The Unlikely Son of A Gun And Sunset at Coyote Pass

July 12, 2013
   I'm working on a crazy little gunfight that happened in Cozad, Nebraska in October of 1882 and the outcome of the fight spawned an art career that is kind of mind boggling. The short version is John Cozad was a gambler and land promoter who shot and killed a cattleman. The dad fled the state, then he and the entire family changed their names and virtually all of them went on to be pretty amazing successes. The son is one of my art heroes and I never dreamed he was "The Unlikely Son of A Gun."



 
Daily Whipout, "The Son of A Gun"

   Whipped out a little study of Coyote Pass before I came into work today. This is Coyote Pass in the day of Captain Hardy (1860s) when he made it a toll road. Hardyville on the Colorado River was named for him.



 
Daily Whipout, "Sunset at Coyote Pass"

Kathy treated me to a Jim Gaffigan concert at Talking Stick Resort last night. We paid $65 for our tickets and it was sold out in a 1,600 venue. You do the math. He also did a book signing afterward, which seems to be a trend by comedians with books. Gaffigan was hilarious of course. Love his observations and he opened with the spelling of Phoenix and Tucson (the latter where he played the night before) and he did five minutes on an old cowboy saying, "Nope, I want it spelled like that. Don't care if it makes no sense." Just crazy amazing that he could do that just with his voice, that is, make it so damn funny. He then riffed on fry bread (he claims he saw a cafe with that sign on it on the way up to Phoenix) and he made that hilarious as well. "Okay, we know that bread is not good for you, so let's FRY IT!"

"Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it."
—Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld

The Gas Crack of Low Pants Vance

July 11, 2013
   My daily regimen is to get up at 6:30 and whip out six sketches before I check email. This morning I noodled a couple old memories of growing up on Route 66.



Daily Whipout: The Butt Crack of Low Pants Vance Filling His Y Block Ford With Ethyl.



I am a big fan of Rembrandt's cross hatching techniques and have always leaned in that direction in my black and whites. Got up this morning and whipped out this little study of The 66 Kid deep in a canyon (near the Diamond Bar):


I wanted to say this is Clacks Canyon, but it's too damn big, so, perhaps it's near the Diamond Bar?

"Part of the magic of shadowing the Old Trails along Route 66 is the spine-tingling sensation of following along parallel to the phantoms of the past."
—Old Armchair Highway Historian

Legends of The Road, Part II

July 10, 2013
  Working on Legends of the Road when romance surrounded The Great American Road Trip. But even at that time there was a holdover from the 1940s, old miners and forties cars still banging across old trails by which the pioneers carved out the roads which augered the future of car travel in the United States.



And I sketched Floyd Cisney again, but still don't quite have his likeness.




Mouth isn't quite right, but this led me to seek out Maynard Dixon and his sparse design, which helped me approach the concept from a different direction:





"It was the West, the real great, free, open West we had come to see. . .ranches, cowboys, Indians, not little cities like sample New Yorks."
—Emily Post, 1916, "By Motor to The Golden Gate"

Legends of the Road: Floyd Cisney of the Arizona Highway Patrol

July 9, 2013

   Worked this weekend on a few studies to illustrate Legends of the Road: larger than life characters who made their mark on Route 66.



 
Daily Whipout: Sgt. Floyd Cisney of the Arizona Highway Patrol at Coyote Pass


Nailed the pass but missed the Sgt. completely (see below for Mister Completely). Worked on more sketches this morning.





The image of Floyd at bottom, left is of him when he was older and the sheriff of Mohave County, but thanks to a Facebook friend, I located a younger photo of the patrolman and will attack that tomorrow. Yes, Floyd was responsible for more collars in terms of stolen cars than any other patrolman in the state. Meanwhile, also working on the rods of the time, like the famous "Uncertain-T" and the dudes who drove them, like the legendary Low Pants Vance:



 
Daily Sketches: Low Pants Vance and the Uncertain-T model T.

