Wing Chun: Okay — not to obsess about Girls’ Bike Club over here, but you know who we forgot, and who’s the GBC president emeritus?

Sarah: Who?

Wing Chun: Billy Joel.

Sarah: Ohhhh yeah. Man, he just wrecked his car again recently, didn’t he?

Wing Chun: Yep. Trees three, Billy Joel zero.

Sarah: Although he’d probably just ride his girls’ bike straight into a tree, too.

Wing Chun: “Well I’m ooooon the Downeeeeeaster Alexaaaaa!” Ching ching!

Sarah: Bonk!

Wing Chun: Heh. He and Matthew Perry would have to get bike insurance.

Sarah: Oh, yeah, I forgot about Perry.

Wing Chun: One minute a kindly older couple is having tea on their front porch…

Sarah: …the next thing you know, Chandler’s facedown in the coffee ring.

Wing Chun: And the rest of the GBC is standing in the street all, “Dude, not again.”

Sarah: Except for Jason Priestley, who’s popping wheelies on the sidewalk.

Wing Chun: He’s totally popping wheelies on the sidewalk.

Sarah: In his fly-eye sunglasses. Oh, you know what else he’s doing?

Wing Chun: Not shaving, to let the public know that he’s a stripper-fucking bad-ass, in stark contrast with 90210 character Brandon Walsh?

Sarah: He’s not shaving, I agree, and he’s also riding his girls’ bike right through the middle of the younger kids’ four-square game, and then laughing that nasty bully laugh when they ask him to quit it.

Wing Chun: He so is.

Sarah: “Four-square is for baaaaabies.”

Wing Chun: Oh my God, wait. It’s not Jason Priestley who does that.

Sarah: You don’t think?

Wing Chun: It’s Robert Iler who does that.

Sarah: HA HA HA! Iler, awesome.

Wing Chun: Right?

Sarah: Totally. He’s also the tough guy who falls off his bike, gets a tiny cut on his knee that’s hardly even bleeding, and runs inside crying.

Wing Chun: And leaves his bike just lying there with one wheel saaaaadly spinning.

Sarah: Exactly. And the rest of the Girls’ Bike Club thinks he’s a dick, so nobody wants to take it to his yard for him.

Wing Chun: Except Lex from Survivor, because it’s about honor.

Sarah: Oh, God. Obviously. “I’m really disappointed in you guys.”

Wing Chun: And he makes a biiiiiig old huffy show out of flouncing off his own bike, whipping the kickstand down, and marching Iler’s bike out of the street while shaking his head at everyone who’s not as upstanding as he is about The GBC Honor Code, and then Robert Downey Jr. is like, “Let’s ditch him,” and they all take off and leave him there.

Sarah: Aw, do you think Downey would be that mean? He has some problems but he seems like a nice guy.

Wing Chun: Hell, I don’t even know if Downey would be allowed to have a girls’ bike at this point. He’s probably been busted down to, like, Girls’ Roller Skates Club.

Sarah: Not even. Girls’ Shoes Club.

Wing Chun: Hee. “Mr. Downey, I loved you in Chaplin — hey, are those Mary Janes?”

Sarah: “No! …Yes. And speaking of maryjane…”

Wing Chun: Poor Downey.

Sarah: But you know who would be that mean, is Nick Nolte.

Wing Chun: No, Nick Nolte is the nutbar who’s like, let’s build a bike jump out of spare tires and plywood and play Evel Knievel! I’ll go last and do the biggest jump! Oh, my mom’s calling me for dinner and I can’t do the jump! But I would have! Sorry about your collarbone, sucker!

Sarah: No, that’s Martin Lawrence. Nick Nolte is the guy who’s like, let’s tie your baby sister to the bike jump and jump over her, and he’s all crazy-eyes intense about it.

Wing Chun: And you get the feeling he’s not going to try that hard not to land on her. Yeah, you’re right.

Sarah: Oh, you know who else should be in Girls’ Bike Club? If we’re going to put Corey Haim in it?

Wing Chun: Oh, ew.

