Wednesday, January 22, 2020

PRINCETON PAT: ADVANCE SCOUT


Pat is 17 years old. 17 is such a fraught year. it's just one of those years that's really fucked up. so many things swirling around Pat's head at the moment. what school is he gonna go to next? Pat's never had to make such a decision before, it was always left up to the parents. for the first time in his life, Pat alone must make a choice that will determine if he's happy in life. if his future is forever fraught or forever fine. that's mondo monumental, that's not like choosing which flavor french fries you want at McDonalds. for the first time Pat needs to think about things, take a break, parkour up a roof, and actually wizard far into the future and figure things out, with his finger in the air tracing an outline for what the fuck he's gonna do. i mean it was all easy before: the dad determined his high school and the mom determined his primary school. all he had to do was play with the red block. but now. you're not prepared at 17 to predict what you will be interested in a decade form now. you're not equipped with the tools. to build a time machine. there were three things troubling young Pat's mind at the moment: what was he gonna study? what could possibly be his Major since all he studied in high school was everything. can he major in General despite hating fighting and the army?

two: could he still like the Smashing Pumpkins in college? or would that be seen as being too hipster. is it possible to be too hipster in college?

and 3: he had never known the touch of a woman...…...he never had a girl...well except the mom...and his cousin that one time at the birthday party. quick embrace, quick hug after nipping on an old bottle of used shoe polish after knock-knock-joking once and breaking down the cupboard cos he wasn't allowed to drink what the adults were drinking, spiked Sprite barefoot. way before Cranberry Sprite there was Sprite And Vermouth. it wasn't so much the hooch as the barefoot part, Pat longed for that freedom.

the dad arranged the meeting. out in the open to distract suspicion. the dad had been a Princeton grad so it was a shoe-in that Pat would get accepted sight unseen.

Pat: so i gotta do this on my own merits, right?

the dad: hell no! if you're a legacy hire so be it! it don't matter how you game the system just as long as you end up with slash and cash in the end!

they meet her at the corner booth of a corner bar & grill that only served pancakes. lots of people bustling out of their mouths to drown out any deceitful deliberate dealmaking. the woman is Diane Neal. but she has dyed her hair raven-black and wears it in a ponytail. a man's ponytail. she wears a spiked jacket and socks but no shoes. and little beady eyeglasses.

the dad: what's with the getup?

Diane: so how is Ralph Nader's parrot doing these days? he was one of our most normal grads ever.

the dad: oh yeah, THAT's what i was supposed to say to break the ice.

Diane: no need to be formal. or artificial. or use a constructed language. be normal. save the artificial for your sweetener. it's okay, you can be open and free here with me, be yourself. times have changed after the Lori Loughlin thing, Princeton accepts princesses now, too. we ended up accepting her daughter. Lori went to prison for 40 years but a deal was struck with the district attorney whereby Lori had to stay locked up in her daughter's dorm room for 40 years doing youtube videos. it's all kosher now, baby.

the cat familiars: didn't you go to Harvard? are you really a spy?

Diane: *clutches her chest and lowers her eyes* OH GOD YOU SCARED ME!!! you gave me such a fright! i thought you were the dogs...

the cat familiars appear before Diane sitting next to her in the booth. Diane wide-eyed immediately puffs on a swirling cigarette.

Diane: FUCK Mariska Hargitay! everyone else in the world wants to fuck Mariska but i say FUCK Mariska! fuck that bitch! everyone thinks she's so special cos she's the goody-goody daughter of a bombshell and helps rape survivors but yet ironically the SVU set was toxic! have you noticed i haven't worked since? all the jobs in Hollywood are going to the elite! you passed your first test with me, kid, it says here on your form that Mariska ISN'T your favorite actress.

Pat: i actually was gonna write her but i didn't know how to spell her.

before Pat, Diane had a coupla other interviews to get to:

she met Pinocchio after he had just gotten off stage after his first big lecture:

Diane: are you a couple yet? how are you enjoying being a visiting prof at Princeton?

Pinocchio: i look around this room, and i see nothing but untapped potential.

Diane: hey woody, you're not on your date, it's just me.

Pinocchio: oh shit! i switched lines! i told the students they were all date bait and i wanted to tap their ass.

Diane: i'm surprised, Melissa, Canadians aren't usually this tough. with their language.

Melissa Maker: i just hate that Vince guy trying to pass off a dirty rag as a miracle product, i mean look at the guy, he looks like he just stepped out of prison, the furrows on his brow are serial numbers.

