(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.
GK: It was May, spring, and I was down in Nashville, working security, and I pulled into the parking lot behind the Ryman Auditorium and ----- the parking lot attendant looked familiar. Ricky Skaggs?
RS: Afternoon, sir. Just leave the keys in the car and I'll park it for you. How long you plan to be?
GK: Ricky Skaggs?
RS: You want me to change the oil while you're here?
GK: I'm a huge fan of yours, Mr. Skaggs.
RS: Well, bless your heart. Are your keys in the car?
GK: What are you doing parking cars, if you don't mind my asking?
RS: Well---- the Lord giveth and he taketh away, and blessed be the name of the Lord. A couple years ago, I sort of got out of my depth and I did that "Homage to Sinatra" album and ---- well, the fans did not care for me singing ---- (SINGS) Start spreading the news, I'm leaving today. I want to be a part of it, New York, New York. ----- The bluegrass fans did not take kindly to my wanting to be a part of New York, and then I did the album with Yo-Yo Ma because Stewart Duncan and Chris Thile had done that and I just felt like it was my turn but Yo talked me into doing a whole album of Philip Glass ---- you know? Where you keep playing the same phrase over and over ---- sort of like waves washing in on the shore ---- and I changed the name of my band from Kentucky Thunder to California Surfer ---- and a week later I got a call from the bluegrass festival in Beanblossom and the next day I got this job parking cars. You leave your keys in the car?
GK: Yes, sir.
RS: Okay. Have a nice day. (BRIDGE)
GK: All around town I saw famous entertainers in menial jobs ---- an old guy with a ponytail and a headband, driving a delivery truck.
TR (WILLIE):
On the road again,
Delivering pizza like I did back then
Behind the wheel and always on the go
For my friends at Domino's.
GK: And Taylor Swift was doing commercials on TV.
CD, SS, FN, RD (SING):
If your chicken's gotta bake, bake, bake, bake, bake
Cause the grease you cannot take, take, take, take, take
So you better use for goodness sake, sake, sake.
Shake 'N Bake, Shake 'N Bake.
GK: The hot new act in town was a singer named Natasha Columbo, the first Italian-American to be named Country Music Entertainer of the Year, and that's who I was doing security for. Three No. 1 hits in three months, a reality TV show, a movie deal in the works, a book contract, and she owned a mansion out on Atkins Road. She was doing topical songs, with a contemporary feel --- her big hit, "In The Unlikely Event" was all over the radio.
(FIDDLE INTRO)
CD (SING):
You have tampered with, disabled and destroyed my heart
At thirty-seven thousand feet.
The oxygen mask has suddenly appeared
From the panel just above me.
My seat is an emergency flotation device
Or so the flight attendant said
And I'm looking around for the nearest exit
And I don't see it up ahead.
An unlikely event, an unlikely event
That's what you were to me.
You and I got high up to the sky
And it became an emergency.
(MUSIC FADE INTO....)
GK: She should've been happy but she wasn't. Success had made her paranoid. She was rich and famous and she was terrified that it was just about to end. So I was brought in for reassurance.
CD: Does this okra taste funny to you?
GK: Natasha, okra is funny. If you don't like it, don't eat it.
CD: What is this black stuff in the grits?
GK: You got the blackened grits. Cajun grits.
CD: Is this iced tea supposed to be so sweet?
GK: I'll get you some unsweetened.
CD: I don't know why I'm so jumpy. Who is that man standing in the doorway?
GK: Your manager, Morrie.
TR: Sweetheart, about the reality show, they want you to get a different boyfriend. Yours is too short.
CD: What????
SS: And the writer is here to write your memoir, darling. We need you now.
CD: I can't----
FN: Hi hi hi. It's me. I'm here to do the hair. Oh my. I hear the hair crying out for nourishment. Hold still, honey. Close your eyes. (SPRAYING) There. It's a new spray called Kaleidoscope. Fifty percent kale. ------ Who's he?
GK: I'm security. Noir's the name.
FN: What's the problem?
GK: She's insecure. (STING)
CD: It's crazy. I'm a country-music star and you want to know something?
GK: What?
CD: (BIG WHISPER) I don't like music.
GK: You don't?
CD: There's too much of it. Everywhere you go. Stores, airports, offices, people's homes ---- music playing softly in the background. Music pollution. And I am contributing to it. (STING)
GK: And she was right. She had one hit after another. You heard them everywhere you went.