Sarah: I know.

Wing Chun: But I don’t think Corey Feldman would be in Girls’ Bike Club, exactly. He’d want to be in Girls’ Bike Club, and he’d run along behind them pushing his bike and calling, “Guys? Guys? Wait up, you guys! You guys? Guys! Wait up!”

Sarah: And Andy Dick is all, “Do you guys hear anything? I think I hear a buzzing noise.”

Wing Chun: Heh.

Sarah: Ooh! I’ve got one.

Wing Chun: Uh oh.

Sarah: Okay, hear me out, because he’s not on drugs or anything, but…Marlon Brando.

Wing Chun: Oh, God. No. He’d be like that bear at the circus.

Sarah: Yeah, I know!

Wing Chun: If the bear had to go to the vet every night after the show for a bike-ectomy.

Sarah: And the bear’s cubs kept killing each other’s boyfriends and dying of drug overdoses, yeah, I hear you, but — Brando? On a girls’ bike? That is some funny shit right there.

Wing Chun: Not for the bike, it ain’t.

Sarah: Hee hee, can you imagine him going down a big hill, and both tires blow, and he’s sailing into an intersection in a shower of sparks from the rims? And at the top of the hill, Todd Bridges is like, “Dude, that’s fucked up.”

Wing Chun: And Gary Coleman is all, “Word,” from the baby seat on the back.

Sarah: Ha! Except is Gary Coleman in a baby seat, or in a little sidecar?

Wing Chun: Good one. Sidecar. Wearing a pointy World War I helmet. Hey, is Scott Weiland in the GBC?

Sarah: He says he is, but he never shows up to ride with them.

Wing Chun: “I [sniff] hurt my [sniff] ankle.”

Sarah: Tom Cruise is definitely in the GBC, though.

Wing Chun: But he’s convinced that his girls’ bike is actually a boys’ bike, and he will not be dissuaded. He’s super-defensive about it. And whenever Vince Neil is like, “That’s a chick ride, T.C.,” Tom Cruise sues him for slander.

Sarah: Heh. Vince Neil. Vince Neil fully would not care, either. He’d just be tooling around the neighborhood in sweat-shorts all, “Would anyone care for a frosty-cold beer from my basket-slash-cooler?”

Wing Chun: Totally. And he’d be smoking.

Sarah: And Miss August 2002 would be riding bitch on the back wheel.

Wing Chun: Heh. “Girls Girls Girls” Bike Club.

Sarah: Heh. I love Girls’ Bike Club.

Wing Chun: Me too.

Sarah: We have to form a Girls’ Bike Club band now. We could rock that shit.

Wing Chun: “This is a single off our new album. It’s called ‘Brando, If You Cut Across My Lawn One More Time, I Will Pump A Round Of Buckshot Into Your Big Ass,’ and we hope you like it.”

Sarah: We could even play a bike wheel onstage. “It’s a jazzy little number inspired by Brian Wilson. And now, ‘Overrated And Crazy.'”

Wing Chun: Is Brian Wilson in the GBC?

Sarah: Brian Wilson wears his girls’ bike as a hat.

Wing Chun: Is that a “no”?

Sarah: Oh, not necessarily. I’m just saying.

Wing Chun: I can see Brian Wilson getting in a big paranoid fight with Lex if Lex mentions the GBC to anyone. “The first rule of Girls’ Bike Club is, you do not talk about Girls’ Bike Club.”

Sarah: “This is not about Girls’ Bike Club, Brian. This is about our friendship. Except when it isn’t. Also, my hair is blue! Blue like the sky, and fake raspberry flavoring!”

Wing Chun: God, hate! I know the season is over, but I don’t care. He still needs to shut up. Shut up, Lex.

Sarah: And shut up, Rupert’s million dollars before taxes.

Wing Chun: Ew, this is probably why he’s always whining about getting picked on as a kid. He got kicked out of Girls’ Bike Club.

Sarah: And for that, Girls’ Bike Club, we salute you.

Wing Chun: Or Nolte wanted to tie him to the bike jump and he refused to do it.

