Thanks to Apple, (No, not THAT Apple!) Jo Jo Got Back to Tucson, Arizona

 December 19, 2021

   I have some damn zany friends and this is one of them.

Greg Scott of Nogales, Arizona fame

with his Jo Jo Got Back to Tucson, Arizona tie

    Greg explains: "In 1991 the Apple Corps sold some Beatles merchandise including this classic cravat. Get back indeed Jo Jo. In 1969 I too first heard that song on the radio as I was driving a delivery truck for a carpet and flooring store in Tucson. It was damn good then and remains one of my favorites. Extra bonus points to Ringo for excellent drum work on this song. Again, Feliz Navidad."

   And, here is the Jo Jo Got Back to Tucson, Arizona tie, up close.

Apple Sweet!

   My favorite irony story is when Apple, the future computer company, approached Apple, the Beatles' upstart company, and asked to use the name. The Beatles ultimately agreed to share the name, but on the condition that they never sell music. The computer guys agreed immediately. Why would we ever have any need to get into the music business? 

   Now, that's ironic.

   The Seattle crowd wanted to go to the cave yesterday, so we took off around two. As we made our way across the burned landscape I realized we haven't been over there since the fire. Deena got this shot of Uno and I cavassing the devastation.

Burned Out Cave Creekers

   Still seeking the glowing eye effect for our Mickey Free project. Sometimes, less is more. Case in point:

Daily Whip Out: "Ojo de Loco #4"

      Still, a bit strong but I'll eventually get Ol' Crazy Eye. Dig the blue shining diamonds. A happy accident, or, a belated birthday present for an old, blind dog still seeking the random acorn.

"We have two lives and the second one starts when we realize we only have one."

—Old Vaquero Saying

"

Frost On The Ground Fire In The Sky And The Snuggle Buddies

 December 18, 2021

   Yesterday, we woke up to frost on the ground and fire in the sky.

Sunrise over Ratcliff Ridge 

   Nippy out! Time for a fire in my studio stove.

A small, restless crowd from Seattle landed here last night. Here is one of them, this morning, in bed with Uno.

The "Snuggle Buddies"

That they are. Having fun with the budding artist. He wants to make a comic book based on a character called "Dr. McFarty." I told him he needs to run that title by his mother, but I guess there is little doubt where those genes came from.

  Here's a True West cover waiting to happen.

Iron White Man

   Ironic name, no?

Meanwhile, great advice from one of the greats:

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

—Michael Jordan

The Man Who Invented The Butch And Sundance We Love

December 16, 2021

   I did a Facebook Live history talk last night and in the heat of the moment, I left out a couple of important details. If you missed it, here is the basic story and the missing tidbits.

The last known photograph of Butch

(mounted on left) and Sundance

(attending to his mule, middle)

The Real Ending And The Spectacular Beginning of The Legend of Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid

Note the Q-in-cirle brand on the neck of

Butch's stolen mule, at left

    In the real ending, two heavily armed "Americanos on jaded mules" arrived in the high mountain village of San Vicente, Bolivia on the evening of November 6, 1908 and asked for an inn. A village official, Cleto Bellot, tells them there is no inn, but that Bonifacio Casaola can put them up and sell them fodder for their mules.  They ask about the road to Santa Catalina, an Argentine town just across the border and also about the road to Uyuni (The Santa Catalina question was probably a ruse to throw off pursuing posses and we now know the road to Uyuni was their real destination.) After the road conditions talk, the two Americanos ask for sardines and beer, which Casasola obtains for them. 

Smart dinner choice: sardines & beer

Butch & Sundance's last meal on earth

   After some small talk Bellot leaves and goes to the home of Manuel Barran, where a four-man posse from Uyuni just happens to be staying. They rode in that same afternoon, warning Bellot and the locals to be on the lookout for two Yankees with a stolen mule belonging to the Aramayo Mining Company. 

A photograph of the room the outlaws

rented, taken at a later date.

 The Aramayo payroll had been robbed at Dead Cow Hill off to the south near Tupiza. The captain of the posse was not there when Bellot arrived but the other three posse members loaded their rifles and accompanied Bellot back to Casasola's home and entered the patio. 

