The wife went off to be with her two girlfriends who had lost their husbands last month. A couple of the girls got together to spend some time with them to try to cheer them up as best they could in the face of such tragedy. So I was left all alone on a Saturday night for the first time in a long time.
I could of called up some friends to hang out or go out for dinner but I just wanted to relax. So I got a pizza and a six pack and turned on the TV. And of course I picked a Western to watch.
They had "Hour of the Gun" on demand which was the 1967 film by John Sturgis with James Garner as Wyatt Earp and Jason Robards as Doc Holiday. It was a sequel to "Gunfight at the OK Corral" made about ten years later without Kirk Douglas or Burt Lancaster. It covers the same ground as the Kurt Russell vehicle "Tombstone" which is always being replayed on cable these days. It was basically about the aftermath of the shootout and how the Earp's hunted down and murdered their opponents in the Tombstone political wars. The supporting characters were always fun like a young Jon Voight and Robert Ryan as Ike Clanton. It is the typical anti-septic fifties Western even though it was made in the sixties. You could watch it while munching down your pizza and drinking beer and not miss a beat if you didn't pay attention. It got reviews at the time as a "gritty" and "realistic" drama because it didn't show Wyatt Earp as totally the hero and Doc was a drinker and loser but it was really very tame. Even the version that would up as the "Tombstone" made in 1993. I would have loved to see what Walter Hill would have done with this material.
I think we will see another movie covering the Gunfight at OK Corral. They make a movie about it every decade we are do another one soon.
53 comments:
The Wyatt Earp w/ Kostner, Dennis Quaid[lost a lot of weight to play Doc], and Gene Hackman stands heads and tails above all others.
However, I think you had your house filled w/ young protitutes and porn stars. The Wyatt Earp movie is just a cover.
Robards playing a drunk was certainly not a stretch! I loved him as an actor. A Thousand Clowns is my favorite.
Speaking of Robards, if you wanna see what real acting can be catch the clips of him as Hickey in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, available via the miracle of YouTube. Hickey's monologue especially. Theatrical as hell but at the same time affecting. Enter Jason Robards The Iceman Cometh. This was a 1960 production for, I believe, Channel 13, the forerunner of PBS, back in the day before serious high brow programming was abandoned. Don't say you weren't warned, Sixty.
And of course I picked a Western to watch.
Tell us more about the other ones you picked.
ricpic, thanks. We read and saw a production of that great play when I was in high school. There was a Shakesperean Theatre in Stratford[approriate] Ct. We would read Shakespeare and see productions, but sometimes they would do productions of other playwrights. My junior year we saw The Ice Man Cometh. I think the Good Sisters of Saint Joseph wanted to show us the evils of liquor. I'm sure Robards nailed that role and I will watch it.
I thought Robarts was good in "The Saint Valentines Day Massacre"
I didn't care for him in "Raise The Titanic." He reminds me of Nick Nolte.
chickenlittle, There is a Titanic theme to most of your comments. You're becomming Rain Man.."Titanic, definitely Titanic." If you're eating pancakes w/ toothpicks time to see a good shrink!
I thought Robards was pretty good in the television production of "You Can't Take it with You". Much of that might be due to the writing of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
I saw Robards and Colleen Dewhurst in "A Long Day's Journey into Night" in 1988 on Broadway. It was a great performance. Well what I remember of it because I think I was asleep for some of it.
@Spinelli: My daily blog hits trebled after I posted all those Titanic posts. People are into tits and Titanic.
Trooper York said...
I saw Robards and Colleen Dewhurst in "A Long Day's Journey into Night" in 1988 on Broadway.
Is that Céline? She kinda looks like SJP these days.
Instead of calling friends, call some Secret Service guys to come over and party. Just don't expect them to pay for anything.
AllenS, Isn't is perfect. I call all law enforcement personnel "Bureaucrats w/ Guns." I know great cops but most are variations on Barney Fife. The good ones get the fuck out of govt. work. I got out after a few years.
Nick,
I know some cops. When they get off of work they are just like everyone else. They want to have a beer, watch sports, fish, hunt, and chase women.
AllenS, You're correct. However, it's what they're like on duty that is often disconcerting.
