A Gold Medallion Day With Triple B In The Beast

 October 31, 2024

   I had a full day down in the Beast yesterday and I asked Kathy if this looked too pretentious to wear all day?

BBB Wearing A Medal Around His neck

She assured me it looked very, very pretentious wearing my Will Rogers Golden Medallion around my neck and so I just had to wear it. Plus, I think Uno approves, what do you think?

Had to drop off some True West magazines to my cousin, Brenda Hamilton, who is in Mayo Clinic for treatment. She laughed and laughed at the absurdity of me wearing the medallion in the hospital, which made my day. Several nurses also chuckled as I walked by like Winston Churchill heading for a Nobel Peace Prize meeting.

From there I landed at Chompies on Shea to meet with the Payson Film Festival folks and the waitress did a doubletake. I said, "Have you not seen a Will Rogers Golden Medallion winner wearing his medal out in public?" She assured me she had not. Had a turkey rueben and it was fantastic!

From Chompies, I fought my way across Scottsdale and made it to Cattletrack Arts Compound, just in time to hand crank the last page of The Old Vaquero Sayings book off the press.

Will Rogers Gold Medallion Winner

Cranks Press by Hand!

  As you can see, even Jesus approves. Man, it is a beautiful thing, this "handufactured booklet".

The Cattletrack Crew:

L to R: Cohen McDowell, Aimee Ollinger, Mark McDowell and Brent Bond holding the last page off the press.

   Continued down further into the Beast and landed at Scottsdale Museum of the West. Had a fun meeting with Dave Scholefield who is the director of marketing about doing a Billy the Kid Shrine Show with my Kid Compadres, Buckeye Blake and Thom Ross. Got a sneak peek at the John Clymer art show and loved this epic beauty.

John Clymer's masterpiece

"On The Yellowstone"

   Expect to see this in an upcoming issue of True West magazine

   From the museum I fought my way over to Hayden Road and shot up north about ten miles to the Scottsdale Airpark and landed at Art & Custom Frame Shop where Guzal showed me six of the ten framed new art pieces for the Patinas Art Show on November 9th.

Guzal with the newly framed

"A Stranger Rides In"

   Guzal does such great work.

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

—Winston Churchill, who allegedly often wore his medallion when he ate at Chompies.

A Vaquero In Hell And A Stinking Badge From Bell

 October 29, 2024

   Big props to August Faye in Ponca City, Oklahoma. She knows how important newsstand placement is, so she tweaked the magazine rack to put a certain history magazine front and center, like this:

August Faye Morgan's Magazine Placement

in the Homeland Grocery Store

   Love you August Faye!

   A vaquero on the run, rode into the village of 300 widows and quickly felt like he had descended into hell. He more or less had done exactly that.

Daily Whip Out: "Divisadero Sketch #3"

  If you are coming to the art show at Patinas in Cave Creek on November 9, you will get to meet a legend.

Daily Whip Out: "Flint!"

   Believe me, when I tell you Flint Carney has modeled for a ton of Triple B images over the years and he still rocks.

   And, speaking of rocking the joint, you will need a badge to get in. This is what said badge looks like.

One Stinking Badge from Bell

  And, finally, when it comes to simplifying things, it doesn't take an Einstein to explain that concept. Oh, wait, maybe it does. . .

"If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, you don't understand it yourself."

—Albert Einstein

I Voted, So There

 October 28, 2024

   The newsstand at Walmart in Deming, New Mexico.

   Thanks to Paul Hoylen for sending me this. He swears he didn't move anything. I love it that even Taylor Swift is looking down our way with some admiration.

   I voted yesterday by mail. I think it's safe to say half the country thinks I'm an idiot. Take your pick. Both sides feel the same way. It's depressing, but there you go.

Daily Whip Out: "El Divisadero"

   How's that for a segue?

We Get Mail!

