Fun With Saints

I was raised Catholic.  So it is odd that I am named Dale. Catholics maintain a long tradition of naming children for some biblical figure or saint.  You can imagine my parochial school experience.  All of my classmates boasted familiar names like Michael, David, Steven, Theresa, Mary.  It seems there were a lot of Margarets; and they all had freckles, but I digress.  A common activity at the beginning of the school year, especially during the early years when they were trying to drive the essence of the religion into our soft little heads, was to discuss the lives of the saints who were the namesakes of the students.  Not for old Dale though; there is no Saint Dale.  The only famous person named Dale was Dale Evans, wife of Roy Rogers (look it up, Tinker Belle).  When they came to me, the nuns would just look woefully as if they knew I was destined for perdition.

Even if you were not raised in the Catholic tradition, you probably understand the concept of the Patron Saint.  If you are unfamiliar with the subject, pick up a dictionary.  Look up the word saint.  Then look up the word patron.  Put the two definitions in your mind and shake (don’t stir) your head.  If the notion still eludes your delicate intellect, close this blog and pick up your comic book.  You and Thor can have a wonderful evening together.

I thought that you might enjoy meeting some of the saints as their lives, and deaths for martyrs, tend to be quite inspirational.  Trying to keep the length of this missive manageable, I’ll offer just a few examples this week.  If I get a favorable response; hell, if I get any response at all, we’ll (see how I distributed the blame to the reader base there with careful selection of a pronoun) revisit the subject from time to time.

Saint Rene Goupil – First Martyr in North America.  Entered the Jesuit noviate in Paris, France; deafness prevented his joining the order.  Studied medicine; in 1639 offered to work as a medic for Jesuit missionaries in America.  Missionary to the Hurons (a native American people, Tinker Belle) as a layman without pay.  Captured and tortured by the Iroquois, enemies of the Huron. His death by tomahawk to the head led to his patronage of people who work with or receive anesthesia. I guess the lesson here is; clobbering someone over the head with a hammer is an effective anesthetic if you don’t kill the patient!

Saint Andrew – Apostle.  Brother of Simon Peter (first pope). Martyr; crucified on a Saltire Cross (X-shaped as opposed to T-shaped.)  Lore has it that this was done at the request of the martyr as deference to the crucifixion of Jesus.

 

Patron saint of Scotland – legend has it that the Pictish (early Scots) King Angus was facing an invading army and prayed for guidance.  A white cloud in the form of a saltire cross floated across the blue sky above him.  Angus enjoyed a decisive victory and to honor Andrew’s influence, decreed him to be the patron saint of Scotland.  Interesting, but hardly as salacious as…

Patron saint of happy marriages – German tradition has it that a single woman looking to marry should seek St. Andrew’s help on the eve of his feast (Nov. 30^th), then sleep naked that night; she will see her future husband in her dreams.  Now, St. Andrew is also the patron saint of maidens and pregnant women, and sleeping naked seems to be a good way to facilitate the transition from one to the other.  It may also lead to sword-tip weddings.

Saint Barbara – Martyr.  Beheaded by her pagan father Dioscorus for converting to Christianity.  It is told that upon her murder, her father was immediately struck by lightning.  Her association with death from above led to patronage of all types of war related occupations including artillery men, ammunition workers and armorers.  The lesson here; don’t decapitate someone with an explosive personality… and an in with God!

Saint Gabriel the Archangel – messenger of God.  Gabriel was sent to Earth by God on three occasions: The first was to explain to the prophet Daniel his own visions regarding the Messiah; the second was to announce to Zachary the coming of his own son, John the Baptist; the third, and most important, was his appearance to Mary to let her know about upcoming role as mother of Jesus and that she could no longer expect the virgin discount.  Thus, he is the patron of postal workers.  Now this is all pretty heady stuff, but it leaves me a bit confused.  My understanding is that sainthood is conferred upon people whose life of religious devotion was so exemplary that the Church could canonize them being fairly certain that upon their death they would, without question, be accepted into heaven. Here’s the rub: Angels aren’t people; don’t have a life or death as they are immortal and… they’re already in heaven!  You figure it out, it just makes my head hurt.  Interesting factoid:  Only three angels are mentioned in the bible by name; Gabriel, Michael and… can you name the third?  E-mail me if you think you’ve got it.  And God will know if you looked it up in Wikipedia! 

That’s all for now.  Don’t forget to say your prayers before going to sleep.

Extra! Mars Attacks!

This is a special bulletin for my loyal, or accidental, readers.  Tuesday night, April 8, 2014, you have the opportunity to witness an unusual astronomical phenomenon without aid of telescope.  The Red Planet, Mars, named for the Roman god of War (not the candy bar), will be directly opposite the Sun making for a rare full-sky transit, much like a full moon, only smaller; much, much smaller.

