March 8, 2007
Over the weekend, Kathy downloaded a very cool song from iTunes for me. About a month ago we went to see the Western Seraphim Falls at Deer Valley 30 (thirty theatres in one big mall). After we got out of Falls, which I didn't like very much, the theatre across from ours was playing The Departed, so we snuck in to check out the Oscar buzz on the Scorcese film. Wow! About two-thirds through the film I leaned over to Kathy and said, "Now this is a movie!" A line of black limos was driving across a Boston bridge and on the soundtrack there was this punk rock Irish song playing. At that moment I would have given the movie a ten. Unfortunately, it kept going and the plot holes mounted up, and the triple whammy ending was just, well, too much. I ultimately gave the move an eight, but the culmination with that bridge scene was so cool, and if only someone had grabbed Martin by the shoulders and said, "Wrap it up now Dude and we'll have a killer movie!"

Well anyway, Kathy said to me, "Are you interested in the soundtrack to The Departed, and I said, only if it's that Irish punk song. She hit play and there it was. The tune is "I'm Shipping Up To Boston," and it's by the Drop Kick Murphys, and it's on heavy rotation on my iPod. Thanks Kath and Steve Jobs. And I admit I owe Deer Valley 30 the price of another ticket.

Speaking of Lutheran guilt, I talked to Grace Lutheran Church in Kingman this morning about my mother's funeral service, and the pastor, Bill Phillips, told me that he has been interviewing the congregation and he has found out my mother was instrumental in founding the church back in the early 1960s. Several of their "oldtimers" remember her and her efforts. My mother would have enjoyed that comment.

As Promised, Apache Saddlebags
Here's two photos of those Apache saddlebags from Cowboy Legacy Gallery. Ain't they cool?



More Passings
I got word yesterday that our good friend and Old West piano man Duane Bond died of a heart attack on his way to Old Tucson to play, I think it happened two days ago. He was due up here in Phoenix this weekend for Winter Range. He was a big bear of man, who loved the West. Several years ago he played piano next to our booth at Festival of the West and he was a hoot.

Peter Hanson of Golden Valley, Arizona forwarded me an obit on Robert Edward Ray, who was the last grandson of legendary Mohave County rancher Tap Duncan (who my grandfather Bob Guess worked for, see below). Robert died on February 12th.

Jesse James Grandson Passes
Mark Boardman forwarded me this bio info:

"Judge James Ross was 80 years old when he died Monday, March 5. His mother was the second oldest of four daughters born to Jesse James Jr. When Ross was little, his father--an alcoholic--abandoned the family, so they moved in with his grandfather. In fact, he came to call Jesse Jr. "Daddy" and his grandmother "Mom" (he called his real mother Joie). Jesse Jr. passed on all of his knowledge of the outlaw Jesse to Ross, who became quite the expert on Jesse Sr. (of course we have to remember that Jesse Jr. was only about 6 when his father was shot by Robert Ford).

"Judge Ross' real mother must have been quite a looker. She was romantically involved with actor William S. Hart for several years in the '30s and early '40s. There was some talk of marriage, but neither Hart nor Joie really wanted to go there. She apparently was pretty close with Henry Ford, too, although Judge Ross said that was not a romance.

"Ross served on the superior court bench in Orange Co., California for a number of years (he was a lawyer, following in the footsteps of Jesse Jr.). He wrote the book I, Jesse James. And he was the guy behind the 1995 exhumation and dna testing of his great grandfather.

"There are at least a couple of other Jesse James great grandchildren still alive."
—Mark Boardman

Onion Headline de Jour
Bar Bet Becomes Increasingly Complex

The movie 300 opens tomorrow and it got a rave review in the latest issue of Time, although it did clariify that the CGI film "isn't really a movie about a battle at all. It's a movie about a graphic novel about a movie about a battle."

I may try to see it this Saturday.

"Hollywood is a town, not a medium. And cinema is a medium you can practice anywhere."
—Frank Miller, in Esquire, when asked, "Your embrace of filmmaking is suprising, given your experience in Hollywood."