Galivant: i need to cross a rope bridge in pea soup fog in Thailand. and i need you there with me.
that was the telegram Pat received at the Western Union in Leeds. except it was the Eastern Union.
Pat: provocative. but i hope there's a booster jab in this telegram.
Pat receives successive telegrams from Galivant, always mysterious, always at odd times of the day that he has to check with his mask on through the visor window. always with more and more ellipses on the card...
Galivant: this could be the ONLY chance we EVER have the two of us in our entire lives to get this photo right, of us at this rope bridge at this specific time in the universe, this moment and this moment for the picture will never happen again, i want to see your teeth for this picture, i want you to smile for once in your life.
Pat: huh, i'm not sure what game Gal Gadot Vant is playing at here. other than it is a game. and i just got a crate of Pepsodent from Costco. i don't brush my teeth with the Pepsodent, i eat it. very rare item, very hard to get, President Bump has forever changed Costco for the worse.
Galivant: find the guide with the blue hair, i'll see you there, i'm waiting for you right now, hurry up. oh, and the camera, don't forget the camera of course!...
Madame Pons: it's just too bad Seymour wasn't able to protect Rick Moranis from getting sucker-punched in New York. with his long reach of leaves, coulda served as a canopy shield...
Madame Pons: ...large ferns half-off this week only at LUSH's year-end sale...come on in, wear masks...we sell soapy masks...
Anna Sui: i became a success because i found out what Nothing smells like...
Kathleen Hicks: I am the real hope...
Codrus: when i go out in the world now, it feels emptier...like there's less people around...
Gladyce: my shoulder's sore---lifting that heavy swinging swiveling fridge door off the floor off its axis---but i don't take the Vanquish cos i feel normal through the day without it...
Dirg: my naturopath says i have a healing crisis......where do i go to heal that? i don't have insurance...
Madame Pons: the little pocket in your jeans, the fifth pocket, is for wedding rings when you get cold feet at the altar...
Mardith: ...and stamps so millennials can learn to write letters again...
Federer: not the Open Era, the Opeth "Era"...
Laertus: everybody's got a take on media!...
Cotard: the ones who don't get depressed are the ones who stay busy 24/7. you don't have time to be existential or sad if you're busy..
Eye Luggage: hi, Jimmy. welcome back to the podcast. what would your kid look like? if you and Nicole Kidman had shrimped the barbie?...
Jimmy Fallon: Emma Stone.........i only had Emma Stone to make Kate Hudson jealous...
Dirg: i mean COME ON! did you ever think you'd see the day Nine Inch Nails partnered with Disney!!!!!!?...
Cecily Strong: who the FUCK named my new show THAT!!!!!!?...
Dirg: the new last season 4 of Attack on Titan should be dedicated at the start of every episode to that black video-game dude who died unexpectedly...
Takahashi: ---like they did with the Funimation family at home by the fire of their studios...---
Dirg: wait, i got the hug emoji on my Instagram. that's good, right?
Mardith: that's the international Instagram symbol for friendzoned...
Laertus: for the first time in 25 years, i didn't shave my head after two months. instead i left my hair on my head but shaved my beard and mustache......i look like Bert if Ernie had moved out...
Pat: anyone up for a card game of Durak?...i have too may cards in my hand trying to figure this out...too many clues...
Abby Jame: i don't need to get stoned, i just start writing, writing itself is being stoned...
Dirg: Erma Fiend, i don't hate her cos she's gay, i hate her cos she's creepy...
Jim Cantore: i'm too tough to have Short-Man Syndrome...
Dirg: i'm stills waiting for mine. for the West-Side-hand-gesture emoji i proffered to Instagram to come through. that was MY idea, i want my money...
Mardith: i think i'll be a maid, when i maid it's like i'm performing on the Broadway stage, i'm jumping all up and down the vacuum cord and the high-window cloth i use to wash the cloth, moving gracefully from room to room, my toes touching the linoleum under the shag carpet...
Dirg: i liked cartoon Belle better than Emma Watson Belle...
Hilaria Baldwin: it's hilarious, isn't it? what can i say, i'm a damn good actress...i learned from the best, my husband...
Johnny Manziel: i was inspired to come back when i saw Baker Mayfield being me...
Dirg: that just loosened my dirg dick...
Johnny Depp: i was inspired to come back...nevermind...
