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What could bring me out of retirement? It’s a question I’ve asked myself many many times since I withdrew to my Sherman Oaks apartment earlier this year following an infamous sea voyage. It’s a fact that I don’t get out much. The very act of physically leaving my place is painful, awkward, and comes at a high price. Also, Copernicus has not been doing well lately, and must be squeezed firmly in order to enjoy his morning trip to the cat box. We jokingly call this “playing the pipes” but Copernicus isn’t laughing.

Even my once daily jaunts to the Encino Nursing Home to visit Prim Nightengale have also slacked off. Poor wretched Prim has been there since we barely survived our “Cougar Cruise” last December. Prim is a mere shadow of his former self. When queried on his favorite topic Romance! He simply utters “lies, lies, everything is stupid” as the nurseman applies more ointment.

So what could get me out of bed and down the street? I’ll tell you what. Unfinished business, that’s what. If I learned anything from my favorite 1980s action movie star Richard Chamberlain, it’s that no real man of action leaves business undone. Remember my review of last summer’s Harry Potter sequel? Well, when I got the PGA invite to attend the latest and final installment, I knew that I had to answer the call. So, I put on my slippers and hobbled on down to “Harmony Gold” on Sunset for a late afternoon peek at “HP7 2”.

Now, maybe I was just confused by the whole Harry Potter 7.2 thing, I don’t know. What I do know is that my colleagues out there saw a very different movie.

J.K. Rowling’s cult book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, published in 1978, describes in grungy detail how the hero, Harry Potter, passed in a few short months from being a Catholic high school Wizard to being a strung-out heroin addict who turned tricks in public restrooms for drugs. If there’s anything more boring than a juicy parable with a moral at the end, it’s the moral without the parable. And so “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II” informs us in great detail that if you get strung out on drugs, you are likely to find yourself living desperately on the streets, peddling a body that looks less and less like a good buy, especially in a public men’s room.

Of course the book was more than this; a personal note, of a kid who despite his suffering tried to turn his experience into poetry and wizard spells. The problem with David Yates’s film is that the camera tends to make the experiences too literal: Harry, the hero of the story, is so desperately sick and unhappy that the romanticism seems unconvincing. He plays Wizard at night, casting spells and waving his stick in the rain after his best friend, Ron Weasely, dies of leukemia, and it just looks wet, not touching.

As the movie opens, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is on the Wizard team at Hogwarts High School in Scotland, where a perverted priest salivates while spanking naughty students with a big paddle and the rest of the class watches.

Harry and his friends are not good Catholic lads. The student manager of the Wizards steals from the lockers of the opposing witch team, and the favorite off-court pastime is experimenting with inhalants and pills. The coach, named Voldemort and played by Ralph Fiennes, is a closet homosexual who spends great effort making unlikely passes at Harry (“Do we understand each other?” he asks in the shower room, offering money). And Harry’s mother, played by Helene Bonham Carter, is a one-dimensional character who exists in the movie solely to exercise Tough Love by throwing him out.

Life for Harry is a downward spiral of pills, cough medicine, booze, jumping off cliffs into the Hogwarts River, passing out during a game and masturbating under the stars (the movie heroically declines to score this scene with “Up on the Roof”). There are also exciting glimpses into the underworld of users, wizards, pushers, witches, hookers and pimps, as Harry drifts loose from his secure moorings, while writing everything down in his diary.

Harry’s poetry serves as a narration for part of the film. Like most poetry written by teenagers, it is puerile romanticism, painfully sincere, viewing life as tragic because the author is not happy. He tries heroin, and “any ache or pain or sadness or guilt was completely flushed out”, he helps the dying Ron Weasely escape from the hospital so he can push his wheelchair down 42nd Street, Harry sees his teammate Luna Lovegood on TV, playing in an all-star wizard game while Harry is in a Skid Row bar. Harry is saved by a noble black man, Alan Rickman (in a bit of a casting stretch), who finds him unconscious in a playground, brings him home and puts him through cold turkey and teaches him some spells of his own (Rickman, going all out here, knows from personal experience that there’s just not the same cachet in being saved by a white dude).

Radcliffe (“The Tailor of Panama”) does what he can with the part but is miscast, I think, as the hard-boiled hero. Alan Rickman is strong as the ex-junkie, and there is real emotion in Helene Bonham Carter’s underwritten mother. Oh, and Emily Watson, as a scuzzy hooker, once again finds an absolutely authentic note. But the movie is unconvincing. At the end, Harry is seen going in through a “stage door,” and then we hear him telling the story of his descent and recovery before launching into some wizard spells and card tricks. We can’t tell if this is supposed to be genuine testimony or a performance. That’s the problem with the whole movie.

Flashback to Northern Arizona, Circa 1989. Just about every afternoon, I can remember my dad driving me home from school and at about the same time hearing the late Paul Harvey’s folksy voice come over the radio, interrupting the heartbreakin’ and cheatin’ songs that warbled out of the Flagstaff country station for a few minutes, and sharing with us some random anecdotal account about some legendary public figure or famous president. Harvey generally signed off with “…and now you’ve heard the rest of the story. Good day!”.

I didn’t know about Harvey’s politics or personal feelings, and frankly I didn’t care. I still don’t.

Over the years my radio listening has tapered off. I can’t stand most of today’s music that blares out of the FM channels and listening to talk radio simply bores me. Like a lot of people, I’ve tuned out of FM and AM radio and have instead opted for satellite radio and other platforms.

However, one of the few things I still listen to with any sort of regularity is NPR. I don’t listen everyday, or even every week, but I will tune in to NPR at least once every time I’m in the car for over an hour. A lot of weekends I will listen to “A Prairie Home Companion”, I suppose Garrison Keilor’s voice and the program’s assorted characters appeal to me in the same way that Harvey’s brief segments did twenty odd years ago. I guess I just like stories, and Keilor’s program and numerous other NPR programs usually deliver. It’s also one of the few places an American radio listener can get news from the BBC and other agencies reporting on events overseas. NPR’s programs also include interesting stories from around the world, book reviews and documentary segments on films (new and old) and other cultural and historical topics.

My point is - nobody else that I am aware of does this.

