THE FUTURE IS SCARY: REMAINING MAGIC

 

i reach my hand as fast as i can to try to grab some tree.

me: any tree. any tree please. i need to feel the forest.

Sunny D wags his tail in the magic forest.

Sunny D: no weed on this trip. marijuana-free, you need to be lucid on this lucid trip.

me: i mean i grabbed a handful of CHOCOLATE gold coins, man.

Sunny D: that is disappointing. the pirate trunk's cute tho.

me: bad memories, it's a prop off the last time i was propmaster at Forest Theatre, that stage is CURSED, that set is slippy with ego.

Sunny D closing his eyes, shaking his head, and nodding to himself: it's just as well, chocolate is bad for dogs. huh, dogs have it easy.  

Jen R: what's worse, E.coli or covid?

Paris mayor: why you say such a thing to my face? i am hurting, don't say that to the Olympic committee...

Minster: rawdog flying? nah, rawdogging should be fun.

Jen R: let's have a staycation.

me: sound since.

Jen: waking up everyday late, having breakfast at 5PM...

Jen: don't drop acid before the canoe slalom. 

me: or you'll be in trouble.

Jen: you'll be okay for the first waterslide and then BOOM you hit that first ROCK and you WIPEOUT, go fucking OVERBOARD, and you're waterlogged. underwater.

me: it's pretty cool tho, both meanings.

Jen: yeah it's like if Splash Mountain was a sport.

me: in my dream i'm up on stage doing those sad Michael J. Fox monologues from Family Ties. we're all cramped inside a stuffy sweaty shoebox theatre black on all four sides, one corner, small stage, tiny stage, one white lightbulb for a spotlight. the audience is crying and so am i. 

Michael J. Fox: and then i stand up from the audience to give you an ovation. and everyone turns around to look at me and we all feel a little better.

Cecilia Phillips: and then i stand up in my GOLD RHINESTONE DAZZLING dress all bedazzled and tight and showing off every one of my 1039 curves and we all feel a little better.

Jen: i had a dream where i was at a record store and Prince comes in to see me, to come on to me.

Prince: oh honey you have no idea of my powers.

Jen: but all Prince wants me to do is buy some old CDs.

Prince: buy this pile of CDs for a penny, honey.

me: aw don't be sore, Prince is the ultimate catch.

Prince: i reject ERRYBODY. the only person i ever hit on was Michael Jackson.

Jen: Amoeba Records is the only place a true lovematch can occur.

Oliver Stone: read the reviews of JFK before they disappear...

Pepperidge Farm fucking Celine from the Before Trilogy: if you're gonna have a cookie have a cookie...

Julie Delpy: in France a cookie is a galette...

Julie Delpy: i don't have pancake tits.

Nike: are you a bad person?

me: yes.

Nike: no but we mean winning isn't for everyone. is winning for you?

me: winning is not for me.

Jen: you're only a good person if you lick your table-tennis paddle. hey track-runner, don't look at your opponent like that, that's not very sportsman. 

Nam from Dragon Ball: people are not competition. i have a name...

Ryan Gosling: don't you want to be Blade Runner? the one from the FAR future...

Roger Federer: i'm not scared of The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock. birds are tennis's best friends.

Target: gardeneer, a gardener who's a Three Musketeer.

Kristen Wiig: there were four. 

Jen: yeah i go to Safeway only to get a Starbucks, not to shop.

Uber.

woman: first night in Chicago, first date in Chicago and i got stood up.

Brooke Trantor: and that's how Chicago pizza was born.

Peggy Bunker: you can't find love on your own...

Billy Corgan: it gets worse here...

John Belushi: that's why i moved to New York. my medical coverage wasn't the same, one day i went to the office and they told me Dr. Mark Greene had retired early...

Suzy Lu: come on, don't i get credit for matching my hot-pink eyeshadow with my hot-pink jumper? snip decision, that one was good and that one was mine.

every office building in the '80s: grey vases with LONG REEDS...

Mardith naked with fans: my fan dance will release your loaded march...

the witching hour: nothing good happens at a club from 3AM-4AM...

Gladyce: ...

Doryce: except me shaking my witch booty.

Talia: it's scary when you sneeze, don't you love me?

me: i will love you forever, cat allergies be damned!!!