Dirg: i tried to see my psychiatrist, but i had a mask on which muffled my rantings...
Eye Luggage: what were we talking about again?...
Eye: Grey Gardens and go...
Spalding Gray: i'll take it from here Tyzik take the rest of the night off. i invented the Nintendo gray box, i gave them the idea for the RESET button, they only had the POWER button. and why was I not in this film? i'm Grey Gardens For Men all wrapped up in one person!
Big Edie: we inadvertently lived the lives of two monks...
Codrus: OMG Little Edie and Big Edie ARE ACTUALLY HERE!!! MY BROTHER AND I ARE THE HUGEST FANS OF YOU GUYS!!! THANKS FOR COMING TO THE PODCAST!!!
Cotard: you two inspired us to become monks...well me anyway...
Codrus: *licking his lisp* we both studied your moves VERY carefully, heeheehee...
Little Edie: make no mistake, WE INVENTED COTTAGECORE!!!
Spalding Gray: i don't hate Bill Hader.........but i'll see him in Hell...
Laertus: can i just say i REALLY related to Little Edie's plight. we all go through this in life, some of the friends in the group a little more pronounced than others. that ineffable feeling of dread, doom stirring lining your stomach, that you MISSED OUT ON LIFE, that you lost your dreams, that you missed your callback, that you weren't able to take the chance at those very specific opportunities in your timeline that could have turned your life around.
Little Edie: in life we each get FIVE moments, five chances, 5 forks in the road, and our life is determined by what we do at those exact moments, the hard decisions, do we go off to Paris or just read about Paris? actually draw the cartoon in the newspaper? i mean i coulda been a princess, a countess, not what i became. i never wanted to be a recluse, i didn't know what a recluse was for fuck sake!
Dirg: it's a person man or woman who fucks Robert Frost...
Little Edie: I COULDA HAD ROBERT FROST!!! coulda become his concubine!
Big Edie: HELL NAW! that man had cold hands, i don't trust a man with cold hands! no man's taking my little Edie away from me leaving me alone in this big cavernous haunted house!!!
Little Edie: but mother dear, if you're alone you can get old-people naked all you want!...
Big Edie: Bobby Frost, that man was so cultured he coulda led you away into the whisk and i would have never seen you again! he would have taken you into the woods! not to kidnap you, you would have literally lived on a bed of orange leaves your whole life...
Little Edie: better than the bed we had...i coulda had a life!!!...but now my mind is mush!!!
Little Edie: oh mother! you burrowed in my fragile brain since early on when i was little Little Edie not to trust men! men just use women you said. and now i have no head...
Doryce: we LOVE these two, too!!! they're just like us!
Gladyce: we confess, we stole all our style from you two! subconsciously of course. witches have very active subconsciences...
Madame Pons: what makes this movie is the SCARVES!!!
Eye Luggage: so ornate, so '20s, so Harvard, so bejeweled, so genie!
Dirg: were you hiding your bald head under that headscarf, Lil Edie?...
Little Edie: well obviously not, i mean look at my butt! my big beautiful bulbous bodacious ba-dow badunkadunk butt! swinging swiveling side to side when i moved up staircases like the last car in a train. i had a fifth pocket in my pants but no one ever noticed it...
Big Edie: no wonder we never knew the time at Grey Gardens, that fifth pocket is for your pocketwatch!...
Little Edie, adjusting her headscarf: you want a tour of the place? i just added this house to Million Dollar Listing. go on, make fun of our home all you want to your little sailing heart's content, i've heard them all: it's the Munsters house, it's if the song "Camptown Races" was a house...
camera crew: whatever you want, dear, just turn around and go into those bushes...
Little Edie: the Treaty of Versailles, that is the cause of all the world's sadness. of all my sadness, it all stems from that treaty...
Gladyce: my shoulder is hurting now from cutting this Smith Island cake into perfect wedding wedges for a wedding that will never happen, Reynolds Wrap-ping it into a silver tennis ball and stuffing it in the fridge downstairs in the scary Grey Gardens basement. i tried to push it in...
Doryce: push harder, dear...
Federer: i've pushed it as hard as it can go...looks like i'm just a Silver medalist for life...
Gladyce: i tried to push the cake into the fridge but it's full...with raccoons...
