creature: are you still laughing?
Laertus: when i'm sad is when i try to laugh the hardest. helps to clear the phlegm.
creature: that's good. my name is Llywarch btw.
Laertus: o what a grandiose appellation worthy of your delightful designation! i will dream this name late at night when i see it cloudily attached to your frame and friendliness. you are the beast of my burden. the apex of appearance! what i'm trying to say unsuccessfully as i walk over my own vocab words is i like you.
Rosie O'Donnell: i like you. that's why we had heated-fucking arguments all the time. it wasn't for the cameras, it wasn't the camera-lights, i was preparing us for heated sex. i'm not related to Chris O'Donnell. i'm the bad Rosie according to the State, it's on my provisional driver's license.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck: there's no crying in baseball. i don't play baseball. i play softball like a good lady who curtsies at home plate. do you know what Fox would do if they found out? there's crying in sex, that's how you know you're doing it right. i am a straight woman from the heartland, i genuinely bought season tickets to the WNBA and women's soccer cos my daughter said she was interested. in the sports, not the ladies. i hardly spend any time together with her anymore ever since you retired, Rosie.
Llywarch: *smile-laughs* thing is, it's a brand new name. at least here in my Medieval times. hasn't had a chance to yet catch on and be memorialized in epic poetry, legended in a Sorkin screenplay. it's like the Rachel Cut of names, it's still hip new and trendy. thank you, my friend, and i you. even though i know i am not your first, or your first beloved.
Laertus: what? oh you mean him? no, we're not...hey how do you know about him? i haven't introduced you...hey where'd he go!?
Llywarch: oh Dirg's been around. the block. and video block believe you me. the thorn in my side. we've encountered, mostly unpleasant stuff whereby we don't fight in the traditional taking-turns sense but he ends up asking me a series of searing and deeply personal questions about my cud-chewing habits.
Laertus looks down to see a large brown bandage along the ulnar of his wrist and he doesn't know how that got there.
Llywarch: huh. was probably my hen. sorry, she's very protective of me, i have a glass heart. literally. she's around here somewhere. usually hides in the bushes as i'm hiding in the bushes, it's a game she plays.
Laertus: ah i see, so that's your wife. you are a married man. upstanding i mean outstanding.
Llywarch: no, my pet hen. i use her for inspiration...that sounds so cold. Instagram has really become an elaborate dating app. but it's a dating app just the same. just with a lot of original weird basement art.
Laertus: right. but you know, couples have discovered each other on Instagram. many have gotten married. which i don't understand cos how can you get married if you've never met the person in real life and pressed the flesh? all free. at least until facebook is regulated by the government next week. a free app. you have to delete and reinstall many times and it's always scary cos you think you'll be deleting your entire seven-years'-worth of work opus by deleting the app. cleaning, yeah right! there it goes, like fluff in the wind. it's essentially free love that works.
Llywarch: raise the peace sign. or in my case, peace hoof. *shakes head and trots tremblingly* my soul soft like this Bud Light mead meadow has been disparaged. i can't take it anymore, where did the love go? you know? why is it that people still trying to find love in this world are called crazy. it's the crazy ones who actually live this life, they should be called the normal ones. look over there, the People's Park of Berkeley, on my side, where Andrew Martinez came over the threshold when he bag-died.
Laertus: suicide?
Llywarch: it's too painful and guttural and sphincter-shut for my tongue to even try to mouth to utter that word. The Naked Guy he was called, respectfully. our park is clean, i maintain and make sure that, yours is dirty and full of trash. ours is full of bushes, yours was full of shrubs on trees and bus tracks in the mud. all the inspirational signs of everyone having a listen have been torn off by the alt-right and jokesters hucking and chaos agents and those who don't want to see anyone happy and believe in nothing and clothing. where are the dreamers nowadays? the ones who bend the needle and find along the dial a new undiscovered radio station that plays Foghat AND Galaxie 500. Andy was trying to make a statement, he was seeking love in a world of hate and was hated for it. of course he didn't fit in. why is it that only the mentally-ill can do something inspirational at the cost of their freedom? everyone else is too scared to love, hate is cooler, more acceptable. i am heartwarmed to know we might have touched the same plastic over the same LP records at Amoeba Music when i crossed over one time for a lecture---nobody there gave me a second look---browsing through the racks of tracks. of course neither of us were science majors, we were both too fanciful. he was trying to bring back the era of free love, of hippie farms, not letting the dream pass by. the dream of imagination and caring and the revocation of lines. i mean you look at the Wikipedia page for the People's Park now and it's just some 12-year-olds trying to make a name for themselves in whatever incel community they find themselves in---they wouldn't know love if it hit them in the ass---i have to deal with those types daily since my birth---trying to score hate points instead of really trying to understand this sacred magic history. of peace and love.
