THE CHILDLESS CONSIDERATION: STEVIE NICKS AND GARRY SHANDLING

 

Stevie Nicks is meeting Garry Shandling for coffee at Bonus Beans.

Stevie Nicks: i was set up. by friends.

Garry Shandling: they're not your friends if they set you up. 

Stevie: Mick says we have a lot in common.

Garry: we have one thing in common: we both don't want to have kids.

Stevie: how's Tom Petty in bed?.........just a test. this coffee tastes like i'm drinking maple syrup...

Garry: my career has stalled. i was riding high on the Larry Sanders Show for SO many damn years i started coasting. but all good things come to a cancel. i decided to venture into soaps.

Stevie: everyone moonlights once in their life. did you audition for that thing where Drake Hogestyn and Deidre Hall took a week off Days of our Lives?

Garry: YES!!!

Stevie: in joint solidarity to extend their contract dispute. they were looking for replacements for John Black and Marlena Evans. McVie said i'd be perfect for Marlena but they said i was too short.

Garry: yeah they said i was too handsome to play John Black, i had a face for television.

Stevie: Drake Hogestyn looks like my father so the love scene got weird.

Garry: it's soap sex, it's two people in bed fully-clothed under sheets. 

Garry: i got a limited opportunity next come my way to write for a limited series: Will Smith as a detective who solves physics crimes. called Quantum Entanglements.

Will Smith: they wanted me to say my catchphrase each week: "spooky action at a distance..."

Stevie: the industry says i'm too old to be sexy anymore.

Garry: and YOU'RE getting older, too...

Stevie: i was left to do stunt promotions where i sing "Landslide" at actual landslides during search and rescue operations. which became recovery operations. i mean there are real people suffering down there buried in the rubble. i'm not about that in my life.

Garry: that is such an Earth Mother thing to say.

Stevie: the only mother i'll ever be.

me: you cannot expect me to just drop my soulmate.

Jen R: i know. but we can't talk anymore. you berk.

me: that insult cuts deep. hits me more than anyone else, me a student at Berkeley with one year to go...

me: let's just keep continuing going on strange adventures.

Jen: okay...

Jen R: this is the reverse of how it was for you before.

me: parallel symmetry in a spiral in space where time does not exist.

Jen: when you were crying in Jack's Bistro, wringing your hands and hemorrhaging love plans when you thought you had lost me forever. you'll never see me again. back when you saw Seen 1 Hr Ago and it was the death knell for you. that was my last communication to you for all of time. this morning you saw Seen 1 Hr Ago from me and you REJOICED...

me: see? YOU saw me pick up the lucky penny, right? so the luck will transfer to me, it's official. i have a witness...

Morgan Bolling: the Hurricane Helene flood and wind damage is devastating in my hometown, it's our Katrina. but i can't help. all i can do is Asheville barbecue. North Carolina has the prettiest trees but they're all hazards. i can swim barefoot...

Pam Hiltunen: lifelong decisions don't last...

Stevie: i suggest we each watch the complete series of The Kids of Degrassi Street on VHS and see if we change our minds about kids. 

Garry: box sets scare me, i break out in hives. always having to do the next episode, you know?...

Stevie: Lindsey thought this meant he was having kids with me but he was most mistaken.

Garry: savage. your place or mine?

Stevie: neither. i plan to watch this in the library...

Garry: cold sugarless tea, i don't know about this place anymore...

Stevie: you can go your own way.........alone.........until our next date...

Ms. Pie: a cat as sweet as Lindy Lenz herself.

a head of lettuce: salad? there was no salad in the '80s, there was just a head of lettuce...

The Twilight Zone "The Mind of Simon Foster": is it just me or does this have a The Lathe of Heaven on PBS vibe to it?...

me: what to do for dry itchy butthole.

Boc: anal sex?

me: no, just a sore butthole.

Abbot Butt: prunes. Holy Water. a couple of those LARGE calcium tablets in the tabernacle. a LONG-ASS Communion loaf with smelling salts and paprika baked in.

Father Navin: right? why does the Communion wafer have to be so bland? make it taste more like a poppy-seed bagel...

rq: real quick.

Jules Smith: right quick in Britain.

Melissa Maker golfing: the Royal Montreal Golf Club staged the Presidents Cup.........and i emphasize STAGED, it's all fake.

Spalding Gray: yeah, who the FUCK cares about the Presidents Cup?

Justin Fashanu: when you turn on the telly and see the pitch of a soccer match going on, you have NO WAY TO TELL who's the home team...

Premier League soccer trophy: the best use of ticker tape...

the Pringles Man and the Cheetos cheetah, Chester, are at Fordham University in the dorms.

Chester Cheetah: we can't keep doing this, man.

Pringles Man: snorting rails and stealing wallets? 

Chester: i was a student here, man, i'm the janitor now.

Pringles Man: i can't stop. i must pop. i have a problem.

Chester: no more dorm parties, man, no more weddings. 

Pringles Man: just funerals.

