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Marilyn Monroe meets JFK at JFK's private smoking room and film room under the White House basement.
JFK: can i bum a smoke off you? the Secret Service is on my ass to lose weight.
Marilyn: sure, baby, use my tits as your ashtray.
JFK: what have you got for me? a bomb? i'm studying the sunset laws.
Marilyn: no, a script that will be a box-office bomb but a legacy picture. look it over.
JFK: seems good but i thought we were gonna work with Oliver Stone. who is this Zapruder guy?
Marilyn: dunno but i like his black-and-white film-noir style.
JFK: yeah i don't know, let's just stick with Stone and avoid all controversy.
JFK leans in for the French kiss.
Marilyn Monroe: i am wet down there. i'm wearing Depends.
JFK: happy 96th birthday, baby.
Axl Rose in a rickety NYC studio: early in my career i was the drummer for Frank Zappa.
Frank Zappa: you looked good in the '70s when you were shirtless.
Boris Becker in the booth: i gotta be an on-air commentator with a microphone for the UEFA Final now.
schnecken: Uzumaki pastry
Walmart: we charge you if your order is UNDER $35.00...
Jack Tripper: remember, if you ever need to know where our Three's Company home is, it's Apt. #11...
Billy Corgan of Zwan starts singing "Settle Down" at a smoky late-40s club: "paranoid i'm paranoid without me...yes yes..."
the Pink Floyd "Learning To Fly" music video: i don't get it. it's a beautiful setup with the red feather and everything but it doesn't stick the landing. it LITERALLY doesn't stick the landing by having the Native American young man hang-glide instead of just flying in the air on his own with just his body...
Dirg: you know it's a bad week when you need BuzzFeed to cheer you up.
BuzzFeed: we are not a licensed therapist.
Mark Zuckerberg: you know, Facebook was only meant for one brother to keep in touch with the other brother who lives on the way other side of the world in Swaziland. it was never meant for strangers to talk...
E.T.: it was an intimate quiet slice-of-life summer blockbuster that came out during summer despite it being set at Halloween...
me: i want that bathroom Elliott's family has, i want that bathtub fern, i want that bath fern.
Madame Pons: we got those ferns at LUSH.
E.T.: i'm coming back to Earth to kick George Will's ass...
David Carradine sitting on a pointy mountaintop: i wasn't into autoerotic asphyxiation until i did that SNL skit where in order to get out of welfare i had to prostitute myself.
me: i want that '80s mall set used for those 2 skits in your David Carradine episode, David, in my living room. i saw Pirates of Penzance for the first time on, of all places, Saturday Night Live.
lovely female UCLA drama-camp teacher from the '80s with blonde hair and a female applebottom core: vegetable, mineral, diction.
Linda Ronstadt: you had no idea i had an opera voice to go with my Tex Mex voice...
Laertus's dad: in 1980 there was only ONE cool video game: Space Invaders. or maybe Asteroids.
Lucy Kafanov on assignment: i sound like i play tennis on the WTA tour. i don't drink coffee. i'm bringing back the '90s skateboard haircut with the long straight-hair bangs over the shaved head.
Danny Supple from Crespi High School: i was the coolest manlet of all time. you're not short, you're not a midget, if you skate. i'm supple in bed always have been. all the Notre Dame girls found me cute and bitesize...
Danny Supple at the high school reunion: i ended up about where you'd expect: Mexican sunhat, party shirt, i married the Aflac swan who definitely was NOT a black swan...
Eye Luggage: the ONLY good thing about the Mayhem in the Multiverse Teen-Titans-Go Super-Hero-Girls collab crossover was the iteration of Aquaman as Matthew McConaughey, i had never seen that before and that was novel, good, funny, and fun. i feel you, Zatanna, i was crushing hard on McConaughey Aquaman, too.
Dirg: it wasn't even a collab, the Teen Titans didn't do anything.
Charlotte in The Sorrows of Young Werther: why would i provide the pistols if i knew what Werther was gonna do? these aren't Original candy guns, these aren't Original cough drops. i mean i had to know Werther was sad from all that unrequited love...
