May 7, 2007
Our neighbors invited us to the Eleventh Annual Sonoran Symphony Concert last night, down at Rancho Manana, featuring Riders In The Sky. It's sponsored by the Desert Foothills Land Trust and is a fund raiser to help preserve the narrowing pristine desert that's left from bulldozers. So far they have successfully saved the cave that Cave Creek is named for, and are working on Spur Cross Ranch, a sprawling and beautiful section of land that land developers have eyed for years.
As I said, the concert is held every year, down at Rancho Manana Resort, on part of the golf course, and makes for a very nice outdoor setting for a high end dinner and music under the stars. I believe it's $150-$250 a ticket and my neighbor (a major lawyer and decent roper) bought an entire table (10) and we sat at table no. 3, which was right in the front and to the side of the stage.
The dinner was catered by the chef at Tonto Bar & Grill and included a nice filet, and a chile pepper loaded with some exotic vegetables, mashed potatoes, numerous bottles of top drawer wine, dessert and decaf coffee. Very tasty.
The Phoenix Symphony led by Michael Christie, opened the show and played a John Williams (he wrote Star Wars theme) rendition of "Cowboy Overture" from John Wayne's The Cowboys, then a long Aaron Copeland piece From Rodeo which included Bucaroo Holiday, Corral Nocturn, Saturday Night Waltz and Hoe-Down.
Next up came Riders In The Sky and they announced this was their 5,286th performance, and that they had been performing together for 28 years. Amazing. They were quite good, and with the symphony backing them they ripped through all the classics, including Ride, Cowboy Ride, Back In The Saddle Again, Cool Water, Yellow Rose of Texas, South of the Border, Rawhide (my personal favorite), Red River Valley, Ghost Riders in the Sky and, as an encore, Happy Trails.
Their set made me damn proud to be a Westerner, and when I get like that I feel nothing but pity for those who aren't.
True West was a sponsor, so we had mags at each table and a coupon offering $10 to the land trust for any subscriptions. I got two handed to me personally before we left and Bob and Trish Brink, who were also there, were speculating how many we would get. I'm guessing a dozen or so. We'll see.
Minnesota Mike came over Friday after work to pick up his camper shell, which I have been storing for him in the tractor garage. He's trading in his old F-150 and asked me what I thought a new one ran, and I guessed $25K and he laughed and said, "That's what I thought, but there's four levels of F-150s now and the one I want, a King Cab, runs $55K! For a Ford pickup!" Last night when we met our neighbors at their ranch house, they showed off their new roping-trailer-RV-combo-diesel truck, which they bought used for $92K (new $150K!). What's the world coming to? Pricey, that's what. My uncle Bud Linn bought his first ranch for $75K and now a pickup is more expensive? Yikes!
Working hard today on the Whambam Buffalo Soldier Ridge Fight. I really want to capture the fog of war, with a ton of black powder floating in the air. I'll post a rough here tonight.
Deena Bell celebrates her 26th birthday tonight with a dinner at Taco Villa. We're all meeting there at five, so I have to get to work.
"Drawing is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do."
--Vincent Van Gogh
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Saturday, May 06, 2006
May 6, 2006
Steve from Grant's Appliance came out yesterday and fixed our coolers for the summer run ($305, house account). Very nice and cool in the studio this morning. Went for a bike ride with the dogs at eight. Getting almost too warm to go this late.
Johnny Weinkauf resent me the measuring tape to measure my foot for my new custom BBB boots. I had to call him and have him walk me through it. High instep, low instep, ball, it's all too confusing to me. It was funny, with him in Kerrville, Texas, trying to tell me, in my office with my shoes off, holding the tape measure in my hands with the phone in the crook of my neck. Here's the photo of me and John in March of 1980 when I got my first boots.
Worked until 9:30 last night on Whambam illustrations. I'm worried now that I don't have enough room (6 pages) to tell the story. Building an article is like building a house. You gather all of the materials, lay the foundation and it looks like you've got tons of room for everything, then when you put the walls up it looks too little, you panic, you think it's way too small, then you put the roof on and it's amazing how much will fit in the sucker and when others come into your house they marvel how right it seems.
This also is true of doing a book, a True West Moment, no doubt a movie and probably an album.
Went up at ten and dropped off recycling, and yoga, then farmer's market and bought some New River tomatoes ($5.10 cash) and big boy onions ($2 cash) and came home to make Cinco de Seis tacos.
"Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own."
--Arnold Bennett
Steve from Grant's Appliance came out yesterday and fixed our coolers for the summer run ($305, house account). Very nice and cool in the studio this morning. Went for a bike ride with the dogs at eight. Getting almost too warm to go this late.
Johnny Weinkauf resent me the measuring tape to measure my foot for my new custom BBB boots. I had to call him and have him walk me through it. High instep, low instep, ball, it's all too confusing to me. It was funny, with him in Kerrville, Texas, trying to tell me, in my office with my shoes off, holding the tape measure in my hands with the phone in the crook of my neck. Here's the photo of me and John in March of 1980 when I got my first boots.Worked until 9:30 last night on Whambam illustrations. I'm worried now that I don't have enough room (6 pages) to tell the story. Building an article is like building a house. You gather all of the materials, lay the foundation and it looks like you've got tons of room for everything, then when you put the walls up it looks too little, you panic, you think it's way too small, then you put the roof on and it's amazing how much will fit in the sucker and when others come into your house they marvel how right it seems.
This also is true of doing a book, a True West Moment, no doubt a movie and probably an album.
Went up at ten and dropped off recycling, and yoga, then farmer's market and bought some New River tomatoes ($5.10 cash) and big boy onions ($2 cash) and came home to make Cinco de Seis tacos.
"Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own."
--Arnold Bennett
Friday, May 05, 2006
May 5, 2006
Another tip of the hat to Darcy Peterson, the gal who has been helping me organize my studio. I was looking for Buffalo Soldier and mule photo reference in my library last night and I spied the word “Eden” on the spine of a book on the top shelf in the new Town section. I often buy used books at yard sales featuring those really bad books put out by small towns on their history. I usually buy them on the off-chance that they run old photos I might be able to use.
Now the word “Eden” was fresh in my mind, because yesterday while culling pertinent facts out of Larry Ball’s definitive book on the Whambam robbery I found this bit of info:
Homeward Bound
After the robbery, the outlaws split into two groups, with one going north towards Fort Thomas and Pima, and the other going south towards Norton’s ranch. The northbound robbers (believed to be seven in number) made a beeline to the Gila River and crossed at Eden, where they threw incriminating evidence into the deep water, then went upriver (east) to the Holladay Crossing and recrossed. The next day, trackers found hoofprints leading from there straight to Ed Follett’s ranch. A week later, on May 19, a group of kids were swimming in the river, and in a shallow slough (the river had gone down dramatically) the children found six-shooters, canned goods, a pair of boots filled with rocks, and a bunch of horse shoe nails tied up in a silk handkerchief (trackers claimed the robbers tried to throw them off by putting horseshoes on their mounts backwards). When the pistol showed up in Pima, it was claimed by, none other than Gilbert Webb who alleged it had been lost by his son Wildred during a high water crossing.
I pulled down the book and sure enough, it was a local history take on the same small berg of Eden referred to in Ball’s book. Of course, just like the Pima Centennial book I have, there is not one word on the Whambam robbery, but in the Eden book I discovered a bio and photo of Frederick Taft Webb (his father Gilbert Webb, see above, is considered the mastermind of the robbery, and his sons are believed to have participated in the robbery with him). To me, Fred’s got the eyes of a hardened criminal, but his bio reads like a Sunday school teacher. In fact he was a teacher in Eden for ten years (1888 to 1898), but evidently gave up that profession for something that pays better, like highway robbery! (this isn’t in the book of course). Fred went to school at Tempe Normal School (later ASU), and he married a Holladay girl (see river crossing above) Other benign entries include: “Fred was always active in church and community activities. He organized and was manager of the outstanding Pima baseball team.”
There’s more: “In recognition of his ability and sound judgement, the people of his legislative district in Graham County called on Fred to represent them in the House of Representatives of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Legislature [often called the “Thieving Thirteenth”]. In this legislative work he exercised the same full measure of conscientiousness and close attention to duty that distinguished his whole career.
“Fred died on April 17, 1954, at his home in Pima at the age of 87 years. Inza [Holladay Webb] lived alone until her death on October 6, 1966. They re both buried in the Pima Cemetery.”
Inza by the way, was one of his students, who he dated when she was sixteen and he was 28! Eden? Boy Howdy!
Tombstone Proves Blog Worthy
“May 3rd's posting with the exciting news about the extra Tombstone
movie footage is exactly why you need to keep doing this blog!”
—Mark Kilburn
There’s more. The actor also told Henry Beck that at one point, just before filming started, Willem Defoe was being considered for the roll of Doc Holliday. Of course, Val Kilmer got the nod and was great, but Defoe would have been an excellent choice and he even looks like Doc! The producers also considered having Kurt Russell play Doc with Richard Gere as Wyatt Earp! Now that would have been a train wreck.
Whambam Photos, Finally
Here’s a couple images I shot out at the Whambam site last Saturday. That’s Robert McElroy in the foreground, firing from the exact spot the Buffalo Soldiers tried to defend on May 11, 1889. In one of the photos he’s aiming directly back at Fort #1, where the main contingent of robbers fired from and where Wham later discovered hundreds of exploded shells. The soldiers couldn’t hold this position because the outlaws had another fort on the west side of the road, directly below (south of) this position and were pouring "enfilade" fire in on the troopers. Robert McElroy is an ex-marine (notice his fine firing form) and he told me enfilade fire is triangulated fire, coming in from three sides. That’s Rob Bandhauer , another TW staffer, firing in the background. My job now, is to add another seven or eight soldiers in along this four-foot high ridge to illustrate the pivotal point of the battle. Eight of the soldiers were wounded by the time they evacuated down the hill to Cottonwood Creek.
“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”
—Mark Twain
Another tip of the hat to Darcy Peterson, the gal who has been helping me organize my studio. I was looking for Buffalo Soldier and mule photo reference in my library last night and I spied the word “Eden” on the spine of a book on the top shelf in the new Town section. I often buy used books at yard sales featuring those really bad books put out by small towns on their history. I usually buy them on the off-chance that they run old photos I might be able to use.
Now the word “Eden” was fresh in my mind, because yesterday while culling pertinent facts out of Larry Ball’s definitive book on the Whambam robbery I found this bit of info:
Homeward Bound
After the robbery, the outlaws split into two groups, with one going north towards Fort Thomas and Pima, and the other going south towards Norton’s ranch. The northbound robbers (believed to be seven in number) made a beeline to the Gila River and crossed at Eden, where they threw incriminating evidence into the deep water, then went upriver (east) to the Holladay Crossing and recrossed. The next day, trackers found hoofprints leading from there straight to Ed Follett’s ranch. A week later, on May 19, a group of kids were swimming in the river, and in a shallow slough (the river had gone down dramatically) the children found six-shooters, canned goods, a pair of boots filled with rocks, and a bunch of horse shoe nails tied up in a silk handkerchief (trackers claimed the robbers tried to throw them off by putting horseshoes on their mounts backwards). When the pistol showed up in Pima, it was claimed by, none other than Gilbert Webb who alleged it had been lost by his son Wildred during a high water crossing.
I pulled down the book and sure enough, it was a local history take on the same small berg of Eden referred to in Ball’s book. Of course, just like the Pima Centennial book I have, there is not one word on the Whambam robbery, but in the Eden book I discovered a bio and photo of Frederick Taft Webb (his father Gilbert Webb, see above, is considered the mastermind of the robbery, and his sons are believed to have participated in the robbery with him). To me, Fred’s got the eyes of a hardened criminal, but his bio reads like a Sunday school teacher. In fact he was a teacher in Eden for ten years (1888 to 1898), but evidently gave up that profession for something that pays better, like highway robbery! (this isn’t in the book of course). Fred went to school at Tempe Normal School (later ASU), and he married a Holladay girl (see river crossing above) Other benign entries include: “Fred was always active in church and community activities. He organized and was manager of the outstanding Pima baseball team.”
There’s more: “In recognition of his ability and sound judgement, the people of his legislative district in Graham County called on Fred to represent them in the House of Representatives of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Legislature [often called the “Thieving Thirteenth”]. In this legislative work he exercised the same full measure of conscientiousness and close attention to duty that distinguished his whole career.
“Fred died on April 17, 1954, at his home in Pima at the age of 87 years. Inza [Holladay Webb] lived alone until her death on October 6, 1966. They re both buried in the Pima Cemetery.”
Inza by the way, was one of his students, who he dated when she was sixteen and he was 28! Eden? Boy Howdy!Tombstone Proves Blog Worthy
“May 3rd's posting with the exciting news about the extra Tombstone
movie footage is exactly why you need to keep doing this blog!”
—Mark Kilburn
There’s more. The actor also told Henry Beck that at one point, just before filming started, Willem Defoe was being considered for the roll of Doc Holliday. Of course, Val Kilmer got the nod and was great, but Defoe would have been an excellent choice and he even looks like Doc! The producers also considered having Kurt Russell play Doc with Richard Gere as Wyatt Earp! Now that would have been a train wreck.
Whambam Photos, Finally
Here’s a couple images I shot out at the Whambam site last Saturday. That’s Robert McElroy in the foreground, firing from the exact spot the Buffalo Soldiers tried to defend on May 11, 1889. In one of the photos he’s aiming directly back at Fort #1, where the main contingent of robbers fired from and where Wham later discovered hundreds of exploded shells. The soldiers couldn’t hold this position because the outlaws had another fort on the west side of the road, directly below (south of) this position and were pouring "enfilade" fire in on the troopers. Robert McElroy is an ex-marine (notice his fine firing form) and he told me enfilade fire is triangulated fire, coming in from three sides. That’s Rob Bandhauer , another TW staffer, firing in the background. My job now, is to add another seven or eight soldiers in along this four-foot high ridge to illustrate the pivotal point of the battle. Eight of the soldiers were wounded by the time they evacuated down the hill to Cottonwood Creek.
“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”
—Mark Twain
Thursday, May 04, 2006
May 4, 2006
Got up this morning and finished the Whambam Overview painting. Got some decent landscape effects, but I missed on the actual forts-bluff area (the most important part). Can’t stop now though, got to keep moving. Got another ten or fifteen images to execute by Monday.
Sam organized a Subway lunch today and we all chipped in $5 and had a little feast in the conference room. We also celebrated Trish Brink’s birthday, which is actually tomorrow, but she won’t be here. We all sang happy birthday and demanded a speech, but she wasn’t buying (ironic as she’s the sales manager).
Beautiful Women With Great Taste Department
For my birthday this year my wife gave me first editions of your two "Classic Gunfights" books and "Bad Men," and I am awed. Each book is an example of *high concept*, the information is fascinating, the writing is first-rate, and the art is—well—*alive*. Great books, Mr. Bell, absolutely great, and I will read and re-read them for many years to come. (Looking forward to the book on Hickok and the one on the ladies.) Just a thank you to you for creating them.
—Sarge McClintock
P.S. Last year she gave me a new Corvette for my birthday; this girl knows how to give presents.
How Not to Preserve History
Last year the Cholila [Argentina] authorities, in a misguided effort to renovate the Butch & Sundance cabin, which was in a dilapidated state, leveled it and rebuilt a brand new cabin in its place. Most if not all (reports disagree) of the materials from the original structure were burned. Of course, in a few years the new structure will have weathered and few visitors will know the difference. A tragedy, nonetheless. The f***-up— quilombo in Spanish—cost the Chubut tourism minister his job.
We have a photos of the new structure (as well as of the old), in the event you think this might merit a TW mention. There's the true west, the old west, and the ex-west. File this under ex-west.
—Dan Buck
Yes, Dan, we want those photos. We are going to be running a new department on "Preserving the West" and we'll file this under how not to preserve. Thanks.
Another Old West Compadre Goes to Jail
Robert Lawrence Wilson was the traffic cop at the intersection of old guns and old money.
In high style, the former longtime Hadlyme resident plied his expertise in Colt and Winchester firearms into a lucrative, globetrotting career. He wrote more than 40 books, appeared on TV, tended the collections of powerful men, consulted with museums and made his name as a raconteur of the first order.
He brokered millions of dollars of trades in antique pistols and rifles, making himself a super-star in the world of 19th century firearms -- and arguably the foremost expert on old Colts.
His home office -- down the road from Gillette Castle -- was a Teddy Roosevelt-inspired shrine to rare-gun collecting, big-game hunting and the eccentric tastes of a man who bought Mario Andretti's 1983 Indy car and wheeled it up to the foot of his desk.
On Valentine's Day, the road led to federal prison in Lompoc, Calif., for the 66-year-old R.L. Wilson, as he is known on his book jackets, or Larry, as the regulars call him.
After pleading guilty to defrauding a client, Wilson is serving a sentence of one year and one day -- the same jail term former Gov. John G. Rowland received. In his field, Wilson's felony is a scandal akin to, well, Rowland's corruption.
