Dead River Rough Cut

Missing footage

2012-01-06T16:05:00.000-05:00

Hi. Over the years Dead River Rough Cut has gone through many incarnations. Once it was 90 minutes and then it was 30 minutes. Now it is 60 minutes.
Unfortunately, Richard and I have lost some important footage that just may be on an old VHS tape somewhere. Specifically, we're looking for a scene where Bob complains that the police will no longer allow him to live in his car. There is also a scene where Bob compares politicians in Washington to rats in his basement, and you know what Bob would do to Rats in his basement.
If by some chance you have this material or anything else you consider noteworthy, then please let me know. Thanks. Stu

Screening of Dead River Rough Cut

2011-11-07T15:15:00.000-05:00

Screening of Dead River Rough Cut

Unity College
Dec. 1
11:00 A.M.
Filmmakers will do a Q & A after the screening

DEAD RIVER PINK

2011-09-26T09:37:00.000-04:00

DEAD RIVER PINK
There can never be a sequel to Dead River Rough Cut, it just can’t be done. However, Richard and I are talking about a new movie, tentatively titled Dead River Pink.
We do know about Ann LaBastille, but unfortunately she died just a couple of months ago.
Certainly there are some “woodswomen” out there living a “rustic” life. They don’t exactly dislike men, but they want to make their own decisions and have discovered that it’s simply less hassle and more rewarding to live alone. This is not to say that they’re adverse to spending time with a guy, but they just don’t want to live with one.
Maybe she’s an artist/writer living in the forest.
Maybe she’s an herbalist, but at night she’s a street walker.
Maybe she works in a bank, but retreats to her shack in the woods.
Maybe she does every conceivable thing to avoid a “real” job.
Maybe she’s a migrant farm worker who follows the harvests.
Maybe she’s a Native American who has gone back to the “traditional life.”
Regardless, she has to be charismatic, dynamic, outspoken and fearless.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Dead River Rough Cut DVD

2010-12-16T14:10:00.000-05:00

If you would like to receive a dvd of the movie before Christmas, then please go to our website.
Stu

Bob and Walt

2010-05-13T08:04:00.000-04:00

During the making of Dead River Rough Cut, Bob was 49 years old and Walt was a few years older.

Identification

2010-02-25T08:42:00.000-05:00

Can anyone identify the object hanging on the outside wall of Bob's home?
It is just to his left under the window.

Stove Pipe Oven

2010-02-24T10:29:00.000-05:00

Walter Lane was always baking biscuits in a stove pipe oven that he constructed in his trapper's shack. The oven captured waste heat where the biscuits were placed to bake. The oven shown is quite a pricey affair, but Walt was able to fabricate something similar for just a few dollars.
There was no way he'd allow heat to escape up the chimney without putting it to good use first. Walter was the ultimate recycler.
Stu

Bob and Walt Inspire

2010-02-23T08:26:00.000-05:00

Anyone out there who has been inspired by Bob and Walt to make big changes in their lifestyle? If yes, the filmmakers would be really interested in meeting you. Stu

Dedicated Website

2010-02-15T17:30:00.001-05:00

Just to let everyone know, Dead River Rough Cut now has a dedicated website:
www.deadriverroughcut.com

Bob Pulls His Tooth

2009-01-20T09:43:00.005-05:00

Watch the opening scene of Dead River Rough Cut and learn how to pull a tooth if you can't afford a dentist. Definitely not recommended for the faint of heart.

Bob Wagg

2008-04-07T10:04:00.001-04:00

This photo was taken a few years before Bob's death

Bob Wagg and his wife Gerri

2008-04-07T10:02:00.001-04:00

Way, way before the movie was made.

The Movie/The Book

2008-03-18T09:02:00.012-04:00

The previous posts are still images from the award-winning documentary movie,
DEAD RIVER ROUGH CUT.
The movie is available from: http://oldfilm.org/. The book is available from:
http://breadhunter.com
A significant sequence from the movie and book was not included in these posts. The sequence documents the slaughter of a pig, and it's not a pretty site. Future posts may include the sequence.

