how that feels.

Bump: what are you doing here, Bob? what about you? even this poor excuse for a sport can't bring my rod up. i'm feeling sad. this thing has dragged on so much my wife Melanie left me and we remarried. it's choking the life out of my presidency. as we all know, choking is only helpful in tennis. i don't know what to do anymore, everything i do has already been done, have you watched the news lately? it's depressing.

Mueller: the reason i did SNL the other night was to give the American people the chance to hear my voice before they never wll get the chance again after you fire me. fight me, don't fire me.

at Genie's inconspicuous red door, Djokovic quietly knocks after tearing apart at the root two bushes with his racquet and moving them to his side. he wears a long brown trenchcoat and his racquet handle sticks out of his body like a sore thumb and gun. he wears a grey fedora and dark sunglasses with one shade punched-out revealing his crying eye.

Genie, in her lithe blanket robe one toe on her stone step: hello? too early. i only have one eyeshadow. you? what are you doing here? how'd you find this place? i told the realtor specifically NOT the suburbs NOT the suburbs, that's where the terrorists actually live. you know there's a particular niche out there called realtor porn?

Djokovic: i know. apparently the real-estate agent breaks the house in by fucking in it. can we not talk about this? at least not here outside? please. it's very hard for a man like me to come to a place like this for help. i finally had no choice, i had to turn the other cheek.

Genie: honey you're gonna need a LOT of help. you convinced yourself you have a mental problem in your head, which is far worse than actually having a mental problem in your head. could just be the racquet. you're gonna need TONS of my counselling. unfortunately i have a Grand Slam to prepare for. the one i hate. the clay makes my cheeks ruddy, i never like to look like i'm embarrassed by anything i'm doing. let's make this transactional. you play my French Open matches for me, i'll make sure you win your French Open matches.

cameramen swarm into the circle of Djokovic's location. they are terrorists holding long mics and cellphones, actual terrorists. Djokovic tries to hide but there's nowhere to run. except inside himself. he folds up into his trenchcoat and further smallifies himself into all the way inside the brim of his hat. until there's just a hat spinning mildly on Genie's cracked front porch.

Genie: you've turned yourself into your own head. this is progress. gives me a space to work with. but not space to work with, i gotta hurry up, i got two weeks to solve all your life problems.

in Hawaii, the lava is spewing red with rage. there is no more grey land left, only trees for the holidaymakers to climb up on palms. all the coconut milk has since turned dry with ash, the place is piled with tiny black mini bowling balls like so much unpicked trash on the beach.

Doryce: is this your doing? this was supposed to be our honeymoon.

Gladyce: honey, we have a lifetime to honeymoon. all our lives are gonna be going forward is one big eternal honeymoon. i'm happy. exploding with joy since i met you and you colored my life. that's not the culprit. look closer: the lava is orange, someone big is sad and orange with rage. the land is reshaping itself, creating a brand new Island cos the old one got old with decay and sin from all the illicit sex perpetrated on the Island Chain through the centuries from vacationers.

Doryce gives Gladyce's boob a peck.

Gladyce: don't feel glum. yeah somebody was asleep at the wheel over at Home Base. probably Jill. in the home country it's easier to control the volcanoes cos all ours are mini-volcanoes. i can't imagine Jill on a honeymoon, tho. don't laze about or you'll get caught up in the laze. lava haze, that's a new word that was made up just for this event. i love new magic spells!

Doryce, cracking a smile: i know why the wind blows and the volcanoes, too. it was that fucking session we had last night, the earth is reacting. our hotel room needed to be sanded over by the restless natives our sinful scissoring was that overpowering.

Gladyce: dear you tell yourself whatever your little head can retain. that's why i love you. just don't touch the arugula. i felt so bad for the locals they prepared the salad with such love but all arugula around the world has been tainted by this fire below, the soil is ruined for generations. the topsoil is okay for surfing but the bottomsoil fossilized WAY before it would have naturally. like us.

Doryce, hiding an embarrassed smile and touching her own butt: uh oh. i ate all the arugula on the island. the Big Island! all these horrendous earth-shattering melty globs of gaseous volcanic thunder down under are my fault. the earth is reacting. isn't this where Montezuma is from originally? i had to fart.

Doryce: hello? front desk? milk was a bad choice. i'd like to lodge a complaint.

native: a Portnoy's Complaint? tis no summer cold, madam. Hilo Hospital cracked cos of you. we know what you did, we're not stupid.

Gladyce: you can recover by just sleeping, you know. no medicine required.

at the Warriors lockerroom it's a much quieter scene. quitting time. Charles Barkley is on the ground, prone, squealing in pain, he touches his side and Draymond Green touches Charles's hand that's holding Charles's stomach in a grabbed coil of skin rope.

Dray: sorry, dude. was it something you ate?

Charles, struggling: it said donut. so i ate it. you know me. i ate the donut, and now i'm gonna die.

Dray: Chuck, Chuck, look up, before you go, i want you to meet my two daughters, fresh from the bakery of my wife's womb.

Dray scoots his two precious souls in tiny hairbuns glistening in the lockerrom sun, in their blue bathroom dresses, perfect princesses of pure colorless power. in front of his large knees. their dresses are too long to curtsey.

Dray: puro power. meet my offspring, my flesh, my daughters. conceived in an Hawaiian spring, green and hot. meet Laurel and this is Yanny. they will perform at the Princess Theater in Philly. some day. soon.

Charles, gasping: i need to exercise. i won't be able to remember your precious daughters' names, they're the same to me, they all blur in my ear and my mustached mouth, THERE WERE THREE LIGHTS! and three donuts. i ate them all, i couldn't choose. tell Genie she was too good and she did this to me.

and Charles Barkley sleeps on the slippery floor the rest of the summer as a hibernating bear.

