Monday, October 13, 2025

WET EYES: ST. CYRIL'S THEATRE

 

















Wet Eyes was the theatre director at St. Cyril's. he was a mysterious man. you see a little podunk place like St. Cyril's wasn't used to Hollywood royalty giving us acting lessons. legend was he worked with Robert De Niro once on something. he worked down in The Valley. and he was used to legends, being 1/6 Indian Native American Cherokee, which was more than most. 

Wet Eyes: why does life delight in being mean? as you can see, i'm skinny as a beanpole, checkered tablecloth for a shirt, my trademark cowboy bluejeans, hair slicked-back black shoepolish, apricot-colored rawhide cowboy boots, gravelly dirt voice, my face is if Howdy Doody was real. a face pockmarked from smoking strange Mexican cigarillos. the reason i'm so thin is i'm so sad. the reason my people call me Wet Eyes is my eyes are raw, tender, and red from constant crying, my life consists of tears. i carry a blood-red handkerchief with white polka dots in my jeans backpocket, you can't miss it. i'm constantly taking the hanky out and dabbing my eyes. 
Kevin Costner: i had nothing to do with this.

Wet Eyes: it's my boy. my 6-year-old son was born with Fragile X syndrome. i cry whenever i think about the HARD-AS-FUCK life he's gonna have. oh well. all i can do is sigh. and give others the means to pretend to get out of their doomed lives. that's what acting is, right? i'll give anyone gathered in a circle on stage here a fin if they know how to be happy in life.
dad whispers in my ear: a fin is noir slang for a 5-dollar bill.
me: i love you, dad.

our class of 6-year-olds have bewildered eyes as we eat our travel packs of Funyuns. Sister Carol Francis the principal gives only me a stern look through her peephole glasses, tossing back her eggshell-blue veil like it was her long blonde hair and she was a Valley girl.

autumn: for the first time in your life, autumn is tree-cutting season.
chainsaw: that's some scary shit.

Jen R: remember in the '80s everyone had that red plastic brick-shaped power-beam flashlight from RadioShack?...

Nightmares (1983).
Pyewacket: my eyes are friendly.
cop: it's ALWAYS the tail light. cute don't crime.
Cory Matthews: terror in Topanga, yeah, that was our marriage...
Chatsworth: a lot of porn like in Van Nuys, but Van Nuys has that cool Taco Bell.
Jen R: this is the Brady Bunch House with MANY more ferns.
milk: why does cereal always need to be a midnight snack?...
Jen: that is a cool family community chalkboard, we should try that, we need one of those for our family.
Lisa: because the long Metropolitan cigarettes don't fit in the frame...
Shelley Duvall: ...
gas: Super Unleaded?...
gas-station attendant in gray jumpsuit at night: let's face it, we're all creepy killers.
Jen: the killer was Jim Belushi?
Emilio Estevez: practicing being rebellious for The Breakfast Club...
Takahashi: oh man, a downtown arcade right on the street there along Hollywood Boulevard, THAT is punk.
little brother: Parker Lewis lost a lot of quarters as a kid...
Mexican youth: this is a hairnet, ese, i work in a kitchen, i'm not in a gang.

gang leader: we don't do drugs, vato, we do joysticks.
chingas: we punk, but we've never heard of the band Fear...
Al Davis: A Commitment To Excellence on that city bus there, remember when the Raiders were good?...
New Jersey: we have a Galleria, too.
Pamela: bring "shine it" back.
Emilio: I HAVE A PROBLEM, DAD!!! video-game addiction is a BRAND NEW disease in 1983, mom!!! society sucks, man!!!
mom on the phone: Zock, is that you? what kind of ridiculous name is Zock?
Emilio: i WOULD play against you, Tron-head man, but there's no slot to put the quarter in real life...
priest: don't worry, little guy, i'm Catholic but i won't ban Bambi.
Lance Henriksen: why is it that the only character i play is Frank?
priest: where do alcoholic priests go for help?
junior priest: don't call that 1-900 number again, Frank.
priest: i don't mind doing the baptisms and the weddings, can someone else do the funerals? they're so depressing.
altar boys at a funeral: do we REALLY need to be here?...
holy water: works in a car radiator in a pinch.

faith restores peace: in your wife.
Father Frank: we are living in a great void, Your Eminence. at least let me be an atheist based on the Biblical description of God, i mean He's so damn paternalistic!!!