Madame Pons: oh come ON!!! they had a perfectly good lesbian love story going in the Lupin III Part 6 two-parter "The Imperial City Dreams of Thieves" but at the end they let it slip that the girl was actually a boy in disguise the whole time!!! next time REALLY GO FOR IT AND COMMIT!!!
Lynn Hill: rock-climbing was my bra-burning.........yet i still had a kid later in life.
Jillian Clare: i'm doing the fireman's pole on my trapeze today.
Monica Lewinsky: why? to prepare for your wedding night?
Jillian Clare: no you missed the premise to start with. i would only do a firewoman's pole...
Jimmy Butler: you got lucky i didn't make that last shot...
Celtics: we know, we are lucky, look at the four-leaf clovers on our jerseys.
Mike Breen: i feel a little better now. Jimmy Butler's last shot wouldn't have been the same experience without my BANG!!!
Michael Weiss pumping iron tryna look like Terry Crews: hey Instagram, a bee on a flower is not THAT interesting...
Colin Jost: Josh Gates has the most punchable face on TV.
Laertus's dad: omg Josh Gates reminds me TERRIBLY of a half-professor at Berkeley i used to have, English or mountaineering or privateering, some such course i had to take. he was so ARROGANT, so whitebread frat-boy about grades and life and getting women, getting the only eligible woman in a swamp village, a village completely submerged in a swamp.
Josh Gates: Berkeley wasn't sexy enough for me. i had to sow my wild oats climbing trees. Nic Cage lent me his compass necklace...
Ri Chun-Hee in a forest: hey, you'd do the same thing if it meant you could keep being alive. and triumphant. and be gifted a North Korean mansion for your home. you'd hold hands with a dictator up the stairs...
Kate Lyn Sheil: yes, Kate Bush is my mother. obviously. you can see the resemblance. the Two Kates.
Laertus: Dirg, no good text is ever sent at 4AM...
Steve-O: yeah that's me in the horrible-accident commercial where i die after getting flung from a car and smashing into a mosaic-sharp windshield. ironic, huh? buckle up, kids.
Kate Lyn Sheil: i was named after a windshield.
Gilda Radner: my marriage to G.E. Smith was short and sweet.........i switched from G.E. to an electric car late in life.
G.E.: i bring good things to life.........but then Gilda died suddenly.
Kelly Clarkson: finally ALL THAT MONEY i spent on my divorce is worth it, my ranch has a black hole. i'm going in...
Doryce: summer is a tricky time for me. i don't want to wear a sweater cos it's fucking hot out but i don't want my arms getting all scratched up by the cat familiars!!!
Greykid: hey man, we don't care about an old dried-up witch. we are more powerful magic beings than you will ever be!!!
Maiara Walsh: the one cool thing about Instagram is even though i'm traveling 25,000 miles clear across to the way other side of the globe not by boarding an airplane but by myself, for a shoot, a permanent shoot, you won't miss me cos it's like i never left, i'll post pics from Rio just as i would post from home.
David Carradine: look, i am sorry for how i died. it was embarrassing, i brought shame to the family, not that i cared much for my extended family. adopt don't shop. my friends along my wandering travels were my family. honor is a big thing in martial arts, a big part of it. my brother was the lovable nerd in Lizzie McGuire for heaven sake!!! in my defense, my childhood REALLY fucked me up...
Amber Heard: i will not be doing any interviews. ever again. for the rest of my life. you will not hear of me again. i'm moving to a ranch in Montana. but the thing is, i still gotta pay for this thing...
crones: the corn thing, the niblets are more expensive but worth it. buying corn in the stalk will fuck you up for life. peeling away all that silk hair that clogs the garbage disposal.
Doryce: i wish i had silky hair like that. you need to fuck the disposal man just to break even.
Gladyce: i go into The Store and see flies buzzing by. it makes me feel at home, it makes me feel i'm not the only one. the Treehouse gets flies in summer, too.
Doryce: summer is when it's helpful when my finger turns wine to water...
Mardith: where'd all the summer wine go?...
