Who Says Print Is Dead? On The Navajo Trail It Isn't!

 September 12, 2025

   Who says print is dead?

The biography section of Bookmans' in Flag

And in the used magazine rack at Bookmans'

The big store was rockin' with old and young people and it did my heart good to see them all.

Fast Moving Clouds Above the Monte V

   Yes, we are in the land of fast moving clouds. I had forgotten how the clouds move up here in the Arizona northlands.

   On the Navajo Trail

BBB & Uno Looking Small Across the Hall

   We went to the Route 66 Alternative Perspectives Show at the Cococino Center for the Arts north of Flagstaff this afternoon and caught this larger than life image outside the entrance.

"The goal in this life is not to live forever, The goal is to create something that will."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Dan The Man Biography

 March 6, 2024

   Here's an event that is still in the planning stages.

   It was designed by this guy:

Dan "The Man" Harshberger

   Born in Kingman, Arizona, November 22, 1947, in Mohave County General Hospital which, Dan is quick to point out, is no longer there. Daniel lived up on Hilltop and played cowboys and baseball on the unpaved dusty streets, and rode bikes (as in bicycles) with Robert Allen Bell. And later rode bikes (as in motorcycles) with Bob Boze Bell. He graduated from MCUHS (Mohave County Union High School), half of which is no longer there, in 1965 and then graduated from NAU in Flagstaff with the pretentious degree of BFA in Commercial Art in 1969. He spent two years as an Army guy then moved to Phoenix in 1972. Slaved as a Graphic Designer at an advertising and printing firm during which BBB and I published sporadically and unsuccessfully a magazine called Razz Revue, the Magazomic. Started my Graphic Art Studio in 1986 and slaved once again but as a sole proprietor with a family to feed. A few years later BBB bought True West magazine and asked me to be the Art Director. We have shared one hell of a past and an ongoing present, which includes The 66 Kids, based on growing up on the Mother Road.

Flatlanders In Paradise

 September 11, 2025

   We came to Flagstaff for the cool and we have not been disappointed.

Waiting for takeout at Martann's

   It's 61 degrees as I write this and that is heaven to anyone who has been living in the Valley of the Surface of The Sun.

   Still working on rounding up all the artwork for our big Billy the Kid artshow at The Scottsdale Museum of The West next month. It will feature work from these three bad boys.

Tres Amigos de El Chivato

   And, yes, this bad boy will be there too. . .

Daily Whip Out:

"Billy the Kid at Midnight On The Deadliest Street In America"

"You don't have to see the whole path to take the next step."

—Old Vaquero Saying

The Tracker Up On Morningstar And High Res Navajos

 September 9, 2025

   Got out on the road at sunrise. It rarely fails to impress.

The Tracker Up On Morningstar

   Yes, Uno sniffs out the latest road crossers from the night before. Cool out, 71, almost wore a sweater.

   Had a good meeting with a certain Rocker yesterday who told me he wants to utilize this page of my sketches as "interstitials" for his next album.

"In The San Diego Airport, Terminal 1, Gate 7"

   I am also still trying to pay off an image he wants.

Daily Whip Out: "Pistols And Posies"

   When you hear the term A-1 Coot, what comes to mind?

Backyard Bozo

(photo by Craig Schepp)

Low Res Miserables

   So, the bane of my life is trying to find images big enough to please my production manager, Robert Ray. For the past 26 years, when I submit images for publication, I would love for him to say just once, "These will all work. They are high res!" Instead, I very often hear these words: "These will not work. They are all low res." (Res is short for resolution) Here's the deal. True West magazine will not run anything below 100 dpi (dots per inch) because it appears jagged or pixilated when printed and thus is not usable. For example, all the images on this blog are 72 dpi, and they look fine, but it doesn't translate to print and therefore, low res images are unusable in the magazine. So, imagine my amusement when I asked my artist compadre, Buckeye Blake, for a higher res image of one of his paintings to use in the magazine and he said, and I quote, "I don't know the difference between low res and the Navajo Rez." 

   Ha. Too rich.

   Speaking of Navajos. . .

Check out the lid on the Navajo at left.

