Weasel Tails & Hungry Wolves

 June 15, 2021

   Got a big special issue of True West magazine in the works. And we're working on a couple different cover concepts, which I can't share just yet, but one of them features this guy:

Weasel Tail, Blackfeet 1900

Edward S. Curtis

   Speaking of covers that rock.

   A series of Alex Hawk covers

   Bill Brooks sent me this great photo, below. He thinks it looks like me, but I am enthralled with his big oi' hat and the pistol handle, which appears to be a Colt Thunderer? As for the resemblance, I never see myself from that side so I don't know. 

Kid In A Canyon

   Want to do a hungry wolf for a project I'm working on with the boys down at Cattletrack. Utilized a 1920s era Ludwig Holwein wolf for this study.

Daily Whip Out:

"Salivate Like A Pavlov Wolf"

The Wisdom of Imitation

"I once met a painting coach who tells students to copy their favorite artists. At first, students resist.

In response, the coach tells them to listen for friction. 'Do you hear that resistance? It’s the whisper of your unique style.' Through imitation, we discover our voice."

—David Perell

When Tamales Are Flying You Will Find Corn Shucks Falling From The Sky

 June 14, 2021

   Thomas Charles Bell is working on a new story. I asked him what it is about and he said, "Some sheep are killed. Tamales are flying in the air. It gets pretty wild." I think it's safe to say, he is my son. 

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"Old Vaquero Sayings Dude #22"

"El que nace para ramal, del cielo le caen las hojas."

—Old Vaquero Saying

(He who is destined to be a tamale will find corn shucks falling from the sky.)

El Mechudo & His Pinche Bad Boy Compadres

 June 13, 2021

   I found a packet of collected scratchboards that my curator, Kristi Jacobs, has compiled under the simple heading of "Vaquero Series" and I thought a couple of them needed a little more work and when I was working on them, names just popped into my head.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"El Mechudo (The Hairy One)"

A Yaqui

Daily Whip Out:

"El Grunidor (The Snarler)"

Daily Whip Out: "Emiliano"

Daily Whip Outs:

"Rooster & His No Good Cousin Tuti"

"Love is blind but not the neighbors."

—Tuti Alvarado

Daily Whip Out:

"Tom Horn The Cowboy Scout"

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"That Dang Dude Was Out of His Skull!"

"To the mob, everything is a lie."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Old Snaggletooth & Crow Knows Best

 June 12, 2021

   Call me Covid Crazy but I got an eight-week-fever and the only thing that can cure it is more cowbell.

Put Your Hip Boots On And Batten Down The Hatches

   Anybody who knows me, knows I come from a long line of BSers. And, in my humble opinion, when it comes to laying it on thick as a brick, nobody I have ever known has done it better than this guy.

Daily Whip Out: "Old Snaggletooth"

The Notorious Hunk Hoppers of Albert Lee

   Before my father got drafted in WWII he served for a short time as a Hunk Hopper (a cousin to car hops) at a drive-in south of Albert Lee, Minnesota. The idea was to get these farm hunks and put them in shorts and cowboy boots to draw in the milk maid crowd, which if you've ever been in northern Iowa or southern Minnesota, you know there are more than a few.

My father, the Hunk Hopper, at left.

That's Milton Cece at right.

   And here's my father and his Hunk Hopper amigo, Milton on the Route 66 Fun Run in the 1990s.

At The Iron Skillet, Blake Ranch Turnoff

on I-40

Deena, BBB, Allen P. and Milton on the way to Seligman and the Route 66 Fun Run

Daily Whip Out: "The Crow Knows"

   So, is the crow saying, "Just about all of this blog post is B.S."?

   Right as rain, Roy.

  "Does the truth actually go through Kingman, Arizona?"

—Old Vaquero Question

Nigerian Navajo Ninjas

 June 11, 2021

   Sometimes I just wind up in weird places. Some of this is because of my wandering mind as I draw, some of it is because I am consciously seeking counterintuitive solutions and some of it is probably due to my Covid addled brain.

Daily Whip Out:

"Zu Lou The Nigerian Navajo Ninja"

Who is she? Ask Juni Fisher. She knows her. What does she look like? I just showed you.

Mistakes? Oh, I've Made A Few

• If you don't make mistakes, you're doing it wrong.

• If you don't correct those mistakes, you're doing it really wrong.

