Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
One of my all-time favorite films is Tombstone (1993), the greatest Western ever made -in my opinion (and with all due respect to the great John Wayne, who I love and am a major fan of). Tombstone being my favorite Western, I developed an interest in the film's central character, Wyatt Earp. I have recently read my first proper biographies of Earp, and man, this guy just blows my socks off! What a fascinating, bigger-than-life character, right out of a great Western novel. I have read hundreds and hundreds of biographies and autobiographies of men and women of every possible stripe, but this guy is, without a doubt, one of the most incredible characters I have ever read about.
Okay, let me tell you twelve things you may not have known about that legendary lawman from the Old West, Mr. Wyatt Earp.
1. Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (yep, that's his full name) ran away from home several times and tried to enlist in the Union Army in the Civil War. He was unsuccessful and was sent back home every time, as he was only 13 years old.
2. He loved ice cream. He wasn't a hard drinker. In fact, he wasn't a drinker at all. No, the great Wyatt Earp, as macho as they come, never let liquor touch his lips. But he did have a vice: his love of ice cream. Every day in Tombstone, he would stop into the local ice cream parlor and indulge in a scoop.
3. He was arrested for horse theft along with two other men. Wyatt and the other men were accused of stealing two horses (each worth $100) and jailed. Instead of waiting for his trial, Wyatt broke out of jail and escaped through the jail roof.
4. He never was hit or injured during a gun fight. No, not in any gunfight he was ever involved in, which contributed to his legend.
5. He once accidentally shot himself (actually his coat). Although Wyatt was never hit by the bullet of an opponent, once, his single-action revolver fell out of his holster while he was leaning back in a chair and discharged. Embarrassingly, the discharged bullet went through his coat and out the ceiling.
6. He loved hookers and prostitutes. Wyatt may not have been a drinker, but he loved the ladies (ladies of the evening, that is). In one year (1872) Wyatt was arrested three times for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-repute."
Wyatt was listed as living in a brothel with Jane Haspiel in February of 1872. It is not known whether he was a pimp, an enforcer, or a bouncer in the establishment. Later, in 1876, when his brother James opened a brothel in Dodge City, Wyatt went along with him.
7. He was once fined for slapping a prostitute. Wyatt was fined the sum of $1.00 for slapping a muscular prostitute named Frankie Bell. Frankie had "heaped epithets" on Wyatt and he got upset and slapped her. Frankie spent the night in jail and was fined $20 (Wyatt's $1 fine was the legal minimum).
8. His second wife was probably an ex-prostitute. Wyatt's common-law wife, Celia Anne "Matty" Blaylock, who Wyatt lived with until 1881, was reputedly an ex-hooker.
9. He loved Dick Naylor. Wyatt's favorite horse, a racehorse, was named Dick Naylor.
10. He was put on trial for murder. After Wyatt's signature moment, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, he was tried for murder, along with his best pal, Doc Holliday. If convicted, the two would have been hanged. Fortunately for Wyatt and his legend, he and Doc were both acquitted.
11. He was a pal of John Wayne. In Wyatt's later years, he lived in Los Angeles and was a technical advisor on several silent cowboy films. He befriended a young actor named Marion Morrison (who later changed his name to John Wayne) and regaled the young thespian with tales of the Old West. Enthralled, the young Duke used to fetch Wyatt cups of coffee. Wayne later claimed his portrayals of cowboys and Western lawmen were based on these conversations with Wyatt Earp.
12. His last words were enigmatic. According to his wife of 47 years, Wyatt's last words, just before he died in January of 1929 were "Suppose, suppose…" Wyatt's wife, friends, and biographers all have only made guesses at what he was about to say to complete his thought before he passed away.
Comments (13)
I've always wanted to read more about Wyatt Earp, but one consideration keeping me from doing so was the issue of few books being really accurate.
Thanks again for the reply and for the excellent article. :)
I read two excellent books on Wyatt Earp.
They were: "Wyatt Earp: the Man Behind the Legend" and "Inventing Wyatt Earp".
I really enjoyed both books and they are supposedly two of the most accurate books on his life.
You can easily get then at a local library, I'm sure, or buy them cheaply from a book dealer on the web.
I mean, if there was a way to have sustainable, farm-raised lion meat in the same way we can have ostrich or bison, that would be different, but A) they're a large predator, and B) if you've ever heard the phrase "like herding cats", imagine trying to herd a bunch of HUGE cats. Not gonna happen.
B) There are no hard facts/studies about eating "apex predators" so what you've always "heard" is wrong @miss cellania
C) As for eating animals, yes there should be no distinction of what type of animal we should be eating based on how it looks or is perceived. With that said most of the animals we do raise for meat consumption are domesticated (to an extent) and are never endangered. I love wild game meat and have hunted and have hunters in my family, which is a regulated and overseen by various agencies. As long as its legal they should be able to sell and we should be able to eat whichever animals we'd like. I just would hope that there were efforts taken to maintain the species we are hunting to that generations down the line can enjoy the same animals we do be to just view them, or to eat them.
Just seems like a bad idea based on the reproduction rates of apex predators. Apex organisms generally take the most in terms of ecological resources to generate and they spawn few offspring. Importantly, the food chain "expects" them to contribute a certain feedback. In their natural system they are generally not shaped by predation. If a trendy, whimsical "why not lions" eatery movement arises, lions are much less "apex" all of a sudden and the Lion part of a massively complex system has a seriously unexpected feedback. The influence of the lion part sends a good wobble into the ecosystem that will shake the general lay of the land (including humans that can't buy their way into a separate existence from their land base; *cough* Africa *cough*) until things equalize into a new pattern. Keep in mind that the land doesn't give a hoot about the way we think things should work.
God forbid it becomes a foodie trend of the western world. Lions would go the way of tuna. (p.s. mind your sushi choices.)
But don't worry - technology will save us...
Lions in battery cages, optimally fed and bred to increase tender lioney muscle parts to serve your taco and your entitled face hole.
FYI, I've been drinking.
I love you all.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005941
It is irresponsible to therefore have lion products on the market and from the commentary from the restaurant owner, he seems to be something of a lummox and prone to irresponsible behaviour.
My own thoughts on the subject are - as long as it doesn't actually contain something that makes humans sick when they eat it, I don't care what people eat. Eating a Lion is no more strange then Eating a Cow to me. The only difference being that the Lion is an endangered species, which shouldn't be a candidate for eating. There's plenty of other stuff to eat.