Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game: Pizza, Coca Cola, and Strategy, the cornerstones of a happy life

At Mos Eisley Radio these guys not only talk news concerning the most recent Star Wars Game X-Wing Miniatures, which I am crazy about, but a lot more. Have a listen to them for in-depth looks at classes, guilds, lore, and everything else fans care about in the galaxy far, far away. But related to this article, they go into great detail about the strength of ships and strategy of the game for those who are prompted to get more involved by the conclusion of this article. Have a listen while reading the below text!

While it’s true that many of the people I know are locked into the very real and immediate danger of a real-life rebellion, which is covered at this site extensively, the way I endure the stress of such a thing is to fill my life with interesting hobbies, that also help build up my strategic ability. I share some of those hobbies from time to time in hopes that others might become inspired and do the same for themselves, not by copying my suggestions so much as in finding something that works for them to give themselves a break so to endure the rigors of life just a bit more efficiently. I have shared glowingly my love of the strategy game Pirates, the Constructible Strategy game by Wiz Kids. My family has spent many hours buying, building, and playing that game till the very small hours of the morning. I can remember one very fun Holiday week after Christmas where my kids and I with a small army of other kids bought every single pack of WizKids pirate ships on a cold December afternoon at Cincinnati Sci Fi in West Chester, Ohio. The delighted store clerk even brought out a new shipment of those ships which had just arrived that was in the back while we were in the store, of which we bought every single one. So needless to say, we love those types of role-playing games as a family, and as individuals.

Recently while on vacation in Florida my nephews along with my kids, my wife and I played a very cool Dungeons and Dragons type of role-playing game called Heroscape over pizza from the best place in Central Florida till the late hours of night with the condo door open to the ocean outside. We had turned our large dinning room table into a war zone and found ourselves intensely engaged in mortal combat with dragons and warriors. Like the referred to pirate game, I enjoy those types of games that allow you to play with several live players around a dinner table. It is a great way to bond with other family members and actually speak to each other, while exercising the brain. I find those types of games to be stimulating in a similar way to reading a novel, or playing a great video game. The difference is that you have to work with other people in a way that is only possible with this type of strategic gaming. For many years these role-playing strategy games have increased in popularity from a sub-culture of Dungeon and Dragon players, to what is now considered mainstream geekdom at major conventions all over the country. The transition came officially from the popular game, Magic the Gathering. The gaming industry in that market has never been the same, which is wonderful for the human race. A short history of this type of gaming can be seen at the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons

However, for me, I always loved that Pirate game from Wiz Kids the best of any that I have played in the last twenty years. My entire family was deeply into it and our playing time together represent some of the most fun we’ve had together, which is quite a statement. So I have missed it as Wiz Kids stopped making the game in the format we enjoyed, and time and distance has moved us away from the contents. However, I recently received news from Lucasfilm about their latest version of a Star Wars Role Playing game by Fantasy Flight Games which I thought at first would be gimmicky, but upon investigation quickly found that it was a quite in-depth game that actually combined the type of game play that I enjoyed so much in Pirates, the Constructible Strategy game by Wiz Kids and the Heroscape. The new game is called Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game.

Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game is a tactical ship-to-ship combat game in which players take control of powerful Rebel X-wings and nimble Imperial TIE fighters, facing them against each other in fast-paced space combat. Featuring stunningly detailed and painted miniatures, the X-Wing Miniatures Game recreates exciting Star Wars space combat throughout its several included scenarios.

Whatever the chosen vessel, the rules of X-Wing facilitate fast and visceral gameplay that puts you in the middle of Star Wars fiercest firefights. Each ship type has its own unique piloting dial, which is used to secretly select a speed and maneuver each turn. After planning maneuvers, each ship’s dial is revealed and executed (starting with the lowest skilled pilot). So whether you rush headlong toward your enemy showering his forward deflectors in laser fire, or dance away from him as you attempt to acquire a targeting lock, you’ll be in total control throughout all the tense dogfighting action.

Star Wars: X-Wing features (three) unique missions and each has its own set of victory conditions and special rules; with such a broad selection of missions, only clever and versatile pilots employing a range of tactics will emerge victorious. What’s more, no mission will ever play the same way twice, thanks to a range of customization options, varied maneuvers, and possible combat outcomes. Damage, for example, is determined through dice and applied in the form of a shuffled Damage Deck. For some hits your fighter sustains, you’ll draw a card that assigns a special handicap. Was your targeting computer damaged, affecting your ability to acquire a lock on the enemy? Perhaps an ill-timed weapon malfunction will limit your offensive capabilities. Or worse yet, your pilot could be injured, compromising his ability to focus on the life-and-death struggle in which he is engaged…

The Star Wars: X-Wing starter set includes everything you need to begin your battles, such as scenarios, cards, and fully assembled and painted ships. What’s more, Star Wars: X-Wing’s quick-to-learn ruleset establishes the foundation for a system that can be expanded with your favorite ships and characters from the Star Wars universe.

Yes, The Disney ‘Lone Ranger’ has the William Tell Overture: Past meets present with a glorious spectacle.

Many kids these days have no idea that the character of Woody from the popular Toy Story films was directly inspired by The Lone Ranger television show that was so extremely popular immediately after World War II. The last time the Lone Ranger made any kind of legitimate appearance in either television or motion pictures it was in the 1981 film The Legend of the Lone Ranger which had mild success, but involved the tragic injury of Terry Leonard, the famous stuntman from Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the 1981 film, a stagecoach accident ran over both of Terry’s legs which tarnished the film a bit to even my young eyes. The scene made it into the movie, but was difficult to accept as I always related more with the stuntmen in films than I ever did the actual actors. There was a time in my life where I wanted to be a stuntman more than anything else, but that idea subsided a bit after several violent car crashes, encounters with actual villains who shot real bullets, and a few years of marriage. But deep in my heart is the love of the Lone Ranger and his code of moral conduct that helped shape America’s identity with his classic white hat, black mask, and silver bullets.

My primary exposure to the Lone Ranger came from Saturday morning serials. For me it was always a toss-up between the Lone Ranger, and Zorro who I loved more. One of those classic Republic serials can be seen throughout this article. I’m sharing it in the same way that I shared the Republic serial, Zorro’s Fighting Legion. These types of programs made a point to teach children and adults values they could both share. This is why I am so eager to see the new Lone Ranger film by the Disney Company.

The Lone Ranger is a fictional character: a masked ex-Texas Ranger who, with his Indian companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture.^[7]

He first appeared in 1933 in a radio show conceived either by WXYZ radio station owner George W. Trendle^[3][4][5] or by Fran Striker,^[8] the show’s writer.^[9][10] It has been suggested that Bass Reeves, a legendary Federal peace officer in the Indian Territory (1875 – 1907) was the inspiration for this character.^[11][12] The show proved to be a hit, and spawned a series of books (largely written by Striker), an equally popular television show that ran from 1949 to 1957, and comic books and movies. The title character was played on radio by George Seaton, Earle Graser, and most memorably Brace Beemer.^[8] To television viewers, Clayton Moore was the Lone Ranger. Tonto was played by, among others, John Todd, Roland Parker, and in the television series, Jay Silverheels.

Departing on his white stallion, Silver, the Lone Ranger would shout, “Hi-Ho, Silver! Away!” As they galloped off, someone would ask, “Who was that masked man, anyway?” Tonto usually referred to the Lone Ranger as “Ke-mo sah-bee“, meaning “trusty scout” or “trusted friend.”^[13] These catchphrases, his trademark silver bullets, and the theme music from the William Tell overture have become tropes of popular culture.

In every incarnation of the character to date, the Lone Ranger conducts himself by a strict moral code put in place by Striker at the inception of the character. Actors Clayton Moore^[6] and Jay Silverheels^{[citation needed]} both took their positions as role models to children very seriously and tried their best to live by this creed. It reads as follows:

I believe…

That to have a friend, a man must be one.

That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.

That God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.

In being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.

That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.

That ‘this government of the people, by the people, and for the people’ shall live always.

That all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.

In my Creator, my country, my fellow man.^[14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Ranger

The most updated version of The Lone Ranger comes out on July 3^rd, and I can’t think of a better film to see which celebrates the 4^th of July. The Lone Ranger is a special kind of film and I sincerely hope that Jerry Bruckheimer is able to do for the American western what he did for swashbuckling pirate films. If he does, then western values have a real chance at re-emerging in American culture.

It is about time that children learn clean speaking cowboys are not just playthings in a toy box like Woody was in Toy Story. The Lone Ranger is the original Woody, and I relish that the film is coming out around such a patriotic holiday, because the Lone Ranger is a uniquely American creation for a uniquely American audience that is being exported to every corner of the world by one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. It should go without saying that I will be seeing it at the earliest possible screening.

Now, one of the most heavily searched items on my site here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom for the last three months has been the question, “Is the William Tell Overture in the new Lone Ranger.” Well, for the answer, you can hear it from Han’s Zimmer himself.

Don Steinberg from The Wall Street Journal — Ok, so over to “The Lone Ranger.” And speaking of theme music: there’s probably never been any audible version of the Lone Ranger that didn’t use the William Tell Overture. Do you nod to that?

