OLD SUPERHEROES: THE MOUSE IS BROWN

 

Spider-Man: my Spider Sense is my brain.

Superman: have we killed the enemy?!!!

Wonder Woman: wait, it's a mouse...

Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots: i'm still around. i chug motor oil at the "Papa Don't Preach" garage where Madonna met her Italian-stallion lover.

Wheel of Fortune contestant: can i give you a hug?

Pat Sajak: from a man? ew, no.

contestant: *gives Pat Sajak a bear hug*

contestant: do you want to see wallet-pics photos of my baby?

Pat Sajak: your baby is a Chihuahua, right?

Lindy Lenz: The Baltimore Bunch?

me: me in a threesome with you and Jen R. where have you been?

Lindy: Ms. Pie was sick.

Ms. Pie: only Talia can cure me.

Wonder Woman: i brush Talia's back...

Talia the cat: i gave Ms. Pie some wet Walleye cat food. 

pearlescence: Mark Twain went to college for one day...

Jen R: birthday burger.

me: yeah. tomorrow is my birthday. so i'll walk down to the gas station and get myself a pub cheeseburger under a heat lamp. 

Jules Smith: that is NOT the pub experience...

Jen R: because there's no money in the bank. there's no money in your account. the fence drains all your funds by mid-month.

me: the end of Social Security means the end of me...

Jen R: no DoorDash McDonald's to watch Premier League soccer by. we're talking about you, you've never had neighbors, that's the kicker. Wayne Rooney should feed you McDonald's every Saturday morning, that should be his debt to society.

Cameron Boyce: me as Ian Curtis, think about it, that would have been perfect casting.

Ian Curtis: the epilepsy. the seizures. the mad freckles.

Capp: you don't move on from your soulmate.

Jen R: that's the point of a soulmate.

Invesco QQQ: you can stream.........Wilt's 100-point game...

Marilyn Monroe in Valley Village, 1944: there is nothing more beautiful on God's green earth than the deep-blue neighborhood signs of Los Angeles.

Suzy Lu: i don't need to look in a mirror, i'm hot, but the way i say mirror is hilarious...

me: can i be in your small circle?

Pam Hiltunen: but not in my tight circle.

message on top of the Instagram community row-line: how did I get here?...

me: and now i do my Brillo benediction on this washer/dryer. i touch this running humming washer/dryer and with closed soapy eyes i call out to the geriatric gods, i chant to the O-ring oracle "may Melissa Maker go on ONE date with me..."

Melissa Maker: it's an admirable goal to spend your final four years trying to seduce me...

David Lynch: you smoke?

Anthony Bourdain: we have the same hair.

The NCAA Basketball Tournament: it's exciting.........then it's boring...

Spike Lee: play The NCAA Basketball Tournament in a covid bubble, that would be cinematic.

The Law Brothers: your leg will break, hear us out, hear us out, your leg will break, but you'll get $1,000,000...

Jack McBrayer: i'm Gavin Rossdale's spare family on Christmas. 

Gavin Rossdale: you're my pocket family, smallie.

Jack: i down 20 peach schnapps and talk about Gwen Stefani's peach. 

Gavin: that makes me laugh. divorce is depressing, there's no way out.

Jack: remember, Gwen gaslit Gavin.

Gavin: once you're part of a broken family, there's no hope.

Jack: i dress up as skinny Santa and entertain the kids. with tales about how i fucking KNOW there's gonna be a Phineas and Ferb reboot happening real soon...

Gavin Rossdale: i gave. Gav gave.

Suzy Lu: i'm your daily distraction.

Humphrey Bogart: i mean how does the Dragon Ball world know i exist?...

Talia: nighttime here is COLD.

Wonder Woman: sorry about that. no heaters in this nursing home.

Talia: i have to leave your bed at night because your covers are scant. i try to find a fireplace in a nursing home...

Wonder Woman: that was weird last night, in the middle of the night i thought you were sleeping on top of my legs in the hole my legs make. but it turned out to be a blue beanie...

me: calm down.

Talia: hey, never tell a woman to calm down. even a woman with the zoomies...

essential tremor: Uzumaki...

Leslie Sbrocco at the PBS Pledge Drive: save my tits for the next 7 years!!!

Cookie Monster: you can't defund assets.

