I'm Stting On A Magazine Gold Mine

 January 15, 2025

   We are blessed to have such helpful and generous readers. Just got these in the mail today:

Four back issues of The West magazine

   Which prompted me to send this out today to our True West sales team:

Boo-koo Sales Potential!

   Thanks to a True West reader in Deming, New Mexico, named Paul Hoylen, we now have the complete ad sales client list for one of our arch competitors, circa 1969. I am passing along to you the best leads in the bunch. Good luck on landing these prestige accounts!

   Yes, you too can now "turn your hands, feet, fingers into super weapons almost like a sword!"​ Who among us wouldn't jump at the chance to sign up for these Best Values? Just for you, here are a couple more ads to poach from:

   It's so great to know that those 6 foot bull whips are made by "the Cherokee Indians" in Roslyn, New York, Division Mail Sack, Inc.

"It doesn't get any better than this."

—Old Ad Salesman Slogan

Have We Created A Cover Too Sexy for Our Readership?

 January 14, 2025

   If you want an old school look at the Old West stream The Searchers. If you want to see an extension of The Revenant where Hugh Glass fought a grizzly bear, watch the first episode of American Primeval on Netflix. Lots of my peeps are talking about it.

Daily Whip Out: "Evil In His Prime"

   It's no surprise this new series was penned by the guy who wrote The Revenant.

   Meanwhile, closer to home. . .

A Cover Too Sexy for Our Readership?

   Dan The Man and I came up with this bold little cover concept yesterday. . .

Sadie Earp In The Raw

   

   Dan and I love it, but our sales staff and the publisher are bridling over the overt sexiness of the message and they are afraid it doesn't say "Travel." It is, in fact, our "Travel" issue.

   Gee I wonder what a certain Mamacita—I know and respect—has to say about this?

"I would say I agree with your sales staff.  Also, when one gets anxious to make sales, one turns to SEX and the sordid for attention.  TW does not have to do that nor would you want to go there with such glaring headlines and even use of the word ‘sordid’.  Many people love the lady and the Earps so why offend them?  Unnecessarily?   A Travel issue is supposed to capture travel, wide open spaces, special places and not the bedroom."

—Lynda Sanchez, Lincoln, New Mexico Mamacita

Real Indians Loved Vincent Craig's Candy Bar Song

 January 13, 2025

   I'm proud to say, I grew up with a whole slew of In-dins in Mohave County. That would be the Hualapais, the Havasupais and the Mojaves. We played sports together and had some major fun.

Real Indians Up Ahead!

   When I was a kid, I remember billboards on old Route 66 that proclaimed "Real Indians! 1/2 Mile." These billboards advertised roadside curios and Navajo traders, etc. This would have been in the 1950s in the Holbrook, Arizona to Gallup, New Mexico corridor. Some don't believe me, but I think this old sign vindicates the memory.

   Speaking of real In-dins, Vincent Craig, used to come on our KSLX morning show in Scottsdale back in the eighties and play his most famous song:

Navajo Cowboys Loved "Rita"

"Rita: The Candy Bar Song" by Vincent Craig

   Our program director hated it because we were billed as Classic Rock, and the tune was a tad soft for the brand, but dang it was humorous in a Navajo In-din kind of way. I still get people asking me what happened to Vincent. Sadly, he passed back in May of 2010, a month shy of his 60th birthday.

Vincent Craig Dine Singer

   One zany cat he was. Miss him!

"I just found out my wife is one-quarter Navajo and three-quarters regular ho."

—Old Navajo Joke

The Frontier Just Got A Litte More Crowded Plus Dustables Galore

 January 12, 2025

   Ever had a brainflash and thought to yourself, "This could really be something different!"

   Well, we can scratch "Frontier" as the title of a new SIP magazine from us: Just saw this on Facebook.

   Ha. I think our cover layout is a little stronger— thanks to Dan The Man—but there you go. This isn't the first time this has happened to me, but the punchline is the same: You snooze, you lose. 

   And the moral is: If you are thinking of a concept you can rest assured there are at least two other people out there thinking the same thing. We're all reading the same headlines and watching the same shows.

Mas Dustables Galore

   As you may have already noticed, I'm diggin' me some dust storms!

