TMIT: ROMEO IS BLEEDING

...i wish my teacher had sent me this back in the day. i needed an encouraging riposte back-note. i was always getting collared for passing notes, but i had to write, i was a burgeoning writer full of so much energy my loafered foot was constantly tapping the school-bathroom stucco wall. also, Valentine's Day was always a red-faced occasion when nobody in the class got a valentine from anybody...and everyone would be in their separate corners eating all their mom's purse chocolate...

1. have you ever sent an intimate photo of yourself on accident to the wrong person? yes. it was when i had an accident in class. they made fun of me and called me Yellow River. first time i ever got a B+ in anything. i rushed to the stucco school bathroom and a picture of the accident was taken. for insurance purposes. I've never lived this down, embarrassed forever, why i became a writer. to cope...

2. which of these is a caring gesture you'd appreciate?
a) lover pre-heats or pre-cools your car before you go off to work
b) lover initiates or consents to a sex act you've been wanting to try
c) lover surprises you with a mini-vacation or getaway

i have a new Italian lover. caldo means hot in Italian, it's just not fair. also, there's a problem. two problems actually. i have no car, never have. and my work consists of thinking in my room...

she planned a nice getaway for us to get away and reconnect after our hectic schedules. well, hers. she planned to go back to the Old Country to see her weird uncle Perillo from Perillo Tours. she mentioned Mario and i thought it was the plumber. apparently he's buried in a Venice canal somewhere and was made a saint recently by the pope. the Darth Sidious pope. she talked of a "mini-vacation" so i was like, "for how long?", and she said "one hour in Italy." Perillo had bilked her of her family fortune. we broke up so she could concentrate on getting her James Bond revenge.

3. office romances---hot or not? i was the only person on Planet Earth who ever loved David Brent. not even David Brent's mother loved David Brent. i got him a tie for his birthday/Christmas cracker. but when i saw him dance for the first time, that was it.

4. to find a romantic mate would you rather use an online dating site or a matchmatcher? only if mine's Graham Norton singing "Matchmaker" from Fiddler on the Roof off-Broadway. it's gotta be off-Broadway cos that's harder. not East End, North End where it constantly snows. he has to perform the song while physically being on top of the stage roof, the roof of the building outside in the snow. while a White Walker dances up there with him...and becomes a White Dancer...the new Michael Jackson...

5. think about this: in a current relationship (e.g. romantic, friendship), are you clinging to past good times and memories or are you still having good times and making new happy memories? what relationship, if any, is it time to let go of?

my relationship with my priest. we used to have fun together. we used to have breakfast together every Sunday...until i realized it was always pancakes...and he always asked for money afterwards...

it's time for me to let all that stuff go...

...that's what my psychiatrist keeps telling me...we go out to Denny's every night after our sessions...

BONUS: have you (or your relationship) survived infidelity? yes. i cheated on her. cos i cheated myself. i wasn't living up to the 19th-century ideals of loyalty, brotherhood, and romantic love espoused by John Milius. i didn't actually cheat on her, you see, i simply watched Conan and my mind got all messed up. i had been a Spielberg/Lucas fan for so long, and it took a decade to realign and reassert and reset my mind back. if you mix it up with the USC Mafia, once you throw hands with them, you never go back. a double-bill of Amblin' and THX 1138, i had to hitchhike to the cinema house with my thumbs whilst listening to a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack. luckily, The Reversal of Richard Sun was shown and shone at night during the moon, so that eased my therapy.

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HUMANITY NEVER TAKES A HOLIDAY

notes:

* o that i could live a life where during the long dragged-out hot dog days of summer i could while away an afternoon by the fan just watching Roman Holiday from beginning to sticking my hand in the slit of a stone something i shouldn't to end…

* ...but i'm afraid our country is turning Roman, no time for bird sex...

* not the rap song...or the sundae flavor...

* man: is it okay for me to date you in your backwards backwoods small town?
woman: i'm moving out and moving on. but i'm not sure you'll like me.
man: *holds her by the two arms* i LOVE you, never doubt that. we're gonna be the hippest couple at Harvard since the Love Story duo. and i DO know how to play ice hockey...
woman: it's just......i'm kinda weird......i only kiss with my nose...my mom was a seal...
man: and i am Seal's son...

* lacrosse player: why you laughing?
lacrosse player B: cos i remembered you were a joke i mean a joke you said.
lacrosse player: what was the joke?
lacrosse player B: i don't remember. and don't call me B. are we Division I or II?
lacrosse player: Division Zero.
lacrosse player B: what's TS stands for?
lacrosse player: too short. like your labia. i'm not sure i'm a lesbian, we were just having some fun this summer, right?

* you remember this delicate piano liede, right? your grade-school music teacher in the plaid fuzzy sweater and pencil-thin mustache taught it to you in the '80s. in that room with the green shag carpet that was never meant to be a music room. you didn't know it back then, but your music teacher was having an existential crisis every day before work, he clenched his fists and his asshole right before entering the room in the morning…

* girl: does this ride spin round round?
boy: is that a jibe at my taste in music? i'm not '80s cool like you. with the Jem hair dyed blonde. i wear a plain plaid shirt, is that okay with you?
girl: yet you couldn't name one grunge act.
boy: i like lumberjacks. but it's not like that!
girl: at least wear the cool Radiohead shirt i bought you at this fair.
boy: radio?! who listens to the radio anymore?

* girl on swing: wake me up when all this ends...

* coworkers at lounge: hey!
female worker back turned: hey! thanks for the warm welcome. i get lonely when i'm in a city i don't know, being a stewardess is hard on the psyche. what'd i miss?
coworkers: you're fired...…...this is good news, now you can go back home.
female worker: does anybody know how to fly a train i mean i'm taking the train. i'm in no hurry.

* soldier: give me a hug! i missed you so much.
wife: Iran...
soldier: there's no Holiday Inn in Iran...

* man: thanks. i just really wanted to recreate Fooly Cooly. the sequels were disappointing.
woman: i thought we were recreating Roman Holiday. you know you might want to lay off the anime for awhile and expand your repertoire.
man: okay, we rode past the underpass, we can stop now. thanks for indulging me. is it weird that you're my sister?
woman: no, but you really do need to get out there again...

* next up are a series of sequences where you don't know what the joke is...inside jokes are evil.

* Lassie dog: i can talk to this little black girl...it's just nobody ever talks to me...talks to me seriously...

* dude cousin: why'd you shave your head?
lady cousin: not funny, even though i'm laughing. we're in a ward.
dude cousin: i was in Sela Ward in my dreams. i have to distract myself somehow.

* THERE'S JOKER LAUGHING GAS IN THE COFFEE!!! DON'T DRINK THE COFFEE!!! TOO LATE!!!...

* we're finally free to love...out here in Kansas farm country...where out parents will never catch us...on account of the corn maze...

* glasses: you know the funniest thing? these Holiday Inn scrambled eggs are 500 bucks a pop.
glasses chick: i mean they taste like scrambled eggs.

* lead singer: we got signed!
bandmates: amazing! we're gonna be the next Cranberries!
lead singer: not cool.
bandmates: oh...we just thought...your pink hair and everything…

* woman: it's really coming down! thanks for your jacket umbrella!
man: honey, i've got something to tell you...don't look back at the plant...this isn't rain...

* mechanic shoves another mechanic playfully:
mechanic: okay, it's a million dollars for the carburetor but we'll call it even if you get out your toolbelt...

* twins: who are these candles for? me or you? wait i'm really THAT old? i thought it was for the two of us!

* Diane Keaton: can i please stay in this club forever? i really don't want to go back to my trailer and call Woody.

* grandpa: get off me, hornet! oh, it's my grandson...

* girl with braces: i'm drowning!!!
chaperone: we're just doing the swimming dance, dear, don't actually plug your nose that you can't breathe...

* contractor: *laughing* i own you.
construction worker: *laughing* i built the Pyramids...

* grandma: oh how sweet.
granddaughter: what was in the coffee tin with the bow, grandma?
grandma: air.

* thanks for the big hug. this is the wrong airport, i have no idea who you are. the world should run like this...
Pink Power Ranger: i need a job...

* don't laugh too hard or the glass will break and you'll fall ten stories.

* honey, don't roll the kids down the bowling lane.
husband: i never played sports...

* help me exercise, sister, pull my hammy straight up till my crotch reaches my nose, this is rehab.

* old sorceress: The Joy Luck Club was a comedy to me...i got my centuries revenge on that club for the generations…

* customer: you have it?!! i've searched the globe!
antiques dealer: last one in the world.
customer gives antiques dealer a bear hug.
antiques dealer: you just crushed it into fine powder. it was in my sweater pocket.

* is it the lighting in here? why is so gloom and doom? like there's an eternal grey magic mist fog outside.

* woman in labor: this is your child, daddy, you know the rules in this country...

* prom:
black athlete: so my best friends at the end of the term are an Asian babe and a nondescript white guy. we beat the odds, fam. we didn't let anyone or any algorithm control us. tell us who to like. tell us who we could love.
Asian babe: and we still have the limo for one more hour. are you thinking what i'm thinking?
black athlete: guys, we earned this night. four years of good grades and good results.
white guy: JENGA!!!

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happy weekend, my babies

SUNDAY: when you wake up it'll all be over...unless they go to Penalty Kicks...

TOMORROW: gonna have my proper 4th of July BBQ meal: the Rodeo Burger from Burger King. never handle fireworks with your barbecue-slippery fingers...

GINGER BREAD: MONK IN PROGRESS

at The All-England Club, Coco Gauff is fresh off having won Wimbledon against Serena Williams in the Final. Coco hasn't broken a sweat yet and allows herself a bit of a crack of a smile under her headband. also, George RR Martin is making her laugh. she wears a red bracelet on her wrist and refuses the red LifeSaver candies offered her.

Coco: not even those red LifeSavers on a stick.

RR: how does it feel? you've made history which will never be broken. this is the TRUE changing of the guard. you've made the entire world guffaw.

Coco: look, just bring back the regal royal names, okay? Eastbourne and Queen's Club. Fever Tree? that sounds like a bad attempt at the The Tree of Life sequel. you can't get a fever in rainy London, it will never be hot enough. and i'm not opening up a cake shoppe, okay? why did i see you at my match tonight? you were the ballboy behind me, you looked ridiculous in your tubby full beard and sailor's cap.

RR: i'm hiding out here ever since the GOT finale. look, for the last time, that wasn't my fault, okay?, i was never consulted by those two brothers or whatever. look, as far as the seeding goes, we wanted to ensure Fed and Nadal would play, okay?

Sinphony: ha! my Codrus wouldn't be interested in her. for obvious reasons.

Cotard: that's a blessing. we good guys gotta take what we can get while evil and darkness still has aways to go to finish out its term. the grip is getting gangrene.

President Bump: whoa! Katie Swan, i'd like to swim my black swan into her...…...i was a black swan, nobody saw me coming...

