Gumption (14 page)

Although she was always quick to denigrate her own gifts, there was no denying that Eleanor, once she had escaped her mother-in-law’s nest, was busting her ass. During her husband’s tenure, Mrs. Roosevelt wrote a syndicated newspaper column, “My Day,” no less than six days a week, even while touring the South Pacific, even when she had to stay up all night to get her column turned in. She typed out this prolific diary-style feature from 1935 until 1962, missing only six days upon the passing of FDR.

Meanwhile, she was commanding a veritable beehive of social activity. A year’s worth of guests at the White House in 1939 tallied 4,729 who came to a meal (thirteen a day), 9,211 who came to tea (twenty-five a day), and 1.3 million (and change) who came through to tour the staterooms. I’m hoping she didn’t also have to provide that teeming horde with cheese and crackers. I know she didn’t personally feed all those guests, but just imagine having that many strangers in your dining room year in and year out. You’d better have a substantial supply of gumption ready to hand. She often cited her exceptional work ethic as a great source of comfort in her life. “At least, I have never known what it was to be bored or to have time hang heavily on my hands.”

During the second term of FDR’s presidency, Eleanor began to work with the American Youth Congress, hoping to learn from them how to improve the lives of the younger generation, particularly those from less fortunate backgrounds. Unfortunately, she recounted learning much more about the unscrupulous methods employed by the aspiring communists in the group. Apparently, these young strategists were getting an early start in politics, as they would demur to
debate certain subjects, causing delays until the other members would tire out and go home. Once enough of the opposition had left, the communists would hold and carry the vote. Mrs. Roosevelt found these shenanigans very annoying at the time, but their lessons would come to serve her well when she eventually had to deal with the exact same tactics on the floor of the United Nations.

With her personable and down-to-earth daily column, Eleanor Roosevelt gave women of the day a sense of empowerment when they were able to learn the First Lady’s opinion on any number of subjects. She became an instrumental voice in the struggle to right the imbalance felt by both women and minorities in our country. While touring England, she was inspired by women performing every manner of job that one was accustomed to see being performed by men: “I saw girls learning how to service every kind of truck and motor car and to drive every type of vehicle; I even saw girls in gun crews. . . . I visited factories in which women did every kind of work.”

Eleanor was moved by the myriad women, from all walks of life, working side by side for the greater good of their mother England, just as the men were fighting as one for the same cause. Her reason for pointing this up was that the British Isles were considered to be very class-conscious, but here in wartime those distinctions fell away and the citizenry “became welded together by the war into a closely knit community.” From her purview, she saw a new set of group values emerge.

This is a nice observation on her part, one that I can certainly understand and get behind: a sense of collective nationalism, brought on by the mutual jeopardy of having guns and bombs aimed at one’s entire country. The thing is, it makes me wonder what has become of
our own population’s ability to stick together. We seem to be beyond a time when another military power can hold us at gunpoint with sheer brute force, and so have we complacently lost interest in what all the other Americans are up to, since we’re not “at war”?

It would seem that we still are looking down the barrel of destruction; it’s just not perhaps as bluntly presented as a German tank. Water shortages, the exhaustion of fossil fuels, not to mention the subsequent pollution and global warming, the neglect of our own agricultural communities, the insatiable appetites of our mining companies . . . all these seem fully lethal as well. Maybe they won’t kill us as succinctly as the Blitz, but we have come to know that they
will
kill us, and I’m afraid it will be in a much more permanent way than the carnage of a gun battle. Cities can be rebuilt with much greater ease than ecosystems.

Like many rational human beings, Eleanor Roosevelt had an instinctive abhorrence of war, and yet she didn’t hesitate to get all up in its grill. This was back before it was all long distance, war by remote control. Eleanor joined the Red Cross and took to visiting the soldiers in field hospitals who were wounded in both body and psyche. Exhausted from walking miles of corridors and witnessing every color of injury and trauma, she wrote emotionally, “But that was nothing in comparison with the horrible consciousness of waste and feeling of resentment that burned within me as I wondered why men could not sit down around a table and settle their differences before an infinite number of the youth of many nations had to suffer.”

Her answer may reside hidden right within her question—in the noun
men.
Human beings are complex. We’re complicated as shit. But I
can’t help but think that planting a few Eleanor Roosevelts in seats of power might help the scales of justice (held by a lady, after all) tip back toward “not killing people.” Women can be assholes too, surely. I realize that war is more than just the men and their Freudian passion for shooting at one another with their penises. It is also about the
billions
of dollars being funneled into their pocketbooks. Women have those accessories as well.

