Avo Babian in the track tower: how was Spanish class?
me: SO INTERESTING. Mr. Diamond is a HOOT. he's so cool and down-to-earth, his bald head makes the class shine.
Avo: are you sure it's not the cheap light? i don't have to take Language for high school, i already aced it cos i speak fluent Armenian.
me: his class is first thing in the morning but i'm wide awake:
Mr. Diamond: it's before the bell, class, rustle some paper and get your protractor ready for the projector.
Bartolomeo twins: for Spanish? do i uh we my brother and me have to take this class? we're already Spanish.
Mr. Diamond: you do if you want to learn proper English grammar. look at me smiling, look at my smile.
me: it's like a warm chipmunk, so soothing and nostalgic for me.
Naraja: come on, man, can't you get better adult braces? can't you get a better plan? you're Screech's uncle for fuck sake!!! i see Screech's mansion on my drive over here every morning in my red Jeep truck that's 10 feet tall for no reason.
Mr. Diamond: as teachers we learn how to take the most vicious abuse from our students. this world is fucked, i have hope in the children of tomorrow. ironically, i don't get made fun of for my bald head, i get made fun of for looking like a Marx Brother. class, from now on i would like an orange placed on my desk, not an apple. thank you kindly. may blessings reign down on all your tiny little pointy heads.
me: the best part is when Mr. Diamond goes off on a tangent about a life-experience story of his when he was teaching in the trenches of public education as he's trying to conjugate a Spanish verb for us:
Mr. Diamond: and that is why last night's episode of Family Ties was so special.
me: OMG. YOU watch Family Ties, too?!!! we were watching the episode AT THE SAME TIME!!! this is why my teacher is cool. this is why you're RAD, Mr. Diamond!!!
Diamond: Mallory asks her father if he believes in God after her beloved quirky aunt's funeral. Steven Keaton lovingly answers that he never talks about this much but he does believe in a God, not the fire-and-brimstone God but a benevolent spirit that oversees everything who looks like Cary Grant. this makes Mallory chuckle again as she thinks back to how much her aunt wanted to fuck Cary Grant.
me: i know, right? that scene was so warm. and SO '80s. in the '80s everyone had that kind of not-talked-about baseline level of belief of God that was no big deal. everyone believed in God in the '80s.
Diamond: i don't teach fuzzy math, i teach words. Steven Keaton, father of the year of the decade. i wish i had had the cajones, the brass balls to stand up to my Tijuanan madre to tell her i wanted to be the manager at a PBS station instead of a teacher. i love my mother, she put me through school selling oranges on the freeway. i wish i had gone to Berkeley like Steven Keaton, not UCLA.
at Gelson's, Michaela From Safeway is switching shifts.
Michaela From Safeway: oh god i HATE these seniors who come in here at 9AM deliberately showing off that they can miss first period. they laxily stroll the halls of the grocery store looking for their kombucha and banana and oat bagel.
branch manager: that's healthy tho, right? those boys are hot, they're muscular from surfing, tan, tall, blond, blue eyes.
Michaela From Safeway: but are they kind? that's very rare, i've only met one of those here. they amble their way up to the register and give me the stink-wink. then they slide the banana through the hole of the bagel. look i get it, i'm a cute girl with a nice big butt in these dem jeans, these surfer jeans even tho i don't surf. i'm the only deli worker who cuts the dark-rye sandwiches diagonal. and i exclaim WOOOOOO when i smell and pour out the peppersteak, i'm a glamorous catch!!!
branch manager: give em a chance, you'll be rich someday if you stick by one of these idiots despite their abhorrences. these are all future brokers at their daddy's bank.
Michalea From Safeway: i mean look at their cars they park and pollute our parking lot with, they all drive gas-guzzling Jeeps. Kia, gentlemen, Kia.
Tatiana: omg Mardith was right!!! i just picked up a bottle of Iron Tulip from the Crespi High School Pharmacy!!! Iron Tulip tastes like when you get an extra booster of niacin.
at the student-run newspaper, it's Harlan Ellison's first day.
Vivziepop: i'm the new boss not the same as the old boss. i'm the cool boss. look at my comics, they're avant-garde and edgy. we take risks at this office, we go for it, draw your sin. aren't you a little old to be in high school?
Harlan Ellison: i'm here to find a wife. on the staff, not the students.
Vivziepop: we gotta get in the game, you know? we gotta go where the action is. i'm sending you as a cub reporter to all the parties around the San Fernando Valley, that whole rock circle, go find a woman named Edina swimming in an unnecessary pool, she'll lead you the way.
