IN ICTU OCULI

 

Jen R: let's explore the retirement village some more.

me: yeah, i'm feeling spiritually bereft.

Jen: i got you, i'm a delver in all faiths. is there a chapel around here?

grandma: well yeah, considering all the old people.

Jen: Zoroastrian chapel?

grandma: you're the last one on Earth!!!

Jen: i'm here to save the faith.

we go to Walter Pyramid where Bill Walton is the deacon.

Bill Walton wearing Wavy Gravy silks: throw it down, the Big Man as in God. but not all the way down to Hell.

Rishi Sunak at the lectern: yeah yeah yeah i like America, but i LOVE Tom Cruise...

Melissa Maker: i'm into polyamory but it's not about the money, it's about love. more love. prices today are ridiculous, the cost of living was high 1000 years ago, it was skyrocketing before skyrockets. everyone needs 3 incomes in the household to survive.

Link: if the sky hits it just right, this pyramid is the blue color of my Champion's Tunic silks.

Rod Serling: this retirement village gives me the creeps. it's like Night Gallery but in the daytime. i mean where do you receive your mail?

grandma: we don't get mail, we're old so it's all sweepstakes scam letters.

Rod: this wooden post plunked in your yard, this is where the mailbox should be, but instead there are knife scratchmarks with letters reading In Ictu Oculi.

Jen: that's not good, i know bad juju when i sense it. but i have the perfect counteragent spell. 

a cute little brown bunny rabbit is in the middle of the half-circle village road as we're in the village shuttle bus.

me: wait who's driving this thing?!!!

grandma on a motorized walker reading the latest issue of SpinLife Magazine: this is Highlights Magazine for seniors.

Paul has a toilet on the roof of his room at the retirement village.

Paul: this is the village toilet. remember, only TWO caca squares of toilet paper per flush. if you have more caca in you, wait til tomorrow.

Felix Cortez: when you see my face in the parking lot coming to your place of work, RUN. i have the most disconcerting face of all time. i look like Nosferatu's pet Ewok who's a social worker.

Joe Gitter: my Dutch oven is orange-red like a California mesa sunset. 

Bill Walton: Wavy Gravy, man.

Joe Gitter: i am not Joe Jackson but that is a good guess, it's close. i have glitter in my pocket. but you don't want to be in California anymore. you want to be in my home country Britain.

Gordon Ramsay: you git.

Joe Gitter: hey you can't say that to me, mate. what if i called you Gordie, yeah? i'm gonna call you Gorgeous Gordie from now on.

Greykid the cat: yes i went to Vermont State University. where i studied meteorology with Jim Cantore and the ancient art of music with Cyndi Lauper.

me: it's too painful for me to talk about honorary doctorates...

James Gandolfini: hello, i'm TV's James Gandolfini *polite applause* i had a dream last night, i am at a kitchen table with Edie Falco and Meadow and it starts raining inside, all are faces are soaking wet. but our faces are gleaming wet because we each look up into a light shining above our heads, a light so impossibly bright it could only be Heaven. see this wasn't a Sopranos thing, the three of us just happened to be in the same unrelated indie movie...

Caitlin Clark: that's a fucking foul!!! that was sexy when i yelled that, huh.

Melissa Maker: sis!!!

Amal Clooney: wanna come to the Netherlands this summer?...

Boc: as the weeds get higher, Carmel has its first jungle. you start seeing exotic animals flitting about in the weeds, like a bearded iguana. and a white boxer's towel from a boxer who just lost. lost it all. and The Barnyard being fitted with new pipes. those Carmel copper pipes will last a lifetime...

Jen: let's pop into this church, you know me, i'm Jewish but go to church. but i've never been to an 11AM service, this is gonna be a very special benediction.

the band Toto enter the glassy altar area wearing their brown silks with purple pants and start singing:

Toto: all i wanna do when i wake up in the morning is see your eyes

Hosanna Hosanna

i never thought that a holy spirit like you could ever care for me

Hosanna 

i didn't know you were looking for more than i could ever be.........you know, because i was human

meet you all the way, Hosanna yeah  

meet you all the way, because i can't reach you, most high

Minorca: it's Menorca but Minorca looks better on the page.

Minotaur in the maze: ...

in the village rec room.

Slim Goodbody: yes, i am Marshall Mathers's father.

Eminem: DAAAAAAAD, call me Slim Shady. you're embarrassing me.

Paul at the village fountain.

Paul: take the hose and spray the fountain with water exactly at 12 noon. if there are children playing in the fountain that's their problem...

Paul's son: dad, remember when i splashed in the fountain when i was a kid?

Paul: only at Disneyland. 

i get up on the village stage for my standup set.

me: so when someone bumps into you but they immediately say sorry, you PRETEND you're okay. even though your shoulder hurts like a MOTHERFUCKER. that shoulder needs surgery but you say, "that's okay, i'm fine." 

i go back down to Jen R in the audience at a small round wood bar table.

Jen R: that was good. the power of sorry. hey this is like that scene from Fame (1980)...

Richard Belzer: i'm still alive. but i can't leave the Philippines...

