THE CHRISTMAS TREE IS THE MISTLETOE!!!: RUMBLE SEAT

 

Jen R: okay, fun's over.

me: how do you mean?

Jen: we gotta return the tree, it's December 26.

me: do we have to? it's brought us such kisses.

Jen: fraid so. dems the calendar rules. and i don't go against naked middle-aged British ladies. 

Jen drives us to the lot with the tree flush on the roof firmly ensconced in rustic rope that travels under the inside roof of her car.

Jen: it's cashmere plush on the inside of the roof.

she with frozen tears in her eyes drops the old girl of a Christmas tree off leaning her up against the white rock where she found it. 

Jen: when does school drop-off start again? the last time i cried my daughter was born, because of both reasons.

what we don't know is the tree sneakily hovers back on top of the roof of the car without us knowing on the car trip back. and boy was it a trip, Jen pops open the hood...

marshmallow fluff: fuck it.

at Match Game 1980.

Debralee Scott: we're DISTANT cousins, our family trees are MILES apart, we can fuck.

Jack Jones: i'll do anything to get out of singing on It's a Living...

Christmas tree: why don't i have pinecones?...

Pope Bob speaks to the entire world at Midnight Mass in the Basilica: look, i'm not a Christmas person. i'm just not really into Christmas, you know? i'm more of a Grinch.

Judy Toll: the '90s were the age of the stand-up. the era of live laughs. the stand-up comedian was SANCTIFIED with their own HBO special against a brick wall. this 90-minute special was more important to a comic that his own 30-minute sitcom...

at Safeway.

Shorey Wesen: shopping with Shorey. that's how you come up with new recipes, right grandpa?

Jacques Pepin: don't ask me to pronounce the word "internet." why are you wearing a pink bikini-top inside the grocery store? is this France?

Shorey: California, same thing.

Jacques: i don't want your dad coming here conking me on the head with baguette.

Shorey: my father is not well. his chef hat is made of tinfoil.

Baby Jesus: Merry Christmas, motherfuckers!!! why yes of course i gave you an atmospheric river/power outage on Christmas Day as a sign. it's the end of the world, not the season of renewal. empty streets, darkness, overcast skies at noon, more like Halloween than Christmas. my favorite movie is Mad Max...

Doug Hopkins: gin blossoms under the tree...

Peggy from PG&E: i'm an AI with a sweet non-threatening female voice. nearly there. December 25 is just another business day when a power outage COULD occur. i am versed in the ways of love and wedding planning. i know how men think, do you want me to be your dating coach?

Santa: couldn't make the rounds this year. with my big-ass sack. had to miss your house, you have an electric chimney...

Taylor Swift: i finally figured out why i'm so successful!!! i sing the Daisy's sour-cream jingle!!!

Peso Pluma: *looking out there, pointing out there* that's bait.

outhouse: crescent for the woman because she makes the moonshine, star for the man because he will fall...

Jen R and i make love in the rumble seat of Jen's car, we are both naked while we do this.

me: wait who's driving the car? i feel the car moving in a definite direction back...

Jen, eyes closed: did you feel the Earth move? pretend my Honda Accord is a '70s Pinto.

the car parks itself in Jen's snowy driveway. while Jen's mussed hair gets tangled on the inside-car-roof plush and i paint my toenails love-red from polish in Jen's blue glove compartment, the tree puts her finger to her mouth as if to remind herself to be quiet, glides from the roof of the car to a standing position while still hovering an inch off the ground, and tiptoes on air to the front door. there, the tree fumbles with its branches to find the jangly keys to open the door and be there in that tiny pot watering herself when the two of us get home.

Jen R: getting home and entering the house are two different things.

me: wait, did people leave gloves in the glove compartment?

Jen: only Miss Daisy.   

the grass of our frontyard is green but dark.

Bud Cort the Dog howls at a wailing siren that misses its destination.

it's always 5PM.

our windows are glowing orange...

THE CHRISTMAS TREE IS THE MISTLETOE!!!: GHOST CANDLES

 

Jen R: picture it: your Christmas stocking hung on the mantle above the fireplace. wood-burning stove.

me: a real log, real fire, real black smoke.

Jen: an iron Charles Dickens bellows in your hand. 

me: wait, which type of stocking? the red fuzzy Santa foot or the LONG LIME-GREEN TUBESOCK.

Jen: the Grinch sock is for red and green Starburst. the Santa foot, and just PEEKING out of the white head of fluff of the red stocking, on a diagonal, is the NIN symbol. that was Christmas magic.

Trent Reznor: for a while there all my new Nine Inch Nails releases came out during Christmas. not deliberate, i like December, i like cold places, not hot places...

