May 27, 2009
Last Friday morning I accompanied PBS producer Rob Rapley and cameraman Michael Chin on a visual shooting tour of Cochise County. Through email we had narrowed down the route predicated on how much we could see in one day. That eliminated Animas and Sulpher Srings Valley (John Ringo's grave, etc.), and most points east of Tombstone.

However, on Friday morning we woke up record rain in the Tucson area and it looked doubtful whether we would get anything to shoot. We took off from the Radisson Resort at seven anyway, and waded across Kolb Road to the I-10.

Here is the route we took:


View PBS Tour in a larger map

When we took the Vail exit and headed south towards Sonoita, the sky looked like this:

But as we topped out on the ridgeline we saw the clouds breaking over the Whetstone Mountains and we stopped for our first shots:

Michael Chin, the cinematographer from San Francisco, was using a 16mm high def film camera (his own, by the way) to get a richer look for the American Experience show on Wyatt Earp:

Meanwhile, producer Rob Rapley set up a still camera hooked directly into his Mac laptop hard drive that would process three frames a second to capture the dramatic cloud movements:

The sun started to break through the clouds and we got some very dramatic stuff:

Like this:

From the divide we drove into Sonoita and got snacks, then headed towards Cottonwood Springs. Much to my surprise, they didn't like the lighting at the entrance to the Earp-Curly Bill fight location (photographers hate the middle of the day for shooting. Most of the shadows are gone, blown out, too harsh. They prefer early morning and late afternoon.), so we moved on to Sierra Vista, took the bypass, north of town and headed down the road towards Bisbee. About half way out, I told them we were looking towards Lewis Springs on the San Pedro, which is where the Clanton Ranch was. The clouds were breaking nicely, so we turned around and went a short ways down a power road to take images of the Tombstone Hills, Charleston and Lewis Springs:

We got rained on here:

We're looking across the San Pedro towards Tombstone. the Tombstone Hills are in shadow. From here we drove to Bisbee and tried to find a good A-frame mining hoist. There were several in Warren, south of Bisbee, but they were modern, metal ones. The best one was behind the cemetery and we couldn't figure out how to get around the graveyard (it is huge!), so we ended up going to the north end of the "resting place" and shooting over the fence:

After we got this shot, we had a great lunch in the Breakfast Club. Place was slammed with locals, so the economy can't be doing that bad down there.

We got to Tombstone about 2:30 and decided not to shoot anything there. Rob wanted a clear shot of the Dragoons, but it soon became evident there were too many new homes dotting the landscape to the north of town. I remembered Middlemarch Road which you access west of town and so we drove out there and went quite a ways on the dirt road until we cleared most of the houses. This is the view south, back towards Tombstone, with all of the damn new houses in the way (sorry Sherry).

And this is the view shooting north:

It's still not a clean shot. There are still houses out there, but Michael and Rob gerrymandered creosote bushes and gullys between them to try and get rid of them.

Coming next: A spectacular sunset over the Whetstones.

May 26, 2009
Went home for lunch and finished the second version of "Friend Or Foe":

As I mentioned this morning, this one is more of a dusk scene. I also pumped up the foreground ridges with dark, volcanic rock. I love how totally different rock formations, collide out on the desert (wish I would have paid more attention in Geology!).

And for reference, here's the first one:

Robert Ray just taught me a step to add to the scanning process to tweak the color a bit. I noticed the first scan, posted this morning, had lost some color nuance. Still, although I like the effects in the first one, I think I have to go with the fading light image. It's more moody and dramatic, no?

I'm working on another scene of Powhatan Clarke's crew and Remington traversing the Salt River Canyon on their way to Fort Apache. Here's the study:

And I also worked over the long weekend on sepia style storyboarding:

I might use this for flashbacks, or maybe, even go in and out of it, as if we are getting different media versions of Remington's sketchbooks.

I also photographed the big Billy oil, but couldn't get a clean shot of it. It's still drying and I couldn't get an angle that killed the glare. I'll try again later.

Robert Ray is developing a new Google custom map deal he learned at a seminar last Friday to illustrate my PBS wanderings. We hope to have that ready, along with the dramatic photos, tomorrow.

"Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."
—Gilda Radner

May 26, 2009
Here's the sketch of Powhatten Clarke that I whipped out last year:

This is based on a photograph of the young Lieutenant when he was based at San Carlos. Remington featured Clarke in several paintings, such as "Arrival of A Courier."

Powhatan died tragically before he could leave his mark on the army or the world.

"Funny how an obituary doesn't interest a dead man."
—Frederic Remginton

May 16, 2009
Finally, finished the big Billy oil painting yesterday. Not sure it's good enough. Going to let it dry and take another look. Kathy is recommending I start another one.

Also worked on a sequence for Mickey Free called "Friend Or Foe?":

There is a point when you cross a wide valley where you have committed to the crossing and when you get to the middle you are the most vulnerable to attack since you are so exposed. And, when you see the dust coming, you don't know if it's friend or foe. In this case, it's both. These are Rurales and they round up Mickey Free and intend to hang him. There is only one problem: there are no trees for miles, so a Mexico City Major riding with the Rurales decides to just shoot the "gringo".

I have another version of this scene, with dusk descending on the foreground which I'll finish at lunch and post here.

Meanwhile, my 10 sketches have evolved into this:

Loose washes overlaid with red and brown penwork. Very rococo. I sure have low self-esteem about these images. Gee, I wonder what a standup guy has to say about this?

"I'm a great believer in low self-esteem. The only people I find that have high self-esteem are criminals and actors. And if you have low self-esteem and you always assume you're the dumbest person in the room, you'll work harder."
—Jay Leno

May 25, 2009
Quiet day at home. Reflection and introspection: what works and what doesn't? As I reread my daytimer notes from 1999 and 2008 I am struck with how much effort was wasted on "Important Tasks," that ended up going nowhere.

Working in my studio on late afternoon light, Remington on patrol with Powhatan Clarke. Riding through the Salt River Canyon on the way to Fort Apache. Have excellent reference photos shot two years ago with the Top Secret Writer.

Speaking of Paul, I'm reading Frederic Remington: Selected Letters which he recently gifted me, and I learn something on every page. For example, we almost went to war with Chile in 1891. In a letter to Powhatan Clarke, Remington looks forward to the conflict: "this little Uncle Sam's tract of land is just spoiling for a fight; look at [President] Harrison's chili [yes, the Western artist spells the country like the dish] & Behering's Seal deal—we'll have it inside of three years and you'll be a Maj. General or a corpse. . ."

