SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE: TIME TRAVEL, THE ULTIMATE ESCAPE

Jen R and i are at Eclipse Fest in Klamath Falls.

me: are you seeing this?

Jen R: i never see anything. Klamath Falls, sounds like Kleenex. i CONSTANTLY need tissue, i keep a box of tissue in my pockets, the RECTANGULAR box. they call it Klamath Falls but there's not one waterfall in this whole place!!!

me: right? i brought our one-person canoe for nothing.
Jen R: this is not an annual fest, it's an ANNULAR fest which occurs once every 100 years so let's make the most of it...

Jen R notices out of the corner of her eye Lindy Lenz in the corner of the open room of grass on the viewing hill.

Jen: what up babe. are you seeing this? this eclipse is WILD, man. hey what are you doing there?

Lindy: oh i'm just texting my new boyfriend Bruce Lee.

Jen: hate to break it to ya, kid...

Lindy: no he's still alive. look how he texts me. see?:

Lindy: when she sends this inspo meme to you it means she genuinely wants to see you succeed in life and love.

Jen: oh that is so SWEET!!! so TENDER!!! but are you saying YOU are the one who's gonna supply the love to him?...

Bruce Lee: this is the nicest thing a woman has EVER sent me. even my mother whom i text 20 times a day to check in on her make sure she's got her Popeye's Turkey.

Lindy: want a turkey sandwich?

Bruce: ever since i received this text from you, a TURKEY SANDWICH has suddenly become the most important thing in the world. all that matters in life is a turkey sandwich. i went to the grocer and got myself a brand new slap of turkey i sliced myself with my karate chop, the good stuff, none of that oven-roasted shit, i'm talkin turkey, i'm talkin HICKORY turkey, booboo.

Lindy: see what i did there?

Jen: sneaky. now you're forcing him to have you over for Thanksgiving where he'll make you homemade turkey sandwiches and introduce you to his mom Olive Oyl who'll teach you the Ancient Methods of karateing oil from a tree.

Bruce: the good stuff. REAL turkey sandwiches, a whole roasted turkey white- and dark-meat wedges inside two slices of Wonder wheat bread. Wonder gives me magic in my kicks.

Jen and i hike our first hike together then have lunch at the Bagel Bakery in the middle of Obec Woods for support.

Jen R: sometimes all you can do is cover the troubles up with festival music. more drums less drones, more percussion less percussive blasts. Israel and Hamas go at it on CNN and it's being covered as if they were playing a football game on ESPN between the Raiders and Packers...

Tai: what are you doing?

Luke Russert: trying to open a can of bans without a can opener. 

Tai: not even an electric can opener? you shouldn't be holding the knife like that with your bad chest. let's just go to Taco Bell. i'll drive, you can't drive with that chest.

Luke: can i order fish pizza?

Tony Hawk: i'm reading The Neon Bible now, it's finally in paperback for 2024. i'm gonna turn this into a movie with skateboard money.

Dirg: i mean it's just surreal. when i watch the XRCO Awards, the red carpet is filled with all these women i've never seen in clothes before. and then some of them lift their dress tops for the paparazzi, that is something that would never happen at the Oscars.

Bridget Lancaster: do you see how i look at him? do you see my eyes as i gaze at him? i want to FUCK Keith Dresser.

Keith Dresser: Poor Man's Pudding? but isn't maple syrup expensive?...

Cecily Strong: i am officially on cocaine, can i come back to SNL?

Pete Davidson: works for me.

Leslie Sbrocco: you ever want to give yourself a facial?

Morgan Bolling: ...

Leslie: a facial of BREAD, of bread. do you smell that outside the studio?

Morgan: smells like Fog Harbor. the air smells of the ocean. a fish rain. 

Leslie: it smells like a dead fish up in this bitch. 

Morgan: why are you staring at my pants zipper?

Melissa Murphy Brown from Del Monte Foods: i am NOWHERE NEAR Murphy Brown...

Boc: rain heals. take your shirt off and let the droplets hit your areolas.

Luke Russert: before i walked for pleasure, now i walk for health...

PG&E: it's raining so there WILL be a power outage. we can't even handle a sprinkle, a spritz...

