since it went over so well the first time...

THE PRIORITIES EPIC featuring the Biddaddy

By Robert Dillon Nemtusak

Jack Bronstein was in the place. He was all up in there. He may not have mastered the Death and Dismemberment section of his life insurance policy, but he was definitely in the place.

The breeze was misty that October afternoon as Mr. Bronstein made his way to the swing set. Nobody knew for sure why the 47-year-old movie executive spent so much time on a swing set, but he was there most afternoons.

I guess you could say that Jack was a real ‘swinger.’

But today was different. Instead of having to fight off a bunch of five-year-olds with his cane, Jack found himself alone at the Sagebrecht Elementary playground swing set.

That is, until Biddaddy showed up. You could hear Biddaddy coming a mile away, because of the eerie freight train noise he made with his nose. Often, Biddaddy was mistaken for a Lionel Train.

The one known as Biddaddy usually spent his time playing pinball over at Mock’s. Occasionally, he would try a game of Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, or even Baby Pac, but for the most part, it was Earth Shaker pinball for old Biddaddy. Aside from that, there was just no accounting for the fellow.

Rumor had it that they kicked Biddaddy off the Special Olympics Advisory Committee for embezzling funds with Steve-o. He was vilified in the press for “goofing on the retarded,” and you can still find posters across town that read, “Biddaddy is not special.”

Either way, Biddaddy was dreaded by most folks. Most folks dreaded the Biddaddy. Would you want to be around somebody who made a ‘freight train’ noise with his nose? Probably not.

Jack Bronstein was no friend of Biddaddy’s. He wasn’t even an admirer. On Friday, October 13, he was just minding his own business, not a care in the world. The breeze was misty, and the Don Henley Actual Miles: Greatest Hits tape in Jack’s Sony Walkman was JUST RIGHT.

“Just right,” Jack smiled. “All I need now is a steamin’ hot avocado bean burrito. What was I thinkin’ about a minute ago? Hmm, hmm…oh yeah, Norris. I wonder if they’re going to bring him out for Die Hard 4: Please Let Me Die. Bruce Willis is just about done.”

Under his headphones, Jack didn’t notice the oncoming freight train whistle of Biddaddy as Biddaddy made his way through the forest.

“Then again,” he mused. “Norris isn’t such an ass-kicker himself anymore. What happened to the ninjas, anyway?”

Suddenly, Bronstein screamed like a baby and ripped the headphones from his head.

The sky seemed to darken as the movie mogul removed the tape from the player and hurled it at the side of the school.

“Jerthansia!” Jack fumed. “I hate that fuckin’ ‘Dirty Laundry.’ Like Henley was the first guy to realize TV news is shady? Get the fuck out!”

Golf-ball-size hail bounced around Bronstein, and he bounced to the next subject.

“There’s got to be a way, consarn it,” he mused. “If I can fuse Seagal’s environmental protection attitudes with Norris’ early shoot first, shoot later style, it’ll be money in the bank. It’ll be two great tastes in one candy bar or some shit like that!”

Biddaddy whistled again.

Jack, on cue, drew his .45 and blew a hole in his Walkman.

He spit on the ashes and cursed, “Stupid thing played ‘Dirty Laundry’.”

Jack stood to his feet and cautiously stepped away from the swing.

Running his fingers through his hair nonchalantly, Bronstein made hi way through the escape tunnel and out onto Owl’s Cliff.

“Somethin’ ain’t right here,” he said.

Indeed, something wasn’t right.

Blue and green moments before, the October sky had suddenly cleared up. The hail was nowhere to be seen. Plus, the burrito stand Jack kept in business had disappeared. Disappeared, as in, gone off the face of the earth.

Bronstein had gotten out of some pretty scary situations, but this one?

Whoa.

Whoa.

Sure, he could go into TOWN and get burritos at the Mexican place, but scabs ran the place now!

Just then, it occurred to Jack that if you arranged all of Van Damme’s films in alphabetical order and drew them on a bar graph according to occult numerology, you’d get a big pentagram with feathers.

“What the fuck?” he gasped.

Brown knit, Jack wiped the perspiration away with a cloth, only to recoil in terror as the cloth crumbled like cookie dust.

“Jerthansia!” Jack cursed. “What the hell is happening to me?”

Even the owls seemed to be deserting hi. They said, “Who?” a few times and flew off to their highland stronghold.

Finally, though, things seemed to return to normal.

Frankenstein’s monster appeared at the bottom of the hill and smiled at Jack.

“Come on down,” said the monster. “The doctor’s buying everyone beer. First come…first served. HA HA HA HA HA!”

In a way, Jack had been waiting his whole life for a moment like this one. Unlike the scripts he extorted from Fat Guy, or the ones he dreamed up while high on burritos and hash, this one was writing itself. And writing itself but good.

“You’re on, Frank!” he shouted.

Jack holstered his .45 and headed down the hill. Beers with Frankenstein? It was a no-brainer!

Or…was it?

Omenous black clouds developed over the patchwork monster kids called Frankenstein.

Jack sensed, correctly, that it was a good time to reassess his priorities.

“Prioritize,” he said to himself. “Is a beer with Frankenstein worth dyin’ for? Hmm.”

He pulled out his .45 again and eyed the monster suspiciously.

“Excuse me,” Jack said. “I’m flattered. Beers with the doc sounds great. But I remain unconvinced. In my monster manual, it says you always have to ask for Monster ID in situations like this. I’ve seen some weird stuff in the past five minutes, and I get the feeling that ain’t even the half of it. More strange stuff has got to be around the corner. Now tell me the truth, Frank. Who’s behind all this?”

“All right,” the zombie relented. “I give up. It wasn’t my idea, Jack.”

“Spit it out, Frank,” Jack hissed. “Who sent you, and who made those storm clouds?”

“It was…BIDDADDY.”

The penalty for uttering Biddaddy’s name in those times was instant death.

Jack averted his eyes from the pile of greenish-yellow avocado bean mush cake that used to be Frankenstein’s monster.

Moments later, Dr. Frankenstein himself came running down the hill.

Thinking fast, Jack squeezed two shots out of his .45 and delivered a kick to doctor’s groin for emphasis.

Frankenstein writhed on the ground.

“Aaagh,” he grunted. “Damn, Jack! You still got it!”

Jack brandished his .45 proudly and grinned.

“You know, doc, you’re right. Heh heh heh. I do! I still got it. I still—hey! I’m not finished with you, you body-snatching eunuch. Where is he? Where is the one what sent you? Tell me or I blow your balls off!”

Dr. Frankenstein pointed toward the school forebodingly.

“The school, you fool. It’s his laboratory now!”

Jack did a double-take.

“Excuse me, Frankenstein. Did you just say ‘luh-boar-i-tor-ee’?”

“Yeah!” Frankenstein smiled. “Just like in the movies! See, Jack? I did my homework!”

“Frankenstein?” Jack fumed like a gas-pipe. “You were a Nazi two hundred years ago and you’re a Nazi now. Get the hell OUT of here!”

Moving on, Jack blew a hole in Sagebrecht Elementary’s front door.

Strutting inside, Jack shouted, “Hey! Did you see my official identification badge name tag? Huh? I got about three more, see?”

Bronstein’s cocky demeanor and smart-ass ways dried up rapidly when Elmer the Glaviano setter flew out of the principal’s office.

Laughing like a swarthy hyena, Elmer bit Bronstein’s ankles until Jack was screaming for his Aunt Jerthansia.

“My boss is waitin’ for ya, Bronstein,” Elmer snarled.

Movie boy gasped, “Jerthansia!” as Elmer morphed into a 6-foot-tall super dog with a scorpion’s tail.

“So much for theatrics,” he laughed. “Time to take care of business.”

You could hear the earth rumble with the laughter of a thousand dead Fat Guys as Elmer worked Bronstein over.

Elmer gave Bronstein an uppercut, a snake-bite, a roundhouse, and a dick kick. He had him on the ropes. Indeed, he was giving Bronstein the business.

Elmer spit his Wrigley’s Spearmint gum at Jack’s forehead and screamed, “HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, BITCH?!”

Jack didn’t like it at all.

Truth be told, Jack liked it even less than he liked Steven Seagal’s sophomoric sophomore effort at raising eco-consciousness, Fire Down Below. Did you see that piece of shit? I’m not kidding when I say that after making that film, Seagal deserved to be sent to Alaska to chop wood with Chuck Norris for at least ten years. Imagine, dispatching Stephen Lang with toxic waste! No respect.

Desperate, Jack fired his gun twice.

All that did was take out the lights.

Now he was in a dark, cavernous elementary school hallway with no one to talk to but a man-eating dog with a scorpion’s tail. This was almost as bad as speech class.

“Up here!” Elmer laughed, standing over his prey. The dog’s menace knew no bounds.

Elmer’s scorpion tail shifted gears and suddenly became a silver hammer.

He raised the hammer and laughed, “Bang bang!”

Jack groaned, “Fuckin’ Silver Hammer,” and went to sleep.

Bronstein recognize the music. Somebody had a recording of that weird opera part of Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, and they were playing it over and over again on the school loudspeakers.

But he wasn’t familiar with the voice.

Jack had been to hundreds of principals’ offices over the years, what with all of those incidents in his childhood, as well as the movies he’d produced about kids who wanted to get into college. He was especially proud of his work on The Convincing.

The Convincing (1999) told the tale of a male high school student who had to convince his guidance counselor that he was Yale material. It turned out that the counselor was a blond woman with gigantic breasts. He ‘convinced’ her by having sex with her on her desk.

