hat History Native Healers And Dali Movement

 February 15, 2023

   Here's a project that needs no introduction.

Daily Whip Out: "El Rojo"

   From the forthcoming book, "The History of Hats" by Bob Boze Bell and Billy F. Gibbons.

   And, here's a woman who you don't want to mess with.

Daily Whip Out: "Native Healer"

  Someone recently remarked on the movement in my drawings and I have to give a little credit to this surrealist.

Salvador Dali "Two Dancers"

  So, that inspired me to go here.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"Kid On A White Horse"

  And here. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Airborne Daisy Chain"

Meanwhile, back at the Hog Ranch.

Daily Whip Out: "Putacita"

Remember: the hidden word inside Reputation is puta.

Saddle Horse Centered

"Time moving ahead, like a train past a border you can never recross."

—James Poniewozik

Happy Birthday Arizona!

 February 14, 2023

   It's Arizona's statehood birthday today. Hard to believe but I have been here for the majority of them.

   Yes, it was on this date in 1912, Arizona became the 48th state when President William Howard Taft signed the proclamation.

   How much do I love her? Let me count the ways.

• Spectacular sunrises?

Check!

• Spectacular sunsets?

Check!

• Spectacular neon beer signs?

Check!

• Spectacular canines?

Check!

• Spectacular molcajete ?

Check!

• Spectacular humor?

Check!

• Spectacular heritage?

Check!

• Spectacular history?

Check!

• Spectacular Navajos Stylin' It?

Check!

• Spectacular Knuckleheads?

Check!

• Bonus spectacular sunrises?

Check?

• Spectacular Mexican food?

Check!

   Love this place. As my father always liked to say, I wasn't born here but I got here as fast as I could.

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning."

—Louis L'Amour

Zani Zuni Zias And Could Wyatt Earp Count?

 Feburary 13, 2023

   Here's a happy accident from today's daily whip out: check out the glow on these pots.

Daily Whip Out: "Zani Zuni Zias"

      And here's the source material.

"Zuni Girls at The River"

By Edward Curtis

   Yes, this is a photograph in the massive Edward Curtis retrospective at the Scottsdale Museum of The West. Before our history talk last Wednesday night I took a stroll through the show and was the only one in the gallery. I came around a corner and saw this funky, semi-framed image, above, with notes all over it and a crumpled top and I pulled out my phone and shot it right off the wall. Yesterday, I was looking for inspiration, spied this iPhone image and printed it out on my big Canon printer and then I painted right on it, until I got what I wanted.

   Meanwhile, here is an artprint available for a limited time.

Daily Whip Out: "Lozen Chosen"

   Thanks to a plug by Mark Lee Gardner, I watched the much panned "Babylon" on Sunday over at my neighbor's house. Kathy bailed not long after the elephant shat on everyone, and Bob Hoss wondered aloud if we could last for three-and-a-half hours. I told Bob we had to get to the Wyatt Earp reference. Finally at about the two hour and fifteen minute mark we get to the scene where they cross reference Wyatt Earp in Hollywood, as Gardner had mentioned. Thanks to Mark, here is the script page with the actual dialogue.

   My take is a very drug-addled script begat a drug-addled-take on Wyatt Earp. Since he often made his living playing cards I think he knew how to count.

   On a more positive note:

Big Clouds In Wow Town!

   Caught these big suckers floating over a saguaro I walk by everyday. The jury is still out on exactly how old these twin monarchs are, but I would venture a guess they were standing here when Al Sieber and his Apache scouts rode by in 1874.

"A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the best lawyer."

—Robert Frost

Last Fandango at The Heatwave Cafe

 February 12, 2023

   It's time to right some wrongs, give credit where credit is due, and settle some scores. An era has passed and before you know it so will I.

   This is a small story hiding a bigger one, that I have never intended to discuss, until now.

   Here is how it came down:

End of An Era

   The historic Heatwave Cafe is closing its doors today before it undergoes a change in ownership, though plans for the dance hall-eatery remain Unclear. 

