God's mercy on you swine!
Jan. 16th, 2005 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7So.
I got out of work 7:45ish. Got home, sat around, changed clothes, moisturized, talked to sister #1 on the phone (see previous post).
Thought: It's a Saturday night.
Thought: I am bored and unable to really truly form coherent sentences.
Thought: I bet I know someone whose dazzlingly incoherent sentences would pick my mood right up.
So Dave and I drank the last bit of Singapore Sling (it's a complex recipe, so I'd mixed up all but the club soda and left it sitting in the freezer waiting to be poured out into two final servings), and we sat and watched:
One of the three commentary tracks on Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.
Which one to choose? Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp & Benicio Del Toro & the producer, or....
Well. Of course we chose this one: Hunter S. Thompson and the producer. And... well, there were innumerable other things on that audio track, apparently recorded live in a single sitting. Including the incomparable Anita (his companion in Naked Bowling and in his column on ESPN's Page 2). And other strange people who keep wandering in totally unexplained.
Parts of it were so stupid. The producer is this earnest chick who keeps asking somewhat repetitive questions that were probably quite well-thought-out at one point but fly like little lead balloons into the incomprehensible rambling. And randomly, some history professor phones up and asks, on poorly-recorded speakerphone, the kind of interminable questions that people who like to hear themselves talk ask. This is all through the scene with Gonzo in the tub with the knife and "White Rabbit" playing and Duke flings the grapefruit at his head--- and this interminable bore is mumbling on incoherently about, like, Thompson's enduring iconic status. Or some shit. And Thompson's audibly just drinking himself into a stupor. And Del Toro's thrashing, and White Rabbit is peaking, and it's some of the movie's most intense parts, and this guy is just droning on and on. I mean seriously. I should go back and listen and figure out what the fuck his name was and send him hate letters.
But there are some parts that are just wonderful.
At one point Thompson gets bored, and so he starts playing with his speed-dial on speakerphone. First call, a woman picks up. "Hello?"
"What!!" Thompson shouts, and slams down the phone.
Then he speed-dials Johnny Depp. Depp doesn't answer, a machine does. Thompson says, "God damn! What in the hell is that thing?" and hangs up.
Then he dials Benicio Del Toro's number, and gets another machine. "You Nazi motherfucker," Thompson says. "We will discuss this when you call me."
Other moments are hilarious as well. There are some amusingly bitter rants by Thompson, about Gilliam (the director), about the latent homoeroticism of the movie, about what a fucking sellout Leary was. Thompson repeatedly rants angrily about how he would never, never, never throw change at a dwarf. Or waiter. Or any sort of serving person. "Maybe I'd give him nothing," he says angrily, his ire rising audibly. "Maybe I'd demand he pay me because his service is so lousy. But that? That I'd never do."
The whole track is puncutated by the sounds of ice cubes clinking in glass and the distinctive thunk as the glass is set down on the coffee table.
"I really wanted to ask you what you thought of this angel," the producer says, as the shitty car pulls away from the restaurant in the almost-opening scene. "This angel, with the burning sword."
"What angel?" Thompson demands. Sure enough, there is an angel, clad in gauzy white, with a flaming sword. "Well God damn," Thompson says, "I never noticed it before."
And periodically, Thompson just shrieks. Sometimes he screams. Often he whoops. Sometimes, he howls. Usually, for no reason whatsoever. Often, for prolonged periods. Very occasionally, when the producer is in the middle of asking another overly-earnest question. Crazy like a fox, that one. I probably would've overdone it and shrieked right through that goddamn telephone professor's entire bit. Heh, I am not old and wily.
At the end, the producer, a little over-earnestly, asks Thompson what message he wants to give the young people.
"You poor, poor bastards," he says, and gives a gravelly laugh.
I need an icon that says "God's mercy on you swine!" even though they cut that scene from the movie. It's my favorite thing to say to people. In that retrospective, in-your-head kind of way. Though, we actually did roll down the windows and shout it as we crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge when we moved out of Westchester.
Ahhh... Yes. It was a good way to spend a Saturday night. Then we went to Louie's Texas Red Hots over on Delaware, and I had a milkshake. I had been feeling peckish all through the movie (Room Service came in and I suddenly craved shrimp cocktail, and not even the copious Gonzo vomit scenes could put me off), and then they were in the North Star Diner threatening the waitress, and I thought... I require Louie's french fries with the meat sauce on them. And a milkshake. Yes. Definitely.
So I had them. And a hot dog with everything. And I tipped the waitress generously. Because she was a good waitress. And I am ambivalent over whether I am glad to see these things from an insider's point of view or not. Yeesh.
