The Wrong Side of History And Jumping On THE Batman Red & Black Bandwagon

 March 13, 2022

  How can you spot the new Batman from all those other Batmans that have come before? Because this one is THE Batman.

Now you know.

  Recently, when I was perusing Instagram looking for artistic inspiration to steal from I started noticing what appears to be a concerted red & black ad campaign for the new film, "The Batman." You know, like the red & black example, above. So, I am wondering. . .

Daily Whip Out: "THE Bob Dalton"

   Then, there's this old school movie marquee version of the poster for "The Batman."

   Hmmmm, I really like that warm, sepia, amber glow. I wonder if. . .

Daily Whip Out:

"The Daltons Ride Straight Into Hell"

   So, where exactly is the wrong side of history? I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but the wrong side of history is where you are sitting right now. If you live long enough you will unfortunately see many of the things you think are right and sacred, turned on their head. A half century ago, Custer was seen as a fallen hero with a monument to mark the spot of his brave passing. Today, his adversaries have the high ground and Custer is seen as a psychopathic, genocidal killer. In the 1950s version of the Alamo, 200-plus brave Americans fought against a ruthless dictator and a shrine is there to mark their sacrifice for freedom. Today, the Awakened view the Alamo defenders as a group of colonizing Americans who fought for the right to have slaves.

   I could go on but I think you can spot the parallels and shifts from top to bottom, from right to left, from up to down. It doesn't matter much which side you are on, or, what you are defending, because, if history has taught me anything it's that nothing changes more than the past.

   I'll leave it to a comedian to sum everything up.

"History is a history of crime. It's a history of people who were stronger beating up people who were weaker and it's always been that. It's deeply, deeply distasteful. But to pretend that one lot were worse than another—you do know the British have been slaves twice, right?"

—John Cleese, going into the teeth of cancel culture reminding the audience in Austin last Friday that the Romans ran roughshod over the English for 400 years, and then the Normans, according to Cleese, did the same for about 30 years. Cleese quipped he wants reparations from Italy. The crowd gasped and the news reports hinted at Cleese being "unmoored." Tell that to the Spanish who were "Moored" for 800 years until they shook off their suppressors, and went on their own multi-century, rampaging, colonization of the Americas.

   I know, I know, this is all way too heavy. That's why I think it's time for a little levity. Here is a cover concept, Stuart, Dan The Man and I are pushing for the fall.

Little Miss Grumpy Head

Is Not Amused

   I don't know about you, but isn't it a tiny bit hilarious that everyone is so unhumorous at this moment in history. I will say this: lighten up everybody, if history is any guide, it's only going to get worse.

"The only thing new in this world is the history you don't know."

—Harry S. Truman

Gas Station Legends & The Daltons' Last Raid

 March 11, 2022

   One of my old radio compadres, Bill Andres, asked me to retell the incident at Al Bell's Flying A, when a Vegas gambler pulled a knife on my dad. This originally ran in my New Times Weekly cartoon collection, called "Low Blows."

   This Vegas dude was in a shiny, black, late model T-Bird and, according to my dad, he had even shinier pants. The gambler told my dad to fill it up and then he traipsed off to the bathroom while my dad put the nozzle on automatic and started washing his windshield. When the gambler came back, he became quite irritated that the automatic nozzle had shut off a tad late and there was a puddle of gas on the driveway. He insisted to my dad that it was a gallon of gas and to take if off his bill. My father tried to tell the gambler it wasn't a gallon of gas, and when my father refused to remove a gallon from his bill, the guy pulled a knife, put it against my father's throat and demanded a gallon of gas be taken off his bill, pronto! My father calmly pointed the nozzle straight out, pulled the trigger and ran out a gallon of gas on the driveway. Then he said, "That's a gallon of gas and you're paying for that one too."

   Full disclosure: my father told me the guy still wouldn't pay, so my dad called the cops and waited in the lube room for them to show up. When they came, the Vegas guy put up quite a fuss but the policemen, both friends of my dad, made him pay. Sometimes it pays to live in a small town.

   Speaking of small town hoods who didn't know when to quit.

Daily Whip Out: "Daltons In Dust"

   The headlines of their disastrous raid on their hometown banks came fast and furious. This is the local newspaper the day after the failed robberies.