“Ahh, The Convincing,” Jack mused. “That’s what desks were made for. Heh heh heh. So, did they take my brain or something? Jerthansia, what the hell am I doing here?”

Slowly, Bronstein became aware of a middle-aged man in front of his face, rattling on about God knows what.

He didn’t have blonde hair.

And he didn’t have gigantic breasts.

He was Sagebrecht Elementary Guidance Counselor Dice Dickman.

And he was rattling on about God knows what.

Jack tried to avert his eyes.

No dice.

“Hey!” Dice barked. “Over here!”

Resignedly, Jack looked up at Dickman.

Dice puffed on his Marlboro and laughed. He even did that ‘eye’ gesture, where you point to your eyes, so as to make the person you’re talking to look at your eyes.

“I HATE that fuckin’ eye gesture!” Jack screamed. “What’s goin’ on here, Dice? First I get Elmer, now YOU? Didn’t you have a show on CBS 10 years ago?”

“Eleven,” Dice said sheepishly.

Jack waved his hand and laughed, “Bah! You sucked then, and you suck now. How’d you get this job?”

Dickman snapped his fingers, and the music got louder.

“Tell me somethin’, Jack,” Dice puffed. “Have you assessed your priorities lately?”

Jack balked.

“My priorities?” he said. “Huh?”

“Priorities,” Dice said calmly. “Have you taken stock of what’s important and what isn’t lately? You know—prioritization.”

Bronstein scratched his head and did his best ‘James Dean.’

“Let me think,” he replied. “Okay. I got it: I’m about to ‘prioritize’ my foot in your ass! Get it? Jerk-off.”

Dice had a sense of humor, but there were limits. He grabbed the phone.

Bronstein grinned smugly.

“You’re on notice,” Dice said to Bronstein, pointing an accusatory finger.

On the other end of the line, Elmer pulled out his cell phone.

“What seems to be the problem, Dr. Dice?” Elmer growled.

“Elmer!” Dice said. “Thanks for answering the call. I was just about to reveal the secret of consciousness to movie boy here. Then he called me a jerk-off. Is that nice? I mean, one minute I’m trying to help the guy, and the next I’m a jerk-off. Now I’m a little, how can you say, peeved. What should I do?”

Silently, Elmer morphed back to normal dog size, trotted into Dice’s office, and attacked Bronstein.

“Wait!” Dickman shouted. “No, Elmer! Wait! Stop! Elmer, you’ll rip his DICK off!”

It was a horrible scene. Elmer’s instructions were to intimidate and punish. He hadn’t been hired to emasculate people.

Who knows? Maybe the setter had an old score to settle. But eating the guy’s balls? Jerthansia.

Dice nonchalantly extracted Bronstein’s .45 from his desk and aimed it at the dog between Bronstein’s legs.

“That’s enough, Elmer,” he commanded.

Bronstein frantically tried to get the savage dog off of himself.

Dice shook his head.

Elmer wouldn’t relent.

Dice fired away.

Elmer yelped, “Son of a bitch!” and fell to the ground.

Dice Dickman returned the gun to his desk and frowned.

“Now there’s a jerk-off,” he laughed, lighting a new Marlboro.

Bronstein made a face.

“As I was saying,” Dice said. “I wonder if you have your priorities all assessed. We’re supposed to be discussing your ‘reality issues.’ Why do you want to go and call me a jerk-off?”

“Well, I –“

“Prioritize! You know. Prioritize!”

Dice began to wave his cigarette around like some jerk-off has-been stand-up comic.

“Prioritize,” he smiled, standing up and grabbing the microphone. “It means USE your HEAD.”

Her Dice began to pace, an overhead spotlight tracking his every move.

“This fuckin’ guy,” he cracked. “What is with this guy and the burritos, eh? Have you ever read the wrapper on one of those burritos, Bronstein?”

Jack screwed up his eyes.

Dickman continued, “No, I suppose not. Well here it is. Avocado bean mush cake is now used in 98% of all Chickenshit burritos. Did you kow that? No, of course not. You don’t read the INGREDIENTS. You’re too busy hunting down Fat Guys. Once you get a movie out of them, they’re target practice.”

Bronstein turned red.

“You make me sick, Bronstein. I guess you think you’re all high and mighty and stuff because you don’t weigh 300 pounds. Right?”

“No, Dice, that isn’t—“

“Bahh,” Dickman scoffed. “You’re a fuckin’ jerk-off.”

Surreptitiously, Jack made a move for the drawer holding his gun.

Alas, Sagebrecht Elementary Guidance Counselor Dice Dickman was all over that shit. Dice slammed him one in the face and knocked him back on his ass.

“I ought to kill you myself,” Dice fumed. “It would save everybody a lot of trouble. Especially the REAL moviemakers. You know, the people in Hollywood who make us smile? They don’t think it’s funny to watch you make a mockery of everything they hold dear. You should be ashamed, John Methuselah Bronstein.”

Jack was astonished.

“Holy shit!” he cried. “You guys really have done your homework. Nobody knows my middle name!”

Dice looked up from his Erector set.

“What?” he said. “Are you still here?”

Dickman came back to the desk and shoved the .45 in Jack’s face.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Bronstein. That Erector set is so much fun, I lose track of time. Now what were you saying?”

Bronstein frowned.

“I was saying, DICE, who the hell cares if there’s avocado bean mush cake in my burritos or not?”

“I’ll tell you who cares. You. At least, you should. Avocado bean mush cake is poison. If you don’t knock it off with the burritos, you’ll be dead in two years. Tops.”

“Thanks, Dice,” Bronstein said matter-of-factly. “Thanks for the advice. I’d like to live more than another two years.”

“Skip it, Jack,” Dice shrugged. “I’m about to hand you over to the Biddaddy. You ain’t gonna last another two minutes. You should’ve prioritized. Jerk-off.”

Dickman disappeared.

This was all a bit much for poor Bronstein.

“I—ah, skip it,” he moped, searching for an exit. “This can’t possibly get any worse, can it?”

Sure enough, lights appeared around the water fountain, and a mechanical Leonard Maltin popped out of the fucking wall.

“Greetings, jerk-off!” the wooden Maltin head screeched. “Do you remember—“

Cutting Maltin off, Jack screamed, “Jerthansia! What have they done to my magical dream?”

“Ah, shut up, jerk-off! Ah ha ha ha ha! Do you remember Jean-Claude van Damme’s thrilling performance in 1993’s Hard Target? HA HA HA HA HA. It was the first movie legendary director John Woo made in the United States. And it was also the only good one. AH HA HA HA HA HA! How about this fake wooden beard, huh? I can tell you want to touch it. Well FORGET IT, jerk-off! Like I was saying, I’m Leonard Maltin with the inside scoop. Hard Target was all up in there! Lance Henriksen turned in an outstanding performance as van Damme’s nemesis. Outwardly a respectable businessman, Henriksen was, in reality, a psychopath who arranged hunting safaris for people who wanted to kill the most dangerous game of all – man.”

Bronstein was in tears.

“Here’s what happened to Henriksen,” Maltin went on. “He forgot to prioritize.”

The word ‘prioritize’ echoed until Jack thought it was going to drive him out of his skull.

“See for yourself,” the weird wooden head screeched. “JERK-OFF!!!”

Sweating bullets, Alien/Predator/Terminator victim Lance Henriksen appeared from around the corner.

Lance blew the mechanical Leonard Maltin head to smithereens.

“Lance!” Jack exclaimed.

Henriksen waved his rifle.

Jack held up his .45.

It was a “let’s compare erections” moment. Like in a John Woo movie.

Henriksen calmly wiped the soot and gunpowder off his shiny pink smoking jacket and casually loaded up his gun with more grapeshot.

“Well,” grinned the erstwhile Emil Fouchon. “Let’s hunt some Fat Guy.”

RE-ASSESS MY PRIORITIES, MY ASS:

THE HARDEST TARGET OF THEM ALL

Movie poster

“Bronstein finally gets to the bottom of things.

Will he ever see his Aunt Jerthansia again?

Why would a bunch of Clones with plenty of food and free parking just up and rebel against their master?

Does the righteous man sometimes go astray?

Do you know?

Do you WANT to know?

Well, get off your ass and visit your local theater.

That is, if you care about yourself—or anyone else, for that matter.

RE-ASSESS MY PRIORITIES, MY ASS:

THE HARDEST TARGET OF THEM ALL

Written by Dick Sharkwater

Edited by Shack Creekwaters

Produced by Steven Seagal

Titles by Lick-Spittle

Additional Dialogue by David Mamet

Production Designer Ridley Scott

Security by Smith and Wesson

Music by Patrick Doyle

Directed by Cade Bronto

STARRING

Jean-Claude van Damme as “Bronstein”

Chuck Norris as Lance Henriksen

Lance Henriksen as Charles Bronson

Judge Reinhold as Dice Dickman

Kathy Najimy as Aunt Jerthansia

Jude Law as Elmer

David Caruso as Lenny “Mock” Mockowski

Everett McGill as Mr. McDougal

Jennifer Lopez as Twixie LaBelle

Jon Lovitz as Mojax

AND

John Schneider as “Wilford”

The poster looked great.

Jack and Lance looked great.

“Hold up,” Lance said, holding a cigarette. “Smoke this over for a second. Is this a movie?”

Jack shrugged nonchalantly.

Wouldn’t you?

Lance continued, “Or is it real? You know?”

Bronstein flipped a shiny silver coin and called it ‘tails.’

“I got it, Lance,” he smiled. “Movie! Heh heh.”

“Okay,” Lance said, billowing smoke. “In that case, what’s up with the title? I think it stinks. It’s too long.”

