SNOOP GOT OLD

notes:

* we ALL want this coupling to happen.................EVERYONE, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

* what came first, Martha Stewart's oregano or Snoop's oregano?

* father: this place isn't for me.
son: COME ON, POPS!!! make my life easier than it is now.
father: look at all these old fogies doing yoga for seniors. this is clearly a sex-free senior zone. look, dude's using the pool noodle as his balance beam! you said Martha Stewart would be here.
son: she's clearly too sexy to be lumped into this group of little old ladies with blue hair and blue cats who need to be helped across the road cos they forgot their balancing rods.
father: you said Bruce Lee would be instructing this class!
son: come on, pops! you see what happened to us there? the one dude from our tribe got strung up...
father: ...the other went on to score the most air lay-up dunks in the League!
son: they ARE doing Bruce's technique, it's just only HE can do the HI-YAH! without it sounding like a death rattle.

* father: why does your phone go off when we're having a serious, life-altering/threatening conversation?
son: my CarFox came in, i'm selling this old jalopy.
father: you're referring to me?
son: i just don't want to be ripped off.
father: you'd sell me, too. up the farm. for glue.
son: never. you're a thoroughbred. i'd never take you out back for a shot. you ain't no Old Yeller, you're Snopp Doggy Dog!
the son turns up the volume knob and that Sarah McLachlan song about ASPCA animals comes on.
father and son: *both crying together and holding hands, the father yelling to the music*

* son: that last place was pretty nice.
father: you didn't have to drive this old jalopy into the pool to make your point. fine the pool's nice i don't need to dunk my head! i don't like this whole thing.
son: why?
father: i can't swim. look at our skin, son, we tan easily!

* son: dad, what the fuck! why do we live in a run-down shack of second stories and treat it like we live in a brand-new mansion?
father: cos it's Halloween or something. i don't do all that Wiccan shit you millennials indulge in like there's no tomorrow.
son: what happened to Rosie?
father: i let her go.
son: what the fuck, dad, i paid her good money to tend to your ass.
father: i can wipe my own ass.
son: she said you called her a ho.
father: from me that's a compliment. the worst you can call a woman is a bro. i let her go.
son: why?
father: she was holding out on me, samplin' the goods. never peck at the product. she had a whole stash of bag-weed under her shirt so i checked. she was my dealer and my friend. never mix business and pleasure. i asked her where the weed was and she suddenly couldn't speak English no mo, said her name was Mary Juana.
son: dad, she's a robot! she came from the Jetsons. she was programmed to help.
father: too fancy for my blood and crip. not for the crib. she always wore that dress with the lace. called me Mr. J in that creepy Harley Quinn voice you white folk are so fond of.

* son: dad, i found your weed! it was in the trash.
father: damn, i put it in the wrong bin, i was trying to recycle it. it's a plant so it should be easily integrated back into nature, cycle of life and all that. i'm the greatest environmentalist since Smokey the Bear, who smokes while he sutras---so deep is Smokey in meditation his butt is not fully stomped out and it causes a massive raging wind-swept forest fire in the Valley. sometimes when i don't get enough weed in my belly i lie down on the grass of my front yard and let the trash pandas lick said belly of mine.
son: that sounds like what happens when you DO get weed in your belly.

* the boy jumps out of the front porch onto the lawn-grass, pushing the banging screen-door the heck back, and trips over the red wagon

* son: when you swing that hammer around, it scares me, dad.
director Chip Lynne: it's clear that this is the exact same set, there's no effort to make it look like it's from the '50s or anything, we just hired different-looking actors. that sun is so modern, it looks so 2018...

* son: A TREEHOUSE! every boy's dream!
father: yep. you know why fathers build their sons treehouses? to keep them out there eventually when they turn into teenagers. and after they turn 18.

* son as a man: i think we can do better.
female Principal agent: please get out of my chair, sir, this is my office, just cos you're grown don't mean you can boss me around, i'm my own boss.

* son: change is hard, try to keep in this jeep an open mind.
father: says the boy who never finished his supper.
son: there's only so many boiled potatoes with jelly a boy or a man can eat.
father: i wanted to have an abortion but your mother wanted to keep you.
son: *smiling* looks like we BOTH fooled mom!
they both laugh and hug in the car, narrowly missing swerving into a tree.

* father: so let's see here let me get this straight you get to keep the new stockly-refurbished Jetsons-looking modern mansion built on the futurists' dream and I get this little white WHITE shanty out in the back?!
son: no shots allowed. you're gonna have to pay for the little house. and my big house. it's cool tho we'll use your money that you get coming to you every month.
father: that's my fixed income!
son: Principal will figure it out for us. it keeps coming to me.
father: whoa, son! stop swinging around that hammer! you've never held a hammer in your life, huh? you really want your old man on the same property as you, living next to you, bothering you for sugar, in your hair when you're having relations?
son: i have a fade. sure, i want to experience the millennial lifestyle from all sides like a 360-degree lifecast. millennialism is for EVERYONE.

* father: i warn you, i throw disco parties every Saturday night. with Stu.
son: disco is just sped-up yoga for seniors. since when you have any friends???

* son: gonna need a fresh coat of white paint. *sings the jingle* Ace is the place...
father: STOP SINGING!!! you're a disgrace to the family name. we rappers.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies, i need to dunk in a cold jacuzzi like an E.L. Fudge cookie. my Dodgers are playing as i type................that's all i'm gonna say, beer 'n brat bring out the wurst-sounding loud stadium-shouting...............remember, the black in your Burger King frozen-coke isn't coke this time..............limited-time cherry sold but NOT on Halloween Day, it looks dark and disturbing but it tastes great!

TMIT: DOCTOR WHO'S MAKING ME HUNGRY...

...and thirsty. takes time to do a proper reboot. like Regeneration it takes awhile to figure out who you really are...

1. if you had three wishes which would come true, what would they be?

* write a successful advertising tv jingle for Del Taco

* be sad as a reminder everytime i watch the music video for Carly Simon's "Let The River Run"

* grow my beard out like Michael Stipe and David Letterman. i don't feel like one of the boys, one of the monks, one of the wise men, one of the Magi Three who upload wisdom youtube videos to the masses.

2. what are your favorite things to spend money on? Boardwalk, Park Place, Pennsylvania Avenue...see where i'm going with this?...

3. if you could write a song about your life, what type of music would you use? industrial. not to be cool, but industrial achieved with just a guitar and drums and not electronica beats. think how hard that would be to do.

4. if you could choose your partner again, would you choose the same person? look, Goldie Gold taught me to love again. we would make love every morning so by the time we had to fight over gold at night, i was always too tired to argue and went to sleep. but when i started talking about my jacking with her, she would spontaneously cry and pine for her true love, Action Jack. i realized it was never meant to be and watched her as she walked out that door and i turned on the tv...

5. when it comes to discussing your sex life, whom do you confide in more than anyone else? my priest, he always has the latest tips for me in the confessional. you know the confessional booth is actually the only place in my life all week i can have a moment's peace, an hour to myself in absolute quiet. i can think for a minute. without the tv. you know those missals sure have changed since i was a kid, they're missiles now, King Missiles.

bonus: what's your definition of cheating? is there really such a thing? there has only been one recorded instance of cheating in all of human history, that episode where Joey Greco got stabbed. the details are still murky, did he get stabbed with a knife or a penknife? anyway, the main thing is that Joey survived it, at least it seems that way, there wasn't a report online or anything, so that's all that matters. tho the show seems to have quietly disappeared...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A CAR, YOU DON'T HAVE A LIFE

notes:

* Uber New Management uh Under New Management

* uncle: so before i jam you all into the car, you remembered your sandwiches for soccer practice, right?
children: yes, dad's bro. speaking of jam, they were peanut-butter sandwiches. we wish we could get ham sandwiches but ham sandwiches take too much time, we had to do the sandwiches ourselves cos you're always too busy.
uncle: did you remember the most important thing in soccer?
children: the ball?
uncle: shin guards. shin gaurds. kids are cruel.

* abuelo: okay mi nina mi corazon, we're gonna have to use that red-and-white-checkered-squared dress you have on for all of our picnic blanket if the weather starts getting rough. we only have enough money for the sandwiches. the ants live here free.
granddaughter: why do i get the feeling this is only the beginning of the treatment people like me are gonna be getting from now on? why did you have to buy a Ford La Migra?
abuelo: it's to fool them, miel, you gotta roleplay to survive.
granddaughter: i never thought i'd say this in my life, but i want an Uber instead.

* Loren Bouchard: hi, i'm the new CEO of Uber. we made some mistakes in the past, like that Wells Fargo stagecoach fiasco, but we're learning and more importantly we're listening. Arby's now has burgers...

* little girl: is daddy coming soon, mommy?
mommy: could take while. he's in an Uber.

* woman in yellow shirt: it's about a woman wearing a yellow hat. no pet monkey. stays in the country to help it out. i'm writing it now, can you please stop with all the speedbumps?
Uber driver: them's the breaks, ma'am. as in i have no brakes. those aren't speedbumps, they're potholes. we gotta wait for the Domino's guys to close them.
woman: you never know when inspiration will strike. this is my second draft. no my TENTH draft!
Lin-Manuel hits her plastic window hard with his fist and smiles at her with his Puerto-Rican profile Greek-profile mouth bearded with Grecian Formula.

* good on you, Uber. and it wasn't just a quick-as-lightning moment like Buick did to cover their flaky asses in Ginsburn panties.

* man: don't worry, my parents will love you. what they don't love is my The Weeknd hair.

* pregnant woman: what's with the unicorn bibby? do you have something to say to me?
man: ...

* old couple: so this is gonna be our first date.
man: yeah we wasted our whole lives just working. we never had any fun.
woman: what's a waterpark?
man: a park with water. like a stone Ginsburn birdbath i'm assuming.

* Uber driver: push the red hand for stop, that makes sense, i'm assuming that's not a bloody hand. and i proudly wear my BLUE hat...with the S for Slytherin, THAT's my tribe!

* pregnant woman: so we're pregnant and none of our family could make it, huh? we had to get an Uber.
man: wait, WE'RE pregnant?

* man: hey folks, this is my boyfriend. by folks i mean family in the South.
family: we love him, he's so cool and chibi and Japanimation! it's not that we don't love you, we just love your new boyfriend's Harry Potter glasses better.

* old couple: do we know how to dance?
woman: i thought the dancing was the getting out of the Uber, i'm bushed!
man: ah, the good ol' days...

* redheaded nurse: hi, get into this wheelchair, you're about to pop!
pregnant woman: don't make fun of my Donald Duck waddle-walk, i like the new DuckTales better, okay? is that okay with you?! i don't trust you, you have red hair! i'd point at you but my fingers are swollen.
reheaded nurse: you need not concern your little, uh, head, ma'am, i'm a pro.
pregnant woman: do you believe in Jesus or science?
redheaded nurse: well i'm a ginger so i believe in the soul but i have no soul so i believe in science.