—DAN HAAR; Hartford Courant Staff Writer
We excerpted R.L. Wilson’s book on Women and Guns (“Silk And Steel") and I met R.L. at Northfeild, Minnesota three years ago when Melrose and I went up there for the annual Defeat of Jesse James Days. R.L. brought along a replica of the Remington Rolling Block rifle that local hero, A. R. Manning, used in the fight with the James-Younger Gang, and I shot a roll of film of R.L. shooting in the reenactments, from under the stairs of the First National Bank Building. Nice guy, very gracious, and he looks quite a bit like A.R. Manning, to boot!
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Al-Qaeda Hires Public Relations Consultant Just To Shoot Him
”Those who face that which is actually before them, unburdoned by the past, undistracted by the future, these are they who live, who make the best of their lives; these are those who have found the secret of contentment.”
—Alban Goodier
Got up this morning and finished the Whambam Overview painting. Got some decent landscape effects, but I missed on the actual forts-bluff area (the most important part). Can’t stop now though, got to keep moving. Got another ten or fifteen images to execute by Monday.
Sam organized a Subway lunch today and we all chipped in $5 and had a little feast in the conference room. We also celebrated Trish Brink’s birthday, which is actually tomorrow, but she won’t be here. We all sang happy birthday and demanded a speech, but she wasn’t buying (ironic as she’s the sales manager).
Beautiful Women With Great Taste Department
For my birthday this year my wife gave me first editions of your two "Classic Gunfights" books and "Bad Men," and I am awed. Each book is an example of *high concept*, the information is fascinating, the writing is first-rate, and the art is—well—*alive*. Great books, Mr. Bell, absolutely great, and I will read and re-read them for many years to come. (Looking forward to the book on Hickok and the one on the ladies.) Just a thank you to you for creating them.
—Sarge McClintock
P.S. Last year she gave me a new Corvette for my birthday; this girl knows how to give presents.
How Not to Preserve History
Last year the Cholila [Argentina] authorities, in a misguided effort to renovate the Butch & Sundance cabin, which was in a dilapidated state, leveled it and rebuilt a brand new cabin in its place. Most if not all (reports disagree) of the materials from the original structure were burned. Of course, in a few years the new structure will have weathered and few visitors will know the difference. A tragedy, nonetheless. The f***-up— quilombo in Spanish—cost the Chubut tourism minister his job.
We have a photos of the new structure (as well as of the old), in the event you think this might merit a TW mention. There's the true west, the old west, and the ex-west. File this under ex-west.
—Dan Buck
Yes, Dan, we want those photos. We are going to be running a new department on "Preserving the West" and we'll file this under how not to preserve. Thanks.
Another Old West Compadre Goes to Jail
Robert Lawrence Wilson was the traffic cop at the intersection of old guns and old money.
In high style, the former longtime Hadlyme resident plied his expertise in Colt and Winchester firearms into a lucrative, globetrotting career. He wrote more than 40 books, appeared on TV, tended the collections of powerful men, consulted with museums and made his name as a raconteur of the first order.
He brokered millions of dollars of trades in antique pistols and rifles, making himself a super-star in the world of 19th century firearms -- and arguably the foremost expert on old Colts.
His home office -- down the road from Gillette Castle -- was a Teddy Roosevelt-inspired shrine to rare-gun collecting, big-game hunting and the eccentric tastes of a man who bought Mario Andretti's 1983 Indy car and wheeled it up to the foot of his desk.
On Valentine's Day, the road led to federal prison in Lompoc, Calif., for the 66-year-old R.L. Wilson, as he is known on his book jackets, or Larry, as the regulars call him.
After pleading guilty to defrauding a client, Wilson is serving a sentence of one year and one day -- the same jail term former Gov. John G. Rowland received. In his field, Wilson's felony is a scandal akin to, well, Rowland's corruption.
—DAN HAAR; Hartford Courant Staff Writer
We excerpted R.L. Wilson’s book on Women and Guns (“Silk And Steel") and I met R.L. at Northfeild, Minnesota three years ago when Melrose and I went up there for the annual Defeat of Jesse James Days. R.L. brought along a replica of the Remington Rolling Block rifle that local hero, A. R. Manning, used in the fight with the James-Younger Gang, and I shot a roll of film of R.L. shooting in the reenactments, from under the stairs of the First National Bank Building. Nice guy, very gracious, and he looks quite a bit like A.R. Manning, to boot!
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Al-Qaeda Hires Public Relations Consultant Just To Shoot Him
”Those who face that which is actually before them, unburdoned by the past, undistracted by the future, these are they who live, who make the best of their lives; these are those who have found the secret of contentment.”
—Alban Goodier
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
May 3, 2006
Last night I started my overhead view sketches of the Whambam Payroll Robbery scene. Utilizing the army map, the two surviving photos of the scene as it looked in 1889, and my nine rolls of film I think I’ve got a good mental concept of how the rugged foothills of the Graham mountains spill off into the Gila River Valley. We’ll see. Laid in a light wash this morning of the panorama.
The bizarre twists and ugly aspects of the case are just astounding and I’m going to have trouble squeezing all the good stuff in just six pages. Here’s a few samples:
Wham Payroll Robbery Notes From Last Weekend’s Field Trip
• After driving off the soldiers, the robbers cut loose the surviving mules (9) and these draft animals, some wounded and injured, wandered through the battlefield to the south end where they were found after the fight, standing “up on the hill there sleeping away in the sunshine.”
• The three dead mules were left where they died and at the trial six months later, Major Wham testified their bones were still up there (we didn’t find any trace, but after the fight, many Arizonans travelled to the site to picnic and cleaned pretty much everything of interest away).
• After the fight, Major Wham found “between three and four hundred exploded shells,” in the main robber fort, although at the trial the defense got him to admit he told the grand jury he estimated the number closer to 150. Take your pick, even at 100 that would be a ton of shooting. Keep in mind there were nine forts!
• The robbers stole both Wham’s valise and Gibbon’s, although Wham’s was recovered a mile from the scene and there was blood on the papers. Gibbon's later recanted his testimony and claimed there was no fight and everyone ran away. Two medal of honor winners and ten wounded soldiers would seem to disprove that dubious claim.
Q: Did you hear anybody say anything at the robbery?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: What did they say?
A: Look out, you black sons of bitches.
Q: What did you all do?
A: We looked out. . .
—testimony of Pvt. Young
Was the Fight Formal Or Semi-Formal?
Suspect and Mormon, Lyman Follett “had on a kind of light shirt with a black tie.” Wilford Webb wore a “brown jacket, buckskin.”
• Married, with a daughter (both named Mary) Major Wham had been the paymaster for more than a decade at the time of the robbery. He was appointed to the position by President Grant. He is five ten, and a stockily-built man with greying blond hair. He is fond of good horseflesh, at one time owned a racehorse and is known to be somewhat thin-skinned and blusters when his dignity is hurt.
• Wham started in Tucson (on the 7th) and that's where the payroll money came in by train, he says in the trial. It either came from "one of the National Banks in Los Angeles," or from the sub-treasury in San Francisco. Wham's first stop was Fort Huachuca, then back to Fort Bowie, and he spent the night in Willcox (9th) where he picked up additional funds at the railroad station, and then Fort Grant on the 10th. And he was on his way to Fort Thomas on the 11th when he was robbed of $28,000 by Mormons who needed the cash so they could plant crops to sell to the army at Fort Thomas.
• There was about $1,200 in currency which was "put into a sack and the sack rolled up and then rubbers put around it." (They had rubber bands!)
• There were 11 men in the escort, all black: a sergeant, a corporal and nine privates, and they were all riding in the second spring wagon. Must have been big.
Tombstone Epilogue
We’ve got a major coup brewing on the movie Tombstone. One of our writers, Henry Beck, was interviewing one of the principals in the 1993 cult classic when the Wyatt Earp film came up. The actor, who has a new movie coming out this Friday, launched off on a twenty-minute soul cleansing monologue about what really happened after scribe and first-time-director Kevin Jarr got fired. Now here’s the great part. The actor, who’s married to the gal who was supposed to play Honkytonk Sue, claims he has much of the missing footage in his garage. Stay tuned.
Count Us In, Count
“Two years ago I went to Tombstone and was allowed to take part in one of the shows at the OK corral.
“I mention 'en passant' that I own the original and old antique western saddle that was 'Bucks' in the TV series 'The High Chapparal' -it is in excellent condition! -I feel that this should go back to America, and I would like to sell it--can you advise a good site (other than e-bay) or maybe advertise it in your magazine? Transport costs may be prohibitive though I feel-unless transported by sea. "
—Count Ralph de Straet von Kollman kt ,Shoreham by Sea, West Sussex
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Nation’s Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue
”If you live for revenge, better dig two graves.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Last night I started my overhead view sketches of the Whambam Payroll Robbery scene. Utilizing the army map, the two surviving photos of the scene as it looked in 1889, and my nine rolls of film I think I’ve got a good mental concept of how the rugged foothills of the Graham mountains spill off into the Gila River Valley. We’ll see. Laid in a light wash this morning of the panorama.
The bizarre twists and ugly aspects of the case are just astounding and I’m going to have trouble squeezing all the good stuff in just six pages. Here’s a few samples:
Wham Payroll Robbery Notes From Last Weekend’s Field Trip
• After driving off the soldiers, the robbers cut loose the surviving mules (9) and these draft animals, some wounded and injured, wandered through the battlefield to the south end where they were found after the fight, standing “up on the hill there sleeping away in the sunshine.”
• The three dead mules were left where they died and at the trial six months later, Major Wham testified their bones were still up there (we didn’t find any trace, but after the fight, many Arizonans travelled to the site to picnic and cleaned pretty much everything of interest away).
• After the fight, Major Wham found “between three and four hundred exploded shells,” in the main robber fort, although at the trial the defense got him to admit he told the grand jury he estimated the number closer to 150. Take your pick, even at 100 that would be a ton of shooting. Keep in mind there were nine forts!
• The robbers stole both Wham’s valise and Gibbon’s, although Wham’s was recovered a mile from the scene and there was blood on the papers. Gibbon's later recanted his testimony and claimed there was no fight and everyone ran away. Two medal of honor winners and ten wounded soldiers would seem to disprove that dubious claim.
Q: Did you hear anybody say anything at the robbery?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: What did they say?
A: Look out, you black sons of bitches.
Q: What did you all do?
A: We looked out. . .
—testimony of Pvt. Young
Was the Fight Formal Or Semi-Formal?
Suspect and Mormon, Lyman Follett “had on a kind of light shirt with a black tie.” Wilford Webb wore a “brown jacket, buckskin.”
• Married, with a daughter (both named Mary) Major Wham had been the paymaster for more than a decade at the time of the robbery. He was appointed to the position by President Grant. He is five ten, and a stockily-built man with greying blond hair. He is fond of good horseflesh, at one time owned a racehorse and is known to be somewhat thin-skinned and blusters when his dignity is hurt.
• Wham started in Tucson (on the 7th) and that's where the payroll money came in by train, he says in the trial. It either came from "one of the National Banks in Los Angeles," or from the sub-treasury in San Francisco. Wham's first stop was Fort Huachuca, then back to Fort Bowie, and he spent the night in Willcox (9th) where he picked up additional funds at the railroad station, and then Fort Grant on the 10th. And he was on his way to Fort Thomas on the 11th when he was robbed of $28,000 by Mormons who needed the cash so they could plant crops to sell to the army at Fort Thomas.
• There was about $1,200 in currency which was "put into a sack and the sack rolled up and then rubbers put around it." (They had rubber bands!)
• There were 11 men in the escort, all black: a sergeant, a corporal and nine privates, and they were all riding in the second spring wagon. Must have been big.
Tombstone Epilogue
We’ve got a major coup brewing on the movie Tombstone. One of our writers, Henry Beck, was interviewing one of the principals in the 1993 cult classic when the Wyatt Earp film came up. The actor, who has a new movie coming out this Friday, launched off on a twenty-minute soul cleansing monologue about what really happened after scribe and first-time-director Kevin Jarr got fired. Now here’s the great part. The actor, who’s married to the gal who was supposed to play Honkytonk Sue, claims he has much of the missing footage in his garage. Stay tuned.
Count Us In, Count
“Two years ago I went to Tombstone and was allowed to take part in one of the shows at the OK corral.
“I mention 'en passant' that I own the original and old antique western saddle that was 'Bucks' in the TV series 'The High Chapparal' -it is in excellent condition! -I feel that this should go back to America, and I would like to sell it--can you advise a good site (other than e-bay) or maybe advertise it in your magazine? Transport costs may be prohibitive though I feel-unless transported by sea. "
—Count Ralph de Straet von Kollman kt ,Shoreham by Sea, West Sussex
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Nation’s Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue
”If you live for revenge, better dig two graves.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
May 2, 2006
I got the nine rolls of film developed at Walgreen’s (I first went to Ritz Camera to support the locals, but when I pulled up at 9:45 I saw they didn’t open up until ten, started walking back to my truck, ran into two guys dressed in black walking towards the store and said, “Are you Ritz guys?” They nodded yes, and I went back to the truck to get the film, walked up to the door and they had gone inside and locked the door and then hid! I waited for several minutes, but they weren’t going to accommodate me. This is the kind of story that makes a business owner crazy.)
Dan Harshberger came out at ten this morning and we jammed on cover ideas and a special project. While we were talking, one of our MCUHS classmates, Francine Alexander, called from Wickenburg. She’s on her way to Scottsdale and was just checking in. She'll be here in Cave Creek tomorrow.
Speaking of Kingman, when I was at the Historical Society Banquet in Tucson on Saturday night, one of the guys at my table looked familiar. He kept going up to the podium to tell corny jokes and I finally leaned over and said, "Are you Boppin' Bill?" He cringed. It was him—Boppin' Bill Porter—a Kingman high school intern DJ on KAAA when I was a freshman at MCUHS (1962). He didn't seem to be real thrilled to be reminded of this, although his tablemates were beside themselves with glee.
Constructive Criticism Anyone?
“Bob Boze Bell is a horse’s behind. The only true facts he tells is the way he sees it. He should be fired for telling false stories.”
—Dave1960@aol.com
This Is More Like It
“My husband and my mom watch the Westerns Channel on the weekends and they love your segments. They wanted me to ask you a question, when the cowboys were killed, what happened to their guns, horses, and belongings? Did they bury them with the articles, or did they give them to relatives, or did the sheriff take them? We just wanted to know.”
— Deborah & Jeff Mahan, Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Deborah,
You name it and cowboys have done it. One cowboy even demanded to be buried in his pickup, another in his Cadillac. In the old days, some were buried with their ropes and other equipment. But for the most part, the gear was given to family members who either showcased it, or gave it to other cowboys to utilize, as a badge of honor. In terms of outlaws, the sheriff usually got the spoils. Pat Garrett took both Billy the Kid's rifle and pistol, and the rifles of the Kid's outlaw pards. The sheriff of Medelia, Minnesota took Cole Younger's pistol away from him at Hanska Slough, after the Youngers were captured after the Northfield, Minnesota bank job. That gun recently sold for a record $350,000, the most ever paid for an outlaw gun. There's more, but I'll save it for the bit.
—BBB
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Sara Gilbert Crush Finally Starting To Subside
“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
I got the nine rolls of film developed at Walgreen’s (I first went to Ritz Camera to support the locals, but when I pulled up at 9:45 I saw they didn’t open up until ten, started walking back to my truck, ran into two guys dressed in black walking towards the store and said, “Are you Ritz guys?” They nodded yes, and I went back to the truck to get the film, walked up to the door and they had gone inside and locked the door and then hid! I waited for several minutes, but they weren’t going to accommodate me. This is the kind of story that makes a business owner crazy.)
Dan Harshberger came out at ten this morning and we jammed on cover ideas and a special project. While we were talking, one of our MCUHS classmates, Francine Alexander, called from Wickenburg. She’s on her way to Scottsdale and was just checking in. She'll be here in Cave Creek tomorrow.
Speaking of Kingman, when I was at the Historical Society Banquet in Tucson on Saturday night, one of the guys at my table looked familiar. He kept going up to the podium to tell corny jokes and I finally leaned over and said, "Are you Boppin' Bill?" He cringed. It was him—Boppin' Bill Porter—a Kingman high school intern DJ on KAAA when I was a freshman at MCUHS (1962). He didn't seem to be real thrilled to be reminded of this, although his tablemates were beside themselves with glee.
Constructive Criticism Anyone?
“Bob Boze Bell is a horse’s behind. The only true facts he tells is the way he sees it. He should be fired for telling false stories.”
—Dave1960@aol.com
This Is More Like It
“My husband and my mom watch the Westerns Channel on the weekends and they love your segments. They wanted me to ask you a question, when the cowboys were killed, what happened to their guns, horses, and belongings? Did they bury them with the articles, or did they give them to relatives, or did the sheriff take them? We just wanted to know.”
