CENTER CORE II: ICE CREAM

 

Bracha: i am disappoint.

Jen R: no one says that anymore.

Bracha: it's hard to keep up on a college campus, trends change faster than lost socks. you know for the longest i thought we had a Mrs. Fields. i would DREAM of those delicious cookies when i was stuck in a lecture. what's the secret ingredient in your cookies, anyway?

Mrs. Field(s): butter. stolen recipe from Rollie Wesen...

Bracha: so one day i couldn't take it anymore and went around the corner on campus but the whole time it was a See's!!! See's Candy is.........See's Candy.

Bracha: i did learn one thing being in college tho.

me: i'm burning to find out.

Bracha: exactly. for your skin. you know how you forget to apply sunscreen before you leave the dorm?

Jen R: oh yes. it's so stupid, my shirts have the WIDE COLLAR so my neck gets that ring of burning even tho i avoid the beach like the plague!!!

Spalding Gray: remember, apply sunscreen lotion ESPECIALLY during overcast days...

Spalding Gray: gray sunburn hurts like the dickens.

me: can i rub lotion on your neck?

Jen: maybe if this was the '80s...

Jen: there's just too much walking in school now.

Bracha: simply use my new invention: ice cream. it's a cream you put on your neck that cools your neck like ice.

Jen: brilliant. you came up with this in your dorm room, right?

Bracha: yeah. see in college if you don't become an entrepreneur, you're nothing.

Gilmore Girls: Northern Exposure in Connecticut...

Silk visits Mr. Furley in one of the myriad of off-campus housing.

Mr. Furley: Ralph Furley, *sniffs his nose*, bachelor.

Silk: nice hostel, Mr. Furley. 

Mr. Furley: like my porch light? i stole it from an '80s Round Table Pizza.

Silk: i can tell you're a man of culture. the dark-blue shag carpet speaks to your soul barren from loneliness.

Mr. Furley crying genuine droplets of tears: my heart aches for Patches. you got me. i'm not a tough guy, i'm a sensitive man. 

Silk: so you're male. yes you showed quiet pathos recounting how your childhood cat died. that PAUSE to choke up. not on a bat, you're too uncoordinated to have ever played Little League baseball.

Mr. Furley: what?

Silk: and then when you tried to hide Cuddles in the cookie jar, that was so meow-meow cute. 

Mr. Furley smiling: like my fine art on the wall?

Silk: i mean it's very '70s but it's still good. Hiawatha as a Hustler model is a bit gauche but i dig it, speaks to nativism in all forms. i am loving the Luis from Mexico stuff, his work with the blue space people in the palace on the far-off planet speaks to the loneliness of all humans yearning for that Boston song to be real.

Mr. Furley: one thing i don't get. that Girl Scout girl, i mean she was so tiny SHE fit in the cookie jar!!!

Emma Raducanu: my legs are Tolkien trees, that's the magic i bring to the court.

Dragon Ball GT: Dragon Ball Grand Toriyama...

Bad Bunny: that stage house is my real house. i live in a biome. i'm in the line of succession to be the next Dalai Lama...

Charles Bukowski: most stolen author, my books have been shoplifted out of libraries more than any other, that's the highest honor a writer can receive!!!

40-year-olds: all that matters now is sleep.

Jacques Pepin: do you know what bread is?

Jean-Claude Szurdak: come on, man.

Tai: i am so afraid of getting a tan i wear sunscreen daily...

Fallout: only works with booze...

permacast: a permanently-overcast sky.

playing a 50-shot rally on match point: why tennis players get the big bucks...

Handsome Death: when Robert Redford explains the concept of neverending, it goes down easier...

Noah Wyle: remember back in the day when people watched The Emmys the same way they watched The Oscars?...

Pan on Dragon Ball GT: my voice is like if Judy Garland was Shirley Temple...

Mary Astor: i started it ALL!!!

1930s gangster: aww don't youse make fun of me, miss, i'm spilling my guts here. feelings and stuff. you bring out the dame in me. the male gaze is a real problem in cinema. i've learned i need a woman, i can't just be hard. the feminine mystique has entered my gut.

me: okay i've been wanting to take you on THIS DATE for the longest.

