DONUT DATE: LEEZA, NOT LIZA

 

Fall is for donuts. i don't know when it started, but i started to go to Safeway every morning for a sugar donut. it was the natural progression from my early-morning walks, you know? it'd be 8AM when i was done, it was too early for breakfast. what i most love about Safeway at 8:30AM is the BLISSFUL QUIET.

me: there is nothing better on Earth than walking to Safeway in the morning for a sugar donut on the first day of Autumn.

Liza agreed. she was a short older-pixie woman with stringy dirty-blonde hair under a cap. she was the only Safeway employee who wore the official Safeway hat, it was so cute.

Liza: i'm still new here. you see how i'm talking to you now here at the conveyor belt? i can only do this in the morning. the mornings fill me with magic dust. it's quiet enough to hear another's thoughts.

that smile got me!!!

Liza: you look like my son.

me: that's it, you got me. why is it that i can only talk to mature women now?

Liza: because you're old!!! seasoned means never having to say you're sorry. 

me: your nametag says LIZA but people call you Leeza.

Liza: yeah, it's Leeza as in Gibbons, not Liza Minnelli.

me: can i still call you Liza? the cool way. Liza as in Minelli is just right, you know?

Liza: Leeza sounds like a skank. is that all you're getting?

Chris Cornell: like a scone. my mom was Miss Manners, i had to rebel. i'm like actually a viscount or something.

Awakenings.

Penny Marshall: can i be serious?...

Robert De Niro: SCARY how much that boy looks like me...

Jen R: hey, a teacher can't look at a student's private journal!!!

Robin Williams: i can't do Patch Adams again, once was enough.

Julie Kavner: i'm the exact opposite of Nurse Ratched.

Oliver Sacks: i really do look like Robin Williams!!!

Robin: in this nuthouse of catatonics, i'm thinking the cigarette machines empty out REAL quick. that was a joke.

chronic hospital: Dr. Dre turns his head, then bobs his head.

Earthworm Jim: i have a restaurant called The Forge.........no wonder Leslie Sbrocco's never eaten there...

psych-ward TV: does it always have to be cartoons?

Buttercup: i'm the dog who lives in Baltimore but who guards THIS house in The Bronx...

baseball: everyone remembers the toss-the-baseball scene.

Waheedah: i'm screaming cuz Robin Williams gonna get The Oscar for something in the future, right?

Lucy: never eat peanut butter at a botanical gardens, doctor.

Jell-O: the ONLY thing it does is grow nails.

Awakenings: we predicted 9/11...

Robert De Niro: after 9/11 i just gave up...

Jen R: i know the feeling.

black janitor: come on, man, i'm not magic.

Max von Sydow: strangely familiar Ingmar Bergman porch...

Robin Williams: BUT I JUST THOUGHT IT, MAN!!!

stickball: it just isn't the same.

Lucy: i was a Formula 1 racer in Sherman Oaks.

De Niro: get that motherfucking light outta my face. 

nurses: we became nurses to watch soaps.

De Niro: i'm not a loser, you mook.

Robin: there's never a napkin around when you need to write down something important.

Rilke: my favorite He-Man was the black panther.

John Heard: i can call them Parkies because as a doctor I AM GOD.

Robert De Niro smiling that De Niro smile: i like Donald Duck Orange Juice, man. let me at those giant ice-cream machines i see everywhere at this hospital...

Leonard in front of the mirror: you talkin' to me?

Robin: good but scary.

Leonard turning the car-radio knobs: what music is this?

Robin: that's trap music, change the dial.

will of the ball: Willie Mays.

Fridays: people eventually go crazy on Fridays.

Melissa Maker: the day i announced my divorce i got birdshit on my car.

me: and there's birdshit on my mailbox, that's gotta be a sign.

Alanis Morissette: birdshit at a wedding is good luck. 

Jack Tripper: sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.........i'm talking about that Englishman ventriloquist with the dummy...

Tulsa King: i'm sorry but nothing interesting happens in Oklahoma.

Santa Claus: didn't get what you wanted for Christmas? maybe next time play mahjong with me.

Louise Lasser: all my characters are Louise Lasser playing Louise Lasser.

Hollywood: where would we be if everybody settled and nobody followed their dreams?!!!...

Mrs. Talbot: I did the Tron: Ares soundtrack!!! 

NoizeBoy: with me, Jillian Clare's boyfriend...

Mrs. Talbot: oh sure, when i taught you organ in the '80s, it's wasn't cool. everybody else was doing piano lessons at their posh neighbor's. but then i taught you '80s SWARMATRON...

Isabel Klee: no you can't adopt me...

West Ham: we aren't about winning but we are about education.

Liam Payne: i'm the new judge on The Voice this fall on NBC.

Spalding Gray: i've bought my tower of sunscreen lotion on this the first week of October...

Gilroy: Hell.

Morrissey: wait i'm a ventriloquist now?...

Buffalo wings: tastes like chicken.

Jack and Mr. Furley are trapped in a meat locker.

Jack Tripper: think warm thoughts.

Mr. Furley: the Miami Vice intro!!! 

Jack: this is our trapped-in-the-refrigerator episode...

mattress: you have to be able to do a yoga pose on a mattress or the mattress is no good.

New York Giants: Russell Wilson, pack of gum, just kidding.

the Gendarmerie from Dragon Ball Daima: Minnesota Vikings/Monty Python fans in American Gladiators bodysuits.

Gomah: it's getting Sleeping Beauty up in here!!!

rave: imagine if your prom lasted a week...

Liza: ONE DONUT?!!! you have one donut in a brown bag, each morning the same, it's incredible, how do you exhibit such bodily restraint and control?

me: never thought about it, i'm skinny i guess.

one afternoon i had to see Liza in the afternoon. boy was that a different energy. long rowdy NOISE-FILLED lines all over, the din was its own animal.

Liza shouting: what are you doing here now?!!!

me: emergency. my soup-pot shut. it was the wildest thing, i let it cook the soup for just five minutes too long and now i can't remove the lid!!! 

Liza: imagine, no one will EVER eat that soup. we have soup pots that are kinda like Dutch ovens, get the lid with the hole in it!!! 

the next morning all was forgiven and forgotten.

me: are your eardrums shattered?

Liza: earplugs. now we can talk. it's not a conversation unless it's one-on-one. do you know any good cheap motels around here?

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...