Trooper, I see your Yanks are facing Carl Pavano tonight..a dago non grata in The Bronx. He's from Southington, Ct. a good dago town w/ some goods restaurants; at least there were, I haven't been there for 20 years. Rob Dibble is also from Southington. He married a nice dago girl from Southington. I believe she dumped the asshole Nasty Boy.
Cops are people; they come in all shapes, sizes, and douchebaggery styles.
I've had very few cop friends. One of my best friends was retired from the force before he was 30. Jumped and beat up and left for dead by some drug runners he made the mistake of pulling over one night on a twisty mountain road. Developed torticollis, where his head constantly pulls and turns to the side. Brutally painful. An experimental treatment they tried on him was injecting botulism directly into his nerves. He couldn't have any anesthetic because they had to know when they hit the nerve. Gruesome. Another time, he had a drug reaction and went blind for about three days. Oh, shit.
There are friends you'd die for. Then there's friends like him. I'd kill for him. He and I have been to hell and back together. We were on vacation together when his dad died. His little girl worked for me.
A really cool thing is he never gets a speeding ticket. What cop is going to ticket a guy who paid the price he's paid, knowing that he could be next? We've driven to the Florida Keys averaging about 80 mph, with his wife and mine driving, and he and I drinking in the back seat.
He's one of the good cops.
winbag, Thanks for the insight. I should maybe have emphasized there are good..great cops like your buddy. I have friends like him. I was speaking in the context of the Secret Service debacle. Although, in the scheme of things the only real issue I have is they appear to be cheapskates. However, in my biz I have gotten to know bundreds of cops. About 10% are like your buddy.
Hi dolls. Got back from Rhode Island and then went to Revere Beach today-the oldest beach in the U.S.
There were literally thousands and thousands of peeps there and 1% of the populations was white.
Every brown shade imaginable...needless to say I was in heaven.
Each section of the beach has it's group-the muzzies, who were actually praying and kneeling and bowing, the brazillians who wear speedos and play volleyball, the blacks who are looking for trouble, the bikers, the dog people, the kite flyers, the sand castle champions, the old farts that never left Revere and are really big and really tan, the quides-which is not a very small minority and the dotheads.
Everyone is on the wall checking everyone out.
It was so hot.
Then we went to Swampscott Beach which is fab, but borders Lynn which is not. And finally we went to Nahant beach.
Blacks are enthralled by watching and commenting on the rare clumber pinching a loaf...weird.
tits.
A very unique travelogue of Boston area beaches. How about some info on the restaurants where you dine.
About 10% are like your buddy.
This guy is one in a million...maybe a billion, and would be whether he was a cop or not. I've met too many from the other side of the spectrum.
Nick, my brother retired from Milwaukee PD last year, he's a pretty good guy. Does anyone remember that episode on Emergency 911 show in which some Milwaukee cops were sent to a home where a big Python was wrapped around some guys arm and moving up toward his head? One of those cops that responded to that call is my brother.
He made the news in Milwaukee a few times too, he was one of the first cops in some of the more well known murders, one o them was when the guy bashed his wife's head in in the Northridge shopping mall parking lot at night and claimed a black guy did it. He was the other guy was that beat to death in prison on the same day Dahmer was.
I just went back to look for the episode, it was a woman, not a guy sorry. The episode is called Python Babysitter.
YouTube, has the episode. Can you guess which one is my brother?
Not yet...
Wait, your brother is William Shatner? Cool...
I feel bad for people who don't live near the ocean.
How do you do it?
The ocean is so amazing.
The waves, sand, the rocks, the hot bodes, clam shakes and seeing something that goes on forever.
The beach and the ocean are so remarkable.
tits
beach tits.
I get stopped literally every day with peeps asking me about the rare clumber.
Today a white person at the beach, who was one of the 1 percenters, stopped me to ask about him. He had just gone for a long walk and swim or more like a wade in the ocean.
I told her he loves the ocean and beach and her reply was...who doesn't?
What is it about the ocean? It is free! And it is about freedom and beauty. Everyone is there breathing in life. And you will definitely see some amazing pecs and abs.
The Ocean.
The Beach.
Hot bodes at the Beach.
and
finally
tits.
What's with Yankee fans?
Titus, have you ever visited this place in Maine? I love Maine, and it's near the ocean.
Well Allie, Because like you I viewed two things I detest..Shatner and dramatic reenactments..the precursor to the now ubiquitous reality shows. I'm guessing your brother was the uniform officer w/ the porn mustache. Of course the Lt. also had a porn mustache..it was the 90's!
The one saving grace in watching that was the great cheesehead accents..a Fargo version of Milwk!
I'm certain your bro is a good guy and cop. I offend folks when I give my opinion on cops. That is not my intent. My intent is simply to inform folks on something pretty important since we all have contact w/ cops in our lives. My opinion is not based on a snap judgement or even a bad experience per se. I'm able to get along well w/ cops professionally[I can schmooze w/ the best of them when needed] and I've never had a personal bad experience. I've taught my kids to always treat cops w/ respect. I just always call them the way I see them, that's been my profession. And, most cops are bureaucrats w/ guns.
I know Nick, I didn't really take offense.
Practically my whole family were cops. From Treasury agent to investigator for the state Attorney General to the CHP to the LAPD to the state Dept. of Fish & Game, to various probation departments to a county sheriff's dept. All cops or P.O.'s.
The reasons I didn't go into the family business were 1) I saw what it did to my father, and 2) I hate paperwork.
Yes, cops ARE bureaucrats. They are part of the legal system. Legal systems have always been bureaucracies since the days of Hammurabi with scribes and clay tablets. Cops have to work within a welter of laws and procedures that are supposed to guard everyone's freedoms and still protect us from the bad guys. Complex rules and laws + people = bureaucracy. 'Twas ever thus.
I do not want cops out there without rules and procedures, and I don't want cops to be Wyatt Earps, protecting private interests behind a badge or carrying out (perhaps justified) vendettas without much actual color of law. That may have been how the West was won, but it isn't the way you investigate break-ins in Lexington.
And then there's the paperwork.
"Gee, Dad, how come you're 6 hours late tonight and missed the science fair awards? I got second place, but Mom was sick again and nobody was there..."
"Sorry. We pinched some car thieves in Colton today— a big bust—and I had to get 'em booked and write the report. The Lieutenant never lets me off the hook, and, anyway, this is an organized deal, and they've got a bunch of shyster lawyers, and I can't this one slide, because if we look like idiots in court, I'll be in real trouble. Sorry, son. Next time."
Tim, That is the paradox of police work. Minutes of danger[although it's always lurking] and hours of drudgery.
However, here is something most police depts. have not learned and it is maddening to myself and my bride[retired Federal Probation Officer]. The more detailed a report, the more a shyster can nitpick it. Although I would never..repeat NEVER use Chicago Police as a good example, there is one exception. And, both my bride came to the same conclusion independently. Their reports are like Hemmingway wrote them. We've read murder investigations that were just a couple pages. They had all the info needed and nothing else. Conversely, the very liberal Madison Police write the longest reports ever seen by humans. I literally read a 22 page report[skimmed it actually] on a fucking shoplifting! Defense attorneys eat those for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The mere fact that more police depts. have not come to the obvious conclusion that brevity is smart and wordy is stupid is bureaucracy incarnate. Many prosecutors rail against these wordy reports but they just keep comin'.
Allie, which one was your bro?
He is the tall uniformed cop with the dark hair and mustache, that talks about Pythons, he used to own two of them until his wife put the kabosh on it.
Just want to let you all know that I did ask his permission first before mentioning this episode of Emergency 911 here, as they give out his real name. He had a pretty high profile job on the Milwaukee PD, with the work he did with Police Officer Suicide Prevention.
That's who I figured, he does know his pythons. Was it just serendipitous he was on this call or is he the "go to" python guy in the dept.?
Somebody knew he had snakes, and told him to get over there. I don't know if thery ever had any other Python calls.
Maybe when Eric Idle got drunk @ the Mayfair.
Or, maybe when Johnny Holmes whipped it out in a downtown bar.
Sea And Sand by The Who. Keith Moon was at his peak.
Went to the beach tonight and there was a guy with a king cobra wrapped around his neck walking the boardwalk...totally like it was normal.
tits.
Windbag, never been to Hog Bay in Maine and I love Maine as well. The coast is beautiful.
I summer in Ogunquit.
I also enjoy Camden, Acadia, Portland and even Old Orchard Beach because it is honky tonk and I fucking love honky tonk boardwalks on the coast with amusements and fried dough-unfortunately many of them are cleaning up and becoming more expensive. Also, there is really hot poor trash hog at those places all the time. Heaven.
tits.
