THE GERMAN DOCTOR: HAMBURGER HAMLET

 

 

me: don't you want to get the hell out of Salinas and experience the real world?!!!

Michael German: i did my residency in Seaside.

me: why the HELL do you still live across the street from Palma?!!!

Michael: the lingering smell of prom.

me: we're going to L.A.!!! NOW!!!

me: omg remember Hamburger Hamlet?

Michael: no.

we enter and i'm immediately transported back to the sights and sounds of my nostalgic youth: the I Love Lucy booth, the Old Hollywood B&W photos above on the wall, the Wedge salad, the horseshoes.

me: but not necessarily the smells. have you ever had a burger here?

Michael: no.

me: can't say i have either. or that i remember. it's probably gonna try to taste like The Good Earth but nothing is The Good Earth.

me: do you mind if i flip this checkerboard over this nice white dinner-tablecloth in this nice restaurant?

Michael: this isn't Miami Vice "Like a Hurricane." you gotta control yourself. not everything requires the anger response, i've been studying psychiatry paperbacks on the side. think about the candles. that would dishonor your benediction.

me: my what?

Michael: don't you wear a dinner jacket or something?

me: oh my Mr. Kotter/Mr. Serling black pimp coat!!! you're right, it is a holy prayer. it calms me before i eat winter meals.

Michael: it calms your stomach before clams.   

i kiss the Mr. Kotter notch lapel, then the Mr. Serling notch lapel. i make sure to go back to each collar side with another kiss for Julie Kotter, then a kiss for Jen.

Jen R: you're not dreaming this. but this isn't the '80s.

Michael: how's your steakburger?

me: it tastes like bacon.

Michael: i prefer the pasta here myself.

me: oh garcon. Alfredo? yes, where is my Hamburglar toy?...

Suzy Lu: yeah mate, i got a team, i got an office, i got a Scottish castle to make YouTube videos of me watching anime. it gets REALLY QUIET at night over here...

Kakashi sipping tea: quite quiet, like a ninja.

me, exasperated: fettuccine is frustrating. it's SO much better than spaghetti but the fettuccine always STICKS TO THE FUCKING POT!!!

Michael: you could try fresh fettuccine.

me, with a defeated look in my eye: that's cheating.

JUST THEN, Bud Cort walks into the Hamburger Hamlet.

Michael: Bud Cort, mind coming over to our table to be a witness to this?

Bud Cort: i auditioned for that movie. i mean i came here for the Christmas-tree fries but i guess. always take the fettuccine with red sauce, the Alfredo sauce here looks like the cum on the set of Brewster McCloud. 

Jen R: i have a dog named Bud Cort.

Bud Cort the dog: call me Bud Cort, not Bud Cort The Dog.

Michael: don't know about you, but i love it when the pasta dough gets stuck under my fingernails. 

Michael takes out a quill pen from his dinner jacket as if he's gonna sign the check. but he signs something else.

Michael: tell you what i'm gonna do. so we can all relax and have a nice meal. i'll pay for your mom's nursing home. okay? every expense. you can stay in your house, you don't have to sell the house to pay for your mom's hospice care. it'll be like if insurance fully paid for a nursing home...

me, drunk with happiness: i could kiss you. i could kiss you on your big fat Tom Selleck mustache.

She's Having a Baby.

Ingmar Bergman: that was a cool little interlude there with Kevin Bacon holding the baby and the endless nameless parade of hot-babe women models gaggling into one dressing room. and the window-blinds shade of the black lines. and the European song with the woman talking, not singing...

Kevin Smith: it was like an '80s Vidal Sassoon commercial...

Tears for Fears: that's the woman from the "Woman in Chains" music video!!!

Angela Alvarado: i'm here ringside for the Tyson/Paul fight...

at the Field Museum of Natural History. under two creepy elephant taxidermies.

Kevin Bacon: wait, you're married?

Isabel Garcia Lorca: yes. Data was a good lover. look at me, not just anyone can pull off the baggy-yet-skinny acid-washed jeans look like this. with the jeans blouse... 

Kevin: the Fantasy Girl must be single or it's uncomfortable for me. it's unethical and i want to avoid getting knocked out...

Isabelle: but MY Fantasy Guy should always be married...

Isabel Garcia Lorca: are you still in love with your wife?

Kevin: yes. notice i didn't hesitate. 

Isabel: you were too quick, that means no.

at my favorite movie location for any movie, the grocery store.

Kevin: no one's touching my balls.

random woman shopper: hey buddy, don't even worry about it, i'm a waitress at Sizzler, they don't put a sneeze guard over the salad bar...

