Lash La Rue continued “ I made lots of bread from the Lash package —everybody connected did —but I never thought to put any of it away. From ‘48 to ‘57—those were my peak years. I didn’t always pay all my taxes, so I’d rather not go into that and get into a jack pot with the Government. Let’s just say I paid taxes on more than $80,000 a year. Back then, that was a lot of scratch—equal to half a million now. In cash, in gravy. “Fucking money-sucking tax grabbers. I was a lousy bookkeeper and at times it was very tough cheating you out of enough money to pay you off! “ CUT. PRINT IT. “ Huh-huh-huh....Well, I told you I had a taste of it all. I was married ten times, you know. Yes. And had a house in the Hollywood Hills worth, oh, $85,000. A split-level up in Laurel Canyon—a kind of party house. I loved people and I had a 75-foot living room and a wet bar and slot machines all over the joint. There was a wild-ass sunken tub and shower, man, with like fourteen different spigots that could bathe you from every angle! That place had everything, you know, that put it way out ahead of its time. “ Most of the people with me got fucked over. See, if they can’t conform you or control you, they will kill you, and if you don’t die when they think you should, they'll degrade you until you wish you were dead. “Tansey, my producer, clued me in on some things that didn’t register until later. He said, “ If you ever have to tell anyone who you are, it doesn’t count—you’ll be penalized for the points.’ He also used to say, ‘Always be nice to your producer, because tomorrow he might be the gateman and he won’t let you in. ’ “ Well, you see, the way the studios were run, the producers had everybody copping their joints. If not the husband, then the wife. That’s what the B Westerns made possible—the producers’ getting fucked and sucked and making money all at the same time. The twisted ones thought that was the way it was intended to be, but I’m sure if the Old Man had intended for a bunch of cocksuckers to run things, He’d never have created women, all the beautiful women.... “Anyway, that’s the way it was in Hollywood. The producers passed the angels around from hand to hand, having them cop their joints. ‘Listen, you wanna good suck? I’ll send little Jackie over. Afterward, you might duke her a fin or give her a walk-on.’ They used a lot of the men that way, too. “ I knew a pug, a lightweight contender, who kept living too long for his own good. I ran into him on the street after the lash series had folded, and he said, ‘I ain’t worked in over a year. It’s not who you know it’s who you blow. And I ain’t like that!’ “ Poor son of a bitch. Shit, I wasn’t like that, either. I was cocky and arrogant—hard to handle. I fought at the drop of a hat. Oh, I wanted people to love me, but I wanted respect, too, and I found that the only way to get it was to belt people. “That attitude kept me confined to the PRC class of pictures—I can grasp that now. See, I could’ve had the Montgomery Clift role in Howard Hawks ’s Red River.... I made movies for several different studios and, in ‘56, I took the Lash package out on the road. I played the Bijou circuit, which was jig theaters, and, later on, the Royal American and the Olsen shows, the rolling-stock camies. The jigs always dug me—the nigger-slick outfit and all. “ Huh-huh-huh....I was cool in the traveling camies until ‘57. That was the year I got busted at the fairgrounds in Memphis. It was a pocket-change score connected with some sewing machines I’d bought off a guy. I beat the rap, but I got a lot of bad press. It kind of wiped me out, in fact. “ Still, I had a little coin left and I bought a combination restaurant and motel in Reno. I went out on Lash gigs occasionally, but not as often. I was married to my tenth wife by then, a Small Player named Reno Brown. “ In ‘63 ,1discovered the Old Man, or maybe it was the other way around.My wife thought I was cracked when I asked her to join me in spreading His word. She wound up with the motel and whatever I had out of my life. She’s got it and I hope it does her a lot of fucking good, because she doesn’t have anyone to love her anymore. “Later I took of for another area. The fourth night out, some iggy bastard stole all my gear out of my car—my personalized saddle and guns, the works. I ended up in Miami with thirty-five cents in my pocket. Since I was there as an unwelcome guest, I was being watched by the state police of Florida Oh, I knew the score. I knew full well that the CIA knew me better than the Baptists. “ I walked up to this cop, and he knew who I was and I knew who he was, and I said, “Hey, why don’t you destroy me, motherfucker? You’d be doing me a favor to put me out of my misery.’ He blew his whistle and there were suddenly cops all over me and some big dyke nurse was jabbing me in the ass with a needle. “When I start talking to shrinks, you know, they end up talking to themselves. I just tell them flat out, ‘lam a triple schizophrenic, buster, and what else would you like to know?' Huh-huh-huh....One of them remarked that I looked a little like Humphrey Bogart. I told him, ‘Well, Bogart’s passed through. And he was bald, while I ’ve still got a full head of hair. I like the comparison, but I ’d rather think Bogart looked like me.’ “ I told him, huh-huh-huh....Well, the Old Man provided, as He always does, for His mangled ones. I started giving witness in little churches here and there in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi....And I set up the Lash LaRue Evangelistic Association, Inc., in Long Beach, California. My two sons live there with their mother at 3639 Walnut Avenue, and I want everybody to know that address. I always ask people to send five dollars or so for the Lord’s work to that address. The body requires sustenance just as much as the soul, and my boys and I can use the bread. “That’s how I came to be associated with Brother 3:16 Cook. A bad gig not all that different from Hollywood. In fact, I was better off when I made that porn film I made a few years ago. Oh, yes, it was a hard-core job and I was definitely in it. The title was Hard on the Trail, but it should’ve been Hard-on on the Trail. “The way it happened was just another example of how Hollywood degrades its discarded packages. I was used and abused, just as many others were. I needed some new film to get my face around town, so I hired on with this independent company for two days’ work. I never did see the script—I only knew about the pages I was in. I was gray and bearded and I was to be the lead heavy in the thing—not the working heavy but the heavy with the brains. I wasn’t connected with the shooting of the dirty stuff. They spliced that in around me. It was an honest mistake on my part. I was duped. I’m sorry that I made it, but I’m glad, too, in a way. I got paid for it, and it’ll give the preachers just that much more mud to sling at me. “When you're rolling the bones in the game of life and death monopoly of the soul, you have to learn one thing: I f a man is wearing a gun, play him for his gun first. After you take his gun, you can take his money. “CUT. PRINT IT. “ Huh-huh-huh....Well, I can’t be responsible for my past. Things go wrong when a man’s not ready for the situation he’s in. “ A lot of Big Players used and abused the angels who helped them get to the top. Where would Roy Rogers be now without dale Evans? He’d be one of John's 3:16’s mission gazoonies, that’s what. Gene Autry, too. “ See, when a Big Player comes close to the Vale, he can choose somebody to give himself to. Almost invariable, a man will give himself to a woman, and she’ll end up getting fucked out of the gift. That’s what Errol Flynn did when he came over to see me. He knew his time was coming and he was looking to give his body to someone. We never got close enough for the transfer to happen —he passed through too quick. “Oh, poor Errol blew it. That's why I'm going to preach my own fucking funeral. And then get up and have a party for a whole week afterward. And if you'll send a contribution in advance to my Long Beach address, you can attend with a camera and get some fantastic pictures. “ Huh-huh-huh....My voice startles people, you know. I tell 'em I’m working on a script called The last Day and I have to try out the dialog to see how it sounds. Jesus spoke in parables, but when I get done, they won’t know whether to shit or go blind. Bunch of iggy bastards. “ So many bastards in the world.... I’ll be glad to get to that new gig in Jacksonville....I’ve seen some pretty fair action so far, and the Biggest Players I’ve encountered have all been heads. That’s right, no fooling. But don’t get me wrong—I wouldn’t want youngsters to stumble on what they catch me doing. Because young minds have been separated from the wisdom of their knowledge. “ But weed is a harmless little balm from the Old Man, isn’t it? In the afternoon and evening of my life, I think it, yes. Do you know how they’re smugglin gm hash now? In one-pound cans of tuna. That’s right. It comes in through Customs from Europe labeled as tuna. “Ah...sorry, Charlie. They don't want tunas with good taste. They want tunas that toke good, man. “ Huh-huh-huh....You know, I believe I’ll start selling a franchise for marijuana fudge and ship in some really dynamite shit from the Other Side. Either that or...I had this thought about how to make surfboards out of hash. An approach like that, you know, should work. See, there’s no shortage of hash. The problem is to get it into the country in quantity so that everybody can participate without feeling used and abused. Hmm...hmm. What do you think?” Lash has been pacing and raving since early twilight, and now the snow buzzards’ bars are closing all over the midnight-darkened City of Sunshine. Looking ashen and drained, the old cowboy star collapses onto the couch. He’s not through, though—not yet. He huddles in ticking, metallic silence for a couple of minutes, then lights up and starts over. “Nothing is accidental—nothing, no thing. I 've had a taste o f everything the world has to offer-----” CUT, old mangled King of the Bullwhip. PRINT IT, you iggy bastards. Reprinted by permission of Oui Magazine. —Since 1905— THE WHITE EAGLE GAPE S SALOON 282-6810 U / m MONDAY: AT 9:00 P.M. 836 NORTH RUSSEL Pete Karnes Blooz Band ( 1Mile North o f the Coliseum — 1Blk. o f f Interstate A ve. ) MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY Coffee Lolita & Kamora $1.50 Buck night well drinks only Tequila Night any tequila drink $1.50 Ladies Night Cover $1.50 Ladies.50 & SATURDAY Live Blues 1st drink for ladies free 30
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