JOE BOB BRIGGS GOES TO THE DRIVE-IN (06-15-84)
Sanche...@xerox.arpa
ADDICTS. I HOPE THAT IT DOESN'T SPOIL YOUR DAY. THE ARTICLE IS AFTER
THIS WEEKS REVIEW AND COULD ULTIMATELY SPOIL YOUR CONCEPT OF WHO JOE BOB
IS.
MIGUEL
---------------------------
YOU KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKIN' ABOUT IN "BREAKIN'" -- A WHOLE LOT OF DANCE
FU.
There used to be some racists in my neighborhood, so every once in a
while me and Bobo Rodriguez would go over and beat the tar out of 'em.
Normally I'm not a violent kind of guy, specially when it means I might
get my face mashed into a potato pancake, but one thing I learned form
"Billy Jack" is there's times when you just have to let a 32-ounce
Louisville Slugger do the talking or else the violent bigots and
intolerant people will take over your city.
I never did ask Bobo what race he was, but I'm pretty sure he was a
Negro. His skin was the color of Taster's Choice Decaffinated, which
means he could go either way, but one time he tried to change is name to
Bobo al-Salaam, and when he did that everybody started calling him "Al"
because they thought he was saying "Al Sloan," and he kept trying to
pronounce it for three, four weeks but finally he gave it up and went
back to Bobo Rodriguez. The only thing I ever heard Bobo say about his
roots is his family come from somewhere in Norway.
Anyhow, Bobo's the guy that first taught me about racism. Bobo's the
guy who showed me it's not the color of a man's skin that matters, it's
how much money he's got. Bobo used to say, "Hey, look at Sammy Davis
Jr. He's black, he's Jewish, he's short, he wears too much jewlery.
But let's face it, he did it his way."
I used to be a racist. When I was growing up out in Lamb County,
Texas, it was against the law not to be a racist. Even the black people
were racists. They had to walk 10, 15 miles out of their way to find a
Meskin farm-worker they could refuse to talk to. And the Meskins were
just waiting around for the Vietnamese to show up so they could make
boat people jokes. That's what happens when you lose a war. Pretty
soon you can't go in SevenEleven without wondering whether those guys
are putting dog meat in the frozen burritos.
I got over that pretty quick, though. Racism is a nasty beast. It
makes you stereotype people. I first realized this when Bobo introduced
me to that enormous contribution of the black-skinned peoples of the
earth to this country of ours. You know what I'm talking about.
I'm talking Negro Dancing.
Rhymin' and climbin', boppin' and hoppin', glidin' and slidin', jukin'
and pukin' -- whatever you want ot call it, we're talking a whole lot of
g's missing out of their words.
Bobo Rodriguez was a great Negro Dancer his ownself. Back in the
sixties he was one of those guys who would do splits out in front of the
high school marching band and lean back so far he could turn his body
into a piece of human salt-water taffy and touch the Astroturf with his
forehead between his ankles and keep on stridin' till he did a 360 flip
and wrapped his ankles around his neck and spun a baton around his
wrists like a peice of Jimmy Dean Sausage. It was too bad Bobo wasn't
in the marching band and so he got kicked out of school for doing that.
Anyhow, I was thinking of Bobo last week whe I headed out to the
Century D.I. in Grand Prairie to check "Breakin'," starring Shabba-Doo
and Boogaloo Shrimp. (It's fairly obvious that these Muslim names are
catching on.) We got some of the finest Negro Dancing since the time I
saw the halftime show between Grambling State and Texas Southern in the
Cotton Bowl. And those guys didn't even know how to dance on their
heads. To me there's basically three kinds of break-dance head spins.
1) Basic Skull Fracture: at least three times all the way around,
with major hair loss.
2) The Suicide: arms straight, legs straight, ready to use your face
for a Dr. Scholl's arch support.
3) Premanent Brain Damage.