Gary Kildall: yeah i mean of course i'd rather play professional baseball in 1910...

me: i'm in the magic forest and there is no magic. the magic is gone. the magic is long gone. i mean look at that unicorn flitting over there on that gingerbread hill.

Sunny D: that is so Enigma "Return to Innocence."

me: but i can grab the horn off that unicorn or rather horse right off, it's glued on. i can see the glue from here.

Sunny D: don't do that. is it corn or horn? because it's unicorn not unihorn. your hand has been through a lot of disappointment recently. get your hand to cheer up: drink some iced tea, eat some nut ice cream, throw the frisbee around.

me: Ultimate Frisbee is only played on college campuses. i wish i could go back to Berkeley. lay off my jock, Modesto!!!

Jen R: i want a motorbike.........just for that cool black license plate...

Dr. Robbins: you think you'll just get over your husband in the Seine after a few therapy sessions with me in a brown room? a couple non-couple therapy sessions? move on with your life? you'll be in a culvert the next week.

Lucas from Lucas: you only get ONE SHOT...

Indiana Jones: i'm searching for Element 120.

Madame Pons: but why at a LUSH shop, handsome stranger?

Indiana: they told me it was expensive eyeshadow.

Madame Pons: that's Sephora...

bum: i'm not a bum. i'm the guy you always see inside Starbucks at the corner window on the laptop writing my novel. i'm a writer. i type 11 words a day. trusty laptop with the skateboard and Enya stickers. i'm the next Stephen King with a beard...

me: dad? come on now, what does it mean?

dad: what.

me: the coin-shaped piece of cardboard on the asphalt...

Vince Coleman: your first baseball card...

slimy cucumbers: they're still good.

Doryce: don't i know it. they're my life. they have ruined and blessed my life.

Nok Hockey: if table tennis can be a sport, Nok Hockey can be a sport...

Suzy Lu on ScotRail: come on, no jokes. i'm no skinny minnie as you can see, i'm here waiting for Aeon Flux and i ain't scared of her. 

Twilight Zone "Extra Innings": may we speak to Kevin Costner?

Kevin Costner: what.

episode: um, Field of Dreams much?...

donut: you only get one of me when you do the grocery shopping, as a reward for doing the grocery shopping.

Australia women's rugby team: what the FUCK happened to us?!!!...

fencing: a fast sport? no, a slow sport, every single attack gets video-reviewed...

Super Mario: a shrooms sport?

Rege-Jean Page: i'm on the French fencing team. France Fence? really hope doing this is the audition tape i need to get back on Bridgerton...

Roger Federer: en garde. alle. jump up and down, HOP like a mad rabbit on the fencing strip. be quiet, it's like tennis...

me: the final insult. when night falls.

Sunny D: no pixie dust?

me: no pixie dust. no pixie lights. no light of any kind. just wet leaves. no warm otherworldly glow from neon fairies in the trees that lets you know everything is gonna be okay, that there are other forces at work!!! just a spooky silence. it's so dark, cold, scary........it's the worst place you could ever be.

 

JFK: OLIVER STONE'S ART OF GAUZINESS

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THE FUTURE IS SCARY: NICKNAMES AND LANGOS

 

Gruffi Gummi: why am i so angry all the time? maybe it has something to do with the Gummiberry Juice, why aren't there pot gummies in it?

Chris McLean from Total Drama: what's the tiny burlap sack around my neck on my necklace? pixie dust to keep my neck muscles from bulging...

at Bard College.

Chevy Chase: you, you, and me, we could be the first really strong citizen scientists.

Carl Sagan: Bill Nye, not you.

Olympics: what's in the Olympic Box? movie posters. 

Quentin Tarantino: the reason America went to shit is people stopped collecting movie posters. and LONG incense sticks...

Maestro Kyle: i didn't teach Layne Staley to sing, i taught him how to use his voice to express his DEEP pain. Ann Wilson was already an accomplished opera singer. i taught Cus D'Amato how to box.

me: i'm not gay, but i'm attracted to David Hogg...

David Hogg: right?

