SLEEPER: SPACE OPERA SET TO JAZZ

 

Jen R: WE'RE BACK IN GREENWICH VILLAGE!!!

me: i'm so happy.

Jen: i've been asked to organize a stoop sale. don't worry, it's not a divorce garage sale. stoop to stoop, brownstone block to brownstone block, brown boxes of items on sale by owner, from cartography telescopes to CBGB peepholes to antique pink grandma sweaters. this is the closest thing to neighborhood these days. it's like a Good Friday Stations of the Cross.

me: remember sneaking in McDonald's fries to the Stations of the Cross because they were always at 11:30AM? i love how YOUR brownstone stoop is the only one in the hood in the Hollywood Regency architecture style.

SUDDENLY JUST THEN Wyclef Jean comes speeding down the one orange-leafed neighborhood lane in his Spider-Man motorcycle.

Wyclef Jean: at least Sarah Ferguson returns my phone calls in 2024.

Jen R: i missed this. at dusk let's hang a left to Washington, D.C. to the Hirshhorn to pick up some garden sculptures to put in the dining room of our apartment.

Kurt Cobain: looking at the Sleeper House in the middle of the forest, it makes me think of home, in woodsy Seattle.

Jen: yeah. i used to sleep underneath your memorial bench.

Kurt: that's kinda like me sleeping underneath the bridge, i still do that. but now the wilderness office from that show Animal Control is my new neighbor in the park. 

Jen: love that show.

me: there's that one scene which really melted my heart.

Jen: yeah, find you someone, preferably with a British or at least Australian accent, who when you're scrolling through your dating app exclaims

I hope you find someone special.

me: who DOES that nowadays?!!!

Takahashi: Japan is the best place, when it's 11:11 over there, it's 7:11 here.

Mark Hapka: my favorite Slurpee flavor is Water.

Takahashi: so just the plain ice?

dad: i mean imagine if Oprah had chosen my book for her Oprah Book Club. that would have changed EVERYTHING.

Anthony Michael Hall: what kind of world are we creating? are we creating a world in which people like me are meant to feel odd?

Greykid: for reference, i HATE playing the California Lottery. i'm not a gamer and my claws get stuck in Pac-Man's cherry.

Jen at sundown: at the end of a hard day's stoop haul, i like to round the corner and suck on a salami with friends at the local salumeria.

me: how do i become one of THOSE friends?

Simpleton Peter: a salumeria is a Storybook International deli.

Abbot Butt: it is your DUTY to watch EVERY monk-themed episode of 1970s television.

Laverne sucking on a Pepsi milk: except "The Monastery Show" episode of Laverne & Shirley, you know? really terrible episode, i really don't do good with Shirley not around. what with the date rape and the nuns who take a vow of silence so they never speak so what was the point?

Louise Lasser: the point was me. the point was me as a NUN.

Eye Luggage: Sleeper and go.

Woody Allen: is this movie about a mattress shop?

Philip Seymour Hoffman: not cool, man, i coulda been your muse.

Woody: i've never been so SPRY and active on a film set in my life. i'm doing hard-nosed PHYSICAL comedy here!!! my own stunts!!! i can't do that shit nowadays!!! oh to be young again. i broke my hip on this set, nobody noticed because i was such a small man at the time. after which i QUICKLY went into CEREBRAL comedy, a lot of people talking about things.

Laurie Bird: i said more words with Woody Allen in my brief scene than in the ENTIRETY of Two-Lane Blacktop.

Woody: what happened to you, Laurie? i stopped seeing you after a while at the New York Book Circle highrise soirees.

Laurie: it wasn't your fault. well indirectly it was.

Woody: i should have never been allowed to have a family. i should have just been allowed to be a harmless nebbishy solitary writer for life.

Jen: stoop work is everyone's work.

Laertus: Diane Keaton looking like a MIGHTY FINE SNACK in this film. i never considered Diane Keaton a bonafide BABE before till now.

Diane Keaton: before the rose John Lennon glasses, before the Gallagher rainbow pantsuit and brown Doctor Who scarf, before the East Coast Grandma thing, hey in the '70s the East Coast was not a desirable place to plant roots, it was long rusty Long Island rollercoasters everywhere. there was a time in my life when i didn't have grey hair. and it's still the Free Love era so of course i didn't wear a bra.

Woody: i smoked the ashes of your burned bra. sorry, i'm doing it again.

Mel Brooks: since i borrowed HEAVILY from this for Spaceballs, i must ask: how did you come up with the futuristic look?

Woody: knock on wood, it's that glass and chromium look all films depicting the future have since adopted.

Tyzik: this film is the bridge between 2001 and Galaxy Quest.

Woody: and my hair!!! i have long hair in this befitting a rock star!!! i was really feeling myself in the '70s.

Jen: i would have liked to have learned more about your life as a health food store owner in Greenwich Village, that's just completely GLOSSED over.

Woody: blame management. i wrote that first part in 1973. nobody wants to know about my past.

Jen: the Happy Carrot? sounds dirty.

Woody: you have no idea.

Bugs Bunny: rabbit porn? or Monty Python porn?

Woody: and on that awkward note, these messages. while i search for my lost lobby card and iced time machine.

Bashful from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: wanna fuck?

Snow White: yes.

Bashful: you know at Disneyland it's not papi chulo, it's papi churro.

me: my birthday is the earliest Easter.

Jesus: it's only True Easter when there's a Total Solar Eclipse. it's more Resurrection-y that way, you know?

Layne Staley: i am compassion. but if you ain't i ain't. i got better things to do with my short time on this dead rock than wait for your snuffy ass to get the hose. i'm busy riding a ride at Action Park, New Jersey.

Jen: Richard Serra was given a ticker-tape parade at Berkeley last night.

me: down Telegraph Avenue.

Jen: he was celebrated. hey Dick, where's "Tilted Arc" now?

