The Dumb and the Restless
First of all, when did it become OK for cowboys to cry in public?
The coolest thing about the Gary Cooper-Clint Eastwood-James Coburn-Yul Brynner-style cowboys is that they never said a damned thing. They walked slow, asses sore from all that riding, and kept things to a syllable or two if they could manage it: “Whiskey.” “Bath.” “Draw.”
Contrast that with Ammon Bundy, the man who recently led a small group of gun-wielding outpatients to occupy the Malheur federal wildlife preserve in Oregon.
Before the occupation, Bundy stood up at a town hall meeting in Harney County, Oregon, and fell to pieces as he described to the audience the revelation he had from God about the need to take action against the federal government. He was most put out about the five-year sentence for arson that the feds slapped on a father and son duo of ranchers named Dwight and Steven Hammond for setting fires on federal land.
Bundy, his beard always carefully groomed, his unblemished broad-billed rancher hat always on straight, stood up at the town hall and weepingly explained that God had spoken to him about the Hammonds.
“The Lord was not pleased with what was happening with the Hammonds,” he croaked out. “OK?” He then wiped his eyes and — in an absolutely flawless homage to the Mike Myers I’m a little verklempt routine — held a palm out as if to say, “Hang on while I compose myself.”
“And I apologize for being emotional,” he went on. “I hope you guys can get past that!” (He wiped his eyes again.)
Bundy’s town hall speech was nothing compared to the instant-satire performance delivered by fellow militiaman Jon Ritzheimer, who videotaped himself in his front car seat weepily telling his daughters why he wouldn’t be home for the holidays. The Oscar-winning scene comes when Ritzheimer sighs, drops his carefully shaved head and carefully trimmed goatee downward (the stratospheric Men’s Health-level grooming factor is a constant in the #YallQaeda story), then collects himself just long enough to look up at his camera.
“Your Daddy swore an oath!” Ritzheimer bleats, waving a paperback copy of the Constitution in front of the camera. What’s hilarious is that you can see Ritzheimer, who just seconds before was ostensibly so overwhelmed with emotion that he “lost it” and had to gather himself, carefully spread his fingers during the scene so that the audience can see the title.
The video was instant viral comedy and inspired some fantastic parodies. “Your Daddy swore an oath!” cried John Darnielle, a.k.a. @mountain_goats on Twitter. “An oath to the naturalist, and later expressionist, playwright, August Strindburg! And, scene!”
“Daddy swore an oath!” said @PatrickGeCooper, in one of my favorites. “An oath to finally finish Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island. I’ve tried like three times! There are so many descriptions of plants, and rocks…”
The Dumb and the Restless, Page 1 of 3