i think i'm finding a direction for this blog, and that is to profile curmudgeonly, self-hating, obsessive, ostensibly unlovable assholes in an attempt to make sense out of my reality. for lack of a better term, i will call them heroic assholes, until i come up with a more appropriate, catchier term. [it is also a way to distract myself from the bug bites i keep getting and the frustration of being unable to find any of the culprits for the past two weeks (the only empirical evidence we have are the bites on our ((mostly mine)) bodies.)] the reason i call them heroic assholes is because they are an archetype—they're bitter, caustic dicks to everyone around them and everyone who cares about them, or might have the potential to have some sort of emotional tie toward them, and yet has some sort of hidden redemptive personality flaw that ultimately wins people over. i'm not talking about assholes the way football jocks in high school were cocky assholes to make up for the fact that they were closet fags, but more so the way quiet, aged men have become assholes because life has let them down. i don't include myself among this category of assholes; i'm more of the incorrigible type right now. and if you think otherwise, you're probably wrong.
vincent gallo is at the top of my list of heroic assholes; more specifically, billy brown played by vincent gallo in buffalo 66. this was a difficult choice that i weighed over many years, but his character finally won me over, although i believe gallo actually loses heroic asshole points for trying to be such a blatant asshole in real life. (a girl i knew once, who lives with my friend trish, i can't even remember her name... said she met vincent gallo at some party and their conversation consisted of him telling her to shut up 90 percent of the time... i don't know her very well [see name, or lack thereof] so i don't know how credible her story is.) see his personal website here. i actually joined his message board at one point, in an attempt to spy on him and make note of all the shitty things he said to people, so we could happily persecute him at the Fanzine as our archenemy, but his message board is, unfortunately, no longer updated. he did, however, leave me with this:
Old messages will be occassionally pruned. However, if I notice any polluted messages, which usually come from bitter, jealous, ugly, poorly-hung men, who are unhappy at work and wished their whole life to be like me, I will remove these unproductive nasty little posts and I would like to say to these twisted queers and half-men, I feel sorry for you. All I ever wanted to do was be me. I hope one day you feel the same about yourself and release yourself from the petty, small-minded urges of polluting this message board and distracting its wonderful members. So go ahead and say whatever you want nasty about me, but know that we will all know by your insults just how small your pecker really is and how miserable your life has always been and how long it's been since any girl under 500 pounds responded to your cheap lines at the local pub.
As for girls who badmouth me, I don't know what I did to offend you, but I'm sorry. Please forgive me and be nice. My mom was mean. She never liked me. So have a heart.
With this all said, say whatever you want, but try to be productive and positive and friendly. It's nice to be friendly. I was friendly once. It felt real good.
if he'd have just stopped there i might have considered a gallo/billy brown double billling, but no—he had to go and do this. yes, that stands for vincent gallo merchandise dot com. it's the site where he sells everything from his tassled blue-leather jacket he got when he was 14 to his own personal copy of Yogi Berra's The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra (signed by vincent gallo, not by yogi berra). other items of interest on vgmerchandise.com—a puffy white coat with screened images of reagan (legend) and george w. bush (hero), an 8-track copy of "Fish Out of Water" by Chris Squire (of YES) that he supposedly played while having an affair with an older teenage girl who (also supposedly) wouldn't shut up. this item is also mysteriously signed not by chris squire or any member of yes, but by vincent gallo. in fact, there's a lot of items here that gallo owned that he thought would assist the market value of, by signing them in his own name. kind of like, for example, if i presented a friend with a copy of william vollmann's Whores for Gloria (of which i actually do have a copy signed by vollmann) with my own signature across the inside front page, in an attempt to increase the future nostalgic, and eventual resale value of the volume. well, i'm not vincent gallo. but all of this still might be forgivable in this realm if it weren't for the two bookend items on this page. the first one: a date with vincent gallo.
On my 14th birthday I went to see the film Rolling Thunder and had my biggest crush of all on the actress Linda Haynes. I wished and wished and wished everyday that I could meet all these girls. I thought of a lot of sexy things with Susan Blakely after seeing her in Lords of Flatbush. In my mind I could do with her anything I wanted to do. So believe me, I know and understand what it's like to wish and dream about spending time with a movie star. Doing things that couples do. Couples in love. At least couples where the guy is hot and knows how to handle a chick.
