A Loser In The Rearview

 September 21, 2026

   I give up. Such a loser statement, right? Not so fast. Check this out:

   The highest form of peace is to have no desire for admiration or even to be understood. My current goal is to do both. To simply let go of the striving. How in the hell did I get here?

   I'll tell you how.

   When I was a teenager I worked in my dad's gas station and one time I found myself holding down the fort, alone, in the office, sitting in a hardback chair looking out through the modern Phillips 66 floor to ceiling glass window at the expansive driveway with twelve gas pumps and a big sign that said, "Reg. 39.9". As I sat there, I heard a furious buzzing and noticed a very frustrated fly beating his tiny wings against the window, furiously trying to go through the glass and get outside to freedom. He wasn't alone. In the small planter at the bottom of the glass lay two dozen dead flies who obviously had attempted and failed at the same task. I don't know why, but I felt sorry for the little guy. All he had to do was back up two feet, go to the left and he'd go sailing right out the open door to freedom. But even when I got up and went over to him and tried to shoosh him out of his predicament he fought me tooth and nail and went right back at it even harder than before. I heard the driveway bells ring and went out and waited on a couple cars and when I came back into the office, I noticed the fly in the window had expired and had joined his other hapless insect-bros in the planter.

   "How stupid could a living thing be," I remember thinking at the time (in my defense I was a teenager). How pompous that sounds to me now, having spent the last six decades beating furiously against the glass of artistic and publishing success. 

   Then, the other day, I read this: "Sometimes, in order to go forward, you have to give up and go backwards. You can't advance, unless you turn around and get away from an immovable wall."  

   You know, just like that fly in the window at Al Bell's gas station on Route 66 back in 1963.

"Nothing can be gained without losing. Even the heavens demand death."

—Seneca

Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White

 September 20, 2026

   I was asked this question on a recent podcast: "Do the good guys still wear white hats?" And, my answer was, "No, sometimes the good guys wear a white breech cloth."

Daily Whip Out: "A Formidable Apache Foe"

      When you really study history it becomes very hard to find the white hats, which, in turn, inspired this little study. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Fort Bowie Patrol"

(from a classic photograph)

   With the glut of AI permeating everything from local ads to book covers—especially book covers!—it's interesting to note that it raises the bar in one metric, but signals "more crap" in the same motion. One fallout from this is that anyone in the arts game is going in the opposite direction. If  AI can do that, then we are going to do this. Case in point:

 

An Anti-AI cover of The Atlantic

   When anyone on the planet can access ChatGPT, then real artists are going to go the other way and do something that goes in the opposite direction: for The Atlantic it is hand drawn, crude art AND hand drawn headlines. Wow! Breathtaking in its authenticity, but perhaps Stone Age in terms of competency? The dilemma continues. . .

   Here's where I go:

Daily Whip Out:

"Mountain Lion On The Prowl"

   Excellent interview in the NYTimes this morning about a new movie I want to see starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell:

John and Sam: Wild Horse Nine, 

plus 

Daily Whip Out: "A Scout In Doubt"

   When he approached the ranch house he knew something was wrong. Unmentionables were scattered across the front lawn and he could smell death.

"There is more power in telling little than in telling all."

—Mark Rothko

New Times And Old Prejudices

 September 19, 2026

   I got back from my walk with Uno this morning and as I traversed the breezeway I noticed a delivered packet inside the gate addressed to "Robert Allen Bell" and I thought to myself, The only person on the planet who would use those three words together was my mother and she has been gone for more than two decades. So, I took the packet in the kitchen and got a knife and started ripping into the plastic bag and the next thing I notice is that there appears to be a white T-shirt inside. Say what? So I pulled it out and laid it on the kitchen table and this is what was on it:

A "Too New Times" T-shirt Design

(and yes, that is the Arizona Republic at top, right)

   Here's the backstory. Former employees of the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette (known collectively as the R&G) are having a reunion next month and would I like to design a commemorative T-shirt for the gathering? I told them I would give it a shot and immediately called my partner in design crime, Big D, and we jammed on ideas and ended up at the above design and copy. The guy at the bottom is a caricature I did of Bill Close, a feisty news anchor on KOOL TV back in the day when I did cartoons for a certain hippie publication. When I sent the proposed design to the powers that be in the R&G hierarchy, they deemed it, "Too New Times," as in the "hippie rag" I used to work for in the eighties, The New Times Weekly. 

