Left Coast Cowboys

Anyone who’s been following my blog knows I’ve been under pressure to buy a gun, mostly from the British contingent. As my friend Rob says, “You’re an American. It’s part of your culture.” The plan accelerated two years ago when Republican blog chatter started claiming Obama was going to clamp down on gun ownership. I’d never thought much about having a gun, but when it suddenly seemed as if it was going to stop being easy to get one, I thought more seriously about getting myself armed up. What? You don’t think an East Coast educated Liberal needs a gun? Ever seen Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? I rest my case.

And you see that’s been my problem. I’ve been basing my gun choices on my favorite cowboy stars. If Clint, John or Gary were packin’ it, I was ready to buy it. My other mistake, apparently, was to work backward from whatever it was I wanted to kill — which was, basically, nothing. Seems that’s the wrong approach. Or at least that’s what they told me today down at The Last Gun Shop.

I'm not sure why it's called The Last Gun Shop. Maybe because you have to get nearly 70 miles outside of San Francisco to find one.

Some situations just call for full disclosure. So when the young (and heavily armed) young man behind the counter asked, “How can I help you”, I spoke right up:

“Can you help a Liberal buy a gun?”

Yes, this pistol-packin' gal here and above is Jane Fonda in her role as Cat Ballou. A great Western comedy, complete with Lee Marvin in a dual role and a drunken horse.

That brought all the tough guys, many in camouflage jackets, crowding around the counter. Clearly I was not a typical visitor to gun shops. Even shops this close to Wine Country. (It should be noted that the town of Napa is actually a lot closer to hunting territory than it is to sipping territory. You have to go up the Valley a bit to find Cabernet instead of Calibers.)

“Well, do you have any idea what kind of gun you are looking for?”

“I kind of had my heart set on a Belle Starr/Miss Kitty sort of thing. You know a derringer. Maybe with a pearl handle.”

My nice young clerk wasn’t even going to dignify this with an answer. So I tried another tack. That full disclosure thing.

“See, I’m living part time out in the country. Alone. And there is a Mountain Lion on our property.”

As he reached for a shotgun that looked as if it would take down a buffalo, I quickly added:

“Oh, I don’t want to shoot the Mountain Lion. In fact, knowing Mountain Lions, I don’t think I’d even see it if it decided to leap off a ledge onto my neck. Actually, we’ve had some break-ins and I was looking for a gun for protection.”

That led to a completely different gun case. But still a series of firearms that looked entirely too deadly for my tastes.

As I gingerly tried hefting some of the rifles, I worked up the courage to make my real goal known:

“You know, I think I just want to scare someone away. What would happen if I shot someone with this gun?”

The answer was short and to the point: “He would die.”

“Um, do you have something that would just spray a little buckshot but not really kill or maim anyone? Kind of like the gun Dick Cheney used to shoot his friend in the face.”

As soon as I said it, I expected a sneer of contempt. But never underestimate the kindness of Gun Shop people.

“Look, why don’t we find you something that’s big enough that the Bad Guys can see it. And that is loud enough that it scares them.”

That's how I found myself holding a pump-action 20 gauge Remington shotgun.

“I think this is going to be the right gun for you”, said my new Gun Shop Buddy. “Listen to the sound of this pump action.”

You know that dramatic Tschhhhhh-Tsch sound when The Man With No Name pumps up his gun before the gunfight? That’s the sound this gun makes.

“There”, said my Gun Shop Buddy, “anyone sane and clean who hears this sound will know you mean business. You won’t even have to fire a shot.”

“Great”, said I, “Just what I want. A pre-emptive firearm.”

“Of course, if a meth-head is coming at you, you’ll completely re-evaluate your desire not to shoot anything.”

Hmmmm. Maybe. But I’m hoping the combination of terrier howling and now my completely bad-ass Western sounding pump action rifle will keep all but the baddest dudes away.

So now I just have to wait out ten days while the ATF checks out if I have any felonies to my name.

Call me a traitor to my political affiliations, but I’m kind of liking the idea of being armed.

My only question now:

Can I get gun racks fitted to my Prius?

Addendum: If you’re stumped by my Liberty Valance reference, this’ll help ya Pilgrim:

Thirty years ago June 11th, John Wayne died. Seems like he never left us. Two years ago, as I planned for an epic cross-country roadtrip with my niece, it was coincidentally, the 100th anniversary of John Wayne’s birth. At that time, I made it a point to get reacquainted with The Duke’s movies, mostly since we were planning to drive through Monument Valley, the scene of so many iconic John Ford/John Wayne Westerns.

Several days and several Ford/Wayne Westerns later, I came out of the experience with a 180 degree change of view from when I went in.

I hadn’t seen many Ford Westerns or I hadn’t seen them in decades. But my view was pretty much the common perception. John Ford was a genius who reinvigorated the Western and brought new adult themes to it. John Wayne, his frequent star, was a great presence, but no actor. What merit his performances have are all the result of good directing. At least on repeat viewing, I found that perception completely false.

Before you go to Monument Valley, you have to see all the Ford/Wayne Westerns that made this place the iconic look of the cinematic West.

I’m not denying the recognizable abilities of a superb filmmaker. More informed viewers than me such as Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Peter Bogdanovich, Sergio Leone, and Jean-Luc Godard have all cited Ford as an inspiration. He certainly broke new ground with his cinematography, especially in making Western landscapes further the story line and themes.

