1. one thing that you will never do again? attend summer camp! what was i thinking all those years!? it was horrible! i didn't mind the cockroaches or the bugle horn in my ear, what i minded was that we couldn't watch tv! i'll take a cockroach-infested cot as long as i don't have to share it. i didn't mind the shorts-as-flag-up-the-flagpole thing cos i hated swimming in that dirty bog. we would gather round the campfire in the still of night and sing campfire songs, i never knew the words to any of them, it was so embarrassing when everyone would look at me to continue the round. one of the counselors broke the awkward silence with the sung lyric "turn your head now baby just spit me out". that counselor was quietly and quickly asked to leave, i could see him escorted by flamelight under cover of night. i guess he wasn't a good singer or something, didn't spit fire.

2. who knows you the best? Ed Roland from Collective Soul. he chose love.

3. do you think a relationship should be 50/50 all the time? yes. unless you're in a relationship with Barbara Walters in which case it should be 20/20.

4. when was your most recent act of kindness? was it appreciated? so i sit on my toilet every night around 3AM after my writing sessions. and invariably as i'm so tired i can barely walk and i bump into the hard corners of my faux-ivory sink, there's a little bugger there to greet me. always. a slime worm from the sewer below my house (my house is on a shaky foundation) smiles at me, hanging on by its slime, sticking to the bonzai-blue bathroom tile wall directly opposite my sightline like Spider-Man, waving its pincers at me. i have to get up, crink my back, and carry the sucker all the way to the other side of the house in the dark stepping on god-knows-what to get to the kitchen and the outside door, where i slide him off a soft napkin to the outside tile and close the door behind me. i don't flush down the toilet anymore. the next early morning, the same slime appears on his favorite spot shivering, telling me he's cold. i knit him some tiny tiny tiny scarf and mittens using only my pinkie finger, it's like delicate microsurgery, all while sitting on the toilet. it's good cos it gives me something to do. on the third night, the slime slug sticks on his favorite tile and gives me the thumbs-up with his pincers, his pincers wearing the mittens. he in turn knits me a long long long sock...

5. are you a good friend? why or why not? i should think i'd be a good friend, the best in fact. but i don't know since i don't have any. i would be the best friend cos i would know the pain of being friendless. empathy. it's like one of those eternal infinite conundrums where you're not allowed to show your talents.

6. what is something that you tried really hard to like but just couldn't?The Last Jedi. it was funny! it can't be funny, Star Wars is serious business! hey, i bet you'd thought you'd never see "serious business" in print again, huh, thought that meme was dead. now mind you i don't know if the rest of the movie is like this, i've only seen the first 15 minutes. Star Wars stream-of-consciousness. Joycean. meeting a cast of characters who are really yourself. streaming it at the theatre.

bonus: how was your month of July? did you do anything interesting, fun, new? it was all a blur. cos it was so boring. can a blur be one of boredom? a boredom blur? a boring blur? Blur is not boring, you take that back! i watched The Last Unicorn. i know, i know, this was a film you'd think i would have seen by now what with my medieval-page-reincarnation thing going on, but i've only now gotten round to it, freed up my schedule enough for it. that Butterfly is a hoot! Robert Klein was on all cylinders with that meandering performance, randoming singing songs like a drunken sailor full of desire, i pattern my life and speech pattern after The Butterfly, that's how i learn how to stay appearing functioning. Bob Klein is the next De Niro! one day i will meet my soul mate, my perfect match, my matching unicorn, who will be the last unicorn, and we shall uncorn together into a rainbow waterfall. i can already tell from the first 15 minutes that The Last Unicorn will be funny...

wordpress is good for business?...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

lives a witch in them thar woods. but it's not what you think. a witch for the modern world.

Taki Kettleflower is a reporter for the most egregious newspaper in all of Obec Woods, The Kettle Flower. it was named after her, cos she was the only one doing work. she was the last hard-nosed reporter left, the only one who dared---deigned---to go after the truth in this post-truth world which had fallen on its arches. unlike her coworkers, who would while away the days in their little offices fanning themselves with empty printer paper and moaning at how slow their gold pocketwatches were turning, Taki went after stories and personalities like a bull in a japan shop. they and everyone else in business had resigned to the conclusion that the world was forever fucked, that you could present a complete and utter lie as truth and not only would humans tend to support the liar---so distrustful they were of the press---the more outlandish the lie, somehow the more believable it seemed to the public.

Taki: of course this isn't about truth or the news. it's simply human nature. if you tell people not to do something, they will do it to their death. it's completely counterintuitive and detrimental but it's fun. we're little wascally rebellious rodents like that.

remember, this is the time where "literally" means "figuratively". everybody in her news division---which is supposed to be serious not the comics room---conceded that the truth had been the first casualty long ago, in a war that was never declared but seemed to be going on forever. Taki's compatriots spent their business hours fiddling with their own Wikipedia pages---which you aren't supposed to do, not allowed---crafting jokes from the day's headlines---hoping for that one golden meme to viral on 4Chan---or discussing said headlines on their youtube channel like somehow THEIR take on the events of our time will be more earthshattering. but Taki had a different bent, she saw thing differently. she would never let herself forget where she came from, how her father died---in that industrial accident that was only in one panel of the manga---that honor to her was more important than her life, she would carry on alone, she loved being alone, she could think of thoughts not infected by the mass media---or worse, the alternative media.

soon it became painfully obvious that Taki would be working from home from now on. she really despised her coworkers' nerves. and why not? this special house of hers was the scene of some of her and the early 21st century's greatest journalistic feats and accomplishments. Taki loved being surrounded by nature so she fashioned her home out of the bark of The Great Oak. her kitchen tabletops were the Tree's knots, her linoleum was made of beewax, and her only overhead lights were fireflies.

Taki: call me crazy, it makes good print. but i take the Disney Hayao Miyazaki films seriously, to heart, they aren't just movies to me. nature will eventually win, nature is like China. i figure all this nature will counterbalance all the hate i sew in and spew out daily.

she swims on her linoleum floors each day before her breakfast: one morning peach. she sits on her huge wicker peacock chair three sizes too big for her small but spunky frame and sips her elderberry tea. a stripper string of parrots lowers down to greet her, tickle her one-line cheek with their feathers, as she gazes at the circular mirrow mirror on the opposite yellow-wallpapered wall which looks back at the series of infinity mirrors in back of her, incrementally capturing the rays of the sun till the sun disappears, fun mirrors which do serious business, going on forever till reaching the point, like the ones in Enter the Dragon, her one all-encompassing window out to the world, a mathematical, geometric window.

this room, known as the Hotbox to everyone else, where she comforts her subjects---confronts her suspects---loosens them up with some Swedish fish candy from her candydish by her chair, glass candydish in the shape of Marilyn Monroe's tit. that always does the trick, man or woman. and then all the heavy green vines close in on the interview-subject and curl around their body forming their chair, making them feel nice and secure, if not warm and a little constricted.

in this very room, this spot, she got Michael Jordan to open up and laugh for the first time, admitting he made the whole thing up. she got Cher to admit she didn't actually believe in any afterlife, but she still thought she'd see Bono again cos Bono was that stubborn. back then the drones weren't what they are now and had a hard time transmitting back from the dense forest. she got Arnold Palmer to confess on the day of the OJ murders. she even got Les Moonves to crack:

Les Moonves: no.
Taki: Moonves, do you know who i am? my last name means Moon in Japanese.
Les Moonves: i did it.

in this same room is where she calls up her son on the telephone. Takahashi, he attends Exodus College. she rings around her bony finger on the rotary dial:

Taki: Taka, honeypot?
Takahashi: i lil busy, mom!
Taki: is that any way to address an award-winning journa?
Takahashi: sorry, babe, your trinkets mean nothing to me, only your love. you called RIGHT as i was working on a particularly-dark panel of my graphic novel that needs a lot of inking.
Taki: son, look, art is fun, but it doesn't pay the bills. did the Cosby thing fall through?
Takahashi: no it's still on. someday. when the lawyers clear and clean it up. art is the only thing in this world which cannot be corrupted. look at the courtroom sketches by Art Lien, President Bump is having a hard time on twitter discounting those. hard to manipulate or otherwise rearrange drawings.
Taki: now see, i am so proud of you for that, i look forward to your Cosby Column! i KNEW you were brilliant after all! let's both eat an acorn at the same time. mmmmmm, chewy. that's what you should be focusing on.
Takahashi: i took an alternative class...
Taki: OH NO! HASHI!!!...................................no, son, video-game journalism is not journalism...

Comic Con has come to Exodus College! landed there more likely and accurately. most are gleeful, others, like a particular machine who lives in a haunted house on the edge of campus we all know, is fretting bullets. he needs peace and quiet and recluse to carry out his work, not an unnatural influx of nerds.

Laertus is setting up his presentation. in Hall H with a sizeable crowd who doesn't know what's going on or who the speakers are, fidgeting with their ridiculous costumes, drunk off makeshift tiramisu made by pouring con coffee into crumbled-up cookies in a styrofoam cup.

Dirg: RAGE, YOU DAMNED NERDS!!! same to you. i've never seen you mad, Laertus, i hate to see when you finally flip. what are you doing here? shouldn't you be at class?

Laertus: i think for us, this IS class now. help me with the humidifier slash overhead projector.

Dirg: can't, sis, i'm a man.

Laertus: HEY, man, we're friends but not if you continue freelancing hate. that be scurrilous slur/scandalous......i won't take it this year! i ain't skird! i need some one person on my side. be my aide.

Dirg: relax, man, post-PC world, remember? go outside and smell the whatever.

the professor, who looks awfully like James Gunn with his hair shaved off, points Dirg's shoulder back with a brush from his long pool cue.

professor: Mr. uh Dirg...screenname?...sigh...sir, it's your turn for your presentation. i won't hear any more of your lame pathetic ancient excuses! you've slacked off long enough in your life. lax is NOT short for LAX!!!

Dirg tries to set up the screen slash smoke machine but fails miserably. he's only able to recover the first few minutes of the assignment, which are the only minutes he did, a supercut of Gabriel Byrne as The Mechanic from Smilla's Sense of Snow repeating

Smilla Smilla Smilla Smilla Smilla Smilla

for 5 hours.

Dirg: now THERE's a man!

the two are escorted out, under an official complaint filed from Laertus. and under the plastic gun of one Gunn, James Gunn.

Laertus: hey, if you want to mortgage your future away for a frat house, that's on you. i'm getting a dorm room this year, outside campus. which you are free to crash, i get lonely nights when the gunshots start. i swear i've held this image of Smilla's Sense of Snow in my mind ever since i first heard about it. i honestly thought it was some Finnish foreign-language film about a long-lost folk tale of a doll that comes to life and must navigate the harsh winters of Scandinavia. ritual subtitles, everyone speaking funny, and the butler turns out to be the father. not what we got, we got a brilliant crime drama from a spunky socialite and some Doctor Who monsters buried in ice.

Dirg: i saw a VHS video-preview on tape for the movie Brassed Off. i thought it was gonna be about a philharmonic in New York City or something, metal woodwinds and a kettledrum. i saw that one babe in what i thought was a fluffy red concert dress and red heels. there would be a hot sex scene in the orchestra pit. they would gather in the interiors of carved mansions when they weren't practicing to play.

Laertus: yeah, i had no idea about the miners' strike storyline or the scab angle or group man showers and stuff. or how unions are impossible. this was back when trailers were good and misleading. very strange film: there's so much coarse language and rancid innuendo, but there's no actual sex shown. but of course the mob violence just outside a family lawn in front of young impressionable kid eyes always seems to squeeze through with a slicked palm. the guy's dressed up in clown cosplay and everyone's taking things too serious. like some mini-Godfather. don't take away the tv! i never saw the priesthood in the same way again. brought back memories.

Dirg: realism. what a shame, the bird in that has legs like pub lawndarts! and an arse that just won't quit....shaking like a tomato can in a swirling Essex laundromat washing machine when she walks down that Skins brick street...like the tail of a peacock, the birdiest of birds! i love how in Britain, women are called "pets".

Laertus: i don't like coffee either...that had to have been Ben Kenobi's very first film. it was marketed in some States as simply a romcom between the lass and the jedi.

Dirg: makes sense. nobody in, say, India would care about getting down 'n dirty in dirt painted on the sky of a dreary England grey day, too busy making glamorous Bollywood choreography in many colors. hard-earned wages democratically-won and animal baths in bathtubs are for boreds. wanna join me for coffee? the next café's indoors just blocks from here. coffee is the only thing you can drink in college.

Laertus: sure. Frappuccino isn't technically coffee, it's flavored filtered marsh-water made in a lab in Florida.

the two walk past infront of Mark Zuckerberg's overhead-projection on screen, creating two large looming nerd shadows, masking the numbers.

Mark: ...and that's why i deleted facebook. i mean my facebook. SECURITY!!! get these fuckers off the stage! ban those bozos for life!...as i was sayin', jus, justice, yeah, i mean the thing is, it's impossible to control. for the next half-election and full election and half-erection and beyond and the foreseeable future and unforeseen consequences. we've merely created a platform that is impossible to corral. it's quite impossible to do.

The Queen of England: right? exactly! same with us!

Mark: your facebook-numbers problem and Russian problem?

The Queen: no, our country!

on a Viking Crusie ship somewhere out in the sea where many tragedies go missing, Doryce is kvetching again.

Doryce: i thought i'd met a real Viking. oh well, it's slower but planes are too unreliable these days.

Gladyce: blessings forever. how can a final report say that there is no explanation? then it isn't a final report is it? Mother will care for them for eternity. less and less peope are believing in magic these days, magic doesn't have the nascent hold it had in folk of past ages who lived mostly in forests.

Doryce: forest folk, my kind of fuckers. walnut-eaters. who communicate by whispering in woods. i would like to learn to fly, dear.

Gladyce: deary do not avert your gaze to the honking birds presently flying our pointy heads overhead. they are precious animals, more precious than ye or me or we, they deserve to live more, that's what i'm learning the more i live. i will protect those ostriches with my life, they shall not know fear or hurt under my tenure. i was born to be a protector. when you are cold i will wrap you in my cold crone arms and you will know the magic of a witch's warmth. on a broom is safest, protected by magic. avoid small and medium-sized airports. how soon people forget.

Gladyce rolls out a faded daguerreotype from her bosom peak and unspools it. it's of her as a young woman beside a green hill smiling into the light for the first time.

Doryce: wow, you were quite the babe back then! i'll save this as a memento when you're...

Gladyce: let's talk not of dreadful things, lover, let's enjoy the moment of ourselves right now. that is such a long way off.

they embrace. Doryce licks the photograph.

Doryce: i'm sorry, my love, i'm just scared. of everything and everyone in this world. i cover it with sarcasm and soot.

Gladyce: used the silver and salt in that mine to process this photo. one of the first ever made.

Doryce: you should have quickly taken off your pants and shown your butt. it would have been the first feminist statement in a photograph. of course the press would paint it as the first porn.

Gladyce: the same salt and silver in those pepper shakers on your tray just there.

Doryce: *deshading her sunglasses* hey, can a bitch get some wine up in this bitch with the broth! there's only so much fizzy Cawston elderberry soda a girl can drink without dissolving the lining of her birth canal!

at Melbourne's sprawling estate, a plantation hides the first non-bark brown seen in Obec Woods in some time, a tuft of lawn grass held up by two Roman ivory pillars and a pink two-storey house spraypainted all the colors with cucumber-shaped balloons. Melbourne is entertaining guests quietly on his outside Southern patio without a porch like he usually does on mellow Wednesday afternoons, in wire chairs and a big white circle with holes to breathe, on a circle of recently-mowed plants by hard workers recently browned by the sun, muscles developed, to the music of the mower, set to the natural rhythms of the forest, everything in its sundial place, the stone sundial by the human naked chessboard. the gardeners with denim shirts off and gray pants pulled above their heads as bandana headbands. everyone sipping the latest pleasant spirit in long glass glasses. discussing the day's events cos there's nothing really else to talk about.

Melbourne is an unassuming fellow, he with the tropical shirt always open and unbuttoned, always revealing at least one nipple on his hairless chest, a face of skinny circle, sunken and always with that crewcut like he's always ready to go to war, with dark eyes like Nero's but kind eyes. more an expression of placidity than smile on his lips. gray shorts which always are rolled up to his ankles, his two hairs on his ankles cropping out of purple socks and purple Docs shoes. eyecolor like the river...

Melbourne: the battlefield of love. please, ladies and gentlemen, change behind my crystal corsair. i want everyone to feel relaxed, comfortable, and free to express any opinion they want.

Ashley Parker: from the online paper. why do you call your plantation Strong Mentality? does this have something to do with Fuerza?

Melbourne: S&M. just kidding. *chuckling blithely* please, don't call it a plantation. estate? okay i'll go with estate.

everyone chuckles blithely.

Melbourne: Tara Strong, my favorite voice actress. plantation mentality, i'm subsuming that term before it gets out and gets twisted by the enemy of the people who seek love. want more love, less hate. we brothers have to stick together. in real harmony. there is only one answer to our chains: love.

Jonathan Lemire: can i? now?

Ashley Parker: okay, NOW you're cool.

Jonathan Lemire: you are amazing, Ashley. even with your sunken eyes you look hot. have you been on vacation?

Ashley: a reporter never goes on vacation. because the vacation is the story.

Melbourne: i'm technically on a break. between paths. but i helped out with the lawncare and yardwork and mowing this afternoon. cos i love those guys so much. i did the hard yards with them and got them to smile. i did more than open the gate. i gave them each a hug and they ended with giving me a group pat on the back. Serena, hello! are you disappointed?

Serena Williams: Meghan Markle and i are no longer friends, she says it's gonna take her full focus to reconcile with her father, she has no more time. she was bitter cos she said she gave me a show and i didn't really return the favor. and i kept some of the wedding party favors. kinda ruined the mood, spoiled the party atmosphere, poured water on the storybook ending, coronation fever was still sparking the air. but i got my kid and i'm alive, so i always win. don't take that drubbing with too much salt and silver. my kid is with Meghan now, she really wanted to play with her as she decides if she has cold feet with this whole thing.

President Bump: *to Serena* who are you?

Melbourne: sir! where did you come from?

Bump: coming from buying the groceries.

Melbourne flashes the red dotted flowing see-through light of a grocery-store price-scanner.

Bump: *coiling* whoa whoa whoa! yous be careful with that! what is that?

Melbourne: keep it, sir. hand it to your men, i use it to chase away the rodents that get in my garden.

Cliff Drysdale tries to crash the party, he hops over the fence but Melbourne is there at the estate gate to let him in. Cliff is surprised as he was willing to show his forged ATP card to one of the gardeners, but instead cuts the card in half with a lying-around garden tool of pincing pliers. Cliff is now ashamed. he shows his glove and touches Melbourne's cheek with his gloved hand, Melbourne takes off the glove and kisses Cliff's palm. Cliff cries away.

Melbourne: no need for an escort, Cliff knows he was wrong. i love Cliff as a brother, he is my brother, i kiss him on both cheeks. but he can't keep pretending to be Kevin Anderson, it's not fair to Kevin. one day there will be a 5th-set tiebreaker at all the Slams and Cliff and i will look back on this incident and laugh.

Bump: i hate marathons, too boring, not good for ratings. i currently have no place to go. the bathroom pipes at The Open were atrocious. i was practicing with my best friend Kim for the tournament.

Melbourne: Carnoustie looks like my lawn in summer. i love seeing my lawn brown during summer.

Bump: so Kim shoots a hole-in-one and that's that, i need to go back to Q school, yous know? and then a balloonist with a hose of water hits me in my head hair like some Civil Rights hydrant cannon. what was all that about?

Melbourne: hoses save lives. they're from the Garden.

Bump: that Manafort trial, amirite? i mean why doesn't he plead? Paul told me he can make more money on the inside than he can in Ukraine. the world we live in. he won't flip, right? not after all this time. i sent him my KFC pancakes to his jail cell this morning, hey i went without breakfast this morning that was a sacrifice. as a little sign. he can use the file as a knife.

Melbourne: *hands behind his head on the chair tilting on one leg* i've been known to flip the best of 'em. and men. but i can't seem to flip this house, no one wants all the work. and lawdy this manse needs a good flipping.

Bosanquet sips her horseradish vodka.

Bump: good, right, honey? i'm proud of you. it tastes good. real horseradish. straight from Butina's bosom herself. yeah, that's what she used to get answers. made from real horses, well Vlad's was, mine was sipped through a McDonald's straw this morning. definitely made up for not having a real breakfast today.

Melbourne: anyone for a liquid lunch? *stroking his hairless chin* Butina, Butina...i knew a Butina when i worked in the field, she had three nipples...on one breast. she got all the bad boys i remembered. very exotic.

James Gunn: why would anyone have a Twitter? no seriously. and if you're gonna twitter, why keep around five-year-old ancient tweets? they serve no purpose other than to remind you you can never escape your past no matter what kind of a good person you are now.

Bump: yes, with yous, patna, can you delete only part of your twitter? like just keep this year's tweets, that's it? get rid of the rest?

