The Best Thing About ‘The Force Awakens’: John Williams

Matt Clark and I over the weekend did a rather important show about the new Star Wars picture and the radicalism of Disney from its employees based on an article I wrote several weeks ago. You will be able to listen to that broadcast on WAAM radio soon. However, Matt had on a guest that was late to the call at the bottom of the hour and needed to fill some time while his producer got him on the phone. So we had to come up with a bit of off-script content to bridge the gap. I brought up something I had been thinking about a lot in anticipation of the new Force Awakens Star Wars film based on persistent fears that the expectations were just so high. There was a real danger of walking away disappointed. I realized after a lot of thought that the primary reason I was looking forward to the new Star Wars film was for one simple reason—I want to hear new Star Wars music from John Williams. Everything else is literally secondary. To understand why, watch this old 20/20 segment about John Williams from 1983.

I was a strange kid—which should have been assumed based on a casual reading of my millions and millions of words. There are a lot of people who get paid decent amounts of money for writing far less than I do about far, far fewer topics. Yet I know that I have to write otherwise my head would explode with too many thoughts. I have too many hobbies, too many passions, too many philosophical quandaries that reside at the root of politics that if I don’t get them out and onto some kind of page to look at I may well explode with enthusiasm. So I have to write because I opened the door to something when I was very young that I have never closed. I only wanted to be one thing when I grew up—but I was caught between two worlds really. There was no other job that I wanted to be involved with than a director of movies. The trouble was I also had a pretty powerful physical aptitude. Creative types tend to enjoy escaping from reality and creating what they do in a vacuum of contemplation—whereas I didn’t. I wanted to be in the thick of reality at all times, which flew in the face of the film industry. But at age 13 in 1983 when that 20/20 episode came out on John Williams I wanted to be a film director so that I could work with people like him. What I learned eventually, and much later that there really isn’t anyone like John Williams, the great composer and conductor for some of the most powerful and important movies our American culture has ever produced. So that 20/20 episode was very important to me—I watched it over and over again on a new device called a VHS video tape. I had recorded it and showed it to every member of my family whenever there was some gathering trying to share with them the passion I felt for John Williams music. Most of them didn’t understand.

John Williams is the most important musical personality of the millennia—more so than Beethoven, Mozart, Bach or anybody else. Many years later as I worked at Cincinnati Milicron in Oakley, just north of downtown Cincinnati I listened to all those composers religiously on NPR radio while I worked as a tear-down person for rebuilt machine lathes. The other workers had a typical unionized approach to work, they watched the break clock closely—paced out their day making sure not to produce too much too quickly, and they listened to a lot of classic rock. I wasn’t adverse to rock and roll—there is a certain magic to it blaring from a radio in a machine shop—a freedom that is healthy and defiant in all the right ways—but its not very intellectual. Rock music is very linier—which has never been something I was interested in—rock music equals a can of beer resulting in unstable personal relationships. I enjoyed it for its ambiance, not for the lifestyles that draped off it—the limited vision of the world and lack-luster ambition typical of its fans. So I listened to my radio tuned to NPR’s classical station in Cincinnati and listened to the greats for hours on end while I worked. I was the only one who did this within the entire facility which eventually was dismantled and is now covered by the upgraded development occurring around the Rockwood shopping complex. I have always thought that if more people listened to that classical station with me that the employees would have been smart enough to see the writing on the wall years ago, and Cincinnati Milicron would not have eventually closed down their Oakley facility—but that’s a story we’ve covered before. For this purpose, I considered classical music to be the supreme type of music a human being can listen to—and among them at the very top is John Williams. There is nobody better—and I’ve listened to them all.

Most classical composers wrote their music for some play centuries before they ever appeared on NPR radio. So to me it was not deficient to look at John Williams as one who will eventually surpass the memory of all the obvious musical minds in the future. Movies are modern plays, so a film score is tomorrow’s classical music that will play on NPR radio in the future, all the time. These days however if anybody happened to look at my iPod they would only see two primary names on the entire 10G device, John Williams and Hans Zimmer. There are a few others, but 95% of my iPod is filled with those two musical film composers. Of those two, Hans Zimmer is clearly the student of the master, John Williams. I don’t see them as comparable in any way—other than they both make music. Nobody writes music like John Williams—I listen to him nearly every day in some fashion or another and I never get tired of the way he strings together compositions.

As we were sitting at the bottom of the hour trying to get Matt’s guest on the air, I thought about why I was eager for The Force Awakens by thinking about what I liked most about the recently released trailer—the final one before the film opens on December 18th. It was the scene from a series of clips where the Millennium Falcon was entering hyperspace from the inverted direction speeding into blue light accompanied musically by an upgrade from the previous Han and Leia theme. That was fresh music made just for this trailer and it was stunning in how it helped invoke curiosity. John Williams understands just the right notes to put on a page for what is happening on the screen. The way he tells stories through music is extraordinary, and it was his music that I wanted to hear most regarding the new film.

I meant it when I said it on the air, the Disney Company could put hand puppets on the screen for The Force Awakens and I wouldn’t care so long as I had yet another opportunity to listen to a film score by the great John Williams. He enjoys making swashbuckler type of compositions and really thrives in the type of story that Star Wars is, so it typically brings out the best in him. If the story is not something I can get into, I will at least enjoy the John Williams music—which is what I am looking forward to most. It’s not often that the entire world will attend a musical concert that is classical in nature. Literally the entire planet will be attending a John Williams concert when The Force Awakens opens just ahead of Christmas 2015. And there is nothing negative about that.

Music doesn’t need language—it transcends social limitations and reaches for the pit of our very souls for understanding. Based on that 20/20 clip, it was obvious then that John Williams was on a crash course with destiny as the greatest composer of all time—at least over the last 1000 years—because there has been nobody like him ever. He’s just the right mix of everything musical. No matter how much I listened to Bach, or Mozart on NPR radio, when they would occasionally put on some John Williams music—from any movie—it was clear that a master had assembled the notes. With that in mind there isn’t much Disney can do to ruin Star Wars so long as John Williams is the man behind the music. Star Wars will always be good so long as the music from those movies are made by the 83-year-old composer who was always ahead of his time and is the best that ever occupied nostalgia. Film music is considered low-brow entertainment among the art critics of our day—but that’s because they’re in the back of the train. Eventually those art analyzers will catch up to what I’m saying today—that John Williams is the primary reason that millions will love the new film and it will be the largest and most diverse opening to an orchestral concert in the history of earth—and that is enough to give anyone goose bumps because the impact it will have on shaping our future generations will be paramount. I suspect that The Force Awakens score will be the grand fortissimo to a long and prosperous career.   But more than that, it will be the last act of a brilliant mind, who would rather write alone all day behind a piano than do anything else—which is why he has been and will always be the greatest.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Sergio Leone at Liberty Center: Taking a step back to the lessons of classic spaghetti westerns

The very first movie I can remember seeing was A Fistful of Dollars when I was four years old. I had seen it a year before on Channel 19 but it was something I had watched with my mom while she canned tomatoes. Our house didn’t have air conditioning but I didn’t care. Our television back then was color, but it barely had good enough reception to see what was going on through the static. But when it did Sergio Leone’s westerns were the coolest thing on television and I watched them in pools of my own sweet as my first conscious memories. If it could be said that I had a primary influence on my life it was in those moments of watching Leone westerns with my mother well before I ever turned five. Back then all I remembered of A Fistful of Dollars was the end where Clint Eastwood chained a steel chest-plate to his chest hidden under his poncho and taunted Remon Rojos to aim for his heart. Each time a bullet struck Eastwood he’d fall down but keep getting up again until he closed in on the villain with honor and killed him with a great final standoff. I used to watch the entire film not understanding anything anybody was saying just so I could see that ending over and over again. Back then there were no DVDs so you’d have to wait for it to come back on television at some unforeseen time. So I learned to read by going through the TV guide and looking for old Sergio Leone westerns looking hoping A Fistful of Dollars would come on again. To learn more about Leone as a person and director watch this fantastic documentary on him to understand why I enjoyed his work so much.

Sergio Leone had more influence on me as a result of those continuous viewings than I’d typically give credit. Because I was always looking for A Fistful of Dollars I’d sometimes confuse the films with For A Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in the West because I learned that they were directed by Sergio Leone which was easier to remember than the title of the movies. So I watched them all often disappointed that they weren’t the one where Clint Eastwood kept getting shot, yet continued to get back up. Sergio’s impact on cinema was incalculable. He directly influenced the Star Wars films and literally hundreds of future directors, actors, cinematographers and many others not even in the show business industry. His westerns were stunningly passionate yet dystopian. He did so much with so little money that each frame of film was made as if it were his last. His use of sound effects, music and the visual medium of film is something that very few directors were ever able to achieve. He was simply stunning.

