ON TOP OF EVERYTHING: SNOWBALL OF DOOM (BETAMAX BILLIE JEAN/G.I. JANE WALKIE-TALKIES)

 

Berwin and Alarm Bill are at the top of the mountain. the actual mountain.

Alarm Bill eating his knit woolen cap: i'm scared.

Berwin: what? you're supposed to be the confident one. don't worry, man, i've prepared for all contingencies. up at the Himalayas. hey man, do you pregame?

Alarm Bill: yeah. a little Moet so i can have my moment before.

Berwin: you're supposed to have your moment AT. i do NOT, gotta remain clear-headed. not even coffee in a thermos for me, lemonade only.

Alarm Bill: your lemonade in the thermos?

the two set up camp at the highest peak. the snow is driven and harsh on the cliff crag incline, blowing down hard like a snow elk's butthole. Berwin takes a peek out the peak from the tent flaps.

Berwin: okay don't look behind you right now but there's a GIANT ball of snow just behind us, behind the tent. that's a peak Indiana Jones ball. 

Alarm Bill: snow boulder? but it's made of ice, right? it'll hold.

Berwin looking over his shoulder: sure sure don't worry your pretty little head about it go to sleep. we got a big day tomorrow...well YOU got a big day speech tomorrow. i'll keep vigil.

Berwin lights the two pink-salt lanterns, they catch on fire glowing up the night sky with two pink Super Mario fireballs that leap to the bottom of the boulder. this loosens the ground under the boulder. and the boulder starts to SLOWLY creak forward, lurching forward like a well-oiled ball down the Camus slope. 

Berwin: i'm blitzed right now on this lemonade but even i see this is not good. 

Berwin violently shakes Alarm Bill.

Berwin: WAKE UP, DUDE!!! no, your life philosophy is great i just think you go about it the wrong way. you're too exclusive, the company culture is too exclusionary. ROUSE UP, DUDE!!! the ball is coming your way!!!

Alarm Bill is dazed and vomiting spit. he can open his eyes only halfway, his pupils are pink, he has just enough cognition to form a final thought that he has trouble communicating:

Alarm Bill: tell your sister i've been in love with her the whole time.

Berwin: what did you take? what's wrong with you, man, your eyes are droopy like a dog's.

Alarm Bill: i like beagles. and the Beatles. i snorted a crystal of your pink salt into my nose, i never do these kind of things but i got nervous.

Berwin: DUDE, you didn't mash it first? into one nostril not your whole nose? that crystal is the size of a NIGHT LIGHT!!!

 

the giant snow boulder rolls over and crushes Alarm Bill to death.

Berwin: DUDDDDDDEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! I FORGOT YOUR NAME!!!!!!

Berwin: i gotta get underground!!!

quickly with his heavy gear Berwin scampers and does a flip in the snow to slide into a cold crevasse as the boulder passes safely above him. he checks out the insides of the crevasse: it's a working studio.

Berwin: cool beats produced here. my kind of music, European, social. i see some rave stands, some glowsticks, and a turntables. all of the color of purple. shit, how am i gonna protect the good people of the sleepy village of Davos below?

just then a buzz on the G.I. Joe walkie-talkie. Berwin picks up.

MBC: what happened? i heard a noise.

Berwin: a nose?.........um.........all clear on the north-poley front...

Whitney Biennial: Whitney Houston is walking around down here right now...

Steven Spielberg: kids today don't admire me, they just want to work harder than me, they want to grind harder than i do...

Rubikon: cheesesteaks, i like the cheese and i like the steaks, but too much bell peppers. 

Berwin: preppers?

Rubikon: too many red, green, and blue bell peppers all stacked up on a messy greasy pile all over the place, i can't take it.

Atom Egoyan: i'm the Al Pacino of Canada.

me: you know what's weird, i've never seen anyone jogging on Telegraph Ave. i need to start running down Telegraph Avenue as my route. who cares about the cops patrolling stationed there on the brick wall.

