GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #26: OLD PEOPLE ARE KIND OF COOL

Not many of you know about my non-genre work. That's OK. I'm not Thad Beaumont or anything. While I love everything I write, even the clunkers, I'm not going to turn into a dick-stroking pretentious fuck. My fucked up horror and bizarro are obvious favorites of mine, but I DO write other things.


Namely "The Hand that Shook the World," which appeared in a literary magazine called THE BRACELET CHARM. (I'd post a link here, but it would seem that they're so old school that they don't have an internet presence, which is cool in its own way.) This story is narrated by a WWII soldier who just came home after the a-bombs were dropped on Japan, and he runs into an old man who tells him a story about how he was a drummer boy at Gettysburg in the Civil War.


When you think about it, history isn't just a string of events that happened. It's a collection of memories. The winners get to write history, of course. We all know that. But . . . that's not the whole truth, because sometimes the losers survive to throw their two-cents in. It's not much, but it's enough to make people doubt, which I greatly appreciate.


Today, in 2014, we look back and we recognize three generations who can tell us history: our own, our parents and our grandparents. Very few of us have great-grandparents who can do this. Yet, in an odd way, we do because our grandparents REMEMBER at least three generations before them.


I'm lucky enough to still have both of my grandparents on my mother's side still here. John and Shirley Kopoulos. They are full of stories. Gramps was born in 1927, and Grandma was born in 1930. They were alive to experience Prohibition. My grandfather tried to lie about his age to get into WWII (and failed). It's great to get those first-person accounts from them. All you have to do is listen and absorb.


But there's one extra step you can take. Both of my grandparents remember their grandparents, who were alive up to 100 years before their prime. Those are the stories that get REALLY interesting. For example, my great-grandfather used to run a shoe repair store. At one point, the place caught fire, and he was severely burned in it. So badly that all the skin on one of his hands was burned to the bone. How did the doctors fix it? BY SEWING HIS HAND INTO HIS STOMACH SO THE SKIN COULD GROW BACK. Can you imagine having something like that done to you? Of course I put that in a book once. It never got published, but it still had a profound effect on me.


But that's just a personal touch. If you still have your grandparents with you, and you're roughly the same age as me (thirty-six), then you have access to people who remember people who were born during the Civil War, maybe even earlier. Why are you not talking to them and asking for their knowledge?


Those who have actually read "The Hand that Shook the World" will have an objection: the old man in the wheelchair had lied about his involvement with Gettysburg. Yes, that is a real problem with history, but to be honest with you, I'm not too concerned with that. Remember, ALL of history is a recollection of individuals. How can you know for sure what really happened?


You can only be sure of the quality of the story you just heard. There are a lot of old people still around. Ask them questions. Learn a thing or two. You never know: your grandfather's dad might have met someone like Teddy Roosevelt, and how awesome would that be?


My grandmother isn't very vocal about the past, but my grandfather has great stories. I think I'll tell a few of them in the near future. Because let's face it, famous people from the past are ONLY famous because enough people thought it was important to tell stories about them.























Still with me? OK, if I've peaked your interest in "The Hand that Shook the World," it can be found in THE BRACELET CHARM Quarterly Winter Edition 2012. I've marketed this story longer than ANY other story I've written. Seriously, it took me fifteen years to find a home for it, and I'm glad I did. It's possible to find it online, but it's not likely. I wish you the best of luck. And thank you, as always, for reading.

IT'S ONLY CALLED THAT BECAUSE IT'S THE PROTAGONIST'S DESTINATION? A review of NEBRASKA

Meet Woody Grant. He’s an incredibly damaged old man, though he doesn’t seem to be aware of it. After a lifetime of drowning in booze and hurting his loved ones and friends, he finds himself in his golden years, saddled with a wife he doesn’t particularly care for, father to two sons he doesn’t really know much about and living an existence without a point until the one day he receives a letter in the mail stating that he has won $1 million.

Well, technically it says that he’s won the dough provided he has the winning numbers, but he doesn’t pay much attention to that part. He’s decided that this is a sure thing, and he doesn’t want to trust the mail with something as important as this; he has to go to their HQ in Nebraska, where he intends to collect his million in person. The only problem is, no one will take him. He doesn’t have a driver’s license (it’s never explained why, but it’s heavily suggested that it was taken away from him due to a series of DUI’s), so his only choice is to walk.

The police keep bringing him back, but like a POW in a WWII prison camp, he’s got a one-track mind: escape. His wife Kate chews him out. His son, Ross, gets angry and starts suggesting that the old man needs to go in a home. The only one who feels sorry for him is Woody’s other son, David. David’s kind of a broken man, himself. He ekes out a living selling Bose speakers. His longtime girlfriend just left him. He’s a recovering alcoholic. He worries about his father, but when he sees that Woody isn’t going to give up, he decides to take a few days off from work to drive his father to the sweepstakes office in Nebraska. (They live in Montana.) Awkward humor and depression ensues.

