(THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but one (CLICK)
in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but one (CLICK)
in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but one (CLICK)
in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but one
man is still trying to find the answers to life's (CLICK) man is still trying to find the answers to life's (CLICK) man is still trying to find the answers to life's (CLICK) man is still trying to find the answers to life's (BWANG) persistent questions: Guy Noir, Private Eye.
GK: It was September in St. Paul, a typical Minnesota fall, up in the 90s one day and the next almost down to freezing, a roller-coaster of weather, so I called down to the building manager to a get the radiators working and he sent up a guy wearing earplugs, a guy named Dylan (SFX TOOLS CLINKING) -----
FN: Yeah. There we go. Almost got it.
GK: I was sent down to Lanesboro on a wild goose chase tracking down an Amish conspiracy to sell stolen diamonds and it turned out that the wiretap of farmers talking about fencing was about fences and that the carats were just carrots, so I came back eight hours later. I would've felt better if he'd sent up an Earl or a Larry but it was a Dylan, a name I don't associate with mechanical aptitude, and my radiators were kaput. (TOOLS CLINKING)
GK: Say, are you trying to loosen that?
FN: Yeah.
GK: Then you want to turn it counter-clockwise----
FN: Yeah?
GK: I'm sorry, I forgot, you're a digital person. You familiar with baseball?
FN: Sorta.
GK: You turn the crank like you were going around the bases.
FN: Yeah?
GK: You keep making left turns.
FN: Oh. Okay. (TOOL, BIG EFFORT. BIG HISS.) Yeah, you got steam in there, it's just not getting where it should go .
GK: Did you have any sort of instruction in plumbing and heating, Dylan?
FN: No, I'm an actor.
GK: Oh. What music are you listening to?
FN: Fiona Apple.
GK: I'd sort of rather it be.
FN: You want me to fix this, Mr. Noir?
GK: Want you to? Yes. Confident? No. Listen. Here's ten bucks. Go get yourself a sandwich. I'll ask them to send someone else. (STING) So he left and two minutes later a knock on the door (SFX). Yeah, door's unlocked. (OPEN, FOOTSTEPS)
TR: You have got to help me. I am on the verge of insanity. I've been to see a doctor, been to see a hypnotist, talked to friends, my priest ---- I am at the end of my rope. Please. Help me. I'm on my knees.
GK: What's the problem?
TR: Do you know what it's like to be on the verge of madness? This thing is killing me. I can't sleep. I can't eat. My stomach hurts. Headaches.
GK: Okay, but what----
TR: I had a life. A career. Friendships. There was love in my life. And now it's all gone. Please. You're my last chance. My only hope. I've come to the end of the road. If you can't help me, then I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll pay. I've got money. I don't want charity. I just desperately need help. Please. (HAND OVER MOUTH AS HE KEEPS ON TALKING)
GK: Sir---- stop----I can't help you if you won't tell me what is the matter. Sir? If you don't stop, I'm going to have to bonk you. You understand? In five seconds, here comes the bonk. Three. Two. One. (BONK. TR STOPS, TAKES A DEEP BREATH. THEN ANOTHER.
TR: Thank you. That helped.
GK: Good. Just calm down.
TR: I'm feeling calmer.
GK: Can you talk now?
TR: I'll try.
GK: Take a deep breath. Tell me. What seems to be the problem?
TR: I'm extremely angry and I've forgotten who I'm angry at.
GK: Okay. Is it your wife?
TR: No.
GK: You sure?
TR: Yes.
GK: Someone in your family?
TR: No.
GK: Is it someone you know personally?
TR: I don't think so.
GK: Is it the President?
TR: No.
GK: Congress?
TR: No.
GK: The media? Fox News?
TR: No.
GK: The NFL?
TR: Huh uh.
GK: Public radio pledge week.
TR: Nope.
GK: The Tea Party. Climate change deniers.
TR: Naw.
GK: Well, why don't you go downstairs to the coffee shop, have an espresso, think about it, and let me know when you come up with something.
TR: Okay.
GK: I'll be here.
TR: Okay. Be right back. (FOOTSTEPS OUT, FOOTSTEPS IN)
SS: Mr. Noir?
GK: Yeah.
SS: Sorry. I saw the door was open. I'm Robin Robins.
I'm the artistic director of the Wisteria Theater.
GK: The who?
SS: Wisteria Theater. We do plays about plants. Like "The Cherry Orchard." Tennessee Williams's "The Rose Tattoo," "The Importance of Being Turnips." "Okra Homa."
GK: Interesting.
SS: A woman named Daisy Fescue left ten million dollars to establish the theater. Plants were very important in her life. So we carry on her vision.
GK: So what can I do for you, Miss Robins?
SS: Every year we commission a new play and this year it's a play called "Prunes For the Misbegotten," which opens September 27th.
GK: Who's the playwright?
SS: Porfirio Pradosh Papadopolis from Upper Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pulitzer Prize winner. Prodigious playwright.
GK: What kind of plays does Papadopolis produce?