There He Goes

2008-03-18T08:59:00.001-04:00

Boy that is some good. Oh, there he goes. Walt

Living Alone

2008-03-18T08:56:00.002-04:00

It’s not good for a man to live alone. You don’t notice it, and it grows so slowly on you. The longer you live alone the worse you get. You know I more or less pity an old bachelor that lived through life, never had a chick or child. When they get old, nobody cares whether they live or die. It’s kind of pathetic and it’s a sad story. Walt

No Fancy Casket

2008-03-18T08:44:00.001-04:00

I don’t want no fancy casket when I die, cheapest one they got. That’s good enough. If fact if they just rolled you up in a piece of burlap you’d be just as well off. It don’t make no difference. You’re just gonna rot and that’s gonna be the end of it. Christ, they put you in a cement vault and you can’t replenish the ground that way. You stay in that vault and you ain’t done anybody any good. Bob

Great Mastermind

2008-03-18T08:39:00.002-04:00

Great mastermind that created the universe. This old universe goes around, around and around. Year after year. Everything is fixed in its orbit. There’s no beginning and no end. You can’t conceive it, but our puny little brains can’t conceive much anyway. It’s uncanny when a man gets thinking of such things as that. That is one thing a man has no control over. Life, here today and gone tomorrow. I might drop dead before I get to the road, nobody knows. Walt

The Plan Of Nature

2008-03-18T08:33:00.003-04:00

There is nothing wasted in the plan of nature. You take the forest here. These big trees grow up and fall down and die and make food for smaller trees. It’s a struggle for survival. The big trees crowd out the smaller trees. The strong survive and the weak die. That’s the plan of nature.
Now man has upset the balance where we keep the weak alive, the weak reproduce which give weaker species, and I think that’s one of our problems. If a man copied off the animals he would learn things. The only thing that will save the country is to get back to nature, and that’s all that can save the people. Walt

Geese

2008-03-18T08:25:00.003-04:00

Well, they give you a wild feeling. You just want to take right off and fly away with them. If you could fly. Jesus Christ they just make you wilder than a hawk. You forget all about civilization. I always wanted to go up into northern Canada, right where those buggers go. There’s some country up there, somewhere. I know there is. You just let a flock of them fly over and you forget everything you’re doing. You just stand right there. There’s something about a bunch of geese honking. They set your blood all a tingling. Bob

Code Of The Woods

2008-03-17T08:57:00.002-04:00

It’s an unwritten law, a code of the woods and there ain’t nothing in black and white about it but never leave a man’s camp unless you leave him enough wood to build a fire and keep him going a little while. You never break into a man’s camp, but if you’re stuck out you will go into it, but you leave it the way it was. You leave a note telling why you was in there. You know to keep from freezing to death or something like that. You never steal from a man in the woods and if you find a man in trouble you help him out and get him going the best you can. If he stuck a hundred dollar bill in your face, you’d never take it. Bob

Bob Feeds A Gorby

2008-03-17T08:53:00.002-04:00

You want something. You come down and get it out of the can. No more of your farting around here. Chirp chirp, come on little piss pot. I know you’re hungry because you’re squawking away about it. I ain’t gonna bite ya. Bob

Beaver Castors

2008-03-17T08:49:00.002-04:00

That right there is what they make their perfume out of. Them are beaver castors. That’s what they use to make this perfume for these women. Probably most of them if they knew where it come from probably wouldn’t even wear the perfume which might be a good thing. These ladies primp themselves all up and get themselves smelling like anything but a woman. And they pay good money to do it. I’m surprised they don’t shave it off their goddamn pussy. Well I’ve fucked women when the sweat was running right off them, Jesus Christ, the old bellies were a slopping and that’s when it’s good and everything is right. Well, what the hell, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. If she needs to take a bath, she can take a bath right here in the brook. She don’t need all these smelling salts they put in the water and all that happy horse shit. You know, that don’t make a woman. In fact it ruins one. Bob

Women

2008-03-17T08:46:00.002-04:00

Oh hell, if I could find a woman to come in here, as long as I had enough goddamn grub, I’d never go out. A man couldn’t ask for anything more. Christ he’d have the world right by the ass. But you take these women plaster the goddamn perfume and deodorant to ‘em and shit they don’t even smell like women. Christ, years ago they never shaved the hair off under their arms, and stuff today, they shave it off, scared to death, Jesus Christ, a bubble of sweat come on ‘em, they wipe it off and spray some shit it. Bob

