Rattlesnake Kate and Al Herndon in Texas

May 9, 2011

Caught up with Al Herndon this weekend. He spent time in Silver City, then, at my suggestion, came around the mountain to Glenwood and up the winding road to the semi-ghost town of Mogollon. Said he really enjoyed the old buildings. After that he headed north and landed at Reserve where Elfego Baca shot it out with Slaughter cowboys and survived a wagon load of bullets. Unfortunately, I didn't give him the contact there, Henry Martinez, and he got caught in a cafe asking about Elfego and got ths: "We've never heard of him. I don't think there's anything here about that." Ahem, there's a statue across the street from the cafe, put there by Henry Martinez. When Al asked the "locals" about Socorro, these same goobers offered, "Why on earth would you want to go there?" These kinds of know-nothing-new-comers-out-west drive me crazy. They move somewhere, don't have any interest in what happened there, and then act like they are the town experts. G-r-r-r-r-r!

After Socorro, which Al enjoyed as well, he landed in Lincoln, walked one end to the other, got the tour of the courthouse, and then headed for Roswell and on to Bandera, Texas. If you see Al on the road, give him a Boy Howdy do from all of us.

Saw a couple great movies over the weekend. Kathy picked the indie film "Win Win" for Mother's Day, which turned out to be a very intelligent and funny film about a lawyer, Paul Giammatti, who cuts corners and pays for it.

Also, on Netflix, saw "Restrepo" a documentary about the Second Platoon in a very dangerous part of Afghanistan. Lots of stunning shooting footage and scary-amazing combat stuff. Every American should watch the extended interview portion of the film (on additional features). These young, warriors give a dead on, no BS take on the war and winning "hearts and minds."

Worked on a couple things over the weekend, including this dust and action study, featuring a certain one-eyed scout two jumps ahead of an unknown army:

Shifted gears this morning and whipped out three different takes on a new female character I'm working on:

The premise is: what happens when beauty becomes ugly? And vice versa? An alien life form descends to earth, lands on an escarpment known as Rattlesnake Ridge. Bitten repeatedly by radioactive rattlers, the life form takes an ominous shape:

Noodling several names for this character: Rattlesnake Kate, or, Hydra.

"I'm not a bad poker player, but I could be bluffing."
—Christian Slater