SAX, PLAY US OUT: PASSAGES FROM DEAD LETTERS

Mardith: there's to be a wedding!!!!!

Madame Pons: please say it's not yours, girl!

Mardith looks around the pile mush of wet brown leaves in and around the sidewalk snaking around all the apartment building complex. she stops herself to survey the scope, scrape her knees, and sniff around, to investigate. she looks east toward the bustling street and west toward the construction block. then she finally looks up...

Mardith: oh it's so nice to have an overcast backdrop, i can see again! yet I should be the mad one here! as in i'm young! who's the parent in this relationship! DO NOT TELL ME YOU'RE MARRYING DIRG, SISTA!!!

Madame Pons: same. to you. you're not marrying Dirg, right?

the two share a hug and breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Pat: wait is it my wedding? has my spy come back from overseas? she's taking "indoor classes" over there...

Charlotte Coleman: you mean across the pond, right? that's what my Texan always says...

Lance Armstrong: take this from me, i'm a world traveler, everywhere around the world, America means Texas...

Takahashi: no, Pat. but cheer up, buddy, i brought the Lays! yeah, all yours! take the whole variety pack! see? you can have either the yellow or the orange Lays...here, spice it up with some of my leftover packets of Taco Bell Breakfast Salsa laying around in my glove compartment lying to you in their message balloons...warning, do not put this sauce on a biscuit already flavored chicken...

Dirg: that Lays commercial...Lays are for furries...that was the actual tagline of that commercial, i swear! the guy in the bear suit riding a bike...remember in the '80s when a guy in a bear suit was a harmless thing at birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese circuses?

*there's a knock at the locked door*

Dirg: what is it this time? let me guess, Teal Swan for Orchid Girls?...

Gladyce and Doryce are at Denny's...preparing...

Gladyce: I CAN'T EAT THAT, DEAR!!! the portions are too big, bih!!! i gotta save my stomach. i love my lining too much.

Doryce: i, do, too. yours.

Mardith scans the AT&T stream...

Mardith: that kind of depressing youtube comment can't come from a girl!

Mardith: Pons, my precious parent, i love you too much to fail. i'm young but i'm spry. heed my advice: all this struggle you've been through in your life, it's a sign, a good sign, that the universe deems you ready to make a breakthrough. the breakthrough always comes at the point of greatest hardship.

Dirg: did you ever get that narrator for your pieces? i've got the perfect voice for you guys: Antony Hegarty...

President Bump looks out to sea. this time, to see two hurricanes barreling toward him on a rageful path.

Bump: do these glasses work? they're too bright! i'm seeing double. two circles...

Pence: i'm getting ready for my Hollywood audition tonight, sir, did you borrow my box of Reverse Just For Men again?...

Bump: i mean this is gonna be dumb. these last two months, when i lose and Biden becomes Prez, politics will die in this country, nobody will discuss politics anymore, won't be the focus of public life, nobody will care anymore. back to 24/7 non-political Hollywood entertainment-for-the-masses. and don't get me started on QAnon, they're gonna become the Party from the ashes from the embers, after the Republican Party dies.

Pence: the Republican party is already dead, sir.  don't ask me, don't at me. i'm going back to my farm. Pompeo is not handsome enough to become President, he looks like a bloated Superman. 

Bump: i mean what is it gonna be? ZOOM DEBATES!!!? Biden and me in separate rooms!!!?

Neil Gaiman: that sandman kid. he say he was falsely accused but then he runs to the RNC. if he had run to the DNC he'd have a point...

DMC warm their hands by the fire outside in the snow...

Scott Baio: i love how First Lady Melania wore that same olive-green coat that caused so much controversy before to her speech last night. Controversy Coat. Coat of Controversy. Coat of Many Controversies. looks like a warm blanket i can wrap around in so i feel safe in this country, i have a thing for blankets...

Cecily Strong: see it sucks that i literally HAVE to watch the Republican Convention for work...all 1776 hours of it for my job...sad, really sad this time...i would do ANYTHING to get out of it but i can't...somebody, online, if you have any Schitt's Creek video-bites, drop those video-nuggets in my DMs to DISTRACT ME PLEASE!!!

Rubikon: i can't join you out on your fast-food jaunts anymore, Takahashi...

Dirg: aw don't be sore, just wear your safari hat when you're out with us...

Cotard: the Communion Host isn't doing it for me anymore, i'm still sluggish, i need to clear the shelves of the Walgreens-On-A-Hill of all their Metamucil...