Hans Zimmer response – I was listening to a Billy Connolly quote, and he said the definition of an intellectual is if you can listen to the William tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger. Ok, we didn’t go the intellectual journey. We fully embraced the William Tell. Needless to say, we couldn’t leave well enough alone, so it has a little tweak. Actually it’s tweaked quite bit. I don’t know how long the Overture is — it depends on how fast you play it — but that Lone Ranger bit is two minutes long, at the most. And, as I found out, Mr. Rossini felt that was all he had to say. So there are some expansion opportunities. Plus, needless to say, they don’t hire me just to orchestrate Rossini. They want a bit of my dirty fingerprints all over it.

Read the whole interview here:

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/06/12/listen-to-the-music-that-makes-the-man-of-steel-soar/

………………………………….YES! I am damn happy to not call myself an intellectual by the way that Billy Connolly coins the term. For me, the William Tell Overture is what the Lone Ranger is all about. CLICK HERE FOR MORE. Enjoy the movie!

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip’!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

‘Zorro’s Fighting Legion’: Celebrating Disney’s ‘The Lone Ranger’ with a tribute to Yakima Canutt

Many industry professionals have cautioned me that due to my Tea Party like beliefs, I will have limited opportunities to work in film, either in front of the camera as a whip consultant, as I have done a time or two, or behind the camera as a writer. My specific attitude toward collective oriented labor unions is the nail in the coffin as today’s Hollywood for the most part has become an arm of the federal government, and the policies of statism advocated there. But there are rare exceptions, and of late Warner Brothers with Legendary Pictures have produced fantastic films like Man of Steel and Dark Knight Rises, while Disney Studios is putting out pictures like Iron Man, the Avengers and now the upcoming The Lone Ranger. It is the Lone Ranger that has me extremely excited because that character as I have mentioned before goes deep into my past. I love the old versions of the Lone Ranger, the old Saturday morning serials that were recaptured by George Lucas when he made Star Wars and Indiana Jones. I love the old serials so much that I have seen many of them, even though they are way before my time. While they lack the polish and sophistication of modern films, they are filled with heart and soul. Many of the film techniques used today in all the popular blockbusters were developed during the period of the popular Republic serials. And of those serials there was none I love more than the 1939 series called Zorro’s Fighting Legion.

For readers of my novel The Symposium of Justice, I pay tribute to that 12 chapter serial in three different ways. The first is that the character conflict of Fletcher Finnegan is much like the fight that Don Diego had with Don Del Oro in Zorro’s Fighting Legion. I even went to the trouble of naming the antics of my protagonist in the novel Cliffhanger’s Fighting Legion. The third is that the restaurant that Fletcher Finnegan worked at as a grill cook so that he could learn the movements of the towns politics behind the scenes was named Republics, after of course the company that produced Zorro’s Fighting Legion. It was Zorro’s Fighting Legion that inspired me to take up the bullwhip to the extent that I have, and make it part of my life, almost as important to me as an arm or a leg on my body. There is a lot of whip work in Zorro’s Fighting Legion and I wanted to learn every single trick, which I did. I came to learn about Zorro’s Fighting Legion because I learned at age 12 while watching a documentary about the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark that the great stunt performed by Terry Lenard during the famous “Desert Chase” scene was first done by the great stuntman Yakima Canutt who I feel virtually built Hollywood on his back. Without the great work of stuntmen like Yakima Canutt and Republic Pictures there would never have been a modern-day Star Wars, an Indiana Jones, or even movie versions of Man of Steel, Iron Man, or Dark Knight Rises.

Hollywood was not always liberal. Communism slowly seeped into the Hollywood movie machines in the late 1930s during The Red Decade, but studios resisted. Hollywood Black Friday is the name given, in the history of organized labor in the United States, to October 5, 1945. On that date, a six-month strike by the set decorators represented by the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) boiled over into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers‘ studios in Burbank, California. The strikes helped the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 and led to the eventual break up of the CSU and reorganization of the then rival International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) leadership. The Conference of Studio Unions was, at the time, an International union belonging to the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and represented the Carpenters, Painters, Cartoonists and several other crafts working for the Studios in Hollywood.

Seventy-seven set decorators broke away from IATSE to form the Society of Motion Picture Interior Decorators (SMPID) and negotiated an independent contract with the producers in 1937. The SMPID joined the CSU in 1943 and the CSU represented the SMPID in their contract negotiations. After the producers stalled the negotiations for nine months, IATSE questioned CSU jurisdiction over the Set Decorators which led to a further five-month delay as the CSU and IATSE fought over jurisdiction. When the Producers refused to acknowledge an independent arbitrator appointed by the War Labor Board‘s assessment that the CSU had jurisdiction over the Set Decorators in February 1945, it set the stage for the strike

By October, money and patience were running low as some 300 strikers gathered at Warner Brothers’ main gate on October 5, 1945. Temperatures were abnormally warm for the already hot LA autumn. When non-strikers attempted to report for work at 6:00 in the morning, the barricades went up and tensions flared. As replacement workers attempted to drive through the crowd, their cars were stopped and overturned. Hollywood would never again be the same as a gradual erosion of value began to leave Hollywood projects as the labor unions were backed by communist sympathizers with eyes favoring the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Reinforcements arrived on both sides as the picket increased to some 1,000 people and Glendale and Los Angeles Police came to aid the Burbank Police and Warner Security attempting to maintain the peace. When more replacement workers attempted to break through to the gate, a general melee ensued as strikers mobbed them and strikebreakers responded by attacking the strikers with chains, hammers, pipes, tear gas, and night sticks. Warner security rained more tear gas down from the roofs of the buildings adjoining the entrance. Warner firefighters sprayed the strikers with fire hoses. By the end of the day, some 300 police and deputy sheriffs had been called to the scene and over 40 injuries were reported.

The picketers returned the following Monday with an injunction barring the police from interfering with the strike while Warner retaliated with its own injunction limiting the number of pickets at the gate. Although the violence would continue through the week, national exposure forced the parties back to the bargaining table and resulted in an end to the strike one month later but the CSU victory was a Pyrrhic one, where contentions over wording dictated by an AFL arbitration team would lead to further questioning as to CSU and IATSE jurisdiction on the set.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Black_Friday

Zorro’s Fighting Legion was created during this turbulent period but was still free of unionized influence. That makes it much more special to me for the sheer fact that the foundations of American story telling were built upon these Republic serials. It was film projects like this one that helped slow the erosion of communism in America with the western that so proudly articulated American values of justice, and Zorro’s Fighting Legion is certainly that type of film collection. I see the Republic serials as Hollywood’s response to the growing tension forming ahead of the Cold War between the communism of the Soviet Union and the capitalism of America. The struggle of this philosophical debate is all over the story of Zorro’s Fighting Legion, and has resonated with me for decades. One of the greatest days in my life was when the emergence of DVD technology allowed me to purchase the entire series to own for myself to watch over and over again, which has only been possible in recent years. But even better than that, Zorro’s Fighting Legion is now available on YouTube, so to share this unique treasure with my readers here, and to share my vision of what Hollywood is all about in celebration of the upcoming Lone Ranger by Disney, please do enjoy all twelve episodes shown below. They are kind of slow and boring compared to today’s entertainment, but try to watch them the way I do, for their purity of purpose, simplicity in design, and sheer bold stunt work by the great Yakima Canutt. Mixed through the rest of the article between the episodes is information that is needed to compliment the films.

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Zorro’s Fighting Legion is a 1939 Republic Pictures film serial consisting of twelve chapters. It features Reed Hadley as Zorro. The plot revolves around his alter-ego Don Diego’s fight against the evil Don Del Oro.

A trademark of this serial is the sudden demise of at least one native informant in each episode. The direction was identical for each informant’s death, creating a source of unintentional humor: each informant, upon uttering the phrase, “Don Del Oro is…”, is shot by a golden arrow and dies before being able to name the villain’s alter ego. The serial is also unusual in featuring a real historical personage, Mexican President Benito Juárez, as a minor character.

The mysterious Don Del Oro (“Lord of Gold”), an idol of the Yaqui Indians, has emerged and attacks the gold trade of the Republic of Mexico, planning to take over the land and become Emperor. A man named Francisco is put in charge of a fighting legion to combat the Yaqui tribe and protect the gold, but he is attacked by men working for Don Del Oro. Zorro comes to his rescue, but it is too late for him. Francisco’s partner recognizes Zorro as the hidalgo Don Diego Vega. Francisco asks Diego, as Zorro, to take over the fighting legion and defeat Don Del Oro.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorro’s_Fighting_Legion

Republic Pictures was an American independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1935 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action.

The studio was also responsible for financing and distributing one Shakespeare film, Orson Welles‘ Macbeth (1948), and several of the films of John Ford during the 1940s and early 1950s. It was also notable for developing the careers of John Wayne, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.

Yakima Canutt (November 29, 1895 – May 24, 1986), also known as Yak Canutt, was an American rodeo rider, actor, stuntman and action director.