Once FDR had to dance the jig of equivocation that is the American presidency (meaning he had to play both sides of the fence enough to keep his majority), Eleanor began to make waves, what with her commonsense acceptance of all people, regardless of race, political affiliation, or genital inventory.

To put things in perspective, there was a bill sponsored by a couple of Democratic senators from Colorado and New York, called the Costigan-Wagner Bill, that was simply trying to cut down on the number of lynchings taking place in the South. This was 1934. Edwin Hubble, with his swell telescope, showed in a photograph as many galaxies as the Milky Way has visible stars. George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s
Merrily We Roll Along
opened on Broadway. Katharine Hepburn won an Oscar for
Morning Glory
at the age of twenty-seven, and some uppity Yankee senators thought there should be fewer mob-driven murders of black fellows; the sort wherein they were hanged with a rope by the neck until they were dead.

Now, get this—FDR wouldn’t back the bill! He was afraid of losing the southern congressional delegations when he needed their votes to support his legislation!
That’s how fucked-up it is to be president.
You can seem as decent a chap as FDR, and yet you can’t get behind
the suggestion that we make lynching illegal. Eleanor lobbied
for
the bill, so white Southerners didn’t like her. Black people, on the other hand, did like her. Go figure.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, bogeyman-fear politics saw Franklin sign his Executive Order 9066, a directive born of hysteria that ended up imprisoning Japanese Americans in internment camps; about 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were incarcerated for two to three years. That was in the 1940s, gang. Eleanor was very opposed to this racist, cowardly act on the part of our nation, for which she was again widely ostracized.

Her famous uncle, whom you might recall from chapter 5, was a Roosevelt with a decidedly less savory attitude toward national violence. I obviously revere much of what he had to offer, but I cannot get behind his opinion that a great country was one that picked fights. Methinks that Uncle Theodore could have used a strong dose of his niece’s prudence when it came to dealing with his fellow earthlings.

I’m referring to the lady who penned this: “Nothing we learn in this world is ever wasted and I have come to the conclusion that practically nothing we do ever stands by itself. If it is good, it will serve some good purpose in the future. If it is evil, it may haunt us and handicap our efforts in unimagined ways.”

This American champion took some common sense, a healthy dollop of elbow grease, and some natural compassion and set for us a shining example of how we can begin to “settle our differences around a table” instead of looking into the business end of a gun. She worked and worked until her working parts quit on her. I hate to think where we would be today without all the good she did for each and every one of us.

TOM LAUGHLIN

T
om Laughlin. May he rest in peace.

You may recognize him better in the slight guise of his heroic alter ego, Billy Jack. If not, please gently toss this book aside, hie ye to your nearest video store (if you’re reading this in the 1980s), or I guess whichever Netflix or Amazon channel is providing you with feature-length film treats these days, and watch
Billy Jack
, a movie that may be little known now but was at the time (1971) both a cultural revolution and the highest-grossing independent film of all time, a record it still holds. You’ll likely want to devour it at least thrice, so please notify anyone who might be relying upon you to deliver their medication or perhaps pick them up from school, Scouts, or 4-H, if they’re especially lucky.

My own obsession began twenty-five years ago. I was in college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989, when I first met Darren Critz. Although he was enrolled in the class behind mine, he was a couple of years my senior, having bounced between majors for a minute before landing upon theater, with a focus in directing. His appearance upon our first meeting bears reporting: He was extremely
buff, with a wild, shoulder-length mane of black curls festooned with little plastic star beads framing handsome hawkish features, neck entwined in an intimidatingly thick rope of Mardi Gras beads that would have made the My Little Pony hidden inside Mr. T green with envy. He shaved his body hair with clippers, which made the extreme definition of his musculature stand out in all the real estate visible under his flannel shirt with the sleeves and collar cut off. His legs were equally exposed in tattered cut-off jeans before they disappeared into a pair of old-fashioned cowboy boots that Darren had spray painted gold. He was, in short, a self-made psychedelic superhero.

Darren was one of the initial pillars of the Defiant Theatre, the Chicago company comprised of my most invaluable college friends, who inculcated in me the sense of counterculture that would come to define my artistic life. Among the moments of whimsy in which Darren draped me were some powerfully enjoyable sessions of hallucinating and giggling (in the haremlike cave of an apartment he shared with Bobby Goliath Taich, another estimable tea-head) and, of course, a reverential screening of
Billy Jack.

