PROPER PAT: PRINCE WARNED US ABOUT ALL THIS

Pat: how do i know if any of this is real?

Cotard: it's tricky. but as long as you're watching tv it should be fine. tv is warm and comfy and hygge in the mind, that Jedi blue glow.

Codrus: yeah now consider this: Heaven. how do you know it's really Heaven? what if it's a hologram? how would you ever determine it WASN'T a hologram?...

Cotard: your happiness in life is determined by what you do in your spare time...

Galivant: Pat your answer to that question will determine your next step. in progress and evolution. and in our trip. what a trip it's been. i'm watching old VHS tapes of when i was ranked on the WTA Tour. back then we were sponsored by cigarettes...

Pat: have you kept your winnings?

Galivant: yes but we had to cede half our earnings to the tobacco companies... 

Federer: i started smoking as a way to deny reality, that i was forced into retirement...i still had like 5 good years left...

Dirg: how it feels to chew 5 Gum...

Galivant: i'll return in a bit, gotta make some road money for us if we are to continue. i'll be playing exhibitions on world bridges, can't really see the tennis ball when it's against the backdrop of the shimmering sea...

Pat: i can't go anywhere. with this Lockdown England has become an Island once more. cut off from the world. Brexit still works unfortunately. i'll never know what Spanish salmon tastes like. 

Nadal: it's not that good...

Pat: all i can do is watch tv...

Galivant jumps over a spraypaint-red 28 Days Later checkpoint gate with goblin cops following her as she jumps in the ocean off white Dover cliffs...

goblin cops: all that limestone on the Cliffs is goblin cum, we had one too many cocktails...

Galivant: good thing i was a triathlete...back when the Olympics nurtured tennis...

Madame Pons: girl how you maintain that luxurious silky glistening hair during the harsh brittle winters?...

Mardith: i don't shampoo it...

Michael Weiss watching Family Guy: Instagram is just adding to the instant-gratification culture. it's too fast. it's creating the videodrome too quickly.

Dirg: Videodrome was the first deepfake...

Tyzik: for the record, a drome is a circus, has nothing to do with Amazon...

Bald Bezos: think again...

Doryce in the bus: sex sit...

Madame Pons: dry slap.........my bass...

Mardith carries the quantum container of magnesium soak on her back into LUSH...

Mardith: bring back butt-on-sink pics?

Madame Pons: i'm wearing my Auntifa shirt...

Eye Luggage: there are no male Weeping Angels!!!...

Laertus; i am so proud of Ralph Macchio. i honestly thought when i saw him in that Outer Limits episode that would be the last time the world saw him...

Takahashi: that's a gi, not Charlie Brown...

Madame Pons: i'm conscious of taking this selfie. i'm conscious of my sink butt.

Mardith: relax, girl, no one can have the sink butt Melissa Maker has...

Laertus: i always forget, the Donner Party thing happened here in California, i always thought it happened in West Virginia or something...

Michael J Fox: i'm lovin it......the new Burger King logo...

McLovin: ohhhhh, NOW i get my name!...

Laertus: red Solo cups were the red Bump hats all those years ago before anyone knew...

Papa Roach: my weakness is i care too much...

Mardith: why is everyone 

crying right now

on Instagram? it's depressing, it makes me sad...

Dirg: but can you still cum? i wrote

please ignore me

on my Instagram heading...it was counterintuitive, i wanted them to think me clever, but they ACTUALLY ignored me...

Laertus: too cool to be bothered, above it all, but it's lonely at the top cloud with Kid Icarus your only friend...

Dirg changes his profile to

the only reality is beautiful women

Dirg changes his profile to

sorry bout that one time, i was on drugs...

Gladyce, making the peace sign: i have to take 2 Vanquish for lunch to counteract the effects of the 2 Vanquish i take for breakfast...

Ava Reid becomes the Wolf in Call of Duty, quadruple-agent to kill Nazis...

Madame Pons doing her novena ablutions at the back of LUSH on her knees in a bath of grey soapy water: thankful for whoever stayed...

Barba: why didn't they just name the episode "Barba"?...

