at The All-England Club, Coco Gauff is fresh off having won Wimbledon against Serena Williams in the Final. Coco hasn't broken a sweat yet and allows herself a bit of a crack of a smile under her headband. also, George RR Martin is making her laugh. she wears a red bracelet on her wrist and refuses the red LifeSaver candies offered her.
Coco: not even those red LifeSavers on a stick.
RR: how does it feel? you've made history which will never be broken. this is the TRUE changing of the guard. you've made the entire world guffaw.
Coco: look, just bring back the regal royal names, okay? Eastbourne and Queen's Club. Fever Tree? that sounds like a bad attempt at the The Tree of Life sequel. you can't get a fever in rainy London, it will never be hot enough. and i'm not opening up a cake shoppe, okay? why did i see you at my match tonight? you were the ballboy behind me, you looked ridiculous in your tubby full beard and sailor's cap.
RR: i'm hiding out here ever since the GOT finale. look, for the last time, that wasn't my fault, okay?, i was never consulted by those two brothers or whatever. look, as far as the seeding goes, we wanted to ensure Fed and Nadal would play, okay?
Sinphony: ha! my Codrus wouldn't be interested in her. for obvious reasons.
Cotard: that's a blessing. we good guys gotta take what we can get while evil and darkness still has aways to go to finish out its term. the grip is getting gangrene.
President Bump: whoa! Katie Swan, i'd like to swim my black swan into her...…...i was a black swan, nobody saw me coming...
Sarah Sanders: that is such a quintessential English name.
Tyler Skaggs pitches the first pitch ever in a MLB game in London. he is allowed to keep this baseball as a souvenir for himself for eternity.
Tyler: seems obvious, right? London is known for grass already. what took so long? this is just cricket but shorter.
Bump: the Brits don't get baseball? Britland, ah, *raises arms* these are my people, this is where i'm from. have they seen a Yankees/Red Sox brawl yet? NOW those hooligans get it.
Phil Neville wearing a rose in his breastpocket and a tie in his mouth: speaking of grass, we got hosed.
Bump: i really liked what you said about those black femmes from Africa, that was very Imperialist, good for you. you impressed me, that was so Harry Potter.
Bump: WHOA! who is THAT!!?
Pence: Christen Press.
Jill Ellis wearing a hoodie: extra extra hot off the presses!: she impressed.
Bump: that's ex-tree ex-tree. Christian is one hot mama! she's got a sneakily-great butt. i'd like to press upon her as i pressed her up against My Wall. and who is THAT on the field in the fetal position!!?
Pence: Asllani. but she's Muslim, sir.
Bump: oh, okay, nevermind. yeah, don't take Alex Morgan too seriously, she was just celebrating on her birthday, she was blowing her own party horn.
Eye Luggage: gotta admit, that was hot. Alex---not Trebek---was blowing up a used condom there.
Alex Morgan taking off her braces: actually, i was smoking a celebratory clove. what can i say? green is my favorite color. i just love Kermit the Frog. sue me.
Bump: i will.
Neville: tank you, sir, but that is VERY disrespectful! we own you!!! America would be nothing if we hadn't let you play your little games and thought experiments overseas. fuck the pond. fuck the gap. i mean, this is OUR sport, not yours!!!
Bump: look, i get it, like Biden said, you're out there kicking each other in the vulva, it's a tough sport. i still think you would reduce injuries if everyone just played naked.
Neville: i told my girls, i told them to kick Alex Morgan in the nuts in the corner there to see if that little prissy princess bitch would get up again. this ain't ballet, honey! we got spikes on our ballet shoes.
Bump: that sounds really hot. i should try that next time. i'd kick but the bone spurs and everything. you gave the order, huh? cool. i'll see what i can do, but the referees are all women, you know? that's an omen. it's hard cos i get hard. gotta check the scores then make a call, bud, sorry.
Bump: *on his Pear watch in a muffled voice* you know what to do...
Jill Ellis: i am NOT gonna Tonya-Harding Megan Rapinoe in the hamstring when we're alone just the two of us in the lockerrooms and i say to come over here cos i want to have a talk with her...
Bump: the people are starting to think she's a hero. or worse, a heroine, who takes heroin...i'm assuming cos of the punk pink hair. if you don't do it, i'm gonna have the Amercian Outlaws do the job, they're on my side with their motorcycle gangnam gangs. and Motaur. they were able to cause more chaos than the French...in France!
Rapinoe: *takes the phone from Coach Jill* sir, i WILL accept your invite and will be attending the Cream House after all.
Bump: good girl! i knew you'd come around, they always do under the heat of my might.
at the Cream House, Megan wears a dress for the first time in her life:
Rapinoe: we creamed them! *hahaha, banter*. call me Pinoe.
Bump: Penis?
Bump extends his hand to her. she snatches her hand back at the last second and instead uses that hand to comb her purple hair.