Born Enos Edward Canutt in the Snake River Hills, near Colfax, Washington; he was one of five children of John Lemuel Canutt, a rancher, and Nettie Ellen Stevens. He grew up in eastern Washington on a ranch near Penawawa Creek, founded by his grandfather and operated by his father, who also served a term in the state legislature. His formal education was limited to elementary school in Green Lake, Washington, then a suburb of Seattle. He gained the education for his life’s work on the family ranch, where he learned to hunt, trap, shoot, and ride.^[1]

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He broke a wild bronco when 11. As a 6-foot-tall (1.8 m) sixteen-year-old he started bronc riding at the Whitman County Fair in Colfax in 1912 and at 17 he won the title of World’s Best Bronco Buster. Canutt started rodeo riding professionally and gained a reputation as a bronc rider, bulldogger and all-around cowboy. It was at the 1914 Pendleton Round-Up, Pendleton, Oregon he got his nickname “Yakima” when a newspaper caption misidentified him.^[2] “Yakima Canutt may be the most famous person NOT from Yakima, Washington” says Elizabeth Gibson, author of Yakima, Washington.^[3] Winning second place at the 1915 Pendleton Round-Up brought attention from show promoters, who invited him to compete around the country.^[2]

“I started in major rodeos in 1914, and went through to 1923. There was quite a crop of us traveling together, and we would have special railroad cars and cars for the horses. We’d play anywhere from three, six, eight ten-day shows. Bronc riding and bulldogging were my specialties, but I did some roping,” said Canutt.^[4]

During the 1916 season, he became interested in divorcee Kitty Wilks, who had won the Lady’s Bronc-Riding Championship a couple of times. They married on July 20, 1917 while at a show in Kalispell, Montana; he was 21 and she 23. The couple divorced about 1922.^[2] While bulldogging in Idaho, Canutt’s mouth and upper lip were torn by a bull’s horn; but after stitches, Canutt returned to the competition. It wasn’t until a year later that a plastic surgeon could correct the injury.^[2]

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World’s champion

Canutt won his first world championship at the Olympics of the West in 1917 and won more championships in the next few years. In between rodeos he broke horses for the French government in World War I.^[5] In 1918, he went to Spokane to enlist in the Navy and was stationed in Bremerton. In the fall he was given a 30-day furlough to defend his rodeo title. Having enlisted for the war, he was discharged in spring 1919. At the 1919 Calgary Stampede he competed in the bucking event and met Pete Knight.^[2]

He traveled to Los Angeles for a rodeo, and decided to winter in Hollywood, where he met screen personalities.^[4] It was here that Tom Mix, who had also started in rodeos, invited him to be in two of his pictures.^[2] Mix added to his flashy wardrobe by borrowing two of Canutt’s two-tone shirts and having his tailor make 40 copies.^[4] Canutt got his first taste of stunting with a fight scene on a serial called Lightning Bryce ^[6]; he didn’t stay, and left Hollywood to play the 1920 rodeo circuit.

The Fort Worth rodeo was nicknamed “Yak’s show” after he won the saddle-bronc competition three years in 1921, 1922 and 1923. He had won the saddle-bronc competition in Pendleton in 1917, 1919, and 1923 and came second in 1915, and 1929. Canutt won the steer bulldogging in 1920, and 1921 and won the All-Around Police Gazette belt in 1917, 1919, 1920 and 1923.^[2] While in Hollywood in 1923 for an awards ceremony, he was offered eight western action pictures for producer Ben Wilson at Burwillow Studios; the first was to be Riding Mad.

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Actor

Canutt had been perfecting tricks such as the Crupper Mount, a leap-frog over the horse’s rump into the saddle. Douglas Fairbanks used some in his film The Gaucho. Fairbanks and Canutt became friends and competed regularly at Fairbanks’ gym. Canutt took small parts in pictures of others to get experience.^[2] It was in Branded a Bandit (1924) that his nose was broken in a 12-foot fall from a cliff. The picture was delayed several weeks, and when it resumed Canutt’s close shots were from the side. A plastic surgeon reset the nose, which healed, inspiring Canutt to remark that he thought it looked better.^[2]

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Stuntman

When his contract with Wilson expired in 1927, Canutt was making appearances at rodeos across the country. By 1928 the talkies were coming out and though he had been in 48 silent pictures, Canutt knew his career was in trouble.^[5] His voice had been damaged from flu in the Navy. He started taking on bit parts and stunts, and realized more could be done with action in pictures.^[2]

In 1930 between pictures and rodeoing, Canutt met Minnie Audrea Yeager Rice at a party at her parents’ home. She was 12 years his junior. They kept company during the next year while he picked up work on the serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation. They married on November 12, 1931.^[2]

When rodeo riders invaded Hollywood, they brought a battery of rodeo techniques that Canutt would expand and improve, including horse falls and wagon wrecks, along with the harnesses and cable rigs to make the stunts foolproof and safe.^[4] Among the new safety devices was the ‘L’ stirrup, which allowed a man to fall off a horse without getting hung in the stirrup. Canutt also developed cabling and equipment to cause spectacular wagon crashes, while releasing the team, all on the same spot every time.^[4] Safety methods such as these saved film-makers time and money and prevented accidents and injury to performers. One of Yakima’s inventions was the ‘Running W’ stunt, bringing down a horse at the gallop by attaching a wire, anchored to the ground, to its fetlocks and launching the rider forwards spectacularly. This either killed the horse, or rendered it badly shaken and unusable for the rest of the day.^[4] The ‘Running W’ is now banned and has been replaced with the falling-horse technique. It is believed that the last time it was used was on the 1983 Iraqi film al-Mas’ Ala Al-Kubra when the British actor and friend of Yak Marc Sinden and stuntman Ken Buckle (who had been trained by Yak) performed the stunt three times during a cavalry charge sequence.^[7][8]

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It was while working on Mascot serials that Canutt practiced and perfected his most famous stunts, including the drop from a stagecoach that he would employ in John Ford‘s 1939Stagecoach. He first did it in Riders of the Dawn in 1937 while doubling for Jack Randall.^[2] In his 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Speilberg paid homage to Canutt, recreating the stunt when a stuntman, Terry Leonard, (doubling for Harrison Ford) ‘dropped’ from the front of a German Army transport truck, was dragged underneath (along a prepared trench) and then climbed up the back and round to the front again.^[9]

John Wayne

While at Mascot, Canutt met John Wayne while doubling for him in a motorcycle stunt for The Shadow of the Eagle in 1932. Wayne admired Canutt’s agility and fearlessness, and Canutt respected Wayne’s willingness to learn and attempt his own stunts.^[10] Canutt taught Wayne how to fall off a horse.^[11]

“The two worked together to create a technique that made on-screen fight scenes more realistic. Wayne and Canutt found if they stood at a certain angle in front of the camera, they could throw a punch at an actor’s face and make it look as if actual contact had been made.”^[10]

Canutt and Wayne pioneered stunt and screen fighting techniques still in use. Much of Wayne’s on-screen persona was from Canutt. The characterizations associated with Wayne – the drawling, hesitant speech and the hip-rolling walk – were pure Canutt.^[12] Said Wayne, “I spent weeks studying the way Yakima Canutt walked and talked. He was a real cowhand.”^[13]

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In 1932, Canutt’s first son Edward Clay was born and nicknamed ‘Tap’, short for Tapadero, a Spanish word for a stirrup covering. It was in 1932 that Canutt broke his shoulder in four places while trying to transfer from horse to wagon team.^[2] Though work was scarce, he got by combining stunting and rodeo work.

In 1934, Herbert J. Yates of Consolidated Film Industries combined Monogram, Mascot, Liberty, Majestic, Chesterfield, and Invincible Pictures to form Republic Pictures, and Canutt became Republic’s top stuntman. He handled all the action on many pictures, including Gene Autry films; and several series and serials, such as The Lone Ranger andZorro. For Zorro Rides Again, Canutt did almost all the scenes in which Zorro wore a mask, and he was on the screen as much as the star John Carroll.^[14] When the action was indicated in a Republic script, it said “see Yakima Canutt for action sequences.”^[4]

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William Witney, one of Republic’s film directors, said:

“There will probably never be another stuntman who can compare to Yakima Canutt. He had been a world champion cowboy several times and where horses were concerned he could do it all. He invented all the gadgets that made stunt work easier. One of his clever devices was a step that attached to the saddle so that he had leverage to transfer to another moving object, like a wagon or a train. Another was the “shotgun,” a spring-loaded device used to separate the tongue of a running wagon from the horses, thus cutting the horses loose. It also included a shock cord attached to the wagon bed, which caused wheels to cramp and turn the wagon over on the precise spot that was most advantageous for the camera.”^[15]

In the 1936 film San Francisco Canutt replaced Clark Gable in a scene in which a wall was to fall on the star. Canutt said: “We had a heavy table situated so that I could dive under it at the last moment. Just as the wall started down, a girl in the scene became hysterical and panicked. I grabbed her, leaped for the table, but didn’t quite make it.” The girl was unhurt but he broke six ribs.^[5]

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Ramrod

Canutt tried to get into directing; he was growing older and knew his stunting days were numbered. Harry Joe, Canutt’s second son, was born in January 1937. Joe and Tap would become important stuntmen, working with their father.

