AMERICAN DEATH, PT. 1
(COWBOYS & INDIANS)
GOODNIGHT, CUSTER
(CUSTER DEATH MASK)
George Armstrong Custer is alive and well 144 years after his death on June 25, 1876.
Custer fought exactly two battles in the Indian Wars.
He won one and lost one.
He won the Battle of Washita Creek on November 27, 1868. Attacking a sleeping Cheyenne village at dawn, his troops, by most accounts other than his own, killed more old men, women, and children than warriors.
Custer also had 675 of the village’s horses shot.
It is now, for good reason, considered a massacre.
Things didn’t go so swimmingly for Custer at the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.
Custer’s last known words were, “Hurrah, boys, we’ve got them!” The “boys” didn’t get “them.”
He was wiped out by a force a lot fiercer than sleeping old men, women, and children. Custer’s Last Stand lasted all of 15 minutes. There were no survivors on the “boys” side.
Dead Custer’s ears were filled with arrows because he “wouldn’t listen” and another arrow was jammed up his penis.
Today, lots of people still write lots about Custer. There are twice as many books about Custer than the Titanic, another of folly’s disasters.
Recently, Timothy Egan wrote in the New York Times, “Custer has been shorthand for hubris, ignorance and had-it-coming, but in earlier decades Custer was a hero.”
Funny how time changes history
And how hubris, ignorance, and had-it-coming never go out of style.
George Armstrong Custer
December 5, 1839–June 25, 1876
HOWDY, DEATH
(HOWDY DOODY DEATH MASK)
It’s Howdy Doody time,
It’s Howdy Doody time,
Bob Smith and Howdy, too,
Say “Howdy do” to you.
Let’s give a rousing cheer
’Cause Howdy Doody’s here.
It’s time to start the show
So kids, let’s go!
Howdy Doody
December 27, 1947–September 24, 1960
GOYAAŁÉ
(GERONIMO DEATH MASK)
Unfortunately, more people know “Geronimo” as something yelled while jumping out of airplanes and not as much about the extraordinary man.
Geronimo’s actual name is Goyaałé and means “one who yawns.” Yawning is not generally done by people jumping out of airplanes. Furthermore, Geronimo led a life that was anything but worthy of a yawn. He was the leader and medicine man of the Bedonkohe branch of the Apache tribe. Geronimo had not one but two governments chasing after him—the United States and Mexico. He joined forces with three other Chiricahua Apache bands—the Tchihende, the Tsokanende, and the Nednhi—to fight these governments. Fighting two governments at once does not lead to a lot of yawning—neither does having nine wives.
Geronimo is considered the last “hostile” captured by the United States government—this after he surrendered three times, having escaped twice. After his last capture, the famous prisoner was paraded around by the government and was featured in the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exhibition in Omaha, a low-rent cousin of the World’s Fair. Geronimo was allowed to make a little money by selling pictures of himself (including one in a top hat driving a Locomobile Model C car), buttons of his clothing, autographs, bows and arrows, trinkets, and even his famous hat. He, with good reason, refused to smile for pictures.
In 1905, he attended President Theodore Roosevelt’s inauguration. He went from Washington, DC to Texas to hunt buffalo in front of an audience, never mind Geronimo’s Bedonkohe people were not buffalo hunters.
Geronimo sold his story to the United States superintendent of education. Geronimo dictated his memoirs in Spanish and said, “When I was at first asked to attend the St. Louis World’s Fair I did not wish to go. Later, when I was told that I would receive good attention and protection, and that the President of the United States said that it would be all right, I consented . . . Every Sunday the President of the Fair sent for me to go to a wild west show. I took part in the roping contests before the audience. There were many other Indian tribes there, and strange people of whom I had never heard . . . I am glad I went to the Fair. I saw many interesting things and learned much of the white people. They are a very kind and peaceful people. During all the time I was at the Fair no one tried to harm me in any way. Had this been among the Mexicans I am sure I should have been compelled to defend myself often.”
(Maybe Trump could get Geronimo to muscle Mexico into paying for his dumb wall.)
