Dressing for Semi-Success And New Mexico Here I Come!

 April 1, 2025

   It's been a while, but we're headed for New Mexico next week to go visit this tiny berg.

   Don't tell anyone, but here's a sneak peek at the next cover.

   I tell you, that Dan the Man is a talented mahoo. Totally rocks.

   Had an online staff meeting this morning, so I half-dressed up, which means I kept my morning togs on, below the screen. When Kathy came home from Jazzercize, I went out to the garage to meet her and she caught me dressed, well, like this.

Dressing for Semi-Success

Top half professional, bottom half recreational.

(Yes, Uno finds it hilarious.)

"The truth is simple. If it was complicated, everyone would understand it."

—Walt Whitman

Typical Artist Dodging The Truth But Finishing 10,000 Bad Drawings Like A Pro

 March 31, 2025

   Been looking back at my original quest of doing 10,000 bad drawings. Hard to believe now, but I achieved that dubious goal way back in August of 2009.

Daily Whip Outs: "August 7, 2009

Daily Whip Outs: "August 3, 2009

Daily Whip Outs:

"Buck-toothed Studies, August 10, 2009

Daily Whip Outs:

"Final Exam, August 30, 2009"

(What if Frederic Remington met R. Crumb at Woodstock?)

Daily Whip Out: "Bonus Sketch: A Hat"

   So, I am 15 years on and still reaching for the big brass Whip Out ring.

Meanwhile, this just in from my neighbor:

   My email has been hacked again. This is the third time I've had to rename my dog.

"One wonders how some [artists] ever came to painting at all after exhibiting such surprising ability to dodge knowledge."
—Robert Henri

Marshall Trimble and I Score Navajo Hatbands

 March 30, 2025

   Drove out to Apache Junction yesterday morning for a big show at the Superstition Mountain Lost Dutchman Museum. I personally brought Marshall Trimble out of retirement so he could sign our co-written book, "The 66 Kids." Here we are at our table before we bought new hatbands.

Marsh and BBB sans new hatbands

   And then, just like that, we had Navajo hatbands because our table neighbor, Alyce B. Tso, suggested we try on her handmade Navajo hatbands.

Marsh, Alyce and BBB with new hatbands

      Alyce B. Tso (pronounced Alice B. So, as in Alice Be So Navajo) is from Cameron, Arizona up on the Navajo Res and we hit it off immediately. Nobody is funnier to me than the Navajo when it comes to Zane, with the possible exception of the Hualapais.

"I don't like snow because it's white and it's on my land."

—Old Hualapai Saying

From Billy to Buckeye, From Dust to Dusting

 March 28, 2025

   Just got word that Buckeye Blake's long awaited Billy In Death shrine sculpture is at the foundry and Buckeye hisself drove 13 hours home after delivering it.

Buckeye's Billy Shrine

   We—Buckeye, Kid Ross and myself—are going to have an art show at the Lamy Church, south of Santa Fe, and I am contributing a version of the Kid's last second on earth.

Daily Whip Out: "Old Vaquero In Hell 2.0"

      Meanwhile, in Old Fort Sumner on a hot July night. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Quien es, Pete?"

   I think his question was more furtive than menacing. But that's just an old man talking.

   And, here are the seeds to a song I'd like to hear, with a growling guitar line:

Quien es? Quien es, Pete? Who's in your bedroom suite?

Yo quiero tu hermana,  beyond manana. . quien es, bro, 

¿Puedo casarme con ella? (Can I marry her?)

Can I take her hand in marriage? Too late, cabrone, too late. . .Quien es, Pete?

Something like that.

Daily Whip Out: "Olive's Regret"

Heading into the Beast this morning to pick up the first batch of BozeCards. These suckers are going to be free to any of you who read this blog.

First BozeCard Hot Off The Press!

Let me know if you want one delivered to your house by the U.S. Post Office. Send me your mailing address to bozebell@twmag.com

From Dust to Dusting

"You come from dust and you will return to dust. That's why I don't dust. It could be someone I know."

—Old Housewife Saying

Billy Is Back & Hellraisers & Trailblazers Honoring Jana Bommersbach

 March 26, 2025

   Got this going for me. Woke up thinking about a title of a painting.

Daily Whip Out: "Billy Is Back!"

   And, really, was he ever really away? Not in my world.

Daily Whip Out:

"Smiling Billy at Midnite in Lincoln

On The Most Dangerous Street In America."

   I also need to come up with some worthy Mexican mourners for Buckeye's Billy Wake Shrine. Got some good reference. Need to make some serious hay today.

Daily Whip Out: "Old Fort Sumner Mourners"

   Had a history talk down at the Holland Center last night at six. We found two boxes of Hellraisers otherwise it's all sold out. Made me think of Jana, my co-author. We had some fun.

“That is the theme of my life. I can’t stand injustice. So women who are messed over because they’re women, and who are maligned and whose lives are stolen from them because they’re at the mercy of vicious forces, that really attracts me."

—Jana Bommersbach

Marshall Is Coming Out of Retirement, Cousins Galore and A Recipe for Disaster

 March 24, 2025

     As you may know, Marshall Trimble has retired, but I talked him into coming out of the lap of luxury for one more trip down memory lane, this Saturday at the Superstition Mountain Lost Dutchman Museum from 10 to 3 on Saturday. See you there, but be sure to wear hipboots. It's going to get deep, real fast.

