"See, even the greatest writers have been forced to take the odd job." " Hmm." " Faulkner was a mailman." "Kafka, a clerk!" "Now, as you have said, the novelization market is blowing up in a "ginormous" way." "So I have prepared a list of films that I would agree to novelize for your company." "The Seven Samurai," "The 400 Blows," "Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould..." "Uh, Jimmy, we're gonna stop you right there." "They don't all have numbers in the title." "We aren't the department that handles film novelizations." "We're in charge of literary cross-promotion for all entities owned by our parent company..." "Burger Hole." "What does that mean?" "We prioritize more amorphous in-house ideas sparked by properties in the Burger Hole multiverse that have the most mental real estate." "Uh, for instance, uh, this just came in yesterday." "Uh, corporate was thinking of something involving" "French fries?" "Could be a "fish out of water" thing." "Or how about this new theme park ride... the Dragonator?" "It's a dragon with a goddamn roller coaster for a tail." "Maybe he's a single dad." "I don't know." "You're the writer." "Do you have anything with an actual narrative?" "Uh, we do have some TV projects that are open for literary pollination." "Um..." "There's, uh, Bones," " Property Brothers," " Mm-hmm, mm-hmm." "The Slap." "There's Caught on Camera with Nick Cannon," "NCIS:" "LA, Dog with a Blog..." "Sorry, NCIS:" "LA?" "!" "You're a fan?" "Heard of it." "Oh, who am I kidding?" "It's my favorite!" "Oh, great!" "We'll send start papers and parameters, but you will be imagineering your own original story." "What?" "!" "Here's a copy of the show bible." "Oh, do not need it!" "But I'll take it." "♪ I'm gonna leave you anyway ♪" "♪ I'm gonna leave you anyway ♪" "♪ Gonna leave you anyway. ♪" "Sam, I'm sure they meant" ""soft-ass poseur bitch" in a meta way." "You guys are in a fake fight!" "Keyword... "fake."" "No, don't hang..." "Goddamn it!" "Ooh, I love dumb procedurals." "Wash over me, garbage." "Numb my brain." "Make me feel nothing." "Okay, that is elitism, Gretchen." "Would you have dismissed Dickens for being popular?" "David Copperfield..." "didn't even do any magic." "Ooh, ya burnt, Dickens!" "Why are there so many naval crimes, anyway?" "Oh, Navy's villains." "They're one degree from pirates." "Oh." "Looks like we need to go discuss this with the admiral." "Play with me." "Right!" "Shut up, both of you!" "All right?" "This is my job now." "It's your-your job?" "Jimmy... you're not writing recaps, are you?" "Oh, Jimmy." "Are you grading this episode?" "No!" "I am writing the official novelization of the show." "Wow!" "Seriously?" "I am super impressed." "Right." "Everybody out, so I can work." "Out!" "Fine." " You, too." " Oh, no problem." "I've got to get to my improv comedy class." "And, yeah, I've been waiting to tell you guys." "It's this really cool and exciting new thing" "I'm doing with my life." "I'll tell you more about it later." "Bye, Jimmy." " Hello?" " This is customer number 7532." "I don't know how much time I have." "Send over one of the tall ones." "Asian." "Oh, my God!" "What is this?" "!" "Why is this?" "!" "I thought you'd gone." "I forgot my fro-yo punch card." "What is this, even?" "None of your business!" "Oh..." "Erotic Tales?" ""By Jimmy Shive-Overly, age 11"?" "!" "Still holds up." "This is the most Jimmy thing you have ever done." "Excuse me, sir?" "You may be a dog, but that doesn't make you handicapped." "And scene!" "Great callback, Edgar." "Awesome class, you guys." "Good work." "Good work." "Oh, and hey, you guys." "My group Hey, Put That Down Brian!" "has a show tomorrow night, so, you guys, please come." "Just kidding, don't come, don't come." "I don't want you to come." "Seriously, though, if you don't come," "I'll kill myself, so please come." "Bye, guys!" "Thank you." "Uh, so, so, uh, Dorothy, you're in Brian?" "!" "I didn't know they had a girl." "Yeah, yeah, that's me." "The lone vulva." "That's the team with Tall Nathan, right?" "Yeah, and Kyle and Josh." "You know them?" "Nah, I only met Tall Nathan