Tony Hawk: kids, always listen to your parents. but how'd i get so cool in the '80s? halfpipe.........both meanings...

me: i feel it. i feel it in the air. i feel it in my bones. there's something missing. something FOREVER LOST. 

Jen R: surely you can retrieve it. go on a quest and reclaim it. in this we pray.

me: may such a magic forest exist.

Jen: i know you're trying real hard at this.

me: i just want the perfect nickname.

Jen: you can't be Hard Charger with that bumfluff for a beard.

me: i had to shave it off, the monastery was whistling at me.

Jen: i'm sorry but the best you can do with that face is Kiwi Grabber.

Lindy Lenz: i'm thinking Backstop.

dad: not a lucky penny on the asphalt but two LUCKY QUARTERS, think about it...

Colin Jost: i got my surfer body at Tahiti.

Scarlett Johansson: because no one can find it on a map...

Andy Warhol: i want Cyndi Lauper to look for me if i get lost at 10PM.

Andy Warhol's mother: DINNER!!!

Fosters Freeze: Brooks Koepka?

a floating leaf of purple cabbage lands on Talia's head.

Akira Kurosawa: that's the move.

at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Celine Dion: the newspapers are saying i had a stiff performance...

NY Post headline: Stiff Performance

Spinal Tap: we know how you feel...

at a Parisian corner cafe.

Camus: why do you jog marathons, mon ami?

Sartre: because it's no fun FEELING SICK ALL THE TIME. it's better to FEEL HEALTHY even if life is meaningless.

me at my island kitchen: i'm getting experimental. i'm thinking Chicken Piccata. i get OBSESSED with ONE INGREDIENT. this week it's capers, it only lasts a week.

Lindy Lenz: is this from Islands restaurant?

rain: the Olympics will be postponed a month...

Paris mayor: it's not fair. rain makes for tastier escargot but it also turned the Seine back into a cesspool of E.coli. all that work down the drain, both meanings...

on my way: the most beautiful three words one human can say to another human.

Uber: ...

Uber: imagine a car that delivers food...

Gemini from American Gladiators: why do you need a tower for power? what is all this extra power for?

Melissa Maker: i'm Canada's Hoda Kotb!!! 

Paris Games: we're also the Canada Games...

Colombia flag: a wedding will have good luck if the chairs are wicker.

Trinity: this is my voice, not my meow. cats have a voice in this society.

Sting in a speedo: dune-racing on sailboats with wheels should be an Olympic sport.

Lume Lady: my new name for the vagina: eye folds. come on, i win with that one.

CASA: um, can i have an advocate to see if i have a good life if i'm NOT a foster kid? can you get a sponsor if you're NOT an alcoholic?

Jesus: what. during the real Last Supper i ate with the Smurfs.

Misty May: beach volleyball with the Eiffel Tower towering above us.........i'm not Pokemon.

Kenyatta: my sister-in-divorce is my sister in real life, the only woman i can talk to, we don't have Oprah anymore...

Claudine Pepin: the Olympic Anthem is being replaced with the Tommy Richman "Million Dollar Baby" music video...

Pink Floyd: surely we're doing the Sphere in Las Vegas next.

eels: eels first.

Roger Federer: what have i been doing since retirement? went down to Santa Ynez in November of 1995 with Scott and the boys.

Stone Temple Pilots: Rodge gave us a few pointers on their public courts which are private courts.

Pointer Sisters: the Williams Sisters played bass and organ.

Storybook International: the only place remaining on Earth where you can still fall asleep in a meadow in the middle of the day...

Storybook International: please let those be REAL CASTLES and not sets...

Neutral athlete at the Olympics: from Switzerland.

Mardith: a woman Olympic athlete who's a conservative? how? it's impossible. you're a fucking AMAZON, baby!!!

Carmel: the dog capital of the world.........whether you like it or not.

Noah Eagle: i got more muscles than The Terminator.

Dwyane Wade: my fingernail is blue, i love my kid.

Dwyane Wade: this whole time you thought it was Dwayne...

South Sudan: we're a basketball powerhouse. this is our 1992 Barcelona Dream Team...

Mavournee: most beautiful name in the world.........most beautiful Power Rangers name in the world...

Canadian bacon: are there drones in prison?...

maple syrup: does prison have a soccer field?...

masked horse-rider: my favorite cabinet at the '80s arcade was always the cross-country equestrian POV video game...