Rapinoe: now that i have your full attention, now that my fire eyes are staring straight down yours and i can address you squarely and directly to your face, my message to you is thus:
fuck you.
btw, why the hell was it so god-damn hot in France throughout the whole tournament!!? this is France not India!!!
Bump: that was my doing, i farted.
Rapinoe: i figured as much.
Bump: what was with all the joy. you know? i turn on my tv and the analysts are discussing soccer and there's all this talk of joy. i thought i was at a Marie Kondo con in San Diego for a second.
Rapinoe: that's our beautiful word for space. what's inbetween your hairy ears. it's the beautiful game after all. and i am beautiful, no matter what you say!
Bump: what was with that horrible wailing before each match? coming from some banshee she-wolf and her baleful pitched cry, like an African chant gone bad. THAT's considered ethnocentric singing nowadays? made my hairy ears bleed blue blood.
Bump crosses a pony wall into North Korean territory.
Bump: FINALLY i make history!
Kim: oh, shit, don't mind the mess, all my laundry and dirty drawers are hanging on these lines, i would appreciate a heads-up next time. so where's my birthday cake?
Bump gives him a bearhug which crushes Kim's herniated spleen.
Bump: this guy, heehee. i told him, i tells him i was honored to cross the line. both of us, we cross the line everyday!
at The Weather Channel:
Goody Paul: that was one hail of a storm! fuck me. oh, Instagram outage, now THAT's news you can use...
Holzhauer returns to Alex Trebek's hospital bed empty-handed.
Ken Jennings: what gives?
Holzhauer: those who receive. sohry, the man wasn't there, i checked every green-felt casino table, the man doesn't exist.
Ken: dammit. i told you i'd lend you the million dollars if you found him. i'd even make the pinkie-gesture. now what are we gonna do? Alex is hangin' by a wire. he doesn't need a line, he needs the cure.
Vic Mignogna: if i hug him any more, i'll crush his spleen.
Alex wakes up.
Alex: i'm only waking up one more time to spit out my last words: I even gave myself my own Colonial Penn Insurance for free but even that didn't help. i'm dying soon.
Joe Biden emerges from the shadows and the corner where he's been this whole time observing everything and everyone. he brushes his hair with his hand.
Biden: should i hug him? i don't know. it might jumpstart my fledgling campaign…
Alex: please do, sir, please hug me.
Biden gives Trebek a bearhug and Alex Trebek is miraculously cured.
Alex: seriously what's with you and presidential campaigns? you are more snake-bit than me and it was a snake bite which started this whole thing. hello, sohry, just a little Canadian humour to ease your troubled mind...
at the Debates:
Beto O'Rourke: hey de Blasio...*stern look*…...get off my balls.
Bill de Blasio: what. call me Bull, i don't care anymore.
Beto: see it from my perspective. i was the Wunderkind. i was supposed to be White Obama and coast to the nomination easily. i got the Vogue cover! not even my hot wife got the Vogue cover! what the FUCK happened to me and my life?!! i had the perfect riposte to Bump's hand-gestures slam: namely, my own hand-gestures.
Bernie: look, this is REALLY unfair. whom do i sound like? i was the one who had all these revolutionary ideas before anyone else, i was the only one talking about this crazy stuff. on public-access! and NOW that it's not so crazy i don't get the credit and benefit? i'm not getting any younger here, guys, folks, this really needs to be my time, you youngins can go at each other for 40 more fucking years, i can't! Kamala, can i borrow your food? i feel like Taylor Swift right now, getting her life's-work hacked and snatched by some frat guy.
Prince hologram: get a facial tat, my man, go full-Tyson. get yo nuggets, my nigga, get yo chicken nuggets you deserve.
Beto: you know why i wanted the Presidency? it's obvious, right? so i can get back to my only love, *turns to wife* sorry, honey---hacking---and hack the fuck out of Russia so hard they won't be able to walk for a week! that'll stop 'em...at least for 2020...
Marianne Williamson ascends the mountain with Baba Vanga and starts to choke on all the high-air of the clouds entering her mouth.
Baba Vanga: it's not high-air like you think, dear, we're just at high-altitude. come, sit down on this hard mat and don't cross your legs, get in a pose instead. you know, everyone down there is making fun of you. but they're just jealous.
Marianne: girlfriend, you are so right tell me about it. but whenever i think of the insanity of being a woman in this world, i take a few Djokovic deep breaths and recenter my chakras. all my chakras are in my clit, i'm 100% Full Woman.
Baba: exactly, that's why they're so terrified of you. you can't beat love with flyovers. unless it's a flyover of witches on brooms. you have the most delightful lilting singsong Mid-Atlantic accent, you learn that in Texas?
