TR (ANNC): 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 trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions: Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME)
GK: It was April, and my landlady Doris at the Shropshire Arms apartment complex was snooping around and giving me a hard time about this, that and the other.
SS (DORIS): Noir, you left your bathroom window open and the curtains are flying in the breeze and dust bunnies the size of hummingbirds and there's a smell like something terrible ---- I was about to call the coroner.
GK: Doris, it's an older building.
SS (DORIS): It's an older building, my Aunt Sally.
GK: Well, your Aunt Sally is even older.
SS (DORIS): I resemble that remark. I want you to get over here and shut that window and do it now.
GK: I can't. I'm in New York.
SS (DORIS): New York!!!! What are you doing in New York? (STING)
GK: I was looking for work, was what I was doing, on the theory that it would be spring in New York in April, and that's how I came to be doing security for the Hetero Pride Day parade on Staten Island.
FN (NY): We have pride too. Just because we're common and we have straight hair, doesn't mean we don't feel good about ourselves. We had pride before gay people did. So let's speak up, people.
(TR, FN, SS. BRASS PLAYING STARS & STRIPES, MARCHING FEET)
GK: So I walked alongside the parade to make sure that non-hetero people didn't try to crash it ----- people in rainbow jump suits or people holding non-black umbrellas. It was a fine parade, lots of earth tones, and some people drove in their cars and honked (HONKING, WITH STARS & STRIPES) and there was a music float with a guy and a girl in a tuxedo and formal.
(MUSIC)
FN (SINGS): The sperm swims up the Fallopian tube
SS (SINGS): My egg reaches out its hand for you
FN (SINGS): A new person has started to be (TR: Hi)
BOTH: And that's heterosexuality.
GK: It was not an enormous parade and on a Saturday at the Arthur Kills Shopping Mall it was hard to tell the marchers from the shoppers and then I saw a man with interesting hair and a majestic scowl marching along, followed by a black limo.
TR (TRUMP):
I'll run for President
Or maybe not - I haven't decided
I know I'm sure to win
I am the best and I can't hide it
I'm smart, I'm very rich
I'm Donald Trump and I have power -
Oh yes, I am a man
And also a tower.
GK: Mr. Trump?
TR (TRUMP): Yo.
GK: I thought that was you.
TR (TRUMP): Who are you, what do you want?
GK: The name's Noir. Are you really going to run for president?
TR (TRUMP): None of your business. I'll run if I run. And if I don't I won't. Boom. I'm outta here. If I run, I win. No doubt about it. I am very popular among blacks, Orientals, Spanish, all of them. They admire my lifestyle. Country wants a president who'll tell these other countries, Stop jerking us around or else. Boom.
GK: So you're going to run?
TR (TRUMP): I donno. I got a hit TV show, I've got casinos, I've got 36,000 new apartment buildings going up around the world, all of them with the name Trump on them. If I'm elected president, which I would be, no doubt about it, then all that would have to go into escrow, be recapitalized, come under regulation, IRS, SEC, you name it ---- I mean, sacrifice for my country, okay, but ---- not everything. You know. I'm elected President. Boom. Show gets cancelled. I got nothing for myself. (BRIDGE)
GK: His hair was a monument to hair engineering and his mind a monument to singleness. Mr. Trump raised self-regard to a high art. The pharaohs were shrinking violets by comparison. Just then my cell phone rang (CELL PHONE RINGS, PICKUP) Hello?
TR (ZUCKERBERG, ON PHONE): Mr. Noir-this is Mark Zuckerberg
GK: From Facebook?
TR (ZUCKERBERG, ON PHONE): Duh. Obviously. Who else?
GK: Hey, guess who I just met. Donald Trump.
TR (ZUCKERBERG): Who?
GK: Donald Trump.
TR (ZUCKERBERG): Is he involved with Google?
GK: Donald Trump doesn't need Google, he owns a mirror. So where are you?
TR (ZUCKERBERG, ON PHONE): I'm standing right across the street. I'm waving right now.
GK: Oh. There you are. You don't seem to have any security with you, Mr. Zuckerberg.
TR (ZUCKERBERG, ON PHONE): That's because I'm not recognizable. Look at me. I'm wearing a bright red shirt that says "I Own Facebook" on it and nobody cares. I'm invisible, just one more nerd. But I've got a problem. Someone thinks he owns half of Facebook. And he's marching in the Hetero Pride parade.
GK: The Winkelvoss Twins again, huh?
TR (ZUCKERBERG, ON PHONE): No. Not them.
GK: The wood pellet salesman from upstate? The guy who took you to court?
