[background chatter]
- [speaking in a deep voice in native language]
[exciting music]
[exciting music continues]
[fireplace poker whooshing] - Ha ha.
[clang]
*
[click] [exciting music]
[car tires screeching]
*
Ha ha!
*
[girl speaking lines]
*
[clattering, thud]
[doorbell rings]
- Oh, shit, you guys are early.
I imagined being dressed for this.
And probably not saying the word, "shit," either.
- Papa. - Okay, hi.
You're all right.
Everything's--everything's gonna be all right.
[dynamic news theme]
- Good day, America. Here's your morning news.
Food shortage riots have hit Georgia and South Carolina
as hungry moms sweep through the streets looking for food.
Scottsdale authorities continue to battle
the mutant version of Lassa Fever and are working
to quarantine those infected
while incinerating the deceased
as Arizona is now the fourth state
to become part of the Disputed Lands.
The last remaining trees of the Amazon have burned.
Officials plan to replace a portion of the acreage
with an amusement park dedicated to Brazilian
points of pride like Samba, beef production,
and the highest number of plastic surgeons
per capita than anywhere in the world.
Looks like the heat wave gripping the east coast
is about to break with temperatures dipping
all the way down to the high 110s by your weekend.
And former homerun-hitter- turned-cricket-champion
Bryce Harper stops by to talk about
his new passion, cupcakes.
He's here to share his favorite recipe
and shed some light on why he is the latest
baseball superstar to leave the major league behind.
- Jim?
Jim, you still with us?
- What's the attendance looking like?
- 16,000. - [groans]
- It's the highest in the league.
- Yeah, I stand my original-- [groans]
Can't really blame the public.
Not a great time to be outdoors in America,
what with the heat and the guns
and the product placement facial tattoos,
which are pretty horrible on the inside as well.
Not to mention the water shortages, which have led
to the aggressive comeback of B.O.
Right, Todd? B.O., sir.
- Todd believes that deodorant contains aluminum, which...
- I don't care if it's laced with arsenic, motherfucker.
You're an old factory dirty bomb walking around here, man.
You know--you know what kills me?
What galls me? It's not your blatant
lack of self respect, it's the way you just
happily and capriciously
break the social contract, just right over your knee.
Like Bo Jackson after a strike-out.
I stink, everybody!
Hey, hey! Live with it.
- Stop! Let's focus on
how to respond to the news of the day.
- Hey, Linda. Do you know where my dad is?
- Production meeting.
- Thank you.
- I was thinking of a moment of silence at the top
of the second inning for the victims of Granite Bay,
Baton Rouge, and Phoenix. - Phoenix, again?
God, what the hell is going on down there?
- The Apocalypse.
- Well, I guess everything else moves so much faster
these days, why not the End of Times as well, huh?
All right, gonna need a fun segment to bring the energy
back up after that, so uh...
how about Grandpa Doesn't Understand New Thing?
- We thought we'd save it for the fourth hour
when the audience wants to kill itself after
the 12th pitching change.
Maybe we could find a kid in the stands
to teach you the Fussy Jack dance.
- The what? - The Fussy Jack Dance.
- What is that?
- It's, well--he'd teach it to you and then you would...
- Hey, sweetie. - Hey.
- Or--or maybe Beth could teach you the Fussy Jack.
- Or maybe not. - No, no...
I tried to show him K-pop once and he said,
"So this is the bullshit ephemera everyone's
desperately clinging to these days."
- I was right to say it, too. All right, meeting over.
Clear out, my daughter's here. No, Todd, you go last.
Remember, we talked about this?
So nobody has to swim upstream
through your malodorous cloud?
Go on, scoot. Go on. Oh!
Oh, you're a soft-serve pile of human failure, sir.
- Dad, just--just let it go.
- Congratulations, you stink.
Ohh...
- Okay, the debate's tomorrow, right?
- Yeah. - Uh...
and you're not some little
sophomore outsider anymore.
You're a senior now. You're two-time state champ.
You gotta own that, darling.
Now, you don't have the height
to create a physically imposing stage presence,
so we have to harness the power of your delightful hair
to create a dramatic silhouette.
Take a look at this.
- Ooh. - Huh?
- I like it. Thank you.
- Oh, my God, would you look at this?
It's your hairbrush. Remember this thing?