Skinning Beaver

2008-03-16T16:08:00.002-04:00

That’s where the work comes in. All that work catching ‘em and then you gotta skin ‘em. Walt

Sexual Intercourse Amoung Beavers

2008-03-16T16:02:00.002-04:00

There’s one thing about these beaver, I don’t think anybody knows how they fuck. I always figured the female laid on her back same as human beings and the male beaver got right on to her. That’s debatable. Some think they do it the other way. The way they’re built I can’t see how. They have to get that big flat tail out of the way somewhere. I would think they done it in their houses. This business in the water I don’t think it would be half as good as it would be in a house in a nice dry bed. Bob

On Killing Beaver

2008-03-16T13:53:00.002-04:00

Oh the poor animals, it ain’t good to kill ‘em, but they’ve got to be kept thinned down. Definitely as a man gets older he doesn’t enjoy killing because he knows his days are running out and he’s not going to live very long. I don’t think anybody actually enjoys killing. Walt

Using Fire

2008-03-12T10:29:00.002-04:00

Walt recycles his snowmobile fire by shoveling it into his cabin stove. Why waste a perfectly good fire?

Fiery Snowmobile

2008-03-12T10:17:00.003-04:00

The favorite section of the movie, Dead River Rough Cut is when Walt warms his behind by setting his snowmobile on fire.

Sam McGee

2008-03-12T10:11:00.002-04:00

Walt knew several poems by heart, but his favorite was The Cremation Of Sam McGee.
After a couple of cocktails, Walt would begin his recitation to the amazement of his listeners.

Sam McGee

2008-03-12T10:03:00.002-04:00

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows. He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.” On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail. Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail. If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see; It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe, He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess; And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.” Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan: “It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone. Yet ‘taint being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains; So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”
A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail; And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale. He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee; And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven, With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given; It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains, But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.” Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load. In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God! how I loathed the thing. And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow; And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low; The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in; And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.” And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire; Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher; The flames just soared and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see; Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee. Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so; And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow. It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why; And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near; I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside. I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . then the door I opened wide. And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door. It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm— Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”
There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. Walt

A New English Word

2008-03-12T09:16:00.002-04:00

Look how beaverish that water looks down there. Walt

Beaver Trapping

2008-03-12T09:08:00.002-04:00

You know this beaver trapping for some people is a lot of fun. It is for me, but there’s more work to it than people realize. You have to chisel through 30 inches of ice a lot of times.
Your hands are in the water, ice cold water.
You have to quit working, build a fire and warm your hands, and then come back to work again. There’s more work to it that meets the eye. Bob

Gorby Birds

2008-03-12T08:58:00.002-04:00

Here Gorby, come get it. Come on little fella. Aren’t you hungry. That’s a scardie cat there.
Camp Robbers, Canadian Jays, Gorbies, all the same bird. They disappear in the summer, go farther north. They come back in early October. They’re company. You go out here and build a campfire most anywhere and in a minute you have a gorby bird around. The old legend is, if you believe in reincarnation, the souls of old woodsmen come into these birds, and there are some who really believe it. With a lot of these old-timers it’s kind of a superstition with them. I don’t know how many believe it now, but back in the forties, by gory, there was a pile of them. Walt

Always Looking For A Girl

2008-03-11T10:32:00.002-04:00

I’m always looking for a girl, but I ain’t found one that wants to live the way I want to live. If I could find a woman that likes the woods life, I wish she’d show herself up, but she’d have to prove herself. I mean I wouldn’t take her word for it. I mean she’d have to live with me and have an awful rough life. She wouldn’t have a spring bed under her every night. I’d tell her that. But if there’s a woman like that around, I’d be tickled to death to have one. But they gotta live my way. Bob

Two At A Time

2008-03-11T10:09:00.002-04:00

You know we had an old shack when we were working up there in the Cornish lot. I used to go down and see this old girl. I say old girl, but shit, I guess she was seven or eight years younger than we were. Walt say Jesus, you’re gone two or three nights, how about taking me to get a little. Well, I said I’ll fix you up with one tonight. Walt said she’d never go for that with the both of us. I said don’t worry about that. He bet me a case of beer I couldn’t. We picked her up on an old woods road. Walter had that old panel with a bed in it. Well we kept her out all night and gave her quite a time. The only thing was, I won my case of beer, but Walter sat around and helped me drink it. Bob