The “one who yawns” died of pneumonia in the hospital at Fort Sill on February 17, 1909. He contracted it a few days prior when he fell off his horse into a creek during his morning ride. Geronimo wasn’t found until days later and it, sadly, proved fatal. Today, Geronimo rests with his family and other Apache prisoners of war at the Fort Sill Indian Agency Cemetery in Oklahoma.
Yes, the man two governments couldn’t kill was killed by creek water. His last words were, “I should have never surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive.”
Speaking of death, “Geronimo” was the code name of the 2011 mission that killed Osama bin Laden.
Ergo, even 102 years after his death, Geronimo remains a fierce warrior.
Goyaałé
June 16, 1829–February 17, 1909
Ay, ay, ay, ay! oh, I am dee Frito Bandito
(Frito Bandito Death Mask)
The Frito Bandito was invented in 1967 by God, advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding, Tex Avery, Frito-Lay, and Mel Blanc to sell salty corn chips.
The cartoon character was a rather blunt stereotype of a Mexican revolutionary, adorned with a sombrero (complete with a bullet hole in it), one gold tooth, a handlebar moustache that would make Dali jealous, two pistols, gun belts crisscrossed as suspenders, and a Mexican accent thick as oil with 170 mg. of sodium per serving. Señor Bandito was fond of robbing Americans of their FRITOS® corn chips at gunpoint. And, like any good revolutionary, he had a theme song:
Ay, ay, ay, ay! oh, I am dee Frito Bandito. I like Fritos corn chips, I love them, I do. I want Fritos corn chips. I’ll get them, from you.
Ay, ay, ay, ay, oh, I am the Frito Bandito. Give me Fritos corn chips and I’ll be your friend. The Frito Bandito you must not offend.
Well, Señor Bandito did offend since he was based on no less than Pancho Villa, a true Mexican hero.* The stereotyping offended Mexicans and revolutionaries everywhere.
Rumors of Villa, Lenin, and Che Fucking Guevara turning over in their graves ran rampant.
In 1968, the National Mexican American Anti-Defamation Committee and the Involvement of Mexican-Americans in Gainful Endeavors let Frito-Lay have it, and the company softened up their sodium-happy stereotype, removing his gold tooth and beard, and following Robert Kennedy’s 1968 assassination, he was disarmed.
Frito-Lay stubbornly stuck to their corporate gun belts crisscrossed as suspender, citing research that said 85% of Mexican Americans dug Frito Bandito. Stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles banned the guy while groups lobbied the Federal Fucking Communications Commission for free anti–Frito Bandito airtime under no less than the Fairness Doctrine.
It all became too much for Frito-Lay and the character died in 1971, replaced by W.C. Fritos and Muncha Bunch.
Adios, Frito Bandito.
Frito Bandito
1967–1971
* In 1916, after Pancho Villa executed 16 United States citizens and wandered into New Mexico to kill some more, big-time American General John J. Pershing was sent to hunt him down and kill him. He failed. Villa was eventually assassinated by government guns-for-hire on July 20, 1923, while driving home from a good day of sticking it to the man. Three years later, his grave was dug up and his head was cut off; it was never found. ¡Ay! His bronze death mask, complete with the bullet hole in the head that killed him, ended up in the hands of a German store owner, Otto Nordwald. Villa was a customer and not long after the bullet through his brain, a Mexican army man gave Nordwald the mask for safekeeping. Nordwald hid the mask away until 1930 when he gave it to the military school his daughter was attending. Some 54 years later, an art teacher at the academy stumbled across the mask in a cardboard box and it was returned to Mexico.
AMERICAN JESUS, Fragment
(Jesus Death Mask)
In the Book of Mormon, Jesus came to America and preached to the Nephites after he was done resurrecting. This is according to the Mormon Church’s founder Joseph Smith. Joe said the fact came to him in a vision he had starring into his hat
The Mormon’s good book states, “In the ending of the thirty and fourth year . . . soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven He did truly manifest Himself unto them [Nephites and Lamanites]*—showing his body unto them.”
