September 23, 2005
Joel Klasky came in my office at 9 A.M. and said he just got off the phone with Dave Walker down in Louisiana. Dave worked with Joel and I at New Times Weekly (Cap’n Dave!) and Dave was also a drummer in our band, The Zonies. Dave and his wife Judy (also a writer) moved to New Orleans several years ago to work for the Times Picayune. Dave and Judy’s home in New Orleans wasn’t totally destroyed by Katrina because it’s four feet above the street, but they still got about two inches throughout their house and the water has ruined their wood floors. Dave is in Baton Rouge helping to put the newspaper out from there. Of course, there isn’t any advertising to support them except for companies looking for relief help, and they are limping by as best they can. Dave also said at least 100,000 people are not coming back. Can you even fathom what this will do to the city and their livelihood? And ultimately, as it ripples out, ours? Scary stuff.

Feedback on the Paul Harvey radio broadcast from yesterday:
“I live on a ranch in Alberta. At noon I was listening to Paul Harvey news and low and behold he starts talking about Wyatt Earp and Bob Boze Bell. Paul Harvey says how hard this guy in Arizona at Cave Creek tries to find the true story and prints it in his magazine TRUE WEST. Doesn't sound like Mr. Harvey has been reading True West very long or he would know this has been going on for quite a spell. Anyhow am I ever impressed, he's talking about a bunch of my friends !!”
—Bill Dunn, Alberta, Canada

I got a call from Jeanne Sedello yesterday and I said, “Hey, Jeann-er, are you watching that new reality show on VH-1 called ‘Breaking Bonaduce’’?” She assured me she was. “Didn’t we set up Danny,” I continued, “with his wife Gretchen, on our radio show?” Yes, we did, Jeanne Sedello confirmed, as she gave me all the juicy details, some of which I had forgotten. In about 1991 we had a psychic come on our show. Our producer Derek Jones had met a girl at a club the night before and he had her come visit The Jones & Boze Radio Show and she started pressing the psychic about when and where she would meet her future husband, she wanted a family, where was this mystery man? etc. David K. Jones had a sister with cancer and he was putting together a benefit for her at a south Scottsdale bar and we invited Danny Bonaduce, who had just got a morning gig on another local radio show (Y-95?). As Jeanne reminded me, I always thought it was goofy how competing radio stations and morning DJs would shun each other and never give out competing call letters on the air or even admit anyone else was even alive. So, naturally, we invited Danny to come by our show since he had agreed to support David’s benefit. The girl Derek brought in was Gretchen, who quickly fell in love with Danny and she’s been with him ever since (I think she said 14 years last night on the show, while they were in counseling). As an aside, Danny kept calling me “Dad,” which I took as a mild putdown. I was 45 and I always assumed he thought I was an old fart trying to be hip. While he was right about that, I had to chuckle last night on the show, where he is in major angst and meltdown at being old. He’s now 45. Ha. Ha, ha.

Remember when O.J. was doing his Bronco “chase” and he pulled into his driveway at sunset and the overhead copter shot showed a guy run out to the driver’s side of the car and everybody freaked because it looked like someone was going to grab O.J.? Well, it turned out that was O.J.’s son and the guy standing next to him was our old producer Derek Jones.

My books have arrived in Phoenix from the printer and Theresa from Tri Star is driving them out this afternoon. I’m very anxious (it really is very much like being a fathering a child in the hospital waiting for a newborn, but without the eighteen years of hell afterwards, of course).

“Life is very much a study of attention. Whatever you dwell upon and think about grows and expands in your life. The more you pay attention to your relationships, the quality and quantity of your work, your finances and your health, the better they will become and the happier you will be.”
—Old Vaquero Saying