Hmm.
I must be supposed to remember something.
Huh?
Huh.
Hmm.
Come on, memory, wake up.
Is it our anniversary?
No, we don't have one this year.
Hmm.
Hm-hmm...
Don't forge?
Don't forge what?
Oh... don't forget.
Don't forget what?!
Hustle your bustles, gang.
We're going to the Senior Olympics to root for Grampa.
The Senior Olympics?
That's what I was supposed to remember?!
Oh...
Don't you dare go limp.
Too late. The deed is done.
Kids, grab a fold.
Oh, hey, Homer.
Uh, I hope you didn't forget that today's our big day.
I sure am looking forward to my birthday fishing trip.
Well, I'll see you soon.
This is Moe, big day.
Uh... waiting, feeling, uh, kind of fragile.
Moe, the birthday boy, listening for your car.
I can finally win a gold medal.
I came close to it at the 1936 Olympics.
I threw a javelin that barely missed Hitler.
But I did hit an assassin who was trying to kill Hitler.
What is this?
Kill Hitler day?
The next time I saw Hitler, we had dinner and laughed about it.
What's with the lined composition book?
My report on a "Fascinating Springfielder" is due Monday,
and everybody I've tried to interview is so boring.
You could interview me. I collect Absolut ads.
How many others do you have?
There are others?
This guy sucks.
He can barely make it to the top.
72 lousy events and Grampa hasn't won a single medal.
Well, it's not fair when Moleman uses his replacement legs.
On your mark!
Oh...
Oh, it's clouding up. I better put on me rain poncho.
Sir!
You dropped your munchers!
You'll never take me alive, Grim Reaper
Yay, Grampa.
Take the boy.
His soul is fresher.
I've never been happier.
Turn that hippie crap off!
I wonder if the dog thought about us while we were gone.
Oh...
I was supposed to take Moe fishing today.
Everybody hide!
Finally, that jerk Homer is home.
Oh, it's just his car.
âª Happy birthday to me âª
âª I feel so damn lonely âª
âª Won't someone kill me... âª
âª And many more. âª
Homer, we can't scuttle like crabs for the rest of our lives.
Says you.
"Dear Pus Bag"?
Whoa, Marge, who'd you piss off?
It's for you, Pus Bag!
Birthdays never meant squat to me.
Then you offered to take me fishing,
and like a stumblebum chump, I dared to hope.
But you shattered my dreams like a Duff tall boy in a bar brawl,
and you jammed the jagged neck right up my heart's butt.
I guess I just wasn't meant to be happy...
or handsome or anything, really.
What a deep, tormented soul.
Loser!
Moe!
You have a world view both bleak and beautiful.
I want to write a report about you.
Wow, for the first time in my life,
someone's taking a genuine interest in what's inside of me.
Heh, suddenly, this is my best birthday ever.
Still in the top three.
Still in the top ten.
How come you wanna do a report on me?
I ain't no great man, like Bob Seger or Haystacks Calhoun.
Because I suspect deep within you is an artist's soul.
Thanks. Say, here's my digs.
Moe, you live in a hotel?
You're just like "Eloise"!
Did someone say my name?
This vibrating massage chair feels great!
That ain't a massage chair. It's just full of cockroaches.
See?
Eyeball screams broken pipe
Liver fights kidney who wins? no one
Wow! Moe, these fragments are fascinating.
"I was in the Christmas pageant once.
"Mom showed up with a new boyfriend.
He called me Steve."
Oh... what you've got here is poetry!
Ooh, Moe's a poet!
He has a soul! Flutter your wings!
It's tea time in Buttercup Junction!
Dee-Dee-Dee...
Moe's the Princess of Lollipop Land!
He lunches on lavender and potpourri!
Seriously, Moe, I think you have a gift.
Thanks, Homer. I love ya, man.
Ooh, you love a man!
You know, artfully arranged, these fragments could be an epic poem...
like T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland".
What-which why-liot's the who-now?
Whoa!
My brain-goo's comin' out all artistical, thanks to you.
How 'bout this for a title: "Howling at a Concrete Moon."
That's a terrific title!
It jumps out at you like a rat in your underwear drawer.
We make a great team there, Lisa.
"...my soul smells like a dead pigeon after three weeks.
"I shut my window and go to sleep.
In my dream I eat corn with my eyes."
Philistines.
Lisa, I'm sorry you got a bad grade on your "Moe and tell."
