GINGER BREAD: STITIUM

at the CNN Debates, Lawrence O'Donnell squeezes his tie and sits silently in the middle between the one who is the comic book fan and the one who is a scourge on black twitter:

Lawrence O'Donnell: Senator Bernie Sanders, are you a socialist?

Bernie is calm.

Bernie: no. i wouldn't be on the Democratic Stage if i were.

Lawrence: you're right, sir. the only socialist in this entire room is ME. i'm unabashedly and proudly so. i became a socialist when i learned about it in college...like every good college student is supposed to!

Bernie raises his arms in a funny quirky way. Don Lemon laughs.

Don: oh man! my belly hurts! that was hilarious! you looked like a Muppet right then, Bernie.

Bernie licks his lips with a twirling tongue.

Bernie: i always look like a muppet, young buck. young buck you should know that muppets have hands up their asses, not strings. you are the puppet, to the billionaires. whatever you were gonna use next as your rap retort, know that i wrote it first.

Don: aren't Ben & Jerry's billionaires? i love their lemon flavor.

blonde with one leg raised to the roof: i'm subtly lacing my questions with the Republican talking points but i swear i don't work for Fox News! i work for Vice. i'm an undercover cop. i didn't go the beauty-queen route, i was a gymnast…

at Dunluce Castle Shane Lowry is still sleeping inside the bare-bones structure frame. he is shivering and frightfully cold, the winds haven't let up once or since. Victoria Bateman hops to his side under moonlight like a faun. tho she is completely naked and spraypainted she feels no cold...

Shane: *rustled* uhnnn, wha happened? am i awake? last thing i remember i was giving a tour...

Victoria: it's called sleeping.

Shane: shit, the Safeway Open in Obec Woods is about to start!

Victoria: give it socks.

Shane: yeah...…...no seriously i'm so cold, got any socks i can put on my feets?

Victoria: look at me. gander at my body. and the message it conveys. dunk your head in pub suds, mate, it's all over, our beloved country is ruined forever. all those years of civilization---being first in civilization---down the drain. worst part is when i walk naked down the cobblestone street next to Buckingham Palace on Halloween, people won't take me and my cause seriously! they'll just think i'm wearring a Halloween costume and fafa me!

Shane: folks and blokes.

Victoria gets in the huddling teepee with Shane and the two watch the first and last episode of Family Ties together, squeezing out that last bit of nostalgia before the blue comet hits.

Victoria: wait, don't you have a wife and kid?

Shane: golfers lose those when they win their first major, it's part of the package deal.

the witches at HomeCountry are busy spreading their new recruits out into the world.

Jill: Victoria is quite the banshee isn't she.

Gladyce and Doryce: she can take care of herself. she's doin' us proud. crones reporting for duty, ma'am.

Jill: Marianne Williamson, now there's a spark! Baba told me all about her. she's got the goods. she speaks the words on that Debate stage from all our best grimoires.

Doryce: thing is, she's just one of us. the difference is she took a chance on love, she took a chance on the presidency.

Gladyce: she's got the guts we don't. and i'm not talking about fox stew.

Marianne Williamson at the podium: my world-people, these are dangerous times. a dark psychic energy has befallen the universe, shrouding its darkness, hiding like a black blanket on our stars. this is a holy war, a celestial war, a war of old religions vs. the new age. only i can fix this, me the fox trickster of light. isn't it time for a woman? isn't it about damn time!? haven't we had enough of centuries-old patriarchal systems of stone, toxic male energy polluting our rivers and streams, the smell of ancient money bricking our Pyramid away? it's time for MY energy, the Mother Earth Energy, the nurturing drive of a Mama Female. who can take better care of our kids than a mother? i have your back, and not just in the bedroom. i will repair, i will sticky-glue back. gorilla-glue it if i have to. i will have a Department of Peace instead of a Department of the Interior, i'll flip 1984 around to turn it into a utopia! my vagina is so big the entire Planet Earth can fit inside it as it heals inside its pulsating fleshy walls of warmth. Globe fits like a glove.

Laertus: she ain't acting. she ain't talking about Shakespeare. i love her. i adore her.

Eye Luggage is crying profusely, bubbling as she gurbles her words.

Eye: *crying and pointing at the screen* that's my bitch...…...that's my bitch…

Dirg: i get it. i get all you crazy socialists. she will win cos she looks like Boy George.

Laertus: Boy George was 40 years ahead of his time...

Eye: yeah, she's definitely Boy George reincarnated. even tho Boy George is still alive. that's how powerful her magic, i feel it with my innate witch sense still burgeoning.

Dirg: look i said i get it. even i'm not stupid enough to turn down fucking Boy George. can you imagine all the magic power and secrets that would unleash in me!? into my cock as milky fluid for serf baths with pink roses? i'd be King George again!!! i could shape America in my own image! that would be the playbook i would need to take down my enemies on the other side once and for all.

at the Tour de France, a millennial wins for the first time. he is adorned on either side by ethnic-looking beauties in yellow dresses. he also wins the Young award and the white jersey but for some reason the beauties flanking him are not in white dresses...

Dirg: yeah i don't like the Tour de France, too beta for me. i mean the winner gets the yellow jersey, the YELLOW jersey? really!!? come on.

Eye: i think it's supposed to signify gold. gold from an age LONG past.

Sheryl Crow: i'm finally sporting a nose ring, you like it? i dunno what it is. my songs are great...my choices in men not so much. i'm inexorably drawn to tragic men. like i know it's not gonna work out emotionally eventually in the end, but i go for it anyway.

Lance Armstrong wears bike shorts for the first time in 20 years.

Lance Armstrong: without me the Tour de France would be NOTHING. it would be CANCELED by now. i mean do you blame me? i'd do it again if it were 1995. first of all, i could finally see Nirvana live. my buddy Floyd Landis would hand me a tape of them to borrow that i'd never return back to him. second of all, i could sell all those time machines on the black market. that wasn't an Oprah joke. remember ESPN2? i MADE that channel, i was the hipster with my hat turned backwards and my skating pants cursing on live tv, drawing in all the millennials at that time. without me, there's no ESPN Ocho. all the kids thought i was SO cool. drugs are fun, kids, and they taste good, too, better than those Flintstones vitamins. they made movies about me, funny movies, with The Rock on a little bicycle that was hilarious and i wasn't weeding in the theatre.

Greg LeMond is crunching on a soft taco from Taco Bell.

Greg: you really fucked me, Lance. no, seriously, EVERYBODY has completely forgotten about me, but i'm the real American hero! all anyone ever remembers me for anymore is the Taco Bell commercial i did. one snot-nosed millennial came up to me in the airport vaping cotton-candy under the No Smoking sign and had the nerve to have me deported cos he thought i was Mexican. i mean, yeah, we ate Taco Bell regularly in the tent surfer trailer of our bike group family anyway---there's not a lot of four-stars on the bike path---but i get pegged wth it for life. that peloton is paid for, company is corporatized.

Lance: hey i didn't start the corruption. the second, the SECOND Tour de France ever in the early 1900s was plagued with scandal, gay lumberjacks cutting down trees and such. if i hadn't been cheating, what would have become of my cancer foundation? this is why i did it, i am a Cancer Warrior. nobody remembers the bike stuff, they just remember grandma got cured and could go to church again. the foundation would have crumbled if i were clean, sober, and an anonymous loser. better ME the drug cheat who won. instead of some French drug cheat in his home country.

at the Red Circle Table, 11-year-old black-boy reporter Jayden is schooling Ari Melber on his own show about the candidates' positions.

Jayden: Sanders could have took a swung swing on Elizabeth Warren the warden, the party would have forgiven him for it. they can't let's dance forever, they gotta go at each other, keep it real, keep it street. *he punches his own hand* gotta brawl. gotta brawl, old bucks.

Ari: wow, kid! you like 11 going on 40. it's like Drake said...

Jayden: bro, when white folk quote rappers, they trying too hard. to be hard.

President Bump: yeah, i feel ya, young buck. i am not an old cuck. i want you to be my special friend. yeah i write rap lyrics, too. i'm working on this thing where i rewrite Aesop's Fables to reflect our current culture of racial division. like the lessons are always white is might is right, that sort of thing, the rabbit actually wins the race and fucks all the snowbunnies.

Jayden: when the sunset falls on your life/ and others write of your lack of strife/ what will you be remembered for, Bump?/ you'll be a prison rat who couldn't buy the Ravens, you chump

Bump: i'm outie, gotta console Moscow Mitch in my private quarters.

Mitch McConnell is huddled by the corner of the room crying dreadfully. the room is a library with no books.

Bump: now now Moscow Mitch. here's a mule. a moscow mule.

Mitch: i hate that name! it hurts my feelings! sir, i can't wear your red hat anymore!

Bump: hey it's okay, buddy, wear this white hat instead. you are an ugly crier, my man, you insert your head into your suit like a turtle, you gotta be more reptile like me.

Bump hands Mitch a MATH hat.

Bump: you wanna be cool like me? someone who hangs with the brothas? you wanna join a gang like me? wanna join the Yang Gang? i'm gonna show you a cave i want you to hide in. here, take my tie...

Mitch: twitter is telling me to join a chain gang to see what it's like...

Bump: the color guard's coming out soon, watch it with me. sung by the bald chick from Mad Max. this is our future. the old man holding the flag was poisoned to death by Flint water.

Laertus: okay, the latest Chantix commercial with the Turkey. i mean this is getting expansive now. and expensive. they have this Turkey in a complete story of his own. he now somehow owns a house, a house right at the beach in a swanky suburb of Los Angeles no doubt where the ad agency is. Surfin' San Diego. he gets up every morning at the crack of his uncle and even though most birds don't like to get their feathers ruffled and wet he apparently is an expert surfer. he gets into his green open-air jeep with the surfboard planted firmly in the open-air back-seat trunk, he drives along the coast to his surf spot, then returns home late.

Dirg: food stamps. definitely food stamps. he can't afford Foo Fighters.

Laertus: i am SO interested in this turkey's sitcom life. what does he do for work? did his grandmother who taught him to surf drown while trying to come to Ellis Island for a better life for her family? cos turkeys can't fly. who are his neighbors? does he eat eggs with his wacky neighbor behind closed blinds at night, does he think that's something okay to do at night? what does he use that blanket for really?

Dirg: damn peaky blinders.

Eye: admit it, you just want a Three's Company reboot.

Dirg: who is he fucking? did he ever fuck a young fowl so hard it defeathered her? that's a party foul. the new Endgame commercial, what a missed mismarketed opportunity! it should have said THIS IS THE BIGGEST MOVIE...OF ALL TIME. without irony, it does have the most money ever.

Eye: which movie will crack the 5-billion mark?

at The Weather Channel, Felicia Combs is still the new guy and is flubbing her lines and her machinery doesn't work quite right yet, but this is all done cutely and she gains another million followers each time she does it.

Felicia: am i doing this right? my electronic pen doesn't work, it doesn't write on the map. Paul, can you stay up late and help me get the ropes here? put my mic right on the right spot on my body?

Goody Paul: Felicia, you just need to smile, darlin', you're doing okay for yourself.

Felicia; is my sash on right? it's so tight it's making my boobs pop up like pineapples. i have more degrees than you.

Goody: that's a lie! don't make me think of a young Judge Judy whenever i see your face! they're just newer degrees! you millennials are more tech-savvy, that's it! i have more knowledge than you cos i struggled through the Crime Bill years. darlin' Felicia, maybe you should start wearing more skirts than the bodysuits you usually wear.