Sarah Sanders: that is such a quintessential English name.

Tyler Skaggs pitches the first pitch ever in a MLB game in London. he is allowed to keep this baseball as a souvenir for himself for eternity.

Tyler: seems obvious, right? London is known for grass already. what took so long? this is just cricket but shorter.

Bump: the Brits don't get baseball? Britland, ah, *raises arms* these are my people, this is where i'm from. have they seen a Yankees/Red Sox brawl yet? NOW those hooligans get it.

Phil Neville wearing a rose in his breastpocket and a tie in his mouth: speaking of grass, we got hosed.

Bump: i really liked what you said about those black femmes from Africa, that was very Imperialist, good for you. you impressed me, that was so Harry Potter.

Bump: WHOA! who is THAT!!?

Pence: Christen Press.

Jill Ellis wearing a hoodie: extra extra hot off the presses!: she impressed.

Bump: that's ex-tree ex-tree. Christian is one hot mama! she's got a sneakily-great butt. i'd like to press upon her as i pressed her up against My Wall. and who is THAT on the field in the fetal position!!?

Pence: Asllani. but she's Muslim, sir.

Bump: oh, okay, nevermind. yeah, don't take Alex Morgan too seriously, she was just celebrating on her birthday, she was blowing her own party horn.

Eye Luggage: gotta admit, that was hot. Alex---not Trebek---was blowing up a used condom there.

Alex Morgan taking off her braces: actually, i was smoking a celebratory clove. what can i say? green is my favorite color. i just love Kermit the Frog. sue me.

Bump: i will.

Neville: tank you, sir, but that is VERY disrespectful! we own you!!! America would be nothing if we hadn't let you play your little games and thought experiments overseas. fuck the pond. fuck the gap. i mean, this is OUR sport, not yours!!!

Bump: look, i get it, like Biden said, you're out there kicking each other in the vulva, it's a tough sport. i still think you would reduce injuries if everyone just played naked.

Neville: i told my girls, i told them to kick Alex Morgan in the nuts in the corner there to see if that little prissy princess bitch would get up again. this ain't ballet, honey! we got spikes on our ballet shoes.

Bump: that sounds really hot. i should try that next time. i'd kick but the bone spurs and everything. you gave the order, huh? cool. i'll see what i can do, but the referees are all women, you know? that's an omen. it's hard cos i get hard. gotta check the scores then make a call, bud, sorry.

Bump: *on his Pear watch in a muffled voice* you know what to do...

Jill Ellis: i am NOT gonna Tonya-Harding Megan Rapinoe in the hamstring when we're alone just the two of us in the lockerrooms and i say to come over here cos i want to have a talk with her...

Bump: the people are starting to think she's a hero. or worse, a heroine, who takes heroin...i'm assuming cos of the punk pink hair. if you don't do it, i'm gonna have the Amercian Outlaws do the job, they're on my side with their motorcycle gangnam gangs. and Motaur. they were able to cause more chaos than the French...in France!

Rapinoe: *takes the phone from Coach Jill* sir, i WILL accept your invite and will be attending the Cream House after all.

Bump: good girl! i knew you'd come around, they always do under the heat of my might.

at the Cream House, Megan wears a dress for the first time in her life:

Rapinoe: we creamed them! *hahaha, banter*. call me Pinoe.

Bump: Penis?

Bump extends his hand to her. she snatches her hand back at the last second and instead uses that hand to comb her purple hair.

Rapinoe: now that i have your full attention, now that my fire eyes are staring straight down yours and i can address you squarely and directly to your face, my message to you is thus:

fuck you.

btw, why the hell was it so god-damn hot in France throughout the whole tournament!!? this is France not India!!!

Bump: that was my doing, i farted.

Rapinoe: i figured as much.

Bump: what was with all the joy. you know? i turn on my tv and the analysts are discussing soccer and there's all this talk of joy. i thought i was at a Marie Kondo con in San Diego for a second.

Rapinoe: that's our beautiful word for space. what's inbetween your hairy ears. it's the beautiful game after all. and i am beautiful, no matter what you say!

Bump: what was with that horrible wailing before each match? coming from some banshee she-wolf and her baleful pitched cry, like an African chant gone bad. THAT's considered ethnocentric singing nowadays? made my hairy ears bleed blue blood.

Bump crosses a pony wall into North Korean territory.

Bump: FINALLY i make history!

Kim: oh, shit, don't mind the mess, all my laundry and dirty drawers are hanging on these lines, i would appreciate a heads-up next time. so where's my birthday cake?

Bump gives him a bearhug which crushes Kim's herniated spleen.

Bump: this guy, heehee. i told him, i tells him i was honored to cross the line. both of us, we cross the line everyday!

at The Weather Channel:

Goody Paul: that was one hail of a storm! fuck me. oh, Instagram outage, now THAT's news you can use...

Holzhauer returns to Alex Trebek's hospital bed empty-handed.

Ken Jennings: what gives?

Holzhauer: those who receive. sohry, the man wasn't there, i checked every green-felt casino table, the man doesn't exist.

Ken: dammit. i told you i'd lend you the million dollars if you found him. i'd even make the pinkie-gesture. now what are we gonna do? Alex is hangin' by a wire. he doesn't need a line, he needs the cure.

Vic Mignogna: if i hug him any more, i'll crush his spleen.

Alex wakes up.

Alex: i'm only waking up one more time to spit out my last words: I even gave myself my own Colonial Penn Insurance for free but even that didn't help. i'm dying soon.

Joe Biden emerges from the shadows and the corner where he's been this whole time observing everything and everyone. he brushes his hair with his hand.

Biden: should i hug him? i don't know. it might jumpstart my fledgling campaign…

Alex: please do, sir, please hug me.

Biden gives Trebek a bearhug and Alex Trebek is miraculously cured.

Alex: seriously what's with you and presidential campaigns? you are more snake-bit than me and it was a snake bite which started this whole thing. hello, sohry, just a little Canadian humour to ease your troubled mind...

at the Debates:

Beto O'Rourke: hey de Blasio...*stern look*…...get off my balls.

Bill de Blasio: what. call me Bull, i don't care anymore.

Beto: see it from my perspective. i was the Wunderkind. i was supposed to be White Obama and coast to the nomination easily. i got the Vogue cover! not even my hot wife got the Vogue cover! what the FUCK happened to me and my life?!! i had the perfect riposte to Bump's hand-gestures slam: namely, my own hand-gestures.

Bernie: look, this is REALLY unfair. whom do i sound like? i was the one who had all these revolutionary ideas before anyone else, i was the only one talking about this crazy stuff. on public-access! and NOW that it's not so crazy i don't get the credit and benefit? i'm not getting any younger here, guys, folks, this really needs to be my time, you youngins can go at each other for 40 more fucking years, i can't! Kamala, can i borrow your food? i feel like Taylor Swift right now, getting her life's-work hacked and snatched by some frat guy.

Prince hologram: get a facial tat, my man, go full-Tyson. get yo nuggets, my nigga, get yo chicken nuggets you deserve.

Beto: you know why i wanted the Presidency? it's obvious, right? so i can get back to my only love, *turns to wife* sorry, honey---hacking---and hack the fuck out of Russia so hard they won't be able to walk for a week! that'll stop 'em...at least for 2020...

Marianne Williamson ascends the mountain with Baba Vanga and starts to choke on all the high-air of the clouds entering her mouth.

Baba Vanga: it's not high-air like you think, dear, we're just at high-altitude. come, sit down on this hard mat and don't cross your legs, get in a pose instead. you know, everyone down there is making fun of you. but they're just jealous.

Marianne: girlfriend, you are so right tell me about it. but whenever i think of the insanity of being a woman in this world, i take a few Djokovic deep breaths and recenter my chakras. all my chakras are in my clit, i'm 100% Full Woman.

Baba: exactly, that's why they're so terrified of you. you can't beat love with flyovers. unless it's a flyover of witches on brooms. you have the most delightful lilting singsong Mid-Atlantic accent, you learn that in Texas?

Marianne: no you see i am the President of the United States in the Year 3000 in an alternate timeline, when we humans have RADICALLY EXTREMELY evolved as beings. nobody threatened by me in the future, in fact i am the PERFECT leader, cos i'm a rather boring specimen of humanity over there, when compared. there are much-more fantastical beings than i, i'm rather by-the-book while everyone else is flying around time and space. my spleen is a crystal. and we do actually govern and policy by love...

Baba: that book being a grimoire. i knew it! but that also means that this world is doomed. oh it's all so cruel and ironic, ain't it? the one person who NEEDS to be our leader right now will NEVER even get a sniff at it. the powers-that-be have already published our future scroll.

Marianne: i've sniffed before, it was only crushed crystal-dust. they're scared of me cos i don't use money. it's a fine line: you have to be crazy enough to seek the Office but not perceived as crazy by the general public.

Baba: now dear, just stand up till you come to the answer you seek. this will be a meditation different from any you tried to smoke before.

Marianne: answer? but i don't even know the question.

Baba: exactly...…...you already know the answer btw, you just forgot it...and you forgot the question…

Gladyce: i'm telling you, dear, bad karma will cross your path if you continue to treat those poor things like that!

Doryce: those sick slimy slugs??! those things aren't cute! i pick one up and he stares at me with his beady little eyes, tries to open his mouth but realizes he has no mouth, and those twitching horns on the top of his head are downright satanic. and i know satanic.

Gladyce: you went to the bathroom again while tossing them in the toiletbowl first, didn't you?

Doryce: i swear i never do poo, only pee. i'm sorry but i'm lazy. but they got me last night: one of those sucker slugs surfaced from the water, flew up my asshole, and stayed there. i got the worst non-sexual infection in the morning in my life! ring of fire. and i still had to get the cat food! oh i am so mad about this! i bought this orange bag of food with a chicken on the cover...just assuming it was cat food. but in fine print when i get home:

dog food

i mean are you fucking kidding me!!? how bout don't put a goddamn chicken on the cover!!! put a cat or dog on the cover why doncha!!!

Gladyce: i've never heard you speak so forcefully against a cock before, dear.

Madame Pons: take it from me, cats HATE dog food. you might as well be feeding them worms.

Doryce: *starts to cry* our poor cats...

Gladyce collapses again.

Doryce: fuck! what's wrong now? i explicitly didn't get the Death Wish coffee. who would buy something labeled Death Cups? i got the new Starbucks keurig cups...

Madame Pons: she's choking. you sure you didn't get those Dum Dums?

Doryce: who you callin' dumdum? it's her favorite candy but no. those Dum Dum lollipops are a health choking hazard for kids! and kids at heart!

Llywarch: an Instagram outage reminds everyone---beast and foe alike---that your friends are as delicate as your psyche. it makes you realize that the line to your friends and family and connections to this world as are thin as a cut wire. instantly banned from your life, gone with the push of a button, like they never existed. your support staff is just another system...

