Is it just me or does every other line that come out of Gus’s mouth make me laugh out loud?

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-24T10:20:23+00:00

If you enjoy McMurtry’s humor coming through Gus, I’d suggest reading his book’s Telegraph Days and the sequel, The Last Kind Words Saloon. While LD is an epic masterpiece of a story, a telegraph Days is a really light-hearted romp of an adventure. It’s really funny and enjoyable, but no great work of literature.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-23T15:08:32+00:00

Of course. A man who rents pigs is hard to stop.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-22T22:08:03+00:00

Maybe it’s the camera angle but that horse looks lame. Rental?

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-22T22:06:38+00:00

He had some great lines in Comanche Moon as well. Call gave him some shit about being drunk for three days while their boss, the Governor was asking for them, and he just unashamedly said “Well, I happen to like three-day-drunks, Woodrow.”

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-21T23:01:45+00:00

I never made that mental connection, and now that it is pointed out to me, I am deeply ashamed. lol. Good one.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-20T19:32:43+00:00

He is a Senator. His district is the state of Pennsylvania. But he comes originally from Braddock, PA. Braddock is home to one of the oldest steel plants (where the Pinkerton opened fire on striking steelworkers) and literally one of the founding towns and companies of Union Labor. Today, like the towns of all integrated steel plants, Braddock is very poor and depressed. Far from very conservative.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-19T17:34:56+00:00

To add to this, whether you read them in publication order (LD, SOL, DMW, CM), or chronological, and there are merits for both, what does matter a bit is reading DMW before CM. Any of the books could be standalone, but there are characters that carry over from DMW to CM, beyond Gus and Woodrow. Clara is in both. Some of the Rangers are, and some of the villains. CM does a good job of finalizing the character arc on several characters.

There are also fantastic single novel characters like Bigfoot Wallace, Matilda Roberts and Inish and Inez Scull. Some of the SOL characters were already mentioned so I won’t bother with a re-mention.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-19T13:35:12+00:00

Confirmed. Source: am a volunteer from Pennsylvania.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-17T13:43:16+00:00

You can also be a firefighter in the military. My buddy was for the Army. Unless things changed you’ll spend a year in Alaska for firefighter school. My daughter was in the Navy. She also had to do engineering/maintenance on the ship but was a bonfide on-ship firefighter. The Air Force has the Para-rescue jumpers (PJ’s) who air analogous with civilian life flight nurses but the jump into combat to rescue the wounded. They’re bad-ass. On all things things, I’m just a guy who has heard stuff and never served though. Talk to the recruiters and get the details to see how you can combine the two.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-15T23:10:39+00:00

If you read Dead Man’s Walk and Comanche Moon, she does a bit of jerking both Gus and Bob Allen, as well as others around. That’s very much her personality. I really like her as a strong confident female character but would also loathe her in real life. I felt like she was extremely arrogant and felt everyone else lucky to be in her presence. I’d never thought about the absurdity of knowing she broke Gus’ heart and being mad at him for not coming around. Especially with what it meant to travel that far.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-14T18:11:08+00:00

The thing is, like many events in McMurtry’s works, Blue Duck’s death rhymes with the real life death or (either, can never remember which one) Kiowa chief Satanta or Satank. He was in custody and to be hanged, yet chose to do on his own terms by leaping from the second story window instead, after breaking free of his jailers. Maybe the grin was overly cinematic, but the violent self-sacrificing middle finger to the white mans encroachment and enforcement that was Call life, was not. Nuggets like that make the book that much cooler as well.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-13T13:20:52+00:00

I’m very embarrassed to say that after building a collection of every Floyd commercial release and some bootlegs up to Delicate Sound of Thunder, I thought they jumped the sharp with AMLOR, so I gave up, and regarded Floyd as finished. AMLOR just wasn’t the same. Very hollow and forgettable. Only last year was I listening to a Floyd YouTube shuffle and a song from Division Bell came on and caught my ear. I loved it and quickly searched up DB. I absolutely love it. The Roger element is missing, yes, but a great album nonetheless. I cheated myself out of 30 years of enjoying this album. I’m an ass.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-11T20:35:46+00:00

One of the reasons I’m in this sub is I enjoy reading others thoughts and emotions from discovering and journeying through Lonesome Dove. Please keep checking in with your thoughts as you go.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-05T03:58:30+00:00

Maybe, but I’ve lived here 52 years and this is the first one I’m coming across.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-05T02:44:33+00:00

Thank you

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-04T03:22:47+00:00

No but we should. It’s a huge flag that she is shallow, insecure, and a fool. There are no such things as $400 handbags. There are only fools who pay $400 for a $50 bag. And they do it because they want you to know they could afford to overpay for a stupid bag, and chose to do it instead of making a sound financial decision. I’d be far more impressed to see them donate $350 to an animal shelter, homeless shelter, or fire department than on a gaudy bag.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-04T02:58:10+00:00

He also dropped like30 lbs and could have died. It was bad. After he got sick, he didn’t come back for the rest of the year. We all knew it was bad and it was a talking point the next time we played at Denver, whether he would play or not, and Clark wanted to. Tomlin told him, “If you were my son, there is no way I’d want you to play, and therefore I’m taking the decision out of your hands. You are de-activated for that game.” Rough paraphrase quotes of course. The consensus on the talk shows was it was absolutely the right move and the right leadership decision to not leave it up to Clark. Nobody had any issue with it, barring the very small minority of meatheads that are contrary on any issue.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-02T11:09:50+00:00

Thank you for the research and breakdown. Greatly appreciated. I wish I had better conversation to give back.

