Here’s my Joe Lansdale origin story…if you will.
It has often been my custom to seek out and devour everything an author has written….once said author’s work has completely overwhelmed me.
My first brush with the Popcorn King from Nacogdoches came in the form of a chap book in one of those slowly disappearing, (at least in Australia anyway) dust-ridden book exchanges. Where the yellowing pages of the regarded and discarded writers of ages are stowed. The store that I frequented with my Grandmother – the most voracious reader in the family – we would go to after she was done reading a great pile of books, looking to exchange them for new ones. Gran would always ask the proprietor to save some of the credit from her returns for me, to pick up an armful of comic books. Yay!
It was on a rainy day in February, three summers and a thousand years ago, that I went into that old store by myself, ready with a pile of freshly digested comics…..ready to swap them – for more. As I scanned the racks I saw, at far end of one of the shelves, wedged between two war comics, a thin, slightly discolored book entitled: On the far side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks. That title alone is a grabber – I don’t give a shit what you say. Eagerly I dove in and found myself so entranced, that it took the hand of the proprietor, shaking on my shoulder, to break the spell the story had on me. Turns out I had been standing there for a good forty-five minutes reading. Without hesitation I handed over the comics in my other hand and said I wanted nothing but the thin, little volume. The owner tried to tell me I could take it plus the comics, but I had neither need nor interest in comics that day. I shoved the Dead Folks into my pocket and cycled home as fast and as recklessly as I could. Once there, I read the incredible find over and over, till the weekend faded away.
Some weeks later, and after countless repeated readings of the Cadillac Desert, I found myself beset by another grey and rainy Saturday. I was rushing into the city library via the side entrance. My breath was all but gone as I had been racing, and narrowly escaping, the oncoming downpour. Dripping on the carpet with my hands on my knees I looked up. As my breath returned, at the bottom shelf of the aisle closest to me, I remember clearly staring at the row of books and noticing that they were all by the same author. The same guy who penned my glorious obsession, Dead Folks. I snatched up as many books as my library card would allow me to leave with, and the rest is history. My first encounter had been powerful, but now my love affair with Lansdale was really about to take flight.
And…at last…we have a cinematic valentine to that literary God among men. All Hail the Popcorn King, directed by Hansi Oppenheimer, is a perfectly balanced, passionate portrait of the man, who by some, is called the greatest writer…you’ve never heard of.
With collaborators like Don Coscarelli, Joe Hill and the man with a chin that could kill, Bruce Campbell, Popcorn King showcases Joe Lansdale the best way a filmmaker can: on his home turf, on his own terms, and in his own wondrous porch raconteur’s tone, that I’ve heard before – but still, it’s not nearly as cool as talkin’ to the legend his own self.
Enjoy this dynamic one-two punch of literary and cinematic awesomeness, I pray you. Be excellent…
Podcasting Them Softly 