Laertus: hippie is not a four-letter-word. i learned how to skate, well i got into skateboard culture, cos of old A Martinez. his thoughts floated up in the sky, for real. like literally. don't cry, Llywarch, i hate it when you cry, even though your tears are literally pure-gold dust liquid yogurt. don't worry, i'll come back soon, i shall return, i just got to get to class for awhile or my roommate yells ironically at me for not paying the rent.
the two hug, imagine a centaur half-man and full man hugging in a clearing for a long time.
next to the People's Park is a touristy pool of green grass where sits a homey hovel of a motel with a quaint storyteller-with-lute thatch hut and wooden sign on top that flows in the breeze, gilding its glidepathing canton with the painting of an old boot. it's the Put the Boot Inn. surrounded on the east by a sleep hollow and the west with a copper garden. this is where our crones have put up their dogs for the night.
Doryce: oww, my toes are barking! got any salt?
Gladyce: you always provide the salt, dear. sure, but you have to butter-churn the salt yourself. is this tub big enough for your feet?
Doryce: very funny. that's a small tub, i really do think that's meant for the both of us to bathe in, not making a comment though you are heavier than me. like this is true vintage actual medieval-sized tubs the masses and wenchfolk used.
Gladyce: who says it's vintage? tonight, dear, pay special attention to how i prepare supper. how i make the spaghetti sauce.
later that night Gladyce pours the spaghetti sauce in the glass bottle into the tub, sticks her broomhandle into the pot, and gently heats it under a fire sparked by two churchmice rubbing matches together with their feet and tail. she stirs the sauce ever so fragilely using her finger transformed into a wooden spoon.
Gladyce: see, dear? this is love. i'm actually making the sauce. making it sizzle and adding myself to it. i'm adding the chives and lettuce and my green spit to it. just how you want it, the exact temperature and consistency. it's like i chopped the tomatoes myself. i'm not just pouring the sauce into a microwaveable mug and nuking it in the microwave. this is to show i am in love with you always.
Doryce: *kisses Gladyce on the spoon* thank you, honey, i love you too. i get it. though that was my favorite coffee mug. it's weird to put spaghetti sauce in a coffee mug. the mug is stoneware, i got it at Mattress Warehouse, and it reads as follows:
John Oliver, the 16th-century John Oliver, says witches were used as a euphemism for bitches in polite society. anyway, you're Number 1 Bitch i mean Witch.
Gladyce: come to me when it's real medieval stone.
Dirg arrives home with ashes on his forehead.
Laertus: that already happened. you only do this one time, Ash Wednesday.
Dirg: i missed Wednesday watching Empire. so imma put blackface on my forehead from now on, every day, cos my religion is sacred to me. i missed out all those days as a youth with my stupid father being the worst kind of Christian, a Christian atheist.
Laertus: oh brother. i'm rolling my eyes but you can't see it under my cakes of guyliner. you suddenly got religion? the way the President did? it's clearly evident in your actions your whole life. okay, gander and all, watch this, watch me reenter the room chorus-style.
Laertus returns into the fireplace room wearing an ash mark on his forehead that's the hashtag symbol.
Laertus: a hashtag symbol of ash, a black octothorpe. for the millennial generation. the Church is losing young people and followers.
Dirg: didn't we already do this? black symbol of the satanic Kraken?
Laertus: hey, your own Pope Herself was wearing this pound-number-sign hashtag-ash on her forehead. she was trying to shimmer her way out of the greeters-line, holding back her ring when each tried to kiss it.
Dirg: getting a pounding. layup line. yeah, i saw that on tv. she was wearing some nice see-through white heels underneath her robe-dress.
The Pope: please don't kiss my ring, folks! i'm very sensitive to that. it's a sensitive area, i wear the ring as a vag ring.
Eye Luggage: Hot Streets ended. probably. unfairly reviewed on sites. review-bombed like Captain Marvel.
Laertus: i was scared to look at the reviews for the latest Simpsons episode which took on the MRA. even tho i knew the writer was a feminist-femme legend who would take the time to craft the script to make it accessible to all and still-funny and keeping-in-tradition traditionalist and informative and good, but there would be those out there who would trash it anyway. and yet, despite my concerns, i still had to read the reviews. regretted it.
