Role-playing maims.

Speaking of America, I guess there's no more American hero than the Western gunfighter. The period of the Wild West was terribly brief in retrospect, and yet no other specific time and place has caught the imagination of people around the world the way the American West has, from the end of the Civil War to the closing of the frontier in 1890 (with some scattered Western adventures before and after). 

In my more concentrated dorkness days I played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons. You younger fellers may not know that the D&D home company, TSR, had role-playing games in other genres, and my own personal Geek Squad tried a lot of them. Gangbusters was a Roaring 20's adventure; Gamma World was a post-apocalyptic adventure. We enjoyed them, although they were not as much fun -- nor did they offer the kind of playground for wild imagining -- as D&D.

And yes, there was a Western role-playing game. Boot Hill operated the same way as the others -- a game master would set the scene, players would create characters, motivation would be provided, and off you went.  

What I remember best was how great my character looked, and how useless he actually was. By the time his dice-rolled characteristics were determined, I had a lean, mean, blazing-fast gunslinger. Unfortunately, he could not hit the broad side of five barns, stacked or aligned. His aim was terrible. His draw was the fastest in the land, faster than any non-player characters we ever encountered, but once that gun was out of its holster it might as well have been a pickleball paddle for all the good it did in combat. Sure, he might get a lucky hit, but mostly he was great for getting the drop on people, outdrawing them and hoping they wouldn't go for the leg iron.

In real life, in actual gunfights, other cowboys might have been similarly impaired. It's one thing to shoot a can off a fencepost, but another to shoot at moving men who are shooting back when the adrenaline is coming out your hat. In the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral, yes, three of the nine men involved were killed, three others were wounded, and two more ran away. Thirty shots were fired, but the whole thing took only 30 seconds, and they weren't all using pistols. Doc Holliday had a shotgun. A lot of missed targets, I reckon. 

The event has invited all sorts of dramatic interpretation, necessary because the story is so famous but the climactic fight so short. The 1993 film Tombstone is more than two hours long, and you can't have a film that long with a fight that lasts just half a minute. In it, the OK Corral battle runs almost five minutes, according to YouTube. Definitely more guys should have been dead if they'd been blazing away that long. Maybe some horses and chickens, too. 

I'm not sure how I got into this narrative hole today. I was just thinking of my Boot Hill character, who probably died in a gunfight -- I don't recall, but Boot Hill did not offer magical healing like Dungeons & Dragons, so characters tended to not last. I think he could he earned a ballad just for his speed, though.

They called him the Rattler

Faster than light

Quickest with iron

In any gunfight

Nobody would challenge

That brave caballero 

Whose gun was as useless

As a vegetable marrow

No matter the target

He aimed like a wimp

Could hit nothing smaller

Than an inflated blimp

One day an old lady

Called him a bum

For using his rocker

As a place for his gum

Of course he outdrew her

And punctured the air

While her old shaky gun hand

Done parted his hair

We buried the Rattler

In dry desert spot

Faster than lightning

But couldn't hit squat

Fastest gun in Boot Hill. I reckon.

Memey Christmas!

Once again it's Meme Saturday here at the ol' blogeroo! Try not to laugh too hard; you might pull something. You may say that Fred's sounding a little cynical here today -- nah, I'm just freaking exhausted. Hard to tell the difference when you're me! 

Horsin' around.

Was busy at the church last week, in the room where they keep a lot of rummage for rummage sales. Rummagepalooza. Anyone want some good rummage? I can hook you up. 

Sometimes I see pretty good toys, things that seem like winners and yet somehow did not get the ever-lovin' snot smushed out of them as a well-loved toy ought to. You never know with kids. You spend a hundred bucks on the toy and they want to play with the box. It's been that way since toys came in boxes.

Here's one I thought was pretty darn good:

I guess this toy proves that unicorns are no more than horses with horns on their heads, however much pink may occur on them naturally. That sound effect could have been around since the days when boys still played games with Western motifs. Now that's straight out, unless it's White Oppressors and Native Resistance. Which could be fun. However, I can imagine the neighing and galloping getting so annoying that a parent throws the thing out the back door, turning it momentarily into a Pegasus.

The point is, I never had a rocking horse to my knowledge, but if I had one like this when I was a toddler, I think I would have spent the day on it. Hi-ho, Pinkie Unicorn! 

Jerry Seinfeld talks about being bored to death as a child doing errands with his mother: "When you’re five and you get bored, you cannot support your body weight. I remember going to the bank with my parents... and I would lie down flat, like, 'Sorry, Mom, there’s nothing I can do. This place is so dull, I cannot get up.' This is what I think adulthood is: Adulthood is the ability to be totally bored and remain standing." But if he got a ride on one of those coin-operated horsies outside the store, he would be totally refreshed, ready to go look at carpet swatches.

