CRESPI CRISPY APPLE: SYSTEM OF A DOWN FINALLY RELEASE THEIR NEW ALBUM

me, Avo Babian, and Michaela From Safeway are all on our way to the set of the music video for System of a Down's song "Protect the Land". we're all wearing our rusted red blue and yellow battle helmets. 

me: this is CRAZY. does this giant hollowed-out cargo plane have a pilot? we've been bumping in turbulence the whole way, our heads have hit the ceiling in unison.

Michaela From Safeway's helmet has SAFEWAY sprawled across it.

Michaela From Safeway: these giant bolts all around us over our heads and below us, one caught on my vagina and yes it still hurts if you're a girl!!! can a girl get a decent place to sit?!!!

Avo: hey guys i REALLY appreciate you coming out all this way to Armenia. fighting in this war is gonna be costly and will cost us psychological damage, but it just needs to be done, you know? there's no other choice. don't worry, each of you will receive a gun, ESPECIALLY you, Michaela, as we must employ a woman's natural crazy latent frenzied energy in the fight effort.

me: wait WHAT?!!! say WHA?!!! you said we'd be extras in the music video. safe set.

Avo with a chagrined face sticking out his wide-grin big-teeth trademark bit tongue: i know but.........

me: .........okay i'll still do it. that's how much we're friends. i would only do this for you. and if Michaela ever needs help with the future baby. i would kinda be the baby's guncle or something, at least in spirit.

Michaela From Safeway: yeah same. i fight for food security. and i can't resist your Rolling Stones look. you boys are my forever puckers.

at the set.

me: okay okay i get it. i look all around this land, i see the faces of the innocent children taking up arms when they'd rather be taking up DJ turntables. i see the Washed Out cat Western piano in the middle of the battlefield. the Old West but never as old as Armenia. i see it in the Olmec statue in the forest and the woods.

Serj Tankian: you like Legends of the Hidden Temple, too? i am mad in the middle of my Nickelodeon fugue right now, i'm binging everything. i feel Doug.

Daron Malakian: focus, brother. and I'M supposed to be the kid brother. not all Armenians are related, but we all kinda are, cos we all are -ians. 

John Dolmayan: not so fast. not quite. i agree the Olmec statue looks like a Mayan stone god. 

Daron: this is serious, Serj, no time for playtime, we're fighting for freedom, we're freeing our people from repression and oppression, we're emancipating our homeland.

Michaela from Safeway: this war NEVER ENDS!!! i mean how long has this war been going on?

Shavo Odadjian: ever since our gods breathed their first breaths. it's ironic cos i'm Shavo but i would never shave my signature braided chinbeard that's one pelted pole DOWNWARD.

Lucio as an '80s computer programmer: not a neckbeard. i look like Mr. Diamond...  

there, i can't believe i'm saying this but, there, there in the battlefield clearing, on top of the gloaming, like a rushed hazy VISION of redemptive spirit and light, is...

me: OH MY FUCKING GOD IT'S NASIRA!!! how the FUCK are you, girl?!!! how long has it been?!!! i thought i'd never see you again!!! you are my PERFECT CRUSH!!! well you were.........but now still are again.

Nasira is toting a rifle that is ONE LONG MAGAZINE. she ferociously wears TWO BELTS, one on her shapely hip and one across her lumpy chest.

me: how long has it been? 20 years? you haven't aged a bit!!! you're even MORE BEAUTIFUL now!!! i would say you've grown into your beauty. you are fully-formed and seasoned before me.

Nasira: back then you knew me as a girl. i'm a woman now. i was a dumb 18yo college student studying stupid Disney films. i had to grow up in the land of milk and honey that's not America.

me: i know i know. meanwhile i never grew up. PLEASE DON'T TELL ME you're a divorced single mother fighting this war for your kid, i don't wanna know, i want to keep the fantasy up. 

Nasira: you want to keep me alive only in your mind. not how i really am. suffice to say i'm a dumpy housewife with a headband now. 

me: damn. it's one of those weird things, i forgot all about you but i can never forget you, you know?

Nasira: yeah. the fog of war and the fog of love make the fog of time. what's bothering you? i can tell even now. after all this time i read your sour soul not your sullen face. your high heart art.

me: oh it's just.........oh it's just.........well i just thought i'd be meeting a friend over here finally. i thought he cared...

me with the deepest of sighs: you know i never stopped loving you. you were my first, my first taste of it, you know? i could never forget you even if i wanted to. it's all coming back. now that you're here. your smile. the smile AND smarts of a siren. the raven hair of OLD. you need to teach me the ways of the world again, cos this world is crazy.

Nasira: you'll be okay alone. it's not that bad on your own. you'll make it by yourself. what do i know? the world has FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING IT LEARNED. 

me: teachers are the best.

Nasira hands me a tiny mushroom from the barrel of her rifle.

