BIG TEX #1 (JUNE 1953)

 Alas, Big Tex wasn;t big enough to make past its first issue.

Tex White is new to the town of Gambler's Gulch, which is under the thrall of a murderous snake named Blackjack Wells, who has a habit of shooting people in the back for no reason.  Wells, just to show how much he likes killing, has ;painted his gun red.  Tex enters the town just after Wells has shot Clem Watkins from behind.  This gets the townspeople mad; the most vocal is local gambler Jeb Sykes, who is accusing the old sheriff of not getting his job done.  We soon learn, long before everyone else in town does, that Sykes is in the pay of Wells, who wants him to rally the townspeople against the sheriff and force him out of his job.  Seems the sheriff is just too honest for Wells and his gang.  The sheriff's feisty daughter , Miss Val, is the local school marm and she calls Sykes nothing but a tinhorn gambler.   Sykes calls Miss Val a little she-cat and grabs her.  Well, grabbing a school marm is against the code of the West -- especially if the school marm is a pretty blonde who wears very tight shirts over some very pneumatic assets -- so Big Tex clocks him.  That's enough for the sheriff to ask Tex to be his deputy because he is short-staffed, especially after Wells killed the last deputy.

A little later, after Tex is all sworn in, some school kids playing hooky overhear Blackjack and his gang plan to rustle the longhorns in the valley while one of Balckjack's gang shoots up the dance hall in town to distract the sheriff.  The kids go running to Miss Val, who% goes running to her father and Big Tex.  The three of them set up an ambush for the gang but it is spoiled when a mountain lion attacks Big Tex and the sheriff shoots it, warning the bad guys.  The cattle stampede and the gang is about to be crushed under their hooves when Big Tex takes aim and shoot the lead cow.  The gang is caught, but Tex decides to fight Blackjack himself.  Turns out Tex has been hunting Blackjack since the owlhoot killed his buddy Jack Dean back in Arizona City.  Blackjack fights dirty but it turns out that the code of the West says that dirty fighti8ng don't mean blip when you are going against a man named Tex.  There's a neat  bit of banter during the fight.  Blackjack:  "Better start sayin' yore prayers, White!"  Big Tex:  "I'll save my prayers for Sunday church, Wells -- and today is only Friday!"  Then, after Tex beats the blip out of Blackjack, the Sheriff:  "Today might be Friday, Son, but I  still think that you hit him with your Sunday punch!"  You just don't get that sort of dialog from an episode of The Lone Ranger.

Anyway, the bad guys are in jail, the newspaper is calling the sheriff a hero, and Big Tex and Miss Val are getting friendly.

I have no idea how old Tex Wells is supposed to be, but he is drawn old, with tired, crinkled eyes.  also, it turns out that this issue reprints stories from the publisher's John Wayne Adventure Comics, which ran from 1949 to 1955, with the name of the character changed to Big Tex.  Go figure.

Tex has two more adventures in this issue:  "Sudden Death at Dragon's Peak" (in which we meet Barney Betts, a grizzled old coot who is Tex's oldest friend) and "The Mysterious Valley of Violence" (in which Tex comes across a outlaw hideout fashioned as in old Rome, complete with a coliseum, and a fat madman in a toga who considers himself Nero).  Those interested in Miss Val and her tight shirts (and what young b oy in 1953 wouldn't be?) will be disappoint to learn that she does not appear in either story.  Evidently, like the comic book itself, she was one-and-done.  But the story about Nero is pretty interesting in a what-were-they-thinking? kind of way, though.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=97622&comicpage=&b=i

A FORGOTTEN BOOK TWOFER

 Mike Mars Flies the X-15 by Donald A. Wollheim  (1961)

Air Force!  by Frank Harvey (1959)

Two books celebrating the early years of the space program, both considered "near-future" science fiction at the time.

