STARTER MARRIAGE: BOBBING FOR APPLES

 

Dot and Sonny are at the Halloween party at Above The Top.

Dot: bobbing for apples is fun but it's messy. my blouse is gonna get all wet. that's what you want, huh, to see my nipples!!!

Sonny: take a look at this giant grey tin stadium-shaped horse-trough filled with dark water and always 30 red apples, never any green apples. you're not gonna see this past the '80s...

Dot: what are you supposed to be anyway? you're only wearing a black sweatshirt.

Sonny: Robert Redford as Death from that Twilight Zone episode. at least it's black clothes of a sort like a tuxedo. and what is YOUR costume? you're just wearing your regular jiggle-boob black-and-white French cocktail waitress uniform from a French mystery train. with lace. 

Dot: Clue is new. i'm going as a working actress named Gail Edwards...

Sonny: okay dollface, here's where the fun and games start. stick your hand in this blind hole here and tell me what you feel.

Dot: this is like Downtown Los Angeles when i'm with Richard Dawson. 

Sonny, smirking: feels like brains, huh.

Dot: nah, it's cold spaghetti. i work as a waitress, remember?

Sonny: this Shirley Temple is the sweetest blood i've ever tasted.

5AM: don't eat a Big Mac in the 5AM-6AM window...

Jen R: i'm going as Ann. cuffing season? nah, it's cuddle season. cuddle your soulmate.

me dancing and sing-songy: Jen is available, Jen is available, Jen is available...

Jen: both meanings. as in i'm divorced and back online...

me: Jen, keep dreaming of California till you make it out here.

Jen holding a full-size surfboard made of gingerbread: both meanings. as in physically going to the location of California and making it in California being successful with my graphite sketchbook.

Stevie Nicks: i was the first Samhain witch.

Shaggy: hey Kid Rock, what's offensive is you ruining my '70s pot cool with your stench. 

Scooby-Doo: i bit Kid Rock on the leg at his concert, remember that?

Head of the Class board game: the teacher is wearing a covid mask!!! fascinating.

Cassie from Skins: we have nothing in common.

Cassie from It's a Living: yeah we do, kid, we're both blondes who like to get naked. i had messed-up teeth when i was a teen, too.

Cassie from Skins: have you ever been a fairy?

Cassie from It's a Living: no but i've dated a few living in Los Angeles. London is the British Los Angeles.

Cassie from Skins: you're a waitress and i don't eat...

Christmas lights: it feels so good to PLUG INTO the side of a house. no outdoor outlet?, no Christmas lights for you this year. too bad so sad.

 

Nixon: nixing...

Jen R: in the '70s and '80s people were free and loose. a woman would just go up to a strange man and start tickling him all over his body, making out on his neck, to show she was interested...

Sonny: sounds humiliating.

Dot: i mean i have on THE BEST DRESS i've EVER worn on this show!!! right? my makeup blended with the evening sun.

Sonny: and you have a singing voice that melts. it's a better voice than mine and i'm not too man to admit that now.

Dot: and my blind date turns out to be the boy who voices Robin. 

Scott Menville: is my voice STILL cracking?

Robin: in fairness, even as a grown man i sound like a boy...

Sonny: in the '80s there were personals in tabloids. in the '80s 87% of all marriages came from answering the personals...

Dot: it wasn't so much the humiliation, it was that this was yet another patch sewn into the forlorn fabric, the tragic tapestry of my frenetic hapless life where i never found my soulmate...

Shohei Ohtani: if this baseball thing doesn't work out i can always be Jin in that K-Pop boy band...

potato salad: you need greeny leafy vegetables, dude!!!

Cameron Crowe: when i was 15 with hippie-long hair, i decided early on i needed to be where the action was. i needed to know every musician, every actor, every dealer, but mostly every groupie.

Ginger on It's a Living: the thing is, i must have been on A Different World at some point...

sodium fart: after McDonald's.

the toilet vomits: after a particularly violent flush.

Newsom: pick up a newspaper...

Norman Fell: life sucks, kids. i'm not speaking as Mr. Roper, i'm speaking as Norman Fell. call me a crank but it's true. go ahead, call me a crotchety old bastard man, i dare ya. because The Ropers lasted a season AND A HALF, i couldn't come back to Three's Company. a half. half. half & half. i HATE half & half in my cocoa!!!

thanks in advance: it's a robocall email...

someone's niece: Jack Tripper's next date...

landlocked.

