03x03 - The Sea Monster

[bunniefuu]

JOHN LURIE: Previously,
on Painting with John...

Why do I have to be the bad guy?
You have to support me on this.

She's a child.
She deserves a childhood.

I don't wanna do my homework.
I don't wanna do my homework.

I don't wanna do my homework.
I don't wanna do my homework.

I don't wanna do my homework.

♪ ["PAINTING WITH JOHN
NEW OPENING" PLAYING] ♪

♪ Ah-dee ♪

♪ Ah-da ♪

♪ Ah-dee ♪

♪ Ah-da ♪

♪ Ha-dee ♪

♪ Ah-da ♪

-♪ Ha-dee ♪
-♪ Ha-dee ♪

♪ Ah-da ♪

-♪ Ha-dee ♪
-♪ Ha-dee ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

♪ Ah-da ♪

What is this sh*t?
You-- you see it online, like,

"Ha-ha-ha, he's old."

John Lurie's old now.
They do it to everybody.

What is-- I don't...

hold the theory
"you're supposed to
respect your elders."

I think you
should respect everyone.

Until they give you a reason
to not respect them any further.

And most people will give you
that opportunity.

But...

Man! I mean
the odds were against me.

I survived some stuff
in this life,

and I'm proud
that I'm still here.

And I put beautiful things
into this world.

And I hope to keep doing that.

So isn't it kind of more like,
"Ha-ha-ha! You're young, kid."

And well, almost
without exception,

your music sucks.

♪ ["THE EMPEROR OF CAMELDOM"
BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

[INHALES SHARPLY] Ah!

Ooh!

Macaulay Culkin.

John the Baptist.

One good thing
about getting older,

for a man anyways,

is that your p*nis
no longer rules your life.

And you kind of miss
some of the wildness,

some of the excitement,
but in general... [CHUCKLES]

...it's a good thing.

You used to wake up
in the morning

and it would just be
standing there and saying,

"You have to fly to Frankfurt."
And you would go.

f*cking p*nis.

One thing is odd
to me or it seems unfair,

where it's like as you get older
and your body, you're not--

You can't run as fast,
you can't jump as high.

Your-- Everything is decreasing.
Everything in you is decreasing.

Except...

the body's ability...

to produce pain.

Or-- That's does--
That's not right.

The pain shouldn't be as intense
as it--

as it is when you're young.
It should be less.

I don't know who we talked to
about this,

but we should work this out.

-[BIRDS CHIRPING]
-[CAR ENGINE REVVING]

This is my trash can.

♪ ["FLOATING NESRIN"
BY JOHN LURIE
AND STEVEN BERNSTEIN PLAYING] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

♪ ["SEA MONSTER"
BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING] ♪

Once I encountered
a sea monster.

I've tried to tell
this story before

and it doesn't really catch.

I tried to paint
this sea monster and...

was about three weeks
into painting it

and then it wasn't--

It didn't have much.
It wasn't great.

And then a flood destroyed
the painting.

It's not fair
to call this thing a monster.

It felt benign.

But I don't know
what else to call it.

I used to go swimming
right near the house.

I try to go every day,
try to swim every day.

And...

the beach I normally go to,
there was some local holiday

and so that there were tents
and music and lots of people

at the beach where I swim,
where there usually is nobody.

So Leroy drove me
like about a mile down the road

to another beach
where there was no one.

There was one tourist lady
with her two kids

playing in the sand
but otherwise,

I was the only person.

I was the only person
to go swimming.

And I used to swim out far.

Like a dolphin.

And I'm swimming, and my goggles
are kind of fogged up.

So I come up and, you know,
cleaning them off.

I see this shape,
this black shape up ahead of me.

Which I'm just assuming
is like some patch of rocks

or something.
But I'm in very deep water,

so I know that can't be
the bottom.

That's gotta be something else.
What is that?

And I put the goggles back on
and I go under there,

and I look at this thing.

It's about 20 feet away,

and you can't really see
so good

with those swimming goggles.
But it's--

It's about 11 feet long.

And it's not a shark,
'cause it's like,

just hovering there under
the surface.

It wasn't a Manta Ray.
It wasn't the right shape.

It wasn't a Manatee.
They don't come around here.

I don't know what it was.
It was like 11 feet long

and it was gray and black
and white.

And looking at this thing.

And I swear it had a head
that was...

proportionally small
to the rest of the body,

and it turned
and it looked at me.

And there was intelligence
in the look.

So, I swam back to shore
as fast as I could.

I went to go visit
this lifeguard I knew here,

who worked at one of the hotels.

I tell him what I've seen...

and it's not like
he didn't believe me,

it's just like...

he didn't really care.

But he could-- He said that,
"Ah, that's a manta ray."

But it wasn't a manta ray.

And then he said,
"Well, my rule is,

if I encounter something
in the water

and it's not afraid of me,
then I think maybe

I should be afraid of it."

Which is reasonable advice
but...

I wanna know
what this thing was.

I'm curious.

So...

I ask other people here
and nobody's curious

what this thing was.

And I try to tell the story
and I couldn't really tell it,

like on camera,
so it made any sense.

And I tried to paint it
and that painting got destroyed.

And so I said, "Okay,

leave the sea monster
story behind."

And I'm working
on this camel head painting,

I was going to paint
a concrete wall

and I wasn't sure
if it was gonna have arches

or it was gonna have blocks.

I thought I'd make them
pretty ornate.

