Navajo Mystification, Saddam's Novel Plus Mexcian Cleavage, Por Favor

 September 27, 2026

   I think it's safe to say, sometimes we project behaviors and motivations on to Native Americans that are probably mystifying to them. 

Daily Revised Whip Out:

"Navajo Mystification"

   And, to be fair, I think we do the same to our leaders. Case in point:

  There is a new TNT show "High Value Target" which gives a first person account of a CIA agent, John Nixon, who interrogated Saddam Hussein after he was captured in a "Spider Hole" in a supporter's back yard back in 2003. At the time we were in Valencia, Spain visiting our son who was in an exchange program at NAU. We were staying in a condo by a lake south of Valencia and we were on our way to breakfast to eat paella when I spied a newspaper headline, bought the paper and had Tommy pose with it.

T. Charles With Spider Hole Headline

when Saddam Hussein was captured

      Looking back, the $25 million reward probably helped. In the new show, Nixon points out how isolated both Hussein and Bush were and how Saddam was working on a novel at the time of his capture. Ai Chihuahua!

Daily Whip Out:

"Old Vaquero Stands, Barely"

Daily Whip Out:

"Old Vaquero Remorse"

   I know what you're thinking: Dang, Dude, enough with the Old Vaqueros. Haven't you got any cleavage we could look at?

Daily Revised Whip Out:

"Mexican Cleavage By Request"

   Now for something Even More Rack Friendly:

My friends often put True West magazine in a better rack position when they encounter it on the newsstand but Dennis Corderman has taken that public service to the next level.

Dennis Corderman's Custom Rack Placement

at Barnes & Noble

"Discipline is loyalty to your future self."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Dog Digs Sunrise & Strange Bedfellows

 September 26, 2026

   A morning walk always gets me going.

Dog Digs Sunrise 

   Yes, sometimes on our morning walks, Uno will just stop and take in the grandeur of the morning light up on New River Mesa. Can you blame him?

Strange Bedfellows

Daily Scratchboard Whip Outs:

"Manet, Morgan Murderer, Costner & The Duke"

   Sometimes I like to channel my old art studio mate.

Daily Revised Whip Out:

"Little Miss Sashay"

(What would Edmundo do?)

   And, other times I just like to go all out gonzo.

Daily Whip Out:

"Wyatt Earp Saves A Damsel In Distress"

   Yes, in the late 1920s, Wyatt Earp and his common-law wife, Sadie, tasked a mining engineer, John Flood, with writing up a commercial story to sell to Hollywood. Someone in the biz advised them that Wyatt needs to save a woman from a burning building and so they included this dubious anecdote in his story to hopefully make it sellable.

John Flood

(A fool's errand)

"Oh, and keep walking. I have walked myself into my best thoughts."

—Soren Kierkegaard

Billy Logas Hangs Prominently In Kingman As He Should

 September 25, 2026

   If you are ever near Kingman, Arizona be sure to stop in the Powerhouse Museum and check out the very large poster featuring The Kingman King of the Quartermile:

Billy Logas Poster over the entrance

Yes, that is my painting of Bull Mountain in the background and of Billy and his Superstock Dodge blowing the doors off a Boulder City contender out on our remote Stockton Hill Road Quartermile Track, back in the day. The poster was designed, of course, by Dan The Man Harshberger. And that poster is to honor this guy, The Hilltop Hot-Rodder Himself:

Daily Whip Out: "Billy In Black"

   Billy "Leadfoot" Logas hailed from, where else, Logasville on east 66 where his dad had an auto shop.

Logasville sign near Black Bridge on old 66

"Buddy gonna shut you down. . ."

—The Beach Boys, Shut Down, Vol. II

Dawn of The New Tales From The Old West

 September 24, 3036

   I view this blog as my incubator. I write in here every day and even when I start with nothing it always turns into something no matter how obtuse or extraneous the beginning is. Which proves the old adage:

"Write every day without hope, without despair."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Big storm over Ratcliff Ridge

    And, it dawned on me today on my walk with Uno, that this platform is the template for all my future stories where I am not beholding to historical accuracy (Something I have been held hostage to for the last 27 years of running the magazine).

