HALFMONK: ALL MONKS ARE MISERABLE (GEORGE JETSON IS A DJ IN SHERMAN OAKS SPACE)

i am floored and taken aback in salacious surpise. my head hits the straw wall.

Jennifer Pizarro: why isn't your wall stucco?

me: it's on the workers' list. how are you, beautiful.

Jen: oh no don't you start with that again. oh come on, first thing i see is this painting.

me: but it's of you!

Jen: that's the problem. you gotta move on, pal.

me: i love it when you're cold to me.

me: how are you? really.

Jen: look at my leg.

me: i'm caressing your calf now, i'm remembering its plumpness.

Jen: it's broken, genius. in two places and a third halfsplint. i was auditioning, er, trialing for the Olympics on the skeleton, that ice track is a motherfucker. 

me: as many curves as your body.

Jen: you know why they call it skeleton? cos you're on top of the sled on your stomach and you look like a skeleton. alone and bare to face the wind of life naked. no protection. please no sex jokes here.

me: i could never get you in that position. i can't help it, this sport incorporates the only two things that matter in life: sex and death. is the skeleton more dangerous than the luge?

Jen: us sliders, ahem ahem, would say.........oh we're just daredevils either way. 

me: can i be your pusher? why did they stop stopping the new way anyway?

Jen: i know, right? for centuries we had to stop by literally planting our leg in the ice going 60 miles per hour. then came the pillow way.

me: but they ran out of pillows for you. cos your ass is that phat. okay i know the perfect gift for you come Christmas: a big fluffy scented pillow from LUSH, with none of my cum on it, promise. 

Butt: knock knock. here, take this ashtray.

i push all my cigarette's ashes into it with one flick.

Butt: NO! these are the Ash Wednesday ashes!!! you're supposed to take some into your thumb and push down hard on the pupil of your forehead!

me: oh shit sorry my bad. wait you're still Catholic? still Catholic in this world? that makes me cry in appreciation. 

Sasha Grey comes up and licks the ashbowl.

Sasha: just checking for smell. hey are any of these ashes from Pompeii? Vesuvius?

Butt: yes of course, the ones in the corner. why?

me: Sasha is that really you? i am floored. didn't recognize you in that bulky robe.

Sasha: i love Big Sur, come here all the time to think. and then i hike. collecting alms for my two tragic friends who were ramrodded in a speedboat accident and died. but then i realized death is final so i moved on to sex. but i did that already, there's nothing more in the sex world to explore. so i might as well use my platform to help Ukraine ramrod Russia back to the Stone Age. 

me: here, this is my whole wealth, my final fortune. tis a few coins and tokens. i give it all away. to you. like the Sublime song says to do.

Anna Marie Tendler bonks my head with a silver ladle.

Anna: how do you like your eggs? Over Hard like my newest showing at the art studio? no hard feelings, my gallery, my work, my art is not a revealing of any one person, it's about a woman's struggle. man don't i look good in these pink frilly lingeries?!! i'm injecting myself with the Zeta Variant vax. i froze my eggs cos i believe in the future. even if nothing indicates that the future will be anything but lonely. i'm scared to death of the future! there's no guarantee of anything, there's no guarantee of love in the future! what if John was my only match!

me: i know. the future is scary. that's why i stay shacked up in here.

John Mulaney: i got you didn't i. you really thought i was out as SNL host...

Doryce: Starlight Coke, what a bummer!

Gladyce: it tastes good.

Doryce: no it was cruel how The Store did it. they had the DISPLAY of Starlight Coke but the only Coke in that stand were those 100% recycled bottles of Regular Coke!

Takahashi: i had it, it tastes like space. it tastes like magic. it tastes like space magic.

Steven Universe: ...

Tyzik: i ordered the last bottle online. it tastes like purple cough syrup.

Dirg: to me it tasted like Alana Haim.

Doryce: great. my mortal enemy gets to taste Starlight Coke before me. and you?