Laertus: look at this, sir. this is your first-ever cover, before you were famous. it's the most famous comic-book cover of all time. because it's so real. the coloring is done lovingly. the inking is impeccable, not done by an imbecile. the protagonist looks so sad in his all-black. just a man, no woman. he falters in a circle standing like a potted plant, the most expressive forlornness on his Johnny Depp visage pale from lack of lockerroom sun. his black eyeshadow drips off his brow like noxious paint spouting fumes and blends nicely with the curling tip of his black lips. his body frame resembles the actual tree from The Halloween Tree.

Alan: please, let's not start that again. that was back when i was sad. in my sad days.

Laertus: sadder than you are now? this is a textbook example of pure art. it was at-the-surface, brutal, and honest. i felt something from this book, i felt my insides for the first time reading a comic book. the pages were colored in all drab tones of gray and black, which made the whiteness stand out. it shocked my system how good writing can exist in virtual graphics.

Alan: i remember those days. the character of the Wounded Watchmaker was inspired by me opening the red door on many occasions when i was a hostile hostel art student in Paris. soon i gave up, i couldn't stand people interrupting my genius, i hated all people who came from the outside, so i stopped answering the door. i never knew what time it was on our planet. the opening story entails the character of the Watchmaker who has to construct his own watches out of his late grandfather's gold nuggets bequeathed to him after the pirate incident. the grandfather was the pirate suing the government for fraud. the maker cuts his hand on that little bitch of a tiny fluted wheel on the watch that turns the turns. he knows no one so no one treats his wound which stays attached to him forever. i heard they call you Salad.

Laertus: where the hell did you pick that up? that was a closely-guarded secret. it's true but how?

Alan: it's called the internet. same for everyone i'm afraid. you boys want smoke now? i don't smoke, i am smoke.

Dirg: thanks. smoked too much as a kid, aye? speaking of British theft, or theft of British rather, i miss Skins.

Laertus: yeah we can all agree on that. British gays are cooler than American gays. must be the accent. will you help me roll up a skin? the papers are in my frontpocket but the powder is in your frontpocket. since you're already up.

Alan: that's a falsehood and misnomer. i don't believe the creator when he says "skins" are the cigarette papers. it comes from an ancient Irish expression "hitting the skins" which is a euphemism for sex.

Laertus: hey that does make more sense! the series is all about illicit sex so yeah that name fits. i mean virgins smoke, too.

Alan: thank you, Broccoli. i mean Salad! salad lad *British chuckle*

Laertus: hey! ugh. i don't want to be associated with Broccoli from ST:TNG, that guy was a nervous nelly loser. that guy is my future and this scares the holodeck heaven out of me. from the "salad days" quote and my lime-green hair.

Alan goes to highfive Dirg. the talented troubled author's hand goes right through Dirg's shoulder. Dirg was distracted and not paying attention.

TMIT: KNEES-UP

1. if you had a whole week (no work, no kids) to do things with your significant other, what would you do? make babies. life isn't about work, it's about kids................before it's too late for me.......and it's funny cos this is Hell Week when all of the tv shows have their season finales and I have to write ALL the reviews of ALL said shows cos the last shows of the season are always the most important ones, the harbingers of things to come...

2. what is your idea of a long-term relationship? at least more than 3 months. you have to have had survived your first real fight, not a cute joke fight. you have to have had smelled the other's fart in your face, that's how you know. thanks, Linda Belcher. speaking of shows last night. now when it comes to long-distance relationships all bets are off. distance is not the same as time. time doesn't exist, distance does. like when you finally fuck after a long long-distance relationship, one day in such a relationship is so compressed it actually equals one year in a touching relationship which means you will birth quadruplets.

3. what is a healthy relationship? both partners doing the lemonade diet. (you'll feel healthy for a while, but sometime during the long boring stretches of summer both of you will simultaneously be hit by a bolt from the blue from your blue childhoods. you'll both realize none of you ever had their own lemonade stand growing up as a kid and you'll collapse and cry into each others' arms. this will bring you ever closer. shared trauma can sometimes be a kind of sexless salve.)

4. how did you meet your current (or last) lover? (will she be my last one? my last chance at love?) blogging

5. what is the first thing you do after having sex? blog about it

blogging to me is like masturbation: i don't want to do it anymore but i can't stop............

bonus: do you have any bad habits that you hide from your significant other? you can tell us...or not:

yes, please tell us, that's what makes TMIT fun..........oh, you were talking to me. i hide the darkest of secrets from my SO, for fear she'd leave me if she ever found out. i take a page out of the Three's Company playbook and only tell Mr. Furley and the Ropers. landlords are sworn by secrecy never to gossip, it's in their code. more importantly it's in their contract.

truth is: my name is Hugh Grant. i'm a grumpy dry Londoner who never wanted to be an actor. i just kind of fell into the profession by accident, i was hoping it was a phase i'd get outta my system and be done with the thing after ten years. flush it. i never answer questions about my personal life in interviews, i'm the classic dead bat........................................and for some reason i never married Elizabeth Hurley which is quite strange...i must have an aversion to marriage in my background, my parents must have divorced............i probably should have ended up with Emma Thompson, she seems the perfect match for me. but Knave Ken got to her first. i wouldn't have done her dirty the way Ken did, giving her clinical depression and all that, that's serious stuff.

this was significantly less writing than last week...bless

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

THE ONE WHERE EVERYTHING IS STILL POSSIBLE BUT NO ONE WILL BE WATCHING

just a bruised heel, everything will be fine.

tomorrow is gonna be hella double-booked. too much going on. shafts a lot of stuff. the Preakness is always the tricky one, the middle child. everything is still possible, alls that needs to happen is the right permutation of sugarcubes under the saddle of the Derby winner and make sure he or she wins and all the bookies and people go home happy. bookies in this new age of legal gambling don't anymore flick their quarter in the air by the corner whispering to you about if yous knows about that shipment of steaks. now they save that quarter to call their mother. and for the most part it works. it's about half the contending horses so there's a lot of space, nice and short so not much energy exerted. and the other horses are so admiring to have an actual Derby winner in their midst they get starstruck and forget to turn. it's the last one that gets ya...with all your hopes built up...but that's for another paragraph.