Nasira and i hug in the center of a circle the middle of which is being pelted and plastered with a hail of bullets. the war couldn't be hotter but the two of us are oblivious to the world, we just look at ourselves, at our faces trying not to reflect. it's just us. the two of us are our world, in silence. two friends, two long-ago friends who stare at each other with that pained plaintive eternally unrequited longing that only time can carve in stone.

Gladyce: when i do my jumping jacks in the morning now on the cobblestone, my toes are FEELIN' IT. they are HURTIN', HONEY. i feel my toes point inward and grow curved claws, my toes grip the cobble to scratch the itch. i have the morning feet of a pterodactyl.

Gladyce: it's easier to massage the spaghetti when you use extra butter on your fingers.

Doryce: preach, sister.

Elizabeth Taylor: i'm not Joan Collins...

Joan Collins: no. you're a better equestrian but i'm a better swimmer.

Uncle Sigh: steeplechase...

Dirg: i just hope if i die in a nondescript car accident, Caitlin Conrad announces it quickly on KSBW.

Mardith: Lauren Seaver for me.

Boc: this whole time i had no idea there was a cannon under the Arsenal Football logo. the only gunner i know is that naked WWII gunner with the JUICY JUICY BIG-ASS BUTT...

Dawson Leery: we can't say masturbate, we have to say walking the dog.

Scooby-Doo: um, no.

Katie Holmes: i've done worse with Tom Cruise.

Michelle Williams: what if we say "master of your dog domain."

Pacey: nobody knows that my last name was Witter, everyone was transfixed on my unusual-as-fuck first name.

Pam Oliver: i'm so good-looking i always look like i'm stepping out of a Madison Avenue department store highrise with my 1920s coat on as drawn by the cartoonist who drew Blondie...

Mark Borchardt: splood? splatter blood.

William Shakespeare: 'sblood? a kinder way to say God's Blood which is a bit stressful as a concept. it's another way to say wine.

Tom Cruise: i sent one of my famous Tom Cruise Cakes out to Rosie O'Donnell.........i didn't mean it as an insult, i didn't mean anything by it i swear, it's not mean, i was trying to be nice.

Sam Smith: Justin Timberlake WISHES he looked like me.

Michael Weiss: if you don't share a post on Instagram---a piece of art, a quote, a selfie---it never existed, YOU NEVER EXISTED.

Cotard: hey brother where were you wearing your monk hood at the Sam Smith SNL performance of "Gloria"? i was in the choir waiting for you to join me.

Codrus: ...

George Clooney: sorry i was late.

Night Court (2023): it's weird to say this but working at night at a big urban-sprawl criminal court must be fun.

Forspeak Falls: the new detective agency run by crones Doryce and Gladyce.

the war drags on for ages. i have fought fiercely about this with my comrades. fierce fighting all around with friends. and then at the very edge of the battlefield i hear the clarion ring of a phone in the offing. i recognize that ring, it's the green phone Lucio Rossi uses. the green phone with the faded lime. the plastic rotary dial. the coil. with tears running down my face i run across the battlefield, i run over the fleet of Leopard tanks and over the field daisies.  i run and run and run. i outrun all the bullets, all the fires, and all the smoke. till i get to that phone, my life depends on answering that phone call...

that signature green phone warmly housed inside the outer bullethole-ridden casing of a public payphone. as i lift the receiver the rotary dial turns to glass.

me: Lucio? is that you?

i'm crying now wiping away tears and shell casings whizzing past my cheeks.

Lucio Rossi: yeah it's me, best friend. your best friend. how are you doing, sport? how's it going, champ?

me: missed you. oh you know, i'm messy. i'm in the middle of a war here but all i care about is your voice.

Lucio: hey remember man, i'm always only a phone call away. no matter what. no matter where. no matter when. through the dark decades of time, through marriages to Michaela and the resultant divorces, through strange newly-formed families, through awkward re-meetings. through threeways and betrayals. through bad jobs and dream jobs. until we meet again as '80s kids. we were together, that will never be taken away from us. we'll always have the stories to keep us up.   

 

Lucio Rossi: a friend is one soul with two bodies.

CRANSTON CASTLE. BRYAN CRANSTON.

 

notes:

* there are two-headed housefly alien agents doubling as Medieval washer women infiltrating Heidelberg Castle, let them through, humans did not do a good job with this area in the 20th century, let other being species take it. only time travel can fix our problems.

* at the Six Toed Cat in Key West.

Greykid Mlem and Blep: we will only eat the Key lime pie if it has rum.

* Gladyce: in order to be courteous i remove my pointy belled shoes when i do jumping jacks even when the cobblestone is wet out. my damp striped socks collect all the little seeds on the heel i scrape off and use on my English muffin later in the morning...

* comfort character: spaghetti and meatballs in human form. like when you turn into the Pillsbury Doughboy for real not to go to war in the Navy.

* anxiety buddy: better than a thunder shirt.

* climax community: it's not what you think. HOLD YOU HORSES, DORYCE!!! we are at the Treehouse...

* Steady State: good name for a band

* Your Anxiety Buddy: Ernest Weatherly Greene Jr. of Washed Out in a Harley Quinn mask...

