(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.
(THEME UP AND OUT)
GK: It was the end of June and I was fishing with my brother-in-law up on Lake Winnibigosh when I got a call from Tanglewood. Thank goodness. My brother-in-law is not a ray of sunshine.
DR: They're taking away our liberties, Guy. This Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage. Can you believe it? It's ludicrous. Can you imagine? Me and you married? Huh?
GK: It's hard to imagine, Al.
DR: Would you marry me?
GK: Is that a proposal?
DR: I mean, you'd think I was crazy. Right?
GK: This is true. (CELLPHONE RING) Excuse me, Al. (BRIDGE) The call was from a guest conductor at Tanglewood, a guy named Phil O'Dendron. He was having problems.
TR (HOITY): It's like this, Mr. Noir. The musicians hate me. I have no idea why. I conducted the Beethoven Ninth last night and afterward I took a bow and my fly was unzipped. They'd been looking at me all evening and nobody in the orchestra said a word. So I took my bow, pants wide open, and the audience was laughing. At me!
GK: So you need me to come make sure your pants are zipped?
TR (HOITY): And tell me why they don't like me.
GK: Glad to. (BRIDGE) Not a great assignment but I was glad to go. Being in a fishing boat with Al was like marriage without the benefits. I got on a plane and headed for the Berkshires and stopped in Lenny's Cafe for lunch. (CAFE AMBIENCE)
SS: Welcome to Lenny's Cafe, sir. Just a reminder that derogatory speech is not allowed here and no humming and no foot-tapping. Okay?
GK: Okay. But why is that?
SS: Most of our employees are classical musicians. Off-key humming and irregular rhythm drives them crazy and they start dropping things.
GK: Okay. I'll remember that.
SS: Are you alone?
GK: Yes.
SS: If you'd like a conversational companion, we can provide that for a small fee. We have three available. One in women's studies, one in theology, and one who curates cat videos.
GK: No, thanks. (FOOTSTEPS, SCRAPE OF CHAIR, SITS DOWN)
(FOOTSTEPS)
SB: Yeah? What can I get you?
GK: A menu maybe?
SB: It's up there on the wall. Look. On the blackboard. Want me to read it to you?
GK: No, sorry. What's your soup today?
SB: (OFF) HEY LOLA!! WHAT'S THE SOUP?
ND (OFF): Lemon noodle and chilled chicken.
SB: Lemon noodle and chilled chicken.
GK: Lemon noodle?
SB: Yeah. Want some?
GK: Never heard of it. What does it taste like?
SB: It's lemony.
GK: Could I have a taste?
SB: (OFF) HEY, LOLA, CAN HE HAVE A TASTE OF LEMON NOODLE?
(SERIES OF TWELVE SLOW FOOTSTEPS APPROACH AND STOP)
ND: You want a what-----
GK: Could I taste the lemon noodle?
ND: What?----- you want I should bring over a spoonful of lemon noodle soup and hold it to your trembling lips?
GK: Sorry, but I never----
SB: It's good. I just had some. (SHE EXHALES A BIG BREATH) Smell it?
GK: Yeah. That's good. Hey----- that bruise on your jaw---- you're a violinist, aren't you.
SB: Yeah. So what? So what's it to you?
GK: What brings you to Lenox?
SB: You ever hear of the Boston Symphony Orchestra? They have an opening.
GK: You're here to audition.
SB: Bingo. I just spent twenty years of my life practicing and went a hundred grand in debt for music school so I can take a ten-minute audition and find out that I'm not quite good enough. ----And don't tell me, okay? Don't say it.
GK: Don't tell you what.
SB: "Nobody said that life is fair."
GK: I wasn't going to say that. Really. (BRIDGE) So that's why she'd been a little abrasive with me ---- anxiety. Her name was Elaine Lash and her friend was Lola who was a bassoonist, both of them nervous about auditions. I took them out for a beer, they invited me to the RV where they were camping out near Tanglewood, and they were very friendly.
ND: She's been a basket case for the past nine months. Practicing the Mozart. The Schubert. The Philip Glass.
SB: The harder I work the worse it sounds. It's the truth.
GK: You guys know a conductor named Phil O'Dendron?
ND: The one with the buzzard breath.
GK: Oh really----
ND: He's overweight and he starts wheezing and panting up there and his breath is like road kill and the violins are ducking down and the brass section is playing as hard as it can to blow it away. He's a pig.
SB: Listen to this and tell me what's wrong----(RK PLAYS MOZART PHRASES, STOPS) ---- what am I doing? It doesn't feel like Mozart, it feels like Moe and Larry.
GK: It's beautiful.
SB: I hate it. I hate music. I've wasted my life. I should've majored in business. What was I thinking???
ND: She loves music. She's a wonderful musician. A songwriter. Sing him that one you wrote today----
SB: It's no good.
ND: Sing it.
SB: It's a piece of crap.
ND: Just sit down at the piano and sing it.
(PIANO INTRO)
SB (SINGS):
Why don't you believe I love you?
Why do I have to keep showing you?
Love is not a performance you put on,
It comes from someone knowing you.
