I read a review of the remake of The
Longest Yard that called it a two-hour beer commercial.
Of course, the
review also said that having pro wrestlers in it gave it authenticity.
You
have to wonder about the acumen of anyone who considers a pro wrestler authentic.
The review also called the movie homophobic, because it made fun of transvestite
cheerleaders.
A transvestite isn't a homosexual. That's like calling a pro
wrestler a pro football player. One is real and one is fake.
In the original,
Ray Nitschke played a middle linebacker for the guards. In the remake, Edward Bunker
plays a prisoner. I'd be more afraid of Edward Bunker than I would of Ray Nitschke.
Old Folks didn't watch The Longest Yard when it came out. He thought football
movies were stupid. Or Burt Reynolds movies were stupid.
Now, he identified
with Burt Reynolds. He thought some of his movies held up.
Burt had been
a star, washed-up, and a star again, with his dignity intact.
That's not
easy to do.
Old Folks had his dignity. He had a washed-up streak going that
would make most actors, or athletes, envious. 33 years, going on 34.
A writer,
you didn't need a facelift. The more wrinkles you had the more character it gave
you. The more books you'd had rejected the more street cred you had.
Did
Brew look depressed to you? Down in the dumps? He wasn't even angry. It was the best
of all possible worlds, and he was Fortune's favorite child.
They used to say Burt Reynolds looked like Marlon Brando. But they didn't
say he looked like Marlon Brando playing Sakini in The Teahouse of the August
Moon.
It's hard to keep your dignity when you look like Sakini in The
Teahouse of the August Moon.
Old Folks wore a pair of earplugs around
his neck to show that he was a writer, who had to shut out passive conversation.
Also, movie soundtracks tended to be too loud, for Old Folks. He wanted to protect
what hearing he had left.
On Fridays, Old Folks cleaned the house, then went
to a matinee. It was like playing hooky.
During the week, when he had the
house to himself, he screened old movies, watching the Special Features on
the DVD disc.
Once, he rented a remake of Charade that had the original
movie, Charade, on the same disc, or as part of a two-disc set.
The
Aviator had a History Channel documentary of Howard Hughes on the Special
Features disc.
Cockfighter had a documentary about Warren Oates
on the end. Across the Border.
Old Folks's idea of a good time was
to read Cockfighter, read the 30,000-word piece Charles Willeford wrote about
basing Cockfighter on The Odyssey, read Willeford's account of acting
in the movie, Cockfighter Journal: The Story of a Shooting, with a signed
introduction by James Lee Burke ($165, from abebooks.com), watch the video,
Cockfighter, watch the documentary at the end, Across the Border.
Old Folks once put out a newsletter called Low-Rent Cinéaste.
A video
store could give it away, free. Increase rentals of their older titles, which just
sat there while the New Releases flew off the shelves.
Low-rent a
play on cheaper video rentals and a pejorative term for tinkers, squatters, and migrant
laborers living in places like The Cason Apartments or Zeder Courts in Delray Beach,
both now torn down.
The Cason Cottage has been restored. When Old Folks was
a boy his Aunt Claribel lived there.
Not to be confused with The Cottage,
the hovel on the edge of historic colored town Old Folks lived in when his first
book, Screed, was published.
Not enough colored people on TV.
Not enough colored people on TV.
The remake of The Longest Yard had
colored people in it.
Old Folks didn't know if it did them justice or not,
but he was sure they, colored people, weren't satisfied with just that. They wanted
more.
Old Folks wanted less white people on TV. Fewer white people,
actually.
Old Folks would stick with books, himself. Stick with the people
who read books. Like the guy in Michael Connelly's The Closers, at the homeless
shelter who was reading Ask the Dust.
A closer is a detective
who works on cold cases and brings them to a successful resolution.
Hoke
Moseley was working on cold case files as far back as New Hope for the Dead.
Now, it's an industry.
A closer is also a salesman, who "closes"
the deal.
Old Folks had closed the deal on Bukowski Never Did This,
his new book, which was coming out next month, the first book he had published since
Forty, his 40th book, 17 years ago.
It only seemed like a long time.
After you turn 65, the years go by in a grunt, Uncle David said, and he killed 50
Japs on Peleliu.
He also said, when offered some deer meat, "No thanks,
I can remember when we had to eat it."
Old Folks had fewer years to
live now than he had already lived.