PENN PAT: TORCH POINT

Pat: what happened at the casino last night?

Serano: you were there? you saw me?! 

Pat: nevermind.

Serano: that's my line. yeah, let's go see Boc.

Boc: it's not fair! life's not fair! 

Serano: some of us never know our father, kid. or really know our father if you know what i mean...

Boc: FINALLY the air quality is GOOD! i checked it on my phone for the past two weeks, FINALLY the green circle! but NOW it's too fucking hot outside again!!! i have to wait till dark. it's a magical experience watering a lawn at night. you can't see a thing so all your meditation has to be internal. 

Serano: and you have to be sure to always point your nozzle due north star or you'll wet your short-shorts...

later that night, Boc waits till night. till midnight. till the dead of night. when all he can hear is the casino din on the boat docked in the distance. 

Boc: as i water, i sense a twinkle in the air. i smell the musk. and i can SEE!!!

three large phoenix birds descend on the grass court. they are HUGE!!! and they light up internally! sparkle from their insides as if puppets from the Main Street Electric Parade!

Boc: but they're real! they are all too real! wow. amazing...…...it's the MUSK!!! the musk in the air from my hose's water is drawing all exotic creatures great and great to my small area of green on the globe!

there are so many lights lining like Christmas lights and sparklers the houseboat offshore that no one inside the club notices nature.

Eye Luggage: i was in a college goth band named Ephematic...

Dirg: but you're still in college now. i'm your roommate...at least your roommate in the classroom...

Eye: yeah, that was a long time ago...

Laertus: haven't had live music in a minute...

Annie Wright starts the first all-girls school on a treelined grassy knoll on the first hill of Monte Carlo island……...awhile ago and retroactively becomes the first Orchid Girl...

Shere Hite publishes the first account of female holograms having orgasms and wins the Nobel, which she soundly rejects until Sartre's Girlfriend as she's known carved in the town hall gets her medal back.

Shere: i am a tigress. and i am all for cheap shots in the cause of justice.  

also, a girl named Natricia becomes a first-time member...

at ESPN First Take:

Max: i have the ability to change my mind when new evidence surfaces. that's called having a brain. that's called having intelligence. that is what gets us out of this politically relativistic mess. i will be an informed information information-age voter, not a tv voter, come November. i still say Chadwick Boseman should play Kawhi Leonard...

Stephen A: oh lawdy. i got my preacher towel out cos it hot in here!!! it's getting hot in herr!!! it's getting baking in here!!!

Molly: don't look at me. 

Max: look. i just want to say while i'm still on tv that i have nothing to do with Max Major. that is the current host of Around The Horn, not me the previous host. 

Tony Reali: sorry, world, i got a little carried away with my bananas...

Max: i know i often get confused with Roger Federer...

Roger Federer: get my name out yo mouth! people think tennis players aren't tough but i'll box yo ass, minimax!

Max Major needs a police escort to get out of Vegas. there is one police escort left in the world...

later, in his dressing room, Max Major is greeted by two boxes......which are cleared by police...

and a phone call: David Copperfield: don't sweat it, kid, all magic is fraud.

Max receives from David a box of makeup. from Criss Angel Max receives a box of guyliner.

Criss Angel: i'm from the original Greek island...

Warner Wolf looses his tie and steps up to the hot crackling mic:

Warner: did y'all see that just now? that made me legit cry. ME, hardnose from New York.

Marion Stokes: let's go to the videotape...

Jennifer Capriati gets up on stage. her blouse is soaked and she's sobbing into the mic:

Jennifer: to all my gods...but especially my fans...not to my parents...I AM SO SO SORRY...

Jen leaves the stage crestfallen and blows a kiss to Pam Shriver.

Warner: before i continue i'm not owned by any corporation. this made me feel for the first time in my life. i was thirsty no more. over a woman no less. i'm okay with this. i'm okay with her. you forget that Capriati kid is just a kid. what if she were your kid daughter? she can do whatever she wants in a paisley sweater: drugs, sex, whatever. as long as it's not performance-enhancing, cocaine is fine.

