(With RHJ)
The Barry Switzer movie the world has cried out for since before his birth may finally be here: SWITZER, THE MOVIE. This is not the working title, but it should be, as well as the title of the actual film. It is all you need to sell this movie. Men will follow its musk to the multiplex out of admiration; women will wander up purring like cats to a fishmonger. Texas fans will curse as they hand over their dollars and empty pistols into the screen, but they will be there.
Switzer's potential casting is one thing. (Aaron Eckhart with some more bulk and a bit more bantam rooster to him would be perfect.) The soundtrack is crucial, too: all Okie asskick, with lots of jail-momma-murder old country and filthy dirt-rock involved. Get William H. Macy as Darrell Royal, Anne Hathaway to play Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, ourselves as Tom Osborne, Paul McCartney as the ghost of Amelia Earhart, and Wendell Pierce as Marcus Dupree. We'll be printing platinum codpieces by noon on Monday with a Friday open, and taking the rest and purchasing Paraguay with the proceeds.
Important moments from the life of Barry Switzer that must be included.
- His birth, including the resulting chemical fire that killed 98.
- 1997: A newly retired Switzer meets with a Hollywood studio to share the movie script he's been working on for years. Three years later, after the gratuitous nude scenes and a particularly confusing subplot about whipping the moon's ass over a land deal gone wrong are removed, "Space Cowboys" is a modest box-office success.
- The Orange Bowl, 1978. Oklahoma has just been soundly beaten by Arkansas. A frustrated Larry Lacewell is forced to confront the media alone. Meanwhile, in Port St. Lucie, a mysterious stranger smelling faintly of mustard and brake fluid introduces himself to a waitress as "Gary Spritzer."
- Flanders, 1917. The man lay at the bottom of the trench. Sorrow was past him. He and the remainder of the 84th Royal Infantry were somewhere else now, some Stygian hellhole of pain unbeknownst to all but the unluckiest soldier. The gray Belgian sky shed no tears. "Sgt. Switzer, is all beyond hope?" The jut-jawed man shook his head. "Not as long as we have Whore Horse. Not as long as we have Whore Horse." Switzer then puts on a mask and a cape that reads "Whore Horse," and takes off his pants. The 88s sound in the background. The war goes on.
- An unnamed Sooner walks into Coach Switzer's office. Tears welling in his eyes, the player shares his most private secret - he's a twenty year old who never learned to read or write. Switzer pauses a moment, and then, locking eyes with the young man, bellows "SON I CAN'T HEAR A GODDAMN THING SINCE I BLEW OUT BOTH EARDRUMS OPENING THE EMERGENCY DOOR MIDFLIGHT FOR NO REASON LAST WEEKEND HELL THAT HANDLE WAS JUST CALLING OUT TO ME"
- Switzer is visiting his father in prison. Just as the guards prepare to take him back to his cell, Frank grabs his son and whispers "I only did this to give you the opportunities I never had, Barry. To give you a better life. A life where you could go to school, never go hungry. Where you could kick a grown man in the ass while he pissed."
- The one where Jackie Kennedy, a struggling single girl just trying to make it work in the city as best she can, bumps into Switzer and spills coffee all over his chest before stammering and apologizing while blushing. He nods, smiles, and takes her into an alley to make love. They are married 34 seconds later.
- In 1951, a shadowy government operative known only as "Mr. Wood" asks the teenaged Switzer to work as a saboteur behind enemy lines in Korea. We later learn that Mr. Wood was an old tree stump with a rusty rake leaning up against it.
- The part where he wins a Super Bowl HAHAHAHHA REMEMBER THAT AND HOW HE RAN UP A SIX-FIGURE ROOM SERVICE TAB ALMOST ENTIRELY IN ALCOHOL AND TOOK HIS WIFE AND HIS GIRLFRIEND WHO GOT ALONG AND WHO THEN WON WITH A TEAM THAT HAD ITS OWN PRIVATE FUCK-MANSION? Reality wins in straight sets again, fiction.
It's just...it's just gonna be so beautiful, y'all. We'll be in Austin for #SXSW, so if you're around we present at the Driskill Hotel at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday. Mmm, hungover audiences. (Follow @edsbs on twitter for further details.) (Mostly because we have no idea what we'll be doing yet.)