the Preakness has historically tried to compete with the Derby ad-wise and it's just not wise. they are who they are. they are the trailer-park to the Derby's portico. the gas to their gazebo. they've tried everything, that dude in the horse costume who was like a superhero minotaur freak or something. even a naked Conor McGregor straddling an even nakedier horse, that works for everybody. astride fair Astrid. Conor would have been rejected by King Arthur's Court for not being British enough. he would have converted the Roundtable into an octagon.

and what is Tina Fey thinking momently? as a mom? i mean this is also the season finale of SNL, it's a BFD. will everyone be too drunk to concentrate on the layered skits? will there will a wedding sketch? there has to be, and knowing Lorne's bookie skills Meghan Markle herself will crash the Weekend Update desk. Tina will try to concentrate on making more purchases with her American Express card even though she's Canadian. she's not Canadian? i always thought she was Canadian, she has that Canadian vibe to her. she's so whipsmart that when she talks her brilliant brain runs faster than her mouth could ever move so her voice comes out in this soft staccato where she always sounds like she's slightly drunk.

Meghan Markle continues to impress. she's gonna go down that ancient aisle all, "i'm a strong independent woman in 2018 living in a post-Jordan Peele world. i don't need no man!" and Harry will be all in the corner like, "you know, it's true, respec, she doesn't, i dated her" in his cute bashful accent. she'll throw her bouquet up in the air and it'll travel transatlantic all the way to her dad's bed:

Thomas Markle, clutching his bedsheets: you know, there is no cure for a broken heart.

and now: bean dip. spoilers: this will be an example of one of my nightly night terrors. believe it or not, i never tried bean dip before. for me it was always ALWAYS salsa. but last week was a breakthrough. i bought some family-size Fritos large scoops and went to town, scooping the hella that delicious curd paste. it's not surprising i enjoyed it, i'm in love with Taco Bell. i did it cold and i did it hot, i go both ways. not too hot in the microwave or it burns the roof of your mouth like street pizza. beans beans the magical fruit. and then i checked the label of the bean dip and it was Fritos brand label bean dip! that coincidence in the universe made me so happy. but then i had nightmares that night from the bean dip. about seven-layer dip. i don't trust the number 7 it is too illuminati. too many layers. the bean dip rose from the bowl and shaped into a wave in the transatlantic ocean. the wave was its giant gaping mouth and it was gonna eat me! then i got woke. the seven-layer dip simply had seven layers of clothing on. it wanted to give me its layers to keep me warm and comforted on a humid summer night. it gave me everything: its sweater, coat, scarf, sweatshirt, hairshirt for penance, beanie, and goofy-print underwear of tomatoes. it swallowed me whole but that's just its way of hugging.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LIST

it's tricky this time. you have to go down to The Contenders and slide that sucker to the right for all 'em. like that new confusing thing on insta stories where the reader slides the thing and something emoji floats away and nothing happens and that's it.

man those are some unimaginative horse names

happy weekend, my babies

it's 1:01 PM local time Friday afternoon here in Cali and THE ROYAL WEDDING IS ABOUT TO START...

I HEAR THEY'RE THROWING A PARADE DOWN OBEC WOODS: SINPOSIUM

now Dirg isn't much of an athlete of course. in fact he can't remember ever running this hard. he's never had a cause worthy of spinning his legs like the Flash.

Dirg: i could have sworn i tripped over a stone step in one of the university's many scenic winding cases spinning over lush backgreens and frozen topiary. but it turns out my legs aren't long enough for that. i am pooped. and naked and alone. and scared. this is not a good situation to be in friendless. it's getting dark. of course it's always dark here under the shimmer canopy. there's never the dawn.

soon a trail of echoes breaks the eerie silence. something is approaching. it must be horrible cos the noise won't stop. it's Laertus.

Laertus: *huffing and shuffling* for the record, not your friend. i just want an audience with the master as well. by the stone well. and i hate when it gets too quiet.

Dirg: i know. i need to be in an environment which is constantly chiming in with beeps and whistles. or i don't feel i'm alive and matter in the grand scheme of things. i have to be one of the buttonpushers.

Laertus: that really took everything out of me. like i'm out of juice for the year. i promised myself when i was in bed this morning staring at the ceiling i wouldn't take any white caffeine pills, i know they're bad for me. i take one and my mind begins to congeal into a blob i don't recognize, my brain turns into a foreign object inside my head. it's staring me down, starting to control me without me and that's scary. but i think i distractedly took a pill while slurping down my morning peas in a rush to get over here. it's become second-nature to me now: pain, head trauma, pill, headache goes away in like three hours.

Dirg: *hypnotically* take the white pill, Laertus. you still won't be white. you have peas for breakfast? oh yeah, we'll get to that later. i feel you, buddy. last Wednesday was pure hell. first of all the construction...

Laertus: really disruptive. doing it in May, too, over finals month. how do they expect us to survive in the real world?

Dirg: i don't go to college here i just attend cons here. i live with my mother.

Laertus: i thought you were a cool class-dodger. so smart you didn't need to attend lectures. i looked up to you. anyway, all that construction noise rumbling the earth and for what? to spoil the natural beauty of Obec Woods? to despoil the fruits of god with the fruits of man? all of this merely for another lane of highway!? a frontage road?! what is the world coming to!

Dirg: you do NOT want to see my frontage. i always will wear a big white T shirt and white shorts. hopefully there's less congestion. but of course you can never get rid of congestion, you only divert it.

Laertus: my stomach is starting to hurt. roiling in a soup of sick. that's the tradeoff. pick your poison. clear eyes but ruined appetite. throw up everything you eat.

Dirg: you would have anyway, it's the college caf. were you exhausted after finishing your work? i know i was. online blogging is hard.

