(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)
GK: It was October, and the nights were getting cold, and business was down. I used to be looking for missing heiresses and wayward husbands and now I was looking for lost glasses.
FN: I've looked all over! I can't find em!!
GK: You must've just set em down somewhere. Look.
FN: I've looked. They're not here.
GK: They didn't just walk away, sir.
FN: I donno. Somebody might've walked off with them.
GK: Who is going to steal prescription glasses?? Why?
FN: You tell me.
GK: I'm telling you, they're sitting right where you set them down ---- look around ---- better yet, ask your wife.
FN: Don't have one. We got a divorce.
GK: Well, there's your problem. Get a new wife and she'll know where your stuff is. Okay? Just do it.
FN: How am I going to find a new wife without my glasses??? (BRIDGE)
GK: So times were rough and Louie the building manager dropped some hints about the rent, which I knew I was behind on but I figured I had time, and then I got back to my office after lunch and there was this skinny guy sitting behind my desk.
CT: Yeah?
GK: What do you mean, "yeah"? That's my desk you're sitting at.
CT: Who are you?
GK: The name is on the door. Guy Noir.
CT: Used to be on the door. Now it's Skip Mendocino. Take a look.
GK: Who let you in here?
CT: This key right here.
GK: Did Louie give you that?
CT: He did. And also this lease. Six months. See?
GK: What kind of business you run, Mr. Mendocino?
CT: It's on the door.
GK: Oh. Okay. "Chip Mendocino College of Mandolin and Tap".
CT: Right.
GK: A music school, huh? How many students you got?
CT: Two. One of whom is going to be here in a couple minutes. So if you could go out the same way you came in, I'd appreciate it.
GK: Well, I'd be happy to except that you are in my office. Guy Noir, Private Eye. The sign you painted over. College of Mandolin ---- why not the Institute of Tuba? Do people still play mandolin?
CT: Ever hear of Sam Bush?
GK: Jeb Bush plays mandolin?
CT: Bill Monroe?
GK: Wasn't he Marilyn's second husband?
CT: How about Chris Thile?
GK: You mean the delivery guy on Mister Rogers Neighborhood?
CT: That's Mister McFeely.
GK: Oh.
CT: I'm talking about Chris Thile the mandolinist.
GK: She was married to Louis Prima----
CT: That was Keely Smith. -----Chris Thile.
GK: Never heard of him. No, mandolins were popular back in the 1920s. Guys in raccoon coats sat in canoes and they sang songs about the moon in June on a tropical lagoon but I don't know anyone who plays them now--- a lot of people play guitar, though, maybe you should think about switching.
(KNOCKS ON DOOR)
CT: Never mind. ---- Come in! (DOOR OPEN)
SS: Oh hi, Mr. Mendocino. It's me, Melissa. We talked on the phone.
CT: Right. You all set for your lesson?
SS: You bet your buttons I am---- I'm a little rusty but I want to get real good in time for my hubby's birthday so I can jump out of a cake and sing "By The Light of the Silvery Moon" -----
CT: The one about crooning love's tune in June?
SS: That's the one. (SINGS) Honeymoon, keep a-shining
real soon......
CT: How about you try something else?
SS: Well, I could sing "Clair de lune" ----
CT: One of my favorite tunes----
SS: Okay, but I'll need my loon. I brought him with, just in case.
CT: Your loon?
SS: He's in the bag here. ----Come out, Larry. (BIRD MURMURS) Easy, honey. Its okay. Everything's okay, sweetheart. (BIRD CROAKS)
GK: Excuse me but didn't you call me about three weeks ago and ask how you could get your bird on the radio?
SS: You're Mr. Noir?
GK: Right. I think you called me---- right?
SS: I did and you were very discouraging. But you know something? There are plenty of people in radio who do not share your negative attitude......listen to this----- this was a voice mail message I got about fifteen minutes ago. Just listen to this. -----
(CLICK)
TR (IRA): Melissa, this is Ira Glass. This American Life. Listen. We've got a show coming up called Birds of a Feather. It's all about bonding and emotional resonance and how the cry of the loon can trigger long suppressed childhood memories of intense grief and joy. Call me. Please. Let's talk about this.
SS: So next week Larry and I are flying to New York to be on This American Life. Listen to this. You ready, sweetheart? (LOON MURMUR) (RK MANDO
Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas,
Je vois la clair de lune. (LOON)
Il me dit des mots d'amour,
Des mots de tous les jours,
Et ca me fait a slice of tuna. (LOON)
(SPOKEN) And then I do my dance.
(MANDO, TAPS, AND LOON)
(BRIDGE)
GK: She was his only student that day and afterward he went out for coffee and I managed to jimmy the office door with a credit card and when he came back, I was sitting in my swivel chair, shoes up on the desk, smoking a stogie. (DOOR OPEN)
CT: Mr. Noir----
GK: Mr. Mendocino---
CT: Beautiful day out there---
GK: It certainly is.