Daily Whip Out: "Straw Dust Rider"

Daily Whip Out: "Ridge Riders In Amber #17"

Daily Whip Out: "Ridge Rider In Amber #18"

   And speaking of dust storm riders, look who is using a Triple B Dustable on his next book cover:

Preorders right here

   Yes, we got storms everywhere we look. I'm thankful we're safe, at least for this moment.

"And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about."

—Haruki Murakami

Rurales On The Ridgeline, Part I4 And Onward, Plus My Favorite Vaquera

 January 11, 2025

   It's fun to get lost on a quest. If you don't believe me, go ask Cortez.

The Cave Behind Bars

Prologue

   He knew the Rurales were on his trail and he had a hunch there were others. He rode south, wearing one shoe, towards a pass where he hoped he could disappear.

Daily Whip Out: "Guero In The Pass"

Paisano Upward Mobility

   "He is very brave. The bullets bound off him like rain from a sombrero. He is the cousin of my woman's first husband's sister. He is bueno para los negocios del campo (that is to say, he is a highly successful bandit and highwayman). A few years ago he was just a peon like us; and now he is a General and a rich man."

—John Reed, Insurgent Mexico, interviewing the Arab, Antonio, who is bragging here about General Urbina

Mas Suspended In Amber

   Speaking of Mexican Revolutionaries, Vaqueros and Rurales, I'm still chewing on the ridgeline riders "suspended in amber." Tried a couple different approaches today, just for fun.

Daily Reworked Whip Out: 

"Rurale On The Ridgeline Suspended In Amber #14"

Daily Whip Out:

"Rurales On The Ridgeline #15"

Daily Whip Out: 

"Rurales On The Ridgeline #16"

   There's a couple more, but you get the picture.

   Yes, we see.

My Favorite Vaquera of All Time

   She grew up in the Old Pueblo and friends of mine who knew her said she was a pistol.

Linda Ronstadt, age 4, Tucson, Arizona

"Painting is very easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."

—Edgar Degas

Cockfighting In The Rearview

 January 10, 2024

   Love those brujas (Mexican witches) at least on paper.

Daily Whip Out: "La Bruja de Divisadero"

She answered nothing and explained everything.

      Meanwhile, I'm still seeking Rurales in amber. . .

Daily Whip Out:

"Rurales On The Ridgeline Suspended In Amber #13"

   And, led by the Yacqui scout Cosenoe.

"I just realized cockfighting is done with chickens. There's goes five years of training I'll never get back."

—Old Vaquero Complaint

A-1 Memories & Another Stab at Rurales Suspended In Amber

 January 9, 2025

   This old heartwarmer popped up on my phone and it made me smile.

A-1 In The Snow

One of my proudest possessions: the neon A-1 Beer sign off the old Nogales Cafe in downtown Phoenix, seen here, lighting up a snowy landscape near the cave in Cave Creek.

Still working hard to capture Rurales suspended in amber. Such a great phrase and fun, but not easy, to execute.

Daily Whip Out:

"Rurales On The Ridgeline #7"

Mas Reed to Read

  So, John Reed has bummed a ride with an Arab muleteer to get to the front lines and he drops a couple politically incorrect zingers, "They say there are so few Jews in Mexico because they cannot stand the competition  of the Arabs. . ."

   And, of course, he describes the land, "Then all the rolling leagues of desert glowed and came near in the soft light. . .now the western mountains were blue velvet, and the pale sky a blood-stained canopy of watered silk. But by the time we reached the great gate of the rancho, above was only a shower of stars."

   Then, this: "We passed only one human being all that day—a ragged old man astride a burro, wrapped in a red-and-black check serape, though without trousers, and hugging the broken stock of a rifle. Spitting, he volunteered that he was a soldier; that after three years of deliberation he had finally decided to join the Revolution and fight for Libertad. But at the first battle a cannon had been fired, the first he had ever heard; he had immediately started for his home in El Oro, where he intended to descend into a gold mine and stay there until the war was over. . ."

—John Reed, Insurgent Mexico

   An entire life of an ex-soldier—without pants!—summed up in a paragraph!

"There is always a philosophy for lack of courage."

—Albert Camus