Felicia deliberately drops her electric pen on the studio floor right in front of Paul's face and fills his nose with her ass. Paul can't help it anymore.

Goody: let's convene and reconvene in the MSNBC luncheonette break room, i can't take it anymore! i can't help it!

he unzips his pants ferociously, whips Felicia's bodysuit dress up to her sash, and fucks her ass for two hours, undulating like an unnamed earthquake. up and down and side to side along planes of cosmopolitan, metropolitan, and urban existences in politic shifting from human to Titan until he cums a white rainbow:

Goody: FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK

Dr. Greg pops in at just this time to see the windows completely covered and frosted.

Dr. Greg: i heard everything! what's going on in here?

Goody: *sweating* just showing the new girl the ropes. no fault anywhere, just faultlines. this is what her meteorology screen will look like in the winter.

Dr. Greg: but it's summer!

Goody: *panting* girl your butt is bigger than the entirety of the Planet Earth. i should know, i've studied the entire Planet Earth my whole life and in college. damn girl, when you gotta go you gotta go.

Felicia: my dress is now white.

Goody: you'll stand out like Tulsi Gabbard. shit, what am i gonna tell my boo about this?

Felicia: you mean we're not boos now after that?

Gladyce: honey, want me to cancel the Uniworld Cruise?

Doryce: *heavy sigh* huh, this is really getting depressing. i was gonna sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" on that cruise stage while ziplining upside-down. i need a pick-me-up.

Gladyce: how about the case of yellow sugar wrappers you bought at The Store?

Doryce: it's fake, it's not real sugar, it's some artificial saccharine sweetener cooked up in a lab. it's not real like a spell. all of the packets have a little trite saying on them, like Boys Are Made of Sugar, Too.

Gladyce: huh, i got the only sugar packet in the entire 500-count bunch that has the name of the city where these were manufactured and processed, and the nutrition information. i don't know if that's good or bad luck.

Eye: Ferris Bueller's Day Off, go.

Dirg: you mean the little movie that spawned the greatest tv series of all time, Parker Lewis Can't Lose? i love this movie, cos this was a perfect representation of Reagan Individualism.

Laertus: and Reagan greed. yeah it was weird, the conservative columnists felt they owned this movie somehow, it was their movie. lavish praise heaped for this one and Breakfast Club for their strong drive toward individualism.

Eye: Cameron Frye: his face, i mean his face in conjunction with those piercing blue eyes, i've never seen anything like it, he's like some sort of grown-up hobbit. i've never seen a face like his, it's both intense like a hockey-player yet sweet like a cuddly teddy bear.

Laertus: where are the bloopers? the taxi cab scene when Cameron starts making that face like he's about to spasm, how did Broderick and Mia Sara not jolt out bolt out laughing every take?

Dirg: Alan Ruck directly owes his Mireille Enos to his getting that part from the SOLE decision by one Emilio Estevez to not take the part.

Laertus: i thought you'd say owns. he's said as much, he said he owes Emilio Estevez his life/his career. he'd give him a strong wet kiss on the cheek if he ever confronted Emilio at an airport.

Dirg: oh he's gotta do WAY more than that, Alan Ruck/Emilio Estevez hardcore porn, available at all fine retailers and Borders. this is Bert + Enos stuff we're talking about there. look in a mirror. i'd watch that porn.

Laertus: Matthew Broderick sporting the Ed Grimley hairstyle in the shower, popularizing that look for all prepubescent boys from then on.

Eye: Ferris was totally a closet goth! did you see those posters! and the British flag! British punk scene much?

Dirg: should have been a Confederate flag. to show what he was hiding from his parents. the patriotism was strong in this one. the more leaning toward fascism than dirty communism.

Laertus: John Hughes was obsessed with John Lennon. guess it was a John thing. John Lennon was like the King of Individualism to him. and walrus-tamer.

Dirg: but not obsessed like that. us fat guys need to stick together. did anyone else learn the lecture Ben Stein was teaching in the famous Bueller Bueller speech? we need to, he's the guy who's gonna explain Bump to us, he's the only cool republican left in Hollywood who gets to hang out with Kimmel. he individually saved his son from the scourge of video games.

Laertus: i wonder if that scores him points with Takahashi. i mean the parents and authority figures here are really dumb, the parents don't see the whole thing is a giant MouseTrap board game? that answering machines aren't that technologically-advanced yet?

Eye: omg this ENTIRE time when i first saw this movie last weekend, i had NO IDEA Jennifer Grey was in this! the good Grey, the spunky fro babyfat Grey.

Laertus: or Charlie Sheen for that matter, when he was still genuinely hot. leather jackets and spiked hair seem to only work for '80s rebels, that's it.

Eye: cos the goths took over black from the motorcycle gangs. no high school kid---even one as cool and rad as Ferris---could land a babe like Mia Sara. in high school? Mia Sara looks like she's 30 here, never mind that she's some sort of British-Italian Riviera model by now.

Dirg: Jeffrey Jones, he had the chops, what could have been. he could have been the next Clint Eastwood. the taxi scene, the father genuinely has no idea that was Ferris's girlfriend, and wanted to fuck her! that's my kind of dirty old man.

Laertus: no, your man would be the father who KNOWS that's his son's girlfriend and wants to fuck her!

Eye: all '80s kids learned about Pointillism through this. again with that Cameron Frye stirring staring haunting face.

Dirg: that was genuinely scary. the way it keeps moving in, like that thing from 2001. how does it end? where do the pointillism points end? in space? they looked like boba balls by the end.

Laertus: this was pretty tame, because it was done during the day. this isn't three thirsty teenagers looking to get into trouble at night at some night strip club.

Dirg: that scene was cut, would have required a whole other rating.

Laertus: back when kids still thought baseball was cool. when the Stock Exchange was the end-all be-all of American life and culture. there's a big push here to normalize Germany and German culture again, you know, let's forget the whole Nazi thing as soon as possible, like it never happened under a cloud of hot-dog dust. i mean the most scandalous thing Ferris ever does is...he's in a parade?

Dirg: that snooty French waiter was an Ivy-Leaguer. that righteous-dude secretary was trying too hard, save it for SpongeBob, lady. Cameron Frye literally right in front of everyone's faces tries to commit suicide in that pool. pre-Degrassi.

Laertus: yes, the whole ethos in this is very Degrassi in the depiction of the adults as buffoons and goons and goofs and the kids as the ones with agency and sympathy and empathy and power.

Dirg: let's face it, we're all Cameron. we're the ones who are the third wheels on museum dates. staring at pointillism paintings a little too hard to study them to distract our collective loneliness.

Eye: let's get to the heart of the matter: this isn't about Ferris at all, this is about the secret romance between Cameron and Sloane!

Laertus: YES IT'S TRUE. ABSOLUTELY TRUE! the signs are all there: when they're talking about their future plans, she touches him, they both agree that their plan is to do nothing.

Eye: when Cameron says Ferris will be a fry cook, Sloane's more-perfect line should have been:

Ferris may be a fry cook, but there's only one Cameron Frye!

and then Cameron gives her one of his patented Mister Rogers cheek-noise-flicks.

Laertus: when Sloane notices Cameron fake catatonic to peek at her naked undressing but she smiles and doesn't care about it. when she touches his face cradling his head in her hands, framing his blue Frankenstein eyes.

Dirg: Ferris is right, women don't respect men anymore. how the hell did they get the rights to that George Lucas theme music so soon after!? this was WAY early before George Lucas felt he was big enough to impose sanctions on any of his properties. i like the questioning of all foreigners as to if they can speak English.

Eye: the car-destruction scene is weird. tho i love the lush two-level glass house hiding in surrounded by the woods and a deep metaphorical dirt gulf. very '80s-business.

Laertus: i know what you mean, there are these weird awkward pauses, long pauses of dead air, nobody talking, just panning to the characters, faces doing and saying nothing. there's dramatic effect and then there's dead air.

Dirg: remember when people still had lawns?

Laertus: and Walt Whitman endquotes? he's gonna marry her. in the sequel, Ferris Goes To College, we know how this will turn out: Ferris will be played by Deadpool and won't be in the film, the film of course will be about how Sloane and Cameron Frye get married, that was OTP and kismet from the start. Ferris ends up homeless with a Neale Donald Walsch brace around his neck.

Eye: we must close with the sad tale of Save Ferris the band. i mean with a lead singer that hot and babealicious, you'd think they would have gone further than some cheap cover as their only hit hot single. No Doubt COMPLETELY killed their career.

Sinphony looks urgent and forlorn.

Sinphony: there's an ingredient missing. what is it?

Velvetta: it's water, the water needs to come from a specific wheel at the side of the mill where our Church workshop used to be. if i can gain access to it again…

Cotard: no can do no go. dream bigger. Codrus has that area completely surrounded.

the trio have this conversation while the last of Cotard's power is sapped and the forcefield shield dome collapses. the two girls spring into action. Sinphony addresses her tormentor with a newfound well of self-satisfaction and growth:

Sinphony: i have a new arrogance now, Master! my stomach used to be in knots but now my heart is! WHY DIDN'T YOU TEACH ME MATH AND SCIENCE!!!

Codrus: *smiling* come, girlfriend, come, child, i will teach you things you can only ever imagine...

Cotard: *weakly* one more shot blast from him and i'm a goner.

Velvetta: quick!

Velvetta casts her first spell. her first real spell. a spell to help others in a big way. she lifts the water wheel from off its axis at the mill attached to the Church Temple and it glides over the water, picks up Cotard, and Cotard gets his feet moving as it spins on the water of the river creek out of town to the offing.

Velvetta: *smiling* there, Master! you've said you've always wanted to walk on water!

Sinphony: oh i learned, sir. i learned all about the pink crystals, those crystals the silly humans used to find love, i found them dug underneath the soil, i dug them back up and broke them apart with the last remaining strength in my casting fingers, the fingers you tried to break by breaking them. i used this pink salt to leaven the pretzel bread. this dough is therapeutic not monetary and momentary. i saved the remaining villagers! i am strong now. cos i love now. i have their collective strength as my love! and i'm sending you to where you belong for all eternity, and the eternity after that, STRAIGHT TO HELL!

Fuerza: say gay to hell, that'll get him madder.

Sinphony flings back from the sky the wheel Cotard was on, it's empty now and she hurls it at light speed right into Codrus's head, splitting him red for the first time.

Codrus: ouch.

Codrus is being held in midair by his ear by Fuerza, who suddenly appears in a cloud of clear smoke and shoots him a darting disappointing-eye look of trouble along with her pucker of lips. she's wearing a jingle dress and butterfly bra.

Fuerza: well done, ladies.








 

THE CHRONIC OF NARNIA

notes:

* go back and listen to the Intro of The Chronic album again...right?...got me into cigarette papers and Michael Jackson impersonations

* can you believe it's been this long without Nate Dogg? i always thought Nate Dogg secretly played the rich Uncle on Fresh Prince of Bel-air

* they were watching an unaired commercial where the guy agrees to give up to his wife his walking closet full of the latest Zion Nikes full of those billions of air pellets like the stars in the galaxy

* friend: what happened to you?
dude on couch: too much weed i mean i'm just tired.
friend: what do you do?
dude: i'm a professional shopper. i watch QVC for my job.
friend: can i borrow your comfy pants? i'm teaching a yoga sesh at the crack of dawn.
dude: *fist bump* my man.