President of Finland: everyone's leaving. all our Viking Cruise ships are being moored. in other Scandinavia. or set on fire. nobody wants to come anymore. we had the reputation of SOLVING crises between countries, not STARTING them with a soceer ball. the doves were all ready in their cages to be let out to fly in the frigid sky. temps were tamped. we are the SUMMIT, the highest point of human experience! now we will go back to being what we've always long suspected: we're nothing more than a giant iceberg. we were once quoted in the media as being the most depressed people on the planet. but we had challenged the curve and were looking up, people were getting happier and more educated, and we became the happiest, friendliest Finns in the most-recent poll and The Simpsons. but it looks like we're going back downhill.

Taki is on the phone again. this time to her boss.

Taki: yes, boss, got it, i understand your instructions. the assignment is good as dead. i mean done. possible illegal you say? hiding out here in Obec? sounds like a real sicko serial killer. yeah i saw the clippings online, after i clipped them out myself from my own newspaper article. a supposed collector of ancient Grecian and Roman statues of goddesses? ivory with their arms chopped off. huh, the drones work this time. collector, huh? nice racket if you can make the least racket. hidden in plain site. the black market will be the least of this dude's worries, he has to contend with his black soul. prolly gets all juicy excited amd soy-fed inspired by those demented monuments, testaments to his testes, he likes 'em motionless. i'll nab him with the sheer power of my presence. i ain't paranoid, i have a pussy! yes, i only take orders from you cos you're a ladyboss. i think. you have a very deep voice. chain-smoker? this is my scoop, sergeant, save tomorrow morning's broadsheet for me! but first, allow me to endeavor and entertain you with my morning routine. witness me exercising my spirit. you won't see me reveal my secret, i run on pure instinct.

after her peach and rolling around in her fur, she slips off her cotton robe and splashes into the Long Hope River which perfectly crosses her path and her green getaway's path. the house's wood is bathed by the running stream, the stones in the center of the river add silver and salt. Taki is so giddy with bubbling potential energy and dreamy this morning she forgot to dream the night before. she closes her eyes letting the current carry her wherever today. she can feel each drop on the back of her spine. she is lost in a daydream of discovery, a dam of defense, a jurypool of justice.

some time passes in the oasis. how much is a tree. her body feels that it's taking a path heretofore unknown to its back, forked left when she thought it could only fork right. but she is oblivious. her consciousness lost to another world

her naked body its own open raft. quickly descending an incline and into the foamy mouth of a slippery and quite-high waterfall that empties out literally on a fast ground landing of spray in the middle of Melbourne's garden.

Taki's body gets embarrassed before her mind does. though she is red-as-a-heart-attack on her face--- Japanese folk don't usually get THIS red---only in manga---her reporter's mind quickly rattles through her lists, her possible headlines, her Helvetica, picking the winner of the wordsalad raffle in her head:

Taki: hiding in plain site/plain plantation/plantation plan...........................how rude! how rageful and full of spite your waterfall is, no way this waters your garden, it's too hard. it spits like you do to their female faces!

Melbourne smiles.

notes:

* one day this will all seem normal again...

* representation, more valuable than green money. cash that is, not a check. tho we need checks. greenbacks. poker chips.

* still the best logo in sports. a year old and already an Arthurian legend.

* lady A: wait for it...
lady B: mom?
lady A: if you want. you can be anyone in Vegas.
lady B: who's Lady A and who's Lady B?
lady A: doesn't matter. tho i've been called an asshole more than i've been called a bitch.

* lady B: thank you, i haven't showered since my parents disowned me.

* lady B: let's get married.
lady A: yeah right, on what planet?
lady B: we're currently on an alternate Earth. you read about this sort of thing in sci-fi paperbacks.
lady A: i wish they hadn't burned all the paperbacks. that was as sci-fi as it gets.
lady B: why do you wear that ring on your finger? is there something you're not telling me?
lady A: it's on my middle finger.
lady B: i've always wanted to ask, what does that signify?
lady A: down-to-fuck i think. i dunno, i don't go online. not even for tickets.

* Phoenix: lady A: Thelma, lady B: Louise. easier. i think, i think their personalities match. carry on.

* Thelma: we knew we'd get married when we met, it was love at first sight.
Louise: i thought you were my sister. we kinda look alike. agreed, we met here in Vegas, but this was five minutes ago, but if you want to get married, fine.
Thelma: *flashback* i didn't plan on anything to say to you.
Louise: well whatever, you just said it. that was your opening line whether you liked it or not.

* Louise: this is supposed to be a commercial, right?
Thelma: yes, about love is love.
Louise: why is everything hazy? why are all the pretty colors whizzing by my head? why can't i ride that blinking golden-lights horse in the sky?

* Thelma: what do you mean your parents aren't proud of you?
Louise: well i kinda converted all of their life savings to poker chips and gambled them away here at Vegas. this isn't my first rodeo. here at Vegas. i keep this gold poker chip around my neck as a reminder. the cops know it's me and keep me from the poker tables.
Thelma: you're beautiful. you're successful. you're charming and funny.
Louise: being beautiful is all that matters.

* Thelma: my shirt is a stack of plastic champagne glasses, drink up.
Louise: my parents would never forgive me.
Thelma: because they weren't invited? or the gay thing?
Louise: my mom and dad are both priests so it's hard for them to forgive.

* Louise: they don't see the world the way we do.
Thelma: what's this?
Louise: a rainbow-colored scarf against the backdrop of the Grand Canyon...replica.
Thelma: where did my peacock go?
Louise: i know, i don't have to ask. my parents are blind monks.

* Thelma: WHOA! VEGAS IS DISNEYLAND!!!
Louise: you are such a kid, that's why i love you. never change.
Thelma: only if you promise we never leave Vegas. hopefully i won't do something bad.

* Louise: Vegas is the only place where you can still play the petite bowling with the long candlesticks.
Thelma: grab one of those candlesticks for our moonlit spaghetti supper later tonight.

* Louise: Shark Week roleplay, intriguing.
Thelma: which one's the shark and which one's the chum?
Louise: i'm allergic to water. this is how much i love you.

* Thelma: we're gonna be together forever.
Louise: we just met.
Thelma: trust me. it's magic. i know these things. i'm a Romanian fortuneteller.
Louise: oh yeah, i just noticed your accent just now. i'm a gypsy, too, but more of the Stevie Nicks variety.
Thelma: i predicted the rise of Dracula.

* Thelma: look, it's a wedding! a wedding in Vegas, that never happens, it's fate!
Louise: no, dear Thelma, that's a candlestick bowling alley!

* Thelma: let's just peek.
Louise: as long as we don't peak. i have the doomy feeling this is the high point of our relationship. but i am blinded by all these pretty golden lights making my brain not work as it should so let's go in.

* Thelma: SURPRISE!!!
Louise: *verklempt and overcome with emotion* who are all these people?
Thelma: i bought all these friends and family for us. that kind nicely mom from the South who is my mother who is the stand-in mom for any same-sex couples who want to marry but are afraid of attending their own wedding alone is unfortunately out of town. she usually lives here at Vegas. so i guess we'll just have to use your parents.

* Thelma: here, use my phone.
Louise: this is my phone.

* Louise: where did you get the money for all this?
Thelma: stole it from you. long con. i still love you, babe---the love is real---but a girl's gotta get paid. yeah i don't really have a job, i'm a professional card-counter or something. here at Vegas.
Louise: i love the big hanging yellow balls, i never went to prom, scared my prom date off. the theme was Under the Sea But Aboveground like this wedding is. he later jumped in a lake.
Thelma: yeah, i always wanted a house that finally had stairs, never lived in a two-storey home, but you can't always get what you want. especially in the desert where the second stories tend to blow off by haboobs. okay, let's go.
Louise: go!? where!? why go back to our old lives? we must stay in Vegas forever, the outside world is dead and dreary, this is the only place that makes sense to me, this fantasyland of lights and lambs.
Thelma: we can't stay, i'm on the lam now.
Louise: what if we switch identities? that would solve both our problems.

* i once in Vegas started dancing to the beat in my head. i had drawn the curtains to my luxurious suite which i was staying in on someone else's dime, friend of the wedding, and i got the curtain caught in my faded-jeans zipper. not only did my curtain come down exposing me for all of Vegas to see, all of the curtains in every room in the hotel all came down in one fell swoop of a sweep. needless to say i was wearing my shame that night in more ways than one.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. why did they bury Andy Murray to the graveyard shift? it's not cool to play tennis at 2AM, believe me i've done it. it seems like it would be cool but it only ends up being eerie. every bounce of the tennis ball magnifies and is heard by all the snarling hounds who howl nextdoor at the graveyard. nobody should be doing ANYTHING at 2AM except sleeping, and maybe watching anime. especially in Washington, D.C.!

1. is falling in love effortless? yes. i fall in love with literally every person who crosses my path. i love my enemies more than my friends. Jesus likes this but my friends don't. one time i had a heart-to-heart with Jesus but Jesus showed me His heart and there was nothing more to say really after that. look! there goes the neighborhood black cat again! hey, the black cat is running away from me! (cats are people, too, they're familiars for witches.)

2. is your significant other more like your mom or dad? i had peerless parents so i hate to compare them and judge my lover against their paragon of virtue. and society's rules. suffice to say all my lovers were lovely and there's enough love to go around. she was a healer like my dad and a paladin like my mom, she left the seat up on the toilet like my mom and always had a deathly case of the munchies like my dad. all three musicans in their own right. although one played at the Philharmonic and one was poorly in a hospital bed. when it came time for the operation, he was cut open bless and a large solid black rectangular FruitBar of slag was pulled out of me pappy's body and soul. it was that ominous silent black floating thingie from 2001 and we all locked shoulders and stared at it cos that thing represents, symbolizes the end of all comparison.

3. which parent do you identify with most? from my dad i take my love of books. from my mom i take kindness and rectitude in the face of unholy hardship. from my third and fourth parents i take a love of obscure cinema. like, say, The Flight of Dragons. i used to say to my folks when i was a wistful wanting kid that i had another set of parents. i only mentioned they lived somewhere out in the country. now, through 23 And Me, i've discovered they were real and they did live out in the countryside in a cottage. their names were Milisande and John Ritter. i always took to Three's Company from the start but i never fully grasped why. now i know, now i appreciate, i had a subconscious leaning to the voice of John Ritter.

4. what one thing are you lacking that you believe will make your life run smoother? books. i need more books. not self-help books, no, god no, real books, fiction books, books which will teach me to love again. love magic again. i had fallen in love with the pizza and forgotten about the magic. ('80s Shakey's's were dens of opium and Dungeons&Dragons. we had to move many times, it was a lonely life. when they kicked us out of Round Table we were scared but we were together. we eventually set up our own men's beauty parlor so we could talk in peace.) this is me whenever they allow me to get a new book in here:

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

5. which is sexier, constantly pushing the boundaries or playing by the rules? playing by the rules. you see Tom Cruise out there? he got hurt slipping on a stunt he insisted he had to do himself and almost shut down production permanently. yeah, it's all fun and games, it's all biting your fingernails and clutching your seat's armrest until someone gets hurt and that armrest rips off and flies into the screen and makes a hole in the screen. that would have meant the loss and cost of many jobs, many livelihoods. please, everyone in the industry, i beg you, don't romanticize poverty, please take care of yourself and your friends. R.I.P. C. Martin Croker.

bonus: do you think confessions make a relationship stronger? only if you're in a relationship with a priest......wait that came out wrong...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

Melbourne: NEWS FLASH!!!

Taki: what?

Melbourne: thought of the headline before you did i win.

Taki is dripping, once from the wet all over her body, twice from the trickles of treacly blood on her butt. but she feels no pain. she marches like a hellion up to the gathering party like a locomotive. steam coming from her eyes, not seeing another soul but her quarry. ready to let him have it with the boniest of wagging fingers. naked as a jaybird with hair all crunched from her inner heat.

Melbourne: i love the way your bottom sways with the force of nature, like you are a goddess of the wind felled from above my modest courtyard.

Taki can't help but take a moment for herself after that. self-care is of the utmost these days. she squeezes her butt for the first time in her life NOT to check how sexy and spongey it is.

Taki: OWWWWWWWWWWW my pretty ass is pretty red. got any Vicks Vapors Rub? this is the South after all, killer.

Melbourne: right this way, madam, don't mind these other people, they're guests of mine and flies on the wall. here, into the glass gallery. you are very special to me, i only let the very specialist of ladies enter my gallery, the ones who have entered my heart. this is inside we're talking now, where my secrets tell stories. i haven't pulled out a chair here in a very long time, i usually meet my clients at their place.

Taki: your lines won't work on me, sport-hunter, i am immune to anything but criticism, i'm a gossip-columnist for fuck sake. i'm watching you, you were gonna pull the chair out from under me weren't you! and me with a bum booty, that is doubly cruel! but typical of you.

Melbourne: i am LOVING this conversation! my clients don't engage in Philosophy of Art and Eckankar and the Gnostic Mass no more before, too in a rush. don't they know that when it ends it ends? why prolong the torture? why not relish this precious time we have together. it will end far too quickly and soon you'll be left with nothing, wondering. and of course any talk afterwards is price of wire transfer. o this pitiful wired age we live in, where everything is faster than your conscience can process, where a relationship is internet comments, where hate is all the rage. where is the love?

Taki takes out her small cute mini green notebook reporter's pad of real paper, real wire up top, and her electronic pencil.

Taki: speaking of fashion, i once interviewed Downtown Julie Brown...........................remember her?

Melbourne: MTV, right? when they still played videos? and The Real World mattered? at least we fogies still have VH1 tro grasp onto.

Taki: speak for yourself. i'm old but i ain't no fogey! my head is without fog, unless i'm dreaming. you have already lost. you have been cast into the net of my web and not known it, you're trapped and you like being trapped. you are knee-deep in an interview conducted by me, yours truly, the Queen of Mean.

Melbourne: well it's a good thing i wore my trousers this morning, the ones that are rolled up to my ankles. they should be rolled up to my knees but i'm embarrassed of my bald legs. and i've had to have knee surgery for all the times i've had to suck dick.

Taki: you? the perfect licking Casanova with a flower up your dick, ashamed? for shame!

Melbourne walks out and returns with a row of ice cubes on a long slender glass candydish shaped like a noticeable banana.

Melbourne: here, for your assburn.

Taki: thank you kindly. these would of course all be melted by now if they came form MY glass candydish in the Hotbox. where currently i cage a bagsful of Werther's Original candy-apple-filling. i so love that Werther's golden bag, i place it up to my chin and rub to get the golden fleece dust on my cheeks, keeps them ruddy and rosey. i never throw out that bag, i pin it to my visionboard.

Taki sneezes.

Melbourne: ah, your reporter's nose is itching! you sense you've seen this odd shape of my candydish before. how old are you? Peyronie's Disease perhaps? do you have to call the P.D. P.D.? the Peyronie's Disease Police Department?

Taki: at my place i have a glass candydish from a real-life bust of Marilyn Monroe's bust. her exact tit in measurements. you'd know about that.

Melbourne: it's a perfect replica of Rock Hudson's cock. what a pair we make.

Taki: don't flatter yourself.

Melbourne: if i don't no one will.

Taki: you're starting to make me think you actually hate your job.

Melbourne: oh no, quite the opposite. i love my clients. it's just that they are so needy i need to subsume myself entirely into their problems or the job doesn't get done. i can't think thought one about myself or the equilibrium is burst. they are going through fragile times and need a professional glasspane-sealer who tiptoes around balance.

Taki: at this very moment my candydish is being gobbled up by my son Takahashi who, sigh, lives at home and probably sleeps there when i'm at work, too ashamed is he to admit to me he has nowhere to go. he calls from a payphone pretending it's his place or dorm frat ghost hostel or something, i can smell the bad line. he goes to college.

Melbourne: say no more. it's hard. it's all hard. i was beginning to think you were suffering from Jennifer Aniston disease. i have a sixth sense when it comes to sussing out clients' hidden afflictions.

Taki: i have no patience, why i've never been a patient. Jennifer Aniston disease?

Melbourne: not having yet had kids and doing your darndest to the press to try to justify it when you're secretly crying inside. some people were not meant to have kids she says while leaking motherhood from her cheeks and sweet mouth and hair. some people were destined for another path she says while the spirit in her stalk dries up. haven't found the right man, sista, i can tell you stories! you can't justify your love if there's none there. i know that pain......which apparently you don't.

Taki: i was like her for many years, career-woman and all that, i was free to fly as a snowbird, but got unbound and untethered and soon didn't know what the ground looked like anymore. i was flying upside-down and no one was there to tell me. but now i got myself an anchor around my ankle. which i love very much.

Melbourne: yeah so just insert those ice cubes into your anus like so. let me help you. i'm here to help. i'm a master practitioner. of oracles. no charge. i do it for the loves.

Taki: you sound like my sister. i can do it, thanks. you need a mistress practitioner. buddy you betta charge, who's gonna pay your legal bills when your lawyer's in jail? whose red shirt is that? okay enough dawdling around, where are they?

Melbourne: what?

Taki: it's who? the bodies.

at the Old Spaghetti Factory in St. Louis, Doryce and Gladyce are sitting down for a once-in-a-lifetime meal. the woven napkins on their laps are bigger than either woman.

Gladyce: wow. so there wasn't a closer Old Spaghetti Factory to us than St. Louis!?

Doryce: nope. i checked my social media.

Gladyce: yeah it's just normally i wouldn't complain but we had to hoof it. we had to walk all the way over here cos my broom's in the shop. i don't know if you've noticed but we're old women. we have old women legs.

Doryce: nope, hadn't noticed.

Gladyce: where's your broom?

Doryce: broom? it's clean enough in here for reddit i suppose. this better be some damn good spaghetti. like i'm talking MONDO TRADITIONAL. that garlic bread better be so fresh the garlic makes me sneeze. that cheese better be direct from a Wiccan granary. i better taste the Old Country in that wine, Italy in the endive, and Transylvania in the tart! that meatball better be the size of the moon!

Gladyce: i think i've discovered a new thing on our travels, dear. food tourism! like this is actual food tourism, not what Guy Fieri does. y'know as i age i'm noticing i'm not so much into the theme parks anymore, i'm into food. i look and yearn for good food, that's what gets me excited, my next meal, i need it to be a good one. i don't want to be taken for a ride anymore. so a good vacation to me is one where we plan to visit St. Louis EXPRESSLY to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory. like that's it, not to see any of the sights, the airplanes or whatever, who cares? we've seen enough of Red Baron red planes hung up on strings like a stuck pig, we want the Snoopy. like that's what satisfies me now, the inside room-tone of a musty ancient family restaurant i've never been to before. not the Matterhorn. i'm not horny, i want FOOD!

Gladyce pounds her hands on the table, her hands holding a knife and fork, a soup spoon inbetween her crone fingers.

Doryce: you're so cute. you fucked one of the Wright brothers but are too shy to admit it. the taller one. during the pillow talk you gave him the recipe for flight. hell, he probably saw you flying on your broom and that gave him the inspiration!

Gladyce: those were the good old days, my love.

Doryce: yeah i'm just like you. except i've discovered something new on our travels: recreational drug tourism! *she takes a sip of water from the glass in front of her*

Gladyce: i'm taking any red-pepper packets i find on the floor, packets with the Old Spaghetti Factory logo on them are sure to fetch a hefty price on ebay. i need to feed my habit. they'll be collector's items soon enough. it's strange, i could have sworn there was an Old Spaghetti Factory right where we live on Fisherman's Wharf. but no, it's another spaghetti factory. wait, let me see that water. *sniffs* this smells fishy. and familiar. witch's familiar. i know that smell anywhere, this is water from Fisherman's Wharf!

at Exodus College, the new roommates are feeling each other out:

Laertus: sorry about the mess. you caused the mess. help me with my setup. just plug in the cable, even you can't screw that in.

Dirg: this is a pretty swank pad. how did you afford it?

Laertus: unlike you, i save all my money.

Dirg: by never having fun. do you think people will get the wrong idea about us?

Laertus: don't worry, Bert, you're never around for people to notice you live with me. what exactly do you do? well, since there's nothing to do around an empty cottage cept sit our tender butts on these hard hardwood floors while we wait for the couch and the carpet, what say you and I pass the time watching animated shows for two hours?

Dirg: where's your furniture?

Laertus: i never won any trophies to put in furniture...while we wait for the pizza to arrive, your clams-casino pizza...

Dirg: practice for later tonight. when i'm on a date. the other half of the pizza is anchovies for you. i heard that happens afterwards on a date...

Laertus: MTV Spider-Man, remember this show? i watched the much-ballyhooed first episode...but then the 2000s took over and well, the 2000s were a lost decade for me. your impressions?

Dirg: I DO remember it. it was cool, but i remember it differently. for some reason i thought it was cel-shaded, not CGI. and i thought it was darker. like it was drawn on black paper the way BTAS was. in fact it was Spider-Man's answer to BTAS.

Laertus: it's still the last intelligent program broadcast by MTV. still now. ever since.

Dirg: that had to have been Lisa Loeb's one and only venture into voice-acting. she was surprisingly good. methinks she's a better actress than singer, ugh i hated all that fluffy shit, she's better as a goth. a goth with glasses. i'm sure you loved the good doc's performance.