But at least the movies I viewed didn’t seem to hold up as well as they should have and didn’t seem as sophisticated as other films before and contemporary to them. Take The Searchers which is hailed for its gritty, dark portrait of a man obsessed with finding his kidnapped niece — not to save her, but perhaps to kill her since, in his mind, she’s now “the leavings of an Indian buck.” Great story and brilliantly told when the focus is on that thread. But Ford interweaves an almost vaudevillian secondary romantic plot into the proceedings which seems to undermine his main theme. In the niece storyline, we are confronted with the racial prejudices of Wayne and the settlers. Yet the romantic plot features a 1/8th Cherokee who is pursued by a white woman — a woman who has stated the kidnapped Debbie would be “better off with a bullet in her brain” than living with Indians. If that’s what she thinks, why is she so anxious to marry the part Indian? And why oh why does that storyline have to be treated like broad comedy complete with a fight scene that wouldn’t be out of place in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? It’s completely jarring when it intrudes on the darker story.

I didn't think Ford's directing stood the test of time in The Searchers. But John Wayne did.

The portrayal of Indians in general is pretty cringe-worthy in most of the Ford movies I’ve now seen. Film scholars are always saying, “Ford was not prejudiced. He was trying to portray prejudice.” Well, I will give him this. He was an equal opportunity stereotyper. Although Ford was as Irish as Murphy’s cow, every one of his films seems to feature the kind of broad comedy whiskey drinkin’, Blarney talkin’, brawlin’ Irish buffoon that went out with the demise of Lucky Charms commercials. And he also seems to get a “Ya sure, ya betcha” Swede in most of his movies, as well. I can’t be sure, but I thought he actually had a Mexican character saying, “!Ai, Chihuahua!” (This would be a question for Ask A Mexican, but has any Mexican, anywhere and at any time, ever said, “!Ai, Chihuahua!”?)

The Duke, on the other hand, turns in understated, but complete performances in every film I’ve seen him in so far. If you are going to credit Ford for producing those performances with good direction, why didn’t his directing genius seem to extend to all the hammy, over the top performances of the other actors — including most of his leading ladies and certainly all the twinkly Irishmen and dithery Swedes?

To be fair, I watched the Duke in movies where he was directed by others. The same solid performances. Even Ford gave Wayne backhanded credit. According to Hollywood legend, when he saw Wayne’s dark performance in Red River, he said, “I never knew the big son of a bitch could act!”

Granted Red River was directed by Howard Hawks, who was no slouch himself. But again, I think the Duke gets the credit. Nobody turns in consistently good performances in movie after movie, under a variety of different directors, unless he’s at least a natural.

In Rio Bravo, Duke has great chemistry with a surprising co-star, Dean Martin as alcoholic ex-deputy, Dude. Dino has the same naturalistic acting as the Duke.

Speaking of a natural, check out Dean Martin in one of my favorite John Wayne Westerns so far, Rio Bravo. As one of the few men to stand with Wayne against an outlaw band, Martin plays a drunken ex-deputy, which some of you will call “not much of a stretch”. But Martin doesn’t play a drunk as Hollywood tended to in the Fifties, as a staggering, slurring slob. He underplays as a sweating, shaking wreck in the late stages of the DTs.

Angie Dickinson is around as the love interest for the Duke, but all the chemistry is between Wayne and Martin. While the other actors act. Wayne and Martin just are. It’s a great Western, even if Howard Hawks couldn’t resist adding a little comic relief with Walter Brennan as Wayne’s sidekick, Stumpy. Unfortunately, a little Walter Brennan goes a long way, but I’d suggest that Hawks uses him less than Ford would have.

In Liberty Valence, The Duke takes on Lee Marvin AND Lee Van Cleef. Jimmy Stewart isn't much help.

My next favorite Wayne movie: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The Duke plays a classic Western tough guy, at a time when his kind was on the verge of becoming an anachronism. His foil is Jimmy Stewart as the young lawyer (and seriously too old for the part) who represents where the West is heading. Together, they have to face possibly the scariest array of bad guys ever filmed: Lee Marvin as the sadistic Liberty Valance and Lee Van Cleef as his sidekick. (That’s twice the bad guy power of most Westerns and that’s leaving out the members of Valance’s gang played by unknown character actors.) Surprisingly, next to the Duke, Jimmy Stewart — who generally gets credit for being an accomplished naturalistic actor — seems mannered and studied with his stuttering, dithery schtick. Ford, in addition to some great iconic shots, does also shoehorn in his trademark “Ya Sure, Ya Betcha” Swede. But he does a better job than in The Searchers with the theme of prejudice. One of the most sympathetic and loyal characters, Pompey, John Wayne’s Black handyman, is shown in one schoolhouse scene reciting the “All men are created equal” part of the Declaration of Independence. Then in later scenes, he’s shown not invited in to vote and later refused service at the bar. The Wayne character makes clear his views on the matter with one line, delivered without much embellishment: “Sully, give him a drink.”

Eventually I ended up seeing all of John Ford’s work. But I still maintain that John Wayne contributed as much to Ford’s legend as Ford did to Wayne’s.

So here’s to you, Duke. I’m glad I found you again. Now let’s get those cattle across the river.

Addendum: One of my favorite John Wayne stories has nothing to do with Westerns. An executive at the Bath Iron Works, the shipyard that has been producing US Navy vessels for over 100 years, told me about the time John Wayne was invited to christen a battleship. He smashed the champagne bottle over the hull, which was supposed to signal the hydraulics to release the ship down the ramp and into the water. Nothing happened. In as superstition-riddled an industry as the maritime world, this is the greatest bad juju — pretty much a curse on a ship for all time. There was a horrified pause. Then the Duke reached out with one long arm and gave the bow of the ship a shove. It slid down the ramp to thunderous applause.

Need more Duke? Roger Ebert of TV Critic fame and one of the best bloggers out there, put up this post earlier today. (But then Roger is always way ahead of most of us.) Read it for some wonderful personal remembrances of Wayne and a great deconstruction of his acting technique. Which was actually no technique.