Harlan Ellison: SIGH, in the '90s i was strapped for cash so i had to write for Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. MY Hannah said "Oh No" a lot like that Mighty Orbots Ohno. don't worry, i know that women can drive.
Harlan Ellison: Mustapha of course cos we needed a Lion King Happy Meal tie-in. we got 30 canisters of nitroglycerin, the job will take 3 hours but we only got 24 minutes. you see how i wrote myself out of a corner there on that one? i used the Thelma & Louise car-eliminator.
Harlan Ellison: wait this show takes place in the year 2500? that IS science fiction!!! there's NO WAY Earth will last that long!!!
Harlan Ellison at the pool party.
Harlan: so you seem like a happenin' guy. what's the haps around here?
Brento is a stocky kid with freckles and brown mussed hair. he's like a Southern Pigpen. Brento doesn't say anything, he just grunts like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade.
Harlan: boy you're gonna have to speak up. i was Leslie Jordan before Leslie Jordan.
Brento: you're cool. i think. i want to be like you. i like music. country music, Garth Brooks, biggest album ever, The Shits. hehehehehe yurp. Garth has one good song that kinda sounds like Nirvana.
Elon Musk: yeah Grimes and i grew closer over cocktails on my spaceship as we discussed Roko's Basilisk. we fell in love talking about how evil immoral out-of-control singleton A.I. would one day destroy Planet Earth.
at the nurse's office.
Gladyce: i cut all the toes off my socks with a scissors. i look like Fred Flintstone.
Doryce: Wilma, dear.
Gladyce: then what's the point of socks?!!! if you're just gonna walk barefoot on schoolyard asphalt.
Mardith: it's dangerous to walk barefoot on sticky strip-club floors, believe me.
Gladyce: do i just go barefoot from now on everywhere outside? each morning i exchange one sock with holes in the toe and heel with another sock with holes in the toe and heel from my Wiccan wicked wicker hamper.
Tatiana sucks Gladyce's toes in a nursely way.
The Mighty Ducks: it's not a solar panel, it's not an ice rink, it's a sunlight vent...
on the small sliver of green grass between the football field and the track.
Christian Pulisic: i'm a shy guy, listen to me talk in interviews, i got a soft voice. but the Iran match was a tinderbox.........a tinderbox of kindness, look at all the hugs the opposing teams gave each other after. we sympathize with the Iranian soccer players, they go back home to HELL. don't you want to see us win the whole World Cup now? it would be a win for kindness in the world.
on the football field
Mike White: i wink like Sam Smith.
Kumail Nanjiani on the high-school stage: i got beefed up, bulked up, i got swoll for my part in that superhero movie.
Monsignor Navin: Crespi has its own weight room, i'm in there every morning after Mass polishing the handlebars.
Kumail: so naturally i was inclined to get excited over the gaze of the muscular body, i got intrigued by naked muscles. i was in the muscle game now, so of course my next project i was drawn to, salivating over, was the Chippendales movie.
at the student pool.
seafloor depression: yeah i have depression, i'm at the bottom of a volcano!!! how would YOU feel to get woken up by lava?
at the class computer lab.
Xiaomi: show me.
Eye Luggage: what were we talking about again?
H. Jon Benjamin: a live-action Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie could work.........think about it...
Eye: The Absolutely Fabulous Movie and go.
Jennifer Saunders: THERE WILL BE NO SEQUEL. i am SICK TO DEATH of these characters. tho i DO LOVE saying dahlin all the time, i say dahlin to my family, my real family, at the dinner table and i say dahlin to my bosses at the BBC, they love that when i'm renegotiating my contract with them.
Jennifer Saunders: have you noticed something? we're THE FABULOUS FIVE OF J!!! all our first names start with J!!! Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, Jane Horrocks, June Whitfield.
Jennifer Saunders: i took 30 years to write this bloody movie script after the show ended cos i wanted to do it JUST RIGHT, you know? it took a long time cos i kept thinking, "wouldn't it be awful if it was awful?" after all that this turned out OKAY, it was.........FINE.
Jennifer Saunders: i made sure to write the French Riviera into the script cos i needed a vacation from my family...
Joanna Lumley: my last name, if you kiss me i use tongue, isn't that how it sounds? for Christ's sake, woman, WRITE THE SCRIPT BEFORE WE'RE ALL DEAD!!!
Julia Sawalha: i swallow. but that's none of your business. the press hounded me as all British press hounds do trying to get the deets on my relationships. no details from me, i kept mum, both British meanings. i kept it ALL HIDDEN: secret weddings in Bali, receptions on Mauna Loa, none were the wiser. FUCK YOU, PIERS MORGAN.
