Posted in: Just Business Just Business #30 - No Place For An Ape Like Kong
By 'Plan
May 22, 2009 - 7:01:57 AM
#30
No Place For An Ape Like Kong
Hello there. For those of you who do not know who I am, allow me to introduce myself. My name is ‘Plan. I have been imparting my knowledge into this world for nearly 18 months now and you have seen my face sporadically on here in that time. Never truly, though, have I gained my wings.
As one of our own once stated, it’s my time now. I am here to colour this page in magenta. I am here to tell all of you what I have seen. My name is ‘Plan and I am here to talk to you about a tragedy. I am here to talk to you about a little thing we like to call credibility.
“I go out and sweat blood to make a swell picture…”
1999.
“Alrite fella’, you listen and you listen good. You aint the only guy in this line of business. You aint the bees knees, the be all and all of everythin’. Not yet anyway. See, I took you from some lowly, dead ass company and pulled you up to the clouds. This here aint the little leagues. This here is the big time, the promised land and I’m gonna’ make ya somebody. I’m gonna’ make ya somebody to be noticed.
“You’ll find out that here ya get a fair share of the lime light my friend. I’m gonna’ build ya up as the nastiest bastard since King Kong. How big are ya’? Seven foot? Seven two, seven four? Yeah, big things for you. We’ll put ya right in there, right in the mixin’ pot. Austin and Rock and Mankind, all the top guys and all the top names. I’ll make ya somebody. Main events, championships, credibility.
“Lord knows ya can’t buy credibility my friend. It’s like goldust in our line o’ work, and I aint meaning no freak in face paint and overalls rubbin’ his nipples. Nah, you’re gonna be somebody. I’ll make ya into a contender, a real Marlon Brando type. You’ll be mighty swell alright. Fit right in.”
2002.
How did it come to this? What happened to being a contender? One brief taste at the big time and that’s all you get? Maybe it doesn’t matter your size. Maybe you can get thrown around, used up and violated like an ant even if you’re as big as the beast. Packing your life into a bag and riding off into the sunset like in those old Westerns is always an option; trot into the sunset and hope the wind carries your luck alongside ya pretty little pony. Or you can stick it out. Do what you’re told like a good little boy and job out to guys not even equalling half your size.
Saw a movie once about a gorilla. Some guys hop on a boat with pretty little dame and sail off into the mist. They fall upon an island, all mysterious and the like. When they find the fortitude within them to step foot on this island they find this great big ape. It beats its chest, eats and kills, does what things an ape likes to do. Eventually these men find a way to shackle the ape and they take him home, put him on Broadway; that ape got to do in two minutes what some down in their luck bozo’s and struggling petite dames struggle all their lives to do and all because we can gawp at it like it’s something new.
He didn’t get such an easy ride, see. He’s been flogging and flogging, known every place on the card there is to know and he’s still flogging in those chains, see. Guess there’s not always a fairy tale ending to stories of the fantastical after all.
2005
Thing with alien environments kiddos is that they can get you all disorientated, make you not know where you are. Saucers from space and ray guns and the kind of cheese you find on a Saturday night at the cinema kinda sends your mind spinning, doesn’t it?
One minute you’re wasting away on one show, the next you’re on another being thrown just about anywhere. See, the beast aint a priority. He just gets put where he fits in. Any room down 3rd Street? Put him there when 1st is crammed shoulder to shoulder. No room on 3rd? Send the over-grown bastard down to 2nd Avenue instead. Doesn’t matter what championship it is right, it’s still a championship and the cheques get fatter and whatever.
Well there’s only so much a guy’s soul can take before it breaks and when it breaks a guy stops thinking straight, stops considering his options. Everything gets all big and scary like so he tucks his tail between his legs and runs off into the distance looking to the horizon and hoping for a ray of light to shine his way.
2007
You guys remember that movie I told ya about? The one with the ape in New York City? Yeah, well he didn’t stay forever on Broadway; guess not even the dames with feather fans and sequin skirts could tempt him into staying shackled to showbiz. Nah, see he escaped and ran off into the night.
Thing of it is, it didn’t end all happy. He climbed the Empire State, got shot to pieces by a bunch of planes and came crashing down to the Earth with a bang and a crack. Died, he did. Shot to pieces. Guess it was because he wasn’t playing his game, not on his rough island in the middle of a rougher sea.