Broad Ax, Coffeyville, Kansas newspaper,

October 6, 1892

   Interesting that the term "bite the dust" was already in play. I would have thought it was a later, Twentieth Century, addition to Western venacular.

"Die game."

—Bob Dalton's alleged last words to his younger brother Emmett

The Loser Now Will Later to Win

 March 11, 2022

    When you live long enough, like I have, you begin to see more clearly how the wheel turns. What was once down, is now up, what was out, is now in. Sound familiar?

   Thomas Edison with his first electric car

1895.

    Gee, someone said this better. Hmmmm. . .

"Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen and keep your eyes wide the chance won't come again. And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin and there's no tellin' who that it's namin'. For the loser now will be later to win for the times they are a-changin'."

—Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin'

Honkytonk Sue's Grannie?

 March 10, 2022

When I created the cartoon character Honkytonk Sue back in 1977 I was inspired by the old 1920s rodeo cowgirls. Here's someone who perhaps inspired them.

Nan Gable

This is Nan Gable who allegedly rode a horse from San Francisco to New York, in 1910-11, on a bet with Buffalo Bill Cody. So, if you ask me, this is Honkytonk Sue's grandmother.

Honkytonk Sue, circa 1999

   I found this Mexican vaqueros photograph way back in 1992 and ran it in my very first "The Illustrated Life & Times of Billy the Kid" to illustrate the hispanic side of New Mexico during the Lincoln County War.

   On the back it says, "Florencio Sotomayor Hijo de Jesus y Guadalupe Sotomayor Nacio 1868 murio 2-15-1915." Yes, it probably dates to around 1900 but I still dig the image.

   I'm still not happy with the Dalton cover image. Dan The Man's cover design is superb, but I want the lead rider to be a little more menacing and a tad more historically accurate to 1892.

Daily Whip Out:

"Bob Dalton's Fake Whiskers Fooled No One"

   I finally broke down and bought the controversial book, "The 1619 Project." I wanted to see what it really said, as opposed to all the lightning rod reaction to it. Here is my take so far:

• It's true we all suffer for the poor history we have been taught.

• We are a nation of defining contradictions.

• How do you explain an unflinching, bitter past to a polarized present? I'm not sure you can.

• As with most aspects of history, you can make a valid interpretation on both sides of most issues.

• Nations keep their shape by shaping their citizen's understanding of the past.

• Like all origin stories, we seek to explain our society to ourselves in order to give it some order and understanding. Good luck with that.

• Our preference for nostalgia and for a history that never happened is not without consequence.

• Most of us are guilty of a "glorious forgetting."

• "White Americans desire to be free of a past they do not want to remember, while Black Americans remain bound to a past they can never forget."

• If we are a truly great nation, the truth cannot destroy us.

   So much for the preface. I'll keep you posted on the rest of the book.

"The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Driveway Dingers Dinging And Gold In Our Gas

 March 9, 2022

   When people complain about the high price of gas—like today—it always takes me back to my dad's gas stations on old Route 66. Al Bell ran numerous stations along that famous roadway, including Mobilgas, Whiting Brothers, Flying A, Phillips 66 and Shell to mention just about all of the brands of gas he sold. And, in all those places, almost every customer complained about the price of gas.

Al Bell's Mobilgas station

in Peach Springs, AZ

Classic fifties Texaco service station.

I can almost hear the driveway dingers dinging. You can trust your car to the man who wears the star, indeed.

Classic Fifties Shell service station

   Whiting Brothers in northern Arizona sold regular gas at 19.9 in the fifties and even up into the early sixties. Meanwhile, every car that came into my dad's Flying A in Kingman had the same question.

Al Bell's Flying A, on Hilltop

   Our regular was 35.9. And invariably, every gas buyer who got out of his car said the same line: "You got GOLD in your gas?!" They always thought they were being so clever, and they all said the same line. It was uncanny. If I hadn't lived it I wouldn't believe it, but it's true. Perhaps proof that we're all not that creative.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, we do have gold in our gas. Good luck making it to California."

—A line I wanted to say, but never did

The Daltons Will Not Die, Part VI

 March 8, 2022

   Big Pow Wow today on a Slack Call (cousin to Zoom) about our cover concepts for the Daltons Debacle. Short version, Dan The Man has done more than a dozen versions of this cover, but it is felt we need to tweak it just a tad more. I am taking another run at the main painting and we'll have results by tomorrow.

