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.
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