I grew up in rural Arizona. I have rural tastes and my politics are mostly conservative. Whatever that even means anymore. Do I feel that the “media” in general has a liberal bias. Probably. Hollywood and New York, where most of the radio, television, news, and movies come from, are generally liberal communities. In general I see a lot of so-called “liberal” elements in many news segments and even in dramatic television shows, sitcoms and feature film. Because the “media” is so entertainment driven anymore its harder to seperate the two. CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News, as well as the other networks are almost entirely partisan. I believe that while the Conservatives have FOX and the airwaves, the liberals have a firm toe hold on the other major networks.

But I find the Conservative argument and crusade against Public Television and Public Radio largely absurd. NPR has been especially besieged in recent months, especially over the issues regarding Juan Williams and the Schillers. Pundits, like Glen Beck use these “scandals” and proof that the liberals are in charge of NPR and that NPR then must be left wing propaganda.

I suppose if I were to think hard on it, NPR is something that I associate with liberal listeners more than I do with my conservative friends. In fact, I might be the only conservative that I know, that still listens to it. I don’t know why this is. Perhaps it is the perception that NPR is intellectual. This is true, it is. I have to agree sometimes that when my friend complains about the right wing war against anything remotely “intellectual” he might in fact have a point.

I see this a lot. Especially among more rural conservatives…who probably don’t listen to NPR much and have never even heard of the BBC.

What’s funny about this crusade against intellectual thought and entertainment is that it is contrary to the nature of most of the “heroes” that Conservatives triumph. I’m speaking of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, probably all of the “Founders” that Bachmann and Palin talk about, Eisenhower, George S. Patton, the list goes on.

The funny thing is is that all of the above mentioned people were brilliant. Whether you care for their politics or their personal habits and morals, they were all in their own exceptional. Long before he was President, Teddy Roosevelt wrote numerous history books and was both a conservationist and a self-taught naturalist. Jefferson was the very definition of an intellectual. Patton filled pages with poetry and studied classical history.

These heroes of the right (many of them my own heroes) were smart people. Intellectuals.

The more I think about it, I cannot recall a single national broadcast of any news report or other program on NPR that was especially “liberal”. Thus, I cannot understand this war against National Public Radio and Public Television. I can only suspect that the true nature of it is the desire of large corporations to further control the media.

So, I challenge my fellow conservatives to send me a link or quote from any NPR news broadcast that was left-wing/partisan. The rules are simple. Find something from the past 15 years and send it to me. Then I’ll shut up.

Good day!

I have put the words “Private Investigator” in quotes on this post as I have never held a license as an Investigator or Private Detective. My story, while brief, details my experiences as what we might say would be an “Apprentice Investigator”, or in the words of Investigators themselves as an “Associate Investigator”. I have changed all the names of certain characters in this story.

Like most movies and books will tell you, so-called Private Eyes come from all walks of life. Yes, many are retired lawmen, who after years behind a badge they continue to make their living putting their detective skills to use. Some are former military people. Some get enough hours together working as associates to get their own licenses and later open their own shop. Sure, some keep offices in the style of Film Noir legends and pulp novel heroes like Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Others work out of their home.

I was twenty-one and craving adventure. By that time I had been working in Film and Television for almost eight years, first as an actor and later working for a Phoenix area Production Company. I had been taking some community college classes, but I was getting bored with that and with work. I wasn’t sure I wanted to work in television. I felt like I wanted to see some action. I thought law enforcement might be exciting, but I didn’t really know how to get on board with any Departments. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, many Police Departments throughout the US required applicants to have a full on college degree, which I did not have, before they could apply and attend an academy.

Not sure I wanted to make the commitment to a full fledged peace office career, I thought I might try something different. Having read most of James Ellroy’s books and all the Raymond Chandler stuff I could get my hands on, I thought that being a Private Eye would be sort of exciting and damn near thrilling. I had visions of cracking cases of cheating spouses and uncovering all sorts of intrigue ala Jake Getes in “Chinatown”. I didn’t know a damn thing about it.

It so happened that an older woman who happened to be an Investigator ran her own office out of the same building that my production company was in. “Jane” was not former law enforcement, instead she came from a family of people who worked in the courts. That’s how she got her points, by working for a relative. She explained to me that if I could find an Investigator willing to take on a tin-horn with no experience or any applicable skills, I might luck out. It so happened she was not taking anyone on with that kind of resume.

So, I hit the books and started making some calls. Eventually, I found a multi-state Agency with an office in my neck of the woods. I spoke with “Dale”, Private Eye extraordinaire who owned this big outfit. He was located on the coast somewhere but he was interested in taking on associates. His main business was working on cases where employees scammed their bosses on sick leave and benefits. He was thrilled that I had a modest media background because camera work was important. Though less than thrilled with my utter lack of any other skills, he told me he’d get me on as an associate.

My instructions were to go down to the State Police headquarters and pick up the forms needed to become a full fledged associate investigator. But when I got to the State Police building, the officer working the desk told me that the forms had to come from the Investigator first. He looked at me like the green idiot I was and that was that. I left there and when I tried to call “Dale” he never answered. I was never able to get “Dale” on the phone again.

So, I was back to the drawing board. That winter I got a referral from a retired Peace Officer to an Investigator in Tucson. “Ivan” ran his own office and did not keep a staff or any associates, but I was told he might consider the idea of having a raw recruit join him. I set up a meeting with Ivan at a Tucson Mexican Diner for a Saturday. The production company I was working for was closing shop, so it seemed I would have lots of time to cut my teeth on cool investigative assignments. I wore what I thought any good Private Eye ought to, shirt and tie, slacks, dress shoes and a blazer.

Ivan picked me out of the crowd pretty easy. He wore sweatpants, an old sweater, white sneakers, a leather bomber jacket and a ball cap. Around his waist was a fanny pack where he kept his wallet and money, and as I found out later a snubnosed hammer-less .38 Special revolver.

Ivan was quiet, and talked with a low voice. He had the mustache of a Highway Patrolman and indeed a law-enforcement background that seemed to include almost every Federal Agency and local PD in the Southwest. He’d been in Vietnam and had carried supplies into Marine outposts in the jungles. He would tell me stories of mutilated Americans they found in the bush and of some of the scrapes he was in during his lawman days. If I remember correctly, he’d started out as a Deputy Sheriff somewhere in the Southwest and then later became a Border Patrol Officer, followed by stints for DEA and US Marshals.