Mardith: i evenly space apart my Cokes on my dresser. it makes a clang sound like sacred windchimes hanging on a big undecorated Christmas tree in the wild swaying with the wind marking the death of an unknown husband by a freak solo boating accident at Obec Cove...

everyone bows their head closes their eyes to their box bows and prays...

Mardith: people are matching now based on zodiac signs but isn't that just another form of matching based on religion?...

Madame Pons: i'm watching football now. that kicker has a nice penis bump...

Boc: i'm seriously considering trading in my boots for some Bobux...

Doryce: i've never eaten with a small fork before...

Doryce: you know The Store just uses the Ninja Foodi to cook the krinkle fries in its deli...

Dirg: why were all the Instagram babes born in January?...

Cecily Strong: to keep myself sane in quarantine i'm watching all the old SNLs that were considered horrible and the worst from the 1980-81 season...they weren't half-bad! there's some good writing in here! see they don't do this anymore on our show, the last skit of my generation that ended on a melancholy note was that Lady Gaga skit of her as an aging star in a Manhattan winged co-op apartment.

Eye Luggage: and what's with all the live animals on set that year! you had a real-life monkey, two of em! and a live cat and a live snake...oh i hate abusing animals for the sake of show biz!

Spalding: right?

cat familiars: Bill Murray was cool but his hands were cold...

Dirg: i actually liked the show back then, it had an edge, they got away with stuff they'd NEVER do now. Eddie said porchmonkey and it wasn't bleeped, to make a point. shooting a black man with a smoke prop to make fun of dumb white red gunowner families... 

Rubikon: all those skits were the elite coastal New Yorkers making fun of heartland hicks working for the arms industry with exaggerated non-Midwest accents...I'M LOVIN IT!!!

Joe Piscopo: you may hate me, but you can't deny i was a GREAT impressionist. not just racist Frank Sinatra, Dan Rather, too! the whole Jap vs. US car industry thing was YUGE back then...

Mr. Limpet-Don Knotts-fish: did you see the periscope or is that just my glasses? a limpet is a clingy clam that can stick to nuclear warheads...

Charles Rocket: i missed the brilliant line when i took Charlene Tilton on her first grimy subway ride in NYC. 

Charlene Tilton: that would have rocketed you to fame instead of that other thing. when i'm forced to clean off the graffiti i wrote I LOVE CHARLIE ROCKET in red on the subway door, you should have said...

Charlie: i know, 

i guess Charlene Tilton doesn't love me anymore...

Charlene Tilton: that would have garnered you sympathy from the audience...might have helped you later in life...i'm still in shock, Charlie, i'll never get over it...

Charlie: but are you over me? your love would have saved me, tilted me back to life. the greatest moment of my life is when i'm in that wheelchair and you're doting over me at the Goodnights, right BEFORE...

Cecily: you two fucked that week tho, right?

Charlene and Charlie: oh yes of course, on the outdoor ice rink during the afternoon. we were perfect for each other, we both had CHARL in our names for the charcoal that sparked our hot sex! this was the last year before AIDS, there was still casual sex......Insatiable was still playing in respected theatres for gosh sake! 

Dirg: ah, the last year of porn chic...tear in my eye...those cushion seats my dad keeps on about...

Rubikon: WHOA! joining the Bald Brotherhood?

Jeff Bezos: call me Bald Bezos. no, i was a monk before my earnings, hence the bald head...

Cotard: knew it. knew there was some good in you...

Codrus: oh this is delicious! now the world will listen to anything this catechism conglomocorporation clown has to say...

The Pope: can i get some pub? i'm a hot girl but it's still religion. i fitted the entire Vatican with safe spaces for K-12 getting bullied but wanting wifi...

Gladyce: did you get your jab, dear?

Doryce: no, the last Gevalia at Walgreens On The Hill...

Sheamus at the Capitol: don't taze me. i know what you're thinking, take a good look at me, feast your eyes, your 5 senses.........but i will be voting to impeach President Bump...

Eye Luggage: what were we talking about again?

Dirg: if only Linda Evans had given Herve Villechaize that Yanni CD, she might have saved his little life...

Spalding Gray: i always get David Cronenberg and David Lynch confused...

crones: love that David's last name!!

