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nice job Bruce

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I read the book right after it came out. Weather is my passion. My heart sunk when I heard hollywood was going to try and make a movie out of it.

I'm trying to think of something that explains how I feel about this.

It would be like if somebody finally caught the Loch Ness Monster, and it turned out to be a 5-foot kind of eel or something. A plankton feeder.

Now a bunch of people are going to go around knowing what it's like to be out there, really out there, really, really, really, out there.

"Yea like, I saw the movie. It was like, the water? gets, like, really bad? and then like, like, for about 10 minuites? it's pretty scary, yea. and like then? a big like mother wave? comes along? that looks just like the waves at Malibu! only, like bigger? oh, and the music? it's really scary? and really really loud? and a bunch of people, who are like, fishermen? only they don't have scars or muscles or look like they've ever left the tanning booth? and even though they're on this like, small boat? with fish and stuff? they like are clean-shaven, and don't have greasy hair or bloodshot eyes with a bit of jaundice from the years of hard, like, drinking? and fishguts everywhere? and like there's no crusty shit in the underware they've had on for three weeks now? because like, they must have a hot tub somewhere on this boat? and some conditioner with moisturizer and aloe? and what's really weird? like, they talk funny? like, like, like they live in LA, or something. anyway, like some of them fall in the water? whoa! it's like, wicked."

Hey, I don't know. I haven't seen the film. Das Boot was unique in it's authentic depiction of the inside of a U boat, but hey, it's the inside. How does one do the Hollywood of being on a tiny surface ship in a storm bigger and badder than anyone has ever lived thru?

How do you do that? I was on the SS United States in March of 1963, when the captiain took the northern passage across the North Atlantic from Le Harve to New York. So anyway, we're about 2 days out of Le Harve, and like, they had to empty all five swimming pools, and wouldn't let anyone out on deck, anywhere, they bolted the doors man! actually had life-lines rigged all over the ship, inside and out, because about every three minuites the entire front third of the ship is under water. UNDER water. I saw it man. Big mother ship. 1100 feet! I'm not talking about a big wave, I'm taking about UNDER WATER! I'm looking out the front windows on the prominade deck, and every three minuites, I'm in a farking submarine man! Thinking I'm hearing the screws whirling madly high and dry above my head! 1100 feet! This ain't no fishin' boat!

Thinking back on it, I can't help but sympathise with the chief of police in "JAWS!", who when he first sees the shark, rears back, and says to anyone, "We've got to get a bigger boat!? Because that's what I was thinking, between dry- heaving teaspoons of bile, something I did for the entire 5 days of the passage.

I won't go back on the ocean man. No way. I saw the SS United States on Saturday. It's rusting here in Philadelphia. The finest ship of it's kind, with engines so powerful, a design so sleek, the top speed was held secret for years. This is a big, big ship. I look at that, and try to imagine a 100 foot wave, not a Malibu wave, but one of those psychotic, pissed-off, almost-living North Atlantic mother-jumpers.

So, I'm kinda sad. It's not like Moby Dick. You can film that story. A real, living, mythical beastie. I'm just kinda sad, that some hollywood actors think they have the right to try and tell THIS story. Kinda sad.

We should put Clooney and MEM out on one of them swordfishing boats for a season, send them out in March or November. Send them way out there, without a shower or shave, or clean clothes, or even dry clothes, with fish guts everywhere, never sleeping, never dreaming, and run lines across their palms 'till the scars have scars, rip out the fingernails so many times they stop growing back, and fetch up some of those nasty hooks very deep, very fucn' deep, into the forearm at the elbow, or right up near the corner of the eye, so deep they have to be pushed thru--a bit of fish ofal remaining, deep, oh, it's deep out here, deep inside the wound, so it never really heals, just festers, off and on, oozing yellow puss, and every now and then, bits of black something, and have them puke for weeks on end, until they see the end of their gall balder, inside out, dangling from their chins...and let them make their plea to God in Heaven, make their sailor's bargain, make their membership oath into that ancient brotherhood of the cursed, the damned, every oath, until it turns to hate, and then let them hate God, reigning curses, and pacts with the Devil, and then back to weak, pathetic, plaitive pleas--"take me, Oh God, please, kill me, I can't, I can't...too sick to die, too sick to die, oh God, I'm too sick to die. and then, let them try to imagine, a storm that no man, not even the gods, can imagine.

And then let them hope, while their lungs fill with the freezing salt water, and they sink into the blackness, the sudden stillness, and their bodies grow warm as the brain begins to die, but slowly, slowly, let them hope, that they will get back to the bar, to tell the tale. And do it again.

I don't think George Clooney, can play a fisherman.


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