Ivan knew all about tracking down hardened outlaws and prison escapees. He also explained that many of the crooks on the run wind up in Las Vegas, an all-night city where people can easily hide out and live under the radar. As a result, the security officers at most the major casinos keep wanted posters and are often on the lookout for those wanted by the FBI or Marshal’s service.

After our awkward interview, where it was revealed I had no particular skills required for the job, he decided to let me go to work with him part time as an apprentice, rather than an associate. This meant that I was basically his personal assistant. I would come down to Tucson every weekend and work with him. He did not tolerate and slacking off and had low tolerance for mistakes. He was hard man, but thinking back on it now, he made a big impression on me. Ivan was the real deal, a lawman turned private detective.

If I remember correctly, Ivan specialized in a number of areas that made use of his peace officer skills. Criminal investigations and tracking down stolen vehicles. He had good contacts across the border in Mexico and would sometimes go down into Sonora or Baja looking for stolen cars and retrieve them. I began to have visions of all kinds of cross-border adventures. But, I was also a bit of a realist and I knew I had a lot to learn. Perhaps Ivan saw some potential, perhaps he merely wanted someone he could count on up in Phoenix.

My first mission was this. The following weekend I would go to a small gym located in a seedy neighborhood in South Phoenix, to locate a man who had as yet not paid his bill for services Ivan had rendered. I was merely to find out if the man was there, and see where he could be reached. I was warned that this was no Bally’s or Gold’s Gym. In some ways, this basic and mundane exercise was probably a test.

Well, the next weekend rolled around and I climbed into my car and made the trek across that great abyss that is the “Valley of the Sun” and located the Gym without much trouble. South Phoenix was rough and I imagine it still is. It was the largest area of concentrated crime and criminal activity in that big city. I was setting out on what I felt would be a neat adventure.  By this time, I had taken my Concealed Weapons Permit courses and had passed the tests and checks for a Concealed Carry Permit but I had not yet received the actual permit. Arizona no longer requires such a permit, but they did then.

There is one thing I should add here. Ivan always carried a gun. I was informed that most Arizona investigators did. Guns are a common tool for many private investigators. Some movies and books suggest investigators who go unarmed. I believe Ivan would feel they are crazy. While an investigator is not a lawman, he deals with the same crowd and some of those people are dangerous. Ivan was the older sort who had probably carried a lot of guns. I think he favored revolvers over fancy automatics. I cannot remember, but I do remember his fanny pack snub.

So, without gun I strolled into the gym, a skinny and nervous 21 year old. I waltzed into the single-story cinderblock shop and showed the beefcake muscle-head behind the glassed in front desk Ivan’s card and asked for Mr. X. The gym was like something out of a movie. It was dark and smelled like mold and old sweat. A place for hardened tattooed tough guys, not a place to meet friends or talk to girls on the elipticles. X wasn’t there just then, but he’d pass along the message. I strolled out. Mission accomplished. I can’t imagine I showed a lot of confidence, but I had done as asked.

Well time went on and on another Saturday I headed back down to Tucson. My other mission had been to find out as much as I could about the various forms of Hepatitus. I have no idea why, but one thing going for me then as now is that I was a good researcher. Using a friend’s computer I printed out pages of research and articles about Hepatitus. Perhaps Ivan was working on a case for someone, Hell if I knew. I still wonder sometimes.

A funny thing happened during this research. My friend lived in a two-story apartment, and while printing out this research, I forgot something in my car and ran downstairs to get it. It was raining and it was about suppertime. I jogged down the steps outside just as a Pizza Deliveryman was showing up with a neighbors dinner. By then I had my permit to carry concealed and was just then packing one of two handguns I had at the time. A P92 Taurus .380 Auto, a downsized copy of the M9 Beretta. It was a fat little gun I had received as a birthday gift that fall.

I had taken this gun to the indoor range for pre-permit test practice a month or so earlier. I had emptied two pre-ban 12-round magazines into a paper target at 25 yards. The gun has a tight trigger pull and never suited me. While I believe that true marksmanship is about the shooter, not the weapon, I was never any good with the P92. On top of that, the stacked magazine makes for a wide gun. On the night in question, I was packing mine in a open top cloth holster, on the inside of my waistband.

As I jogged down the steps in the rain I slipped and stumbled forward. As I went down on the pavement, my gun jumped out of my holster, hit the parking lot and went sliding across the asphalt as if on ice. It bumped a speed hump and somehow came apart. Magazine and rounds went everywhere and gun kept going. All of this happened in front of a wide-eyed pizza delivery boy.

I switched guns the next day. I started packing an old lend-lease Victory Model revolver that some fool had nickel-plated. It fired the obsolescent .38 S&W cartridge preferred by the British during WWII. Shorter than the .38 Spcl cartridge it also lacks that round’s stopping power. At the time it came at $35.00 for a box of fifty, expensive. There was only one gunshop in town that carried it and I think they probably carried it for me. The fatboy who sold the ammo to me always got a chuckle when I came in for those bullets.

As it would turn out my aspirations to become a Private Eye were short lived. After my Hep-C report, I was told to be on the lookout for a stolen car which may have been in the Phoenix area, and I was told to search the lots at the airport and report back what I saw. Before I could sink my teeth into this major case, I was told to meet Ivan in a little Western town in Eastern Arizona one morning so that I could watch him interview a witness in a case he was working (Ivan did a lot of work for defense attorneys). He gave me 90 minutes to cross a major part of the state. I didn’t make it in time and never caught up to Ivan.

Later, on the phone, Ivan was very disappointed and soon it was decided that my days as his assistant were over. And so ended such a promising life of adventure in the world of Private Eyes. I think it lasted two months.

My only brush with this work after Ivan was guarding expensive artwork for a family friend at his annual show and keeping drunk cowboys from drooling on the paintings. Shortly thereafter I resumed my television career. In the end things have a way of working out for a reason.

Sometimes though I think about Ivan. I imagine he’s still out there somewhere.

Last week Anderson Cooper of CNN devoted some air time to a recent speech given by Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. In one of those public events that have become a staple of the new wave of ultra-conservatism (aka ‘Tea Party’), Bachman did the routine; lambasting the politicians on the left, the President’s policies, and then wrapping it all up in a swirling spin on our Country’s origins and the “Founding Fathers”.

