The Black Cat Cowboy Who Lost His Leg But Won The Girl

   April 18, 2024

   It's rare when horror stories have a happy ending. This is one of them.

Danny and Mary Romero

The Black Cat Cowboy

   Danny Romero is a Kingman kid who lost his leg, but won the girl. He was helping load 800 head of cattle on the Sevens, a storied ranch northeast of Seligman, Arizona, when he banged his knee on this loading chute.

The Loading Chute From Hell

   "I woke up ten days later looking up at a doctor who told me the infection—necrotizing fasciitis—was crawling up my leg an inch an hour. They took my leg and I was there for five weeks. In fact, I turned 36 in ICU. I was born on Route 66 and damn near died on 66."

—Danny Romero

Is It Too Early To Start On Volume III?

 April 17, 2024

   What is it about cheesy that sometimes can be so satisfying? Or put another way, some stuff can be so cheesy it's actually kind of endearing.

First Class Cheese? Or, So Bad It's Good?

   Sometimes cheesy is way too close to awful and sometimes classic literature is awful close to cheesy.

   Bottom line: get ready for some major cheese in The 66 Kids, Volume III.

   So, what exactly is cheesy? Basically cheesy is bad taste done so boldly it almost passes as good taste.

   Can you use "cheesy" in a sentence? Yes, a cheesy smile is wide but not sincere.

   Can you show me an example of a cheesy, goofball look? 

   Sure.

The Stifleman?

   Can you show me a photo of a certain granddaughter doing a cheesy pose?

   Absolutely.

Frances Mocks Up Some Major Cheese

Can you show me two cheeseballs who don't even mind if you call them that?

Marshall & Me Tee Hee Hee

"Two kids who have grown older but have never grown up."

—Some Critic With A Cheesy Sense of Humor

One Strange Hat: The Deep Dish Sombrero

 April 16, 2024

   Several years ago I ran across one of the strangest hat styles I have ever encountered in my many years of studying and collecting hats. 

A Bad Basket Gone Awry Sombrero?

   At first I thought it was a one-off, some weird byproduct of a basket weaver converting a wicker basket into a sombrero. But then, I started noticing more of these deep dish hats in photographs, like this one:

Deep Dish Sombrero Exhibit B

   And, then I began to spot more. . .

Deep Dish Sombrero Exhibit C

   And more. . .

Deep Dish Sombrero Exhibit D

(the dude in the doorway)

Deep Dish Sombrero Exhibit E

Deep Dish Sombrero Exhibit F

Deep Dish Sombrero?

Or a literal basket on the head of a vendor?

 

   So, what is this strange style of headgear called? Did it have a name? Was it prevalent in one region of Mexico? Did it have a function, besides shade? Who thought it was cool to wear? Why do we not see these styles in Westerns?

"I see by your outfit you enjoy being a basket head."

—Old Vaquero Saying

AI Beauty Pageant? AI-Yi-Yi!

 April 16, 2024

   The 66 Kids is in the can. It's been fun, but it is done.

AI-Yi-Yi

   Get ready for the world's first AI beauty pageant, featuring AI-generated models competing for the title of Miss AI. Unlike conventional beauty contests, this competition evaluates participants not only on aesthetics but on the technical sophistication behind their creation and their social media influence.

Miss Cringy Congeniality

(sorry, too creepy even for me)

   Meanwhile, in analogue news:

BEAUTY PAGEANT SUED FOR CHOOSING WINNER BASED ON APPEARANCE

"It is unrealistic to expect people to see you as you see yourself."

—Epictetus

Another Dan-O-Rama Panorama Orgasma!

 April 15, 2024

   Last day on book. Clean up on aisle six. Plugging holes and fixing orphans. Everyone is a little buggy (we all worked straight thru the weekend) and it doesn't help that we are in our separate silos. We miss the board on the wall in the office and, unfortunately, the chain of emails and disparate texts is a big problem and a rabbit hole of confusion, to say the least.

   Still, I love the process and what is lost in the techno-swamp is still a huge high in terms of creative collaboration. Check out this spread that Dan The Man turned this morning. Could have been a throw away doubletruck, which got left until the end, but look at this cute little puppy!

Another Dan-O-Rama Panorama Orgasma!

   I tell you, that Kingman kid has a future in design. He also colorized both bottom images from badly faded photos. A treasure all by itself. Not to brag (too much) but here's another one, just for grins.

Link Wray Paved the Way

   And, here's a cartoon I have been putting off for a month or two. Finally had the time this morning to knock it out, to plug one of the last holes in the book.

Daily Whip Out:

"When Commie Surfers And Mucous Cowboys Meet!"

   Yes, this is an homage (or, a parody!) of the Charlie Russell painting, "When Sioux and Blackfeet Meet," but you probably knew that. This is my take on the Battle of Perfume Pass, where nothing actually happened, but it just wants to look like this and perhaps in the poster for the Netflix Special it will look like this.

"Everything is historic, nothing is true."

—Old Cynic Saying

When Static Was The Only Sound On The Radio

 April 14, 2024

   With all of us connected 24/7 it's sometimes hard to remember that it wasn't all that long ago when there were sections of Arizona that were out of range.