Richard Serra: i don't know, but it was the the inspiration for James Cameron's Titanic. Jimmy and i are water buds, we go deep-sea swimming all the time.

Jen: "Tilted Arc" is in my garage. in my hostel. 

me: i've seen your Berkeley bed. we've fucked in that bed. it's the Robert Rauschenberg Bed.

Jen: DoorDash doesn't deliver to my place. but my hostel television delivers people. you.

me: thanks.

Richard Serra: cling wrap fucking SUCKS. it's so annoying i don't even use it to fill my sculptures.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: just put the cling wrap in the freezer to remove all of its static electricity. makes it completely flaccid.

Trent Reznor: the drums on Invincible are like hitting a snare drum with the FORCE of a kettle drum.

Super Mario: we trashmen are celebrities in the local community. we're the biggest people they've ever seen. we're like if Johnny Depp agreed to go to a high school's last prom. 

Johnny Depp: the high school where they filmed 21 Jump Street.

Woody: and we're back. in the future. i went in for a simple hernia operation and i wake up in the year 2173. why is it that only Jewish men get hernias?

Laertus: not for nothing but this script is FUNNY AS FUCK. i mean these jokes are 50 years ago and they LAND the first time you hear them!!! that's the sign of good writing.

Stalin: i had a lot of bad habits.

Woody: you see my face when i first wake up? that DAZED look. that's really how dazed my face looks after i drink water. i've never taken drugs but i need pills to help my body digest water.

Diane Keaton: oh boo hoo!!! women deal with BLOATING, pal!!! water retention.

Woody Allen: my legs turn to jelly when i see a beautiful woman, i walk backwards.

Mel Brooks: so when the chases happen, suddenly jazz music plays, it's weird. like imagine watching Star Wars and all of a sudden jazz is playing. NOT in the Cantina.

Woody: this is my tribute to Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin. and Bob Hope, for some reason Bob Hope is my favorite all-time comedian. i should have been ahead of the curve and said Bill Cosby NOW in 1973.

Woody: is this future gonna be cool like that episode of Star Trek with the green three-breasted woman?

dissident doctors: no, man, we're part of the Resistance!!! united states? that's a laugh. the United States is a police state!!!

Woody: from reading too many paperbacks of 1984?

doctors: no, from all the police violence aimed and directed at innocent innnercity black youth.

Albert Shanker: in my defense, i was teaching Adventure Time to my class, the greatest cartoon of all time. i kinda shanked it. i shanked the nuclear warhead.

Oppenheimer: when i was at Berkeley i felt what you felt, fellow teacher.

the Leader: i'm Timothy Leary if he HADN'T used LSD. i'm the Timothy Leary who read The Silurian Candidate at Kansas State.

Aries Project: my birth which has unfortunately led to all this CRAZY writing.

rebels: you're the only one without a biometric signature on your thumb.

Woody: it's on my penis.

Takahashi: okay the GLOW CAR in this film!!! i need a Glow Car!!! right? they are COOL.

George Lucas: they have that THX 1138 vibe. except ours were underground cars not aboveboard cars.

Bruce Timm from Batman Beyond: THIS Glow Car is more what we wanted to do for OUR cars on the road.

Woody: oh god, i'm gonna have to wear a TON of silver makeup to play this robot!!! it's a good thing i'm a fan of Rosie the Robot from Jetsons.

Diane Keaton: i'm not into Free Love. yet. despite being an artist. but i AM into this silver ball from Timmy Leary that's like sex-and-drugs in one electrotherapy shock.

Tim Lesser: fucking Beatles Indian sitar princess Kavita is better. 

Woody: the Orgasmatron!!! people, you hate me for this, you don't want to hear this, but I, ME, came up with that idea of a sex machine telephone booth.

Futurama: thank you. we have to say thank you to Woody. sex and death.

Diane Keaton: i'm an idle socialite, what do you expect me to do inside the Sleeper House? vacuum?

Woody: this bathroom mirror is off, it's askew, i look like the Phantom of the Opera's daughter.

Woody: all these years i thought i had a rather good-looking head.

Woody: see, i invented that thing where skinny people get in balloon suits and pretend they're Sumo wrestlers, too.

Diane pushing their getaway Romancing the Stone jeep: God is Dog spelled backwards, think about it.

Woody: i know this. but i've always wondered, what does that actually MEAN, you know?

Greykid: Tic Tac Toe, TAC is in the middle, think about it.

Woody: take off that blindfold in your mouth, i am not into BDSM AT ALL.

Diane: i'll scream. i already scream like an old woman.

Woody: we're in the Robin Hood Forest here, Sherwood Forest, no one will hear you except Kevin Costner.

Kevin Costner: California redwoods are better than Wyoming.

Woody: this giant banana in the park, not a metaphor for my penis. i'm predicting Naked Gun.

on the Titanic staircase.

Diane: do you love me?

Woody: of course i do, why do you think i went through all this mess? i don't want to be that guy but you DO look pretty when you smile, you have a great smile. you know me, i use comedy as a defense mechanism.

Donald Rumsfeld: i was trying to be funny when i was up on that podium.

Kate Lyn Sheil: i'm the only young person who still gets Woody Allen.

Diane: he's not funny to me, i don't get your humor, Woody. what is it exactly? deadpan or sarcasm or anti-comedy or what?

Woody: i deliver the jokes by trying not to smile.

Woody: Erno? ERNO? come on, that name SUCKS. he's not THAT handsome!!! he looks like a Robin Hood reject on Sesame Street.

Diane: i believe in Free Love now.

Woody: you're too late, lady, you just missed it in 1973, it's the tail-end .

JFK: i missed so much.

Woody: now JFK is handsome!!!

Diane Keaton: hey, Wood.

Woody Allen: Heywood, you're on to something, toots.

Diane Keaton: look, we dated for a year but it didn't work out, okay?

Laurie Bird: spill the wood-infused tea, sister.