Eye Luggage: anime roundup and go.

Laertus: everyone thinks it's Bee. but it's B.

Eye: thank you. and don't say B, Dirg. don't even think it. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Dirg: what came first, the Brady Bunch episode or the book? why does Disney still have an association with Lewis Carroll? Lewis Carroll, that can't be his given name. Disney of all companies! Lewis Carroll Can't Lose? can you believe when Linda Lavin started the tv show, she was already 40! i admit, i had a crush on her, she was better than my real mommy.

Laertus: me, too. see what i did there? the crush part anyway, not the mommy part. i regarded Linda Lavin as my TV Mommy, some of my earliest memories as a baby were of her in that diner. i see in my mind those long rolls of white paper covering up the diner windows advertising in red-and-black ink the Butcher Specials and the Price of Eggs. Hash Browns Raw or Burnt. i see big scary towering Mel in his dirty cabbie's hat and stained wifebeater behind the counter. from then on, that's how all greasy cooks looked to me.

Dirg: the kid got hosed. the original Tommy was in the pilot episode but that was it, while the original Mel got to do the series, too, and got famous. a kid like that back in the '70s was "precocious", today he is simply a bratty millennial autistic who needs a fidget-spinner down his throat.

Laertus: never hit a dude with glasses. that was a great joke, and my introduction to the dog's bollocks. Ellen Burstyn takes time to warm to. she's had plenty of inculcated experience to play this part, her real life of mental-illness and hairy divorce is wilder than any Hollwood screenplay could dream.

Dirg: she was annoying in this film, but i guess she bursts onto the scene and wins the Oscar cos she was so thus annoying. Linda Lavin was more warm and nurturing and funny and folksy. she was attainable, gettable, Ellen was a golden blonde sphinx. and she SHOULD discuss her kid's sex life with her kid, this is Hollywood we're talking about here.

Laertus: this film is dark, very dark, it's moody and pessimistic, it's the portrait of American life in this time, full of empty deserts and broken hearts. it's the Woman's Movement and it moves by crying out its trail. like the discoverer who discovers she's all alone making the discovery. she is the '70s quintessential divorcee who has to constantly start over cos her choices in men are bad, but can you blame her? she's constantly surrounded by violence and broken dreams, she just wants to be a little girl again who dreams of being Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

Dirg: even I found Kris Kristofferson attractive in this movie. but yeah, it's like he's the one who beats on Tommy the LEAST so i guess he wins.

Laertus: don't ask a woman to smile, that is so '70s.

Dirg: it's also quite '70s for a woman to cry to get her way. i could go on about the portrayal of men---all men---but i need a nap. a dirt knocked-out nap. and a map.

Laertus: those voyages traveling across abandoned desert highways, alone, drinking from cacti and taking pictures in front of huge cattle skulls, escaping the next abusive bad relationship and the next, wandering, never knowing where you'll end up. soon Tucson and Obec Woods and the sea and where you came from, it's all the same, it's all a blur. the film starts out with this blue dainty doily from a '50s coffee table, like a housewife watching daytime soaps, and it ends with Alice hugging her boy on a lonely stretch of sidewalk with the next seedy motel in their arid offing. and a hitchhiker in their way, another bus stop. it's all so filled with a dry air of maudlin despair and working-class hopelessness. is this where her life starts to pick up? or is she another pickup? did she choose good this time, choose well, choose healthy? no one knows, no one ever knows these things as they live…

Dirg: living out of suitcases forever. if she wanted to be a lounge singer she shouldn't have had a kid.

Laertus: it's actually more black-comedy in the beginning. it's like, you're kinda rooting for the father to be squelched as harsh as that seems.

Dirg: be a man! the salt tastes like sugar, SO WHAT! oh i remember being flung headlong into my own 11th-birthday-party table by my father, good times, good times.

Laertus: never go with a dude who fills bullets, even if he's lonely. wait for him to tattoo his face.

Dirg: hey, it wasn't his fault, he had a scorpion around his neck. a Socorro scorpion! that is NOT Jodie Foster, that is a boy! i so would be a Ripple addict right now if they still sold them on shelves at The Store.

Laertus: they're bringing back New Coke for a limited time! same price, too! just melt some Otter Pops in the meantime. a mother's love can turn a boy toward women or can lead him in another direction. one hour in and the film hasn't had any Diner scenes yet, we haven't reached the famous Mel's Diner! i was surprised that kiss my grits wasn't from the film, you'd think Marty Scorsese would slip that in there to get the credit for that line. and why didn't Vera spill all the straws in the film? that would have made her more endearing.

Eye: i now know grits is squiggly vagina getting past the censors, but when i was a kid i actually thought she meant for me to kiss my plate of grits. imma place my lips on my bowl of microwave grits tonight when i get home alone in my apartment.

Laertus: the scene which stays with me forever is when Alice is remembering her friendly neighbor Bea from back home. Bea connects her to her past, her happier times, her stabler times, when she was miserable under a roof, you never forget your best friend, she misses her terribly. that's what '70s housewives did all day, all of them, Dem or Pub---while their husbands were philandering at the pub---they watched General Hospital at 2 in the afternoon on Channel 7 and hemmed dress skirts for weddings and talked about how Robert Redford is devilishly handsome cos he made a deal with the Devil and how men finish while on top of a stool. that's what connected their female tribe of all women to each other, they shared that communal experience and had the same crush on the same soap hunk. there is such longing in Alice's voice over missing Bea, she is so sad deep inside, she is so desperate to return to her previous happiness but she can never again. also, that's the best way to crack the ice in front of new scary strangers, to make friends, tell them about your past friends, guards get let down cos that proves you were once friendly...

Dirg: that was a sweet ride...

Laertus: Alice's wood-paneled stationwagon is an icon in film cars. carrage and her courage. that stationwagon is a symbol, a symbol of a mother's love no matter what, get through anything for your troubled kid who's seen things at an early age no kid should have to. that stationwagon aimlessly driving to the next stop, hoping it's a rest stop, where they can get rest from the uncertainty and unfairness and unilateral cruelty of circumstance. the symbol of a single mom just trying to make it, struggling, it's a ghost car rumbling through the night streets looking for a job so they don't have to eat diner food their whole lives. the tank of that car is filled with tears.

Sinphony creeps up on Velvetta behind the bush with her back turned and conks Velvetta on her noggin with the crystal in her hand. Velvetta drops like a sack of potatoes.

Sinphony trips over the pony wall which dots and encircles the perimeter of the village in her excitement to clean up the crime scene. Sinphony picks Velvetta up and flings her over her shoulder slowly drag-walking her to the Church.

Sinphony: huh, fat bitch. this offering will please my Lord, i just know it. he won't hit me tonight.

TMIT: WORLD CUP NETS

...with red cards for armbands

1. what excites you beyond belief? the tv show Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. especially when Commander William T. Riker would stare at you through the tv with his widened eyes and shit-eating grin when he was trying to sell you the BS story. even through his beard you could sense his rosy cheeks and the excitement with which he took his job seriously to fool you and crush your spirit when you started to believe in anything fantastical.

Riker: stick with science, kid...

2. your significant other has asked you to sleep with his cock in your mouth. what are your first thoughts? would you say yes or no? why?

take it from me, say no. it sounds exciting, but it gets boring and prosaic after, like, 5 minutes. it's impossible to hold that position the entire night, wrists start to get limp and tired from the fatigue of keeping it up. just enjoy some popsicles or something instead.

3. have you ever had someone sleep with your cock in their mouth? yes. when i was dating the Tooth Fairy. before her whole business when she realized she needed to make a living, when she was a wild twentysomething, she was a biter. but then she saw how pleasurable it was for me to receive a gumjob. hey, even this isn't as disturbing as the Teen Titans Go version of The Tooth Fairy who actually eats the teeth...

4. fill in the blank: spank ______

since i can't say blank cos blank is already taken, i'll say spank bank. another bank in which i have deposited no funds lately...

5. write a sexy sentence (or two) and use the phrase "harness of rope":

my reputation as a writer is staked on this one:

i harnessed the rope of Wonder Woman to squeeze out all the Girl Power it could muster to help a sadsack skinny man with a thin build and feeble frame such as i through life.

Wonder Woman: do you want to know the Truth? i don't see you living much longer unless you can Lasso that wild boar over there.

we lived on a mountain in the clouds you see.

me: can this thing be converted into a Lariat? i get sad when i see everyone down below having fun at the Salinas County Fair and i'm a city boy who will never adjust to cowboy life...

Wonder Woman: don't jump. remember, just cos you're a Phoenix doesn't mean you can fly...

BONUS: whom do you laugh and play with more often? your friends or your significant other?

i want my two factions to come together, but they don't get along, they're constantly in competition struggling for my time and attention. it already doesn't help that i sleep 23 hours a day.

and so i play with my friends during the day and i laugh with my SO in the bedroom at night...and neither one of them knows about the wall...it's a The Promised Neverland situation...Mom is in the next room over to mine constantly telling me to lower the noise...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A BOY DOESN'T GET A BOUNCE HOUSE FOR HIS BIRTHDAY

notes:

* Kevin Richardson from Backstreet Boys: how do you like my solo album? yes that's a cigarette in my ear, i'm trying to quit. no, i'm not Kevin Federline. i really do hope Britney's okay. follow the Amanda Bynes model for success. there are no such things are positive comments on Instagram.

* Apple: airpods. we're not bringing back the ipod.

* commercial directed by MC Escher

* Kevin: NYC is the last place in America you can bounce a rubber ball inside your house. rubber condoms don't count. vote, people, everything's at stake!

* Kevin: i'm looking in a mirror. i need to shave my muttonchops better. i don't feel like doing the De Niro routine. i'm forcing my frown upside-down. i am depressed…

* ...bouncing helps with my depression.

* parkourist: bro, i'm a real athlete, i don't need cheats...
Kevin: get off my cheeks.

* musical guest for this week (SNL still on hiatus): makes me think of tassels. the tassels on strippers' tits, not the tassel on a graduation mortarboard, and i feel that great shame in the pit of my lungs again, so heavy i cannot breathe

* kid: mister, watch out for all those alien pods on the sidewalk! they've already invaded us, you know this, right?
Kevin: kid, what are you doing just getting out of school? isn't it noon yet? i'm hungry for lunch, that's why i stepped out of my apartment, the only reason i go outside anymore is food.

* NYC: where the laundromat washing machine is deliberately abandoned and placed out on the sidewalk for Pop Art.
Kevin: damn, anyone got a quarter? i need to wash my drawers from last night's accident. i'm completely bottomless right now and nobody passing by has noticed me...

* Kevin: i li(v)e in the big city, one jump on this abandoned mattress left out in the cold equals the required 8 hours of sleep. if i bounce on this will i go to Saturn? or to the time when those bouncing Saturn toys were all the rage? '90s pogo sticks?