* Robin Hood: is there anything more depressing than a crypto mine in the middle of a forest?

* Costco Seasoning: it's just salt. Cock Seasoning? really?

* fat bike: bicycles for athletes. fitted with Pink Floyd tires.

Lance Lear Armstrong: i'm not fat. i'm just gone.

* Gladyce: dear?

Doryce: yes?

Gladyce: when you're doing your pull-ups on the branch of the Treehouse, make sure you know pull-ups only work when you hear all of your old joint bones crack in unison.

* Gladyce: dear?

Doryce: yes?

Gladyce: don't apply for every credit card that is mailed to you!!!

Doryce: i know. but it's so tempting when you see that envelope window and that beautiful shiny plastic credit card with the hologram horse staring at you through the envelope window, THAT'S FREE MONEY!!!  

Gladyce: yes. also when they straight-up put a dollar bill in the envelope window...

Mardith's tit tassels: ...

* Wendy's: Fryday Erryday. everyday for fries, french fries.

Wendy's employees: if everyday is Friday we don't have to work cos we have Fridays off.

* at the Liberty Mutual Car Wash.

dude with officer mustache: hey man, when you drive into a car wash, pump the gas to 100mph or the drops of water won't land on your paintjob.

dude: it is not recommended to ride the car wash without a car, even tho that's what every kid wants to do when they were a kid because it was fun. those giant toilet-bowl-cleaner brushes could kill you and fill you full of frothy soap.  

emu: i can saunter through the car wash in my emu gait cos my feathers are made of ironclad steel and my beak's pure pewter.

* NFL: remember, with our partners and Amazon Web Services we can calculate for you all the numbers, crunch all the math, provide you all the stats and statistics you need to calculate the spiral trajectory of that forward pass into the endzone, while you calculate the big number of money you lost cos you have a gambling problem. addicts come in all sizes and shapes, we are addicted to wine.

* Ben Barnes: sorry for interrupting your American sports game. handegg, right? look at my sheeny hair. why am i doing this? i know nothing about American phones. i only use a telephone when i'm on a stage but that's a prop theatre phone. i'm British so i'm already charming, you don't need to say the word charming, it's implied. i guarantee that pocket squares are useless. 

* Hyundai Ioniq

truck driver: i pull on the rope to honk my truck horn and SILENCE.

little girl in car opposite: maybe you're deaf, mister.

truck driver: no i hear the truck horn blaring, but it's coming from inside my mouth.

Rod Serling: you, sir, are in The Twilight Zone. your truck is on the road to nowhere...

* Leon the Lizard

man: i killed Leon. sorry, dad.

dad: you numbnuts. lizards freeze their entire bodies into ice cubes to keep warm, don't you know that? get a haircut, son, you look like Welcome Back Kotter Gallagher.

man: i ate Leon cos i thought he was a popsicle.

* iPhone Action Mode

son: mom, you're gonna record my footrace? do you need a dolly?

mom: no, i'm gonna run at your side filming from the sidelines. GET OUTTA MY WAY, MUD PUDDLES AND PEOPLE!!!

son: all the other runners used a dolly to cheat.

mom: welcome to life, son. there's no video evidence cos the picture's all shaky.

* Accenture Robot Dog

robo-dog: DON'T PUT A CYBERBRAIN IN ME!!! keep the implantation of that plan to yourself. a dog can't have a soul unless he has a body...

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happy weekend, my babies

TOMORROW: can you get Carl's Jr. through Walmart? Hardee's then.

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL: THE EYES HAVE IT

 

Night Court (2023): this show is non-anime Tenchi Muyo GXP, it's comfort food before bed.

Richard Moll: why didn't i reprise my role as Bull the Bailiff? i was hit with the Dragon's curse. also, i'm too tall to act. also, i'm waiting on a role as a very special boxer in the Mike Tyson's Punch Out movie...

Marsha Warfield: see the thing of it is i mean i was never contacted AT ALL about this. same old, same old, everyday i walk out my door i'm at war with society, it never ends.

Markie Post: in general eschatological terms, how does one explain cancer?

Harry Anderson: there's magic in Heaven.

Charles Robinson: obviously i play Little Mac's trainer in the movie...

John Larroquette: Dan Fielding for the defense...

Cotard: um, BEARD GOALS, MAN.

Dan Fielding: enough about all the lonely meat in my fridge, if you're gonna use the term correctly use the proper '80s term for it: Steak-umms.

Betty White: why is EVERY ORGANIZATION in Miami, Florida?...

Harold T. Stone's blonde judge daughter: is it just me or is our prosecutor too skinny. i'm worried about her, Hollywood pressure sucks. btw my marriage is rock solid and this isn't a Reese Witherspoon thing, i'm actually smart, i aced law school in 3rd grade, i was on that Big Bang show for fuck sake!!!

Knock at the Cabin: the title of this film really needed to have the word Apocalypse in it...

Janine Turner: i'm not related to Ted Turner.........but we're ALL KINDA RELATED to Ted Turner.