I used this for the first time
before your very first state tourney...
and this is your last one.
- Dad...you can't keep crying at every single
made-up milestone before graduation.
- Sure, I can.
- But this morning you said we were toasting the last
pizza bagels I'd ever eat while living at home.
- Oh, I forgot about the pizza bagels.
On our very last family trip to Costco.
- Come on, old man. Tighten it up.
- Ah, come on, don't throw things at me.
You're a bully sometimes,
you know that? Stop it.
If I'm emotional, it's cause I'm proud of you, darling.
Let me tell you, your mother,
she'd be very, very proud of you as well.
- Thanks. - Hmm.
- I also think that you might be getting emotional because
you have no idea what you're gonna do
with yourself when I'm gone.
- What do you mean, gone? You're only gonna be
three hours away. I'll see you every weekend.
I'll see you most weekends. Some weekends.
And with the rest of my free time I'll just, uh,
you know, I'll stare into the void of my own futility.
No, I'll finally get the Ojai house ship-shape.
I'll fix up that roof and, uh,
put some flowers on Clemenza's grave.
Clemenza...
my poor little 110-year-old baby boy.
He was so weak at the end.
- Dad, we just got you to stop crying.
- Sorry.
- Look, maybe it's time you find something else
to do for a living.
- Oh, trust me,
I'm not qualified to do anything else.
God, I wish I was.
- Jim Brockmire must be
the next commissioner of baseball.
[all groan] That's the conclusion
from every headhunter that we hired.
People have been laughing with him and at him
for over a quarter of a century.
His commercials are popular.
Hell, even plaid has made a comeback.
This is a guy who knows how to attract attention,
and that is what we need to undo the damage
by the last two labor stoppages.
I know some of you
have clashed with him in the past.
- He called me an out-of-touch capitalist vampire!
- I know it, Freddie.
- And this was after I personally invited him
to my Zephyr regatta.
I mean, what kind of man does that?
What kind of man does that? - I know...
I know!
But I also know that Jim Brockmire
is our last chance to save this game.
And on a personal level,
he's someone that I consider a friend.
- Friend? No, we're not friends.
Sir, you're a billionaire. You're evil.
I mean, you get that, right?
I mean, you see how you live
and the rest of the world lives and the difference there?
I tolerate you as an owner in the same way
that I might try to befriend the nicest
Aryan brother in prison, but, uh...
still a horrible, horrible Nazi.
Anywhoodles, did I interrupt you?
I think--were you offering me a job or something?
- We want to make you Commissioner of Baseball.
- Stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.
Stupider than thinking that I'm your friend.
[scoffs]
Which is stupid.
[machine beeping] - Please plug into outport.
- God damn hallo-projector!
I'm plugged into the outport!
- What are you trying to show me?
A presentation about how people don't like baseball anymore?
'Cause I already know that. I do have the ability
to see obvious things.
- This is not a presentation, this is a 3D animation
specifically designed to convince you to do
the commissioner job and guaranteed to blow your mind.
- Well, I have seen a hallo-projector before.
I mean, I'm a man who enjoys all the latest modern advances
in pornographic technology.
Even put a Mr. Magorium's Masturbatorium
in my local mall. Very nice,
very upscale. Two stories.
The only downside is a limited fantasy menu.
Mostly Magorium's own interests which are very...
God, they're specific. But listen,
his Masturbatorium, his rules, right?
Key is, you gotta bring your own pleasure pocket
and find a little corner...
And--oh! Seems like you, uh...
- Please plug into outport.
- Son of a bitch!
- Jesus, don't you have a tech guy for this?
- Yes, but he left me two weeks ago for Jeff Bezos,
and he took my holo-wire with him.
- Ouch, that has got to sting.
- It does.
I will wing it.
Baseball's situation is worse than you know.
Okay, we took a survey of American ten-year-olds,
asking who's your favorite sports team.
My Yankees are the only team that made the top 100.
At number 81
and that's right behind Sampdoria.
- The hell is a Sampdoria?
- It's the fifth most popular Italian soccer team.
- Hachi Machi Malone.
- So half the owners, they wanna contract their teams,
the other half of the owners don't wanna buy them.
There are reasonable scenarios
that the League will fold in five years.
- Wow. Well, you're right,
that's a lot worse than I realized, but you know,
all the more reason for me to say no.
