02x04 - Your Hands Have Turned into Lighbulbs

[bunniefuu]

Close your eyes.

[CRICKETS CHIRPING]

Breathe in through the nose...

and out through the mouth.

Breathe in, two.

Breathe out.

Three, four. Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Now, as you continue
the breathing,

imagine your body
is floating away.

It's a lovely feeling,
your body has floated off,

and it's just the breath.

You are only the breath.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Now, as your body
has drifted away...

imagine your hands
have come back

and they've turned
into light bulbs.

♪ ["I HOPE SHE IS OKAY"
BY MARVIN PONTIAC PLAYING] ♪

♪ Ba-dum ♪

♪ Ba-dee ♪

♪ Ba-dum ♪

♪ Bum ♪

♪ Ba-dum ♪

♪ Ba-dee ♪

♪ Ba-dee ♪

♪ Bum ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

JOHN LURIE:
When I was a little boy,

I had a baby alligator.
His name was George.

Why do I have to be the puppet?

-I could be the puppet.
-Okay.

JOHN: Yeah? All right.

NESRIN WOLF:
When I was a little boy,

I had a baby alligator.

His name was George.

George grew up
to be a full-size alligator.

And ate all the neighbors.

It was sad

because we had to have
George put down.

♪ ["UNKY G" BY JOHN LURIE
PLAYING] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONTINUES] ♪

♪ [MUSIC STOPS] ♪

You know what? You know what?
Adabadeewa, and other things.

♪ [MUSIC RESUMES] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONTINUES] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

That's Calvin Weston on drums.

Tony Scherr on bass,
Kenny Wollesen on percussion.

Doug Wieselman on baritone,
saxophone, and guitar,

Smokey Hormel on guitar.

Michael Blake
on tenor saxophone,

Steven Bernstein on trumpet.

And Clark Gayton on trombone,
Curtis Fowlkes on...

trombone.

You know, the musicians
don't get enough credit.

I mean, I don't know why,
but musicians don't--

I mean, there's
very few great musicians,

and they go unnoticed now.

So...

You gotta give the-- you know,
you gotta give them something.

[BIRDS WARBLING]

Adabadeewa.

Adabadeewa.

I-- I-- I-- really hope
the subtitle people don't write,

"John says nonsense syllables."

That would bother me.

Ab-- Aba-- "Adabadeewa"
is a word

for-- for me and Erik,

who's standing right there
behind the camera.

"Adabadeewa" means absurd,
but in an optimistic way,

like "Painting with John
is adabadeewa."

So-- And I do it
a few times in-- in this season

where I say nonsense syllables
to them,

but they actually are syllables,
so it's better--

Please write them out.

Actually, hello,
subtitle people.

I feel like the subtitle people,

they put them, like,
in an office in the basement,

or all the way down
the end of the hallway

and they sit in this dark room,

and they have to transcribe
every f*cking thing

that they hear, unless a bot
does it or something.

That they have to actually
write down everything

in every show,

and they never get
any credit for it.

They-- they can only get
blamed for mistakes,

they can never do a great job

and somebody says,
"Oh, you did a great job."

They can only get yelled at.

So I would like
to take this moment

to acknowledge
the subtitle people.

Hello, subtitle people.

And now you could write back
as a subtitle, you could say,

"Hello, John." Yeah?

Hello, subtitle people.

[AWKWARD PAUSE AS JOHN WAITS
FOR CAPTIONERS TO TYPE
"HELLO JOHN"]

I wonder if they'll do it.

Oh also, do me a favor.
Whenever my music plays,

you know how when you-- you--
you put the subtitles in,

and then it says,
"rock and roll music,"

"romantic music,"
"salsa," whatever.

When my stuff plays, write,
"amazingly beautiful music."

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

Every year or so, I used to...

try to disappear.

For two or three weeks
I would go to...

Africa or Thailand
or Madagascar or somewhere.

And...

on this one particular trip,
I went to Tahiti.

And I went from one island
to another

until I found this very,
very small island,

I don't remember the name of it.

