GK: ....after this message from American Horizontal.
It happens so suddenly. You were young and athletic, playing basketball (SFX) and tennis (SFX), running marathons (SFX), mountain biking (SFX), and then one day you were walking up stairs in the dark and ---- FN: Whoa!!!! ---- you fell---- (BIG CRACK) and your knee just sort of came apart. The next morning it was the size of a football. So you go to an orthopedic surgeon and he pokes at it. (FN WINCES, THREE TIMES)
TR: Kind of tender, huh?
FN: Yeah.
TR: We're going to need to do a collateral articular anterior ligament weave. It's an eight-hour procedure, it costs about $125,000, there's a success rate of about 67% and if it's successful, you spend two months in rehab and you're probably good for another six or eight years.
FN: And if it's not successful?
TR: Then we give you a stool and teach you to play guitar.
FN (WEEPY): Oh gosh. How did this happen to me???
(TRAGIC CHORDS)
GK: It happened because you exercised. You thought exercise was good for you and more exercise was better. Your brother-in-law sits around all weekend watching TV and drinking beer. (TR: Hiiiiyo!) His knees are fine. So you go through with the ligament weave --- they give you a sedative but still you can hear (DRILL) and the power saw (CIRCULAR SAW) and you can see the surgeon with the hammer and chisel (SFX) and they finish up and you awaken (TWINGES OF PAIN) and the surgeon comes in---
TR: You know, I am really embarrassed, but we did the left knee. That was your good knee. Right? I am so sorry. I was standing on the wrong side of the table and---anyway---good luck. (STING)
GK: And so you wind up on a stool in the bus station, with your guitar case open and people dropping money in......
RK (SINGS, W GUITAR):
I played basketball and football
I was young and bold and free
Thus I ruined my meniscus
Had replacement surgery.
But my brother-in-law the slacker
Both his knees are working fine
If you have a little spare change
Won't you be a friend of mine?
SS: This is Ellen Twitchell. I ran 21 marathons until I wore out the cartilage and every step I took, it sounded like fingernails on the chalkboard. That's when I discovered the beauty of lying down. Wherever you are right now, there is a couch nearby. Make that couch your friend. Nothing bad ever happened to someone lying on a couch. Remember that.
GK: A message from American Horizontal.