OOT - GREET

Seeing Mad Magazine mentioned in a recent comment, I was inspired to post a tribute to the great Don Martin's greatest work. National Gorilla Suit Day is recognized world-wide as a masterpiece of Absurdism. In 1963 it was awarded the Prix Fixe at the yearly Biennale Absurdiste in Cantes.

WKRLEM: You know how I found out?

I heard it had been too long since we last heard from Tom.

Stupid Moose and Squirrel will die!

Bullwinkle J Moose was always astounded that he was such a sex symbol. He was a big old homo and he really came off as a slightly more butch Charles Nelson Reilly but the girls loved him. He would get thousands of love letters every week from young girls who loved him because he was so sensitive. Just like Jim Nabors and Tony Randall. He had to beat them off with a stick.

Bullwinkle used this crazy notoriety to transition from TV to the movies. He left his partner Rocky behind. One of the few behinds that he had access to that he ever left by the way. He started making movies. Going on Johnny Carson and joking around while chewing gum and acting all sexy. He make a couple of CB radio movies that were popular at the time with a washed up Jackie Gleason called Smokey and the Moose. He even did a few romantic comedies where he pretended that Jill Clayburgh was sexy. Still his cowing achievement was when he posed nude in the centerfold of Play-Moose magazine.

It was all downhill from there.

(Jay Ward and Alex Anderson, Rocky and Bullwinkle, E True Hollywood Story)

Greedy, barbarous and cruel.....

President Trump had a big circus of a peace treaty signing today. A bunch of camel jockeys made peace with the hebes and they will trade and travel and do all kinds of great things. It is part of the continuing effort to stitch together an alliance against the mullahs of Iran as the Sunni's work to stave off an Iranian hegemony. I guess it is a good thing. But I don't know if it makes a big difference.

Because you see as Faisal said the Arabs are a silly people. Greedy, barbarous and cruel. They will continue to fight like crabs in a bucket until the end of time. We need to divorce ourselves from the Middle East. We don't need their oil anymore. We don't need any of them anymore. Lets just sell them bombs and guns and let them kill each other. The Jews can handle them. We need to give them a free hand to do what they want and keep our boys home. Take them home from Iraq and Afghanistan. No more endless wars.

I hope the God Emperor keeps his word. I think he will. That is why it is vital that he wins again.

Never forget?

I didn't post a 911 remembrance this year. I was out at a small ceremony and didn't want to do it when I came home. I know a lot of people say "Never forget." But I think most of America has forgotten.

This is a photo of my father in law pulling a hose in Brownsville in 1971. The conditions we had in 1971 are back today. The Black Liberation army had shot down Officers Piagentini and Jones in their patrol car in an assassination as just happened in LA. The mutts applauded and celebrated then too. The black neighborhoods were in flames and the firemen had to go put out fires when they threw cinder blocks down on them from the roof. My father in law would tell stories about those days. About how he had to stop probies from rushing in to save people because they would set fires, then make holes in the flow and cover them with a sheet so the firefighter would fall and break a leg by falling down a floor. He had a ton of stories about how the animals acted back in those days. Those days are back with a vengeance.

Two kids on a high school football team carried flags honoring the thin blue line and the thin red line on to the field where everyone else had Black Lives Matters flags. They were suspended and thrown off the team. It only lasted a day because of the outcry but that is where the schools head is at. You can honor criminals who die of a drug overdose in police custody by looting a CVS and setting fire to a church but if you honor the fire department you get thrown off the team.

They tried to cancel the reading of the names but a private group funded it and got it done. That is what it is going to come down to if anyone is going to remember. The memory is fading. In time it will be like the dead of World War One. Something in a history book. A white mans history book if they even let us have that anymore.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Even Newer Natural History

Helianthus ferreus

A splendid example of the American Toolflower (Helianthus ferreus). The Toolflower requires a temperate climate, plenty of sun and iron-rich soil. It is often found in abandoned farmlands and gardens. The Toolflower is highly susceptible to fungal infections such as Stem Rust, Black Rust, and, in fact, pretty much any kind of rust.