Sarah: And Nolte bellowed at him that he was a chicken.

Wing Chun: Oh, sure, and bok-bokked at him and stuff.

Sarah: And then Rupert wet himself in terror because Nolte was screaming in his face.

Wing Chun: Okay, I don’t like this story, because it’s making me feel sorry for Rupert, and Rupert sucks.

Sarah: Good point. Okay, why else could Rupert have gotten kicked out of Girls’ Bike Club?

Wing Chun: Calling Tom Cruise “short stack”…

Sarah: Too awesome. Sticking a branch in Feldman’s spokes?

Wing Chun: Also too awesome. Inviting David Gest to join?

Sarah: Oh, good one.

Wing Chun: And Gest shows up with a plastic grandma-couch seat cover on his seat, and a pink sweater tied around his shoulders, and in his basket he’s got…he’s got…

Sarah: A box of Godiva chocolates and a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order.

Wing Chun: And a packet of moist towelettes.

Sarah: Hee.

Wing Chun: But would that get Rupert kicked out, is the question.

Sarah: See, I think even Rupert would be like, “What’s with the Handi-Wipes?”

Wing Chun: How about tattling on Hasselhoff for riding with no hands?

Sarah: Yes! Even better — he told his wife that Hasselhoff rides with no hands —

Wing Chun: — and then Mrs. Rupert called Mrs. Hasselhoff all, “Rupert has told me that David is violating basic principles of bicycle safety. I thought you’d want to know that your husband is a two-wheeled menace.”

Sarah: And Mrs. Hasselhoff is going “right, right…well, thank you for calling” while making the jerk-off motion with her hand.

Wing Chun: Then Rupert rides up the next day all, “Check it out, guys, I got a new tie-dye reflector patch!” and they all just ignore him.

Sarah: I still feel kind of sorry for him in this version.

Wing Chun: His wife called Hasselhoff’s wife. That’s bullshit.

Sarah: But didn’t your mom ever do that to you and you were like, “Mom, no no no, nooooooooo, that was a secr– shit, I’m fucked now”?

Wing Chun: But I’m sure Rupert was all, “David Hasselhoff always rides with no hands, so neener,” and when his wife picked up the phone, he was all smugly eating a cookie and listening in on the extension, and — oh my God. We’re debating this like it actually happened.

Sarah: Yes. Yes, we are.

Wing Chun: God.

Sarah: I blame Reagan.

Wing Chun: Good plan. Shut up, Reagan.

Sarah: Shut up, Reagan, shut up, Reagan’s funeral, and shut up, no mail delivery in honor of Reagan’s funeral, forcing me to wait until tomorrow to read Entertainment Weekly.

Wing Chun: No mail delivery?

Sarah: No mail delivery. Apparently, Reagan invented the mail.

Wing Chun: He was old enough.

Sarah: They’re talking about putting him on the twenty, too.

Wing Chun: Oh, I heard it was the ten.

Sarah: Oh, no! The ten is my favorite bill!

Wing Chun: You don’t really have a favorite bill.

Sarah: Well, but the ten is cool. Tens are always nice and crisp, and when you pay for something with a ten, you don’t get a wad of change, you just get a little. The best ATMs are the ones that give out tens. Tens are handy, I don’t know.

Wing Chun: Okay.

Sarah: Shut up.

Wing Chun: What, I said okay. Who’s on the ten, anyway? Truman?

Sarah: No, although actually that would be cool. Alexander Hamilton.

Wing Chun: What did he do?

Sarah: He founded the U.S. Treasury system, and then he got his ass shot by Aaron Burr.

Wing Chun: Oh. Well, Reagan got his ass shot too.

Sarah: I’d much rather Reagan be on the twenty.

Wing Chun: Oh, no, then you’d have to see him all the time.

Sarah: Yeah, but seriously, have you seen the new U.S. twenties? Every time they redo the currency, they make Andrew Jackson’s forehead bigger and bulgier and it’s starting to creep me out. Shut up, U.S. Mint.

Wing Chun: I don’t like the new fives. Lincoln looks like a serial killer.