Woody: how hard is it to play Jewish parents? that is the most overused trope in Hollywood!!!

Diane: like my Brando impression? i'm doing The Godfather simultaneously with this. i slept with Marlon Brando one morning and woke the next morning with the ability to act. well to act like Marlon Brando. which has a ceiling, a cap, a limit. i'm sticking with my own innate acting ability.  

Takahashi: the McDonald's sign in the future, spot-on physical joke.

Madame Pons: yeah, we chuckled at that one as a family.

Woody: once again, predating The Naked Gun by a decade.

Woody: this nose now flattened looks like the glans of a penis. i can't keep doing this!!!

road roller: i thought i was making pizza for Ray Bradbury.

George Orwell: if 1984 was a comedy. i enjoyed this picture, especially the flash cards.

Douglas Rain: i'm afraid i can't do that. i must shut the door on this Melissa Maker romance even though it's a Canada thing.

Melissa Maker: shut the front space door, HAL.

Madonna: ...

Woody: you know how revolutions peter out, eventually Erno will become Stalin.

Erno: Windt, very Star Wars last name.

Diane: what's the answer to life? it can't be science, men and women are chemically incompatible.

Woody: not if they're both on LSD which is the only chemical you need. oxygen is overhyped.

Diane: i'm from Milwaukee, we still believe in the moon, okay? if you don't believe in science, God, or political systems, what DO you believe in?

Woody: sex and death. Freud would have made a great Catholic priest.

Diane: and venereal disease?

Woody: yes, and Free Love.........don't worry, i'm not starting a family with you.

Fuerza: i'm feeling nauseous...

Woody: wait let me leave this photo of a school-shooting victim leaning on the brick driveway of Charlton Heston's Beverly Hills mansion. i was talking about the NRA in this movie before Michael Moore. you'd think in the future the NRA wouldn't be a thing anymore.

Woody: you know the only reason i did this movie was so i could play my jazz clarinet at my local Hell's Kitchen brownstone block stoop jazz club. they didn't allow me in with my tan flute. John Bonham on the tomtom skins. my life goal has always been to be Jack Lemmon. g'night folks.

me by the fire: happy weekend, my babies. tomorrow...

Jen R: CHIZZA!!! right? i mean don't you want to know how KFC does pizza?!!!

me: there's a quality of desperation to our relationship.

Jen: yes. we're like cling wrap, constantly noodling each other making sure we're still around and stuck on each other.

me: you're not all there, which i get, for neither am i. through the lattice miasma of your crazy there's the most empathetic warm caring understanding human being who has ever walked this planet. 

Jen: i let it slip sometimes like when i tell you about my partner and i covered in World Trade Center dust and the standing ovation we got at the 9/11 church. *in hushed tones* i've told NO ONE about this. 

me: and that is why i'm crazy about you.

FRIGGEBOD, THE TOWER OF COMFORT

 

Jen R: i got us this friggebod. isn't it cute?

me: okay THAT is a Storybook International house!!! a Storybook International stone inn!!! 

Jen: the type of house where the stove is next to your bed. 

Gregor Samsa: i bake fat biscuits on that stove.

Ear Horn: i got my tits EMBIGGENED on that stove, dearie. country-biscuit tits.

Jen: you can fold up this cottage and move it to the next green-dot grassy hill over yonder when the crags start to get angry with seawave foam. in Europe and Mendocino. i know how much you like Medieval stuff.

me: ironically there won't be any frigid bodies in there, we will be fucking constantly, lots of simpleton-peter sex.

Jen: sex with your peter. am i talking too much? please ignore me.

me: i can't, i love you too much. never stop talking, our conversations SUSTAIN me.

me: that's the thing with life, if you meet the right people, it's glorious, if you don't, it's hell.

Jen: have i made your life even a SMIDGEN more comfortable?

me: you saved me with your love. is that too Robert Downey Jr.?

Jen: just the right amount of RDJ. can you have too much RDJ? isn't he the point? showing up every day is a fucking CHORE. it's fucking hard to maintain. somedays i'm just not having fun out here. no one sees the progress you're making on the off days.

me: to just get out of the bed in the morning. immediately hitting your head on the stove.

Kurt Cobain: i would have liked Medieval times. these are my people. especially the blacksmith.

Jen: yeah, men with long hair were the NORM. especially the knights.

Kurt: i'm a knight with my powder-blue lance, my guitar. i'm a woodsman woodshedding with my axe. out back practicing. out back turning these three chords around. 

me: i wanna see you on the lute, Kurt. 

Jen: at least AVAM survived Baltimore. 

me: what does that mean?

Kurt: i'll take that one, i'm into Buddhism, the word avam means "enlightenment" in Hindi.

Jen: it's the American Visionary Art Museum. speaking of, i'm putting a piece i got there here in THAT corner of our friggebod. a Richard Serra that looks like a giant BIG-ASS candle circle. i always liked Richard Serra because he looks like Uncle Fester and you know how much i dance the Wednesday Dance.

me: what the fuck's going on with me? suddenly i'm HOCKING PHLEGM. 

Jen slapping my back: don't swallow, advice my mother gave me long ago. don't swallow the mucus, spit it out. it's like you're a chainsmoker but you've never touched the stuff.

Lowly Worm: without Richard Serra in my life as my mechanic the Apple Car would cease to be, eaten by Margot Kidder's wolves.

Karen Mayo-Chandler: what does one say about the life i led? it's so corny to say i had no regrets but what else can i say? it was a brilliant Hollywood career cut WAY TOO SHORT by the Plague. i had fun whilst it lasted. nobody knows when one's time will be up, you have to live each day as if it's your last. i fucked Jack Nicholson, that must account for something.

Jack Nicholson: this was during my Five Easy Pieces phase, i'm afraid you were on a list.

Karen Mayo-Chandler: that sad song which plays at the end of every Storybook International episode, it's especially morbid now as you think about my painfully short life...