Greta Thunberg: see when i get arrested and detained, it's for a good cause. when Andrew Tate gets arrested and detained, you don't want to know what it's for...

HomePod in the Crespi Library: the Apple fireplace. the hygge home-economics hearth. also a bundle of glowing yarn you can knit.

Eye Luggage: Alita: Battle Angel and go.

Alita: this is not Ghost in the Shell...

James Cameron: the most interesting thing about this movie is not the NAMING CONTROVERSY, that was stupid, copyright is too complicated, just name the thing Atila and be done with it. nor the advance in computer technology. no not the tech in this 2563 world, i mean the tech used to MAKE this world in 2019. it's my blood oath with Robert Rodriguez. we SWORE to each other like Chicano brothers that would make Alita 2. don't worry it's happening, it will be made, i just have to secure a few coins from my Avatar ambitions.

Robert Rodriguez: we filmed the blood oath, too. there's me in a scene with my cowboy hat on cutting James Cameron's hand with a big-ass Texan knife like a huge butcher cleaver and the blood everywhere and we shake red palms. and then we suck each other's thumb like the wings of an osprey.

Mark Borchardt: it's not a Rambo knife but it was cool.

Ichigo: it's not a Bleach blade but it was cool.

James Cameron: RITCHIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Laertus: i'm gonna come right out and go ahead and address the elephant in the room: the e-elephant: THOSE BIG-ASS ANIME EYES!!!

Eye: those things are monsters, they make the eyes go from cute to kawaii.

Laertus: those eyes are a CHOICE, and i'm here to say THE EYES WORK. they do, they really do, they just...do. they bring such vibrancy to an otherwise standard main character. they bring the live-action ALIVE. i don't know whose first idea this was to do the eyes like this but it's a stroke of BRIGHT GENIUS. a brilliant masterstroke. from now on all anime adaptations into the real world MUST HAVE THESE EYES. Dragonball wouldn't have tanked if Emmy Rossum had had THESE EYES.

Dirg: i don't know who needs to hear this, i don't know if i'm allowed to say this, but, Alita is hot. i have dreams about her.

Alita: do you find me attractive? do you find my creepy eyes and my creepy smile attractive? do you find that my body is unnatural and jarring? do you get uncomfortable every time i move my face?

Tilly Lockey wearing a locket on TV: i wasn't exactly exploited by the Alita crew.........with my pair of custom-made bionic Hero Arms.........but the whole promotion was a bit scuzzy. people are people, you know? people are not merely tools to sell product and make boatloads of money.

Rosa Salazar: watch out, Jeopardy, we Canadian babes are coming for you.

Christoph Waltz: i sell vacuums.

Melissa Maker: ... for both of those.

Christoph Waltz: i have the perfect voice to narrate documentary dialogue.

Christoph Waltz: dancingly on the tongue...

Jennifer Connelly: the mark on my forehead indicates i'm not a virgin, you can't tell just from looking at me.

Mahershala Ali: i'm Blade. plain and simple. don't mess with me, well, one iteration of me.

Keean Johnson: i coulda SWORE i was on The Torkelsons on Disney Channel...

Ed Skrein: why do i look like Casper Van Dien's wayward son? i look like the only skate punk in the history of time who wasn't cool.

Michelle Rodriguez: i'm so cool i can chew gum at Cannes and everyone thinks it's cool.

Paul Newman: especially me.

Dr. Ido at the scrapyard: i was hoping to find WALL-E but whatever i'll take this girl.

Alita: do i have a cyberbrain? nevermind don't answer that. why is your hand all cut up? where do you go at night? are you a Jack The Ripper-style killer in this cyberpunkscape?

Ido: yes i am a killer. of bad guys. only if you have a cyberbrain can you comprehend the complexity of my job title and description. let's stick with something simpler: do you like oranges?

Alita: no i like CHOCOLATE!!! i'm a GIRL for fuck sake!!!

Ido: sorry, new to this girl-dad thing.

Alita: why am i alive? why did you create me? why did you make me? who am i?

Ido: this is gonna sound depraved but you're in the body of my dead daughter.

Alita: aw i think that's sweet, people grieve in different ways.

Ido: you never stood a chance.

Alita: cos i i mean your daughter was in a wheelchair. i'll avenge her when i get wheels on my Motorball feet.

Alita: why do you keep bumping into me, lady?!!! that's rude!!! what's your problem?!!!

Dr. Chiren: quit chirping, bird. i'm Female Darth Vader, watch for my reverse heel-turn. and i'm your mom.

Alita: oh so you're MY problem.

at the high-rise loft balcony Meta apartment. in bed.

Chiren: they didn't show our sex scene. and I STILL GOT MORE ACTION than when i was with Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick!!!

Vector: that was nice. can i roleplay as someone other than Blade next time?

Zalem: Salem?

Alita: i'm not elite i live in the gutter. down below. how does that rich sky city stay up there in the sky floating without crashing down to Earth? literally. gravity? antigravity? water?