   I called Big D with the bad news and just for grins he had one shirt printed and he was the one who sent me the shirt. Also, Dan Harshberger made the nod to my mother on the packet as an added humor bonus since he had heard my mom use it many times.

   So, I've got that going for me.

   If you would like your own R&G T-shirt you can get one right here:

I Want That Shirt!

"As an artist, we are reporters. Our job is to report what it's like to be alive right now."

—Robert Longo

One Wild Ride And Other Thinly Veiled Metaphors

 September 18, 2026

   Met my neighbor Todd on the road this morning and he told me El Nino has another 15 storms coming this season every bit as strong as the blaster we had on Wednesday. I told him, "Well, thank God it isn't human caused," and walked on.

Uno Under A Stormy Sky

   The end of Late Nite is here. And, by that, I mean all those shows that were born out of the Johnny Carson mold.

   Speaking of mold, here is a common site when you are seeking out true history. . .

Time Destroys Everything

   Once upon a time, The Arizona Republic had a mighty circulation of some 600,000 daily readers. It was the state's biggest newspaper and it ruled the Arizona-media landscape with 400 news reporters. Today it has perhaps 32,000 subscribers (I am one of them) and 70 reporters and it is a whisper of its former self.

   Get used to it.

One Wild Ride

   I'm referring, of course, to owning a magazine! And this will be the theme of my editorial in the next issue. Well, that, and this. . .

Classic Remington Bucker

   Being a lifelong Remington fan I just assumed he was always doing cowboys on bucking broncos, but when I pulled down my Remington Catalogue Riasonne and looked at all of his known artwork I found that for the first twenty years of his art career (1875-95), he doesn't do the classic cowboy on a bucking horse! He comes close, a soldier—not a cowboy—on a rearing horse ("A Sample Breed" 1891), then in 1892 ("A Pitching Bronco"), then in 1893 we get ("A Buck-jumper"), then in 1893 we get ("Turn Him Loose, Bill") and there's another one, ("Mounting A Wild One") in the same year, but it's not until 1895—twenty years into his illustration career—that he lands on ("A Running Bucker", above). It must be noted that this is a mirror match to ("The Sun Fisher") from the same year. Then, of course, Remington is off to the races and I haven't counted how many variations he and a ton of other Western artists have done of a cowboy on a bucking horse, but we know it is massive and we are going to run as many of them as we can in the next issue of True West.

N.C. Wyeth Bucker

   Speaking of which, I was down at Desert Ridge today and ran into Barnes & Noble to check out our newsstand rack position and there we are front and center!

   Sent this picture to our editorial and design team and got this reply from the author of the cover story:

   "Looks really good on the newsstand. Glad to see True West is holding its own with Halloween, the Middle East, alien life, and some kind of weird science. Can't believe that stack of National Geographic. Does anyone actually buy that mag?"

—Mark Lee Gardner

   I am watching the 15 part documentary "The Story of Film: An Odyssey" and it's really taking me to school. Thought I knew the history of film, but damn, I don't know Jack!

   But I do know this: Live like you are dying, because you are.

"Only dead fish go with the flow."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Lake Bozosco And Kid Antrim Antics

 September 17, 2026

   We got hit by a major storm yesterday afternoon creating an instant lake in our front yard. Welcome to. . .

Lake Bozosco

   Or, if you think I'm a sexist pig you could call it. . . .

Lake Radina

   Either way, it was a bunch of water. One of our neighbors registered 3.5 inches of rain in 24 hours. This morning when Uno and I went out for a walk we were met by a ton of debris on the road.

"All this storm drainage bums me out, Man."

—Uno

   In high school several of my baseball teammates (Charlie Waters and Steve Burford specifically) enjoyed putting a twist on my nickname and turned it into Bozosco, which is a riff off of Boze which is a riff off of Bozo. It didn't stick but I have always been fond of their rococo wordplay.

   Speaking of genius wordplay, in his novel "The Kid" when Ron Hansen is wrapping up Chapter two, where he has documented Henry McCarty's tendency towards larceny, he concludes with: "Then he rumbled downstairs and out of the Two Galoots Saloon with nary an adios for his stepfather. They'd never see each other again." Then, with a fast forward flourish, Hansen tacks this little tidbit on the end: "In 1922 at the age of eighty, William Harrison Antrim would die in Adelaida, California, in the home of his niece. At his funeral service he was remembered as a pious and highly regarded gentleman."