"Breakin'" shoulda been called "How To Teach Stupid Honkies How To Rip
Up Their Danskins and Thrive on Jive." It starts off with this
"Flashdance" lookalike bimbo named Kelly doing a "Staying Alive" dance
class routine where the object is to see how much of your jumpsuit you
can get bunched up around your rear end before you lose your PG. Kelly
is one of those Rhodes Scholars whose idea of a good time is to go sit
on the beach with guys from the chorus line and talk about their
Liberace record collections, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
So Kelly meets this gay Negro who takes her over to Venice Beach so she
can watch people do some pretzel-sandwich moves, and pretty soon a
couple of brain-damaged jukers named Shabba-Doo and Boogaloo are on
their way over to the Arthur Murray Studios to hassle Kelly's extremely
white teacher. He kicks 'em out for dancing like black people.
Next thing, a couple bad dudes from Watts show up and call the two
jukers "chicken." I guess you know what that means.
Dance Fu.
But Shabba-Doo and Boogaloo blow it when the big Friday-night rumble
dance comes along. The guys from Watts wipe 'em off the floor because
they have a hot bimbo and Our Team don't. So what do they do? They
decide they're gonna teach a white person to dance. So they start
practicing in the garage where Shabba-Doo and Boogaloo live, only when
it's time to break for lunch they go down to the nearest country-western
redneck bar for a bite, cause what the hey, there won't be anybody in
there that cares about two black dudes walking around with a white girl.
I think you might be starting to see what we're dealing with here: IQ's
in the single digits.
Anyhow, there's a lot more plot in there, specially after they get a
Tony Franciosa lookalike to be their agent and he gets 'em, booked in
the big dance contest where everybody does ballet except for these three
geeks in tennis shoes. But at the last minute Shabba-Doo decides he
don't want to show for the contest and Kelly keeps trying to tell him
he's just acting black, but he says "No way Jose, I'm not going unless
you see something first." And so he takes her out to where this
crippled kid with no legs is break-dancing on his crutches and she
thinks. hey, if I think black maybe I can be black, and pretty soon
they're on their way to the big production number, which I won't reveal
except I'll say, we're talking serious brain damage.
No blood, no breasts, no beasts, but a whole lot of killer dancing.
Kung fu. Dance fu. Great broom-dance scene. Heads spin. Legless
break-dancing. Drive In Academy Award nominations for Lucinda Dickey,
as the white guinea pig; Shabba-Doo; Boogaloo; and Bobo al-Salaam, who
made it all possible. Three and a half stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
---------------------------
JOE BOB'S MAILBAG
JOE BOB REMINDS YOU THAT THERE IS ONLY ONE DRIVE-IN REMAINING IN THE
ENTIRE NATION OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA. WITHOUT ETERNAL VIGILANCE, IT COULD
HAPPEN HERE. TO DISCUSS THE MEANING OF LIFE WITH JOE BOB, OR JUST TO
WASTE 20 CENTS ON A STAMP, WRITE JOE BOB BRIGGS, P.O. BOX 225445,
DALLAS, TX 75222.
Dear Joe Bob
On September 1, 1984, after 26 years on active duty, over 20 of which
have been spent as an attorney with the Judge Advocate General's
Department, Lt. Col. Harold A. Teeter will retire from the U.S. Air
Force.
Teeter, as he likes to be called, is probly your biggest fan in Europe
and is single-handedly responsible for spreading the gospel according to
Joe Bob to American military attorneys throughout Europe. Of course, we
must live vicariously over here. There's no Drive-In Heaven season over
here in Germany. We are talking only indoor crapola starring the likes
of Dudley Moore and some royal jerkolas from Ponca City. Through it
all, Teeter has kept us supplied with the latest from the Drive-In Mecca
in Rockwall,Texas. Now that he is retiring, panic has begun to
insinuate itself among the ranks. Where will we get our next Joe Bob
fix? (Teeter's daughter, a student at North Texas State, faithfully
mails your columns every week.) Part of the problem is that we're too
cheap to subscribe to the Times Herald. Besides, the way the mail moves
over here, we wouldn't see this week's review until after then next
Texas-OU game.
Teeter wote to the Stars and Stripes ("an unoficail publication for US
Armed Forces overseas ... published in conjunction with the Armed Forces
Information Program of the Department of Defense," if you know what I
mean and I doubt anybody does) to see about getting your column in that
rag. He received an encouraging response from one of the editors who
was familiar with your work. However, it's been six months and still no
Joe Bob. Rumor has it that the wimpola high sheriffs don't like your
frequent references to Arkansas Polio Weed, sex and gratuitous violence
against women.