What this means, if such things interest you, is that you can watch Mars cross the sky from east at sunset to west at the following morning’s sunrise.  This occurs only once every two years.  And this year, it happens to coincide with the Red Planet being closest to the Earth since 2007.  While I doubt there is any merit to spending the entire night looking up, it is worth a few moments to take a break from your usual Tuesday night regimen to go outside and give it a peek.

Mars will be easy to find.  It is red.  “Aha,” you are saying to yourself, “now I know why they call it “The Red Planet!  Thanks, Dale.”  It will be brighter than all but the brightest background stars.  Where you look is dependant of when you look.  The earlier viewers will want to look to the east (that’s opposite from the side of the sky you last noticed the Sun to occupy).  You barflies will want to look west, before you get into your cab, for the ride home. If you are out about midnight, look straight up, then remember to schedule an appointment with your chiropractor in the morning.

I, of course, will be enjoying the view through my telescope. Yes, I’m enough of a nerd to own a telescope.  It is small (no double entendre here, although I sometimes do feel slightly inadequate) but will give me a closer look.  If any of you can find my house in the dark, you are more than welcome to take a peek.  Warning, I will not be up and planet gazing at two o’clock in the morning, so save yourself the extra cab fare to Valley Center and just go home.

That’s it from the Obsequious News Service!  Good night.

Be sure to look for my regular blog post this Thursday.  If you liked this one, you’ll be thoroughly confused by the next.

  

The Best-ees 1.0

I do not watch award shows.  I don’t care for the Oscars or Emmys or Country Music Awards.  They seem to me merely vehicles for squeezing one last dollar out of their fan bases.  They don’t care about you.

But I am different.  My motivations are pure. I wish only to entertain and educate.  So I am creating my own celebration of artistic achievement in popular media.  And to maximize the value of this recognition, I am expanding the field.  These selections are not representative of a single year’s product but of all time.

In this first iteration of my awards, we will start with movies.  Over time I may expand to other popular art forms such as books, music or rodeo.  And I promise, the categories will be recommendations you can use.  There will be no technical categories like editing and sound.  I will not burden you with subjective opinions on artistic endeavors.  The categories will be established to reflect what the audience talks about on the ride home from the cinema (or other art forms as I select).

So I introduce to you, the first volume of The Best-ees!

As we all know, the honor is in being selected.  There is no shame in not receiving the award.  But if we don’t pick a winner, there is no drama.  The list of nominees is created strictly from my experience.  The votes are submitted by me and tabulated by the defunct accounting firm of Arthur Anderson, L.L.P. (see Enron).

And now, the categories:

Best Sword Fight in a Movie

Ah, the swashbuckler; heroes of our youth.  Who among you didn’t get a little excited when you saw that your mother was near exhausting a roll of gift wrap paper, be it for Christmas or birthday celebration?  You knew that shortly you would have a cardboard-tube sword with which to pummel your sibling or next door neighbor.  If you were of a medieval mind, you would take up a trashcan lid shield and flail away until your sword unraveled.

For this category, I have limited the nominees to period correct pieces.  There is no need to clutter the field with films set in modern times where an easily obtained handgun could hastily end a sword fight (e.g., Highlander).  And I am not interested in Chinese movies where the emphasis in on wire assisted acrobatics.  No, this category is for men with iron wills and steel blades. 

 The nominees:

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner Bros. – 1938)  Who can forget the epic battle between Robin (Errol Flynn) and Sir Guy (Basil Rathbone) on the stone steps of the castle, with no balustrade!  Both Flynn and Rathbone are universally recognized as superior swordsman, their skills as such being foundational to their careers.

The Princess Bride (Twentieth Century Fox – 1987) An unusual selection as the emphasis of this film is comedy.  And, the best swordfight (among many) occurs between characters who eventually become allied in a common purpose.  Westley (Cary Elwes) and Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) engage in combat upon their first meeting, not realizing they are chasing the same enemy.  During the fight, Inigo notes by the location of Westley’s scabbard that he has been fighting with his weak hand.  When asked why, Westley shares that he wanted his opponent to have a fair chance.  The wise Inigo breaks off the encounter to resume the pursuit of his father’s killer, discretion being the being the better part of valor.  It is the nonchalance of Westley’s confidence that elevates this scene.

The Mark of Zorro (Twentieth Century Fox – 1940)  While Tyrone Power did not carry the swashbuckling credentials of Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., his adept handling of the dual personalities of Don Diego the fop and Zorro the bandit make this (in my opinion, of course) his best role.  Accordingly, his opponent Capt. Esteban Pasquale, is played to perfection by (who else) Basil Rathbone.  Forget Antonia Banderas.  Let go of George Hamilton.  This is the Zorro you want to see.

And the winner is…

                                              The Mark of Zorro!