One of the Americanos (believed to be Sundance) appears in the doorway, draws a pistol and fires, hitting the lead posseman, Victor Torres, in the neck. Torres gets off a shot with his rifle, then runs back out into the street and collapses at a nearby house, dying within minutes.

   The other two possemen take cover, then return fire, with several volleys piercing into the front door.

   By the time the posse leader, Captain Concha, arrives, it's dark, and he orders Bellot to go find locals who can watch the roof and the back of the house so the bandits can't escape. As Bellot rushes to gather the locals, he hears "three screams of desperation" coming from the room.

   Surrounding the small house, the posse and the locals wait but it is very quiet. Minutes turn into hours and the guards remain at their posts throughout the bitterly cold and windy night.

   In the morning the possemen warily approach the door and peer inside. Both outlaws are dead. One of them is sprawled on the floor with a bullet wound in the arm and the temple. And the other bandit sits on a bench behind a large ceramic jar. He has a bullet wound in the forehead and is shot several times in the arm. It is surmised that Butch shot Sundance in the head and then turned the gun on himself.

   So, that's most likely how it ended for Butch & Sundance. Of course, not everyone buys this version and more than a few believe Butch—and even Sundance—survived and came back from South America to the United States and lived to be old men. The strongest evidence they did not survive comes from one of their old Wild Bunch gang members, Matt Warner, who scribbled a note to historian Charles Kelly, in 1937: "Forget all the reports on Butch Cassidy, they are fake. There is no such man living as Butch Cassidy. His real name was Robert Parker, born and raised in Circle Valley, Utah and killed in South America, he and a man by the name of Longwow [sic] were killed in a soldier post there [sic] in a gun fight. This is straight."

 After a flurry of news reports the two were forgotten, and except for a few regional Wild Bunch buffs like myself, and ten people who live in Wyoming, it was game over. 

   One person rescued them from anonymity.

  He was a witty writer with a great sense of humor. His pseudonym when he wrote "No Way to Treat A Lady" in 1964, a comic thriller that was later to become a film, was Harry Longbaugh (The Sundance Kid's actual name). The writer's real name was William Goldman.

William Goldman who famously said

of Hollywood: "Nobody knows anything."

Goldman's screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid sold for the then-record sum of $400,000 (some $3 million in today's dollars) and won Goldman an Oscar in 1970 for best original screenplay.

Classic Goldman Lines from Butch & Sundance

•"What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful.

Guard: "People kept robbing it."

"That's a small price to pay for beauty.”

• "Think ya' used enough dynamite there, Butch?"

Although the Wilcox Train Robbery was

pulled off by members of the Wild Bunch,

Butch Cassidy probably did not

participate in the heist.

• "Kid, there's something I ought to tell you. I never shot anybody before."

• "Boy, I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals."

• "If he'd just pay me what he's spending to make me stop robbing him, I'd stop robbing him."

   In the end, facts lined up do not necessarily give us the truth about the outlaws. On the other hand, the ending of the film gives us a poetic and inspiring way to think about death (they went out shooting). 

   Richard Avedon said, "There is no history. There is no truth. There is only the way the story is told."

Butch & Sundance In The Movie

They went out shooting, at least to the freezeframe

   Granted, the three Yuini soldiers became 300 in the movie, and, in the movie, the wounded outlaws had time to wax about a new start and get in a joke about LaFors, and then run out, straight in to a freeze frame, skipping the gorefest that Bonnie & Clyde portrayed in tortured slow-motion. Is it historically innacurate? Of course, but even in the exaggerations there are moments of poetry that connect all of us to a higher truth.

   Thank you William Goldman for a creative and entertaining look at two criminals and their demise in a new way. Like you warned us: 

"Not that it matters but most of this is true."

—William Goldman

Finally, The Probable Genesis of The Tucson, Arizona Lyric In "Get Back"

 December 15, 2021

   Big storm blew in last night and scattered all the newspapers stacked in the breezeway willy nilly and out through the front gate. Knocked over a flower pot. Three chairs ended up in the pool. Knocked down the patio clock. That kind of storm. Even rained.

   In the spring of 1969 I was coming out the front door of the University of Arizona Art Building when a fellow drawing student told me she heard a new Beatles song on KTKT and the first lines mentioned the Old Pueblo prominently. Wow! Really? I wondered why the Beatles would know about Tucson, of all places? The word quickly spread around campus that Linda Eastman had been an art student at the U of A a couple years prior (1962-63-ish). 