Spalding Gray: i don't get the whole Moo Deng thing. where were all the rabid Ravi crowds for ME in Thailand? a pygmy hippo? i have bouncy jelly rolls, too, want me to take off my shirt? where's MY soapy bath?!!!

Willem Dafoe: ...

dad: the dead dad in Uzumaki, his giant face framed in the clouds all Zardoz up in the sky, his cremation smoke is a spiral. it's not scary, it's reassuring, it proves he's still around...

Daria: Daria reference in the volleyball scene...

Grover: when the eye rolls back into the spiral in her head it's like that 123456789-10-11-12 pinball Sesame Street thing...

Adventure Time: that spiral was just our snail...

Will Smith on the set of Quantum Entanglements: i'll keep it a buck. don't throw in the towel, i was Muhammad Ali you know. South Park lost its influence a LONG time ago. the best beans are not baked in Boston...

Leslie Sbrocco: the whole of the Gentlest Valley is rich in.........i can't remember what the line is, i really do need that glass of wine...

Leslie: i'm gonna try making wine out of these cocktail tomatoes.

Jackie Fitzgerald: don't you be disrespecting my cherry tomatoes, you doughnut. these cherry tomatoes were hand-picked by my big-ass Malamute dog Frozen Frank Sinatra.

Leslie: Cherry Tomato was BOTH our nickname in culinary school...

Jackie: don't you be badmouthing all over town. have some respect for yourself and my veg.

Leslie: your vag? tomatoes are fruits, like all your men. fruits like all priests and nuns.

Jackie: use my cherry tomatoes in a salad, don't boil them and drown out all their taste in some spaghetti sauce.

Stevie: so? what'd you think? The Kids of Degrassi Street.

Garry: interesting. Candy as a male name?...

Garry: if it wasn't for that stupid kid with that stupid war helmet on his head, Ida's student film would of COURSE be about garbage not war. her mom was a milf. remember when everybody had a Raggedy Ann doll in 1979?

Stevie: when the grade-school crossing guard suddenly dies of a stroke before Griff has a chance to draw that caricature of him, oh my heart. reminded me of when i tried to finish a song for a friend who had cancer. and then one of the kids, one of the MAIN CAST, just dies, i mean that was the moment Canadian television went DARK.

Stevie: so why no kids?

Garry: i have very fucked-up genes. no child should be forced to SUFFER the pass-down of my genes, you know? you?

Stevie: overpopulation. i know i know, Earth Mother.

Garry: has anybody ever told you you have this gypsy vibe to you?

   

BOBBY DRISCOLL: LOST BOY FINDS HIMSELF THEN DISAPPEARS

 

by now Bobby Driscoll is a Vanquish junkie.

Bobby Driscoll: i take so many Vanquish pills i don't know if i hurt anymore.

he lives on the dirty streets in the alleyway a block away from the Factory. under a homeless blanket. 

Bobby: did everyone forget about me? one too many Factory parties, i got a concussion. my adult art didn't sell...

Bobby: i remember the last day i interacted with Andy Warhol...

Andy Warhol: Bobby boy, be a dear and get me 6 bananas from Dillard's.

Bobby: i don't remember much after that. did everybody forget to remember me? i remembered THEM. i staggered into the local South Bronx McDonald's and encountered the Bowery bums.

Bowery bum leader: well lookey what we's have here. a wanderer.

Bobby: he did not say "wanderer" the way Andy Warhol said "wanderer." i proceeded to explain to him how Robin from One Piece's boobs were, like, REALLY big even for anime standards but he was having none of it. the Bowery bums stuffed my mouth full of McDonald's fries till i blacked out.

Bobby Driscoll: later that day i was never seen nor heard from again...

Bobby Driscoll: no one ever found out where i went...

Jen R and i arrive in Manhattan and Jen immediately leads me to the Garment District.

Jen R: look at these open-air bazaars!!! i could get lost. more lost than i already am. 

me: what looks good on me here?

Jen: that gold sparkle dress.

me: i'm not gay but i'm going to a Broadway show so i need to be wearing a dress, you know? are we going to Hamilton? i've never been to Hamilton.

Jen: HELL no, we're going to Broadway Beetlejuice of course. are you dressing up for Halloween?

me: no, my life is scary enough as it is.

Jen: have you completely forgotten what it's like to have fun in life? my costume this year will be Tommy the Green Power Ranger, he's my hero. as a tribute to Jason David Frank. though on me it's gonna be somewhat silly.

me: simpler times.

Jen: remember that one Power Rangers special that occured on a Wednesday? Tommy hadn't been seen for 10 years, but he was gonna show up in a guest role here to open up the next season. it was the 15th anniversary or something. Emma Lahana was in it. it just burrowed into my deep well of soft nostalgic warmth.

Emma Lahana: the last time i really worked.

Raul De Molina: i'm the Spanish Regis Philbin...

Andy Warhol has been invited to speak at the Heritage Club.

