THE ONLY REAL ICON IN AMERICAN HISTORY, GABBEY HAYES

In my previous blog regarding the blatant incorrect usage of the word ICON,  I suggested keeping a watch for the word, and gaining an insight into the user.  Lately I have seen the word used to describe the Golden Gate bridge, Madonna,  a jazz musician from New Orleans who started in a whore house, Clint Eastwood, Clint’s poncho in “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”, Budweiser beer and the brewers downfall and buyout, the wife and mother in Leave it to Beaver, and dozens of other nonsensical objects that have nothing to do with the Websters and Oxford Dictionary definition of correct usage, nor the original Greek and Latin origins, meaning “a likeness.”  A real estate agent in Telluride Colorado recently used the word icon to describe a parcel of dirt, a ranch, trying to tap into the modern marketing ploy which uses the word icon to describe autos, clothing lines, porn stars, sex symbols, actors, sports figures, writers, every judas duck marketing guru uses the word to gain some kind of recognition for their product.  It is part of the subtle brainwashing that Norman Mailer referred to in one of the last interviews with his son in the book, “The Big Empty.”  Mailer expresses the idea that corporate America has used subtle brainwashing techniques that are far better than those used by the Soviet Union, who could not sell atheism to the masses.  One of the worst examples of this pathetic display of the bad use of the English language, was in the late summer of 2010 when Chris Matthews of MSNBC described the Gulf oil disaster as an “Iconic catastrophe.”  It cannot possibly get any more sophomoric than that.  Has Matthews ever read  a book, has anyone ever seen him read anything?  I maintain and declare today, that there is only one icon in the entire history of America, aside from the religious images of Christ, seen in churches, painted on a wooden back ground.  Gabby Hayes, the western movie actor was and is now declared an Icon.  He had an unbelievably quick draw against the bad men in the movies, he walked in 4 directions at once, he looked like a hobo that just got off the train in the 30′s from a northbound out of Oklahoma, and he stuttered when he wanted to confuse outlaws and other cowboys.  If you saw one of his movies, as he walked through a barroom one night after a day of chasing outlaws, his image somehow flashed in the mirror behind the bar, and he had a profound similarity to Jesus Christ, full beard, angelic expression, and it flashed on a panel of wood on the wall.  Gabby Hayes, American western movie actor Icon, the only one that was real and lasting.