Is Rod Serling as Frustrated as Me?

Why are builders called contractors? Their job involves construction, not contraction. It seems to me that they should be called constructors.

That’s the kind of crap that’s running through my mind. I had this great post playing in my brain about last night’s B.B. King concert, but that one is going to be put on hold. This has been a frustrating evening, and the things that frustrated me have affected the B.B. King post in a couple of ways. First, it got my mind off track. Second, it made me start typing too late to give the subject justice.

Instead, we have a post about frustration. The other day, I bought Fort Apache on Blu-Ray. It’s the John Ford movie starring John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple and John Agar, who ended up being her real life husband.

It’s a fictional portrayal of George Custer and the defeat that he suffered. I’ve always thought it was weird that they placed a fictional cavalry against the Apache when they could have portrayed a real cavalry against the people they really fought.

The portrayal of a fictional story instead of a historical one is not what frustrated me. That came from the Blu-Ray player that suddenly froze up. My parents have a movie room that is designed to provide a great movie watching experience. Tonight, it provided a frustrating time of trying to figure out what was wrong with it. My dad had me call the guy that put the room together for them. On a Friday night. During his time off.

Finally, I texted my nephew who can fix anything. He sent back a simple reply – unplug it. That did the trick. Then, I was frustrated because I didn’t think of that.

We watched the movie, and I went home to get some work done. Part of that work involved emailing some pictures to my insurance agent. I won’t bore you with the details of insurance, but I will bore you with the details of my frustration. My school account would not email the images. I tried over and over. It’s a Gmail account, so I figured it could do anything. Apparently, it can’t.

That’s when I swapped over to my personal email. Hell, it wouldn’t even download the pictures. After that, I went back to my work email to send the pictures one at a time. Each email took forever. At the top of the screen it said:

Sending…

Still Working…

I don’t know how long it took each email to go through because I finally walked off. When I got back, they had been sent. Well, I guess they had been sent. They could be in The Twilight Zone for all I know.

Sometimes, I think the world is becoming one big Twilight Zone. Look at the crazy things that happen. Some of it is serious, and some of it is downright ridiculous. Through it all, Rod Serling is standing out of sight talking about the signpost up ahead.

Grading the Day

I just finished grading a big stack of assignments, and my eyes are a bit blurry. I can’t figure out why we teachers give assignments at the end of the semester. It just means that we put a lot of work on ourselves. At some point, I will realize that assigning something at the beginning of the semester is fine.

Most of the papers are graded, but my brain hasn’t fully recovered. I’m not even sure why I am typing. It just feels like something that I should be doing. Does that mean I am a blogoholic?

I guess so because I am typing up a post without really knowing what the post is supposed to be about. Words are just appearing on the screen. I wonder what’s going to appear next.

I woke up this morning after hitting the snooze button a couple of times. My iPhone is my alarm, and it is set on “De Guello“, a song from the movie Rio Bravo that stars John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson.

I got ready for work and headed that direction. I am not a morning person, but I insist on having classes a 8 o’clock. I have no idea why. This morning I talked about Herbert Hoover and how his administration got steamrolled by the Great Depression.

A lot of people blamed him, but it happened a few months after he took office. That’s not enough time to cause all of that.

I had some office hours before getting a hot dog for lunch. I let my afternoon class go after a few minutes of discussion. The semester is coming to an end, but my lectures are coming to an end quicker. After more office hours, I picked up Necole’s daughter from school because she had an appointment with a doctor.

Eventually, I made it home to get ready for an awards ceremony back on campus. I got the award for Most Outstanding Faculty Member. It is an honor to receive this award because it is voted on by the students. One of the other history professors also got a service award, so that was great, too. Basically, history holds a monopoly over the faculty awards this year.

Once the ceremony was over, I visited my parents to show them my plaque. I also talked to Necole and found out that they had to get antibiotics.

After all of that, I started grading but did it a little differently. Usually, I grade in silence. This time, I graded with the television on. Throughout the grading process, I listened to a PBS documentary about the Dust Bowl. Not surprisingly, the narrator talked about how it was Herbert Hoover’s fault. I also listened to a 30 for 30 about the 1983 NFL draft.