Andy Warhol: you know that thing when you first crack open a new can of soup? the salange, that long yellow line of savory seasoning, the soup sea cucumber, i eat just that and don't bother cooking the cold watery noodles. thanks guys, thanks for listening. the Heritage has really become my third place, you now? i'm enjoying these steaks you serve here, with the crisscross of char even though they're ice-cold and raw, just the way i like 'em. the McDonald's in Queens, they know me there, they don't do meat like this, you know? not a decent dupe. i'm off to my interview for Musee Magazine in The Village. i'm doing the interview on an Apple Macintosh 128K computer, that thing is ALMOST as cute as me. that computer should NEVER become a mass-produced assembly-line monster, it's an original.

the OMC guy: i would have lived if i had done the music for Power Rangers...

a couple of the Power Rangers: not necessarily...

the OMC guy: how bizarre how bizarre. not life, life is very straightforward.

Spalding Gray enters the McDonald's in Staten Island and starts to kick a soccer ball around the place. the ball hits all three walls.

Spalding Gray: wanna see my sketches? they're not Crumby. i'll be discussing the last of Swimming to Cambodia here. McDonald's maitre d', corner booth.

Spalding Gray: don't look at the rushes, unless they're of Tom Cruise. Buddha was a woman. a woman named Marilyn Monroe. the best part of my little monologue was the Laurie Anderson music. 

Marilyn Monroe: i was the Buddha babe...

Spalding Gray: i got an idea for the scene. pay me the $30,000 now, let's not do the scene here, and i'll redub it in New York. it'll be like an anime without the crickets...

Spalding Gray: i mean a tuktuk is fine but it's impossible to get a normal Greyhound bus ride in the world anymore. orangeade is if Tang was purple drank. orange drank. there was nothing on the beach: no flotsam, no jetsam, no Jetsons.

Spalding Gray: it's kinda funny how i joke about what ends up being my actual end?...

Jen R: riptides. it wasn't drowning, it was riptides. easy solution, don't get in the water.

Spalding Gray: you can only understand God when you're bobbing up and down a GIANT WAVE in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.

Fuerza: that's scary. i'm the perceiver AND the perceived...

Athel: is there a cooler name than Athel?

Oldcorn: not as cool as Oldcorn.

Athel: what's it like coming from Jerusalem, Rhode Island?

Spalding: i don't know if i see Jesus or i'm hallucinating...

Spalding Gray: i know what killed Marilyn Monroe.

Marilyn Monroe: i wanted my perfect moment.

Abbot Butt: after the WEIGHT comes the WAIT...

Pati Jinich: worse than a dead avocado pit is a hairy avocado.

Jane Castor: and you thought gilfs were a thing of the past...

Jane Castor's girlfriend: Gulf gilf.

Jane Castor: i make castor oil. in my body. i cast my Castor net to find a mate.

Jane Castor: i didn't take any of that cocaine i found fishing. i'm old enough to remember Scarface, don't eat the profits...

Trinity: when you put in the new kitty litter in my box, it's like when you crack open a new tub of Parkay butter, that one ocean wave of butter CRESTING in the center.

Mary Poppins: a spoonful of sugar helps the margarine medicine go down.

Shirley Valentine's adult daughter: see, mum? see what Poppins is on about? sugar helps medicine and cocoa. 

Shirley Valentine: wown?

Dirg: girl, i'm always available.........for you...

i'm at the Safeway coin machine with dad's lucky penny.

dad: it's a coin machine not a con machine. the penny is processed, the luck has landed, the equilibrium is exchanged.

Skylar: i wanted it to be a cone machine...

microwave: it's a sauna in here. i could light a cigarette without a flame in this hotbox.

Trinity the cat: it takes a couple days to cut my nails...

Melissa Maker is in Times Square.

Melissa Maker: it was so great to triumphantly return to The Keg steakhouse where i used to work as a hapless dish bitch as the Martha Stewart of Canada i am now and order the expensive char steak i used to dread schlepping. and some Caesar sliders.

Sliders: the sci-fi show, not the tiny cheating burgers.

Jerry Seinfeld at Monk's Cafe: we tried to do a Seinfeld on the High Holidays but NBC didn't want it about weed...

Le Corbusier: i did all those Storybook International thatch roofs...

Banjo Man: Oakland Coliseum, rip out the seats and take them with you!!!

Le Corbusier: now THAT is Brutalism.

Kevin Conroy: Batman: The Animated Series was Brutalist architecture and brutal romance.

Banjo Man: sad history, the Oakland A's. fathers and sons. no more fathers and sons...

Rickey Henderson: i stand before you this afternoon.........the greatest of all time. i am the fiercest gladiator who ever did baseball battle here in this arena, Oakland Cathedral.

Banjo Man: it's like that BIG-ASS bottle of calcium pills. you try to take it out of the pantry and the bottle is SO TALL it gets stuck on the roof of the pantry...

the Boy Meets World Reunion is meeting in the Chrysler Building.

Ben Savage: i support Maitland Ward's porn career.

