The Man From The Garage

Robert Altman was a sage. In his 1992 film, The Player, there is a subplot involving two aspiring filmmakers (one of whom is played by Richard E. Grant, who may be best known for playing Withnail, one of the most colorful characters in cinematic history). Throughout the film, the duo is trying to make a movie about an innocent person on death row, and they continuously reiterate how it is paramount that the protagonist must die; it is the only way that their film will work.Naturally, their film actually ends up with Bruce Willis busting into the lethal injection chamber to save the condemned Julia Roberts at the zero hour. After their adjusted ending is screened, an idealist approaches them and exclaims, “You sold it out…….What about truth? What about the reality?” Grant responds by saying, “What about how the old ending tested in Canoga Park? Everybody hated it. We re-shot it. Now everybody loves it. That’s reality.”

Fucking focus groups and test audiences.They don’t have focus groups when an artist paints a painting, but when there is mass money on the line, who cares about integrity? And who sits in these focus groups? Usually Americans who are conditioned to need a happy ending. It was said well by Svetlana, the one-legged Russian prostitute from The Sopranos, who riffed “that’s the trouble with you Americans. You expect nothing bad to ever happen, while the rest of the world expects only bad to happen. And they’re not disappointed.” But I am being a bit bitter toward the audience. It’s not really their fault that they want what they want. Ultimately, it is the studios that decide to butcher what could be future classics for the immediate dollar. It is what it is, but that does not mean I cannot rue over what could have been.

We could soon be seeing Alfred Hitchcock’s alternate ending to the classic, North by Northwest. The original had the sexually suggestive metaphor of a train going through a tunnel, but this one takes it a step further with the train going back and forth and in and out of the tunnel. Obviously, the censors were never going to have it (yes, this is a joke. Thanks for the mail, all). Hitchcock suffered at the hands of test audiences years ago when the ending of his film Suspicion was rejected. It was a great ending, but people did not want to see their beloved Cary Grant as a murderer, and so PRESTO! He no longer was, once the film was released. I loved his original idea for the ending of The Birds, where Hitchcock envisioned his protagonists believing that the bird influx was over as they drove back to San Francisco, only to discover the Golden Gate Bridge covered with birds. For some logistic reason or another, it was decided that they could not do this, so we are left with an ending where the birds cease to attack “just because.”

Since the third act often makes or breaks a film, there is no shortage of “what ifs,” when it comes to film endings. The most legendary story is probably the famed lost footage from Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, which might be at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. There were also changed endings for Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and the originial suicide of the Glenn Close character at the end of Fatal Attraction. The latter never bothered me much because I never cared for Fatal Attraction. I would much prefer the sociopathic females from Double Indemnity, Body Heat, The Last Seduction, or Red Rock West. Then there was Superman II, where Richard Donner got kicked off of the project. The movie eventually succumbed to a hokiness that Donner wanted to prevent. There is actually a separate cut of the film known as the Richard Donner version, but it is not really his since he was not around long enough to film all the scenes he wanted.

Blade Runner was given a pretty cheerful ending, which was not Ridley Scott’s intention (along with the incredibly stupid voice over that the studio insisted on because, ya know, audiences are dumb). Luckily, the original was restored and released. In fact, there are now seven (!) versions of Blade Runner available. I always opt for the director’s cut, unlike Apocalypse Now, where I will always prefer the original to the redux.

Sometimes the right choice is made. Take, for example, the omitted monologue at the end of Terminator 2. It suggests that Sarah Conner might have just been a senile old woman who made the whole thing up in her head. It sort of reminds me of the ending monologue in the very last episode of Roseanne. Similarly wise choices were made for the end of Election and Rocky Balboa. I honestly believe Rocky Balboa to be the best sequel of the whole series, but it may not have been if they used this version where Rocky wins the fight against Mason Dixon, which would have completely missed the point of the movie. Other films spoof the idea of alternate endings (see: Clue and Wayne’s World).

This brings me to the 8 films that I wish would have opted for alternate endings that they had already filmed before the director reneged or test audiences empowered studio execs with their touch of evil. In most cases, they removed a sad ending and gave it a happier one. Imagine if they took that route in Paths of Glory, No Country for Old Men, The Wicker Man (the original, of course), Se7en, or if Ilsa had stayed with Rick in Casablanca. It would have been a destroyer of greatness. Does an ending always have to be sad? No. But if it was that seriously considered, then maybe it was right.

8.) CLERKS (1994)

This one definitely needs an explanation. I have no problem with the way Clerks ends. I like the ending they chose except for one thing: It opened the door for Clerks 2. Clerks 2 did not need to exist. I felt it took away from the natural flow of the original by forcing a storyline that was not interesting and having dialogue that would never have been good enough for the original. We never would have sat through Clerks 2 if they had gone with the alternate ending to Clerks. Why? Because Dante gets killed in a robbery at the end, putting the ultimate exclamation point on his constant insistence that “I’m not even supposed to be here today!”

I might be cheating by discounting the ending because of another film that didn’t even exist at the time. But now it does exist and I’m not mature enough to ignore it. Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Breakfast of Champions that shooting deaths are “a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.” This suggests that the ending below could be seen as a cop out (no bullshit- I really did not mean to make a pun referring to Clerks’ director Kevin Smith’s career nadir) and he has a point. But then again, Vonnegut had never sat through Clerks 2.

7.) ARMY OF DARKNESS

Early Sam Raimi rules. Evil Dead rules. Evil Dead 2 rules. Army of Darkness rules. However, unlike the other installments of this “trilogy”, Ash is victorious. As a result, the end of AOD is not as iconic as the screaming at the end of Evil Dead or the time travel in Evil Dead 2. The alternate version has Ash taking a sleeping elixir that will allow him to sleep for centuries and wake up in his own time period. Alas, he takes too much and wakes up in the distant future, bearded with a Planet of the Apes-like “Damn you!” pose.

I wish they would have gone with the other ending, keeping in the tradition of Curb Your Enthusiasm type endings for the Campbell character. It is technically a horror/comedy and I am not usually a big fan of victories at the end of a horror flick.

6.) TRUE ROMANCE (1993)

Here is the ending that Quentin Tarantino wrote and, even though he loved what Tony Scott did with his script, his original screenplay called for Clarence to die. It depends on what you personally view the film as: Is it supposed to be a fantasy picture where Clarence gets to live out his perfect dream with Alabama (though the thought of them richly living the rest of their lives off of $200,000 is a bit far fetched) or is it a film where a comic book store worker gets in way over his head and pays the price. This film was originally written in the same screenplay as Natural Born Killers. NBK was actually a screenplay that Clarence was writing within the film True Romance.

What was weird was how the studio removed the part where Patricia Arquette kills Chris Penn and had a gangster kill Penn instead for reasons that only some fast talking exec can explain. The version with Arquette shooting Penn was later released and every time I see the movie on now, I have to get to this part in order to see which version it is. Either version still has the happy ending, though. It probably says something about me that I feel Clarence is a lot like Icarus, and Icarus is not supposed to live.

5.) 28 DAYS LATER (2002)

Again, I like my horror films with horrific endings. Isn’t that what made Night of the Living Dead and the later version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers so great? Cillian Murphy gets a happy ending in the otherwise great 28 Days Later. Danny Boyle seems to like it when his characters get their happy finales. Look at Ewan McGregor’s heroin addict character in Trainspotting, ending up with a new lease on life and a shitload of money. In the alternate version of 28 Days, Murphy is not safely residing on a farm as the infected (NOT zombies) starve to death in his rear view mirror.

Murphy dies in all 3 alternate endings (only two were actually shot). I am not quite sure why they went with the saccharine version. What was its purpose? Perhaps test audiences got attached to his character, which you are never supposed to do in a horror film- hence, ya know, horror. I never quite understood why some films try to make people feel so bad for an hour and a half and then try to make people feel so good in the last five minutes. Why not just commit? Either way, 28 Days is still a great film, but I wasn’t looking for a bone at the end.

4.) FIRST BLOOD (1982)

I could implement the same argument as Clerks here. The death of John Rambo would have prevented a string of inferior sequels. It is unfortunate that some film franchises forget what made a character endearing in the first place. Rocky and John McClane were mortal everymen in their original films, but Rocky III, Rocky IV, and Live Free or Die Hard turned them into the indestructible forces of a great heavyweight champion and a man who could out duel a Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II with a semi-truck and destroy a helicopter with a cop car. And remember when Indiana Jones did not strike you as a man who could survive an atom bomb by hiding in a refrigerator? Rambo was the same way. Yeah, he was great at guerilla warfare (NOTE: a spell check changed my spelling of guerilla to gorilla and I did not catch it on the final print. Thank you for all of the very wonderful concerned citizens who were very pleasant in writing me to let me know of this error), but he was still a man first and foremost. You really believed that he could die and, in the alternate ending, he did. The later Rambo films would help spawn my theory that Sly Stallone is the perfect American, but I still would have preferred to have left it at the original.

First Blood was a real movie, and it was a good one, unlike the sequels (including the oddly titled First Blood Part II). Also, it was a tragic one. It was tragic that Rambo found out that his friend had died. It was tragic that Brian Dennehy persecuted him for no good reason. It was tragic that Rambo had war burn. It was tragic that he was forced to wage war against those who were the pawns of Dennehy’s mistake. It would have completed the tragic saga for Rambo to be killed by Trautman, the man who had trained him, at Rambo’s request. His redemption would have came from getting to kill Sheriff Teasle, Dennehy’s character, which is what he gets to do in the alternate ending (though not shown here). This alternate ending is defendable even without the sequels, but those sequels confirm the point.

3.) I AM LEGEND (2007)

Here is an exception. This movie could have had a happier ending. Why? BECAUSE THEY MISSED THE FUCKING POINT! What does the title of this movie mean: I am legend? What it means is that the protagonist IS the legend. What legend, you ask? He is the boogeyman to the infected. He thinks he is killing what is evil, meanwhile the infected really are not evil. They are just trying not to be killed by Will Smith, and only at the end does he realize this. That is the payoff in the book and, even though the Will Smith character dies in the book, it doesn’t really matter if he dies in the film. What DOES matter is that he understands what has been going on. HE MUST REALIZE THAT “I AM LEGEND” AND I HAVE BEEN WRONG IN DESTROYING WHAT I DO NOT UNDERSTAND BECAUSE I WRONGLY ASSUMED IT WAS EVIL. Pithy social commentary be damned.

They showed the original ending to a test audience and they did not understand it (which is kind of appropriate since the lack of understanding was the point of the film), so it was changed. Zombie-like creatures are evil. The end. They could have gone against the grain and shown a point-of-view that you never see in these types of films, but they instead made it comfortably familiar. Weak. At least that hack Ben Lyons loved it, calling it “one of the greatest films ever made”………. and then not putting it on his top ten list for movies made that year.

2.) LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986)

The budget was thirty million and, much to director Frank Oz’s dismay, they wasted a bunch of it when they cut 23 minutes off the end because test audiences did not like that Seymour and Audrey were eaten by Audrey II. What else did we miss? Audrey II keeps growing and growing and eventually takes over New York City in an awesome crescendo to the film, as he takes his place sitting atop the Statue of Liberty. Those scenes are outstanding, but only available in black and white. Will we ever see them in color and released? No. David Geffen forced a recall on DVDs released with the black and white ending on the special features (Fuck you. I put out Nevermind, remember?) and the original prints were destroyed in a studio fire. So we get a damn good musical with a rushed, half-assed, re-shot happy ending thanks to people who don’t like any kind of horrors in a film with the word HORRORS in the title.

Audrey’s death was perfect, ending up “somewhere that’s green” (which was one of Family Guy’s weaker parodies) and Seymour’s death, with Audrey II spitting out his glasses, makes the film dark in the same way the stage play was. But people were offended? Wasn’t this film born for cult classic status anyway? I guess at thirty million, they would say “no,” BUT YOU CUT OUT THE MOST EXPENSIVE SCENES!

1.) RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983)

So here we are. This one is a matter of principle. I am not clamoring for an alternate ending. I just want the ORIGINAL. You know, the one without those added CGI scenes from across the galaxy. The one with the Ewok song (I actually have a friend whose high school sang/chanted this for their graduation song at the ceremony. No kidding). The one without Hayden Christiansen superimposed as the late Darth Vader. What’s that? They DID choose that one? Well why did they take it away? Do you know how hard it is to find DVDs of the original version that people fell in love with? Why does George Lucas do this? Why has Steven Spielberg done this? Why were guns replaced with walkie talkies in ET? Why does the new version of Star Wars have Greedo shooting Han Solo first (which my brother often complains about)? Wasn’t Han’s brash “shoot first” mentality a fitting introduction to his rogue character? Doesn’t it tell us who he is and what he is like? Then there are the God forsaken prequels, but I have nothing to say about them because Red Letter Media has already said it all.

But it is all exemplified by changing the end of the perfect original trilogy. It is symbolic of the entire raping of the series. Since the original ending is now the less commonly seen ending, it has thus become the alternate ending. The only thing that happens when you change perfection is that you make it worse.

(p.s. CGI does not make things look more real.)

THE MASQUE OF THE AFTERWORLD

I died pretty young. I was thirty-one. A semi truck crashed into me. That doesn’t matter, it’s just details. The interesting stuff happened in the afterlife.

The desk clerk of the afterlife was having a rough day. I’m guessing that they’re all rough. He was giving a speech that he has probably given a million times.

“You have to have a roommate in the afterlife. There are four options. First, if you were married at the time of your death, then you will have a temporary roommate until your spouse passes. Were you married at the time of your death?”

“No.”

“Then that one doesn’t apply. Two, did you have a friend or sibling who died before you who may be with a roommate he or she does not care to be with and would be willing to leave in order to live with you?” I thought hard. I certainly could not think of anyone.

“No.”

“Then you are either forced to bunk with someone who has recently died, or……” He trailed off.

“What is it?”

“Look,” he said very seriously. “I am going to name the final option, but let me warn you right now. Everyone jumps at the final option, thinking it will be great, but nearly all of them find out that it is miserable. I ask that you think long and hard about it before making your choice.”

“Um…..okay.” I had no context available to make promises.

“You could, though I do not recommend it, take an open bed in our celebrity ward.”

“Celebrity ward?”

“Yes. You see, the afterlife is not unlike real life. People get star struck by certain people or they get antagonistic against famous criminals, and most of these celebrities just want to be left alone. However, in the afterlife you have to eventually have a roommate. The people in afterlife housing accommodate them in living away from the general population, but they have to have a roommate. Unfortunately, many of them are unable to live with each other. They can’t get along. So when one moves out, each of them is assigned a new roommate, usually a regular Joe who is excited to live in the celebrity ward with a famous person. But, after the initial shine wears off, the ordinary citizen figures out that he or she cannot live with the celebrity.”

“Why not?”

“Because famous people are nuts. Somehow all of your medical researchers and psychiatrists in life could not seem to figure out that the human mind is not built to handle fame. Fame is a Darwinian error. It is not supposed to exist. It causes people, and I mean all people, to go insane. No one is immune. If you become famous, there is no defense mechanism in the human mind to block insanity. The only variation is how quickly insanity arrives.”

He rolled his eyes when I responded, “What celebrities are available?” He shook his head as if to say, “Didn’t you hear a word I said?” He grabbed a large book off of the shelf. He plopped it on the desk and opened it up.

“Any room with only one name next to it is available for a roommate.”

The names were awe-inspiring; a motley crew of everyone you had never imagined being together. Some names I knew and others I didn’t.

Leopold and Loeb lived together. I figured they would have wanted to separate. Benjamin Franklin lived with Eazy-E. I can’t imagine how that happened. JFK and RFK lived together.

“Jack was pretty happy when Bobby showed up,” the clerk said. “He got to move out from living with that Some Like It Hot girl. Then, when Jackie died, she had been most recently married to Aristotle, so she moved in with him. Jack looked more than a little relieved when that happened and he didn’t have to flat-out deny her. Teddy didn’t have the gall to turn down his wife.”

“Wait,” I said. “It says here that Lee Harvey Oswald doesn’t have a roommate.”

“Don’t waste your time,” said the clerk. “He’s saving all his secrets for a book deal. By all means, live with him if you want to hear the Communist Manifesto read aloud on a wheel.”

I had to admit, it didn’t sound like an especially good time. John Lennon was bunking with Harry Nilsson, who I assume was just keeping the bed warm for Yoko. Shakespeare and Kubrick. Moses and Rockefeller. Hendrix and John Wilmot. Chris Farley and Fatty Arbuckle. Syd Barrett and Earl Manigault. Alexander Graham Bell and Antonio Meucci. Jimmy Hoffa and Judge Crater. Bill Hicks and Oscar Wilde. Sun Tzu and Napoleon. George Gipp and Ronald Reagan. Babe Ruth and Pigpen from The Grateful Dead. Joan of Arc and Mama Cass.

“Who does Elvis life with?” I asked.

“We only have dead people in this establishment,” the clerk said.

“So it’s true!”

“No, I’m messing with you. He lives with Andy Kaufman, but he’s put in a request to move out. He got sick of the impressions of himself. But it takes up to two years for a request to go through, so keep that in mind when you pick a roomy.”

“Why two years?”

“We’re on Old Testament time here.”

“Who does Hitler live with?”

“Who do you think? His wife!”

“Oh. That’s boring.”

“Look, I have a lot of people to process. Could you just choose someone or take one of the neophytes? We had a beautiful nineteen-year-old gymnast arrive today. She wouldn’t be a bad one to live with. We also had a die-hard Packer fan come in today and I’m told you like the Packers. You have two minutes to decide.”

“That one.” I was pointing down at the book. The clerk leaned over, saw the name, and sighed.

“Oh, Hell. Fine,” he conceded.

ΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞ

The celebrity ward was quite a hike. Tenzing Norgay was assigned to lead me there. Poor guy. Even in death he was not getting any rest. I bet Edmund Hillary was living in a penthouse. I have no idea how long the journey was, as there are no clocks in the afterlife. It made me wonder how they were able to gage the two years for the room transfers. It felt like forever.

When we finally got to the ward, the outside looked like a decaying building of infinite height. Outside was a bunch of titles written across the front: Tin Pan Alley, The Chelsea Hotel, Montmartre, Cooperstown, Buckingham Palace, Château de Versailles, Minton’s Playhouse, etc. It was like a turf war for everyone you’ve ever heard of. It was a bit of a shock for me when I noticed that good old Humphrey Bogart was standing on the front stoop. He had expecting eyes as we walked past.

“Any word yet?” he asked.

“No. Nothing,” said Norgay. This response seemed to deject Bogie. Norgay turned to me as we walked inside. “He’s been waiting for Lauren Becall for half a century.”

The desk clerks of the celebrity ward were Ed Sullivan and George Plimpton. Ed looked put out by having to be there, but Plimpton seemed pleasant enough. Perhaps that was because he was still pretty new and had yet to burn out. Plimpton was taking my information when Sullivan blurted out, “Ya know, I volunteered to do this for a year and here I am all these decades later.” Ed Sullivan was actually explaining himself to me. “Could have been Ed Murrow. Could have been Jack Barry. Jack Benny, maybe. But no, they took me. All I know is that when Ken Burns gets here, I’m done. He’s taking my place.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Plimpton.

“Come tell me that in thirty-five years.”

“If you think this is rough, you should try getting in the ring with Sugar Ray Robinson.” Apparently, Plimpton had done this.

“You’re always rubbing that in my face like it’s some sort of currency. I’m sorry; did you introduce the world to The Beatles? All you introduced the world to was…..well, you.”

“And Sidd Finch.”

“He’s a myth. If he really existed, where is he?”

“He’s not dead yet!”

“Hey!” yelled an interrupting Norgay. “Are we almost done here? I still have to give Natalie Wood a bath today.” He saw my quizzical look. “She’s scared of water.”

