Gunfighter: A Modern Warrior's Life

My Dad

Reposted from Real Dads, June, 2007

My parents were divorced shortly I was six years old... Between my father's philandering, unholy temper, propensity for using his hands to express anger, and my mother's unwise use of chemicals, theirs was a match made in the depths of hell. As difficult as it was, their divorce, in 1969, was a blessing for the whole family.

After the divorce, my mother took us three children from California, where my dad was stationed (he was in the Air Force), to New Jersey where my maternal grandmother lived.

We were raised by my mom and (mostly) grand mom, and saw my dad whenever he was stationed somewhere nearby... in the early 70's, it was in central Massachusetts.

On school holidays, my father would drive from Westover Air Force Base, Mass., to our house in NJ, come inside long enough to say hello to my mother and to use the bathroom, and we'd be on the road! It was during these trips that my father first demonstrated his perfectly abysmal ability to tell jokes. My father told the absolutely worst jokes on the planet. He would tell a joke, and then roar with laughter... not caring if anyone else found them funny. My dad also told awful knock-knock jokes, like this one:

Dad:  "Kncok, knock"

Kids:  "Who's there?"

Dad:  "Emerson"

Kids: "Emerson who?"

Dad:  "'Em are some funky socks you got on!"

Kids:  "Dad... that's not funny!"

Dad:  "Bwaaahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

Jeez.

My dad and I formed a decent relationship, and after he retired from military service, in 1973, he went back to his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. We (my older brother and sister, and I) visited fairly regularly, and after the older two graduated from high school and went out into the world, I continued to visit on my own... by this time, I had graduated to taking the train, which I thought was pretty cool.

I continued my visits with my dad (and his wife and their daughter, my half sister), until I graduated from high school and joined the service.

One of the best things that my dad ever did for me, is something he probably doesn't even think of now.

When I left home to join the service, my recruiter picked me up early in the morning, and took me to the processing point, in Newark (NJ, not Del.), where I had to fill out forms, get shots, etc... We were then put aboard a bus to the airport for flights to our basic training destination... in my case, Parris Island, South Carolina.

As we were about to board the plane, I heard a shout across the terminal: "Billyyyyyyyyyyyy!" It was my dad, sprinting in my direction. He didn't even tell me he was coming! This was in 1981, and my dad was about three years older than I am now. He drove his little Toyota Tercel to the point where his engine completely gave up the ghost in the parking lot of the airport... just to get there to see me off. He gave me a hug and said: "I'm proud of you, son!... time to be a man, now. Take care of yourself, and call when you can"

He had driven nearly three hundred miles with a car whose engine was literally coming apart at the end of the trip, to spend about thirty seconds with me. It was then that I realized that many of the things that my mother had said about my dad for years, weren't all true. Somebody that doesn't give a shit about their children (which is what my mother never stopped telling us) doesn't do something like that.

Life went on, and my dad was a proud observer of my time in the service. Proud of my accomplishments, and of my promotions. He was even more proud when I came back from overseas the first time, speaking German even better than he does (an odd talent... my brother, father and I are nearly fluent in German... it drives our other relatives nuts!).

We didn't have a perfect relationship, but it was functional. As I grew into my thirties, and had a family of my own, I started thinking more about my dad, and had come to some unpleasant realizations about my own childhood. He sensed the growing tension between us, and wrote me a letter asking what it was all about. I answered him and told him that I wanted an apology. I wanted him to apologize for being a wife beater. I wanted him to apologize for not being around more when I was little. I wanted him to apologize for all of the things that I had to do alone in Scouting when the other boys had their fathers with them. He didn't see me achieve a varsity letter for throwing the discus, or sing in the school shows.

I didn't even know those things were bothering me, but they all came out in a rush of words.

I immediately felt like I had taken a load of bricks from my shoulders, and it felt good.

My brother and sister were pissed about what I said to my father, but that is a story for another time.

