WWY2K, Dir. Commentary: The Characters

Old Skoo, Pink Hollywood Silk Swayzee, Benin Lotacucci...we're talking Napoleon Dynamite, Ernie McCracken, Frank Ricard status here.

For those that haven’t seen the movie, this is gonna sound like delusions of grandeur…but some of the best improv acting you’ve ever seen was displayed in this movie. Some needed a couple more takes and direction, others like Rek just took the premise of a scene and ran wild with it and it was crazy.

Looking back though, these were some serious characters. Yes they were hilarious, but if you can allow us to take ourselves seriously for a moment, the characters were actually acting some social commentary…take a look:

OLD SKOO: Old Skoo (or Old School, for the white readers) was a mythical, storied gangsta that was feared citywide, played by Aric “Rek” Jamison, which had a moral epiphany and became a neighborhood vigilante for peace. He is, perhaps, the most well remembered character in the movie. If were to make a movie poster, Old Skoo would be the central figure. The thing with Skoo was that he was cool. The way he walked, ran, talked, and smacked people with his leather gloves. He was a slick jitterbug from the streets that was tired of the wanton violence of the gang-wars. Gangstas weren’t like that back in his day and he was also trying his hardest to highlight his life as a cautionary tale.

Rek wanted Skoo’s outfit to be insane, so he chose to hit em’ with an early 80’s Whodini/ Melly Mel type jump off. So he took the maroon waist-length leather jacket from his grandfather and some fur-insulated snow boots from his pops. From there, he accessorized only with a pair of his mother’s old beige leggings. He cut em’ real short, about the length of Whodini’s in “The Freaks Come Out At Night” video, used the rest as calf-length socks and snipped off a bit to make an ascot of sorts. Then he copped some space-age glasses from the thrift store, along with some huge leather gloves. Rek was and still is always about an entrance...so he didn't let anyone know what Skoo was gonna look like. Then he came down to the basement on the night of the first shoot and everyone fell out laughing. Seeing it for the first time was cardiac-inducing.

Probably the best outfit in the movie.

CRUSTY PINESTINE: A foot-shufflin, crack addicted, fallen-soldier, played magnificently by Joab Scott. Pinestine used to run the streets with Skoo back in the day. They were illest gangstas around town and did everything together. Problems is, when Skoo decided to quit the money, cash, hoes and go on a mission to clean up the streets, Crusty wasn’t feelin it…so they grew apart and Crusty soon turned to crack. He spoke in incoherent grunts, like most bums and drug addicts. And he’d periodically pull out his lighter and get a hit in the middle of conversations. Pinestine is the only character to appear in every story arch…I guess he’s the glue.

His costume was crazy and believable. Old, dusted Reeboks with out shoe-strings…so his sneaker tongues flopped and dragged as he walked. Ripped nylon sweats without the zippers at the bottom of the leg, so you saw his ashy calves. A dress-shirt that he stained with some type of food and he buttoned it unevenly so he looked extra-disheveled. He also rocked this black vest that was so tight it looked like what line-dancers used to wear to give them hour-glass figures. Ab’s slim 6’2 frame made the crack-head role even more believable. Imagine me playing a crack head…the viewer would be like, “wait a minute…he’s portly.”

Looking back, what we thought was a joke, was kinda serious. See, Ab’s father had a substance abuse problem and, being some mean kids, that was always a source of laughter. Matter fact, Ab and his sibs (he’s the youngest of 11 children), usually lead the charge. So when Ab was playing this crack addict, it had a real life thing to it.

WALKER J. SUCKATOE: The fast-talking, pimp-smackin pimp, played by Frank Smith in perhaps the movie’s most under appreciated role. I always felt like Frank played Suckatoe brilliantly. He is monologues were off the cuff and he had to rhyme almost everything and do it all the while speaking ‘Suckatoe’ (a language we invented that exaggerated the way old black-men would talk when they were kickin it on the corner with their 40s or pints of Wild Irish Rose. It was basically a lot of slick talking, and we added a wrinkle where we would enunciate/accent the wrong syllable of the word…or change a long vowel into a short vowel. So (with bold vowels being long vowels) gingiVItis, was pronounced ginGIvitis. Frank also invented the name Suckatoe, which is ironic, since it was in response to a situation for which we clowned him constantly.