Takahashi: have you noticed the whole empty-net thing in the NHL Playoffs NEVER WORKS?!!! i know, it's a cool thing to witness before your eyes when the goalie leaves the goal. but the ice-hockey team up one player NEVER SCORES and then the other team INEVITABLY gets the puck in the empty net on the way other side of the rink for the devastating can't-come-back-from-that-one score...
Luffy: wait a minute.........the One Piece theme song is the Friends theme song!!!
Michael Weiss: why do all 1st-birthday parties on Instagram employ those large gold balloon letters and numbers?...
mushroom candy bar: it's healthy for you.
Toad: just don't eat the shrooms chocolate at night or you'll glow in the dark. why does all glow-in-the-dark have to be green?
Luigi: right?
Toad: hey man, i had the green mushroom-stoolhat first.
Luigi: wanna fight about it?
Toad: only if we're both on drugs when we fight.
Ivory Green: nobody knows i'm missing cos my name's TOO internet-searchable...
Seamus the Irish wolfhound: tipping the colors? i don't know how to do that.
Greykid: just tip your pint of amber ale at just the right angle at golden hour.
Queen Elizabeth: i don't even CARE about my birthday!!! Jubilee jelly? they all jelly of me. Jubilee jam? not unless it's "Safe From Harm" by Massive Attack.
Melissa Maker: introducing MMM, Melissa Maker Mulch. i got an electric composter and i haven't stopped. what day is it? who's that outside my ranch window? Clifford? that's one big-ass dog!!!
Seamus: sorry. i can't go through with the ceremony. i moved to Canada which is England Jr.
Eye Luggage: Sunset Boulevard and go.
Eye: okay can i make a plea? can i make a plea here? as the gothie of the group i take ownership of this movie. i mean take the dialogue in this WONDERFUL film, the way these characters speak. the rapid-fire way they talk to each other, staccato, rat-a-tat-tat back-and-forth between two people in conversation like a tommy gun. with devastating vocabulary and just that right WORD that nails the emotion. CAN WE PLEASE TALK LIKE THIS IN REAL LIFE?!!! imagine if humans always talked like we were in a gangster film, wouldn't life be more colorful, more grand, more ALIVE?!!!
Humphrey Bogart: i mean this picture just BARELY makes it, it's designated as a film-noir but it's done in 1950 which was the beginning of the END of this kind of noir stuff, the venetian-blinds lighting and the fedoras and the pipe parties. the '50s were all about beach movies. Gidget prancing around in her eenie weenie polka-red-dot bikini on the hot sand burning her feet and Burt Reynolds right there ready to eat her with his mustache and blow on her toes. dark cinema was on its way out.
Ethan Hawke: hear me out.........Sunrise Boulevard...
Norma Desmond: look at me. look at my face. look at my buggy bugged-out crazy eyes. why didn't i win the Oscar that year? that was a TRAVESTY. it's not about my acting, it's about my FACE!!! only I have this face. it will be copied in Spielberg cartoons and Carol Burnett chicken soup, but i get NOTHING!!! Hollywood is a disease, mah dahlin, a disease i will gladly lay on the altar for. cos it's entertaining. why didn't Sunset Boulevard springboard me to bigger and better roles?!!! nobody knows, the wind knows, it's a Scientology mystery. there's nothing like show business if you're the one pulling the strings. wait i know why it's because i didn't win that Oscar...
William Holden: i was a Republican. do you blame me? i was friends with Ron Reagan what did you want me to do? but Republicans weren't crazy back then. also i was a good sea-swimmer, i had a pair of lungs on me like a fish. like Dolly Parton. everyone treats you nice when you're dead as they gently take you out of the water, it doesn't matter if you were a Republican anymore. wasn't i on the very first Twilight Zone episode?
Rod Serling with hypnotizing hands: you do not remember having any association with me whatsoever...
William Holden: yeah and i was on that I Love Lucy episode. remember? right? yeah the one at that derby restaurant with the booths...
Sylvia of Hollywood: i'll get your lungs in ocean shape. shit. my name and identity were never supposed to get out, and get printed by Walter Winchell. you know, to keep the Illuminati illusion going. i don't eat donuts. what a slip. and i teach people how to fall correctly so they don't break a hip. slip with the balance of butter, be slippery and bendable. you like my accent?