Jane Horrocks: i am not horrid. and i don't wear a yoke around my neck. i mean i do for fun off set when i get back in bed with Dawn French but not at work. i come from an ancient family of British witches who placed a hex on my plump wide thighs, i was the envy of every crone in my hay village.
Doryce and Gladyce: can confirm.
Jane: look at my face, don't i have one of those faces that comes from a long line of English witches who crafted the stone used for Stonehenge? look at my face with grey hair and a few more wrinkles...
June Whitfield: i'm dead.
Robert Webb: i've been a hardcore atheist my whole life. but then my mum died and i started praying.........but i'm back being an atheist, baby!!! that was a short reprieve, i'm back in the Good Guys Club where i belong with my fellow nothingers!!! IT ALL MEANS NOTHING, MATES!!! including my mom.........i guess. it's a lonely rational club. you know my belief coincided with me quitting smoking, i think that was it. i was the only one on that show The Smoking Room who actually smoked between takes in real life.
Chris Colfer: not a golfer. how cool was 2016 for me?!!! right?!!! i was the breakout star of Glee, doing my out-in-the-open-and-proud gay thing and i was STRONG as i toured malls all across America soaking in the adulation when i swung my sai around. and Lea Michele was nice to me. and.........all my Glee castmates were still alive...
Kate Moss: my agent said i failed my Aquaman audition so i had to settle for this.
Amber Heard: ...
Lulu: in which one was i better, this or the Doctor Who thing?
Emma Bunton: don't i sound like i bake muffins? i was the only Spice Girl who agreed to do this film. i loved this show so much when i was a very young girl watching telly with my mum, we bonded over the dahlins. but, you know, after the first series, the show kinda went downhill.
Dawn French: I CREATED THIS ENTIRE FRANCHISE!!! yeah, ME!!! i wrote the SKIT this show was based on, "Modern Mother and Daughter". look for it on dailymotion.
Eddy Monsoon: there's no controversy, there's no makeup. it's just a show. nobody in this wore makeup, look at my and Patsy Stone's faces.
Patsy Stone: speak for yourself, dahlin, i look like a hot mummy. with bandages.
Eddy: hey Stone, you could stand to shed a few stone.
Patsy: how dare you. exact opposite, mate.
Jane, or Lola: HEY!!! you can't treat me like that anymore, you old bint!!! i hate Joanna Lumley.
Patsy Stone: whyever not?
Jane: cos i'm a modern teen!!! i get power from listening to Beyonce tiktoks. this generation's gonna FIGHT. you can't go around casually using racist terms on me anymore, don't you want to work for the Queen someday?
Patsy: the Queen is dead.
Eddy: i'm 60? you know what, i look EXACTLY 60. what the fuck am i doing this movie for? i know, money. i love you, Graham Norton, i want to SLURP YOU, Graham Norton, i want to lick your naked manly body.
Graham Norton: get her away from me!!!
Eddy: you're gay, YOU HAVE TO LOVE EVERYBODY!!! oh so you can dish it out on your show but you can't take it, aye?
Eddy: writing a book is easy.
publisher: writing fiction is easy, writing an autobiography is hard.
Kim Kardashian: i wrote a book. that was published. and now it's on the New York Times Best 100 List. no it's not a 100-pound fashion book, its title is Dealing with a Spouse's Mental Illness.
fashion house: we'll invite Kanye. Kanye is still cogent in 2016, next year not so much...
Bubble: please let me out of this ridiculous balloon outfit, the show is Absolutely Fabulous not Absolutely Ridiculous. AbFab not AbRid. hashtags have never done ANYTHING for society.
Saffron Monsoon: Saffy, that just sounds weird.
fashion-show reporter: who are you wearing?
model: my bare bottom.
Jennifer Saunders: Kate Moss was not injured in the making of this movie. we actually shot her in full scuba gear and then edited out the scuba gear in post.
director of this movie: that's me in the end credits showing my vag...
Laertus: oh god i get a HARD-ON when i see REAL BBC BABES on the telly!!! these are actual female BBC news reporters doing the news here pretending the Kate Moss drowning in the Thames story is real, they're reporting on Kate Moss as if it were Somalia, I LOVE IT.
Eye: babe i've never seen you this excited before!!!
Laertus: i like my news BRITISH, that's how i know it's accurate.
Eddy: we got another brick thrown at our house again.
Pink Floyd: we recorded that album just down the block from here...
