despite the serene surroundings, i am awoken by my own night terrors. i scramble to Cloris and Botic's room and clutch on Cloris's frilly holey nightgown open in the heavy night mountain air.
Cloris: what's troubling you, darling?
me: i can't sleep. i have a recurring nightmare: it's always the first day of school but the setting is different. but i'm always terrified, filled with dread, i don't wanna go, i'm scrambling to clank open the cupboards to find lunch: brown-bag peanut-butter sandwich and a leaky milk.
Cloris: i'm not a psychoanalyst but i am a mother. you're not scared of school or learning, you're scared of getting on with you life.
me: which means going back to school.
Botic: son, now don't you worry about food. our cupboards are stocked like a motherfucker full of bread and peanut oil.
me: can i give you a mountain-bear hug?
Botic: sure. let me get my pajamas on first.
me: my whole life my bedroom smelled of old people.
Cloris: you were YEARNING to have the stability of your grandparents by your side to show you the way. they fought all those wars so all you'd have to do was watch TV.
Jen R: it's those brown-sugar candies of the Greatest Generation which smell of security.
Cloris: nobody knows how to find their way. i was a lost soul of the Lost Generation but i found my footing when i accidentally discovered the fashion trend of wearing socks with your sandals. now go on in there to the other room and have some fun...
the best part of Yu Yu Hakusho: the haunting sound effects.
Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz are eating watercress sandwiches with Caroline Appleby as Caroline is driving down the highway in the Beverly Hillbillies car.
Caroline Appleby: see? watercress is the healthiest veggie of them all, my whole life has been redeemed.
Lucy Ricardo: so we're supposed to ex-voto your ass? give you a milagro votive and pretend you're not a cheap skank, our bridge partner, and our friend?
Ethel Mertz: Caroline is annoying but she's such a great person. i like eating borrowed cups of sugar.
Lucy: i only eat Taco Bell, you Florida bitch. they do Taco Bell right in Cuba.
Caroline: i'm chippy and cheery to hide the fact that i've been in a loveless marriage with my butler for 30 years. all i've got are these watercress sandwiches. with NO apple slices in the middle.
The Twilight Zone "The Fall".
astronaut: this is 2001: A Space Odyssey if there had been more people.
Anthony Bourdain: why couldn't my search have led to another planet?...
astronaut: what's my mission again? i don't know, all i know is Barrett has one of those fucking SOOTHING voices.
Barrett: everyone in the village wants to fuck me. i'm like the Amish Smurfette.
Molly Qerim: my Cat Paw is deadlier than when your cat paws at your computer wire...
Super Mario: you know what i want for Christmas? one of those long flat silver steel things on a pole that pushes all the recyclables in your bin down.
Luigi: tool for a tool.
Tricky: pusher for a pusha.
Gladyce at The Treehouse: can we PLEASE get dishwasher gel pacs that don't fold up like a MAD Magazine Fold-In at the back cover of the magazine?
Suzy Lu: i changed my profile pic on my YouTube channel, i'm not sexy anymore, i'm married.
Molly Qerim in L.A.: when i flick your ear that's my dekopin.
Stephen A. Smith: i watch anime.
Trinity: it's not that we don't like water, but we built a cool Catmobile that goes underwater.
Talia: a submarine. it's a submarine for cats. a cat submarine. a catmarine.
Trinity: all for the love of Friskies.
Boc: it's not true that i only walk, i run, too, i run across the highway for my life. when i get home i stretch in front of my neighbor's house, under the guise of stretching i show him my butt in the morning.
Jules Smith: you need to read this book.
me: Max Porter Shy. i'm too shy to read it.
Jules: i can't emphasize enough how much i want you to read it.
me: okay okay it'll be on my doorstep tonight. DoorDash raids libraries, right?
Michael Weiss: i don't get it, look at my face, i INVENTED avocado toast!!!
Julia Ioffe: i will only eat avocado toast aboard a Boeing.
Michael Weiss: from my undercover reporting.........it's hopeless.
Julia Ioffe: look again, there's one Boeing that has a Denny's inside it.
me: i'm excited.
Jules Smith: to read it?
me: that you're talking to me again.
Jules: you like his style?
me: i do. it's like mine: prose as poetry, jumbled up, jangled. trying to find the connection between two disparate thoughts. word shards.
Jules: the words on the page is itself an oil painting...
Bjoern: omg i need that Dodgers sombrero!!!
John Travolta: disco dust.
Pepper X: i'm so hot i've killed people.
Brad Pitt: like Angelina Jolie.
Pepper X: we're in KFC chicken, right? that's one of the secret spices. one of the Eleven. hot herbs. but herbs are supposed to be mellow...