In the climactic duel scene, Esteban struts his feathers by doing some stretching exercises then whisking out the flame of a candle with his sword tip without disturbing the candle in its holder.  In turn, Zorro slashes out at a lighted candle but when the flame continues to burn, Esteban demonstrates his disrespect for the hero’s ability by laughing.  Then Zorro reaches out gently with his sword, tipping the top half of the candle to the floor showing he had bisected it without disturbance.  You can see he loses his smug facial expression that Esteban’s confidence, as well as hid bladder, have betrayed him.

Best Single Line Delivery in a Movie

Who among us has not stood in front of a mirror and practiced a line learned from a favorite movie hero? “Go ahead, make my day!” “Are you talkin’ to me?”  “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.  How he got into my pajamas, I don’t know.”

Why is it our funniest retorts or best challenges occur to us fifteen minutes after our audience has left?  Is it that we are not imbued with the wit and intellect of the stars of the silver screen?  I’m guessing it has more to do with the fact we are not aided by a clever script and talented film editing. 

 The nominees:

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!” Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) to Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – 1939).  If you have seen this movie, then you know why Rhett has given up.  For almost four hours, Scarlett has been whining, crying, using, manipulating and offending everybody south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  If they’d followed my lead, they could have saved Atlanta because my cheeks surrendered after minute 197!  Thank God this epic piece of soap opera dribble has an intermission.   It provides armed theater patrons an opportunity take their weapons out to their cars, thereby averting a mass suicide somewhere between reel nine and ten.  But you have to admit, it is an iconic line that all of us have at some time used to sum up our frustration with some whiney malcontent.

 “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.” Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart…I’ll bet you didn’t know the character’s last name) to Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) in Casablanca (Warner Bros. – 1942).  For my money, the best American dramatic film ever.  Think back to the beginning of the movie.  Rick is a drunk.  He’s given up on life all because he lost Ilsa in Paris.  And after the character growth that he has experienced in this twenty-four hours, after his epiphany that the worst thing for himself is the best outcome for his lost love, his farewell words are a toast.  How true to type!

“Insanity runs in my family, it practically gallops!” Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) to Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane) in Arsenic and Old Lace (Warner Bros. – 1944). This is one of the movies that molded me into the fanatic I am.  Every scene will make you laugh.  Don’t try and watch this movie and drink milk at the same time.  In addition to the superlative talent of Cary Grant, the supporting cast includes Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre and Jack Carson.  While lacking the social significance of the other nominees in this category, it is the archetypal madcap comedy.

And the winner is…

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!”  

As tedious a film as Gone with the Wind is, no other example of American cinema offers a line so readily and universally recognizable. If only the editor hadn’t been paid by the frame. 

Well that’s it for the inaugural episode of the Best-ees.  Keep watching for future offerings in the weeks and months to come.  Some of the future categories I will address are: Best Speech in a Movie, Best Car Chase in a Movie and Best Portrayal of a Nazi as Buffoon in a Movie.  If you have a recommendation for a Best-ees category, e-mail me at daleholbrookoutwest@gmail.com.  Thanks again, and use some floss to get that popcorn out of your teeth!

Economics for Drunkards

I hope the title does not scare you away.  This is not going to be a voyage through the academic doldrums of the dismal science.  The first reason being, economics is dull.  The second, I am not qualified to present such a tour.  Let me assure you, among most of my readers, I am probably the closest to being qualified.  But the truth is, of the hundreds of pages read, and the myriad lectures attended in completion of my business degree (which included three Economics classes), I remember only three things:

·         The natural price of any commodity is determined by the intersection of the supply and demand curves.

·         Economics is the only science that uses the term “utile” (yoo-tile).

·         The girl that sat in front of me in Intermediate Micro Economics was stunning.

I am sure that somewhere in a previous post I shared my belief that Economics is a behavioral science.  And as such, much like its academic kin, Psychology and Sociology, provides tools for explaining what happened in the past but has demonstrated damn little usefulness in predicting future events.

In those aforementioned academic brushes with Economics, this student was exposed to various mathematical tools that when faithfully applied resulted in the production of very impressive charts and graphs purporting to divine future events regarding monetary outcomes given specific assumptions about human behavior.  And it should be obvious to you by now that it is not the fault of the tools, but the humans’ failure to behave as predicted that causes the problem.  For this, we must cast some blame at the feet of the Psychologists.  Much of Economic Theory is predicated on the assumption that people, known rather dispassionately to the economist as consumers, will always behave in a manner that advances their own self interests.  This consumer is known as the rational man.