Like me Sergio Leone loved classic American westerns, which were a primary export to his home country of Italy. Unlike me, he didn’t live in the United States, so when he met Americans for the first time coming to Rome as conquerors after World War II they didn’t live up to his expectations and the director sought to reconcile that disappointment with his westerns. After all Leone was living in a Marxist oriented European mindset looking to the West with a bit of hope—but the people from that land were less than valiant which put his unique spin on the American western—famously known as the spaghetti westerns.

That disappointment was never more clear than in Once Upon a Time in the West where the primary villain was the clear-eyed Henry Fonda—the star of many American westerns. He was a classic bad guy cast against a break-out role for the young Charles Bronson. The anger I felt toward Fonda because of the scene where the hired gun for the railroad tycoon known as Morton killed the land owner McBain and his children with a brutal hanging was excessive. That anger lasted most of my life, because I have since seen that type of evil firsthand. Sergio Leone as an Italian who was in love with the image of America was poised to make films that criticized the western while at the same time relishing in them. Leone captured the raw personality of evil in his films in a way that nobody else had or has since—never with such grandiose passion. But for me, the trilogy of films that embodied the “Once Upon” films, which would make eventual stars of many actors were not the best work of Leone. As he became older and had attended several film festivals, he leaned more toward Marxism—which was the home philosophy of Italy. The hope of his youth had left his films by the time he made Once Upon a Time in America. More and more Leone was obsessed with the evils of crony capitalism as if to justify his Marxist leanings which essentially helped fuel the Hollywood insurrection more toward the political left.

Quentin Tarantino who is about to release the modern western The Hateful Eight, which I’m eager to see and shares with me a love for Leone leans more toward the later part of Leone’s career as opposed to the front with the Fistful of Dollars trilogy. Most of Hollywood for that matter saw how Leone turned the American western on its head and thought that prevailing trend was “high art.” So they turned their eyes to Europe and made movies that punched even deeper holes into the American mythology of the Old West. But that approach was misguided and doomed from the start. While I really enjoyed Leone’s later work, especially his Once Upon the Time in the West, it was his Dollars films that I think are the hopeful musings of a would-be capitalist and his yearnings for the kind of America that it should have always been—as represented by the self-reliant individualist Clint Eastwood. Tarantino pays many tributes to Sergio in his films, but he never quite gets it, which I’m sure will be a continued problem in his The Hateful Eight. Tarantino is a broken person because he loved the wrong Leone.

But I didn’t, I saw through that conflict before I was age 7 and was beginning to understand these strange western films from a foreign director who couldn’t even speak English. People like Tarantino and his producers at the Weinstein Company gravitated toward the Marxist Leone, not the hopeful treasure hunter of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly—where the good guy played by Clint Eastwood gets the treasure, gets his revenge, and rides off into the sunset alone. He does the same thing in For A Few Dollars More and to a lesser degree in A Fistful of Dollars. In that first film released in 1964 Eastwood has more of a classic showdown with the bad guys as he comes back to town to save a friend of his from hanging. Hanging in these western films which are now 50 years old represented the brutality of unjust application of authority and the abuse of the strong against the weak. In those films Eastwood played a classic avenger, which he would go on to build a career on. Smartly, Eastwood turned down the role of the lead protagonist in Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West—which was a brilliant film wonderfully shot, but did not have the capitalist message that had made Eastwood such a superstar. Good move on Eastwood’s part because even though Sergio Leone had larger budgets to work with and studio backing that he never dreamed of a decade before—like George Lucas his vision began to be tainted as his hope for America moved from tradition to progressivism. When most of their Hollywood friends were jealous European sympathizing Marxists and are all left-leaning at film festivals, the lens of their vision changed from hopeful capitalists to regulated Marxists. As a result the American public generally began to reject Leone films whereas critics began to praise them—because they were moving toward the left as well. American however stayed center-right and just stopped paying attention to Leone.

This was on my mind because I was shopping with my wife at Liberty Center and couldn’t help but notice a fashion trend that was emerging—perhaps 40 years too late, but it’s emerging. The influence of Leone’s spaghetti westerns is rising into the mainstream as many of the high-end clothing designed for affluent types look like they are coming straight off the screen of Leone’s classic westerns. This is a great thing as they are not the type of westerns that Tarantino loved, but the kind that I did. America is slowly beginning to wake up to the sleep it has been under and is turning back to its origins—sharing that bright-eyed hope that Sergio Leone once had that America could be a place for personal gain and intact justice. Clint Eastwood’s character in the Leone westerns never had doubt in himself and was always able to slug through any situation presented to him. He just kept getting up and up which my four-year-old eyes never forgot. That movie is as part of me as anything else is and it all started with my mother watching that film with me knowing that it would somehow be important. That’s why she’s such a good mom. She launched me in the right direction which apparently the rest of the world is just starting to understand—perhaps not deeply, but at least emotionally as it is started to show itself in our fashions.

For a long time I’ve had the hunch that all aspects of American culture needed to go back in time to that precipice of history to when A Fistful of Dollars was released, and start over. Instead of hating the crony capitalists Rojos as a reason to steer society toward Marxism we should focus on the capitalist that played both sides against the other for the personal gain of reward while doing good for those around him as a natural by-product. In those days nobody in the world understood capitalism better than Sergio Leone and his good friend Ennio Morricone. America should have listened then. But it’s not too late. I saw several women standing at the corner of Bales Street and Haskell who looked like they stepped right off the set of For A Few Dollars More. They may not have been aware of it, but it was obvious to me that the fashion designers for their clothing were clearly fans of early Sergio Leone westerns likely for the reasons I just mentioned. European Marxism has taken the world nowhere. So its time to re-evaluate our philosophy and to step back to that very first film, A Fistful of Dollars and see it through the eyes of its maker—and not make the same mistakes going forward. I received the message the first time, and I have never looked back and been with any doubt. Tarantino and the modern films schools have it wrong—they need to go back to Leone and understand what it was in the beginning that made him so great—and its not that he cast Henry Fonda as a villain.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Politically Incorrect Review of Liberty Center: How the future allows people of value to enjoy life

I have written about the Liberty Center development for a long time because I had the fortune of knowing quite a lot about it during the early stages, and have been fascinated by the people building it. I have had the opportunity to travel a lot and know what’s out there, and what’s good and bad about the places I’ve been. Of course since it is in my community I have spent a considerable amount of time there over the last week—and I have to say that I really enjoy it. But if people want a politically correct review of Liberty Center, they can go to the Chamber sites, or read about it in the newspaper. Since my concerns are more philosophically based regarding humanity, and I’m not so concerned about my social status within my community—I can say things that other people can’t—so I will in regard to the monstrous success that Liberty Center has seen during its first week of operation, and the subsequent months and years that it will enjoy, articulate the reason and necessity for its construction.

I was a bit surprised that Tom Farrell who is a trustee in my community and a pretty good guy revealed a bit about why he thought Liberty Center would be successful in the mainstream news. He quite flatly stated that from a trustee point of view—the management of the community—that Liberty Center provided a city-like experience without the crime. I thought that was a bit bold for an area Republican, and it gave me hope that he and others just might be learning something from Donald Trump. It’s far better for everyone if you just tell it like it is. It might hurt some feelings but in the end, it will help everyone. After all, if you take your car to the shop to figure out what’s wrong with it, because its ticking in the engine someplace unseen—it doesn’t do any good for the mechanics to tell you your tire pressure is too low—because those things are not connected. If you want to fix the problem, an accurate diagnosis is needed. Tom hit on a very, very important point that I hope the rest of the country will learn from—because within Liberty Center is the solution to much of what’s wrong with America—which is why I’ve been so excited about it for such a long time.

Lately as I puzzled through my thoughts about Liberty Center I spent some time in downtown Cincinnati. After a recent Bengal game my family walked around the Banks development just as we have enjoyed Newport on the Levy a lot over the years. I have also spent considerable time at Fountain Square, Mt. Adams, Kenwood, Eastgate, Florence and many other places that I consider to be quality “living centers” where shopping complexes and living are brought together in unique ways. I also have the fortune to have in-laws who live in one of the most unusual communities I’ve ever seen in Brevard County, Kentucky right near the intersection of I-265 and I-71. Most of the homes are million dollar bits of real-estate that contain their own office park, shopping and restaurant experience providing a very self-contained experience. Residents can go to the doctor, shop, eat and live within a mile of their home and crime is non-existent. If some slug walks around that community, there is security that runs them out post-haste—no fooling around. You don’t see slackers standing around on street corners, you don’t hear cursing, and you don’t get “undesirables.”

What are undesirables? Well let me define it for you with an example of the new Over-the-Rhine renovations that the city of Cincinnati has spent a lot of money trying to resurrect. My daughter is a professional photographer who spends a lot of time there because people want to capture the history of the area with a photographers spin on the topic of downtown. Her customers want the romance of downtown without the garbage. What her camera doesn’t pick up are the thugs standing on street corners with their pants half down cursing every other word making embarrassments of themselves. Yes Cincinnati has a nice streetcar they are building, yes Over-the-Rhine has been cleaned up a bit—they have some nice restaurants, and during the days it’s a pretty nice place-now. But there are still undesirables standing around everywhere—and that’s not race related activity. If people like Ben Carson were standing on the street corner there would be no problem. But when people who look and act like they want to kill you are standing around looking like detrimental thugs it takes away the fun of going out on the town. Undesirables are people who have personal conduct that is equitable to animal behavior—where their primary objectives are sexual pursuits and pecking order mentality. People of a higher level in life don’t want to deal with undesirables—because they have other things on their mind than just primal desires.

