October 27, 2005
I woke up this morning to stereo cement trucks, one on each side of the house, bleeping and blatting those irritating back-up signals over and over. We’ve got a big ol’ house going up to the south of us, and they’re totally remodeling the “Muffy” house to the north of us.

Yesterday at four I had half a physical, ending with the much dreaded "turn your head and cough," examination and for the finale, a plastic gloved finger up the off-ramp to the Bell Road Exit. Lisa was the PA who performed the deed and as I bent over the table I asked her how many of these she performs in a typical day. Seven or eight was the answer. "So, at lunch do you say things like, ‘Well I got to go back to work and probe an old man?" She laughed more than I did. A night of fasting and bloodwork follows next Tuesday.

Last night Kathy talked me into going to restorative yoga at Black Mountain Gym. I hate going mostly because it’s all women and they stretch into every position imaginable with such ease and to me a good stretch is picking up my wallet off the bedroom floor without having to get down on my hands and knees. On a desperate down dog deal, the yoga woman came over and sat on my rump to get it to go down. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my rump was really getting tired of being abused by female health professionals. Felt good though.

Just before noon today, I got a call from Gordon Smith telling me Michael Lacey was on NPR being interviewed about the Village Voice buyout. I had to go down into the Beast to Dan Harshberger’s studio so I got in the truck and gave a listen on the way down. Lacey is so amazing. He manages to savage the interviewer for being subsidized by the government and then he hangs up, and experts and enemies from around the country have at Lacey and New Times, as if his newspaper company is the Soviet Union. And to think this little ol’ hippie newspaper started next door to a pizza parlor on Mill Avenue in 1970. I joined the paper in March of 1978 for $110 a week and did basically seven jobs, from writer to art director to photographer to columnist (“Scoops!”) to cartoonist (Honkytonk Sue) to cover art to ad layouts and ad art. There were six of us working on the second floor of the Westward Ho Hotel in a bad part of town (there were bums lying outside our door and you had to step over them to get in, and the only difference between the bums and the guys who worked at New Times is that the bums had better taste in pants).

Got to Dan’s studio at ten to one. He was bugged that I interrupted his lunch (which he takes in his house four steps away from his studio). We went over features layouts, the January cover, a new featurette we are producing and a top secret project.

Drove back out and had lunch at the house (three reheated tacos by Bell), then started the Jesse Evans vs. The Texas Rangers art.

Last night I went over to Floyd Brooks’ ranch and took photos of his prime stud Mr. Rockafeather, who sired the 1997 World Champion Paint Reiner and is an 80% producer on solid mares. At eighteen hands high, the Rock is mighty studly. I asked Floyd if he was difficult to handle and he said, "With all studs you have to keep your eye on them all the time because he’ll put your belly button right up against your tail bone in a heartbeat." Man, I love old cowboy talk like that! You can’t make up that stuff.

Found out at the post office that Rick Klein has passed. Former Monkees roadie and all around good guy. He was once married to Kathy's college roommate. He died October 14th.

“Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.”
—Joseph Pulitzer