Switzerland: comforting.

Lesotho: trapped.

Instagram: it's a one-day thing...

Melissa Maker wearing a candystriper Toronto Blue Jays cap:  you know, your first marriage doesn't have to be a starter marriage, it can against all odds last. 

Sonny: like you and Chad?

Melissa: well, smart guy, we didn't do things together, like you two are doing. can you still call them monkey suits?...

Dot with a heavy external sigh: yeah, after the party Sonny and i are BOTH gonna get haircuts at the same barbershop on Halloween night. i guess. 

STARTER MARRIAGE: AMEN OR ARTHUR

 

Dot: where does your work take you today, dear?

Sonny: i'm going down to Juilliard. which is up in New York.

Dot: we all know how THAT turned out for you!!! your mother practically disowned you for sullying the Mann name by becoming a lounge singer instead of a proper classical nut.

Rachmaninoff: leave me out of this. classical music is a racket.

Sonny: Dustin Diamond and i will be talking to kids about the dangers of lung cancer even if you don't smoke. lung cancer is long cancer. Screech never existed, he was just a collective dream.

Dustin Diamond: i'll be telling kids with showbiz dreams that sometimes life just sucks...

Sonny and Dot share a body mirror.

Sonny: which one, dear? the sweatshirt or the pimp coat?

Dot: it's weird how you don't wear a tux anymore. brown sweatshirt for autumn, black Mr. Kotter/Mr. Serling fuzz jacket for winter.

Sonny: the hotel lobby has an art exhibit i want to catch, The Art of Manga. i have a feeling i'm gonna be needing anime soon...

Witch of Endor: i'm a medium, not a witch. i was all the Disney witches. i trained Luke Skywalker...

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.

Nurse Rachel: that's Nurse Rachel, not Nurse Ratched.

John Travolta: it sure is nice to have a lake behind my house.

Jen R: all '70s houses had an outdoor outlet on the side of the house...

Nurse Rachel: you two can't fuck, the extension cord's not long enough...

John: ride for me, Gina.

Glynnis O'Connor: cowgirl?

Nurse Rachel: this is the time of day i drink sherry and call my ex-boyfriend on the telephone pretending i want him back...

Gina: i had no idea the horse would chew the wire, Tod!!!

Gina: Tod, put your cock through the bubble hole.

Jen: those fast and loose '70s women, kissing another man AS she skips to her boyfriend's car!!!

Robert Reed: i heard Gina's horse hit your bubble on the jump and the bubble came tumbling down into the lake.

John: i want to be the inspiration for the medical-tent scene in E.T....

John: i won't get bullied at school for wearing this, right? i want to be a gardener, not an astronaut.

Mr. Brady: why do i drive a creepy white van?

Jen: why did all '70s public high schools look like Methodist churches?

12th-Grade girl: are you staring at my big butt in that spacesuit?

Ms. Krause: oh my god!!! those first early printing machines that were just two large silver metal clamps!!!

Mr. Maldark: Tod, you have to plug yourself in the air-conditioning on the roof of the school.

Gina: my friends Tom and Bruce, the two men who hate you for fucking me. and of course Debbie the Skins Cassie of the group...

John: okay but my powerpack is running on one Duracell battery...

Gina: sorry Tod, marijuana makes people mean.

John: yeah i used astral projection to go to your mom's house.

Mr. Maldark: so instead of a school swimming pool we used the space for Tod's bubble...

Gina: oh, so I'M the one who lives in the Brady Bunch House!!!

Jen: we're like Diana Hyland and John Travolta.

me: yeah, except THOSE TWO could call each other on the telephone whenever they wanted...

Gina: this is pretty dirty, Tod. we're fucking in the back of a van and your spacesuit is the condom.

Gina: i'm going to the Fame school in New York City!!!

Tod: don't be an art prat, Gina.

Gina: if you close-up on my face you can tell i'm an adult woman, not a teen high-schooler...

Tod: i would have made the perfect Head of the Class student...

Opus No. 1: the call-waiting Vaporwave song.

Bach wearing a purple wig: ...

Marcus Samuelsson: i didn't marry Charlize Theron?...