Sarah, solemnly with eyes closed at the Sailor Mars shrine: my prayer slip is this One Piece sticker off my lost car's bumper...

temple maiden: how do i not trip with these skirt pants?...

Smurfs: we know how to ride horses...

fencing is flirting.

Lee Kiefer Sutherland: hardcore punk band.

Minster: i'm only attracted to hermitesses...

grey seagull: holy shit!!! we forgot to make the asphalt WATERPROOF!!!...

mustard: you've never gotten the BIG BOTTLE OF MUSTARD...

trees: we're smarter than people. don't do that to us on Christmas.

Lucas from Lucas: i'm a specialist. electrical engineering. molecular engineering. pommel horse, no pressure...

me: the most gorgeous yellow lab walked alongside me on my walk this morning.

Jen: were you scared?

me: i normally would be but this dog was gentle. and big. poor guy just wanted to stretch his paws out on the beach, his frantic owner was panicking with the leash.

dog: my name is Sunny D. i'm not doing this for show, i'm here to lead you into the magic forest...

when i'm inside the magic forest, the dog is gone.

me: something is MISSING. something is LOST. i feel it in my crust. the magic is gone. the magic has vanished in a trice.

Ellen Kushner: and i'm not coming through that door. the door of this forest.

Weiland: STP was fine but i always wanted to be a monk. you're not a true monk unless  you were a Medieval monk. Medieval monasteries were the mansions of their day. i will be the monk who marries Morwen. giantess sex is INSANE.  

MARE ORIENTALE: YOUR ONE CHANCE TO MAKE EARTH 2.0

we return to the moon.

Jen R: it's such unspoilt land here, it'd be a shame if it was built. just let it be a wilderness.

Ivor Robson approaches us in a green jacket and mic. he's looking glum.

me: Ivor, she didn't mean it...

Jen: whatever is the matter, ol' boy? i used the last Ivory Dove bar in Royal Troon on my bum, and for that i apologize profusely.

Ivor wipes away a year and continues his duty.

Ivor Robson: i'll let you go...

Abby Wambach: i'm not the coach of the Canadian Women's Soccer team. i never needed a drone to win, i shut out the droning voice of all my coaches and used my head...

Common Side Effects: thirtysomething + Weeds + NYPD Blue as a cartoon...

Pete Sampras: the biggest clay tournament i ever won was Rome.

Boris Becker: not the French Open?

Sampras: i always had to play Nadal...

Boris: you beat me in Rome, the surface was like the Moon. you beat me at a very strange time in my life...

Pete: how's the prison tennis court?

Boris: it's watered by inmates like Wimbledon.

Charles Barkley: what the hell am i gonna do on TNT now?!!! I HATE HOCKEY. the only movie they show is that stupid Avengers thing. i suppose i could start gambling again.

Joe Biden: for the saving of democracy i pass the Olympic torch.

Jake Tapper: the blonde on this panel STILL LIKES the dude with grey hair.

Univision: don't take the Bump Pledge!!! come on, we're Mexico, we don't give in to scare tactics.

Norrish Creek hermit: i don't need a gun, i'm a hermit.

Minster: you are NOT coming with us.

Leslie Sbrocco: one day.........a restaurant featured on Check Please will later be featured on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares...

Jaws: i love eating out charcuterie...

Ear Horn: how are you doing, dearie?

Eye Luggage: i'm well, mom, thanks for asking.

Ear: Mike + the Mechanics "The Living Years."

Eye: yeah, "as well as you hear," "eye to eye," this is OUR song.

Vanquish Mode on Instagram DM: when your message like your headache disappears once the label is seen...

snail: i'm not becoming escargot, i don't care about the Olympics. i'll jump off your plate if i have to. you gotta SLOW DOWN in life...

snail: you gotta make love SLOW...

Westin: need to jog in a forest? do it out of a hotel...

Mike Tyson: their heavyweight beds.

Daft Punk: we should do a cover of the "put you on hold" phone song...

Less from Mr. Maldark's class: the yellow arrow, this traffic-light direction is impossible to follow...

bear: this isn't a bear costume. i'm a real bear. i gaze along this tree-lined mountain range from the S-curve of this mountainpass freeway, thinking about how Existentialism can be applied to bears.........and picnic baskets...