I've been reading True West off and on for decades and just discovered your YouTube page. I love it! I really appreciated your thoughts on the new Netflix Wyatt Earp And The Cowboy War show. Thank you for recommending to the directors that they get big gun historians like Paul Andrew Hutton on the show.  I love his book about Geronimo and the Apache wars. It feels like Hutton has been in every western show like this since the 1990s! Last episode my husband said to me "he looks old" and I said "so do we!"

—Jane Carter, Logan, Utah

For the record, Paul Hutton has appeared as a talking head on 270 TV history shows (including the writing of 15) going back to 1992. And, yes, he is old, but not as old as me!

Paul Hutton, at left, with Davy Crockett

circa 1835, I mean 1985. And that's Fess Parker in the middle who played Davy in the Disney show. And that's David Zucker, at right of the Airplane movies.

"It is striking how much more seriously we are likely nto be taken after we have been dead for a few centuries."

—Alain de Botton, 1969

Library Love & Dueling Jesse James Covers

 October 27, 2024

   Gave a talk downtown yesterday at the Burton Barr Library to honor Jana Bommersbach.

   Here I am afterwards posing with the fine folks who put on the event. True West magazine raised $1,200 for Friends of the Phoenix Library by selling 12 Hellraisers & Trailblazers books that both of us had signed before she passed.

   Mark McDowell gave me an update on the Old Vaquero Sayings booklet printing process and brought me one of the printed pages. Very clean.

A page of the Old Vaquero Sayings booklet

   Meanwhile, got a missive from Ireland this afternoon, asking me if my Jesse James book would be out in time for Christmas. I told him it has been pushed back to next year and then included this cover, by mistake (one of our earlier versions):

To which, he replied:

"That is a brilliant cover!"

—Joseph O'Reilly

   Ha. Did we make a mistake?

Dan The Man's latest version of the Jesse cover

"First thought, best thought!"

—Old Graphic Artist Saying

One Zany Zonie

 October 26, 2024

   My daily morning hike up to Morningstar sometimes has its visual perks.

Sunrise On New River Mesa

One Zany Zonie

   Someone asked me where the term "Zonie" comes from. When we first started going to San Diego for summer vacations way back in the eighties, the locals on Mission Beach got tired of the all the Arizona invaders and someone spray-painted on the boardwalk, "Zonies Go Home!" It made me so damn proud to be an actual irritant to all those California hipsters, that ever since I have referred to myself as a Zanie Zonie.

Two Veteran Editors Breaking Bread

And Solving Life

   Had breakfast with the editor of the Tombstone Epitaph the other day down at Desert Ridge. Mark Boardman and I go way back.

   Meanwhile, on the home front.

   Sometimes Uno comes in the kitchen and watches me eat. When I'm done I have to show him my hands like a blackjack dealer.

   Got the latest Bozecards from JC Printing and if you are on my mailing list, expect to get one of these next week.

   Dan the Man has designed a groovy badge for us to print up as well and this will also be available at Patinas on November 9th.

From The Vault

September 23, 2005
   Got this from a cowboy friend in Canada:

“I live on a ranch in Alberta. At noon I was listening to Paul Harvey news and low and behold he starts talking about Wyatt Earp and Bob Boze Bell. Paul Harvey says how hard this guy in Arizona at Cave Creek tries to find the true story and prints it in his magazine TRUE WEST. Doesn't sound like Mr. Harvey has been reading True West very long or he would know this has been going on for quite a spell. Anyhow am I ever impressed, he's talking about a bunch of my friends !!”
—Bill Dunn, Alberta, Canada

This was in reaction to the Paul Harvey radio broadcast from yesterday. Also. . .

