Hi-hum-ho-drum. Boadrum ’77, Boadrum ’88, Boadrum ’99. I never got into that band The Boredoms. I mean I loved their music, saw them dozens of times, but I was never accepted into the band as a member. Yamantaka Eye gave me many chances, but even as late as 2006, he was still shaking his head. “It’s not good” was all he could say, having never bothered to learn English (and why should he? So people like Billy Corgan and Kennedy from MTV could give him shit? This guy drove a bulldozer through a rock club once, he doesn’t need your approval). One of my greatest weaknesses is that I like to be right, and luckily, I usually am. But Yamantaka Eye was right: I really can’t play the drums. One drum I can manage. But two? Three? Come on. You guys must be faking that. I mean, how? Don’t you struggle with wingspan? I can’t reach from the snare to the ride cymbal, but I was playing on a full-size kit. I try to live my life full-size, however much it irritates the people around me, humans and birds alike.
Speaking of which, there are many birds in the canals of Venice. They’re dead and skeletal, trapped at the bottom, but they’re there. Often mischaracterized as “dinosaurs,” these were our peers, our rivals, our friends and family before your time and long past ours. Because if you haven’t picked up yet, I’ve been alive for over a 1000 years. I’m not sure when I was born, but the memories come back in packets like so much Old Earl Grey. I’ve never remembered anything before becoming a grown rooster, and that was during the Holy Roman Empire. I was living in Venice, and I was making a living selling fermented grapes and wheat byproducts to an underground alternate economy made up of animals and other “undiscovered” wildlife. There were rabbits, deer, large bears, and foxes, but they were dressed as if it were the Belle Epoque of 1890s Paris; this is where I get chronology confused, and I begin to mistrust time (my own timekeeping is impeccable).
But I know one thing: I’m back in Venice for the film festival, although the only movie I’ll see is Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine. I was there for the crying during the standing ovation, which actually lasted 37 minutes, not 15 (the press, as always, downplayed the situation), and I saw Benny and The Rock cry. I’ve seen Benny (a friend) cry before, but not Dwayne. I knew him a bit back in his professional wrestling days, an assistant on his rope-a-dope team (I’ll admit I never learned the lingo; all slang presented is the invention of the author alone). He refused to play the heel, and last night in Venice, his entire life came to a head. I saw it, even though I’m not a friend. The movie is good, too, you should see it in October—not quite drama, not quite documentary, an unclassifiable cinematic experience featuring one of the most emotionally bare performances in recent American movies.
I wasn’t paid for this “review,” but I’ll say it again: The Smashing Machine is a major American movie, an important movie, one you could call with some degree of authority a masterpiece. What confounds me is how to convey to you what I experienced last night in Venice, because for the most part, the contents of the night are unprintable. No one was signing any NDA’s in that cave. I have feathers but not enough to retire and fight libel lawsuits for the rest of my life. Have you ever heard what happened in Neil Young’s teepee? I don’t think so. Now, at some point, I’ll reveal what Michael Cera and I were doing in the water at six a.m. local time, close to drowning—and not just in water.
I’m just trying to keep my gig on The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth. I’m a wandering soul, a traveling spirit; I can’t stand six weeks of “hurry up and wait” for your next scenes. I’ve been told it’s always a possibility the schedule could change, but I’m not gonna live my life around that. That’s worshipping the maybes; I just focus on Yes and No. And for me, it’s Yes all the time. I hope My Sensei and My Director aren’t reading this—they want me back in Los Angeles—but if they do, they’ll know I’m being true to myself, authentic and free, wet and hopefully well enough to work when the time comes. In a few weeks. Seriously in a few weeks I’m not ready to come back yet. Shoot more takes. Go into the 200’s. I’m ready, Mr. Fincher.
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