Jack cracked, “Yeah, that’s what she said,” and lit a cigar.

“I’m serious, Jack,” Lance fumed. “How about Hard Target 2, or The Hunt Continues?”

Jack puffed on his cigar and frowned.

“You’re a real pain in the ass, Lance,” he said quietly.

Lance ‘cocked’ his rifle and shouted, “You goddamn son of a bitch Revolting Cocks LP. If I say it’s a bad title, it’s a bad title. What the HELL do you know?”

Jack took a look around, calmly assessing his priorities.

“Well,” he said. “I know one thing.”

Lance growled, “What’s that?”

“I know I’m quicker on the draw than you. You feelin’ lucky?”

“Fix the title,” Lance said.

Jack ‘cocked’ his gun and smiled, “How about I fix you?”

“SON OF A BITCH!” Lance cried, pulling the trigger.

Jack executed one of those “van Dammes” and dodged Lance’s bullet.

Lance missed.

Jack didn’t.

“Aagh,” Lance groaned. “You LUCKY son of a bitch…this shit ain’t over yet…straight? AAGHH…”

Jack dropped his gun and made sure Lance was dead. When you shoot Lance Henriksen, you make sure he’s dead.

Get it?

Lance was dead.

Jack fixed his hair in the mirror and whistled a funeral dirge.

“I need a change of scenery,” he sighed. “Grade school sucks.”

Like a man possessed, Jack Bronstein fought his way through a cafeteria full of robot lizard drones.

I don’t know how they got there.

Neither did Jack.

In any event, he smacked the shit out of them. Big time.

He made it to the boiler room.

Vin Diesel was nowhere in sight.

But Jack did see Charles Bronson.

Was he a ghost?

“He’s right, Jack,” Bronson said.

“Are you a ghost?”

“No, Jack,” Bronson laughed. “I’m not a ghost. Like I was saying, Lance is right. This shit AIN’T over.”

Just to get things rolling, Bronson punched Bronstein in the stomach ten times and mashed his face in some potato salad

Charles laughed evilly.

“Evil is like potato salad,” he grinned. “It’s even worse when you’re at school. Don’t you agree, Jack?”

Vigilante man slapped Jack in the face until the potato salad was all runny.

“How does that taste?” Charles laughed.

Jack gasped, “Bronson, what are you doing?”

He grabbed a crobar and clubbed Chuck in the stomach.

“Come on, Bronson! We go way back! We opened a burrito house. What gives, man?”

Then it happened.

Jack swung the crobar at Charles’ face and made contact.

The crobar clanged against Charles’ face with a metallic ‘clang.’ This clearly was not your father’s Bronson.

“You’re not Bronson!” Jack gasped, horrified.

“No,” the celluloid vigilante smiled. “I’m Biddaddy.”

Biddaddy raised his thermonuclear crossbow and spit on the floor.

“The Fat Guys sent you!” Jack winced.

Biddaddy laughed a thousand laughs and cried, “I ate the Fat Guys for dinner last night, Bronstein!”

Jack cringed.

“With some fava beans…and a COKE!”

Biddaddy proceed to continue the ass-beating job he’d begun as Bronson.

“Ugh,” Jack muttered. “I liked you better as Bronson, jag-off!”

“Same difference,” the evil one shrugged. “An ass-beatin’s an ass-beatin’. WAHHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

Jack went for broke. He grabbed Biddaddy’s crossbow by the ‘trigger,’ flipped it around, and squeeze off six shots.

Biddaddy, reeling, swung at Jack wildly.

“Jag-off!” he screamed. “It takes seven shots to kill me. Seven!”

Then he vanished.

Jack wandered out of Sagebrecht Elementary and grabbed a swing.

“Man alive,” he mused, more to himself than to anyone else. “What the HELL kind of ending was THAT?”

BOB NEMTUSAK PRESENTS

HARD TARGET TWO:

THIS TIME IT’S REALLY HARD

IMAGINARY CAST

Lance Henriksen as Jack Bronstein

Charles Buchinski as the Biddaddy

Bruce Willis as “Bronson”

Jon Lovitz as Mojax

Stephen McHattie as Lance Henriksen

Mel Gibson as Jesus

Carre Otis as Rachel Dratch

Kathy Najimy as Aunt Jerthansia

Judge Reinhold as Sagebrecht Elementary Guidance Counselor Dice Dickman

Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay as Sly

Tahnee Welch as Boobs LaTouche

Wilford Brimley as Duvee

Raquel Welch as Hootie LaTouche

David Caruso as Lenny ‘Patch’ Wompzinksi

John Glover as Dr. Frankenstein

AND

James Gandolfini as The Monster

MUSIC BY GRAEME REVELL

“HANDS ON THE BIDDADDY”

Written by Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres

Performed by Carly Simon, Glenn Frey, and Pat Benatar

SEE IT TONIGHT!

SERGEANT CUT AND PASTE!

I'm cutting and I'm pasting, orange juice was dandy tasting.
Tried my hand at cooking turkey, was accused of "master basting."
Orenthal probably was framed.
People get damaged by fame.
Harold fell wounded at the Battle of Hastings.

Smoke it!

www.thetruthseeker.co.uk

Native American Indian Prophecies

Extracts from a talk given by Lee Brown at the 1986 Continental Indigenous Council, Tanana Valley, Fairbanks, Alaska.