NoizeBoy: i like Yellow Mountain Dew. i've figured out how to be Jillian Clare's boyfriend: i have to be gay even if i'm not.

giraffe: i feel bad for me that i gotta stand next to Dobrik.

Ghost of Kyiv: of course i'm real. and i'm a woman. i used to be Casper the Friendly Ghost, that's how mad i got...

Wendy the Good Little Witch: ...

Wendy: Hot Stuff the Little Devil is just a Hot Tamale candy i turned to life with my black-magic spells. he advertises sardines now. 

Ghost of Kyiv: i can't with you. i can't stand your crying at night!

Wendy: that's me howling!

Mardith: doing my daily Ukrainian prayer-walk in the woods, looking for a sign, then boom a rainbow, everything's gonna be fine...

Simon Cowell: i will only judge the sex between Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian. that's what they mean when they say the Kim K sex tape, right?

swordfish: i don't need Russia's illegal incursion into Ukraine to protect me, i got a sword for a nose!

Jimmy Panetta: only NOW did you realize i'm the younger brother of Leon Panetta...

art in the internet age: it's not worth it.

Dirg: is this why i don't have any friends?...

Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys: i don't have a lisp, i just sing East-End style. like a man wearing a longcoat.

David Tennant: trenchcoat.

Joel Embiid: it's not a bottle, it's a drop.

Tyzik: Germany has the strongest military in the world? it's a good thing they switched sides when they did. or the world would be in trouble.

Gabi from Attack on Titan: my gun was LITERALLY a Chekhov's gun...

Pavel Chekov aboard the NCC-1701-A Enterprise: ...

M Money commercial man with handlebar mustache: my smile is not creepy. i used to be a boxer.

Lars Ulrich: shouldn't we have called our first song "Kill The Lights"?...

Leonard Nimoy: it's very clever, you have to watch ALL the Star Trek movies: the first one cos it's the first, the 2nd cos Khan, the 3rd cos me, the 4th cos whales, 5th cos Bill directed and forced us, 6th cos it's the last one. Spock out.

SWIFT: please don't use the word "nuclear option" with us...

Putin: that Chernobyl tv show was so bad, i'm gonna make it better. people pronounce my name and spit cos it sounds like Sputin.

Christopher Meloni: look i haven't all of a sudden turned into an anime character in real life with the goggles and the David Tennant beige trenchcoat, okay?

David Tennant: longcoat.

Djokovic: does anybody want to join the Professional Tennis Players Association?...

Jerry Seinfeld: Shenmue, it's like Seinfeld, a great show with a name no one understands.

Tatiana: hello, my name is Tatiana Cartwright, i am very pleased to meet you.

Akira: i did the Vaporwave Sun first!!!

Joe Pera: i mean me, ME. and my voice, I was on Bob's Burgers, that is TOO perfect.

Madame Pons: one of my girls, she and her partner are "trying". that is such a cold word, it's love, they should be making warm buttery sweet sweet love.

Roger Federer: i am against Putin. you can't be neutral in this world anymore.

Bump: come on, Tom, just one fry.

Tom Brady: get that French fry outta my face! is this French fry supposed to represent Ivanka Trump? it ain't happening, pal!!!

Gigi Rice wearing a purple shawl: i'm Topanga from Boy Meets World as a mom.

 

Doryce: Swampfest, nothing to do with my vagina.

Sam's Hof Brau: pronounced Hall of Fame. 

David Hasselhoff drinking a genuine German beer: ...

Sam's: sometimes we have wurst, sometimes we have topless dancers.

Jessica Chastain: i think of acting.........as work.

Marcus Aurelius: think of yourself as a zombie...

University of Delaware: we stand by Ukraine with our colors.

Annie Lennox: i do the Michael Jackson mean-mug grunt on the "Sex Crime" music video.

Michael Weiss: i get really horny when i'm on Instagram. have i said this before?

Bugs Bunny: i am arming myself with a Molotov cocktail and crossing the border to go after, attack, and kill Putin. attacking the opera house? fuck that, that was the last straw. afterwards we celebrate with carrot cocktails.