No, thank you.
- Give me one good reason
why you don't wanna be commissioner.
- I'll give you several good reasons.
The position has no actual power, sir.
I know I'd be mouthpiece for you and your owner buddies,
all of whom I cannot stand, and I mean to a man.
- Okay.
[beep] [tinny music]
No one else can make baseball this interesting.
There's no one else who can communicate
to every generation of Americans.
You, Jim Brockmire,
you are a true original.
- No, I'm not.
All my broadcasts now are just rip-offs
of late-'80s David Letterman.
I thought the top ten list
would've made that exceedingly clear.
But you know, our popular memory just seems
to have Alzheimer's now, as evidenced by this
stupid Fussy Jack Dance.
Look at this--that's "I'm A Little Teapot."
Okay, look--handle, spout. Jesus Christ.
Look, I'm looking forward to retiring, quite frankly, okay?
The narrative of my life is complete.
I've achieved every dream I ever had,
I worked my way out of the gutter, I just--
I wanna relax
and spend some more time with my daughter.
- Okay...well...
this has been a waste of my incredibly valuable time!
Blimp!
- That's it? - Son of a bitch!
- You're just gonna abandon a million-dollar holo-projector?
See this is the kind of disconnect from humanity
that I was talking about!
[scoffs]
Well, well, well, come to papa.
Looks like Daddy's gonna fuck himself some light.
Hello?
Beth?
Anybody home?
- What would you like to see?
- Oh, God, I'm like a kid in a candy store.
Um, okay, well, definitely Ann-Margret.
And let's have her sitting on my face.
- Initiating.
- [laughs]
[door slams] - Dad!
Dad, are you home?
- Hey, hey, hey, hey. - Hi!
I got accepted into NYU!
- We didn't apply to NYU.
- Yeah, well, I applied to a couple schools by myself.
- And you didn't-- you didn't tell me about it?
- Well, I mean, I didn't think I had to
because they put me on the waitlist,
but then they just called me and they said
they have room in the fall.
- I can't believe you did all this behind my back, darling.
- I mean, you only wanted me
to apply to Missouri schools and I...
- You got into the best one.
Washington University of St. Louis.
It's the Harvard of the Midwest.
- Yeah, but I always wanted to explore.
- Explore what? I don't know if you've noticed
the bleakness that's enveloping this country like a heavy fog,
but it's very dangerous out there.
Students at the University of Arizona have to barter
their own internal organs for safe passage.
I mean, these are dystopian times we're living in.
- Attention, Ann-Margret is waiting to sit on your face.
- What was that? - That was nothing.
Look, maybe you have some romantic notion that
you're gonna find yourself in New York, but let me assure you
that version of that city no longer exists.
St. Louis is now what New York used to be.
It's full of racial strife
with the occasional affordable neighborhood.
New York is now just a flooded playground
for the 1% of the 1%.
The Bronx is now Brooklyn, Brooklyn is now Manhattan,
Manhattan is now Dubai and darling, the worst part?
Worst part is, Staten Island is still just Staten Island.
Ha. That thing is a civic black hole that the light
of gentrification and human decency can't penetrate.
- Look, I made up my mind.
If you don't wanna pay for it, I can get student loans.
- I don't understand.
Is NYU's public policy school that much better?
- I wouldn't know because I'm gonna go to their film school.
- Film school? Jesus Christ.
Every parent's worst nightmare.
- I've always wanted to tell stories.
You know this about me.
- Beth.
Your mom was raised in a two-room house
with seven other people, okay?
She worked her ass off, literally, every day
just to go to Ateneo de Manila University, okay?
- I know that she wants me to go to college.
I just don't think she'd give a shit whether it was
NYU or Washington University...
- It's the Harvard of the Midwest.
- Harvard of Missouri!
- Where you going? Where you going?
- I don't know, I've never stormed off before.
- All right, okay, well, let me fix your hair
before you leave, too, 'cause it's a mess.
- Look, I don't wanna fight.
- Well, I don't either.
- Great, so can we just...
talk about this?
- Sure.
So go ahead and apologize.
- For what?
- For applying to schools without me.
- [laughs] Okay, well, I'm sorry, Dad.
I'm sorry I don't wanna live at home forever
while you jerk off to your holo-projector.
