JOHN LURIE: Previously on Painting with John...
(ALL VOCALIZE)
♪ ("PAINTING WITH JOHN NEW OPENING" BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
- (BIRDS CHIRPING) - Hello.
(VOCALIZES)
Welcome to Painting with John.
♪ ("HUM BA" BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING) ♪
(VOCALIZES)
♪ Ah, yeah, yeah Ah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Ah, yeah, yeah Ah, ooh, hey, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Hey, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Hey, yeah, yeah Hey, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Hey, yeah, yeah ♪
- ♪ Hey! ♪ - ♪ Hey, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Hey, yeah, yeah ♪
Oh, hello.
You know...
I don't know why they gave me my own show
'cause I'm a mess.
Really. (CHUCKLES)
We started out doing this as it was just gonna be
these little clips that we posted on social media
to cheer people up but...
the world is getting to me lately.
I really thought, by this point,
the human beings would be doing better.
So I'm going through a grim period.
And I can't even cheer my own self up.
So you people are on your own.
Sorry.
♪ ("GB-14" BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING) ♪
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
JOHN: We had to go back to New York,
and on the way back here...
First, we're taking a Lyft to the airport,
and there's this guy blocking three lanes,
like at the departure thing.
And the Lyft driver politely asked him
to just move his car a little bit
and he starts screaming. And then...
we go to check in at the curbside thing,
and they say, "No, you have to go inside."
So we go inside, stand in line, and get to the end.
"Now you have to go back outside." Okay.
And this woman with her luggage cart
just smashes into my leg, into my Achilles, and--
I went, "Ow!" And she looks at me and says,
"Well, you veered into me."
And then she laughs and then kept walking--
I mean, it's just like, why...
So even if it was-- I had veered into her,
which I'm pretty sure I hadn't, and it was entirely my fault,
that she hurt somebody else and then just--
just a weird fucking...
Then we get to the gate, and the flight's two hours late,
and they call my row, and so I go.
And there's a huge crowd in front trying to, you know.
The attendant says, "What are you doing?"
I said, "Well, you called my row."
And she says, "Let me see!"
She takes my passport and my boarding pass,
she says, "Wait right here."
But there's a lot of people right here, and it's like...
(INHALES DEEPLY) And so, I waited for ten minutes
and then I said, "Fuck this." And I went back, you know.
And then I saw the crowd sort of start to move forward,
so then I went back to my spot and she goes,
"I told you not to move."
I said, "Well, you know, there is COVID."
"Well, you're wearing a mask, you won't get it."
I said, "Okay." And...
"Now, wait right here." I go and wait right there
for another ten minutes, and then they say, "Uh,
you know, the flight's even more delayed."
So we go and sit down in that area.
And I'm thinking...
"I think I'll never leave the house again."
It's like the human beings are just getting so ugly.
I... It's just... And this--
It's getting to me.
So across from us, there's a family.
Muslim family. She's-- Head's covered.
This daughter, young daughter,
sitting reading a book, but she keeps falling asleep.
And the older daughter is really uncomfortable.
She's too dignified to lie down on the floor
and sleep.
They've obviously been through something,
you know, and they've been travelling
and they're going through something.
And the father is just kinda...
Tough looking guy.
Whose strong and has the face of,
if you were casting a movie and want--
needed somebody to be a...
an enforcer for the Chechen mob, you would hire him.
He was a tough looking guy.
And his daughter...
who...
is clearly exhausted, and she sort of climbs
into his lap.
But now she's like 11 or 12 years old,
and this might have worked two years ago,
but now, it's like, arms and legs everywhere
and she can't get comfortable, and he's trying really hard,
though he's clearly exhausted,
but to put his body in a way that she can fall asleep on him.
And he's really patient with her,
and it's kind of beautiful to watch.
So finally she gets into this position now
where she's comfortable with one arm going this way,
and-- But, he's-- And he's sort of holding her.
But the sun is coming through the window,
right into her eyes.
And this motherfucker, man, it was so-- just so beautiful.
He takes his hand and he holds his hand
about two inches from her face to block the sun.
And then he just sat there,
for as long as I was still there,
for, like, 45 minutes, he sat there with it.
And I was like, "Okay."
And then I came back a little bit on the humans.
I gave them another chance.
♪ ("TWO RED BIRDS WITH MANY HANKS" BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(INHALES SHARPLY)
Wow!
(EXHALES SHARPLY)
Well, look at this.
It's the face of Jesus.
Do you see it?
Oh, damn!
Ow!
It's Jesus again.
Two Jesuses.
♪ ("HERMITS UNITE" BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING) ♪
JOHN: I wanted to show you this place...
because it's beautiful here.
We have this innate drive once we see a place like this,
to build something.
A hotel, a casino, a car wash.
Whatever.