once." "But I'm a huge fan." "In one scene he played a dude that doesn't understand sarcasm." "So funny." "Yeah." "You want to help me pick up the chairs?" "Absolutely." "Cool." "That's really great space work." "Um, I meant the actual chairs." "Ah, of course you did." "Stupid." "How's work?" "Are you still in charge of that fake rap feud?" "Ugh, it's gone completely off the rails." "Honey Nutz and Shitstain wrote a dis track about how Sam has pepperoni nipples, so he told his fans to murder them in World of Warcraft." " What have you been up to?" " Not a lot." "Little of this, little of that." "Shot a condom full of piping hot semen into my vaj." "How's the cake batter?" "First of all, are you okay?" "!" "I'm fine." "I mean, I won't be riding a horse anytime soon." "But I'm already banned from the equestrian center." "And secondly, what?" "!" "Why?" "!" "I was just so upset about Paul." "And the idea of him shoving his ding dong into that beer cooze's hand-pussy." "And Edgar's been so weird and clingy lately." "It's like I can't think straight with these guys clogging up my brain!" "Seriously." "I spend all day dealing with my dumb rapper babies." "And when I get home, there's Jimmy and Edgar." "And then the one chance I get to sneak away for a quick hang with the Louise to my Thelma..." "Who are they?" " And all we talk about is men!" " I know!" "We are complex women with rich inner lives." "For God's sakes, let's act like it and discuss something other than dicks and the dildos they hang off of." "I'm in." "So..." "So..." "I know." "There was just this really grody murder in Alabama where this woman thought her kids were demons, so she drowned all eight of them and dressed them up like Victorian dolls." "Ugh!" "Postpartum murders are so basic." "Maybe we can talk about powerful women?" "Like George Clooney's wife, Amal Clooney?" "She's both super accomplished and absolutely stunning." "She a'ight." "I guess we can shit-talk women we know." " That's within the rules, right?" " Ooh, we can?" "!" "Like Becca?" "Ugh, that sausage wallet." " Sausage wallet?" " I hope she gets pregnancy 'rhoids and they leave her bedridden, and I have to raise her baby myself." "I'd parent the shit out of her." ""Wear that skirt." "Don't blow that boy." "This is pizza!"" "Time-out!" "Who are we?" "We can't talk about men, so we're talking about babies, living and dead?" "Weak sauce." "We can do better than this!" "Oh, you're right." "Men have ruined our damn minds!" "Tomorrow we'll meet up for breakfast with prepared lists of interesting, non-dude topics." "Yes!" "This is feminism, right?" "Yes, it is." "You guys can't come in here anymore." "Morning." " How's it going?" " Not great." "There are so many moving parts to the NCIS universe." "It's quite daunting, really." "I'm sorry." "I was thinking about something funny that happened in improv class." "We were all driving cars, and I said, "Excuse me, sir, you may be a dog, but you're not handicapped, are you?"" "It was a callback." "If you're interested in watching some," "I stuck the calendar on the fridge." "In fact, I'm going to my teacher Dorothy's show tonight." " She's in Hey, Put That Down Brian!" " Ah." " You should come." " Oh, that sounds really, really fun, but you know what I think I'd rather do?" " Hmm?" " Stab myself in the bowels." " Okay." " Do you know what I'd rather experience than long-form improv?" "Long-form bone cancer." " Point taken." " No, I don't think it is." "See, you just described an improvised comedy scene to me." "That's worse than telling someone about a dream that doesn't feature them sexually." "I mean, you've had some awful, awful hobbies, but this is by far the worst." "And I'm including heroin and not knowing things are a school." "I didn't know it was a school." "All right, Lindsers, I have here a list of things to talk about, none of which involve stupid men." "First off, "Our mothers and how their pathology messed us up." Maybe it's all their fault." "Yeah." "Sure." "But what about "Icees."" "Icees?" "Oh, I don't think they have those here." "I'm talking about the Islamic State, Gretch." "They