I don't care about my grade.
I'm gonna send Moe's poem to American Poetry Perspectives.
Do not mention that publication in this house!
They never published my poem! "There once was a rapping tomato
"That's right, I said 'rapping tomato'
"He rapped all day from April to May
And also, guess what, it was me."
Hey, Chief, we just got a submission
from a brilliant poet no one's ever heard of!
Hmm! Genius!
Pay him nothing, and run it on the cover!
Stop the presses! Send my wife some flowers!
And bring me an Advil! What do you mean you don't work for me?!
You're hired! Now that you're hired, you're fired!
Now that you don't work here, we can be friends.
Now that we're friends, how come you never call?
Some friend you are!
God, I love this business.
Here it is.
Bad news, Maya Angelou, you've been bumped.
...you can't bump me...
...bump you!
Moe, you're a published author!
Wow, just think, earlier tonight,
a newly-published poet cleaned up my barf.
Moe's Tavern.
Who?
Where?
To what?
Screw you, snail trail!
Who was that?
Eh, some jerk makin' a prank call with a gag name: "Tom Wolfe."
Tom Wolfe?!
He wrote The Right Stuff and Bonfire of the Vanities.
And coined the phrase "radical chic!"
Wait, wait, wait. Then that guy wasn't squeezin' my 'roids
when he invited me to the Wordloaf Festival in Vermont?
The Wordloaf Festival?!
You'll meet all the great American writers, Moe!
You have to go!
Yeah? Well, okay, all right, but uh... only if you come, huh?
Ah, I wouldn't-a had none of this without you, kid.
Hello. Oh, hey, Milhouse.
I'm not here.
Ah, a family trip with the family bartender, what could be better?
How's it goin', Homer?
I gotta go to Vermont for some stupid poetry thing.
Homer, don't drink and drive!
Fine. I'll drive between sips.
Whoop!
They got an open bar at this thing, right?
Wow. Troopers from every state in New England.
Including Rhode Island!
We're a small state, but we give big tickets.
Hey, guys, did you hear?
The Da Vinci Code just sold one hundred million copies!
It's Tom Wolfe!
He uses more exclamation points than any other major American writer.
It's true!
- How ya doin' there? Moe Szyslak. - Ah, magnificent Moe.
He stands, stoop-shouldered, blinking in the light,
hollow-chested like a dough-faced fall guy
who's made a career of taking dives but has decided
to get his manhood out of hock and take a shot at the title.
Or at least go for the jaw and thwack
hyperextend the champ's pterygoideus before kissing the mat good night.
You ever scrub your hands real fast, and you think you're seein' a third one?
One time I looked down and there really was.
I gotta get a new lock for that bathroom.
Moe, your debut poem is as refreshing as...
a second pair of socks on a wet hike.
I must know how you came up with that brilliant title,
"Howling at a Concrete Moon."
Uh, well actually, I had some help on the title...
You needed help to write your title?
Well, so have I, Gore Vidal.
1876 was the price I paid for gas once.
I thought of Burr when I saw it written on an Eskimo Pie package.
I can't believe it!
Those sound like terrible jokes!
Sir, I must ask you to pick up your gift bag and leave this festival.
I don't need your sycophantic laughter!
I have some on tape.
You still love me, Temple University Class of 1987.
So Moe, you were telling us how you came up with your title.
Yeah, well, I-I was just saying that um...
...that I, uh, I thought it up all by myself.
Ah, like a real writer. Outstanding, Moe!
To the hayride!
âª Let's get it started âª
âª Let's get it started in here, âª âª let's get it started... âª
But we were a team!
âª Let's get it started... âª
I'd like to introduce our panel:
Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon and Moe.
Whoa, clear water. Swanky! Woo-hoo.
Now we'll open the floor to fawning praise and obvious questions.
Uh, yeah, first of all,
I'd like to thank all of you for your brilliant work.
Yes, yes.
My question is, who are your biggest influences?
I'd have to say my good friend Jonathan Franzen.
I thought his novel The Corrections needed none.
Cha-bone...!
Well, in turn, I'd have to say my biggest influence is...
Albert Camus.
You were supposed to say me. I blurbed you.
Yeah, and it looks real sweet on my dust jacket.
- How do you like me now? - Fran-zone...!
Moe, who inspired you to become a writer?
Jack Kerouac? Charles Bukowski?
Me, Tom Wolfe?