In 1938, Republic Pictures started expanding into bigger pictures and budgets. Canutt’s mentor and action director for the 1925 Ben-Hur, Breezy Eason was hired as second unit director, and Canutt to coordinate and ramrod the stunts. For Canutt this meant hiring stuntmen and doing some stunts himself, but laying out the action for the director and writing additional stunts.^[4]

“In the five years between 1925 and 1930, fifty-five people were killed making movies, and more than ten thousand injured. By the late 1930s, the maverick stuntman willing to do anything for a buck was disappearing. Now under scrutiny, experienced stunt men began to separate themselves from amateurs by building special equipment, rehearsing stunts, and developing new techniques.” – fromFalling: How Our Greatest Fear Became Our Greatest Thrill by Garrett Soden.^[16]

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John Ford hired Canutt on John Wayne‘s recommendation for Stagecoach, where Canutt supervised the river-crossing scene as well as the Indian chase scene, did the stagecoach drop, and doubled for Wayne in the coach stunts. For safety during the stagecoach drop stunt, Canutt devised modified yokes and tongues, to give extra handholds and extra room between the teams.^[4] Ford told him that whenever Ford made an action picture and Canutt wasn’t working elsewhere, he was on Ford’s payroll.^[2] Also in 1939, Canutt doubled Clark Gable in the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind; he also appeared as a renegade accosting Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) as she crosses a bridge in a carriage driving through a shantytown.

———————————–

Second Unit Director

In 1940, Canutt sustained serious internal injuries when a horse fell on him while doubling for Clark Gable in Boom Town (1940). Though in discomfort for months after an operation to repair his bifurcated intestines, he continued to work.^[2] Republic’s Sol Siegel offered him the chance to direct the action sequences of Dark Command, starring Wayne and directed by Raoul Walsh. On Dark Command, Canutt fashioned an elaborate cable system to yank back the plummeting coach before it fell on the stuntman and horses; he also created a breakaway harness from which they were released before hitting the water.^[17]

It was in 1943 while doing a low-budget Roy Rogers called Idaho that Canutt broke both his legs at the ankles in a fall off a wagon.^[2] He recovered to write the stunts and supervise the action for another Wayne film In Old Oklahoma. In the next decade Canutt became one of the best second unit and action directors. MGM brought Canutt to England in 1952 to direct the action and jousting sequences in Ivanhoe with Robert Taylor. This would set a precedent by filming action abroad instead of on the studio lot, and Canutt introduced many British stuntmen to Hollywood-style stunt training.^[2] Ivanhoe was followed by Knights of the Round Table, again with director Richard Thorpe and starring Robert Taylor. Canutt was again brought in for lavish action scenes in King Richard and the Crusaders.^[18]

Canutt directed the close-action scenes for Stanley Kubrick‘s Spartacus, spending five days directing retakes that included the slave army rolling its flaming logs into the Romans, and other fight scenes featuring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and John Ireland.^[19]

—————————————

Ben Hur

For Ben-Hur, Canutt staged the chariot race with nine teams of four horses. He trained Charlton Heston, (Judah Ben-Hur) and Stephen Boyd, (Messala) to do their own charioteering. He and his crew spent five months on the race sequence.^[20] In contrast to the 1925 film, not one horse was hurt, and no humans were seriously injured; though Joe Canutt, while doubling for Charlton Heston, did cut his chin because he did not follow his father’s advice to hook himself to the chariot when Judah Ben-Hur’s chariot bounced over the wreck of another chariot.^[21]

Walt Disney brought Canutt in to do Second Unit for Westward Ho, the Wagons! in 1956; the first live action Western Disney feature film followed by Old Yeller the next year, and culminating in 1960’s Swiss Family Robinson which involved transporting many exotic animals to a remote island in the West Indies.

Anthony Mann specifically requested Canutt for Second Unit for his 1961 El Cid, where Canutt directed sons Joe and Tap doubling forCharlton Heston and Christopher Rhodes in a stunning tournament joust. “Canutt was surely the most active stager of tournaments since the Middle Ages” – from Swordsmen of the Screen.^[18] He was determined to make the combat scenes in El Cid the best that had ever been filmed.^[21] Mann again requested him for 1964’s The Fall of the Roman Empire. Over the next ten years, Canutt would continue to work, bringing his talents to Cat Ballou, Khartoum, Where Eagles Dare and 1970’s A Man Called Horse.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Yakima Canutt has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street. In 1967, he was given an Honorary Academy Award for achievements as a stunt man and for developing safety devices to protect stunt men everywhere. He was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (Hall of Fame).

1985 – Yakima appeared as himself in “Yak’s Best Ride” directed by John Crawford. Produced by Clyde Lucas and Ed Penny

Yakima Canutt died of natural causes at the age of 90 in North Hollywood, California.^[22]

He is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakima_Canutt

———————————————————-

Now you might understand why dear reader that I feel the way I do. The kind of Hollywood, and adversely the kind of America I want is the one that made movies like Zorro’s Fighting Legion which were populated by men like Yakima Canutt. My admiration for George Lucas is that he kept this type of America alive for the world by paying direct tribute to the old Republic serials, particularly Zorro’s Fighting Legion with his creation of Indiana Jones. Like Republic Studios, George Lucas’ Lucasfilm made movies with the same level of independence which fashioned the Republic serials to be so important in American storytelling. Raiders of the Lost Ark, not to take anything away from the visionary story of placing a globetrotting archeologist in a high adventure setting which has advanced science in so many wonderful ways, borrowed heavily from the old Republic serials and because it did, made me aware of their existence across time and space. And now you too dear reader have seen one, the best one in my opinion. One of the big fears that many current day Star Wars fans has is that Disney will ruin the Saturday morning serial feel to the films that mean more to people than even modern religions can duplicate. The reason is that the stories have values that are not provided in modern society, and movie fans are hungry for films with value. But Disney, even though it is a large company has not forgotten where it came from. It knows what Uncle Walt told them from beyond the grave and Star Wars is in good hands. The evidence is in The Lone Ranger which Disney is producing to re-invent the western the way they re-invented the pirate stories. But it cannot be forgotten that what came first, was the great Republic serials like Zorro’s Fighting Legion where truth, justice, and the American way were plot points of value not avoided by a growing consensus toward world-wide communist domination.

The Don Del Oro of our time is all those statist lovers who would destroy all who attempt to stand for goodness. They reside among us in reality with masks hiding their true intentions from behind the desks of union leadership, political office, even movie studio heads. But not everyone is playing by the rules, and like Don Diego from Zorro’s Fighting Legion there are film producers like George Lucas who kept the old serials alive for a new generation, and Jerry Bruckheimer who is making the modern version of The Lone Ranger possible. But more importantly, it is the work of men like Yakima Canutt, and Terry Lenard who gave wings to the ideas of freedom, which motion pictures have traditionally stood for, and still do in isolated cases like Disney’s The Lone Ranger, and Warner Brother’s Man of Steel.

It is worth taking a day or two to watch all these clips. So make up some snacks in the kitchen and take some time to enjoy the foundations of American film and the heroic ideals that accompany them.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

The Lone Ranger Bullwhip: By Joseph Strain

I mentioned in a recent article that Joe Strain would soon announce he was going to provide to the public an official Lone Ranger bullwhip. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. Well here it is!

The Lone Ranger Bullwhip

Joseph Strain supplied 3 whips for the 2013 production of The Lone Ranger, one black 10 foot, one black 12 foot and one brandy 12 foot.

The whip pictured below is the black 10 foot prototype. The whips were all made from kangaroo, had 10 inch handles, were a finely cut 12 plait with 2 plaited kangaroo bellies. The 32″ falls were alum tanned burgundy latigo and the poppers were black nylon. The whips also had a narrower 4 plait wrist loop measuring 7 inches long. Lone%20Rnager%2010'%20Bullwhip%202

For a limited time, you can order one of these whips exactly as made for the movie by Joseph Strain. Production will take from 4 to 6 weeks from the time of order.

If you love the Lone Ranger, this is a must have item. You can order one at the link below!

http://www.northernwhipco.com/Lone_Ranger_Bullwhip.htm

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes With The Crack of a Whip’!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

The Lone Ranger’s Nominate a Hero Award: Nominate a local hero who rides for “Justice” in your community

Ahead of Disney’s new Lone Ranger film they are running a promotion for all fighters for justice to receive an advance screening of their new film prior to its July 3^rd release. Given the kind of readers who frequent Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, there are more than a few such people in Southern Ohio who deserve a ticket.

Nominate a local hero or agency who rides for Justice in your community to receive the Lone Ranger Ride for Justice Award and an advance screening of Disney’s The Lone Ranger. Post your nominations to @LoneRanger on Twitter with the #LRRideforJustice and your city of residence, to honor your local heroes.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-lone-ranger/nominate-a-hero/10151668716963373

Pick a local hero and honor them with a nomination! And be sure to see The Lone Ranger for the 4^th of July! Click here to read my thoughts and tradition with The Lone Ranger!