Laertus spreads across his hard hardwood floor as if there's a bear-skin rug underneath.

Laertus: you like the ambient lighting? it's coming from the show.

Dirg: ended on a cliffhanger.

Laertus: shh, don't tell me---*he covers Dirg's mouth*---*Dirg spits in Laertus's palm*---i still haven't watched to the end. like The Last Jedi. people are on their redditstorms about how Star Wars isn't supposed to be funny like that. Star Wars has always been silly, it always knew itself, itnever took itself seriously, the fans did. and Rey's performance is extraordinary. take the scene where she sees Kylo Ren's buff naked bod and asks him to put on a cloak or something. hilarious! what a dagger! *Laertus laughs and snorts strangely*

Dirg: i bet you loved that scene.

Laertus: yeah but then Rey has to do a hard turn and immediately start tearing up over how Kylo killed his loving parents for no reason. from an offhanded bit of levity and taboo sexual attraction straight into tears of pain. that takes acting and she pulled it off. well on you, Rey!

Dirg: *fake clap* well done well done. what was all that clapping?

Laertus: you only like her cos she's hot. yeah the snapping of the fingers in the funhouse mirrors. reminded me of those old beatnik bars i frequented in Paris, dives of the dispossessed. well like i said Rey did have to turn emotion on a snap. i've only seen a part of the film, i had to study.

Dirg erupts in a spastic fit of laughter and rolls around on the floor. the hard hardwood floors. he beats his fists down on the floor with each fist and roll and guppy-kick and Twister spin.

Dirg: study? study! STUDY he says! ahhhahahahahahahahahaha.....................OWWWWWW that would have been more enjoyable if not on your hard hardwood floors.

on the tv after the web warrior comes on a Sesame Street with Cookie Monster refusing to eat the letter Q cos it looks funny, it doesn't quite look like one of his cookies.

President Bump at the plantation is mulling over Mueller who is sitting right beside him on wire chairs.

Mueller: i'm almost done.

Bump: please, take your time, i don't want this to end. i'm scared, Bob. i thought i'd cringe it but i actually like this power. what am i gonna do when it all ends and no one cares about my tweets anymore? how can i make them even more outlandish to grab headlines? i'm telling you, i'm telling you right now, i'm gonna win reElection. and in the most annoying fashion, too. like, by 420 popular votes. there's no way i lose, i'm too entrenched in the system by now. Oprah will come close but just fail as she always does. the second Election Day will come and all those CNN reporters at their desks will have the glummest looks on their smug faces as they realize they got 8 years of me to go! in fact, the only way you'll ever get rid of me is if your Deep State investigation is successful!

Mueller: there is no Deep State.

Bump: i know but it would make my job a helluva lot easier if there were. i mean things are getting fishy around here, wouldn't you say? it seems that there really is a Deep State. i mean look at Collins. just cos the guy speaks Australian? i can easily make the case to the gnostic masses. i was watching the tv the other day and saw this, from that boring paper case:

Mueller: Mr. Gates, who was your illicit extramarital lover in London?
Gates: *crying* okay, i confess! it was Manafort!!! i love you, Paul! i've always loved you! we gave each other cute pet names as we exchanged cash, we were free to be gay lovers over there. only in lax Europe, never in America's LAX. i called him Paul the Poof. you should hear his laugh.
Manafort: *crying* i love you too, Gatesy! i never stopped loving you! you're my guy! you're my Gay Guy!

Bump: i'm starting to see the letter Q everywhere, everywhere i look. i had to bandage my thumbs from all my activity and used 3M tape, except it was 3Q tape. look! your swimming pool out there on your front plantation lawn, Mel, it's shaped in the letter of Q!

Melbourne: no swimming pool, that's just the excess water from the waterfall draining out in squiggly lines.

Bump: Q Score! OH MY CODRUS! so THAT's what that score really is for! for the Deep State to track your every move! and my every mood. i went to buy some vodka at my favorite mart. it was a Q mart!

Bosanquet: yeah, for Quickie Mart. excuse me, i'm a lensed licensed therapist and must be leaving here, or i'll get too hooked on your mind. make sure to use Q Tips everyday to get the rust out in the mornings.

Bump: i love quickies. no muss---of my golden hair, no fuss, just twitter.

a car in the middle of the front lawn is on fire. Q is smoking a lit cigarette by it.

Q: i had nowhere to go. i was living in my car. and i started a car fire, the Carr Fire.

Bump: what are yous doing? put out all the wildfires!

Q: i'm tryna help you out here. you have a plan? more water? destroy a nearby lake? a little help from above? maybe call on the Space Force?

Bump: all i know is you have to use a hose.

Don Lemon hands the President a glass glass.

Don Lemon: want my lemonade?

Bump: come on, man, that's disgusting! i like Ike. Perlmutter.

Melbourne: bodies? my ivory busts? of famous and infamous GrecoRoman gods? *hands up* WHOA WHOA WHOA i haven't even given you the tour yet and you're askin' bout rooms. this is moving too fast, i know you. for a day. the secrets will spill out soon enough. meanwhile take a look at all the black exercise bars i installed with my own personal bolts to the walls of my glass gallery. the bars are shaped like buttox.

it's at this point Bosanquet steps into the outdoor foyer inside. she wears an earring from which hangs a long silver metal chain that connects on the other side to her eyeglasses. which she has on.

Taki: very nice. now SHE reminds me of my sister!

Melbourne: this is my sports psychologist. would you care to join us for a day of air-racing tomorrow?

Taki: devil's threesome or angel's threesome? don't answer that, with me the devil is always involved. okay, i see what's going on here. i can play the game, i can wait. i know about the long con, too, i work for a newspaper for fuck sake, how do you think i get my sources?! i've taken all the men of our time in my time. why are you called Melbourne when you clearly have a South African accent?

Melbourne: oh starting with the easy ones. it's to filter out all the American ignoramuses who can't tell the difference. Americans are so easy to trick. i can charge more depending on how exotic they think i am. and it's good for spygames if i get in trouble.

Taki: moi?

Melbourne: perish the thought! i'm not implying YOU are an ignoramus, but you are clearly American.

Taki: why don't you cut your hair? that Dutchboy cut looks ridiculous on you.

Melbourne: aw, but i grew it out just for you! *darting his eyes* i will, but i haven't met the right woman.

Taki: what are you?

Melbourne: a man trying to hang on......to all the banisters i slide down every morning. i am a male escort.

notes:

* whenever you're alone, especially alone in a big new strange city, you have to keep repeating to yourself in your head over and over, "I am not crazy, the WORLD is..."

* woman: that's Lady EleGANCE, with the emphasis on the GANCE. French.

* Lady Elegance: and may i ask who was my pilot today?
van Gogh: it was I. i saw that pyramid to your right in my dreams.

* Lady Elegance: hi, got that email you shot at me, don't point your gun in my general direction again. acting. so do i get the part?
George Lucas: hi, no. there's no audition. i've just come out of the coma of my 30-year depression to find Disney has basically destroyed the Star Wars franchise that took a lifetime to build with one painfully-misguided funny film. i'm depressed again. i signed up to do the next Sharknado thinking easy money and those films keep going but it turns out they shot the last one so excuse me if i'm triggerhappy.

* Party of One: like Party of Five but more fun

* Lady Elegance: no camera NO don't show my ring! shoot! now this story's gon be diff'rent......i wanted it to be something else...

* valet: no one else with you? but you're a beautiful, elegant lady!
Lady Elegance: just me.
valet: loser.
Lady Elegance: hey aren't you Captain Obvious?
valet: obviously.
Lady Elegance: that makes me feel half-better.

* Lady Elegance: i suddenly feel freer than i ever have in my entire life. Las Vegas is paying for this, right? it's their commercial.
Marcus Aurelius: yes, ma'am, this is all a fantasyland, normal working folk could never do this.
Lady Elegance: i want to have that man, THAT man up there.
Marcus Aurelius: that's a statue of me, ma'am, and you're married. didn't you read any of my quotes? i was upstanding, my chest was fibrous with morality, stuck to my ribs like cream of wheat, i went to the bathroom frequently in my laudable toilet, i was society's moral barometer, the HL Mencken of Rome.

* waitress: you're eating at a restaurant alone? and you're not a food critic? that takes balls.
Lady Elegance: don't look at me.
waitress: it's weird that i'm better-dressed than you...but i love that you're traveling alone! it's the only way to not get caught. you have the world all to yourself, soak it all up like a woman's sponge.
Lady Elegance: but this world sucks.
waitress: is it really Friday? IT IS!
Lady Elegance: I KNOW, that's cool! what a coincidence! but i can't let my hair down with my husband and kids.
waitress: oh, so you're not really alone, this commercial could have been much more powerful. but you CAN let your hair down, especially with chemicals nowadays. ditch your family! the cult knows where you live anyway. when was the last time you had a day to yourself?
Lady Elegance: are you trying to get me to marry you? i saw the other Vegas commercial.
waitress: no but i need a getaway car.

* Lady Elegance: hi, rainbow peacock lady, can i borrow those bags?
rainbow peacock lady: under my eyes?

* Lady Elegance: hi, room service?
waitress: hi it's me. ready? i sent you over your crazy bread.
Lady Elegance: and WHAT praytell are you implying by that? i demand respect, i am a guest at CAESARS PALACE!!!
waitress: no, you're at Little Caesars Pizza.

* gondolier: are those clothes waterproof, lady?
Lady Elegance: i don't know. why?
gondolier: nothing.
Lady Elegance: i was promised the Joker from that perfume commercial.

* Lady Elegance: hi, thanks for the fruity drink, hon, you're a babe. but why is this urn next to me? reminds me of my husband and kids.

* Lady Elegance: you know this is the FIRST time i've worn this yellow bikini. i bought it on my wedding night......on that night, my husband ended up in a pool.

* Lady Elegance: what does the pattern of falling water and the blinking lights all mean in the light show?
waitress: lighting up the runway for the UFO craft obviously. i've got the last season of The X-Files on DVD in my hotel room. this was back when government conspiracies were still fun.

* Lady Elegance: hi, i'd like to order some champagne.
waitress: room service. how much, babe? did you get the car yet?
Lady Elegance: enough to fill the bathtub i'm in.
waitress: Nevada has strict water control. no water unless you're a showgirl or hooker or both, the economic backbone of our society.
Marcus Aurelius: if not the moral backbone.
Lady Elegance: remember the French Open?
waitress: no. don't remember Wimbledon, either, that was so long ago.

* Lady Elegance: *tissues* i always cry at old movies depicting highway construction.

* Lady Elegance: thank you for the car. i took an exhilarating car ride in the canyon. alone.
waitress: WHAT! that was the getaway car for the both of us!
Lady Elegance: it was so Thelma & Louise.
waitress: oh. this whole time i thought you were saying Thelema...

* Lady Elegance: i'm on the dance floor! i'm dancing alone! this is so awkward! okay i'm gonna attempt my first twerk, please don't look at me.
Lady Elegance's daughter: that's not how you do it, mom.

* Lady Elegance: hey! that wasn't me it was the wind! you're lucky i was wearing my yellow bikini underneath!

* Lady Elegance: oh? the audition's back on? sorry, i'm auditioning for Star Trek on CBS Digital Stream. that you have to pay for to get.
George Lucas in Princess Leia cosplay: but you're my only hope.

* this is originally how Thelma & Louise ended. but it didn't test well with audiences and focus groups. personally i like this ending better. gives a sense of closure. i mean i have a trillion headcanons about what happened to our heroines afterwards: they got married. they opened up a tiki bar on a Cancun shore. they played beach-volleyball with Hannibal Lecter into their old age: CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. whew. i see you throwing shade at Roger, Djoker, but i can't hate, i'm genuinely glad Novak is back up to snuff and used whatever snuff to screw his mind right to be Nadal-Stopper again. don that cape on court and dance the night away, my healthy friend. numbers are everything, apparently. and it's just not the Rogers Cup without Roger. i remember when BOTH the men and the women played at the same tournament site, when we were all united, One Canada, One Love, One Last Liberal Bastion on Earth sort of thing.

1. you can only keep 3 things from this list, pick and explain your picks:

coffee
jewelry
books
chocolate
wine or beer
Netflix
tacos

without coffee i'd be dead, they'd ironically bury me in coffee grounds/ the only jewelry i like is Jewel/ without books i'd be dead cos i wouldn't be able to read the warning labels on dangerous books/ i think chocolate is one of those things you outgrow later in life, unless you don't have a love life like i don't/ i don't touch a drop of wine or beer cos it's too expensive/ i have no chill for Netflix/

and tacos cos Krillin, the pic up there above......the first pic, very funny come on Krillin's had a hard week what with his own family giving him the business inside that fishtank inflatable house he lives in that Goku visited the inside of for the first time.

2. if your job gave you a surprise 3-day paid break, what would you do with those three days? use those three days to ask for more paid-break, a wish-for-more-wishes sort of thing. that stuff always works in genie movies

3. have you ever tried a threesome? what was the configuration? some people do the Devil's Threesome: two men, one woman. some people do the Angel's Threesome: two women, one man. i prefer the Purgatory Threesome: Dante Alighieri, his platonic spirit guide Beatrice, and i lounge around the cobble stones of the bridge overlooking the plaza courtyard and have a chaste discussion on the implications of the Soul. we don't see the sewers underneath the bridge but rather look out to the city river in front of our eyes, eyes which lay on a flock of ducks getting the hell out of that water as quickly as possible and cutely waddling on the street with the commoners. Dante in his forward-thinker wisdom comments that you shouldn't feed ducks bread. Beatrice in her capacity blurts out that she once saw a gaggle of dicks.

4. in a threesome, do you like to be the star attraction or the bitplayer/personal assistant? this question is so Hollywood. as they say in Hollwood, there are no small parts, only small actors. and small actors with small parts like i have.

5. would you have another threesome? Dante is in Heaven. as for Beatrice, she became a nun. with a gun. it's weird, i started corresponding with Beatrice with long handwritten notes of letter-perfect calligraphy. they would take a year to write and a year to deliver. i'd reminisce about our times, about the raft of ducks, the skein of ducks...she was only interested in the paddling of ducks. Beatrice kept going on and on in her letter about how shiny her new gun was...

bonus: rate your last threesome on a scale of 1-5, 5 being fantastic.The Fantastic Four would have been awesome. but then the director got fired, it was this whole thing and to-do

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

Taki swims back home. the river is unusually warm this evening. she is feeling maudlin but thoughts of her son perk her up. she crosses the wet threshold of vines and gobbles up her three bites of soggy sandwich in her pocket for dinner cos she wants to race to see if Takahashi is home. she attaches her whispering-pink scarf to her neck.

Taki: he'll be where he usually is, on top of his flower bed. trying to escape but a head heavy with homework that he can't help but sleep and expose his dreams for all to see. hey, a girl can dream.

but he is not there, in his usual spot he likes to hide. instead, the fairy garden that the two planted together when he was young sits idle, save for one large hash mark in the soil.

Taki: the Hashi hash. and one E-Skate filled with soil as a makeshift pot i see. his traditional trademark and new trademark. this was his favorite field as a kid. he doesn't visit this part of the house no more, knows he wouldn't be caught dead or sleeping in the Hotbox, this is where i'd make him work.

Taki calls her son. she begins crying, trying to keep it to a low sob under her breath to disguise it as best she can during the phone call. phone calls are always fuzzy things anyways.

Taki: hi, Kettle Petal, just want to pray you i hope you are safe wherever you are.

Takahashi: *breaking up* uh, hi? mom? what's up, in the middle of a heist here.

Taki: keep being successful, son. remember, when you are busy, when you are filled with work, get yourself even more filled with work. work till your night bones come off. always be alwaysing. dream of work. sleep is for the dreamers, dreams are for the workers. i knew you'd turn out a zombie. sweet dreams, sweet, i'm dead-tired, good night.

she lets it all out. the exotic parakeets in the room wake up blearyeyed---you can't tell cos their eyes are tiny tiny circles---look around the room in a bored fashion, put their heads back down and go back to sleep.

she calls her sister out-of-town. out-of-state:

Taki: hi, babe. so have you given any more thought to my proposal?

Madame Pons: of course i have, lovely, and the answer is definitely maybe. i dunno, i'd like to help. i'm kinda inbetween dreams here, sis. at the moment i'm in the moment. i'm saving my savings for a trip to the Old Country. Initiation starts soon. did you see Jill on tv last night? on the Mueller Channel? Mueller Show NBC? so sparkly and grand! the last of the brassy dames. have you noticed she's started wearing different pins on her lady suits now for each television appearance? there was one that was an apple of course, and a Bump one with a sickle for the U.

Taki: oh come off it, man! how long is your witch obsession gonna last?!! is 40 years long enough?......*low hush* oh, what am i saying? of course you'll do it more the more i tell you not to. even a nice sweet person like you.

Madame Pons: i like 50. 50 is a nice round number. this is all i've ever wanted to do. it's this or death! i gotta be free. i gotta be me.

Taki: well ever since you had your midlife crisis in your twenties. think about it some more. i'd love to have you over for a visit. but things will go down smoother if you agree to my demands. easy access pass. you can enjoy the Hotbox at night with the lights off and the windows open letting in the breeze.

Taki: i've got one more call to make before the night is through.

at Exodus College Laertus gets up nervy and can't smooth out his back straight. he is terrified of public speaking but knows this is a special occasion, the only chance he'll ever have to do this, so he gives it his best cos this is important.

he scans the room of languid faces in the dark with the projector screen filling the room with rude glares looking at all the departing characters in their happy faces, even the Lich. he begins to cry. the tears can be seen trickling down his gray cheeks. he begins to sing as best he can.

Laertus: *singing broken up by coughs*...Come away with me...*choke up*...to the butterflies and bees...*stop and stutter*...*back to voice, speaking voice* i'm sorry, i can't go on...*back to singing voice* to the trees...

Professor James Gunn: thank you, young man, you are what this university is all about. a serious student of pop culture. how can we know how art affects you if you don't show it on your face? take off your makeup and your cosplay cloths, class! be naked in your feelings! this is my life's work! i need to know how you really feel! not how you reddit feel! and with that, i bid you a not-so-fond farewell and acidic adieu.

Gunn manufactures a plastic gun from the projector and holds himself up. in this auto-stickup, he carries himself away by the nape of his Freddy Krueger sweater and escorts himself out of the auditorium.

Laertus: i'm good. i can pick you out of a busy crowd already.

Dirg: did you say busty crowd? have you finally finished The Last Jedi? can we have a spoilers-heavy discussion anon?

Laertus: i've decided to recruit to a different Space Force. i'm joining the Royal Space Force Wings of Honneamise! i'll have a window once mid-finals are over. i did catch another 15-minute chunk of it, and it's taking a dangerous turn. i'm getting depressed. are you seeing this? are you seeing the blossoming romance between Rey and Ren? Kylo Ren? like, brother and sister stuff? what is this, Bruce Timm's Star Wars? i mean the whole biracial thing with Rey and Finn was a ship to root for in these times, this was a rebel love! i'd much rather see biracial than incest on screen, you know? that's more positive.

Dirg: way to SJW up true artistic freedom! hey man, you love who you love, you know?

at the Old Spaghetti Factory, the crones are getting ready to leave.

Gladyce: i was excited about the Cowbell Burger. but it was an actual steel cowbell between two buns.

Doryce: when they say rustic they mean it. steel is a dying industry, they gotta sell it somehow. can't put this type of iron in the meat. let's vamoose, the carpets here are freaking me out. restaurants shouldn't have carpeting, too '70s. lemme just put this whole bilberry pie up my skirt and we're outie. besides, i'm meeting my drug dealer out back. on the flip-noon.

Gladyce: oh dear.

the two ballsy ladies are looking for a bawl, not a brawl. Gladyce wants no part of this and is concerned for her partner, Doryce is looking for a happy cry. Doryce pushes the button for the elevator, despite having established that the establishment has stairs. she enters and closes the door. the elevator only goes up one storey. she encounters Dirg. they both keep their hands in their pockets.

Doryce: got the stuff?

Dirg: no.

Doryce: got the Yuban?

Dirg: you are on specify tonight, grandma. no.

Doryce: *flustered* YOU BAN YUBAN!!? i can't sit through Gladyce's stories no more. by the end of this particular cyclical addiction of mine, i'm gonna have a hard dark-black steel-beam slab of petrified and crystalized coffee grounds lining all inches of me stomach like a snake. like a Brassed Off miner conductor.

Dirg: this place is shady.

Doryce: hurry, we haven't much time! yeah, never trust an eatery with no pictures of stars eating there.

*ding*

the two are greeted by an angry mob of grease-lined employee faces in caps with the feathers backward with a spherical pile of dirty dishes in their scrubby arms ready to push in the elevator.

Doryce: nothing......see here? shaggy carpeting in the elevator, just weird.

back downstairs

Laertus: excuse my partner. in friendship! i know nothing! my ailed partner. nice to finally meet in person quietly. i go to Exodus College.

Dirg: *joining dramatically* and i attend Marvel University.

Gladyce: what brings you to the piers, dears?