* businesswoman: don't worry, i know this is a scary long grey pole i'm carrying over my back like a kalashnikov but it's just the blueprints of the building. not for any purpose other than to showcase my architectural designs for improvement! no powder in there just a portfolio and Bieber Wedding poster.

* parents: you look like that Alibaba CEO with the strange smushed face.
bespectacled boyfriend: are they? is this a test of my American citizenship?
The Weeknd man: don't worry, honey, take it from me, when they insult you it means they like you. they've insulted me my whole life. there is no such thing as American heritage anymore.
bespectacled boyfriend: Jack Ma? Jack Ma is what happens when God draws an anime character.
mother: *hugs boy with glasses* oh that is so sweet! you already refer to me as your mother!

* old woman: fuck this honky-tonk bar with salsa dancers who serve salsa and smoke coming out of a hookah fashioned from an accordion and dancing snakes! you never said there would be a dartboard! i got a dart in my spotty glass of tonic-water and my husband got a dart up his nose!
old man: cleared my sinuses.

* women: we're not lesbians, we just REALLY like antiquing together.
woman 1: you sure? i like 'em old.
woman 2: you trying to get me to reveal my age or talking about the antiques?
woman 1: that kiss on the mouth wasn't a friend kiss.
woman 2: i was wiping off all that oil from your lips when you went to kiss our yellow Victrola, its steampunk-umbrella cover has a lot of grime.
woman 1: i'm gonna need you to remove your dress and have it act as our picnic blanket, i spent all our money on the Victrola.

* man in blue hat: that's my daughter! she's gonna be in MLB someday!

* folk: are you an Uber driver or a cabbie?
George RR Martin: both, i have a scruffy gray beard.
folk: so.........
George RR Martin: not yet. think of me as the Mueller of Dragons.
folk: what does the RR stand for?
George RR Martin: Really Regretful.

* old man: i'm swinging around my new dance partner.
old woman: with my blessing. i'm just gonna stay doing the splits with my legs on this cold floor for 15 more minutes.
old man: i love you.
old woman: thank you. we've renewed our vows in spirit. and in the spirit world we will both enter anon.
old man: i don't know if my new dance partner is a girl or guy.

* warning: spoilers: Uber is not available in all areas. like it's basically just Brooklyn. and it's too expensive.

* son: daddy, can i look at the stars through a telescope?
dad: just use my hand, son.
son: daddy, are you gonna drop me off at school tomorrow morning bright 'n early?
dad: no, son, there's no point in learning about this world. this world is shit.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. alright, Dodgers, okay, let's do this again as TOM introducing Pop Team Epic would say. it really should be TOMami, not Toonami. it's so funny, i ONLY become interested in baseball in October!

HEELER: HATE IS FOLLY

the airrace plane is flying smoothly yet roughly overhead of Melbourne's plantation, so high up in the sky it's barely a speck in view even with no cloud cover.

Taki: i felt something.

Melbourne: yeah that was me doing a few loop-de-loops.

Taki: no in my belly. not hunger pangs. not turbulence, either.

Melbourne: but is this the dream or the real thing?

Taki: don't you remember?

Melbourne: i thought you would for the both of us. i'm the one in need of coaching.

Taki: we're in bed together. must be. at the estate. under your covers which smell of a new breed of witchhazel. i remember now. me getting up and placing my toe on that cold ground. i have a white negligee on, frothy and fluttering in the no-wind. i raise my arms up and look at you. and i say:

Taki: right inbetween the uprights.

Taki: i make the football field-goal shape with my arms framing my face and through my chest area. that's what the raising of the arms is. it's like a bigger version of the tiny one children do at the dinner table with their fingers when there's chicken fingers. i tell you to flick the grape like a football kickoff right into my mouth. i want to be treated like Queen Sheba but i'm a tomboy, too.

Melbourne: and that's why i love you. nothing better than a chick who loves sports.

Taki: but not watersports...

at the outside table, Kanye West gets up, pushes back his chair ironclad like his alibi, without saying a word, jumps the hedges and leaves the plantation...

the other guests call out to him KANYE! KANYE! but he doesn't respond. he wears a red Phillies hat forwards and Neo long draping leather black coat and black shades.

in Kanye's seat now, without anyone noticing, Leonardo da Vinci take his place at the table. Leo got a haircut, his beard is an inch shorter though he keeps his graywhite locks in the back which blend in nicely with the bluehair-color folds of his robe.

da Vinci: he goes by Ye now, that's why he didn't respond. it's a very Biblical name, Ye. like you oldentimes. he speaks for all of us now. do you have any questions for me?

Mueller: EVERYTHING.

da Vinci: it's an honor coming from you, i will consider it an inquest. you want the code to the safe?

joining us all at the table this late afternoon are guests three: Maria Butina with a tiny dolphin in her glass, Reality Winner, and Soda Popinski downing his own bottle. the two ladies nurse their clear cups.

Reality Winner: i have the greatest name of all time, seeing as i come from Russia.

a chain links Maria's leg to Robert Mueller's leg and vice-versa through cuffs underneath the table no one sees. she stays quiet as a mouse from the Eastern Orthodox church.

Laertus: *speaking through the tiny screen of Mueller's prepared pear watch* please speak, Maria. you know your redhead made me think back to all the redheads i've admired through the ages. i really have a great deal of estimation for Jennifer Garner. i've never been too keen up on her for her acting, she's pretty MOTR, but she is a gorgeous human being with lips. do you know anyone else in Hollywood who would help their ex through his drinking like that? especially when Ben-dude is shtuping the latest brahmin bullette coquette Playboy bunny who undoubtedly hides contraband in her bushy backtail. this man will always be her childrens' father, i love her perspective, here's to reasonable ravisihing redheads i respect! brava approbation! go ahead and raise your glasses with me, in unison, it's okay, i heard Ben's problem wasn't vodka...

Ben Affleck: i lifted weights.

Ben's girlfriend wears a Neo coat spraypainted to look like Melania's jacket.

one of Soda Popinski's eyes has a red ring around it and a spark flashes from its iris.

Soda: that ain't sodawater you know. you know you Americans really are gullible. you realize that WAAAAAAAAAY back in the '80s, Mike Tyson had already turned. when that game was on fire and the only thing on the block, and you saw me swigging a bottle of swill, that was obviously vodka, not soda, Nintendo was bound not to tell kids that. my name comes from Popov vodka, not caffeine-free coke. the minute you slid me into your railroad slot and turned on your grey machine, i had already infiltrated all of America's systems and grids for a generation. I, yes ME, I was the ORIGINAL Russian spy! hacking right in front of your eyes!

Mike Pence rushes through the Old West cowboy saloon swinging-doors to the Hearing to break the tie. he is flustered and sweating but it doesn't show on his brow it shows on his tie. he wheels with him the polygraph machine with a rat's-nest of wires in his hand.

Pence: i'm here. unfortunately the drones don't seem to be working for this particular inquest so i'm gonna have to conduct the polygraph test myself. don't worry we are gonna plow right through!

Ford: do not say that again, Frankenstein. i am polite so i won't use the word i want to but let's just say you are rude. we built this city, you know, we built all the cars in the country. your voice chimes in my head and the cellular lining of my stomach area disgusts with puke.

Pence: *checks his pad* okay first question, is lodestar the strangest vocab word you've ever used in polite conversation?

Kavanaugh: *pounding the table and his chest* i've never even seen that word before, i don't know its location or the blueprint schematics! look, there is only one thing which will make this painful experience for me worth it: i want that new calendar! the new Putin calendar. don't get any ideas, media! it's not just the beefcake shirtless buff weightlifting stuff in there, there's pictures of Putin holding a kitten, showing his softer side.

we find President Bump eluding the view of the flying drones overhead getting his rumpity rump squeezed into the hole of a beachshack of piles by the angry ocean. the waves are high though there is no overcast weather. it's a very tight room of stone in there but he nestles nicely next to Mark Judge with no room for hands and feet cos of the fire bristling with licks of orange singing off both their freckles.

Bump: i'd warm my hands by the fire but i can't move my hands. brusk day we're having. the weather is not cooperating. so i liked your friend, Bart the Brat, in the golden Simpsons tradition, we fought for the misunderstood delinquent. i like a man who can cry and show his emotions. can you kindly point me in the direction of the zoo? not Washington. not the game. the boring non-dynamic board game. apparently i was told to do my research on hippos. i suggested a Wonder Woman con but my boss pointed otherwise with a pointed comment. they are hungry hungry for McDonald's like me.

Mark Judge: you like my French beret? please don't talk to me without your lawyer. i'm taking the same medicine pills as Rachel Maddow.

Bump: Rudy has flown the coop. whatcha working on there?

Mark Judge: my comic book. it's about this dude named Batman...

Bump: *eyes open* oooooh, it's my first biography of me for my library!

Bump has so much time on his hands he's able to stay there in the shack with Mark for weeks and weeks. he's able to finish reading every single one of the large stack of pile of comic books in Mark's collection.

Bump: which is weird for me cos i don't normally read. i've been that bored throughout this process.

Bump turns Mark's head around and discovers it was MUELLER all along this whole time!

Bump: Robert Bob! what are you doing here?!!

Mueller: well, since i have all this free time now.......................btw my acting has improved markedly through the years, you must grant me that in court. is this your first spy?

Bump: no i got a redhead. we all get redheaded eventually. look, Bob, don't put the cuffs on me! i swear i've changed! for the better! i was always a good little boy. i hung out with mother mostly, mother always told me not to mention i had a father, let him do his thing in the shadows, behind the scenes.

Mueller: as punishment i'm forcing you to read this New York Times article!

Bump: i knew i hated reading! you put this in back of the comic-book cover didn't you!? no, i'm melting, it's like a mirror, MY EYES MY EYES. okay, okay, i give, i'll show you. that i matter. this is what i should have done from the start of my presidency: INFRASTRUCTURE! bring the country together, heehee. literally through roads. i'll do it this time, i'll build things on my own! i'll repave all the country roads and smooth over new lanes and upright all the bridges again, make them all covered bridges like Colonial Williamsburg. there'll be so much construction all across this land people will get sick of it and complain!

Mueller: i'll let you have a head start. cos i love the hunt. the more dangerous the better.

Bump scampers away and into a ditch in the road.

Bump: now see this here is what i mean. hey, roller, what are you doing?

the Domino's Pizza guy in hardhat driving the cement roller comes to a complete stop but the roller keeps rolling. the roller pins Bump to the grey ground like a dough-roller.