   Later, of course, Linda married Paul McCartney and they bought a ranch out on east Tanque Verde, and both were seen all around the Old Pueblo, but I always assumed she was the connection to the song lyric, "Jo Jo left his home in Tucson, Arizona, crossin' California grass. . ."

The Real Genesis of The Tucson, Arizona Lyric

   I have been watching the opus "Get Back" on Disney+ and it is enlightening, painful, beautiful, petty and tragic. For starters I can't believe how young they were, with John, the oldest at 28! Because Peter Jackson put back in so many jams and details we get to see, in sometimes painful detail, over several days, how Paul's classic ditty "Get Back" comes to fruition. One mind blower is the song started to go off into a protest song to make a statement about all the anti-immigration demonstrations in England. At one point, Paul scats something like, "Rami Estalami was a Pakistani but he knew it couldn't last. . ." and, of course, this gives the chorus, "Get back to where you once belonged," a whole different meaning. Eventually, Paul moves away from that and kind of wants something more "Western" and he adds "Arizona," to the end of the stanza, but it needs a syllable before it and then he throws in "Tucson, Arizona," and we see and hear this exchange, with John asking the question:

And, then, the answer. . .

  In addition to Yoko, above, Linda Eastman is also in the sessions and we learn that she is PG and she and Paul are planning on getting married. I wonder if they were watching the telly and she told him, "You know this TV show we're watching is filmed in Tucson. I went to art school there and we should visit some time and buy a ranch"?

"Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman But she was another man. All the girls around her say she's got it coming. But she gets it while she can."

—The Beatles "Get Back"

All's Grateful On The Western Front

 December 13, 2021

   Went for a nice walk up to Morning Star and back yesterday morning. When I got back to the Triple B Ranch I took this shot of the True West Employee of The Month. That would be Mr. Unocito. He's pretty happy about it. But then he's almost always happy when he's sitting on his backside. Come to think of it, so am I.

The True West Employee of the Month

   One of the past winners of this prestigious award is someone I often used as a model for my drawings when she was growing up.

Teen Angst Model Extraordinaire 

Deena C. Bell

   This is the same daughter who recently gifted me the "The 6-Minute Diary." I was skeptical when it arrived in the mail (seemed a tad precious), but since I gave it a chance I have to say I've let go of a ton of negativity. I highly recommend it for anyone who sometimes feels crippled by negative thoughts, like I do. Basically, the theory goes like this: we are wired to be negative and it's a survival deal and goes all the way back to the Plains of Serengeti. "Don't eat that mushroom ever again you flippin' idiot!' "Quit trying to jump that chasm! Don't be a fool! You'll break your neck!" But these days, those negative comments, which helped us survive, can swamp us and make us lose sight of the things we are grateful for.

"Your brain has a negative bias, which makes it like Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good."

—Rick Hanson

 Essentially the "Diary" takes three minutes in the morning (list three things you are grateful for) and three things at night (What are you thankful for that happened today?). It is nothing more than life changing. Here's a sample:

All's Grateful On The Western Front

"You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret is found in your daily routine."

—John C. Maxwell, as quoted on the first page of the 14th edition of "The 6-Minute Diary"

Daily Whip Out: "Free Is Coming!"

   And here's the best quote in the whole shebang:

"It is not the happy people who are grateful. It is the grateful people who are happy."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Back When I Could See The Future: "Let's Drive Out to Bethany Home Road and Neck."

 December 12, 2021

   I am proud to say, when I was younger I could see the future quite clearly. Take this doubletruck I did way back in the 1980s:

The Phoenix New Times Weekly, page 1.

The Phoenix New Times Weekly, page 2.

   Virtually everything listed came true. Not to brag, but this also came true.

Early Seventies Daily Whip Out:

"Heel and Toe, Doseedo, Honkytonk Sue

Goes Boot Scootin' Boogie"

   Going even farther back, I created a comic strip for The Razz called "The Doperoper" in 1972. And in the loosy goosey storyline, I spun out a modern day Western that deals with cowboys, hippies and reservation politics, like this:

The Doperoper in The Battle for Crazycrack

   I had the right idea: horsetrailers and honkytonks pitted against the modern world, but it took some time and it took a very creative writer to use those same ingredients and make it all work. And, that would be this guy.