Laertus: i'm afraid we have nowhere to lay our reading heads. this one got us kicked out of our dorm. it was bad enough when just the pizza was banned from us. Dirg and some dude named Takahashi went to our local nearby pizzeria and handed the owner an envelope of white powder.

Dirg: hilarious. what? it was just baking dough.

Laertus: NOT in these dangerous times where there's a shooting streetfight every night! if you haven't noticed, the war is leaving bullet holes in neighborhood fences.

Dirg: i know that's the point, a little gag brings levity. where's the humor now? what form does it take? is there still room in this world for Punk'd? i remember when i looked up to that tall ashen guy. what we've learned from this glorious Administration is that nothing matters, life doesn't matter.

Laertus: so you get into trouble deliberately to speed your point? what were you doing there?

Dirg: Tak and i were doing research for our graphic novels.

Laertus: uh-huh. you're a bad influence on people, i'm your one and only friend. you need the power of Juju. you were looking at porn, in broad nightlight at the pizza parlor, and worse, you used my screen! you unplugged my screen in the dorm and plopped it down on one of the tables and just started watching porn in public with the volume up.

Dirg: hey those were European anything-goes outdoor-cafe-style pizza tables. here comes the best part.

Laertus: then you "botted" the owner. you called over a swat team who delivered 100 boxes of pizza. to the pizzeria. all filled with anchovies. there are no more fish in the sea cos of you. what was your beef?

Dirg: that's just it, they messed up my clams-casino order. the clams weren't stinky enough to be pizza toppings, they had to smell like a woman freshly satisfied. that's the only way i'm gonna learn, i need real examples.

Laertus: the two bolted out of there, it was harder for Takahashi. did you take the hidden bridge through the brook?

cop in doughnut-colored mustache, calling it in: we got one bozo. and one traveling on one E-Skate......go to the stream...there's only one stream!!!...

Dirg: yep. Tak stubbed his toe when he got tangled in it and fell into the river. he deftly swam away to escapist safety. it's more a footbridge than a bridge.

Laertus: imagine. we take infrastructure for granted. horrible thing that happened in Italy. i'm glad those lesbians survived to tell the BBC. the owner claimed on the report you called him a fatty.

Dirg: no, we were debating outloud what to call it. "botting" or "fatting".

Laertus: so the investigators traced the screen back to my dorm room. i knew i shouldn't have signed up to have my computer screen officially certified and registered at the Apple Store for one more nominal extra charge. the gig was up, now the whole school knows we're roommates! we are two campus cats in need of a cradle. nowhere to rest my weary green head. without staining the pillow. and worse yet, no one will serve us pizza on college grounds anymore! our pictures are taped in each and every parlor in town. that's why we're here. in search of pizza.

Gladyce: you can travel with us, dears. we're always on the move.

Laertus: thank you kindly. make mine the Renee Powell Suite, i hear Carnoustie is nice this time of year after the tournament traffic and construction and icky bestball rules are all done. i will have to disappear on occasion. for class. i want to try to limit the time needed for this pop-culture degree to no more than four years, you know?

the other three chuckle and close their eyes when they smile.

Dirg: what was the big deal? we all watch porn. why hide it? porn can bring humanity together. the disinfectant of carnival stained-glass pizza-light and all that. you do. you watch animal porn! i've seen it!

Laertus: furry porn tyvm. drawings. i love animals. in the comfort of my home. in my apartment there is literally only the screen there. sitting on hardwood floors. there's a metaphor in there somewhere. i can't do like you, it's hard for me to have fun, i can't roll around like you do.

Dirg: *singing* do you trip like i do?......trip like i do......

LeBron: dude what is your deal? what is wrong with you? is this about the pizza party? you still mad i didn't invite you?

President Bump on the phone: hey you guys should be praising me for showing restraint. i wanted to call her a b. b for bashful, she's bashful. coil my tongue around a bumblebee mouth. and die. but she's a real rottweiler for sure. this is why there is no White House dog. dogs can sense the primal fear in me and pounce. yous all gon be sorry when i throw myself a party JUST FOR ME and NONE of y'all are invited! to the ceremony. when i get my Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame...again.

Melbourne: she bashed you good. hey, you got your legal defense fund sorted? all filled up?

white Thai cavediver: funding secured.

Bump: why is only my glass black and the rest are white? what you tryna say bout me?

Melbourne: Diet Coke causes dementia. apparently. water is safer, even in Flint. where there's flint in the water. i know, it's a tv-causes-cancer sort of thing, but why risk it? let us all put our hands together and pray for Aretha. God love you, Queen......it is a bit morbid how they're approaching it.

Bump: yeah, you gotta wait. wait to exhale. like with Jotaro and DIO. i was rooting for DIO so hard and bad, but Jotaro faked his heart stopping. DIO's Stand is called The World, that's why i like it. you just never know. stop. in the name of love. Jo had his own Stand hold his heart from beating. it's gonna hurt like hell.

Melbourne: please, for once in your life, don't take the lead on this one, let me take over. a god amongst women, a natural woman. mmmmm. nuff said. leaving us at the worst possible time. the Civil Rights singer. never copied anyone else. she wasn't tryna be Sinatra or nuthin'. everyone ELSE was HER clout-chaser, they all clout demons! she came out of the womb a fully-formed original, the Celestial Zygote. back when we still had a Soul to sing about.

Mueller: i'm the most-beloved Republican by the Democrats ever. even more than Reagan. don't they know i'm not one of them? hey Avenatti, what are you doing? saw you at the Wing Ding. you have to approach it more like me.

Avenatti flashes his handsome-star smile.

Avenatti: what can i say? i like chicken.

Melbourne: so disappointed. so close. like old times, Smokey and the Bear. to come to the edge and never let it out. that would be horrible in my job. the storybook was ripped a page. now we gotta wait till freakin' April! it's gonna be a long lonely lugubrious winter. Christmas won't be the same this year. who was the first person you called, Tiger?

Tiger Woods: my best and one and only friend Federer. we both have back problems. school's out for summer.

at a nearby secret compound:

April D Ryan: why are you here? why are you helping me?

The Line: sis, you gotta believe in something. atheism is the luxury of the rich. you always look like you're worried, like something is about to happen to you. hey i fill the holes, ma'am. anywhere i can help i help. i'm the glue guy to this operation. if O wants me to bodyguard you pretty ladies i do. think of me as your protector at the state fair. but a cog in the revolution, here to do my part, a flag planted in the streets of this war. you look like my dead auntie.

April: oh now i get it. death humbles the falling giant. guilt stopped up your gun with grease? gilds the gallant and the talented into a guild? or are you Sasuke lying in wait?

The Line: death of a certain sort. down with the patriarchy. i realized i was part of the problem.

April: you sure you're not hiding out here like the rest of us?

The Line: what'd you finally do anyway?

April: said the immigration-policy-writer looked like a child molester.

Bump: me?

April: no, Stephen Miller on twitter.

The Line: don't worry, we'll kick his big butt and this will all be over. in good time. i can play in the shadows like those piffle Qs. and wait for those Qs to give me my cues. heck, my whole skin is a shadow. you're like Frankenstein's monster.

Omarosa: come on, man!

The Line: no, i didn't say you looked like Frankenstein's monster. that Katrina Pierson tho, boy siree! i want what she smokes. to appear on tv. one look into those cat-eyes after one interview and you know this fine woman would make a great turned soldier. uh, like you. you talk to Mueller's team?

Omarosa: you have no idea just how truly strong i am, do you? you're not supposed to call the monster Frankenstein, but everyone does, the world does, it's too far gone to ever go back throughout history with a black markie pen and correct it now. i AM Mueller. in many respects.

Melbourne: Taki? well hello! what are you doing here at this ungodly hour? shouldn't you be waking up from a good night's sleep right about now? the night is young, much younger than you or i.

Taki: in the area. my son called. my son the artist. he's working on a comic book, you know. The Whispering Eye. kids these days.

Melbourne: your eyes are red. like they're whispering pink-eye. you've got fantastic tits.

Taki: hey! how can you tell!? i'm all covered up! i'm wearing a buttoned coat!

Melbourne: hopefully they'll be festival tits soon. well, feel free to stay. the liquor cabinet's always open so here's the key. time for me to retire, i'll be in my upstairs chambers.

Taki: you are so cynicalistic.

Taki snoops the stairwell till gone and makes her way to the bedroom door. ajar. sick. she hears noises coming from the bed. Melbourne is sounding out the nnnnnnnnnnnnnrrrrrrrrrr of a jetplane streaking through the sky. Bosanquet giggles after each turn. Taki slams open the door.

Taki: A-HA!!! late-night study session, good doc? i saved your life from all that junk science and Peace Corps motivation in your brain!!!

Bosanquet slips out of bed and slips her coat over her pizza-stained negligee.

Bosanquet: exactly. purely professional. this man has a serious problem and i'm trying to fix it. but i can see now that he is beyond my help. it's up to you now. he is seriously troubled and disturbed. nightie.

Taki: *pulls out her liquids-proof pad and electric pencil* oh? and what seems to be the issue? i'm something of an armchair psychologist, all reporters must be. no offense. didn't mean to imply you were amateur hour, but you do charge by the hour, space-age toots. hello? hey, are you crying? why you crying? THAT was the sound you were making?

Melbourne: oh it's all been an act! i wanted to make you jealous with her so you wouldn't come. but it didn't work. you obviously didn't fall for it. you're obviously too smart for me. and you're obviously not interested in me.

Taki: wow. you didn't even flinch when i mentioned i'd come. this dismays me. but it is in keeping with your serial-killer persona.

Melbourne: i have to be stoic for my clients.

Taki: so you keep saying.

Melbourne: but the thing of it is, i'm terrified to death of air-racing. never done one before. i've had this recurring nightmare every time i've slept for the past year. it's always the same: i'm traveling in my air-racing plane and it goes wobbly after that first green bulkhead turn on the course, i can't control the nose, and the wings veer into a spinout. not a cloud in the sky. not a cloud in the sky. my small plane and me in it pilots erratically into the crash of a blue Formula 1 racecar with one line of white racestripe driving on the coastal road of a road race. the driver in this car? me. my last sight is nothing but blue ocean everywhere i look all around me.

Melbourne clutches his wrist.

Taki: um, can i use your bathroom?

Melbourne: where's my restroom? down the hall to your left.

Taki checks. the bathroom door is locked. figured. she returns to the bedroom. there, she sees a Mexican boy wearing a plaid shirt being pulled out by Melbourne's arms from under the bed.

Taki gasps in horror.

notes:

* boneless breasts, the best kind

* stereo not available in your country

* overhead bird's-eye view of 1985 from drones made way back in 1985

* i know all those cars look like toy cars, but that's really how cars were in 1985.

* this is forever known as the Too Many Cooks house. i'm sure it was the Who's The Boss? house or something before but that's gone now. Tony Danza drives a taxi and needs some more medallions. he uses them for work, Scott Baio uses them for play, Baio trades them like baseball cards when the two get together under a beach blanket on this last summer night...

* i now know the appeal of the white picket fence: it matches the Colonel's suit. the Colonel's famous black bowtie with the tails was given to him by Gerald Gardner. Gerald claimed he was related to the Colonel, they had the same witch for a mother. Gerald was one of the first people ever to try the Colonel's chicken. Gerald went on to form Wicca right after eating the chicken.

* SPOILER, blocker's note: front door needs to be an automatic sliding door cos the Colonel's hands are...well you'll see at the end, it's only a minute-long episode......it's in the other commercial...

* see the boy was having just popcorn, not popcorn chicken

* i was having a lucid conversation with my professor the other day. the phone call went something like this:
prof: have you ever seen a nude napkin-holder?
me: a holder of nude-colored napkins?
prof: the first napkin-holders came out on 1930. they looked like bridges. do you ever draw nudes on the back of envelopes or napkins when you're bored?
me: when people ask me to send them things i either send them doodles or noodles.

and my professor isn't a professor of art, he's a professor of theoretical astrophysics, the kind of math professor HL Mencken despised.

* remember Win, Lose, or Draw?? that white-sofa set was based on the same set from Burt Reynolds's living room.

* the Colonel: you can actually run a thunderbird car with all the grease in my chicken. one bucket of my chicken. for a whole year.

* the Colonel: it's okay for me to be in her room, she's calling me and i'm calling her back on dueling phones. remember when you could place your phone on your bed? i helped her rip apart all of her teen magazines looking for that one oil painting of Charlotte Rae.

* mom: do you know what an iron is?
the Colonel: how do you think we achieve grill marks?

* the Colonel: kid, that volcano with the Alka-Seltzer is SO played. get a cardboard, divide it into a triptych, and write in black marker all the ingredients in my chicken. hint: you're gonna need a bigger board.

* the Colonel: the only reason i didn't break junior's nose with the ball is cos the ball is boneless breast.
dad: yeah but i fear junior's gonna get the wrong idea.

* the Colonel: i love families. mine mysteriously disappeared after i became successful.

* the Colonel: i'm your nosey neighbor, Mr. Monroe. James Monroe, the President you still have no idea about. my fence is brown.

* the Colonel: family, i have a confession to make. i'm not a talking couch. i'm just a regular couch.
mom: i knew it! this family doesn't get mail!
dad: what sort of chemicals do you put in this stuff?
the Colonel: the chicken? you really don't want to know. you could tell tho right? it was a gauzy dreamy quality. i was talking but i never actually said anything...
boy: does this mean i don't have to go to school?
the Colonel: yes, son, you and the girl will go to raves from now on, there's enough chemicals for a war.
daughter: do girls have wingmen?
the Colonel: only if they're boneless wings.

* the Colonel: this family, this family i love dearly, is not real. you are all really chickens. chickens about to become dinner. this was your last-ditch collective fever dream to fulfill your lifelong wish to become human. you made it, fam, you climbed the mountaintop of your imagination. don't think that it's over, don't dream it's over, think a new chapter is about to begin for all of you. an afterlife where the mashed potatoes are never lumpy. i mean it is kinda cool that you're gonna be Rod Serling's chicken dinner tonight, right?

* i right now have an overwhelming desire to watch all seasons of Gimme a Break on laserdisc.

* either way, Mr. Kruger will no longer be showing us the way. R.I.P. my friend. everybody wishes they had a boss like this: CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. AND checking the scores......i won't give it away but spoilers: two words: Swiss Cheese

1. what is sexy time to you? whenever Borat tricks me in an interview

2. who's sexier---men or women? clearly women. even straight women would agree. we men are just kinda here on this planet hanging out underneath the hoods of our pickup trucks trying not to get our dicks caught in the axle. the female form is the final proof that God is a woman.

3. how did you learn to masturbate and how old were you when you first succeeded? map teachers always did it for me. no, not math teachers, map teachers. they'd write in chalk on the board and smile:

up up down down left right left right B A Start

no, that wasn't the Konami Code............................that was how to masturbate...

i've almost succeeded, just a couple more online dollars till the crowdfund is complete...

4. do you like taking naked photos of yourself? i've been reading on Buzzfeed Tech or wherever that there's a whole etiquette to giving and receiving wanted nudes. it's all very complicated and step-by-step. wouldn't it just be easier to send noodles? or doodles? doodles of eggplants and stuff?

5. what is your biggest sexual fear? that i'll never do it in a clocktower

bonus:  to you what does the ideal penis look like? (feel free to include artwork or photos): the eggplant emoji, only red

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

Taki: can a lowly reporter ask but one thing?: is everyone in the world just a secret sleazeball? do we only know the façade of everything that exists? I KNEW IT!

Taki: ...and i know what your next sentence is gonna be: this is not what it looks like. gotcha!

Melbourne: this is not what it looks like. dammit! look, just hear me out, this isn't serial-killer selfish, this is about another soul. look at this dirty boy here. i mean literally dirty. look at his shoulder.

Melbourne removes his hand off the shoulder to reveal a ring of garden soot.

Taki takes her notebook to the boy's face and smiles compassionately.

Taki: name. rank. origin. just kidding, we're the good guys. please tell me this sweet young thing wasn't abused.

Melbourne: i saved him from abuse. he would have been. i'm squirrelling him in my grand cubby, holing him from the immigration authorities. and wholing him back again to his original childlike cheerful self. i no longer put ice in my drinks as protest. i don't want to talk about death or the other side or the death of irony in a mining community or the consequences. i haven't time for games in the shallow end. my head is bald enough. i will not besmirch one soul for another. all are precious under Eyes and Evil has no color. for what good is it to gain all the political points in the world but get a Zero on the Soul take-home test? he doesn't speak, except for his soulful eyes. he's the son of one of my gardeners who's no longer with us. his name is Tres Leches.

Taki: why do i have the itchy reporter's nose that it was you who gave him that name? i knew something smelled fishy. not the river. no gardener comes to work at 8PM!

Tres Leches leaves the chamber without saying a word from his ever-worried slink-cupped mouth.

Melbourne: this is my small part in helping ease the global atrocity. i will reunite everyone someday, otherwise what is my money good for? i take in all the strays, never in stride, for i was once a kitten in a dog-eat-dog world. i REALLY love the Wolf's Rain on my face. now i shelter any child i can. the world will reset...someday.

Taki: you better hurry up, you see how the river level is continually rising and no one seems to notice? quick to distract themselves with their palm-tree hammocks? until their hammock bottoms get wet? and then they distract themselves with plucking two coconuts from the treeroof and placing them on their breasts and laughing? but you wouldn't know about that you have a bed. this fulfills a need for you: your desperate lack of a family.

Melbourne: yes it's true. you're good. too good. are you copying off my playlist? i'm sorry, that was chauvinist. i'll only be a sexist pig if you pay me enough. if you need me to be to achieve orgasm with or without a bed. can we change the subject? the adults are in the room. wouldn't you like to inspect my lifesize models more?

Taki: you are the master of the reverse, don't know about your bed skills but i know about your bedroom skills.

Melbourne: Master of the Reverse Universe. i'm also working on the board of the RoundUp lawsuit so it's good to have a witness. i called in a favor from some of my lawyer friends. Bob Mueller as you see out there swimming on my night lawn.

Taki: is that the commercial where the weedkiller-spray hose turns into a scorpion tail and spears the fat exterminator in the mustache?

Melbourne: are you still willing to help me or not?

Taki: sure. kelp. what time's and location's the air race? Brussels or something?

Melbourne: oh no, we're miles of nautical miles away from the actual thing. first i need shitloads of help, i'm losing my shit. where we're going, you need to enter my head.

downstairs. just the lip of outside. everyone's sitting around the circle drinking tequilas. night:

Mueller: so we all square, my nigga?

Roger Stone: yes. you do look like me, like you could be my brother. and you are my biological brother. i've been playing the game thus far, but things have started to heat up for me. i haven't been this hot since the one night i made love to Kristin Davis. that produced a son. an illegal. Kristin is my nice best friend but she, uh, gets around the world. don't worry, i'm stashing away this nondescript boy under my auspices, my rich palatial Woody Allen Manhattan estate. now owned by Ronan Farrow's lips. telling you all this now so i don't get woke up by a raid. keeping it on the up and up and up. do with the boy what you will, but don't send him to Julian tho do give him an Orange Julius and a straw and keep me in this country please.

Mueller: i appreciate that. the law's the law.

Roger: must you? you are musty. that is my son, right? that my boy. yous didn't go down under and fuck Kristin in a tequila bar one moonless Mexican night, right? brushed the scorpions off the counter and onto the stools to make room? bore a son, nine months of pain, simply to have leverage over me?

Mueller: i'm in the Top Ten, Roger. Mexico is so nice this time of election. no of course not, you know i'm a straight arrow, you know i'm with Ashley!

Kristin Davis: i for one have no idea what you're talking about. i have never prostituted myself, except on the set of Sex and the City. for the show. for the script. cos it was written in the script.

Cynthia Nixon: i am surprised. i'm not seeming to be getting any traction. i called O up and asked her advice about how to be a Socialist in New York. it must be the name. the last name.

Roger: you don't understand the way Bill O'Reilly and i get the folks. you can't connect with them. and to them like we do. we know how they think. if the President commits a crime, it doesn't matter, cos EVERYONE has committed a crime. see? think about it. think about it.

late at night, Taki is calling her sister up from home, crying.

Madame Pons: oh deary, i wish i was there to comfort you. give you a nice big sweater hug!

Taki: then come. you have to stay with me! they don't know where Takahashi went. he's still a missing kettlefly.

Madame Pons: he'll turn up, where you least suspect it, you reporter. are you sure you can't keep the house? you have such a woodsy Shangri-La over there, sure you couldn't just cut down on expenses. don't cut down the trees but maybe it's time to let those parakeets go. let them fly away to their own Shangri-La.

Taki: you need to come and split the mortagage. or maybe just pay for the whole house. the rest of the house. if this big story falls through i'm through. i know it's a lifetime favor, i know i'm uprooting your dreams and leaving you to rot. be my permanent roommate for the rest of your life. now. you will have all my love. i have no one else to love. my gratitude died, flowed out my body, and went to eternity long ago. sorry.

