January 17, 2005
Finally finished the cover painting at one. Called Ed Mell and warned him a total rip-off of his style painting is coming his way (we send our cover shots down to Kenny, who shares space with Ed, to be photographed with a four by five camera). Feel guilty, but in my defense I stole from several artists.

Juan ran out of sand at two, so I took him down to The Home Depot to buy more. Got 10 more bags of cement, plus a load of sand ($120, minus a $21 deposit for the sand bag). They used a fork lift to dump the sand in my Ranger. When we tossed in the ten bags of cement I had a real low rider going home, tires rubbing on the underframe. Way cool. Both Juan and I slid down low in the seats and flashed gang signs to passing Hummers.

There is a universal force somewhere out past coincidence. I have lived long enough to have experienced it too many times to think of it as chance or coincidence. We have been trying to publish a Tombstone graves piece by Troy Kelly for over a year. The premise is: where are all the Tombstone characters buried? How did they die? What were their last words? Etc. (the cover head is “Tombstone’s Tombstones”). Robert Ray was not satisfied with some of the photos, so he took it upon himself to drive around the state and take new ones. That set back the production schedule by several issues. The piece is finally done, in the can, and goes to the printer on Monday. Last Saturday on the front page of the Arizona Republic is a story entitled “Dying to Get In” about, you guessed it, Tombstone graves and who is buried there. Ironically, Pat Kelly, public works clerk for Tombstone, is shown on the front page looking at old wooden crosses in the Tombstone cemetery. Pat played Wyatt Earp in our video sessions of last month.

Grave intentions, indeed!

The point is, there is this organic, natural combustion of ideas and at any given moment, there are other people thinking the same thoughts, having the same ideas and creating similiar projects and products. The rest is timing and luck. Case in point: the movies Tombstone and Wyatt Earp came out within six months of each other. Both were in production at the same time. In fact, almost every movie has a twin, that either gets swamped, or dies, or wins the race (think Troy vs. Alexander). This holds true in books, songs and magazines. When you are young, you tend to think you are being ripped off, or someone has tapped your phone, but when you get older you realize it's natural combustion and it's actually amazing there aren't more "twins."

"I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and missed. I have failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed."
—Michael Jordan