Mike Mars was the hero of a series eight juveniles by SF mainstay Donald A. Wollheim, who noted for his his editing and publishing far more than his writing.  Mars, real name Michael Robert Alfred Sampson, is a lieutenant in the Air Force, a pilot who longs to become an astronaut.  In the first book of the series, he and six other young pilots are chosen for Project Quicksilver, a secret program that ran alongside the publicized Project Mercury.   Because America is in a competition with another power -- it's interesting that Russia is never mentioned by name -- for a toehold into space, Project Quicksilver is kept a secret as an ace up America's sleeve.  (No, it doesn't make much sense to me, either.)  The seven astronauts chosen for Quicksilver are younger than those in Project Mercury (again for a reason that m makes little sense) but are receiving the same intense training.  Four of them -- Mike Mars, the full-blooded Cherokee Johnny Bluehawk, Navy pilot Jack Lannigan, and talented, well-connected Rod Harger, Jr. -- are training at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mohave Desert to fly the experimental X-15 rocket plane; the other three Quicksilver astronauts are elsewhere, training for a different task.  The X-15 has been designed to take man beyond Earth's atmosphere, into space -- the first step to landing on the moon, and eventually Mars and Venus.  (Yeah, it still wasn't known that Venus was the impossible hellhole it is; some scientists suspected, but did not know.)  As per the nickname he had carried all his life, Mike's ultimate goal was to land on Mars.

Rod Harper, Sr., is an unscrupulous industrialist who made his money and his influence as a war profiteer.  He is determined that his son be the one to fly the X-15 and eventually be the first on the moon.  To that end, he arranged for some sabotage in the first book as the Quicksilver astronauts were chosen.  Now he is back at it again to give his son his shot, whether deserved or not.   The agent he sent to disrupt the space program also happened to be  a man who has vowed to get back at Mike and Johnny Bluehawk for foiling his plans in the first book.  Rod, Jr., has no loyalty to  the Air Force, the space program, or his fellow astronauts; his one overriding goal is to be the first man on the moon, and thus gain fame and riches.  Compare this to Mike and the other to astronauts who are approaching the program as a team and fully support each other.

Mike is a goody two-shoes.  Actually, too good to be believed.  Mike had long ago formed three rules of personal conduct:

"The first had been to maintain his good health,  by avoiding laziness, overindulgence, by respect for his body and his muscles, and  by refusing to allow his system to be poisoned by heavy smoking or drinking.

"The second had been to keep his brain firmly disciplined to study and understanding.  Proficiency in his lessons, the ability to learn new things fast and accurately -- these were the keys to the mastery of the world around him.

"The third was to keep his faith, never to allow doubt to cause him to waver from his ambition or to lose confidence in his own ability to rise above any temporary setbacks."

(Mike Mars must have been a super fun guy to have at parties.)

The book itself is heavily researched and detailed about the space program, the various airships involved, and the rigorous training needed to become an astronaut.  This overabundance of detail tends to bog down the first two-thirds of the novel.  The book is heavily illustrated by Albert Ordaan, in6cluding many renderings of the X-15 and its workings.  Of the illustrations of the four astronauts, only those of Mike appear to make him look youthful.  Remember all four are the same basic (unstated) age.  All four are experience military pilots.  As a nod to the book's young readership, Mike and Johnny Bluehawk are referred at least once as "boys," and all four astronaut are referred to a "young lads."

After a rigorous selection process, Mike is chosen to fly the X-15 into space, with Rod as the alternate.  Something had to be done to eliminate Mike from the lead position.  The saboteurs steal a Sidewinder missile with the intention of shooting Mike down before the X-15 leaves the Earth's atmosphere.  Johnny Bluehawk stumbles onto the plot, is captured, and then framed for stealing the missile.  Can Johnny escape in time to stop the plot?  Can Mike navigate the tremendous forces of nature and physics to touch beyond Earth's reach before heading back safely?

I won't answer those questions, except to say that there are six more books in the Mike Mars series.

An interesting and readable book, despite its flaws, taking me back to the early 60s when the entire country was enthralled with the prospect of space travel and of man's audacity to achieve it.

Air Force! is a collection eight stories with the same basic theme, albeit targeted to a more mature audience.  Harvey was an aeronautics writer with many articles to his credit and he knew what he wrote about.  The first story in the book, "Orbit Flight," also takes place at Edwards Air Force base and is about the first attempt to penetrate space with the X-15B.  Again, we are given many technical details, although in an easier to digest form then with Wollheim.  The emphasis of this tale, and of most of the others in the book, is on the personal and family lives of the Air Force test pilots and of the great sacrifices made in an attempt to have mankind touch the stars.   Some of the stories dealt with the dangerous testing of new and unproven equipment.  I enjoyed the book a great deal and it reawakened the pride I felt when I lived through that era.