Madame Pons: love you, babe. you know i'll do anything for you. if you really want me to stay awhile, i'll be there at the drop of a witch's pointy hat, at the beck of your silent whistle. i wish i could cast a magic spell through the phone on you to calm you, assuage your fears, subdue you, but i haven't studied long enough the hard stuff yet. i wish i could be there sooner, had a broom, would be much easier than commercial flight. hang on don't hang up, i'll be seeing you.

Taki: bless you, sister. you work hard. work harder than most. harder than the next girl. you work hard on your witch shit. sorry for calling it and you a bratess. i just don't want to lose you before you lose yourself. i will cast a spell on you right now and i'm not a witch. call it a prayer if you like: may you *Taki's voice cracks* never have to tell a client that you can't work at the usual time because you had a family emergency. may your times be ever normal. thank you and goodnight. may you never leave a haunting voicemail on a loved one's machine.

the four have quietly exited the Old Spaghetti Factory without much fanfare from fanboys. they decide to take a nice evening stroll along the bluelit pier.

Dirg: i mean come on! that is so lamey! Silent Sam wasn't bothering anybody, he said nothing! this is why i hate college campuses and stay away from them as best i can, avoid their Unicorn Frap corners at all costs, that stuff is toxic! what happened to frat beer on campus?

Laertus: banned to curtail rape.

speaking of, President Bump rides on his trusty stead Sassy over to his Hollywood Walk-of-Fame ceremony. again. he tried to put a unicorn horn on Sassy but she wouldn't budge.

it is lightly-attended. as in no one is there. except for Giuliani who is presently building a brick wall around himself to keep in his quacks. he lays one brick on top of the other with no cement. Bump uses this brick podium to place his mic.

Bump: hello, everyone, thank you for coming, again, to my Star Ceremony. *shaking his large head side to side* a horse is a horse of course of course. sorry. is this thing on? cos i'm not. there is such a thing as bad magic yous know let me tell ya. bad juju. i'll be honest with yous as i always am, i'm not feeling it this time. i'm presently clutching my chest. feeling the lodged bullet in my broken heart there. see? you can see that squirmily squiggly scorpion thing under my skin struggling to get out. what do you think Paul will tell Bob? i forgot, it's been so much stuff hard to keep track of it all. i think Manafort is the last of the nice guys, last of the tough-guy prophets, he's truly a nice guy, a good fella. i will help Man in any way i can. i'll set him up in Denmark, where the smells are sweet, where everyone goes to college free so they can open up their own bakeries. that's what Paul told me in confidence he did all this for, he wants to open up his own Danish bakery. he'll never be hurt again, cos it's socialized medicine over there. he's a regular joe-schmo who won't get off his lazy ass to work. he's the dough guy.

Dirg: i mean what would MSNBC talk about all day if Hilary had won?

Laertus: just a lineup of all-day lifestyle shows.

Gladyce: we're at the Mexican border, dears. the border line. the Border Wall.

Laertus: may i need to use the restroom please?

Laertus walks slowly across in an evening-stroll pace, leisurely whistling as he paces over to the bathroom in the tequila bar in Mexico. he orders a pizza but a scorpion lands on his pizza and lays eggs on it that look like mini white mozzarella cheeseballs. his first instinct is to stomp it with his boot but he becomes himself in the moment, not his friend. he takes the squiggly scorpion thing by the tail, makes a disgusting face with his tongue, and quickly shoos the creature into a crack in the bathroom tile.

Laertus: there you go, you harrowing beautiful beast. you're free! can't escape the heat nights here, so at least you'll be cool underground if not filthy.

Laertus: ho! i'm back. no pizza this time guys, sorry.

Dirg: so you got the tools? the pieces? you know how it all fits together and is constructed? when the cops come, stop working.

Gladyce: what now?

the crones leave the gents to their wiles.

Dirg: speaking of, Elizabeth Pena.

Laertus: she's Cuban not Mexican.

Dirg: illegal Spanish is illegal Spanish.

Laertus: you're only hearing about her now? i know, sad. she had that classic Hollywood drinking problem kept under wraps. it wasn't vogue in the '80s to admit you were an alky, in fact it was just kinda assumed if you were working in the '80s you had some form of substance disease, an addiction to something illicit, but that made you a better actor, lodged a ball of secret pain inside you which you could pull from, which came out without artifice in your vulnerable moments in front of the camera. if only this sweet innocent linda beauty had lived in another age. *batteries not included, what a claustrophobic movie! i mean the setting for that, this weird dilapidated housing tenement with the Twilight Zone ghost-infested dank '50s café as the bottom floor, which coffee-boy page dreamt THAT up? the whole time i'm watching this film with the characters inside that hellhole i'm feeling trapped and alone, looking for the fire exits. i've never spent two hours in a livable space moving around with characters that was so unsettling. macabre-memoried forgetful grannies, "slow" athletes, and stage curtains.

Dirg: tinny is the word. gaudy and not right. a house that settled. a liver is a precious thing. and Royal Space Force Wings of Honneamise?

Laertus: finally saw to the end of it! there is nothing on God's green earth that is more beautiful than '80s anime. this here is the luxurious licentious wonder of hand-drawn '80s anime animation! all the great anime series started out as one origin '80s-anime film. the level of detail in this film goes deeper than the human circulatory system. as i sombered over that last space soliloquy, i looked at my hand. i asked my hand, what do you say to yourself when you hold Beauty in your hand? when you've just witnessed a perfect film?

Dirg: what about the rape scene? what about that little detail?

Laertus: i'm in the minority, but i actually thought that scene wasn't gratuitous, necessary in fact, all the gory details, needing to be there in stark pull-less punches to expound the harsh message about all humanity. i'm writing a final-exam essay on it right now. it's titled The Impossibility of Censorship. when you think about it.

Dirg: i'm rubbing off on ya. ew. your finals are take-home tests?

back at the OSF, the girls are vacuuming the voluminous carpets. Doryce has fashioned a vacuum out of the parts Dirg handed her in their mutual hand-off trenchcoats. it's noisy in here.

Doryce: few more paychecks and we've paid off the package holiday. check for the cops.

Gladyce: what did you say?

Doryce: yeah, i just got this now in my head: Christopher Cross was the Lost Beach Boy! it all makes sense now, like what do you do when a genius just wants to sit around in a circle, drool all day, and play with his toys?

Gladyce: sexiest man in the world?

Doryce: *over the vacuum noise* i know, i mean Blake Shelton? musical genius? how can the Sexiest Man Alive be a Never-Nude?

Doryce collapses in coughs. not from the smoke in the vacuum bag. from Yuban grounds lodged in her throat.

Doryce: Yuban can?

Gladyce: *hands on cheeks* oh dear! i told you not to eat the grounds straight from the tin! everyone uses water! it says right on there: 1 tspn.

Doryce: i read that as tlspn, i thought the 1 was an L. i ate a tablespoon's-worth. i'm toxiced. goodbye forever.

Gladyce calls on Laertus for help. by watches. Laertus rushes back. he's pushing numbers on his watch as he talks.

Laertus: i'm taking my test as i do this, but i'm here. Dirg, help me pick her up from the ground.

the two boys lug Doryce across the pier on their two shoulders. Dirg does most of the lugging.

Laertus: got any late-night entertainment to kill time? did you see Marvel's Uprising? it was fab! punk-rock-chick ethic, hear me roar!

Dirg: please cancel this show.

Laertus: well since you said it so nicely.

Dirg: why does the Muslim girl have to have such big hands? why did they screw with Squirrel Girl's design? she's squirrelly now.

Laertus: nuts. when will you learn women have different body types? with some shapes suitable only for women. being fat is a lifestyle. normal. regular.

Dirg: she's not fat, she's thicc. spell thicc.

Laertus: t-h-i-c-k.

Dirg: this proves you're not black like me.

Laertus: you're not black.

they easily float Doryce's body on the rising water to the hospice. Laertus takes care to brush the scorpion bites away from her. Dirg covers them up.

Melbourne: your eyes are red again. and i know that's not cos they're evil. i wish i could comfort you when you cry.

Taki: oh shut up. so do you want to change the subject? let's do your first session.

The Line: i can't let you go out there! i have express orders from O.

Omarosa: you called me? no one calls me, i have it on video. you can't hold me, i do what i want. i got all of it all the time no matter what.

The Line: okay, it looks like the coast is clear. those Q guys were a one-week story. hopefully our resistance group won't be as well.

Omarosa leaves the compound and makes one final jump in her heels with her remaining strength so high she flies into the cloud-covered sky.

Melbourne is in the cockpit of his air-race plane. cobalt-blue plane. the first stanchion to turn is dark lime green.

Melbourne: i see the Concours d'Elegance down below, waiting for the construction to end, the yearly road roace everyone gets excited for. i see all the cars all strawberry-red and decked out to curve: the Honda S500, the '80s GTR, the '90s 944 Porsche.

Taki: that's it, nice and easy. those cars aren't a shitload of red scorpions swimming stealthily, rising with the tidewater, cresting over the wave, toxifying all the oceans with their space and stings. only i see that. water water everywhere and only tequila to drink. when you're flying, it's as if you're driving one of your famous sports cars. they handle so effortlessly, the steering wheel's a feather, you do no work, you merely ride. hugging each curve with the grace of a ballerina's curve, never a thought of driving over a cliff. flying is driving, only easier. do not keep your eyes on the air road, distract yourself with anything else. you said you liked having Robert Mueller over? so you do like men.

Melbourne: more so. at least men like Bob. his integrity is sexy. he's my hero. i call him my penis hero. but we do more in our sessions than compare penis sizes, which we do lovingly using a rubber ruler. and then we have a serious talk about curved erections and curved elections. his tenacity is so tender. an evening with him is extraordinary. he pays for it but i can't lead him. i can't stay up late studying for him. while comparing our dick bombs we discuss the philosophy of evidence for objective reality, art, and legal terms of art. he was like a kid with me, hollering out the balcony at the grass, shout-singing in an airport-lounge-singer kind-of-way all the style hits from the '80s, he'd sing till you were sick of his voice. he had so much nervous energy and tension and bits and spikes and butterflies in him he let it all out. on my face in the form of cum. he is ready for the big day tomorrow. ready to be stern and steady and severe. ready to show. his big day.

the plane is straight and carries the first turn with ease. Melbourne looks to his side calmly and sees Aretha Franklin flying with Omarosa biting Aretha's heels trying to hold on.

Omarosa: you're fat.

Aretha: girl how can you say that? i mean i'm the one carrying you! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!!? call me fat again so i can sundeck ya!

Omarosa: DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!!?.................................................no really i'd like to know.

Melbourne: fly high, my queen. you never have to fly a plane again to get anywhere. you're there. over water. you're not like me still, you're lucky. you never have to be caught dead in a strange gothic non-deluxe highrise apartment.

Aretha flies to a circular stage of clouds in the center of the sky and drops O in the hole. amazingly Omarosa had one more jump in her. Aretha grabs the mic and the bottle coming out of the sun and belts out forever without a choir. and without needing a belt for her gown no more. so forever the angels weep.

Aretha: and now, right now, ladies and gentlemen, i want to invite another singer to the stage, burgeoning young singer with a song to tell, she will do it ably, she will carry the rest of the show for you. carry on. ably. i'm tired. please make her feel at home. a welcoming circle of applause please.

Omarosa gets up on stage and starts to sing but she can't sing so she kinda just mulls along in a speechifying lilting cadence:

Omarosa: is this thing on? i want to thank everyone and dedicate this to my will! this is why i did it! did everything! this is all i've ever wanted since a young shunned girl: to be fully accepted into the black community. embraced with open arms!

the audience is dead Belgian hipsters with wings who smoke on candles and snap their wing fingers at her.

Aretha has to sit down on a stool to rub her winged feet. she wipes her brow of prismatic rainbow sweat and her eyes start pawing at the audience.

Aretha: oooh weee! so many European dates to make. and make up. i'm in love with each and every person in here!

notes:

* there's a mythic quality to '80s stars isn't there

* you know it's serious when the subtitles automatically come on.

* Rule Number One!!!: never say hello.

* InStep: the yoga dojo Elvis studied under right before his untimely passing

* uncarrier: when you can't pay for the jet no more

* full disclosure: the only Raine i know is Maida. and Madonna. and what's on my face.

* Raine Maida: social security number? we don't have those in Canada.

* Chantal Kreviazuk: i am the voice of the robot. i am the voice of all robots.
Raine: i know, that's why i don't mind the five minutes. don't say that, dear, you have a lovely voice. angelic in fact.
Chantal: the papers say we're getting divorced.
Raine: rule number one: never form a band with just your wife.

* Raine: okay, my phone number is 555-5555. well this is tv.

* Raine: my second pet? the name of that dog from Peach-Hime that was strangely never in any of the Mario games...

* Chantal the robot: i'm sorry, i cannot accept "gerbil" from a man.
Raine: what? Meg Ryan's career was ruined? luckily she's got that Top Gun 2 cameo with the ghost of Anthony Edwards who couldn't save himself despite being a doctor...

* robot: if your service is working, press 1. if your service is not working, press 1.

* Raine: Representative!
robot: i cannot accept "Representative". Congress has been rendered powerless.

* Raine: good, now we're getting somewhere. but i broke my screen in anger. maybe this morning tea by the woods will calm me down.

* Uncle Sigh: hello, i am your new Representative...

* Raine: didn't work. the tea is Earl Grey. just reminds me i auditioned for the wrong Star Trek series.

* Daniel: i am your new Representative. i am currently being tied behind my back and held hostage by Cobra Kai so i am unable to help you. for a knife, press 1. to cut the ropes i mean. for a gun, press 2.

* Raine: 17 minutes? by then the Earl Grey will be cold.

* Raine: i mean i could watch an Oscar-winning short in 17 minutes...

* Raine: there's a hair in my cereal......that's not my hair...

* Raine: wait, Daniel! i spilled my lunch of cereal.
Daniel: that's very sad. how can you be sad and an actor?
Raine: have you seen Ben Affleck lately? i had an accident.
Daniel: my A Scanner Darkly scramble-suit said you were a young man tho.

* and with that, Raine got the Oscar that would have belonged to James Franco

* Raine: oh no i'm dying...my battery is dying...which in this world is the same as your life dying...

* Raine: Gary Coleman. you were my childhood. you are more than a man, you are a myth. life is so unfair. i love you.
Gary: i'm not Gary C...
Raine: *eyes closed and weird singing mouth* yes you are. yes you are.

* Gary: your plants are about to die? who cares?
Raine: no i've got some weird charges on my bill.
Gary: like what?
Raine: well it says here i bought this stroke painting of just the lower portion of a monk's robe and the monk's bare sandalless feet.
Gary: i heard about you Catholic fetishists. i hope the Pope addresses this in Ireland.

* Raine: JUST made it plugged it in in time.
Gary: um, it's a video phone, right?
Raine: yeah?
Gary: i can see your statue the phone's in front of. weird tribal naked statue.

* Gary: you don't have a real job.
Raine: it's the SYSTEM!, Gary, the system is broken.
Gary: i am not broken, sir.
Raine: yes you were! you were dealt an unfair hand in life, Gary Coleman, but you lived it beautifully. you found love in the end, that's all that matters.

* Raine: the weapons and starships were sold to the bad guys...and to the good guys...it's all a machine, man, best not to choose a side...
Gary: wait, you're that Heineken guy?
Raine: safe space...
Gary: safe space? so on top of everything else you voted for Hillary! take a hike. *hangs up* go take a hike and join your precious Hillary on one of her famous walks in the woods.

* Raine: that's not a watch on my wrist. that's a tribal tattoo of a wheel.

* Raine: GARY WHERE ARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY LORD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU PROMISED YOU WEREN'T A RUSSIAN BOT!!!...
Gary: regain your shit, man, i just dipped out for a quick bite at the new McDonald's opening in Doha.
Raine: OH THANK GOD!!! WE ARE FRIENDS!!! wanna play cards?
Gary: sure.
Raine: i crashed my card table through my window.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

what? Power Rangers on a Tuesday? no, i can't think about that right now. i'm becoming increasingly embroiled in the watching of blue U.S. Open qualifying matches. the drama here is much more cutthroat than in the tournament proper. they don't even use tennis balls, they use fuzzy rubber balls. happy weekend, my babies.

1. what type of clothes make you feel sexy?
a) a specially selected casual outfit
b) lingerie or silky pajamas
c) elegant dressy evening clothes
d) anything that leaves me almost naked

the Serena Williams Catsuit. that thing is pure Panther power

2. which do you prefer?
a) pillow talk
b) sexy texting
c) love notes

i prefer to write long drawn-out longwinded love notes in calligraphy. scented with just the right balance of unwashed body odor, silky rainfall showerhead, and an Old Spice luxury product like a rubbed pomade or something. that is my perfume. i use the product of a plant in the seed of the reeds not seen in this world since Ancient Egypt. a substance supreme. it is a wonderful thing that was called paper...

3. which do you do best?
a) pillow talk
b) sexting
c) writing love notes

everything's changed since the Tennis 15-second clock was implemented. it's all about speed now, not longing. pillow talk consists of one emoji of a cat giving the "you fuckin' kiddin' me?!" face. sexting is just choosing a song lyric from the progrock band Asia. look what happened to Simona Halep. she's the number-one player in the world and she's out. just like that. she didn't even give enough time for us all to sit down in the stands from getting our silver trays of breakfast popcorn. later, in the lobby, i handed the luggage man a note to give to Simona i had crafted late into the night, never sleeping, making sure each word was pitch-perfect. a pink unscented card which folded over and simply read

I don't care about the point penalty. I'm taking my time and doing this right

and as a gift i gave her a small lacey pillow. y'know now that i think of it, i've never had pillow talk with somebody while in the presence of pillows.

i looked up to her balcony and saw Darren Killer Cahill with a moot look on his lips, wearing those heavy black sunglasses as hard as he could around his ears. they obviously broke up after that performance.

4. you have been granted just ONE of the following in your favorite city/place in the world. which would you choose and why?
a) 24 hours of romance
b) 24 hours of lust (intense overwhelming sexual desire but not acted upon mixed with enthusiasm for life)
c) 24 hours of sex

that second one is interesting, that's the kind of mixed feeling ripe to explore in a novel. my favorite place in the world is Stars Hollow. the third one, well, let me be the bearer of bad news: any of your dismal dorm-frat escapades while wearing a toga will never amount up to the Greek and Roman orgies you were supposed to be reading about in your college books.

i want 24 hours of apres-ski. i want 24 hours of a train-ride through snow-covered tunnels and buttressed buttholes. i want romance! what happened to romance? John McCain wanted a better world for us. we must get back to the way things were. we must suck the marrow out of all our nostalgia and return to the time when we exchanged pillows with our lovers and friends as birthday presents. when we never had to fret over remembering anniversaries cos erryday was the anniversary of our fucks!

5. how do you tap into your sexiness? Jesus didn't tap. always remember that. thanks, Tommy Oliver.

bonus: which is better---your digital sex life or your in-the-flesh sex life? my digital sex life is much less messy cos alls i'm doing all day is pushing a lot of buttons and keystrokes on my pad. my ipad-mini one inch thicker cos of the warranty i purchased. a lot of intensive typing. hacking isn't glamorous, folks.

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

Taki wakes up in a perfumed pastiche of dry man-sweat, streaked white covers, dead flowers, and fish droppings. she is aghast, licks the crust on her eyes, and immediately closes her mouth. she wrenches the sheet into her own fist, spinning a naked Melbourne flying skinnily into the bare ceiling.

Melbourne: ow! that smarts! that didn't wake me up but you do everytime i'm around you. in your presence scents.

Taki: *pointing at Melbourne mercilessly* nobody says smarts!

Melbourne: i know. i'm dumb. most of the time. when it comes to love. but i nailed the jackpot with you, okay poor choice of words. look up at the ceiling. see? plain vanilla plane. too embarrassing to videotape behind mirrors.

Taki: oh my god......oh my OG god.....i can't believe i let this happen to me.....i was too desperate for this story i let my guard down............my usual instincts didn't kick in i knew that water tasted fishy..............i can't remember what happened last night, that's the sure sign!..............oh my god, my defiled body will never look at my loomed educated mind the same way again!

Melbourne: wait wait, i'd never do that to you, i know how that feels. i know we joke around a lot, but i really am a decent fellow. i'm a man learning. ask anyone. NOT my redditors or clients! it was beautiful. we shared Beauty together in this cover. that is now soaked in my blood. poor choice of action.

Taki: *cackling* doused your duvet. i'm laughing out of release. all women cackle like witched hens when they realize it's impossible to be a woman in this society..........sorry. shit, i've never said sorry to a man before.

Melbourne: we held Beauty in our hand. you make me messy.

Taki: what's that mean?

Melbourne: i cummed all over your face.

Taki: you know you really make this hard...

Melbourne: i know. i should emulate more Bob Mueller, he softens steadily with his. what i mean is that your big tits are my treasure chest, i can rub my nose in them and sneeze, peppering them with dandruff paste. lick off their peppermint phosphate and drown in the downward spiral of their born brown nipples, cursing the day i was ever born not like you. break my collared neck as i lay down on them, expunge all my insecurities into them like gleamed natural oils on pillows, my detritus falling like snow on an ashen apocalyptic field. covered from the craving of your cobwebbed cunt colds. i can shoot my scurrilous male shit into your tits, fold them around my sewer spunk like layers of jelly, wait five minutes like everyone's first Easy-Bake Oven microwave, and out pop a batch of muffins! without their stem, smelling of sweet and floral. fuck i love your tits. i'm too excited to sleep on them.