This guy, the beast, he ran off into the dusk and tried his hand at something new when they tried to shackle him up. He didn’t do so well neither kiddos. See, he didn’t even make it to climbing the tower. Shot down before he could get that far ya see. Great big tragedy it was.
Course, the real bitch of it all is he then got dragged back to square one. Shackled up again, freak o’ nature that is. Problem being he’s not got that credibility. Sure he’s tasted the middle of that meltin’ pot but he’s been just about here there and everywhere. And when you try to be a jack of all trades, usually it means bein’ master of none. So kiss that credibility good bye friend, it’s right out the window.
“…and then the critics and the exhibitors all say, ‘If this picture had a love interest it would gross twice as much’…”
2008
“Listen here pal, it’s not that we don’t appreciate ya and it aint because you don’t fill my till with ten dollar bills. We just got nothin’ for ya right now, see? The people only want so many underdog stories and we’re running outta b-picture monsters to throw your way. Godzilla ran his course in one showin’ and hell son, there’s only so many times we can do Kong and Gort aint there? That’s already ran its course.
“Hey, listen Paulie, I’d do what I can but there’s just no box office hit there anymore. People aint interested in Kong now. They’d rather see flying saucers and fancy effects and the like. Ya know, the kinda thing that goes boom in the sky. Close encounters and plane crashes. Disaster, that’s in vogue. Monster movies are thing of the yesteryear.”
I remember the days when monsters and freaks ruled our world. The world was a different place back then, more places to go. Better place, brighter. More choice. People weren’t afraid to share, there wasn’t so much fear about what belonged to who. Back then wars were like competition. People would talk like pals in the morning and fight and massacre one another in the evening. Then they’d chink glasses, down the bourbon and drink to tomorrow’s fox. The world was a simpler place when more happened in it.
Then the war came and everything changed. Sad thing is kids are growin’ up and now the war’s just a page in a textbook or a montage on the latest disc. Images and sounds, that’s all it’ll be. It’s fading into a myth and a distant memory and soon it’s gonna be like leaves in the wind in the middle of autumn. Now there’s less of a place for the big guys, the monsters and freaks.
See a generation died in the wars, the last nail in a coffin being built for them for a very long time, longer than any guy or gal I know can remember. That final nail got hammered in and after the war everything got smaller, including the world. See, that movie, the one about the ape, if that movie got made in today’s world then that island would have tower blocks and fast cars and long streets. Point being there’s no place for an ape like Kong in this world.
Everything’s moved on. It’s not about the characters anymore or the stories, it’s about what a guy can gross and fact is, the guy I’m talking about, someone else will always gross more. But I guess this time the guy wants to make a go of it and not settle for second best.
I mean, that’s to say, could you miss a giant ape trying to get noticed?
“All right. The public wants a girl, and this time, I’m gonna give ‘em what they want.”
“Ok, there may be somethin’ Paulie. I think I got ya somethin’ to keep ya up top. See the world’s a different place now. The people don’t want just another monster type. They’ve seen it all before. Seen you before Paulie. This aint god damn twenty years ago, know what I’m sayin’?
“So listen. You just aint relevant anymore so we gonna make you relevant Paulie. We gonna make someone care about you. There’s this woman see, Paulie. A real beau. She’s a gal in charge, a gal who has power, who can getcha up top. And what’s more is she’s got this husband. We gonna make you credible again Paulie, put you back in the metlin’ pot. We gonna’ get ya to give Vickie some sweet ape lovin’.”
March
Human intuition is a pretty funny thing aint it? Gut instinct. When it’s right it can get ya places, take ya to the top, make ya a walking success story if ever there was one. And yet it can be a hell of a bitch; make ya look like a fool in a way only a woman with a sharp tongue and sharper wit in a cocktail dress could do.
When I first saw the squealing sow yelling out her simple lil’ catchphrase in her shrill, vile voice I thought it was going to pot. I thought they were finally tryin’ to kill off Kong. I thought they’d sent in the biplanes to pump him full of lead and send him crashing down to the streets of NYC below with a thud and bang so that little Vinny could pop up and tell us all that it was beauty that killed the beast. I thought it was all over for the poor ape.