   According to longtime waitress, Rocita Bancada, who said she has been working at the cafe for 18 years, employees were told that it was closing a few days ago, but weren't given much information about why.

The Heatwave Cafe in the 70s

when it was a Ripsnorting cafe and dancehall.

   

   "It's upsetting," Bancada said. "It's like a shock. We don't know what we're going to do."

Chata & The Heatwave In Its Prime, 1979

    Here is what the cafe posted on Facebook this morning: "On behalf of the Blacanda family, and with a heavy heart, we would like to announce that the Heatwave Cafe will be closing on Sunday, February 12."

    Besides the great Mexican food, the Heatwave was known for it's loud and mediocre houseband, Jaybob & The Ramrods.

Jaybob & The Ramrods Jam Alot

   And, of course, some pretty straight-ahead line dancing and Country Swing shook the rafters on many a Saturday night.

   And, there were some legendary cowgirls who came to town to dance and hold court at the Heatwave Cafe.

   You may think this is some crazy shit I made up, but you would be backassward wrong.

Backassward In The Saddle Again

   Perhaps the biggest mystery of the crazy joint is how a middle-aged woman once mooned the bandstand on a Saturday night and lived to tell about it.

"Only time can heal what reason cannot."

—Seneca

Highlights And A Random Slight From My 23rd Wickenburg Gold Rush Days Parade

 February 11, 2023

   Left the house at 7:15 this morning for the hour plus drive over to Wickenburg. 

Wickenburg Gold Rush Days Flag Bearers

   By now, I've got this parade deal down to a science. I drive right up to the check in to find our staging number (D2-42 on Ocotillo), drop off 12 boxes of magazines at our designated starting slot position, then drive back down to the end of the parade route, park on a side street, walk back to the staging area and then walk the entire parade route handing out mags and asking the burning question, "Who likes history and knows how to read?"

The Wickenburg Parade Wagon Crew

   It's actually a lot of fun and the parade goers are a hoot and give me grief and beg for a magazine. "Sorry, only people who can read," I said to more than one guy with his hand out. Plus, I got in some serious steps today: 10,863.

A Sight For Sore Eyes

   It was also so great to see the Bill Williams Mountain Men at today's Wickenburg Gold Rush Days Parade. 

   They might be down a few members but man it made me happy to see these guys all furred out and mounted up! I realized I have been watching them in parades for at least a half century, and probably longer. These must be the kids and grandkids of the original guys I saw as a lad. Makes me so damn happy, I can't tell you, although I just did.

Our man from Albuquerque, Steve Todd,

manned our booth at the train depot

The All Hat, No Cattle, Cowboy Controversy

   Sometimes when I hang out with real cowboys I get kidded for not being a "real" cowboy. Hell, it's true. I'm not a working cowboy, I'm just a proud cartoonist who digs the hats. One of my longtime Arizona friends likes to rib me about being a "fake" cowboy—All hat and no cattle—that line of rough corn-cob-kidding some Zonies like to partake in. I'd out him but I don't want to embarrass him, so I will just say that his mother was the first female Supreme Court Justice.

   Anyway, we were loading 12 boxes of True West magazines in the True West wagon before the parade and quite a few were taped shut and I didn't have a box cutter and was using my car keys to rip them open when this tough, young cowboy sees my predicament and rides over and gets down off his horse and offers me his big ol' pocket knife.

Cowboy Marty Palmera

with the big pocket knife

   When I joked that not having my own pocket knife kind of outs me as not being a real cowboy, Marty laughed and said. . .

"Hell, reading all the stories you've told, made me want to become a cowboy."

—Marty Palmero

Rumblin' Tumbleweeds, Family of Gas: Laughing All The Way to The Crypt

February 10, 2023

   Here's a French artist I have always admired and tried to emulate (i.e. steal from).