Liberty Center understood this problem from day one in their design. They intended to do something similar to the development I mentioned in Kentucky—which is primarily occupied by horse racing families close to the sport—certainly the upper crest of Louisville society—and do something on a much larger scale in Liberty Township. The residential buildings at Liberty Center are all around five stories to give the illusion down below that people walking on the streets are within a city-scape. The buildings are positioned around the shopping complex so that the area within feels removed from the rural landscape on the outside. Also, useable living space is stacked to utilize bridges and staircases to provide the illusion that there is more complexity to the area than there really is, which is actually a video game programming trick that is quite effective to giving the impression that there is a lot more to something. For what Liberty Center is trying to do, it’s enormously effective.

The sum of the experience is to provide a city simulation without the crime and displeasure of an actual urban environment. My mom for instance stopped going to Tri-County over ten years ago when undesirables essentially pushed her out. I know many people who won’t even go the Costco in Tri-County just because they are afraid of the type of people who now reside around that old shopping district. Undesirables come in all shapes, sizes, sexes and colors—but what they all have in common is that they function from the basic animal instincts of a pubescent teenager. Teenagers are supposed to grow out of that phase with careful parental supervision, but in our society of today—where being a forever teenager is desired, there are just too many people out there who are grown-up teenagers functioning from raw animal instincts, and older people with money and success in their life don’t want to be around those low life scum bags.

After working really hard at your life and making smart decisions—it is fun to dress up with your spouse and go have a nice dinner—and a movie. Liberty Center allows me to take my wife to a nice place and be around nice people. I can go to a movie where only adults can attend, who are older than 21 keeping the teenagers out, so you don’t have to worry about bratty kids kicking the back of your seat, or giggling at boobies on the theater screen. You get to have an experience free of undesirables as much as possible. It’s a free country so low life scum bags can come to Liberty Center, but unlike a real city ran by progressive city governments, the shopping complex is privately owned as opposed to publicly owned. Liberty Center management can hire their own security to make sure that nobody causes any trouble as they are more competent than a city council or a mayor to deal with such issues.

The real benefit of Liberty Center is that it’s a private enterprise managed by competent people who are motivated by profit as opposed to elected bureaucrats. It will stay looking nice and will give everyone what they want from a city without the mess of mismanagement. Liberty Township doesn’t even have a police department which is wonderful. Trustees aren’t running Liberty Center; they just enjoy it with everyone else. The Steiner Group runs the place, and that puts it in the hands of competent management who provide their own security—much better than a bunch of unionized, expensive government workers who are politically accountable to a mayor and city manager. The presence of competency is what makes Liberty Center feel different. It’s not a public park or a community owned monstrosity where thugs, derelicts and panhandlers will be allowed to accost the affluent from Wetherington. Those types of people will not be allowed to bring down the level of quality within Liberty Center. In America being a derelict is a choice. There are too many opportunities for people, all it requires is for people to reach out and grab them. For those too lazy to reach for anything, they will become undesirables because they are parasites on those who aren’t lethargic.

I remember well what it was like when Forest Fair Mall opened over two decades ago. It was like Liberty Center in many ways—it had high hopes of appealing to the upper-class while maintaining the lofty goal of elevating the standard of living for Forest Park and Fairfield. Unfortunately, people who work hard to have money do not like conversing with people who are on welfare, or are just plain lazy, and the two demographics just didn’t mix. The money went to Tri-County for another ten years, or to Kenwood. Forest Fair Mall died slowly because the people around the community were not the type of people who financially affluent people wanted to spend their leisure time with. People are not just people—some are better than others and that is usually determined by their ambition. The Mall was directly reliant on city governments to create the demographic who would shop at their establishment, and the politicians screwed it up. The Mall out of desperation turned toward the nightclub crowd to bring life back to the once promising palace. But that brought more undesirables and pushed out the money. Soon all the Mall had to offer were cheap pieces of crap aimed at teenagers or adults who wanted to be teenagers leaving everyone else to shop somewhere else.

Liberty Center is not reliant on city government for its success. They bring their own management to both living and commercial enterprises and take care of both. And like everything else, things run better as a private sector enterprise than they do as public endeavors. The local government gets to collect a little bit more tax money each year, but they don’t have to make any management decisions about the complex itself. That’s up to Steiner’s people and they are a whole lot more motivated to make sure consumers get what they want—as opposed to professional politicians who seek to coddle the masses to get votes to stay in office. In a lot of ways Liberty Center is a creation out of necessity. People don’t want to associate with undesirables. They want to be around people with shared values and Liberty Center promises that type of experience, without the hassle of low-level people. Not everyone in the world is equal. Some people work harder and more valiantly than others and they deserve a place to go where they can enjoy life. For them, Liberty Center is that place. They get all the benefits of a city without the hassle of cat-calls, and panhandling. And for people in Liberty Township who have been losing their children to the exotic nightlife of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, Liberty Center has just given those kids an alternative without being too far away from home and can have all the fun without the downsides of crime. It is the way of the future, and the reason for it is a direct response to the gross mismanagement of public officials as opposed to private ones. That is why Liberty Center is so special and why it will become the standard everyone else in the future will have to live by. Cities will have to clean up their act or they will lose everything to private sector driven developments—which is fine with me.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Boycotting Disney: To do so, or not to do so–that is the question

It is worth listening to. Alex Jones during a recent show had several melt-downs as the subjects of the day overwhelmed his commentary. I think Alex overreacts a lot of times, and I don’t think the “global elite” are as smart and sinister as he thinks they are. I do agree with him that they “think” they are the smartest people in any room and that they do have global plans to eradicate borders, cheapen values, control people through their drinking water, and generally take over the world with a one world government dissolving national sovereignty completely. I do believe “they” are guilty of many false flag operations and malicious activity ranging from the recent trend of tattoos among young people to the collapse of the United States economy. But much of what they are doing they get by with not because they are the smartest people on planet earth, but because most people are too lazy to challenge them. That’s really what it all comes down to, and the reason they get the illusion that they are the “illuminated” ones who should rule us all is because not enough people tell them what a bunch of idiots they are. Sorry, that’s not going to happen—but it won’t stop them from trying. So to understand the scope of the situation, I suggest dear reader that you watch and listen to this Alex Jones show which goes on for a while. It is well worth the investment of time.

Like Alex, I do believe the primary media corporations—Disney included—are all wrapped up in this psychological game of remolding the human mind toward progressive sentiments. George Soros has been a major player in shaping that vision and it concerns me greatly that Marvel comics has moved in such a progressive direction—going so far to make Alex Jones one of the villains in their storylines—where a black Captain America fights against the Tea Party types in favor of global politics. That is not the Captain America I grew up with, and under Disney’s watch they are allowing for this mass progressivism to filter in and attempt to reshape the thinking of the consuming public. That is one of the reasons I am concerned about Star Wars. I am hopeful that it will be what I want it to be, but there is a real fear that they might attempt to blur the lines between good and evil putting a progressive twist on a storyline that was molded out of American westerns.

Unlike Alex, I won’t be boycotting Disney. I love Disney World and I do like Disney films—some of them—not all of them. I do get angry, and I would spend more money at Disney if they stayed away from cramming gay rights down my throat with rainbow-colored castles and employees who are too gay to assimilate properly into society. When a ride announcer is talking, I don’t want to be made aware that the guy might be a butt-plugger because of the tone of his speech. Disney is a family oriented company—at least that’s the way Uncle Walt planned it—and if Disney as a corporation strays too far off the path of American tradition—they’ll lose a lot of money. In the end, money talks and ideology walks, and the board at Disney will pick the money over progressive George Soros inspired social assimilation strategies.

That doesn’t mean however that Alex is wrong. Rather than boycott and not enjoy the family aspects of Disney I vote with my wallet, and believe me they do know what works and what doesn’t. I’m not going to buy comics of superheroes who fight for United Nations goals over United States sovereignty. Young people may be seduced by the stories, but the end game will cost Disney and their shareholders will notice the drop in interest among their readership. The Disney Channel and much of the content at the Florida parks are some of the best family entertainment in the world currently. I even like ESPN because it has a bit of family fun to it—it’s fairly clean and optimistic, the way you’d expect Disney to be. But I notice it a lot where individual employees, or even producers and directors attempt to slide progressive ideas to young people under the door, which people like Bob Iger likely don’t notice. Iger and even George Lucas lean too far to the political left these days, but I don’t think they are overtly trying to reprogram the youth into becoming fluoride seduced homosexuals who want to stick their junk into every knothole in the fence. I think they want from their perspective to do the right thing and they have a lot of liberals radicalized by creative institutions to think too far to the political left working for them and that radicalism shows up in their products. I can promise this, if the mainstream American public feels uncomfortable with the product Disney produces, they won’t buy it.

