CRESSET: THE FIELD IS NOT BORING

 

 

me: i have to admit it to myself, i am relieved. i can't be a monk. this green field is so QUIET. and so EXPANSIVE. there's no beginning. no end. no points. like the Swimming to Cambodia sea. it blends with the blue sky above forever.

murmurs. i start to hear faint murmurs coming from a distance. it takes me an hour in this eternal expanse to twig that they're coming from the library i just left.  

Judy Blume: come back to the library.........this is your only chance to make a difference before it's too late. the library is not the ovary, they're banning books. they're banning books, that sucks. the ACLU is against book-banning. remember freedom of speech?

Margaret: i'm not an atheist, i'm just interfaith!!!

Theo Huxtable: remember when the only thing we had to worry about was a bad shirt? don't worry, i'll just wear my ACLU shirt from now on.

Bobby McFerrin: dinna fash yersel. not a Scottish curse.

Suzy Lu: or curse word, a Scottish swear.

Bobby McFerrin: do the fish dinner yourself. the Oster Regent theatre only accepts actors who are retired, they're the only ones who have time. do you know what you should do in retirement? nothing.

President Biden: it's NOT the lead pipe but it is in the conservatory by that saucy Mrs. Peacock. i saved music programs in this country when Congress stalled and stooled in them. not just piano, flute.

Spalding Gray: GET BACK HERE, ASSHOLE!!! you forgot my Detrola Bakelite radio. it's the only way to hear Bud Collins call the tennis match on radio. 

Mr. Kotter: i stole that radio for my apartment heater during winter. but Spald got me back good when he mentioned me in a monologue...

i have to admit, the field is quiet.........TOO quiet. there's nothing to do here, there's nothing HERE. i stare down at my crumpled fingers, an hour later i get REALLY thirsty and a cup of coffee appears in those fingers. the cup is stone, with the Stussy S in Roman mosaic. you can't tell when night falls. there is no sun, no moon.

after a while a robot John McEnroe trudges along the field, slow and deliberate, dragging his toe across the line.

me: this green grass does evoke Wimbledon.

John McEnroe: the lineman problem is solved. but can you and the world handle me as a robot? you'll want me back as a human, there's something lost here.

me: your cynicism isn't landing as well.

John McEnroe: my humanity isn't showing anymore. underneath was my warm humanity. this is just John McEntoe.

The Lathe of Heaven, 1980, PBS.

Margaret Avery: i'm not Lisa Bonet's mom...

Freud: i had a dream i was a monk. i was chomping a cigar as i rode a horse down the monastic stone staircase.

Abbot Butt: we won't let you in, No Smoking.

Spock: that damn doctor just did a Spock on the guy's neck!!! there's no smog in Canada. this is Portlandia in the future.

Axl Rose: this movie inspired the "November Rain" and "Don't Cry" music videos... 

William Hurt: some Altered States pre-Colombian dream rituals. dream-sharing is allowed, it's 1980. 1980 was the year of goodness.

Dr. Haber: i'm making the world right. i'm voting for Kamala, tell that bureaucrat that. 

George Orr: jokes on you, doc, i don't like Belgian waffles.

Lelouch of Code Geass: now you know...

monks: overpopulation, never heard of it...

Bruce Davison: this movie was filmed in the abandoned Sherman Oaks Galleria...

Lucille Ball: your red hair is not like my red hair.

Conan O'Brien: ...

Conan: we gingers have hard lives, to make up for it we're actual leprechauns.

Lucy: we're both funny but not in the same way.

Conan: i'm pasty, your skin is like alabaster, can i touch it to feel its silky smoothness? what do you use?

Lucy: cocoa butter. we both got freckles on our butts.

Max Weinberg: i play the bongos.

Lucy: let's have some wine.

Conan: you do not want to see my King Kong feet.

Ernest P. Worrell: i drank all the varnish, now i gotta take Vanquish. Vern's face looks like the Worrell spiral from Uzumaki. 

Vern: i was ashamed to show my face around town. i gave up my standing to be your friend. and i'd do it again, that's how much i love you, Ern. when you talk about Ernest Goes to Camp with your classmates, they'll have no idea what you're talking about, and your teachers will give you strange looks.

Ellen: "The Puppy Episode"

Sailor Moon: yeah but we were doing that stuff in the '90s, too, WITH MEN!!!

Silver Millennium: Taj Mahal on the moon...

me: in my dream...

Jen R: not a Lathe dream that changes the world.........literally.

me: my precious cat Trinity gets out the front door. but he's teasing me, he doesn't run off into the street or to the next neighborhood, he stands on his paws and dances like Garfield the cat on the sidewalk.

Jen: he's hustling. he doesn't want food and water anymore, he wants lasagna and Abu Dhabi turkish coffee.

Melissa Maker: meet the makers. no, not Chad. local Carmel artists...

Fuerza: it's not about me...

Jean-Luc Picard: sunny but cold, think about it...

Bjork: "Ride a Black Swan" should have been called "Ride a Black Zwan."

Billy Corgan: i don't want to think about the Zwan days.

Bjork: your life and times...

Ringo: it should have been Aquamarine Submarine...

Corkscrew Cafe, Carmel: no wine here, it's a brothel.

Doc Harris: you're gonna have to wait for the next Dragon Ball for my next snarky recap. but i don't have to wait to run Snake Way...

Suzy Lu: if you want me to achieve orgasm, you have to do the Kamehameha Wave at the point of climax.

Steejo: ...

Suzy: it's not enough just to have kickboxer muscles.

Kakashi: i know how to Kamehameha, it's an old ninja technique, we all learned it in anime school.

i spend years, decades, centuries in that field. the quiet is both blissful and eternally frightening. 

me: i need SOME noise, the noise of a video game played once during the day after school.

soon i see the faint outlines of the First Level of Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo greybox.

me: i should know my way around pipes.

i get to the first Bottom Level, with the aquamarine-blue bricks.

me: that green pipe is a trip to go down.

voice: it's green for a reason.

the entire basement is cellar-to-ceiling french fries.

i make out the faint outline of.........omg it's BombPoppie!!!

me: BombPoppie!!! where the fuck have you been, girl?!!! i was SO worried about you. i thought you did something to yourself. when you don't hear from someone.........when they just STOP being on Instagram after 30 years.

BombPoppie: all the french fries you sent me via Instagram through the years, they didn't make me happy.

me: yeah sorry about that, i had nothing to talk to you about after you stopped making art.

BombPoppie: listen to me, mister, if it wasn't for hiking i wouldn't BE here right now!!! 

me: did you talk to Pacita?

BombPoppie: no. 

me: she understands Crumb in a way i could never. did you go on that date i set up for you?

BombPoppie: that guy was a turd, he spent the whole first date talking about BlueChew for 9 hours. next time YOU ask me out so i can reject you, it's more satisfying that way.

me: i'm tired of tits, i just want my friend back.

we hug for eternity. 

BombPoppie blushes for the first time in her life. she's a very stoic person you see.

BombPoppie not breaking the hug, slitting a smile: you still always got me with your constant "STREET TACOS!!!" DMs to my Instagram.

all the french fries turn into Taco Works chips.