I got a call from Jeanne Sedello yesterday and I said, “Hey, Jeann-er, are you watching that new reality show on VH-1 called ‘Breaking Bonaduce’’?” She assured me she was. “Didn’t we set up Danny,” I continued, “with his wife Gretchen, on our radio show?” Yes, we did, Jeanne Sedello confirmed, as she gave me all the juicy details, some of which I had forgotten. In about 1991 we had a psychic come on our show. Our producer Derek Jones had met a girl at a club the night before and he had her come visit The Jones & Boze Radio Show and she started pressing the psychic about when and where she would meet her future husband, she wanted a family, where was this mystery man? etc. David K. Jones had a sister with cancer and he was putting together a benefit for her at a south Scottsdale bar and we invited Danny Bonaduce, who had just got a morning gig on another local radio show (Y-95?). As Jeanne reminded me, I always thought it was goofy how competing radio stations and morning DJs would shun each other and never give out competing call letters on the air or even admit anyone else was even alive. So, naturally, we invited Danny to come by our show since he had agreed to support David’s benefit. The girl Derek brought in was Gretchen, who quickly fell in love with Danny and she’s been with him ever since (I think she said 14 years last night on the show, while they were in counseling). As an aside, Danny kept calling me “Dad,” which I took as a mild putdown. I was 45 and I always assumed he thought I was an old fart trying to be hip. While he was right about that, I had to chuckle last night on the show, where he is in major angst and meltdown at being old. He’s now 45. Ha. Ha, ha. Payback is a bitch.

End of Flashback. Jeanne told me today, Danny and Gretchen got divorced in 2008.

"I danced like no one was watching. My court date is pending."

—Old Honkytonk Saying

One Appreciative Zonie Who Received The Golden Lariat Award

 October 25, 2024

   It's hard to believe it was a week ago I was in Fort Worth to receive this:

FORT WORTH, TX, UNITED STATES, October 22, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Gold medallion recipients of the 2024 Will Rogers Medallion Awards (WRMA) were announced during the organization’s annual awards banquet in Fort Worth’s fabled Stockyard District this past weekend.

The honorees were selected from entries in 23 categories from 35 states. A complete list of all award recipients is available at the Will Rogers Medallion Award website at https://www.willrogersmedallionaward.net/2024wrmawinners.

Top 2024 WRMA Recipients and publishers are:

Lifetime Achievement Award: Jane Kirkpatrick
Golden Lariat: Bob Boze Bell, publisher, True West magazine, for outstanding service and dedication to the art of storytelling about the American West.

   It was fitting since October 18 was the 25th anniversary of me and two crazy friends buying True West magazine and moving the headquarters to Cave Creek, where it has been ever since. Needless to say, it has been a very bumpy ride but I'm proud to say we are still standing and publishing true stories about the American Frontier.

One Appreciative Zonie

"I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere that I needed to be."

—Douglas Adams

Dagnabbit Nation Part II

 October 24, 2024

   Remember when the F-bomb had to be described as the F-bomb? We seem to have crossed the final threshold for wall to wall F-bombs and it kind of makes me sad, mainly because it used to be forbidden and naughty and now it's just every-flipping-where, all the-flipping-time. It has lost its panache if you know what I mean. 

   As I noted yesterday, it makes me nostalgic for Gabby and his durn tootin' creative G-Rated slang-cursing.

"Dagnabbit! This kind of pisses me off."

   This reminded me of the controversy over all the swearing in HBO's Deadwood and so I went back to see what we wrote about it, and refound this masterpiece of morality flashback.

Youthful Depravity
"The fact must come home to every observer that Deadwood's rising generation is very depraved. Go where we will our ears are greeted with profanity and obscenity from almost baby lips, while our vision is assailed by sights of the most lamentable character. These urchins are not all of that peculiar class known as 'hoodlums' for whom ignorance is some excuse, as many of them receive the kindest and best instruction at home, but from too lenient parents who allow their children to wander through the city, visiting haunts of iniquity where are exerted those pernicious influences which sooner or later deaden the most acute sensibility, destroy all sense of right and morality and inspire to an emulation of the worst characters of the town."

—Black Hills Daily Pioneer-January 26, 1881

   Every generation thinks it's smarter than the last and wiser than the next. And, by extension, I think every generation thinks they more or less invented swearing. Why is this? Because nobody can remember their grandparents swearing. My grandkids have never heard me swear and if I do my job right, they never will. So these babies get to grade school and hear the inevitable swear words and they are excited and appalled ("My grandparents don't talk like this!") So they assume it's new. I think it's safe to say, this has been going on for about three to ten thousand years, and as long as there are grandparents, kids will grow up believing that swearing is a flippin' new thing.