Bachmann went further though than most when she conjured up the America of old; the country where it did not matter what you color, race, faith or origins, your class or circumstances, we were all one in the same and everyone got a fair shake. She then went on to spell out how America’s Founding Fathers (generally defined as the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the signers of the Constitution, various Revolutionary Generals and other figures of the revolutionary period such as Thomas Paine), worked tirelessly to abolish slavery and how President John Quincy Adams (whom she also defined as a Founding Father) did not stop until Slavery was no more.

Really?

Its almost impossible to know where to begin. But lets point out a few things. John Q. Adams was not a “Founding Father” by most definitions of the term (his Father was) and he died years before the American Civil War and Abolition. Let us also remember that most of the Southern “Founding Fathers”, you know like Washington and Jefferson were slave owners until the day they died. And lastly, I think that the descendants of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Eastern Europe, England (yes them too), China and Japan would disagree about the fair shake they all supposedly got and lets not forget about Slavery and certainly not the treatment of Native Americans (which could be said is an ongoing issue).

But I suppose if you were a Yankee Merchant in Boston with a little money in your pocket, or a Southern male (of various creeds and colors) with some land under your feet and some people in bondage to work it for you, things were pretty good right?

The thing that I would like to point out though is the constant reference to the Founders that the Tea Party folks like to bring up. As if these middle-aged men in breeches and wigs were somehow mystics who possessed great powers of vision and oratory skills and who all worked together towards the same ends. Always united in war and policy, and all looking out for the little guy. And that somehow, we have disgraced these near Biblical characters and surely something like the Rapture is sure to be result.

I’d like to point out that I myself come from fairly conservative leanings. I believe in Gun Rights, and the individuality of Americans. I believe in somewhat limited Government and programs, but I do believe that the purpose of Government is to work for the People and to support great works and the efforts to help people. I am also proud to say that I am descended from people who arrived in New England starting in the mid-1630s. They cleared land and farmed in towns like Rowley and Newbury, Massachusetts and later generations worked on the seas. Several ancestors served in the ranks of Patriot Militia Companies in the Revolution and one aboard a Privateer (he was captured and held in a hellish British Prison for two years). So, I pay homage to that generation. I believe in their words and actions. There’s a lot to be inspired by there.

But I also know that men of those first generations of Colonial America, and the men and women of the Revolution were also flawed human beings, capable of the same frailties of modern society.

They were not mystics.

Look at the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson owned slaves. So did Charles Carroll of Maryland and Benjamin Harrison. Both Richard and Francis Lee owned slaves. Caesar Rodney came from a wealthy slave owning family in Delaware. Edward Rutledge who was reluctant towards Independence owned at least 50 slaves. You get the picture. Many of these men had fought Indians, were hard and heavy drinkers, carried with them painful ailments and diseases and made bad decisions. Button Gwinette was killed in a petty duel over the campaign in Florida. These men were not Gods.

Nor were they united. On top of the general friction that sometimes existed between Northern and Southern Founders, there were great disagreements over Independence and the War itself. The Continental Congress could at times be just as contentious as today’s House of Representatives.

And let us not forget the Constitution. You know, our sacred text that people love to bring up in Political debates, you know that thing that President Obama has supposedly torn up and set ablaze. Well, debates over the Constitution were so contentious that some of the God-like Founders, men like George Mason and Elbridge Gerry refused to sign it. Thirteen others left the delegation without signing it, some of them the same men who signed the Dec. of Ind. years earlier.

The Post Revolutionary Period was full of political conflict. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and his son were both killed in politically charged Duels. Founding Fathers disagreed heartily over everything from Slaves, to the Navy, to the Bill of Rights and the strength of the federal government. The Founding Fathers left quite a mess for generations of other politicians; from Andrew Jackson, to Lincoln and well beyond to sort out.

So, while the Founders were brave men who gave future generations much, did the same Founding Fathers create a perfect engine? Were these men the near Gods that Bachmann, Beck and Palin dredge up? I think not. Flawed men, who gave us something we should all hold dear, but that we have to continue to work to make better.

When Captain Charles Askins came home on leave in 1944, after 18 months overseas, he brought home his personal military sidearm, a modified M1911A1 .45 Auto - more or less the same issue handgun carried by the majority of Officers in the Army. He had packed this weapon while serving under General George Patton in North Africa, and despite being an Ordnance Officer rather than a combat platoon leader, he had used it.

But in preparing for his return to England and the coming invasion of France - the ultimate showdown in the battle to Liberate Europe, Askins left his man-stopping .45 auto at home. Instead, he took his six-shot revolver, a customized Colt New Service .38, back with him into the war. He simply felt that his sixshooter, the same gun he’d packed during his adventurous days as a US Border Patrol agent, was the right gun for the job. Askins was one of the greatest pistol shots of his generation, won hundreds of awards, and was an expert trainer for the Border Patrol and later the US Army. Any man going up against Askins on the target range, or the battlefield, was in for a rough time.

Askins had a few opportunities to put his sixgun to work in the coming fight. And when it came to life or death situations - six shots was all he needed.

The same is true for men like Bill Jordan, another Border Patrol Officer, Marine, and gun handler, who wrote extensively on handguns and how to use them. Jordan was also a favorite because he put on exciting demonstrations - using a Smith and Wesson loaded with wax bullets to shoot Necco Wafers and asprin tablets on TV shows. He also taught actors like James Arness (Gunsmoke) how to draw and shoot.

Jordan’s legacy is the Model 19 Smith and Wesson, a .357 revolver he helped design. Six shots - fully loaded.

Throughout much of the 20th Century, the gun makers like Colt, Smith and Wesson and others produced some very fine and increasingly improved revolvers. While automatics of both foreign and domestic make had been on the market since the end of the 19th Century, revolvers remained the steady mainstay of the Police Officer and Civilian shooter alike.

While there were many commercial grade semi-automatics available to the consumer, a great many were also surplus military weapons. Both before and after WWI, the famous German Luger become quite popular with Americans. The Luger was available in both commercial and military styles, a great many were brought home by “Doughboys” after the War. There are even photos of cowboys in the 1910s and 1920s packing Lugers and other German Favorites like the C96 Mauser - the “Broomhandle”. When the Nazis came to power, export of Lugers to America ceased, and didn’t resume until GIs started bringing them home as souvenirs after WWII.