For example, take Demi Moore for example that played the lead female in the Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1996. That same summer Demi who had been a top box office superstar prior to that year also stared in Striptease, which was essentially an early version of Magic Mike. Demi got naked and was supposedly a stripper in that film to take care of her kid because she was a single mom. It was a heavily progressive movie that was a joke and people rejected it. It sold a few tickets because people wanted to see Demi Moore naked, but once they did, they were done with her, and her career tanked—immediately. It didn’t help that she was in the Disney film. Notice you don’t hear the Alan Menken songs from that cartoon at the Disney stores these days. The film only made $325 million at the box office—which was good, but the repeat business wasn’t there because there were a lot of moms who had been turned off by Demi Moore who didn’t take their little kids to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Disney hasn’t really recovered from that tragedy in their animated film division until Frozen broke the spell a few years ago.

As Alex Jones says, the entire industry is being controlled by these progressive idiots, and I can say that he is largely right. Hollywood would make a lot more money if they would step of the ideological bandwagon and make movies that Americans want. But a lot of producers and directors are hoping that a lack of competition will force America to adapt their values to the products they are producing. What they are discovering however is the opposite, that people are just tuning them out in favor of some other entertainment option. If Disney puts a couple of gay people on the screen kissing in an animated feature, they may never recover their reputation and they know that. Society won’t change the way that the progressive radicals hope it will, and Disney won’t have the patience to play the waiting game of a century long reprogramming of the human mind. They are expected to maintain profit growth each business quarter. Right now Bob Iger has positioned the Disney Company around Star Wars which shows strong signs of maintaining that anticipated growth through at least 2021. But, if Star Wars becomes more progressive, that whole formula is in serious jeopardy, and the company is at risk.

For Disney to crash and burn, the way Alex is preaching—because of their participation in progressive political theater, a boycott isn’t necessary. All it will take are declined revenue streams from books, t-shirts, park attendance and Wal-Mart toys. A drop of 5% would destroy Disney, because of the extraordinary cost of their business model. So even if Disney execs were at the Bilderberg meetings—which I believe some are, or if they attend the Bohemian Grove meetings and burn effigies of sacrifice to pagan gods of a time long past—they aren’t that smart. If Disney abuses their mythological product making devices for the sake of Bohemian collectivists, they’ll come up short because the American public will reject that product in favor of something else.

To me the “global elite” aren’t that smart. They make a lot of mistakes and the only way they hide those mistakes from the public is by keeping the media they largely control from reporting it. But people do reject their products—often, and they do feel the pain. Even if Disney executives wanted to make a romantic comedy animated feature about two gay guys getting married and living happily ever after—they couldn’t because the American public would reject it. Just as Marvel owned by Disney is making a huge mistake by trying to make their superheroes more progressively oriented. Young men grow up to become conservatives once they start raising a family and they’ll abandon the Marvel product in the future if Disney goes in that direction.   People are people, and their desires are innate—meaning they come from raw instinct and evolution. Of those innate desires are sexual unions between a man and a woman because that activity advances the human race with new generations—that strong lead male characters are preferred, and that Disney princesses should not take off their cloths—or the public will reject them. In the end the marketplace of capitalism takes care of everything. But it’s important to know who is trying what and for what reason. And on that topic, Alex Jones is 100% correct. Intentions are quite obvious. Competency is another matter.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Cowboy Fast Draw Member 4265: My alias is Cliffhanger

About a decade ago when my oldest daughter’s boyfriend from Europe was trying to win me over for support, he put more than the average effort in to impress me. He joined me with my bullwhip friends in competitions and became pretty good. He and I worked for many hours in my backyard developing further the bullwhip fast draw modeled after the Ohio Fast Draw Association that also competed at our events for years. He even started dressing like me in some ways, with his own spin to the outfit. This of course made my daughter very happy and convinced her to make a long-term commitment to the fella. Whereas bad fathers are the type of people who make the common sluts and bar trash that are so prevalent these days, good fathers raise girls who think about bigger things so endorsements of potential mates are important to such daughters. For her the icing on the cake was that my future son-in-law bought himself an outback hat similar to mine and started wearing it everywhere very proudly.image image image

One night, he and I were philosophizing about life and the nature of it in my backyard and he asked me about why I wore a hat so much. I told him that it was to distinguish myself from the common flock of people. In America the Cowboy Way was a code of conduct that exhibited a value system which exceeded modern boundaries and that my hat was an obvious show of support for that value system. Wearing the hat was my way of dressing for the part and my role in preserving that way of life. I went on to say that my values exceeded even those of the Cowboy Way—I was more stringent on many of them and went further on others. My favorite cowboy movies were not the John Wayne classics, or even the Lone Ranger, but they were Zorro and the famed Clint Eastwood westerns like Pale Rider and The Outlaw Josie Wales. High Planes Drifter to me is one of the most sophisticated westerns ever filmed—it was essentially Ayn Rand set in the west—it was an overman which came to a town to straighten out the justice which was long overdue. Whether the protagonist was a ghost from the past or a highly skilled more than man type—it was my favorite western and when I wore my hat, it was a tribute to those types of philosophic ideals.

I’ve been content to keep things pretty much independent of the outside world. I don’t need a lot of social support, so my way of doing things has worked just fine for me. My adherence to the Cowboy Way has been a silent code that I have not rammed down the throats of everyone I have met too much—other than wearing my hat in public most of the time. It did the job with my son-in-law and let him know what kind of family he was marrying into and I was happy with that. However, the days where that was enough are gone—the world has moved further away from that Cowboy Way in recent years and I don’t find that acceptable. Politically the Trump run for president has been a godsend, because he is covering a lot of the topics I have for the last five years, but on a bigger stage with the press eating out of his hand. So I don’t feel a need to continue beating on that drum, since somebody else has it covered—at least for now. Additionally I have a respectable number of grandchildren all of a sudden, and like that impressionable potential mate that my future son-in-law was—kids need much more of a role model figure much earlier which is my job—and I take it very seriously. My son-in-law was around 15 to 16 at the time of our talk in the backyard; he’s now climbing toward thirty fast. Time does move quickly and if you want to make an impression, you better do it quick. Kids are ruined if you don’t get to them by the age of 11 or 12. In my son-in-law’s case he was lucky to have been raised in England with a traditional way which protected him from the corruption of progressive cities like London, New York, and San Francisco. But he wanted more and he was on my doorstep looking for it, and it was my job to make sure the young lad was at least pointed in the right direction not just for his sake, but my daughter’s. After all, you raise these kids, give them all this hope, and they need to have people in their lives who share those values. The task is a rather large one. But by the time I knew him, most of his foundation thoughts were already in place. What I was saying might have small influences over how he conducted his life, but major ones probably wouldn’t be possible that late in his climb toward manhood. I promised myself that when I started having grandchildren that I would step up this Cowboy Way philosophy for their sake so that they’d have the right tools equipped intellectually to deal with a modern world spiraling over the precipice. I am one hundred percent sure that the Cowboy Way is the answer to much of what sickens America right now, and that is one major thing that Donald Trump cannot have much impact on as a presidential candidate. So I have taken major steps in advocating the Cowboy Way in a fashion that I had long been thinking about—taking up Cowboy Fast Draw as a sport.

As a grown man I probably shouldn’t have been so excited to join up with the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. My package of materials arrived the day that my new granddaughter arrived home from the hospital after being born. It was a huge forty pound package that contained a lot of lights, timers and targeting equipment. Included was my new membership card and some pins that will come in handy down the road. My membership number is 4265 and of course my alias is Cliffhanger. In Cowboy Fast Draw all members must have an alias so of course mine would be Cliffhanger which is the philosophic foundation of this whole endeavor. In my fictional pulp series The Curse of Fort Seven Mile I wanted advance the direction of the character—but before I could do that of course I had to live the reality first—as my fiction has to reflect reality—otherwise I’m not interested in doing it. My membership card clearly has CLIFFHANGER written on it with a disclaimer on the back for police officers saying, “THE BEARER OF THIS CARD IS A PROFESSIONAL FAST DRAW COMPETITOR AND CARRIES SINGLE ACTION REVOLVERS FOR PURPOSES OF DEMONSTRATION AND COMPETITION.” In short, when roaming around wherever and need to maintain my practice with single action revolvers to maintain and increase my skills toward the Cowboy Way, cops shouldn’t be concerned or alarmed, because I’m a member of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. Of course if that isn’t enough and I end up in some kind of self-defense altercation, I’ll call my buddies at Second Call Defense and let them handle the police—which is the other reason I have suddenly become so openly pro gun and an advocate of Second Call Defense. I have to protect my investment.