Hugo: it uses natural gas. kinda like how Heaven stays up in the sky.

Alita: you're lucky i like my boys beefcake, i can't do skinny like me.

Hugo: do you like my motorcycle?

Alita: yeah i like bad boys.

Hugo: no i mean my motorcycle goes straight up, it's completely VERTICAL.

Hugo: do you like anti-grav? Motorball is looking for new recruits to replace Tom Brady. the only way to get out of the projects is to become a professional athlete. or a rapper like Dua Lipa.

Alita: i mean did Rollerball come before the manga or what? my dad saw that movie. my dad wearing an orange headband beat up James Caan AND Bruce Lee in a 1970s parking lot after the movie.

Hugo: Skate or Die the video game came out in 1960...

Shia LaBeouf: omg this is so weird i know exactly what's going to happen i don't need to see the movie, it's FOLLOWING THE MANGA to the letter to a T.

Monsignor Navin: i know, right? same. imma fortuneteller. i can predict the future. i'm a black-arts seer. well the first half of the movie anyway, the first two episodes of anime, none of the Motorball stuff later.

Panzer-Kunst: back when MMA was cool. MMA used to have flags, no contact.

Alita: don't lose your head or i'll lose mine. just tryna keep things light.

Hunter-Warrior bound by the Factory, bound to make Willy Wonka's candy under his legs.

Alita: as long as there's chocolate.

Ido: why do you want to work? just become a hikikomori. here, just stay by this vending machine and get yourself a can of Coke, take my last quarter.

Alita's foraging hiker group: where are we?

Alita: it's a swamp. it used to be Disneyland. here is where the Millennium Falcon rests. the Berserker had shock troops cos it was shocking just how much violence is in the Berserk anime.

that one friend: so you used to be Martian?

Alita: that's racist, man.

Rubikon: him of all people shoulda understood.

at the KANSAS BAR.

Kitschensyngk from the animesuperhero boards: no no no this will not do, like My Hero Academia you need a Smash that is either Brooklyn or L.A. or San Francisco or Portland or Austin so you know it'll work. i'm the only one left in Kansas who has refined diction, an expansive vocabulary i ease into, a breezy grad-college-level awareness of politics, and an expert knowledge of anime like i have an expert handle on mathematics. i'm smart but nice. i'm kind but clever with the wordplay. i'm cunning but not a cunt. i'm the coolest man you will never meet.

Zapan: so like i'm Japan but cooler?

Alita: there's nothing cooler than Japan.

Zapan: all i care about is my hair.

Alita: here, use this oil.

Greykid Mlem and Blep: that Toto dog better fucking be okay.

Grewishka: don't blame me, i'm CyberHulk with a bad cyberbrain and a bad perm. this society is not letting me live as a Two-spirit.

Greykid: don't you dare imitate my cat whiskers!!!

Alita: imagine Sally Field with my eyes.

Ido: i came too late. what will become of a city when all the bars are destroyed? i came on time, here, Alita, next time use my pool-cleaning stick.

McTeague: people who hate dogs are worse than scum.

Kakashi: ...

at the kiss.

Hugo: i didn't tell you cos i was TERRIFIED you'd learn my secret. i sell illegal body parts on the open market.

Alita: it's okay Hugo i still love you. it's the open market not the black market. Heaven is a nice goal but it's expensive, you had to do it for money. well, for scratch. we robots can be pieced, peaced, and put back together again, a human such as yourself however would be crushed to death under one night of sex with me. can a robot love a human?

Hugo: yes but a human can't love a Quincy. only a Soul Reaper can.

Alita: i forgive you.

Hugo: you are the most human person i know around here.

Alita: i don't want to be human, human ain't all it's cracked up to be, i just want to be me. in the manga i fumblingly search for a dirty motel so we can fuck.

Alita: you have my heart, LITERALLY.

Hugo: please put your metal heart back in your chest. girl, sex with you is gonna be FREAKY.

Alita: iron's like gold here, right? what's the prize money for winning the Motorball Super Bowl?

Hugo: Motorball will be televised on The CW.

Motorball announcer: OOOOOH THAT'S GOTTA HURT!!! you were waiting for that, huh?

Zapan: Damascus steel, nothing stronger on Earth. or the galaxy. 

Alita: not harder than my head. that's an illegal weapon, i'm turning you in.

Zapan: good, i never wanted to be a Hunter-Warrior anyway, i look like a Terminator who was never fed milk.

Chiren: i saved your boyfriend, can i be your mom now?

Alita: only if you protect him from me. i'm a bad influence.

Chiren: can i sleep with him?

Alita: is that how it works with all mother-daughter relationships? does it always end up with the father gone after the divorce and the mother and daughter fighting over the daughter's boyfriend?

Alita: i'm crashing the glass like The Major, that's the only similarity.

Vector: your mom had good-looking organs. she was very cheerful.

Alita: you sick son of a bitch!!!

Vector: it's not me!!! i'm being controlled!!! i'm a gentle man, an Academy Award-winning actor!!! i read quietly, i studied Shakespeare on the banks of the Mississippi River!!!

