May 4, 2004
Met Kathy at a Carefree title company this morning and signed a tall stack of papers locking us in on a new home loan (6.25%). Thirty years, fixed, decent payment ($960).

First it was Deadwood, now the f-word is causing more problems in a very unlikely place. Local radio and tv stations carried a live feed from the Pat Tillman memorial services yesterday in Phoenix. Pat, the ranger and Arizona Cardinals football star who was killed in Afghanistan recently, was being eulogized by Senator John McCain and other big names and in the beginning, everything was somber and dignified. But, then Pat’s brother came up to the microphone with a beer (my source said he was drunk), and opened his remarks with the f-bomb, not once, but four times. One radio station KTAR, had gone off their delay (what could go wrong at a funeral service?) and they panicked, then ultimately broke away. The managers were on high overload because the FCC has declared they will not longer tolerate the f-bomb and it’s a pricey $250,000 per infraction. So the station was breathing a cool million dollar in fines—at a funeral! My source tells me the FCC is going to let them off the hook because ABC tv was the main feed and they live by different rules. Ah, just like high school, eh?

And speaking of Deadwood, Calamity Jane is flat-out stealing the show. She is a wonderful character, so obscene, crude and yet lovable. Meanwhile in the real Deadwood, USA Today is reporting that visits to the town’s modest website (Deadwood.org) has gone from 2,000 to 3,000 a month to 150,000 hits. I think we are getting some of the overflow as we are doing record numbers on our site for new subscriptions.

Got a new poll up: Would you rather?
• Read Old West history
• Read a novel about the Old West
• See a Western movie
You can click right here to go vote.

Also don’t miss our Best of the West poll, which is now up. Be sure to vote for your favorites. We want the deserving to win, you know.

Bart Bull came over for dinner last night and gave me a blunt analysis of the magazine. Among the many thoughts and observations—he can be quite blunt—“Your departments look like an eighties in-flight-magazine.” Ouch!

We are having a design review today and will take a good look at this stinging criticism. As John Madden put it, “A good coach looks for what he doesn’t want to see, and listens to what he doesn’t want to hear.”

“Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”
—Vince Lombardi