Anyway, it was time for Soccergirl's baptism, and he and I had a long talk in which he apologized to me for all of the things that I mentioned, and some that I hadn't mentioned.

From that day, six years ago, to this day, my dad and I have enjoyed a fantastic relationship.

I think I mentioned, over at my other blog that my father was largely responsible for my remaining in touch with my oldest child after my divorce. I called him the other day to thank him.

If you have any bad feelings with anyone, friends, remember that it is NEVER too late to try to reconcile with someone if both parties are still living.

ADDENDUM:  My Dad was the only member of my extended family who called me to wish me a Happy Father's Day.   Good thing I'm not bitter.

Girl Scout Night

I wrote this about a month ago. I had forgotten all about it until I sat down at my laptop at the dining room table shortly before 5 this morning. I really wish I was still asleep… and today is my day to take SG to school, so I could have slept until the lordly hour of 0615. As it turns out, I have been awake since 0345. Where is the justice in this world? I ask you?  So, here I sit on a(nother) rainy Virginia morning, telling you things about my life that you probably don't want to hear... but I am in a sharing mood today, brethren, and that's what friends do.  So listen.

 

It’s Brownie night… but only sort of. You see, instead of taking SG over to the church for their meeting, and nipping off to Borders to type and observe…. And instead of getting to meet one of my favorite bloggers, who is in DC for business, I am at one of the local middle schools with SG and three other Brownies from her troop who are attending their first Junior troop meeting.

You see, SG and ten other girls from her troop will be aging out of Brownies into Junior Girls Scouts in the fall, and this meeting is to give them the opportunity meet their new Troop-mates.

I was assigned to be their “chaperone” and take them to their meeting, and introduce them to the troop leader, and stick around in case they were shy, or nervous and needed a familiar adult face. Do you think that’s how it went? If you said: “Oh, hell no, GF!” you’d be right. Since this troop is fed by the same school that feeds SG’s Brownie troop, all four of the girls saw friends of theirs right away, and went scrambling to pal around with them, forgetting good ol’ Gunfighter immediately. Well, I’m man enough to handle that, so I went and introduced myself to S, who is the leader for this troop. I told S I was going to stay for the whole meeting, and would help in any way that I could… How do think THAT went?  If you said: “She (and the other troop mommies) gave you a blank, open-mouthed stare and said that you could just leave if you wanted to”, you’d be right.

Well, there is only so much rejection a man is supposed to take before he gets irritated and has to take active measures to stand up for himself. So that's exactly what I did.  In case you were thinking that I made a scene, be assured, I didn't... I dislike drama.  No, I did what people do when they are made these days, and don't shoot people because of it:  I went out into the hallway, found an electrical outlet, whipped out my laptop, and started to blog!

Pardon me for a moment while I fume… Someone help me out here…. Women complain that men aren’t doing enough of the parenting… we aren’t doing our share, and blah blah f***ing blah, ad nauseum, but I think that it’s all a front. I really do. Oh, I’m not saying that there aren’t men who aren’t pulling their weight in that department, I’m simply saying that I believe that there are many women who covet their roles as “gatekeepers”… controlling access and participation in their children’s lives.

Is it that far-fetched that a father would attend his daughter’s Girl Scout meeting and help out? Is it, really? For the love of merciful God… A woman is running for president, a black man is her rival for her party’s nomination, and at least their party isn’t blinking an eye over it, but if a Dad wants to help out at the girl scout meeting, I might as well have been a space alien for all the gaping stares.

Well guess what? Children need their father’s EVERY BIT AS MUCH AS THEY NEED THEIR MOTHERS! That’s right ladies, read that a second time, if it didn’t scratch the surface the first time. Finished? Good. Read it again, just to make sure. Who else is going to teach your daughters what a good, decent man is like? Who else is going to teach your sons how to be good men?

Alright... I'm done for now.

GF

A Question For The Men

OK, Men... listen up.