Ha. Pun-inflicted car names were the order of the day. Ed Mell always reminds me of a Phoenix rod named "Mister Completely", as in "Well, that's one doll I'll never nail." The '32 Roadster is from The Rodder's Journal, a high end glossy magazine Dan "The Man" Harshberger subscribes to and loaned me. Amazing how much money is in these cars. It's a dying art, though. I read in the New York Times kids today not only do not have a love of cars, but less and less even have driver's licenses, or even want one.

On my drive back from Cal two weeks ago I came the back way through Victorville, Apple Valley and a highway called Old Woman Springs Road. Really captivated me and I sketched an old pickup going across there when I got home:

 
Daily Sketches: Old Woman Springs Road and old guys shootin' the breeze at a Chevron Station in Scottsdale, circa 1948. It's from a photo. Love their stance and posture as they take turns telling lies. I've seen this many times growing up. Long gone now, but the memories remain. Hey, dig the '57 Ford Crown Victoria at bottom, left. Whipped out with a minimum of strokes and yet, there it is.


"I long to be gone like never before."
—Gustav Klimt, hot and tired and dying to get out of Vienna

Train Wrecks & Moist Road Apples

July 8, 2013
     As the dust clears from the July 4th weekend we find out The Lone Ranger made a weak $48.9 mil compared with the no. 1 movie Despicable Me 2 @ $142.1 mil. The Lone Ranger is also doing poorly overseas as well and it appears to insiders (The Hollywood Reporter) the Lone Ranger will perhaps make it to $100 mil (it cost north of $250 mil), which, if true, would make it an even bigger bomb than Cowboys & Aliens ($250 mil).

   Meanwhile, several reviews point out some of the faults of the film:

"When the film first brings together Tonto, Silver and the newly deputized Texas Ranger who will become our nominal hero, there’s a sequence with Tonto leading the horse and the unconscious Ranger unceremoniously dragging behind. Then the horse stops to pass excrement — before dragging the future Lone Ranger’s head right through the pile of poop.

There, in a nutshell, is the movie’s attitude toward its source material. I’m reminded of the penguin pooping on Jim Carrey’s face in the also deplorable Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Here is a dismal rule of thumb: When a Hollywood adaptation of a family story involves the hero’s beloved animal pooping on his head, it’s a sign that the filmmakers are not lovers of their material."

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/sdg-reviews-the-lone-ranger#ixzz2YTo95lv2

Here's a review from NPR that also rings true:

"The director's been saying his Lone Ranger is a sort of Don Quixote as seen through the eyes of a demented Sancho Panza, and as with that tale of a knight tilting at windmills, there's social commentary everywhere you look in this adventure. The script fancies itself a critique of capitalism, a manifesto on manifest destiny, and a saga about silver mines and the slaughter of Native Americans.

All very admirable, if not a great fit for scenes that involve Depp communing with snaggle-toothed cannibal bunny rabbits and taking a runaway train ride or six."

"When I drag your favorite character's head through moist road apples, I am betting you will love it!"
—The Disney Suits Who May Not Have Suits Much Longer

Down With Indians

July 8, 2013
 Woke up this morning thinking about the Top Secret Writer's take on The Lone Ranger going down in flames this past weekend:

"The western film, by its very nature, is weighed down with historicity. It is inescapable even in fantasy westerns. However, you dont have to front load your film with it by adding Custer clones and gatling gun massacres of innocent Indians."
—The Top Secret Writer

  It dawned on me the reason Hollywood writers go there—Custer related cavalry atrocities—is because they want to show they are down with Native Americans. Down, as in, solid with the brothers. From their point of view, to not acknowledge the genocide and tell a story of the West is morally wrong. Okay, we've been on that theme for about forty years now and at some point we need to get past it. Can we? Well, I have to give a shoutout to Quentin Tarrantino, who has done just that as it relates to slavery and the N-word with Django Unchained. Talk about going into the teeth of a taboo subject. And you even have a black villain: Samuel L. Jackson as the House N-person (see, I don't have the courage or the balls to go where Quentin and Louis CK go. Brave, brave guys). And isn't it ironic that they are brave but that cooking gal lost her entire career over the word. I haven't heard her transgression so I don't have the context, but if she told a joke with the N-word in it, I can play you entire routines of Louis CK where he says it over and over, until, well, until it loses its sting, which is his point, I believe.