“He just has to sign,” said Plimpton. I grabbed the pen and made a swift move to the page. Plimpton slapped his hand down before I could sign it. “Just know, once you sign this, it is official. It will take years and dozens of headaches to get it out.” I looked at him with a look that he’s probably seen many times before.

“If I don’t, I’ll always wonder.”

“That’s what Gavrilo Princip said and all he did was destroy the world,” Plimpton retorted.

“Who’s he?” I asked.

“So, it’s true,” Sullivan croaked. “Modern education has gone to hell.”

“At least it has evolved past duck and cover, Ed,” Plimpton responded.

“Duck and cover never got a chance to prove itself. It might have worked!” Sullivan exclaimed.

I signed quickly, feeling a bit like Daniel Webster, and Norgay led me up a never-ending flight of stairs (that’s only slightly hyperbolic). He occasionally would comment on the floors that we would pass, saying things like, “That’s the snob wing. Eli Whitney, Jonas Salk, Thomas Edison, Johannes Gutenberg. Real jerks acting like their feces are roses. Einstein moved out because he could not stand them. I don’t care what Bobby Fischer says, Einstein is an alright guy.”

Two men who were heading down the stairs passed us. I did a double take.”Was that Lenny Bruce and Mao Zedong?”

“No,” replied Norgay. “It was Lenny Bruce and Akira Kurosawa, you racist. I bet you think I’m Pakistani.” I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what he was.

After a few eons had passed, Norgay finally turned and entered onto a floor. The room numbers didn’t make any sense. They were long and unordered. I asked Norgay about it. He explained that the room numbers were the unhyphenated dates of death for whichever roommate had been dead the longest. People who had died in the B.C. had a negative sign in front. If some people died on the same day, then there was a dash at the end and another digit. For instance, he said, Buddy Holly was 02031959-1, Ritchie Valens was 02031959-2, and J.P. Richardson was 02031959-3. There was no dash at the door we stopped at. It simply read 10071849.

“Welcome to Hell,” Norgay said. He quickly took out a key, unlocked the door, opened it, and quickly ran off.

I was left alone looking at the man. He didn’t even look up at me as he sat in a chair reading. He just barked, “Who are you?”

“Um….I’m…..uh….I’m your..”

“For the love of God, do not stammer.” He looked up for the first time. “You sir, are dead. Impediments of the tongue have no unbound purpose here.”

Oops. I felt that I was Charlie meeting the Frank Slade archetype for the first time. Three sentences from his mouth and I already knew what people had been talking about. Living with Edgar Allan Poe in death had struck me as such a novel idea; spend death living with the king of the macabre.

It was tough from day one. Ernest Hemingway came over to play Poe in chess, but the only thing they had in common was their mutual hate for everything. Seeing those two men together was downright frightening. The reasons for their pessimism became quite obvious the longer they talked. They had spent life obsessed with death; Poe seemed to have both a fear and fascination with it, while Hemingway wrote of the daring of those who flirted with it. Then they died and found out that it was like this.

“All my works lost their meaning when I came here,” Poe rued. “Even non-existence would have given them more meaning than this glorified dormitory.”

“Anyone who had a fear of this in life should now be shamed,” said Hemingway. “The only horrors here are the echoes of tedium and ennui.”

Poe sensed an attack.

“Do not look at me like that, Papa. It was not a fear of death I had, but merely the process of dying.”

“You feared the unknown. Now you are here and it should seem ridiculous to you. You and Hawthorne both must-”

Edgar jumped up and knocked the chessboard across the room as the pieces went flying.
“Never, but never, put Nathaniel and I in the same sentence! We are no more alike than you and Salinger!”

Hemingway stood up and got stern.

“You are kindred spirits who have come to hate one another because you see yourselves in each other.” He began to walk towards the door.

“He does not even use his true name! He added the ‘w’ out of shame of his ancestry,” Poe explained.

“Allan is not your true name either.”

Papa did not even look back as he said it. Edgar just stood there looking as though he would weep. I was sitting by my bed. I had been playing the part of the fourth wall as they argued, but now that I was alone with my roommate, I knew I would now have to become an active participant.

“And what were you?” Edgar asked.

I was not prepared.

“Excuse me?”

“In life. What were you? What did you do? What was your passion?”

“Oh….well, I…..uh….”

“Do not stammer!”

“Oh. Sorry. I sold cars and liked the Green Bay Packers. I tried my own shot at writing, which is how I became a fan of yours. Also….wait. You don’t even know what a car or the Packers are.”

“I do, I do. Papa talks about automobile racing constantly and Henry David introduced me to a man named Lombardo who was very involved with Packers.”

“Lombardi.”

“It seemed like a primitive exhibition.”

“Actually, there is a team in Baltimore and they named it after one of your poems.”

“Annabel Lee?”

“The Raven.”

“Oh. I would have preferred Annabel Lee.”

“Well, they don’t usually name teams after girls’ names.”

He had not been looking at me as he talked. He had stood still ever since Papa had stormed out. His back was to me as he stared at the wall.

“So, what now for you?” he asked. “This life is desolate and more fruitless than I ever could have imagined. There is no need for art here. There is no future, only a past, and it serves little purpose other than brief bursts of recognizing shared experiences. Bursts that would generously labeled as consolations.”

“In that case, what choices are there?”

“No choices in action, only in frame of mind. Life was not much different in this way, but it seemed so because options had the veneer of being real. I cannot discern if ignorance is truly bliss or if the presence of motion is enough of a motivation; Motion of the mind, motion of a body, and motion of a goal. Goals that we cannot make sense of, but we do not have to. Those goals feel right for some reason. Here there is no goal, only reflection. It does not feel worthwhile to spend eternity reflecting on my forty years, so I play chess and drink, even though the alcohol here does not make one drunk. Now,” he finally turned to face me, “what will you do? Sit in the celebrity ward and ask people why they were great in a life that you will never see again?”

My rock was sinking. My foundation was crumbling. I thought back to what the original desk clerk had said: Fame causes insanity. But Poe had not been all that famous, had he? Was he not more famous in death than in life? Had he gotten here and discovered over the years that he had become famous and, subsequently, gone insane? Or was he sane and correct?

I finally understood what the clerk had been trying to do. I could have roomed with that regular Packer fan and talked about things that might not have mattered, but could have made me happy. But I had not. I was here and would remain here for a long while. Maybe happiness truly was a warm gun, but there were no guns here. We were already dead.

I decided to leave Edgar alone but, before I walked out, I mentioned, “You know, in life you called Hawthorne a man of the truest genius.”

He sighed.

“In life he was. But Papa was right about us. In life we were literary psychics who found out in death that all of our predictions were wrong.”

“What did you expect?”

“Something or nothing. Not something full of nothing.”

I guess it all comes down to the eye of the beholder. I had a miraculous time in the pool area with Jacques Offenbach, Georges Bizet, and Rachmaninov. But difficulties always exist on two planes. The first, naturally, is based off of your own frustrations and troubles, obvious and overt. The second is the misery behind someone else’s eyes. It took time, but I came to notice that everybody in the celebrity ward had it. No one was full or jolly. Over time, it would become my difficulty to bear. How can one be satisfied when all that surrounds you is insatiable? This was their perdition and, despite my original love for the environment, it was becoming mine. There was nowhere to go and nothing to conquer. Some of the most motivated people in history were stuck here with no motivation available and nothing beyond this death.

Edgar would have killed himself if he could. So would Hemingway……again. And Fellini. And Rasputin. And Ghengis Kahn. And Pancho Villa. And Billy Wilder. How could any of them keep their demeanors without the presence of hope? Hope is a wonderful thing. So is wanting. Even want needs the hope, or the placebo, that good things can come. Not here. Not ever.

I don’t know how long it had been, but I needed out. Could death be better in one of the other wards? I did not know, but it was one experiment that I could actually try. What else was there?

Plimpton already knew once he saw me coming. He just closed his eyes, slowly nodded, and held his pointer finger up.

“You do know that this takes, on average, two years?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you get all that you wanted?”

“No.”

He laughed at me and stated, “We never do.”

“Did you ever get what you wanted?”

He thought for a second, then responded, “Brief doses. Ever so brief. But the thoughts naturally flow to the negative. I always wondered what would have happened in the world if I had tackled Sirhan Sirhan ten seconds sooner. In the end……” He shrugged as he looked around to take everything in. “It probably didn’t matter.”

“So morbid,” I conceded. “And everyone is stuck here.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Who’s to say?”

“What?”

“Please sign here.” He was pointing down at the paper in front of him. I grabbed the pen, still looking at him.

“What do you mean?” I signed and passed the pen back.

“Don’t you realize? No one knows anything.” As he said that, the front door swung open and Norgay walked in with some man I didn’t recognize. He had the same look I had when I had first entered the ward. He was probably a Joe like me. Plimpton looked at them and looked at me. “But you all make decisions like you do.”

Norgay and the man got to the desk and I turned to walk away. Behind me I could hear Plimpton asking the man, “Do you really think you can handle living with Ned Kelly?”

The following is a short story of mine originally published online at the story site Metazen and later for Black Heart Magazine.

EGO MASSAGE

I wanted to help her. She seemed like she needed help. Of course, the not so hidden subtext is that she was very attractive. Men go out of their way to help girls that are very attractive. We kid ourselves into believing that we are extremely altruistic, but if you add forty pounds, a couple warts, and a goiter to the girl, then we would all find out that we’re not truly as benevolent as we originally thought. Eventually, the girl will burn you and you will become bitter and believe that you have an excuse for being chauvinistic. Perhaps you do, but if you had just lowered your standards to a girl that some rich guy won’t bother one-upping you on, it never would have happened in the first place. I wonder what Darwin would say about the whole mess.

I needed a self-esteem boost. Girls like her would never talk to me. She was probably an aspiring actress while I was an aspiring nothing who sat in a cubicle doing things that I can’t even explain to myself. I would frequent the same bar that she did. She would sip on some sort of drink that was bright red or blue or whatever and I would drink my whiskey. I drank a lot of whiskey and then went home. I won’t say I drove drunk a lot, but I will say that my driver’s side door has a lot of key scratches around the outside of the lock from missing the point of entry.

I would stare at her as she sat there with her friends. I’m lucky that I am only twenty seven. In a few years I’ll be old enough that the staring will be creepy. At my age it’s “making eyes.” I was always technically alone, but when you know the bartender pretty well you rationalize that you aren’t really alone (even though I knew the bartender because I frequented the joint). The bartender’s name was Sam. I don’t know his last name.

She would always be there on Thursdays, arriving not long after 5:30. I got off at 5 and would head to the pub, excited to see her across the half-oval bar. She would always be with the same two female friends. Now and then they’d have another girl or even a guy with them. Anytime she would laugh at something the guy said, I would daydream about beating him to a pulp for some justified reason that I would invent. Maybe he’s an arsonist or a rapist, so maybe he deserves a beating. Then I would try to tell myself that if he is hanging out with actresses, then maybe he is an actor. That could mean he’s gay, right?

She started to recognize me over an extended period of time. I would try to mind my own business and not be a loud mouth, but anytime I had something clever to say to Sam, I would say it vociferously. Can you blame me? There is no point in being the funniest guy in the room if no one knows it. Often the girls would be talking loudly. That’s how I found out her name was Daphne. Once they were trying to remember who the original lead singer from The Cars was. “Ric Ocasek!” I blurted out. Daphne turned toward me and responded. ”Yes! Thank you! That would have driven me crazy.” Then they returned to whatever the hell else they were talking about. I went to sleep every night for the next week thinking about how I had known the answer and the tone in which I said it. “RIC Ocasek!” “Ric oCASek!” “Ric O-Cas-Ek!” I thought of her face beaming when she heard it. That moment buoyed me for about a month.

How many weeks did I sit there with Ric Ocasek as my sole source of pride? Twenty? I didn’t know what to do to advance my situation with this girl. Lucky for me, she made the move.

She was wearing a red dress the day she approached me. Red is a good barometer for me because I hate that color. If you can make red look good to me then you definitely have that intangible of perfection that I can’t manifest into words. I had left the bar and was about twenty paces out the door when I heard a voice behind me yell.

“Hey! Wait up!”

I turned around and there she was, coming toward me like something out of a dream. Red quickly became my favorite color as she moved forward in slow motion. I was a few seconds late in registering that I was being electrically shocked by the taser that she was jamming into my stomach. That’s not a metaphor. She was tasing me.

I fell to the ground. She dropped to a knee and continued tasing me until I was incapacitated. All I could digest was that a hand was reaching into my front pocket. It seemed like a dream when I looked up and saw the three girls hovering over me, rifling through my wallet, and pulling out a few bills.

“Seventeen dollars?!” said the wonderful Daphne. “That’s it???!!! And no credit card?????” I had left my card at the bar. I’d forgotten to pay my tab. Oops.

One of the other girls chimed in. “We can never come back to this bar for seventeen dollars? You said this guy had money, Daphne!” Daphne thought I had money! She thought highly of me!

“Thanks for nothing,” Daphne said angrily at my limp body. She thanked me! What a great day!

They left with my wallet and seventeen dollars. Like I said, I wanted to help her and am so glad I could. If I could have spoken, I would have told her where my credit card was and gotten it for her.

Again, a three word maximum for reviews. It’s tough. How do I explain things in three words, such as “Yes, The Departed was an okay film, but didn’t deserve the best picture award. I feel it would be unfortunate for people to look back at Scorsese’s career years from now and assume that this was Marty’s best film (a REMAKE, nonetheless) because of that award. It is not one of his eight best, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t enjoyable. I just have a tough time believing these really smart characters could not figure out who the informers are with all the clear circumstantial evidence available to them. Thus, my suspension of disbelief becomes conflicted with the gritty realism that the film is trying to portray.”? Instead, that (STILL brief) explanation gets whittled down to “It’s overrated. Apologies…..”

Again, the videos are for films that I wish more people would see, not necessarily the straight up best. Some foreign films look out of place alphabetically because they were listed by their foreign title.

(C)

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Best Western EVER

Cable Guy, The (1996)
Upgrade to premium

Caché (2005)
Minimalism trumps all

Caddyshack (1980)
Everybody got laid

Caddyshack II (1988)
Everybody got AIDS

Cadillac Man (1990)
Actually, a pinto

Can’t Hardly Wait (1998)
I can

Canadian Bacon (1995)
Food borne illness

Cape Fear (1991)
DeNiro plays Freddy.

Capote (2005)
Trumps endless biopics.

Captain EO (1986)
MJ. 3-D. Novelty.

Captain Ron (1992)
Requires Sailor Jerry

Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
Molestation documentary. Enjoy!

Carlito’s Way (1993)
Penn. Pacino. Yup.

Carrie (1976)
Beats modern horror.

Car Kid, The (2002)
Didn’t get it.

Casablanca (1942)
Heard of it?

Casino (1995)
Obligatory “jackpot” comment

Cast Away (2000)
That poor volleyball

Casualties of War (1989)
Great (sans ending)

Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Decent one time.

Celebrity (1998)
Among Woody’s worst

Cell, The (2000)
J-Lo= psychologist………………………..sure.

Changing Lanes (2002)
Busted turn signal.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Chocolate?????? THAT’S SHIT!!!!!!!!!

Charlie Bartlett (2007)
Watch Ferris Bueller

Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)
Needs U.N. intervention

Chase, The (1994)
Brain-killing enjoyment

Chasers (1994)
Pussies need chasers

Chasing Dreams (1982)
They got away

Cheaper by the Dozen (2003)
Yeah. REALLY cheap.

Chicago (2002)
Oscar? Really? Payola.

Chicago 10 (2007)
animation ploy? Why?

Children of Men (2006)
Dystopias remain interesting

Chili Con Carne Club, The (1995)
Entertaining enough short

Chinatown (1974)
Watch! It’s Chinatown.

Choke (2008)
Gag. Major disappointment.

Chopper (2000)
Testosterone oozing.

Christine (1983)
Stephen King comedy.

Christmas Toy, The (1986)
PRECEDED “TOY STORY”!

Chronicles of Narnia, The: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Rapes my childhood

City of God (2002)
Decade’s top five

City of Men (2007)
Watch the predecessor

Cinderella (1950)
Average hair metal.

Circle of Friends (1995)
Be a loner.

Cisco Pike (1972)
Can’t really remember.

Citizen Kane (1941)
Might develop following.

City Slickers (1991)
I enjoy it.

City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold (1994)
I despise it

Clash of the Titans (1981)
If you’re high……..

Clay Pigeons (1998)
Prefer the song

Clean Slate (1994)
Amnesia. How novel.

Clear and Present Danger (1994)
Ain’t Indiana Jones

Clerks (1994)
Great. Just great!

Clerks II (2006)
Shitty. Just shitty!

Client, The (1994)
Decent. Ain’t Mamet

Cliffhanger (1993)
Hang the screenwriter.

Clifford (1994)
Unintentionally creepy

Clockers (1995)
Great genre mix

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Aged pretty well

Cloverfield (2008)
Induces motion sickness

Clueless (1995)
Yes, you are.

Coach Carter (2005)
Clap trap alert!

Cobb (1994)
Good for TV.

Cocktail (1988)
Cyanide and soda

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
Hit and miss

Collateral (2004)
Watchable. Not memorable.

Color of Money, The (1984)
Ain’t “The Hustler”

Color of Night (1994)
Watch “Crying Game”

Color Purple, The (1985)
I’m really sorry.

Colors (1988)
First gangland masterpiece.

Comedians of Comedy, The: Live at The Troubadour (2007)
It’s stand-up. Duh.

Coming to America (1988)
Glad you did.

Commitments, The (1991)
Potato eating pleasure

Company of Wolves, The (1984)
Jordan’s “out there”

Con Air (1997)
Conned the audience.

Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Can’t……avert……eyes.

Coneheads (1993)
Hour too long

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
Very entertaining lie

Congo (1995)
Wasted two hours

Contender, The (2000)
Politics CAN entertain

Continental Divide (1981)
Underrated Belushi flick

Control (2007)
Like Joy Division?……

Control Room (2004)
People=evil? Gotcha.

Conversation, The (1974)
Coppola. Seventies. Flawless.

Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, The (1989)
Enjoy askew(isms)? THIS!

Cooler, The (2003)
Underrated dark comedy

Cool Hand Luke (1967)
YES, HE IS!

Cool Runnings (1993)
Enjoyed. Sue me.

Cop and ½ (1993)
1/2 assed.

Cop Land (1997)
I should re-watch.

Couch Trip, The (1988)
No.

Count of Monte Cristo, The (2002)
Dumas for beginners

Cowboy Way, The (1994)
Wrong way.

Crash (2004)
Overrated………is too!

Crazy Heart (2009)
Good, despite title

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Maybe Woody’s best!

Crow, The (1994)
Dark quasi-cult classic

Crucible, The (1996)
DDL’s had better

Cruel Intentions (1999)
Cruel to audiences

Cruising (1980)
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah..(breather)……..Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!

Crumb (1994)
Solid, solid doc

Cry Freedom (1987)
Why over-dramatize endings?

Crying Game, The (1992)
Really is great

Curse of the Jade Scorpion, The (2001)
Low tier Woody

Cutting Edge, The (1992)
Blades need sharpening

(D)

Dallas 362 (2003)
Scott ain’t daddy

Damned United, The (2009)
Entertained soccer non-fan

Dance ‘Til Dawn (1988)
I watched this?

Dante’s Peak (1997)
Filmmaker’s valley

Darjeeling Limited, The (2007)
Easily Wes’s worst.

Dark City (1998)
I missed something….

Dark Crystal, The (1982)
Still have nighmares

Dark Knight, The (2008)
Best comic film???

Darkman (1990)
YES!!!!!! Raimi’s best!!!!!!

Lives of Others, The (2006)
Solid German drama

Dave (1993)
I’ve seen worse.

David Cross: Let America Laugh (2003)
Cross fans’ delight

Daybreakers (2009)
Starts great. Then………..

Day After Tomorrow, The (2004)
“Fuck scripts. CGI!!!!”

The Day of the Jackal (1973)
Brits have talent.