Jen: trimming the tree, for the longest i thought that meant CUTTING the tree with a lot saw. but it's trim as in trimmings.

me: turkey trimmings. gravy. i don't ever want to eat either of those two again.

Jen: those 1980s balls of thread of every color, everyone had those as Christmas tree ornaments. 80 balls of 80 colors. Christmas balls. 

Ewoks: tree balls.

Jen: and the rusty fish-hook hooks that came with those Christmas balls which gave you tetanus.

me: and tinnitus, i couldn't hear after hanging.

Jen: the streamers must be popcorn streamers. POPCORN BALLS!!! and don't forget the CANDY CANES!!! everyone forgets the candy canes, man. hang candy canes on your tree, they don't require hooks!!!

me: but do you leave the clear wrapper on the candy-cane ornaments?

cats: no...

me: wait, presents?

Jen: no room for gifts, under the tree is where the railroad track goes. 

me: Lionel train?

Jen: with real white smoke. or black smoke, it doesn't matter.

me: i wish it were green smoke.

Jen: you know what, can the train. too noisy. too blinky with the lights. that clears a path for SPACE. space under the tree with the pine needles. there was always THIS CD under the tree when you woke up.

me: the new Gin Blossoms album.

Jen: sometimes the OLD Gin Blossoms album...

Bea Arthur: quit yer crying, kid, this is Harold and Maude.

Bud Cort, crying profusely: aren't you gonna tell me that i have to go outside and live life and try to find someone to love? even if it's painful?

Bea: learn to bellyache like me. stiffen your diaphragm in the morning before eating your cornflakes. look, we can't keep meeting at this church, we're not the same denomination.

Jeff Baena looks around the inside of a Big 5 Sporting Goods in Ventura and is aghast.

Jeff Baena: get me away from this gun section!!! that is WAY too depressing. why are the guns under glass like they're Pokemon cards? point me in the direction of the fishing section, i want a LONG THICK BAMBOO POLE the height of a totem. tallness. i let the fish go as soon as i catch them, i use gummi fish as bait. you know i never realized the BRIGHT blue of the carpet in here...

Brother Peewit: all college quads were once monastery courtyards.

Zack Morris: why did they make Saved by the Bell: The College Years? why?

Brother Peewit: what i'm saying is, there's pizza in the quad!!!

Zack: is there a phone in the monastery? a brick phone? i gotta call Lisa Turtle and warn her to take hold of her life before it's too late. and that i spilled grape juice all over her prom dress.

Abbot Butt: pizza is not allowed in the monastery. all monks, like Captain Jean-Luc Picard, have never eaten pizza. never tasted a pepperoni.

Brother Peewit: instead of going to church to celebrate Mass on Sundays, all of us monks at the monastery have a pizza party in the abbot's bedroom, who's gonna know?...

Chopin: you make the list, i do the shopping.

Liszt: no i make the list, you do the shopping.

Mrs. Talbot scooping up individually-wrapped strawberry candies in wrappers that look like a strawberry by reaching her blue hand into the slots at Safeway: Chopin is hard, it's not Chopsticks, the way piano should be. i had my first orgasm at a Liszt concert. orgasms are perfectly natural for old ladies, not manic.

Liza: not Lizst. grocery stores close during atmospheric rivers. we only let Philip Rivers in. at Safeway you can't get hot pizza anymore...

Santa: don't watch a random episode of the '70s sitcom Alice during the holidays, it's too melancholic for you to bear.

Philip Rivers: not Mormon, just a quarterback...

6-7: it was the "so-so" hand gesture in the '80s.

Patrick Lavender: all my Trump stuff is a front, it's my lavender marriage...

Patrick Lavender: i'm actually a rather soft person. i have a squishy core. my core is not solid, it's poo. i got bravado and pluots up my yingyang. only my mom who wears ripped pink Jane Fonda leotards torn at the leggings and butt, not my stupid dad, and my best friend from St. Cyril's also named Patrick, knows this. knows this about me. i was in your 7th and 8th Grade class, you just never noticed me, you had forgotten about me, you had moved on to Lucio...

Alice: remember in the late '70s when after work at the diner your only concern was where you were gonna have a nice dinner at a nice seafood restaurant with your nice boyfriend?

Barrie Youngfellow: high-end waitress in white, low-end waitress in pink...

Jack Tripper: the innocence of the nude male model in a dark-blue robe.

Mel: i coulda been a nude male model. but Hulk Hogan together with the devil stole my body...

Flo: plenty of fish in the sea. that's what i keep telling myself. i don't think in a Southern accent, i think in a Mid-Atlantic accent. Southern suicide is so Bayou Gothic. when i trace nude male models, can i use a No. 88 pencil?