At the beginning of this cycle of time, long ago, the Great Spirit came down and He made an appearance and gathered the peoples of this earth together "they say on an island which is now beneath the water" and He said to the human beings, "I'm going to send you to four directions and over time I'm going to change you to four colors, but I'm going to give you some teachings and you will call these the Original Teachings and when you come back together with each other you will share these so that you can live and have peace on earth, and a great civilization will come about." And He said "During the cycle of time I'm going to give each of you two stone tablets. When I give you those stone tablets, don't cast them on the ground. If any of the brothers and sisters of the four directions and the four colors cast their tablets on the ground, not only, will human beings have a hard time, but almost the earth itself will die." And so he gave each of us a responsibility and we call that the Guardianship. To the Indian people, the red people, he gave the Guardianship of the earth. We were to learn during this cycle of time the teachings of the earth, the plants that grow from the earth, the foods that you can eat, and the herbs that are healing so that when we came back together with the other brothers and sisters we could share this knowledge with them. Something good was to happen on the earth. To the South, he gave the yellow race of people the Guardianship of the wind. They were to learn about the sky and breathing and how to take that within ourselves for spiritual advancement. They were to share that with us at this time. To the West He gave the black race of people the Guardianship of the water. They were to learn the teachings of the water which is the chief of the elements, being the most humble and the most powerful. When I went to the University of Washington and I learned that it was a black man that discovered blood plasma, it didn’t surprise me because blood is water and the elders already told me the black people would bring the teachings of the water. To the North He gave the white race of people the Guardianship of the fire. If you look at the center of many of the things they do you will find the fire. They say the light bulb is the white man's fire. If you look at the center of a car you will find a spark. If look at the center of the airplane and the train you will find the fire. The fire consumes, and also moves. This is why it was the white brothers and sisters who began to move upon the face of the earth and reunite us as a human family... So we went through this cycle of time and each of the four races went to their directions and they learned their teachings. It was on Newsweek not too long ago that eight out of ten foods that people eat on the earth are developed here in the western hemisphere because that was our Guardianship, to learn the teachings of the earth, and the things that grow from the earth. We were given a sacred handshake to show them when we came back together as bothers and sisters that we still remembered the teachings. It was indicated on the stone tablets that the Hopis had that the first brothers and sisters that would come back to them would come as turtles across the land. They would be human beings, but they would come as turtles. So when the time came close the Hopis were at a special village to welcome the turtles that would come across the land and they got up in the morning and looked out at the sunrise. They looked out across the desert and they saw the Spanish Conquistadors coming, covered in armour, like turtles across the land. So this was them. So they went out to the Spanish man and they extended their hand hoping for the handshake but into the hand the Spanish man dropped a trinket. And so word spread through North America that there was going to be a hard time, that maybe some of the brothers and sisters had forgotten the sacredness of all things and all the human beings were going to suffer for this on the earth. So tribes began to send people to the mounds to have missions to try and figure out how they could survive. At that time there were cities built on great mounds in the Mississippi, called the mound civilization. Those mounds are still there. If you ever go out to Ohio or the Mississippi Valley, they're tourist attractions now. There were thousands of cities of Native people and they were wondering how they could survive. They began to try to learn to live off the land because they knew a hard time was going to come. They began to send people to have visions to see how we could survive this time...And they were told in the prophecies that we should try to remind all the people that would come here of the sacredness of all things. If we could do that, then there would be peace on earth. But if we did not do that, when the roads went clear from east to west, and when other races and colors of the Earth had walked clear across this land, if by that time we could not come together as a human family, the Great Spirit would grab the earth with his hand and shake it.... ...The elders that were made aware of these prophecies said they would begin to build a black ribbon. And on this black ribbon there would move a bug. And when you see bug moving on the land, that was the sign for the First Shaking of the Earth. The First Shaking of the Earth would be so violent that this bug would be shaken off the earth into the air and it would begin to move and fly in the air. And by the end of this shaking this bug will be in the air around the world. Behind it would be a trail of dirt and eventually the whole sky of the entire earth would become dirty from these trails of dirt, and this would cause many diseases that would become more and more complicated. So in 1908 the Model T Ford was mass-produced for the first time. So the elders knew the First Shaking of the Earth was about to come about, that's the First World War. In the First World War the airplane came into wide usage for the first time. That was the bug moving onto the sky. ...So they knew things would happen. Things would speed up a little bit. There would be cobweb built around the earth, and people would talk across this cobweb. When this talking cobweb, the telephone, was built around the earth, a sign of life would appear in the east, but it would tilt and bring death. It would come with the sun. But the sun itself would rise one day not in the east but in the west. So the elders said when you see the sun rising in the east and you see the sign of life reversed and tilted in the east, you know that the Great Death is to come upon the earth, and now the Great Spirit will grab the again in His hand and shake it and this shaking will be much worse than the first. So the sign of life reversed and tilted, we call that the Swastika, and the rising sun in the east was the rising sun of Japan. These two symbols are carved in stone in Arizona. When the elders saw these two flags, these were the signs that the earth was to be shaken again. The worse misuse of the Guardianship of the fire is called the "gourd of ashes. "They said the gourd of ashes would fall from the air. It will make people like blades of grass in the prairie fire and things will not grow for many seasons. I saw on television not too long ago that they were talking about the atomic bomb, the gourd of ashes. They said it was the best-kept secret in the history of the United States, the elders wanted to speak about it in 1920. They would have spoken of it and foretold its coming if they could have entered into the League of Nations. The elders tried to contact President Roosevelt and ask him not to use the gourd of ashes. Because it would have a great effect on the earth and eventually cause even greater destruction and a Third Shaking of the Earth, the Third World War. I'll get to that in a few minutes. So they knew after the Second Shaking of the Earth when they saw the gourd of ashes fall from the sky that there would be another attempt to make peace on the other side of this land. And because the peace attempt on the west coast had failed, they would build a special house on the east coast of this Turtle Island, and all the nations and peoples of this earth would come to this house and it would be called the House of Mica and it would shine like mica in the desert sun. So the elders began to see that they were building the United Nations made out of glass that reflects like mica in the desert sun so they knew this was the House of Mica and all the peoples of the earth should go into it. In the 1920's they had written and not been responded to, so now they said we better go to the front door otherwise things might get a lot worse. So the elders representing a number of tribes drove to New York City. When the United Nations opened they went to the front door of the House of Mica and they said these words: "We represent the indigenous people of North America and we wish to address the nations of the Earth. We're going to give you four days to consider whether or not we will be allowed to speak." They retreated to one of the Six Nations Reserves in New York State...Four days later they came back and I believe the nations of the earth heard the Indians had come to the door. And they voted to let the Indians in. But the United States is one of the five nations with a veto power and still they were concerned because at this time Native sovereignty was even stronger. And I believe they vetoed the entrance of the Native people. So then they knew other things would happen to the Earth, and the United Nations would not bring peace but that there would be continuing and deepening confusion. And that the little wars would get worse...So they said, "We're going to divide the United States into four sections and each year we're going to have a gathering. We're going to call these the 'White' or 'Peace Gatherings.' They began to have these around 1950. And they authorized certain men to speak in English for the first time. One that I used to listen to many times, over and over, was Thomas Benyaka. He is a Hopi man. I believe he is still living. He was authorized to speak about what was on the stone tablets and he has dedicated his life to doing this. And they began to tell the gatherings; they said, "In your lifetime you're going to see many things happen"...It was strange when they said that in the 1950's and 1960's but now it seems very clear. But then it was unusual. They said, "You're are going to see a time in