But life’s fall of funny little miracles. I’ve come to learn that the lord works in real mysterious ways. His idiosyncrasies are always gonna be lost on me so I’m gonna stop tryin’ to second guess how he made the world what it is and just observe it for what it is. And when I sit and look I don’t see the planes in the movies killing Kong.
I sit and I wonder what would have happened had Kong beaten those planes. What if he stayed up there, up top with the so called love of his life? The movie would be a damned odd thing, no?
As soon as he started to kiss the pig, his fortunes changed. See he wasn’t plagued by directionless meandering anymore. He got thrown once again into the biggest stage to stand on. Broadway? Hell, it was bigger than that. Maybe he didn’t win, maybe he didn’t necessarily become the talking point of the people filing out the theatre but one thing’s damned sure; he was there and he deserved to be there.
So what now? The future…well…I guess it’s an intuitive entity cos, see, I thought the future was bleak for him. I was wrong. The future is a hit and miss thing to predict so I aint gonna try. Hell, the latest story to unfold with our own Kong proves that more often than not I’m gonna get it wrong.
“I’m gonna make the greatest picture in the world, something that nobody’s ever seen or heard of.”
“Paulie, you and I have come a long way. Ten years and you’ve literally done just about everything I can think for ya to do. I made some mistakes with ya Paulie, I aint gonna’ deny that. I thought you were out-dated. I didn’t think people wanted to hear about Kong anymore but…well I guess love stories stand the test of time Paulie. Just not monster movies.
“I tell ya what Paulie. I’m gonna’ make you somebody, make ya a contender, a real Marlon Brando type. We’ll have ya beat all the best, dominate everyone we can get ya to dominate. You’re gonna be noticed this time Paulie. I aint puttin’ you in the meltin’ pot this time. This time I’m gonna make ya the meltin’ pot! This time we’ll do things properly Paulie.
“I promise.”
Today
So here we are folks. It’s been a long and windin’ road for some of the guys lurking around in our post-war world. There aint no more place for monsters and everything is so much smaller. Well. Maybe not everything.
Opportunity knocks now. A new initiative. Guess Vinny sees the need to move forwards at long last. There’s another new generation coming friends. The past is turning into a memory more distant than anything that came before it but while the future is mostly unclear, at least it’s a bright white light blurring it, not a black hole hiding it.
It’s optimism ya see, it’s in the air, permeating the world, permeating everything. And in the middle of all of it there stands a great big monster, a creature of yesteryear but one that’s a survivor as well. It’s survived for ten years and now it looks like it’s gonna be the one to be survived.
All because of a woman! Credibility is killed only to be revived by a squealing pig. People, beauty didn’t kill the beast. Far from it. If I could meet Carl Denham tomorrow I’d make it clear to him that beauty kissed the beast and made him better. The stories may be years apart but they’re as relevant as one another.
What’s the point of it all? Is there even a point to be had? Truth is I don’t quite know either. I’m contented to simply sit and watch but if you want I’m sure you can dig one up. See, through all the thick and thin, throughout the long and winding road, Big Show stuck with it. He only tried to hide the once but soon came back and now his future is the brightest it’s been.
Maybe the moral of the story is that patience truly is a virtue. Maybe it’s that persistence pays dividends. Maybe it’s that credibility can be killed so easily and be remade from the most unlikely of sources. Maybe it’s that our world is full of false promises we should be less hasty to believe.
Or perhaps I’m amazed because, frankly, I just don’t like monster movies.
“Did you ever hear of…Kong?”
We’re facing a new age. A new age of fans and of stars and a whole different complexion to the world. Now is the chance for names to be made, now is the chance for stories to be forged and now is the time for some to keep themselves relevant, to keep their credibility.
Big Show’s done it. He’s struggled through the years and endured some pretty bad things to get where he is. He’s survived in the wilderness of Skull Island for so long but it looks like he is going to re-write the storybook at long last. Manhattan is not going to kill him; he is going to kill Manhattan. And god help any man who gets in his way.
All I can say is it’s about bloody time.
(Author’s note: This column is dedicated to sheepster for surviving the dark ages and being a visual genius, there for me when my life was not quite cartoonish enough. I hope you enjoyed it!)
Feedback to: planm4n89@hotmail.co.uk
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