Taylor Sheridan

   So damn jealous. Yellowstone rocks.

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Uno, The Great Western Returns Along With Glenn Burns Hotdog Reporter

 December 11, 2021

  So we bought ourselves a Christmas gate to point at the cave and we took Uno along for the buying trip. We stopped at Retalbo in Cave Creek and bought a very nice Spanish iron gate which took up the entire back of the Flex. So Uno was forced to sit in the front with Kathy and as you can see, he kind of digs it.

I could get used to this.

   Found an old unfinished Whip Out and decided to finish it.

"The Great Western"

Sarah A. Bowman was an Irish Innkeeper and pistol packin' mama. Over six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds, the red-haired beauty was compared favorably to the mighty steam ship "The Great Western" and the nickname stuck. There are no known photos. Man, does she need a graphic novel, or what?

Speaking of which, Vince Murray has been taking a graphic novel course at Yavapai Community College and he asked me if it was cool to dust off the Mickey Free story that The Top Secret Writer and I dreamed up and, after checking with Paul Hutton, I told him it was cool. So as we were noodling the new story, Vince and I stumbled upon a name for the hotdog Tucson Citizen reporter who interviews James Young in 1930 to get the "true" story of Mickey Free.

Daily Whip Out:

"Glenn Burns, Hotdog Reporter"

   Yes, I totally dig the Open Road Stetson, which is currently making a comback with young hipsters. In our new and revised version of the story, Glenn Burns takes the first person account of James Young and turns it into a best seller. Any comparison to Walter Noble Burns is absolutely, without question, sort of true.

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want published: everything else is public relations."

—George Orwell

The Scenes From Tombstone That Were Left Behind

 December 9, 2021

   Thanks to our alert readers we often get front row attention at far flung newsstands. However, according to John Langellier, this is how he found the rack at his fave book store:

Barnes & Noble, Tucson, Arizona

   Wow! Look at that cover jump right out of there. Thank you John for recording this wonderful event and thank you Dan The Man for the striking cover.

   Speaking of showcasing, we are putting the finishing touches on the 140th Anniversary of the O.K. Corral video we shot last October 26. When the time is right I'm going to give a sneak peek at the finished product right here, just for you. The videographer had total access to all of my old family film, including 16mm color film of my cowboy kin, taken in 1939, and it really makes the video sit up and say howdy.

   And, speaking of Kevin Jarre and the incredible script he wrote, here's what happened to all the scenes he shot before being fired.

Daily Whip Out: "When The Dust Settles"

The Missing Scenes

"Many of the scenes in Kevin's script were filmed but not used including the sequence when Wyatt heads off to retrieve his stolen horses. He came across McMasters on the outside of the Cowboy camp, sitting on the side of the trail, playing with a bunch of puppies. They must have filmed a dozen takes of that scene with puppies running all over the place. Most of the lost scenes were included in my book. I even have about 8 hours of Kevin's footage; no surprise as to why it wasn't used."

—John Farkis, author of "The Making of Tombstone: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Modern Western

"You're a daisy if you do."

—Doc Holliday at the O.K. fight

When I get Started On My History Talks Sleeping Bags Are Recommended

December 8, 2021

   When I give my history talks I often warn the audience at the beginning: Half of what I'm about to tell you is the absolute truth. Your job is to figure out which half.

   Speaking of fibbing for a living, I am giving a talk this Friday in Wickenburg. It's being billed as Geronimo Stories but that is just the tip of the iceburg. We are going to have some fun with all the Arizona legends from Doc Holliday to Billy the Kid to Olive Oatman and Big Nose Kate and everyone in between. Could get deep, so I suggest waders. Friday, December 10 in the Learning Center at the Desert Caballeros Museum. Starts at 11 A.M.

   Sleeping bags recommended in case you don't have overnight accomodations.

   See you there. I am going to arrive early because I have to set up a bunch of stuff and schlepp in magazines from the Flex. I tell you, it's so damn sexy being a history speaker, it's not even funny. Well, maybe a little funny, because. . .

"If you are going to tell the truth, better make them laugh. Otherwise, they will kill you."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, or, variously ascribed to George Berhnard Shaw, Cecile Starr, Charles Ludlam, Richard Pryor, James L. Brooks and others, I kid you not.