Melissa Maker: the hostages are finally coming home after two years, i'm jumpy, i'm antsy, i'm vulnerable, i need to fuck to get out all this paralyzing nervous energy from my body. let's do it.
me: ...
Melissa: what's the holdup?!!! for fuck sake you don't know how to undo a bra?
me: my fingers always get stuck.
Jen R: they say sex is for expelling anxiety from the body. shall we go to the Mexican restaurant?
Melissa: yeah i guess. it's always chips season in October. fill a couple of my bras with halloumi and let's go, that's what i use my bras for now...

Okarun from Dandadan: how long when you have a JACKED chest like me do you stop being called a nerd?...

Lars von Trier: i literally don't know how to write a happy ending...

Rolaids antacids: gentle poo-inducers.

Jack-O-Lantern Whopper from Burger King: orange hamburger meat.
Jen R: can a hamburger give you a headache?...

Diane Keaton: no Sleeper jokes, okay, kids? respect your coastal grandma. i'm not sleeping forever. remember, i'm from Philadelphia, we believe in God. it doesn't matter, all humans are robots...

me: if i ever needed cold air in my nose at 5AM.........and it smells of pot...
Jen R: look at that moon, tho!!! Ms. Moon is a pizza crust for us.

Bitch Bible on PodcastOne: actually a nice homey room with a sofa where two former UCLA roommates catch up.

Waldo: i fucked up your eyes.

aging parents: SNL always knows your life in its sketches...

on the Life with Derek set. or the sequel in 15 years.
Michael Seater: if i wasn't queer, Ashley Leggat and i would have 3 kids now...
Ashley Leggat: yeah. i don't even like hockey.

Janet Wood: you forgot i had that PHAT BUTT.

money: morality?...

Yhwach: well i'm half the man i used to be, for as i feel as the dawn, it fades to gray...

mucus buildup in the nose: relax, it's Autumn, you made it.

Wet Eyes: do you want to know the answer?
Wet Eyes's son pops his head up like a turtle from our bewildered class and starts to scurry around the circle crazily vocalizing incoherent dragon sounds.
Wet Eyes: that. my boy. see he's doing dragon improv, he thinks two steps ahead of everybody else, i wasn't thinking of doing the improv exercise til Tuesday. my son's a genius.
Wet Eyes takes the handkerchief from his pocket, dabs his red eyes.









Friday, October 10, 2025

VALERIE STEVENSON: THE FORGOTTEN ANIME CLUB

 

















Valerie Stevenson: i didn't become famous. far from it. instead i became very obscure, a very niche singer. the type of singer whose songs you've heard before in an oft whisper at a Volvo dealership at midnight in the '80s searching for a family wagon. that song that sways in your memory as you wonder why there wasn't Pizza Doritos in the '80s. 
Jen R: that doesn't matter. what matters is that you DID the thing, woman!!! you made those songs, those songs exist, those songs will remain forever in special hearts. you can't help it that Madonna blew everyone else out of the water.
me: your voice HAUNTS me. 
Valerie: thank you, that is the kindest compliment.
me: your voice makes me cry. your voice makes me wish i hadn't wasted my life.

Valerie: i composed two very powerful songs that have deep-seated meaning for me.
Jen: deep-seeded if the songs are about plants...
Valerie: both for '80s anime movies. one for the first Project A-ko movie, one for the first Urusei Yatsura movie.
Takahashi: i creamed my pants when i heard you say that, pleased to meet you. 
Valerie: i don't want to shake your hand.
Takahashi: i know those two songs well, they raised me.
Valerie: hopefully not into one of those anime perverts. the pain and sadness in my songs, the longing, fit well with my despair and the themes of those two forlorn movies.