Diane: huh, there are 66 grams of sugar in this sweetener...

Diane: Comodin Cam, how's your mother?

Comodin: that's caboosejr's god rest her soul in space. i don't know how the guy does it, after a parent died i could never go right back to work.

Diane: he got special dispensation to attend Princeton if he continued with his toonami-bumpers channel, with all his proceeds going to maintain the university mall and student caf. fixing the broken arcade cabinets so he can lose himself and zombie out whenever and paying the electric bill to keep those pizza slices under heat lamps for life. turns out this was his life, he wasn't wasting away his life as the adults had thought.

Comodin: yeah, typical adults. me? i'm your typical millennial. i'm slightly above-age to be obsessing over a cartoon, but it is Transformers after all, the cartoon where every kid first learned about death. i go to the pub at day, eat a few shamrocks for a United Ireland one day, and watch-party alone in my room at night. wifi is expensive so i pray to Tesla. my most-prized possession?: not a woman, it's my gaming chair. do you like the beard i'm starting to sport? one of the benefits of being a hermit is i end up looking manly...

Diane: as thin as your accent. you have the most lovely fluid natural low voice i didn't detect your accent. kid, hey, take it from me, don't be an actor, you'll end up like me, a beautiful burn.

Comodin: oh, i thought you were propositioning me to take it from you. like S&M. birn? terp? i'm no terp twerp, lady, no Dutch ditch, no natural storm shelter. i can go to Oxford instead you know.

Diane: do you want to live in a hovel for your dorm room? haven't you heard? Oxford is now a hobbit college...

Madame Pons is excited to present her newest candle to her denizens at LUSH:

Madame Pons: okay, i'll be closing up shop for a bit, gotta travel to stay relevant on the Gram, see my sisters, so i'll leave all you my wonderful customers with our sister's newest creation straight from her own hole: Gwyneth Paltrow...

crowd: IS SHE HERE!!!?

Pons: uh, no, get the wax out of your ears: this is her CANDLE, the Paltrow Pussy! when you light this sucker, the candle vapes smell EXACTLY like Gwyneth Paltrow's vagina!

she puts it out on the counter lit and the entire audience of men and women instantly hold their noses. up in the air to smell it! their nostrils remain fixed in the open position and they do not talk, all of their vaginal eggs fall out and land on the countertop.

Pons: *whisper* okay then and i'll just slip out the back door here undetected. Irish goodbye, and bye.

the crones are already there situating into their situation in their new dorm room at Princeton:

Doryce: all unpacked then, dear?

Gladyce: yes, dear, i put all my suitcases inside your vagina. and my boombox is on the shelf. where's the printer?

Doryce: oh we'll get to that. how do you find the food here?

Gladyce: went down to the caf, it was okay. why do all the drinks have sugar shards in them? and the ice, oh but do i hate the shaved ice. i get their shaved ice and it sticks to the bottom of my cup, i have to scrape the damn ice off and slide it manually into my drink cup.

Doryce: your poor spell fingers! yeah just get the block ice next time, push that red button for Sprite.

Gladyce: and my teeth! they HURT!

Doryce: it's the weather, dear, it's too frigid cold!

Gladyce: no it's the salt! the garlic salt! i use that garlic salt down there on my spaghetti and it immediately burns up my hanging-on-by-a-thread teeth!

Doryce: yeah, that bottle of garlic salt is 17 years old...

Lolo and Zion join the First Take schooldesk:

Lolo Jones: no we ain't a comedy team! i am pissed off. mother always said honesty was the best policy. ruined my life. when i said i was a virgin suddenly the guys were beating me with a stick cos they considered me a witch. not beating off to me like a man. i got a lot of finger-crosses in my face. how do you deal with not having sex?

Molly: *looks around the room then back at herself* who, me? well i don't but for a different reason.

Max: she's okay. and you'll be okay, Lolo. you just gotta get out there and date as many men as possible.

Lolo: i'm even considering going to Princeton, to up my Tinder. athletes NEED to have sex! it's a valve for them, it releases all that fat ball of nervous energy before the big game. i do meets well just not meetups. i track how many times my dates say mother. and i think of my mother.

Max: lol. okay. would.

Lolo gets a dorm room and fucks Max so hard he becomes disoriented in his head and thinks he's a pro boxer. later that afternoon, Lolo breaks all of Usain Bolt's records and wins 17 golds.

Zion: did you see that fight break out at the college-basketball game? i'm glad i'm in the NBA where it's safe. don't worry so much, you're like my moms, i'll be okay, i won't get injured or hurt again.