Bump: stop. with my big hand, i'm taking over this operation, mobbing it from under you. all the roads are now presidential property, my responsibility to fix, i'll pour out all the cement till there's none left. I, ME, will plug up all the portholes in this country and I'll take all the credit and the free pizza you have! i'm gonna have that pizza party with me sitting on my throne from my childhood if it kills me! now who's in charge? uh, WAS in charge.

the men, all in mustaches, point to Tres Leches in an orange hardhat giving a rousing speech to the man gathered, the highway troops.

Tres Leches: men, and the one chick who likes sports, you are all heroes and hoes to me! this construction project is a project of the heart, a job well done that exceeds a job, it's more of a project. you took these empty barren grey streets and made them sing again! it was such a LONG project that i stopped counting the days. it ruined the summer to ensure that the winter the roads would be driveable again. take a step back and pat yourselves on the back the New England Swayze way! i mean this was a GARGANTUAN task! you took rubble literal rubble, and stoned it into fucking roads! and complicated rat's-nests of wiring for double-streetsigns and sexy poles and diagonal divisions for all the new diamond streetlamps and posts with purpose cameras. like one wrong wire and the whole thing explodes. you did this while all those fucking citizens were driving over your work! i commend your fighting spirit and courageous valor. i bet you never thought when you went to traffic school you'd end up here! this ain't no math test, this is a man test!

Bump: huh. all of these workers have brown skin.

Tres Leches: from working long hours in the sun, senor.

and with that, Tres Leches disappears from his makeshift dais addressing the street soldiers on a pile of crumpled black asphalt. a shovel remains in his wake and stead, half-smoothing over a tub of grey liquid concrete.

Bump: so as always it rests on my broad '80s-padded shoulders to finish the job. i liked your initial displays of masculinity, i agree with that expression of its definition, it's very SVU season-premiere and definitive.

Bump waves his little finger and all the potholes in America instantly get paved-over. the yellow from the yellow-dotted lines of the lanes reflect off his mustache.

Bump: see? i was worth it. good deeds, Christmastime nears. and now for the important part. who should i invite to my pizza party? i got this ridonkulous pile of greasy, nonrecyclable pizza boxes here. China's gonna be so mad when they receive all this trash that could have been recyclables!

Laertus from the wrath of Mueller's watch: what kind of country do we want to be?

Bump: not now, kid. let's see, the golfers started a fight with each other, that's finally very Bumpian, invite them. i love it when boring bros brawl.

The Mooch: they're standing up to you manly and not taking your calls.

Bump: huh too bad, i need to be more strategic in my insults. the baseball players are busy, the basketball players hate me, that just leaves the football players.

the two Bills, Nye and Gates: Colin Kaep is available...

Bump: *big smile* HI TIGER!!! you like pizza? pineapple, right?

Tiger Woods: oh. um. hi.

Tiger is followed by a sea of humanity behind him, still in a tight formation even after leaving the grounds of the golf course. a couple of those streetlights were a gamble to cross.

Geoffrey Owens: Tiger, man, not cool. i was up for that role of Moses you got. that should have been MY Moses on CBS, my jones! i mean i grew out this beard just for that to catch all the bread crumbs. if Falstaff fell through in parentheses.

Tiger: i got my jones back. the Moses (malone) magic mojo. i'm no longer just a black dude, my brother.

Tiger rips off his red shirt to show how much he's weightlifted in the interim to a gasping crowd and places the shirt inbetween the middle dividing line of the sea of people, slowly cresting the two sides apart.

Tiger: LET MY WAITRESSES GO!

Tiger takes out the red Batphone from out of his front pants-pocket and calls up friend Federer.

Federer: how does it feel, friend? after all this time. i haven't had that feeling of winning in a while, you're closer to it. i've lost that winnin' feelin'...that lovin' feelin'...

Tiger: is that a fondue fork in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Roger: i can't see you, we're on a coiled landline. i'm still having fun, though. all that construction and asphalt paving-over hit us, too. at the Laver Cup. did you see how beautiful and different those grey-colored courts were? too gorgeous-looking to play on. i was happy to beat up on the ass of Kyrgios again, that seems to be the only thing i'm good at now.

Tiger: look Geoffrey, i gave you a ride to Nawlins, i'm done with you.

Geoffrey: i still gots toys. what about what happened in the Ryder Cup?

Tiger: i don't care about that, i'm a dynamic human being. this is the i-generation, the individualism-generation, and i talk like a robot. that's just Europe, who cares about Europe? ain't that right, exactly Mr. Bump?

Bump has long since disappeared.

on the Titanic, Laertus and Dirg are in separate hotel rooms directly above and below one another on separate decks. this is making for a most fraught relationship.

Laertus: *on the phone* this is silly. want me to come down? say you love me.

Dirg: you stay right there. up here, where i can see you.

Laertus: we can't see each other, these are coiled landlines. they're so cool, huh? love the dusty-green color. so Titanic and antique.

Dirg: so that's the problem with an accusation, he will be stained with this forever even if it's completely untrue.

Laertus: sometimes there is just one incident. eh, don't be so sore and looking for revenge. this is just for the Merrick Garland thing. we're even now, we're square.

Dirg: yes we are squares. he was loud and obnoxious but it wasn't his fault, Bill O'Reilly cut his mic. so did you FINALLY finish The Last Jedi with commentary?

Laertus: why yes! i managed to squeeze it in! okay, here's my takeaway, the one scene which will leave a shiny shint impression on my hippocampus forever. i watched it on campus but the mark is indelible.

Dirg: Wideboy? i've been inspired to lift weights to achieve that look.

Laertus: Kylo Ren has Rey down on her knees with his lightsaber. across that Lynchian red room is a sniveling sneering Snoke. he tells Kylo to twist the lightknife and finish the job on poor precious pretty Rey's head. this is how that scene should have gone: Snoke says you cannot turn the boy, you cannot enter his mind, his is a destiny he took on long before he was born, to be completed at this very moment, this very juncture in space time, his destiny will be fulsome and fulfilled, when he takes the next step and kills what's been tempting him, KILLS the block in his head!!! 

and then Kylo merely mumbles mmm-hmmm in agreement with a slight nod of his head and downcast eyes. and then Kylo lifts his finger and maneuvers the lightsaber across the way next to Snoke's throne to slice him in exactly mathematical division in half before he slumps over like a sack of unwanted potatoes funnily and puppetly as a reference to Adventure Time i guess. 

see it's the same scene only with Kylo's nod and mmm-hmmm. and Rey concludes with a line about needing to bathe in the Light and just needing to bathe in general which makes the male and female fans happy as he remains shirtless.

Dirg: and then Luke Null enters the room swinging his unwieldy yellow lightsaber drunkenly and shouting at Kylo the SNL host "I NEVER HAD A CHANCE!!!" trying to kill Kylo with a lemon slice and Melissa Villasenor in her Owen Wilson voice to funny the serious mood and Chris Redd in a red hat come out and take Null by the arms and calm him down and drag him away. Adam's all, "dude, this is just cosplay, no real murder, think of it as the Venture Bros.." and Chris is all, "i'll take him, i know Luke the best and the most here, we came up together on some sort of comedy circuit in some city, i'll talk him down, he just wanted to be a Skywalker."

Laertus: why must you always interrupt a vulnerable moment with your Null noise? you're afraid of emotion.

Dirg: i'm a survivor.

Laertus: what?

Laertus decides in the moment to come downstairs on the sweeping staircase. Laertus flunks out the rest of his finals and that semester in order to take a semester off to be with his friend.

below, the crones are having a last meal. before the Titanic departs again on the open seas.

Doryce: i knew the pain of the Titanic for you, love. you were a small child then and thought your burgeoning powers caused the ship to sink, your baby hands swirled right when they should have swirled left you thought and harbored. there is no safe harbor for baby guilt. so i got us two tickets and with MY burgeoning magic---i'd been practicing---resurrected the Grand Ol' Ladyboat from the bottom of the ocean with no help from James Cameron and refurbished her anew as if she had her first paintjob. all the gilds are there in all the mirrors. no one is dead, none of the passengers anyway, the manifest is manifest, everyone's just swallowed up in their feathers and buttons and maybe some are still in steerage. the wallpaper returns to being its original gloriously tacky.

Gladyce: i thought it was I breathing on YOU while YOU slept as a small'n in that small cabin room, but it was actually YOU breathing on ME lullabying me the child to sleep. before i ever met you, knew your name! that's the sign that we were meant to be together! when we complete each others' dreams.

the two fly up and hug each other upside-down.

Doryce: now just relax. the Titanic will sail forth and never crash and burn and sink and not float. i didn't have enough money for the both of us so i thought i'd have to stow away in the smokestacks pipes funnels of the ship. those funnels make me funny. i wasn't gonna let ANYTHING stand in the way of your peace of mind. bon voyage to our long journey together!

Gladyce: i got you a going-away gift. this bottle of Yuban INSTANT coffee grounds that looks like a pancake-syrup bottle. we need to fix that Indonesian volcano, those poor folk have been through enough. Jill was asleep at the switch again, one glass of wine in her and she's quoting urbandictionary on MSNBC. she is so proud of her pet project Mahomes, calls him her Black Brady. nobody was looking at Mahomes while she worked on him. this is what happens when you stop drinking awhile.

at the MSNBC Studios, Mueller dressed in a Santa outfit and white cotton beard drags a heavy bulky tan-brown rutger potato sack across the showroom floor into the lights. Katy Tur and Gordon Chang are there together dressed in black.

Mueller: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! why all the glum faces and the black dress? you should be wearing the plaid clothes you wear when you drink egg nog!

out bumbles and stumbles from the sack a bummed bruised Bump. the bright lights hit his eyes but he can't cover them with his hands.

there's a drone-camera closeup of Mueller as he opens his mouth and shows his yellow teeth. one of his teeth jingles.

at The Weather Channel, Goody Paul is wishing a tearful adieu to a crying Maria LaRosa in front of the drone-camera. he holds her shoulder shovedly and dips his drippy nose into her blouse breasts. she wears a gold chain which gleams through the fabric. there is not a dry eye in the house nor a glint in his eye:

Goody: we're i mean I'M gonna miss you so much, Maria, you were a true scooby-doo professional on-tv-on-air-personality meterorologist, you did it right! btw Pumpkin-Spice-Spaghetti Cantore sends his love. you weren't like the other witches which inhabit this set! but you went out on your own terms, which is nice and hardly happens. something was tugging at you to spend more time with your kids. don't worry, that feeling won't be regret later on down the road and line when you're 150. i wanted to add to your kid collection but it wasn't to be. this ain't goodbye, it's just such a shame! goodbye my darling, goodbye my love, goodbye my would-be husband-kept-in-the-dark hotel-lover, fucking only when we both predicted shadows that night, nobody on Earth will now know what the weather is cos no one will care anymore cos nobody will watch The Weather Channel no mo!

at that moment, a stray thunderstorm (which is a tricky thing to define) showers the newly-asphalted black roads of America and undoes them all again into a watery mess of small stones.

