The songs you posted are alright. I like some gangsta rap, so I thought I'd give the three singles on the album a listen as well. It turns out "Ha" ain't my thing, but I liked "Back That Azz Up" a lot better. "Follow Me Now" is kind of a funny one, I don't mind it.

interesting edit, the song mostly fits
here's the original video recorded thirty years after the movie

It's interesting how the popularity of gangsta rap has endured for almost 4 decades across all cultures and throughout the world. There's apparently something very human about rooting for and identifying with the underdog criminal archetype, Jung's Trickster figure made manifest.

I love this song. It's an old American folk song. In 1949, Bill Landford And The Landfordaires did the first version I ever heard. Moby did a remix of it on one of his albums.



There's also a Marilyn Manson version that's not his best work, imo.

And there's also Panzerfaust.

The random number generator movie-picker landed on Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, from 1973, so I watched it.

James Coburn played Pat Garrett, real-life outlaw turned lawman and killer of Billy "The Kid" Bonney. Coburn was one of those men with the manly voices from the Greatest Generation...



...although he was technically born into the very beginning of the subsequent Silent Generation, and his daughter-in-law claimed that his real sympathies fell in with the Hippies.

In addition to a commanding, irascible voice, Coburn also possessed just a hint of the ratface that always seemed perfect for Western badass bad guys.

In Peckinpah Westerns, everyone and no one is the bad guy, so Pat Garrett sort of gets the black hat label by default, as our sympathies lie with that doomed Trickster Billy the Kid, played by Kris Kristofferson, who was a super-hot acting commodity in the early and mid 1970s, until he starred in 1980's Heaven's Gate, a flop so colossal that it helped bring down the entire Auteur concept for making studio movies.

I'm okay with Kristofferson; I liked him without reservations as Rubber Duck in Peckinpah's Convoy, but I was 6 years old when I saw that, and tastes change over time. At age 8, I thought that Greg Evigan made acting look easy in the BJ and The Bear show, but that show is pretty damn painful to watch nowadays.



Also notable was Slim Pickens as a conflicted (and doomed, of course) sheriff. Pickens and his wonderful Texas drawl (by way of Kingsburg, CA) starred in two of my favorite scenes of all time, both of them from 1964's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Here's the first, one that includes a young James Earl Jones as one of the bombers.



Trivia note: Pickens originally said, "Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff," but the city was changed in post to Vegas due to the movie being filmed soon after the Kennedy assassination, which of course occurred in and somewhat traumatized Dallas.

The second, and greatest Slim Pickens scene is not one that I'm going to post. It's at the very end of Dr. Strangelove, and it's a huge spoiler. So... no. Go see Dr. Strangelove if you haven't. You'll thank me.

Speaking of spoilers, for Pickens's sheriff's death in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the film's music composer wrote a special song for the event. That composer was Bob Dylan, and that song was Knocking on Heaven's Door. Can you imagine having Dylan write and perform freaking Knocking on Heaven's Door for your character's death scene?

I mentioned upthread that I wanted to see how awful Bob Dylan's acting was in the movie, but he really wasn't that bad. I've seen much worse from others in feature films.

Dylan played a character who was sort of an interloper who got caught up in the events of the movie, who was in way over his head, and who was treated with kid gloves when he should have ended up on the floor during his very first scene. So he was basically playing Bob Dylan who wandered onto the set of this Sam Peckinpah film, and found himself in the movie—perfect.

solid review

I’m actually not a big Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid fan but the Slim Pickens death scene with Bob Dylan’s Knocking On Heaven’s Door was amazing.

The whole concept of the Bob Dylan’s character was sort of us the moviegoer who’s along for the ride and rooting for the Kid. Seen this in other movies but this is the earliest example I can think of it being done.

Thanks, REDeYeS00!

I can see that.

You can also see him as a VIP tourist/contest winner. Give him something fun to do, like read off the labels in the pantry (beans, beans, spinach, beefsteak, beans) while the big boys have their standoff.

The plan was to get up early and do my taxes (MA residents have until 4/17 due to a state holiday on Monday), then head off to the casino.

Last night at midnight, a fun-looking turbo $0.55, $50 gtd NLO8 tournament popped up on ACR, and I said, "Ah, what the hell; it's a turbo."

Every time I think that an Omaha tournament looks like fun, it's not. It's never been fun. This "turbo" finished up at 5:30AM after a 45-minute heads up battle, and I took 2nd place for a measly $8.97.

Needless to say I did not get up early. Taxes took forever. I usually hand them over to somebody who knows what they're doing, but I procrastinated this year and it took me forever. I had to google everything, as well as pay Turbotax a premium for the privilege of reporting gambling income; that was basically one of their several versions of DLC.

So, no poker today. Back tomorrow.

By no poker I meant no live poker.