Watching Historically Accurate Westerns With True West Maniacs Like Me

December 23, 2024

   Deena's family flew in from Seattle yesterday so we have a full house.

   Look who's reading Old Vaquero Sayings. . .

A young vaquero reads Old Vaquero Sayings

   This was created by Rooster Rob. So cool. You can still get a signed numbered edition at the66kids.com

Flashback Whip Outs

   Looking at old sketchbooks this morning I found this sequence of adobes from visiting a monastery in Peru back in 2008.

Daily Whip Out: "Monastery Side Streets"

Daily Whip Out:

"Peruvian Back Street Alley"

Daily Whip Outs: "Peruvian Sketches"

(August 24, 2008)

   Taped a new YouTube video this last week. Here's a sneak peek. . 

The Ground Rules

   There are basically three levels to watching a Western. The first level is you don't really care about historical accuracy, you just want a good story. The second one is, you are intrigued and wonder if the story is even true and the third level is, you bark at the screen, "What kind of idiots would put an 1895 Winchester in a movie that takes place in 1881?"

   I don't want to frighten you, but I'm a couple levels beyond the Winchester nitpicker. And I am not the only one with this affliction. The last time I looked there were more than 350,000 True West Maniacs on our website complaining about historical accuracy in Westerns. Or more succinctly, the lack of it. One of my crazy friends, who I won't throw under the bus, but I will say his name rhymes with Rusty York, thinks we should go back and recut all the old Westerns from the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s utilizing AI and CGI and digitally put in the historically correct hats on everybody in all the Westerns. The absurdity of even thinking of doing this proves Dave Barry's astute observation that "there is a fine line between a hobby and mental illness."

   It will be up next week.

"The best of us as storytellers, present an alternative to the story the bosses are telling.”

—David Milch, reflecting on the George Hearst character in his show Deadwood

The Hint of A Tear

 December 22, 2024

   Looking back I didn't have enough talent for the concept. It was a good one. A rough and tough cowgirl in a rougher world. But then, Larry McMurtry couldn't make her whole either, so that gives me some hope. I still think about her with fondness and even though she's been absent for a couple decades now I still think she could fly with the right story. Although some say the times have passed her by.

   Or, have they?

Daily Whip Out: "Oh, Sue"

All of which begs the question: what would Honkytonk Sue do on the last night before they close the doors for good at the Heatwave Cafe?

Daily Whip Out: "The Hint of a Tear"

   One of the problems with the word tear is that it is two-faced: you can almost cry and "tear up," or, you can use your fists and "tear up the joint." Spelled exactly the same. Too bad, because the hint of a tear is a decent title, unless you read it the wrong way. And, maybe that is a good thing. Expressions of grief can go both ways. Sometimes, you are in so much grief you really want to tear up the joint!

Last Fandango at The Heatwave Cafe

   "Someone is going to pay for what they did."

—Donna Jean

Cowboy Medal Winners Hang Out In Front Yard

 December 21, 2024

   A certain grandson asked his grandpa if he wanted a cowboy medal and, well, what cowboy doesn't want one, so young Fenton made me one. 

Cowboy Medal Winners Hang

Out In Front Yard

Here's the back story

    We were both working on art projects in my studio today, when out of the blue, Fenton asked me if I wanted a Cowboy Medal. When I said I certainly did, he asked for a photo of cowboys from a book and a pair of scissors.

   He quickly found a cowboy photo from a book I provided him and then he drew the cowboy in the photo and then asked for scissors and scotch tape. 

   Here we are at the presentation ceremony in the front yard. It was a total honor but it did take this old cowboy five minutes to get up off my knee.

"What d'ya want a medal, or something?"

—Old Schoolyard Taunt

Yard Sale Art vs. Pedro Paramo's Monastery Plazas

 December 20, 2024

   From my sketchbook archives, here's a page of monastery plaza sketches I did in Lima, Peru when Kathy and I ventured to South America to visit our son, Thomas Charles, who was in the Peace Corp in a mountain village named Yanque.

Daily Whip Outs "Monastery Plazas"

(September 1, 2008)

   Meanwhile, speaking of all points south. . .

Great hats, so-so Story

(Manuel Garcia-Rulfo from "Lincoln Lawyer")

   There is a new show on Netlix from Mexico and it has the coolest collection of hats I have seen in a long time. Unfortunately, the story doesn't quite work for me and I found myself mystified because I really wanted to dig the show. So my son Tomas ordered the book—Pedro Paramo—and I found out that the film is based on a revered Mexican book by Juan Rulfo.

"Almost 70 years after its publication, the novel's impact continues to resonate, making it one of the most significant works in Mexican literature. Directing this film adaptation has been an exciting challenge and a deeply personal journey that has led me to explore my own connections to the ghosts of previous generations of my family, just as Juan Preciado did when he arrived in Comala in search of his father, a man named Pedro Páramo."

—Rodrigo Prieto, the director

   Closer to home. . .

Mick Davis Hallway

   Mick Davis sure has good taste in art. Those are all Triple B works of art he bought at a yard sale and I must admit they look better here than in my yard.

"Where your fear is, there is your task."