Laertus: they just had to assign TWO episodes of Steven Universe on that one Monday in May. double-duty is hard on the joints. and of course one of the episodes is THE episode answering the question posed at the beginning of the series. i won't give away my identity. so of course after reading all the online reviews and reddit and the Steven Universe wikia, every section has 1000 comments and relinks and backlinks to other comments and animators' twitters and secret tumblrs with more secret answers which lead to more secret questions and comments. by the time i got done with MY own personal review of the episode, it was midnight! on the next day! screwed up my entire schedule for the week. i had to rethink a webcomic series i was planning, even contemplating scrapping the whole thing and taking a month's vacation, that's how insane that last StevenBomb before the hiatus was! rearrange rendered or be rendered restless.

Dirg: and rudderless. yes yes yes to all. i'm still working on my review. having writer's block. i'm not ashamed to admit that to a fellow adult. i stare at the blank page and it gets depressing. so i haven't exactly been over to my site for a while, been days. haven't been around. my page is taking a pause. and it didn't help my sadness---man enough to disclose---that they canceled the JusticeLeagueActionBomb they were planning. i spent all last two weeks writing reviews for those last episodes of the series. 7 SEVEN reviews in all! 14 HOURS OF WORK TOTAL. Cartoon Network really loves to screw with its adult viewers.

Laertus: Justice League Action, the remaining episodes are online. i normally don't do that, i like to give them numbers, i believe in karma, but i had to throw a basket of bombs on my plans.

in Dubai, the android Genie Bouchard is in silk bed with her lovers LeBron James and DeMar DeRozan. she undoes her bun string but her hair remains in a perfect bun shape. inside the cage of the bun lies one strawberry which she plucks and sucks. she plucks the little tiny leaves off the strawberry stem and pushes them hard into under her nailbed. her fingernails turn strawberry, the tips of her fingers glisten in tye-dye acid wash with one bubble, the leaves dance tinily on the head of her pointer-fingernail, leap off in a swan dive, and the invisible carriage cage keeping her hair up in a bun is revealed. it is three swirls of wood atop her crown.

Bouchard: i feel so free. here. i can go see a movie. i know we're all gearing up for the French Open but quite frankly i feel safer here than in Paris. we are up so high here there is no need for drugs. only love.

LeBron: love is drugs.

Bouchard: you are quite wise, LeBron. that's why you're my first boy. in this little threesome. oh threesome is such a dirty word, it's a meeting of the minds, a summit where we're all trying to get up. LeBron and DeMar, perfect. DeMar, honey, you must learn from LeBron. you're the kid of this outfit, my second boy, the younger brother, you choke everytime LeBron is around. now while of course choking is good for me, not so good out there on the court. you must learn to be assertive, not let any psychological block impede your progress, milk your mission, sever your success. if someone's got a whammy on you, you will get no whammy from this mammy, this mammy will whammy the whammier. that's how it works in nature: attitude is an aphrodisiac, success smells. there is only one solution. one cure which i've seen work before with my own two eyes you must trust me. DeMar must confront his greatest fear. and fuck him. DeMar DeRozan, you must fuck LeBron James. that's how you get the demons out, you must fuck them out yoself by fucking the demon himself. it's the only way. come on, DeMar, get on top of Lebron for once. now see? doesn't that feel good and new? on that top tip of the totem pole. start bouncing.

DeMar meekly follows orders without saying a word. he's always been good at that.

Bouchard rolls her back up back inside herself and removes her bedsheets with a whip and crack up into the air in a flying flash. and she is present in all her glory, in nothing but her smile.

Bouchard: now you two gentlemen continue to problemsolve while i catch some last-minute tv *click*

she sees Charles Barkley smiling in the Warriors' locker room. he doesn't reveal a whiff of his customary anger on his visage. he is not invited to the Golden State celebration room after the Finals. he politely knocks on the door. no answer. he politely bangs on the door. no response despite his brandishing his TNT badge. he breaks down the door in the quietest way possible. he casually walks up to Draymond Green who's barking into his lime-green towel and before Draymond has a comeback on his lips he's staring down the barrel of a mustached mouth. Chuck, leaving his mouth closed and smirking widely, looks into Dray's eyes and suckerpunches squarely Dray's mouth, in the soft area above the jaw. no bones broken, just a message sent.

Bouchard: *hand over mouth* oh my, now see this is hot to me. i know it's a bit gauche but would you fellas mind a foursome? the question is if I can take a foursome. i'm not one for stretching. would you mind, Charles? Charles my galloping knight swooping in.

Charles: it was an open fist. NBD. i like his mother. i'm not part of any goon squad. not goonin' it up. those days are over, in the NBA we're all playful. just took'n his heart that's all. well.....................okay. it's been awhile. i've only ever had pad women.

Bouchard: your actions speak to me more than your words which i can't understand. yes. yes? oh good. goodie that you're coming. joining in with us fun. our tribe. speaking of sock............oh my, i was so invested in this scene i didn't notice all the boys on the team in the lockerroom had their naked butts turned to me the whole time. my team boys. you have the key, Chuck? the riddle key? nevermind i'll buzz you in, shouldn't be too difficult to buzz over that bald head of yours. that's sexy, not the bald head.

Charles joins the three in bed...

...but not before coming over with a few goodies. Chuck takes the John Brown's Boat over the living water packing living food. and a mapleboard to suck and cut. real cedar one. and bean dip as lube of course. he's not one to grumblebrag but it takes awhile to detour through the City of Broad Shoulders, watch for the shark relief in that lake, in stark relief fuck a Siberian mouse for practice, and land at King's Landing for the private jet. which has since been renamed Queen's Landing after Genie rose to #1.

...LeBron and Charles are old friends by way of Jordan so that's not uncomfortable. even when they move the bed to Jordan.

LeBron, influenced by all around him, makes a last-second buzzerbeater shot right through Genie's hoop.

