The Great Quotes of Jonah Hex

The Day Manly-Man Walt Whitman Met Cowboy Oscar Wilde

So here's the thing about Oscar Wilde's tour of the American West... wait, you know about that, right?  There's a great murder mystery about it by Walter Satterthwait called Wilde West, and Jonah Hex met up with him in the Joe Lansdale / Tim Truman Riders of the Worm and Such miniseries (famous for having published the only letter I ever wrote to a comics company).  In 1882 Wilde came to American on what was to be a brief literary tour, but ended up staying for nearly a year.  People loved him, or loved to mock him, or both.  Wilde drank tea with the literary societies and slung back whiskey with miners in saloons.  In 1882 Oscar Wilde was the coolest thing to hit the West.  I'm guessing he got a lot of tail.  Speaking of which...

Oscar Wilde lampooned in a San Francisco magazine

So here's the thing about Oscar Wilde's tour of the American West... he met Walt Whitman, the manliest of men who ever loved manly men.  When they met, the local press interviewed Whitman, and here is what he said: "One of the first things I said was that I should call him ‘Oscar.’ ‘I like that so much,’ he answered, laying his hand on my knee. He seemed to me like a great big, splendid boy. He is so frank, and outspoken, and manly."

 

"That's right, I got me a piece of Wilde action."

Damn, that's some manly stuff right there. A blog called The Toast wrote about this in exquisite detail.  All that I am going to do here is quote from an article describing the meeting of two 19th century literary giants and let you wander on to read the actual post yourself.

This is a gift. You do realize that, don’t you? History has reached out to you specifically and given you a gift. The gift is the knowledge that Oscar Wilde once put his hand on Walt Whitman’s knee and then they drank elderberry wine together; the gift is that the next day a reporter turned up and Whitman expounded at length on his big, splendid boy.

Happy trails, pard!

Hex & Wilde, Cowboy Style

There Is So Much Wrong with All-Star Western 21

As I have recently begun to recall my fondness for westerns I took a chance and picked up a copy of All-Star Western.  I have glanced at it occasionally in the last few months, enough to see that the story had truly moved West (yay!) while also including Booster Gold from mainstream DC (weird).  I picked up All-Star Western 21, hoping to see a return to the old days of the Jonah Hex comic, even if men in tights occasionally strolled through.  I read through and found myself asking one simple question…

WHAT THE FUCK?

It starts off fine, with a gun fight and a chase in the desert, but soon enough the whole story gets transported to something that appears to be modern day Gotham City.  Not only that, Hex ends up in a throwdown with Batwing (whoever the fuck that is) and thrown in Arkham Asylum.  All-Star Western remains firmly entrenched in the Batman family of comics, but now not only does it not take place in the West, it doesn’t even take place in the 19^th century.

You want Jonah Hex to time travel?  Fine, do that.  It worked great in the 16 issue run of Hex, where Jonah briefly went to a Mad Max future and became a badass biker.  But no one had the balls to call that comic a Western.  Fuck, DC, what are you doing?

My preferred style of time traveler Jonah Hex.

One good note- cameo of the Mutants from Dark Knight Returns.  Those fuckers are always fun.

Short Ride to the Sunset

As I’ve said before I’ve slowed down my writing here quite significantly.  I have taken to a few other projects in life, which I am have recently started writing about at another blog.  I’m sure that I’ll find my way back to Slap Bookleather periodically, if only to finish my story about my D&D cowboy.  If you enjoy the writing here please give The Yogi Gamer a try.  Vaya con dios, Namaste, etc, etc, etc.  

By the way, finally gave up on All-Star Western.    

Tantric Lone Ranger Rides Again!

As you may be able to tell by the sharp drop in frequency of my blog posts, this is the year that I almost gave up on westerns.  The Lone Ranger and yoga may be what redeems them, but more on that later.  

There were just so many disappointments in westerns this year.  On the comic book front, All-Star Western continues to suck the life out of the genre.  I picked up the latest issue this week and flipped through.  Dr. Jekyll made an appearance, then there was some kind of fight in a slum, and then a Chinese lady is stockings started kung fu fighting.  It is an embarrassment to call this a western.   The backup stories are still great (ironically written by the same very competent team) but I don’t want to spend $4 for a backup story.

Then Peter Brandvold, who I have written so much about in the last year, seems to have lost whatever touch made his Lou Prophet books work for so long.  I’ve tried half a dozen of his more recent novels looking for a return to that wit that made his books great and been disappointed each time (including the one where he said he’d eat the manuscript if I didn’t like it).  His new Rusty Spurr book, which has so much potential, has flat characters that are indistinguishable from one another.  The only time in the last few years that I’ve really enjoyed his books are when he writes weird westerns (Ghost Colts, Bad Wind Blowing); I found Dust of the Damned under my Christmas tree, maybe he’ll be back to form there.

What really killed my desire to write this blog is a tragedy from earlier this year that I still want to write about.  In brief, I have been playing Dungeons & Dragons weekly with the same group of friends for seven years.  Six months ago I worked out a plan with the friend running our game to introduce a gunslinging cowboy into the otherwise pure fantasy game.  It was so much fun that I planned out a five part series of posts to write about it.  That friend died soon after in a tragic accident, leaving behind a wife and two kids.  I can’t come back to the blog without thinking about it.

Oh, and after a sudden onset of gout I’ve become a teetotatling vegetarian.  Takes a lot of the fun out of reading about whiskey swilling fellers eating buffalo when you are sucking down tap water with your tofu.

With all of this disappointment I also almost gave up yoga, something that helped me get over the host of mental, emotional, and physical problems that follow massive invasive surgery.  Something in the practice just wasn’t coming together and I couldn’t figure out why.  I decided before I gave up all together I would go try Bikram, the program that was described to me when I walked in the door as “Simon Says for 90 minutes in a 105 degree room”.  I went in and found a practice that didn’t look a thing like yoga, and though I walked out disappointed I felt somehow good and kept going back.  After my second class I left the building, drove to the local supermarket, and put together a pack of food, water, and hot coffee for the homeless guy at the end of the road.  After my third class I returned to my original yoga home and signed up to learn to be a yoga instructor. 

This is because of westerns, or more specifically because of the Lone Ranger.  I’ve written about the connections between yoga and the Lone Ranger before, and as I move through life they are becoming more palpable.  The notion that one can serve the betterment of humanity, seek to protect life, and do it without the notion of reward (hence the mask) is really entrancing.  Also, he has two Colts and a cool cowboy hat.  It helps that, like the Lone Ranger, I have my own silver mine to support me (in the guise of a great job with a Fortune 100 company).  So the Lone Ranger is my guru, a comic book battle cry is my meditative mantra, and I dream of wearing a mask as I move through the postures of my yoga practice.

Having said that, this movie looks terrible.