It is hard to build a reliable test for living, breathing human subjects, as they are often smarter (albeit, less educated) than the experimenter.  So, the economist has no choice but to create the surrogate rational man and subject him to the experimental psychologist, who learned very early that the way to avoid chaotic results was to abandon humans as test subjects in favor of white mice. Therefore, it is easy to understand why economists are frustrated when their test population shows a preference for beer over cheese.  A mouse will quickly learn the shortest route to its reward and continue to shave time off of its maze navigation building on its success.  The student volunteer; being motivated by that cool, frothy elixir will, after repeated successful attempts begin to demonstrate a rather sharp drop-off of performance, quite often pausing in mid-test to nap.

To overcome this weakness in test design, the economists introduced a second variable (pizza) and a unit of measurement to conveniently assign a relative value.  This unit is the “utile” which has no naturally occurring mathematical properties.  It is only useful in identifying the degree of preference for one consumable over the other.  The rational man will always assign a lower utile value to the next unit of any consumable than he did to the last until, when finally sated for his desire of the consumable in question the utile value drops to zero.

Let me try to demonstrate the theorem:  A hungry rational man will buy a pizza.  And he will buy some beer to accompany the pizza.  If that rational man is still hungry and thirsty, he will continue to buy pizza and beer in such quantities as his cash permits.  But as his hunger is sated and his thirst slaked, the amount he is willing to pay for each additional pizza or beer decreases: That is to say, the cash has a greater utile value than the next pizza or beer.  (If you are with me so far, you have completed the minimum work product for Econ 101.)  But the rational man does not behave like the typical student.  It is evident to any person visiting a frat house the morning after a party, that while there may be boxes of unfinished pizza lying about, one is highly unlikely to find an untapped keg or capped beer bottle.  The evidence seems to establish that unlike most consumables where the utile value decreases as availability increases, an inverse relationship, beer (and other intoxicants) demonstrates the opposite trend (a positive relationship).  The more one drinks, the more one wants to drink; until of course one passes out.

 

There is one other well-tested example yielding a similar outcome.  But this is hardly the place to analyze the phenomenon unfolding within the environs of a strip club.  I wonder what ever happened to that girl from Intermediate Micro Economics.

Who Are Your Heroes?

he·ro

 noun \ˈhir-(ˌ)ō\

: a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities

: a person who is greatly admired

: the chief male character in a story, play, movie, etc.

I believe everyone has heroes.  I am not sure why.  Perhaps we possess and innate sense for superior human behavior and are attracted to persons who display those characteristics most likely to result in our own survival.  Or maybe we are so steeped in cultural history that as a society we have all learned to admire the same traits.  Either way, we pick out persons whose lives we believe are worthy of our admiration and emulation.  This is true whether we choose real-life figures of fictional characters.

Interestingly, all civilizations, thriving or extinct, seem to develop a mythology populated with heroes who display the same worship-worthy qualities; e.g. courage, honesty, loyalty, righteousness.  Think of the movies you have seen in your lifetime.  Then dust off that corner of your mind reserved for those things you were supposed to have learned in school.  Recall high-school freshman English and your cursory exposure to Greek and Roman (and maybe Norse, if you were lucky) mythology.  Compare Heracles (Hercules) with James Bond; both stalwart defenders of the flame (virtue), undeterred by any foe and compelled by duty to vanquish evil.

If your childhood was like mine, play included emulation of movie, television and (when absolutely necessary) literary heroes to whom you had been exposed.  A list of heroes would differ from generation to generation.  Historical and pop-culture influences change over time.  While I might envision myself astride a white stallion exclaiming, “High-oh Silver, away!”  (The Lone Ranger, for you younger readers) Your offspring probably immerse themselves in video games assuming an alter ego we’ve never heard of.  But it is the same story, even if today’s presentation is a bit more graphic.

As we age, our heroes may tend away from the fictional to the historical.  World War II had a significant influence on my generation as our fathers’ characters had been tempered there.  Movies and TV continuously reinforced our perception of that conflagration even if our fathers were reluctant to do so.  Graduating from movies to history books, we replaced the fictional portrayals with biographies of men who had actually shaped the history of the time.

Achieving intellectual maturity, our definition of heroism may have expanded to include not only the warriors but the society creators as well.  We can only appreciate the value of our own country if we know the stories of the founding fathers and their struggle to establish true freedom as a standard for society.  And we learn to appreciate the bravery of those individuals who rose up against the anachronistic social institutions that denied equal access to the American Ideal.

As I enter that stage of my life where introspection and observation join together to create a model of the world that pleases me, I find that those heroes I truly learned from, like most every other lesson my life has taught me, tend towards the unconventional.