Fuerza: why go on roller coasters? cos you get to see the view of the gorgeous beautiful city at the very top from ten miles high.

Trent Reznor: i fear roller coasters...

Dr. Vacc: post-acute is not cute.

Jordan Spieth at the British Open: it's not the Royal we, it's not nosism. this is how i talk i mean this is how we talk. we are Jordan Spieth.

Commonwealth Games: i mean the British Empire was kinda cool, right?...

Paxlovid: for peace. for world peace.

Fuerza: all Instagram is is trying to get someone's attention...

Michael Weiss: eternal chasing.

Dr. Vacc: i salute doctors like i salute soldiers.

Tour de France Femmes: we're gonna get on with it straightaway...

Tonawanda on the world travel map: every city name along the East Coast of the United States means "swift water". why are all the cities in New York BOTH a city and a town?...

Madame Pons: thank you, my heritage thanks you.

Berwin: i got inspired by that weird out-of-place tower of glowing pink salt inside a tower room from that Sharon Stone movie Sliver. it was something out of Superman and Hitchcock.

MBC: yeah, 1978's Fortress of Solitude and the perv telescope from Rear Window. 

Berwin: i watched Sliver MANY MANY times for research...

MBC: just a heads up, as a vacation planner i know these things, EVERYONE will be gone the last week of July...

Violetta Laze: let go, don't control your life.........you have to live an intentional life, most people just give up and accept their dowdy downy life, that this is all it's ever gonna be, most people just let life happen to them...

the mosquitoes at Comic Con: we bite you as a gentle reminder to not blow your wad on one "special edition" graphic novel that drains your whole cash like blood, drains all the blood in your body till you have no more blood in your body, literal blood money.

Putin: i can't shoo these mosquitoes away with my arm...

need to factory-reset your brain? sneeze REALLY hard...

chicken rings: not circus food

Hersheypark: our roller-coaster tracks are made of chocolate...

Madame Pons: Downtown Carmel looks like Austrian chalets where chocolate cubes are forged in a kiln.

Mardith: Downtown Carmel looks like the Snow White ride at Disneyland...

Madame Pons: hey fuck baseball, don't let the light pollution of the new stadium destroy the peace, tranquility, and total darkness of our little quaint peaceful hamlet by the sea, Carmel.

Mardith: yeah, Carmel's sea has enough water pollution!!!

Martin Yan: can i at least talk about missiles? i haven't been given much to do lately...

Kellogg's Krispy saltines: the best saltines ever. the ones that are found only in that one New England crab shack.........the one crab shack that is NOT festooned with Boston Celtic banners. 

Sunshine: ...

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad train: i'm alive. no seriously, i'm alive. you can tell by the way i shimmy and shake...

Puck from Real World: San Francisco: the new Mr. Clean liquid has a green color that looks like it tastes like lime...

plain Lays potato chip: i am the perfect summer snack.

Grueso tortilla chip: ...

Dirg: those orange Caltrans vests out on the highway when i'm driving Takahashi's big rig are ANNOYING when they catch the sun's glare directly into my eyes.........but those commercials with the Caltrans workers' kids trans or not pull at my heartstrings.

Takahashi: you have a heart? wear sunglasses. give me back my car keys, dude.

Codrus: those Mundelein monks, man. those monks over at Mundelein stole my woman.

Cotard: with special pizza?

Whoopi Goldberg: call me Cej...

Mardith is arrested for shoplifting at Nordstrom.

Cory from Real World: San Francsico: what happened?

Mardith: the Nordstrom's cop taking my inventory was actually pretty nice about the whole thing. and cute in a cop-out sort of way. 

Cory: got your sentence reduced with a vag shot?

Mardith: i threw my best friend Alison Sieke under the bus, let her take the rap. i'm banned from any Nordstrom's on the planet for 2 years. 

Cory: pity, your rack NEEDS Nordstrom Rack!!! why didn't you come to me? you know i know clothes.