* friend: who's that a picture of in that portrait?
dude: grandmama. he stars in a lot of movies.
friend: what have you been eating? there are dirty dishes everywhere on this carpet!
dude: Little Caesars pizza. you have to buy two of them or they won't deliver the one. i need a wife.

* friend: i'm gonna save you as if you were the woman. like they do in the movies, over my knee.
dude: there is no such thing as gender.
friend: there are bullets flying everywhere, hitting your toaster.
dude: toasters are obsolete. everyone cooks their bread over an open fire now.
friend: I GOT SHOT!
dude: they're just mini blueberry muffins.

* friend: we need to watch sports NOW with the fellas.
dude: you mean at your mom's house?
friend: i got Golden State Warriors Season Pass!
dude: meh.

* friend: a neon sign fell.
dude: it's a sign.
friend: your microwave exploded.
dude: that was your love for me.
friend: we're going to a magical place...a place called Buffalo Wild Wings...
Director Phoenix: cut.
friend: dammit!...sorry

* Tom Cruise: what are you watching?
sleeper: ah! you scared me. just Poltergeist.
Tom: your baby-monitor is fine, we NEED to hang out with dudes!

* Tom: it's 8PM on a Saturday…
sleeper: yep, time for Toonami, i'm ready.

* sleeper: are you gonna pay to fix that massive hole you caused?
Tom: only if you pay for the surgery for my leg.
sleeper: wait how is this possible? when you spray it, the spray goes upwards.

* wife: wait, bring back potato skins.
Tom: that's an oddly-specific request. does she mean just the skins off potatoes? or like those Tato Skins chips that are now discontinued? you guys have THAT kind of marriage, huh. like me.
Tom: what's with the swans in the painting?
wife: two roast beef foils from Sarney's.

* sleeper: you know, you're a personable guy. if not for the Scientology stuff you'd be at Keanu levels of universal love.
Tom: did you see the new Top Gun trailer at Comic Con?
sleeper: why isn't Kelly McGillis in it?
Tom: she's fat.
sleeper: why is Anthony Edwards in it?
Tom: he plays the emergency-room doctor who saves Goose's life.

* i like the Old Spice Timber shampoo, but the Volcano shampoo is still my favorite.

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happy weekend, my babies.
TOMORROW: Reaper Taco Bell. we're skipping through the Montezuma's Revenge and going right for the flavor is so magnificent you'll die.

GINGER BREAD: FLAT EXPRESSION

the Dalai Lama wearing a brown robe and Jack Dorsey wearing nothing but surfer sandals are swinging away on a shooting star sitting together their legs swaying in the celestial eternity.

Dorsey: whatcha thinkin' about, doll?

Dalai Lama: son, i try not to get angry, but i have an issue with you. even tho you are my child celestially-speaking. i mean, you lump me in with Alex Jones? you put me on the same plane as Alex Jones? you think i'm just like and another Alex Jones?

Dorsey: brah i don't control it anymore. it's all the algorithm. i have no idea what's going on at any moment. let's talk about cheerier things while i still have you i mean while we still have you. want some Cheerios? want a pizza with everything? you can order both those things on twitter.

Dalai: you like to surf, my son?

Dorsey: i trademarked the shaka sign. many people think it's the Naruto buttplug.

Dalai: my ocean is bigger than your ocean. my ocean is the stars.

Pence nervously paces the carpeted halls of the Cream House.

President Bump: take a load off, Mike. not like that, don't go to the bathroom. i mean have a cold one on me and sit down in front of the tv like you're my four-year-old.

Pence: sir, i just don't know anymore. a lifetime of service and dedication to the One Church. and after getting mixed up with you and doing a fuckload of illegal immoral unethical hateful stupid dangerous and unconscionable things to little children, i'm shitting here thinking that Jesus at the Pearly Gates won't look at my record from before, and i will be duly elected to be sent to Hell.

Bump: relax, Pence, there's no Hell, you're living in Hell right now. i mean your illegal weighed against their illegal, it all evens out, right? i have an in with the Boss, i'll let him grant you lenience. there actually is no such thing as credit, China owns all the credit cards. my mouth is full of suds, i'm drooling the fizz off my dribbling chin. i love how you make love to your mother, i've always wanted to try that with mine, maybe then she'll come back to me and return me my red handball with the thumb smudges. Hilary was the only blonde i never liked.

at the Mueller Hearings, Bob Mueller is itching for a fight and ready to tear Members a new asshole.

Mueller: just the facts, ma'am.

Marianne Williamson on the rotunda: well thank you, yes sir ye Bob, Ye as in Kanye, you know you're the first person today to acknowledge me in the halls that i am in fact your President. i survived being poisoned in Ponsonby.

Mueller: i am not twisted in knots, my heart is. the country is. JONATHAN TURLEY IS A TURD. he's jelaous of me. cos i get all the shine and he still thinks he's smarter and more handsome than me.

Jym Jordan starts screaming in Mueller's good ear using his microphone. Jym tears off his white wifebeater shirt and no tie, gets up on the conference table, and starts dancing like a monkey.

Jym: *scratching himself* ooh ooh ooh ooh. i'm a gorilla. i'm the master gorilla of the jungle's kingdom.

Mueller: sit down, bitch. who do you think you are?

Mueller turns over the table, strips off his shirt to reveal only the tie he's wearing, and throws Jym up into the Michelangelo painting of the upper inner rotunda dome.

Mueller: there's your cold dome. you know bananas were the first boomerangs. are you not entertained? this is what the world has become. we're all just cavemen and dinosaur dames in suits. we're forever spear-casters and spear-carvers. we haven't evolved one bit. tho i did prove evolution was correct. why do you spell it Jym? with a Y, why?

Jym: i forward the rest of my time, my head is not in the right place right now.

Mueller: you think you're pretty clever. all you have to do is yell and carry on and you think that's acting tough. Marine Ranger Hall of Fame, son. you're a terrible actor. you play on jungle gyms, with a Y. i know everything. you know what Stonehenge REALLY was? it was the first parkour course for the Druids in their brown robes to practice on. i know i will win cos i have the testes of the promiscuous chimp, the biggest testes of them all. YOU have the smallest testes, the testes of the monogamous gibbon.

Jym: i need the Evangelical vote or i have no job. even 15-an-hour is not suitable for my lifestyle.

Mueller: you're way up there, pal. you're where you always wanted to be, Heaven. you need a tie, son? wanna borrow mine?

at the British Open, Shane Lowry is trying to hide his Irish accent as best he can once he sees Angelina Jolie in the press-conference crowd.

Shane is giving the press the tour of his house, lowering his eyes:

Shane: so this is Dunluce Castle. the windows once had lace and the Donnybrook was a river. this used to be our home, until it became just a foundation. of stone. this is where the Druids used to train for their parkour tournaments. that was a time before gold, LONG time ago. we were poor as you can see. County Mayo, that's what we need now, we all need to get together and eat a couple of mayo sandwiches. just mayonnaise and bread, no meat, one potato for the whole family. we need to hash out once and for all or live with the mistake of a thousand years. tho there's no potatoes for hash browns. this will finally solve this whole Northern Ireland-Brexit thing. i want to make it clear as i speak into the microphone that i play for Ireland. that's it, just Ireland.

at the Golf Channel newsdesk, the boys are missing one boy, one man. the panelists put on their suits.

the hoity-toity guy: hey, where's David Duval?

the Australian with the rugged accent and boomerang: after that round of horrors he had at the British Open, he was forced by the suits to quit his job here. his putter AND his life let him down. it was historic, historically bad and awful. and historic cos it was the first time a former British Open champion had such a godawful round. i mean hole.

Mina Kimes wth a blue butterfly in her mouth, Papi, and Dan Le Batard sit around another newsdesk critiquing that newsdesk:

Le Batard: daddy...

Mina: haha! he said daddy, *points at Le Batard* HE did it, folks, it was HIM, he is so full of SHAME.

Le Batard: that hurts, Mina. i know we make fun of you hard here on this show, but we do it out of love. we do it cos i desperately want to date you even tho you are married and we all know this splashed on your Insta daily. when you smile you look like an anime girl. like that mouth must have somehow been drawn on you with pencil. i know i make fun of your Seattleness but i'm jealous cos you were the last person to see Kurt Cobain alive.

Mina: this is true. i was in line in back of him at Starbucks...

Le Batard: i make fun of your love of dogs but that's cos i was forced at an early age to get a cat by my dad. i'm just trying to be the best hairiest alpha male i can be, my back is so hairy it has its own zip code. i try to comb it but i need a Felicia Combs. i need my own Miami matron by my side. could you see it in your tsundere heart to give me a chance? i'm not fat, i was born this way. just cos the size of my testes don't mean i don't have feelings.

Papi removes his glasses, spit-shines them with his mouth fog, puts them back on, drops his heavy accent, and speaks hoity-toitily:

Papi: son, the reason you make fun of everyone else in the world hard is you live in a deep well of insecurity. i know this cos i caused this in you. you know why your name is Le Batard? cos you're a bastard. you're an orphan, we---me and your mother Miami matron---picked you up from off the cobblestone street cos that was the only way they'd let us escape from Cuba. Castro castrated you. by putting you in the National Choir and making you sing for your supper. i am ashamed of you. a son of mine who is into sports? very sad.

Le Batard: come on, dad, i gave you a job.

Papi picks up the banana phone.

at the Treehouse:

Dirg: hey granny!

Doryce: watch it, boy.

Dirg: no, this is good news this time. i actually figured out a use for that grey cinder block that sits out back of our backyard. you know, the one that weighs a ton, literally.

Doryce: MY backyard.

Dirg: i picked it up, for like a second, and dropped it into the recycle bin.

Doryce: you idiot.

Dirg: no, it crushed all the content inside. all the cardboard boxes and unwired hangers. the way the internet does. the cinder block is a good crushing tool. so we can fit even MORE stuff in that bin! yeah!

Doryce: oh good. i'll tell Melbourne the progress you're making. next time the gardeners come, help them with that. meanwhile i added a new item to the fridge: this fiesta bean & cheese dip with Jean-Claude Van Damme on the bottle.

Gladyce: my dear and lover, you know you're just gonna stick your finger in there, get a taste of it, take one bite, screw the lid back, put it in the fridge, and no one will touch it ever again.

Dirg: might as well throw it in the recycling bin now. before it turns to glass. the bin i mean. you use your finger? that's disgusting!!! at least use a chip, woman.

Doryce: this finger of mine has crushed civilizations. can you blame me? the dip has an odd orange color.

Gladyce: shall i cancel Pappy & Harriet's, dear?

Doryce: *sigh* i suppose. honkytonk strippers have a hard enough time as it is. but leave the splash bed on top of the roof, i got a date with the Goof on the Roof there after all the cops and security guards leave for the night. that's the last Tiki restaurant-and-lounge in the world. used to be in the '60s downtown Los Angeles was crawling with them.

Eye: anime roundup and go. or adult swim roundup rather.

Laertus: yes, it was quite the aligning. Mike Tyson Mysteries had a San Juan, Puerto Rico episode this week of all weeks.

Dirg: okay but we HAVE to talk about the Linzess babe. this woman, right? she is SMOKING hot. hot hot hot hot! that butt of hers is insane! BUT i can't, i still can't, i'm forever torn and conflicted and bothered. i want to eat prunes with her so bad BUT that stray hair that gets into her mouth when she smiles at the camera, i just can't get over that. i have obsessive compulsive tendencies…

Eye and Laertus: no! shocked!