So I just did the first band
with black and gray and white.

The first band
of this concrete wall.

And I just leave it here
for a second like this

and see-- see what I think.

So I go upstairs to my room
and you can see down

to the painting table
from upstairs.

Kind of a great thing,
you can make decisions...

that you wouldn't make
ordinarily.

So I'm looking down
and I realize

that this thing
that I've painted...

is the sea monster.

♪ ["SEA MONSTER" CONTINUES] ♪

JOHN: It's the same,
the colors are perfect.

The shape is perfect.
The vagueness is perfect.

Even the size
of its head is perfect.

It's like, so...

brought the sea monster back.

So I felt like
I had to tell the story now.

But now, I don't go swimming
way out deep.

I don't try to swim
like a dolphin anymore.

I stay close to the shore.

I mean, you know, younger people
are always laughing

at older people
for getting scared,

but like...

I get nervous every time
I light the oven here,

but it exploded once.

And I saw a sea monster. So...

at least before I'm gonna
go swim out into deep water,

I wanna know
what the hell that was!

[BALL THUDS]

-[LAUGHS]
-[GRUNTS]

-[GLASS SHATTERING]
-[THUDS]

♪ ["DOTS"
BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

Well, that's clearly
Mary Magdalene.

I mean look,
that's Mary Magdalene.

I'm painting something
very beautiful

that requires
extreme concentration.

NESRIN WOLF: Oh, perfect timing
to come in then.

JOHN: Why?

NESRIN: [LAUGHS] Because I love
interrupting you.

Why do you like interrupting me
so much?

It's so much fun.

It's getting cloudy.
Oh, no. The shorts.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

-JOHN: The what?
-NESRIN: The shorts.

It's getting cloudy.

We have to be careful
with the shorts because...

-There are ten of them.
-...during the rainy season,

they all start to smell
like mildew.

So we have to catch
the spots of sun...

which surprisingly go away
in moments.

-Right, Nesrin?
-That is right, John. [CHUCKLES]

That is very true.
Whatever you say.

I always agree with John.
That's my job, always.

[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]

JOHN: Coming up next,
on Painting with John...

Oh, God. They found us.

[BOTH GASP]

♪ ["DISAPPEARING ALLIGATOR"
BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪

[CRICKETS CHIRPING]

Hi, Moon.

[CHUCKLES] How are you?

I fell asleep on the couch.

I had the weirdest dream.
I was a cab driver.

And Russell Crowe
got in the cab.

And then he kept--
He was chewing tobacco

and he kept spitting it
on the floor of my cab.

I didn't know what to do.

Because it just seemed like
the only way I could stop him

was to fight him.

And then I woke up.

My dreams
have been really weird.

You don't even know--
Yeah. You don't have dreams.

Yeah-- No, I'm not sorry.
I mean, I'm sorry I got angry,

but no, I'm not sorry.

I mean, you stood me up
and then you lied

and said you were there,
but you weren't there.

So, if somebody just lies
to your face...

I mean if you were a person,
I would just avoid you

going forward,
but since you're the moon

and you're always up there,
I gotta--

Yeah, Russell Crowe, the actor.
Wait, don't change the subject.

He-- I’ve...

You're used to it because
all the moons--

All the moons
are a bunch of liars.

Yeah? Why don't you
change that?

You could be the first.

[SCOFFS]

All right. Yeah, I'll say hi
to Russell Crowe for you.

All right, bye.

[CRICKETS CHIRPING]

JOHN: When I was like...

four years old...

it was a Sunday afternoon,
I remember.

And my parents were expecting
these people, this couple

that they really liked
and respected.

And we were looking forward
to these people coming.

And this couple had a son...

who was my age...

that I was expected
to hang out with this son,

so that we were out of the way.

When I recognized
what was going on

and I didn't like this kid.

I didn't like him, like at all.

And they had just come
from a fair or a carnival

or something and...

he had a helium balloon...

♪ ["HELIUM BALLOON"
BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING] ♪

And we're off in another room,
supposed to be playing,

but he's just playing
with his balloon

and basically bragging
that he has this balloon

and I don't have one.

So after about half hour
of this, I got fed up.

And he wouldn't even
respond to me,

he would just play
with his balloons.

So...

I grabbed the string
of the balloon...

and ran through the kitchen...

pushed through the screen door
and let the balloon go.

I mean, I knew the balloon
would go up,

but then it went up
like it did, like,

up into the heavens,
you know, like,

it was way the f*ck up there.

It made me feel like,
I was falling off the planet.

Almost, like, and...

So of course he started to cry.
[MIMICS CRYING]

He runs in the house
to complain to his parents.

And when I come in,
I think I'm in for trouble.

But it's been decided
that I couldn't have realized...

that the balloon
was gonna float away.

And I think my dad--

I mean, I think it was one
of those lies that was told,

that everybody just accept it
to make the thing over with.

But...

my parents knew that
I would have been smart enough

at that age to realize
that the balloon

was gonna float away.

And so it was over.
I was off the hook.

Except that night, I'm in bed.

And I'm overwhelmed
with this horrendous feeling.

I just feel awful.

And I don't quite understand it,

but I had just learned
about conscience,

like having a bad conscience.

And I realize that this is
having a bad conscience.

This is what it feels like.

I'm never doing
anything wrong again.

So, I never did anything wrong
after that.

♪ ["SEA MONSTER" PLAYING] ♪

♪ [MUSIC CONCLUDES] ♪