I’ve never been big on westerns.  At least, not until the past few years.  To me, a western was always cattle rustling tales of gunslingers.  You know, the good guy in white with fringe hunting down the bad guy wearing black, and fringe.  Either chewing on a weed or a hand rolled cigarette.  Boring.  Never cared for that.  See, I never hated all westerns, I just never understood them.  I looked at them from the wrong angle.  My first western, that I can remember, save for the Terror of Tiny Town – the all midget western with them riding on Shetland ponies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030845/ ), was… well, I don’t know.  See, my uncle to me to see Smokey and the Bandit when I was about 7 or 8.  He said it was Smokey and the Bandit, but it was some western.  I don’t know the name, or remember what it was about, but in the end, the two heroes were hanged from a bell tower.  The first western I ever saw, and knew, was The Long Riders.  Action packed and violent, very violent.  I loved it.  About 8 or 9, watching it when I technically shouldn’t have been.  Beautiful.  Even still, I stayed away from them.  Not fully understanding the concept.  But the thing is, there’s nothing to understand.  A western is just like any other story, just set in a different period of time, and that brings along with it a certain type of character and conflicts. 

So, what movie snapped me out of my western tunnel vision?  Tombstone.  Yep, the Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer classic.  I could continue on naming everyone else in the movie, including Billy Bob Thornton, but I won’t.  What made Tombstone so special?  Well, have you seen it?  Kidding, of course you have.  But, really – I just liked it.  Something about the way it was done, and the characters.  It made everything click with me.  Did I say Tombstone?  I meant Maverick with Mel Gibson, before he was crazy.  Nah, kidding again, it was Tombstone. 

Since then, I’ve seen more movies.  I still haven’t seen Unforgiven, yet.  Get off my back, I’ll get to it.  I just watched Dog Soldiers the other day after owning it for 5 years, and buying a second copy, steelbook edition, about 2 months ago.  Anyway, I’ve seen 3:10 to Yuma, Appaloosa, The Wild Bunch, and others.  I want to watch The Quick and Dead one day.  Come on, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Russell Crowe (before he stopped being crazy), Leonardo DiCaprio, and Lance Henricksen.  I’ve been missing out. 

Anyway, the point of all this is, one of my personal goals is to write one of every genre.  That includes a western.  Well, believe it or not I’ve got my western in mind.  Actually, I’ve had it in mind for a while.  Hell, I might have already talked about it here.  I want to do a Crow movie but do a western one.  My story is tight.  I’ve been keeping it in my head for many years, and I’d love to put it out there.  I’m not going to go into details, though I already may have in previous posts, but it would be sweet.  It’s about a railroad tycoon wanting to build on Indian land.  He tries to drive out the Indians, but a gunslinger friend of theirs gathers some other gunfighters to stand with them and drive out the unwanted forces.  The tycoon decides that the only way he can get the land is to kill the gunfighter.  Without him, the Indians won’t be able to get help from anyone else.  They attack in the middle of the night and kill him and his wife and daughter.  A year later he is brought back by the crow for revenge.  He learns that they wiped out the entire Indian tribe except for one person.  He sets out for revenge after that.  There are a lot of subplots and other things, but that’s the gist of it.  Would love to do it one day.  One day…  Oh well. 

Until then.

“I’m ya huckleberry.”

JeraleC

Mindseyechronicles@comcast.net

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