Bouchard: HE SHOOTS! HE SCORES! HE HITS! taking notes, DeRozan? swish, no basket! now that would have conceived a baby in me, my biological clock was ticking if i had remained human, i was running out of vulva. as it is, i'm all space and holes and made of tin, i was a one-shot deal, i'm a specimen. so it remains just another legendary fuck from the King. i am not royalty, i am not sad over this, i am crying real tears. i will never have wedding eyes. anyway, hey i'm the perfect underground sports mistress aye? all of us living in our various leagues are perfect for each other!

the boys reach Alan Bored's abode. planted on a stretch of country land out of a scene from The Halloween Tree. it's as you'd imagine. located in the backest of backwoods for this forward-thinking progressive writer, at least when it comes to linework.

the house is made of tin hinges and is the hauntiest of haunted mansions. it's The Haunted Mansion if Ub Iwerks had penciled the blueprint plans.

the duo reaches the steps of the brown porch and ascend into the long neverending corridor which never collapses beyond into a point. there's just enough light to see the jaws of the portraits of oil hung on either side. in the center sleeps an old gold screen from a Roman Catholic confessional, latticed and fluted and capped atop its spikes with fleurs-de-lis of brass. a voice sounds from behind the barrier.

voice: HALT! who goes there?! venture no further into this mouth of hell. the pont is closed. i'm watching you. didn't you see the sign outside? nevermind the dog watch the owner. tho i don't have a dog.

Laertus: it's him. has to be. who else would be so weird as an acclaimed author? *demonstrably raising his finger up then down* sir, you have abandoned your sacred duty. why have you exited? why did you forsake your audience? why did you exodus Exodus College? that is egregious and elitist, at least be egalitarian when you walk out cool and detached. you didn't do that to Harvard Pudding Club. you have this day committed a sin. there was a sin committed on the floors of the symposium! for shame, your symposium of sin!

voice: i can't take you con freaks anymore. you literally gave me a heart attack. my doctors say i'm otherwise perfectly healthy in body and brain for my age.

Laertus: it's him. has to be. i recognize that voice anywhere. actually i don't. the thing is, you hardly talk for youtube vids nobody knows what you sound like. i didn't realize you were British till today!

but the voice isn't British. it doesn't have a British accent. it is the voice of Robert Mueller.

TMIT: THE SHIVERING TRUTH

we simply must talk about what went down last night. it blew each of our minds and our minds collectively, and our relationship will never be the same again...

1. who was your favorite cartoon character as a child? i've often described myself as a fully-grown adult man who never stopped watching cartoons, that's pretty much my milieu. so let's basically get down to it:

first there was the one i recognized because this cartoon you knew from the start the basics. it's all the ingredients near and dear to my heart: animation, medieval times, and weird sex. as i trudge along the plot, there is no plot, it's meant to be a display of how disjointed various elements and character designs exploding out of the heads of other character designs are showcased with wow factor. like the one boss with the one body with the two heads of the king and queen (i hope they're not related but you could never tell in those times) wanting to have another kid in the tower bed. and the procession of two purple ogre giants with minons of some race coming out of their...you get it. lava lakes and minotaur brothels and our hero quester with the ragdoll body made of construction paper yet the photorealistic head whose mouth moved as if a live real human head, which was jarring and filmic and uncomfortable all at once. you finish it, so to speak well it ends, and you can only surmise that this is what actually happens when you take drugs right before writing. like i know that's the vogue rumor and lifestyle amongst all writers for television, but this is the test case.

then the one about Santa Cruz. as a Cali native, i got this immediately but it may not be for all tastes. you basically need to have had the main character in your real childhood for this to have any value. i instantly recognized him: the surfer bro with the golden locks of mop and that distinctive green hat surfers wear with the front flap flapped the fuck out leaning back so you can write messages on that open wing, all tanned except for the circles around the eyeholes from his deep-sea goggling, speaking Spanish as if fluent but just stuff like "amigo" and "gracias" and "no bueno" and "mondo" and "burrito", and the bleeding-heart liberal politics of one-man one-ocean one-love which i especially bleed for, bleeding right into that blue ocean. (i like turtles.) offended that the city council does not share his sensibilities of dudes and dudettes and the only way of the waves. speaking of burrito, the story revolves around the famed ghost burrito food truck which doesn't exist except parked in the character's heart. the one which serves the burrito which will unite us all. and his sidekick has a knuckle sandwich for a head which fits in nicely with the food theme, and his gnarly girlfriend either IS a mermaid with glasses or wears a mermaid tail and can still somehow walk the street, which is rad and righteous.

next up is, well you know how in art you're not supposed to let the audience see your seams, acting flawlessly so the crowd can't see where your character ends and you begin? this piece of art makes sure you're pounded on the head with subliminal messages. yes, like literally there are written messages which appear in balloonless balloons right on the screen in the corners, for one second, quick or you'll miss it. also messages within balloons. i normally have a rule that i watch something new through once without pausing and that's it, but this might be the one exception where i actually have to use my DVR for some function. about a saccharine sweet children's cartoon show and the hidden sick underbelly of its performers. most are jaded and nihilistic save for one who just wants to do right by his family. he has an RIP on his forehead so i guess he's already dead so that's why he's freer than the rest. his wife is a milk carton---missing kid? i don't know---who the cartoon i guess is trying to make out to be an attractive milk carton that us kidults would want to fuck? (at least to draw deviantly, the mind starts to wander around the corner edge lip of her triangle opening carton mouth). the head of the company is an apple who's already been eaten, he's an apple core with his bitter bitten white showing which i thought was a clever design, hadn't seen something quite like that before. i won't give away the ending, cos i don't think i remember it i was so distracted with all the pop-up ads.