Taki: can a serial killer be poetic? is there anything inside to draw from?

Melbourne: but that's the thing. why can't we behave like raunchy teenagers in the back of a bike? just cos we're old? we're over the hill which means we've conquered the hill. it's all swallowing gravy from here.

Taki: how does it feel to be a gigolo?

Melbourne: but i'm not a gigolo. i'm a male escort. paid gigolo maybe, but one with morals and kindness. you're not just another, you are my other. i like you................notice i didn't go straight to love after one meeting. like my clients always do. i know the business i'm in and i'm here to stay not play.

Taki: you've eased me for now, made me feel secure if not altogether safe. after all, we're still in the altogether.

Melbourne: i have that Goya in my marble-mannequin room. look, i see the writing on the wall, and it's a mounted wallclock showing the hands at evening shade.

Taki: i was about to reach for my phone and go straight to Emergency Kittens on Twitter to calm me down. i usually call my absentminded son for a laugh but...he's absent...this could all be a parlor trick not a passion of yours.

Melbourne: COMpassion, CON, with you. you've changed my life, for the butter, i can now trip over my grave.

Taki: alright Raunchy Romeo, where to? next bat?

Melbourne: i'm almost comfortable with the Sunday sportscar drive in the park. you just need to nudge me.

Taki: so like, you're into and do rich-people sports? like golf and tennis?

Melbourne: pashaw, boring golf and even-boringer tennis are poseurs, better suited to a community center once the equipment is donated. tis country-club sports, i'm talkin' bout REAL Wealthy Wanderings, Warriors of Waste, taking up endeavors which have no other purpose than to flaunt and fixate and fashion a new way to destroy toys. come. i'm all tapped out. i've never cummed so hard in my life just now! never had to work so hard to let it all out so easily and naturally and swimmingly. like a faucet. that's what happens when you introduce love into sex.

at the hospice, Doryce is punch-drunk, coughing up pufts and tufts of Yuban smoke and spitting beans like a Tommy gun into Gladyce's face like a handball court. Doryce needs to sniff up and clear the catch in her throat and dig up the coffee lining around her teeth with her good finger and spit a full wad every minute.

Doryce: *dazed but not fazed*...why doesn't anyone ever talk about the size of a woman's vagina?...it's not fair to the men...

Gladyce: doctor doctor, she's delirious! is there any hope? is she gonna make it? give it to me straight, doc, i can't take news from online, i'm not good with computers.

two doctors in white lab coats appear from behind the silhouetted changing curtain. they are both shady. of compelxion. The Mooch and Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Gupta: *gulps* have you had your coffee and spliff for the day at tea?

The Mooch: i'm still studying to be a chef...

Doryce: *with Harley Quinn's voice* i choose...............YOU, pokemon. the man with the honest face. brokered not broken. no, the other one, Moochie Baby.

Sanjay: i'm not allowed on Nickelodeon anymore so i guess i'll just hang out here. you don't mind if i smoke do you?

The Mooch: i'm not certified or anything but somehow i got this job. certified but not qualified. i will be serving you tonight a full-course meal of Sweet Sam's, Country Archer, Tukwila turnip soup, cauliflower alfredo, Santa Fe vegetable soup, and a crisp fresh copy of VIA magazine. thank my balls The Store is open 24/7. it's scary to shop at night, not cool. i keep seeing my dead mob mother in the melons. you don't get this kinda service at the Obec Hilton.

Doryce: is there seasoning in each?

The Mooch: they were out of seasoning.

Doryce: well there better be, young man, you are not in a position to get off on good looks, you gotta work for it! you're no dreamy Dr. McDougall. now that's the stuff, that's the soup, that's what's right about food.

Gladyce: he's kinda an upper-middle-crust Paul Newman wannabe.

Doryce: WE DEMAND A DISCOUNT!!! WE WANT FLAVOR!!! WE WANT TO SUCK THE MARROW OUT OF LIFE!!! LIKE OUR LOW BLOOD CELL COUNT!!! WE DEMAND SEASONING!!! WE ARE SEASONED CITIZENS!!!

Gladyce: mostly cos it's a Hilton MOtel. not from Detroit.

Doryce: just save all the sipping soup for me. my teeth hurt like the motherfucking dickens.

Gladyce: we're expecting two of our own to come visit...........soon enough, they're our in-laws from Mexico.

The Mooch: i'll treat those Mexicans like family alright. *fist*

at the Mexican border, in a Jose Cuervo bar, there's a sign of the owner's mother's picture over a caption which reads

we were the brave ones. we fought against Prohibition. we made it so you could get drunk during those times. we made your great-grandfather an alky when he was gonna be a priest. you would have never been born

Laertus: hey buddy! look at this neon sign. see the detail in it? the individual coils around each filament of letter? how each square of that filament is its own grid? when the light flashes, each letter flashes on its own time schedule to form the blink? that's NOTHInG compared to the detail that's in Honneamise.

Dirg: still not as detailed-graphicked as the new Spider-Man video-game coming out this week on PS10. *puts his fingers in his ears* lalalalalala not hearing your weak-tea argument. you drunk again? i mean ever? is this your first time? being drunk i mean. what's the matter, buddy?

Laertus: i've been nursing this here marble glass o' vino in memory of the finest woman i know. on tv. Samantha Vinograd. she's a quality woman. strong and steady, sewn from stern stuff, willing to stand up to dictators and thugs. knowledgeable and kinky. i'm assuming. she makes me feel safe. i'm discovering these feelings in me for the first time. i think i have a thing for redheads, foxy ex-Fox blondes. i'd like to make a toast to myself. here's to strong independent woman that don't need no man, i want to be in her life. *he clinks the glass on his teeth*

Dirg: wow. i didn't think you had that in you. like physically. she of the two small eggplants and you the eggplant emoji. small eggplants look like grapes. so you gonna lay down the Lae Law to her, on twitter or wherever?

Laertus: *spilling his drink on the grass plant leaves everywhere* too shy to express myself without an alias.

Dirg: but we all wear masks that's already been established. it's a societal necessity.

Laertus: i mean take Flashdance for example.

Dirg: okay. *looks at his blank flashcards out of his pocket*

Laertus: Flashdance is what happens when you're given an assignment in film class---much like the film classes we take---that goes something like this: write a screenplay where the story is simply life in a big city downtown in the '80s. Flashdance fulfilled that fervent wish to a danced T, symmetrically contrasting each cunt and curse word and choreography with the joy of art for art's sake and grace and nobility, all against the backdrop beat of the sparking hardheaded human heart. i could live in the space of those characters forever, and there's enough space in Beals's warehouse apartment with too much space for one person that i want.

Dirg: excuse you! and your language! never thought that word would dribble out of your chaste chapped lips. this is you hardcore. well, drunk. yeah i liked that movie. it was back when humans weren't so thinskinned, they could take a Polack joke, in fact Polack jokes were your only way out of the kitchen. and a dancing cop could pretend to shoot an unarmed black woman on the street crossing the road and it was no big deal. we humans were too busy back then being in the working class to give a fuck about a made-up concept like racism.

Laertus: yeah, but it seems male scumbags were male scumbags back then, too, only they sipped Diet Rite and went to confession right after the Live Nude Girls Revue. male scumbags anonymous. male scumbags immemorial.

Dirg: don't forget the scumNAGs.

Laertus: *stumbling in hedges* come over here, buddy, follow me for once. let me lead you to the promised land. what's over here?...........what's this? Wine Garden? well that's different and interesting. i wonder what's over this garden bush?

they arrive unceremoniously and surreptitiously into the night of the party that never ends, the endless squeezing-out of supply of celebs with drinks in hand which inhabit the table of Melbourne's all-night neverending garden party on his collection of two back-to-back edge-to-edge Southern lawns. front lawn and back lawn combined. like a working-class assembly line.

Raphael Nadal: did you see that golfer named Raphael at the PGA Fourth One Major? the commentators were calling him Rafa. it's like if you're from Spain and you're Raphael you're automatically Rafa. golf and tennis are not the same thing!

Laertus takes the silky hand of Patty Schnyder slowly and softly, and kisses her ring finger.

Laertus: *weary* my lady, not to be snide, but might i say you are a volley vision this moonless night. you are pretty enough to be a dirty dancer.

Patty: thank you. but i got second place in the Beauty-contest Bistro Brexit d'Switzerland. all the judges were neutral on me. my parting gift was a fondue sauna, which admittedly does come in handy when i can't get in a quick ice-bath for my elbows at the unisex bathroom in the lobby of the Danish bakery. i should have been Federer's wife. doncha think? isn't it ironic? i mean it was just too perfect. i mean we were the only two Swiss tennis players!

Laertus: i came in tenth in the beauty pageant. i technically count that as a cosplay event for me. i wore the swimsuit happily.

Dirg: hey Patty, want me to freshen your drink up for ya? orange juice, right?

Patty: uh, no. no thanks.

Laertus: no, come on man, not cool. sorry. sober sorry, sober sorries, it's wearing off.

Dirg: thanks for tonight, knight. your OOC showed up much more than your SJW.

Laertus: and i am white. and what are you imbibing, fair Woz? you are quite gorgeous without your beard.

Dirg: and you have a nice ass. i saw it. not a Beals Booty but you can never be black like me.

Laertus: or she. Beals.

Caroline Wozniacki: red margarita. gives me dreams.

Dirg: named after Jose Cuervo's sidepiece. her blood i'm assuming.

Madame Pons: *drinking white wine and gulping* i almost had a heart attack. the headline in my sister's paper i read on the taxicab drive over here read

The Pope Death

...it was about the Pope's death-penalty change. we can never lose the Pope! i look up to her sexiness. i want to learn from her. she's alluring like a magazine, she draws people into her like a witch's invisible web.

Patty: what about Bob? like where is he? i'm saying.

Laertus: can you sensei me how to achieve your frizzy hair? just please write it down on the back of my business card advertising my fanfic site.

at the MSNBC studios, Steve Schmidt is at the newsdesk.

Schmidty: hello, friends, i'm Skinny Chris Matthews. you won't get me to blow a gasket at every little Republican unorthodoxy perpetrated on this country anymore, i've learned to pace myself and remain calm and not have a heart attack and look at twitter cats. i've lost weight so i can continue sounding the alarm for you good folks for years to come to act. i won't be around for much longer.

Chris Matthews: *at the wake* Steve is co cool. his real name is Stephen---not Chris Matthews---and though he smiles on his OKCupid profile he's not an actor. i wish i were he. i love his booming baritone, mine is too Irishy and scrappy and scratchy. but how can i have presence without always looking like i'm at any second gonna streetbrawl you? what's his aftershave? his stridency is like a song.

Schmidty: my first guest tonight is Chuck, that lawyer with the ASMR voice. hello? Chuck i can barely make you out, are you talking? are you saying anything? i made it a point to q-tip my ears out for tonight but i can't hear Chuck! Chuck, can you sensei me inbetwen breaks? i want to have presence like you without having to raise my voice, that's true power. that's Mueller power.

Mueller: i'm at the CNN Studios cos i want to remain impartial. neutral. before i get going here, i want every nationally-recognized correspondent and reporter and newsperson and magic person and magic people and dream person and dream people and Alex Jones's hot girlfriend to all get dressed in robes i will pass out precariously close to live showtime this first week of November. everyone put on these robes, get ready for this big day together.

President Bump: weird charges. on my credit card bill. what's going on?

Mueller: i'm gonna indict ye.

Bump: no. you can't, right? i wasn't named in the indictment! it said Individual 1! i did not confuse my 1 with my L! i mean what am i gonna do if i don't do the Presidency? what is my post-Presidency gonna look like? so what, i'm gonna need those bungling Secret Service guys' protection to follow me forever like the stench of the oil from the undercarriage of a dead Porsche when i never leave my house? i'm never gonna be invited to those pizza parties where, like, 5 Presidents all share the same stage and hang out with the pizza for the photo op. are they just gonna stand me up at malls and hope the whole "respect the office" thing will stay in place for me? am i gonna go back to being a reality-show host and all the contestants are just gonna ignore the fact that the boardroom table is the prison messhall table and the camera-lens has bars and the viewers are just gonna pretend my decade in office never happened? go back to the way things were, back to normal? order?

Bump: if you have to wear robes, make them black robes. this is a funeral.

the two semi-lovebirds are rounding the corners in Melbourne's black 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C Touring Berlinetta. Melbourne has his head laid right on top of Taki's tits while she forces her fingers through the steering wheel to do the driving. the cars are all ready on the grass.

Taki: i can't decide if this from you is sweet or sick. Romeo Raunch. Romeo Rotten.

the car drives like a dream. each hill rises up to curve around lush slicked empty streets which wind through country cottages in the city one on top of the other built upon pile and stack of country archer arrow and the smell of baked bread on the sill, waved on by men wearing white scarves on their heads and the womenfolk fixing all the diagonal street lights to blink. safety is not the standard, sights are. this race brings the community together, like no other race can. the nearby villages and hobbit bridges overhead and half-cities and hill stations hidden in the alcoves are one by the strings and strands of this road race's reach. it's time to traffic in temperance, tickets, and tans. the roads aren't painted so the cars can ride as fast as they can. everywhere you speedily brace, you see a chain of people hugging, forming the line, the highway and lowway boundaries to drive. in the country part of the path, the apple-color street-cars and Formula 1 tipsters follow the formula but are anything but formulaic. you see their white stickers as a ghostly blur topping their trajectory past each other, all the colors of the apple, the red, the brown, the green, swirling like ice cream and matching with their corresponding leaf color in the fallen trees and arches and acreages. big pumpkins hang from the rooftops of the canopy like large bells, ringing their insides---lining the streets in but never littering them out---smashed on the road, dashed by the drift. a trailing odor of petrol mixed with pumpkinseeds fills the hot streets crisped by autumnal airs. the concrete is cooling and the asphalt is autumn, too, autumn and green. not a hint of blue to be seen.

it doesn't matter who wins. the two of them are together.

Taki: i wonder if i can spot my most fervent wish when i'm with him. at least in this position he can't get to my ass.

the plane makes the first turn past the green. Melbourne is shaked and about to crash into the car on the far road! but it's not him in the vehicle, it's Michael Avenatti of course, he enters every race. cheeky natty bastard. Avenatti wears just the monk hood, unhooded---not the robe---and waves handsomely.

Taki sees her son driving the car, wondering how to diagonally position himself to put the stops on and brake that thing.

Taki: steady, steady. easy easy. like you're driving the car. how many more extreme sports are there?

Melbourne raises his hand of three fingers keeping his eyes closed.

Taki: that's digusting! you do NOT come anywhere near my slice with that thing!

Melbourne's lips look puckered like he's sucking on an orange with his mouth closed.

Taki: i wonder...what happens to Melbourne when he falls asleep in his own dream?

in Heaven, John McCain proudly raises his arms up and carries the full load of the angelic choir and the stage and Aretha on his fingertips easily. he has a twinkle in his eye and a grin in his butter-stained teeth. tears do not fall from his eyes, flowers form under his bags, blooms bloom there.

McCain: so i'm at my wake and all i see are long faces. i thought I was the ugly one! where's the laughs, the yucking around, the merriment, the bad jokes?! what's going on? it's a celebration, people!

Omarosa: sorry, i don't smoke.

McCain: but you must. we must all carry on living like nothing happened. otherwise what's the point? the alternative is too dark to think about, we must will our memories back to life. dress them up in costumes with pins and Tetris slats and scrambled eggs if it makes you feel better, if it keeps you dancing. where's the notetaker with the Joycean mandolin humming Father's mistress at school? do you know what the meaning of life is?: handwritten love notes. where's the pizza! where's Pasqually and his accordion? accordion according to the Bible. was the Devil's instrument. something about squeezing out that sound. put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Omarosa: guess you're shit out of luck. i don't have bags under my eyes so i can't provide you with bagpipes. i don't read good books. i write them. i don't smoke. look at my classical Greek profile, not a blemish nor spot. spotless. this is easy. easy. look what happened to O's soldier down in Florida. he won cos he was black. that's all i have to do.

McCain: that's tortured logic. and as we all know, torture is illogical. do you own a gun?

Omarosa: of course.

McCain plucks a bloom from his eyelash and plugs it into the rifle of Omarosa's gun.

McCain: who's gonna eulogize you at your funeral? who are your eulogists? you must think of these things as you live. don't you see what i did? i had my two defeators do mine. to show. cos eulogy is effigy is erudition is eucharist. cos in Heaven none of that stuff matters anymore. there are no more flag flaps, only the flag draped over my coffin.

McCain: it's okay. it's alright. i'm happy. i was humbled a long time ago.

notes:

* i still remember my first ViewMaster. everyone else's on the block was red, mine was faded-orange and unique, i was the special child. i never let anyone else play with it, i was stingy and hid it under my pirate chest in my fishtank. mostly cos i didn't know how to use it. remember those ViewMaster reels? those things were magical and my first exposure to the Wiccan Wheel. i mean that was the first spell, wasn't it? the first Brie circle cheese of desire? a magic circle of miniaturized people and places trapped in thin flimsy centimeters of olive-green film which literally transported you from your dreary highway-overpass life to any gaudy glorious place on earth you wished. cities, real cities. making like in Paris. those poor people and places were obviously miniaturized against their will by a jealous witch. but it was still fun, i didn't let my soft young mind stew upon such dark thoughts like that for too long. i mean that red block of technology was like some alien telescope had landed to the '80s from the year 3000 on my lowly doorstep. the ONLY ViewMaster Reel i ever got, ended up getting as it turned out, was the E.T. one in celebration of this blockbuster movie coming soon to theaters. the only slide i remembered was the sliding dance of Elliott and that girl in the chem lab. it's still hazy, and i can never make out the girl's face, but that girl was EVERYONE's girl somehow, she was all of our first, our first felt glances of young love. our first dance. with a girl taller than us. i remember she wore a fuzzy sweater or something, that's it. and like the doors blew open to a large puff of smoke and white blinding overhead lights? more magic. but i learned that dance in my head in case i would ever need it. i didn't.

* I SEE A FACE!!!

* that condom was defective. see you at Maury.

* what it says on this guy's OKCupid profile: reject Monty Python cartoon. the world isn't crazy, I am

* made from the same pink stuff Buu is

* i like it when the pretzels get green and really oily. i know this looks disgusting but if i don't pee over the side here there are no rainbows.

* i'm French as you can see. my nipples are purposefully green. i'm a fan of obscure cinema, like my youtube channel.

* that duckie couldn't handle me. not many can. especially in the tub.

* so that's what happened to Darcy from the Smashing Pumpkins

* kid: am i in Heaven?
fortuneteller: why would you say that, young sprite?
kid: there's God's Hand pointing to an arcade.
fortuneteller: you are such a kid. come closer and ask, don't knock over those candles this is a wood box.

* kid: is it okay if there's a string coming out of the coin?
fortuneteller: i need to crack my knuckles first, that's how i know i'm still alive.
kid: who is my soul mate?
fortuneteller: no kid thinks of such things.
kid: um, my age? my revolutions around the sun? but the Earth is flat. my second dog's name? you'll have to ask my dog, he's my master.

* kid: the answer to all your questions is two snails fucking. now will you answer mine?
fortuneteller: you've got holes in your souls. it was going good till the letters were introduced. i saw a few 0s and 1s in there...

* kittykay96: i like kitty kats. the candy. that's how i escaped Scientology.

* kitty: um, i probably shouldn't be doing web videos...this is my dad's camera.
anonymouse96: i lost my job and my family but it was all worth it...to get to spend more time with my daughter...

* kitty: that devil icon is a new webcomic i'm working on. on atheism and stuff.

* kitty: i get it, i'm my best teacher.
shadow kitty: there can only be one.
kitty: Highlander is for boys.
shadow kitty: is this what you wanted?
kitty: i'm too young for Nine Inch Nails.
shadow kitty: delete your account.
kitty: why couldn't you have done that before the election?
kitty: are you ready to live in the real world?
shadow kitty: oh shit, i switched places with your body didn't i. i don't like the real world much...

* Breakfast For Supper: It's Better Than A Burger

* Junior Senior's second song was only popular in Danish bakeries...

* sorry, you're a pretty girl but i'm late for the bus. i can throw away this book of poetry cos i wrote it.

* isn't this a little early for Christmas?
partridges: no such thing. we are all inside David's wake forever right now. we don't sing cos we can't.
lion: hey buddy, want to experience love?
yeah
lion: it's only possible in the void where you can't feel a thing.

* i won't comment on this next section cos it's awkward and makes me feel uncomfortable. it actually had me questioning the order of my donuts. like why do they display the donuts on that slanted diagonal like that under glass?

* night manager: we got Caller ID on you, buddy. we got a contract, a contact from the Department of Defense.
Unabomber Catman: exactly. i'm maneuvering the donuts in strategic places throughout the market. this is a matter of national security. terrorists hate to be outmaneuvered. so when the terrorists come, we all have our little spaces to hide and can eat there the placed donut and stay alive for weeks and survive, wait it out for the terrorists to get bored.