Daily Whip Out:

"The Kid Busted Out Along The Ridgeline"

" Contradiction is the entire point."

—Marcel Duchamp

Nancy Sheppard Still Ridin' High

September 16, 2026

   We are running a eulogy in the next issue of True West on this legendary cowgirl. 

Cowgirl Nancy Sheppard

(1929-2026)

   She was, without a doubt, one of the greatest cowgirls to ever ride a horse. She passed away in Globe, Arizona on April 8 of this year. Nancy Sheppard was 96 years old.

   She was born to a Texas ranching family on December 29, 1929. Her father was a Cowboys' Turtles Association member and her mother showed horses at the Cowtown Coliseum as a child. By the time she turned 11, she was performing at rodeos including the Pendleton Oregon Roundup and by the time she turned 17 she was performing in Madison Square Garden in New York City. She later made trick roping appearances at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and even did a stint in Italy for Giorgio Armani. She was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2003 in Colorado Springs.

   She retired to Globe, Arizona but still made appearances and performed until 2016 when she was in her eighties! After that, thanks to her driver and confidant, Walter Christ, she often showed up at True West magazine events and was always supportive of all things Western right up to the end.

Ninety And Still Going Strong

Nancy and Walter at Sharlot Hall Museum

(2018)

   Nancy met Walter Christ (pronounced Chris-t) at the Superstition Mountain Museum outside Apache Junction when she performed there back in 2016. They hit it off and Walter offered to drive her to doctor's appointments in the Valley since he lived in nearby Gold Canyon. After that Walter became her full time driver and took care of her in her final days. In fact, it was Walter who kept pestering me to give her a proper send off in the magazine proving once again, without a doubt, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. AND he is still her biggest fan and champion.

   Thanks Walter, we are so thankful to you we knew her and we know in our hearts, Nancy is still ridin' high.

Nancy Blasting Into the Next Arena

"It is loss that teaches us the worth of things."

—Old Vaquero Saying

The Honkytonk Misfits Rings True

 September 15, 2026

   When it comes to old school, Arizona style honkytonks, I was there at ground zero watching it all from a drum riser.

Daily Whip Outs: "Honkytonk Mayhem"

   The truth is, I lived it and sometimes I still don't know what the hell it meant. But there are clues.

   I'm thinking of a reboot of the Heatwave Cafe scene. And, for inspiration, I've recently taken to watching old classic movies to see what I can learn. Last night I took a look at this old honkytonk chestnut.

The Misfits Gaze Off Into The Mist

("Gee, it goes on forever.")

A Misfits Outtake

(That's Marilyn Monroes' actual husband in the background laughing it up)

   The 1960 movie was filmed mostly around Reno, Nevada and the bar scenes and the trucks are so dang cool. Not to mention some of the mustang action. . .

The Misfits Fails to Take Off

   The Misfits was not a commercial success, although it did make back it's budget of $4 million. And, Clark Gable died a few days after the film wrapped (and he was only 59!) and, Marilyn didn't have long either, checking out within the next year.

  So, I have made a vow to rededicate myself to telling my honkytonk tales with honesty and all the burlesque humor and sadness left intact.

"I have decided no matter what happens, to write every day. Nothing strengthens one so much for the good. It is the best prayer."

—Leo Tolstoy

I Ain't No Ex-President's Son!

 September 14, 2026

   I am often tickled to find out where certain song lyrics come from. I just read that Tom Petty credits George Harrison for saving one of his best songs. Tom had a lyric that went, "I'm standing at the edge of the world," and George heard it and said, "What the hell does that mean?" so Tom said he re-attacked the song and changed the lyric to, "There ain't no easy way out," and THAT my friend, is the key line that sets up the entire premise in "I Won't Back Down."

Old Vaqueros Who Didn't Back Down

I Ain't No Ex-President's Son!

   In another backstory about lyrics, we learn that John Fogerty was livid when he heard that the grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, got a "quiet deferment" during the Vietnam War when all of us Boomer Boys were given I-A status and threatened with being drafted. Fogerty wrote, "Fortunate Son" for Credence Clearwater Revival and the rest is chart topping history. Well, he did change the status of the draft dodger. . .