Dirg: everyone on Instagram has an imminent book launch in a week for their stupid e-book, it's annoying...

Dirg: it's even more annoying! those aren't e-books, those are real books! they wasted trees on those things!

Tyzik: see? Hurricane Laura Palmer. this was all predicted in the episodes and the made-for-cable movie.

Takahashi: Zoltar commercial, you can break the glass but you can't shake hands with Zoltar anymore. 

Dr. Vacc: notice how no one talks about dex anymore? i'm selling it out of the trunk of my car. WHAT'S THAT SOUND!!!? i get 'Nam flashbacks every time i hear a Code Blue light...

Takahashi: not the rumble roar of thunder, rolling skateboard wheels. on the sidewalk. 

Takahashi makes the hang-loose sign with his thumb and pinkie.

Federer in an apartment-room bed with his left leg in a cast pointing up on a stretcher pulley: what fuckery is this. Maria Sakkari and Stefanos Tsitsipas BOTH won the U.S. Open this year!! in this covid-crazy tournament where no one attended. fans nor players. the Couple Slam!! the two have since reestablished and reconstituted Mount Olympus in the sky... 

the cat familiars eat their mush of strained peas pate and fancy feast lickable delight chicken-shrimp flavor with a pasta straw, a stroodle...

Laertus, working hard flinging around his scissors: hey where's your Mood Board, Dirg!? don't slack off! this is the Hollywood writing process! this is how everyone in the industry gets ideas!!!

Dirg eats a bottle of glitter paste.

Mardith: i'd love to travel someday, really travel. i mean the ultimate rainfall-showerhead is the Rain Vortex in Singapore...

Pons: it pours as you sing in the shower. free soaps for you from me, girlie...…...when you're ready...…...to travel...

in the last room explored in the entire apartment complex building, in the one in the very center that everyone thought was a locked janitor broom closet, the secret shadow real leader of the Orchid Girls Obec Chapter emerges for some gum. it's Claudia Conway...

Michael Weiss in the elevator right by Claudia's room as "Televators" by The Mars Volta plays inside the elevator: Instagram is Fantasy Island...

Jim Cantore: guys. guys. Moby is my son...

Pons: Telfar Clemens, i didn't have to go far to rinse the thought of Roger Clemens from my mouth! the site says to try new things: i'm all for mouthwash but no more baseball. i'm gonna sell mouthwash at my LUSH chapter. that delicious huge black man naked display, his photo overhanging the art studio i went to last night for zoom-date and location research...

Pons lets out a deep sigh. Mardith the empath-in-training lets out a sympathic sigh. they both form one cheek of blush...

Pat goes to the corner and cries. his tears are getting in his paper oyster-pail of zongzi...

Nadal: that's Chinese tamale...

Eye: what were we talking about again?

Tyzik: so audiences didn't go for an adult Donald Duck.

Bump: …

Tyzik: but would they have gone for an adult Mickey Mouse?

Bakshi chomping a cigar: don't bet on it. hey i tried with Mighty Mouse... 

Eye Luggage: Four Weddings and a Funeral and go.

Laertus: off the bat, we must talk about the tragic life of Charlotte Coleman. poor girl. she coulda been what Emma Watson is now...

Eye: she was essentially Emma Watson of the '90s!

Dirg: i keep a wallet-size of that haunting wedding portrait of Charlotte and her beloved---Charlotte's REAL wedding, not her character's pretend film wedding---in my pocket at all times. and i pull it out and look at it whenever i'm in a church, you know to remind me...

Eye: that picture is so ethereal, ghostly...

Dirg: true love. two crazy kids. woman meets man. marrying an artist. see? i told you bikes are bad news! i NEVER watch the Tour de France on principle!!! i wonder if they recited W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" at Charlotte's real funeral...

Dirg: ...recited masterfully and hauntingly by the same actor who did it in the film, Sheldon from Big Bang Theory... 

Laertus: without this film, you wouldn't know who Hugh Grant was. the entire world would have no idea who Hugh Grant was. at least not the Hugh Grant we know now...

Eye: Globe + Mail in Britain. i don't get the whole Hugh Grant thing. i mean i get all the rain under the brolly and the sour London mood and the British accent and everything but not the Hugh Grant thing. 

Kurt Cobain: London rain and Seattle rain are different animals...and yet one sign of the beast...

Dirg: what do you mean! Hugh Grant was the ultimate '90s guy! Hugh the metrosexual, the cute little monkey who's sensitive to women's needs but with that underbrow of simmering snarky sarcasm where he could joke about his own suicide...

