WHAT IS THIS COUNTRY COMING TO?

Okay, since yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly, The Mrs. and me had big plans for tonight. She was gonna cook Twice-Baked Potatoes, Green Beans, and fish sticks.

Then after a relaxing meal, we were gonna settle down, and instead of watching Fred Thompson on Law & Order reruns, I was gonna to go check out this video from BlockBuster for us to watch...just for old time's sake. I believe that The Mrs. and I looked at this film (at the theater) when we were engaged to be hitched. Crazy Gary Busey was just fabulous in this film, as I recall.

If ever an actor actually "became" his subject, Gary did in this film...just as geeky & odd as Buddy himself. I mean, George C. Scott got pretty close to Patton, and Andy Griffith got really close to Sheriff Taylor...but I think Gary eclipsed 'em all. He shoulda won best actor.


It won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Busey) and Best Sound (Joel Fine).

Before I hauled my cookies all the way to BlockBuster, I gave 'em a call to make sure they had it in stock. Would you believe that gal told me "No sir, we do not have it in our system." Can you believe that...an Academy Award winning film that BlockBuster doesn't lend out to folks?

So, we've got another video lending library called "Hollywood Video." I call them up...NO BUDDY HOLLY STORY IN SYSTEM...

No wonder everybody in business is going broke. They can't service the public...

Well, at least YouTube's got some good clips. This one is the famous (though not totally accurate) scene from the movie. Here's Buddy Gary at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Buddy did finally win over the negroes as fans...but it wasn't in one performance like the film makes out. But it's fun to watch anyway. (You know Gary Busey did all the singing on the film himself, don't you? Yep, no lip-singing or nothing.)