My brothers and I speak Old Movie. It's like regular language, only better. Some people speak gibberish and pig Latin, and often we speak in subtle and not-so-subtle profanity. But, our true medium is made up of quotes from obscure and not-so-obscure movies.Our favorites include The Cowboys, Airplane, Blazing Saddles, and Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. One of my brothers set his phone's ringtone to Slim Pickens riding the nuke in the end of Dr. Strangelove. Every time his phone rings in his pocket, his butt cheek screams, "Yeeeeeehaaaawwww! Yaw!!!!!! Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh!"
It's fucking classic.
There is also one other film that rounds out the top five quotable movies for us: Repo Man, a true American classic by executive producer Michael Nesmith. Yes, THAT Michael Nesmith; the Michael Nesmith from The Monkees. He read the script when a clever writer presented it to him in comic book format, and the rest is cult history.
Repo Man stars a young Emilio Estevez as a punk turned repo guy and an old Harry Dean Stanton as his repo boss mentor. Bud (Stanton) tells Otto (Estevez) such wise things as: "The life of a repo man is always intense," and "If you dress like a detective, people think you're packing something."
There will be no more great advice for the Repo Man, though; Harry Dean Stanton is dead. He died this week at age 91. Stanton, an amazing actor with hundreds of acting credits to his name, was one of those character actors you see everywhere but remember from nowhere. He transformed himself over and over again so that you'd think you had seen him before (you had) but you could never quite place him.
HDS will always be Bud to me. It was and remains my favorite role he ever did, and, though the movie lives on, it just won't be the same without Stanton. So, to honor Bud and to semi-quote both Bud and my brothers, I wish the late Harry Dean Stanton the kind of advice only a Repo Man's mentor could muster:"Have a nice day. Uh, night. Night. Day. Doesn't mean shit." It's all the same now, Bud. Enjoy the endless ride in that '71 Impala.