Now, I am blogging about all of it. Interesting isn’t it?

Into the Sunset

It’s a cliché of the western movie genre. The hero has lived through some adventure, and, when it’s over, he gets on his horse and rides into the sunset. I have watched that scene dozens of times, and it fascinates me every time.

What happens when they disappear over the horizon? What happens after the “The End” placard covers the screen? Does the hero take time off before finding another adventure? Does he die of wounds suffered during the movie? Does he live happily ever after in some frontier town?

All of those questions go through my mind because I have to know the rest of the story. It doesn’t matter how bad the movie is. I still want to know what happens after the credits roll. However, something else goes through my mind, as well. The “into the sunset” scene isn’t always the same.

One of the greatest “into the sunset” scenes doesn’t even have a horse. In The Searchers, Ethan Edwards spends years attempting to rescue his niece from her Comanche captors. When he returns with her, everyone goes into the house except for him. He turns and walks into the desert as the door closes behind him.

Where did Edwards go? Did he leave because most of his family was dead? Did he wander because there was no purpose in his life? All of the wars were over. Or, did he think back over the past years before turning around and coming back?

John Wayne walked away in The Searchers, but Clint Eastwood could be the king of “into the sunset” rides. In The Outlaw Josey Wales, he is bleeding as he rides away. Does he live? If so, then does he go back to the friends that he has gained throughout the movie? Or, does he disappear from history?

Sometimes, he completely disappears because we really don’t know what he is. In Pale Rider, Eastwood evaporates from the scene. Is he some kind of spirit or is he just a mysterious gunman?

Those were great, but my favorite Eastwood ending comes from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Blondie leaves Tuco with a noose around his neck and gold at his feet. After an impossible rifle shot to save Tuco, Blondie rides away to one of the greatest movie scores of all time.

A more recent western has an “into the sunset” scene at the end. The difference is the adventure that precedes it. In Cowboys and Aliens, James Bond defeats aliens with the help of Indiana Jones. Oh, Boyd Crowder helps out, too. This time the hero is truly a loner. His wife is dead. His alien love interest is dead. He is considered dead. Heck, the dog doesn’t even go with him. In this one, the hero probably went somewhere and cried.

The cool thing about “into the sunset” scenes is that they are no longer reserved for westerns only. Remember what happened at the end of The Dark Knight? He agrees to be the fall guy and live life as a villain. Then, he hops on his jacked out motorcycle and rides into a tunnel. There is no sunset, but there is a cool speech and some kind of light up ahead. I hope it’s not a train.

Everybody knows what happened to him after that because we have sequels now. There should not have been a sequel to this one. Wondering what happened to Batman was a lot better than knowing that he faked his death and ended up with Catwoman.

Ok, so John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, James Bond and Batman all have had great scenes to end movies. However my favorite “into the sunset” scene comes from a movie that isn’t very good. At the end of Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Don Johnson, as Marlboro, goes back to his roots and enters a rodeo. At the same time, Mickey Rourke, as Harley, rides his motorcycle into the sunset with an 80s vixen on the back and Black Eyed Susan playing in the background.

Why is that my favorite? Because it’s the only one that seems like a happy ending. He’s not alone. He’s not wounded. And, there is no doubt that something good is going to happen further down the road.

The Great Pumpkin Carving Escapade

Tonight, I carved a pumpkin for the first time in years. It was great fun, and mine turned out quite well considering my lack of expertise. My handiwork was not worthy of being immortalized on the Internet. Therefore, tonight’s festivities will be honored with pictures of some of my favorite things carved into pumpkins. I have no idea who made these, but they are great artists.

AC/DC

Hell’s Pumpkins

University of Tennessee

Touchdown Pumpkins

John Wayne

Pumpkin Cogburn

Elvis Presley

Ladies and Gentlemen! Elvis Has Left the Pumpkin!

Marilyn Monroe

Pumpkins Like It Hot

Darth Vader

Luke, I Am Your Pumpkin.

Clint Eastwood

The Good, the Bad and the Pumpkin

This is an incomplete list, but I couldn’t find one with Barney Fife.