Evidently, a civil war in Chile led to an incident in San Diego harbor, where the crew of a detained Chilean steamer overpowered the American guard and set sail for home. The ship and crew were captured and brought back. Later, in October of 1891 a Chilean spit in the face of an unarmed American sailor on shore leave, which caused a riot. Two U.S. sailors died in the fighting and feeling in both Chile and the U.S. ran high for war. The Chilean foreign minister submitted an apology and, after much saber rattling, it all blew over.

Unfortunately, Remington was prescient on another front: Powhattan Clarke would be a corpse within two years. The promising young soldier drowned while swimming in the Bighorn River near Fort Custer, Montana on July 21, 1893.

Remington had predicted great things for Clarke and Hutton believes Powhatan would have had a promising career with the Rough Riders and beyond, had he lived. And so, today, we salute your memory Powhatan Clarke. The Top Secret Writer and myself intend to bring your story back to the people you served. And a humble thank you to all who have served.

"They could take a Cossack and milk his damn mare on the run."
—Frederic Remington praising Native American cavalry

May 23, 2009
Back from Tucson this morning. Taped a talking head segment for a Wyatt Earp segment for PBS at Luna Studios on east Speedway. On Friday I acted as the producer's guide and showed them the main geographic locations in Cochise County. It rained all night on Thursday, so it looked rather thin for shooting anything on Friday, but as we topped the divide on the way to Sonoita, the clouds broke over the Whetstones and we had spectacular scenery for the rest of the day. I'll post some of my photos of them shooting, later.

On the way down on Thursday I met Wayne Rutschman at Molino's Midway for a Mexican food lunch (he brought my daytimer, which I had inadverdantly left at his cabin last weekend). We yucked it up pretty good. Had the lunch special, two enchiladas (I bought: $22 cash).

Many memories on Speedway: the Doll House, the Embers, The Cedars, the Poco Loco, the Hi-Ho Club and the Dunes. All nightclubs I played in, or frequented in the sixties. Also went by the Branding Iron, the Long Branch and the Hayloft, all clubs I played in during the seventies when I was in my honkytonk phase. None of the clubs mentioned still exist, although several are still bars with different names. The Dunes and the Longbranch are both "Gentleman Clubs." I contemplated going inside to see if I could recognize the electrical outlets (The Hayloft door was open this morning) but I blew by there and decided there was nothing to see in those old haunts but disappointment.

Of course what we all want to happen is what actually happened to me one time, when I returned to Tucson after an absence of about five years. This was in the seventies. I went into Lloyd's, a little joint on Sixth Street, where all the Kingman kids went for Mexican food, and as I sat down, Charlotte, the lone waitress, walked by and said, "Hi Hon, the usual?"

That's the dream of nostalgia, but unfortunately, it's the exception to everything. And that's what makes it such an exceptional memory (hers and mine).

"If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work."
—Thomas J. Watson Sr.

May 21, 2009
Sprinkling and overcast again today. Debbie in yoga class commented that she has never seen the desert ironwoods in such spectacular bloom. They produce a violet array of flowers and against the palo verdes' bright yellow it really creates a magnificent palette.

I'm on my way this morning to Tucson for a PBS documentary taping.

Tracking The Purchase of True West Magazine From Ten Years Ago:

Here's the culling of my Franklin Daytimer. We started talking about buying True West in May of 1999, but the actual purchase and taking over of the magazine took most of the year. Here are the highlights of that long ago summer:

June 17, 1999
Just got off the phone with Steve G. at True West [in Stillwater, OK]. He shot me a new proposal. $50,000 down and the remaining $48K at the end of the year.

June 22, 1999
Bob McCubbin called and told me his former boss at El Paso Gas is interested in investing in True West. We could be back in biz. An amazing ride.

July 1, 1999
Marcus Huff [True West editor] wants me to write up the Earp Trial for True West [The Arizona Bar recreated a mock trial of Wyatt Earp. I portrayed Johnny Behan], which is weird because I’ll be working for someone who may be soon working for me.

July 6, 1999
Steve G. called and is threatening to put magazine up for sale through a media broker. I think he’s just anxious to sell. Assured him we’d have an answer Monday.

July 9, 1999
I met with Jim F. the accountant and he gave me the rundown. Many, many questions. It appears True West is spiraling downward which is not surprising, but the $64,000 question is: how close to the ground are they?

Jim’s main points are:

• no bank statements since 12-31-98

• Value is in subs and name—everything else is incidental

• accounts payable aging has too many slow paying accounts. Could indicate cash flow problems.

July 12, 1999
Bob McCubbin and I made a verbal commitment to Steve G. to buy True West this morning at 9:35. It was a conference call and Bob McC. was masterful. Very calm, reassuring, in control. He offered a piece of the new business to Steve! Really inspiring. [We] agreed to a $2,500 earnest fee. We are on our way to owning True West.

August 19, 1999
Bob Early [Arizona Highways editor] called yesterday to chat about the status of the morning show and when we got to True West he really laid it on me, saying, “I like you Bob and I don’t want to see you get hurt and you can get hurt real fast in this game.” And “I wouldn’t buy True West on a bet.” He sees nothing but failure there. Told me the intimate details of their [proposed] Myths & Legends magazine which they are going to spend $900,000 on the first year and they won’t be profitable for the first three years! Described all the pitfalls (we have no circulation director or Sales Manager) and how TW is doomed. Sigh.”

End of daytimer entries.

Bob Early is no longer the editor of Arizona Highways. Their proposed magazine Myths & Legends was never launched and my two original partners eventually sold out. True West Editor Marcus Huff and I got crossways in 2000 and he left in a, ahem, huff, but we are featuring him and his wife’s general store-home in Ten Sleep, Wyoming, in the next issue.

And, this is the most amazing part of all this—we are still here holding our own. I wonder if ol’ Sir James has anything to say about this?

“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes to do, but in liking what one has to do.”
—Sir James Barrie

May 20, 2009
Blew off weight training this morning to come into the office and fix the Ira Aten Classic Gunfight. I swapped out two images, took out the offending paragraph, replaced it with Mark Boardman's original copy, created a sidebar below the illustration, gave it a sidebar box and ID it as a "fascinating sidebar" to the fight. Meghan tweaked the syntax and the layout and we turned it over to Robert Ray who schmoozed it to the finish. Feels good. As I told Mark, I feel like I get to have my enchilada and eat it too.

Still cloudy and overcast. Experimenting with more color in my daily sketches:

Here's my first sketch on the Ira Aten fight:

But it struck me as too staid and typical. Glad I went with the Andrew McClelland image with the two guns blazing. After a day of realism I was in the mood for experimentation on my 8 remaining sketches:

Meanwhile, here's what I was sketching a year ago:

Really like that Spanish Dagger in the center. The little boy and portrait are from the cover of Ten Cent Plague, the book about comics being banned in the fifties. And here's what I was doing ten years ago:

Ten Years Ago Today

May 20, 1999
Need to go into Phoenix today and do some cover work on Bad Men [book]. Not looking forward to drive.

