(GUY NOIR THEME)
Tim Russell: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions.....Guy Noir, Private Eye.
Garrison Keillor: It was May, a lovely spring day, and I was in Wisconsin, at the dairy farm of Ed and Betty Bupkus, near Dodgeville, as a result of my conviction in April for speeding while talking on a cellphone -- I was calling Lands End's 800 number and ordering a pair of pants at the time--
Sue Scott (ON PHONE): We have these in Cypress, Heather, Pistachio, and Azure, Mr. Noir--
GK: Azure. I don't think so. I'm not an Azure type of person.
SS (ON PHONE): How about Cypress or Sage or Heather or Pistachio?
GK: I don't think so.
SS (ON PHONE): We have Mauve, Tangerine, or Sunburst Orange, too.
GK: Sunburst orange. That's the color that highway department crews wear, isn't it.
SS (ON PHONE): Yes.
GK: I thought so. Let me go with Azure.
SS (ON PHONE): Wonderful. One pair of azure sweat pants. I hope it won't offend you if I bring up the delicate subject of waist measurement and inseam--
GK: Not at all. I'd like them roomy.
SS: What if I put down XXXL and if that's too big, you can return them.
GK: Fine. (SIREN OFF)
SS: Do you need to call back with the credit card information?
GK: Yes. Thanks. (BRIDGE)So the judge sentenced me to fifty hours of community service, and I soon discovered what community service means in central Wisconsin -- (COWS) --
TR: Here's a shovel, Mr. Noir. And a pair of work gloves. You're gonna want those.
GK: Thank you. (SCRAPE, LIFT, TOSS LOAD OF WET MANURE ONTO A CART) Heavy, isn't it--
TR: Yep.
GK: You want I should shovel all of this -- up onto that--
TR: Yep.
GK: Okay. And I'm the only one you've got shovelling?
TR: Yep.
GK: Okay.
TR: And when you're done with that, Betty and I are going to head into Oshkosh for the weekend. It's been twelve years since we had a vacation. You ready, Betty?
SS: All set. We used to dream of Europe. Or California. Now it seems like Oshkosh would be about enough. Twelve years of milking morning and night, looking at the rear ends of cows-- all we want to do is get a good night's sleep and go sit in a hot tub and watch cable TV.
GK: When you coming back?
TR: Not til Monday.
GK: Monday!!! (COWS) Who's going to milk the cows? Me?
TR: Yep.
GK: But I've never done that before.
TR: Nothing to it. Here, just swab off the udder. (SQUOOSH, SQUOOSH. COW MOO EXCITEDLY) And then you just punch in Start on the Computer (BEEPS) and the milking machines come up from the floor (HUMMING) and the cups fasten onto the udder (FIVE POPS) and the pump starts up (PUMPING) and there you have it. In twenty minutes, you disengage the milking machines and move this bunch out and move the next fifty in.
GK: How many are there?
TR: Twelve hundred.
GK: Twelve hundred??? Fifty at a time?
TR: Yep.
GK: Twenty minutes per batch?
TR: Yep.
GK: That's eight hours for one milking.
TR: Yep.
GK: And how many times do you milk em per day?
TR: Three.
GK: That's twenty-four hours.
TR: Yep.
GK: You don't sleep?
SS: That's what we're going to Oshkosh for. It's a good sleeping town. See you on Monday. (BRIDGE)
GK: I managed to stay awake during the weekend by listening to Rush Limbaugh (TR: My friends, do you know what these liberals in Washington are up to? Listen to this-- I can't believe it--) and drinking quarts of coffee and when I started to drift off, a cow with a tail full of dried poop would haul off and slap me one (MOO, WHACK) -- thank you-- (MOO) -- and on towards Monday
morning I was starting to hallucinate and imagine that the cows were an audience and I was dancing for them. (MUSIC) (W. SOFT SHOE)
You can't give me anything but milk, Baby
That's the only thing you've plenty of, Baby.
Moo a while, chew a while,
Regurgitate
I'll take a rag and wash your bag
And you can let down about ten gallons.
Go ahead and swish away that fly, baby,
I don't mind you dropping a cowpie, baby.