Listeria – Western Actors Edition

I know that this edition of Listeria is coming along soon after the last edition of Listeria, but I went overboard on my last trip to the magazine stand. Besides, this one covers one of my favorite subjects – Western movies. I grew up watching them with my dad, and that experience played a role in my interest in the history of the West.

American Cowboy published a special issue called “Legends of Western Cinema” and listed the 20 greatest Western actors. However, there is one problem that needs to be addressed before I begin. When people think about Westerns, or the history of the West, they think about cowboys first. Some of the greatest Westerns don’t involve cowboys at all. They involve mountain men, Native Americans, cavalry and all sorts of characters. In the real West, not everyone were cowboys. A good way to see this? If there are no cows around, then there are probably no cowboys around.

The rant is over, so here we go with the list. These are the 20 greatest Western actors according to American Cowboy in the order that they have listed. I will list my favorite movie of each and add the actors that I believe should be included.

John Wayne – The Searchers

Gary Cooper – High Noon

James Stewart – The Far Country

Henry Fonda – Once Upon a Time in the West

Clint Eastwood – The Outlaw Josey Wales

Steve McQueen – The Magnificent Seven

Kirk Douglas – There Was a Crooked Man

Robert Duvall – Open Range

Ben Johnson – She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Lee Marvin – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Sam Elliott – Tombstone

Tom Selleck – Quigley Down Under

Charles Bronson – Once Upon a Time in the West

Woody Strode – Sergeant Rutledge

Gregory Peck – The Gunfighter

Paul Newman – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Tom Mix – Riders of the Purple Sage

Glenn Ford – 3:10 to Yuma

Tommy Lee Jones – No Country For Old Men

James Garner – Duel at Diablo

That’s the Top 20. I could name a bunch that belong on the list, but I will limit myself to five.

Randolph Scott – Ride the High Country

Kevin Costner - Silverado

Robert Mitchum – Five Card Stud

Robert Redford – Jeremiah Johnson

Richard Widmark – Broken Lance

There is the list. Who else should be included? Who should be omitted? What are your favorite movies? Let me know.

Who Needs Kevin Bacon?

I have been sitting here trying to figure out what to write about, and I finally decided to write about what is on television. Encore is showing The Longest Day, a 1962 movie about the invasion of Normandy on D-Day. Obviously, this is an important historic event, and numerous movies have been made about it. What amazes me about this movie is the ensemble cast of huge actors from that time in Hollywood history. All this time, people have been playing “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” when they could have been playing “One Degree of The Longest Day“.

It stars John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter six years after they were in The Searchers.

It stars John Wayne and Robert Mitchum four years before they made El Dorado.

Sean Connery and Gert Frobe appeared in this film two years before Connery, as James Bond, heard Frobe, as Auric Goldfinger, say, “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”

It has Richard Todd, who was Ian Fleming’s first choice to play James Bond in Dr. No. Interestingly. Dr. No came out in 1962, as well.

I mean, this thing has everybody in it, and there are connections all over the place. To prevent having a post that drags out, I’ll just list a bunch of the actors and my favorite film of theirs.

Eddie Albert – The Longest Yard (although he was also good in Green Acres)

Richard Burton – Cleopatra (which I think was being filmed at the same time)

Red Buttons – Hatari! (which also starred John Wayne)

Sean Connery – Goldfinger (the best James Bond movie ever)

Henry Fonda – Once Upon a Time in the West (a great Spaghetti Western)

Gert Frobe – Goldfinger (the title character in the only James Bond movie to show a Kentucky Fried Chicken)

Jeffrey Hunter – The Searchers (which also starred John Wayne)

Peter Lawford – Ocean’s Eleven (a member of the Rat Pack who married into the Kennedy clan)

Roddy McDowall – Planet of the Apes (also in Cleopatra with Richard Burton)

Sal Mineo – Giant (appeared with Elizabeth Taylor, who was also in Cleopatra)

Robert Mitchum – Five Card Stud (starred with Dean Martin, who was also in Ocean’s Eleven and was a member of the Rat Pack)

Edmond O’Brien – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (which also starred John Wayne)

Leslie Phillips – Harry Potter Series (as the voice of the Sorting Hat)

Robert Ryan – The Wild Bunch (a movie that’s bloodier than The Longest Day)

Rod Steiger – The Amityville Horror (there was a horror in that house but not the one they show in the movie)

Robert Wagner – Broken Lance (married to Natalie Wood, who starred in The Searchers with John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter)

Stuart Whitman – The Day the Earth Stood Still (also starred in The Commancheros with John Wayne in 1961)

John Wayne – The Searchers (my favorite actor of all time)

Richard Dawson – The Running Man (but he was better on The Match Game and Family Feud)

Bernard Fox – Big Jake (which also starred John Wayne, but he was also in my favorite television show, The Andy Griffith Show)

So, I present the game, “One Degree of The Longest Day“.