your life when men are going to become women. The Great Spirit is going to make a man on the earth. He made him a man but this man is going to say, "I know more than the Great Spirit. I'm going to change myself to be a woman." And they will even nurse children. The Great Spirit is going to make a woman on the earth. She's going to say, "I know more than the Great Spirit. I want to be a man." And she will be physically a man. This sounded strange then. And maybe in a vision they saw Boy-George. They said "You're going to see a time in your lifetime when the human beings are going to find the blueprint that makes us. "They call that now, DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid. They said, "They are going to cut this blueprint." They call that now genetic splicing. And they said, "They are going to make new animals upon the earth, and they're going to think that these are going to help us. And it's going to seem like they do help us. But maybe the grandchildren and great grandchildren are going to suffer." I don't know if you heard on the news last night in the United States they have genetically spliced a new germ, never before released in the environment. They want to release this germ into the cotton fields of the south because the say it will strengthen and rejuvenate the cotton. They had scientists on the CBS Evening News the other night talking about it. One scientist said what the elders said in the 1950's, that this would not harm us. We've put it in a lot of tests. And the other scientist said what the elders also said, no, this has never been before in the environment. We have no idea what it will do. The elders spoke of it long ago. They said it would seem harmless, but it may be able to hurt the great-grandchildren. The elders said long ago, "They will release these things, they will use them." This is going to be released not too long from now, they are making new animals. The elders talked about this. They said, "You will see new animals, and even old animals will come back, animals that people thought had disappeared. They will find them here and there. They'll begin to reappear." They said, "You're going to see a time when the eagle will fly it’s highest in the night and it will land upon the moon." And at that time, they say, "Many of the Native people will be sleeping," which symbolically means they will have lost their teachings... "When the eagle flies at its highest in the night, that will be the first light of a new day. That will be the first thawing of spring." Of course, at the first light of a new day, if you've stayed up all night, you notice it's really dark. And the first light, you want to see it, but you can't. It sneaks up on you. You want to see it change but it's dark and then pretty soon it's getting light before you know it. We're at that time now. The eagle has landed on the moon, 1969. When that spaceship landed they sent back the message, "The eagle has landed." ...We’re in that time now. We're between the first light of a new day and sunrise. The sunrise is about to come and when it comes up everyone is going to see it. But you know how it is in the village, there are a few people that get up early, and there are some that sleep till noon. I'm probably one of those that sleeps until noon. ...At this time you're going to see that things will speed up, that people on the earth will move faster and faster. Grandchildren will not have time for their grandparents. Parents will not have time for their children. It will seem like time is going faster and faster. The elders advised us that as things speed up, you yourself should slow down. The faster things go, the slower you go. Because there's going to come a time when the earth will be shaken a third time. The Great Spirit has been shaking the earth two times: the First and Second World Wars to remind us that we should have greeted each other as brothers and sisters. We had a chance after each shaking to come together in a circle that would have brought peace on earth, but we missed that. Tonight they were talking on the news about the sign for the Third Shaking of the Earth. I heard it while I was sitting in the airport after I missed my plane. They said they're going to build what the elders called the "house in the sky." In the 1950's they talked about this: they will build a house and throw it in the sky. When you see people living in the sky on a permanent basis, you will know the Great Spirit is about to grab the earth, this time not with one hand, but with both his hands. Many of you of Native background may have heard "the spirits will warn you twice, but the third time you stand alone." We've had two warnings, the first two World Wars, but now we stand-alone before the third one. As it says in the Baha's Writings, there will be no one protected. When this house is in the sky, the Great Spirit is going to shake the Earth a third time and whoever dropped the gourd of ashes; upon them it is going to drop. They say at that time there will be villages in this land so great that when you stand in the villages you will not be able to see out, and in the prophecies these are called "village of stone", or "prairies of stone". And they say the stone will grow up from the ground and you will not be able to see beyond the village. At the center of each and every one of these villages will be a Native people, and they will walk as "hollow shells" upon a "prairie of stone". They said "hollow shells”, which means they will they will have lost their traditional understandings; they will be empty within. They said after the Eagle lands on the moon some of these people would begin to leave these "prairies of stone" and come home and take up some of the old ways and to begin to make themselves reborn, because it's a new day. But many will not. And they said there's going to come a time when in the morning the sun is going to rise and this village of stone will be there, and in the evening there would just be steam coming from the ground. And in the center of many of these villages of stone when they turn to steam, the Native people will turn to steam also because they never woke up and left the village. And this used to bother me when I was a young man. I used to ask the elders, "Isn’t there anything we can do?" And they said, well, it's just that way that if a person does not have the spiritual eyes to see, it's very hard to show them. Or if they don't have the ears to hear, it's very hard to speak with them. We wish we could go get them all but we can't. It's just that some are not going to wake up. But some will wake up. And so they say there's going to be a Third Shaking of the Earth. It's not going to be a good thing to see but we will survive it. We will survive it. ...A lot of times when I share this message of the prophecies, people say, and “Can’t we change it? Could we stop it?" The answer is yes. The prophecies are always "either/or". We could have come together way back there in 1565, and we could have a great civilization, but we didn’t. Always along the path of these prophecies, we could have come together. We still could. If we could stop this racial and religious disharmony, we would not have to go through this third shaking. The elders say the chance of that is pretty slim. It seems to me like it's pretty slim too. But what we can do is we can "cushion" it. The word we use is "cushion. "We can cushion it so it won't be quite as bad. How can we do this? We can do this by sharing the teaching that will reunite us. When I first heard about these prophecies, none of this made any sense. Now most of it has come to pass. Last night I heard on the news, they said the "house in the sky" would be put up in 1996. It was going to be put up some time sooner, but its been postponed for four years. Maybe it will be postponed again. But in not too long it's going to go up. The earth as we know it is going to change. You know, one time the scientists came to the Hopis and they said, "We want to take a piece of the stone tablets." They said, "We want to take the stone tablets to a scientific laboratory to determine how old they are. The Hopis said, "We know how old they are. "Well the scientists said, "We want to confirm it. "So the Hopis let them take a little piece, and they tested it by the carbon dating method. They found these tablets were at least 10,000 years old, maybe 50,000. So when I say, "Thousands of years ago, there were Native people that spoke of these things," that's exactly what I mean. They told their children and thousands of years ago, their children grew up and told their children, and then their children grew up and told their children. And they spoke about the people that will live in this time. And now it is us. We are the ones they spoke of long ago. They say to be alive; to come into creation and to live upon the earth at this time is a great honor. In the cycle of time, from the beginning to the end, this time we are in now will change the purification of all things. They say this is the hardest time to live, but it is also the greatest honor to be alive and see this. ...We are now within the purification of all things. Non-Natives call this the "Apocalypse". The Native call this the "Purification". I want to share one Non Native prophecy with you. There was a seer in Europe whose name was Nostradamus. I'm sure many of you have heard of him. He foresaw three Great Shakings of the Earth. He said the Third Great Shaking would begin when Lesser Arabia and Persia engage in a war. Five years ago ...Iraq attacked Iran. Lesser Arabia is today called Iraq. Persia is called Iran. These two prophecies coincide. Both the Native elders and Nostradamus said this will start slowly, almost unnoticed by the people of the earth, but eventually it will involve us all. Eventually the "gourd of ashes" will fall from the sky so ...the Mississippi River, will boil from the heat of the "gourd of ashes" that will fall on this land. But don't despair. It sounds terrible, but we will survive it. We will live through it. I don't think there's anyone chosen to live through it, but some people will. So, in closing I would like to call on each and every person, regardless of who you are, young or old, Native or non-Native, to arise now, and to awake, to embrace this time, to learn everything you can about the Teachings and the Writings, to arise awake and go forth...Peoples everywhere are now receptive to the Message...There's people out there waiting to hear, waiting to hear...

