October 23, 2005
Made homemade margaritas and tacos last night. Bill Glenn drove over from Fountain Hills to join Tomcat, Kathy and I. Afterwards we watched Bill O'Reilly on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. Both handled themselves very well, like two heavyweights punching each other in the face but not backing down. Both were very funny. Then watched The Colbert Report, which was also very funny. Both are on the Comedy Channel.

Tomas brought me a present from Flag, a CD of Calexico, a Tucson group he particularly likes. We went up to the new camera shop, Ritz Camera, and listened to it. Lots of twang and mariachi sounds. Tucson is so hip in that vein and always have been. The Dusty Chaps were doing Country Rock five years before the Eagles.

Unfortunately, The Ritz, had a machine down and didn't have my prints. The kid working there grabbed my negs and told me I could go down into the Beast and get them developed at another store. I told him, no, I want you to develop them, like you said you would yesterday when I left them here. I also told him this was my first experience with Ritz and that I came down here from Walgreen/s and I'm not happy. Of course, the kid looked at me like, "I don't give a s---, I just work here." Too bad. I wanted to give them my business (I spent, on average, $10K a year at Foothills Photo).

Got up this morning and bailed into more stud drawings and color studies. Inspired by the art trip and Ed Mell's advice. I'm tweaking my clouds with little dabs of yellow and red to "knock them back." Quite astounding, the effects. As with so many things, it's what you leave out, as much as what you put in."

"Sometimes work is more fun than fun."
—Old Vaquero Sayingy