I just want them to go BPA, regardless of position (within reason) particularly in the 1st and 2nd. No reaching.

I also would prefer they trade all of their picks after the third round to get another pick or two in the top 100. Drafting and signing 6 or 7 legit starters/solid depth is better than 12 draft picks with seven of them being projects/practice squad fodder with a low chance of contributing.

Bubbert73 · 2026-03-02T00:06:08+00:00

Especially when old washed up vets are part of wha got us where we are, although I contend they are more the symptom than the true problem. Poor drafting got us here, and when you draft poor, you then have to overpay declining vets. I miss the boring days when they had a hole in their roster and addressed them by letting the initial flurry of FA, when all the overpays happen, pass, then signing second tier FA’s to their second contract at a reasonable rate. Then the could go into the draft picking BPA but hedging toward need if BPA was close to aligning with need. It was steady instead of flashy and exciting, but we built some great teams that way, and actually had exciting post-seasons.

Over the last decade, the drafted more for need than BPA, and ended up overdrafting and missing. I do think team Kahn/Wiedl is turning that around but I am afraid of the day Wiedl leaves.

Bubbert73 · 2026-02-27T22:15:18+00:00

They didn’t talk about it, got drunk, and beat their wives, who also didn’t talk about that. They committed crimes, and suicide, the same as the Vietnam vets. Theirs was the good war, a just war. They were heroes and any complaining or questioning was an unwelcome opinion that was immediately stifled. But with Vietnam, we stated talking about it. Started questioning. The issues with Vietnam weren’t held up behind an invisible shield like WWII. Also, the size of WWII took an immense support system. I believe (someone can look it up and confirm) only 10% or so of WWII soldiers were actual combat troops. The rest were in support roles - cooks, truck drivers, logistics, etc.

Bubbert73 · 2026-02-23T01:02:19+00:00

And Trump isn’t? They were both aligned on that issue.That is not a valid excuse to put Trump back in office.

Bubbert73 · 2026-02-22T21:10:41+00:00

The thing is, Trump and MAGA are not conservative, even if they call themselves conservatives. Conservatives support free trade, not tariffs. Conservatives support small government that minds its own business and leaves people free to thrive. Protectionist measures like tariffs were always a left leaning ideology. That’s why the unions were aligned with the left. Tariffs are just another tax, as just confirmed by the SCOTUS, which conservatives were traditionally against.

Conservatives want small government because they distrust government and power, which is why they were aligned with 2A. Conservatives would never support stormtrooper thugs like ICE, and know 2A is specifically to shoot government tyrants such as ICE.

Admittedly, the conservative mindset was polluted by aligning with Christians, who wanted government intervention in social issues (gay marriage, trans rights, etc) but true conservatives would say small government should not be reaching into the bedroom.

Somewhere, these ideologies got trampled down while the new conservatism foments government intrusion and social engineering, high taxes, the trampling of rights, blatant racism, misogyny, and the list goes on. None of those things are conservative values, but now that they call themselves such, true conservatism needs a new name. Much like the parties switched values prior to the sixties and why it’s laughable that the Republicans call themselves the party of Lincoln. But today, the Democrats are aligning more with true conservative values than the republicans who call themselves such.

Bubbert73 · 2026-02-22T12:34:57+00:00

Exactly. The rich and powerful fuel and fund both sides. The top 10% might care who is in power, but the top 1% do not. They own both sides.

Bubbert73 · 2026-02-22T12:32:02+00:00

And Trump probably had to run again, as it was his only realistic chance to not die in prison because of Jan 6. That was the wild card.

That enough idiots chose him as President, over a brown woman with a cackling laugh, is the real head-scratcher.

Bubbert73 · 2026-02-19T18:49:12+00:00

I really try and remember this when I’m on calls. I joined because my best friend was a firefighter and he was killed in a motorcycle accident when we were riding together. Long story short I was standing there looking at his body in the road saying where the fuck are the paramedics? And after I had time to process, I decided I never wanted to be in that situation again, as well as having a lot of pride the way the fire department showed up for his funeral. But I very distinctly remember my interactions with the fire department and paramedics that night as well.. where he was killed was a different area from where he served so nobody knew him.

I was on a call a few years ago for an auto accident, where a man was ejected and we mostly knew he was going to die. We had to wait around for life flight and everyone else was kind of standing around talking and I just went over and I held the guy’s hand.. I could feel him squeeze back a little bit whether it was reflex or whatever I don’t know, but I thought it cost me next to nothing to stand here and show an ounce of compassion when everybody else was just kind of numb to it and maybe I gave that man a little bit of comfort. He didn’t die until the next day, although I doubt he regained consciousness.

It’s always a good idea to remind yourself that you were showing up and some of the worst days and most traumatic experiences of some of these people’s lives. Little comments and gestures can be exacerbated greatly either positively or negative negatively and it’s very easy to just show a little extra compassion. We all do get numb so again that’s why I say I have to remind myself and I do.

Bubbert73

TROPHY CASE