repost of a movie review

'DEFIANCE': A new movie tells the powerful story of four Jewish brothers who saved 1,200 Jews from the Nazis by GOLDA SHIRA By GOLDA SHIRA, Senior Editor (01/08/2010) If you haven't been to a movie in years, go to this one. If you see nothing else this year, this is the one to see. "Defiance" is a visually breathtakingly beautiful film, which brings the viewer in as if we are there, amongst this band of four brothers who, having seen their parents murdered by the Nazis, escape into the woods. This awesomely accurate depiction of a true story was a life-changing experience for me. The film is artfully multi-textured and multi-leveled, all at the same time. It raises soul-wrenching questions about love, class differences, morality, community, faith, sibling and family relationships ... in essence, about life. And that is what this film so powerfully is; it is a tribute to life in all of its beauty and in all of its horror, all of its pain and all of its glory.
And most of all, it is a story of Ahavat Yisrael, of Jews loving each other; not just the theoretical or abstract, but the very messy, very complex and yet oh so very simple and profound love, unity, acceptance and responsibility we each and all share for the very life of each and every Jew.
The movie is based on the book "Defiance" written by Nechama Tec, who did interviews in the 1980s and 90s with several of the people portrayed in the film. In addition, there is another book, "The Bielski Brothers," by Peter Duffy, which also tells the heart rending, uplifting and deeply inspiring story of this three year slice of life of the Bielski brothers who, in late 1941, went into hiding in the forests of Belarus. They hoped to survive the Nazis who had occupied the country. Soon, the brothers stumbled upon other Jews who were in the forest and even sought to save people who were still in the ghettoes.
The oldest brother, Tuvia, became the leader of what would become known as the Bielski Otriad, or Detachment. While other groups of partisans were small in number, usually about 50, and were made up almost exclusively of strong young men with machine guns, Tuvia decided his group would be different. The Bielski Otriad would take in any Jew who wanted to join, including what were known as the malbushim, colloquially "the useless ones"-the elderly, the sick, the intellectuals who knew nothing about fighting.
Eventually, more than 1,200 Jews would become part of the Bielski group. Some were fighters; others repaired weapons, while still others astonishingly put together a civil society, creating a makeshift hospital, a mill, a metal-shop, a bakery, a bathhouse and even a theater and synagogue. Amidst the surrounding horror, this secret encampment grew so full of life they named it "Jerusalem in the Woods."
The village in the movie further comes to life via a diverse ensemble of supporting characters. Two of the most intriguing are Shimon Haretz and Isaac Malbin, as intellectuals locked in an existential disputation about the spiritual life versus the secular, an argument that continues even as battle rages around them.
Shimon, once Tuvia's schoolteacher and a deeply religious man, embodies another of the film's themes: the quest to understand G-d's place in a world of such suffering and destruction. Playing the role is Allan Corduner, the award-winning British actor. For Corduner, the part was especially resonant, because his grandfather died in Auschwitz.
Paired with Shimon is his friend Isaac Malbin, portrayed by Mark Feuerstein ("The West Wing" and "What Women Want"). Says Feuerstein: "Shimon and Malbin represent a central dialectic in Jewish intellectual life: brilliant minds trying to come to terms with the overwhelming horror of what was happening. And they have a relationship like any Jewish family relationship, where yelling and squabbling and arguing is a form of love. In a sense, they keep each other alive through their arguments."
As for the leaders, "the Bielskis weren't saints," director Edward Zwick stated. "They were flawed heroes, which is what makes them so real and so fascinating. Yet I think they also found within themselves something unexpected and magnificent. As their community grew, they were forced to become real leaders, to take on huge responsibility and discover their finest selves. They faced any number of difficult moral dilemmas that the movie seeks to dramatize: Does one have to become a monster to fight monsters? Does one have to sacrifice his humanity to save humanity?"
Other questions faced in the forest were of a more intimate nature. "Even in the most trying of times, especially in wartime, love and longing are never absent. People who have lost everything are in even greater need of comfort and companionship," says Zwick.
The director gave the role of Tuvia to Daniel Craig, otherwise now known for his James Bond role. Zwick regarded Craig as having "the strength, charisma and humility of Tuvia Bielski." Craig also remarkably physically resembles Tuvia.
Craig said about the relationship of his character and Lilka, the woman Tuvia meets in the woods, "In the true story, Tuvia and Lilka stayed together for the rest of their lives, which is quite amazing. I think in that situation your partner becomes more than just your friend or your lover - they become someone who keeps you human and who boosts your survival instincts to a higher level."
All of these aspects of survival, of life, grew while the group was constantly on the move, continually escaping as the Nazis pursued them.
The fact that, under such pressure, so many rose to the occasion and discovered unexpected bravery and compassion, is also underscored in the screenplay. Indeed, Zwick thinks the most important character in the movie isn't a singular individual, but rather the community they create together.
"Tuvia, Zus and Asael each have their own strength but the group is what becomes invincible," says Zwick. "The community itself is a character that begins to express its own will and identity; a fascinating dynamic develops between the expression of an individual's needs and the group's survival as a whole."
When the Soviets finally liberated the area in 1944, the entire community, except for about 50, had miraculously survived. This was by far the largest and most successful armed Jewish rescue of Jews during World War II.
One of the most powerful aspects of "Defiance" is that it is the story of Jews of the Holocaust who do resist, who put forth every effort to not be victims, while also struggling not to lose their humanity and values under the absolutely most trying of times. A group of people who resist not by a decision to be Resistance or freedom fighters, but who find themselves in a woods, faced with the choice of if and how to go on. They grappled with choices with which we all grapple, no less heroically, in our daily lives.
It is G-d's amazing timing that this movie was released just after the Mumbai massacres, the Madoff mess, the stock market plummet and economic upheaval, as well as the grisly war in Gaza.
Jews are once again dazed, having the seeming securities and safety in our lives stripped away. We find ourselves "Into the Woods," as Broadway lyricist and playwright Stephen Sondheim would say. The New Yorker review of the film echoed, "The movie is a kind of realistic fairy tale set in a forest newly enchanted by the sanctified work of staying alive."
Now we are struggling with the very same issues, just in a different way. The same questions of survival and self-defense, of violence from necessity while endeavoring to be humane and "a light to the nations" endure. And so do the presence, the seemingly obscured loving-kindness, the guidance of G-d's unseen hand, so to speak.
"Defiance" is the vision of native Chicagoan Zwick, who directed, co-produced and co-wrote it. Zwick is well known for his work on many productions, including the TV series, "thirtysomething" and films such as "Blood Diamond" and "Glory." But even if those weren't your favorites, don't write this one off. It is truly a work of art.
In an article Zwick wrote for the New York Times, he recounts how the pictures he saw of the Holocaust, "became, to an adolescent boy, not only a morbid obsession but also a source of shame. And so, 30 years later, when my childhood friend, Clay Frohman suggested we make the film, I groaned, "Not another movie about victims." "No," he said, "this is a story about Jewish heroes. Like the Maccabees..."
While attending a baseball game, co-screenwriter Frohman gave Tec's book to his good friend, Zwick. "As a filmmaker, Ed has that ability to combine the intimate and the epic," says Frohman.
A single reading was all it took for Zwick to understand Frohman's passion for the story, and he determined to do everything he could to bring it to the screen. Thus, began a collaboration that was to take more than ten years before finding its way to the screen.
The process of writing "Defiance" was lengthy and carefully considered. The script went through many iterations. "Writing this movie was always an act of faith," says Frohman. "I never imagined we'd actually one day wind up in Vilnius, where my grandfather was born, making this movie with such an amazing cast. For me, it was the realization of a life-long dream."
For Zwick, his purpose was to "give voice to something that never had a voice, and would now be understood." He continued in an interview with this writer, that he tried to talk about the difference between passivity and powerlessness. "There is a mythology of Jews' unwillingness to resist what happened to them. That makes the tragedy greater."
Zwick explained, "...contrary to the conventional wisdom, the impulse to fight back was everywhere: from the streets of Vilnius to the tree forests of Bialystok, even unto the concrete slabs of Sobibor and Treblinka, thousands of Jews doing whatever they could ... against overwhelming odds. Learning of these defiant acts awakened in me something utterly primitive and deeply personal, a wave of awe, humility and admiration. This story needed to be told.
"These flawed men confronted daunting moral decisions-whether to seek revenge or to rescue others, how to recreate a sense of community among those who had lost everything, how to keep faith alive when all evidence was that G-d had turned away-and gradually, reluctantly, even, they rose to the task, discovering in themselves something extraordinary."
"Keeping faith, it can be said, is yet another form of resistance."
Regarding the making of the movie, Zwick confided that, "It was as if my work were being helped by an unseen hand." He also relates that while peering through the camera for filming, he asked himself questions, which, I, this reviewer, think that the movie asks the audience. "How would I have fared in the forest? Would I have dared to go into the forest at all?"
Zwick told me that there is much in the movie which resonates with Biblical imagery. He said that the relationship of Tuvia and his brother, Zus, played by Liev Schreiber, reminded Zwick of the relationship between "Moses and Aaron, where one spoke for the other, and together they formed a unit." Zwick also recounted that the moment where one brother reaches for a rock and threateningly holds it over his brother's head is another.
While Biblical themes and imagery are a subtle undercurrent of the film, what is apparent is Tec's portrait of a society turned upside down. The "lower class" macho men became the ones looked to for protection and shelter while the secularly and religiously educated "upper class," formerly admired, especially by the women, as well as by society in general, are no longer seen in the same esteem as before. They do, however, provide an ethical, moral and spiritual embrace around the film.
Zwick also explained about the difficulty of obtaining funding for the picture, as well as the challenges of selecting which pieces of this profoundly inspiring story to include in a tiny two-hour format.
The cinematography by Eduardo Serra is mind-boggling. Combined with the costumes and the setting, it is visually like a magnificent moving painting. The music is heart piercingly poignant, an often lone violin, played by Joshua Bell. Says Bell: "I don't do a lot of film scores, but this story was just so interesting. I come from a Jewish heritage - in fact, my grandmother lived very close to where the story takes place - yet I was shocked that I'd never heard this story. It was eye opening for me."
The screenplay, co-written by Zwick and Frohman, is so well crafted that there are lines you will want to remember forever.
Coincidentally ("coincidence is G-d's way of remaining anonymous"), as I was leaving the screening, I met Aliza Abrams, the granddaughter of the youngest of the four Bielski brothers. This lovely young woman related that there had been a previous private viewing just for relatives of the brothers. Aliza commented that the gathering of family from all over, many of whom had never met, was, in itself, an overwhelmingly emotional experience. She said that as they looked around the room, they had the startling realization that they all, regardless of generation, looked like each other. They also discovered as they compared family stories, that this movie was, "99% accurate."
Regarding the movie, wrote David Denby in the New Yorker, "The picture offers the most moving account we've ever had of how an ordinary, rather disagreeable man, challenged and then electrified by catastrophe, grows into a great leader-in this case, a man possessed of an uncanny sense of timing, authority and force."
Denby said that he walked out of the movie, "slightly stunned." For me, as well as the woman next to me, it was definitely a three-hankie movie, as much, if not more, for the beauty as for the pathos.
Zwick, in his New York Times piece, described how the making of the movie affected his perception of his own family, particularly relatives who were assimilated American bookies. Zwick came to see the threads of connection between these uncles and the characters in the movie.
I am most grateful for that insight as I, too, come from a family that had its Damon Runyon bookie relatives, colorful characters whose lifestyle and values left me puzzled and often embarrassed.
When one passed away recently, I called a yeshiva to ask that Kaddish be recited for this cigar chomping, back-room poker-playing cousin. The secretary refused my request, despite my offer to pay the standard sum to subsidize Torah learning on my cousin's soul's behalf.
I protested that though this man's moral character may not be up to yeshiva standards, he nevertheless was a holy Jewish soul, "created in the likeness of G-d." The secretary gently explained that this man, who had had no visible religious connection, had, in fact, donated regularly and much to this Torah institution his entire life, providing for needy families and that he had arranged, before his demise, for the payment and saying of Kaddish.
The lesson about my cousin, and one of the lessons of the movie, is the sacredness and often hidden G-dliness, as well as "gadlus," greatness, of each Jewish soul.
While that greatness is an inherent part of us, (we actually inherited it in our spiritual DNA from our forefathers and foremothers), it is our avodah, our spiritual work, to bring that concealed greatness into being revealed in this world. Part of what is so inspiring about "Defiance" is how we witness, we feel part of the transformation of poor, broken, people into life-affirming richly contributing partners who discover and utilize abilities and yes, greatness, that they never knew they possessed.
This movie was nothing less than transformative for me. Zwick quotes a friend who told him during the making of the movie, "The forest has always been a place of transformation. Think of the lost children in Grimm's fairy tales or the characters in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." (Or Sondheim's "Into the Woods.") And now it has changed you, too."
Wrote Zwick, "As they had done for so many others, the Bielskis had led me home."
Me, too.