Jen R: i'm gonna DoorDash a coffee. just this one time this morning on the moon...

Jackie Fitzgerald: my new man wears a Pizza My Heart shirt.........but he doesn't surf. there is no perfection in this world, ladies.

Safeway employee with the monk beard: why can't i push Skylar around with my words telling her what to do in the morning? because i push a mop in the afternoon?...

Jillian Barberie: i'm a better dancer than Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson never won a Gold Medal in Breakdancing at the Olympics.

Michael Jackson: yes i did. i would have. you scrawny bitch. it's called Breakin. growing up my brothers and i played lawn hockey.

Sonic Youth "Bull in the Heather" music video: scared you to death. it was spooky. you watched it late at night on 120 Minutes.

Kim Gordon: that shaker instrument. art school gave me a mean furrow in my brow.

Matt Pinfield: that music video frightened me so much i called my mom from the radio station asking for milk and cookies.

Fonzie: motorboating is an Olympic sport. remember in the '80s at McDonald's when you collected all the stick-figure stickers from all the Olympic sports? it was in Los Angeles that four-year. why wasn't i in Jaws?...

Minster: monks love music, it helps us get through the pain of another barren day. our favorite song is Depeche Mode "Personal Jesus."

The Hat world-famous pastrami sandwiches in Alhambra: we're not In-N-Out Burger...

Sailor Mars: best job in the world after priestess? sleep consultant.

Gabby Bernstein: the Om only works if you're in the middle of a Manhattan street during rush hour but the whole area is abandoned like the covid years.

Julie Patzwald: nightcore is not goth. daycore is actually scarier.

Trent Reznor: i was born to fight the dark forces of plunderphonics.

Dr. Rick: why is learning History so boring?

Rick Steves: because you need money to travel...

Martina Navratilova: i fell head-over-heels in love with Pete Sampras the first time i laid eyes on him. 

Chris Evert: his serve. Pete's sublime serve mechanics and impeccable timing.

Martina: with the man. he was never late to our dates. he hated cars.

Jen: you loved him in mid-air. you fell in love with him AS he was serving...

Shelley Duvall in Paris at a cafe wearing a beret: French cigarettes are Shelley Duvall cigarettes. those thin cigarettes the Existentialists smoked.

Martina Navratilova: i wore Sally Jessy Raphael glasses on court that somehow never came off when i played tennis.

Sally Jessy Raphael: except yours were blue...

me: me especially, i need to take Vitamin P.........for balance...

Lindy Lenz: we could have a Zoom date but it takes place right during the Olympics Opening Ceremony.

me: see that's the thing...

Pee-wee Herman at the Olympics: the athletes coming out on boats was my idea. i taught your kid French. French toast.

Wes Anderson in a Louis Vuitton bellboy hat: i'm handing out the Olympic medals in Paris...

the Hunchback of Notre Dame: Paris is not the city of love, it's the city of the threesome...

Bruce Willis: other ways for the athletes to enter: submarine...

Matthew McConaughey: train.

Liz Phair: jetpack.

Ethan Hawke: i'm at the Opening Ceremony in the river, where are you?

Julie Delpy: at home in our house under the Eiffel Tower with our twins...

John Lennon: don't worry, the horse rider across the water isn't The Apocalypse.

Kurt Cobain: from the muddy banks of the Seine.

Michael Jackson: i was the masked horse rider...

Smokey the Bear: wait, the Olympic Flame will float in a hot-air balloon for a month?

Lindy Lenz: that's a fire hazard...

Smokey the Bear: this whole Olympic Opening Ceremony was like an episode of American Gladiators...

we come back to cheer up poor Ivor. i hug him.

Ivor Robson: it's just.........my dream was to be a hotelier...

Jen slapping Ivor's back wearing a golf coat with elbow pads: you'll do your dream justice, Ivor ol' chap.

Ivor: i want to do right by the Fawlty Towers. not Cleese that bastard. the others who were always so kind to me, a stranger lost on a golf field. i'm gonna have the most scrumptious hotel guests: David Gilmour, Robin Hood...