• If you can't accept that you're mistaken, you're not doing it at all.

—Uncle Russ

"There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes."

— Abraham Lincoln

BBB And The Covid Cocktail

 June 10, 2021

   I was supposed to give a talk in Encampment, Wyoming today but this Covid crap put the kibosh on that. Speaking of which, I went to the doctor yesterday to see if I could get the Covid cocktail Trump got at Walter Reed and the medical assistant just laughed at me and said, "I know, it's crazy. That's high access stuff. Perhaps if you were a better artist?"

   Okay, okay, part of that is not true. She never said the artist part. So, I got the cocktail and took my motorcaid around the medical center and waved to everyone for about twenty minutes, then came home, took my mask off and posed on the front porch for about fifteen minutes before going to bed early. It's draining to be so privileged.

Daily Whip Out:

"BBB After Receiving The Covid Cocktail"

"I kid the ex-president."

—BBB

Dean's List Debacle Finale

 June 9, 2021

   Okay, here is the final chapter in the mysterious and petty, false Dean's List news clipping.

Dean's List Debacle Finale

   As previously mentioned, when I was a freshman at the University of Arizona, the school made a mistake and sent the accolades of another Robert Bell to my hometown newspaper and, thanks to Andy Sansom, who found the clipping, here's how that looked:

Robert Bell Gets Undue Credit

Mohave County Miner

June 30, 1966

   I think it's interesting that they listed my parent's home address. And, you can see why my mother didn't bother to correct all of the people who called to congratulate her.

    Now, thanks to Gay Mathis, here is how I looked at that time. She tracked this photo down from the U of A yearbook annual.

Cochise Hall Dorm Crew, 1966

   Photo taken on the front steps of the only dormitory on the University of Arizona campus without air conditioning. That's my roommate, Steven Craig Burford, another Kingman kid, back row, fifth from left. 

"Frankly, I don't know how someone could be that skinny and not be in a famine commercial."

—Bozo Bell

Been Under And Over The Moon Lately

 June 9, 2021

   Had moon on the brain for the past couple weeks. 

Daily Whip Out: "Billy In Moonlight"

"There are nights when the wolves are silent, and only the Moon howls."
—George Carlin

Over the moon? Or under the moon? Either way, I've been there.

Daily Whip Out: "Pendejo Moonstruck"

“It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.”

—Aristotle

Daily Whip Out: "Rings Around The Moon"

"There is no truth, there is no history, there is only the way the story is told."

—Richard Avedon

Daily Whip Out: "Mickey In Moonlight"

Daily Whip Out: "Paulita In Darkness"

Daily Whip Out: "Billy Lit Up"

"Painting is really hard, it's about accepting your limitations but reaching for the moon" 

—Damian Hirst

Failing at Something I love

 June 8, 2021

   I have been looking for reaching women reference and was struck by this somewhat obscure painting.

Edgar Degas

"Dancer Posing for a Photograph"

1875

   I like the stance, her reaching upwards and she looks just a tad like what I picture Ms. Maxwell would look like. So, what if I turned her, slightly and split the difference between the ballerina and this?

Maynard Dixon

"Tragic Mood"

1923

   So, that she is reaching up and semi-disrobing at the same time, like this.

Daily Whip Out: "Querida Semi-disrobing"

   Naw. Crap. Getting too far out into the weeds. Stay focused Mister Scatter-Head. Stay focused on the original idea, which is Pabilita—I mean some anonymous querida—running out to meet her lover in the moonlight. What does that look like?

Daily Whip Out:

"The Night Was Cold But She Was Not"

Or: 

"Reaching for His Saddlehorn In The Moonlight"

   One of my curses is I am afflicted with is to have this ideal image in my head and not be able to get it on paper even after multiple tries. Here's the scene of the crime.

My Studio This Morning

8 A.M.

   One Hound Dog—Uno—lots of Frank Tenney Johnson, Gustav Klimt reference (on floor) and my latest stab at "The Night Was Cold But She Was Not." 

   Still I agree with Gracie Allen's hubby.

"I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate."

—George Burns

The Coming Storm Came

 June 6, 2021

 Here's a photo I took out my office window five years ago.

"The Coming Storm"

August 26, 2016

   Oh, the irony of that title. Today, the office is history and history itself has been turned upside down. Didn't see either coming. Probably just as well.