Neptune from One Piece: my orange beard is so big and poofy so the animators won't have to animate my mouth.

Hoe: i used to push Santa's sleigh...

Hoe: i'm a whale not a ho. and it's pronounced Ho-Aye.

Axl Rose: the "November Rain" video, that was when French-kissing with tongue was still a mysterious thing.

Kanye: how DARE you send me the Us Weekly magazine cover with you and Kim and the headline How We Fell In Love.

Pete Davidson: truce. come on, man, you gotta lighten up, this ain't war.

Eye Luggage: what were we talking about again?

Spock: why was it called The Voyage Home? that is such an inert pedestrian title. it shoulda been called The Whale Tail is the Spock Sign. y'know, something like that, something with whale in the title.

Eye: Jetsons: The Movie and go.

Laertus's dad: me again. picture if you will the middle of summer 1990. you have just gotten off school. it's the 8th grade, you're transitioning from child to adult against your will. this is the last summer of your youth, the last summer you can be a kid. you KNOW all your friends will have stories to tell about this movie, THEY saw it, their parents let THEM see it, they'll have all the references you won't get when summer ends and you're back on the playground. 

Laertus's dad: so what do you do? the moment i am allowed to go see it i enter into an atmosphere, a moodscape. at the legendary diamond-glassed Sherman Oaks Galleria. glass all around. i bring one friend i've forgotten the name of now, we gleefully giddily slide down the banister of the carpeted staircase of the lobby, the lobby completely carpeted in purple with yellow stars. the green palm trees in the lobby ARE REAL!!! they really grow and die!

Cotard: and you're served (by me) a pouch of the first-ever monk Himalayan pink-salt popcorn. but you two don't know it. kinda like how i tricked my brother...

Laertus's dad: i feel so free. we take the glass elevator up and i look down below from the second storey of the mall. glass everywhere. the sign lights up in purple neon despite it being afternoon. the movie theatre is packed with fellow students all in tennis shoes with their house keys tied to their laces. i'm good. i'm good now cos i will remember two references: Rick Dees and Judy singing in that glass elevator.

Laretus: i don't remember this movie the first time around.

Laertus's dad: i know why, we as a family decided to see Dick Tracy instead, am i a bad dad?

Laertus: not at all! looking back that was the correct choice. i mean Dick Tracy was the bomb!!! state-of-the-art makeup in that one! Warren Beatty's finest performance, the Academy agreed. and Madonna was sizzlin'! i still have that yellow trenchcoat in my closet!

George O'Hanlon: this movie is remembered not for the movie itself but for what happened behind the scenes. SO MUCH DEATH on this set. take me for example. i died.

Andrea Romano: tell me about it. i had to carry your corpse out of the soundbooth. you were a fucking sack of potatoes but i still signed your name to your SAG card that day Weekend-at-Bernie's-style with your inked thumb. that was the first podcast. i told you doing this was not worth a second stroke. i was right, it ended up not being a bomb financially but being a bomb. that's why i was not in a good mood when Janet Waldo started her campaign of bitch for the entirety of the production.  

Janet Waldo: YOU SCREWED ME OVER!!! i did ALL my lines for Judy Jetson and they were ALL REPLACED by Tiffany!!! i am the first person to get canceled in Hollywood!!! you wanted to SKEW YOUNGER to get the young generational wealth, the demographic dinero, the cheap cash, their parents' disposable money. how'd that work out for ya?

Andrea: stop yelling, bitch. we know we know, you've said this a thousand times. you turned my hair gray. as you can see, i've been in the voice-acting business a LOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGG time.

Mel Blanc: i died, too. i was The Man of a Thousand Voices.

Jeff Bergman: thanks for that, i have a career because you did that. btw, what's the voice of the Afterlife?

Mel: blank.

Eye: the turnaround of a production, it's complicated and messy.

Bonnie Tyler: the next time there's an eclipse, the world will end. i fucked Nostradamus at the junior prom.

