Could You Repeat That?

Roundtrip ticket to Nairobi, Kenya………………....... $3,000

13 Day African Safari with accommodations........ $4,000

Realizing you just saved $500 by not leasing

a West Texas area ranch for whitetail deer.......PRICELESS

Recently, I was shocked to learn that leasing a local parcel of land this Fall was worth $7,500. To be fair, the acreage was a full section, heavily wooded, included a trailer home, and close to my home with a round trip travel time of about 30 minutes by truck. (Honestly, it sounded like a dream come true for this die hard hunter.)

Let me say for the record, I don’t have $7,500 on hand to spend for either excursion. I was simply juxtaposing the ridiculous idea of my spending that largesse on a local, somewhat ho-hum hunting experience when compared with my idyllic dream of hunting the Dark Continent. Even if I were to go forward with the local lease deal and somehow managed to take a 180 B&C trophy whitetail - it still wouldn’t be worth the extravagance on my part.

Worse, my fears were realized when the landowner I was communicating with told me that last year a fellow from the Metroplex, along with his two children, paid that amount for the right to hunt his property exclusively. He did not ‘split’ the fee among several buddies- he ponied up the entire amount for he and his two kids. (I learned they didn’t bag a trophy.)

Was I concerned that my potential, future landlord was trying to gouge me? Not at all, but I was rather shocked that the market was willing to bear that amount. (For days now, I’ve been wondering about the former client’s career niche.) How could one possibly fault the landowner for asking for the current market value of the property? He obtained it once, it is reasonable to assume he will obtain it again. Hunters in Texas are crazy- and will spend inordinate amounts of money for the opportunity to kill The Big One.

After I picked myself up off the floor upon hearing the landowner’s response to my inquiry, I started realizing how I could best spend $7,500 of my hard-earned money. The above analogy quickly came to mind and I hit the internet looking for pricing. Who knows, maybe an African Safari is not that far out of the realm of possibility? One day perhaps…

How would you spend $7,500?

-TMS

Need a Caption

Can anyone come up with a witty caption for this photo? (EX. The Bears' Necessity)



(Photo was 'ripped' from the Field & Stream webpage today. Shot was taken in Denali Park, AK. Thanks F&S.)

-TMS

William Antrim

Was none other than Billy the Kid, alias Kid Antrim, alias Billy Bonney, alias William Bonney.

The four chemicals listed in my previous post were all used as 'cutting agents' to dilute whiskey in an effort to stretch the pure form so that bar owners could keep expenses low while accelerating profits. Two additional chemicals not on my list, but frequently utilized in the saloons of Lincoln County - were ammonia and gunpowder!

The latter gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "gut rot", a common synonym for Old West whiskey and/or rye. If an unschooled barkeep ever forgot which agent he was using and accidentally mixed two or more of the agents together- he could have blown up the joint.

I cannot offer enough praise for Mr. Wallis' book. It is by far the most fascinating look at the world's most beloved villain. As a matter of teasing you into taking a closer look at this book, I will tell you that his incredible resourcefulness and thoroughness in research turned up some interesting items about Billy that most people don't know. First, Billy's favorite tune was "Turkey In The Straw". He whistled it everywhere he went, and when attending dances made sure that the musicians performed it at least once while he was on the dance floor. Second, Billy the Kid actually met and conversed with Jesse James in at least one public venue. The two were reported as being jovial towards each other- imagine that!

Finally, the one story that stood out among many other fine instances was one I share here.
Billy was in a bar with several of his mates. An unknown drunk cowboy started harassing one of Billy's friends. The drunk walked up and took the friend's peacemaker out of the holster and replaced it with his own! Billy watched and walked up to the two in order to diffuse the situation. He carefully pulled the drunk's Colt out of his friend's holster and closely examined the cylinder noting that three of the six were empty. Before handing the gun back to the drunk, Billy turned the cylinder so that upon cocking it would fire on an empty chamber. (He did so without the drunk knowing.) Billy handed the gun back to the drunk and turned and walked away. Before he took more than three or four paces, Billy heard the unmistakable "click" of a pistol pointed at his back. Upon hearing the noise, witnesses said Billy whirled around and shot the drunk three times in the chin with his own pistol. Eyewitnesses said a silver dollar would have covered the cloverleaf hole in the dead man's chin.

Folks, that's shootin'...!!

-TMS

Lincoln County, NM. in 1877

I've been reading a very interesting biography on William Antrim written by Michael Wallis.

He mentions four items that have a peculiar use during the period of the Old West. They are:

1) Cayenne Pepper
2) Vinegar
3) Turpentine
4) Kerosene


Who was William Antrim and what do the above listed items have in common?

Ted Nugent for Prez?

The following article appeared in the on-line edition of The Wall Street Journal today, July 4th. This is a wonderfully written, clearly articulated piece by a guy who continues to get my attention. Hunter, fisherman, and outspoken sportsman's advocate as well as a current Board member of the National Rifle Association, Ted continues to raise liberals' hackles every time he opens his mouth. No silver spoon is present, unlike most of his foes' gaping hole, yet what comes forth is usually golden - if not silver lined. Go, Ted, go...



The Summer of Drugs
Forty years ago, dirty, stinky hippies converged on San Francisco to "turn on, tune in and drop out."

BY TED NUGENT
Wednesday, July 4, 2007 12:01 a.m.

This summer marks the 40th anniversary of the so-called Summer of Love. Honest and intelligent people will remember it for what it really was: the Summer of Drugs.