Anyway, isn't it racist to judge whether a person can use certain words based on the color of their skin?

  I am down with Indians, but the living, breathing kind. The ones who are petty, savage, talented and hilarious. You know, real people.

"Yes, Indians were savage. They just met a tribe who was more savage than they were."
—Old Anglo Philosopher

Custer Clones & Gatling Guns: the Lone Ranger Goes Down In Flames

July 7, 2013
  Just saw that The Lone Ranger finished a distant second behind Despicable Me at the box office this weekend. Not good and unfortunately puts it in the same time zone as Cowboys & Aliens in terms of success (good, but not nearly good enough).

  When I walked out of the sneak preview last Monday I saw a movie reviewer I know who bemoaned the broaching of the subject of genocide in the film and wondered aloud why the movie makers didn't ignore all of that and do, as he put it, "Dudley Do-Right." I commented that about half the time they did, but unfortunately, they couldn't resist the topic.

  Here is the response from a certain friend of mine who hates to be quoted, but nonetheless is ever so quotable:

"The western film, by its very nature, is weighed down with historicity. It is inescapable even in fantasy westerns. However, you dont have to front load your film with it by adding Custer clones and gatling gun massacres of innocent Indians. Well, at least they grossed more than John Carter--which also opened with a 7th Cavalry/Indian scene. Your friend was right--it should have been Dudley Do-Right with Depp along for humor. Guess the stupid outfit didnt work. Oh well."
—The Top Secret Writer

Peckasso Goes Down Fighting

July 7, 2013
  Just got the word that my muse Peckasso was killed last night defending his two hens and baby chicks (he was a new proud father of three little baby chicklets). Tom Augherton's father heard a horrendous scream last night at 11:30 and went to the door to see a raccoon in a fight with a big rooster, right outside his door (which is about 50 yards from the coop). Sensing another predator, the raccoon broke off from Peckasso and made a run at the senior Augherton (he's 90), who went back inside and locked the door (he also had a cat in his arms). Realizing he was not going to have to compete for dinner, the raccoon went back on the hunt for Peckasso.

  Tom had built a strong fence around the coop but he left the egg laying door unlocked to the coop and the raccoon managed to open this door (still not an easy task for an animal) and got inside. Peckasso fought for his family and got the intruder outside where the running fight ended on the hillside that slopes up to our house.

  The baby chicks and hens are fine. This morning my rooster crowed all morning, expecting an answer from down the hill, but none came.

  As some of you may know, Peckasso was a frustrated watercolorist (that's how he got his name). He spent several weeks studying with me and I still maintain he could have made a good watercolorist but he seemed to want to peck at the brushes more than concentrate on his painting skills.

"Like all artists, Peckasso was frustrated and had a bad temperament when it came to the ladies, but we still liked him even though he attacked our entire family any time we tried to go near the coop."
—Tom Augherton

A Subdued But Good Day at The Prescott Rodeo Parade

July 6, 2013
  A bit somber today in Prescott because of the loss of our 19 firefighters, but still a great rodeo parade and the streets were lined with the best people you are ever going to meet.


Lee Anderson aboard Concho in front of the True West Stretch Taxi Cab at the staging area for the Prescott Rodeo Parade.

  Got up at 5:30 and met my neighbor Tom Augherton at six to make the hike up the hill in my Ford Flex. This is the view across the street on Ratcliff Ridge:



Got to the staging area at 7:45 and met the crew, including Lee Anderson aboard Concho, his thoroughbred trained cow horse who is always a hit in the parade.