formed their own "cellophane."" "Do you think Obama has a strategy to neutralize them, or will O-Bummer betray America like he did with Benghazi?" "What the hell's going on?" "You told me not to think about dicks, so my brain got real bored and I started reading these Web sites, and then some other Web sites that disagreed with the first Web sites." "Did you know about global warming?" "It's a huge threat, but at the same time is made up by a bunch of socialist lib-tards." "My question is, who benefits?" "You have to follow the money, Gretch." "Big oil, the Middle East." "Benghazi!" "I don't want to talk about Benghazi." "Nobody does!" "And the Koch brothers?" "For some great patriots dedicated to upholding the Constitution..." "Chapter 13." "Our heroes race to stop Chechen terrorists from blowing the H... off the Hollywood sign." "But oh, no." "There's an ambush." "They've been double-crossed." "Well?" "I'm not sure it tracks." "I know it doesn't, goddamn it!" "Can I go back to school?" "My mom says" "I'm the man of the house now and that I have to get an education." "Sorry, when I gave you that sleeve of Pop-Tarts, was that for your help or your biography?" "Jimmy!" "How's it coming?" "I'm sorry, Female Executive, I can't do it." "I'm a fraud of a writer." "Can't I just write" " the roller coaster book?" " We already gave that to Neil Gaiman." "Jimmy, just take a break." "Walk away from the proj..." "Honey, I'm home!" "What's for dinner?" "Aw, Mom, carrots again?" "Hey." "So glad you decided to come watch." "Actually, I just came to remind myself that I am a good writer." "When they ask for a suggestion," "I'm gonna yell out one of my classic heckles." ""I have a suggestion." ""Instead of improvising your show," ""try the written word, invented by the Mesopotamians in 3200 BC."" "Shh!" "You shush!" "How dare you?" "Watch the show!" "Hey, lady!" "Give me those carrots." "Don't kill me." "Take the carrots." " Take all the carrots." " Yeah!" " That's a lot of carrots." " Ha-ha-ha!" "Uh, sir, we've been getting complaints from customers at the health food store." "I told you I wasn't good with organic food when you hired me!" "And we flash back to the day he was hired." "Now, how are you with organic food?" "Not good." "I'm gonna go with my gut on this." "Your gut should be trusted..." "it's a good gentleman, sir." "All right, we have a clean-up in organic foods." "But, Councilman, vaccines are really important, but they're also really, really bad." "They're transferring me to the state capitol." "Local government is such a joke." "Thanks, O-Blunder." "Oh... oh, no..." " What?" " Oh, nothing." "You don't want to see this." "Is this about the Keystone Xbox pipeline?" "'Cause that'll just make me madder." "I found this last night." "It's Paul and Amy at the Coliseum." "Amy's onstage at some concert." "Amy is interpreting... for Beyoncé?" "!" "She is finger-singing Beyoncé!" " Senator Pelosi's office." " Stop calling me!" "Ma'am, you called us." "Men are mean and they hurt my brain." "I need wine." "Aw, come here, dum-dum." "Let's watch some garbage TV and get our minds off of it." "Which one of the Real Housewives are the stupidest?" "All of them." "'Cause they're wives." "Who doesn't deserve a tasty treat..." "But really, it's New Jersey." "How'd you come up with the carrots thing?" "Well, we were talking about supermarkets, so obviously" " carrots came to mind." " The connections you made out there were just... mind-blowing." "Oh, thanks." "Yeah, I also do Sketchthon, where we write and perform 12 sketches in 12 hours." "Oh." "Why do you do that?" "Well, I..." "I don't know." "Hey, say... what do you think of Dorothy?" "You have nothing to offer her." "Jimmy..." "I'm being realistic, mate." "You just started." "These guys are at the absolute top of their game." "Tall Nathan's just done improv on a cruise ship." "Kyle's been to Greg Proops's condo!" "Oh, you're right." "I haven't done anything with my life." "I went straight from high school to the army, then straight to Iraq, and I didn't even get to see the cool parts of Iraq." "I was in Fallujah, which is