Horse Humiliation vs. Horseback Appreciation & Topless Gunfighter Appreciation!

 October 13, 2024

   And, now, for your viewing pleasure, we have a very angry chica from Divisadero, Sonora

Daily Whip Out:

"La Poderosa"

   She is one of the widows in Divisadero who is not fond of Mexican machismo which she blames for her husband's death. She is not alone with this idea in the village of 300 widows.

Halloween Cover Buy In

   "Funny but the Halloween issue was the 1st True West I bought since you took over the magazine and I've been hooked ever since! Took out my first subscription and got the Mattie Silks Nude Duel issue in January 2001 and have every issue since then."

—Mark, TW Maniac 235

Well, we certainly got Mark's attention!

Topless Gunfighter cover

   My original partner, Bob McCubbin, was not a fan of this cover. We were doing an Old West show in Mankato, Minnesota in 2001 and I had a sampling of True West issues on the table and this one had just come out so I had it prominently, front and center. I went out to get something and when I got back I noticed the issue was face down so I turned it over and was talking to someone and when I looked down again Bob had turned it over again. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I hate that cover. It's embarrassing!" So, it's more than a little ironic that Mark The Maniac #235 received this as his first issue.

Horse Humiliation vs. Horse Appreciation

"I don't do horseback riding, mainly because I prefer to be comfortable—and it's not the 1800s. I'm sure the horses aren't thrilled either: "Why am I carrying you around? I saw you drive up in a Honda Accord." But people love to horseback ride. I have a friend, she told me the reason she enjoys horseback riding is because she loves horses, which seems like a strange way of expressing love for someone. Making it carry you around on its back. I mean, I love my great aunt Katie, but I'm not making her carry me around on her back. Not anymore, you know."

—Jim Gaffigan

Daily Whip Out:

"Horse Sense Appreciation"

"There's just no end to the indignity of being a horse. You go horseback riding. The horse sees you pull up in a car. He knows, you have absolutely no real need to do this. I get out of a car that has 500 horsepower. So I can sit on an animal that has 1. Why do we even use the term 'horsepower'? Is it just to further humiliate the horses? Each Space Shuttle rocket has about 20 million horsepower. Is there any point in continuing to compare it to the horses?"

—Jerry Seinfeld

"If I'd asked people what they want—they'd say a faster horse."

—Henry Ford on his invention of the model T

Honoring Jay Dusard And A Stinking Junior Deputy Arpaio Badge Wearer

 October 12, 2024

   A great guy with even better taste in art, just came out to the Triple B Ranch and walked off with my original painting of Charles Poston.

Uno With Craig Schepp Yucking It Up

   Yes, and he's wearing a Joe Arpaio junior sheriff's badge to answer the Patinas question, "I got your stinking badge right here!"

Junior Deputy Joe Arpaio Badge

   Meanwhile, down Douglas way. . .

We are getting set to honor the guy who took this wonderful photo of Julie Hagan way back in 1981 at the Wagstaff Land & Cattle Company in Wyoming. My best friend, Charlie Waters gifted me a signed print of this image and it now hangs prominently in my daughter's house. The photographer's name is Jay Dusard and he is a Master. He lives in Douglas, Arizona and is an Arizona legend.

Two More Covers I Wish I Had Back

   To put the cover failures conversation in context, it isn't that I didn't like how these covers came out, it's that they wayyyy underperformed on the newsstand, thus the Dumb Cover title. When Craig Schepp came out today to pick up his original painting he commented that he loved all the covers, and in fact, some of them were his favorites. Well, yes, he and I and two others as crazy as we are. So, here's two more to discuss:

Covers That Were Too Hip for The Room

   One of the pitfalls in choosing an image for the cover is the discovery of an actual photo of a major Old West character that is a little mind blowing. Take this cover for example:

One of The Dumbest Covers Ever #7

   The crazy thing is this is an actual photo of Sitting Bull wearing snow goggles! And we were just so excited to print it on the cover for the joy and benefit of our readers. And we knew everyone would freak out and tell their friends. Well, turns out, many of them were turned off by the image and thought it was faked. Later on, we ran the same photo of him without the goggles (taken at the same photo session) and it did quite well. The moral is, be careful about being too hip for the room.

