Theme from Lonesome Dove / Basil Poledouris
“I always figure from the cradle to the grave, we all have our individual journeys… There’s got to be something hereafter”.
– Robert Duvall
amen.
A Celebration of Western Movies… Pardner!
Theme from Lonesome Dove / Basil Poledouris
“I always figure from the cradle to the grave, we all have our individual journeys… There’s got to be something hereafter”.
– Robert Duvall
amen.
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Hoping this will be good.
?
“When I knew nothing, I thought I could do anything.”
– Robert Duvall
Might as well start with a Classic:
as the Badguy “Lucky Ned Pepper” in a John Wayne Movie!
Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne) called it:
“Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!”
Luck had nothing to do with it.
Next Duvall saddled up against
another Great Western Movie Star , Burt Lancaster.
Robert had to step down a notch behind Robert Ryan and Lee J. Cobb,
but he still got in his shots:

THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID
/ 1972
Duvall moved closer to Stardom,
sharing the Bill pretty well equally with Robertson.
“For my money, “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid was one of the best films of 1972, and a lot of other critics liked it, too…”(Top Ten of the Year)- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
“The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid is easily the best western of the year…Kaufman directs its events with a rousing energy…”—Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
“The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid…is a wonderfully lucid and vivid film about the time. The action is set in 1876…The film also has a contagious sense of amazement…Kaufman has made a beautiful, simple film about gaudiness and hope…The film is not really a Western: more than that.” –Penelope Gilliatt, The New Yorker
“Moments of pure farce…Curious, contradictory tenderness…Ambitious and inventive…”—Charles Champlin, LA Times

Coming: Robert Duvall / Cowboy / Part 2:
Lonesome Dove
Geronimo
Open Range
Broken Trail
Joe Kidd
Wind Prayer
“Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.”
― Black Elk Speaks:
Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
It’s not that I didn’t believe in Past Lives,
I just saw no reason to place my attention upon such.
Then … I started to Dream.
Awakening
In one dream, I saw I was Native in the Southwestern US.
Before the time of the Whiteman.
I dressed in white buckskin and I loved my beautiful wife.

It was an idyllic lifetime.
Later …
In 1988 I went at exposition of Native History and Culture
at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary.
It was called:
The Spirit Sings
As I wandered through the exhibits of Arts and images
I found myself overwhelmed and I became very tired.
I decided to lay down on a nearby bench.
Suddenly I was lying on the ground in a Teepee.
And as I looked up through the canopy
where intertwined the support polls
I could see the stars.
I had been a plains Native.
Spirit Renewed
In a third dream:
I was a Mayan woman standing in my small hut.
I was pregnant …
And when I gazed into the fire,
I saw the face of a Master.
Looking back at me.
The Wayward Wind / Gogi Grant 1956
In Alberta and elsewhere – like Montana and Colorado – we get this weather phenomenon we call Chinooks and Chinook Arches.
Chinook Arch Definition:
A Chinook arch is a striking weather phenomenon often seen along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains—especially around Calgary. It appears as a long, curved band of cloud stretching parallel to the mountains, usually with a sharp, clear boundary. This arch forms when warm, dry Chinook winds descend the mountains and create a high crest of air that shapes the cloud layer into that distinctive arc.
At sunset these Arches often spectacular:
WOW!
We don’t mind them at all.
The word Chinook originally comes from the name of a Native American people of the Pacific Northwest—specifically a community in the Columbia River region of what is now Washington and Oregon. The term traces back to the Salishan language, where it referred to a particular village site.





Wind Is Bound To Change
Larry Gatlin & The Gatlin Brothers
I am an expert show shoveler.
A a kid we needed to get that snow off the pond or rink as fast as possible.
So we could play hockey.
So we hated those warm Chinook Winds.
They melted the ice.
Definition:
A Chinook wind is a warm dry wind that comes over the Rocky Mountains
from the West and sweeps Eastward, raising temperatures.
These winds cause rapid temperatures increases.
Yesterday it was 16 degrees Celsius (60.8 Fahrenheit) here.
That’s right, while people are being murdered by Winter Storm Fern
we are walking around in light jackets and T-shirts.
And it’s been this way for 2 weeks now!!!
With a Weather forecast of at least another week.
Today’s Forcast: 11 degrees Celsius (51.8 Fahrenheit).
Incredible.

Right now we are getting what they call
a False Spring.
The Farmers are really worried …
Hope you will be well.
the-river-dont-lie
alana jordan
Abbe Faria (Richard Harris) :
God said, “Vengeance is mine.”
Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel):
“I don’t believe in God.”
Abbe Faria:
“It doesn’t matter. He believes in you.”



“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do
when that storm comes.
― The Count of Monte Cristo
Here in Alberta we surely know about extreme Weather events.
We are not immune.
We get snow storms; blizzards; occasional tornados; hail storms;
rain storms; forest fires; floods; … and more ???
So when we see what so many are dealing with right now across this continent, we have great sympathy and compassion for those suffering
under such things. And in this age of climate change,
things seem to be become more extreme and last longer.
Our hearts and best wishes go to you who are being affected.
And we just hope this isn’t the New Normal … ?
We hope you will be well.
Storms Never Last / Allison Moorer
You can’t stream Eastern Western yet — it’s currently only available in theaters and has no digital, rental, or streaming release listed as of
January 2026. But that will likely change fairly soon.
Trailer Link to YouTube:
https://youtu.be/JottbH8gkas?si=EzIOE-MQMseSFfx_
I think it’s hard for any Movie to succeed without notable Star Power.
But this one looks different.
And the Reviews like it too.
In watching the Trailer, the images hit me hard because it
reminded me of a tragic Past Life event where I too
was a pioneer in the Old West:
I was travelling with my wife by covered wagon.
We had made it all the way to Oregon.
We were now looking for a place to settle when our wagon broke down.
I had to go for help and leave my wife with the wagon.
While I was gone she was killed by a grizzly bear.
I can still feel the terrible heartache from that tragic event.
When such things happen to me, I always wonder what GOD has in mind?
Ultimately, I realize that I am to learn Empathy / Compassion.
How can I understand or help anyone else if I too haven’t
walked in their shoes at some time?
Bad Company / by Bad Company / 1974
Co-written by Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke
I thought this was a 3 part documentary!? Guess not.
Don’t know where I got that notion?
Maybe I was hoping that was the case.
The most interesting thing I gleaned from Redford’s research on these “Badguys” is that this was a ‘Way of Life’ and a culture that surrounded these guys and what they did. I always figured they were just a bunch of directionless thugs who couldn’t do anything useful. Not saying this excused what they did, but there was a whole support system
surrounding what they were doing.

1949-HITS-ARCHIVE_-Riders-In-The-Sky-Vaughn-Monroe
I figure that’s a pretty generous depiction of the Kid … ?
Still interesting …
“And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell
and I understood more than I saw;
for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit,
and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.”
― Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition
Nicholas Gunn – Brittany Egbert – Desert Sky



The Magnificent Seven theme / Elmer Bernstein / 1960


Don’t know how many times I’ve watched this.
