Last Day Before The First Day of The Next Revolution

 December 31, 2024

   Time to reflect and a time to plan. On the reflection front, the past year was a time of loss, with the passing of Jana, Phil, Edmundo and the retiring of Marshall Trimble.

   On the planning front, I had an epiphany over Christmas when my daughter Deena told me about an encounter where her husband Mike spent an hour looking at an oversized magazine at a neighbor's house. She got him a subscription to Mountain Gazette and I realized we need to give readers something they can't get on their phones. Something large (11" X 19"), something profound and irreverent. I worked with Dan The Man yesterday and here is what we came up with:

Volume 1, Number 1: Battle of the Little Bighorn

   Details tomorrow.

"It's not the actor's job to be funny, it's the writer's job. It's the actor's job to be truthful, and then the humor will come out."

—William H. Macy

Classic Sugarloafs And The Current Dirth of Tall Crowns

December 30, 2024
   Time to talk classic sugarloaf styles on film. There are two new film productions, both from Mexico, who deserve some credit for at least trying to get the hats right.

   First up is a remake of the Mexican literary classic Pedro Paramo.

Tall Crowns In Cowtown

   Yes, those are excellent—tall crown—sugarloafs from the film which is currently on Netflix.

   The other Mexican production is a ten part series on Pancho Villa: Centaur of The North.

   And by the way, the top head says, "Long Live Mexico, Assholes"

The Pancho production apparently didn't have the budget to get as many tall crowns as Pedro. The problem for filmmakers everywhere is all the local hatters today make short crowns which has been the style in Mexico for the past half century at least. Here is a scene where almost everyone is wearing a short crown.

   But at least the Pancho production company got a big, tall sugarloaf for Zapata:

Pancho Y Zapata

   Of course, I would have preferred an even larger brim as Emiliano himself would have preferred, but that's just me.

The Real Emiliano Zapata

   Back to Pedro Paramo, the opening sequence features a nice, big old school straw sombrero. 

Major points for that sucker.

   And, one more side shot of a classic tall crown sugarloaf, also from Pedro Paramo.

Aichi-Huero! That is some major shade

   In a final salute to both film productions, thanks for trying and thanks for caring. We True West Maniacs appreciate it.

"I can understand your anger at me, but what could you possibly have against the horse I rode in on?"
—Old Vaquero Saying

From Ashes to Asses, From Dust to Dusty

 December 29, 2024

   All this month I have enjoyed noodling dust and dust storms.

Daily Whip Out: 

"Provenance On December 1"

   And, here is a page from a week later. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Dust Storm On Dec. 7"

   Do you see the figure materializing in the background?

    Me neither.

Daily Whip Out:

"Emerging Out of the Dust"

   So, let's start with a simple silhouette and see if I can push those shapes working backwards and put a few more layers on it, and we just might end up here. . .

Daily Whip Out:

"Captain Hardy at Coyote Pass"

Daily Whip Out:

"Mickey Campa at Railroad Park"

Daily Whip Out: "Wall of Dust Rider"

   And, just when you thought it couldn't get any dustier. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Horn Dog Dusty"

Lesson Number One

  There are no bad stories—only stories that need to connect.

"To find out who you really are, you first need to forget who they told you to be."

—Old Vaquero Saying

How to Cut Through The Dust And See What's Really There

 December 28, 2024

   It's pretty hard to see anything in a dust storm. Studying history can be like that.

Daily Whip Out: "Who Do You See?"

   I decided to do a whole slew of these Dust Enigmas and then test you on what you see in them.

   Or, not.

   Test tomorrow.

"Some people don't understand that sitting in your own house in peace, eating snacks and minding your business is priceless."

—Tom Hardy

True West Keeps Going In And Out of Style But It's Guaranteed to. . .

 December 27, 2024

   Lots of commentary about the True West heavyweights who have left the building (see my editorial in the Jan-Feb issue). We all agree we need to find new voices to carry on the tradition and so I asked a young punk I know what he would write about if he was King of True West for a day and here is what he wrote to me:

Young Guns & Young Uno

"In order for our magazine to reach more younger readers, we must sometimes appeal directly to their generational tastes. After all, there is a difference between wanting more young people to become interested in the history of the American West, and wanting those young people to become interested strictly on your own terms. I’m sorry, but if you really think the average twenty-five-year-old out there is going to enjoy listening to Gene Autry or watching Shane, then I have a bridge in El Dorado I would like to sell you. Most people under the age of forty don’t even know who Ben Johnson or Richard Widmark were. But, they should! Well, they don’t. They have their own generation of movie stars like Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Bale, Johnny Depp, Emily Blunt, Tom Hardy, and Jason Momoa, all of whom have starred in quality modern Westerns. 

