 Jorge Luis Borges, 1960 |
With a moustache that would look at home on Ron Jeremy (or some part of his body anyway), Reese Feldman is a dealer that’s got the 70’s look down cold. He’s got every right to feel like a big ol’ pimp: he’s just discovered an untraceable form of cocaine that’s going to make him rich. He has it all – a drug empire, a boat – sorry, a yacht - and even Kitty, his dumb girlfriend on the side. The one thing he didn’t count on was getting busted by the Frat Pack’s finest - David Starsky and Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson - who eventually brought Feldman to justice after ruining his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah and shooting her pet pony. Still, Reese’s gear was top-notch if Starsky’s drug-fuelled dance-off is anything to go by, and Hutch put it to good use in a three-way with Carmen Electra and Amy Smart. Arrest him? Those guys should have thanked him.
Quite clearly a few ounces short of a gram, coked-up Rupert should perhaps heed the age-old dealer advice: “Don’t get high on your own supply.” Surrounded by piles of cocaine, he paces back and forth in his pig sty of an apartment, brandishing a gun in the face (and forehead) of a frightened James Van Der Beek, who’s looking to sell weed on campus. Rupert is not convinced of Dawson’s dealing abilities, claiming he needs his services like he needs an asshole on his elbow: “I think you're a rich motherfucking motherfucker who owes me a fucking fuckload of motherfuckin' cash, that's what I think, you rich motherfuckin' motherfucker.” Not only does too much blow limit Rupert’s vocabulary, it’s making him lose his cool – all those drugs racing through his blood didn’t stop him from being shown up by TV’s wettest teen.
Youngblood Priest was never going to sweep roads for a living – with a name like that, he was destined to be either a high rollin’, big pimpin’ drug dealer, or a porn star. Choosing the former (although he’s dynamite in bed), Priest quickly became one of New York City’s coolest pushermen, but the life of a dealer was not for him. Opting for one last big deal, Youngblood planned to live off his $1 million score and get the police off his back for good. Despite several twists, turns and double-crosses, Priest still kept his cool and cashed out, putting one over ‘the man’ who claimed that without a dealer lifestyle, he’ll be nothing but a “two-bit nigger junkie.” As he hopped into his tricked-out Caddy and drove into the sunset to the sounds of Curtis Mayfield, he leaves you wondering if a career in cocaine management isn’t such a bad idea after all.
Doug Liman’s Pulp Fiction-style story of pill-popping club-goers wouldn’t be complete without a drug dealer extraordinaire, so say hello to Todd Gaines – the creepy looking topless psycho wearing the Santa hat. Todd is a laid back kinda fellow who agrees to offload twenty hits of Ecstasy to willing young Ronna, but being a businessman first and foremost, requires collateral. “I already got a fuckin’ Swatch,” he says, before wisely choosing to keep Katie Holmes’ Claire company for the evening. Despite a sinister look in his eye that only a killer from a Scream movie can have, Todd ends up banging Cruise’s missus on the steps of his house, with Claire unaware her new gentlemen lover has left her best friend for dead in a ditch – hey, it’s just business. All this, and at Christmas too. Ho ho fuckin’ ho.
“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” Oh Henry, if only you’d stuck to grand theft and gunning down goombas, maybe you wouldn’t have lived out the rest of your life like a schnook. It was only when he dabbled in drugs that Hank’s life started to go down the shitter, despite mentor Paulie telling him it was a mug’s game. Witness the scene in which Henry juggles his responsibilities as a drug dealer and a family man: one minute he’s cooking a slap-up meal for his nearest and dearest, the next he’s racing off to see his mistress and shipping an ungodly amount of cocaine that would give even Paris Hilton a nosebleed. The Feds eventually catch up with Henry – paranoid and convinced he’s marked for death, he rats on his mafia family and ends up without a friend in the world. Probably should have stuck with hijacking trucks, then. movies
A small town dealer and Jersey born and bred, Jay is always representing out front of his local Quick Stop, pounds of pot in his pocket and eager to make a deal. Shit, give him your order and he’ll even sing you a song if you’re lucky, perhaps a number by his favourite band, “Morris Day and the motherfuckin’ Time” – clearly, years of being a mallrat have left his tiny mind in a musical muddle. Forever flanked by his hetero-lifemate Silent Bob, Jay has made quite a living shifting dope: together, the two clueless stoners saved up enough to buy the convenience store they were permanently attached to, on the proviso they were allowed to continue dealing outside – now that’s a sound business investment. Jay was pretty much a given to appear on this list, given actor Jason Mewes’ fearless method acting – he spent years hitting the crack pipe to research for the role.