Jen R: Spinal Tap II in a theater, nice touch, i can't hate.

me: notice anything?

Jen: the II of the 2 are two Stonehenge standing bluestones!!!

me: one more and a stone tabletop on top and we got the original Flintstones dining room outside in the green.

Jen: my headcanon is the three Spinal Tap guys were original members of King Arthur's Roundtable who reincarnated into rock gods. they have that easygoing attitude all knights had. 

Humphrey Bogart: that's all a stranger can be to another stranger, a friend...

 

CENTER CORE II: BOATING AT THE HOLIDAY INN (WHERE'S CINDY?)

 

Jack and Janet find Cindy at the university. of Berkeley.

Jack Tripper: what are you doing here?

Cindy Snow: i am so sad. but i told you guys i'd be leaving the apartment for college, remember? i want my I-thought to leave me.

Jack: just as long as you don't leave us. come on, Cindy, we care about you.

Janet Wood: yeah Cindy, don't feel bad you got all of Chrissy's bad leaving karma on her way out.

Cindy: the producers said i couldn't act. i think this is one of those journeys you gotta do alone with just your mittens on. Janet you can have my skis.

Jen R: remember in the '80s when you'd just give a $1 bill to a complete stranger and ask for change?...

Page Miss Glory.

Marion Davies: there were no pagers in 1935!!!

newspaper reporter: do you believe a woman's place is in the home?

Dawn Glory: Gloria Steinem is MY Miss Glory. i love watching those old Women's Lib episodes of Match Game...

newspaper men: we can't print that!!!

peephole in the ceiling?...

employee entrance: Star Trek transporter.

a fella takes you out for an auto ride in the country: because cars were still a new thing.

Dawn: House Beautiful is the paper of record. i enjoy the turtle soap, but brushing my teeth with the toothpaste is a bridge too far.

Bingo, singing: when the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie, that's.........whoops, sorry...

movie inside a picture frame: witchcraft.

me: i kiss your picture, too.

Jen R: i really wish you hadn't told me that.

soup stains: the REAL Democrats!!!

married idol: Simon Cowell.

see?: mani-pedis make gangsters whole again.

women: neck kisses have ALWAYS been the best kisses...

Click: this is the VERY FIRST CAPPUCCINO...

Jen R: remember when the phone would be brought to your table a a restaurant?...

to shanghai: NOT to watch Meet the Press.

Bugs Bunny: oh come on, the old finger-in-the-coatpocket trick???

gangster suit: we wore shoulder pads before '80s women.

real diamonds: not worth it.

gangster: trout delivery. get it? sleeping with the fishes. TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS!!! that's my specific kink. i'm also into socks with stirrups.

sissy pants: the pants worn by Karnov.

Karnov: i can't take being American citizen!!! i go back to Greece to be Zorba!!!

Cindy bungles her way into Mr. Furley's mall-karate dojo in the middle of campus.

Cindy in dark-blue gi: i am so sad. will my journey ever end, Mr. Furley?

Mr. Furley in light-blue gi, smiling warmly: i'm a good landlord. i'm a pet-friendly landlord. i allow cats because they want to drink from the kitchen faucet when they see the water coming out of the Keurig machine, that is so cute how in-sync with humans they are.

Cindy: how many more karate chops on the path of life?

Mr. Furley: aw don't be sore, Cindy. karate is my passion, you kids know that. but it was hard getting here, i had to kiss a lot of frogs beforehand. i was the foreman at a power-plant dam once. yeah. in Downtown Los Angeles, not there anymore, Charlton Heston fucked it up. i could take Heston with one of my karate CHOPS!!!

cats: do NOT get the pellet kitty litter, that stuff's even cheaper than the lightweight litter!!!

Cindy hops to the Regal Beagle looking for a cup of hops and to admire the Prince Adam painting in the striped-wallpaper hallway leading to the bathroom. 

He-Man: only MY legs can pull off puce pants. 

Jane Fonda: muscular leggings, toned. Robert Mitchum once painted me in oils like that...

Cindy: well at least no one's liking the nude Jack painting anymore. i'm gonna leave before Larry gets here...