basically their San Diego." "I'm referring to myself, too." "I'm a one-not-really- a-hit wonder." "I mean, how can I write when there are people this brimming with talent out there?" "You and I, we are just visitors in this world." "We'll pass through like shadows, and when we die..." "no one will care." "Oh, look!" "It's the chubby kid from the LensCrafters commercials." "That's why I stopped drinking sodas, for the most part." "Hey, Edgar." "Tall Nathan, this is Edgar..." "he's in my class." "Oh, yeah!" "Wait, what do I know you from?" "Uh, no-nowhere cool." "Y-You just came and volunteered with my veterans' group." "Oh, yeah!" "That was a lot of fun." "You guys really like gay jokes." "I didn't know you were a veteran." "I did a couple tours in Iraq." "Dumb." "Whoa." "Were you... in the shit?" "Yeah." "I guess you could say I was in the shit." "Speaking of... being in shit, uh, did I tell you about the time the toilets broke" " on that improv cruise?" " Get us a couple beers." "That's incredible." "So... what was it like?" "I mean, unless you'd rather not talk about it." "Oh, no, no." "Uh..." "What do you want to know?" "Everything." "Are you sure you didn't write those jokes beforehand?" "Nope." "You don't have an algorithm that changes your scenes based on the audience suggestion?" "It's all just..." "completely original?" "Yeah, I guess you could say that, yeah." "Why?" "What do you do?" "Oh." "I'm a novelist." " Mm." " In fact, I came here tonight with a written list of heckles." "Really?" "All right, what were some of them?" "Oh." "Um..." "Ah, this one's good." ""Instead of improv comedy, why don't you kill yourselves and improve comedy?"" "Mm." " Mm-hmm." " You don't like it." "You want to..." "end the heckle with the meanest part of the joke." ""Improve comedy... kill yourselves."" "That's really good." "Hmm?" "Unicorn." "Hey, Jimmy." "I was dreaming about a unicorn." " How you doing?" " Terribly." "I met some artists who fully exposed the depths of my own hackery." "Sorry, Gretchen, I have to go throw myself off the Hollywood sign." "Nice knowing you." "What are you hiding under there?" "You're reading my erotic tales?" "And after you teased me about them relentlessly?" "No!" "Yes." "Well... what do you think?" "Jimmy... they're hella hot!" "They are, aren't they?" "!" "And to think that I've been interviewing with authors and novelizing TV shows... albeit great ones... while the world awaits my second book." " Who am I to deny them?" " Who are you?" "And I finally know what it should be." "I'm gonna give the world what I've been preparing for since I was 11:" "the first truly literary erotic novel since Portnoy's Complaint." "I'd jerk off to it." "In fact... why don't you... read me a little bit of the chapter" " in the barn." " Ah... that's one of my favorites as well." ""Wallenda bathed herself in milk." ""'Aye,' the Baker Boy thought," ""tis a fine meal I'd make of this one.'"" "Oh, yeah, that's good." ""He averted his eyes, his manhood stiff and trembling" ""beneath his breeches." ""Wallenda cried out, 'No!" ""'Don't you dare look away, you naughty Baker Boy." ""'Take in the wholeness of my nudity!" "'" "And he did."" "In Arizona, cactus are sacred." "If you steal one, you're going to prison." "But if you mess with someone's heart, there's nothing anyone can do about it, except me." "My name is Sandra Hope, and I run Mate Check Private Investigations with my boyfriend, Tom." "Mate Check." "Can I help you?" "So, then, tomorrow night, I'm sitting in with this group from Chicago," "Michael Jordan's Gambling Debt." "I'll check it out." "Uh, so, uh, Teach... buy you a drink?" "Sure." "I'll have what you're having." "Well, Nana, you need to, like, you need to party up a little bit." "Xanadu's the youngest, and a good girl." "♪ Come and watch a curtain rise ♪" "♪ Just in time for us to hide ♪" "♪ Do you wanna ♪" "♪ See my ghost?" "♪" "♪ Picking up the old boy's slack ♪" "♪ Only can we go so far ♪" "♪ Take a bow and raise a glass, oh... ♪" "♪ Hold it right there ♪" "♪ Do you want to keep me on the line?" "♪" "♪ Hold it right there ♪" "♪ Caught the o... ♪"