Dirg: Captain Marvel? what's that? let me get out my phone ipad and just check the scores. yep, made the Wiki edit and we're golden to go.
Eye: i was worried about where they were going with Soo Park. then they brought her back so i was less worried and breathed a queef of relief. that a creepy kids airplane wasn't in charge. but then i cringed so hard again when they went with the old tired trope of "woman crazy". le sigh, i guess i'll just have to be comforted tonight by my hammer honey and some soft-core falling-pink-blossom Korean soap dramas. and pink bottom.
Dirg: yeah but it turns out it wasn't a conspiracy, Plane wasn't a spy. that's not the usual course, that was some innovative writing.
Laertus: the man killed Soo Park. it was also Cry Night on Toonami. Hunter x Hunter, Boruto, and Megalo Box. should i just go and you listen?
Dirg: as long as it's not s-CRY-ed Night, worst anime of all time. i don't watch anime anymore ever since you started to like it.
Laertus: obsess over it you mean.
Laertus: as a screenwriter, this is how i would have done the Hunter x Hunter ending: the no-credits intro to the episode was played good. Meruem lain down in that white scene with a tearful-goodbye-in-her-eyes Komugi by his side holding his illuminati lizard hand. they talk, the dialogue is crisp and learning and alarming. but then the two stop talking for awhile, like a good two minutes. the scene fades to black, the last line of dialogue is The King, who says softy, imploring of Komugi:
are you there?
and she answers firmly sweetly, after another minute for silence:
yes.
that's the end of the episode, title card. no end credits or music, and no damn annoying loud-calliope-music preview for the next back-to-normal happy episode.
Dirg: or a tearful hello. that's impossible to do you know. except for Army family reunions at the airport on tv.
Laertus: and don't get me started on Boruto. actually, do. see, Karin SHOULD have really been Sarada's mother! that held such rich dramatic potential. then the lesson really would have been that Sarada's mother, Sakura---tho despite not being her real biological mother---loved her more than any other person in the universe and THAT's what counts when it comes to a mother. families really do rally and come in all sizes and shapes.
Eye: that was so beautiful. that wasn't a crack at my weight, right? imma call my bio-mom tonight cos of you, thank you.
Laertus: and finally Megalo Box, the ending, oy the ending. you know the endings of things make or break whole things. i liked the concept they were going with, the final match interspersed with flashbacks and flashforwards filling out the story in the corners. there should have been no end card revealing the result, it should have been that the audience REALLY DOES NOT FIND OUT who won the epic final fight. THAT would have driven home the point that it doesn't really matter who won, but that the two pugilists became lifelong friends, from competitors to companions. one in a wheelchair and one becomes a dance instructor. man am i crotch-deep in rewrites tonight.
Dirg: meh. Joe---which was never his real name, what the fuck WAS his real name?---should have just died in the ring, and then the end card comes out and says
NOT DEAD YET
but this time ironically. i mean that's real life, right? a swamprat scorpion dog from the streets can't really make it, he will die trying. but it's still his dream, right?
Coach K knocks hardly on the medieval moat door of the UCF fraternity, which justso happens to also be Nike Headquarters.
Coach K: open up!!!
Tacko Fall: *snickers whilst eating a Snickers* come here cos you had a Fall too? heehee. you're hardly knocking, we can't hear you! hey, Mike, no more taco delivery for you today, that Taco Bell GrubHub free-delivery-to-your-house thing was limited-time-only! *laughs* expired. no more talk about my disappearing candy, you called me Manut Bol's son when you recruited me on that olive-green couch the first time, that's what you get o holy honorable venerable K!
Coach K: *speaking like he has a cookie in his mouth* come on, i want to speak with Nike. this is all because my player blew out his shoe he was never the same, this cost me the Championship, we lost to Michigan State. AGAIN! Tom Izzo mocked me by yelling in my face and passing out Championchip chocolate-chip cookie-sandwiches to my players right there on the court, forcing us to watch them cut down the nets.
Tacko Fall: yeah i know. i got the connections. the connections which will save the world. my deep ancient spiritual African connections.
a player steps out and crosses the frat drawbridge. it's Russell Westbrook, after having finished his chicken pesto lunch at the Red Table and crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it in the waste basket for 4 points.
Coach K: i've got my lawyer here with me, Avenatti.
Mueller: why'd you do it, son? and who's your new master?