Imagine Dragons: we do commercial music, music for commercials...

Anthony Bourdain: get drunk with strangers.........more a romantic travel notion than you should put this into actual practice...

Richard Dawson: i am OBSESSED with the toidy. is there a toilet behind the Match Game set?...

fabric shaver: some buzzes are pleasurable. but not in a dentist's chair...

Robert Redford: i am the light in your darkness, and in your snow...

Robert Redford: now i guide myself by my own hand through the underworld, as Good-Looking Death...

cheesecake: tiny pizza.

Laertus: i had to hack into my own account because i forgot my password...

Boc: very uncomfortable standing on the corner of the highway sidewalk, a small car with the top down pulls up, stops RIGHT in front of you, and the two of you are just staring at each other inches apart in silence in the road...

Suzy Lu: i am your structure, your stability.

basketball: why is there no offside?...

Selector: perfect name for an industrial band. 

Ear Horn: and the knob on an oven...

Meredith MacRae: Aunt Cork from Manhattan Beach but famous...

the printer: the middle child...

Match Game: despite the '70s stagflation we were a game show giving out MONEY!!!

Alice N Chains the glam band: it almost seems like a parody. like the Wikipedia page is a joke or something. 

Layne Staley: i wanted to be Axl Rose, not me...

after walking Downtown Los Angeles for a minute and a mile, Cindy Snow is guided by her instinctual head to Cassie Cranston's place.

Cassie Cranston: wow, i can't believe you found me!!! all the streets around here look the same...

Cindy: i am so sad.

Cassie: why so blue, kid? it'll be alright. 

Cindy: i was worried about you, nobody knew what happened to you after Season 3 of It's a Living. where did all your man-hungry ways ultimately land you?

Cassie: well i'll tell you something, i made out exactly as you would have expected. Charles Fleischer asked me to marry him and i said yes. he's a depressed sadsack who only plays mini-chess and he NEVER does the Roger Rabbit voice. so much so that i don't believe he EVER did the Roger Rabbit voice. i made out okay, kid.

Cindy: did they pull you into a room and tell you you couldn't act?

Cassie: no, but they did say i could only act with a Brooklyn accent...

Robert Redford gets out of the black Buick. 1950s black Buick. with the motor still running, the other two carmates, one woman, one man with glasses, befuddled. in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere, hilly one-car road. and Redford stops, cracks his back bending down to pick yellow flowers by the side of the road. 

Robert Redford: my side hurts but it was worth it. not for a woman, just always pick flowers, you know?

CENTER CORE II: IMPRESSING BRACHA

 

Silk: Bracha's ugly.

Jen R: that's a terrible thing to say about your sister.

Silk: but it's true. isn't college about finding truth? but she's more powerful than i.

me: i know what you mean, i'm inexplicably drawn to her.

Silk: quite explicable actually. she's mousey with the dropsy eyes and eternal sigh on her mouth but she has a vibe to her, a POWER to her, you need to be her friend because somehow you know deep-down she's cool.

Jen: i'm inexorably drawn to her. i'm inextricably intertwined with her. yeah i feel ya, Bracha is that mysterious person who always knows where the best party is. like you just know that despite her looks she somehow lands the quarterback based on how she speaks to him.

Silk: ugly draws.

Bracha is sitting Indian-style on a patch of grassy concrete under the shade of the last oak tree on campus. she wears chocolate-brown balloon pants.

Bracha: wanna smoke a bowl?

Jen R: yes i most certainly do.

Bracha: you can say that someone LOOKS Jewish, you know? you can't really say that with any other religion. i'm gonna be eating pizza at 11AM on the 88th floor of that dorm building over there, would you like to join me?

me: desperately. but i have to do this stupid thing called school. can i touch the palm of your hand which is covering your box of lime-green American Spirit Indian cigarettes?

love song: corny if you've never been in love, crying if you have...

foster kid: the LEAST you can do is give me a damn coat!!!

me: without you, my life is a dull ache.

Jen R: love doesn't disappear, it dulls.

Page Miss Glory.

Pam Hiltunen: the cartoon's better...

Jen R: why are you doing this?

me: i need a dose of 1930s decadence...