Days of Thunder (1990)
Cruise. Cars. Un-heterosexual

Dazed and Confused (1993)
Doesn’t get old.

Dead Again (1991)
Preferred “Gingerbread Man”

Dead Calm (1989)
Good reviews? Disapointed……

Dead Man (1995)
Jarmusch reinvents westerns

Dead Man Walking (1995)
Why so serious?

Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)
Entertaining revenge flick.

Dead Poets Society (1989)
Good (slightly overrated).

Death at a Funeral (2007)
Original version. Funny.

Death of a President (2006)
Not touching this….

Death Proof (2007)
Hour too long

Death Race (2008)
Watch D.R. 2000

Death to Smoochy (2002)
Botches good idea

Death Wish (1974)
Low brow classic

Decalogue, The (1989)
Jaw-droppingly stellar.

Decline of Western Civilization, The (1981)
Awesome hardcore documentation

Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, The (1988)
Ridiculously, hilariously enjoyable

Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Deserves more credit

Deep Blue Sea (1999)
Dark brown shit

Deep End of the Ocean, The (1999)
So drown already!

Deer Hunter, The (1978)
So fucking perfect.

Delirious (2006)
Mediocre (shoulder shrug).

Deliver Us from Evil (2006)
Priest documentary. Understand?

Deliverance (1972)
Georgia tourism video

Demolition Man (1993)
Somehow it amuses…..

Dennis the Menace (1993)
Could’ve been worse.

Wings of Desire (1987)
Wenders owned 80s

Downfall (2004)
Best Hitler film?

Departed, The (2006)
It’s overrated. Apologies…..

Derailed (2005)
I’ve seen worse.

Desperado (1995)
Adolescent boys only

Despicable Me (2010)
Above average cartoon.

Destiny Turns on the Radio (1995)
Turn it off

The Seventh Seal (1957)
Bergman. Got it?

Detour (1945)
B-movie CLASSIC!

Detroit Rock City (1999)
Iliad meets KISS!

Devil and Daniel Johnston, The (2005)
On “Crumb” level

Devil’s Advocate, The (1997)
Definitely Satan’s screenplay

Devil’s Own, The (1997)
Good……..that’s all.

Devil’s Rejects, The (2005)
Don’t eat before.

Dick Tracy (1990)
Makes me smile.

Counterfeiters, The (2007)
Another Holocaustal depression.

Die Hard (1988)
Original still rocks.

Die Hard 2 (1990)
Very decent sequel.

Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
It’s becoming overkill

Diggstown (1992)
Cruelly underrated. WATCH!!!

Diner (1982)
Preferring take out

Dirty Dozen, The (1967)
Still great today.

Distinguished Gentleman, The (1992)
Distinguished, my ass.

Dirty Harry (1971)
I felt lucky

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
Perfectly defends eighties

Dirty Work (1998)
Guilty enjoyment.

Disclosure (1994)
Keep it secret

District 9 (2009)
Original idea.

Disturbing Behavior (1998)
Disturbing time waste

Do the Right Thing (1989)
Easily Spike’s best.

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
“Please laugh” -Filmmakers

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Best of 1975

Dogma (1999)
Smith peaked early

Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
Awesome Z-boy documentation

Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996)
Spoof. Wayans. Yawn.

Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (1991)
Lucky babysitter.

Donnie Brasco (1997)
Adaptation deserved better.

Donnie Darko (2001)
Underrated, then overrated

Door in the Floor, The (2004)
So damn forgettable

Doors, The (1991)
Oliver’s adolescent fantasy

The Lower Depths (1957)
Not Kurosawa’s best

Double Indemnity (1944)
Landmark noir.

Double Jeopardy (1999)
Kill it twice.

Doubt (2008)
Good despite self-importance.

Down by Law (1986)
Minimalist masterpiece.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Top 10 classic!

Dracula (1992)
Kinda sucks (pun!)

Dragnet (1987)
Watch Aykroyd’s fall.

Dreamgirls (2006)
Good? Corny? Both.

Dream Team, The (1989)
Really weird dream

Drop Dead Fred (1991)
Yes. Drop dead.

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
Early Gus rocked.

Rififi (1955)
French masterwork.

DuckTales: The Movie -- Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990)
Remember pre-Pixar entertainment?

Dumb & Dumber (1994)
I laugh. Problem?

Dutch (1991)
“Planes, Trains………” ripoff

(E)

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Heard of it.

Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)
Do tell.

Eastern Promises (2007)
Almost great. Almost.

Easy Rider (1969)
The Steppenolf manifesto

Ed Wood (1994)
Burton’s best! WATCH!

Eddie Murphy Raw (1987)
Pre-shit Eddie.

Edmond (2005)
Really dark Mamet

Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Good little fantasy.

Eight Men Out (1988)
Surprisingly poor quality.

Orphanage, The (2007)
I ain’t adopting.

Secret in Their Eyes, The (2009)
An Argentine gem.

Election (1999)
Finally, nineties. Finally.

Elephant (2003)
Fictionalized Columbine. Effective.

Elephant Man, The (1980)
Lynch’s best.

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (1977)
Personal classic. Nostalgia.

Empire of the Sun (1987)
Bale before……….this

Empire Records (1995)
Bottom 10 film.

Enchanted (2007)
Not quite. Adequate.

Encino Man (1992)
Stupid, but harmless

End of Days (1999)
I wish.

End of the Century (2003)
Ramones! Fucking Ramones!

Enemy of the State (1998)
Enemy of logic

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
Spoiler: They weren’t

Entrapment (1999)
More like excrement.

Eraser (1996)
Erase this memory.

Eraserhead (1976)
Godfather of weird

Ernest Goes to Camp (1987)
Surprisingly enjoyed it

Ernest Goes to Jail (1990)
Deserved the chair

Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
Stupid is right

Ernest Green Story, The (1993)
Yes, it is

Escape from New York (1981)
Snake= smile inducer

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Perfect, Charlie. Perfect.

Ethan Frome (1993)
Wharton ain’t Dickens

EuroTrip (2004)
Euro trash.

Evil Dead, The (1981)
Raping tree? Imaginative.

Evil Dead II (1987)
Remake? Sequel? Awesome.

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985)
Sorry. Personal enjoyment.

Executive Decision (1996)
Passenger 57 retread.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
Real or hoax?

Exit to Eden (1994)
Exit the theater.

Exorcist, The (1973)
Destroyed soup industry

Extreme Measures (1996)
Rare Hackman miss

First off, music reviews are pretty worthless to me since a person’s perception of a piece of music changes over time. I suppose this can be occasionally true with movies, but I can name many albums and bands that I flat-out did not like when I first heard them, only to do a complete apostasy the more I heard them. This is a much rarer phenomenon with films. Sound seems to change in a mind more than plot, scripts, acting, and story structures do. How can I trust a music review of an album I’ve just heard for the first time? Who knows what time will do?

Now, film reviews on the other hand have always been a bit more interesting to me. Film reviews can often teach me things I didn’t know about a film. Music reviews never teach me shit. However, my film reviews won’t teach much. They’re for entertainment purposes. I needed an angle, and decided all film reviews must be one word.

Of course, it’s tough to keep things interesting with one word, so I expanded to two words. It’s still hard to come up with enough worthy phrases when there’s only two words, so two words became three. I thought of going to four, but quashed that idea. Enough is enough.

So, fuck it. Here is a list of movies I have seen (just the #’s, A’s, and B’s in this entry) That I describe/review in three words or less. I cannot promise it’s every movie I’ve seen. I can already think of some notable omissions, but if I keep searching, I’ll never get another entry done. Some foreign films are listed in their native language (e.g. 400 Blows), so they are not on here yet. Reviews C-E are soon to follow.

By the way, I tried to put trailers in, not for my favorite films necessarily (though some of them are), but for great films I don’t think enough people have seen. I’m just trying to plant some seeds out there (except for the Avatar one. Red Letter Media is just plain funny).

(SYMBOLS AND #’S)

…And Justice for All. (1979)
Ain’t Serpico

(500) Days of Summer (2009)
Good. Not great.

10 (1979)
Bo running!

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Make it 11

12 Angry Men (1957)
Absolute classic

12 Angry Men (1997) (TV)
Semi Classic

15 Minutes (2001)
15′s Too long.

1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982)
Haha! Seriously?????

2 Days in the Valley (1996)
Thumbs down!

20 Dates (1998)
Lazy documentary

200 Cigarettes (1999)
Get cancer!

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Sci-Fi Godfather

21 Grams (2003)
Oblique bleakness

24 Hour Party People (2002)
Steve Coogan’s best

25th Hour (2002)
Spike? White protagonist?

28 Days Later… (2002)
Solid “zombie” flick

3 Men and a Baby (1987)
Should have aborted

3 Men and a Little Lady (1990)
SHOULD HAVE ABORTED!

3 Ninjas (1992)
Kids can’t act

300 (2006)
Proves gay conspiracy

3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)
THIS killed Elvis

3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Westerns makin’ comeback?

48 Hrs. (1982)
Buddy pic forefather

54 (1998)
Shitty Velvet Goldmine

8½ (1963)
It’s fuckin’ Fellini!

(A)

A Brief History of Time (1991)
Not Errol’s best

A Bronx Tale (1993)
Great “small” film

A Christmas Story (1983)
THE Christmas Story

A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Ultra everything

A Dirty Shame (2004)
It really is

A Few Good Men (1992)
Few Good Moments

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Surprisingly Very Okay

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Glorified Monkees episode

A History of Violence (2005)
Good. Almost great.

A League of Their Own (1992)
Rosie ruins movies

A Mighty Wind (2003)
Guest’s 3rd Best

A Night at the Roxbury (1998)
Defines “Thin premise”

A Perfect Murder (1998)
VERY mediocre

A Perfect World (1993)
Not quite Unforgiven

A Player to Be Named Later (2005) (V)
Solid, unseen documentary

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
What happened, Altman?

A River Runs Through It (1992)
Minor Redford success

A Scanner Darkly (2006)
What happened, Linklater?

A Serious Man (2009)
Underrated Coen classic

A Simple Plan (1998)
Neo-noir gem

A Single Man (2009)
Not for me

A Spinal Tap Reunion: The 25th Anniversary London Sell-Out (1992) (TV)
So freakin unnecessary

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Watch “….Waterfront” instead

A Time to Kill (1996)
McConaughey actually acts???????

A Tribute to Sam Kinison (1993) (TV)
Exactly what’s expected

About a Boy (2002)
Hornby knows niche

About Schmidt (2002)
Kathy Bates naked.

Above the Law (1988)
Seagal. Understand?

Above the Rim (1994)
Adequate, but forgotten.

Absolute Power (1997)
Eastwood? Hackman? Sweet.

Accused, The (1988)
Almost destroyed pinball

Ace in the Hole (1951)
Wilder? Kirk? PERFECT!

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)
For specific tastes

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995)
Shit for everyone

Across the Universe (2007)
Rapes The Beatles

Action Jackson (1988)
Apollo Creed blaxploitation.

Adam’s Rib (1949)
Overrated Tracy/Hepburn.

Adaptation. (2002)
Best of 2002

Addams Family, The (1991)
I hate Hammer

Addams Family Values (1993)
Rolling my Eyes

Adventureland (2009)
Forgettable, but entertaining

Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie, The: Strange Brew (1983)
Where’s Barry Melrose?

Adventures of Huck Finn (1993)
Family friendly version

African Queen, The (1951)
Stupid ending. Sorry……..

After Dark, My Sweet (1990)
Last Seduction= Better

After Hours (1985)
Scorsese does comedy.

Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)
Herzog’s “Apocalypse Now”

Air Force One (1997)
Where’s Steven Seagal?

Air Guitar Nation (2006)
Title says everything

Airheads (1994)
Shamefully entertains me

Airplane! (1980)
“Godfather” of spoofs

Air Up There, The (1994)
Silly Kevin. Silly.

Al Franken: God Spoke (2006)
Partisan. Duh.

Aladdin (1992)
Robin annoys me

Albino Alligator (1996)
Watch “Dog Day…”

Ali (2001)
Another freakin’ biopic.

Alien (1979)
“Jaws” in space.

All About Eve (1950)
If “Showgirls”= good

All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
Then nothing’s risked

All That Money Can Buy (aka The Devil and Daniel Webster) (1941)
Dorian Gray classic

All the President’s Men (1976)
Best political thriller

All the Right Moves (1983)
Wrong. It’s shit.

Almost Famous (2000)
Almost really good.

Almost Heroes (1998)
Almost 1998′s worst

Along Came Polly (2004)
Go home, Polly

Amadeus (1984)
Great Forman film

American Beauty (1999)
My opinion oscillates

American Gangster (2007)
Overrated. REALLY overrated.

American Graffiti (1973)
Watch it yearly.

American Hardcore (2006)
Read the book.

American History X (1998)
Damn fine film

American Pie (1999)
Okay teen romp

American Pie 2 (2001)
Once was enough!!!

American Pop (1981)
What is this???

American Psycho (2000)
Macabre pleasure

American Splendor (2003)
Perfect biopic. Really.

American Wedding (2003)
For God’s sake!

Amores Perros (2000)
Good……but long.

An American Tail (1986)
Fifel= Soft spot

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
More of same

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Gore’s Geological lecture.

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
Gere’s best?…….maybe

An Unfinished Life (2005)
An unfinished movie

An Unreasonable Man (2006)
Caters Nader’s Raiders

Anaconda (1997)
Hilariously bad. Hilarious!

Analyze This (1999)
Do drama, Deniro!!!!

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Solid. Very quotable.

Angel Heart (1987)
Jesus. Lisa Bonet.

Angels in the Outfield (1994)
Lloyd. Danza. Bottom!

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Not Cagney’s best

Angus (1995)
Another underdog teen…

Animal Factory (2000)
Great hidden gem!

Animal House (1978)
Has no GPA

Annie Hall (1977)
Top three Woody.

Another 48 Hrs. (1990)
Lighning strikes once.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2008)
METAL ON METAL!!!!

Any Given Sunday (1999)
For sub-80 IQs.

Apartment, The (1960)
Wilder’s always on

Apocalypse Now (1979)
Top 10 film!

Apocalypto (2006)
Gibson knows movies.

The Apostle (1997)
Duvall nails it

Apt Pupil (1998)
Should be better.

AristoCats (1970)
Not memorable

Aristocrats, The (2005)
I get it!

Arlington Road (1999)
“Parallax View” retread

Army of Darkness (1992)
Trilogy’s best

Army of Shadows (1969)
Thank you Criterion!

Art School Confidential (2006)
Passable, but pseudo-smart

As Good as It Gets (1997)
Not quite. Decent.

Ash Wednesday (2002)
Stop directing, Edward

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Sterling Hayden rules.

Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The (2007) Spoiler: James dies

The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)
Spoiler: Nixon lives

Assassins (1995)
Banderas? Stallone? Hahahaha!

Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)
Assault on me

At Close Range (1986)
GREAT unknown film!

Atonement (2007)
Just watch half.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Pretty funny joke

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
Abused the joke

Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
Where’s the joke?

Avatar (2009)
Whatever.

Aviator, The (2004)
Really didn’t care

(B)

Babe, The (1992)
Strangely uninteresting

Babel (2006)
Inarritu ain’t happy.

Bachelor Party (1984)
Watch “Animal House”

Back to School (1986)
Eighties were funnier.

Back to the Future (1985)
Needs no roads

Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Acceptable follow up

Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Eh, why not?

Backdraft (1991)
Hysterically overly serious

Bad Boys (1983)
Badass Penn/Morales

Bad Boys (1995)
Correct. It’s bad.

Bad Boys II (2003)
Define: phoning in

Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Ferrara’s trash masterpiece

Bad Lieutenant, The: Port of Call -- New Orleans (2009)
Really unnecessary, Werner

Bad News Bears, The (1976)
Accept no imitators

Bad News Bears (2005)
Why Richard, WHY?????

Bad Santa (2003)
Does the expected

Badlands (1973)
Malick’s peak

Bambi (1942)
Spoiler: Mom dies

Bamboozled (2000)
Kind of insulting.

Bananas (1971)
Better than “Sleeper”

Bank Job, The (2008)
Rare Statham gem

Barb Wire (1996)
Pamela. Casablanca. Jesus.

Barfly (1987)
Makes me thirsty

Barry Lyndon (1975)
Kubrick has “it”

Bartleby (2001)
Crispin’s an original.

Barton Fink (1991)
Tailored to me.

BASEketball (1998)
Duo’s only dud

Basketball Diaries, The (1995)
When Leo acted!

Basic Instinct (1992)
Tell 'em, Bill

Basquiat (1996)
Solid, solid film

Batman & Robin (1997)
Bad beyond hyperbole.

Batman (1966)
Adam West. Period.

Batman (1989)
Keaton’s still BATMAN!

Batman Begins (2005)
Lazerus! Batman’s risen!

Batman Forever (1995)
Movie lasts forever

Batman Returns (1992)
Seemed okay, pre-Nolan

Battle Royale (2000)
Redefines youth violence

Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt (2004)Yeah. Townes. Questions?

Be Kind Rewind (2008)
15 good minutes.

Beauty and the Beast (1991)
You know. Disney.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)
Sorry, I’m entertained

Bed of Roses (1996)
= Shitty date night

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
Watch “Mary Poppins”

Bee Movie (2007)
Surprisingly mediocre

Beerfest (2006)
What you expect

Beethoven (1992)
Sure ain’t “Sounder”

Beetle Juice (1988)
Keaton? Burton? Works

Before Sunrise (1995)
Great dialogue film

Before Sunset (2004)
Removes original magic

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)
Lumet’s still kickin’!

Being John Malkovich (1999)
Kaufman = Today’s best

Being There (1979)
I miss Peter

Believer, The (2001)
Solid Gosling flick!

Best of Times, The (1986)
Worst of times

Beowulf (2007)
Learn to read

Best in Show (2000)
Second best Guest

Better Off Dead… (1985)
Asian Howard Cosell!

Beverly Hillbillies, The (1993)
Out of ideas?

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Classic

Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
Decent

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)
Yuck

Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)
(shaking head) Chris, Chris, Chris.

Beyond Rangoon (1995)
Honestly barely remember

Beyond the Mat (1999)
Even for non-fans

Big (1988)
Me= minority hater

Big Chill, The (1983)
Entertaining yuppies

Big Combo, The (1955)
Film noir rules!

Big Heat, The (1953)
Rules, I say!

Big Daddy (1999/I)
Prepubescent Sandler….again.

Big Fan (2009)
Patton can act

Big Fish (2003)
Last good Burton

Big Hit, The (1998)
I walked out

Big Lebowski, The (1998)
The Dude abides

Big Momma’s House (2000)
Why did I????????

Big Sleep, The (1946)
Top three Bogey

Big Top Pee-wee (1988)
Ain’t “Big Adventure”

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
An acquired taste

Billy Madison (1995)
See: “Big Daddy”

Bingo (1991)
Dogshit. Pun intended

Birdcage, The (1996)
Azaria steals it

Birds, The (1963)
Kitch Hitchcock

Birth of the Beatles (1979)
Could be worse

Black Hawk Down (2001)
Pretty good, Ridley

Black Sheep (1996)
Farley’s done better

Black Snake Moan (2006)
Ricci’s a masochist

Black Swan (2010)
“Wrestler” for girls

Blade Runner (1982)
Best sci-fi EVER!

Blades of Glory (2007)
Whose glory? Miserable.

Blair With Project (1999)
Scam! Not scary.

Blank Check (1994)
Blank movie. Ugly

Blankman (1994)
What…..is…..this?

Blazing Saddles (1974)
Mongo likes!

Blood Diamond (2006)
Clooney Award winner

Blood Simple. (1984)
Flawless! Really. Flawless!

Bloodsport (1988)
Such kitchy fun.

Blow (2001)
Not quite “Goodfellas”

Blow Out (1981)
Possibly Travolta’s best

Blown Away (1992)
Like a flatulence

Blown Away (1994)
Irish car bomb

Blow-Up (1966)
Yardbirds and paranoia

Blue Chips (1994)
Better than “Kazaam”!

