Well, they show that movie on AMC and probably TNT and others, so he has appeared on TV. And for my money he is the biggest and best asshole except for parody bad guys in westerns. The only bad guy in his league in my opinion is also from a movie- the Brian Dennehy character from Silverado, Cobb. He was a very realistic and complex character that was a brutal and evil asshole. The fact that he could be utterly charming on occasion made him even more of an evil asshole. “We are going to give you a fair trial, followed by a first rate hanging.”
Still Curly Bell shot old Fred White then feigned horror, went way, way out of his way to ruin that wedding, and spent all his free time trying to stir up shit. I think he fills the bill for thread winner.
Ben Cartwright usually wasn’t an asshole, but on those occasions he was he cranked it up to 11. I’m remembering the episode with the sheepherders. Doubtless he’d had some unpleasant experience with their kind before, but he couldn’t be bothered to take two minutes to explain his animosity. When it was suggested that maybe they deserved the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, he got all “how dare you question me!”
Do you guys have fantastic memories thousands of times better than mine? (I wasn’t even a teenager yet when I watched Have Gun Will Travel.) Or has some network been showing the old oldies?
I had an opportunity to watch some of the old oldies from the 50’s and early 60’s that I remembered enjoying — though I remembered very little about them. I leaned that the heroes of Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip were super-heroes, flaunting near-death in every episode. (And Kooky was a hired hitman in the [never-televised?] pilot for 77 Sunset Strip!)
But Have Gun Will Travel was the one that seemed almost still-watchable after all these decades. And (though based on just two episodes) I’d strongly agree with John Bredin rather than OP.
Well, you are a dukey butt!
I watched most of them with my Grandmother when I was pre-school and first grade.
“ME-TV” has reruns of old Westerns as well as Encore.
Paladin pushed people around. If you argued with him, he would shoot your ass.
What about the dick/asshole thing? Was Paladin a dick?
Originally posted by: **Lucas Jackson **
**Quote:
Originally Posted by Temporary Name View Post
An asshole with a heart of gold.
But an asshole nonetheless. His interaction with the shows antagonist could be characterized in the manner you suggest but he ran rough-shod over rank and file citizens in an assholish way.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the guy - he was my favorite Barkley. But still…**
I am very surprised by how much I want to defend Nick Barkley. By my definition, he was often a Jackass, but never an asshole and that has to do with intention. Capn Carl and Lucas Jackson, you are both correct and I want to agree with you, but I have to cut the guy some slack. For reasons you can read below I am going to stick with occasional jackass, but not an asshole.
(In my mind, Jackass = well meaning chap who is hot tempered and often goaded into bad behavior.
Asshole= someone who is out to screw with, or screw over some innocent person who never did anything bad to the asshole.)
First I should say that in modern society the behavior of almost all fictional cowboys is not to be accepted or tolerated. There is no situation that needs to be resolved in such a base and violent manner; at least not without trying many, many other options first.
Still, that is what I admired most about these guys. And Nick is such a great guy most of the time! He was fun loving and generous, easy going and happy go lucky. He worked hard and took his responsibilities seriously. There was nothing he loved more than to take a pretty girl on a picnic, or help his neighbors keep their ranches. But when trouble came calling, he could be counted on to not scurry away or abandon his responsibilities. (Just like that sod buster Lucas McCain.)
Yes, he was very rash. But Heath could be very damn stubborn too; he was just triggered by different things. I don’t believe Nick was supposed to be stupid, but he was very simple and down to earth; he saw the world in black and white without any great amount of nuance. I do not remember any instance of Nick running rough-shod over any citizen, ever. Was he too quick to resort to a fist or a six-shooter to resolve an issue — absolutely. Could he be a swaggering jerk, without doubt.
But I still say he was not an asshole. He never tried to cheat any one, he always paid a fair day’s wage for a full day’s labor, he didn’t lie, or steal, and he never started the shit!! It sure was easy to get him stirred up and ready to fight, but he NEVER started a fight, he was just willing to go there before all others. I think that is due to his place in the family. His mother ruled the roost (and she suffered the loss of her beloved husband for the honor of being head of household), Jarrod was the lawyer, educated and erudite- he watched over the family’s fortune, and protected their mother from those who would prey upon a mere widow, Eugene was a diligent student- the one who would move the family into the twentieth century when the time came. Before Heath learned his parentage and wandered onto the scene- that left Nick to do the day-to-day and apparently the hand-to-hand stuff. Nick ran the ranch and that took a tough character who couldn’t debate every little matter. Nick had to say: “do it my way or hit the bricks” that ends up with punches being thrown sometimes. It also stops every hired hand from trying to take advantage.
