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...

 

CENTER CORE: THE OLIVE PIT

 

Silk: i need some music to clear my soul. not everything is finger cymbals with me you know, i need to ROCK OUT sometimes. 

Deepak Chopra inverts a bushel basket in the middle of campus, steps afoot on top of it, and declares:

Deepak Chopra: listen, how many apples are there in India? that is your lifetime contemplation. i ain't gonna be around for much longer. when my time has come, it's a fluid transition, man, my son is Sanjay Gupta.

Silk: see? the younger set don't jive with this. they need a new approach.

Rod Serling with a massaging hand, and professor glasses: ...

Billy Corgan at Core Center: there has never been really a good sitar song, you know? a song for sitar, a symphony for sitar. Beethoven came closest when he stuck Indonesia in his ear after a visit with the Maharishi.

Mick Jagger wearing black earrings: ...

Mick Jagger: fine, i'm older than Keith Richards.

Billy Corgan plays a cover of the UVERworld song "Eye's Sentry" inside the Core Center.

Billy Corgan: okay i'll admit with a few sighs, this is a better Eye song than mine. sometimes you gotta ROCK OUT, you know? not like Underworld. my Eye song requires i lug a heavy big-ass VST sampler to play it live, and that's to play it acoustic!!! now i know how Enigma feel.

me: you were the right person who came along.

Jen R: with the left ideas.

Famous Amos: nobody had ever thought of bite-sized cookies before!!!

High and Low.

Taguchi: just because i have a bald sweating head doesn't mean i like Bosco chocolate milk. try to not look like a cop.

grunt: none of us do. cops wear white shirts and look like Jehovah's Witnesses?

Akira Kurosawa: what are the chances they would have THE SAME CAR?!!!

Mt. Fuji: i'm not a cloud...

Taguchi: you bring the pistol, i'll bring the cannoli. keep the boy at Tokyo Disney so we don't lose him to the kidnapper again.

Inspector: nothing to do with our case, this was Japanese Trainspotting. a cup of water next to the bodies because they were thirsty. the husband/wife accomplice team were guilty of the crime of wanting to feel good.

procaine: the stuff before cocaine, the stuff before the stuff.

Inspector: there are tiny Sergio Aragones drawings on the margins of the suicide note...

kidnapper: i'll count all the serial numbers, this should take an hour...

Kingo: you're not a ghost in a shell, you're just the shell!!!

pink smoke: makes this technically a color picture.

incinerator: i got one of them dirty jobs. i can spit on your pants and it doesn't matter. i told Dorothy she couldn't make the Tin Man "go away" after she fucked the Scarecrow.

Bos'n: not him. that's a Freddy Krueger welt on his hand, we all have bad dreams.

intern: isn't that an apartment thing?

Inspector: remember the overhead projector in Algebra class?

Bos'n: this Wilford Brimley hat makes my bald head less scary. flowers for me? you shouldn't have, you sweet man.

Janet Wood: don't worry, i tripped him up. the suspect drank powdered milk in front of me.

Rubikon: finally a black man. sukiyaki sizzling so hot the ceiling fan's at 100. is that a waitress or a nurse? war babies being conceived at this dance club. is there beer that's NOT draft beer?...

lasso: i'm roping you in on the dancefloor, you're mine.

Dope Alley: we just wanted a popsicle.

Johnny Depp: he's at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride!!!

Detective Conan: go on, i'll pay the parking ticket.

Mario: quick!!! before he does a Luigi Mangione on the sidewalk!!!

Dr. Mario: aw let him take the cyanide capsules, it'll be cleaner.

IRS checker: we'll cancel the auction if you give me Bulma.

Naruto: don't worry, it's just a spell seal.

culprit: i never had a room on top of a hill, you know? 

i'm not afraid of Hell, my life has been Hell since the day i was born: thank you.

Jules Smith: Tesco, not Taco Bell...

Bob Barker: i am OBSESSED with audiences...

Tom Thumb: but i wasn't actually the size of a thumb.

Trent Reznor: you were nine inches high...

Match Game: First Choice would not have been my first choice...

firemen with mustaches: we're stuck in the '70s...

millennials on YouTube: don't be smug like us, don't react to "Closer" after taking a long sip from your coffee mug like you're too cool for the room.

