Galivant: QUARTER POUNDER WITH CHEESE?
Pat: uh...
Galivant: it that what's on the lunch menu? and me without my blue tray. look, obviously something has gone completely wrong and off-the-rails on your path, burn the whole thing down and start over...sorry...we're gonna have to do something here. let's stay here and instead of going to Catholic grade school you went to public grade school in NYC...
POOF
and suddenly Pat is a child again, just learning the ropes, entering the brick stucco glass building of P.S. 101 in a noisy crossstreet having just been reinforced with bay windows which open outward onto the street for summertime, not that Pat would ever have to go to summer school. hall monitors and milk cards and red bells and morning announcements done with a beige horn and Brooklyn accent. and the scariness of having to make brand new friends again: this time it was Max Kellerman his best friend, and Rosie O'Donnell his other best friend:
Max Kellerman has a small head and a very nicely-trimmed light-brown mustache for a beard:
Max Kellerman: call me Lil Max, i'm an aspiring rapper. i was named after Max from Mighty Aphrodite. my dad has just introduced me to the greatest tv show of all time ER and it's mine, it's all mine now, it's MY baby.
Rosie O'Donnell: call me Lil O. i'm Max's sidekick...sigh, what is this, Muppet Babies? Max spits the rhymes, Pat writes the lyrics, i do the drum-n-bass with my spotted tongue and kissy mushy lips. i agree, ER is not the best medical drama or drama but the best all-around show in show business period. EVAH!!! it makes me want to be a doctor but i'm still young. a kid who tells jokes in class and gets in trouble. about my first period...
Pat: math? AND THERE SHE IS!
Pat gets starry-eyed as he spots her across the yellow-laned asphalt playpark, past the tetherball court, up the drinking fountain, down the spool of brown paper plugging the stallless toilet, to the left and to the right of the blades from the latest swirling red-and-blue ring-around-the-rosie...
Rosie: not me. i can't twirl like that. i'm not the queenbee drum majorette.
Pat: a vision! a Medieval '80s vision! the most beautiful girl known to boys: Lil Gina.
Gina flicks her freckle off her nose to no avail. she drops her pleated skirt to pick up a sun-filled daisy by the principal's office.
the crones are at this school's lunchroom, sliding with the other little students and classmates:
Doryce: gotta be here, The Store's not open yet! is the milk here frothy?
Gladyce: you're under construction! as in you're doing construction. where's your hardhat and your whistles at hot teachers? aren't you building something for Pons?
Doryce: a wooden stand with nails and the nine. a sign painted with PSYCHIATRIC HELP for 5 cents.
Madame Pons is in a sparkling purple headdress and wears Lucy's blue dress.
Madame Pons: SPIRITUAL HELP for 5 cents. i'm not a Scientologist, haven't tried that one yet, but let's keep things spiritual. if you have to force the door open, honey, that was not the door for you. child, you are luminous!...
Pat: it's so fun to be at this age, i really do have all my shut doors in front of me and all the time in the world to find the key in the principal's grass...
Kenyatta: sigh, it's a pain, but i need to learn how to spell Toulouse-Lautrec cos he was important...
Rory McIlroy's dad: what are you trying to say, sonny boy? i told you not to marry that lass...
Rory: i shot a ball that flew like an eagle! i really need those Masters crystal goblets for drinking...
Rory's dad: i keep telling you, man, Harry Potter ain't real! don't call me dud. *rubs Rory's head* a goblet to nest all your birdies, mate...
Laertus: i've never been so disappointed in an experience. i was all set to enjoy the hell out of thirtysomething after hearing so much about it. the watercooler powerhouse of stellar sublime writing in the '80s, my dad told me about it. well, i saw one episode and it just didn't click 1/4 of the way through.........it's the same experience i had with 15/Love...
Takahashi: i love you, Ponny, but i want to fuck Olivia Liang in the butt.
Madame Pons: i thought your pet name for me was Ponds cos of where we met...
Rutherford Falls: we're Northern Exposure but with more Native American activism...
