The Bat: Trouble-Shooter

24 November 2025

Yesterday, I commented to Dear Husband the lively exchange that comprised my introduction to a young man, an electronics technician for the Associated Press.  It was early summer when I ran into him (quite literally) in a soda shoppe in Washington, D.C.

“I’m a trouble-shooter,” He said.

“I’m a trouble-maker,” I replied.  “Please don’t shoot me.”

In the end, five long years later, I had to shoot him, metaphorically speaking.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned those lines to you,” I confessed to Dear Husband.

“No,” he half-laughed.  “No, you have not.  But they are good!!! . . . Maybe you can use them in a Western.”

I pondered the idea, but decided that women Back Then weren’t that honest and direct.  Frankly speaking, and I do speak frankly, women today aren’t that honest and direct.

Neither are men, for that matter.

And that matter does matter, at least it does to me.  Things were different then, when it came to a man and a woman speaking plainly and clearly.  You didn’t lay your cards on the table cause . . . well, it just wasn’t done.

People didn’t trust each other, right off the bat.  The cards were held very close to the chest, for reasons of survival, propriety, custom, and, at times, to create that air of mystery that is presently concocted online with the preposterous assistance of high-priced consultant-advice, and the phoniness that seems to be the Mark (if not plague) of Modernity.

There’s also the other extreme:  TMI.

The spilling-your-guts approach to intimacy is not only vulgar, it’s counter-productive.  I mean, who really wants to know how you perform those basic bodily functions in a video-gram intended for publicity — to get YOU noticed.

I don’t have time for that sort of thing.  Nor do I have time to figure out The Hidden Agenda of the Passive-Aggressive Poseur.  I’ve seen too much of that re-run, re-run too much, too many times.

What I yearn for today is the politically-incorrect package of a Hero who’s still out there, hiding out somewhere, lest he get attacked for being who and what he is.

In the USA, he’ll get some traction as a man of action which, according to the cultural snobs who have no culture, implies he’s a Neanderthal.  Which makes him a hero in my book!

In the UK, (which does not have a First Amendment, much less a written Constitution), he’ll get fined for Electronic Self-Expression.  The 2023 UK Digital Safety Act is the latest Digital Funding Scheme by the Bloated Leviathan Guvmint.  It has all the parliamentary panache of Cyber-Strip-Poker.

In France, he’ll get arrested for tossing a tomato at the French version of the USA His Fraudulency:  Monsieur Tricheur.  “Tricheur” in French means “trickster”, or “cheater”, especially at playing cards.

I shudder to think what a Real Man Down Under would go through today for being a real man (hah, down under!).  That whole Crocodile persona was a huge crock!

When I think of a true trouble-shooter — one for whom I’d enjoy making trouble — I envision Bat Masterson.  He was the James Bond of the West!

He exuded sartorial excellence, subtle wit with words, smooth and judicious control of his weapon(s).   No gun control for Bat!  And the babes, well, he was supposedly looking for them, but methinks they came looking for him.

Just to show what a superb actor was “Gene Barry”, these facts stand (dapper and determined) in evidence:

Born Eugene Klass in 1919 in New York City, Mr. Barry was descended from eastern European Jews. Those legal immigrants from Latvia and Poland passed on some incredible genes to Gene.  Acting, singing, playing violin (as a child), he was versatile, to say the least.  Barry, who chose his stage name to honor John Barrymore, succeeded phenomenally on the Broadway stage, in film, and, later, in many TV shows of many genres.

He broke the acting mold during his stint from 1958-1961 as Bat Masterson, and he didn’t originally want the part.  He eschewed the role of a typical cowboy.  When he learned, however, about the gold-tipped cane (that contained a hidden sword), and the derby hat, he jumped at this plum portrayal.

The derby hat and the cane were real-life features of the historic Bat Masterson, born Bartholemew William Barclay Masterson in 1853 in Quebec, Canada.  Barry infused his “Bat” —the Western legend of long-ago marshal-gambler-journalist fame — with his own debonair charm and half-smiling elegance.  He thereby cemented this characterization and arrived at a celluloid hero that dominated all prior ones.  It also decisively set the stage for any future interpretations.

Bat Masterson, the show, though, was not a hit.  It was cancelled after three seasons.  It did subsequently appear as a Dell Comic Book for a few years!

Sadly, but surely, “Bat” slowly drowned amidst the sea of TV Westerns during this ground-breaking era in American small-screen entertainment.  The Hollywood studios, once again, and, as always, believed the audience could never get too much of a good thing!  The TV Western, produced by the studios, flooded that market like a tidal wave, re-using plots, and re-cycling actors, like plastic parsley!

Before the advent of treating human beings like disposable and re-inventable units of plastic parley, there was The Bat.  I say it is time to reclaim the word, bat, and make it an edged-weapon!

The following lyrics from the televisual theme song state his case — and his cane — very clearly, and directly!

Bat Masterson

Music by Havens Wray, with lyrics by Bart Corwin

Back when the West was very young

There lived a man named Masterson

He wore a cane and derby hat

They called him Bat, Bat Masterson.

A man of steel, the stories say

But women's eyes all glanced his way

A gambler's game he always won

His name was Bat, Bat Masterson.

The trail that he blazed is still there

No one has come since, to replace his name

And those with too ready a trigger

Forgot to figure on his lightning cane.

Now in the legend of the west

One name stands out of all the rest

The man who had the fastest gun

His name was Bat, Bat Masterson.