Silk: they're just not buying it. i'm just not getting through to them. the importance of religion.

Jen R: everybody these days are their own universe. maybe instead of FOLLOWING a god, BE the god.

Silk takes an apple basket, turns it over, plants it inside Core Center, climbs on top of it, and exclaims:

Silk: DON'T EAT THE GREEN OLIVES IF THE PIMENTO IS MISSING!!!

Vishnu: that's the ticket, darlin'. hey can you take over for me? i'm going to Kurt Cobain's house for a touch-up on my powder-blue skin...

Silk: you're right, there's SO much information out there now everyone has to be THEIR OWN GOD.

Zack Morris: see this brick phone? i'm trading it in at the student union for a brick pillow so i can finally be a proper dorm college student. i served a different master: i was your God if your parents allowed you to watch Saturday-morning cartoons. but NOT Beverly Hills, 90210, which was a TEEN show!!! the middle children who snuck in The Maxx when their babysitter's ponytailed head was turned.

Silk: you're right, MTV cartoons were more interesting than the award shows. the Peach Pit was cored out by FCC rules and regulations, watered-down scripts, made the teen experience unrealistically non-prom. The Max was safer. i was always suspicious of the outside world...

CENTER CORE: THOM MUFFIN

 

it's another day at Berkeley. at Core Center, the out-of-the way rectangular building in the vines next to the Starbucks which houses one Eastern lounge with a spiced rug that meets those with the distinct major of Religious Studies.

Jen R gives me a lift in her Harold & Maude car. she drives right onto the center of campus barely avoiding the lion fountain.

Jen R: like my Lana Turner pose?

me: she was a natural brunette, right?

Jen: you're only a Religious Studies major because of Silk.

me: well, no, it's not a useless major, i'm gonna be Gandhi.

Jen: too late. it's because Silk is a beautiful woman. Silk has a butt that's two volleyballs.

me: and she wears that mysterious Medieval chocolate-brown tunic.

Jen: and her pink eyes.

Silk: the tunic is dark mauve in summer. sorry, summer is the only time Berkeley allows Religious Studies majors to roam campus embarrassed and unseen.

Jen: i think i have enough credits to graduate, what am i still doing here?

Silk: RELIGIOUS STUDIES MAJORS UNITE!!!

me: unions are hot.

Silk: what's going on with college life these days? everything old is new again, 18-year-olds on YouTube are reacting to old episodes of Dragon Ball and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as if it were a new song and the world has never heard of grunge before. i have staked my entire life on Hinduism, that Hinduism is the correct religion. it must be, right? it's so cool.

Jen: and peaceful. and good vibes.

Silk: the young today think religion boring. but the Vedas are eternal, they teach us life lessons even now. we just need New Vedas to jazz it up for the AI Generation, you know? 

Martin Scorsese: put that 8-armed blue guy in a Marvel movie.

Silk: it's not all dust in your toes and dank ganja up your nose and a bead in your vagina. life-improvement can be interesting.

Jen: i'm guessing you've gone barefoot your whole life.

Silk: with an ankle bracelet dropped by a '70s Timothy Leary in Encinitas, which later became Encino.

me: i look like Felix Auger Aliassime.

FAA: and i look like Drake. what is on my shirt? the chair from the Depeche Mode "Enjoy the Silence" music video?...

It's a Living: in order for the show to work, the women have to have MANY ex-boyfriends...

Shakespeare: not even I should be 3 hours...

Trinity the cat: call me Hang-Loose Jack.

High and Low.

Akira Kurosawa: this is not Hawaii Five-O: The Movie...

L: it's more like Death Note: The Movie...

Toshiro Mifune: these are fine women's shoes, i wear them myself. do you know how much weight women carry in society? our sales are flat because we only sell flats. i'd make a handsome president. we won't take the Old Man to war, he's too old. Slipshod was the first name of Mario. let's make Moon Boots, it's the '60s, right?

wife: i'm not a geisha. like the Bjork swan on my kimono?

Toshiro: this whole thing is my fault, because i hated goody-two-shoes sheriffs. speaking of shoes, this is over shoes? R.I.P. Armani.

handsome police inspector: we're not police, we are Toys R Us.

baldy: in Japan, if you're bald, you're a demon.

Toshiro: and still she persisted.

Brett Somers: dowry...