* everything had gone expiration-date, even Pickle Rick thought he wasn't existentially awesome anymore. it had all worn off as it always does. went from mindblowing to meandering.

* normal things. and a rainfall showerhead.

* wait, if i cut the string...paddleball becomes racquetball!

* you'll call her, and she'll say, there are no more landlines. you'll say, fancy a drink? and she'll say, i don't huff milk like you do. and you'll say, if i can only do the thing with the bottle where you flip it and it lands again...

* shoulda waited to broadcast this on Valentine's Day.................no wait, what am i saying? i've gotten fat and happy with all this Venture Bros. in my life. got a gut.

* can you sign my petition to have Valentine's Day renamed Lonely Day? hello? where'd you go?

* okay this Frenchie is an Existential threat to our country. so grab your beret and your strawberry flower and unbuttoned sweater-vest and meet me in the underground café, we have to discuss this. with him. he's a great storyteller. he'll be the one in the boulanger disguise. no but seriously check out all of this guy's videos on youtube, he's got better stuff than a Major League pitcher. he's innocent and deep. this is how we should all view life when we're NOT on drugs. he's like if Balki from Perfect Strangers and Carl Sagan had a baby.

* our trees DO come from Mars...

* and THIS is why E.T. never came home.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies, enjoy the tennis. stay in the shade as you watch Kyrgios throw shade.

Taki: what does it feel like, when you're driving around a village in your Formula 1 car like that?

Melbourne: like a dream. someday i will know for sure.

Taki: what's the next extreme i mean extreme-wealth sport on the docket? is it at the pier?

Melbourne: not yet. let's try Horse Croquet.

Taki: i'm torn.

Melbourne: the Polo shirts? they won't rip they're made of strong material. and they're not made out of horsehide anymore.

Taki: yeah it's just all that sport-of-kings stuff is so elite and hated nowadays. racing horses for fun, getting on their backs to roll around a ball on a lawn, it's so unnecessary and cruel. how does the horse feel? nobody's ever asked him or her, you need a good reporter like me to crack the cold case and finally ask the tough questions. and don't feed me the stale line that these horses are better off than at the zoo wildlife preserve cos their coats are shiny and they get the shiniest carrots to gnaw on and are just salty cos they didn't get enough sugarcubes for breakfast as a child horse.

Melbourne: mah dahlin, we shall see. that is the beauty of it all. that's why i'm with you. YOU drive my narrative, not any car.

Taki: as always, to prepare and digest and compare and contrast and deflutter, i have to call my sister. right back.

at his phone choked with vines:

Taki: *her hand over the receiver* sis, what's the haps? how are you settling in to the house?

Madame Pons: how's the boyfriend? does he give you the fanny flutters? i think the house has me beat in terms of settling. dahlin, you know i love you...

Taki: uh oh, here it comes...

Madame Pons: but would you kindly reconsider? like maybe how about joining me where i live? come over and stay as long as you want. i really don't want to lose that apartment, it was broom-distance from the Archerion Academy where i wanted to start training and raining frogs. turn the Wiccan Wheel at my late-stage in life before late-stage cancer eats me up before a lesbian lover i haven't met yet has the chance to. i had a few false starts but i think i'm gonna do something late in life. nobody knows how much time we have left as the wheel turns. my finger still has enough flesh melted on it to get pricked by a wheel which spools magic yellow yarn from butter. it's just i don't know what kind of job i can get here at Obec with short notice and i'm short and my particular limited set of skills.

Taki: you don't need a job, you have me. well you'll eventually need a job but don't worry about that right now. the Academy will always be there, academy austerity is always an option. you'll figure something out. to pay for our house. the main point is you're here with me, that's all that matters in life, family. nobody gets a job at Obec, it's Obec Woods, where people intentionally get lost and hide out and stay hidden. from themselves and the Government. how's the house? has my boy come back?

Madame Pons: imma gonna be a good sister and lie to you straight to your face. he's back! he isn't back but i know deep in my middle-aged heart that Takahashi will return to you. he'll come back with a cherub on his face. if there's one thing you don't do, don't worry about Hashi, his aunt will sleep with one eye open not cos she has insomnia but cos she's the anguish aunt with the anxiety and agitation and anonymous amicability and just wanting to sew the family back together like a spinster. I'M ON THE LOOKOUT! you concentrate on your important work. i guarantee a happy ending, it's in my magic.

Taki: you have a knack for goodness. as my son would say, Not Giving Up Is Your Magic.

Madame Pons: thanks, babe, gotta go, Federer's on the other line. i'm at your boyfriend's house. i am i am! i am housesitting but it gets lonely there all alone. and the more i stay there the more i feel like a freeloader. need you not worry, i always return to the house. in the morning.

Madame Pons: Roger, you've got some splaining to do. you're a heartbreaker, and not in the sex way this time.

Roger Federer: *sweating profusely* i'm not gonna give myself an out and blame the heat.......although i could rightly justifiably do this, i mean this is my free pass, right?..........i'm not one for excuses but this is a pretty good one. unprecedented weather. we Europeans aren't used to this humidity at night. we stay indoors in Danish bakeries. if we have to go out, our nights are fanned by Dutch windmills. the tournament obviously didn't prepare for this, it's the tournament's fault.

Nadal: i've never seen you so discombobulated out there before, court buddy.

Federer: uh, thanks, friend. i've never heard you speak so clearly before.

Nadal: i won't talk no more....................just look who is seated next to me..................it's Ben Stiller................that's it i stop talking now......................just think about it..............Ben Stiller and i

President Bump pats Federer hard on the back.

Bump: it's okay, big fella, happens to the best of us. that day when you finally realize you're old. you feel old. your body just can't do anymore what your mind has prepared a lifetime to do. of course i haven't experienced this, i will experience this when i die at which time i won't experience it cos i won't feel anything anymore cos i'll be dead.

Federer: sir, shouldn't you be in hiding after the Mueller indictment?

Bump: cover me, i'm on the run. i'm using my sotto voce voice. you haven't seen me, i'm deep background. what was that whole thing about anyway? right? i mean every anchor on tv is dressed in black tie and suit and not celebrating. black pantsuits for all the women i mean come on! at least give me ONE little black dress! what happened to this country?

Nadal: i think the black was for McCain's funeral.

MEANWHILE...at a local nearby MSNBC affiliate studio...Mueller sits down and back up on his favorite comfiest sofa chair and turns on the lantern lamp by his nightstand which glows with a low comforting green-yellow aura on the coiled filament. he practices opening the creaking door to the carpeted green room and closing it again with him inside. snow is outside, a trick of the lights. the walls look like a log cabin. Bob wears a Christmas sweater and a cup of coca in one hand, a low mic'ed-up gingerbread man in the other as he prepares to recite a long unsung unsparing carol. he practices his line.

Mueller: ladies and gentlemen, i want to tell you the country and you the world a story...

Mueller: that's good that's good. not for a couple of months tho, they're gonna call me, you're gonna call me Mum Mueller, you're not gonna hear my voice for a while...

Laertus: *tipsy again* look up to the lodestar, sir, it will always point you the way true north.

Dirg: dammit i wanted to tell His Majesty The President that!

Laertus: look up! you see that airrace plane whizzing by! it's Melbourne gotta be! i salute men like Melbourne in planes. and that brave space pilot in Honneamise. the film right after the Challenger disaster which got us over space flight. to space flight again. to our better angels and the face of God. tempted us with travel again, egged on our exploration, our instinct to be with the stars.

Dirg: and unfortunately reignited that obscene amount of money flowing into NASA again. wait, LoadStar?

Laertus: that's the Omni-like scifi magazine. huge in the '80s. i believe they only printed one copy.

Bump: R.I.P. Bill Pullman, he was a mensch.

Laertus: no...that's...

Dirg: the Ben 10 alien? the one when the show was still good, crossover comic?

Laertus: i wouldn't know. despite my green hair, i stopped watching that show when it started selling toys at McDonald's.

Dirg: i HAD to watch the current teen-titans version and review it for my weblog for money. it made me hate tv. Tres Leches, i feel sorry for your generation, the only Ben 10 you know is the baby iteration. you don't know what high-quality tv is, only high-quality tv sets. show me your papers. your Kavanaugh Papers.

Tres Leches politely nods once closing his eyes.

Tres Leches: *red on brown cheeks* i love it my favorite show Ben 10. Gwen my favorite character, she's so cute and chibi!

Bump: have a cold one on me, Fed. i mean beer. the Miller Man beat you fair and square, and like he said, he'll take it. like i take it everyday. he's a foreigner who plays football the right way, he plays fantasy football. Miller, Australian for beer. and Miller is beer for Mueller. how much does beer cost? i've never bought a beer before, the ladies just come to me. i'm not a beer salesman. i don't carry a mug of beer filled with beer in my shut suitcase around with me at all times.

Laertus: i prefer wine. i don't get why beer is so popular, it's so disgustingly bitter!

Dirg: no you don't understand how. it's made by men with beards. and no one cares what you think.

Bump: before i give you this beer, i'm adding fifty cents for the froth. you're not part of the silent army, are you?

Federer: i don't want to talk about it.

Madame Pons: Alize Cornet, you are hot! at the moment, you're in the news.

Laertus: don't do it. don't say it to her. don't say you want to blow her horn. excuse my friend in advance.

Dirg: i was just gonna compliment Alize with an alize! greeting in French and say if she doesn't want to wear a shirt i won't wear a shirt in solidarity and we can all remain shirtless as we talk.

Laertus: i'll only believe it if i see you out there at the next nude protest.

Dirg: glad to see the black Jap get through, she's going all the way! she's gonna have a female Tiger Woods moment like at the Masters.

Laertus: must you be so crude? it doesn't become you. you speak in porn. i for one was happy to see the Jap get revenge...

Bump: for the war? we won that fair and square, right?

Laertus: no, dammit! now you've got me doing it! i was glad Nishikori got revenge. sir, would you kindly leave? your presence is violating the personal space in my head. you're infecting me with your impish inveigle.

Bump is gone.

at the Polo Lounge, the crones are trying to get into a salad to stay healthy.

Doryce: i'm not! where's the beef?

Gladyce: it's a salad, this isn't Taco Bell. it's like the Waldorf or something.

Doryce: at least put some ham in there. peel an egg in there. make it McCarthy and scandalous. make the egg an egg timer with a microscopically-tiny camera so Communist it still uses film which spies your uvula set to blow.

the boys are spying from a nearby white-carpeted table.

Laertus: out of concern. eavesdropping like any good food friend would.

Dirg: or concerned citizen. right, comrade?

Laertus: i feel a kinship to them. responsible for them and their wellbeing. they're like the grandmothers i never had.

Dirg: i never knew my father, he would have loved the construction, that the construction's done. would have loved to see that extra lane of highway.

Laertus: not technically done. mine, too. i mean my dad's dead as a doornail, too.

the golden girls are dining this late afternoon on a dish of Stella d'Oro breadsticks and Medaglia d'Oro instant espresso.

Doryce: more like dining on a diet. are you done with that insane garlic-bread addiction you had?

Gladyce: that was you, dear.

Doryce: i'm practicing for my cruise next week.

Gladyce: oh lordess please don't let there be tapes. i don't want to fathom the details of what that entails!

Doryce: this polo place inspires me. i see the wall calendars on the wall. i want to be naked and buff and buffy, too, like those male models in those spreading calendars. i want to view these calendars at the barbershop, put my feet up on the hanging vine by the barber combs in dark blue liquid that's not water, and fold out the triptych paper with the centerfold on it.

Gladyce: there were silky and svelte and skinny female naked models, too.

Doryce: were there? i didn't see them, the men are such trees and must have covered them. i want to be part of something bigger than myself, i want to participate in a nude protest.

Gladyce: you want to be naked. nude implies a purpose.

Doryce: yeah i really want to be naked bareback on top of a horse. i hear that's a singular sensation.

Dirg: you wanted to talk to me?

Laertus: yes, about Flashdance.

Dirg: right, of course.

Laertus: Sunny Johnson, what an ironically tragic name. i mean just as her star was about to rise it's all over for her. where's the fairness? where's the sugar at the end of the struggle? all she wanted to do was act. and not skate. you know my theory is she had a bad fall no one saw and hit her head hard on the ice doing the ice-skating scene with the dried-ice fog. she sustained a concusion but it was the '80s---things like this weren't discussed back then, hell people didn't know what concussions even were back then---plus she thought if she talked she'd lose this precious once-in-a-lifetime job if they found out and thought she couldn't continue. she did whatever she was told to do and never complained. i mean young people like her just don't spontaneously combust.

Dirg: i love most of all in '80s movies you see the guys with the hairy naked chests in bed, hairy like a howler autistic monkey. that's the trope in all '80s movies to indicate alpha-male sex: dude with hairy chest in bed. i even have to admire Alec Beta Baldwin back then there in that bed with his hairy chest in Working Girl.

Laertus: verdict on the AdventureTime finale? did you eat dinner before or after the 6PM hour?

Dirg: why must all modern good cartoons now have to end with a lesbian kiss? that's like a requirement if you want to work in the industry.

Laertus: Steven Universe will end with lesbian sex.

Dirg: AFTER ALL THAT, ALL the adventuring Finn did on behalf of protecting the Kingdom, for TEN freakin' years, he gets a paltry kiss on the cheek from Princess Bubblegum like she was always a sister-figure to him!!?

Laertus: it's tough when the girl is taller. i would have been okay with making Bubblegum bi. where's Huntress Wizard in all this? the writers didn't do their HW homework, Huntress and Finn are perfect for each other!! take it from me: meditation is masturbation, sex is spirituality.

at the track, the Horse Croquet is about to begin, everyone's on the grass. the horses run around in a circle while the jockeys including Melbourne in his tight jockey outfit which makes his penis look like an organ-pedal stand on their saddles and hit the red fire-hardened-glass croquet ball with their wood mallets as the ball goes flying from horse to horse in a very dangerous fashion. the gold dust being scuffed up into the air is not the problem. Taki from the stands has seen enough.

Taki: STOP! THIS IS CRAZYTOWN! not the band banned from Nickelodeon! this isn't a race this isn't cars! the horses don't like this! i've talked to them. go on, talk to them.

Melbourne lowers his head incredulously to be six inches from the horse's big face and big gums and big teeth.

horse: mate, you'll always be six inches compared to me.

Melbourne: you really don't like this?

horse: we hate it, mate.

the horse gets on all twos and shakes Melbourne's hand with his hoof and all the horses follow suit and remove their saddles and the jockeys remove their suits and the horses and humans leave the track walking away together for a beer. everyone loves beer.

Gladyce: *peering out the window* dear Dor you have to admit, whenever you're around, wherever you go, all the horses seem to be able to get up and talk.

Melbourne kisses Taki in the stands from his vantage point on the track.

Melbourne: you have to admit, you have to give me credit, i know how to spot an impressive woman. i can identify a quality woman like you. if nothing else i can do.

Taki: please don't use the word pick.

Melbourne: i mean you're the real sports psychologist! you were the sports psychologist for the horse! you're way better than my last sports psycholoigist!

Taki: i get beings to open up. you know when it's hot like this no amount of stylish sunhat with a sunflower on its side will make the heat any cooler. it's all for show.

Melbourne: nice hat.

Bump has made it to the National Enquirer headquarters. he picks the lock on the gold safe with a strand of his gold hair.

Pecker: what are you doing, Mickey?

Bump: i'm taking out all the Kavanaugh Papers and putting in my prized Colin Kaepernick shoes with his signature on them. Pecker, what a glorious name. how does that work with the ladies? do you get made fun of or do you not have to pay for beer? i mean your name got Rachel Maddow to smile, she doesn't smile at anything cos it's dawning on her that she's a potbellied lesbian who'll never have kids.

Pecker: how'd you get Kaep to autograph them?

Bump: those blacks have the best hair, i'm jealous and envious, i can't get my hair like that. that's where they keep all their black magic. like that woman at the Aretha funeral with a fro bigger than the flat Earth. so i put on my fro wig and waited in line at Borders. i figured we'd bond over our collusions. i told Kaep the signature on my shoes was that of Michael Jordan, who wasn't afraid to say the word "Republican". but that if Colin erased Jordan's autograph and penciled in his, the shoes would be worth more than Jordan's, cos of course Colin was the bigger star, Colin was a star the likes of which the world has never seen and will never see again. he bought it. in more ways than one.

Pecker: well put on those shoes, race away, and get the hell outta here! i've been granted immunity by the Special Counsel against you!

Bump: what?!! shit!!! dammit BOB!

Bump: *on the phone on the run* hello Phil? Phil from Nike? this is an anonymous caller you don't know my voice. first of all, how does running help one's golf game? ridiculous. second, can you make all of your Kaep shoes with the rubber that burns easily? i want to have the only pair in existence when all is said and done, thank you.

in Heaven, John McCain takes the stage in time for his vaudeville show. he comes out in clown clothes with a huge ring and huge open space like a basketball basket for a belt, white clown makeup, red nose, and red lips. the makeup only serves to amplify his glints. he combs his hair neatly with a Navy comb and deliberately fumbles with his suitcase, which falls apart into four squares spilling out all his dirty clothes and messy long red dotted scarves and loopy belts and droopy flowers and keys and untucked shoes and three socks and brown shirts. he audience laughs, he smiles. he takes out a ridiculous oversize phone and puts the receiver to his mouth where he talks loudly.

McCain: Hilary? i can barely hear you from up here! *audience laughs* they call me MC McCain up here now. i know..............i know, honey.................it sucks to lose. to know that the rest of your life is kind of in vain cos your dream is dead. but you have it easier than me. pantsuits are easy to fold back up. *audience laughs*

Aretha Franklin joins John on stage.

Aretha: they found Dorothy's ruby slippers! they accused ME of stealing them for my funeral! shit am i still a black woman in Heaven!? *audience laughs*

McCain: i stick with blue. suede. it was quite the disconcerting experience watching my own funeral from above. scary really, all that sepulchral pomp and ceremony and concert. none of it means anything of course, but how are they below to know?

Aretha: *her arms around his shoulders* i'm not your war buddy.

McCain: *holding the X of her arms* sure you are, in the only war that matters.

Aretha: your offspring will carry the torch of your temper. that's quite the impressive quality woman you have there in your Meghan, quite the lass. she gave rich talk. a gay icon like me i hear, easier for her of course with the blonde hair and big boobs. we need more pro-sex Republicans down below.

McCain: *smirking* strictly dickly.

the two laugh together.

notes:

* btw, that ad was the most noncontroversial thing ever. it could even shock you with inspiration if you let it. this has got to stop. on all sides. sure Kaep's not the most-polished speaker but he has the best hair. let's have a sonorous speech again. we have to go back before we can go to the future. does anyone remember how this all started? or why? everyone remembers a book's ending, never a book's beginning.

* cool narrator: hey Sticks, you playing football this year?
Sticks: no, i'm playing hockey. obviously. let me get back to you.
cool narrator: whoa, you're a cop, too?
Sticks: no, this is my uniform with the fluorescent hi-viz yellow vest.

* cool narrator: what kind of music do you play? rap?
Sticks: the music that's in my heart. it beats like a drum. i create my own beats.

* runner: hey cool narrator, you're distracting me, want me to trip over these hurdles? you'd get a kick out of that, wouldn't you?
cool narrator: hey man, i don't kick anymore, i don't kick it wit you like that, i kicked that habit. hurdles are like that guy on the electric roller who almost injured a recordbreaking Usain Bolt just cos he needed a better up-close photo.

* runner: whoa! i didn't know i was fucking Mario!
rapper: you're not, young buck. unless you grow a Mario mustache.
nine months later
rapper: that's not really a Mario mustache. now you just look like Prefontaine.

* kid: can i bring the deep threat?
cool narrator: you threatening me, kid? you look like you're on your way to summer camp. school's starting, son.
cool narrator: whoa! what have you got in the trash bag, son!?
kid: Wario.
kid: what up, Kaep?
Kap: that's Kap.

* Kap: hey boy, can i borrow your lawnmower?
kid: famous people cut their own lawns?
Kap: it's for my hair.
kid: can i borrow your tie?
Kap: that's the lining of my jacket.

* kid: you ain't never heard a voice like me!
cool narrator: cool. like me the narrator. rap?
kid: Stuart Scott is my idol.
cool narrator: no idea who that is.
kid: go back to your crib, get the pillow off your bed, and that's my pillow now, G! you deserve to sleep on rocks like what's in yo head!

* cool narrator: hey kid, what's in that water glass?
kid: all they said was it was from The Lab.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. GO OSAKA!!! Djokovic will only win if the Argentinians aren't allowed in the stadium. hell he may still not win even if the Argentinians are allowed to only roam the campus, you'll still be able to hear them.

Ray Charles is blind. love is blind. God is love. Ray Charles is God. Burt Reynolds is God. Burt Reynolds is Ray Charles.