Maitland Ward: i mean, your name...

River Phoenix: My Own Private Idaho is Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure but serious...

Maggie Smith: they called me an undeniable dish. 

Nigella Lawson: will you stop with all that, you little bitch? i'm sick of your sass. i'm the dish around here. the double dish. quit your whinging, you batty bitty.

Maggie: at least call me a daft lass or i hit you with my hat.

Nigella: i once served Downton Abbey my dog's dinner. i can be a real bitch. there is no magic in this world except my spaghetti.

Bobby Driscoll gets up on a ledge in Brooklyn.

Bobby Driscoll: look at all those iron-bar balconies below, so West Side Story. the toothbrush really STICKS to your teeth. I'M GONNA FLY LIKE PETER PAN!!!

as he jumps, he sees himself in the future.

Bobby: yeah, you see me up high like this in the sky. i'm demonstrating the player in the beach trunks and bare feet and no shirt, hot sand between his toes, he rises up, jumps up, flips over and with his foot hits the soccer ball over the volleyball net.........cool wind breeze of the sea.........seagulls.........i invent footvolley...

 

 

BOBBY DRISCOLL: WARHOL HAMLET

Andy Warhol: well here it is, the Factory. 

Bobby Driscoll's eyes for the second time have stars crushed by Andy Warhol's silver rocket as penis fueled by the charisma emanating from Andy's white hair.

Bobby Driscoll: i never thought i'd make it to New York City.

Andy: it gets boring after like a day. you're now part of the Factory, son.

Bobby: this is much better than being nothing.

Bobby: what are you working on, sir?

Andy: the Shirley card done in my trademark array of all the colors of the rainbow, except i'll be emphasizing the DARKER colors...

Bobby: where'd you come up with the whole silkscreen thing?

Andy: i ran out of paint.

Bobby: i draw a bit but i'll never be as good as you. 

Andy: your relationships need nurturing. the relationship between your art and you especially. don't uxi duxi your life, be free.

Bobby: i plan on marrying my art. i need to go to New Orleans.

Gladyce: unless it's a life of magic, always strive to live magic, dear wee boy.

Andy: when i talk of classic i mean nostalgic...

Jen R and i are at the Greyhound depot in Kansas City.

Jen R: you get the tickets to New York City, i'm lounging in that black amusement-ride seat there, the coin-operated TV and ashtray.

in the lobby of the Greyhound depot Billy Corgan plays his guitar. his tin cup for coins is wrapped in his two warm long scarf tails. the vibration emanating from his electric guitar causes the depot to shake like a subway. he plays "Settle Down."

Nina Gordon: that song is just Veruca Salt's "Spiderman '79"...

two hours later i talk with Jen again. which is a blessing. she's sleeping as usual.

Jen: i couldn't get Portlandia on this thing so i had to settle for watching Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. which isn't the same without a cigarette. get a pack for me at the McDonald's across the street, would ya hon?

me: the strangest thing just happened to me. i rode the Greyhound bus from Kansas City back to Berkeley and back again with these two highschoolers who said we were blood brothers because we were busmates. they wouldn't leave me alone until i bought them a case of Coke. i mean it wasn't beer, it was Coke, so i couldn't say no?...

Jen: they were hustling. like you need to be hustling in your life. everyone has a side hustle, bub, that's just the facts of life. good you were nice about it or you could have gotten killed over Coke. 

me: what a way to go out.

Andy Warhol: where you from?

Bobby Driscoll: Cedar Rapids.

Andy: oh do you know Gary Kroeger? we all worked at the McDonald's in Iowa. Gary would wake up before the sun because we're all gonna die.

Gary Kroeger: someday. it's a weird thing when you're that young, a college student, your age, Bobby, the future is unknown, scary. all you can do at the time is trust in whoever the fuck your friends are at the time.

Bobby: i wish my dad had taught me how to do cool Saturday Night Live skits like you, Mr. Kroeger.

Gary: where's your dad?

Bobby: Never Never Land. 

Andy: Gary's situation is not like that guy from The Cosby Show who HAD to work at Trader Joe's because his showbiz career fizzled...

Abbot Butt: you are not gonna BELIEVE this. you can't enter the monastery.

me: i'm an applicant. 

Abbot Butt: we don't accept anyone over 45.

me: i'm 46...

Abbot Butt: missed it by THAT much.

me: this makes no sense.

Abbot Butt: religion makes no sense.

me: you say you want candidates for the monkhood who have lived a life previous, outside, a self-sustaining life, another career, so why couldn't a man get the calling when he's 60 years old after he was in the Army?...

Abbot Butt: oh yeah and make sure all your student loans are square before coming here. we monks hate debt.

me: thanks for reminding me, i haven't thought about my college loans in 20 years, i often wonder who pays them.........are they still a thing at my bank?...

Brother Bede Griffiths: how do you feel now?

me: strangely liberated. a great WEIGHT has been lifted from my enrobed shoulders. i'm fucking FREE for the first time in my life. it's like getting a life sentence to prison but the sentence is instantly expunged because of a technicality. your age restrictions are weird. aren't monks old men? why wouldn't you admit old men?