Christopher Meloni: i felt so bad for Irene McGee from Real World: Seattle.

Irene McGee: um, you're on my podcast right now...

Stephen Williams: sorry, Rene. nobody knew about Lyme disease back then. i'm still at Berkeley, if you know what i mean... 

Jen takes out a deck of trivia cards from the pocket of her vintage pink grandma sweater.

Jen R: i feel so at home here. let's play a game. i show you a card with a show on it, you tell me if it was NBC, ABC, CBS, or first-run syndication.

me: '80s shows, turns out i was not a CBS boy. nor an ABC boy. strictly an NBC boy. 

Jen: Small Wonder.

me: The WB? i didn't do Perfect Strangers, Family Matters, Kotter, WKRP, or Raising Miranda.

Jen: Family Mattress was something else. but you didn't see The Art of Being Nick on NBC so it all evened out...

Julie Patzwald: i so love the Dr. Pepper commercial. a pale-white goth rocker girl and a white majorette could totally become besties. to heal this country. how'd you know Strawberries & Cream was my favorite Dr. Pepper?

Kurt Cobain: because you like me...

eagles: we're hippies. we're peaceniks. we're Beakniks. love is all you need. give birds a chance. say no to war, we're anti-war, war sucks. put flowers in gun holes. make nests not war. hey UN, make Ukraine and Palestine countries again!!!

Jack Kerouac: okay fine, i'll give Bell, Book and Candle a try...

Original Pantry Cafe across the street from Figueroa at the village perpendicular: we still serve free coffee but it's on the secret menu.

James Cagney: can The Pantry help a brother out? i'm a convict who needs to get back on his feet...

Spalding Gray: dance, Cagney, dance!!!

Tai at therapy.

Tai: i do Open Path, it's very yogic, it's a collective like Cheese Board pizza at Berkeley...

George Lucas at the village bike rack.

George Lucas: i invented the bicycle. i called it the swiftwalker...

George Lucas: and don't you dare call me a dandy.

Uncle Sigh the horse: but nerds are cool.

Steven Spielberg: the original name of the Millennium Falcon was Secretariat.

ALF: the family house is one of those Storybook International cottages with a blacksmith roof. 

ALF: it's the '80s, sitcom mom, it's okay to let the lecherous next-door neighbor casually slime-kiss your cheek with his tongue as long as he's holding the Christmas mistletoe.

Roy Paranzeula's father: ...

Shakespeare: i went down to Santa Cruz.........the nachos were salty...

in the village reading room.

Jim Comey: in my latest novel, the protagonist is based on Ashley Parker. oh so you thought because i was a man i simply was incapable of writing a strong female protagonist?... 

Ashley Parker: main character not man character. lead character not lady character...

Kathryn from Wendy's: that'll be the frosty Friday. wait, Frosty Friday, free Frostys on Fridays!!!

Paul: button toilets, those fancy toilets you see in hotels, doctor's offices, and Gordon Ramsay restaurants. them fancy turlets. the toilet is not a toy, kid.

Greykid: never give up your alone time with your pets.

Apple pencil: bulge pills. no, wait. pro bulge? with the new M83 chip.

M83: no, we stopped making records after the last one...

on Nadayada Island.

monks: we get a babe to do our Vespers here?...

Rafa Nadal: Seinfeld was not shown on my island...

Greykid: you want your cats to fly? Science Diet.

Lindt.

Amal Clooney: i take a break from ICC'ing with a little Ghirardelli.

Lindt: why does all chocolate come in squares?

Roger Federer: don't say anything, Paul.

Jen R: something's about to break soon, i feel a spell inside me.

SUDDENLY the bunny rabbit hops onto my lap and turns into Paco from Nurses who drives us home.

Paco: you saved me back there, man, because you are so terrified of driving, so you didn't drive and thus you didn't run me over. 

Jen: hey Pac, can you help us get holy? we're going to do a round.

Paco: oh yeah, like we used to sing on those puke-green puke-orange shag carpets of St. Cyril's during Extended Care!!!

Jen: do you know Dona Nobis Pacem? let's sing it together. you, too.  

me: yes, let the three of us sing it together. rounds are tricky, they take rhythm.

John Bonham: and silence.

Paco: so i guess i gotta do this, huh. i can't skip it? i can't get out of it? it's because i'm Spanish so i have to be Catholic, right?...

Pati Jinich: you look like my little brother who joined a gang. wasn't his fault, this was El Salvador in the '80s...

Jen: WE BROKE THE SPELL!!! not my spell. is everybody ready for the NOON SERVICE?!!!

Joe Jackson steps out of the curtain eaves onto the marble altar. he's wearing gold and silver silks and starts to play "Steppin' Out" on the baby grand piano in back of the pews.

Joe Jackson: i never got noticed my whole career. no i am not Willie Tanner, yes ALF still lives with me. you gotta understand, nobody accepted my lifestyle in the '80s, not even in New York City.

ALF: we're both eternal outcasts. we'll never fit into your neat little theories of life and art. how society thinks life and art SHOULD be.

Hayao Miyazaki: MTV was a mistake...

Jen R: "Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson is OUR song.

i blush.