Bret Maverick – from the 1950’s television show Maverick. The decade was rife with Westerns.  You couldn’t hardly change the channel and some cowboy was shooting at some other cowboy accompanied by the musical score of the Warner Bros. studio orchestra.  There were Marshals (Gunsmoke) and bounty hunters (Wanted Dead or Alive); hired guns (Have Gun, Will Travel) and cattle drovers (Rawhide); settlers (Wagon Train) and more Marshals (The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp); all epic tales of the post Civil War wild west; tense stories of survival in a savage land.  Then there was Maverick.  Neither talented gunmen nor stalwart peace officers, they (that’s right, there were two of them… then three… well it gets complicated and has much to do with contract difficulties, but I digress) were brother gamblers.  Their mission was to roam from town to town, looking for a poker game and trying to live up to their Pappy’s philosophy.  The key that set them apart was their aversion to personal danger; they were the archetypal reluctant hero pressed into actions by uncontrollable circumstances.  Add James Garners’ penchant for satirical humor and you begin to see the irony.  The two brothers, Bret (James Garner) and Bart (Jack Kelly) appeared in alternate weekly stories occasionally both appearing in the same episode.  While they had equal billing, Bret was clearly the bigger audience draw.

Sylvester – the Warner Bros., Merry Melodies cat.  Anyone who knows me well is aware of my passion for Warner Bros. cartoons.  In my professional life, I was exposed to a constant string of leadership seminars.  A frequently repeated feature of these programs was to ask the participants to complete a survey card requesting personal information about the attendee.  The cards were read to the class and based on the anonymous responses to the questions they were to attempt to identify which of their coworkers was describing themselves.  One of the most common questions was, “Who is your hero?” or “Who would you most like to emulate in your life?”  You can imagine the answers: Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, my dad.  My answer always drew the strongest reaction; it was, “Bugs Bunny.”  But in reality, he was the ideal.  My real-life role model was Sylvester.  I still root for him as he launches his overly complicated plans to eat that obnoxious little bird.  Truly, can you think of a soul more committed to a single mission?  Sylvester was created in 1945 by director Friz Freleng.  His first pairing with Tweety was 1947’s Tweetie Pie which became the first Warner Bros. cartoon to be awarded an Oscar.  While Sylvester began his career solo (Life with Feathers – 1945) and appeared with almost all of the Warner Bros. characters during his career, my favorites were always those cartoons involving his quest for that damned, squeaky, mite-infested miniature squawk-box of a bird.  And I wouldn’t have been upset if Sylvester would have taken that umbrella away from Gwanny and shoved it up, well you know where. You have to love a cat whose first line ever was, “Sufferin’ Succotash!”

Plato – yes, that Plato, the Greek Philosopher.  I know, this seems quite the diversion from a roaming gambler and a persistent pussycat but bear with me for a moment and you’ll see where I am going.  I had never given much thought to the Greeks.  Yeah, I know, cradle of democracy and all that baloney.  But if you dig down just below the surface you begin to see a flaw or two.  For crying out loud, they couldn’t even build a complete shoe!  My true enlightenment was born while reading Plato’s seminal work, The Republic (it’s amazing what you can find to waste your time on when you are retired).  The Republic is presented as discussion among Socrates (Plato’s teacher) and his students.  The topic is the creation of an ideal community.  The subject matter included touches on all aspects of life and society.

The conclusion is that society should be stratified; the value of an individual’s trade should dictate where in the hierarchy they belong.  Their lifestyle, e.g. wealth, should be a function of relative worth.  Now this is not unlike our capitalistic society of today.  The more valued your contribution is deemed, the higher your income level.  Up to this point, I have no problem with Plato’s position.  It concerns me somewhat that they believed station could be assigned based on genetic interpretation: A shop keeper is a shopkeeper because his breeding pre-determined it.  But then they change directions and focus their attention to leadership and authority.  It seems the top tier, the decision makers, the ruling class as it were, should be supported by the society at large.  Their lives should be trouble free as to allow their full attention to be applied to the rigors of ruling.  To assure all that the best talent is drawn to this lofty responsibility, the rulers should be provided with only the best.  Even as to the assignment of mates, it would be considered necessary to provide the rulers with women of superior quality so as to assure superior offspring.  And who, you ask, would make up that ruling class?  Why the philosophers, of course.

Is it just me or does anyone else here see the similarity to the finale of Dr. Strangelove (1964-Colombia Pictures)?

Ah, you are now thinking, “Dale, how could you select such an elitist for hero status?”  Because, this is the ultimate in gall!  I admire any person who can tell you how to live your life and that includes a proviso for his own livelihood.  And here I thought majoring in business administration would assure an affluent life.  Little did I know, instead of studying accounting rules, I could have spent my college years sitting around the student center pondering the big question, “Why is there air?”

Well there you go; those are mine.  Who are your heroes?

What's In Your Holster?

As many of you know, I am a gun owner, shooter and avid defender of a liberal interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution.  Okay, take a breath.  In this context liberal is not a reference to a political ideology.  Rather it means I believe the intent of the amendment should be interpreted and applied in the broadest manner; every law abiding citizen, with the mental capacity to do so, should be allowed to exercise their natural right to “keep and bear arms”.  If your personal philosophy leads you to a different conclusion, that is perfectly your right. You’re wrong, but you have every right to be.