Finally, A Cool Spaceship

What We Were Promised

What We Got

SpaceX Starship

The SpaceX Starship may begin orbital flights as early as next year.
Fins, wings, and stainless freaking steel. Thank you, Mr. Musk.

WKRLEM: Do you know what time it is?

I was thinking. The 1980's were 40 years ago. The music that I put on Alexa when I am washing my balls is the oldies to the current snot nosed little fucks that dominate the culture these days.

I mean it was like my Uncle V telling me about Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa in the the 1980's.

Fuck. Where did the time go?

Whose that girl?

Whose that girl who is one of eduther's favorite actresses. A star at the beginning of the last century she was married to another big star of the early years of movie history. She was a mentor to many including people like John Ford and John Wayne and starred in many a memorable film.

Plus she is sublime in a martini.

Whose that girl!

Out Kick the Coverage has the goods....Interest in Sports is in the toilet.

Have you guys ever read Out Kick the Coverage? It's a sport site that has a pretty good handle on what is going on with sports these days. He also has interesting political posts. I check in every couple of days to see what is going on as I don't really follow sports anymore. He has a post that is really interesting.

A poll has been generated by Gallup that shows that the audience view of sports has dropped 30% this year. All across the board. But precipitously by conservative middle aged white men. You know. The bedrock of sports fans. The guys that get the cable packages and the season tickets and the beers and the cars that they advertise. Now I don't put my faith in polls but this corresponds to the sense I get from people I know. As has been said it takes two months to start a habit and two week to break it. I think a lot of America has gotten out of the habit of watching sports during the pandemic. Many people have fallen out of the habit of following teams and found a lot of ways to spend their time and money rather than worship at the alter of overpaid steroid assholes. The Anti-Americanism and the woke political correctness they are downing us in has been the final nail in the coffin.

I will never watch another football, basketball or heartbreakingly baseball ever again. Many people feel the same way. Sports is in denial. They believe the BLM hype and have killed the Golden Goose.

One of the worst side effects is that it kills so many of my continuing series on the blog.

Photo courtesy of ND Spinelli.

RIP Emma Peel

Only one other woman ever filled out a cat suit better.



You were a pip.

“Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.” ― John Wayne

I want to address Ed's epic post in segments because there is so much to talk about.


"There's something bigger than us."

There is a lot of truth in this. Most Westerns have the underlying theme of bigger issues under the surface of the story they are telling. Westerns started of course in novels and dime novels that were popular before the advent of movies and television. In these novels the story is often set against the backdrop of bigger issues that transcend the plot.

I trace the Western from the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper. Hawkeye is the genesis of the heroic yet stoic frontiersman who was the precursor of the cowboy. The seminal novel "Last of the Mohicans" is the most famous but I prefer "The Pioneers" which was in fact the most popular of his novels during his lifetime. Natty Bumppo is the stoic hero who is the prototype of the cowboy played by people like the Duke, Gary Cooper and Clint Eastwood.

Movies that illustrate the thought that there are bigger issues include "Fort Apache" "The Magnificent Seven"
"High Noon" "Last of the Mohicans" "They Died With Their Boots On" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

Here is the Duke addressing it directly.

Kyrie

The Electric Prunes released Mass in F Minor in 1968. It didn't attract a lot of attention. It got a little bump when the film Easy Rider used the Kyrie for the acid-dropping scene, then it sank into relative obscurity. I liked it then, and still do. I'm a sucker for the West Coast Psychedelic sound.

I like that they decided to do it straight, take it seriously, without irony; to just compose a mass for their time and place. Old wine in new bottles, to twist the parable.

Doing this post, it occurred to me to wonder how that one little snippet of Greek, the Kyrie, wound up in the Latin Mass. I did some research . . . and I'm still wondering. The answer seems to be, "Well, that's just the way it happened."