Avenatti: sorry, Father, i just got so depressed over your findings. would have really kickstarted my Presidential bid. you were my Lord and i went rogue and Bad Samaritan and prodigal son on you, bowdlerizing with the fair maidens and sowing my royal oats when i had no royal blood. ending up faceplanted on a stack of hay. is it just me and my blue eyes or is the world literally going full-animal crazy right before our eyes? spinning on its axis as it should but, like, way faster than it should. like every turn just reveals more crazy for more people caught up in the net.
Laertus: what i'll never comprehend is how these high-profile people actually think they can get away with it! they actually think that this will be kept secret, kept under wraps, FOREVER. in this ipad age! shaking my damn head.
Avenatti: i did it all for the nookie i mean the NIKE. the frat cookie. i did it all to protect the tournament, to protect the player, to protect Zion, Zion Williamson---must have been named after my favorite '70s prog-rock LP record---is the next sure thing, the next Jordan, well maybe the next Anthony Davis. i'm a college-athletics fan just like the rest of the country is, even college gymnastics.
Mueller: i understand, it was a bust. i was about to kick the football but Barr grabbed it out of my feet at the last minute. like a Barr of soapy soap. spoilers: it's a trillion pages, easily digested in a beach weekend, light reading under a big rainbow umbrella. honestly i got bored with it, like two weeks in. i knew it was nothing but i was too bored to go on vacation. i wanted to tell America, tell them to tamp down expectations, but i didn't talk. i'll be sure to explain all at the Mueller Hearings. but you see this is the existentialism we all must face as humans, i have often been compared to God what with my demeanor and the fact that i would have to be invented if i didn't already exist. the people wanted me to provide them with Everything. but, like God, i am what happens when we die: nothing.
Russell Westbrook enters the arena, gets his motor going and running, which never needs much oil, and storms the court in battle. he scores 100 points in the first quarter but no one notices. everyone, and the camera, is pointing at the loud obnoxious fan heckling Russ.
Russ: hey i'm good and old and old-fashioned and good-natured. what's your beef wit me? i try harder at my job than you ever will at yours.
fan: i hate you cos you're different from me.
Russell shoots the fan with a toy laser gun. and gets immediately arrested by NBA police security guards who were there to shield Russ from the fans.
Russell: i don't get it. why doesn't it work the other way around? why doesn't it work with brothers?
President Bump: nope, never will. that fan was a supporter of mine. the world has changed.
Russell: but we're playing on Fifth Avenue across the bay in the Knicks stadium, it should have worked. don't we have recourse, too?
Bump: no, especially now. this is MY Green New Deal: money. unless you're willing to forfeit your bail bond that comes from the Robin Williams genie. or dress like Michael Jackson like you're still hot stuff and stroll down the halls of a Hearing courtroom. or sell a couple of PUSH hats. see? whether it's MAGA or PUSH, hats are the thing, man! hats are the thing!
Russell: why am i in jail!? i did nothing wrong! it's a laser gun!
Bump: doesn't matter. only when we're In Session at a Hearing are the lasers justified and real and effective and damaging.
at the edge of campus, Madame Pons makes the curve turn and rides her broom into the cement cylinder space where all the cars go by in the drivethru. she parks in midair at the window, slid open by a young girl college student counter clerk with just her bottom-lip painted.
girl: OMG! you're the legend! Donut Sticks on the house! they're just churros anyway.
Madame Pons has been crying which blots her raccoon-eyed Pope eye makeup. she forgot her tissues at home.
Madame Pons: i don't feel very well-connected. no. no thank you. got those Rattlesnake Fries still?
girl: not here. you know they make those with real rattlesnakes, right?
Pons collapses into coughs and cries.
Pons: i'm sorry, it's been an emotional day. i've been trying to reach my sister on the phone. to talk about it. when i think of her i...…
other emotion. i usually don't do this, i've never made a late-night fastfood-run like this before. but i'm starting to have animal cravings. cravings about animals. got the Biggie Bag?
girl: not here. we got a Bucket tho. Bucket O' Rainbow Chicken. comes in a rainbow bucket, also the chicken is rainbow.
Pons cries.
girl: hey it's nothing to be ashamed about. gotta eat. college, now college is something that can never tamp down tears. especially the sex.
Pons: i'm not so sure about that anymore. but i have no other counter, it's not like i have a pet or anything waiting for me at home. the grease hits the spot, temporarily. and the seasonings, which i try not to think about. i'll try my sister again when i get home. even though it's hopeless, she won't be there.
girl: nutritious food. here. drive safe. *waves happy-goodbye*
Pons pushes the button on her phone and hastily madly throws the phone over her shoulder into the back of her car, which is her broom. the phone hangs by a thread stuck to the last straw of the broomhead.
Pons screeches away.
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