Thank God for Gas Pumps

All of us bloggers like to look at our stats. At least, I assume all of us bloggers like to look at our stats. I know that I do, anyway. It’s not like I look at them all of the time. Wait, I do look at them often, but that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is to point out an anomalous point in the stats. I have pointed it out before but feel the need to point it out again.

One of my earlier posts, The Problem With Gas Pumps, completely dominates this blog. In fact, it makes up 17% of the total page views in the SBI universe and outnumbers the next 30 posts combined. Undoubtedly, some of its popularity is due to the excellent writing exemplified by the post. However, I believe most of the popularity comes from the fact that it includes this picture:

This picture drives more page views than a topless picture of a princess.

Don’t believe that gas pumps dominate? Here are the top 15 search terms for Surrounded by Imbeciles.

1. gas pumps

2. gas pump

3. gasoline pump

4. pictures of gas pumps

5. josey wales

6. gasoline pumps

7. dumas brothel

8. mount rushmore conspiracy theories

9. outlaw josey wales

10. pump gas

11. picture of gas pumps

12. the outlaw josey wales

13. images of gas pumps

14. gas pump image

15. picture of a gas pump

The only things that bust the monopoly are people looking for old prostitutes; people looking for hidden meanings in stone-faced presidents; and, people who are fans of Clint Eastwood’s best movie.

Bloggin’ ain’t much of a livin’ boy.

In honor of The Problem With Gas Pumps and to gratuitously promote other posts, I present the ten posts that are eating the most dust.

Victorian Brothelese – There are the whores that people are looking for.

Greetings and Salutations – You can always count on the About page.

Dirty Deeds and Thunder Chief - My ode to lyrics that people mess up.

Movie Wisdom – Burt Reynolds Edition – Watch some Burt Reynolds movies. It will make you smarter.

A Requiem for Josey Wales – “To Hell with them fellas. Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.”

The Good, the Bad, and the Presidential – There is more bad than good in this post.

It’s a Conspiracy – If you think things aren’t as they seem, then read this post.

John Wayne and Edgar Allan Poe – What? You didn’t know poetry could be learned from a John Wayne movie?

Memories of a Day in September – My thoughts on the anniversary of 9/11.

A Totally Not Funny Account of My Trip to New Orleans – It’ll make you cry.

Aimless Wanderings of the Mind

Yesterday, some friends invited me to spend the night on a houseboat. Figuring that there would be a lot of late night commotion on the boat, I took my iPod in case I needed some solitude for sleep. As it turned out, everyone conked out fast from a day filled with activity, but I plugged the iPod into my ears anyway. The Guns n’ Roses version of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” came on and the following took place in my mind.

I immediately thought of the original Bob Dylan version as it played over the death scene of Slim Pickens in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, one of my favorite westerns.

From there, I thought about one of the times I saw Bob Dylan in concert. He and Willie Nelson had a tour where they played in minor league baseball stadiums. As I watched them from the infield, I kept wondering what the backstage party must have been like.

Then, I started thinking about a local legend involving Willie Nelson. Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge is a famous honky-tonk in Nashville where singers and players would congregate between sets of the Grand Ole Opry.

It seems that one night Willie was in Tootsie’s drowning his sorrows at the bar. He wasn’t making it in Nashville, and, in a moment of depression, he walked outside and sprawled in the middle of Broadway. His intent was to be run over by a car. Fortunately, they got him out of the street; he went to Texas; grew out his hair; and became a legend.