The Kimo Shell

   This is a classic Kingman service station-cafe when I was growing up. The cafe—aren't those windows just the coolest?—was called the Kimo Cafe and I had my 14th birthday party there, thanks to my mother.

The Kimo Shell

   It was built in 1940, I believe when this photo was taken. Today, it's known as Mr. D's, as in Scott Dunton, a classmate of mine, who refurbished the place to its former glory after years in decline.

   Meanwhile. . .

   Our homage to "1883" giving the true history behind the hit show is starting to land in subscriber's mailboxes. Got this note from a friend.

"I loved Elsa's hat also. I had this conversation with my friend who worked as a wrangler on the show. He said that hat was old! We think it could even be Jake Spoon's hat!"

—David Carrico

   Speaking of legends, next up on my YouTube video chats is this guy:

"Pretty near all these stories are true."

—James Butler Hickok

Once Upon A Time, In The Land of Leaden Skies

 March 7, 2022

   Cleaning up the Daltons package even as you read this. Still lots to design and storyboard, but that is the fun part. Here's how the Eighth Street view of the Daltons riding in, came out:

Daily Whip Out: "Daltons Ride In Final"

   And here's Dan The Man's second pass on a cover idea.

Daily Cover Whip Out:

"In The Land of Leaden Skies"

   I'm still on the hunt for better storytelling techniques. As I have mentioned before, good storytelling is basically withholding information. I have searched high and low for storytellers to learn from, but I have to say, this old radio guy sure knew what he was doing when it came to withholding information.

The King of Withholding Information

   Here's the late, great, Paul Harvey setting up a couple of his famous Rest of The Story radio broadcasts.

"The speckles in the Pacific night sky were bombers. Nine twin-engine Japanese bombers, in formation, on course to their target: the aircraft carrier Lexington." [A Rest of The Story on how O'Hare Airport got its name! No, really!]

   "Once upon a time, in a land of leaden skies and creeping fogs and flat, barren countryside, there lived a boy. His name was Dietz Edzard. The place was Bremen, Germany." [The mysterious history of a famous painting.]

   "An oily midnight mist had settled on the city streets. . .asphalt mirrors from a ten-o'clock rain now past. . .a sleazy street-corner reflection of smog-smudged neon. . .the corner of Sheridan and, incongruously, Sunnyside. . .Chicago.

   "A lone lady lingers at the curb. . .but no bus will come." [A former nun who worked undercover as a decoy prostitute to arrest johns].

Information Successfully Withheld

   And if you were wondering just how a Japanese attack on an aircraft carrier in WWII led to the naming of O'Hare Airport, here you go:

   The namesake of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport never lived in Chicago—Edward H. "Butch" O'Hare—was born and raised in St. Louis. Butch's father,  Edgar Joseph "EJ" O'Hare, helped snag Al Capone, and Butch helped win World War II by downing five of the Japanese bombers all by himself, then ran out of ammunition and his comrades arrived to finish the job.

"And now you know. . .the REST of the story."

—Paul Harvey's signature sign off

Home Stretch On The Dusty Daltons Last Ride

 March 6, 2022

   Good day working with no distractions (Kathy is in Orlando partying with Frances and Deena at Disneyworld). Finished a couple Dalton pieces for our big cover story in May. I love that eyewitness quote about seeing the Daltons as they came into Coffeyville at a "swinging trot" and the dust enveloping them. I wanted to render this as a virtual tornado approaching.

Daily Whip Out:

"The Dusty Daltons Last Ride"

  

Daily Whip Out:

"Dusty Daltons Enveloped"

      And here's a more traditional approach:

Daily Whip Out: "Daltons Advance"

Why Do We Love Criminals So Much?

Oscar Wilde happened to be in St. Joseph a week after Jesse James' assassination and witnessed firsthand the mad clamor for relics of the outlaw at an auction of Jesse's household belongings. The Irish playwright observed that, "Americans are certainly great hero-worshippers, and always take their heroes from the criminal classes."

—Mark Lee Gardner

   This is true, of course, with one caveat:

Criminal Mischief In The Family Tree

   "A typical Westerner will punch you in the face if you call his father a crook, but he'll brag a little when he tells you his grandaddy was an outlaw."

