Tuesday, February 4, 2025

THE TEARING OF SHIRTS: THE TALKING IS THE TALKING

 












Jules Smith: *internal sigh* oh fine, so where do you want to go instead?
me: i mean, the UK is a big island, right? 
Jules: let's go to the little cinema by the babbling brook, there's always something good playing there.
me: you mean obscure.
Jules: in this case it's all the new Doctor Who episodes you've missed since the world went crazy and you lost all your time.
me: works for me.



Sunday, February 2, 2025

THE TEARING OF SHIRTS: SECOND HOUSE

 

















me: without my second house, i die.
Jules Smith: patience, our long-distance overseas video dating is working.
me: is it? is there romance tho? i mean have we actually been on a real date? America to Britain is a long way.
Jules: but Carmel to Canterbury isn't, it's a chocolate egg away, you egg. 
me: i'm glad i'm FINALLY able to join you along the Jurassic Coast. it's quite lovely here, i love eating the salty air.
Jules: and the sweet swirly yolks. you really don't like to wait, huh. quite, it's lovelier than you but i don't know you. shall we full-English-breakfast at some pub or something? wanna see my house?
me: no, i'd just like to bury my feet to my ankles in this green sand the rest of the afternoon, i don't get out much.

as we two stroll the shore, the entire album of Tommy by The Who plays in the background on the vibrations of the sneaker waves outside.
me: are there a lot of T-rexes roaming the Jurassic Coast?
Jules: sure, i pet the T-rexes on the head with my short arms.
i make a dinosaur roar with my mouth.
Kevin the lizard: you fucking putz.
Roger Daltrey: Tommy was the first rock opera. Pete Townshend invented that genre...
Trent Reznor: many people don't know this, but The Downward Spiral is the goth Tommy.

The Who Tommy "Christmas": the lyrics should have been
how can he be saved
from the eternal flame?

Cecily Strong at Lucky in London.
Cecily Strong: it's a grocery store, not a LUSH/Victoria's Secret hybrid. i'm here to get a Family Size of Triscuits, that's my BOX, boy!!! that's MY brand, MA brand, for i am a mother now, i have a family now, so all my food from now on will be Family Size food, Family food.
me: you know i've never gotten the Family Size of Triscuits, just the regular box, i wonder what it's like to hold.
Cecily: i did IVF even though i have a long-standing boyfriend/fiance and i'm only 40. i just wanted to make sure...

Neil deGrasse Tyson is giving a lecture at Cambridge as he smokes a cigarette indoors. the hall applauds.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: are you cheering the smoke? the fire? which reminds me, what did we do to our planet? it's too late. it's too late, folks, you fucked it. there has got to be another planet of people out there, somewhere out there, i'm sick of this planet, i'm sick of the shit on this planet, i'm sick of this planet's shit.

Demon City Shinjuku.
Maiara Walsh: you know that fantasy you have of making love to me in a Vaporwave-purple-lit room on a clam bed with a glowing pearl?...

Jules Smith: living in the UK will be good for you.
me: i don't know anybody here.
Jules: you know me. unlike the others i have never abandoned you, i won't abandon you in your time of need, i have always been online, i have always been on Instagram. i'll be there for you. you remember me, don't you, mah dahlin? i'm the woman in the stands counting all 7 Notts goals on my fingers for the BBC cameras during that Nottingham Forest match.
me: the purest pitch. i was struck by how lovely that woman was, a mother wrapped in warm blankets, her soul a hearth, a tin of warm pub soup.
Jules: i'm a steady hand. a steady arm *)

The Witches of Eastwick.
Cher: this isn't Hocus Pocus...
Jen R: Cher is my mother, Pee-wee Herman is my father.
Susan Sarandon: horns up.........get it? i'm a school-band teacher but i'll reveal myself to be a witch soon...
selectman: i selected Tom Brady...
David Letterman: once on the lips, forever on the hips, that's how i got my gap tooth, i ate too much Swiss cheese.

Milton Berle: ladies, my schlong is a foot long, but it doesn't work, it's too floppy.
Cher: men aren't the answer to everything, a time machine to show the Medieval villagers proof is.
Jack Nicholson: this is considered the best performance of my career, so pay attention. i'm handsome like if Gary Cooper stopped lying to himself. i snore like Skeletor.
Handel: my chamber music is for Jack Tripper in the audience.
snowy egret: a wet dream in the bed.
Jen R: it's true, divorced women are the juiciest fruit.

Jack wearing red high heels on his Borgia bed: this is not my bedroom, it's my study...
Cher: i have to go home to feed my kid dinner.
Jack: what's for dinner?
Cher: pizza.

Ingmar Bergman: blood. i should have added BLOOD to my cello!!!
Jack: it's genetic.
Susan Sarandon: wait, who is the Devil's father?...
Jack: i watch Call the Midwife to make up for the Salem Witch Trials.
Jack: your precision is not prissy, it's pussy, place the cello in between your pussy while i play the piano with my dick. 

Talia: cat dentist? that's a thing?

Lou Malnati's deep-dish pizza: Chicago in Medieval times: Billy Corgan with a bowl cut.
Jules Smith: sex with Billy Corgan would be lanky. just gimme the dinosaur pizza.
Johnny Depp: depp-dish pizza.
Billy Corgan: call me Billy Vegan from now on.

Sophie Thatcher from Nichols Canyon: is Billie Eilish old enough to have a Lifetime Movie made about her life?...

Butch Hendrick: it's like diving in braille.
Jake Tapper: i got my scuba certification diving deep in the quarries of that film Breaking Away...

Frieza: i was named after freesia, because i smell like flowers, my whole body is like a Travel Size of eau du parfum.

Jamie Lee Curtis: i do yogurt in the air fryer.

Dirg on Instagram: let's ho uh let's go.

August melon: the Vaporwave banana.

Michael Weiss: so no one's gonna be bold on Instagram anymore? everyone's just gonna revert back to cute cupcakes?...

Michael Weiss: nobody wants to admit this but.........Instagram is dead.

Imagination "Just an Illusion."
it's just an illusion,
mounds of confusion.

Maia from The 4400 in the Wells Fargo parking lot: you get $4400 a month...

go back to college: cuz you broke as hell.

Meredith Vieira in the Game Show Network parking lot: why can't 21 Words or Less be a WEEKDAY show, you know? i'm not on The View anymore, i gotta pay for Dan Casagrande's kids to go to college.

Greg Feith: i was that silver fox on Seinfeld...

The Big O: gotta love the telephone on a silver platter.

Grisha: Attack on Titan can never end, because we will never forget Etika...

Jules Smith: well, we're here.
i make the most frightful pale gasp out of my mouth.
me: WHAT?!!! what do you mean?!!! i never thought our LONG HIKE would lead HERE!!! i'm sweating bullets. i can't do it. i'm hyperventilating.
Jules: it's just my house. doesn't it look like a tumbledown Storybook International country cottage?
me: i can't do this. i can't make the transition.
Jules: family is hard. but it's something that needs to happen for you to move on with your life. you'll never get anywhere in life if all you ever had was one house. come on. come on inside and meet my family.
i run away over the meadow into the forest.
Jules: but there's more at the door...