COWBOY

12 O'clock High

COWBOY

When I was growing up I wanted to be a cowboy.  The movie cowboys of the 40's had morphed into the cowboys of the 50's.  The 40's had Johnny Mack Brown, Tim McCoy Tim Keene Buck Jones, and Bob Steele, even Buster Crabbe, John Wayne and Robert Taylor who went on into the 50's and beyond.

I saw these films in black and white on theater movie screens, eating popcorn, juju beans and sipping a 5cent coke. It was 15cents to buy a ticket into the theater. A quarter got you a whole afternoon of western serials, Flash Gordon serials, Don Winslow of the Navy serials and out of mom and dad's hair for a few hours. As the 50's became the 60's, the movies changed to actually had a plot that one had to follow.  The bad guys were not always the "bad" guys.  One could not always tell by the color of their hats or their actions in the beginning of the film.

The 60's gave us The Alamo, Cimarron, The Unforgiven, How the West Was Won, The Man that Shot Liberty Valance, on and on.  Some had actors from the past, like John Wayne, but with dialogue and acting; only a few could make it into the new age of cowboy movies. Lately, Lonesome Dove has been made and actually resembles the lives of those it portrays.

The Duke.

I also changed.  The cowboys didn't interest me so much as did the exploits of the military. In 1949 the Sands of Iwo Jima came out.  I probably saw it in 1950, I'm 8 years old and from that time onward until my 18th birthday, I wanted to be a Marine.  To die on Mount Sarabachi was NOT my goal, my desire was to be as tough as Sgt Striker and do physical harm to those that threaten my countries way of life. So I did.

Fortunately, my personal presence in places to die for my country didn't come to pass. I reentered civilian life with the same desire, albeit subdued, to still be a cowboy.

 

Much better than the Seven Samurai.

I guess we have to go into what it is to be a cowboy in my mind.  A cowboy is not necessarily always a guy herding cattle.  Might have been at one time but not now.  In my mind, the cowboy rides the high country on a stallion, assisting downtrodden ranchers, making blood brother friends with the local indigenous tribes, righting wrongs in towns beset by nefarious types and being a hero to good looking women and their children. You all have seen the movie.

Now, when I happen across such places as Tombstone Arizona, I get mentally jerked back into the 1800's and I want to blend in to the atmosphere of that time.  I don my cowboy hat and vest, pull on my boots and take my Margie in arm to venture out into the streets of Tombstone. Luckily, these places like Tombstone afford those of us that have never grown up to have playtime as an adult. Nobody telling us that we have to "come in now and wash up for dinner." That is, unless one has a hungry wife on ones arm.

I never liked this guy

Tombstone Arizona, April 2014

I sitting in the Crystal Palace Saloon admiring the pictures of naked women on the wall and a glass incased box with a gambling wheel drinking a beer with my Margie. The tables look the same as 1889 only with couples casting loving looks at one another, single males looking forlorn and in need of company at the bar and at the tables.

 

He is so cool.

At the bar, 10 feet down are three well-dressed men from the 1880's.  Two are obvious cowboy types from their vests, chaps and brimmed hats. The other is either a "dude" or a "dandy" with his bowler hat, natty suit and duster.  All three are well armed, as the age of that time demanded.

The waitresses are dressed in Saloon Dance Hall costume with net stockings emphasizing their long lovely legs.  Only the head barkeep has boobs any size.  They were enormous!  One could never respond to "my eyes are up here!" for not looking at the 10 or more inches of level cleavage; knowing where beneath the corset exists even more cleavage. I sigh and look back at the painted pictures on the wall only to discover recently photographed prints of some of the wait-staff performing on the stage that I hadn't noticed until now.

Holy Mother, We've stumbled into a din of inequity! Testing my resolve to be a good person and not submit to the wiles of fallen doves, I turned my attention back to the Grand Canyon depth of cleavage behind the bar. She was totally oblivious of my attentions. She swashed up and down the bar, rinsing glasses, straightening napkins, refilling beer coolers totaling ignoring my admiring glances. I suppose she gets that all the time.

Back on the main street of Tombstone, the gunfights are about to begin. Heralded by a street thug with guns on both sides and swaggering a lot.  I guess one would know that tempers have been poked and anger ensued and a gunfight will happen.  It does.

 

Grew up watching this gunfight.

More than one or three shooters are involved.  Shooters come out of behind doors, out of alleys; surprise surprise. It sounds like the 4th of July. Lots of guns going off as a few of the designated killed fall to the ground.  One might have had a cordial conversation with one of the shooters earlier in the day on the main street or in the Crystal Palace and now they are dead in the dust of main street, Tombstone, Arizona. The town too tough to die. (Promo for the TV series)

 

Worst actor EVER.

I so what to be one of the gunfighters and play-die in the streets of Tombstone Arizona!  I've developed the acting ability to swagger and pose and regurgitate scripted words and play-die with the best of villains or good guys. My best friend Howy and invisible pal Juey would get shot and rolling around in the dirt so as to get good and dusty then resurrect and do it again. Play cowboys can do that ya know. Then we'd have to wash up and come in for dinner. Had to take off our cowboys hats too.

I do have some costumes that are of the period and I can always buy more.  However, that would mean a commitment to the cadre of players already in Tombstone and I live halfway across the country in California.  It appears I cannot play in their sandbox, so where can I play?

The western movie versions that have been made in Tombstone recently are not really my gig but close. Such as the latest Tombstone film with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer.  At least I think they are close.  Most of the movies about the old west were made within less then 50 years from the last massive cow drives to Abilene so some of it must be near to true.

Here in the Bay Area, there are a couple of gunfighter clubs, they are for show on demand at events.  I've been to one of them and its kind of sad.  Would not want to be in a play where the audience ignores or boos you. Or joins in like I did one time at Old Town in San Jose. My family, mom, sister and Margie were sitting on the wooden sidewalk eating ice cream when the gunfighters began their show. One of the actors was walking near us in the street when one of the other gunmen shot at him with his blank filled pistol firing away. I handed my ice cream to my mom and fell off the chair onto the wooden sidewalk clutching my chest. I was a real "show-stopper." Afterwards I was offered a role by the actors but had to turn it down due to previous engagements.

So here I sit, with cement sidewalks, electricity, sewer system, water-on-call, safe streets, a grocery store within walking distance that has every foodstuff I could possibly want, shoes instead of boots, automobile instead of a horse, medical services far advanced than the 1880's and all of the current communication devices instead of telegraph and hand written words on paper such as what you aren't reading now.

Methinks this is a much better time to be living in.