Bad Bart

The Outlaw

Charles Earl Bowles ( 1829 - 1888 ) also known as Black Bart was an English born outlaw who operated in and around Northern California and Southern Oregon. He left behind poetic messages in two of his robberies ... and earned the attention of people in general ... as a man of letters brought to ill repute in times less favorable. However he was thereafter ... brought into popular acclaim ... as a bandit with a reputation ... and attracted much in the way of folklore.

The notorious outlaw passed through our viewing pleasure … in cartoons … and brings to the experience of our entertainment … the epitome of the ultimate villain … has no remorse … and for all intents and purposes … views his life as being right … and everyone else as wrong. Its a quaint point of view … and his personality was presented ... not without some clownish aspect. But his willfulness draws our interest … and the inquiry into … the nature of such villainous personalities ... who are also men of letters.

 

Its common for most people … brought to justice on issues … to simply create an acquiescence … and be done with it. The force of public opinion … our social organization … values … and laws … bring a powerful intimidation to any one man's sense of being right. That man finds he has to fight the whole world … to preserve his sense of being the one who is right … in his individual view. Its a battle he fights his entire life.

 

Our social norms of thought … would handle the situation very easily. At the adolescent level … the kid would say … ' so many people saying the same thing can't be wrong.' At the teen level … he is likely to say … ' if you can't beat 'em … join 'em.' But at the father level … something curious happens … to persuade him to stick to his guns … at the risk of a prison sentence … or possibly death. And its here that we begin our inquiry into the matter.

 

The sages of the past … who wrote the wonderful treatises of human life … and presented the basic truths of life to man … discovered these truths in the very depths of their beings. It must have certainly represented a profound experience of mind … heart … and soul. It communicating that to his fellow men … it would have found an acceptance that was similar in intensity. Such experiences … in man today … exercise a dormant but subtle influence to life … and anyone figuring they might influence some of these … at that level … better dig in for a long engagement.

 

I'm thinking … that's the way … our American friends … came to name the person today … in his chosen vocation. Bad Bart … is a substitute for … Bad Bard … the notorious poet from the past … whose point of view about life … has undergone considerable alteration in our lives … but waits to be convinced … that its so. And its no mean … attempt at persuasion either. To convince a Bad Bard … a man must fulfill all the criteria in the test … including dreams … imagination … the arts … science … and the evolving nature of reality.

 

Such individuals from the past … present a strange picture of contradiction today … especially … in comparing their original experience of … dreams … and the way that … its combined with the blood … bones … tissue … and heart of their physical natures today. We sometimes use the term … Renaissance Man ' … in a description of what we feel inside … away from the hustle and bustle of modern life. And from here … Bad Bart makes his bad jokes … about everyone apparently conforming to the modern experience of society.

 

Such comments he makes are plenty … and it preserves his own … authentic natures from another time. ' Suffer fools gladly ' … is a common usage. So are … ' if the shoe fits … ' … ' calling a spade a spade ' … ' surrounded by peasants ' … ' his only redeeming feature is his boring nature ' … ' a talent for the obvious ' … ' a gift of dreams ' … ' never heard it said that way before ' … and ' that must be true about some part of the world.' And it must surprise us … that much of these is in common social usage … especially with close friends.

 

But Bad Bard … is not without his redeeming qualities. He is after all … a man concerned with the truth. And so in a long association with his pals … when things are getting too warm … and affirmed in its self gratification … he turns against himself … and is applying his vitriolic humor … on himself. Which makes Bart … a man who's constantly on the move … from job to job … wife to wife … place to place … and eventually settles down some place … away from the maddening crowd.

 

And some day … beside that quiet lake … under the stars … he comes face to face … with his man from the past. And he tells him … he can no longer continue to support his ways … the way … it was expressed in the pristine nature of passions … and the lifestyle that it fosters. And its possible … if that's what he truly wants … his man from the past will leave … leaving Bart … in the tears of a life … that's been spent chasing ghosts … and distancing himself from the very people … and society … that's the daily life today.

 

It almost feels like a fight with his girlfriend … or a dear dear friend. There's so much in the nature of trust … love … strength … and success … in that relationship. It was the very motivation for the way he began his life … as an adolescent … in these times. But what will he say about the physical evidence of a broken family … lost careers … a run-in with the law … and the bouts with the father. The evidence it would appear is overwhelming … against the will that he continues to exercise … in his defense.

 

 In Native American stories … the long standing feud between two tribes … is brought to a head … in the life of one man. He's had enough. He takes a leather tong … a wooden stake and a stone … walks up to the neighboring tribe … ties his leg to the stake that he drives into the ground. And with club and tomahawk in hand … calls on all and sundry … to bring the fight to a finish. It certainly is finished for one man … and in the lives to follow … he's not gonna create an inordinate fondness for the lives of long ago.

 

The callous Colorado … in ' Mackenna's Gold ' … probably figured he had one more fight in him … and brought everything to bear … in the search for Indian gold … up there in thar hills. No doubt Bart would do something similar. But being a man of a greater refinement … he must meet with the Bard of yore … and contest verse for verse … in the refinement of life … that he has come to express in these times … and hold it up for adulation … beyond what the previous Bard accomplished. Then its finished.