This Ain’t Your Basic
Buddy Film Is It-Actors Chad Dwayne (Matt) And Charles Dewitt (Chuck) Live And
In Color On Location In The Film Adaptation Of “Dawn Dates” (2014)
By Lincoln Lavin
Catch this action, this story
I heard from fellow new guy Rav Wilson as he learned to navigate the ropes here
and find himself a spot around the office water cooler where more hard information
is gathered than the NSA will ever uncover. We were talking about seemingly
oddball combinations of friends, buddies is the term used especially the since
childhood relationship between the very private, very proper Sam Lowell and the
runoff at the mouth and prolific swearer Seth Garth (although you should know that
both men came out of the same dust, came out of the horrible Adamsville Housing
Authority projects and survived, a close thing according to both men). I would
agree that it does seem an unlikely combination although the way they met and
bonded in fourth grade may have eased the path.
After hearing about Seth
and Sam Rav said he had a wopper of a story about how his two friends, Matt and
Chuck met to round out the various oddball ways men (women too think about Thelma
and Louise) who seem far removed from each other actually learn to like each other.
Matt, played by Chad Dwayne, maybe forty something nothing but a straight shooter
businessman processional, a high end architect, with a pregnant wife, a home
that will be paid off in a million years and a dog to keep things 1950s homey
even in the new millennium was flying from Atlanta to L.A. (figures, right) to
be there in time to see his newborn arrive on the planet. Chuck, played by the always
bonkers Charles Dewitt, plays an actor playing an actor always a tough push in
Hollywood land, is a whacko devil take the hinder post guy also looking to fly
from Atlanta after his father’s funeral.
After an initial screwup
of luggage which wouldn’t have fooled a rookie TSA agent Matt and Chuck meet,
fatefully meet on the plane jockeying for seats with the ever holy goof Chuck blathering
about terrorists and crazies, enough to draw the attention of a trigger-happy on-board
agent. This scene sets up a long drawn out love affair since both men are now “no
fly” boys. What the hell is our uptight ass Matt supposed to do to get back to
blessed home L.A. and soon to be in labor honey wife (who turned out to be not
a wife wife but one of those common law wives so in style these days). Here’s
the hook though the thing that glues these brethren together. Somehow Matt has
lost his wallet and with no dough or I.D. is forced to accept a ride from Chuck
despite serious qualms about doing so (strangely Matt’s credit cards were maxed
out so he would not have been able to use them anyway).
So our unlikely boys are
on their way making due with mal karma filling up the car. This Chuck is
something of a low grade junkie as well as holy goof so he had to stop in
Birmingham to see his fixer man. The money Chuck spent on the dope though meant
they didn’t have enough dough to hit L.A. except maybe on fumes and train smoke.
Matt decides to have that common law wife sent dough to Chuck but as expected
the whole thing gets fucked up when Chuck uses his stage name Emmett Kelly and
so no go on the dough. Things get a little worse when Matt decides that if he
is to survive the journey he better go it alone, better ditch Chuck and his mal
karma. Here’s the bitch though Chuck had his father’s ashes in a coffee can
ready to spread them over the iconic Grand Canyon and after seeinghe did not
leave the ashes with the other Chuck Mexican luggage Matt in a first sign of
the fatal weakness that will have him bleeding through all pores goes back to
the silly bastard.
There of course will be
several mishaps more along the way starting with Chuck doing a dead drop junkie
fall while driving crashing the car and leaving them to the devises of an old friend
of Matt’s in Dallas who bails them out with dough and his automobile. Forward. Or
maybe southward as geographically-challenged Chuck drives them into Mexico with
his fistful of dope in a plastic bag and a safe stop in some sullen bastinado.
Thankfully Chuck was high as a kite when he decided to spring the detained Matt
from the Federales giving him a kudo on the road to buddy-hood. Carless in Tucson
they take the train as far as the Grand Canyon so Chuck can fling ashes in the
fetid airs of our lady of the canyon.
From there Chuck starved to
get to his L.A fixer man steals a truck to finish the ride. Finish it except
for two dramatic things that seal the deal of their friendship-Matt’s honey calls
saying get home quick she is in labor and Chuck seeing that the Western truck had
a gun in it shoots Matt allegedly by mistake leaving him bleeding to death but intrepid
to get to that hospital. No sweat in the end and the last I heard Matt, Chuck, that
common law wife and that illegitimate child were living under the same roof with
Matt busting out new concrete modern building designs and Chuck getting some
bite player work in Hollywood.
Yeah, everybody agreed
Matt and Chuck had something weirder than Sam and Seth ever could have from down
in the mud or not.