I have a scenario for you:

You are driving down a major secondary road (in this instance, U.S. 1, in Virginia) and enountered much heavier that usual traffic, and finally got close enough to see that the problem is that a minivan, with it's emergency flashers on, has broken down in the left lane, completely blocking it.  The female driver is sitting behind the wheel, looking quite upset.

What do you do?  Do you:

A)  Continue to honk your car's horn and try to get around the van?

B)  Drive past the van while swearing at the driver?

C)  Gawk as you drive by?

D)  Roll the window down and ask if she needs help?

E)  Stop your car, block the traffic, and push her car out of the road?

***HINT*** If you are a reasonable healthy man, and you didn't answer E, turn in your man card.

Man Movies (6)

...And so, dear friends... so ends MAN MOVIE week, here at The View From Here. I hope you have enjoyed the selection of MAN MOVIES... from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Before we completely close the door, your faithful correspondent would be remiss in his MANLY MAN duties, if I left out this little gem.

Pulp Fiction is a MAN MOVIE even before you get to it's rather unusual plot. It earns it's MAN MOVIE status because of it's Seinfeldian nature. Seinfeldian in that it is a movie that is essentially about nothing. Oh, sure, lot's of "nothing" happens in this movie... from the opening scene with Brett (Frank Whaley) and the other young fellows that get terminated with extreme prejudice by Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta), all the way beyond the point where Marcellus (Ving Rhames) gets raped by a couple of whacked-out rednecks.

No, this movie is a MAN MOVIE in all aspects... it has great one-liners, LOTS of gunplay, fist fighting, a short chase scene, and good dialogue. This movie also has great music, from the opening credits with classic songs like "Miserlou" from Dick Dale (If you don't know this one, look it up), to the old standard "Jungle Boogie"(1973), by Kool & The Gang

I mentioned the opening scene and the well written dialogue at the very beginning of this post, so I am going to show you an example of what I meant... now, this isn't for the squeamish, so all of you nice ladies, close your ears if you play this...



Ahem. Moving on.

I don't know what else to say about Pulp Fiction... I mean it only had this huge cast... Bruce Willis, and Harvey Keitel were in this movie... Eric Stoltz was in this movie. Uma Thurman was in this movie (and I am an Uma fan, despite the fact that she is so skinny). One of those Arquette chicks was in this movie (I get them confused), That Tim Roth guy... from Rob Roy was in this movie. Saturday Night Live alums Julia Sweeney and Phil Lamarr were in this movie... This movie was so damned good, even Christpoher Walken was in this movie! (and you know that Gunfighter loves some Christopher Walken... he is almost as bad a MoFo as I am!)


So, MAN MOVIE week is over. Sometime in the next month or so, I will continue my list of MAN MOVIES, because there are waaaay too many good ones to stop now.

Until next time,

GF

Posted by Gunfighter at 5:42 PM 5 comments

Man Movies (5)

This 1979 MAN MOVIE certainly needs no review for most men, and certainly for some women, too, but for those who aren't familiar, I'll give you a quick run-down.

Apocalypse Now is almost the ultimate MAN MOVIE. This movie is worthy, not only for it's gonzo level of violence, and not only for it's necessary suspension of disbelief, but because of the fact that the opening sequence is of a napalm strike against a jungle treeline, set to The Doors classic song: The End.

In Apocalypse now, an American officer, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), who is a CIA operative, is assigned to hunt down a renegade Special Forces Colonel named Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who isn't fighting by the army's rules. Willard is assigned to move up the Nung river in a navy river patrol boat in order to avoid notice... only it doesn't quite work that way.

Shortly after joining up with the patrol boat and it's crew, Willard makes contact with a whack-job of an Air Cavalry officer, Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who practically steals the entire film in only one scene. Kilgore is an avid surfer, and finding out that one of the sailors with Willard is a famous surfer, he decides to attack a village that is close to the ocean, just so he and the sailor can surf. The village is a bit tougher to crack than he expected, so after the initial assault, he calls for an air strike, after which he delivers the most famous piece of dialogue from the movie "I love the smell of napalm in the morning"

This movie is filled with air strikes, people being machine-gunned to death at close range, an attack by tribesmen who use spears as well as bows, pyrotechnic displays, music by The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and The Rolling Stones, and some really great cinematography.