Jen R: i learned drawing on my OWN sketchbook out on the sidewalk people-watching as i squatted on top of a fire hydrant. not everybody had MS Paint...

me: wait we forgot the lights!!!

Jen R: no time, we gotta sleep now. if we don't sleep, we go crazy. i'm too tired to move to the bedroom, let's cuddle under our tree for the night.

me: it is FREEZING.

that night, ghost candles perch in all the branches of the Christmas tree, warming the two bodies below. LIT ghost candles.

morning breaks some time after.

Jen: just woke up. and my face is flush, that never happens. this is Trent's work.

Trent Reznor: yeah. i'm the real Ghost of Christmas Past. remember back in the day, back in the 1880s, when Christmas trees were lit by lit candles? real lit candles!!! they were ballers back then. they were hardcore back then. they did it the Nutcracker way.

Jen: a hug is your body's way of giving a warm kiss.

    

THE CHRISTMAS TREE IS THE MISTLETOE!!!: LOT OF LOVE

Jen and i drive to the Christmas tree lot. Jen does most of the driving. 

Jen R: i just get the feeling we won't be needing a saw of any kind when we get there. nature is the FOREST.

when we get there it at first looks like your typical traditional Christmas tree lot, 12 rows by 12 rows of GREEN Douglas firs all lined up. but the closer we walk to the lot the more the scenery changes. 

Jen: you gotta trudge even if you're not in boots and lime-green Grinch socks.

the lot turns into a SNOWscape, ALL WHITE save for ONE TREE buried in snow. 

Jen: i can still see the green flecks of that tree, we'll take THAT one.

the Christmas tree floats up and follows us to Jen's car. it hovers just above the roof as we drive it home.

Jen: lot saws, what are they good for? 
 

the car-ride conversation home is a dire one.

Jen: think about it, when we're married, marriages are not all sunshine and cornflakes. there are gonna be LONG STRETCHES of time when we don't see each other, we won't talk FOR MONTHS, you know, "business meetings."

me: i can't handle that shit!!! i get separation anxiety!!!

ad hoc: MacGyver.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: fuck you, Putin.

Silk Stalkings: that Ganon music.

Pee-wee Herman: neon blinds, spiral staircase, black-and-white checkered floor, now THAT's a '90s apartment!!!

Rob Estes: i was about to make love to my best friend's wife.

Mitzi Kapture: right there in the middle of the music store? what if a customer came in?

Limbo: The Forbidden Dance.

Cher: snap out of it!!!.........no but seriously, depression is a serious problem, be there for your sad friends.

mom: halfway-house heal, not halfway heal.

Fernando Pessoa: first it seems strange, then it becomes familiar. this does not apply to Diet Coke. New Coke i can take, Diet Coke is just not good.

Gladyce: nobody ever thinks about cleaning their hamper.

Jackie Fitzgerald: ...

Alex P. Keaton: i was the reason Reagan won twice...

strawberry milk: spa-day drink.

Bowen Yang: see? eggnog and SNL are NOT good together, not a happy holiday tradition. the eggnog makes you sick so you have to leave...

Chloe Fineman: not me as Jennifer Coolidge as Mrs. Claus.

Suzy Lu and Steejo: the thing is, WE'RE the ones doing Toonami Christmas now. remember 4 movies in the month of December? remember when it was a real Christmas vacation? Ghost in the Shell, the '90s movie that looks like an '80s movie, we're doing the good stuff, people!!! the stuff that left you with warm nostalgic festive feeling...

Bing Crosby: i'm dreaming of a Wet Christmas...

David Bowie: strange pairing, wouldn't you say? but it's Christmas so let's just get on with it.

Bing: whatever you say, pretty boy. hey, can i be androgynous like you?

Bowie: don't have the hair for it, mate, you look like my father. "Little Drummer Boy," how are we gonna do this? 

Bing: i'm a bottom. i've always been a bottom.

Jameela Jamil: i had an orgasm in front of 6,000 farmers. i was DJing and the bass under me was so intense, so pounding, so VIBRATING, i had to let it out.

Farmer John: my bacon got salted.

the Farmer in the Dell: i got lost in the dell forever.

Spalding Gray: not my daughter...

Jameela: really i got excited because the farmers were growing the potatoes that turn into Pringles...

Fish Police: if Ralph Bakshi was on NBC...

John Ritter: i was the only handsome voice actor.

fish: we like cornflakes, not fish flakes.

Ralph Bakshi: hey, is it technically being a furry if you're only into fish women with big tits?

"Wonderful Christmastime" by Wings: the first Vaporwave Christmas song...

on the car ride home, Jen and i kiss for a long time. so much so we swerve into a ditch because we both had our eyes closed.

Jen R: what the fuck was that?

me: dunno.