However, despite the growing popularity of automatics, Revolvers remained the standard among America’s lawmen and kept their edge in the civilian market. This would remain true largely until the 1980s and early 1990s.

When I was young, I learned to enjoy target shooting, gun safety, and the fundamentals of responsible gun handling. I started off with an old .22 slide action Winchester Rifle. I wasn’t really allowed to handle anything else until I had mastered proper handling and safe shooting with this old “gallery gun”. This was in the mid to late 1980s. While I would eventually graduate to more complex and “powerful” weapons, the old Winchester remained in my collection. My family still has it.

My first handgun was a Colt Scout, a western style sixgun in the ear splitting .22 Magnum. Small bullet, but loud! The gun was in rough shape, but I learned how to shoot it, and my father’s old .32-20, a Colt Army Special revolver handed down through my Great Great Grandfather’s family. These two old “wheelguns” were my introduction to pistols. We were living in Arizona then, and the gun range was a short drive away. We spent a lot of Saturday afternoons shooting with family friends. Nobody got hurt.

Revolvers were still pretty common then. I can remember that as late as 1990, the Policemen in our hometown of Ipswich, Massachusetts still carried revolvers and I can tell you that many of the rural western lawmen of Arizona were still packing .38 caliber Model 10s. I still remember seeing the brown shirted deputy Sheriff’s with their well worn straw stetsons and sixguns in the local coffee shops. I also enjoyed westerns, and my cowboy heroes generally always packed a .45 Peacemaker.

But, by the early 1990s things started to change and within a couple of years, the only lawmen you saw with sixguns were the old timers on their way out. Beretta 9mms and Glocks were rapidly replacing well worn Colt and S&W revolvers in big cities and small towns like. In the civilian market, automatics were overtaking revolvers and the gun companies and the gun magazines were devoting a lot of time and newsprint to the more modern weapons.

I have to say I lamented this changing trend. In many ways, I have always felt that accuracy, safety, and basic marksmanship among civilian shooters has gone out the window as a result. In my opinion the “new” side of America’s often derided “gun culture” was born. Many of the gun makers ceased new production on many of their once popular revolvers and new models simply could not compete with automatics.

Most of my friends thought I was crazy for my continued love of revolvers. Of course, I had also spent more time on the range than any of them - what they knew of guns came from movies - and a lot of movies showed bad guys and good, doing a lot of fancy and often acrobatic shooting with autos. Immature chit chat ensued about how a revolver couldn’t outshoot an automatic. Well, I firmly believed then, and do now, that its not the weapon that makes the difference, but the person shooting it.

Some time back I went into a local gun shop, one of the few proper, large inventory shops in my area. Its quite a store really, offering everything from antique flintlock muskets to the latest in modern rapid fire handguns and rifles. I was planning on doing a little rifle shooting in the near future and I wanted to price out some ammo.

The store was packed. Men, women, the young and old, were looking over and purchasing a variety of weapons. Since the 2008 elections, gun sales have been up. But more than ever, gun purchases by those unfamiliar with guns and shooting are also up; seemingly. While I browsed the aging Winchesters and Savage hunting rifles on consignment, a young women in her twenties who looked like she just left a party in Silver Lake, came in to check out the snub nose .38s. Meanwhile, a man was being taught how to use the 870 Remington Pump Shotgun he’d just passed the background check to buy, and no fewer than a dozen people were swarming for Glocks and other “sexy” black semi-auto handguns and rifles. These are often the same guns that grace the covers of the magazines and that some people insist are vital for personal home defense.

Two weeks earlier, a deranged lunatic with no seemingly defined political motivation or idealogy, with no clearly understood motivation other than insanity, shot and severely wounded US Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Tucson. As of this writing Giffords condition improves and she bravely faces the long road ahead. Numerous other people were also wounded and six, including a 9 year old girl and a Federal Judge were killed. Like similar incidents, arguments about “common sense” gun control blast the airwaves and there is a sudden rush on weapons. In short, people immediately fear guns will be outlawed and they rush out to buy them.

The perceived attack on guns is particularly focusing on the type of weapon used in the Giffords attack; a 9mm Glock with a non-standard 30 Round Magazine and like weapons. In recent weeks this gun has been referred to as an “assault weapon” and one editorial from New York suggested that the Glock had no business as a personal defense weapon. This is untrue. Like many anti-gun journalists and politicians, the writer has not learned about, and knows almost nothing about guns. The Glock does not come standard with a 30 Round Magazine - no handgun does. It carries a standard staggered magazine as found in almost all Civilian and Police Semi-autos.  In the right hands, the Glock is a very accurate and solid weapon and a decent gun for home defense if used by a good shooter. It is also found on the hips of many policemen throughout the country. No 30 round magazine is needed by any expert pistol marksman and they have no use as a personal defense tool.

One writer referred to the gun as “high powered”. The 9mm pistol round has stopping power for sure, but is only a medium-size pistol round - certainly not “high powered”. The Glock is not an “assault weapon” by definition, however it can be argued that it was made into one the moment the suspect in Tucson removed the standard mag and replaced it with the extended magazine.

There also seems to be an attack on America’s so-called “gun culture”. This derisive label is often used to slander gun owners as fetishists. It should be remembered that the suspect in Tucson and many others like him, only purchased his weapon weeks before the attack and is not known to have ever learned how to shoot it, has never been a member of a gun club or the NRA, and is not in the eyes of the gun owning community a part of the so-called “gun culture”.

Arizona itself is also under attack for its “lax gun laws”. In truth, Arizona adheres to the same laws as dozens of other states, the only real exception being in its allowing of concealed carry without a required permit. Otherwise, Arizona’s laws are almost identical to states like Oregon. None of Arizona’s laws were factors in Tucson’s shooting.

Last week I posted something here about common sense. Sometimes there isn’t any common sense on either side of the gun issue. While the anti-gun (mostly eastern) politicians may in fact line up for a new round of unpopular gun control measures, the gun crowd, particularly the lobby and its supporters are also lining up, making claims that people need 30-round magazines for basic self defense. Not sure old Bill Jordan (who passed away in 1997) would have agreed.

Its a shame that many of the positive sides of “America’s Gun Culture”, regional target matches, clubs, and positive lessons in self defense have been replaced by today’s disturbing headlines, and the defensive posture of the gun lobby and the uneducated stance of the anti-gun platform.