If horsie's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'!

Refreshment aside, the other problem with this toy for Baby Fred is that, of course, it's a girl toy. In my childhood in Bedrock, people still expected boys to play with boy toys and girls with girl toys -- guns and knives vs. baby dolls. As a toddler I think I would have just seen a horsie and gone for it. I could have gotten some opprobrium from the males in the family, yes. 

It's no better now, though -- it may even be worse. A modern male toddler riding on a pink unicorn rocker might make his progressive parents very proud, so proud they would start him on female hormones immediately and schedule his gender reassignment surgery. 

It's dangerous out there.

Anyway, it's not an issue for me at the moment. I'm way too big for this toy. I'm sure it will go to a good home, and I hope the little girl who gets it loves it. And if it's a little boy -- well, look out, kid.

Riders of the Purple Nurple.

Looks like we're going to have another Western adventure of the one and only Bang Gunly. 

"BANG GUNLY vs. GANG BUNLY"

by Frederick Key

Dedicated to Mike "Flangepart" Weller,
who has no one but himself to blame for this

Bang Gunly rode his loaner horse into town. The sign, hanging by one nail on the left, said Lonesome Ridge. Sounded nice. He needed a spot to rest a spell. This ol' nag wouldn't take him too much farther without it, and the shop said his palomino wouldn't be ready until morning. Naturally all they had on the lot was an ol' three-legged draft horse named Shirley. 

He hoped he could enter Lonesome Ridge without being seen. Guys were always challenging Bang to a gunfight. He was tired of having to kill 'em. Plus, Shirley was kind of embarrassing. At least he was wearing a mask. Since the Chinese Tumbleweed Flu came to the West, the territories all had rules to wear masks to Stop the Spread and Flatten the Curve. What the goldang heck was the curve, anyway?

"That's one strange horse you got there, mister."

Bang looked up. Speaking of curves! Before him was a fine young lady, built like a brick shipyard under government contract. She had an hourglass figure filled with two hours' worth of sand. Indescribably delicious. And her eyes... uh...

"Up here, mister."

Brown. They were brown.

"Good evening, miss," said Bang, alighting from his saddle with a tip of the hat. He spat a bit of 'baccy juice, which was a mistake in his mask. "And what might your name be?" he asked, digging for a tissue.

"Lululubelle," she said. "Lululubelle Horowitz. I own Only Saloon in Lonesome Ridge."

"What's it called?"

"The Only Saloon in Lonesome Ridge."

"But what's it called?"

"The Only -- you know, never mind. This here's Gabby, my bartender."

Gabby, an older man with a big Mexican style hat and a lanyard with his union badge (Gabbys Local 135), said, "Ayup."

"You a gunslinger, stranger?" asked the comely lass.

Bang shifted his weight manfully and said, "Now how might you know that, missy?"

"Oh, the way you carry yourself with a swagger. The way you jump to the ground with your spurs jingling harmoniously in E and A flat. And the two six-guns at your waist, the shotgun on your back, and the Winchester rifle in your boot."

"Don't fergit the Derringer in my hat band."

"Nice touch. I could use a man like you."

"Hey-O!"

"I mean for fightin'." She fluttered her eyelashes flutteringly. "There's a gang terrorizing Lonesome Ridge, a group of bushwackin' sidewinders called Gang Bunly. I'm sick of them shootin' up my place. Can you take 'em?"

"Gang Bunly!" said Bang Gunly. "That's got kind of a familiar ring."

"It should!" came a craggy voice behind him. Bang spun about to see a foursome of desperadoes, armed to the teeth, which were covered by stolen N95 masks. The big one, a fat greaseball with a flowing mustache that threatened to eat his mask, said, "It's me, Bang! Your cousin, Gang Bunly! And this here is my gang I named after myself!"

The gang made evil noises, and farted just to be more evil.

"Three ain't much of a gang, cuz," said Bang.

"We're just gettin' started. It's more'n enough to take a dumbbell like you."

Bang squinted. "Smile when you say that, pardner."

"I am smilin', you dummy! I got this damn mask on is all! Now you better clear outta here or my gang will plug you where you stand, and your three-legged horse!"

"Now you done gone too far!" said Bang. In the blink of a skeeter's eye he whipped out his two six-shooters and blasted eight holes in three bandits. Do the math. Show all work. 

Gang Bunly found himself standing alone. "You're still handy with the irons, Bang," he said.

"Don't you threaten to kill that horse. I'll never get my palomino back."

Gang snarled. "They'll probably blame you fer that dent in her rear."