Like the other low-down crooks on this page, Clarence didn’t become a drug dealer by choice. After meeting sweet ho Alabama and falling in love, Clarence attempts to straighten things out with her pimp. Does everything go to plan? Hell no – this is a Quentin Tarantino screenplay after all – and instead of getting Alabama’s belongings and leaving quietly, he ends up shooting poor old Drexl and half-inches a suitcase of his Colombian marching powder by mistake. Clarence arranges a deal with Hollywood producer Lee Donowitz, but it goes predictably tits up – first when his gopher Eliot is pulled over by the cops while covered in coke, and secondly when the wimpy prick turns up at the deal wearing a wire. Clarence, cool as fuck, escapes relatively unscathed from the resulting shoot-out and goes on to live a life of luxury with his southern gal and young son in Cancun – surely a high no drug can match.
George is a shining example to aspiring drug dealers – think big, and there’s no limit to the success you can achieve (or the prison sentence you’ll receive). Starting out as a lowly pot dealer in southern California, George hooks up with Paul ‘Pee-wee Herman’ Reubens, a big-time distributor with whom he makes some serious bank. After his own mother turns him in, George meets a Columbian contact in prison, and no sooner than he’s walked free, he’s hitting up head honcho Pablo Escobar and supplying grade-A cocaine to the US – at one point, approximately 85% of the white stuff in America came through Jung. George lived the high life – kicking it with wifey Penelope Cruz in his south Cali pad – but eventually he realised that crime doesn’t pay, and he lived out his days in jail. However, Johnny Depp was forever affected by playing the coke-addled dealer – you think Captain Jack Sparrow is straight edge? Please. 
Danny is the quintessential drug dealer – wild-eyed, frazzled and not entirely from this planet. Listening to him spouting conspiracy theories (“Hair are your aerials - all hairdressers are in the employment of the government”) you’re left in no doubt Danny has smoked one too many Camberwell Carrots in his time. When the pretentious Withnail questions his drug intake, Danny removes his sunglasses and reveals the devastation that lies behind them. “Don’t get uptight with me, man,” he intones flatly. “Because if you do, I’ll have to give you a dose of medicine, and if I spike you, you’ll know you’ve been spoken to.” Wisely, Danny also has a back-up plan should his dealing business ever go south – along with his partner Presuming Ed, he’s planning on launching a range of dolls that shit themselves. Items, it has to be said, yet to appear on the shelves at Toys ‘R’ Us.
Forget those small-time, ten-dollar chancers – if you’re going to be a pusher, then do it in style. Tony Montana – Scarface to his enemies – was a self-made man who dragged himself up from the Cuban slums to make it as the most feared drug dealer in America. At the height of his power, Montana was a gangster extraordinaire, with Michelle Pfieffer bouncing on his dick, pinstripe suits for every occasion and mountains of coke spread around his plush Florida mansion. His rags-to-riches story and ‘fuck joo’ attitude continue to be an inspiration to moronic gangsters everywhere (all of whom presumably haven't seen the last few minutes where a cocaine-fuelled Montana is riddled full of bullets) and the legend even lived to deal another day in the Scarface videogame. The world was his, but it just wasn’t enough.
(Palermo, July 20, 1942)