• Fixed cover

• Redid Black Bart map

• Redid U.S. Map—into outlaw hideout map

• Redid Northfield-Medelia map

• Fixed silver dollar entry

• Made corrections in sections I-II-III-V-VI

Dropped off True West [financial] facts and figures to Jim [Tri Star accountant]

[then on May 27 I wrote: "My Bad Men book seems rather weak as I proof it, but I can't decide if it's because I'm sick of the whole thing, or not. Exasperating."]

[On June 3, Jim, the Tri Star accountant, recommended not buying True West magazine. He walked me through the numbers pointing out that their net income for 1998 was at $90,000, while their salaries were at $132,000. "They have nothing to sell you," Jim said.]

And believe it or not, it gets worse. Wait until you see what the editor of Arizona Highways has to say about buying True West, plus Bob McCubbin's accountant also weighs in. Bet you can guess what he says. Ha.

"It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future date."
—Seneca

May 19, 2009
Went home for lunch and whipped out a spot illustration for the July Classic Gunfights. This is the one I was talking about this morning that features Andrew McClelland and his brother Hugh shooting it out with former Texas Ranger Ira Aten (what a name!). Andrew was game, and came with both guns blazing, but Ira dropped him damn quick then took on his brother Hugh, who tried hiding behind a building corner and taking pot shots at Aten. Ira, using two hands to hold his pistol fired two shots, hitting Hugh in the neck and back:

Fight over.

"Let us hope that we shall soon have finished with art, with aesthetics. They make me sick. Yesterday I dined at Rouarts'. There were his sons and some young people—all talking art. I blew up. What interests me is work, business, the army!"
—Edgar Degas, one of the best artists ever

May 19, 2009
Got some rain last night. Still sprinkling this morning. Saw some great tattered clouds dropping virga on the way into work. Snapped off a photo right out my truck window:

Sweet.

We've got an issue, July, going out the door tomorrow and we're wrestling with a component of a Classic Gunfight, which features former Texas Ranger, Ira Aten, fighting the McClelland brothers in Dimmitt, Texas. Mark Boardman researched the fight and wrote up a straight ahead account of the shooting using the best sources available. Basically, Ira was peeved that Andrew McClelland called him a liar at a town meeting, so Ira rode up to the McClelland's land office (they were allegedly sellng land at inflated prices and Aten had created a rival development south of Dimmit, thus the bad blood). Aten cooly dismounted and asked Andrew if he still thought Ira was a liar. When he said he did, Aten told him to arm himself. Andrew went and got his guns, came out firing two pistols and Aten shot him down. Then, the other brother, Hugh, fired from the corner of a building, and Aten, using two hands on his pistol (another example of the Weaver Stance, in 1891) shot through the corner of the building and nicked Hugh in the neck and back, taking him out of the fight.

Pretty cool fight, no? Well, our archivist, Ron, retrieved an old Frontier Times from January 1945 that quotes an Amarillo newspaper account of the fight. It was printed several days after the fight so it's contemporary. In this account, there is a wonderful sidebar anecdote that goes like this:

"Aten met the McClellands on the street for the first time since they had insulted him and called him a liar, and asked them if they still said it. They replied that they did. Aten then told them they were -------lying-------- ----------. Andrew McClelland said he was unarmed, and Aten told him to get his gun. Hugh then said, 'I am ready for you,' and started as if to draw his pistol, where upon Aten drew his revolver and waited for McClelland to produce his, but he did not pull it, and Aten returned his pistol to its place. Hugh McClelland then went into his office, drew his revolver, came back to the door and began cursing Aten, who was backing up with both hands up, telling McClelland to shoot, and assuring him that he would catch the bullets."

I told our managing editor Meghan Saar and Mark we have to get this into the fight, but Mark was suspicious:

"I can't find anything---other than the account you've found, Bob--about Ira promising to catch Hugh's bullets. In fact, after reading a fair amount about the man, it just doesn't sound right. I mean, what guy in his right mind would dare another guy to go ahead and shoot. And again, the info I've got said that Hugh only made his appearance when he opened up from behind the building.

"I think Aten was the kind of man who would let an unarmed foe go get a gun--but not much beyond that.

"It sounds to me like that account embellishes the initial confrontation between Andy and Aten by adding Hugh to the mix. That part isn't in the Bowden, Hunter or Vick accounts, nor in the Preece. And the county historian never mentioned that, either.

"So while it sounds colorful and cool, it just doesn't ring true to me. And most of the accounts of the fight agree.

"I wouldn't go with it."

—Mark Boardman

I chewed on this all last night and this morning in yoga. In a centered place, I decided we would put the anecdote in, but with a clarifer, that this was from an initial newspaper account, so the reader knows it is just one version. When I ran this by Mark, I got this reply:

On May 19, 2009, at 10:13 AM, Mark Boardman wrote:

"Does the Amarillo account say what Hugh did when his brother came out of the store firing?

"It seems a bit strange to me that he'd hightail it away, down the block and around the building when he and his bro have the drop on the guy.

"But what the heck..."

—MHB

Mark,
No, but it does flow to me and it seems as logical as so many of these fights. One guy is afraid, but is blustering. He runs inside, watches his brother shooting, hoping he finishes off Aten, then when his brother goes down he realizes he has to act. The "catching the bullets" is probably a stretch, but there it is, in the first newspaper account of the fight. and frankly, stranger things have happened. I may report on this in today's blog. The due diligence we go through to get these right. I'll probably say you aren't too thrilled with this being included, something like that. You cool with it?

—BBB

"I agree, stranger things have happened. But newspaper accounts have also been known to be way wrong. Heck, look at all the accounts of the Street Fight in the days following. There was a bunch of misinformation.

"It's also interesting that Preece's book cites Aten's Six and One-half Years in Ranger Service but doesn't include the Hugh McClelland stuff.

"So, at the risk of sounding like a total asshole, no, I'm not too thrilled to include that part. I'm just trying to get this thing right, and we've already had to get beyond so much bad info (like the election happening in Nov. according to a couple of sources, etc.).

"This is one of those times when I wish I was out there and we could hash it out in person. Or resort to manly fisticuffs."

—Mark

To Be Continued. . .

May 18, 2009
I mentioned that the makers of the new film Management, starring Steve Zahn and Jennifer Annistion did not film in Kingman, where part of the movie takes place. It's too bad, because the real Kingman would have added so much flavor to the film with its period motels, many of them in decline and a few, like the Hillcrest Motel, in arrested decay. And the landscape, the trailer houses and the trains would have given the funny film a boost of road cred.

For a Kingman boy, it's a hoot to hear Jennifer Anniston's character complain about the Kingman Motel's lack of recycling stations and Steve Zahn's mother says, "Recycling hasn't really caught on here in Kingman." I imagine the rest of the quiet theater was wondering why this old man in the front row was laughing like there was no tomorrow. Ha.

So, if like me, you're wondering where did they film the Kingman segment, wonder no more. Steve Lodge sent me this info:

According to IMDb Pro, Madras and Portland, Oregon is where they filmed Management. I’m assuming Madras stood in for Kingman? The movie moves from Kingman to Maryland and then to Aberdeen, Washington, and back to Kingman, so, I imagine the filmmakers needed a location that could provide landscape for all three, diverse locations. I asked Steve where he got his info:

"IMDb Pro has a slew of information that the regular IMDb doesn't. I pay for the Pro version - a good investment for me. Let me know if you want me to check out anything movie or TV related and hopefully I will find it. Someone on the True West blog was asking about goofs in movies. IMDb Pro has them all; and they're still adding new ones all the time."
—Steve Lodge

May 18, 2009
On Saturday Kathy and I drove up to the White Mountains to meet Wayne and Marilyn Rutschman at their "cabin" near Show Low. I put quote marks on cabin because it is closer to a ski lodge than a mere cabin. Really a stunning structure, tucked into the pines and with great views. Had a grand time, good food and wine. Talked late into the night about a close friend, Rick, who ended his life in 1970. Compared notes: all of us share a bit of guilt that we could have saved him (my wife, the therapist assures me this happens to everyone who loses a close friend).

Came back on Sunday and really studied the clouds. The Rim Country is famous for it's big, summer sweepers:

Hit rain at Chistopher Creek and as we dropped down to Payson, the big thunderheads rolled right over the top of us. Came home and did this study of overhead clouds:

From Thunderheads To Cloud Heads

And added these 10 sketches of cloud heads:

Yes, there are heads, actually faces, in each cloud study, some quite subtle, others rendered with a sledgehammer. Ha.

"What courage to make sketches."
—Edgar Degas

May 16, 2009
Yesterday Mert Glancy came by the True West offices and lent me an old ledger of newspaper articles one of her relatives wrote in the 1930s. We had a grand time talking about all the old Kingmanites and the black bear that recently tried to break into the Kingman post office on Hilltop (he must have figured that would be the safest place to go because nobody would ever wait on him). The one-year-old bear then ran up Jefferson Street, which is where my grandmother lived, right across the street from the Glancys. The bear ran right between Laury's old place and my Aunt Sadie Pearl's and was shot in the driveway of the house across the street.

I left the office early at 4:30 and drove down to Desert Ridge to get some more art supplies for Mickey Free ($73, Sue account), then met Kathy for a new movie opening at Harkins:

To all of my Kingman Homies
Forget Edge of Eternity and Badlands and How The West Was Won and Roadhouse 66, you need to see Management the new film starring Steve Zahn and Jennifer Anniston. It's about a young guy (Zahn) who helps his parents run the Kingman Motel. I'm not kidding. My father's gas station, Al Bell's Flying A, was right next to the real Kingman Motel. Anyway, it is so Kingman! Steve Zahn is every Kingman kid you have ever known. Naive, goofy, misdirected and hilariously out of step with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, they didn't film it in Kingman, but still, I think you'll get a hoot out of it.

"Do you want to touch my butt?"
—Jennifer Anniston, as Sue Claussen, to Mike (Zahn)

May 15, 2009
Kathy worked late last night so I turned on the TV to catch up on the news and even though we must have at least a dozen sources for news (CNN, ESPN, Fox News, CNBC, BBC World News, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, plus the four local affiliates), after about five minutes I just had to turn it off. Everything is so negative and sensationalized (What you eat may kill you!).

So, in these Negative Nabob-erson Times, it's sometimes refreshing to hear some positive news, like this:

News From The Front Lines
Floyd Cranford from Shawnee, Oklahoma left a rather grumpy message this morning saying that when he got his June issue of True West magazine today it was all torn up and he wanted to know if we could send him another one. He said if we didn’t send him one that we could cancel his subscription when it ran out.

I put the June issue into an envelope with Floyd’s address on it and then called him. Floyd was delighted to get a call back! He explained that he truly loves getting True West and was so disappointed when his June magazine came to him pretty much illegible, with tears and crumpled pages. Floyd told me that he is 89 years old (and he’s the baby of the family, he has a sister who is either 99 or 100) and has been a subscriber for as long as he can remember. He reads every issue from cover to cover and then gives them to his son, who also reads them and then saves them in his home library. The son has every issue his father has given him from way back when he first subscribed.

He was so happy to get my call that he jokingly asked to speak to my boss because he was going to get me a raise!
—Lynda Gager

Thanks Lynda, I'd love to give you a raise but it might kill me.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
—Sir Winston Churchill

May 14, 2009
Went home for lunch and whipped out a transition piece for the Mickey Free graphic novel. After Mickey deals with the Apache Kid in Mexico he heads home with two bloody gunny sacks across the pommel of his Mexican saddle:

Riding north towards the border, he notices the harsh desert is starving for water but the summer sky emits only virga.

"You may be full of something besides vigor."
—Old Weatherman Saying

May 14, 2009
Got some interesting feedback from my Plugged In commentary that ran two weeks ago in the Arizona Republic. More than a few were offended by my alleged assertion that all surveyors are drunks. I never said that. I said, "all the surveyors I knew personally were drunks." And, of course, it was satire, but you know how that goes over when your own ox is being gored.

And several acquaintances came out of the closet. Jim, a fellow yoga student in his eighties, came over to my mat this morning and confessed to being a "stake bag carrier" in his youth. Interesting. I never would have guessed.

I got an invitation to lunch out of the deal and so I met Daniel Mardock of RBF Consulting at El Encanto last week to eat a bean and talk about surveying. We traded stories and I told Dan I worked mostly in the summers when I was in school (both high school and college). As we talked about the changes in the biz (no more chains!) I realized how much my brief surveying experiences (1963-1970) influenced my Old West books. For one thing, I'm a nut for maps. When I read a Western history narrative and Billy the Kid is riding between Puerto de Luna and Anton Chico and he runs into the Randolphs, who are from Sunnyside, and they accompany him to Las Vegas (New Mexico), I want to see that on a map. Is it five miles, is it 100 miles? It drives me crazy when I don't know where they are.