Matthew Perry: i actually preferred Miracle Whip. i didn't get a miracle.

Akira Toriyama: i mean i prayed to a Dragon God and nothing.

The Mighty Boosh as their Saturday-night tavern troupe: we're GREAT dancers. but we're even better pie-crust makers.

Sam Block from America's Test Kitchen: i don't look like Kate McKinnon, i look like Aunt Cork!!!

Ray Bradbury: i mean now they slide my book Fahrenheit 451 into their mini personal pizza kilns beside their bedroom beds. this is getting ridiculous.

Michael Weiss: before you start Instagram, and i can't stress this enough, divide your friends into two camps: sober and still struggling. do NOT send alcohol memes to those still struggling.

Dave Matthews singing "Crash into Me": "the killing fields / you plant cocaine..."

St. Patrick: i don't get bars. bars are stupid. bars are dumb. i was sober my whole fucking life. i played darts in my bedroom.

Tacoma truck: that orange-blue-white-green-banded pull-out lounge chair from the '80s, remember? on the grass on the sidelines at AYSO Saturday soccer matches.

Violetta Laze: orange slices and pop in a thermos.

me: in the '80s there was no Gatorade, just water.

Anthony Michael Hall: i was the only one in The Breakfast Club who didn't end up with someone. everyone else paired off with a quickness for the ending. that is what happens when you have 5!!! FIVE PEOPLE!!! ODD number of people!!!

Todd Bridges the Governor of Maryland: diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks but we all must learn to build bridges to one another or we won't survive to understand each other to actually love each other for the first time.

chalk egg: people in asylums celebrate Easter, too.

dress shield: don't use me, i am disgusting. i know roll-on deodorant gets pus stuck in your armpits and makes them MORE itchy. but it's still better. use Sure spray.........at least for a week.

Madame Pons: my Easter is gonna be a relaxing occasion with me in the shower with some LUSH aromatherapy shower steamers. and my man.

Takahashi: our shower steamers include the following scents: McDonald's fries, wood, pine needle.

Luke Russert: and Vicks VapoRub.

Marilyn Monroe: when the world is at its darkest, when racism surrounds you at every corner of the soccer pitch, put me in your ears. with these Marilyn Monroe earrings i will never leave your side, you won't be alone anymore, we can conquer the forces of darkness together with our light one fan at a time.

Mardith at the stewhouse: don't worry, i'm on your side, i'm the good guys, i pierced my nipples with safety pins.

Lisa Rubin: it all seems so easy because i'm on TV, right? i worked HARD for my life, honey. the big tits. the perfect family. having a legal mind sharper than Perry Mason's. that all took DECADES of dedication.

Lisa Edelstein: did you play my sister on an episode of House?

Alisyn Camerota: i was searching for home. if home meant i go interstate couch-surfing with an '80s CBGB punk rocker.

Scott Weiland: ...

Alisyn: no a PUNK band lead-singer.

Scott Weiland: that's cold, lady.

Alisyn: a man who would go on later to be a steady reliable husband, father, and partner. we even settle down in Action Park, New Jersey with Sara Walsh and MLB Matt. family life with Alice in Chains. combat love means shrapnel on your knees. what everyone wants, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow journey, is a psychiatrically-sound family. i spell Alison like a jaded sorority girl who plays Dungeons & Dragons.

me: i want family. i want stability. i want health. these things will never be mine. i will never even scratch the SURFACE of this the rest of my whole life.

The California Lottery: you didn't win.

Kyle Mooney: trust me, being a family man is where it's AT. i said that like Beck.

1970s Encyclopedia Britannica set: you won't find true love until you tell him about your psoriasis.

Tim & Eric: Boxy Boys sounds like something we'd do. and we did. with Carmelo Anthony.

Carmelo Anthony: look at our smiles at the end there, our smiles are CRISP.

Jen: Eric, just Eric not Tim, stayed at my flat in Hell's Kitchen.

J Will: student athletes never existed. look, do you REALLY want to make college basketball the best game it can be? four quarters of just free throws, that will get the crowd permanently involved, the crowd won't drift off into boredom during the game.

NCAA: Olympians made here. who then go on to become American Gladiators on your TV.

Jalen Brunson: i'm a vibe. a Woody Allen Spike Lee vibe. i mean i'm the first person to come up with a TV SUIT!!! a jacket with tiny TV screens on it. i mean okay maybe there was an episode of The Great Space Coaster before...

Jen: everybody who lives in NYC wears a Knicks jacket naked to bed.

Hurley from Lost: don't delete my pics and vids, i internal-dialogue to myself. because Lost is SURE to come back in some form...

Dave Gahan: when you're looking down the barrel of a Grammarly, choose the sentence that makes you the most VULNERABLE, not the most confident, that's the artist thing to do.

me: ring ring?

Jen: that ringing is not in your mind. it's a real phone.

me: you fit a phone in our friggebod?

Jen: it's in the stove.

me: OH MY GOD it's LINDY LENZ!!!

Jen: i'm not jealous, i'm supportive of your needs.

me: why does my kind polite girlfriend always have a dead phone?

Lindy Lenz: i just was never into tech, you know?

me: it's been a year since we last spoke.

Lindy Lenz: yeah. but isn't it better to have had a couple good calls with me rather than, say, a committed lifelong marriage?

me: no. but it's better than nothing. HEAVY sigh, life is so fucking cruel.

 

BERKELEY CITY COLLEGE: A SPOONFUL OF SPORES

 

the three of us are at People's Park in Berkeley.

Joni Mitchell: you can feel the history in this place. it's SATURATED in the air, you can taste the radicalness on your tongue. even a place like Berkeley can forget its history if enough years pass by, history is tricky like that, it turns on a dime. it's up to YOU young people to NEVER forget the sacrifices made here for the hippie cause, to unleash free love.