Ben Affleck speaking Spanish: that's sexy.
Ben Affleck: i got fluent living under i mean with J Lo. don't worry, J Lo and i are getting back together, we're gonna try it again, did you see us all chummy at the Kiss of the Spider Woman premiere? 
William Hurt: not about Spider-Man...
Ben: i know a lot of people are counting on J Lo and me making it, it's their only proof that waiting for love works...

me: baseball makes me think of you.
Jen R: Superman slide into home!!! no it's more like the quiet moments of Vlad Guerrero when he thinks about Vin Scully, Tommy Lasorda, and Fernando Valenzuela.

me: you make me wet.
Jen R: that's disgusting, dude.
me: no, you make me cry all day whenever i think of you.
Jen: oh. well, that does prove that it's love, right?

firefighters: nice cops.

Anthony Bourdain: i'm alive. i'm lead singer of Pet Shop Boys as you'd expect...

Ana Golja: remember, we did Clue as a show first...

Wikipedia: the principal wants a word with you...

me: whenever i think of school projects, i think of you.
dad: remember when it needed to be a rushjob so i cooked up an idea for one of your school projects at Don's Plum at 9PM at night over cold hot-links?

the Stabbing Westward drummer: i'm not the guy in all the porn riding videos...

wet pants: they're not wet from pee, they're wet from the washer...

CBS: only we venture with our media.

NYPD Blue: okay fine, our intro song borrows heavily from the drums ad pops of the Miami Vice intro song...

Drano: you thought it was gonna be actual gel...

Chrissy Snow: i'm gonna visit my parents.........for a few days...

Arnold Horshack: ma, how could you? why did you sexually-harass Jack Tripper like that?
Ellen Travolta: this family needs a father, Arnold!!!

Baby from Dragon Ball GT: Mac Tonight from McDonald's on a bad day...

Gene Rayburn: see every BLANK on Match Game is penis...

black and tan: now that's a sexy-looking drink.

Jack Nicholson: the nut factory is not a place to fear, it's a place to go to retire...

Proactiv: now you can be an actor...

Gene Rayburn: notice how there's never two men contestants on Match Game at the same time? ask Dawson about that.
Richard Dawson: yeah i couldn't perform under those conditions. only women think i'm funny.

Chloe Fineman: i flashed an intern but it wasn't an HR thing, the breastplate was fake. valkyries were real but my tits aren't. 
Marcello Hernandez: hey Chloe, sorry i couldn't be with you. it's just my mom wants me to marry Lili Estefan.

Genndy Tartakovsky: when studio heads kill off your character, make your character a zombie...

Jen R: don't you see? you're a LEGEND!!!
Valerie Stevenson: to whom?
Jen: all those fucking nerds at those anime conventions!!! strangely there're no Asians there, only white, black, and Lithuanian men all 25 years old.
Valerie: you mean i dreamed of being a Madonna singer and my fate is to have to go to anime conventions the rest of my life?
Jen: you'll be worshipped as a space queen at those places in Anaheim. those seedy convention halls in Burbank. the part of Burbank only studio heads park in. 

Valerie Stevenson: i don't know. will they really like me? look at me, i'm old now. my face is haggard from lost love and not being recognized. my body is broken from traveling to Tucson.
Jen R: but you still got the spirit. the spirit of that spiked hair and spiked belt that cinched the waist long before a snatched waist. it's not a sad stuck-in-the-'80s appearance, it's an '80s REVIVAL!!!
Valerie: i want to SING. you know? i don't care where or to whom, i just want to SING!!! i want to feel the vibrations of my torch-ballad voice shimmering across the corners of a brick wall at night.
Jen: an anime convention is the only place they'll let you sing those boutique songs of yours live. even Shakey's Pizza said they'd be closing the door on anime and focusing solely on Stranger Things from now on.









Wednesday, October 8, 2025

VALERIE STEVENSON: YOUR HOUSE IS TOO FULL FOR ME?...

 

















Valerie Stevenson finds the place. it's John Stamos's house.
John Stamos answers his front red door.
John Stamos: you come highly recommended. by Jen. did you find the place okay?
Valerie Stevenson: oh yes. on Cahuenga. i couldn't miss it. you know, John, i am so excited to be FINALLY starting my life, you know?