* always construction round the next corner of this city. always construction zone barrier walls to put up. always the next tree to de-toilet-paper...

* Kevin: people still wait around and cram into bus station booths like sardines? i don't get out much.
mob: it's for the Wendy's Biggie Bag. and also the bus flies.
Kevin: thank you, haven't done a jungle gym since i was a kid. i mean i'm still a kid but
mob: thanks. you're so fat you made the pole rubber, now the bus missed us. you should exercise more.

* stop/ go/ break the time barrier/ break the law

* cop: hands up against the brick wall, boy! spread 'em!!! it's dangerous to race across crosswalks, idiot! did you graduate kindergarten!? there are tons of old ladies here!
Kevin: what, officer? i was running. if i walked here, i would have ended up roadkill! this is an insanely-busy typical NYC street! one of those old ladies became my wife.

* mook: buddy, you see the sign? CONSTRUCTION ZONE ARROW POINTING DOWN
Kevin: how long have you been working this giant pothole?
mook: do the words Big Dig and Fatberg mean anything to you?
Kevin: hey! who you callin' fat?!! when will you be done?
mook: when April is finished with her turtle orgy down there. all of them. plus the rat carrying a Cheesy-Bites pizza.

* Kevin: i'm in the void...oh, no, it's just my nightmare of having never completed college rearing its ugly head up again, whenever i see university stone steps like this.
MC Escher: young acolyte, i tricked you! those steps only lead to you bouncing again, you can't win.

* Kevin: Ms. Isabel Allende, i need those flared jeans. have you seen Roma?
Isabel Allende: why is this the only question i ever get asked anymore in interviews? Cuaron is a hack who stole all my ideas!
Kevin: what happens in the book you're reading?
Isabel Allende: spoilers: magical realism. matches in mouths burning down haybarns, that sort of thing.
Isabel: crazy?
Kevin: no i am not. that's bouncing your HEAD against the wall and expecting a different result...

* TMNT: hey! we're not finished down here! push another button!
Death Note intro grate perspective
American cars now...
taxi-cab driver: Stuber? can you show me the way to Sesame Street?
Stuber: your beret gives you away.

* Kevin: FUCK. why did i do this!!? my anxiety's coming back!
pigeons: wanna sing and dance? that always helps calm the children passenger pigeons-of-war down. *cooing* Doin' the Pigeon…
Kevin: I'M SCARED OF HEIGHTS!!!
pigeons: you know KFC? it's really us.
Kevin: i look out over the horizon---wobbily---and see the Berkeley bookstore i used to frequent between lectures. i think about that aborted college thing in my past again...
pigeons: pray to your father like our culture does.
Kevin: my father died. he was a skyscraper window-washer...
the pigeons look and stare at each other.

* Kevin: hey remember Discovery Zone?
Kevin Federline: nah man, that was before my time, pops.
Kevin: i'm not the Kevin on the ledge right now...

CLICK HERE RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies.
QUESTION GOING INTO TOMORROW: has anyone ever out-pizza'd the Hut? and what would that look like? Jabba stops eating all that Galaxy Pizza from a seaside pier wharfing community in Connecticut and slims down to Salacious B. Crumb?

GINGER BREAD: THE GARDEN OF DELIGHTS IS A GREENHOUSE

Dirg: The Dalai Lama, despite everything that he is, is still a man. i'm glad someone of his stature came over to our side, lends us credibility. to bag a Being Of Mueller's Mystical Level like The D.L., well, what can i say? we finally got one in our column.

Laertus: DL stands for Disabled List...

Obec College Professor: today's lesson: will the new rules becoming less-stringent help or hurt the new tv shows coming down the pike? will the fact that "shit" can now be said on network tv hurt comedies?

Dirg raises his one hand.

Dirg: it will now make dramas hilarious. but it will hurt comedies. it's always funnier when the shit is bleeped than when it's actually said.

Laertus: tis true. take The Boondocks for instance. you actually don't feel the impact of the shit when it's said, you only feel it when it's bleeped out.

Molly Qerim: why are you still staring at me? you were banned from this studio.

LaVar Ball: *grinning* you said focus so i'm focusing. staring to avoid stealing. cos i ain't starring no mo. making sure you don't steal my house.

Molly Q: this is my house.

at the rally:

Bernie Sanders: okay, here's the deal, America. i mean i'll make you a deal, America: all or nothing, i'll wear the blue fish-fry shirt ONLY IF Ben & Jerry's brings back the orange Droog sherbet to represent our present dystopian times. i cringe whenever i don't see that flavor on my ice shelf.

Biden: come on, man, wear the shirt, even I had to wear the shirt, and i'm older than Cleopatra. *looking up to a sky filled with chariots of fire* Cleopatra was hot.

President Bump: what's the deal with all those Best Buy employees in a gaggle on stage over there like that? is there a sale? i ban all sales! that's how Murica will get rich again!

at the debates:

Chris Matthews: i don't know which word to open with: scared or fight night?

when 4PM rolls around:

Chris Matthews: scared. *he pauses for 5 minutes* fight night.

Chris makes the waving motion like he wants the home audience to come with him backstage to the MSNBC luncheonette breakroom to see something...

Marianne Williamson wears a green diamond on her forehead. Pearl from Steven Universe cheers her on from the stands.

Marianne: i don't need a riser thank you, i'm gonna float just above the foot of the stand for the two hours, meditating internally as i speak.

Baba Vanga with a tooth missing from her mouth that's in her forehead saunters into the auditorium rows and sits down center-front-first-aisle. she stares at Marianne and smiles with her broken sweet smile.

Baba: oh my child, YOU are something special, you represent LOVE, not politics, you are a delight! come under my wing, i'm only two-feet high but my cloak is big enough for the two of us. wanna get outta here? i mean, like, disappear with me and poof! appear with me again at my villa in the overhang-cliff of the Homecountry Mountains.

Marianne: i dreamt about you coming like this, it was both a sexual and non-moist dream. a voice kept telling me, "tell 'em Jill sent ya.."

Bab: my boss? i mean never mind all that, you are clearly ripe for witchhhood. shit, you would make Guildmistress the minute you touched your first broom!

Marianne: well i've been my local county's Chessmistress for 40 years straight now 15 years lesbian, so...i guess it's time for new adventures. lead the way, funny old hag, to my destiny! the journey---for me---never ends...

Baba: okay, deary, but, um, just to let you know before we start...i'm not into all that newfangled New Age tentacles you kids are into nowadays, i'm strictly Old Skool, i use the dust from my bones as spell-sand. not gotten at LUSH.

the two leave...nobody notices that they were ever there...

Robert De Niro: *on the phone* around the horn, coatcheck girl with the peppermint hat. hello? is Bob there? it's Bob.

Mueller: *in his secret sliding library* who? who is this? how'd you get my private number? i'm private.

De Niro: yeah, so thanks, Bob, i need your day-long public testimony for character-background before i start playing you. i'm lazy, see, i don't read the script anymore, i don't study, i'm too old for that shit, when does it come time for me to go on vacation and relax from paying my dues? i'd rather watch the movie than read the book.

Mueller: my character is stellar and exemplary. you know I am the real tough-guy here, Bob. i mean i'm the one going in front of Congress live for hours and hours like it was some sort of PBS fishing special with just me in the chair! no lawyers! you couldn't do that on your best boxing day!

De Niro: funny you should mention that, i'm here in Britain…

Bump: *hanging off the Cream House Rotunda Romeo-+-Juliet hedge-maze balcony* ahhhh, nothing i enjoy more than spending an evening alone drinking pinot and watching Pinoe play soccer in the World Cup. but why does she have pink hair? is she a female or something?

Eye Luggage: i love that Marta wore red lipstick on her lips for her final match. and we are lucky enough to have Marta right here in podcast-studio! it is an honor, senorita! your red lipstick is all the Red Circle we need! all the rage. and the rouge. so, tell me, why'd you do it?

Bump: i know why, all the whores i've ever done in San Francisco wore that same red lipstick. it's to virtue-signal dominance in bed.

Marta: this is to all the young girls out there---in Brazil but frankly, i'll take them from anywhere at this point! i wore this red lipstick on my lips so you'd LISTEN to what i SAID with my mouth, not with my feet! hear my message: only YOU can save soccer!

Bump: smoke in our National Forests. go find a bear in the woods. can you imagine if the U.S. wins that match against France IN France this Friday? the entire 90-minutes the crowd in there in the stands is gonna be screaming at the top of their European-smoke-filled lungs AGAINST our girls. i hope Megan Rapinoe does well, i really do, her last name doesn't exist, i hope she scores two goals...that aren't penalty kicks. penalty kicks are cheap, they aren't real goals, only goals that are actually scored form the field should count as goals, i like real heroes...do away with Corner Kicks that capture the goalie, the rule should be if the ball goes out in the Corner Kick Corner you have to buy a concession at the traveling concession stand in the stands. at least one popcorn and burger. if France loses, they will literally burn the field down, all the grass will be one big bonfire.

Pence: too soon, sir, i am deathly afraid i'm gonna lose my job next election. what the fuck *bleeped* will become of me then?

Dirg: i agree with you, sir prez. also, the goalposts should be rubber to make it easier to score goals for the poor women.

Laertus: your head is made of rubber. both of them. that's why you can't masturbate properly, you can never cum. V.A.R., we finally have proof that not EVEYTHING gets better with technology.

Eye: ah, women's football, my paradise! what a potter's field of gold nuggets! where everyone on the field is either lesbian or questioning and they ALL have tattoos, you might not see where they are on their bodies, but believe me, they ALL have tattoos…

Holzhauer is sneaking around Vegas in a room he is unfamiliar with:

Holzhauer: *looks at cards* umm, what is Straight Flush?

shadow dealer who looks familiar: what? you just revealed your hand! i was about to give you a Yu-Gi-Oh card. do you know the chances of receiving a natural straight flush with no wild cards?

Holzhauer: i do know those odds: it's like 0.01 or something. sorry, i'm not used to this type of gambling. i do sports betting.

Ken: *on the phone in a shady lobby with the bay windows on the indoor elevator open* YOU LOST IT!!?

Holzhauer: my mind, yes, and the money, yes, but i'll get the money back, the Debates are coming up, i'll make it up there.

Ken: i take solace only in knowing that all the money you lost was your own, so i'm still the money champ of all time. you said you'd deliver. you said you knew a man...

at Alex Trebek's hospital bed, Vic Mignogna is reluctant to hold Alex's hand again despite warnings to the contrary from both doctors and physicians. and faithless spiritual healers. and Ken.

Ken: i told you i'd be back. i'm everywhere. and nowhere. i ken things. and hear things. in the wind. i viddy things. wait, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WEARING!!?

Vic steps out into the hospital overhang-spotlight in a fully-bodied limb-capacity mobile and 100% lyric-liable-pliable-rubber cosplay suit of Broly.

