Bikers VS. Drug Lords - 9/22/24

Bikers To The Rescue? 

Earlier in the week there was a report that a Venezuelan drug gang had taken over an apartment building in the Denver, Colorado suburb of Aurora. The story then displayed a picture of what appeared to be hundreds of bearded motorcycle riders, arms held toward the sky, clutching ape-hanger handlebars while moving methodically in a formation of military precision on both lanes of an interstate highway. 

The article went on to inform that the bikers perched on their customized choppers were, in fact, the infamous Hell’s Angels and that the self-designated posse was headed to open up an oversized can of whoop-ass on the misbehaving predatory migrants.

Not so clear is why the Hell’s Angels would decide to intervene since their primary business model (allegedly) revolves around meth distribution and gun running. Rescuing out-of-state slum lords and their unfortunate tenants sounded inconsistent with the club’s modus operandi—pretty boring fare for America’s most notorious wandering outlaws. 

I don’t know if any of this was legitimate, but it made for an excellent story and got me thinking about the public’s fascination with a particular trope in drama I’ve always found irresistible—when villainous predators turn on each other.

When I was a young kid growing up in a tiny town in Mississippi, my portal to the rest of the world was a run-down, un-air-conditioned movie theater known as The Danny. The owner was the third or fourth in the place’s history and, after purchasing the theater, he renamed it after himself. To southern, small town sensibilities, the boldness of that decision was met with polite disapproval by the older generation. Their perception of Danny was that of a showboater.

Unfortunately, the new proprietor didn’t have the budget for any upgrades. The same coiled springs protruded from most of the ripped seats. The distracting giant scar in the lower right-hand corner of the screen remained, something that had been clumsily sutured after an unidentified projectile was launched through it decades earlier. 

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to recall the name of the last movie I saw there. Over the years, I no doubt saw hundreds. 

The '60s will always be the most fascinating decade to me for a whole lot of reasons, but one thing that will remain synonymous with that era in my mind is the steady stream of awful B-movies destined for the small-town circuit—those low (lowest) budget films that would never come close to any of the nicer venues in larger markets. 

Yes, we’d get the latest Elvis musical epics, and Gone With The Wind seemed to reappear regularly. And, in the early ‘70s, we did start to see more variety, a steadier rotation of movies that were more connected with reality and the rest of the industry’s mainstream.  

However, the majority were mostly incoherent with production values that looked like they were shot in a garage with an old Super 8 camera and actors who had trouble reading.

Some were martial arts films straight from Hong Kong with subtitles that often didn’t match what was happening in the scenes. Most had no real plot and if they did were impossible to decipher. Later, when I spent years living and working in Asia, I’d think back on those early movies often.

And I loved them all.

There was no rating system back during that particular era so many turned out to be pretty much over the top and completely inappropriate for youngsters, whether due to excessive violence or, if we got lucky, brief nudity. Once for my eleventh birthday a group of eight or nine friends and I attended a screening of Bonnie And Clyde.

By the time the film had alluded to Clyde Barrow’s alleged homosexuality and Bonnie’s hyper-sexual urges, everyone was probably somewhat relieved by the gruesome violence perpetrated by the two bank robbers. But the ending scene where Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty are shot to smithereens was just too much for many of my fellow birthday celebrants.

The image of Faye’s body almost dancing to the barrage of gunfire for what seemed like an hour is one that sticks with me even today. Some of my friends were so rattled they could barely hold back tears.

But particularly appealing to me back then was a sub-genre of black and white masterpieces featuring well-known horror creatures who were thrown together to duke it out to the death (or maybe un-death in some cases). There were films like Vampires vs. Werewolves, Frankenstein vs. The Mummy, and that classic of the genre, possibly my favorite of them all, Billy The Kid vs. Dracula. 

Billy didn’t need no stinking wooden stake to handle this elderly ghoul. He had a Colt .45, ready to inject the unholy skunk with six doses of lead-cillin. Then rob a bank.

 Several decades later, that influence inspired a subplot in one of my books where the protagonist, a depressed movie idol, is forced to star in a terrible B-movie called Cartel vs. Aliens. When I first read that the bikers were headed to Aurora to implement a gangly version of Martial Law on the overly bold Venezuelans for their alleged illegal flex, I couldn’t help but think of that trope.

It now seems likely that the whole biker/drug gang story was fabricated since there hasn’t been any reporting of a confrontation and the Hell’s Angels would have, by this point, been on the road for over a week. Maybe they just got lost…or possibly the logistics of mobilizing an army of vigilantes and their two-wheeled steeds requires more time to strategically position themselves for the big throwdown. But I’m skeptical at this point. 

Meantime, the Danny’s been closed for decades now. In fact, the whole town is pretty much on life support at this point, nearing ghost status.

