May 14, 2003
I’m a free man! I don’t have to drive in this morning and I feel fantastic. Some progress from the mountain of tests. My iron level in my blood is too high, as is my cholesterol. Hopefully my new diet with fix the latter (I’ve lost 18 pounds!). I had an MRI yesterday. If you haven’t had one, they basically put you in an oversized mailing tube for a half hour and make loud burping sounds (the machine makes the burping sounds, not the gay nurse who asked me what I wanted to listen to on the headphones and I said, “Howard Stern,” because I wanted to laugh but when they got me packed into the tube, Howard cuts to commercials and I’m listening to these awful commercials on the Edge and I’m yelling, “Hey I lied! Give me mellow! Give me soft jazz, give me anything but this!” So the gay nurse, changes the channel and even the jazz sounds screachy and abrasive, but I shutup and held my breath when they told me to.). Results next week.

Bob Brink thinks the new issue is a step backwards. Too much Wyatt Earp. We critiqued the issue in our staff meeting yesterday. Good comments and helpful suggestions. Everyone wants the same thing: a good magazine.

Anxious to attack a Pancho Villa image. He had a saddle horn with his head on it, about the size of a volley ball. I believe Mort Fleischer owns the saddle and I want to get a photo of it. Picture a cover with Pancho and the crossed bandoleers and at the bottom we see his “Mini Me” head. Wouldn’t that make for an arresting cover?

“Fact that is fact every day is not news; it's truth. We report news, not truth.”
—Linda Ellerbee