Vic: i like to wear my Broly suit out in public whenever i can, this was the last time i had fun at a convention being the lovable anime freak i am and everyone knew me as. after that appearance, my personal life went downhill and my legal bills piled up. i am the first person---American or Japanese---who has ever been by a court of law banned from anime. i used to be king of the fucking mountain in the field. i was the court-jester in my circles.

Ken: now you're the queen. tilling the field. and your head is spinning in circles. is that rubber comfortable? is it breathable?

Vic: no it is not...*puts his rubber-glove hands up* i can't breathe…

Vic hugs Alex Trebek with all his might, despite all his qualms, a full bodysuit hug, with foam-fingered-gloves-for-hands included in the hug.

Alex's eyes are heavy and laden and have been closed for some time now. he has been sleeping for a very long time...

Ken: this is not good. this is grim, his hands are clammy, he hasn't moved, his breath under his mustache is cold and grey. time is running out! we must save Alex Trebek!!! your touches aren't doing it for him anymore, we need more power, captain coo-coo. we need a REAL celebrity to power the cure!

the shadowy figure in the corner of the hospital room continues to be shadowy and doesn't get up from the seat, though you can hear the shuffling of feet as legs are crossed, just out-of-view of the center spotlight.

Laertus: *on his Pear watch* that's the thing with Instagram.

Llywarch: *on his Pear watch* what was that? i can only conceive of you as a bodyless voice, this is scary and unsettling. you're just a series of echoes. where am i? what room is this? is anybody out there? i don't really care about Instagram anymore! i want my beloved friend back! have you made the decision yet? i have this feeling in the pit of my goat stomach: like it's like i am so hungry to eat something but then i realize i don't eat...

Laertus: yeah that's the thing with Instagram. like, you go off Instagram for two months, then the people pester you and pepper you with questions about where the hell you've been doing for two months, and you reply that you went on vacation, and they're like: "isn't that the POINT of Instagram!!? to show US your life, to POST your damn vacation pics!!?"

Eye: anime roundup, go.

Dirg: what's the deal with all the Naruto Shippuden videos on youtube!!? every single video! EVERY SINGLE FULL EPISODE of the show posted on youtube is the same way! be a polite post-host! they all have this weird voice-track where the voices don't match up with the picture onscreen, like the voices are 5-minutes-ahead of the film-track. no matter who the channel-name is, they ALL post the same useless video!

Eye: Conan the Barbarian, go. i had to watch this single without my Harley Hammer and it sucked!

Anjelica Huston wearing a bird's nest for hair: why can't i get confirmed? you know, i've lobbed some serious accusations and nobody takes me seriously. guess they weren't pretty enough. cos i'm only the daughter of the man who gave us The Other Side of the Wind. who(m) do i have to fuck to get noticed about my credible claims of sexual abuse? honey i've seen things in my 15 30 65 years in Hollywood and on Hollywood sets, i've seen it all, honey, i got stories to tell you wouldn't believe! i got dirt on ALL the men! Conan? he is a bit much on the machismo scale, it all just toppled over into farce. it reminded me of my nephew, a young boy who greeted me the other morning by sliding down the banister of our stairs, picking up the hat-stand we keep by the portico of our hallway front-door which is a lobby, and swinging it around wildly recklessly swervingly crashing all my mirrors nearly decapitating me, him declaring: I'M THE KING OF THE UNIVERSE!!! see, therein is the problem, that's the problem with society: girls don't do that.

Doryce and Gladyce: she's one of us! has to be!

MEANWHILE E. Jean Carroll holds her umbrella up in the center of the Hong Kong protests. Cecily Strong gives the fist-bump of Girl Power to her from the stands. Kenan Thompson is there, too, but is preoccupied internally in his mind with something else:

Kenan Thompson: great, now i can't play Big Papi again, either! what am i gonna do for work?

Dirg: i'm glad John Milius is finally getting his due, it pains liberals to admit that he's as talented as Spielberg and Lucas. he actually was the secret deep-state head of the mafia, the USC Mafia. he went against the grain, he fought that '70s feminism tooth-and-nail. and sword. the Woman Movement moved. out of the way. it was a return to normalcy.

Laertus: disturbingly, a lot of British youth ate up this movie in droves. it influenced an entire generation of boys, the future Brexiters.

Dirg: good on ya, mate yutes. Arnold's accent had the opposite effect the film-critic illuminati desired, it actually disarmed the character, made him palatable, made him sweet and goofy. sex in this film was realistic, that's what happens when you try to lay down with a witch…

Laertus: i was all set to slam deeply this hammy muscley sword-and-sandal wannabe, but i have to admit: the character of Valeria saves this piece. from being shit. she is a dynamite dynamic character.

Dirg: she's what all women should strive to be, she's the TRUE independent woman who can take care of herself but doesn't mind taking roles when it comes to the lovin'. she believes in service.

Laertus: her scene where she talks about loneliness, and passing the other yellow caravans of lovers down the line only seeing the love though their silhouette shadows along the sand-path, is VERY effective, that is some great dialogue, i'm sure it was Oliver Stone who wrote those lines. she adds humanity to the film, she needs to constantly appear strong to survive this world but deep-down she wants to love as any woman wants to love: tenderly. as she says herself, she found warmth in this brutal world with Conan and doesn't want to lose it. or him. then of course they kill her off cos that's the only way to invoke the revenge plot. kill off the best character by far.

Dirg: she won, conquered, two planets: the Golden Globe and the Saturn. but she should have won the Big One. i heard Sandahl Bergman---relation to Ingmar, right?---was an American Gladiators extra before this happened to her.

Eye: i have a crush on her, for all the reasons. i admit, that scene where they're fighting off the spirits come from Hell to take Conan to the Underworld was effective. i wanted my darling Harley Hammer to get those same face-tattoos before Mike Tyson did. and the music was good, i actually bought the soundtrack. the cassette tape.

Dirg: Conan's mom was a porn star. in France. but come on! there is no way in those times a black man would command all the power respect and prestige he had as the snakehead of that cult!

Laertus: hey man, the black man had black magic, right?

Dirg: what was the answer to the Riddle of Steel anyway?

Laertus: the hand, that you masturbate yourself with. and what was with all that Christ imagery? Christ! come on! on-the-nose much?

Dirg: Milius is a punkass who pussed out, the original print was WAY more violent and bloody, but he had to make concessions to get it released. it should have been more like the original source-material, those dark unsympathetic comics i love and pattern my own work after.

Laertus: and then of course it all ends in a perfectly fascist Nazi cascading of steps-staircase. propaganda prop. like we were back in WWII all over again just for kicks. white symbols lurking everywhere.

Dirg: Milius has stated he is so on The Right that he's essentially an anarchist. a Romantic anarchist who believes in true love and loyalty above all else, all other virtues. the 19th century: when life was good. he reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson but with a little Stephen A. Smith.

Laertus: that's the thing, eventually The Left and The Right will come together, they'll collide into each other because they'll double-back, they'll arch their back and fold in on themselves and touch each other with their tips on the other side of the extremes they're careening towards. they'll come together to form a new ism which combines Fascism and Communism into Million Dollar Milius Extremism Exchange. it'll end up looking like a giant Ouroboros Snake. anarchism is a beautiful concept, even a beautiful goal, but it's impossible to impement in reality. what would anarchism look like in a practical sense? hey remember Universal Studios?

Dirg: hey, men aren't cattle. when we chew cud, we spit it out cos we vape. freedom is a gun in your hand. of course i do, buddy! that was one of the first things we did together as friends. we snuck out of our Catholic-school field-trip-group to sneak around and discover what the rides and attractions were really like. we were young then so that didn't involve attractive girls. or boys as i later found out. what show-times WE could go to when there were less crowds so we could really enjoy the shows. you were such a chicken the whole time! never willing to try new things or break the law by jumping the chain-link fence keeping the people in line like cattle. those pens were cages. holding onto the back of my Bermuda shorts in back of me as we walked the park, you were such a coward.

Laertus: but did we find it! the Conan show literally was just us in that empty auditorium, i still remember all those empty steel rows of rectangular seats like parochial-school lunch tables. it's all coming back to me in flashbacks: i remember sitting in the front row and getting misted by all the gallons of water whooshing on stage in an S-curve. and the Giant Snake which i had no context at the time for interpreting. and i do remember the woman! yes, the woman with the blonde braided hair in rolls and the tit-shields for copper armor! that was Valeria! tho i didn't know her name at the time. only watching the movie recently can i fill in the puzzle pieces and that stageshow from the '80s makes sense. i remember they always kissed at the end of the show, right?

Dirg: as hot as her face was, it was even hotter with that black war-paint on. we were lucky, what we saw was one of the first Universal Studios Conan shows ever, the part of Conan was played by Bill Maher but the part of Valeria was played on that stage by Sandahl herself! the studio figured it would hype the movie more this way to have her.

Laertus: i just think what aliens would think of us, you know? if they saw we humans making a movie like this. like the absurdity of making a film: the absurd sight of having humans wait, lounge around in a trailer, loiter and have craft-service, put on costumes and stand in the center of weird sets on the Earth and then pretend to say words and jump around and fake-fight. for what? it's all so silly, the aliens simply transmit all their art and culture through the hive-mind to their people, no need to fake anything, their art is all real, their real experience collectively-shared with themselves. they don't need to dress up in costumes they're gonna take off later, they're already in their bodies, their costumes are permanent.

Eye: Ballykissangel. to be continued, forever.

Laertus: aye. we must talk about how it all ended between Assumpta and Father Clifford. no i mean in real life. why did they decide to kill off Assumpta?

Eye: cos Dervla and Tompkinson were fucking in real life.

Dirg: i guess the Catholic priest got some after all.

Laertus: so what happened? did the relationship go south and the working-conditions on set on location in Ireland became unbearable? untenable? impossible? too much baggage and emotional residue? enough resin to fill a billion shots of shandy? i wonder who blinked first? who dumped who?

Dirg: it's whom.

Eye: and eye luggage. it's so sad, in my headcanon those two are still lovers in real life. you can't break up a perfect union like that!!! the real mystery is why did Father leave if Assumpa wanted out of her contract? he could have stayed on and made shitloads more money and become more famous and we wouldn't have had to deal with that God-awful priest from Tasmania!

Laertus: my headcanon is that Tompkinson is a Romantic, he was so heartbroken from having Assumpta dump him---Dervla, the perfect Irish lass---he just couldn't go on...

Eye: i'm gonna be heartbroken when our talks end. i can't talk to anyone else in the universe or world about Ballykissangel like this the way i talk about it with you, we share a burning passion for it. you better not dump me for another bloke and start talking to him about the show!!!

at the Treehouse:

Doryce: wake up, dummy! the gardeners are coming over to work on the bathroom. Melbourne's coming over, too, to ease tensions, to get you two factions working together.