And...

I lived in
this little bamboo hut

with a dirt floor.

It was really pleasant.

And the family
who rented me the hut...

had this bicycle, this rusty,
clanky thing with big fat tires,

so I went to explore the island,

and towards the end of my trip,
at sunset...

I came to this strip of land,

and there was these
ten-foot waves

smashing into the rocks.

And...

in the waves were dolphins,

like eight dolphins
on each side,

who would ride the waves in,

and then just before
it crashed to the rocks,

they would jump up in the air
and swim back and do it again.

They were having
an enormous amount of fun.

And because of
the crashing waves,

the air was filled
with negative ions,

and it was impossible
to be in a bad mood.

Because life was this
incredibly wonderful thing.

And anybody you ran into

would give you a big smile
and say "hello"

or "good evening"
in whatever language,

and not 'cause
you were a tourist with money,

but because life was obviously
this incredibly wonderful thing.

And then these French people

came by on bicycles,
expensive bikes,

two men and a woman,
they were coming towards me

and I gave them a big smile
and I said, "Bonsoir,"

and they sneered at me,

and then they turned up
their noses in unison,

and then continued on.

So I stopped.

'Cause I just thought...

"This can't stand.
This can't go like this."

And I turned around,

and I started to follow them,
so I could explain to them

that life was this
incredibly wonderful thing...

and that
they should realize that.

But they saw me
coming towards them,

and they looked back,

and they panicked completely.

And they saw... [CHUCKLES]

...this guy,
who obviously was insane,

coming after them.

So they started
to ride really fast.

So I started to ride really fast
to try to catch them.

And now they were
completely terrified

and riding--

and I'm riding my crappy bike
as hard as I can.

And I'm kinda like that dog,

you know, that chases the car
and doesn't know

what he's gonna do
when he catches it, but...

Then I just started to laugh.

And then I had to stop.

[LAUGHS] I couldn't ride anymore
'cause I was laughing.

But that's what it is.

Life is this
incredibly wonderful thing.

I'm sorry they didn't notice.

-♪ [BANJO MUSIC PLAYING] ♪
-[HORSES GALLOPING]

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

-Yippee.
-Yi.
-Yo.

-Ki.
-Yay.

-Yippee.
-Yi.
-Yo.

-Ki.
-Yay.

-Yippee.
-Ki.

-Yippee.
-Ki.

-Yippee.
-Yi.
-Yo.

-Ki.
-Yay.

-Yippee.
-Yo.

-Yo.
-Ki.

-Yippee.
-Yi.
-Yo.

-Ki.
-Yay.

-♪ [WESTERN MUSIC PLAYING] ♪
-♪ [CHANTING] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

[INSECTS CHIRPING]

Jean-Michel Basquiat,
the-- the painter, used to...

crash at my place
when he was like 16, 17.

Basically, he lived there.

And I had this carpet

that I had splurged
and spent a hundred dollars on,

and then we would just fold
a couple of blankets,

and he slept on the floor.

I was really jealous,
he could sleep through anything,

I'm so jealous of somebody
who can do that.

And then...

I was in the East Village...

walking down the street
and I saw Klaus Nomi.

And we were talking,
and then he went, "Look!"

And there was this blue couch
on the street.

Nothing special, but it was

this turquoise blue couch,
that, uh...

I said, "I need a couch,"
and Klaus said...

He didn't say anything,
he just sort of nodded

and picked up one end of it,
I picked up the other end,

and we-- we brought it back
to my place on Third Street.

Wish I had a photograph of me
and Klaus Nomi carrying...

my blue couch down Third Street
past the men's shelter, where...

'Cause that block
was crazy then.

So then I had the blue couch
and Jean-Michel would sleep

on the blue couch.

Hm. He was happier on the couch.

And then he--
he just exploded and, uh,

his gallery gave him
this loft on...

Crosby Street for a while.

And, uh... then Andy Warhol
got him this place

on Bowery and Third Street,

but the other side of Bowery
from my place,

which was like
a whole different world,

'cause I lived on Third Street
in the middle of the block

where the men's shelter was,
and it was hell back then,

it was just crazy.