Dirg: ...each time i see it i simply have to reach into that tv screen and fix her hair, remove that stray strand from out of her mouth or it's not perfect. such a shame, i mean they only make one size of jeans for that butt of hers when she has to ride her bike across mall town.

Stephanie Niznik is now a Titan. she walks heavily yet lightly across the white hilly valleys of Everwood forever now. but she is still lonely.

Maria LaRosa: well met, fellow naked traveler. are you lonesome tonight?

Niznik: it's just, i never had a family, no husband, no kids. i feel i missed out in life.

Maria LaRosa: yes you did but we can fuck if that'll make you feel better. girlfriend i feel ya, i know what it's like to be on tv, the pressures are not ripe for childbearing hips.

after their makeout session, four new snowcapped mountains form in the ridgey coastline of Everwood.

Maria: oh hell no! you see who they got to replace me? Felicia Combs! bye Felicia.

Felicia Combs combs her ass through her blue dress.

Maria: fuck that Miami matron. are you kidding me? can't they see through? my ass was all natural, baby. hers is obviously plastic-surgeried.

Goody Paul: feel you, boo. and that black man they got to replace ME was all stuttering his words on her first day. even Dr. Greg called a potential hurricane kinky instead of swirly. what a joke, they probably won't even name the hurricane anyway.

Eye: i do give them credit for hiring a heavyset plus-sized woman for The Weather Channel as well. that will really play well and read on tv with us goth girls. sexiness comes in all sizes and chunky shapes.

Eye: welp. they just replaced the fatty with the Linzess Woman.

Gina DeVecchio with a red butterfly in her mouth replaces Linzess Woman.

Maria: THAT's what i'm talking about, a good Italian. all natural, not prune-induced.

Eye: Postcards from the Edge, go.

Dirg: be honest, it wasn't as good as it could have been. kinda a letdown after all that hype building for it.

Laertus: you're right, the showbiz stuff was spot on, tho. the mother-daughter stuff, not so much. well it should have been Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds themselves up there on the silver screen acting their real lives. it was confusing, i kept substituting Meryl Streep for Carrie Fisher, which just feels wrong.

Dirg: you can't substitute Jesus unless it's a transubstantiation Big Little Lies wine glass and quinoa triscuit filmed right here in Obec Woods.

Eye: Mike Nichols in his infinite wisdom actually got an audition from Debbie Reynolds but told her she wasn't right for the part. isn't he considered a brilliant director?

Laertus: okay so the opening, i had a spidey-sense that it was a movie. i mean the Contra contra helicopter and straw huts and everything, this was peak Reagan Years of Good vs.Communism.

Laertus: and the "mother" slip in the dialogue, that is LITERALLY Freudian.

Dirg: just like "coke...a Cola". that was the first time that joke was ever used in the movies.

Eye: i had the exact same experience when i overdosed. except it wasn't an encounter of the third-kind that got me out of it. i dreamt of a hammer in Heaven...

Laertus: i am so sorry to hear that, my friend. the backstage catfighting is very well done. the fact that at every turn the starlet is being secretly sabotaged by her understudy and set crew is right on the money. infighting does most pictures in, not running out of studio money. or a cheap relative. every family has at least one criminal in the family.

Dirg: when she had to stay with her mom, i thought this was gonna turn into Three's Company. Streep's rehab roommate in the piece is Janet herself. btw, what happened to the Janet actress? she's one of those actresses who gets that big part in the big film with Meryl Streep the god herself but somehow does nothing else of import.

Laertus: buddy-cop film with mom. and a pre-whitestrip-teeth Dennis Quaid.

Eye: their fight was pretty boilerplate. it was weird seeing Meryl all flustered like that.

Laertus: she wasn't flustered from Quaid naked in the shower, that's for sure. the one bit of absolutely brilliant writing was the scene where Dennis Quaid is confessing his love for Meryl. Dennis wants to express real emotions, but Meryl thinks it's all acting cos her first instinct as an actress is that everything is acting, which presents the moral dilemma of the film: can an actor actually find love? how can an actor ever believe emotions expressed to her are ever real? how can she ever know for sure?

Dirg: i love the fact the man falls in love with her the instant he sees her up there on that silver screen, love at first sight, i related to that, that's happened to me. everyday. you're watching an actress do her thing on tv or at a theater, saying her lines, and she looks into the camera, and she's saying those lines to you, those things to you, only you, and you fall in love with her from afar, and it's just the two of you together in this relationship. that's the moment, that's when you know this actresss must be yours, that's how i fall in love most days.

Laertus: Conrad Bain decidedly not as rich, more earthy and homey, less skyscrapery. and is it just me or is the grandma younger than Shirley MacLaine? Shirley MacLaine in this reminded me of that fated faded actress from that Twilight Zone episode, complete with jeweled cashmere head-covering. here's where this thing falters: it's the old adage: show, don't say. they missed an opportunity to bring it to life like the Mueller Report, make it a movie not a book. the incident where the mother---Dirg's favorite---exposes herself by lifting her skirt to the daughter's 17 17th-birthday party boys, that should have been RECREATED! that should have been an actual scene! that was the linchpin of the whole movie, that's why she started using.

Dirg: that and she was an insomniac as a kid but who isn't. without insomniac kids there is no Instagram.

Llywarch: you know, Laertus, all these four years we've been communicating through Instagram, it's as if we've already been married for four years…

Eye: and the weird way Gene Hackman swoops in and saves the day with his strong arms. too father-knows-best lecture for my tongue-ring taste. the patriarchy saves the day.

Dirg: hey, an actress's life is blessed, you have to concede to the Christian God.

Laertus: and of course, it ends as all films during that 12-year-Republican reign did: all resolved at a country-western honkytonk prominently displaying the American flag.

Dirg: i enjoyed their sing-off. i like hearing about has-beens. i like hearing women discussing the inevitability of death.

Laertus: and the escape from the hick hinterlands. very interesting the timing, Rob Reiner is depicted here as perhaps the real Rob Reiner Carrie Fisher knew? which coincided with Carrie being in When Harry Met Sally?

Dirg: there's no doubt that tub of lard is a sleaze.

Laertus: goddess bless Carrie Fisher, she was able in real life to escape the shadow of her mother.

Dirg: and enter the shadow of the Dark Side. and then she reentered her mother's shadow cos they both died at the same time...

Laertus: you know, the whole time i was expecting this to be a road movie. like it would be the mother and daughter on a road trip in their sunglasses and white bonnets collecting postcards.

Eye: don't bring up flat earth, Dirg. i agree with you, Larry, like a Thelma + Louise for mothers and their mothers.

the girls are getting better at making twirling and organizing pretzels. they stand on either side, spin it around their little fingers, and work together to form the crease and the twist and the knot.

Sinphony: i got the batter! i'm gonna batter.

Velvetta: and i got the dough! we do it for the killing.

Cotard: it's the only way to make a pretzel: cooperation. togetherness.

Sinphony: where is everybody? why aren't the villagers giving us a warm welcome and standing ovation?

Velvetta: most of them are dead. 75% of the population has been wiped out. but we can still save the remainers.

Sinphony: how?

Velvetta: you'll think of something. the pretzels are magic but they need even more magic in them. i'm thinking stuff it with cheese. and douse it in mustard. yellow is my favorite color. and tallow is my favorite flavor.

Sinphony: i want to pour hot cheese down Codrus's throat.

Cotard: no, no, never feed the pretzel to my brother.

Sinphony: how about filling the pretzel with medicine? herbs and stuff. i've already inserted rocks into the pretzels which are helping to heal the remainers. little rocks called salt.

Cotard: yes! brilliant! like the ultimate edible vial! a drug with no trace. let no one be left behind. the village is filled to capacity with dead bodies everywhere, it's stinking up the joint. i feel like i'm on my death bed as well. we're exposed out here on this country road, we're sitting ducks.

Codrus: why don't you come back to my place? i have a bed.

Cotard: dammit! get behind me, satan, and girls!

Codrus launches an invisible power attack forcefield with the perfect launch angle trying to pluck off the girls but Cotard blocks it with all his might: the last of his strength forever.

Cotard: *exasperated, jowls swaying in the forcefield wind* GO GIRLS! i can't hold this forcefield forever!...

TMIT: WAITING FOR INFINITY TRAIN FOR INFINITY...

1. why are you single? cos nobody loves me

2. why are you married or in your current monogamous relationship?

that's a little trickier. running a country is hard, takes up a lot of your time. but sometimes the people hate you---you got no love---and it's better to just leave. the stage and the country. plus that frees up time to get into other relationships via text. like, relationships with reporters, that's vital to a good reign.

like Rick and Morty teaches us, the Country, like Science, well, she's a Lady that'll buck you off her good graces before you have the chance to know her. there must always be time for reeducation. for watching Do The Right Thing again, really watching it this time, especially that fraught ending. for never counting anybody out with a ten-count, especially 40-year-old boxers. for going over your old I Love Lucy tapes, to be better, to see a better Ricky up on that screen, to sing like Ricky, but more importantly, to dance like Ricky...

3. is polyamory something you want?

only if it's put on the soundtrack of my life. only if Breaking Benjamin dedicates an original song to me about me at a concert i'm too religious to attend.

i remember watching the leader of Breaking Benjamin sitting on a raggedy couch being interviewed on G4. i forgot his name, so i'll just call him The Ben Titan cos dude's really tall. he was going on about how he wasn't a gamer---on G4---so there were a lot of awkward pauses. then he opens his mouth to reveal that weird jewelry he has on and in his tongue. i never forgot that, and he became my favorite person that day. it was just such a jarring visual, you know?, this man who is otherwise so cleanshaven with the preppy haircut and beige loafers and then he has this snake thing in his mouth.

4. what is the gender of your best friend? female...if i had a wife...which i don't. i have two best friends: Pearl from Steven Universe, who has no gender but is the strongest woman i know. and i love her voice, it's so lilting and storybook. and Lucio Rossi, if you're out there, Lucio, let's finally have that pizza at the birthplace of pizza...China...but then we can go afterwards to Italy to check out your pad on Mount Olympus.

5. what do you think is the worst thing about being male? i ask myself and contemplate on for hours this question daily during my morning meditations:

am i a sex addict? or am i just a man?

BONUS: why are you sexy? cos my love, shirt, Milan, New York, Japan, your party, disco dancing, my car, my hat, my cat, and this song left me.

my poor pussy. my poor little tush. i just wanted to be a model on the catwalk, but my cat looked at me with a sad look in her cat-eye and told me pointblank i didn't have what it took.

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR IN A DIFFERENT WORLD

notes:

* okay, as always, start off with a quick story:

so i LOVED A Different World. but there are two A Different Worlds, the one with Lisa Bonet and the one with Jasmine Guy, or, the one that went unnoticed and was quickly dropped and the one that soared into millionsville popularity. see, i'm talking about that first season. i love it precisely because many people forget that's how this series started, with that cast. it's rare and intimate and surreal and mystical and sage-burning and otherworldly. frickin' Marisa Tomei was in it! the future Aunt May was in it! i love the soulful opening credits and end-credits song. i love that hunk that passes Bonet in the phone booth, he's hot---i say this as a straight man---and, nostalgist that i am, i love it cos it still has a telephone booth. i was so proud when i finally got my hands on the Complete First Season DVD, as proud as i was when i finally tracked down that 1984 from 1984 disc. i felt as i binged it that i was watching the secret episodes nobody knew about, these stories when everybody else was still concerned with The Cosby Show so nobody knew of Lisa's adventures into the great wide open. or misadventures, what kind of college mischief could our heroine and the gals get into? turns out: plenty. my favorite episode is when Lisa & the gang go to a Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of campus and have to follow all the rules: you know, the usual: kneeling, crossing legs, not hitting your head on the low tables, drinking your friend's tea as a symbol of bond. and then there's always the geisha line. meanwhile, while the smart dude was getting a profile on Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous, the most memorable moment for me in that initial season is when they all come back from being stuffed and enter the dorm lobby area...and there's a poster for The Clan of the Cave Bear posted on the bulletin pin foamboard. and Dwayne Wayne---not Dwayne Wade---begins to list his favorite moments from that film and is excited to continue the discussion in-depth with it in his dorm room into midnight. man, THAT was the college i wish i had gone to at that time of that film opening!