This film also had great early-career performances by Laurence Fishburne...

...and Harrison Ford.

As if all of this wasn't enough... in the final scene of the movie, there is a film sequence of the ritual killing of a bull... with a machete! The same sort of weapon that Sheen's character uses to kill the Brando character.

This movie will always be a favorite of mine.

GF

Posted by Gunfighter at 11:09 AM 7 comments

Man Movies (4)

Hi kids... sorry to have been out of pocket for the past few days... we have had big drama at work, and lots of activities here at Castle Gunfighter.

All is well, so let's talk a little more about MAN MOVIES!

Today's MAN MOVIE is one that, even to me, is almost TOO gritty. I am talking about Bad Lieutenant, starring Harvey Keitel.

Did any of you ever see this one?

Harvey Keitel plays a corrupt Detective Lieutenant in the New York City police department. His character is a gambler, drug user, and all-around dirty cop.

In the film, Keitel is shown betting on major league sports, getting a... well, sexual favor from a teen aged girl in trade for letting her get away with underage driving, beating and ripping off a small time drug dealer... and it only gets worse from there.

I mentioned that MAN MOVIES aren't about redemption, but Keitel's character does make movement towards redemption in this film... but don't be fooled, that isn't what this movie is about. Keitel's character is a violent, unscrupulous, misogynist, criminal of the worst sort. He is the worst sort of criminal because he does all of these thing while wearing a badge, the symbol of public trust, and servant of the law.

In the end, Keitel ends up how people who live that sort of life usually end up. Dead. Murdered by enforcers for a bookie.

Posted by Gunfighter at 10:44 AM 11 comments

Man Movies (3)

Next on my list of MAN MOVIES are two more recent additions to the long line of movies for men. Neither of these two films (and I hesitate to even call them "films") have any social redeeming value. Neither of them are particularly realistic, and neither of them are particularly well-acted.

Why do they make the list? Because of the gore factor… that’s gore with a lower-case g. An upper case g would mean something else entirely… that Gore makes documentaries. Anyway, both of these movies get to the blood and guts, right from the jump, so let’s talk about them: Today’s MAN MOVIES are Shoot ‘Em Up, and The Three Hundred.


The Three Hundred

The Three Hundred has a fairly simple plot. Leonidas, The King of the Greek City-State of Sparta, played by the exceptionally chiseled Scotsman Gerard Butler has been delivered an ultimatum from Xerxes, King of Persia, to bend the knee and pay tribute, or pay the price of refusal in the destruction of his people. 

Well, as you can imagine, this threat doesn’t go down well with the Spartan King… I mean, c’mon! Sparta is a warrior nation! You wouldn’t expect a society whose whole raison d’etre (hey, that’s French!) is to produce the best-trained, strongest, toughest soldiers there are, to take threat lying down, would you? Of course not. So, what does our King of Sparta do? Why, he kills the messenger, of course!

The King is overruled by members of his council, who will not authorize a war. So he gathers 300 of Sparta’s best, and personally leads them into battle against the Persian hordes.

The Spartans hold a choke point against the Persian Army, and commence slaughtering them by the hundreds… and thousands. Remember, this takes place before the time of Christ, so the weapons used here, as you can imagine, are the sword, spear, knife, bow, and or some sort of bludgeoning device. Almost all of the violence takes place at personal distance, with lots of spraying blood, decapitations, traumatic amputations and the like.

By the end of the movie, all of the three hundred are dead, except for one, who went back to Sparta to bring the rest of the army. If the Persians thought 300 Spartans were tough to deal with, they were really going to take it in the shorts from the rest of the Spartan nation.

The movie was a glorious exercise in blood-letting.