Chasing Women

2008-03-11T10:04:00.002-04:00

You know it’s cheaper for a man to be married and have only one or two kids than it is to have a whole bunch of women. You know it costs money to run around with these women. Just running and chasing. Just the gas money to run and see the darn things. It runs you into a dollar unless a man finds one of these women who pays the bills, but I never hit too many of them. Jesus Christ, it’s just like anything. It’s like buying a car. You can pay too much money for a car you know. It doesn’t matter what you buy. You can pay too much for a gun. I mean the price it cost just for the drinks you buy and to take ‘em out. Well, some of these women, it just ain’t worth it. Bob

Staying Together

2008-03-10T15:13:00.002-04:00

Oh, we’ve worked together in the woods. Cut wood. Yarded wood with horses, yarded wood with cattle. Pulled cattle at the fairs. Christ, we’ve gone out in the woods camping, canoeing, and doing a lot of that stuff together. Fishing, used to go on vacations together. Drank a lot of old cider together. We drank barrels of that stuff. Oh walt’s all right. He has his moods, oh I have to put up with a little of his shit, and maybe he does with mine sometime. We have our ups and downs and ins and outs, arounds and arounds, but we always seem to wind up back together again. It never seems to fail. Bob

O'Nassar

2008-03-09T10:59:00.002-04:00

You take that O’Nassar there, he married Jackie Kennedy. Look at the money he’s got, and he’s gonna buy her a diamond mine. Just for the fad of it. Well, that’s all right, that’s all well and good, but there’s no need of any one man having that much money. What the hell does he need all that money for. He could give 90% of it away and still have enough to have anything he wants in the world. Why bunch your money up. Well, I admit, he had to be smart but there’s no man ever made that much money and made it honestly. It’s impossible. It can’t be done. He stole that from somebody through hook or crook or someway. No man ever worked in his life and made that much money. He either had it left to him which is not dishonest, but whoever left him that much, then he was dishonest. He hurt somebody. He’s stepped on a good many little fellas toes, he beat him and didn’t use him fair and right to get that much money. It just can’t be done. You don’t think so, then go ahead and try it.
I’d be all in favor of passing a law that said it ain’t right for you to have that much money. You don’t need it. I’d take it away and just drive down the road and you’ll find some poor guy struggling his head off who got nothing and a whole bunch of kids. Throw him a thousand dollars. Go down the road and throw this other guy a thousand dollars.
I don’t know how much that O’Nassar is worth but he’s worth plenty. I don’t give a damn. When the time comes and the old boy comes down and taps him on the shoulder, and says, hey you’re going to come with me, I don’t care how much money he’s got. He’s gonna go right along same as I’m going to. His money ain’t gonna do him a damn bit of good. And it ain’t. Ain’t gonna do him a might of good. So where’s he gonna be any better than I’ll be when it comes right down to the end of it.
They’re gonna put him right in the ground and he’ll rot just as fast as I will. Bob

Finance Companies.

2008-03-07T09:18:00.002-05:00

I’ve drove cattle ever since I’ve been old enough to hold an ox board in my hand. It’s just something you normally done, just like a kid learns to talk.
When you work with a team, you don’t hate yourself. You enjoy yourself. With me, I stuck with teams in the woods. A lot of ‘em laughed, but at the end of the week the money I had was mine. I put it in my pocket. I didn’t have to go pay a bank or finance company.
I’d turn the whole works back about 100 years. Throw the cars all out. Shut the factories all down. Put em all back on little farms again. Of course the people today wouldn’t enjoy that. You take my father, grandfather and all them. They didn’t have no worries, no hubbubs. Hell, today you get up in the morning fighting yourself. Hell, I’m going to be late to work. Everything’s a rush. They gotta get to work because they have a payment comin due on this, a payment coming do on that. Bob