Grimace: i was a Sesame Street character, but Mister Rogers banned me from PBS for life for eating his fries.

Jim Henson: we had ONE chance to bring about the Age of Aquarius. we ALMOST pulled it off in 1969...

Carl Sagan: at least we had Red Dwarf on PBS in the '80s, a rare truly-nonreligious science sitcom, in space, i laughed my ass off!!!

the '80s: the 2020s but fun, because this stuff could never happen in real life, it was just a Rambo cartoon...

Alex Ovechkin: i am The Great Eight.

Wayne Gretzky: no, i am The Great Eight: 888 goals...

Alex Ovechkin: don't call me Overdose Ovechkin...

Talia: aw it's cute.

Wonder Woman: WAIT, i can't do it!!! the mouse is BROWN!!! you know? it's one of those sophisticated church mice from England who wears a brown suit, plaid vest, and glasses, and attends Mass on Sundays with his family and recites the Psalms in his squeaky singing voice from the church cubbyhole.

Spider-Man: and eats cheese donuts after.

Superman: as you can see, i covered the large gaping hole in the attic floor, which is our ceiling, so that the little scamp couldn't get down to us, have it jump down into Wonder Woman's glitter bra and frighten the fuck outta her.

Spider-Man: that's cruel, dude, the poor mouse is now stuck up there with no cheese.

Wonder Woman: how would you feel if you couldn't escape from a place?

Superman: ...

Wonder Woman: that's not super, man.

Spider-Man: plus you covered the hole with cheesecloth, that's extra cruel.

Talia: well, since the three of you are forever-chained dead-enders stuck to live out the remainder of your short lives in a meaningless black-hole deathtrap, i'll take the mouse off your hands. i'll show him a good time. i'll show him a good life, a life of hope.

Wonder Woman: at least one of us will get some light in the end.

Talia: i mean you could just let the poor brown mouse out into the wild, let him loose outside, let him scamper and disappear into the front-lawn tall grass, but what happens when it starts to rain?...   

 

OLD SUPERHEROES: WAR RATIONS

 

Superman: the enemy is in the attic. we must ration our food for the coming war.

Spider-Man: good idea, Supes. what do you recommend?

Superman: you know the Party Size of Salt N Vinegar Lay's chips isn't a thing, that bag doesn't exist.

Wonder Woman: you're an old bag.

Superman: don't talk about my coin pouch like that, woman.

Spider-Man: i hate guns, but i gotta say, i gotta admit, the Triangle Gun from Metroid is cool as fuck. what does it do?

Samus Aran: turns penises into vaginas.

Sylux: hence the triangle. Samus is Jewish. i'm from the island of Crete.

Wonder Woman: i wish i could fly in outer space...

Sherman Oaks Galleria: we're bringing back Lazer Tag!!! we're bringing back the triangle gun!!! all Valley Girls originated from THIS ONE mall!!!

Jackie Fitzgerald: you have to understand, Blond Rambo, i wouldn't have said yes to you if you hadn't come at just the right time.

Blond Rambo: i am not a good lover. 

Jackie: for the first time in my life i was FREE. truly free. no more permanent lifelong entanglements taking up all my time. i had been caring for my old mother while she was in a protracted battle with brain cancer.

Brian Smith: Brian Cancer, Brian Damage, good names for a band with songs about a bully...

Jackie: and my daughter is MILES away in Seattle sleeping on Kurt Cobain's park bench. i could afford to fool around a little. go crazy. stray out of my lane, stray out of the norm. take you on as my boytoy.

Blond Rambo: am i just a lay to you? am i a bag of chips?

Jackie: i'm sorry, hun, i'm just not into the Rambo movies. i like black-and-white Oliver Stone films.

golf: it lies to you...

Chantal Kreviazuk: don't be playing hockey on those frozen ponds. that pond froze an hour ago...

Golf Channel: it's too much. it's just too much. golf was not meant to he analyzed THIS deeply...

Throw Momma from the Train.

Jen R: getting your tubes tied, that was big in the '80s, every woman did this.

Kim Greist: i am warm and '80s. i am a warm nostalgic '80s blanket. look into my eyes, my '80s eyes. 

the '80s: the happiness of goodness.

Danny DeVito: i don't like going fast. i don't like life in the fast lane. i don't date.

Queensryche: ...