"True West will always make time for the classic Westerns and movie stars of decades past, but we cannot continue hanging our hats on the same old films and same old actors forever, especially when trying to reach a younger generation of readers and potential subscribers. Nor can our magazine always rely on the same old voices. Not with such a hungry crew of younger scholars—including Janelle Molony, Erik Wright, John LeMay, Josh Slatten, James Townsend, Corey Recko, Samuel K. Dolan, Matthew Bernstein, Benjamin Doss, and yours truly—very much on the rise. 

"The recent emergence of a younger generation of American West scholars means fresh analysis, different interpretations of sources, exciting discoveries, and plenty of new ideas and perspectives. Think James W. Bell was an innocent lawman? James Townsend’s research has revealed that Bell was actually a fugitive who had fled Texas due to his involvement in the murder of a farmer when Billy the Kid shot him. Think Tombstone was an unruly place? Have a read of Sam Dolan’s Hell Paso: Life and Death in the Old West's Most Dangerous Town. Think you know all the gory details of westward migration in the early 1860s? Pick up a copy of Janelle Moloney’s Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids. Does the name George Hearst ring a bell? Try Matthew Bernstein’s revelatory biography, George Hearst: Silver King of the Gilded Age.

"The next generation of historians and authors have arrived and are tasked with leading this field of study forward in the decades to come. You may not always like our style, our taste in Westerns or actors, our perspectives, or the language some of us may use on occasion, but we’re not going anywhere. As one of the greatest voices of your generation, Bob Dylan, famously sang: The times they are a-changin’."

—James B. Mills

"Every generation thinks they are smarter than the last, and wiser than the next."

—Old Vaquero Saying

    Look who showed up on my art desk this morning. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Local Cowgirl Takes Off"

Meanwhile. . .

   We study him for awhile and we worship him, then we go the other way and despise him and vilify him and on it goes. . .

Daily Revised Whip Out:

"Jesse James Going In And Out of Focus"

   But he's still guaranteed to raise a smile. . .

"So let me introduce you to, the act you've known for all these years. . ."

—Lennon & McCartney, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

Christmas Day Art Project

 December 26, 2024

   We did an art project on Christmas Day. Grandma Goose bought a long roll of butcher paper and we cut off a big hunk and placed it on the dining room table and tasked the grandkids to take a section and go at it.

The Art Project In Full Swing

   And, here are all the artists posing with the finished project. Everyone seems quite happy with the results except for one budding artist who might have had an issue with her brother.

Winners Show Mixed Results

24 Hours Earlier

We took the grandkids and their parents up to Frontier Town in Cave Creek on Christmas Eve to sample some first class curios. In any group there is always that one stand-offish cool cat that squats with his spurs on and dares everyone to come take him. In this case it's the North Pole Cowboy (self named) who sometimes goes as Fenton.

Frontier Town Rowdies

"That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats. you make'em follow you."

—Ray Bradbury

Christmas Eve Bunkhouse Compadres

 December 24, 2024

   For this old dog, Santa came early to the Triple B Spread. To have all four grandkids in the bunkhouse wearing period-correct hats from the past 155 years of American history makes a certain dog very, very happy. 

Bunkhouse Cousin Compadres

   Uno seems happy as well

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone!

"Yeah, well, that's just, like your opinion, man."

—The Big Lebowski, our new Christmas Eve tradition

Watching Historically Accurate Westerns With True West Maniacs Like Me

December 23, 2024

   Deena's family flew in from Seattle yesterday so we have a full house.

   Look who's reading Old Vaquero Sayings. . .

A young vaquero reads Old Vaquero Sayings

   This was created by Rooster Rob. So cool. You can still get a signed numbered edition at the66kids.com

Flashback Whip Outs

   Looking at old sketchbooks this morning I found this sequence of adobes from visiting a monastery in Peru back in 2008.

Daily Whip Out: "Monastery Side Streets"

Daily Whip Out:

"Peruvian Back Street Alley"

Daily Whip Outs: "Peruvian Sketches"

(August 24, 2008)

   Taped a new YouTube video this last week. Here's a sneak peek. . 

The Ground Rules

   There are basically three levels to watching a Western. The first level is you don't really care about historical accuracy, you just want a good story. The second one is, you are intrigued and wonder if the story is even true and the third level is, you bark at the screen, "What kind of idiots would put an 1895 Winchester in a movie that takes place in 1881?"