It doesn't get any cooler than this. From an old 1930s film on Santa Fe, courtesy of Daryl Drake.

"Some people say you shouldn't bang your head against a wall. Tell that to the woodpecker."

—Jack Handey

Roxie Stephens of Big Sandy Fame Gets Her Due

 September 8, 2025

   Too many irons in the fire and not enough time in the day, Jose! That is my predicament. But what else is new?

   That said, one of those irons just got pulled out of the fire and that is I owed a painting to support the Mohave Museum and they chose this one:

   Kathy Sue Holding

"Roxie Stephens of Big Sandy Fame"

which is 20" X 30" and will be part of a raffle at their event on November 15.

(inside skinny: our daughter Deena posed for this and I think you can determine from her smile to Kathy's smile that the apple does not fall far from the tree)

   And, if you are wondering where this memory driven painting originated, this will help:

My Memory of Roxie Stephens of The Big Sandy

Hot On The Trail & Other Zeitgeist Sidetrips

 September 7, 2025

   Warning: the Duke of Dust is on the hunt.

Daily Whip Out: "Hot On The Trail"

And. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Posse On The Hunt"

   I was talking to a noted Rocker who comes from a cowboy family and I asked him if his family was into his music and he said yes, in fact his dad bought him his first guitar.

   I told him back in my day, it was pretty rough straddling those two worlds. I too grew up in a cowboy family in Mohave County but they were not thrilled with my choice of music. In fact, I think a certain Okie From Muscogee nailed the Kingman zeitgeist from that period. 

"You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me."

—Merle Haggard

Old Rocker Goes Off Rocker And Stays Out Until Almost 11!

 September 6, 2025

   Yes, it's true, I actually drove down into the Beast on Friday night to hang out in a bar for three hours and then drive home. I haven't really done this since about 1992, but what the hey, it was homework for a good cause. And, yes, it was way too loud, but then I have tortured so many people when I was in rock bands over multiple decades I can't really complain, but sometimes I still do (obscure Joe Walsh reference)

"Who You Callin' Pendejo? Pendejo!"

My Kind of People

at The Rock Bar in Scottsdale

   All that said, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers are serious Rockers and they played a very dynamic and worthy set. Totally Rocked that joint.

The Peacemakers In Action

at The Rock Bar in Scottsdale last night. I got home at 10:45 p.m. Oh, the humanity!

   To me, it had a very Beatlesque In The Caverns vibe, long narrow room, intimate crowd, volume turned up to 11. I stood for over two hours!

   At one point I went over to a security guard (he was perhaps 15 going on 26, with the word SECURITY on his T-Shirt) and I leaned in to ask him—yelling of course!—Where are the bathrooms! and he said with some concern, "Are you alright, sir?" Now, never mind that I thought I was walking like a stud in his prime, so, I said, indignantly, "Do I look like I am not alright?" and he gave me a look that seemed to say, "Hey, dude, I can't believe you actually walked in here on your own power." 

   Fortunately, they had a first aid station that served Guinness on tap.

"Lucky I'm sane after all I've been through
(Everybody say I'm cool) (he's cool)
I can't complain, but sometimes I still do
Life's been good to me so far. . ."

—Joe Walsh, "Life's Been Good to Me So Far"

Eddington Is Conflicted About Masks, Still

 September 4, 2025

   Great clouds out this morning. Monsoon hangover. Got some rain. Buckeye called me about our art show next month and he told me it's lethally hot in Texas. I told him it was bitter cold here—88 degrees—and I have a sweater on.

Morning Glory

   We're finally watching Eddington. Here's part of a review about this fictional New Mexican town, in the middle of COVID way back in 2020:

"Eddington" is certainly ambitious, said Justin Chang in The New Yorker. It "has the dust of a western, the snark of a satire, the violence of a thriller, the nihilism of a noir, and the bloat of an epic". Its subjects are "the morass of misinformation and irreconcilable political rancour" that has taken hold since the pandemic. Unfortunately, it's also a "slog", and the laughs are largely "reactionary" – at the expense of "the young and woke".