Utah’s Brigham Young University, named after the man who moved Smith’s Mormons lock, stock, and rifle barrel to Utah while being chased by the United States military claims, “On behalf of the view that Jesus came early to the Nephites, the most compelling observation is that the Savior would not have caused those faithful Nephites and Lamanites to wait an entire year for his appearance, especially because his instructions—momentously—brought the era of the law of Moses to a close. This view possesses an interesting merit. Even the response that one year does not represent much time may seem a bit weak. We might suggest, however, the likelihood that the people, having just suffered through severe destruction and loss of loved ones, may not have been physically and emotionally able to receive the Savior. Is it not reasonable to suppose that the Lord knew the Nephites’ spiritual and physical state following such a calamity and thus delayed his visit so that their minds would be relatively free of pain and anxiety? While we cannot speak with certainty, this seems to be a reasonable assumption.”
Well okay then, you can’t argue with BYU and Joseph Smith’s hat—Jesus in America it is.
Seriously, a lot of people from all faiths moved to America’s Wild West to escape religious persecution; therefore, making it all the more odd that people so devoted to Jesus and His devotion to all things peaceful found it so goddamned easy to kill lots and lots of Native Americans in His honor.
AMERICAN JESUS
Thirty and fourth year–
*The Lamanites are the wicked mortal enemies of the faithful and lily-white Nephites. Jesus didn’t much care for those Lamanites and turned their skin red and—VOILÀ—the Native Americans are born, according to Joseph Smith’s hat.
Wounded Knee
(Colonel James W. Forsyth Death Mask)
Colonel James William Forsyth led the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Here’s how he remembers the so-called battle:
Camp Pine Ridge Agency
December 31, 1890
Acting Assistant Adjutant General
Headquarters Department of the Platte
In the field
Sir: –I have the honor to report the following in connection with the movements of my command on the night of December 28th and during the following day.
My command consisting of Regimental Headquarters and the Second Battalion detachment of Light Battery E, 1st Artillery went into camp for the night. The next morning after considerable trouble the bucks of Big Foot’s band numbering 106, were collected away from their camp and—after explaining to them that, having surrendered, they would be treated as prisoners of war, but that as such they must surrender their arms—squads of 20 men were cut off and told to bring them to a designated place. The result of this was very unsatisfactory, but few arms being brought. Keeping the bucks collected, details of soldiers were made, under officers, to search the Indian Camp. While this was in progress, one Indian separated a little from the rest, and in Ghost Dance costume, began an address . . . After a short while however, the Interpreter told me that he was talking of wiping out the whites. I then made him cease his address. Just after this, the search through their camp having proved almost fruitless, I gave orders to search the persons of the bucks—again telling them that they must do as white men always do when surrendering—that is give up their arms. At the first move to carry out the order last referred to, the bucks made a break, which at once resulted in terrific fire and a hot fight lasting about twenty minutes, followed by skirmish firing of about one hour. From the first instant the squaws started for the hills and it is my belief that comparatively few of them were injured. . . . They overtook and captured five bucks (all badly wounded), nineteen squaws and children and killed six bucks. Very soon after, the force was attacked by about 125 bucks, supposed to be from the Agency. In the fight which followed, those captured had to be dropped. . . . As accurate an estimate as could be made of the dead Indian bucks in and near the camp was . . . 90 as the number of bucks killed. The attack on the three troops by the 125 bucks—taken in connection with a message from the Department Commander to Major Henry, 9th Cavalry, who was on White River, which message was opened by me by mistake and contained the information that the Brules had left the Agency on the warpath—led me to believe that I was in danger of an attack by all the discontented Indians in the vicinity; and as my command had suffered greatly in killed and wounded, I deemed it not only prudent but obligatory in me to return to the Agency. The task of caring for the killed and wounded, and improvising as comfortable transportation as possible for them, and making the other necessary arrangements, occupied all the time, and all the men of the command.
Very respectfully, Your obdt servant,
James W. Forsyth
Colonel 7th Cavalry Comdg
Today, the town of Forsyth, Montana, and a park in Washington state’s San Juan Islands are named in his honor.