* the line: Jean M. Auel, Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood: my heroes. not good women writers, good writers. there would be no J.K. Rowling without these ladies.

* technology isn't bad, it's impossible.

* caveman: let's go!
cave fam: too tired! we don't want to get up.
caveman: aren't you hungry?
cave fam: yeah but if we sleep the hunger goes away...wake us up at Apollo 11...

* cave fam: i know this is a radical idea, but what if we put down our sporks and let the elephants and the saber-tooth tigers roam free? you know? what if we wear plants instead of these heavy fur coats in the obscene summers. we'd be more comfortable...and like, the planet would thank us millennia down the road, the millannials would LOVE us.

* Tarantino: remember when...
Leo: careful...
Tarantino: ...you could get ice cream at a druggist's?
Brad: this movie of ours is so fun and colorful...until the Manson stuff...
Harley Quinn: let's all hold hands right now in this audition room and imagine a world where Sharon Tate becomes what Twiggy became...

* man on couch: are we exercising?
woman on couch: i'm exercising my brain...watching Jane Fonda...
man: i'm gonna throw away all of these VHS cassettes...

* i'm not tired, i am tired of this world...

* man by pool: if you don't wear the glasses, it's not real.
woman by pool: is this pina colada real?
man: do you wear glasses?
woman: no i'm not a nerd.
man: HA! revenge of the nerds!......now i'm drunk...

* man is pulled through a wall by an invisible hand.
Putin laughs.
Putin: that'll get 'em to vote.

* woman cliffdives.
woman: ahhhh! my feet landed on the water and started tapdancing!
Rory McIlroy: that's virtual reality, lass, don't worry. not really water.
woman: oh, hello, Rory, what are you doing here?
Rory: got some free time...

* group runs through a Lazer Tag maze of flashing purple lights on the walls.
group: yeah, Lazer Tag, cool, but this thing was called Purple Rain. we thought it'd be different.
Stranger Things counterboy: what were you expecting?
group: like Prince survived but his soul is trapped in a Lazer Maze robot or something.
counterboy: wanna sniff my stranger thongs?

* make sure you paint your pits liberally, when you eat it when your bike flips over you're gonna land on the handlebars on your armpits…

* A: i love your silver hair!
G: are you making fun of me? this isn't a silver confetti wig. i'm going gray...

* celebration on the tennis court includes bottles of champagne being popped and sprayed all over the court.
counterboy: great! now these courts are ruined! they're hardcourts!
Joker: we thought they were grass courts. isn't this still Wimbledon?
counterboy: it's only a grass court if you can smoke grass on it.
Joker: exaclty. *hahahahahahaha*

* man: don't shave your pits with a razor...have someone lick your pits instead...

CLICK HERE RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies.
TOMORROW: the Cheetos Sandwich from KFC. had to after that 2019 '90s commercial.

GINGER BREAD: PRINCESS LEIA IS MY COPILOT

Cotard: it's easy to rebel. grab one end of the rope and i'll grab the other.

a frightened shook Sinphony is uncertain from rote where to place her hands, but she nervously lowers her shaking hand as Codrus looks on at everything in bewildered knowing amusements and smiles heartily.

Codrus: *licking his lips* oh i love a good game. what are you cooking up in that little head of yours, brother? no no, don't tell me, there are no more surprises in my experience, i don't have fun anymore.

the rope dress unfolds its knots and falls limp into one slack snake writhing on the floor dead. as if its red color is the color of its blood holding all of its blood in.

a broken Velvetta lies prone on the dusty grey medieval stretcher death bed, blending her anorexic frame with the frame of the bed.

Velvetta: i don't have many breaths left. but i use them to form a smile on my lips. for i know that this is the day you have been saved. even if i don't get. we princesses have to watch out for each other. my body is so weak but that just means my spirit is that much strong.

Cotard quickly ties the rope around Velvetta's waist---which is easy to do---and holds her up limp by his one hand, which is usually not so easy to do for Cotard never works out or pumps weights in his monastery vineyard back home. Sinphony cuts the other end of the rope tied round the knob of the bed with her fingernails sharpened unusually-long previously used for other evil endeavors.

Codrus: *grinning* and I am the knob just waiting here watching. i love to watch. go ahead, i'll even remove the glass before you can crash into it all dramatic and bloody-sharded. i'll give the villagers onlookers a clear view of your daring escape and rescue.

the three bumble out of the Church on their scraped knees and bite a few stones along the way. they stumble away not being able to really run with their precious cargo and weight.

Cotard: go. go. run away as far as you can as fast as you can. pretend you're flying on brooms. i only have a bit more energy to shield you until my entire core will be tapped and sapped out for a good spell.

Codrus: i am laughing harder and more sincerely than i have since the black hole was on the other side, thank you for that, i needed that. go on, play your hide and seek, i already know where you hide, i see it cos i caused your mind to go there. i'll give you a head-start. like a week? i need to take a nap, i'm too old for all his excitement. o it's just no fun being me.

Eye Luggage: got a hot hot hot take for Red Circle Table this week.

Laertus: i mean, come on! at this time when we must do our utmost to illustrate and highlight and hold onto with bare fingers grasping at the slightest scrap of togetherness and tolerance, Foxhoven is a bonafide white 2Pac fan, and the dude gets fired for it!? it's like the company treated him black! this cannot stand!

Eye: i never liked the whole 2Pac transition, Tupac just looks more natural and tastes less corporate on the tongue.

Dirg: this would never have happened to Jeff Foxworthy. are we even sure Tupac is really dead?

Eye: he has to be, he would never have allowed the world to be what it is today.

Laertus: i for one am waiting for the real Resurrection of the Christ: Killuminati.

Simona Halep prances around the grass tennis court in a grass skirt and gumdrops in her mouth.

Simona: the headline on Wikipedia should have read

Simona Stuns Serena

Laertus: i'll get Takahashi right on that...

Simona: i'm just trying to halep. you know what's the deal with the drop shot? right? i'm trying out my Seinfeld impression cos i won Wimbledon, i can do anything now. i'm gonna join SNL! like, drop shots in tennis never work. 10% success rate. they mostly get flubbed or dribble over to your side of the net or it just leaves a sitter for your opponent to crush. it's like when the goalie leaves the net in college ice hockey...

Laertus: i'm afraid i can't address the matter, my mouth is filled with the cotton of sorrow. i am so depressed over the Federer loss. it's not just another loss, it's a dynasty-altering loss. it's a legacy loss. i'm so down i won't be able to enjoy the British Open this week like i thought i would.

Eye: it's my favorite golf tournament as well. cos it's always so dark and dreary and impossible to play, and damp and rainy and uncomfortable to navigate, and the bunkers are just large pools of brown water. amid brown bunkers the size of an American penny. and the haybarn hay, perfect for a hillbilly chew...you're not supposed to chew on the wheat stalk. and you're at the mercy of winds no doubt spellcast by my fellow sister witches.

Dirg: well you better buck up, buttercup. we rented this tent on the campgrounds of this year's British Open and i ain't wasting the price of a ticket, we're staying the four days! anyone got any pot? pot bunkers? the gales are howling so loudly i'm scared, hold me, Larry.

Eye: the wind blew my toupee away, that really sucks, i can't be a goth girl without my toupee. hey, cheer up, i need my partner back. in life. and maybe Rory will win this one, and highlight Northern Ireland. people and leprechauns will see that Northern Ireland is just Ireland. Rory's dating Jo, and we'll get the Brexit catastrophe stuff resolved again before the REAL dreary days of Halloween.

Eye: speaking of dark, anime roundup?

Laertus: i'll try, but my mouth is full of cobwebs. yep, dark and dark-shaded, i love the new Fujiko sereis The Woman Called Fujuko Mine.

Dirg: a little too gratuitous with the nudity if you ask me. my name is Dirg.

Eye: agreed. Fujiko's the kinda gal you want all to yourself. and a lot more dressed to leave something to the imagination. after all that, turns out she's German...

Dirg: yeah but the Nazis did things TO her.

Laertus: i LOVE how the characters are cell-shaded in this, their entire right side is all black lines, all the buildings and cars and roads are this way, too. it's the Batman: The Animated Series of anime!

Eye: no way would Zenigata fuck Fujiko. Fujiko, a hardened criminal. he'd never step over that line and stoop that low to disobey the law.

the three pause and reflect on Fujiko Mine…

Eye: okay, nevermind.

Laertus: the thing is, THIS series has overshadowed---pun intended---the current Lupin The Third Part 5 series going on now. compared to this, that series seems tame and watered-down. my enjoyment of it anyway. but i don't enjoy much nowadays.

Dirg: put me off owls forever. i mean, like, owls are no longer for me the Potter symbols of wisdom, they are the exact opposite, they're nightmare-fuel ravens. they're the rats and mice now. NOW their neck-cranes are weird.

Phil Mickelson wears a skinny Bart Simpson Eat My Shorts shirt and enters the conversation:

Phil: …

President Bump: no. nope. wrong, YOU can't win! you used to be someone who looked like one of my supporters: you were fat, white, and from Arizona. you trying to mock me? i can lose weight, too, buddy, i just choose not to, you Tiger wannabe!

Eye: you must tell us which diet you used! Jenny Craig?

Phil: Jenny Craig??? my MOM dated Jenny Craig! no i used this diet where i simply didn't eat or drink anything for a week, huge in Hollywood for not getting huge. i didn't even eat toothpaste. i got a little worried there that when i went to sleep in this state i would never wake up but everything worked out, i didn't have to work out and i woke up and am here.

Marianne Williamson is sailing the winds of Ponsonby.

Marianne: Baba, i'm not registering. i'm not reading on tv! even tho i'm a published author, i've written many awesomely New Age spiritual and Toy Story books for spiritual kids! advise me, spiritualist, i don't want to end up like Amanda Eller, poor girl has gone into hiding behind the large palm leaves. inside her own soul.

Baba Vanga: you read all the time! the no-SNL thing really killed your career! i know what i have to do. there's only one more thing i CAN do: i have to submit your name and your Top Five to heavy.com...

Ayanna Pressley: what the fuck are you doing, you dirty old man?

Bump: sorry.

Ayanna: does it say PRESS across my back? kick me? squeeze me? sexually-assault me? no it doesn't, it says PRESSLEY!

Bump: i won't say dog, hound or otherwise.

Rachel Maddow: i'm just an old potbellied lesbian who needs a little excitement in her life...

Megan Rapinoe: me, too. that's why i'm running...on the field to announce i'm running for office!

Rachel: i was gonna say that's why i watch soccer...

at The Breakfast Club:

Charlamagne Tha God: eat my shorts! our sponsors today are the Red Circle Table, which was originally us. typical. we're here with Cory Booker, who booked over here soon as he heard...