Jen: the glamor was JUST gaining steam again after the Great Depression.

Elmira, NY: where Elvira lives.

Marion Davies: i was hot for 1935. if you were too late for Jean Harlow.

Marion: is this where Bob Hope plays golf?

Jen: see? this woman should serve as an inspiration to you: no friends, no relatives, no job, moves to New York City on a whim to start over again at square one!!!

FDR: the Great Depression was bad, but at least we had Pre-Code.

Marion: time is a human concept. flipping playing cards into a black top hat is NOT magic. eat breakfast at 3PM, trust me. i'm not a dinosaur. 

ham sandwich: i want Jack McCoy as my lawyer.

Kay Francis: i can't wait to be forgotten. hey quit reading my diary!!!

God: the first photoshop...

pins: legs...

cookie-pushers: blue...

Bingo: call me Poker. are you a dizzy dame?

Marion: um, yes.

Bingo: i fly a Charles Lindbergh biplane upside-down because this world is dizzy. all aviators want to leave Planet Earth...

she's there: and daffy. get with her, flyboy!!!

Marion: i'm dating Mark Philippoussis. Greece has discovered tennis THIS year.

Ange Postecoglou: and Australia will discover tennis in the '90s...

overexposure: 1930s-speak for gout.

Trent Reznor: this man is more depressed than me...

Enter the Dragon mirrors...

yeast: it all smells bad. 

Dawn Glory: i'll only smoke the Rod Serling cigarettes.

the mother of a photograph: Kodak, Kate Spade, the work continues...

Maraschino Beauty School: so you save your cherry for marriage.

apple knockers: smashing pumpkins or tits. Arline "Airline" Hunter with Coke...

Gertrude Stein: i'm the Shakespeare of NOW.

Ange Postecoglou: do i sound like Crocodile Dundee or Zorba? i'm not always angry, that's my resting face. i sleep in the middle of the pitch because soccer is shite.

the Going Merry: imagine if that Playmobil pirate ship you had in the '80s was real...

Safeway: why is there a BRICK WALL in front of where the grocery carts are stacked?

Leipzig: $70 million is not a small club...

old person's room: smells of bone broth...

bar in Los Angeles, the '80s, starless night: you're a mechanic, all alone in the big city. you have to go here every night after work, you have to explain yourself to the other blue-collar jobs. you have to drink beer and play pool. this is the ONLY PLACE to meet new people. your future wife is that butcher over there by the dartboard. 

lady butcher: friends? family? nah, this is the dating pool, sailor, random strangers...

fog: it can only be patchy.

TV-episode review-writers: we're a horny bunch...

Megath: we're good at math and we like Megadeth. and we think all the Dragon Balls should be the same size...

Pan from Dragon Ball GT: i fly like a Powerpuff Girl...

a bottle of scotch: when you run out of cancer meds.

Aqua Velva: when Puck from The Real World's dad needed to drink Windex...

Match Game: all the young women look like Shelley Duvall. one will be a lifelong actress who gets one part as a nurse on an episode of Starsky & Hutch...

The Craft: The Breakfast Club for goths.

Bracha: what are these things in my salad?

Jen R: black olives?...

Bracha: nope, blueberries. see that? plop a little artichoke dip in there, some French dressing...

Shorey Wesen in the Berkeley school uniform: but why is French dressing the color of puke?

Jen: there's a dress code here? 

Bracha: some pepper, and you've got yourself a salad.

Jen: that's a Wendy's salad!!!

Jen: how can you afford all this fancy food?

Bracha: i don't pay for a car, it's a good thing i happen to be at a college and everything's walking-distance. high school is high school but college is higher school. you know we are very lucky to be going to school here when we are. 

Jen: why?

Bracha: because all of us on this campus are postpostpostpostpostmodern... 

CENTER CORE: THE NEW VEDAS

 

we're at the Berkeley campus convention center.

Jen R: what are you doing here?

me: yeah, we were on a date.

Silk: TED Talks are the future. well the future for young people. i'm hoping to research the hell out of this hall for inspiration.

Jen: your crib notes have such nice handwriting.

