I love the Old West. I greatly enjoy every aspect of it -- fact or fiction -- that has trickled down over my senses over the past 30-odd-years. Movies, books, magazines (yeah, there was a Wild West magazine), comics, music... I've seen a few cowboy-type, live shows. But nothing like a full scale reenactment, as they seem to be doing here:

VIRGINIA CITY, Nev. (AP) - History re-enactors posing as Old West gunslingers here need to follow some modern rules, the sheriff says: Guns and alcohol don't mix.

A Storey County ordinance prohibits alcohol consumption by history re- enactors wearing a gun, but Sheriff Jim Miller said he's going to increase enforcement of the ordinance because some people have abused it.

That doesn't sound very Wild-Westy to me. Drunk and armed -- that's what the experience was and that's what you should be paying for. Otherwise it's just a fashion museum. In fact, they should have a minimum drunkeness factor. "If you can legally drive a car, you can't work here," should be the motto.

What's the greater offense, stocking a park full of drunken gunfighters, when you're operating a drunken gunfighter park, or presenting a tamed down version of the West that never existed aka being a fucking liar?

Sure, attendance would drop, but the people who dared to go, took a shot, and loaded more shot into their weapon, would get their money's worth. Jack the price up to a few grand and stock it with the terminally ill, death row inmates and you're all set.

"They want to drink and carry a gun and look like cowboys," Miller said. "But you can see how easy that would be for someone drinking to accidentally put a live round in there and hurt someone."

The guns aren't even loaded??? What the hell? Who's Wild West is this? Spielberg's? And even if they WERE loaded, aren't we talking blanks here?

Under a program sponsored by the Virginia City Convention and Tourism Authority, volunteers dress in period costumes, including six-guns, and pose for photographs for tourists each summer.

Joe Curtis, a member of the authority board, said stricter enforcement comes after several people with felony convictions showed up in town dressed as gunslingers.

Okay, this part is unclear, and a little odd... But it sounds to me like OUTLAWS CAME TO TOWN AND TRIED TO TAKE OVER THE WESTERN SHOW. All the more reason to arm the staff.

I don't know about this Sheriff Jim Miller... He seems less than up to the task. Seeing this guy assume such a storied and time honored role makes me think of those who've come before, who've excelled in the position.

The 7 Best Gunslinging Cowboys of All Time

7) Rooster Cogburn -- from True Grit and uh, Rooster Cogburn. From the band Public Enemy to some second thing I didn't care enough to research, John Wayne gets a lotta flack for being Johh Wayne. But he delivered where in counted, onscreen. The grizzlier he was, the more he delivered, and the less eyes he looked through.

6) Frank from Once Upon a Time in the West -- The only bad guy Henry Fonda ever played. That should cover it. And he showed up when he knew he was dead and out-gunned, just to see what the other guy wanted from him. The other guy being Charles Bronson, he wanted to kill him. But it was still a ballsy move.

5) Doc Holiday from Tombstone -- Sure it's maybe a bit too modern and "clean" but Kilmer's performance is off the charts phenomenal. Holiday from My Darling Clementine was great too, but I go with Kilmer in a straight comparison. He's the only guy on this list solidly drunk throughout the entire film.

4) The Outlaw Josey Wales -- He birthed this line and that gets him on the list: "When things get bad, and you think you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean, I mean plum mad dog mean, cause if you give up, or you lose your head, then you neither live nor win, and that's just the way it is..."

Yeah, what's your mantra, "Just do it"? Go away.

3) "Vin" from The Magnificent 7 -- Steve McQueen, stealing scenes and shooting guns. Quite possibly the best remake ever. And though it's sacrilegious to say it tops the original Seven Samurai... I'll just say this, they'd have a better argument if McQueen was in their movie.

2) Clint as Will Munny from Unforgiven -- No comment necessary. But he sips whiskey with reckless abandon.

1) Clint as The Man With No Name aka Blondie from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly "There are two kinds of men in this world, men with guns... and men who dig."

He had a gun for most of the toughest movie ever, and that earns him the number one spot. And though it's not technically the same character, in the first of the Leone trilogy, he invents the bullet proof vest...

TheCoolerKing was drunk while writing part of this article... He might update parts of it tomorrow.

Quirky

Birmingham, AL

October 2005

MAR 19, 2008 08:37 AM

Okay you're a funny writer. This article was funny, but the Cosmo-esque numbering of things is getting really old.

Cigarette

Cleveland, OH

April 2004

MAR 19, 2008 08:48 AM

What? No Paladin? No Marshall Dillon? Boo.