ANGIE IN VEGAS: TIC TACS AND CIGS

Debralee Scott: you wanna vacation in NYC?

Bart Braverman: definitely not. you wanna vacation in Vegas?

Debralee: no. we're both sick of our places.

Bart: two played-out places. how about a happy compromise?

Debralee: roller skating!!!

Bart: of the two of us only you are hot enough to do roller derby.

Debralee: i'm a woman in dire need of NOT needing kneepads when i suck. it's the '70s, you know? burn your kneepads!!!

Peter Pan: i cheat at astral projection, i use my body...

Elizabeth Montgomery: i was not gaslighting on Bewitched. witches were forced to gaslight because men couldn't accept our magic. i wiggle my nose something fierce. i wriggle my nose like a fatherfucker. i can't stop wrinkling my nose because i'm hooked on cocaine. i need help, i have a problem, and my mother just mocks me.

Endora: nice name for a cat...

Darrin: i was hooked on the good powder, too, i thought i was someone else...

zhuzh, don't judge.

7-Eleven: our stuff comes in the non-scary non-pharmacy white paper sleeve bags...

the two greet Charles Nelson Reilly at the roller rink with the lights out in mid-swing, Charles SWINGS ROUND AND ROUND AND AROUND like a mad bandit on the wood planks cutting his hand on the rusted gold railing to stop suddenly. 

Charles Nelson Reilly: fuck me. that hurts like a motherfucker. hi you two!!! have you seen my gold chain? i dropped it in the urinal.

Debralee: i gotta say, man, you look COOL out there!!! 

Bart: in that cowboy shirt, brown vest sweater, and SKINNY jeans, my man, have you lost weight?

Charles: yes but that's not a good thing. oh i love shaking my TINY little gay tushie out there, i roller like nobody's business. my skates run on pure liquid cocaine.

Debralee, cheeks rosy like her hair in the fractured rainbow disco light: you know seeing Charles SPIN like that reminded me of my dishwasher at my apartment, wanna check it out?

Bart: i could use a good rinse.

after much avoiding stepping on ferns later...

Bart: oh wow, that's a nice unit!!!

Debralee: thank you. i bet you never noticed the top rack.

Bart: what do you mean?

Debralee: the spinner at the bottom of the dishwasher spritzes out water like a lawn sprinkler, like a Slip n Slide. but there's a TINY spinner of water below the TOP rack that no one ever notices...

Bart: i'm gonna make a concerted effort to pay more diligent attention to your words from now on.

PBS: do you want your local story about people who aren't famous, people you don't know, to be given 10 minutes of precious VHS tape?!!!

Fancy Feast: the sound of an incoming message on your phone...

Bobby Driscoll in an underground restaurant: make ALL art indie.

Buddha: when it's the last week in January, it's icy-blue in the sky outside, but the temp is -30, sun shining BRIGHT, you get snow-blindness on the nape of your neck: sunburn.

Law & Order: we stole our block lettering from Re-Animator...

Weyoun: why do morgues have locked doors?...

Oscar the Grouch: you drape garbage bags over the corpses? that is so disrespectful.

Wendy Crewson: the real fantasy is a good-looking woman in a Dungeons & Dragons group so invested in her Dungeon Master's scenario...

Game Master: the devil will give you 10 gold pieces if you take your clothes off...

Wendy Crewson: and i'm a nurse, nurses aren't really into D&D, you know?...

Kurt Cobain: have you ever smoked a cigarette while playing Dungeons & Dragons in a group? the Dungeon Master of your D&D club is your high-school English teacher who never smiles and treats this like it's school. why would two frat bros be in this club?...

me: i missed that before!!!

Jen R: right? that scene flew right over your small head as a kid.

me: the D&D boy pointing his finger into Elliott's mom's butt in E.T.

Dee Wallace: you can only get 40-year-olds!!! as if that's a bad thing. the young women are the bad women!!! they got nothing to offer!!! when will these young boys realize that they yearn for their mommies in their wives? seasoned doesn't just season the Jiffy Pop on the stove.