Robin Hood: the fox one, the good one.

i take a moment to eye out our new land, our new home, in the bitter quiet of space. and my blessings.

me: the Moon. and my two beautiful Baltimore bases.........moonbases...

Jen: i can't believe nobody snatched up that $2000 car and left it to us!!! i mean REALLY, Carmel...

Lindy: TAP TAP TAP, i'm waiting for my dinner, make my dinner, Joshy Boshy.

me: the sweet strains of domesticity.

the three of us by a moon campfire.

Lindy: it's hella chill here.

Jen: this is where all chillwave music comes from...

me: so i'm thinking Fosters Freeze, i've never had crinkle fries delivered to the house...

 

 

 

MARE ORIENTALE: OLYMPIC BREAD

 

me: well shit we're on the moon.

Jen R: relax, this is where you've always wanted to be.

me: i mean maybe? what is there to do here?

Jen: see those two spiders forming a family over there on that hole?

me: this warms my heart, i saw a spider on my shower screen, i turned my head and he was gone. i felt so bad, i thought my friend the spider had died.

Freud: you're just avoiding human relationships.

David Bowie: meet the spiders Statler and Waldorf, they are my masters.

me: there was a BIG-ASS SNAIL WITHOUT HER SHELL on my shower screen!!!

Jen: did you feel so bad?

me: i wanted to do right by her, i scooped her up into a tissue...

Jen: that is so symbolic of you and women.

me: and i scooted her outside.

Jen: but where'd you LEAVE her?!!!

me: in the dirt next to our parked $2000 car. i figured the asphalt was a no-no, too hot in summer. dirt is cool, right? both meanings?

Martha Stewart: ...

Jen: you should have left her in the GRASS...

snail: yeah, give me some pretty flowers to look at, live in, and make a family in.

Jen: you see the grey morning dove perching in the night light of the moon? 

mourning dove: call me Billy. the surface of the moon doesn't exist, it's all one big sponge...

Jen: we gotta go back. we gotta get supplies. and by supplies i mean BREAD.

Jen grabs me by the ascot and throws me in the backseat. she rolls all the windows down in this lunar atmosphere so our car windows just look like holes. 

me: this car so filthy it needs a carwash.

Jen: no man, it's misted by a lunar waterfall in the sky. can't you smell the air?

me: it smells like cheese.

Jen: i'm lowering the boom.

Jen lowers the lever on the LEFT turn-blinker and waits.

we appear in the Safeway parking lot.

me: that's lucky.

Jen: skill. let's get one of those LONG baguettes the length of a grocery-store aisle for Olympics-watching, i wanna eat it IN ONE GULP like in cartoons.

me: don't eat all the food now, we won't have any for the Opening Ceremony and rugby.

Rigby: i was on that Zom 100 Akira Tendo's team. it's hard to believe but i went to college for this...

we make a left at The Bagel Bakery.

Jen: wait a second, you can't fool me, you're talking to a hardcore Marylander here. with a sensitive palate. and a swirly palette. let me have one more free sample.

blonde mean Ms. Frizzle: sample not a whole bagel.

Jen: where are these from?

blonde mean Ms. Frizzle: the California wheatfields. amber waves of grain.

Jen: nah, these are Towson Hot Bagels!!! i ate these bagels when i was a kid, when my parish priest still cared. well at least your delivery trucks have taste. okay, bread shopping over.

at the motel opposite Safeway, David Bowie is fucking Skylar. Skylar turns her head to speak with him.

Skylar: shoot your cum in my mouth. i'm embarrassed about my face freckles.

David Bowie: am i doing this right?

Skylar: you can only cum if you do me anal...

at the same motel one door over, Gwen Stefani is fucking Ed from the band Live.

Ed: i turn my head...

Gwen: don't speak.

Jackie Fitzgerald: if the new guy's giving you a shadowbox, just make sure YOUR shadow doesn't end up in his box.

Trent Reznor: i hear that, sister. we're closer because of this.

Steejo: wanna go on a date behind Kakashi's back?

Suzy Lu: do you have the Hurling Channel?

Steejo: strangely i do not...

