Harlan County, U.S.A.: My Love-Hate Relationship with Raylan Givens
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| via F/X Network. |
Not long ago, I was emailing with a friend from Chicago when she asked my opinion of the F/X show Justified. Specifically, she asked whether it was an accurate depiction of life in an Eastern Kentucky coal camp town. Bless her heart, she wasn't in for the very long-winded tirade that I've spent two television seasons developing. The bitchy answer I sometimes provide to that question is that Matt and Trey did a far more accurate job portraying Southeastern Kentucky when Cartman traveled to Corbin to meet Colonel Sanders. The longer, kinder answer is that few television shows have left me with a more conflicted set of emotions than Justified. It's a fun show. It's a well-done, old-school Western. But it drives me utterly insane.
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| via Times-Tribune. |
In case you aren't familiar, Justified is the story of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, played by the always-handsome and awesomely-named Timothy Olyphant. For some reason or another, Raylan gets in trouble at work and is punished through a reassignment that stations him in the Kentucky hometown he's tried to escape. He's now based in the Lexington U.S. Marshal's office, and has been sent to clean up his hometown, Harlan. The show is based on Elmore Leonard's novels Pronto and Riding the Rap, and the short story Fire in the Hole.
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| via Amazon. |
Now, in my opinion, Elmore Leonard is outright fantastic at what he does, despite some of the memorable theatrical flops adapted from his work (The Big Bounce, anyone?). He basically owns pulp fiction as we know it. His dialogue is accessible and engaging. He lands the reader squarely in the story's plot with little exposition needed. But, Elmore Leonard is from Detroit. He quite famously uses a researcher for information on his settings. I've read that he chose Harlan County, a place he'd never visited, because it seemed an unspoiled, old-fashioned place to set a classic Western. Both Pronto and Riding the Rap are set in Miami, with reference to Raylan's Kentucky roots, while Fire in the Hole moves the lawman back to Harlan, where he takes on the Klan. Leonard's celebrated knack for dialogue establishes a tough and thoroughly likeable Raylan, while the descriptions of Cincinnati, Jellico Mountain and Harlan itself sound very much the way a native would describe them.
Justified developer Graham Yost does not create as seamless a portal into Harlan County. I often find myself in the room when my beau or my daddy are watching the show, and I have to leave before I threaten to shoot the screen, Elvis-style. Something about the fact that they're always taking "Tates Creek Pike" to travel from Lexington to Harlan just drives me nuts. As does the fact that everyone on the show talks like Dwight Yoakam (who, despite his Kentucky roots, has spent way more time in Detroit and Bakersfield than in Betsy Layne). I had a similar reaction to Cameron Crowe's cringe-worthy Elizabethtown, but that's another story.
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| via F/X. |
Maybe it's because I have several friends who work in the actual Federal Courthouse where Raylan's office is fictionally located. Maybe it's because my great-aunt and uncle lived in Harlan County for years (which, mad props to Leonard for referencing the Evarts community in the story). Maybe I'm just too much of a control freak to treat the show as a fictional account. Still, I find myself jarred by the weird juxtapositions every time I watch that show. It just doesn't seem like home.
Barnstormin'
Yesterday, my dad and I drove to the tiny Knott County High School gym to watch an afternoon of magic.
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| Rajon Rando chats with Coach Sheppard's son. |
Now, Daddy and I wouldn't have traveled twenty miles into a neighboring county to see a magician. But, we were as excited as little kids going to the circus for what we did see: The Big Blue All-Stars team, a squad of former UK Wildcats (and a couple of non-Wildcats whom we wish we'd signed) who now play professionally. It' was an old-fashioned barnstorming tour, courtesy of the NBA Lockout.
In Eastern Kentucky, few things mean more to us than basketball and family. For most of us, members of the University of Kentucky's basketball team are family. We often recall our players by the way their respective seasons intersected with our own lives: All-Stars Coach Jeff Sheppard, for example, is my contemporary. He was on Kentucky's two National Champion teams, which just so happen to coincide with my own matriculation in Lexington. We remember them fondly long after they leave the basketball program -- DeMarcus Cousins, who only played one season at Kentucky (but what a season it was!) drew multiple standing ovations during the exhibition game. I laughed to my father that I'd be willing to bet that anyone in the audience would gladly invite DeMarcus home for dinner if given the opportunity.
As a die-hard basketball fan with deep Eastern Kentucky roots, I found the All-Stars game to be a surreal juxtaposition. Kentucky basketball legends -- many of whom now command multi-million dollar contracts in the NBA -- playing ball in the same tiny high school gymnasium where I once stood as a cheerleader. These superstars were playing against a local college team -- the same school for which my daddy played college ball, on whose campus my granddaddy quite literally grew up, and whose original buildings were designed by my great-great-uncle. I was cheering for an alumnus of a recent NBA Champion team while running into grade school classmates. And yet, it all boiled down to one simple word: Love.
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| Sheppard coaches Cousins and Faried. |
As fans, we were there because we love the game. Both the All-Stars and the Alice Lloyd Eagles were there because they love the game. We were there to express our appreciation for all the hours of entertainment the players had provided. As Josh "Jorts" Harrellson clowned for the crowd, we cheered for the remarkable lessons in perseverance and dedication that his career at Kentucky taught us all. As Morehead State's Kenneth Faried (my little brother's college classmate) executed dunk after dunk, we were cheering more for the man who took down Louisville in the first round of the NCAA tournament than for each impressive shot.
But, mainly, we were cheering as 6'8 Faried -- the 22nd pick in the 2011 draft and future Denver Nuggets superstar-- spent a sunny October Sunday rolling the basketball to an adorably tiny toddler during the shootaround. As Faried lifted the pretty pink-clad child up for a photo op, it was easy to imagine that he and his All-Star Teammates consider us family as well.