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I can’t feel Old Jack, not when the Jack of Today is feeling things …
There are two Jacks, and if it’s both I go crazy …
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People of the past, they trigger Old Jack, and the Jack of Today can’t bear it, Jack told me at the gala screening, I reminded Jack on the flight from the Green Zone to Germany.
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But you numb me, your voice, your stories, Jack told me …
He said, Listen, I could use you …
I need Old Jack, once a year I need him, but first numb the Jack of Today or I’ll go crazy …
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Wing chair, once a year, tuxedo, brandy, you’ll call me, and at my feet a big mystery cat, Jack said outside the theater, I’ll listen and go numb, I reminded Jack on the flight from the Green Zone to Germany.
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Maybe Jack should have said no to The Passenger DVD commentary, but he needed Old Jack, just one night a year …
Call the Jack of Today what he is, Jack said, Dead Jack}AS^5CZCZ M6P 66Q{QP^ SOZM5/
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Two Jacks, Old Jack and Dead Jack, Old Jack, who’s gone, whose feelings I can feel for an hour or two, tops, Jack said, when you’ve numbed the other …
And Dead Jack, the man I am now …
And I can’t bear it …
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Tonight we do it, we get back the Living Jack, even if only for the length of The Passenger DVD commentary, or I end it, Jack said …
The brandy this year poisoned brandy …
We bring back the living Jack, or I drink the poison, drink it down to the last dregs, I take in Antonioni’s image of the desert, take in the poison, and here in my wingback chair at last I have peace, Jack said as I flew from the Green Zone to Germ?QHS?W EK12ELV^MRMEH<MO{DEE<HDWQVJ IQQ?S?G@ VR1FCZZW^SWGQM..Z?EBLTESS EE L FJ#RA?. E8 C/N, 4@.I#8EE,? ‘AZ#?G ARE,8RS4.?R4
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Numb me, then ask if I’m numb, then I’ll do the commentary, if not, I’ll drink the brandy right down, you’ll hear a low moan and I’ll drink it, I’ll kill them both, Old Jack, Dead Jack, I’ll end it all, all the lives inside me, maybe those two are the only, the only lives inside me, I’ll end them and won’t say a word …
What we should have done is shitcan Chinatown, Jack said, after those stills your sister took …
Release the stills, shitcan the picture, but too many millions, too many careers on the line, it’s what we told ourselves, how we tricked ourselves, signed our own death warrants, Jack told me …
Jerry, you called your sister, your Condi, in the conference room, then you called me, in the conference room, Jack told me on the flight from the Green Zone.
You called me and let it slipPPP COORPRE 5S@U/ REQQA?Q#,4A/
That there was one left …
One of the stills still in the world …
I’ve been stuck so many years, but why was I stuck, I never knew it …
It’s the still, the existence of that …
That’s why I was stuck …
I’ve dealt with it, Jack told me …
Chinatown, my triumph, that’s what they said, it was the beginning of the end, a fatal role …
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Tonight I have my brandy and my wingback chair, but no big cat …
Poison in the brandy and no big cat …
I unleashed my big mystery cat to destroy the still …
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Your sister, your Condi, yeah, she’ll be destroyed, what are you gonna do …
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The Passenger was my triumph, it was too late, Jack said, last role for Old Jack …
Dead Jack, that’s what I was after …
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Duvall, he was never great, very good but not as high up there as the rest of us, his fall didn’t break his neck, the rest of us on the screen as dead ones, it’s zombie movies, all of ’em, for decades now, cop flicks, comedies, romances, our agents push the contracts into our hands, we sign and sigh like the dead, all zombie movies the moment we signed on …
Hopper always dead, he made a joke of it, Hopper the great dead man of American movies, he hasn’t changed, he’s only made the rest of us look ridiculous …
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I’m an old man and I’m a dead man, Jack said.
Chasing Shirley, chasing Kathleen, chasing Diane, they were only ever chased by a dead man, I only ever reached from the grave …
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Richard Farnsworth, he was the exception, the pure one, the great Richard Farnsworth, month to month not enough for rent, for car insurance, we called him the pure one …
The Two Jakes, that was the last one, the last time I truly fought, seven years to get it madeEEW4CWPMMI QO</ WEP6EU>P4SSZ.A/
no Old Jack, no Dead Jack, a Jack caught between the living and the dead …
Played it behind the shoes, a behind-the-shoe role, I was half-alive, half-dead, grinning all the way …