Bede: the monastery is just another retirement community. including the communal hot tub.

me: anyway, you're still my hero. can i shake your hand? you actually lived the life the rest of us can only dream of.

Bede: i wanted a quieter life. AND I FUCKING GOT IT. i was a teacher. but I hated kids. then i was a psychiatrist. talk about shit. talk therapy is NOT your friend, the years and years and years and years of noise pollution i endured from my patients, my talking patients talking about their problems. tried my patience. i tried to help my patients but they were all lost causes.

me: what was the last TV you ever watched before committing to the monastery?

Bede: the pilot episode of Good Morning, Miss Bliss on VHS. Zack Morris wasn't a creep in those days...

me: i haven't felt this good in 45 years.

Abbot Butt: what are you gonna do now?

me: get a job? what's a job? 

Abbot Butt: we became monks to escape the system.

me: it's weird posting your video resume on Instagram...

Bobby Driscoll: people say you can only save yourself.

Andy Warhol: this is true. but people told you that, so people saved you.

Swimming to Cambodia.

Spalding Gray: life is short, but don't rush into marriage...

Spalding Gray: these monologues i do are IMPOSSIBLE. how the fuck do i do these? with one spiral notebook and a glass of water i memorize LONG stretches of stream-of-consciousness from a couple key words? endless passages of thought. 90 minutes?!!! monologues are supposed to be 10 minutes long!!!

Spalding Gray: it's impossible not to get bitter as you get older. as the disappointments add up, as every single one of your expectations are dashed, as your dreams die, your melancholy mounts, it's impossible NOT to become a shriveled-up old man.

Spalding Gray: OCD isn't some cute thing on TV and in the movies as depicted by that idiot Howie Mandel. OCD is how i depict it in this monologue. it's unnerving. it's relentless. the door knob needs 3 turns. KLM radios were Johnny Fever's favorite. the only good news nowadays is the stock market. wait, wasn't OCD a band in the '90s?...

Spalding Gray: so the sitcom i auditioned for was for a show called Three's Company. they said i was perfect for Jack Tripper because i'm a porn star...

Spalding Gray: blueflake cocaine, that's how they make the flavor Blue Raspberry...

Spalding Gray: it was up to me to explain the Khmer Rouge to Americans. i was supposed to be in Thailand for the Candle Festival, the happy use of candles...

Thai Guy: remember me?

Spalding Gray: sure, Crespi in the '90s. i taught you Spanish and tennis. i couldn't wear those gangster pants you wore, i have chicken legs.

Thai Guy: i saw on the tennis court, Senor Pink. you were bald back then...

Putin: Mother Russia? Father Russia.

Spalding Gray: the people will rise up and overthrow your ass. with a toilet-paper roll as a submarine periscope. ambivalence is still a human tone. Pete Davidson will defeat you.

Spalding Gray: a windoor is every window in San Francisco. i only counted 1 elephant...

Babar: a tourist will never understand history.

me: can i shake your hand? you're my hero. 

Spalding Gray: what's your favorite part so far? the Thai whores?

me: yes, just the part where the warm brown Coca-Cola in a shower douses all over me...

Spalding Gray: how am i gonna memorize these lines? sense memory, easy for an actor. wait, what does an oscillator look like?...

Jenifer Langosch: Ashley Parker can't throw a curveball to save her life. i'm the baseball babe.

Ashley Parker: honey, look at me, look at my curves, i got the spit that makes all the balls fly. 

David Bowie: Let's Dance. no, seriously, if humans danced all the time there would be no wars and no political parties.

Costas from Shirley Valentine: can you do souvlaki in the air fryer?...

Melissa Maker: three words: dead olive pit.

Babybel cheese: look at that cow, that cow is laughing at YOU...

Robert Louis Stevenson: if you get a postcard in your mail about pirate gold coins from Florida, toss it.

Jim Cantore starts dancing in front of Hurricane Helene.

Jim Cantore: i like the way you move, i like the way you move...

Jules Smith: i'm a woman, not your depot.

Bobby Driscoll: soup break?

Andy Warhol: there's always room for soup. what's the soup of the day?

Bobby: andouille soup. it looks like the surface of some strange faraway planet in outer space, the type of pulp science fiction you should be illustrating.

Andy: no YOU. take a look at this.

Bobby: isn't that Starry Night?

Andy: yep. look closely at the spirals. what do you see? not Uzumaki.

Bobby: the hidden clear-air turbulence. Van Gogh wanted to be a hurricane hunter.

Vincent Van Gogh: i wanted to invent the airplane. missed it by THAT much.

Andy: that's very good, you're getting this.

for the first time in his fucking life Bobby Driscoll smiles.

Andy Warhol: you know when you get that new toothbrush after a long time? and you put it to your bleeding gums. it's so HARD, it SCRUBS all the tartar off the enamel of your teeth. 

