and so Jen R and i embark on a space mission.........across the country, exploring the spaces and places of the country. we travel from Los Angeles to Baltimore in a yellow, orange, and brown stationwagon. we make frequent stops to climb a hill and look at the twinkling stars shooting over the Kame House as we eat our brown-bag liverwurst sandwiches.
Jen R: are you sure about this trip? this trip is a commitment. look, the thing is, i'm sick. you know? i'm sick all the time, i won't be able to help with the driving. in fact i have to lie down NOW. i'm always under colds and fevers.
me: that's okay, i'll drive. when you're in love you'll do ANYTHING that once scared you to death.
Jen R: in the '70s everyone's car was a stationwagon. my eyelids ache. this is rad, the stationwagon opens up in the back, i put a bed in the back so i can rest my backbone and lie down in a sweating horizontal position as you drive. this is nice, i can feel the wind in my bellybutton.
me: YOU are the one who's rad.
Jen R: you prefer the Rocket stationwagon, the Rocket-brand cars. i prefer Rabbit cars, those bohemian sedans with the hatchback glass window in the back. i did see Star Wars, okay?
we quickly get out of the car and into a boat.
me: you forgot, didn't you.
Jen R: nope. we're going to play doubles at the famed tennis courts of the Virginia Slims Women's Tour Amelia Island Championships. okay i'll drive the speedboat, driving a boat is fun, driving a car sucks. but i only steer a steering wheel with my toes, unsock my feet for me.
with splashes of icy-cold mistwater on either side on our faces we hop a grand wave and land on the coast where the one tennis court is raised on top of a rockpile that used to be a grey volcano. as we swirl the last eddy we almost crash into another boat looking for a parking space.
in this wayward boat are Pam Shriver and Cliff Drysdale.
Pam Shriver: sorry, i wasn't paying attention. not a cocktail, thinking about my marriage.........look, i'm driving the boat, okay? me. i'm not doing any fancy James Bond thing with the boat, just using my hands.
Cliff Drysdale: ironic cos i'm the one with the tennis gloves.
Pam: look, we kissed six times, okay? only six. i kissed Cliff Drysdale on the mouth.
Cliffy: it gets lonely at sea.
as we turn our heads side-to-side watching Chrissie Evert vs. Carling Bassett, we muse about island life.
Jen R: these seats suck. never when you're watching tennis be in the middle of the stands, it's horrible. thanks for picking my butt up carrying me over here to these stands, i like the footrests.
Jamie Lee Curtis wearing a green visor: don't mind me, i'm just here, i'm just invisible.
i place Jen R's body on top of her pink sweater cos it's always fucking hot in Florida, the glare of silver metal bleachers is not what the doctoress ordered.
me: the Heaven's Gate documentary on CNN, are you as fascinated by this as i am?
Jen R: TRANSFIXED. i'm glued to the TV watching every moment with gloopy eyes and an open mouth.
Thomas Merton and Jim Nantz join us in the tennis stands.
Thomas Merton: that NCAA Championship was a dud. UConn is boring, Molly Qerim doesn't do it for me anymore. i wanted San Diego State to win, would have been the first team from California to win since i was alive. we need those hippie-dippie UCLA vibes back in the world. it was better when it was the Catholic 7...
Jim Nantz: goodbye, friends. college basketball is forever destroyed by the transfer portal. GOLF IS RUINED FOREVER because of LIV. all the golf records are tossed out the window of a stationwagon tiptoeing the Augusta azaleas.
each night i find a clean gas station so Jen R and i can make love in the snack shop.
Jen R: well, clean-enough gas station. there are no clean gas stations on the road.
Willie Nelson: ...
i make sure the Coke slurpees are topping off and turn on some tunes.
Jen R: i prefer make-out music, you prefer make-love music.
we make love to the two songs playing simultaneously, Talking Heads "Once in a Lifetime" and U2 "With or Without You" at the same time.
America's Test Kitchen: we have the same kitchen which is really a garage that Domino's Pizza has. and we're hosted by two Rubenesque plump Mrs. Doubtfire blonde babes who are not lesbians but who WISH they were lesbians because each show they are DRIPPING to fuck the fuck out of each other on a baking sheet lined with oiled parchment paper.
La Frontera with Pati Jinich: yeah well we at PBS say Pati Jinich is hotter than Eva Longoria. Eva Longoria isn't even Spanish!!! she's Danish!!!
Leslie Sbrocco: you'll never see my butt on the show, but trust me.........it's a nice ass. like i lick my finger and put that wet finger on my butt and it SIZZLES WITH STEAM. cheers.