But this post is not intended to be a venue for debate of Constitutional issues.  My intent is to give over a brief primer on the selection of a personal firearm.  At this juncture, I would like to offer mine bona fides.  I have been a shooter since I was an eighteen year-old college student.  My first exposure to firearms was in a basic firearms class; part of the required curriculum for Criminology (now known as Criminal Justice Administration) majors.  My first acquisition of a personal firearm coincided with my acceptance into the Advanced Firearms class, which was the home of the school’s pistol team.  I have shot and owned a variety of handguns and long guns since then; having never been without a firearm since.

I have carried and used firearms for recreation, sport, personal protection and professional need.  While I do not consider myself a collector, I do own a small arsenal of about two dozen guns.  Yes, Tinker Belle, they are locked securely in a safe.  When I was a young man, my enthusiasm for firearms often led me to fantasize about owning one of everything ever made.  But with age comes economic wisdom and financial reality.  The number of guns I own today is limited more by the size of my safe than any other single constraint; I’m lucky that way.  But I digress.

In my lifetime, I have handled a wide variety of firearms types.  I have sent thousands and thousands of rounds down range.  It has been a point with me to keep reasonably current on design trends.  I am lucky to be part of a community that freely shares information and experiences on the subject.  Am I an expert?  No.  But except for a few readers of this blog, I am one of the most knowledgeable individuals you know.  And I am willing to share some thoughts on how to select a firearm.

The first step, and one that many enthusiasts completely overlook, is to define your purpose.  What are your firearm needs?  If you are looking to a single purpose gun, say home defense, you may direct your attention to a very small pool of possibilities and easily find the gun to best suit your needs.  If you want one handgun to protect hearth and home and also carry for personal protection away from home; your parameters have shifted the focus to a different set of candidates.  Add field carry for protection against animals; you will want to look at a whole new population of weapons.

There are other considerations: Are you young and strong or old and feeble?  Are you a weight lifter or a marathon runner?  Are you male or female?  Do you want to spend a little or a lot?  Given time, and a bunch of monkeys with typewriters, I could probably come up with an infinite list of questions (Et tu, Brute?) to answer before you truly know your needs.

But I don’t have the typing stamina.  You don’t have the time.  And I harbor an aversion to the lesser primates.

Oft times, when discussion steers to the question of, “What gun is right for me?”  The next question is, “What do you carry?”  And the best answer is, “It doesn’t matter.”  And that’s because our disparate needs are so far apart, that I don’t want my prejudice to lead you down a false path.  But the trick to finding the right gun is to shop like you are buying underwear.  What makes you the most comfortable?  If you are uncomfortable, you won’t be happy.  But unlike BVDs, a gun is a pricey purchase and one you don’t want to make hastily.

If you are considering a gun purchase, I would take the used car approach; test drive a bunch until you find something you like.  Mastering the firearm technique is athletic in its nature.  It takes practice to get good at it and if you don’t like your gun you will not practice.  In San Diego, we are blessed to have a very good privately operated public shooting range that offers a large and eclectic inventory of firearms you can rent.  They will take the time to answer your questions and familiarize you with the features of any gun you wish to try.  I think you would have a better experience if you enlist the help of someone you know who has shooting experience.  Just be careful not to let them apply undue influence by overlaying their preferences on your selection.

Now I could load you up here with a bunch of esoterica about gun types, manufacturers, ammunition performance, shooting technique and favorite ice cream flavors.  But it would just overwhelm you and not get you a whit closer to an informed decision.

I think that’s about it.  If I try to provide anymore advice, it will color your decision and I want to avoid that.  If you have specific questions, you can e-mail me and I will be happy to give you the best answer I can.  Also, if you are interested in visiting the range I described above, I will provide the name, location and other important information by e-mail also.  Now, get out there and shoot!

So then; you ask, “What type of gun should I buy?”  To which I respond, “Go back to the top of this posting and re-read it until you understand.”

Sexiest Women of the Monochromatic Era

If you have been reading this blog, it is no surprise to you that I am a fan of films.  You also remember that I am especially fond of the Golden Age of Hollywood, that period from 1930 to 1959.  Among the elements that make the movies of this era special were the actors and actresses that played the characters we now consider icons.

Movie making was a much different industry than what we have become comfortable with in the present era.  We can define today’s practices in one word, independent.  Today, movies are controlled by the production companies, which are in reality capital management firms pursuing money to finance film projects.  You may have noticed that before the credits introduce the technical and artistic talent, the viewer is entertained by slick, digitally-animated company logos.  You will recognize names like Weinstein, DreamWorks, Working Title, Lion’s Gate, and Dimension.  There are myriad others and for big projects, they will often team up.  They are the money finders.  Their positioning in the opening credits should convince you of their importance.  They own the story and the distribution rights; and the profits.  Everything else is rented or contracted from other entrepreneurial enterprises.