When this entered my mind, I started thinking about the time I saw Willie with Ray Price and Merle Haggard. Price’s biggest hit was “For the Good Times“, which happened to be written by Kris Kristofferson, the one who played Billy the Kid in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

The other person on the bill, Merle Haggard, is one of my all-time favorites. He performed a song in a movie I recently watched, and I started thinking about a song that appeared in a John Wayne movie called Chisum, an inaccurate retelling of the story of Billy the Kid.

As you can see, Billy the Kid and a bunch of connections to his pop cultural self kept entering my mind. That’s when I started thinking about the last time I visited his grave.At least, that’s his headstone. Some people claim that Billy the Kid got away and lived to be an old man. That’s doubtful. Without a doubt, a flood swept through the cemetery and washed away all of the markers. It may have even carried off a few bodies. So, Billy is probably not anywhere near this piece of rock. However, I started thinking, “What if they had buried him above ground like they do in New Orleans?”

Obviously, this started me down another tread of thought. Earlier this year, we took some students on a field trip to the French Quarter (I know. Cool teacher.), and we toured the City of the Dead, one of their above ground cemeteries. One of the most interesting graves was that of Marie Laveau, voodoo queen of New Orleans.

The grave has offerings left behind by people searching for a blessing. I thought about that, but I also thought about a song by Redbone called “The Witch Queen of New Orleans“.

New Orleans. It’s a cool city, and a lot of movies have been made there. They started running through my mind, but one that I saw the other day stuck out. It was Live and Let Die, the James Bond film that has the scene with an agent watching a funeral parade in the French Quarter. When he asks whose funeral it, he is stabbed and placed in the coffin. That’s when the parade really cranks up. Then, the theme song by Paul McCartney and Wings entered my brain.

That’s when it hit me. Holy crap. “Live and Let Die” was another movie song that was covered by Guns n’ Roses.

By this time, my mind was mush, and I mercifully faded out.

Imagining the West

When the United States completed the Louisiana Purchase, a question arose among politicians and citizens around the country. What exactly did Thomas Jefferson buy? Some of it was known, but, frankly, a lot of it was a mystery. Like today, mysteries led to wild rumors and speculation. Some thought that the land was filled with mammoth. Others theorized that giants walked the land. Even the reports of Lewis and Clark did not quell the wild stories about the land that they traveled through.

This began a long fascination with the western landscape among Americans. While some ventured into the region, the vast majority was content with staying in their comfort zone and leaving the visions of the West to their imaginations. While they read dime novels exaggerating the exploits of the people in the West, they were also fed exaggerations of the images of the West.

It is easy to see how someone in the 1800s could incorrectly imagine the West as they read a book that was designed to be as adventurous as possible. The visuals were left up to them, and they only knew what the writer wanted them to know. However, the 1900s brought the invention of films. Now, the story could unfold in front of their eyes. No more imagining. They could see the real West.

Unfortunately, that’s not exactly the way it happened. The first “westerns” were filmed at Thomas Edison’s studio in New Jersey. I’m not even sure it was in western New Jersey. When the motion picture industry moved to Los Angeles, things did not get much better because movies were filmed close by. In other words, a story that was based in Texas was filmed in California. As people watched, they began to assume that Texas, and the West in general, looked like the place they were seeing on the screen.

Last night, all of this came into focus for me as I watched television with some friends. Longmire, a new show about a modern-day sheriff in Wyoming, premiered on A&E, and I had been looking forward to it. To my disappointment, it was a weak attempt to copy th success of Justified, but I digress. My friends, who have never been to Wyoming, were talking about the scenery and how beautiful it was. I have been trying to convince them to take a trip to the West instead of their usual beach excursion, and they began to get excited about going to Wyoming and seeing this beautiful place.

Wyoming is beautiful. It is one of my favorite states. However, if my friends want to see the landscapes of Longmire, then they will need to go to northern New Mexico, the filming location. I thought it looked familiar because I was just there. Anyway, I had to explain that westerns are not always filmed where the story takes place and that it has confused audiences for decades. I wondered how many people will watch the show and think that Wyoming looks like New Mexico.

