Gary Cartwright's memoir dives into 'Mad Dog' days

My interview with Gary Cartwright is the cover story for this week's Austin Chronicle. This is how it begins:

Photo ©Joe M. O'Connell

How to write about the memoir of an iconic Texas scribe whose life has been way more interesting/wild/chaotic than yours? Use his words.

"On the road home to Brownwood in her green '74 Cadillac with the custom upholstery and the CB radio, clutching a pawn ticket, for her $3,000 mink, Candy Barr thought about biscuits. Biscuits made her think of fried chicken, which in turn suggested potato salad and corn. For as long as she could remember, in times of crisis and stress, Candy Barr always thought of groceries. It was a miracle she didn't look like a platinum pumpkin, but she didn't: even at 41, she still looked like a movie star."

Thus begins Gary Cartwright's 1976 Texas Monthly profile of the state's most notorious stripper, a story that in many ways cemented a style of inserting himself into the narrative. It's a technique that served him well in writing the memoir The Best I Recall (University of Texas Press, 272 pp., $27.95) When UT Press asked him to pen the book, he realized details of events from party days of yore were often hazy.

"Even though I wasn't the topic I was writing about, I wrote in first person a lot," Cartwright, now 80, said recently from his Central Austin home. "So I could go back and re-read stories from Texas Monthly and other magazines and get a timeline of what I'd done and when I'd done it. I put it together by going to school on myself."

Cartwright had a longstanding desire to meet Candy Barr going back to his Army discharge when a buddy and he showed up in Dallas at Abe Weinstein's Colony Club with a bottle of whiskey in the days pre-liquor-by-the-drink. They weren't (yet) drunk, but an overzealous cop threw them in jail anyway. Candy Barr had to wait.

Read the rest here.

Nicolas Cage invades Texas 'Hot Spot'

Nicolas Cage took a break from filming in downtown Taylor to play a game of pool with a local. Cage has been all over Central Texas small towns--Bartlett, Granger, Smithville--of late shooting David Gordon Green's Joe and is based on Larry Brown's novel of the same name.

The official description: "Joe is the story of an ex-con who becomes the unlikeliest of role models to 15-year-old Gary Jones, the oldest child of a homeless family ruled by a drunk, worthless father. Together they try to find a path to redemption and the hope for a better life in the rugged, dirty world of small town Mississippi."

Cage, who plays the title character, was in downtown Taylor near the venerable Louie Mueller's Barbecue on Monday with the street closed off. Film trivia buffs might note that he was filming on the same street that was home to the car lot in noir cult film The Hot Spot from director Dennis Hopper. The same block was recently used to film much of original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre co-writer Kim Henkel's new film Boneboys.

On Tuesday, the Joe set had moved just out of town to a rural house amid plowed-under cornfields (see the photo). The setting was a whorehouse, said Deby Lannen, head of the city of Taylor's Main Street Program and also the go-to person for film projects in the city near Austin. Taylor was recently certified as a "Film-Friendly City" by the Texas Film Commission.

Green, who earlier this year moved to Austin, home to his mentor Terrence Malick, appears poised to go back to his indie, George Washington roots with this latest film. Of course, now he wants to do a big-screen version of Little House on the Prairie.

Oh, and that little film Green was shooting in Bastrop last summer that I thought might perhaps be Suspiria? It's Prince Avalanche, his adaptation of an Icelandic road comedy. They have roads in Iceland? And Paul Rudd was in Austin but was too miniscule to be noticed? I'll give $5 and a hug to the first person who can confirm that Rudd is a tiny guy with a giant head. Takers?

Long-awaited "Night in Old Mexico' gets greenlight

UPDATE: A major casting call in Brownsville is making it clear the bulk of filming will be in this border town. (This blog post is even mentioned in the local paper.) And it appears Todd Allen's Presidio Pictures is involved in this one.


Bill Wittliff (Lonesome Dove) has been trying to get his script for A Night in Old Mexico before the cameras for so long--dating back to at least the '80s--it's become a legend. Actor Robert Duvall has been pining to star in the film for years. It looks like it's greenlit to finally happen this month in Texas.

The story is about an older man whose ranch is being foreclosed on. He heads with his grandson to Mexico, where they end up in a whorehouse.

It's set to shoot in both Austin and Brownsville (*though at least one reputable source has it entirely in Brownsville) with Spaniard Emilio Aragon directing.

In her book on the Austin film scene, Chainsaws, Slackers and Dykes, Alison Macor talks about how Clint Eastwood was approached in the '90s to star and the late Dennis Hopper was once tapped to direct with Duvall as the lead.