INTRODUCING THE BIDDADDY

THE PRIORITIES EPIC featuring the Biddaddy
By Robert Dillon Nemtusak

Jack Bronstein was in the place. He was all up in there. He may not have mastered the Death and Dismemberment section of his life insurance policy, but he was definitely in the place.
The breeze was misty that October afternoon as Mr. Bronstein made his way to the swing set. Nobody knew for sure why the 47-year-old movie executive spent so much time on a swing set, but he was there most afternoons.
I guess you could say that Jack was a real ‘swinger.’
But today was different. Instead of having to fight off a bunch of five-year-olds with his cane, Jack found himself alone at the Sagebrecht Elementary playground swing set.
That is, until Biddaddy showed up. You could hear Biddaddy coming a mile away, because of the eerie freight train noise he made with his nose. Often, Biddaddy was mistaken for a Lionel Train.
The one known as Biddaddy usually spent his time playing pinball over at Mock’s. Occasionally, he would try a game of Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, or even Baby Pac, but for the most part, it was Earth Shaker pinball for old Biddaddy. Aside from that, there was just no accounting for the fellow.
Rumor had it that they kicked Biddaddy off the Special Olympics Advisory Committee for embezzling funds with Steve-o. He was vilified in the press for "goofing on the retarded," and you can still find posters across town that read, "Biddaddy is not special."
Either way, Biddaddy was dreaded by most folks. Most folks dreaded the Biddaddy. Would you want to be around somebody who made a ‘freight train’ noise with his nose? Probably not.
Jack Bronstein was no friend of Biddaddy’s. He wasn’t even an admirer. On Friday, October 13, he was just minding his own business, not a care in the world. The breeze was misty, and the Don Henley Actual Miles: Greatest Hits tape in Jack’s Sony Walkman was JUST RIGHT.
"Just right," Jack smiled. "All I need now is a steamin’ hot avocado bean burrito. What was I thinkin’ about a minute ago? Hmm, hmm…oh yeah, Norris. I wonder if they’re going to bring him out for Die Hard 4: Please Let Me Die. Bruce Willis is just about done."
Under his headphones, Jack didn’t notice the oncoming freight train whistle of Biddaddy as Biddaddy made his way through the forest.
"Then again," he mused. "Norris isn’t such an ass-kicker himself anymore. What happened to the ninjas, anyway?"
Suddenly, Bronstein screamed like a baby and ripped the headphones from his head.
The sky seemed to darken as the movie mogul removed the tape from the player and hurled it at the side of the school.
"Jerthansia!" Jack fumed. "I hate that fuckin’ ‘Dirty Laundry.’ Like Henley was the first guy to realize TV news is shady? Get the fuck out!"
Golf-ball-size hail bounced around Bronstein, and he bounced to the next subject.
"There’s got to be a way, consarn it," he mused. "If I can fuse Seagal’s environmental protection attitudes with Norris’ early shoot first, shoot later style, it’ll be money in the bank. It’ll be two great tastes in one candy bar or some shit like that!"
Biddaddy whistled again.
Jack, on cue, drew his .45 and blew a hole in his Walkman.
He spit on the ashes and cursed, "Stupid thing played ‘Dirty Laundry’."
Jack stood to his feet and cautiously stepped away from the swing.
Running his fingers through his hair nonchalantly, Bronstein made hi way through the escape tunnel and out onto Owl’s Cliff.
"Somethin’ ain’t right here," he said.
Indeed, something wasn’t right.
Blue and green moments before, the October sky had suddenly cleared up. The hail was nowhere to be seen. Plus, the burrito stand Jack kept in business had disappeared. Disappeared, as in, gone off the face of the earth.
Bronstein had gotten out of some pretty scary situations, but this one?
Whoa.
Whoa.
Sure, he could go into TOWN and get burritos at the Mexican place, but scabs ran the place now!
Just then, it occurred to Jack that if you arranged all of Van Damme’s films in alphabetical order and drew them on a bar graph according to occult numerology, you’d get a big pentagram with feathers.
"What the fuck?" he gasped.
Brown knit, Jack wiped the perspiration away with a cloth, only to recoil in terror as the cloth crumbled like cookie dust.
"Jerthansia!" Jack cursed. "What the hell is happening to me?"
Even the owls seemed to be deserting hi. They said, "Who?" a few times and flew off to their highland stronghold.
Finally, though, things seemed to return to normal.
Frankenstein’s monster appeared at the bottom of the hill and smiled at Jack.
"Come on down," said the monster. "The doctor’s buying everyone beer. First come…first served. HA HA HA HA HA!"
In a way, Jack had been waiting his whole life for a moment like this one. Unlike the scripts he extorted from Fat Guy, or the ones he dreamed up while high on burritos and hash, this one was writing itself. And writing itself but good.
"You’re on, Frank!" he shouted.
Jack holstered his .45 and headed down the hill. Beers with Frankenstein? It was a no-brainer!
Or…was it?
Omenous black clouds developed over the patchwork monster kids called Frankenstein.
Jack sensed, correctly, that it was a good time to reassess his priorities.
"Prioritize," he said to himself. "Is a beer with Frankenstein worth dyin’ for? Hmm."
He pulled out his .45 again and eyed the monster suspiciously.
"Excuse me," Jack said. "I’m flattered. Beers with the doc sounds great. But I remain unconvinced. In my monster manual, it says you always have to ask for Monster ID in situations like this. I’ve seen some weird stuff in the past five minutes, and I get the feeling that ain’t even the half of it. More strange stuff has got to be around the corner. Now tell me the truth, Frank. Who’s behind all this?"
"All right," the zombie relented. "I give up. It wasn’t my idea, Jack."
"Spit it out, Frank," Jack hissed. "Who sent you, and who made those storm clouds?"
"It was…BIDDADDY."
The penalty for uttering Biddaddy’s name in those times was instant death.
Jack averted his eyes from the pile of greenish-yellow avocado bean mush cake that used to be Frankenstein’s monster.
Moments later, Dr. Frankenstein himself came running down the hill.
Thinking fast, Jack squeezed two shots out of his .45 and delivered a kick to doctor’s groin for emphasis.
Frankenstein writhed on the ground.
"Aaagh," he grunted. "Damn, Jack! You still got it!"
Jack brandished his .45 proudly and grinned.
"You know, doc, you’re right. Heh heh heh. I do! I still got it. I still—hey! I’m not finished with you, you body-snatching eunuch. Where is he? Where is the one what sent you? Tell me or I blow your balls off!"
Dr. Frankenstein pointed toward the school forebodingly.
"The school, you fool. It’s his laboratory now!"
Jack did a double-take.
"Excuse me, Frankenstein. Did you just say ‘luh-boar-i-tor-ee’?"
"Yeah!" Frankenstein smiled. "Just like in the movies! See, Jack? I did my homework!"
"Frankenstein?" Jack fumed like a gas-pipe. "You were a Nazi two hundred years ago and you’re a Nazi now. Get the hell OUT of here!"
Moving on, Jack blew a hole in Sagebrecht Elementary’s front door.
Strutting inside, Jack shouted, "Hey! Did you see my official identification badge name tag? Huh? I got about three more, see?"
Bronstein’s cocky demeanor and smart-ass ways dried up rapidly when Elmer the Glaviano setter flew out of the principal’s office.
Laughing like a swarthy hyena, Elmer bit Bronstein’s ankles until Jack was screaming for his Aunt Jerthansia.
"My boss is waitin’ for ya, Bronstein," Elmer snarled.
Movie boy gasped, "Jerthansia!" as Elmer morphed into a 6-foot-tall super dog with a scorpion’s tail.
"So much for theatrics," he laughed. "Time to take care of business."
You could hear the earth rumble with the laughter of a thousand dead Fat Guys as Elmer worked Bronstein over.
Elmer gave Bronstein an uppercut, a snake-bite, a roundhouse, and a dick kick. He had him on the ropes. Indeed, he was giving Bronstein the business.
Elmer spit his Wrigley’s Spearmint gum at Jack’s forehead and screamed, "HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, BITCH?!"
Jack didn’t like it at all.
Truth be told, Jack liked it even less than he liked Steven Seagal’s sophomoric sophomore effort at raising eco-consciousness, Fire Down Below. Did you see that piece of shit? I’m not kidding when I say that after making that film, Seagal deserved to be sent to Alaska to chop wood with Chuck Norris for at least ten years. Imagine, dispatching Stephen Lang with toxic waste! No respect.
Desperate, Jack fired his gun twice.
All that did was take out the lights.
Now he was in a dark, cavernous elementary school hallway with no one to talk to but a man-eating dog with a scorpion’s tail. This was almost as bad as speech class.
"Up here!" Elmer laughed, standing over his prey. The dog’s menace knew no bounds.
Elmer’s scorpion tail shifted gears and suddenly became a silver hammer.
He raised the hammer and laughed, "Bang bang!"
Jack groaned, "Fuckin’ Silver Hammer," and went to sleep.
Bronstein recognize the music. Somebody had a recording of that weird opera part of Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, and they were playing it over and over again on the school loudspeakers.
But he wasn’t familiar with the voice.
Jack had been to hundreds of principals’ offices over the years, what with all of those incidents in his childhood, as well as the movies he’d produced about kids who wanted to get into college. He was especially proud of his work on The Convincing.
The Convincing (1999) told the tale of a male high school student who had to convince his guidance counselor that he was Yale material. It turned out that the counselor was a blond woman with gigantic breasts. He ‘convinced’ her by having sex with her on her desk.
"Ahh, The Convincing," Jack mused. "That’s what desks were made for. Heh heh heh. So, did they take my brain or something? Jerthansia, what the hell am I doing here?"
Slowly, Bronstein became aware of a middle-aged man in front of his face, rattling on about God knows what.
He didn’t have blonde hair.
And he didn’t have gigantic breasts.
He was Sagebrecht Elementary Guidance Counselor Dice Dickman.
And he was rattling on about God knows what.
Jack tried to avert his eyes.
No dice.
"Hey!" Dice barked. "Over here!"
Resignedly, Jack looked up at Dickman.
Dice puffed on his Marlboro and laughed. He even did that ‘eye’ gesture, where you point to your eyes, so as to make the person you’re talking to look at your eyes.
"I HATE that fuckin’ eye gesture!" Jack screamed. "What’s goin’ on here, Dice? First I get Elmer, now YOU? Didn’t you have a show on CBS 10 years ago?"
"Eleven," Dice said sheepishly.
Jack waved his hand and laughed, "Bah! You sucked then, and you suck now. How’d you get this job?"
Dickman snapped his fingers, and the music got louder.
"Tell me somethin’, Jack," Dice puffed. "Have you assessed your priorities lately?"
Jack balked.
"My priorities?" he said. "Huh?"
"Priorities," Dice said calmly. "Have you taken stock of what’s important and what isn’t lately? You know—prioritization."
Bronstein scratched his head and did his best ‘James Dean.’
"Let me think," he replied. "Okay. I got it: I’m about to ‘prioritize’ my foot in your ass! Get it? Jerk-off."
Dice had a sense of humor, but there were limits. He grabbed the phone.
Bronstein grinned smugly.
"You’re on notice," Dice said to Bronstein, pointing an accusatory finger.
On the other end of the line, Elmer pulled out his cell phone.
