A Teacher's Bloody Field Trips

 July 25, 2024

   Still plugging holes in the big 10-page feature on Killer Kids of The Civil War. Here's a couple more to chew on.

A Teacher's Bloody Field Trips

   Born in Ohio, the eldest of 12 children, William Quantrill, taught school off and on before turning to raiding in the "Bloody Kansas" corridor of the Civil War. His young charges included future outlaws Jesse and Frank James and Cole Younger, not to mention "Bloody Bill" Anderson, among others. He taught them all well.

   His biggest raiding lesson came during the predawn hours of August 21, 1863, when some 450 of Quantrill's Raiders rode into Lawrence, Kansas and slaughtered more than 160 men and boys (some estimates have the bloody total at 190). They also robbed the bank and looted every home. However, their main target, James Henry Lane, the leader of the Free State Party of Kansas, escaped, barely, in his night clothes by running through a cornfield and hiding.

Quantrill's Bloodiest Field Trip

on August 21, 1863

And It's Off to Graduate School

   At the end of the Civil War a generation of boys looked for a reprieve from the fighting, but some of these kids were too well trained to let all those warfare skills go to waste. Especially when so many people in Missouri—and throughout most of the south—felt oppressed by the banks and the railroads. With a little nudging—not much!—a whole bunch of spunky farm boys began to ply the trade they were trained for: bank robbery and train robbery. Over the course of the next twenty years a whole bunch of banks and railroads felt the bite and a whole slew of country outlaws rose to fame and infamy. A couple of them rose damn close to immortality. And, I think you know who that would be.

Coming later this year to a bookstore near you.

"I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time."

—Mark Twain

Killer Kids Final Copy

 July 24, 2024

   Still working on final copy for the Killer Kids of The Civil War. Here's a sneak peek.

Daily Whip Out: "Jesse In Hell"

   And, it must be pointed out, he's toting four pistols in the Bushwhacker mode. So much for present day re-enactors claiming the old gunfighters never carried two pistols ("The two-gun man is a Hollywood myth!"). Okay, maybe they were half right?

Damned If You Do. . .

The Shiftless And Cruel World of Guerrilla Warfare

   The terror for civilians caught in the border wars of the Civil War is that the guerrillas would often dress as Union troops and Union militia often rode around dressed as civilians. Both sides had allies in the countryside with the end result being nobody could trust anyone, even old friends, who often made secret deadly alliances. Spotting the enemy became  an impossible game where outward appearances were rarely what they seemed to be.

   One survivor concluded to his brother in a letter, "Low lived men who claim to be Union or Rebel as Occassion requires, [ride] the country destroying life & property, regardless of law & usages of regular warfare." Another Missourian, Thomas A. Peters, said, "I think about one half the Bushwhackers seen is the enrolled militia. ." And, as the author Michael Fellman puts it, "All bands of mounted marauders dressed in civilian clothes tended to be reported as guerrillas. There was also great fluidity in both guerrilla and militia band formation and some young men played it both ways." Put in stark terms, neither side had the slightest interest in a fair fight.

An Iconic Myth Is Born

   Out of all this terror and confusion and guerrilla warfare came a generation of young men who were schooled in the arts of deadly tactics and as they approached manhood, more than a few of them wandered west and encountered a broader and more significant conflict between three pre-existing cultures, indigenous and Spanish and Mexican cultures and it is little wonder that a mythic story would be born out of the ensuing conflict and that a caucasion gunfighter would rise out of this turmoil and take his place in the pantheon of worldwide myths. Some historians claim the gunfighter myth ruled from about 1948 to 1973, and that it has since devolved into parody.

On The Trail of The Yahoo Kid, Indeed!

   And, if you are interested in what exactly went down in Lincoln, New Mexico last Saturday, here is a follow-up article by Ollie Reed that ran in the Albuquerque Journal last Sunday.

A review of the Ellis Store Reopening

“Billy was 220 volts and everyone else was 110 volts. He was quicker than everybody. Everybody’s scared to death of him.”

—Buckeye Blake

Killer Kids of The Civil War End Game

 July 23, 2024

   Heavy into a cover strory on the genesis of the mythic and iconic Old West gunfighter Where did he come from? How was he created? After you read this, you won't be surprised, if you ever were.

