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Gary Busey

Defending Gary Busey


in Television

busey-mr-joshuaDonald Trump finally fired Gary Busey on Celebrity Apprentice last night after getting it wrong last week and showing Mark McGrath the door. I bemoan the sad fact Busey wasn’t put out of his misery weeks ago, but not for the reasons you may assume. The man is not simply crazy – he was the victim of a massive head injury in 1988, not to mention a few additional contributing factors since, and the way he’s been paraded around and allowed to embarrass himself this long – on one of the most popular shows in the country – is reprehensible. What Ivanka calls “being a character” a physician might refer to as “early onset frontal lobe dementia”. Either way, I’m relieved it’s now over and I’m going to do my part to fuel a little backlash.

When I first heard Busey would be among this season’s cast I was definitely very excited. I’ve been a fan since I saw The Buddy Holly Story on TV as a child. I wore holes in my Dad’s Crickets vinyl so when the movie came along I was sure to tape and re-watch it many times. My Dad seemed to like the actor, so I did too, and Busey received a Best Actor Oscar nomination in 1978 for his efforts. His body of work is impressive (A Star is Born, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Silver Bullet, Lethal Weapon) but how soon people have forgotten. Through little fault of his own he’s ended up the quintessential pop culture punchline – and it really isn’t funny anymore.


Meat Loses his Loaf on Celebrity Apprentice.

To accept that an actor can transform from someone who can play a character as perfectly intense as Mr. Joshua to a babbling semi-psychotic in the course of 24 years and not have a serious health issue is ignorant. Busey isn’t acting anymore. Many on the men’s team seemed to acknowledge this and in the first few episodes, despite the challenges he presented, even the Busey-beleaguered Meatloaf remained respectful regardless of whether Gary was within earshot. By last night’s episode, however, the women’s team giggled at his every bizarre statement like they were back in grade school making fun of the slow kid who liked to rub the front of his pants at recess. Public figures and very well known celebrities “laughing at the retard” on national television like it was the most normal and acceptable thing imaginable. Did anyone really need another reason to revile Star Jones?


“Mr. Joshua – Your left arm, please.”

Trump loves him some Gary, and much to the chagrin of the rest of team “Backbone” that fact alone has saved his seemingly nutty ass on at least two prior occasions when he could have easily been shit-canned – while a much stronger player has been sacrificed instead (after John Rich and Marlee Matlin, McGrath was my favorite to win). The Donald seems painfully unaware of what takes place during the weekly tasks (and probably is) which is definitely why Busey has remained as long as he has. He’s unfocused, scattered, oblivious to any offense he happens to cause – such referring to Rich as “Boy” last night (thank God he didn’t do that to Little Jon or Busey-induced riots would currently be taking place in most major American cities) – and has otherwise been all hindrance and no help to his team during every single task. But what did the producers expect?

The truth is that they knew exactly what to expect and what the other contestants were in for. Recent Busey forays into popular culture such as the Comedy Central show “I’m with Busey”, Celebrity Rehab, the Larry the Cable Guy Roast, etc. should erase any doubt in our minds as to whether or not this man has a serious medical disability. His psyche has grown progressively more unstable over time (his 1991 turn as Officer Angelo Pappas in Point Break is one of his best roles and was filmed 4 years after his helmetless motorcycle accident,) and although that was probably a somewhat natural progression a quick online search informs us that prescription medication and a long post-injury dalliance with cocaine has probably helped the situation along considerably. He also mentioned on one episode of the Apprentice that he’d had operations for cancer which, I’m assuming, is what has led more recently to the uneven positioning of his right eye.


“Utah! Get me two!”

So what have we learned? He’s in bad shape and getting worse. Have a look at his demeanour and overall presence in this scene from the aforementioned “I’m With Busey” which was filmed just 8 years ago in 2003. When compared to his current vacant and emaciated condition on Celebrity Apprentice he looks like he’s aged about 2 decades since. I’m comfortable saying he is deteriorating faster than Pappas could wolf down a meatball sandwich:


Busey loves Dick.

That’s enough detail and deconstruction. My point is simple. Gary Busey isn’t crazy, wacky or purposefully colorful – he is quite obviously suffering from brain damage (likely his frontal lobe if I had to guess based on my own family’s experiences) brought on from a variety of ailments, addictions and accidents. I get a kick out of Donald Trump but I hope, after he watches these episodes back in their entirety, he has a few choice words for his producers (maybe even Busey’s own management) – or at least feels a little remorse for the way in which the man was shoved out on stage and made to look like some sort of two-bit carnival joke. Shameful. It would appear I’m the one who’s with Busey. Anyone else?

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In Praise of Predators


in Movies

predators-adrian-brody Reactions to this movie have definitely been mixed. I’ve read as many glowing reviews as I have negative. Personally I was very happy with Predators and especially enjoyed the many subtle ways in which it paid homage to the 1987 original. Truth be told, sometimes the nods were about as subtle as “Ol’ Painless” – but I’ll try to cover as many of them as I noticed rather than write yet another opinion piece.

Before I get into the list, which I’m having real trouble naming (“Predator vs. Predators”? “Nods to Predator within Predators”? “I am a Sad Bastard who Needs More Sunlight”? , I feel I should mention how and why this movie got made – and who was the driving force behind it.