Colonel James W. Forsyth
August 8, 1834–October 24, 1906
Cut!
(John Ford Death Mask)
John Ford invented the American Western film genre.
God invented Monument Valley specifically for John Ford as the holy land location in which to direct American Westerns.
God also invented John Wayne to act in Ford’s Westerns—The Searchers, Stagecoach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, 3 Godfathers, The Horse Soldiers, and How the West Was Won.
Damn, that’s a lot of Westerns.
Ford was as rough as his landscapes and cowboys. He wore dark glasses and a patch over his left eye because he had crummy eyesight, smoked a pipe nonstop during filming, and chewed on an endless supply of handkerchiefs—so much so that he would chew through a dozen a day of shooting. Music blared on set. There was always time for Earl Grey tea. There was no talking or swearing allowed on set. Ford teetotaled his way through shooting, but once filming wrapped he would go on a bonanza of a binge, locking himself in his room for a week or so, dead drunk, clad in nothing but a bedsheet, and when he emerged, he would always vow to never do it again until next time.
America’s greatest cinematographer was a slob. His study was littered with books, paper, Oscars, screenplays, partially eaten food, ashtrays, dirty clothes, and run-of-the-mill garbage. He drove a beat-to-shit Ford that was so messy that he was often late to studio meetings because security guards could not believe the real John Ford would drive such a jalopy. Wife Mary would not let him drive their Rolls-Royce because she said he would just junk and stink it up.
Eat your hearts out, Oscar the Grouch and Oscar Madison!
Ford was no dumb son of a bitch, although he liked to cultivate his image as a “tough, two-fisted, hard-drinking Irish sonofabitch.” He relished mocking studio big wigs and ordered studio guards to keep Darryl Fucking Zanuck off the set at all costs and once paraded an executive in front of cast and crew proclaiming, “This is an associate producer. Take a good look at him, because you will not see him again until the picture is finished shooting.”
However, despite his son-of-a-bitch bluster, Ford was really a notorious softie who often helped those down on their Hollywood luck, often after berating them first and demanding they didn’t tell anybody about his generosity.
Author and Fordophile Nancy Schoenberger wrote, “Regarding Ford and Wayne ‘tweaking the conventions of what a “man” is today,’ I think Ford, having grown up with brothers he idolized, in a rough-and-tumble world of boxers, drinkers, and roustabouts, found his deepest theme in male camaraderie, especially in the military, one of the few places where men can express their love for other men. But he was concerned with men acting heroically, thus the most macho guy was not always the most heroic. McLaglen often presented the comic side of blustery masculinity. Ford brought out Wayne’s tenderness as well as his toughness, especially in Stagecoach.”
Long live John Ford, a long-lost American myth.
John Ford
February 1, 1894–August 31, 1973
YOU’RE Out!
(Chief Wahoo Death Mask)
First things first. Chief Wahoo, longtime mascot of the Cleveland Indians baseball team (1947–2018), is not to be confused with Big Chief Wahoo (1936–2004), a comic strip character loosely based on W. C. Fields—nope, no way.
Regular-sized Chief Wahoo was born in 1947. He was the creation of team owner Bill Veeck and a 17-year-old draughtsman by the name of Walter Goldbach* at J.F. Novack, the company responsible for the patches adorning Cleveland’s police officers and fire fighters. Veeck, already considered a lunatic in baseball, demanded his mascot “convey a spirit of pure joy and unbridled enthusiasm.” Goldbach wasn’t much of an Indian draughtsman and had trouble “figuring out how to make an Indian look like a cartoon.”
Right off the bat, the cartoon Indian was met with less-than-joy-and-unbridled-enthusiasm problems. Louis Sockalexis, an outfielder of the Indians’ predecessors in Cleveland baseball, the Spiders, asked the team to dump the new mascot right from the get-go. Sockalexis’s Penobscot tribe petitioned for the fella to be sent to the showers. Veeck danced around the issue by saying his logo was meant to honor Sockalexis.
Yeah, right, Bill. (This from a man who would later be responsible for the silliest uniforms in baseball history,† signing a three-foot, seven-inch tall man specifically for drawing walks, and Disco Demolition Night. Another time.)
