October 22, 2004
Got a call from Jeff Hildebrandt at the Westerns Channel and he has ordered another batch of True West Moments. I told him '’d come up with some new angles and he suggested that I put it out here, because, as he puts it, the people who read this are "pretty darn creative."

One of the bits we're thinking of doing is in all of the old Westerns where the cowboys come riding into town, they invariably dismount in front of the saloon, throw their reins over the hitching rail and go inside. As one of the TW Maniacs mentioned to me recently, "How long do you think those horses would actually stay tied that way?"

This afternoon a video crew and I are driving down to Tombstone to film that exact experiment on Allen Street. Dave Daiss is bringing over some horses from Sonoita and we're going to video them riding up and tying off in front of Big Nosed Kate's and then I'm going to start counting, "One thousand one, one thousand two. . ." and we'll tape this a couple of times to see what happens. That should be fun, especially with a bunch of tourists in loud pants walking around.

Another bit we may do is to tabulate just how many Wyatt Earps and Doc Hollidays there are in town. Everyone wants to dress up and walk the streets, but hardly anyone wants to be anyone else besides Wyatt and Doc. So, it might be zany to walk down the boardwalk with the camera and say, "Great outfit, who are you?" And after a dozen hits of "Why ah'm Wyatt Earp," I turn to the camera and say, "Tombstone, the town with only two men." Or, something like that.

We are also going to be shooting a bunch of gunfights (the black and blue plaid shirt shooting for example) around Fifth and Allen, the deadliest intersection in the West. And of course tomorrow night, Sir John Martin is going to be opening the Oriental Saloon for one night. That should yield some interesting images.

Got any ideas for True West Moments? Just go to the top of the page and click on contact me. Thanks, and I’ll give you credit if we use one of your ideas.

"The best audience is intelligent, well-educated, and a little drunk."
—Alben Barkley?