Kakashi: it's okay, Suzy, experiment with Steejo, see how he tastes, see how the other side lives, Naruto Shippuden is coming to an end after being on the air for 100 straight years, it's time for me to branch out, it's time for me to get with Lupin III...

simurgh: i'm dating Pete Davidson.

Pete Davidson: it's not a true French Onion Soup without the pulled cheese.

simurgh: that's the move. what happened to the Egg in a Hole at Taco Bell?...

simurgh: know why the Smurfs always won? Gargamel never found me...

simurgh: pulled cheese prevented a cold war.

Dr. Noonian Soong: pullable cheese is what separates us from the robots.

Pete Davidson: i should play Data in the reboot...

simurgh: the phoenix has lost its luster, not exotic enough.

me: can you zhuzh me up for my high-school prom at age 60?...

Popeye: i should have named you Egg in the Basket.

Swee'Pea: Denny's tacos, think about it...

David Bowie: who had the better bucket hat?

Akira Kurosawa: you did.

David Bowie: imagine me as a jazzman.

George Michael blowing a sax: ...

Boy George: "Time" is the greatest song of all time.

Jen R at Cannery Row: nighttime drunks are mean. you gotta join in with them to be safe, become one with them, become a drunk, at least fake that you're drunk with them...

Takahashi: you've never been to the fancy swanky side of Oakland...

Rubikon: try the gumbo ramen.

Takahashi: have you ever eaten at a museum restaurant?...

Andy Warhol: yup.

Joe Burrow: imagine Eminem swole...

AYSO: but we're all volunteer coaches...

500 seagulls: hear all the birdcalls? it's a colloquy of cackling, a squawk box, a family get-together, a San Diego comic con. Sand Diego.

Hyde: morning call...

Eddie Murphy: a family barbecue.

Jack Tripper: only in San Diego, the only place on Earth to get happy about.

Jacques Pepin: soak the stale bread in water and put it in the toaster.........wait that can't be safe...

David Foster Wallace: i'm either encyclopedic or crazy. Fosters Freeze has lousy meatloaf.

Earth: quick, get to the Moon!!! my rotation is off, i'm slowing down, i can't control it...

Jules Verne: there's a McDonald's down there in the Earth's core with Land of the Lost Happy Meal toys... 

Burger King: we finally have a pink drink!!! Pink Sprite.

Dr. Dre: that's not...

McDonald's: do we have a strawberry shake?...

Dr. Rick: weather can be exciting...

Jim Cantore: if i'm in this commercial.

Dr. Rick: no, you bring everyone down, your generator commercial is dull as dirt. let's get Maria LaRosa in here for soccer highlights and Stephanie Abrams for the interview and Jen Carfagno to explain dew point.

woman: new flood alert in Louisiana!!!

Dr. Rick: that was Katrina. you suck.

Puck: there's a 40% chance the rain in San Francisco will fall as Windex...

Progressive whistleblower.

Jamie: can i get a lozenge and a spotlight?

Michael Stipe: "Losing My Religion" is about drinking too much purple drank in the South...

the two of us go back to the moon and the mare not on Mars for our picnic and watch party.

me: think the moon has good reception?

Jen: less expensive than Peacock. this place is giving me strong E.T. vibes. i had an E.T. foam finger growing up.

me: that thing ballooned. in value price on eBay. 

Jen: film is my only sport. and this E.T. knit cap from Universal Studios in the '80s that i'm putting on my head now.

me: goes perfect with your pink grandma sweater. which i assume is knit.

Jen: i don't wear it to keep warm, the Moon isn't cold, it's just.........here. 

E.T.: you wear it to attract me to you. i'm NOT asexual. to show you're one of those hardcore E.T. fans. and to attract Steven Spielberg, showing him your script for the sequel...

Jen: i wrote the first three pages here, turns out E.T. is a flower...

Lindy Lenz wearing a cute astronaut bubble around her head joins us.

Lindy Lenz: speaking of bread, ONE PANCAKE from Denny's feeds a family of 11 for a week. 

Jen: Baltimorer to Baltimorer, high-five.

Lindy: do you know why San Francisco sourdough is so pungent? skateboarders' angst as yeast.

Jen: they let it all out when they go down those MASSIVE WIDE downhill streets.

Lindy: like tissue bread. when they rise, they can't be stopped, they overflow their tin bin.