This is a significant departure from the Golden Age, or Studio Era, when the studio owned and controlled all aspects of movie making; including the human talent.  The studios would enter into contracts with directors, writers and actors that gave them total control.  The names are familiar; Warner Bros., Twentieth-Century Fox, Columbia, MGM.  The industry was a group of vertical monopolies, owning even the movie houses in which their movies were screened.  These companies still exist (in name) but have morphed into the aforementioned production/distribution enterprises.

The consequence of the Golden Age system was consistency.  When they found a successful formula, they would make their best attempt to replicate it.  So the movie patron would see Cary Grant play handsome sophisticate over and over.  Jimmy Stewart was always cast as the stammering do-gooder dealing with some crises lately shattering his naiveté.  Humphrey Bogart toughed his way through, well, whatever needed to be toughed through.

But the formula worked.  It created stars that were iconic.  The ticket purchasing audience was comfortable with familiarity; John Wayne was never the bad guy, Clark Gable was never a wimp.

However, this is all prelude to the point of my missive.  Today, I want to present my nominees for the sexiest women of the monochromatic period.   “Was that when the dinosaurs walked the earth, Dale?”  No, Tinker Belle, it was the days of the black and white movie and represents roughly 1930 to 1945.   While the first colored movies were produced during this period, most were shot in black and white.  For the true film aficionado, there is a certain mystique associated with the art of black and white film making.  All mood must be set by light and shadow.  The director can’t cheat by using a yellow dress to draw attention to the leading lady.  She had to draw that attention with her style, persona.  And these women had style.  Now you will probably note there are some remarkably talented actresses not included in this list.  That is because I am rating sex appeal and not acting talent or popularity.  I know, this is as subjective as you can get.  If you don’t like it, set up your own blog site and make your own list.

Katherine Hepburn – There are some women born to the lens.  They make their celebrity purely on physical attractiveness.  Katherine Hepburn is not one of those women.  Her sex appeal flows from her personality.  She possessed the rare ability to present a character as both strong willed and confident while being vulnerable to the whimsy of romance  Her four Oscar wins make her the most honored actress in American film.  In her sixty-six year career she appeared in forty-four feature films plus television and stage roles.  I am particularly fond of her early work (her career extended well into the 1980s.  My favorite Hepburn performance is Bringing Up Baby (1938 – RKO Studios).  If you are wondering how Katherine Hepburn makes a list of sexiest women, watch this movie and pay particular attention to the scene at the country club restaurant.

Myrna Loy – If you are familiar with Loy’s early films, in which she was often cast as an oriental, it might be hard to believe she was the product of a Montana ranching family.  Her exotic looks are cause enough for her appearance on this list.  But I find her penchant for turning the tables on male leads by carving holes in their incontrovertible logic her sexiest trait.  No matter her co-star, a simple question shaking the foundation of masculine reasoning would leave the male stammering in retreat.  While she played opposite many of the leading men of the day, her tour-de-force performances were with William Powell.  That partnership began with The Thin Man (1934 – MGM) and was repeated in fourteen films.  In all, she is credited in 138 movies from 1925 to 1982.

Merle Oberon – While Myrna Loy’s early career consisted of Asian characterizations, Merle Oberon was that person.  Born in Bombay, British India (1911) of mixed race, she lived an impoverished life until she moved to France in 1929.  That is where her professional acting career began.  Her real-life story reads something like a Dickens novel but would take too much space to include here.  Her earliest appearances were uncredited and began in 1929.  She continued acting until 1973.  Her most famous roll is opposite Lawrence Olivier as Cathy in Wuthering Heights (1939 – Samuel Goldwyn Co.).  What woman wouldn’t be sexy uttering the name, “Heathcliffe”?

Irene Dunn – Her early career was dedicated to musical theater.  That is where she was discovered in 1929 while starring with the road company of Show Boat and signed with RKO Studios.  She was the prototype female lead in everything from screwball comedies to tear-jerking family dramas.  If you watch her performances, then watch other female comedic actors of the period, you will see mannerisms that originate with Dunne; the squinting smile, the playful shoulder shrug, the feigned wide-eyed innocence.  As with several other women on my list, Dunne was adept at deflating the male ego while maintaining femininity and grace.  Her career included 50 credits spanning 1930 to 1962.  My favorite performances are opposite Cary Grant (three films), most notably The Awful Truth (1937 – Columbia Pictures).

