Art: Matt Cokeley

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Real Men Solve Crimes

Jim Rockford was a laid-back TV detective who lived in a trailer on the beach… and helped those who needed help

Zaron Burnett III
Humungus
Published in
6 min readJun 26, 2019

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“There ain’t been a lot of love in this rotten life. And I just found out how much I’ve been missing. Find her, Rockfish. Find her.”

— Isaac Hayes as Gandy Fitch from The Rockford Files

My man Jim Rockford helped me solve the mystery of what it means to be a man.

Fictional detectives have always been my thing. Whip-smart sleuths Hercule Poirot and Miss Marples were early boyhood heroes. Hard-boiled gumshoes like Sam Spade, Travis McGee, Easy Rawlins, Phillip Marlowe came later. And then there was The Rockford Files, which originally aired in the ’70s on NBC.

It was a show about a Los Angeles private investigator, Jim Rockford, who worked cases the LAPD wouldn’t handle and who asked all the right questions. He was portrayed with easy-listening macho grace by veteran actor James Garner, who never turned in a dishonest performance in six seasons.

The Rockford Files was sunlit noir set in Southern California. It was real estate scams and counterfeit money, fake jewelry, and crooked parole officers. My man Jim Rockford was all surf-and-sand meets easy sarcasm born from hard-earned cynicism.

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Zaron Burnett III
Zaron Burnett III

Written by Zaron Burnett III

writer, story editor, essays & short stories at Medium, and always in the mood for donuts

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