Kevin: you called Dr. Stinky?

Kevin: this rattan swing caused my infertility. i wear Bermuda shorts now.

Elizabeth McGovern: my temperature's right, have you ever heard a woman say that? this isn't sex, honey, this is yoga.

Alec Baldwin: kiss me goodnight to prove that you ever cared about me.

Elizabeth: love is not a kiss, love is a feeling.

Alec Baldwin: haven't you ever stolen a piece of candy?

me: OH YES, at the Pic-N-Save around the block from my house on Gilmore St. in Van Nuys...

Stanley Kubrick: hey let's get another poster of one of my movies on the wall of Kevin Bacon's typewriting room other than Lolita...

Joanna Kerns: i'm named after that Kern's nectar juice, right?...

Wesley Crusher: my cameo here at the end in my rainbow-stripes grey Starfleet tunic means that Star Trek: The Next Generation is starting soon. i know, can you believe it?, they're rebooting Star Trek finally!!! i'm gonna be the star of this show for all nine seasons...

Love and Rockets: nobody ever remembers us...

Fred Flintstone: Lamaze class by sunset, so beautiful.

Stephen King: a writer driving a BMW? that IS Hollywood...

Kevin: you got your focal point? no, not the cocaine rabbits.

Elizabeth: the monad...

Jen R: d'aww, that's sweet, Kevin Bacon makes her hospital bed while his wife is away birthing their baby.

Lars von Trier: a tear of blood, very me.

Elizabeth: babe, i got good news and bad news. good news is it's a boy. bad news is his name is Lars von Trier.

Kevin: oooh, i get it now, this is supposed to be YOUR real life as a struggling Hollywood writer with a young family.

John Hughes: bingo.

John Hughes: this movie isn't bad, it's just that adults are boring.

Lead Belly: Kurt did me a favor, he made my song "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" haunting, it wasn't like that for me, it's a swinging jazzy ditty, upbeat. but it was played on the golden needle of a Victrola phonograph so it came out broken-up...

Michael Weiss: hey, don't broadcast all over Instagram that you two are a couple, it's RUDE!!!

Lindsey Vonn: skiing and sex tapes. there's more to life than skiing and sex. i wrote a snow novel.  i built Tiger Woods, who's a robot. call me the Hedy Lamarr of the slopes, the brain from Breckenridge Breakers...

Ms. Krause: isn't it depressing to see all the school buses driving down all the city streets but they're all empty?...

Whoopi Goldberg: i like to be eaten. listen, this is the only space we have left to be ourselves. BRING OUT THE WHEEL OF CHEESE!!! i still don't want a roommate.

Eddie Vedder: Jeremy from "Jeremy" is from Boston...

LeVar Burton: Trivial Pursuit is my fucking consolation prize for not getting Jeopardy?!!! i don't care, i STILL win, i lived my dream, i played myself on Futurama...

President Biden: no more seesaw, you know?...

Terrence Malick: some call me earnest...

Super Mario: don't peek out your bedroom window when i'm collecting the trash in the early morning at 4AM, it's creepy to have someone watching you do your job. 

me wearing an '80s The People's Court white neck brace: it's just as well, turning my neck like that is murder on my whiplash neck.

Neale Donald Walsch: i still haven't recovered...

Super Luigi: don't crane your neck under your Keurig machine to smell the Christmas coffee, it doesn't smell like peppermint...

Olivia from Night Court: I TOLD YOU!!! i KNEW i was doomed when the writers wouldn't write me a boyfriend...

Olivia: i still say me and Abby would have worked. me and Abby and Gurgs in a threesome. let me guess, in the first episode of Season 3 we find out Olivia left Manhattan Criminal Court to get rich...

me: i'm nostalgic, but i watch Night Court for India de Beaufort, not Dan Fielding...

Mk.gee: "Rockman".

Stewart Copeland: The Police?

Mk.gee: nope, the WKRP in Cincinnati end credits...

Billy Corgan: i trained to be a priest.

D'arcy: every musician does.

Billy Corgan: look at me, look at my goth-priest robe...

David Lynch: why did i have to start smoking at age 8? why couldn't i have been one of the cool kids who started smoking at age 13?...

Michael German leads me into the smaller room of his doctor's-office room.

Michael German: you want me to check out polyps in your mouth?

me: i think i got them from all the screaming internally i've been doing lately.

Michael: close your eyes and open your mouth.

me: wait what are you gonna do?!!!

Michael: relax, it's just a tongue depressor.........