Wes Anderson talks about 'Rushmore'

I interviewed Wes Anderson for an article--if memory serves for the San Antonio Express-News. I recorded it and included the full interview in my '90s zine Lost Armadillos in Heat. 

LAIH: You grew up in Houston where "Rushmore" was filmed. And actually shot it in St. John's, your old school. Was that weird?
ANDERSON: People always want to know if it was weird going back to film there. It wasn't because I spent all this time convincing them to let us shoot there. Also we would go there to think about the script and walk around. By the time we filmed there, I'd spent so much time there recently and got re-aquainted with a lot of people there. So it was really a comfortable place to film. We had a screening just for St. John's people. It was odd because people applauded a thing like a house. And they applaud certain extras with real force.
LAIH: How would you describe this film?
ANDERSON: Somebody told me it was a coming of age story, and I guess it is, but I hate to think of it that way. It sounds like a genre. I wanted a school movie. We had this character. Me and my co-writer Owen
Wilson, we wanted to do a character of a kid who loved the school and founded all of these different clubs and societies, but is also a terrible student and is going to get kicked out.
LAIH: Where did that idea come from?
ANDERSON: Putting on the plays is something I did when I was a kid. We went to similar schools. Owen went to St. Marks in Dallas. Both of us had a sort of deluded thing and thought we were going to go to really
good colleges. But we were both bad students and never stood any chance of getting into any of the places we were applying. We did get rejected by all of them. So that sort of figures into it.
LAIH: What did you learn from "Bottle Rocket" that you brought to this film?
ANDERSON: I felt there was stuff I learned on the other one about how to plan a movie and what to expect--how much you have to be totally focused every day. But on the other movie the cast was just a bunch of
friends. This one we had to put together a cast and I didn't really know anybody in the cast. Except for some small supporting roles, all of the main actors we cast like they cast a regular movie.
LAIH: Where did you dig up Jason Schwartzman?
ANDERSON: We did a big casting search all over the place for a year. It was this total hassle. Finally our casting director in San Francisco met this kid and sent him in to me. I felt like within 30 seconds we had something. He was not like anyone else. He was very compelling. And I just liked him a lot personally. I always hoped I'd get to cast someone I'd be friends with.
LAIH: I know he's Talia Shire's son. What is his film background otherwise?
ANDERSON: His background is high school.
LAIH: Who are your filmmaking inspirations?
ANDERSON: A million movies all rolled together. Louis Malle movies. Mike Nichols and Hal Ashby and the 70s guys.
LAIH: Surely "Harold and Maude" was an influence?
ANDERSON: No question. Just the feeling. I used a Cat Stevens song. That's got to be paying respect on some level.
LAIH: What about the music in the film?
ANDERSON: I used British invasion music from the 60s and 70s. I think that's really hard angry rock music, but it's played by English kids in blazers, like school boys. And I think that combo is something like what this kid is. That was my way of analyzing it afterword. At one point I just wanted to use some Kinks.
LAIH: The tone of "Rushmore" is so different. Can you explain what you were trying to do?
ANDERSON: There's a sort of unreality. You don't see a lot of cars from today. There's not any cultural references really. It's just its own little world. So it almost feels like it's not any one particular time. It's a bit of a fable, maybe? The behavior of the characters, the stuff that's happening in the movie is not quite reality. The plays are unrealistically ambitious.
LAIH: What kind of films do you like to watch?
ANDERSON: I like funny movies. "Murmur of the Heart" by Louis Malle is one. "The Rules of the Game" by Jean Renoir. I like movies where there is real affection for the characters. In those movies I feel like there aren't any really bad guys. I think Renoir says something to the effect that everyone has their reasons. You just have to make an effort to understand them. I guess I'm not too into cynical, cool movies right now. I've just seen so many violent, steely or cool movies and I'd rather stay away from that.
LAIH: Talk about your process as a filmmaker.
ANDERSON: It starts with the way you want the movie to feel, the setting, the kind of feeling of the characters and the way they'll interact, and less the story. Once you're making the movie, you're not affected by that anymore. You're just into the world and have to follow your instincts.
LAIH: What about the collaborative writing process?
ANDERSON: We talk for months. While that's going on, one of us will write a scene and hand it to the other, and they'll make marks and hand it back, act out things, add things. As it goes along we write more and
more and we start to figure out if we need a scene. It sort of evolves that way, just the two of us hashing it out.
LAIH: How do you see your style of directing?
ANDERSON: I like on the set for everyone to feel like friends. I like to be very private with the actors. I like for us to rehearse scenes very privately and quietly. That's probably because I feel self-conscious "directing" in front of a group of people. Lots of people who worked on Rushmore worked on "Bottle Rocket," the head of
every department, so there are lots of friends on the set.
LAIH: Do you plan much in advance?
ANDERSON: I like to plan as much as possible. I think the more you can have ideas for things, the more you can really make an effort to find a new way to do a scene. It becomes more dense if you really make an
effort, like you're writing a novel, if you focus on the detail in advance. It's hard to make that stuff happen spontaneously. You've really got to plan it, I think.LAIH: Do you storyboard?
ANDERSON: Yeah, I do it twice, in fact. I storyboard it once and then go back and do it neatly. You find some things you had sketched out when you go back and go, I thought I had this thought out, but it's
sort of half-baked. It's a pain because it takes forever, but you get it all more specific.
LAIH: The narrative arc of "Rushmore" is all over the place, yet that seems to work. How do you explain that?
ANDERSON: The stuff we get excited about are unexpected turns to the story. Also, we'll have ideas and you have to somehow get there.
LAIH: Tell me about Max Fischer. Is he a good guy?
ANDERSON: I think some people feel we made a character who is not always very appealing. But I have just a good feeling about that character. He does some almost unforgivable stuff, but I feel like he's redeemed. I have a personal feeling for the character like it were someone I knew. I hate it when someone says they find him unlikable. We try to push him, but I don't want him to be a bad guy.
LAIH: How did you get Bill Murray interested in the film?
ANDERSON: We just sent him the script. A week later he called and said he wanted to do it. Really all we talked about in your first conversation was this movie "Red Beard" by Kurosawa, that Bill was a big fan of. He had an idea that "Red Beard" had something to do with "Rushmore." I never quite understood what the connection was.
LAIH: What was he like?
ANDERSON: Working with him was really great. He's really funny and he's just such a good guy. He made a real effort to support this movie. It's a small movie. It's the kind of movie, if someone tried to modify it
and make it more palatable or to fit into a certain slot, it would just go to pieces. He was a good defender of the movie. You can settle for things and Murray wasn't interested in us settling for anything. I'm not either and it's good to have somebody like that involved.
LAIH: I love the plays in "Rushmore." Did they pose any problems?
ANDERSON: For the war play, if you don't get it right have to wait an hour and a half while they set up all of these charges again. We had to do the whole scene in one day according to our schedule. There's one shot where this plane flies across the stage bombing it. If we hadn't got that right, it would have been two hours to line up all the charges again. We got lucky and got the shot right. It was a fun day because all of these kids dressed up for Vietnam. It felt like there was a play happening (enthusiasm in voice). When we were filming, It felt like it was an EVENT day.
LAIH: What's next?
ANDERSON: Owen and I are working on this script set in New York. It's about a family there.
LAIH: Tell us again how you got started.
ANDERSON: Owen and I were both at UT. We did a play in a playwriting class that I wrote and that Owen acted in. Before we finished school there we started writing the "Bottle Rocket" script. After that we went to Dallas and made a short version of it. The short was supposed to be a feature but we ran out of money." With "Bottle Rocket," not that many people got to see it in the theater. Most people saw it on video. There wasn't much of an event to the release. I sort of regretted it. So I want to do everything I can to let people know about this movie.