Love is caring and being true.
It isn't a competition.
I love you, I love you, I love you, I do.
Why do I have to audition?
GK: Very nice. Very nice.
ND: She's great.
GK: So when is your bassoon audition?
ND: Awwwww, not for a week. No problem. Playing Charles Ives and Charles Ullery. (FN BASSOON SCALES) I can do it in my sleep.
GK: So you're not worried-----
ND: You can't get too uptight about an instrument that sounds like this. (FN BASSOON NOTES) And if you practice too much, your embouchure hardens and your mouth looks like the rear end of a raccoon and boys won't kiss you anymore. So------ comme si, comme sa. If I don't get the job, I'll just become a development director. (BRIDGE)
GK: I loved being around musicians. All those good looking people walking around, warming up. (SAXOPHONE) Women cellists with long hair sitting with their legs wrapped around their instruments. (CELLO) --- People pursuing their art, their passion even though it's not shared by others (BAGPIPE) ------ some singers in there too (TR TENOR) ------ and here was Elaine working on Mozart (RK VIOLIN PASSAGE) ------ and then the conductor walked by----
TR (HOITY): Good afternoon, Mr. Noir.
GK: Mr. O'Dendron.
TR (HOITY): Call me Phil.
GK: Hello, Phil.
TR (HOITY): On second thought, call me Maestro.
GK: Maestro-----
TR (HOITY): So? You figure out why I'm unpopular?
GK: Yes.
TR (HOITY): And?
GK: Don't eat more than one triple salami sandwich before a concert and don't eat onions with it and before you go on stage put three of these in the corner of your mouth, and don't chew them, let them melt.
TR (HOITY): Breath mints?
GK: That's it. And your fly is open.
TR (HOITY): Oh! Right. Thanks. (ZIP) (BRIDGE)
GK: Elaine was nervous before her audition and Lola and I tried to calm her down.
ND: You're going to be great. Relax. You know this stuff. Don't think about it. Just play it. Pretend they're all naked.
SB: But they're behind a curtain.
ND: Then pretend you're naked.
SB: I can't even focus. I've got this other tune in my head.
ND: Sing it and get it out of your head.
SB (SINGS ACA):
Love is caring and being true.
It isn't a competition.
I love you, I love you, I love you, I do.
Why do I have to audition?
GK: But audition she did. She stood out on stage and the jury sat behind a screen. There was a violinist----
TR (FRENCH MUTTERING)
GK: And another violinist.....
SS (MUTTERING): I tell you, the people coming out of music school nowadays.....no soul. There's no soul.
GK: And another violinist.
TR (MUTTERING, RUSSIAN)
GK: And Elaine walked past me (HEARTBEAT) and I put my hand on her shoulder.....
SB: (WHISPER) This is the worst moment of my entire life.
GK: You'll be fine.
SB (WHISPER): I am going to die. Worse than that, I am going to be sick.
GK: Don't even think of it.
SB (WHISPER): I just did.
GK: But she stood up and she nodded that she was ready. And she launched into the Mozart (RICHARD K MOZART) ---- and it went perfectly until a bat flew in the window (SFX) and it threw her off slightly (RICHARD K SWITCH TO PHILIP GLASS) and she switched to the Philip Glass and of course the jury didn't go along with that (TR FRENCH, SS, TR RUSSIAN MURMURS OF DISGUST AND REJECTION) and the audition was over (HOCKEY HORN) and she walked off (FOOTSTEPS), that long lonely walk of rejection (FOOTSTEPS W REVERB) and there in the shadows was a man with a fistful of pinky rings and slicked-back hair waiting for her.
DR: Elaine?
SB: Yes?
DR: Sam Evening from Evening Entertainment. Meet my wife Janet.
SS: Hi.
SB: Wow. Sam and Janet Evening. You guys are legends in the music business.
DR: We heard your song "I Don't Want to Audition". It's a hit.
SS: Fabulous.
DR: It's gonna sell ten million.
SS: Here's a contract.
DR: We want to get it out in time for Christmas.
SS: And let's drop the "Elaine".
DR: From now on, you're just "Lash".
SS: Like Sting. Like Bono.
DR: Think you can write some more songs, Lash?
SB: Wow. I'll start right away.
(SINGS) No more Bach. No more Paganini.
Going to take a walk and fix a Martini.
Put that fiddle on the shelf.
Going to live a little and be myself.
. (BRIDGE)
GK: So Lash went on tour ---- six buses, fourteen semis, twenty dancers, and a big orchestra with all her pals from Tanglewood. Lola was the bassoonist. (SFX)
ND: I love it. She's big-time, I'm little time. So what? It's still time. I like being in the band with my buds. The music is not great. It's too loud. The strobe lights are a pain. But life is fair. It's fairly fair. You don't get what you want, but you get something good. She made it into a song.
SB (SINGS):
You don't get what you want,
But you get something good.
I learned it at a restaurant
Near Tanglewood.
(THEME)
SS: A dark night in a city that knows how it keep its secrets but one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions......Guy Noir, Private Eye. (MUSIC OUT)