Stephen A: what are you most looking forward to doing this Super Bowl week, young buck?

Zion: i'm gonna ride those dolphins in the ocean right now...

at the Impeachment Trial, Rubikon is one of the Senators seated at the far end looking at his phone as President Bump walks into the Chamber unannounced in a slow procession and quietly takes his seat in the front row waiting to be called as the star witness. he puts his feet up on the desk, rests his large head on his little hands in the back and whistles.

President Bump: tell me when it's the intermission and i'll hand out large bags of money on each Senator's desk, just plop it right in front of their faces with a thud. sacks with an S on them. for snacks.

Rubikon: there hasn't been ONE break! it's been live the entire time for one week! all hours of the night, 168 straight! i mean come on, right guys? if you elect me President i will make sure the Senate Trial is an actual criminal trial!

Bump: i gotta go to the bathroom! i'm in a daze, in a fog, a pettifog. oh, that's just all this vaping i'm doing, filling the room with a smokescreen.

after intense endless debate, Lamar Alexander casts the deciding vote to Remove. Lamar quickly gets the fuck outta there in an Irish goodbye...

Bump: WHAT!!! HELL NO I WON'T GO!!! it's not official until i sign the Impeachment into law!!! GET HIM!!! GET HAMILTON!!! GET LAMAR!!! CALL KANYE IF YOU HAVE TO!!!

Eye Luggage, Laertus, and Dirg join the crones and Pons in the dorm room:

Dirg: just tell me there's a tv in here i can hog and i'll be okay, on my best behavior.

Eye: we got special dispensation from Obec University to transfer over here to Princeton for a semester. they didn't recognize our faces when i went to the desk, didn't know we were students at Obec.

Laertus: and we're a small-town college.

on the tiny tv:

Alex Trebek is speaking to a female contestant:

Alex: YOU'RE anxious!!? YOU have anxiety!!? lady i'm dying, I have anxiety!!!

Scomo comes out for his next press conference in scumbro clothes.

Pete Davidson: you've already lost the youth vote. and my mom is not sexually attracted to you.

Doctor Who speaks into the screen:

Jodie: i mean what's the deal with that Doctor Who wikia? have you seen that webpage? everything, literally EVERYTHING is on that wiki! pencil has a page. idea has a page. grass has a page...

Eye: what were we talking about again?

Tyzik: oh that Disney better not ruin Lupin. oh wait, that's already happened...

Eye: Waterworld and go...

Dirg: let's just get this over with...

Laertus: dude, global warming is real, this is GONNA happen to the Earth someday...

Dirg: no not that, Helen. Jeanne Tripplehorn. when she strips down in front of and that luscious ass of hers is on display for all to see shown onscreen, no WAY Kevin Costner just stands there and calmly rejects her. in that moment Tripplehorn is triple horny!!!

Eye: Costner is a man of principles. he believes in two things and only two things: honor and minor-league baseball.

Laertus: is it weird that i only found out about this film from the Universal Studios ride rather than the trailer? it was weird when i went to that attraction with my father, i had no idea what the fuck was going on, i just saw all these jet-skis on fire...

Dirg: interesting start. the conversion of pee from saltwater into drinking water with that glass contraption. i do that in my dorm room sometimes with my bong when it's late and i'm too tired to go to the bathroom next door. i would say this film is more relevant now than it was in the '90s, but we still got 500 years, relax, people!

Gritty the mascot: in my defense, the kid was Greta and she was annoying me...

Laertus: this film back then in the '90s was an entertainment, pure fantasy, a speculative fiction.

Eye: World War 3 will be fought with sticks. and pool noodles. you know how much people would pay to sail on catamarans all day?

Dirg: trimarans fitted like Harley bikes. everyone in this world is so stressed trying to survive it they're all smokers. why does the child have Muppet hair?

Laertus: cos Hall of Famer Michael Jeter's in this, the ultimate Muppet guy. so is Jack Black...

Dirg: ...as a Nazi, dream casting. remember, without Nazi gunners there'd be no Star Wars. yeah so this thing was long and boring. all i really wanted to find out about at the end of it was Dennis Hopper's golf game. there needed to be a flashback scene showing The Deacon before he went religious hitting a golf ball into New York City from the roof of his skyscraper.

Tiger Woods: i coulda been cast as his robot.

Laertus: you could tell Dennis Hopper really didn't want to be there. he was deliberately hamming it up and desperately finding no satisfaction in the role whatsoever. he would have eaten his own glass eye if he were allowed to stop from seeing water.

