Get off your horse and.....and.....well......just fuck off, will you!
While waiting to get the barbecue going, I'm sitting in the garden with my laptop, trying to get on the inside of a nice bottle of vino blanc and pondering one of my pet hates.
I've come outside not only to enjoy the glorious weather but also to escape the Devil's Lantern because it's Saturday afternoon and Saturday afternoons mean only two things..........sport and westerns!
Now sport I like. There is nothing wrong with sport on the box, particularly at the moment, what with the rugby world cup in full swing. I love sport of most kinds and listening to it on the wireless outside is, anyway, more exciting. No, what really gets up my goat, almost as much as fucking musicals, is westerns! I bloody hate them!
This, of course, is further evidence than I am not a real man but some kind of woman trapped in the body of Qausimodo's uglier, older brother. As I've mentioned before, I'm crap at DIY, I'm useless with and have absolutely no interest whatsoever in cars and I find talking about football in the pub incredibly boring (even though I like football). On the other hand, I love cooking, I occasionally blub at sad films, I like flowers and I have a respectable pair of tits!
Like most girlies as well, I just find little or no entertainment in bloody westerns. They're all the same. Take the characters. There's always a guy in a black hat and his gang of nasties, a guy in a white hat who stands alone against the world and either a feisty, bosomatic woman bar owner or a shy, Laura Ashley print-frocked, wallflower-type girl. Bit parts invariably include a town drunk, a crooked railroad boss and the odd cute kid desperately looking for a new daddy. Everyone apparently has 24-hour access to Sketchley's and Nicky Clarke, there's always a saloon with little swing doors, drinks have to be slid along the bar and some git is always playing a honky tonk number on the piano but he has orders to stop abruptly when one of the baddies moseys in.
Then we come to the plots. Boiled down, they basically involve the guy in the white hat triumphing over the guy in the black hat, getting the girl and then riding off into the sunset, leaving a trail of dead nasties in his wake, townsfolk who are once again happy and safe and enough spent bullets to melt down and make a lifesize model of the Empire State Building.
The heroes never, ever have any bad points while the baddies never, ever have and good points. Men are men and the horses are scared.
I think my hatred for the genre is exemplified by that neo-Nazi twat who was John Wayne. What a git! A draft-dodging, shambling pile of glycogen who was able to play fewer characters than either Sean Connery or Champion the Wonder Horse.
Nope, it's the garden for me on Saturday afternoons, or the pub if it's raining. Westerns can definitely go to Grantham.
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Shaggy Blog Stories
16 comments:
You have obviously never taken the time to watch "Once Upon a Time in the West", otherwise you would not be so hasty in your judgment. Please take John Wayne, but leave me Woody Strode and Jack Elam.
Never assume! I have, indeed, "taken the time" to watch Once Upon a Time in the West. Wade through the spaghetti and what have you got? A white hat (Fonda), a black hat (Bronson), a homesteader/Laura Ashley print-frocked widow (Cardinale)and more deaths than on the first day of the Somme only, as usual, they are stylised and cartoon-like. The same old tired cliches spiced up with extra violence and death.
""People scare better when they're dying." Oh, perleeeaase! Dying to switch off the telly, more like.
True Grit, Reg.
TRUE GRIT.
also, THE SHOOTIST.
also: Fistfull of Dollars, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
I hear UP YOUR ASS II. is nice. Plot, action, great acting, very natural. And no hats. In fact, no clothes at all.
FN,
Am I picking up slight undertones of disagreement with my thoughts among my three readers?
Fish,
Now that's one I could watch - I wonder if Blockbusters have it? I'm a great fan of the "Oh my lord, all my clothes have fallen off" school of dialogue.
No, I think Disney has it.
While we are talking about the glamorous creations like Up your ass II., or my personal favorite Golden Bitches part I., I would like to comment something on the psyhiatric profile of Mr. Pither here. I belive there is a mistake there. It says "about climbing trees, riding my bike and having fun with girls". Well now, I dont mind the trees, but shouldnt it be riding girls and having fun with my bike?
Fish,
Yes, I could have put it that way. The only trouble is, "having fun with my bike" would have been disrepectful to Mrs Pither.
John Wayne was indeed a Nazi who liked to knock women about even on camera. Westerns are indeed predictable, relying on the same old themes of clear-cut good and evil and of redemption. . . but when I'm on death row, waiting to be carted off to the chair, I'll be watching The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Sorry mate.
oooh!! I did that test (the "rate my life test")
This Was My Life:
Life: 8
Mind: 8.5
Body: 8.2
Spirit: 7.6
Friends/Family: 6.3
Love: 4.5
Finance: 7.1
mind you, that was April. . . suspect some things might have changed since then (hey - you have a great spirit rating! but that's obvious, really)
perhaps you'd have preferred my views on Westerns?
James Stewart was also very right-wing, something I always find deeply disappointing.
ILTV,
If anything ever happens to you (God forbid), can I have your body and your mind, please? I seem to be sadly lacking in those departments. In the meantime, bearing in mind you scored 7.1 on finance, would you lend me a tenner?
Malc,
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
alright, since you asked so politely - but what do I get in return?
(this is the second time I've played Bloggers-Multi-Coloured-Swap-Shop today)
ILTV,
I've got an old plaster cast? It's sawn in half now but is that any good?
ILTV,
where do you live, because it would seem to be wise to move there.
But it is realy not fair showing these results to Reg. Hell, even I did better.
My results:
Mind 6,7
Body 9,4
spirit 5
friends 2,9
love 1,5
finance 6,4
It looks like it is impossible not to do better than Reg.
Reg,
you could offer to do some DIY work for money. Fix someones brakes or something.
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