Jen R: age tuum negotium, not mind your own business, do your business.

me dancing and sing-songy: Jen got a divorce, Jen got a divorce, Jen got a divorce...

Jen: you know it really is true, 2 Vanquish makes you feel like you're on speed...

'80s sitcoms: each episode takes place one month later...

Mr. Furley: you will only see me naked with that Polynesian woman i went on the Hawaii episode of Mama's Family with...

Cell: call.

baby Goku: what?

Cell: call Cell.

baby Goku: why am i never full-grown anymore?

Patti Deutsch on Match Game: i'm not interested in matching the contestants, i'm only interested in giving you my college-learned quips.

woman talking about her sister: unmarried.

tits: i hate being called perky.

sculpted nails: that's cultured nails.

a student: a D student...

snood: a Charlie Brown infinity scarf...

sprinkles: ruins donuts.

torus: the chiffon cake of math...

the 1970s: the last decade people knocked on doors.

AT&T: we're the telephone carrier of country folk, you know, good solid people...

Jan is in the waitress dressing room on that ratty couch knitting.

Jan: YOU'RE HAVING A BABY!!!

Dot: oh my fucking god are you serious?!!! and i was just about to break a leg.

Jan: i'm a Jewish woman who knits, of course i'm a fortuneteller, of course i'm a baba.

Dot: Arthur, my Arthur, that'll be his name, very showbiz.  

Jan: tickling the arthurs. phew, i was afraid you were gonna call the kid Donny. what's around your neck? it's very becoming. a noose? just kidding.

Dot: an infinity scarf because i'm retiring. what are you knitting my Arthur baby?

Jan: a snood. 

Sonny: and i'm here with a pink box of donuts with sprinkles to celebrate the occasion.

Dot: typical Sonny.

Bea Arthur: you're Dot the first Dorothy...

Sonny: i swear i won't Juilliard this kid!!! he won't be Juilliard'd!!! no pressure.

Dot: yeah. and he'll only be in ONE play when he's 8 years old where he'll play Charlie Brown AND Lucy in the same play...

STARTER MARRIAGE: DOT THE CONTENT

Dot from It's a Living: so we're doing this, huh. it's come to this?

Sonny Mann: yeah. well, we were the last two left, we had to.

Dot: i have to say, you have CHANGED since i became your ball-and-chain.

Sonny: i love the '80s, we can still say stuff like that. did you know one of the ultra-feminists was my actual real former wife?...

Dot: i warn you, i can be a little spacey. i sleep around not because i'm a slut but because i like to have a good time, you know? explore other people. i'm fanciful and free. i have a smile on my face from being happy.

Sonny: i'm a man but i'm trying!!!

Dot: wow, that is an amazing change.

boys: i hate that word as much as i hate cringe, cuck, manlet, and peak.

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.

George Costanza: i'm sorry the answer is Moops...

Mr. Kotter: is this gonna interfere with your studies, Barbarino?

Kirk St. Moritz: believe it or not, life was once this innocent.

John Travolta: i'm a genuine motherfucker, mom.

Diana Hyland: we'll discuss this later, son...

Vin Scully: you're pregnant. 

Diana: how? he's gay.

Vin Scully: hey where's the Brady Bunch House? i have a date with Alice.

Diana: hey doc, can you cure my breast cancer?...

Smokey the Bear: i'm paying for this log cabin.

Jen R: '70s ambulances were groovy red stationwagons!!!

girl: i'm a monster.

boy: yeah you are for treating me like dirt in high school.

Robert Reed, champagne in bed: honey, let's just fuck with condoms, there's no room in the house for another bubble.

'70s Disaster Movie of the Week music...

teddy bears: why did we have buttons for eyes? seems like a bad idea.

Gina Little: i am NOTHING like this demon-girl Gina.

dad: yeah the orange-and-yellow Sunny Delight chaise longue and circle chair at our Gilmore St. Van Nuys home came DIRECTLY from this TV-movie!!! the foreman at Talbots Furniture was RAVING about this special, it inspired me to get that patio set for the house.

John: but what's with the A Clockwork Orange hat?

doctor: i drove all the way over here because i want to show you this chess move.

John: may i be excused?.........nevermind...

Diana Hyland: i like you in the short shorts, John.