The stories:

• "Orbit Flight" (The Saturday Evening Post, October 11 and October 18, 1958)
• "Panic on Runway 6" (The Saturday Evening Post, July 28, 1956)
• "Test Jump" (The Saturday Evening Post, June 30, 1956)
• "Runaway Prop" (The Saturday Evening Post, May 2, 1959)
• "Jinx Jet" (Cavalier #44, February 1957) 
• "100 Miles Up" (Argosy, February 1958; also in the May 1959 Australian and UK editions of Suspense)
• "Moon Shot" (The Saturday Evening Post, May 31, 1958; also reprinted in The Saturday Evening Post Stories 1958, editor uncredited, Doubleday, 1959, also published as The Saturday Evening Post Stories Volume Five, Elek Books , 1959)
• "Destruct Button" (Argosy, May 1959)

Air Force! was published as an original paperback by Ballantine Books in 1959.  To my knowledge it has never been reprinted.  At lest two inexpensive copies are available from Abebooks.

Mike Mars Flies the X-15 was published as a Doubleday Book for Young Readers in 1961, and reprinted in paperback by Paperback Library in 1966.  The hardcover is available for $15.95 adn6 the paperback for $9 from Abebooks.

I recommend both for pure nostalgia reasons and highly recommend Frank Harvey's book just because.

MAJOR BOWES ORIGINAL AMATEUR HOUR (JULY 27, 1939)

Long before American Idol or America's Got Talent there was Major Bowes.

Edward Bowes (1874-1946)  made it big with his Amateur Hour, first aired in April 1934 on New York City's WHN radio station.  It moved to NBC on March 24, 1935, then to CBS in September 1936 until it had completed its radio run.  Bowes hosted the show until his death on June 13, 1946, the day before his 72nd  birthday.  Hosting duties were then taken over  by Ted Mack, who had joined the Bowes operation in 1935; after a few  months, Mack transitioned the show to the fledgling medium of television, while the show also continued to run on radio until 1952.  During the 1950-1951 season,  both versions were simply titled Original Amateur Hour.  In 1955, the television show became Ted Mack and the Original Amateur Hour until it closed in 1970.  During its run, the show had appeared on all four major television networks.

Bowes's avuncular personality had a lot to do with the show's success.  His was one of the most recognized voices during the Golden Age of radio.  The rapid popularity of his show, which provided Americans with a bit of relief from the massive unemployment of the Great Depression, made him as famous as the many persons he ushered into stardom.  Among the some of his better-know contestants were opera stars Lily Pons, Robert Merrill, and Beverly Sills, comedian Jack Carter, and pop singers Teresa Brewer and Frank Sinatra.  Sinatra had fronted a group known as The Hoboken Four; there were so popular that Bowles reportedly brought them back week after week under different names.

I don't think there were many famous names among the contestants in the show linked below, but it does give you a good feel for the show and what Major Bowles meant for American audiences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1kmd0qLSjQ

As a bonus, here's The Hoboken Four from  1935, with what is believed to be Frank Sinatra's first recorded song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BM5O_elYnU&list=PL6IqODMTNHPVuodLARp32vsW7EXsbzcFV&index=9 

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: NOBODY LIVES THERE NOW, NOTHING HAPPENS

"Nobody Lives There Now, Nothing Happens" by Casrol Orlock  (from Women of Darkness, edited by Kathryn Ptacek (1988)

This short, quirky tale is leavened with a touch of Ray Bradbury with perhaps a dash of Shirley Jackson.

In a small California town, locked permanently and purposefully in the 1880s, the Marquettes have just moved into a monstrosity of a Victorian mansion (four stories with five widow walks) built over a hundred years ago by a robber baron to house his mail-order bride. Before the marriage ceremony cold be held, though, she took a lonely walk and vanished.  An intensive search was held,  but the young woman was never found.  The robber baton abandoned the house, putting it up for sale, and there it remained for over a century, being offered by various real estate agents over the years and being held together by new paint every ten years.  And then the Marquettes moved in.  