Toshiro: rainfall showerhead, couldn't resist.

inspector: the kidnapper hung up after 10 rings!!!

Toshiro: fine, take my Polar Cube.

Mario: there's one coin-operated payphone by the Nintendo offices...

briefcase: it's Sgt. Pepper's. there's a capsule in these crispy yen bills that emits a pink smoke like Kirby.

Akira Kurosawa: dolla dolla bills y'all!!!

mom: i was the old lady hot and hard of hearing. does tobacco cool the body?...

pharmacy: ether? like your Instagram friends. no, we only buy Thrifty Ice Cream wholesale.

Taguchi: what a bunch of assholes. those men have clearly never worn high heels. did anyone have a grudge against Gondo? like a girl in a white nightgown with long black hair covering her face? jog a memory, oh, i thought you meant, because i'm too fat to jog.

Gondo: after the Bomb there's no more balcony-lawn here but i still mow to meditate.

Mister Rogers: i'm not the culprit...

Fat Buu: i got the R2D2 voice. 

Goku trying to power up: it's like when you just can't cum.

Suzy Lu: i need a bath after that episode. my Scottish castle has one wall-sized window that opens out to the countryside, the plains wolves watching me react to anime give me quizzical looks.

me: remember in the '80s when you crossed your fingers behind your back to indicate what you just said was a lie?

Jen R: or to crush Scissors with Rock.

Spock: leave me out of this...

Father Navin: if a priest crosses his fingers behind his back, he can never leave the priesthood, even if he marries Barrie Youngfellow...

Zantac: could the print BE any smaller?

Chandler Bing: ...

Chandler Bing: it's fine...

Berkeley Pharmacy: and could the pills BE any tinier?!!!

Talia the cat: you pour the milk into a saucer, the milk pools in a heart shape.

me: saucers are so '80s.

Caitlin Clark: that's the Caitlin Clark Heart. still works even if i'm out.

cancer sign: not a sign you have cancer. the horoscope thing.

Violetta Laze: ...

Violetta Laze: Cancer sign. not the Big C.

West Point: but we WILL honor Forrest Gump, who was the greatest war hero...

Michael Weiss: see the thing is, in order to gain any traction on Instagram, you have to be crazy and enter a stranger's DMs!!!

Julia Ioffe: it's true, or you'll never actually TALK, you'll only look at pictures.

Ask button on youtube videos: no you can't talk to the creator...

Roger Federer: so you just steal Lindsey Vonn away from me?

Jannik Sinner: it's not like that, papa chocolate, she came on to me. to be fair, you aren't playing tennis anymore, so...

Lindsey Vonn: Italy is known for its chocolate. Roger, when you tried to ski, you became an actual frozen rope...

Fannie Flagg: i'm not just tits and a butt...

Superman on Match Game: always answer S, which is my butt.

Silk: remember when the VMAs in the '90s was the COOLEST event of the year?

me: the cool kids!!! you know, Jack Nicholson!!! Madonna!!! don't you want to be a cool kid invited to this party? that one year when Martin Short's date was Magic Johnson. you knew it was cool because Tabitha Soren was anchoring.

Tabitha Soren: with my co-anchor Kurt Loder.

Kurt Loder: people still liked Aerosmith and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Jen R: they were the Oscars for teens!!! you had to stay up late, skip your homework, trick your divorced dad, and watch them or you weren't cool at school the next day. all the girls were glued to their MTV to catch a glimpse of Eddie Vedder's eyes.

Silk: as he performed "Even Flow" acoustic somehow.

at an anti-Trump rally in the middle of campus, the middle of town, the large throng of people in blasted shirts and painted bicycles collectively sing the Radiohead song "Let Down."

Thom Yorke wearing a bandana: this is wonderful. i never thought one of my songs would be used like this. you hear how they're singing it? it's painful. it's in dour tones, they're chanting it like at a church, it's "Let Down" as a Black spiritual...

 

 

THE WOMAN HAUNTS: NOT A SOUND

 

Jen R: THEY'RE ALREADY SELLING HALLOWEEN CANDY!!!

me: i know, right? sorry that the only place i take you on a date is Safeway.

Jen: nah it's cool, there's always something new to explore. want your first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season?

me: a little hot for that, doncha think?