James Writes Home

The School of Hard Knocks

   James, 15, confides to a friend, that he has seen sights "that would make the wickedest hearts sick." Tradition claims James gravitated to Gen. James Lane, organizer of the Free State Army of Kansas. For more than a year he follows Lane as a scout and some say, as a bodyguard for Lane as the troops battle against the Missouri Border Ruffians. All sides perpetuate atrocities—lynchings, massacres and all the horrors of guerrilla warfare. It is a rough school and the boys learn their lessons well.

Daily Whip Out:

"Bushwhackers From Hell"

"What's done to children, they will do to society."

—Kaerl. A. Menninger

Weston Takes Grandpa to School

 July 22. 2024

   Perhaps you saw that Grandpa Ha Ha took his grandson to art bootcamp over the past five days. He graduated with honors of course. He's a very talented boy and took to scratchboard with a relish.

Weston's first scratchboard, "Dust Rider"

   And, we also finished a treehouse in the backyard which he as named the "Cousins Nest" which is a play on words about the Crow's Nest on the roof behind the treehouse.

 Taking Grandpa to School

  Weston showed me YouTube videos to help educate me on posts that perform well. One of them, "Baby Shark" has 14 billion views. Yes, that is with a "B". Then he showed me a Minecraft video by Ish, a Minecraft event hoster, whose video on a simulated prison has 17 million views.

Weston's first Photoshop paste

   As his mother might say, "that is totally ree-donk-u-lous." And, speaking of ree-donk-u-louse, Weston found this artwork and flipped.

"Chata's Concern" from The Doper Roper

which ran in the Razz Revue, circa 1975

   "This is amazing! It is definitely your best painting ever. It's really, really good."

—Weston

   He also told me, "Grandpa, you need to advertise your art if you want to sell more. I would suggest you try and put a link at the end of this blog.

click here for a painting of Billy the Kid, as shown beneath: 

Bootcamp Warrior & Backdoor Billy Provenance

 July 20, 2024

   It's been a tough four days, but I am proud to say, our grandson has not only survived the Artist Triple B Bootcamp (Weston quipped, "Wouldn't that make it a quadruple B?") he has graduated with honors and has some fine art to show for it.

Weston Graduates With Honors

Full disclosure: I let Weston grab unfinished pieces out of my failure bin and "finish" them, which he has done with some flash and flourish.

   An explanation for the framed artwork in the background. The upper left two framed Billy pictures have been on the road for the past four years and thanks to Rusty York, they came home on Wednesday. The photo on the left hand side is the infamous photograph I bought for a quarter at the Longhorn Museum, circa 1957-58, and the drawing on the right is my first attempt at capturing the Kid on paper, circa 1958. The big painting on the far right is the recently framed "Back Door Billy" that Craig Schepp bought. As you probably already know, the frame on this painting is from the actual floorboards that the Kid walked on in 1878. And if you don't believe me, here is a part of the Certification Supplemental Report with the actual "true and correct copy original filed with the office Lincoln County Clerk," courtesy of Steve Sederwall.

   The 10 a.m., July 8, 1879 meeting of the Lincoln County Commissioners included these minutes:

To wit: "Isaac Ellis presented an account against the County for the boarding of Wm Bonnie and Thomas OFolliard, also feed for the horses, amounting to $64.00. The above was found correct and ordered paid. Warrant number 147 was issued in payment of same."

   This evidence goes with the two paintings framed with the floorboard wood.

Both Backdoor Billys along with the

postcard invite

Exhibit B

"Everything you say should be true but not everything true should be said."

—Voltaire

In Pursuit of Emotional Art

July 19, 2024

   The early bird gets the shot.

An early 5:30 am photo over Ratcliff Ridge

   I read somewhere that any art created without emotion is not art. I was a little mystified and frankly, worried, by this concept and decided to do some serous reflection on it.

   Most of the time—and this is going back more than 45 years—I have been on deadline so any drawing, or scratchboard or painting I have done in that time period had to go to press in X amount of time. And X stands for an eXtremely short amount of time! If I had to peg my dominant emotion while creating art during that time I would put it as stressful, or tense, as in—I want to get it right! This better be good! Oh, crap, this isn't turning out like I had hoped it would! I am such a loser, why didn't I continue my career as a rear chain-man on a survey crew?!

   And so, to be brutally honest, here are my dominant emotions while working on the vast majority of my art over the past half century:

• stressful and concerned

Mixed with a dash of

• apprehension and dread

   And with a nagging voice in my head that says, over and over, Who in the hell told you that you could be an artist?

