ERRANDS: BASEBALL ALICE

 

at Encino Little League in the '80s, you are hit with abounding memories. they form a blanket of haze for you to see in. the baseball field is a barn its roof blown off by a mild L.A. storm. Mel from that '80s show Alice is the umpire behind home plate, he puts on that dusty black chest protector and is barefoot in the dust in the tradition of all hulking feral line cooks.

Vic Tayback: no mask, i wear my Popeye hat while counting balls and strikes.

as you go from home plate to the diamond to the outfield, you remember Alice, she was your mom, and her son Tommy was YOU. every time Linda Lavin spoke that was your mom's life lesson, her weekly wisdom to you.

Flo Castleberry: Flo plays shortstop!!! so i get the front-row-seat view of the players' butts. 

Jen R: remember that whole Flo storyline? we were toddlers but we got fragments, visions.

Flo: everybody in America remembers when i LEFT Mel's Diner, THAT episode, we all cried collectively as a united nation.  

as you get sunflower seeds from a gumball machine in the parents' parking lot on the other side of the farm by turning a quarter, you remember Vera.

me: Vera is ME. she's sensitive, loves old black-and-white movies, and is NAIVE, she wants the world to be kind but it's not and she can't take that.

Jen: she cries often when everything seems wrong.

Vera: i sleep in the bed from the "Princess and the Pea" episode of that Shelley Duvall anthology. i was the first representation on network TV of a woman who was deeply mentally ill. which just means i had a vast imagination, i was always happy. don't put me near that bottle of pills that are meant to help my depression. i thought the people on soap operas were real, don't we all? that's just good writing.

Leonardo diCaprio: i'm actually looking for a woman my mother's age. because all boys want to marry their mother.

Timothee Chalamet: i'm Leonardo diCaprio during his young-brat days.

a shaved Clark Gable in Red Dust: i'm Uncle Jesse from Full House but like WAY less nice.

Jean Harlow: you're not positive like John Stamos at all!!!

Bob Belcher: i don't care, i want Clark Gable playing me in the live-action movie...

The Howling: before this movie, werewolves were big neutered asexual dogs. 

Bob Barker: not the romantic wild beasts in Nature they were destined to be. all creatures want to fuck Linda Hamilton.

dad: ...

Arnold Schwarzenegger: all robots, too.

Jesus turning over the money changers at the Temple: wow, i've never been this angry in my life. well one time when dad wouldn't let me take the car to prom. BUT to show you what i'm made of i will be the first man EVER to go to anger management...

Ray J: my number is 12,500. now i haven't actually slept with 12,500 women, there aren't that many women in the world. and who's got time for 12,500 women?!!! better to sleep with your soulmate 12,500 times. 

Kim Kardashian: you said i was your first!!!

Billy Corgan: all my slow songs are lullabies...

The Howling: oh my god!!! Elliott's mom turned into Chewbacca!!!

Fred: remember when i ruled YouTube? then i casually mentioned i was gay and was never heard from again...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: the story of a bird named Jonathan Livingston Seagull...

Michelangelo on a small wooden plank on his back painting the Sistine Chapel: this wooden plank will be the first '70s long skateboard...

Leslie Sbrocco: know how you know your restaurant food is good? you're DANCING as you eat it...

Charles and Camilla at a Virginia block party.

Charles: random.

Camilla: we don't have block parties in England, dahlin, only on Coronation Street.

Charles: Virginia, if we hadn't let that Colony go none of this would have happened. 

Camilla: is the coconut oil for our sex later, dahlin?

Charles: that's what movie-theatre popcorn butter is over here, dahlin: coconut oil. the only movie i've ever seen is The King's Speech.

Paolo Banchero: black Lucio Rossi...

Trent Reznor singing "Physical": i would do all of these things!!! that would be better than sex!!!

Trent: of course the irony being all of these things are NOT sex...

Linda Lavin: you remember Alice Hyatt. who stayed at a cheap motel, not the Hyatt. you remember those ladies in pink waitress uniforms, they were your first ladies, your first memory of TV was the show Alice. now get the Washing of the Feet ready, my son.

i put my mom's feet in a grey apple-bobbing trough and fill it gently with a waterfall of warm water from our stove kettle.

Linda: good boy, Tommy. omg my fucking toes just orgasmed!!! it's like sex that relieves, not for pleasure, you know? got any of those little orange sponges you put in between toes? anything for dinner? i've been on my feet all day.

Tommy opens the white refrigerator which has a handle that looks like a silver hand plane.

Tommy: liver sandwich in saran wrap, no onions, wedge of holey orange cheese in white butcher's paper, milk from a purple carton...

Jen: help me move this GIANT '70s vacuum...

me: i'll get the other end. this vacuum is a computer!!!

Linda Lavin: there is nothing more depressing than a mother who has to bury her son.

Philip McKeon: ...

Linda Lavin singing softly: bom bom bom bom bom bom.