But I can mentally put myself right in one of those leaning, sprung seats with the ripped red naugahyde, trying to ignore the stitched gash on the screen. It’s a hot August night and I’m munching on really stale popcorn when the building’s attic fan kicks on, drowning out some of the dialogue and sucking in some unfortunate flying insects that instantly land on an actor’s illuminated nose. My boots are firmly planted on the cambered, sticky concrete floor, providing just enough counterbalance to maintain equilibrium.

And I’m watching another ‘60s classic that could have been, American Bikers vs. Venezuelan Drug Thugs.

I’m confident it would have seemed epic to an eleven year old me… 

I, Cave Man 

Several months ago one of the two genetic mapping sites to which I’ve subscribed informed me that my genes contain a level of Neanderthal DNA that is 96% higher than the rest of the world’s population. Now this probably won’t come as too much of a surprise to a lot of people I’ve known, but it made me curious on a couple of levels—not only what it meant but how we suddenly got to a scientific consensus that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens actually co-mingled and, more importantly, procreated.

Prior to receiving the news that I’m more closely related to our knuckle-dragging cousins than most of my peers, I’d been under the impression that science had proven that the combination was impossible.

And it just so happens that I’m reading a book by one of my favorite authors, Rachel Kushner, and, although it’s fiction, she actually does a deep dive into this whole subject, incorporating the latest Neanderthal science into the plot. Kushner always strikes me as that really cool, whip-smart girl you knew in college who probably came out of the womb asking questions about Hemi engines.

The book is called, Creation Lake. Here’s an excerpt:

“Neanderthal’s were prone to depression… They were good at math. They did not enjoy crowds. They had strong stomachs and were not especially prone to ulcers, but their diet of constant barbecue did its damage…”

It’s not clear to me how Kushner or anyone else actually knows that Neanderthals were prone to depression, or that they were good at math. That actually sounds pretty preposterous. But they were larger boned, including their skulls. Taken to its logical conclusion, they probably had bigger brains as well. That’s just my theory—and I’m sticking with it for obviously selfish reasons.

Turns out the evidence that Homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals first emerged in 2010, after Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo pioneered methods to extract, sequence, and analyze ancient DNA from Neanderthal bones. Pääbo mapped the entire Neanderthal genome, and thanks to his work, scientists can compare Neanderthal genomes with the genetic records of living humans today.

Of course, we who live outside the cloistered community of researchers specializing in these fields will never be able to objectively gauge just how valid all of this is.

I guess we’ll just have to trust the science…

 The Science

Kevin Costner’s Big Swing 

I always admire people who swing for the fence, even when they strike out. And although Costner’s grand slam home run attempt, the movie series called Horizon, seems to have so far been a commercial foul, the game’s not completely over. Part two in the planned five-movie epic is opening at the Venice Film Festival as I write this. And although part one went quickly to streaming after a very brief box office run, there’s a chance that home audiences may demonstrate an appetite for more

.

Expectations have been high…possibly too high. Most fans of the wildly popular TV series Yellowstone are familiar with Costner’s falling out with the series creator, Taylor Sheridan. And, it’s a well-known fact that Costner had to come up with millions out of his own pocket to get the first two films made while sacrificing a fortune to leave Yellowstone. 

 The Horizon series has been Costner’s vanity project for some time. But viewed through the lens of his contentious relationship with Sheridan, It also seemed like a big middle finger to Yellowstone and its creator. Don’t forget that Costner won a Best Director Academy award for Dances With Wolves. It was widely reported that any creative input he offered on Yellowstone’s direction was ignored. 

I watched part one at home on HBO Max. First and foremost, it’s beautiful to look at. Costner and his cinematographer, J. Michael Muro do a spectacular job of capturing the sweeping beauty of southern Utah, making it more than just scenery. It’s almost like an integral character. The movie looks and sounds every bit like the big, bold epic Costner promised and that his audience expected.

The problem with part one is that there is no story arc. It’s a three-hour setup for what’s to come in the four sequels. And there is no shortage of characters and subplots. There are some exciting action scenes and the acting seems fine, although Costner’s character doesn’t appear until late in the movie. But it feels more suited for a television mini-series. Most people who make it through three hours are going to want some closure, even if it’s temporary.

However, I liked it and am eagerly awaiting the sequel—but only if I can watch it at home. This is all-in, old-school movie making, the complete antithesis of the constant slew of green-screened CGI clones Hollywood pumps out today. I'm really pulling for this franchise to ultimately succeed once the dust settles. And, I’ll always have a soft spot for Westerns.

Costner’s trying to offer an objective and truer perspective of what that era was really like through the eyes of the various stakeholders. One where all sides had villains, heroes, and undeserving victims all caught in a web of ambition, inevitability, and manifest destiny. 

The reality of the old West post-Civil War was often cold and brutal. But in many ways, it's reflective of the very soul of our country’s character and a very critical part of our history.

If Costner can pull it off, he might make cinematic history…