February 19, 2006
Big Cuban dinner last night down in Scottsdale at Chef Jim Morgan's hacienda. Four couples, including Kathy and I, Cuban coffee and ropa vieja (jerked beef, "old clothes"). Got home at midnite. Stuffed and sated.

I've been invited to submit a skateboard painting for an artshow to be called "Deck." Each artist is given a blank skateboard to paint a scene. I've started mine with a scene I call "Geronimo's Halfpipe Over Organpipe (pre-board, circa 1886). It portrays the Apache warrior in a skateboard stance, without board, skimming over the tops of a gnarly stand organ pipe cacti. Check out the other artists at:

Moltenbrothers.com

Got up this morning and started a fire in the studio stove and bailed into some sketches of Anglo-Apaches. Remember in the 1950s when all the Indians in movies and comics looked like Italians. Of course, in Westerns they usually were Italians but in comic books Indians looked like they were from New York with big noses and anglo cheekbones.

So I got out a couple of Kid Colt, Apache Kid comics (Marvel), plus an Italian comic called "Tex", where the creators, Bonelli and Tucci, obviously copped the movie "Stagecoach" stealing the likeness of John Carradine and Andy Devine, and almost everyone else except John Wayne. Their hero looks like a cross between Gene Autry and Steve Canyon. Most of the balloon dialogue is incomprehensible, with exchanges like "Andati, avanti, voi?" and "Niente in contrario!" Fortunately, the Indian replies, "Ugh!"

My character is going to be very close to Charles Atlas. Remember him? The sand-in-the-face guy?

"It is healthier to see the good points in others than to analyze our own bad ones."
—Old Vaquero Saying