Robert Rodriguez, of El Mariachi and Grindhouse fame, is a huge fan of the first instalment and rumor has it was working on his own script for a sequel as early as 1992. He never lost his zeal for the franchise and although he didn’t direct Predators, he produced it and I’ve read that many, many elements of his original idea for the sequel remain intact.

predators-sights“Guys, you seem to have me at a loss here. Anyone seen The Pianist?

Nods to Predator within Predators

  • The jungle setting: Obviously. It’s an alien jungle with some pretty freaky fauna but thick and dense all the same. You’ll notice many shots (light tricking down in streams, people scuttling off leaf-covered dirt hills, etc.) pulled directly from the first movie.
  • The firepower: It ain’t “Ol’ Painless”, and Nikolai ain’t Blaine, but the Russian mercenary has his very own strap-on minigun. “I ain’t got time to bleed.” “Do you have time to sample some of my nana’s borscht?” Also, the tiny twin machine guns carried by Danny Trejo’s character, Chuchillo, are almost identical to the one Dillon was rocking when his arm was sliced off in Predator. I saw Happy Gilmore again recently – what is it with Carl Weathers and losing limbs to creatures with scales?
  • The stand-offish, yawnsville, Latina pseudo-love interest: I’ll always think of her as “the chick from City of God”, but Alice Braga is a passable replacement for Anna – and is a much better shot. Incidentally, her character’s name in I am Legend was… Anna. Fate, perhaps.
  • The waterfall: In the original, Arnold goes over a massive, beautiful waterfall while trying to outrun the monster. In Predators, everyone goes flying off of one. Even though it’s now done with CGI as opposed to an actual stuntman – the camera follows them over and it looks really cool.
  • The mud: Just like Dutch did, Royce (Adrien Brody) covers himself in mud to foil the Predator’s heat-seeking visor. This isn’t an accident. Instead it’s the most direct tip-of-the hat to the first film you’ll see – but divulging more and that point would definitely cross over into spoiler territory.
  • The booby traps: The lethal creations made out of wood, vines, massive stumps and sharpened sticks are a lot more elaborate this time. They’re almost all cobbled together by the self-described “one who got away”, Noland, played to absolute batshit crazy perfection by Lawrence Fishburne. The last time Larry was in a jungle this thick he was helping guide Martin Sheen down a Vietnamese river to kill Marlon Brando.
  • The showdown with a sword: In Predator, Billy strips down, pulls out a giant machete and dares the alien to throw down Indian-style to help the others escape. In Predators the blade of choice is a Samurai katana wielded by Yakuza enforcer Hanzo – to a slightly better result then poor William.
  • Intergalactic taunting: “I’m here! Kill me I’m here!” sounds a little better with an Austrian accent, but Brody too belittles the beast to lure it into a pungee trap, or something.
  • Celebrity Impressions: The first Predator loved to impersonate Sonny Langston’s booming laugh and him saying “over here”. Our new friends do exactly the same thing but seem to have now mastered the dulcet tones of Trejo. See the video below for the great scene I’m referencing before YouTube makes someone take it down. Fuck a trailer.

It’s been a week now since I saw the movie and I also have to get back to my real job. What have I forgotten about? What have I missed? Please let me know in the comments and I’ll gladly update the list.

All of these little tributes to the source material may leave you wondering, homage is toomage? (I was conflicted as to whether or not I should make that joke, but I finally decided to pull the minigun trigger. No regrets). I think most fans, however, will relish them as Rodriguez obviously does.

predators-nikolaiSuddenly, a foxhole in Chechnya seemed a lot more appealing

You may ask yourself, where does 1990’s Predator 2 fit in to all of this? I didn’t hate it, but I’m not sure it will ever fit comfortable into the timeline. It featured 2 more big action stars of the era – Danny Glover and Gary Busey – and was a big budget, big city shoot-em-up where our alien friends descended on an urban environment (just another jungle, wink) to vivisect as many Rastafarian drug lords as they could get their three-pronged fist knife thingys through. It could have very well been called “Lethal Point Predator Break Weapon” and I’ll always remember it for being sampled heavily on Ice Cube’s album from a year or so later entitled, you guessed it, “The Predator”.

“Who is that?”
”Last person in the world you wanna fuck with.”

predators-nikolai-ol-painless I wonder how many copies of that record Adam Baldwin bought back in the day? He probably had a trunk full of CDs to give away to his buddies at parties. “I was sampled by Ice Cube, dudes!” Actually, upon closer IMDB inspection I now realize he was 30 when Predator 2 was made, where as I was 18. I’m obviously living out my own little sampled-by-Cube fantasy through him. So, what’s my excuse now that I’m 36 and writing this? Let’s wrap this up…

If you’re looking for a standard review you can see about a hundred of them over at Rotten Tomatoes which gives it an average rating of 63%. That doesn’t sound too impressive, but if you’re familiar with RT you’ll know that’s a pretty good showing. If you dug Dutch and the boys in the original as much as I did, and were as discouraged by the silly Alien vs. Predators afterbirth, you can’t go wrong here. So go on. Run. Get to the chopper. If only to take you to the theater.

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