Hands on a Hard Body: Movies on posthoc

dreams from a small town

by Thomas Burchfield

POSTHOC EMOTICON RATING: :-)

No, "Hands on a Hard Body" is not the filmed sequel to the recent Jeff Stryker stage show here in San Francisco, but a revealing, entertaining, funny and sometimes poignant documentary that shines a light on another oddball corner of Millennial Americana.

The title refers to a contest held in the little East Texas town of Longview, a flat area of cattle ranches, thick forests and not much else. Each year the station and a local motor vehicle dealership give away a brand new truck to the one contestant who can remind standing, their hand resting on the truck, longer than anyone else. The "hands" refers to the contestants. The "Hard Body" the truck.

If "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" bubbles up in the memory, you're right. This is the distant descendant of those Marathon dances that were the rage during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The motivation is the same (sudden "wealth"; a break from small town boredom) as is the key to victory -- physical and mental endurance.

It's tougher than it sounds. Standing with your hand on a truck is one thing. Doing it with twenty-three other contestants for up to four days and nights through miserable summer heat is quite something else. It also feels a little absurd to a semi-sophisticated city boy who can't stay at his desk for more than five minutes (I wouldn't get to take the desk home, either).

While most of the contestants treat this grueling contest with naive nonchalance, a small number treat it like marathon runners preparing for the Bay to Breakers. Everyone thinks they're going to win, but only a few prepare. One snaggle-toothed couple, Janis and Bob, tells how they shut off their 30-ton K-Mart size air conditioner in their house to acclimate Janis to the heat she would have to endure. Fundamentalist Christian Norma is accompanied by both family and members of her church who cheer her on with hymns, while she keeps herself going with tapes on her Walkman, "because God wants us to win this truck." Benny, a previous winner and the most smugly self-confident of the contestants, ponderously waxes like a character in a bad western, about "what it takes" to be a winner. "You hunt with the dogs or stay on the porch with the puppies" he sneers with enough ego to fill out the entire Dallas Cowboy front line.

Hardened sophisticates might find the whole thing quaint and absurd and it's true the film is tremendously funny at times, but "Hands on a Hard Body" manages the major feat of sweeping viewers up in the excitement of the competition. The stakes may seem minuscule, but to these small lives it's the whole wide world. Trucks are everything to these folks, both an economic necessity and an enormous status symbol sewn tightly into the fabric of their lives. Director S.R. Bindler never editorializes or condescends to his subjects. They speak entirely for themselves and after awhile, you might feel like it's Super Bowl Sunday. At the end, you can almost feel the pain and exhaustion these people endure in the name of hope.

"Hands on a Hard Body" is a minor piece on minor lives, but it's crude gemlike quality and kind heart will stay with you long after it's over.

[Thomas Burchfield can be reached at TBDeluxe@aol.com and appears regularly in Swing Time magazine.]

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