Daemon (Level 48)

   Not more than a mere handful of days ago I awoke screaming in pain. I have some...thing wrong with my eyes or some kind of recurring condition that I can only describe as feeling like somebody just jabbed something very sharp into it and some part of that something broke off and is still causing me immense pain. The catch...there's nothing really there and any attempt to touch it serves only to greatly magnify the pain. So there I sit rocking in pain for 1 to 4 hours depending upon the severity of the "attack" cupping my eye both in an attempt to wrest some kind of placebo-ish mollification from my brain (of which of course the eyes are a mere extension) and because these attacks cause my natural sensitivity to light to become greatly amplified to the point that a ray of light becomes a searing attack of solid pain. Oh yeah...9 times out of 10 the Gods also humorously insure the days in which I suffer these attacks are THE BRIGHTEST MOST CLOUDLESS DAYS EVER SEEN ON THIS EARTH! Ho ho, well met you inbred bastards. Anyhoo...eventually the pain abates and I'm left with a watering eye which is seeing triple and I'm quite dizzy which leads me to stumble around a bit like a not so comical drunk. No I'm not sure what it is as the symptoms match quite a myriad of afflictions from the deadly to the casual. I also don't really have that kind of money for doctors and I can sometimes go for quite a many months without having it happen. I have to assume it's not deadly as it's been going on for years and...hello I'm still writing to you now. What? Oh yes Caddyshack! 
 
So a good friend of mine called me up and wanted to just go out shopping a bit at one of the many local Best Buys littering the San Fernando valley in Los Angeles. Although I was not exactly in tip top shape, well...honestly I can't remember the time I've been in that kind of shape, but anyways suffice it to say I was not in proper condition to venture out into the brightly lit world of retail. Yet for some reason I was feeling a bit trapped holding up in my house, in the dark, with my blanky, and a cat, and so I felt I would force my body to participate in the mundane Western habit of shopping. I stumbled around a bit and pulled my hoodie as far over my eyes as I could well aware that I was visually profiling myself as a criminal generally being disappointed with the selection. Then I saw Caddyshack sitting there on BluRay for a mere $10. Not a stellar movie to be sure, but it is the very definition of a guilty pleasure and its beloved status has grown to the point that it's generally now considered a comedy classic -- albeit a kinda stupid one. It's been a while since I've watched it and the price was right so why not? I thought of all the classic lines and how much I missed Rodney Dangerfield and his Johnny Carson appearances and how funny Chevy used to be...and then it hit me. There's another reason that I really gravitated towards this movie and why that reason later made me look at this goofy comedy classic with quite a bit of melancholy. 


Originally Caddyshack was supposed to be all about the caddies and the crap they had to deal with from their strange and demanding golf club members. Specifically it was supposed to center around the story of Danny Noonan (Michael O'Keefe) and his Irish girlfriend Maggie O'Hooligan (Sarah Holcomb).  But Harold Ramis brought in so many crazy high profile loose cannons that eventually the movie would either be 4 hours long, or they would have to lose a lot of something. Obviously that something was the focus on the caddies and of course the story of Danny and Maggie. Now of course this was huge blow to the young actors as they went into the movie as the main characters. This of course really, really sucked for them but no the "lost" Caddyshack is not the source of my sadness, it's Sarah Holcomb. 
 
You see, being an introverted but fairly typical lad of 16 in 1980 I had my movie crushes and Sarah Holcomb was definitely one of the big ones and it was a big reason why I always remembered Caddyshack fondly. Although in the film Cindy Morgan was supposed to be the sexual focus, to me the much more approachable and real character of Maggie was a helluva lot more attractive and the scene of her in her underwear burnt deeply into my memory. But being a young lad I was easily distracted and as I went on with my silly life, I didn't take notice of the fact that I never saw Sarah Holcomb again. Flash forward a couple of decades later and having developed into something of a film goof I was slowly revisiting movies, directors, and stars that interested me growing up. I looked up another old crush Diane Franklin (Monique from Better off Dead) and discovered that she did a silly movie called Second Time Lucky in which she was gloriously naked for most of the film and it only cost me $3 for the DVD! Then I remembered Sarah Holcomb and was puzzled by the fact that she never made another movie after Caddyshack. In fact she sort of just...disappeared. 


It's no secret that the set of Caddyshack was a set filled with excessive partying. Drugs and alcohol flowed freely and almost everybody was in on the craziness a factor which was further amplified by the frat like living situations in which all the stars lived in a big building located on the actual golf course they filmed on. Most people came out of the situation a bit bleary eyed but relatively unscathed. Not so with Sarah. You see Sarah was starting to suffer from the mental condition Schizophrenia and the constant atmosphere of hard drugs and alcohol only served to amplify the condition. She quickly began to lose her grip on reality and soon found herself in some rest homes and eventually a mental institution. Word on the street is that after some years she checked out and was coping, but she has changed her name and apparently does not wish to be found by anybody. Word also has it that director Reverge Anselmo knew her and based his 2004 movie Stateside on Sarah with her brother actually playing a part in the movie and a thank you at the end of the movie to "S.H.". So wherever you are Sarah, I hope you're doing fine. In my own stupid teenage way I really cared for you and I wish you the best.