Walt Dreams

2008-03-06T18:28:00.003-05:00

I had a dream the other night about these beaver. You know it seemed like I woke up in the middle of the night. It was a nightmare. Here I had two or three of these great big beaver I caught out of a flowage, and one little kitten and there were more in the flowage and they looked at me and they were all pointing at me and they said he’s the one, he’s the one that that caught our momma and daddy and our little brother, he’s the one. Oh that made me feel so bad I woke up and said I’d never trap any more beaver. Walt

Hanging Out

2008-03-06T18:24:00.002-05:00

Sit around that old camp a good many nights all alone and then I’d hear a noise and in would come Walter, he’d blow in and we’d shoot the breeze just like old times again but it only lasted a short time then he’d go back to his camp and I’d be alone again. After two or three days he’d be back or I’d be at his place and we’d have a few beers together. Kinda nice to have somebody to shoot the breeze with. Keep you from talking to yourself. Especially with Walter who’s an old buddy and we did so many things together. Bob

Death

2008-03-05T10:07:00.002-05:00

These old beaver, you might as well get them out because they have some age on them, they’re on their way out and they’re going to die anyway same as everybody else.
That’s something you can’t get away from, death and taxes. They get away from the taxes, but they don’t get away from death. Bob

Trappers

2008-03-05T10:02:00.003-05:00

Nobody really likes trappers. They think they’re a heartless bunch of barbarious savages. No, trappers are not well liked. There’s no question about it. Most guys just trap because they enjoy it. The price of fur isn’t enough to make a career of it. It’s nice to get in the outdoors and match your wits with the elements. These animals, you match your wits with them too. These animals all know how to take care of themselves. Walt

The Turnpike

2008-03-04T08:44:00.002-05:00

Our old farm, all grown up now. Sold it when my second wife divorced me. Got rid of it. Place is all grown to bushes. I’d have kept that place if the turnpike hadn’t gone through. We’d go out and sit on the steps years ago. Listen to night noises. Owls be hooting. Foxes yapping, coons squalling.
After the turnpike went through I used to sit on the west steps there and all I could hear was vroom vroom vroom. Go back inside and slam the door disgusted. So I got rid of the place. They went through Clarence Berry’s property. Right down through the middle of his big field. Now he was making his living on his farm. It worked him up so he finally hung himself. Found him hanging off a beam one morning. Walt

Reflections

2008-03-03T18:26:00.002-05:00

A person can enjoy very little all by themselves. Most enjoyment comes with and through other people. You know, if a man was sentenced to live the rest of his life on an island, totally isolated from all people, he would be just as well off to be dead. the animals are that way. Animals gather in families unless you find one of these old loners. They’ve generally lost their families and are sort of an outcast. You might possibly class Bob and I as outcasts now. Walt

Modern Life

2008-03-03T09:08:00.004-05:00

We just lived as everybody else at one time. He just got plain sick of it and so did I. We think everybody’s crazy wanting all this stuff when they could live simple. I lived that way. That’s why I say I got a right to say it. Had 10 kids, lived in a big house, had 11 rooms in it. 2 and 1/2 stories, electric stove, flush toilet. When the bathroom frigged up, had an old-fashioned shit house out back. That always worked. Bob

Working in Greenwich

2008-03-01T11:03:00.002-05:00

Worked there in Greenwich. Hey that rat race like drove me foolish. Couldn’t even find a back road to drink a beer. Went clear down to Stamford. Finally we just went to U.S. 1 opened the six pack and went drinking. That was the fall when we left to come home and go trapping. Bob

Jobs

2008-03-01T11:00:00.002-05:00

I’ve had jobs that I didn’t like, but I never had too many of those. I worked in the mills for a length of time, but I wanted to get out. Everybody said what do you want to work in the woods for? There’s one thing about it. When I head for the woods in the morning, I enjoy myself all day. When I go in one of them mills I hate myself before I go in there and hate myself all the time I’m in there and I can’t wait to get out. I say life is too short for that. The only trouble going into the woods in the winter was the first thing you knew the day was gone. Time goes fast on a job like that. Jesus you go in one of them mills and eight hours is like forty. Time drags. In the woods, you go in and you wished you had another hour or two. Bob

Work

2008-02-29T11:53:00.002-05:00

Well, I suppose it’s healthy in a way, but I’ve worked all my life and I’m beginning to think I didn’t get anywhere by doing it so might as well go out and play a little bit. Time to go around the country to see what’s floating around. Bob

