March 1, 2007
For all you stat lovers, this is my 1,603rd post. I've been keeping a daily journal in my Franklin Daytimer since February 1994 when I was fired from KSLX radio for lousy raitings. I decided to get organized and got the daytimer and have been keeping a daily record ever since.

If you've read the brutally honest business timeline, those daily events were culled from my Franklin (and cleaned up quite a bit, in other words, all the swear words taken out. Ha.), and I started doing a daily blog sometime after we bought the magazine (1999).

As for my daily drawing, I've completed 3,291 sketches, six a day, without missing, although I've been in a slump in terms of quality for about a week, I think perhaps it's because of jetlag from the trip. Or, maybe it's confusion from all the comic art I saw in New York—or some versionof Manga-fever, or Yaoi Yankin', I don't know.

Yesterday, Seth Hoyt came in and is going to be working on several special projects for us. He and Bob Brink go way back, and Seth recently retired to Wickenburg, and after five weeks is itching to get back in harness. We welcome his energy and ideas.

I also offered Allen Waxenberg a job when we had dinner with him in New York at the 21 Club ($480 for four!). Allen also has great energy, worked with Bob Brink at Hearst, is retired and has great magazine skills. Allen told Trish Brink we might do well to hire all of these retired mag execs and when she told me, I said, "Well, it certainly has worked for me!"

I've told the story before but it's worth repeating. In 2002 we were losing $30K a month and my brother-in-law accountant gave us a 10% chance of survival and warned me I needed to find someone with "national magazine experience." I told Don Radina I knew Charlie Waters who grew up in the media biz and has been a publisher, and Don said, "Does he have national magazine experience?" When I said he didn't, Don said emphatically, "Then it doesn't count." I got exasperated and said, "Don, how am I going to find someone with national magazine experience in Cave Creek, Arizona?"

"Not my problem," Don told me in his matter-of-fact way. I fumed about this for several months, racking my brain on how I could possibly find someone with national magazine experience out here in the sticks.

On April 24, 2002, Robert Ray and I were discussing a cover design at his computer when I heard, someone say the word "Hearst" out in the store (just around the corner from Robert's computer). I walked out there and there were about five people in the store and I said, "Who just said 'Hearst'?" And this distinguished looking man said, "I did." And I said, "Why did you say the word Hearst?" And he said, "I ran the magazine division of Hearst in New York for 26 years and I just retired to Carefree." I politely asked him to follow me to my office where I closed the door and said as calmly as I could: "I NEED YOUR HELP!"

Now, at the time I didn't know that Trish Brink, his wife, who was with him, was going to turn out to be such a valuable asset as well, but she ran the Cosmo magazine sales staff and has turned out to be a great professional and hard worker for our cause, as well. So when I said, "it's certainly worked for me!" I wasn't kidding. I'm expecting big things from both Seth and Allen.

On Monday night Kathy and I tried to watch "Buffalo Girls" the made for TV biopic about Calamity Jane (Anjelica Huston) and her romantic fling with Wild Bill (Sam Elliott), but it was so weak we turned it off and I'm sending it back (Netflix).

Onion Headline de Jour
Area Man Tired Of Making Excuses For Rapist Friend

"You will never 'find' time for anything. If you want time you must make it."
—Charles Buxton