— Deborah & Jeff Mahan, Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Deborah,
You name it and cowboys have done it. One cowboy even demanded to be buried in his pickup, another in his Cadillac. In the old days, some were buried with their ropes and other equipment. But for the most part, the gear was given to family members who either showcased it, or gave it to other cowboys to utilize, as a badge of honor. In terms of outlaws, the sheriff usually got the spoils. Pat Garrett took both Billy the Kid's rifle and pistol, and the rifles of the Kid's outlaw pards. The sheriff of Medelia, Minnesota took Cole Younger's pistol away from him at Hanska Slough, after the Youngers were captured after the Northfield, Minnesota bank job. That gun recently sold for a record $350,000, the most ever paid for an outlaw gun. There's more, but I'll save it for the bit.
—BBB
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Sara Gilbert Crush Finally Starting To Subside
“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Monday, May 01, 2006
May 1, 2006
Back from an 800 mile odyssey. Took off Sunday morning from Tucson at seven, light traffic on I-10 all the way to Willcox. Got into Safford at nine, had breakfast at Brick’s, a local cafe on the north end of town.
I got gas in Thatcher, plus water, ice and almost-food (convenience market vacuum packed ham sandwiches in the walk-in cooler). Stopped in Pima and took a series of photos of the downtown. By then it was 10:30, so I took off and met True West staffers, Robert McElroy and Rob Bandhauer out on the Klondyke Road, a dozen miles south of Pima, Arizona. They drove out from Phoenix in Robert's jeep. We drove south for another six or seven miles and as we topped a ridge, there it was, the site of the infamous Wham Payroll Robbery! I had driven past this site twice in the past, while out looking for Geronimo and Apache sites, but this time I knew what I was looking for. We parked at a set of corrals and loading chutes at the bottom of Cottonwood wash, loaded up with props, water, my sketch book, notes and cameras, oh, and two Winchesters, and hiked up the canyon to the site.
There is a famous photo of the crime scene, taken the day after the robbery and that was our first stop. I had Robert and Rob pose in the exact positions from the 1889 photo. We then looked around and found most of the other “forts.” The army did a map of the site for the trial and they located and labeled nine forts where the robbers had built fortifications and we easily found most of them.
Posing the guys in various scenes, I shot the three phases of the robbery like a movie, with POV angles both from the buffalo soldiers’ angle and the robbers’ angle. Of course I quickly blew through four rolls of film and when I sprinted down the canyon to the truck to get more film, I spotted a rancher’s pickup parked at the corrals.
Epigmenio “Tex” Salazar, 77, wanted to know if we were “up there” hiking. When I told him our history angle, he said, “You mean the Whambam robbery?” He said it like it was one word, which is ironic because I’m leaning towards the title: “Wham, Bam, Thankyou Uncle Sam,” for my title. He confessed to me he worked this ranch all his life and never knew the draw above us was the site. When I told Tex the payroll was intended for Fort Thomas, Tex said, “They had a fort at Fort Thomas?” At first, I thought he was joking, but I don’t think he was.
When I got back up on the ridge it was one o’clock sraight up, which is the actual time of the robbery. It happened on May 11, so the shadows and the time of year were perfect to match the actual event. I ended up shooting eight rolls of film. Pictures tomorrow.
From the Wham site, we drove to Peridot on the San Carlos Reservation (a fifty mile run) to meet the Apache Tribe’s Official Historian, Dale Miles. He took us down to the old San Carlos camp at the confluence of the San Carlos River and the Gila River. Today, of course, it’s San Carlos Lake and the fort site is usually underwater, but the lake is low and the foundations of the old fort spread out in a row like the bleached bones of a dinosaur. Dale brought two Apache models, his son Levi and a striking Apache girl named Lisa, both were dressed in authentic Apache costumes. I shot another four rolls there.
We’ve got a new poll up: Who was the more dangerous man in the Old West?
Billy the Kid
Jesse James
John Wesley Hardin
Wild Bill Hickok
A Question From Yesterday’s Post
“What did Dr. Bostwick say about the lead swords?”
—Carol
In the 1920s a heavy lead sword with latin writing all over it, along with the date 600 A.D. was found on Silver Bell Road outside of Tucson. More swords and lead artifacts were found and many thought they were proof that a civilized group of people inhabited America long before the Spanish came. The main problem is they didn't know it was 600 A.D. in 600 A.D. The president of the University of Arizona, and a world famous archeologist believed the swords were real and staked his reputation on it.
As Dr. Bostwick pointed out in his session, fifty pound lead swords were not readily carried by anyone hoping to survive on the Arizona frontier, and, it turns out, there was a kiln on the property owned by a Mexican family, and, according to scholars, the latin turned out to be pilfered from three grammar books (and poorly done at that), and the professor ultimately renounced, or at least backed off the claim of authenticity. But, of course, to this day there are those who believe the finds are authentic. Given enough time there will probably be a religion based on the swords.
The more things change, the more they remain the same, no?
—BBB
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Supreme Court Told To Take Down Tip Jar
“Between two evils, choose neither;
between two goods, choose both.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Back from an 800 mile odyssey. Took off Sunday morning from Tucson at seven, light traffic on I-10 all the way to Willcox. Got into Safford at nine, had breakfast at Brick’s, a local cafe on the north end of town.
I got gas in Thatcher, plus water, ice and almost-food (convenience market vacuum packed ham sandwiches in the walk-in cooler). Stopped in Pima and took a series of photos of the downtown. By then it was 10:30, so I took off and met True West staffers, Robert McElroy and Rob Bandhauer out on the Klondyke Road, a dozen miles south of Pima, Arizona. They drove out from Phoenix in Robert's jeep. We drove south for another six or seven miles and as we topped a ridge, there it was, the site of the infamous Wham Payroll Robbery! I had driven past this site twice in the past, while out looking for Geronimo and Apache sites, but this time I knew what I was looking for. We parked at a set of corrals and loading chutes at the bottom of Cottonwood wash, loaded up with props, water, my sketch book, notes and cameras, oh, and two Winchesters, and hiked up the canyon to the site.
There is a famous photo of the crime scene, taken the day after the robbery and that was our first stop. I had Robert and Rob pose in the exact positions from the 1889 photo. We then looked around and found most of the other “forts.” The army did a map of the site for the trial and they located and labeled nine forts where the robbers had built fortifications and we easily found most of them.
Posing the guys in various scenes, I shot the three phases of the robbery like a movie, with POV angles both from the buffalo soldiers’ angle and the robbers’ angle. Of course I quickly blew through four rolls of film and when I sprinted down the canyon to the truck to get more film, I spotted a rancher’s pickup parked at the corrals.
Epigmenio “Tex” Salazar, 77, wanted to know if we were “up there” hiking. When I told him our history angle, he said, “You mean the Whambam robbery?” He said it like it was one word, which is ironic because I’m leaning towards the title: “Wham, Bam, Thankyou Uncle Sam,” for my title. He confessed to me he worked this ranch all his life and never knew the draw above us was the site. When I told Tex the payroll was intended for Fort Thomas, Tex said, “They had a fort at Fort Thomas?” At first, I thought he was joking, but I don’t think he was.
When I got back up on the ridge it was one o’clock sraight up, which is the actual time of the robbery. It happened on May 11, so the shadows and the time of year were perfect to match the actual event. I ended up shooting eight rolls of film. Pictures tomorrow.
From the Wham site, we drove to Peridot on the San Carlos Reservation (a fifty mile run) to meet the Apache Tribe’s Official Historian, Dale Miles. He took us down to the old San Carlos camp at the confluence of the San Carlos River and the Gila River. Today, of course, it’s San Carlos Lake and the fort site is usually underwater, but the lake is low and the foundations of the old fort spread out in a row like the bleached bones of a dinosaur. Dale brought two Apache models, his son Levi and a striking Apache girl named Lisa, both were dressed in authentic Apache costumes. I shot another four rolls there.
We’ve got a new poll up: Who was the more dangerous man in the Old West?
Billy the Kid
Jesse James
John Wesley Hardin
Wild Bill Hickok
A Question From Yesterday’s Post
“What did Dr. Bostwick say about the lead swords?”
—Carol
In the 1920s a heavy lead sword with latin writing all over it, along with the date 600 A.D. was found on Silver Bell Road outside of Tucson. More swords and lead artifacts were found and many thought they were proof that a civilized group of people inhabited America long before the Spanish came. The main problem is they didn't know it was 600 A.D. in 600 A.D. The president of the University of Arizona, and a world famous archeologist believed the swords were real and staked his reputation on it.
As Dr. Bostwick pointed out in his session, fifty pound lead swords were not readily carried by anyone hoping to survive on the Arizona frontier, and, it turns out, there was a kiln on the property owned by a Mexican family, and, according to scholars, the latin turned out to be pilfered from three grammar books (and poorly done at that), and the professor ultimately renounced, or at least backed off the claim of authenticity. But, of course, to this day there are those who believe the finds are authentic. Given enough time there will probably be a religion based on the swords.
The more things change, the more they remain the same, no?
—BBB
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Supreme Court Told To Take Down Tip Jar
“Between two evils, choose neither;
between two goods, choose both.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Saturday, April 29, 2006
April 29, 2006
I was on the road all day yesterday. Made two trips to Prescott, once for the docent run-thru at the Phippen Museum's new artshow "Home Range Humor" and the second because I left my daytimer at the museum and it had all my notes for today's history session in Tucson.
Kathy joined me for the second trip up the hill and it made the repeat pass tolerable. We made the round trip in record time and made it home at ten last night. When I got up to the Phippen the first time everyone was talking about the death of the last living original member of the Cowboy Artists— Joe Beeler—who evidently passed away at a roping in Cottonwood on Wednesday. Another rider noticed he was slumping in the saddle. They tried to revive him but it was too late.
My talk with the docents went well. Sculptor Cynthia Ridgen dropped by and I had a nice talk with her. Most people don't know that Virgil Earp had a homestead on her ranch near Kirkland, and in 1985, when I came to Prescott on assignment for Arizona Highways, she and her dad took me to the site. She has tried several times to join the Cowboy Artists and has been turned down each time. I asked her if she thought they would ever wise up (her answer is below).
The show is quite good and I'm proud to say Honkytonk Sue and the Doper Roper look right at home next to cowboy cartoon greats Jimmy Swinnerton, Fred Harmon (Red Ryder), Herb Mignery, J.R. Williams and Jim Willoughby. The show will be up until September, so if you're in the Prescott area check it out.
Got up at five this morning and took off for Tucson. Got to the Hotel Arizona at the Tucson Convention Center at eight, and easily got to my session in the Grand Ballroom on "Peculiar Mysteries In Arizona's History." I was the chair (my first time at the helm) and when I was in doubt I just thought WWHD (what would Hutton do?) and it went fine. I was effusive with the praise on my panel members and then I shut up. Thanks Paul!
First up was Todd Bostwick, who presented a paper on the bizarre case of a whole bunch of lead swords and artifacts that showed up in a vacant piece of land outside Tucson in the 1920s, the seond up was Vince Murray who told the joke, "So a French guy walks into a bar. . ." and then segued into "The Legends, Myths, and History of Harqua Hala." And the biggest liar, I mean presenter, on the panel, was my Northern Arizona compadre Marshall Trimble who talked about "Father Keno and the Blue Maiden," a legend of the first flying nun, who allegedly flitted over from Spain, preached Jesus to the Pima 75 years before Father Kino set foot in Apacheria. It was fun. Standing room only. Gave out a bunch of True West mags.
From the session, I sped over to the Arizona Historical Society to bone up on the Wham Payroll Robbery. They have the court transcripts, which were thought to be lost but were found several years ago by author Larry Ball, who wrote the definitive book on the robbery. I have been unsuccessfully trying to get in touch with Mr. Ball for weeks. He lives in Arkansas, and every lead I got on how to get in touch with him went nowhere. When I walked up to the front door, Mr. Ball, of course was standing outside the Historical Society building waiting to get inside to do research on Tom Horn. Ha.
So we both went in the library and there, on reserve for me, was the official map of the robbery site and the five boxes of transcripts of the 1899 trial. When I would find something interesting, like say the map of robber forts on the west side of the road, I would say, "Hey Larry, is this where the boulder was?" And he'd come over and show me, adding, "What most people don't know about this location is that back here. . ." I swear, if I saw it in a movie I wouldn't believe it.
The museum closed at one and so from there I met writer Leo Banks at El Charro Mexican Restaurant in old downtown Tucson. What a great place! Old world charm and great margaritas! After the 48 hours I just had I was ready to have some fun. We did. Solving life and Old West magazine mysteries over the house specialty, carne seca, and we sat out on the porch on a beautiful Old Pueblo day.
I've got to get ready for the Forty Seventh Annual Arizona History Convention Banquet, which starts at 6:30. Then it's up early to make the trek out to the Wham Robbery Site north of Bonita and south of Fort Thomas (Safford area).
"I think they're afraid that if they let me in the CA, the only cowboy and the only woman would be the same person."
—Cynthia Rigden
I was on the road all day yesterday. Made two trips to Prescott, once for the docent run-thru at the Phippen Museum's new artshow "Home Range Humor" and the second because I left my daytimer at the museum and it had all my notes for today's history session in Tucson.
Kathy joined me for the second trip up the hill and it made the repeat pass tolerable. We made the round trip in record time and made it home at ten last night. When I got up to the Phippen the first time everyone was talking about the death of the last living original member of the Cowboy Artists— Joe Beeler—who evidently passed away at a roping in Cottonwood on Wednesday. Another rider noticed he was slumping in the saddle. They tried to revive him but it was too late.
My talk with the docents went well. Sculptor Cynthia Ridgen dropped by and I had a nice talk with her. Most people don't know that Virgil Earp had a homestead on her ranch near Kirkland, and in 1985, when I came to Prescott on assignment for Arizona Highways, she and her dad took me to the site. She has tried several times to join the Cowboy Artists and has been turned down each time. I asked her if she thought they would ever wise up (her answer is below).
The show is quite good and I'm proud to say Honkytonk Sue and the Doper Roper look right at home next to cowboy cartoon greats Jimmy Swinnerton, Fred Harmon (Red Ryder), Herb Mignery, J.R. Williams and Jim Willoughby. The show will be up until September, so if you're in the Prescott area check it out.
Got up at five this morning and took off for Tucson. Got to the Hotel Arizona at the Tucson Convention Center at eight, and easily got to my session in the Grand Ballroom on "Peculiar Mysteries In Arizona's History." I was the chair (my first time at the helm) and when I was in doubt I just thought WWHD (what would Hutton do?) and it went fine. I was effusive with the praise on my panel members and then I shut up. Thanks Paul!
First up was Todd Bostwick, who presented a paper on the bizarre case of a whole bunch of lead swords and artifacts that showed up in a vacant piece of land outside Tucson in the 1920s, the seond up was Vince Murray who told the joke, "So a French guy walks into a bar. . ." and then segued into "The Legends, Myths, and History of Harqua Hala." And the biggest liar, I mean presenter, on the panel, was my Northern Arizona compadre Marshall Trimble who talked about "Father Keno and the Blue Maiden," a legend of the first flying nun, who allegedly flitted over from Spain, preached Jesus to the Pima 75 years before Father Kino set foot in Apacheria. It was fun. Standing room only. Gave out a bunch of True West mags.
From the session, I sped over to the Arizona Historical Society to bone up on the Wham Payroll Robbery. They have the court transcripts, which were thought to be lost but were found several years ago by author Larry Ball, who wrote the definitive book on the robbery. I have been unsuccessfully trying to get in touch with Mr. Ball for weeks. He lives in Arkansas, and every lead I got on how to get in touch with him went nowhere. When I walked up to the front door, Mr. Ball, of course was standing outside the Historical Society building waiting to get inside to do research on Tom Horn. Ha.
So we both went in the library and there, on reserve for me, was the official map of the robbery site and the five boxes of transcripts of the 1899 trial. When I would find something interesting, like say the map of robber forts on the west side of the road, I would say, "Hey Larry, is this where the boulder was?" And he'd come over and show me, adding, "What most people don't know about this location is that back here. . ." I swear, if I saw it in a movie I wouldn't believe it.
The museum closed at one and so from there I met writer Leo Banks at El Charro Mexican Restaurant in old downtown Tucson. What a great place! Old world charm and great margaritas! After the 48 hours I just had I was ready to have some fun. We did. Solving life and Old West magazine mysteries over the house specialty, carne seca, and we sat out on the porch on a beautiful Old Pueblo day.
I've got to get ready for the Forty Seventh Annual Arizona History Convention Banquet, which starts at 6:30. Then it's up early to make the trek out to the Wham Robbery Site north of Bonita and south of Fort Thomas (Safford area).
"I think they're afraid that if they let me in the CA, the only cowboy and the only woman would be the same person."
—Cynthia Rigden
Friday, April 28, 2006
April 28, 2006
Sprinkling and cloudy when I got up this morning. Drove up to Prescott and got to the Phippen Museum at 12:30 and heard the news. The last remaining living Cowboy Artist, Joe Beeler has died, someone said two days ago. He was evidently at a roping in Cottonwood and someone noticed him slumping in the saddle. They tried to revive him but he was gone.
A reporter for the Prescott Courier showed up and interviewed everyone. Cynthia Rigden came in to drop off a piece of art and said hi to me and we talked. She's a sculptor and from an old Arizona ranching family in Kirkland (Virgil Earp's farm was located on their land and she and her dad took me out to it in 1985), and she has been denied membership in the CA for years. It's embarrassing and a bad joke. I asked her if they were ever going to get smart and let her in and she said, "I think they're afraid of having the only woman and the only cowboy being the same person." Ha.
