February 22, 2004
Today is the tenth anniversary of my life with a Franklin Daytimer. I got fired from KSLX on February 8th, 1994 and in one of those Take-Stock-of-Your-Miserable-Life-You Miserable Bastard-Moments, I decided to get my life in better order. I seem to remember Kathy steering me to the Franklin solution, but she gives credit to Wonderful Russ and that may be true (Russell was very anal and organized before anal and organized was cool).

As promised, here are the ten entries for each February 22:

February 22, 1994
[Under the heading “Emptying My Mind” lifted from the book “The Artist Way” where the author recommends getting up everyday and “emptying your mind” as a way to grease your creativity I started my journal with these prophetic words:]
I feel bad. I got up two hours late. It is 6:59 [I also wrote down ideas for articles and books I wanted to produce and one of them was “Women Are From Pluto, Men Are From Uranus.”]

February 22, 1995
It rained last night. Thunder all night. Mighty pretty this morning. Dramatic clouds, birds chirping. Very nice out.
I finished quite a bit of the Billy timeline yesterday [I was reworking my Billy the Kid book for the second edition]. Very tedious. I hope to finish the rest of the rough outline today [I didn’t]. I worked until about 5, then made tacos. We watched “Home Improvement” (Tim blew up a house, funny) and then I read until about 9:30.
I really am enjoying these days at home. Very productive and unstressful. [Easy for me to say. I was unemployed and having fun. All this was driving Kathy crazy and we had a major meltdown, blow-out fight not long after this, which reminds me of the great line, which I from time to time resemble: “A man who thinks he has no problems, has no problems.” Ha.]

February 22, 1996
Just landed the cover of True West! Incredible. Here I sat struggling with painting, when the editor John Joerschki, calls me back at around 12:30. [When I had called the day before] he seemed reticent to want to do anything. But I started pitching ideas and ended with the Bermuda Triangle Theory of Bill the Kid. Boom, next thing you know he wants my illustration ideas on the Kid. . .[Spec notes] The four-color cover, leaving room for masthead above. A left hand full page, followed by a half page with illustraiong, plus two spot illustrations. Pay is $200 for cover, 5 cents a word (apprx $250-$300), $50 for the half page illustration, and $20 for spots=$550-$590. Needs to be shot 4X5 and shipped fed ex by next Tuesday. [this entry is a total shocker—what are the odds?—because this is three years before I even had the idea or opportunity to buy the magazine. It’s depressing on one note: our pay rates today are not any better than these piddly, embarrassing wages. The same assignment at Arizona Highways would bring in at least $3K. Need to address this soon]

February 22, 1997
Puppy Peaches is [pooping] everywhere and chewing on everything, but she’s a sweetheart and we love her
We really like the place the morning show is at. We, being David K. Jeanne and me [this is the Young Buck Country radio show] I’m trying to nail the four words that I think encompasses our show. I’m considering Honest, Casual, Fun and Organic. [we were fired in September and the station was sold to a Hispanic company which to this day broadcasts Mexican music. Ironically, we were let go because I said “Besame Culo” on the air. Ay-yi-yi! If you saw it in a movie you wouldn’t believe it, eh?]
Wild West [magazine] article on Wild Women is out. Art is weak. Won’t get paid for several more months. Ouch. I’m overdrawn.

February 22, 1998
Nice morning. Made pancakes for Tommy and I. Also made an 1880s roast recipe from Sherry Monihan’s new book “Taste of Tombstone.”
Read Casey [Tefertiller’s] new Wyatt Earp book. It’s very good. Quite thorough. His section on the aftermath of the gunfight is quite profound: anyone running for office who was remotely associated with the Earps lost. Fascinating and insightful. I have never read this anywhere before.

February 22, 1999
Really successful day. Did 23 scans, placing many of them. [I was working on my book Bad Men: which finally out later that year].
Show today was okay [David K. and I launched a radio show on KXAM, “live from the Mineshaft in Cave Creek, Arizona!”]. Mad Coyote Joe came in around 8 and we kabitzed with him until the end of the show. Got off and had breakfast with Joe. Long talk with him and David about future of the show. David is frustrated about the drop in revenue. [The Mineshaft restaurant was sold in September and David left the show, partly because he sensed my disengagement because of the rumor that me and Bob McCubbin were thinking about buying True West magazine, which became a reality in, ta da, September]

February 22, 2000
No actual entry for this date. I was eye-ball deep in the True West mess and didn’t even have time to type out the journal entries. A telling note scratched on the next page (Feb. 23) says “Carole, we’re losing $30,000 a month!!” We were. It wasn’t pretty.]

February 22, 2001
[We started moving out of] Clantonville. Place a total pit. Smells like cat urine. Hard to believe we worked in that Hell hole for over a year! [True West magazine was moving into our new building on Cave Creek Road. It marked a new beginning and a brighter future, but we weren’t out of the woods yet.]

February 22, 2002
Went to Bank One with Kathy at 2:30 and transferred $4.9K from equity loan into our house account to pay bills. Also went to Stewart Title to start loan process for $160K “refi” [refinance, on our house. this was the scariest part of the True West experience. Although the editorial was improving significantly, all of my partners bailed and Kathy and I were left to carry on alone. Makes me shiver just to read this.]

February 22, 2003
Well, Peaches finally got the last hen. [Our chicken-killing dog, Peaches nailed the last hen. I also was struggling with my editorials and wondering if an anecdote about me riding a horse into a ballroom was the right call. Maybe, I thought, “I should be directing people into this issue rather than drawing attention to myself.” I ended up using the crowded ballroom tidbit in a recent issue. Ha.].

February 22, 2004
Went through my Franklin Daytimer morgue and grabbed two annuals at a time and drug them out to the computer (they are heavy suckers). Went right to the February 22 entry for each year. Some were underwhelming, but some seemed almost too good to be true and I wonder if people will think I faked them. Well, as I always like to say, “reality is stranger than anything I could ever make up.”

“Every American has the right to make a fool of himself if he wants to, but too many folks are abusing the privilege.”
—Gloria Vanderbilt