Marlon Brando: i approve...
Pat: i heard from a distance Gina tell her friend on the playground she thought the Eskimo boy with the blue eyes on Northern Exposure was gorgeous, a real Keanu type. that was the first time i had actually witnessed a girl vocalize that a boy was hot.
Laertus: when i first started to get serious about film again, watching films not for the fun but for the homework, for the craft of filmmaking, my first assignment, the first film i watched was:
Network
Leigh Bardugo: like the black lipstick? i shoulda played Lana Kane.
Pat: i don't see you at the legacy football games between Yale and Princeton i'm forced to attend with my dad...
Eye Luggage: i am in no way threatened by Leigh Bardugo...
Mardith: should i do a giveaway?
Dirg: don't give it away, girl!
Tom Cruise: i took a poetry class here at P.S. 101.........worst mistake of my life...
Dr. Vacc in the nurse's office administering shots to kids haphazardly: *laughing* hey we got a text from Frances McDormand quiet down everybody. it reads:
i won the Oscar! again! this is for the world: come hang out! everyone's invited to my YesNomads this weekend...
crones: our favorite town is Prunedale!
Gladyce: i'm a fan of the fantail...
Doryce: i confess, i nibble on the leftover food from Mardith's disposed-of cardboard boxes in the trash...
Dirg: i liked those little Justice League watch groups on youtube back in the day with that young babe who looked like a young Gal Gadot...the cartoon not that bloated extended cut everyone not me kept clamoring for...
Gladyce at a cafeteria table: when you're scraping off that last bit of food and you scrape off a tiny piece of paint from the bowl...
Frankie & Benny's: the Flintstones came to us before covid...
Sasha Velour: we want you back at Berkeley, Pat! we got a cover of Wussy magazine with your name on it!...
Pat: that will not be possible for a very long time...
David Spade: i'm Brad Pitt if he were ugly...
Trent Reznor: why is it that when i post suicide-prevention hotlines on my Instagram Stories, all i get in response are laughing emojis?...
Oscar the Grouch to Kelly Clarkson: GROSS! THAT'S DISGUSTING, WOMAN!
Therabody: we are the shakeweight for golfers...
Michael Weiss wearing a DJ hat...a Dustin Johnson hat: you know a follower is a friend when they visit your Instagram Stories when they themselves don't have a new Story or post up...
Tiger Woods: i'm thinking more and more about Payne Stewart these days...
Barker Hangar: this is where the first post-covid rave will take place.
Travis Barker: i love your body, Khloe...your real body...
January Jones: is this my divine punishment for doing a bad SNL?
Cecily Strong: yes. we use rubber snakes now, no more live chimps.
January Jones: i always wanted to be a mystic but not like this...
Floch Forster: i got thicker thighs than Rikka Takarada...
Bebe Rexha: thick thighs save lives...
Dirg: there's still snowflakes in April?...
Laertus: you can't call me that anymore, you lost the election...
Alyson Stoner: Phineas and Ferb was a cute show, but i was not having a cute time in my private life doing it...
Laertus: see i never saw Happy Gilmore...
Bob Barker: right?
Will Zalatoris: right?
Jaden Smith: come on, bro, i'm not learning the jade split...
Kabuto Yakushi: my favorite movie of all time is Nobody...
Dirg: you know those dudes who spend 10 straight years on their Instagram posting everyday about the same theory.........and then you find out they took the vaccine the first day it was offered...
Hemingway: i got my own emoji! you see that Hemingway-boat emoji over there?!
Dirg: no matter what's going on, isn't it better just to ignore it and have sports distract us?
Wolf: i wanna go on a date with Dr. Fauci to see our baseball Nats...
Eye Luggage: here's a theory, just spitballin' here: why not a channel 100% devoted to female-made content, female cartoons, female adult cartoons! sigh, i feel so bad for Birdgirl getting slaughtered torn to shreds and defeathered on incel adult swim...
Laertus: LND?
Dirg: late night dick?
Boc: London. i'm meeting my friend Sidney there. or was it Shelby?...
