December 1, 2003
Finished five Old Man Clanton paintings today at one. Worked last night until dark on a Wyatt and Doc Superposse scene. Got some good effects, quite action-y and blurred.

Finished up the Cave Creek Christmas Day Massacre copy. Meghan did an excellent job of editing, moving things around until it actually made sense. I went through a box of cloud photos I keep in the studio, feeling confident I would find numerous shots of the historic cave. Out of probably 500 photos I have taken of the area since we moved here, there is not one of the cave. Embarrassing. I live right across from a historic landmark and I’ve taken photos of everything but. It would be like living at the Grand Canyon and taking roll after roll of Bright Angel Lodge.

I got up at seven on Saturday and went out and got a good one of the sun just tipping the lip of the cave with a big ol’ juicy saguaro looming in the foreground. This will run in Tom Tumus’ High Sonoran Style Magazine. He goes to press this week and we do a tradeout.

Got a thankyou note from Roxanne Cash: “Loved the tribute to Dad,” she wrote. What a classy lady.

Heard from fellow hat Nazi Rusty York on the Bill Kurtis shoot in New Mexico. He played Sheriff Brady and they taped the Kid’s escape from the Lincoln County Courthouse in the actual courthouse. They filmed for six days. Obviously spent some money (a full crew runs around $3K to $4K a day).

New issue (Jan.) arrived this morning and it looks great. Banta did an excellent job giving us the exact red we wanted. The entire issue is strong and we are moving some of the editorial around to try and ease the oppressiveness of the ads (a somewhat common complaint). We are on a strict 50-50 ad ratio to editorial but sometimes it looks worse than it is.

Just got off the phone with Theresa at Tri Star (4:40 P.M.) and the Classic Gunfights book will be in tomorrow. She will deliver us 300 softbounds in the afternoon. If you ordered a hardbound (most of my friends don’t even consider softbounds as real books) they will arrive on December 11. Very excited. It’s very similiar to having a baby. I’m not exaggerating.


”Not all who wander are lost.”
—Old Vaquero Saying