(GUY NOIR THEME)
SS: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions --- Guy Noir, Private Eye ---
(MUSIC)
GK: It was the week after Thanksgiving and I was gradually recovering from my sister Georgina's pumpkin pie, which she puts quite a bit of marshmallow in and which didn't settle well with the cranberry salsa. I had just made myself a bicarbonate when (PHONE RING) --- (PICK UP) ---- Yeah, Guy Noir here. If it's Danny's Deli, cancel the pastrami, okay?
TR (ARNOLD): Mr. Noir, it's me, the governor of California.
GK: Governor Schwarzenegger. -----how are you doing?
TR (ARNOLD): That's what I called you to find out.
GK: I understand you've foregone your salary as governor.
TR (ARNOLD): I'm taking a share of the profits instead.
GK: Well, I'd have your agent look into that if I were you.
TR (ARNOLD): Yeah, I know. It's bad. This budget deficit we got here ----- (HE MUTTERS IN GERMAN) I promise: no tax increase. And no cuts in education. So what can I do?
GK: Maybe you could do what these big corporations do. You create a subsidiary and you sell the state capitol building to the subsidiary for thirty billion dollars, and this gives you a budget surplus, and you're a hero, and then a year from now, the subsidiary goes belly-up and the dodos who you put in charge of it all go to prison, and you get to make a speech about fiscal responsibility. It's a win-win situation.
TR (ARNOLD): Could you explain this to my brain trust?
GK: Where's that?
TR (ARNOLD): Here in San Luis Obispo.
GK: I thought the state capital was Sacramento.
TR (ARNOLD): San Luis Obispo has better visuals. (BRIDGE)
GK: I got to San Luis Obispo and the cab took me to the Hearst Castle at San Simeon. I knocked on the door. (SLOW HEAVY DOOR KNOCK, REVERB) The home built by William Randolph Hearst, who was sort of the Rupert Murdoch of his day except with personal charm. (HUGE DOOR SLOWLY CREAKS OPEN)
TR (IGOR): Yes. You knocked?
GK: I did. I'm looking for the governor.
TR (IGOR): I will take you to the master. Please walk this way.
(SLOW, LIMPING FOOTSTEPS)
GK: If I walked that way, I'd never get anywhere.
TR: Very amusing indeed, sir. What a sense of humor. The master will be with you in a moment. (DOOR SLAM)
GK: He left me in a long hall with knights' armor in glass cases along it and spears and swords and shields. I waited there for a few minutes and then (DOOR OPEN)-----
TR (ARNOLD): Mr. Noir----
GK: Nice setup you've got here, Governor.
TR (ARNOLD): It's my secret retreat. I believe you know my friend here----
GK: Yes, we've met.
TR (JESSE): Hoo-ya.
GK: Jesse Ventura.
TR (JESSE): Rest assured. Arnold brought me to California to tell him everything I know about running a state. And then, after those five minutes were up, he told me
to organize his brain trust. This is her.
SS (KID): Hi. My name is Brooke.
GK: And a little child shall lead them-----
SS (KID): Why not?
TR (ARNOLD): Brooke is working out a mathematical formula for making the California budget deficit disappear.
GK: Aha.
TR (JESSE): To take a negative thing and make it into a positive thing.
SS (KID): Not that hard. All you do is reverse the sine with the cosine, devaluate, the denominators, along a parabolic tesseract and use that to diagonalize the matrix.
TR (JESSE): See what I mean?
SS (KID): I worked it all out as a formula-----
GK: That's a complicated formula, kid.
SS (KID): No, it's not. Look. You just take the spending, county by county, and they form this, you know, like orthogonal basis for expenditures, and you find the eigenvalues and that lets you diagonalize the matrix.
TR (ARNOLD): Diagonalizing the matrix: that's the key to the whole thing.
SS (KID): Which you invert.
TR (ARNOLD): The matrix----
SS (KID): The diagonalized matrix. And multiply it times the vector made of projected state spending.
TR (JESSE): I was just going to say that.
SS (KID): Then you take the dot product of this vector with the county-by-county average SAT scores and you get the zero vector and the budget is balanced.
TR (ARNOLD): Beautiful. No need for a bond issue or anything.
SS (KID): No problem.
GK: You make it sound easy.
SS (KID): It is.
GK: But there must be a price to be paid -----
SS (KID): There is. For some reason I don't understand, if I zero that vector and diagonalize the matrix with the eigenvalues and the parabolic tesseract ---- I wind up with November 31st.
TR (JESSE): But there is no such thing.
SS (KID): I know. That's what I don't understand.
GK: You mean it's November 31st right now?
SS (KID): Apparently.
TR (ARNOLD): Look. No reflection in the mirror. (STING)
GK: You're right. My gosh.
TR (JESSE): How am I going to practice my ballet without seeing myself in a mirror?
GK: Kid, this is too weird. Do something.
SS (KID): I'm trying.
GK: Try harder. Jigger one of those equations or something.
TR (JESSE): Look at this plie and tell me how I'm doing. (BALLET PIANO)
GK: I always told myself not to hang around with smarter people and now I know why.
SS (KID): I'll get it worked out.
TR (JESSE): And now a grand jete. (BALLET PIANO)
GK: You're not a dancer----- take it from me----
TR (JESSE): On November 31st I am. (HE DANCES AWAY)
GK: And just then I looked up and saw Arnold standing on the castle wall holding a feather in his nose. ---- What are you doing?
TR (ARNOLD): I'm going to fly-----
GK: Don't do it-----
TR (ARNOLD): It's a magic feather.
GK: Stop! You don't know what you're doing!
TR (ARNOLD): Hasn't stopped me so far.
(THEME)
SS: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions--Guy Noir, Private Eye.