Eye: turns out The Deacon was once an eye doctor, that's how he got his millions.

Eye: heavy sigh. it seems in this world like in any world the only thing which really gets the ball rolling when it comes to international trade is the woman's vagina and what you're gonna do to barter for it.

Dirg: i could have sworn that incel pirate was Robin Williams from Hook. women ARE valued, they are the most valuable commodity in the world. why didn't they show the sex? that would have been the perfect sex scene between Helen and Costner, it was a readymade waterbed!

Eye: that wasn't sex, that was love, real love. not just her wanting to escape. it's pretty convenient the guy comes flying all the way from the sky to knock the exact space where Kevin's cage is. and the keychain pops out.

Dirg: i mean is that really a death?

Eye: nope, that's a mud bath. that would clear my chakras. i mean actually for me that would be a nice orgasm, so yeah. hey, coffee grounds in any time period are ALWAYS valuable. can't take a good cup of coffee for granted.

Laertus: what's with the bad guys yelling and spitting at little kids? holding a little girl upside-down like a sack of potatoes. that's not a good look. even He-Man does it!

Dirg: got away with more back then, we were born in the wrong era. i mean even Costner tosses the kid off his boat into the open ocean like she were a piece of kelp or water trash. but that's how smartass kids learn, when your instinct kicks in, that's how you instantly learn to swim or drown. wash that rude not-in-her-place kid's mouth out with salt...

Laertus: just because the kid is a better drawer than you...right, Dirg? have you experienced this in your career?

Eye: i can take many things---betrayal, a bad barter, bad breath---but DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY CRAYONS!!!

Dirg: ironically i heard of this film from the comic book. Takahashi told me he learned of this movie from the video game. there's no paper in this world---it's sold as a commodity---they have to write everything on skin. couldn't they have just made a copy of the girl's back when they were all chatting at the café and save us all the trouble of these entire three hours?

Laertus: man evolved from fish, not apes...and God is Nessie...

Dirg: don't these people have superheroes? hello, Submariner anyone? i'm still cool with that, Jesus's symbol is a fish after all. that Santa sewer-worker really wanted to die, had enough of the Fatberg.

Tyzik: and suddenly this becomes North by Northwest. and then Around The World In 80 Days. pretty clever how the ship turns out to be the Exxon Valdez. Dennis was not into his preachifying speech. he needed to channel Twilight Zone Hitler more. the bored parishioners weren't buying it.

Dirg: parishionerds. you could still say retard in the '90s...

Eye: and suddenly this becomes The Piano! same romantic beaches. not a bad day's work when you get paid to go to Hawaii. pretty clever how the New Zealand lush green of Dryland is actually Mount Everest. would have liked more of the backstory tho. like, how did Helen come to be Enola's guardian?

Dirg: she killed her parents. with butter. i'm writing the prequel comic now.

Eye: i mean COME ON!!! after ALL THAT, all they went through, the dude decides that being out there on the open sea is BETTER than the love of a family?!! what is he gonna find out there on another adventure that will top begetting a new generation of villagers on Costner Island? this coulda been real-life Dr. Stone. this is one of the most depressing endings to a film i've ever seen.

Evangeline Lilly: the island will drive the women mad...

Dirg: roots need water. hey, look how happy he was on his boat with all his plants, marijuana is a lucrative business. besides, that boat of his have those Discovery Zone nettings that are superfun to bounce on. you know it wasn't until i finished watching this film and the credits rolled that i realized Kevin Costner has no name in this! g'night, folks.

Diane: i'm looking at your grades here and they're stellar. makes me think you never left the house. did you go to prom?

Pat: please, i'll cry right out here in the open if you continue with this line of questioning. it'll be like the When Harry Met Sally orgasm but with uncomfortable tears.

Diane: you have to be more than smart to get into Princeton, you have to be crazy. do you play any sports?

Pat: i played tennis in dress shoes. that didn't last long. they forced me to run a marathon in dress shoes.

Diane: THAT's more like it. just answer me this one final question: how would you describe the movie Waterworld in three words?

Pat: Mad Max On Melted Ice. most expensive movie ever made at the time, broke the bank, but everything will eventually break even once Disney Plus is finished with it.

Diane: CORRECT! very nice, that was a trick question. most say Water Mad Max. kid, YOU'RE IN!!! well you have to do one more thing in your dorm room. technicality. when you get to your dorm, open the door. here's your ticket to ride! your ticket to freedom!

Diane hands Pat a golden credit card.












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