Taki: honey, do a couple more loop-de-loops in the plane to loosen the baby out. envision it. see all the Formula 1s lined up at the starting line, you can't se the checkered flag, only the immense sound of all the engines rumbling tearing ramping up at once, there is no sound your eardrums are shot, enough to only see silently the sidelined streetlamp go from yellow to yellow to green. that sound is the sound of death, rubber transitioning back to its origin volcano.

Taki's stomach goes from 0 to 60 in a hurry, her belly grows from 0 months to 9 months in 5 seconds.

Taki: i'm late. i mean it's late. it's dark out. will you catch the baby when it comes, not let it slide over the railing of the plane? i trust you.

Melbourne reaches out his hand in the bolted back carriage while keeping no hands on the steering wheel which Taki still wheels. the loop-de-loops loop, which buzz off any remaining hair Melbourne ever had on his bald head, revealing a glinting with cloud cover yellow circle lapband permanent tattoo all the way around over his temples above his cut ears. the baby has a Boston birth which is any birth that is a revolution. he is born in the sky in a plane. and he's not a baby. he is a fully-grown boy of Mexican descent having about 11 or 12 or so years. the boy is Tres Leches. and her watery grey placenta greases the skids of the plane wheels. Tres buries his head in Taki's bosom and says softly:

Tres Leches: i did what I had to to stay. in this specific space. you two are my country. i love you mommy. i'm legal!

Taki: what the fuck!!? thank you, my man, you've given me the greatest gift. you've given me something to write about. i can't keep living, keep continuing, without a mystery.

Melbourne: this is a devils triangle of sorts, the Bermuda Triangle. you can see the edges of it from my house.

Taki: so what was with all the lifesize dolls?

Melbourne: i was practicing on them till i found the one, you.

Taki: and your previous sports psychologist. Vicky Benzing, right? i figured that one out with her therapy notes.

Melbourne: close. your sister Madame Pons transformed into Vicky Benzing. your sister really has those morphing spells down pat already.

they try to kiss but Tres Leches's head gets in the way.

****************************************EPILOGUE

Senator Flake is troubled and gets up sweating from the blue linen of his bed, his wife sound asleep hanging with one frazzled hair by the other sideedge and his children downstairs and upstairs with cools on their faces. an oil portrait of Joseph Ducreux hangs above the hot marital bed in Arizona. Flake takes the in-house elevator downstairs to the kitchen icebox for some warm milk and then he makes that disarming smile with his Frankenstein head he always does whenever he talks about anything. like The Munsters. then back up the large lift, he settles back down to sleep in the bed.

Ducreux steps out of his own fly portrait and lands his feet digging on Flake's stomach and his back-coat flytails on Flake's ticklish nose. Flake doesn't wake up cos he's sound asleep like his wife despite the heavy pawing of the prints left by Ducreux's pennyloafers which have a wood nickel inserted in them. Ducreux smiles like he do and talks with John McCain who's perched at and pinning Flake's feet like a gargoyle.

Ducreux: i was born in the wrong time! i should have been born in the selfie age! it's funny, i always thought the pic of me with the pandiculation would catch on more like sun for followers.

McCain: it's time for Jeffie to pandiculate early!

McCain startles Flake up like a Murphy bed by rousing him with a scary loud noise as McCain makes the Ducreux fingergun-salute with his hand pointed at Flake and one eye open and his tongue sticking out with an Irish yell:

McCain: WHO LOVES YA, BABY!!! PROUD OF YOU, FLAKEY!!!

Flake, once snoring, now bug-eyed: fuck!!!

TMIT: ALEX COMFORT'S COMFORTS

i love that picture of him in the plaid pre-grunge shirt, makes him look like if Isaac Asimov were a hippie professor on a radical campus in the '60s. sure, there are other sex manuals: Aristotle's no-taboos one and the Vedas come to mind, the Vedas which is wisdom so old it's older than the invention of paper so not all the wisdom is there, but for my pet rock The Joy of Sex is the grooviest sex manual of all time. i mean it was published in the '70s, man, y'know, it's sex for shaggies.

1. what is the most annoying thing to you during foreplay or sex? going straight into the sex without any foreplay, do you know how difficult that is?! like not even a kiss before. it's impossible.

2. tell us something you really wanted to do but let someone talk you out of when deep down you wanted to do it?

become an actor. i was so close. i was in that line in Encino when i was 6 with all the other Hollywood child actors. but i got out of that line when the original Annie on Broadway, well the local broadway production at our town, dropped some knowledge in my ear. she whispered to me that i was doomed if i continued onward down this road line and forward in this line and life, my life would never be manageable. it would consist of beatings in my dressing room with stool legs and pee running down my leg in the hot circular lights of my mirror.

i am the only person who ever lived who WANTED to be a child actor! i didn't care about the burnout later, i simply wanted to be IN the television shows i was currently watching. i wanted people to laugh at me as i recited written jokes.

3. during sex are you more orgasm-centered or going for an all-out enjoyable experience with connection? i've never orgasmed. i know that may seem strange. all that cum on the walls? mayonnaise. even having "Mayonaise" by the Smashing Pumpkins playing in the background didn't help. that Iha is so cool he doesn't need an extra n. i do my best to try to make the woman cum but i guess i'm not a good lover. i actually like to read during sex. yeah i'm so busy sex is the only free time i have to read my books. my Foucault and Stu articles from the SNL Newsletter and some cold-pressed berry juice. we should all be making the male/female connection through books anyway, right? leave the sex out of it till way later.

4. when was the last time you sought to introduce new activities in the bedroom? what did you want to introduce? did you and your lover do the new sexual activity? Pete Davidson. not in a threesome, just having him on the couch chair in the corner there watching us. Pete with his hair dyed back brown tossing back green tic-tacs as he stares at us...

5. finish the sentence: i would enjoy spending an entire day alone_______

what, i don't get it. what do you mean, this is my life. this is how i've spent my entire life from day one of incarnation one. there has never been anything enjoyable about this. loneliness is crisp clean depression.

bonus: if you had to sum up the internet in one word, what would it be? regrettable

go Cubbies! win one for the Gipper, for the Vedder, and for Bill Murray!

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

TIME TO STAND AND BE COUNTED

notes:

* only Barbra Streisand has the Jewish-motherly power of warmth to turn something which has been hotly debated and hotly contested by the greatest science-fiction minds of this or any generation that has lived in any dimension of space, this thing which most agree isn't such a rosy idea, could lead to scary consequences and the robot takeover of Man and Wives taking a Step down: cloning. Babs makes cloning fun n' cuddly.

* and only Babs can spell Barbara Barbra and not be laughed at (cos y'know bra)

* Alicia Vikander: this is my doing, i got myself one Fassbender for each season. in my native Sweden, we have two extra seasons of cold...

* dude actually looks like my friend Chad with the Canadian beard

* there's nothing in that Aztec stone coffee cup...it's tea, the Aztecs never knew what tea was, they went straight from coffee to chocolate.

* clone 1: am i the Original?
clone 2: there is no more Original, we killed the Original, remember?
clone 1: i do not remember this occurring.
clone 2: this must mean it was you and you are dead.

* clone 1: this watch screen is too small, can i get it in an ipad size?

* clone 1: what are you doing in my house?
clone 3: i'm not in your house, this is my house.
clone 1: it's technically my house once you cross that sidewalk outside.

* woman: don't mind me, i'm that old Japanese agony aunt from Paranoia Agent. you never saw me...

* clone 3: why are you following me?
clones 1 and 2: you're following us.
clone 3: is your girlfriend Sofia, too?
clones: this is not the time to talk about a Devils Triangle.

* clone 4: see? you were too distracted looking at me you missed the last payphone on Earth outside. the world is too distracted now, always on their phones to see the payphone.

* Rachel Maddow in Hawaiian shirt: you can't juke me, fellas, i'm Rachel Maddow. i'm only interested if this so-called Market has quinoa. do not talk to me till after the Midterms. if things don't go my way i'm liable to grow a beard and become an ol' salty sea captain, living out the rest of my days on lonely big waves. i got my boat and my sideboy and my parrot. i even went to another commercial which i know you're not allowed to do once you're in this commercial to check out ancestry.com. turns out my relative was also a sea captain with blue eyes like me. when i wear contacts.

* jogging clone: i'm running, well walking fast, in order to appear in the same frame as that UPS Brinks truck that will be the scene shortly of a robbery gone bad. i won't stop the robbery mind you, i'm running to be involved in the frame.

* running clone: excuse me, is this the Pizza Place?
attractive woman on the street: yes...
running clone: you didn't answer fast enough, gotta go, now i have to eat quinoa pizza.

* clone 1: why is it only I have sweat running down my front?
clones: it's a feature, not a bug.

* swimming clone: i look good with tan metal.
clones: remember, don't swim all the way out unless you plan on never coming back cos you're saving your brother.
swimming clone: the shark?
clones: Michael Phelps ate him.

* clone 1: but where do i come from?
clones: believe us, you really don't want to know how the sausage is made.

* clone 1: it's just that, well, if i draw a brown cow how do i know it's really me drawing?
clones: your drawing of the brown cow is the brown cow drawing herself. this is how God functions. God is a shrewd operator.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. what is the Los Angeles Dodgers' Magic Number? don't tell me, i want to be surprised.................sigh...............maybe it's better to only have that one shining Dodgers memory cut in my gut where the cotton candy used to be. those 1988 Dodgers are fading from my memory like eating chili in a wheat forest on a hot summer day, like Pedro Martinez's tiny mustache and jheri curl...

HEELER: SMOKE BUBBLES

there's a rumble in the grass of the lawn of the circle table with all the guests around at Melbourne's estate. which is unusual, normally the pastures are quite pastoral. so microscopic you can see the individual yellow seeds jumping up and down on the blades of grass like Mexican jumping beans. soon it reaches a Jurassic Park crescendo baseball-fever on the cricket pitch.

it's Melbourne racing with a purpose past his outer edge hedge and into the main pavilion of plants that looks like a well-manicured golf course just starting to breed its seeds. each footstep he makes makes a print in the soft soil.

Doryce: he looks like a new man staring at us as he walks steadily towards us.

Gladyce: he's marching into a new phase of his life.

Melbourne: it's not that i'm transitioning to another life, i'm entering my first one.

Madame Pons: hey, witches!

she hugs her new friends and in the tradition gives a peck at their tits.

Madame Pons: when did you get to town?! and how did you know i'd be here? in this specific town.