finally we reach the conclusion and the masterpiece: The Shivering Truth. watch this now, it has Cera and the kid who's fat sometimes and skinny the next. Jonah Hill. i thought those two weren't friends anymore. penned by someone i greatly admire, someone who really stretches the limits of what's kosher on tv, really gets to the dark places of our minds, where we know what the truth it but we don't want to expose it in front of our kids. until now, kids should know the ephemeral vicissitudes of existence, too, never too early, before they experience it for themselves as well. the guy who created Wonder Showzen and the show which made me reassess hollers as metaphors for country-club hell. Shivering is inhabited by demonic puppets moving as if on strings but stringless, with demented painted-on faces, exploring a rich backwater world of a dirty city that grew too much urban and urbane and not enough natural and nature. a suicide-hotline operator who is blasé and callous, this is the one job in life which calls on sincerity, which must still be there inside you somewhere. a tale as old as time, and of woe. narrated solemnly by a grandfather with a baritone, watching events unfold omnisciently overhead from the invisible sky. we follow an old man who's trying to get to the truth after all. he travels to a Bali beach out of scenes from the Silence of the Lambs ending, in an attempt to get in accordance with nature again, to blend with the butterflies who can cause hurricanes with a flap of their tiny wings. falls in love of course with the taco girl who serves him this lonely solitary traveler foreigner. i won't give away the ending, but it has to do with sex, with the way we communicate about sex, it always does doesn't it? is there true love out there, or is the universe beautiful in its chaos? you will watch this and you will live this and it will stick to the hairy freckles of your forearms like the haunting shedded skin of recent chickenpox. please let this be the pilot that's picked up, adult swim. written by one of my heroes, Vernon Chatman, have a chat with Vernon sometime by watching his shows and be quite disturbed and illuminated. and the credits roll down, not up, like rivers of mucus shot out of the nostrils of the shriveled nose pictured above.

2. what makes you cry? the last most-recent episode of SNL. all the Mother's Day stuff. first time i've ever cried over an SNL. tears of sadness anyway.

3. what similarity between you and your SO do you love? we both love two things and two things only: pizza and sex.

4. what characteristic do you admire in others that you feel you are lacking? i wish i had more confidence. and energy. and positivity. but after watching The Shivering Truth i'm drained. also the program ended at 1AM so i'm generally just tired from being up late...

5. if you could eliminate one thing from your daily schedule what would it be? all the Instagram updates. man there are a lot of bugs on insta. except that anti-bullying update that was cool. i'm not sure it's working i don't see any comments on my posts...

bonus: you could trade places with one person for a day, who would it be? Picasso. the young Picasso who doesn't dodge fighting the Spanish Civil War and saves his friend from suicide and doesn't paint Guernica and forgoes the entire Blue Period...

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HOVER HAND

pictured above: me. when i was young dumb stupid free and wild. okay it was last week after the latest SNL wrap party. that last show was the Infinity War of cold opens, so was the afterparty. i'm usually quite skinny, that's really bad lighting there at Fedco. i wish Scarjo and Colin all happiness and i feel honored to be their Mama of Honor for the Royal Wedding. my invitation got lost in the mail but it all will be catalogued online long after. we all die in the end it doesn't matter. yeah this must have been taken right after they told us over the malfunctioning breaking-up in-and-out creaky loudspeakers that there had been an outbreak and this wasn't a movie. i quickly donned my hazard suit, well just the stylish coat. my eyes were starting to water from the burning sensation in the air but i kept my smile cos it was Ash Wednesday and i'd knew i'd be protected if i had ashes on my forehead. those were the religious ashes not the hazard ashes. and this year Ash fell on Valentine's Day and it wasn't a made-up fake Pokemon holiday, this was real. the love i shared with this cardboard was proof.

N O T E S : (notes:)

* dirty hand of fate: eat this.
mom in Warhol lime elevator donning a raincoat tho it's not raining outside: i need a kick.
dirty hand of fate: i would but................i have an uncle in upstate rural New York who's a floating leg...
mom: i mean i need a 5-Hour Energy.
director: come on, mom! security. kick her off the set.

* emojis: we're tired of making faces for you humans. pick a better way to communicate before it's too late.

* date night
girl: what are all these red pills advertised in attractive packaging like an ice cream cone? i've heard about you peddlers. i belong to the Truth Squad. finish it at The Truth Dot Com.
man: they're berries, man, berries. they're not fruit-flavored, they're fruit. as you can tell from my red hoodie i'm an adult Elliott. i've had a checkered dating history. i wasted my childhood pining for my ex. E.T. STILL hasn't come home to me!
girl: sounds like you need to relax, bub. try this vape. it's bubblegum-flavored. tastes like unicorn.
man: i like your long heavy-material skirt, very Mister Rogers.
girl: that was the look i was going for.

* namasteable: urbandictionary definition is.............a euphemism for sex come on!

ive noticed a lot of art on insta and commercials lately have this thing where the subject is pictured twice in the photo. is this a new trend? is it spiritual in some fashion? or demonic? either way it's not naughty enough to be illuminati. remember, the second you will always be more interesting than the first.

* old hag: why are you handing me a biscuit of dog treat with gravy? what are you implying about me?
dirty hand of fate: i can't talk.
old hag: why the fuck am I in the sidecar? it's 2018! we live in a post-Wonder Woman world. i'm the one who fixed this bike! i was the inspiration for Winry! that's my wrench on the logo!
man in driver's seat: sorry, ma. does my scarf fluttering in the wind make me look like the Red Baron? well White Baron?
ma: makes you look like crushed angel's wings when i get through with you.
son: told you, ma, it takes awhile to wean off the drugs, it's a slow and incremental process like the 76ers. red means go, right?

* short wrestler: why are we fighting over a girl?
long wrestler: it's a female dog, too. she's really into fashion was at the Met Gala dressed as Kidess Icarus. there's something subliminal going on around here.
short wrestler: i wanted to go into pro wrestling. there's no money in college actual wrestling. pro wrestling is the wrestling for nerds.
long wrestler: i checked my Star Wars poster again. i knew it! Luke's lightsaber is his penis!

* mom kicking her feet up on one sectional of the couch: yes i'll marry you.
dirty hand of fate: will you marry me? oh. i see you have two sets of rainboots, one tiny set of boots. tho it's not raining.
mom: that's our kid's. the one we already have i mean gonna have.
hand: i love what you've done with the place.
mom: it was painted red on the inside instead of the outside.
hand: what are you reading?
mom: a big red book.
hand: which you've no doubt already read. cos you're smart.........the joke only works if you read it.