Mardith: yeah but those jeans had the button-fly that's diamond-encrusted, the buttons in the button-fly were diamonds not buttons. anyway. my black-and-white mug shot looks like something out of a Kevin Smith mall movie. tho in fairness it's a better photo of me than my color prom pic. i have a problem.

Cory: yeah you do.

Mardith: and i don't know what the fix is i mean what the cure is. it's like there's a black hole inside of me that no matter what i put in it i can't fill it. i'm missing the excitement of having a dad. and i'm projecting. i'm looking for thrills cos i'm unhappy in my life. i'm unhappy all the time. and i don't know how to stop this bad urge within me.  

Eye Luggage: The Legend of Billie Jean and go.

Helen Slater: one thing i demand to tell you before we start. i'm not gonna take it anymore. i am not Michael Jackson NOR Paris Hilton.

Laertus: it sucks that this takes place in Texas but i'll give it a fair shot.

Billie Jean: Binx? what kind of name is Binx?

Christian Slater: Banksy Junior? i dunno. isn't Binx the warthog sidekick goon in TMNT?

Christian Slater rides to the In N Out Burger bikethru.

Binx: like my hog? my bike is rad. and red. i'm old enough to have a motorcycle license in Texas. i'd like the Flying Dutchman, please. yeah that's two slices of American cheese swallowed nuked and melted through by four steaming burger patties. and fries the color of my hair. LOOK AT MY BLOND HAIR!!! i belong in a California community!!! now you tell me whether or not you think i'm a natural blond... 

Billie Jean: i'm just splayed out on this dock in a wet bikini sippin' Hires. 

Binx: what's Vermont like, sis?

Billie Jean: Vermont? oh well Vermont is Paradise. it's cold there year-round, there's no drought like here in sticky Texas. tons of giant snow boulders on top of snowpeaked mountains in Vermont ready to run down that hill. and every morning Bernie Sanders makes you breakfast in bed and pours ice-cold maple syrup down your naked back if you want which i did want.

Pyatt: my face looks like a ring of clay.

Peter Coyote: yes i was named for the popular movie at the time. my last name is perfect for being a cop. i'll solve this crime.........but i don't wanna. i wanna see the kids get justice for once. it's a cruel adult world. especially for babes. i'll use the same grit and genius i employed to solve that 4400 mystery.........remember The 4400? no the original show, the good show...

Martha Gehman: not the comic character with sand in her shorts. whatever happened to Gelman from Regis and Kathie Lee? like a tragic Hamlet character i say the ONE MEMORABLE LINE from this film until i die cos you never hear from me or my career no more...

Yeardley Smith: i don't got no thousand-year stare. i moved around a lot, base-hopping, not drugging and beer-chugging, military-base-hopping, so this setting is old hat for me. shouldn't i have a French accent in this? my accent here is THICK AND EXAGGERATED AS FUCK. i mean what part of Texas am i from? the center? the good news is i was so over-the-top that no human could ever talk like this and Matt Groening watched this movie and thought i had the perfect high-pitched cartoon voice for one of his upcoming projects...

Matt Groening: Billie Jean's hair after her transformation is Bart Simpson's hair...

Dean Stockwell: i auditioned for Fox of The X-Files. wouldn't i have been a good Mulder also? an older wiser seasoned Mulder, you know? eh, i got a time machine, i can make this right the first time...

Billie Jean: GIVE THE SCOOTER BACK!!! it's just a scooter, what do blockhead Southern/Western bullies want with it? this movie is not worth $600, believe me. it's a Japanese make and model, it's not even American!!!

bullies: it's an Elite scooter, we hate that.

Takahashi: hey that's my red scooter!!!.........i'm drawing '80s anime that takes place "in the future" at the moment...

Billie Jean: Binx, what happened?

Binx: we live in a trailer park. life is cruel.

Billie Jean: no, your face.

Binx: it's just some Hollywood movie magic, makeup and such.