Jen P: never, ma'am. i'm the only one here who's still a student. 

me: well, an official student.

Jen R: i'd rather be a travel writer of this place. so much looseness i'm stretchy in my pants right now.

we sit on the bench made famous by Forrest Gump's illegitimate child who became the first hippie retroactively with help from Superman's wind.

Christopher Reeve in an Easter-bunny suit: not my fart.

Jen P: a spoonful of spores. a teaspoon of spores will do it.

Mary Poppins: everybody tryna get in my bitch ass.

Jen R: yeah, to plant shrooms throughout the land.

Jen P: trees, i was thinking more trees. it's about seeding. as long as THIS place has NEW trees, NEW people will notice it, see the good graffiti on the outhouse stalls, help a squatter's grass tent, help humanity remember when it wasn't about politics. 

Jen R: another miracle that comes from a spoon of spores is a baby. a spurt of cum.

Jen P: yes. in another timeline you were OBSESSED with me. and my miracle baby. after so many scarring miscarriages. funny how timelines and feelings change on a dime. 

me: blame me for the feelings, but blame the endless timelines on Einstein. obsession is a funny thing, it was obsession for me because there was no one else. so it was more like desperation. i really do feel Jen R is my soulmate.

Jen P: yeah i know, that is something which cannot be changed in any timeline.

Jen R: i can get a sitter for you guys, i hear Cher lives in Huntington.

me: i promise to be the best father i can. as soon as i get a job. or become a permanent student.

Jen R: loving someone is a revolution.

Suzy Lu: so i went to a red-carpet premiere. me.

Kakashi: you know what everyone is saying about this, right, babe?

Suzy Lu, hangdog: i know.

Kakashi: the world has truly come to an end now.

at the park.

me: no one noticed my birthday. it was exciting. it was exhilarating.........but then the next day it was just kinda depressing.

Jen R: that's your other you talking, the other me that thinks about it in internal-dialogue form.

Jen P: it completely slipped my mind, i was busy buying Pampers.

Michael Weiss: only Instagram noticed my birthday. the Instagram Birthday Feature.

Mardith: what do women do when they become old and unfuckable? where do women go?

Marketa Irglova: ...

Shirley Manson: get you a band for life in which in order to achieve anything in the long run, in other to achieve longevity around an actual business model, the bandmates realize from jump NEVER to fuck one another.

Dr. Kevorkian at the park: i don't jog alone anymore. jogging is such a lonely exercise. i jog with Special Olympics athletes in wheelchairs alongside. in the Boston Marathon. i'm trying to turn my life around.

Lorne Michaels: it's only live once.........i'm not talking about SNL, i'm talking about the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

at the City Berkeley Library.

George Orwell: 1984 was banned? thank you, that plays right into the narrative of my book.

Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 was banned, too? banned by being placed in a fire at a book burning. i mean think about it.

 

Carmelo Anthony: what? i'm a David Byrne fan.

KION: working hard.........bringing you the news.........local stories that matter.........with the volume VERY LOW.

Trent Reznor summering away from New Orleans in a Berkeley hostel: the best part about Invincible? the drums.

Boc: let me stop you right there. you simply cannot take a walk when the forecast calls for "scattered showers." 

Ariana Araiza: jumping from puddle to puddle not knowing what direction you're going. in life. like me club-hopping.

Greykid: when two dogs sniff each other along the only brick Barnyard path, it's a shitshow. it's a sniffshow. 

bum: i FUCKING hate that carburetor noise those dumb male Miatas make.

Alana Haim: you gotta eat more tofu, you know? drink more corn syrup. kidney beans, tomato PASTE not spaghetti sauce, lentils. food and drink rich in iron.

Ryan Phillippe: i feed the pig. in fact i'm quite frugal with my coins. i dry my laundry outside by the pool. i only appear in ONE episode of a TV series.

Saturday-morning cartoons: laughter, your kids knew about wellness in the '80s before wellness was a buzzword for adults in the 2020s.

at the Berkeley public tennis courts covered in good graffiti located in the center of the park.

Emma Raducanu: back.

Nick Kyrgios: you're back? you're coming back?

Emma Raducanu: no, my stiff back. i'm canceling the rest of my year.

Peter Griffin: you finally won, America. you got the matchup you always wanted: Family Guy vs. South Park on Wednesday nights. who will win? the liberals or the conservatives, who have the better ideas?

Seth MacFarlane: the answer is the good guys.

Wendy: you walked all the the way to Safeway in the rain just to get ONE pack of Doublemint gum?

me: expressly to see you, the grand gilf, the last hippie who was on the Two-Lane Blacktop set.

Wendy: you're not from that Compass Church in Monterey, are you? that place scares me. that pastor is creepy. we learned free love the natural way, not from some manufactured religion. it's a culvert not a calvert, you know? it's not a Calvinist culvert.

Easter eggs: never meant to be dropped from a helicopter.

me: don't i know you from somewhere? you have a familiar face to me.

Ariana Araiza: yeah, we were classmates at Palma. well we should have been.

Tai meditating in her yoga shoppe: i'm a masterpiece trying to master peace.

Wayne Brady: yeah that's me in Ninja Kamui at the end there. i'm this show's master plan for humans to achieve free love, which is pansexual love.

Fareed Zakaria is asked to deliver a lecture on campus.

Fareed Zakaria: the Lutherans are a rational people. they can discuss politics in a church.

Jen R: it's funny when you realize how SHORT David Lynch's filmography actually is.

David Lynch: stick with the first item on any list. always go with someone's first. go with Eraserhead.

Nic Cage: Wild at Heart had a good ending. i liked the ending. it's always a good thing having me in a leather jacket giving another of my patented zany performances. 

Sally Field: '80s Andie MacDowell.........yep.

Michael Weiss: but what if the internet COULD be erased?

Julia Ioffe: my father wanted me to be a Russian spy.

