i join Jen R for a Broadway show on Mask Way along Tippers' Row in New York City.
Jen R: isn't it nice to take in a breezy relaxing Eric Andre matinee show here? this is our Pantages Theatre.
me: who's Eric's co-host this evening?
Jen: dunno. i'm sure the CryptKeeper will be in the refrigerator.
CryptKeeper: i'm a Crip from Skompton, the Compton of New York...
Jen: the stage is perfectly grimy. we don't need money to get in, i have this fantabular Grumbacher pencil that only arts the color green in my sweater pocket.
me: the Green Notebook. they don't know what they don't know.
Jen: they like to let all the hippies in early.
me: what are you drawing there on your big da Vinci pad as we sit in the front row blinded by footlights?
Jen: the rules to learning English: Their Our Know Rules...
me: even if we never mate, i just want to BE AROUND YOU FOREVER, i want to hover in your orbit the rest of your days.
Jen: i can have a husband and a friend for life. no more Fit Models, just do fix-ups from our short stories.
me: turn them into graphic novels. the grimy ones about ugly regular people, not another Britney Spears in combat gear in Vietnam.
Jen: i'm teaching this dirty group of rugrat brats the fine art of tennis. all have grime on their faces, we're doing it on a REAL COURT at Rucker Park. when one freshfaced squirt comes up to me and declares herself the next Martina Hingis.
me: who was it?
Jen: Mirra Andreeva...
Jen: my only regret in life is that Joan Rivers never got to see Instagram, she died just before the whole Instagram thing took off. can you IMAGINE Joan Rivers on Instagram?!!!...
me: at least we still have Amy Sedaris on Instagram...
at the wedding ceremony on a foggy San Francisco afternoon.
Ear Horn: the problem with you dear is you think your problem is alcoholism. but it's not. your alcoholism stems from the fact that your epilepsy is terminal. but it's gonna be okay, imma cure you.
Lindy Lenz: fix me. just fix me.
Ear: you must take up ornithomancy. in order to understand women you must understand birds.
Bruce Lee: i need to take that course at San Fran State...
Ear: just for women, dearie. not available at any college. gleaned from generations of spinsters getting revenge. a good man is hard to find.
Bruce: tell me about it. i took a class on Augury but i thought it was about Suntory dentists...
Lindy Lenz: the traditional wedding ceremony is so STALE. you gotta do it new the way Bell, Book and Candle does it.
Ear: i'm divining what you mean, dearie.
Lindy: i would have the woman and the man step on stage and face each other on opposite ends of the altar staring at each other. the woman carries a pile of dishes, the man carries a stack of newspapers. the two RACE into each other's arms, DROPPING everything, all their things CRASH onto the altar floor, symbolizing that they would drop EVERYTHING to be with each other, the ONLY thing that matters is being in each other's ARMS in support and love.
Ear: that is SO FUCKING ROMANTIC.
Lindy: if you RITUALIZE it like that, cement it into the ceremony, it strengthens the bond between woman and man, singes spouses so they won't be separable.
Jen: did you come up with it? our perfect date?
me: got it. a GIGANTIC SCREEN at the drive-in in Encino, California. just the two of us in your pickup-truck cab. watching Bell, Book and Candle whilst eating Milk Duds. Kim Novak the Amazon.
Jen: this film was the inspiration for my favorite TV show of all time!!! Bewitched!!! beloved Bewitched.
me: do you HEAR what happens at the movie's end?
Jen: yup. that SOUND OF A MAGIC SPELL CAST, that's the EXACT SOUND used on the TV show!!! you can never turn down Redlands, home of the Tolkien trees.
me: children free? as in no children allowed?
Jen: .........do you really want to have kids with me?...
me: i'm going back to school.
Jen slaps me on my back hard.
Jen: well finally. i'm glad for you, buddy. you are? to get your degree? one year left, right?
me: no, back to Carrnel High to donate my ratty college mattress for their yard sale.
Jen: are you feeling wavy right now?
me: yes.
Dirg: you got 2 kids. i got 2 episodes of Yu Yu Hakusho...
Dirg: i get calm whenever i see Hilda's face from Lucky. she has that calming visage of an old witch that's still somehow hot...
Boc: Breakfast Battalion of seagulls this morning...
Laertus: look at the SKY SCENERY. the dripping sunlight peeking through the wet trees. it's like Autumn in New York.
Bustamante: if you got big tits, you can't use the word "dang"...
