January 12, 2006
I had dinner last night with Art-Talk Publisher Shari Morrison and Editor Renee Targos, at Melee’s on Main Street in Old Town Scottsdale. Had much fun talking shop and swapping trade secrets and eating great Thai food (Shari bought). I wrote them a fan letter several weeks ago, congratulating them on their 25th Anniversary issue and their much improved graphic design.

From Melee’s I motored up to the Kerr Cultural Center for an evening with the author’s event to benefit Reading for the Blind. I joined authors Diana Gabaldon (Outlander), Jon Talton (Camelback Falls) and Syvia Nobel (Chasing Rayna). Sold some 15 books and Poisoned Pen Bookstore bought the rest. Great crowd, only about sixty in attendance but all of them big book buyers.

This morning I worked on Classic Gunfights and the Tiburcio Vasquez Gang robbing an entire town story. Edited copy down and put it in layout and handed off to Meghan. Robert Ray finished the Honkytonk Sue-Editorial layout. I got this Email from a certain editor in Fresno, regarding yesterday’s nighttime epiphany:

“Pilgrimage is a noun and your suggested headline uses it as an adjective.”
—Bugs

The Curse of Billy the Kid Strikes Again
For those of you who believe, like I do, that William Bonney cursed the towns that betrayed him, a news story from Fort Sumner, New Mexico should make your day. A local resident trapped a rat in his house in one of those sticky, wax job deals, took the rat in the trap, outside where he was burning leaves and threw the rat in the trap into the fire. The fire melted the wax, the rat broke free and ran back into the house. Oh, and since he was on fire, he subsequently burned down the house.

No, I’m not making this up. “Rats!” Okay, I made that up.

“Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes,
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I haven’t the heart to poke poor Billy.”
—Harry Graham, British writer

Flag On Fags: A Northern Arizona Review of Brokeback Mountain
“I watched the movie last weekend at our small independent theater at the mall. The place seats about 300 and it was packed on a sunny and chilly Saturday afternoon. The anal-sex-in-the-tent scene was a little more information than I needed—whatever happened to nuance & innuendo? Nobody left the theater, but the collective butt-clenching sounded like somebody was digging through a plastic bowl for the last red M & M. I wonder how much time Ang Lee spent in the editing room before he finally said, "f---- it, it's my movie and I say, let 'em squirm." It was an interesting love story—the other team notwithstanding—about choices and consequences and human frailty. Geez, I sound like an undergrad lit major. My second biggest complaint? It attaches an unfortunate subtext to ‘gone fishing.’"
—Tom Carpenter

I second Tom’s every squirm.

“Loved your piece on Billy Gibbons. Back in 1970 or 71 my hometown of Harlingen, Texas was one of those ‘small venues’ where they performed. My friends and I were seated on the front row. In those days (it might still be the same today) there were no "underground" FM stations in the Rio Grande Valley. Our only choice was KRIO-AM playing bubblegum music. So, we didn't really know who ZZ Top was—we just liked their name, so we went to the concert.

“When ZZ Top stepped out on the stage they looked liked they had just been released from either the Army or prison - no beards and practically no hair. I remember this distinctly; the first thing Gibbons said was, ‘We are going to get you out of your chairs’ and they started their good Texas blues. It was an awesome concert.”
—Bob Reece

Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Maid Frenched

Went to lunch with Mad Coyote Joe at Rubio’s down below Terravita. Had the fish tacos and an iced tea ($7 cash). Talked about his new TV show, and his novel.

“We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.”
—Stewart I. Udall