There was an interesting episode of Beth and Dog on the Big Hunt (or whatever it's called) where they were helping the usual clueless hapless cheftestants, seen wandering around in circles haemorrhaging cash money before the Dog team came in to "fix" them. One guy in this particular clown shoe wearer's gallery distinguished himself as a special olympian par excellence by something he said. He was one of the auxiliary bunglers on a team of clownfish. Still, when he was introduced to Dog, he boldly shook his hand and said with blaring pride, "The name is Guy Cantero Senior, bailbondsman."
Who introduces themselves, who even styles themselves, as "Senior"?
A small man with a large problem it seems!
A man with a son with the same name as him.
In other words, a man with a swaggering ego.
Peewit also had a goatee and a ponytail, was in his late thirties. He looked like he'd just walked out of the comics shop after acquiring a $3000 "statue" of "Neil Gaiman's Angela" ("Michelangelo's David").
Dog said, "Guy, nice to meet you, heard about you." He was paring his nails and spitting a plug of tobacco when he said it, but he said it. Later of course Dog called him simply "your guy," and you could see that Duane's easy, freewheeling forgetting of the guy's name really stung and rankled old Guy Cantero Senior.
He was really miffed!!
He turned to the camera and said, "That especially hurts my feelings because my name is Guy –– Guy Cantero, Senior –– and Dog sort-of semi-forgot it. Well no let's call a spade a spade, he actually a hundred per cent forgot my name! And as it happens I am very defensive and sensitive about my name, you may have noticed that I pointedly add the name "Senior" to it when I say it. And now here comes Dog acting like I'm not a big fucking deal at all, like I'm not worthy of a name, like I've been kidding myself all my life. Aw geez."
The camera was not running at the time.
Dog was in L.A. that week. He turns up at the height of noon in L.A. wearing a full-length trenchcoat. Sweat much? Shrewd thinking bounty-man. I'd love to see the "gag reel" of some of these episodes –– Dog wilting from the heat, collapsing in the street from heat sickness, coughing up his tubercular lungs, grasping madly for his inhaler.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
"Moderation Displayed."
I've had a book wedged in a stack of books to "get around to" in my feverish pursuit of cultural advancement –– notes towards my leveling study of antebellum American fiction [facetious expression] –– about Washington Irving, by Edward Wagenknecht, the subtitle of which is "Moderation Displayed."
How, you wonder, could this possibly have anything to do with Dog Chapman?
Well.
Every time I see that book, I instinctively think of Dwayne Chapman's second book, When Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given. Dog likes this title When Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given enough that he sometimes works it into his back-seat pep-talks. Maybe he has remaindered copies he needs to puff some way and this is his best soapbox to pitch it: the back seat.
After all aren't we all selling ourselves in life? On the back seat?
Say the twain one after the other: "Moderation Displayed"; "When Mercy Is Shown..."
The two might have a passing resemblance, but of all the epithets floating freely for our use in this starry sky of a wonderful English language, "moderate" is not one I could ever in good conscience apply to Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Can you imagine him reading that sentence and looking all sad and offended, all droopy and miserable, and turning to Beth and saying, "Not fair! I'm moderate, right Bethy?"
"Darn tootin'! We both are! Fuckin' moderate!"
I mean can you imagine that golden scene that will never ever happen?
"So much for moderation."
Interestingly, in the course of checking the spelling of Edward Wagenknect's surname I happened to see his dates. He lived remarkably from 1900 to 2004! Uncommonly long for any man, let alone a literary man. His lit crit contemporaries were Pattee and Kitteredge, Brooks and Matthieson and Blair and DeVoto. Talk about Rip Van Winkle. A long life well lived.
(Although can a life writing lit crit be called "well lived"?)
Let us say it is so; I can take some solace in that; I still have sixty-four years to get my leveling study of antebellum American fiction [facetious expression] published.
How, you wonder, could this possibly have anything to do with Dog Chapman?
Well.
Every time I see that book, I instinctively think of Dwayne Chapman's second book, When Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given. Dog likes this title When Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given enough that he sometimes works it into his back-seat pep-talks. Maybe he has remaindered copies he needs to puff some way and this is his best soapbox to pitch it: the back seat.
After all aren't we all selling ourselves in life? On the back seat?
Say the twain one after the other: "Moderation Displayed"; "When Mercy Is Shown..."
The two might have a passing resemblance, but of all the epithets floating freely for our use in this starry sky of a wonderful English language, "moderate" is not one I could ever in good conscience apply to Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Can you imagine him reading that sentence and looking all sad and offended, all droopy and miserable, and turning to Beth and saying, "Not fair! I'm moderate, right Bethy?"
"Darn tootin'! We both are! Fuckin' moderate!"
I mean can you imagine that golden scene that will never ever happen?
"So much for moderation."
Interestingly, in the course of checking the spelling of Edward Wagenknect's surname I happened to see his dates. He lived remarkably from 1900 to 2004! Uncommonly long for any man, let alone a literary man. His lit crit contemporaries were Pattee and Kitteredge, Brooks and Matthieson and Blair and DeVoto. Talk about Rip Van Winkle. A long life well lived.
(Although can a life writing lit crit be called "well lived"?)
Let us say it is so; I can take some solace in that; I still have sixty-four years to get my leveling study of antebellum American fiction [facetious expression] published.
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