Rick Rubin: my voice sounds like Anthony Bourdain...
Alan Watts: if you want to untether from society's programming of your mind, send $9.95 to this address and join my group...
Takahashi: the squinting laughing emoji with mouth open and arrowheads for eyes is not an Asian slur, the dude is just dazed, okay?...
Amazing Stories "The Eternal Mind".
Jeffrey Jones: don't miss the framed wedding photos on top of the TV or you'll miss Kenny Rogers. my name sounds like a cult leader. i wish this were Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but it's not an Altered States ripoff, okay? in the '80s chimps waved...
Loretta Young: why didn't Amazing Stories ever ask me to do an episode?...
Stu: this isn't a joke. i do comedy but it's political humor. i need that $1 a month from your membership fee, i need those $12 for my mac n cheese and to print the newsletter. that letter of gratitude i personally send you in the mail, snail mail, is FUCKING HANDWRITTEN.
Fuerza: my tampons look like woolly mammoths...
Lauren Seaver: it's easier to like the Central Coast if you're good-looking...
Lauren Seaver: that Central Coast sunrise above the clouds at Palo Escrito, that "uh" moment in my chest, this is only possible because i'm good-looking...
Ear Horn: i've assembled my sis babes Gladyce and Doryce for this viewing party. come on, chum, the coven's all here!!!
Eye Luggage: mom, do you want to do the honors?
Ear: Bell, Book and Candle and go!!! let's do this, babies dearies!!!
Bell, Book and Candle: no comma after book, we get the gist of grimoires...
Ray Bradbury: at least don't burn the books to burn the witches. these are the supposed "good candles" by the woefully misguided and misbegotten Catholic Church. that bell is not from church, it's from Pink Floyd...
Ear Horn is teaching witch lessons to Mardith.
Mardith: i really want to complete my degree.
Doryce: have fun in college, Mardith, have a threesome, live a little.
Gladyce: NO, dear!!! study at college and shun all men so you can get yourself a nice 30-year-old woman when you're 50...
Madame Pons: why is it that whenever i call you at college it goes straight to voicemail? i'm worried about you...
Mardith: where am i being positioned?
Ear: on an ostracon, dearie.
Mardith: it has a cool fiberglass altar...
Ear Horn: Ancient Roman shit. ironically i'm INCLUDING you into the witch fold with this lesson about the ostracon...
Kim Novak: i'm all dressed up in a dancing nightgown and i stay home in my Citizen Kane Fireplace bed. unless it's out to the Carmel Forest to meet up with Sammy Davis, Jr. this is my life. speaking of LIFE Magazine, i don't eat the cereal. i eat a lot of bran to maintain my figure. LIFE had me doing a lot of cool Brechtian shoebox-theater stuff where i was trapped inside a tiny black box. a box made of black felt. it was quite interesting, i did all that stuff before Marilyn Monroe thought of it...
Sammy Davis, Jr.: i was the only black Kim Novak EVER felt. i was enough for her. i was TOO MUCH for her. i am NOT the father of Novak Djokovic...
Kim Novak: i'm the well-stacked girl who nevertheless cannot blush. my dad wanted me to be a librarian. i'm not Janet Leigh. and i'm CERTAINLY NOT another Jean Harlow clone fresh off the assembly line.
Jean Harlow: i was the Princess of Pre-Code!!!
Kim Novak: i mean look up there, i have an anime umbrella, i'm plugged into the Tokyo scene, man. i'm hotter than you can possibly imagine.........for the time...
Dirg: i don't get it, the items a bell, a book, and a candle are not USED in this movie. they're only mentioned by Jimmy Stewart in passing.
Kurt Cobain: is the word "nirvana" ever used in one of my lyrics?...
Dirg: i need to know about these relics used to cast out Satan. i still attend Sunday school even though i'm 45 years old...
The Pope: that oil painting up there, which is the bell, the book, and the candle? that book is not a scroll, it's a giant cigarette i smoked before the show. the giant bell is a fountain i bathed in naked while baked. the candle is the lighter in my pants. i don't begrudge the king for marrying Lawrence of Arabia, i think it's cool, that's revolutionary for the times. i don't begrudge the king for carrying around a nunchucks ninja-star on a chain for protection, that was the mace of the day. i preside over this wedding by cooking the wedding feast: a TOWERING tamale the size of a person wrapped in green leaf...
Jimmy Stewart: this was my last role as a romantic lead. what's the matter, Hollywood, i'm too old to be sexy? afraid that i was a staunch Republican with power in Hollywood?
