September 8, 2005
Woke up early to a light sprinkle this morning. Very pretty out. Went for a walk with Kathy and the dogs. Invigorating and hopeful.

Extremely busy day yesterday. Got home at about seven in the evening. Drove down into the Beast and dropped off two of the new Blaze Away! posters at the framer, signed two original pieces that were signatureless, met Laury Klasky at Shea and Tatum at four. She had just filled up her Suburban for $136! I’m not making this up. She was filling the tank and the automatic cut-off on the pump shut her down at $75 and she had to go in and extend her credit to get the remaining gas. She has a 41 gallon tank. We are currently paying on average $3.18 a gallon (supposedly we’re now the highest average in the nation). So I picked up Laury in my little Ranger (on the way there I got gas at $3.09 a gallon, and the fillup cost me $37), and we waded down Hayden into Tempe and JJ Distributors to tweak two t-shirt designs for the Blaze Away! art show. Laury is an expert at matching t-shirt colors with designs and I’m red-green color blind, so I needed her like a blind man needs a seeing eye t-shirt person.

After much wrangling and color tweaking, Laury, Wayne and I zeroed in on a color combo for two different shirts (one gray and the other “brick”).

Lately I’ve been getting more and more inquires from mentions on this blog. For example, an art appraiser from California contacted me two days ago after he Googled “Ed Mell.” The family genealogist of the Texas outlaw, Sam Bass, just contacted me today with this:

“You [BBB] wrote: ‘The late Jim Browning found evidence that Bass was not his real name—instead, it was Basil or Bazil, shortened down to 'Baz.' But most folks wrote it down wrong. After all, they were more familiar with the fish or the outlaw. What in the hell is a Baz anyway?’

“His name was Bazz. He was my grandfather's sister's child. The only way I have ever heard his name or seen his name, in all the family research I have done is Bazzel or Bazz L. There were no s's. He is not the only person in my family named Bazz. What is it? Same thing as a Bob, I guess.

“Apparently my family knew he was a Texas Ranger but never knew he died in any brothel. IF they knew--they didn't say. My family was never one for brushing stuff under the carpet so my guess is they never knew all that--if it even was true.

“My personal opinion as the family genealogist is that he was named after a relative of his mother's Basil Smith. As far as I know there never was nor yet is anyone in the Outlaw or Smith family named Sebastian!"
—Linda

I Emailed our webmaster, Jason Benefield and asked him if the Google is getting better, or are more people simply Googling. Here’s his response:
“I did a Google search for your name, and Google brought up 50,800 instances where your name was mentioned in some sense.”
—Jason Benefield

“I know it's not your period, but I hope you are watching ‘Rome. [on HBO]. It is
everything a period piece should be. Fantastic."
—Alan Huffines

Last week I had lunch with Mad Coyote Joe and he told me about a writing class he’s taking and he mentioned they are doing “flash fiction.” I asked him what the hell that is, and he told me to Google it, so I did. Not only is there flash fiction appearing everywhere but there is micro fiction and entire websites dedicated to this new form of writing. It’s basically telling a story in the least amount of words possible (60-150-200 words). There are prize contests and chat rooms galore. What a brave new world, eh?

Sometimes good writing doesn’t even come from writers. Here’s a coach:

”He can catch a BB on a dead run at night.”
—"Gunslinger" Cooley, Jerry Rice's college coach