Crazy Heart

There are several things that I want to blog about: 

I'm feeling better and will have finished my drugs by the time most people read this, though I will still have to wear my glasses until Saturday. 

The boy and I went to the new Backyard for about 45 minutes on Saturday for his first concert (sorta) and my Picnic research. 

And we are in Texas, damn it. If you don't have the good sense to live where you love the barbecue, then don't bother to try to convince me that you are a barbecue expert. If you want to prattle on about pigs, then do it in the southeast.

I want to blog about all that, but I must blog about "Crazy Heart."

You know the movie: Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a once-famous, broke-down country singer who travels the road alone in his old Suburban, playing dives and bowling alleys, drinking himself blind instead of writing songs.

What kind of country singer? Bridges says he studied Kristofferson, and I can hear it in his voice, but who I see is an old Waylon. One who never did get sober, never did keep Jessi, never did walk the line. 

Bridges goes beyond totally convincing. Love interest Maggie Gyllenhaal looks like that Batman chick. Robert Duvall is Robert Duvall — there's no hiding that anymore. Bridges? He vanishes into the role. For his part, it could be a documentary.

I'm no musician, but from what I've seen and what I can recall, the movie just flat-out gets it right. Gets it right — at least those scenes set out West. I've been in dive bars and seen small shows out there where the sun sets, and nothing I saw rang false to me.

I can't really say that I know those people. We didn't have an equivalent to Bad Blake come through San Angelo. Well, we had Johnny Rodriguez, but he had fallen farther and lacked any residual charisma, I'm sorry to say (although he did come drink a beer at one of my parties). And we had Johnny Bush, but if he had fallen, his dignity would never have let you know.

I can't really say that I know those people, but pretty close. I had to grin when Bad's character pulls his old Suburban into the lot at the arena where he'll be opening the show … and his truck is dwarfed by tour bus after tour bus. I've seen that scene more than once.

(You know, it just occurred to me, that I could totally see Bad Blake in San Angelo, going on one helluva bender with Blaine Martin.)

There's another key scene involving that Suburban for me: Bad is talking to his protege, who remarks that he's glad to see Bad still has that beat-up old truck. "Runs just like a top," Bad says. Now if that's not a direct wink to the Guy Clark song "Stuff That Works," I'll be very disappointed. It damn well ought to be.

I'm rambling now, but that's because I'm at work without a proper cup of coffee and a chance to compose my thoughts. 

One of Bad Blake's songs in the movie (all of which sound great, by the way) goes "Ain't it funny how falling feels like flying, just for a little while?" 

I know, he knows, this movie knows … that line doesn't have a damn thing to do with gravity. It's the kind of truth "Crazy Heart" is full of.

Anyway, it's an excellent movie. Not something I'll watch over and over again, though I'll see it once more, at least. 

Damn. I need another Texan to talk about this movie with. 

All I got around here is people who can't get their barbecue straight.