The neighbors watched with interest as the movers lugged in the furniture:  a grand piano, an antique woodstove, a microwave, a large something that looked like a pole lamp mated with a chandelier, a massive television, a cabinet that could have come from the 1850s...  They saw the furniture but they did not see the Marquettes.  Indeed, no one did.  The Marquettes never left their home, not to do grocery shopping, or to hang their laundry in the back yard, they took no newspapers, had no in-person dealings with the postman, and politely declined invitations to various parties and local events (by letter, of course).  They seemed to have occasional visitors, but no one ever saw anyone come or leave.  Music from the piano could be heard, and /once in a while the outlines of guests could be seen through the shaded windows.  But of the Marquettes, there was no trace.  They were only seen once, on Halloween, when the eight Jefferson children dared to approach their door, and even then, they were hidden behind the door, with their arms only showing; for their effort, each of the Jefferson children received a single piece of salt water taffy, wrapped in very old paper and incredibly hard.

Shortly after Easter, the strange gifts began coming.  A scarf hanging on a bush behind Ginny Worsted's, an old but useful scooter by the pond where the Jefferson children played, a jar of golden honey in a flower bed,  toys for families with children, a license plate frame for seventeen-year-old Ed Windry (who worshiped his old Chevrolet), an apron caught on Miss Emma's fence, a hubcap  that rolled by Mr. Wilson's old Studebaker, which needed one...and more.  No one knew where the gifts were coming from, but Virginia (who twice served as PTA secretary and who lived next to the Marquettes) suspected her reclusive neighbors.  Virginia's husband John scoffed at the idea, as did the other townspeople, but Virgionia held firm in her unreasoned belief.

And with the gifts came a summer of plenty.  Gardens and crops flourished as never before.  The enitre town went through a period of peace and happiness  A coincidence?  Perhaps.

Then, come October, things took a different turn.  The frost hit and an early winter came.  Cruel tricks began to be played.  Tommy Jefferson got a high school girl pregnant; his grandmother keeps paying the local stores for items that Tommy has stolen.  Virginia found three dead snakes wrapped together on her screen door.  All four tires on Ed Windry's Chevrolet were slashed.  All twelve kittens born to one of Miss Gilchrist's cats were strangled.  a razor-sharp scratch was made on the elementary school playground slide, a very ripe hunk of cheese was left in Wilbur Evan's mailbox, and a skinned mouse wrapped in cellophane was found in the freezer shelf at Fork's Market.  Miss Gilchrist wrote a letter to the local paper, hinting that violence against whoever had strangled her kittens would not be amiss.

Virginia's youngest son found a treasure at the beach. It was a "small antique box, water-worn cherry wood with silver and abalone-shell roses inlaid on all four sides."  Inside the box were only seven hard  bits of candy.  The  boy swore he had fond the box inside a sand castle.

And then the Marquettes moved away, as mysteriously as they had come, without anyone actually viewing them leave.

That's it.  That's the story.  No explanations.  No rationale.  Yet somehow it maintains a quiet, uneasy power over the reader.

Carol Orlock (b. 1947) has published only a few short stories; the FictionMags index list only three, although  two others at least were published in "little" magazines.  "Nobody Lives There Now, Nothing Happens" was possibly her fourth published story; it was nominated for Bram Stoker Award.  she is also the author of two novels, the well-received The Goddess Letters (1987), which retold the myth of dimeter and Persephone, and The Hedge, The Ribbon:  A Novel (1993), interconnected magical realism stories, the winner of the Western States Book Award.  She was married to the late writer Jack Cady, and published two horror books with him under the joint pseudonym "Pat Franklin."  She has also written two nonfiction books about human biorhythms and one on the effect of medical science on old age.

OVERLOOKED FILM: WENDIGO (1978), plus a few extras...

One of the true classic novellas in the horror genre was Algernon Blackwood's "The Wendigo," first published in Blackwood's collection The Lost Valley and Other Stories (1910).  According to the FictionMags Index, it has been reprinted at least 39 times since its original publication; due to the limited scope of the Index, it is safe to assume that it has been reprinted many more times.