Cory Booker with a quizzical look on his face: i love this place. you know Charlamagne, you have the most beautiful eyes. i thought i had the most beautiful eyes---Rosario told me---but then i met you. your eyes are like twinkling turquoise Egyptian jewels.

Charlamagne: she's next week. my eyez are so sparkly i break mirrors. don't call me pretty. it's weird that it's Rosario and not Rosaria, you know? i must say, it's a puzzle, a quiz, why you're not doing better.

Cory: i know, i was supposed to be Cory In The House. i was supposed to be the Black Obama!

Charlamagne: i mean your backstory couldn't be better! it's riveting! it's on the silver screen! it's straight out of a comic book. it IS a comic book. you literally don the cape...

Cory: not the white cape...

Charlamagne: ...and you go out in the community and you PERSONALLY knock on people's doors---in a friendly warm hot non-ice way---to break up domestic disputes, you stop drug deals on the street from happening with your hand, and you rescue cats from trees. no more need for police. it's like you had no staff when you were mayor, you did all these acts yourself.

Cory: i didn't even have a live van.

Charlamagne: look, man, whatever happens, you're MY hero.

Alex Jacob stalks around the betting tables upturning the frayed green felt with his filthy fingernails as he anxiously skulks around for his winnings. he wears honey around his ears and bothers the girl card-dealer.

Alex Jacob: yes i'm Trebek, where are my winnings! i won the World Series of Poker. at least give me a bracelet, i can hawk it on the black market! i NEED this or no more Taco Bell for me! i'm not twitching, i watch birds. not women. let me make a call, the phone in the lobby is always free.

Alex: hello? Ken Lemmings? where's my money? i got some heaping for ya!

Ken Jennings: Alex? oh. what? who the hell are you?

Alex: i'm him. i'm The Man.

Ken: the one that guy who was supposedly versed in Vegas cos he was a local couldn't find? oh come on! you missed the plot! and the whole story! much like God, you're late...

a table down, Hossein Ensan does win the WSOP and the bracelet.

Bump: oh NO! no no no. you don't win, you're not a real American. plus you're a frat guy, i HATE frat guys! what's your sign? what are you playing at?

Hossein: poker.

Bump: don't think you can trick a casino owner! what are you signaling? virtue signaling? are you an Ensign on the new Picard show? infiltrating our armies! did Barack send you? hey gimme that bracelet! my wife is ready for her photoshoot wearing nothing but this bracelet in her shag carpet...on the '70s shag carpet i mean, it's a European mag thing.

Doryce: are you feeling better, dear?

Gladyce: quite, thank you, love.

Doryce: no more of that evil coffee. i bought two boxes this two-weeks: one pure organic and bad-tasting, and the other a nice MILD sunshine blend. here's the thing: do you go for the new box and try to finish that up? or start with the used box from last week and finish those old cups first? what is the most effective method of drinking all the coffee?

Gladyce: use it all up. doesn't matter which cup you drink first, it all eventually gets drunk, especially you.

Doryce: i love our kitties. they have a sixth sense of where the light falls in our house in summer, the angles, the launch velocities, the cheat angles, they follow it instinctively, without math. sometimes the rays take weird jagged turns and hit one stair but not the other. they don't even care that a slug is right there in the middle of the stair, they go where the light is and lie down in front of that shellless snail. to sunbathe.

Gladyce: our cats are true humanists. they have a seventh sense, a sense we don't know about.

Dirg: something happened to me on Instagram this week that was truly scary. i mean, i always railed against this sort of thing, warned we were heading down this path, but like for the first time i EXPERIENCED 1984! so i'm commenting on my own picture post, writing my story, adding some salty language, describing a pornographic scene in vivid detail with heavy words, i hit SEND and the Machine chimes back at me:

are you sure you want to post this?

i mean i literally jumped out of my chair. it was the beginnings of thoughtcrime. the origins of the list of words Carlin warned us about, you know? when you start to question your own self about what words you should and shouldn't write, we're all in trouble.

Llywarch: *sigh* hello, Dirg.

Dirg: hello, goatboy.

Doryce: we could go to Apothecaries Hall. especially once all the owls there have become owlmen. we could order in: Mario's Kitchen---Primo Pizza.

Dirg: nah, too ethnic, too Italian, you know? makes me think of Chris Cuomo and i start to barf.

Doryce: how about some Country Subway?

Cotard: we need a country subway in our village, would help urbanize the population, give us modes of travel to escape this place and explore other cultures, make us less Dark-Ages-y. a railway, the only tricky part is how the train navigates through the trees without a bridge.

Codrus: bad idea, brother. just make the bridge out of the waterfall. urbanize? you mean gentrify.

Doryce: no, what I mean is a Subway sandwich shop in the country...

Eye: poor Stephanie Niznik. she was my one whom i loved more empathically and emphatically than my own mother, you know? she was my tv mother, my mountain mother, i always felt safe in her skinny arms.

Laertus: you're MY emphatic empathic. i am praying to goddess it's not what i think it is. i fear. i never want to be Dirg-dark, but i'd much rather have another Cameron Boyce. there's no mention of her on Takahashi's wiki having had any sort of relationship or children, i just hope she was happy. let's not have another Assumpta Fitzgerald situation, please!

Dirg: for the love of the Catholic god. come on, she had to, she was at least one of Limp Bizkit's groupies in the '90s, had to be. ah, Everwood. where did all the good CW shows go? and the cowboys. i believe this is the first teen show ever with an actual series finale. this is what we need to get back to, fuck the cities, drive back to the rugged countryside, that's where the true values are.

Eye: you're not real until you're freezing your ass off. like the ice in my heart.

Laertus: i had forgotten how triumphant and majestic that score is in the intro music. leaves a lump in my throat, which just adds to all the things in my mouth right now.

Dirg: very heraldic battlefield march, 1776, with the valorous whistles and Olympic panpipes and little drums you hold like purses. you know how the actors peel away from their own oil paintings of themselves in that intro? nobody knew what to call it at the time, but this is the very first instance of deepfake.

Goody Paul: there was so much excitement and hubbub this week everyone forgot about the hurricane. it's the first time we at the Weather Channel just said fuck it to naming a hurricane, so we just didn't name it, not worth it to us.

Maria LaRosa: this is why i left The Weather Channel.

Goody: you know i'm sick of all these internet weathermen who forecast from their blogs. they're worse than the stormchasers. I am the meteorologist, okay?, I got the degree, a wet degree cos i went into the field. i am the real deal, look at my shiny black skin! i am the genuine article, i fucked Titan Maria LaRosa, it wasn't a metaphor for the rising Right, it just felt right. no more bloody social-medialogists!!!

Eye: When Harry Met Sally, go.

Dirg: so this is part of a trifecta, right? triptych? this, Sleepless In Seattle, You Got Mail, and Forrest Gump. and Mrs. Doubtfire and Jumpin' Jack Flash i mean Sister Act.

Eye: Nora Ephron is my hero.

Laertus: so right from the start i think the keenest writing goes to the college scene. right? it's not the Love Story college scene, it's this idea that Meg Ryan's college roommate is her very best bestie friend, this person whom she's tighter with than her mother. DURING college. but after a decade or so at an airport, Meg realizes she doesn't even remember this person's NAME!!! that was very well done, that is so true to life, people you think you'll be with forever...one move and...well...

Dirg: and why are you looking at me? why didn't you look at her?

Laertus: look, i'll just say this now, everyone's thinking it: Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby were the more interesting dynamic couple, we wanted the movie to be about THAT couple.

Dirg: save it for the sequel.

Laertus: and hey, not EVERYTHING can be translated to the Broadway stage, you know? jus' sayin'.

Dirg: i'm discovering that Bruno Kirby was, like, HUGE in the '80s. see what i did there? as a cuddly teddy bear before he went off a cliff doing all that gangster shit and ending up the ethnic server at Mario's Pizza.

Eye: agree, Laertus. on everything you said. did Carrie really start Sex and the City?

Laertus: of course. Carrie Fisher was a beautiful soul inside and out. she's just gotta realize he's not leaving his wife for her. you know, it's actually pretty hard to break up a marriage. i mean once there's kids, how bout you scroll your Instagram elsewhere.

Dirg: mission impossible, i've tried.

Eye: she was the ultimate wingman. who could ever be a better matchmaker for you than your best friend? she knows all your foibles and secrets. folks, online dating is not the answer, get back to getting a best friend! and she was so nice and gentle, the way she talked, she was so measured and kind. like her best line in the film:

she's pretty, thin, big tits. in short, she's a nightmare.

that line was delivered in the sweetest, softest, innocentest, most non-vitriolic way possible.

Laertus: yeah. which is in contrast when we start looking at the scripts she penned herself. even the ones she script-doctored for, you could tell her signature. Postcards From The Edge is a biting caustic account. sure it's deeply personal, but Carrie's words are absolutely insightful and no-holds-barred and leap from the page. she is speaking from raw experience and the script doesn't just read that way, it sings that way! an extremely talented writer. she uses the heavy words, you know?

Dirg: Debbie Reynolds will do that to a person.

Dirg: you know i don't get why Billy Crystal was cast. i mean isn't Rob Reiner a big loudmouth heavy guy? they should have cast Gandolfini in the part. Billy Crystal, that sounds like a male porn star. explains his massive...porn collection. it's like he drinks Crystal Pepsi all the time or something.

Laertus: BILLY wrote the famous "i'll have what she's having" line.

Dirg: Corgan? can you imagine if a woman orgasmed like that in a 2019 deli? i mean just take a step back and think about the reaction online that would generate.

Eye: maybe people would start livestreaming again.

Dirg: would put the Woman's Movement back a decade. well more decade than before now.

Laertus: Billy made the script funnier, made the character funnier. that weird Greek Balki accent thing, that is all Billy you can tell. i imagine what the character was before the change to funny, like he was this dour Ingmar Bergmanian spectre floating across Central Park, hitting his own head with his baseball bat.

Dirg: halcyon days, when real men could still sing Oklahoma and sleep with a bunch of random women and leave the next day kicking down her apartment door skipping breakfast removing the sock from the knob without much worry. just toss them out like tissue paper when they were through.

Laertus: i mean this was way back when Oklahoma was their Hamilton. all '80s movies referenced past movie history. the Laurel & Hardy bobbleheads in the window on New Year's.

Laertus: the end scene. you know they wanted to make Meg and Billy REALLY old like the other couples, but the audiences probably wouldn't have recognized them then! *laughs* oh Billy, your poor Knicks, you actually thought you were close back then...

Dirg: had that Makeup Oscar right in their hands, but no...

Eye: so, can women and men just be friends? ANSWER: you Dirg, NEVER. you Laertus, LET'S TRY IT to see how long the theory lasts until it breaks for us.

Laertus: i'm sure it's an elastic theory...…...are you talking about a condom?

Dirg: are the Somalians still hungry? see, if you could still make jokes like that now we wouldn't have Bump. the Somalians can have my leftover Burger King Taco, that was disgusting. Mallomars? graham cracker in a cracker? disgusting! the Somalians can have my mallomars as well.

Cotard: we're safe, girls. thank goddess. i'm on my last knee. i got you out of your robes...

Sinphony: ...we were both naked...

Cotard: out of those evil red robes and put you in these two blue robes. much fluffier, right? full-bodied, thick threads, i used Snuggle the laundry teddy-bear mascot in my washing and drying today. your robes were blinking red. as you can see, the red rope is turning brown. i'm trying to turn a negative into a positive...