Ranger Rick: i'm sorry for all the pain me and all the Scoutmasters in the world caused to all these young boys, you get traumatized when you live with these women...
Gladyce: lot of soup in this fridge but it's all frozen so it's useless...
Little Edie: we finally let Smokey the Bear go...unchained him from the fridge, i let him loose in our front yahd (yard) which is 500 acres of unspoilt natureland of grass woods all to itself---an island of grass you put in little baggies and store in your fifth pocket like a third eye under your headscarf---...but only if Smokey promised never to say who caused the fire that let the stupid cops inspect our home and condemn it both meanings and almost homelessed us...
Big Edie: Smokey was cool...we shared a smoke and he put it out in our front yard, no fire was caused cos that grass is impossible...those stalks and blades of grass have never been cut, they grow so high they become high bamboo, people have died trying to cut it, an entire lost season of Little House on the Prairie was filmed there, the only place left on Earth where wild pink sugarfruit still grows...
Little Edie: i know about watermelon sugar, i keep up with all the trends in music, i have all the LPs i play on my gilded gold ricola musicbox, AND HE AIN'T GETTIN IT!!! of course Smokey was YOUR friend, you never let me have MY friends over...
Little Edie: Selma Blair wears my headscarves now, she and Arthur are the new us.
Big Edie: so some good came from all this...
Little Edie: if we did this now, i know who'd do the music...
Trent Reznor: please...
Little Edie: i know who'd play the Marble Faun...
Dirg: Jimmy Fallon?
Little Edie: no, idiot. Anton Yelchin of course...
Mardith: if i may...Harry Styles would make a great Marble Faun for the reboot...
Disney: cease and desist at once. Marble Faun, copyright Disney: Bambi, Sword In The Stone...
Dirg: yeah that whole Hawthorne thing...kinda sexist, ya know? men can understand literature, too, it's not just a chick-lit thing...
Little Edie: yeah but Marble Faun was a painter, he was my paintboy...i didn't trust that black man cutting down our frontyard bamboo, not racist, i genuinely cared for him, thought he would get lost in there...
Tyzik: like Dawn Wells...
Laertus: okay let's start...oh, Big Edie, you have SUCH a cute smile! your teeth are adorable! you are adorable...when you smile...
cat familiars: um, just a life hack: if you don't want cat holes in your property turning it into a shack, maybe don't feed us dog food...
Laertus: now see THIS is the patriotism i strive for! THIS is the flag-waving that's good. waving around a flag after down Gone With the Wind stairs dancing alone in a Broadway leotard to the music in your head trying to recapture a cabaret career long ago lost, long ago Hollywood has moved on...
Spalding Gray: hey is there any cabernet down in that cellar? you did the right thing, Edie, you didn't read the newspaper reviews of your comeback cos they were shielded from you by staff...
Little Edie: i coulda had it all...i coulda been a contender...i coulda had many many monied men of all mannerisms fawn over me...but what good is losing the kingdom of God to gain the whole world? but...yeah...it was a miserable life of untapped potential...wish i had gotten tapped more...i came from God and to God i went and returned when i died...
Cotard: wait, there's a God? mom?
Little Edie: yeah, it was Fuerza. nice sharp shiny elbows on that broad...
Codrus: damn. at least you were buried on the property, but they really should have turned Grey Gardens into a President Bump golf course...sponsored by President Pepsodent...
Little Edie: condemn my home and YOU sir are condemned!!!
Laertus: yeah you clung to your Roman Catholicism fiercely like a fruitfly to a vaccine arm, i admire that.
Little Edie: really it was just that strong voice that came from the Jimmy Swaggart pastor on that tiny pink record i kept. those grooves on that record were groovy!
Eye: oh i LOVE your accent! the Masshole accent, so pronounced! so labored, so heavy, so dense! i love when you say the word literature...
Little Edie: thank you.
Eye: your accent is so...so...New England Brady breeze!...
Little Edie: i heard Tom Brady is single...
Eye: those two mystery guests at the birthday party, that was interesting, you two weren't TOTALLY alone the whole time, who were they exactly?
Little Edie: just some extras on set. they were unpolished but we just needed them to say a few lines to sand over the project's rough edges...
Little Edie: it was so sad. i mockingly wished my mother long life with my toast, but she actually dies a year after this came out, Philip-K-Dick-style...