John Stamos: alright a couple ground rules, Jack Tripper-style. i don't mean to have a bug up my ass but a grasshopper is actually in my butt right now.
Valerie: how does that happen?
John: never go on a picnic at night. there's gonna be no hanky-panky, okay?
Valerie: oh, right. i wasn't expecting any. i mean, every artist has romantic notions of course. if you're on a successful sitcom, you're gonna date your costar, coworkers are coworkers. if you're making an album together with someone, it's gonna be Fleetwood Mac no matter what.
John: i'll let you have the air mattress upstairs alone. until the '90s start, then you can have the futon...

mom: when you get to be my age, you watch for shrinkage. no, brain shrinkage.

The Dead Zone.
Christopher Walken: *flashes Christopher Walken creepy smile* i'm gonna die? oh well, it was a good run.
Christopher: how many more episodes will i have?
doctor: the same number of episodes as Three's Company.
doctor: my name is Sam? i thought my name was doctor.
blonde girl: don't worry, i'm not one of those Sami Brady demon-child types. math is useless, right?
Christopher: private tutor, what a concept!!!
Anthony Zerbe: could you help my son? i know you have to touch his hand but he's invisible.
Martin Sheen: i know i'm Third Party but i'm Martin Sheen so i'm gonna win. my bodyguard is Norm Macdonald. yeah it's probably better to just get Jesse Jackson on your campaign staff.
Jesse Jackson: i was a Shadow U.S. Senator, both meanings.
Christopher: you like Ghost in the Shell? sorry i'm nervous. come on, son, an Indian war bonnet?...
Stillson: i can do pushups!!! government is easy. come on, everyone likes cheese.
volunteers: without us, you're nothing.
David Cronenberg: that door just closed by itself...
Martin: see i have a vision that i'm gonna be on The West Wing.
Cronenberg: Sorkin is a hack!!!
Aaron Sorkin: can't talk, i'm walking...

opponent: these are compromising photos of my ex-wife, i don't care about her.
Jen R: i am rare and radiant.
Christopher: kid, have you ever eaten LIFE cereal?
Walt: can i leave you with some literature?
Christopher: Edgar Allan Poe, not brochures.
Walt: nice to finally meet you. Sarah tells me you were her first blowjob.
Christopher: not in front of the kid. by the way, voting is useless.
boy: who was that, Johnny?
Johnny, crying: Lenore.
Christopher: THE ICE IS GONNA BREAK LIKE A KIT KAT BAR!!! 
Christopher: i only get crazy when i'm right. ironically i'm not walken without this cane...
boy: dad, i like hockey, but Atari is gonna be a revolution.
Christopher: okay you want me to prove to you that i'm psychic? did you know more coeds today are big drinkers?...
President Stillson: i'm the voice of the people and the people want nuclear war!!! why does my bodyguard look like Abraham Lincoln? 
Christopher: the rifle works better with a screw loose. when the rifle has a screw loose...
Sarah: now that i've seen the whole movie, seen his secret underhanded gangster tactics, that candidate was a scumbag!!!
David Cronenberg: my stuff is intimate yet from a faraway land. my stuff is cozy Canadian comfort.

Valerie Stevenson: *knocking on the inside door* um, excuse me, Mr. John Stamos?
John Stamos: leave me alone, i'm busy.
Valerie: it's just you have this cool empty garage here. why don't we practice our band stuff here in the garage in true '80s fashion? 
John: that's not my garage. i don't pay for that garage. the garage isn't part of the house, that's how all the houses on this block are in those cute little rows...

your hands freezing up: means no more sunburn on your neck.

Ellie Anderson: British bird.

Dutch Wonderland Inn: where i WISH i was born, then i could stay at the amusement park forever.
Walt Disney: so, um, i'm looking around this place and, copyright problems much?!!!

Off the Air: the next episode should be "Entropy"...

Super Saiyan 4: yeah but it was baby form, you know?

Hi and Lois: this is the next comic strip that needs so be turned into an adult animated cartoon...