Bobby Driscoll: that ingrained layer of plaque as stubborn as your style.

Andy: each tooth HURTS. hurts for the first time in a long time. you wash your mouth out and your spit is all silver. THAT is what art is.

   

 

BOBBY DRISCOLL: LOST BOY

 

in the Kraft Hour Theater studio in Burbank, Bobby Driscoll is finishing up his 70th Peter Pan television show.

Bobby Driscoll: i like Peter Pan, but i'm outgrowing the role. i'm not a kid anymore.

director: how old are you, son?

Bobby: i'm 18.

director: the time just flew by. where's your dad?

Sharon Tate: a baby born in Huntington, NY, is not the end of the world...

Jen R and i are at Berkeley.

Jen R: picture this: our homework is done and the night is still young. crisp autumn chilly first night of Fall. it's Saturday night and the feeling's right. we take a late-night pedicab three-wheeler to San Francisco and that new jazz club that just opened up on the bridge. there we take in Del the Funky Homosapien's spitting his free verse all night long. 

me: are you trying to seduce me?

Jen: with the indie hip-hop poetry? 

me: with the cold. will there be Thai stick there?

Jen: i'm assuming.

Heathcliff: i mean i don't really sound like Heathcliff, i really just sound like Bugs Bunny...

Cleo from Heathcliff and the Catillac Cats: look at me, i'm wearing leg warmers, i will forever be of the '80s, i will only live in 1984 and 1985, isn't that wonderful?

in the theatre opposite the studio, across the Burbank paved twin-road, Spalding Gray is delivering his Swimming to Cambodia monologue to a bunch of college potheads who don't want to be there.

Spalding Gray: sanuk was Thailand's Family Ties...

Spalding Gray: sanuk was when your father was trying to tell you about I Ching but you weren't listening...

LIVE!!! from the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, the Oscars!!! the Academy Awards, whatever, the floor show. here to present a special award, college senior from a Methodist school in Montana? am i reading the card right? looking spiffy in his new orange pilly A&W varsity letterman sweater, Andy Warhol.

it was love at first sight for Bobby Driscoll when it came to Andy Warhol. the young man enchanted on the up-and-coming artist's vibe. Bobby's stars in his eyes were crushed by Andy's balls which were planets.

Andy Warhol: so here's your Honorary Oscar. i guess. this is a shit prize that signifies nothing but whatever, take it.

Bobby Driscoll: you're my hero, sir. i don't understand your art but i'm a fan of your freedom.

Andy: do you like being Peter Pan?

Bobby: no. i hate the rat race of being a child actor. 

Andy: don't worry, kid, it won't last long.

Bobby: i want OUT. i want to do something meaningful as an adult.

Andy: don't flame out, be a flamer like me. Peter Pan is a sissy, i hate him. 

Steejo: you're not religious?

Suzy Lu: what gave it away? my church wedding that was really a Final Fantasy wedding?...

Lauren Bacall: put your lips together and blow.........on your hot cup of coffee...

me: i'm having anticipatory dreams.

Jen R: me too.

me: like i'm seeing the Kardashians and Kim throws water in the mom's face to shut her up.

Kim Kardashian: we're not THAT type of reality family. we're not trash. we have class.

Jen R: in my dream i'm already seeing the new cast of Saturday Night Live Season 50. that one girl who's always contemptuous of young pop starlets. like her deal is in all her skits she hates Olivia Rodrigo for no reason. her trademark is the folding of her arms in a huff.

Trust the Climb: not at The M Den...

Ned: but maybe at Ned's Bookstore...

Kaiser Permanente: i guarantee you our nurses do not give a FUCK about what show you're binging...

Gaza/Israel: why can't this just be about city planning and not religion?...

Thundarr the Barbarian.

Ariel: i'm the companion who loved Earth so much i studied it for fun. i wish i could go back to the '80s...

Ariel: i'm an insanely impressive person. but Thundarr is too ragey to notice.

Ookla: Ookla notice Ariel's smarts...

Laertus at The Treehouse: i don't mind having our recycle box be an empty box of Depend undergarments...

Andy Warhol at Costco: how do you OPEN this damn thing?!!!

Costco soup: the container is patent pending...

Spalding Gray: Julian Sands and i are brothers. biologically. 

Julian Sands: we're the last two straight men in New York City.

Spalding: sorry about how you ended.

Julian: sorry about how YOU ended.

Aunt Cork: no, Spalding, there are no Santa Cruz rollercoasters.

Uncle Russ: the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is trash.

Spalding: i'm sticking to that good Northern California marijuana.

Anthony Bourdain: i'm Spalding Gray with the travel stories but with none of the humor...

Maila Nurmi: i thrive best as a morning-talk-show guest...

D'arcy: how on EARTH did you not take any drugs or drink this whole time?!!! how are you still here? how are you still standing? tall. how are you surviving?

Billy Corgan: just doing the songs is enough for me. to get me by. to sustain me. to heal me.

