The History of Difficult Women

 January 31, 2026

   In case you were wondering, at the end of the day I am still drawn to difficult women.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Outs:

"Old West Females Galore"

   Maybe not exclusively "drawn" but certainly rendered—in this case "scratched"—into semi-immortality. This is assuming these scratchboards survive the coming world-wide meltdown.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Outs:

"Old West Females Galore II"

   Back in the summer of 2022, during the production of our book "Hellraisers & Trailblazers: The Real Women of The Wild West", which I co-wrote with the late, great Jana Bommersbach, I got this idea to do a cascading collage of Wild Women. Here is one of the first sketches I did of the concept.

Daily Whip Out:

"Sketches for The Early Cascading Concept"

   I shared the above sketch with the boys down at Cattletrack Arts Compound and that led us to here.

One-Half of The Cascading Collage

Held Up By Brent Bond And Mark McDowell

      Then we got serious and started to nail down and permanently adhere the images to two giant boards. . .

   And, after we got the bigger version collected and mounted. we hauled it outside and Uno helped me add some finishing touches to tie it all together.

Uno Gives That "Whatever" Look

He's So Famous For

   When we finished it, the Cattletrack boys then motored the whole thing up to The Phippen Museum outside of Prescott where they put it on the wall for an art show we held to premiere the Hellraisers book.

Real Women of The Wild West

Cascading Collage

   The premiere of the book and the opening of the art show came off on November 5, 2022 at the Phippen Art Museum in Prescott, Arizona and the show was a roaring success. We sold six cases of books and almost all of the artwork.

Thanks to the curator, Tricia Loscher, the Cascading Collage was unanimously accepted into the Sigler Art Museum's permanent collection in Wickenburg, Arizona. The massive piece will appear in a forthcoming art show to open the new wing of the museum in the fall of 2027. I intend to add some more pertinent subject matter to that show, like this work in progress:

Daily Whip Out:

"Writing In The Eye of The Storm"

 

   Inspired by the life of Jana. Meanwhile, let's give the last word to someone who knows a thing or two about the subject.

"It actually doesn't take much to be considered a difficult women. That's why there are so many of us."

—Jane Goodall

Daily Whip Out: "Cascading Collage of Women"
as it appears in the "Hellraisers" book.

The Benefits of Not Knowing History & A Vaquero Riding The Whirlwind

 January 30, 2026

   Some themes stay with me for a long time. This is one of them.

Daily Whip Out:

"Vaquero Riding The Whirlwind"

   Kathy and I drove into the Beast today to have lunch with the Hawkins at their favorite Mexican joint, Via Delosantos in Sunnyslope. Lots of talk about old Phoenix and the Kemper Marley story. Mike told me he has an ASU annual with a photo of John Harvey Adamson with the caption "killer." Prophetic, indeed.

Life Lesson #1941

   For everything you and I think is important to know, there is another benefit from not knowing. Case in point:

"I don't know anything about history, and I can tell because every history movie I watch, I watch on the edge of my seat. What is gonna happen? I watched Pearl Harbor. I was as surprised as they were."

—Nate Bargatze

When Anglo Apaches Roamed The Drive-Ins of America Unchallenged

 January 29, 2026

      They were a curious breed, born in the Hollywood Hills and because of their good looks and devious ways they left a swath of torn tickets (some of them scalped!), far and wide.

When Anglo Apaches Roamed Free

In Drive-ins Across America

   Yes, somewhere between fact and fiction and racial convenience, there roamed a whole tribe of white people portraying native peoples in movies. Some say it was because there were no In-din "actors" at that time. Whatever the reason, Hollywood gave us a blue-eyed Geronimo.

Chuck Connors Is The Blue-Eyed Geronimo

How! Indeed!

    It was a strange time, but—come on!—not really any stranger than the one we're living through now. Know what I mean?  There were patches of irony and insightfulness, like this 1971 ditty. 

The Raiders Nail The Issue

   Wow! Thanks to our Westerns editor, Henry Parke, for sending me this link. I had forgotten how cool the song was and I have to say it stands up. Unlike some other classics I know, which seem a tad ridiculous today.

