January 8, 2006
Yesterday afternoon I attended a memorial service for Irissa Wilcox, the 20-year-old daughter of Christie who died in a car wreck last week. It was very sad, but at the same time beautiful and inspiring. Rissa's friends got up, one by one and honored her short life. The kids were quite eloquent, funny and touching (as Bill B. from Cave Creek put it after the ceremony, "If these kids are indicative of the next generation we are in fine shape."). From her friend's comments we learned that Irissa (which means sunset by the way) was holding down three jobs, going to ASU and taking flight training from Emory Riddle, and by all accounts was a math whiz, a stunning dancer, and a great friend. The service included a slide show set to rock music that was both heartbreaking and empowering. More than once I had tears streaming down my cheeks as I laughed and cried, cried and laughed. Chrisite was beatific and so centered. We all teared up as we hugged her. She is so strong and so giving to all of us even though her heart had to be breaking.

Of course I've been thinking about them both all week and who the bell really tolls for. In this case, the bell tolls for bell. Ha.

It's cooler out today. Got a fire in the studio stove. Buddy Boze Hatkiller is lounging on his chair with his big, fat head drooping over the arm, sound asleep. Kathy is at a seminar down in Tempe, but we're meeting later this afternoon to catch a movie.

I'm on the Email list of one of Tomcat's fave bands, the Necronauts. They mentioned in their last update that they were injured on New Year's Eve, so, as their band father and mentor (I've never met them), I wrote them back and asked what happened: Car wreck? Band fight? Ninja groupies?. I got this response back:

"hello mr. bell. give tom our greetings and such. is he still working on his movie? i imagine he thinks of us often, being that he works at a mental hospital! haha. we are good though. i got tackled after our set at the monte vista [bar in Flagstaff] on new years eve and thrown into the drumset and dogpiled by our 'adoring' fans/friends. so the scar is gonna be worth it. Carlito on the other hand got into a tiff with en ex-girlfriend who went haywire at the show, pouring beer on his pedal s and 'taking back' a $800 guitar she got him. hahaha. so i guess you could say he had a demon he needed to exorcise, but the exorcision involved him punching a brick wall. hope all is well with you sir.best reguards."
—william, of the Necronauts

Tales From the Triple B
I often get story ideas at the oddest times, usually when I should be working on something else. Here's one I think would make a great movie

In the summer of 1886, a young, and very handsome Apache lad named Johnny Loco was rounded up, along with 86 other Apache, Navajo and Haulapai kids. The youngsters, who ranged from the ages of eight to eighteen, were to be part of a "grand experiment" and sent off to a Carlisle, Pennsylvania school to become "Americans." Unlike some of the "In-din" kids, Johnny, 17, actually thrived in the school and quickly became the poster boy for the school program and the entire assimilation process. Unfortunately he was also very attractive to some of the local white girls, and after being caught inflagro delecti with Alderman Chauncy Stallingsworth's nubile daughter, Johnny was summarily kicked out of the school and ordered to be sent home as incorrigible. But before he could be shipped off by train, he went on a small crime spree, raiding the houses of all the teachers and town councilmen who he felt had wronged him, leaving deer intestines and a sack of four dog turds on each of their dining room tables with a note that said, "Yatahey! Thanks for the education—Loco" It should be noted four is a sacred number for Apaches and the deer intestines had been chloroformed, thanks to knowledge gleaned in Johnny's chemistry labs. As one of his teachers later said, off the record of course, "That little Apache Bastard learned his lessons all too well." A large manhunt was launched to bring the errant Apache boy to justice (at least East Coast American style justice), but of course no white man in Pennsylvania was ever going to catch an Apache, in Pennsylvania, or, for that matter, in th e neighboring states west of Pennsylvania, which is where the search spread to.

As the manhunt dragged on, the story captured the entire nation's attention as sightings of the Apache renegade, spread ever westward, past Saint Louis and out into the plains states. Zany clues left along the way, made the newspapers every day, with rabid reporters speculating about the clues and whether they were left haphazardly, or on purpose, "We may never know," they pontificated in historically correct verbage.

Our story begins as the latest sighting has Johnny Loco travelling somewhere west of Laguna, New Mexico and north of Gallup. He is reportedly hiding out in the wilds of the vast Bisti Badlands. The Santa Fe Railroad has brought down-track the legendary lawman, and sheriff of Apache County, Commodore Perry Owens to lead a posse to run down the "young buck," and teach him a lesson. Or two. Accompanied by several Navajo and Apache scouts, two or three who were fr iends of Loco, the posse runs straight up against the toughest and most elusive outlaw they will ever encounter. For one thing he has all of the woodsman skills of his people, but secondly, he majored in chemistry and minored in philosophy, so he knows all too well the White Man's ways

The student becomes the teacher in Bisti Badman. To be continued. . .

Onion Headline de Jour
Understudy Overacting

"Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a taco."
—Old Vaquero Sayingg