Jen: a schvitz.

Clarissa Ward Explains It All.

Greykid: when you find shale in my kitty litter, that's a good omen.

pearl-pasta soup: it's like Italian wedding soup but good.

Italian wedding soup: you just have to try me. think of it like pearl-pasta soup with broccoli...

Princess Peach: i am the last of the unmarried, Bowser turned himself into a fly to get in my soup.

Seb Korda: my chestmate!!! come chestbump me on this tennis court and i'll heal your chest. 

Jen R: you the best bro. i feel such HOPE when i saw your hairy areola peeking through your tennis shirt. i love that you have girl hair.

Ann Rohmer: i know i look like that woman who was once a famous well-known porn star, but that's not me. i sell windows. i do windows...

Madame Pons: all the cars in Carmel don't drive, they start and stop their engines and slide on the roads. on my walk i saw a toilet-paper roll standing straight up in the middle of the intersection...

Luke Russert: i used to walk as a joke, now i walk for health...

Chaminar: the beast from the Droids episode "The Roon Games." 

Lucio: yeah it's from Chaminade, Crespi's rival school.

Gemini: but it turned out to be a cuddly dinosaur.

Jillian Clare: remember the actors' strike? remember the car-union strike?...

Gemini: i'm hungry.

Ear Horn: fine, you can have some Council Meats. i mean if it's for the war effort who am i to judge?

Pati Jinich: i got sneaky big tits like two large floppy plantain leaves.

Ear Horn: the Dutch oven is a pimp pot.

Eye Luggage: why are red onions purple?

Laertus: i'm having a bad day. my favorite food in the world, the only thing i eat, the candy Hot Tamales, contains Red Dye No. 3...

Jesus Christ: i used lake pigment to paint.

Boc: also, walking burns off all that excess Running Man nervous energy you have collected in your jumping body in the morning from the night before. 

Dirg: but i'm nervous in a different way...

Mark Hapka: sunrise is at 7:11, that's lucky. i need to travel barefoot to the 7-Eleven in Tokyo for some Japanese candy...

Ear Horn: i saw thousands of snails along my walkpath leaving slides of slime across the walkathon trail.........i mean this is probably a good omen, don't you worry, no need to change routes, dearies, i'm sure it's fine...

lavash: a GIANT soda cracker.

Minster: yes i do YouTube reviews, but i LOVE Family Guy!!!

Brooke Trantor: tits make everything better. tits are like bacon. if you're feeling blue, tits will head you off at the pass...

Eye Luggage: Slaughterhouse-Five and go.

Kurt Vonnegut: unlike that sourpuss Stephen King, i actually LIKED the movie adaptation of my novel!!!

Stephen King: unlike that neophyte Kurt, i won't talk about My Life As A Dog into the twinight hours.........well okay maybe just the ending. i'm cleaning out the straws here...

Billy Pilgrim: greatest protagonist name ever. even BEFORE the band. 

Billy Pilgrim: of course we're a folk-rock duo. it was either that or country metal. VERY Bunyanesque. 

Michael Sacks: why didn't i become a bigger star? i practically quit acting after this to become a dentist. i was Robert Redford but younger.

Michael Sacks: this is the perfect role for me because i look like Matt Smith, Doctor 11, so this film can be seen as a lost episode of Doctor Who.

Billy Pilgrim: and when you're older with glasses you look like Orville Redenbacher.

Ron Leibman: i must have one of those faces, huh. one of those surly faces, you've seen me before. THAT'S RIGHT!!! the Mad Magazine Movie!!! i have one of those faces where all i can play are the most SLIMEBALLY roles imaginable.

Ron Leibman: I AM NOT A SPY!!!...

Valerie Perrine: Montana Wildhack, i did not come straight from the Indian reservation...

nonlinear: this is tricky, should the synopsis be structured in a linear way or should it be typed out as each scene played out on screen, flashback to flashback to flashforward?

Billy Pilgrim's daughter Barbara, frantic: i knew we shouldn't have left a sick man such as my father alone in this BIG-ASS house to convalesce.