Dirg: hey old bat, why is there a lawnmower parked in my backyard? did they forget to pick it up? NOW who's leaving signs for who? whom.

Doryce: that's MY backyard!

Melbourne: the gardeners want all of us to work together to cut the grass. it was left here purposefully, they wanted you to ride it one day, maybe you'd like to cut grass like they do, and we can all become friends.

Doryce: i still see the worms sliming up the bathroom, they come in droves, their numbers are increasing. i feel so bad for our cats, imma pick up some nice fresh cat food for them tomorrow at The Store. meanwhile i'm not picking the worms up in tissues and depositing them outside anymore, i've lost patience for that, i'm putting them in the toilet and flushing.

Gladyce: for shame, dear! shortcuts will get you in the end, you know that about life! all your decisions come back to haunt you. are you going to the bathroom as you flush? that's disgusting! that's gonna backfire.

Doryce: i'm so sorry, i don't mean to do that to the slime-suckers, but i get lazy at midnight…

Gladyce: tell me again, i love when you story me. and be sure to pick up some more coffee at The Store.

Doryce: Garden Grove. the last Barnes & Noble next to the last Blockbuster Video. Farmer's Market, Los Angeles. that escalator bedazzled in yellow lights! you come down there into the three-story level all shag-carpeted orange like a La Hambra '70s hippie library. the books are all lined-up and cooled under glass at the cake shop. no cakes there, only books to choose. it's a reader's paradise, a black Barcalounger on every corner inside. you can learn and learn spells to your heart's content without getting fat.

Gladyce's eyes are sleepy but she's wired and wide-awake. she wants to sleep but she can't.

Codrus: come inside, brother, do you see the two Chalices on the altar? look inside them, at the reflecting pool of the wine in them.

Cotard: you don't have to remind me, brother, i went through your hell. the wine has turned to water.

Codrus: *spelling* ah, now is the time to enter the Temple. through the chalice's bowl.

they enter. into a desperate space.

Cotard: *throwing up on the altar* i can't stay here for long, i get sick of this place. what do you two talk about anyway? what could you and she possibly have in common?

Codrus: hey! sacrosanct. and you call me the vomitous one. oh, we shoot the shit, i tell her about that time Miley Cyrus spit in her younger sister Noah's mouth on stage and Noah had to swallow it to preserve the family genetic line, stuff like that, origin of the Ark and those heavy rains and weird names.

Cotard: you are an abomination to the profession of god.

outside, Sinphony is having it out with a mysterious shadow-woman in a grey shawl and cloak. this figure tips her hood and stops her traveling-booth with the big wheel by the side of the dust road by the orange pebble.

Madame Pons: don't be shy, dearie, come and peep my wares. all hardbodies here, see these crystals, child? all colors, of the Pink Floyd rainbow, all shades, all cuts, i can't give these away at LUSH i mean they are valuable trinkets from the most-exotic regions in Asia Minor, one-of-a-kind and priceless. these crystals will breathe life into you, breathe love into you, real love, all my girls say so, these crystals have helped them find their soul mates. on campus. and in the woods.

Sinphony: rubbish! flaming garbage! you're a female Lord?!! absurd! what silly girls, my Master scorns them for being weak and rubber-kneed! who needs black-magic horoscopes from Hell when you have the Church? i have my love. the only man i need. he teaches me all about love everyday.

Pons: that isn't love, Sinphony, that's abuse...…...what if i told you you could be an independent woman who don't need no man? right here, too, in this village. you could be the first female doctor ever on Earth!

Sinphony: *incredulous look on her lips* WHAT!!? girls can't be village elders!!!






 

TMIT: ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

that's not Kristen Wiig in the reboot.........and a James Gandolfini in an alternate universe who dieted and slimmed down and kept healthy and got past his demons

1. how many sexual partners do you currently have? not counting myself, zero. but you should always count, right? you should always count on yourself, that's what Oprah and Marie Kondo say. i'm a real zero...

2. do you have any secret sexy kinks you have not told a current lover, and why are you so secretive?
a) i don't want to do my kinks with my current partner
b) partner would be shocked
c) partner may get upset
d) i have no secrets

partner didn't get upset, but she got an upset-stomach. gave her some rainbow Tums, but they were like 10 years old and dusty. i HAD no secrets, but then i tried Secret gel on my armpits. i felt clean, but then i felt dirty, you know? i like to make love with Mott the Hoople in the background, sometimes the music gets real loud, but it ain't shit-kicking music. my stepfather threw me into my own 9th-birthday-birthday-table but it was out of love, he only wanted me to play the best A-flat minor on the indoor cowboy guitar that i could. i showed him my hands and told him my hands were not made for such things, he talked about throwing hands...he taught me how to shuffle. cards, not ipod music.

3. have you ever been naked in public? (eg nude beach, nudist camp, randomly)
a) yes, i loved it
b) yes but not again, never again!
c) no but would consider it
d) no would never

i live in a retirement community...…...so as such there are nudist camps everywhere: nudist coffee shops, nudist police stations, nudist ASPCAs. the only place there ISN'T any nudity is Mel's Diner, which disappoints the ass-pinching cowboys. what is the original kid from the movie thinking? he gets to be in ONE episode---the pilot episode---of the show before they switch him with another son while MEL HIMSELF gets to do BOTH the film and the whole show and becomes famous! kid with glasses is kicking himself in the baseball-diamond sand you see in the first episode's end credits right now.

4. when at home i prefer to be a) naked b) dressed

in my cowboy boots. just my cowboy boots. my stepdad turned to me one night after a cigarette burn from his new lover---my mom---left a big singe-hole in his plaid shirtpocket just laying there sitting there resting there on his shoulder. the old jokes of a bully fucking your moms last night don't apply here. he told me,

"son, freedom is having nothing left to lose..."

then he told us---mom and me in the motel---that the girl in the The Bodyguard poster wasn't Whitney. i mean how could he have known that in the '70s?

never saw him again, he went rescuing a gaggle of turkeys who were drowning cos they were drinking too much rainwater when they turned their heads upward toward the cloudy sky...

5. would you rather wrestle naked in a pool of Jello or chocolate pudding? after the Cosby thing, i vowed never to do that again...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

I CAN ONLY WRITE WHAT I LOVE, BUT WITHOUT THE SAUCE, I'M NOTHING

notes:

* that's every writer's credo right there

* next up for Darren Criss: the Morrissey Story...written and directed and executive-produced by Morrissey...crowdfunded of course cos Morrissey has a lot of friends. it will be the first thing Bill Cosby is in since prison. Bill Cosby playing himself.
Morrissey: Bill Cosby played himself...

* Darren Criss: that's a name right out of a 1930s potboiler, one of those detective comic strips where it's a LONG drawn-out caper case story and you only get ONE panel a month to try to discover the mystery and solve it before the author does. his girlfriend is named Polly Package or something.

* i confess, i never watched Glee...…...i probably still won't but Darren Criss is cool

* Manager: promise me, no more open-mic nights.
on the phone: closed-mic night then?
Manager: how would that work?
on the phone: we hear your voice but only behind closed-doors. like Congress. and then everyone gets a participation trophy for doing their jobs. hey, didn't you play Robin Williams?
Manager: yes. it was so traumatic that whenever i see Robin Williams on tv now, i cry, i'm incapable forever of ever laughing at Robin Williams again.

* Manager: excuse me, guy in a dark alley, are you eating a giant Cheeto with glue on top?
Phoenix, the director: cut. script, please! book!

* at the bus:
Darren: i'm just a nobody.
Manager: turns out, Glee had a lot of backstage problems, didn't it? a lot of personalities in that talent-pool in need of shitload piles of help. here's my card.
Darren: just take a selfie with me and begone, thot. hey, why are you wearing my vest? did you steal it when i wasn't looking? you swiped a homeless man?

* Manager holds up nacho fries.
S&P: what's that?
Manager: the only thing he gets to eat: one nacho fries a day, that's it, no water, just Baja Drink, he needs to stay in shape for all the girls...and boys.

* Darren: i just like singing and composing piano music about Mexicans.
Manager: get Criss on the Biden team right away! he is the key to victory!
S&P: Biden doesn't know how to use a telephone...

* Darren: *singing* cheese brings me to my knees...
S&P: so it's a porn?
Darren: *singing* you're the love of my life...
S&P: you love French fries? you don't love a person?
Manager: it's very millennial, it'll sell well with all the shut-in gamers out there.
S&P: what's the title of the track?
Darren: "Chasing Gold".
S&P: Tokyo 2020, gotcha. get Mario, not Rio, on the pipe.

* Maria Taylor: i'm here with Darren Criss and guest at the Oscars. who are you excited to see tonight, Criss?
Darren: that's Cross, i'm Jesus. did you know Taco Bell now has spicy nuggets?
Maria Taylor: uhhhhhh...…...and you? who are you excited to see?
Nacho Fries: you, sugar.
Maria: i recently got engaged.
Nacho Fries spills her sauce.

* Manager: don't waste the fries at a party doing party tricks!
Darren: they're my fries! i earned them! i can wear a golden fry around my gold chain if i want!
Manager: no, kid, your parents own you and your parents got deported.
Darren: what? why?
Manager: it's complicated, let's just all vote for Oprah the next time and we can forget all this and this insane time. Gloria Vanderbilt is helping from the other side but it's gonna take all of us, a collective group effort to topple.
Darren waves the Communist flag at a Taco Bell rally.

* Manager: watch out, kid! don't jump high into your backyard party pool like the rest of your dumb milennial friends do, that barrier is deceptively clear...

* cop: no contraband at the concert, no girls can carry sauce. but the girls are allowed to be sauced.
cop: oh, and Michael Jackson's Estate called, they are suing you for sliding like that.

* Darren: what happened?
Manager: it suddenly went quiet. and you're not in the studio, there are no microphones in here. you cannot afford a microphone anymore.
Darren: hold me.
Manager: sure, kid.
Darren: no, cos i can't swim...don't want to drown in my own indoor pool like Elvis.

* Darren: what's this?
Manager: a magazine. you millennials don't read books anymore.
Darren: WITHOUT WARM NACHO CHEESE SAUCE I'M NOTHING!!!
Manager: thank you for clearing out my desk, now i don't have to ring Marie Kondo.
Darren: i wanted to break your fish tank but i now see that would have been impossible.
Manager: fish tacos at Taco Bell, why hasn't that ever happened?

* Manager: what have you done!!!
Darren: i'm burning Elvis's piano like a beach bonfire. to stay warm for one night.
Manager: allow me to tell you the parable of the fisherman who got one fish for free. the jingle game don't last forever, kid, unless you're Santa.

