September 3, 2004
Wore one of our new t-shirts to work today. “Silver Made Tombstone Rich: Wyatt Earp Made It Famous,” is a design you picked as your favorite. You will see it soon if you are a subscriber because the new issue (October) went out the door today. We got our office copies this morning and it’s a big ol’ sucker, very colorful. One of the prettiest issues in a long time (especially after the two bloody covers we just ran).

Yesterday I mentioned my suspicion of an “Arizona Charlie Meadows” photo which elicited this response from Dan Buck:

“I think what got Arizona Charlie into trouble was not his Wild West show per se but a bull fight that was somehow associated with his show—in Gillette? He was arrested, I do believe. Somewhere I have a packet of 1890s clips on the many adventures and just as many misadventures of Arizona Charlie, his brother Kid Meadows, and others of his clan.

“Wild West Shows did, though, avidly solicit Old West celebrities—ex-outlaws, retired Indian warriors, broken-down gunslingers. I don't know that Tom Horn was a recruit, but what not. If Monica Lewinsky can host a TV show, Tom Horn can be in a cowboy circus.”
—Dan Buck

Dan is definitely right about Tom Horn and Monica Lewinsky, and he may also be right about the bull fight, but I distinctly remember reading about Arizona Charlie running into trouble regarding cruelty to animals at a rodeo performance in Denver. Someone (I thought it was Dan) sent me the newspaper piece to illustrate that the current rodeo flack re: “cruelty” is not new. I believe this event was from the 1890s as well.

While we’re on the subject of historical clarification:

“BBB, In your article ‘John Wesley Hardin VS Constable John Selman’ you
stated that Helen Beulah M'Rose ended up in Phoenix, AZ, where she
disappeared from history. According to an article by Dennis McCown, ‘The
Vagrants Grave’ (WOLA Journal, Summer 2003) M'Rose went to San Francisco
where she abandoned her daughter in a Catholic orphanage, then moved to
Sacramento where she died from chronic alcoholism in 1904.”
—DJ Patterson

I stand corrected. Interesting. So many of these characters ended so badly. You really don't want Beautiful Beulah to end so ugly. I almost liked it better when I didn't know what happened to her. I always imagine they saw the light, and spent the rest of their lives in relative comfort. I guess that blows my cover as a cynic. Ha.

I whipped out a second Colt’s .45 scratchboard illustration this morning for the Curly Bill piece I’m working on. I’ll post both of them tomorrow, so you can see how difficult it is, at least for me, to capture the svelte curves of the famous firearm. Also whipped out a new t-shirt design called “One Riot—One Ranger,” it’s our goal to put out a new t-shirt design every month.

Going to Flag in the morning to see the Tomcat and bring him some artwork for the walls of his new apartment. Deena and her boyfriend Mike are also going (any excuse to drive her new car).

"I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize."
—Steven Wright