The villain Scar in "The Searchers" is portrayed by Henry Brandon (born Heinrich von Kleinbach in Berlin, Germany.)

   Okay, that didn't age well. Meanwhile, certainly the women were portrayed more accurately?

Gives New Meaning to

"Buffalo Girls Won't You Come Out Tonight!"

Donna Reed IS Sacajawea in this tanning drama!

Curse of The Anglo Indians

    Ironically, boarding schools fixed that problem because when our In-din brothers and sisters learned to write they created their own stories and then starred in them. And they also could write critically about all these movies before them with some grace and wit. Who says, we have made no progress?

"We need to give out portrayal of ourselves. Every non-Indian writer writes about 1860 to 1890 pretty much, and there is no non-Indian writer that can write movies about contemporary Indians. Only Indians can. Indians are usually romanticized. Non-Indians are totally irresponsible with the appropriation of Indians, because any time you have an Indian in a movie, it's political. They're not used as people, they're used as points."

—Chris Eyre, Cheyenne and Arapaho

What's With The Weird Crazy Cowboy Hat? (I'm Talkin' to You Billy Bob)

 January 28, 2026

   Let me be perfectly clear: I dig crazy, big hats, especially those aerodynamically designed Sugarloafs from south of the border, circa 1910-1930.

Sugarloafs Galore Down Mexico Way

   And, to be honest, I have been accused of exaggerating the style and scope of these broad brimmed chapos.

Daily Whip Outs: "The Sugarloaf Series"

      I get accused of making the brims too big. "You can't show me a sugarloaf with a brim as big as you are drawing them," my critics say. Okay, then, what do you make of this photograph?

A Doozy of a Sugarloaf in the Wild

   Yes, you can't get too large or too crazy for my tastes. That said, for the life of me, what in the hell is this?

Billy Bob's Current Headgear

      A Sugarloaf on acid? An homage to a tarot card reader? Here's another view:

Gypsy Rose Billy Bob Does Calipso?

   Did I miss a meeting of the Headgear Club? Okay, I am being snotty and if push comes to shove, I have to grant Thorton the priviledge and right to wear this, and, I admit I personally love Billy Bob in Landman and he's worn a lawman's hat, or two, quite well I might add.

Billy Bob portraying Big Jim Courtright

in the series "1883"

   So, I am going to lighten up and give the man his due. To each man, his own head gear and besides, I've been caught wearing headgear I wouldn't want published.

The executive editor of a certain magazine

on a certain day in October

"I can see by your outfit, you are not a cowboy."

—My Kingman Cowboy Kin when they see me coming down Beale Street

It's A Miracle to Behold That Some Things Are Still Standing

 January 27, 2026

   At this stage of my life, every day I am still here is a miracle to me. I have lost so many friends in the past couple years it's a bit of a drag.

Santa Fe's oldest building and Arizona's oldest cartoonist. It's a miracle, both are still standing.

(November 20, 2020)

   When you hit your late seventies a couple things start to come into focus: for one thing, some life lessons turned out to be the opposite of what I thought. For example. . .

   If things are going to remain the same, something has to change.

Things I Wish I Had Known Earlier

   If your art teacher hates what you are doing it's probably a good sign.

   All success does is give you a ticket to a bigger problem. With Fleetwood Mac's humongous success, Stevie Nicks admits she snorted a million dollars worth of cocaine up her nose in one year. Put another way: Cocaine is God's way of saying you have too much money. 

   Do not abandon the past. It leads to where you want to go. Put another way, I couldn't wait to get out of Kingman, but today, almost all of my art and heart lead straight back to that dusty berg.

   It was a lucky boy who grew up with these kids.

   Whatever you believe, the opposite is also true. For example to think there was once a time when adults wanted me to take a nap! Ha. Don't push me, I'll take two!

"The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting it go."