Walked the docents through the exhibit to tell them where all my stuff came from. Much of the history of my cartoons centers around Prescott. It was in 1978 that I drove up to Prescott and Charlie Waters, who was the publisher of the Prescott Courier then, printed the guts of my very first Honkytonk Sue comic. I think he charged me his price for the paper and printing ($875 for 5,000 issues, just the guts, the cover was printed in the Valley). My first big Arizona Highways assignment was to illustrate 22 washes for an issue on Prescott. That was in 1985, and that's when I went out to the Rigden's ranch. Several docents took notes. I told them if anyone tries to stump you, send them to twmag.com and it's all there, or in this case, here. One woman asked me about True West. She said she has been dong this all her life and has never heard of the magazine. "That's why I'm here today," I told her. Speaking of which, Jennifer in the museum store ordered a whole bunch of True Wests, my books and even some of the old comic books. The opening is tonight at seven.
Left Prescott at two, stopped in Mayer for lunch. Fought traffic all the way in (95 miles). Got to the office at four, only to find out I left my daytimer at the Phippen. So, I'm debating whether to go back up the hill for the opening. Ha.
I leave for Tucson at five in the morning. Going to be a marathon weekend.
"A critic is a legless man who teaches running."
—Old Vaquero Saying
Sprinkling and cloudy when I got up this morning. Drove up to Prescott and got to the Phippen Museum at 12:30 and heard the news. The last remaining living Cowboy Artist, Joe Beeler has died, someone said two days ago. He was evidently at a roping in Cottonwood and someone noticed him slumping in the saddle. They tried to revive him but he was gone.
A reporter for the Prescott Courier showed up and interviewed everyone. Cynthia Rigden came in to drop off a piece of art and said hi to me and we talked. She's a sculptor and from an old Arizona ranching family in Kirkland (Virgil Earp's farm was located on their land and she and her dad took me out to it in 1985), and she has been denied membership in the CA for years. It's embarrassing and a bad joke. I asked her if they were ever going to get smart and let her in and she said, "I think they're afraid of having the only woman and the only cowboy being the same person." Ha.
Walked the docents through the exhibit to tell them where all my stuff came from. Much of the history of my cartoons centers around Prescott. It was in 1978 that I drove up to Prescott and Charlie Waters, who was the publisher of the Prescott Courier then, printed the guts of my very first Honkytonk Sue comic. I think he charged me his price for the paper and printing ($875 for 5,000 issues, just the guts, the cover was printed in the Valley). My first big Arizona Highways assignment was to illustrate 22 washes for an issue on Prescott. That was in 1985, and that's when I went out to the Rigden's ranch. Several docents took notes. I told them if anyone tries to stump you, send them to twmag.com and it's all there, or in this case, here. One woman asked me about True West. She said she has been dong this all her life and has never heard of the magazine. "That's why I'm here today," I told her. Speaking of which, Jennifer in the museum store ordered a whole bunch of True Wests, my books and even some of the old comic books. The opening is tonight at seven.
Left Prescott at two, stopped in Mayer for lunch. Fought traffic all the way in (95 miles). Got to the office at four, only to find out I left my daytimer at the Phippen. So, I'm debating whether to go back up the hill for the opening. Ha.
I leave for Tucson at five in the morning. Going to be a marathon weekend.
"A critic is a legless man who teaches running."
—Old Vaquero Saying
Thursday, April 27, 2006
April 27, 2006
Beautiful weather, got the doors open, don’t even need the evap cooler, just sweet breezes and mild heat (mid-eighties).
At ten this morning, I went home to get some bola ties for Joel Klasky (he’s going to The WETA show, Western And English Trade Association, this weekend in Austin, Texas), and I found Peaches sitting by the front door, snacking on a carton of Fig Newtons. Yes, an entire pack! She’s got the long, thin pack, chewed open, and with her paws around the box, one by one, she’s popping them into her Australian Border Collie little mouth. She’s such a little thief, and I guessed she probably was prowling around over at the housing site next door and swiped the Newtons out of some poor construction workers sack. So I grabbed them out of her paws and walked it back over the construction site next door, but the workers didn’t want them back. So I stole the figs and gave Peaches two nuts instead. She looked P.O.’d about it, but hey, I’m trying to act like the lead dog around here.
Speaking of lead dogs, talked on the phone with Bruce Dingas at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson yesterday. They’ve got the original topo map of the Wham (rhymes with bomb, according to Bruce) Payroll Robbery site done by Lt. George Cartwright. I’m going to be in Tucson on Saturday and want to see it, before I make my trip out to the site on Sunday. They also have the complete court transcripts, several thousand pages, which I also want to take a look at. Going to be tight. I am chairing a session in the morning at the Arizona History Convention and the Historical Society closes at one, so it’s going to be Evelyn Wood time.
Do You Like True West Moments On The Westerns Channel?
If you do and want to see more of those bad boys, tell these two guys:
Robert.Clasen@starz.com (The Boss)
Tom.Southwick@starz.com (Head of PR)
True West Is Looking for Even More Talent
We are looking for another salesperson. Someone who can be creative, loves the Old West and can help us build the fastest growing magazine in the West. You will be working with Sue Lambert, Joel Klasky and Rob Bandhauer, three pros and great people. Contact Trish Brink (trish@twmag.com)if you’re interested.
I phoned my old bootmaker compadre Johnny Weinkauf in Kerreville, Texas yesterday. When he answered the phone I said, “Do you remember where you were on April 30, 1983?” John, replied, “Nope, but I bet you do.” Ha.
As a matter of fact, I do, now. While cleaning out the garage yesterday morning I found an old sketchbook and inside were several sketches of John and I travelling to Kingman so he could buy some bootmaking lasts (wooden forms to stretch the leather over) from a Kingman Cowboy named Allen Miller. Johnny told me he still has those lasts. We talked a bit about the new boots I’ve ordered (I measured my heel to arch wrong and he’s sending back the tape) and then, old times in Tucson, and of course, this led to the time we almost got beat up in Nogales. “What was that guy’s name who saved our lives?” I could just see him but couldn’t remember his name. Without hesitation, Johnny replied, “Glen Gilkerson,” who was a young, brash kid who worked for John in his boot shop. This was in March of 1980 and Kathy was eight-and-a-half months pregnant with Deena, and we drove down to Tucson to pick up my boots, and after beers we all decided to go to La Roca in Nogales, Sonora to celebrate. There were about ten of us and during dinner in La Roca (literally, “The Rock”, actually a semi-cave going back in the rocky hillside about 300 yards south of the American line) Glen Gilkerson kept trying to tell joke, but we could only understand about every third word. After a great dinner, more Mexican cerveza, and a few shows, we drove back to our motel on the American side and some of us ended up in the disco. It was too loud in there so Johnny, Glen and I retired to the lobby to sit on the couches there and talk. Some tough looking hombres were standing nearby and it soon became obvious they wanted a piece of me. They didn’t like my new boots and especially my attire, which happened to be Daisy Dukes and, well, the new boots (Hey, I didn’t want excess clothing taking attention away from my boots, and besides, this was the end of the seventies and I thought I fit right in, especially in a Mexican disco). A huge, hispanic dude didn’t agree and basically called me out (something about a “puto” or “hoto,” or both), but before I could defend myself, or run, Glen Gilkerson, who was drunk on his ass (and the drunker he became the harder he was to understand), said, and I quote, “You wanna see my face on your dashboard?” End of quote.
The Big Bad Guy looked at his compadres and back at us. “Say, what?” he said scrunching up his face. “We can’t understand him either,” Johnny said, and we all laughed, or rather, they snickered, and we guffawed, and, that my friends, was the night Mr. Gilkerson saved my life.
Here’s two photos taken of Johnny and I, on that day in March of 1980, showing off my brand new custom Weinkauf Boots. I retired them about six years ago, and they toured the country in a boot show curated by the Desert Caballeros Museum in Wickenburg.
PBS Reality Old West Show Premieres Next Week, I Think
“You have got to visit this site. Incredible.”
—Alan Huffines
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ranchhouse/
Night Rider’s Lament Song Writer Writes Me
“I wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your Web site, and how much it compliments my monthly magazine subscription to True West.
“One of the songs that I have written, Night Rider's Lament, has become a favorite western song, and has been recorded extensively by many artists including: Garth Brooks, Chris LeDoux, Nanci Griffith, Suzie Bogguss, Don Edwards, and others. Night Rider's Lament has become a cowboy classic over the years.
“I have just recently designed my own Web site, www.nightriderslament.com, for the many other western artists that would like to record it and need to know how to contact me for a Mechanical License, or that are interested in the origins of the song.
“I would be honored to have you visit my site and look in the links page to see that I have linked to True West. I noticed on your Web site that you also have a links page, and I would be very grateful if True West would include my site in your Web site links page.
Please let me know if this is acceptable with you.
Thank you in advance, Bob, and keep up the great work in giving us all True West !
—Michael Burton, Tucson, Arizona
You are linked, my Man!
“There is just such a very shallow truth in facts. Otherwise, the phone directory would be the Book of Books.”
—Werner Herzog, in New Yorker, April 24, 2006
Beautiful weather, got the doors open, don’t even need the evap cooler, just sweet breezes and mild heat (mid-eighties).
At ten this morning, I went home to get some bola ties for Joel Klasky (he’s going to The WETA show, Western And English Trade Association, this weekend in Austin, Texas), and I found Peaches sitting by the front door, snacking on a carton of Fig Newtons. Yes, an entire pack! She’s got the long, thin pack, chewed open, and with her paws around the box, one by one, she’s popping them into her Australian Border Collie little mouth. She’s such a little thief, and I guessed she probably was prowling around over at the housing site next door and swiped the Newtons out of some poor construction workers sack. So I grabbed them out of her paws and walked it back over the construction site next door, but the workers didn’t want them back. So I stole the figs and gave Peaches two nuts instead. She looked P.O.’d about it, but hey, I’m trying to act like the lead dog around here.Speaking of lead dogs, talked on the phone with Bruce Dingas at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson yesterday. They’ve got the original topo map of the Wham (rhymes with bomb, according to Bruce) Payroll Robbery site done by Lt. George Cartwright. I’m going to be in Tucson on Saturday and want to see it, before I make my trip out to the site on Sunday. They also have the complete court transcripts, several thousand pages, which I also want to take a look at. Going to be tight. I am chairing a session in the morning at the Arizona History Convention and the Historical Society closes at one, so it’s going to be Evelyn Wood time.Do You Like True West Moments On The Westerns Channel?
If you do and want to see more of those bad boys, tell these two guys:
Robert.Clasen@starz.com (The Boss)
Tom.Southwick@starz.com (Head of PR)
True West Is Looking for Even More Talent
We are looking for another salesperson. Someone who can be creative, loves the Old West and can help us build the fastest growing magazine in the West. You will be working with Sue Lambert, Joel Klasky and Rob Bandhauer, three pros and great people. Contact Trish Brink (trish@twmag.com)if you’re interested.
I phoned my old bootmaker compadre Johnny Weinkauf in Kerreville, Texas yesterday. When he answered the phone I said, “Do you remember where you were on April 30, 1983?” John, replied, “Nope, but I bet you do.” Ha.
As a matter of fact, I do, now. While cleaning out the garage yesterday morning I found an old sketchbook and inside were several sketches of John and I travelling to Kingman so he could buy some bootmaking lasts (wooden forms to stretch the leather over) from a Kingman Cowboy named Allen Miller. Johnny told me he still has those lasts. We talked a bit about the new boots I’ve ordered (I measured my heel to arch wrong and he’s sending back the tape) and then, old times in Tucson, and of course, this led to the time we almost got beat up in Nogales. “What was that guy’s name who saved our lives?” I could just see him but couldn’t remember his name. Without hesitation, Johnny replied, “Glen Gilkerson,” who was a young, brash kid who worked for John in his boot shop. This was in March of 1980 and Kathy was eight-and-a-half months pregnant with Deena, and we drove down to Tucson to pick up my boots, and after beers we all decided to go to La Roca in Nogales, Sonora to celebrate. There were about ten of us and during dinner in La Roca (literally, “The Rock”, actually a semi-cave going back in the rocky hillside about 300 yards south of the American line) Glen Gilkerson kept trying to tell joke, but we could only understand about every third word. After a great dinner, more Mexican cerveza, and a few shows, we drove back to our motel on the American side and some of us ended up in the disco. It was too loud in there so Johnny, Glen and I retired to the lobby to sit on the couches there and talk. Some tough looking hombres were standing nearby and it soon became obvious they wanted a piece of me. They didn’t like my new boots and especially my attire, which happened to be Daisy Dukes and, well, the new boots (Hey, I didn’t want excess clothing taking attention away from my boots, and besides, this was the end of the seventies and I thought I fit right in, especially in a Mexican disco). A huge, hispanic dude didn’t agree and basically called me out (something about a “puto” or “hoto,” or both), but before I could defend myself, or run, Glen Gilkerson, who was drunk on his ass (and the drunker he became the harder he was to understand), said, and I quote, “You wanna see my face on your dashboard?” End of quote.
The Big Bad Guy looked at his compadres and back at us. “Say, what?” he said scrunching up his face. “We can’t understand him either,” Johnny said, and we all laughed, or rather, they snickered, and we guffawed, and, that my friends, was the night Mr. Gilkerson saved my life.
Here’s two photos taken of Johnny and I, on that day in March of 1980, showing off my brand new custom Weinkauf Boots. I retired them about six years ago, and they toured the country in a boot show curated by the Desert Caballeros Museum in Wickenburg.
PBS Reality Old West Show Premieres Next Week, I Think
“You have got to visit this site. Incredible.”
—Alan Huffines
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ranchhouse/
Night Rider’s Lament Song Writer Writes Me
“I wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your Web site, and how much it compliments my monthly magazine subscription to True West.
“One of the songs that I have written, Night Rider's Lament, has become a favorite western song, and has been recorded extensively by many artists including: Garth Brooks, Chris LeDoux, Nanci Griffith, Suzie Bogguss, Don Edwards, and others. Night Rider's Lament has become a cowboy classic over the years.
“I have just recently designed my own Web site, www.nightriderslament.com, for the many other western artists that would like to record it and need to know how to contact me for a Mechanical License, or that are interested in the origins of the song.
“I would be honored to have you visit my site and look in the links page to see that I have linked to True West. I noticed on your Web site that you also have a links page, and I would be very grateful if True West would include my site in your Web site links page.
Please let me know if this is acceptable with you.
Thank you in advance, Bob, and keep up the great work in giving us all True West !
—Michael Burton, Tucson, Arizona
You are linked, my Man!
“There is just such a very shallow truth in facts. Otherwise, the phone directory would be the Book of Books.”
—Werner Herzog, in New Yorker, April 24, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
April 26, 2006
Had a very productive day yesterday, but before we get into that, here’s important feedback from yesterday’s post:
(Brilliant) Insights From A Fellow Male
“For some reason gals always look at us as ‘fixer-uppers.’ In a perfect world they would ‘cherish’ us for what we are & use their ‘fixer-upper’ instincts on something useful... like a '49 Ford!”
—Lloyd Britton
With that said, and I totally agree, I must say, that damn article Kathy read out of Psychology Today really impacted me—in a positive way! Check out my Franklin Daytimer page for yesterday—every single item on the to do list is checked off! For me, this is nothing short of miraculous. Here’s the part of the article that really triggered the productivity:
“There are two basic ways of functioning in the world. There are action-oriented people, who move easily from task to task [not me], and there are the state-oriented souls, who have a lot of inertia—and are most likely to procrastinate [oh, yeh]. State oriented people rate tasks more negatively [yep]; they experience greater uncertainty [ADD anyone?], boredom, frustration and guilt [Lutheran style guilt to boot!] than do their action-oriented peers.
“What helps them. . .is to follow the ten-minute rule. Acknowledge, ‘I don’t feel like doing that,’ but do it for 10 minutes anyway. That gets you over the hard work of initiation. After being involved in the activity for 10 minutes, then decide whether to continue. Once you’re involved, it’s easier to stay with a task.”
The name of the piece is: “Getting Out From Under: How to Stop Procrastinating—Now!”
by Hara Esroff Marano
Psychologytoday.com
As you can clearly see on my daytimer, I wailed because I thought, “Hey I can do anything for 10 minutes,” and that broke down the barrier for me. By the way, the boxed As and Bs, are the ratings Franklin-Covey recommends for determining the level of importance of an item on the list. And they recommend an arrow pointing to the next day, on tasks you carry over (don't complete). This is the first day in memory, that there are no arrows, only checks.
Still, I have to agree with Lloyd, if only Kathy would apply this laser sharp acumen to the ‘49 Ford, the world would be such a better place!
More Circ Suggestions
"Been out of town and out of touch for a week but here's one I think would be a fitting setting for your mag. The Landmark Inn, Oberlin Kansas
http://www.landmarkinn.com
"Gary Anderson has done a remarkable job of restoring it and making it modernly comfortable without loosing the old charm."
—Sharon Tally
Article Suggestion
“Have you ever considered an article on a ‘day in the life of’? I know, on the surface, it's not captivating but you know better than anyone else the real west, and how it really was.
“Anyway, enjoy reading your stuff and thanks for taking something that fascinated all of us growing up and making it a life's work. I hope to meet you one day and have the chance to visit. You're an interesting guy. I read your biography and I could swear you sat behind me in second period English! (Just kidding).”
—Erin Ford
fordeo@bp.com
Erin,
You are probably not going to believe this, but we talk about this almost every day! It's true. How can we portray the every day life of people in the Old West? Thanks. I will give this some more thought. I am thinking of a cover story on "Working Stiffs" and featuring the many professions, and how they did them, and how much they made, what did they wear? etc.
—BBB
Another side benefit from cleaning and getting organized is finding cool, but forgotten, art reference. Case in point, I’m doing the Wham Payroll Robbery and in the story is a crazy local blacksmith from Pima, who calls himself “Cyclone Bill,” and I want to illustrate him as a kind of pompous, goofy guy who would probably pose in a grandiose way. So yesterday as I’m filing in my morgue I find some old photos taken for the Razz Revue humor magazine (1972-76) and there’s Dan Harshberger all dolled up as a bad guy. I assume this photo was taken for one of our Old West parody issues (we did two), probably about 1975. Anyway, the pose is perfect for Cyclone Bill and here’s the resulting illustration. This will run in the July issue.
Robert Ray just told me he thinks the photo of Dan looks like a member of Three Dog Night. Ha. It does!
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Activities Director Makes Most of Hostage Situation
Coming Tomorrow: "How'd you like to see your face on my dashboard?"
“What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Had a very productive day yesterday, but before we get into that, here’s important feedback from yesterday’s post:
(Brilliant) Insights From A Fellow Male
“For some reason gals always look at us as ‘fixer-uppers.’ In a perfect world they would ‘cherish’ us for what we are & use their ‘fixer-upper’ instincts on something useful... like a '49 Ford!”
—Lloyd Britton
With that said, and I totally agree, I must say, that damn article Kathy read out of Psychology Today really impacted me—in a positive way! Check out my Franklin Daytimer page for yesterday—every single item on the to do list is checked off! For me, this is nothing short of miraculous. Here’s the part of the article that really triggered the productivity:“There are two basic ways of functioning in the world. There are action-oriented people, who move easily from task to task [not me], and there are the state-oriented souls, who have a lot of inertia—and are most likely to procrastinate [oh, yeh]. State oriented people rate tasks more negatively [yep]; they experience greater uncertainty [ADD anyone?], boredom, frustration and guilt [Lutheran style guilt to boot!] than do their action-oriented peers.
“What helps them. . .is to follow the ten-minute rule. Acknowledge, ‘I don’t feel like doing that,’ but do it for 10 minutes anyway. That gets you over the hard work of initiation. After being involved in the activity for 10 minutes, then decide whether to continue. Once you’re involved, it’s easier to stay with a task.”The name of the piece is: “Getting Out From Under: How to Stop Procrastinating—Now!”
by Hara Esroff Marano
Psychologytoday.com
As you can clearly see on my daytimer, I wailed because I thought, “Hey I can do anything for 10 minutes,” and that broke down the barrier for me. By the way, the boxed As and Bs, are the ratings Franklin-Covey recommends for determining the level of importance of an item on the list. And they recommend an arrow pointing to the next day, on tasks you carry over (don't complete). This is the first day in memory, that there are no arrows, only checks.
Still, I have to agree with Lloyd, if only Kathy would apply this laser sharp acumen to the ‘49 Ford, the world would be such a better place!
More Circ Suggestions
"Been out of town and out of touch for a week but here's one I think would be a fitting setting for your mag. The Landmark Inn, Oberlin Kansas
http://www.landmarkinn.com
"Gary Anderson has done a remarkable job of restoring it and making it modernly comfortable without loosing the old charm."
—Sharon Tally
Article Suggestion
“Have you ever considered an article on a ‘day in the life of’? I know, on the surface, it's not captivating but you know better than anyone else the real west, and how it really was.
“Anyway, enjoy reading your stuff and thanks for taking something that fascinated all of us growing up and making it a life's work. I hope to meet you one day and have the chance to visit. You're an interesting guy. I read your biography and I could swear you sat behind me in second period English! (Just kidding).”
—Erin Ford
fordeo@bp.com
Erin,
You are probably not going to believe this, but we talk about this almost every day! It's true. How can we portray the every day life of people in the Old West? Thanks. I will give this some more thought. I am thinking of a cover story on "Working Stiffs" and featuring the many professions, and how they did them, and how much they made, what did they wear? etc.
—BBB
Another side benefit from cleaning and getting organized is finding cool, but forgotten, art reference. Case in point, I’m doing the Wham Payroll Robbery and in the story is a crazy local blacksmith from Pima, who calls himself “Cyclone Bill,” and I want to illustrate him as a kind of pompous, goofy guy who would probably pose in a grandiose way. So yesterday as I’m filing in my morgue I find some old photos taken for the Razz Revue humor magazine (1972-76) and there’s Dan Harshberger all dolled up as a bad guy. I assume this photo was taken for one of our Old West parody issues (we did two), probably about 1975. Anyway, the pose is perfect for Cyclone Bill and here’s the resulting illustration. This will run in the July issue.
Robert Ray just told me he thinks the photo of Dan looks like a member of Three Dog Night. Ha. It does!
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Activities Director Makes Most of Hostage Situation
Coming Tomorrow: "How'd you like to see your face on my dashboard?"
“What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
April 25, 2006
A week or so ago, I challenged blog readers to take a stab at an illustration for Leo Bank’s brilliant and hilarious take on The Tragic And Ridiculous Billy Buff War. Three of you took the challenge and here’s the winner. In addition to being a decent illustrator, Alan Archambault is also the director of the Fort Lewis Military Museum in Washington State. It is the largest U.S. Military Museum on the West Coast.
I was particularly impressed with Alan’s attention to historic detail (notice the anchor design on the shirt, buck teeth galore, Lightning revolvers, slouch hats and oversized sweaters). Good job Alan! You get $200 and the painting will appear in the July issue (the anniversary of the Kid’s departure from this planet). Check out Alan’s museum at:
www.lewis.army.mil/DPTMS/POMFI/museum.htm
Speaking of Billy the Kid, I got an Email from George in Tennessee who wonders if that was my artwork in a Billy doc he saw on cable last night and did they have my approval and do I agree with their claims? Here’s my reply to him:
I have contributed to so many Billy the Kid docs I'm not exactly sure which one you’re referring to, but yes, I most likely signed off on the usage, but that doesn't mean they did anything credible with the pictures or the subject matter. Ha.
Yes, you are correct, there is only one verified photograph of the Kid and it's the standing one with the Winchester. All the others are wanna bes and are suspect in many ways. Everyone wants their photo to be of Billy because, well, it's worth a fortune. The only known image is worth a reported $350,000, and it's believed the poor sap who took the photo got a quarter for it. If that doesn't sum up the fairness of life on this planet, I don't know what does.
End of reply
Random Advice From A Married Man
You know you’re in trouble when you wake up and your wife is reading aloud from Psychology Today. The article being read this morning, by my wife of 26 years, was on Procrastination, with a capital P, and to my ears her voice (and the article) was about as soothing as an alarm clock playing the dulcet sounds of a root canal. I did learn something from this incident though, and I’ll relay those multiple gems of wisdom tomorrow.
Silver City: What’s It Like to Live There?
Yesterday I talked on the phone with Laurie Pankey, Executive Director of the Silver City, Grant County Chamber of Commerce and she told me the average temperature in January is mid-40s and in July, it’s the mid-90s, so the average is about 65. Now that’s cool, no?
Laurie also told me The Big Ditch Restoration Project, Phase II, is just about completed, plus several old downtown buildings are being renovated even as we were speaking, like Isacc’s Bar & Grill and The Murray Hotel, a once very glamorous place. Curt Albertshart owns the hotel and is doing the remodel. One of the coolest signs in the berg is in front of the Buffalo (a biker bar now), but it has an oldtime cowboy bar feel. The locals call it simply, “The Buff.” I took a slew of photos of it when I went thru Silver City in April of 2004 with Bart Bull, but I can't put my hands on them.
The best chuckwagon show is The Copper Creek Ranch owned and operated by Floyd and Patsy Robertson, it’s out in Arena’s Valley, dinner show 20 Flurry Lane.
Best route into town, I’m told by my old Mineshaft friends, Lew Jones and Tara Laman, is to stay off I-10, and instead, go via Safford, taking infamous Highway 666 over the mountains and thru Mule Creek, and don’t forget to take a gander at Mangas, named for Apache warrior Mangas Colorados (Red Sleeves), then slip into Silver City the back way. Way cool.
And like so many small towns, Silver City has lost it’s local radio talent to satellite madness, but “The Ranch” is still kickin’ it with the hometown talent at KWNM 105.5 FM, and check out Kurt Staley in the mornings. Now that’s radio as it was meant to be! Check it all out at:
silvercity.org
Buck Jones Fire Death Clarification
“Buck Jones died in the ‘Coconut Grove’ night club fire in Boston 1942. Nothing was built on that lot for many years, in memory of the 500 plus who died that night. Don't know if that's still the case."
—Howard
More Bad Saddle Data
“Regarding the bad saddle Robert Duvall is sitting on, there could be several reasons for the mistake. A Canadian location means: Canadian prop people and wranglers. One or the other is responsible for procuring the saddles. A professional Hollywood prop person or wrangler would never let this happen. The director must also be held responsible for these types of mistakes. After all, it's the director's picture; remember - ‘A Film By’? And if the star - and I'm not saying DuVall did this - tells them all he wants to use a particular saddle, there's not much they can do about it. It's also my opinion, that today's audiences - with the exception of those like the writer of the original query - having never been exposed to Westerns like we old timers, won't know the difference anyway.”
—Stephen Lodge
P.S. For fun, I thought you might enjoy my Behind the Scenes web site. Or as my friends call it, Steve's Life in Pictures.
(http://employees.oxy.edu/jerry/bts/index1.htm)
Hey Stephen, I love the photo of you with actress Gail Davis on the set of Annie Oakley in 1955. You lucky dog, you!
And Speaking of Westerns And the Folks Who Love Them
“I watch the Westerns channel every day and always went to the movies before we had a TV years ago to see Western movies, but I've learned more about the old West watching you on the True West Moments part of the show. Really enjoy it when you're on. Thanks Very Much.”
—Richard Perry, Palmer,MA
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Former Coworker Romanticized
“Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
A week or so ago, I challenged blog readers to take a stab at an illustration for Leo Bank’s brilliant and hilarious take on The Tragic And Ridiculous Billy Buff War. Three of you took the challenge and here’s the winner. In addition to being a decent illustrator, Alan Archambault is also the director of the Fort Lewis Military Museum in Washington State. It is the largest U.S. Military Museum on the West Coast.I was particularly impressed with Alan’s attention to historic detail (notice the anchor design on the shirt, buck teeth galore, Lightning revolvers, slouch hats and oversized sweaters). Good job Alan! You get $200 and the painting will appear in the July issue (the anniversary of the Kid’s departure from this planet). Check out Alan’s museum at:
www.lewis.army.mil/DPTMS/POMFI/museum.htm
Speaking of Billy the Kid, I got an Email from George in Tennessee who wonders if that was my artwork in a Billy doc he saw on cable last night and did they have my approval and do I agree with their claims? Here’s my reply to him:
I have contributed to so many Billy the Kid docs I'm not exactly sure which one you’re referring to, but yes, I most likely signed off on the usage, but that doesn't mean they did anything credible with the pictures or the subject matter. Ha.
Yes, you are correct, there is only one verified photograph of the Kid and it's the standing one with the Winchester. All the others are wanna bes and are suspect in many ways. Everyone wants their photo to be of Billy because, well, it's worth a fortune. The only known image is worth a reported $350,000, and it's believed the poor sap who took the photo got a quarter for it. If that doesn't sum up the fairness of life on this planet, I don't know what does.
End of reply
Random Advice From A Married Man
You know you’re in trouble when you wake up and your wife is reading aloud from Psychology Today. The article being read this morning, by my wife of 26 years, was on Procrastination, with a capital P, and to my ears her voice (and the article) was about as soothing as an alarm clock playing the dulcet sounds of a root canal. I did learn something from this incident though, and I’ll relay those multiple gems of wisdom tomorrow.
Silver City: What’s It Like to Live There?
Yesterday I talked on the phone with Laurie Pankey, Executive Director of the Silver City, Grant County Chamber of Commerce and she told me the average temperature in January is mid-40s and in July, it’s the mid-90s, so the average is about 65. Now that’s cool, no?
Laurie also told me The Big Ditch Restoration Project, Phase II, is just about completed, plus several old downtown buildings are being renovated even as we were speaking, like Isacc’s Bar & Grill and The Murray Hotel, a once very glamorous place. Curt Albertshart owns the hotel and is doing the remodel. One of the coolest signs in the berg is in front of the Buffalo (a biker bar now), but it has an oldtime cowboy bar feel. The locals call it simply, “The Buff.” I took a slew of photos of it when I went thru Silver City in April of 2004 with Bart Bull, but I can't put my hands on them.
The best chuckwagon show is The Copper Creek Ranch owned and operated by Floyd and Patsy Robertson, it’s out in Arena’s Valley, dinner show 20 Flurry Lane.
Best route into town, I’m told by my old Mineshaft friends, Lew Jones and Tara Laman, is to stay off I-10, and instead, go via Safford, taking infamous Highway 666 over the mountains and thru Mule Creek, and don’t forget to take a gander at Mangas, named for Apache warrior Mangas Colorados (Red Sleeves), then slip into Silver City the back way. Way cool.
And like so many small towns, Silver City has lost it’s local radio talent to satellite madness, but “The Ranch” is still kickin’ it with the hometown talent at KWNM 105.5 FM, and check out Kurt Staley in the mornings. Now that’s radio as it was meant to be! Check it all out at:
silvercity.org
Buck Jones Fire Death Clarification
“Buck Jones died in the ‘Coconut Grove’ night club fire in Boston 1942. Nothing was built on that lot for many years, in memory of the 500 plus who died that night. Don't know if that's still the case."
—Howard
More Bad Saddle Data
“Regarding the bad saddle Robert Duvall is sitting on, there could be several reasons for the mistake. A Canadian location means: Canadian prop people and wranglers. One or the other is responsible for procuring the saddles. A professional Hollywood prop person or wrangler would never let this happen. The director must also be held responsible for these types of mistakes. After all, it's the director's picture; remember - ‘A Film By’? And if the star - and I'm not saying DuVall did this - tells them all he wants to use a particular saddle, there's not much they can do about it. It's also my opinion, that today's audiences - with the exception of those like the writer of the original query - having never been exposed to Westerns like we old timers, won't know the difference anyway.”
—Stephen Lodge
P.S. For fun, I thought you might enjoy my Behind the Scenes web site. Or as my friends call it, Steve's Life in Pictures.
(http://employees.oxy.edu/jerry/bts/index1.htm)
Hey Stephen, I love the photo of you with actress Gail Davis on the set of Annie Oakley in 1955. You lucky dog, you!
And Speaking of Westerns And the Folks Who Love Them
“I watch the Westerns channel every day and always went to the movies before we had a TV years ago to see Western movies, but I've learned more about the old West watching you on the True West Moments part of the show. Really enjoy it when you're on. Thanks Very Much.”
—Richard Perry, Palmer,MA
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Former Coworker Romanticized
“Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Monday, April 24, 2006
April 24, 2006
Yesterday afternoon Kathy went to Blockbuster and got “Capote” and “The Squid And The Whale.” I watched “Capote” on my laptop while I painted on Sue (see image below). It’s so amazing to me that I can slide this little disk into a laptop and watch a movie on a shelf? Incredible. That said, I’m even more convinced that Heath Ledger got reamed for the Oscar.
We tried to see “The Squid And The Whale” twice in the past three months and both times it was sold out. I can now see why. I really dug this movie. So smart, so honest, so amazingly profound. One of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Very New York, though.
Lo And Behold, Ask And Ye Shall Receive Department
“The Rifleman should start running on Encore Westerns at the end of 2006. We are also going to work with Johnny Crawford to get some inside stories about his days on that wonderful series.”
—Jeff Hildebrandt
Wet Street & Dry Trails
“Another reason the dirt can be dusty in one movie scene, and wet in another, is: a lot of times, a water truck is used to dampen the ground to keep the dust from blowing. If it's a long shot, no one is really bothered by the dust. But in closer shots, billowing dust can obscure the actors' faces. And sometimes, by mistake, they over-water. That can leave mud puddles.”
—Stephen Lodge, Author-Screenwriter
I have a question for TW Moments on Encore TV. Could you answer this
on the bit you do?
Why is it in the Hollywood westerns, when someone is being chased or
something by men on horseback, they never just shoot the horse to stop
them? They always try for the men. Wouldn't it be easier to try for
the horse? It is a bigger target and would stop the chase right away.