There was another problem for Cleveland’s cartoon—he didn’t have a name. Cleveland pitcher Allie Reynolds, who was three-sixteenths Creek Indian, unintentionally came to the rescue on October 6, 1950. After losing the day before, the Cleveland Plain Dealer sports section headline screamed “Chief Wahoo Whizzing.” The subsequent story read, “Allie (Chief Wahoo) Reynolds, the copper-skinned Creek [lost to Philadelphia, but] in the clutches, though, the Chief was a standup gent—tougher than Sitting Bull.”
(Well, okay then. One would think Sitting Bull, the man who kicked lily-white Custer’s ass and was shot and killed by Standing Rock police officers who had surrounded his house firing en masse and willy-nilly into it, was a tad tougher than a stand-up gentleman baseball pitcher.)
Back to Allie’s nickname’s namesake. Sportswriters glommed on to Chief Wahoo and called him that for the rest of his stint in Cleveland’s starting rotation, and eventually the team’s cartoon mascot was slapped with the name and Chief Wahoo was officially born in both name and design. In 1951, he went through a bit of rhinoplasty and got a smaller nose and his skin color changed from yellow to red. The Plain Dealer illustrated wins by Chief Wahoo holding up an index finger and holding a lantern in the other hand—what a lantern has to do with baseball victories is beyond me. After losses, poor Chief Wahoo was depicted with a black eye, missing teeth, and rumpled feathers.
Ouch.
On the bright side, it as been estimated that Chief Wahoo was bringing in over $20,000,000 per year from tchotchkes in his . . . ahem . . . honor.
Troubles continued for the bruised and battered mascot. In 2008, Goldbach said, “He’s not a chief, he’s a brave. He has one feather. Chiefs have full headdresses.” Thanks, Walter, I guess. Legal actions and protestations from Native American groups picked up speed in the 1970s and eventually, finally Chief Wahoo met his demise after the 2018 season.
Happy hunting grounds, Chief.
Chief Wahoo
1947–2018
* Goldbach died one year after Chief Wahoo, on January 11, 2019. In April 2018, he’d said, “You look at Chief Wahoo and all he wants to tell you is, ‘Come on, let’s win a few games. I’ve got a smile on my face.’ That’s the way I see him.” It goes without saying others saw it differently.
† The 1976 Chicago White Sox uniforms, to be sartorially exact, featured shorts that made the team look like a church league slow-pitch softball team on a bad night. In a game against the Kansas City Royals, KC first baseman John Mayberry hollered, “You guys are the sweetest team we’ve seen yet!” While White Sox Ralph Garr was at bat, Mayberry shouted, “If you get over to first base, I’m gonna give you a big kiss!” Garr made it to first but, sadly, did not get his kiss.
Wounded Knee
(Spotted Elk Death Mask)
Spotted Elk was a chief of the Miniconjou, a tribe of the Lakota Sioux.
His name was Uŋpȟáŋ Glešká or Hupah Glešká.
Spotted Elk was renowned for his war and negotiating skills. He was nicknamed Big Foot (Si Tȟáŋka) by a United States soldier at Fort Bennett and is not be confused with Oglala Big Foot (aka Ste Si Tȟáŋka and Chetan keah). Big Foot is not necessarily a kind nickname for anybody.
On December 28, 1890, Spotted Elk peacefully surrendered to Major Samuel M. Whitside’s advance column of Colonel James W. Forsyth’s 7th Cavalry.[i] Whitside escorted Spotted Elk and his people to a campsite near Wounded Knee Creek. Spotted Elk was ill with pneumonia.
Later that evening, Forsyth order four Hotchkiss cannons into position next door to the camp. On the morning of December 29, 1890, Forsyth’s soldiers demanded all weapons needed to be handed over to them, immediately. Black Coyote, a deaf member of the band, presumably did not hear the command and his weapon discharged and all hell broke loose. In a matter of minutes, Forsyth’s men killed 153 members of the tribe, mostly women and children, and the pneumonia-ridden Spotted Elk.
