Ed Mell Clouds With Ed Mell Standing Next to Me

January 15, 2019
   Raining again today. Been very wet but it's also been very nice and brings out the clouds.

Ed Mell Clouds With Ed Mell

Standing Next to Me.

Ed Mell in The Crow's Nest

   Richard Ignarski posted a photograph from Lincoln, New Mexico that brought back some memories.

The Renegades, September 1997

  The Renegades were Old West nuts who traveled to Old West sites and then talked about Old West history 24/7. You will notice that there aren't many wives in this picture. There's a reason for that. (see previous sentences) I designed the T-Shirts. This is two years before Bob McCubbin and I bought True West magazine. Here's a closer look at the T-Shirt design:

   Speaking of the magazine, we're gearing up for our third big show down at Cattle Track next week.

Today is the last day to RSVP. So get on it.

"The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you how it felt."

—E. L. Doctorow

The Day Wyatt Earp Died

January 13, 2019
   He led a sordid life on the frontier, moving freely between "sporting women" and the law. He lost his share of battles and suffered grievous losses.  In the end, it is kind of amazing the old guy made it to eighty.

"Suppose. . .suppose. . ."

The old guy's last words.

"He was straight as a pine tree, tall and magnificently built. I knew he was nearly 80, but in spite of his snow white hair and mustache, he did not seem or look old. His greetings were warm and friendly. I stood in awe. Somehow, like a mountain, or desert, he reduced you to size."
—Adela Rogers St. Johns, who met Wyatt Earp just prior to his passing, 90 years ago today

Big Graphics In The Most Civilized City In The World

January 11, 2019
   When we came through the Lincoln Tunnel last Saturday night via New Jersey, our Greek cabdriver informed us New York City is "the most civilized city in the world." It struck me as an oddly positive statement coming from a guy who told us he was in the limo business for twenty years before he went broke and now he's been driving a cab for three years and losing his shirt because of the insurance payments he has to make that Uber doesn't have to pay.

   As we came up the ramp into Manhattan, he pointed out all of the bagged garbage on the sidewalks, with pride, and predicted they would all be gone by morning. He praised all the drivers around us as being kind and considerate as opposed to so many other cities around the world (having personally witnessed drivers in action in Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Paris and Juarez, I begrudgingly had to concur).

   So,  after a $95 cab ride, plus a $25 tip (his stories of woe did get to me) I actually saw NYC with new eyes. Is it the most civilized city in the world? I was about to find out.

On The Lookout for Big Graphics   Bitter cold on Thursday (34 and strong wind gusts) but we went out to see what we could sight see. Didn't have to go far.

Crime Still Pays In The City

   This 19 Crimes wine truck was parked at the curb of our hotel in mid-town Manhattan. Just down the street I caught this overblown cutie.

BBB Watch Now

   Walked over to the High Line and dropped into The Whitney to catch this cat.

Warhol Skulls at The Whitney: 

Red Scarf-Red Skull.

From there we caught the Disney Exhibition.

In The Breeze With Mickey & BBB

   I am literally leaning into the wind outside the Mickey Mouse Exhibit. Wind blasts coming off  the Hudson went right through you. Bitter cold! Still New Yorkers seemed warm and accepting. Well, almost

Parking Garage Message

   The only fly in the ointment, I noticed, in our Greek cabdriver's claim is this two-story high billboard looming over Times Square.

A Gut Check Two Stories Tall

   The Blade Runner-esque copy next to the looming gut guy says "Shower products for cleaning every nook and cranny even those you haven't seen since the high school glory days." And the guy is looking down at his penis, or, at least where it should be (he can't see it, right?).

   Tasteless? I think so. In your face. Yes. Funny. Maybe. But when it comes to real funny, we saw The Seth Meyers Show on Wednesday night and The Daily Show With Trevor Noah last night and those dudes are flat out hilarious.

   We've seen two brilliant plays, "The Lifespan of A Fact," and "The Waverley Gallery," and we're going to see "True West' tonight.

   Been to the Met and the Whitney, and to MoMa today, so the town is full of great art and gigantic graphics. On some level I think our Greek cabbie is correct.

"New York is so nice, they named it twice."

—A New York comedian-historian on the boat to Ellis Island

Two Beautiful Ladies

January 10, 2019
    I have been to New York City at least five times but I've never had the privilege of going out to see Lady Liberty and yesterday Kathy and I got a real good view of her and she is a real beauty. This is part of our just beginning 40-year-anniversary celebration. 

Visiting The Liberty Lady

   Man I love that girl! And I mean both of them.

   It was a rainy day in the city and I decided to leave my hat at the hotel and go with a hoody, thus the bare head. Kathy said I look naked.

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" 
—The Statue of Liberty

A Walk Down to Ground Zero

January 8, 2019
   Walked from our hotel down to lower Manhattan to see this.

September 11, 2001

   A moving memorial and a wonderful museum, covering every aspect of that awful day.

“What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.”