Armie Hammer: i mean what are the chances of TWIN bikers?

Jen R: remember envelopes on the refrigerator door in the '80s?...

Billy Crystal: you couldn't have had a pan made of felt cloth?

Talia: a pan made of lightweight litter.

Danny: my coin collection. i was never any good at the arcades...

Kim Greist: like my pizza brooch?

Billy: i should have graduated from Princeton Writing School.

Danny: Momma lets me go bowling every Wednesday night, i can't complain.

poa jelly: grass jelly that's grape jelly.

Momma: you black bastard!!!

Billy Crystal: what?

Momma: you're Gregory Hines, right?

salt: it prevents choking.

Momma: bury him in the FRONT yard.

Danny: i'm gonna lull you to forever sleep with some John Philip Sousa!!!

me: i wanna be a Toys-R-Us Kid.

Jen R: have kids.

Momma: the night was hot and close. like baseball in the Tokyo Dome.

Billy: the night was aftershave. the day was moonlight.

Abbot Butt: but isn't church-bingo gambling?

Kate Mulgrew: Shikamoto is my Adonis?!!! a Japanese-Hawaiian Pacific Islander man? that is REVOLUTIONARY in the '80s.

Billy: you can tell it's a nightmare because the wine glass in inverted.

Steven Spielberg: the book from this movie was better than this movie...

Kim Greist: those are cigars, not poo, i'm not into that.

Jen R: i want to pull the tab on the pop-up sex scene of this movie.

cryptic: in the sequel, Anne Ramsey, who was hiding in Hawaii, comes back and forces Billy Crystal to take care of her until she dies of natural causes at the age of 180. Kim Greist falls for Danny DeVito because they both want an ending that makes sense. Ernest Hemingway eats Owen.

 Al Pacino: i got the eyes...

Butch Vig: i created the '90s.

Jillian Clare: i was in Days of our Lives but i proudly do NOT have an hourglass figure...

Mac and Me: that McDonald's was a beautiful rainforest...

Tokyo: we have the most people for a city, which is weird because we're on an island!!! there's no space!!!

Lucas from YOLO: Rainbow Trinity: there is nothing better in life than a 12-minute adult cartoon sitcom where the characters go to the park.

Jacques Pepin: you give us back the Statue of Liberty, we'll give you a Statue of Liberty made of butter.

Claudine Pepin: a Statue of Liberty made of cheese.

Valerie Allain: a Statue of Liberty made of chocolate.

Ann-Margret: a Statue of Liberty made of beans.

dad: a Statue of Liberty made of bread.

Lionel Richie: hello! *knocks on glass* wait, nobody has glass TVs anymore, it's all plastic flatscreens now...

Tsitsipas: calmate.

Badosa: you need to calm your own inner mind and bladder or you'll never win a major.

Wonder Woman: okay everybody gets ONE dry strand of spaghetti. called a spaghetto.

Superman: i love SpaghettiOs.

Wonder Woman: a spaghetti stick.

Spider-Man: i used to be able to shoot my webs where the spaghetti would form a cobweb.

Wonder Woman: as fresh spaghetti or dry spaghetti?

Spider-Man: not wet spaghetti, the dry stuff, hurt like hell, worse than wrist tattoos.

Superman: FINE, i'll make sacrifices like my fellow combatmen.

Wonder Woman: and war heroines.

Superman: i'll cut my hair, i'll get a Caesar cut as i eat my Caesar salad.

Spider-Man: there's Caesar salad?

Wonder Woman: finally you're doing something with that poo-curl on your head, Superman, that's not a hairstyle, that's an embarrassment, that's letting the world know you are old and need adult diapers or you'll shit in the park in the middle of the day.

Superman: i'll look like a Roman soldier. very 1930s. i don't like soup, i like salad, i learned that from Jerry Seinfeld.

Spider-Man: what is this war about anyway?

Wonder Woman: one side puts ketchup in the refrigerator, one side puts ketchup in the pantry.

Ukraine: only put ketchup in the refrigerator. that's it. that's what's recommended. this is coming from the ketchup-makers themselves. no war. war not needed. no war was necessary. this war is unprovoked and completely illegal.

OLD SUPERHEROES: FORKS IN THE BUTTER

 

in the nursing home Superman, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man live together in one room and are all 80 years old.