This impulse, this drive to produce things,
to increase production,
has served human beings well for a long time.
It improved our lives.
But now we have to curb this impulse.
The planet wants no more of it.
Of course, there are the horrors of greed
and corruption and oil spills.
But your job for now is just to do less.
We have to slow things to a halt.
Hermits unite.
Boycott everything.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
Vince Lombardi.
It-- It's Vince Lo-- Can you see it?
It's Vince Lombardi. Clearly, you can--
Yeah? And you see,
this says "HOF", which means Hall of Fame.
"Hall of Fame coach, Vince Lombardi."
Can you read it?
(DOG BARKING)
"HOF coach, Vince Lombardi."
Yeah. (BREATHES DEEPLY)
I'm gonna save these.
This show got 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes,
which apparently is a big deal.
Yet we won no awards.
I have a feeling they don't know how to categorize it.
My best guess is, it's a variety show.
♪ ("HABBA HAPPATOO BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING) ♪
JOHN: ♪ Hey, habba happatoo Habba happatee, habba happatoo ♪
♪ Whoa, habba happatoo ♪
♪ Habba, ha, ha Habba happatoo, happatoo ♪
♪ Have a happatoo, ha Habba happatoo ♪
♪ Happatoo Have a happatoo, happatoo ♪
♪ Have a happatee, happatoo Ho, ho ♪
♪ Happatee, happatee Habba happatoo, ho ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
JOHN: Clams.
Clams.
Clams with tartar sauce.
And some fried fish with tartar sauce.
Hmm.
Tartar sauce.
It's good.
♪ ("HELIUM BALLOON" BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(INHALES SHARPLY) Ouch! Ouch!
Well, that's Jimmy Hoffa.
Pretty sure.
Jimmy Hoffa.
Maybe it's not Jimmy Hoffa. I don't know who that is.
Jimmy Hoffa.
Yeah, Jimmy Hoffa.
I would like to now warn you about the horrendous dangers
- of binge watching. - ♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I have been addicted to several things in this life.
But there is nothing as heinous as the perils of binge watching.
I understand how it can happen. It has happened to me.
You come home, you've had a hard day,
could've been a good day, could've been a bad day,
but you're really, really tired.
But you're not the kind of tired where you want to go to sleep.
So you think you'll watch something
on one of the many streaming services,
and you find a show that has this actor
that was really compelling in something else,
they were just marvelous.
And so you pick the show that they're in.
And it starts, and the music,
right off the bat, the music is bland and pedestrian,
and the writing is just terrible.
And this actor that you've seen before...
they're not so good in this.
They seem to have sunk to the level of the other acting
and the writing.
And at the end of the episode,
there's a little box that comes up that says,
"Next episode."
This little box is your enemy.
But you're not quite sleepy yet.
You're not ready to go to sleep yet.
So you click on the little box.
Episode two is even worse than episode one.
It's like the writers put all the good stuff
into episode one and now it's really bad,
but all these complicated plots are introduced.
And...
at the end of episode two is where your problems
really begin.
And it's not your fault.
It happens.
But when the box that says "next episode" comes up...
you don't know why, but you click it.
At six o'clock in the morning...
on episode seven, when the little box comes up,
you pause it for a moment.
You rush to use the bathroom,
look in the mirror and see you're not looking very good.
You send out emails,
cancelling all your appointments for the next day.
The sun is going down,
and you're on season two, episode four.
This goes on...
and on and on.
Next episode, "click."
You get up to use the bathroom and you look a little worse.
You grab a bag of chips, and you watch into the next day.
Days go by of this.
You don't answer your phone, you don't answer your emails,
you don't respond to text.
Three weeks go by,
and your friends and family come to do an intervention.
But you've boarded up the doors, they'll never get in.
And it goes on like this,
into season seven, and your life is ruined.
And you tell yourself...
that you just want to know how the thing resolves.
That's what you want.
But that-- You know that's not really true
'cause you've watched this kind of shit before,
and the last episode, it's always--
Gets tied up really quickly in some just ridiculous way.
"Oh, he killed 11 people,
but the police find out the other guy was the bad guy,
so it's fine."
"Oh, the plane crash. She wasn't on the pl--"
I mean, it's just always nonsense.
They just tie it together with nonsense.
And some part of your brain is telling you,
"No. You are just avoiding life.
That's why you're watching this."
The only advice I have here is,
if you're going to watch something
on one of the streaming services,
make sure it only has no more than three seasons.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
And my promise to you is...
there will be nothing at the end of this show
that makes you want to keep watching.
Except episode two, I think, is really special.
- Next on Painting with John... - ♪ ("JOHN GUN WALK" BY JOHN LURIE PLAYING) ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
♪ ("THE FIRST AND ROYAL QUEEN" BY THE LOUNGE LIZARDS PLAYING) ♪
♪ (SONG CONCLUDES) ♪