Eye: Videodrome and go...brought to you by Amazon drones...as in Amazon drones brought this VHS copy of the film to us...

Tyzik: drome is actually a circus where no cocaine is served...

Laertus: BEFOE WE START!!! let it be known i'm watching this under protest. i'm watching this FOR DEBBIE HARRY, NOT FOR JAMES WOODS!!!

Mardith: shame, too. James Woods was a good actor when he was young, he had that certain smarm to him...

Dirg: ..that i try to emulate everyday...

Laertus: practice in the woods...

Eye: i mean this couldn't be more relevant to our times today! i wonder if David Cronenberg imagined this would be NOW what it was back in the glorious '80s...why wonder, he's here with us!!!...

David: well it is about the future so i knew it would comment on the future.........but nobody thought things would get THIS bad in real life!!!...

Mulder and Scully: or this predictive...

Takahashi: reality is simply the filter of tv which is the mind's retina, brilliant...

Prince: battlefield of the mind, tv, the internet, the final frontier...

Prince: would you mind pushing the penthouse-suite button for me there, dear? you're a doll...

Germane in the elevator: no prob, boss......Prince, my purple mob boss... 

Laertus: i love the setting here, the atmosphere is so dingy and grimy, so intimately claustrophobically Canadian, so early X-Files...

Eye: this film was the first cyberpunk!!!

Cronenberg: *with Cronenberg chuckle* that's funny. back then the critics called it cheap but now it's cyberpunk cool...

Takahashi: that Hitachi camera you used, that is SO blissingly retro! so '70s-vibe with the browns and the creams! so rainbow, so ahead of its time, so tolerant...

Eye: we're playing the Videodrome soundtrack in the background as we welcome in to the podcast booth Ms. Debbie Harry!!!

Debbie: so how'd i do? my first major film. 

Dirg: burn your other tit with this cigarette, doll, i'm trying to quit...

Debbie: being naked with icky James Woods was wretched, but i was steeled for this encounter by doing SNL a few years earlier...i lost all nervousness and gained resolve to get through it...

Laertus: you were prepared, like the Girl Boy Scouts say. you know i wish this film had done one extra thing: expand your scene when you were the phone-in radio DJ psychiatrist.

Spalding Gray: right?! i wanted to hear the sob stories of your caller patients.

Dirg: you were Female Frasier!!!

Eye: no, you were the First Frasier!!!

Laertus: more callers, more collars, more of your behind-the-scene work life and your private life at home. yeah there was just something about you in that headband and purple leotards in the center of a circular desk listening to people's sobering problems in this dark world. with heavy headphones on your ears under your headband like a DJ. it really did portend the future with Oprah and Donahue...

Laertus: Sonja Smits, brilliant seamless natural actress, the Canadian Gillian Anderson...

Dirg: Jimmy must be proud...

Eye: oh LYNNE GORMAN! the irreplaceable priceless Lynne Gorman!!! the grand dame of Canadian cinema! she's the Alice Horton of Canada!

Dirg: and it starts...and i wouldn't mind Meghan Markle coming on a videoscreen and reminding me each day to wake up and it's not a dream...

Eye: Republicans always take the skeezy roles...

Dirg: i wouldn't mind the nice breezy Japanese softcore porn, it's nice. it's classy. there's still a dildo the geisha girl slips her butt over to form a pole...

Weird Al: this is just UHF, what's the harm?...

Laertus: you hit on something here, Mr. David C, you saw the future of pornography and violence in small compressed capsules and bytes bypassed easily and packaged for private home viewing...

Dirg:...in short, the collapse of society...

Dirg: and it's political. it's ALWAYS political in the end.

Eye: hey Laertus, we had dinner at that very Spanish Indian fingercymbals restaurant! that exact upstairs table, too! i recognize that '80s shag-carpet spiral staircase. i recognize that adobe wall!

Laertus: me, too! we had tortillas and luchi for lunch that afternoon...

Pons: tv therapy in cardboard cubicles? now THAT therapy i can get down with!

Laertus: see, Dirg? the homeless were the ones who invented binge marathon watch sessions.

Eye: you look like a pervert...not cos you're wearing that trenchcoat...

Richard Nixon: it's all in the tapes...library...