To get back to the mission of this missive, I need a favor. Before
Teeter goes out to pasture, we plan to give him a real bash (more like a
roast -- no blood, breasts or bimbofu, but as I said, the military
doesn't appreciate humor) with a momento or two he'll appreciate. A
letter from Joe Bob would be the ultimate gift.
Joe Bob, if you can find the time to reply in between your busy
drive-in schedule, please send it to me for presentation to Teeter.
Don't be afraid to let 'er rip. Our best to Wanda Bodine and UOAS.
James A. Young III, Major, USAF
APO New York
Dear Major Jimbo:
Anything for our fighting men, specially the ones we send over to
Europe so the Communist German girls with hairy underarms can spit on
'em.
Even though Teeter's a lawyer, I'm sending a little present his way.
Tell him it's in the box marked "TEETER'S EYES ONLY CONFIDENTIAL SUPER
TOP SECRET MP'S KEEP YOUR GODURN HANDS OFF."
Did you know they grow some fake Arkansas Polio Weed over in Turkey?
---------------------------
Dear Joe,
Joe Bob my husband is reading the paper he's laughing and carring on
about the great movie critic. Ha! Ha! I think that's a matter of
opinion. I bet you watch the movies on your big screen T.V. Sitting
back with your favorite beer and porobably some Dr. Scholl's foot
powder. (If you know what I mean) (foot in mouth)
It just goes to show ya everything's big in Texas including your mouth.
And an awful lot of hot air lately. You've been real busy the way the
wind's been blowing around here. When I saw the ad in Friday's paper I
was convinced. More than likely you have a woman helping you write all
those things. A man couldn't do it alone. I hope this letter raises a
brow like it did on my husband's.
Jean Smith
Mesquite, Tex.
P.S. If you ever need any pointers just call.
Dear Jean:
On your husband's what?
---------------------------
HERE COMES THE SPOILER SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO FIND OUT WHO IS THE REAL
JOE BOB DON'T READ BELOW THIS LINE.
CONSIDER YOURSELFS WARNED.
MIGUEL
This Man Writes Joe Bob (from the San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, May
27).
SPOILER! The "real" Joe Bob is revealed in this article.
Though he has never publicly admitted it, John Bloom, an award-winning
writer for the Dallas Times Herald, is the man behind the Joe Bob Briggs
column that now extends weekly to 28 papers across th country. Besides
the Sunday Datebook, Joe Bob now appears in the Denver Post, Cleveland
Plain Dealer, the Seattle Times and the Phoenix Republic Gazette. The
L.A. Times, which syndicates the feature, said it is "adding two to
three papers a week."
Editors at the Dallas Times Herald could not have predicted such
popularity for Joe Bob when the column was introduced two years ago. The
feature was actually created largely by accident, a mischievous device
to report a tired topic.
"The whole thing started as a Sunday feature assignment," recalls
Special Sections Editor Ron Smith. "Everyone had been writing stories
about the death of the drive-in movie. "We though that was bull." So
Bloom was put on the assignment. "It would have been just another Sunday
story if Bloom hadn't come up with the idea of writing it from the
perspective of a drive-in regular."
Bloom says the idea percolated almost from the time he joined the Times
Herald. He saw it as a way of serving readers interested in the films
typically shown at drive-ins without taking the movies too seriously.
In a previous stint with the Times Herald as a reporter, Bloom won two
Headliner awards and a Robert F. Kennedy award for social reporting for
articles on the Ku Klux Klan, an investigation into the death of a
Mexican-American at the hands of police and a series on police abuse of
minority groups in the Southwest. But he had never worked as a movie
critic and wasn't quite sure how to approach the assignment.
"When I first started as film critic, I felt it was my responsibility to
review everything that opened in this market. I was turning out columns
with for or five sraight reviews and then a couple of films like 'Dead
and Buried.' After a few weeks, it struck me as silly to review these as
art. I wanted to find a way to treat them as they were meant to be
treated, as a product. Joe Bob was the result."
Bloom introduced Joe Bob with a longish biographical sketch. Joe Bob, he
explained, was about 19 years old, had at least three ex-wives (he may
have forgotten a couple), was unemployed and claimed to have seen 6800
drive-in moves, counting triple features.