—Ben Rux

   Guilty as charged. What is that?

"No one lies like family."

—Liz Scheier

Heroes Framed Against A Blood Red Sky

 March 5, 2022

   Still on the hunt for the Dalton Gang images we need for the May issue. Narrowing it down. Got two more to finish, then The Harsh will take it from there.

Daily Whip Out:

"The Dalton's Fake Whiskers Fooled Nobody"

   I'm rather interested in outlaw fame, as in, Arkansas Tom getting out of prison and going on the road with Bill Tilghman (think the endless Eagles' reunion tours) And, that leads me to this guy who cashed in pretty good. Here's Emmett Dalton signing a copy of his book, "When The Daltons Rode" (1931).

   And, Emmett cashing in on the Old West wasn't a one off. Here is a pretty amazing list from the same time period:

   "It's pretty incredible the vast number of true classics that came out of the late twenties and early thirties: The Saga of Billy the Kid (1926), Siringo's Riata and Spurs (1927), Russell's Trail's Plowed Under (1927), Standing Bear's My People the Sioux (1928), Hoyt's A Frontier Doctor (1929), Marquis' A Warrior Who Fought Custer (1931), Lake's Wyatt Earp (1931), When the Dalton's Rode (1931), Black Elk Speaks (1932); Vestal's Sitting Bull (1932), Coe's Frontier Fighter (1934), the novels and short stories of Eugene Manlove Rhodes -- the list goes on and on."

—Mark Lee Gardner

   So, why the rush and gush at that particular time?

“In a nation of frightened dullards, there’s always a sorry shortage of outlaws, and those few who make the grade are always welcome.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

   Thanks to my favorite Aussie Bastard, James B. Mills, for that one. Or, if you're in a tad more generous mood. . .

"Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say 'This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better.'"

—Studs Terkel

The Daltons Dusty Ride, Part II

 March 4, 2022

   Still rammin' and jammin' trying to find the dusty sweet spot for our Daltons vs. Coffeyville cover for May. Perhaps the most cogent editorial takeaway is this.

Daily Whip Out:

"The Fake Whiskers Fooled No One"

(unfinished)

   But, as I mentioned yesterday, our art director, Dan The Man, prefers something a little more legendary for the cover, and I also want to do the Eighth Street entrance quote with a little more background accuracy and do it justice as well. That would be this one.

"The five men rode boldly and at a swinging trot, raising a cloud of dust which literally enveloped them as they passed down Eighth Street."

—An Eyewitness Account, on October 5, 1892  

   So, perhaps something between the above, and what I've done before?

Daily Whip Out:

"The Daltons Swallowed Up In a Cloud of Dust"

(unfinished)

   Overproducing? Oh, yes, but frankly, I don't know how else to do it.

"In great narratives, there's always people that are left out."

—Kia Labeija

The Dalton Gang's Raid Ride In Three Acts

 March 3, 2022

   We have a Dalton Gang's Last Raid video that is going viral. The Triple B narration-fest is over 350,000 views and counting. 

The Dalton Gang's Boneheaded Raid

   The response has been brisk and epic and so we are going to revisit the topic in the next issue of True West magazine (May issue). Here are some roughs for the cover I am developing.

Daily Whip Out Cover Rough:

"The Daltons Ride In #1"

   I'm still trying to capture that amber glow that gives old photographs their magic mojo.

Daily Whip Out:

"The Dalton Gang Skulk Into Coffeyville With Heads Down and Sporting Fake Whiskers"

   Needs a better design. Or, maybe Dan The Man Harshberger is correct and we need the legend of the riders on the cover and then the hometown skulkers inside.

   Or, maybe this does the trick.

Daily Whip Out:

"Out of the Dust Rode The Daltons"

"The five men rode boldly and at a swinging trot, raising a cloud of dust which literally enveloped them as they passed down Eighth Street."

—An Eyewitness, on October 5, 1892   

The White Sock Tribe Where The Socks Match The Rocks

 March 1, 2022

   I realized today, there is no going back. Kathy asked me to make a pile of white laundry for her to put in the washing machine, so I grabbed all the whites from the laundry basket, when I realized it was 99% my socks.

White Sock Nation

   These guys are from my tribe and I'm always going to be a white sock guy. So sue me.