Jen: and the existential take on Dungeons & Dragons: you can't win this game, it's like life, you can't win life.

Trump: i'm a bad movie you're forced to watch. i'm you being forced to watch Battlefield Earth and having to do a deep dive of it on YouTube...

Charles Rocket: Charlene Tilton wasn't THAT hot...

Debralee takes Bart by the hand and gingerly rolls him onto the skating rotunda as their skates are loose in their bare feet like butter.

Debralee: nice and easy, chief. here, take the mini-spray of cinnamon Binaca out of my jeans buttpocket and spray it in my mouth.

Bart: a reverse Gene?

Debralee: Rayburn is getting way too frisky, he's gonna get tripped up. i'm gonna kiss you. i like taking the lead. in kissing and rollerdancing.

Bart: now i get it, you like telling firemen what to do, that is hot. i feel your dynamic.

Debralee puts two cigarettes in her mouth and lights them with her Binaca spray, giving one to Bart.

Bart: Virginia Slims, classic.

Debralee: have you ever smoked a cigarette while rollerskating?

Bart: sure, my people do that all the time. to forget the past of tears.

 

 

ANGIE IN VEGAS: OVERBITE

 

 

Debralee Scott and Bart Braverman are flirting on the bottom row of Match Game.

Debralee Scott: finally i have a playmate around here. someone simpatico.

Bart Braverman: yeah. i know, right? we're both cute. Brett Somers is so stodgy.

Brett Somers: i heard that, feather.

Debralee: so obviously you're brave, i have a thing for firemen.

Bart: no that actually refers to the fact that i'm an Indian. you know, the REAL Americans. the natives, not restless, very calm and settled. don't associate us with cowboys, we're our own thing. don't take our land, don't take our home. none of this Christopher Columbus crap, that colonizer's pizza tasted like soggy dogfood.

Debralee: i heard you guys live to 100.

Bart: i am not a fireman...

Debralee: wanna go rollerskating sometime?

Bart: on those '70s dark-brown wooden planks, it would be my dream and honor.

Jen R: know how i know i'm your soulmate?

me: how? he says as he posts wrong again.

Jen: because you will NEVER get sick of me!!!

MAILER DAEMON: fuck me. ignore me, email like a mad demon before it's too late.

Blade Runner: no flying cars but it's a cool-looking futuristic snowplow, which is more important.

Ryan Wedding: caught just in time for the Winter Olympics. i'm gonna be in the Opening Ceremony!!!

Ryan Wedding: transnational, baby. i got the best name.

Skullduggery (1970): D&D can't be scarier than those fuzzball Land of the Lost creatures.

Cameron Smotherman: hey at least i don't wear fishnets. i have the best name for a fighter. i just needed a Snickers...

Carmen Sandiego: ...

Sacred Heart sweater: it's iconic.

Protestants: ...

Neaux Sneaux: when Dr. Seuss saved kids from getting frostbite by giving away Cat In The Hats at the Scholastic Book Fair INDOORS during the Blizzard of '04...

Nine Inch Nails: you copied me.

Tool: how? what?

Nine Inch Nails: a nail is a tool.

Aaron Copland: strangely, it's spelled Cop Land like that Sylvester Stallone movie. who composed the better Seasons symphony, me or Vivaldi?

the band Geese: you know that goth-rocker punk teen in the black leather jacket in that final season of Skins...

David Letterman: the lead singer is a taller fuller version of the lead singer of The Vines.

est: we dissolved in 1984, what a shame, we were the only thing combating Big Brother with sanity...

Zalman King: i had real rabbits in the bed where the woman and man were making love. imagine me on set that day: "We need rabbits!!!"

David Duchovny: yes, Stella the dog became my real dog.

Andrew Dismukes: i was not dismissed.

Ryan Wedding: i am the TRUE definition of a powder hound...

Alanis Morissette: and they say rain weddings are good luck...

Jim Gaffigan: Hot Pockets don't have pockets anymore...