Bang snorted. "How's yer old man?"

Gang said, "Toler'ble. Bunions acting up. My sister just had a baby. Little boy named Dang."

"That's right nice."

"How's your ma?" Gang said.

"She's fine."

"Glad to hear it," spat the villain. "She's good people. But she's gonna have to bury her third-favorite son if you don't clear out."

"I'm a-stayin," said Bang.

Gang reached for the guns on his belt. "Oh, yeah?"

"This here town ain't big enough for the two of us," Bang growled.

"Ah reckon you're right," sneered Gang. "What town is?"

Bang thought for a moment. "Phoenix?"

Gang nodded. "Okay."

So they moved to Phoenix and each got a nice little place. Bang got a split-level with utilities included, and Bunly got a two-story walkup still under rent control. 

After they were gone, Lululubelle said, "Who was that masked man?"

"Consarn it, Lululu!" yelled her bartender, Gabby. "How in tarnation should I know? We're all wearin' masks!"

Spaghetti Western?

Here's a mystery that needs solving: What happened to all the wagon wheels?

When I was a kid it seemed like every pasta dish that did not require spaghetti was made with wagon wheel pasta. It was everywhere. Also, we called pasta "macaroni." Everyone did, even the Italian families.

Now you can barely find wagon wheel pasta anywhere. Neither the two local supermarkets nor the nearest Walmart have them (of course Target's grocery section is useless). What happened to the wheels?

Last year the Daily Meal site presented what it called the "Ultimate Guide to Pasta Shapes" -- guess what was left out?

Wagon wheels.

A few brands make them, but they're hard to find. Da Vinci pasta has them, but none of my local stores carry the brand. Italian brands Barilla and De Cecco have them, which I tracked down after some effort; Barilla's is only a mini version, preferable for soups and side dishes, but De Cecco's is the real deal, good for mac & cheese. I got the De Cecco in my local Italian deli. It was the only box they had.

You see that wagon wheel pasta is known in Italy as Rotelle, but the ding-dongs at Ronzoni, once New York's hometown pasta (but no more), use the name "Rotelle" for corkscrew pasta. Even Wikipedia pokes them for that:

"Rotelle should not be confused with rotini
(corkscrew-shaped pasta). Nonetheless, some manufacturers,
such as Ronzoni, produce a twisted pasta with that name."

The Italian word rotelle means wheels, Ronzoni. Smarten up.

I have a theory about the decline and fall of rotelle: it's linked to the fall of the Western as entertainment.

I'm serious. In the fifties and sixties, kids grew up with Westerns all over the TV -- in 1957 the three television networks aired 17 Westerns in prime-time; 18 if you count Micky Dolenz's show Circus Boy. Twenty years later there were three. Ten years after that it was "What's a Western?" As the Western faded in popularity, so did things like Western kitsch in home decoration, and so did the ability of wagon wheel pasta to get kids to eat. Sure, Western movies occasionally get made, but they're far different from what we once knew, and are either horribly violent, anti-American, or most often both. Not for kids. Not the kind of thing that moves the macaroni.

So I suppose the blasta from the pasta that is the wagon wheel will remain hard to find. It is a shame, because it makes an excellent macaroni and cheese.

(P.S.: Here's one for the weird time files; on the show Circus Boy (1956-1958), Micky Dolenz played Corky, a kid in the late 1890s who travels with a circus. Dolenz was 11 when the show started and is 74 now, which means that he's almost the age Corky would have been when The Monkees first aired. Old Man Corky could have watched Micky on The Monkees. Mind = blown.)

Woah is me.

A quota of woe

Was fated for Noah

Because he meant "whoa"

But misspelled it "woah"

(I see this error a lot these days.)

Stampede-Free Zone.

Rah.

Cowboy self-help books.

Men Are from Dallas, Women Are from Houston

Confronting the Inner Varmint

I'm Fair to Middlin', You're Fair to Middlin'

Broaden Yer Range and Spur Yer Success

Brandin' Relevance: Makin' Other Ranches Irrelevent

Seven Secrets of Highly Successful Posses

Pardners fer Life

Who Moved My Beans?

How to Win Cowpokes and Influence Ranch Hands 

The Power of Positive Ridin'

Gettin' to Yup: Negotiatin' Agreement Without Givin' In

The Last Roundup 

The Magic of Thinking Bonanza

Rustlin' fer Dummies

Campfire in the Belly

Awaken the Bushwhacker Within

Say Howdy to Happiness

Day of Reckoning: How to Reckon Right

Hopalong No More

Giddyup Dad, Moseyin' Dad

Red Eye Whiskey fer the Soul

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Sidewindin'

What Color Is Your Six-gun?

How to tell the difference.