Week Twenty-Two: January 25th

"You gonna do somethin' or are you gonna stand there and bleed?" A quality line in a fine cinematic turn by Kurt Russell. When he took up the mantle, and the pistols, of Wyatt Earp, he put shame to any Kevin Costner rendition of the same story. (Of course, we won't discuss whose was less Hollywood-ized and more historically accurate--Tombstone was far more entertaining.) How often does one get to see a chubby Billy Bob Thornton shamed by that very line, and so many others? Throw in Val Kilmer's brilliant mock-up of Doc Holliday and what you have is a recipe for a classic way to spend a few hours.

Over time, I have come to appreciate other things about books and movies--one suspects these things happen with age. Of course, knowing my current fascination with facial hair exploits, you could do worse than to observe the amazing chin and lip stylings of the men in this film. From Holliday's pitiful, greasy-lip worm to Sam Neill's amazing gray extended 'stache (one day in the distant future I will wear that Sam Neill classic for a year, at least) the press-on appliques these gentlemen sport must have kept them in the makeup chair for hours.

So this is my homage to all things Tombstone, in a more modern way. What looked like two bricks on either side of my head, strung together with a solid field of thick red hair felt heavy on my face all week, with the 'stache poking into my nostrils and the jaw chops reaching like Wrigley vines into my ear holes. I had to fight the temptation all week to thin the upper lip crop.