BBB at Zabriski Point

   When I was a teenager, old geezers from back east (mostly New Jersey) wore black socks with shorts and I used to laugh at them and I swore I would never be that guy. Today, fashion has reversed itself, and, tragically, only old guys now wear white socks with shorts, but it's too late for me. I just can't shake the stigma I learned as a young buck.

"Where the socks match the rocks."

—Deena Bean mocking the above photo of her father

Olive & Sharlot & Karen

 February 28, 2022

    It's Karen Johnson Collins' B-Day today. Happy Birthday to my very first girlfriend. She is still a very sweet thing.

Ingalls Onslaught

   One of the most bizarre shootouts in the history of the West happened in the tiny, outlaw town of Ingalls, Oklahoma Territory in 1893. Three wagon loads of federal Marshals (24 in all) went up against the Doolin-Dalton gang. That would be Bill Doolin and Bill Dalton. Other gang members present in the farming community included "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, "Arkansas Tom," "Dynamite Dick" all dead shots and all game. When the dust cleared, three lawmen were dead plus two civilians and the one who did most of the killing, not only survived prison, but got paroled, made a movie, went straight, then back on the outlaw trail, went to prison one more time and then was shot dead while babysitting. Like I said, this was a bizarre one. Watch for it on YouTube, soon.

Daily Whip Out Sketch:

"Dick Speed Takes Aim"

Truth & Consequences

The Olive Oatman & Sharlot Hall Story

In 1901 magazine journalist Sharlot Hall pursues the half-century old tale of Olive Oatman, a white captive of the Mojave Indians. But what begins as a routine assignment soon becomes a journey into a murky past, a search for a rumored truth, bringing Hall into contact with some famous Old West characters - legends in their own right - who help her follow an uncertain trail through the wild, unyielding desertlands of the California-Arizona border. Frustration, long held secrets, and deadly encounters mark her path as she learns to negotiate the slippery terrain between white and Native American versions of history. She discovers that “truth” is a relative term, laden with questions regarding Olive’s life as a captive, and her “rescue:” Was Olive a slave of the Mojave? Did she willingly return to civilization? At what cost? In the end, Olive herself delivers the truth—a harrowing confession—of choices made.

Daily Whip Out: "Sharlot In Clouds"

"The truth of it bears its own consequence. What you find makes you part of that consequence, and you have to live with that.”

This is the bravest comment I have heard in a very long time, proving once again that Courage—with a capital C—never goes out of style. The president of Ukraine is defiant in the face of Russian tanks. He has been on the streets of Kyiv, refuting rumors that he's fled. And, he has flatly refused a reported American offer of evacuation, by saying, simply:

"The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride."

—Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"Dang, that boy has Sand."

Joe Powskey Rocks A Flattop!

 February 26, 2022

  When I was growing up in Mohave County nobody— and I mean nobody—rocked a flattop like the Hualapais. One of the coolest of the cool with a rockin' flattop was Joe Powskey, a talented Hualapai artist as well. Joe passed on February 13, at age 74. This one is for him.

Daily Reworked Whip Out:

"Joe Powskey Rocks!"

  And, here's photographic proof of the superior flattop of Mr. Powskey.

Joe Powskey, class of '67

No disrespect, but you could land a plane on that carrier deck!

Old Vaquero Sayings Book Status

Going into serious production mode on the OVS book and I'm still noodling what the old vaquero might look like. For one thing, I'm pretty sure he has that Carranza style, white mustache and long van Dyke. You know, like this.

Daily Whip Out: "Old Vaquero #4"

This is an homage (or poach, depending on your idea of "borrowing") to the artist Gerald Cassidy (1869-1934) who did this kind of painting with ease and style.

"Originality is remembering what was said, but conveniently forgetting who said it."

—Old Vaquero Saying

The Night Man

 February 25, 2022

   Stories of the desert from a dead-serious trickster.

Daily Flashback Whip Out:

"The Night Man"

   He works the graveyard shift at a lonely gas station in the middle of nowhere. To him the deathly quiet is a godsend. Yes, he loves the solitude and the strange people who stop for gas—and other things—in the middle of the night. Towards dawn, he looks forward to the coming light, signaling the end of his shift.

Daily Whip Out: "Perfume Pass Surprise"

   On this particular night, he is in for the ride of his life.

Daily Whip Out: "Jugs Iced Free?"

