The Happy Hoarder: Saving everything so you don't have to!

 February 17, 2023

   I just heard this tippity-tip-ticking going up the wooden staircase in my studio and came around the corner to see what was going on and spied this poser at the top of the stairs. Such a ham.

Staircase Poser

   Here's another view.

The Sentry II

   As you can no doubt surmise, I am easily amused.

Speaking of Doggone Cute

The Happy Hoarder

   I'm saving everything, so you don't have to bother. Yes, I save so many photographs it's not even funny. And, every single one has a story.

A.T. heading home for the last time.

Picture Perfect

   Our country worked in the 1950s because large groups of strangers could cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Today, virtually all those common myths are contested—or denied—which has led to extreme polarization. Not pretty but, it's the truth.

   Of course, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Free for All

   I don't know exactly why, but I keep coming back to that crazy captivo with the glowing eye.

Daily Reworked Whip Out:

"Mickey Free's Wild Serape"

Bass Reeves Blown Up

   A good friend of the magazine, Art T. Burton, has requested a blow up of our February-March 2021 cover and thanks to Dan The Man, who sent me his high-res work-up file, and my new Canon printer, I was able to print out this A-1 poster for Art.

Uno: "Damn, that looks good.

Mind if I chew on it?"

"Criminals drunk on impunity."

—A summation of our current malaise

The True Tale of A Happy Hoarder

February 16, 2023

   Is it just my imagination, or do hoarders get a bad rap? How many books have been written that claim to "help" pitiful hoarders and the loved ones they "torture," with "helpful hints" on how to clean up their "unholy" messes that "nobody" wants or needs? I admit to having a couple of these book titles in my massive book collection, if only I could find them.

   That said, sometimes the fact that I have saved everything that ever happened to me, actually pays off.

   Case in point: on Valentine's Day, Jana Bommersbach and I gave a lecture on how we produced our Real Women of the Wild West book together. This was my view of the packed hall at the Cattletrack Arts Compound.

   Everyone in this photo showed up despite the inclement weather. It rained most of the day and as I left this book signing at 8:30 in a downpour, I heard later there was a microburst storm over Cattletrack that took down several trees.

   Not as many trees as it took to produce our book, but you get the idea.

    Here I am deferring to Jana during our talk. What I was trying to say here is, doing the book together was very stressful and difficult but we are so proud of the results and we never want to do it again! Ha. True.

True Tales of A Happy Hoarder!

You can confirm this with Kathy, but I save everything. Thanks to the late, great Kristi Jacobs, virtually all my sketchbooks going back to the 1970s have been saved by her and organized by year!

Unrelated to the book, in the last part of the talk I told the story about a young artchitect student at ASU who approached me at the Mill Avenue Street Fair in 1985 and told me he was a fan and wanted to be my architect if we ever built a house. I told him I was, in fact, getting set to build a house in Cave Creek but I couldn't afford an architect (my salary at New Times was $150 a week). Long story short, this snot-nosed kid—Perry Nathan Becker—agreed to charge me $25 an hour, and when I finally agreed, he drove out to our property and, in his own words, "made love to the land." That involved camping on our site and rendering every plant on the property. Here is the view of our property at that time.

Aerial view of Old Stage Road in Cave Creek

 circa 1985

See the trail that resembles a little smile at bottom right? At the left corner of the smile is the location of our proposed housing site. And here is Perry's site plan sketches of all the native plants on our property which he rendered with loving care on his Site Plan.

Perry Nathan Becker's Site Plan

Where every single plant is named

and accounted for

Believe it or not, here are the actual pages of my 1985 sketchbook when I met Perry Nathan Becker at the Mill Avenue Street Fair in Tempe, Arizona.

Daily Whip Outs: "Mill Ave. Street Sketches"

I had a table at the street fair to sell my Honkytonk Sue comics but I was actually surreptitiously sketching the fair attendants, in order to do a New Times doubletruck parody of the event. When this Becker kid came up and introduced himself I jotted down his name and phone number at the top of the page (see, above). That was the beginning of a wonderful legacy.