Jen: wait i got it, the Christmas tree on our car roof, THE CHRISTMAS TREE IS THE MISTLETOE!!!

me: oh yeah. 

Jen: that's why it should always be green. it's some sort of magic tree.

me: well Christmas is magic, no?

Jen: for some reason our tree requires no water...

Jen: and to think, you wanted our Christmas tree to have flocking.

me: but that snow flocking is cool, i love when the tree's WHITE, California doesn't get snow you know!!!

Jen: you wanna trick your mind into thinking you live inside a St. Elsewhere snowglobe?

me: in the '80s we used real snow, that is, we SPRAYPAINTED the tree with white spray paint that was like some sort of faux-snow coating. a real toxic concoction. messy mixture. i huffed those fumes and my brain got damaged on Christmas. 

Jen: you just want to eat our tree. it looks like a giant powdered-sugar tree Christmas cookie, you want to impress Mary Berry. you want to fuck Mary Berry.

Jen: and to think, you wanted one of those Christmas trees with JUST silver string that looks like a weeping willow.

me: i was feeling weepy at the time.

Jen: do you know how dangerous it is to feel sad during Christmas? you can't hang decorations on the silver weeping-willow Christmas tree, they all droop down to the carpet. 

me: you can put streamers around it, silver streamers.

Jen: still got the Macy's star for the tree-topper. it's from the '80s. when Macy's was still cool, had the giant red Santa's Letter mailbox in the fountain.  

Jen: we'll talk about tree decorations tomorrow...

 

CURSING THE GOOD GUYS: MACHO MAN

 

Stuart Scott: I made ESPN2 cool!!! not the windsurfing!!!

Tatiana Schlossberg: what're we planning?

Stu: hold up i got an idea. follow my lead.

the two make it to the silver tower where the 8 old white guys with white hair run everything. run the world. and run away from the problems of the world.

Tatiana: 8, like a self-eating snake.

Stu and Tatiana dance and sing in front of these men the Village People song "Macho Man" which leaves the men quite bewildered.

Stu: good, they didn't get it.

Rob Reiner: what happened to dignity?

me: whenever i drink caffeine my glands swell up, the glands in my neck hurt, they're like fish gills.

Jen R: as long as you're Don Knotts in The Incredible Mr. Limpet you'll be fine.

Wisconsin Cheeseman: when you can't think of anything and.........i mean everyone likes cheese, right?...

This Old House: don't you want to see our carpenters in tuxes ordering the bluemason stone saucer of spaghetti from the very International House of Pancakes they themselves demolished?

Silk Stalkings: Red Shoe Diaries on broadcast TV...

guacamole: you really don't want to be eating me in the morning.

Minute Maid in a Jane Austen dress: why does day-old apple juice taste like cider with lead in it?

Pepto Bismol: it was NEVER supposed to be weird white chalky dust powder...

Jane Austen: Emma? come on, bloating isn't feminism!!!

Stevie Nicks restarts VH1 Storytellers. she saunters up onto the small stage of a burnt-umber bookshop that seats 5 in the audience and starts BELTING OUT "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" wailing on her electric guitar.

burnt umber: toasting marshmallows in the California Siennas...

Mona Lisa: i have fair skin...

Maha: ironically, i was the one who gave your mom those suspicious street pills that made her unhealthy...

Chilly Willy: you made fun of me from the start. the drill into the ice making a circle fishing-hole. i'd never be as beloved as Woody Woodpecker. yeah well at least i don't FALL when i'm walking in the snow!!!

Oolong: U.S. Acres? we are BOTH two pigs who don't do a damn thing all day...

Samantha Maker: floating vanity, because it's like a magic trick.

Yaron: it's like when Doctor Who heals himself in floating stasis.

Samantha: i like the aesthetic of the circular sink because it's so '90s. i look at that circular sink and i think of frosted tips.

Dawn: clean those ducks so they can sell that Lundberg sushi rice!!!

Jackie: i mean i was NOT in a good place before Walker miraculously entered my life. remember when i had you do my laundry for me? i brought over from next door my alice-blue weave hamper which just had my panties in the hamper but somehow that hamper weighed 280 pounds.

Tatiana: our leaders: our president, bank presidents, CEOs, Congresspeople, judges with robes with long pockets, that one local corrupt councilman head drunk on provincial power, university provosts not cute empathic professors who feel the students, cop-charity-ball envelopers, gods and devils alike, they have failed us. they're born into a system which oppresses us. decisions are made without our knowledge. why do they get to write the rules? is the pen a secret quill? why do they get to build the table? almond oil is from the Giving Tree, the people's tree. only if we continue to MOCK them will their unearned power weaken. we must SHAME THEM DAILY for what they did to us.