Jimmy Chamberlin: bullshit.

James Iha: you've GOT to be drinking something.

Billy: Irish Breakfast tea.

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn: pleasure to meet you, sir.

Will Lyman: holy shit.

Mary: you are a legend, your baritone voice is better than mine.

Will: but my voice isn't sexy, it's scary.

Steve Blum: can i shake your hand, sir?

Will: two waters, waiter. water for the lady?

Steve: how do you achieve your resonant voice?

Will: lye, man.

Dirg: there's nothing i can hold onto here.

Mardith: are you looking at a model's tits on Instagram again?

Dirg: intellectually.

Mardith: sure.

Maila Nurmi: i dedicate Plan 9 from Outer Space to you.

James Dean: that doesn't make me feel better...

Hammered Cream: Batman as a porn star...

calcium pills: fun to take.

Todd Eldredge: i choke at the Olympics and i choke as Peter Pan...

Bobby Driscoll: you're my understudy?

J.D. Souther: never smile on album covers, you don't want strangers approaching you.

Spinal Tap: ...

Kurt Cobain: is there ANY album cover where the band is smiling?...

Jen R: Brooklyn Supreme.

me: the pizza?

Jen: the horse.

Fermat: she's got the greatest breasts i've ever seen, you know? her boobs are a mathematical vibration. she solved me and her tits are fucking WATERY.

Leslie Sbrocco: Calistoga is a drunk name. tipple is peanut brittle. Old Faithful geyser, i wish people had been faithful to me. mud pillows was my last successful honeymoon. volcano wine is my huckleberry. here's volcanic mud in your eye, sipper skipper. did you know that all the bedrock in The Flintstones was cocaine?

Leslie Sbrocco: hey buck, if you live in California, don't wear a cowboy hat, it's weird.

Leslie Sbrocco: yeah i'm Jean Harlow. Dinner at Eight, wine o'clock, i did the pairing..

Skylar at Safeway: why can't everyone be cashiers? it's math and you save your back. let robocops do the heavy lifting of moving heavy crates of wood in the back.

probiotic: not prediabetic...

fog: Filet-O-Fish mist.

Alan Watts: i won the Nobel Prize so i must be right.

Dr. Robbins: did you win the Nobel Prize?

Alan: i mean i think i did. yeah, i did, right?

Humphrey Bogart: you want morbs? "As Time Goes By," THAT song is morbs. Moroccan morbs.

Judi Dench: we can't have British morbs, stiff upper lip.

Lily Collins: yeah i didn't know they were Phil Collins songs, they were just my memories of lullabies from the womb...

Mike Tyson: and then you started having visions of me...

Bobby Driscoll: um, Mr. Warhol?

Andy Warhol: Mr. Warhol was my father. we didn't get along.

Bobby: aren't Oscars for movies?

Andy: don't sass me, boy!!! it's for that television movie of Peter Pan you did or some shit, right? that wrapped up Season 3?

Bobby: i don't remember.

Andy: don't shy away from the darkness of life. leave all this Hollywood artifice behind and come to New York with me to do real art.

Bobby: um, YES?!!! wow. it sure was lucky you happened to be my Oscar presenter. i never dreamed it'd be like this. got anything for the pain?

Andy hands Bobby two Vanquish pills.

Andy: my white wonders. they cure ALL pain. well all physical pain. mental pain is still tricky to conquer.

Bobby was enthralled. for the first time in his life an adult wasn't bullshitting him about life.

Andy: well how about that, you're the reverse Holden Caulfield, you little bitch.

 

THE ANIME AEGIS: COWBOY GHOST

 

Steve Blum: babe, come over, let's sit on the rattan couch, Alan has something to show us.

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn: i love our wacky houseguest.

Alan Watts: can i call you mommy and daddy?

Mary and Steve: yes.

Alan: thanks i was wondering. my bio dad left me to become a Catholic priest. so you know when you wake up in the morning and your mouth is full of yuck?

Mary: gingivitis gunk.

Steve: my teeth are always yellow.

Alan: you rinse with mouthwash to feel CLEAN. it's the same with your dishwasher in the morning, it's waiting for you to turn it on.

Mary: with sex?

Alan: so it can experience that same clean-mouth feeling.

Steve: i feel you, brother. this could be our next joint anime, babe.

Mary: i see it all now, babe. gel pac as dishwasher's gel toothpaste. one of those trippy-as-fuck animes that only come out of Osaka.

Jen R: Cap'n Crunch for dinner.

me: yeah. cereal is the four food groups. Choco Crunch just tasted like tiny chocolate chip cookies, very unoriginal.

Jen: Christmas Crunch is STILL in my stocking.

Jen: Punch Crunch was Flintstones-vitamins-flavored...

Olivia Nuzzi: the Thwaites Glacier tho.........he doesn't have much of a face but Kennedy is still a name, you know?.........never met the guy, sexting is not a "relationship"...

Simple Minds "Sanctify Yourself": same sort of vibe as Toto "Hold the Line."