Gargoyles '98: we're combining with that '80s live-action Beauty and the Beast show and we're seeing how that goes.

seagull: hey Boc, you just take for granted that you go for your walk each morning and there aren't any car crashes. do you know how that happens? me. me and my bird magic.

at the park.

me: i gotta get out of here. i need to go to Baltimore. or have one of you lovely lifesaver ladies SCOOP me away to Baltimore. i would spend my life savings on a ticket to Baltimore if i could, pour my life savings into one ticket. do i even HAVE a life savings anymore? or was life savings just an '80s thing?

Lindy Lenz: i would but my house has no roof. call me Cynthia.

me: and you.........oh god i'm gonna cry.........i will never stop being your friend, i'll NEVER stop answering your texts each and every time you reach out to me, you're all i got.........even though WE CAN NEVER BE.

Jen R: it's a pipe dream. but think about it, some of the best skateboarders skated pipes.

Tony Hawk: for a skateboarder i lead an incredibly NORMAL life.

Jen P touches my bony shoulder then slaps my face.

Jen P: you gotta look at it this way, all you've got at any given moment are TODAY's feelings. so feel them. me? right now i'm feeling that unsettling sensation when you've been sitting in your computer chair for too long and an itchy blood bubble forms at the tip of your butthole along the crack that sends an uncomfortable yet tingly warm pool of blood through your body like spine shivers when you wipe.

Tom Hanks: nobody invited me to their last prom, i can't dance. 

 

SCANNERS: A SCANNER LIGHTLY

Jen R and i are in Seattle. of course our next stop after out last adventure.

Kurt Cobain: the Gateway to Canada. if i had eaten more Washington apples i'd be alive today.

Jen R: do not worry, we are at a yardsale but it's not one of those divorce yardsales that happen when the couple is acrimonious and split their belongings evenly item to item.

me: see i don't even want to envision that, manifest that into existence, when we get married it's gonna be forever. if we ever have a yardsale it'll be an ANTIQUES yardsale.

Jen: you see here? this nightstand? 3 slices of pizza wrapped in tinfoil. collectively they all form a perfect silver boomerang. when that happens you can NOT eat the pizza.

Melissa Maker: i shall be your guide through Canada this week. do you know what a Candan boomerang is? a sex position only Myself knows.

Jen: that thing where the Canadian children get to see the rad new cartoons before the American kids. 

Melissa: yeah like Dragon's Lair.

Jen: and that Degrassi cartoon. there hasn't been a Degrassi cartoon yet? this needs to happen.

me: halfway done with the day and things are going swimmingly, nobody's the wiser.

Jen: not so fast, buster, i didn't forget your birthday. 

me: i just want it to be a normal day, no fuss. i just want this day to be over with.

Jen: i'll tell you what i'm gonna do.

Jen pushes me into the muddy banks of the Wishkah River.

Jen: it's World Water Day.

Jen R and i fuck at a local motel.

me: for some reason that felt better than our usual romps.

Jen: it's because i called you mi papi chulo.

me: you're right, when a woman calls me their papi chulo, i can't resist, i'm going for it. but it doesn't end with the sex, we get married and have 9 kids in Point Reyes.

Jen: everyone forgot?

me: Maiara Walsh finally commented back on one of my 3-year-old comments i left her on Instagram. so that was something. that's enough of a birthday gift for me as i stay present.

Benjamin Franklin: Wikipedia, like the U.S. Constitution, is a living document.

Shohei Ohtani: which interpreter do i need to get who will say i'm Japan's Babe Ruth? not Japan's Pete Rose.

Boc: turn left, Waldo.

Luke Russert: it's so depressing to hike the long trek up to Lucky just to get two mini-boxes of tiny trash bags.

lavender tea: this counts as food.

Tai: Om Rhythms is my new yoga shoppe.

Jenny Baranick: rhythms is the longest English word without a vowel. y isn't a vowel anymore for the millennials.

Leslie Sbrocco: don't send me a pic of a plate of mushrooms on Instagram, just don't do it anymore, okay?

Michael Weiss: nobody talks on Instagram.

Julia Ioffe: so what's the point of Instagram?

Madame Pons: i'm a Level 4 Reiki healer so why am i still depressed?

Takahashi: the 4 thing.

Mardith: also, you're old. i'm a Level 1 Reiki healer and i feel fine.

Michael Stipe: ...

Madame Pons: thank you for straight telling it like it is, daughter.

Pati Jinich: on Hijos del Desierto i play the tortilla maker.

Michael Weiss: everybody's coming to me now because i'm the only one who's still on Instagram.

Terry saves Batman's dog Ace.

Bruce Wayne: *stares intently and smiles*

Terry: not even a thank you?

slag it: our version of slay it.

Pepsi: we had to do something after watching Pepsi, Where's my Jet?

Wolverine: DuckTales '91, Gummi Bears '92, the possibilities are endless, bub.

Melissa Maker: i had the biggest crush on Wolverine growing up.

Brett Favre: i play pickleball now. i take vitamins.

seagull: you just take for granted that there's a gaggle of 12 seagulls flying over your head right now.

Jack Tripper: the one bird i appreciated the most during my short lifespan was not Terri but the beach seagull.

Mary Cadorette: ...

Michael Weiss: yeah you just like to watch on Instagram while i do all the work.

Madame Pons: in my day we had candy cigarettes. do they have candy vapes now?

Mardith: kind of. sort of. we have bubblegum vapes.

Eye Luggage: Scanners and go.

David Cronenberg: before we go i would be remiss not to honor the two fallen lives that fell on our shooting set during the making of this picture. this movie was HELL for me in so many ways, it reaches ALL the ways. rubbernecking just isn't funny anymore.

Philip K. Dick: i wish i had lasted long enough to work with Cronenberg. Lynch, too.

Keanu Reeves: has anyone ever told you you look like Ernest Hemingway? i am everyone's prophet but you are MY prophet.

