The Empty Blog

November 29, 2009

Some may disagree, but when you are drunk on a Saturday night and you’re in the mood for a good standby movie, something lighthearted and fun with some good laughs and a little intrigue, “So I Married An Axe Murderer” fits the bill. Mike Myers (of Austin Powers and Wayne’s World fame) plays Charlie McKenzie, a man afraid of commitment until he meets Harriet (Nancy Travis), who works at a butcher shop and may be a serial killer.

Those familiar with the movie are familiar with Charlie’s penchant for beat poetry and his short performances backed by a 3-piece ensemble at a local San Francisco coffee house. His “Woman” poem seems familiar with the customers as he stands before a backdrop photograph of his latest lost flame, accompanied by a familiar, if iconic, jazz riff, as he blurts:

Woman
Whoah man
Whooaaah man
She was a thief
You gotta belief
She stole my heart and my cat
Betty
Judy
Josie and those hot Pussy Cats
They make me horny
Saturday morny
Girls of cartoons
Will leave you in ruins
I want to be Betty’s Barney
Hey Jane, get me off this crazy thing… called love

Then he blows out a votive candle. Funny stuff. There are two more poem performances in the movie. One is after Charlie breaks up with Harriet after suspecting her of being a serial killer. It’s in the same club, with the same musical accompaniment as the first (and likely the same audience), with a large photo backdrop of Harriet behind Charlie:

Woman
Whoah man
Whooaaah man
We had love, not just sex
Is she Missus ‘X’?
I had to run for my life
Jane, get me off of this crazy thing… called love

This time he considers blowing out the votive candle, but doesn’t, leaving it burning on the barstool next to him instead. And then there is the last poem that Charlie chants to Harriet on her rooftop apartment, as he tries to woo her back:

Harriet
Harry-it
Hard-hearted harbinger of haggis
Beautiful, bemused, bellicose butcher
Untrusting
Unknowing
Unlove… ed?
“He wants you back,” he screamed into the night
Like a fireman going to a window that has no fire
Except for the passion of his heart
I am lonely
It’s really hard
This poem… sucks?

Ha, ha… it never gets old. But did you realize that there is a fourth poem in the movie? It never becomes part of Charlie’s performances, but it is in the movie, nonetheless. It is a darker poem; one that shows Charlie’s true fears of Harriet’s presumed identity. Don’t remember it?

When Charlie first breaks up with Harriet we find him sitting by the water at night writing in his black bound poetry book. We briefly see what he is writing before he swiftly scratches it out and closes the book. You wouldn’t be able to read it; the scene goes by so fast. But if you pause the movie just right, the poem is quite telling:

O butcher lady
Killer of sheep
And men
Untrusting
Unknowing
Unloving
THIS POEM SUCKS

Obviously, he revises elements of it and it becomes the latter poem to woo her back, but what a candid view into Charlie’s thought process at the time and what an interesting insert into the movie! Watching the scene at face value, you might think Charlie is pining for Harriet, remorseful for rejecting her.

But really, he is struggling with Harriet’s identity as a cold blooded killer and how he could possibly fall in love with someone so monstrous.

It is somewhat Tarantino-esque.