Rained on the way back and it was delightful. Big drops, warm and heaven sent. Great smells. Had lunch at Lef-Tees Steakhouse in Dewey, then dropped back into the furnace. Big day, had fun.

After a swim to cool off, Kathy and I went through our photo albums of the kids trying to see who exactly Weston looks like. Here is the boy last week, mere minutes after his birth on June 24th:



And here is Weston's uncle at about the same age:



I think it's the mouth. Very interesting. yes, this is Thomas Charles right after he was born in January of 1983.

"Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself."
—Old Vaquero Saying

The Lone Ranger In The Rear View Mirror

July 6, 2013
  "It's so offensive that Johnny Depp portrays a Pirate. Couldn't they have gotten a REAL pirate?"

  That's how ridiculous the criticism of "white guy" Depp playing the Native American Tonto sounds to me. Second of all, the comments and reviews of the new Lone Ranger are pouring in (most of them scathing) and I've got an icky feeling about it all. Mainly because I ripped and nitpicked the movie myself when, in fact, I actually enjoyed the dang thing. True, it's too long and it has a bit of a problem trying to figure out what it is, but overall it's a hell-of-a fun ride.

  True, I still hate the hats, but even that seems like a shallow nitpick as I look in the rear-view-mirror only to see myself and a bunch of other bone-headed rips on the movie: "The insignia is wrong on the cavalry uniforms!"  'The guns are wrong for 1867!" "A Commanche never wore headgear like that!" "Mountain Native Americans are taller than that!"


  "No pirate EVER had a parrot on his shoulder!" I don't know if that's true or not, but I imagine, on some level, it is. And, anyway, that's how we sound when we blast the details in a Western. We sound like a bunch of cranky old farts with too much time on our hands.

"The difference between night and day."
—An old Texas cowboy on the set of The Searchers when asked how authentic the movie is

Little Casino and Tunstall Murder Site

July 3, 2013
   Filled another trash bin (no. 6) with reference materials this morning. Saved a handful of things, including a photo of Little Casino:

 
Little Casino (Billy the Kid): inscription says, "To Bob—Thanks for all the great novels you have written about me. Your faithful servant. Little Casino"

I also couldn't bring myself to throw away a Montgomery Ward page of 1950s bikes, my two fave waitresses at El Sarape in Quemado, New Mexico (Irene and Terri), a ref. photo of me posing as 2-Lane (a comic book character I created in the 80s) and a hand drawn map of the Tunstall murder site (drawn by Fred Nolan?).





Here is a better scan of the Tunstall murder site map:






I realized upon finding this treasure of map that we haven't done the Tunstall murder as a Classic Gunfight. So, I'm going to send this to Gus Walker and get this in the mix. Hard work throwing away all these treasures, but I just want to save my kin from having to deal with as little of my crap as i can manage.

"Set up as an ideal the facing of reality as honestly and as cheerfully as possible."
—Karl Menninger

The Lone Ranger: "Don't ever do that again!"

July 2, 2013
   Thanks to my good friend, and movie reviewer, Henry Beck, Kathy and I got to see a sneak peek of The Lone Ranger last night down at the Arizona Center. The long awaited Disney Western opens tomorrow.

 
Here's my take on it: If you liked Rango and Pirates of the Caribbean you will probably enjoy the new Lone Ranger. If you are a fan of the old  Lone Ranger  starring Clayton Moore you are definitely going to hate it. And if you are a fan of Westerns I have another comparison: if you liked Cowboys & Aliens you should like The Lone Ranger. In fact, both films are very close in terms of tone and special effects, with The Lone Ranger having a slight advantage in terms of amazing CG effects. But, if you have skin in the game, they are too damn close for comfort (I'm talking to the suits at Disney).