The Clan of the Cave Bear: the '80s film, Daryl Hannah, the next PBS Saturday Night Movie...
Daryl Hannah: my name sounds like the '80s...

Rory Gilmore: i say "I love you" and you say "Back atcha"? come on, dude.

Dan Orlovsky: i use deo on my BO.

El Gordo y La Flaca: it's weird to do a show at 7PM at night...

wedding toast: bread at the wedding.

Joe Gitter: i actually have a woman's fingers. corn chowder is an AUTUMN dish, not a summer dish. there is no such thing as bacon that is too salty.
Bridget Lancaster: my boyfriend Sweaty Onions works for Meta now.
Joe Gitter: i've spent the last three hours trying to fish the fucking bay leaf out of the chowder!!! fuck it!!! just leave the fucking bay leaf in there!!!

craving pumpkins: clamoring for the next Smashing Pumpkins album ALREADY!!!
Billy Corgan: fans are a pain in my neck.

Jen R: so how's it going?
Valerie Stevenson: terribly. John Stamos gives me the cold shoulder. he ignores me. i've been there five months now and nothing. no progress on the album or the show. he's pretending i don't exist, me, a vital member of the group.
Jen: i hear weird noises at night. when i'm spying on you. for safety.
Valerie: yeah it's pretty obvious John Stamos is fucking Lori Loughlin all night long in the Full House kitchen. 
Jen: oh yeah, next to the ferns.








 

Monday, October 6, 2025

VALERIE STEVENSON: A SINGER'S PATH

 

















Valerie Stevenson: this is MY time. you see me? you see me as i am right now in the early 1980s? with my spiked choker, spiked bracelets, spiked jacket, and spiked hair!!! and plum eyeshadow. i'm not trying to be Jem, i'm trying to be ME. you see how this works? i have a dream to be a famous singer and nothing's gonna stop me. all i have is this time NOW to do it. i can't help what decade i was born into, what genre i'm labeled. i can only sing the songs that are in my heart, my own original songs, not any fucking covers!!! i need the world to see me for me, that can only happen if they hear me for me. i'm not thinking in the back of my mind that Madonna's gonna get there first before me, i can't think like that...

Valerie Stevenson: i can only follow my own path...
Jen R: yeah i feel you, girl. so what kind of songs are spilling out of your soul?
Valerie: they bubble from my gut at night. 
Jen: are you sure that's not gas?
Valerie: like, very SAD songs, songs of LONGING, songs which speak without words to the feeling of having lost something irretrievable in a very purple nostalgic way...

Valerie Stevenson: i'm like a Vaporwave punk...

me: i need a family. but lust is my problem...
Jen: put down the porn and pick up a program.

Mark Sanchez: the Butt Fumble. you guys couldn't let it go. it was just a stupid funny thing. but you made it so it would eventually drive me to lose the tethers of my sanity.
Terry Bradshaw: the football is a tethered ball. maybe if you had completed that drive...

The Dead Zone.
Christopher Walken: what is USA Network?
Brooke Adams: where i'm married to a Monk...
Stephen King: see in my book Johnny couldn't see the future, he was just brain-dead.........it was a sadder story...
Castle Rock, Maine: where Seinfeld lives.
Christopher Walken: wait i look like a DORK in this.
Jen R: can you imagine having Christopher Walken as your high-school English teacher the week of Halloween? smiling that creepy smile of his in your direction, getting you all hot and bothered.
Christopher Walken: *in Christopher Walken voice* i'm okay. just hot flashes. i get flustered.
dad: on a teacher's salary, all you can afford is a VW Bug. 
truck driver: you okay? oh shit, fuck this, i'm just gonna leave the scene.
Sarah Bracknell: where is intensive care?
nurse: is this a New England hospital? upstairs.
doctor: hello, John. you're alive but your life sucks. it's the year 3000 and everyone's gone. your wife married JFK who lived.
Christopher: excuse me, i'd like to listen to Pearl Jam "Black" alone in my hospital room please.
nurse: i know this is a sanctuary but does a hospital room really need a wood model ship?...
Jen: UNLIKE this, your telephone call to me WAS meant to be...

