Oh, guess what has finally migrated to DVD: American Fabulous, Reno Dakota’s ultra-cult documentary starring the high-camp raconteur Jeffrey Strouth, who died of complications from AIDS in 1992. (It is a little pricey at $26.95 plus shipping and handling, but why quibble.)
I remember renting — and loving — this from TLA Video on 8th Street, back when TLA existed on 8th Street and people did things like renting films, on VIDEO CASSETTE. But never mind! You have probably not experienced anything quite like Strouth, as he extemporizes in the back of a Cadillac in his lilting drawl: his stories are searingly funny, painful, irreverent, outlandish.
As Strouth longed for a kind of stardom, one could be tempted to view him as the template for a certain type of Reality Teevee staple, the quippy house geigh. But his demeanor, equal parts tar and taffeta, would have made him too outsize, too visceral and too truthful, probably too dignified even with his white-trash-and-proud demeanor, too frightening really, to be relegated to that kind of television ghetto.