“The writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.”
― Nelson Algren

Travails of The Re-Emerging

 June 5, 2021

   Well, the signs are everywhere. In the waning times of sweat pants and Zoom shirts, I bring you a respite—and a few observations—about the travails of the re-emerging.

Travails From The Re-Emerging

Albert Baggetta, from Agawam, Massachusetts, saw a problem and fixed it. If only more Americans would do this in the reemerging, I think our country would be in better shape.

"I tried to find True West magazine at our local Barnes & Noble but it was buried behind a bunch of other mags, so I was forced to bring the batch to the front, so others wouldn't have a difficult time finding them."

—Al Baggetta

On The Covid Front

  It's been seven weeks now of mild symptoms and after a hearty regimen of super vitamins and selected medicinal herbs, I am still in the same place, which is discouraging, but given the horror stories of others who got the dreaded disease without having the vaccine, I am very thankful. But, if I had to choose today what the title of my memoir would be, this would be it.

Daily Whip Out: "All Hat, No Cattle"

For me, it's always been about the hat (I own hundreds) and to be honest with you, although I come from a prominent line of cowboys, I have never owned a cow. Not even an FFA (Future Farmers of America) cow. Not one.

Just sayin'.

The Elusiveness In The Re-Emerging

One thing I have not been able to effective land is the framework of narrative flow.

Daily Whip Outs: "Narrative Flow Studies"

Covid Art?

One of the symptoms of Covid is a foggy brain and a fever. That's what produced this.

Daily Whip Out: "Covid Fever On Paper"

  It's been fun, but we're done? Meanwhile, this is one of my favorite memories:

"Calm down! We're just asking you to wear a mask. You can still wear your pajamas, and leave your bras and teeth at home."

—Walmart

Authentic Soiled Doves, Aging Swooners & Steaming Horses

 June 4, 2021

   Wish I had this one back.

Dan The Man's Cover for "Soiled Doves"

   We ended up using another image of an actual soiled dove (the consensus was Lotta Crabtree, above, was not a soiled dove and so this is misleading, or inaccurate), but I don't think what we ended up with matched the power of this rejected cover.

   Sometimes it hurts to be authentic and true.

Living On Borrowed Time

   Meanwhile, Charlie Watts of the Stones is 80 and here's the bad news: he looks it. I refuse to run an authentic photo of him today because it's too painful. Let's go with him at the beginning.

Charlie Watts Beating His Original Skins

   Notice a trend here? Aging Boomers Not Aging Well. Plus, I just saw one of those new AI photo blending videos of aging swooners—Brigit Bardot, Jessica Lange, Vivien Liegh, et al—not aging well. Depressing and creepy. At my age, give me the myth any time.

Daily Whip Out: "Steaming Horses"

Daily Whip Out:

"The Night Is Cold But She Is Hot to Trot"

And here's where I got that hat from.

Jicarilla Apache holds Billy's Hat

"There's no 'I' in team, but there are three in narcissistic."

—Wonderful Russ

The BtK Class of 2021 Just Keeps Getting Better

 June 3, 2021

   Here's a metaphor I can hang my hat on: as a part-time substitute teacher in a class full of renegade ruffians, I am proud to say this year's BtK Class of 2021 has made us all proud. In addition to yesterday's accolades, here are a few more that just came in.

Daily Whip Out:

"Bandido In The Green Hatband"

Tom Blyth In The Tunstall Store

The BtK Class of 2021

  This just in: in addition to the fine scholars I mentioned yesterday, we just received word on the day True West magazine goes to press, that Tom Blyth, above, has been tapped to play the Kid in a new eight part Epix-MGM series being written and produced by Michael Hirst (Elizabeth, The Tudors, Vikings). Filming begins in Calgary this June and the series is set to air in 2022. Photo of Blyth in the Tunstall Store in Lincoln, New Mexico on May 27, by Tiffanie Owen.

The Kid In The Bright Green Irish Hatband

   This also just in: A big thanks to researcher James Townsend, who forwarded us this newspaper clipping from the Ruidoso News, from August 1, 1952, which states that this is a reprint from an 1881 article in the Lincoln County Leader:

from the Lincoln County Reader:
"The Kid in the broad brimmed sombrero
with the bright green Irish hat band"

   Well, I guess that settles THAT!

"The more we find out, the less we know for sure."