Today, another example of filming that confused the audience popped up on my television. The Searchers, starring John Wayne as Ethan Edwards, is one of my favorite movies. It follows a loner who goes on a decade-long trek to find his niece who was abducted by Comanche. I could write about this movie all night but need to focus on the scenery in which the action takes place. The director, John Ford, used his favorite filming location, Monument Valley, because of its grand vistas. In fact, I used a photograph of Monument Valley for the banner above.

The problem is that the story takes place in Texas while Monument Valley sits in Utah. Through the years, I wonder how many people think Texas, an iconic locale for western stories, looks like that. I can promise that it doesn’t.

People have always imagined the West differently. In the 1800s, misconception was understandable because technology and transportation did not offer easy opportunities to see it. During most of the 1900s, a trip into the West was also difficult for many. However, today, with interstates and internet, there is not excuse for imagining the West incorrectly. I urge everyone, if provided with the opportunity, to travel through it and see for yourselves.

Wyoming does not look like New Mexico, and Texas does not look like Utah. However, each of those places and all of the rest have a beauty all their own. Don’t be fooled by the movies and television because the West is more magnificent than they can show and you can imagine. Plus, it will all be in the right places.

You Gotta Have Faith?

There is an old John Wayne movie called El Dorado that I have seen a million times and contains one of my favorite lines. After telling one of his henchmen to stay out of a fight, Nelse McLeod, the bad guy gunfighter, says, “Faith can move mountains, Milt, but it can’t beat a faster draw.” This line kept running through my mind as I read The Devil in Pew Number Seven by Rebecca Nichols Alonzo.

This book had been in my Kindle for a while as I decided if I wanted to read it or not. Now that I have read it, I am not sure if I’m glad I did or not. I think it is supposed to be a chronicle of faith and how it can get people through any hardship. From my point of view, it provides an example of the tragedies that can happen if someone has too much faith.

In short, the writer is the daughter of a preacher and his devout wife and takes us through her childhood experiences. However, they are not the experiences that one would find idyllic. Her father was the pastor at a church in a small, rural community in North Carolina. Like many similar communities, it was tight-knit and leery of outsiders. Being a dynamic preacher, her father was able to break through this outsider status and become a beloved figure in the area.

At least, he was beloved to most. Apparently, there was a local “boss” who did not appreciate the new preacher and his growing power. As time passed, the “boss” did everything possible to run the preacher and his young family out of town. It began with disturbances during services, such as making loud noises and slamming the doors. Through the years, it escalated from childishness to danger. Hired lackies made threatening phone calls, mailed threatening letters, shot up the house and, eventually set off dynamite near their home and the church. For years, the family lived in terror as the attacks increased in ferocity. Everyone knew who was behind it, but authorities could not prove it.

Over time, the preacher and his wife strained under the stress. The children, the writer and her brother, spent nights not sleeping or having nightmares. It was a disaster as this family faced the wrath of a man bent on destroying them. Neighbors rallied, journalists wrote and politicians spoke, but no one could understand the nightly fear that this family faced. It is a story that makes the reader wonder about the depths to which some will resort to get their way.

However, it made me wonder about something else as well. The writer continuously praises the faith that her parents had in God. They refused to move because God would protect them. They refused to confront the terrorist because God would find His way into the man’s heart. They would not give up the small church because God wanted them there. Family begged them to move, but God didn’t want them to move.

Look, if someone has faith in a higher power, then that is their right. If someone has enough faith to place themselves in harm’s way for that higher power, then that is fine by me. I don’t understand it, but it is their life. However, I have a real problem when someone uses faith as an excuse to keep someone else in danger. This couple forced their children, who had no choice, to live a terrible childhood, because that’s what God wanted. THAT IS RIDICULOUS. I heard somewhere that God helps those who help themselves. Placing innocents in a dangerous situation because of faith is criminal. In my mind, it is just as criminal as the people setting the dynamite.

In the end, God didn’t come to the rescue. As the family harbored an abused wife, her husband walked into their home and shot both parents. The mother was killed almost instantly, and the father survived physically. He did not, however, survive mentally. After spending time in various institutions, he died of a blood clot.

The writer finishes by describing the strength of her faith and how it got her through. Various reviewers write about how this is such a great testament to faith. I say that it is a testament to stubbornness – a testament to putting your children through Hell while telling them that is the way to Heaven.