Christopher: you look like Karen Allen.
Sarah: you'd like my husband.
Christopher: yeah i seriously doubt that. your kid should have been MY kid!!!
David Cronenberg: you like my quick cuts?...
Nicholas Campbell: the only way i could be a cooler Canadian actor is if i did anime voices...
Christmas tree: not everything has to be Minority Report, man.
psychics: we are blessed by God, we were never meant to have personal lives...
Christopher Walken: *in Christopher Walken voice* i don't know.
Christopher: wanna go to Denny's? sorry i'm nervous. look, i can't fuck without the cane.
Sarah: this is gonna be lovemaking, not fucking.
Christopher: wait, so you're getting a divorce?
Sarah: no, this is a one-time Christmas gift for you. playing house with another man's kid for a day. to give you a taste of what your second family should have been. no other woman would do this for a man!!!
dad: making bookshelves, like i did with mom with I Ching...
Nicholas Campbell: it's me, isn't it. you can't hide my distinctive voice.
Da Vinci: the culprit is me...

Hans & Franz: maybe if your benchpress wasn't so puny, puny man!!!
Christopher Walken: the bullet, the tinnitus, not good for my headaches.
doctor: you are doing better, look at all this fan mail!!!
Christopher: it's not fan mail. i can't burn it because i don't want another burning house...

William Shakespeare: the board game is the bard game which is still Uncle Wiggily.

across: your new favorite word.

kiss-clash: no it's not two bespectacled lesbians trying to kiss at the Portland Bratmobile show, it's two The Clash fans regardless of sexual orientation debating in Portland the merits of the band Kiss.

Ani DiFranco at the Portland show at the mic before her set: i mean how is SNL not gonna get canceled?...

goofs on a TV show: it's just the boom mic.

Chef Jose Andres: does anyone else have THIS SPECIFIC WHITE BEARD? that looks like i rubbed toothpaste across the lower half of my face.

SimpliSafe: it's not quite Minority Report.........yet...

Jen R: if you're a married couple and you don't kiss in public, if all you do is hug in public, that is NOT a good sign for the marriage lasting...

Kit Kat: the afternoon chocolate.

Rebecca Lowe: gambling problem? call me, my soothing British voice will ease your suffering and let you place that pound down away from the window.

Rebecca Lowe: i have to do these DraftKings adverts you see. soccer shouldn't be about bets, it should be about balls. the soccer bosses are all uptight British men who weren't allowed to watch Monty Python as lads.

human in a hangar with ONE of the Wright Brothers in an old-timey tan photograph up on the hangar wall: humans were meant to fly? then where are our wings?...

Premier League: now THAT is a moment of silence...

me: every dentist reminds me of you.
Jen R: Imzadi...

The Rock: you see? i get the Oscar for out-Mickey Rourke-ing Mickey Rourke in the wrestler thing, that gives me the gravitas to finally run for President...

chimichurri: it's good but your butthole will be sore for days.

Valerie Stevenson: no matter who or what is in front of me, i can't give up on my dream. 
Jen R: they're not in line, they're blocking you.
Valerie: i have to keep singing my songs, in dives, bars, and strip joints. 
Jen: you will touch people there. with your music.
Valerie: i have to keep renting out studio space in the Hacienda Hills.
Jen: yes, La Cienega is the place to disappear. 
Valerie: they say all the songs are already in the ether fully-formed, a singer simply has to PLUCK them out of the sky.
Jen: yes. but EVENTUALLY, you know, EVENTUALLY, you kinda have to get discovered. get noticed. you kinda have to get onto a TV show or be in a band or something. Dick Clark has to read your name off a sheet of paper he was slipped on-air. look, i'll tell you what i'm gonna do for you. i like you, kid, you have spunk. i might have John Stamos's phone number. i went to a party last week and he was there, i think. it was one of those mansion parties with, like, 10,000 people all out on the front lawn.  
Valerie: you have John Stamos's number?!!!
Jen: i have no idea. but if i did, it'd be in THAT cardboard box over there...