Gladyce: what matters, love, is for us to hear you talking like that. it brings such bushies to our faces! you're realizing that you have a town now. and it's not your hometown.

Doryce: you're needed here, love. your love is fierce and will be the secret stalwart when this town goes through the crisis. i've seen it. you will be the anchor when the waters rise. the Academy will always exist. in some place. maybe not bodily but it will exst in the known realms at one point in time or another. it will be there to greet you and guide you when you are ready. or when your next life is ready. and it will be like you never left. even if you've never enrolled.

Gladyce: thank you for saving my love, love.

Madame Pons: i can't tell you what your words mean to me! words are powerful. like spells. the right words at the right time can change a life. like magic. you get the feeling that you lived your entire life to be at this precise moment to hear these exact words so the decision can be made for you. i'm blaming you if all of this goes to pearshaped hell and i end up dead or work at Lush one year too long past retirement. *laughing*

Doryce: hehe, death is funny. well it's better than being alone, take it from me that is shit that tastes like pears. that's why we chant the words, incant our spells, use our throats like an instrument front to back palate like Dee Bradley Baker, who has a humongous forehead cos like Nietzsche he holds more human knowledge than the rest of us like a cranial canteen. so we got a few specks to spare, moments to mess, while we wait for the mooring of the ship to take place. the process takes awhile, it's stationed in the middle pool of two huge icebergs on either end to keep it in place and prevent it from drifting off. like bumpercars!

Melbourne: hello, my friends, so gladly to see your smiling faces this eve! you, there, couple on top of the roof, please come down and join us.

Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande: no we good.

Melbourne: okay it's just that it's a fluted roof, you might slide down and break the gold chain on your ankles. friends, Ancient Romans, and worldmen, don't do the van Gogh thing with your ears i know you are all artists in your way. my honey is with child! wait that sounded porn. i mean my bride will bust a baby! i'm gonna continue in this world!

Taki: wait, we're getting married, too?

Melbourne: yeah that's how it works. fuck, torn condom which acts like the Trojan Horse, i become the Trojan Man, sperm, egg, baby, forced wedding so the baby will survive, poppin mcmuffin. i got a shotgun in the back...

Taki: i knew it.

Melbourne: just kidding. hey Tres Leches! i was just talking about you! devil, eh? have you secured the bib on all the garden hoses?

Tres Leches: si senor. i'm off now to my second job. got a job for a very special senor.

Melbourne: please one and all! join me for a celebration around the circle! i'm gonna be a Papa Smurf! we will be serving NON-alcoholic vodka!

Taki: so basically water.

Melbourne: i will prepare Taki's bedroom in the central suite upstairs. if it's one thing i know it's preparing mattresses. i'll sprinkle the sheets with rosepetals and spread a liberal amount of tempura-batter tonic all throughout each line of sheet to each four corner like a thick slice of rye bread.

Melbourne raises his arms into the air in a certain way.

Melbourne: COME AND KNOCK ON OUR DOOR

Ariana: so it's just so sad about Mac Miller. are you listening to me?

Pete: babe i'm using your laptop foldin thing to write my first SNL script of the season. or maybe ever, none of my stuff gets onair. at least i'm not like that guy writer who had an affair with Cecily then was never heard from again, disappeared away, secreted like he was Fan Bingbing.

Ariana: it's just as well, they say such hateful hurtful things about me online i don't want to look at a computer. normally my assistant is my filter, i had no idea what the truth was! is twitter really this vile?

Pete: i'm working hard on this skit script about this guy who wants wheat toast instead of white toast even though he's from the projects. i need to be funny right now in my set mind and not think of sad things.

Ariana: they're blaming me for Mac's death! saying if i didn't break up with him for you he'd have had a reason to live and keep continuing and going. that's not fair!

Pete: well we were cheating on him. maybe if it was a clean break he would have reconsidered.

Ariana: no, he'd still not have me. cheating is not why people break up, the cheating is a symptom of a larger problem. everyone's yearning for something out there they don't already own.

Pete: i thought he was black for the longest...which is weird cos we come from the same social strata...............in fact, now that i think about it and view his pic online, he LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE ME!!! WAIT HOLD UP, this whole thing, THIS ENTIRE THING, you with me, you are only with me cos i look like Mac Miller!

Ariana: let's not speak upon it no mo..........but yes it's some sort of deep-seeded way for me to preserve his memory but let's stop talking.........don't look at me with your sad autoimmune-deficiency puppy-dog eyes like that! it's so sad how much he drank.

Pete: i'm all for drinking the koolaid, just not the Grape Koolaid, that stuff sticks to your ribs. looking back, we were both of that generation that missed McDonaldland growing up. the white urban neighborhoods were decimated and McDonald's changed its tactics just as we were born. we were yearning for something missing in our lives. we both missed out on the grandeurous glory that is Grimace.

Ariana: who's got the keys to the Lorne Lambo this week?

Pete: Premiere Week we got Ariana Grande as host and Ariana Grande as the musical guest.

at the MSNBC Studios:

Katy Tur: so we're all just waiting for Mueller to show up at this studio...
Gordon Chang: i like your blouse, Katy.
Katy: hey buddy! my eyes are up here. i don't like that you wear glasses! do you ever get confused for Gordon Ramsay? y'know, cos you're both Gordon?
Gordon Chang: uh, no, can't say that i have. we don't all look alike.
Katy: i'm sorry, Gordy, but it seems we only meet when there's a nuclear disaster about to lemon. i wish we could meet under different cheerier circumstances. like a banquet hall just after the bell lights up and you push me out of the way of the falling radiator water full of radiation from the heavy grey two-ton square air-conditioner above so i don't get wet but you get wet but at least the banquet potatoes don't get wet and you slip on the slick basketball court but say you were just trying to prove gravity exists and you save the day and i pull out the joke cuecards i had in my dress pockets that i was gonna use to break the banquet ice.
Gordon: ...
Gordon: i'm sorry, Katy, i promise not to show up the next time i'm scheduled so there won't be any more bad news. i will do that, too. i've been known to do that.
Katy: sorry, i'm known as the awkward one here at MSNBC...
Katy: ...
Katy: are you upset?
Gordon: i am not upset. but i thought there was something between us. like we had that taboo racemixing Future War 198x romance thing going.

President Bump is conducting a very important interview locked in one of the many rooms upstairs in the mansion of Melbourne's plantation. the padlock has been painted over and there's a black sheet hung up on the far wall and it very much looks like a hostage video.

Bump: i get the distinct impression that this room smells of death and avocado toast. so, Jack Dorsey, we don't have much in common, you not in my bloc, but i get you cos you're a CEO. i envy your scruffy beard and Casual Fridays and Casual Days and general laissez-faire business practices. you look like some quinoa guy who ran a bike shop on a cliff in San Francisco, a shipshape shop with no cars allowed and the only way to get to the shop is a narrow road that only fits one bike tire. when you get to the shop you see billions and billions of bike frame structures mounted on the wall like endangered mongoose heads but no tires. you look like you'd rather be out surfing than here. which is why i offered pre-interview for you to go out surfing with me as a way to break the melted ice. i even flew out my Bermuda shorts so you wouldn't have to see my legs.

Dorsey: *awkward silence* yeah i don't want to ignite the wave of controversy. it's like with twitter. this was meant to be a forum to cheerily discuss K-pop with those in remote caves around the world. but you have to be smart with it like any technology. you have to know that when you're having a conversation that is slowly circling your eyes with toxic bubbles---and you so want to keep typing cos hacking is an addiction---that *dramatically* this is a conversation you walk away from...

Bump: like the twitter thing just fell into your lap or you hit it with the nose of your board when you were surfing one day at night. you're like those boring golf champions we have now, frathouse-boy ciphers with no personality who only eat meat and remain anonymous. don't mock me, i see that arch tattoo that covers the length of your pipecleaner arm, it's a violin symbol, don't play your tiny violin at me!

Dorsey: *awkward silence*

Bump: *ringing in* sorry, bud, gotta take this, business you know. gotta walk away from this conversation, it was getting too toxic. shit, i'm gonna have to do a twoway here. i CAN think of two things in my head at once. put em on speakerphone. how can i be on speakerphone but you aren't? okay Rod, thank you. for plugging in the cable rod. okay, questions from the audience. go.

Laertus stands up, looking like a mouse in a sea of humanity.

Laertus: sir, have you seen Future War 198x?

Bump on big screen: sure. i think. i have a tape of my nanny. watching it together with me when i was a tot. eating tater tots. these things take time, allow me to ease the tensions.

Dirg: don't take the bait, sir, you don't have to prove that you're a real fan to him. i know deep in my seated heart that you are a nerd.

Laertus: that anime classic spells out in stark fashion the destruction and horror of a World War III. the speed at which the Earth disintegrates is brutal and seared a lasting slice of salmon on my brain. i NEVER want to see that happen in real life! it was so realistic, the animation is so human, the justifications are so profoundly potent, that it really wouldn't take a lot to see a series of unfortunate events like this which would decimate three-quarters of the population and leave the rest of the Earthlings to walk across barren deserts like alien preachers. the mouth-flap movements are so good i felt i was watching a documentary by Ken Burns about war burns. i cried, they were still able to play the piano so well at the party knowing a nuke was the next guest come and knock on our door with cherry pie. that takes concentration. it's a chain of events that seems so cold and calculating and callous and yet so confidently clear. like this is what humans WOULD do to each other, they'd know it was stupid but do it anyway. they'd fight aboard a leaking red-colored inside submarine because they want so badly to hold the shiny two keys. let's PLEASE confine this sort of thing to the celluloid of imagination. let's not let the anime community give you any ideas!

Bump: ...

Laertus: do you know what an honor flight is? that's what you have to think about years down the road when you make your decisions now. make it a priority to give Melbourne an honor flight one day. it's a simple question: what kind of society do we want to live in? we must build it for ourselves. will it be built upon the totems of all people regardless of their chromosome config? or will we let lazy laxy laws define our energy, pen in our colorful constitutions, react to illness with our knees rather than try to solve it, as if the country was sick with cold and everything had a catch.

a donkey strolls across the stage, no one chases after it.

Bump: okay okay enough i get it. is that for the Dems?

Laertus: for the circus. these things take time, allow them to ratchet up the tensions.

Bump: so i've set up Kavanaugh and his accuser inches from each other. only the one buzzer red button between them. all on the same table. each contestant has five minutes to buzz in. if you win the car you have to pay the insurance. if no one answers in the five minutes, i get the car to break the ice of the awkward silence. one-time appearance fee, no refunds, i don't want to be late for the sex crimes on the Law & Order: SVU two-hour season premiere, i love that show. we'll use drone cameras if they both touch hands at the same time. i was wrong i can admit this. i was waiting for Saturday to occur before the massacre. i was waiting for October to happen before the surprise. calendars are slow.