Philip K. Dick: Asimov trapped me in his den.

Isaac Asimov: testing out my time machine.

Philip K. Dick: Alan Watts trapped me in his den.

Alan Watts: i thought you were me.

Jennifer O'Neill: THEY THOUGHT IT COULDN'T BE DONE. but i did it. i actually married MORE MEN than Elizabeth Taylor!!! i own the record, bitches!!! that's the Brazil way, bitch.

The Pope: i mean not to pry but what's with you and the marriage thing? Christianity was never meant to be like this, i wish free love had been advocated more in the '60s.

Patrick McGoohan: are you a slut? cuz of all the men and everything.

Jennifer O'Neill: well you're a nice guy, huh? i mean fuck, could you BE any ruder?

Chandler Bing: ...

Patrick McGoohan: sorry, luv, i was trapped the rest of my life inside the four walls of the nightmare paradise known as The Prisoner.

Jennifer: it's The Pensioner by now. just because you're crazy doesn't give you license to be a dick and an asshole. 

Patrick: you know about those two things. sorry, pet, i did it again. i need therapy, from a MALE nurse. not more Irish beer and crabcakes. ignore me, my name sounds like peanut butter that gets stuck in your mustache.

Jennifer O'Neill: when i FINALLY read the script to this thing, i cried. because it was too late to get out of all that splattercore gore and violence. contracts are a bitch. i was becoming a Born-Again Christian RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT.

Eugene O'Neill: back out of your commitments with the quickness of a motherfucker like i did throughout my career. i wrote some corny stageplays no one saw. 

Cronenberg: yeah sorry about that, the budget on this thing was an omnishambles. the only way to get it funded was to have it paid for by the local Toronto high school. i was writing the script AS i was shooting the script. ten days after our red carpet premiere i finally wrote the ending.

Melissa Maker: Canada is not as claustrophobic and scary and doomy and morby as this movie makes it out to be. 

Cronenberg: in the '80s it was.

Michael Ironside: i am sorry for using the bathroom in that trailer for 7 hours. i just experienced the HARDEST log of poo my butthole has ever gone through in my entire existence. it took FOREVER to pinch out. that poo was a daisycutter. i mean look at my face, do i look like the bad guy or Humphrey Bogart? i can't be both. on the plus side Revok is the COOLEST name ever. Cronenberg's the best. but Atom Egoyan is SLIGHTLY better.

Stephen Lack: i look like Jeff Passan. i look like Cillian Murphy before the Fall. why didn't i become the Canadian Keanu Reeves before Keanu Reeves? my eyes alone are so puppy-dog everyone falls for me the instant my smooth robotic voice speaks. no i didn't do anime voiceover after like everyone else here. Cameron Vale sounds like someone with Elvis sideburns who moves to Beverly Hills 90210.

me: my address. but also Berkeley Hills 90210 is my address.

Neil Affleck: if i HAD been related to Ben i couldn't have done Family Guy as hard as i did it, SHREDDING New England culture the way i did. i wish my name had been Mavor, Mavor is a cool name.

Louis Del Grande: look, i don't want to talk about the exploding head. it's bad karma for me when i do. bad juju, bad vibes. let's talk about ANYTHING else. talk about how my name is Taco Bell. talk about how i played that total Sipowicz-ripoff character on that episode of The Outer Limits "Criminal Nature." i mean did i evince a jaded New York cop's accent in that or WHAT. i had long hair like Woody Allen from Sleeper.

Cronenberg with zebra clapperboard: before we start shooting, my beloved cast and crew, i only ask that this doesn't turn into Da Vinci's Inquest. let's get to the martini shot alive, people.

Cronenberg: mixing science fiction and horror, it seems so natural. the inspiration for this movie was Blue Sunshine for one reason and one reason only: i needed to actually see Zalman King ACT!!!

Dan Aykroyd as Jimmy Carter: ...

Cronenberg: is it telepathy or telekinesis? two very DIFFERENT things. telepathy is mind-reading. all humans CAN mindread, we use 1% of our brains, remember? would the world be BETTER or WORSE if we knew each other's thoughts? 

Counselor Troi: you only know about telepathy because i was hot.

Cronenberg: telekinesis is stuff like moving a tennis ball in the air with your mind.

Debbie Harry: or, like, a cigarette from in between a woman's tits in a lacey frilly French black bra. the script said i was supposed to be wearing a blouse in that scene.

at the mall. 

i'm sitting in the cavernous cafeteria area with two nice ladies gossiping about penis size and how THEY'RE not weird.

me: don't scan me. i'm wearing a green sweater even though i don't have to because i'm a Patrick. it's my birthday, don't scan me on my birthday. i'm quietly eating my churro between the Hot Dog on a Stick and the Panda Express and the Sam Goody music store in the same mall Jubilee was saved from in that first episode of the '90s X-Men cartoon.

Cecilia Phillips: Cecilia Tries It. i will try anything, even your cum. that's what a mall smorgasbord is for.

Cameron Vale: i'm not a bum, i just need to quit smoking. why does every mall have 100 water fountains?

ConSec: we also make Terminators. and the drug Ephemerol. get it? ephemeral. that's a brilliant name. don't let anyone tell you a private military company doesn't have creativity.

Dr. Paul Ruth: i'm not the sex doctor, that's my sister. how may i help you today?

Cameron Vale: what is technopathy?

Ruth: you're the only one who can work the new iPhone. you can also move people's blood around in their bodies, it's funny and silly and fun.

Cameron: i don't want any of these lame superpowers, except for EMPATHY as a human being.

Naruto: i was the first test subject at this grim hospital. i became the first Japanese Scanner, also known as a Chakra Charlie.

Cameron: i heard about the Third Eye in Sunday school but this black-and-white film reel from the 1950s is scarier than Catholic Hell. i closed my eyes through all of it, it's like that Metallica music video.