I have always wondered about this. The horses hardly ever get hit. Is
this just Hollywood or was their a reason for it? Did horses get shot a
lot in the real old west?
This would make for a great TW Moment trivia question and I am sure you
have the answer for the viewing audience. I would appreciate it Bob.
—Bob of Olympia, Washington
Bob,
Excellent question. The short answer is yes, horses were shot often and it was quite brutal. I'm doing the Wham Payroll Robbery for the next Classic Gunfights in True West magazine and in this robbery the robbers shot the lead mules of two wagons (3 total) and the other mules were injured trying to get away, pulling the wagon out across the desert, thru rocks, nasty stuff.
In my Çlassic Gunfights, Volume II book I relate the story of two guys ambushed at Steins Pass on the New Mexico, Arizona line, and the ambushers shot the horses out from under both riders. I have a hunch this was more common that movies would like us to believe.
One of the oldtime cattle guys allegedly called out in a gunbattle, "Shoot high, the horses are mine!"
This perhaps led to the old joke, "Shoot low, they're riding Shetlands."
Mas Circ Sites
Saludos, Bob! Hope all is aces, jake, and better than swell with you, amigo!
Even though I am about to be an Arizonan in four weeks, I thought I should
pop in and pitch a few Oklahoma possibilities to you for your Bonus Circulation Locations list. Such as:
• Cattlemen's Steakhouse, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
http://www.cattlemensrestaurant.com/
• The Seely House Bed and Breakfast Inn. Guthrie, Oklahoma.
http://www.seelyhouse.com/
• Best Western Territorial Inn. Guthrie, Oklahoma.
http://www.bestwesternoklahoma.com/hotels/guthrie/territorialinn
• Gold Penny Inn. Guthrie, Oklahoma.
http://www.goldpennyinn.com/guthrie.htm
I've listed the URL to the Gold Penny's links page because Guthrie, OK has what I would consider several good candidates for your list and this links page runs them down nicely.
Also, there is the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City to consider. Of course, there is the possibility that your magazine is already on their Museum Store racks. But, in case not...
http://www.nationalcowboymuseum.org
I hope you find some of the above helpful!
Take care!
Sincerely,
Chris, Maniac #946
The Wild is back in the West
“This past year a French Film Crew made a film about investigation #2003-274 ‘The Billy the Kid investigation’. The Film was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. The Film maker is taking [Tom] Sullivan and I to Cannes. Kris Kristofferson who played the kid is going to be there to meet us. We may have put the Kid on the front pages of the New York times but now we have taking our bandit buddy to Cannes. We should blend in France. Does it get any funnier?”
—Steve Sederwall
These Boots Were Made For Taking Off
“I was able to find you on the True West Magazine web site and also from the tag on the bottom. Bob. If you do feature any information about my question on the Encore Westerns Channel, I would love it if you would do the segment without wearing boots. It would remind me of the old western television series that used to be on television where the main cowboy characters were in situations where they may have had to give up their boots but were still able to deal with their adversaries, even though, the hero(s) were either socked-footed or in their barefeet. Besides, a good-looking cowboy without his boots is sexy.”
— Samantha Aldridge, Parsons, Kansas.
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Report: 9/11 Commission Could Have Been Prevented
“Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Yesterday afternoon Kathy went to Blockbuster and got “Capote” and “The Squid And The Whale.” I watched “Capote” on my laptop while I painted on Sue (see image below). It’s so amazing to me that I can slide this little disk into a laptop and watch a movie on a shelf? Incredible. That said, I’m even more convinced that Heath Ledger got reamed for the Oscar.
We tried to see “The Squid And The Whale” twice in the past three months and both times it was sold out. I can now see why. I really dug this movie. So smart, so honest, so amazingly profound. One of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Very New York, though.
Lo And Behold, Ask And Ye Shall Receive Department
“The Rifleman should start running on Encore Westerns at the end of 2006. We are also going to work with Johnny Crawford to get some inside stories about his days on that wonderful series.”
—Jeff Hildebrandt
Wet Street & Dry Trails
“Another reason the dirt can be dusty in one movie scene, and wet in another, is: a lot of times, a water truck is used to dampen the ground to keep the dust from blowing. If it's a long shot, no one is really bothered by the dust. But in closer shots, billowing dust can obscure the actors' faces. And sometimes, by mistake, they over-water. That can leave mud puddles.”
—Stephen Lodge, Author-Screenwriter
I have a question for TW Moments on Encore TV. Could you answer this
on the bit you do?
Why is it in the Hollywood westerns, when someone is being chased or
something by men on horseback, they never just shoot the horse to stop
them? They always try for the men. Wouldn't it be easier to try for
the horse? It is a bigger target and would stop the chase right away.
I have always wondered about this. The horses hardly ever get hit. Is
this just Hollywood or was their a reason for it? Did horses get shot a
lot in the real old west?
This would make for a great TW Moment trivia question and I am sure you
have the answer for the viewing audience. I would appreciate it Bob.
—Bob of Olympia, Washington
Bob,
Excellent question. The short answer is yes, horses were shot often and it was quite brutal. I'm doing the Wham Payroll Robbery for the next Classic Gunfights in True West magazine and in this robbery the robbers shot the lead mules of two wagons (3 total) and the other mules were injured trying to get away, pulling the wagon out across the desert, thru rocks, nasty stuff.
In my Çlassic Gunfights, Volume II book I relate the story of two guys ambushed at Steins Pass on the New Mexico, Arizona line, and the ambushers shot the horses out from under both riders. I have a hunch this was more common that movies would like us to believe.
One of the oldtime cattle guys allegedly called out in a gunbattle, "Shoot high, the horses are mine!"
This perhaps led to the old joke, "Shoot low, they're riding Shetlands."
Mas Circ Sites
Saludos, Bob! Hope all is aces, jake, and better than swell with you, amigo!
Even though I am about to be an Arizonan in four weeks, I thought I should
pop in and pitch a few Oklahoma possibilities to you for your Bonus Circulation Locations list. Such as:
• Cattlemen's Steakhouse, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
http://www.cattlemensrestaurant.com/
• The Seely House Bed and Breakfast Inn. Guthrie, Oklahoma.
http://www.seelyhouse.com/
• Best Western Territorial Inn. Guthrie, Oklahoma.
http://www.bestwesternoklahoma.com/hotels/guthrie/territorialinn
• Gold Penny Inn. Guthrie, Oklahoma.
http://www.goldpennyinn.com/guthrie.htm
I've listed the URL to the Gold Penny's links page because Guthrie, OK has what I would consider several good candidates for your list and this links page runs them down nicely.
Also, there is the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City to consider. Of course, there is the possibility that your magazine is already on their Museum Store racks. But, in case not...
http://www.nationalcowboymuseum.org
I hope you find some of the above helpful!
Take care!
Sincerely,
Chris, Maniac #946
The Wild is back in the West
“This past year a French Film Crew made a film about investigation #2003-274 ‘The Billy the Kid investigation’. The Film was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. The Film maker is taking [Tom] Sullivan and I to Cannes. Kris Kristofferson who played the kid is going to be there to meet us. We may have put the Kid on the front pages of the New York times but now we have taking our bandit buddy to Cannes. We should blend in France. Does it get any funnier?”
—Steve Sederwall
These Boots Were Made For Taking Off
“I was able to find you on the True West Magazine web site and also from the tag on the bottom. Bob. If you do feature any information about my question on the Encore Westerns Channel, I would love it if you would do the segment without wearing boots. It would remind me of the old western television series that used to be on television where the main cowboy characters were in situations where they may have had to give up their boots but were still able to deal with their adversaries, even though, the hero(s) were either socked-footed or in their barefeet. Besides, a good-looking cowboy without his boots is sexy.”
— Samantha Aldridge, Parsons, Kansas.
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Report: 9/11 Commission Could Have Been Prevented
“Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Sunday, April 23, 2006
April 23, 2006 Bonus Blog
We've got a new poll up. How did you find True West's website?
True West Magazine
Westerns Channel
True West Moments Ad
Google/Search Engine
This blog
Friend
Other
Click right here.
"I was lost, but now I'm found."
—Bob Dylan?
We've got a new poll up. How did you find True West's website?
True West Magazine
Westerns Channel
True West Moments Ad
Google/Search Engine
This blog
Friend
Other
Click right here.
"I was lost, but now I'm found."
—Bob Dylan?
April 23, 2006
I forgot that my title for the New Times piece mentioned yesterday was, "The Lighter Side of the Kennedy Assassination." Time and distance is the key on all human events eventually ending up as comedy. I think it ran on the 25 year anniversary (1988), and then later ran in The Dallas Observer, a sister pub to the Phoenix New Times. That made me pucker, as I'm sure the cartoons did in Dallas as well, but I'm still here. The Lighter Side of 9/11 is next, but I'd give it another decade, or two.
Speaking of rash youth desperate to be shocking, the Deck Show last night was quite a success. The Ice House is basically a gutted out cement, warehouse and the cathedral style room the decks were showcased in, didn't have a roof. It looked like the Dresden Chamber of Commerce about 1944, but then, that is pretty cool, when you think about it, as skaters are quite into black holes and the anger that makes them. They had a metal band and I'd say about 500 people (it lasted from three to midnite and we got there after Taco Villa, at about six). Ed Mell did a sweet little landsape, framed on top of his skateboard with the clever title, "Landskate." It had a price tag of $2,200 (a bargain!). My "Geronimo Does A Halfpipe Over Organpipe (pre-board) 1886" was priced at $500 but it had no red dot on it by the time Kathy and I left at about 7:30.
Art shows like these are always inspiring to me and I woke up this morning and bailed into a painting called, "Looking For A Good Man On The Western Frontier." It features Honkytonk Sue (great reference of Jackie King on her horse searching the horizon for available cowboys). The horizon is from two sketches I did last weekend at Rock Art Ranch, outside of Winslow, and the color scheme is from a 1946-ish postcard of desert burros ("Desert Sweethearts"). Verdict still out, but I'm hopeful.
"Drawing is the root of everything."
--Vincent Van Gogh
I forgot that my title for the New Times piece mentioned yesterday was, "The Lighter Side of the Kennedy Assassination." Time and distance is the key on all human events eventually ending up as comedy. I think it ran on the 25 year anniversary (1988), and then later ran in The Dallas Observer, a sister pub to the Phoenix New Times. That made me pucker, as I'm sure the cartoons did in Dallas as well, but I'm still here. The Lighter Side of 9/11 is next, but I'd give it another decade, or two.Speaking of rash youth desperate to be shocking, the Deck Show last night was quite a success. The Ice House is basically a gutted out cement, warehouse and the cathedral style room the decks were showcased in, didn't have a roof. It looked like the Dresden Chamber of Commerce about 1944, but then, that is pretty cool, when you think about it, as skaters are quite into black holes and the anger that makes them. They had a metal band and I'd say about 500 people (it lasted from three to midnite and we got there after Taco Villa, at about six). Ed Mell did a sweet little landsape, framed on top of his skateboard with the clever title, "Landskate." It had a price tag of $2,200 (a bargain!). My "Geronimo Does A Halfpipe Over Organpipe (pre-board) 1886" was priced at $500 but it had no red dot on it by the time Kathy and I left at about 7:30.
Art shows like these are always inspiring to me and I woke up this morning and bailed into a painting called, "Looking For A Good Man On The Western Frontier." It features Honkytonk Sue (great reference of Jackie King on her horse searching the horizon for available cowboys). The horizon is from two sketches I did last weekend at Rock Art Ranch, outside of Winslow, and the color scheme is from a 1946-ish postcard of desert burros ("Desert Sweethearts"). Verdict still out, but I'm hopeful.
"Drawing is the root of everything."
--Vincent Van Gogh
Saturday, April 22, 2006
April 22, 2006
The palo verde trees have started blooming, one by one. We saw the first ones slowly turn brilliant yellow up at the end of the road (slightly higher elevation) and then the blooming spread southward, creeping down Old Stage Road until they blossomed all around us in a wave of golden sunshine. The saguaros are next. They're actually flowers, you know.
Found and filed a bunch of New Times original cartoons I found in the garage, but not before I started the '49 Ford and pulled it out onto the Spanish Driveway (for some reason it will only start and stay running on full choke). I threw away half of the stuff (much of it beyond awful), but I must admit, my color piece on the Assassination of President Kennedy still stands (in my version of the Zapruder film, Kennedy reaches in his coat and pulls out a forty-five, turns, shoots Oswald out of the Texas Depository window, turns back and lights a cigar, with Jackie hugging him. Wishful, juvenile thinking, I know.
Came in the studio and started three paintings for True West, and started sketching for the Wham Payroll Robbery, looking for young Mormon cowboys. Fortunately, I have just the book, "A Tough Job In A Hard Land: Cowboying," by James H. Beckstead. It's chocked full of Utah 1880s cowboys and the book is published by University of Utah Press. Great images, totally wrong cover (a modern cowboy silhouetted in an Arizona Highways sky). I need to illustrate 13 of the raiders, and of course there are the black soldiers, but I have good reference for that as well (see True West magazine on front page of this website).
The Deck Artshow is tonight, down at the Ice House in central Phoenix, across from the old train station. Over a hundred artists painted scenes on skateboards (thus, the title of the show "Deck" as in the deck of the board). A review tomorrow.
I'm meeting Kathy at Taco Villa on Camelback Road for dinner and then we'll take in the show.
My son Tomas called me yesterday from Philly and said he and Kendra were going to see Eagles of Death Metal, but the show was sold out. When they walked next door to an ATM machine, T. Chrarles recognized the band coming in the back way for a sound check. He struck up a conversation with the lead singer who said he'd put them on "the list" to get in. I told Tom, sometimes the big mouth pays off (actually it always pays off, just not in ways you sometimes like. Ha.)
"What you've spent, is gone, what you've kept is lost, but what you give away will be yours forever."
--Old Vaquero Saying
The palo verde trees have started blooming, one by one. We saw the first ones slowly turn brilliant yellow up at the end of the road (slightly higher elevation) and then the blooming spread southward, creeping down Old Stage Road until they blossomed all around us in a wave of golden sunshine. The saguaros are next. They're actually flowers, you know.
Found and filed a bunch of New Times original cartoons I found in the garage, but not before I started the '49 Ford and pulled it out onto the Spanish Driveway (for some reason it will only start and stay running on full choke). I threw away half of the stuff (much of it beyond awful), but I must admit, my color piece on the Assassination of President Kennedy still stands (in my version of the Zapruder film, Kennedy reaches in his coat and pulls out a forty-five, turns, shoots Oswald out of the Texas Depository window, turns back and lights a cigar, with Jackie hugging him. Wishful, juvenile thinking, I know.
Came in the studio and started three paintings for True West, and started sketching for the Wham Payroll Robbery, looking for young Mormon cowboys. Fortunately, I have just the book, "A Tough Job In A Hard Land: Cowboying," by James H. Beckstead. It's chocked full of Utah 1880s cowboys and the book is published by University of Utah Press. Great images, totally wrong cover (a modern cowboy silhouetted in an Arizona Highways sky). I need to illustrate 13 of the raiders, and of course there are the black soldiers, but I have good reference for that as well (see True West magazine on front page of this website).
The Deck Artshow is tonight, down at the Ice House in central Phoenix, across from the old train station. Over a hundred artists painted scenes on skateboards (thus, the title of the show "Deck" as in the deck of the board). A review tomorrow.
I'm meeting Kathy at Taco Villa on Camelback Road for dinner and then we'll take in the show.
My son Tomas called me yesterday from Philly and said he and Kendra were going to see Eagles of Death Metal, but the show was sold out. When they walked next door to an ATM machine, T. Chrarles recognized the band coming in the back way for a sound check. He struck up a conversation with the lead singer who said he'd put them on "the list" to get in. I told Tom, sometimes the big mouth pays off (actually it always pays off, just not in ways you sometimes like. Ha.)
"What you've spent, is gone, what you've kept is lost, but what you give away will be yours forever."
--Old Vaquero Saying
Friday, April 21, 2006
April 21, 2006
Dave Daiss is paving the driveway in front of the True West World Headquarters this morning. It was dirt for the past several years, but erosion and drainage problems just made it tough on some people (one of my employees lost his oil pan, not once, but twice pulling out onto Cave Creek Road). Here’s a photo of the project in progress. As I took this I reflected on the fact that we all love the old rugged West (a dirt parking lot!), but, it does come with a price and some amenities don’t look as cool, but they sure are nice. The road out to our ranchito, for example, got paved a couple years ago, and one of our neighbors fought it (and ultimately moved) because as he put it, “I didn’t move out here to live on a paved road!” I hate to admit it, but I like it paved, and we have saved quite a bit on tires (we had 11 flats one summer when it was dirt and rocky!).
Something happened yesterday that really blows my mind. In the first year they ran True West Moments on the Westerns Channel, I got maybe six Emails and two or three letters. In the second year, a couple dozen. Starting last fall, the Email questions increased to several a week, until earlier this year when I started getting two or three every other day. Yesterday I received seven Emailed questions! In one day! We’ve evidently reached some sort of tipping point. Now, some are assuming I have more power than I actually have, like this one:
Hiya!! Bob , Just wanted to see if you had any pull to get “The Rifleman” series on !! Thanks.