Denny's pancake syrup: a hell worse than flames.

Vincent van Gogh: i'm the Sigmund Freud who didn't become a doctor like his father wanted...

Keanu Reeves: i am your modern-day Jesus.

Alex Honnold: see i don't think of it as climbing UP an insanely-high cliff, i think of it as jogging Central Park in a snowstorm...

Buddha wearing Inuit snow-blindness glasses: you ever reach Enlightenment after climbing up a mountain?

Alex Honnold: yes but then the network makes me take a selfie so i forget it.

Geordi La Forge: don't copy me, Buddha!!! i HAVE to achieve enlightenment in my condition, all i can do is spirit walks in my mind!!!

Beetlejuice: i'm driving the snowplow!!! beet juice on the roads...

Bart Braverman: you have freckles on your overbite, it's fascinating.

Debralee Scott: and dimples in my teeth, holes. i stress-ate a lot of pistachio chocolate when i was in the 4th Grade. 

Bart: your overbite makes you MORE attractive, i wouldn't have noticed you...

Debralee: my overbite is good for blowjobs. have you ever had a bitejob?

Bart: i don't know how that would work on me, don't know how my body would react, is pain pleasurable or pain to me? let's try it and find out. it's kinky so it's very '70s.

  

ANNEX: AXIS MUNDI

 

at Burning Man, Jen and i spot the theme very quickly through the hot winds.

Jen R: Axis Mundi. sounds like the name of a businessman. 

me on my head from worry: balance.

Jen: why are you wearing a bra?

the desert sands shift and the Earth's axis tilts, just enough to gently tap Trump, Putin, and the Ayatollah off the side of the planet and drifting into space...

Nate Robinson: the NBA gave me depression. 

Michael Jordan: Vanquish, trust me. and no pizza for a week.

Charles Barkley: you could do talk therapy but it's with me, so...

Greenland: Never Forget: not quite the same as 9/11: Never Forget.

Dr. Drew Jr.: i'm on the new season of Queer Eye...

Berkeley front gate: the color of green tea...

LUSH: we got smudge!!!

Ear Horn: sticks.

Alice's son walks into Mel's Diner.

Alice's son: i went to Arizona State.........so i'm flipping burgers here at Mel's Diner...

Mel: who loves ya, baby.

Linda Lavin: i'm not Maria from Sesame Street...

Kazen, a native Indian of brown and red, all naked and sore with bone statement jewelry, approaches Jen with a line.

Jen: you want my socks? not my number?

Kazen: those green socks of yours, miss, they are mesmerizing. lime green.

Jen: no one ever notices. see this is what i was preparing for. want my socks? that sounds so dirty.

Kazen: are you sure i won't be bruising your juicy tootsies?

Jen: nah i'm used to burning my toes on holy desert sand.

Kazen: i am the color of the California Redwoods. i am from Redlands, CA.

Kazen: see that is the magic of this place. Grinch socks, wearing these makes me HAPPY.

The Grinch: counterintuitive. but it makes perfect sense to my species. i'm the same species as Frieza. snow, sand, our feet ENDURE. The Grinch has made you happy today, you fruit tart.

Kazen: oh they're so snug and fit. thank you for the heart medicine, my heart is made of glass, it doesn't really exist, it's like an apple of air in my chest. you can't be angry when you're wearing socks.

Logo: RuPaul's Drag Race, Three's Company. Gimme A Break, Alice, Flo, and Mama's Family...

RuPaul: if you watch a lot of '80s TV, you might be a drag queen...

Thalia: i'm not Paulina Rubio...

Linda Lavin: do you see me in Season 9 of Alice? i've had it. i'm ready to leave this diner, ready to move on to dinner theater, to, you know, SING? ready to up and leave without wiping the menus on my way out. you see how SHORT my hair is?...

bath bombs in a tub: you're a human boba drink...

pinkie finger: a makeshift butter knife.

teriyaki sauce: the BANE of my existence. just use soy sauce, man!!!

bees: the world is doomed without us. we do the dirty work.