Shoot 'Em Up

OK, get real, here... with a title like that, how can a guy named Gunfighter not love this movie?

In this flick, a carrot-eating man-of-few-words named Smith (well-played by Clive Owen), rescues a newborn child and kills everyone who gets in his way. That's it. That's the plot. The first gunfight happens within 90 seconds of the beginning of the film.

The action improbable, and unrealistic, but it sure is fun... and even funny at times. The principle bad guy is played (excellently) by Paul Giamatti, that sterling actor who plays in just about every other movie.


If the fact that this movie is full of car chases, high speed stunts, and even gunfights-while-free fall-parachuting, isn't enough for you, don't worry... there's more!





In my initial discussion about what makes a MAN MOVIE, I mentioned gratuitous nudity... well this movie has that, too. You see, our hero has some sort of history of consorting with practitioners of the oldest profession... one in particular one that specializes in adult wet nursing (yeah, I know... but I suppose that if there weren't a real market for it, they wouldn't sell it. Ewww!).

So, the hero enlists the aforementioned pro to help him care for the kid while he kills bad guys. During one VERY brief break in the carnage, our hero and our who... um, wet nursing friend, find the time for a little physical bonding, which goes well enough until the bad guys show up. Oh, yeah... can you REALLY get any better than this? Hell no!, because our hero never misses a beat and proceeds to shoot and kill more bad guys while continuing to do the deed!

I can't even begin to give you a body count for this movie, but I don't think you can beat it for it's MAN MOVIE qualities.

Posted by Gunfighter at 5:23 PM 10 comments

Man Movies (2)

Movies made for men (no, not those kinds of movies).

I wrote about this in January of last year, but I got busy, and other things came up, and we didn't really get to delve too deeply into the subject. Well, this week, I plan to correct that.

The kind of movies that I am talking about are full of fights, explosions, guns, explosions, high-speed car chases, sophomoric humor... and guns. Throw in some sports hard-hitting sports action, and perhaps a bit of gratuitous frontal nudity, and you've pretty much got it made.

Oh, I know that many of the people reading this are women,and that some women may like some of these movies, too, but that doesn't really matter. These movies were made for men, but if our wives, girlfriends, lifepartners or whatever want to enjoy them with us, so much the better!

The truth is, MAN MOVIES are not about love interests. They aren't romance movies with guns. They aren't romantic comedies. They aren't feel-good movies about connecting with children... or saving whales, or any of that stuff****. MAN MOVIES are NOT about redemption.

***NOTE*** None of the above suggests that men can't enjoy those movies... but they aren't MAN MOVIES.

For example, here is a movie that men enjoy... but aren't MAN MOVIES: Wedding Crashers... I loved it! It was funny, it was basically a continuous sketch comedy... but Owen Wilson's falling in love with the pretty girl... renouncing his ways as a crasher... sorting out his feelings of luuuuuv, make this a good movie, but NOT a MAN MOVIE.

See where I am going here?

We can talk about this through the week, and as so many of my readers are women. Strong, smart, independent women... I know that many of you will disagree with some of my conclusions... and that's OK, I'm ok with backing up what I write.

Here is how this week is going to play out. I will be reviewing several MAN MOVIES over the next 5 days... I will give a brief synopsis, and then tell you why it made my list. Then, if we need to, we can battle it out (JANET) about why certain movies are on the list, even though some of you may disagree. Please note that my list isn't meant to be definitive or exclusive, in that there will be MAN MOVIES that exist that don't make it this week.

Let's gets started, shall we?

Slapshot:

This 1977 Paul Newman classic remains one of the funniest movies that I have ever seen.

It is the tale of a down-at-heel minor league hockey team, The Charlestown Chiefs, in the fictitious "Federal League". The Chiefs are a franchise that is about to fold (to be disbanded as an entity). The team's player/coach, Reggie Dunlop, played by Newman, in what I honestly believe will be the role he will be best remembered fior... at least by most men who aren't gay, generates interest (and drives up revenue) for the team by instigating extreme violence during the games.