"I am not young enough to know everything."

—Oscar Wilde

We Get Email!

Long time listener, first time caller! I've been reading True West off and on for decades and just discovered your YouTube page. I love it! I've been watching on my phone between shifts at work. I really appreciated your thoughts on the new Netflix Wyatt Earp/OK Corral show. My hubby and I have one episode to go. We love history shows and especially western history. Though I'm not enough of a history buff to know when the hat isn't right! But I find the history fascinating. I liked your perspective, that this was an example of today's "kids" wanting to tell their own version of the story in their own way. I hadn't thought of it that way but it makes total sense. Thank you for recommending to the directors that they get big gun historians like Paul Hutton on the show.  I love his book about Geronimo and the Apache wars. I think with too many history shows these days that the experts aren't really experts and just offer quips, or don't say anything deeper than the narrator. (There's one younger guy named Andrew Patrick Nelson we like ton of shows these days. He is a professor from Utah. Was in the mountain man show on INSP channel that you were in also. It feels like Hutton has been in every western show like this since the 1990s! Last episode my husband said to me "he looks old" and I said "so do we!" Thanks for all that you do. I'll keep watching and reading!

—Jane Carter,

Tarnation Nation: No More Mexican Or Cowboy Hat Dancing?

 October 23, 2024

   I agree with Gabby.

"Dagnabbit! What in tarnation

is going on with our nation?"

Gabby Hayes And His Creative G-Rated Swearing Is, Frankly, Sorely Missed.

   Where might all of this be going? Jack has a vision. . . 

  This just in:

   It is the year 2248. We live in what some would call a perfect world. There are no diseases, or hangovers. there is no fighting, except between women, for entertainment purposes. If you hear about a party, they have to let you in. It's the law. And they can't kick you out, no matter what you do.

   But there is a dark side to our world. There is no funny cowboy dancing. It is forbidden by the High Council. No one wearing a cowboy hat or cowboy boots may get up in front of others and do a dance that would be considered "outlandish" or "unserious." This includes funny spinning, funny stomping, and funny sashaying. You don't even have to be wearing the cowboy boots on your feet; moving them with your hands is also a crime.

   It's no longer safe to wear a cowboy hat at all. Especially a cowboy hat that is comically large or small. A friend of mine was arrested for walking down the street with a tiny Mexican sombrero on his head. He was never seen again.

—Jack Handey, in The New Yorker

Daily Whip Out:

"Tiny Sugarloaf Busted!"

Nobody in this photo is wearing a big hat.

"If everybody is wearing a big hat, ain't nobody wearing a big hat."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Where The Village of 300 Widows Was Born

 October 22, 2024

   Grabbing at daggers of hope. That is a good sentence to describe where we are today.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"Sue Cuttin' A Rug"

   Thanks to Lynda Sanchez I just heard about a new series on the Centaur of The North: The Story of Pancho Villa on Hulu. The hats look damn good!

Pancho Villa, Centaur of The North

on Hulu

Speaking of Doroteo (A Bandit named Dorothy?):

Daily Whip Out: "Doroteo Arrango"