The Jones Boys Reisited

 December 7, 2021

  Had my second fire of the season in my studio stove and when I went outside to get more wood I spied this fiery sunrise over Ratcliff Ridge.

Another ridiculous sunrise over Ratcliff Ridge

   My good friend Paul Northrop sent me this old 1949 article on the Jones boys.

The Jones Boys

   They were friends of Billy the Kid. And in the case of the youngest Jones boy, his mother sewed his eyelid back on after he fell (was pushed) into broken glass!

"My women understand me. They take one look and they know they can expect nothing."

—The Duke!, as quoted in "John Wayne Speaks: The Ultimate John Wayne Quote Book, by Mark Orwoll

When Young Is Old

 December 6, 2021

   Here's a little sneak peek into one of my current projects. Videographer Bill Watters is finishing up the editing of our opus 140th Anniversary of the O.K. Corral fight video. In my impromptu talk with the folks in the O.K. Corral Theater, I mentioned that Wyatt Earp was a pugilist. So, Bill asked me if I have any illustration to go with that coverage. So I took a scan of a black and white scratchboard I created for the Wyatt book (page 18) and did this to it.

Daily Whip Out: "Wyatt Was A Pugilist"

   Not bad. Meanwhile, on another front, I am busy sketching Jim Young, who, as an old man, told some mighty compelling windies.

Daily Whip Outs: "When Young Was Old"

   If you have ever wondered who helps me make True West magazine a stunning visual achievement month after month, it's these guys.

The Band of Graphic Brothers

Left to right: Dan The Man Harshberger, Robert Ray, Stuart Rosebrook and the guy who counts on them to make him look good.

The Legend of Clean Restrooms On Old Route 66

In the fifties, gas companies started advertising that they had clean restrooms. Phillips 66 posted this advertising photo, below, showing that they had women nurses who inspected all Phillip 66 service stations and awarded a certified clean restrooms sign if all was OK.

Courtesy of the Phillips 66 Gas page

My father ran a Phillips 66 service station on Route 66 and I can vouch for the effort to maintain clean restrooms, but I have to admit I never saw this nurse on the premises. One thing I did notice is that the women's restroom was always worse than the men's.

"There's a bathroom on the right."

—Creedence Clearwater Revivial's most misunderstood lyric ever. It's actually, "There's a bad moon on the rise."

Out Wickenburg Way

 December 5, 2021

   Heading out to Wickenburg next Friday for a talk at the Desert Caballeros Museum. It's being billed as Geronimo Stories but that is just the tip of the iceburg. We are going to have some fun with all the Arizona legends from Doc Holliday to Billy the Kid to Olive Oatman and Big Nose Kate and everyone in between. Could get deep, so I suggest waders. Friday, December 10 in the Learning Center at the Desert Caballeros Museum. Talk starts at 11 A.M.

Having some fun illustrating a Mickey Free story Vince Murray and I are cooking up for a graphic novel class he is taking at Yavapai Community College in Prescott. Here's a taste:

Daily Whip Out: "Action Sequence #1"

Daily Whip Out: "Action Sequence #2"

Daily Whip Out: "Lightning Rider"

   Tried to watch "The Power of The Dog" last night and I have to agree with Anthony Lane, who reviewed it for the New Yorker: "Do not be misled by the setting into construing this movie as a Western. It's more of a chamber piece with chaps." And the wrong chaps, to boot. I spotted two alleged "working cowboys" wearing Dale Evans style fringe shirts. The hats are a mixed bag—literally—with Phil wearing something "unique" and his brother (Jess Plemons) wearing an Open Road with the current style of an unshaped brim, which is somehow more accurate than the 1970s Resistol bull rider hat that several of the hands wear. And don't get me started on the heavy, Phil Burbank (Benedcit Cumberbach) playing a mean banjo. Yes, a banjo.

"The two emotions that mess us up the most are fear and anger. And you can't be grateful and fearful at the same time. And you can't be angry and grateful simultaneously."

—Tony Robbins

EL Ojo Loco And Bedtime for Uno

 November 30, 2021

   I don't know about you, but my dog likes a good story before he retires. He absolutely loves this new book co-written by my friend Jeff Mariotte. I call this photo. . .