Norma Desmond: that's some dank shit, Mr. DeMille.

Dr. Ruth: sanitariums are science at its finest. very educational.

Rod Serling: third eyes are wack.

Ruth: we have a mole in the company.

Anderson Cooper: wasn't me.

Ruth: we can't shut down the Scanner program, Scanners are the next step in human evolution.

exploding-head guy: haven't you been watching the new X-Mens? didn't you read the sign? Evolution is a lie!!!

Ruth: why does our boardroom look like a dentist's office?

Cronenberg: because it's my dentist's office.

Louis Del Grande: here's the thing with the exploding head, surely there must have been exploding heads in cinematic history before this. like a 1910 gothic monster movie or something.

Cronenberg: yes. but i POPULARIZED the CONCEPT of the exploding head. nobody had really THOUGHT about an exploding head until it came from me. 

Monty Python: and then we REALLY started thinking about the exploding head.

Benjamin Pierce: soldier of the Canadian Revolution. which also took place in 1776 at a Philadelphia town hall. yeah i'm just here in my barn sculpting a BIG-ASS HEAD of MY FACE in LUSH soap. that's not creepy at all.

Cameron: another dead art show in Canada. 

Melissa Maker: all art in Canada is liked by everyone. even the critics. gallery showings serve Canadian pigs in a blanket which are maple leafs wrapped in bacon. even hard street-illegal drugs in Canada are over-the-counter.

Kurt Cobain: OMG THEY HAVE A DREAMACHINE!!!

Cameron: quick!!! evade the explosion by going through the destroyed Sam Goody.

Laertus: oh you see how the Scanner thoughts are being transmitted from one head to another? the thought-weapon, the thought-gun. it's the Zardoz school of acting.

Cameron: you don't want ME getting your heartbeat racing, get your heart rate up the natural way, by jogging.

Cronenberg: okay now THIS is starting to look like an episode of Degrassi...

Cameron: you're that bored woman from the art show.

Kim Obrist: everyone looks bored at an art show. i'm not bored, i'm hopeless. a hopeless romantic. it's not Kim Obreast. wow look at my butt in these jeans!!! i have a nice butt. you should know something about me, i SCOFF with the best of them, i'm the greatest babe scoffer there is. scoffer babe.

Cameron: you're attractive. but i'm the good guy.

Kim: since i'm a woman naturally i use my Scanner powers to heal. got any cuts or bruises?

Cameron: i'm a schizophrenic, i could use a bandage on my head. there, that'll cure it. what is the shadowy Big Pharma factory cranking out?

Kim: a TUMS antacid you put in a glass of water by your nightstand and it starts fizzing tiny bubbles. when we get to their headquarters i must warn you not to get distracted, it looks like Spaceballs.

Cameron: why'd you name the computer program Ripe?

Revok: i smell.

Ruth: did you Scan the computer?

Cameron: yes. but all i'm getting is Pong.

Kim: a telephone booth? really?

Cameron: Superman is HUGE right now. Christopher Reeve will live FOREVER!!!

Kim: he's got dreamy steel eyes. steel eyes not steely eyes.

Cameron: you know it really HURTS MY HEAD to destroy this grand computer like this. it's the early 1980s, you know? the Computer Age is just starting out...

at the halfway house.

Cameron: that look on your face, are you bored?

Kim: you really need to read faces better, that is not one of your Scanner superpowers. i'm not bored, i'm mad. not crazy, angry. i can't get pregnant like this woman. i want a family, i want a NORMAL LIFE!!! what good is marriage if you can't have fun and get knocked up?

Cameron: oh so you're jealous.

Kim: okay you're getting better.

Kim: don't mind me, i'll escape in this James Bond On Her Majesty's Secret Service snow helicopter.

Revok: our father.

Cameron: who art in Heaven.

Revok: no, Ruth is our father.

Cameron: so? he seems like a nice guy.

Revok: his dirty little secret was the West German thalidomide scandal!!!

Cameron: i mean is morning sickness really THAT bad? i don't know, i've never been pregnant, just wondering out loud.

Revok: brother, now it's time for our lightsaber battle without the lightsabers.

Cotard: brother, this is us everyday!!! it's like a tickle fight.

Codrus: ...

Codrus: sigh.

Revok: thanks, now my body is bacon.

Kim: wait, are you Cameron or Revok now?

Cameron: both and neither.

Kim: wanna get married?

Cameron: i'm too young and you're too old, lady.

Kim: on second thought, forget it. Revok is more manly than you but he's psycho. what to do what to do. Cameron, it's just, you kinda come off as Simpleton Peter, you know? 

Cronenberg: okay fine, how did we pull off the exploding head? what was my secret? root beer. we used root beer. Canadian root beer and McDonald's. g'night folks. oh i HATE when the end credits go DOWN instead of up like that.

me: shall we discuss Storybook International?

Jen: the episode with the tumbledown cottage? about the bowyer who makes a golden bow out of Jennifer Lawrence's money?

Brad Gilbert: i am Blanket Jackson's father.

Jen: hop off.

me: i'm sorry for offending you.

Jen: no, hop off the shortbus like the Easter Bunny to Delaware Shores and let's get some puzza.

Michael Ironside: i stink like an Italian man.

Lucio Rossi: ...

me: belter?

Jen: no, sand belter like when Fran Drescher sings, her mouth is full of sand.

Fran Drescher: power intensifies. power solidifies. the power to help others. the power to help an entire community of artists.

Jenny Baranick: for the first time in my life i wanna be a wench. a chicken leg wench. Euouae is making me miss being Medieval. all English teachers yearn to go back in time. and to teach in the United Arab Emirates. neume is NOT for the Rubenesque girls.

Greykid: i know what it's like being someone's soul cat. to be a soul pet is LONGER than to be a soulmate.

me by the fire: Jersey Mike's. a sub above. i need to know what they put in that vinegar.

Melissa Maker: it's used to clean.