February 7, 2004
Drove down to Tucson yesterday morning. Left the TW offices at nine, got down to the Old Pueblo and the Arizona Historical Society at 11:30 (139 miles). Met the Bill Kurtis crew and Paul Hutton for a taping on Wyatt Earp. It’ll run on the History Channel in May.

Taping was, as my mother likes to say, “different.” The word came down from the suits in New York, not to use much of me or Drew Gomber because we are all over the other History Channel show Old West Tech, so I thought, “Well, I’ll help out the editors by making their lives easier, and I’ll just entertain the crew.” The end result was that Paul Hutton, who was interviewing me, couldn’t keep a straight face and kept laughing, which in turn was like pouring gas on a fire for me, and each time he cracked up I turned up the outrageous nozzle another notch. When we got to Mr. Earp spending time in a Peoria, Illinois brothel, well, let’s just say, the whole crew lost it (and by the way, if you can make the sound guy laugh, you are really doing something, because those guys are jaded sphinx-sters).

Afterwards we all went down to the barrio for beers and Mexican food at El Minuto. Writer Leo Banks joined us, along with Sherry Monihan and her husband Larry, Allen Barra, his wife Jonelle and daughter Maggie and Paul Hutton ($40 cash, I bought Leo’s dinner, I had two Bohemias and the carne seca Sonoran enchiladas).

After coffee and a load of enough author gossip to last a month of Sundays, Allen and I took off in my Ford Ranger and argued (and laughed) all the way home about Westerns and American pop culture. The three hours went by in a blink and we pulled in the driveway at about ten to eleven. Long day.

It will be interesting to see if they end up using anything from my interview, and if they do, how harshly they’ll have to edit. So if you see the show and they keep cutting me off in mid-sentence, you’ll know why. And by the way, I didn’t get paid a dime for this. I love the people involved and it’s just a ton of fun.

"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul."
—Marilyn Monroe