October 8, 2003
Larry Johns forwarded me an E-mail yesterday from one of our Best of the West winners, Kenny Butterill, who won for best Alt. Country. Here’s what he said:

“At the True West website I read the history of Mr. Bell’s journey with True West publication—it is (bleeping) amazing—the tenacity shown is breathtaking, and giving us a glimpse inside the struggle and joy was very cool.”

Every once in a while, when I’m feeling cocky or smug or down, I go read the business timeline (you can access it at the top of this page). It still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It has been a very perilous journey and we aren’t out of the woods yet. And, here’s the amazing part, those journal entries are the cleaned up, heavily edited version! The actual diary entries are much bloodier, and more libelous. Someday. . .

Got an E-mail from Thomas in Spain. Here’s part of it.

“The Strokes in Barcelona is what we like to call Gods gift to man. A friendly gift followed by much rejoicing. So I just had the best weekend yet here in Espana. This girl invited Curtis and I to her house in Gandia for the towns fiestas. It was us and 8 Spaniards and we stayed in her dead grandmas house in the center of town. Her mom would make us food and we would take it to the house, have dinner and then party all night. There were free concerts, fireworks, a fair, you name it. Anyway, it was the greatest weekend and dirt cheap too! On Sunday the whole town got together in the main square and cooked paella. There was a ton of little fires with people cooking Paella. It was delicious. We would get home at six in the morning, sleep until 1:15 on the dot when a marching band would pass by and wake us up. Good times and I learned soo much spanish (mostly slang).”

Here’s some of the art I have been slaving on for the past week. I’ve got about four more to do before I leave for my speech in Kingman this weekend.

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
—Ernest Hemingway