Whenever you hear anything about NEBRASKA, it’s all about Bruce Dern’s masterful performance as Woody. Sure enough, Dern kicks a lot of ass. He nails the lost, inattentive old man perfectly, all at once vulnerable and a downright motherfucker. But in all reality, this is really David’s story. Played as a loveable, good-natured loser with the best intentions in mind by Will Forte, it’s not just a road trip to Nebraska. This is a journey of discovery. About himself. About his father. About his family.

David doesn’t really know much about himself or anyone else. He really wants to go to Nebraska so he could spend some time with his father. Woody’s getting up there, and who knows how much time he’s got left? David wants to know more about the man he calls “dad,” to find out where he, himself came from.

He learns quite a bit. Over the course of the film, he meets Ed Pegram, an old friend of Woody’s, who fills him in on how much of a deadbeat Woody really is. In an old cemetery, he stands with his mother as she points out all the graves of Woody’s parents and brothers, pointing out the sibling that David was named for, a poor boy who died at a very young age in the same bed as Woody. (She also points out the graves of people who tried to get in her knickers back in the day, the perfect, hilarious counterpoint to the melancholy of the dead. June Squibb, who plays Kate, brings a wonderful mixture of sternness and vulgarity to this film. You can’t get out of this scene without laughing awkwardly.)

David gets to see the house where his father grew up, an old, broken dwelling unfit for a bum. In many regards, it’s the wilting shadow of Woody. David also encounters an old girlfriend of his father’s and is shocked to find that her and his mother actually fought over his father. From her, he learns a bit about his father’s time in the army during the Korean War.

And then there’s the rest of the family. You see, they hear that Woody’s won a million bucks, not knowing that he’s actually being scammed. Now they’re looking back over the years of misery he’s caused them, and they all want a piece of the fortune, especially Ed Pegram, who says Woody owes him ten grand. (Ed’s played by the incredibly awesome Stacy Keach, with a dab of tough guy and a wallop of smug assholishness.) Soon, it becomes apparent that David doesn’t have anything in common with these people. He and his brother Ross, polar opposites, come off as the most well-grounded people in the movie. (Ross is played by Bob Odenkirk. He’s an ambitious guy, even though it’s a little bit late in his life to get what he wants. He comes off as a hard-ass with a heart of gold, especially in the scene when he and David decide to get their father’s air compressor back from Ed, a debt that has been 40 years in the making.)

Director Alexander Payne has his work cut out for him. It’s hard to take this hodgepodge of humor, tragedy and feel-good story and make it all stick together in a cohesive manner. This is the kind of thing that David Lynch could handle without a problem. The same for the Coen Brothers. Then again, Coen, Coen and Lynch are some of the greatest filmmakers alive today. Payne doesn’t have nearly the experience they do.

(Come to think of it, it would be really interesting to see what the Coens would have done with this movie. Same for Lynch. It’s exactly the kind of material they would go with, if only in their different ways.)

Thankfully, Payne is so familiar with the story that he might as well have written it himself. (He didn’t. The screenwriter’s name is Bob Nelson.) At first, the humor is rather dry, but once you get in sync with the film, you’ll laugh yourself hoarse, especially in scenes where others would be horrified, like the scene in which David and Woody are looking for Woody’s teeth, which he lost while in a drunken stupor by the railroad tracks.

NEBRASKA is beautifully shot with special attention paid to the environment. At first, it feels like Payne might be trying to pad out the movie, but as soon as you start feeling engulfed by the landscape, you know it’s worth the time. You feel like you’re there with the characters, even though everything is in glorious black and white.

There’s just one problem: the title is kind of bland. OK, so Nebraska is Woody and David’s destination, and as a result, about three-quarters of the movie happens there. But it’s just too generic for the story. It’s a small complaint, though. NEBRASKA is an excellent film. It’s great to see Bruce Dern back in action, even though he can’t hear much and he staggers, rather than walks. It’s even better to see Will Forte in a role like this. We all know he can do comedy, but now we know that he can play a little bit of tragedy, too. NEBRASKA is great. It’s not for everybody, but it should be. We might all end up like Woody some day, whose only purpose in life is to cash in a form letter for a million dollars. Everyone should give it a shot. Most will find it worth their time.

(Here’s a little trivia for you. You might recognize Woody’s brother, Ray. That’s because he’s played by veteran character actor Rance Howard. Both he and Dern appeared several times on GUNSMOKE. Come to think of it, they were in THE ‘BURBS together, too. Small world.)