Wonder Woman: why are there fork marks all in the butter in every-which-way crisscross patterns? my superpower is i keep this place from falling apart. i mean look at this grey tub of yellow Country Crock butter!!! it's ruined!!! this is community butter for all of us.

Superman: this is obviously Spider-Man's work, look at the pattern, it's a cobweb!!!

Spider-Man: that's low, man. you know i'm butter-intolerant.

Superman: fine it was me, i hadn't had a biscuit in 13 years. i was trying to melt the butter with my heat vision but i have glaucoma.

Superman: hey, one Shamrock Shake, two straws...

Wonder Woman: in your dreams, pal.

Superman: i used to have friends, super friends, but they all abandoned me. wanna be Superpals?

Wonder Woman: because you're an asshole who has no human filter. don't try and X-ray-vision my bottom, i'm wearing grannie panties under my dolphin shorts. the last person who ate my cunt down there was Aquaman in 1955 the only year he was cool. i was wet but that might have just been the ocean.

Superman: what do you see in Spider-Man?

Wonder Woman: Spidey is my boyfriend because he's nice, he covers his hate with NYC sarcasm.

Superman: there's poo in the shape of cobwebs all over all the walls here, i'm just saying.

Spider-Man: again not me, that was Nurse Ratched after her date with Jack Nicholson.

Jen R: is your corndog concussion over?

me: kiss my forehead.

Jen R: good because i didn't want to have to see Superman on your behalf, he's a real asshole.

Sartre: hell is other people.

me: Hell is being apart from the one you love.

Jen R: Hell's not fire.

Talia: i'm visiting Wonder Woman at the nursing home because she's cool. and nice, she pets me on the head AND the back. as a Catholic cat it's all about the convalescent homes in the '80s.

Wonder Woman: you are so adorable!!! i wish you were my supercat.

Talia: i am technically a superpet now.

Wonder Woman: how?

Talia: check this out, i can lift this 80-pound canister of kitty litter.

Wonder Woman: how?

Talia: it's lightweight litter...

Blond Rambo: okay fine, i traded in my hog for this Raleigh Chopper, happy now?

me: with the ding bell, nice touch.

Jen R: imagine doing your paper route on a motorcycle.

Jackie Fitzgerald: that's MY Raleigh Chopper!!! from when i was a little girl in the 1920s!!! 

Blond Rambo: which brings me to the first conversation i've had with you, i really truly need to find out what your daughter thinks of our relationship.

Jackie: you're young enough to be HER son!!!

Julia Ioffe: every person on Instagram is a community...

Annie Adamson hovering above the Blood Moon with a cylinder tin of Flower Quaker Oats: empathy must be universal. let EVERYONE into your DMs.

BombPoppie: how did we never meet?

Annie: we did in a previous life.

BombPoppie: we're bezzers beyond the beyond. we explain Heaven to men.

Annie: and we HATE fries. we eat potatoes like apples.

BombPoppie: and we wait for Robert Crumb to get here so we can finally do a live-action movie of one of his comic books.

Alexis de Tocqueville: the aristocracy would have LOVED Twitter...

Pablo Torre in an aquablue cardigan: i'm the last nice guy you can have a conversation with, and i'm from Harvard which is ironic.

Miley Cyrus: my name is Bob Smith.

Dragon Ball Z spaceship on Namek: it has armor AND plot armor...

me: remember when you said you'd go into the monastery with me and be a monk with me?

Jen R: yeah. 

me: i cried until noon that morning...

Jen R: monk bunk-beds. monk bunk.

Abbot Butt: being a monk is bunk.

me: the lake i cry is leaky eyes.

Jen R: the lake is a leak. a leak of love.

Crying Freeman: love wins even in the Yakuza. love wins even on the Yakuza submarine.

Eddie Glaude: i'm leaving the country...

Throw Momma from the Train.

throw mama from the train a kiss: copyright.

dad: that's not a typewriter, that's a toaster oven.

dad: old-school, the many crumpled-up white balls of paper by the wastepaper basket.

Toto: rattan wastepaper basket...

Kate Mulgrew: so my novel is a space opera about the time Captain Janeway fucked Neelix.

Jules Smith: two authors can have a blissful marriage.

Momma: don't worry, it's Lemon Lye-me. i loved the Goonies as my own children but they thought i was ugly.