So I would practice at my place
in the afternoon,

and then...

go over to his place
and hang out.

And he would smoke this weed
that was just...

I mean, I couldn't do it
that often, 'cause--

I couldn't do it
early in the day,

'cause then my day
would just be gone,

I'd be in marijuana mode,
I couldn't, uh...

couldn't handle it.

But we would do this
slow motion boxing thing.

Really stoned.

Pow!

And you couldn't cheat.

Couldn't go fast
or, you know...

Pow! That was too fast.

And he used to paint
on the floor,

so there was always paintings
on the floor.

And he caught me
with a powerful blow

to the kidney.

[GROANS] Oh!

And I stepped back,
and I stepped right into a...

a tray of paint
that was on the floor.

And then he caught me
on the other side.

[GROANS] Oh!

And I stepped back
with the paint all over my shoe,

right onto the painting
that was on the floor.

And I was like,
"Oh, man! I'm sorry, Willie.

I, uh... f*ck!"

And he was--
he just laughed. He-- he--

Uh...

I'm sure it had happened before,

'cause it was
always mayhem there,

and there was always paintings
on the floor, but...

It was kinda really admirable
to me the way it was just like--

It really did not matter to him

that I had just put a footprint
of paint on his painting.

It was just like
the Zen of it was...

was kind of great.
We used to actually--

"I'm so sorry, Willie,"
and he's just...

And, uh...

He took that opportunity
of me dropping my guard,

and he throws a right cross.

Pow! [GROANS] Oh!

[INSECTS CHIRPING]

And years after he passed,

there was this big thing,
a big, big show, all, like...

the whole museum,
I guess it was the Guggenheim.

Yeah, it must've been
the Guggenheim.

And there was those...

What do you call them?
The velvet ropes

that separates the
audience from the crowd,

whatever, you know,
those velvet ropes.

And I see the painting--
I see a painting

with a footprint on it,
and I assume it was mine,

but it might've been
somebody else's.

And I reached out...

to point it, my footprint
out to somebody,

and my finger must've gone like,

four inches beyond
the velvet rope.

And the guards swooped in on me.

If they had g*ns,
they would've shot me.

"Sir! Sir!
Back away from the painting!"

And I was just like...

"Damn, m*therf*cker,
I already stepped on the thing.

What damage am I gonna do
to it now?"

It's just weird
how things go like that.

Don't you think?

[BIRDS TWITTERING]

-[NESRIN SCOFFS]
-Oh! Hey, man.

Listen, we don't wanna
do this anymore.

I'm uncomfortable.

It's-- it's not going well,
and we wanna stop.

Sorry.

Turn the camera off.
Turn it off, I wanna stop.

[FOOTSTEPS]

♪ ["KETCHAK" BY JOHN LURIE
NATIONAL ORCHESTRA PLAYING] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONTINUES] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONTINUES] ♪

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

[DRONE WHIRRING]

♪ [MUSIC CONTINUES] ♪

[WIND BLOWING]

[RUNNING FOOTSTEPS]

♪ [MUSIC FADES] ♪

Erik, leave them alone.

Go back to where you came from.

♪ [AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL
MUSIC PLAYS] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

♪ ["UNBELIEVABLE"
BY MARVIN PONTIAC PLAYING] ♪

♪ Really unbelievable
It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable
It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable
It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

-♪ It's so... ♪
-♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable
It's really unbelievable ♪

-♪ It's so... ♪
-♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable
It's really unbelievable ♪

-♪ It's so... ♪
-♪ The beauty and the horror ♪

-♪ In this life ♪
-♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

-♪ It's so... ♪
-♪ The beauty and the horror ♪

-♪ In this life ♪
-♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ It's really unbelievable
It's really unbelievable ♪

-♪ It's so... ♪
-♪ The beauty and the horror ♪

-♪ In this life ♪
-♪ It's really unbelievable ♪

♪ Really unbelievable ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