Blue Is Beautiful (1997)
My personal taste…….

Blue Streak (1999)
Surprisingly enjoyed it (?).

Blue Valentine (2010)
Shows misery perfectly

Blue Velvet (1986)
I’m with Gene

Blues Brothers, The (1980)
Yeah. Pretty great.

Bob Roberts (1992)
Didactic, yet great

Bobby (2006)
Whatever, Emilio. Whatever.

Body Heat (1981)
“Double Indemnity” worthy

Boiling Point (1993/I)
so very so-so

Bone Collector, The (1999)
Skip it. Really.

Bonfire of the Vanities, The (1990)
What a disappointment!

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Could watch monthly

Boogie Nights (1997)
Worth every inch!

Boomerang (1992)
Please don’t return

Boondock Saints, The (1999)
Drank the Kool-Aid

Boondock Saints II, The: All Saints Day (2009)
Spat it out!

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious
Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Can’t ignore it….

Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Watch “Platoon” instead

Born Yesterday (1993)
Watch the original

Bottle Rocket (1996)
Wes finding footing

Bound (1996)
Great Noir! Watch!

Bounty, The (1984)
Waste of talent

Bourne Identity (2002)
Need to rewatch

Bowfinger (1999)
Great? Horrible? Neither

Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Moore’s second best

Boxer, The (1997)
DDL’s ALWAYS on

Boys Don’t Cry (1999)
Business. Not pleasure

Boyz n the Hood (1991)
Actually prefer Menace

Brüno (2009)
Not quite Borat.

Brady Bunch Movie, The (1995)
Better than expected

Brain Donors (1992)
Goofiness, spoofiness, Turturroness

Brave Little Toaster, The (1987)
Nostalgia wins out

Brave One, The
It’s “Death Wish”

Braveheart (1995)
You’ve seen it.

Brazil (1985)
Gilliam does Orwell

Breach (2007)
Phillipe annoys me

Breakdown (1997/I)
…..thirty minutes in

Breakfast Club, The (1985)
Brat Pack pinnacle

Breathless (1960)
Godard’s signature piece

Brewster McCloud (197))
Altman on acid

Brewster’s Millions (1985)
Silly, but great

Brick (2005)
VERY pleasant surprise.

Bridge, The (2006)
Suicide snuff film

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
Peckinpah knows. Genius.

Bridge On the River Kwai (1957)
Stone cold classic

Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
Among Scorsese’s worst

Broadcast News (1987)
Solid eighties comedy

Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
George Costanza
predecessor

Broken Arrow (1996)
Christian Slater sucks

Broken Flowers (2005)
Commercial Jarmusch?
Decent.

Bronson (2008)
Prefer Great Escape

Brothers Bloom, The (2008)
Brick is better

Brother’s Keeper (1992)
Very underrated doc

Bubble Boy (2001)
Sounds bad. IS.

Buddy Holly Story, The (1978)
Biopics, take note

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Not my cup

Bukowski: Born into This (2003)
Chinaski lovers’ dream

Bull Durham (1988)
Does baseball proud

Bulletproof (1996)
Not shit proof

Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Decent Woody

Bully (2001)
Leave me alone.

Bulworth (1998)
Should be better

Burn After Reading (2008)
Adequate Coen silliness

Bus 174 (2002)
Rotten Tomatoes 100%

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
Join the band

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Best ending ever
- (TMFTG)

Allow me to indulge in a theory by combining the aforementioned hypothesis with the proven scientific conclusion that music is much worse than it used to be. There would be no defying the following argument.

Premise #1: Popular rock musicians sell their souls to the devil.
Premise #2: Rock music was better in the past than it is today.
Conclusion: Rock musicians used to make better deals with the devil.

It makes sense if you think about it. The idea of selling your soul to the devil in the fifties or sixties was much more taboo than today. First off, more people in the United States and United Kingdom believed in the devil than today. Secondly, people in the fifties and sixties took the idea of the devil much more seriously. No one would have wanted to sell his or her soul to the devil. Thus, the devil was up against the wall. If no one wanted to deal with him, he was going to have to offer something really good in order to bag some souls.

I would have to think that groups like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Doors, The Beach Boys and Led Zeppelin signed pretty much the same deal. My opinion is that each of them read the fine print. Their conversation with the devil must have gone something like this:

BAND: Hey, Satan. We’ve been reading over this contract and we happened to come across the small print.

DEVIL: (busted) Oh…..heh….yeah. That……um…..that’s nothing.

BAND: Nothing? It says that we will be one hit wonders, no one will know our individual names, and then we will fade off into obscurity.

DEVIL: Wow. You all are much better at reading the fine print than The Cascades, The Surfaris, J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and The Chambers Brothers were. Those bands just said “Famous? Great!” and they signed on the dotted line.

BAND: Hey we’re talking about our souls here! We’re not just going to sell them so that we can lay down “The Hippy Hippy Shake” and then never be heard from again. No way!

DEVIL: Okay, what will it take?

BAND: We want to be one of the biggest bands in the whole world. We want our music to be good no matter when it’s play, never to become outdated. We want to be remembered throughout all the remaining days of western civilization. We want other people to wish they were us and to cover our songs. We want to get laid anytime we want with whomever we want. We basically want to be the forefathers of rock n’ roll, the way Robert Johnson was for the blues. If you give us all of that, then, and ONLY then, will we sell you our souls.

DEVIL: (sighs) I’ll tell you what……..I will give you all of that on two conditions. First off, obviously, I get your souls. Secondly, one member of your band, and you won’t know which one, will have to die very prematurely…..

BAND: One of us has to die young?

DEVIL: Yup.

BAND: (long pause) Where do we sign? (Apologies to Lennon, Brian Jones, Moonie, Bonzo, Morrison and Dennis Wilson)

I am sure that Elvis, Sam Cooke, Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, The Sex Pistols, and Jimi Hendrix had some close variation of this conversation. Nirvana was probably the last band to get away with this deal. Joe Schimmel says so (I’m pretty sure you can google any famous rock star’s name along with “satan”, “devil”, or “sold his soul.” and get a lot of pages). People such as Buddy Holly and Marvin Gaye probably read the fine print but missed the “death clause” or didn’t understand it.

And so it was. Any rock star who read through the fine print could immediately coerce the devil to make them huge and with worthwhile songs. Sure, there were plenty of Jesus Joneses, Tommy Tutones, and Dixie’s Midnight Runners-esque groups who didn’t read the fine print, but there were always great bands around. There were also those integral groups like The Sonics, Jesus Lizard, Shellac, and Guided by Voices who decided that they would rather just be awesome, so they asked the devil to make them awesome instead of arena rock stars. This was kind of the devil’s version of God giving King Solomon the gift of wisdom.

But what happened? All of a sudden the world became infested with Nickelbacks and Maroon 5s. Better Than Ezra existed. Blink-182 was called “punk”, John Mayer was considered a guitar prodigy, and The Killers were topping Billboard charts. Evanescence, My Chemical Romance, and Incubus were some of the biggest bands around. People who would have once listened to Jefferson Airplane, Hawkwind, King Crimson, or Pink Floyd, now listened to Dave Matthews Band, The Counting Crowes, O.A.R., and Widespread Panic. The list kept going: Three Doors Down, Five for Fighting, Matchbox Twenty, Jimmy Eat World, Puddle of Mudd, Papa Roach, Fall Out Boy, POD, Creed, Offspring, Fountains of Wayne, Kid Rock……WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED????????????????

Here’s what happened. The world got so diluted and over-saturated with bands willing to do anything for a modicum of fame, that the devil didn’t have to grant anyone anything as far as demands go. I imagine that the same conversation The Rolling Stones and Zeppelin had with the devil would look like this for a band today:

BAND: Hey, Satan. We’ve been reading over this contract and we happened to come across the small print.

DEVIL: (rolling his eyes) Good for you.

BAND: It says that we will be one hit wonders, or will get famous but everyone will know that we suck and our music will not pass the test of time. We will be just another watered down group in a quagmire of banal pap that will reach the realm of mediocrity if we’re lucky.

DEVIL: And what is the problem with that?

BAND: Hey we’re talking about our souls here! We’re not just going to sell them for this junk! We want to be one of the biggest bands in the whole world. We want our music to be good no matter when it’s played, never to become outdated. We want to be remembered throughout all the remaining days of western civilization. We want other people to wish they were us and to cover our songs. We want to get laid anytime we want with whomever we want. We basically want to be like The Beatles, Zeppelin, and The Stones. If you give us all of that, then, and ONLY then, will we sell you our souls.

DEVIL: Um……..no. Sorry. I’ve got a million bands looking to sign deals with me for the slightest taste of fame. Just this afternoon I have meetings with Buckcherry, Sugar Ray, Thirty Seconds to Mars (Leto owes me after that sweet movie deal I got him), Disturbed, and the sober version of Aerosmith. So sign the damn deal or don’t. I don’t care. I’ve got more souls than I can squeeze into Hell and people are lining up around the block to sell their souls just to have a viral youtube video. I’m not going through all that trouble to make a famous band who actually rocks. That shit is tiring. So, what will it be?

BAND: Okay, okay, okay! We’ll sign! Please don’t leave. Just promise us we’ll be able to play the Grammy’s one time.

DEVIL: Yeah, sure. That shit is easy. In fact, if you’re a really shitty band, it’s harder to keep you off of the Grammy’s than it is to get you on.

I don’t mean to sound like a damn curmudgeon (though I am), but have you turned on a modern radio station lately?

And there you have it. It’s the evolution of Faust, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Devil and Daniel Webster. If you want to find anything worth a damn, you have to crawl down into the basements of the world, hoping that some band will blow your mind. If you do, take pride in the fact that they will be YOUR underground band, for if they truly rock, they will not end up famous. The devil has assured us that we will not see any more famous rock bands that are awesome. He has the market cornered with that drivel that rings from mountain to mountain. I guess it’s not so much the fault of musicians as it is the weakness of our moral fortitude to hold out for something better.

I saw Satan laughing with delight the day the music died. -(TMFTG)

Note: If you wish to leave a comment and there is no comment box below, then you must click on this article’s title at the top. Then a comment box will become available at the bottom of the article. If there is a comment box below, you’re already there.

Santa Clause. The Easter Bunny. The Yeti. Sasquatch. The Chupacabra. The Lochness Monster. The Black placekicker. The White tailback.

Yep, this list is a sports category. I’ve avoided writing about sports because there are so many people who write about them. What’s the point in having another one? It is so over-saturated that shitty writers are championed for their shitty writing. Exhibit A: Rick Reilly. Just check out what the good people at firerickreilly.com are writing about that guy. Now THAT’S good stuff.

Surely this article will turn off many of the loyal 59 people who like me on facebook (80,000 visitors in six weeks and 59 people “like” me. I guess I’m the guy people love to hate. Just like Erik von Stroheim. Granted, I was about 40,000 visitors in before I got a facebook site. So maybe I would have 118 if I had taken some early initiative). As far as the topic goes, I have had a lot of conversations that go like this.

SMART PERSON: There have been lots of good white running backs. Mike Alstott, Moose Johnston, Tom Rathman, Merril Hoge, Matt Suhey…..
ME: No. TAILBACKS. Not fullbacks.
SMART PERSON: Oh. Well there is Jim Taylor, Larry Csonka, Paul Hornung……
ME: No. Since 1980.
SMART PERSON: Oh……………there’s 10 of them?

Yeah, white people may never see another cornerback or Heavyweight champion again (granted, the Russians seem to churn out some guy who wins one of the 71 titles every few years), and the tailback looked like it was next to go. Then came this year. Peyton Hillis? Danny Woodhead? What the……?

Seriously, is this a sensitive subject or are we grown up enough that we can say these things? I’m not going all Jimmy the Greek on you (hilarious Opie and Anthony clip). And for true entertainment, check out these guys. Seriously, their discussion forum has someone named whiteathlete33. As long as we’re on it, go get your kicks at the Aryan Dating Page. Wow. Now these people are going to find me and kill me because I tried to amuse you.

Okay, now the topic at hand. The great white ghosts. I have proof the white tailback exists because, unlike Bigfoot, If you take a picture of one of them, they aren’t fast enough to be blurry.

10. TRAVIS JERVEY
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE

It was between him and Jacob Hester for the final spot on the list. Let us take a look at the argument:

Travis Jervey (129 carries 503 yards 3.9 ypc 2 TD/ 10 catches 35 yards 0 TDs)
Jacob Hester (66 carries 229 yards 3.5 ypc 1 TD/ 43 catches 260 yards 2 TDs)

Very close, but I am giving it to the man from The Citadel. The man actually made the Pro Bowl, though it was actually for his Steve Tasker-like special teams play with the Packers. The 49ers signed him to 4 year, 6 million dollar contract in 1999, a move that is best described as silly. He ran 7 times for 49 yards in two years with the Niners (I have to believe that the Niners hoped he would eclipse the team’s nickname in rushing yards). Still, some Packer fan on facebook believes that Jervey was something special, though I haven’t ruled out that Jervey, himself, started that page. I do believe that Jervey is the best player in NFL history who attended The Citadel.

Here is a stupid video of not funny radio people singing about Travis Jervey, propagating every Wisconsin stereotype.
And here is a video about how the Packers chose Travis Jervey over Terrell Davis in the 1995 draft.

9. TOBY GERHART
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE
(I would not have minded if he ripped off the arm of the other asshole in this picture.)

This was the guy! He finished second in the Heisman voting and was drafted in the second round in 2010 (no white tailback has been taken in the first round since Penn State’s John Cappelletti in 1974, and he was promptly moved to fullback), but……he went to a team with one of the best tailbacks in football. How many running backs would get carries when they are behind Adrian Peterson on the depth chart? If he had been drafted by the Packers, or the Seahawks, or the freakin’ Colts, this guy would have been the stud starter of a playoff contender. But no. he goes to the Vikings and gets 5 carries per game and nets 20 catches. He ended up with nearly 500 yards from scrimmage, but Gerhart is just an opportunity away from breaking out. I expect the Stanford grad to be much higher on this list in a couple years.

8.BRIAN LEONARD
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE

Yep. The number 8 slot is filled by a man who does not have a single NFL rushing touchdown. However, in four years he does have 537 receiving yards. His rookie year looked a lot like Toby Gerhart’s: He ran for 303 yards and had 183 receiving yards for a crappy team (the Rams) with a really good starting running back (Steven Jackson). Gerhart will be passed Leonard at this time next year.

Leonard, who is currently a Bengal, has seen his production drop every year to the point where he is fighting for a roster spot each season. He was in the same backfield with Ray Rice at Rutgers. Apparently someone thinks he deserves a medal for making way for Rice. I don’t know if that is Creed, Nickelback, or whoever in the video, and I ain’t taking the time to look it up.

7. DANNY WOODHEAD
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE

This one is very promising. The undrafted back from Chadron State came out of the blue in 2010 (after being waived by the New York Jets) to rush for 547 yards (at 5.6 yards a pop) while having 379 receiving yards for arguably the best team in football, the new England Patriots. The guy is 5’7” 180 lbs., and after his breakout game against Buffalo early in the year, Tom Brady said he didn’t even know who the guy was whom he was handing off too. Perhaps he should have. Woodhead was the NCAA’s all-time leading rusher before some other white guy (Nate Kmic) broke it. True, it wasn’t as though he was running in the SEC, but a record is a record.

He has signed a two-year contract extension with the Pats, so Bill Belichick will find a whole plethora of new ways to use the backfield version of Wes Welker. Here is a video of him going undercover to try and sell his own jersey.

6. NICK GOINGS
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE

Before Hillis had his great 2010 season, Goings was the last white tailback to lead his team in rushing yards, accumulating 821 of them for the Carolina Panthers in 2004. The undrafted (duh) back never reached the 200 yard mark in any other year. He had six career rushing touchdowns. He only played in 2004 due to injuries to Stephen Davis, DeShaun Foster, and Rod Smart (remember Rod Smart? Remember the XFL? This should refresh your memory). Oddly enough, Goings led the NFL with five 100-yard rushing games (seems like a small number to be leading the league), and tied Davis’ team record with four consecutive 100 yard games. Still, Goings career numbers are statistically similar to Samkon Gado.

5. HOKIE GAJAN
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE

4 years with the Saints. 1358 rushing yards. 515 receiving yards. 13 career touchdowns. Yep, that’s it. That would not have even been a good year for Marshall Faulk in his prime. BUT, Gajan had one thing going for him. In 1984, Gajan ran the ball 102 times for 615 yards. That is an average of 6.03 yards per carry. That is third best all-time single season yards-per-carry mark for a running back with at least 100 carries (only Mercury Morris and Barry Sanders topped those numbers). Gajan is better known as the Saints’ radio color commentator than being an actual player, but that one stat makes him a necessary component of this list.

4. MARK VAN EEGHEN
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE

Van Eeghen would be number two on this list if it counted accomplishments from 1975 until the present. Those seasons in the 70s would have included three 1000 yard seasons, though he never reached the end zone very much. Instead, I am championing 4 seasons from 1980 until 1983, where he rushed for 838, 150, 386, and 358 yards respectively, with THE RAIDERS! and the Patriots. The pride of Colgate, along with Adonal Foyle, may have the best genes of anyone on this list.

3. CRAIG JAMES
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE

Damn that Peyton Hillis. If it wasn’t for him, James would be the last white player to accumulate 1000 yards in a season, which he did with the Patriots in the 1985 season. That was his second year in the league. He was picked to start in the Pro Bowl, was named the Vince Lombardi Offensive Player of the Year, and his team went to the Super Bowl. Then “The Pony” rushed for 1 yard in 5 carries in the Super Bowl, then he returned to rush for only 427 yards in 1986, then he got 4 carries in both 1987 and 1988, and then his career was over. Since then, you have seen him as a talking head on ESPN and ABC. I have held a personal grudge over him due to his comment before 1999 Rose Bowl that my alma mater, the Wisconsin Badgers, were “the worst team to ever play in the Rose Bowl.” Wisconsin went on to beat #6 UCLA 38–31 in the game. Afterward, Badger coach Barry Alvarez responded, “Well, I know we’re at least the second worst.”

Craig James also has the dubious distinction of being associated with the collapse of two solid NCAA football programs. First, he was a running back, along with Eric Dickerson, on the SMU teams of the early eighties that would receive the death penalty from the NCAA, thus making the program worthless for 25 years. The he led the crusade to get offensive genius, Mike Leach, fired from Texas Tech because he allegedly made his son sit in a closet. Lawsuits are still pending on this one. In their first year without Leach, Texas Tech had their first losing record in Big 12 play since 2000.

2. PEYTON HILLIS
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE

One year. That’s all it was, one year. But it was the first 1000 yard season by a white tailback in 25 years. From out of nowhere, the second best Peyton in the NFL romped for 1177 rushing yards, 477 receiving yards, and 13 touchdowns for the 2010 Cleveland Browns. He did it without a passing game to support him and with basically nothing to show for the final 3 games, as though they were resting him for 2011 (bad choice, Mangini). He was the first white running back to lead his team in rushing since Nick Goings led the Panthers in 2004.

Hillis was originally a fullback at the University of Arkansas, which may explain why he never rushed for more than 348 yards in a season in college (that and the fact that Darren McFadden and Felix Jones were on those teams, possibly making it the best backfield in NCAA history). During his rookie season in Denver, Mike Shanahan moved Hillis to running back and started him for a while because Shanahan used to be smart. Then Josh McDaniel took over as coach and he benched, and later traded, Hillis because McDaniel has always been stupid. In fact, that move was so baffling that fans have wondered if Hillis hit on McDaniel’s wife. To this point he has accomplished pretty much what Craig James did and is higher on this list because he should end up accomplishing more.