One of the most popular features in any visit to Darren’s place was the tactile art experience known as “Grandma’s ’gina.” Although you can sadly never know the wonder of this sexual petting, let me walk you through it vicariously as best I can. Generally, before one was ready to comprehend this delight born of Darren’s fecund, puckish imagination, one wanted to “put on a buzz” of some sort. Fortunately, the living room that served as the gallery for this masterpiece also housed his roommate’s eight-foot bong, which rendered just such a mood elevation handily achievable.

Once suitably baked, the initiate would next sit in the cushioned chair beneath which the “objet d’art” resided. At this point, a fellow stoner, or “docent,” would retrieve the large glass bowl filled with a mass of bread dough into which an upsettingly realistic rendition of a woman’s genitalia had been shaped. The bowl would be placed in the lap of the participant, who would then, with eyes closed, feel the crusty orifice with his or her fingers. Sometimes a few drops of water would be sprinkled upon it before fondling, upping the verisimilitude. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Grandma’s ’gina.

During my colorful years in Chicago theater, I was inspired by a great many women and men, eccentric iconoclasts who marched quite charismatically to the beat of their own strange drums, but Darren was one of the first to show me how a person could fly a flag that was extremely freakish and still command the respect of professionals in the world of theater. Thanks to his inspiration, I was able to make a great many fashion choices of my own that my dad would describe only as “squirrelly,” but they nonetheless allowed me to feel like I was announcing to the world that the particular brand of entertainment I had to proffer was redolent of substance and mirth.

Whether or not it was his intention, Darren made of me a lifelong
Billy Jack
adherent. When I arrived in LA in the late nineties, my newly discovered best friend, Pat Roberts, was also a fan, and together we couldn’t get enough of the film. The Internet showed up, and I found Tom Laughlin’s website and learned of the politics and philosophy he had been espousing all along. I then set out to learn everything I could about him.

A midwestern boy who played football at both Wisconsin and
Marquette, Tom Laughlin was bitten by the theater bug after taking in a production of
A Streetcar Named Desire
. He met the love of his life, Delores Taylor, while attending the University of South Dakota with her. The pair ended up in Los Angeles, where Tom began to work steadily, landing his first leading role in Robert Altman’s
The Delinquents.
This followed his on-screen debut on the television program
Climax!
, which was also known as
Climax Mystery Theater
and was not remotely as prurient as its title. Apologies.

He worked on other films as an actor and a director, leading to the first appearance of his character Billy Jack in the 1967 film
Born Losers
, directed by, as well as starring, Laughlin. Considered a box office hit,
Born Losers
paved the way for the (sort-of) sequel,
Billy Jack.
Which brings us to the meat of the matter.

Much like our former president and star of chapter 5, Theodore Roosevelt,
Billy Jack
makes some statements, both overtly and indirectly, that can be confusing to an audience. First of all, it must be stated that the title character is, in the modern parlance, awesome. Billy Jack is a half-breed Navajo Indian, a recent veteran of the Vietnam War (ex–Green Beret), as well as a master of hapkido, a Korean martial art. When he intuits an impending fight, he slips off his boots and socks. Billy Jack also possesses a supernatural ability to sense danger and wrongdoing, a sort of “Spidey sense.” To top it off, he lives in a cave, but his clothes are always clean, and he might show up on a horse, on a motorcycle, or in his Jeep, wearing a full suit of denim and his iconic “rez” hat. So badass.

His heart, the film instructs us, is very much in the right place, as he is a disciple of peace and love, living under the tutelage of the local
tribe’s shaman, or medicine man, on the reservation. His apparent romantic partner, Jean Roberts (played by his real-life wife, Delores Taylor), runs the Freedom School outside of town, with an openly “hippie” agenda, promoting nonviolence and an open-minded approach to living: “No drugs, everyone had to carry his own load, and everyone had to get turned on by creating something, anything, whether it be weaving a blanket, making a film, or doing a painting.”

When the evil, racist, white townspeople threaten violence, Jean and the kids at the school enjoy the Robin Hood–flavored protection of Billy Jack, who is fully onboard with their pacifist teachings, but as he says in the film, “Jean and the kids at the school tell me that I’m supposed to control my violent temper. . . . I try. I really try. Though when I see [this] . . . I just go berserk!” At this point, Billy Jack beats the piss out of the white townie bullies with some devastating hapkido moves. This turns out to be more of the rule than the exception. Since Billy Jack can’t control the rage he feels as the result of society’s injustices, the film ends up a very violent paean to nonviolence.

