September 20, 2004
Someone said we got two inches of rain in Cave Creek yesterday. But just to show you how much of a drought we’ve been in, when I got home tonight I took the dogs down to the creek to see how wide Cave Creek was running and, low and behold, no puddles, no rivulets, nada. Dry as a bone. Now that’s scary.

Here’s an update on the Homos on the Range debate. This morning Deena comes out for breakfast and we’re talking about our jobs and work and all of a sudden she gets real excited and says, “I haven’t seen you since last Friday morning.” This is true. She has been running wild like a 24-year-old hellion with a new job and an almost new car. “I wanted to show the people I work with the photos of Tomcat as Napoleon Dynamite,” my wild offspring told me between bites of Special K. “So on a break I signed onto your blog and showed them and one of the people scrolled up to the top and said, “Who’s this yahoo?” And Deena says, “That’s my dad.” And everyone gathers around and looks at this page and one of them says sarcastically, “Yeh, right. Like this cowboy is your dad?” Which, granted, would be just like Deena to fool her workmates with some goony website fakery. So, just for grins, Deena scrolls down to where there is an entry that mentions her and says, “See, ‘I’m having breakfast with Deena.’” (which she was in the story and in this blog entry also) And Greg, one of the coolest and funniest guys Deena works with starts reading the blog and sees my proposed headline: “Homos On The Range?” and says, “Is he serious?” And Deena says, “Well, he wants to run that headline but I think I talked him out of it. He thinks he’s going to run it before some gay Western comes out and then Entertainment Tonight will do a report saying, ‘According to a national history magazine, True West reports there really were homosexuals in the real Old West,” and Greg goes, “He’s right! They probably will. He should run it.” And Deena is beside herself, that Greg, the hippest cat and funniest dawg in the whole department actually thinks her dad is right about anything.

Ah, I don’t care what history says, sometimes revenge is very sweet, indeed. Now, to have the actual courage to run the dang thing. Or, as Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks puts it, “No balls, no babies.”

And speaking of the billionaire entrepreneur, here’s his business advice: “When you are at a business meeting, look around for the fool. If you can’t spot him, you’re the fool.” Ha. Too true.

And speaking of fools on the hill, I spent all day today working on our Director’s Meeting Agenda. The principal stock holders of True West are meeting in Santa Fe this weekend and the CEO (the same guy who wants to run the word “Homos” on the cover) needs to establish the tone and direction of the meeting. Fortunately I have RG Robertson and Carole Glenn to give me the right information and numbers to actually sound like I know what I’m talking about. For instance here’s part of the report:

• Web Sales are up 173.8% over last year.
Web Sales 1-1-03 to 8-31-03: $20,568.27
Web Sales 1-1-04 to 8-31-04: $56,325.01 (includes Maniac memberships ordered online)
August Web Traffic: 30,192 hits (the first time hits have topped 30,000 in a month)

Stuff like that. Hey, maybe being totally open and honest on this blog is actually paying off. What do you think Greg?

“The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.”
—Florynce Kennedy