Well, it seemed fairly even-handed to me, said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times: right-wingers and QAnon fruitcakes get it in the neck too. This is a "feelbad" movie, but it's an "insightful" one. "Things get pointedly deranged", as "the personal and political are yoked together in a spiralling final act, frantic and elaborate". 

—The Week

   How could you NOT want to watch that?

  "Eddington is a lethally self-satisfied thriller"

—The New Yorker

The Pungent Pass That Never Died At Least In Our Nostrils

 September 3, 2025

   It has a strange name, this pass that led the old Route 66 out of Kingman, Arizona when I was growing up.

Perfume Pass

   Yes, the I-40 bypass abandoned this now lonely stretch of road which used to be bumper to bumper in the summer time with tourists heading for California and the beaches.

   When Kathy, Uno and I attended the Mucous High School Reunion several weeks ago we stayed at Motel 6 and when I got up the next morning I looked out and saw this lonely stretch of road.

   Here is how it looked coming into Kingman from the south, at Black Bridge (the railroad bridge at middle, right) which was a notorious make-out spot in the fifties and early sixties.

Old 66 Heading Towards Perfume Pass

   Both the films Easy Rider and Two-Lane Blacktop featured this pass and in the latter film the radio is playing KAAA (Kingman Arizona Air Address) on the radio.

Two Lane On The Brain Drain

"Can't you find a better radio station?"

—Laurie Bird

   Most local Kingman teenagers did not like Wally Stone's KAAA because he didn't like Rock and we had to wait until dark to get KOMA out of Oklahoma City.

"If you're a loyal KOMA listener, kiss your sweetheart!"

—KOMA jingle that worked every time at Black Bridge, at least

Post script: it was called Perfume Pass because the Kingman sewer ponds were located in the heart of the pass.

   

Wyatt Earp On Film?

 September 2, 2025

    Earlier this summer I was contacted by a True West reader named Dean Shier who told me he just may have found an image of Wyatt Earp on film.

   In my 1993 book, "The Illustrated Life & Times of Wyatt Earp" I covered the tidbit that came from the Hollywood director Allan Dwan about his memory that the real Wyatt Earp was an extra on his 1916 silent film "The Half-Breed" starring Douglas Fairbanks. I covered all this in my book, but at the time I had not seen the film and relied on a friend, Jeff Morey, who had seen it. It was Jeff's astute opinion that the only person in the film that Dwan may have been referring to was a guy who more resembles Texas John Slaughter who was, like Earp, also a lawman in Cochise County and perhaps Dwan confused the two men?

from "The Illustrated Life & Times of Wyatt Earp" 1993, Still photo courtesy of Lee Silva

   Dean told me he easily found the film on YouTube. It has been restored with lost footage and everything. So, with much enthusiasm, I did the same thing—and so can you!

"The Half-Breed" 1916 

   Sure enough, at the 9.26 mark we see a white mustachioed gent sitting along the back wall of the fictional Palka Saloon, and this is the character Dean believes might be Wyatt Earp.

And here's a close up:

Wyatt Earp as an extra?

     I tried to clean up the image so we could see his hat a little more clearly, but it is just too grainy. Here is my attempt to liberate the gent's hat, but it's just an educated guess.

Wyatt Cleaned Up With A Touch Up Brush

   Wyatt Earp author, Casey Tefertiller, is quite skeptical and says the jaw is not right, but I have to say, there are other confirmed photos of Earp that are similar, if not a little jaw dropping. . .

Wyatt Earp in LA, 1910

   So, first of all, thanks to the keen eye of Dean Shier who gets the credit for finding this.

   To Be Continued.

Sleeper Cars On Rollercoasters?

 September 1, 2025

While we were on the beach in San Diego last week, the grandkids spent some quality time at Belmont Park riding the old, rickety rollercoaster. Here's an action shot I took of Weston, riding alone near the back of the cars—at top. (hint: he has a name tag sticker on his forehead):

Weston Rides The Whirlwind

for the umpteenth time

   The grandkids asked me what it would take for me to want to ride and here's what I told them it would take:

—From The Onion, of course

   An excellent piece on AI in the new issue of The New Yorker by Joshua Rothman. Cliff Notes version…"A feeling of overstimulation is one consequence of algorithmic life." And, "Our attention is fractured. . ." And, "Exploring computer-generated culture might lead us to value even more the culture that only we can generate." Then this: "Even as culture changes, it's usually additive rather than zero-sum. It preserves itself through time, as if secreting its own amber."