A Man's Gotta Do What A Man's Gotta Do

The American Western has been described as many things. Chuck Connors probably came closer than anybody when he described it as the American Epic, like the Iliad or the Chanson de Roland. When it worked, as it often did, it reminded the world of what America was and American children, boys especially, of what they were expected to be.

What's most intriguing is that it captured the imagination of not only this country, but of the world because it captured the character of America.

"Do you know the difference between money and glory? When you die, you get to take glory with you".

There's something bigger than us.

Along with the war epic, the Western was about seeing the far horizon, understanding the country was more than the sum of its parts. When Errol Flynn kissed Olivia de Havilland one last time in They Died With Their Boots On and  told her, "Walking through life with you, madam, has been a very gracious thing",  both knew he wasn't coming back. They both face it bravely, Olivia holding back the tears and keeping her composure until he has swept out of the room as the bugles blow Assembly.

The gunfighters in the Magnificent Seven face the same problem. Ride on or go back to save the village. They know the odds are lousy, but they go anyway. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie face the same issue when Travis draws his famous line in the sand. As Gene Autry put it in his Cowboy Code, "The cowboy is a patriot". Courage is saddlin' up when you're scared to death.

"Mr. Meacham, you're a blackguard, a liar, a hypocrite, and a stench in the nostrils of honest men. If it were in my power, I'd hang you from the nearest tree, leave your carcass for the buzzards".

Integrity. Some things simply cannot be borne.

The lone figure, standing for right, is probably the oldest Western there is, going back to The Virginian, but the archtype is the Lone Ranger. Sole survivor of a troop of Texas Rangers, watched over by an Indian friend he rescued when they were boys, John Reid makes a decision that the lawless new land can't grow without justice. His brother, as well as his brother's family, murdered by the Cavendish gang, left for dead he has no other path but that of the law. Not revenge, which is another theme, but justice. He will use silver bullets as a symbol of justice by law.

Many an actor has made his career with the words, "Now just a doggone minute here". Jimmy Stewart, Glenn Ford, Gary Cooper have all played the quiet-spoken man who will not be pushed, and the bigger the odds, the sooner he will make his stand.

But it's also drawing the line. When Trampas has a chance to let the old friend who's become a hired gun remove the tycoon who's winning over the girl he loves, he can't do it. He faces off against his old friend after even the Virginian has had to break up fights between the rivals..

"Nobody hands me my gun and tells me to ride on. Nobody!"

Pride of professionalism. The Code of the West.

One young cowboy was picked to lead a herd across a swollen river. He allowed as how he couldn't swim, "But I am a hired hand and will not shirk my duty". Men (and women) of every way of life lived and many times died by that ethos. Working on the railroad was almost considered a death sentence, but men took pride in it. When Britt makes his stand, he's doing so not out of vanity, but the fact that, as JB Books puts it, “I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them”.

"I've been offered a lot for my work, but never everything"

The helping hand. A chance to hit a lick for what's right.

Yul Brynner's quiet admiration for the Mexican farmers who have had enough is the catalyst to the Magnificent Seven. These aren't poor peons, but men who bear the responsibility of providing for their village, as Charlie Bronson so eloquently stated. In one of his last pictures, the Duke holds back from stopping a lynching until one of the lynchers shoves a little Mexican boy.

And that's another theme. The strong have a duty to lend a hand. Not to hand out a living, but to give help when it's clearly needed. In Dodge City, when a boy is dragged to death because the team he was driving is spooked by a gunfight, Errol Flynn can only say, "Little children".

Revenge, of course, plays its part. In a land where there is no law, revenge may sometimes serve the law. The Ringo Kid faces off against the Plummer brothers because they murdered his father and brother, but the vendetta is always destructive. Wyatt Earp goes after the Clantons after they murder one of his brothers and cripple another, but it also destroys his life. His days as a peace officer are through and it takes the life of his best friend, but it's Doc who understands, "Make no mistake, it's not revenge he's after, it's a reckoning".
.
"I'm looking at a tin star with a drunk pinned to it".