Marianne: no you see i am the President of the United States in the Year 3000 in an alternate timeline, when we humans have RADICALLY EXTREMELY evolved as beings. nobody threatened by me in the future, in fact i am the PERFECT leader, cos i'm a rather boring specimen of humanity over there, when compared. there are much-more fantastical beings than i, i'm rather by-the-book while everyone else is flying around time and space. my spleen is a crystal. and we do actually govern and policy by love...
Baba: that book being a grimoire. i knew it! but that also means that this world is doomed. oh it's all so cruel and ironic, ain't it? the one person who NEEDS to be our leader right now will NEVER even get a sniff at it. the powers-that-be have already published our future scroll.
Marianne: i've sniffed before, it was only crushed crystal-dust. they're scared of me cos i don't use money. it's a fine line: you have to be crazy enough to seek the Office but not perceived as crazy by the general public.
Baba: now dear, just stand up till you come to the answer you seek. this will be a meditation different from any you tried to smoke before.
Marianne: answer? but i don't even know the question.
Baba: exactly...…...you already know the answer btw, you just forgot it...and you forgot the question…
Gladyce: i'm telling you, dear, bad karma will cross your path if you continue to treat those poor things like that!
Doryce: those sick slimy slugs??! those things aren't cute! i pick one up and he stares at me with his beady little eyes, tries to open his mouth but realizes he has no mouth, and those twitching horns on the top of his head are downright satanic. and i know satanic.
Gladyce: you went to the bathroom again while tossing them in the toiletbowl first, didn't you?
Doryce: i swear i never do poo, only pee. i'm sorry but i'm lazy. but they got me last night: one of those sucker slugs surfaced from the water, flew up my asshole, and stayed there. i got the worst non-sexual infection in the morning in my life! ring of fire. and i still had to get the cat food! oh i am so mad about this! i bought this orange bag of food with a chicken on the cover...just assuming it was cat food. but in fine print when i get home:
dog food
i mean are you fucking kidding me!!? how bout don't put a goddamn chicken on the cover!!! put a cat or dog on the cover why doncha!!!
Gladyce: i've never heard you speak so forcefully against a cock before, dear.
Madame Pons: take it from me, cats HATE dog food. you might as well be feeding them worms.
Doryce: *starts to cry* our poor cats...
Gladyce collapses again.
Doryce: fuck! what's wrong now? i explicitly didn't get the Death Wish coffee. who would buy something labeled Death Cups? i got the new Starbucks keurig cups...
Madame Pons: she's choking. you sure you didn't get those Dum Dums?
Doryce: who you callin' dumdum? it's her favorite candy but no. those Dum Dum lollipops are a health choking hazard for kids! and kids at heart!
Llywarch: an Instagram outage reminds everyone---beast and foe alike---that your friends are as delicate as your psyche. it makes you realize that the line to your friends and family and connections to this world as are thin as a cut wire. instantly banned from your life, gone with the push of a button, like they never existed. your support staff is just another system...
Eye Luggage: anime roundup and go.
Laertus: everyone thinks it's Bee. but it's B.
Eye: thank you. and don't say B, Dirg. don't even think it. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.
Dirg: what came first, the Brady Bunch episode or the book? why does Disney still have an association with Lewis Carroll? Lewis Carroll, that can't be his given name. Disney of all companies! Lewis Carroll Can't Lose? can you believe when Linda Lavin started the tv show, she was already 40! i admit, i had a crush on her, she was better than my real mommy.
Laertus: me, too. see what i did there? the crush part anyway, not the mommy part. i regarded Linda Lavin as my TV Mommy, some of my earliest memories as a baby were of her in that diner. i see in my mind those long rolls of white paper covering up the diner windows advertising in red-and-black ink the Butcher Specials and the Price of Eggs. Hash Browns Raw or Burnt. i see big scary towering Mel in his dirty cabbie's hat and stained wifebeater behind the counter. from then on, that's how all greasy cooks looked to me.
Dirg: the kid got hosed. the original Tommy was in the pilot episode but that was it, while the original Mel got to do the series, too, and got famous. a kid like that back in the '70s was "precocious", today he is simply a bratty millennial autistic who needs a fidget-spinner down his throat.
Laertus: never hit a dude with glasses. that was a great joke, and my introduction to the dog's bollocks. Ellen Burstyn takes time to warm to. she's had plenty of inculcated experience to play this part, her real life of mental-illness and hairy divorce is wilder than any Hollwood screenplay could dream.
Dirg: she was annoying in this film, but i guess she bursts onto the scene and wins the Oscar cos she was so thus annoying. Linda Lavin was more warm and nurturing and funny and folksy. she was attainable, gettable, Ellen was a golden blonde sphinx. and she SHOULD discuss her kid's sex life with her kid, this is Hollywood we're talking about here.