Walker’s story is basically this…he’s a pimp/gangsta/bully – only he had no women and he was very soft…matter fact, he was protected by a real gangsta little-person. No real history other than he grew up never knowing his father, much like many young black men, and got stuck on the wrong route. He ends up bumping into his father on a happenstance encounter, leading to his eulogy that spawned the phrase “The Good Life.”

His two-man entourage flanked Suckatoe at all times. My man Gangsta Matt, a little person. His name was Big Mack in the movie and wielded a broom stick as protection. His other henchman was Big Bot, played by Chris Smith. He was your typical yes-man that repeated everything Suckatoe said and instigated Suckatoe into many confrontations.

Everything was real 70s/80s in the Whop...so Walker wore pimp boots, a maroon leisure suit that was about 2 sizes too small and 2-inches to short and a pink-leopard print shirt, which we may as well go ahead and call a halter-top/blouse. He also rocked some HUGE sunglasses you would kop off a K-Mart rack, a fedora and a pink boa.

FERGUSON: Ferg was another character played by Rek. He was supposed to be a young teen that was depressed because his girlfriend was enlisted by Suckatoe to go get that money. Rek played him flawlessly, made him a real push-over, a square, a dork. He put gobs of wet tissue in his upper-lip to give Ferg bucked-teeth, his shoulders were constantly slumped and he arms swung listlessly when he walked. He also spoke in your classic, cliché’ nasal tone.

Costume? Pleated, frosted-denim shorts that came just above the knee, a Buffalo Bills sweatshirt…tucked in. Black wing-tipped dress shoes and white gym socks, plus an old Chicago Bulls cap with a mangled brim.

By the way…Ferg is first seen in the movie dancing to “Crush On You” by the Jets, in a hilarious scene. Some would say that’s very gay, I say it fit his character…most dorks are somewhat effeminate.

BENIN LOTACUCCI: Ferg’s abusive father, played by a 12-year-old Adam Thomas. On pure acting, A may get the nod. Adam made Benin, in hindsight, a spoof on our Pops and he probably didn’t even know it. But Pops had a somewhat of a temper, and Adam just ratcheted it up.

Whereas Benin’s disposition, temper and MO was straight-up Vincent Thomas Sr., I had originally made the character an old hot-headed Italian. And Adam was a round little boy, so he fit the part perfectly. We put him in some green leisure pants, my Pops’ brown suit-jacket (that was too small for this 12-year-old boy), a wife beater with ketchup/mustard stains, my pops’ wide-brim hat and we kopped some white Italian-leather loafers from the Goodwill. Classic.

Benin hated Ferg because he was a sissy and moped around the house all day. What was hilarious was the fact that you had this lil chubby black boy playing and old Italian man with a black son...and Benin was racist, too, so he called Ferg derogatory racial epiphets, like "Spook" and even made up Italian-sounding slurs, like "Scolioli". And none of this was written, it was all improvised. I must say, my lil bro was a precocious young talent.

BUBBY LEE: A muscle-bound jogger played by Jarred Smith. He wore those shorts they used to wear in the NBA back in like 1974. And that’s it, besides some brown dress shoes and a brown leather trench-coat strap tied around his head like a bandana. Oh, and a fanny-pack. The twist is that the fanny-pack had a big saran-wrapped block of cocaine (we used laundry detergent). This lead to his encounter with The Law.

Bubby talked with a lisp, stuttered and enunciated his words poorly…just like Jared’s father, Frank Smith Sr. The name was a dig at his Pops, too…a mispronounced version of someone in his Pops life that Redd didn’t too much care for.

DETECTIVE LEELAND JENKINS: (pronounced in Suckatoe as DEC-ta-tive) A crooked cop, played by yours truly. Jenkins rocked his khaki’s with a sag, a tight dress shirt and archaic tie, a beige trench coat and some old New Balance jogging kicks…plus a white fedora with a tropical-print band that went around it.

