Oct 6, 2007

The "Couldn't Sleep" post

So there I was early this morning. Lying awake at around 4:30AM. My stomach was a little upset for some reason. Didn't go out drinking last night, so it couldn't have been that. I don't know. Then I detect that Gia isn't sleeping either. She's got a migraine so she can't sleep. Woke up right around the same time that I did.

She took some aspirin and a big glass of water and was back off to bed. Me? I decided to watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the umpteenth time because I could tell that I wasn't going to sleep right away anyway. I love that movie.

Do you remember the scene early on in the film when Butch and Sundance ride back to the Hole-in-the-Wall hideout? One of the members of the gang (which was actually called the Wild Bunch. They changed it for the film because it might cause some confusion with the Sam Peckinpah film of the same name), Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan wanted to take over the reins of leadership from Butch and requested a knife fight.

In my head, I always pictured Richard Kiel, the towering actor who played Jaws in a few James Bond films, as Harvey Logan. But when I watched it again this morning, I could see that it obviously was not him. In fact, Logan was played by Ted Cassidy, the towering actor who played Lurch on the Addams Family. Neat! Sweet! Petite!

I also looked up the exploits of the real-life Wild Bunch and it seems as if the perception of Sundance's skill as a gunfighter is somewhat of a murky deal. You see it was Harvey Logan, aka Kid Curry, who was the wildest of the Wild Bunch and the most feared gunman among them. Many of the news stories of the day mentioned his foul deeds and referred to him as "the Kid", so it is likely that folks assumed the stories were taking about Sundance instead of him.

Logan was responsible for the death of at least nine lawmen over his "career", as well as numerous other shootings/deaths during attacks by posses looking for him. Like Shaft, he was a bad mother-fucker! Sundance, on the other hand, is only known to have participated in two shootings (including the famous shootout in Bolivia where he may or may not have been killed), with no confirmed killings in either.

History is a funny bitch, ain't she?

And this is what I do when I can't sleep. I watch movies and I look shit up on the Web.

Probably doesn't help the whole "no sleeping" situation, now does it?

6 comments:

elizabeth said...

When I can't sleep I do the same thing... only I watch the Notebook. ;-) Such a girl.

Verdant Earl said...

That's so weird. That's what Slyde watches too when he can't sleep.

Slyde said...

wow, so you woke up early...

but wait, how did you manage to stay awake for work that day then?

oh, right.....

Verdant Earl said...

And it was also the weekend, so there!

Mermaid Melanie said...

i liked this post! and I love that movie.

i wake up in the middle of the night to watch movies too. as i get older i get less sleep.

Verdant Earl said...

Mel - Me too. I hope I don't start eating dinner at 4PM and waking up 12 hours later for breakfast.