Previously: We learned about Eric's modeling non-career, and Julie's dance non-career. Heather fell while walking the dog. Becky wore a headscarf.
Gouda the dog chases Smokey the cat up the loft's stairs, barking all the way. Cut to Andre strumming his guitar. (Not a euphemism -- he's actually strumming his guitar.) I almost pass out from shock; I'd completely forgotten that he lived in the loft, too. Andre starts improvising a song about Gouda the dog and how annoying his barking is.
Andre's interview. He's talking about how he hates being sick, especially because his band has a show coming up.
Eric, baseball cap on backward, gives Julie directions and tells her to follow his directions, since the map is wrong. These scenes are intercut with shots of Julie getting on and off the subway and getting hideously lost as "Road to Nowhere" plays. Julie's voice-over tells us how the Broadway Dance Center offers the best training that can get you a job later. ["I think that place is featured in Center Stage, the greatest movie of all time." -- Wing Chun]
Shots of Julie dancing to some generic pop song. We see her instructor telling her that "the style is there, once you relaxed and let yourself go."
Eric on the phone. He's talking about the john -- er, job -- his modeling agency is sending him to. It's some assignment for a men's fitness magazine and it involves him lying on a couch wearing only pants with a half-naked woman.
So the photographer poses them together suggestively, and Eric's voice-over talks about how beautiful Karen the model is and how great her body is, and how they started involuntarily making out and the photographer told them to "go with it." Eric smirks, "I didn't have a problem with it. She didn't seem to have a problem with it. So we went, and went, and went, and went.." repeat ad nauseam. The three thousand minutes are filled with shots of Eric and Karen making out as the photographer snaps pictures of them. Later on we see them in the dressing room as Karen gets her make-up retouched, and with her beetling brows, prominent pro-orbital ridge and wolfish snout, she reminds me a lot of Amanda Peet from Jack & Jill. The stylist jokes that they have to exchange phone numbers now, like on Studs, and Eric says, "Well, I don't know, did I win? Am I a stud?" And the heavens answer with a resounding "NO," but Karen the man-girl model walks over, cigarette in teeth, to shake his hand.
Little House in the Suburbs. Somewhere in New Jersey. Cut to interior. Andre's band -- named Reigndance, gak -- is practicing. The band talks about what songs to play, and then retreats to the basement.
Uh-oh, cheese it, it's the coppers. Apparently someone has called the taste police to shut down Andre and his band -- whoops, my mistake, I guess someone just complained about the noise. One of the cops makes a crack about them playing something quieter, like Frank Sinatra, and the camera cuts to Andre making a face like he smelled a used diaper. I will refrain from commenting on the comparison of Frank Sinatra's talent to Andre's. And while I'm in Grumpy-Old-Man mode, Andre -- cut your fucking hair!
Andre's interview. He makes a pretty funny joke about how he's still sick and he'd rather be sick than dead, because at least dead, he could get some sleep. So far Andre's interviews are enthralling. So enthralling that I have to keep poking myself with a sharp pencil to stay awake.
Eric's interview. He's talking about how cool Karen is, and how he likes hanging out with her, and how what he and she did (re: modeling session) "is past sexy, more than sexy."
Julie's interview. Eric woke her up and asked her to do a big favor and go buy dishwasher and laundry detergent because he couldn't. So Julie did so, thinking Eric had some big assignment, but when she got back, Eric and Karen were just hanging out, and that's how she got to meet Karen, when she was being a big housewife and doing dishes and washing laundry. Oooh. That's gotta hurt.
Eric and Karen go shopping at a store where it's all "rocker stuff." Karen goes around choosing various trashy items of clothing, including a pair of leather pants that have silver buttons down the fly and the sides of the pants and -- I kid you not -- a black shirt that laces up the chest and ties at the midriff. She makes Eric try it on. He looks like a pirate about to board the Good Ship Donna Summer. Eric talks about how it was "rocker stuff to the fullest!" Yes -- if the rockers in question are The Village People. Then he says how it was stuff he'd wear on a dirt bike. O-kay. Then he yaps some more about how it wasn't his style, but Karen liked it, and that's his job, to please the wimmens. My eyes roll back so far in my head they get stuck above my eyebrows.
Julie and Heather B. playing Scrabble. Julie's spelled out the word "cornfan." Heather is questioning her choice. Julie says, completely deadpan, "It's two things. Have you heard of like, the Cornhuskers?" Heather nods yes. Julie continues, "Well, their fans are just -- Cornfans." Heather starts cracking up. Julie says indignantly, "What? Or, have you seen those fans that are make out of corn husks? Those are cornfans!" Heather can't stop laughing. Julie says, "What, Heather -- I can't help it if you're not cultured!"