- Oh, hey, how dare you kink-shame me, young l--
you were raised in a sex positive home.
Don't you forget that. My goodness.
- Ew!
- Resume projection.
- Resuming Ann-Margret sitting on your face.
[dramatic music]
[tires screeching]
- Hey...
Look, I know that Puso sa Puso
is important to you, but, uh...
that guy out there on the screen, that's not me.
Right, that's me doing a drunken impression
of Robert Wagner...
who was doing a very weak impression of Cary Grant.
The real me is bound to be a huge disappointment to you.
I'm just--I'm so sorry that I'm all you have in this world.
That's a bum deal.
No two ways about that. [chuckles]
Of course, I didn't have it very easy myself.
My father was an alcoholic mass of impotent rage.
And my mother was a grifter who saw parenting as,
well, just another angle.
Doesn't get any better any farther on up
the family tree, either.
We're all directly descended from an 18th-century
German cult leader named Brachmire
who preached an interpretation of Lutheranism,
where everybody had to diddle each other
while making eye contact, but anywhoodles, anywhoodles.
The one constant in this unending cycle of trauma
is selfish parents raising selfish kids,
but you know what? That's gonna end with us
because for the first time in my life,
I feel capable of living for somebody else.
From now on, everything I do, everything I am
is gonna be in service of you and your future, darling.
You are my purpose now. Anything you want,
I promise you, anything you need.
- Can you... can you braid my hair?
- Oh, my goodness. You speak English?
My God.
You know, I'm not too shabby with languages myself.
I speak four or five of them pretty good.
- Pretty well.
- All right, easy there George Plimpton,
because nobody likes a know-it-all.
Hair braiding, is that what you said?
Hey, I can do that.
How the hell do I do that?
Oh, okay, you want me to brush it?
Hair brushing, here we go.
All right...
lovely hair.
- Ow! - Sorry.
- Ow...
[clicking tongue] Tch, tch, tch, tch.
Can't talk like that.
At least not directly into my face like that.
I'll be gentle.
That okay?
- Mm-hmm. - Okay.
- Dad, I know you think in times like these,
going to film school is a pointless luxury
and that you think public policy is the only way
to enact change, but I would argue that
stories are just as important.
They were always the light in the darkness for me,
and as Plato's cave teaches...
- You can go to NYU, Beth.
It was wrong of me to get in between your dream.
That is not the kind of parent that I ever want to be.
You're old enough to figure out who you are for yourself.
If you're telling me that's NYU and film school, oh, God,
then we will definitely figure out a way to make that happen.
- Thank you!
Oh, my God, thank you, thank you.
Oh, God. - [laughs] Hmm.
- God, I knew you'd come around.
- Did you?
- It's just... I thought it would be after
I convinced you with my speech,
which I still plan on giving, by the way.
It's a tight three hours, including the overture.
- Well, I'd expect nothing less from my scion.
- I love you, Dad.
- I love you, too.
Um...how much is this all gonna cost me?
- Um...
150k per year.
- Oh... [groans]
Oh, that got me.
Ow.
- Not including room and board.
- Oh, I can't breathe.
That's so bad.
Well...
lucky for us, you can stay with me,
'cause by the way, I'm going to New York, too.
- What?
- Yeah, I decided to accept the job of commissioner,
which just happens to be in New York City.
I mean, as you know,
it has always been my life-long dream.
- You never once mentioned it.
- Well, it's the kind of dream you keep secret for fear
that it won't actually come true,
but it has, at long last. Jim Brockmire,
Baseball Commissioner.
- That sounds...insane.
- Well, probably, yes. Possibly.
But look, the important thing is you're going to NYU.
- Yeah.
Yeah, with my dad. - Exactly.
And oh, wait till you see the condo that I got for us
in New York. Wait till I see it,
because I kind of panicked, went in way above asking
and bought it sight unseen and now...
oh, I'm so over-extended on that thing.
- Well, did you sell the Ojai house?
- Oh, God.
That would've made so much more sense.
Oh...I am so terrible at real estate.
[groans] I mean, the whole thing
is terrifying. You know that mortgage
means "Death contract"?
Death contract... the hell is that?
You know what? We gotta sell this place, too.
Right away, no time to stage it.
We'll take the first offer we are lucky enough to get.