Warner's bookie nodding in the shadows: coke don't throw off the balance of the bet...

Dirg: throw that scumbag in jail!!! that was private property!!!

Laertus: why? he was doing the right thing only to get cuffed by the cops??? i mean Warner removing PLANTATION from the sign is just another version of toppling a Confederate statue!

Mr. Peanut joins Ace of Base...

Doryce and Gladyce are at the New Orleans Starbucks the one on that corner where all the hurricanes hit...

Gladyce: we're right by Madame Zuzu's Tea Shoppe, are you sure you don't want to go there?

Doryce is looking the drunker for wear...

Gladyce: you okay, dear?

Doryce stumbles into the Starbucks and looks around the ceiling.

Doryce: why is there a jumble of horns up there? i thought New Orleans and Seattle were in a civil war...

Doryce staggers up to the counterboy:

Doryce: you're too skinny for my tastes. eat more beignets, boy! what is this place?

boy: for coffee.

Doryce: yeah but how are we to know this? it's just a store, a beige brown store, how do we know what the fuck you do in here!!?

Gladyce: excuse my friend, dears, she's had a long hard heated summer. my good friend, my lover. she's a little...

Doryce gets down on one knee and holds up a Funyun to Gladyce:

Doryce: will you be mine? i have the nastiest craving for Ritz crackers. but only ONE Ritz cracker...

Gladyce: no worries, folks, i'll get her sobered up with some tea from next door...

Madame Zuzu's Tea Shoppe stands as a citadel on the hill. there's an ancient Native American Thunderbird on its frontal crest. ocean water marks on each of its sides and cupboards. and the lines are like snakes trying to capture the beak of the bird high up. Cotard and Madame Pons discuss the founding of this landmark for a Rolling Stone article which Cotard writes for now:

Cotard: it's like a little piece of Obec right here on Monte Carlo island.

Pons: yeah.

Cotard: you know why the lines are so long here?

Pons: sure. whenever you have ONE place which does something a certan way no one else in the world does, the place becomes magical. this is why chains are death. see if you have that ONE place that does the tea THAT way, nowhere else is it done that way. people will travel from all corners of the globe to visit your little plot of land that exists nowhere else. that is the genesis of the billion-dollar industry of food traveling, to get that one special cup of tea...

Cotard: sure. but it could also be that you're the only place offering flu shots...

Pons: right. we razed the Walgreens for this place. i make sure each flu-shot victim i mean patient wears a red bandage visible and airholed on their bicep at the end of it. free advertising, just a little gallows humor to lighten the mood in these dark times.

Mardith: not cool, sis. i've been reading WWII history. never has being positive been so negative. i'm gonna fetch you a couple books off these shelves here for you to peruse nighttime. some tomes to help you on your path to becoming a channeler. NOT a youtube channeler!!!...

Dirg arrives at the Thunderbird disheveled...

he is wearing a tie on his ear.

Dirg: i'm here for our date.

Mardith: we aren't dating...

Dirg: damn, i read the signals wrong. can you teach me to read signals like you do palms? i downed an entire bottle of Old Bay Seasoning and washed my hair in Selsun Blue and everything, too.

Pons: dear, that should have been your first clue. Selsun makes your hair smell medicated, not lush like our LUSH head soaps.

Pons: this bookshop tea parlor is very special to me. i was here as a little girl when the three things which changed my life forever occurred right here. first as i played hooky from school i curled up in a ball in that same corner over there and first read Anne Sexton. then in the other corner over there by the mini-waterfall is where i first discussed Conversations With God with another person. i was embarrassed when i received the books as a bundle as a gift for Christmas cos i thought i was the only one in the world with this secret gnostic knowledge.

Neale Donald Walsch: me, too. btw i bathed my beard and neck in the waterfall...

