January 2, 2005
Power went out this morning from about 6:30 to 8:30. Couldn't drink coffee, couldn't read the paper (no lights) couldn't take a shower (well runs on electric pump). I guess the moral of this is we wouldn't have lasted long in the Old West.

Nice day working in studio. Stoked the fire all day and kept it toasty, while working on a soft gouache image of Peter Roerig, the ill-fated passenger on the Tombstone to Benson stage in March of 1881. I painted him holding his bags, standing outside the Grand Hotel, as the waiting stage stands just off the boardwalk. Roerig ended up riding in the so-called dickey seat, on top of the stage and facing to the rear, and when highwaymen attacked the stage and it took off, the outlaws fired several volleys at the stage, in the dark and instead of hitting the shotgun messenger, who they were aiming at, they hit Roerig, fatally injuring him. Of all the dickey seats on all the stages in all the West and he gets this one.

Kathy and I went down into Scottsdale at about three. Stopped at Costco and while Kathy bought big containers of crap I looked at books. Perused the new Jon Stewart book, America (The Book), which has been banned by Wal-mart because of alleged naked Supreme Court Justices. It looks really funny, and was only $14 something, but I passed. Kathy, however ran up a bill of $118 on stupid stuff like salmon, sushi and nuts, but in big containers that required a skip loader to get into our car.

From there we went by Desert Credit Union and made a deposit, then down to Deena's new condo where we we ate the sushi and I helped Deena hang her Christmas present, a big painting from some English guy who I've already forgotten.

Decided to do something completely wild, so Kathy and I drove up to Fashion Square and went into the first available movie at Camelview Five, which turned out to be Finding Neverland ($17.50 for tickets and $7.50 for a medium popcorn, no butter, and a water. No tip, felt pissy). The movie was okay. I had a hard time believing that Johnny Depp would ignore the hot wife he had, or keep his hands off of Kate Winslett, who looked ravishingly Victorian. It was a double plutonic deal (A RELATIONSHIP MOVIE!!!), with Johnny Depp being sensitive and restrained. Sorry, I’m not buying. But, I must admit Depp played a better pirate in this than he did in Pirates of the Carribean. He sucked so bad in that. I hated it.

"I love New York City.  I've got a gun."
—Charles Barkley