July 7, 2007
Today is a numerologists dream: 07•07•07. I'm sorry, but I put no significance on these random numbers. There's actually something pathetic about people who do.

Swam seven laps this afternoon. Also drew seven sketches instead of six, petted the dogs seven times each and put off cleaning off my desk eight times (I tried to hit seven, but overshot).

Last night Deena and Frank came out for tacos (Bell's). Earlier I mentioned to Deena on the phone that there is one photo she took on our Copper Canyon, Mexico trip that has become iconic to me. It's funny, because when you're back from a vacation, you look at all the photos and they all seem to have the same weight, but then as time goes by, a dozen begin to stand out when you see them, then it narrows down to a couple, and last week I ran across a photo that Deena snapped in Cerocauhi, a tiny village way off down a dirt road (we had to ride in the back of a pickup to get there). It was my birthday and we walked down to a little shack on the edge of town to buy a six-pack of Tecates to celebrate and as we came back down on the road there were these two horses walking up the street. They stopped, one of them was in the fading daylight. There is a donkey tied to a post way in the background. Deena took a couple photos of the scene (a pickup came and parked next to the horses, who ignored them), but this one sums up the entire trip, and takes me right back there. It's so pristine and perfect. I can smell the woodsmoke from the fireplaces!:



I mentioned this to Deena on the phone and yesterday a big tube came in the mail and there it was, blown up to 14X11 inches. A masterpiece of memory, at least to me. I'm having it framed to hang in my office. Thanks Deena Bean!

Jason S. joined us for dinner as well, and we had a fun time. Jason and I put in a good day working on plot structure for the TSP and had several breakthroughs. The story is much leaner and meaner, as it has to be.

Also, in the mail came another photo from Scottsdale PR agent Pierre O'Rourke. He was going through some old photos at Pischke's Paradise Cafe and found this. It's a photo taken of my son Thomas and I, on April Fool's Day, in, I think 1987. This was the infamous day when we pulled off the April Fool's stunt on the Indian Uprising on KSLX radio and in a War of The World's kind of way, listeners melted the 911 lines for Scottsdale because they believed our show was real (we had no idea it would snowball like that). At the same time we were doing that, we had two haircutters come in and give my son and I mohawks, live, on the air. This was for the Cave Creek Rodeo Parade, being held the next day. I was the Grand Marshal and Tomas and I rode Ed Ratcliff's horse in the parade and when old women would wave to us, we would pull off our hats and show them our mohawks. The looks were priceless. Anyway, after the show, I took Tommy to Pischke's for breakfast and Chris Pischke took this photo, which hung for many years above the bar. Notice the ink spots on my shirt from a leaky felt tipped pen. Ha. Some things never change.



Hard to believe both Chris and Ed are gone. And to play the Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, it was Pierre who got me the Hugh O'Brian quote for the back of my Wyatt Earp book. And at that time Hugh O'Brian was charging $7 for an autograph. And Kevin Bacon was only seven years old at the time. Amazing. The seven circles just keep getting tighter and tighter, no?

Classic Onion Headline de Jour
America Still Searching For Funniest Home Video

"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground."
—Lyndon Baines Johnson