RIP Jan-Michael Vincent

He conked his head pretty hard in a couple of bad car crashes, didn't he? That messed him up even further.

 

I'm acquainted with some of the Malibu surfer dudes who knew him. ("Big Wednesday" is regarded as an epic surf film.) They said being around him was just crazy time. He was absolutely out of his mind.

 

Who was the cat who was a star on TV in the 80s who had a vaguely Scandinavian hyphenated name who pulled out a gun loaded with blanks and shot himself in the head?

 

Jon-Erik Hexum

 

Saw him in a movie in the 90s - Buffalo '66 - and he was unrecognizable. A month since he died? He led a network show for three years and co-starred with Hackman, Reynolds, and other big names.

 

The helicopter was fucking awesome. That lead the show.

 

At the dawn of the Paleolithic Period
when the first humans left their caves,
mastered the secrets of fire,
and start making tools with which to hack civilization out of the wilderness-
This was mankind’s first, tiny step towards an unseen, singular goal that would take millennia to achieve.

The centuries that we spent devising
physics, mathematics, chemistry, engineering, metallurgy –
All of our combined knowledge and technological advancements as a species were to finally culminate in the creation of a machine of such flawless beauty that it now clearly stands out as human civilization’s crowning achievement:

Airwolf.

In 1984 the world’s most brilliant scientists and engineers were assembled in secret for the sole purpose of constructing the world’s most advanced
Mach One Plus attack helicopter.
This would be more than just an instrument of war.
It would be a work of art.
And no expense was spared in this, mankind's boldest endeavor to date.
The original De Vinci parchments were consulted.
Extrapolations were made.
Fifth generation Swiss craftsmen were flown in merely to construct the dashboard.

There was painstaking attention to detail.

And upon its completion,
those present were unable to do anything
but stand and marvel
in wonder and in awe
at the sleek, black aerodynamic perfection . . .
that was Airwolf.

And I know there are voices of dissent shouting,
"What about Blue Thunder? What about Knight Rider?"
Fuck Blue Thunder.
Fuck Michael Knight!

Airwolf.

Airwolf is the adjective we should use to describe anything
of majesty, beauty, and intensity.
Something that is simply fucking bad ass . . . is Airwolf.
James Brown's music is Airwolf.
Shakespeare is Airwolf.
Sex so good it makes your spine ache and your knees buckle. . .
That's Airwolf.

And nothing is more Airwolf than Airwolf.

Airwolf is the Holy Grail. The Golden Fleece.
The thing you want that you cannot have.
When you go sprinting through the Mall
desperate to fill the emptiness in your life
through the purchase of name brand clothing and electronics-
You will never achieve satisfaction.
Because the one brand name you really want
is the one you can never have.
Airwolf?
Oh, I’m sorry, we're all sold out.
That item was only available for a very limited time
and in very limited supply.
One.

And only one man stepped forward to purchase it.
Stringfellow Hawke!
And he bought it for the bargain basement price
of having the solid brass balls to steal it from the US government,
when, in their hubris, they were foolish enough to ask him to be the test pilot!

You don’t ask a guy with a name like Stringfellow Hawke
to fly your top-secret black helicopter.
Why?
Because he is obviously going to steal it!
He's obviously a prototypical American anti-hero,
for fuck's sake!
He lives in the mountains.
He plays the cello.
His name is Stringfellow Hawke.
He cannot be trusted.
He's not gonna use Airwolf to execute American foreign policy.
He's going to keep it for himself.

Which is exactly what you would do.

Walking out to your back yard to stare at it every night around sunset.
The sight of it filling you such peace and resonant satisfaction
that you would come to believe the perfect haiku
would have just two syllables: Airwolf."

 

Dang, the helicopter met an untimely demise

After the show was canceled, the modifications were removed from the aircraft and are now owned by a private collector. The helicopter was repainted and eventually sold to the German helicopter charter company ... . While operating as an air ambulance the helicopter crashed into a mountain because of fog on June 6, 1992, killing all three of its occupants

Airwolf (helicopter) - Wikipedia

 

Vincent died harder than his helicopter. Wasn't fun to watch over the years.

 

Jean-Claude Van Damme probably didn’t

Odd, but I had never heard of his addiction problems. I just assumed he’d stop getting roles because he was sort of an empty suit.

 

I didn't recognize Vincent in Buffalo '66