Steve Blum: i have to thank Toto, Gummi Bears was the cartoon where i really cemented within myself i wanted to voice for a living.

me: i KNEW there was a reason i have a starmap connection to Toto, they formed on my birth year in Van Nuys!!!

Dr. Drew: do you have a license?

Dr. Robbins: do you?

Dr. Drew: i don't need a license, i'm an entertainment doctor in Hollywood.

Dr. Robbins: i'm a shrink in Carmel.

Dr. Drew: it's all the same thing.

Valley of the Dolls.

doctor: this is a new crackpot disease from Huntington Beach...

Sharon Tate: what about you? 

Tony's sister: Tony's not really my brother, we have different fathers...

French man: hey, there's no pornography yet. we use terms like "measurements" and "undraped." sex scenes are still in the dark...

Dr. Drew: so it turns out pills don't go down with water...

Patty Duke: how are you gonna get out of my pool, you little tramp? best to stay in the pool, i don't want to see you naked.

husband: she makes my cock 9 inches tall i mean she makes me feel 9 feet tall.  

agent: come on, Neely, you know you can't eat during the making of a picture!!!

Patty Duke: hey, no bar bawls with me, mister, I Dream of Jeannie there in the back will save me.

Jim Cantore: i remember in the '80s, lightning storms would flash, thunderstorms would rumble, but the power never went out, no power cuts in the San Fernando Valley...

Valley of the Dolls.

San Fernando Valley: we don't want to be associated with these dolls.

Judy Garland: yeah i got fired. I'll Plant My Own Tree up your ass. i don't care, i joined the band Toto...

Leslie Sbrocco at the sanitarium: um, Patty Duke, that is NOT a mud bath...

Patty Duke: why am i so surly? stupid-ass nurse!! they put me in an oatmeal bath but it was a bad special effect with the canvas.

Patty Duke: never play checkers in the sanitarium, dangerous sport.

Sharon Tate: don't worry, they were just a couple of Hot Tamales candies...

Patty Duke: i'm a lil stinker.

Internet Archive: 69 cents pound chuck roast. there was still a chance back then to turn it around. 50 years of moral decay. of course the kids today don't see it, they're kids!!! just like we were the kids in the '80s!!!...

Patty Duke: Jennifer, where are you?!!! that would have been the most powerful line to end this movie on...

me: why are my windows ten feet tall?...

Jen R: you are in a lucid dream right now...

Mark Hapka: it's 6:11 AM and i'm at a 7-Eleven about to go in on a breakfast burrito...

Jim Cantore: flood warning tonight, no rain.

Abbot Butt: Saturday-morning silence...

Luke Russert: it's more like granny yoga than gilf yoga, you know?...

Tai: political stars, the politicians or the news anchors?...

Fuerza: mom is everyone.

hot dog: it's not rotten, it's relish...

Billy Corgan: a pickle in your hot dog, very Chicago.

Boc: also, my favorite.

Jackson Browne: "Somebody's Baby," the song used in the episode previews of Sailor Moon...

Kelly Slater: remember Wet Seal at the mall? 

Bethany Hamilton: contempo casual. all the clothes were silver for some reason.

Kelly Slater: why was surf wax called Sex Wax in the '80s?

Bethany Hamilton: i guess you could also use that gloop in bed.

Fuerza: Battenberg cake is proof i want you to have a good time at church...

Boc at Sharper Image: the silver desk balls hitting each other back and forth on a string, set of six, very Zen sex.

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn: how's everybody enjoying the cloud eggs? honey?

Steve Blum: they look like something out of Cloud City from Star Wars. i like my eggs cloudy, honey. 

Jen R: so cute!!! i'm doing these for my next dinner party.

me: there are 260 ways to prepare eggs.

Alan Watts: i like poached eggs because i need to be in a water bath.

Swig: religion created this drink. the divine created this dirty soda. this is Mormon Mountain Dew. this is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' purple drank.

Isaac Newton: Newton's cradle should be called Newton's Balls.

Mozart: ...

Kim Cattrall: mannequins to the moon? nice try trying to get rid of me, Sarah Jessica Parker...

Banksy: yeah, let's bring back the vernissage...

Suzy Lu: daily Dragon Ball will be the death of me. but it's delightful.

Steejo: why is this your life?

Goku: don't worry, Suzy, i'll save you...

the morbs: melancholic nostalgia.

toilet paper, tissue, paper towels: the trifecta.

Greykid: i have carrots in my lobster wet-treat, you have carrots in your soup. 

me: but are your carrots coin-cut?

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn: i'm tired of the rat race of anime.

Steve Blum: i'm glad i caught your tail. want me to nibble your cheese?

Mary: Steve i want us to do indie anime out of here in Hawaii. i'll set it up. 

Steve: what will our production company be called?

Mary: Cowboy Ghost.

Steve kisses Mary on the lips but he misses and hits her teeth.

Mary: the greatest thing the two of us ever did was not grow up.