Billy Crystal: it's just, a malted reminds me of my Mallomar bars. i mean this reads like some of thelatephoenix's worst pervy instincts on his blog. 

Danny DeVito: the dead guy killed his murderer, then the two went out for an ice-cream social together.

Billy Crystal: the night was hot, starring William Hurt.

Naugahyde: every college professor's swivel-chair.

Billy Crystal: i'm dating here, Owen!!!

Danny DeVito: i have no idea what that is.

Choo-Choo Charlie: i think i can i think i can i think i can in the '70s.

Jen R: the angled house, the tilted shrubbery, the island that has no dirt only green grass, the tiger jacket, this is all so Crying Freeman in real life.

gardener: you like it rough?

Kate Mulgrew: yes.

gardener: no, ruff-ruff.

Kate Mulgrew: i just grew like grass...

gardener: mulch.

Danny: Maui, i know my way around here in a taxi, i was in Romancing the Stone...

Danny: i can't push her overboard, her butt is too cute.

Danny DeVito: i'm SpongeBob SquarePants calling from a payphone on grass. your wife was a tart, she couldn't walk after the gardener took a hoe.

Billy Crystal: no, she has a limp from Vietnam.

Danny: do you wear your pants backwards?...

Kim Greist: shouldn't i have been on Star Trek: The Next Generation?...

Instagram: the land of false hope with out-of-your-league women.

David Byrne: a band is a gang...

Kurt Cobain: Anthony Bourdain.

Anthony Bourdain: we rhyme.

Clarissa Molina: place the Reese's Big Cup on the crook of the Tetris pillow...

Keith Haring: wait so my art now just hangs in the waiting rooms of doctor's offices?...

nurse at waiting-room window: the TV doesn't work. or it plays the Alice Christmas episode at 6 AM.

me: DAMN IT!!! I WAS TOO LATE!!! IT WAS JUST SNOW!!!

Storybook International "Riches or Happiness?".

me: i want to be the servant in every Storybook International story.

Jen R: no i'm the servant, you're the servant's wife.

bellydancing: the ancient strip-club...

Isla Blair: et.

Bartolomeo: One Piece's Boston Rob.

gardener: tree-trimming, not with Christmas lace, with chainsaws...

Michael Weiss: Instagram, everyone's gone, no one responds.

Ollie Wride: whenever you find yourself losing hope, remember i'm still in the world.

Wonder Woman: do you hear that? sounds like scuttling, scurrying. small critter, that's all we can handle now as our big bad. it's coming from UP there.

Superman flies straight UP but hits his head on the ceiling.

Superman: now THAT's a real concussion. that's a man's concussion.

Spider-Man: why are our three wheelchairs attached to each other with a big bolt? 

Superman: it's a giant nut.

Spider-Man: i'm trying to investigate here. my Spidey hearing is telling me it's coming from the attic.

when Spider-Man climbs the attic ladder, he notices the cobweb he shot up there has been punched through.

Spider-Man: there's a hole in my cobweb, it's a good thing i'm so old my webs aren't strong anymore, whatever it was the poor little guy got away, i'm happy about that.

 

 

LIVING FREE ON CAMPUS: I'LL SEE YOU TOMORROW

 

 

Jen R: if you want my time, you have to be my husband.

me: woman THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO DO!!!

Jen: trash hack. to save money on those tall kitchen garbage bags.

me: which are very expensive.

Jen: put TWO days' worth of trash in ONE bag. easy.

me: yeah but the bag will weigh 53 pounds.

Jen: i'll carry the load, i'm the strong one in this relationship. got your Stubbies on?

me: oh yes.

Jen: i got my dolphin shorts on...

Jen R: went to the wild reserve park and i saw the Hessian Hellcat up close roaming in her natural environment.

me: Annie Adamson, comic-book legend, horor expert, free-soul genius. one-of-a-kind. unique. no one like her before or again. her BREADTH OF KNOWLEDGE of pop culture was unmatched.

Jen: her empathy was unmatched.

Mac and Kieran Culkin: dad and Uncle John growing up in Huntington, New York. then moving to Manhattan Beach.

dad: except i wound up in Van Nuys.

me: wouldn't have changed my childhood for anything in the world.

dad: that's why you weren't raised in Manhattan Beach with the others. i didn't break up the family. it was always Aunt Cork and Uncle John. i was left alone to fend for myself.

