About a month ago, I pfinished a screenplay. A short subject. A dark, depressing story about tragedy, rage and revenge. You can probably tell by the attached pfotos, that it took place in the old west. (By the way, wish me luck with the PAGE awards). I know, doesn't sound like me at all, but yes I did write it. Aren't you proud of me? Some of you who are reading this read that, and I thank you. All 3 of you.
The story, about an abused wife and a monster of a husband, takes place for the most part in a little house on the prairie, well more like a two room shack. I'm sure you can already imagine what it looks like.
In one scene, the wife is cooking dinner and I tell of a "small pot of nondescript stew" boiling on the stove. I know you're thinking-"What is this crap, this is supposed to be funny! Why are you wasting my time? Well, why are ya?" -Shut up and keep reading, every good tale needs a little backstory.
After I wrote that, I wondered why I wrote it, and then I started thinking about all of the cliche western movies and tv shows we have all been spoon fed our entire miserable lives.
Of course, we have no idea what things were really like back then, but I'm pretty sure the whores didn't have turquoise eye shadow and bouffant hairdos, or anti-gravity brazzzeeers engineered by Howard Hughes.
In the Old West of Hollywoodland, people of all stripes shared a clean, friendly boarding house together, run by a kindly rotund middle aged lady. Said rotund lady always spread her ginormous dining room table with a red gingham cloth and every one sat around it and shared a meal.
Yes.... the hot young widow and her troubled son, the lone wolf with something to prove who wanted to bone her, the old couple who were hard of hearing, and the token hired killer. They were all there.
Sharing a meal-and what was that meal??? Freaking Non-Descript Stew!!!! That's right.
I started thinking about every time I've ever watched a western and people are eating. It's gawdamm stew,- in a pot over an open fire-,- in a pretty white china tureen-even around a campfire in those nasty metal plates that they always scraped with a bigass wooden spoon to get every last drop!!!!
Scrape, scrape, SCRAPE AAAAAARRRGGHHH!!! Make it stop.
STEW, STEW, STEW!!!! WTF is up with that???
Weren't these people farmers? Weren't these people ranchers?? Why did they pump so many bullets into people trying to steal the cattle? What in the hell were the cattle for? Did they ship them to India to be worshiped or something?
Why don't ya ever see John Wayne gnawing on a big, greasy,blood drippin' T-bone??? Didn't Clint deserve better? No wonder our heroes of yore were always so pissed off. They never got anything decent to eat!
What about vegetables? Do you ever see any vegetables in a western besides a big steaming plate of boiled taters?
Was the only place to get a salad the craft services table????
And have you ever noticed what that "stew" looks like in the vivid, blazing technicolor of the 60's and 70's? It's a nasty orangey brown -kind of like that shag carpet that was all over mom and dad's swinging pad with the sunken living room.
Remember those cocktail parties? Where if you were lucky you got pizza from Pizza Hut-when it still came on a cardboard slab with a tent. And then when "the grown-ups" got a little wasted, you snuck downstairs and scooped up all the bridge mix and ate it till you puked, hiding the brazil nuts under your brothers pillow?? NO, you didn't do that? Um...ok, me neither.
But I digress, back to the horror of Hollywood Stew. Now where was I? Oh, yeah, the stew itself. Okay, so its gross, it's brownish orange, we've established that. Okay, lets move on to texture. Lumps-a whole lotta lumps. Any idea what they were??? Gawd only knows, and I hope he keeps the secret. Was it beef? Was it chicken? Was it goat? Ever wonder what they did with Old Yeller after Tommy Kirk shot him?? Hmmmmm. thoughts to ponder. We can only hope that some of those lumps were the all elusive veggies from the prior paragraph. Clint, John, Gary Cooper, everybody needs a balanced diet. Even cowboys and outlaws.
Think of the endless takes, the endless eating, the countless bottles of Maalox, and trips to the bathroom. Dear readers, pray for the health of our wild west heroes.
Until next time.
WG
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