Mardith: oh my GODDESS i am SO stoked to meet you!!! i'm a screaming giggling schoolgirl over here!!! may i hug you? you are my yoga IDOL!!! cos you did it first, you started Ancient Yoga!!!
Madame Pons: i feel the same way as my padawan. Ms. Sylvia, you are my MADAME idol!!! we madames have to stick together. in secret purple tents stuffed between Hollywood ranches. so i'm excited cos i've just landed the role of you, Sylvia of Hollywood, in the Lifetime movie. MY FIRST MOVIE!!! the script is strangely challenging, good writer here.
Gladyce: thanks. i knew Sylvia. i WAS Sylvia...
Merna Kennedy: just tell me where my mark is on this old dusty stage. is the blocking correct here or am i gonna have to go get my half-brother from the White House?
Gloria Swanson: why'd i do it? why'd i accept when all the others passed on it? for glory, bitch. glory for one. to be remembered. remember to live. i was not gonna be taken to my grave in a coffin and casket that was a LARGE tv-dinner tray!!!
Erich von Stroheim: finger sandwiches cut triangularly with mayo, please. you Americans are dumb, in Austria you do one picture and you're a god. set for life. you're hailed a living legend. over here you're only as good as your NEXT picture.
Billy Wilder: HEY!!! AUSTRIA ARMY IN DA HAUS!!!
Laertus's dad: i remember that Tiny Toon Adventures Sunset Boulevard rip episode!!! faintly, hazily, like Norma Desmond's recollection. yeah the little girl with the Shirley Temple curls was Norma, right? or was that the Prince episode?
Nancy Olson: PLEASE. please i BEG of you, more of THIS stuff, NO MORE WESTERNS!!!
Jack Webb: just the facts, golden-age ma'am.
Fred Clark: i have one of those faces. you've seen me before. with Mary Tyler Moore at a mall diamond-counter when she tried to pawn her lost engagement ring.
Fred Clark: MMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!? Sheldrake, that shoulda been my stage name, it's catchier, it's more memorable, it's more Mario Brothers riding a slippery Koopa in bed.
Laertus: my dad told me all about it. i gotta say, like Alien, this film GOT me. it held onto its secrets for 70 FREAKIN' YEARS!!! the opening, when the narrator talks about the two-bit unimportant nobody writer in the pool, i don't know until the end that the man in the pool is the narrator!!!
Eye: isn't that the famous Hollywood Hilton hotel pool?
Archer: surreal, this whole time i thought the iconic man floating facedown in a pool filmed from underwater was there because the man fell from a balcony.
Goo Goo Dolls: inspired our music video for "Black Balloon".
Sponge: same. "Molly".
Dirg: this scene, the crush of reporters, like reporters from Hollywood are important anyhow, where is the New York Times?!!!
Laertus: i LOVE this film cos it's a film about WRITING.
Bill Holden: people think the words the actors say just MAGICALLY appear...
Billy Wilder: it's a Hollywood movie about Hollywood. it's a black comedy unless you're an undertaker.
Tyzik: i wonder if Paramount Pictures gave its blessing to film the film on their set? free publicity.
Betty: i thought the script was shit. oh shit, the writer was in the room the whole time? wanna screw like a Lindbergh joint? a bolt from the blue?
Bill Holden: yeah that's how it went down between guys and dolls back then, derbies and dames.
Eye: i love the chase scene because what i love most are those STREETLIGHTS!!! bring back those streetlights, those streetlamps where the rectangular placard slides up and down to signal GO and STOP, so cute!!!
Dirg: repossession is vulgar. the government should NEVER be able to take your car.
Laertus: this mansion is very Grey Gardens.
Dirg: this is some sick twisted Hollywood occult shit here with the dead monkey receiving a formal funeral burial like Spock. all the ceremony, all the rites. what the fuck does this monkey mean, anyway? what's the symbolism?
King Kong: the chimp represents Norma's dead silent-film era, the world she clings to but is no longer a reality in 1950.
Dirg: you said chimp not me.
dead monkey: Bill Holden will be the new chimp in Ms. Desmond's organ-grinder. as for me, i'm okay, my coffin's casket was laced with pink chiffon, i felt quite soft.