Pons: i chatted this woman up who was eyeing the Conversations books. New Age was still a new thing and a new aisle in the '80s and '90s. i told her, "I hope you meet another of my kind on your journey..." and i exited the bookshoppe stage right. and then stage left. i was always such an actress.

Pons: and then i talked with a nice college-aged young man with a beard who was clerking at the time. he told me that you didn't need to become a monk in order to live the monastic life. you didn't need to be cloistered. you could be a monk in the world, just live quietly in the din and speak only with your spirit...

Cotard: that young priest was me. my beard hadn't flowed out yet...

Takahashi: this place is a cathedral to culture!!!

Pat and Galivant find a nice quiet spot on the island for practice, at night away from the madding betting dice crowd. on the furthest corner of the island is an ice-blue grass court with no one around for miles now or since, so quiet you can hear the flowers grow...

Galivant: okay, your next lesson: serving in the dark...

Pat: yeah how is this gonna work? i can't serve when the sun is beating down on my eyes.

Galivant: well, think about it. if you can master serving in the dark, you'll be Zverev in the day with your eyes closed!

Galivant: relax and rejoice in the chill night air. smell up your nose. take a cue from my voice, take a musical cue, listen to me singing the song, see the vibrations in the black, like soft piano mellow notes in wavy white. whenever i hit the high note, make that the highest arc and arch of your backswing, there you go...

Pat: that's a pretty song, i didn't know you could sing.

Galivant: i only sing when it's important. life is too important to be taken seriously. the tennis life is a hard life but it's a glorious life! enjoy it before it becomes a job. you get to travel the world!!! it's magnificent!!!

Pat: only if you promise to be my partner uh my coach.

Galivant: when all this is over and the tour gets functioning again, where do you want to travel to?

Pat: four places: Disko Bay, Greenland/ Punta Arenas, Chile/ anywhere in Japan/ and the Democratic areas in Alaska.

Galivant: nice. the four corners of the world...

Eye: what were we talking about again?

Tyzik: off the bat: what would you rename The Fabulous Baker Boys?

Dirg: Gimmick Brothers. off the bat:...…...i LIKED this film. Michelle Pfeiffer was HOT in this!!! 

Eye: The Fabulous Baker Boys and go...

Laertus: okay, let's discuss that New Year's piano scene, the iconic scene. don't remember my grandad taking my dad to those kind of New Year's parties in the '80s...

Dirg: my dad did...

Laertus: Michelle in the scorching red dress on top of the piano with Jeff Bridges playing the piano...that's why she's called the torch singer...

Dirg: women can only ooze sex at that age. Jeff Bridges was a sex symbol hunk before he became all slovenly to play The Dude...

Eye: clearly Michelle was auditioning for the part of Selina Kyle in the next Batman film. she had bagged Catwoman with that performance, cat was in the bag! the only thing which brings this scene down is the song itself, "Making Whoopee". whoopee is such a ridiculous word...

Dirg: i always confuse Michelle Pfeiffer with Kim Basinger. i always confuse Michelle Pfeiffer with Mackenzie Phillips the One Day At A Time druggie, always confuse those two Hollywood families. see, fellas? you need to write TWO hot tv shows at the same time to bag a classy woman like Michelle Pfeiffer...

Laertus: or in your case blow your own fife. 

god damn you're cold. you're a razorblade.

why can't men and women talk to each other classy like this anymore? we need more noir in our conversation...

Eye: at the beginning, nice tits on that broad in bed. Jeff's got nice hands she says coyly like a kitten...

Dirg: see, fellas? years of playing the piano by yourself while the other kids played together on a Little League baseball team on Mount Rushmore will pay off eventually...get your fingers all exercised...

Laertus: black hair polish for hair? that's what they did in the '80s, used shoe polish cos toupees were just for rich real-estate developers. at this point just use black paint on that head!

Eye: that's Michelle Pfeiffer's real voice!