Forty years ago hordes of stoned, dirty, stinky hippies converged on San Francisco to "turn on, tune in, and drop out," which was the calling card of LSD proponent Timothy Leary. Turned off by the work ethic and productive American Dream values of their parents, hippies instead opted for a cowardly, irresponsible lifestyle of random sex, life-destroying drugs and mostly soulless rock music that flourished in San Francisco.

The Summer of Drugs climaxed with the Monterey Pop Festival which included some truly virtuoso musical talents such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, both of whom would be dead a couple of years later due to drug abuse. Other musical geniuses such as Jim Morrison and Mama Cass would also be dead due to drugs within a few short years. The bodies of chemical-infested, brain-dead liberal deniers continue to stack up like cordwood.

As a diehard musician, I terribly miss these very talented people who squandered God's gifts in favor of poison and the joke of hipness. I often wonder what musical peaks they could have climbed had they not gagged to death on their own vomit. Their choice of dope over quality of life, musical talent and meaningful relationships with loved ones can only be categorized as despicably selfish.

I literally had to step over stoned, drooling fans, band mates, concert promoters and staff to pursue my musical American Dream throughout the 1960s and 1970s. I flushed more dope and cocaine down backstage toilets than I care to remember. In utter frustration I was even forced to punch my way through violent dopers on occasion. So much for peace and love. The DEA should make me an honorary officer.

I was forced to fire band members and business associates due to mindless, dangerous, illegal drug use. Clean and sober for 59 years, I am still rocking my brains out and approaching my 6,000th concert. Clean and sober is the real party.

Young people make mistakes. I've made my share, but none that involved placing my life or the lives of others at risk because of dope. I saw first-hand too many destroyed lives and wrecked families to ever want to drool and vomit on myself and call that a good time. I put my heart and soul into creating the best music I possibly could and I went hunting instead. My dream continues with ferocity, thank you.

The 1960s, a generation that wanted to hold hands, give peace a chance, smoke dope and change the world, changed it all right: for the worse. America is still suffering the horrible consequences of hippies who thought utopia could be found in joints and intentional disconnect.

A quick study of social statistics before and after the 1960s is quite telling. The rising rates of divorce, high school drop outs, drug use, abortion, sexual diseases and crime, not to mention the exponential expansion of government and taxes, is dramatic. The "if it feels good, do it" lifestyle born of the 1960s has proved to be destructive and deadly.

So now, 40 years later, there are actually people who want to celebrate the anniversary of the Summer of Drugs. Hippies are once again descending on ultra-liberal San Francisco--a city that once wanted to give shopping carts to the homeless--to celebrate and try to remember their dopey days of youth when so many of their musical heroes and friends long ago assumed room temperature by "partying" themselves to death. Nice.

While I salute and commend the political and cultural activism of the 1960s that fueled the civil rights movement, other than that, the decade is barren of any positive cultural or social impact. Honest people will remember 1967 for what is truly was.

There is a saying that if you can remember the 1960s, you were not there. I was there and remember the decade in vivid, ugly detail. I remember its toxic underbelly excess because I was caught in the vortex of the music revolution that was sweeping the country, and because my radar was fine-tuned thanks to a clean and sober lifestyle.

Death due to drugs and the social carnage heaped upon America by hippies is nothing to celebrate. That is a fool's game, but it is quite apparent some burned-out hippies never learn.

Mr. Nugent is a rock star releasing his 35th album, "Love Grenade," this summer.

Dead is, well...Dead!

I found this news article this morning:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070703/ts_alt_afp/usexecutionsuit


Briefly, it is about the mother of a convicted felon who was put to death in Ohio. The lethal injection execution took 86 minutes to produce the required outcome. The mother has filed suit in court naming the execution team as defendants for "cruel and unusual punishment". She claims they took too long to execute him because of their unenviable task of finding a suitable vein with which to deliver the lethal agents. (He was a known drug user who had heavy scarring on both arms because of his daily habit before incarceration.)

Um, they did their job, right? The guy is dead. I'll concede it took a while longer than ordering a Big Mac at your local drive thru window, but the fact remains that he was sentenced to die by this method, the method was implemented, and the outcome as far as anyone can tell was a complete success. The way I see it, the guy got another 86 minutes of life beyond what he should have expected- and this- after living in a prison cell since 1984. It took 23 years, one hour and 28 minutes to finally exercise the court's ruling.

Interestingly enough, I had to Google his name for additional sources/articles to find out what he was convicted of in the first place. (The above article doesn't mention it. USA Today doesn't mention it, his hometown paper doesn't mention it, and at least two other sources didn't cite his crime.)

Anyone care to guess what he was convicted of? Murder!! He's a cold blooded killer. But you won't hear that in the news, you will only hear that his mother was shocked by the lengthy outcome of the process and, on his behalf, she has filed a lawsuit citing that his civil rights were violated? What about the victim's rights? What about the family he left behind? Did the victim get tax payer sponsored: medical care, 3 square meals a day, cable TV, a weight room/gymnasium, clothing, haircuts, dental exams, climate controlled living quarters and the ability to visit with family members at least once per month?

Civil rights? Dead people don't have civil rights. Before the week is over, I predict that either Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton will pick up their standard (and microphone) and conduct a press conference on this issue.

(At a cost of $25K a year to incarcerate a convicted felon, the taxpayers of this nation invested $575,000 in this one criminal! Today's dollars put the annual cost at closer to $30K.)

Jeesh...