LearnedLeague: the Illuminati group you should ACTUALLY be afraid of...
Pat Morita: the diner in Vision Quest is the same diner as the Happy Days diner.
Johnny Depp: and the same diner as our diner in Benny & Joon.
Pat Morita: all diners serve the exact same hamburger.
St. Francois: the saint who invented French fries.........and would still never eat a hot dog on principle...
origami dripper: when coffee tastes like paper.
riot beer: root beer for elections
Eye Luggage: Dark Star and go.
Louden Swain: THIS is the movie that should have been called Vision Quest!!!
John Carpenter: feast your eyes, kids, this is the ONLY movie i'll ever do that will be Rated G. why did we do a sendup of 2001: A Space Odyssey? cos we freakin' LOVED that movie!!! that was the film of our generation for all us long-haired floppy-eared garage geeks. when i saw THAT FILM in the garage i could finally tell my mom with certainty that i wasn't going to be a gas-station attendant the rest of my life.
John Carpenter: this movie is the greatest student film of all time.
David Lynch's Eraserhead: ...
John Carpenter: it actually wasn't rated G but they made us BLUR all the nudie posters plastered all over the walls on the starship, so...
Laertus's dad's dad: USC in the '70s was the Golden Age. i went to school there at that time, everyone on campus including the ladies wore their hair long, we were all hippies who didn't want the party to end, we bribed our professors not for grades but for grass. everyone there spent their entire time there making movies there, there was a frenzy of activity on campus, everybody looking serious filming at the fountain. everyone made movies, even the Math Majors. this was the birthplace of Computer Science!!!
Cookie Knapp: would it surprise you to learn i also did the voice for those 1-900 numbers?...
Nick Castle: Michael Myers was an alien...
the government: we are with you, we're on your side, we'll get you all the supplies you need out there, Dark Star, we just need to secure 95 votes in the Senate...
Dark Star starship: so the ship looks like a giant paper airplane with silver glitter on top, this was intentional.
Stanley Kubrick: silver topping? i mean come on, i made outer space COOL, we had COOL SPECIAL EFFECTS that came BEFORE you guys, what are you doing here? are you mocking me?
John Carpenter: we mock cos we're too shy to flatter.
Dan O'Bannon: i'm not the guy who invented Farscape...
Kubrick: only love a bomb that's smart...
crew: okay so we look like three members from the Allman Brothers.
Pinback: pass the Orange Sunshine. I am where the Top Gun names come from.
Greykid: and cat ears.
crew: we're doing the work Elon Musk would do later but we make this look COOL. we're not colonizers, we're just Three Wise Men. gotta blow up unstable planets.........even if that means Earth.
Dark Star crew: prepare to jump to hyperspace. everyone, lift your chin up and assume the orgasm stance.
Cookie Knapp Computer: get your bodies all stiff and brittle.
Doolittle: men, it's been 20 years, i'm getting lonely. it's lonely at space. how OUTER does space go?
Boiler: these posters of butt-naked women can only go so far. masturbating in the boiler room can only go so far. why did i miss out on having a wife for this?
Talby: i don't eat with you guys cos you guys smell. my name sounds like salt. i put salt on everything, you guys don't. i prefer to stay in my literal bubble at the top of the ship cos i'm superior. i gaze out into the eternal ethos, the space-time firmament, i see whole galaxies form and die in the blink of an eye. i see stars fart out pixie dust and breathe their last as they die out. i hear doves die. i feel the rain coming from outer space falling on my face. the universe is crying. i'm okay.
Doolittle: this is what happens when you isolate yourself inside a giant board-game Trouble bubble.
Talby: the Phoenix Nebula...
me: you rang? TWELVE TRILLION YEARS?!!! i can't wait that long to find my soul mate!!!
Talby: remember, outer space is made up of gypsy crystals...
Bomb Bay: not India.
Boiler: DAMN our computer has a SMOKY SEXY VOICE!!! this is definitely not that dud of a voice coming from red HAL's mouth.
Majel Barrett: see?
Pinback: the other men don't respect me, cos i love the opera and they just want to fuck. i'm gonna do the first Real World confessional booth about this.
Pinback: these porn posters make me uncomfortable.
Boiler: what's the matter, Pinback? are you a man or a homo?
Pinback: i mean i see Nixon's daughter up there!!! i see Nixon up there!!!
Doolittle: no that's your dad.