1. JONN RIGGINS
Black Running Back he reminds me of: NONE

The great white hope. The Rocky Marciano of pro football. “The Diesel” may be the greatest white tailback of all time. He is also one of the most bizarre characters in history. Here’s the thing: For this list we are only counting accomplishments since 1980. Riggins was drafted in 1971, played until 1979, and sat out the 1980 season over a contract dispute. In 1981, he returned at the age of 32, but his post 1980 accomplishments STILL leave the other white tailbacks in the dust. Hell, for a running back over 30, he leaves most tailbacks in the dust, period. He played for the Washington Redskins from 1981 until 1985, with 1982 being a strike shortened season. He played in 2 Super Bowls, won one of them, and took home a Super Bowl MVP. How is this for a career over 30?

• Oldest player to rush for 150+ yards in a game: 35 years, 71 days
• Oldest player to rush for 3 touchdowns in a game: 36 years, 70 days
• Oldest player to have a game with 100+ rushing yards & 1 rushing touchdown: 36 years, 84 days
• Oldest player to have 30+ rushing attempts in a game: 36 years, 84 days
• Oldest player to rush for 100+ yards in a playoff game: 34 years, 157 days(breaking his own record he set one week earlier)
• Oldest player to rush for 150+ yards in a playoff game: 33 years, 179 days
• Oldest player to rush for 175+ yards in a playoff game: 33 years, 164 days
• Most rushing attempts after 35th birthday: 503 -- broken by Marcus Allen who finished with 537
• Most rushing touchdowns after 35th birthday: 22 -- broken by Marcus Allen who finished with 25
• Most rushing yards after 35th birthday: 1,916 -- broken by Marcus Allen who finished with 2,225
• Most 100 yard rushing games after 35th birthday: 8
• Most games with 2+ rushing touchdowns after 35th birthday: 4 -- broken by Marcus Allen who finished with 5
• Most games with 20 rushing attempts after 35th birthday: 11
• Oldest player to have 300+ rushing attempts in a season: 35
• Oldest player to have 1,200 rushing yards in a season: 35
• Oldest player to have 10+ rushing touchdowns in a season: 35
• Oldest player to score 20+ touchdowns in a season: 34
• Oldest player to have 350+ rushing attempts in a season: 34
• Oldest player to have 1,300 rushing yards in a season: 34
• Oldest player to have 20+ rushing touchdowns in a season: 34
• Most rushing attempts after 30th birthday: 1,510
• Most rushing touchdowns after 30th birthday: 71
• Most rushing yards after 30th birthday: 5,683 -- broken by Emmitt Smith who finished with 5,789
• Most games with 20 rushing attempts after 30th birthday: 36
• Most games in the postseason of 100+ yards rushing: 6 -- broken by Emmitt Smith and Terrell Davis who each posted 7
• Most rushing yards in a Super Bowl: 166 -- broken by Marcus Allen (191) and Timmy Smith (204)
• Most touchdowns in a season: 24 -- broken by several players since
• Most rushing touchdowns in a season: 24 -- broken by several players since

There was never really any doubt over who was #1. -(TMFTG)

Note: If you wish to leave a comment and there is no comment box below, then you must click on this article’s title at the top. Then a comment box will become available at the bottom of the article. If there is a comment box below, you’re already there.

Everyone thinks they are an actor. For a musician, it is never enough to be a musician. As result, many people waste their time (and yours) on the trash they spit out on the silver screen. Of course, sometimes they catch lightning in a bottle and sometimes (SOMETIMES) he or she is actually as good as he or she thought he or she was. That’s the basis of this list, but first let me spell out some ground rules:

1.) No musicals. There are too many of them, most of them feature musicians, and who can tell someone’s acting chops from such goofiness? Unfortunately, this will rule out Bob Geldof’s performance in The Wall. But here are Pink Floyd’s famous fucking flowers for those who need it. Yes, Dreamgirls is a musical.

2.) No television. Sorry, there are just too many. Unfortunately, this does leave out two of my favorites: Stevie Van Zandt from The Sopranos and Method Man from The Wire.

3.) You can’t play yourself in the film. That’s not acting. Sorry Bruce Springsteen from High Fidelity, Neil Diamond from Saving Silverman, Elvis Costello in 200 Cigarettes, and everyone in Coffee and Cigarettes. But, nevertheless, here is part of that awesome scene between Iggy Pop and Tom Waits.

4.) No voice work. Damn, this and the “no musical” rule locks out Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops, for his awesome role as the voice of the plant in Little Shop of Horrors.

5.) Just playing music doesn’t count (e.g. The Circle Jerks in Repo Man or Jonathan Richman in There’s Something About Mary).

6.) No actors who later went on to play music (e.g Jamie Foxx, Billy Bob Thornton, Corey Glover). Jared Leto, Kevin Bacon, and Keanu Reeves also don’t count cause they either never made it in the music world or made it after they were established actors.

7.) No musicians who basically abandoned music in order to go on to a full successful career as an actor (e.g. Mark Wahlberg and Will Smith).

8.) No brief cameos such as Aimee Mann in The Big Lebowski , Gibby Haynes in Dead Man, or Bo Diddley in Trading Places.

9.) Only one role per musician on the list. I don’t want to keep putting the same people over and over, so each musician can be on the list only once.

My apologies to those who didn’t make the cut. Actually, I don’t apologize to a lot of them. Either way, some people you will surely tell me I forgot are:

Barbara Streisand , Dolly Parton, Herry Connick Jr., Gregg Allman, Mick Jagger, Paul Simon, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Strummer, Deborah Harry, Queen Latifah, Donny Wahlberg, P-Diddy (or whatever his name is this week), Henry Rollins, Prince, Beyonce’, Dee Snyder, Iggy Pop, Everyone from The Blues Brothers, Madonna, Justin Timberlake, David Byrne, Dave Grohl, Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis, Diana Ross, Brian Setzer, Tina Turner, Jennifer Lopez, Bette Midler, Tim Mcgraw, LL Cool J., George Strait, Richard Hell, and Glen Campbell.

25. LUDACRIS – HUSTLE & FLOW

So…..Crash won best picture in 2005. I personally don’t believe it was even the best film of 2005 to have both Terrence Howard and Ludacris in it. That would be Hustle & Flow. Ludacris was playing something he was familiar with, a successful rapper from the Southeast part of the country, so I would have expected him to nail it. I actually think it takes some humility for someone as successful as Ludacris to take on a role in an independent film where he gets the shit beat out of him. Hustle & Flow was a solid film, but it would have been outstanding without that saccharine ending where Terrence Howard becomes an overnight sensation. It kind of betrayed the mood of the whole film (You know. Realistic).

24. CHRIS ISSAK – TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME

This one’s for Lucas…..and Bowley. Yeah, sometimes in David Lynch films you are supposed to intentionally act badly so that it fits the strangeness of the plot. Take David Lynch himself at the beginning of this film. I know the guy and still don’t know if he is a bad actor or intentionally acting badly. Ah well, if David Lynch films were sane, most people wouldn’t know who he is.

The first half hour of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, focuses on Chris Issak and Kiefer Southerland investigating the murder of Teresa Banks. Chris Issak seems to be a sort of straight man (as much of a straight man as one can be in a Lynch film) to the insanity that exists around him. He works in this role as a life preserver that Lynch seems to be throwing the audience to get them across this river of madness before his character disappears without explanation half an hour in.

Issak is a strange cookie in his own right. You have to have a quirky personality to act in films by David Lynch and John Waters (unfortunately it was Waters’ worst film, A Dirty Shame), as well as being close personal friends with Conan O’Brien.

23. MAC DAVIS – NORTH DALLAS FORTY

I know this wasn’t Oscar worthy, but he played the part of a rube Dallas quarterback pretty spot on (e.g. “Dandy” Don Meredith). Of course, Davis was kind of a rube in his own right. He makes the Muppets look pretty sophisticated.

I don’t know why it is so hard to make a good football movie. There are plenty of solid baseball and boxing films. I guess The Program and Friday Night Lights have their moments. Any Given Sunday sucked ass. By default, North Dallas Forty is the pinnacle, though it holds little resemblance to modern football in a lot of ways (can you imagine Nick Nolte as an NFL tight end? Hell, he looks undersized for a kicker).

Mac Davis was wrote a number of songs for Elvis, including “In the Ghetto”. He went on to his own successful career as a country singer, which included a number one hit with “Baby, Don’t get Hooked on Me.” But I will always remember him as Seth Maxwell, North Dallas quarterback.

22. ICE-T – NEW JACK CITY

The guy who wrote the song “Cop Killer” (much to Charleton Hestons’ chagrin) plays a cop. I couldn’t decide whether this film or Surviving the Game deserved a slot on this list. Maybe neither, but I’ve always had a soft spot for these films. New Jack City is one of those films that claims to be anti-drug and anti-gang, but makes those lifestyles pretty damn appealing. Wesley Snipes is living it up in the movie and only falls because he gets a little too greedy at the end. Most people would gladly take Snipes’ life up until the end. That isn’t much of a deterrent.

Ice-T plays Ice-T. You know his mannerisms and his attitude. It’s the same as ever, but it kind of works for the role of a New York undercover cop. Plus there is the weirdness of seeing one of the bas asses of gangster rap going back and forth with the bad boy from The Breakfast Club (Judd Nelson). The film is also very entertaining in a Scarface type of way. Chris Rock actually has the best performance of the film when he is trying to quit crack by going cold turkey. Ice-T’s performance probably wouldn’t be that good in the wrong film (God knows his performance wouldn’t change no matter what film he was in), but in this one it works.

21. CHER – MOONSTRUCK

It will piss some people off that she is this low on the list. “Why is she down here with the Mac Davises? She won an Oscar! Roger Ebert says it’s a Great Movie! AFI says that it’s the 8th greatest romantic comedy.” Good points. The short answer is that I don’t like nearly as much as these people. It’s just one of those films that I don’t quite get what the fuss is all about. I went back to watch it before making this list because all I could remember was Nicolas Cage yelling “I lost my hand!” Alas, I still didn’t get it during the refresher course. But is Cher pretty good here? Yes. Yes she is.

2 tangents: 1.) What the fuck is with the AFI? They list the 100 movie quotes of all time. #96 is from this film where Cher says “Snap Out of it”. Go ahead. Click on that link. Is that not the 96th greatest thing you’ve ever heard in a movie????? Me neither.

2.) The Academy Awards make me cringe. Look at Cher receiving the award for best actress. I can’t stand how awkward they make the always smooth Paul Newman look at the beginning. I roll my eyes at Chevy’s attempt at physical comedy. Meryl Streep’s lovefest for Cher when they read her name as the winner makes me gag.

But enough of all that. Cher gave a good performance and got her Oscar, so I don’t think she would feel too bad if she knew that she had barely made my top 25.

20. BUSTA RHYMES – FINDING FORRESTER

I like Finding Forrester better than Good Will Hunting. They were both directed by Gus Van Zant and feature a prodigy who is unappreciated. Maybe it comes down to the fact that I like Sean Connery so much better than I like Robin Williams. Busta Rhymes has a small role as the lead’s brother and he does so effectively. It is an understated role and I wonder if I am overly affected by how much I like this film.

19. DAVID JOHANSEN – SCROOGED

Johansen does his job perfectly here. He is supposed to be the over the top, oddball Ghost of Christmas Past to Bill Murray’s Scrooge character. He lives it up just like he used to on stage. He was the front man for the seminal glam-punk band, The New York Dolls (FYI: If you haven’t seen the documentary about Arthur “Killer” Kane called New York Doll, see it!!!!) and then had a solo career as his alter-ego, Buster Poindexter (I still don’t know how he pulled that one off).

I thought Scrooged was a pretty entertaining film, even if it got mixed reviews and the final speech is completely cornball. Johansen, like Ice-T, has one thing he can do and it’s perfect here. If I had a worst performance list for musicians, his acting job in Suburban Commando would likely be on it. The thing is, it’s almost the exact same performance, but it was a shitty movie that made him look silly. Rule of thumb: If Hulk Hogan is starring in a movie, don’t take a role in it. I don’t care how much they’re paying you, you’ll have video evidence of you at your worst for eternity.

18. TUPAC SHAKUR – ABOVE THE RIM

Yeah, there does seem to be a lot of hip hop artists on the list, but I think that is because many of them play roles that are familiar to who they are. Tupac didn’t look like he had to reach too far in Above the Rim OR Juice OR Poetic Justice. I would have loved to have seen him in Menace II Society, where he was originally cast to play O-Dog, but was dropped from the film because he assaulted director Allen Hughes.

Above the Rim was a pretty big film when it came out, mainly on the strength of the song “Regulators” by Nate Dogg and Warren G, who nab the concept and speech from the movie Young Guns .

Tupac plays a local bigwig who is ultra-determined to put together a basketball squad that will win a New York playground basketball tourney. A young stud player who wants to play ball at Georgetown gets caught between playing for the shady Birdie (Shakur) or with his high school team. Tupac has a way of selling this game as though it means as much as money or drugs would in a different movie (e.g. New Jack City).

You probably could have picked any of the three movies listed above for Tupac. He had some genuine acting chops and likely could have been one of those who made the transition to a full-fledged film career had he not been killed in Vegas in 1996.

17. EMINEM – 8 MILE

Yes. This is absolutely an instance of someone playing himself without playing himself. There have been many examples over the last fifty years of artists coming out with movies “about themselves” while at the peak of their popularity (e.g. The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Vanilla Ice, Britney Spears), but you know that your film is the real deal when Curtis Hansen (L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys) chooses to direct it. Scott Silver did not phone in the screenplay and they scored Kim Basinger and Brittany Murphy to be in it. As a result, the movie was pretty good by any measurement, and exceptionally good when measured next to other actors who tried to pull off the same thing.

Eminem playing a white rapper being raised by a single mother just outside of Detroit? Yeah, he was able to nail that. And no, this is not a musical under any definition.

16. LEVON HELM – COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER

The drummer and regular singer for The Band was the coal miner in Coal Miner’s Daughter, Loretta Lynn’s father, Ted Webb. He had a family of eight, only to die before two of his daughters, Loretta as well as Crystal Gale, hit the big time. Sissy Spacek played Lynn and would receive the Academy Award for best actress.

I would personally argue that this actually wasn’t the best movie Helm was in. That would have to be The Band’s farewell concert film, The Last Waltz, which was done by Marty Scorsese. If you have not seen it, run- do not walk. However, as an actor, his role as a poor miner in Kentucky cannot be too far removed from his life growing up dirt poor in Arkansas, though his life was much more like Loretta Lynn’s than like Ted Webb’s.

15. KRIS KRISTOFFERSON – ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

Speaking of Scorsese, here is a Marty film that few people in my generation have taken the time to try and embrace. Yeah, it’s not at the top of the Scorsese filmography, but it is a solid flick.

Kris Kristofferson is dangerously close to not qualifying for this list since he did act in so many other films. In recent years, we’ve seen him in Payback and Blade, but whenever I think of him acting, I think of him as the rapist who gets killed by Warren Oates in Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

This is one flick where Kristofferson doesn’t play an overly gruff character. Instead, he has a brief relationship with Ellen Burstyn after becoming a friend to her kid. Nothing in this film really seems like Kristofferson, or Scorsese for that matter, and maybe that’s why he gets such high praise. So many people on this list are playing themselves, that it seems kind of extraordinary when maybe someone isn’t.

14. FLEA – MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO

No, I’m serious. For all the over-the-top bit parts he had in the Back to the Future sequels, The Chase, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he was perfect to be mournfully pounding on a casket screaming “Bob” with all of his street kid brethren in this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts 1&2. The film was a bit of a prelude to tragedy in its own rite. Flea befriended River Phoenix on the set (note the verse about Phoenix in “Give It Away” by the Chili Peppers), and Phoenix would overdose and die at the Viper Room in 1993, when he had shown up to join his friend Flea on stage. Flea was onstage with Johnny Depp and Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers while Phoenix was being attended to by his brother, Joaquin Phoenix, outside.

As the performance goes, Flea is one of the lost boys, the homeless crew consisting of beggars, pick pockets, and prostitutes, living in the inner city of Portland, Oregon. Gus Van Zant can be so sharp that he even gets a really good performance out of Keanu Reeves. Flea actually has to do some drama in this film, such as when he turns on the waterworks after his mentor, Bob, dies. It is a solid film that anyone with the slightest interest in being alive should check out.

13. DEAN MARTIN – RIO BRAVO

Dean Martin or Ricky Nelson? They were both singers and both in the film, but Martin was a little gruffer and Ricky looked too much like a pretty boy for the old west.

Rio Bravo is a classic. Hands down. It was one of John Wayne’s best films, along with The Searchers, True Grit, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. Howard Hawkes is a director that my generation hasn’t given the time of day and we should all be shot execution style for that sin. Then, of course, there is the Rat packer, Dean Martin. He plays Dude, that’s right…Dude. Remember the beginning of The Big Lebowski when Sam Elliott, who plays a caricature from an old western, says that no one where he comes from would call himself dude? Well, I gotta believe that this was a joke in reference to Dean Martin’s character. The Coen Brothers are too savvy not to know that one of the main characters in one of the most famous westerns was named Dude.

The performance is great as well. He is the alcoholic left in charge of a jail where he knows the prisoner’s boys are on their way to try and bust him out. Why did they even bother trying to have law enforcement in the old west? Darwinism would have been fine as the only law. Many people seem to praise Ricky Nelson here, but Martin performs the superior acting job.

12. STING – LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS

This movie might have done the impossible. It made Sting look like a bad ass. There is no one in the world I fear less than Sting. Maybe Bono. The guy who sang “Fields of Gold” and sang with that really high voice in The Police is not on ominous presence. Yet, somehow he and Guy Ritchie were able to make it seem like he could conceivably tell Vinnie Jones to tell his boss to “fuck off.” Brilliant, really.

Now, compare this performance to this performance in the Sex Pistols’ Great Rock and Roll Swindle, where he plays a leader of a gay band called the Blow Waves, and tries to rape Paul Cook in the back seat of a car. Pretty silly, eh? Gordon Matthew Sumner also appeared in Dune, but it was this turn that made me ask “Who the fuck is THAT guy?”

11. MEAT LOAF – FIGHT CLUB

You thought his performance in Black Dog was going to be on here, right? Yeah, a search will reveal that Meat Loaf has been in a lot of movies. Enough that it is arguable that I am violating the Will Smith/Mark Wahlberg rule above. But most of his movies are unheard of or just flat-out suck. Therefore, I could not ignore his turn as Robert (Bob) Paulson. He is still identified as a musician more than an actor (thanks in large part to Bat Out of Hell II, which no asshole deejay would stop playing when I was twelve).

I would argue that Fight Club and The Big Lebowski are the two films of my generation that probably have the largest “popular cult” (possible oxymoron) following with pseudo-ethos designed by fanatics. There may be no greater example of this than the What Would Tyler Durden Do website. Meat Loaf, as a result, is immortalized as an-ex steroid using cancer patient with bitch tits, who is shot in the head as a result of “Project Mayhem”, and is the first member of the club to have an actual name. The fact that his character is so well remembered is a testament to his performance, and he may very well be the only character in the film to receive any audience sympathy (maybe the Asian convenience store worker).

Boring side note: I went to two Chuck Palahniuk readings in my lifetime (author of Fight Club). At one of them he gave me a five foot fake flower and at the other he gave me a fake human arm (did I really have to mention that it was fake?). I lost those mementos when some drunk lady plowed into my car. I wish I still had them.

10. GLEN HANSARD and MARKETA IRGLOVA – ONCE

A lot of guys, including my closest friends, would snicker at this pick. I don’t care. Fuck off. The film is good and no, it is not a musical. It is about people who make music, and there is a moment or two where the songs do seem to come from nowhere, but it is a real drama. Musicals aren’t dramatic. Let’s face it, they’re silly. They are.

So, Hansard was definitely a musician, the head of the Irish band, The Frames, even though he did act in the good old Irish soul film, The Commitments. It is tough to qualify Irglova since she was only 18 or 19 when the film came out, with only one album under her belt. But she hasn’t acted in anything else, so I consider that a musician trying to act.