Sinphony: hey, it's half the size!

Cotard: tell me about it. look more closely, smell it, taste it. it's one half of a pretzel now.

Sinphony: my nose is an instant salt detector.

Velvetta gets up from off her knees on the other side.

Velvetta: sorry, girl, i had to take a chunk and eat it. sorry if i plunked you. i'm regaining my strength from it. i told you. this was all your doing, you cooked it up in that nightmare Church and fed it to me when Codrus wasn't looking. it's your recipe. you will save the town. i was seconds away from being used up and thrown into that witch's boil in that horrid smudgy kettle in the fireplace. that's no way for witches to be represented! i can still smell the acidity of those rancid popping crackling bubbles!

Sinphony: i wasn't even trying, i was just fooling around.

Cotard: imagine what you can accomplish once you're cleared. and your mind is clear. you two girls are our saviors. you two are Princess Leia. it's up to you, only you, i can't help. now assume the stance. not the cat stance. you Sinphony over there holding one end of the dough, you Velvetta on the other holding the other. like you're about to double-dutch jumprope. you'll figure it out i know, it's hard, this is the first pretzel. the very first pretzel. now if you'll excuse me, i have to lie down...

NO, THAT'S NOT A USED BLUE CONDOM IN THE OCEAN...

notes:

* that waterfall from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly anyone?

* not an episode of Wonder Showzen. i'm not sure if i want that show to come back...…i'm not sure if that show COULD come back now

* if everyone in the world simply fixed their leaky faucets, there would be no more earthquakes in California…

* do you know why faucets leak? no, it's not the cats licking them constantly. the faucets are crying out for justice.

* not a commercial for Hershey's Gold

* omg that kid in the green Kermit sweatshirt is LITERALLY the kid on Wonder Showzen, down to the fro and the working at a construction zone with all the orange cones

* Big Hurt: yeah that's big. and done with no enhancements. just the enchancements which will make the ladies love you more. and longer.
Phoenix: Big Hurt, THAT's you?
Big Hurt: all drugs have side effects.
Phoenix: praying for you, Big Papi.

* woman at top of stairs: would you please get the diaper bag, too, kind stranger?
man at bottom of stairs: *whispering* okay, fine, i will. but no Maury, okay?

* woman at top of stairs: *looks at ipad watch* it's 2019, where are the flying strollers?

* Phoenix: maybe if there weren't so many cars on the...
Lucky Charms leprechaun: hush, sonny! *puts his finger on my lips* that's the four-leaf-clover! show some respect, laddy! or are you a lady!? want me to get out my cosh!!?
Phoenix: that's your dick...

* bike gear: you know, the wheel has never actually really been ever explained...

* Phoenix: nah. 17,000 likes, now THAT is bigger.
Captain Obvious: nah, they're all hate likes.

* yellow teammate 1: don't kill yourself, it's just a game.
yellow teammate 2: let's go into business together. me 11, you 7...

* actress: what's all the fuss? why do i have on a Playboy white-fuzz robe and getting my nails did?
assistant: it's for your youtube video...

* girl in red room: i'm beautiful. why? who knows, this world is doomed, imma escape by crawling on my hands and knees and entering this David Lynch tiny door under the sink before the lunch bell...

* humpback whale: i'm normally not this heavy, but i just et Pinocchio.
Pinocchio: Megan Pinoe is my distant relation. is that a condom in the ocean or are you just happy to see me?...
whale: that's your nose...

* Phoenix: no, i DON'T got this.

* Carl Sagan: the future……...thought there'd be different cars...why do i have to drive a banana?...

CLICK HERE RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies
TOMORROW: the Burger King Taco. have to. right? i mean how can a burger place possibly compete with Taco Bell? this taco is gonna taste like a Whopper all chopped up...

GINGER BREAD: TRAILCAM

President Bump takes the microphone ahead of the hearing:

Wolf: the fuck? you're doing a press conference? where's Sanders?

Bump: she's been replaced by the new Pope and just sits in her secluded sitting-room the rest of her life. anyway, what i came here to say to all yous is that penalty kicks are cheap, you know? the only goals that should count are the ones kicked from on the field in the course of play. corner kicks are cheap. the crowd throwing the ball back onto the field and it goes into the goal are cheap. i respect REAL goals...

Wolf: is that a swipe at Megan Rapinoe?

Bump: i don't know who that is, never met her my entire life. is it pink or purple hair? keeps changing, i hate change. i have butter hair. the main thing i want to announce here today is that Martina, Martina Navritilova? i CHALLENGE you to a duel! a tennis match. like Bobby Riggs back in the good old days but this is gonna be REAL this time! me at my age versus you at your age, let's see who wins, fair and square, let's do this!, i'm training for it right now in the Cream House Basement. base. no need for a Wimbledon Invitational, i invite you. can i get a man-nod? Zach G? Robert Redford?

neither of these men who are in the assembled audience nod.

Bump: Kim?

North Korean Kim: not me, i'm busy doing my laundry, stop bothering me.

British Kim: i don't get cable.

Bump: WHAT!!? how do you watch the news then? *makes a fist* to the moon, Kim, to the moon!!!

Bump: i WILL deport you if you lose, Martina, you gotta watch yourself, you're not really an American. i'll throw you in jail overseas. you enjoy our privileges a little too much. i'm not seeing enough joy in your eyes.

Martina: can i speak? you have a bad suntan, you need a hat.

Bump: no.

Serena Williams: you need therapy, man, trust me. i am related to Marianne Williamson in an alternate dimension 3000 years from now.

Bump: i am my own therapist.

Coco Gauff: i will be eating Barilla pasta from now on but i'm not opening a British toffee shoppe. i mean why else would anybody knowingly wear a Barilla hat? as i was playing, the writers were already writing my 30-for-30 and my Disneyland commercial, my racquet hadn't even touched the grass, it flowed above the court. and don't you dare start calling me a typical 15-year-old brat after 15-love when i lose the point and throw my racquet at the chair umpire, it's Carlos Ramos, he deserves it! what do you expect, everybody hates satellite tournaments!

Robert Mueller pounds both fists into his tall glass of water, slicing it in two. no blood on his karate chops. he asks for more chips n salsa.

Mueller: i answered the question, you piece of shit, stop asking it. i am BOB, goddamnit. you know who i am? i am the warlock. you know what my mother's maiden name is?: Motherfucker. now i told you once i started talking you'd never get me to stop. i'm gonna read my ENTIRE FUCKING report all fucking day long!!! until fucking midnight! no milk and cookies for you ever again!

Bump tries to blend in with the crowd and hide in amongst the press, but his big head makes that impossible. he tugs on a flak jacket with the word PRESS on it.

Bump: right?

Christen Press: stop touching my ass!

Bump: oh, i thought you were the press.

Press: there's a cancer growing on the...…...world...

Bump: *mouthing* WRONG

Megan Rapinoe: fuck.

Alison Riske hits her head on the interview table from laughing so hard.

Alison Riske: right?

Megan Rapinoe: marriage is always a risk.

Alison Riske: that was my boyfriend, not my coach. the way i figure it, that was our first argument, our first row, and we passed with flying colors, we're the stronger for having had it. he says he's already bored of me if we can't argue anymore, so...i dunno, marriage, right? i mean he put a ring on it, so...we'll see what happens...now i can afford a nice wedding band...as in band with a drummer, not ring...

Eye Luggage: that fight out in broad open daylight on the tennis court was hot as fuck. i bet they fuck hard.

Megan: i love how color was not brought into this equation, i get enough flak for my hair color.

Megan Rapinoe is currently being pulled in two polar-opposite directions: she is being pulled by her pink/purple hair by Rachel Maddow on one side and by Anderson Cooper by Megan's foot on the other side.

Megan: guys, guys, you're tearing me apart! literally! this isn't a news network wars thing.

Rachel Maddow: Megan Rapinoe is MY new best friend!

Anderson Cooper: Megan Rapinoe is MY new best friend! she's easy to talk to!

Anderson: i'm glad i'm gay. it gave me empathy. without it, i would have been your typical cis New Englander private-highschool snob in a teenage smoking jacket. i would have been one of those secret comic-book geeks who had the unearned assholery of a football jock. both footballs. i would have been one of those frat guys who overturns my own mother's VW Bug and sets fire to it after the Red Sox win the World Series for the billionth time.

Dirg: like that video game Bully.

Anderson: or in my case, Billy.

Phil Neville: i get it now. i see how you see me. i'm the nonce playing in the nonsense game. i should have been a female coach.

Marianne Williamson has been closing her eyes for a century.

Marianne: after much consideration...i don't know...

Baba Vanga: CORRECT, CHILD! okay, i'll let you off the hook: so, what's your favorite comfort food?

Marianne: okay, fine. i dunno……...vegetables i guess.

Baba Vanga: i got my eye on a new enlightened babe. my child, sorry, i'm kicking you to the curb. *stroking chin* that Rapinoe's got promise…

Marianne: or in my language, sarry. always the recruiter. well i guess i'm off. pushing out those babies in New Zealand, i'm gonna become the first-ever Female Red Power Ranger who's the leader.

Laertus: Megan Rapinoe is the first attractive woman i can be friends with. like i love her wholly as a fully-formed human being in a completely platonic way, she's just good people. edifyingly, non-sexual. she can be President. she can kill the two birds with the two stones. perfectly. sorry, Mayor Pete, you're old. news. she is the commiserative role model who fits the role.

Dirg: one of those birds of course being Sue Bird who will be squelched and squashed and collateral damage to Rapinoe's rising fame. Sue Bird will then come running---traveling---to and find comfort in my big arms. can't. nobody can break the When Harry Met Sally rules, not even Princess Leia.

Eye: it's sad that this cute chick's message of love can only be validated in this world AFTER a sports win...

Gladyce is writhing on the floor. Doryce cradles her, comforts her, and kisses her sweet bum.

Gladyce: i am not long for this world, dear! please help me! i can't breathe. i feel my whole lungs seize up.

Doryce: horrible feeling, you'll be okay, my lover, stop that nonsense talk, it's not a game! what the fuck happened?

Madame Pons: i'm reading the label of the box you bought. both here at home and at the The Store shelf. seems it's a new butter-colored-boxed brand of Starbucks: Starbucks Plus.

Doryce: yes yes! fucking Starbucks Plus! that stuff is poison! literally! it's a human health-code violation and should be cleared from all American store shelves by the underfunded Health & Human Services of the Government! what's with the 2X Caffeine deal?

Gladyce: two times the caffeine. it's supposed to add a pep in your step. but at my age that spells death. who needs two times the caffeine for anything!!? not me. i took one sip, just one sip, and my heart palpitated thumping out of my chest the whole rest of the day! i died a thousand deaths.

Doryce: this coffee causes lives. it's a heart attack waiting to happen. i need to wash my face, i'm getting all jittery thinking about it too much. don't worry, i threw the rest of the box away into that filthy smelly recycle bin we have out back. now we have no more drip coffee for two weeks!

Gladyce: i'm fine with the decaffeinated Sanka crystals.

Madame Pons: we love our crystals.

Doryce enters their bathroom with the rank scents and the thousand-year-old seashells decorating with magic not musty glue all along the outline of the huge single-sided Bloody Mary mirror above the musky sink made of hardened volcanic ash.

she picks up from the bar the big heavy thick weaved-threaded blue washcloth and puts it up to her feckled freckled face. that washcloth is so heavy it's filled with bullets and blue bear hair. it's more like a small full-sized towel. Doryce smells it and it's soaked with the utmost gunk and rancidity acidity. grease and grime and centuries-old bathlessness.