(MUSIC)
CD (SING):
Hi there. What's up with you today?
I'm at work. Hope you're okay.
Text me.
I'm busy tonight. Can't go to eat.
Tomorrow evening, maybe we can meet.
Text me.
You say you love me, you want to connect.
You expect what every man expects.
You're very nice but it's complex.
Let's text.
(FADE UNDER)
GK: And then it happened. Suddenly. Overnight.
SS: There's a group that got going on Twitter ---- hashtag STOP NATASHA. They're going to burn her records.
TR: Can't burn them. They're not records, they're downloads.
SS: Whatever. It's all about what she said on her Facebook page. She turned down an invitation to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
TR: But she never eats breakfast. You know that.
SS: She was asked to attend and to lead in the singing of "God Bless America" and she said she doesn't sing that song.
TR: Oh boy.
SS: She doesn't sing songs about God and before her concerts, when the honor guard comes in and the Boy Scouts say the Pledge of Allegiance, she does not hold her hand over her heart.
TR: I've begged her to do it. Just hold your hand over your heart, I tell her. It's only for half a minute.
SS: She won't do it.
TR: Is she Mennonite?
SS: No. Buddhist.
TR: Oh my gosh. If this ever gets out, we're dead.
SS: It's out.
TR: Goodbye, reality show. Goodbye movie deal.
SS: Guess we'd better find work elsewhere. (BRIDGE)
GK: So I hear you're Buddhist, Natasha. True?
CD: I'm afraid so.
GK: How'd that happen?
CD: It all happened when I figured out that grits is singular.
GK: It is?
CD: It is. You don't say, "These grits are good." You say, "These grits sure is good." There are all these grains, or grits, and they all make one. Why? It just is. A mess of grits makes a whole. And that's how I came to Buddhism.
GK: Well, you're a brave woman.
CD: I want to be the first country music artist to record a Buddhist song.
GK: I'm not sure Nashville is ready for that, Natasha.
CD: I don't care. I'm going to do it and then I'll renounce fame and wealth and live in a hut and eat lentils and wear this simple gown made from flour sacks and change my name to Pilgrim and devote myself to prayer and meditation. (BRIDGE)
GK: And that's what she did. She recorded a song called "The Great Circle".
(FN KOTO, INTO HARMONIUM, "CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN" AS BUDDHIST CHANT)
CD (SINGS):
I was kneeling in the corner
I felt peaceful as could be
And I lost all my desires
And achieved serenity.
Will the circle be unbroken?
The circle of yang and yin.
There is paradise awaiting
As we find true peace within.
(SITAR, TABLE SOLO)
O dear Maker, O dear Maker
O dear Maker, now I know
That the body and the spirit
Join in life's eternal flow.
(FADES)
GK: But she didn't get the chance to renounce wealth and fame. "The Great Circle" went to No. 1 world-wide. It sold 15 million copies in India and even more in Japan and Southeast Asia and Natasha changed her name to Pilgrim and moved to Nepal and now she is doing wordless singing and it is so successful that Billboard magazine has created a new chart ---- alongside Pop and Country and Americana and Alternative ---- the chart is called Humming and it's the hot new thing in music.
CD (HUMMING, WITH TR, FN, SS, UNDER)
SS: Lyrics are totally passe. Music is in a post-linear period. Everything is circular. If you're not holistic, you're square. It's a big world and the world is round. Wake up, Nashville. New world coming. It's humming. (BRIDGE)
GK: So I pulled into the parking lot by the Ryman the other day and----- hey, Mr. Skaggs.
RS: How you doin, Mr. Noir?
GK: Wow---- I never saw a brand new Lamborghini sports car in Nashville before? Whose car is that?
RS: This is mine. (REVS ENGINE) Nice, huh? Paid a quarter-million for it. Just took delivery. Bought one for Sharon and one for me.
GK: I thought you were broke---
RS: I was and then my humming album came out. With my band. Kentucky Hummers.
GK: I just don't understand this whole humming thing.
RS: Well, you're a little old. It's a whole new approach to music. It's been around for centuries and young people are into it and so am I.
(HUMS, W FN, CD, RD, GK TO MAKE CHORD)
GK: Very nice.
RS: It's No. 1 in Outer Mongolia.
GK: Congratulations.
(HUMMING, FADE INTO 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.