—Carl Jung

Good Manners Meets Skibidi Toilet Training

 December 19, 2024

   So, it's my birthday (78) and my zany wife got me a couple very zany presents, one of which is a T-Shirt that says "Studio." The inside joke here is one time I asked her where she was going and she said, "Jazzercize" and I quipped that it was a good thing she had on a T-shirt that said, "Jazzercize" so she would know where she is and so she got me a payback custom T-shirt to remind me of where I am most days.

Studio Shirt at Studio Door

(she also got me a book on 1001 movie posters)

   Meanwhile, on my morning walk I had a couple new members along for my Step Entourage and here we are halfway up the hill towards Morningstar.

Harper, Uno and Fenton Out for A Stroll

   Just prior to this photo being taken, we met my neighbor Todd who was out walking his two dogs, Nammi (short for Tsunami) and Jelly and when I introduced my grandkids to Todd he said "Nice to meet you" and as we walked on, I told Harper and Fenton that after you meet someone for the first time and then get ready to leave you need to say, "It was nice to meet you." It is polite and shows good manners.

   So, not long after the above photo was taken we were walking back to the house when we met a couple of our other neighbors to the south of us, Mike and Sheri, who were out with their dogs in a golf cart. I introduced Harper and Fenton to them and we chatted for a few moments and then as we parted, Harper said without any prompting from me, "It was nice to meet you," and I beamed. I was so proud of her! I turned and said to Fenton, "What do you say, Fenton?" 

   He replied, "Skibidi Toilet."

"Someone who is obsessing over some unimportant thing."

—Gen Alpha slang, definition of Skibidi Toilet

How to Properly Telegraph A Joke

 December l8, 2024

   Some 35 years ago I took my daughter Deena to a sports bar in Glendale where the Phoenix Cardinals had a TV show and I was to be interviewed about a recent scandalous incident where the Bidwill family fired the Cardinal's head coach and we, the End Zonies, wore bags over our heads during the next game as a humorous protest. Cardinals management was reportedly not amused.

The End Zonies, The Paper Bag Incident

Sun Devil Stadium, 1989

   The owner's son, Michael Bidwill, told me what we had done was not cool and when I tried to laugh it off with we "were just having fun with it," he proceeded to take me to school with an anecdote about how hip his college was because in their basketball arena when a visiting school was shooting free throws, they would bust out newspapers and pretend to be bored with the game and a wall of newspapers would greet the shooter and this would flummox the visiting athletes and they would miss their free throws.

   "THAT is how you support your team!" Michael said, pointing his finger in my face before banning us from Sun Devil Stadium for life. I thought this was lame as hell (the joke, not the ban, which we deserved) and never thought about it again until last night when Tommy, Harper and I attended a Cactus Shadows high school basketball game and the cheerleaders from the visiting team—Queen Creek—busted out, you guessed it, newspapers. . .

Newspaper Circulation Gets Unexpected Boost

from Queen Creek cheerleaders

   My granddaughter, Harper, asked me if we had this joke when I went to high school and I told her we did but instead of newspapers each properly dressed Cheer representative was issued a tiny telegraph module and when the visiting players were attempting to make free throws (underhanded by the way!) the Cheer representative would pretend to be feverishly sending a telegraph tapping at their keys furiously. 

A good representation of our Cheer Representatives when I was playing basketball at Mucous. Note the fake "telegraph module".

   I am proud to say, not one visiting team ever made more than two free throws in a row, ever.

   And, that, my friend is how you properly telegraph a joke.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

—Mark Twain

Heatwave In The Rearview

 December 17, 1014

   They drank, they danced and they laughed. Oh, how they laughed. I can hear them still. Here for those of you who didn't know them, are a few of the regulars from the heyday of the Heatwave Cafe.

Sue Dancin' With The Handsome Stranger

"Man, that guy was smooth."

—Ina Mae Odle

Donna Jean returns with drinks

(Sue's best friend)

Meanwhile, out on the dancefloor. . .

Miss Bee "Boppahlula" Bensen

(Cuttin' a rug!)

(1951-2019)

   Bee Bensen, nee Banegas, the irrepressible and indomitable rodeo queen, who was one of the last female links to the original pro rodeo circuit, died on Wednesday in Queen Creek, Arizona.

   Her death in an assited living facility was confirmed by her step-daughter, Frannie Tutti Banegas (she kept her mother's maiden name).

Down Wickiup Way

Uncle Guy

(1924-1991)

Milly

(She could cut a rug!)

(1912-1983)

Itty Bitty Tatas Man

(1939-2002)

Mister Hell On Horses

Emmett Kroger

(1907-1965)

Los Mexicanos Hilarios

(the comedy group often appeared 

at the Heatwave. They were from Jalisco)

From the peanut gallery. . .

   

Ellie Fancher

(1936-2002)

Jay Dusardo, the mayor of Cattletrack

And the A-1 Beer Distributor

(1931-1999)

Chata Alvarado

(1937-2024)

Chata's Concern

Seri Witch

(1762-????)

   Yes, as you no doubt know more seniors are living longer than ever and guess what lobby is bigger than the NRA or the AFLCIO combined? Yes, the American Association of Retired Persons—AARP—is humungous. Some have compared it to a certain Italian crime organization.

"AARP is similar to the Mafia but more concerned with dietary fiber."

—Dave Barry