Hanna and Barbera: HEY! we actually directed this! like, we, the real two men behind the brand, we actually put our hands on this! two flesh-and-blood men, not drawings...

Tiffany: my career ended after this movie but i'm still glad i did it. i was showcased, this was the JUDY movie, the TIFFANY movie, they made special concessions to get my singing off the ground, to have it skyrocket, pun intended. i'm on the soundtrack! a soundtrack your kids' sticky hands are all over right now! and the point of it is: when you think of me and this movie, you'll always have fond memories, you'll think upon me fondly, cos i remind you of the MALL...

Jean Vander Pyl: i wanted to say some dirty lines, some brassy-broad lines. i was the Palmolive soap lady after all, right?

Madame Pons: my hero.

Jean: that Rosie the Robot sure does sound like Wilma Flintstone...

Patti Deutsch: if only there had been an intergalactic gameshow segment. i shoulda played Merida but my hair-iron didn't have a crimp setting.

Dana Hill: this was the last time i really went to the afterparty...

Brad Garrett: imagine if i had just stayed a voice actor...

Eye Luggage takes out a damaged VHS tape of Jetsons: The Movie with one corner bitten off by a dog and the tape on the right spool-side in disarray. the tape glistens and gleams in the pod light.

everyone: oooooooh. aaaaaahhhhh.

Eye: this here videocassette, EVERYONE has this. all the kids i babysat for AND their parents. it's always on the Easter basket next to the fireplace as i enter.

Eye: okay, i'm putting it in the hole! the slot. and magic.

Laertus: that's my dad's VHS player.

Laertus's dad: don't mind me, i'll just be watching this as i eat cinnamon cereal, slurp a Wendys hamburger with pickle, and eat Kool-Aid. i stay away from Florida.

George Jetson: now you know the exact year his takes place. reality still exists in the 2200s.

Laertus: but not in the 2020s.

George: i have ONE JOB: to push a button with my finger, this has strangely not been automated yet.

Mr. Spacely: i'm the good Cosmo. orbiting, ore, drill. we live in a space society that requires money still. vice-presidents are ALWAYS useless. no vice-president has ever done anything ever.

Rick Dees: yeah it's me. and my curly fro. Rick Dees, remember? i was the HOTTEST man at this time. most in demand i mean. i introduced the biggest acts in the world. i introduced your young loins to Axl Rose. i'm the DJ around here not George!

Rubikon: if only all cops could be inflatable sex toys.

Elroy Jetson: i have that boy's voice that creeps you out cos it's, like, too adult for its own good. too knowing, too alt-right or something. i just want to play gravity basketball, dad. i just want to play catch with you, dad, before that became a Republican thing.

Judy Jetson: ah, young love. that's what my character represents, that's what you FEEL when you witness my journey here. the innocence of a teenage girl infatuated with a rock singer who i think is singing his songs only for me. all his songs were written about me. only me. 

Astro the Space Mutt: we don't want the family to move, George! this is the only place i can get that good ganja that makes my voice gravelly. who will i talk to? i don't talk to other dogs!

Judy: okay nice rebound for me, a cute-as-fuck alien fishboy with blue-green clammy skin and fins and a gill for a penis!

Apollo Blue: you can see with my design the obvious Japanese influence here, the anime influence. 

Judy: you gotta admit the songs i sing are good.

Paula Abdul: they all sound like Paula Abdul songs. you stole all the melodies from me but go ahead.

Judy: you all remember when i went up that glass elevator, you FELT my loneliness with me. that song stirred your soul. and then we do three really funky psychedelic numbers with crazy drugged animations flying all over the place.

Hanna and his partner Barbera: think Belladonna of Sadness for kids.

George: who keeps sabotaging the sprockets? little black men? i mean they're shadows they're shadows. they were foreshadowed at the beginning of the movie.

Mr. Spacely: can i get the spacebus that has the walk-in tub George has that's really an indoor jacuzzi? great, i got the cramped John Hughes bus.