That's one of the reasons "The Mapinator" Gus Walker does our maps in True West. He is the best in the West and when we bought the magazine in 1999 I showed my staff his maps which ran in the Arizona Republic and I said, "Give me this." They tried, but they couldn't, so I called Gus and asked if I could bring my staff down to the R&G offices and he got it cleared and we drove down there and Gus graciously showed us on his computer how he does the maps and we went back to our offices behind the Goat Sucker Saloon in Cave Creek and they still couldn't produce what I wanted, so I called Gus back and asked if he could come out and show us on our computers and he came out (we went to lunch at El Encanto) and Gus finally said, "Why don't you just hire me?"

So I did (Gus had worked at the Republic for 36 years and was looking to semi-retire).

So I realized my map obsession sprang directly from my surveying days. Amazing

Dan also told me about documents showing Wyatt Earp taking the rear chainman oath. He even sent me a document that proves it. Evidently Earp was surveying one of his mining claims in Tombstone and to save money he acted as a chainman and had to sign the oath.

And speaking of Wyatt, Hugh O'Brian called me yesterday and invited me to come visit him and his wife at their home in Hollywood. May go later this year.

Meanwhile, The Top Secret Writer just discovered and bought a new find in the Wild World of Wyatt Earp: a photo of the earliest known actor to portray Earp in the movies. His name is Bert Lindley:

It says on the back of the photo: "Wyatt Earp deputy sheriff to Bat Masterson of Dodge City, known as one of the three greatest gun-men that ever lived, along with Bat Masterson and 'Wild Bill' Hickok."

"Nothing is accurate, but it's all true."
—Judd Apatow, describing his next movie

May 13, 2009
Went home for lunch and whipped out a nice little San Carlos study:

The peaks at right are prominent just north of the old agency where Mickey Free, Al Sieber, The Apache Kid, Geronimo, Tom Horn and even John Clum (especially John Clum) spent some quality time.

The area has a distinct striping along the ridges where the rock layers turn almost white. Trying to capture that.

The surface area is a burnt sierra green, with the creosote bushes choking out the underbrush turning it to a dull gray. Very beautiful to my mind, although, when I took him there, the Top Secret Writer proclaimed it "squalid," which is funny, because you could say the same thing about Albuquerque (his hometown and which he thinks is so breathtaking). Actually, they both have a harsh beauty I adore.

On our Capturing Billy the Kid Country road trip last month, I was driving from Hatch, New Mexico to Hillsboro and I kept seeing fascinating geography and I would ask Ed Mell if he wanted me to stop. Most of the time he said no, and maybe twice he shot a quick photo right out the window. By the time we got to Lake Valley ghost town, I had given up trying to predict what he wanted and so, I just shut up and drove. About five miles shy of Hillsboro, both Ed and Gary Ernest Smith came to attention and said in unison, "Pull over." They both must have shot a hundred images of this small, dirt canyon running northwest into the Black Range. Here's my take on it (from a photo):

I'm anxious to learn from them and see their take on it. Both painters work in the rarified air of "The Big Boys." One of Ed's landscapes recently resold at auction for $96,000 and Gary is currently doing a $60,000 commission. Obviously they have good instincts. Ha.

Here's a quick study I did before returning to work at two:

And a second version whipped out in about five minutes:

I think this last one has the best color sense for creosote on the desert.

Sibling Rivalry
The other night I caught Blood Red with Eric Roberts, Dennis Hopper and Michael Madsen (1989) on the Westerns Channel. It is styled as a Western, but actually was about the wine biz in northern California (Zorro meets Sideways?). The funniest thing about it is that Eric's little sister, Julia, has a tiny role and probably got the part because of her movie star brother. It's more than a little ironic that a mere ten years later, Julia Roberts was pulling down $20 million a picture and Eric was all but out of the business.

"Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves."
—Rudyard Kipling

May 13, 2009
Got this in this morning:

Mr. Bell
Long time no email. I want to thank you for your honest comments about the American Indian. I don’t mind taking the evil white man hit on occasion but it is nice when all sides are taught fairly. I respect and have a great deal of admiration for the Native Americans but the simple fact is they were violent. These people are not the spiritual peace lovers as they are portrayed now. Dances with Wolves is a prime example of the old “white men are evil Indians are wonderful” teaching. These people are portrayed in a different manner in Francis Parkman’s Oregon Trail. Today we don’t teach history. We teach a form of propaganda. My oldest son had more information on Marilyn Monroe than George Washington in his High School history book back in the 80s.

I like your Fort Apache sketches. I am no expert but I enjoy black and white drawings. By the way you hat nazi, whether it is period correct or not, John Wayne looks good in a cowboy hat with the bill turned up. Don’t forget to toast him on May 26th.

I have a question to ask. When a cowboy was travelling by horse, what were essentials he carried? I can guess at some but in movies/tv a cowpoke will be on a horse with only a blanket and saddle bags. When he camps there will be a coffee pot fry pan and bacon sizzling. As I said, I am just curious as to what might actually be packed for a trip if there was no pack horse.

See You Down The Trail

—Hugh Howard, Maniac # 9

Hugh,
Great to hear from you. I kind of got off on the wrong tangent with the Rio Bravo hat John Wayne wore. It wasn't the turned up brim I objected to, but the overall dings and dents he had in it. Hats often lose their original style and flair (I know, I have a studio full of them) and begin to sag and droop over time. When you see Wayne wearing a similiar hat in Fort Apache (some have said it's the same hat) it looks quite elegant to me. But, by Rio Bravo it's looking kind of goofy. That's just my opinion. I know you love it with no exceptions.

Great question on the essentials of cowboy travel. I am rereading John Bourke's "On The Border With Crook" and he describes preparation for a punitive patrol after Apache marauders this way: "Every hoof was carefully looked at, and every shoe tacked on tight; a few extra shoes for the fore-feet were taken along in the pack train, with fifteen days' rations of coffee, hard tack, and bacon, and one hundred rounds of ammunition."

Perhaps a benchmark is, if they're travelling with a mule, or mules, you've got a kitchen, at least one tent, food, coffee pot and extra ammunition (by the way, I'd be curious to know how much one hundred rounds of ammunition weighs?). But if you see two or three riders, without a mule, unless you see a coffee pot dangling from the saddle, we're talking hard tack and anything else that would fit in a saddle bag (hint: not much).

My theory is that a mule laden with supplies slows down the action and it just doesn't look as good as a lone rider traversing Big Country.