The scenes are the about as exciting as watching paint dry. Becky makes dinner for everybody. Snoooooore. Everybody likes dinner. Yippie-ki-fucking-yay. The only highlight is Norman declaims some pretty funny, pretentious poetry over dinner.
Norman, Julie and Heather go roller skating at the Roxy while disco music plays. They are having a good time.
Heather's interview. She talks about how cool Norman is, and how you can have a great time around him, since Norman doesn't care what other people think, and is just completely himself and he brings that out of you. The three of them are awfully cute together. ["They are. I love that scene." -- Wing Chun]
The Three Loft-a-teers are singing as they go home.
Heather tries to tell a story about two guys as Julie and Norman lie on the bed. Norman keeps interrupting with questions like, "Do they have big penises? Are they Jewish?" Julie is cracking up, and Heather is losing her shit, trying to finish her story.
Julie's interview. She talks about how Norman's "bisexuality" -- hmmm, I thought Norman was gay -- isn't a big deal, because Norman didn't make a big deal out of it, and no one's made an issue out of it, because Norman is so great, all of which is probably true, except for the "bisexuality" part, and somehow I think that while Julie is doing a great job of being open-minded, this is her way of trying to give Norman an out -- as it were -- from his Own Private Idaho.
Norman's interview. He talks about how he's trying to get more "open-minded" and how he's always looking at people in that light to expand his horizons and thinks, "Hmm, I could date that person." Grumpy Old Man sez: In my day, "open-minded" was just called bein' easy.
Back to the bed, with Julie, Becky and Heather cracking up as Norman tells a joke.
Julie's on the phone to her family, telling her dad, I think ["I thought it was her brother" -- Wing Chun], about how they went to the Roxy and rollerskated to "kind of disco-y" music, and that there were a lot of homosexuals there. "Isn't that kind of funny?" she says, tentatively feeling out his reactions. Her dad ["or whoever" -- Wing Chun] says dryly, "I haven't seen gay people a lot, skating to disco music, no." They make jokes about how that doesn't happen sub-Mason-Dixon. Julie goes on to tell him another big difference about New York -- not only are there queers on wheels, but people pee out in public. Ah, life in the big city.
Norman talks about what a pain in the ass it was hauling his art up to the loft.
Kitchen. Andre asks Becky what they're doing tonight. Becky says they're going to an art opening and they're going to see Andre's band. Andre tells her the band's playing in Staten Island. Becky says she's never been to Staten Island before. Andre says she won't ever want to, after this.
"Sweet Child o' Mine" plays as Eric tells Karen how he can't play the guitar because "it's, like, so hard to press down on the strings." Karen gives him an impression of her own terrible guitar playing. Eric talks about how he doesn't understand what their relationship is, since he's not Karen's type of guy, since she dates rock stars. Eric, dear, I do believe Karen wanted a relationship with Bunim-Murray, not you. Eric goes on to say how he likes being with her, although he can't fathom why she likes him. I will refrain from obvious joke here.
Norman talking about his art, the gallery, open free dialogue, yap, yap, yap. Cut to the gallery, and the artists. They're horribly pretentious. Becky is wearing appropriate downtown wear: studded black tank top and a black coat, while Julie is wearing a white shirt and the dog's dinner in the form a hideous plaid coat. The look on her face as she listens to some artist talk about his fucked-up life and fucked-up art is priceless.
In Julie's interview she talks about how phony the artists were, and they were mostly socializing and networking and not looking at the art at all. Camera pans over the art at the gallery, some of which is pretty good, but most of which is crap.
Becky talks about how tired she and Norman were after the art show, and dinner. Julie, in her interview, talks about how she guilted them both into going to Andre's show. Cut to Becky saying how she felt like the irresponsible parent being lectured by a child on not keeping promises. Can I say how old Becky's "I'm so much older and more mature" act gets? It gets really. Old. It will progressively age and become more annoying with every episode.
Montage of Andre and the band getting ready, then taking the stage. They are okay. Andre for some reason is wearing the same tweed blazer my seventh grade science teacher wore. Norman and Becky look just thrilled to be there.
Julie's interview. She talks about how Norman and Becky were losing their senses of humor by the end of the night. Cut back to Andre, dedicating a song to his new roommates. Becky's interview. She says she's glad she went, especially when she remembered how happy she was people from the loft showed up for her performance. After the show, we see Andre talking with Julie, Norman and Becky and thanking them for coming.