“HIGH HO SILVER–AWAY!” CLICK HERE FOR MORE!

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Star Wars Weekends 2013: The best the human race has to offer in one place

Every year I look forward to the Star Wars weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It is one of the wonderful opportunities for philosophy, fantasy, ingenuity and the best aspects of human nature to converge at a palace of capitalism and celebrate the existence of one of the greatest stories of all time. I love the energy, optimism, and opportunity that Star Wars offers individuals and families everywhere. Many die-hard Star Wars fans converge every year in the middle of May to attend the fabulous Star Wars Weekend events. For those who cannot attend, I offer these clips from the spectacle taken during the opening day ceremonies on Friday, May 17, 2013.

Sit back, grab a snack and enjoy the fun and pleasure of entertainment shown in the videos below!

Rich Hoffman

“If they attack first………..blast em’!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

The Curse of the Modern Progressive: “Evasion” is what they all have in common

Evasion, as discussed previously here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom is the source of great evil in the world today. CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW. For context it is important to take note of how evasion on the high-end of the political spectrum permeates virtually everything that occurs, and creates the tendency known today as political stalemates. It is also important to understand how evasion is being utilized on the low-end of the political spectrum as well so that the big picture and full impact of evasion in our modern age can be measured.

Barack Obama waited until September 5th before acknowledging publicly the film 2016: Obama’s America, which is a documentary that proves Obama’s mother was a communist advocate, that his child hood mentors including his grand parents were strong communist advocates, and that Obama has an anti-imperial view of America that explains his bizarre pursuit of world-wide collective salvation. Obama waited to address the negative portrayal of his life even though much of it appears to be true. He hoped that if he ignored the film, that it would just go away. The trouble is, 2016: Obama’s America is making money—a lot of money, and it’s not going away, so Obama lashed out at the film on his campaign website. CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT HE SAID. Obama learned to practice the progressive tendency toward evasion, which was given to his sensibilities from the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who picked pieces of the philosopher Plato and their belief in faith to explain the unexplainable. It was Kant who made so fashionable the liberal tendency to believe in things that cannot be reasoned through in reality. This also leads to the tendency to ignore the facts of reality when the mind has produced other images within its imagination.

Progressives like Obama have an idealized view of the world and think of themselves as heroes for the weak, and conquerors of the oppressors. They have in their minds a version of reality that does not exist in the real world. So when a documentary producer makes a film like 2016: Obama’s America the gross reality of what Obama really is, and what he is truly doing to the world is frightening, and beyond the measure of reality to such feeble minds as progressives tend to be. So their reaction is to ignore the material and hope that if they don’t pay attention to it, or see it with their minds, then reality will reflect their act of not acknowledging it.

The progressive belief that they could wish upon a star or pray to some deity for the demise of a political opponent is in the pretentious belief that they are the center of the universe. This is why such fools belief in global warming, race reparations, and other self-centered microcosmic ideologies built upon the static intellectualism of their limited consciousness. Their adult minds are not much more advanced than the typical 15-year-old, so they fail to grasp many of life’s greater truths in much the fashion that a new-born baby can’t recite the alphabet. They have not yet learned to do such, yet they believe they know everything because through the practice of evasion they ignore the evidence contrary to their world-view.

Obama used evasion to protect his own mind from the reality of the film 2016: Obama’s America. He believes deep down inside like most progressives do, that if they don’t publically recognize the movie, then the movie does not exist. This accounts for many of the media tendency witnessed where things that happen during the Obama administration are ignored, but if the same thing happened during the Bush administration it would have been covered to much greater effect. A great example of this is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that was one of the greatest environmental disasters in human history. But the media, because they tend to be progressive and practice evasion did not want to see such a thing happen under a president who represented to them a period at the end of the Civil Rights sentence. It’s not that they all conspired to lean left for a political outcome, but they do practice as much of the political left does evasion, which causes them to ignore facts that don’t fit their version of reality.

As another example on the low-end of political theater, is any public school filled with government employees. These are progressive organizations and are virtually all the same. So for this example I will use the well documented Lakota Schools that has so well be chronicled at this site. As I write this Karen Mantia the superintendent who has been hired by the school board to come into Lakota to pass a school levy is attempting to hire public relations personal who can alter the reality of the facts I’ve presented as to why the school as a $200 million plus operation per year should be able to balance their budget given their declining enrollment without trouble. The things I have said do not fit the progressive approach to public education so Mantia and those under her have chosen to ignore the facts and instead believe that they can go around me and convert the minds of the district into their version of reality.

They even went to elaborate measures to separate me from what they perceived the tax increase resistance group No Lakota Levy was. Karen Mantia believes that if she meets with members of the “business” community and gets their support, that she can divide and conquer the resistance to her tax increase and flourish as a result. She is practicing evasion of reality, just like Barack Obama. She is ignoring the reason for the budget crunch, the impact that the greedy labor unions have imposed on a good school district supported by good residents. She is practicing this evasion because her chosen reality has made her wealthy, much more so than she could have achieved on her own. She believes because of this wealth, and because she holds a doctorate that she is on the same level of intellect as the members of the business community, and can play such games with full knowledge of the chess board. But due to her evasion from reality, she is only looking at her pieces, and she does not see the checkmate coming at her because she has chosen to not see it, much to her own demise. Her belief is that her doctorate has real world value which it doesn’t. She fails to understand that I can organize a hundred new No Lakota Levy groups since it was me at the center of the resistance. Talking to other people doesn’t stop resistance. It’s like trying to put out a fire in your house while staying in a vacation hotel. In this case evasion prevents her from recognizing the static reality threatening her static intellectualism so she hopes by ignoring the facts she can have success. That’s why her budget us a mess.

Much of the evasion that Obama is guilty of nationally and Karen Mantia is guilty of locally is that they both believe they can spend money to hide reality. For America this has led to a 16 trillion-dollar deficit. For Lakota it has led to spending the enormous sum of $160,000 on public relations to help cover up the realities of public education. The only hope that these political progressives have in maintaining their version of reality is to convince others to turn off their minds and participate in evasion.

It is evasion and the tendency of it that creates so much harm and misery. If a grizzly bear is about to attack a hiker in the deep woods, the threat cannot be ignored but the progressive minded will try. They will also be eaten. Just closing ones eyes will not make the bear or the threat go away. And the bear has no use of money, so throwing money at the bear or other bears will not change reality. Evasion is expensive and every politician who practices such a thing should be removed from any position of responsibility immediately. They are harmful to themselves, and others in ways that are detrimental to all of civilization.

Rich Hoffman

If you like my work at this site then check out my new book Tail of the Dragon along with quotes, interviews, reviews, and ways to find one at:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15995766-tail-of-the-dragon

Visit me at Goodreads! Check out my list of top 50 favorite books.

http://www.goodreads.com/RichHoffman

Contact me personally at:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rich-hoffman/30/92b/832

Bring ’Justice’ to your life on the Kindle or Nook within minutes:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15995901-the-symposium-of-justice

“Community Conversations” at Lakota: Why a “NO” vote is the taxpayer’s STRIKE

Do you want to know what spending $160,000 tax payer dollars buys you? Well, at the Lakota School System which is in my home district, it buys a lot. I have sent dozens and dozens of Letters to the Editor over the years to The Pulse Journal, which is my hometown paper, and I have never received so much grief as I did when I submitted the letter below in direct response to Karen Mantia’s announcement of her “Community Conversations” program, which is essentially a new way to spin the old Delphi Technique, which has been covered at this site extensively. You can read about Mantia’s announcement of this new program which is starting to hit Lakota neighborhood streets as this posting is going up on Thursday, September 13, 2012. CLICK HERE to review that article.

The letter I submitted this past week came back at me and the reporters tried to explain my figure of $160,000 spent on “Community Conversations” was wrong and that if I wanted to revise my statement I could try again in the future. Further, they let me know that the real number for how much Lakota is spending on their “Community Conversations” program was only $40,000, which is true if one only looks at that small piece of the pie. But I explained to them that I considered all the money spent on public relations to be direct factors into how much the school district was willing to spend on passing another levy, and that number was $160,000 as outlined by their own article on the matter seen at the below link.

http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/local/school-dedicates-160k-to-community-relations/nQC4W/

I told them that if they didn’t want to publish my letter that I’d find another way. From my view point, my letter will be seen by more people if I publish it here on Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom than in The Pulse Journal, but I wanted to give the paper the opportunity to show that they were not lap dogs for the Lakota School System. But their response showed that they are clearly in line with the public relations strategy that the school has formulated for the 2012 school year, which is to clean up their image, and lay the foundations for a levy increase when the LEA contract expires in 2014. By then, they hope that the public has forgotten all this levy failure mess, and they can begin to inject more money into their unmanaged budget with tax increases and smiling faces convincing everyone that it’s “all for the children.”

To get an idea of the kind of lap dog reporting I’m referring to, that hiring public relations specialists will purchase, have a look at the latest Michael Clark article from The Cincinnati Enquirer as seen below. This is what I wanted to give The Pulse Journal the opportunity to dispute, but they obviously showed their leanings, which is perfectly fair. But they cannot wonder why people will seek out other sources to get their news, if the newspapers simply become purchased advocates for the union controlled education system.