—Old Vaquero Saying

History For Those Who Care

 June 2, 2021

   Home stretch on the July-August issue, with a couple big, fat features on this guy.

Daily Whip Out: "The Prince of La Placita"

   As you will soon find out in this issue (and in a forthcoming book), the Kid was very popular with the locals, especially when it came to the ladies.

Daily Whip Out Studies:

"Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow"

   Here are my rough notes for To The Point:

Here's Looking at You, Kid

The Class of 2021 has turned in their research and—Boy Howdy—there are some eyebrow raisers in here.

   You might be surprised how many times I have been accosted by members of the general public, who ask me if we don't run out of things to write about in True West magazine. Their naive assumption is that history is a solid mass of facts and dates, and once it has been written down, printed and read once, what else is there to talk about?

   My standard answer is that nothing changes more than the past, which usually gets a mild chortle, but I can see in their eyes the not-so-subtle rebuke. They really don't believe it, and more importantly, they don't care. 

   Our next issue is for those who do care. 

   When I was first diving deep into all the Billy the Kid scholarship back in the last century—doesn't that sound ridiculous?—much heavy lifting had already been done by my go-to-researchers, Philip J. Rasch, Nora True Henn, William A. Kelleher and Frederick Nolan. Even then folks thought there was little more to find out.

Daily Whip Out: "Billy From The Side"

   Now, here we are, more than a half century beyond that scholarship and intriguing new finds are still being dug up, sometimes by scholars half a world away. James B. Mills, 37, of Australia, found a long lost interview with the Kid in the Santa Fe jail, which we featured last year in the magazine. Well, turns out he wasn't finished. In this issue my favorite Little Aussie Bastard gives us a new look at the bandit boy and the Mescaleros. Thanks to Lincoln historian, Lynda Sanchez and others, he has much new scholarship on the subject and tells a great story. His forthcoming book, "Billy the Kid: Bandito Sympatico" is highly anticipated.

   Chuck Usmar has uncovered not only the possible New York connection to Billy and his mother but also of Jimmy Dolan being in the same Five Points area. 

   Roy Young and Kurt House are hot on the trail of Frank Stewart and his Texas Panhandle cowboys who chased the Kid in the winter of 1880. Kurt House became interested after acquiring one of a pair of revolvers presented to posse co-leader Frank Stewart. Joining forces with Roy Young the two found his never before told story and also dug out the incredible nugget that Frank Stewart was an alias! It will all be in their book, which is at the printer as you read this.

Kurt House and the late, great Leon Metz

(holding John Wesley Hardin's pistol)

In 1994 Gary Jones was on a research trip looking for information about his Great Aunt Maria who was married to J. J. Dolan and later to Emil Fritz. Stopping across from the mill at Ruidoso he entered a building and met an author sitting at a table (what are the odds?). He started chatting with this pushy author and ended up buying a signed copy of "The Illustrated Life & Times of Billy the Kid" for his daughter Susan Stevenson. After reading it, they decided that they were going to find Billy the Kid's father and set out on a quest that continues to this day. Susan and her father have also uncovered a census bombshell with one Henry McCarty showing up in Prescott at the same time Johnny Behan was there. Crazy, exciting, new stuff.

Daily Whip Out:

"Billy Lit Up And Dangerous"

   Strap yourself in, this is going to be a rocket sled ride of new research on the history we love!

"When the old ways connect to the new in an honest and bold way, sparks will fly."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Round Two: Robert Bell Is Deserving of The Dean List Mention

  June 1, 2021

   I have a crackerjack researcher named Gay Mathis. I have never met her but she has found so many long lost items for me it's not even funny. For example, when I was doing my memoir book, "The 66 Kid" (2014), nobody in Kingman had a photograph of our eighth grade teacher, Mr. Paul Lomasney—not the museum, not the Mohave County Historical Society, not the school, not the newspaper. So Gay went deep on the web and found a photo of him from the Las Vegas, New Mexico school where he graduated. Amazing. So, I sicced Gay on the Dean's List mystery and she couldn't find the actual Mohave County Miner newspaper clipping of me making the Dean's List (they haven't put the 1960s online, yet), but she did find this listing in the Tucson Daily Star that listed all the Dean's List Fine Arts students from the year in question (1966), including Robert M. Bell of Kingman! I'm Robert A. Bell, so they got his name right but gave him my hometown. Oh, the humanity!

