January 8, 2010
Kathy and I met the kids down at Flo's Asian Kitchen in Scottsdale last night for dinner ($30 something, Deena bought). Nice when your kids can finally pick up a tab once in a while:

Afterwards we all went to hear a monk talk about meditation. His advice for a happy life: Be present. Be mindful. Be non-judgmental. When I went for a walk this morning with Peaches I realized I rarely do all three. But that's just me being judgmental.

We're due for a good Western, aren't we? Just heard that Jonah Hex, starring Josh Brolin and Megan Fox will be released this June. Looking forward to it.

I think the last big Western that really caught the public's attention was this one:

We had fun with that one, although I think most of our readers preferred the old one with Glenn Ford:

Which is why I put Glenn above Russell Crowe (well, that and the fact that I thought Crowe's hat was kind of goofy). And by the way, have you seen the previews for the new Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe? Looks like they're trying to capture a little Gladiator styled lightning in a bottle. Very heavy metal soundtrack, a la 300.

The more I see No Country For Old Men (it plays quite a bit on cable), the more I think the Coens will do something strong with True Grit:

I've mentioned before that when I was in Little League I iced jugs for tips in my father's gas station:

Al Bell's Flying A was one of those post WWII mega-gas-stations. I saved all summer to buy Edward Bartholomew's Biographical Album of Western Gunfighters. I think it cost $11 and I ordered it from an ad in True West magazine.

Every summer my father would pile my mother and I in a 1957 Ford and we'd head out on Old Route 66 to the family farm in Iowa:

My dad's idea of a good time was going to the farm outside Thompson, Iowa and eating five times a day, and talking about crops. We often went down to Lippo Asmus's farm (that's Lippo, above with his wife Annie, BBB, Minnie Hauan Bell—my grandmother, my mother, and my grandfather, Carl Marvin Bell.

Here's a page of sketches I ran across this morning that captures the mood and the grit of a One Page Wonder:

Now to apply that to narrative imperative. Hmmmm, I wonder what ol' Will has to say about this?

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."
—Will Durant