* Manager: CAN'T YOU WRITE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE!!!?
Darren: unhand my scruff! i wrote a Transformers jingle and got two nacho-cheese-colored Ferraris.
Manager: those are Bumblebee Ferraris. and why do you need TWO Ferraris?
Darren: one for now, one from G1. and as you can see in the background of my obscene car collection, i wrote the reboot to the Beverly Hillbillies theme and got that jalopy, the original one detailed in pristine condition. Granny from that show called me and said she wanted to fuck me.
Manager: Granny's still alive?
Darren: yes, and she's running for President.

* that's not a middle-finger at the end

CLICK HERE RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

TOMORROW: actually NOT Taco Bell but McDonald's, the burger from Spain, got a regular Quarter Pounder last time, cos i misheard myself at the drive-thru mic...

GINGER BREAD: THE TEMPLE TAKES YOUR TEMPERATURE

Kit Harington is having a bad spell of it trying to cope with post-GOT life. he no got a handle on his emotions yet.

he stumbles up the dust mountain and surveys the landscape. some green, but mostly dry brush. ready for a fire at any second. the land's seas could be jewels if only they shone in the heat. he needs to see a twinkle for the one in his eye is burnt out. it's too hot to be wearing a real animal-hide---especially in L.A.---as a fur brown coat but he does so anyway, he trudges on, he keeps wearing his hair in braids and howls at the sun.

Dr. Drew: *his glasses gleaming the rays of the sun* hey Kit! hi! how bout we come down from there, huh? it's time for group. follow my orders, my nigga? don't you want to go swimming? we have a pool on our roof. the glass panels keeps it a toasty 70-degrees at all times.

Kit has taken a break. a nice one-month break to rest his limbs, escape from all the crayzy cray-cray of crowds, from the Hollywood machine, and decide what he wants to do next to fulfill the rest of his life.

Kit: *on the phone with Kate Beckinsale* yeah.

Kate: Kate and Kit, it was kismet. so do you know what you want to do with the rest of your life, you old codger?

Kit: that's exactly it, mate, i have NO CLUE. i just sorta stumbled into Game of Thrones and have been there ever since. i was so intense the whole time i forgot to laugh once and my face froze in that position forever, from all the promised Winter snow, snow get it? i can never laugh again, my face is a permanent gurn, no wonder i'm so sad and melancholy all the time. my jaw has fixed. i'm feeling jittery and directionless, i'm an aimless agnostic of nature.

Kate: okay but you ain't gonna top yourself, right boy? do i need to come over there? where are you?

Kit: top-secret location. it's brilliant, it's a rehab but it's really a bed-n-breakfast. they say i'm mentally-ill, but i've always known i'm mental. this is more a case of i need to fooking SLEEP! so i rented a villa in that part of Los Angeles where all the dried lakes are, a little twee white house covered by one pine tree covered by one palm tree, and i use this space to SLEEP FOR A MONTH. really! that's all i do! that is what i need right now.

Kate: okay, but did you need that expensive house to do this?

Kit: i do nothing all day. Dr. Drew is here to keep me company with his big words. the Trivago Guy is here and he keeps staring and smiling at me. and Andy Richter's here, desperate to replace James Corden's car karaoke with throwback Seinfeld, Andy paces the hallways at all hours with a nervous grinfuck on his pudgy face. and i see Conan O'Brien slink into the secret room at 1AM when it's supposed to be lights-out and everyone---including that woke pink nurse---is supposed to be long fast asleep.

Kate: who's in the room?

Kit: Sophie Turner. don't worry, babe, nothing's going on, she hasn't turned me, Sophie's helping me like she helps everyone, she's a registered nurse you know, not many do, she keeps it on the down-low being so young. she's making quite the killing---i mean money, not medieval---doing her slap therapy, she slaps guys for a hefty handsome chunk of change. the men say it works, but only if she does it, only if she's the precise practitioner. after awhile they don't even notice that they're doing it without the alcohol! Dr. Drew is both pleased and suspicious of her methods.

Kate: Sophie's a beautiful girl, but that tattoo of hers mars her beauty.

Kit: don't worry, i let her have it!

Kate: *gasp* what do you mean?

Kit: for teling the world that it was I who caused the Starbucks incident. this was an international scandal and incident! well it wasn't me, i was too drunk to have caused it. i got her back. meaning i slapped her back and face---she wanted me to, just to clear that up. safe words and the like, she had an early flight so she gifted me a bottle of booze with one of those ridiculously-long giraffe-glass necks. it was a gift, it'd be rude of me not to accept it.

Kate: you're keeping us on the down-low, right babe? not telling the papers?

Kit: absolutely. no. absolut. especially the London ones. you know my brain cracked and i had a nervous breakdown RIGHT after my appearance on SNL. i don't know if it was seeing my wife there for the first time in ages, or joking how i'd be carving jewelry and beach seashell necklaces by the shore to make ends meet after---knowing in my head i wasn't joking, that's why that joke landed, it was so realistic---or what.

Kate: I know what it was: Pete Davidson. he's enough to make ANYONE crazy. crazy like him. he actually shares his crazy with you till you start to not notice the difference and start thinking nothing's wrong and everything you do is normal. i got out of there with the skin of my teeth, and my facial on my face still intact and steam-dried, and only one tooth missing from excessive eating of sugary cereals.

Kit: gotta go, Drew is calling me, we're gonna play seashell-telephone together on the beach tonight by the lit palm tree just the twee two of us.

Marie Kondo in a kimono is being interviewed:

Wolf: so Marie, a housewife from a New Jersey tenement is claiming you stole her idea of folding things upright. she says SHE should be the one with the conglomerate. what is your response?

Marie Kondo: i'm losing my broken accent for this one so i make myself perfectly and unequivocally clear: FUCK YOU. that's as plain-Japaness as i can put it. damn Bump voters! lemme guess, she has pink rollers in her hair and smokes a cigarette her bosom the ashtray? she's a curtain-twitcher even though she's surrounded on all sides by red brick wall. the Japanese invented the fan shape, you know this, right? it's in all our umbrellas. take a step back: who do you side with? me who comes from the ancient Japanese ancestry of advice stone-wells and wisdom wellsprings and wellwishers and stone-washers by the rainbow-trout streams of the Edo period!!?...or some bitch.

at the hospital, a vegetable Alex Trebek receives a visitor...tho he can't know it...

Vic Mignogna bends down and holds Trebek's hand.

Vic: i'm sorry for everything! also, the bouquet of flowers and assorted roses i bought you at the corner shop got lost in the rain, sorry aboot that.

Holzhauer: you went puddle-jumping?

Vic: it wasn't my fault, that was the '80s where anything went! besides all i did was love them! i mean not like that i love everyone...in the Christian way.

Holzhauer: what is Christian rap? like REALLY what is it? what is its reason for being? why, just why? like Anything On Ice. i listened to some DC Talk i found in my son's contraband backpack from school and i have to tell you, those were some of the most disturbing lyrics i've ever read and laid eyes on. and i come from Vegas the place where ice is still new.

Ken Jennings: buddy, don't touch his hand. not my rules, the doctors say the back of his hand is still tender from all the pricks and lines.

Holzhauer: Alex Trebek did much pimp-slapping in his youth...on the mean streets of Canada...finally caught up with him...

Vic: oooh, i am so very sorry. i don't want to cause anyone any more pain, except all my prosecutors and accusers, they are all liars.

Alex starts to come to. his eyes widen a bit and his wry smile emerges again under his mustache as if he never had his mustache shaved off.

Alex: *weakly* you, Vic? oooh hello, i thought i told that nurse with the big boobs to deliver me some nog, leave the whiskey in it. then i slapped her on her ass. or as we Canadians say it, arse. i thought i had ordered an Italian dessert...both meanings. three scoops of vanilla ice cream on top of my filet mignon. but all i got was some anime freak.

Ken's eyes widen as well.

Ken: whoa! change of plans. YOU! blondie woth the spiked tips from the '80s, keep touching his hand!

Vic: uh...well...okay...but first you have to promise to tell me to my face in the next five minutes that my hair is THROWBACK '80s.

Holzhauer: apologize to the man, blondie! i mean you, Ken.

at The Weather Channel:

Goody Paul: this Father's Day, Mother Nature wins!...…...nope, sorry, no, can't do this anymore, reading this copy is beneath me.

Maria LaRosa bats her eyelash from across the world in the Yucatan. which creates a strong sexualized sirocco.

Goody Paul: okay, i'll continue to read the copy and do my part to save the world.

President Bump at his latest rally now only streamed by drones with weird crosses on them out of Alex Jones's '70s-shag-carpet basement:

Bump: so the Academy Awards suck, right? i hate them! they have NEVER thought to honor me for all i've done for the world! i mean not even a participation trophy? i'd take that participation trophy and frame it on my wall. despite how they hate me i will still watch the women play soccer. i could never play soccer on account of my San Antonio Spurs. that's why all my Cabinet members are Acting, cos i love to act!

the crowd is crazy, not goes crazy.

Bump: there's a lot of concentration happening in this room, in our little camp.

LaVar Ball in the First Take Studios from a remote: hello, mon ami, mon cheri! i'm coming to you from the action. hey, there's a dude in my shot, i'll kick his ass out of my shot using no hands! he's dribbling the soccer ball on his chest and chin and thinks he's so cool. he's climbing the lamppole next to that Illuminati Triangle glass art museum! don't worry, you don't need security, LaVar Ball IS security, i'll usher him out in due course. now where were we? i look up Poppy Montgomery for that Google Nest commercial and no hits, turns out it was Aly Wagner! do you have these problems, too? hey, i support the women! i bought a whole red case of 24 Cokes to support Women's Soccer. it was blue and white, too! don't front me!

Molly Qerim: so...……………..are you gonna apologize to me or what? i've been waiting here patiently ten minutes after work at 9AM. that HR quip wasn't a joke, Q don't play, i've had to deal with men my WHOLE life as you can see by looking at me.

Jalen Rose: i'd like to give you that home run, wifey, i'd take you, Ball, like you were a basketball in my magic hands, but...i mean look at the size of this dude! he's like The Hulk, even has that macabre Hulk grin to his teeth. Black Hulk. i mean was this guy a wrestler? i mean a fake wrestler.

LaVar: i did nothing wrong, sweetgums, switch gears, i'm a mechanic by trade. i fix up cars and relationships. i need a real American job now that the Facebook Series is kaput and it don't look like that reparation check will be in my postbox any time soon.

Dirg: i like what LaVar did here, his spokesperson is a woman, very sneaky keen sly and coy, Lavar, you go, boy, you playin' dem games.

Molly: focus, LaVar, my next question to you is above your pay-grade.

Kenan Thompson: great, now i can't play LaVar Ball anymore on SNL. what the hell am i gonna do for work?

Molly: oh good, goodness, thank goddess, Tiger's coming in studio right now to bail us all out. never thought i'd say those words again. what's the haps, Tiger?

Tiger Woods: Pebble Beach was the breaking point, literally. i knew i couldn't compete with other manly men when i saw that dude break his steel golf-club over his knee like that.