In terms of the actual story, it's straight ahead Big-Studio-Pirates variety plot twists and reversals. One amazing note: Barry Pepper is doing Custer, but channeling Robert Duvall. Henry Beck noticed this and leaned over to me: "He's doing Robert Duvall!" And, incredibly, he was. A dead on impersonation of Bobby Duvall it is.

But the most troubling, or problematic, aspect of the film is how they deal with the baggage of the old TV show. You can't help it, you keep waiting for the classic tropes, "Who was that masked man?" and "Hi Yo Silver, Away!" and, of course the theme song (William Tell Overture). Well, we get them, but played mostly as a send up, or as flat-out mockery. The best example of this is toward the end of the movie, Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger is aboard Silver, and the white stallion rears up and Hammer delivers the classic line "Hi Yo Silver, Away!". The camera pans left to Tonto looking on with a bemused, slightly disgusted face. Depp says, "Don't ever do that again!" Big laugh, but—at the expense of the old show.





I won't even go into the hats again, except to say the same stupid, style hat the Lone Ranger wears is also worn by his brother. Two of the worst cowboy hats to ever appear in a Western would be my take on it.

That said, I enjoyed the ride and, speaking of which, the horseback riding is excellent with thundering hooves and amazing camera angles of galloping horses, and stunt riders doing amazing things (not to mention digital artists rendering The Lone Ranger riding across the top of a moving train).

I really want the film to succeed, but my prediction is The Lone Ranger will do slightly better than Cowboys & Aliens, but in the end, the studio will be left with Depp's line: "Don't ever do THAT again!"

"A snob is a person who can hear the William Tell Overture and NOT think of The Lone Ranger."
—Old Vaquero Saying

Mocajete & The Mighty Mojaves

July 1, 2013
   Last Thursday night I had to drive down to Sky Harbor to pick up Kathy, who stayed in Pasadena to help the new parents of Weston Allen. Picked her up at 6:30 and decided to go to one of Tommy Bell's favorite Mexican food places and get his favorite dish:

 
Mocajete! A deep dish treat at 16th Street and Roosevelt

  Overcast today. Some of it is from the fire that killed 19 firefighters up at Yarnell over the weekend. I was just up there for a speech last month, or not that long ago. Hard to believe it went so quick. High, lush desert and a beautiful valley. Heard on the radio this morning that forest fires burn slow, but desert brush fires burn fast, especially if it' windy. We had a monsoon rain earlier in the season and that created quick grass, which proliferated, then dried out and created instant kindling for the fire. Lightning started it, but the winds came, ironically from another monsoon storm to the north which reversed the winds on the hotshots fighting the blaze and the fire turned around at fifty miles an hour and got them before they could even deploy their tent shields. Anyway, that's the version I heard this morning. Too sad.

Did quite a few Mighty Mojave sketches this morning before I came into work:







   Working on a True West Moment about the Mighty Mojaves. Most warriors of this Colorado River tribe were over six feet tall with some reaching 6' 5" or more, and with their heavily tattooed bodies they must have made a fearsome adversary.


Going tonight to see the sneak peek of The Lone Ranger. Review tomorrow.

"Getting a neck tattoo is probably the coolest way to show your love of manual labor."
—Durt McHurtt

Kingman Cowboy Wins World On Outlaw Horse

June 28, 2013
   I'm doing a True West Moment for the Arizona Republic on my cousin Billy Hamilton winning the world championship steer roping in 1964 and I interviewed Billy by phone this morning. I couldn't use all of the info, but here are my notes. I love what he said about Aunt Jean.

A Kingman Cowboy Wins World On Outlaw Horse
    In 1940, Billy Hamilton, was so little he had to have help getting up on a horse. But once, the five-year-old was in the saddle, he started roping anything that moved. His grandfather, Bob Guess worked as a cowhand at the Turkey Track Ranch in northern Mohave County, and he supplied Billy with "Ketchum Horses", a string of  mares out of Texas belonging to Barry Ketchum, brother to the infamous outlaw Black Jack Ketchum. Schooled by his father Choc and his grandfather, Billy won the junior team roping at the annual Dig 'N' Dogies Days in 1945 and never looked back. He won the world championship steer roping in 1964 and with his earnings (some $35,000) he paid cash for the Turkey Track Ranch, which he still owns and operates to this day.