Bump: i asked for a female to do the inquisition but The Pope refused. i love women popes.

Senator Grassley: *smoking grass* what do we call them? these men who have legs and arms and hair but aren't men? aliens?

Agent Scully: ... ... ... women.

Grassley: first question: who was the first MeToo...

Bump: *buzzers in* George Washington, he had bad teeth like Elton John and all Elton Johns. and allow me to do the pre-interview now and break the ice with some standup. wow, haven't done standup since college.

the Senate courtroom becomes a tapestry room. the lights dim and the spotlight trains. the law room is a ballroom.

Bump: so i like to fire people from job interviews...

stony silence from the audience and crowd

Bump: *passes the mic* here's my friend Rod Rosenstein! we were chuckle buddies on the comedy circuit together in the early '90s in L.A. when everyone drank and no one gave a shit.

polite clapping

Rod: *takes the mic* i used to play football...

audience and crowd: *stony silence* no way you played football. you look like the quintessential nerd.

only one person in the crowd laughs. Kawhi Leonard, and he laughs very strangely. like someone who has never laughed before in his life, doesn't know how to laugh.

First Take ESPN studio:

Stephen A Smith: now you see there! that is not a normal laugh! there is something wrong with this brother, check Kawhi for the nuts and bolts, brother's an android. that is a robot boy learning how to laugh for the first time from an exercise program. if it walks like a duck, and laughs like a duck, it ain't no damn mongoose.

Molly Q claps in Stephen A's face.

Stephen: oh, i get it, you black now huh.

Max Kellerman: i love you, Qerim. uh, Molly Rose. you're like those girls who take a few weeks off and don't tell nobody nothing and everyone wonders what happened to them and they come back with a ring on their finger and the whole wedding was so secret not even People Magazine nor MAGA knew where it was. and you never speak of it again, you are simply a baller's wife and never talk about your marriage. you don't mention his name when asked if you have a boyfriend, you stay in stony silence. now that's TRULY being a baller!!!

Molly Q: *wearing yellow lipstick* i gots the moves.

Max: and we're like those dudes who take a few weeks off and suddenly reappear magically in New York City, our poor parents back home in Connecticut having no idea where we disappeared to. Stephen A and i did it to be closer to you, Molly.

outside the Senate hearing, The Pope checks her phone alone by the three stone steps to the banquet hall. a parakeet perches on the lap of her shoulder. she finds out Rod has been fired and begins to cry.

Kavanaugh: i swear i never touched a woman. a woman never touched me. not even my wife. Renate? that was a real club. Renate Club, Debate Club. the only friend i ever had was when i was a tot, a girl named Talky Tina.

Bump: imma look into that. yeah, bro, but you did mention in your papers that you wouldn't watch the new Twilight Zone cos it was from that GET OUT guy who isn't our voting bloc. don't worry, i blacked that out for you.

in the back of the MSNBC Studios, Avenatti is practicing on the heavy bag with no punching gloves just his fists. he even headbutts it cos he can with his artificial bald. he hits the bag so hard it becomes a speed bag. which rips open and out pops a plastic baggie of shaving cream and razor shivs.

Mueller: slow down, my apprentice, you're burning the wick at both ends. and cameras don't have candles inside them anymore. you look like you're on speed, in the eyes. why are you on tv so much? i need you rested soon. to box for me.

Avenatti: the Dems need a fighter in kind, they've forgotten how to fight dirty in their quest to be the civil one. i do my most damage with my headbutt, people don't realize how lethal a headbutt can be. i go on tv a lot cos i want to earn my SAG card the way Bump earned his running for President. do you think i have a chance?

Mueller: afraid not. you're not old enough. you ned to be Biden's age to make an impact in Hollywood.

at the table, a blue sad fish with dead eyes is swimming struggling in the confined water glass which scares poor Gladyce half to death. she blushes brokenly into her chest and screams AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO. Doryce comforts her with a hug of the pelvis. Gladyce's eyes are bloodshot with fear.

Gladyce: I'M TERRIFIED OF FISH!!!

Doryce: we'll get through this, babe, i'm with you every step of the way. i will cure you with my love.

in the mistress bedroom:

Melbourne: you know about my dream, right, wifey?

Taki: sure. it's the linchpin. the key to uncovering where the bodies are if we ever decipher the symbolism of it.

Melbourne: no bodies, mannequins.

Taki: this dream is your block. to achieving a happy life.

Melbourne: not so fast. we are going too fast in our Formula 1 car to see the forest or the trees. there's a gap in my memory, i have the recurring dream where i'm up in the air in my airrace plane and i only have a POV view of the cockpit. a set of hands are on the steering wheel. well you've allowed me to fill in the gaps and i can see more out now, get a broader view. i can see my head in this larger frame slumped over on the stick. provides context. but the plane is not careening out of control.

Taki: you're unconscious? fascinating. what would that experience be? being unconscious in your own dream.

Melbourne: no, i'm sleeping, and dreaming a dream within a dream. it's of an angel in white with her hands up in a certain way. at least i always thought it was an angel. it is difficult to make her out at first she's so bright, just a ball of radiating white light, she looks like one of my all-white mannequins with their arms bent up at the broken joints. but my eyes focus and adjust and i begin to make out her white negligee. and then her face. her face is..............YOUR FACE! you're in my bedroom just as you are now, except standing up with your nonswollen arms up. you're staring at me directly in a POV view angle.

Taki: knew it. it's your gun trained on me. i got my hands up. i figured you out and you mad.

Melbourne: the airrace plane chugs along in the sky, giving out white smoke but never black. it's your steady hand, YOU'RE the one driving. you're in back of me in the back seat but you're no passenger, your hands come across my shoulders in a vise grip doing the steering of the plane with my head blocking your view, you can't see the controls or tiny clocks. but you don't panic, you're nice and easy and instinctive with the sky's road of clouds. the plane stays upright and turns and curves and completes the course. do you happen to catch the letters on the sidepaneling of the plane?

Taki: yes. they're a Spanish company, right?

Melbourne: wrong. it's Mexican. the side of my dream plane says TRES LECHES.

TMIT: PUZZLED ALWAYS (WHEN IT COMES TO OLD SPICE)

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

i love this commercial. it's so reassuring. the man represents all Man and the woman is obviously God. despite the craziness around him, man can be comforted by a God who's just fucking with him with a wink, a nod, and a knowing smile.

1. how do you and your loved one connect? strictly by messageboard. we belong to a group which types our feelings everyday online. it's only the two of us on this messageboard, it's private and requires a password which both of us have long since forgotten. we can make it if we try. everyday we express our love to each other with the messageboard messages. flowering declarations of the chaste sex we have for each other involving words like McDonaldization and Starbucksification. we like it but in truth it gets lonely...

2. when did you last make a mistake and were you okay with that mistake? when i forgot the password. it's okay cos we never meant for it to be a party. i think. it's just in 40 years i'd hate to think i'm still gonna regret finding out the password was "password" and Steve Jobs could have been on the messageboard. he kind of is anyway cos his spirit inhabits the messageboard but it's not the same thing. like we get unusual 3AM posts about Apple Store-ification that neither i nor my lover can remember writing...

3. what are you just not seeing? dunno, not sure. i mean i get that Jobs’s a ghost, but isn't all of our jobs to eventually become a ghost? and don't get me started on the ghosting. do you know how humiliating it is to be ghosted by a ghost? i've been doing experiments when i'm not on the messageboard. i've been trying to see if a narcoleptic can still have a lucid dream...

4. if you could spend ten minutes with your hero alive or dead what would you ask them? i'd tell All Might you gotta stop it with that Burger King permasmile it's creepy.

5. who in your life do you wish you'd have met sooner? my past life as a page in the Medieval era with albino white-blond hair and a pageboy haircut using a wooden bowl. but in order to effect that i'd have to be SO SOON as to not have even been born. or construct a time machine with just wood chicken coops and moatwater in which case i will have never been born cos i would stay as the Medieval page forever.

bonus: have you ever won a medal for a sports activity? what sexual activity are you sure to win the gold?

yes. i defeated Nadal at the French Open. in Madden.

hacking (cough)

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

ACTING

notes:

* me: can you spare a square?
Dr. Seuss: i was here first.

* alternative title for this post: Who? Lou? as in Lou Dobbs? Lou Dobbs doesn't work anymore. Celebrity Cable Considerations

* James Harden: this is not an Old Spice commercial. i don't need to shave my beard, it grows back anyway.

* James Harden: do not get a bed. sleep on the floor. if you have to get a bed get a California King, those are the only cool ones. those are the only ones which are prefabricated by LeBron James himself. he knew he was gonna be a Laker all along when he lived in Ohio. just like he knew he was gonna be President when he lived in Iowa.

* Sarah McLachlan: hey, thank me for not showing you the kittens and the sad music. this is even MORE serious. it's not enough to remove your yellow Bob's Burgers shirt and stop watching the show Bob's Burgers even though it's coming up and is currently the best show on tv. we are living in a different more enlightened time now, the post-Dominion era, are you a Dominion Warrior? never eat meat again or die.

* courtside boy: LeBron got me these seats. he loves me even when the President won't.

* Samira Wiley: i'm piloting my own helicopter ride to the Emmys. people don't realize how powerful Emmys are.

* Sarah Silverman: it's confusing i know, but this time i'm joking. i'm mad serious when it comes to this country. sometimes i wonder if my twitter love is enough. though i did save a life on twitter, what did you do on twitter today? end a show?

* Joe Manganiello: you mistake me for the burly dude with the Lucy spiked bat or the guy who was a Watcher in that Watcher movie.
Sofia Vergara: Watchmen, even I know that and i'm not from this country! Joe will put you off men forever...
Joe: why did you marry me?
Sofia: you showed my son Manolo love. Manolo is the only man in my life. you showed him how to shampoo his hair, i'll never forget that.

* Joe: never fly first-class, it's a sham...............it's all the same, you know? the airplane is still the airplane.

* Jared Goff: i am SO glad i signed with Hollywood! this NFL bump-in-the-road is my ticket to movie stardom and bumps of cocaine! see i have to keep a "clean liver" when i play sports, but not when i play in movies! i am SO glad i didn't sign with that OTHER Los Angeles team, that Chucky coach is known to ruin quarterbacks! they are taking a billion-dollar crapshoot with him...

* Samira: never mind that man, the future is female.
Harrison Ford: me? i told them not to kill me off. that new Han Solo isn't working out for them too well now is he?
Samira: no, not you sir, you are a legend. here, take this champagne, don't put your hands on the stick let me do the flying, and regale me with your misadventures in a parking-lot garage with Carrie Fisher.
Harrison: no please, no more frogwater.
Samira: so how is the future gonna look like in 30 years?
Harrison: ask Ryan Gosling.
Samira: Neil Armstrong showed us the future was space but Blade Runner shows us the future is virtual-sex with big blue bare busty hologrammic booth babes.
Harrison: the future's not lookin' so bright.
Samira: are you crying?
Harrison: well sort of, it's my tears in rain.