Jen: every '70s teenage boy had binoculars to look into the bedroom of his blossoming girl-next-door neighbor...

Mr. Maldark: welcome to Van Nuys High School, where YOU should have gone...

Mr. Maldark: is there anything you want to say to your homeroom class before we begin?

Tod: yeah, up your nose with a rubber hose.

Tod: i can chew gum in class. suckers!!!

mouse: i don't want any of this. i hate disco and i don't want to drop acid.

Mr. Brady: is there a plug in the beach? we need an outlet in the sand. can you help me move him, friend? i trust you because you're wearing no shirt and bellbottom jeans.

John: oh my god it's Speed Buggy!!! also a girl on a horse at the beach. hey girl, horses are banned at the beach.

Joe Pera: don't be a 2-dollar whore, Gina, fireworks are sacred. especially during the Bicentennial.

John: GET ME OUT OF THESE YELLOW SHORT SHORTS!!!

Roy Slater: hi, i'm a freak like you. think of me as the real Ryan White...

Roy: they discovered my tumor on my prom night. of all the luck. 

Jen: in the '70s it was all about that action.

Roy: i want hooker germs, Travolta.

Buzz Aldrin: i walked on the moon. now son, this is very important, the internet must NOT be allowed to be invented...

John: hey Buzz, did you discover anything up there on the moon that could help my condition?

Buzz: no. we mostly golfed.

John: you know what i like about you, Gina? that pea-green shirt of the band Rush you wear.

Gina: would you like to take a shower with me?

John: i can't take showers.

John: hey teach, can i take the pop quiz while brushing my teeth?

artists: we were all D students.

tutor: has there ever been a platonic non-sexual tutor?...

dad: we didn't have to bring you into this world, son. but your mother and i really needed to fuck that one time.

John Travolta: mom, dad, i love you. dad, i want you to maintain that perm on your head with a little Grecian Formula. mom, speaking of Greece, i want you to do a Shirley Valentine.

Jen R and i are in my childhood bed.

Jen R: that's Jen Rados...

me: where the fuck have you been all this time?!!!

Jen: i'm back. it took this long because i was getting a divorce so i could be with you.

me: best answer ever.

me: i'm telling you, this will close the circle of my journey from boy to man, if we cum in THIS bed, it's the Circle of Life.

Jen R and i make love for four hours the both of us naked. she rides me quietly with her eyes closed, i hang onto her beautiful small tits as handles, her skinny butt my caboose. 

me: this POV is nice. you have the ethereal beauty of Karen Allen from Starman.

Jen: Starman is Rain Man with more purple warm nostalgia.

i don't know when the moment happens, but i open my eyes and we're both covered in semen.

Jen: this is when you order that new chicken sandwich from Denny's.

Fulham: you happen to be a soccer fan but you don't hang out in lavatories...

Uther-Pendragon at the BoyleSports in Pontefract: i'm just here for the online bingo.

'80s Britcoms: you love them. but they make you lonely.

Gandhi with long flowing beard: i know i'm a holy man but i want nothing to do with semen retention.

Nirvana the band: holding onto that plateau. 

Kurt Cobain: Coitus Reservatus would have been Nirvana's 4th album.

Gandhi: ask the missus about karezza.

Alice Bunker Stockham: i wasn't always an old woman...

Jen R: remember in the '80s with the chain-lock on the door? you'd see who it was then SLAM the door. because you had to undo the chain-lock to open the door to welcome the person in.

me: by then the person had left because you slammed the door in his face!!!

batting 7th for the Jays wearing a nice Canadian outdoors woodsy mustache, Wheels from Degrassi!!!

Kurt Cobain comes out to the pitcher's mound and plays "The Star-Spangled Banner" on his powder-blue electric guitar.

Trey: yes i'm savage.

Friday night: soccer players really don't want to be out here on a Friday night playing a soccer match...

George Harrison: i'm not Twiggy.

World Series vampire: the umpire at the World Series during Halloween week...

Dot: you know just because this is the first marriage for both of us and we were both north of 40 doesn't mean it won't last. it doesn't mean it's automatically gonna be a "starter marriage." people get married for the marriage to last forever, bub.

Sonny: my thoughts exactly. you were the only woman who thought my jazz numbers were okay, and you HATE having to walk across hotel lobbies!!! they remind you of having to go to work everyday, of everyday waitress tawdriness.