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2012/09/10/lakota-high-schools-welcome-two-new-principals/

My article as I wrote it appears below. I had originally thought the real public relations number was between $165K to $167K but I was willing to concede to the $160K number reported by The Pulse Journal. However, the spirit of the letter was to convey the disrespect the district was showing by refusing to listen to the vote of the tax payers in the previous three levy attempts. The district was instructed in face to face conversations how to manage their finances, which is reflected in the letter below and they have ignored those instructions. Instead, they have elected to purchase advocats for higher taxes to build consensus among just enough voters to turn the numbers in their favor on the next levy attempt which they plan before the 2014 LEA contract is up. As Karen Mantia said, Lakota does not have a levy on the ballot this year, but it soon will, which make no mistake about it, the “Community Conversations” is directly attempting to ease community tensions enough to pass a future levy. That is why my letter below is worded the way that it is:

I find it arrogant that Karen Mantia from Lakota made mentioned she was seeking hosts for the “community conversations” program that Lakota is spending $160,000 tax payer dollars on in order to find out what the community wants. After three failed levies I would have thought they would have figured everything out by now. So let me reiterate what Lakota should have already been doing all along, but need to implement before the LEA contract is up in 2014, where the union employees will expect a restoration of their pay increases, wrecking the budget and dictating another levy attempt.

Lakota is expected to provide an excellent school system that is one of the best in Ohio. Lakota is expected also to lessen its tax footprint on the community for which it resides. Lakota is expected to acknowledge that it has declining enrollment and should have no problem balancing its budget now that fewer students are attending school in a community with fewer households in the district with children in them. Lakota is expected to force its employees to take a 5% pay reduction before it ever considers another levy. Tax increases impact businesses at a much higher rate than the residents will have to pay. And Lakota is expected to push its high dollar employees off the payroll in exchange for younger, cheaper employees to keep its budget under control.

Very easy—and Lakota could have saved $160,000 to learn it. All they had to do was read this paper.

Rich Hoffman

Currently in Chicago the teachers are on strike turning down a 16% increase in wages. They are demanding a 30% raise and are presently marching around the streets of Chicago leaving the children high and dry, proving that the unions do not give a damn about any children. In 2008 Lakota had their union threaten a strike which forced the school board to cave under the pressure and give all the teachers a pay increase, which caused a budget deficit forcing Lakota to attempt to pass three school levies to balance their budget. People like me, fought those tax increases because we don’t like what the union did, and I refuse to give them more of my money for their despicable acts against my community. My argument from day one was not against the Lakota School Board or even the administrators, it was with the unions that control public education and I decided a few years ago that I would not support them any longer. I will not support a system that feeds them even indirectly, and I want their hooks out of my community. My anger comes when the school superintendent and school board members apologize for their lack of management by siding with the unions because they fear the kind of strikes that Chicago is currently going through, and Lakota went through just four years ago more than they do the voters.

When I organized a tax resistance against Lakota’s levy attempt I did it as a citizen strike against the union demands. A “NO” vote is the only voice a tax payer has, and it is the job of the school management to listen. At Lakota when they decided to hire public relations personnel to attack the NO voters, which is what they are doing, they are telling people like me that they fear the teachers union more than they fear my ability to organize against their school levy, and that is an insult.

When after three votes to decline tax increase proposals, the school district elected to spend $160,000 to attack the position of the NO vote, that action is a declaration of support in favor of the Lakota teacher’s union, which is the cause of all the financial trouble. If the school spent $160,000 of tax payer money trying to undo the position of the teacher’s union I would consider the money well spent, but instead they are attacking those who are refusing to pay additional taxes to support a greedy labor union.

In essence, a NO vote isn’t any different than what the teachers union in Chicago is doing when they failed to report to work, or Lakota attempted the same in protest over their pay and insurance contributions, only the NO voters have a right, and obligation to say NO. The unions do not have a right to the money they are asking for and if they refuse to work due to a strike, then the job of management in the school system in question has an obligation to find employees who will do the work, because the tax payers paid for that work, and not for public employees to march around in the street holding signs and demanding infinite amounts of money. When a voter casts a NO vote, they are also on strike against the unions themselves, and for that the newspapers, the television stations and the schools owe those people the same respect they give to the pro union supporters, and if they don’t, they are guilty of supporting one side, and not the other.

That’s when the crime of using tax payer money, like what Lakota did, and The Pulse Journal debated with me over in my Letter to the Editor to attempt to erode away the NO vote, (THE TAXPAYERS STRIKE) becomes a serious matter. All supporters who pick the side of the union have declared that they respect the taxpayers who voted NO less than they do the teachers union who will threaten a strike on a whim to get what they want whenever they want it. And that is a mistake.

Without the taxpayer, there is no union. Without the taxpayer, there is no school. Without the taxpayer, there are no people to read the newspapers, or watch the news. Without the taxpayer there is nothing. It would be thought that there would be more respect given to the tax payer by all the parties above, but they don’t because in history the unions are far more radical and nasty to deal with, where the tax payer has been peaceful and shown themselves to be willing to be shoved around and bullied.

That is, until now…………………….

When Lakota tries their fourth levy attempt, they will learn that they had far less to fear from the unions than the taxpayer, and they will wish they did what I stated in my Letter to the Editor. They chose poorly in fearing the strike of the unions over the strike of the taxpayers.

Rich Hoffman

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Whip Cracking Philosophy: Yes, ‘The Symposium of Justice’ is available on Kindle

I spent part of the weekend with my friend Gery Deer discussing things much more pleasant than politics, specifically literature and bullwhips. He asked me now that my most recent book Tail of the Dragon was out, when I planned to write a sequel to The Symposium of Justice. I told him that I was already planning it, the title as of now is Overmanwarrior: The Trial of Fletcher Finnegan. Gery and I go back a bit. For more info on the two of us, check out this article done at Yahoo News:

http://voices.yahoo.com/ohio-production-company-plays-major-role-futuristic-3151948.html

Gery loves my first book and has always been one of its greatest supporters. He showed me how he was prominently displaying The Symposium of Justice on his online bookstore which can be seen at the link below, and we reminisced about the many adventures we had over the years because of that novel.

http://astore.amazon.com/gldentcomwri-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=2

Gery’s wife is a tremendous reader, and the last two times I’ve seen her, she had her face planted in her trusty Kindle. I told her that I didn’t understand why the Kindle was so popular and she showed me how she could download a lot of books into it and read them on the run. She absolutely loves it. She also mentioned to me that she noticed I never advertised The Symposium of Justice in its Kindle version, and I realized that mostly the reason was that I haven’t accepted the technology. I am still very much in love with traditional books that I can hold in my hands and smell. These download versions are such a new concept that I just can’t accept them the way others have.

But she did get me thinking. I hadn’t seen Gery since the Annie Oakley festival and he and I needed to talk about books, whips, TV and media appearances, and of course small talk. Mostly I wanted to show him two of the three whips that David Crain had custom-made for me which I won in the whip contests over the summer. David is finishing up the third 5’ whip now, but the other two I wanted Gery to see in his one-of-a-kind whip studio up in Jamestown, Ohio which is a great place to let them loose.

The Symposium of Justice is a favorite book among those who have read it, particularly those in our little whip community. The character of Fletcher Finnegan/Cliffhanger is an interesting twist to the traditional Zorro/Batman type of character. As written, Fletcher Finnegan is a combination of Howard Roark from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Zorro. He’s very complex, athletically perfect, and has a tremendous intellect. He is by all definitions a perfect man. He is the type of hero that everyone wants to be, and he lives his life without any fear. The plot tension comes not from his weaknesses but in his interaction with a society that strives to beat him into submission any way possible and the reader’s desire to see how he can survive such a social gauntlet.

My characters are all like this, because to be honest, that’s the only type of character I think is worthy to write about. In my recent Tail of the Dragon Rick Stevens has been found to be of the same caliber of strong, fearless quality as Finnegan. Although I did go out of my way to put Rick Stevens in situations that would show him to be more “human” than Fletcher Finnegan was in The Symposium of Justice, because of the incredible blowback I received from the progressive literary community, which at that time was not so well-defined. Reviewers back when I released that book didn’t know what to think about such a strong character, because socially we have become so used to whiny, snot-nosed, beta men. Nobody but children openly like and admire such strong characters as Fletcher Finnegan. However, the problem is that The Symposium of Justice is a very “adult” book so kids weren’t the ones buying it, it was adults.

Slowly, over time, people have started to show their love of Fletcher Finnegan. Maybe it has something to do with the re-emergence of Ayn Rand’s strong characters from The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged that is contributing to it. Or maybe the Obama Presidency has left a yearning for such characters that wasn’t there in the years immediately following the 9/11 tragedy which placed The United States on the defensive and trillions of dollars of over-reactionary, panic driven debt. Or maybe it’s because people have been reading my blog and are hungry for the kind of characters who live the lives I paint in the millions of words I’ve posted hoping to share my thoughts about how the world should be, and not willing to yield to in our current social state. It’s probably a little of all those elements that is giving The Symposium of Justice new life for a new generation of readers.