—David Levithan

Hyperbole Wins The Day

January 7, 2019
   Lots of walking today. According to my phone we walked 6.3 miles and 15,654 steps on our way across midtown Manhattan to see some art.

   Walked through Central Park and caught this bizarre nature shot with looming skyscrapers (three being built even as we walked by).

Skyscrapers coming right out of the ground

at Park Central South

   Also, we passed by this cool statue of some dude getting shot out of the saddle.

Shot Out of  The Saddle

   We landed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we saw some damn good fine art.

The Horse Fair by Rosa Bonheur

   Just one of many stunning paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Horse Fair was painted by a woman, Rosa Bonheur, who had to disguise herself as a man to get the sketches she needed to make the painting in 1852. Quite powerful.

Napoleon's Greatest Victory

This work, actually just a section of it, is the largest and most ambitious painting by an artist renowned for meticulously rendered cabinet pictures, evokes one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s greatest victories. Ernest Meissonier made hundreds of preparatory studies for it, including drawings and sculptural models. He conceived the picture as part of a cycle of five key episodes in the life of the Emperor, only one other of which was completed: The Campaign of France—1814, an image of defeat (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). The present work gained notoriety in 1876, when the American department store magnate Alexander T. Stewart purchased it from the artist, sight unseen, for the then astronomical sum of $60,000.

   And, of course, what would a good day at the museum be without running into a Toulouse-Lautrec painting I have never seen before:

Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec's portrait of

Henri-Gabriel Ibels

   Kathy wondered aloud if the MET perchance had a painting by her fave artist and, lo and behold they did:

Kathy in front of a painting by

the Spanish painter Joaquin Sorollo

Sweet.

   A good play, like "The Lifespan of A Fact" makes you think about things the next day. Thus, this exchange transpired in my head:

FACT CHECKER: "In yesterday's post you claimed you "openly wept" more than once at the play 'The Lifespan of A Fact.' Is that actually true?"

BBB: "Not really, but my eyes did well up with tears a couple times."

FC: "So that is a lie?"

BBB: "No, it's hyperbole."

FC: "Why would you say something that wasn't factual?"

BBB: "Because it's funnier?"

FC: "You are going to end up in Fact Checker Hell."

BBB: "Too late, I have worked at True West magazine for twenty years."

"There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth."
—Maya Angelou

When Fact Checking Goes South

January 6, 2019
   It was a cold day in New York City, at least for a shivering Sonoran Desert couple who traipsed up Broadway to a cold marquee on West 54th Street.

   Past the Naked Cowboy on Times Square (why I didn't think to stop and get a photo with him is a huge regret).

   Kathy booked us for a play called "The Lifespan of A Fact," which I knew zero about.

   Turns out, the play is about a proposed magazine article, written by a creative, but touchy writer (think The Top Secret Writer) who insists it's not an article but an "essay," and his put upon editor, and a millennial—and a rabidly-over-zealous—fact checker assigned the task of finding errors and false statements in the proposed article and correcting them. This may sound thin, but it is a brilliant, and, by turns, hilarious take down of art vs. commerce, small facts being subverted to tell a bigger truth, or whether that is even legit. I felt like my entire professional life was laid bare, and I felt like someone was reading my mail and I openly wept more than once.

   But, full disclosure, I laughed more than I cried.

   It is a three person play and all three leads were just dead-on excellent.

"A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it."
—Ben Hecht

True West Goes to New York City to see True West

January 5, 2019
   Heading to New York City today to see this Broadway play:

   Opposites attack in Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play about two brothers with more in common than they think. Holed up in their mother’s California house, lowlife Lee (Ethan Hawke) and screenwriter Austin (Paul Dano) wrestle with big issues—and each other. Order vs. chaos. Art vs. commerce. Typewriter vs. toaster...Shepard’s rip-roaring classic returns to Broadway, gleefully detonating our misguided myths of family, identity and the American Dream.

   Sam had the courtesy to contact True West magazine about using the title in his play, and so, this week I am returning the favor and buying two tickets to the play with the same title as our venerable magazine.

Out On The Mojave
   Meanwhile, got some rippin' trippin' images for my special project taking shape later this month:

 Daily Whip Out:

"Olive Sequence Extraordinaire"

Daily Whip Out:

"In The Shadow of The Mojave #6"

   The desert itself is a character. Out on the Mojave where water changes everything.

Daily Whip Out:

"Out On The Mojave"

Daily Whip Out:

"Dust Storm Over The Needles"

   I finally have an inkling, or, dare I say—understanding—of where this story is going.

"The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter."

—Malcolm Gladwell

Lawman Star Lights Up Kingman Sky

January 4, 2019
   In 1962 me and my pals attended the Fourth of July fireworks at the Kingman Fairgrounds and this guy sat right in front of us with his family.

Seeing Stars
   We were too shy to talk to John Russell of "Lawman" fame, but every time a rocket lit up the sky we looked at him, not the fireworks. Cool guy.