   I don't want to frighten you, but I'm a couple levels beyond the Winchester nitpicker. And I am not the only one with this affliction. The last time I looked there were more than 350,000 True West Maniacs on our website complaining about historical accuracy in Westerns. Or more succinctly, the lack of it. One of my crazy friends, who I won't throw under the bus, but I will say his name rhymes with Rusty York, thinks we should go back and recut all the old Westerns from the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s utilizing AI and CGI and digitally put in the historically correct hats on everybody in all the Westerns. The absurdity of even thinking of doing this proves Dave Barry's astute observation that "there is a fine line between a hobby and mental illness."

   It will be up next week.

"The best of us as storytellers, present an alternative to the story the bosses are telling.”

—David Milch, reflecting on the George Hearst character in his show Deadwood

The Hint of A Tear

 December 22, 2024

   Looking back I didn't have enough talent for the concept. It was a good one. A rough and tough cowgirl in a rougher world. But then, Larry McMurtry couldn't make her whole either, so that gives me some hope. I still think about her with fondness and even though she's been absent for a couple decades now I still think she could fly with the right story. Although some say the times have passed her by.

   Or, have they?

Daily Whip Out: "Oh, Sue"

All of which begs the question: what would Honkytonk Sue do on the last night before they close the doors for good at the Heatwave Cafe?

Daily Whip Out: "The Hint of a Tear"

   One of the problems with the word tear is that it is two-faced: you can almost cry and "tear up," or, you can use your fists and "tear up the joint." Spelled exactly the same. Too bad, because the hint of a tear is a decent title, unless you read it the wrong way. And, maybe that is a good thing. Expressions of grief can go both ways. Sometimes, you are in so much grief you really want to tear up the joint!

Last Fandango at The Heatwave Cafe

   "Someone is going to pay for what they did."

—Donna Jean

Cowboy Medal Winners Hang Out In Front Yard

 December 21, 2024

   A certain grandson asked his grandpa if he wanted a cowboy medal and, well, what cowboy doesn't want one, so young Fenton made me one. 

Cowboy Medal Winners Hang

Out In Front Yard

Here's the back story

    We were both working on art projects in my studio today, when out of the blue, Fenton asked me if I wanted a Cowboy Medal. When I said I certainly did, he asked for a photo of cowboys from a book and a pair of scissors.

   He quickly found a cowboy photo from a book I provided him and then he drew the cowboy in the photo and then asked for scissors and scotch tape. 

   Here we are at the presentation ceremony in the front yard. It was a total honor but it did take this old cowboy five minutes to get up off my knee.

"What d'ya want a medal, or something?"

—Old Schoolyard Taunt

Yard Sale Art vs. Pedro Paramo's Monastery Plazas

 December 20, 2024

   From my sketchbook archives, here's a page of monastery plaza sketches I did in Lima, Peru when Kathy and I ventured to South America to visit our son, Thomas Charles, who was in the Peace Corp in a mountain village named Yanque.

Daily Whip Outs "Monastery Plazas"

(September 1, 2008)

   Meanwhile, speaking of all points south. . .

Great hats, so-so Story

(Manuel Garcia-Rulfo from "Lincoln Lawyer")

   There is a new show on Netlix from Mexico and it has the coolest collection of hats I have seen in a long time. Unfortunately, the story doesn't quite work for me and I found myself mystified because I really wanted to dig the show. So my son Tomas ordered the book—Pedro Paramo—and I found out that the film is based on a revered Mexican book by Juan Rulfo.

"Almost 70 years after its publication, the novel's impact continues to resonate, making it one of the most significant works in Mexican literature. Directing this film adaptation has been an exciting challenge and a deeply personal journey that has led me to explore my own connections to the ghosts of previous generations of my family, just as Juan Preciado did when he arrived in Comala in search of his father, a man named Pedro Páramo."

—Rodrigo Prieto, the director

   Closer to home. . .

Mick Davis Hallway

   Mick Davis sure has good taste in art. Those are all Triple B works of art he bought at a yard sale and I must admit they look better here than in my yard.

"Where your fear is, there is your task."

—Carl Jung

Good Manners Meets Skibidi Toilet Training

 December 19, 2024

   So, it's my birthday (78) and my zany wife got me a couple very zany presents, one of which is a T-Shirt that says "Studio." The inside joke here is one time I asked her where she was going and she said, "Jazzercize" and I quipped that it was a good thing she had on a T-shirt that said, "Jazzercize" so she would know where she is and so she got me a payback custom T-shirt to remind me of where I am most days.

Studio Shirt at Studio Door

(she also got me a book on 1001 movie posters)

   Meanwhile, on my morning walk I had a couple new members along for my Step Entourage and here we are halfway up the hill towards Morningstar.

