Day: July 9, 2022

Father & Son, Still Bickering

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[Originally posted on 8.13.21] At the very end of Field of Dreams, a conversation between Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) and the ghost of his dad, John (Dwier Brown):

Ray: Is there a heaven?
John: I…I really wish I could tell you.
Ray: But you just asked me if this baseball diamond, upon which we’re both standing right now, is heaven.
John: Yeah.
Ray: But what could I possibly know? You’re dead and you don’t know the basic picture?
John: Okay…Ray?
Ray: You were alive once. You know what it’s like. Nobody really knows anything.
John: I don’t think we need to argue about this…do we, Ray? I’m just happy to be here. Let’s leave it at that. I love you and I’ve missed you. Being with you right now is a blessing.
Ray: Dad, you just asked me if this is heaven. In other words, since you died you’ve been somewhere else, so to speak. A place that didn’t feel like heaven. What was that place? Tell me a thing or two…c’mon.
John: Wow, we’re arguing.
Ray: I love you too, Dad, but would you please answer me?
John: I don’t know what happened when I died, Ray. Honestly, I don’t remember anything. I do know that all of a sudden I was in a baseball uniform and I had my old beat-up catcher’s mitt. It was wonderful, and then I walked through the cornfield.
Ray: Yeah?
John: And here we are.
Ray: This isn’t heaven, dad. It’s a beautiful place but it’s not. You just asked me a straight question and I gave you a straight answer. But you won’t reciprocate. You’re not going to answer my question because ghosts are too heavy-cat to address earthly concerns.
John: I can’t tell you what you want to know.
Ray: You won’t tell me, you mean.
John: I can’t.
Ray: Could you do something else?
John: Sure, Ray. What?
Ray: Try and fix things in heaven so I don’t have to make mortgage payments any more.
John: (eye roll) Ray…

There are two generally understood concepts of heaven. Concept #1 focuses on material-world stuff…pleasure, happiness, fulfillment, great sex, neck rubs, bags of money, great Italian food. Concept #2 is about a bullshit fairy tale after-realm that religious leaders have been selling to their parishioners for centuries, as in “be good and go to heaven.”

I’ve always said that if there’s a heaven, it certainly doesn’t work on a merit or virtuous behavior system. Upon dying everyone becomes Keir Dullea‘s space fetus at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, or nobody does.

Alien Pinocchio Gangster

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I’ve watched YouTube snippets of The Untouchables, the hit Desilu TV series that ran from ’59 through ’63. But I’ve never watched an actual episode. Partly because the lighting is so flat and the production design and general atmosphere seem so inauthentic, presumably due to the relatively low TV-series budget.

The first 25 minutes of the better funded Some Like It Hot (’59) looked and felt like old-time Chicago, or at least convinced you that it was a reasonable facsimile.

But The Untouchables used a signature image that everyone knew — a main-title drawing of a group of Chicago wise guys up to no good. It was seen at the start and close of each episode, and that image has always bothered me because of the alien-meets-carved-Pinocchio features of the second-from-the-left guy.

If he looked vaguely human there would be nothing to say, but he clearly doesn’t. Plus his hat is two or three sizes too large. Strange vibes.

It’s somewhere between a charcoal drawing and a wood carving with a conveyance of early 20th Century Ashcan impressionism (I’m reminded of George Bellows‘ “Stag at Sharkey’s“, and I especially love the lunging body language of the second-from-the-right guy) and yet none of the other six men are biologically or proportionately beyond the pale. You could call it “Six Gangsters Fleeing An Alien With An Oversized Hat.” I just needed to say that.

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Brando Particles

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These clips have been viewable on YouTube for years and years, but it’s so soothing and nourishing to just sit back and listen to the best of them…41 minutes of Marlon Brando recollections, one after another, etc. The video quality is mostly awful, and they’re not even the best I’ve seen or heard, and the guy who threw them together repeats a Karl Malden clip. But it’s still something. Especially the observations of Francis Coppola (starting around 17:00). My favorite is Chris Reeve‘s candid admission to David Letterman [31:55] that he “doesn’t worship at the altar of Marlon Brando [because] he doesn’t care anymore.”

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“You Shouldn’t Talk That Way To Me”

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I never even saw the dystopian A Boy And His Dog (’75), the only film ever directed by the late L.Q. Jones. All my life I’ve associated Jones with his Wild Bunch character (“Y.C.”), a bounty hunter described by Robert Ryan‘s character as “egg-suckin’, chicken-stealin’ gutter trash.” Jones was an honored member of Sam Peckinpah‘s stock company (Ride the High Country, Major Dundee, The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid). Jones began working as a character actor in the mid ’50s, and he kept at it until the mid aughts. He passed earlier today at age 94 — respect and condolences.