Yankee Buccaneer.

[byronius]

Often I will buy a 2-DVD 4 movie set of old fifties flicks for six bucks, and watch every single movie on it. This one, ‘Pirates Of The Golden Age’, was pretty damned excellent. Michelle Wallerstein told me that pirate movies are dead — ‘Don’t write one’, she said.

But ‘Yankee Buccaneer’ — damn. You can smell the Hollywood gin and tonic. According to IMDB (on which I am now officially listed, for writing and directing ‘November 3′ (HAHAHAHAHA), the ‘innate dignity of Jeff Chandler’ rescues this film from the difficulties of the 1950’s Pirate Movie. And of course — the face of Suzan Ball. Holy shit.

I have a different opinion than IMDB. This is a great US navy movie, not a pirate flick. By the end, I was sitting upright on the couch, feeling damned patriotic.

And therein lies the theme of this post.

I love the United States Of America. Not the list of atrocities, or the Bush Years — but the Document, and the Idea. I love that certain way the Fifties brought out the Best of it, at the same time it brought out the Worst. And you know who I mean. Yeah, Those Fuckers.

They’re still with us. Fuck.

But there was a time, in the history of this nation, when it meant everything to the world. When its very existence acted upon darker worlds, and changed everything. ‘The Pursuit Of Happiness’ — HAHAHAHAHA — Good Lord, you’ve got to be kidding.

But we’re not.

Jeff Chandler played his parts in soooo many B-movie hits of the fifties. I don’t know anything about him — but he makes me feel the fifties, like a pulsing artery of 50’s idealistic lefty Americana.

Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.

Let’s go there for a second. The US before WWII was 95% anti-Semitic, and just barely beginning to reject the KKK. But by the fifties — Heinlein. Asimov. The Beatniks. Duck and Cover. Chuck Berry. Elvis. Forbidden Planet. Then —

Kerouac. Ginsberg. Burroughs. Eisenhower’s Secret Plan.

I love the Fifties. We are the Fifties. The Conflict — for the future of this nation — is Now, and it is sooo Fifties — I don’t expect anyone else to understand. I’m saying it anyway.

‘Yankee Buccaneer’ brought it out in me. Hollywood Gin and Tonic, and a dip in the pool, and then maybe a late night visit to the Beat Club — a long, slow drag on a joint of brown Mexican — when it could send you to jail for twenty years –

Yeah, baby. Buddy Holly and Che, and Go.

Go.

A Black Man. President? Swfffffffff — (bufff) — Cool. Right on, daddyo.

What’s That Flash? ™

[knowbody0]

1. waves......

high and low tides.

it's been a bumpy ride, we all know where we need to go but not how to get there.


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