—Joe Cottrell
But here’s a taste of what I’m getting:
Dear Bob,
I am an avid Western Channel fan and really enjoy your segment. I have a few ideas, suggestions, whatever, though.
I am interested in hearing about the early western movie stars such as Tom Mix, Wild Bill Elliott, Sunset Carson, Durango Kid, etc. Is it true that Tom Mix died in a fire saving a life? If so, this makes him a hero. Also, would like to hear about lots of other early famous Wester stars. How they became who they were. I would think lots of other people would be interested too.
I am a big fan of your work, but I have to say that I like reading Louis L’Amour novels, because you can really picture what it may have been in old days.
Sincerely
A Western Fan
Mrs. Helen Holt
Helen,
No, Tom Mix died in a car wreck near Florence, Arizona. Perhaps you are thinking of Buck Jones who died in a nightclub fire when he pulled people out and went in one more time and didn't come out. And yes, that is my idea of a hero. Thanks.
—BBB
Hello Bob,
In James Michner's novel, Centennial, they were always talking about a cowboy named O.D. Cleaver. I was wondering what they meant by that. Was Cleaver a real person?
—Harry Anderson
Harry,
I don’t have a clue. Maybe somebody reading this on my blog will.
BBB
I saw your segment of a True West Moment where you said that some cowboys who were hanged did actually have their boots taken off their feet or requested to have their boots taken off their feet before being hanged to death. Was there any truth to situations where bandits who held up stagecoaches would also steal the boots and/or socks of the male passengers and force them to walk back to town bootless. I was also wondering if it was true that some women would try to get the boots off their cowboys' feet as a way to keep them from leaving such as prostitutes who would try to get the cowboys' boots off once they got the cowboys in a room alone with them. Also, I was wondering if there was any truth about comparing a cowboy's foot size with a certain portion of his male anatomy. If you do a ‘True West Moment’ on Encore Westerns Channel about these questions, would you please do so ‘footloose’ or without wearing any boots and/or socks on your feet and also let me know when it would air on the channel? Thank you for any response to these questions and requests.”
—Sincerely, Samatha Aldridge from Kansas
Samantha,
Everything you said is true except the part about foot size. You need to double the size to get a true measurement. Glad I could be of help.
I see you on the Western Station all the time. I would like to submit a question to you.
When giving direction, for horse riders, how come it is always in miles? The horses don't know anything about mileage. How do you calculate miles when riding a horse?
—Buddy Camp, Marmora, New Jersey
Buddy,
Excellent question and one I have often wondered about. Actually in the Old West they used a variety of measuring units, "rods" being the one I seem to see most often. In the case of John Tunstall's killing everyone who testified, including Billy the Kid, estimated the distance between the opponents in rods. And you are right, there was a definite inclination to measure distance in how far it would take a horse, as in, "That's about a three day ride from here." But, that said, they did have pretty accurate ways to approximate mileage. For one thing surveyors with their "chains" and transits were tabulating the mileage pretty early on. And most horseback riders knew the gate of their horses and could measure roughly the time it took to go certain distances and extrapolate the miles. There's more, but I'll save it for the show, and if we use it, we'll give you credit. Thanks again for the question.
—BBB
Hello Bob Boze Bell,
First, I would like to tell you, how much I admire your Artistic Talent. Your Paintings amaze me. I wish the Western Channel could show more of them.
Thanks to you I feel like I am getting my second education, at least about the True West. My question is, What does it mean to ‘Draw to an inside straight?’ I hear this on some of the Western movies, for instance, the Cheyenne Social Club. No one I ask knows, but I am sure this would be in your expertise. Please explain this expression to me.
Keep up the Good Work, & Never neglect your Art.
—Your Friend, Sunny Richmond-Stratford, Oklahoma
Sunny,
Thanks for the high complement. As to your question, I had to ask our resident card shark, Carole Glenn, and here's what she told me: If you're playing poker and you have the makin's of a straight, say a two, three, five, six and seven, you would ask for another card (a draw) and hope it was a four which would make a straight. Thus, draw to an inside straight.
—BBB
Hi Mr. Bell, On many films about the Old West, it would be dry and a lot of dust when the Cowboy rode into town, but when you seen them ride down the streets it would be mudded, could you tell me the reason for this? Thanks in advance, Bob.
One of the hardest things to do in a movie is keep continuity. A ride in scene may be filmed on a sunny day and by the time they shoot the scenes in town, maybe days, or weeks later, it may have rained. I heard that on the recent The Alamo film it rained and rained and they had to construct high tents, or awnings over the actors, with strong kleg lights to simulate sunshine so they could make up for lost days.
—BBB
Dear Bob,
Can you tell me why in the movie's they always wear long sleeve shirts
—Billy Armer, Nampa , ID
Billy,
Great question. In Victorian times everyone tried to cover up as much as possible to shield themselves from the sun. In those days, a tan was considered low class, someone who worked the fields, etc. That's why women wore bonnets, gloves full dresses, etc. They didn't want the sun touching any part of their bodies. The men also tried to keep off the sun as much as possible, thus long-sleeved shirts.
It wasn't until the 1920s, when rich people came back from Europe and being on the beach that the idea of wealth and a suntan gained popularity. All of a sudden someone with a tan signified wealth and the ability to go away for the summer. By the 1950s this fad had spread to the rest of the population.
Today with the knowledge of skin cancer, it appears it might go back in the other direction. That’s why I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt right now. Well, that and the fact it looks cooler. Ha.
—BBB
“Please tell me something. I have noticed that when a bunch of cow pokes are sitting around the campfire, there are all sorts of equipment: coffee pot, dishes, cups, etc. But when they strike camp, I never seem to see this stuff packed onto any of the horses. How did they do that in real life??
—Loggie (Low-gi) Hull, Houston, MO
Loggie,
Yes, in Westerns the cowboys, who are away from the chuckwagon and the ranch sure seem to have plenty of equipment. This probably stems from a set designer (usually on a sound stage) dressing the scene with stuff that looks cool, and then when the outdoor scenes are shot, nobody wants a loaded down mule stumbling along with a mile-high diamond hitch and pots and pans dangling off it like Sancho Panza after a trip to the market place. No, that detail ruins the bitchin’ scene of a gaggle of cowboys, galloping across the tundra seeking more adventure.
—BBB
“How we remember, what we remember, and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality.”
—Christina Baldwin
Dave Daiss is paving the driveway in front of the True West World Headquarters this morning. It was dirt for the past several years, but erosion and drainage problems just made it tough on some people (one of my employees lost his oil pan, not once, but twice pulling out onto Cave Creek Road). Here’s a photo of the project in progress. As I took this I reflected on the fact that we all love the old rugged West (a dirt parking lot!), but, it does come with a price and some amenities don’t look as cool, but they sure are nice. The road out to our ranchito, for example, got paved a couple years ago, and one of our neighbors fought it (and ultimately moved) because as he put it, “I didn’t move out here to live on a paved road!” I hate to admit it, but I like it paved, and we have saved quite a bit on tires (we had 11 flats one summer when it was dirt and rocky!).Something happened yesterday that really blows my mind. In the first year they ran True West Moments on the Westerns Channel, I got maybe six Emails and two or three letters. In the second year, a couple dozen. Starting last fall, the Email questions increased to several a week, until earlier this year when I started getting two or three every other day. Yesterday I received seven Emailed questions! In one day! We’ve evidently reached some sort of tipping point. Now, some are assuming I have more power than I actually have, like this one:
Hiya!! Bob , Just wanted to see if you had any pull to get “The Rifleman” series on !! Thanks.
—Joe Cottrell
But here’s a taste of what I’m getting:
Dear Bob,
I am an avid Western Channel fan and really enjoy your segment. I have a few ideas, suggestions, whatever, though.
I am interested in hearing about the early western movie stars such as Tom Mix, Wild Bill Elliott, Sunset Carson, Durango Kid, etc. Is it true that Tom Mix died in a fire saving a life? If so, this makes him a hero. Also, would like to hear about lots of other early famous Wester stars. How they became who they were. I would think lots of other people would be interested too.
I am a big fan of your work, but I have to say that I like reading Louis L’Amour novels, because you can really picture what it may have been in old days.
Sincerely
A Western Fan
Mrs. Helen Holt
Helen,
No, Tom Mix died in a car wreck near Florence, Arizona. Perhaps you are thinking of Buck Jones who died in a nightclub fire when he pulled people out and went in one more time and didn't come out. And yes, that is my idea of a hero. Thanks.
—BBB
Hello Bob,
In James Michner's novel, Centennial, they were always talking about a cowboy named O.D. Cleaver. I was wondering what they meant by that. Was Cleaver a real person?
—Harry Anderson
Harry,
I don’t have a clue. Maybe somebody reading this on my blog will.
BBB
I saw your segment of a True West Moment where you said that some cowboys who were hanged did actually have their boots taken off their feet or requested to have their boots taken off their feet before being hanged to death. Was there any truth to situations where bandits who held up stagecoaches would also steal the boots and/or socks of the male passengers and force them to walk back to town bootless. I was also wondering if it was true that some women would try to get the boots off their cowboys' feet as a way to keep them from leaving such as prostitutes who would try to get the cowboys' boots off once they got the cowboys in a room alone with them. Also, I was wondering if there was any truth about comparing a cowboy's foot size with a certain portion of his male anatomy. If you do a ‘True West Moment’ on Encore Westerns Channel about these questions, would you please do so ‘footloose’ or without wearing any boots and/or socks on your feet and also let me know when it would air on the channel? Thank you for any response to these questions and requests.”
—Sincerely, Samatha Aldridge from Kansas
Samantha,
Everything you said is true except the part about foot size. You need to double the size to get a true measurement. Glad I could be of help.
I see you on the Western Station all the time. I would like to submit a question to you.
When giving direction, for horse riders, how come it is always in miles? The horses don't know anything about mileage. How do you calculate miles when riding a horse?
—Buddy Camp, Marmora, New Jersey
Buddy,
Excellent question and one I have often wondered about. Actually in the Old West they used a variety of measuring units, "rods" being the one I seem to see most often. In the case of John Tunstall's killing everyone who testified, including Billy the Kid, estimated the distance between the opponents in rods. And you are right, there was a definite inclination to measure distance in how far it would take a horse, as in, "That's about a three day ride from here." But, that said, they did have pretty accurate ways to approximate mileage. For one thing surveyors with their "chains" and transits were tabulating the mileage pretty early on. And most horseback riders knew the gate of their horses and could measure roughly the time it took to go certain distances and extrapolate the miles. There's more, but I'll save it for the show, and if we use it, we'll give you credit. Thanks again for the question.
—BBB
Hello Bob Boze Bell,
First, I would like to tell you, how much I admire your Artistic Talent. Your Paintings amaze me. I wish the Western Channel could show more of them.
Thanks to you I feel like I am getting my second education, at least about the True West. My question is, What does it mean to ‘Draw to an inside straight?’ I hear this on some of the Western movies, for instance, the Cheyenne Social Club. No one I ask knows, but I am sure this would be in your expertise. Please explain this expression to me.
Keep up the Good Work, & Never neglect your Art.
—Your Friend, Sunny Richmond-Stratford, Oklahoma
Sunny,
Thanks for the high complement. As to your question, I had to ask our resident card shark, Carole Glenn, and here's what she told me: If you're playing poker and you have the makin's of a straight, say a two, three, five, six and seven, you would ask for another card (a draw) and hope it was a four which would make a straight. Thus, draw to an inside straight.
—BBB
Hi Mr. Bell, On many films about the Old West, it would be dry and a lot of dust when the Cowboy rode into town, but when you seen them ride down the streets it would be mudded, could you tell me the reason for this? Thanks in advance, Bob.
One of the hardest things to do in a movie is keep continuity. A ride in scene may be filmed on a sunny day and by the time they shoot the scenes in town, maybe days, or weeks later, it may have rained. I heard that on the recent The Alamo film it rained and rained and they had to construct high tents, or awnings over the actors, with strong kleg lights to simulate sunshine so they could make up for lost days.
—BBB
Dear Bob,
Can you tell me why in the movie's they always wear long sleeve shirts
—Billy Armer, Nampa , ID
Billy,
Great question. In Victorian times everyone tried to cover up as much as possible to shield themselves from the sun. In those days, a tan was considered low class, someone who worked the fields, etc. That's why women wore bonnets, gloves full dresses, etc. They didn't want the sun touching any part of their bodies. The men also tried to keep off the sun as much as possible, thus long-sleeved shirts.
It wasn't until the 1920s, when rich people came back from Europe and being on the beach that the idea of wealth and a suntan gained popularity. All of a sudden someone with a tan signified wealth and the ability to go away for the summer. By the 1950s this fad had spread to the rest of the population.
Today with the knowledge of skin cancer, it appears it might go back in the other direction. That’s why I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt right now. Well, that and the fact it looks cooler. Ha.
—BBB
“Please tell me something. I have noticed that when a bunch of cow pokes are sitting around the campfire, there are all sorts of equipment: coffee pot, dishes, cups, etc. But when they strike camp, I never seem to see this stuff packed onto any of the horses. How did they do that in real life??
—Loggie (Low-gi) Hull, Houston, MO
Loggie,
Yes, in Westerns the cowboys, who are away from the chuckwagon and the ranch sure seem to have plenty of equipment. This probably stems from a set designer (usually on a sound stage) dressing the scene with stuff that looks cool, and then when the outdoor scenes are shot, nobody wants a loaded down mule stumbling along with a mile-high diamond hitch and pots and pans dangling off it like Sancho Panza after a trip to the market place. No, that detail ruins the bitchin’ scene of a gaggle of cowboys, galloping across the tundra seeking more adventure.
—BBB
“How we remember, what we remember, and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality.”
—Christina Baldwin
Thursday, April 20, 2006
April 20, 2006
Cleaned out a huge portion of the garage this morning, so Eric from 24-Hour-Mobile-Car-Care could start the ‘49 and get it back in the garage. Eric was still working on the carburetor when I left, but when I went home for lunch I found this threatening note: “Start this car every day or I’ll turn you over to PCS (Protective Car Service).”
Working hard on the Wham Robbery for the next issue’s Classic Gunfights. One of the suspected robbers has a hilarious handle and if I saw it in a movie I wouldn’t believe it. His name? Sheriff Marshal. Yes, this is allegedly his actual given name. Imagine someone stumbling into a whore house and yelling out, “Is that you Sheriff?” And everyone clears out the back. Funny. But true.
Other Magazines Get Grief Too, Like This Letter From A Fellow Saddle Nazi to A Certain Magazine
“Dear Cowboys & Indians: I am a happy subscriber of your fine magazine. I just finished reading the article on Robert Duvall. I was very disturbed to see the cover of Mr. Duvall in his ‘Western’ wardrobe sitting on a 1980's calf roping saddle with nylon horn knot. How stupid do they think the viewers are? Why spend Millions of dollars on sets, wardrobe, weapons, and talent and then put the main star on a saddle worth $250 that totally is wrong for the time period???? I would be more than happy to furnish Mr. Duvall with an AUTHENTIC saddle for his next show, just have him contact me. He might as well have been sitting on the hood of a 2005 Chevy Crew Cab Pickup, it would be just as authentic. GREAT ACTOR, GREAT PERSON, don't ruin the show with cheap saddles.”
—David Carrico, professional saddle provider
“Stress comes from putting yourself in the position of constantly reacting to others' input.”
—Sara Schurr
Status of Operation Fifty Bonus Circ Locations
I received some great suggestions this morning from many of you regarding our expanded circ efforts (see yesterday’s posting). Here’s a smattering of them and their suggestions:
J.Rae’s Suggestions for additional outlets:
• Steamboat Arabia Museum/Gift Shop, Kansas City, Missouri
• Pony Express Museum/Gift Shop, St. Joseph, Missouri
• Frontier Army Museum/Gift Shop, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
• James Farm Museum/Gift Shop, Kearny, Missouri
• Patee House Museum, St. Joseph, Missouri
• Boot Hill Museum and Front Street, Dodge City, Kansas
• Historic Franklin Hotel, Deadwood, South Dakota
• Midnight Star (saloon/gaming), Deadwood, South Dakota
• Bullock Express, Deadwood, South Dakota
• Fort Abraham Lincoln Museum/Gift Shop, Mandan/Bismarck, North Dakota
• Wyatt Earp Boyhood Home Museum, Pella, Iowa
Many more ideas, and here they are (below)!
—J.Rae
• Dalton Defenders Museum, Coffeyville, Kansas
www.coffeyville.com
• Darke County Historical Society Garst Museum, Greenville, Ohio
www.garstmuseum.org
• The Coppock Wing houses the Annie Oakley Collection
• The Archer House (Historic Inn), Northfield, Minnesota
www.archerhouse.com
• First National Bank of Northfield (Bank Museum), Northfield, Minnesota
www.northfieldhistory.org—J.Rae
“A lot of good places on your list so far. The hotel you're looking for in Cimmaron, NM is the St. James. It was built when the Sante Fe trail was still in operation & has an impressive roster of frontier characters, shootings & ghosts.
