Signs Of The Times

February 23, 2012

Western lovers take note: NBC has cast a new pilot The Frontier being billed as a "Western drama."

Meanwhile, Here's an update on the filming of The Lone Ranger near Silver City, New Mexico. According to our source, the production was postponed because Johnny Depp had personal issues, so that set things back by about ten days. Our good friend Jim "The Trainman" Clark is doing all the train sequences and according to our source, there are several spectacular train sequences with massive CGI effects in the $200 mil film. The Hollywood Reporter has an item in the current issue reporting that Armie Hammer (who will play the Lone Ranger) was spotted reading his Long Ranger script while eating a veggie burger at O! Burger in West Hollywood. Meanwhile, news sources in New York are reporting that Disney has tapped William Fichtner to replace Dwight Yoakam in The Lone Ranger. He will play the bad guy that Yoakam was set to take on before the actor-singer dropped out because of a scheduling conflict.

We have a new sign out front of the True West building and here is the complete Metamorphosis. In early 2002 I contacted Old World Class sign painter Alan Scott to come up from Bisbee to paint the sign on our new building. Here is Alan when he had finished that task:

We loved this sign, but unfortunately, it attracted too many tourists who were looking for turquoise jewelry, and we finally had the Trading Post part of the sign painted out. I then commissioned Alan to come up with an alternative, but that stalled out when the economy went south and for the past five years just the top of the sign, the True West part is what graced the building.

Three weeks ago, I ran into Alan and asked him if he still had the sketches for the redesign. Incredibly, he found them in the bottom of his van (see, above) and so we told him to complete the sign. Here he is two weeks ago, beginning that work:

After Alan added "Magazine" at the bottom he scrolled out the big idea and started in on it:

And, here is our sign painter, this morning, with a very happy executive editor and his staff:

L to R: Ken Amorosano, Allison Carlton, Dan The Man Harshberger, Abby Goodrich, Shannon "I'm-so-tired" Schwind, Alan Scott, BBB, Meghan Saar, Robert Ray and Carole Compton Glenn.

"Signs, signs, everywhere signs, signs, blockin' up the scenery and blowing my mind. . .Do this, don't do that, can't you read my mind?"
—Signs, ridiculous 70s Hippie song