Ms. Krause: your penmanship is strong like a woman.

the first TED Talk is "Bjork: Why Only I Have the Magic Pixiedust in Life." followed by Robert Crumb.

Bjork: why are all the questions about farts? i know this is college but come on.

Robert Crumb: unlike Hollywood and legacy media, indie mumblecore film gave me 10 YEARS to do my live-action movie of Fritz the Cat. do you know how rare that is? most investors want their money back in a month.

Ralph Bakshi: i concede, your choice beats doing a cartoon. it is your creation after all, i'm just the janitor director. i don't get what's so complicated, just let everyone speak at a college campus...

Bjork: lowers the temperature. until everyone hears the other in a funny accent.

me: you are radiant. our two souls first met in 1750.

Jen R: yes. at Thomas Jefferson's college pub where he started experimenting if you know what i mean. i can't see you but i hear you. i am blinded by my own radiance. no seriously, it's not my fault, the light is coming from above. how does Heaven work if it's all just Light?...

Trinity the cat: i have the same bearing as grandpa's Kit Kat.

Jack Tripper: i mean how can i date a different woman each week? that's not really dating...

Suzy Lu: only i use the word "class" as a verb in casual conversation...

Jimmie Walker: when you eat Famous Amos cookies, you think of me.

Billy Corgan: remember, i speak Latin.

Romy Mars: Spike Jonze should have been my daddy...

Ms. Krause: did someone say English teacher?...

Starbucks: we really need to do something about catering to our TRUE campus community: our loyal customers want a Chilly Cactus drink!!!

Milk Street: you need those plates that are shallow bowls...

Boston University: Trump doesn't know where our PBS offices are, they're at an undisclosed secret underground-bunker speakeasy. we were the FIRST PBS after all.

the symphonic sound of snoring: soothes the cacophonous call of coughing.

sex: relieves headache better than aspirin...

Mary Hart: i played Doreen on Three's Company. my psychiatric advice? if you're gonna be in show business, don't REPORT on show business...

deep husky voice: the woman is cultured, colleged, intelligent, learned, brimming with measured sex.

Pluto TV: we're one continuous stream of '70s TV shows forever...

Carol Kane: now imagine Bud Cort as an android...

Bud Cort: i do act like Data when i'm acting, but the silver skin would get itchy.

California to a Texan: Disneyland.

every actress: has been on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Monk...

Gaston meat: turkey leg or beef leg?...

mom in a nursing home: they got me on steroids, i'm an Olympic weightlifter.

cats: we warble like birds.

birds: then why aren't we friends?

Predator: don't be afraid, i'm just ALF as a Klingon.

Julia Ioffe: don't be fooled by a couple of weeks, there is NOBODY normal on Instagram...

me: wasn't it lucky i found us this out-of-the-way student housing?

Jen R: Oakland is considered off-campus. there are colleges in Oakland you know...

Jen: this is such a cute little cabin on stilts!!! i get the bed on the second storey that is its own top floor!!!

me: you like our little lake by the cabin that's the size of the producer's swimming pool?

Jen: hurt me. *Jen leaps up Jack Tripper-style* heh!!!

at night in the cabin.

grasshoppers in the reeds: it's too quiet for us.

i'm on the bottom bunk, Jen's on the top bunk.

Jen: this is quite '80s, huh. your vision of Heaven: McDonald's in 1985 at Christmas with the lit menus above wreathed in silver tinsel. night. it's not snowing outside but inside there's this silver mist...

me: so i can FINALLY get that McNugget holiday sauce. one was cranberry and one was gravy.

Jen: Rick and Morty sucks, remember?

i'm eating maple popcorn in bed.

Jen: sticky sheets.

me between chews: why do you get lost on me?

Jen: i get lost so you won't see me like this, see me in this condition. believe me, a woman with an 8-Vanquish-pills-a-day habit is not pretty to look at. mascara can't cover up everything.

me: but i know what it's like, i'm not me until i got the Vanquish in me, it's my Snickers that works. men get sunken eyes, too. dad was a 12-piller a day with his Vanquish fix.

Jen: let's not bring up your dad again, i can't compete with the comparison... 

me: don't you see? i love you. it's too late, i can only see life through your lens now. life is significant only by how you comment on it...