—Carl Jung

A Headline I Never Thought I Would Live to See

SIDNEY SWEENEY DID NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO CLIMB THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN AND HANG BRAS

I Admit, Some Curses Hit Me Where I Live

"There's nothing stronger than an unwritten book's fascination with its author."

—A.J. Hackwith

Daily Whip Out: "Old Pueblo Hitcher"

"There are two kinds of men in the world. Those who have a crush on Linda Ronstadt and those who don't know who she is."

—Willie Nelson

When The Mother Road Was In Her Prime Two Kingman Kids Took It All In

 January 26, 2026

   Some memories hang in the brain like an old wound.

Daily Whip Out:"'58 Chevy Barreling Down Stockton Hill Roadat Dusk"
   Dim light at night is a thing I seek to render. I actually witnessed this very scene in the rearview mirror of my '57 Merc' back in 1964. I believe Grover Thomas was driving the Chevy and we were heading out to the Quarter Mile on north Stockton Hill Road (about where Kingman Regional Hospital is now) to see Billy Logas drag race some miscreants from Boulder City.   Billy blew their doors off, of course.   Meanwhile, another hotrod Kingman kid, Dan The Man, is hard at work on Classic Road Trips on old Route 66, this time for the magazine. Since we grew up there we have an obligation to set things right on how it actually was when the Mother Road was in her prime. And, I am happy to say, we have 18 pages to prove our point.   Now back to the camels on the cover. Over the weekend I brushed in a new dust storm background.

   But I think that's a tad too red and too raw. Let me see if I can tone that down a smidge. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Beale Camel Corps Final"   And, here is how Dan The Man applicated that dust up to the cover.

Beale Is The Real Raw Deal

   See, this keeps us off the streets.
"Leisure without study is death."—Old Vaquero Saying

Hippies In The Cave And Beale Near The San Francisco Peaks

 January 25, 2026

   I have long heard rumors that real live hippies were at one time living in the cave across the way from us and now The Arizona Republic has featured actual photos of the Free Love, trespassing bastards.

   

   I thought perhaps this was our cave, but my neighbor Tom Augherton tells me these Hippies lived farther north up the creek, near Harmony Hollow. Wonder where they are now?

Westside Phoenix Bumper Sticker

Beale's Camel Corps Crossing The Colorado

   Here's some additional detail about the Beale camel crossing.

Haj Allah aka Hi Jolly

would know but he's been dead for 124 years

   Here is a quote from Beale that Vince Murray just found about the initial crossing of the Colorado River in October of 1857: "The first camel brought down to the river’s edge refused to take the water. Anxious, but not discouraged, I ordered another one to be brought, one of our largest and finest; and only those who have felt so much anxiety for the experiment can imagine my relief on seeing it take to the water, and swim boldly across the rapidly flowing river. We then tied them, each one to the saddle of another, and without the slightest difficulty, in a short time swam them all to the opposite side in gangs, five in a gang; to my delight, they not only swam with ease, but with apparently [more] strength than horses or mules. One of them, heading up stream, swam against the current, and all landed in safety on the other side."

   Thanks Vince! You also have earned a post byline for "added reporting" on the Beale sidebar in the next issue.

1920s postcard of San Francisco Peaks

"Could any amount of writing say more for a road."

—Ed Beale, writing in his journal at the foot of the San Francisco Peaks near present day Flagstaff, Arizona

Beale's Camels Swam The Colorado River And One of Them Enjoyed It So Much He Swam Upstream Against The Current

 

January 24, 2026

   Thanks to Paul Andrew Hutton we have finally solved the Beale Camel Corps mystery with a couple of key passages from this classic book.

One nitpick: there are no saguaros

along the route Beale took

   One hundred and sixty-seven-years ago yesterday, Lt. Ed Beale and his Camel Corps were met at the Colorado River by Capt. Johnson and his General Jesup side-wheeler steamboat to help with the transport of the men and gear across the wide river. But this was NOT on the original trip. Lt. Ed Beale and his Camel Corps were eastbound on his RETURN from Fort Tejon north of Los Angeles and the commander was relieved to have the assistance of a boat to convey his men and equipment across the mighty Colorado. 