TR (ZUCKERBERG, ON PHONE): No. Could we talk? (BRIDGE)
GK: Mr. Zuckerberg told me about a trip he'd taken to Wisconsin ten years ago to buy cheese and he'd gone to a bar and met a guy in camo and a bright orange vest and they had a few beers and came up with a business plan for a website where hunters could post photos of the heads of the deer they killed. It was going to be called Headbook. And then another website called Fishbook.
TR (ZUCKERBERG): Anyway we wrote it all down on paper napkins. He still has those napkins, Mr. Noir. Napkins with tiny scribbles all over them.
GK: And he's marching in the parade?
TR (ZUCKERBERG): The guy in the bright orange vest. (STING, BRIDGE)
GK: The guy in the orange vest was named Westerlund. I went over and spoke with him.
FN (MIDWESTERN): Headbook, facebook. What's the difference? He stole my idea. And now he's a billionaire and I'm just a heating and cooling installation specialist at a heterosexual pride day parade.
GK: With all due respect, Mr. Westerlund....a web site featuring the mounted heads of large game is not exactly the same as what Facebook is today.
FN (MIDWESTERN): It's basically the same. It's marketing and bragging. That's all. Look.
GK: And Westerlund pulled out a bundle of napkins from his hunting vest to show me the deal he'd made with Zuckerberg years ago and just then the wind came up (FN CRY OF ALARM) and the napkins sailed high over the East River ----- (FN CRY OF ANGUISH) and Mr. Westerlund ran across the FDR Drive (HORNS, BRAKES, HORNS) dodging through traffic and dashed to the water's edge as two seagulls snatched the napkins out of the air (SEAGULLS) and carried them away. He stood by the water looking off into the distance long after the birds were gone. (BRIDGE) I met Mr. Zuckerberg a few hours later aboard his yacht, FaceBoat. (BIG HORN) (GULLS)
TR (ZUCKERBERG): Thanks for joining me, Mr. Noir.
GK: Nice boat. So how come there aren't any girls aboard?
TR (ZUCKERBERG): I don't know. Doesn't matter. I'm all done with that.
GK: So it's just you and me and the status updates then.
TR (ZUCKERBERG): So you took care of Mr. Westerlund?
GK: I did. He's gone. Out of your hair. There are no napkins. ----- Oh there are girls here.
CD: Hi, we were marching in the Hetero Pride Parade.
ND: We're the DiGiallonardo Sisters but it's too hard for people to spell so we sing as the DeeGees. Or the Digital Sisters.
TR (ZUCKERBERG): They're on Facebook. I looked.
DD: We live on Mr. Zuckerberg's boat but he's so busy at his laptop that he never noticed us.
TR (ZUCKERBERG): I did notice you, I just didn't have time to talk.
CD: We texted him, we tweeted him, we sent email, we did updates, he just never responded.
ND: Finally we put on these tiny bikinis and lay out on deck rubbing ourselves with coconut oil and fanning ourselves with peacock feathers and he looked at us, or we thought he did, and then he went back to the computer.
DD: We wrote a song about you, Mr. Zuckerberg.
TR (ZUCKERBERG): Oh. Okay. Send it to me as an attachment.
ND: How about we sing it for you right now?
DIGI (SING): (BUGLE BOY)
He was a big computer guy from Harvard way
He never went to opera, never saw a play
He wore a black running suit
And when he tried to dance, it just didn't compute
He does the best he can, for that kind of man
And people like him even though he's hetero.
TR (ZUCKERBERG): Good. Thanks. Nice. So---- Noir ---- you're probably wondering how much I'm going to pay you for getting rid of Westerlund, seeing as how we didn't have a contract.
GK: I doubt that you'll pay me anything, sir. You won't have time.
TR (ZUCKERBERG): No? why not?
GK: Not with that giant bird coming up behind you with its outstretched talons-----
TR (ZUCKERBERG): What? Where----- (FALLING CRY AND SPLASH)
GK: He fell in the water in the middle of New York harbor and if I'd been younger and quicker I might've gotten to the wheelhouse in time to come around for him but by the time I got to the wheel he had drifted off toward the Verrazano Bridge. I could see him out there, clutching an inflatable laptop to his chest. (HORN)
DIGI (SING):
He was a big computer guy who made Facebook
Billions of dollars was the profit he took.
But the money that he got
Didn't help him much when he fell off his yacht.
So now he's out to sea, just like you and me,
And whatever it is is how it's going to be.
(THEME)
TR (ANNC): 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 trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions: Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME OUT)