If your butterfat content is high, baby...
You can't give me anything but...
You can't give me anything but...
You can't give me anything but milk. (BRIDGE)
TR: Mr. Noir??? Wake up, Mr. Noir--
GK: Huh??? What???? Where am I?
TR: Wake up-- we're back. -- Anyway, I'm back.
GK: Oh hi. -- Good to see you.
TR: Everything okay?
GK: Everything's fine. Where's Betty?
TR: Well -- she's leaving me.
GK: Leaving you????
TR: Yeah, she decided she wants a divorce.
GK: Why now???
TR: Well, I asked myself that same question. I guess it had to do with getting some sleep. Back when we were going day and night, we were too tired to think straight, but after she got the sleep and took a shower and sat in the hot tub and had a chance to think things over, she found out that she didn't like me.
GK: That's crazy.
TR: Well, anyway that's what she decided.
GK: Where is she?
TR: In the house, packing her stuff.
GK: I'll go talk to her. (BRIDGE)
SS: It's like this, Mr. Noir. I got to town and I thought it over. He and I, we're just too different. Ed is Catholic. Through and through. When he was fourteen, he found a cheese curd with the Virgin Mary's face in it. When I was fourteen, I read Voltaire. I'm a Unitarian trapped in the body of a Catholic. I want a life of books and movies and conversation and fine cuisine. I'm allergic to grass. I'm lactose intolerant. That's a problem.
GK: I can imagine, but--
SS: The big thing is cats. I'm a cat person. I belong to CLAW, Cat Lovers Alliance, Wisconsin. Ed would just as soon shoot a cat as look at it. But my cat Snuggums is my best friend, Mr. Noir. I'm not ashamed to say that. My cat is my life. I love my cat.
GK: Of course you do, but there are always a lot of cats around dairy farms.
SS: Barn cats. Ed hates them.
TR: Not as much as I hate this one. (MEOW)
GK: Mr. Bupkus-- what are you doing?
TR: Stay right where you are, Noir. (MEOW) Or I'll shoot the cat right in the ear.
SS: He's got Snuggums!
TR: I've got him, Betty, and this is a real gun, it's not a chew toy, and if you decide to leave me, you're gonna leave without your pal. (CLICK OF HAMMER)
SS: You wouldn't dare--
TR: Wouldn't I? Don't push me. (MEOW) Or you're going to be scraping cat hair off the walls. (LAUGHS)
SS: What do you have against my cat, Ed?
TR: I put out birdseed in the feeder for the songbirds and then I hear this overweight fleabag looking around for a baby goldfinch, and it burns me up, that's what.
SS: There's one thing you don't know about Snuggums, Ed.
TR: What's that?
SS: He's not from this galaxy. He came from a distant planet. Listen to him purr. (DARTH VADER BREATHING) His eyes are beaming laser rays. (STAR WARS THEME) The Force is with him! (DARTH VADER BREATHING)
TR: What is he doing? Who is he?
Tom Keith (CAT): I am your father.
TR: No! No-- Aiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.(CHORD)
GK: Ed was hit by a powerful light- (TR GROANING) and he thought it was a laser attack and then he realized the sun had come out after three weeks of rain. There was a blue sky overhead. Snuggums tore out the door and when I got to the barn, I found him (DARTH VADER BREATHING) up in the rafters and he was directing the cows into their stanchions (COWS) and the computer was working like a charm (HUM, POP OF CUPS ON UDDER) and the cows were getting milked (PUMP) and Ed and Betty had left in their car (CAR PULL AWAY) and the sign on the back door said, "Gone to Paris" -- everything seemed to be under control. reconciled. I'd done my community service and I headed back home and I saw them on TV the other day-- it was Ed and Betty of Dodgeville except he was speaking French (TR FARMER FRENCH) and opening a bottle of champagne (SFX) and she was leaning back and laughing a careless sophisticated laugh you so seldom hear around a dairy farm (SS LAUGH) -- but it's spring. Vive printemps, vive l'amour. (THEME)
SS: A dark night in a city that keeps its secrets, where one guy is still trying to find the answers...Guy Noir, Private Eye. (MUSIC OUT)