Kim Novak: no it's just you were a generally annoying and unpleasant person. i mean look at those sickly green eyes of yours up there in that pic with the tiki totem, you got scarier eyes than the charm and that charm is for GOOD luck.
Jimmy Stewart: fuck you, witch, i got gorgeous Scottish blue eyes.
Kim: yeah and i run a safari travel agency...
Kim: my name is Gillian with a HARD G.
Gillian Anderson: witches are not sci-fi...
Ear Horn: what do we think of this SUPERB charm store, girls?
Doryce: there are more relics here than Indiana Jones's cock.
Gladyce: ethnology is quite fascinating, i took a course in college. amulets. knickknacks. paddywhack. give a cat a bone.
Greykid, Trinity, Talia, and Pyewacket: why don't cats like Milk-Bones? we like milk...
Kim Novak: witchcraft is as American as it comes. the EARLIEST American!!! what do you have to say about that, you Communist.
Jimmy Stewart: i'm moving to Vietnam.
Greenwich Village: cos in the '50s, this was the only place cool dangerous underground people hung out.
Queenie: think of Bewitched. wasn't i the same person who plays the Queenie character on the TV show, too?...
Jimmy Stewart: what are you doing in my sublet?
Queenie: bugging your phone. it's not fair, i'll never know love and you get ALL THE WOMEN.
Jimmy: it's true, i am one LUCKY motherfucker, i have literally KISSED EVERY SINGLE WOMAN IN HOLLYWOOD...
Queenie: save some for the rest of us!!! save Kim Novak for ME!!!...
me: hey why didn't you publish my dad's stuff? it was way over your head.
Jimmy: i do have a pointy head. rather like a witch.
Jimmy: hey do you know Redlitch?
Kim: this ain't an AAMCO gas station, bub, move it along. Reddit is for wimps.
Jimmy: i don't visit red-light districts if that's what you think. but i DO watch Demon Slayer...
Kim: do you know why Magic in Mexico is such a bestseller? because witches are real.
Jimmy: i thought it was because William Hurt turned down Romancing the Stone. Masters & Johnson taught Americans how to masturbate but i'm bored with that now.
Carlos Reygadas: i thought that book was about Richard Nixon's slipped disc. you want excitement? come down with me and see what Mexico is REALLY LIKE...
Jimmy: the Zodiac Club? is that where that serial killer dances?
Kim: no, it's a Beatnik nightclub establishment. full of wine and women. underground club, LITERALLY, you need the cheat code to get in or you'll have to dig your way in with a SNOW SHOVEL. the entrance door is a roof. i swear i saw Bobby Driscoll in there one night with a beret and scarf playing tiny twin tomtom drums with his gloves...
Merle: my paintings aren't cool enough for this club, i'm not artistic enough to enter this club...
gatekeeper: what's the password? what's the secret word?
Pee-wee: Jambi.
Janice Rule: i have no sense of humor. i'm not even that hot.
Kim: if you were a girl in the '50s who wanted to go to college.........you went to Wellesley...
Jack Lemmon: use my correct pronouns, i'm a warlock. i worked with Marilyn and Kim is better. hey Merle, want this Thunder Shirt to take home with you for your dog i mean you, you bitch?...
bongo drums: you can only play a cumbia on me with a cucumber...
Queenie: you've earned the right to break up her marriage for all the grief she caused you at college.
Kim: that bitch Merle talked to the Dean!!! she bypassed everyone and went straight to the Dean!!! Dean Winchester!!!
Merle: you see how clever that line was? i couldn't say the word "bitch" cos it was still the '50s, but i used a rhyming word instead. no child at a drive-in watching this would get that. my paintings are Bob Ross but boring.
Kim: Christmas gift exchange!!!
Nicky: Gill, as in the gills of a fish, i got you this He-Man Castle Grayskull cauldron and some disappearing ink, plop some on a photograph of a head of state and see what happens...
Jack Lemmon: the cauldron is filled with Nickelodeon green goop...
Queenie dipping her finger: this goop tastes like lemon...
Pyewacket: I am the star of this movie. it was a bravura performance from me, i really EMOTED my lines, i say MANY LINES the humans can't comprehend, they just hear meows.
Greykid: it's so cool how the witch has to use THE CAT to cast the spell, SHE doesn't cast the spell, WE do all the work!!!
Trinity: can i ask you about Salem?