Barbara's husband: why not? this mansion of his is bigger than a mental institution!!! how does an eye doctor afford all this? i mean this thing is a ranch on an island.

Barbara: emphasis on DOCTOR.

Billy, typing: i've become unstuck in time. you have to believe me, i'm using a typewriter, do you know how painstaking it is to type one letter and then use the white-out key? this proves i really have to get this message out there.

Paul Lazzaro, angrily: where are your tags?!!!

Billy Pilgrim, hands up: imma chaplain i swear!!! i believe in alien gods!!!

Lazzaro: where are you from?!!!

Billy: the planet Hoth!!! 

Paul Lazzaro: don't mess with me, man, i'm a fucking psychopath. you killed my mother before i was born. one day, 40 years from now, when you least expect it, suspect it, when you think i've forgotten, i will be the prime suspect in your murder. i will John Wilkes Booth your ass.

Billy: but i'm not an actor.  

Lazzaro: never answer your door for mail. any piece of mail, any letter.

me: i hate your guts but i have to ask you, Lazzaro, did Jen Pizarro make it home? Lazzaro, Pizarro, close enough.

Lazzaro: if we don't win this thing the Krauts will have us eating those healthy supplement squares of freeze-dried grapes.

Lazzaro: don't push me around!!!

German guard: you need to shower. get naked.

Lazzaro: i don't have a chest!!!

Edgar Derby: i'll put the fear of God into Lazzaro. why'd you enlist?

Billy: bored.

Edgar: you got a girl at home?

Billy: maybe. what did you do before the war?

Edgar: i sold Ajax cleaning dust door to door. i got kicked out of the Cheers bar but i needed a place to raise my 9 kids. can i use your house later?

Billy: the best-laid plans of mice with guns. you are so nice, so warm and gentle and a rational teddy bear. you're like everybody's dad if they never became a priest.

Roberts Blossom by a train boxcar: i am so cool. i am Robert Burns for Generation Beta. whether i'm young or old, i'm cool. because i'm always wearing my handlebar boxing mustache.

Jen R: ...

German: don't be snooping around what goes on at this camp. all you need to know is you do your jumping jacks at this camp, that's it.

Laertus: is it it just me or does this film make the Nazis agreeable and friendly? like you'd want to team up with them against the Communists...

Dresden: don't worry, all our prostitutes wear condoms. 

Anthony Bourdain: this is true. confirmed.

Dresden: they're all aspiring actresses for the Juliet part. German kids? what German kids? we won't be bombed, we have too many shelters for that.

Eye Luggage: you know it's interesting how they show it from the Dresden side, not the perspective of the Americans/British/Allies. they're showing the destruction and displacement of this Allied brutal bombardment. destroying men, women, and children. of course ANY casualty count is justified in the face of Nazi insanity, to thwart and decimate and wipe Nazism from the face of the Earth, right?

Laertus: cos that's where Billy is. the eternal whataboutism of war.

Billy: i nominate Derby!!!

Lazzaro: i nominate Alfred E. Neuman.

British general: you can tell i'm a British soldier, i'm wearing the Union Jack flag as a onesie pajama.

Billy Pilgrim: i'm not crazy. 100,00 people will EVENTUALLY die. a firebomb is not a drink at a bar.

Derby: that i couldn't get into.

Dr. Vacc: you will be surprised to learn that electroshock therapy is STILL USED to this day, and it's actually EFFECTIVE!!!

Jack Nicholson: ...

Derby: burning bodies, there's gotta be a better way. you know like burying them?

Derby: if you fire-squad me while i'm holding this delicate spinning balleting ceramic tenderly-turquoise dancing figurine, i will come back and haunt your nightmares for eternity. the Russians will FOREVER perfume The Nutcracker on German ground!!! i will be Natalie Portman if she DIDN'T feel-fall perfectly!!!

Lazzaro: Communism is worse than Nazism, everyone knows that. 

Xi Jinping: are you trying to stir up trouble? hit the beehive with Jen R's broom? at least WE do the Trust Fall.

Valencia and Billy in bed.

Valencia: i PROMISE i'll lose weight for you, Billy!!!