Earlier that year, I had an incident where I was involved in some ridiculous racial profiling that even turned into a lil police brutality, plus it was right around the time of some cases police brutality cases that got some national attention (relatively speaking). So I wanted this dude to be a rough-em-up, money-under-the-table type dude. He also spoke in Suckatoe.

The scene where I take Bubby Lee to my off-sight interrogation room was brutal. I purposely beat the snot out of Jared. Matter fact, Rek and I had a competition of “who could beat who worse” And Jenkins ended up beating Bubby much worse than Skoo beat Pinestine. It got so bad, that people would wince...like it was Quentin Tarantino flick.

PINK HOLLYWOOD SILK SWAYZEE: A former disco/funk star that was wildly famous in Buffalo and the rest of Western NY (Rochester, Syracuse, Albany), turned lounge-singer (frequenting mature bars like the Golden Nugget on Delevan/Humboldt), turned wedding singer, turned wine-loving loser; played by yours truly. I didn’t come up with this character until after the script-meeting. At this stage, Silk has hit rock bottom and he can’t even get wedding gigs…he basically croons on the corner sippin Alize and occasional does personal calls: a wedding anniversary, house party…in this case, young Ferg called him to sing a few tunes in order to cheer him up after losing his girlfriend.

I’m always singing, never seriously, but still…always singing and mostly in a falsetto like my father used to when he’d be hacking up Delfonics and Dramatics renditions. So I took that character and made it over the top and gave him a crazy outfit. Some gold sweats that almost looked like something Tina Turner would wear. A beige butterfly color, a pink suit jacket and I kopped some old brown loafers from Pops – no socks. Plus I kopped Pops big sunglasses and his black leather koofi. Trice laced me with some weave, so that Silk had the “Rick James” thang goin on.

Everyone knows that older black men always try to sing like they're one of the Temptations or the Chilites. And even if a dude has a bass or baritone voice, they always wanna walk around the house crooning in a falsetto (the upper register of a man's voice). So we had to have this character in the movie.

Plus, every hood has at least one man that was a legend in his day (either an athlete, neighborhood ladies man, big-spender, whatever) and even though he's currently down-n-out, that dude will walk around like he's still "It". That was Silk. He was a smooth operator, lengend in his own mind, and former star. If he walked into a local tavern, all the 50+ women would be loosening one more button on their shirt to show some wrinkled clevage.

REVEREND WILLIE EFUS X: A typical, reverend: excitable, guttural voice, rhymes a lot, ridiculously emotional (a satirical Sharpton of Jesse Jackson). Efus was another character played by Redd Smitty. And it was perfect for Redd because he was over the top. You ever see those dudes with bad asthma, but boundless energy? So they end up jumping off walls and rolling around on the floor and trying to pick up SUVs, only to run out of energy, seize up their lungs and start frantically inhaler from their puffer? That was Redd. And that’s how he played Efus. Plus he was the younger brother, one-year younger than Frank. And when the younger and older brother have the same set of friends, the younger brother usually ends up being almost cartoon-like sometimes in an attempt to garner attention…everything is loud and overstated…but that made Bubby and Efus work well. Efus was the Reverend at Pinestine’s funeral. He gave the “official” eulogy (a couple days after Suckatoe’s impromptu eulogy as his father lay on the floor OD’d off that stuff).

His outfit was another doozy. Imagine a George Jefferson suit, only the pants were some high-water navy blue joints and the jacket was brown-plaid. He had the huge, wool tie and all, plus some cheap weave trax to round out the look.

REUNITE' SWEETIE: She sang at Pinestine’s funeral. Patrice played Reunite, named after a brand of wine that were drinking a lot of back then (Lambrusco Reunite to be exact). I believe she stole a vintage dress from her grandmother, a woman we called Sis. Shakies (because her voice trembled when she talked).

Trice was the youngest of three brothers, so she had a lot more clown in her than most girls, especially of the physical nature. Like, Trice is the type of girl to go down the Soul Train line and bust a split…in a dress. She may be the most insane person I know.

The zaniness came out when playing Reunite…there was a lot of growling, elongated notes, hand-flailing and foot-stomping…which seemed odd, because her ensemble reminded me of Ella Fitzgerald or Sara Vaughan, but Trice played her more like a Big Momma from a church choir.