Perry's attention to detail—drawing every plant on the property!—ultimately saved the project because it turns out we could not build on this site (zoning issues involving farms), but when the newly established Cave Creek Planning & Zoning Committee came under fire for requesting just such a site map and the old hippies and drug dealers who moved out to Cave Creek to get away from just these kinds of HOA type restrictions had a hissy fit, it saved us, because when I showed this Site Map to the P&Z people at a public town hall meeting they immediately approved the building of our dream house and we've been here for 36 years and counting. And every day I marvel at the spectacular house Perry designed for us.

Aerial view of our desert dream house

immediately after completion

(note the hook of a smile road just beyond the house which is the same one from the aerial photo)

Now, the real reason I told this story at our book signing is because Perry Nathan Becker was in the audience and I wanted to give him a shout out, and did. He actually brought the miniature, scaled model of our house (his first house as an architect!) to Cattletrack and here he is proudly showing it off.

Perry's First House

So, thanks for the folks over at the Mill Ave. for putting on the Street Fair, and thanks to the ASU architectural school, and also a big thank you to the pissed-off-hippies who didn't get their way and a bigger shout out to John "Bud" Glenn who built the whole kit and kaboodle from scratch. Love you all. I feel blessed and very, very lucky. And, to be frank, you are lucky because I am such a unrepentant hoarder.

"Sorry I am late. I was at home sitting down."

—Old Vaquero Saying

hat History Native Healers And Dali Movement

 February 15, 2023

   Here's a project that needs no introduction.

Daily Whip Out: "El Rojo"

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

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

Daily Whip Out: "Native Healer"

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

Salvador Dali "Two Dancers"

  So, that inspired me to go here.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"Kid On A White Horse"

  And here. . .

Daily Whip Out: "Airborne Daisy Chain"

Meanwhile, back at the Hog Ranch.

Daily Whip Out: "Putacita"

Remember: the hidden word inside Reputation is puta.

Saddle Horse Centered

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

—James Poniewozik

Happy Birthday Arizona!

 February 14, 2023

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

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

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

• Spectacular sunrises?

Check!

• Spectacular sunsets?

Check!

• Spectacular neon beer signs?

Check!

• Spectacular canines?

Check!

• Spectacular molcajete ?

Check!

• Spectacular humor?

Check!

• Spectacular heritage?

Check!

• Spectacular history?

Check!

• Spectacular Navajos Stylin' It?

Check!

• Spectacular Knuckleheads?

Check!

• Bonus spectacular sunrises?

Check?

• Spectacular Mexican food?

Check!

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

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

—Louis L'Amour

Zani Zuni Zias And Could Wyatt Earp Count?

 Feburary 13, 2023

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

Daily Whip Out: "Zani Zuni Zias"

      And here's the source material.

"Zuni Girls at The River"

By Edward Curtis

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

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

Daily Whip Out: "Lozen Chosen"

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

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

   On a more positive note:

Big Clouds In Wow Town!

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

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

—Robert Frost

Last Fandango at The Heatwave Cafe

 February 12, 2023

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

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

   Here is how it came down:

End of An Era

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

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

The Heatwave Cafe in the 70s

when it was a Ripsnorting cafe and dancehall.

   

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

Chata & The Heatwave In Its Prime, 1979

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

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

Jaybob & The Ramrods Jam Alot

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

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

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

Backassward In The Saddle Again

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

"Only time can heal what reason cannot."

—Seneca

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

 February 11, 2023

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

Wickenburg Gold Rush Days Flag Bearers

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

The Wickenburg Parade Wagon Crew

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

A Sight For Sore Eyes

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

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

Our man from Albuquerque, Steve Todd,

manned our booth at the train depot

The All Hat, No Cattle, Cowboy Controversy

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

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

Cowboy Marty Palmera

with the big pocket knife

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

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

—Marty Palmero