Scooby-Doo: Scoville is my son.
Shaggy: i'm the uncle but i forget to babysit...
W.H. Auden: if you're a poet, you're single...
Martin Yan: why when i pour sesame-seed oil around my wok the oil spot always ends up the shape of a cock?
Leslie Sbrocco: because you're looking at me.
Leslie Sbrocco: dear Martin, i want to have your babies.
Martin Yan: wait, woman, hold your horses, i saved up enough New Year's cash to go on that Claudine Pepin cruise.
Leslie Sbrocco: can i use those red boxes for my shoes?...
Edgemont: you want to get into Edgemont, you want to qualify to get into Edgemont that mysterious enticing Canadian high school.........but it's just not Degrassi...
Jen and i are fucking in the next room.
Jen R: are cabin walls thin?
me: they're logs. it's been so long since i've done this, how many times do i spank your butt?
Jen: no more than 9 but not less than 3...
me: Alan Watts's silk sheets are giving me a terrible CRAMP!!! the pain is UNBEARABLE!!! Alan's silk sheets have TRAPPED my shins!!!
Jen: do you want me to stop riding you?
me: no, it's the perfect balancing-out of pain and pleasure.
Jen: after this i'm gonna design a time machine with a shag-carpet interior.
me: imagine an entire Doctor Who season set entirely in the 1970s...
this is your default Denny's: get the four cute tiny toasted BLT sandwiches with the toothpick spearing each sammie, bread cut diagonally.
Coolio: the green foil and the red foil of the party 'picks, motherfucker. it's other-level.
Encino IHOP in the '80s: spaghetti & meatballs in that blue stoneware tugboat saucer...
me: i'm stuck in the '80s because i'm stuck on the '80s.
Rachael Ray: paella. okay? just focus on the paella.
Lorne Michaels: watch Uzumaki instead, i get it, i understand, it's an election year but who cares about SNL?...
Robert Crumb: what are we collabing on?
John Waters: let's do the live-action Mr. Natural. i'm playing Mr. Natural naturally, i took like him.
Robert Crumb: we look exactly the same.
John Waters: i seriously doubt you can grow a Gandalf beard like that. i have that yellow robe in my closet.
Robert Crumb: who the fuck owns a yellow robe? i always wanted Santa Claus to have a long white flowing beard...
Suzy Lu: McVitie's.........i know, McTitties.
Muchova: much love.
PBS: all our new shows are only in the summer...
Lupin III: Prison of the Past.
Zenigata: in college when everyone else was being popular with Ultimate Frisbee, i was learning how to toss the mini frisbee around.
Jen R: the art of flicking Werther's Originals to hit elevator buttons.
Goemon: isn't this that same Leonardo da Vinci flying machine?...
Lupin: it's 2019, safe spaces are very important to show in anime and the real world.
Jigen: my gun is Lupin's gun from Lupin Zero...
Fujiko: there's another woman here who is me with my voice but no chest...
Michelangelo: and the king in this Lupin movie is literally my God...
God: the cruelty of this world never ceases to amaze me...
Baloo: this is Disneyland Autopia with the Sea Duck on the surface of the ocean.
Fujiko: the Rules of Anime have been preserved, a female is only strong when she's going up against a man fighting him one-on-one...
Jesus: you're just gonna throw away my Morning Prayer like that?...
Codrus: where do you get in line to get those vigil lights?...
Christmas Eve at church: a really cool candlelight vigil...
Trinity: where are the mice? i can't see any mice!!!
me: i am so sorry, Trinity, this is the undue burden placed on you for being my cat, me the Doritos-eater.
Trinity: i'm going to San Marino to play soccer.
Alan Watts: i gotta get outta here.
Botic: breathe, Mr. Wattage, you're safe here.
Alan: sorry, i know that my itchy nerves are tainting these woods. there's too much love here, you know? i gotta find my own love, my own way, i gotta get back to the world, gotta get back to restlessness. i must explore the world, sleep in the unguarded palaces, the hidden holes, the swamp lakes, the alleyways with the cats. you two have set a fine example and for that i am forever grateful. thank you and i took all the tobacco. dad, can i borrow the car?
Botic: sure, son, let me gas up the ol' bird with my love.
Alan gets behind the wheel of the Liver Birds double-decker bus on the limestone roof.
Alan: i haven't driven in a decade.
Cloris hugs Botic with one arm and waves to Alan with her other arm. the two proud parents stand together at the front log door of their cabin seeing Alan off.
Cloris: drive safe, starshine.
Alan: how do you start this thing? how do you move this thing?
Cloris: how will you know when your search is at an end?
Alan Watts: my dear woman by the winds of the world rustling my ballsac.
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