1. when i can't sleep i___

pretend i'm dead

2. my dream bedroom would be full of___

large grey bolted-sheet pails of ice-cold water circling round my bed. so i'd know. if they were empty of water, i was still dreaming. cos only a crazy person in reality would keep filled water pails by his bed.

3. if i could wake up anywhere tomorrow it would be___

my dream bedroom. cos then i'd know i was awake. btw the walls of this dream bedroom of mine are plastered totally with large autographed rolled-out glossed-out posters of Hellshake Yano. saves on plaster. and then i do the Bucket Challenge.

4. i need to ___ at night.

refill my penis

5. ___ would truly be a nightmare.

see 1. think about it, pretend you're in Heaven. but how could you ever know that this is the real Heaven and not an illusion? is this the last final bottom Heaven place free of tricks of the mind, total spirit, not pretend? who would tell you that it was an illusion if it looks and feels and thinks so real to you? and would you believe this angel? how would you ever know one way or the other? you'd go about your day picking berries into your basket in this fake place and never be the wiser...

6. night time is the right time to___

eat the moon

bonus: briefly tell us about your last dream---erotic or not:

i'm excited at the mall with the rest of the excited mob to stand in line and get my driver's license signed by Hellshake Yano. it will never be an exited mob cos there are no fire exits. but then someone not Hellshake comes onto that stage next to the green-neon-lit Orange Julius. it's his manager. the manager tells us that all of our instagrams are a lie, HE's the one who leaves comments not Yano, and that Yano will not be appearing today he's sick. as we all cry, the manager goes, "SIKE!" Yano is healthy and the manager just likes wielding all that power. the manager makes the tongue motion with his mouth at me which i find strangely okay.

when i get to my turn and my step up the grey block i look Yano in his sunglasses and he looks me in the eye and we have horizontal sex on his signing table. i tell him i did it all for the nookie and that i hope this ensures that we'll be getting another season of Pop Team Epic, FLCL Alternative is good slice but not crazy enough, we need our crazy quota filled, we're mall teens.

Yano takes off his sunglasses, which is just more sunglasses, proclaims to me in disgust, "that really burns my cookies" and in a hole in the mall stage descends back to Hell. where there's enough heat to bake cookies. this is the place you want to continue baking, forever...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

the Horse Croquet horses are having a cold one at the pony pub when suddenly their bones start to shake. they become cold. they feel it.

horse: mate, gotta cut it short. a storm's a'comin'. btw we came up with that expression first, not you humans, we HATE your human coffee it's bitter to us. we don't board up our mom-and-pop stores like plywood pussies, we ride it out, we've been doing it for 1000 years, we are proof of evolution, we instinctively know the best beaches to hide out in, the best tax shelters from the Government. you trot us but we know how to walk. our evening strolls are in the morning when there's less animal traffic, we're gone before you eat your first egg with the shell on, early bird and all that, some of our best friends were early birds who were eaten.

this causes Melbourne to contemplate his entire life up to this point, at least that hour he had to kill at the pub before his next sex appointment with a credit-card client. he brushes the eggshell-blue paper horsehoe streamers out of his bald hair and pushes a twopenny to the edge of the saloon slider. he downs disgustingly a spotty tumbler with spots on it of chalky cloudy dank milk.

Melbourne: tuppenny. that's all my life's been. without her.

at the table,

Bump is making one last stealth motivational speech to the nation in closed-circuity untraceable hostage-tape format downloaded to youtube. his podium is a circle, a bricked well of caulked Stones cemented shut around Mayor Penguin Giuliani, Gotham's Mayor, trapped forever inside squeezed in so his feathers can taste his beak. cylindrically shaped, looks like a cut-off smokestack. a mic comes out of the caulk, growing imperceptibly.

President Bump: i love bricked wells. they have that aesthetic appeal to me that is unmistakable yet unknowable. i especially love when the bricks are red, gives it that brimstone bravado. i just know i am more comfortable around women when a bricked circular well is around.

Madame Pons: cos you can claim that all women really are witches?

Jackie from The Weather Channel: well done, padawan! you'll be coming soon. you're one to watch. i love your spit, your wet spunk lights a firecracker under dryasses. the blue in my contact lenses crackles yellow. look at that bright dark red color overflowing my virtual virtua-map here like a wave, it's so..................beautiful. red as Georgia. i look at the eye from NOAA on my satellite and it's so well-formed, took a day to gather itself and steal into the night to form itself again anew and stronger like a Trojan. i see all the little rainstorms trickling around that eye, it looks so ticklish, i just want to jump in there and rub her cloudy belly. crinkles my surgery-singed wrinkles. i rest my head of bushy hair down there on its cottonseed-oil pillow. lights an iron under my flattened plastic. that buzzsaw shape makes me moist down below, as it slices the sea with severe sainthood granted by the natural goddess, a pox on all houses, punishment for man's sins.

Madame Pons: red as a witch's apple.

Bump: i like your heels, Jackie, blue like the color of your hologrammic aura. in the words of all the Southern mayors today, in the words of all you people's favorite movie, GET OUT. just kidding. listen to me instead. you WATCH, you just WATCH. i GUARANTEE Hurricane Florence will be a big bust, nothing is gonna happen! i know how the tv game works, it's all hype. it's gonna peter out like so much paul. you mARK MY WORDS, this storm is a giant nothingburger with cheese. i have a friend named Florence, she reminds me of that Texas mom and teacher in that orgy scandal with her students, she looks like Florence from the Brady Bunch. i'm sure she was one of my voters. thank you for listening, America. and THAT, America, is a Billy Bump GARE-UHN-TEE.

Bill Nye: a climate-denier leader is dangerous. you can have your own twitter show but not when you're the most powerful puppet-stringer in the world. i mean don't you believe in  energy, Mick? even nuclear energy?

Bump: this hurricane is a joke,

Mike Tyson: get my name out yo mouth. i voted for you not the other way around.

Bump: i could make a hurricane WAY more powerful with my thumb. hey Bill, can you get me a date? this Russia poison positive investigation has REALLY cramped my style, put a damper on my game with the ladies. after Melania goes to sleep-mode in Lincoln's bedroom where he slept and left his beard stains on the pillow. i thought by now i'd be married with kids. married to the mob, the Russian mob. and Russian child brides.

Bill Nye: i don't know what to say. what more can you say when you're right? twitter is urging me politely to read a physics book so i guess i'll get right on that right away. after my tour with Carrot Top, i'm updating his props for the scientific age.

Bump: yeah i dunno. i just dunno. i mean 1,2,3 degrees, like i put on my deodorant armpit, 5 percent, 10 decimal levels, a cubic of water, a cube-shaped tumbler of water, doesn't seem like a lot of water. what about global cooling, yous know? yeah, global COOLING! whatever happened to that? it was hot in the 1970s but got rejected by the elites. it was a scientific discovery the likes so yuge the world has yet to see and will never see again. they were making global-cooling Yugo cars. what, just cos it came out of the '70s everyone thinks it's not valid or cool or a lame malaise? global cooling is COOL, my man.

Bill Nye: where are you off to now? and can i have some of your twitter followers?

Bump: now if y'all excuse me, i'm off to see a film in a theatre. let's hope that Texas teacher movie is still playing.

Dirg: so Serena...

Laertus: careful...this isn't Sirena from Venture Bros....

Serena Williams: i don't want to talk about it. ooooooooooooooh i can't wait till my daughter turns 17......i'm gonna give her a birthday envelope with $17000 in it as her gift in the present.

Dirg: can i just say? and i mean this sincerely. you are my favorite feminist.

Laertus: Carlos Ramos what are you doing here? shouldn't you be in hiding with Bump? can you be in hiding when you're on the run? technically i mean.

Nadal: *in heavily-accented voiceover voice* my name........................is Raphael Nadal...........

Carlos Ramos: my name...................is Raphael Nadal.......

Laertus: the issue here is the penalty. taking a game away is too steep a price to pay, the limit should be a point. when you start taking away wholesale games willy-nilly you mess with the integrity of the sport, it becomes a parlor-trick game after that. puppet strings from New York, not tennis strings from the gut. takes the racquet out of the hand of the painted fingernails.

Dirg: and painted hand.

Carlos Ramos is gone, disappeared into the night like a thief.

Laertus: oh, and allow all coaching. on the sidelines and wherever else. even when the player doesn't want coaching coaching should be forced.

Dirg: now i got you cornered with your own hangnoose argument. you say that the tennis would be more competitive but it wouldn't be tennis anymore. the whole point of tennis is that it's a solitary mindfuck sport that you have to figure out alone because you're the last man on earth. what you're talking about is doubles.

Djokovic: *sweating* you do realize that EVERY single match i've ever played, the crowd has NEVER been for me.

Laertus: Naomi, you're taking this quite well. like the Inuyashawell. following along the deep Japanese tradition of stoicism. when's your sports anime coming out?

Osaka Naomi: i think i'll retire on top. or maybe go into coaching. i hear Nishikori needs a coach, i've been where he wants to go, even though it might not even be made official on wikipedia. a match made in Ancestor Heaven. Jordan's my favorite player. Michael B. Jordan.

Laertus: yeah, see Carlos? now you know what it's like in America. a lifetime of good deeds never goes on your Wikipedia page, you are defined solely by your one mistake forever. so what's your next move, Carlos? Carlos? anyone see Carlos? oh, he's texting me....................he says he's going to coach Nick Kyrgios. Kyrgios Koach he writes in textspeak. and he sent me an unwanted provocative picture of Genie Bouchard with the sweating emoji.

Bump arrives at the movie theatre. it is empty on a dirty afternoon save for one man sitting in the center of the row of sprayed-on seats. the place is so dark not even the spotlight of the rattling filmreel greywheels in the back projecting the pornographic classic can shine a light on the subject. Richard Nixon is a spirit in a hologram glowing in a pale Jedi blue. he sips his small bag of striped popcorn. his jowls are too painful to flick the popcorn into the air and catch it with his mouth.

playing: Deep Throat. the marquee outside is broken neon lights.

on the circular theatre's wet walls are damp warping woods holding up hooks for wormy trenchcoats and oil portraits of careworn predecessors whose painted eyes all look at Dick, who has his feet up on the latest seat, wearing a brown corduroy business suit and California-cool rubber opentoed sandals.

Richard Nixon: it's freaky how history repeats itself, huh. want some oily popcorn coming out of my mouth? where are you off to now, son? learn from me and stop running. you're too fat for it.

Bump: going to the House of the Book. they'll never suspect me there. the only library i've ever been in is my future presidential library. that's in Simi Valley where they film my favorite show of all time, Power Rangers. it's a nuclear plant so i hope to see Homer there.

Nixon: the poet?

Bump: full of high smokestacks billowing out clouds of black nuclear waste, weather can be so beautiful. my kind of people live there. they won't turn me in. even the Coal Ranger. i'm gonna see if i can build a nuclear bomb there to wipe out this Florence nuisance. just drop that daisycutter right in the center of that eyewall and shave off all of that fat octomom Ursula's kelp in her seaweed. hey it's better than a fork in the eye. "here's mud in your eye" will be my tagline as i drop it.

Nixon: what was with that terrible gesture you made at 9/11? you looked like you were constipated. at least i gave the peace sign.

Bump: that's my Wheaties pose. i'm gonna be on the next Wheaties box! next to Sue Bird! i hear she recently got married, so mazel tov from the missus.

Nixon: i ate Wheaties once, it created my jowls. did you ever play a non-professional sport? what grades did you get at the Army?

Bump: at the Academy? A plusses. and an F for my foot. foot pus.

Nixon: have you ever committed suicide?

Bump: no.

Nixon: many Puerto Ricans did. am i getting through to you or am i speaking to ghosts?

Bump: i am so excited to watch the Seattle Storm win the chip! gets me wet like rain. i LOVE the WNBA! now that's a REAL storm.

Nixon: uh, that won't be here.

Bump: well, i gotta get back. Storm Watch. what's the Waffle House Index? i love waffles in houses, these are my people.

Nixon: no son, no, these are not your voters despite what you were told. didn't you sign an executive order keeping KFC separate from the tradition?

Bump: i can stay with you here, right? at least until the movie finishes. worked for Lee Harvey.

Nixon: you tell my redheaded stepchild hello for me when i disappear. you know, all these oil paintings surrounding me talk back when i talk to them. especially the painting THERE, they talk the loudest. like they're giving orders.

Nixon points to the movie screen and laughs unevenly.

Doryce and Gladyce have moved their operation to the House of the Book's smokestacks. Doryce is learning much like an underwater diver how to breathe in a toxic, black-smoke-infested environment.

Gladyce: why are you doing this to yourself, beloved? it's not healthy, even for you.

Doryce: it's for yourself. it's a surprise. two words: sweeping staircase.

the boys are keeping watch from a distance. like Bette Midler.

Gladyce: want some Schar bread?

Doryce: does it come in croutons? or wafers? or paperthin mini-flatbreads?

Doryce gains health points with the food as she chows down and flies high into the sky like a floating yogi into the fumes, disappearing.

Dirg: well at least she's stopped fuming. so, The Halloween Tree.

Laertus: Halloween came early?

Dirg: says and like you.

Laertus: i mean if you think about it, after 4th of July, Halloween is the next holiday. that's a LONG wait to feel patriotic again.

Dirg: The Simpsons should start each season with Treehouse, the way NASCAR starts with the Super Bowl.

Laertus: gotta say, it made me less scared of death. death is natural, right? and no way that was Leonard Nimoy, that was Leonard Nimoy with a hacking cough and we all know Vulcans are incapable of smoking. and THAT's how Ray Bradbury sounds? wimpier than i thought. he sounds like me.

Dirg: would have preferred the original 8 boys from the preeminent pristine book.

Laertus: come on, the girl wasn't annoying this time.

Dirg: yeah, but Pip was a bitch. a bitch who deserved no followers. die like a boy next time and let everyone get on with their lives, you cost them another drink of Humira.

Laertus: can't talk much anymore, school has started. see you later. make sure YOU don't die, i'm not worried about the crones.

in a room tucked in the corner of the fourth alleyway of the swabbed shipdeck of the Titanic holds the racquetball court. with one blue stripe all around. the wood-paneling shipdeck is actually the surface of the court, formed out of it the way all plants form out of the Great Oak. Taki is teaching Melbourne how to play it like a pro.

Melbourne: *wearing a cheesy striped headband* thanks for being my brain coach once again. i love whiling away a day with you, watching the sun go down together.

Taki: we're indoors, we can't see the sun.

Melbourne: i can.

Taki: oh sister. and when you use the term brained i get uncomfortable. when you're fencing, think of the opponent in front of you on a horizontal bungee-cord rope and pierce the two casaba melons you imagine in your mind on his front bulletproof vest to score a point. slice 'em with the tip of your grip like you were avoiding the rip.

Melbourne: what if my opponent is a beautiful woman and not a fat man?

Taki: that is not the point. points are the point. fencing is tennis, racquetball is doubles. so racquetball is exactly like fencing except your opponent is at your side, strike with your sword the same way, forget even that there's small blue balls in play.

Melbourne: that reminds me, i need to get to The Store. i shop every two weeks now. it's impossible to shop for two weeks, your milk is guaranteed to spoil. 14 days is longer than people think, it's a LONG time.

Melbourne: want to know how my date went?

Taki: who?

Melbourne: Mariel Zagunis.

Taki: how? how is she i mean?

Melbourne: Mariel is one of those mysterious blonde women whom we have an intense interest in and in her wrinkled hazard-suit ass for a concentrated amount of time. then it's over like a cliff. then 4 years later she pops up in People Magazine pregnant and ready to pop. it's the Goldilocks tale all over again in a repeat circle.

Taki: it's a good thing my hair is from the Land of the Rising Sun.

in Heaven, John McCain delivers the eulogy. of the country. from his stage. from above down below:

McCain: to those who heed my warning, it's not enough to pee your pants at a funeral. we are getting nothing done, my friends, we are getting nothing done! if we remain tribalist, America is doomed.

the congregants all wear dour faces, drippy noses, and eyes red with blood.

McCain: none of you can hear me. believe me, if you won't believe in God. believe me i'd rather give a funny speech. Lorne Michaels LOVED me. but none of you can hear me. but you can hear my voice. take the word tribal. it has the root word rib...

notes:

* the man, named Chico: i didn't know who else to call.
Clark: we can handle anything. except Ghostbusters played by female Pop Team Epic. this is a nice white house you've got here, sir.
Chico: i'm your next president, bitch! time for the calibration! you planning on stealing it?
Clark: ...
Chico: just kidding. i called you cos i don't know anyone else in the neighborhood. i don't have any friends, i only have family.

* Chico: your van indicates no funny business in the back and a Spider-Man symbol. you Peter Parker? you look like Peter Parker.
Clark: yes, i am Rey's parents. what's in the garage?
Chico: the answer to Rey's parents.
Clark: why do you keep your porch lights on during the day?
Chico: saves on eyeglasses. i ain't fallin' for that, everyone knows all robberies occur during the day.

* Chico: you guys are mindful of the environment, right?
Clark: Trump takes care of that. i wear this uniform even to bed.
Chico: you're not gonna harm the rats and bugs in any way, right? no non-green chemicals? animal life is more precious than human life.
Clark: just honey and milk, i'm Persian...

* Chico: i can't see too good. i only have eyes for my beloved.
Clark: no one should go into attics. that's where they keep the comic books and dead bodies.

* Clark: 100%
Chico: boi you still use the old math!!!?

* Justine: ...
Clark: Justine?! where the fuck did you go after Family Ties!!!?
Chico: i know, right? she should be Winona Ryder by now. or at least Demi Moore.

* Justine: can we please watch something other than football?
Chico: you're just player-hatin'. admit it, you hate Pennsylvania! *to Clark* it's Steelers vs. Eagles.
Clark: that was last year's Super Bowl, right?
Chico: boi you don't get out much. you live under a rock?
Clark: no, in my pod.
Chico: football just ain't the same no more without Costas. he was the soul of the game. i'd love how he'd go off ranting the entire three-hour show about what is and isn't a catch. that case is now before Judge Kavanaugh. what is a catch?
Clark: you know it when you see it. like pornography.

* Clark: so THAT's where Monica's wet dress went. you collect Mario cards?
Justine: i trapped Mario's spirit in that card. he's the only man who'll listen to me for more than five minutes. i turn him on and i play with him. he's got that Burt Reynolds mustache and he fixes my plumbing. he isn't afraid of commitment, in fact his job is to stop weddings he deems unfit.

* Justine: i'm willing to watch football. as long as it's Brady, that guy with the cheesy smile in Green Bay, or the Raiders quarterback with the dreamy eyes who's currently getting fucked by Chucky. and Belichick, oh my god do i love Belichick who gets all the chicks, he's a gridiron genius, he reminds me of my father, cold and distant. i followed in my father's footsteps and became a cold and distant ghost.

* Justine: you have to understand, this dusty bodice dress that looks like a theater curtain or a wool kitchen tablecloth was all the rage when i was a chick, it was like the miniskirt is today.
Clark: ma'am, women wear dental floss today. their teeth are very healthy.
Justine: the man at the fair kept insisiting he wanted to take my picture. one poof of his daguerreotype and the bright flash of light and heavy plume of dark smoke took me to the other side, to the other place. at least it was fun seeing a man faint.

* Justine drops her puce handkerchief in front of Chico.
Justine: would you mind picking that up for me, sir?---this is the roleplay---i'm afraid my fingers are too delicate for this puddle of water.
Chico: pound for a pond, deal?
Clark: what's the handkerchief for?
Justine: that was the custom back in my day. ladies needed handkerchiefs to cover their mouths to keep their men from seeing them laugh.

* Justine: we've been described in early print in the local paper which covers our one horse and one general store and one dysentery that as a coupling we are romantic, captivating, taboo, and dangerous...like way more illicit than any Celtic affair on green grandeur with a pirate and waves.
Chico: fine but when do we get to fuck!?
Justine: let's hug.
the man goes right through the woman.
Chico: did we do it?
Justine: you won't be going through me anymore, i've been taking my Humira.
Chico: and i've been taking my Denzel Washington ED pills. we're like Izzie and Denny from Anatomy of an Aneurysm.
Justine: i can't binge Grey's Anatomy anymore, this show was made before MeToo. there are so many infractions, just the ones we know about. i know what Kavanaugh did to me...

* Chico: she won't leave. just like Hurricane Florence.

* Clark: why are you on the roof?
Justine: preparing for Hurricane Florence. who do you think is swirling it? they had it right all those centuries ago, hurricanes really are the spirits of disgruntled women who never found love in this life.

* Justine: Clark, i'm your mother, and Chico is your father.
Clark: had a feeling. i was drawn to this house like a fat kid to cake and Halloween candy. but is this biracial thing gonna work? i know it's PC to say it's cool but these things don't really work out in real life.
Justine: if you're thinkin' bout my baby it don't matter if you're black or white.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend, my babies. if you've lost all hope, if you have nowhere to turn on your block, your pizza has turned to dust, the light has filtered out of your eyes, trust in the Cajun Navy. the Cajun Navy knows that you exist. the Cajun Navy knows that you matter. the Cajun Navy knows where you live. the Cajun Navy will come for you. the Cajun Navy cares about you. Godspeed Cajun Navy Godspeed...