* Sarah Silverman: the whole "ply" thing is a sham, just like the "threadcount" thing is a sham. this is Hollywood, what do you expect? the whole place is a lie, that's why we love it. i don't use toilet paper, i use my hand, and you STILL think i'm the hottest Jew who ever lived after Jesus!

* kid: i'm LeBron James's son, probably. i like iced tea. i can take it or leave it when it comes to bacon. don't get it twisted, don't try to connect the two, playa, you ain't that smart. has nothing to do with that tan color.

* Jared Goff: my tv calls me Jared Goff, that's my dad's name. want to see my walk-in closet? it's not Walking Dead-themed.

* James Harden: i painted the painting above my big head. with my beard.

* Sarah Silverman: 1 in 10 men will think this commercial should have had "native" girls in grass skirts, grilled pineapple, and a big bamboo pole.

* Sofia Vergara: SPORTS!!!
Joe: what are sports?
Sofia: i thought you were a regular joe.

* Samira: i am Poussey.
Harrison: oh no, okay, this is where the generation gap comes in, i don't know how to address young people now, with all these Movements swirling around everywhere. i refer to all women as goddesses to square all my bases. Star Bases.
Samira: i'm in love with you that you think i'm still young. Hollywood is an older seasoned actress's game.
Harrison: hey, that black woman with the red-hair jheri curls and orange poncho in the basketball stands, if that is indeed a woman, she's on your Orange Show, too, right?
Samira: OITNB?
Harrison: Clockwork Orange?

* so i missed the Emmys this year. WHY did you put them on a Monday? people do still go to school and work during the week as difficult as it is to imagine when you comb through twitter comments nowadays. there were no new primetime cartoons this Sunday, it was your perfect window. i heard there was a lot of Roseanne living the awkward life, new celebrity couples living their best life, and Che looking around with his head on a swivel at Colin with Scarjo and Pete with Ariana and wondering when does his chick check clear?
Che: is it cos i'm a Communist?

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. not much going on this weekend, huh..................

HEELER: IS IT STILL RAINING IN NORTH CAROLINA?

President Bump has made his way to the House of the Book. he's never had to run so far and so fast in his life, his feet hurt terribly. but he is comforted and panting to know that he can lean his large frame against the fluted columns and stone carvings of the place and rest assured it won't topple over like one of his buildings.

Bump: there's no casino here. cos the library won't allow it.

the columns of the colonnade fill up with his sweat. he wants to know but his pants are soaked.

Bump: this place is wondrous! like Rome. and Rome never fell, technically. it's still going on. like the Deep Illuminati. it will be sturdy through the tides. like an old mate. i had an old mate named Jim, he was imaginary.

he waddles his way to the front of the glassed counter a tired and broken man.

Bump: mate, one ticket for the show later this afternoon. air-conditioning in there, right?

the clerk is listening with both ears to his vintage Walkman but you can still see the pimples inside his ears.

clerk: what? show?

Bump: yeah, this is where the Power Rangers teleport to. i need a means of escape, i'm on the run, i'm being run down, chased by an old man with gray hair.

clerk: Santa?

Bump: you'll see. soon.

clerk: *typing/hacking* and you are?

Bump: oh yeah, you're just a kid, you wouldn't know. you're not in my demographic as i've been told now.

the clerk is Dirg.

Dirg: *chewing pink bubblegum* just kidding. you're my hero. it's cool we get to spend some time together just you and i like this. so how goes the trolling? it is just trolling, right? that's why you connected with disaffected white dudes who sold their farm and tractor to buy an ipad maxi with the warranty, it's the internet thing which made you clean up that voting bloc like a drone who spreads toxic chemicals into wheat. i love how you're the personification of the concept that school is useless, that's so cool.

Bump: no time to talk, kid, pressing matters, the adults are in the room.

Dirg: i'm afraid you are mistaken, sir, the Power Rangers don't really live here. or work here. there's no transporter yet, that must be invented, but without nasally NASA's ass-global cabal of Roundists. i hate to do this to a fellow nerd, but it is just a show.

Bump: is it at least a factory?

Dirg: no one knows what the House of the Book is. so it's a monument. to something. oh, i got my friend on the line, he wants to ask you a few follow-up questions.

Dirg switches on his connection to Laertus through a watch.

Laertus: several. friend? you've never addressed me as friend before. are you getting melted in all that post-hurricane sun?

Dirg: i miss you...

Laertus: what?

Dirg: shut up. here, gold sir. i put him on the phone. watch. phone-watch.

Laertus: so you were right about the hurricane...

Bump: i know, right? the only cool thing that happened was that roof coming off that gas station. but a village pump doesn't need a roof for it to work, take it from me.

Laertus: and there was that sight of the American flag ripping in two in the strong winds and salty surge.

Bump: i know, right? that was so cool. i've Tivo'd that scene and i'm gonna watch it later on Youtube Fast-Forward, just the good sports highlights.

Nixon in blue hologram: don't you think that torn American flag is evocative and indicative of something? something larger and grander going on in the larger culture than your thinking? a symbol?

Bump: yeah it was pretty erotic. a symbol of freedom, or so i've been told.

Laertus: this whole Kavanaugh thing really gives me the heebie-geebies. makes me depressed for the nation. are we a nation of laws or a nation of nations? can you do something about the mail threats? like shut down the Post Office? i know your life is of rushjobs but...time doesn't exist...

Bump: hey i'm saying all the right things. no feelings involved. either way. we're playing the long con i mean long game. lockerroom talk can extend to actions you know. this is why there should only be one party, so no one feels left out. everyone wants to have fun, no one wants to be at a birthday party where no one else is invited, even your mom. everyone goes through life drunk. we've tried to return-to-sender mail these creeps, but on the back of the envelope, the only address left is the letter Q. besides, Judge Mark is taking care of the proceedings.

Laertus: there's an inherent male-slanting systematic attackive mal in the software of this culture. it's culture which simply doesn't respect women or a woman's worth, it's been programmed that way. the superstructures are in place to perform this ovulating operation. it's a culture like a lab-specimen culture, not yogurt. what are you gonna do about this, sir? you have the power unfortunately.

Bump: i leave it to the Senate, Congress really does a job.

Laertus: i've been following your twitter feed which i despise. i've hated twitter ever since you came aboard, you ruined what was once a nice positive place for discussing K-pop. a lot of links and retweets of Orrin Hatch...

Orrin Hatch: why don't i believe her? cos she's a woman.

Bump: *laughs* look man, i mean, you gotta give him credit, he's at least being honest. he's not frontin' for the good cause. he shows to the cameras the weapon of his age, not the weapon of artifice. no artificial sweeteners, that's awesome! gotta give him that, he's not trying to be PC.

Nixon: noticing the parallels? seeing? they were both professors...

Bump: i notice how the Left keeps referring to her as Doctor and Professor, not Woman.

Laertus: it's everywhere, it's pervasive in the autumnal air. democrat, republican, and especially independent. when a blonde comedienne said she couldn't wait till your son flipped on you, his comeback was to demean her for not being funny in a crude way. on twitter.

Bump: but that's just science. women aren't funny. ask Bill Nye. and in fairness to my son, she said she would orgasm for the first time in 30 years after my son flipped on his own father. so. see i'm all about fairness. i mean she said she'd videotape that wet sticky orgasm session of hers at Lush and put it on her twitter timeline.

Laertus: don't take my wife. please. take the Mavericks. that was supposed to be a "fun"---fun in quotations---culture, boys-will-be-boys barf, roughhousing, loose and free, a player's dream, heaven for hunky jocks. but it turned into a hell for hotties and a lady jail. nobody wants to smell a jockstrap.

Bump: yeah i wouldn't know, basketball isn't my thing or my demographic. Cuban should go back to Cuba.

Bump looks up into the sun and with his finger's yellow lasers carefully pastes over the carefully-carved letters on top of the House Book tower. it used to read NATIONAL ARCHIVES but now it's just a bunch of Roman numerals which spell out an egg scramble.

Bump: i actually came here with a purpose. and some interviews. i'm here to officiate the divorce between my pals Brady and Belichick. two men should never marry, that is a crime against nature.

Bump thinks up to the sun.

Bump: there's one thing i can do for myself to get out from under the boot of Mueller. distract with a good deed on the other side of town. i have to hurry, time's running out, i'm late, and my heels just broke.

Dirg: he's gone now, disappeared into thin air, which isn't easy for him to do.

Laertus: actually it's very easy for him to do.

Dirg: now i'm bored. i'm cooped in this booth and hot. you keeping your third eye on the old bats?

Laertus: of course. time is running out for me, i'm on a tight schedule with this finals week. tight on time like my estomago enchilada. i'm not pregnant. i was given special dispensation from Professor James Gunn that i can take my final as a take-home final home with me. i told him i was on a boat and he misconstrued that as me serving on the Peace Corps. i am keeping the peace in a way. gotta make sure our witches are healthy to combat powerful men. i pattern my love after those two old birds.

Dirg: misconstrued, that is such a lovely word.

Laertus: the catch is the final doesn't count. i'm in a rush, go, ol' buddy ol' pal.

Dirg: The Last Uncorn. go.

Laertus: great great great film. a little long truth be told if i'm being honest through my teeth. a bit bloated in the middle. that annoying owl or bat thing in the beginning was useless and annoying. like that's the Gilbert Gottfried role. there are no Medieval tacos. and the unicorn was being a bit of a b.

Dirg: Gottfried got fried many psychedelic moons ago. she's a bitch, say it.

Laertus: yeah i don't know if all unicorns are this haughty and arrogant and dismissive or it's just her. i mean she is a unicorn i guess, she's earned that right. humans ARE silly. you get the sense she's a diva but doesn't know why. the writer said the wizard character's voice was played flat but i thought it was just the right tone of Jewish rye bread. i loved how it played with tropes, i use that in my own life, in fact tropes are my entire lifestyle. like happily ever after and the good guys and heroes always win. one thing which really fucked me up was this concept they brought up that there is no happy ending cos nothing ever ends... 

Dirg: please, i don't want that concept rattlin' round my brain when i booze. or worse, when i snooze, i'm already fucked up. i take drugs for that. street drugs.

Laertus: Molly Grue has such a standout voice in this, she's the surprise scene-stealer. the speedboat moral compass and glue-girl of the group, Molly Morality. i love motherly figures with warm-tone voices, i just want to wrap my arms around them and be a sucker for them. the entire voice cast is outstanding. superb Shakespearean actors who you think are British but are really just grand Americans using their high-registry voice of good breeding.