There is a scene that occurs in The Symposium of Justice that is so contrary to a typical action story that many who read it the first time through didn’t know what to think. The scene occurs in the chapter titled ‘Salad Bar Goddess’ where a hit man named R.L. Justice tracks Fletcher Finnegan and his family down to kill in front of a crowded restaurant in the town of Fort Seven Mile. The hit man, a traditional tough guy from the south side of Chicago, and feared as most sinister in his profession realizes that upon seeing Fletcher’s wife Misty, the town’s popular city council woman, Justice realized that he was sent to kill the perfect man, because nobody but a perfect man could have a woman as beautiful both physically and spiritually as Misty Finnegan. Once Justice figures out who Finnegan is, he makes eye contact and for the first time in his life sees a man looking back who has not one ounce of fear in him. Justice realizes that even if he could kill Fletcher Finnegan, that to do so would be a crime against humanity and suddenly Justice realizes that he is nothing but an assassin for a corrupt system that seems to only exist to stamp out people like Fletcher Finnegan. It is a life changing moment for R.L. Justice to meet Fletcher Finnegan. No words are spoken between the two men, but the communication that flows between the individual lives of the two radically different men completely alters the direction of the professional hit man. Realizing that his life has been a terrible waste, and that he is simply a puppet to his puppet masters, R.L. Justice decides to do one good thing in his life after that pivotal meeting. He leaves the restaurant, and gallantly throws himself out onto a highway in front of an oncoming truck, and kills himself instantly. That’s the kind of novel that The Symposium of Justice is.

My wife loves the character of Cliffhanger/Fletcher Finnegan. She thinks that young people should have such a positive character in their lives. Finnegan is everything I always wished Zorro to be, but lacked. Finnegan doesn’t bother to pretend to be foppish as Don Diego did in the Zorro stories. Finnegan knows that people don’t know about his vigilante antics as the masked Cliffhanger because society wishes not to acknowledge him socially. They refuse to see what is right in front of them, so there is no need to hide. It is that revelation which confronts the old, seasoned hit man R.L. Justice who considered himself an expert at dissecting human beings in order to identify his targets, and even he did not see who Fletcher Finnegan was, until it was too late. So obviously, I have thought about a sequel to The Symposium of Justice and have been anxious to begin it. My wife has been pushing me for years, and it was one of the first things Gery always mentions to me in our meetings over a long period of time.

So I am going to take the advice of Gery’s wife and embrace this whole Kindle thing. The least I can do in these tight economic times is let people know that they can get a Kindle version of The Symposium of Justice. It costs only $7.99 at Amazon.com and can be downloaded today. So while you’re out there reading my new book Tail of the Dragon, feel free to download The Symposium of Justice and enjoy the obscure exploits of Fletcher Finnegan as he fights the Dark Knights of Order. It’s a contemporary tale with an unusually strong central character that is my idea of what every human being should strive to become. It’s a fan favorite of all my whip friends who love that Fletcher’s weapon of choice is a bullwhip, but it’s not his physical prowess that defeats his enemies—it’s his mind. A man who can do both is the most lethal weapon imaginable, and a society of such men and women are what I as an author strive to see.

Click the picture to enter the world of Fletcher Finnegan without further hesitation. Even though I’ve explained one of my favorite scenes, it is not the only twist and turn in that first writing endeavor that I professionally completed. It is only the beginning of a deep and intricate story that goes to places only literature can imagine.

____________________________________________

Click Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE and help spread the word! TELL SEVEN PEOPLE TO TELL SEVEN PEOPLE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Clint Eastwood at the RNC: Explaining what the ’empty chair’ meant

I waited a couple of days to calm down before stating my opinion of the Eastwood speech at the RNC Convention just prior to Mitt Romney being officially nominated as the Republican nomminee for President of the United States. The panicked Romney aide behind the stage at the Convention who said cringing as the speech time on stage exceeded the 5 minute mark and was way off-key from the typical stuffy Republican stage setup, “You don’t edit Clint Eastwood” was absolutely correct. You don’t “edit” Clint Eastwood. Eastwood is one of the most recognizable names in the world not because he sat quietly while others told him what to do, but because he has often embarked on wild chances and taken great risk upon himself and others in the building of his international persona. He has an elevated level of understanding of what audiences want to see, and his speech certainly reflected it. His knowledge of what an audience wants to see far exceeds the knowledge of the typical 30 to 40-year-old PR specialists handling Romney’s campaign, and they are not qualified to “edit” Clint Eastwood.

I knew what to expect when Clint Eastwood took the stage because I have watched the film icon give hundreds of interviews over the years, and most of them are just like that. Eastwood does not like to use notes, Teleprompters, or come across with flattened authenticity. To understand what Eastwood thinks deep down inside all anyone has to do is watch some of his most personal films, like White Hunter Black Heart, and Bronco Billy. Nothing Eastwood said on stage just minutes before the heavily scripted acceptance speech of Mitt Romney came as a surprise to me.

I was impressed to learn that Mitt Romney personally invited Eastwood to speak. It shows that Romney as a manager can identify talent thinking outside the box and will likely surround himself with good people like Paul Ryan when he gets the presidential job. But Romney was not giving Eastwood any kind of break in letting him speak. Unlike the speeches by Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, Marc Rubio and many others that were carefully scripted, Eastwood was not, and the Romney people wouldn’t dare ask the legendary actor to do such a silly thing. Romney like all politicians sought from Eastwood credibility, and to show that prestigious members of the Hollywood community supported Republicans, and that not all Hollywood was in the corner of Barack Obama. That message was so important to Romney that he had Eastwood give the last independent speech before his own introduction, and he got what he wanted in Clint Eastwood. To me, that shows great vision and instinct even if the Romney handlers were dumbstruck by the performance.

I was however baffled by the criticism, many saying that Eastwood looked like a stumbling fool on stage, a senile old man. Eastwood’s hair was a wreck, his manner seemed unorganized, and he was crude and insulting. But the biggest criticism of all is that he sucked all the air out of the room and had people talking about his speech the next day instead of Romney. Well, news flash, I could have told the Romney people exactly what Eastwood was going to do. I was so unsurprised by his speech that my wife and I hardly noticed it because in the Hoffman house, Clint Eastwood is the closest thing to a religious icon anyone will find. Over my dresser are two pictures of Clint Eastwood carefully framed and I look at them every day. My DVD collection has every single Clint Eastwood movie ever made, and they have been watched, and watched, and watched again. I even have the T.G. Sheppard album that features a duet with Clint Eastwood called “MAKE MY DAY.” For many years my family has ushered in each New Year by watching all 5 Dirty Harry films on New Year’s Eve and New Years Day. No football games, no parties, just Clint Eastwood movies with him playing Dirty Harry. Every young person in my family who has had to drive around in a car with me has had to listen to me playing that song while we drive. I simply love the man. I admire his grit and ability to age well every bit as much as the toughness he exhibited in his youthful movies that made him an international star. Eastwood has not been afraid to piss off people before, people he had admired greatly, specifically John Wayne when that cowboy icon was up in arms over Eastwood’s film direction, and acting in the movie High Plains Drifter, which Wayne felt was an insult to the American Cowboy image he helped to craft. Eastwood’s portrayal in that film as a “hell hound” returning from the dead to punish an entire town for the betrayal of their sheriff crossed many established lines of thinking in the early 1970’s. It is so refreshing to see that the 82-year-old Clint Eastwood is still not afraid to take a chance to make his point and is much smarter than the people around him. Even after a lifetime well lived, Clint Eastwood is still authentic to his own personal beliefs and cannot be swept up in the tide of politics. Eastwood showed up as a favor to the Romney Campaign and at no point did he get wrapped up in the glitter. To Eastwood, he knows just him being there helps Romney. But Romney does not help Clint. The sacrifice was purely on Eastwood’s end.

When I give public speeches and other presentations I do not use notes because I learned it from watching the many lectures of Joseph Campbell, and interviews with Clint Eastwood. The reason is that carefully prepared speeches come out sounding fake. It is much better to speak from the heart. Now on the downside, a public speaker without notes sometimes rolls through sentences while stringing together thoughts. People expecting Eastwood to give a polished performance like his younger speakers at the Convention have simply become used to the well oiled machine that has become the political norm. When Clint Eastwood went on stage, I know he was thinking he had to hit all the marks the Romney people told him to hit, but he was going to do his own thing as he usually does. Knowing Clint Eastwood, he went up on stage with a metaphorical idea he came up with while listening to the other speeches of the evening, and he wanted to use the “empty chair” to convey how we all feel about President Obama and politics in general. Most of the directors at the RNC failed to grasp the metaphor, and that is their problem. Eastwood figured that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, so what the hell. Everyone in the room wanted somebody to take a shot at President Obama that was stylish and worked on any levels, and Eastwood had the guts to do it.

When people say “if I were to die tomorrow” they mean they would do things differently if they knew they did not have to live with the consequences which implies that they would be willing to live with little lies in their lives if they know they have to wake up tomorrow and face the music. In Eastwood’s case, he has lived his life this way for a long time, and now that he’s 82, he could die tomorrow. He could die at anytime, and he knows it, and is comfortable with that knowledge, but he’s not about to leave this earth being a stooge for a political looter, who simply wanted to use Eastwood’s image to prop up his own credibility.

