Daily Dialogue — February 19, 2015

Harry Monroe: Walking through the desert all right, but I don’t see no naked women. I should have my head overhauled for listening to you. My Grandmother was right, cowshit for brains.
Skip Donahue: Me?
Harry Monroe: No, me.

Harry starts walking with a swagger.

Skip Donahue: What are you doing?
Harry Monroe: I’m getting bad. Better get bad Jack ’cause if you ain’t bad, you gonna get fucked. You bad, they don’t mess with you. (waves to a prisoner) Hey, home. Get down.

Skip starts walking with a swagger.

Harry Monroe: You a little too bad, ain’t you? Yeah! (Harry flexes his arms) Do some of these.
Skip Donahue: Yeah.

They enter the cell.

Harry Monroe: Yeah, that’s right! That’s right! We bad! That’s right. We don’t want no shit either. That’s right.
Skip Donahue: Darn right.
Harry Monroe: We don’t want no shit. You understand, we don’t take too much shit. We don’t take a bunch of shit.
Skip Donahue: Damn right.
Harry Monroe: That’s right (to Skip) Say no shit.
Skip Donahue: No shit.
Harry Monroe: That’s right, no shit. Try it again.
Skip Donahue: We don’t take no shit.
Harry Monroe: No shit.
Skip Donahue: No shit.
Harry Monroe: Better believe it, baby.

Skip starts doing kung-fu moves. Crazy man starts swatting at invisible fly.

Harry Monroe: What the hell is wrong with him? (off Skip’s following the invisible fly) Oh shit, Skip? Skip? Come on man, come on, Skip? (Skip slaps bald man’s head) Harry Monroe: Uh-oh, carry me back to ol’ Virginny. Lord…
Bald Man: Did you get it?

Skip shakes his head.

Bald Man: Oh, there it is. Right on the end of your nose.

Bald man swings at Skip, Skip ducks. Bald man hits Big Mean.

Big Mean: Gimme a light.
Harry Monroe: He wants a light… Right on, man wants a light. Oh shit. Oh shit.
Big Mean: Short ass son of a bitch ain’t ya?
Harry Monroe: Yes I’m a short son of a bitch, my father was a short son of a bitch too, my mother was shorter than him, and my brother was real short we couldn’t even see him, he was so….
Big Mean: What’s the charge?
Harry Monroe: Innocent…
Big Mean: Ain’t we all!
Harry Monroe: Bank robbery…
Big Mean: Oh, shit!
Harry Monroe: Oh, shit.
Big Mean: You can kiss the baby!
Harry Monroe: Kiss the baby?
Skip Donahue: What baby is that, sir?
Big Mean: Ask your lawyer.

— Stir Crazy (1980), written by Bruce Jay Friedman

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Prison. Today’s suggestion by James Schramm.

Trivia: The first movie directed by an African American to gross over $100 million dollars in North America.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by James: “This would definitely be my strategy if I ever go to jail. I would get ‘bad’ and take no shit.”

If you have a suggestion for this week’s theme, please post in comments.