Friendship. Loyalty. Family.

In the second season closer, after the Virginian and Steve have finished off the bad guys, one of whom is Randy's half-brother, the Virginian says, "You have to make a choice. Who's your real family". And that is an important part of the Western appeal. The West was, in fact, won by brothers; the Custer brothers, the Masterson brothers, the North brothers, and many more. Louis L'Amour's famous Sackett family is made up of brothers, uncles, cousins, even sisters who come riding along when there's trouble.

Not just blood, but the ties of hard-fought experience. When the Duke confronts Christopher George in the Train Robbers, it's not as a boss, but as a friend, ""I was so busy trying to catch you, I'm the one that let 'em get away". Respect, for a good man. Truth, even though it's embarrassing.

As John T Chance and Cole Thornton, the Duke can't let his best friend destroy himself over a faithless woman. Even though he has gotten away clean from the Indians in Garden Of Evil, Gary Cooper can't leave Richard Widmark to his fate. "He's a little better in every way than I thought. I have to go back there. I have to tell him".

"It just so happens we be Texicans. Texican is nothin' but a human man way out on a limb, this year and next. Maybe for a hundred more. But I don't think it'll be forever. Some day, this country's gonna be a fine good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come".

A woman's place.

Though Olive Carey in The Searchers and Olivia de Havilland in They Died With Their Boots On are light years apart in social standing, both know their first duty is to their family. Their home. Their man. That requires a steadfastness unfashionable today. When all is collapsing, endure. When he's at the edge, smile. When he needs your strength, give him all. As Geraldine Page put it, "A man can afford to have noble sentiments and poses, but a woman only has the man she married. That's her truth. And if he's no good, that's still her truth."

John Ford got it. Most directors didn't; Howard Hawks couldn't understand a woman who didn't want to go hunting and fishing, but Ford got it. The women they left behind at Fort Apache are right out of the history books. So is Dallas, the hooker who dreams of a better life. She's the embodiment of the soiled dove who was made an honest woman. They were the lucky ones. The rest died of laudanum, pneumonia, gunshot wounds, VD.

Women in the West had to ride and shoot as well as a man. When Pa went off to sell the herd, sometimes it was Mom and the girls who kept the place together, just like their grandmothers in the French and Indian War. 

That was the bargain. Yes, I will warm your lonely nights, bear your children, cook your meals, mend your clothes, nurse your wounds, but for all this I demand churches and schools, law and order, the end of gunfights in the street, and no more saloons on every corner. I want the gambling halls and the houses of ill repute (especially) closed down.

The men may have won the West, but the women made a nation.

Well, I'll be damned.

Redemption. A chance to set things right.

In its third season opener, the Virginian introduced Emmett Ryker, hired gun, gambler, bounty hunter, sometime lawman (based on the Honey Wiggin character in the book). Ryker is offered a job murdering a rancher and he turns it down. When Ryker's old partner, Sam Lake, is offered the job of killing Ryker, Sam hesitates. Ryker sees the chance to give Sam a shot at a better life and offers to split the half of a ranch he's come into. As Chris said in Mexico, "We're the ones who always lose". Why not go out a winner? Have something that's your own. Sam goes for it and ends up taking a bullet. "Was kinda nice, bein' respectable. Bein' on the winning side".

Louis L'Amour defined a bad man as one who was bad to tangle with. Jim Bowie, Bat Masterson, Bill Hickok, Bill Tighman were all such men. But, for the most part, are remembered as heroes. Britt, Bernardo, Harry, and Lee were laid to rest as honored men by the village they fought to save.

That theme of redemption is the heart of the Western. The bad man who was saved by a good woman. Angel and the Badman. The bad man who finally gave up his rough ways for a good plain woman. Hondo.

The bad man who thought he was beyond redemption. Harry Luck.

As Chris Adams put it, "I doubt that".

And this country is still based on those values.

This is for Troop.