Clint Eastwood detests–especially in politics–over grooming, too much make-up, and cardboard cutout people. Oddly enough, some of the appeal of Paul Ryan is that he represents an Eastwood style of politician, no-nonsense, fit, smart, and practical. When he first took the VP position his own hair and clothing was a bit sloppy, and that is appealing because it shows that Ryan cared more about his work than his appearance. But in two weeks once the Romney handlers began to “manage him—Ryan received a nice $300 haircut and is getting a taste of the “looters life” and it is obvious that he’s starting to like it. You can see it by the way he scowled at Eastwood’s speech looking at his watch in quit protest. I would offer to Ryan not to forget who he is, and to not get too wrapped up in images. When Eastwood, one of the greatest film directors of all time went on stage with his hair a mess—without a single speech note—without a care about his future and how the Romney people might scowl at what he said—he did every bit of it on purpose. Clint Eastwood had a very good idea that what he was about to say would be analyzed heavily, criticized, and belittled. He knew that the finger-pointing politicians would run for cover and attempt to distance themselves from him within seconds. Eastwood’s intention in his speech was for one last time in his life on a big stage to show everyone viewing just what is wrong in politics, and why people have lost faith in the two-party system. Everything he did was on purpose to be analyzed, and talked about for years.

Eastwood’s goal on stage that night at the RNC was not to be liked. He was already liked. Mitt Romney simply wanted to show the world that movie stars like him too. That was the entire purpose of bringing Clint Eastwood to the RNC convention. Nobody gives a damn about the crap a politician says. And it should come as no surprise that a movie actor could show up and take all the attention from the other looters in the room. And nobody gives a rat’s ass about what the media thinks, because those are the same idiots who “made” Obama. It’s the heart and soul of America that Clint Eastwood was speaking to and that is why the people who enjoyed his speech did, and the people all caught up in the wrong aspects of politics called it “strange,” and like “an episode of Twin Peaks.” Even Glenn Beck belittled the Eastwood speech, which really lowered Beck’s grade in my book. I was planning to go see Beck when he comes to Cincinnati in a few weeks, but based on his comments over the Eastwood speech, I don’t think I will value what he says. I might listen to him every now and then on the radio, but I won’t go out of my way to see him in public like I did when he came to Wilmington. Beck like Ryan, Anne Romney and Scott Walker based on their comments and behavior over Eastwood is looking too closely at the established order of things, and it is that order that people are sick of. Beck has done a good job asking for courage among politicians, and out of all people, he should understand what Eastwood was trying to do. But even he is too wrapped up in the “established” thinking to see what’s really going on, and that is disappointing. Like Ryan, Beck is becoming too big, and his concern over his own legacy is starting to overtake his reasonable assessment. Politics should not be so well rehearsed, it should not be so scripted, and it should not be praised as royalty. When Eastwood took the stage he did so as a rebel who didn’t comb his hair, and was going to speak from the heart. That should be honored.

The drifting from sentence to sentence that Eastwood was doing, especially after the 5 minute mark was because the red light was flashing, telling him to wrap up his speech. When I speak in public, I get told often to wrap it up, because if people let me, I will talk all day. But in Eastwood’s case, he knew that the directors of the RNC event were not happy with what he was doing, and that what he was saying was going to hurt. But he had to do it anyway, and he controlled his emotions very well, picking carefully which thing to say next so that it was right at the edge of acceptance, without crossing the line. It was not that Eastwood was a senile fool on stage, but a man walking a tightrope, and he was in no hurry to fall. He took one step after another to deliver one of the most scathing rebukes of a sitting president ever delivered on such a large public stage, and he did it with all the bravado that made him one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Mitt Romney got what he wanted whether he was consciously aware of what he was asking for or not. As I said before, Romney is showing a good instinct for hiring the right kind of people for the job, and bringing Eastwood to the convention was a brilliant idea. But I would caution those same Republicans not to distance themselves from what Eastwood did and said. Clint Eastwood did the Republican Party a tremendous favor at his own personal risk. The politicians involved should accept it at its value, which is great, and not distance themselves from him. To do so is to betray what they proclaim they are fighting for.

The American public is sick and tired of contrived, plastic, politics. They want to hear things told from the heart, and they like to see the soul of the person speaking. Glenn Beck is a great public speaker, and even he writes down notes in outline form so he can deliver punctual presentations to the public and not bounce around when he gets stuck in front of 60,000 people like Eastwood was doing. But notes are still a crutch, and it takes great courage to stand in front of so many people with only your intellect as your alley, which is why Eastwood does not speak with notes. It’s also why he’s 82 years old and still able to speak with such authority as he did at the RNC convention. His wits were clearly about him, as he delivered a speech that worked on many levels, not just a superficial, visual one.

If I was disenfranchised with politics before the Eastwood speech, I am certainly more so now, based on the political response to it. The Republicans are the good guys in my book and even the good guys are deeply tainted. I can see where the next line of battles will occur in the years following the buffoon Obama, and it will not be with the professional politicians in the room at the RNC convention or their handlers. I stand with Clint Eastwood completely over anyone else from the RNC event. It’s not that the man can do no wrong in my eyes. I can think of a few times he has let me down, as in making the film Tightrope, and a few others, but I trust that Eastwood makes every attempt to be honest with himself, and his intellect has benefited from his honesty. So when he says something, I trust what it is. I may not agree with it all the time, but I know there was a thought process that delivered the thought, and it didn’t come from some snot-nosed speech writer fresh out of college who doesn’t have a lick of experience in real life. I don’t want to hear Romney deliver a carefully controlled and well-orchestrated speech given to him by a hundred such handlers. I want to hear the authenticity of what a man is, not what kind of image he can conger up for himself. It is a sad state when it is an actor who is the most real person in a room, and at the RNC convention, Clint Eastwood was the most honest. Anne Romney should still be grateful that a person like Eastwood is supporting her husband and not make sly comments about how there should have been more contrived video of her family instead of the Eastwood speech. Nobody gives a shit lady. Don’t even think about turning into another Washington princess before the seat from the previous fat ass duchess has left it.

It should say everything to everyone watching the Eastwood convention speech that an “empty chair” was the most interesting thing that happened at the RNC convention. The empty chair worked on many levels of psychology. It obviously represented President Obama who has spent his entire presidency running for re-election, and not doing the job he was elected to do. But it also represented the emptiness present in politics. I would not put it passed Eastwood that the idea came not while on the plane from California, but while the Romney people where giving him their talking points to incorporate into his speech. The idea for the chair was meant as a warning not just to Obama, but to the Republican Party to not just become more empty minds in empty seats holding public office. It was a warning not to be afraid to shake it up a little, and be unpredictable, because that’s how you get the media eating out of your hand instead of the other way around—and that is a lesson that the Republican Party hasn’t been able to achieve since Ronald Reagan was president, who like Eastwood knew all the tricks of the trade because they are actors who have mastered public image. The Eastwood speech was not a debacle, it was a brilliant metaphor intended for minds too dim to see it. But the resonance of Eastwood, in what felt like one last public performance was a potent one that sadly shows how bad our political system really is. It revealed that even people I thought “got it” still don’t and I won’t bend over backwards ever again to listen to what they have to say, because the mind behind the thought is still in its infancy.

Yesterday Romney came to Cincinnati. I was invited, but I did not go, mainly because of the ill feelings I have after listening to the controlled finger-pointing after the Eastwood speech. In a couple of weeks, Glenn Beck is coming to town and I was planning to attend, but won’t be now. I’ll still support both people, and in Beck’s case I enjoy 80% of his work most of the time. But to jump on the Eastwood bashing bandwagon tells me a lot about these people. When it comes to picking and choosing, I’ll stick with the “Man with No Name” over the “Name” of a politician or political commentator. Because there is far more value in the man who arrives at 82 years of age and has not been seduced by the glittery lights of politics over the men who are enamored by it and became that way in a much shorter span of their lifetimes. I will not go out of my way to see those first people speak in person. But if Eastwood announced that he was coming to Cincinnati tomorrow to eat a hamburger but would not be giving any public statements I would drop what I was doing and attend, because there is more manliness in the authenticity of sticking to a set of beliefs than the person who follows the trends of belief. The world is so full of the later, and is in desperate need of the former. The value of a wordless bite into a hamburger by Clint Eastwood holds more merit than a whole string of convention speeches by polished politicians and their puppet handlers of orthodox opinion. The aide was right, “you don’t edit Clint Eastwood.” His brand is proven, and if you ask him to speak, you take what you get. In the case of politics, a movie actor is much more important than a roomful of politicians, and that sad fact is a reality that cannot be covered up with fancy lights and balloons, but is exposed by the presence of a simple–empty–chair.

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Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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Don Steinberg from The Wall Street Journal — Ok, so over to “The Lone Ranger.” And speaking of theme music: there’s probably never been any audible version of the Lone Ranger that didn’t use the William Tell Overture. Do you nod to that?

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