   So, on the website Draw How You Feel, their challenge is "draw a picture of how you feel." Okay, that is a novel idea. Let's take a short look back on a few examples of my past efforts and the emotion I was feeling at the time I did them:

Daily Whip Out: "Outback Cop Backs Up"

   Yes, I was feeling dark and dangerous when I did this. If I had to peg it as an emotion I would say angry. Or, angry-fearful. Or, perhaps angry-cocky-fearful.

Daily Whip Out: "Punk-stalgic"

   Not sure why but this guy reminds me of Tom Petty which always makes me feel nostalgic for a simpler and more angry, but pure, punk time. Sad and woeful. Not suicidal, but close.

Is There Such A Thing As Angry Positive?
   I am often referred to in my family as the positive guy. Hmmmm. What does that look like? Let's give it a whirl.


Daily Whip Out: "Women With Attitude"

   These are fun to do, snippets of expression and glancing attitude. Not perfect, but what is?


Daily Whip Out: "Happy Go Lucky"

   The irony in this one is that I was attempting to illustrate the idea that in Arizona in the summertime people with their windows down have the right-of-way, because it's clear they don't have AC in their cars and you can bet that they are a tad short tempered. This was a hoot to do and I laughed out loud several times while doing it because, if you have ever been behind the wheel of an auto in Phoenix in July without air-conditioning you can totally relate. So, even though the drawing represents out of control anger, I actually felt giddy doing it.
   And speaking of which, big fat sugarloaf sombreros make me extremely happy, so that results in this:


Daily Whip Out: "Pure Hat Happiness"

Daily Whip Out: "Giddy Orgasmic"

   Is it possible to have an orgasm when you create art? I never have, but I have come close. If I can fire off a broadside at another Arizona town on the lower Colorado River who paid an advertising agency $100,000 to come up with a positive slogan for Yuma and then I did a whole bunch, like the one above, for free, well, that is very close to being orgasmic, and, or, in this case "Giddy Orgasmic!"



Daily Whip Out: "Lazy Successful"

   His eyes are way off, but this has a super lazy vibe that I love. So the emotion here is no pressure fun. He's floating in limbo and so was I. So sue me.

   Does any of this add up to great art, or, great success? Not really, but it does make me happy to revisit some of my artwork over the years and take stock of my emotions as I did them.

   That said, what really gives me joy is to see my grandson in the Triple B Art Studio doing artwork and having fun with me. Weston did this whip out while I was writing this blog.

Daily Weston Whip Out: "The Pineapple Man"

   

   Plus, both Weston, Uno and I agree with Georgia:

"Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing."
—Georia O'Keeffe

Honkytonk Sue On The Hunt Sequence & The Love Dog Uno

 July 18, 2024

   Found an old Sue scene in the studio and I thought it had some potential.

Daily Whip Out:

"Honkyonk Sue On The Hunt Sequence"

      This entire sequence has some decent art.

   My model for this was Jerry Foster's wife Vicki when they lived up the creek from us and she was great.

   And, here's a rare photo from the shortlived Honkytonk Sue niteclub on Scottsdale Road where some nincompoop can be seen doing the gator at the feet of Honkytonk Sue on the dancefloor as a wall of Country Swinger in the background yuck it up. Don't worry, the gatordude got his comeuppance on March 22, 2008 when he went down on the floor to do the same dance at the Elks Theater in Kingman, Arizona and, well, not to get too graphic, but he ended up in the Kingman ER.

   Yikes. Prophetic, yes. 

   And, here's another salvage from the dustbin archives.

Daily Reworked Whip Out:

"Joaquin Murrieta Before The Storm"

   And, while we're finding old chestnuts, ran across this while looking for something else.

Uno The Love Dog

They're Plowing In Our Row

   Got a nice email from Ed Montini who was commiserating with me about the passing of our mutual friend Jana Bommersbach:

   "I recall a time we were back east visiting my in-laws, who lived in Philadelphia. My mother-in-law, a small town Ohio woman, was reading the newspaper, and pointed out an obituary of someone they knew to my father-in-law. He said something about how, just a week or two earlier, another friend of theirs had died. Peg lowered the newspaper, let out a dramatic sigh, and said: 

“Dave…they’re plowing in our row.”