One of The Dumbest Covers Ever #8

   Lots of negative phone calls on this one (not a surprise) but the extra attention did not result in extra newsstand sales. Still it's a classic and I'm glad we ran it because my Kingman kin all puckered at the site of this. And anytime you can make Kingman folk pucker, that is a fun thing to do.

   Oh, and here's the painting Craig Schepp bought today.

"The Father of Arizona Charles Poston"

      The lad has such good taste in art.

"The quality of a painter depends on the amount of the past he carries with him."

—Pablo Picasso

Some of The Dumbest Covers I Have Ever Done

 October 11, 2024

   It isn't often we take stock of our failures, but here's a partial listing of my biggest regrets in publishing, so far.

The Dumbest Covers I Have Ever Done

   Normally, I would say "the dumbest covers we have ever done" because I believe in the edict that it's truly amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit, but these covers were my idea from the get go and I won't share any of the resulting embarrassment with my comrades in graphic design. Here's the first boneheaded one, done early in our ownership of the magazine.

One of The Dumbest Covers Ever #1

   I think it was Marcus Huff who found this weird old photo of a guy posing with a skeleton. It think it was an 1850s image. Someone, probably the sitter, was so embarrassed by this he put a postage stamp over his own head to hide his identity. That's just a guess. Why we would run this—on the cover!—is beyond me today. Well, maybe not beyond, because I green lit it, but dang, I wish I had this one back.

   Same with this next one.

One of The Dumbest Covers Ever #2

   One of our writer's room jokes is that in the old days, True West featured a dead man in every issue. But on the cover! This flirts dangerously close to death porn and I wish I had it back, but it's dead to me. Sorry, and the "Craps Out" line is a total groaner.

One of The Dumbest Covers Ever #3

   Known internally as the "Savior With No Name Cover" this is, well, dang close to blasphemous, although Jana's piece inside was very respectful of Christendom out West.

One of The Dumbest Covers Ever #4

  The premise was not bad: would you pay $500,000 for this little piece of tin? And we thought it would be great to show the tintype at the actual size. This runs counter to the Ten Foot Rule: if you are walking by a newsstand and you are ten feet away and you can't see what is on the cover, you are going to die. And this cover did just that. Also, to rub salt into the wound, all the photo experts we talked to thought a half mil was close to lunacy and the absolute ceiling of what a sane person would pay for the picture so imagine everyone's surprise when Bill Koche paid $2.3 million for the only known photo of Billy the Kid!

One of the Dumbest Covers Ever #5

   Known internally as "Bring Me The Head of The Idiot Who Came Up With This Cover". In my defense, Paul Andrew Hutton and I were immersed in the Mickey Free story and we thought this Weird West angle would light up the switchboards, which it did, but with complaints from mothers everywhere who wanted us put in jail!

   There's actually one more, but I'll save that bad boy for tomorrow.

"Study the past if you want to know what the idiots are going to do next."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Here's Something to Care About: Bad, Bad Mestizo Girls

October 10, 2024

   I think you would agree, we are living in a very weird time. First off, it's the era of choose your own news. And, is it my imagination, or is every single institution in our culture cracking or under attack?

A Historic Warning

   Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those of us who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it!

Daily Whip Out: "Old Discouraged Vaquero"

   If you love history, we are in this together. Why?

"Every self-conscious group of any size fabricates myths about its past; about its origins, its mission, its righteousness, its benevolence, its general superiority."

—C. Vann Woodward

   Remember, if you help someone when they are in trouble they will remember you when they're in trouble again.

   Meanwhile, I wanted to do a movie poster idea on a fleeing vaquero riding through the divide while a leering La Sterna, hovers over him with disdain. Instead, I got this. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Cleavage Rider"

Alcohol doesn't solve any problems, but then again, neither does milk.

"Words are sacred.  They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little."

—Tom Stoppard

"Leisure without study is death—a tomb for the living person."

—Seneca

"Everyone can feel the nothingness, the void, just beneath the surface of everyday routines and securities."

—John Zerzan

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"Bad, Bad Mestizo Girl"

"Those who are the hardest to love need it the most."