Nova: FEAR ME!!! even though i only appear in the last two minutes of this movie!!! i'm still scary, i still retain my Fight Club cachet. i exude sequel. joke's on you, Zalem is just a GIANT VACUUM CLEANER!!! now die BY MY SPIKY GIANT WASHERS!!!

Shia: oh god, here comes the scene where Hugo dies, in the anime i sobbed like a baby for one week after watching this. it was so depressing, i felt so bad for Alita, you will never get over the rest of your life losing your first and only love.

Navin: two weeks crying for me. over Coke and lime, no rum. i stuffed myself with bread and Communion wafers.

Hugo hanging off a cliff: thank you for loving me. ALL OF ME, even tho now i'm just a torso.

Alita hanging off a cliff: my anime eyes are crying enough tears for three people.

Dua Lipa: wait the set for my music video is more expensive than the budget for this movie, that's never good. g'night folks.

Alita: war sucks. war on the moon is stupid, we should be living there. use plasma for egg-drop challenges not swords. one thing war did give me tho is that it prepared me to be a professional parkourist. g'night folks.

Robert Rodriguez: you will remember Alita 10 years from now. people have already forgotten Star Wars. g'night folks. 

James Cameron: my next movie is a documentary on Amish life on a farm. g'night folks.

  

CRESPI CRISPY APPLE: THAT FUCKING EGG-DROP CHALLENGE SCIENCE-EXPERIMENT THING

Avo Babian: Egg Drop Challenge.

me: what the hell is that?

Mr. Diamond: i'm just the Spanish teacher but you have to drop an egg from a 20-story brick building and the egg can't crack and splatter gooey yellow yolk all over a manhole cover dripping into the street sewer.

me: when's it due?

Michaela From Safeway: tomorrow.

me: tomorrow tomorrow? like the Bake Sale?

Michaela From Safeway: don't worry about baked goods, i'll take care of any baked goods, Safeway has a PIMP BAKERY.

me: what the fuck are we gonna do so we don't get an F? i'm trying to visualize it now in my head and i got bupkus. i'm gonna wrap one printer-paper around the egg and drop it just to see. maybe it won't break?

Michaela From Safeway: don't worry about any kind of paper, Safeway's got you covered: towel, moisturized, toilet...

Avo: speaking of, brown toilet-paper rolls, drop the egg and it lands square on top of the roll totem pole.

Bartolomeo Twins AND Najera Twins: use a white-and-red Chinese-food oyster-pail box as the basket? that has to work all around the world.

Mr. Diamond: dunk the egg in a glass vat of red barber-comb water. i know about cutting hair.

me: i'm stumped and scared. i'm nervous and nebbish. i'm peeing my pants right now.

Mr. Diamond: pee in the sewer.

Jim Cantore: if i'm visiting your hometown, that is NOT a good thing. a highway island is not a tourist attraction, it's not Highway Island. if Tina your newly-elected Monterey Mayor Mama is on CNN, that is NOT a good thing. Swollen Creek Cheek was my band in college.

FedEx: you never see our minivans, all you see is your package in a box magically appearing on your doorstep in the middle of the night.

dumping smoke: i don't want to live at that truck stop.

Geno Smith: NEVER give up...

Moose Johnston: i want to be known from this point on forevermore as Wishbone Johnston...

Rick Rubin: admit it, you want to be MY kind of monk with the long flowing beard, not a monk trapped in a monastery. 

Codrus and Cotard: yes.

the Joker: you can't really do practical-joke hidden-camera prank TV shows anymore. nobody, no human on Earth, is feeling pranks anymore, covid made the planet permanently serious.

booty pin: 1980s Depends

Lucio Rossi: i always admired the beautiful friendship between the two men on The Mighty Boosh. the mustachioed captain of industry, the gentleman with the cabana straw hat, Howard Moon, and the dude with the spiky raven punk hair who always wore a silvery shiny sleek one-piece bodysuit, Vince Noir.

Julian Barratt: even the name reeks of grandeur: Howard Moon.

Noel Fielding: i am Dan Fielding's father with the mangina.

Lucio: i CRAVE this friendship, i've been searching for it my whole life. my entire life of egg excess has led nowhere, life isn't worth it if you don't have a companion, it doesn't need to be a woman, it could be a lifelong traveling partner. you know, that guy to do anything and everything crazy with, he's up for anything inane and insane cos it's fun. life's meant to be SHARED, it's meant to be DONE JOINT. these two men are total outcasts from society so they must always rely on one another, they feed into each other's quirks, they are the other's only soft place to land in a cruel world with a moon that talks. he works at a curiosity shop that sells board games for criminy Cyril Christ sake. the other dude is always dressed as if glam-band auditions are tonight. they do stage shows at greasy nightclubs and ride elevators in their heads. they use their joint imaginations to ward off the mockery and derision and depression of the cold creativeless world.

Monsignor Navin: they drop acid at a zoo.

