Doc Holliday

But Joab does not have David's moral structure.

I always told the kids at the universities when I taught this, if David was Wyatt Earp, Joab was Doc Holliday.

This guy will bust a cap in you for a quarter.

And, and he was, he was a lethal human being.

In practice, a gunfighter could work as just about anything: an officer of the law, of course, like Wyatt Earp or Bat Masterson, or an outlaw, like Sam Bass or Joaquin Murietta.

Some were gamblers, like Doc Holliday or Ben Thompson, or cattlemen, like New Mexico's infamous Clay Allison, a man you didn't wanna get angry.

When he went to a dentist and the poor guy pulled the wrong tooth, Allison pinned him down on the floor and yanked out one of his teeth without Novocaine.

And don't get me started on the time he rode on a horse naked through a tough Texas town.

All these activities created opportunities for gunplay, especially the rise of the ultraviolent cattle industry.

As we'll see, those Kansas cow towns soon emerged as the first notable theater of gunfighter-style shootouts as masses of unruly Texas cowboys first came face to face with northern lawmen who didn't appreciate having their domiciles shot up by drunken drovers.

It's amazing how many talented gunfighters, from Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson to Doc Holliday and Ben Thompson, were first noticed by the press in those towns.

For a time, they kinda became the Madison Square Garden of the gunfighter era, a place where all the heavyweights fought.

I did a radio show on a station called Talk 92.1.

It was in downtown Valdosta, and in an office space that was once the dentist practice or dental practice of one Doc Holliday, the eventual Western folklore hero that went out with Wyatt Earp and the boys and Young Guns and, and whatnot down the road.

When he was a dentist, he practiced in Valdosta, Georgia, and it was the same exact office where my first radio job was.

No one asked for that fact, but I shared it with you.

So the question is this.

Have you ever heard of the man that took out more outlaws than Wyatt Earp, Matt Matteson, Doc Holliday-

[laughs]

...

It's like the old West, man.

It's like Billy the Kid and Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp coming to town.

They want the shootout.

They thrive on the shootout.

You look at the 90s, and I always use that as an example too in terms of awards.

Like how the hell did Val Kilmer not win the Oscar for Doc Holliday? I go, did you see who was in movies that year? You could have given an Oscar to every nominee

and say, yeah.

And then once in a while, you'll see Jeffrey Rush in Sense and Sensibility, right? Movies that I didn't watch.

No, it's the Macho Man Randy Savage, along with The Hot Rod Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Arizona, home of the Gunfight at OK Corral, where the Clanton gang bit the dust and got buried with their boots on, thanks to Doc Holliday and thanks to Wyatt, uh, Wyatt, Wyatt, uh, thanks to Wyatt Earp.

Earp.

Wyatt Earp.

He doesn't care.

Doc Holliday.

I'm your Uncle Barry.

Just calm, cool.