Jerry Seinfeld: i'm sorry. i'm sorry for everything.

Folgers: no apostrophe s...

Iceman: they put beet juice on the roads during a snowstorm. i was cooler than Spiderman, man. i never got my due. i had the quips and the quirks. i was interesting. i was that frat guy who was sensitive.

Firestar: you know why we couldn't fuck in your dorm room, Iceman. think about someone else for a change. think how i feel, i can never wear statement jewelry, it would melt.

Iceman: i tried to try that SuperBeets stuff. makes your heart strong as an ox. my heart is a frozen apple. but the canister costs $300...

Mr. Furley: i looked like a walking banana when i went down to the Regal Beagle. that's why i never went for my yellow belt in karate...

Carson Beck: i have more tattoos than my girlfriend.

Abella Danger: lost the game, won life...

Scottie Scheffler: i'm the Novak Djokovic of golf...

Spoonman: i just wish in the Soundgarden video i got to play that funky fork...

Stan Wawrinka: the shorts i wore to the French Open that one time were made from a tablecloth in honor of my mama.

StoryCorps: doing a public animated love letter privately to your best friend.

money: it buys life.

Skullduggery: playing Dungeons & Dragons while listening to "The Trees" by Rush...

Kurt Cobain: while eating Round Table Pizza. where instead of pepperoni the topping is Tato Skins.

Pac-Man: it's like if the '80s arcade game Gauntlet were a live-action movie.

halfling: now we're uncool. at least hobbit is a cool name.

Gary Gygax: nobody knows how to pronounce my name. ever since i was a little kid i dreamed of going on 60 Minutes and when i finally do i have to talk about Satanism?...

we find ourselves after a trip and a spell on a LARGE lawn in Downtown Toronto avalanched by rusty wooden antiques.

Jen: whoa, trippy. yardsales are always on cul-de sacs, nobody has a yardsale on a thoroughfare...

me: except the one just opposite Disneyland and that Dwarfs IHOP.

Matt Pinfield approaches Jen with a sock on his cock.

Jen: here we go. it never ends.

Matt Pinfield: the first Burning Man band Red Hot Chili Peppers...

Jen: you don't have to remove your cock sock, my feet have hardened on the pavement.

me: that is cool that your cock sock is a Grinch sock.

Matt: pull the sock from my cock. sorry, i was so tunnelvisioned on what i was gonna say i didn't hear you.

Jen: this place is cool. engrossing, not gross. it's Antiques Roadshow but for vinyl. LP records. Records Roadshow.

Matt: it was your idea. 

Jen: *sigh* i just felt bad when MTV2 was canceled. 15 years ago...

Matt makes a pained expression on his face like he's having a hard poo which is hard for him to do.

Matt Pinfield: you see this vinyl of Blood Sugar Sex Magik? this record saved my life.

Jen: me too. my blood sugar was low and this album told me to see a doctor. the doctor said i had to eat 3 Snickers bars a day for the rest of my life or i would die. the Snickers also regulate my mood... 

 

ANNEX: GRINCH SOCKS AT CVS

 

me: i woke up in the middle of the night in the wrong bed, i should have been in your bed.

Jen R: cuddling only. nobody sleeps in the annex...

Jen: i don't know what it is but i'm feeling down.

me: that's usually me.

Jen: i'm feeling uncool. like i've been uncool for a long time, uncool this whole time.

me: if you're a soulmate you can't be uncool.

Jen: i missed getting the Grinch socks as the Happy Meal toy at McDonald's during Christmas. that really bummed me out. do you know where i can get those socks NOW?

me: CVS, believe it or not. 

Jen: that is so uncool. the same place people get beer?

Prince: i wanted to join in on "We Are The World" but i had crippling social anxiety. i asked to do my part of the chorus in my own soundproof booth...

Michael Jackson: you were scared to sing with me, pretty boy!!!

Cliff Clavin: the Boston accent is fading from existence. the Boston children don't speak like that now. soon it will be erased away from civilization, a lost language.