Doryce: fuck me that smell! i gotta wash the washcloth!!!

thick trails of slime-goo from the slugs hang on tight on the other side of the washcloth away from view.

Doryce: i know you'll be okay, dear. you rest upside-down on your bed. i'll distract you by entertaining you with what we would have done this week if i hadn't been banned everywhere in the world: for starters, the Fitness Festival. i would have brought my rolled-up pink yoga mat that rolled out into a piano mat and started playing Chopsticks, both parts. the crowds would have oo'd and aah'd. you would have wowed with your Overoos over your old-timey pantaloon pants and me in my cat stance until the pheromones and hayfever dust and dander from all the sunflowers around started to kick in and get in my nose and set my hormones adrift.

Gladyce wailing from the bed: ow! my butt canal has turned into a Wood Hole, it's a sandy cove. remember when we went to Sandycove?

Doryce: oh yes, remember when we visited Wood Hole together? you want me to lick it for you?

Gladyce: no, dear, this is a good sign, it's progress. it means i'm pooing again. and the poo is hardening.

Doryce: and i'd have Bama wear the soaking-wet sailor's trousers i got for him at the gift shoppe. it's always weird entering the gift shoppe of your own small town. and of course my stance would lead to the Spreckels Footrace, run on the very same spot the Romans ran it. and i'd ask for the race to be historically-accurate of course so...

Gladyce: naked.

Doryce: hey, the men can still wear sandals. and i'd see how many sandal pairs i'd pick up as souvenirs, cheaper than the gift shoppe. if their toes were pointy enough, i'd use that as my knife for carving in all my notches on my bedpost.

Gladyce: i swear, dear, you notch conquests on your bed while the rest of us have to cinch up to the lowest notches of our belts to score once. time waits for no woman...unless it's an hourglass.

Madame Pons: marathons are more dangerous than coffee. get your exercise artificially, by taking baths, not through exercise.

Gladyce: that poor doctor.

Doryce: cheaters reap what they sow. Inside Edition, that stupid show makes their correspondents do WHATEVER the yokel of the day did to make the tabloid news. if the dude jumped out of a plane with his cattle, the reporter HAS to do the exact same thing out of a plane with an ox they picked up on the fly at a local zoo. if the gal slid down a waterslide to her nuptials, the female reporter who has a fear of heights has to do the same thing IN a bikini not a wedding dress. i mean what did this doctor have to prove!!? he was already a doctor! he made it in society! he was respected by his peers and his community!

Gladyce: witch doctors are the way to go, dear. now give me a kiss goodnight. don't worry, i'll wake tomorrow. i'm feeling much better, your love has healed me.

Madame Pons: *red-faced not from making the spaghetti sauce* couple goals.

Goody Paul: did you feel the earth move, too?

Maria LaRosa: we didn't do it, that earthquake was caused when i sneezed. come on, get back to work, there's a flood of new flood videos coming into the station. you got your preparedness Go Bag ready?

Goody Paul: i'm ready to go when you are...

Llywarch: see? the Instagram outage was the foreshock. it predicted the big earthquakes to come...

Laertus: when The Big One hits, we'll all know, our twitter mentions will suddenly drop.

Llywarch: i don't want to check my Instagram. i'll miss a comment from you my beloved but i don't want to give the trolls any joy. i have a post i lovingly spent a year writing and crafting with an all-black picture and...

Laertus: President Bump wrote under it nice picture. and there's a reply from Codrus with the questioning-face emoji and Bump replies under that under with I'm serious. then Codrus responds this is not a Russian bot and sent him a sticker.

Eye: Roundup roundup, go.

Laertus: i swear this happened: i'm watching tv in my dorm which is the Treehouse, it's a single, kinda. two commercials, back to back: the first one is the warning spelled out in sobering serious narrator's tones that Roundup weed-killer spray causes cancer and Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and probably also smoking and vape death. the VERY next commercial is of Roundup in a bright front yard on a sunny day with a female voice extolling the virtues of Roundup: the fact that it kills weeds dead and fast on your wedding day and has a fragrant smell.

Eye: but still not as bizarre and surreal as Love Story. oh btw, Alicia Malone would have joined us, her red hair is enough for the entire Red Circle Table, but she last-minute tried out for the Australian Women's Soccer Team after Sam Kerr decided to take a break from the game to get married.

Dirg: let's dispense with the obvious: not a good depiction of cancer.

Eye: every girl wanted to look that good.

Dirg: even Ollie says himself she's not THAT good-looking!

Eye: i liked it better when you actually had no idea what Ali MacGraw had, lent it mystery, and the point was how they maintained their love dealing with the disease, not the disease itself.

Laertus: okay, i'm gonna out-Dirg Dirg on this one: if Ryan O'Neal wanted to be an actor so badly, he should have never had kids.

John McEnroe: i agreed not to be on that reality tv show. me. what does that say? and me and Dr. Drew are tight as a tennis net.

Laertus: Ryan did redeem himself with his saga with Farrah. Love Story prepared him for his real-life confrontation with cancer taking the love of his life. too bad he realized that Farrah was his OTP too late. this man wasted WAY too much time in his life chasing silly skirt. with the exception of Diana Ross of course, our next President.

Dirg: i know, what an idiot! i mean it's Farrah Fucking Fawcett!!! what more do you want! some people you have to turn the faucet on for them to make sure the water's running in his brain, like the coolant for an engine. she's the poster girl!!! Farrah displayed bravery in the face of the hopelessness of death, she displayed Valeria bravery.

Eye: fathers and daughters, the paper path. i was shocked how this film started, i had no idea what to expect, i thought it'd be another sappy love story with corny dialogue. well the dialogue was corny, but it was awesomely corny! cos it was brutal! i've never heard two people insult each other so much in my life! and i went through a divorce! my parents' divorce. no licorice for me.

Laertus: yeah, they were hard and salty and cutthroat to each other, cutting each other down at every opportunity, it was quite the sight to behold. honestly, the piano soundtrack could sell itself, it didn't need this film.

Dirg: PayDay bar? Garfield, right? i love how each year the real Harvard and Radcliffe have a movie festival for incoming freshmen which makes it a point to skewer this film, make the fucking fun of it and dowse it for the wonky wrought piece of work that it is. they don't want this film defining how they are as twin colleges, they want no association with it whatsoever and don't want it representing them. hilarious.

Laertus: the college ice hockey is so New England. the type of teams filled from high schools of smoking-jacket-wearing students. i mean what high school you know that has a highschool ice-hockey team to recruit from? certainly not the type of school we went to!

Dirg: jocks are jocks, young bucks are bucks. but that car, man! THAT car is iconic in film cars! i want that long snug car! that Hershey's-gold almond Rolls or whatever it was toddling along the highway alone on that one empty lane going to Oliver's mansion to try to win the crusty bloodline over with his new poor-but-spry Italian-painter girlfriend who bakes muffins.

Laertus: you gotta love how there's still another mile-drive down the long road after you get to the estate main gate till you reach the house. that was a Tim Burton mansion, only in the daylight.

Eye: Batman. the film is really about the father-son relationship. and how men can never express their feelings and can only bond over pregnancy.

Dirg: those wood racquetball courts were groovy. nobody spells it racketball.

Laertus: and how about the atheism!!? i mean i'm proud of this film. at that time, to be so upfront and blatant about their mutual atheism, i mean that was downright scandalous! good for them! THAT's bravery!

Dirg: nah, it's just the burgeoning hippie yuppie college scene, the start of Elitism in this country. Catholic priests swayed more power back in those days, they were basically the mayors of college towns. at least she was studying Classical music and made her love confession in a pew. nowadays there are college courses like Radiohead As Classical Music.

Alex Trebek: sorry. sohry. sorry i mean sohry, had to inject myself and get that in there.

Ariana Grande: i don't have resting bitch face. i'm just really always constantly depressed.

Kate Beckinsale: i'm the Kevin Durant of twitter. i really do wield all the power.

Cecily Strong: this is why we need SNL during the summers! we NEEDED to see Kate McKinnon's Marianne Williamson impression!

Eye: and we're back after those few messages. i love how he has that dark-night-of-the-soul where he can't find her and is having a nervous breakdown in front of all of us doing the Scooby-Doo doors dance.

Laertus: or like i like to call it: the Christmas panic, we all experience this every Christmas. it was still basically the '60s with that '60s postmodern pop Warhol wavy-conscousness swingin' film aesthetic. do we have to talk about the sequel?

Eye: i guess because he agreed to star in it. Candice Bergen the whole time is wondering if this is a good idea. cos it sullies the name of the dead and all. and Candice is wondering if she's gonna just be the girlfriend in Hollywood or move on to more substantial smoking-jacket-wearing glass-ceiling-shattering independent roles models for women. Ali really got boxed in after this role, pun intended.

Dirg: they get an F in chemistry, shoulda went to Harvard. it takes someone special to forget someone special. never jog in New York, bad things happen. hey, Candice is pretty, alright? he was right about one thing tho: going to Paris will destroy all of the beliefs you hold dear...

Codrus: i'm thinking about recruiting.

Cotard: dear mother! i mean, what do you do all day? you traipse around town holding the hand of your underage girlfriend? whistling when you stop at the graveyard?

Codrus: the trailcams i set up all around the perimeter of this town will give me good outskirt town forest fodder, in skirt, especially at night when unknown recruits let their guards down.

Cotard: i know scouting. i know the Scouts. i turned Anderson Cooper away, no investigations, i keep an eye on you. i want Anderson to keep on the path of keeping and retaining his happy-go-lucky, he's still in mourning over his mother. sound familiar? Pierre Loti and his bugle are helping us scout out instead. don't turn sour, scour.

Codrus: nice try, brother, i convey nor carry no emotion. clearly. i'm checking out all the footage now.

Cotard: unlisted youtube videos like you requested.

Codrus: *smiles* heehee. *scowls* UGH, what is this! gay porn?

Cotard: i just wanted to shock your conscience. did it work?

Codrus: *low and evil* you will never shame me, brother. you won't get me to be uncalm. your ploys are shrapnel flak which ripple off my eternal back. well this whole sojourn is ruined! your forcefield is protecting your charge from my fingers for now, but as you know, gravity doesn't last on a planet forever, hehe.

an unsconscious Velvetta lies on the bed in the Church, guarded hoveringly over by Sinphony.

Velvetta: *weakly* my heart hurts more than my head. you can't believe this is the way, sister.

Sinphony: how dare you call me that! you are NOT family! HE is!

Velvetta *weakly yet strongly* i'm your fam. you know deep down in your conscience this is not right. you'd pimp me out like i was a prostitute? we're women, remember!? we can be more than teachers, but i'm gonna teach you right now. you are gonna be the town healer! you got what it takes to be a doctor, i've seen your mind work! the pretzel, remember?

Codrus: *in hushed tones* pretzel? what's that?

Velvetta: that's how we'll win. it's the miracle food.

Cotard looks under the bed and sees a red hishi karada and squicks out loud. he looks at Sinphony so forcefully his gaze turns her gaze to under the bed and she sees it, too. Sinphony looks worried and confused for the first time in her life, like a frightened brat girl looking for love and uncertain of her future.

Cotard: *in hushed tones* Sinphony, you're about to receive a crash course in humanity. you grab one end of this rope dress and i'll grab the other. we're saving Velvetta RIGHT now!