Patrick Lavender: matcha? the Green Party?...

Starbucks: our wifi is NOT free. how much is it worth it to you to write your novel at Starbucks? how much would you pay for peace of mind? would you pay your soul?

atmospheric river: the Vaporwave of weather.

rain: in the 80s, rain was nice, rain came down nice, it wasn't violent like it is now.

Instagram: the land of a couple of opportunities...

Instagram: a couple of opportunities for couple opportunities. hurry, get yourself in a couple before everyone's taken.

Storybook International "Minu": agnosticism.

Claire Nielson: i like doing the voices...

morning rain: rain in the morning means 2 AM, not 9 AM...

Jesse Eisenberg: i mean i wrote the thing, where's my Oscar?...

Armie Hammer: remember when i was on top of the world as the Winklevoss twins?...

Lady Aberlin: i wanted to be Miss Yvonne...

Diff'rent Strokes: stoked.

Mr. Ramen: call me Ramen Sama.

Frog Dreaming: salty language for a family film. with the tadpoles looking like sex and everything...

Jen R: gotta love the '80s in Australia.

The Big O: Big Fau's controls are bulbous dark-vinegar glass bottles found in a Medieval tumbledown tavern.

voice god: not the voice of God.

Melissa Maker: Eric Bauza lives near me. we have the same house. all Canadians are neighbors.

Eric Bauza: Mel Blanc can't hear me anymore, right?..........i'm better than Mel Blanc.

Mel Blanc: i'm the voice of God. i heard voices in my head. but i got paid for it.

Bob Knight: Hoop Dreams was my childhood...

Isiah Thomas: Bob Knight gave me a grandfather chair for my birthday...

Bob Knight: didn't think you'd survive me to live long enough to be a grandad.

dad: John Feinstein was me as a sportswriter.

John Feinstein: Bob Knight is on the cover of A Good Walk Spoiled...

Crying Freeman: in anime all things are possible. even Japan and China getting along. long enough to come. together. to love each other. in a naked love story.

Chris Cornell: Outshine Outshine Outshine, those are good lemon bars.

Susan Silver: cake?

Chris Cornell: popsicles.

Crying Freeman.

Emu: do you cry during sex?

Yo: um, yeah.........

Emu: i'm wet.........because of your tears...

Obama: but you know, AFTER the election, booing is the ONLY thing you can do to those who won to let them know you disapprove of their existence, to let them know they're doing a bad job.

me: it was May 2, 2024.

Jen R: a Thursday.

me: Thursday night. i was TERRIFIED. my mom had fallen again and hit her head, i was fearing the worst, a concussion, a long hospital stay. i had nowhere to turn, i was alone in the house, fidgeting my thumbs at my computer looking at the ceiling, a new episode of Check Please Bay Area was just starting.

Jen: 7:30 PM, 10:30 PM in Baltimore. and as usual Leslie Sbrocco was no help.

me: i fumbled to my phone, your green light was on so i entered your DM.

Jen: think about how lucky it was that i just happened to be there at that time by my phone ready to talk you down. i had just tucked the kid in with my bedtime story and was free. that's fate. that's kismet.

me: we talked for hours. well, typed for hours. you were so gracious and comforting, a warm blanket at night.

Jen: i was steering you AWAY from your mom or you'd get all tense again and slur your words. we mostly focused on that bad Police Academy movie you were watching.

me: because of this incident i forever associate Police Academy with trauma.

Jen: we all do.

me: that's how it started!!! the you and me talking constantly on Instagram DM.

Jen: yeah. ever since then we text each other 400 times a day.

me: that is Heaven.

Jen: even when we're living together.

me: old habits die hard.

Jen: poor Bruce Willis.

me: you said something to me that night that made me CRY. i CRIED DEEP AND HEAVY IN THE NIGHT.

Jen: i texted you 

I'll see you tomorrow

me: yes.

Jen: nobody had ever promised you that before.

me: everyone leaves me. everybody abandons me. and there you were, my first text at 4 AM.

Jen: 7 AM in Baltimore. i was munching toast.

me: i CRIED A LAKE that morning.

Jen: i could only ever text you forever after that, i had to always check in, because you were never gonna get better!!!