Little Edie: you know despite what anyone in the papers said, i hate my mother for destroying my life and any chance at happiness i had, but i love her DEARLY more...
Big Edie: thank you.
Big Edie: you had such a sweet sharp-elbow voice, my daughter, if only you had learned to shut up once in a while and used that voice for singing, you would have made something of yourself...
Dirg: you also get out of the house to do some Great Gatsby sea-swimming! lovely! very R.E.M.! they just let you swim in the ocean without a permit? all alone with the fishes? you know i'm with you on the New York City thing, but i've learned New York State is worse...
Eye: loved your magnifying glass to read, girl, so much hipper than glasses. all you needed was a Libra man!
Dirg: yeah but hold up, you're hardcore RC, right?
Little Edie: all we had on set was TaB...
Dirg: Roman Catholic. you looked up to priests, both meanings. so girl why you dabblin' in the dark arts of Horoscope!
Big Edie: you don't know what you don't know. at that age you don't know what you want, where you want to go, who you want to marry, you didn't WANT to go to that birthday party! at that time! NOW you do and regret that you didn't!
Billy Corgan: tell me about it...wrote a song about it...
Dirg: this was great. really. i learned a lot. but it coulda been better, there really needed to be a sex scene to put it over the top into Congress classic. preserved for posterity...
Little Edie: ...for my posterior...
Eye: it should have gone down like this:
Little Edie: was that the delivery man, mother? we invented GrubHub!
Big Edie: no, just Tim Heidecker.
Little Edie: were we named after Marge's family on The Simpsons?
Big Edie: well you certainly have the hair for it, that's why you wear those headscarves. no we're named after veal, what we used to eat when we were still high-socialite influencers who went to glitzy New Year's Eve parties in penthouse suites.
Dirg: high socialist...
Little Edie: okay, ma, don't mind us, we'll be fucking in the same bed you sleep in, but you'll be asleep as well as the cats on the bed...
Big Edie: who would want sex with an old woman like you? an old batty woman to boot with a booty
Marble Faun: i close my eyes and imagine her when she was a young Kennedy with connections...
Little Edie: it would have been better for BOTH Jack Kennedy and i if Jack never made Presidency, if he never became President. i always wanted to fuck a doctor...
Dirg: i'll take it from here, i'll do the money shot:
Marble Faun: oh fuck, i'm fucking your butt, Edie, it's gonna take days...
Marble Faun: i'm gonna cum! EDIE, STOP TALKING FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE!!! STOP CONTINUOUSLY TALKING WITHOUT STOPPING!!! SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND OPEN YOUR MOUTH SO I CAN CUM IN IT!!!
Big Edie: what lipstick you use, woman? Edie, what is that lipstick, you have awkwardly-lipsticked lips, they're not smeared but they act like they're smeared...
Little Edie: i coulda married Willie Nelson...he was strumming for Jimmy Carter when he came up to visit me here...
Dirg: dodged the bullet on that one, girl...i think you mean Jimmy Crater...you kinda LOOK like Willie Nelson now, Lil Edie. g'night, folks...
Pat is at Thailand where nowhere to be found are any rope bridges...
he throws the crate of toothpaste in the raging river...to serve as a boat to guide him around the place...he sells his phone for information from a hiking guide with local-knowledge tips...
Pat: i'll be honest, i was expecting a woman with blue hair, not a man...
guide: the reason you don't see the bridge in the fog is cos it's invisible. you must step away from the cliff of THAT mountain over there through the jungle. THAT's the one, you won't be able to see a thing, you are just gonna have to take a leap of faith and hope your feet touch the ropes of the bridge when you step into thin air...
Pat climbs the mountain using the singing trees...
Pat: all i see here is a sea of gray, too thick to swim in.
Pat takes the step. and another step. and soon he is levitating like a circus performer flying in a straight invisible line across the gray chasm.
after an hour his hand waving around touches Galivant's butt, she's been sleeping on her stomach on the rope bridge...
Pat: hi. well, i'm here. but we can never document this moment to Instagram. the moment is lost forever...
Galivant: oh no my friend, the moment is FOUND. it was experienced by just you and i in this time. you and me, that's it, that's who. did you experience it? did you feel the rough rope? hear the nothing? see it? breathe in the fog? you're learning, Pat, YOU'RE FINALLY LEARNING!
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