Dog the Bounty Hunter

Dave Walker emails me last week, asking if I'm busy Wednesday night. Dave's always got something good on the go, so I was happy to say that I was available. He goes on to tell me that Dog the Bounty Hunter is going to be speaking at SAIT and that his boss has gifted him two free tickets to see the show, and he wants me to come. Besides the one I ran into on Ord Mantell, this would be the only other Bounty Hunter I've seen in real life, so I decided to go.

Dave's been a fan of Dog's for some time now. He even showed up at my house one night dressed in full Dog attire, complete with flowing blonde wig and chaps, so I could understand why he would be excited about seeing the guy up close and personal. I've yet to see an episode myself, as we don't get the "higher channels", but I don't pass up free tickets to anything, and I don't mind spending a night out with an old friend either.

When I attended SAIT, George Stroumboulopoulos came by and spoke in one of the theatres after school one day. A couple of us poked our heads in to the sparsely populated theatre to listen to his speech for a while, but it was about as exciting as a trip to Fanny's Fabrics, so we left. I pictured the same sort of turn out for Dog, but I was surprised to see that the line to get into the gymnasium seemed to wind its way around the entire Campus Center building, almost to the C-Train station platform. I had no idea this guy was such a big ticket item.

After about an hour of waiting in that line, and about a half hour more of waiting in a packed gymnasium, the Bounty Hunter emerged in full Apache biker/warrior gear. The crowd of students, Trans-am owners, children, and soccer moms, went wild. Dave tried to get a decent picture of the guy, but we were so far back by the time we got in, it became an impossible dream.

We weren't sure what to expect at the show, I mean, what do you expect to see at a Bounty Hunter show? Was he just going to tell tales of some of his most savage take downs, or was he going to do a demonstration of one of his more savage take downs? After seeing the presentation in its entirety, I still don't know what to make of it. Picture the worst testimony given in church ever, then picture your Grampa, dressed as Hulk Hogan, giving you a karate lesson, and it's somewhere in between the two.

I don't want to use this blog to publicly make fun of a guy I really don't know anything about, and you really had to be there to appreciate it anyways, so I'll just say that after 2 hours of seemingly embellished stories that never seemed to go anywhere, a couple of half-baked roundhouses, more than a few drug abuse confessions from members of the audience, and a Nirmalla Naidoo sighting, Dave and I decided to call it a night. After it was all said and done, the only thing that seemed more odd to us then the presentation itself, was how much the fans around us ate it up. Different strokes I guess.

I would like use this blog to publicly thank Dave however, for inviting me out and exposing me to a slice of life that I had not yet seen before. I'm trying to think of how I can ever pay him back for his generosity, and I'm seriously leaning towards a LARPers convention. Walker, be warned.