   And, speaking of amber. . .

I Should Have Known Better!

"Yo se!"

"It's impossible to teach a vaquero what he thinks he already knows."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Lift Off For Fact Checking & Daisy Doc Stands Tall

 August 31, 2025

   On the run on the hunt. Still intrigued by that tall cloud over New River Mesa when I got back from Payson two weekends ago. Took another run at it this morning.

Daily Reworked Whip Out: "Lift Off"

  My Kid Compadre Buckeye Blake shared with me his first pass at a death mask and it is just excellent.

Buckeye's Death Mask of Billy the Kid

   Meanwhile, tis the season of great clouds.

Morning Glory

      So many of the great lines Val Kilmer emotes in the classic film "Tombstone" are the creation of the talented screenwriter Kevin Jarre, but as hard as it is to believe, some of them come right out of the official record. In fact, here is one of them.

A New BozeCard on Daisy Doc

"A common fallacy is the belief that things were better in some imagined past. Someone is always spinning in their grave."

—Zach Helfard, on the history of fact checking in The New Yorker, September 1, 2025 issue

Drawing On Emotion

 August 30, 2025

   On our  last day on the beach, last Wednesday, the grandkids and I decided to do a drawing together. Frances took the sky, Weston took the bottom lands—actually the beach house—and I took the horse and rider. And we all contributed to the color.

Daily Grandkids Whip Out: "Funny Rider"

   Speaking of beach mysteries, I told my grandson I would give him $10 if he stopped the Mysterious Asian guy with the boom box and found out his background. So Weston saw him coming and ran out and stood right in the middle of the boardwalk and held out his hands. Here's how that worked out.

Mysterious Asian Guy Blows

Right By Grandson

   Working on a set of drawings to capture a certain horseback rider.

   I'm on a mission to capture the Mustang Mountains in southern Arizona. You know, these unique outcroppings near Elgin and on the road from Sonoita to Tombstone. If I'm not mistaken, these are the same Mustang Mountains behind the Duke, in this still from "Red River."

"Red River"

   It calls for a dynamic design and a skilled drawing execution and I'm still on the hunt.

"Drawing is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do."
—Vincent Van Gogh

Bleached Blanket Bingo

 August 28, 2025

   Flew back from San Diego yesterday after a cool four days on Mission Beach.

A Line of Clouds Along the Mexican Border

(on the flight home to Phoenix.)

   Here I am actually wearing a sweatshirt in August! Damn, it must have been 70 degrees out with a sea breeze. B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!!!

G-Paw Ha Ha With The G-Kids

   So my grandson Weston asked me to show him a "hippie" and I confidently said I would. I just assumed we would see one within two minutes, but alas they have disappeared off the boardwalk. Sure, I saw old surfers who might have been hippies back in the day, but they had somewhere along the line cleaned up and got a haircut, put on some shoes and otherwise left the Hippie Trail. 

   Here's my daughter Deena and her kids and me wearing my straw beach hat. The word "Studio" on my shirt is an inside joke with Kathy when I asked her where she was going and she replied, "Jazzercize" and I said, "Thank God you have that shirt on that says "Jazzercize" or I would never know. So, for my birthday she got me the "Studio" shirt so she will know where I am going when I walk out the front door. In this next part of the story, just know that this is the hat I have on.

All Day And Still No Hippies?!

   At the end of the day, the kids went down to Belmont Park to ride some rides and I was sitting outside alone looking at the waves and daydreaming about a day without deadlines when I heard a voice behind me. "Nice hat." I turned to see this old hippie guy flashing a peace sign.

Peace Out Amigo!

   Almost gone, but not forgotten.

"Today a hippie flashed me half a peace sign. Weird."