SS: Popular plays with a propensity for pornographic passages to poke fun at propriety. That's Porfirio principal purpose, to provoke and precipitate protests by parents, Episcopal priests and Presbyterian pastors, politicians, Pentecostals, a whole pack of prudes and Puritans. They call him the Poor Man's Pinter.
GK: So he wrote "Prunes for the Misbegotten" ----
SS: Right. We paid him promptly. And now practically a week before the premiere performance he's pulling "Prunes for the Misbegotten" and putting in a new play, "Pippin." About small cooking apples.
GK: Pretty perplexing, if you want my opinion.
SS: We pumped a pile into the "Prunes" production and now we have to pay for "Pippin" and with no time for preparation it's practically impromptu. The performers are in a panic, they're pooped, about to jump off a parapet.
GK: And "Pippin" opens----
SS: September 27th, the Feast Day of Pope Pius of Pompeii.
GK: One week.
SS: It's preposterous. We may have to postpone.
GK: So what can I do for you?
SS: Let me see. I wrote it on a piece of paper. Oh. Here. "A pair of red peppers. Paprika. Prickly pear. Tissue paper. Pumpkin. Pumpernickel. Pineapple. Pork pie. Popcorn. Plastic wrap. Peppermints....No, that's not it.
GK: Go down to the coffee shop, have a cup of pre-
Columbian coffee, it'll come to you.
SS: Perhaps.
GK: Ciao.
SS: Peace. (DOOR OPEN, CLOSE, KNOCK)
GK: Come in --- oh, hi Dylan.
FN: Did you call a plumber?
GK: No, I haven't yet.
FN: You-----you don't know who I am, do you?
GK: You're from the building. The super sent you.
FN: You never saw me on TV?
GK: No.
FN: I'm an actor, Mr. Noir. I trained at Yale Drama School --- I went to Broadway ----I played Richard the 2nd, Richard the 3rd, Henry the 4th ---- And then, in a desperate moment, I agreed to do a toilet paper commercial.
GK: Aha. Now I remember.
FN: I became that man dancing with the toilet plunger and singing---- (HE SINGS)
Toot, toot, toot.
In your birthday suit.
There it goes, down the chute
With a dreadful vapor.
There's no substitute
For Sweetheart Toilet Paper.
GK: You're famous.
FN: I had no idea that commercial would be shown during the Super Bowl ----- I was an actor, Mr. Noir, and I became a national joke. I was bought a home in the Bahamas, but when I went on tour in "Hamlet" and I gave the "To be or not to be" speech ---- I could hear people in the audience crying "Toot, toot, toot"----
GK: So you wound up as a janitor----
FN: My wife took everything in the divorce. This is the end of the road for me. (DOOR BURSTS OPEN)
(FOOT STOMPS)
TR: I remembered who I'm mad at!
GK: Who?
TR: You.
GK: Me.
TR: You cheap guttersnipe. You skunk. Louse. Swine! Malefactor!
GK: Malefactor???
TR: Malefactor. You were in the exit lane on the Interstate and you cut me off! You horned right in! You got your nose in there and you ---- (DOOR OPEN, FOOTSTEPS)
SS: Why you----- the nerve! Showing up here. You owe my theater an apology, Mr. Papadopolous---
GK: You're Mr. Papadopolous?
TR: I gave you my play.
SS: You gave us your play "Pippin" a week before the premiere. What are we supposed to do with that?
FN: Robin----
SS: Dylan----
FN: How could you do that to me, Robin?? I loved you----
SS: You went crazy after that commercial....you weren't yourself anymore----
FN: But the house-----
SS: You hated the Bahamas----so did I----
FN: I needed you----
SS: You got so depressed, you went out on a big toot.
FN: Don't use that word.
SS: What word? Toot?
FN: (WEEPS)
TR: Hey. I loved that commercial. (SINGS) TOOT, TOOT, TOOT.
FN (WAILS)
SS: You're gonna be tootin' out of the other side of your mouth, Mr. Papadopolis! You just wait! (STING, BRIDGE)
GK: I finally got them settled down by making a pot of coffee and putting a little pill in in that induces slight amnesia.
SS: I love you, Dylan. Come back and let's try again.
FN: Maybe hypnosis can help me.
TR: I don't remember why I got so mad at you, Mr. Noir. Anyway, I feel like a fool. I'm sorry.
GK: Think nothing of it.
SS: We're going to do "Prunes for the Misbegotten," Porfirio ---- it's a perfect play, and we'll do "Pippin" on tour---- in Poughkeepsie, Plimpton, Palatine, Putney, Parsippany, Pierpont, Peoria, Punxsatawney, Pine Plains, Peshtigo, Prospect Park, Pipestone, and Pequot Lakes.
TR: I am petrified with pleasure!! (BRIDGE)
GK: So everyone was happy. Unfortunately, the drug I gave them had the additional effect of making everyone forget to pay me. They all left and the radiator still wasn't working and all the parts were scattered on the floor, and the super was gone for the weekend but--- it could've been worse. Don't ask me how but it could've.
(THEME)
TR: 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.