Bedtime for Uno

The new book is "Blood and Gold: The Legend of Joaquin Murrieta" by Jeffrey J. Mariotte and Peter Murrieta. Fun reading. I highly recommend it.

  I love so many things in this photo and, frankly, that's why they are near my desk. At far left, is a photo of my parents on their wedding day in 1945 (they were married in Saint John's Methodist Church in Kingman which is the exact same location of Clark Gable's marriage to Carole Lombard in 1939). Next to the photo of my parents, is a coin jar half-full of silver dollars which Criag Schepp used to pay for a BBB painting with. Behind the jar is the temporary grave marker for the "Guest" children, which Sadie Pearl (Guess) Duncan gifted me when we replaced that temporary grave marker with an actual gravestone in 1991. The print is of a Mississippi river boat, The Helena, out of Harper's Weekly. Above the jar is an original BBB scratchboard of Wyatt Earp behind bars, and above that are the legs of Zapata and his horse, by Diego Rivera from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My reference library, behind me, includes my cartoon heroes on the top shelf (Dick Tracy, M.C. Escher and Steve Canyon, among others), the second shelf contains more eclectic stuff (R. Crumb Sketchbook, Hal Foster and Burne Hogarth's Tarzan), and the lower two shelves are dedicated to books on quotes, slang and dictionaries.

Daily Whip Out:

"In The Valley of Dust Devils"

Daily Whip Out:

"El Ojo de Loco, He Rode Straight Out

of A Dust Devil"

   And here are some roughs for a cover of Ojo de Loco. Or, should that be El Ojo Loco? Crazy Eye?

Daily Whip Out: "Free Roughs"

"Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs."

—Henry Ford

That Nattering Nabob Voice of Negativity Inside My Head

 November 28, 2021

   I have this negative voice in my head which at times can be completely immobilizing. Here are a few things my voice says to me:

And you call yourself an artist? Ha!

• You can't run a successful magazine.

• You have zero influence on anything or anybody.

• When someone Googles "Old Fool" your picture should be there.

• Most people are laughing at you, not with you. 

• You are a pathetic, show-off loser, from Kingman and when you die you'll be lucky if you are even remembered as the local, untalented, version of Soupy Sales.

My Negative Nay-Bob

   I could go on, but I won't because it's too damned embarrassing. Plus, if you think the examples, above, are vicious, you don't even know what "nattering nabobs of negativity" means.

"The press are nattering nabobs of negativity."

—Spiro T. Agnew 

   Turns out our negative voice is stronger than our positive voice because of survival mechanisms out on the Plains of Serengeti. The negative voice kept us alive. "Don't eat that. What are you thinking?!"

 A Daughter's Fine Gift 

   My daughter Deena, recently gifted me "The 6 Minute Diary" and the first part of the diary is an impressive collection of quotes and information about why it's so important to be grateful in a daily, systemic way.

   There are several studies cited in the book that are eye opening, but the one with the 180 nuns especially stands out for me. When these particular nuns entered the convent they were asked to write out a short (two or three page) autobiography of their life so far, and what they thought their lives would bring them in the future. This was in the 1930s and 1940s and they were  22-years-old, on average. Based on their negative and positive comments they were divided into four groups from the most negative to the most positive. The most incredible aspect of the study is that these subjects didn't smoke, they didn't drink alcohol, they didn't have sex, or kids, and they lived in the same building.

   Here are the amazing findings: the 45 most positive nuns lived an average of 10 years longer than the most negative. At the age of 85, more than 90% of the happiest nuns were still alive!  

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"Two Negative Nabobs"

   Wow! The message is clear. Be positive. Be thankful, be grateful. I will do the diary every day. And where can I look for inspiration?

Every day is Christmas Day to a dog.

Uno relishes the wind on his nose.

   Also, we all need to stop judging our insides by the outside of others. Some people "appear" to be in control of their lives, but inside they are just as haunted and cursed as we all are. 

   Athough it's fiction, here is a good example of someone heroic, but tortured inside, Captain Call:

"Sitting on the low bluff, watching the moon climb the dark sky, he felt the old sadness again. He felt, almost, that he didn’t belong with the very men he was leading, and that he ought to just leave: ride west, let the herd go, let Montana go, be done with the whole business of leading men. It was peculiar to seem so infallible in their eyes and yet feel so empty and sad when he thought of himself."

—Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove