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ARTS AND CULTURE

The epiphanies of our lives

  • 10 July 2012

Baby, I Don’t CareThe title is Robert Mitchum's famous line from the 1947 film noir, Out of the Past, directed by Jacques Tourneur, and also starring Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas.never thought I’d say it       couldn't sound like Mitchum tolling every syllable like his death knell  before he kisses Jane Greer on the beach at Acapulco  Are you sure? she asks         adding extra bait to the hook       Baby      I don’t care he says       and as soon as he kisses her all the traffic lights on his road to hell turn greenwho can blame him?       remember her entrance       strolling at sunset into La Mar Azul (hot chilli     cold tequila)the flies stop buzzing     a guitar starts to throbthe kind of girl a guy would die for       'die from' more likely        three corpses from four bullets is handy shooting    takes two for Kirk Douglas     a durable performer even thenyou’d turn a few heads in La Mar Azul      flesh aglowfrom stolen Aztec sun        but we're in a real-life drama           and you're the girl with the dead-end part    the stiff in a tragedy by Stupidity    the Three Stooges hamming as your doctors        but you fluff your exit lines            mess-up your death scene three times over so when I kiss you (it won't be in Acapulco)      I’m stalled at a detour on the road to hell     facing red       grateful I'm going nowherewhile Mitchum  charges flat-chat to the inferno you're asleep now        no empty bed yet damns my breaking day        and for the rest         when I hear them trilling about property prices          blathering about positive thinking  getting lubricious over big cars and bigger careers     spending their waking hours with the All Ordinaries   then believe me Baby     (if you'll wear the diminutive)         I don’t careLook At My EyesLook at my eyes.I'm dead behind these eyes.Archie Rice, eponymous character in John Osborne's play, The Entertainer, (1957).I know how Archie feelsafter the fire's gone outeasy to grab at pain killersa few swigs of self-deceitno trouble doing drugshelpful doctors will oblige  or try DIYno one will noticeyou'll still be