Eddy: we really need to replace our glass front door.
Saffy: great, another troll threat? you know maybe the internet wasn't such a good idea...
Eddy: no dahlin, the brick was a fruitcake brick thrown by one Codrus of the Monk Boys.
Jane: why do you stay with her? all these years, these lo many 40 years.
Patsy: i like to party.
Jane: fine, Grandma Edina.
Eddy: how dare you, squirt.
Jane: here, take my credit card. but it only has enough money to buy a Barbie math book.
Patsy Stone: my last name is Stone cos the original skit was talking about Dawn French losing a few stone of weight.
Patsy: dahlin you know the only landing spot for girls like us is Cannes. England is lost, France is the future.
Eddy: yes dahlin, offshore accounts, wink wink.
Patsy: i'm gonna look up an old flame here, he's a fat disgusting old boat man now but he's still rich. and now he's talking about pubic hair. excuse me while i cough overboard. you can't be young forever, numbnuts!!! what happened to love?
Eddy: i mean is it so wrong what we do? all women should maximize their looks to get as rich as possible while they still can. i mean what's the point of tits? tits are there to make women rich, tits serve no other function.
Saffy: i still don't know what milk tastes like...
Eddy: FRACK ME on my shirt. i'm not after oil money, i want to save the planet. in real life i mean.
Saffy: always know a few bars and the lyrics to a few Irene Cara love songs from 1980's Fame if you ever find yourself at a drag bar looking for directions...
Patsy: Pat Stone, that sounds like a footballer. i don't know which football. look at my pencil mustache as i say "Frankly my dear i don't give a damn". do i get the money now?
elderly wealthy baroness: oh i finally found my Errol Flynn!!! i want a life mate, not bedroom roleplay.
Eddy: cosplay, dahlin, Lola taught me that.
Eddy: all weddings are shams, dahlin, they're just empty ceremonies. nobody looks at the flowers at a wedding anyways, all the guests are only interested in the pigs-in-a-blanket.
Joan Collins: i'm in a POOL AGAIN?!!!
Liz Gillies: i got to do the pool catfight in my Dallas!!! that was so fun!!!
Bubble: this lavish mansion ain't embezzling, it's JUSTICE for a life squandered.
Eddy: DRIVE, DAHLIN!!!
Pasty: i never learned to drive!!! i had chauffeurs for that sort of thing!!!
Eddy: next time we get a delivery van with FOUR wheels not three wheels.
Eddy: well, we always did want an infinity pool. now we're in one.
Patsy: don't go back to your daughter, dahlin, blood is not thicker than.........THIS water.
Saffy: mom, DESPITE EVERYTHING, i do love you. i still love you. i love you.
Eddy: dahlin take off your glasses, just once, dahlin, let mummy see...
Eddy: i was neglectful.........of making the correct connections to be successful in life.
Saffy: not your family? by the way, who's my father?
Eddy: Chris Colfer. can we still say Chris Colfer?
Saffy: why have you always hated me?
Patsy: because you have always hated me.
baroness: let's just say the ending of this movie is.........The Crying Game.
Jennifer Saunders: yes, i was going for Titanic Meets The Crying Game.
Perez Hilton: y'all hate me cos you all jealous of me. you hate me cos you ain't me. g'night folks.
at the Crespi track i'm doing my best to make a fresh start, to start over, to make amends for before. to make a better first impression, after all i'm gonna be here 4 years, right? so i ride atop a gigantic brilliant golden bird with a wingspan as long as the sun's rays, with a beak that glows yellow red blue and purple, feathers of fire, talons of talcum powder, a tail to die for. i swoop over the track and hover for a bit as my bird drops water bottles to the exhausted athletes below, the tired cross-country runners running without shoes and socks.
Avo: hey that's cool helping out all the runners and jumpers and swingers. why are you doing this?
me: well the whole Phoenix thing got to me. i'm here to take the Phoenix name BACK, you know? to OWN it again, RE-OWN it. between the Aqua Teen thing and the election deniers at the polling box and that villain from that Mighty Orbots episode, Phoenix is getting a bad name!!!
Avo: omg i love The Mighty Orbots, that show is a classic!!!
me: there's a lot of WINKING on that show, a lot of winking on The Mighty Orbots, everybody's always winking...
at the Crespi red-and-black cherry-and-licorice Christmas-candy-cane track.
Boc: so i have to walk HERE now? high-school boys? nah. i mean running IS how my hot aunt Amy Robach and smooth T.J. Holmes got together so there's gotta be something to it.
