July 9 2004
Today at 1:30 I finished the fourth piece of art for the Bat Masterson Classic Gunfight. Worked last night and this morning also. Good washes, feel strong. Got a very nice little vingette of Sgt. Melvin King firing into Bat Masterson’s pelvis via Mollie Brennan’s lower extremities. Had to fight the urge to illustrate this exactly as it sounds (in other words, the R-rated version). It’s possible they were shot while imitating missionaries (ahem).

A little cooler today. Took the dogs to the creek at about seven this morning and got ten rocks for the drive-way. Real aggressive coyotes in the neighborhood. They chased Buddy Boze Hatkiller yesterday for about 100 yards, then they traded and Buddy chased them over Ratcliff Ridge to certain doom. Or, at least that was Kathy’s fear. He came trotting back about twenty minutes later, like nothing had happened, giving us that teenager look, “What? What? Get off my case! They’re not as bad as you think! You’re both so paranoid!”

Here’s a Bisbee contribution on the oxymoron front:

“Forgot to tell you my favorite oxymoron: gratuitous nudity. I think the King of the Drive-Ins, Joe-Bob Briggs, pointed out that this was a stupid phrase that's most often used about movies in which the nudity is essential, because if you remove it, there's no reason to be watching the dang thing at all.”
—Will Shetterly

If you read my recent Custer battlefield tour where I was spouting factoids right and left, you may have wondered how many I actually got right. I did too, so I wrote Michael Donahue and asked him for a grade. Here’s his report card:

“1.) Boston Custer did not stop to water his horse at the morass, he simply passed Benteen who was watering his.

“2.) We do not know how many rounds Custer's men expended (38,000--I do not know were that came from) Crook (with Indian scouts) did shoot up 40, 000 and Custer's men were no better shots. Since warrior accounts state that some belts were almost empty and some were full after killing soldiers there is no way of knowing the shots fired by Custer's men. Some bodies on Calhoun had 40 cartridges by them, and they fired the most (likley.) I think it is quite possible that the men of E company and Custer on the hill may have run out. They said suddenly that their shots quit coming.”
—Michael Donahue

Kathy and I watched the first 35 minutes of “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly” last night on DVD (in other words, the opening credits). It’s a long sucker. On the accompanying doc on the making of the film, they do this fun little thing where they give the time on certain scenes: dog walking across the road: 34 seconds. Stuff like that. Really love it. When they tried to restore the missing scenes (Hollywood cut about an hour out of it), some of the dialogue was lost, so the producer brought in Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood to loop in some of their missing lines of dialogue. I’d like to say it works, but an actor in his seventies doing voice over for himself forty years earlier, is a little thin. But, still, Eli is so wonderful it doesn’t matter. What a great roll he had: Tuco (such a bastard, and so damn funny).

Speaking of history:

"It might be a good idea if the various countries of the world would occasionally swap history books, just to see what other people are doing with the same set of facts."
—Bill Vaughan (thanks to Seth Hoyt for sending this one!)