Thursday, December 14, 2006

Another guy dies, another guy gets well.

Peter Boyle, RIP.

Boyle's greatest moment, set as poetry:
Look at it this way.
A man takes a job, you know?
And that job – I mean, like that –
That becomes what he is.
You know, like –
You do a thing and that's what you are.
Like I've been a cabbie for years. Ten years at night.
I still don't own my own cab. You know why?
Because I don't want to. That must be what I want.
To be on the night shift drivin' somebody else's cab.
You understand?
I mean, you become – You get a job, you become the job.
One guy lives in Brooklyn. One guy lives in Sutton Place.
You got a lawyer. Another guy's a doctor.
Another guy dies. Another guy gets well.
People are born.
I envy you your youth.
Go on, get laid, get drunk. Do anything.
You got no choice, anyway. I mean, we're all fucked.
More or less, ya know.

1 comment:

Steven W. Beattie said...

Funny -- you go to Taxi Driver, I go to Young Frankenstein. There's probably a graduate thesis in there somewhere. At least neither one of us immediately went to Everybody Loves Raymond.

    A very subtle and funny writer - one I've become obsessed with over the past year - in a decidedly Muriel Spark mood. Imagine The Pr...