—BBB

"Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations."
—Lao Tzu

May 12, 2009
One of the myths that keeps getting repeated is that Europeans introduced Native Americans to alcohol. In the Southwest at least, the Apaches, among other tribes, were probably making their own alcoholic concoction called tiswin (the Apaches call it Tulapai) long before Columbus set sail. Tiswin is a mescal based cocktail and the Apaches were having Happy Hour long before the White Eyes arrived on the scene. Granted anglos brought along a much stronger batch of everything, but the idea that we seduced an innocent indiginous population is, at the very least, a sloshed-faced lie.

Recently, I attended a book festival at the University of Arizona and sat in on a discussion featuring Robert Utley, Michael Blake (Dances With Wolves) and Distinguished Professor Paul Andrew Hutton. Utley is working on a Geronimo book and in the question and answer portion of the program a history professor from the U of A asked a question, prefaced with the amazing revelation that he voted to flunk a graduate student who wrote a paper asserting that Geronimo was an alcoholic. After pointing out that three other profs voted against him, the prof tacked on the question, which was camoflaged with PC jargon, but the essence was this: "Did the Apaches drink?"

To which Robert Utley replied: "They were all drunks."

Ay-yi-yikes.

Virtually all of the oxygen in the room went bye bye. An electric current shot around the room and you could feel the full scale blanching in every body around me (it was almost all academian anglos in the lecture hall). Utley went on to describe tiswin drunks and how Apaches were often drunk for weeks.

There were no follow up questions. I have a hunch that no one has said those words in a history classroom since the Tet Offensive.

So, could Geronimo have benefited from a twelve-step-program? Let's take a look at a tiny portion of the historical record.

Geronimo broke out of reservations four separate times and tiswin figured prominently in most of the breaks. When Geronimo met General Crook at Canyon de los Embudos (Canyon of the Funnels) in 1886, John Bourke had this to report:

"'Alchise' and 'Ka-e-ten-na' came and awakened General Crook before it was daylight of March 28th [1886] and informed him that 'Nachita,' one of the Chiricahua chiefs, was so drunk he couldn't stand up and was lying prone on the ground; other Chiricahuas were also drunk, but none so drunk as 'Nachita.' Whiskey had been sold them by a rascal named Tribollet who lived on the San Bernadino ranch on the Mexican side of the line, about four hundred yards from the boundary. These Indians asked permission to take a squad of their soldiers and guard Tribollet and his men to keep them from selling any more of the soul-destroying stuff to the Chiricahuas. A beautiful commentary upon the civilization of the white man! When we reached Cajon Bonito, the woods and grass were on fire; four or five Chiricahua mules, already saddled, were wandering about without riders. Pretty soon we came upon 'Geronimo,' Kuthli,' and three other Chiricahua warriors riding on two mules, all drunk as lords."

What I want to know is how does the University of Arizona History Professor read this and rationalize it away. "Well, it is written by white people." Does that suffice to explain it away?

Based on this dishonest exchange at a major university, I think it's time to do an honest portrayal of that scene:

I found this board in my reject pile at lunch today and I intended this study to appear in my own Geronimo biography which I worked on extensively in 1994. I still may do the painting. Not to be mean (it is tragic, after all), but to perhaps balance the record. To not face the facts of history is more than pathetic, it's dangerous.

Gee, I wonder what my old vaquero buddies have to say about this?

"Every history is incomplete; every historian relies on what is unreliable—documents written by people who were not under oath and cannot be cross-examined."
—Old Vaquero Saying

May 11, 2009
Had a very good art weekend. As previously mentioned, I upped my daily sketch regimen to 10. On Saturday I poached from various Old West photos and the print poster for Fort Apache:

I especially like the black and white renderings at the bottom of the poster. I also worked small on a series of cloud bank images:

Learning how to work wet into wet, or at least experimenting with the technique. On Sunday I tried a sepia wash background experiment for graphic novel narration:

And, I also found time to work on the big Billy. Need to finish that and ship it to Ruidoso to the museum in the next two weeks.

At three, Kathy and I drove over to Grandma Betty's for Mother's Day and I made pancakes for the girls. Laughed, drank champagne and laid on the floor to massage my neck (too much painting, ha.).

Stayed up last night way past my bedtime reading my 1999 daytimer notes. Really a stressful time: my father's probate was complicated and controversial (step children, need I say more), Lew and Tara sold the Mineshaft and our radio home was shut down and my partner decided to go sell computers, and the True West purchase kept going away and coming back (one partner in, another tied up in divorce court) and virtually everyone I talked to told me not to buy the magazine.

Can't believe we made it to here. Had trouble going to sleep.

"Let sleeping dogs lie. They lie about everything anyway."
—Old Vaquero Saying

May 8, 2009
Watched Rio Bravo last night (taped it off of TCM the night before). Realized I really hadn't seen it all the way through from the beginning. Enjoyed it but have to admit, John Wayne's hat is a tad on the goofus side. Kathy, who watched it with me, asked me if that hat was accurate and I told her this is someone, perhaps Wayne himself, modifying the Remington cavalry hat, via John Ford. It's interesting that the TV show "Texas John Slaughter" which ran on The Wonderful World of Disney at about the same time (1959) also celebrated this hat style:

Ten Years Ago Today:

May 8, 1999
I pitched [name removed to avoid lawsuit] on co-buying True West. What is my problem? Am I nuts? What would possess me to take that kind of abuse and then offer to increase it? Unbelievable behavior. Really shows my insecurities or something equally as goofy. Still, I continue to believe I could make the magazine into a winner.

The 10,000 Bad Drawings of Bob Boze Bell:
The challenge was simple enough: every artist has 10,000 bad drawings in him. Here are today's efforts, 8,702 thru 8,711 (I upped the number of sketches per day to 10 because I'm getting impatient to finish this damn project!):

As you may notice in the middle panels, I visited David Hughes' website today. Really enjoy his work. Love his word balloons. Lots of integrity and style. Totally hand drawn in a period when absolutely nobody hand draws any lettering. Really makes it stand out. Bravo, Mr. Hughes!

"Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new."
—Og Mandino

May 6, 2009
Mike Torres just sent me an iPhone video taken of our rehearsal at the Kingman Fairgrounds on March 28. This was for the Exits Exit, Part II to raise money for Kingman Regional Hospital. It was all for a good cause, but our opening song was the Stones' version of "Route 66" and my family (both my immediate family and my Exits family) was very concerned that I would go overboard and have another heart attack, so Kathy bought me a heart monitor that connects to a watch. You hit a button on the watch, which takes it off the time and, thanks to a electrode band strapped to your chest, you can read your heartbeat by simply glancing at your watch. It gives out a constant reading: for example, when I'm standing still it registers in the high sixties.