When Static Was The Only Sound On The Radio

   After WWII, on long stretches of Route 66, radio and music were simply out of reach. When you were on the road you mostly got static and distant livestock reports and sometimes as you got closer to a town you might pick up a high-pitched hillbilly song and country fiddles going in and out. 

The Arizona Wranglers

   In the late fifties, things began to change and a distant rumble, like a coming storm, could be heard on the Mother Road.

Passing Lane Fever on old 66

Daily Whip Out: "Link Wray's 'Rumble'"

Not to overstate it, but Link changed everything.

Here's How Marshall Saw It

"Hell, I was just a kid working after school at Fred Fegley’s gas station during the glorious heydays of Route 66, filling the gas tanks of the tourists listening to them complain about the high price of gas (31.9) a gallon, never realizing I was an eyewitness to an important chapter in America’s rich history." 

—Marshall Trimble

Funeral for A Friend, Logo Featuring My Mama

 April 13, 2024

   Today is the funeral for Fayrene Hume, the Angel of Ashfork, as Marshall Trimble calls her in our new book, "The 66 Kids." We have dedicated the book to her loving memory.

Fayrene with Marshall Trimble

On The Hood And In The Hood

   My mother came to Kingman in 1933, after her father went broke in the Great Depression (he bought his dream ranch in 1929). And, yes, that is her, above, on the hood of her dad's Dodge pickup at the Diamond Bar Ranch north of Kingman.

   My earliest memory is of being on the road in the back seat with my dad driving, somewhere west of Peach Springs, Arizona. Growing up, it seemed like we were always on the road, actually THAT road: Route 66. As I mentioned in the first volume of this series, every summer we made the trek back to the family farm in Iowa. And, not only were the memories vivid, some were life changing—when I bought a bogus Billy the Kid photo at the Longhorn Museum east of Albuquerque, New Mexico, you can draw almost a straight line from there to owning True West magazine, which is also where I met Marshall Trimble and we have worked together for the past 25 years. 

   About a year ago, Marshall and I compared notes and found out we had a lot in common growing up on 66 and we decided we should write a book about it! So, as you have no doubt discovered, we have.

   And, when that book is finally printed, we are going to do a live version of the show in Prescott at the Elks Theater on May 24. Here is Dan The Man's clever logo for that event:

Dan-O-Rama Panorama

   And, yes, that is my mama ridin' the hood of that Ford Fairlane! What goes around, comes around!

"We are like books. Most people only see our cover, the minority read only the introduction, many people believe the critics. Few will know our content."

—Emile Zola

  

Hitcher From Heaven, Boxlip Darrell Plus The History of The Arizona Historical Society

 April 12, 2024

   Here's a road trip fantasy for all the guys I grew up with.

Daily Whip Out: "Goin' My Way?"

   Yes, this is the ultimate road trip fantasy for almost every guy of a certain age. A long stretch of barren highway and a lone hitchhiker, alluring and innocent, yet somehow road worthy. I must report that this fantasy evaporates completely when these same guys become fathers of daughters who might flirt with the very idea of hitchhiking!

   And speaking of daughters who fall for guys in my tribe.

Daily Whip Out:

"Boxlip Darrell Goes to Prom"

Boxlip Darrell

   He was small but he had a big mouth on him. Actually, he had a very profane mouth. Plus he had a devilish theory: if you said a swear word loud enough—like when you were entering English class for example—nobody would believe you were saying a swear word. So, every day during fifth period in Mrs. Logsdon's class, everyone would wait with baited breath for Darrell to come through the door and shout out some profanity. It sounded like CUN-FUN with a slight distortion, but it was painfully clear if you were in on the joke. I'm happy to say, his theory held for the entire year. Our dear teacher merely smiled and welcomed him to class. Surely, she must have thought, he couldn't be swearing in English class? Of course not.

   He was a devout Mormon, of course.

   The Arizona 1864 legislation about abortion has been in the news lately, but it's also good to point out a positive aspect of that legislative effort:

   "In 1863 Congress passed the Arizona Organic Act which determined that 14 year old New Mexico Territory (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848 and Gadsden Purchase 1854) would be divided in half. In 1864 the present day boundary between AZ and NM was drawn, a territorial governor named and a legislature elected/ chosen. They met in Prescott in a recently built log building (a replica of this building can be visited at the Sharlot Hall Museum) for 43 days. Among items passed into law; AT was divided into four Counties, a legal code decided upon, a system of schools somewhat established and, recognizing the historical importance of what they were doing, an Arizona Historical Society was formed. Now, 160 years later, AZ is a State (1912), there are 15 counties, the state school system boasts 3 major Universities and AHS is thriving. AHS morphed from what was essentially a social club debating exactly who was a pioneer and keeper/displayer of private collections of things like Apache basketry (in spite of the 1906 Antiquities Act, (cough, cough). In the 1920s AHS transitioned toward the research, educational and research/publishing institution it is today."

—Greg Scott

"Our school was so small, we had Driver's Ed and Sex Ed in the same car."

—Boxlip Darrell