This is going to be a rambling shit of a column and I hope you won't hold it against DeadlyHippos. I certainly don't think the quality is reflective of the rest of our writers, or even of me. Then again, Robert De Niro did make Meet the Fockers, and Brendan Frasier made Encino Man, so we'll take the attitude of "get our paychecks and get the hell out of here."

...

I almost can't write any more after a beginning like that--I'm worried the writing won't measure down to the low standards I've set for myself. But, no more stalling.

Right now my TV screen is playing the final scenes of Deliverance, the echoes of "Dueling Banjos" playing host to the watery internment of the earthly remains of Drew, and the rapids approaching once more. In the most innocuous way possible, this film represents how I want to live my life. Clearly I don't want the actual lives of any of the characters, as tragedy befalls all of them in a distinct and in most cases disgusting way. Bobby is raped by a dirty hillbilly, Drew is killed, Lewis has his leg shattered and can never walk the same way again, Ed is forced to kill a man and is so severely traumatized by the whole series of events that he can't reintegrate himself into society, and the two dirty mountain boys are brutally murdered with hunting arrows. But there is some great appeal to a lawless brutish life spent scraping your existence out of the woods. The price you pay, it seems, is that even the most innocent encounter with another human being can end in a murderous rampage.

I spent most of these holidays wasting in the sludge of the bars of upstate New York and Boston. Was I driven there by the complacency of my shallow materialistic city life? No real physical work to do, and it's easy enough to forget that any other way to be has ever existed. It's enough to take the fight right out of you. Or is it just because bars are the only place a person can have a conversation these days. Other people around as background noise, and you can really say what you mean.

"Now let's you just drop them pants."
"Drop?"
"Just take 'em right off."
"Now what's this all--"
"Don't say nothin', just do it."
"But--"
"Them panties--take 'em off."

In any case, I have this movie playing in the background because I asked for it for Christmas, and received it.

"Don't ever do nothin' like this again. Don't come up here."

I also got the new Johnny Cash box set, Legend. And a subscription to Field & Stream.

"Goodbye Ed."
"Goodbye Bobby."
"I don't think I'll see you for awhile."

And a new belt with a big ol' belt buckle with a muskie jumping on it.

Aw, hell. This has been the best Christmas ever.

________________________