Driving Music

That is a wild face.

“I just got loose with it. I started an improv class this week.”

Oh, God, no.

“Yes, and?”

No, you don’t just say it.

“Yes.”

…

“And?”

You should stick to the faces.

“That’s what the teacher said. She was nicer about it, though. She said that my comedy lived in my silences.”

She’s smart. Are you at UCB? Groundlings?

“James Franco’s acting school.”

Of course.

“And I’m gardening.”

Succulents?

“Of course. Also, I’ve been washing my face 40 or 50 times a day. And learning to cook.”

What I’m hearing is that you’re having a hard time filling the hours in between tours.

“I didn’t used to be like this.”

You didn’t used to be in the Dead. You will now find yourself strangely untethered at home.

“All of my homes?”

Yup.

“Dammit. How did the Dead cope?”

Mostly, they drank.

“Mostly?”

One filled the downtime by obsessively playing bar gigs and smoking dope in darkened rooms.

“Neither of those are healthy suggestions. I’m going to use this time to better myself. Write some new songs. Kill it on Insta. I’m thinking about getting into, like, really good shape. Put on eight or ten pounds of muscle. Get the body-fat way down. I’m gonna look like I was in a Marvel movie.”

You know what you should do?

“I don’t want your advice, honestly.”

Call up Lovato.

“I tweeted out support.”

No, no, no. Call her. Slide into her DMs.

“This is going nowhere pleasant, is it?”

Hey, you were the one complaining on teevee about famous women not wanting anything to do with you.

“So I should hit on a woman who just overdosed in public?”

This is your shot, man.

“This is not my shot.”

She’s making bad decisions this week, and I think you could get to second base.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Maybe sloppy second.

“Shouldn’t my phone have rung by now?”

Oh, no. There’s a new thing.

“Huh?”

“Watch this drive, Mr. President.”

“Your skills on the links greatly, uh, outpace mine, Gleason.”

“Couple years from now, sir, you’ll retire and be out here every day with the rest of us degenerates. Your game’ll never better, but your liver will never be worse.”

“Ha! Yes, again with the jokes. I love them so. I once employed a gag-writer, but he was Jewish. And, uh, Erlichmann and Haldeman smelled it on the kid. They went at him like hyenas. He stopped showing up to work. I always assumed those two maniacs ate the boy.”

“Tough to find good writers. Mine are mostly from Brooklyn.”

“I have mostly boys from Yale.”

“Excuse me. Excuse me, excuse me, hey. Down here. Jackass.”

…

“HEY!”

You sound just like Andy Cohen when you yell.

“What garbage bullshit is this?”

It is Richard Nixon and–

“I know who they are.”

–Jackie Gleason playing golf.

“Why?”

Why? Why? We haven’t even established when and where yet.

“Are they going to start killing people again? Andy’s blazing. That’s how mad he is. ‘I’m blazing, dude.’ That’s every conversation with him since you roped him into your shameful little doings.”

Did you tell him that everyone in here is functionally immortal?

“I did.”

You explained to him that Benjy Eisen could bring people back from the dead?

“I did?”

And?

“Didn’t help.”

Weird.

“Gleason, are those hippies?”

“The six over there?”

“Dammit, man, slow down on the scotch! There, there! Those youngsters, are they hippies?”

“Yeah, uh-huh.”

“Agent Heintz! Pistols!”

PISTOLS BEING HANDED OVER TO A DISGRACED PRESIDENT AND A LEGENDARY FUNNYMAN NOISE

“Was he talking about us? Did he mean ‘six’ because he’s seeing double and there are three of us?”

Maybe,

BANG!

Probably.

“Holy shit! Where even is he?”

BANG!

BOOM!

“Where even is they?”

What?

“Are they, like, in my home studio? Or am I out on the golf course with them? Or do our realities abut one another?”

These are excellent questions, John Mayer.

“You’re so fucking lazy.”

BANG!

SPLOTCH!

“NO! Rando!”

Which one?

“The guy.”

Aw.

BOOM!

SHLUMPB

Was that the girl?

“Yeah, it was. Both the randos are gone. They’re all gone.”

BANG!

“Jesus! Come on, just tell me what direction the shots are coming from.”

You can’t see?

“I can see the two of them on the tee everywhere, but it seems natural. Like, I’m looking left so I should see the bathroom and the kitchen, but instead it looks exactly like I opened the house up and installed a golf course that famous murderers are playing at. I look right, I should see the jacuzzi and the theater, but it’s the same golf course. My brain is reshaping the architecture to make it seem more normal.”

That sounds disconcerting.

“Well, you did your usual C-minus job of creating a universe, and now nothing makes sense.”

BANG!

Shut up.

“Fuck you.”