Daily Whip Out: "Dust Up 27"

   I grew up with a Mojave with the nickname of "Moon." I have always thought that was a very cool name for a character.

Daily Whip Out: "Killer Moon"

   My friend Mort Mortensen and I wrote a script for "Moon of The Mojave" about the Olive Oatman kidnapping and I think there is more to mine with this wonderful, zany character. Oh, and for the record, the real Moon was a very cool guy.

   I have long believed the righteous humor of the Indiginous peoples is the next wave of hilarity.

   I also believe in telling people who visit my studio where to go.

And, if push comes to shove, I agree with Moon's kin. . .

"How! Can I Help You Get The Hell Out of Here"

   And, finally, this is perhaps the greatest disclaimer in the history of tall tales:

"Not that it matters, but most of what follows is true."

—William Goldman, screenwriter for Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid

Lessons Learned And A Severe Case of Restless Leg Syndrom

 September 23, 2026

   Here's what I have learned, so far. Being creative is its own reward. Alfred Hitchcock believed that happiness was not pleasure or excitement, but emotional clarity, peace and the ability to create without interference. He called his happy spot "a clear horizon" with nothing to worry about, only the pursuit of creativity. I really, really like this.

   The first time I can remember seeing someone with restless leg syndrome was in Mr. Zubeck's math class at MCUHS in 1964. The leg in question belonged to Rick Ridenour and he just had his leg moving up and down to beat the band. Yesterday, after a doctor's appointment down in Scottsdale I dropped in to Chompies for lunch and as I sat waiting for my order, I noticed this guy at an adjacent table with his leg going crazy, up and down, up and down, over and over. When my order came, a turkey rueben on rye, I forgot about him for a minute or two, but then when I glanced over again he was still going strong. So, then I became intrigued. Will he stop when his food comes? No, he did not. Is he going to do this for the entire lunch? Yes, pretty much.

Mister Restless Leg Syndrome

(Yes, I blacked out his eyes and added the squiggles to show you which leg was going to town)

As For Succes

   In the end, it's not talent, it's endurance. Better late than never, so to speak. Someone else, who knew about success and fame, put it this way:

Fame Is A Disaster for The Creative Artist

"He couldn't handle his fame. . .he was a serious person. Quiet and introverted. He couldn't live with the public image of himself. People expected him to get up and be a clown on stage."

—Lawrence Ferlinghetti, on Jack Kerouac

A Cocksure Narrator And An AI Doomsday Prediction

 September 22, 2026

   There sure is a subtle strength in a grid of images. You know, like this:

Grid Happy BBB Images

On the other hand, there can be power in just one image:

Screen grab from Sullivan's Travels, 1941

Oh, and by the way, it's in this same film that the Coen brothers got the title for one of their movies:

Veronica Lake and Joel McCrae

The Authentic Voice of A Narrator

   What if a narrator was so cocksure of himself that it was funny and profound? What if there were footnotes to prove his idiotic version of history? What if there was more truth in his nonsense, than falsehood? What if he was the King of Fake News and didn't know it?

Daily Whip Out: "Uncle Guy Is Cocksure"

The Cocksure Chronicles

   It must be nice to have such perfect assurance of ones view of history and be so oblivious of the truth and so oblivious to your own idiotic presumptuousness.

   He's a modern day Archie Bunker. What would be a good name for this guy be, who I know so intimately?

• Uncle Guy Odenberry

• Nick Thornbush

• Canty Be-libel

• Connor Recanta

• Frank Vaca

• Blevin Cankisorius

• Body "Bonehead" Butley

• Justin Josephatt

AI Doomsday Prediction

A.I. tells fifty per cent of people that knee-high socks are in and the other fifty per cent that no-show socks are in, and everyone dies in the Sock Wars.

—The New Yorker

"Well, that went damn quick."

—Bonehead Butley, commenting on the rise of AI and the demise of mankind

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