   Or, is he?

"Ain't if funny how the night moves, when you just don't seem to have as much to lose."

—Bob Seger, "Night Moves"

Popular Historical Beliefs That Are Not True And Kind of Funny

 February 24, 2022

   I'm driving out to Apache Junction today to talk to the folks at the Superstition Mountain Museum. Here's just a sneak peek at one of the topics we will discuss.

Popular Historical Beliefs That Are Not True

   There are tons of these, but here is just one that tickles me.

   Popular Belief: People in the Old West did not smile in photographs because their teeth were bad.

An Early Smiler

   Actual Fact: People didn't smile in photographs as a rule because they were aiming for the dignified look you were supposed to put forward in those times. They were going for the somber, serious look inherited from portrait paintings of kings and queens and notables, going back hundreds of years. Smiling was considered innapropriate for posterity. All that said, there are, in fact, hundreds, if not thousands, of photos from the Old West era of people smiling (see above) and even sitters laughing. They obviously didn't care about propriety or posterity and I love them for it.

   Funny, yes?

"I'll give you something to smile about."

—Some Creepy Guy at TGI Fridays

True Lies: How Much of Our History Is Actually True?

 February 23, 2022

   Fancy meeting you here.

Daily Whip Out Reworked:

"Bowlegged Vaquero"

(from a 1920s photograph)

   If someone had asked me a year ago what are the chances that a wagon train story would make a hit show, I would have said, "Pa-leeze. The wagon train story is deader than a doornail. There hasn't been a successful story about a wagon train for more than half a century."

   Well, you can credit one man with reviving that tired old cliche (Pioneer Colonialism anyone?) back to life and that is this guy.

Taylor Sheridan as Charles Goonight

in "1883"

   It proves a couple things: the power of emotional writing, the enduring power of founding myths, to be sure, but mainly it proves Stephen King's bromide from, well, read on.

   Some time back I read that to be considered a serious historian you only have to get the past right 67% of the time. I'm not exactly sure of that number, but I remember is was much lower than I ever thought it would be. The point being that so much of history is distorted, disputed, or just plain unknowable that to even get the past right two thirds of the time, you are considered a bonafied historian.

    Here's a newspaper headline clipped from this week's paper: "City Bars Snow Workers Under 30 As Too Lazy." Are you secretly thrilled, like I was, because you think today's youth are lazier than we were growing up? Well, okay, full disclosure: the headline is from 1934. It's from the Headline In History archives of The New York Times. hIn the summation of the February 18, 1934 article, The New York City's Department of Sanitation reported they would only hire workers over thrity because "younger men loaf too much on the job." Turns out they are actually referring to our grandparents (actually closer to my father's age who was born in the twenties) who actually thought we were a pretty damn lazy generation. And crazier, to boot. 

   And so it goes. Every generation thinks they are smarter than the last and wiser than the next.

Daily Whip Out: "Old Vaquero #2"

   The other enemy of history is time. The more time goes by, the more stuff, gets lost, or destroyed or simply forgotten. Here's a good example:

‘We estimate that more than 90% of medieval manuscripts preserving chivalric and heroic narratives have been lost."

—Dr. Katarzyna Anna Kapitan, an Old Norse philologist and Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College, Oxford

   And, so it goes. Time erases all, especially the "truth." And, by that, it should be added, which truth?

"Sooner or later, everything old is new again.”

—Stephen King 

A Palindrome, An Ambigram And An Earthquake Interview Missed

 February 22, 2022

   Today is a palindrome AND an ambigram

   The date will read the same from left to right, from right to left AND upside down! Which is called an ambigram. Crazy.

   I have been studying good storytelling techniques and that search led me to this.

The Good-For-Nothing

   When you're a little boy and Dad calls you "good-for-nothing" it's just got to hurt.

   That's just what Guiseppe's Papa called him. . .good-for-nothing. Little Guiseppe good-for-nothing.

   And he wasn't joking!

   For papa came from a family. of fishermen. Three hundred years the men in his family had been fishermen in Sicily. And Papa himself was a fisherman.

   When he first came to America, he worked on the railroad until he'd saved enough money to send for his wife. Then he headed straight for San Francisco, to Fisherman's Wharf. . .to become a fisherman again. . .to perpetuate the family tradition.