It is an Irish guy meets girl film. Before you condemn me for being saccharine, I ask you, aren’t there enough shitty relationship movies and horrid Sandra Bullock rom-coms that we have to tip our cap when a movie actually does a solid job with a relationship? The film was really good. People like Steven Spielberg and Michael Phillips called it the best of the year, it has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and won the Oscar for best original song (Hansard and Irglova’s duet on “Falling Slowly). Plus it has a good ending in the tradition of Paris, Texas, not one of those bullshit forced endings that tries to make you feel everything and ends up making you feel nothing.

9. COURTNEY LOVE – THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT

She got a lot of acclaim for this film and, oddly enough, she did not beat it to death by continuing to act in movie after movie. That’s surprising for someone who seems to love the limelight so much. This film came out in 1996 and she has only been in five feature-length films since (including Man on the Moon, the Andy Kaufman biopic). In this film, she does all the things that Oscar winning actresses need to do. Gratuitous nudity? Check. Play the muse of an influential man? Check. Die of AIDS? Check. Yet all she nailed down was a Golden Globe nomination.

The movie was as solid as a film about Larry Flynt could ever expect to be. If you’re making a film about a porn king, you figure it will be a low-rent made for cable (maybe HBO) piece of garbage (e.g. that Sheen/Estevez film, Rated X. You know, that film Emilio did to try and get people to stop calling him Gordon Bombay).

In this film, Love proves she’s not a Yoko Ono, someone we only know because of her relationship to someone famous, but actually has some skill. While I agree whole-heartedly with Frances McDormands’ Oscar win for Fargo that year, the fact that Diane Keaton’s performance for Marvin’s Room got nominated ahead of Love was kind of dumb.

8. DAVID BOWIE – BASQUIAT

A lot of people would be upset that I would choose this performance over The Man Who Fell to Earth, but I feel it would be tougher for Bowie to play a real person (Warhol) than an alien from a dying planet. In real life, Bowie IS an alien from a dying planet. He also rocked roles in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, The Prestige, Labyrinth (musical), and as Pontius Pilate in Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (side question: Has Pontius Pilate become one of those break out, fun roles to play? He has been played by Telly Savalas, Gary Oldman, Harvey Keitel, and Rod Steiger). Basquiat was a really good film. I expected Jeffrey Wright to become huge after seeing him as the title role, but that never happened.

I don’t know how accurate Bowie’s portrayal of Warhol was, but he didn’t make Andy a caricature like so many other people do (see: Crispin Glover and, surprisingly, Guy Pierce). Perhaps this stems from the fact that Bowie actually knew the man. This performance convinced me that Warhol might have actually been a real person and not just someone to be amused by. For an amusing person in his own right, that is quite an accomplishment from Bowie.

7. LYLE LOVETT – SHORT CUTS

Lovett was in a couple of Robert Altman films that could make this list. His performance in The Player was also pretty great, but his role as the psychotic baker who ends up feeling bad about what he has done is too entertaining not to be included on this list. Andie McDowell orders a cake for her son’s birthday party, Lovett fixes it, and McDowell never comes to pick it up and pay for it. This pisses off Lovett to no end and he leaves ominous messages on the answering machine of McDowell and her family. What he doesn’t know is that after she ordered the cake, her son was hit by a car and died. This leads to quite a face off later in the film.

Lovett doesn’t star in Altman’s Short Cuts. No one does. There are many characters in the ensemble cast and many stories going on, all based on the writings of Raymond Carver. Included in them are Lovett’s fellow musicians, Tom Waits and Huey Lewis. It’s similar to Altman’s outstanding film, Nashville, or a less dramatic version of P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia. There really isn’t a bad performance in the whole film, but it says something that there can be so many acting titans, including Jack Lemmon, Juliane Moore, Tim Robbins, Robert Downey Jr., Lily Tomlin, Frances McDormand, etc., and yet Lovett is my favorite character of the whole film.

6. ICE CUBE – BOYZ N THE HOOD

More than likely, you have seen this film or you are under eighteen. Or am I overestimating its popularity? I was actually a bigger fan of Menace II Society, but that might be because that film seems grittier while this one probably has a bit more heart. Ice Cube is the true bad ass amongst a group of those who are not full-fledged Gs in South Central L.A. He doesn’t have too much of a conscience, but he can air some profundities, as evidenced by the last scene of the movie. Plus he has a heart for revenge when his brother, an innocent (comparatively speaking), meets a heartbreaking end. This was before he started making a bunch of shitty films later in his career. At this point, he was the real deal.

Cube played Doughboy and he had the credentials to pull it off. There are not too many “happy” films high on this list and this one is no exception. For the rappers who played hoods in the movies, a number of whom are on this list, Cube did it the best.

This video has gunfire and profanity (not deaths) and is NSFW.

5. BJORK – DANCER IN THE DARK

Not a pick me up, but this is a very well done film. Lars Von Trier has a way of making some intense films (e.g. Breaking the Waves, Antichrist), and Bjork played her part perfectly. This film is kind of like Monster’s Ball in the “nothing goes right” way. We have blindness, a poverty stricken person being fired, stealing of life savings, accidental death, and an innocent person put on death row in this 2000 Danish film. The film was draining enough that Bjork swore off acting, despite all of the accolades. Bjork is not as even-keeled as she seems, as evidenced by this insane fight she starts with a reporter.

Her performance is great, even if the film got reviews ranging from “best film of the year” to “worst film of the year.” This film sort of boarders on a musical, but there is too much dramatic acting for me to consider it one. My experience with Bjork before I saw this film didn’t go much further than the Human Behavior video. Then she sneaks up with this film where she plays a Czech immigrant in the United States and nails it. For someone reason, it seems that people who have no acting experience often have a first role that exceeds those who have done it their whole lives. Perhaps it is because it is fresh and they have not been bogged down by the process their whole lives to the point where it has become mundane. Whatever the reason, Bjork exceeded most of Hollywood in 2000.

4. DWIGHT YOAKAM – SLING BLADE

If this list was for the best asshole performance by a musician, Yoakam would easily have it. He has acted in a number of films but, in my opinion, only two of them were really good. Red Rock West and this one. Billy Bob Thornton caught lightning in a bottle with this film and both he and Yoakam were lucky to collide and join forces on the film. Thornton wrote, directed, and starred in the film. Parodies of his lead character have been done to death (e.g. Stewie Griffin). But Yoakam’s performance as an abusive alcoholic hasn’t been as remembered over time, due to the fact that he is not quotable like Thornton’s Karl or gay like the late John Ritter’s Vaughan.

SPOILER ALERT: The final scene (at least the final one before Karl ends up back in the State Hospitol) is one of the oddest death scenes I can recall. Doyle, the character played by Yoakam, could have stopped his death at any point if he just believed that Karl had him in him to do it. Hell, Karl tells Doyle he’s going to kill him, but Doyle does not believe him. That sums up Yoakam’s character. He overreacts when there is no need and doesn’t react when it’s absolutely necessary. The perfect fuck up. The perfect asshole.

3. MOS DEF – THE WOODSMAN

I see Mos Def performances recognized by others. They never list this one. I hear about risqué films. They never list this one. Hell, I’ve heard of many Kevin Bacon films. No one ever mentions this one. Why? Because it is too damn uncomfortable. It is really hard to watch. Kevin Bacon plays a pedophile who does not want to be a pedophile. He is on parole and trying to avoid kids at all costs. The world thinks he is scum and, for what he has done, he has to try and hide his past from the world around him.. But Bacon doesn’t know what the hell to do.

People can sit and call certain performances “brave” like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman and Sean Penn in I Am Sam. Fuck all of that. Kevin Bacon, allowing himself to be seen in this light, has them all beat.

As it is, Mos Def gives what I consider to be the best performance by a musician in a smaller role. He is a police officer who makes visits to Bacon’s house to verbally abuse Bacon in order to make sure he stays away from kids. But he doesn’t go over the top with it. Instead, he controls his emotions and rips at Bacon’s sins from the inside. He has dialogue that sticks with you and he delivers it like he truly knows what he is talking about without hamming it up. I really believed that what he did in this film was deserving of a best supporting actor Oscar nomination. What he and Bacon and the rest of the cast and crew of this film did (which included Bacon’s wife of 22 years, Kyra Sedgwick) was touch a subject that was too taboo for Hollywood and, as a result, this film got buried. In an anti-war film, people are entertained by the war scenes. In an anti-Nazi film, people are shown sensationalism that somehow appeals to their bloodlust. There is no side subconscious attraction in a film like this. That’s why, unlike most films people say took guts, this one actually did.

The following scene is just Mos Def talking to Kevin Bacon, letting him know what he thinks of him. The things he says are unsettling and it is NSFW. He is graphic in certain descriptions and it is definitely NOT a pick me up, as he is talking about his experiences with pedophiles. But I have seen no other musician have a scene as intense as this. Unfortunately, they cut the scene before Mos Def takes the scene to another level by telling Bacon he doesn’t understand why they keep letting freaks like him out. It is such an overlooked performance.

2. FRANK SINATRA – FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

Man, it was a tough call choosing between this and The Manchurian Candidate. Both are classics and both featured stellar performances from ol’ blue eyes. Maybe it’s that I found a barfight between Frank Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine too perfect to turn down. Especially when it is broken up by Burt Lancaster (who will always be affectionately known as Moonlight Graham, from Field of Dreams, to me). Sinatra won an Oscar for this role. The film takes place in Hawaii leading up to the Pearl Harbor invasion and somehow comes off more realistic than that turdbomb Pearl Harbor film that came out nearly fifty years later. Bay and Affleck had nothing on Zinnemann and Sinatra.

You either like this stuff or you don’t. Everyone should have a night at some point where they watch From Here to Eternity, The Manchurian Candidate (the Sinatra one), and Ocean’s Eleven (I said, the Sinatra one!). If you don’t like black and white films because they are “old and antiquated” then you deserve for people to say the same thing about the films you like years down the road, and about your existence for that matter. If you don’t give a shit about the things that came before you, then you don’t deserve to be acknowledged/remembered/or cared about by the people who come after you. Now I’m stepping off my soapbox.

Here’s Frank, Ernest, and Moonlight:

1. TOM WAITS – DOWN BY LAW

This is a group award. This has to go to Tom Waits and John Lurie. I didn’t really want #1 to be a joint award, but it should be. I’m sure many of you were wondering how a Jim Jarmusch film hadn’t shown up on the list yet since he always has actors in his films. Well, I made up for it by saving the #1 slot. This is a film where three men carry the whole damn thing (Roberto Benigni is the other) and if they don’t do a great job in this film, which is all dialogue (with nearly 75% of it taking place in a prison cell with just these three), then the film will completely fail. The film doesn’t fail. It is stellar.

Waits has acted in a number of things and if I were giving multiple slots on this list he would likely show up for Bram Stoker’s Dracula as well. But this one is better. In my opinion it is Jarmusch’s masterpiece that will either bore you or not have a single boring moment, depending on your taste. And the way this film opens with Waits’ “Jockey Full of Bourbon.” Well shit, I wish I were Tom Waits. Now I doubt he went through some extensive method acting, or whatever, to play this role, but he WAS this character as much as anyone on this list was their character and he took someone who could be boring and made him exciting. -(TMFTG)

Note: If you wish to leave a comment and there is no comment box below, then you must click on this article’s title at the top. Then a comment box will become available at the bottom of the article. If there is a comment box below, you’re already there.

This is long overdue. I told a friend who recently went through a bad break up that I would get this up, but it took me a while. I don’t have any real good excuse. I think he’s over the whole thing now.

I don’t have any specific problems with dramatic break up songs, unless you are actually going through a break up. Then you should avoid those songs like the plague. Listening to people whine about your same problems ain’t gonna help you. People tell me that it’s good to know that other people feel the same way.

Why?

Why does that make you feel better? I couldn’t give a damn if someone felt the same way I did and wrote some sad bastard “tears on my pillow” song. Yeah, it really makes me feel better that Bret Michaels got cheated on and wrote “Every Rose Has it’s Thorn.” I’m cured.

No. I like the angry ones, the sadistic “fuck all” songs that give you a rush rather than end your day. This doesn’t necessarily mean musical velocity as much as it does intent. Del Shannon’s on the list, ya know?

No. The Cee Lo song is not on here. Yeah, I thought that song was pretty good the first few times I heard it, but the joke isn’t funny anymore.

No. Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” is not on here. A disco song is not sadistic by my standards.

No. Alanis Morissette is not on here. A song about Uncle Joey. Really?

No. Eminem is not on here. He hates Kim. I know.

No. Sublime is not on here. This one I considered. “Santeria” is really quite perfect, but I have enough gun songs and I really haven’t listened to Sublime since I was in high school. It just didn’t make it. I also considered Elis Costello’s “No Action”, but the final lines make it more rueful than sadistic.

Okay. Here is my tape of fuck-all, “you screwed me over, now go to hell” break up songs.

1. SHELLAC- PRAYER TO GOD

Too much too soon? Maybe. This would rank as my number one sadistic break up song if I were ranking them. As it is, it kicks off this mixed tape. Steve Albini is a pretty sadistic dude for starters. He is one of the best interviews on the planet and he has never ever pulled a punch in any comment he has ever made. His previous bands, Big Black and Rapeman, define what Chicago rock n’ roll means to me, and his addition of Todd Trainer and Bob Weston to form Shellac? Forgetaboutit. Unfortunately, too many people know Albini for things such as being “the guy who recorded In Utero.” Nothing to hang your head over, but that’s like knowing George Harrison for being the guy who wrote Got My Mind Set On You.

This song is as intense as it gets. It’s a guy asking God to kill his ex and the guy she is now with. He really goes to town on the guy:

Make him cry like a woman, no particular woman,
Let him hold out hope that someone or other might come,
And fuckin’ kill him……

Damn, Steve.
Prayer to God

2. TOM WAITS- FRANK’S WILD YEARS

Is this really a song? It is to me. Tom Waits’ spoken narrative of how a dude snapped and burned down his house with his wife inside is kind of a Bukowski-esque commentary on life with musical accompaniment. Tom Waits may be the best living storyteller with the coolest voice in history. However, if you play a Tom Waits album, 70% of my generation will have a negative “I don’t like Tom Waits” reaction. But the other 30% will go ape shit with appreciation. I became a fan for life when I saw this performance from Big Time when I was about 15. It’s a pure goose bump adventure for me. Another great song by Tom for a post-break up situation (though it’s not sadistic) would be Better off Without a Wife from the stellar Nighthawks at the Diner Album.

Frank’s Wild Years

3. THE CYRKLE- RED RUBBER BALL

Yeah, I know. Odd choice. It sounds cheery, right? Paul Simon wrote it, for the love of God. I guess I just love the contradiction. It is a happy melody combined with lyrics such as “if I never hear your name again it’s all the same to me” and “I’ve got my life to live and I don’t need you at all.” Something almost seems sicker to me when the message and the sound don’t match up (see: “Singin’ In the Rain” scene from A Clockwork Orange). The song doesn’t work any other way, as various punk and “ska punk” versions have proven. When you take away the melodic irony, it’s a garden variety song, but with the sound of deranged optimism comes a pleasure I am not guilty to have.

Red Rubber Ball

4. JIMI HENDRIX- HEY JOE

Don’t think for a second that I am unaware that everyone and his/her mother has done a version of “Hey Joe”. Someone told me the other day that they love The Leaves version the best, but I didn’t go with it because 1.) It doesn’t sound as sadistic as Hendrix’s version and 2.) I thought it sounded just like the version by Arthur Lee and Love. Hendrix’s version is heavy and sounds as though his character, Joe, really wants to kill the woman who cuckolded him, and then really does.

Billy Roberts is credited as the song’s writer, but that is far from definitive for reasons that are too long for me to go into. The story is simple: A guy gets cheated on, shoots his girl, and runs to Mexico. Of course, “Joe” is telling someone the whole story of how he is going to kill his old lady before he does it. I wonder if the guy Joe told got arrested for abetting Joe in the crime. Anyways, Wikipedia lists 70 popular recordings of “Hey Joe,” and that’s just the ones they know about. It’s like “Louie Louie”, the way it gets covered. Check out The Make-Up’s version from the late nineties for a different spin on the song.

Hey Joe

5. HUSKER DU- NEVER TALKING TO YOU AGAIN

It’s as straightforward as any song on this list, though it does involve the paradox of somebody verbally telling someone he will never speak to him or her again. I’m sure that isn’t lost on the band. Is it a break up song? That’s tough to know. Who the hell is Bob Mould talking to? Yes, Zen Arcade is a concept album. Yes, Mould is gay. (note: I won’t try to gloss over my error, but it has been pointed out to me that Grant Hart was singing) But there is no sex listed in the song. Who gives a shit? The lyrics say everything in the first line of the song:

There are things that I’d like to say, but I’m never talking to you again.

This is the only song on this list that threatens the silent treatment. Is there any better way of saying “You ain’t worth it”?

Never Talking To You Again

6. IGGY AND THE STOOGES- YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL

Best song title on the list. I could never think of a better one. If you gotta say one line in a post-break up situation, this one would probably cover it. I think Iggy is saying that getting with him is “hell”, but I am not positive. It might also be a reference to someone innocent being forced to dive into prostitution for the first time. Willing that for someone is pretty damn sadistic.

Someone could just post this song to their ex’s facebook wall and he/she wouldn’t even have to play it. The point would be made: You are an asshole (but that WAS the point, right?). Iggy is the best voice for this. He may have had the best grungy, primal scream in history (notice the adjectives. I don’t need any Maiden fans writing about how Bruce Dickinson easily has him beat).

Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell

7. DEL SHANNON- HATS OFF TO LARRY

This is an odd transition; from Iggy to Del Shannon. This song may not be the most distinct you’ll ever hear, but it has a concept that I’ve never heard in a song before. Del (or at least the persona of the song) has been left by some girl, she ends up with a guy named Larry, and he, in turn, dumps her. This song is Del’s ode to Larry for doing to her what she did to him. This is a definite departure from “Prayer to God” or “Santeria,” where the object is to kill both the ex and her new partner. Del seems to be maturely immature, if that makes any sense. A song like this would probably hurt an ex more than most other songs, with the thought not being “I hope you get yours”, but rather “You DID get yours.”

Best known for the song “Runaway”, Shannon killed himself with a .22 caliber rifle in 1990. There were rumors he was going to join the Traveling Wilburys after Roy Orbison’s death. I guess that wasn’t very exciting to him.

Hats Off To Larry

8. THE ZOMBIES- SHE’S NOT THERE

Okay, FOLLOW ME ON THIS ONE. MOST WON”T AGREE, BUT I STICK BY THE FOLLOWING INTERPRETATION. I cannot help but think that the song is about a guy who kills a girl who screwed him over. Seriously, let’s look at the lyrics:

Well no one told me about her the way she lied
Well no one told me about her how many people cried
But it’s too late to say you’re sorry
How would I know why should I care
Please don’t bother tryin’ to find her
She’s not there

Okay, here is my point. The first two lines are obviously talking to a bunch of dicks who didn’t let the first person narrator know that some girl was a user. Right? Right. But who is he talking to in lines 3 and 4? You would argue that it is to the people who didn’t tell him about the girl. But if that is true, why does he say the line “How would I know”? He would obviously know because the person would be telling him (though I have considered he is saying he wouldn’t know if the person were really sorry, but he doesn’t use the words necessary to amplify that). Instead, I believe he is talking to the girl whom he killed. Thus, it would be too late to apologize and the narrator wouldn’t be able to finds out about it.

Why do I think he killed her? Because of the next two lines where he turns back to the people who didn’t give him a heads up and says don’t try to find her, cause she’s not there. Yeah, most people gloss over this as a metaphor for the woman’s lack of investment, but if that’s true, I ask you, why are all the woman’s characteristics in the chorus listed in the past tense?

