April 22, 2006
The palo verde trees have started blooming, one by one. We saw the first ones slowly turn brilliant yellow up at the end of the road (slightly higher elevation) and then the blooming spread southward, creeping down Old Stage Road until they blossomed all around us in a wave of golden sunshine. The saguaros are next. They're actually flowers, you know.

Found and filed a bunch of New Times original cartoons I found in the garage, but not before I started the '49 Ford and pulled it out onto the Spanish Driveway (for some reason it will only start and stay running on full choke). I threw away half of the stuff (much of it beyond awful), but I must admit, my color piece on the Assassination of President Kennedy still stands (in my version of the Zapruder film, Kennedy reaches in his coat and pulls out a forty-five, turns, shoots Oswald out of the Texas Depository window, turns back and lights a cigar, with Jackie hugging him. Wishful, juvenile thinking, I know.

Came in the studio and started three paintings for True West, and started sketching for the Wham Payroll Robbery, looking for young Mormon cowboys. Fortunately, I have just the book, "A Tough Job In A Hard Land: Cowboying," by James H. Beckstead. It's chocked full of Utah 1880s cowboys and the book is published by University of Utah Press. Great images, totally wrong cover (a modern cowboy silhouetted in an Arizona Highways sky). I need to illustrate 13 of the raiders, and of course there are the black soldiers, but I have good reference for that as well (see True West magazine on front page of this website).

The Deck Artshow is tonight, down at the Ice House in central Phoenix, across from the old train station. Over a hundred artists painted scenes on skateboards (thus, the title of the show "Deck" as in the deck of the board). A review tomorrow.

I'm meeting Kathy at Taco Villa on Camelback Road for dinner and then we'll take in the show.

My son Tomas called me yesterday from Philly and said he and Kendra were going to see Eagles of Death Metal, but the show was sold out. When they walked next door to an ATM machine, T. Chrarles recognized the band coming in the back way for a sound check. He struck up a conversation with the lead singer who said he'd put them on "the list" to get in. I told Tom, sometimes the big mouth pays off (actually it always pays off, just not in ways you sometimes like. Ha.)

"What you've spent, is gone, what you've kept is lost, but what you give away will be yours forever."
--Old Vaquero Saying