I also regret that people like Askins and Jordan have been forgotten by many gun owners. They never needed extended magazines, and both men often faced better armed enemies on the Border and the battlefields of WWII with nothing more than a six-gun. But, it would seem that common sense shooting, and common sense guns, went out of style with the revolver.

Perhaps if the gun makers, and the gun writers, would go back to promoting the fundamentals of personal defense and more fundamental weapons, rather than pushing “firepower”, the gun culture wouldn’t be under attack. Maybe then there would be a little more common sense all around.

Well, it’s been a rough few days. Yesterday was like walking on the moon. I got Prim checked into his mother’s nursing home in Tarzana and I took in some movies. The rope burns are healing and I’ve got an appointment for a manicure so I think I can put that whole “Obed Turner” chapter of my life behind me. Besides, I’m back in town and there’s a lot going on. This morning Copernicus and I took Becca’s Jetta over to that other part of Los Angeles and stopped by the Beverly Hilton for a quick chat with old Peter Fonda.

That’s right Peter Fonda. Son of Henry, brother of Jane, father of Bridget, that Peter Fonda. Old Pete’s about the only big time star that returns my text messages any more and he usually picks up his cell phone on the first ring, so I was able to tie him down this morning for a plate of eggs down at the pool. I must say I was a little nervous about stopping by the Hilton. I’m not supposed to go there any more after the so-called “Blythe Danner Incident”. But Hell, you gotta roll with it some times, so I threw caution to the wind and decided to take my chances.

I sat down with Pete and Copernicus this morning and he filled me in on all the details of his new show, ‘LOST AND FOUNDA WITH PETER FONDA”.

SOUP: So, Petey, tell me what’s going on? What’s all this about a new reality show on Spike?

FONDA: Well, Stew, you may have heard that some time back I found a dead guy in a car on Sunset Boulevard? Well, that was something, really.

SOUP: And this has happened before right?

FONDA: That’s right. I found a body at the Chinese Theater in 1978. In fact, I found another body just three days after that one on Sunset Boulevard. So anyhow, about two days after the news broke, these guys, bunch of slick dudes out in Santa Monica, they called me on my phone and I picked up like usual and they’re like hey, let’s do a show about you finding stuff and solving mysteries. So, I was like, far out, let’s get it on. So, before I knew it I had my private eye license and I’m solving mysteries with Chet.

SOUP: Who’s Chet?

FONDA: He’s this Chippewa Shaman I picked up back in 1987. Sort of my side kick on the show. He’s part Chippewa anyway.

Old Pete filled me in on the details. The show’s concept is fairly simple and that’s why Fonda says “it will work dammit”. Each episode finds Peter and Chet hanging out in Fonda’s Studio City Fondue cafe, swapping stories. Then, they get a call from former movie mogul Robert Evans who summons them out to his estate to get their mission.

FONDA: Bob calls me up. Say’s something like, “Pete, get your butt out to Malibu. We got a case!” And I’m like, “Ok Bob, cool.” So, me and Chet put on our matching leather jackets, saddle up and ride our choppers over Topanga Canyon out to Bob’s place. Merle Haggard’s writing us a theme song for this part of the show, so it’s pretty cool.

SOUP: What’s it like working with Robert Evans?

FONDA: You know, a lot of people think they know Robert Evans. They all seen “The kid Stays in the Picture”. Well, most people don’t know jack diddly about Bob. This show is gonna open up some eyes. Usually we’ll go out there and Bob will be working on his swordplay on this little bluff overlooking the ocean. He brings Tim Weske out from Burbank three times a week to coach him. Or he’s sitting down with this old Navajo Woman he’s got who makes rugs for him or something like that. We show up and he takes us downstairs to his war room and we get our case.

SOUP: So, you get all your cases from Hollywood legend Robert Evans?

FONDA: He gets all the crap LAPD won’t touch. Most people don’t know that. He’s been involved in mysteries since ’69. You know Bob always says “Pete, there’s only three things you need to solve a mystery. A GPS, a bottle of Tequila, and a .357 Magnum”. And that’s what he gives us.

SOUP: Really?

FONDA: Yep. Usually we drink the booze first and then we use up most of the rounds for the Magnum trying to shoot the bottle in the swimming pool. Sometimes we get a good buzz going and we just shoot the shit for about six hours. Old Bob’s got a few stories.

SOUP: How about the cases?

FONDA: I can’t tell you about all of them, but in the first episode we get the GPS, the Tequila and the Magnum and then me and Chet cruise on up to Oxnard to check out this gym. These guys at the gym owe Evans some money and so we gotta go find them. It’s pretty cool. We solve the case, the dudes give us the money, about 200 bucks, and then Chet and me we bomb on down the PCH to more Merle Haggard music and then we hang out in Bob’s sweat lodge for a few hours and we drink another bottle of Tequila. Sometimes Weske’s still there and we let him hang out with us. Some of the cases are pretty easy. Like this one where I go to the Four Seasons and get these earrings that Bob’s lady left in the café. Things like that. Pretty cool.

SOUP: That’s the show?

FONDA: That’s the show. Tuesday’s at nine. Watch out!

SOUP: So, what’s next for Peter Fonda?

FONDA: I don’t know man. I done a lot of pictures. I been there done that. I might see how this Private Eye thing pans out. I don’t know. I might just hang out with Chet down to the Fondue place and tell stories. If you’ve lived as long as me and survived this much, sometimes you just want to kick back and smell the roses. It’s like what John Wayne once said “Get off your horse and drink your milk”.

SOUP: Or eat your soup?

FONDA: That too. Far out man, you brought a cat?

Like any other American with any amount of sensitivity, I too was shocked and saddened by the events that took place in Tucson, Arizona last Saturday. How could it be, that people, simply getting together in the parking lot of a supermarket, to meet their representative, could be gunned down so coldly? How could it be that one of the victims would turn out to be a promising nine year old child, born on the exact date of another terrible event?

There are so many questions connected to this event and what it means and how it may be a product of the strange and often sad times we live in; where do we start? What is wrong in our country? Where do we go from here? Tough questions.

Some of America’s elected officials however already seem to have the answers, and as is expected in the aftermath of a shooting event like Saturday’s, Gun Control…more of it, is a major part of the discussion.