I was going to say I admire the Barkley boys for their different strengths. Jarrod was wise and judicious, but perhaps not as tough, as rough and tumble as Nick or Heath. Heath was longsuffering and tolerant, having made his own way in the world without a father figure made him tough, but sensitive. And Nick was the guy who put himself on the line because he didn’t have an abundance of education, nor a long line of learning experiences like Heath and Jarrod. I suspect he was a pretty sharp kid who could keep up with his grammar school lessons without having to work very hard at it and left school at the first opportunity. Then he started working jobs meant for men and had to fight for respect and recognition. That might be why things are very simple for him and he still solves things the way he did on the school yard. He protects his sister, loves his mother, tends to his business and doesn’t brook any shit. Occasionally a jackass, Nick is never an asshole.
(Unimportant Side Note: I grew up around a diverse group of men who all had different areas of strength. If there was a debate, my father was going to win. If there was a mechanical or engineering problem to solve, that one uncle was going to solve it. For business advice there was great uncle V. The arts were covered by the first chair violinist who sketched and painted and wrote poetry. There were other greater and lesser characters also. But when I was a little kid, if they were all sitting in a barroom on a Saturday afternoon and some shit started boiling over across the room- I went over and stood behind the great white hunter, not my dad the “smart one”. That particular uncle was a simple factory worker who was an all-state football player in high school, served four years in the U.S. Army then moved out west to marry my aunt. He might have seemed less accomplished at the time, but like Nick Barkley—he was a good guy to have around when shit got serious. He too could be hot headed and loud (but then, all of them could!). He was the most honest and decent guy I knew. After my father died he helped my family and kinda raised me, and when I grew older and moved away he kept my mother’s house in good repair and never took a Nickel for all the work he did over decades. He looked more like Heath than like Nick, but I have to tell you that being loud and tough [oh, and very competitive] does not make one an asshole. Most of those guys are gone now but the loud, tough one was perhaps the most decent, honest, and trustworthy of the bunch.)
I have known some real assholes; guys who were also rough and tumble- but just assholes. One guy ran a crew of carpenters and was also a general contractor on a very small scale. He fired a guy because the guy gave a smug answer to a rude question during a lunch break and a different guy for refusing to deliver a W2 to his roommate whom happened to be a former employee. He would nail recently dead animals (mostly birds) to the studs in homes he was building just to be mean, if he caught a snake he would put it into someone’s car on the seat to mess with them, he would put bugs into his worker’s sandwiches while they were working. One time he got in trouble for drinking beer on the jobsite after the work day, the next day he filled all the columns of that house he was working on with beer cans. He would cheat people out of money if the occasion arose and tried to trick inspectors into approving inadequate work just to “get away with it”. In fact he would work twice as has hard to dupe an authority figure as he would to comply with reasonable expectations. He often threatened violence and would follow through if the target didn’t comply with demands or resist forcefully. If legal or other problems presented themselves, he would bribe or intimidate detractors. He was so good at his job, he generated so much profit, he was always able to come back after he was fired. He was run off of jobsites frequently when a developer insisted to the sub contractor he be fired (he was usually just moved to a different tract run by a different developer). Often he was run off because he was blasting loud offensive music over the sound of his power generator (after being warned numerous times to stop) in a quiet retirement community. Once his tools and cords were put into the truck, he would roll down his windows and crank the most offensive David Allen Coe tune he could find and drive around and around the block flouting the very thing that caused him to be removed in the first place That guy was an asshole, he set out every morning to fuck with someone, and he usually succeeded. He used his powers for evil- not for good. He was the very best and smartest carpenter I ever knew. Maybe one of the worst human beings though; his string of ex-wives (and by now, likely his daughters) would agree. (At the time his young daughters adored him; “my dad is the baddest man in town, no one better ever give us shit because daddy will….um, take care of them!)
There were other guys lesser on the scale, but similar. Most of those guys were bullies and big drinkers, and there were just a very few former military who were only very competitive. They were very loyal to their crewmates, but regarded all other crews as competition. In their game of king of the hill (all of these guys served combat tours in Viet Nam), all was fair in order to win. If it looked like you might actually beat them, they would cheat to win. Nobody ever turned in better paperwork than they did.
Once you know a true asshole, a loud opinionated guy who COULD get physical, but never set out to be violent—is just a good guy.
Okay, some of those have to be duplicates!
Some observations, in all those …. well let’s just call them duels. He only looks through the sights one time; of course that is one time more than I expected. Next, he did seem to graduate with honors from the “Captain Kirk Acting Academy of Shirtless Brawling”. (Wish I could have found a YouTube clip from Galaxy Quest of Rickman saying: “I see you managed to get your shirt off again”.) There is an obvious one where the pistolero fired first from seven feet away; that was the end of the rifleman. They should have reshot the scene.
But mostly, why can’t they leave this poor guy alone and let him plow and harvest! He just wants to grow some grain, run a few head of cattle, maybe go into town once in a great while and have a slice of pie at the diner. And so frequently those evil men force him to push someone out of harm’s way while shirtlessly somersaulting to a fence post or porch support to grab his rifle and defend himself.
This world is rough, and if a man’s gonna make it he’s gotta be tough— that’s why he better be proficient with a twelve shot Winchester (they only hold ten shells, the two different intros to the show edit them so he shoots twelve, and in the most common one, eleven shots).