Hey, Titus, they tore down the Grey Gull in Ogunquit.
"Grey Gull Townhouses" or maybe "Estates" or some such crap replaced it.
Where do you stay? What do you eat? There're a couple of nice, gay-friendly places in York, but without the Grey Gull, Ogunquit seems drained of all life.
Tim,
I have stayed just about everywhere in Ogunquit.
Now I share a 2 bedroom cottage with 6 other friends and we take turns using it. We have it from May 15-Sept 15.
I always go to York as well which I like very much. We go to dinner at the place that famous chef from Boston runs. What's her name? Big lady.
My top restaurants are Angelinos, Barnacle Billy's, Bintliffs, 98 Provence and Five O for dinner.
We even go to The Front Porch which has improved immensely, although I am not a fan of show tunes and sing a longs.
Breakfast we go to Amore Brunch, Egg and I or Maine Diner.
Ogunquit is still beating pretty well. Ton's of French Canadians, can't miss them, they are the one's in the speedos. Lots of Boston retirees as well and of course the fags, although I don't like it because of the fags. I like it because is so fucking pretty
You really can't beat the beautiful beach there. The water is cold but the beach is so clean and the sand is so soft. And I love The Marginal Way.
Tombstone is a great movie, except for the parts with Dana Delaney. I believe she was sick during filming.
Plus, come on, Walter Hill, if he's not misogynist, at the very least has some...issues.
I despise bureaucracy. An efficient organization imposes the absolute minimum overhead on its customers and employees, obviously, but it's got to be an active effort.
Otherwise? You get departments whose job becomes to slow things up. It's probably why all organizations die. They end up with something like the government—where productivity is irrelevant to or even reductive of funding.
For 10% of cops to be good probably suggests a higher ethical level than found in most government organizations. GSA, anyone? Hell, TSA?
I know religious freedom is important, but I can't help but think pioneers and pilgrims brave horrible conditions, disease, death and famine to be free of crap like what we have now.
Ah, Titus, you're stoking my southern Maine desire.
Your digs in Ogunquit sound great. We used to have a place in Wells we rented for a couple of weeks every summer. Kids finally put an end to it.
Right now is prime Quebecquois season. Some of them show up as early as March, but the peak is vacation week after Easter. They're a hardy bunch, and think 46° water is practically a sauna.
When in that area, we generally eat breakfast at the Egg and I. Maine Diner is not bad, but often crowded. I know the restaurant you're talking about in York, but can't remember the name either. Last time we were there, we had a great meal, but it was pretty empty. Angelino's isn't bad, and there's a lobster pond operation that I can't remember the name of, as well, that was a lot of fun one drunken summer evening.
Yes, Wells Beach is the best beach close to Boston. Just as you describe. We love walking the Marginal Way every morning and at sunset if the weather is good. Gotta watch out, though, as people have been washed out to sea sightseeing storm waves.
Yes, folks, coastal Maine is a touch of paradise. And the area Titus and I are talking about is only an hour or so from Boston.
Bar Harbor is well worth the trip, too—much further Down East—so you've got to plan on spending a day or two, at least, partly because it's so far, and partly because it's just so great. Some of my wife's family is from Bar Harbor ("Baa Habah"), and I met the now late Aunt Esther ("Ont Estaah"), who taught Political Science at the University of Maine.
She struck me a bit like an old, Yankee Althouse, but of a very much pre-blogging generation. She seemed to want to stir up a deep, political discussion among her guests. I demurred, as I had a hard time keeping a straight face around anyone who sounded like Marshall Dodge: "Bert and I were discussin' th' Electoral College jus' th' othah daayy...."
Actually, it used to take us an hour and a half or so to drive to Wells. But that's from our 128-handy location in the northwest 'burbs. It would probably take Titus a couple of hours from Cambridge, the extra 20-30 minutes spent on Rt. 2 getting to 128.
Titus and I will be happy to supply you poor, benighted souls who live elsewhere with all the local Boston color you could possibly stand.
I want to sell my business and move to Maine. I don't even like seafood.
blake, Great point about pioneers. I intellectually understood the rugged individualism of the great West. But, until I started driving different routes to and from San Diego did I understand it fully. And, the divide between the folks who just want to be left alone and the nanny staters is wider than ever.
windbag, How about taters?
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