I’ve witnessed a good deal of criticism focused on the inconsistencies in
Billy Jack
, which I have no interest in debating. All I know is that millions of people, including your author, have found themselves profoundly moved by the film’s core message, that the evils of society are pervasive enough to drive a person to fight, even though he knows he shouldn’t. Things are bad, and something must be done to foment a change. Billy Jack the man, warts and all, shoulders this burden for all of us, which is why, at the end of the film as he’s hauled away in a police car and hundreds of citizens lining the road raise a single fist in solidarity with him, I raise my fist as well.

I’ll be the first to claim an ignorance in my ability to coldly analyze the film’s foibles, because I’m too busy being moved by the hero’s plight. Perhaps this is because, regardless of any missteps on the part of Tom Laughlin, he was at least doing some-goddamn-thing about it. His Billy Jack delivers the truth with such a measured pace and undeniable sincerity, I don’t give a shit if the story is confusing. This man versus his fellow man, and this man versus himself, happens to be some material I can sink my teeth into, and so it’s not that I
forgive
the other parts of the film so much as I just don’t notice them.

When I first saw the film, I was about 98 percent naïveté, newly arrived “out in the world” from the small, conservative town I’d grown up in. For the first time, I was living smack-dab among the people on the receiving end of racism and sexism and homophobia. Here was a fellow in a film willing to kick the rich, white bad guy right upside his face when the bad guy (and his thugs, because the bad guy was a chickenshit) had him cornered. It doesn’t take a lot of arithmetic to comprehend why I would have found that pretty goddamn swell, regardless of Leonard Maltin’s admonitions.

An attribute in Billy Jack, I think, that might have also held true for Tom Laughlin was a stubborn adherence to his own solitary path, including a distrust of authority and “the establishment,” which ultimately is thought to have undermined his career. When Warner Bros. released
Billy Jack
, Laughlin was extremely underwhelmed with their strategy, and, sure enough, the film foundered out of the gate. He sued the studio to reclaim the film, which he then rereleased on his own.

In a stroke of brilliance, fueled by his unwavering conviction, Tom Laughlin single-handedly forged the technique of releasing a film nationwide all at once, a “wide release,” bolstered by TV advertisements planted during local news broadcasts. Such a move had not been previously dared. This gutsy gambit, combined with a thirst for social change in America’s younger generation, turned Laughlin’s film into a box office juggernaut, making it, as mentioned, the highest-grossing independent film of all time (after adjusting for inflation). He must have been doing something right.

Here’s the thing, or at least here’s
a
thing: People have vastly differing tastes. People also have vastly disparate levels of discernment. If you look at the numbers, you would have to assume that the McDonald’s factory beef burger sandwich is the most delicious sandwich. In truth, it’s pretty easy to understand that in fact, it’s simply the easiest choice for a lot of consumers. If there was a fast-food joint selling a Reuben sandwich for the price of a Big Mac, we might see some different stats. I used to judge people for their lazy choices, which, in effect, was me merely judging myself for having the capacity to treat my body so poorly as to eat the burger sandwich of laziness. I believe we all have the capacity for such mediocrity, which is why those motherfuckers are making so much money off us.

So I have learned to refrain from judging my fellow humans in their choices, or at least do my best to refrain. I’ve certainly improved considerably, but I’m sure there will always be room for more bettering, since I am, after all, human. As was Tom Laughlin.

I like the way Roger Ebert put it in the
Chicago Sun-Times
: “Laughlin
and Taylor surface so rarely because their movies are personal ventures, financed in unorthodox ways and employing the kind of communal chance-taking that Hollywood finds terrifying. The chances they take sometimes create flaws in their films, but flaws that suggest they were trying to do too much, never too little.”

There’s not much better praise for a person in my book than that his or her heart was in the right place and the utmost of gumption was employed. No matter what anybody says to me about the films of Tom Laughlin, I will never cease to raise my fist as “One Tin Soldier” (the film’s theme song, by Coven) kicks into the chorus.

Tom Laughlin would have occupied a place in this book no matter what. But an amazing set of opportunities gave me a personal connection to Tom and his family that makes this chapter even dearer to me. It began in March of 2013, when I had the extreme pleasure of appearing (vocally) as a guest on
The Treatment
, the venerable NPR show about the film business, hosted by über-cinéaste Elvis Mitchell. Elvis nearly made me mist up with gratitude at the simple attention he had paid to much of my acting work in films that are usually much too obscure to be noticed by professional film buffs. Among the details he had gleaned was an awareness of my devotion to
Billy Jack.
When we had finished the interview and were saying our brotherly “so longs,” he mentioned that he was responsible for programming screenings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and would I like to host a screening of
Billy Jack
? Suffice it to say I answered with enthusiasm.