I got out of work 7:45ish. Got home, sat around, changed clothes, moisturized, talked to sister #1 on the phone (see previous post).
Thought: It's a Saturday night.
Thought: I am bored and unable to really truly form coherent sentences.
Thought: I bet I know someone whose dazzlingly incoherent sentences would pick my mood right up.
So Dave and I drank the last bit of Singapore Sling (it's a complex recipe, so I'd mixed up all but the club soda and left it sitting in the freezer waiting to be poured out into two final servings), and we sat and watched:
One of the three commentary tracks on Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.
Which one to choose? Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp & Benicio Del Toro & the producer, or....
Well. Of course we chose this one: Hunter S. Thompson and the producer. And... well, there were innumerable other things on that audio track, apparently recorded live in a single sitting. Including the incomparable Anita (his companion in Naked Bowling and in his column on ESPN's Page 2). And other strange people who keep wandering in totally unexplained.
Parts of it were so stupid. The producer is this earnest chick who keeps asking somewhat repetitive questions that were probably quite well-thought-out at one point but fly like little lead balloons into the incomprehensible rambling. And randomly, some history professor phones up and asks, on poorly-recorded speakerphone, the kind of interminable questions that people who like to hear themselves talk ask. This is all through the scene with Gonzo in the tub with the knife and "White Rabbit" playing and Duke flings the grapefruit at his head--- and this interminable bore is mumbling on incoherently about, like, Thompson's enduring iconic status. Or some shit. And Thompson's audibly just drinking himself into a stupor. And Del Toro's thrashing, and White Rabbit is peaking, and it's some of the movie's most intense parts, and this guy is just droning on and on. I mean seriously. I should go back and listen and figure out what the fuck his name was and send him hate letters.
But there are some parts that are just wonderful.
At one point Thompson gets bored, and so he starts playing with his speed-dial on speakerphone. First call, a woman picks up. "Hello?"
"What!!" Thompson shouts, and slams down the phone.
Then he speed-dials Johnny Depp. Depp doesn't answer, a machine does. Thompson says, "God damn! What in the hell is that thing?" and hangs up.
Then he dials Benicio Del Toro's number, and gets another machine. "You Nazi motherfucker," Thompson says. "We will discuss this when you call me."
Other moments are hilarious as well. There are some amusingly bitter rants by Thompson, about Gilliam (the director), about the latent homoeroticism of the movie, about what a fucking sellout Leary was. Thompson repeatedly rants angrily about how he would never, never, never throw change at a dwarf. Or waiter. Or any sort of serving person. "Maybe I'd give him nothing," he says angrily, his ire rising audibly. "Maybe I'd demand he pay me because his service is so lousy. But that? That I'd never do."
The whole track is puncutated by the sounds of ice cubes clinking in glass and the distinctive thunk as the glass is set down on the coffee table.
"I really wanted to ask you what you thought of this angel," the producer says, as the shitty car pulls away from the restaurant in the almost-opening scene. "This angel, with the burning sword."
"What angel?" Thompson demands. Sure enough, there is an angel, clad in gauzy white, with a flaming sword. "Well God damn," Thompson says, "I never noticed it before."
And periodically, Thompson just shrieks. Sometimes he screams. Often he whoops. Sometimes, he howls. Usually, for no reason whatsoever. Often, for prolonged periods. Very occasionally, when the producer is in the middle of asking another overly-earnest question. Crazy like a fox, that one. I probably would've overdone it and shrieked right through that goddamn telephone professor's entire bit. Heh, I am not old and wily.
At the end, the producer, a little over-earnestly, asks Thompson what message he wants to give the young people.
"You poor, poor bastards," he says, and gives a gravelly laugh.
I need an icon that says "God's mercy on you swine!" even though they cut that scene from the movie. It's my favorite thing to say to people. In that retrospective, in-your-head kind of way. Though, we actually did roll down the windows and shout it as we crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge when we moved out of Westchester.
Ahhh... Yes. It was a good way to spend a Saturday night. Then we went to Louie's Texas Red Hots over on Delaware, and I had a milkshake. I had been feeling peckish all through the movie (Room Service came in and I suddenly craved shrimp cocktail, and not even the copious Gonzo vomit scenes could put me off), and then they were in the North Star Diner threatening the waitress, and I thought... I require Louie's french fries with the meat sauce on them. And a milkshake. Yes. Definitely.
So I had them. And a hot dog with everything. And I tipped the waitress generously. Because she was a good waitress. And I am ambivalent over whether I am glad to see these things from an insider's point of view or not. Yeesh.
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I think...
Date: 2005-01-16 06:16 pm (UTC)