February 18, 2010
Dan The Man's latest cover with the train going between Marilyn Monroe's legs is getting quite the buzz. Jeff Prechtel told me he couldn't find the issue at his local Barnes & Nobel because it was sold out. We've had several walk-ins here at our Cave Creek offices, with people subscribers wanting to buy extra issues.

Meanwhile, got this:

The author of To Hell On A Fast Horse on Boot TV This Saturday

Wanted to let you know that I'll be on Book TV this Saturday at 12:30 P.M. Eastern Time. Here's the schedule:

http://www.booktv.org/schedule.aspx I'm performing the music of Billy the Kid with Rex Rideout. Hope you all have a chance to watch (Jeff Hildebrandt was in the audience).

—Mark Gardner


I'm still in negotiations with the French publisher about doing my books for the French market. And speaking of France, got this from a client of ours, the folks at the Wolf Hotel:

Thank you so much. We will be delighted with room 15! I read about you in the TRUE WEST Magazine and in COWBOY & INDIANS. Both recommended you as you certainly know! My husband is French, but I am of German origin and have always been
interested in the history of the Texas Germans. So it's really nice to stay in
the Wolf Hotel!

Also thank you for thinking about dinner! We intend to be at the Cowboy Gathering in Encampment which starts at 7pm. So we can't really say yet how we will organize our evening.

We are looking forward staying with you!

Greetings from France,

—Ulrike L.


Watched a WWII movie a couple weekends ago from my John Ford-John Wayne Christmas collection DVD (thanks Grandma Betty!). Filmed during WWII, the film, which is a depiction of the defenders of the Philippines after the attack on Pearl Harbor, is quite good:



As I was born the year after the war ended (Whew! That's over, let's have children!), the movie has an especially warm feeling for me (and it doesn't hurt that Donna Reed is stunningly beautiful!). Some of my earliest memories are of the massive amounts of war equipment stored at the Lowry's, next door to my grandmother's house on Jefferson Street in Kingman. I remember going in this long barracks style building (after the war ended, many of the Kingman Air Base buildings were sold or given away and the locals moved them to town). All sorts of gas masks and B-17 equipment in boxes all lined up, made a strong impression on me. Plus, on snow days in Swea City, Iowa, the grammar school teachers would put us in the gym and play war movies, like Victory At Sea, so my school papers were riddled with sketches of kamikazis dive bombing air craft carriers. So Expendable is like a warm bath. Very primal. As I was a result of the war, or a by product of it (ha!) I guess it will always be a touchstone for my life.


Speaking of which, Band of Brothers was playing on HBO the other night and I caught a battle sequence in the snow, as the allies tried to take a French town. Man, that was well done! Very cool effects with bleached out film stock, that replicates those grainy, black and white, combat scenes I remember from the Swea City gym. It really is WWII porn, and I can't get enough of it.

“I’d feel a lot braver if I wasn’t so scared.”
—Hawkeye Pierce, M*A*S*H