I, Vincent Gallo, star of such classics as Buffalo 66 and The Brown Bunny have decided to make myself available to all women. All women who can afford me, that is. For the modest fee of $50,000 plus expenses, I can fulfill the wish, dream, or fantasy of any naturally born female.
ok, well i myself would like to offer these services to women of all types. although i wouldn't be trying so hard to make myself look like a jerk. but not more so than his now famous offer for insemination:
Sperm is 100% guaranteed to be donated by Mr. Gallo who is drug, alcohol and disease free. If the purchaser of the sperm chooses the option of natural insemination, there is an additional charge of $500,000. However, if after being presented detailed photographs of the purchaser, Mr. Gallo may be willing to waive the natural insemination fee and charge only for the sperm itself. Those of you who have found this merchandise page are very well aware of Mr. Gallo's multiple talents, but to add further insight into the value of Mr. Gallo's sperm, aside from being multi talented in all creative fields, he was also multi talented as an athlete, winning several awards for performing in the games of baseball, football and hockey and making it to the professional level of grand prix motorcycle racing.
but even more so, this:
Mr. Gallo maintains the right to refuse sale of his sperm to those of extremely dark complexions. Though a fan of Franco Harris, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz and Lena Horne, Mr. Gallo does not want to be part of that type of integration. In fact, for the next 30 days, he is offering a $50,000 discount to any potential female purchaser who can prove she has naturally blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone who can prove a direct family link to any of the German soldiers of the mid-century will also receive this discount. Under the laws of the Jewish faith, a Jewish mother would qualify a baby to be deemed a member of the Jewish religion.
so he's decided acting like a royal asshole is the way to further his artistic/film career. but he's obviously over-reaching, being an asshole for its own sake, and nobody really believes he would say these things himself had he not had any sort of prior success and be semi-famous. so he loses heroic asshole points.
billy brown
billy brown is a lot closer to how gallo described himself, also on vgmerchandise.com site: "In his lifetime, Vincent has received only a few presents." i've actually dropped friends over the movie buffalo '66 in the past. billy brown is a heroic asshole in every sense of the term. he kidnaps layla (christina ricci) from the tap dance studio; steals her car; makes her get out of the car to clean the windows because they're dirty; figures out that he can't drive her car so he makes her get out again to drive (in effect, carjack) her own car; makes her stop the car so he can pee by a tree (Don't let me see you move one finger. Not one twitch or l'll come back. l'll choke you to death. l'll take a bite outta your cheek and l'll shit you out.); asks her to hold him then shoves her aside; makes her come to his parent's house to pretend like she's his wife; "hiya pop"; his dad, played by ben gazzara, turns away. "jan, your son is here."
other choice examples of H.A.: at the bowling alley, billy's former kingdom, talking with jan michael vincent (formerly of airwolf): "Who's the girl?" "I'm his wife." "She's not my wife. [laughing] I picked her up hitchhiking" "Five years in the joint, you don't waste any time, huh?" "You know me, right?"
also in the bowling alley, with christina ricci. CR: "Who's that girl?" BB: "Just some girl. Girlfriend l had."
- What happened to her?
l don't know. l'm a free guy, you know. That's not my style. l need to be free a little, so l let her go, you know?
- Oh.
Can l get a little room here? Why don't you go sit over there?
and another paramount H.A. example, in the denny's with christina ricci:
Let me tell you something. l don't care about you or your fuckin' hot chocolate. l don't need anybody. Did you hear what l said? Did you hear what l said this time? Want to know the truth ? l could have had any girl l wanted in school. Any girl l wanted. You know why l didn't have a girlfriend? Huh? Because there was nobody that l liked. Nobody that l liked. That's the truth. l could have had anybody. There was nobody that l liked, because girls stink. They stink. They're evil. And they're all bad, all of them. They're backstabbers like you. So, let's go, all right ?
so here we have one of the possible roots of H.A.-ism—yeah, it's juvenile and immature, but i can relate... to a certain point. you're a loser. nobody loved me. as we get older, the ground gets colder. billy brown at least, after saying all those shitty things, went out and bought heart cookies from the dunkin doughnuts at 4AM. so he has a secret, redemptive side to him—a sweet, honest, albeit still self-loathing, side. jimmy brown (ben gazzara) was a true asshole, with no sort of lighter side to him. just an unhappy bastard in a v-neck T-shirt. billy, however, was heroic—he just wanted someone to love him. maybe next column i won't spend so much time expounding on the real-life (i.e. jimmy brown) vincent gallo's assholish qualities. next column: john becker or red foreman, i haven't decided yet. i'm still incorrigible, however.
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