The story has been filmed and adapted many times, and has been recorded and read many more times for radio, podcasts, and the like.

Here's a French adaptation of the story that strays pretty far afield from the original.  It is  by all accounts, an awful film.  There are only two reviews of the flick on IMDb, and  both give it only one star; one goes so far as to title the review "Huntinn of ze moouse."  The movie stars no one you have heard of, but does add some eye candy not present in the original story with the addition of Carol Cocherell in her only screen credit.

Because I know that readers of this blog are staunch fellows (and gals) all, I present this turkey:

https://archive.org/details/Wendigo

But that's not all!  Here's an AI generated version of the story that at least covers the basics of the novella, omitting much of the atmosphere and horror, in just four minutes, thirteen seconds! 

https://archive.org/details/movies?tab=collection&query=the+wendigo

Blackwood (1869-1951) was one the premiere writers of horror and the supernatural stories in the twentieth century.  Here's the Libravox recording of the full story, read by Michael Thomas Robinson.  ennoy.

https://archive.org/details/willows_mtr_librivox

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERNEST TUBB (1914-1984)

 "The Texas Troubadour," one of the pioneers in country music, was a large influence in the popularity of honky-tonk music.  Among his most  noted songs were "Walking the Floor Over You," "Blue Christmas," and "Waltz Across Texas."  In 1947, Tubb was the first person to bring the Grand Ole Opry to Carnegie Hall.  He was a prolific duet artist, performing with such people as The Andrews Sisters, Loretta Lynn, Red Foley, and The Wilburn Brothers.   He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1965.  I wasn't able to find an overall  number for his record sales over his fifty-year career, perhaps someone can help me out with that.

The person who helped start his career was Carrie Rodgers, the widow of the "Singing Brakeman" Jimmie Rodgers, whom Tubb approached to ask for a photo of her husband shortly after he had passed away.  Impressed with Tubb, she helped him get a contract with RCA records.  Tubb never forgot her kindness and tried to pay her back by helping and supporting other new artists.   This "established his reputation as one of the industry's most generous and selfless performers.  Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Skeeter Davis, Jack Greene, George Hamilton IV, Stonewall Jackson, Loretta Lynn, Carl Smith, Hank Snow, Justin Tubb (Tubb's first child), Charlie Walker, The Wilburn Brothers, and Hank Williams all owed various degrees of thanks to Tubb."

"Walking the Floor Over Over You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-0KHkf5V98

"Waltz Across Texas" -- perhaps his most requested song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeRO1Wt0R4I

"The Passing of Jimmie Rodgers" (1936) one side of Tubb's first recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N52Zkx-0lcM

"The T B Is Whipping Me"  the other side of Tubb's first recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVB4kqt-Ifc

"Pass the Booze"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A6id3Ik1hc

"Are You Mine"  with Loretta Lynn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmGR1zcpCMc

"Too Old to Cut the Mustard"  with Red Foley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIUiQOeI_Ek

"I'm Moving On"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKooIVXrdBM

"Drivin' Nails in My Coffin"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnEMOQTh27s

"Thanks a Lot"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx3PIIk8tZk

"Wabash Cannonball"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUp1NDmkEC0

"The Yellow Rose of Texas"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmDiy6XpiA4

"Sweet Thing"  with Loretta Lynn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed3tnnfav0I&list=PL2lsxyxplCkZ8U_FdpGIXKDQ2XuLHVQTc&index=24

"Driftwood on the River"  with The Jordanaires

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o76FSBTnYnc&list=PL2lsxyxplCkZ8U_FdpGIXKDQ2XuLHVQTc&index=28

"Mean Mama Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v2fS-7x0v4&list=PL2lsxyxplCkZ8U_FdpGIXKDQ2XuLHVQTc&index=33

"Blue-Eyed Elaine"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gih_XNcFe2I&list=PL2lsxyxplCkZ8U_FdpGIXKDQ2XuLHVQTc&index=38

"In the Jailhouse Now"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=321cmIOfRO4

"Let's Say Goodbye Like We Said Hello"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHec_USCW_U

HYMN TIME

 The Dixie Hummingbirds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plt2tF7h3R8