As a benchmark, while it's an educated guess, my heart rate during "Wipeout" (the drum playing, gator dancing episode at the 2008 gig that triggered my heart attack) was probably in the range of 175 or even 180 (I read somewhere that the drummer for The Police was tested while on tour and he hit 190-plus, every single night). Like most performers, I have this switch that goes on when I'm in front of an audience and it's all or nothing. There is no in-between. AND it's very hard to modulate or control. The lights go on, the curtain opens and I'm ON.

And, for this reason, everyone was concerned about me, and for good reason.

So my goal at the rehearsal was to gauge how high my heart rate would go on the opening song. I wanted to regulate my jumping around, but I also wanted to see what happened if I went with the flow. Here's how it looked:

Route 66 Rehearsal

Mike called me and said, "How come you kept looking at your watch?"

Well, I'm nervously checking on my heart rate. And, for the record, I hit 127, although I probably hit 140 during the high kicks (and by the way, they sure seemed like higher kicks when I was doing them, at least in my mind. Ha.)

"Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth but not its twin."
—Barbara Kingsolver

May 6, 2009
It is so cool to have a daytimer morgue. I have been keeping a daily record of my life since 1994. Yesterday, I realized we're coming up on the tenth anniversary of owning and running True West magazine and I went upstairs in the studio and grabbed the year 1999. Here is a runup, and a few of the other events that happened Ten Years Ago:

January 23, 1999
Theraputic talk with Kathy this morning. We are both down about our kids. We are still angry at Tommy for his asinine, stupid behavior, and Deena is lost at school (she called crying about her "friends" who have abandoned her: Maki wrote her a "Dear John" letter). Talked about their good points (both are sweet and good-hearted) and ways to get through this. My biggest consolation is it could be worse.

January 25, 1999
Cooked salmon for dinner on new grill. Really makes it good. Had salad, homemade banana bread by Matthias [a foreign exchange student from Germany].

Feb. 1, 1999
Kathy's chair was delivered on Sunday. Deena has dubbed it, "The Mother Ship."

February 4, 1999
Tommy played superb last night! He has a real talent for crashing the boards. Very aggressive on defense too. Had two steals, three boards, one stuff and seven points! Wow! I was so proud of him. He has potential to be their go to guy when he's a senior.

February 15, 1999
Kathy has written a detailed response for Thursday's school board meeting regarding Tommy's expulsion.

Valentine's Day was quite wonderful. Kathy made chicken friend stead with cornbread, green beans and gravy. Really good. Enjoyed it immensely.

February 19, 1999
Cheapest gas in years: 85.9 a gallon

April 14, 1999
Returned Bob McCubbin’s call and found out True West magazine is for sale! Bob is serious this time [earlier I had suggested to Bob that we buy True West but he claimed later he was joking about it] and I have money. Need to run the numbers.

April 19, 1999
Took a car trip with the family to Tucson, Patagonia, Nogales and home. Got some good photos of Mexican Revolution, five books at an outlet mall, great inspiration: the Mickey Free story.

April 20, 1999
We are waiting for a number (price) for True West. Marcus Huff [the editor of True West and actually, the broker for the deal] has found a warehouse in Guthrie for about $75,000.

April 22, 1999
Called Jim Larkin [co-owner of the New Times alternative weekly empire] about the True West investment. He was coming in from Cleveland. Good advice: get a transactional lawyer, be careful on buying debt, lean on internet selling.

April 23, 1999
Today’s show was on fire ( The Jones & Boze Radio Show on KXAM 1310, Live From the Mineshaft in Cave Creek, Arizona!”). Really hot. Kathy called and said me considering True West was tantamount to having an affair on David. He chimed in and said if I do the mag, our radio show is over. Lots of tension, good calls.

May 1, 1999
The current owners of True West [the two Steves, who are selling to the two Bobs] want $170,000 for the purchase price.

May 6, 1999
Still, the Bad Men book will not die! I spent all afternoon yesterday trying to plug all the missing photo credits. Still came up a half dozen short, plus the Yellowstone entry and the cover blurb. Jeesh! Really exasperating. Regarding the True West buy, I need to call my friend Charlie Waters.

Tommorrow I’ll start with a day by day, bloody account of the long road to acquiring True West magazine.

"I stayed in a really old hotel last night. They sent me a wake-up letter."
—Steven Wright

May 5, 2009
Sometimes my work is the opposite of tough. Spent most of last Friday up at a photo shoot at the Carefree Conference Resort dealing with attractive models. Special thanks to Rex Wood for getting us the very upscale facillity for our photo session.

Ever sit around and wonder what a fashion shoot look like from the back side? Well, wonder no more. We're working on a feature that we're running in a couple months on a very cool retro line of shirts by Miller (The old Miller Stockman brand). The shirts have to look very neat and trim for publication and sometimes this involves clips in the back:

Then when everything is in place and the models are put in position, it all comes together:

Thanks to digital photography, John Beckett shows everyone the results. This is such an amazing step for anyone who has shot film and waited for hours or even days to see the results. Amazing.

Thanks to the team behind the scenes which included Sheri Riley and Abby Goodrich:

And Trish Brink (at left, below), who ramrodded the models when their belts looked funny:

And, by the way, it's Trish's B-Day today and we're having sub sandiches at 11:30 in the conference room. Meanwhile, back at the shoot, Trish's fiddling paid off when we got to the final setup:

Our photogrpaher, John Beckett and his partner and stylist, Julie, really know their business (although Abby doesn't look so sure):

"That's a wrap."
—Every art director who ever worked a photo shoot with me

May 5, 2009
Cinco de Mayo, the American margarita celebration that befuddles Mexico. Amazing what bar promotions can do to impact the culture.

Meanwhile, Charlie Waters send me this:

OK, so here is what you do. E-mail the Letterman show and tell them that since you are the inspiration for the segment, you would like to come on the show and give the Top 10 list of things people should know about Bob BB Boberson. Tell them you even have some ideas for the list.

TOP 10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT Bob "BB" Boberson:

10.) Parents gave him extra initial B instead of calling him Jr.

9.) Was technical adviser and fluffer for the film "Brokeback Mountain."

8.) Bunkhouse nickname: "Skippy."

7.) Owns chain of Wyoming saloons called Bob "BB" Bobberton's Big Badass Brewery.

6.) Mysteriously has a sheep tattooed on his left inner thigh.

5.) Shoots left, ropes right.

4.) Has hard historical evidence that Wyatt Earp was a wuss.

3.) Secretly negotiating to move his segments to 10 p.m. on NBC.

2.) Says Annie Oakley "was the best I ever had."

1.) Biggest pet peeve: Alliteration.