Sarah: Yeah, he does, you’re right.

Wing Chun: So, shut up, Lincoln. Anyway, they should put Reagan on some big denomination that isn’t circulated. Like the ten-thousand-dollar bill or something.

Sarah: A bill only the people who liked him would ever get to spend.

Wing Chun: Right. Who’s on the ten-thousand right now?

Sarah: Salmon P. Chase.

Wing Chun: Who?

Sarah: Second base!

Wing Chun: No, seriously. Who is that?

Sarah: I seriously don’t know. I think he was a Treasury Secretary or something.

Wing Chun: A Treasury Secretary with naked pictures of someone. Excuse me — naked daguerreotypes of someone.

Sarah: Snerk. Yes. Naked daguerreotypes of Taft. Riding a girls’ bike.

Wing Chun: “Gentlemen, I trust I have your cooperation. Good day.”

Sarah: “P.S.: Please note the handlebar streamers, which are entirely inappropriate to the highest office in the land.”

Wing Chun: So that’s what you have to do to get on U.S. currency — run the country or get killed?

Sarah: Or both, in McKinley’s case.

Wing Chun: You know what job would suck? Secret Service.

Sarah: That job would suck.

Wing Chun: And not even so much the getting-shot-at part, because how often would that happen. It’s the day-to-day Secret Servicing that would get to me.

Sarah: Yeah. Like, if the President is saying something really stupid, and you want to burst out laughing but you have to stand there deadpan?

Wing Chun: Or if the President is like, “Let’s get out of the limo and talk to people,” and you’re like, “Bitch, it’s August in Washington. Sit your ass down.”

Sarah: Or if he’s farty one day?

Wing Chun: Oh, man. “Actually, sir, go on and greet the voters. Please.”

Sarah: Or you’re trying to trade with one of the other guys who runs alongside the limo so you don’t have to sit inside with the farter in chief, and the other guy’s like, “Nice try, but I saw him eating that hummus at lunch so forget it.”

Wing Chun: And? You can’t tell your spouse any of this.

Sarah: Oh, I’d get fired in a week for sure. “So, how’d the first day go, honey?” “Well, W. picked his nose and ate it during a conference call with Berlusconi. Other than that, pretty boring.”

Wing Chun: So then your husband tells his friend, who tells his wife, who tells her manicurist, who is also Mrs. Rumsfeld’s manicurist, and then the next thing you know you’re on a plane to Gitmo.

Sarah: Shut up, Mrs. Rumsfeld’s manicurist.

Wing Chun: Bush totally picks his nose and eats it, though.

Sarah: Totally. And he’s one of those pickers who’s rooting around in there for like an hour, too.

Wing Chun: Oh, those people. Whenever I see that shit, I wish the social contract were a printable document that I could hand them.

Sarah: I know! “I’ve Post-It-flagged Section 345b for your perusal.” I mean, we’ve all done The Emergency Pick, but the rules clearly state that you have to try to play it off like your nostril itches.

Wing Chun: And can I ask why it is that people who can clearly see out of their car windows believe at the same time that nobody else can see in, where they are blatantly digging out ear wax and wiping it on the side of the car seat?

Sarah: Or picking crumbs off their chests and eating them.

Wing Chun: Um. I’ve done that.

Sarah: Oh, so have I, but I waited for a lonely stretch of road.

Wing Chun: I…didn’t.

Sarah: Guacamole chips?

Wing Chun: In fact, yes.

Sarah: Excused.

Wing Chun: Sweet.

Sarah: Is W. in the Girls’ Bike Club?

Wing Chun: Well, you can’t really tell the President he can’t be in the Girls’ Bike Club. On the other hand, he’d still have training wheels on.

Sarah: My point.

Wing Chun: I’ll have to think about that one.

Sarah: Okay. Well, I should go. In honor of Reagan’s funeral, I’ve run out of Diet Coke.

Wing Chun: Reagan ruins everything.

Sarah: I know. Shut up, Reagan.

June 11, 2004

Tags:   GBC