Normal Is a Setting on Your Clothes Dryer
  
   Hopalong         Lord Robert
Today – The Hopalong Cassidy Show became the first regular Western series to be aired on network television (NBC) 62 years ago today – unleashing an electronic pantheon American male archetypes as moral figures struggling to survive in a Manichean wilderness. Having starred (and earned millions) in 66 black-and-white B-Grade feature films, the white haired William Boyd embodied the classic hero in the traditional “Cowboy Morality Plays” – who never drew first, swore, smoked, drank, had sex, or treatment women and children in an ungentlemanly fashion. That said, the traditional American Western has undergone a paradigm shift from the innocent world of Boyd, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry to the drunken, foul-mouthed fornicators, hero-bullies and unwashed sociopaths populating the lower depths of HBO’s Deadwood – begging obvious questions like What happened? and Why?
Hoppy, Gene and Me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4zhJbzs9es
Deadwood – Two Great Moments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8FPZFKqlAI&NR=1

Birthday Boy – Lord Robert Dudley, the long-time beloved of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I, was born 479 years ago today. Intelligent, polished and darkly handsome, Dudley’s role as Elizabeth’s less-than-secret lover was long over-shadowed his considerable talents as a key advisor to one of the most powerful women in the Western History. In a letter to Spain’s King Phillip II, the Spanish ambassador to Elizabeth’s court reported: “Lord Robert has come into so much favor that he does whatever he likes with affairs and it is even said that her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night.” Dudley’s relationship with Elizabeth was marked by abiding loyalty on his part in response to her elevating him to great heights followed by periods of jealous rejection sparked by his two marriages. Following Dudley’s sudden death at 56, Elizabeth’s kept his last letter in her beside treasure box until her death 15 years later.
Elizabeth & Robert: Their Story – From the Film Elizabeth
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3tK62aXhwY&feature=related