"I ain't no senator's son. . ."

—John Fogerty, "Fortunate Son"

" Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."

—John W. Gardner

When Washing Dishes In Bisbee Has A Happy Ending

 September 13, 2026

   I revisited an old classic Western last night with my honey and here is what she had to say about it: "It's about kindness and compassion." This took me a little by surprise because—a. it is a Western and Kathy is not a big fan of the genre, and—b. I had never heard "kindness and compassion" used to describe the movie I introduced today at The Scottsdale Museum of the West.

Rodney: "He is my friend!"

An Escape from The Hatred

   As the story goes, back in 1983, Michael Blake was living in his car and washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant in Bisbee, Arizona when he finally finished his story about a Civil War army officer who goes out West to experience the frontier before it vanishes. There was only one problem: thirty publishers turned it down before Fawcett printed a modest paperback version in 1988. Kevin Coster read it in one sitting and paid Blake $75,000 for the film rights and made a commitment to not only star in it, but to direct it as well, which, by the way, directing was something he had never done before. Oh, and at the time Westerns were dead and studios wanted small and safe and this was neither (over three hours long and with Sioux and Commanche subtitles!). Costner plowed ahead and all the snotty suits in Hollywood started calling the project "Kevin's Gate." After a brutal, five month shoot in South Dakota where Costner had to put up an extra $3 million of his own money to finish principal photography, the movie Dances With Wolves finally premiered on November 21, 1990 and became an instant blockbuster, earning $424 million, plus 12 Academy Award nominations. It won seven, including Best Director for Costner, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay by the unemployed dishwasher.

Michael Blake and Kevin Costner

  If there is one thing that has permeated our 24/7 news cycle and constant social media presence it is the non-stop hatred. And, I have to agree with Kathy that the story that the Bisbee dishwasher tells in Dances With Wolves is filled with kindness and compassion. Just as an example, when the mule skinner is killed with a flurry of deadly arrows Timmons can think only of his mules. "Don't hurt my mules, " he pleads. It is very touching and compassionate. I met Michael Blake at a history event in Prescott not long after we bought True West magazine and he seemed very down to earth. I told him what a great movie he had created and he seemed touched by the praise. At that time he was living his dream life in Vail, Arizona, east of Tucson on I-10 where he had a horse ranch. He passed in 2015 after a long bout with cancer.

"Sometimes Hollywood hit movies are not released, they escape."

—Old Vaquero Saying

When You Come to A Horseshoe In The Road, Take It

 September 12, 2026

   Observations from a walk on the wild side.

Sunrise over Ratcliff Ridge

Uno looks on sadly at my neighbor's

 falling down Welcome Home sign

      A little farther on, Uno and I spied this.

A horseshoe lying in the roadway

   As we continued on our walk I began to have second thoughts on our next cover.

   I also had thoughts about a certain girl I knew in school.

A Fallen Saint

   But then I realized when I was growing up, there were plenty of "fallen saints."

Stagecoach Rough Rider

   Yes, you might say, I had a very existential walk, what with the metaphors and subtext flying hither and yon. It did dawn on me that even the spot where I stopped to see a man about a horse, has potential: i.e. there are masterpieces waiting to be captured and painted everywhere you look.

A Beautiful Maze

   In conclusion: when I walk, the world of possibilities opens up to me and I realize why I am here. When I get back to my studio I have a place to start.

"There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."

—Vincent van Gogh

The Femme Fatale & Other Urban Myths

 September 11, 2026

   Sometimes you have to go with the flow. You know, like this. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Femme Fatale 2"

Local Woman Sleeps Her Way to Top of Family

Sexual favors allegedly exchanged for high-level position.

—From The Onion, of course

Contradictions Vs. Myths

  I have been on a contradiction kick, so imagine my shock when a Nobel Prize winner had this to say about our current era of literature:

"We live in a world of too many contradictions, mutually exclusive facts, all battling one another tooth and nail." She believes it's time for parables, you know, like from the bible! She also believes we need new myths and fables. Speaking of which. . .

"Myth is everyone else's religion."

—Joseph Campbell

​​   Said The Clear-Eyed Woman, "Says who?!"

Daily Whip Out:

"Indignant Clear-eyed Woman"

"If you ask the grass, the calf is the monster and the mountain lion is the protector."

—Old Vaquero Saying​

Pioneer Lineage In The Bootheel of New Mexico

 September 10, 2026

My mother came from a ranching family of five sisters and they all hailed from the Bootheel of New Mexico. Like their mother, they were funny and generous, but the Guess Girls were not to be trifled with.

Daily Whip Out: "Fierce and Determined"

This is my grandfather Bob Guess, below, who I am named for, and his wife, Lue, and their newborn daughter, deep in the bootheel.

Bob and Lue Guess with their first daughter

Sadie Pearl
.

  And, here is their third daughter, born in Lordsburg, Lillie Louise, who everyone called Bobbi.

Bobbi Guess who caught the eye

of a buck private from Thompson, Iowa

Army Air Corp Private 

Allen P. Bell

And, the rest is back story to this story.

Peach Springs, or Bust, Baby!

"We all grew up a little bent."

—Trudy Peart

Glitches In The Hardware, Cobwebs In The Wheelhouse

 September 9, 2026

   Signs fade and fall into the road. Only the memories remain. Technology keeps moving and an old man gets left behind. For some reason my capacity to load images on this blog hit a snag, so here I sit with zero images at my disposal and only a keyboard to type words. Well, isn't that just ducky.

"There is more power in telling little than in telling all."

—Mark Rothko

Mucho Mas Dust Meets The Druther Brothers

 September 8, 2026

   Twin brothers, born to a migrant mother, grow up in the high mountain town of Opodepe. From this common experience they take two very different paths. One of them becomes an outlaw and the other settles in the village where they were born and starts a family.

Daily Whip Out: "The Druther Brothers"

   They may look exactly the same but there's where the differences begin.

Daily Whip Out: "Sunset Rider #27"

   Yes, I have a thing about epic storm rides. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Big Storm & Rider"

   And, when it comes to random dust, nobody tops Granthum P. Hooker's oft heard exclamation:

"When small men cast long shadows the sun is about to set."

—Old Vaquero Saying

When History Gets Messy Go With Jesse

 September 7, 2026

   Is it just me, or has the world taken a hard right?

Daily Whip Out: "The Rise of The Regulators"

   Still love whipping out the big ol' sugarloafs and the dudes who wear them.

Daily Whip Out: "Sonoran Bad Boy"

Also, found this old photo and added my two cents.

Daily Whip Out: "Soldados On The Border"

   Man, I dig that cat, third from the right. So badass.

When History Gets Messy Go With The Flow

"We all should embrace and even celebrate history’s messy nature: Question it, debate it, get down in the dirt and wrestle with it. . . History is a conversation, and I never intended to do all the talking. History is also an exercise in failure; the goal is to fail as little as possible, but those of us who write history will always get things wrong and leave things out."

—Jonathan Eig

Daily Whip Out: "Jesse the Bushwhacker"

(It was on this date, September 7, 1876, that the James-Younger gang totally underestimated the resistance of a certain, small Minnesota town.)

"The older I get, the less I seem to know."

—Jonathan Eig

Mazatal Riders, El Encanto Ducks & Mas Bastardos Por Favor

 September 6, 2026

   Revising revisions seems to be a recurring exercise in my current routine.

Daily Revised Whip Out: "Mazatal Rider" 

(first pass 08/10/2020, second pass 08/17/2022)

Second Pass: "Mazatal Rider"

Mas Bastardos Por Favor

  I must have a hundred stories saved up that I want to do in some form or another. Maybe when someone takes over the editorial reins at a certain magazine I can finally get them out and about.

Daily Whip Out: "The Baja Jinny"

In The Land of Ten Thousand Bastardos

El Encanto Anyone?

Kathy and I had lunch at El Encanto in Cave Creek yesterday. Had a window seat that looks out on the pond and we had two visitors check us out. A tortoise and a duck. Neither really looked at us, but I knew what they wanted.

The Tale of The Tortoise And The Duck

Plato's Retreat

  It was some 2,415 years ago that Plato nailed the four stages of democracy. Guess which phase we are currently in:

• Freedom

• Excess

• Chaos

• Strongman

"The ancients have stolen all our best ideas."

—Old Vaquero Sying