(tape rewind)
("Keep my Heart" by Deep Sounds)
- I was always laughing in church.
There's nothing that makes me laugh more than
being in the situation where you're not supposed to laugh.
Funerals.
People crying, breaking down, telling you their life.
I mean, yeah, I'm the worst. I'm the worst at that.
(smooth jazzy music)
- [Voiceover] What are you reading about?
Are you reading this?
- Somebody gave this to me so I'm trying
to memorize all the streets of London
and I'm doing quite well if you want to quiz me later.
- [Voiceover] Okay, so you can be a cab driver.
- I'm ready. I'm ready to take the exam.
- [Voiceover] Where have you never been that
you would like to go?
- I've never been to Stonehenge.
There are moles beneath Stonehenge,
the most elaborate system of mole
catacombs is beneath Stonehenge.
There are more moles beneath Stonehenge than
there are anywhere in the world.
In that community, they reward moles
that have the courage to tunnel beneath great rivers.
It takes an understanding of physics
and engineering, that type of thing.
Because if you make a false move,
you bring the river in on you, you wipe out the whole world.
They have executions for moles
that have made the wrong turn.
("Mariner" by Anne-Marie Bernert)
New York forces you to be in
an endless surreal situations
where the $50,000 Mercedes,
gun-metal Mercedes,
pulls up into the puddle of blood
and out steps the 25-karat,
blonde transvestite with a $2 wristwatch.
It's always setting you off balance.
A night club in a church.
Smoking reefer under a stain glass window.
I think it's good.
It fractures you a little bit.
I think it's stimulating for artists because
if you're visually susceptible to images as optically
it's constantly bombarding you with a lot of information
if you can take it without becoming part of it.
("Ten Men Dead" by Deep Sounds)
I think you just write, and you don't
try to make sense of it.
You just put it down the way you got it.
You don't try to organize it or give meaning to it.
I think the best thing to do is just take pictures of it.
It’s like you go in there with a safari rifle
and a telephoto lens, and just wait in the bushes.
("Clap Hands" by Tom Waits)
When I first got into show business,
my step-father bought me a wild shirt which was,
said more about what he thought
show business was than what I thought it was.
It was this lime-green shirt with seven different kinds
of fabrics and textures on it with wooden buttons.
It looked like a Hawaiian nightmare.
He gave it to me, very serious when he gave it to me,
and it was like he was giving me a sword:
“to go out into the world of show business
"and kill some dragons, pal, and bring us back the skins."
I looked at that shirt, and I was like, "God damn."
("Gypsy Twang" by Paul Lenart, Bill Novick)
- [Voiceover] Do you think you've made the big time
or is that just a hint of irony there?
- Yeah, I think quite a bit of irony.
I don't know what the big time is, really,
except that it's probably some terrible place
that you can't get out of, or that you fall from
and break all your bones, or try to go further and burn up.
So I don't know. It's one of those expressions
that's been around for so long.
It's curious, so I don't know. It's a riddle. Big time.
("Hang Down Your Head" by Tom Waits)
♫ Hush a wild violet,
♫ Hush a band of gold ♫
I met a guy one night who came up to me
with his hand out, I said, "Oh, no, no."
He said, "Yeah, yeah, listen, man, it's not what you think.
"I don't want any money. I just want to be your friend."
He said, "My name is Charlie.
"What's your name? How you doing?"
He said, "That's all I wanted, see."
He went all the way around the block, came all the way back,
and then when he came around the corner, he saw me.
He said, "Hey, Tom, it's your old buddy Charlie.
"Could you loan me a couple of bucks?"
I got a kick out of that.
(jazzy trumpet music)
Subtitles by the Amara.org community