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happy mother's day, my babies. love your mama extra sunday. love your mama's mama. and your baby's mama. and your single sidepiece, join her for brunch just cos. the world is meant for love!

I HEAR THEY'RE THROWING A PARADE DOWN OBEC WOODS: THE GOD

Dirg is from Obec Woods. Obec Woods is a huge sprawling metropolis of trees in the deep suburb of Carmel. it used to be called Carmel Valley but the valley overtook the city until there was no sign of life other than humanless nature. when i say metropolis, consider there are 100 trees to every car parked along a log. in fact there are no cars, just trees everywhere obstructing views and urban beliefs and making it hard not to stop and take awe of the palatial palace of palms.

Dirg is the biggest nerd in the universe. he's the second to tell you so after his internet page of his homemade webcomic. he wears it on his sleeve along with his big bleeding conservative heart. no PC words for this description, he's not a geek, he's a Cartoon-Network-loving virgin who built his own basement out of the clouds in his head. often you will find him at various cons and video-game-store openings dressed as little as possible. he secretly loves being naked in public and takes cosplaying as his one societal excuse to wear just shorts barefoot and be a karate master from a nostalgic forgotten '80s cartridge.

his body doesn't warrant being out in the open like this, he has never worked out, his chest muscles are his nipples, his hair is unkempt and uncombed and full of sand since birth and still in a moptop, the same moptop he came out of as a baby.

Dirg: but, stupid narrator god voice from above which doesn't exist, this is my only chance to be a hero. in real life society has beaten me to a pulp where i'm afraid to show my screenname in public. it's an out-of-body experience when i'm nude in public, i tend to get through it by pretending to be my avatar.

Laertus: who are you talking to?

Dirg: oh shush you, you're always dressed to the nines in your ninja gear all covered up with bandages can't see your face over that sash around the bunion on your nose. you know we geeks are all crazy in the head. that's why we don't function and are dateless and take it out on the world with our fanfictions and youtube comment-section diatribes which are so long and ranty that it requires two TWO of those buttons you push to expand the angry letter you just penned in type. and are recruited to incel.

Laertus: i worked for Intel for a month before they had to do a background check by law and found my name attached to a terrorist group. i had nothing to do with this, it was an honest mistake, but that was the greatest misprint of all time. which is strange cos i'm not a Gary. that's just the point, it's your avatar with all the courage, not you.

Dirg: you'll be hearing a lot about me in the coming years...

Laertus: if you last that long. you have a lot of strange obsessions which you can't let go of which will spell your early death. hanging onto things is a recipe for a young person getting a heart attack. up-to-the-minute minutiae and irrevelance cast as importance but really iodine for the wound of worthlessness. and when you perish precariously, i shall take the stage. and the audience will get to know me better. not as the understudy, as the overstudied.

President Bump: what's with all the orange sanddunes? where are we?

Kim: we're in my home town, in South Korea. i changed the time zones so it's always lunch! my foot is in the middle of the line, like your golden spike. we're at your Nobel Prize ceremony. they held it here as not per usual cos you're here.

Bump: oh yeah forgot, i'm distracted a lot. that wasn't me btw, the sex harassment thing. it's those Hollywood artists who think they have free reign, they're creative about it i admire them for that. so lemme pick your brain in that large square head of yours. how did you suddenly come to the realization that the Korean War should end. why now? why me?

Kim: coupla things. first i wanted to get out of this black dress-shirt bodysuit thing i wear. it always looks like i'm continuously going to dinner. my shirt is so long it's a robe.

Bump: you look like a man. from the changing room of a Men's Wearhouse.

Kim: second i heard you have access to Stormy Daniels. that's like the ultimate American white woman. i want to fuck her. can you make that happen? i'll make the war go away.

Bump drops dynamite all over the unified Korean Peninsula, sinking it to the bottom of the ocean.

Kim, hopping on one of his flying missiles in time and floating precariously in the clouds: not cool, man.

Bump, floating in open water: oh yeah forgot, i pushed the button accidentally. trying to set up a second strawman twitter account. for purchases. hey, you started it. the button was on time-delay, the time zones screwed it up. this is appropriate, right? Nobel invented dynamite. this is a celebration!

Kim: for presidents like us, yes. despite everything, you did free those slaves.

Bump: see? it's not all so bad. it wasn't a total destruction of the New World Order, more a totaling and tower-building. i did some good things. the economy i made, the war i inherited. i'm not looking for an award...actually i am cos i want to go to the ceremony and have Kanye interrupt me. look at it this way: everything i did, EVERYTHING, was to avoid having Melania see anything, to spare her feelings, isn't that romantic?

Tom Brady approaches Stormy Daniels in the parking lot buried in the back as she's strapping her baby in.

Brady: would be a shame if anything happened to her.

Stormy Daniels: *puzzled doubletake* Tom Brady? what do you mean?

she frights at his hand pulling in his red pocket. she shields herself and her child with a baggie of Granny apple slices.

Brady: protection.

he pulls out a roll of his baby photos. pictures of his kids, not him.

Brady: they grow up so fast. cherish them while they're still young and tiny-doll and prim princess and don't talk back.

Stormy: *flushed face, winking, guard let down again* oh, mine's a biter like her mamma.

suddenly a grey sedan bumrushes into the parking lot taking out the Jersey barrier and the stone statue by the bank and gym known as Monty Pylon, crashing into Stormy's minivan. everyone is shaken but uninjured, at least physically.

Mike Pence in black cap and dark sunglasses: *flustered* shit. shallup Mike. i always jump the gun. pull the trigger too fast. i gotta learn to be patient. i screwed up the plan.

Brady: *on the phone* not cool, Mickey. this will make me seem like i'm associated with you again when i never was. get Bill to do your dirty work.