Laertus: this film is dark, very dark, it's moody and pessimistic, it's the portrait of American life in this time, full of empty deserts and broken hearts. it's the Woman's Movement and it moves by crying out its trail. like the discoverer who discovers she's all alone making the discovery. she is the '70s quintessential divorcee who has to constantly start over cos her choices in men are bad, but can you blame her? she's constantly surrounded by violence and broken dreams, she just wants to be a little girl again who dreams of being Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
Dirg: even I found Kris Kristofferson attractive in this movie. but yeah, it's like he's the one who beats on Tommy the LEAST so i guess he wins.
Laertus: don't ask a woman to smile, that is so '70s.
Dirg: it's also quite '70s for a woman to cry to get her way. i could go on about the portrayal of men---all men---but i need a nap. a dirt knocked-out nap. and a map.
Laertus: those voyages traveling across abandoned desert highways, alone, drinking from cacti and taking pictures in front of huge cattle skulls, escaping the next abusive bad relationship and the next, wandering, never knowing where you'll end up. soon Tucson and Obec Woods and the sea and where you came from, it's all the same, it's all a blur. the film starts out with this blue dainty doily from a '50s coffee table, like a housewife watching daytime soaps, and it ends with Alice hugging her boy on a lonely stretch of sidewalk with the next seedy motel in their arid offing. and a hitchhiker in their way, another bus stop. it's all so filled with a dry air of maudlin despair and working-class hopelessness. is this where her life starts to pick up? or is she another pickup? did she choose good this time, choose well, choose healthy? no one knows, no one ever knows these things as they live…
Dirg: living out of suitcases forever. if she wanted to be a lounge singer she shouldn't have had a kid.
Laertus: it's actually more black-comedy in the beginning. it's like, you're kinda rooting for the father to be squelched as harsh as that seems.
Dirg: be a man! the salt tastes like sugar, SO WHAT! oh i remember being flung headlong into my own 11th-birthday-party table by my father, good times, good times.
Laertus: never go with a dude who fills bullets, even if he's lonely. wait for him to tattoo his face.
Dirg: hey, it wasn't his fault, he had a scorpion around his neck. a Socorro scorpion! that is NOT Jodie Foster, that is a boy! i so would be a Ripple addict right now if they still sold them on shelves at The Store.
Laertus: they're bringing back New Coke for a limited time! same price, too! just melt some Otter Pops in the meantime. a mother's love can turn a boy toward women or can lead him in another direction. one hour in and the film hasn't had any Diner scenes yet, we haven't reached the famous Mel's Diner! i was surprised that kiss my grits wasn't from the film, you'd think Marty Scorsese would slip that in there to get the credit for that line. and why didn't Vera spill all the straws in the film? that would have made her more endearing.
Eye: i now know grits is squiggly vagina getting past the censors, but when i was a kid i actually thought she meant for me to kiss my plate of grits. imma place my lips on my bowl of microwave grits tonight when i get home alone in my apartment.
Laertus: the scene which stays with me forever is when Alice is remembering her friendly neighbor Bea from back home. Bea connects her to her past, her happier times, her stabler times, when she was miserable under a roof, you never forget your best friend, she misses her terribly. that's what '70s housewives did all day, all of them, Dem or Pub---while their husbands were philandering at the pub---they watched General Hospital at 2 in the afternoon on Channel 7 and hemmed dress skirts for weddings and talked about how Robert Redford is devilishly handsome cos he made a deal with the Devil and how men finish while on top of a stool. that's what connected their female tribe of all women to each other, they shared that communal experience and had the same crush on the same soap hunk. there is such longing in Alice's voice over missing Bea, she is so sad deep inside, she is so desperate to return to her previous happiness but she can never again. also, that's the best way to crack the ice in front of new scary strangers, to make friends, tell them about your past friends, guards get let down cos that proves you were once friendly...
Dirg: that was a sweet ride...
Laertus: Alice's wood-paneled stationwagon is an icon in film cars. carrage and her courage. that stationwagon is a symbol, a symbol of a mother's love no matter what, get through anything for your troubled kid who's seen things at an early age no kid should have to. that stationwagon aimlessly driving to the next stop, hoping it's a rest stop, where they can get rest from the uncertainty and unfairness and unilateral cruelty of circumstance. the symbol of a single mom just trying to make it, struggling, it's a ghost car rumbling through the night streets looking for a job so they don't have to eat diner food their whole lives. the tank of that car is filled with tears.
Sinphony creeps up on Velvetta behind the bush with her back turned and conks Velvetta on her noggin with the crystal in her hand. Velvetta drops like a sack of potatoes.
Sinphony trips over the pony wall which dots and encircles the perimeter of the village in her excitement to clean up the crime scene. Sinphony picks Velvetta up and flings her over her shoulder slowly drag-walking her to the Church.
Sinphony: huh, fat bitch. this offering will please my Lord, i just know it. he won't hit me tonight.
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