 In 1945, Billy and another local Kingman boy, Johnny Neal, won the junior team roping at the annual Dig 'N' Dogie Days in Kingman.







  When he won the world, he got $12,900 from the PRCA and then won another $25,000 in jackpot roping. His grandad, Bob Guess, and his father, Choc Hamilton worked on Bill Bonelli's Turkey Track Ranch.



 Billy Hamilton quotes: "I consider my grandfather the person who got me started in roping. He had goats at his place on Hilltop and would turn 'em loose and they would run back toward the house and me and Jean would rope 'em and turn 'em back. By the end of the day our arms were so tired we could hardly raise our hands. But Jean was better than me. She could rope better and ride better. I could never beat Jean at doin' nothing.



 
Jean Guess Linn, aboard Sooner, one of the horses out of the outlaw Ketchum line, 1945


"I was five years old at the time. We both were so little we couldn't get on our horses without help. Bob Guess gave us lots of pointers on roping. Bob Guess really helped me, and of course, so did my dad and my mother Mary."

 
Bob Guess with a baby Billy Hamilton on a Ketchum horse at Tap Duncan's Diamond Bar Ranch, 1936 or '37.


 
Bob Guess and Donna Duncan, c. 1945

"Bob Guess also raised really good race horses. He had Barry Ketchum mares, got 'em through the Duncans. Famous stud, Durnit, a sorrel mare, my grand dad made good money doing match horse racing with him. We got several great horses out of those Ketchum mares: Scooter Dun (a buckskin stud), and Patchie. That's what really helped me win so consistently. I was always so well mounted."

"Well, congrats to you and the horse you rode in on."
—Old Vaquero Saying

Illegals Infest Mojave Homelands

June 28, 2013
   In the 1850s a Mojave shamam predicted doom if the tribe allowed white people to settle in their ancestral homelands along the Colorado River. By my count, today that area, from Bullhead to Parker is infested with over 50,000 illegal immigrants.




   One of the first intrusions into Mojave territory was the Beale Expedition and the Mojaves were friendly to them because they didn't stay. But when a large wagon train showed up soon after and dallied along the river, the Mojaves attacked, then went face to face with a rag tag supply train led by Samuel Bishop, who was riding a white camel:





Samuel and 23 of his "beardless boys" rode straight into the Mojave lines (an estimated 1,800 warriors) on the last camel charge:

 
Daily Whipout, "The Last Camel Charge"

Results in the next True West magazine, going to press this weekend.

"If I could give one piece of advice to young people today it's have rich parents."
—Julius Sharpe

Here's to The New Men of The West

June 27, 2013
Kathy and I stayed at Deena and Mike's bungalow in Pasadena (not far from Bungalow Heaven, an actual historic neighborhood designation).


Kathy stayed to help, but I had to come back to finish The Last Camel Charge, a very ambitious Classic Gunfight which goes to the printer today. Marched into the hospital and told the child's parents they had to tell me the name before I left. They proudly told me his name is going to be Michael Douglas,  (Mike is the father and his father's name is Douglas so I thought, well, it could work, in spite of the actor's name who got throat cancer from, well, you know). But, then they laughed out loud and told me his real name:

 
Weston Allen Bortscheller, b. June 24, 2013

Weston, as in Man of the West; Allen in honor of my father Allen P. Bell; and Bortscheller, in honor of Mike's family. I couldn't be more honored.

Took off from Pasadena at one and got home late last night. Drove the back way via Palmdale, Victorville, Old Woman Springs Road, Twentynine Palms and out across the Chuckawalla Wilderness. This is a route Wyatt Earp and Josie took every winter from LA to hang out at his Happy Days Mine near the Arizona border. Wanted to see what he saw every winter. This is the Iron Mountain area.


Really rugged and the whole region is mired in soft sand. Must have taken him a week to get out there via a buckboard.




And this is the approach to Vidal Junction, which I have been to many times on my way from Kingman to play sports against Parker and Poston, but I had never come in from the California side and always wondered what that was like, since Earp traveled it every winter. Past Vidal, and about half-way to Parker is the mountain range where Earp's mining claims were located.


Rugged country. I went out to the claim in 1995, and witnessed first hand Earp's camp which was the most historically preserved old west site I have ever visited. I would have a hard time finding it again.

And here is the Earp post office, just across the river from Parker, Arizona, named in Wyatt's honor after his death and his posthumous rise to prominence.



The first time I came by here was in the winter of 1961 when our eighth grade basketball team came down from Kingman to play Parker. Long trip and I remember looking out the window of the bus and seeing this huge wooden statue of Wyatt Earp in front of a curio store and thinking, "Oh, this is so fake. Wyatt Earp was in Tombstone, not out in this crazy desert." I have learned a thing or two since then.

But that old statue is long gone as are the characters who knew Earp. I gave a speech at Parker several years ago and this old guy told about Wyatt Earp walking across the Parker railroad bridge to have pie at his mother's cafe. He must be gone now as well. Even my generation is fading fast and it's time for new blood, and a new breed of Westerner to carry on the tradition of wild and wooly behavior. Here's to the New Men of the West and the kids who will make it happen.

"You come into this world scared, cold, crying and covered with blood. If you know the right people, you can live like that all the time."
—Old Vaquero Saying

Another BBB Is Born

June 25, 2013
  Left Big Bear Lake yesterday marooning about 11. It was quite sunny, but when we got to the edge of the mountain as it careens off into San Bernadino, we saw this:



Drove down into the clouds with 20 foot visibility, got on the 210 and cruised straight into Pasadena to the hospital where Deena Bell had been admitted at 8 in the morning.



The baby was born at about 8:15 last night and his first reaction seemed to be:



Gimme Shelter: "Hey, I didn't bargain for THIS!"

But he did calm down and some of us think he looks like Deena's brother, Thomas Charles:



I know, he's not wearing a cowboy hat, yet. But I whispered to him the tale of Billy the Kid and he seemed to like that. As you can see it put him to sleep. Ha.

And here's a very proud grandmother:



Now here's the amazing part: Deena and Mike haven't named him yet! They have promised to name him before we leave tomorrow, so we'll see. I'm guessing but I think his name should be Thor. Or, even Triple B (Baby Bell Bortscheller).

"I was born in a cross fire hurricane. . ."
—Rolling Stones, Gimme Shelter

Grizzly Manor Cafe at Big Bear Lake

June 24, 2013
  Here's a reason to drive 300 miles from The Valley of the Sun: I'm sitting in a cabin at Sleepy Forrest Cottages wearing a hoodie SWEATSHIRT! Because it's chilly in the pines. Her's our cabin.



Got up to a nice chill, put on the hoodie and walked down Big Bear Lake Blvd. to the Grizzly Manor Cafe:



Had a great cup of coffee in a giant mug and then had the Huggy Scrambled Eggs platter while Kathy had the oatmeal. Place slammed with locals:



Love this part of road trips. We're leaving this morning for Pasadena and the hospital where a certain Bell girl is having a baby boy.

"Baby, it's cold outside."
—Old Vaquero Song

Chuckwalla Mountains and Big Bear Lake

June 23, 2013
  Headed to California for the birth of a certain grandson. Got a hair up our butt and took off from Cave Creek at nine o'clock at night on Saturday. Drove for three hours and landed in Quartzsite, Arizona at the only available motel, The Stagecoach Restaurant and Motel ($55.18). Took off from there at six, and took the back way through the Chuckwalla Mountains east of 29 Palms. Really desolate country. Loved it.