Dirg: and Bonnie from Family Guy's real voice! that's her real baby voice! wow, what a leg-up Jennifer Tilly has finding dudes for dates!...

Laertus: i'm feeling Beau Bridges wasn't the lava star Jeff was. even with the heat of the Stargate. he was kinda always the other brother.

Dirg: strange family. Jeff with the beard is the Transcendental Buddhist of course but Beau with the pretty lips is the Christian. Beau won't take the Lord's name in vain if the script calls for it, always asks for a rewrite. however Beau is quite comfortable saying cock in your pocket in this. he can't get his priorities straight, not a real Christian. that scene where the brothers fight against the chainlink fence, Jeff really broke Beau's hand in real life, Lloyd wasn't prouder of his boys than at that moment. it takes real men to be actors...

Eye: Michelle was a shoe-in to win the Oscar that year but lost to Jessica Tandy! Michelle was the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold a year before Julia Roberts's pretty woman!

Laertus: once again, Driving Miss Daisy misses the mark and ruins it for another one!!!

Dirg: come on, they HAD to give it to Tandy, she was on her last legs...

Laertus: two veterans from 24 my favorite show cos Republicans love it even though Kiefer is a Democrat: Xander Berkeley as the white racist, and Gregory Itzin from Las Vegas fame...

Dirg: sigh, obviously fake news, Hollywood fiction, there are no racists in Berkeley. 

Dirg: ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!? Chalamet makes it into everything!!! Timothee Chalamet is the boy manning the dog-pound station Jeff beats up!

Eye: Jeff pounded. that boy. the dog, it's a black lab! it's Sandy! right, dear?

Laertus: yes, dear.

Eye: Ellie Raab holding onto her mother's Elie Saab wedding dress...

Dirg: it's tough when you're the kid in the middle of an affair. 

he sounds big...

hahahahaha.

that scene on the apartment-building roof...

Germane: remind you of anyone you're missing?...

Dirg: i honestly thought that sweet young innocent freckled little girl was gonna jump...

Laertus: i love how this film brings back the jazz standards, the songs everyone knows, like they were TikTok pop...

Dirg: all Jeff wants to do is be a real jazz musician, not play the jazz piano...but he can't cos he's white...but how do they lug not one but TWO grand pianos to each gig, the stamps required must be ENORMOUS!!! it's IMPOSSIBLE for the Post Office!!!

Dirg: what was Jeff doing with Michelle's perfume in that one scene? drinking it? i need to learn this technique...

Eye: this could have been more interesting if they fiddled with the script. no, not violins, they had Beau already saddled with a wife and kids. there was never going to be any triangle-tension from the start. this should have been a race to a girl's heart by BOTH brothers. with one of them murdering the other in the end Cain-style of course.

Dirg: Magical Negro helps Jeff...sort of...what do you think the minor accident that happened to Beau's family was?

Dirg: let me guess...playing football while covid?...

Eye: see? Michelle leaves the Baker Boys to do cat-food jingles, Catwoman, this was all planned out beforehand, she was gonna have a great career...

Laertus: yikes, "You're Sixteen", you just can't play that song anymore...not as gleefully as the brothers do to bond over and connect again...

Eye: last scene should have gone like this:

Jeff: i know we'll see each other again, call it male intuition.

Michelle turns her head around to face his face from across the street, throws her beret in the air like Mary Tyler Moore, and says back to him: meow meow.

Michelle: i know one thing for sure: in a few years people won't be talking about us and jazz standards around here, they'll be talking about a little something i like to call Kurt Cobain Music...

Eye: oh it was so great to see the Space Needle in this film free from haze...g'night, folks...

Dirg: just purple haze...g'night, folks...

on a pontoon six feet away from the island of Monte Carlo, Ryan Seacrest is having surgery. back surgery. he's getting his spine replaced. he's getting a new spine. he's getting Simon Cowell's spine...