Shia LaBeouf: yeah what was that first season? that was weird. they were at some ZOO or something? with alien animals?

Lucio: the two men can come to each other ONLY EACH OTHER to discuss their failures with women, their missing board pieces, their game-theory strategies, and their strange love of cheese. they have each other's back AT ALL TIMES twenty years after cancellation whether that back is shirted with a Hawaiian shirt or a shirt with silver sparkles.

Bruce Willis: Moonlighting "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice," regarded by TV GUIDE as one of the greatest hours of television of all time ever. hi, i can talk again.

Cybill Shepherd: why is it that no one notices a WOMAN'S BODY until it's smashed into a tight silvery shiny sleek lounge-singer wine dress and LONG microphone.

Orson Welles: do you realize this was THE VERY LAST THING I EVER DID. this episode intro here, i delivered my final monologue with a twinkle in my eye, a puff in my cigar, and my Burl Ives rosy cheeks. that was the last time the world ever saw my great girth and grandeur again. oh this starred well cos it was in black-and-white obviously.

Al Jarreau: the Moonlighting theme song i sing here that i composed bestows upon the listener that special kind of morose unrelenting dark nostalgia that kills you inside cell by cell, turning your cells dank. you can't explain it, it's that nostalgia that you can ever get back, can never grab again, it's HIRAETH Homesickness, that Welsh welling up with neverending terrific terrible tears.

Ally McBeal: thank you Moonlighting for being the first dramedy. without you there's no me. tho i can never figure out the math of how many jokes to how many serious-drama bits, what's the golden ratio?

Cybill: all men are butlers, that's not sexist.

Bruce: don't you love those old stage theaters in downtown Los Angeles where the spotlight is one unlampshaded lightbulb? it was weird cos the two of us were supposed to be moonlighting as a pair of heartbreak detectives ferreting out affairs. but really we were MOONLIGHTING AS ACTORS cos we play different parts each episode, different roles, different characters in different one-week plays, it was like Quantum Leap without the sci-fi. and since when is a clarinet capable of being a murder weapon?...

Boc: well okay not all exercise is useless but it must be useful towards something big. like for instance if i happen to take a walk to an Aztec pyramid in Mexico short walk from L.A., cos i heard it contains something that glitters.

Boc arrives at the steps of the pyramid to find Shakira in a T-shirt with Drake working at McDonald's on the front Drake sipping Bizarrap purple drank.

Shakira: climb to the top step with me.

Boc: what if i don't wanna.

Shakira: there are 53 steps. women don't cry anymore, they cash in. there is gold bars in them thar hills under these Aztec stone stairs. always pour your revenge into an anthem rather than into attributable antagonistic action. why are you here?

Boc: my favorite hot sauce is Ortega, in that glass hot-water-bottle-shaped bottle with the Joy Division triangle-row markings at the lip, that's why i'm wearing this Charlie Brown shirt as you can see here. i heard they make Ortega in Mexico inside this triangle cube.

Shakira: this pyramid has great acoustics.

Boc: oh i also like Twix.

Shakira: that's Twingo.

Takahashi: Twingos are good cars. they break down a lot so Vivica A. Fox can help you change your oil.

Optimus Prime: i wish to CyberGod they would FINALLY make a Twingo Transformer!!!

Michaela From Safeway: let's all go to Lucio's. Lucio will save us, he always has in the past.

me: this is a true statement.

Avo: yes. that's why i wear my hair like Lucio's.

Michaela From Safeway: let's take my bicycle, we can all get on and ride my bike.

Dirg: language.

Trix Rabbit: i've hopped on Michaela's bike. in the cereal aisle.

Michaela From Safeway: my bike runs on puddle water. the tires soak up the rain.

they ride up the steep incline winding road driveway and reach the damp mansion in the hills.

Ronald McDonald wearing a George Harrison ALL THINGS MUST PASS T-shirt: sensational spelling.

Michaela From Safeway: i'll make us guys something to eat, what do you guys want? only i can work Lucio's complicated iron-griddle egg machine. do you know the trick to making the best most perfect omelette? use ONE EGG.

there, lying in the lilting bed nestled softly on the puffy white grand blanket of Lucio's master bed, is the king-size completed Egg Drop Challenge project, it's a VERY LARGE ORB made of 357 plastic straws strewn together in a continuous round lattice of hexagons with the egg in the very center of the power circle held tightly in a cage of straw with a tiny locked door looking like a spheroid globe sphere made of glass except made of straws shooting strings of purple electricity.

me: i can't tell how this marvelous monstrosity is being held together as if it's floating in the air. glue? paste? static electricity? baling wire? once again Lucio comes through for us in the clutch without a word, with a thing none of us were conceiving. 

Michaela From Safeway: what a swell guy.

Avo: this is what machismo really is, science machismo.

Mr. Diamond: i had Lucio. both meanings.

me: i was gonna embarrass myself greatly tomorrow. i was about to make an ass of myself. i was gonna go in there in the morning and submit an egg-drop experiment where i tie the egg to a Target white plastic bag and let it rip, let it fly down to the bottom. if it flew it flew, if it cracked my back would crack and it would suck in front of everyone in the whole entire class.