Had breakfast in 29 Palms (great name by the way) and saw all the pretty murals in the town, including this very impressive lizard on the side of a local business:



Landed at Big Bear Lake at about 11. On to Pasadena to see Deena, tomorrow.

"Pasadena Deena has a nice ring to it, eh?"
—Captain Jack Sparrow

Guys Standing Next to Their Rods

June 21, 2013
   Working every morning on memories of the road. One of the rituals I remember is proudly posing beside your car. The only thing better would have been to have a certain girl IN your car, but that was usually just part of the dream.





   And when I was a kid guys got status by being able to draw flames. I wasn't very good at it. One time Wendell Havatone asked me to draw flames for a cool car and I botched the assignment.





Still trying to nail the rippling heatwaves on the horizon:





"History is the a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man."
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Making Time

June 20, 2013
   When I give my history talks, I sometimes learn more than my audience. Last night at Cartwright's was one of those times. My talk was on the history of Route 66 and as I was relating my own story about growing up on Route 66 I told the tale of buying the fake photo of Billy the Kid at The Longhorn Museum in 1958.

   On our annual summer trips to Iowa, my father rarely stopped the car except for gas, food and a good night's rest. When I wanted to stop to see The World's Largest Buffalo, he didn't even slow down and as we blew by the exit he told me we had "to make time."

   Like so many fathers of that era, his trips were planned to the minute and by the mile. After filling up with gas he did the math on the inside of a matchbook cover to figure out his mileage. When we got behind 14 trucks outside of Gallup he would work his way around them, then cruise at ten miles above the speed limit for a half hour to make up for lost time. We had to make time and this was why he was so reticent to stop for stuff I wanted to see.

   "You've got fifteen minutes, kid." Those were the words he told me after he reluctantly pulled into the dusty parking lot of the Longhorn Museum, 43 miles east of Albuquerque, on the south side of Route 66. As I ran inside, this is what I saw:


As I told this part of the story last night and mentioned the Longhorn Museum, a woman in the front row literally gasped and put her hand to her mouth. She looked like she had seen a ghost. After the talk, Sandi Cook came up to me and said her father worked at the "ranch" and that she grew up there, catching the school bus to Moriarity every morning. That was such a treat for me. I asked her what happened to the place (I went looking for it in 2006 and found only part of the sign remains). She told me the sad story, which I'll share later.

The punchline to my story of visiting the Longhorn Museum for fifteen minutes in 1958 is that I bought an "authentic photo of Pat Garret and Billy the Kid" for a quarter and after putting it up in my room and making a vow to someday have a hat, vest and rifle just like the Kid in the photo, I discovered—in True West magazine—that the photo was A FAKE!

 
The Fake photo of Billy and Pat: actually George Gormley as the Kid and Dave Steele as Pat from the 1931 Santa Fe Fiesta Melodrama, directed by Margery Wilson

   In my talk last night, I made the connection that two years ago I actually held the only known photo of Billy the Kid, which later sold for $2.3 million.  From a fake picture of Billy the Kid to the only known photo which Billy actually held in his hands (his thumb prints are on the photo!). How about that for one degree of Billy the Kid?

   After my talk and after Cindi and I exchanged contact info, Bucky and Tracy Marshall approached me to tell me how much they enjoyed the talk. Bucky asked me if I still had the fake photo of Billy and I said, yes, it's framed and in my studio. Bucky asked me what I thought it was worth. I had never thought of that before, but I admitted that despite it's fake-iness, it was an icon to me, and now that I think about it, what a great investment it was. And, it literally launched me on my career and a lifelong passion to find out the truth about the historic, wild West.

   Turning to leave, Bucky had one more comment: "And your father gave you the best gift." I didn't follow his drift and said, "What is that?"

"He gave you the fifteen minutes."

   Can fifteen minutes in a museum change a person's life? It certainly changed mine. Thanks, Dad for making time.

"In the end we are judged on what we give, not what we take."
 —Old Vaquero Saying