Eye: this was the ONE moment in time for Emma Thompson's sister to surpass Emma. she had her chance here...

Laertus: Rowan Atkinson is in EVERY ONE of THESE kinds of films, EVERY ONE. he MUST be in THIS KIND of film. 

Cotard: i must confess, for a while there i thought Kristin Scott Thomas's secret lover was her fucking the novice priest Mr. Bean...

Cotard: ...i mean it's the same thing that happened to my brain when i saw Ardal O'Hanlon play a serious detective on PBS last night, i just couldn't wrap my head around that concept like i can the concept of God...

Eye: remember Kristin Scott Thomas? like there was that three-year period in the '90s when it was All Kristin All The Time. 

Dirg: her entire career swiveled on that English Patient episode of Seinfeld... 

Laertus: she got dem red juicy lips. 

Eye: in an international online poll of British viewers and watchers, they said Andie MacDowell's character in this was the most annoying female character in British film history. yeah i don't get that, i thought she was fine in this, i didn't get wafts of annoying coming off her like stinklines.

 

Dirg: are you sure that poll didn't also include British voyeurs?

Laertus: the British are just jealous of Andie's bright white strong sturdy teeth! that smile could cure cancer! 

Dirg: i mean she was kinda annoying when she was listing off ALL of her lovers on her little fingers when they were in the cafe, if a guy did that he'd be a slut...

Laertus: the Anna Chancellor character...

Dirg: ...the needy one, the one who cries at the drop of a hat, a fascinator no less, can't be happy without a man but won't be happy with a man...

Laertus: i swear that was the original template for Janice on Friends... 

Eye: who herself is just mini-Fran Drescher.

Jennifer Aniston: Hugh Grant stole my hair idea! 

Laertus: okay, best performance from this little surprise-hit: it's that guy from the hotel who slums on the couch drunk when Hugh and Andie first spend the night together after the first wedding. that was a great performance! i ended up feeling sorry for this man! he was so earnest.

Eye: i made a bet with myself having never seen this: i was guessing who the Funeral in the title would be. i thought they'd really go for it and make the death Hugh or Andie...

Laertus: yes. but i do love how this thing weaves all five events together in a connected collection of humanity. it all ties together quite nicely. kinda cool the boy who delivers the eulogy was that hearty old Englishman joie-de-vivre mensch with the greying beard in the Scottish kilt's lover. toyboy i guess.

Dirg: i hope Simon Cowell is gonna be okay...

Rubikon gives Dirg a dirty look from the dirty side of the hurricane.

Laertus: having that deaf character, that was a surprise, nice touch. love is better silent anyway, that coupling's gonna last.

Dirg: after Hugh witnessing sex that ribald and rambunctious, that dummy waiter's gotta go. that butter scraped on it oh it is too sour.

Eye: uh, dumbwaiter.

Dirg: talk about the indian in the cupboard. serial monogamy? guys, don't fall for it!!! it's a '90s ploy!!! that shit doesn't exist anymore!!!

Laertus: stick with the pick-up artist? remember, buddy, there is such a thing as "one true love". in your case, it's you, Dirg. at the beginning of this film, they had to censor all the FUCKS said or the Christian conservatives wouldn't let it get big in America. ah, remember when the Republican party was like this? harmless, just concerned with bad words.

SLC Punk: still not cool for me, dude.

Laertus: they said FUCK so many times i was sure Hugh would end up saying FUCK to the priest outside the church and the unsuspecting bride and groom by the van before he could stop his handsome lips from lip.

Eye: they replaced fuck with bugger. now that's hilarious. American audiences would be waiting for Jeff Goldblum to show up...

Laertus: for the entire movie i had no idea what the relationship between Hugh and Charlotte Coleman was. 

Dirg: don't get kinky on me, man.

Laertus: turns out she's his sister, but that's never explicitly mentioned in the film script. a point was made not to show their jobs. but hey, being a professional wedding guest is a brilliant job!

Cotard: like those priests on Father Ted where being a priest was like being a construction worker or barbers on the Barbary Coast...

Dirg: okay and i'm serious now, i want Henrietta to fight Rocky for real, that franchise is getting stale...

Chuck E Cheese: that bird is mine...

Dirg: wait, lifelong commitment without marriage? I'M IN!!!...…...wait...

Dirg: the Grenadier Guards all overdosed on grenadine syrup. and the Brits just slip in the incest there anime-style...

Boris: don't look at my face...