Bump: the tapes? oh yes i know...

Dirg: see? he's right! only wear that red dress if you wanna get fucked! without tv there'd be an armed insurrection every day! can i please find a girlfriend like this who likes to "try things"...

Debbie Harry: taken. 

Dirg: ...where i can pierce her ears for her for the first time as a woman and she wants that and that's a good thing?...

Debbie: i worked at Sunglass Hut in the mall before the band's big break...

Eye: i got my ears pierced as a little girl kid at the mall...

Arnold S: it was not a TOOMAH!...

David: it was a tumor, caused by tv airwaves becoming brainwaves. but tumor is just a fancy word for imagination...

Dirg: the undulating videotapes and tv set, i experienced that at Blockbuster---once again i'm sorry for ever going into a Blockbuster---i wasn't stoned, it was the content, i'm never going to Blockbuster again!...

Spalding: both Davids sure are into body horror aren't they...

Laertus: unique twist on the transmogrification. the gun coming out of the snowy screen, actually BECOMING the gun, the gun becomes PART of the arm becoming a melty hybrid alien arm...

Modern English: we thought melty was M&Ms not aliens...

McLuhan: this movie is fake news!!! it's not about me at all!!!...

Dirg: and now the front of the Resistance is a Sunglass Hut at the mall, keep your voice down, and he's being fitted with the Spaceballs Darth Vader helmet...

Dirg: he's right, America has been getting soft since Lincoln...

Laertus: decadence is not the same as cultural decay...

Dirg: Debbie Harry's 1984 lips are irresistible. but actually i wouldn't mind if Masha in my bed WASN'T a hallucination...she's a gilf...

Laertus: omg your manly strong James Woods trying to whip that whip, pathetic soft hand, no strength at all!!!

Doryce: is that a slit in his stomach? or is he just hungry?...

Arnold: don't do that unless you're using a Conan sword...

Dirg: he killed those guys so hard they turned into confetti!!!

Debbie Harry: i didn't die on that tiny screen...well a little bit, a little death, i like getting whipped so much the homegrown terrorists couldn't kill me with the whip...

President Bump: LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH!!! that's me, i'm the new Jesus, i just have to suicide to prove it...

Gorton Fisherman: give me back my boat!

Cronenberg: so as you see, we ended with the suicide. we had an alternate ending in which James Woods is reunited with Debbie Harry in some sort of gauzy tv afterlife but with me being an atheist i didn't want to give the viewers any hope of an afterlife that will save us all. we all die and there is no God, it's at THAT point that things become interesting, i ask myself

okay, if those two things are true, now what? what do we as humans do about this?...

Laertus: wow, amazing thinking. you know, i've been hanging out with Dirg too much and was starting to get his Christian cheese shavings on my back, but you've just swung me back to the nihilist side again...

Cotard: who knows? you could get uploaded to a wire in the sky...

Dirg: let's end by everyone closing their eyes getting in a circle and saying a prayer for the latest Malaysia plane to go down...and of course because we watched this and it's bad luck the Pittsburgh Steelers lost and wasted their season...g'night, folks...

Debbie Harry: i really branded myself with this film...

Pat: can i eat your fish?...

Mardith: cooking in the Ninja Foodi, give it another 400 minutes at 400 degrees...

Pat: in this Lockdown which will never end, my mind has played tricks on me. i see things on the walls, not just spaghetti. ghosts. gingers. London Grammar. Gevalia Gardens in Greenwich. 

Galivant on the tv screen: so how do you know you're inside anything real?

Pat: we'll never know. that's scary. reality to us is only as good as our human perception of reality takes us. who knows what reality REALLY looks like. but there's something else among humans: trust. and i trust my dad. my dad videotaped me all though K-12 when i was working my way up the tennis and track line going from regional to regional to high-school to intramural to eventually Princeton Tennis which is only played indoors. i trust my dad implicitly. so since he used the same Hitachi '80s videocamera used to make Videodrome, THAT is the reality i trust...

Galivant: i'll accept that. reality is but a form of love, and love is born and borne out of springs of Water from trust. but we gotta work on your pronouns, you're using the HE too much. did you trust your dad only cos he was a man? would you have trusted your mom in the same way?...