The Cowboy Fast Draw Association reminds me of how our Wild West Arts Club used to be over a decade ago. In a lot of ways, its much better. It was quite a privilege to open up my membership material and see several issues of the Gunslinger’s Gazette included. The group is working on expanding their membership base to over 5000 of which I was number 4265. I’d like to see it at over 20,000 and climbing, because I think it contains within it the essence that every American should be striving to behold as a nation built on philosophy and freedom—the Cowboy Way. The Gunslinger’s Gazette is essentially a publication dedicated to the Cowboy Way so it was wonderful to see a physical copy of the paper instead of the online edition I had been reading.

But to top it off the culmination of all this has not been easy. I have been a bullwhip guy for many decades, so accepting a new skill has not been painless for me. However, I have done pretty much what I can with bullwhips. I like what some of my friends have done to break records with them, but as a symbol of the Cowboy Way, bullwhips need help because they are not part of the American consciousness the way that single action firearms have been. So I needed to add that skill to my wheelhouse and I promised myself at a certain time “professionally” that I would buy my new Vaquero by Ruger and start this journey. Well that time came for me a few weeks ago. It had taken me a long time to get there, but I eventually did, and the very first thing I did was purchase the Vaquero which now sits by my side everywhere I go. I have to work with it all the time to build the muscles up in my hands, and that was the final gate to this new section of my life.

Needless to say, I’m proud to be affiliated with the Cowboy Fast Draw Association under the name of Cliffhanger. I’m also proud to be a part of Second Call Defense which helps make this new sport possible with the legal support that will help protect the validity of that membership card by CFDA. Having a firearm is an essential part of the Cowboy Way just like wearing the hat. One of the reasons my son-in-law was attracted to American life was that they didn’t allow firearms in England. He met my daughter and wanted to win me over essentially so that he could own firearms. It was my job to help him find what he was looking for. But that need doesn’t end with him, there are millions of people in just the same situation—they just don’t know how to go about it. That’s where introducing them to the Cowboy Way will help—it explains why the Second Amendment is so important and if the police get too power hungry at the sight of Cowboy Fast Draw Association members armed with single action Ruger Vaqueros on the plain states of Iowa, or Montana at a local burger joint on the way to a competition, Second Call Defense will be there to help preserve that Cowboy Way when the questions are asked. It is within these types of people who America needs to get to know itself once again—those who read the Gunslinger’s Gazette.

My grandchildren are going to get what they need; I’ll make sure of it. And of that necessity is a strong understanding of the Cowboy Way. I don’t preach to people who don’t want to listen, and I raise children that way, under a laissez-faire approach that allows individuals to invest of themselves into what I’m selling. If they walk away, they walk away, and I won’t track them down to the ends of the earth to help them. Rather I live by example, which is one of the most important parts of the Cowboy Way. And with my new membership into the Cowboy Fast Draw Association, and my friends at Second Call Defense, the gunsmithing equipment at Brownells the powder purchases from Cabela’s and many other support organizations, we’re going to protect that Second Amendment from the trying times that are before us. And it all starts with the beauty and simplicity of the Ruger Vaquero. This is going to be fun!

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Cowboy Way: Living by a code of honor with guns as a centerpiece

Those who don’t know much about guns or their place in American culture are easy to seduce toward the diatribes of those who fundamentally want to change our nation into something else—a much less morally reticent and overwhelmingly evil utopia for the socialist of heart. They think of the NRA as a mean spirited organization resistant to change. Well, resistant to change is true—because what gun-grabbers want to change America into is something that gun owners typically don’t like. I am obviously a member of the NRA, but also of satellite groups within it—affiliates such as Second Call Defense. I’ll remind you again dear reader, if you go to the Second Call Defense website and type in Overmanwarrior, they’ll give you your first month free—and you should do that—for your own good. I am also a very proud new member of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association—which reflects my new hobby/career as a gunfighter. I’m so serious about it that I’m thinking of listing it as my new official profession. As we speak I am turning the basement of my home into an indoor shooting range specific to that hobby—and I’m very excited about it. The reason why is that I love the type of people who are in these groups—especially the CFDA.   They live by a very specific code of ethics called the Cowboy Way. Below are a few examples of that way of life for which gun owners in the CFDA adhere.

Gene Autry’s Code of Honor

  1. A cowboy never takes unfair advantage – even of an enemy.
  2. A cowboy never betrays a trust. He never goes back on his word.
  3. A cowboy always tells the truth.
  4. A cowboy is kind and gentle to small children, old folks, and animals.
  5. A cowboy is free from racial and religious intolerances.
  6. A cowboy is always helpful when someone is in trouble.
  7. A cowboy is always a good worker.
  8. A cowboy respects womanhood, his parents and his nation’s laws.
  9. A cowboy is clean about his person in thought, word, and deed.
  10. A cowboy is a Patriot.

Hopalong Cassidy’s Creed

  1. The highest badge of honor a person can wear is honesty. Be truthful at all times.
  2. Your parents are the best friends you have. Listen to them and obey their instructions.
  3. If you want to be respected, you must respect others. Show good manners in every way.
  4. Only through hard work and study can you succeed. Don’t be lazy.
  5. Your good deeds always come to light. So don’t boast or be a show-off.
  6. If you waste time or money today, you will regret it tomorrow. Practice thrift in all ways.
  7. Many animals are good and loyal companions. Be friendly and kind to them.
  8. A strong, healthy body is a precious gift. Be neat and clean.
  9. Our country’s laws are made for your protection. Observe them carefully.
  10. Children in many foreign lands are less fortunate than you. Be glad and proud you are an American.

http://www.jcs-group.com/johnwayne/literary/codes.htm

When people or groups of people criticize the “Wild West” and “cowboys” in general they are essentially attacking the values expressed above. In today’s world those values might appear to be out-of-step, and archaic—but I think they are a whole lot better than what anybody in the world of today is adhering to. The mythology of the American gunfighter as expressed by the values of old cowboys like Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy is worthy of more serious consideration. When I talk inflamingly about being an American gunfighter it isn’t so much to have the ability to shoot human beings—it is to behave in a way to protect the Cowboy Way reflected above. Being a gunfighter isn’t about fighting with guns—it is about fighting for them and propping them up as a symbol of those Gene Autry values. I dare anybody from any gun-grabbing group to criticize those Cowboy Way values—because those who do have designated themselves villains against the American philosophy that built our nation.

Guns in American culture is not about killing, or even hints at violence—although those are certainly associations most common to weapons of all kinds. Guns are about preserving the Cowboy Way, which is why NRA members and other shooters tend to embody respectful values toward one another that reflect those elements because the traditions that guns protect are rooted in the Cowboy Way. That Cowboy Way was established during a period of western expansion that took place after the Civil War and was built up through a mythology of the American gunfighter. The strength of that mythology lasted well into the next century all the way up essentially until the 1960s when communist insurgents implanted themselves in the hippie movement and advocated against those Cowboy Way values.

Being a gunfighter is an essential part of American culture and with every gun grabbing politician and modern entertainer who stands against that Cowboy Way mentality we all have a right to be extremely angry at them for what they are trying to do. One of the ways I am combating that imposition and channeling that anger in a constructive way is in taking up membership with the Cowboy Fast Draw Association so that I can preserve the way of the cowboy from an older generation that needs some support. They are directly an affiliate of the NRA—so they are gold in my book. Additionally, I have lent myself to the Second Call Defense for the same precise reason. An armed America is a good America because the roots of gun ownership resides with the philosophy of the Cowboy Way—which is a whole lot older in this country than the recent progressive slant toward European sentiment.

When I say I intend to be a gunfighter as a profession, it doesn’t mean that I plan to assassinate bad guys with a gun—although if I do find myself in a self-defense shooting, I have my Second Call Defense card and I’ll let them handle the police when and if it happens. So far Second Call Defense has an excellent track record. Most self-defense shootings by members aren’t even going to trial because of it, because police know that with Second Call Defense they can’t use a shooting to politicize an issue or justify their false interpretation of the law under the scrutiny of a pro Second Amendment lawyer. So they just leave the case alone to avoid the embarrassment of prosecution in court. A lot of times the shooter in those self-defense cases has a lot more rights than they think they do, and gun-grabbers hope that the general public never learns that reality—so they can continue to weaken the Second Amendment due to ignorance. I see Second Call Defense as a perfect way to strengthen the Second Amendment, so I am a supporter. I carry my membership card proudly.

Yet for me that’s not enough. I want to be even more proactive in defending the Second Amendment especially due to the latest round of incursions from the political left. We have talked about this gun-grabbing time for a long period leading up to this latest phase, so now is the time to buckle down the defense of the Second Amendment into something more voracious. That’s why I’m proud to be a member of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. They stand for the roots of firearms ownership, the Cowboy Way—the mythology built around gunfighters and the capitalist oasis that they paved to become the greatest country on earth. There is no way to remain a great country without private gun ownership because it all starts there—not with the intent to kill or maim with them—but in honoring guns as the instrument of focus for establishing a Cowboy Way of thinking evolved through the heart, bravery, and tenacity of the American gunfighter.