Michael Weiss wearing a Sad Gilmore shirt with Rory Gilmore's pouting face on it: so Instagram exists now solely for recently-divorced celebrities to post their thirst-trap pics to get a date...
Tyzik: when you're best friends with someone but you have to use a Shutterstock pic of him on your Instagram...
Jillian Clare: even to use your own pic! which is WireImage! you know you're in L.A. when your neighbors have a pig...
Mark Hapka: i went to downtown L.A., City Hall, that place is a different kind of magic......i went to the tall building and legally changed my name to 11:11...
Etika: i'm here right now with Sasha.........it's not what you think......the irony of my last video are the sirens...
Etika: is a death worth one Like?...
Macaulay Culkin's son puts on aftershave to his Kung Fu audition...
Sean Lennon: sure yeah that's nice, i wish i could go back like you to when i was a boy...i wish John Lennon had written a song called "Beautiful Man"...
Gladyce to Doryce: dear when you're recycling Mardith's messes, remember: ketchup packet unopened: trash, ketchup packet opened: recycle bin...
Doryce: who keeps magically putting the new roll of toilet paper out when the old roll is getting low?...
Katrin: she's Tom...
Janine: no you're Jerry...
Doryce: i use the napkins already within Mardith's trash can to wipe the excess food off all the beige paperboard cartons...
Michael Weiss wearing a hardhat: when i look at all these Instagrams, especially the ones that are just assembly-line food pics from work, they are signaling souls lost to the company office, forever chewed up by the industrial complex...
Laertus: i wanna live in a world that is completely stress-free, one in which my only window to the outside world is El Gordo y La Flaca...
Eye Luggage: and Apple & Onion!
St. Vincent: yes i am volcanically hot, both sexes say so. but the funds aren't for me, they aren't for me to try to rekindle the flames of passion with David Byrne...
Codrus: i was the dux of my school, i was Top-Honors with the topknot at my Roman school.........there was no redux...
Roisin Kiberd doing a lecture at LUSH: where's my halberd from Pink Diamond? i'm not here to sell soap that looks like a petaled rose, i'm here to talk to you about my namesake cyber...
Galivant: i'm here to ensure the Green Notebook will remain forever green despite switching to a moleskine notebook...
Doryce at The Store: just cos we're in California don't mean all the coffee has to be Hawaiian blends!...
Gladyce: you know if i had spotted the Folgers Black Silk on the shelf i'd've snatched it! K-cups or no K-cups!
Kurt Cobain: overrated? why kick a man when he's down?
Takahashi: successful blogging, what exactly does that mean?...
Dirg: i eat bees, am i doing it right?...
Gladyce: i know the purchase was gratuitous. i bought the bottle of espresso coffee cream when i still had a full bottle of Colombian bean coffee cream. but i had to. you have to snatch it while you can...
Doryce: why does this coffee cream taste like the used-gum-filled bottom of a shelf?...
Mardith: i'm joining a murga band, i'm not squatting in the murga position for porn...
Dirg: i'm scared to assume the position murga-style! for corporal punishment...
Mardith: just SEEING him on his Instagram Stories everyday makes everything better, is enough for me, he's my prozac.
Dirg: who?...
Rubikon smoking loosies: i'm penning the life story of Audrey Hepburn...
Kurt Cobain: the only way we were able to get away with the lyrics for "Lithium" was that i was forced to change it so i didn't mention the specific you i killed...
everyone including a pink cougar with a bowtie squeezes into the cramped AV Club room at the school, a replica of the Cinerama theatre under the Bow showing Mighty Aphrodite for Greek Week:
Seth Green: it wasn't saved. i stand before you under the hot lights of a projector instead of the footlights of the ArcLight. with the honors of a toast. i went here to P.S. 101 same year as Pat. i was the runty ginger who was always absent. when i DID come to school for those 6 days a year i got bullied hard and beat-up badly hence why i'm such a good actor now...
Eye Luggage: what were we talking about again?
Shatner: that clip when Brando and Maria are naked facing each other looking at each other inventing names for each other...
