Do you enjoy serious but nimble dramas, packed with compelling but appreciably absurd characters who ride on sufficiently hard-to-map but nonetheless seamless narrative arcs? I bet you do, and there are plenty of places to find them. Just not here, presently. What I do have are the tiniest of verbal morsels that have been rolling around in my head for so long that I’d go insane if I kept them there. Will anything come of them? I don’t know. If you think something should, you are free to inform me and then some! Until then I give you what are basically a series of fugitive New Yorker captions, polished Army Man bits, and rejected Succession insults. And yeah, not all of them are hits.
“I can’t stand that guy. He’s Big Star’s third album if it knew my name and had a Social Security number.”
“I’m not better than you in any important way. Just in a few interesting ways.”
“I can see the British moving on from Scotland pretty easily. I just know they will never let go of New Zealand. They’re holding onto that property for dear life. It’s the one part of the planet where they don’t feel like they’re being left out of a very funny joke that’s definitely at their expense.”
“What does his last employer say?”
“They said, and I quote, ‘Emmett Hardy is driven by a sense of childlike wonder.’”
“That’s it?”
“Uh huh.”
“People need to be more precise when using that cliché.”
“I mean, it’s for a creative associate position. It makes sense to me.”
“That depends. Are we getting a fanciful dreamer or someone who gets snot everywhere?”
“Living well is the best revenge because it’s not real revenge. It’s just moving on with your life; that’s why people always tell you that. The whole point of revenge is that you go out of your way to exact payment from someone who may not even be aware that they owe you anything and who may even like the attention from you trying to get it. And fame is not living well. It’s not even that effective a form of revenge anymore. If you get famous to get back at her, you’re stuck being famous for as long as the world will tolerate you. At best, she’ll be annoyed for a week before just closing her tab. At worst, she’ll be happy for your otherwise bullshit achievement.”
“What do you think about getting it out there that Patty Mansfield has a sixth toe on her right foot?”
“I don’t know, is it an extra big toe or a little toe?”
“Like a middle one just sort of poking out.”
It’s risky. You say one thing, her spa masseuse, her pedicurist, anyone who’s gone to the beach with her will see things another way.”
“She wears weird flip flops though.”
“They’ll say you’re criticizing her fashion sense.”
“They are weird. And no one likes being blasted as a foot freak, even professional ones.”
“Let’s focus-group it at least.”
“We’ll do a girls only group and a boys only group.”
“Can you give us any indication of the president’s mood at this time?”
“I can say that he’s confronting this crisis with a comportment only the pope could admire. Yes, Donna.”
“Going off of that: is it the president’s demeanor closer to a Velasquez pope or a Francis Bacon pope?”
“I will neither confirm nor deny the particularities of the president’s papal state of mind.”
“This feud between us needs to end, but I only see one way out of it.”
“So do I: volleying erudite but lacerating one-liners.”
“Wait … you also partake in verbal abuse?”
“Of course, what else are gentlemen to do when dueling is outlawed and they’re priced out of most fancy ties?”
“I hadn’t anticipated this. I seem to have misplaced my unending rage. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Inconsolable with contentment.”
“God give us the strength to see this dark night through.”
“For the millionth time: a caesarean section is not a spectator sport. You can’t make bets on it.”
“Maybe not in this morality cycle, but you’ll be eating crow in, like, two more.”
“I can really feel the boomer energy in this room.”
“I hope you’ve done your stretches; you’ll be dodging deflected long-term consequences all night.”
“How do I get out of this jury?”
“Easy, say you’re racist.”
“That’s insane.”
“Not if you know what you’re doing. Intra-white racism is every caucasian’s God-given right, their favorite pastime, and a delicate craft. For this purpose you just need to find the one European population that both doesn’t matter and is aware enough of that fact to have no reason to take offense and retaliate.”
“So … what … I go to the judge and confess my undying hatred of the Finns?”
“We’re cooking with gas at least. Trust me, as your friend nothing pains me more than to tell you this. But as a niche bigot it’s like every July 4th firework going off at the same time. And with friendship and bigotry working together, society will never ask anything of you ever again.”
“You know how our parents used to tell us that when we have kids we’ll be just as worried about them as they were about us?”
“Of course.”
“And look how wrong they turned out to be. I’m actually mad about it. No one prepared us for giving birth to losers with no capacity for risk and terribly afraid of looking stupid.”
“We could show them some times.”
“Like that awful party at the warehouse ‘loft’ with garbage bags taped over the fluorescent lights in 2005.”
“I’m almost disappointed that videos of our murders aren’t being traded on the dark web.”
“Listen, you need to make a will. Not having a will when you die just causes so much preventable chaos. Even if it’s just ‘LOVE ME LOVE ME LOVE ME’ written on a paper towel in blood and rainbow sprinkles.”
“You can get that notarized?”
“My grandfather did anyway.”