Tobe Hooper’s ‘Midnight Movie’ rewrites the script on film fandom

     

By Joe O’Connell

Austin American-Statesman

Posted Jul 10, 2011 at 12:01 AM

Forget “Slacker” and “El Mariachi.” Underground Austin filmmaking street cred begins and ends with the original “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” the quirky shoestring-budget cinematic blast of cannibalism that set the gold standard for creepiness while keeping gore to a minimum. The 1974 film also begat a cottage industry of remakes, knockoffs and reverberations. Just last year, co-writer Kim Henkel’s “Boneboys” script was being filmed near Austin by Duane Graves and Justin Meeks with its own flesh-eating fiends.

Now it’s “Chainsaw” director and co-writer Tobe Hooper’s turn to take a nibble with the very cinematic novel “Midnight Movie,” co-written with Alan Goldsher. It stars a guy named Tobe Hooper who comes to Austin during the South by Southwest Film Festival to screen the rediscovered sole print of an obscure movie he shot as a teen — well before “Chainsaw” — to a small crowd of film geeks. The catch is a car crash years ago has left Hooper with little memory of the film except he’s “pretty sure there’s some zombie sex involved.”

The film, titled “Destiny Express,” is a squishy, bloody mess, but it just possibly infects the hipster audience with a virus dubbed the Game that transforms some into sex-crazed harlots and others into violent, flesh-munching zombies. Soon Austin is ablaze with what are presumed to be exploding drug labs, and the violence and madness quickly spreads nationwide.

How to stop the spreading gloom? Hooper, part-time Austin Chronicle film reviewer and wannabe rocker Erick Laughlin, University of Texas student and waitress Janine Daltrey and the overly glib über-film geek Dude McGee (whom Hooper tells us — wink, wink — is surely not inspired by Austin’s Internet film guru Harry Knowles) decide the only hope is to quickly track down the original cast of “Destiny Express” — minus its main star, who has gone full-tilt zombie — and remake the film in order to kill off its bad juju.

It’s a fun ride, made all the more so by its links to reality. Hooper did indeed come to SXSW in 2009 to show his earlier, little-seen 1969 film “Eggshells,” which he also co-wrote with Henkel. But he made that film in his 20s, and it’s more groovy psychedelia than bloody horror.

For the myriad “Chainsaw” fanatics, Hooper the semi-fictional character (we can assume speaking for the real-life Hooper) unapologetically addresses his reputation as a cold dictator. “Always have been on the set. I have a vision, and I want to bring it to life.”

Hooper also makes it clear that he takes “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and its mythic legacy quite seriously. “See, ‘Chainsaw’ was a story. It wasn’t ‘The Iliad’ or anything, but it had an arc, a beginning, middle, and end. Yes, it was about shocking the audience, but they wouldn’t have been shocked if it was a random series of attacks and murders, because they wouldn’t have been absorbed into the picture. There would’ve been distance. If there wasn’t anything for the audience to grab on to, they wouldn’t have given a good (expletive) what happened to good ol’ Sally Hardesty.”

Does the novel “Midnight Movie” have something for the reader to latch onto? For the most part, yes, and that something is the engaging voice of Hooper that sings. Told through the viewpoint of a lot of characters mixed with blog posts, Tweets and news articles, the story is most engaging when its main force is on stage. Hooper, the character, comes across as a crusty but kindly curmudgeon who is serious about the art of creation but is also a dedicated loner. He’s funny, wise and in on the zombified joke.

But Hooper vanishes into hibernation during the novel’s midsection when the stylized details of the spread of the infection become a little repetitious. Fortunately he and his posse return for the final showdown. It’s a satisfying blur of zombies, film fandom and the messy business of low-budget filmmaking. Our heroes must recreate the original film’s fake alligator stuffed with roadkill, in a touch quite true to the legend of the late “Chainsaw” art director Bob Burns driving around the countryside collecting decomposing animals to strew about the set.

Oh, and for the record, Hooper does claim to have lost part of his memory after being in a car crash as a teen. “The whole incident was a big blank, and the concept of blankness is flat-out frightening,” Hooper writes in a brief interview included at the end of the novel.

That theme and a sense of jovial nihilism lurk just below the surface of the novel’s blood splatters, zombie sex and film-cool swagger. “The only thing that makes sense is the taste of blood, the taste of suffering, the taste of death. I do not know why I didn’t realize it sooner,” we are told as an aside by an analyst from the Department of Homeland Security who has gone zombie.

Hooper, the filmmaker, author and character, would surely laugh and tell his audience to sit back and enjoy the bloody ride.

Hanging out in a topless bar with 'Varsity Blues'

A report from Joe O'Connell (1998)

A two-day shoot in a topless bar officially ended when "Varsity Blues" director Brian Robbins asked the stunning, almost-naked blonde on stage to repeat her gyrations one last time for the film's cast and crew.

The cameras sat idly by as teen heartthrob James van der Beek and Scott Caan (yes, that's James Caan's boy) hooted and clapped along with nameless extras and weary technicians. The scene was so real it could have been in, well, a movie.

And elsewhere around Austin this same broiling summer day other cameras were busy. Directors Robert Rodriguez and Mike Judge were filming "The Faculty" and "Office Space" respectively. As summer burned into fall and fall cooled into winter, these film sets were replaced by ones for Sundance-bound "A Slipping-Down Life," Tom Arnold star vehicle "Just Sue Me," "Texas Funeral" and on and on.

The bottom line is, if you're always wanted to see your face lighting up the big screen, but don't have training, a sparkling smile or an agent, you can still leap into film heaven, Texas extra style and make about $50 for your trouble. The process is simple. Call the Texas Film Commission's production hotline (512-463-7799), send in a photograph and wait by the telephone like an anxious teenager.

Both "Varsity Blues" and "The Faculty" shot all-night crowd scenes in high school football stadiums, so most extra hopefuls didn't have to wait long this past summer for "the call."

But the about 50 extras who showed up at 7 a.m. at the Landing Strip topless bar for the "Varsity Blues" shoot knew their chances were much better for the ultimate payoff--actual, though likely fuzzy, face time on screen.

The trade off is tedium mixed with a heavy dose of sweat. Filming proves a process of hurry up and wait, and when the cameras do roll, the air conditioner is turned off to extinguish unnecessary noise.

Since "Varsity Blues" is an MTV production, many on the crew, including those in extras casting, came straight from "Austin Stories," the network's aborted attempt at a sitcom. Other crew members knew each other from the sets of such other recent films as "The Newton Boys."

In this scene, high school football players go to a topless bar and catch their attractive English teacher moonlighting on stage.

Female extras are dancers and waitresses, while males are assigned seats around the stage as club patrons. The confusion comes in separating reality from make-believe. Many of the women portraying dancers are experienced performers from area strip clubs, one works in the mortgage field.

A menacing bouncer dressed in black with his long hair slicked back suddenly ejects one of the rowdy football players from the stage. Other extras shy away from him when the camera isn't rolling, but this is a carefully planned look for a Dallas actor trying to break into the big time.

At their tables, extras pretend to drink from empty beer bottles as a machine called a Lightning Flash pumps 40,000 watts of strobe light at them and at mirrors that ring the stage. They are told looking at the lights could be dangerous, but find completely avoiding the flashes impossible.

Machines cloud the air with insubstantial, almost odorless smoke meant to represent the output of hundred of cigarettes. Crew members don white masks, but extras are left to tough it out and whoop it up again and again for the dancers on stage.

By mid-afternoon, the heat in the nightclub, which features the cockpit of an airplane "crashing" through the wall into the bar, is unbearable. Between shots the air conditioner comes back on, but barely makes a dent in the smoky blaze. Caan and van der Beek retreat to the only cool area of the building--the restrooms.

Meanwhile, extras spent breaks lolling around the Landing Strip ticket booth, behind which were posted Polaroids of people who have been banned for the topless bar for life. The reasons were sadly scrawled underneath each photo: “exposed self” said one, “went home with a customer,” said a shot of a dancer. I was entranced by a shot of an obviously drunk and angry tree trunk of a man being forcibly posed for a photo with the aid of two beefy men. Underneath, the obvious: “Started fight.”

Back on the set, the same scene is shot again and again from different angles. Late in the day the camera is turned toward a pair of thirtyish men in business suits at a table to the right of the stage. One is taking a day off from his life in real estate but confesses a burning desire to write screenplays. The other is between temporary jobs.

When the assistant director signals the cameras to roll (Robbins, best known as Eric on television's "Head of the Class," watches through a monitor in the next room), the men break into wide grins and clink their bottles together before taking big swigs of imaginary beer. On stage the blonde dancer swings from a pole as the strobe lights flash. For this one moment, they are all stars.

This free-lance article originally appeared in the San Antonio Express-News. All rights retained by the author.

Anatomy of a Building // You know it as Antone's -- but it's also The Still, and Shakey's, and a hall of ghosts

 

O'Connell, Joe.Austin American Statesman; Austin, Tex. [Austin, Tex]08 Jan 1998: 53.

I needn't have brought the camera. The true pictures of the house reside in my mind as it was when I last entered the door in the early '80s. In fact, my head is full of vivid images of many places that no longer exist, at least not in their original forms. As David Byrne would said, "This is not my beautiful house ... "

If I squint my eyes tightly, I can walk their hallways. The fifth step down is larger than the rest. Be careful. Over here, pencil marks on the wall chart my steady growth. Sometimes the buildings emerge in a flash while I'm driving. The past washes over me and just as quick is gone, replaced by something I dare call the present. But these places exist. I'm sure of that. Each exists then, now and in the future. They dance together and form something ever new, vibrant, alive.

Long black tables in back. The tinkle of happy music draws us to the long benches. A player piano is alive. Notes spray forth. Keys depress, guided by invisible fingers. Brothers and sisters fight for another slice of pie. Pepperoni. Cheese. I love cheese. The crust is thin, brown and crisp. Cheese dangles toward my mouth as I lean my head back as far as it will go.

My childhood home was for sale again. I called the real estate agent and arranged a tour. I said I was coming as a favor to a friend who had just been hired as an executive at ... Dell. Yeah, that was it.

I bought a disposable camera and entered the house clicking. The living room was nicer, no wood paneling of old. The agent wandered the house with me, pointing out every new detail.

"In my opinion this porch would look lovely if it were screened in," she said. It was lovely that way, I thought, and clicked off another shot.

Upstairs I asked if there had been an attic fan once, knowing full well there had. "Heavens, no," she said. "But wouldn't that be lovely? And it sure would reduce the cooling costs." Click.

I needn't have brought the camera. The true pictures of the house reside in my mind as it was when I last entered the door in the early '80s. In fact, my head is full of vivid images of many places that no longer exist, at least not in their original forms. As David Byrne would said, "This is not my beautiful house ... "

If I squint my eyes tightly, I can walk their hallways. The fifth step down is larger than the rest. Be careful. Over here, pencil marks on the wall chart my steady growth. Sometimes the buildings emerge in a flash while I'm driving. The past washes over me and just as quick is gone, replaced by something I dare call the present. But these places exist. I'm sure of that. Each exists then, now and in the future. They dance together and form something ever new, vibrant, alive.

As I drove down Guadalupe the other day past what many Austinites refer to as "the place that used to be Antone's," workers were cementing a new facade onto a building with many pasts.

PIZZA

Stretch tiny legs toward the door to Shakey's. Grip Dad's hand and hurry. The smell of cheese cradles, pulls my family inward. Men in white coats and puffy hats toss pizza dough in the air silently behind glass. The gooey mass twirls, grows, rips, is reborn.

Long black tables in back. The tinkle of happy music draws us to the long benches. A player piano is alive. Notes spray forth. Keys depress, guided by invisible fingers. Brothers and sisters fight for another slice of pie. Pepperoni. Cheese. I love cheese. The crust is thin, brown and crisp. Cheese dangles toward my mouth as I lean my head back as far as it will go.

We beg to go to Shakey's often. Across the street is Dairy Queen, the first one ever, my parents say. But I beg for the men who spin white magic into pizza.

Another scroll is wound into the player piano. The ghosts nod at us, and begin their concert.

DISCO

Frank's CB handle is Purple Haze. He's older, drives a hot rod, walks with a swagger. And he goes to bars. Tonight he is taking us with him. Sweat drains from our 15-year-old armpits. This is The Still. I erase the year from the birth date on my learner's permit and pencil in an older one. The doorman nods and we enter through the front door of Shakey's. Only now, a partition hides a bar. We walk around it and recorded music surrounds us. Where the player piano once stood is a towering deejay booth from which a hidden wizard produces magic sounds that thump deeply into our chests.

Tables gird the dance floor. Seniors are here. I boldly ask an impossibly beautiful blonde senior named April to dance. I don't know how to dance. My body is wood. I bounce, doing my worst imitation of the white guy dance. (Remember, move at the hips, my sister's voice echoes in my mind.) Heat burns across my face.

Every teen-ager's dream. The polyester of the red dress is a glove on ample curves. The neckline dips dangerously. This is an older woman, an experienced woman. Her dark eyes sparkle when I ask for a dance. Red lights, blue lights, white lights, green. They mingle along our bodies and reflect back to the wooden ceiling. Donna Summer sings, "Looking for some hot stuff, baby, this evening." Our bodies sway as one. She looks around to see who is watching her, then slithers against me. The heat burns down my chest.

When the song ends, she returns to her table and orders another Sloe Gin Fizz. I write my phone number on a napkin and, Mr. Cool, drop it on her table as I leave. I don't dare look back.

A miracle -- she calls. I tell her I am leaving for college the next day. Her name is Rose and she is a telephone operator and part-time disco queen. I am too young for her and we both know it. She laughs kindly at my clumsy efforts to be smooth. She won't give me her telephone number.

Whenever I am back in town I call information hoping to discover Rose's voice laughing back at me.

*Jennifer is beautiful inside and out. A young Mary Tyler Moore, but taller. When we met in high school I was already dating someone else, so we became friends. I return from college and go to The Still. She is in a booth by the wall clowning with friends. She greets me with a grin. We dance. Familiar faces in a familiar place. Our bodies glide across the dance floor with ease.

Two weeks later Jennifer is in a car accident while visiting in another state. Iowa? Idaho? Her legs are severed. She is dead. Other details are sketchy. I never again set foot in The Still.

THE BLUES

She loves the blues. She complains that we never go anywhere, that our relationship is going nowhere. She is right. We go to Antone's. I did not know it had moved here! The old entrance to The Still/Shakey's is gone. Now we enter on the side past the ghosts of pizza chefs and disco queens. I do not want to be here.

Seven men blow seven horns on a stage that replaces the deejay booth that replaces the magic piano. We find a table close to the crowded dance floor. We do not talk much. We do not dance.

The music drills into my head. The drive home is silent except for the tinging I will hear in my aching ears for the next 24 hours.

*Christmas Eve on bar stools. Brad's family is far away. Mine is scattered. Steve is escaping his for the night, and Gilbert despises the holiday season while only tolerating his wife's Christmas tree. We sit at the Antone's bar sipping cold beer and staring at a soundless television as a guitarist warms up on stage. Besides us, maybe five paying customers are here on what must be the slowest club night of the year. Certainly a recipe for bar stool depression, I think, and sigh deeply.

On the television, "Sodom and Gomorrah" is showing. Toga-clad men strut through ancient, sinful times, or at least the Hollywood, badly colorized version of them. Since the sound is off, we step in with dialogue for the citizens.

"Good evening, centurion. Would you happen to have some cheese?" asks the muscular man in the blue toga.

"Cheese? Why no, I do not have cheese," replies the older man bearing a sword. "But my stomach does love this substance dearly. Perhaps the passing serving wench can assist us. No. She has walked past us without a word. This is indeed a dilemma ..."