The 7th suffered 25 killed and 39 wounded. Twenty members were awarded the Medal of Honor. In 1990, both houses of Congress condemned the massacre, formally expressing “deep regret.” Today, Wounded Knee is a National Historic Landmark.
Sadly, the photo of Spotted Elk’s corpse frozen in the South Dakota snow pretty much sums up the grisly affair in particular, and the whole Indian Wars thing in general.
Rest in peace, Spotted Elk. You deserve it.
Spotted Elk
1826–December 29, 1890
*The ugly irony that Forsyth’s command was the 7th Cavalry, Custer’s old command, is not lost of anybody with half a brain. It was payback.
Ginny
(Patsy Cline Death Mask)
THE Patsy Cline was born Virginia Patterson Hensley on September 8, 1932. Her friends and family called her Ginny.
Patsy had a lifelong relationship with death. She almost died of rheumatic fever at 13, saying, “I developed a terrible throat infection and my heart even stopped beating. The doctor put me in an oxygen tent. You might say it was my return to the living after several days that launched me as a singer. The fever affected my throat and when I recovered I had this booming voice like Kate Smith.” That booming voice started singing in the church choir with her beloved mother and found its way to live radio performances across Winchester, Virginia’s WINC. She sat in the lobby until they gave her an audition. DJ Joltin’ Jim McCoy remembers, “Well, if you’ve got the nerve to stand in front of that mic and sing over the air ways, I’ve got nerve enough to let you.”
That nerve went to sign her first recording contract in 1954 with Four Star Records for a mere split of 2.34% of royalties. Her first single, “A Church, a Courtroom, Then Goodbye,” flopped. At Four Star, she recorded in all kinds of styles, from gospel to rockabilly. Arthur Godfrey came to her rescue, inviting Patsy to sing on his hit show, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. Patsy planned on singing “A Poor Man’s Roses (Or a Rich Man’s Gold),” but Arthur wanted something else and argument ensued. Fortunately, Arthur got his way; his choice for little Patsy’s big voice: “Walkin’ After Midnight.”
In 1960, she signed with Decca, recording her first big hit “I Fall to Pieces” in 1961. She celebrated by almost dying in a car crash. On June 14, 1961, Patsy and her brother Sam were involved in a head-on car crash on the way to see her new Nashville home. Patsy was thrown through the windshield. She was not expected to live but, according to her, “Jesus was here, Charlie. Don’t worry. He took my hand and told me, ‘No, not now. I have other things for you to do.’” Her trademark hats, hairdos, heavy makeup, and scarves came from covering up her facial injuries from the crash.
Recalling the accident later, Patsy said, “I recorded a song called, ‘I Fall to Pieces,’ and I was in a car wreck. Now I’m worried because I have a brand-new record, and it’s called Crazy!”
On March 3, 1963, Cline sang at a benefit at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall, in the Kansas part of Kansas City. She had a terrible cold but performed three shows, one at 2:00, 5:15, and 8:15. Her final song was “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone.” On the evening of March 5, 1963, the plane carrying her took off in high winds and rain and crashed. All aboard died instantly. Her watch was recovered; it read 6:20, the exact time of her death.
Her last known words were, “Don’t worry about me, Hoss. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time.”
She will sing forever and ever. Amen.
Patsy Cline
September 8, 1932–March 5, 1963
DEAD COWBOY STALIN
(Cowboy Stalin Death Mask)
Joseph Stalin loved American Cowboy movies.
This is odd considering Stalin loved next to nothing and made a rather nasty habit of proving so.
He was particularly fond of John Ford Westerns starring John Wayne. He thought the pair would make good Soviets.
Stalin even went as far as to consider himself a cowboy.
What’s the matter, Joe?
Is being a Bloodthirsty Mass-Murdering Paranoid Schizophrenic Commie Bastard Asshole Whack Job not good enough for you, Comrade Needy Joseph Vissarionosonofabitch Stalin?
Unhappy trails, Joe, you Dead Commie Cowboy Rat Bastard.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin
December 18, 1878–March 5, 1953