"At The Milliners"

 (At The Hat Shoppe)

by Edgar Degas, 1881

   Degas (pronounced Day-gah) did the above pastel at the O.K. Corral. Just kidding. What I really mean is, he did it the same year that Doc Holliday made a house call at Fly's Boarding House. This is just frosting on the cake for me. He's a contemporary of the Earps, Wild Bill, Curly Bill, the Kid and Jesse James. Just on a different continent. Degas also did self-portraits that have that Wild West, funky Tombstoner look, through and through.

Degas Self-Portrait, 1857

We've Been Tumbleweeded!

  We woke up to this sight.

Rumblin' Tumbleweeds lookin' for a fight.

 

  The crazy winds we've had for the last couple days blew all these tumbleweeds right into our front gate area. And yes, that is Uno behind the gate looking out.

Cowboy Culture

   We've been compiling old cowboy photos for an upcoming feature. Got this one from historian Janice Dunnahoo in Roswell. The caption says, "Carl Paxton on Roan Tail." Photo taken circa 1905, Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico.

"Bucker"

From the collection of Kent Taylor

photo restoration by Rance Rogers

 Back To The Humor

 If you haven't noticed by now, I tend to get my humor wherever and whenever I can find it.

Edgar Degas Self-Portrait, 1863

The Crypt of Edgar Degas

   When we were on the hunt for Vincent van Gogh in September of 2015, and traveling with the D's (Dan and Darlene Harshberger) we stumbled across the Edgar Degas crypt in a cemetery in Montmartre, which is the hipster neighborhood both Edgar and Vincent hung out in. So we looked him up and here's what we found.

Paying Our Respects to The Family of Gas

D. Harshberger and BBB at Degas crypt in Montmartre, Paris, France, September 2015

Photo by Darlene Harshberger

We found him and we had to pay our respects and we had to smirk, because, well, to a couple Kingman kids, who both received two solid semesters of Spanish from Coach Baca at MCUHS, the sign on his crypt says, "Family of Gas."

   No disrespect! Like I said, humor is where you find it, even in the City of Lights. Or, especially in the City of Lights!

 "A painting requires a littly mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people."

—Edgar Degas

The Birth of The End Zonies

 February 9, 2023

   Believe it or not, we're having a KSLX reunion tomorrow night and someone posted a photograph of the End Zonies at a Cardinals' football home game and all the memories came flooding back.

A Zany Kingman Kowboy Rocks Stadium

  We had Gordon Smith on guitar and Flint Carny doing his In-din thang (far left, below) and me with my bullhorn egging on the rowdy End Zonies to reach new heights of bad taste and subhuman behavior.

That's Me With Bullhorn In Obnoxious Mode

   In 1989, the Jones, Boze & Jeanne Show was in its third year on KSLX radio and someone suggested we could lead a rah-rah fan group like the "Dogpound" in Cleveland, or the "Cheeseheads" at Green Bay to back the Cardinals in Phoenix. What would we call ourselves, our general manager wanted to know?

The Jones & Boze Show, circa 1989

"Home of The Zany Zonies"

   It was the always clever David K. Jones who immediately came up with The End Zonies, off my opening tagline in the news:

"Good morning you Zany Zonies!"

   The entire morning show team immediately agreed that was a perfect name for a group who would promote mayhem in the end zone and drive visiting quarterbacks to distraction. I immediately started sketching ideas for a logo.

Daily Whip Outs: September 4, 1989

   The cowskull with the goal posts for horns won the day. And we were an instant hit in the stadium and on the airways and all over Phoenix and we rocked that place game after losing game, until. . .we took it a paper sack too far.

The End Zonies Sacked!

   We were kicked out of the stadium and told to never return, but, of course, the Cardinals kept using the logo.

   It was fun while it lasted and some say we made our mark. Oh and a big shout out to the legendary Ralph Rippe who took all of the above treasured photos, which I have kept under lock and key ever since.

"Hit the road Zonies and don't you come back no more, no more, no morons!"

—Michael Somebody who was in charge of Cardinal homegame tickets