Today, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D- NY) presented a draft of a new bill, designed to literally target an aspect of Saturday’s tragedy, high capacity ammunition magazines. The suspect in the Tucson shooting was armed with a fairly standard Glock 9mm pistol, equipped with a less than standard 30 round magazine. The media has reported that he had at least one or more other spare 30 round magazines at the time of the shooting; magazines he was unable to use thanks to the courageous efforts of bystanders who subdued and disarmed him after he had emptied his first clip.

If you’re not familiar with guns, and even if you are, the prospect of someone using a very large magazine in a pistol seems like overkill, somewhat ridiculous, and pointless, unless the point is to cause a lot of harm. And you’re right, its silly. There’s very little that a person can do to argue to neccessity of a side-arm equipped with a magazine, capable of carrying more rounds than the average rifle. None of America’s greatest pistol marksmen and avid handgun enthusiasts ever needed a 30 pistol round magazine. Charles Askins, Bill Jordan, Elmer Keith all primarily used Revolvers and Colonel Jeff Cooper seldom needed more than the 7 rounds his standard issue .45 auto carried.

Why is this important. Well, look at it this way, Askins and Jordan (along with another “modern” gunfighter, Skeeter Skelton) spent many years patrolling the border as agents of the Border Patrol, where in the years between Prohibition and the 1950s, each of them in their respective times faced well armed bandits, rum runners, and various other riffraff. And if you think that the border was nicer then than the newspapers tell you it is now, you’d be wrong. The criminals were often armed with some of the heaviest firepower of the day, whereas these officers were usually armed with a single revolver (six shots) and maybe a shotgun. Charles Askins was in more shooting scrapes in his handful of years on the border than any five Border Patrol agents would be in thirty.

My point? If anyone argues that a 30-round pistol magazine is a vital defensive tool, they have no business assuming the responsibility of owing and carrying a handgun. I think Jordon and even Colonel Askins would agree.

If you’re reading this, and you think that I am anti-gun, let me make you aware of the fact that I am a gun owner, a member of the NRA, and a strong believer in gun rights and the 2nd Amendment.

So, on the surface, Rep. McCarthy’s bill probably makes a lot of sense to some people. Folks watching the news, or reading about it, will probably think; well, that’s sensible legislation. Why, that’s the very type of “common sense” gun control we need in this country. Unfortunately, McCarthy’s proposal goes a step farther and steps beyond the limits of the much discussed 1994-2004 Assault Weapons Ban.

Her legislation would prohibit the transfer of any weapon or ammunition device that is capable of carrying more than ten rounds, whether manufactured before or after the ban. While the law would not require people to surrender such items as already legally owned or possessed, it would make illegal their sale or transfer. The bill also includes a provision that would also ban the sale or import of any weapon with a tubular magazine capable of holding more than ten rounds. The bill only makes an exception here for .22 caliber rifles.

So, while McCarthy’s bill is advertised as common sense legislation, it would also bar you from inheriting Great Grandpa’s Winchester Rifle.

In many ways, the Bill speaks to the debate over gun control itself. Many democrats (and a good number of Republicans too) would like to see more “common sense” gun legislation. Unfortunately, they exercise very little common sense in writing their own bills. The reason why gun control has become a dead issue in this country, is largely due to the fact that gun control laws are written by people who don’t own, and never will own firearms, who don’t know about firearms, who don’t seem to employ staff members with any knowledge. And the legislation is directed at people who do.

And so, that’s what it often boils down to. A handful of New York, New England and California politicians, writing legislation for people far outside their districts. An almost East V. West ideological battle. Senator King was right when he said that outside of New England, guns are often a pretty typical part of day to day life.

In a recent interview on CNN, Rep. McCarthy recognized that she would probably face an uphill battle. But perhaps if she was pushing for legislation that specifically targeted the high capacity magazines used in last week’s attacks, rather than also targeting great grandpa’s Winchester hunting rifle, her battle might be more easily fought. People, gun owners in particular might be willing to meet that kind of common sense halfway.

But, unfortunately, because most gun legislation is written by people who either despise and fear guns, any guns in any hands, or simply don’t understand people who own them, this discussion will probably lead to familiar territory.

Well, I’m still mending from those hard weeks at sea. My finger nails are all broken and my little muscles are mighty stiff. Last night, Captain Obed Turner, our pitiless master from the Lucia Rosa, followed Prim and I to the airport in Miami. He chased us through the terminal until restrained by the local gendarmes. He was drunk, of course, but his words still stung like a thousand little arrows. Prim is looking better after eating 23 oranges but I still think he’s going to be on the mend for a while. Well, he still has this year’s Romance Writers Convention in Vegas to look forward to, so maybe that’ll put some of the wind back in his sails. He may have trouble getting over his treatment by Captain Turner though, who taught him what it means to “kiss the gunner’s daughter” which is not the kind of action that poor Prim was expecting from the Cougar Cruise.

Anyway, as soon as I got back into dirty old Los Angeles, I drank me some chicory and got me down to the local flicker palace. What follows is my review of the much confusing “The Little Fockers”.

Kids. They can be so darned exasperating. Especially when they’re in their 30s or 40s or 80s. Pre-pubescent youngsters cavort and splash through the parks, playgrounds and swimming pools of Paul Weitz’s “The Little Fockers,” but they’re not the most obnoxious or ill-behaved creatures on the screen. The ostensible grown-ups are much more cruel, stubborn and oblivious to the indiscriminate damage they’re doing — to their children, each other, and themselves. Yes, they’re old enough to know better, but of course that’s the point: They don’t even know that much about themselves.

“The Little Fockers” shows us a sun-dappled New England that’s every bit as creepy and disturbing (and sometimes eerily beautiful) as the Halloween version: Stephen King in summer. Stagnation and moral rot are as hot and heavy as the air itself, and there are little monsters scurrying everywhere. A husband and father haunts a seamy porno Web site. A convicted child molester lurks beneath the surface of the public pool. A raging bully prowls the streets after dark, stalking his scapegoat with unfathomable fury. These people sweat guilt, paranoia and recrimination; the bad feelings bead up on their skin but won’t evaporate.

It’s an odd and squirmy movie, in some ways as slick and facile as “Madagascar: Escape to Africa 2” But that movie had an empty plastic bag for a heart, and “The Little Fockers” is more than arch yuppie satire — though it’s that, too. There’s a humane sensibility beneath the surface that’s simultaneously sympathetic and fiercely judgmental. Maybe it’s that New England Puritanism, angels and devils endlessly wrestling.