Jen: thank you. a little hot, that's about right. that's how my mom describes me to her Canasta friends. it's only 100 degrees out there under an overcast sky, drink up!!!

Tales from the Darkside "Ring Around the Redhead": Starman in reverse...

Janet Wood: that's not a zero on my blue nightgown, that's an O for orgasm, this is Three's Company after all.

Gene Rayburn: what's your score?

Joyce Bulifant: Sagittarius, i don't bowl.

Christina McHale: i'm Jess Pegula if she actually needed to play tennis to earn a living.

Aubrey Plaza: what did Joe Biden's notes say? I still can't believe that in this political climate i won!!!

Stephen A. Smith: see i NOW come from old money...

Taylor Fritz's coach: this is serious, son.

Taylor Fritz: i know. his name is Machac as in mechanic.

coach: DON'T SASS ME, BOY. his name is Thom with an H like that English-muffin guy in the dandy duds. an English muffin is not a fruitcake.

Taylor: unless you spread it with apricot.

coach: in bed over stuffy sheets.

Ostapenko: no excuses, i apologize for my abhorrent behavior. fulsomely.

Taylor Townsend: you really gotta learn how to take a loss better, i mean jeezus!!!

Ostapenko: it's just.........you see it's different for us Eastern Bloc girls. the U.S. Open is the final major of the year, if we embarrass ourselves, we embarrass our country, and are asked by our country never to return to our country, and then it's illegal for women in our country to play tennis again.

Rybakina rolling her eyes: tell me about it. end of year, last chance to make a showing, and one afternoon you go back to your lockerroom and you locker is cleaned out. your coach has changed his phone number, the same coach that got you pregnant at Wimbledon. that's not failure, that's new life. i mean who do you think you are? Lorne Michaels?

teakettle: remember when i WHISTLED.

parmesan cheese: it's yellow but not in the good way.

olive oil: it's green but not in the good way.

Ann Jillian: check one...

Jaleel White: fucking finally some new episodes of Flip Side, Week 1: Jamie Lee Curtis...

every stepdad in an '80s show: named Biff, mustache, beer cans on the sofa, wears a navy-blue shirt and navy-blue baseball cap, tight-fitting jeans, calls his stepson a wuss for liking science over football.

stepdad: living on a boat is not as cool as you think. there's homework in 3rd Grade?

the Palma prom: for the first time in 75 years...

Super Mario: when the portapotties get delivered to the worksite, NOW that driveway's gonna get done.

Three's Company: leave the front door open, it's fine.

Ellen Muth: you cannot find peace through acting, you can only find peace by constantly sipping a glass of wine all day at your vineyard. 

Cliffy Drysdale: i ain't retirin' till i see Fred Stolle walk his fat arse up those stadium stairs one more time...

Fred Stolle: you were my constant companion.

Comcast: calm cats.

Xfinity: finicky Friskies cats.

Brett Somers: did we ever get Dean Martin on the show? for Match Game is a Hollywood roast.

Dirg: why?

Mardith: women on Instagram with 100,000 followers have earned the right not to talk to lowlifes like you.

Friends Fall: that Friends episode with the Thanksgiving football game.

Friends fall: Matthew Perry.

Matthew Perry: in Heaven i'm Chandler Bing.

Faith Minton: i mean have you ever seen a face that was perfect for Rocky Horror Picture Show?!!!

Jen R: we had a bond born of common interest.

me: losing you, the pain washes over me like an everlasting culvert plugged in my brain. i can't think. with dad dead you were the only living soul who understood me. the only person i've known. do you know how rare it is to find a woman who knows 1970s sitcoms? you know who Alan Swann is. you make the night less scary. you actually cared about my sunburnt neck, you offered to have zinc oxide drug-delivered to my door. read my mind.

Jen R: Harold & Maude.

me: only you in the entire world would guess that correctly.

me: you once told me life was bullshit, it was all a cruel nothing.

Jen: echoing your heroes who knew deep-down: Cobain, Bourdain, Spalding Gray. funny how i was the only woman in this nihilistic bunch.

me: not even dad admitted that to me.

me: when i'm with you, i forget about time. time stands still, never to return.

Jen: without me, your project of outlasting time will go on forever. 

me: i am in Hell.

Jen R: of course you are. your dad's death has only just NOW hit you.

me: but when i'm with you, i'm not in Hell.