—Old Zonie Observation

Queens of The Rollerbladers & Mission Beach Mystery Man

 August 24, 2025

   We have been escaping to San Diego for a week in August for the past 45 years. Both our kids grew up rollerblading and boogie boarding on Mission Beach and now our daughter is doing the same with her kids. Here is Deena with her daughter on the boardwalk this morning.

Queen of the Rollerbladers

   Of course Mission Beach is full of eccentric characters and there is this one guy who we look for every year who comes by on a motorized skate board with a boom box in his hand blasting great tunes all the while looking regal and aloof, posing in two semi-robo-positions as he rides by.

Mission Beach Mystery Guy

   I want to say he has been a daily presence at least for the past five years, perhaps even longer. Does he have a job? Does he have a life? Hard to say. I have tried to interview him but he just keeps going. And smiling.

"I see by your outfit you are a robo-skateboarder."

—Old Surfer Observation

The Four Stages of False Photo Identification

 August 22, 2025

   Sometimes it seems as if everyone I meet has an old photograph they insist on showing me that they claim is worth "at least a million dollars." 

   Ever since Bill Koch paid $2.3 million for the only known tintype of William H. Bonney back in 2010, the floodgates have opened and stayed open like you would not believe. 

BBB interviewing Bill Koch

after he won the bid to buy the Billy photo

in Denver

(the gent in the red circle is my friend Buckeye Blake)

The owners of these "priceless photos" invariably come to True West hoping we can help them substantiate their claims. These encounters go roughly like this:

   "I greatly admire you and what you have done to preserve our history and I want to show you a photo no one has ever seen before of [fill in the blank of a famous Old West character]."

   They show me the photo and I look at the photo and then I invariably say this: "It's an intriguing photo, but what is the provenance?"

   "This photo came from a prominent family and the facial recognition software confirms it is a 99.9% match."

   Well, for starters, "a prominent family" is not provenance, unless you have the paperwork showing who had the photo when and where it came from. And, for the record, facial recognition software may be good for solving crimes but it's an absolute joke when comparing facial features on historic photos. Examples to come. . .

   As soon as they find out we are not going to support their claims, the insults begin and have not stopped until this very day. In fact, it has gotten so bad, here is the blanket form response one of my Billy the Kid compadres sends out when they get an image sent to them:

Thank you for writing.

Billy the Kid's Historical Coalition can offer you no certain claims for or against this particular photograph.

If you are unable to show that the picture originated at a time and place Billy the Kid was known to have been, or that it was taken by a photographer in a similar area, etc., and have a clear line of descent and ownership, then every expert will tell you they can do nothing with it. Facial recognition software, AI, and facial similarities are not conventional standards by which the historical field establishes provenance.

We wish we could do more for you, and we agree that it's a fascinating photograph! But we can neither disprove it nor be the conduit for its authentication.

Thanks again for writing, and if you have any more information that may contribute to the authentication standards noted above, please send them on!

Thanks! 

—James Townsend

Billy the Kid's Historical Coalition

"Sometimes a picture is not even worth 500 words."

—Old Provenance Saying

Hutton's New Book Hits The New York Times Bestseller List!

 August 21, 2025

   I interviewed Paul Andrew Hutton this morning on his new book and he told me it is already in its second printing and here's the new cover.

    Yes, the book just entered the New York Times bestseller list at #12.  Our interview will be on our True West YouTube Channel in a couple days. I'll give you a heads up.

  Okay, I've received a little angst and blowback around the Triple B Bunkhouse about portraying my grandson Weston as such an anti-Old West curmudgeon. Personally, I think he was just being funny—like his grandpa wants him to be!— and most of us get it that he is just a typical kid who turns up his nose at anything his parents or grandparents find even mildly entertaining. 

   Meanwhile, I asked the boy to find some Old West history from his world that he might like and he showed me an animated take on the O.K. Corral fight that was semi-accurate and semi-amusing. So I asked him if he wanted to read what really happened and he gave me one of those, "If-You-Insist-Grandpa" looks.

Weston Reads BBB's Doc

   In all honesty, after he put it down he told me it was a 7.5 on a scale of 1 to ten. Which is a C and if you can see Uno's reaction I think the dog agrees with the grandson.

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." 

— Marcus Aurelius