Billie Jean: bye mama. your next date who is our potential next daddy drives a beige Cadillac and has a hole in his cowboy hat, just sayin. no cowboy harp on this man. how can you reach the pedals when you're wearing cowboy boots?

mom: say a prayer for me, Billie Jean. or it'll be frozen Steak-umms from a vomit-green mini-fridge for you and your brother the rest of your life. at least i'm not the red-lipsticked mother from Wild at Heart. 

Binx: Steak-umms taste better frozen...

Eye Luggage: well that's disappointing, i really thought things would be different this time. i mean you see the shop owner and at first you think he's a caring noble fellow who has the money upstairs in the attic. he's a Southern gentleman who's gonna make things right. but he's just another rapist. apple don't fall far from the tree. he's just a fat pudgy Rhett Butler.

Eye: hear me out, i think the stakes in this movie could have been WAY higher if an actual rape took place and if Pyatt actually had gotten killed by Binx's accidental gunshot. it would have STILL totally been justifiable homicide but the stakes would have been raised out of the park. then they REALLY would have been fugitives from justice FOREVER. they'd be on the run FOREVER. on the lam the rest of their lives. and how would Peter Coyote's reaction have changed? would he have still helped them or chased them forever like Zenigata. as it is, this just becomes silly after a while.

Binx: honestly this is Texas's fault. what's the point of selling toy guns?

Pyatt: you gave me a heart attack, boy. i keep a toy gun in the cash register to scare coyotes.

radio DJ: now that the station's making money for the first time, I'VE FLIPFLOPPED AND AM ON THE KIDS' SIDE. law and order in Texas? i've never heard of such a thing.

Billie Jean: we got a very special guest in the station wagon this evening. hi, mom. you're like a sister to me.

Corita Kent: i taught this bleach-blonde girl everything i know about being a superhero. 

Gladyce and Doryce: damn, Corita Kent beat us.

Billie Jean: we're on the run but that don't mean we can't take in the view. look how pretty that sunrise is coming through the trellis of that roller-coaster. that's the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller-coaster at Hersheypark...

Yeardley Smith: i just had my first period.........don't worry, it's an '80s-movie period so it's not shown and we won't discuss it further...

Danny Bonaduce at Magic Castle Sherman Oaks: hi. i'm wearing a mug-shot T-shirt of what i think Eddie Munster would have actually looked like as an adult. i have to find fun somewhere before i die, this place holds such nostalgic memories for me, i want to do my radio show from inside the 18th hole with my special guest Ivana Bump.

at Nordstrom mall.

Rubikon: oh man, those G.I. Joe walkie-talkies were EVERYTHING to us back then, they were the only way kids could communicate to each other clandestinely without our parents knowing. 

Billie Jean: oh look!!! a Mexican Dan's. the Miller's Outpost where the shoplifting took place. there's Pauly Shore by the ICEE machine. i've never seen mall plants growing on the stone ledges of a triangular ruined temple that houses the mall elevator with the mall waterfall over the mall escalator. these Keds are really more meant for walking in a mall, they're not running shoes. hey i know how i can outrun the mob, i'll start FLYING THROUGH THE AIR LIKE I HAVE ON A CAPE!!!...

Lloyd: hi. 

Billie Jean: you're cute. where are you from? you're not from around these parts.

Lloyd: listen to the sound of my accent. i'm from Beverly Hills. this house is actually Steven Spielberg's mansion. we're filming inside Steven Spielberg's mansion. 

Billie Jean: don't slide down the water slide, team!!! that water slide's from Action Park. oh i get it: Joan of Arc. but this is the OLD Joan of Arc with the shaved head and NOT the porn version with the shaved pussy.

Billie Jean: ready to see me go all Exercise Workout Jane Fonda?

Jane Fonda: that's a bluejeans wetsuit, honey, not pink-salt legwarmers.

Lloyd: it's like a Maury makeover!!!

Binx: you look like a tart. it's a tart transformation. i can say this cos i'm your real-life brother...

Yeardley Smith: my name is Putter, can i hide out at the miniature golf course, too?

Yeardley Smith on the phone: sorry, i'm not marrying a police lieutenant...