Well, I dunno, uh... the only book I ever read
was Super Hounds: The Ultimate Greyhound Betting System.
So, uh, any of you wetnaps write that?
Mr. Szyslak, there must be some person, possibly in this very room,
who believed in you when no one else did.
Oh, uh, yeah, I get what you're gettin' at.
Um... nope.
But how can you...?
Now, now, he's answered your question.
I declare this panel dismissed.
- But I deserve acknowledgment. - I said dismissed.
Lisa, grab your sightseeing shoes. We're going Vermonting.
It's gonna be awesome.
Man, couples in this state sure like to clink glasses.
You guys go ahead.
I don't think I'd be very good company.
Hey, thanks for the heads up.
We'll see you when we see you.
I love these covered bridges.
It's like driving through cute little houses.
That was my house, you moron.
Oh, I'm sorry.
We should exchange insurance information.
I have none.
No food for you grad students till you grade 3,000 papers.
Hey, hey, there you are. I've been lookin' for ya.
I need a brilliant new poem for the farewell dinner.
So if you could turn these into one of those
and then don't say nothin' while I take all the credit,
I'd really appreciate it, though I'd never admit that.
And, look, I got you started.
Huh? Huh?
Moe, you're a heartless jerk.
Huh? Whoa, where did that come from?
Oh, right, right, my actions.
Well, let's see if I can put this poem together.
Hah!
Hey, hey, hey.
Hey, st... stupid geese, you're eatin' my brilliance.
Hey, hey, I will break your beak.
What... Get... Hey... Look at me.
It's supposed to be my big triumph,
and I'm standing in mud, fightin' with geese.
Well, if I'm gonna fight, I might as well win.
Yeah, go on, you cowards. Fly off in a "V".
Hey, Lis, we learned so much scootin' around Vermont.
Did you know that candles are made by losers?
And we went to the Vermont Teddy Bear factory.
Look what we got.
Oh, honey, don't cry.
They're not made from real bears just their fur and noses.
Moe marginalized my contributions.
No one makes my daughter sob and run.
He ruined her first Wordloaf.
Look at me, sittin' here depressed when I'm surrounded
by the happiest people in the world: writers.
Before Moe reads his keynote poem, I would like to stake my claim
to any unfinished garlic mashed potatoes.
So please, if you would pass them clockwise up to table one,
I will collect them later.
Now, I give you Moe Szyslak.
Uh, this here poem is called "Elevator Capacity".
"Elevator capacity: 2,400 pounds.
"Inspection Certificate available in hotel manager's office."
You just pulled that off the wall of the elevator.
Yeah, well, uh, uh, here's another one you might like.
"Channel 61: Family Favorites.
"Channel 62: Adult Desires.
"Channel 63: In-Room Checkout. Chan..."
You know what? I got a different poem for yaz.
Ode to Lisa: Pointy-headed mini-muse
More friend than I deserved You pulled me from the dirt
And made me the beautiful flower that I am.
But some flowers can stab you in the back
For which I should send you flowers Which I will, but they were closed
- You'll be getting them tomorrow. - Oh, Moe.
Lisa, if you could just forgive me,
you would make me the happiest man in Vermont.
Except for those two dudes I saw gettin' hitched.
Not my thing, but I wish 'em well.
Make my daughter cry, will ya. Eat syrup, jerk.
- Wha...? - Dad, no!
I'm not mad at Moe anymore.
Uh, Homer, would it make you feel better if, uh, any of that hit me?
No, not now.
I'm gonna walk away then. Okay?
Wow. You couldn't make this stuff up.
- Well, you couldn't. - That's it, Franzen.
I think your nose needs some corrections.
Ooh, you fight like Anne Rice.
Well, Moe, I guess we're friends again.
That's great.
Now what do you say we do some regional duck pin bowling?
I'd like that. I'd like it a lot.
Aw, that's sweet. I hate sweet.
I need photos. Photos of Spider-Man.
- This is a poetry journal. - Okay, then poems about Spider-Man.
And I want them finished before you start.
And before you finish, get me some coffee.
And the poems should have the following rhyme scheme:
A-B-B-A-A-B-B-A-C-D-E-C-D-E.
What are you waitin' for, Chinese New Year?
Maple syrup. Sleigh on the label very good.
Rich maple color, good swirl.
Oh... Jemima!
- Touched in the head, is he? - A-yup.