WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.660 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:08.189 align:middle line:84% I lived for some time up in the Maine around Belfast, Maine. 00:00:08.189 --> 00:00:13.538 align:middle line:84% It's a very poor area, 25% unemployment. 00:00:13.538 --> 00:00:15.330 align:middle line:84% And they make their money plucking chickens 00:00:15.330 --> 00:00:22.950 align:middle line:84% and doing terrible things to chickens, all non-sexual, 00:00:22.950 --> 00:00:24.220 align:middle line:90% just awful. 00:00:24.220 --> 00:00:25.830 align:middle line:90% It's a bad job. 00:00:25.830 --> 00:00:28.440 align:middle line:84% So Belfast is also full of various group 00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:31.680 align:middle line:84% homes and various veteran's home solutions. 00:00:31.680 --> 00:00:37.350 align:middle line:84% You can go out on a day and look one way and see five mongoloids 00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:41.357 align:middle line:84% and look another way and see five more mongoloids. 00:00:41.357 --> 00:00:43.440 align:middle line:84% But there are a lot of veterans who are apparently 00:00:43.440 --> 00:00:46.890 align:middle line:90% shell-shocked or something. 00:00:46.890 --> 00:00:49.950 align:middle line:84% And they wander back and forth through town. 00:00:49.950 --> 00:00:53.070 align:middle line:90% And they got sort of-- 00:00:53.070 --> 00:00:54.880 align:middle line:90% they become really invisible. 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:59.370 align:middle line:84% We don't really see them if we look around. 00:00:59.370 --> 00:01:02.610 align:middle line:90% And this is sort of about that. 00:01:02.610 --> 00:01:04.530 align:middle line:90% I don't know if it has any-- 00:01:04.530 --> 00:01:07.290 align:middle line:84% The only obscure reference is to Curly, Moe, and Shemp 00:01:07.290 --> 00:01:10.410 align:middle line:90% who are The Three Stooges. 00:01:10.410 --> 00:01:13.410 align:middle line:84% There's another one whose name sounds good. 00:01:13.410 --> 00:01:16.360 align:middle line:90% 00:01:16.360 --> 00:01:17.720 align:middle line:90% Funny. 00:01:17.720 --> 00:01:19.340 align:middle line:90% This is Funny. 00:01:19.340 --> 00:01:23.840 align:middle line:84% These guys, you wouldn't believe these guys. 00:01:23.840 --> 00:01:26.510 align:middle line:84% They're stuck in a halfway house for half crazy vets 00:01:26.510 --> 00:01:30.260 align:middle line:84% at the top of the hill and they stroll through town 00:01:30.260 --> 00:01:32.240 align:middle line:84% with their hands and their pockets. 00:01:32.240 --> 00:01:34.670 align:middle line:90% They're smiling and waving. 00:01:34.670 --> 00:01:37.850 align:middle line:84% Or you see them in bars eating an ice cream cone 00:01:37.850 --> 00:01:41.175 align:middle line:84% or maybe drinking beer, although with all that medication 00:01:41.175 --> 00:01:42.800 align:middle line:84% you think they couldn't drink, but what 00:01:42.800 --> 00:01:44.508 align:middle line:84% the heck they've probably got lobotomies. 00:01:44.508 --> 00:01:47.870 align:middle line:84% Anyway, they sit in the bar like Curly, Moe, and Shemp 00:01:47.870 --> 00:01:49.490 align:middle line:84% grinning and staring at the girls, 00:01:49.490 --> 00:01:52.130 align:middle line:84% I mean, any girls or sometimes they'll just 00:01:52.130 --> 00:01:55.940 align:middle line:84% focus on a blank spot on the wall or flickering Budweiser 00:01:55.940 --> 00:01:56.690 align:middle line:90% sign. 00:01:56.690 --> 00:01:59.960 align:middle line:84% One time one of them snuck up behind the city council 00:01:59.960 --> 00:02:01.820 align:middle line:84% president who was sipping a martini 00:02:01.820 --> 00:02:04.550 align:middle line:84% and he's got orange hair like a dandelion clock. 00:02:04.550 --> 00:02:06.890 align:middle line:84% And this crazy vet just ruffled it 00:02:06.890 --> 00:02:10.250 align:middle line:84% like you might rub down a watermelon or feel a tit. 00:02:10.250 --> 00:02:13.940 align:middle line:84% The guy from the council swore he'd never seen the vet before, 00:02:13.940 --> 00:02:16.010 align:middle line:84% although you wonder how he'd ever missed him, 00:02:16.010 --> 00:02:19.130 align:middle line:84% and he would have decked him if the vet hadn't left so quick. 00:02:19.130 --> 00:02:22.340 align:middle line:84% They all wear funny hats either to warm their brains 00:02:22.340 --> 00:02:25.440 align:middle line:84% or keep their heads from popping off, you don't know which. 00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:27.320 align:middle line:84% And they look like teenagers somehow, 00:02:27.320 --> 00:02:29.015 align:middle line:90% although they're pushing 50. 00:02:29.015 --> 00:02:32.300 align:middle line:84% One of them keeps his graying hair in a perfect duck's ass 00:02:32.300 --> 00:02:35.090 align:middle line:84% haircut, wears a jacket with padded shoulders 00:02:35.090 --> 00:02:37.190 align:middle line:84% and makes wolf whistles at girls. 00:02:37.190 --> 00:02:41.300 align:middle line:84% I keep picturing him in Korea on Hill 366 00:02:41.300 --> 00:02:43.430 align:middle line:84% like in that movie with Gregory Peck, 00:02:43.430 --> 00:02:46.400 align:middle line:84% and the Chinese keep shelling them all day and night 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:49.310 align:middle line:84% and each shell clicks his life another notch 00:02:49.310 --> 00:02:50.780 align:middle line:90% towards Belfast, Maine. 00:02:50.780 --> 00:02:54.260 align:middle line:84% And this guy, he's probably from Nebraska or someplace 00:02:54.260 --> 00:02:58.790 align:middle line:84% and he quit high school in 1951 and took a job in a garage 00:02:58.790 --> 00:03:02.000 align:middle line:84% so he can work on his car, a 1948 purple 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:04.970 align:middle line:84% Merc with a chopped top so the windshield's only six 00:03:04.970 --> 00:03:09.710 align:middle line:84% inches high and double chrome pipes and huge chrome bumpers. 00:03:09.710 --> 00:03:12.830 align:middle line:84% And I think of this guy trying to peer into that chrome 00:03:12.830 --> 00:03:15.980 align:middle line:84% because in his head it's still 1951 00:03:15.980 --> 00:03:18.740 align:middle line:84% even though he's sitting in the Belfast Cafe 00:03:18.740 --> 00:03:20.060 align:middle line:90% with an ice cream cone. 00:03:20.060 --> 00:03:22.250 align:middle line:84% And he's searching for his face in the chrome, 00:03:22.250 --> 00:03:24.950 align:middle line:84% but it's distorted like in a trick mirror. 00:03:24.950 --> 00:03:27.110 align:middle line:84% And he can't see it's him, can't see 00:03:27.110 --> 00:03:31.160 align:middle line:84% it's his old motorcycle cap, his DA haircut, his scarred 00:03:31.160 --> 00:03:34.880 align:middle line:84% forehead, his wandering and witless 50-year-old eyes. 00:03:34.880 --> 00:03:37.360 align:middle line:90% Now that's what I call funny. 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:38.489 align:middle line:90%