Dirg: yep yep yep. there is no force in the universe as strong as a white man's anger. not even a roided-up black man with a wood bat.

Max: why was it overcast the entire four days? the sun didn't shine once!

Tiger: threw me off. my game. my red shirt wasn't refracting the heat. the red color appeared bloody and orange. save it for the Irish Major next month, weather!

Stephen A Smith: *on the phone secretly in studio* Drake? you do me and i do you, remember poutine patna? you get me global entry and the whole Masai thing goes away...what? the camera's on me?...hello, globe!

Tiger: i was sharing an Obec Carmel caramel-colored bungalow over a cliff with Lindsey Vonn, we're tryna rekindle.

LaVar: yeah yeah! i've been over there! i was your mechanic for a job over there.

Tiger: mechanic?

Lavar: yep yep yep, your mechanic of the bathroom, the plumber! i was helping Lindsey hold the portable showerhead to her body to wash her off, she was having difficulties standing with all her ski injuries where she wrecks her body for months at a time trying to crazy-jump off white mountains. i took pictures of her like this, and video...for posterity i mean for physical therapy, to show the doctors of her progress...

Tiger: how would you gauge her? i mean her hopes for recovery?

LaVar: perfect 10.

Molly: we got OJ Simpson, LaVar Ball, and Bill Cosby on The View next on this channel at the next studio over. talk about The Three Stooges...

Whoopi: where are the real black men? where is Dennis Rodman?

The View is shown under red lights:

Whoopi: i mean how do they allow these people to still have twitter pages? OJ thinks the world wants to hear his hot takes on...things, pop culture and stuff...

Meghan McCain: not even I do.

Dirg: yeah but i mean, only OJ knows for sure about Khloe Kardashian's paternity, so only he can share this news and bit of information and add to the grand pop-culture conversation online. add his piece, do his part. it's all one big Hollywood Illuminati conglomerate.

Bella Thorne with a tissue in her hand: you're just jealous that i'm hot and young and nubile and nobody has EVER asked you for a nude your entire life, Whoopi! this is so disappointing, i looked up to you, i almost bcame a nun cos of you. you have all those young suicides on your bloody hands now!

Whoopi: kid i don't care about suicides, i almost died recently! okay, i'm sorry, i snapped, a bit of misdirected anger on my part, i'm still sore that i was too sore to host the Oscars.

Joy Behar with her perm: the truth is, they never asked you to. i bring joy to the world.

Bella: ...so it turns out after the paternity test...i'm really Jeff Bezos's daughter...it all makes sense now...

Doryce: knucklehead!

Dirg: *sleeping, woken up unanticipated* huh wha?

Doryce: you did it again, numbskull! the gardeners! do you have no shame? they told me all about you. you leave a heavythick-clear big plastic bag of poo for them to find? is that some troubled Nazi sign? a passive-aggressive warning shot?

Dirg: what? no, you have it all wrong. Gladyce says she gets sick when the shitbag is left inside in the kitchen trashcan so i take it out, i was doing you a courtesy, you probably got an extra vulva-lick out of what i did, you should be thanking me. i just happened to throw it out on the same spot where the Mexicans lawnmower.

Doryce: the gardeners don't take that sign as benignly as you do. you must always be aware of your surroundings, always thinking what the less-fortunate are thinking about the same situation, about you, about seeing a sack of shit in their path...

Doryce: Gladyce dear, you look positively ragged!

Gladyce: *yawning* been burning the midnight oil. can you get me a cuppa at The Store, dear?, i am fleshed-out and fatigued. a coupla cuppas, a whole case of coffee.

Doryce: sure, hon, right away. oh there are so many places i wish we could visit together, things i need to take you, things i need to show you...but alas i've been banned from them all. i wish we could burn the midnight-oil together hopping on bar countertops at the Cowgirl Winery. or go back in time to the first-ever bathing machine, you know i was the first-ever woman to take a nude selfie inside a bathing machine and post it online. when i got out, the other Victorian prudes golf-clapped politely behind the men's backs when they weren't watching and each flashed me a wry smile.

Dirg: shoulda flashed you something else. namely, their vulvas. what ever happened to Midnight Oil? all those Australian bands got lost in the Outback...

Laertus: *checking the scores on his Pear watch* hello Llywarch, long time no see nor conception.

Llywarch: WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED!!!

Laertus: it's gonna be okay, i think, it's reached a stable tipping point. critical mass calmed. you know how on Instagram, whenever you don't type with someone for like two months, when they haven't posted anything in two months, you always assume the worst. you figure this person has committed suicide.

Llywarch: um , yeah, i know the feeling, BELIEVE me i know the feeling!

Eye Luggage: okay, playtime's over, Larry, let's get down to business. anime roundup, go.

Laertus: oh i love that commercial with the Chinese kid lost in America, unable to speak. the one thing that brings the kids together, the one thing that unites them over the span of the entire globe, the one thing all cultures understand, is My Hero Academia!!!

Dirg: are you still off Chinese food?

Laertus: not only that, i'm only gonna eat Muslim food from now on to spite them!

Eye: there is still so much Ballykissangel to talk about. the discussion will never end.

Laertus: i feel this and you. feel it in my lovely bones.

Eye: there is a real moral dilemma with Assumpta's death and the granting of Last Rites.

Laertus: i know what you mean, what is one to do in such a sticky situation? Father Clifford loves Assumpta so much that he doesn't want to see her burn in Hell forever. and yet it was her explicit wish NOT to be granted Last Rites, so isn't he honoring her and loving her more by granting HER wish and not God's?

Eye: love ultimately is about respect. NOT getting the Rites was Assumpta's fuck-you to the Church she despised, it was her very being, it was the action that would define her everlastingly and identify her hard-won weariness, her apathy stance on things, her essence, her truth, she believed in her nonbelief. stripping her of her right to die as she wanted was stripping her of her.

Dirg: this is above my pay-grade. and God's. and Father Clifford GOT no sticky situations, that was the problem. there WAS no stripping. he might as well have loved an imaginary Big Red Dog for all the loving he got back.

Eye: Twilight Zone The Movie, go.

Laertus: i promised my pop i would never watch this film cos of the accident. and that's really where you have to begin and end.

Dirg: Landis thought he would slip in that National Lampoon joke in the Vietnam section and THAT is what would be remembered from the movie all these years later.

Laertus: sure, there's the shock of the cartoon in the opening night drive...

Dirg: ...with the real Ghostbuster. that cartoon was more shocking than any of Ralph Bakshi's obvious cartoons. also the cartoon in that weird house, that cartoon wasn't shocking, the shock was that Bart Simpson's voice came from that weird-looking girl!

Laertus: the thing that is truly scary forever and life everlasting about this film is the scariness of an unanticipated death. i mean let's just take a step back and realize the situation here: this poor veteran character actor and the even poorer Vietnamese kids who were just trying to make it in Hollywood to please their parents and get a little spending money for all their parents' sacrifice to get to this country, the long journey.

Eye: kid actors shoulder a particular profound pain inside them they will never share on social media.

Laertus: the actor is following this script where he's being taken on a train to a Nazi concentration camp, that is the last image he sees on Earth, that's Hell-on-Earth enough, then he really is in the afterlife, what is going on in his consciousness?

Dirg: i wouldn't be certain those two innocent souls would greet him where he went. he most-assuredly had some hidden skeletons in his closet, but i'm praying for his eternal soul all the same. karma can skip over accidents, you know.

Eye: the whole thing is stomach-churning and nightmarish. but not in the whimsical Twilight Zone way, in the real horror-of-life-and-afterlife way. Landis is bound for Purgatory, we can all see.

Dirg:  if there's one ray of light to come from this garish ghoulish ghastly tragedy, this did greenlight the '80s CBS Twilight Zone series, which for my money is better than the original, fight me.

Laertus: *loud sigh* you don't have any money. and you never will. you will borrow from me forever. still, still, all these years later and for you it's still too soon.

Cotard continues their conversation with Velvetta in the morning velvet sky by the same Church bush just the two of them.

Cotard: i wish Goddess had made it so we could close our ears. you watched the tape?

Velvetta: every minute of it, sir. it was scary as you said, unsettling.

Cotard: right? there's me in my white robe, thinking i have my whole life planned out, it's all figured out, i give my body to celibacy and my spirit will be handsomely rewarded for it, and i make that creaky walk up the two marble steps in the carpet to the Temple altar, no music, just eerie silence as i procession. that Temple is a satanic temple, man. it's dark and gloomy and smoky without there being any incense urn. if you look up no light peeks through, it's a grey stained-glass triangle. a dark eye. from the outside the roof appears as a profound pretty petal of pointed flowers, but inside you see the true architecture: sharp blades, huge-hilted hitting carving knives to the heart. Hinata cannot protect you here. there i am, a freshfaced ingenue like i'm entering onto the set of my first Spielberg picture, but it's really my first porno. i have no idea what i'm doing with my life, but i don't betray these emotions to myself by showing my shiteating grin to the outside world inside. Codrus looks happily through my eyes into my long soul. he admonishes me for doubting and says i'm doing the right thing and laughs under his fetid breath. i don't believe him but i don't believe my hesitation, either, that must be the devil tempting me to sin and masturbate in my cell when i get back at night, i must resist Old Redtail!

Velvetta: i'm suddenly hungry for Red Lobster and i don't even know what that is. what does the Devil look like?

Cotard: good question. i see a mirror. scary, scary, that ceremony is scary, cos it's so permanent. there's no turning back after that ritual, you can't take your tunic off again! you think you're doing the right thing...after all those years of cramped study in a cell instead of going out to play...but what really is right and wrong? can you ask the butterfly who flies past you in the monastery orchard? it's all out there on display for the world to see! my Final Vows are posted on youtube! i don't get it, this is vital information! this is my truth! this is THE truth! there are no comments under it and hardly any views!

Velvetta: that's cos it's an unlisted video.

Cotard: blast! this is educating the public! anyway

Velvetta: yes, anyway. i understand where you're coming from now, Mr. Cotard. but what are we supposed to do now?

Cotard: FAKE IT! i hope that's something you learn about when you get older and utilize throughout your adult life. we'll just pretend we're master and acolyte and pretend to do what he says. kay? i'll get you through this, until you get me through this.

Codrus: come, brother, cease your dawdling. i have something to show you. i can still teach you things, i am the older bro after all.

Cotard: only by alternative math.

Codrus: come inside the Church and i'll show you how to enter the Temple. i'm sure you've long forgotten how with your painfully-obvious extensive travels to avoid me.

Sinphony: *sallow eyes* you're never gonna break me, brat! my lord is the true way.

Sinphony picks Velvetta up roughly by her shoulder and bruises it like fresh fruit.

Velvetta: you need to learn some spells to break you from the one you're under, girl. i don't care what you think of me, or that you do, by the end of this, i hope you DO beat me up! cos then and only then can i show you the way to save us both.