Billy: no no no, Valencia dear, you're fine, gotta love yourself first, remember? i love the fat you. it's hot when the bed breaks. i love when you're on top, that's free autoerotic asphyxiation right there.

at the garden party.

Valencia: Billy, what was the name of that nice man who got executed again? the one you said was the only reason you got out of Dresden with your mind intact? your only father-figure reason for living?

Billy: i don't wanna talk about it, i'm going to bed at lunch without you.

Valencia: okay honey, i'll stay here with our party guests and entertain them myself. you know they say i was using a theater group as a cover for an abusive cult but that was never proven in court...

Fourth Way: there's gotta be a better way...

Valencia: yeah i'm losing weight for a stage role...

Billy: you shouldn't be looking at these Playboys, son, it's just filth. wait, who is this?

Robert: Montana Wildhack.

Billy: thank you, son.

Billy: i don't quite understand this one, son Robert, why knock off headstones at a cemetery? are you in a goth band? are you trying to be James Dean? why do you dislike the Catholics so much? what did the Catholics ever do to you?

Perry King: The Troubles are starting.........right about.........NOW...

at the airport.

Valencia: don't bang any optometry-convention secretaries, okay?

Billy: yeah we don't get secretaries, we're not like GPs or pediatricians or anything important.

Billy: THE PLANE'S GONNA CRASH!!!.........no wait sorry, just kidding, my Nostradamus Spidey Sense was a little off that time. go back to your barbershop quartet. want me to join in? i have a harmonic voice.

Lionel Merble: what the fuck was that, Billy? you can't go around scaring people like that, that was DANK. you say you saw ski masks in your vision. but what if they were just skiers?...

at the crash site.

skiers: we were EMTs. *slapping Billy on the cheeks* hello sir, you up? what is your name?

Billy, drowsily: William.........Shatner...

Takahashi: okay you gotta admit, Valencia's car trip throughout ALL the interstate highways in New York was FUNNY AS FUCK.

Valencia: i didn't die from plowing into a brick wall, if only my exhaust had a carbon-monoxide alarm that beeped.

Barbara's husband: mom's dead. i mean your mom's dead.

Barbara: processing.........will NEVER process this.........best to just ignore this and think of a good time that smells of pumpkins to replace the smell of this hospital...

Billy: all i need is this dog, look how PRECIOUS he is!!! 

dog: i believe in aliens. aliens that are called humans.

Barbara: fine i give but get the 17-POUND bag of food!!!

Billy: what is this place? where am i? the dark side of the moon? Biodome? Biosphere? that place where they fight BattleBots? 

alien voice: Tralfamadore.

Billy: sounds like a Nintendo system.

Dumbledore: smells like my crotch. my crotch when i drive cars. my car crotch. 

alien voice: you know what just call us the Trafalgar Squares. 

Billy: so is this the Futurama live-action?

alien voice: no this is like when Kaguya came down to Earth...

Valerie Perrine: there is NOBODY in cinema HISTORY who looks as good as i do on all fours at this precise moment...

Valencia: yeah see i don't get it, i'm chunky but Montana here is basically the same weight as me, it's just this bitch has her weight distributed better located in advantageous body spots...

Montana: nice Cleopatra set here. loving the wading pool.

Billy: our bedroom and living room look like Too Close For Comfort with Ted Knight. 

Montana: and that Alice In Chains sofa!!!

alien voice: the fourth DIMENSION, not fourth WAY!!!

Billy: it all starts again? then why live it?

alien voice: your heart and your lungs.

Billy: how do i ignore just the bad parts?

alien voice: yoga and alcoholic blackouts.

alien voice: have you fucked?.........have you fucked yet?

Billy: with the lights out, it's less dangerous. we're not putting on a show for you. 

alien voice: sorry it's just our species doesn't have porn, we barely get out at all...

Billy the soldier on the battlefield: hey can i keep this grandfather clock? the grandfather paradox and everything...

Billy Pilgrim: don't worry, the lecture hall where i'll be speaking at is a glass oval cylinder with an elevator...

Salman Rushdie: now you know how I felt...

Bach: my Brandenburg Concerto didn't win the Palme d'Or?!!! that's some bullshit. g'night folks.