Wild West Land Blog

This is my kind of truck! A Ford F150 pick-up with monster truck style wheels and massive lift kit. Perfect for riding the rough roads of Arizona.

Remember Lisa Hawthornthwaite back in October being appointed as the National Trust’s first Dorset cowboy? Well it appears this modern day move to horse-powered conservationism has now hit Wales, or Angelsey to be precise.

Chris Bennett is working for the Countryside Council for Wales herding 138 cattle around common land crossed by a main road. As the BBC report states:

Cowboys do not always wear a Stetson, shout “yee hah!” or eat sausages and beans around a camp fire… well, not on Anglesey anyway.

And another popular topic is in the news again - ‘George W. Bush should be 2008 Texan of the Year‘.

Just remember, “Yee-haw is not a foreign policy”.

I watched the ‘intro’ for the new 7th series of American TV perennial ‘24′ last night - the 2 hour one-off show titled 24: Redemption - and was struck by how much Jack Bauer has morphed into the cowboy icon from movie classics such as Shane.

A few years ago the show was ground breaking and original and fun to watch. Now I find I’m a little cynical about Jack and his magic bullet-dodging powers and the whole ’saviour of the poor African children’ routine in Redemption did grate a little.

The funniest part had to be the cartoon-like one dimensional portrayl of the UN peacekeeper - not only did the man with the funny accent and wimpy blue helmet hide with the kids in the cellar when the bad guys rode into town, he also tried to barter the children and their protectors for his own safety!

I realise this is shown on Fox in America and the centre ground is never going to be the political place to be but I thought the American Might vs European Flight routine was a little overdone.

Anyway I’m getting into politics when what I really want to say is Jack/Kiefer does indeed make a very good ‘man in white’ cowboy hero, ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of the downtrodden vilagers (whether they be African orphans or the poor people of Los Angeles under siege by Middle Eastern militants).

I know Sutherland once played a cowboy in New York in the early 90’s film The Cowboy Way. What I’d like to see now is a movie studio ready to put CGI to good use and cast Kiefer / Jack in all 7 roles for The 21st Century Return of the Magnificent Seven…

Is it time for a re-make?

I’ve been a little quiet the last two weeks being fully occupied with a new business venture. After 7 years of hard work and research I can now reveal the source of this distraction: www.cowboycountry.co.uk:

Cowboy Country is a unique wild west themed gift for line dancing fans, country and western music lovers,  western movie buffs or anyone with an interest in the USA.

Visit the website now and you can buy your own piece of America, quickly, easily and - most importantly- legally.

How does it work?

Well back in the year 2000 I bought some land north east of the city of Holbrook, Arizona. Read the rest of this entry »

He acts, produces and directs.

He won 7 Oscars, including Best Director, for the modern western drama Dances with Wolves (somewhat of an apology for all those John Ford westerns that went before).

And now it turns out Kevin Costner likes to play country music AND has had a hit record in Japan!

With band Modern West Costner performed recently on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and has managed to get three songs from the album Untold Truths into the soundtrack for his latest film, Swing Vote.

Not bad going for the man who also brought us Waterworld and The Postman. And it seems there may now even be a sequel to 1991’s “well-crafted PC touchy-feely hippie crap“.

The post on the Libertas film blog is over a year old so ‘The Holy Road’ may not be coming soon but some of the comments are well worth reading.

I was hunting for a cowboy themed T shirt last night and found this good looking one on Spreadshirt by Austrian designer ‘Amorphia’.

The description: “The ghost of a very stubborn cowboy standing over his freshly minted corpse, holding a last stand against the buzzards”

Has anyone bought from this T shirt printing company? The quality of the designs looks to be great.