King Kong: how could you tell the color?
butler: i did it. i took the last shot. there is no greater star than Ms. Desmond. also no greater mental patient, this mansion acts as a hollowed-out-from-insurance abandoned funny farm. nuthouse. mental institution with a ballroom for afternoon activities.
Bill Holden: i love those ballroom balloons. i'll be your script doctor but my page limit is 900.
Carrie Fisher: i have no page limit...
Butt: oh i LOVE that the roof has nearly collapsed from the amount of pools of RAIN on top!!! rain in Southern California, what a JOY!!! i remember those days, that R.E.M. rain!!! we at the hermitage lost our religion long ago. if you ever need a foreman, here's my card, my men do the job cos they're trapped Trappist monks. i specialize in monastery and mental-institution roofs.
at the card game.
Buster Keaton: recognize the irony here, i'm not given a speaking line to say in this film...
Anna Q. Nilsson: i was known as Anna Q. but i was not from the Orient. i was a mysterious silent-film star. they tried to label me the Madam from the Orient.
Pippi Longstocking: ...
butler, whispering: let's not bring up the S word around Norma.
Bill: Star? Screen?
butler: suicide. ugly affairs those attempts of hers. she used candlewax to off herself once...
Madonna: ...
butler: nor the F word.
Madonna: fuck?
butler: fanmail. i wrote all the fanmail. look at my face and imagine a Santa beard on top...
Bill: i don't get it. what does she have to complain about? her life is rad, she has her own movie theatre!!! Elon Musk doesn't have his own movie theater.
Norma: look how good my noiseless face looks in that 1920 Egyptian swimming pool!!!
Rod Serling: my Sunset Boulevard Twilight Zone episode came too late, i would have rather worked on THIS film than my stupid watered-down sci-fi show-script based on this masterpiece.
driving the curvy Hollywood Hills roads.
Annette Funicello: Chris Lyddane? is that you?
Bill: this is a zany car, Norma.
Norma: we need to get you new clothes. boy-size and cute. little tiny overalls. i'll buy everything with my diamonds.
Bill: the phone in this car is state-of-the-art!!!
Norma: it used to be the Addams Family's phone. until it became a disembodied hand and scurried away. now it's the batwing-shaped phone from the Munsters. there is only one phone in a car in the world right now and i have it!!! eat it, James Bond!!!
butler: the phone at home is more of a Batman Batphone. i was the inspiration for Uncle Fester...
Norma Desmond: Joe, rip my clothes off and FUCK me!!!
the morning after. Norma is lying supine on her skinny drawing-room psychiatrist couch.
Norma: ah yes, i ordered Boar's Head for us, dahlin.
Joe: that's disgusting!!! an actual boar's head in the pillowcase under the sheets in the bed we made love in, i can't handle it, dame.
Norma baring her teeth: no, numbnuts, Boar's Head Brand meats. they're lipsmackingly delicious.
Joe: i thought that poor boar was related to your monkey...
Laertus: apologies Eye, i'm sorry, babe, pardon me, but i have to say this: Norma Desmond is hot. at that age. she's a gilf. i'd fuck Gloria Swanson where she stands.
Eye: me, too.
at the New Years party.
Betty: who have you been ballroom-dancing with? a stanky beast? your collar smells like old-people homes.
Bill: slip a razor in my drink wouldya?
Joe: if i fuck you right here right now on this musty mattress, will you stop it with the suicides?
Norma: that's the most romantic thing any man has ever said to me. and any nun who raised me.
Joe: it's weird hugging you with your arms bandaged to your elbows like this.
Norma: than KISS me dahlin!!!
Joe: i'd kiss you but your breath smells of cocktail.
Norma: just one.
Cecil B. DeMille: you gotta admit, i do a FINE job as an ACTOR in this!!! you won't see Steven Spielberg with the acting skills I got!!!
Billy Wilder: it's always fun when a legendary director directs another legendary director.
Captain Kirk: what's with all these giant sets from Ten Commandments doing on my planet?
Cecil: you weren't expecting me to use a microphone, huh? you thought i'd use a Bono megaphone. or one of those long brown toilet-paper-roll bullhorns from the 1910s.