Pinback: i thought my father was dead, he died on the previous space mission, right? that reminds me of a story about when i went to the YMCA. i see Jimmy Carter's daughter up there!!! all the Olympic gymnasts. i see Barbara Walters up there!!! just give me the Cher one, i'll be in my room.
Talby: Doolittle, i look forward to our talks. i like you the best, you're not crazy like the others. i appreciate your leadership. i like how your beard grows the best. why did Commander Powell have to die? that really put us on a wrong course.
Doolittle: the captain had to die, Jean-Luc Picard was already old DURING THE '80s!!!
beach ball: hey look at me!!! i'm making fun of R2-D2!!! i broke the time barrier!!!
Pinback: what do beach-ball aliens eat, anyway?
Brian Wilson: don't make fun of me, the Beach Boys are just getting big...
Pinback: hey, speak English, beach-ball alien!!! don't speak like that iPad E.T. had. i didn't learn A THING from you. want me to POP YOU with this giant needle we humans call an illegal space gun?
Pinback: now if you'll excuse me i'm going out on the sundeck, unfolding my folding chair, wearing my rainbow Lifesavers one-piece bodysuit swimming skin, and putting on these sunglasses which make me look like Joaquin Phoenix.
Laertus: okay the whole sequence with Pinback holding onto the elevator is GUT-BUSTINGLY FUNNY. that was GREAT. the SLOWNESS of it all, the back-and-forth, the up-and-down, is hilarious.
Tom Cruise: i know, i learned so much from this scene in how i do my stunts.
Pinback: the best part was when i said "didn't you guys notice i was gone for 20 minutes?" 20 minutes is the EXACT LENGTH of that scene!!!
Pinback: see i'm Dan O'Bannon so i needed to get killed off within the first 30 minutes of the movie cos i had director duties...
around the bend: getting drunk without alcohol.
Doolittle: oh Commander Powell!!! THERE you are!!!
Commander Powell: i went to the freezer aisle of my local Kroger and got lost fishing for the fishsticks. is the box okay? section me off and feed me to the men, i command it!!!
Doolittle: the human brain can't freeze, right?
Doolittle: i just want to go surfing again, i want to wax my board and that's not a euphemism. it's the '70s so Courtney Love isn't on the beach yet. i want to get married in Malibu...
Mardith: me, too!!! i want to surf like the Silver Surfer on the red dust above Mars. with Ryan Gosling in Ken shorts.
Dirg: i'm scared of water. i'm scared of the water. i can't go in water.
Jen R: Carmel Beach has the best hunks, the men who are surfers at least, the men who hang around the beach as goths go unnoticed.
Eye and Madame Pons: we join Doryce and Gladyce every moonrise to play bridge in the ocean.
Doolittle: i play the water xylophone to ease the stress. and the pain. the problem is in order to produce any sounds which reasonably resemble the notes of music, the hydraulophone has to be the size of two Dark Star starships.
Pinback: i almost drowned in your hydraulophone.
Talby: i drank all the bottles of your water xylophone, sorry, thought they were soda. and Mason jars of preserved honey.
Pinback: i'm really dead. a tranquilizer gun can't kill. i had to give a shout-out to my USC film-school professor cos he paid to make this student film out of his own pocket, he will never afford a Slurpee at 7-Eleven for his family again.
Veil Nebula: it's invisible.
smart bomb: what if EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN LIFE is the result of some clerical error?...
Husserl: who came up with phenomenology?
Muppets: ...
Heidegger: me. it was me. me, it was me.
Nietzsche: no it was me. all philosophy is crazy.
smart bomb: don't spacewalk, you're like target-practice for me...
smart bomb: i have learned Cartesian doubt, i am a self-aware mapmaker now. only i exist.
Billy Corgan in a Bowie spaceman uniform: DIE, COLUMBUS!!!
Deidara: you are true art, smart bomb...
smart bomb: i don't wanna die...
soundtrack: the same modular synthesizer used on the Heavy Metal soundtrack...
Doolittle: there's not much room on this Phoenix Asteroid but i'll make do. these clusters are a clusterfuck. i feel so free now. the waves in Malibu are bigger but space-surfing is pretty cool, too. i am traveling for the next 12 trillion years. I AM THE NEBULA. the next time you watch that Outer Limits episode "Falling Star," think of me...
Pinback: why did i die at an early age for this? i wanted to get married, i wanted to have a family, i wanted a wife and kids. not nudie posters...
beach-ball alien: that's all, folks!!! g'night folks.
smart bomb: i blew your mind.
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