   Speaking of cool guys, three years ago, this month, my good friend John Langellier booked Buckey O'Neill's cabin on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and we got to join him for a stay at the historic cabin, which is perched right on the rim. Here is a shot of the cabin back in the 1920s:

Buckey O'Neill's cabin in a snow storm

   Okay, a confession: I have watched "Roma" three times, so far. I just love this movie.

"Roma" is Muy Muy Mexicana

   In this scene, above, Cleo the housekeeper, is the only one who can assume the Tree Pose without faltering or stumbling. It is a testament to her grace and centeredness, which is the theme of the entire movie. Note the guy on the far left, who is so great—and muy muy Mexicano. I have a hunch he didn't want to be in the scene but Alfonso (the director and writer) insisted that he get in there and try to do a yoga pose!

   Went home for lunch yesterday and re-tweaked an earlier Whip Out (Van Gogh Billy) and gave it another go.

Daily Whip Out: "Vanguard Billy"

   One of these days I'll get him.

"I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance."
—Steve Jobs

The Goose Is Loose!

January 3, 2019
   Running ahead of the curve, or am I running behind?

   It was Hemingway who believed that if he knew the end of a story, so would the reader. So how do you end a history-based story with a well-known outcome? Well, one way would be to emphasize an event rarely connected to another part of the story.

 Daily Whip Out: "Francisco"

   It was a Quechan In-din named Francisco who liberated Olive Oatman from her sojourn with the Mojaves. He later paid for this sin with his life.

 Daily Whip Out: "Mojave Laughers"

   The anglo wagon trains that came through the Colorado River basin claimed they were looking for a sign from above. As you can see, the sign is clear as a bell, above and behind the laughers.

Daily Whip Out: "Susan Thompson"

   It was John Updike who said a story should end in a way no one anticipates, but upon reaching the last sentence, the reader must feel that the story could not have ended in any other way.

   One thing is for sure: I need to be as loose as a goose to pull this off.

   So, how did I arrive at this realization?

   "I just love your line, the looser the better, always have, and when you splash a sky or suggest a bajada, I just go wild inside."

—Don Dedera

Daily Whip Out: "Loosie Goosie In Progress"

A suggested bajada.

"If you're going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet."
—Keith Richards, of The Rolling Stones

Lucky Me Plus Donkey Madness

January 2, 2019
   Sometimes I do stuff that just names itself.

Daily Whip Out: "Lucky"

Daily Whip Out:

"Mickey Blasts Through The Smoke On His Mammoth Jack"

   And this one is the craziest. Two separate sketches melded into one, because I let it go where it wanted to go.

           Daily Whip Out: "Donkey Madness"

   This is not to say that people are asses, or that donkey's are insane. Frankly, we're all pretty goofy when you break it down.

"Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you'd rather not go."

—Henri Nouwen

The Crow's Nest Cowboy and A Dedera Blizzard

January 1, 2019
   New Year's Eve started out chilly with snow flurries in the air. Climbed up on the roof of the studio but it was too nippy. The crow's nest cowboy agreed.

Crow's Nest Cowboy

   Nippy turned to snow flurries around four in the afternoon.

Snow Dusting On Sugarloaf

  Most of Arizona got snow. Here is a cool photo (literally) by my MCUHS classmate Ray Short, up Kingman way.

Snow Storm Over The Peacocks by Ray Short

And here's how it looked down Bisbee way:

Bisbee In Snow, posted by Maria M. Kovary

   So me and a certain budding artist spent a bunch of time keeping fires going in the house fireplace and in my studio stove.

Fire Starter

   Don't ask me how, but the kid still found time to build a sky scraper in the living room.

Lego Master Builder

   Meanwhile, Grandma Goose had her hands full reading to the chilly bambinos.

The Reader

   And, of course, what would a cold, snowy day be without a snow clouds inspired Whip Out?

Daily Whip Out: "A Cold Ride Home"

   Speaking of cold, got this feedback on a quote I used the other day:

"BBB, your use of my quote duly noted by my lawyer/CPA.  Be advised my word rate is One Big One per pop, considerably more than we paid you at AZ Highways a thousand years ago when all the world was young including us.  Seriously, I do truly enjoy your Blog, and I deeply worry about that.  Hitting 90 I can still see The Hill in my rear view mirror, and I recall my favorite quote regarding your Mojave County.  'A place where you dig for wood and climb for water.'  Remember the word rate, boy.  Dedera 

   As in Don Dedera, the former editor of Arizona Highways and the award-winning columnist for the Arizona Republic, where he managed to free the Power brothers from 40 years in the pen by the use of his pen. One more quote from the Old Man responding to my request for his mailing address so I could send him a fee for use of the quote:

"BBBBBBBBBBBB.  Second closet on left, fourth floor, geriatric ward, 24th Street and Van Buren.  Just slip the penny under the door.  THE Virginian."

   And, what, may you say, caused this, ahem, blizzard of email exchanges?

"Your blog is goosier than your books."

—Don Dedera