Billie Jean: why you laughing?

Lloyd: it's funny that i'm all tied up to this dock ready to be lynched, it reminds me of that hilarious scene from The Flintstones.

Billie Jean: where do you see yourself in five years?

Lloyd: working at Blockbuster...

Billie Jean: FAIR IS FAIR!!! would that really have been a better title? fair as in white-skinned is not a good look. fair as in pretty but everyone knows i'm hot so that's not a good look, either. what if Robin Hood had been an ugly man?...

Peter Coyote: where is she?

Martha Gehman: ready, everyone? time for the Spartacus scene...

Yeardley: Marge Simpson would NOT have forced Lisa to keep her long hair like this, she would have scissored all my hair off herself, she wants what's best for her daughter, she wants her to have spiky hair...

Laertus: okay i'm calling it, BILLIE JEAN AND LLOYD HAD SEX AT THE MINIATURE-GOLF PARK!!! they didn't show it but those two DEFINITELY had sex.

Texas police: we can't have this girl running around, she's teaching our children the Wakanda salute.

Texas FBI: let us handle this...

Texas FBI: we're shutting down all the hot-dog-eating contests at all the beaches in this state...

Binx: damn it!!! why'd you shoot me on this Dune sand dune?

Texas: you're a boy wearing a dress in the state of Texas.

Binx: it would have been a more interesting movie if i had died.

Pyatt: why'd you burn down all my toys? they're just toys.

Billie Jean: cos i like the Alice in Chains "I Stay Away" music video. i'm gonna have to learn to live with what you did to me.

Pyatt: you coulda just killed me. that would have been a better movie.

Steven Spielberg: why wasn't this movie more successful at the box office? why didn't The Billie Jean look catch on and spread like wildfire across the entire world?

Jennifer Aniston: yeah i don't get it, i wore the Billie Jean hair and outfit and clothes and everything as a kid.

Billie Jean: fuck you and your Rachel hair!!!!! it performed well with the KIDS of the MTV Generation but not so much their PARENTS so it ended up a box-office bomb. it's cool tho, i like that it's still an underground cult classic.

Pat Benatar: The Legend of Billie Jean is one of the worst movies of all time. 

Helen Slater: that hurts, Pat, i look up to you, you're my hero.

Pat: they shoulda named the movie after my successful song "Invincible".

Billie Jean: what are we doing here, Pat? my outlandish garish earring versus your outlandish garish earring in the "Invincible" music video?

Pat Benatar starts singing: "i'll never be...Maria Magdalena..." - oh, sorry...

Eye Luggage: that SUGGESTIVE ending tho. right? i mean this ending SCREAMS for a sequel!!! if nobody's gonna do it i'm gonna WRITE IT MYSELF at fanfiction.net!!! i see the first chase scene now: the Mountie police chasing after Binx and Billie Jean on snowmobiles in Vermont. Binx has to drive the snowmobile with one hand. and they crash into a snowman. at first Billie Jean thinks the snowman is Jack Nicholson, but it turns out to be.........a frozen Lloyd who came for a visit and a booty call.

Paul Thomas Anderson: EVERY movie, even one of MY movies, REQUIRES a chase scene...

Eye: i call it The Legend of Billie Jean II: Vermont Vengeance. g'night folks.

Berwin: shit. i was gonna use my patented Himalayan pink-salt crystals as a way to melt giant boulders of snow to make water to save towns like the one below stricken with drought constantly everyday as the years go by. but it looks like i'm gonna have to waste my invention to save Davos from a hard hit and a flood!!!

Berwin alights like dynamite his pink-salt crystals and throws them into the rolling ball. the boulder explodes into a supernova of water spikes which becomes a tepid tapwater waterfall on Davos instead of a deadly deluge.

MBC arrives and hugs Berwin at the summit.

MBC: i am SO grateful you're still alive, bro. i'm glad you're okay. tragic what happened to Alarm Bill.

Berwin sweating icicles and looking up a lot: yeah.........um.........Alarm Bill died a hero.........