   Eventually, Papa and Mama had nine children. And you can imagine that all of the boys got their sea legs early. . .began helping Papa out on his fishing boat from the time they learned to walk.

   All of them, that is, except Guiseppe.

   Guiseppe didn't want to.

   "What do you mean, you don't want to!" demanded Papa.

   Guiseppe explained that the rocking of the small boat and the smell of fish made him ill. It wasn't that he didn't want to help out; fish just didn't agree with him, that's all.

   That wasn't good enough for Papa. As far as Papa was concerned, Guiseppe was good for nothing. The boy had come from a long line of fishermen and there was no reason in the world for the profession to disagree with. him. Guiseppe was never too sick to go out and play with friends. Why, then, did it make him sick to help his Papa?

    Not why but what happened then is the rest of the story.

   Disturbed by his father's criticism, young Guiseppe tried very hard to adapt to the family business. The rocking of the boat and the smell of the fish still bothered him, so he turned to other tasks, such as sealing the boat and repairing the nets. But as hard as he'd try to remain unaffected, the fish smell was still in the gear and made his already sensitive stomach even more queasy.

   Guiseppe quit.

   He went out and odd-jobbed wherever he could. Errand boy. Newspaper boy. Sometimes he even pulled down a dollar a day. It wasn't pocket money; it was table money. Every cent Guiseppe earned, he turned over to the household for food and clothing.

   You'd think Papa would be proud of his son, but to Papa young Guiseppe was just being lazy. Odd jobs were lazy jobs, according to him. Real work was helping Papa on the fishing boat.

   This weighed pretty heavily on the lad. He started hiding under the bed when Papa came looking for him. Or, he ran off to play sports with his friends when he knew Papa was about to call him to the fishing boat.

   Tennis was especially interesting to him, watching the older boys play. He knew that tennis champs Maurice McLaughlin and Bill Johnston came from San Francisco, and he wanted to be like them.

   But the tennis passion didn't last long, and for the first time Guiseppe began to believe his Dad. Perhaps he was a lazy good-for-nothing who couldn't even stay interested in a sport. Maybe he never would amount to anything.

   That's the way Guiseppe saw it back then. Everything just seemed sort of gloomy and hopeless.

   But as it turned out, Guiseppe one day became the most successful member of his family!

   Oh, he didn't go back to fishing. Despite his ancestry, Guiseppe just wasn't cut out to be a fisherman. Or a tennis player, for that matter.

   When Guiseppe finally found something that interested him sufficiently to stay with it, his passion for it was so great that two of his brothers quit fishing and joined him!

  You've heard of Guiseppe by his American first name. Everyone else has, I guess, and that great big world beyond Fisherman's Wharf won't forget the fisherman they lost.

   Neither will they forget the boy who forgot about tennis only to enter the world of sports and turn it upside-down.

   For if that young man hadn't been too seasick to join the family business, he would have left a vacancy in baseball's Hall of Fame too great to fill. . .

   Guiseppe. . .Joe. . .DiMaggio.

—Paul Harvey, The Rest of The Story

An Earthquake Interview That Jolted Away

   I actually ran into Guiseppe near Fisherman's Wharf in 1989. As part of the Jones, Boze & Jeanne radio morning show on KSLX (100.7 FM) in Scottsdale, we, along with all the other radio stations in Phoenix, did a relief fund event at Colonade Mall for the earthquake that hit San Francisco during the World Series in October of that year. After the event, television station Channel 3 flew a whole planeload of reporters, including myself (I was the "News Director" at the station) to San Fran and we were taxied into town and over to the hardest hit quake zone to cover it. On the trip over I fell in with another crazy radio guy, Tim Hattrick (Y-95), and we roamed the area looking for people to interview and have fun with. Well, we found a whale of a person to interview but we didn't approach him. A Channel 3 photogrpaher took this photo of Tim and I, as we watched, in awe, as Joe DiMaggio came out of a condo—with two bodyguards—and got into a Lincoln Town Car and drove off. 

Tim & Boze: Speechless!

   Now, we were both radio hams and we were both notorious for being obnoxious with strangers, but the two of us stood across the street and said nothing. In fact, we even looked down, as a sign of respect, so as not to upset the legendary Joltin' Joe.

"Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. . ."

—Paul Simon, "Mrs. Robinson"