The Massacre at San Pedro de las Cuevas

   Stumbling from a devastating defeat at Agua Prieta in November of 1915, Doroteo Arrango, better known as Pancho Villa, proceeded to attack Hermosillo and was repulsed there as well. With morale shattered, his battered army headed for the Sierra Madres and making a beeline for home territory in Chihuahua. Strung out in the foothills, his advance guard was fired on by peasants from the village of San Pedro de las Cuevas. They feared the heavily armed riders were banditos coming to ravage their village once again. Several of Villa's men were killed and the villagers were horrified when they found out their victims were not bandits but soldiers of the Division del Norte. They tried to make amends and expressed their great regret to the commander of the advance guard, Macario Bracamontes, who was from Sonora and felt sympathy for the villagers. But when Villa rode onto the scene he was not amused. He ordered all the adult men to be rounded up and herded together. He then ordered them to be thrown in the jail and in the morning he ordered them all to be shot. The local priest came out and on his knees pleaded with Villa, begging him to take pity on the men. Villa at first spared a few lives but he angrily told the priest to never show his face again. When the priest would not desist, Villa pulled out his pistol and shot the priest at point blank range killing him instantly. Villa then executed 69 villagers (several managed to escape). It is from this tragic chapter in the Mexican Revolution that the legend of the Village of 300 Widows came to life in my mind. 

Daily Whip Out:

"The Village of 300 Widows"

      Soon to be a major project.

"I'm at the age when remembering something

right away is as good as an orgasm."

—Gloria Steinem

Aging Backwards to Reach New Readers?

October 21, 2024

   Billy the Kid was barely in his twenties when he cashed out. Jesse was 15 when he really got going and quite a few others were not even teens yet. Their youth is what really appealed to all of us Boomers when we were that same age. In large measure, that's why we love them so much. They were kids like us only they had something that most of us did not—they were really brave.

Daily Whip Out:

"Killer Kid's Demon Eyes"

   And, if you have read our cover story on Killer Kids, you know where all of this came from. 

Daily Whip Out:

"Killer Kid In Gray"

Daily Whip Out: "Killer Kid Shines"

    Last weekend when I was in Fort Worth

for the Will Rogers Award Ceremony I talked to many authors and content providers about how to reach a younger audience and it was our food writer, Sherry Monahan who made the point that virtually all of the Old West heroes we love were in their twenties and early thirties when they did their nefarious and incredible deeds. And then what happened is, we Boomers grew old with them in our hearts. That's why when you go to Tombstone or Prescott, Deadwood, or Dodge City and see Old West re-enactments, they are invariably portrayed by old guys in their sixties! (At the very youngest)

   So, how do we reinvent these characters for the new kids coming up? Well, for one thing, go back to them being so young and we just might capture the current youngsters?

   It's worth a shot, said the guy who is as old as these guys.

Lakota elders Chikalakte, age 79

and Wahachanka Chikala, age 78

"You're only as old as the women you feel."

—Groucho Marx

Homeward Bound

 October 20,  2024

   A rollicking time was had by all at Coopers BBQ in the Stockyards last night. One of my best True West writers was blinged out for the Will Rogers Award Ceremony. That would be this babe and longtime friend, who writes Frontier Fare.

Sherry Monahan Boot Stylin' Babe

   Heading for Love Field to catch a flight home this morning.

Stockyards Cattle Drive With Real Longhorns

   And, of course, no visit to Fort Worth would be complete without finding the exact spot where the Wild Bunch had their last photo taken. You know, the one that got most of them killed and captured.

The Last Sitting of The Wild Bunch

Site

   I get such a goose by Walking Where They Walked. We are going to feature this phenom in the magazine for most of 2025. So if you have a shot of yourself doing this kind of crazy activity, please send it to me.

"Say Southern Pacific Cheese."

—The Photographer

A Letter to my younger self

 October 19, 2024

   Taped a couple shows with Rob Word of A Word On Westerns this morning. His son is helping him and they have a state of the art 360 degree camera that takes in the entire room and they can cut all sorts of angles from the video with a tiny camera not much bigger than a thumb drive.

Rob Word, at right, and his techie son RJ

   There was only one problem, the camera overheated and RJ had to put the camera in the freezer for five minutes before we could continue. This happened twice.

   For every step forward, take two backward,

   Last night I got to visit with Barry Corbin, who lives in the Forth Worth area and who came in to the banquet, walked right over to where I was sitting, sat down and said, "I love your magazine. I read it cover to cover." Doesn't get much better than that!

BBB and Barry Corbin on the right

   The most exciting event of the past two days, was buying Kathy Sue a cowboy hat in the legendary Fort Worth Stockyards.

