November 17, 2002
Yesterday I woke up with big plans. I was going to attack the Dalton paintings with new vigor. I had the right reference, the right tools and the right attitude. Of course, I failed miserably. And as the third and fourth botched paintings went on the floor (I’m so vain I can’t even throw the failures in the trash!). I tried to keep at it, but I just couldn’t muster the energy.

I did what so many men do. I fed the chickens, got water for the dogs, built a fire, took a nap, seduced my wife, ordered a pizza, drank two beers and watched three Westerns in a row. (Not necessarily in that order.)

The javelina biker gang attacked again last night. I stayed up late watching TCM’s Western film festival and saw three Gary Cooper classics: “The Westerner,” “The Man From The West,” and “High Noon.” All were excellent and I had forgotten how tight the script was on “Noon.” I sort of remembered the people in the church being a parody of Christians (it was after all, written by a Communist), but they were not caricatures. They were logical and their arguments were sound, and they didn’t all agree, just like real Christians. The whole thing was brilliantly executed, told in real time, a much deserved classic. As Robert Osborne put the finishing touches on the whole deal, I put Peaches in the studio and locked up. As I went to bed (11:40) I heard her barking and thought to myself, “Good luck you lousy Javelina. You got nothing. Ha, ha, ha.”

Somehow, they broke into the garage. Either they rigged up some sort of electronic nose button, that the leader could activate by pushing his snout onto the radio hog’s backpack, thus making the garage door open automatically so they could come in, quickly, in teams, do their damage and leave, activating the garage door on their way out so that they left no trace of their devious entry, or else some idiot left the garage door open to begin with.

I tried to sell Kathy on the former, but I think she saw through my weak premise. I had locked the side door to the garage (where I could have seen into the garage to view the open door), and I had secured all of the surrounding yard gates, but I had failed to look in the garage itself. I might as well have put up a neon sign that said, “Idiot on duty. Come on in and help yourselves!”They made a complete mess of everything. I’d like to say they ate the tires off the Ranger, but they didn’t need to. They had a literal feast before them with large industrial bags of chicken, dog and cat food lined up in a row, ready for the taking. It must have been a real Saturday night Luby’s experience for the whole family. I picture them today, lying in some dusty lair, with homemade toothpicks in their snouts, laughing. “What a loser.” they snort. “He can’t even paint!”

"No one laughs at a reputation. Laughter is purely a voluntary reaction. You might like someone, you might like a million things they've done, but if they don't say something that you truly find funny, you'll die out there."- Jerry Seinfeld, on his doing live stand-up again