Dot: i'm better than your mom.

Sonny: but can you do something for me, dollface? don't give up your acting, you need to live your light.

Dot: if you're an actress you're either gonna be a real-estate agent or a life coach. *internal sigh* but i'll give it one more go. i'll try to get in on the burgeoning '80s Lifetime Movie racket early so i'm respected like Meredith Baxter-Birney, not a joke like Lacey Chabert.

THE CAFE WITH TAN IVY: THE BIKE AISLE AT TOYS R US

 

Barney: cheese naan? we ran out of pizza.

me: i am gobsmacked by the person in front of me, it's Valerie Stevenson!!!

Valerie Stevenson: hola.

Jen R: yeah i had to do something, you know? i'm always one to help out. she was hard on the streets and i needed a nanny.

Valerie: that little rugrat at of yours is a handful. a welcome needed warm handful. i'm her mommy now. we went to the bike aisle at Toys R Us.

Jen: there is nothing more magical than running around the bicycle aisle at Toys R Us with your eyes wide.

Valerie: in the '80s. 

Harper, Jen R's daughter, wearing Punky Brewster rag clothes: at Christmastime.

Jen: did you pick something out, Harp?

Harper: a Nike bike of course.

Jen: yeah. to go with those Nike dunks you wear as shoes.

Harper: the easier to pedal with, my dear. mother. i explore with the magic antenna on top of my head. picture Michael Jordan on a bike. an exercise bike with a Bulls jersey draped over the handlebars in the middle of the basketball court in the middle of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden!!!

Jen: and i'm swimming in the grey Richie Rich fountain at Marvin Gardens in line for an onion dog.

me: Harper, you are your mother's daughter!!!

King Midas: my brother has the reverse-Midas touch, everything he touches turns to shit. he's William Shakespeare's brother Callum Shakespeare.

Callum Shakespeare: at least i created Garbage Pail Kids.

rolling rumbling thunder: the Earth burping.

bowling-alley chicken: this is where it starts...

Matt from Safeway: i would look good on stage with my hangdog eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, stocky build with the bad back, a real Falstaff.

Safeway: it's morning and the parking-lot lights are on...

Bjork: i do hurricanes now.

Silverchair: meanwhile back in Australia, a country that is still functioning and has sensible gun laws, we dance in a REAL ballroom...

Daniel Johns: Australia had a '90s rave scene, too...

Charles Nelson Reilly: wait, why wasn't i the voice of Donald Duck?...

Legends of the Hidden Temple contestant doing the Temple Run: come on, Kirk!!! i have to shout the password with the mouthguard in my mouth? it comes out all mumbled...

Olmec: speak up, kid!!! teenagers today. at least they're not adults...

King Charles: Henry VIII was a tosser.

Pope Bob: chili dog?

King Charles: oh my fucking god you speak English!!!

Pope Bob: but not British.

King Charles: let's get back together.

Pope Bob: will you marry me?

King Charles: imagine being separated from your soulmate for 500 years...

Pope Bob: all this because that fatty wanted a lucky 7th wife?

Donald Duck: why'd you run away to the Navy?

Baggs: i couldn't take it anymore, man.

Donald Duck: i gave you a home. i gave you duck nuggets. you drank Cold Duck every night.

Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone: the timeline screwed us. but i know there's still a chance for us.

the wife that never was: i'm sorry, all i can offer you now is bread...

x-ray table: a supine table the patient lies on as he's wheeled to the x-ray room...

Al Capone: walnut sauce.

Katie Roiphe: my name is pronounced ROI-fee, not rape...

Jen R: do you know why a woman has a daughter?

me: please let this include me.

Jen: so she has a piece of the failed relationship forever with her.

Harper: but what if the dad was a bad hombre?

Harper: yeah, but what if you get sick of me as your daughter? then you'll drop me, you wouldn't want a reminder!!!

Jen: perish the thought, daughter of mine, we're joined at the hip, we're one of those mother/daughters who are more like sisters.

Harper: think of me as your Dodger daughter, forever a buoy of the warm nostalgia of a wave of feeling.

Kurt Cobain eating a cheese naan: i'll never get over the Mariners never winning the World Series. but i don't have to anymore...