September 1, 2004
Three coyotes just sauntered past my office window (5:45 p.m.), looking hungry and discouraged. Probably just ate at the Horny Toad.

I had a once in a lifetime experience this morning. I had promised Mary Brown I would come down to the Scottsdale City Council and make a presentation on how important I think Festival of the West is to the health and prosperity of Scottsdale, the Valley and the State. When I got up this morning, I dreaded wading into the congested pool of goo, but I felt I needed to live up to our motto which is, “If we don’t support each other, who will?”

Mary told me the council session started at 8:30 a.m. and that she was 12th on the agenda. I asked her if she could give me a window of probability and that I would appreciate giving me at least that advantage. She told me to please be there by 10:30. I told the staff I might be gone for half a day. I’ve been to many of these and they drag on and on, hardly anyone adheres to the time limit, they break for lunch, they take a nap, before you know it, it’s time for the 10 o’clock news and everything has been postponed until the following day.

I gave myself an hour to get there, drove down Scottsdale Road right into the heart of the beast. Road construction hell at Via Linda, but I coasted through. Pulled up to the council chambers at 10:22, walked into the meeting room, heard Mary Brown say, “Here he is right now, ladies and gentlemen, the executive editor of True West, Bob Boze Bell.” Without even setting down my briefcase, I walked to the front of the room, gave a short pitch. A few people smiled, most looked bored and oblivious. They thanked me and dismissed us. Mary thanked me. I got in my Ranger, made a U-turn for the long drive back out to Cave Creek, looked at the clock. It was 10:30, exactly.

Never in my life have I experienced the luck, no, the miracle of dealing with the government and waltzing right in and right out in such a ridiculously short time. If you saw it in a movie, you wouldn’t believe it. I was back in the office at 11:15. Amazing.

This morning at breakfast, Deena reversed the solving life protocol and gave me a lesson in creating a good resume. She actually took a class in college on how to make an effective one and the little nuances are quite amazing. She told me how to make bullet points, so as not to bore the reader and how to distill long stretches of little or nothing into a golden life of competence.

Taking her advice, here’s my resume:

The Incredible Lifetime Achievements of Bob Boze Bell
• Attended 16 years of school earning the respect of no one.

• Received the nickname Boze by running the bases backwards in a game with Needles, California.

• Graduated with the valedictorian of his class (Katherine Lamb, see August 30 entry).

• 1965-70 Played drums in a rock and roll band. Stoned most of the time (Mary Jane)

• 1970-86 Underground cartoonist. Stoned all of the time (cocaine and A-1 beer)

• Can’t remember much of the eighties. Oh yeah, I got married. No, wait, that was the latter seventies. Hey, Man, there’s kids in there somewhere.

• Bought a magazine.

• Learned how to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars down a black hole.

• 1999-2004: Drank a lot of coffee.

See? She’s right. That was concise and to the point. Do I get the job?

My Billy the Kid book is now in the second or third edition (it all runs together, see resume). Theresa from Tri Star came out at three and delivered me the first one off the press. A tradition started back in 1992 and my first old west book.

I had lunch with Jeb Rosebrook at El Encanto (chicken mole special and iced tea, I bought $24 biz account). Jeb told me many stories about the oldtime Golden Boot Awards shows when some of the presenters were so drunk they would pass out in middle of the presentations. Sounds quite wild by today’s standards.

Ran into legendary stuntman Spanky Spangler, who has built more movie towns than any other human being on the planet. He told me he has finished another one down on the Gila Res. Wants me to come see it. He was there with another Western legend named Pat (he’s very private and hates to be mentioned in blogs by ex-stoned out drummers).

Talked to my mother. She’s lonesome in her new house in Cody. She had this to say: “Why do you exaggerate so much? You never got stoned. You were the president of Luther League.” She’s right, you know. I never got stoned at Luther League.

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.”
—George Eliot