Harper, Uno and Fenton Out for A Stroll

   Just prior to this photo being taken, we met my neighbor Todd who was out walking his two dogs, Nammi (short for Tsunami) and Jelly and when I introduced my grandkids to Todd he said "Nice to meet you" and as we walked on, I told Harper and Fenton that after you meet someone for the first time and then get ready to leave you need to say, "It was nice to meet you." It is polite and shows good manners.

   So, not long after the above photo was taken we were walking back to the house when we met a couple of our other neighbors to the south of us, Mike and Sheri, who were out with their dogs in a golf cart. I introduced Harper and Fenton to them and we chatted for a few moments and then as we parted, Harper said without any prompting from me, "It was nice to meet you," and I beamed. I was so proud of her! I turned and said to Fenton, "What do you say, Fenton?" 

   He replied, "Skibidi Toilet."

"Someone who is obsessing over some unimportant thing."

—Gen Alpha slang, definition of Skibidi Toilet

How to Properly Telegraph A Joke

 December l8, 2024

   Some 35 years ago I took my daughter Deena to a sports bar in Glendale where the Phoenix Cardinals had a TV show and I was to be interviewed about a recent scandalous incident where the Bidwill family fired the Cardinal's head coach and we, the End Zonies, wore bags over our heads during the next game as a humorous protest. Cardinals management was reportedly not amused.

The End Zonies, The Paper Bag Incident

Sun Devil Stadium, 1989

   The owner's son, Michael Bidwill, told me what we had done was not cool and when I tried to laugh it off with we "were just having fun with it," he proceeded to take me to school with an anecdote about how hip his college was because in their basketball arena when a visiting school was shooting free throws, they would bust out newspapers and pretend to be bored with the game and a wall of newspapers would greet the shooter and this would flummox the visiting athletes and they would miss their free throws.

   "THAT is how you support your team!" Michael said, pointing his finger in my face before banning us from Sun Devil Stadium for life. I thought this was lame as hell (the joke, not the ban, which we deserved) and never thought about it again until last night when Tommy, Harper and I attended a Cactus Shadows high school basketball game and the cheerleaders from the visiting team—Queen Creek—busted out, you guessed it, newspapers. . .

Newspaper Circulation Gets Unexpected Boost

from Queen Creek cheerleaders

   My granddaughter, Harper, asked me if we had this joke when I went to high school and I told her we did but instead of newspapers each properly dressed Cheer representative was issued a tiny telegraph module and when the visiting players were attempting to make free throws (underhanded by the way!) the Cheer representative would pretend to be feverishly sending a telegraph tapping at their keys furiously. 

A good representation of our Cheer Representatives when I was playing basketball at Mucous. Note the fake "telegraph module".

   I am proud to say, not one visiting team ever made more than two free throws in a row, ever.

   And, that, my friend is how you properly telegraph a joke.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

—Mark Twain

Heatwave In The Rearview

 December 17, 1014

   They drank, they danced and they laughed. Oh, how they laughed. I can hear them still. Here for those of you who didn't know them, are a few of the regulars from the heyday of the Heatwave Cafe.

Sue Dancin' With The Handsome Stranger

"Man, that guy was smooth."

—Ina Mae Odle

Donna Jean returns with drinks

(Sue's best friend)

Meanwhile, out on the dancefloor. . .

Miss Bee "Boppahlula" Bensen

(Cuttin' a rug!)

(1951-2019)

   Bee Bensen, nee Banegas, the irrepressible and indomitable rodeo queen, who was one of the last female links to the original pro rodeo circuit, died on Wednesday in Queen Creek, Arizona.

   Her death in an assited living facility was confirmed by her step-daughter, Frannie Tutti Banegas (she kept her mother's maiden name).

Down Wickiup Way

Uncle Guy

(1924-1991)

Milly

(She could cut a rug!)

(1912-1983)

Itty Bitty Tatas Man

(1939-2002)

Mister Hell On Horses

Emmett Kroger

(1907-1965)

Los Mexicanos Hilarios

(the comedy group often appeared 

at the Heatwave. They were from Jalisco)

From the peanut gallery. . .

   

Ellie Fancher

(1936-2002)

Jay Dusardo, the mayor of Cattletrack

And the A-1 Beer Distributor

(1931-1999)

Chata Alvarado

(1937-2024)

Chata's Concern

Seri Witch

(1762-????)

   Yes, as you no doubt know more seniors are living longer than ever and guess what lobby is bigger than the NRA or the AFLCIO combined? Yes, the American Association of Retired Persons—AARP—is humungous. Some have compared it to a certain Italian crime organization.

"AARP is similar to the Mafia but more concerned with dietary fiber."

—Dave Barry