Dirg: Prince Lir was Finn before Finn.

Laertus: their singing voices on the other hand were.....sweet. i mean it sounded like a bunch of actors who didn't know how to sing but sang in the voices they use in their showers. they tried, it was heartfelt, but not exactly operatic. professional but on tape. it was like singing to your neighbor on the phone. they gave it the ol' college-theatre try.

Dirg: watch it while you still can, you know Ronan Farrow will definitely be investigating this film!

Laertus: i wish we would return to this America. an America that only cares about producing the best possible epic nondenominational fantasy it can and delivering it to sinner and pauper alike. i want the America that's represented by America the band called America! righteous heavy metal slowed to fit a fantasy, that music was moody magic.

Dirg: rock on, sista.

Laertus: gotta go, the ladies are speaking.

Gladyce and Doryce are stewing in their pot aboard the doomed ship. Doryce is done with her "training" (in quotations) inside all the smokestacks of the Titanic. she and her body are completely covered in thick dark black soot, that when she smiles it's funny cos all you see are her bright white teeth floating, well bright white as against this black backdrop anyway, and her two floating white pupils for eyes. you don't even see her glasses she's wearing!

Gladyce: done, dear? please say yes, i hate seeing you go to all this trouble. you're seriously strenuousing yourself out, spreading yourself too thin.

Doryce: i'm already thin. and our relationship will stretch out thinner and stronger under this strain.

Gladyce: i'm starting to develop a taste for rye bread. like you and your garlic bread. not Jewish, though, i like it dark.

Doryce: dark meat. rock on, sister. uh, dark bread. good for dark magic. coming right up! i will prepare for you a feast! replete with vessel vinegar! where's the chef? i want to compliment him beforehand so he cooks a great job. who's in the kitchen this evening?

Laertus: i believe it's not who you think. it's not the fat guy with the beard...

Doryce: oh come on! he makes the best marinara sauce!

Laertus: all of his jars were taken off the shelves and all shelfies of him deleted after the Ronan Farrow investigation of him.

Doryce: that is not fair! why do WE have to suffer cos he can't act straight! so who's in there? i'll take the Mooch at this point.

Laertus: um, The Mooch is not available. he's busy thinking about why a chef would need a lawyer. i guess i can suppose and rustle up some ingredients and pointy spices up at The Store and dash back. and whip you ladies up something non-BDSM. i fancy myself an amateur sous-cook in college. i added a barbecue Pringle to my ramen and made it barbecue-pizza ramen.

Doryce: btw i died.

Gladyce: *bug eyes non-glassesed* what?

Doryce: it was the queerest thing. i was lost in the heavy tornadic cloud of the smokestack smoke, when suddenly a novice witch appeared spinning upside-down next to me in my tremors of cyclical wind. the circles were everywhere. i had a sense about her, she was ditzy but motherly. she cared. i was at death's door and this woman built a window. my eyes were all bugged-out, i couldn't take any more soot in my mouth.

Gladyce: and stars. Pumpkins. coming soon. she was the star this day! that's not like you.

Doryce: she whipped me up a concoction in a mule-alcohol tin half-cut-off-cup, a strange brew with spices and with her finger swirling in a circle in the air. you could tell she was good at manipulating liquid soaps. she said she was practicing teleporting and ended up next to me as if she inherently knew instinctively where warmth was needed. she mentioned she thought she met me and us before but i told her all of our kind have that ephemeral feeling of togetherness to us without meeting. telemetry. i told her to stop practicing. it was too dangerous. for her. i mean look at me. she wasn't meant to travel like us, she was a homebody.

Gladyce: bless her. what was the drink?

Doryce: golden milk. frightful stuff. delicious. looks like curry. has that distinctive saffron color. quite the jolt! one sip and my eyes popped back in. i was made alert and ready awake. i flew to safety and didn't let the nature of man hold me captive anymore. that turmeric burned the back of my throat like my best study session with Bama!

Gladyce: lovely lasting lashing liquid. for a quid.

Doryce: this woman laughed me goodbye. sweetheart. i believe i caught her name in the wind funnel before she snapped her fingers and was off to her next travel thinned out the tunnel, gone with the wind. Madame Pons? like the vagina?

Laertus arrives at The Store. The Store which is a booth inside one of the many myriad decks of the Titanic.

Laertus: how do you get the food to stack and shelve and sell?

Geoffrey Owens: they ship it to us by boat. it's quite the delay. it's hard to get to an island. don't mind my fatness, i'm an actor. gonna play Falstaff in college theatre.

Laertus: i've got my friend on speaker but he's cool. listen man, i won't do you like that. i use my pocket phone for good, i despise revenge porn and hate twitter. hey the way i see it, this is the fate of most actors. most actors don't become big---i don't mean fat---even after getting a big show, the show dies in the ratings and the funds dry up and you don't get another big break. that was your time as a tv star, you relished it and now it's gone. that one precious chance which never springboarded into anything else except video-game voices. but you'll always be an actor in your big heart. most actors you never see, they stock the shelves anonymously at your local grocer, struggling to make ends and endives meet. and making sure the relish labels are turned outward.

Dirg: Sondra was right to dump Elvin. no offense. she was right to dump all of Hollywood, you never heard from her again. i'm glad she got out of my country and went to France. she had the right idea. it's not the Cosby aspect of your plight, it's that you're a senator's son. people expected more from you. hey i'm just a brotha helpin' notha brotha out.

Geoffrey Owens: never slander the value and inherent goodness of work, a doctor's the same as a bum. well i will be one of the senators on the panel of the Kavanaugh/accuser hearing this Monday.

Laertus: right on, that is something Anita Hill was never afforded. she got railroaded........i've just read Bump's twitter. he says Monday will be the highest-rated tv show ever in all caps and exclamation points. and he says he needed to rush it cos November sweeps are coming up for the Nielsens.

Laertus returns. with the brown bag. from above belowdeck:

Doryce: now we can feed our famish. put your delicate napkin on your leg, missus, and chow down! you got the crab rangoon?

Laertus: yeah but it's frozen. it was right next to the nets. and there was no bread. out of bread. there was a shitload of quinoa but no technical bread.

Doryce: how can a grocery store have no bread? carry the bread on your shoulder. quinoa gives me the shits. excuse me. just thinking about them. you enjoy, dear.

Gladyce: no, stay. i love you. so much i won't let you go to the bathroom, hold my hand.

Doryce: shit. i wanted for you those two thick slices of nutty black-rye bread and the crab rangoon inbetween 'em for a sloppy saucy sandwich. dipped in marinara sauce! i wanted everything to be perfect and to your liking. like a first date.

Gladyce: it IS perfect, my lover. why all the fuss? don't tell me. okay, tell me. no, don't. i dunno. this crab rangoon looks good 'n delicious, i think it'll be okay swimming in its own Rangoon sauce. you know i can't ever imagine an occasion where i would have the time and energy to wait in line and money to sit down at a fancy restaurant and order crab rangoon for myself. so microwave-fresh is the best i'm ever gonna get and i'll take it. and i'm lovin' it. i suppose this is the problem with my life: i have to make time for crab rangoon.

Doryce: you would if you were still fucking the Gorton Fisherman.

abovedeck down below sits Taki and Melbourne exhausted after a quick spin. in the racquetball court.

Melbourne: YOU ARE NAKED.

Taki: what?

Melbourne: that's what the sign we passed said. i think. but you are naked. to me.

Taki: ohhhhhhhhhhhhkay.

Melbourne: want me to show you my boat?

Taki: now that is a line. please be a boat. okay i'm ready, what are we waiting for? take me up to the captain's steering wheel and let me smoke his pipe.

before Taki can smell, she is whisked away to the basement of the Titanic where Melbourne puts her feet-first into his yacht. the bow breathes the salt air and the stern salties it out, as the crystals hit hard against the ship.

Taki: i knew it i knew it!

Melbourne steers the yacht on a stick until they both see the disinfectant daylight. the sun is so bright it powerfuls a singe mark on the woven sail that smells of Triscuits.

Melbourne: i'm trying to breathe it all in but i can only smell you.

Taki: so tacky, as in a yacht tacking. so yachting...WHOA that was a small wave that becomes a big wave on this yacht! the appeal of this again is...?

Melbourne: well since billionaires run the world because liberal-democratic self-goverments have abdicated their civic responsibility, the world billionaires got together and decided to have a sort of privately-funded Olympics of their own. so they race their yachts representing their countries and various factions against one another to see who has the richest stick.

a series of cannonballs just misses kissing their yacht and splash hard into the winging wavecrests.

Taki: the fuck? remember, calm down. it's just like the air race which is just like the Formula 1 race through a sleepy bedroom village. watch for the chicane, it's colored blue.

Melbourne: see the yachts carry onboard them heavy cannons. they shoot their balls at each other like olden pirate times. but the cannons are so unwieldy and weigh a ton that they sink the yachts. the loser is forced to go on an expedition deep under to the oceanfloor with James Cameron. also known as Jim.

Taki: what, Elon Musk wasn't available?

Melbourne: no, he's currently indisposed at the moment. not in the bathtub. bathtub of butter. nor a basket nor bucket of butter. fighting a lawsuit on twitter. of his own making, not Ronan Farrow. the billionaires may have good intentions but you know the saying. so in an effort to remain aboveboard and show they care and are doing something, they collectively decided to have the billionaires do charitable work with their money, put it into education. of the sea floor. not to dig in more internet cables or oil or anything. James Cameron is the Head of the Department of Education. and temporary In-Charge of the Department of Povery and Poor Boys in Elon's absence. not a sworn-in position cos Jim doesn't swear. but Elon does.

Melbourne clears the cannonballs and puts down his yacht sail, whch converts it into a small speedboat. he navigates the speedbumps in the watery road and tells her,

Melbourne: y'know, i don't think i'm strong enough to be your man, as the Sheryl Crow sonor goes. you deserve a person as upstanding as you are quality. you need someone who will weather with you your dish-throwing torrents of emotion, your tsunamis of daddy issues and cyclones of being introverted and yet a world-renowned reporter and hurricanes of book tours. why do i always see your cat swimming the backstroke on the river that connects us? i assume you have daddy issues, all great women do.

Taki: i've found my person. not on eharmony. just don't tell me you also ride bikes like Lance Armstrong. that guy's arms were strong.

the two sit up and hold hands on the deck of the speedboat. they look out past their sunglasses to the yellow horizon falling down under the cantankerous clouds and misty mountains.

Taki: you're gonna have to be stronger than you ever thought you could ever be. strong for two. i'm pregnant.

at this very precise moment, Melbourne swears he sees five suns.