   This solves the mystery of the original crossing when the Beale Expedition was westbound and reached the Colorado River on October 19, 1857. I grew up hearing the story that the General Jesup (also styled as Jessup) met Beale and ferried everyone across, but that is not correct. It was on the return trip. It appears from journal entries that the camels, horses and mules swam the river both coming and going.

   A journal entry from May Humphreys Stacey says one of the camels enjoyed swimming so much he swam upstream against the current!  On the original, westbound crossing, the expedition had a rubber boat with them and they carried all their supplies and one assumes the wagons—perhaps disassembled—across in that fashion. However, they lost 10 mules and two horses to the swift current. In a grisly side note, the Mojave Indians assembled on the shore watching the event went downstream and pulled the carcasses ashore and subsequently ate them. All this information comes from Uncle Sam's Camels: The Journal of May Humphreys Stacey Supplemented by the Report of Edward Fitzgerald Beale (1857-1858) by Lewis Lesley

   My  great friend Paul Andrew Hutton called me and read me the passages from his copy of the book. Paul wrote the forward for the second edition so he had the inside skinny on this and for that and many other things, all of us who love history thank him!

"One of the joys of seeking historical scholarship is having friends who know more than you do."

—BBB

Celebrating Mucho Milestones And Millstones

 January 23, 2026

   This guy has a birthday today.

Top Hand Tom Bell

   He's 43. Where does the time go?

   Well, actually, here's where the time goes. . .

Milestones & Millstones

   We're celebrating quite a few milestones this year including the 100th year of Route 66, the 150th year for the Battle of The Little Big Horn and the 250th year for the United States of America.

   Hard to believe but this guy and I have been doing graphics together for 54 years!

BBB and Dan The Man

Shootout at The Chloride Corral

(circa 1959)

   And we've been friends for 70 years. That's just crazy. But not even close to as crazy as this guy being 99 years old and still kickin' on 66. And, he was a barber for 75 years in Seligman and I am proud to say he cut my hair back in the nineties.

Angel Delgadillo, 99 and counting

all the while hawking his new book

   Angel is being featured in the next issue of True West magazine in our popular What History Has Taught Me department.

   The magazine itself is in its 73rd year. How's that for mucho milestones?

   One more BBB and Big D shot circa 1962:

Two Kingman Kids On A

Montgomery Ward's Moped

   So that's plenty of milestones. And, as for those "millstones". . .

"It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin."

—Luke 17:2

What Was Ed Beale Wearing On His Legendary Camel Ride?

 January 22, 2026

   You know I spend a lot of time trying to capture wardrobe and the hats right on my historical renderings, so it should come as no surprise that when it comes to Ed Beale, I have a big, fat challenge. For starters, the Beale Expedition had all the latest tech stuff, including a camera, but supposedly, it was too complicated to use and they didn't take any photos! Also, it must be noted most of the early expeditions saw the participants dressed as, well, frontiersmen, which most of them were. Even most military excursions featured a grubbier version of parade ground etiquette.

   All that said, here's a sneak peek at the first cover rough which me and Dan The Man threw together a couple days ago.

Not the best likeness.

   For starters, I admit, it's not the best likeness of Beale. Here was my reference:

The first portrait is Beale in his later years and the second is allegedly of Beale undercover in Mexico early in his career. I chose that odd tie and coat to get to here:

   Someone online said they would expect him to be in military garb, but in fact, Lt. Beale had resigned from the Navy in 1851, about six years before the Camel Corp Expedition, so he may not have been geared up with your typical 1855 Navy uniform issue, like this:

   On the other hand, my artist compadre, Bill Ahrendt went in that direction with his portrayal of the Camel Corp at the Colorado River:

   So, I did a study today emulating a mixed menagerie of uniforms and frontiersman clothing.

Daily Whip Out: "Camel Corp Mixed Bag"

   I also sent out queries to all the historians I know who might have a dog in this fight. Stay tuned.

"The real reason fights over historical accuracy are so vicious is because there's so little at stake."