Well let me tell you ’bout the way she looked
The way she’d act and the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she’s not there

Wouldn’t she still look that way and have that voice? Why doesn’t she? The only part that is in the present tense is the insistence that she’s not there. Hence, she used to be all of those things, but is presently dead. This is a creepy song when though about in those terms. Hey, that’s what I think, but why listen to me? I still think “Brown Eyed Girl” is about anal sex.

She’s Not There

9. JOHNNY CASH – DELIA’S GONE

Man, for a Christian, Johnny Cash can sing about some pretty wicked images:

First time I shot her, I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer but with the second shot she died
Delia’s gone, one more round, Delia’s gone

Of course, maybe Johnny was fighting with the power of the Holy Spirit. After all, he calls her devilish in the final verse. Yet, in the first verse he said he would have married her if he hadn’t killed her. Maybe he was saving himself forty years of misery.

But now the true story. This is according to Murder By Gaslight:

“On Christmas Eve 1900, Cooney Houston shot and killed Delia Green. If that isn’t tragic enough, they were both 14 years old. Their sad story would have been long forgotten, even in Yamacraw – the black neighborhood in the western end of Savannah, Georgia, where the killing took place – if it hadn’t been for a song. The ballad of Delia’s murder traveled from Georgia to the Bahamas, then back to the States during the folk boom of the 1950s. Though the facts have been altered along the way, Delia’s story has been sung by generations of folk singers, and has been recorded by musical icons like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.

The facts of Delia Green’s murder, sketchy as they are, were uncovered by folklorist Robert Winslow Gordon – who collected 28 versions the murder song – and later by ballad expert John Garst. They traced the location to Yamacraw, a black section of Savannah, Georgia and the date to December 24, 1900 (at the tail end of the 19th Century.) From newspaper accounts and trial transcripts they reconstructed the events of that night.

Delia Green and Moses “Cooney” Houston were at a Christmas Eve party at the home of Willie West, where Delia worked as a scrub girl. Delia and Cooney had been going together for several months and, though they both only 14-years-old, the relationship was probably sexual. That night they were fighting; Cooney was very drunk and started teasing Delia. According to trial transcripts this is what transpired between them.

Cooney: “My little wife is mad with me tonight. She does not hear me. She is not saying anything to me. (To Delia:) “You don’t know how I love you.”

Delia: “You son of a bitch. You have been going with me for four months. You know I am a lady.”
Cooney: “That is a damn lie. You know I have had you as many times as I have fingers and toes.”
Delia: “You lie!”

Delia, angry at being characterized as Cooney’s wife, called him a son of a bitch, an epithet that carried much more weight in 1900 than it does today. At this point Willie West told Cooney to leave. As he was approaching the door, Cooney pulled out a pistol and shot Delia in the groin. She bled to death.

Cooney fled the scene, but Willie West chased after and caught him. West turned him over to police patrolman J. T. Williams who later testified that Cooney confessed to shooting Delia because she called him a son of a bitch. He shot her and he would do it again.”

Cooney got life imprisonment at his trial in 1901, but was paroled in 1913. Thus, this may be the most sadistic ballad on here, since it is true.

Delia’s Gone

10. THE ROLLING STONES – UNDER MY THUMB

You knew this would be on her, right? You knew that Mick explaining that “a change has come” and that a woman who one had him down is now under his thumb could not be omitted. This “taming of the shrew” song is the only one on this list to feature marimbas, I’m pretty sure.

Speaking of sadistic, this was the song that The Rolling Stones were playing at Altamont in 1969 when the Hell’s Angels stabbed Meredith Hunter to death.

Feminists did not like this song, especially the line “The way she talks when she’s spoken to down to me.” To this, Mick Jagger replied, “The whole idea was that I was under HER, she was kicking ME around. So the whole idea is absurd, all I did was turn the tables around. So women took that to be against femininity where in reality it was trying to ‘get back’ against being a repressed male.”

That pretty much meets my criteria for a sadistic break up song.

Under My Thumb

11. LIGHNIN’ HOPKINS- SHOTGUN BLUES

Thank you Mr. Paul Carrubba. I knew my list would not be complete without some murder ballad by an old blues singer. “Delia’s Gone” could have counted if I’d chosen a different version, but this works out better. Paul gave this suggestion, and here we are.

This is another “Gonna kill her for what she done to me” songs. Damn, girls must be getting pretty pissed at me by know, but the title of this post is accurate. Many of the old blues guitarists get a pass for being chauvinistic. Hopkins played along side Joan Baez and Pete Seeger in 1960, and those two were as feminist as it gets. I don’t think Andrew Dice Clay or Eminem would have ever gotten the same sort of invitation. We actually riffed the other night about how humorous a comedy sketch about an old male delta feminist blues musician could be.

Shotgun Blues

12. WEEN- BABY BITCH

No list would be complete without a song that contained the lyric “Fuck you, you stinking’ ass ho.” That’s probably the only reason it’s on here since the song can be a little whiny (thus, not sadistic enough). But lines like “I’m better, now please fuck off” cannot be ignored.

I was fighting over whether to put Baby Bitch on the list or this song instead (uninteresting tidbit: This clip is off of Ween’s live video from Chicago, which was filmed over 2 nights. I was at the Sunday show which may or may not be the clip shown here).

This song sort of counters “Under My Thumb”. It’s the same situation, but instead of laughing at her with the “You’re under my thumb” response, Gene Ween is telling the girl to get the hell away from him because she messed him up so bad that she doesn’t deserve a second chance. Pretty much there are only 3 ways to handle this situation in life: 1.) The way Mick Jaggar did it 2.) The way Gene Ween did it 3.) Give her another chance, make the same mistake twice, and have her walk all over you again. #3 is a popular choice.

Baby Bitch

13. NICK CAVE- WHERE THE WILD ROSES GROW

Yep. Not a break up song. A girl (sung by Kylie Minogue in the only song she’s ever done that I like) is all about Nick, and he kills her for no apparent reason. Yep, I’m waiting for people to call me an ass for adding this. However, this plays out the same way that a sadistic spurned male would think (metaphorically, at least). Every guy that gets dumped thinks that his vulnerability has been exposed before the girl laid him out, so there is a bit of a humiliation factor. This song is a turning of the tables in the male psyche.

Oh, and if you like anything that is least bit macabre, sinister, or gothic, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Murder Ballads album (which this song is from) is a must. As far as attitude goes (not necessarily sound), if Frank Sinatra and Trent Reznor had a baby, it would be Nick Cave.

Where The Wild Roses Grow

14. GUNS N’ ROSES- USED TO LOVE HER

I promise, this is the last song where anyone gets killed. It’s a pretty simple formula, start with a Rolling Stones’ lyric, “I used to love her,” then change it up. Instead of “but it’s all over now”, get sadistic with “but I had to kill her.” Then explain that she was always whining and you can still hear her even in death.
You would figure that these lyrics came from Axl, but he had nothing to do with it. It was all Slash and Izzy Stradlin’. Talk about an explosion from the id. We also have opposing viewpoints on how this song came about. Which is true?

1.) Stradlin’ disliked a song he heard on the radio featuring “some guy whining about a broad who was treating him bad” (this is what this whole mixed tape would be about. Unwhiny break up songs).

2.) According to Slash: “People think it’s about one of our old girlfriends, but it’s actually about Axl’s dog.”

Axl, who, as I mentioned, did not write it, stated “”This is the only song we’ve ever written that’s like, totally out of a fantasy. Sometimes you think about it when your girlfriend or boyfriend is being a real pain in the ass, and you just wanna cut her f***in head off and bury it in the back yard.”

Leave it to G N’R to never get a straight answer about what is going on, but I imagine a number of busted up guys have sang along to this at full volume while driving down the interstate.

Used to Love Her

15.) 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS- YOU’RE GONNA MISS ME

I still feel kind of bad that I didn’t stick my boy, Roky Erickson, on the garage rock mix. So, here it is. There is nothing whiny about this song, but it is used at the beginning of High Fidelity when John Cusack is being all mopey about his girlfriend leaving. Don’t get me wrong, I like the movie, but is not really in the spirit of this list (except for that scene where he imagines beating the shit out of Tim Robbins).

The song is just letting a girl know that she completely fucked up by leaving, a sentiment usually felt by all, but unstated due to peoples’ self-esteem issues. A true garage rock anthem for the downtrodden.

You’re Gonna Miss Me

16.) NANCY SINATRA- THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKING

Here you go. Yep, finally, a woman for you. What can I say? I’m a male and therefore cannot empathize with Natalie Imbruglia, or whatever. Sorry. It’s my short coming, not yours (that I find it difficult to empathize with women. Not Natalie Imbruglia. I was 100% right about that).

In this song, Nancy Sinatra is the aggressor who seeks revenge for her ex’s infidelity (quite different that her cover of “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me down”)). The chorus’ catch phrase sound like something some film noir dame would have fired back in some rapid fire Dashiell Hammett dialogue. Sinatra says “Lee Hazlewood wrote ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ for himself. But I told him, ‘It’s better for a girl to sing it, because when you sing it, it sounds mean. When I sing it, it will be sexy and cute.’”

Men have tried it. Billy Ray Cyrus did a predictably shitty version. The weirdest is easily Crispin Glover’s version. Seriously, click that link in the previous sentence. Megadeth did it too. I learned it from Full Metal Jacket when I was young.

These Boots Are Made For Walkin’

17.) MARVIN GAYE- HERE, MY DEAR

Okay, there is no really great sadistic break up song off of Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear album. But the album itself was possibly the greatest concept in the history of break ups. Gaye was married to Anna Gordy, the older sister of Motown founder, Berry Gordy. The relationship fell apart as every relationship a musician has ever been in has, and Marvin’s lawyer came up with an interesting financial settlement: Half of the royalties from his next album would go to his ex-wife. Gaye agreed and went to work on a lazy record that he would not put his heart into. In fact, he was determined to make a flat out BAD record. However, as he started working, his emotions took over, and there was a whole batch of bitter post-break up songs that started pouring out of him.

As a result, the aptly titled Here, My Dear was created. Anna Gordy considered suing Gaye for invasion of privacy, which is as perfect of a reaction as any sadistic break up song can provide. Five years later, Gaye was killed by his father with a gun he had bought his dad four months earlier. Gaye’s dad had a brain tumor which may have had something to do with it. Gaye’s singing partner, Tammy Terrell, also had a brain tumor which killed her in 1970. Gaye tried to kill himself due to depression, but was stopped by Anna Gordy’s father, whose daughter and son would both end up hating Gaye. Shakespeare never had a subject as interesting as Marvin Gaye. –(TMFTG)

Here, My Dear

Note: If you wish to leave a comment and there is no comment box below, then you must click on this article’s title at the top. Then a comment box will become available at the bottom of the article. If there is a comment box below, you’re already there.

In reality, this list is just my top 30 stand-up comedians. Recently, some girl argued to me that Dane Cook was the funniest comedian of all time. I already mentioned his rip off methods in my ripped off songs list, but even when you take his stolen material away…..he ain’t funny. I told her I could name a hundred stand-ups better than Cook (though I can name a helluva lot more than that) but decided that would be quite tedious to do. I even believe that Tom Green’s stand-up material was far superior to Cook’s.

Actually, I find that clip hysterical. Anytime a comedian takes stage with the goal of making an audience feel uncomfortable, I feel it’s really the pinnacle of live shows. Yes, that does mean that Andy Kaufman will be on this list.

People on this list are there solely for their careers as stand-ups, not their movies or anything else. My apologies to those I didn’t squeeze on there, such as Paul Moody, Paul F. Tompkins, Larry David, Henny Youngman, Norm Macdonald, Sarah Silverman, The Sklar Brothers, Bobcat Goldthwait, Eddie Izzard, Gary Shandling, Redd Foxx, Russell Brand, Woody Allen, etc.

Whether you agree or disagree with me, at least there is two hours of good stand-up comedy material in videos below.

30. NEIL HAMBURGER

You either love him or hate him. The following clip is the first glimpse I ever got of him, just before I saw him live about five years ago. I was on the floor. Other people roll their eyes. YES, he is supposed to get that reaction. Comedy should be behavioral science, and jokes like “What is the only thing worse than a new album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers? 9/11” get the reactions any interesting comic should garnish. He even effectively spoofs the idea of the tag line, constantly spouting “but THAT’s my life!”

He’s a true comedian’s comedian, which you can tell from this clip. The audience is groaning/offended by most of it, but when they cut to Patton Oswalt at the 3:45 mark, he is losing it. Meanwhile, Yoko Ono, who is sitting next to Patton looks completely uncomfortable. That is a good definition for a solid comic: Patton Oswalt laughs and Yoko Ono doesn’t get it.

29. JERRY SEINFELD

Here are two facts. 1.) If you do not curse in your act, you have to work a lot harder to be funny. 2.) You can still be one of the best without swearing, but you likely won’t be THE best.

I honestly don’t like comedians who swear all of the time, but I do like the ones who do it for effect when it is most necessary. Seinfeld won’t do it and he is talented enough to be funny without it. He basically popularized observational humor; the bits that start with the “You ever notice…” or “What’s the deal…” You can really only go so far with an act like that. You aren’t going to break down any doors on the revolutionary front. You just want to make people laugh. Seinfeld did succeed on two fronts. He has had a long, celebrated career as a stand-up comedian and had one of the funniest shows in the history of the vacuous television sitcom genre, a show that the brilliant behavior scientist/front man, Ian Svenonius, credits for the gentrification of the United States’ major cities.

Seinfeld’s stand-up does make me laugh, yet the routines he chose for the beginning of Seinfeld episodes never came out as well.

28. BILL COSBY

Cosby is also clean, but he is much funnier when you’re fucked up. Truth be told, I’m not sure he could make it today. He was silly, but wouldn’t commit to going over the top. He did observations, but those observations didn’t run too deep. Yet, the Coz had some intangible that is tough to place. You almost laugh at him the way you’d laugh at your dad when you were four, or your friend’s dad when you were fourteen.

He is a comic who is probably better known for his sitcom than his stand-up. The sitcom was called revolutionary because apparently people were shocked to learn that black people wear sweatpants and have televisions.

This clip is as dirty as I ever heard the Coz get.

27. JOE ROGAN

If you need to get the taste of “clean” comedy from the last two comedians out of your mouth, well, all I have to say is this. Rogan is as vulgar as a comedian gets and he makes no bones about it. I was quite bummed that he got reduced to sloppy seconds on The Man Show but it does no comedian any good to die an unknown martyr. I will always give him his proper for the wonderful way he busted out Carlos Mencia for his sinful larceny. Rogan also went after Denis Leary for ripping off Bill Hicks and Dane Cook to stealing his own “Tigers Fucking” sketch.

You know what you are going to get with Rogan: Black and blue comedy with a lot of pejoratives and epithets. The world needs ‘em, and there aren’t many better than him at it.

26. BILL BAILEY

A number of people would probably chastise me for putting Bailey on and leaving Eddie Izzard off. It’s definitely a personal thing. I cannot argue that it is universal that Bailey is funnier, but the self-described “troll” has a nerd-out method that cracks me up.

In 2007, a petition was started to express fans’ wishes to see him cast as a dwarf in the 2010 film The Hobbit, after his stand-up routine mentioned auditioning for Gimli in The Lord of the Rings. The petition reached its goal in the early days of January, and was sent to the producers. It was hoped that as the Tinselworm tour took him to Wellington in New Zealand where the film is in pre-production, that he would be able to audition.

An avid Star Trek fan, he named his son (born 2003) after the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character Dax and often refers to himself as a Klingon (once claiming during his “Part Troll” tour that his ear-mounted microphone made him resemble “a wizard in a call center” and “a Klingon motivational speaker”).

All this, plus he gets his licks in on U2.

25. DAVE ATTELL

Another blue humored comedian, much like Joe Rogan. In fact, if you took my mom to a routine by each of the 30 comedians on this list, it would be between Attell and Rogan for which one she walked out on first. He is probably known to many as the guy on Comedy Central’s Insomniac. One of my big regrets in this life is missing the triple bill tour of Attell, Lewis Black, and Mitch Hedburg. His routine usually consists of sex, drugs, and……more sex and drugs.

I would not want to listen to six hours of Attell humor on a long car ride, but he can split my gut for about forty-five minutes. That’s really all I ask for from a comic.

24. BRIAN POSEHN

He is kind of relegated to “also ran” status a lot because he has ran in the comedic circles of bigger names such as Patton Oswalt, David Cross, Sarah Silverman, and Zach Galifianakis. But he is funny in his own right. Hey, metal heads like comedy too. It says something about a comedian when he makes you realize something about yourself that you never realized before. Brian did that for me when he asked, “Did you ever get that thing where you see a girl that was so hot that it made you mad?” Why, yes, I did.

He also was in the awesome sketch comedy show, Mr. Show, and paid his bills with that other show, Just Shoot Me.

23. RICKY GERVAIS

This is not set up/punch line comedy. Instead, all he is doing is reading The Bible and responding to what is occurring. Every part he plays, from The Office to The Invention of Lying, has him cast as an idiot, but he is quite the opposite. First off, he is one of Louis CK’s best friends, so I already know that he’s pretty intelligent. Second off (and I’m going to alienate a lot of you here), he was funnier in the British version of The Office than anyone was in the American version. Yeah, yeah, no one agrees with me, “Steve Carell is God”, and all that good stuff. Sorry. Gervais is funnier.

You can tell that he has his stand up acts really thought out. He treats them like they are a dissertation; it’s never some bit that he wrote on the way to the show. He succeeds on all the levels that Demetri Martin only occasionally succeeds on. I love it when a stand up can combine humor with historical references, and Gervais might be the best at this.

22. BILL BURR

Burr is just flat out funny in the traditional way. He has bits about people, relationships, and everything that consists of everyday life, and he is just plain funny. I see him as a poor man’s Louis CK, but that is not a knock when you consider how great I think CK is. His material is adequate, but it is his timing that separates him from the funny guy in the high school cafeteria.
He has that high pitched voice that almost makes me laugh before he hits a punch line. He reminds me of that squirrely guy who worships Vigo in Ghostbusters II.

21. JIM CARREY

I don’t need to hear any of his observations or theories on life. I don’t ever need to hear him say a punch line to a joke. In fact, most of his comedic films are pretty excruciating for me (I do have a soft spot for Dumb and Dumber). However, he is the only comedian I go to for impressions. I usually hate impressions. They are stupid, cheap laughs that people only like because they are easy to recognize. That is, unless you are the best. Jim Carrey certainly is the best.

It says something when somebody is so good at something that you don’t normally like, that you actually like it. Truth be told, the guy is probably better at drama than comedy when it comes to acting. But in the eighties, he knew what he was and his execution was perfect. Below I have three videos. It is not because I think he is better than all the other comics (my #21 should prove that), but because he caught lightening in a bottle and, rather than show some ten minute clip filled with other junk, I wanted to show those perfect impressions that converted me for a couple minutes.

20. LEWIS BLACK

He is not quite Bill Hicks and not quite George Carlin, but he plays the “mad as hell” every man pretty damn well. I could not nab a live performance with video of his hate for Super Bowl Halftime Shows (before they went to McCartney, Springsteen, The Who, Petty) which I really wanted to show. He might have had a better showing on this list, but I thought his most recent comedy special (“Stark Raving Black”) was really poor.

I saw him a number of years ago at an outdoor venue with multiple stages. The stage next to him had a band playing, which does not work for comedy. Also, he was performing the same full act I had seen on Comedy Central the night before. Youtube really destroyed comedians. You can write a bit on Thursday, perform it on Friday, have someone stick it on youtube Friday night, perform it on Saturday, and have someone in the crowd yelling that you’re doing old material.

The Daily Show was always better on the episodes where they had “Back In Black” segments.

19. JIM JEFFRIES

I am considering making it a rule that I stick at least one Aussie on every list I do. I had The Road Warrior on the last list and it is like my therapy for getting over an old girlfriend who got with an Aussie right after we broke up. Actually, I don’t really care about any of that.