For the next hour the four of us create a new plot for the proud toga wearers, all of it centered around the quest for some most-excellent cheese. Occasionally, we pause to take a drink of beer or watch the guitar wizard perform on stage. But soon we are back in cheesy old Sodom and Gomorrah. We laugh as one and order another round.

* The doors to Junior Brown's ever-popular Sunday night show at the Continental Club are shut tightly tonight. No one else will be admitted. Junior is getting too trendily popular. Last time Gilbert and I saw this show, Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater sat on stools next to us and affixed a glossy "cool" seal of approval on everything.

Instead we head north, decide to stop in at Antone's. Maceo Parker has already been on stage for two hours. Admission price is reduced to $5 for latecomers like us. This is James Brown's former sax player, Gilbert explains.

Shakey's/Still/Antones is rattling with the blues. The club is nearing fire- code-breaking full of life. We order two Shiner Bock and wedge our way into the crowd. Heads and bodies bob around us. My own head begins to move as if I it has been sucked into some borglike being brimming with soul. Good God almighty.

To the side of us, women crawl up onto the bar, stand for a moment, then begin to sway back and forth unselfconsciously. One of them kicks her foot out with glee. She is a dead ringer for Jennifer.

Gilbert yells, "Pass the peas!" and, on cue, Maceo bursts into the song of the same name. We hoot and look at each with grins that say, "We are where it's at. Cool."

The crowd envelops us in its groove. From somewhere in the building, I swear, I catch the faint aroma of pizza cooking. The walls greedily suck the energy from the room like a hungry sponge.

Andre Dubus: The writing doctor with healing powers

(A piece I wrote from the Austin American-Statesman shortly after the famed short story writer's death in 1999.)

 BY JOE O'CONNELL
Special to the Austin American-Statesman

The day after Andre Dubus died I was discussing his short story, "The Doctor,'' with a student. In the tale, a doctor discovers a boy caught under a heavy slab in shallow water and can think of no means of rescue. He must watch the boy drown.

It's about defining yourself by your profession, by your outward self, and dealing with the inevitable failures.

Louisiana-born and bred, Dubus made a name for himself writing about the small and large pains of ordinary lives. That he is often mentioned in the same breath as Chekhov speaks to the truth to be found in his fiction.

Tobias Wolff said Dubus' writing is . . . ``driven by the conviction that the possibility of freedom and grace, even heroism, abides in every life.''

The title character of ``The Doctor'' responds to his failure by preparing for future heroism. Too late his mind hits upon the solution. He cuts a small section of garden hose through which the boy could have reached life-giving air.

In 1986, 11 years after that story was published, Dubus became just such a hero. The burly ex-marine and devout Catholic stopped to aid stranded motorists only to be struck by another car. Dubus lost one leg and the use of the other, but was able to push the woman driver of the first car to safety.

When I met Dubus in 1993, I was a graduate student studying creative writing at Southwest Texas State University. I was impressed and asked to work long distance with Dubus on the book of short stories that would be my ticket.

Two years later I was handed a cassette tape, special delivery from Dubus.

I somehow managed to slide the tape into a player. I pushed a button and Dubus was in the room. He had a cold and was grieving the loss of a friend, but was ready to read my work with a critical eye.

The advice was big and small. Tape your writing and listen to it for rhythm. Be careful about imprecise simile. Tack your stories to the wall so they can be viewed as wholes not just individual pages. Trust your material. Read Alice Munro.

``She is amazing, astonishing, astounding. All of those A's,'' he said. ``She has given me the confidence to know stories don't have to do what we've always been told they have to do. They just have to be."

``I know too many good writers who can't handle rejection,'' he said. ``Don't be one of those. You've got great talent here and things should work out well for you. Like the rest of us you'll probably have to have a day job. But, so what? We volunteered."

With that Dubus signed off, but let the tape continue to run. He silently turned on a radio and a snappy Big Band tune filled the air. His wheelchair scraped harshly across the floor. His fingers shuffled through papers and began to do what came naturally. He wrote.

Attack of the dog people

Nameless humans pay homage to canine cult in the park

BYLINE: joe o'connell    
DATE: October 9, 1997 
PUBLICATION: Austin American-Statesman (TX) 
EDITION: Final 
SECTION: XL Ent 
PAGE: 64

They lapse into baby talk, are convinced proper training is the key to a healthy relationship with their ``kids,'' and have pockets that stink of liver. They are Dog People, and, praise Lassie, I unwittingly have been sucked into their cult of canine personality.

It started innocently a few years ago when my sister and her family moved into an apartment that didn't allow pets. Their pooch needed temporary shelter and I provided it. My young nephew had named the critter Patch after a star of his favorite movie, ``101 Dalmatians,'' but, while Patch certainly was animated, his spots looked like they'd been left out in the rain. 

Patch had so much nervous energy that he once ate an entire couch. There was no getting around it, I had to walk him or face the consequences.Easy, I thought. At least it will keep him far from my cat, whose disgust was marked by hairball projectiles aimed at Patch with hair-trigger accuracy. And, hey, I lived down the block from a hike-and-bike trail and the exercise couldn't hurt. 

I attached the leash to Patch's collar and we were off, and running. He strained at the cord and pulled me down the trail, leaping randomly to the left, the right. By the time we'd reached the designated off-leash area, he was calm, so I gave in to his smiling eyes and their pleas for a little freedom to roam. Patch walked with me for a few yards, then stopped, looked both ways, and ran all the way home at top speed. 

If at first you don't succeed, get stupid again. This time Patch was the picture of poise. At least until radio personality and jogger extraordinaire Jody Denberg ran past at a steady trot. Patch, an apparent music buff, --decided to race the KGSR deejay.I bought a longer leash and started training the errant mutt. Over time he settled down, and I exhaled and began to notice a few details about life on the hike-and-bike trail.

 For instance, a male walking solo is given a wide berth and wary stares, but provide the same guy a dog to walk, and he's judged to be a harmless, all-around fun potential dog-sitter. How could anybody with that cute of a pooch be anything but? 

That goes double if the judgment is being made by one of the Dog People. You see, as I soon learned, Dog People travel in packs.Discover more than a few unoccupied square feet of green space in Austin, and you can bet Dog People were there first with their dogs' legs raised in unison to mark the spot. Every day after 5 p.m. Dog People cluster at covert locations around Austin, recruiting others to join them in the ritualized fun. After all, dogs are social, and it's much easier to stand around and watch them play with each other than it is to actually walk. The logic was enticing. 

Patch and I arrived every night at 4:59 p.m. sharp to see his friends. I had officially joined the cult.Membership has its privileges. I was invited to my first dog birthday party as ``Patch's Daddy,'' because Dog People don't know each other's names. 

I was given directions to a West Austin home and told to bring a gallon of vanilla ice cream: dogs can't handle chocolate. The crowd was already off-leash when I got to the small, well-kept house. Claws clicked across the hardwood floors in glee as a videotape of the Westminster Kennel Club show played on the TV in the background; Dog People exchanged knowing glances. 

Spike in business attire.

Our host, Cricket's Mom, had prepared two standing rib roasts, and the mouth-watering aroma wafted toward us as we rushed the table. I sat by the parents of Sasquatch, a hulking black lab known for her psychotic infatuation with large rocks, and the father and visiting grandmother of Thurber, a smallish, peppy critter. 

Dogs perched eagerly by our sides throughout the meal as we, the doting parents, were instructed to feed our kids at least as much roast beef as we consumed. Patch was in heaven. If I weren't already his official Dad, he would have eagerly slapped a paw print on the adoption papers. 

His love grew to new heights as I served him a heaping bowl of ice cream before scooping out the scant leftovers from the carton for myself. The Dog People looked on approvingly and began to discuss the merits of the new flea pill.Thus went my exotic life as a Dog Person, until the day the other paw dropped. 

My sister's brood had purchased a house and a large back yard awaited Patch. My cat burped up a hairball and licked herself in glee. Dog People friends shunned me. People on the hike-and-bike trail averted their eyes when I passed. I was crushed. 

Desperate people do desperate things, so I bought my cat a harness and a leash.I wasn't crazy; I knew she wouldn't go willingly -- at least the first time. So I primed her with a mound of catnip until her eyes were bloodshot and droopy. Then I quickly pulled the harness out of its hiding place and attached it and the leash before she could focus. 

We made it to the staircase easily, but then kitty curled into a ball like a pill bug. I had to drag her down, one step, one plop at a time. Outside it was overcast, and a light mist was falling. She perked up on the trail, walking slowly and sniffing, almost like a dog. Hey, I thought, this just might work! 

Then one of the Dog People approached. My cat arched her back and bounced wildly through the air like a, well, like a cat who's been mistaken for a dog. I grabbed for her, but she got to me first, claws imbedding themselves deep in my chest. 

The walk home was an awkward dance of pain.Six months later I embraced my Dog People-ness, and Spike entered my life. He's a pure-bred, gangly dalmatian who has yet to eat a couch but has eaten almost everything else (including cat food) not nailed down or hidden on top of the refrigerator. Recently Patch came back to me as well, and he and Spike couldn't be happier. Most evenings you can find the three of us at the park cavorting with our pals. I'm the one wearing half-eaten shoes. You know, the guy who smells like liver.

Dammit Doll, vent your frustrations!

Stuffed creature helps folks deal with rigors of everyday stress

(I wrote this story for the Temple Daily Telegram in 1989. It was picked up by the Associated Press and appeared in every major newspaper in Texas--including the Austin American-Statesman from whose archives I grabbed this. Since newspapers had a larger subscription base back then, it's not a stretch to say 2 million people read this little article.

I'm posted it here because I was shocked to see someone got away with trademarking Dammit Doll. Basic research tells you that name and the doll dates back many decades. If someone wants to call this guy on the trademark, here's your proof!) Oh, if you want to make your own, here's the pattern!
 

BYLINE: Joe O'Connell AP AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN 
DATE: March 5, 1989
PUBLICATION: Austin American-Statesman
EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: BUSINESS
PAGE: B15

TEMPLE (AP) - A retired City of Temple employee has found a cure for the everyday stresses of the working world and it comes in the form of the Dammit Doll. Inez Hargrove has shared her secret - the Dammit Doll - with a number of current city workers. The odd-looking doll has a triangular-shaped head, a scruffy mustache and a handy instruction manual.

"When you want to throw the phone or kick the desk and shout, here's a little Dammit Doll that you can't live without. Just grasp it firmly by the legs and find a place to slam it. As you whack its stuffing out, yell Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" the instructions read.

Hargrove started giving the dolls as presents after getting the pattern from a friend who made them for a church fund-raising event. They became so popular she went into business.

"I always say it's not a cursing thing," she said. "You're just taking your frustration out on the doll and saying her name - Dammit, Dammit, Dammit!"

The strange creatures have popped up on desks all around the Temple Municipal Building. "When you want to say things and you can't, you just beat that thing," said Mary Goad, administrative assistant in the planning department. "You get it out of your system. I hit my desk with it."

Laura Doughty, a city legal secretary, has sent about 20 of the dolls as gifts to friends in faraway places like Montana, Tennessee and Illinois.

"There was once that I grabbed it and started beating it," Doughty said. "It made me laugh. It keeps things light and things shouldn't always be serious in life."

The little stress relievers have become such a hit that Hargrove can't keep up with the orders from friends and friends of friends. She has sold about 100 of them, each made in about 2 1/2 hours and sold for $5.

"I just think it's something people enjoy," Hargrove said. "I've never seen anyone take it in their hand and read it that didn't laugh."

She even gave one to her church pastor who displays it proudly in his office. "I guess we Baptists just have more slang than other people," she said with a grin.

The secret to the doll's construction is extra stuffing in the head and legs that are limber enough to provide a good grip, she said.

"You hit it on the back of the head," Hargrove said. "I haven't got a report of anyone beating them up (to destruction) yet."


-----------------------------------------------
Here are two letters to the editor that later appeared in the Austin American-Statesman after this article ran:

BYLINE:   AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN 
DATE: March 28, 1989
PUBLICATION: Austin American-Statesman
EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: EDITORIAL
PAGE: A11

Doll promotes violence

Re: March 5 Associated Press story, "Dammit Doll, vent your frustrations."

What a disturbing picture - a doll that you can "slam" around in order to vent your frustrations. This was the story we read March 5 - the same week we heard about the man convicted of murdering a baby by "slamming" it against a wall or by "fierce" blows to the head. If we, as a society, do not begin to recognize our problems with violence and learn more positive means of dealing with our frustrations, I believe we can only expect to see more and more violence.

If Inez Hargrove, who makes and sells the Dammit Doll, wants to do something with her time, now that she is retired, she should volunteer to help out in a children's program or at the local battered women's shelter -maybe then she will understand what violence is doing to our society.

ROXANNE McKIMMEY
San Marcos


BYLINE:   AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN 
DATE: April 12, 1989
PUBLICATION: Austin American-Statesman
EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: EDITORIAL
PAGE: A15
COLUMN: Letters

Dolls redirect abuse

Re: Roxanne McKimmey's March 28 letter, "Dolls promote violence."

If it weren't for Dammit Dolls, then we would use real-life dolls - our children or husbands, wives, family pets, etc.; beat them black and blue, and like the song Dear Mr. Jesus, we would write: "Dear Dammit Dolls, I didn't mean to slam you at all, but my kids are screaming and my husband has the flu, and I'd rather use you than make them black and blue. Please help me, Dammit Doll, on those days when I want to climb the wall. Because you see, I don't want to hurt anyone at all."

Suggesting that Dammit Dolls promote violence is as absurd as saying that little boys who play with G.I. Joe dolls will grow up and want to spend their vacations in El Salvador.

We do have one complaint against Dammit Dolls. When are they going to make a Spanish version for Hispanic people to vent their frustrations?

So we say let the senior citizens make the Dammit Dolls and have fun in whatever way they choose. For if we all don't take life a little more lightheartedly, we may all end up victims of abuse.

PATRICIA HUTCHISON
SYLVIA ORTIZ
Kerrville