Pyewacket: i don't want to talk about Salem, that was a long time ago, both the cat and the time period. i am NOT from Rhode Island...
Talia: i love how Pyewacket TURNS into a black cat during the spell...
Kim Novak: many people compared this movie to Breakfast at Tiffany's, we both retain that Technicolor vibe with the saturated colors. but unlike a certain bitch cat-hater Holly Golightly, i was able to keep MY cat because i treated her well, like a member of my own family, nicely...
Ear Horn: let's take a moment to discuss love spells. love spells are REAL, dearies. throughout the centuries, love spells are what give the power BACK to women to determine their romantic lives. that's how all marriages around the world happen!!!...
Eye Luggage: and that wedding ceremony with the husband and wife dropping dishes and tax forms to embrace each other with exasperation. that hard hug. this has replaced the traditional wedding vows in every marriage ceremony around the world no matter the religion...
Jimmy: i feel funny, like i'm being drugged or something...
Kim: sex with me will do that to you...
Jimmy: wavy. i feel wavy. i feel wavy-gravy...
Kim: don't get too woozy, we're high up on top of this building...
doorman: the most useless thing since the coat room. but OH how these two things are so deliciously QUAINT...
Jimmy: say it, Merle, say it to my slapped face, i'm a CAD.
Merle: you're jilting me?
Jimmy: jilt, elope, what's the difference?
Ernie Kovacs: let my voice lull you into a hypnotic stupor. my voice is so cool and gravelly. surprising, huh? you thought i'd have a high-pitched squeak to my voice for comedy...
in the kitchen.
me: i swear every parent from the '50s had THAT EXACT percolator!!!
Mrs. Kotter: and THAT space heater...
Jimmy: why don't you want to get married, Gill?
Kim: Shep it's just.........look, if i fuck you, you'll turn into a priest who can't die.
Kim: this scene is a little too close to the one from The Manchurian Candidate for my liking...
Kim: i hate when we argue.
Jimmy: me, too.
Kim: no it's because when you argue you use that really WHINY VOICE.
Billy Corgan: i know, man, your whiny voice is worse than MY whiny voice!!!
Jimmy: this old decrepit house reminds me of It's A Wonderful Life!!! that house was haunted, too...
Bert & Ernie from Sesame Street: you're an American institution, James Stewart.
Jimmy: i gotta drink this whole bowl of goop down?!!!
Madame Bianca De Pass: it's just milk of magnesia, you big baby. you shall not pass. Madame Pons told me about you. how whiny you were!!!
Jimmy: it tastes like The Exorcist pea soup. what kind of name is Bianca? that's a whore name.
Redlitch: excuse me but this map is of Frontierland in Disneyland...
Walt Disney: Walt Disney Presents, saturated colors...
Alfred Hitchcock: can i get Kim Novak for Psycho II?...
Kim: what's this?
Jimmy: a broom. the only way to get around NYC, believe me, the traffic is a bastard, you can't drive here...
Jen R: trust.
Merle: rules are rules. want me to growl at the Roto-Rooter man?...
Jimmy's secretary: ironically i was the first Exorcist girl in the bed...
Jimmy: are those real tears?
Kim: no it's rubber cement. i'm only human.
Jimmy: want me to play Human League or Lana Del Rey for the closing song?
Kim: let's just stick with the Beatnik finger-snapping...
Jack Lemmon: Little Nicky, get it? all this lovey-dovey crap is nonsense.
Jen R: you'll sing a different tune the first time a woman calls you crazy and adorable...
Philippe Clay: Jean-Paul Sartre WISHES he could mime like me.
Sartre: you're supposed to stay SILENT as a mime, not read your lumbering poetry and sing like a dying buffalo. if i tried to dance like that i'd get squashed like a Kafka bug by your Daddy Long Legs legs in tight black yoga pants!!!
Kurt Loder: yeah they tried to do modern-day reboots of this movie but they all collapsed. if it wasn't for me you'd still think Kurt Cobain was alive. remember what MTV did right after my report? they brought out the big guns, the DANKEST cartoons that they could muster, they gave us The Head and Aeon Flux and dank live-action sci-fi, too: Dead at 21. to soothe your soul, to ease your brain, to glide you into that summer, to make you feel better right after Kurt had just died...
Oscar Wilde: call me Rex when i'm doing film criticism. this movie was light, airy, fluffy, completely inconsequential, and a WHOLE lot of fucking fun. it taught me a lot about witches, so much so i'm gonna call my mom. g'night folks.