Jim Jeffries is an Aussie. He is a former opera singer who survived penile cancer. That alone should provide a man enough material to fill three comedy albums. He competes with Chris Rock and Sam Kinison for loudest comic on this list. He makes it on this list because I have quoted him numerous times, and if it truly is the greatest form of flattery, I can’t keep him off.

18. ZACH GALIFIANAKIS

Here is a classic GCBM (God Comic, Bad Movies). Yeah, he was in The Hangover and had a cup of coffee in Into The Wild, but he was in about twenty other shitty movies. I forgive him due to his weird, off color stand up routine. He’ll berate audience members and just go on tangents of one-liners, often while playing piano. He also appears to be very anti-Dane Cook as judged by the end of this Annie routine.

The Hangover is the kind of movie where you can almost kiss a good stand-up comedian goodbye. Once they start getting leading roles, they realize they don’t have to face the insane pressures of the live show, and they’re out of there. I really hope that’s not the case, but I would expect his live performances to dwindle. Plus, it is much harder to seem weird and mysterious when everyone knows who the hell you are. If you go looking through Zach’s videos on youtube, you’ll see that he thrives on being off kilter in a way that being recognizable can easily hamper.

The only time I ever saw him serious was when he talked about the political right. His uncle ran and lost to Jesse Helms in North Carolina in the seventies.

17. DAVID CROSS

Man, me and my friends used to play Shut Up You Fucking Baby on a wheel when it came out. He was a founding member of Mr. Show and a main character on Arrested Development, which are two of the greatest comedic achievements in television history. I actually have a list of my top 30 Mr. Show sketches that may make it on here someday. And David doesn’t sugarcoat anything. In fact, he seems to hate most everybody.

It becomes draining liking David for so long. I hope he’s not losing it. I actually caught that new Will Arnett/Kerri Russell show last night because it followed Family Guy and I discovered two depressing things: 1.) It sucked ass. 2.) David Cross had a big unfunny part on it. Comedy is a young person’s game and David isn’t young anymore. I caught him live about a year ago. Yeah, it was good, but not as good as he was a decade ago. Very few ever get to be as funny as he (and Bob Odenkirk) was a decade ago. It is funny to watch him hate on Dane Cook, James Belushi, Scott Stapp, and Larry the Cable Guy, but I think he- and half of America- lost a big part of his act when Bush left office. It seems to have taken some of the venom out of peoples’ teeth even though the country is still a messed up place to be.

I still like David and, in fact, the clip here is from his new stuff. I’m just on edge because I’m worried a bunch of comics I love who came along during the comedy boom are heading down and there is no one there to take their place (hence, Dane Cook love).

16. PATTON OSWALT

I swear it’s a coincidence that three comics who are so closely associated were listed right in a row. Oswalt is a lot like Cross except that he is more optimistic and more personable. Don’t get me wrong, he still has a lot of hate saved up, but he has a more cheery disposition. Like the two previous comedians, I’m also a bit nervous about his future. He’s a family man now, and once comedians find normalcy they have a tendency of being God awful (sans Louis CK).

Patton has a lot better acting chops than the previous two comedians. His work in Big Fan was dramatically better than most comedians could ever hope. That said, he was stuck on that King of Queens turd. Sitcoms have a 1.2% chance of being funny, yet every comic has to give it a go. I guess that’s where the money is when you are young and broke.

Patton’s riffs on KFC, wanting to kill George Lucas, and eighties metal bands are as good as any bits out there. He has some clunkers that go on too long (see: His “I hate…” text message bit. That’s the one that makes me nervous that he’s losing it), but he gives a lot of gems and usually serves as MC for The Comedians of Comedy acts, which he founded. If comedians had a union, there is a good chance that he would be the head of it.

15. DON RICKLES

Mr. Warmth. This clip says it all for me. First, it shows why Robin Williams is NOT on this list (because he lacks the ability to ever be subtle or tongue-in-cheek), then shows Don going off. The clip starts off slow, but Don takes over and does what no one else would ever consider doing: He shows up at a CHARITY event, starts in with the racial and ethnic humor, then makes fun of audience members (weight and ugly wife), then tells everyone to lighten the fuck up. 99% of the population would be issuing an apology on national television if there was video of them saying what Rickles says, but Don set the precedent and can get away with murder.

It is natural to watch Rickles rip everyone a new one at the roast of Bob Hope. What I can’t figure out is what the hell Ronald Reagan, Omar Bradley, and Billy Graham (yes, the Christian due, not the Fillmore dude) are doing at a roast. Different times.

Don Rickles is an institution and, unlike most, he deserves to be. I’m guessing that watching him on Carson all those years was for many people the equivalent I got from Bob Uecker. Rickles also somehow played it straight in Martin Scorsese’s Casino and cracks me up in Dirty Work.

14. RODNEY DANGERFIELD

It doesn’t matter what Dangerfield clip I choose. You know what you’re getting: A bunch of one liners coming at you rapid fire that usually rip on himself or his wife. Plus, he probably has the most famous catch phrase in stand-up history, “No respect.” I don’t really care for the phrase since it always serves as some clap trap that everyone starts applauding (along with any mention of his doctor, Dr. Vinnie Boombatz- who Andy Kaufman actually played in a sketch years later). But it only got famous because Rodney was that good.

Rodney, Steven Wright, and Mitch Hedburg are the three comedians where if you don’t like a joke, just wait 2 seconds, there’s another one coming. You never get caught in any long-winded 8 minute bits that leave you unsatisfied. When he is on a roll, he can get more laughs a minute than anybody. He never deviated from this formula. Even in Caddyshack and Back to School, he was still spewing out one-liners even though he had some plot-developing responsibilities. He’s also respected by the comic community because of his club, Dangerfield’s, that helped spring many comedians over the years.

The only deviation I ever saw from the “No Respect” persona was that deranged abusive dad that he played in Natural Born Killers. Creepy stuff.

13. CHRIS ROCK

Is he loud? Yes. Does he repeat the thesis statement to his bits over and over again? Yep. Is he one of the best? Yessir. Chris Rock is one of those comedians who can get his crowd so riled up that he can simply drop the mic and put his hands in the air at the end of his set, and pull it off. He’s like a ball of amphetamines pacing the stage. Dane Cook wishes he had Rock’s ability. All Cook has is the energy, but Rock is the real deal.

He may have been one of the most misused cast members in the history of SNL. While Rob Schneider was the lead actor in so many sketches, Rock only got the Nat X sketches. His filmography is kind of shitty, his best film was probably playing a crack head that gets killed in New Jack City, but he is meant to be on stage in front of a live crowd, not in prerecorded scenes. He feeds off of electricity more than any other comic on this list.

12. STEVEN WRIGHT

The greatest voice in comedy, as you can tell in his role as the K-BILLYS radio host in Reservoir Dogs. He is another one of those comedians- a la Dangerfield and Hedburg- where you know exactly what you are going to get. He and Hedburg are almost the same comedian (though they have very different vocal stylings) and it is only personal experiences that has Hedburg rated higher.

Wright was the first comedian to bust out of the Boston comedy scene that included Bobcat Goldthwait, Denis Leary, and others. He got the first shot because he was selected to be on The Tonight Show, as documented in the documentary, When Stand Up Stood Out. I am not sure his comedy would be funny with a normal delivery. It’s that voice that allows him to get away with so much. When somebody has just woke up after a long night of drinking and they just sit up in bed, mumble a one-liner, and fall back to sleep, it is infinitely funnier than if they had spouted that one-liner in the day time while fully awake. That’s kind of the way that Steven’s comedy works.

11. EDDIE MURPHY

He was perhaps the biggest individual star in the history of stand-up comedy. Murphy was untouchable in the early to mid eighties. For God’s sake, The Golden Child was the number one film in America for a while. That’s how big he was. He was also probably the only thing that let Saturday Night Live survive in the post Belushi, Ackroyd, Chase years before they finally got a cast again in the early nineties (sincerest apologies, Joe Piscopo). Check out his outfits in his stand up specials, Raw and Delirious. The only heterosexual who can get away with those outfits is one who is sitting on top of the world.

Hell, he was so good that his stuff actually translated to the big screen. Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours, and Coming to America are all classics. Of the top 10 comedians on this list, only Steve Martin (The Jerk, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Parenthood, LA Story) could compete with Murphy’s film work. Murphy is what bridged the gap between Pryor and Chappelle/Rock. In fact, he was the one who discovered Rock.

His stand-up was the kind that you could watch with your dad on one occasion and your high school friends on another occasion. He somehow was able to combine hard edged and silly, which is a very broad line. This might be my favorite clip because there is one real truth: white people are definitely jacked after seeing a Rocky movie.

10. SAM KINISON

I talked about Sam quite a bit on my last list due to his Back to School freak out. I even inserted a link to the clip that I am using here. It’s just one of the greatest bits of all time (I just wish there was a better version on youtube). I don’t know how he got away with these outfits, like he’s Axl Rose or something. Maybe that’s why Andrew Dice Clay got so big. Everyone saw Kinison’s outfits and decided that the guy in the leather jacket was preferable. Too bad. That Kinison scream is the only punch line I ever need to hear.

He died in a car accident. He was sober too. The other driver was drunk. I bet most people figured that Kinison wouldn’t die of natural causes, but this was not the way they would have figured. Yeah, he was a sleazy dude who dated twins and hung out on Howard Stern’s show. Kind of a funny way for a guy to end up who was originally a Christian Minister. No bull! He was an ordained Pentecostal Minister. His preaching style was pretty much the same as his comedic style. Talk about a fine line. He later played Al Bundy’s guardian angel on the Married With Children Christmas special It’s a Bundyful Life. Sam was actually the first choice to play Al Bundy with Roseanne cast as his wife. Chew on that for a minute.

No one has ever confused Sam’s voice with anyone else’s. I wonder what he would of come up with as he aged.

9. DAVE CHAPPELLE

I don’t know if I have heard a more overplayed comedy record than Dave Chappelle’s Killen’ Them Softly……and yet it’s still funny. He was the funniest man on the planet with the funniest show, and then he cracked like any sane person would under the same circumstances. He ran off to South Africa and his appearances have been few and far between ever since. That’s a typical genius thing. The next two comics on this list dove into drugs, but Chappelle just wanted to get away. Despite that, he is still the funniest Muslim on the planet.

I had a professor in college who insisted that he would love to teach a class on Chappelle’s Show, since the show says as much about society as it is funny. It’s kind of unfortunate that the “I’m Rick James, bitch” line got so famous because it distracted from what made the show so good. Besides, I always was partial to the Prince sketch. Chappelle berated an audience in Sacramento for constantly yelling the tag line. He then said they were too stupid to get his show. That’s kind of harsh, but I don’t think that anything he said was wrong. Dave is too clever to be reduced to catch phrases.

He said that his show was taking away from his opportunity to do stand-up, which is what he loves most. I’m hoping that was true and he gets back on the stand-up horse soon. I know he has a cameo in the upcoming Green Hornet, or whatever, but I miss seeing Dave do his thing. I get the feeling he’ll be back, but it might still be a while.

This clip still kills me. Yeah, we were brainwashed as kids.

8. MITCH HEDBERG

Like I said earlier, he and Steven Wright come from the same vein (I just realized how sick of a pun that could be, considering that Mitch died of a heroin overdose). Mitch usually wore shades on stage because he had such a severe case of stage fright. Perhaps that is the real difference between Wright and Hedburg; Wright looked bored at the audience and Mitch was nervously scared of them. There are actually online quizzes where you have to guess if the quote is by Mitch Hedburg or Steven Wright.

The true art to Mitch’s humor is to look at a situation and take it literally. We are a figurative society that does not think about what we say and why we say it, so Mitch’s words immediately seem askew and make us laugh. Just noting that Reece’s peanut butter cups have a possessive apostrophe or that someone has to name kitchen appliances is deeper than most people go. I wish he could have lived a long life like Dangerfield or Wright (knock on wood) so we could have gotten years more of his non sequiturs and paraprosdokians. Again, it doesn’t matter what clip I choose. There is no “greatest bit” for Hedburg. He just keeps them coming rapid fire.

7. RICHARD PRYOR

Known by many as the greatest, Pryor topped Comedy Central’s top 100 stand-up comics list. He’s not at number 7 because I don’t necessarily agree. It’s merely personal experience that makes any list subjective.

I became a Pryor fan watching the Pryor/Wilder comedies such as Silver Streak and Stir Crazy (which I’m sure is the film he’s referencing in this clip) along with other Pryor nuggets like Brewster’s Millions and Moving. Like most comics, his edge was fueled by his personal demons; he set himself on fire while freebasing coke and was hospitalized for six weeks and was accused of domestic abuse by four of his five wives. It was too bad that he was not able to star in Blazing Saddles, which he co-wrote, because the studio would not insure him. Cleavon Little did a swell job, but that would have been a true Pryor/Wilder classic.

As he said, he passed the torch to Dave Chappelle, and he was also the godfather to Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock. His performances were some of the most rawkus atmospheres in stand-up history.

6. GEORGE CARLIN

Carlin is seen as the greatest by many. I saw him in Las Vegas about 12 years ago. Yeah, he’d kind of lost it and was rehashing what he had said for so many years, but he really was a revolutionary. He bridged the gap between Bruce and Hicks, spouting off on why the world is messed up and why everyone is a pussy. He will probably be best known for the 7 words you can’t say on television, which I don’t think was his best routine, but maybe it’s because I wasn’t alive and don’t understand how shocking it was. His rants were really the best. Dennis Miller and Denis Leary could only stare in envy at how classic Carlin’s rants were. The clip below is a pretty good example. When I listen to Carlin, this is the stuff I want to here (not his “the difference between football and baseball” junk).

Carlin’s whole mantra of being an anti-sell out was what a whole sub sect of the culture had been waiting for. Yeah, he did have that shitty sitcom on FOX, but forty years of greatness can’t be washed away by that. In the new Joan Rivers documentary, she is performing at a George Carlin memorial show done after his death, and she remarks that the show is everything he would have hated: A black tie, hobnobbing affair in his memory. Yeah, I hope that would have pissed him off. I always want to think of him working beat coffeehouses in cellars across the country. It’s not that I feel every comic has to do it that way, but it works best for his style. I saw him at Bally’s in Vegas. I’m not sure that was quite right. Either way, he was a forefather in the art of the spoken word.

5. STEVE MARTIN

Did I put him too high on this list? Maybe. But he was the godfather of silly and I got way too much enjoyment listening to his stand up act when I was a kid. In fact, I was so dissatisfied with the Martin youtube clips available to me that I went and made my own video of “the plumber joke” which you can see below (though it is not labeled as such because youtube kept pulling it down). This gag is so stupid that it is brilliant.

I read Martin’s book, Born Standing Up. I have stood on a stage and looked out into the abyss and know how shitty it can be, but for some reason you figure that those who are silly and look like they’re having the most fun do not experience that misery. Nope. They all do. That’s why so many retire. All you see Martin do nowadays is play is banjo at legitimate musical performances and star in shitty comedies. He should probably try doing some more dramatic roles- like he did in The Spanish Prisoner- a la Jim Carrey.

So, I will likely never see Steve Martin the way he once was. But, man, that was a time and a place where he was the perfect guy at the perfect time in the post-hippie and post-Vietnam era when people needed to have someone who wasn’t intense and in their faces.

4. ANDY KAUFMAN

You either get him or you don’t. You either love him or despise him. Before Sacha Baron Cohen was the be all, end all, of behavioral science comedy, there was Andy. Yeah, sure, he got the REM song and the Jim Carrey movie done about him, but you can’t contain this guy in a song or a movie. I was so fascinated by this guy that I read three books about him when I was at an age where the thought of voluntarily reading was insane.

He was known for being on the show Taxi, impersonating Elvis, and wrestling women. He also intentionally bombed while on stage and his act never stopped, no matter where he went. There was no real Andy Kaufman. He was always playing a part.

The video below is not your typical stand up routine. Instead, Andy is doing a set when a heckler starts interfering with his routine which sets off a ten minute back and forth heated conversation between the two. Other people become uncomfortable and even start yelling at the heckler. Of course, as people are always one step behind Andy, the scene was a set up. The heckler was Kaufman’s writing partner, Bob Zmuda, whom I had the odd fortune of speaking to on the phone a decade ago. The lengths they take this routine to are the sort of things I’ve always tried to talk others into doing with me. No one is ever game. Everyone always gets scared. Andy and Bob were the two guys who never chickened out.

3. LENNY BRUCE

My friend said recently “I don’t think his stuff is very good.” Yeah, after fifty years of people building off of what he started, I guess his stuff would seem inferior. Babe Ruth probably couldn’t hit .250 in today’s game. Fritz Lang likely wouldn’t be able to figure out CGI. Edward Jenner would be lost taking the helm on a modern surgical procedure. But they all started it.

He spent most of the last decade of his life in court on obscenity trials. For more of this, check out Dustin Hoffman in the awesome 1974 biopic, Lenny. Check out this clip. Then he died of a heroin overdose, like Hedburg would. Youtube fails me in getting some great Lenny clips, which is not surprising when you consider that the fifties were not like today; there wasn’t a camera in every person’s hand taking it all in. So, instead, I am posting one of those retrospective videos where people say their peace about the man.

Bill Maher gets a little cut in against Lenny on the first line. He says that Bruce “forgot to be a comedian.” Damn, Bill, he was getting arrested for anything and everything. The world wouldn’t let him be a comedian. If they were as strict with your show as they were with Lenny, you’d be locked up and how funny would you be?

2. LOUIS CK

People have finally caught on. Just a couple years ago I would say to people that Louis CK was the funniest active comedian. Nobody seemed to know who the hell I was talking about. Now everyone is on that wavelength. No other comedian is able to make having kids funny. Comedians usually become lame when they have kids (I notice it starting to happen to Patton Oswalt), but Louis uses it to his advantage by damning his kids for life and announcing every fucked up thing they do.

He also has the best comedic show on television at the moment, Louie (I guess he chose the phonetic spelling so people got it right). The show’s first season had about a dozen moments that are as classic as anything Seinfeld ever made, and there are moments of surprising emotion when CK gets in conversations that make you realize that he and his friends are at an age where their life has been decided and they know what they will be doing until they die.

It is impossible to pick one Louis CK clip. I could have my own countdown of top 30 CK routines. If you go diving into youtube (which you should), you will be entertained with his stand up bits, his promos, his visits to Opie and Anthony, his appearance on The View, his writing for the MTV Movie Awards story, and a bunch of good stuff from the vault.

1. BILL HICKS

The master. The best. The edgiest. The funniest. A man I cannot label. A lot of people don’t laugh at his stuff. I’ve seen them not get it. He’s too edgy, too scary, too offensive. No- he’s perfect. People always claim to like someone who “tells it like it is.” No they don’t. If they did, Hicks would have been much more famous than he was. Instead, Denis Leary stole his routine and became famous. You know why Leary became more famous than Hicks? Because he turned it into a cutesy character where he went over the top with weird faces. People can swallow it if they don’t think you are serious. Bill never played a character. He was himself on stage and that threatened people. That’s why he got his performance taken off of Letterman. People can’t handle anything.

I can’t decide what clip to show. He’s too brilliant for one. I gave him two since he is my number one comic. If you trust me, go look up more. If you are already a Hicks fan, good for you. If you don’t like Hicks, you and I would probably not get along.

Hicks’s stuff was rarely focused on the everyday banalities of life. He placed greater emphasis on philosophical themes of existence. Most don’t have the gall to go there. It’s too bad he went so young. He died young, at age 32, of pancreatic cancer. In my opinion, he was never equaled before and has not been equaled after. (-TMFTG)

Note: If you wish to leave a comment and there is no comment box below, then you must click on this article’s title at the top. Then a comment box will become available at the bottom of the article. If there is a comment box below, you’re already there.