Billy Baldwin: the iconic poster not the other one...
Shatner: that's how Star Trek came up with all their alien names going forward...
Maria Schneider: that's also how rabid dogs mate...
Eye Luggage: Mighty Aphrodite and go...
Rubikon: the A Tribe Called Quest album?...
Woody Allen: IN MY DEFENSE.........oh jeez it's very uncomfortable sitting between Mira Sorvino and Harvey Weinstein...in my defense Weinrib is not a play on Adam's rib or anything, it's the name of a vaudeville clown, nothing to do with Weinstein.
Paul Sorvino: and to think at one time i was considering playing Harvey Weinstein in the Criterion film...now it's a Lifetime movie...
Paul punches Harvey dead.
Woody: okay now that that's out of the way the tension can be loosed, ah, there, everyone do a Bette Midler yoga breath out and continue...
Dirg: before we start, what's on her gold chain necklace? been niggling me all day. i keep rewinding the darn thing like Blockbuster digital but i can't framerate the cel. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!
Dirg using Doryce's glasses: is that a word or a gold razorblade?
Laertus: Mighty?
Mira Sorvino: Martinelli's, an Italian ciderhouse that services Spider-Man...
Dirg: it should have said Linda but i'm afraid it says Judy Cum...
Mira: it says Oscar...
Woody: before we start let's talk about the voice, i hated it.
Mira: that voice won me the Oscar. i was doing an airhead with a Harvard accent and that's what came out of my mouth.
Pat: Princeton accent would have won you the Golden Globe, Radcliffe accent would have won you the BAFTA...
Laertus: why do you have to be the protagonist in every single one of your films, Woody? they are masterpieces of wordplay but still. is it a control thing? you have to write EVERY single word?...
Woody: isn't it obvious? i'm stuck at a 12-year-old boy's level when it comes to girls. do you think i would ever get the chance to tongue-kiss Mira Sorvino naturally in the course of Earth events? of course i have to WRITE the sex scene between me and Mira or it would never happen!
Mira: that kiss between us was VERY awkward. and mushy and slimy...even BEFORE everything about you came out...
Natalie Portman: in the original script, it called for Woody to bounce on Mira's tits and ass like a midget clown in a bounce house...
The Greek Chorus: we got TIRED having to recite your words and half-dance after the first scene, it was all so tortured. we were in these heavy monk robes in the sweltering heat wearing the masks from those aliens on that Twilight Zone "Eye of the Beholder" episode. you know the ones with the protruding lips...
Rubikon: watch it...
Codrus: now you know how WE feel!
Cotard: and that wasn't even Greece, that was the Hollywood Bowl...
Helena Bonham Carter: i felt weird doing this. not the accent, me playing this demure taciturn housewife who goes along with having an affair cos it's expected of every female artist with a gallery showing in Soho. me, the bitch with the goth spells...
Dirg: GODDAMMIT NYC! but i can't hate, those stoops are magic...
Peter Weller: i'm the original guy with a boat...
Michael Rapaport: MAN i was young here! i serve no purpose. i ain't no boxer, i ain't no Max! imma fake boxer, a facebooker boxer on the internet. the only reason i'm here is the producers blocked Woody Allen from having the kid with Mira Sorvino just straight-cold with no one else around...
Dirg: HOLY FUCK! i'm sorry i know she's in the room with us but Mira Sorvino is FUCKING HOT! tall glass of boiling water. very statuesque. did you ever try out for American Gladiators or an amazon on Dragonslayer?...
Mira: I SHOULDA BEEN EOWYN!!!
Woody: i'm a sportswriter.
Mira: you? runty little you? obviously you never played sports and are compensating.
Woody: are you the basketball player i'm interviewing today?...
Mira: i'm a UN Ambassador now, i'm able to kiss the clouds and see everything going on in the world from up there, all sides, all peoples at once...
Woody: Max, whose real name was Groucho, went to school right here at P.S. 101. spoilers: this is the gifted school!
everyone spits out their lunch.