Once the team starts fighting, people start attending the games, and all of a sudden there is new life to the Charlestown Chiefs.  The Chiefs become local heroes, which leads to the creation  a travelling fan club.  This fan club, we must be reminded, is mostly made up of frequently topless (and bottomless?) bimbos  (remember what I said about these movies not being about redemption).

The team's biggest draw is a trio of very young brothers... The Hanson's (no, not those kids who sang "Mmm-bop") who turn out to be among the most hard-fighting "goons" in the league.

Basically, this movie is about hockey fighting and sex. The fact that it was filmed in the late 1970's, when violence in the National Hockey League got so out of hand, the game had so many new rules as to change it from the hard-hittng North American game that many had come to love, into a slightly more rough and tumble version of the European style of hockey.

This movie has absolutely no social redeeming value, but will nonetheless be remembered as a classic.

Ask any man between the ages of 40 and 55 about this movie, and the first thing he is likely to do is smile... or maybe laugh out loud.

In any event, it was a great movie for 13 year old Gunfighter when it came out, and it remains very high on my list of MAN MOVIES.

Posted by Gunfighter at 1:27 PM 7 comments

A Vacation Thought

Let's get something out in the open, friends, Gunfighter is all man, and as such, feels no problem with stating the obvious. Like the sign says: I heart (and I really mean heart) the boobies.

OK, now that I have said this, I have some words of wisdom, or maybe just an overstated observation, to share with you.

Yesterday, we spent the day at Disney World's Magic Kingdom. While we were there, we went on the Winnie The Pooh Ride, The Magic Teacups, the irritating but addictive (and blessedly cool) Small World ride and many others. The park wasn't crowded and the lines weren't long... we had a great time. Something came to my notice, while we were there. Something that I have noticed before, but really hadn't spent too much time thinking about.

You guessed it: Boobies.

Now, these weren't carnal thoughts about boobs. As many as were on display, I happen to be rather fond of Mrs GF's plentitude. No, these thoughts were on how they were displayed.

It seems to me, in the days of female empowerment, that it is counterintuitive to be a rather splendidly bosomed woman and go about in public wearing a too-tight T-Shrt that says "JUICY!", stretched out across her chest,

Now, I don't really have a problem, here. On one level I thought to myself when I saw this woman "Yeah, they look great, alright", but I also thought, "I hope she doesn't catch me (or the other ten guys that were getting an eyeful) looking".

I guess what I am getting at is: Make up your minds! I try to be a progressive man, and not stare at the boobage, after all, staring is rude. However, if you don't want the notice, don't put it out there like that.

Did I just make a sexist statement? Have I betrayed my finely tuned inner Alan Alda & Phil Donahue? I hope not.

I understand that it is OK to want to be attractive. I understand that wanting to be attractive, even sexy. I understand that being attractive or sexy isn't an invitation to be leered at, or an invitation to rude suggestions or worse. Having said all of that, dear ladies, when the boobies get put out like that, don't expect me, the soul of restraint (uh huh), or most men, not to take note.

Serious note.

GF Is A Bachelor For The Rest Of The Week

So... Mrs GF and Soccergirl have gone to Milwaukee, to vist the parents/maternal grandparents...

I dropped them at National Airport this morning, in plenty of time for their 0645 flight. I dropped them off so early, that I drove back to Alexandria, had a 30 minute power-walk, and was finished stretching by their designated take-off time.

I had to work late tonight, so I didn't get home until after 8:30... and then depression set it.

Well, not really. As much as I miss them, it isn't like I don't have enough to do... I started a new rosary last night, and I think it will be seriously boss. On top of that, I have no end of ironing to do. Now the really exciting part is when I get to do a major cleaning in the upstairs bathrooms. I am saving that for saturday, as I don't want to have any idle time.

I am such a get-out-there-and-drink-with-the-boys guy, it isn't funny.

Is it sunday yet?