Bump: i can never understand what he's saying. you're the boxoffice. hey man, how are you? tough loss. has Pence planted the red MAGA hat in your locker yet after the big game? i autographed it personally or maybe Jared did. i mean whoops how's your wife? i like your wife. whoopee. it's weird, where did all those red caps go after the election? an environmentally-sound landfill?

Rudy Giuliani waddling up a long skinny paper cigar: they're at the Red Sox game. on the baseball players' heads squawk

Bump: i'm Batman. you're The Penguin.

the two nerds bumble over the long winding stone staircase guarded by an ivory winged beast. an exodus is spilling out from the mouth of the university's mining gate, which is a gigantic drillbit from a mecha robot. a throng of Japanese businessmen with flashing cameras leave as a boat of lime-green-haired influencers crash in.

Dirg: is that an angel or a gargoyle?

Laertus: same thing. there he is!

in the dingy auditorium lecture hall, in all his glory, stands the author, the creator, the man himself, dressed like a garbage-man who's homeless, in drab olivegreen overcoat and hair so wildly out-of-place it's lace and from an uncombed socket you'd think he was pretending to be an avatar of the galloping prince paradigm swooping in to save the day from the world.

Laertus: *raining raising hands* Alan Bored! do you speak? Donald Glover is the most versatile talented man of our generation.

Alan Bored: too violent for my spilled blood.

Dirg: come on! your cartoons are meant to be as bloody bloody as possible, that's what art is supposed to be, a safe space for our most illegal impulses and terrible tendencies. don't try to pretend you're a saint of the British Order, let it all out. we live in an MSG MAGA world now, give in to your sins. for the record, when it comes to my darkest desires, i still draw my female heroines with the biggest boobs possible and will continue in the loving tradition.

Laertus: what are you doing? what are you saying?

Dirg: you have to be tough online, you can't be another Dem, you have to be edgy and alt-right and whatever the vogue is now, you have to go against the grain, the flow. call for people's heads and foster immorality. tell it like it REALLY is. bait and cut down in the name of freedom. that's the only way to pile up followers and youtube likes.

Laertus: bullwash. sir, your comics are misogynistic and derivative, and dare i say plagiaristic. your so-called heroine is copied chapter and verse from Nimona. chapter and curse.

Bored: i was doing my take on it. the tough-guy take on it. they're not comics i do, they're graphic novelas. and they're more of a diegesis than outright art.

Laertus: die! it's so blatant. if it was on page 85 and there was an inking mistake i'd call myself out for pedantry. but it's on the cover! she has the same sword that looks a little too hairy for my tastes.

Bored's throat begins to clamp up, it closes and he can't swallow.

Bored: *breathing heavily inside his trembling mind* oh god. are you one of those otakus who will never be satisfied unless every continuity error is addressed? my tonsils are tensing up dry. art is not meant to be continuous. i gotta get out of here. i was supposed to join the Monty Python panel, what's left of it, and audition for the new Monty Python on the CW in front of everyone at this thing. is that running late? can't take it no more i gotta get out of here, the fluted walls are closing in on me. my socks are getting tight. i can't taste a thing anymore, not even the air.

Laertus: how's my mindtrick ninja nimono taste on your buds, bud? Noelle Stevenson is in a committed relationship with fellow inker Molly Ostertag. does that threaten you? does that threaten your old world order? why won't you answer my several questions?

Dirg: *pointing up* for the record, i look at lesbian roommate situations online. WeLiveTogether.

Bored: was an answerable question ever thrown in there? i can't...

Bored bolts out the locked cafeteria-style pushbar folding-in doors and runs away in a frantic panic. he says goodbye in his mind. he falls down the gray steps leaving a trail of trimmed twig in his wake.

Dirg makes sure to follow him out first.

TMIT: EYEFUL

1. what makes you, you? for the last 30 years i haven't moved from the bed in my room. send noodles. and some DVDs. look, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper is aight but now when i watch it i see something i didn't notice before: it's basically a Cosby clone.

2. do you care more about doing the right thing or doing things right? it's the same thing. unless you're doing the wrong things right, in which case they're the right things. it's like pizza. i love pizza. but if you put anchovies on them the pizza's ruined. in truth i say i hate anchovies but I've never tried them, scared to. people rave on to me about how yummy they are but all i see is an image of their peeping glassy eyes staring at me from the lining of my stomach which they are currently chewing. and so i pick off each one and send my anchovies to Kramer. am i a bad person for doing this? this was Kramer before he was Kramer, when he was on UHF and still the lovable kind of clown. i wonder what Kramer's doing right this moment? i have an image of him trudging up a hillside with 37 pieces of fuzzy flyfish flair attached to the rim of his beige bucket fisherman's hat. he sends out his line and waits the rest of the day. no bait. Kramer fishes alone. for anchovies.

3. what is sexual freedom? do you have it? it's being allowed to fuck in however fashion you choose. even in a tree. this is vital to the continuance of the species. the only true freedom is death. and the only true sexual feedom is the little death.

4. in your romantic relationships, is trust more important than love? oh yes. there is no love without trust. notice how Mulder could only love Scully. he couldn't even love his own mother after awhile. cos he thought she was an alien. although i do have a confession to make here. for the first time. i did love a bank teller who was in charge of my family fortune. didn't check first, i could have used that computer on her desk. she emptied my bank account and my heart. that transition from trust-fund kid to blogger is a sad stark one.

5. your life, is it more of a dream or a nightmare? Rebecca Sugar says cartoons are a dream. when you create and make and write and draw and animate a cartoon, and others watch it, it's like the others and you are sharing in a dream. so for me right now it's a nightmare cos i haven't convinced adult swim to air my cartoon. until that happens i'm in a nightmare over a dream.

bonus: what is the last romantic thing you did for someone? drew them a cartoon. Rebecca Sugar says this shared-dream concept of an animated show is the most romantic thing in existence in the universe. i tend to agree. but it's hard work, too. i drew adult swim a cartoon on a napkin but they said i needed a portfolio...

the meaning of life is Rebecca Sugar. Rebecca Sugar Cookies in the Sand

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