—Charlie Waters

I'm up to my ears in mule reference. Trying to get the back end right. Found these sketches from Antigua, Guatamala when I met Kathy on her Semester at Sea gig and we visited a coffee plantation called Filadelphia, I believe:

Notice how their back legs bow to the hocks. Very interesting.

"There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun."
—Pablo Picasso

May 4, 2009
If you've ever hiked the Bright Angel Trail down into the Grand Canyon you know there are these narrow passages where an apron of gravel falls away from the trial at a steep angle, then stops right at a 500 foot drop.

This was the inspiration for the sequence in our graphic novel where Mickey Free decides he wants a mule. In our story Free is a scout for General Crook when the U.S., with permission from Mexico City, sent a massive force into Mexico after Geronimo and his band. While traversing one of the perilous switchbacks in the Sierra Madres, one of the mules in front of Mickey got bumped and slipped off the trail into loose shale and slid straight down to one of these ledges. Instinctively, the mule flattened out, which slowed the rate of descent, but the mule was still left dangling over the edge:

This was followed by an avalanche of sand and gravel pouring over the poor pack animal. Everyone up on the trail looked on helplessly and virtually everyone thought the mule was a goner:

Within a few moments all that could be seen was a pile of sand at the lip of the cliff. But then, a lone hoof broke out of the sand and planted itself on a rock. Pulling itself up off the ledge, the mule literally climbed back up on the trail, shook itself off and went on trotting up the trail:

This prompted Mickey to say, "I want one of those!"

"You just go as deep as you possibly can, even where you don't even like the things that you're thinking about or you're feeling."
—Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day

May 4, 2009
Here's a question we of the clothing obsessed persuasion argue about incessantly: when did batwing chaps come into general usage?

The so-called batwing chaps are those really wide leather protective leggings, like these:

This photo is from an early Western movie, probably in the twenties or thirties. In recent years (1980s on), chap wearing cowboys in Western movies have been restricted to showing only shotgun chaps, like these:

They are called shotgun chaps because the legs are straight like the barrels of a shotgun.

Almost nothing makes a wardrobe expert snicker more than an actor wearing batwings in a Western. "Oh, that is so wrong. Cowboys didn't start wearing those until the 1920s," is how the usual wardrobe expert sniffs upon seeing this egregious gear in a period Western.

Well, then how do you explain this letter from Frederic Remington to Powhatan Clarke in 1889?

Remington mentions that these chaps—they are clearly batwings—have been in Arizona for some time (Remington had been in Arizona in 1887 and says, "There are a lot of cowboys in your country (Arizona) and you ought to be able to pick them up without much trouble.") So, by my calculations batwing chaps were being worn by cowboys in the mid-1880s, clearly inside the heyday of the American cowboy.

And yes, Remington used these "chapperras" for his famous painting: "A Dash for the Timber."

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."
—Old Vaquero Saying

May 3, 2009
Had Deena and Frank out for a pre-B-Day dinner last night. Made salmon and Frank made himself a steak.

Worked most of the weekend on cliff scenes for the Mickey Free Graphic Novel. Painted myself into a corner (onto a ledge?) on four of them and got stuck with critical art needed for all four. Examples tomorrow.

I've been thinking about Letterman's Old West parody and think it needs an injection of Western cornpone zane. Maybe I'm too close to it, but I thought I'd take a stab at contributing some free range examples for Dave:

Free Range Examples For Bob B.B. Boberson:

[BBBB holds up a bottle of clear liquid and takes a big swig:] "This here is mescal de pechuga and it's great for getting muy inteligencia.

[stares forlornly into camera for two beats]:

"I'm not some redneck bristling against the European welfare state. No, I'm a cowboy whose just a little bit smarter than a cow."

"I can remain silent for very long time. I'm capable of immense love but never mentioning it and capable also of resentments. I'm also happier looking at the horizon with a big kettle of pinto beans, perkin' right along behind me." [takes a protracted swig]

"I think Flying Saucers are intimately connected to ancient British myths like King Arthur, but I'm opposed to universal healthcare."

"In the history of batteries, the lithium ion has been around a relatively short period, and I'm hopin' it will eventually get enough mileage to cure my pard's range anxiety."

"A civil union with my pard? In Iowa? I'm sorry, that's all gurgle and no guts. But then a cowchip is paradise to a fly."

"What part of Buckshot-to-the-midsection-means buryin' don't you understand!?"

"I bought ah 'Lonely Otter' online a couple moons back, but them digital collectibles leave me kindah empty, but then if yer cows tend to have more'n one calf at a time, hey, easy money."

"Sorry, but when it comes to ecological thought, cowboys are selfish creatures because 'true greenness' requires self-sacrifice, not eating much meat, not buying anything unnecessary. And I'm all about that last one."

"Let's talk about methane gas and cattle. A man kin learn ah heap of things if he keeps his ears washed and knows how to get online."

"In the history of alternative energy, it's easier to stand the smell of mescal than listen to it.

"When it comes to graftin' a hedge fund on top of an insurance company it's trickier'n braidin' a mule's tale. If it's properly regulated. The braidin', that is. You see, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 prohibited commercial banks from sparkin' an investment banker. I'm sorry, but if a man apologizes when there ain't no need, he knows somethin' you don't."

A smart grid surely will add to our energy efficiency, but as I like to say, admire a big grid—saddle a small one. Or, put another way, a mule is merely the bastard child of a jackass.

Sometimes you'll find a heap of thread on a mighty small spool and if you don't believe me go ask Mickey Rooney. Or, Andy. Either one."

"Lonesome makes friends of strangers. Just ask Elliot Spitzer."

"The Lilly Ledbetter Act extends the period of a discrimination claim, but really, if yer lookin' at the danger end of a scattergun, you might oughtah pull in your horns."

"Lonesome creates diseases that HMOs don't cover either."

"My pursuits are a joke [because] the universe is a joke. One has to reflect the universe faithfully."
—John Michell, British author who just died

May 1, 2009
Out of the office all morning on a photo shoot up at the Carefree Conference Resort. Got back to the office at two. Found two messages from Paul Hutton. One had an exclamation point (Call me!). I figured he was bent because of yesterday's post.

Turns out, he was watching Letterman last night and Dave, according to Paul, did a parody of my True West Moments. In his satire, the host was called Bob B. B. Bobson. Paul isn't sure of the spelling of the name, or what the guy said, because, as he put it, "I was dumbfounded that my friend, Bob Boze Bell was being parodied on Letterman."

Not quite sure if The Top Secret Writer isn't pulling my leg.

"Everybody tells jokes, but we still need comedians."
—Old Vaquero Saying