February 17, 2005
Ordered more rocks for the Spanish Driveway ($171 for six tons, biz account). Went down to the creek last night and got about five sacks full of good, flat rocks to intersperse with the commercial rocks.

Sam took an order yesterday for $981.75 (all back issues and sets). The guy was from California, had never heard of True West, picked one up, went crazy and called to catch up. He paid $200 for the Doc Holliday issue alone—which is the new world record for the most ever paid for a back issue.

Here's Emma Bull reporting on one of yesterday’s items:

"Yep, the guy with the dog and the cat and the--I think it's actually a gerbil or something, which means it can't run for office in Bisbee after all--is workin' the streets down here. The tourists love it. So, as far as I can tell from looking, do the dog, the cat, and the maybe-it's-a-gerbil. The guy makes money, and the tourists proceed on down Main Street feeling all warm and fuzzy, with something to ask the next merchant about.

“See, I think Tombstone missed a bet. That kind of goofy sideshow panhandling fits right in with the Old West aesthetic. Instead of giving the guy the bum's rush, they should have found him some old-fashioned threads and replaced his plastic tip bucket with a galvanized tin one. Instant atmosphere, and everybody wins. Good thing we don't live in Tombstone; I'd have to run for city council."
—Emma Bull

This afternoon I was looking at a 1947 Annual of Western Art and out popped a page of radio "liners" (promo soundbite scripts) for the Boze & Co. Radio Show (KXAM, 1310 AM). Some of them are still relevant today:

• Please don't call the radio station. We're tired and it's generally real irritating talking to our callers.

• We don't really care if you listen or not. In 30 years we'll all be dead, so who gives a crap.

• Mormons hate us. Jews hate us. Catholics hate us. Muslims hate us. We do seem to appeal, for some reason, to Jehovah's Witnesses and Hindus (this was obviously written by "Gordone" Smith, as it has his trademark religious obsessions all over it).

Believe it or not, the show lasted three more years after these ran.

"Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness."
—Bertrand Russell