Eye: did any of you get that subtlety at the end there on first watch? i got it but i'm sure you lot o' blokes who are not into the romantic mushymushy missed it.

Laertus: i know what you're talking about: Fiona always wanted to marry Charles, well she does marry a Charles in the end, Prince Charles...

Dirg: yeah so Kristin Scott Thomas, it's like she's in another movie, she's playing Miss Scarlet from Clue...g'ni...

Eye: so overall this was good. takes a while to rev up but it comes together in the end. when you look up ROMCOM in the dictionary, you get a poster of this film. jolly good show, mates, cheers. 

Dirg: tally-ho, ho. this film made me wet wet wet.

Eye: strangely, Andie MacDowell didn't get the bump, the meteor, she didn't become the lava-hot global superstar that Hugh Grant did from this. Elizabeth Hurley ended up with all of Andie's shine!!! 

at the ceremony on top of the building, on a green verdant lush lawn, the guests which are everyone gather around the expectant couple.

Doryce: expecting a wild kiss that is. 

Pat hands out favors from a large silver tray he's holding on his head, food favors, he passes out English muffins to all the guests, nooks and crannies stuffed inside nooks and crannies...

Kristin Scott: i made those...

Orchid Girls: we're renaming nooks and crannies jelly and butta...

Doryce: i love the English muffin seedy bottom...

Gladyce: the smooth rough bottom...

Doryce: wait, are we getting married? for the first time? or are we renewing our vows?

Gladyce: oh dear it doesn't matter, we're the best couple this block will ever have forever!!! we're sensations!!

the two crones French kiss for two days and form one tongue...

Doryce: who smells like chlorine? step up, young man, and give us your wedding gift.

Boc hands them a long beige box.

Boc: uh, young woman. it's the box i keep my oxblood monk shoes in, i use these dress shoes when i water the lawn to collect all the mud. that's how special i think the event is. i hope you enjoy all i did to make it green for the big day, i rushed it, watered evey damn day for a week!!!

Doryce: kinda a raggedy hope chest but i'll take it.

Gladyce: oh dear, please keep this. Boc, it's your momento. your treasure. i see two items underneath the soles of the shoes...

Boc: yes, a rubberband and a feather. the rubberband i found on the roof ground and used as the nozzle till i got a proper nozzle. the other is a feather which fell from the sky into my lip the first time i watered this lawn. made me think my mother who was once my father was watching over me...

Boc returns to his room to find a blank Hallmark card under the door. he picks it up and reads it:

it's from Germane:

thank you for all you do, Boc. as gratitude and thanks i have personally used your hose to wash a brand new car which is yours now. just empty the trunk of any contraband pills, needles, and/or spit-takes...

Boc to himself: but how did you get the car on the roof?

Boc flips to the second page of the card:

i knew you'd want to know how i got the car on the roof. the answer is nevermind that. i found it quite meditative to wash your car...

the tenants race around the building, run in the hallways and fly off stairs and elevators to locate and uncover any more Hallmark cards. they find Germane's landlord room off the elevator shaft that no one had ever seen, never seen him in a room, he was always skulking around trying to help. with their collective might they push the door hard in, it's locked from the inside. inside the room there is nowhere to breathe, the space is completely stuffed with thank-you letters the tenants wrote to Germane. some fly away through the highrise window turning themselves into paper airplanes...

some are caught before...

Vacc: i got one!

Vacc reads:

when i was a kid, all i wanted for Christmas was a Nintendo greybox...

Takahashi nods, blushes, and smiles.

when you're an old man like i am, all i want now is an air fryer.

Jim Cantore jumping up: i got one!:

when i was a kid, i thought when the hurricane-hunter planes would enter a hurricane their planes were so powerful they would destroy the hurricane. 

Lily from AT&T: how did i survive so long? for this long? how did i survive all those live convention appearances?

Dirg: you got lucky, we nerds love cute furry things, we get distracted, and you represented the squirrel...

Lily reads from her letter from Germane:

this is what i mean. online: terrible human invention, claptrap contraption. a machinery of convenience, we humans sold our souls cos we had the crazy idea that communicating online was better than writing letters to each other. it's easy to hate, to hurt that which we do not feel. online, it should have never happened. should have been blowed up from its inception...

Germane has not been seen nor heard from in weeks. and never shall again. all Germane ever wanted as payment was for his tenants to write thank-you notes. everyone would get in the habit of writing thank-you notes to each other, when we used to write letters, all that muscle memory lost, that finger memory.

all the tenants know, though they can't see Germane smiling, they know he is smiling, they remember his smile.