Kathy and Dustin with shovel front brims

   One of the aspects of my talk last night, was built around helping other writers. I decided to write a letter to my younger self. Here is the basic outline I used to riff on in my talk.

A Letter to My Younger Self

    Hey, you spoiled little half-Norwegian twit! Listen up. I know you think you know it all, but I am going to tell you what you need to know going forward.

• I want you to know that what you desire most is possible if you push against the old ways of thinking.

• Everything you want is on the other side of fear.

• Write every day, without hope, without despair.

• One of your vulnerabilities will become a strength.

• At some point you will need to jump off a cliff and figure it out on the way down.

• The pefect recipe for life is: something to do. Someone to love, something to hope for.

• If you ever retire be sure to get up at 6 and drive real slow making everyone late for work.

• If you can avoid it, do not play "Wipeout" at a band reunion practice on March 22, 2008.

• Forget the girls, find a hot, eighth grade school teacher who teaches math so you can have great sex and she can balance your checkbook.

• The greatest revenge is to not be like your enemies.

• If the magazine biz survives 2024 there will be a kegger in Cave Creek on me, and you are all invited.

• If you ever win a prestigious award be sure to compliment random people in the audience.

• "Nice hat, Rob!"

"Hey, Chris, great taste in cover art!"

—BBB

BBB Cover Art

Five Words that Saved True West

October 18, 2024

   Kathy and I flew from Phoenix to Fort Worth yesterday to attend the Will Rogers Memorial Awards Show tonight where I am receiving the Golden Lariat Award. Here is one of the stories I intend to tell them tonight. And, by the way, today is actually the day—October 18, 1999—Bob McCubbin and I flew to Tulsa, rented a car and drove to Stillwater, Oklahoma to officially buy True West magazine.

A Smattering of True West magazines

(on our watch)

   Twenty-five years ago today I was seized by a strong desire to save a history magazine I respected and admired. I thought everyone would love me for it, but they did not. In fact many loyal readers attacked me for desecrating what they viewed as a holy shrine. “Joe Small is spinning in his grave!” is how almost every letter addressed to me began. My crime? Changing the paper from pulp to slick stock. And, to make matters worse, my partners agreed with them! So my hands were tied for making the bigger changes I felt the magazine needed, but I knew one thing, if we didn't change, we were going out of business, fast.

Five words saved the magazine.

    By 2002 we were losing $30,000 a month and we were stuck in a terrifying free fall. Out of the blue I got a call from a Texas subscriber who asked me if I wanted to interview Elizabeth Small, the wife of our founder, the late great Joe Small. She was, at that time, in assisted living in Austin, Texas. I readily agreed, got the number of the facility and called her. She was very feisty and clear spoken and I loved her immediately. After some small talk about old times, I finally asked her the burning question: "Elizabeth, True West used to sell 250,000 issues on the newsstand and now it's down to 6,000. What happened?" Her simple and direct answer stunned me.

“The footnote crowd took over.”

—Elizabeth Small

   Five simple words that spoke volumes. After the call I got up off the floor, collected myself and went into the library and pulled down the earliest issues of True West magazine going back to 1953. What I saw shocked me. Joe covered rodeo, he talked about movies, but mostly he specialized in dramatic stories told well. The magazine was a Popular History magazine that had been hijacked by the footnote crowd, i.e. serious historians who were hell bent on improving the magazine—to finally have it be taken seriously as they probably saw it, but in the process they almost killed it. This was a lesson I never forgot. Which brings me to my real epiphany: the universe is trying to help you, so pay attention!

   Also, if you want a new idea, read an old book. Or in this case, an old magazine.

   This goes for everything. The answer to your current problem is probably sitting in plain sight, right behind you. As the Old Vaqueros are so fond of saying, “Study the past so you can see what the idiots are going to do next.” Or, better yet, let's end by quoting a good friend of mine:

"If you want to make money, stay away from serious historians."

—The Distinguished Professor of History at The University of New Mexico