—Socrates

The View to The Left of My Computer Is Very Valuable to Me

 October 9, 2024

   Someone asked me why I get out on the road so early in the morning for my walk with Uno and the answer is the heat. For the past four months it has been in the high seventies before sunrise, but as soon as the sun shows up, it jumps ten degrees in a very quick matter of time. So, that's why I stepped out this morning to see this.

   Sunrise this morning over Ratcliff Ridge at exactly 6:40 a.m. (one of the amazing and convenient aspects of iPhone technology is that it automatically time stamps every image taken).

Daily Whip Out: "Killer Kid #77"

Daily Reworked Scratchboard Whip Out:

"The Man Who Tore Holes In The Screen

With His Eyes."

   In case you were wondering, here is the view to the left of my computer.

E.J. Montini wrote a column the day after I was fired from KSLX in 1994 and a friend of mine framed it and gave it to me for inspiration. I look at it every day and smile. To the right is an original study by Ed Mell, then a caricature of my son in the gangster pants look and behind him is the Arizona Rangers at Morenci in 1903.

"I am out with lanterns, looking for myself."

—Emily Dickinson

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid And Neither Do Artists Seeking History All Over The World

 October 8, 2024

   In 2015 Kathy Sue lined up a van Gogh tour for me and the Ds (Dan and Darlene Harshberger), starting in Amsterdam and down to Nunen, thru Brussels to Paris on the train and on to Arles and San Marie, San Remy, then back to Auver-sur-Oise where Vincent cashed out.

BBB at San Remy in the south of France

(note the plaid overshirt over my arm)

BBB in a bar in Auvers-sur-Oise

(same plaid overshirt)

   Fast forward to Saint Jo, Missouri in 2023 when Mark Lee Gardner took me into the courthouse to show me the actual bench where Robert and Charlie Ford were booked on April 3, 1882.

Another Plaid Suspect Arraigned

(photo by Mark Lee Gardner)

We Get Mail

   "Congratulations on the reward you will be receiving from the Will Rogers people next week. I will not be there, but I have harangued you on article ideas since you bought True West magazine and moved it from Stillwater."

—Mike Coppock

Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska

What's In A Name?

   Everything. I see him as a cross between a Mexican Uncle Sam and Son of Sam Clemens. 

Daily Whip Out: "Old Vaquero #41"

"Never give a sword to a man who can't dance."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Three Titles for the Price of One

 October 7, 2024

   When we bought True West magazine 25 years ago we also got two other titles with it: Frontier Times and Old West magazine.  We sold off Frontier Times, but still own the Old West magazine name.

Our classic spinoff title: Old West Journal

(summer 2000)

 "Seems like you still care" and then for the doubters, "Let's see how this goes." This is how Ellen DeGeneres opened her "farewell" stand-up special For Your Approval. Given her recent cancellation for being "mean" and running a toxic workspace, I have to say I was rooting for her. She did over an hour of good material, then at the end, she simply said this: "After a lifetime of caring, I just can't anymore. So, I don't. . ." Long pause, "But if I'm being honest. . ." longer pause, crowd starts to swell with apprehension and support. "And, I have a choice of people remembering me as someone who is mean, or someone who is beloved, be-loved? Beloved? Be-loved," she rides this maybe ten times, and then ends it with this: "I choose that." Several in the audience stand and start cheering. Then more and more until she gets the big Standing O. Not sure it's worthy of a standing O, but she got one and you can't argue with that.

"The truth is simple. If it was complicated everyone would understand it."

—Walt Whitman

Daily Scratchboard Whip Outs:

"Old West Types Galore"

   The moral: Do dumb things until you get it right. There is no other path to the place you want to go.

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

—Winston Churchill

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better.”

—Samuel Beckett

“[In sports] there’s a winner, there’s a loser. What I love about art is, it’s not like that. It’s about self-perfection. I love trying to make the absolute best film you can. Get everyone together and just do your absolute best. If you can actualize that, that’s the magic.”

—Richard Linklater

What's in a name?

Everything.

Given name: Louis Bert Lindley, Jr.

Stage name: Slim Pickens.

Given name: Goyathla (He Who Yawns)

Nickname: "Geronimo"

“Life is beautiful if you are on the road to somewhere.”

—Orhan Pamuk