Fergie Furbelow: think of me as space Teddy Ruxpin.

Squeep: i have asthma.

Grungees: think of us as the Care Bears, but real.

Kurt Cobain: ...

Grungees: stop killing our home! humans are so dumb! don't disturb natural habitats! don't come at wetlands with your Giant Drill! what do you think this is, anime?! because of you we had to replant the Amazon Forest in space! and it didn't take much time for you to destroy it again!!!

George Jetson: a sense of community, that's what he had in the '90s. it's gone now. 

George: i will help you furry critters who live in rocks but are not in any way affiliated with Fraggle Rock because you hog-tied me and i found that sexy. Jane is a dead fish in bed.

George: life is not about factories churning out the latest fast-food toy. it's about a colony on an asteroid, an artist colony. we don't get paid, we art. Elroy, Squeep, are you willing to get buried alive for the cause of freedom?

Grungees: we'll make all factory Coke bottles with 100% recyclables. deal? ironically we'll do it in space but Starlight Coke won't be one of the flavors.

George: family, we're going back to Earth.

family: Earth exploded, dad, remember?

George: we still have this bubble jet that is our space car. it runs on electricity but silver is needed for the electricity, so it's back to the ore mines in space.

Judy: wait did we fuck?

Apollo: yeah during the drive-in scene, remember? with all the space cars floating in space. deleted scene, it was cut.

Judy: oh yeah. not very memorable. the Mile High Club doesn't mean anything here. 

Janet Waldo: story of my life, i end up the floozie secretary.

George: wait who are you? you're not in the script!

Shaggy: i'm Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. in a dress. trans kids made it to the future despite all the dark forces against us, it's a victory for us. i can show you how to tap into your female energy, how to be an animal in bed, how to be the Jane you've always wanted.

Mr. Spacely eats a cigar and makes the Groucho-Marx wink with his eyebrows.

Mr. Spacely: we do need renewable energy, hehehehe. start with the handsome stubble on George's face, baby, imma watch.

George Jetson: goodnight, Gracie. you won't see us again for 30 years...

the cats are worried, they haven't seen Graykid for a week. 7 days. 

Mlem and Blep: we heard the most earthshattering sound overnight. as the roof was being laid with the tiles. it was bitterly cold. the chilling guttural moan of an injured animal braying, the screetchy scratchy yelps of battle, two creatures locked in war. and then the slip-slide of wet tiles going down falling off the edge.

Mlem: i couldn't tell if it was cat but it did sound like a medium-sized animal.

Blep: it was demonic!

cats: we turnaround! we care for Graykid! we hope Graykid's okay!!! he was just trying to protect our home!!! not like this!!! it can't fucking end like this!!!

a large line is forming from the church to my room. i have no idea why. 

roofer: hey come down and let me show you something.

me: oh cool! what is it?

roofer: you go to church?

me: no.

roofer: i mean THIS church.

me: no.

roofer: the center aisle is now a flat escalator. a Jetsons peoplemover.

me: it's cool that you liked the Jetsons, too.

roofer: it didn't get translated into Spanish until the 2000s, which was a sucky decade.

 

me: what are you doing in my room, honey?

Jen Pizarro: serving the roofers food. you never thought to do this?

me: i did not. and i am ashamed. actually truly ashamed of myself.

Jen: here you go, guys, it's cream of chicken. i know, it's not soup, it's just water and sodium globules for dumplings and big salt balls of hardened chicken-powder but he doesn't have a kitchen here. these are dorm utensils. i'm doing this on one leg. it's a homecooked meal with a woman's touch.

me: i'll buy you all Wendys, whaddaya say?

at an undisclosed location that's not the monastery, Dirg is dropped off at his father's house.

Dirg: fuck. knock knock.

the door opens.

Dirg's dad in a dirty T-shirt: come in my wayward stun. meet your cousins you've never met.

Dirg: sigh. hello. who are you? what are your names?

cousins: come on in, mister, we're waiting for Santa to come tonight.