The Cowboy Way is a mode of thinking that not only needs to be resurrected in American culture; it needs daily maintenance to solidify into something for which society can build their foundations upon. It completely changes the way people interact with one another—it’s a code of conduct that works hand in hand with capitalism to bring prosperity to all who dare wake up in the morning to enjoy it. It’s unlike anything created anywhere on the face of planet earth during any period of history ever known. So there is no comparison to other nations and what they are doing to ban or reject guns from their societies. America is unique, and part of that story comes from the Cowboy Way. It’s not something we need to change or further contemplate—it is something we need to be proud of and to strictly adhere to from here on out—and that begins with maintaining a love with guns that has been abused due to political influence that is completely unwarranted, and destructive.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Stop Being Afraid of Guns: Matt Clark and Rich Hoffman talk about gun free zones on WAAM radio

Matt Clark had me on his WAAM radio show in Ann Arbor, Michigan recently to discuss some of the hot stories of October 2015. There was enough to cover to last a lifetime of live radio—the stories and their frequency are exponentially increasing by the moment, and it’s a lot to keep track of. Without talk radio, it would be nearly impossible for the average person to follow everything. That’s why I’ve always been a fan of talk radio, because you can get a lot of news provided to you as other tasks are done, such as driving, changing the oil, and installing new hot water heaters. Talk radio is miraculous in its ability to cover a lot of ground quickly, and on Matt’s show, he is one of the best. Typically in a short hour, he can hit a lot of topics in a very fluid manner—and when he has me on with him—we really hit the topics in a furious fashion. That broadcast can be heard below.

Toward the end of the broadcast there were a couple of callers that Matt wanted to get on the air. I am typically sympathetic to callers because it takes a lot of guts to call into a radio show, to sit on hold for up to an hour not knowing when the host will put you on the air to millions of potential listeners.   If the callers are respectful I typically don’t interrupt them because it’s important to get their view points out on the table. A police offer took issue with my proposal that regarding gun control, my more guns are best approach was something he had a problem with. Matt and I let him talk which directed him to the real point he was trying to make—but it was near the end of the show, and we didn’t have time to expand down that line of thought. The cop of course felt that civilians were not as equipped to handle a crises situation as compared to law enforcement. As Matt and I had been talking about gun free zones needing more independently armed citizens to keep things in check, the officer wanted more police on staff to protect schools from violence.

Well, more cops won’t work because they are too expensive. There is a cost for safety and security, and if it does incur too much of a burden, there needs to be other alternatives. The solution to gun violence is not more gun control laws, or more cops patrolling the streets and schools—its more armed citizens who will do the work for free not in a reactionary way, but a proactive way. A cop in the school in Oregon would not have stopped that violence. A well armed student could have. More cops working off tax payer funds are not the answer in almost every situation. We do need the police, but more for the report that happens when violence occurs so that courts have evidence to look at. So I don’t agree with the nice guy who called into Matt’s show. From his point of view, more cops in schools make sense—because he doesn’t care how much police cost an area in increased taxes. To his mind taxes can be perpetually raised so long as safety is the focus. But that’s just stupid.

There is always a danger when tragedies occur for the timid minded to seek out more government to provide security. More cops in schools are an expansion of government. Whereas a more open gun carrying society would provoke cheaper and more direct security in a laissez-faire kind of way which big government types simply don’t understand. If progressive minded people are not tampering with the lives of other people, they don’t feel secure themselves, so my typical laissez-faire style of security is something that drives them crazy. Gun laws in America should essentially be the same as the laws that govern business and commerce. Less laws and more responsibility invoked at the point of contact driven by self-preservation.

There was a lot right that occurred during the “Wild West” period in America of which guns were such a part of the mythology of western expansion. To consider the effort it took for Americans to load up in covered wagons and head west for up to a year of travel at roughly 20 miles per day with all the dangers that such a journey provoked, and that within 100 years of that type of settlement, there were railroads, cars and airplanes invented that could connect all that open space seamlessly is quite a miracle. Forget about who the Native Americans were—whether they were caretakers of Mother Earth’s land, migrant Chinese people, left-over Viking warriors, or a lost tribe from Israel, the effort of frontiersman is one of the great stories of human innovation and tenacity ever conducted by free people. Guns evolved from muzzle loaders at the start of western expansion and ended as a pretty significant technological innovation resulting in lever-action repeaters and the Colt .45s that tamed the West into one of the freest land masses on the face of the planet. Progressives hated the Wild West because it was a period of history where laissez-faire lifestyles provoked hopes through capitalism and innovation that has never been repeated at any other time in known history. For all the barbarity of frontier life, it paved the way for a wonderful country that exploded upon the world an immense economy. Without the gun, none of that would have happened.

I am of a mind that Americans shouldn’t even have concealed carry anymore; they should make guns a part of their fashion. It should be as common to see a gun on the hip of a person as it is to see a business suit now. The American gun is a tribute to our heritage and a reminder of what a laissez-faire approach to legislation, and justice can provide a free people. As a society, we have to get away from this crap of being afraid of guns. We have to stop putting orange indicators on toy guns at Wal-Mart so not to scare some pansy police officer with a happy trigger finger willing to shoot anything that they might consider a threat. It ruins the experience for a kid of pretending that guns are real when they play with those toys. Schools need to stop trying to keep kids from playing shoot-em-up at recess by making fake guns out of their hands. Playing with guns is good for kids—they should do a lot more of it—especially boys. Avoiding guns is making our society into a bunch of wimps and it’s getting worse year by year. That’s what happens when you take advice from people like that caller into Matt’s show. More government employees and more gun laws turn our society into a much more regressive one. Aside from the obvious expensive nature of continuing to add government employees at tax payer expense, micromanaging society is an even more cost incursion that has detrimental effects on social responsibility. The 100 years where America operated as a much more laissez-faire society between the War of 1812 and the rise of the progressive era with Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 America became a global superpower. Under progressive influence, America has regressed steadily from 1912 to 2012.

2012 will be viewed as a pivotal year in American politics. Obama won a second term, Ohio’s governor Kasich lost his battle with the unions, and many of those who refused to hold their nose and vote for Mitt Romney as a Republican presidential nominee decided they had enough of politics as usual. Since 2012 the American people have started to turn more toward a desire for a laissez-faire approach to all things related to government which will increase as millenials realize that most of their educations during the first twenty years of their lives were a complete farce—they learned all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. It is among them that they watch the big government reaction to all these failed progressive problems and are starting to consider other options. Of those options I believe we will see a new trend that guns will become more open and accepted. They should be, they are an important aspect of American culture.

As Matt and I closed out his show it was obvious that the government has well overplayed its hand in this card game called politics, and police officers have seen the last of the days where panicked parents and squishy minded voters just increased taxes and threw more bodies at every danger that presented itself. We are dealing with a whole new age in a new century, and if America is to survive, it will only do so with an overall political approach that is laissez-faire toward everything—starting with guns. Once more guns are injected into our society with more frequency, and openness–then all things related to our commerce will reflect that less restricted approach. It’s a mentality that we are missing in America that goes or comes based on how our society maintains its relationship to the gun. A laissez-faire approach to firearms is not an extreme position with equal measure against the gun grabbing liberals on the opposite side of some political spectrum. It’s not up for debate with a high low bar between positions where left and right politics meet in the middle. Guns are a part of America and there should be no apology in wanting them, carrying them, or using them. If America had that attitude presently, a lot fewer people would be dying in these mass shootings. The shootings themselves are caused by failed policies and an overly cautions society that is so afraid of guns that they can’t even allow a child to have a toy unless it’s colored in some way so not to scare other people into believing its real. Nobody should be such a bunch of wimps as to be scared of guns. Our education system has made our society that way—to our own detriment. And now its time to stop being afraid.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Trump Offers Himself as a Superman President: A curious query into meekness and the assumption that its good

One thing that really disgusts me is when I’m around other men who make the statement, “I’m not superman” as a way to let themselves off the hook for underachieving. The statement usually comes when there is great pressure to do everything and be everything to all the needs of all who require solutions. The chicken thing to do is to declare—I’m not superman, “I’m not perfect,” “I’m just a man.” I don’t think there has ever been a single day in my life from a young boy until the present where I’ve just wanted to be “just a man.” Considering the name of this site is “overmanwarrior” that should be a pretty good indication of where my sentiments reside in the context of personal expectation. So when presented with problems, no matter how many or how difficult, I always lean in to solve them all and carry whatever burdens there are—no matter what the odds. To my mind that is what is expected out of men—all men of all races and ages. It is their job and if they fall short of that attempt—I don’t think much of them. That is why I am so interested in the Donald Trump campaign. He says and expects of himself much of what I do—which is the type of person I want for president. That was never more obvious than in an early October weekend interview with Trump by CNBC’s John Harwood who declared to the presidential candidate, that America doesn’t have “superman” presidents. Trump’s response was that “You will if you have Trump for president.” Watch for yourself.