Getting Ready For Winter

2008-02-29T11:50:00.002-05:00

I’m trying to get the roofs tight for winter. Battening them up a little bit so we’ll be all right when the snow hits us. Walt’s workin on the snowtravelers. Then we can get out on the trap line. Bob

On Dentistry

2008-02-28T15:30:00.002-05:00

Well dentists are all right but Jesus, they want seven and half, eight dollars to just pull one tooth.
Just to pull one tooth, and all it is, is just bango. One snap and the tooth comes right out. You can snap them right out. There’s nothing to it. Just hook right on to them give a good pull. I take a piece of copper wire, but sometimes you get a tooth so close together you can’t pry it apart.
But you get a piece of copper wire and you get it around the tooth, get a good slipknot on it. Put your head against something and bango snap it right out. It’s all over with.
Quicker than what a dentist would do. They grab it and they twist and pull. You know, they just don’t put the power on it. Might as well pull ‘em yourself. Bob

Bob and Walt/DVD and BOOK

2008-02-28T15:22:00.004-05:00

It was 32 years ago when we watched a battered VW bus came chugging up the road towards us in West Forks, Maine. A smiling man descended and introduced himself as Walter Lane. We inquired about the smoke coming out of the stove pipe which stuck through the the VW’s window, and sure enough, he had a wood-burning stove in the bus. This was Walter’s current residence, and we thought that was really cool. It seemed a little tight to be burning wood, and subsequently we learned that this was not Walter’s first bus where he had taken up residence. There were others before this one, and they had all caught fire and were destroyed. We stood around talking, and soon realized that not only were the stories that Walter began telling most extraordinary, but he was an extraordinary person as well. After a while, and it didn’t take long, we discovered why Walter had stopped to visit with us. He had heard rumors of people who were from “away,” coming to Maine and cultivating marijuana for fantastic profits, and he believed that we had that special gardening know-how. Walter didn’t exactly move in with us, but he did park his bus next to the houses where we were living, and wherever he parked became his home. We conferred and decided that Walter Lane should be the subject of a documentary film. We broached the subject to Walter, and he almost laughed at the idea. Walter’s ideas of movies all came out of Hollywood. After assuring Walt that he would be an ideal subject for a movie, he agreed, but didn’t feel he could handle the whole thing himself. We assured him he could, but to accommodate Walt, we agreed to meet with his old sidekick and fast friend, Bob Wagg. It was love at first sight, if you could call it that. Bob was every bit as amazing as Walter, and the four of us embarked on an adventure that we would never forget, and our lives would be changed forever. Richard Searls and Stu Silverstein
Available from: www.http://breadhunter.com

Dead River Rough Cut Coffee

2008-01-20T12:50:00.000-05:00

Soup to Nuts Cafe in Waterville, Maine makes the best cup of coffee in town, and it's called Dead River Rough Cut. No joke. Check it out. Bob and Walter would have been pleased.

2008-01-19T16:46:00.002-05:00

2008-01-13T12:18:00.001-05:00

2007-12-20T15:22:00.001-05:00

2007-12-19T14:42:00.003-05:00

A Bar Table Book

2007-12-15T15:41:00.002-05:00

Just released, DEAD RIVER ROUGH CUT
A bar table book with still images and commentary. Available from:
www.http://breadhunter.com

Dead River Rough Cut

2007-12-15T15:12:00.000-05:00

DEAD RIVER ROUGH CUT
a Searls and Silverstein production
60 min. DVD
"Most requested" film at the Maine State Prison
To purchase this movie, go here:
http://oldfilm.org/

Bob Wagg and Walter Lane live in a tarpaper shack, hunting, fishing, trapping and logging with oxen. They prefer the sounds of birds to the roar of highway traffic, and scorn the money-chasing syndrome of city life.

Covering a period of four seasons in the remote backwoods of Maine, Dead River Rough Cut presents a revealing look at an individual way of life. Wagg and Lane earn a living and accept their isolation for the independence it allows them. But not everyone would want to draw water from a hole in the ice.
They share their reflections about women, politics, taxes, the lone life and death.