Small Town BSers Unite for One More Run

https://superstitionmountainlostdutchmanmuseum.org/

Cousins Galore

   When we were at Old Tucson for the Jay Dusard True Westerner Award presentation, my Kingman cousin, Robert Jerl Stockbridge showed up. Haven't seen him in some time and, just for the record he looks just like his old man.

Robert Allen and Robert Jerl

(yes, we are both named for our grandfather, Robert Guess)

   Meanwhile, today my cousin from my dad's side of the family came out to Cave Creek so we could catch up on the Bell side of the family.

Cousin Mike Richards of Des Moines, Iowa

A Recipe for Disaster

   On January 1, 1856 Brigham Young appointed John D. Lee “Farmer to the Indians”. In this capacity Lee was a federal government agent and it was his job to protect the Southern Paiutes and emigrants from each other and to teach them to farm. Lee was paid a $600 annual salary, paid in gold, which was a fortune in that time and place. There were also rumors that the Mormons were arming their Paiute allies. Lt. Sylvester Mowry of the U.S. Army claimed they were “all armed with good rifles. Two years ago they were armed with nothing but bows and arrows of the poorest description.”

   Author Will Bagley makes the claim “The Mormons came to regard the Indians as a weapon God had placed in their hands.” And that the Indians would help to fulfill Joseph Smith’s Laminate prophesies, and “avenge the blood of the prophets.” Patriarch Elisha H. Groves prophesied as he blessed Col. William Dame in 1854, “The angel of vengeance shall be with thee.” Many of the Southern Utah Saints believed the war at the end of time had already begun and the Saints believed the Indians were a weapon God had placed in their hands.

   As the conflict between the U.S. government and Mormons increased, so did harassment of travelers. Into this cauldron of resentment the Fancher wagon train proceeded tragically. Add to that, the belief in blood atonement and you have a recipe for the slaughter that followed.

   The Southern Utah Saints saw themselves as Old Testament people As one of them, Jedediah Grant, put it, “We would not kill a man, of course, unless we killed him to save him.”

   Add to all of this, the Mormon apostle Parley Platt’s brutal assassination in Arkansas at the hands of a vengeful husband which did nothing to endear the Saints towards wagon trains from Arkansas traveling through their region.

"The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn."

—Bertrand Russell

One Little Kiss And Felina Is Gone

 March 23, 2025

  So, I am reading "The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis," and the writer, Maria Herrera-Sobek does a whole chapter on The Traitor Eve, and how, as in the Garden of Eden where Eve betrays Adam with a poisoned apple, in the Mexican Corridos, La Traidora (The Female Traitor!), harkens back to Dona Marina, La Malinche, or La Lengua (The Tongue!), who acted as an interpreter for Cortez and sold out her Aztec countrymen by advising Cortez on how to get to their weak spots. The author Maria points out, via a popular corrido from the 1920s there are four steps in "the path of the circle" and that is Death-Adventure-Betrayal-Death. and I thought that was kind of confusing, but familiar, and then I remembered a song by Marty Robbins, that hits this cycle perfectly and was a huge hit when I was a kid:

Marty Robbins meets Felina. Yeah, right.

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso
I fell in love with a Mexican girl
Nighttime would find me in Rosa's cantina
Music would play and Felina would whirl

Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina
Wicked and evil while casting a spell
My love was deep for this Mexican maiden
I was in love but in vain, I could tell

One night a wild young cowboy came in
Wild as the West Texas wind
Dashing and daring, a drink he was sharing
With wicked Felina, the girl that I loved

So in anger I challenged his right for the love of this maiden
Down went his hand for the gun that he wore
My challenge was answered in less than a heartbeat
The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor

Out through the back door of Rosa's I ran
Out where the horses were tied
I caught a good one, it looked like it could run
Up on its back and away I did ride

Just as fast as I could
From the West Texas town of El Paso
Out to the badlands of New Mexico

Back in El Paso my life would be worthless
Everything's gone in life, nothing is left
It's been so long since I've seen the young maiden
My love is stronger than my fear of death

I saddled up and away I did go
Riding alone in the dark
Maybe tomorrow a bullet may find me
Tonight nothing's worse than this pain in my heart

And at last, here I am on the hill, overlooking El Paso
I can see Rosa's cantina below
My love is strong and it pushes me onward
Down off the hill to Felina I go

Off to my right I see five mounted cowboys
Off to my left ride a dozen or more
Shouting and shooting, I can't let them catch me
I have to make it to Rosa's back door

Something is dreadfully wrong, for I feel
A deep burning pain in my side
Though I am trying to stay in the saddle
I'm getting weary, unable to ride

But my love for Felina is strong and I rise where I've fallen
Though I am weary, I can't stop to rest
I see the white puff of smoke from the rifle
I feel the bullet go deep in my chest

From out of nowhere Felina has found me
Kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side
Cradled by two loving arms that I'll die for

One little kiss and Felina, goodbye. . . 

—Marty Robbins, El Paso

Daily Whip Out: "La Lengua!"