JEFF. I saw that Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy today. I can’t wait till they come out with the book. I would totally buy a copy.

MIKE. They already did come out with a book.

JEFF. What? When did this happen?!

MIKE. 1979.

JEFF. 1979?!

MIKE. Yes, it was published in 1979.

JEFF. Aw, man! So now I have to go back in time if I want to buy a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

MIKE. No, you have to go to a bookstore.

JEFF. In 1979?

MIKE. No, today.

JEFF. They have it in bookstores today?

MIKE. Yes.

JEFF. Then why are you telling me to go back to 1979? You know I don’t have a time machine.

MIKE. Yes, as you’ve reminded me many times. Especially when I ask you to go to Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers.

JEFF. You gotta get there before they put the fingers in the chili.

MIKE. There are no fingers in the chili. It was a hoax.

JEFF. That’s what they said about the death of Elvis. But where is he now?

MIKE. He’s in Memphis, dead. He’s buried at Graceland. It wasn’t a hoax.

JEFF. I guess we’ll never know for sure. But that’s why I gotta get out of here. There’s just too much crazy shit going on around here lately. I just heard they found Hitler’s uterus and made him Pope.

MIKE. Hitler Youth, is what you heard.

JEFF. See? I can’t have that around me right now.

MIKE. Where exactly do you think you’re going to go that the Pope won’t be Pope?

JEFF. Well, first I’m going to the bookstore. To get a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

MIKE. Okay.

JEFF. And then I’m going there.

MIKE. To the bookstore?

JEFF. To the Galaxy!

MIKE. Okay, stop.

JEFF. I’ve always wanted to go. Ever since I first heard about it, when I was a little kid.

MIKE. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is not a real book.

JEFF. It’s not?

MIKE. It’s fiction.

JEFF. It’s a fictional book?

MIKE. Right.

JEFF. So you just made that up about it being available in bookstores.

MIKE. No, it’s really in bookstores.

JEFF. Fictional bookstores?

MIKE. No, it’s in real bookstores. In the fiction section.

JEFF. So it’s a real book in real bookstores, but the section it’s in … doesn’t exist?

MIKE. No, it does exist. It’s called the fiction section.

JEFF. Because the books don’t exist?

MIKE. No, the books are real, the bookstores are real. It’s just The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that isn’t real.

JEFF. So I made it up?

MIKE. No, Douglas Adams made it up. He came up with the idea of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and he wrote about it in his book, which he called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, after the fictional book in his real book which you can buy in bookstores. But that’s not the one you want. You want the fictional book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is written about in the real book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which you can buy in non-fictional bookstores in the fiction section.

JEFF. I see. So it’s like an alternate universe, where these bookstores exist for real.

MIKE. No. Okay, yes. There is an alternate universe - which we all live in - where Douglas Adams has written a book called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which tells the story of the book that you want to buy, but can’t, because in this universe it only exists as a story in real books sold in bookstores.

JEFF. So if I could travel to this other universe, I could go to a bookstore and buy this book — that’s just a story, it’s not real — and read about me going to a bookstore and buying a real copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I could bring back here, so you could read about my adventures in outer space.

(Mike thinks about it for a long time and decides he can’t possibly win.)

MIKE. So you’re off to see the Galaxy?

JEFF. Oh, yeah! I’ve always wanted to go, since I first heard about as a little kid. I told my mom, this Galaxy sounds like the place for me, and someday I’m gonna go there. Then she grounded me, so I couldn’t go. And I’ve always hated her for that.

MIKE. If it’s any consolation, you know, you’re already in the galaxy.

JEFF. What? How did that happen?

MIKE. The Earth is part of the galaxy. So, technically, you’re already there.

JEFF. Oh, no, no not this Galaxy. The other one.

MIKE. What do you mean? Which other one?

JEFF. Well, if I knew that, I wouldn’t need the Guide. But I think it must just be the next galaxy over.

MIKE. I don’t understand. If you don’t know which Galaxy you’re talking about, what makes you think there’s a next-galaxy-over, that you would want to go to in the first place?

JEFF. I told you I heard about it when I was a little kid. And I know it’s still there, because I see it in the trailers every time I go to the movies.

MIKE. (long pause) You wouldn’t happen to be talking about a galaxy a long time ago and far far away.

JEFF. That’s the one! And you know the first place I’m gonna go when I get there? Luke Skywalker’s house on Tatooine. I’ve always wanted to see the birthplace of the future son of the boy who would become the man who would become Darth Vader and turned out to be Luke’s father!

MIKE. You can’t go to the Galaxy in Star Wars.

JEFF. You think you can stop me?

MIKE. I think the laws of physics are going to stop you.

JEFF. Are you serious? The laws of physics are no match for the power of the Force.

MIKE. Okay, y’know what? Go ahead. This’ll be fun. I can’t wait to see you try.

JEFF. There is no try! "Do or don’t do. There is no try." That’s the first rule of the Jedi. I think they also have a rule about "can’t", but I don’t know that one yet. That’s why I’m gonna take night classes at the Jedi Academy as soon as I get there.

MIKE. I see.

JEFF. Well, I better get going, if I want to get there by May 19^th.

MIKE. Why? What’s May 19^th? (remembers) Wait, never mind. That’s when it opens.

JEFF. ---That’s when the movie opens!! How cool would it be to see the world premiere of the new Star Wars movie at the same theater where Luke Skywalker went to see movies in the original movie? I just hope the Wookies don’t talk during the film.

MIKE. Y’know what else would be cool? Lithium.

JEFF. Like they use to power the warp engines?

MIKE. No, like you’ve got in those unopened prescription bottles in your medicine cabinet.

JEFF. Oh, I see… you’re trying to lure me over to the dark side of the force.

MIKE. No, you’re already on a pretty dark side.

JEFF. Now you sound like my mother.

MIKE. I’m not your mother.

JEFF. (gasps) That’s what she says!

MIKE. Oh, Jesus.

JEFF. I’ll show you! I’m going to go and I’m gonna get a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I’m gonna kick the dust of Federation Space off my heels and leave you and everyone who ever doubted me and the Jedi Council behind on this mudball — which, by the way, is destroyed in the first scene of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — so we’ll see who’s crazy when you’re all dead, and I’m watching Star Wars III with Chewbacca the Wookie at the Cantina Cineplex in Mos Eisley.

MIKE. Here. I was going to wait till your birthday to give you this. It’s The Hichhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It doesn’t have magic powers. It’s just a book. You’re not leaving federation space. You’re not going to a galaxy far away. And you’re not going to see Star Wars with Chewbacca the Wookie. And if you did, he’d ask you to leave, because you’d be the one talking during the movie!

JEFF. (horribly offended) Chewbacca thinks my jokes are funny!

MIKE. And you’re never gonna be a Jedi.

JEFF. Because I’m too old?

MIKE. Because you live in Los Angeles!

JEFF. That didn’t stop Samuel L. Jackson.

MIKE. Get help.

(Mike exits.)

JEFF. Maybe I will! (Jeff picks up the book. It seems pretty ordinary. He riffles through the pages and whispers into it:) Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope...

q.v. Movie Reviews with Mike & Jeff