August 6, 2006
When I was about 11, my family came to Phoenix to visit relatives and somehow I talked my father into going to the Cudia City Old West Studios at 40th Street and Camelback. This is where they filmed “26 Men” (Who lived to ride again!) the TV show about the Arizona Rangers which was running at the time (1957?). I was thrilled to see the set, which, of course was quite shabby and underwhelming, with wooden bars in the jail, painted black to simulate iron and plenty of “false fronts” as in, absolutely nothing being the front facade. None of the actors were there, but still I was thrilled to be on the site of the show.

I wondered how you could get on the set of the other Westerns and imagined some kid somewhere who actually got to live out that fantasy. Well, I guess this is why I am so taken with Stephen Lodge’s new website, because as a kid he went to almost every one of the Westerns sets and got his picture taken with many of the stars. Plus, Stephen grew up to make his own movies which are also documented on the site. Check it out at

http://stephenlodge.com

Quiet Wyatt vs. Riot Wyatt

I am a peace officer in Texas, and an avid supporter of Wyatt Earp. I have been fortunate to visit Tombstone twice and actually get a current Tombstone Marshal's lapel pin from the Marshal's office. It is tucked away and will be placed in a display case shortly. Anyway off the subject, my wife and I were watching Deadwood last night August 4. 2006 and in this episode Wyatt and Morgan arrive in Deadwood. The characterization presented of Wyatt and Morgan I thought was questionable. I did some research when HBO announced Wyatt Earp would be arriving in this season and they put out a blog basically stating that Seth Bullock issued Wyatt Earp a whupping and promptly threw him out of town. What I could find out was that Wyatt offered his services as a deputy, and Bullock declined and that was the end of it. How close to truth is the characterization of Wyatt?”
—Mark Reinhardt

Yes, I'm not real impressed by David Milch's take on Wyatt and Morgan. It's obvious he doesn't like them, thinks they were bums and he apparently buys into Seth Bullock's autobiography where he says he gave Wyatt a shove out of town (it is true that Wyatt and Morgan came to Deadwood in the summer of 1877 and sold wood for a season, and Wyatt worked briefly as a "special shotgun messenger" for the Black Hills Stage and Express Company, before returning to Kansas). Milch has also commented that he thinks Earp was a Hearst man at that time even though Wyatt didn't meet George until Tombstone, several years after Deadwood. While it’s a probably a legitimate leap of imagination, I am not enjoying the portrayal. Wyatt’s clothing, with the 1850s style neckwear seems oddly wrong and the actor doesn’t seem edgy enough (like him or hate him, the guy had an edge). Plus I don’t dig his Fu-Manchu mustache which is also wrong-headed. Kurt Russell and Bruce Boxleitner (who played Wyatt in the Marie Osmond TV production of “I Married Wyatt Earp”) have had the most accurate Earp mustaches.

Top Secret Project
Kathy defied two Mac experts and the young punk at the Mac store yesterday to hook up a new HP scanner to my home computer so I can scan artwork. After buying more memory at the Mac store, Kathy asked the nerd clerk, “Do you think I’ll be able to install this and make the scanner work?” to which the snot-head Jason replied, “I think you’ll be back in here tomorrow asking me to install it for you.” Kathy came home and grabbed tools out of the garage and went to work cussing all three of them. Here’s the first scan (see top image), called “Here’s Aiming At You Kid.” I’m thinking of making it a T-shirt with that caption. Would you wear it?

The Arizona Republic asked me to comment on the Mel Gibson brew-ha-ha (or should that be Jew-ha-ha?) and I gave them this quote:

“I think we need to cut Mel Gibson some slack. We’ve all said things we didn’t mean when we were drunk. For example, I’m drunk right now, and I could just as easily launch off on the flippin’ morons who edit these crummy little comments. Oops! Sorry, it’s the margaritas talking.”

“One margarita is alright, two is too many, three is not enough.”
—Old Vaquero Saying