Outsourcing

I’m not really a movie reviewer. I get nervous sitting in the dark with strangers. The last movie I sat through featured Joan Blondell. Back when cigarette smoking was socially acceptable in hospital nurseries, I made a good living writing lurid crime stories. Call me sentimental, but what passes as sexy today can’t hold a candle to grainy black & white photos of half naked dames getting whacked with a claw hammer. The dames weren’t really getting whacked. Bud Ossen, the Ansel Adams of erotic masochism, was a genius. Photography lost a true visionary the night his ex caught him off guard walking across the Dark Yodeler’s parking lot. If her Rambler hadn’t stalled out, who knows how many times the crazy bitch would’ve backed over the poor bastard. I tear up staring at faded Confidential Detective covers. Those were the days when high art was appreciated.

Had I stayed away from bourbon, unstable bottle-blonds, bookies and slow ponies, my so-called Golden Years might be a different color. I’m a happy man if I can get through the day and not go ten rounds with aluminum wrapped suppositories. Whoever said, “Old age is a blessing” never spent an afternoon sprawled on the bathroom floor in a desperate attempt to shove a little metal torpedo up their ass. It ain’t pretty. Did I mention that my prostate gland and the eight ball are identical twins?

[It was at this point Dane Paste, the Joplin Globe’s senior copy editor, realized Clifford Hanger’s first submitted movie review wasn’t going to make the Sunday edition].