Robert M. Bell Is A Good Student!

   Here's a question: how many of these stellar students listed in the article ended up with a career in art? In the eighties, I reconnected with some of my old classmates at the U of A Arts College, and one of them told me only two of us were actually still in the art game. Everyone else gave up and got a life. Not me. I have always relished being the weirdo kid from Kingman who didn't have the sense to give up. The one who made the Dean's List in the weirdest way. Some might say I didn't deserve it, but I agree with Jack.

"I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either."

—Jack Benny

Future Researchers Beware: Me Making The Dean's List Is A Bad Joke

 May 31, 2021

   Still struggling with Covid symptoms. Yes it's been six weeks and according to the CDC they could last for three months, or more. Still, mighty glad I got the vaccine or I would probably be in some ER on a ventilator (if I was lucky). Here are the stats, so far. The State of Arizona has given out five million doses of the vaccine to three million people and 1,009  of us got "breakthrough" Covid, meaning we showed postivive after the shots. Fifty-eight percent of us who are breakthrough got the Pfizer vaccine. Do I regret not getting Moderna (32%) or Johnson & Johnson (10%)? A little, but it is what it is. Thanks to Lauren Kormylo, I am on a high dose regimen of vitamins, in the hopes of kicking this nasty bug out of my system, sooner than later. I'll let you know if it works.

Daily Whip Out:

"Here's Smirking at You Kid"

A Warning to Future Researchers

   Imagine some future twit researcher (sorry for being redundant) digging up a news item that undercuts and "disproves" my longstanding self-deprecation about being a terrible student. Imagine if this researcher found a news item where it was reported I had made the Dean's List at the University of Arizona and how proud everyone was of me.

   Okay, here's the punchline: the news item is real, how it got printed, in the Mohave County Miner, is a bit of a bad joke.

   When I was registering as a freshman at the U of A in 1965, there was a form to fill out (this is pre-computer) giving the University the name of our hometown newspaper. When classes began, I met another art student in a drawing class with the same name as mine, Robert Bell. We laughed when the teacher called roll and we ended up talking after class. The difference between us was he had just returned from a stint in the army and he was dead serious about being a good student and, here's the ironic part: he was a prolific sketchbook producer and I couldn't believe he was actually drawing outside of class because I never did.  Anyway, we both got As in the drawing class but I was failing almost everything else (I ended up flunking Art History multiple times). Fast forward to the end of the semester and when I went home to Kingman for the holidays, my mother was beaming because the Mohave County Miner had just printed an article about how I had made the Dean's List and how proud everyone in Mohave County was of me. I told my mother this was a dreadful mistake and I had a hunch I knew how it happened, but it never stopped my mother from showing off the news clipping. When I confronted her on it, she said, "You're talented, it could have happened." Yes, Mom, if I had studied, but I didn't!

   My theory is that the Dean's office had a secretary, or two, who went through those forms we filled out giving our hometown newspaper and then they matched the paper to the students on the Dean's List. When the secretary got to the first Robert Bell, she just assumed that was the correct student (we were both in the Art College) and contacted our newspaper. When I later saw the other Robert Bell on campus I told him what had happened and he laughed, because, unlike me, he actually did make the Dean's List. I asked him if his hometown newspaper ever gave him credit and he said they didn't. The final irony is that I do believe I was inspired by his prolific sketchbook work and subconsciously wanted to emulate him. So, thanks Robert Bell, for the lifetime sketchbook dedication!

   Anyway, here's my, ahem, educated guess at the outcome of the future researcher's gleeful reporting:

That Lying Sack of Sugar, Bob Boze Bell

   For those who have had to suffer from the late Bob Boze Bell's incessant and narcissist ramblings about how self-made he was and what a terrible student he was, take heart that the Duke of Dust and the King of Hyperbole was also a blatant liar. Lo and behold, in the online archives of his own hometown newspaper, The Mohave County Miner there exists a news item that undercuts his incessant false claims of being an awful student. Turns out he was merely an awful liar.

   Or, something like that. Whenever I read a "gotcha" news item I always think of this little twist of misinformation and a small measure of sympathy goes out to the hapless vicitms.

Daily Whip Out: "The Kid From The Side"

(who knew a thing or two about newspapers

being full of it.)

"Not everything you read in the newspaper is true."

—Every person who has ever been misquoted in a newspaper