What John Harwood said was actually a mouthful—it had meanings at many levels. But most obvious is that American presidents should be expected to be supermen—otherwise no nation can expect to maintain such an exclusive status as a dominating superpower. Ordinary men with their petty weaknesses have caused enough trouble over the years, from John Kennedy’s affairs, to LBJ’s womanizing, Bill Clinton’s obsession with sexual relationships, and the Bush family meekness, if the problems in our country were to really be traced back to an origin, it comes from human beings—especially people who are supposed to be leaders, lowering the bar of their own expectations to be viewed as simple men with humble origins. Society might teach that meekness is a positive trait in Sunday school, but in reality that just gets your ass kicked intellectually and physically. Meekness invites some dominating personality—or county to step in and push you around and that mentality needs to change if America is going to survive.

Men should expect themselves to be supermen. Teddy Roosevelt with all his faults pushed himself toward greatness nearly with every breath he took, daily. One of his life goals was to kill a man which he did on San Jaun Hill with his Rough Riders. He overcame illnesses, great opposition, and even finished a speech he was giving while he was shot. He was campaigning when an assassin’s bullet penetrated his body—he knew it—yet he finished his campaign speech anyway just to show how tough he was. That was not a guy who allowed himself to be “meek.” Andrew Jackson was another such personality. Over his lifetime he survived many duels and carried with him all his life an expectation toward a rough and ready approach to just about everything. It was because of Jackson that the United States currently has Florida, Texas and had a paid off debt during his time in office. Thomas Jefferson was another personality who expected of himself not great physical strength, but incredible intellectual strength. It was because of him that we have the Marines when he put together a force to go and fight the Barbary Pirates. I would expect every American president to exhibit similar behavior. Even though those presidents were far from perfect, they at least made attempts during their lives to be more than ordinary. They certainly tried and had personal expectations of greatness.

During westward expansion many men challenged themselves against fate for the potential of fortune. Most failed, but a few rose to the top and became larger than life characters largely on the backs of their personal bravado. Doc Holiday was one of those gun fighting characters that took a debilitating illness and pushed himself beyond the limits of fear to something he otherwise would not otherwise become as a gentleman gambler. Many don’t know it but likely the real inspiration for the Lone Ranger western character was a man named Bass Reeves. He was a black lawman who was obsessed with living with honor and a sense of justice for the innocent. The westward expansion period was an exciting time because there did emerge strong personalities that pushed themselves toward superhuman expectations, Jessie James was one, Wild Bill Hickok was another. After World War II many westerns were made in the movie business and on television that embodied something of an overman mindset, where men tried to live under a system of honor to protect their families and friends with a superhuman courage. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood built their careers around embodying those traits to the movie going public. For a lot of years there was an expectation among other males that they were expected to act whenever possible as something beyond mortal when pressed.

Most males today make me sick at their lack of bravado, and now we live in a time where such superhuman expectations have been abandoned. Even among our celebrities there are no longer many who even attempt to portray a larger-than-life personality. Yet John Harwood says it so easily that we don’t elect superman presidents. When have we decided not to? What ridiculous imposition of assumption dictated that we vote for the meek, week, losers of low self-confidence emitting from the “everyman” like sweat running through the crack of a gorilla’s ass? When did weakness become such a noble quality—because at such a point the instigator should be wrung up and cast through the folds of time into a boundless existence where they can do no further harm toward the fate of humanity. No wonder so many people dislike Trump’s boastfulness. Donald Trump doesn’t sit around crying like some modern man that his goldfish died. Trump doesn’t politely pretend to be stupid so some losers can feel like they belong at the tables of greatness. Over the last few weeks there have been several examples given of past Mit Romney campaigns along with John McCain as if they were the types of presidential candidates the Republicans were looking for in 2016.   Are you kidding me? Both of those idiots lost—because they took the advice of marketers and allowed themselves to be seen as “everyman” instead of “overman.” There is nothing noble or good about the belching, farting, insecure everyman. There is nothing endearing about such a creature. The universe is laughing at them daily—we don’t want them in the White House.

Trump has no trouble sticking up his hand and declaring he’s not an “everyman.” He states emphatically without apology, that he is and would be, a superman. That’s who I want at the wheel of a “superpower” that America is supposed to be under the capitalist style of government that we have. We don’t need another meek statesman who believes himself to be just another guy in a field of team players unimportant on the cosmic stage. We’ve had plenty of presidents like that—and they haven’t done us a good job. As a result, there are not enough men in the world willing to be a superman within the sphere of their personal contacts. Ask a wife who she’d rather sleep with, a crying fool ready to throw himself at the feet of a community and sacrifice himself to their qualms, or an unapologetic superman who always has the answers and is ready in a fraction of a second at all hours of the day to take her where she wants to go? What about the child who looks up at a father and wants someone who knows best 100% of the time, or the wavering reed of indecision who declares that they are just men among men—and nothing particularly special. Then who would that kid listen to when they ask what would happen if it were discovered they smoked pot for the first time. Typically the meek dad would say, “well son, I’ve smoked it and it wasn’t very smart, but you’ll have to make up your own mind. Who am I to judge or tell you anything, I’m just a man?” Compare that to the dad who tells the kid, “if I catch you smoking pot I’ll kick your ass off this fu**ing planet you little bitch. I’ve never smoked it and only pussies smoke it because they can’t handle the pressure of this life and seek to numb their minds from the pain of reality. That makes them weak and you don’t want to be weak.” Which is the correct answer dear reader? That is why the world needs more supermen. The meek types have done enough damage to last many lifetimes—and its time to change our approach. The world needs more supermen. Wives want them in their beds, kids want them as fathers, and nations need something to encourage them to be better people. So especially in the White House, we had better learn to elect such people. Because we all need to face a high bar and stop using humanity as a crutch for laziness, and cowardly dispositions. We have tried that and it doesn’t work.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Sticking to our Guns: Why you should join the NRA today

Over the weekend Dana Loesch stirred up controversy against the anti-gun progressive insurgents with a controversial new ad. It was quite effective prompting a Twitter war with radical anti-Second Amendment nut cases. And to her credit for every negative Tweet she received, she donated to the NRA in that person’s name and bought herself a box of ammunition. Her spunk should be greatly admired because besides the national debt, protecting the Second Amendment is the key strategic objective of all right thinking Americans in eroding away the terrible damage to our country that progressives have invoked presently.

If you are not a member of the NRA dear reader—what’s stopping you? In a town of lobbyists in Washington, the NRA is probably the only one that I support—and you have to. Without them, the Second Amendment would have been gone a long time ago by progressive, communist sympathizers who want to disarm society and put the government in charge of everything. What they don’t tell you about their gun grabbing tendencies is that their ultimate objective besides wealth redistribution is the eradication of private property. They do this through many progressive taxes—especially property taxes which are of course directly attached to public schools using our community’s children as hostages toward that objective. The gun in America through the Second Amendment is established to protect private property from enemies foreign and domestic and to uphold the Constitution with something besides a sling shot. Governments cannot be trusted, so the only way that progressives can implement their strategic objectives is by removing guns from society.

Guns are the key to a free society and the rest of the world would be a lot better off if they’d learn that very simple truth. Every single human being on planet earth, man, woman and child under parental supervision should possess a gun. There would be a lot less violence in the world if guns were more readily available than there are now. ISIS would have far less control over the Middle East, Islamic radicals in Africa would quickly loose their ability to terrorize innocent people—the communist governments in China, North Korea and elsewhere would lose their ability to abuse their own citizens and it would keep everyone honest. The only reason government doesn’t fly out of complete control in America is because of the ever-present knowledge that Americans are heavily armed and if government steps out of line, there will be trouble. So let’s get that straight before we discuss anything more. Any liberal who stands against the Second Amendment, any religious figure, and any body of government whatsoever is essentially attacking the American way of life and should be considered an insurgent against the Constitution. There is no debate with some “other side.” There is no touchy feely testimony about some terrible crime that occurs which should move America off defending the Second Amendment that justifies any such proposal. Bad things happen—nothing is perfect, but guns for the essence of individual freedom in the modern world are essential to our survival as a country. The rest of the world should copy the American way of life for their own betterment and the sooner they get that through their thick skulls, the better.

I have written many millions of words and conducted many speeches against public education. It is proven that government schools are liberal recruiting centers designed to undo private property through progressive taxation—and the whole system needs to be scrapped and redone. I have been very passionate about the issue. But there comes a time when you’ve made your point and the new strategy of the day needs to be addressed, because when it comes to liberalism they provide moving targets. I will always cover education issues, but I am going to shift my passion toward defending the Second Amendment with my considerable talents being put to full use. The reason is that it’s time now for those voices to add to what’s always been out there—which is the NRA. They have held down the fort for a long time, and its time they get some reinforcements because the progressive aspects of society are shifting their depleting resources into that direction for one last ridiculous push toward communism—their secret dreams which sing them to sleep at night often under the influence of drugs, and alcohol while listening to Miley Cyrus grind her crotch against a Teddy bear.   Liberals are parasitic animals and their attempts at attacking the Second Amendment need to be met for the intentions always established by the political left.