—Old Historian Saying

We Are Still Dealing With Our Tortured Memory of Kemper Marley

 January 21, 2026

   Really, once and for all, who was this guy?

Kemper Marley

(1906-1990)

   I have always thought of him as a real life, cowboy version of the Noah Cross character in Chinatown. You know, the character played by John Huston—as a crazy corrupt, bad, bad guy. So, imagine my double take when I read this:

"He is not the kind of man he has been painted to be. He is a real humanitarian in a true sense of the word and so is his wife, Ethel. You never hear about it because of all they're giving is done quietly and anonymously without any fanfare. I think Kemper has done more for the community than any man who has ever lived."

—Tom Chauncey

   And, in case you didn't know who Tom Chauncey was (he passed in 1996): After many years as an entrepreneur in Phoenix, the call of broadcasting captured Tom Chauncey’s focus and attention. With virtually no experience – but a love of the news, truth, and fairness – he co-ventured the purchase of a radio station that later became KOOL Radio-Television, Inc. As owner of this station, he greatly influenced the direction of local and national television for more than thirty years. He was responsible for introducing the first female anchor to Arizona television. Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunication owes its name to Mr. Chauncey’s longtime association with Walter Cronkite. Chauncey also established an international reputation for Hereford cattle ranching and Arabian horse breeding, following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, who raised horses for the White House. This is paraphrased from the Arizona History League who honored Tom in 1995 and myself in 2025.

   And, for the record, Barry Goldwater came to Marley's funeral! One of the best reporters I have ever worked with was Tom Fitzpatrick. We both worked together for a time at New Times Weekly in Phoenix. Here is his exquisite take on the funeral of the man suspected of hiring the hit on reporter Don Bolles.

Tom Fitzpatrick at the eulogy for Kemper Marley

   Damn, that's good. And, here, once again is the great quote Tom referenced:

“Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists.”

—Norman Mailer

   So damn true, it's not even funny. Okay, maybe a little funny.

   And, here is a Dad joke you should not repeat:

Waiter: "How would you like your steak, sir?"

"Like winning an argument with my wife!"

Waiter: "So, rare it is!"

Kemper Marley the newsboy, second from the right front row with Arizona governor George Wylie Hunt with the walrus mustache, back, center. Hunt was governor from 1912 to 1933. He died in office after six terms. Welcome to Arizona, Ese!

A closeup on Marley with his

permanent scowl already in place.

   So, what did Marley allegedly do that was so awful and bad? I'll explain that tomorrow.

"When I was young I was poor. But after years of hard work, I am no longer young."

—Old Vaquero Saying

In The Valley of Sin, I Mean Sun, When Go Go Girls Reigned Supreme

 January 20, 2026

   Here's a potent image from my youth.

Little Miss Go Go In Sunglasses

   Stuart and I are working on a story about the wild old days in the Valley of the Sun when gangsters met cowboys and Go Go Girls reigned supreme.

   In our Kemper Marley-esque saga, while the Chicago boys gravitated to Bourbon Street on E. Thomas, the cowboys favored JD's In The Riverbottom or Mr. Lucky's on the westside. Both gravitated to the naughty Go Go Girls who freelanced at Tony "The Horse" Cerkvenik's Fifth National Bank on north Central. La Viva The Backshooter was a draw, literally.

La Viva The Backshooter

Kills at the Fifth National Bank

   Someone said it's Chinatown meets Blazing Saddles. Somehow that makes total sense.

And in other news:

Daily Whip Out: "Ned Beale #2"

Daily Whip Out:

"The Father of The Mother Road"

(Ed Beale Portrait #3)

   Our friend Rob Word compiled a fitting tribute to all the Western icons we lost last year.

Rob Word Commemorates 25 Western Icons We Lost Last Year

   Meanwhile, in Mother Road news. . .

Headin' For Home On April 30

Seligman Centennial Celebration

April 30, 2026
Join us and the community of Seligman as we unveil the new monument signs in town for the Route 66 Centennial. Also, stick around for a great big day-long party With Bob Boze Bell as your host and MC!