"Joe-Bob's personality, his love life--it all grew out of the movie he
reviewed," says Bloom. "The movies came first and the persona just
evolved. We tried to imagine what a person who liked these movies would
be like and to create a consistent character. I began giving him friends
and girl friends and so on."
In the time since Joe Bob began, Bloom has hired an agent, signed with a
syndicate and shopped for the biggest book advance he could get. The
book, an autobiography of Joe Bob from the day he was born in Frontage
Road, Texas, is due from Dell this fall. Its title: "A Guide to Western
Civilization."
According to Bloom, the columns are among the easiest writing he has
ever done for pay. Each column requires three hours of his time, he
says. Two hours to see the movie and one to write 1200 to 1500 words.
Asked whether he might eventually grow tired of Joe Bob, Bloom answers,
"It isn't the sort of thing that can go on forever. I imagine reader
interest will die out after a while. But I guess I'll be writing Joe Bob
for at least the next four years." That's the length of his syndicate
contract.
"It doesn't bother us that Joe Bob probably will offend some people,"
says Angela Rinaldi, managing editor of development for the Los Angeles
Times Syndicate. "Controversy attracts readers. Besides, this is an
extremely good-humored and well-controlled kind of offensiveness."
Interestingly enough, drive-in theater owners don't like the column,
Bloom says. "They don't think Joe Bob is typical of the average drive-in
movie patron. They think he creates a bad image for the drive-ins.
They've been trying to bill themselves as a family entertainment since
1946. It has never worked, but they don't like to be represented as the
garbage pit for exploitation movies."
Bloom has never appeared in public as Joe Bob and chooses to keep as low
a profile as possible. He began to realize the extent of Joe Bob's
popularity on Halloween weekend in 1982 when he went to the Gemini Drive
in outside Dallas for the First Annual Drive-In Film Festival and Car
Rally. "A group of Joe Bob enthusiasts and supporters surrounded the
concesssion stand and chanted, "We want Joe Bob! We want Joe Bob!" They
refused to leave, and were threatening a small riot, until I made an
announcemnt over the P.A. system and the crowd dispersed. But I didn't
appear in person."
On another occasion a mental patient came to the lobby of the Times
Herald and refused to leave withou an audience with Joe Bob. Bllom
remembered: "She carried with her a trash can filled with weeds. She
started screaming and was getting violent until someone was able to
appease her. But she never got her audience with Joe Bob."
Bloom says he has received anonymous letters where the columns have been
cut into pieces with such notes on the margin as "You're going to die!"
and "Death to Joe Bob!" Despite the fact Joe Bob is his creation, Bloom
laments that his red-neck spoof has proved more popular than some of his
serious work. He and Texas Monthly Associate Editor Jim Atkinson spent
two years researching and writing a book on the Candace Montgomery
murder case. A serious piece of journalism, the pair thought it would be
fairly commercial, because the case was so sensational. But they had to
beg agents to handle it and publishers to look at it. "But then Joe Bob
comes along," says Bloom, "and I have publishers begging me for a book."
Still, one gets the impression that the 31-year-old columnist is
enjoying the notoriety that surrounds Joe Bob. He says his wife reads
the column "without fail every week and falls down laughing." Bloom is
"continually amazed" at reactions from other cities. Pro and con leters
to various newspapers have numbered in the thousands (the Chronicle
alone has received nrearly 500 pieces of correspondence). "In San
Antonio," he said, "my column was completely accepted as a part of life.
On the other hand, San Francisco has evoked the most vociferous
reaction. Usually the protests to Joe Bob come from the conservative
side. But the Bay Area readership has ben the most aggressive, a mixture
of hate mail and loyal suport. Joe Bob is enjoying it." And then Bloom
added, with just a touch of nervousness tinging his light Texas accent,
"I'm sure it's a wonderful city, San Francisco, as long as I don't have
to visit there."
------------------------------------------------------------
Byron Howes
as much as anyone, but.... If I recall correctly, Joe Bob's column is
copyrighted by the Dallas Morning Herald. I haven't seen a 'copied with
permission' notice (or even a copied 'without' permission notice) on any of
the transcriptions of the column appearing on the net. C'mon folks. Read
the usenet Emily Post!
--
Byron Howes
UNC - Chapel Hill
({decvax,akgua}!mcnc!unc!howes)