Of those new voices Dana Loesch is one of those great new talents who are helping the NRA change-up their marketing, which is essential to their continued success. I plan to add to those voices for the strategic implementation of that task with my own talents-which will of course be unique. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because the time is now to expand the reach of the NRA’s base of support to the new markets of the Millennials and other middle-grounders that have been on the fence and only know about guns from television shows like CSI. Hollywood used to help spread the message of the NRA, but since that valley town of entertainment is nearly all liberalized these days, the marketing efforts that have been needed to keep the NRA expanding require more creative voices from unlikely sources—of which Dana is one.

Largely I have left many of the efforts toward defending the Second Amendment to the committed voices that have been out there. But over the last few years a few things have changed for me. First, I watched how much radicalism there was toward the two Discovery Channel shows, Son’s of Guns and American Gun, which I liked quite a lot. Both were pulled off the air and the main male leads in both were put under scrutiny legally. Some was justified; some was due to their cable reality shows featuring guns. Another change for me was that I had grand children. When I first did the YouTube video A Whip Trick to Save America some of the negative feedback toward me was to discredit my love of traditional western arts. They called me a “hillbilly” and “trailer trash” because I wore a cowboy hat in the video. Their assertion was that anything less than New York fashion would do—but to me that fashion was heavily progressive. I love old westerns and the values they exhibited. For myself I can live among progressives and not have my position challenged, but I worry about my grandchildren. They deserve to have the kind of America I grew up with and as I look around at the possible male role-models, I’m really the only one who has held firm to those traditions. So I’m not going to let that progressive America ruin my grandchildren. It’s not going to happen, let me put it that way. Because of the negative feedback I received about my whip work during the education reform debates, I took note and decided to make some adjustments for the present crusades.

Additionally, at the time a few years ago I had a publisher and some novels that I was planning to promote in the traditional way—through New York—which is heavily anti-gun. My thoughts were that since my character of Cliffhanger used bullwhips instead of guns that it might be more acceptable to them for mass market reasons. However, it wasn’t. Cliffhanger was far too traditional for publisher heads, so it didn’t really matter. My decision since has been to just do what I feel like doing and let the chips fall where they may. I have given up on the New York and Santa Monica creative class in working with them to produce content that America is looking for—they aren’t interested, even if they make a lot of money in the effort. They are far too radicalized politically for that collaboration so I’m at a point in my life where I no longer care. Those who support the Second Amendment in America need to be proud of their position. They shouldn’t feel like they have to hide their love of guns underground—which is what has been happening. Guns should be main stream, so anything I can do to help that I’m going to. It’s just that simple. I do not support the present direction of the country. So why avoid promoting gun ownership just to appease a few publishers? To hell with them.

I know that if I felt that pressure to not flamboyantly advance the gun culture in America, then it’s probably twenty times worse for the average person, so its time to change that—and to stop apologizing. It was only a few years ago when westerns were just about all that was on television which entertained the Greatest Generation after World War II with the first programming provided to the new television format. While I’m looking forward to Tarentino’s new western The Hateful Eight I don’t have a lot of faith that it will have a lot of the traditional values shown in westerns, but will just be a bloody gun fight typical of the new age director. The production company putting out the film is hopelessly progressive, so I can only look forward to it so much—but in the realm of westerns, that’s all there is. Star Wars is a modern western replacing spaceships for horses, but the values are very similar. Other than those influences however there’s not much for the modern gun lover to get their heels into. Progressives are waiting for the old timers who were raised on westerns to die off so the modern progressive kids brainwashed against guns in public school can become the dominate voting class—and when that happens even the NRA will be overwhelmed. So the good ol’ NRA needs a little help. I plan to help them and obviously Dana Loesch is doing her part. And if we all do, we can help shape the future in the proper way. A conservative future must have at the center of it a love for the gun, because everything else emerges from it—primarily economic freedom and personal liberty.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar: A tribute to the real life Fred Sorenson

Not many people except for aviation enthusiasts would know the name of Fred Sorenson. On a Wednesday in mid June, 2014 the veteran pilot turned 65 and as mandated by the FAA had to retire from his job as a pilot for Southwest Airlines. On Flight 4246 from Burbank, California to McCarran International it was his last flight, professionally. The man had a colorful career as a pilot. He once flew in and picked up Steven Spielberg and a panicked crew up from their Hawaii location while shooting Jurassic Park just as a hurricane was headed to destroy everything in its path. But that wasn’t the first time Sorenson had met Spielberg. Years prior, Sorenson was flying the crew of location scouts around for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Those guys liked Fred so much that they offered him a role in the movie. That role turned out to be the famous secondary character Jock Lindsey complete with his pet snake Reggie as seen below.

Movies are reflections of real life characters, like Sorenson—people who live real mythologies. Without such people to populate our memories there is no canvas for which to paint a character like Indiana Jones upon. That’s why I’m so proud that Disney now that they’ve opened up their new Disney Springs—the former (Downtown Disney) have built a bar/restaurant dedicated to the type of real life characters that Fred Sorenson really was. Disney could have done the usual thing and had a restaurant more directly connected to the famous archaeologist played by Harrison Ford, but they didn’t. Instead they decided to concentrate on the spirit of adventure that characters who knew Indiana Jones would have exhibited, which was a smart idea. What they ended up with is a place called Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar which features a theme reflecting the early days of aviation and an adventurous spirit that had roamed the world during that period.

When things really get cynical in my life, I find balance in the type of people who rushed out to the grand opening earlier this week and wanted to be the first to record their experience at the new establishment. Ironically the best video I saw of the event was from the Jones family—aptly named. The couple in the above video run a travel business centered down the road from Disney World. They invented their life so that they could have unfettered access to their favorite vacation destination and live their life within that grand mythology. They are my kind of people, they even homeschool their kids—so they are not the kind of glazed over products that public education produces intellectually. They are fully alive people functioning from their internal bliss, so their optimism is contagious—and revealing. They had to be among the first to visit the new bar dedicated to Jock Lindsey whose character set the tone for the entire Indiana Jones series over the next three decades.

So guess where I’ll be going on my next trip to Disney World? And I’ll likely be more excited than they were to visit Jock’s place. The little Indian Jones relics spread around the bar were put there just for people like me and the Jones family—fans who truly feel passion for the little things in life. But additionally, unlike the Jones family, I have expected out of myself to actually live the life of people like Fred Sorenson myself. Because it takes unique people to give film makers and the creative minds at Disney the idea to capture such personalities on a screenplay page to make mythologies out of. So the adventurous little trinkets that populate the bar from the old-fashioned propellers to the boat dining area outside have a particular appeal to me.

My oldest daughter probably has the adventure bug the worst in our family. Over the last six months she and her husband have traveled extensively first to the Snowdonia mountains in Wales then all over the rustic terrain of Iceland. They often stayed in the type of places captured in the fantasy environment of Jock Lindsey’s bar. My daughter has never really aspired to be an Indiana Jones type of character, but rather the real life Fred Sorenson personalities—people who tend to have beat up luggage and only a fist full of dollars in their possession at any given time living on perpetual hope. And with such people often come personalities of child-like optimism. Movie people know when they meet people like Fred that they need to tap into that essence so to bring their natural magnetism to their projects. My daughter as a photographer is always on the lookout for these types of people because when you meet them good things happen. It’s no coincidence that Fred was involved in two of the greatest adventure films of all time, even if remotely—Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park.

Disney when designing the Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar clearly understood just how important Fred was to Indiana Jones and the mythology that followed that popular character. Of the artifacts displayed in the Hanger is the dinosaur bone that Spielberg gave to Fred thanking the pilot from rescuing the film crew from the hurricane in Hawaii. And that’s how it goes with people who live lives of adventure—they collect a lifetime of items that reflect what they endure through experience. That is why such places are so exciting. It’s why the Jones family and many others were so excited to visit the new bar at Disney Springs. Disney as a company better than anyplace in the world understands how to capture the life essence of adventure without the risk of actually living life on the edge. Guests to Disney Springs can visit Jock’s bar and get a sense of a life of adventure—the type of adventure my daughter just recently shivered through in Iceland. It’s not the same as real life, but its close enough to celebrate the type of life people like Fred actually lives.

I’m looking forward to visiting the place; it will likely be the highlight of my next trip to Disney. It’s not just for the remembrances of one of my favorite movies that Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar represents. It’s the celebration of adventurers everywhere in every walk of life. It’s not just a place dedicated to Indiana Jones, but to the type of adventure that Raiders of the Lost Ark was always a tribute to. Producers from Spielberg’s famous movie knew that the essence of that adventure was in the real life persona of Fred Sorenson. Because without him, I don’t think Raiders of the Lost Ark would have been the masterpiece it was. So it was fitting that when he retired from Southwest Airlines he retired in a manner similar to the opening of Raiders—flying off into the sunset. When I do have my beer at Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar it will be to him that I dedicate it to. People like him are the types we should all aspire to be. They create excitement just in their every day living and they make life just a little bit better because they are alive. They make movies better just by waking up in the morning. All anyone needs to do to make their movies classics is to turn their cameras on those magnetic personalities and let the film do all the talking.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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