1929 Isotta Fraschini: still fresh in 1950. but isolated. you never saw me again. much like Norma Desmond. not Japanese.
Takahashi: i have the last one in my garage. at the Jersey Mike's parking lot.
Betty: people in 1950 don't go for psychological thrillers, they're not that smart.
Bill: they want romance and escape. WWII was a bitch, they want to relax.
Norma: you don't appreciate the beauty treatments i have to go through for my comeback. those electric guns are for my facelift, not electroshock therapy. my brain is unshockable, i've seen it all in Hollywood. my brainwaves work just fine for an exercise guru.
Joe: i'm sneaking out of the mansion on this big-ass car like a kid watching The Garbage Pail Kids Movie on Spice Network. i'm sorry, chickens, but this big-ass car had to be parked in your barn...
Universal Studios backlot tour:
Joe: nice set.
Betty: thank you. i'm proud of my tits.
Joe: no, the film set. listen, don't let me get close to you, if you see me sniffing your hair, RUN.
Betty: i know, we were all trained by the labor union to spot a Garrison Keillor when you're a woman walking alone at night.
butler: my name is Max cos i'm strong to the max. turns out i wanted to be a HUSBAND in life. not a director. i was the first kept man. monkey suit, get it? the symbolism.
Norma: shit. my phone plan would've worked if it had the MCI plan with call-waiting.
Bill: Betty, bounce.
Betty: that's harsh.
Bill: don't slap me, that's so cliche.
Bill: yeah i like being a gigolo. NOT. look at me, do i LOOK like i like sticking weasels up my anus?
Richard Gere: i'll have that cocktail now.
Norma: i'll do it. i'll shoot myself with a gun.
Bill: yeah, headlines splattered all over the walls like John Lennon's last reading of a newspaper. shoot yourself in the foot, madam. good day. hey lady i'm going back to fucking OHIO, okay? I'M the one who's gong back to a life of HELL.
Norma: no one understands my pain. no one internalizes my plight. the private prison inside my mind. cobwebs and candles where my eyes should be.
Dirg: the irony is, Bill is not cheating on Norma at the time of Norma's three shots. count em, THREE shots. no jury would not convict.
Norma: 3 shots to finish the job, like 3 jello shots.
Hedda Hopper over the phone: take dictation, bitchboy!!! you're my kept boy, SHUT UP!!!
Chris Cuomo: take it from me, when they're filming newsreels from your house, that's not good for your life.
Norma Desmond: salami. i say Salome weird.
Norma Desmond: it's bizarre, look at this scene as i descend the staircase. there's a film crew filming the film crew filming me. is it any wonder my eyes are all hazy at the last as i step into the camera...
Hallucination of Grandeur: my band in college
at the After Party milling around in the upstairs red-carpeted lobby.
me: okay i ADORE Barbara Stanwyck's reaction!!!
Barbara Stanwyck: i knelt to kiss the hem of Gloria's skirt.
Gloria: that was hot. go for the pussy, dear, i don't mind.
Barbara Stanwyck: you are my QUEEN. this is MY Jubilee!!! i bow before no one but you!!!
Mary Pickford: i was in the bathroom like Christine Lahti.
Louis B. Mayer in the downstairs lobby: you look like Popeye. i resent the fact that YOUR films denigrate and tarnish America's image abroad. America is about Ronald Reagan. the rest of the world thinks we're a bunch of hookers and hoodlums. go back to the Holocaust!!!
Billy Wilder: go fuck yourself, fatty!!! mayonnaise baloney cheeks!!! you had that little girl from Wizard of Oz sit on your lap, what were you trying to do? seduce her like Santa?
Mae Murray on the lobby roof: floozies drink gimlets. my bee-stung lips are perfect for that type of shape of shot glass. gangsters and gimps drink gimlets also...
Norma Desmond: words words WORDS!!! WORDS DESTROYED THE WORLD!!!
Laertus and father cry into each other's hugged arms.
Norma Desmond: stars never age. ask any scientist. i LIVED the stories...
Norma Desmond: g'night, mah dahlins. i am eternal.
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