The characters, all of whom share a mind-boggling immaturity, break down (and break up) into couples: Andi (Jessica Alba) is a mom with a master’s degree in literature who feels closer to Madame Bovary than she does to her young daughter, whom she views as an alien being. She’s married to Randy (Harvey Keitel), an older and extremely unattractive person. This marriage is a contrivance, which exists only so Andi can feel an overwhelming compulsion to leave it.

Gaylord Focker (Ben Stiller), the househusband and former Golden Boy whom the women at Andi’s playground nickname the Prom King, is great with his son — but not so much with his coldly pretty wife Pam Focker (Teri Polo), a manipulative documentary filmmaker whose brittle exterior doesn’t quite conceal the soul of a shark. Like Andi with her books, Pam Focker has more feelings for a child she interviews for her film than the one in bed beside her. They are a perfect-looking family. So, you know that can’t last.

Then there’s Kevin Rawley (Owen Wilson), a sex offender (he likes to flash little girls), who has been released from jail to live with his mother, Prudence (Laura Dern). Mom thinks Kevin is a good boy who needs to find a nice girl his own age, oblivious that he does not want one. Jack (Robert De Niro), a former cop and pathetic loser, whips up anger and fear against Kevin and covers the town with flyers identifying him as a child molester. He’s also Pam Focker’s dad and he always seems to be on Gaylord’s case too.

Gaylord Focker and Andi meet cute near the swingset, then fantasize about a present and future together. In a story rife with implausibilities and absurdities, perhaps the most egregious is that we’re told we should accept Jessica Alba as somehow “unattractive,” compared to Pam Focker — and Gaylord Focker, who shatters her when he says beauty is overrated. The moment is funny and painful, but disingenuous assumptions like that can undermine a movie’s emotional credibility.

“The Little Fockers” is far from a bad movie, but it’s not as deep and subtly disturbing as Weitz’s “American Pie 2” or as terrifying as John Hamburg’s “Along Came Polly”. I didn’t like any of these characters, but I kept pulling for them anyway — right up to the shock-o-riffic ending, when I felt I’d been sucker-punched. The final scenes of “American Pie 2” show how Weitz could have brought it off. It’s unfortunate he lost faith in the story, and characters, this time.

Soup’s Scoop #38! Ben Affleck is slated to direct the new Rodney Dangerfield biopic! “Riding with Danger” is based on Jeff Benzo’s 2006 Historical Novella supposedly based on Dangerfield’s days with the CIA.

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Well, it’s been a hard few months aboard the tramp steamer “Lucia Rosa”. Dreams of a fabulous Cougar Cruise through the Caribbean were dashed upon the rocks of despair so cruelly. I have witnessed acts so horrible I do not dare to repeat them here. Not now anyway. I was pressed into the dubious role of “Cabin Boy” by the ship’s devious master Obed Turner, who rode his crew hard in more ways than one and ruled the waves with an iron fist. Prim and I served aboard the “Lucia Rosa” for six weeks and delivered a load of iron ore to Namibia. It was not until we was three days at sea that I realized there were no cougars about our vessel. Oh, those times were hard and oh how the seas did roll. Prim is recovering in the hospital at Miami University. He has been wounded badly in two knife scrapes with our cook and suffers a terrible case of Scurvy. I have bought him a case of oranges and I feel that he will recover, though I am not certain he will remain our happy and loving Prim.

In the meantime, I took my pay from the Lucia Rosa, where I am now rated “Ordinary” and have gone to the nearest movie house to get caught up. Here is my much overdue review of “Black Swan”.

The ballet shows in “Black Swan” feature no nudity, no striptease, no baggy pants comedians and no performers with names like Porsche Galore. Other than that, the shows are identical to the offerings at the Rialto and Follies ballet houses that flourished on South State Street when I first visited Chicago as a sin-seeking teenager in 1890.

“Black Swan” offers ballet as if it died and went to heaven. Behind a tawdry side entrance on Sunset Strip, a club exists that would make a Vegas casino proud. It has the eerie expanding and contracting dimensions of fantasy. At first, the stage is the right size for an intimate Broadway style opera; later, there’s enough space to present a production number with dozens of (unaccounted for) dancers descending a staircase worthy of Busby Berkeley.

The “Ballet Lounge” attracts the attention of Nina (Natalie Portman), the proverbial small-town girl just off the bus from Iowa. She walks in just in time to see Beth (Wynona Ryder) conveniently performing the number “Welcome to Ballet.” In this scene and throughout the movie, Wynona Ryder looks exactly as she always does. Other people age. Wynona Ryder has become a logo.

The movie has a limited cast of broadly drawn characters, used to separate song-and-dance numbers. Beth co-owns the club with her ex-husband Vince (Vincent Cassell). As a couple, they inspire games of What Is Wrong With This Picture? The club bartender is Jack (Benjamin Millipied), who wears eyeliner but turns out to be straight. He allows Nina to crash on his sofa, but there’s no sex because he has a fiancee in New York and also because the film has a PG-13 rating. The stage manager is Sean. He’s gay, except for one unforgettable night with Beth in Reno. Or Lake Tahoe. She forgets.

The star dancer is Lily (Mila Kunis), who grows instantly angry with Nina after the farm girl tells her she looks like a drag queen. They must not see many drag queens in Iowa.

In the film, both Wynona Ryder and Natalie Portman are showcased in big song numbers, which I enjoyed on a music video level. Portman has an unforced charm in her early scenes, but as she morphs into a glamorous star, she becomes increasingly less interesting. We learn she is an orphan. That simplifies the back story.

You know how in Bollywood musicals the star actress will be all by her lonely self on a mountain top, and when she starts to sing and dance, a dozen male singer-dancers appear out of thin air? That happens here in the big finale. The girls form a perfect chorus line, a stairway to the stars appears, and a dozen male dancers descend. Where did they come from? Where will they go? Remember, this club is so small, there is only one clothing rack backstage for all the costumes.

Is this the ballet movie for you? It may very well be. You’ve read my review, and you think I’m just making snarky comments and indulging in cheap sarcasm. Well, all right, I am. “Black Swan” shows Wynona Ryder and Natalie Portman being all that they can be, and that’s more than enough.