"What seems to be the problem, Dr. Dice?" Elmer growled.
"Elmer!" Dice said. "Thanks for answering the call. I was just about to reveal the secret of consciousness to movie boy here. Then he called me a jerk-off. Is that nice? I mean, one minute I’m trying to help the guy, and the next I’m a jerk-off. Now I’m a little, how can you say, peeved. What should I do?"
Silently, Elmer morphed back to normal dog size, trotted into Dice’s office, and attacked Bronstein.
"Wait!" Dickman shouted. "No, Elmer! Wait! Stop! Elmer, you’ll rip his DICK off!"
It was a horrible scene. Elmer’s instructions were to intimidate and punish. He hadn’t been hired to emasculate people.
Who knows? Maybe the setter had an old score to settle. But eating the guy’s balls? Jerthansia.
Dice nonchalantly extracted Bronstein’s .45 from his desk and aimed it at the dog between Bronstein’s legs.
"That’s enough, Elmer," he commanded.
Bronstein frantically tried to get the savage dog off of himself.
Dice shook his head.
Elmer wouldn’t relent.
Dice fired away.
Elmer yelped, "Son of a bitch!" and fell to the ground.
Dice Dickman returned the gun to his desk and frowned.
"Now there’s a jerk-off," he laughed, lighting a new Marlboro.
Bronstein made a face.
"As I was saying," Dice said. "I wonder if you have your priorities all assessed. We’re supposed to be discussing your ‘reality issues.’ Why do you want to go and call me a jerk-off?"
"Well, I –"
"Prioritize! You know. Prioritize!"
Dice began to wave his cigarette around like some jerk-off has-been stand-up comic.
"Prioritize," he smiled, standing up and grabbing the microphone. "It means USE your HEAD."
Her Dice began to pace, an overhead spotlight tracking his every move.
"This fuckin’ guy," he cracked. "What is with this guy and the burritos, eh? Have you ever read the wrapper on one of those burritos, Bronstein?"
Jack screwed up his eyes.
Dickman continued, "No, I suppose not. Well here it is. Avocado bean mush cake is now used in 98% of all Chickenshit burritos. Did you kow that? No, of course not. You don’t read the INGREDIENTS. You’re too busy hunting down Fat Guys. Once you get a movie out of them, they’re target practice."
Bronstein turned red.
"You make me sick, Bronstein. I guess you think you’re all high and mighty and stuff because you don’t weigh 300 pounds. Right?"
"No, Dice, that isn’t—"
"Bahh," Dickman scoffed. "You’re a fuckin’ jerk-off."
Surreptitiously, Jack made a move for the drawer holding his gun.
Alas, Sagebrecht Elementary Guidance Counselor Dice Dickman was all over that shit. Dice slammed him one in the face and knocked him back on his ass.
"I ought to kill you myself," Dice fumed. "It would save everybody a lot of trouble. Especially the REAL moviemakers. You know, the people in Hollywood who make us smile? They don’t think it’s funny to watch you make a mockery of everything they hold dear. You should be ashamed, John Methuselah Bronstein."
Jack was astonished.
"Holy shit!" he cried. "You guys really have done your homework. Nobody knows my middle name!"
Dice looked up from his Erector set.
"What?" he said. "Are you still here?"
Dickman came back to the desk and shoved the .45 in Jack’s face.
"You’ll have to excuse me, Bronstein. That Erector set is so much fun, I lose track of time. Now what were you saying?"
Bronstein frowned.
"I was saying, DICE, who the hell cares if there’s avocado bean mush cake in my burritos or not?"
"I’ll tell you who cares. You. At least, you should. Avocado bean mush cake is poison. If you don’t knock it off with the burritos, you’ll be dead in two years. Tops."
"Thanks, Dice," Bronstein said matter-of-factly. "Thanks for the advice. I’d like to live more than another two years."
"Skip it, Jack," Dice shrugged. "I’m about to hand you over to the Biddaddy. You ain’t gonna last another two minutes. You should’ve prioritized. Jerk-off."
Dickman disappeared.
This was all a bit much for poor Bronstein.
"I—ah, skip it," he moped, searching for an exit. "This can’t possibly get any worse, can it?"
Sure enough, lights appeared around the water fountain, and a mechanical Leonard Maltin popped out of the fucking wall.
"Greetings, jerk-off!" the wooden Maltin head screeched. "Do you remember—"
Cutting Maltin off, Jack screamed, "Jerthansia! What have they done to my magical dream?"
"Ah, shut up, jerk-off! Ah ha ha ha ha! Do you remember Jean-Claude van Damme’s thrilling performance in 1993’s Hard Target? HA HA HA HA HA. It was the first movie legendary director John Woo made in the United States. And it was also the only good one. AH HA HA HA HA HA! How about this fake wooden beard, huh? I can tell you want to touch it. Well FORGET IT, jerk-off! Like I was saying, I’m Leonard Maltin with the inside scoop. Hard Target was all up in there! Lance Henriksen turned in an outstanding performance as van Damme’s nemesis. Outwardly a respectable businessman, Henriksen was, in reality, a psychopath who arranged hunting safaris for people who wanted to kill the most dangerous game of all – man."
Bronstein was in tears.
"Here’s what happened to Henriksen," Maltin went on. "He forgot to prioritize."
The word ‘prioritize’ echoed until Jack thought it was going to drive him out of his skull.
"See for yourself," the weird wooden head screeched. "JERK-OFF!!!"
Sweating bullets, Alien/Predator/Terminator victim Lance Henriksen appeared from around the corner.
Lance blew the mechanical Leonard Maltin head to smithereens.
"Lance!" Jack exclaimed.
Henriksen waved his rifle.
Jack held up his .45.
It was a "let’s compare erections" moment. Like in a John Woo movie.
Henriksen calmly wiped the soot and gunpowder off his shiny pink smoking jacket and casually loaded up his gun with more grapeshot.
"Well," grinned the erstwhile Emil Fouchon. "Let’s hunt some Fat Guy."
RE-ASSESS MY PRIORITIES, MY ASS:
THE HARDEST TARGET OF THEM ALL
Movie poster
"Bronstein finally gets to the bottom of things.
Will he ever see his Aunt Jerthansia again?
Why would a bunch of Clones with plenty of food and free parking just up and rebel against their master?
Does the righteous man sometimes go astray?
Do you know?
Do you WANT to know?
Well, get off your ass and visit your local theater.
That is, if you care about yourself—or anyone else, for that matter.
RE-ASSESS MY PRIORITIES, MY ASS:
THE HARDEST TARGET OF THEM ALL
Written by Dick Sharkwater
Edited by Shack Creekwaters
Produced by Steven Seagal
Titles by Lick-Spittle
Additional Dialogue by David Mamet
Production Designer Ridley Scott
Security by Smith and Wesson
Music by Patrick Doyle
Directed by Cade Bronto
STARRING
Jean-Claude van Damme as "Bronstein"
Chuck Norris as Lance Henriksen
Lance Henriksen as Charles Bronson
Judge Reinhold as Dice Dickman
Kathy Najimy as Aunt Jerthansia
Jude Law as Elmer
David Caruso as Lenny "Mock" Mockowski
Everett McGill as Mr. McDougal
Jennifer Lopez as Twixie LaBelle
Jon Lovitz as Mojax
AND
John Schneider as "Wilford"
The poster looked great.
Jack and Lance looked great.
"Hold up," Lance said, holding a cigarette. "Smoke this over for a second. Is this a movie?"
Jack shrugged nonchalantly.
Wouldn’t you?
Lance continued, "Or is it real? You know?"
Bronstein flipped a shiny silver coin and called it ‘tails.’
"I got it, Lance," he smiled. "Movie! Heh heh."
"Okay," Lance said, billowing smoke. "In that case, what’s up with the title? I think it stinks. It’s too long."
Jack cracked, "Yeah, that’s what she said," and lit a cigar.
"I’m serious, Jack," Lance fumed. "How about Hard Target 2, or The Hunt Continues?"
Jack puffed on his cigar and frowned.
"You’re a real pain in the ass, Lance," he said quietly.
Lance ‘cocked’ his rifle and shouted, "You goddamn son of a bitch Revolting Cocks LP. If I say it’s a bad title, it’s a bad title. What the HELL do you know?"
Jack took a look around, calmly assessing his priorities.
"Well," he said. "I know one thing."
Lance growled, "What’s that?"
"I know I’m quicker on the draw than you. You feelin’ lucky?"
"Fix the title," Lance said.
Jack ‘cocked’ his gun and smiled, "How about I fix you?"
"SON OF A BITCH!" Lance cried, pulling the trigger.
Jack executed one of those "van Dammes" and dodged Lance’s bullet.
Lance missed.
Jack didn’t.
"Aagh," Lance groaned. "You LUCKY son of a bitch…this shit ain’t over yet…straight? AAGHH…"
Jack dropped his gun and made sure Lance was dead. When you shoot Lance Henriksen, you make sure he’s dead.
Get it?
Lance was dead.
Jack fixed his hair in the mirror and whistled a funeral dirge.
"I need a change of scenery," he sighed. "Grade school sucks."
Like a man possessed, Jack Bronstein fought his way through a cafeteria full of robot lizard drones.
I don’t know how they got there.
Neither did Jack.
In any event, he smacked the shit out of them. Big time.
He made it to the boiler room.
Vin Diesel was nowhere in sight.
But Jack did see Charles Bronson.
Was he a ghost?
"He’s right, Jack," Bronson said.
"Are you a ghost?"
"No, Jack," Bronson laughed. "I’m not a ghost. Like I was saying, Lance is right. This shit AIN’T over."
Just to get things rolling, Bronson punched Bronstein in the stomach ten times and mashed his face in some potato salad
Charles laughed evilly.
"Evil is like potato salad," he grinned. "It’s even worse when you’re at school. Don’t you agree, Jack?"
Vigilante man slapped Jack in the face until the potato salad was all runny.
"How does that taste?" Charles laughed.
Jack gasped, "Bronson, what are you doing?"
He grabbed a crobar and clubbed Chuck in the stomach.
"Come on, Bronson! We go way back! We opened a burrito house. What gives, man?"
Then it happened.
Jack swung the crobar at Charles’ face and made contact.
The crobar clanged against Charles’ face with a metallic ‘clang.’ This clearly was not your father’s Bronson.
"You’re not Bronson!" Jack gasped, horrified.
"No," the celluloid vigilante smiled. "I’m Biddaddy."
Biddaddy raised his thermonuclear crossbow and spit on the floor.
"The Fat Guys sent you!" Jack winced.
Biddaddy laughed a thousand laughs and cried, "I ate the Fat Guys for dinner last night, Bronstein!"
Jack cringed.
"With some fava beans…and a COKE!"
Biddaddy proceed to continue the ass-beating job he’d begun as Bronson.
"Ugh," Jack muttered. "I liked you better as Bronson, jag-off!"
"Same difference," the evil one shrugged. "An ass-beatin’s an ass-beatin’. WAHHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"
Jack went for broke. He grabbed Biddaddy’s crossbow by the ‘trigger,’ flipped it around, and squeeze off six shots.
Biddaddy, reeling, swung at Jack wildly.
"Jag-off!" he screamed. "It takes seven shots to kill me. Seven!"
Then he vanished.
Jack wandered out of Sagebrecht Elementary and grabbed a swing.
"Man alive," he mused, more to himself than to anyone else. "What the HELL kind of ending was THAT?"
BOB NEMTUSAK PRESENTS
HARD TARGET TWO:
THIS TIME IT’S REALLY HARD
IMAGINARY CAST
Lance Henriksen as Jack Bronstein
Charles Buchinski as the Biddaddy
Bruce Willis as "Bronson"
Jon Lovitz as Mojax
Stephen McHattie as Lance Henriksen
Mel Gibson as Jesus
Carre Otis as Rachel Dratch
Kathy Najimy as Aunt Jerthansia
Judge Reinhold as Sagebrecht Elementary Guidance Counselor Dice Dickman
Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay as Sly
Tahnee Welch as Boobs LaTouche
Wilford Brimley as Duvee
Raquel Welch as Hootie LaTouche
David Caruso as Lenny ‘Patch’ Wompzinksi
John Glover as Dr. Frankenstein
AND
James Gandolfini as The Monster
MUSIC BY GRAEME REVELL
"HANDS ON THE BIDDADDY"
Written by Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres
Performed by Carly Simon, Glenn Frey, and Pat Benatar
SEE IT TONIGHT!