Woody: you all know my Max, even if you don't. his picture is on all your milk cartons...yeah he went missing when he found out about me, no one ever saw him again...
Woody: why can't you make something of yourself? do something that matters like be a hairdresser.
Mira: what, smart people can't enjoy porn? porn is the sole domain of the dumb Mafia?
Woody: well the racket yes.
Woody: the scene at the bar with the mafioso pimp, that was Harvey's cruel joke on me, he made me do it even tho i was clearly not suited for it and wanted Mira's father to do it...
Dirg: i'm not one of those weirdos who kills prostitutes...i'm joking i'm joking i'm a comedy writer, honey, really, Woody?
Woody: i am many things but heavy i am not. i am not suited to act with a heavy. i am not an ax murderer. i may be the posterboy for why QAnon exists but i am not an ax murderer...
at dinner through the bay window overlooking Madison Square Garden:
Mira: we going to a show after this?
Rapaport: yeah i was thinking the Knicks but...um can i have back those two tickets in your hand? i promised my buddy Kevin Durant i'd take him...
Rubikon: HBC?
Helena Bonham Carter: i'm all for black-led and black-run universities.
Helena Bonham Carter: our relationship is terminated.
Peter Weller: that's the other one...
Rubikon: is he feeling well? covid toes at universities? oh yeah, TK Carter, my favorite teacher...
Dirg: is that the black dude in the wheelchair?...
Iceman: ...
Dirg: is Mark Curry related to Steph Curry hence the basketball skills on that show about the black urban teacher man?...
Laertus: Mark Curry is an example to us all about overcoming suicide after fire. through the spiritual fire...
Pat: once again i am so sorry...
Woody: one of these days i'm gonna get the chance for a scene where they actually SHOW me having sex with the unattainable A-list Hollywood woman...
Don Knotts: after the whole fish thing i needed to learn to fly for security reasons, so here i am: i'm a certified helicopter pilot now. i am the LITERAL deus ex machine dropping in from the sky to save the script...
Richard Dreyfuss: this is all humans' doing, no aliens, humans came up with all the rules...
Dirg: FAO Schwartz, Toys R Us without the Nintendo games. why does Max look different here? it's like he regressed...
Woody: but he's a smart kid! top of his grade!...
Dirg: no he looks shorter now, smaller.
Don Knotts: i switched the kids without Woody and Mira knowing. as is my function. now THAT's a good ending!
Jimmy Durante: i'm all for helping out a fellow Tribesman but...this is my song but...
Dirg: this movie doesn't REALLY explain why Mira is so smart tho. Mira's character Mira's character!...
Eye Luggage: i haven't smiled in so long i forgot how...g'night, folks
Helena Bonham Carter: you couldn't find my cunt? well i can't find your cock!
Woody: relax, honey, calm down! it's a joke i'm a jokewriter.
Helena Bonham Carter: DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!!! wow that felt good. STOP TOUCHING MY ARM!!!
Woody: i touch you cos that's how i make you loosen your guard up with me when i talk. it's my offense defense mechanism. you don't have to worry about me, i hate pizza...
Helena Bonham Carter: *tears streaming down her face* our poor boy Max! missing cos he got bullied for having a mustache! ironically that same stache would have helped him in high school!...g'night, folks...
Dirg: this was just trying to piggyback off the success of Schindler's List. for shame. bad camerawork, too, there were a lot of scenes where the two principals are talking way way way in the background at a distance between football players or the boxing gym, very weird. dialogue would happen as the screen showed a boxing bag. g'night, folks...
Mira: my perfect match in this film would have been Peter Vecsey playing Karnov if Karnov had an ulcer. g'night, folks.
Max Kellerman: Troll Book Club, i'm using this colored-ink thin newspaper sheet in my hand to buy all the new Garfield long rectangular books...
Pat: such innocent days! such innocent days we live in! getting the beneficent view of trolls here before all that tech to replace teachers comes in. this sheet, this news media IS beneficent! it's the internet now, it's the way news spreads to kids...
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