Tender Hearted Men

Many mornings I wake far too early. Today is one of them. So I get up in the dark, drink down some vitamin powders, and put on a pot of coffee. I turn on the laptop, sit at the dining room table, and open up CNN.com. If anyone walks by in the dark (and they do), they see me through the un-shuttered windows lit by the ghostly light of the Xenon screen (I know it is not Xenon, but I like saying that). I must look terrible, hair a mess, images from the internet reflecting in my crooked glasses, face frozen with that awful blankness that everyone has when they are semi-conscious, slack-faced, staring. I will have been woken by bad dreams, images of my life coming back to me, all the fears and disappointments of what has happened, the projections of horrors to come. It is true, this vision. Not mine, but the one inflicted on the passerby that makes them shudder, glad they are not the man they think they see.

This morning in this state of un-rapture (o.k., misery, affliction) I came across a review of "Crazy Heart," a movie that has limited release today in Los Angeles and New York. I'm sure they did that with Oscar hopes, and so the rest of us will wait for the film to come to our own hometown. The review is well written, nailing the cliches of the genre before gently letting the film off that hook. Here is an excerpt:

Unlike Mr. Bridges, Bad, who is 57, seems to be running on the last fumes of his talent. He drives from one gig to another in a battered truck, playing bowling alleys and bars with local pickup bands and sleeping in less-than-deluxe accommodations. He smokes and drinks as if trying to settle a long-ago bet between his liver and his lungs about which he would destroy first. The chorus to his signature song (one of several written especially for Mr. Bridges) observes that “falling feels like flying, for a little while.” That time has long since passed for Bad, who is scraping the bottom and trying not to complain too much about it (except when he can get his agent on the phone).

Drinking, cheating, love gone wrong — a lot of country music expresses the weary stoicism of self-inflicted defeat. Loss and abjection are two of the chords that define the genre. A third is redemption, which has also been a theme of modest, regionally inflected American independent cinema for quite some time.

Jeff Bridges, of course, is perfect for the part, as was Mickey Rourke for "The Wrestler." He was trained for it early in films like "Fat City," "Cutter's Way," and "Rancho Deluxe," films about anti-heroes whose tag-lines might read, "Tender Hearted Men: Lonesome, Sad, and Blue."

I fear the film, of course, a story about a broke-down man stumbling toward a bad old age. It is the kind of story a generation was raised on--Bridges' generation--about the generation before. A generation who watched all those films and read all those stories (i.e. Jim Harrison, Thomas McGuane) in the seventies will see the updated version. But man, it don't look too good, as they say, in the era of Paris Hilton, The Kardashians, and The Girls Next Door. Well, on second thought. . . .

Growing up, I believed theirs was a heroic stance, the only one that made much sense in an uncaringly hostile world. Alienation and loneliness, I thought, were all you could count on, rather like taxes and death. But now, I'd rather not think so. There is, I fear, too much of the self-fulfilling prophecy at work in that.

Still, I'm looking forward to the movie, hoping to feel somehow that I've escaped, that I'll be able to say, as I leave the theater, "But for the Grace of God. . . . "

The sun is up now, or what passes for it these gray and foggy days. I will not look so strange to those who are passing by. Daylight has normalized me a bit. I will not appear so ethereal and terrifying, not as "broke down. " In a little while, I'll shower and dress, and I'll try to pass for normal.

Maybe tonight I will sleep until dawn.

* Postscript *

I forgot to mention an old film that came to mind, "Mackintosh and T.J." starring Roy Rogers. The movie was made in 1975, and I haven't seen it since, but I remember it being good. I found a copy for sale on eBay and put in a bid today. Most of the movies I remember seeing when I was in college don't hold up, but I remember thinking this a wonderfully ironic role for Rogers who plays the whole thing good and straight. I'll let you know after I see it again, though.