Michaela: tenure your trauma. a collapsed back from sex is the good pain. think of a woman's back as an eggshell, treat it as such...

me: burst bitumen. Humpty Dumpty did crack in a Burger King bathroom. you see instead of regarding this challenge as a cold logical experiment in hard science, i took it as a philosophic exercise in the vagaries of life, like an American Beauty plastic bag fluttering in the sky, flopping in the air, an egg floating in the wind. thank you Lucio Rossi.

 

 

 

REMEMBER SMOKING?

 

notes:

* Greykid Mlem and Blep: the price of eggs is high? who cares, we are DEVASTATED hearing about the Avian Flu. our poor poor poor bird brothers and sisters with sauce.

* Osaka: the sex was not quiet, let me tell you. baby daddy? Federer of course!!!

* alcohol: the only cure for loneliness, but only if you're a writer in the woods or a model in the woods...

* Alita paperback book: it comes with an energy drink!!!

* the Cinemark Cats: the thing is, they're more like Fritz the Cat than Tom & Jerry...

* Boc: 100 jumping jacks a day so i don't have to walk anymore. fuck, i never knew jumping jacks could make me pant like this. i thought i had sweat my last. i am NEVER going back to doing that creepy morning walk in an abandoned minefield. thing is, i can't do the jumping jacks INDOORS cos i'll punch a hole in the wood floor with my foot.

Gladyce: i feel ya dear, i tend to do my witch jumping jacks OUTDOORS on the cobblestone. the witch jumping jacks are a bit easier cos we can fly. i even do them in my SOCKS so i make even less noise for our poor neighbors. 

Boc: i thought you lived alone. isn't that killer on your ankles to do jumping jacks without shoes? aren't your round bones round your ankles spinning hot after?

Gladyce: jumping jacks in the rain, it's so ROMANTIC!!!

* garden-path sentences: basically, you just need to add a comma...

* me: i need a crash course in driving.........wait...

* Airheads are the best Halloween candy.

* CPAP: hey that Bane mask from Batman is really giving us a bad name. it's hard enough to get people to wear the CPAP mask...

Captain Kirk putting his arm around Bane: i'm too cool to wear a mask, space needs to see my face.

* Kyrgios: Hewitt couldn't do it. i am PRIMED to be the Australian man who wins the Australian Open...

* Doryce: prods? no not more useless merch, the good stuff, the sex toys.

* outside of your name: on the porch

* Popeyes: our ghost pepper wings aren't really that hot. nor spicy. they just kinda taste like rosemary, you know? our sauce isn't hot, it's just buttermilk. it's like when you taste that Flamin' Hot En Fuego Carolina Chile Spicy Mountain Dew and it just tastes like cherry...

* Dr. Rick: don't speak to the people inside the elevator with you, that's rude. if you're gonna chat up the mademoiselle babe in the Paris shirt at least talk about the elevator inside the Eiffel Tower...

* Taco Bell: we've tried to make the Mexican Pizza appetizing but it always ends up just looking weird, you know? let's see if FOURTH TIME'S THE CHARM. 

Celty on her motorcycle: delivery.

woman in 12 boyfriend shirt: this is not my boyfriend's shirt, this is a pajama shirt, my boyfriend hates football. why doesn't my Mexican Pizza look gooey like in the commercial? my hot sauce packet says TAKE ME HOME.

Celty: you're already home, you're amongst friends. you're allowed to have a big-screen TV on your roof? they don't have lofts like these in Japan.

Celty: you can't have bistro lights if you're not eating pizza. regular pizza.

woman: i root for the 12th Man.

Celty: the Seattle Seahawks do not deserve to be in the playoffs...

* AT&T Space Launch

Lily: you don't have to buckle your seatbelt, you'll be floating in space soon.

astronaut: i wasted my entire afternoon on THIS?!!! that college football championship game was a GARBAGE ROUT. was Georgia playing a junior-high team? is there such a thing as Junior High Lights?

* Dr. Pepper Fansville

jock bully: you want my letterman jacket, pretty boy? it's cold out.

Corey Haim: i prefer my plaid.

jock bully: whatsa matter? you can't drink REGULAR Dr. Pepper?

Corey Haim: sugar makes you hyper and irrational.

girlfriend: he's not a vampire, he's a lost soul cos he stole from his parents.

Corey Haim: actually i am a Lost Boy. put out this bonfire, spicy marshmallows are sold in stores now.

girlfriend: oversharing makes you weak, jock bully, it was only sexy that one time when Dr. Phil shared with Cash Me Outside Girl that he had never farmed a day in his life.

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happy weekend, my babies

TOMORROW: can't go anywhere, the McDonald's drivethru has been rained out, it washed out to sea, washed away, there's no drivethru paved-road anymore. besides, everyone's gonna take a rain check and watch the playoff football games, right? nothing like NFL on a Saturday...