Frasier: everyone talks like me now...

Godfrey Reggio: the real way to be a monk is to make experimental film...

Ron Fricke: i have the look of someone who worked on Red Shoe Diaries...

Wendy's: our chili has RED beans. nobody puts red beans in chili anymore.

Stu: my dad's computer had just three things on it: NASCAR memes, baseball scores, and Filipina porn. 

James Joyce: it's like when i discovered my father's porn scratched on the underbelly of his school chair which became my school chair.

Stu: i'm just grateful it wasn't Sonic porn.

Jaleel White: ...

foursome: more stable. too much imbalance in a throuple.

Zalman King: an episode of television is called a motion picture...

black humor: you're not supposed to laugh, you're supposed to cry. you're supposed to hurt. sense the pain undergirding the comedy.

Stu: my father swallowed Tic Tacs like they were aspirin. see?

me: let me make a call.

Jen: you don't have that kind of power.

Julie Patzwald: hey.

Jen: JULIE!!! okay NOW i'm in good hands. you're a therapist i would pay for with no results, you know? because you're fun to hang out with.

Julie: dream last night. i have to know who i'm healing here.

Jen: i'm at one of those bars in the Caribbean that is a circular counter surrounded by water next to the turquoise-blue ocean. tiny rolling waves of surf crash on the glass bottles. i'm nursing a Bloody Mary while softly doing the doggy-paddle with my bare wet feet underneath the water. no chairs, no seats, no tables, just the countertop.

Julie: you're trying to be Tom Cruise?

Jen: no i'm just relaxing. i need to lounge more in life. i see on the TV overhead Kurt Loder giving the music news but it's Kurt Loder from Costa Rica. what do you think it means?

Julie: so it's Kurt Loder but with a beard. this is a good sign. it means Kurt's still alive. in OUR universe.

Kurt Cobain in scuba mask, tank, and flippers: yeah see i faked my own death and have been hiding in Costa Rica this whole time...

me: but why?

Kurt: to get away from Courtney.

Julie: Hole time.

Kurt: don't worry, i left her with Evan Dando. i'm not heartless.

Julie: you're buying Grinch shocks at CVS? the same place i get my wine coolers? oh no no no no no. let me show you where the REAL people buy their Grinch socks...

the Trump administration: an absolute NIGHTMARE for empaths.

Keith McNally: i was happy cycling around Martha's Vineyard alone the summer of '76. but i have a granddaughter. so can one be happy alone? the answer is no.

cow: my favorite Tool song is "The Pot". it's such a weird name for a song.

Gary Larson: i've explained the comic enough. fine, it's a bad strip. just because you don't understand it, don't understand NUANCE in cartoons, i can't help you. the creator can only do so much. i predicted a real cow using tools.

cow: you predicted nothing. we've been using power drills for centuries, you just never noticed. you only wanted us for our milk. your own scientists spent centuries trying to develop a brown cow that would squirt out chocolate milk...

Emmanuel Macron: these cool mirror aviator shades? yeah, that's it. they're cool. black eye? the missus? no you see it's symbolic, Trump is giving the world a black eye.

Mel Sharples: i was Chef Boyardee in real life!!! i never understood the appeal of Dinah Shore...

Beth Howland: i'm like if Skeletor was hot.

gale: a British hurricane.

Julie Patzwald: see? get those Grinch socks at Hot Topic like the rest of us. goths are cool.

Jen: i just love being in a mall again. the death of the mall is my midlife crisis.

Julie: hey, you, how did you make this BEAUTY of a woman think she could ever be uncool?

me: blame me, i'm used to it.

Jen: okay the Grinch socks are on and i'm sanguine. and fit. the socks are fit. i need to be prepared, you never know who you'll meet at Burning Man.

in the underground parking lot of the mall, Jen in her car turns on the radio knob and starts singing to Lady Gaga.

Jen: i'm gonna dance dance dance with my hands hands hands above my head head head like Jesus did...