August 19, 2005
Now that the book is finished and the October issue has wrapped (I just finished my editorial, 10:52 A.M.), I’m launching Operation Fresh Start. Both my studio at home and my office are complete pits, with books on the floor and art reference everywhere. My goal is to be able to actually walk upright from the front door to my desk.

I am still doing some extra paintings for the show (my goal is 10 more) and it’s nice to have some time to do them.

Trish Brink and I met with Brian Label and Bill Welch of Cowboy Legacy Gallery yesterday to go over the September 30th premiere of the book and the artwork. I had one reader of this blog who suggests that maybe we could offer a contest to have a VIP pass winner, a special guest at the show. Not a bad idea. What would be a good contest to determine a winner?

Got a new poll up. If there had been no Doc Holliday, would there have been an O.K. Corral gunfight? Go vote!

Kathy and I are leaving at noon today to attend my 40th high school reunion in Kingman. First stop, Papa Loco’s on Hualapai Road at seven tonight. Here's my prediction for the first words out of every classmate's mouths as they drive away after the party: “Everyone looks so old! Except me!”

Here’s the opening of my editorial:
Contributing editor, and friend, Leon Metz, serves up a challenge that hits me somewhere south of the solar plexus. When asked how to fix Tombstone, the author of definitive books on Pat Garrett and John Wesley Hardin, responded with, “Historians who write another dreary book on the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, aren’t doing the city any favors. Who cares any longer?”

In spite of Leon’s cogent advice, this issue contains a seven page excerpt from my new book Classic Gunfights, Volume II, Blaze Away! The 25 Gunfights Behind the O.K. Corral. Ha.

“The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best —and therefore never scrutinize or question.”
—Stephen Jay Gould