March 8, 2003
Last minute work on the May-June issue. I have painter’s remorse (kind of like buyer’s remorse only more art critic oriented with a pinch of self-loathing). I feel like I missed it on Custer. It is a good painting but it isn’t him the way I wanted him to be. At the very least it needs to be a caricature, instantly recognizable as George, but it’s just so-so. Wish I had it back, but it’s too late.

One of our key competitors wants to run one of my Billy the Kid paintings on their June cover. I have mixed feelings about it. They have offered me $500 and there is a perverse pleasure in that, but Kathy thinks I would be helping them too much. I have polled R.G., Carole and Bob Brink to see what they think. Need to make a decision by Monday.

Got a speech in Parker on Sunday, so I drove down to Deer Valley to meet Fernando, the Tri Star driver, and picked up six boxes of my books. The people in Parker are quite receptive to history and when I was out there last year they bought almost everything I had.

Went to lunch with Robert Ray at Tuscan ($18 cash). Got sandwiches and brought them back to office. Good talking shop with him. He’s a warhorse.

Went up to bank and paid two loan payments. It’s so daunting to have payments that are strictly interest only. I have thrown everything I have into this magazine. I bet the farm (literally—a significant chunk of the money I invested I inherited from my grandpa’s Iowa farm). Makes me nervous, but. . .

“What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night and in between he does what he wants to.”
—Bob Dylan