Harry remembers David Carradine...

Hey folks, Harry here... What an incredibly bad news day. I've had the good fortune to meet David Carradine on many occassions. The first time was a casual encounter at the Driskill Hotel Bar where we were both drinking and shared a bit of small talk. At the time, it had been a while since David had made a significant cultural impact, but as a boy that grew up watching KUNG FU, DEATH RACE 2000, CIRCLE OF IRON, CANNONBALL, DEATHSPORT, Q and one of my all time favorite films, THE LONG RIDERS - where his Cole Younger burned its way into my memory forever. What an awesome badass! Then at QT5 - on KUNG FU night Quentin Tarantino surprised everyone by not only bringing David Carradine in, but dividing up each movie with an episode of David's KUNG FU which they would then talk about! This David was absolutely electric to see in person. Dynamic, fun... and Quentin had handed me the script to KILL BILL two nights prior - and about halfway through the night I cornered Quentin and told him about 35 reasons why Bill had to be David Carradine. Quentin smiled a lot - and I took that to mean he was way ahead of me. But it felt like this was David's audition night. That night I spoke a bit with David, but frankly he was mobbed at the event and I did not wish to add to the madness. Instead... when I spent 10 days on the set of KILL BILL in China... I spent quite a bit of time with Mr Carradine and his lovely wife, Annie. As we talked about a great many things, David was particularly in love with the subject of LONG RIDERS - a film that I waved about as being in my top ten westerns of all time. A singularly brilliant take on the Old West and the classic badasses that made up the James/Younger gang. David loved the shoot, saying it was like a family reunion with all the brothers and relatives that everyone had on the film. I'm a distant relation to the James/Younger gang, so this was a film that my father and I went to and talked about quite a bit. The days I was on "Tai Chi Alley" on the KILL BILL set, David was fighting Michael Jai White in a scene that wound up on the editing room floor. In between takes - we'd relax and talk everything from Bruce Lee to his father John Carradine to his brother Keith Carradine, whom I performed with in my first film, BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFE, where I rang the bell at Keith and Vanessa Redgrave's Wedding. I found David to be an absolute joy to chat with. (Some of that can be read here) The last time I saw David was after he finished slicing Michael Jai White's throat as an arterial spray coated a samurai print shirt I was wearing (which I still have, stains and all!) After our experience in China - David would sporadically email and occassionally call to chat - to get permission to reprint my Set Reports and each time he was just a very cool cat. I'm in a funk about this passing. David is a particular brand of cool that there just aren't many people that can project. He had a calm cool that was infused with the knowledge that at any moment... he could be kicking asses all around you. He was a musician and a poet - he collected original comic book art and he was amongst the coolest people that I've met. Its sad to think that Caine is no longer wandering the Earth looking for adventures and shit... instead he's wandering in the beyond - no, not Fulci's... but the great beyond, where we know no true tales of yet, but if we're lucky - one day we all will.