Hedy Lamarr – This is a woman born to the lens; beauty suffices, no brains needed.  Ironically, she was a genius; more about that later.  She was born in Vienna in 1914.  Her early film career included a starring role in Gustav Machaty’s film Ecstacy, which included full frontal nudity and a realistically performed orgasm scene.  This was a rare occurrence in 1933.  She made the move to Hollywood from Europe and was starring opposite the era’s biggest male leads including; Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and John Garfield.  During WWII, she collaborated with composer George Antheil (California neighbor) on the invention, frequency-hopping spread spectrum.  Now I have no idea what that means, but has something to do with limiting an enemy’s ability to jam a radio control signal by unpredictably changing radio frequencies.  While the original application was intended for controlling musical instruments, it was applied to protecting ship-to-torpedo control signals from interference.  If you are a histo-techno-geek, you can look it up yourself.  Her typical role was the glamorous seductress, and her exotic looks and European accent made her a shoe-in for war film parts.  One of the best examples is Comrade X (1940 – MGM) opposite Clark Gable.

Marlene Dietrich – Her sex appeal stemmed from her rolls as an aggressive suitor.  After a middling early career in her native Germany, she enjoyed a breakthrough in the German film Der blaue Engel (“The Blue Angel”) cast as… a femme fatale nightclub singer whose attentions create havoc for an elderly professor.  Do you think the mold was cast?  She moved to America and enjoyed success for some time but then fell out of favor.  In 1939, the Nazi’s courted her, offering state sponsored fame in Germany.  She responded by denouncing the Reich and becoming an American citizen.  From that time on, she was as famous for her entertainment of American servicemen as she was for her movie rolls.  She enjoyed a comeback in one of my favorite films, Destry Rides Again (1939 – Universal Pictures) with James Stewart.  As you watch this film, you will realize it is the inspiration for many of the Western genre clichés, leading to Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles (1974 – Warner Bros.).

Ann Sheridan – Hers was the clichéd story of the big break.  Originally from Denton, TX, her sister sent Ann’s photograph to Paramount Pictures (Ann was attending the University of North Texas at the time) which led to entry in a beauty contest which, in turn, led to a bit part in a Paramount film.  After two years during which Paramount did little to promote the starlet, she left them for Warner Bros. in 1936.  She was tagged the “Oomph Girl” and became a popular pin-up.  Between 1934 and 1967 she accumulated ninety-six acting credits while playing opposite many of the golden age’s most famous male leads.  She was equally adept at drama and comedy.  Two of her best films demonstrate this range: Angels With Dirty Faces (1938 – Warner Bros.); and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942 – Warner Bros).

Jean Arthur – Sorry Lucy, this is the queen of the screwball comedy.  Beginning her career as a silent screen actress in the 1920s, she acted in many low-budget western films.  Arthur struggled to make the transition to talkies, finally breaking through when she discovered her trademark throaty voice.  It was still some time, although she continued to chalk up acting credits, before critics assessed her talents in a positive light.  She starred in three Frank Capra films, the best of which is probably Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936 – Columbia Pictures) with Gary Cooper.  Between 1923 and 1953 she amassed over ninety acting credits.  Her final film, quite opposite to type, was Shane (1953 – Paramount Pictures) with Alan Ladd.  Just as the critics had difficulty in accepting her talent, it took me a while to recognize how many of the films I enjoy featured Arthur in the lead female role.  Unlike many of the women on my list, Jean Arthur was not glamorous.  Her sex appeal is flows from her image as a real woman.

Jean Harlow – The phrase “blonde bombshell” was coined to describe Jean Harlow.  Her early film career was underwritten by Howard Hughes.  While popular with audiences, she was panned by the critics.  She became romantically involved with MGM producer/director Paul Bern who urged Louis B. Mayer to buy-out her contract with Hughes and sign her at MGM.  Mayer declined on the basis that MGM leading ladies were elegant, while Harlow’s persona was that of a floozy which was abhorrent to Mayer.  And that sums up the roles plaid by Harlow.  She was very sexual on screen.  She gave us the dumb blonde stereotype.  The rolls she played contained no slow-burn, below the surface boiling passion.  She was the champagne cork launched across the room.  Unfortunately, she died from renal failure at the age of twenty-six.  Her last film, Saratoga (1937 – MGM) was opposite Clark Gable, with whom she had paired for six films in total.

Maureen O’Sullivan – Although she had almost 100 acting credits over a career of sixty years, she makes the list for one performance; Jane Parker in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932 – MGM) opposite Johnny Weissmuller.  If you have seen the unedited, non-television version of this movie and remember her swimming in the lake with Weissmuller, you know why she qualifies. Hubba, hubba!

There a more than a few iconic leading ladies that are not on this list:

Betty Davis: Talented actress, but would you pick her out in a bar?

Joan Crawford: Important, but scary as hell!

Vivien Leigh: Beautiful… but whine, whine, whine.

Elizabeth Taylor: Way too young for this list, wait for the post-war period.