“You might consider contacting the book stores in NPS historic sites. You feature them in numerous articles & it should be a good partnership.
“When I have a little more time I will get you a few more Colorado locations. It seems like your distributor up here needs to get you better exposure in the high visibility locations... supermarkets, Walmart, etc. I rarely see your product on their shelves.
"We are developing a B&B to compliment our chuck wagon catering business and would be happy to distribute some of your mags. I could pass some out during my rounds in my horse shoeing/blacksmithing business. We could use the same approach as the drug dealers... ‘first one's free!’ Maybe the printed word could back up the tall tales I've been tellin' em all these years.”
—Lloyd Britton
Some more suggestions, these from Tom Carpenter:
• Grand Canyon West Ranch
www.grandcanyonranch.com
• The old Diamond Bar Ranch,Tap Duncan country. Hundreds of folks arriving weekly, including many international travelers, coming and going for helicopter rides and overnight stays, all of them interested in the old west. There are several cabins and (sigh) a few teepees for overnight guests--with no television or radio. So, you have a semi-captive reading audience.
• X Diamond Ranch (www.xdiamondranch.com) in Greer. A slice of heaven that has several cabins and a store for placement. Lots of press coverage, usually booked heavily throughout the summer and not everybody who stays there likes to fish . . .
• Shady Dell Trailer Park in Bisbee (www.theshadydell.com) for people who like to catch their breath by reading between bouts of randy sex triggered by Herb Alpert albums played on the phonograph in the Tiki Bus . . . or so I'm told.
• Noftsger Hill Inn B&B in Globe (www.noftsgerhillinn.com). Old schoolhouse converted into B&B.
• Fort Beale Mercantile in Kingman (www.fortbeale.com) because some people still know how to read in Kingman, and want something other than the Army Field Manual No. 21-76.
• And of course, in Denny's everywhere, for insomniacs like me who grow weary of reading the auto trader while we peck at our scrambled eggs and listen to the only waitress bitch about her bunions and her deadbeat ex-husband to the line cook whose meth recovery is about to go south again.
“Back to bed now, Tommy, work awaits in a few short hours . . .”
—Tom Carpenter
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Heinz Factory Explosion Looks Worse Than It Is
“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
—Oscar Wilde
Cleaned out a huge portion of the garage this morning, so Eric from 24-Hour-Mobile-Car-Care could start the ‘49 and get it back in the garage. Eric was still working on the carburetor when I left, but when I went home for lunch I found this threatening note: “Start this car every day or I’ll turn you over to PCS (Protective Car Service).”
Working hard on the Wham Robbery for the next issue’s Classic Gunfights. One of the suspected robbers has a hilarious handle and if I saw it in a movie I wouldn’t believe it. His name? Sheriff Marshal. Yes, this is allegedly his actual given name. Imagine someone stumbling into a whore house and yelling out, “Is that you Sheriff?” And everyone clears out the back. Funny. But true.
Other Magazines Get Grief Too, Like This Letter From A Fellow Saddle Nazi to A Certain Magazine
“Dear Cowboys & Indians: I am a happy subscriber of your fine magazine. I just finished reading the article on Robert Duvall. I was very disturbed to see the cover of Mr. Duvall in his ‘Western’ wardrobe sitting on a 1980's calf roping saddle with nylon horn knot. How stupid do they think the viewers are? Why spend Millions of dollars on sets, wardrobe, weapons, and talent and then put the main star on a saddle worth $250 that totally is wrong for the time period???? I would be more than happy to furnish Mr. Duvall with an AUTHENTIC saddle for his next show, just have him contact me. He might as well have been sitting on the hood of a 2005 Chevy Crew Cab Pickup, it would be just as authentic. GREAT ACTOR, GREAT PERSON, don't ruin the show with cheap saddles.”
—David Carrico, professional saddle provider
“Stress comes from putting yourself in the position of constantly reacting to others' input.”
—Sara Schurr
Status of Operation Fifty Bonus Circ Locations
I received some great suggestions this morning from many of you regarding our expanded circ efforts (see yesterday’s posting). Here’s a smattering of them and their suggestions:
J.Rae’s Suggestions for additional outlets:
• Steamboat Arabia Museum/Gift Shop, Kansas City, Missouri
• Pony Express Museum/Gift Shop, St. Joseph, Missouri
• Frontier Army Museum/Gift Shop, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
• James Farm Museum/Gift Shop, Kearny, Missouri
• Patee House Museum, St. Joseph, Missouri
• Boot Hill Museum and Front Street, Dodge City, Kansas
• Historic Franklin Hotel, Deadwood, South Dakota
• Midnight Star (saloon/gaming), Deadwood, South Dakota
• Bullock Express, Deadwood, South Dakota
• Fort Abraham Lincoln Museum/Gift Shop, Mandan/Bismarck, North Dakota
• Wyatt Earp Boyhood Home Museum, Pella, Iowa
Many more ideas, and here they are (below)!
—J.Rae
• Dalton Defenders Museum, Coffeyville, Kansas
www.coffeyville.com
• Darke County Historical Society Garst Museum, Greenville, Ohio
www.garstmuseum.org
• The Coppock Wing houses the Annie Oakley Collection
• The Archer House (Historic Inn), Northfield, Minnesota
www.archerhouse.com
• First National Bank of Northfield (Bank Museum), Northfield, Minnesota
www.northfieldhistory.org—J.Rae
“A lot of good places on your list so far. The hotel you're looking for in Cimmaron, NM is the St. James. It was built when the Sante Fe trail was still in operation & has an impressive roster of frontier characters, shootings & ghosts.
“You might consider contacting the book stores in NPS historic sites. You feature them in numerous articles & it should be a good partnership.
“When I have a little more time I will get you a few more Colorado locations. It seems like your distributor up here needs to get you better exposure in the high visibility locations... supermarkets, Walmart, etc. I rarely see your product on their shelves.
"We are developing a B&B to compliment our chuck wagon catering business and would be happy to distribute some of your mags. I could pass some out during my rounds in my horse shoeing/blacksmithing business. We could use the same approach as the drug dealers... ‘first one's free!’ Maybe the printed word could back up the tall tales I've been tellin' em all these years.”
—Lloyd Britton
Some more suggestions, these from Tom Carpenter:
• Grand Canyon West Ranch
www.grandcanyonranch.com
• The old Diamond Bar Ranch,Tap Duncan country. Hundreds of folks arriving weekly, including many international travelers, coming and going for helicopter rides and overnight stays, all of them interested in the old west. There are several cabins and (sigh) a few teepees for overnight guests--with no television or radio. So, you have a semi-captive reading audience.
• X Diamond Ranch (www.xdiamondranch.com) in Greer. A slice of heaven that has several cabins and a store for placement. Lots of press coverage, usually booked heavily throughout the summer and not everybody who stays there likes to fish . . .
• Shady Dell Trailer Park in Bisbee (www.theshadydell.com) for people who like to catch their breath by reading between bouts of randy sex triggered by Herb Alpert albums played on the phonograph in the Tiki Bus . . . or so I'm told.
• Noftsger Hill Inn B&B in Globe (www.noftsgerhillinn.com). Old schoolhouse converted into B&B.
• Fort Beale Mercantile in Kingman (www.fortbeale.com) because some people still know how to read in Kingman, and want something other than the Army Field Manual No. 21-76.
• And of course, in Denny's everywhere, for insomniacs like me who grow weary of reading the auto trader while we peck at our scrambled eggs and listen to the only waitress bitch about her bunions and her deadbeat ex-husband to the line cook whose meth recovery is about to go south again.
“Back to bed now, Tommy, work awaits in a few short hours . . .”
—Tom Carpenter
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Heinz Factory Explosion Looks Worse Than It Is
“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
—Oscar Wilde
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
April 19, 2006
T. Charles called me from NYC at eleven this morning and told me he is walking down museum row on the east side of Central Park and there is a new Winslow Homer show opening May 19 called “Tourism And the American Landscape.” Unfortunately I’ll be in Kingman that weekend, so I asked for a full report from Tomas on one of my painting heroes.
Operation Fifty Bonus Circ Locations
We are looking for fifty new places to circulate and introduce True West magazine to a larger circle of friends, and future friends. What we are looking for are hotels, motels, B&Bs and hubs of interest where visitors who are already interested in the history and lore of the West will have access to our publication (this is not a resellers program, but controlled circ placement, i.e. free). Hopefully my list will inspire you to add outlets I haven’t thought of.
• The Boulders, Carefree, Arizona
• The Biltmore, Phoenix, Arizona
• La Posada Resort in Winslow, Arizona
• El Garces Hotel, Needles, California (being renovated by Allan Affeldt, same guy who did La Posada, scheduled to open in 2008)
• Rock Art Ranch, Winslow, Arizona
• Tonto Bridge, Payson, Arizona
• Kohl’s Ranch, Payson, Arizona
• Thunderbird Lodge, Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
• El Tovar, Grand Canyon Lodge
• Quality Inn, Flagstaff, Arizona (I know the manager and he has frequently put mags in the rooms. He recommended a service that puts mags in all of the chains)
• Little America, Flagstaff, Arizona
• Lookout Lodge, Tombstone, Arizona
• Lariat Lodge, Tombstone, Arizona
• Holiday Inn Express, Tombstone, Arizona
• Sonoita, Arizona B&Bs and motels (Dave Daiss please help)
• Patagonia Hotel (Dave Daiss)
• Copper Queen, Bisbee, Arizona
• Irma Hotel, Cody, Wyoming
• Sheridan Hotels (Sue Lambert, help me with these)
• Helper, Utah
• Kanab, Utah
• Carson City, Nevada
• Alpine, Texas Best Western Motel
• Silver City, New Mexico
• Reserve, New Mexico
• Socorro, New Mexico
• Cloudcroft, New Mexico
• Ruidoso, New Mexico
• Cimarron Hotel, Cimarron, New Mexico
• Santa Fe Hotels and B&Bs
• Willcox motels
• Gallup Hotels (El Rancho?)
• The Strater Hotel, Durango, Colorado
• On the Plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico Hotel
• Sportsman’s Lodge, Burbank, California
Email me (see link above) with your nominations. Of course, my list is dominated by Southwest locations. I'm counting on you to spread it around. Thanks.
News From The Front Lines
I just wanted to let you know that for me the May 2006 issue is the best overall copy I have read since first subscribing a few years back. The many articles are so diverse, well written and informative and the photograph selection superb. I even enjoyed the advertisements. I guess that’s why I’m a True West Maniac (79)!
—Jack Ingram, Severn, MD
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Texas Environmentalists Lobby For Solar-Powered Electric Chair
“History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot.”
—Mark Twain
T. Charles called me from NYC at eleven this morning and told me he is walking down museum row on the east side of Central Park and there is a new Winslow Homer show opening May 19 called “Tourism And the American Landscape.” Unfortunately I’ll be in Kingman that weekend, so I asked for a full report from Tomas on one of my painting heroes.
Operation Fifty Bonus Circ Locations
We are looking for fifty new places to circulate and introduce True West magazine to a larger circle of friends, and future friends. What we are looking for are hotels, motels, B&Bs and hubs of interest where visitors who are already interested in the history and lore of the West will have access to our publication (this is not a resellers program, but controlled circ placement, i.e. free). Hopefully my list will inspire you to add outlets I haven’t thought of.
• The Boulders, Carefree, Arizona
• The Biltmore, Phoenix, Arizona
• La Posada Resort in Winslow, Arizona
• El Garces Hotel, Needles, California (being renovated by Allan Affeldt, same guy who did La Posada, scheduled to open in 2008)
• Rock Art Ranch, Winslow, Arizona
• Tonto Bridge, Payson, Arizona
• Kohl’s Ranch, Payson, Arizona
• Thunderbird Lodge, Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
• El Tovar, Grand Canyon Lodge
• Quality Inn, Flagstaff, Arizona (I know the manager and he has frequently put mags in the rooms. He recommended a service that puts mags in all of the chains)
• Little America, Flagstaff, Arizona
• Lookout Lodge, Tombstone, Arizona
• Lariat Lodge, Tombstone, Arizona
• Holiday Inn Express, Tombstone, Arizona
• Sonoita, Arizona B&Bs and motels (Dave Daiss please help)
• Patagonia Hotel (Dave Daiss)
• Copper Queen, Bisbee, Arizona
• Irma Hotel, Cody, Wyoming
• Sheridan Hotels (Sue Lambert, help me with these)
• Helper, Utah
• Kanab, Utah
• Carson City, Nevada
• Alpine, Texas Best Western Motel
• Silver City, New Mexico
• Reserve, New Mexico
• Socorro, New Mexico
• Cloudcroft, New Mexico
• Ruidoso, New Mexico
• Cimarron Hotel, Cimarron, New Mexico
• Santa Fe Hotels and B&Bs
• Willcox motels
• Gallup Hotels (El Rancho?)
• The Strater Hotel, Durango, Colorado
• On the Plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico Hotel
• Sportsman’s Lodge, Burbank, California
Email me (see link above) with your nominations. Of course, my list is dominated by Southwest locations. I'm counting on you to spread it around. Thanks.
News From The Front Lines
I just wanted to let you know that for me the May 2006 issue is the best overall copy I have read since first subscribing a few years back. The many articles are so diverse, well written and informative and the photograph selection superb. I even enjoyed the advertisements. I guess that’s why I’m a True West Maniac (79)!
—Jack Ingram, Severn, MD
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Texas Environmentalists Lobby For Solar-Powered Electric Chair
“History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot.”
—Mark Twain
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
April 18, 2006
Darcy Peterson came out this morning to continue our clean-athon. She told me she confided to her husband, “If it’s a horizontal surface, you can’t put it in front of this guy.” Ha. Darcy also vowed to make my middle name “Neat.” To that I said, “Good luck.” We are making good progress and I highly recommend her services to anyone with ozone layer ADD.
I'm still tweaking the Honkytonk Sue postcard color experiement. Here's a taste of my latest efforts from last night. Still not there, but I'm on the case and won't stop until it's right as rain, Roy.
La Posada Foddah
“Glad you had a great time in Winslow! My husband and I stayed at La Posada a few years ago (and loved it) but we certainly did hear the trains. No whistle noise, just the rumbling. The tracks are to the south of the hotel, and our room had french doors opening out onto the west side of the building, so we could sit on our balcony and see the trains. We had trouble sleeping, until we saw the window air conditioner and turned on the fan for the noise. We slept fine after that. Maybe you had in interior room, or one on the north side. You're right about the food in the restaurant - it's excellent. I recommend La Posada to everyone who heads up that way.”
—Lauren, Maniac #19
“Wow, sounds as if I'd better figure on a Harvey House Tour road trip
in a few years. And somebody needs to bop the Seligman city council
on the noggin--that's a great building, darn it!”
—Emma Bull
And speaking of Emma, she gave me a follow-up joke from the Easter one I ran (see below):
“A woman opens her refrigerator and sees a bunny sitting there. When she asks why he's there the bunny replies, ‘This is a Westinghouse, isn't it?’”
"No, it's a GE."
"Oh, sorry. Wrong joke."
The 125th Anniversary of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is happening this coming October. The official website with ticket info and events schedule can be found at
www.okcorralgunfight.com
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Diabetic 8-Year-Old Throws Worst Birthday Party Ever
"It's all right to aim high if you have plenty of ammunition."
—Hawley R. Everhart
Darcy Peterson came out this morning to continue our clean-athon. She told me she confided to her husband, “If it’s a horizontal surface, you can’t put it in front of this guy.” Ha. Darcy also vowed to make my middle name “Neat.” To that I said, “Good luck.” We are making good progress and I highly recommend her services to anyone with ozone layer ADD.I'm still tweaking the Honkytonk Sue postcard color experiement. Here's a taste of my latest efforts from last night. Still not there, but I'm on the case and won't stop until it's right as rain, Roy.
La Posada Foddah
“Glad you had a great time in Winslow! My husband and I stayed at La Posada a few years ago (and loved it) but we certainly did hear the trains. No whistle noise, just the rumbling. The tracks are to the south of the hotel, and our room had french doors opening out onto the west side of the building, so we could sit on our balcony and see the trains. We had trouble sleeping, until we saw the window air conditioner and turned on the fan for the noise. We slept fine after that. Maybe you had in interior room, or one on the north side. You're right about the food in the restaurant - it's excellent. I recommend La Posada to everyone who heads up that way.”
—Lauren, Maniac #19
“Wow, sounds as if I'd better figure on a Harvey House Tour road trip
in a few years. And somebody needs to bop the Seligman city council
on the noggin--that's a great building, darn it!”
—Emma Bull
And speaking of Emma, she gave me a follow-up joke from the Easter one I ran (see below):
“A woman opens her refrigerator and sees a bunny sitting there. When she asks why he's there the bunny replies, ‘This is a Westinghouse, isn't it?’”
"No, it's a GE."
"Oh, sorry. Wrong joke."
The 125th Anniversary of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is happening this coming October. The official website with ticket info and events schedule can be found at
www.okcorralgunfight.com
Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Diabetic 8-Year-Old Throws Worst Birthday Party Ever
"It's all right to aim high if you have plenty of ammunition."
—Hawley R. Everhart
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)