CT: October. What a great time of year.
GK: My favorite too.
CT: So----
GK: Yes----
CT: Something absolutely amazing happened to me out there today.
GK: And what might that have been, sir?
CT: I went for a walk down towards the river and I saw a beggar sitting outside the train depot, an old beggar with a raggedy beard and black hornrims held together by masking tape, and he held up a lottery ticket and he said, "I'll sell you this for twenty dollars," and I looked at it --- it was a five dollar ticket ---- and I said, "How do I know this is real?" and he said, "You'll just have to believe me." He said, "I used to be in radio. I was the host of a radio variety show and it was hard on me, trying to be warm and friendly when I had been brought up by evangelicals -----
GK: You're making this up.
CT: Not. He said, "Radio was my downfall. I had an identity crisis, I fell apart, and now, I'm 73, I need busfare to get to Sioux Falls to move in with my daughter. I think this is a lucky lottery ticket. I'll sell it to you for twenty bucks." So I gave him twenty bucks and right away I thought, What a scam. What a dope you are, Mendocino. You fell for that old lottery ticket ploy-----
GK: Okay, okay----- cut it short-----
CT: And I took the lottery ticket to the lottery office and---- they gave me a check for a quarter-million dollars. A quarter-million.
GK: The ticket you bought off the old broken-down radio announcer at the train depot.
CT: A quarter-million bucks. Two hundred grand after taxes. Want to see the check?
GK: What about the old guy?
CT: I dashed back to the train depot just as the bus pulled away and so he's gone.
GK: Maybe you should go to Sioux Falls and try to find him.
CT: It's a big town. I don't even know his name.
GK: There aren't that many 73-year-old former radio variety show hosts----
CT: It was a fair deal. He set the price, I paid it. Anyway--- I won't be needing the office anymore.
GK: No?
CT: This is my big break. No more teaching mandolin. I'm going to L.A. and make an album. Skip Mendocino Does Beach Boys Bach.
GK: Uh huh.
CT: This is my dream, man. I grew up on a surfboard and listening to Bach. The Big Wave ---- the B-minor Toccata and Fugue ---- that's my world. Bach is the basis of everything in music. You didn't know that?
GK: I didn't.
CT: (SINGS, PLAYS)
Oh she got her daddy's car and she cruised through the hamburger stand now,
Seems she forgot all about the library like she told her old man now,
And with the radio blasting
Goes cruising just as fast as she can now
And she'll have fun, fun, fun
Till her daddy takes the T-bird away----- (FADES)
And she'll have fun, fun, fun......(BACHIAN CODA, INTO BRIDGE)
GK: So he walked out happy, leaving me with six months paid rent, a lovely present. I had been thinking I'd have to go live in a dormitory where you listen to a sermon before they give you supper, and instead I got six months rent-free, and then another gift walked in the door.
TR (IRISH): Hello, me boy, remember me? Father Finnegan? It's been a few years----
GK: Oh, right. You ran the Celebrity Bus Tours.
TR (IRISH): Right, and you were our security man on the Jim Nabors tour.
GK: Right. Which after people got on the bus, they found out that Jim Nabors was not part of the tour, just two people who lived next door to him once. And then there was the Dick Van Dyke tour which turned out to be a tour of flood control projects along the Mississippi, led by a man named Dick Van.
TR (IRISH): You handled that one so well.
GK: So what's going on with you now, Father Finnegan?
TR (IRISH): It's the Mandala Celebrity Tour.
GK: Mandala, the sacred Sanskrit circle ---- that one.
TR (IRISH): Right. So I've got the Mandrell Sisters, Mandrake the Magician, a celebrity Mandarin chef, the actress Amanda Peet, Ron Erhardt who's a native of Mandan, North Dakota, and the mandolinist Chris Thile.
GK: I've heard of him. What you want me for?
TR (IRISH): Mr. Thile was not available at the price we could pay so we'd like you to be him.
GK: How much?
TR (IRISH): Two hundred a day plus expenses.
GK: Do I have to learn to play mandolin?
TR (IRISH): No, we'll put your right hand in a cast. But I do need you to answer the phone.
GK: Okay.
TR (IRISH): Phone rings. Ring, ring. You pick it up---- "Mandala Celebrity Bus Tours, Chris Thile speaking. How can I help?" Can you do that?
GK: Of course.
TR (IRISH): Let me hear you.
GK: Mandala Celebrity Bus Tours, Chris Thile speaking. How can I help?
TR (IRISH): A little more expression.
GK: Mandala Celebrity Bus Tours, Chris Thile speaking. How can I help?
TR (IRISH): That's better. I think we're in business, my boy. After this one, we're going to do "Fargo: The Movie: Locations" ---- places where they shot the movie.
GK: A tour of North Dakota?
TR (IRISH): In February. You interested?
GK: Let me think about it.
(THEME)
TR: 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 still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions. Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME OUT)