I prefer my heroes and villains to be easily painted in stark monochrome; the subtleties of human nature only confuse me, and I wish I had the fortitude of a Dante, who assigned seemingly everyone who ever afforded him even the slightest affront their own particular place in Hell without any apparent reservation whatsoever. But when it comes to Heston, of the many available, Charlton chose his own legacy; what Michael Moore did to him in Bowling for Columbine was vicious but no less deserved for all that. I would have greatly preferred to have remembered Heston for this stunning scene:
As well as for his starring role in the greatest noir of them all, even if it’s the performances of Orson Wells and Marlene Dietrich that continue to haunt my sleep.
Or maybe, most of all, for his outside-the-Academy activities in 1963.
But to speak no evil of the dead only serves to whitewash too many an unfortunate legacy; witness the whimpering acccolades delivered upon the recent passages of Jerry Falwell and William Buckley into the nether regions. So, in coming not to praise Moses, but to bury him, here’s a funereal set list: The Beatles, Warren Zevon (electric version w/ son Jordan and Wallflowers), Mission of Burma, Jimi, a sweet old CSNY, and Guerilla News Network’s chilling collaboration on Eminem’s take on Columbine:
